On April 13, 2004, Jordanian security forces foiled an al-Qaeda plot against the nation’s intelligence agency. The plot, reported on April 26 by Agence France-Presse (AFP), involved a plan to use trucks packed with 20 tons of chemical explosives, including blistering agents, nerve gas and choking agents. Jordanian officials estimated that had the attack been successful, the amount of chemicals involved had the potential of killing up to 80,000 people.
Six members of the terror network which planned to execute the plot were arrested and four others were killed in a series of raids in Jordan which concluded on April 20. The ringleader of the terror network was a Jordanian, Azmi al-Jayussi. Jayussi had been recruited for the operation in Iraq by al-Qaeda leader Abu Massab al-Zarqawi. Zarqawi was identified by Jordanian officials as the mastermind of chemical weapons plot.
According to a Jordanian security official interviewed by AFP, “Jayussi started to plan for the operation in Iraq where he had moved to from Afghanistan. He received direct orders from his leader, Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi, to whom Jayussi had pledged allegiance and absolute obedience since he met him in al-Qaeda camps in Afghanistan.”
In a taped statement, Jayussi related how his first encounter with Zarqawi had been in Herat, Afghanistan, and how he later connected up with him again in Saddam’s Iraq. He stated that it was Zarqawi who had trained him in the use of “explosives and strong poisons.” Excerpts of Jayussi’s taped statement, which were aired on ABC’s “Nightline” on April 26, 2004, revealed that the planning and training for the WMD plot took place in Iraq more than a year before the US-led coalition invasion.
In Iraq, Zarqawi introduced Jayussi to another of his Jordanian followers, Muwafaq Adwan. Muwafaq was killed in a shootout with Jordanian police in Amman on April 20. Jayussi told Jordanian security officials that Zarqawi had ordered Muwafaq and him to Jordan where “[o]ur mission was to instigate military work” in the country.
In Jordan, Jayussi was aided by several Syrians under Zarqawi’s direction. The aim of their operation was to attack Jordan and its ruling family as part of a “war against crusaders and infidels.”
Anti-terror experts said that the network’s 20 tons of explosives would have caused “two explosions: a traditional one and a chemical in an area of two square kilometers.”
“The chemical explosion would lead to the emission of poisonous chemical gasses which would have caused physical deformities and direct injuries to the lungs and eyesight,” said one of the experts on a Jordanian news program. “Outside this circle, the human loss would amount to around 80,000 people dead and 160,000 injured.”
To fund the operation, Jayussi said that he received the equivalent of $170,000 (US) in installments from Zarqawi, sent through messengers, most of them from Syria.
Another arrested suspect, Ahmed Samir, told Jordanian security that he had been trained in Iraq by a Zarqawi aide and worked on explosives for two months in a factory in Ramtha, near the Jordanian-Syrian border.
News of this foiled plot should have provided conclusive proof that what President Bush feared, and which justified the effort to take Saddam down, was real – that Saddam allowed the operation of terrorist groups, especially al-Qaeda, within Iraq, and that terrorists trained in Iraq and supplied with a significant quality of WMD materials from Iraq, could have international reach. News of this foiled terrorist plot to use WMDs in a spectacular attack in Jordan received scant attention in the US media. While ABC’s “Nightline” carried the story, and similar stories appeared in articles published in the New York Post and the Wall Street Journal, the American news media did not give this news the significant level of attention it deserved. The news media’s mantra is that the failure to find stockpiles of WMDs in Iraq is a scandal that rests on the head of George W. Bush. “Bush lied!” The real scandal here is the failure or refusal of the American news media to report and pursue events which give credence and justification to President Bush’s policies in Iraq.
This is about getting Democrats elected in 2006 and the same idiots running for President in 2008...
Sen. John Kerry (who wants to try again) said in a speech on Oct. 26: "The country and the Congress were misled into war. I regret that we were not given the truth... knowing what we know now, I would not have gone to war in Iraq." Hence, Tom Daschle (the deposed Senate Democratic leader, who is weighing a campaign) said in a speech Wednesday that senators voted incorrectly because "on so many fronts, we were misled."
At least four other Democratic senators who voted to authorize war have use the dupe argument in recent days, including Christopher Dodd of Connecticut (who periodically voices White House ambitions) and Tom Harkin of Iowa (who now calls his war support "one of the biggest voting mistakes of my career"). And once having confessed, these Democrats believe they have sufficient credibility to call for the phased withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq.
But not all the prominent Democrats who voted with Bush have embraced the dupe message. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton - who continues to exasperate the liberal base - hasn't renounced her vote; when asked about it the other day by NPR, she dodged: "I can't talk about this on the fly; it's too important." Sen. Evan Bayh, another presidential hopeful, hasn't renounced. Former Sen. John Edwards, another prospective candidate, hasn't renounced. Sen. Joe Biden hasn't, either.
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Charlie Cook, a Washington analyst who runs the nonpartisan Cook Political Report, said Friday: "If Democrats want to argue that the administration misrepresented and distorted the prewar intelligence, OK, that's one thing. But if they push the argument that they have been duped, fooled and victimized - well, to a lot of [independent swing] voters, they're just going to come across as weak."
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David Sirota, a liberal antiwar activist and organizer
Sirota said Thursday: "Obviously, the [dupe] message needs to be played properly. But most Americans already believe that Bush misled the country" - polls support his contention - "so it makes perfect sense for Democrats to say they too were misled... . They followed tradition and gave the benefit of the doubt to a president on a national security issue, and they were lied to. That doesn't mean they were stupid. They were being patriotic.
"And rather than just apologize for being misled, Democrats need a message of outrage. Make the argument that this administration deliberately manipulated the intelligence."
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And the dupe message may be only as good as the individual messenger. Kerry, in his Oct. 26 speech, declared that "as I said more than a year ago," he would not have voted for the war if he had known about "the Bush administration's duplicity." Yet, on Aug. 9, 2004, he said he would have still voted to authorize Bush even if he had known in advance that no mass weaponry would be found. Those statements don't necessarily contradict each other, but a fresh round of Kerry nuances may not boost his fortunes.
Clearly, gaining traction on Iraq is a Democratic imperative. Bush may be tanking in the polls, but Democrats have barely moved the needle their way. In the words of party pollster Stan Greenberg, summarizing his late-October numbers, "Democrats have not made noticeable gains on thinking long-term... knowing what they stand for, or being trusted to keep America safe."
As for the 2008 race, Charlie Cook suggests a way for Democrats to dump the dupe message entirely: "By 2008, there will be a tremendous constituency for a candidate who can argue clearly that the war was always a mistake. Forget all the senators. The answer for Democrats is to nominate a governor, somebody who never had to vote at all on the damn war."
Wow- I thought I had read everything related to this war. You found one that I had not read. Thanks for the info.
But it's only people like us who use this information! This is what sucks and makes me so mad. This war is beyond legit and it's made to look like a scandal.