True or False: A Handy Guide to Iraq
Time to take Tamara's quiz!
by Tamara Baker

March 11, 2003 -- SAINT PAUL, MINNESOTA (apj.us) -- True or False:

1) Iraqis were among the 9/11 hijackers and masterminds.

FALSE. Most of the hijackers and masterminds were Saudi Arabian members of Al-Qaeda. Al-Qaeda hates secular Iraq and Saddam almost as much as they hate America.

2) Saddam Hussein has an advanced nuclear program.

FALSE. The United States' nuclear allegations against Saddam have been debunked repeatedly by the International Atomic Energy Agency. Most recently, it was revealed that the US' 'evidence' of Iraqi nukes had been faked, probably by the CIA.

3) The US has been very helpful to the UN's inspectors working in Iraq.

FALSE. A January 2003 CBS News story shows that the US "tips" given the UN inspectors have turned out to be useless, misleading, and in the words of one UN official, "garbage."

4) The US will use precision bombing to make sure only Iraqi soldiers, not the civilians the US wants to liberate.

FALSE. Rumsfeld's "Shock and Awe" campaign, as was boasted on CBS News, will mean that no part of Baghdad, a city of 5 million, will be safe from US bombs. "Shock and Awe" will drop more bombs in two days than were used during the entire 1990-1991 Gulf War. The result? A Dresden-style firestorm that will, at a minimum, 'liberate' tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians from their lives.

5) Veteran BBC war correspondent Kate Adie says that the Pentagon has threatened to fire on the satellite uplink positions of independent journalists in Iraq, in order to keep them from transmitting news free of Pentagon censorship.

TRUE. In an interview on RTE, Irish state radio, Ms. Adie stated the following (transcript here): "I was told by a senior officer in the Pentagon, that if uplinks --that is the television signals out of... Baghdad, for example-- were detected by any planes ...electronic media... mediums, of the military above Baghdad... they'd be fired down on. Even if they were journalists ..' Who cares!' he said..."

6) South Korean media and legislators report that North Korean missile fragments have been found in Alaska.

TRUE. The Korea Times reported this last week. Meanwhile, Saddam used up all his long-range missiles during the Gulf War; he can't hit Turkey, much less the US. (And unlike North Korea, he doesn't have nukes.)

7) Republican bozos in the US House of Representatives are making fools of themselves by renaming the food in the House cafeteria.

TRUE. Here's the URL to prove it -- and no, this is not from The Onion: What next -- forcing French's Mustard to change its name? Calling what they do to their pages "Freedom Kissing"?

TRUE. And Michael Drosnin has the details.

You can't make this stuff up.