Michael McDowell Ex Minister for Justice-IrelandWhat I soon realised was the complete lack of freedom of speech, I saw it in my father a man who would never denigrate the Ba'ath party in any of it's forms except when he had had one to many non -Islamic whiskeys and even then it was in the privacy of his den.
The time came when I too became somewhat politically aware or at least politically afraid, for to disagree openly or show signs of dissent could lead to long spells in prison, torture or worse.
One day, I am not too sure exactly what age I was, I suddenly decided that what was happening to my country was wrong and so I said it, I said it quietly to my father at first; he was shocked and tried to hush me. I said it out loud in company and my friends would quickly change the subject, suddenly I was shouting it from the roof of my car, interestingly enough this did not get the response that you may think, yes everyone around me fled, afraid that their association with me even as far as them just being there at the time, might be enough reason for incarceration. But, the sirens did not wail, the police or the death squads did not come, I found out that the louder I shouted the more afraid the authorities became.
There may have been reasons for this, my heinously uncanny resemblance to the Dictators son being one, but I believe that they did not know what to do with me, or maybe they did.
Maybe it was coincidence, maybe it was just the fact that I looked like Uday Saddam Hussein that I was taken from my post in Southern Iraq during the Iran Iraq war, but maybe, they wanted to keep me close too, and we all know the old adage, keep your friends close but your enemies closer. If I was to be truly indoctrinated I must become one of them and what better way to keep me in check than in plain view.
The story of my time in Uday Saddam Hussein's employ is well documented and I am not writing this to re-hash the story, my real aim is to build up a background for you so that you may better understand me and my motivations.
It has been a gift and a curse in equal measure that I have never been able to tell the right he is wrong and the ugly they are beautiful. In fact this gift has caused me much hardship in my life, untold beatings from Uday and others in the past and present Iraqi governments, but nevertheless, I continue on not being able to shut my mouth.
I do admit there are times when I sit and ask myself why? But I have been given
An undeniable sense of Right.
On fleeing Iraq to the West I expected everything to be as we were told in the middle-east, the west was democratic, everyone had their say and no-one was ridiculed for their beliefs.
This unfortunately was not completely true and so I began telling people so, now you may already suspect what I am about to say, you may not, but whatever reaction I would get from pointing out flaws in my own country, the natives of the new country I was in took less liking to it.
In fairness, who was I to point out these ills? But had no-one else pointed them out?
It is often said that a fresh eye will pick out the flaws and I was that fresh eye.
Please understand that I do this without malice, for me I cannot understand how such beautiful countries can be dragged down by such small minds.
Several European counties have been the subject of my fresh eyes, Austria and England being two (the latter because of their involvement with the war on Iraq, which I believed and still believe to be an unjust war).
At this moment I live in Ireland, in fact I have lived in Ireland for quite some time, for me staying anywhere for over six months is unusual (but having told you what I have you may not find this surprising)
To date I have lived in Ireland for nine years, Ireland is a beautifully scenic country and is all that is written about it, rolling fields of green, warm and friendly people and that’s about it. I love the Irish people they are witty and welcoming and I understand their fascination with the "pub" because that's really all there is. Now you might ask does Ireland not have this huge booming economy. What happened to the "Celtic tiger"? Well yes it does have a booming economy, the government showed a 16billion euro profit this year three months before the budget. But this profit will not go to building somewhere else for people to go, strangely, Ireland does not have a theme park or a "Blackpool" when you have children your excursions are limited, I once bought an annual ticket for Dublin zoo which has been excellently refurbished in recent years but although the ticket also allows you entry to Foto safari park at the other end of the country, there are only so many times that your children actually want to go.
In recent times new legislation was brought in to cease smoking in all public places, restaurants, pubs, bars, cinemas etc, this in itself is not a bad idea but if your wife or partner is a non-smoker and you are a smoker it means that either the non-smoker dutifully follows you out on your cigarette breaks or sits on their own a target for unwanted (hopefully) attention. In effect wiping out the need or should I say desire to go out.
So what is there to do? Shop?
Well yes there is plenty of shopping and good shopping too, with the arrival of the major UK chain stores and the big designer brands there is plenty of shopping to go around but a Chanel handbag won't keep you entertained in the evenings (my wife begs to differ). Shopping would be fun if only you had decent roads to travel on, if you have never heard of it Ireland has a road taxing system that evaluates your engine size and charges accordingly, if you have the wherewithal to own a Mercedes S class the road tax for the year can cost you in excess of one thousand euros for your enthusiasm, but as I hit pot hole after pot hole on the secondary roads I ask myself where do these funds go? All the good motorways in Ireland are tolls, fair enough, but then you see the great big sign that says part funded by the EU. Can that be right?
In fairness Ireland is the cheapest country in Europe to buy a car in before taxes, but unless you are exporting it to some far flung paradise you will not reap the benefits nor will you get any benefits trying to import a car from another European country, by the time you pay the vehicle registration tax you have saved yourself very little money and possibly nothing on time and effort, even people who have lived abroad and come home with their cars have been railroaded, in recent weeks a friend of mine who returned from living in the UK with her car had to pay three thousand euros for the pleasure of having her Citroen Picasso re-registered as Irish so that she would cease being stopped by the local police and asked why she had not done so, everyone in Ireland knows that according to EU legislation you should be able to bring a car into the country from another EU country and save, the UK charges approximately one hundred pounds as a standard fee for re-registering your car, Ireland on the other hand charges a percentage on the current market value of the vehicle in Ireland negating most of your saving.(this is against EU Law)
But no-one says anything about anything except to their friends and families and nothing changes.
You may ask yourself why I am still here and how I could have stayed so long, well Ireland has been quite safe for me, I have not had any death threats or assassination attempts (well not recently) and as I have said before the people are friendly plus this is where I met my wife and am raising my kids.
Until last Christmas I also held the hope that I might attain Irish citizenship, since leaving Iraq I am stateless, not Iraqi not anything. It is quite a peculiar feeling being disenfranchised, on a daily basis I cope quite well but when I need to travel, well that is a different story. At the moment I hold an Irish travel document, I am thankful for having it but it is renewable annually, now anyone that travels knows that when you get to the airport you need at least six months validity on your passport/travel document to go anywhere, which in effect means that I can only travel for the first six months of the issue period on my T-D, there are other T-Ds out there that are issued for two and five years respectively but for some strange reason the Irish government do not wish to issue me with one, I have asked, repeatedly. Maybe they have the same idea that Saddam had keep me in plain view. Why? Surely they are not afraid of me?
Anyhow as I was saying, until last Christmas I harboured the hope that I might become an Irish citizen, all my hopes were dashed after fighting so hard to get an answer from the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform Mr Michael Mc Dowell, I was told that even after five years and although I had fulfilled all the criteria, I had applied too soon. Too Soon, I'll say that again, too soon, I'm sorry but should someone not have pointed that out within the first six months of my application? Or was it just a convenient technicality? Well that was a question for the Minister himself and I had every intention in asking him personally, I wrote him umpteen letters, I wrote to my local TD (MP to those who live outside Ireland) and he sent the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform letters on my behalf, but to no avail the Minister did not have the time or inclination to meet with me, my wife wrote and asked if there were some way the she could expedite my case or help me attain citizenship but her letters we met with the standard " Thank you for your letter dated…….."
I have since had to reapply for naturalisation, having been given the reason for denying my application the first time ( because it was made too early) you would be forgiven for thinking that this application would be dealt with expediently because all of the subject matter was at hand, Wrong, in one of my many letters from the Minister of Justice, Mr Mc Dowell's office, I was informed that the citizenship department is currently working on the last cases from 2004 and since my new case was only filed in February of 2006 it will be the early part of 2008 before they look at it to see if I qualify for application. Does that make sense to you?
I suppose I did not help my case by rescuing my mother, niece and nephew from Iraq and bringing them here. I had not seen my mother for over thirteen years and my younger siblings were mere babies when I left them, my youngest sister being just eight when I affected my flight.
As for my niece and nephew their mother was killed in my family's house in Baghdad during "Shock and Awe" they had all been sitting in the living room, my sister-in-law went upstairs to get something a bomb hit the house, it collapsed and that was that, the children were left motherless. Their father my brother went missing soon after, whether he was taken by a Shia militia or the Americans no-one knows. My wife and I now care for them and our family has grown from four to seven.
My mother applied for asylum here with the children, you must understand that she has no passport or identification and there is no other way that we can keep her here without applying and over my dead body will I let her go back to Iraq, we support her and the children as we should and all four children go to our local school and have integrated very well.
As is often the case in my life, my mother's asylum process did not go smoothly, having had as much publicity as I have had over the years and because my story is Internationally recognised, I for some reason expected the asylum process to be concise and swift, It was neither. My mother was refused and we had to go to the appeals tribunal (which is still pending) my mother does not have any English a translator was provided for her but even so many thousands of miles away from Iraq the great Sunni –Shia conflict was evident (I would like to add at this point that in Iraq/Baghdad there was never any difference between Sunni, Shia or Kurd, we all lived together happily until the Iraqi opposition was formed in Vienna, Austria in 1992)
What was surprising is that two days after my mothers initial refusal of asylum two immigration police officers arrived at our door to asses her case, standard procedure was that the immigration police would asses your case and give their verdict before a decision was made, if it was the case that this procedure was changed the two red faced policemen seemed completely unaware of it. They still carried out their assessment and we have been promised another visit in the near future to check upon the wellbeing of the children. I wonder will their opinions make any difference the next time.
So after the initial refusal my barrister made an appeal, although I am trained in Law I was not allowed to represent my mother, I was allowed to attend the last ten minutes of what was very much like a trial, there were no jury, there was a tribunal member who acted like a judge a representative of the dept of Justice (the prosecution) and my barrister (the council for the defendant) you must understand that anything government related scares the life out of my mother she has seen her husband poisoned in front of her, her family threatened and imprisoned and her eldest son flee, all because of government.
It was agreed on the day that to prove her maternity of me, that we should have a DNA test (it still baffles me why anyone one would think that I would bring an elderly woman and two extra children into my home if they were not who I said they were) to this day it remains a mystery to me who actually asked for this DNA test, according to the tribunal I offered but to my recollection they asked, anyway we went to one of Ireland's premier medical facilities and had the necessary tests done (which I paid for, I think you may have some inkling of how much these things cost), they were then flown to London to be carried out and the results were released three weeks later.
We waited…
Finally we received the results, I had never questioned my parentage, but there was this niggling sense in the back of my head saying maybe they know something you don't … Lo and behold… tad ah... .Yes she was my mother!
Well 98.75% of her genetic makeup matched mine, legally there could be no argument, I was relieved. Then came the letter, there was an argument, the tribunal wasn't happy with the figures, they weren't conclusive, my mother's testimony had "holes" in it, I was taken aback!
If, although I had provided a DNA test with a result that would stand up in court and my story was Internationally accepted to be true, why was it nonsensical to believe that my mother was my mother and she should be saved from having to live in Iraq, a country that hated me because I was part of the regime (unwillingly) and then hated me because I escaped it? (But punished her for it)
So far we still have not received a decision, it has been at least six weeks since we answered their comments, one would wonder why it is taking so long?
I n my mind I know what will happen and I always hope against hope that I am wrong, I believe that just before Christmas we will hear something, it will be another refusal (on what grounds, I have no idea) but it will be at a time of year when the system will be on extended leave and my mother and I will have no recourse but to sit and wait again until the new year to start all over again.
Is it to keep me here in plain sight? If the Irish government don't want me here, they certainly are making it hard for me to take my family and go.
To be continued….
Michael McDowell Ex Minister for Justice-Ireland 
This is Latif Yahia in Ireland 11/April/2000Although I could identify my attacker and tried to instigate charges against them, I was advised against taking action by the Gardai (Irish Police) as it could affect my application for citizenship if I were to bring charges against an Irish national.
The statue of limitations for assault at the time was four years ( because of all the changes that Minister McDowell has made in the intervening years it hard to know if the statute still stands) although I desired citizenship I desired justice more, I instructed a solicitor to act on my behalf in the matter and started my recovery. After a short time I was contacted by the solicitor and was given the news that he had initially contacted the hospital to retrieve the original paperwork on my injuries and treatment at the hospital, the paperwork was unfortunately missing or lost. When my solicitor made further enquiries as to the whereabouts of the doctor that treated me that evening, he also was nowhere to be found, allegedly he had returned to his homeland Afghanistan, convenient? I think so.
At this point I will ask you a question; am I just the unluckiest S.O.B on the face of the planet?
I continued on with my life and recovered from my injuries, psychologically it took a toll on me, every time I looked in the mirror I had to deal with the scar that reflected back at me, my new decoration also gave me an added air of "gangster" something that I had spent the previous years trying to escape if you remember.
Since not having any reason to proceed with my case against my attacker, I continued on with my application for citizenship, you may recall what the outcome of that was; for those that don't, my application was refused on the grounds that I had applied too early even though I had waited for five years for an answer. (Surprise! My case was the longest case awaiting a decision for citizenship in the history of the dept of Justice, documents to be published next week)
On a happier note it was later on in 2000 that I met my wife, she was appalled at the treatment that I received and has been my strongest supporter since.
In essence, in Ireland I have been homeless on the streets of Temple Bar, assaulted and left scarred (not while I was homeless), I was stripped of all my possessions, wrongly imprisoned, beaten by Gardai and "Lost" in the system for ten days.
When I made a complaint to the Garda Ombudsman they returned a verdict that my charges were vexatious and I was dismissed as a trouble maker.
The list is longer but there are some points that I cannot divulge presently some are pending, some I'm just saving for posterity.
Let me just say that if any of these things had happened to a Western person or anyone for that matter in Iraq under Saddam the minimum sentence for assault with a deadly weapon was 15 years even though Iraq is now considered a third world country.
As I write this my anger is rising, most of the time I have all of these memories pushed to that part of my mind that deals with the crap that I've gone through, Uday, Austria and now Ireland.
Why am I still here?
I am trapped, trapped by lack of a passport, trapped for the love of my mother and my niece and nephew, even if it was just my wife and our two children I could go, but until there is a decision made on my mothers case for asylum here I am in Plain view.
As you may be aware my latest book has been released, according to my publisher (a new Irish company who have some cohunes) there have been thousands of orders for "the Black Hole" worldwide but virtually nothing from Ireland itself. It seems that even with regard to getting local bookshops to stock it the first question that they are being hit with is "is he Irish?"
The Irish media themselves are not too interested in anything that doesn't have an Irish slant unless of course you are a foreigner involved in crime, it doesn't matter if it's the newspapers, TV or radio, most of which are government owned or sponsored anyway, and hitherto most of the media that I have received has been for the most part unflattering.
I don't expect to be loved and accepted, I just want to live my quiet little life and get on with it but I am not to be allowed to do even this, in recent weeks an article was written about me which in itself was not bad, suddenly I had customs and excise, immigration and the special branch at the door, one day after another, why? Because they got the call.
On the upside, I recently received a call from someone purporting to be from the citizenship dept of the dept of Justice, the voice on the end of the line had all the right information my case file no. my personal details etc, I was slightly excited at the prospect that my case was being looked into until I heard the real reasons for the call, the caller was willing to push through my citizenship for the mere sum of 50,000 euros, I declined, I may desire an Irish passport but if I wanted to buy one there are some great fakes going on the local market thanks!
I contacted my solicitor and told him the story, his first reaction was one of dismay, he thought that that sort of thing had stopped.
I was later interviewed by a national newspaper; I told the reporter about the phone call, the reporter was interested if I had a "Name" as it would sound more credible if I had, no disrespect to me of course.
It's not like there hasn't been a passport scandal in Ireland before, oh and it's Christmas, Hello!
I write these articles not to be famous, I am already and not for reasons that I particularly like either, no matter what I do Peace missions etc it all still goes back to "Latif Yahia the ex-double of Uday Saddam Hussein" even in his death we are tied together.
Anyway, I write these articles to highlight what is going on, I know that there are other immigrants, asylum seekers out there, that have probably suffered more than I have, but they have no voice because they are afraid.
I however am not, having fought Saddam Hussein and his son a minister here or there really isn't too much of a challenge and if I end up in Guantanamo or something, well the word will get out there. Hence I write my articles for the internet the last vestiges of freedom and free speech left in the world.
Oh and by the way, there have been rendition flights through Shannon airport no matter what reassurances the American administration has given the Irish government.
How do I know? Well I happen to know one of the poor bastards who was on one of those flights, he was innocent, he was tortured and he was held on Irish soil for over 24hrs and yes I do have proof, as I have proof of everything that I say, I do have a PhD. In International Law...
Fortunately enough for both the Irish government and the American administration none of the Gardai stationed in Shannon airport have the wherewithal to inspect any of these flights, it is convenient to blame the Gardai when really the Irish government should make it their business to know who is on those flights not just to take anyone's assurances, that would be the sensible way to do things don't you think, unless of course you already knew what was going on and wanted to pretend that you didn't.
Death Squads 2003 Iraq
As Buddha sat under the tree pondering whether he should reveal the content of his enlightenment to the world, I sit at this computer debating whether or not I should give you all this next piece of Information.
I have tried to give this piece of information to the authorities but, as always, because I am not on their payroll and they don't like what I have to say, they ignore me and disparage my credibility.
The fact is that I don’t like this information any better that the next guy, but it's the truth and it's coming.
AL-Hakem in Iran 2002
Before I begin, I want you to understand something, yes I am called a Sunni, but my mother is Kurdish and my sister married a Shia, before the American invasion in 2003 we did not have segregation. I celebrated Christmas with my Christian friends, we would make Harisa (a Shia dish made around the time of the Ashur) for the Shia festivals and eat alongside them, and there was no problem. We all lived in symbiosis, each had a place and we all just got along. Yes Saddam Hussein was called a Sunni also, but do you really believe that every person in his government and army was Sunni also? There were Kurds, Shia, Christians in his government and he was an equal opportunities killer too, he cared little for your ethnicity, just for his chair.
Since 2003 in Iraq there are Death Squads, these groups of Iranian backed Shia militias have orders to kill all Sunni Arabs in Iraq, this in itself is horrific, but it is not just the slaughtering of innocent people that is happening. These Death Squads mutilate and desecrate the corpses of their victims, some are decapitated, others have their eyes gorged out, some are killed with power tools. Why the barbarity? It is the belief of these Shia that they must bring on the second coming, the Mehidi, that the more blood they spill the quicker the onset of the second coming will be.
So far the Sunnis that have been killed are Army Officers that served during the Iran/Iraq war, any educated people, doctors, engineers, teachers, professors or Judges.
To you and I this is an unbelievable ideology, but these people believe this is the only way as you and I believe the sky is blue and George Bush is an idiot.
Osama Bin Laden is renowned for being a fundamentalist Islamist but he pales in comparison to the Mehidi Militias. When I was in the Iran/ Iraq war I saw them first hand, we had heavy tanks and artillery, they had swords and their little blue keys to paradise, and they kept coming, and coming, and coming. Eight years we fought that war and millions of lives were lost, we were strong but they feared nothing and that made them nigh on invincible.
It is easy for us to sit back and look at these Mullahs and think that they are stupid or think only for their religion. These men think far in advance, while we are thinking about where we might go on holiday this year, they are thinking about how they might have to fund their army or militias in twenty years time.
In the '80's during the Iran/Iraq war, Iran sent out to the West refugees, not all of these refugees were that, in fact some of these so called refugees were actually Iranian Intelligence. They were given asylum here in the West and they lived quietly, working away and building their companies and businesses. They were given extra money by the Iranian government to buy buildings invest in the stock market etc. It is hard to estimate how much they have actually accumulated over the past twenty or so years, but certainly enough for their task ahead.
Iraqi's in general do not believe in suicide bombings, not that they don't believe in the reason behind it, just they wouldn't sacrifice themselves in that way, yes they might fight with guns at least they would have a 50/50 chance of survival, but to actually blow themselves up? No. The Iranians do.
In the past six months these Death Squads have been filtering out of Iraq through Iran with the help of the Iranian government. Why? For several reasons, they have enemies in the West that they would like exterminated, people who have in the past done or said something about the Iranian Mullahs or government. Members of the Iranian opposition, journalists that have done stories that may have put Iran in a bad light, the reasons vary but the list is there and there are over a hundred names on it.
They come to the west and apply for asylum as Iraqi Sunnis, once they have been granted asylum they start their search for the names on the list, so far these Death Squads have reached Jordan, Egypt, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Oman, Yemen and Syria in the middle-East. In the West they are in the USA, Canada, Australia, Austria, UK, France, Sweden, Norway, Germany, Ireland and Cyprus.
I do not wish to cause a panic; these murderers are not here for you or your family, unless you're on the list. What is frightening is the bigger picture; Iran at this moment in time is pumping money into every Shia enclave around the world making them more powerful, why? To bring the Persian Empire back to the world. As odd as it may sound they have not forgotten or forgiven those involved in the fall of the Persian Empire and they want revenge no matter how long it may take. When the time comes they will liquefy their assets here in the west, and enable their suicide bombers and then we will know the truth of their power in the world.
At this moment in time Iran has the Jaish Al- Quds ( the Army of Jerusalem) it is 1 million strong, within it there is The Martyrs Brigade, they are 120,000 and 50% of them are here in the West they speak Arabic fluently with an Iraqi accent and have claimed asylum as Iraqi Sunnis.
The purpose of this Army is to remove Israel from the map and to return Jerusalem and the Holy land to the Muslims.
At this time it may look like America is sounding it's war drums against Iran, this is nothing but smoke and mirrors to continue the "war on Terror", America will not hit Iran at least not in the near future, they have business together albeit under the table. Like 9/11 and the Madrid bombings our governments knew of the threat but decided to ignore the warnings or to do anything about it, I am issuing you the warning so that you know.
In Iraq it is not in America's interest to try to change anything, I will give you an example, before the Invasion in 2003 there was an Iranian called Bayan jabr Solach he called himself Iraqi opposition and sat in Syria for 25 years. He was a member of the Iranian backed Al- Dahwa party, when the Americans invaded he put himself forward as advisor to Al-Badr for his militia, the Americans gave him an Iraqi name Bayan Al-Zubaidi and made him Minister of homeland security. He then proceeded to kick out all of the Sunnis in his Ministry and replace them with people from the Al-Badr militia; he also employed 1,500 Al-Badr devotees in the Iraqi police force, giving them all high ranking positions.
Bayan jabr Solach 2005 in Iraq
Each Iraqi official has two American advisors that are constantly by their side, when Al-Zubaidi formed his death squads these American Advisors took the news to the American government, the Foreign Minister, the CIA and the Pentagon, they believed that Al-Zubaidi would be removed from the Iraqi Interim government, unfortunately they were told it was none of their business and were removed from their positions. Their names are; Mark Karm and the other Rick Clay, they were rewarded for their honesty and honour by being suspended from their jobs and recalled to America.
After the Elections in Iraq AL-Zubaidi was made finance Minister and repeated the process of ethnically cleansing the Sunnis from his new Ministry. In addition he opened the 10th floor of his Ministry as a place of torture and murder.
He also completely forgot his 25 years in Syria and now condemns the Syrians for letting the "terrorists" through their borders.
On a different note he also holds both British and American citizenship.
To be continued…
Made by CIA 100% Al-qaeda was a double edged sword for the American administration, it firstly drew out any anti-American activists by giving them a sense of belonging, belonging to a group or cell of like minded people, people controlled by the administration, it also gave the administration the freedom to raise the fear levels in the population to fever pitch so that their war machine could to go to work, for if America cannot sell it’s arms, the major corporations cease to exist and therefore so does The United States itself.
In the run up to the next Presidential Election we see Presidential hopefuls vie for the chance to represent their parties, but what we don’t see or sometimes don’t understand is that no matter what candidate actually makes it to the Whitehouse the foreign policy will never change radically, the Faces change but the policies stay the same.
America has been at war with one country or another for 52 years, when it enters a country it never fully leaves, it always keeps a foothold.
1945-1946 China
1950-1953 Korea/China
1954- Guatemala
1958 Indonesia
1959-1961 Cuba
1960 Guatemala
1964 Congo
1965 Peru
1964-1973 Laos
1961-1973 Vietnam
1969-1970 Cambodia
1967-1969 Guatemala
1983 Grenada
1983-1994 Lebanon
1980s El Salvador
1980s Nicaragua
1986 Libya
1987 Iran
1989 Panama
1991 Iraq
1993 Somalia
1998 Sudan
1998 Afghanistan
1999 Yugoslavia
2001-? Afghanistan
2003-? Iraq
It may be argued that as the last remaining superpower America has the responsibility to intervene in situations that occur in the world or help when asked by Sovereign Nations, but what we have seen in the recent past is that the American Administration has ignored the UN and done it’s own thing, what is there to stop the American administration from doing anything that it chooses? Who can stand up to them?
In recent times the world has come to know the horror that is extraordinary rendition, we have learned about covert CIA prisons around the world, for me it was old news, in 1994 when I had fled from Iraq and was living in Austria, I was approached by the CIA, they wanted me to work for them to spy on my fellow countrymen, I was against the Iraqi regime but I had no intention of putting my fellow Iraqis in any more harm than they were already in. I refused to work for them and found myself in a six foot by five foot cell in solitary confinement in a Covert CIA prison in Austria a democratic country or supposedly so. Ten and a half months I spent in that cell with no contact from the outside world, I was badly tortured not for information but because I wouldn’t succumb, eventually I was released, it was a break in the chain of command, a new prison officer had been put on my floor but had not been given the instruction that no-one was to know that I was there, he inadvertently let a visiting Judge into my cell and my release was sealed then and there, the Judge could find no record of me, my supposed crime or length of detainment and on foot of this he ordered my release immediately. He was so concerned that I leave the prison that he brought me to Vienna himself in search of my family.
When my two books “I was Saddam’s Son” and “The Devil’s Double” were released they were used as propaganda for the American administration, I had written them to make the world aware of the situation in Iraq, not to be used as an excuse to invade, occupy and make life even tougher than it had already been for the Iraqis, you may argue that Iraq now has a democratically elected government, but at what human cost 1.4 million Iraqis have died,5 million are displaced inside and outside Iraq something that never happened during Saddam Hussein’s 35 year dictatorship , five years along Iraqis still have no proper sanitation, electricity is sporadic and unemployment is high, the New government lives in “The Green zone” and is terrified to leave it for fear of asasination attempts, billions of dollars have been stolen by former Ministers in the Interim government and Iraqi gangs. Kidnapping and extortion is the new commerce, daily, civilians are killed by roadside/suicide bombs and militias rule the streets, Whole areas are walled in with special identity cards maybe they should be made to wear yellow crescents?
Will the American army ever leave Iraq? well 50+ years after WW II they still haven’t fully left Germany or Japan.
To prepare for the future we must learn from the past, so why is it we keep repeating it?
In November 2006 I released my last book “The Black Hole” it recounted my experiences in Europe since fleeing Iraq, most people think that since I left Iraq my life has been a bed of Roses,I have several European citizenships under my belt and I am a multi-millionaire. If it were so I would indeed be a happy man, but unfortunately it is not. Having lived in Europe for the past 17 years 11 of which I have spent in Ireland, I am still stateless, the CIA have made many promises to me, namely that if I do not co-operate I will spend the rest of my life without a country, they have kept this promise. I am happily married to an Irish woman we have Irish children and I am on my third application for Naturalization as an Irish citizen. I am not a multi-millionaire and my royalties from “The Black Hole” go to charity, unfortunately the charity is not doing as well as it could because my book has been banned in Ireland and America, you will not find it in any bookshop, fortunately for me there are virtual bookshops like Amazon or my publisher’s website www.arcanum-publishing.com where it is available.
Is it not surprising to you that this book should be blacked out in this way, if I had continued to write against Iraq or Saddam I guarantee it would be in every major bookshop on the bestseller shelf like the first two, but because it goes against the “agenda” and talks openly about my experiences in Democratic European countries with the CIA and how they have and still are affecting my life, it is on the banned list.
I do not write about myself because I feel important or that I am some sort of celebrity, I write about my life because the world needs to know what can happen to an ordinary person in an extraordinary situation.
In recent times I have had emails, websites, blogs, youtube etc all closed and deleted without warning or explanation, I had nothing of a terrorist or violent nature on these sites and yet someone somewhere saw fit to shut me down, how is it that Al-Qaeda can have it’s own website showing people being beheaded, murdered etc and not be shut down if it is not affiliated to some power or government, how is it that we hear nothing from Bin Laden until the day before an election or some poll/bill that GW Bush needs to win and lo and Behold there he is threatening this that or the other, I put it to you that Bin Laden doesn’t live in some cave in the Tora Bora mountains he lives two doors down on Pennsylvania Ave so his buddy GW can get him to the studios everytime his ratings plummet.
On the day that G W Bush once again refused to sign into policy that the CIA cannot use torture as a method of information gathering, I say to you that that is all they know. In my life I have met many Intelligence agencies and in my opinion the CIA are the most inexperienced and unintelligent of them all.
Best regards to you all and work for Peace!
Latif Yahia.
Warning to the American people,
{( Mama America )}
Daddy Bush watching the world
"We Love Iraq" Mr. Rumsfeld meets Saddam in 1983
The Family Made by the CIAWhen the world had two Super-powers, America was only too happy to keep Bin Laden on their books, he was their boy as long as he kept fighting the Soviets in Afghanistan. So he did and eventually he won, so why then should he turn against his partner in victory? Another American trainee was Saddam Hussein, again when it was deemed that the then Socialist President of Iraq was somehow a threat to Capitalism, Saddam was trained, armed and supported by America to remove this Socialist threat. Now there is no Socialist threat, the last bastion of Communism is on America's doorstep, Cuba; it is only a matter of time. There is no need to take Cuba by force, Mr. Castro is ageing and the clock is ticking until the gate is open and America will just walk in. This is the "New Empire", each civilisation has had their time in the spotlight and Mr. Bush is gonna make "darn sure" that this is his. Since the conception of America four hundred or so years ago it has needed an adversary. It began with the Native Americans whose presence on their own land was not to be tolerated and still to this day are quarantined on reservations. The next foe to America was Britain, (they have since made up and become rather good friends) and as the British Empire began America refused to be a part of it, after all, they had just fled Europe hadn't they? The Soviet Union was to be America's greatest Nemesis, it went against everything that America stood for and there was no room in this world for two "Super-powers". America fought against it any and everyway that it could, it created Bin Laden, Saddam Hussein and Mubarak to overthrow their communist leaders in the middle-east and the world was theirs. But now there is no adversary. Or is there? Islam is the new threat to the American way, after all it has communist principles doesn't it? Communal funds, interest free banking, the ideas of shared wealth and that high consumerism is bad for us, not just spiritually but environmentally. In the world of Islam the credo of Richard Greco "greed is good" does not stand. Islam is not perfect but it is the last belief system to have a strong and numerous following and is therefore dangerous. America needs business, capitalism is the life blood of the country. Americans are the highest consumers in the world, but they need us to consume too. We are needed to consume their products; we are invited to indulge in their way of life because there is none better. Buy more than you need, eat more than you hunger for, everything is an excess and it must stay that way because if we don't buy, their economy won't survive. But they also need war and conflict because even though we may buy their cars and their clothes and buy into the lifestyle, the big money is in weapons. Without conflict there is no market for weaponry, no testing ground for new ideas, tanks, and bombs. A famous example of this is during the Iran/Iraq war, America was selling Iran the weaponry and selling Iraq the satellite intelligence on where it was being transported to and stored by the Iranians. Today the Iraqi Army is reformed with American training, weaponry and uniforms; the same applies to the police force. Iraq is paid approximately six dollars a barrel for it's oil, which is shipped to the oil refineries in America, processed and sold back to Iraq at $60 a barrel. This is democracy? It is if the Iraqi government are in agreement. A government for the people, elected by the people. Well some of the people anyway. The "New Government" has managed to sequester more money in their short term than Saddam did during his thirty-five years reign. Saddam may have been a dictator, but each morning Iraq woke with a purpose, each had their job, their business and money in their pockets. Now there are no jobs, no prospects unless you want to work for America. Water is limited and electricity is available to your home for one hour each day. Saddam may have been a tyrant but to most of the Iraqi people now he is a prophet. As America and Britain celebrate a job well done in Iraq, bringing democracy to the Iraqi people wasn't easy. The New Government attend to the matters at hand, how to carve Iraq up; the two main proponents of this course of action are of course the Shia and the Kurds. The logic behind their move is that as both factions have oil in their perceived territories, that they should form federal republics one to the North in what they would hope to one day call "Kurdistan" and the other in the South, suggestions for the new name for this area are varied but all have a common theme, "Islamic Federal Republic of the South of Iraq". Another common theme in this lunacy is that both factions are only too willing to leave Central Iraq barren; there are no common economic policies, no shared governmental funds, and no Central government. It is a free for all, lands grab and all the oil and power that goes with it. The message from Messrs. Bush and Blair is coming loud and clear whether it has been delivered blatantly or subliminally, if you are not white, Christian or western return to your country of origin because it is not safe for you here in the west. Even as I am writing this new plans are being made to revoke the naturalisation/citizenship of British people who have been given a gift of citizenship by the Queen. The argument for the revocation is that when the Queen granted the citizenship she was unaware that they were or would be a threat to Britain and that the revokee's were in fact disrespectful to the Queen. Many of these people are facing death sentences in their country of Origin which was why they fled in the first instance. To return them is actually an act against Human Rights. When you read something about people being issued with death sentences, if you are not middle-eastern or have no experience of the regimes, whether they are kingdoms or republics, it is shocking.
To the Western person to receive a death sentence you must have committed a heinous crime and have been judged by a jury of your peers. This is not necessarily the case in the middle-east, yes there are the murderers, the rapist's etc but also to speak out against the King or the President or a member of government, even local government, can land you with a death sentence. What makes one Dictator different from another? Well, business. Business is the difference between being dragged kicking and screaming into the UN for offences against Human Rights and not. I am not inferring that all countries violate human rights, some have excellent records but there are countries that openly flout their contempt for their citizens or ethnic minorities that nothing is said about and why? Business. I am not talking about corner shops here; I am talking about big mutli-million if not billion dollar business. When countries are involved in big business it doesn't really matter what they are doing behind closed doors, torture, extreme poverty etc. While the business is going on nothing will be said and things can continue as they are, everyone concerned is aware of what is happening, they just choose to ignore it and if questioned on the subject will deny any knowledge. This happens time and time again. Anyone who can speak openly from Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Kuwait can tell you that this is the situation in their countries, but not many are able to speak freely. Although America and Britain would have you believe that nothing of the sort goes on in these countries, that Saddam in Iraq was the only one, it is not true. As I described earlier when you do business you are a friend and are not held accountable. Further proof of this is the situation of the Kurdish peoples, for many years America, Israel and Britain supported the Iraqi Kurdish in their fight against Saddam Hussein but on the other side of the Iraqi Border with Turkey are 17.5 million Kurdish. These Turkish Kurdish are denied any and all rights to their heritage, language and culture. To acknowledge ones Kurdish origins in Turkey is illegal, many have been imprisoned without trial or hearing, tortured and murdered. 
{( New Iraq )}The "Liberation" Dinar an hommage to Mr. Bush
I Never give up !
Latif Yahia
This latest book was quite a trial for me, with the other two I suppose I had backing from the biggest Publishers in the world because the books supported the official Western line on Saddam. The Black Hole however left me struggling to find a publisher because it shone a searchlight on CIA practices in Europe, my treatment in the West has in part been worse than my treatment in Iraq. To some my story might seem fantastical, a figment of my imagination, to those people I say that truth is often stranger than fiction and the truth of my life is among the strangest. In a world where we strive for truth and freedom of speech, it still amazes me how those who try to speak the truth are shot down, ridiculed and derided, I am not the only person trying to speak out there are many, many more and always when they are filmed peacefully protesting or gathering support they are portrayed as "hippies" "liberals" "tree huggers" anything that deflates their cause and questions their intelligence. As I wrote and spoke out against Saddam Hussein and his regime in Iraq, I have and will write and speak out against the same system here in the west, it is not because I escaped one Dictator that I can sit back and let another rule me. I have heard the rhetoric, "oh, but you are free now, you should be thankful" yes I am thankful to be out but not thankful to be brought to another corrupt system. Yes there are varying degrees of dictatorship and the ones here in the west may not have reached the heights of murderousness that Saddam did, (well at least not on their home soil) but is that enough reason for us to put our heads down and pretend that nothing is wrong? A government is supposed to represent the people, a government is employed by the people, a government is supposed to be elected by the people (although in recent years one has to wonder) so why is it that when a government isn't doing the job that we put them in power to do, we don't do or say anything? There is a prevailing lethargy, a belief that their term will be over soon enough and they'll be out so we don't have to do anything about it. Yes, but then we elect a new batch and although the faces change the policies and strategy stay the same, (it worked for the last lot why wouldn't it work for them?) and why? Because we as the people, their employers and their electors, didn't make it clear to them what we were and were not going to accept. I have heard it said that we get the government we deserve, well that maybe very true, did Iraq deserve Saddam? Does Zimbabwe deserve Mugabe? Does the great Nation of America deserve Bush? You may argue that Saddam and Mugabe weren't elected, but initially they were, can we also positively say that about Bush? Does it not seem farcical that a President whose own election was dubious should go around the world overthrowing those that he deems undemocratic? Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely, you don't need to have read George Orwell's 1984 to see that his novel was prophetic, the constant state of war against an ever changing mysterious enemy, "Big Brother" the phrase Orwell himself coined is an everyday term for the eyes and ears that constantly watch over us, we are aware but for some reason buy into the idea that it's all for our own good, ask yourself a question, there is no right or wrong answer, just your own perception. Is there less Terrorism in the world now, even though we have CCTV, Patriot laws, Guantanamo bay and stricter airport controls? At what point did you notice your world change? Who benefits from confusion? What is foreign policy and who makes really it?
