Why being right on WMD is no consolation to Iraqi scientist labelled enemy

[Barrett808]

Why being right on WMD is no consolation to Iraqi scientist labelled enemy of America
Chief link to UN weapons inspectors held in solitary confinement for year
Jonathan Steele in Baghdad
Wednesday May 5, 2004
The Guardian

By any measure Amer al-Saadi ought to feel vindicated. The dapper British-educated scientist who was the Iraqi government's main link to the United Nations inspectors before the US invasion repeatedly insisted that Iraq had destroyed its weapons of mass destruction years earlier.

David Kay, the American inspector who headed the Iraq Survey Group and was sure he would find such weapons when he went to Iraq after the war, now accepts Dr Saadi was right. So does Hans Blix, the chief UN inspector, who up to a month before the war still thought Iraq might have had WMD.

Yet, astonishingly, Dr Saadi does not know of their change of mind or of the political fallout their views have caused in western countries. He is like a lottery winner who is the last person to be told he has hit the jackpot.

Held in solitary confinement in an American prison at Baghdad's international airport, Dr Saadi is denied the right to read newspapers, listen to the radio, or watch television.

"In the monthly one-page letters I am allowed to send him through the Red Cross I cannot mention any of this news. I can only talk about family issues," says his wife, Helma, as she sits in the couple's home less than half a mile from US headquarters in Baghdad.

(more)

http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,1209418,00.html

[displacedtexan]

1. That is so sad!

Were David Kay a true patriot, he would speak out on behalf of Dr. Saadi.

[jayfish]

2. Absolutely Ridiculous

Free the Iraqi political prisoners now, you jack-booted thugs! Your God HATES you for what you have done in his name!

Jay

[Just Me]

3. He's being imprisoned for telling the truth?

What is he being held for?

This makes absolutely no freakin' sense to me, at all.

[maddezmom]

6. what are the odds he's been "abused" while interrogated?

perhaps, it's the reason why a many of the prisoners aren't being released.

[reprobate]

8. Now what in the * administration HAS made any sense?

[Just Me]

10. Well, "they" always have a reason: usually to CYA. n/t

[maddezmom]

4. the US needs to let him go NOW!

but sadly it'll never happen unless because no one in this regime can ever admit a mistake. :(

[Minstrel Boy]

5. God DAMN it, this is outrageous!

What's his crime?

Let this man go!

[Gothmog]

7. This is just plain wrong

We are violating so many treaties in our treatment of Iraqis.

[nosmokes]

9. but this isn't what americans do

according to the assholes we're gonna overthrow in november.