Story of the year? What happened?
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Kerry Spot [ jim geraghty reporting ]
DOES CNSNEWS.COM HAVE THE STORY OF THE YEAR?
CNS News is a nice little right-of-center web-based wire service operating in Alexandria, Virginia. They seem like pretty solid reporters, and not likely to bite on, say, memos that are supposed to be from an Air National Guard office from 1972 that were created on Microsoft Word.
So it's kind of surprising to see this report:
Iraqi intelligence documents, confiscated by U.S. forces and obtained by CNSNews.com, show numerous efforts by Saddam Hussein's regime to work with some of the world's most notorious terror organizations, including al Qaeda, to target Americans. They demonstrate that Saddam's government possessed mustard gas and anthrax, both considered weapons of mass destruction, in the summer of 2000, during the period in which United Nations weapons inspectors were not present in Iraq. And the papers show that Iraq trained dozens of terrorists inside its borders.
One of the Iraqi memos contains an order from Saddam for his intelligence service to support terrorist attacks against Americans in Somalia. The memo was written nine months before U.S. Army Rangers were ambushed in Mogadishu by forces loyal to a warlord with alleged ties to al Qaeda.
Other memos provide a list of terrorist groups with whom Iraq had relationships and considered available for terror operations against the United States.
Among the organizations mentioned are those affiliated with Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and Ayman al-Zawahiri, two of the world's most wanted terrorists. Zarqawi is believed responsible for the kidnapping and beheading of several American civilians in Iraq and claimed responsibility for a series of deadly bombings in Iraq Sept. 30. Al-Zawahiri is the top lieutenant of al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden, allegedly helped plan the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist strikes on the U.S., and is believed to be the voice on an audio tape broadcast by Al-Jazeera television Oct. 1, calling for attacks on U.S. and British interests everywhere.
CNS News is obviously confident in this report; they're inviting other reporters to check out the documents at their offices.
Here's my... concern. Why are we hearing about these documents now? I'm not saying I don't believe the documents, but I'm wondering why we haven't seen this unveiled in a major news conference at the Pentagon, White House, or U.S. embassy in Iraq......
(full text):http://www.nationalreview.com/kerry/kerry200410041223.asp
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