Agence France Press reports that Saddam was, for purposes of revenge for a rape by his son, held prisoner by the Kurds then drugged and stashed, as a prisoner, in a "spider hole" he couldn't escape from. It is logical to assume that the Kurds cut a deal for handing Saddam over to the US, and that the Kurds had reasons for leaving him with a stash of hundreds of thousands of dollars, two AK-47 machine guns and documents in a briefcase with a lot of names.

The cash was a way to prove that it was the real Saddam. Who else would be wandering around Iraq with that kind of money. Besides, they were expecting, or perhaps, had already received the $25 million or more, if they smart enough to demand it, from the desperate-for good news Bush administration.

The weapons were, perhaps a temptation, which if Saddam had chosen to use them, would surely have led to his instant death. They were also a nice touch for distracting the world from the fact that he was, in spite of the weapons (and no-one ever said they were loaded) a prisoner. They were further camouflage. And then we get to the documents in the briefcase. That's where it gets very interesting.

Now that the world is coming around to the realization that the US military did not perform some miraculous capture, the next step is to ask some questions.

How much of a reward did the US pay the Kurds for the capture and delivery of Saddam?

What spurious information did the Kurds put in the notebook, so the US would act to do the dirty work of picking up Baathists and former Baathists who the Kurds would like to have out of the way, or who the Kurds would like to seek revenge against?

Of course one of the ingredients in the Iraqi quagmire has been the very touchy balance of power between the Kurds, the rest of the Iraqi peoples and the Turks. Australia's THE AGE newspaper reports "Saddam came into the hands of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK.)" It doesn't talk about Kurds, but a Kurdish state. Except, that state does not officially exist. It's a dream of the Kurds in Northern Iraq, and a nightmare for Turks.

The US military has touted how they've made a sweep of over 100 arrests based on the documents found in Saddam's briefcase. It would make sense that the Kurds would at least remove the names of people they wanted to protect, and even more likely that they'd set up the documents with names of people they wanted to get rid of. After all, Saddam wouldn't be able to edit or check the documents in the dark hole in the ground.

At first, last week, the day after the capture, I merely speculated, based on observations by Debkafiles, that Saddam was already a prisoner before the US military arrived, and that they were trying to pull off another Jessica Lynch fake heroic, brilliant capture. But now, it seems like the Bush team has done worse than trump up a story with misleading puffery, taking credit where it is not deserved. And be assured, the micro-managers in the Bush regime-- Cheney, Wolfowitz, Perle-- have had their fingers in every step of the "Saddam Captured Event." Worse than just misleading the American people, who are hungry for positive news, they may very well have been launched on a Kurd designed vendetta of revenge and strategy to alter the emerging power structure in Iraq.

If it turns out to be true that the Kurds had Saddam first, then it is highly likely that the Bush team and its military chain of command have been duped into helping the cause of the Kurds, potentially severely affecting the fragile balance they have been trying to achieve. Or, if you want to go even a step further in speculation, perhaps the Bush chain of command intentionally cooperated with the Kurds as part of a deal for the delivery of Hussein, a deal that handed the Kurds a strong strategic advantage.

Bottom line, is we're not getting the whole truth about what we paid for Saddam, in cash and, more important, other factors of the deal. We may have been duped by the Kurds or we may have cut a deal that sold out the Iraqi interests and there is clearly, more than the eye can easily see.

- Rob Kall rob@opednews.com is editor of OpEdNews.com and founder organizer of the Futurehealth Winter Brain, Optimal Functioning and Positive Psychology Meeting. This article is copyright Rob Kall and originally published by opednews.com but permission is granted for reprint in print, email, blog or web media so long as this credit paragraph is attached.

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