Indian Express: Iraq is still an untold story

"When Yevgeny Primakov, former Russian Prime Minister and head of the Secret Service, speaks on the Middle East, the world had better listen. He has been a genuine Arabist and one who knew Saddam Hussein well. As the world wondered how Saddam materialised in a Baghdad court room last week, Primakov, in an interview to the Russian daily Gazeta, helped lift some of the mist. He said the former Iraqi dictator cut a deal with the US before the March 2003 invasion of Iraq. ‘‘There was an understanding with the Americans, paradoxical as it may seem’’.
Primakov has asked some pertinent questions. ‘‘Why weren’t the bridges on the Tigris blown up when the American tanks approached Baghdad? Why weren’t Iraqi aviation and tanks used? And where are they now?’’ The Americans found no WMDs. But where is the conventional arsenal? ‘‘Why was there an immediate ceasefire? Why was there practically no resistance a year ago?’’
Primakov was Russian Foreign Minister and made two secret visits to Iraq a few days before the Anglo-American invasion. He has placed a question mark even on the authenticity of the footage of Saddam Hussein’s capture on December 14. ‘‘They showed two soldiers with guns near some palm trees close to the hole where Saddam was reportedly hiding.’’ Primakov observes, ‘‘At that time of the year, date palms are never in bloom’’.
This would be dismissed as a conspiracy theory were it not for Primakov’s credentials. Primakov’s observations echo the assessments I heard in Najaf when Iraq’s interim constitution was being outlined by Paul Bremer and the handpicked Iraqi Governing Council in March 2004. I had a long conversation with one of the most distinguished clerics of Najaf; the conversation took place on a ‘‘non attributable’’ basis. A reference to the circumstances in which it took place would shed light on what the cleric said. . . .
The cleric implied there may have been a last minute agreement with Saddam Hussein and the Americans before the March 2003 invasion — exactly what Primakov is saying now. It may not be such an outlandish theory after all.
There is a blanket over what has really happened in Iraq, particularly since the occupation began. Many of the embedded journalists are sitting on stories. But it is American journalists who are also doggedly unearthing the facts. Seymour Hersh revealed in the New Yorker that Israeli intelligence was swarming Iraq, having no faith in the American ability to secure their flank.
Will the Bush team succeed in scripting Afghanistan and Iraq to its advantage? Or will the American media have blown the whistle on both the stories before the November elections? In the end, it is the American public that will force Washington’s hands as it did towards the end of Vietnam."