Captain's Quarters is reporting on another batch of translations from captured Iraqi files by Joseph Shahda, who I have reported on before. The memo described the goals for the year 2000 that involved the development and improvement of improvised explosive devices (IEDs)*, which have been the weapon of choice for the insurgence in Iraq since Saddam's fall:
In the Name of God the Most Merciful the Most Compassionate The Presidency of the Republic The Intelligence Apparatus Mr: The Respected Director
Subject: Projects of a Plan
Below are projects of the plan for the year 2000 and according to the budget suggested for it in the spending budget of the year 2000 and as follow:
1. Prepare an armored brief case to protect the VIPs 180 days.
2. Study on the Epoxy used currently in preparing the IEDs and the possibility of finding another type that will not affect the explosive.
3. Studies and researches of the materials that increase the intensity of the explosive.
4. Prepare theoretical and applied lessons on the popular explosives 120 days.
5. Training of the Arab Fedayeens- within the plan of the year 2000.
Establish tournaments specialized in the explosives 30 days.
Please review and your command with regards.
Signature
Khaled Ibrahim Ismail
Senior Chemist
22/11/99
Still nothing here on weapons of mass destruction, but it does make one wonder why the Iraqi military would spend time researching IEDs. The U.S. was not planning any sort of military engagement short of Bill Clinton's retaliatory strikes to force Hussein to comply with the UN. IEDs are also a useless waste of resources: the shells used for their construction are much better suited for being fired normally at an enemy. For some reason, though, the Iraqis found investigating these explosives very important.
Interestingly, the document also references "Arab fedayeens." You may recall the irregular Ba'athist forces called the Saddam Fedayeen, who formed the major insurgency after Baghdad fell. So what are "Arab fedayeens?" One could conclude that since the Saddam Fedayeen was the native resistance, the Arab fedayeen refers to the non-native forces and irregulars from outside the country, which Morrissey concludes to be Arab terrorists. If the Iraqi military wanted to train Iraqi soldiers about the construction and use of IEDs, why would they refer to them as Arab fedayeen in a secret memo? Like us, they would have referred to their unit or deployment or simply the Saddam Fedayeen. That they did not refer to them in this way is very telling.
What we have, then, is Iraq planned to train and equip Arab terrorists with IEDs. Research was being conducted to make these weapons as deadly as possible before the end of 2000. They may not have realized the need for it, but they certainly considered it important enough to complete within a year. Making IEDs does not inherently imply terrorism, but it does raise a lot of questions.
* It should be noted, for clarification, that the word used for IED was ibwat, which means "explosive devices," for anybody that has any dubious questions about the translation.
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