How Operation Overthrow Saddam8217; backfired

An inner circle of about 12 dissident Iraqi military officers, including the three sons of the chief plotter, were imprisoned and most are believed to have been executed. Another 160 people were arrested.

The coup was crushed four years ago, but Iraqis close to the operation have only just agreed to reveal details. They have virtually given up hope the Americans will mount another operation against Saddam.

8220;The CIA went against Saddam and lost everything,8221; an Iraqi source said.The plan was bold. According to Iraqi sources, in 1995 the CIA infiltrated Saddam8217;s inner circle for the first time since the Gulf war in 1991. The plot represented Washington8217;s 8220;dream scenario8221;: a palace coup that would remove the Iraqi president but leave the regime intact and the country stable.

The plan was hatched in talks between the CIA and Brigadier General Muhammed Abdullah Shahwani, an ethnic Turkoman from Kirkuk, in northern Iraq, who had retired from the army but retained Saddam8217;s favour.

Shahwani was running an import-export business between Jordan and Iraq when he was recruited by Steve Richter, then CIA chief in Amman, the Jordanian capital.

The wealthy general agreed to recruit his three sons, all based in Baghdad with senior positions in the Iraqi special forces. One was a general in the Amn al-Khass, the security organisation responsible for Saddam8217;s safety.The Americans alerted the Jordanians and a special unit was set up in Jordan8217;s mukhabarat, the domestic security agency, to assist the coup effort. it was isolated from other Jordanian forces because many officers and soldiers were sympathetic to Saddam.

But the plot went disastrously wrong. The CIA in Amman asked an Egyptian go- between to deliver communications equipment to Shahwani8217;s sons. The Egyptian delivered walkie talkies and a satellite telephone programmed to dial only a CIA number. But he secretly denounced his contacts to the Iraqi mukhabarat8230;.
Excerpted from The Sunday Times8217;, April 2

Reeve on a mission
THE disabled former star of the movie, Superman, Christopher Reeve, yesterday appealed to a gathering of the world8217;s top biotechnology entrepreneurs not to let commercial competition get in the way of finding cures for diseases that at present are incurable8230;

Reeve, paralysed from neck down after a riding accident five years ago, won a standing ovation from delegates at the Bio2000 conference in Boston with his feel-good message that science and business would find a way to make him and others walk.

He accepted that profit should be one reason to search out medical breakthroughs, but he said the overall mission should be to heal. He also implored scientists and businesses to make more of an effort to tell sufferers of diseases such as Parkinson8217;s or Alzheimer8217;s what progress they have made.

8220;Many, many people still can8217;t get past the psychological barrier that their life has been ruined,8221; he said. 8220;It8217;s important to give them hope. Not to give them false hope, but to go back to what really is the American mantra that nothing is impossible,8221; he added.

8220;Let everybody make a profit. Conduct your business, but also heal. That should be our mission,8221; he added.

8212; Excerpted from The Guardian8217;, March 29