“Rolf Ekeus came round to my apartment one day and showed me the name of the Iraqi diplomat who had visited the little West African country of Niger: a statelet famous only for its production of yellowcake uranium. The name was Wissam Zahawi. He was the brother of my louche gay part-Kurdish friend, the by-now late Mazen. He was also, or had been at the time of his trip to Niger, Saddam Hussein's ambassador to the Vatican. I expressed incomprehension. What was an envoy to the Holy See doing in Niger? Obviously he was not taking a vacation. Rolf then explained two things to me. The first was that Wissam Zahawi had, when Rolf was at the United Nations, been one of Saddam Hussein's chief envoys for discussions on nuclear matters (this at a time when the Iraqis had functioning reactors). The second was that, during the period of sanctions that followed the Kuwait war, no Western European country had full diplomatic relations with Baghdad. TheVatican was the sole exception, so it was sent a very senior Iraqi envoy to act as a listening post. And this man, a specialist in nuclear matters, had made a discreet side trip to Niger. This was to suggest exactly what most right-thinking people were convinced was not the case: namely that British intelligence was on to something when it said that Saddam had not ceased seeking nuclear materials in Africa.I published a few columns on this, drawing at one point an angry email from Ambassador Zahawi that very satisfyingly blustered and bluffed on what he'd really been up to. I also received—this is what sometimes makes journalism worthwhile—a letter from a BBC correspondent named Gordon Correa who had been writing a book about A.Q. Khan. This was the Pakistani proprietor of the nuclear black market that had supplied fissile material to Libya, North Korea, very probably to Syria, and was open for business with any member of the 'rogue states' club. (Saddam's people, we already knew for sure, had been meeting North Korean missile salesmen in Damascus until just before the invasion, when Kim Jong Il's mercenary bargainers took fright and went home.) It turned out, said the highly interested Mr. Correa, that his man Khan had also been in Niger, and at about the same time that Zahawi had. The likelihood of the senior Iraqi diplomat in Europe and the senior Pakistani nuclear black-marketeer both choosing an off-season holiday in chic little uranium-rich Niger… well, you have to admit that it makes an affecting picture. But you must be ready to credit something as ridiculous as that if your touching belief is that Saddam Hussein was already 'contained,' and that Mr. Bush and Mr. Blair were acting on panic reports, fabricated in turn by self-interested provocateurs.”

“When Libya fought against the Italian occupation, all the Arabs supported the Libyan mujahideen.We Arabs never occupied any country.Well, we occupied Andalusia unjustly, and they drove us out, but since then, we Arabs have not occupied any country. It is our countries that are occupied.Palestine is occupied, Iraq is occupied, and as for the UAE islands...It is not in the best interest of the Arabs for hostility to develop between them and Iran, Turkey, or any of these nations.By no means is it in our interest to turn Iran against us.If there really is a problem, we should decide here to refer this issue to the international court of Justice.This is the proper venue for the resolution of such problems.We should decide to refer the issue of the disputed UAE islands to the International Court of Justice, and we should accept whatever it rules.One time you say this is occupied Arab land, and then you say...This is not clear, and it causes confusion.80% of the people of the Gulf are Iranians.The ruling families are Arab, but the rest are Iranian. The entire people is Iranian.This is a mess. Iran cannot be avoided.Iran is a Muslim neighbour, and it is not in our interes to become enemies.What is the reason for the invasion and destruction of Iraq, and for killing of one million Iraqis?Let our American friends answer this question:Why Iraq? What is the reason? Is Bin Laden an Iraqi? No he is not.Were those who attacked New York Iraqis? No, they were not.were those who attacked the Pentagon Iraqis? No, they were not.Were there WMDs in Iraq? No, there were not.Even if iraq did have WMDs - Pakistan and India have nuclear bombs, and so do China, Russia, Britain, France and America.Should all these countries be destroyed?Fine, let's destroy all the countries that have WMDs.Along comes a foreign power, occupies an Arab country, and hangs its president, and we all sit on the sidelines, laughing.Why didn't they investigate the hanging of Saddam Hussein?How can a POW be hanged - a president of an Arab country and a member of the Arab League no less!I'm not talking about the policies of Saddam Hussein, or the disagreements we had with him.We all had poitlical disagreements with him and we have such disagreements among ourselves here.We share nothing, beyond this hall.Why won't there be an investigation into the killing of Saddam Hussein?An entire Arab leadership was executed by hanging, yet we sit on the sidelines. Why?Any one of you might be next. Yes.America fought alongside Saddam Hussein against Khomeini.He was their friend. Cheney was a friend of Saddam Hussein.Rumsfeld, the US Defense Secretary at the time Iraq was destroyed, was a close friend of Saddam Hussein.Ultimately, they sold him out and hanged him.You are friends of America - let's say that ''we'' are, not ''you'' - but one of these days, America may hang us.Brother 'Amr Musa has an idea which he is enthusiastic. He mentioned it in his report.He says that the Arabs have the right to use nuclear power for peaceful purposes, and that there should be an Arab nuclear program.The Arabs have this right.They even have the right to have the right to have a nuclear program for other...But Allah prevails...But who are those Arabs whom you say should have united nuclear program?We are the enemies of one another, I'm sad to say.We all hate one another, we deceive one another, we gloat at the misfortune of one another, and we conspire against one another.Our intelligence agencies conspire against one another, instead of defending us against the enemy.We are the enemies of one another, and an Arab's enemy is another Arab's friend.”

“Saddam Hussein is a product of Western departments of state and big companies, just as Hitler, Mussolini, and Franco were born of the 'peace' imposed on their countries by the victors of the Great War. Saddam is such a product in an even more Flagrant and cynical way. Because the Iraqi dictatorship proceeds, as do the others, from the transfer of aporias in the capitalist system to vanquished, less developed, or simply less resistant countries.”

“The argument that Saddam Hussein was a bad man and had to be removed simply won't do. There are many bad men around the world who run countries and we don't topple them, and, indeed, in earlier years we actually supported Saddam Hussein when he was fighting Iran. The argument that someone is a bad man is an inadequate argument for war and an unacceptable argument for regime change.”

“So, whenever the subject of Iraq came up, as it did keep on doing through the Clinton years, I had no excuse for not knowing the following things: I knew that its one-party, one-leader state machine was modeled on the precedents of both National Socialism and Stalinism, to say nothing of Al Capone. I knew that its police force was searching for psychopathic killers and sadistic serial murderers, not in order to arrest them but to employ them. I knew that its vast patrimony of oil wealth, far from being 'nationalized,' had been privatized for the use of one family, and was being squandered on hideous ostentation at home and militarism abroad. (Post-Kuwait inspections by the United Nations had uncovered a huge nuclear-reactor site that had not even been known about by the international community.) I had seen with my own eyes the evidence of a serious breach of the Genocide Convention on Iraqi soil, and I had also seen with my own eyes the evidence that it had been carried out in part with the use of weapons of mass destruction. I was, if you like, the prisoner of this knowledge. I certainly did not have the option of un-knowing it.”

“I think you can be an enemy of Saddam Hussein even if Donald Rumsfeld is also an enemy of Saddam Hussein.”