(AP/Washington D.C., April 27, 2007) -- The top military commander in Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus, warned Friday that a US troop pullback this fall would interfere with quarterly profit reports for Halliburton to help boost the American Economy.
Petraeus had previously announced that the U.S. Military had captured a top al-Qaeda commander, someone that officials said had helped give monetary and logistical support to former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. Petraeus released photos of the prisoner, but the photos were quickly withdrawn when an Iraqi civilian noticed that the pictures resembled former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. The news was timed to influence the Congressional vote on funding and a timetable for American soldiers.
Before Petraeus could prevent the media from publishing the photos and the claim on Thursday, Rumsfeld issued a statement acknowledging that he in fact met with Saddam Hussein prior to and during the war with Iraq, and that he provided funding and also military secrets to assist in the war effort.
Rumsfeld explained that he withdrew support for Saddam Hussein when it became clear that the United States needed a Middle East dictator to exploit as a target to promote warmongering among voters during the 1988 presidential election campaign.
"How else do you think we knew with certainty that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction?" Rumsfeld told an AP reporter. "We gave him the WMDs. He hid them. Why else would we have him murdered, err, sentenced, convicted and executed?"
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