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"Pay close attention to that man behind the curtain!"

Friday, August 22, 2003

The 9 lives of "Chemical Ali"

Just yesterday, US forces are said to have captured Gen. Ali Hassan al-Majid, AKA "Chemical Ali." While this story was widely reported in the media, many articles have either buried mention of the previous reports of his death deep within the stories or neglected this fact entirely. Also of note were the "hit list" of 10 names (compare this with the US' "deck of 55 cards") and "explosives shopping list" he was carrying when captured. Sounds like something out of a cheap novel to me.

Also sounding like a cheap novel is the report in the Washington Post which pulls no punches in the well-deserved demonization of al-Majid, but which fails completely to mention US involvement in Iraq during the Reagan administration when the Kurds were gassed. Who's the "brutal dictator" again?
The Guardian has so far been the only one I've seen to print a retraction of a mistaken report of al Majid's death.
Posted at 6:39 PM by: [Permalink]
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