Priorities

Not surprised to find this morning that the BBC's top story was Mordecai Vanunu's claim that in betraying Israel's nuclear secrets he had wanted to avert a 'holocaust'. In a way Vanunu is 'their man' through his association with their documentary maker (and recent detainee of Israeli security services) Hounam. Vanunu's actual phrase was 'nuclear holocaust', but the BBC didn't bother about that in their headline. I found it needlessly provocative- rather like the Bush-Hitler comparison popular amongst extremist Democrats.

From news that is needless- just a play on words from a BBC buzz-story- to information that is profound in its implications: here's a timely re-appraisal of evidence linking Saddam with Al Qaeda from Stephen Hayes. Don't forget Mohammed Atta, but the name Ahmed Hikmat Shakir ought to become better known, as should the extent the Clinton administration believed in the relationship between Bin Laden and Baghdad.

More about Oil-for-Food in this extract from Kenneth Timmerman's latest book (via Friends of Saddam). Timmerman takes you on a whistlestop tour of mainly French oil and government connections with Saddam's regime via the UN's 'relief' programme. Timmerman says:

'In a data base I compiled of 2,858 separate export requests submitted to the 661 committee, 1,646 were put on hold because of objections by one of the permanent members of the UN Security Council... In not one single case – not one! – was the hold placed on an export at the request of France.'