DESPITE his imprisonment, Saddam Hussein is still showing himself capable of macabre surprises. The remains of infants have only now been found in his mass graves, and an elaborate bribery network was exposed last week. Now, a link to terrorism has finally been unearthed. While the world remains fixated on the absence of weapons of mass destruction (WMD), the other evils of his regime are being systematically exposed - for the few who are still interested in them. But the documents revealing he passed £40 million of oil vouchers to Palestinian terrorists show that, in the war on terror, Saddam was a legitimate target. His was one of the few regimes that gave insurgents the financial oxygen needed to survive.
The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) has used many names, but is still little heard-of. Its most infamous atrocity was the "black September" attacks in 1970, when members hijacked four aircraft bound for New York. It is committed to extinguishing Israel, and its commitment to violence has meant it standing defiantly aside from the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO) - whom it believes sold out to the cause by agreeing to the Middle East peace process. Officially listed as a terrorist organisation by British and American governments, it is exactly the kind of organisation which Saddam Hussein was long accused of supporting. But no-one was able to prove it until the documents of his dictatorship started to be unearthed. |