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| Iraq |
| No. 49 - Chief Iraqi liaison with U.N. weapons inspectors captured |
| 2003-04-27 |
| Lt. Gen. Hossam Mohammed Amin, chief Iraqi liaison with U.N. weapons inspectors, is in custody, the U.S. Central Command announced Sunday. Amin, the former Iraqi National Monitoring Director, was No. 49 on the U.S. list of the 55 most wanted figures from the regime of Saddam Hussein. Think he'll have any info on moles in the U.N. team? Me too. They had advance warning on too many inspections. How's that sphincter Hans? kinda tight? Amin, also known as Hossem Mohammed Amin al-Yasin, was the six of clubs on the U.S. deck of cards listing the most wanted figures. For more than a decade as head of the monitoring commission, the former air force communications engineer has earned a reputation as a loyal officer who has fulfilled Saddam's expectations. I guesss so — they didn't find squat, did they? Amin and his troops refused to allow U.N. inspectors into presidential palaces and other "sensitive sites" during the first round of U.N. inspections that ended in 1998. He was also one of the few Iraqis authorized to comment on weapons of mass destruction. Nope, Nein, None Like most of Saddam's most trusted lieutenants, he is from a prominent Sunni Muslim family from northern Iraq, in Mosul. Early in his career, he was assigned to different air bases and radar installations. His career took off when Saddam established the military's Technical and Scientific Committee, a weapons research and development think tank, in 1980. Others on the committee included Gen. Amer Rashid, Iraq's minister of oil, and Amir al-Saadi, Saddam's senior weapons adviser who is also in US custody. The committee was later expanded into the Military Industrialization Organization which produced all of Iraq's most lethal weapons. Amin was also believed close to Saddam's son Qusai, who was the commander of the Republican Guard, and Saddam's personal secretary, Gen. Abd el Hmoud. Amin was also believed to have been among the Iraqi officials the Baghdad government claimed were encouraged by U.S. intelligence agents to defect last year. Iraq claimed the attempt was made when an Iraqi delegation traveled to Vienna, Austria, last year to discuss the resumption of weapons inspections with U.N. officials. |
| Posted by:Frank G |