Posted on 01/13/2006 9:11:24 AM PST by neverdem
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January 13, 2006, 8:11 a.m. The Butcher with the Terror Ties The evidence mounts.
Drip, drip, drip.
Drop by drop, isolated news stories and emerging documents are eroding the popular myth that Saddam Hussein had no connections to Islamofascist terrorists. These revelations undermine war critics efforts to whitewash Baghdads ancien regime such as when Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid declared: There was [sic] no terrorists in Iraq. Likewise, Sen. Carl Levin (D., Mich.) describes a nonexistent relationship between al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein.
Reid, Levin, and others who dismiss the Baathist-terrorist nexus would struggle to do so if the Bush administration unveiled the evidence tying Hussein to Osama bin Laden and other extremists. President Bush immediately should release papers discussed in the January 9 Newsweek and the January 16 Weekly Standard.
A declassified 2002 Pentagon presentation attained by Newsweeks Mark Hosenball offers fresh details on a suspected April 8-9, 2001, meeting in Prague between September 11 ringleader Mohamed Atta and Iraqi Intelligence Service (IIS) station chief Ahmed Khalil Ibrahim Samir al-Ani. No other intelligence reporting contradicts that [deleted] report, the heavily redacted document states. It adds: During one visit, al-Ani ordered IIS finance officer to issue funds to Atta. According to one slide, Atta also reportedly met with Iraqi Charge dAffaires Hussein Kanaan. Also: Several workers at Prague airport identified Atta following 9/11 and remember him traveling with his brother Farhan Atta. (For excerpts go here.)
A slide headlined High-Level Contacts, 1990 2002 lists numerous meetings and communications among bin Laden, his deputies, and top Iraqi officials. In 1999, the presentation says, al-Qaida established operational training camp in northern Iraq; also reports of Iraq training terrorists at Salman Pak, a military base 20 miles south of Baghdad. In 2000, According to CIA fragmentary reporting points to possible Iraqi involvement in bombing USS Cole in October.
Among the documents Findings: Some indications of possible Iraqi coordination with al Qaida specifically related to 9/11.
Is this all fabricated? How much of this presentation is true? Releasing all 60 or so slides for public inspection would help sort this out.
The Weekly Standards Stephen Hayes talked to 11 federal officials before concluding that documents U.S. troops captured in Iraq prove that the former Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein trained thousands of radical Islamic terrorists from the region at camps in Iraq over the four years immediately preceding the U.S. invasion. Hayes reports, Secret training took place primarily at three camps in Samarra, Ramadi, and Salman Pak and was directed by elite Iraqi military units. Al-Qaeda-affiliated Muslim fanatics, such as Algerias GSPC and the Sudanese Islamic Army, were among the 8,000 or so murderers instructed between 1999 and 2002.
Handwritten notes, typed forms, computer discs, videos, and other exploitable items confirm Husseins philanthropy of terror, Hayes says. But America has translated only some 2.5 percent of this huge cache. Federal officials barely discuss what they have learned. Even unclassified papers remain unavailable. Absurd. Having studied some of these artifacts, one intelligence expert says: As much as we overestimated WMD, it appears we underestimated [Husseins] support for transregional terrorists.
Asked by Rep. Pete Hoekstra (R., Mich.) to release some texts, National Intelligence Director John Negroponte reportedly told the House Intelligence chairman: Im giving this as much attention as anything else on my plate to make this work.
Earlier this month, Hayes writes, federal immigration judge Anthony Rogers decided to deport Ahmad Mohammed Barodi, a 41-year-old Arlington, Tex., convenience-store owner. Barodi testified in a January 4-5 hearing that he entered America in 1989 on a phony Syrian passport furnished by the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood (SMB), an Islamic terror group. He admitted to smuggling bogus passports into Saudi Arabia for SMB. According to Justice Department records cited by KTVT, CBSs Dallas station, the SMB sent Barodi to a 21-day guerrilla warfare training camp in Iraq in 1982, with the approval of Saddam Hussein. The document adds: Barodi advised that the Iraqi government provided all of the training aids consisting of RPGs (rocket propelled grenades), firearms and the facility.
But, skeptics sputter, secular Saddam Hussein never would work with Osama bin Laden or other Islamic zealots. This argument foolishly ignores popularly elected Franklin Roosevelts alliance with genocidal dictator Josef Stalin to smash Adolf Hitler. Similarly, republican revolutionary George Washington and super-monarch Louis XVI collaborated to defeat Britains King George III. Why wouldnt Hussein and bin Laden similarly conspire to foil the Great Satan?
Moreover, the Butcher of Baghdad was not as secular as the no-connection crowd insists. He added Allahu Akbar (God is Great) to the Iraqi flag just before the 1991 Persian Gulf War. He also began to pray publicly to bolster his mosque-cred. Hayes cites a SENSITIVE August 22, 1995, UNSCOM interview with Hussein Kamel, the tyrants son-in-law who defected to Jordan that year. Kamel told U.N. weapons inspector Rolf Ekeus, The Government of Iraq is instigating fundamentalism in the country . . . Now Baath Party members have to pass a religious exam. He added: They even stopped party meetings for prayers.
Meanwhile, Dick Cheney gave Hayes a boost Wednesday. As the vice president told radio host Tony Snow: Steve Hayes is of the view and I think hes correct that a lot of those documents that were captured over there that have not yet been evaluated offer additional evidence that, in fact, there was a relationship that stretched over many years between Saddam Hussein and the al-Qaeda organization.
To its enormous detriment, Cheneys comments notwithstanding, the administration has been nearly silent about Husseins decades of collusion with Islamic terrorists. The worry, White House aides tell me, is that revealing these ties would generate media criticism and anti-war catcalls. Pentagon spokesman Larry DiRita told Hayes that some reporters might discover exculpatory material among these papers, then wed spend a lot of time chasing around after it.
That risk does not excuse paralysis. If the president wrote MoveOn.org a $10,000 check, they would denounce his penmanship. Bushs detractors never stop complaining, so the administration simply should make its case. If handed the keys to Fort Knox, dont worry that someone might whine about the wallpaper. Grab the gold.
Administration officials also should remember that the United Nations Oil-for-Food scandal resembled an eccentric one-woman show when reporter Claudia Rosett began exposing it. Then the documents tumbled out. Rosett was vindicated and how! Worldwide probes, resignations, and criminal arrests followed as the contours of this $21 billion shakedown became clear.
Stephen Hayes similarly remains among the few journalists excavating this huge, deliberately concealed story. Now Newsweek has nibbled at the Iraq-terror connection. Other journalists should stop napping and demand that the White House finally document everything it can about Saddam Husseins multifarious links to terrorism.
Deroy Murdock is a New York-based a columnist with the Scripps Howard News Service and a senior fellow with the Atlas Economic Research Foundation in Arlington, Va.. His research on Saddam Husseins support for Islamofascism appears at HUSSEINandTERROR.com.
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http://www.nationalreview.com/murdock/murdock200601130811.asp
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AttaBump!
I'd say it's likely that we're still protecting the identity of a mole in Saddam's regime, and for good reason. The reason is so we can do this kind of operation again in the future. It's a tough job being the Prez; that's why we have a tough man in that job right now.
Notice how you never hear a word from the MSM that Iraq probably was involved in a terrorist attack against the US before the invasion (besides the first WTC attack that we know was sponsored by Iraq). We may have learned about this from an informant in Saddam's regime or through some high-tech communication intercepts. Now if Clinton had invaded Iraq, do you think we would have heard about likely Iraqi involvement in terrorism against the US, even if Clinton decided to keep this information classified? I think we would have heard a lot about it from the MSM and Dems in congress. But with Bush in the WH, you hear absolute silence.
Txsleuth calls him Hairball, which cracks me up all thru the day, every day, recalling it, from shower to tuck-in.
(wink...) Yes - a nice compilation, and I was certain to ping the original poster as well. :)
LoL!
bookmark
mark
Great thread. Thanks for the ping. Thanks to all FReesearchers.
FYI: From Powerline (http://www.powerlineblog.com/)scroll down: Starting at noon today (again, central time) we'll be interviewing Steve Hayes of the Weekly Standard, who has done more than anyone else to explore the many relationships between Saddam's Iraq and al Qaeda and other terrorist groups. Among other things, we'll be talking about Steve's efforts to get access to the unclassified documents that contain a treasure trove of information on the Saddam-al Qaeda connection.
Vice-President Dick Cheney praised Steve's efforts on this topic just a few days ago; if you want to get the latest, inside dope, tune in tomorrow. I'm going to ask Steve why, if President Bush, Vice-President Cheney and Secretary Rumsfeld are all enthusiastic about his work, they can't make the Defense Department turn over the documents.
You can pick up the show anywhere in the world, off the web. Click on the Northern Alliance logo on our right sidebar, or go to the Patriot site linked above. We've had calls from as far away as China; don't hesitate to call if you have a question for Steve Hayes, or the rest of the gang.
It will be on the Northern Alliance Network
Here's the feed:
http://www.am1280thepatriot.com/programguide.asp
Thanks for the links.
Yes he does maintain that A-Q was not in Iraq. I've already gone around with him on this subject, but he doesn't want to believe what's in front of his nose. He's one of those people who hates Bush so much, he can't stand the prospect that Bush was right about Hussein.
And I have other friends and co-workers just like him (as I'm sure you do). They could have argued that Hussein was contained (he obviously wasn't), and no severe threat. Arguing as they do that he had no ties to Islamist terrorists just makes them look stupid. My friend is no dunce, but never underestimate the power of Bush-Rage.
I've seen it referred to as "BDS" -- Bush Derangement Syndrome.
And, yes, I've seen and heard its symptoms displayed -- within my own family.
A decade ago, I was known as a "Clinton-hater", of course. But, at bottom, I was able to rationally explain my profound distaste for Der Schlickmeister. There was no disputing the fact that he was "an untrustworthy liar". Indeed, to my leftist relatives, that was part of his "charm"...
But the animus toward Bush is simply visceral, unreasoning. And absolutely bulletproof. It can't be explained, nor can it be addressed.
Very puzzling...
Yes, Kennedy stated that GWB dreamed up the Iraq war while down in Texas. BOSTON - The case for going to war against Iraq was a fraud ``made up in Texas" to give Republicans a political boost, Sen. Edward Kennedy said Thursday.
I have another old friend with whom I had a conversation more than a year ago. We were talking sports and suddenly my friend went into a LOUD rant about what an evil, stupid person Bush was. I was taken aback for a second because politics was not even being discussed. I tried to delve into my friends train of thought, but all I could get were leftist talking points. Incidentally he voted for Nader. He's one of my friends who can never define exactly what he believes in, but only what he hates.
He thinks life is unfair to him (a lot of my Dem friends think that), and corporations, Republicans, and the undefined "they" are responsible for his misery.
Oh, I should add that my friend has more wealth than me, and I'm doing alright thank you very much. In fact many of the Bush-haters I know are doing extremely well. And most of them are socially conservative. I can't figure it out.
Life is so unfair!
It's the kind of complaint you hear from your juvenile and adolescent children.
I've noticed the same thing. Most of my Dem friends think the same thing -- and it's not necessarily about what life is doing to them, often it's about the "injustices" delivered on other people. The "poor", the "minorities", etc.
The left's concept of "fairness" has all the intellectual depth of an twelve-year old. Leads me to a belief that liberalism is a sign of immaturity...
Bump.
The Libs "BIG LIE" is falling apart...
It's unfortunate that unless you can boil all that down into a single, easily shouted slogan, it's beyond the attention span of today's average Liberal...
All these reports attributed to the FBI were, as it turns out, erroneous. There were no car rental records in Virginia, Florida, or anywhere else in April 2001 for Mohamed Atta, since he had not yet obtained his Florida license.
His international license was at his father's home in Cairo, Egypt (where his roommate Marwan al-Shehhi picked it up in late April). Nor were there other records in the hands of the FBI that put Atta in the United States at the time. Director of Central Intelligence George Tenet testified to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence in June 2002, "It is possible that Atta traveled under an unknown alias" to "meet with an Iraqi intelligence officer in Prague." Clearly, it was not beyond the capabilities of the 9/11 hijackers to use aliases.
The only dispute over Atta's whereabouts is whether he was in Prague on April 9, 2001, to meet with Samir al Ani, an Iraqi intelligence officer. Czech intelligence insists he was. Able Danger, apparently, had information supporting the Czechs.
Don't worry about how the Moonbats react. As long as there's even one ordinary American witnessing the behavior -- their insane, delusional rants in response to hard evidence -- keep it up. Their denials and hatred just help make the case.
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