A couple of interesting new items at MEMRI today; first a statement in London-based Arabic-language daily Al-Quds Al-Arabi by a senior Iraqi official, threatening to use weapons of mass destruction if Iraq is attacked. You know, those weapons they don’t have.

“A senior Iraqi official who refused to reveal his name said that the Iraqi regime would defend its existence and its reputation. The Iraqi official said unequivocally: ‘When the regime was under intense attack in Al-Fau and began to be under threat, it did not hesitate to use all the weapons of mass destruction in its possession. Similarly, when the people of Halabja, or some of them, became guides for the Iranian forces that tried to breach the northeast [front], the regime did not hesitate to use chemical weapons.’ Therefore, ‘do not expect us to stand idly by in the face of any aggression that seeks to destroy and banish us not only from the regime but also from life.’”

Also, a Saudi-owned London Arabic daily interviews Osama Basnan, the man who may have acted as a go-between in money transfers to two of the 9/11 hijackers. Unsurprisingly, he denies everything.

Question: “News reports speak of financial support from you and Al-Bayyumi to two of the 9/11 perpetrators. Did you follow these reports?”

Basnan: “What was reported in the press is false and unfounded. It is a distortion of facts. It is regrettable that such false accusations are published to add to the mental and psychological torture that I and my family were subjected to for 12 weeks in prison. I should point out that the immigration and security authorities would not have released me if there were any doubt about my wife’s and my relations with the accusations that followed. I consider the accusations and the articles to be part of the continuing campaign of distortions by American groups who oppose Muslims and Arabs in general, and Saudi Arabia as an idea, [its] culture, and religion, in particular.”

I wonder which American groups he’s talking about?