Clinton Hoodwinked on Iraq; Disinformation Campaign by Mossad

• Once again a foreign intelligence service has hoodwinked an American president. This time the subject is Iraq.

The Clinton administration is being relentlessly driven toward another armed clash with Iraq -- and a disastrous confrontation with the vast world of Islam. The motivating factor is a stream of deceptive and fabricated intelligence reports fed to the White House, congressional leaders and the U.S. mainstream media by the Israeli government and its powerful Washington lobby.

The SPOTLIGHT has learned exclusively from briefings and documents provided by high-level diplomatic sources that President Bill Clinton's decision to order U.S. forces in the Gulf on a war footing came after he was shown secret strategic estimates arguing that the regime of Iraqi strongman Saddam Hussein could be pled by "crippling" air raids.

UNRELIABLE REPORTS

But Middle eastern diplomatic sources warn that these reports are based on information put out by the Mossad, Israel's secret service, after its agents purportedly co-opted and debriefed a key Iraqi defector last December.

In a detailed intelligence summary distributed both to the White House and the U.S. defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), the Mossad identified the defector as Iraqi Lt. Col. Wafik al-Samarrai. He was described as a former chief of Saddam Hussein's military intelligence service, who was said to have defected in late 1996 while on a trip to Greece.

Col. Al-Samarrai allegedly told Israeli interrogators that a number of Iraq's armed forces commanders were "fed up" with Saddam Hussein's one-man rule and opposed his "suicidal" confrontation with the West.

According to the Mossad summary sent to Washington through back channels, the renegade Iraqi officer identified some of these disaffected generals by name.

If pounding, merciless U.S. air raids smashed the Iraqi ruler's palaces, his national communications network including Baghdad TV and radio, as well as other key installations, the generals would "see the light" and oust Saddam Hussein, Col. Al-Sammarrai reportedly assured his Israeli interrogators.

WARNING NOTICE

But senior Middle Eastern diplomatic sources have provided this populist newspaper's diplomatic correspondent with access to a warning notice circulated last month by the Arab League among the leaders of its 21 member states.

The confidential memorandum points out that the Mossad's intelligence summary, attempting to justify all-out bombardment of Iraq, sounds like a fabrication.

It appears to be just another "disinformation, cover and deception operation of the sort Israel has launched on numerous past occasions" to mislead and manipulate U.S. Strategy, the Arab League circular cautions.

It cites several inconsistencies in the Mossad's intelligence summary, including the fact that Col. Al-Sammarrai "is known to have left Iraq well before 1996; in fact, he has been described as a paid international anti-Saddam operative ever since 1993."

As for the Israeli intelligence summary's claim that aerial warfare will set the stage for a military uprising in Iraq, independent observers around the world scoffed at the proposition.

Even the staid London Times -- the voice of Britain's ruling Establishment, claimed by Clinton as his closest ally -- dismissed the notion with a single word: "Lunacy."

OPPOSITION

The Saudi government responded to these developments with an official announcement by Prince Sultan, its defense minister and second prime minister, widely respected as the Arab world's wisest and most statesmanlike leader.

"Saudi Arabia is opposed to bombing raids or other military action against the nation and people of Iraq," Prince Sultan proclaimed.

Egypt -- known in ordinary times as Washington's best-paid and least troublesome Mideast client -- went even further. President Hosni Mubarak announced that he would convene an emergency Arab summit to adopt "measures to prevent any armed aggression against Iraq."