other-side-of-deception-victor-ostrovsky

THE OTHER SIDE OF DECEPTIOS / 251be open at that point, and there would be several tiers of high explosivesinside the bunker leading to the main storage area.This operation was as close to a suicide mission as the Israeli militarywould ever come. The main escape route, which was back downriver,was secure as long as the Iraqi security apparatus believed thatthe explosion was an accident. Later, they might realize it was not, butby then the unit would be in the clear. The Israeli soldiers, who wereall volunteers, were advised that there was no backup and, effectively,no possibility of rescue should they be caught.The operation was quite successful, and the explosion generatedthe sort of publicity the Mossad was hoping for in attracting attentionto Saddam's constant efforts at building a gigantic and powerful militaryarsenal. The Mossad shared its "findings" with the Western intelligenceagencies and leaked the story of the explosion to the press,putting the number of casualties resulting from it in the hundreds.Since this was a guarded facility, Western reporters had minimalaccess to it. However, at the beginning of September, the Iraqis wereinviting Western media people to visit Iraq and see the rebuilding thathad taken place after the war, and the Mossad saw an opportunity toconduct a damage assessment. A man calling himself Michel Rubiyer,saying he was working for the French newspaper Le Figaro,approached Farzad Bazoft, a thirty-one-year-old reporter freelancingfor the British newspaper the Observer. Rubiyer was, in fact, MichelM., an Israeli with whom I'd trained. Michel, who'd once lived inFrance, had moved to Israel and joined the IDF, to be posted in SIG-INT~ Unit 8200. Using his connections in the intelligence community,he was recruited to the Mossad and finally landed a job in the Parisstation.Michel told Farzad Bazoft that he would pay him handsomely andprint his story if he'd join a group of journalists heading for Baghdad.The reason he gave for not going himself was that he'd been blacklistedin Iraq. He stressed that he was after a story that would be verybig. He pointed out that Bazoft could use the money and the break,especially with his criminal background. Michel told the stunnedreporter that he knew of his arrest in 1981 for armed robbery inNorthampton, England. Along with this implied threat, he promisedBazoft that he'd be able to publish the story in the Observer as well.Michel wanted Bazoft to collect information regarding the explosionin Al-Iskandariah, ask questions about it, get sketches of the area,2. SIGINT: Signal Intelligenceand collect earth samples. He told the worried reporter that Saddamwould not dare harm a reporter even if he was unhappy with him. Theworst that Saddam would do was kick him out of the country, whichwould in itself make him famous."Whv this oarticular reoorter?" I asked."He was of Iranian background, which would make punishinghim much easier for the Iraqis, and he wasn't a European whomthey'd probably only hold and then kick out." In fact, Bazoft had beenidentified in a Mossad search that was triggered by his prying intoanother Mossad case in search of a story. Bazoft had attempted togather information on an ex-Mossad asset by the name of Dr. CyrusHashemi, who was eliminated by Mossad in July 1986. Since Bazofthad already stumbled on too much information for his own good-orthe Mossad's, for that matter-he was the perfect candidate for thisjob of snooping in forbidden areas.Uri went on to tell of how Bazoft made his way to the location ashe was asked, and, as might be expected, was arrested. Tragically, hisBritish girlfriend, a nurse working in a Baghdad hospital, was arrestedas well.Within a few days of the arrest, a Mossad liaison in the UnitedStates called the Iraqi representative in Holland and said thatJerusalem was willing to make a deal for the release of their manwho'd been caotured. The liaison also said that the deal was onlv forthe man, since Israel had nothing to do with the nurse. The Iraqi representativeasked for time to contact Baghdad, and the liaison calledagain the following day, at which point he told the Iraqi representativeit was all a big mistake and severed contact. Now the Iraqis had nodoubt that they had a real spy on their hands, and they were going tosee him hang. All the Mossad had to do was sit back and watch as"Saddam proved to the world what a monster he really was.On March 15, 1990, Farzad Bazoft, who'd been held in the AbuGhraib prison some twenty kilometers west of Baghdad, met brieflywith the British ambassador to Iraq. A few minutes after the meeting,he was hanged. His British girlfriend was sentenced to fifteen years inprison. His body was delivered to the British embassy in Baghdad, andthe official spokesman noted that Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher"wanted him alive and we have just delivered his dead body to her.". The world was shocked, but the Mossad was not done yet. To fanthe flames generated by this brutal hanging, a Mossad sayan in NewYork delivered a set of documents to ABC television with a story froma reliable Middle Eastern source telling of a plant Saddam had for themanufacturing of uranium. The information was convincing, and the