In an example of how the Bush team never ceased playing games with information, the CIA released the so-called Duelfer report in 2004, acknowledging that the administration's pre-invasion assertions about Hussein hiding WMD stockpiles were "almost all wrong."
But a curious feature of the Duelfer report was that it included a long section about Hussein's abuse of the U.N.'s "oil for food" program in the 1990s, while acknowledging that those diverted funds had not gone to build illegal weapons.
Regarding the 1980s, however, the report did the opposite, acknowledging the existence of a robust WMD program but offering no documentary perspective on how that operation was organized and who was involved in delivering the crucial equipment and precursor chemicals.
In other words, the CIA's WMD report didn't identify the Americans or other non-Iraqis who made Iraq's WMD arsenal possible in the 1980s.
One source who has seen the documents told me that it contains information about the role of Chilean arms dealer Carlos Cardoen, who has been identified as a key link between the CIA and Iraq for the procurement of dangerous weapons in the 1980s. But that evidence remains locked away from the public.
It also seems that the FBI either didn't bother to ask Hussein about the U.S. officials who may have had a hand in helping him build his deadly arsenal or Hussein's answers have been redacted out of "national security" concerns.
That singular figure who perhaps could have put the era in its fullest perspective - and provided the most damning evidence about the Bush Family's role - was silenced for good on Dec. 30, 2006, as he dropped through a trap door of a gallows and was made to twitch at the end of a noose fashioned from hemp.
The White House announced that George W. Bush didn't wait up for the happy news of Hussein's hanging. After the U.S. military turned Hussein over to his Iraqi executioners, Bush went to bed at his Crawford, Texas, ranch and slept through the night.
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