Rumsfeld Accuses Iran of Helping Al Qaeda, Taliban Flee

Reuters via Washington Post ^ | February 3, 2002 | Reuters

[l33t]

WASHINGTON,

[Timesink]

Iran is next, not Iraq.

[usconservative]

Phillipenes (going on now)
Then Somalia
Then Iran
Then Iraq

Go get 'em Rummy!!!

[Lent]

Looks like the squeeze is on. I wonder if the assertions against Iran are because of reliable intelligence sources in Iran that the pro-West and moderate forces are prepared for revolution with American backing?

[veronica]

Bump.

[callisto]

It certainly would make for an additional reason to go after them.

[flanew]

More interesting is the Wolf's comment to Nato all coming when the meeting of Saudi's in Wash.

[Dog]

Iran will fall fron internal pressure they have a real problem with the younger crowd...I think I read half the pop. is under 25..

They have been having riots..

We might help it along!

[Southack]

The Persian pucker factor just pitched up a bit, I would guess!

[lexington minuteman 1775]

I saw Charlie Wrangel on FOX and he was going on with the idea that the President was unclear what he meant by the "evil axis of power " in Iran, Iraq, and North Korea. Rangel implied that the only reason the President wanted to go after these guys was to keep folks mind off of deficit spending. I almost came unglued.

I assume that in most cases if you asked a Secretary of Defense the question that was asked today he would say he cannot comment on that at this time. This tells me the intellegiece supporting the fact that Iran is involved is very substantial and that Iran is definitely on our target list.Its probably a way of preparing the American people by providing evidence in each country or group we go after as to the WHY we are doing it.

The one question I have not heard broached by any of the reporters is the report that Al Queda has been negotiating with radical militants in Lebanon about moving thier operations there.If that is true it should make the Middle East a very interesting place over the next few months.

[blam]

They held American citizens hostage for 444 days. I'm still pissed enough to fight about that.

[arm958]

It certainly would make for an additional reason to go after them.

...and the Iranians can't complain that they weren't warned well in advance. I recall President Bush stating back in September that those who harbor terrorists......

[Wolfstar]

My gut instinct tells me bin Laden and Mullah Omar fled west into Iran, not east into Pakistan. I have no facts to support this gut sense. But I think it's more than a reasonable possibility. For example, how did that disabled Saudi cleric get into Afghanistan to meet with bin Laden?

In that famous video of the two speaking, the cleric did mention the smugglers who got him into Afghanistan to see bin Laden. In fact, the two were laughing about it.

It would have been much harder and a much longer trip to go by sea, past the U.S. Navy, then overland through southern Pakistan into Afghanistan, past our surveillance (and whatever surveillance the Pakistanis might have had). Much quicker and easier to go from Saudi Arabia to Iran, maybe by air, and then overland into the western part of Afghanistan (where Iran has influence). That could have been the same route bin Laden and Omar took out of Afghanistan. Heck, maybe smuggling that cleric in was a way of clearing/testing the way out for bin Laden and Omar. We never did learn why that disabled cleric took such a risk, but surely it was not just to get himself videotaped with bin Laden.

[Bernard Marx]

They held American citizens hostage for 444 days. I'm still pissed enough to fight about that.

Me too. They're just as evil as Iraq, maybe more so, but they know how to keep their mouths shut. I'd bet even money they already have nukes.

[mitchbert]

I hadn't seriously thought of this before, but having a friendly Iran, shod of it's extremist Mullahs and thankful for whatever role America played helping that happen, would make for a different and potentially interesting pre-Iraq phase atmosphere. Don't ya think?

[spycatcher]

Good discussion here on Lebanon/Syria being the next target

[Southack]

NATO is almost irrelevent. The Euro's have managed to let their militaries regress down below Cold War standards, while the U.S. military has moved into the 21st Century with previously unimagined power. Plus, the European economies are ailing. Taken in sum, they don't have enough power to be a major world power away from their borders any longer.

[Thud]

If the government of Iran, or its nutball factions, are providing state support to Al Qaeda, then Iran has shot up to No. 1 on our next list.

The one absolutely fatal thing a government can do is help Al Qaeda attack us.