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Also check this out about Terrorist Symp Demoncrat Rahall:
Newsmax.com | 9/22/02 | Carl Limbacher
Sunday, Sept. 22, 2002 2:11 p.m. EDT

House Dem: White House to Blame for Iraqi Inspection Switch

After visiting Iraq last week, Rep. Nick Rahall, D-W.Va., blamed the Bush administration on Sunday for Baghdad's decision to impose limits on proposed weapons inspections after Iraq first told the United Nations those inspections would be "unfettered."

"At first it appeared [the Iraqi pledge] was a step in the right direction with the first step they announced earlier this week," Rahall told WABC Radio's Steve Malzberg.

But, the West Virginia Democrat said, the Bush administration's reaction to the Iraqi offer amounted to "slamming the door in their face" by saying that even unfettered inspections would make no difference.

"They've seen statements in the past from Cheney, from Rumsfeld et al., that say inspectors don't matter, they're going to bomb anyway," the West Virginia Democrat complained to Malzberg.

"I can see what [Baghdad was] looking for," he explained. "They were looking for some light at the end of the tunnel. Because Iraqi feeling - feeling from the leadership and feeling from the people on the street - is basically they feel that they're damned if they do and they're damned if they don't.

"I truly believe that when they did not see any light at the end of the tunnel when they issued that first statement, that probably caused them to go backwards and start the game of trickery again," he added.

Rahall said that while in Baghdad last week, he hoped to secure a personal meeting with Saddam Hussein to encourage the Iraqi dictator to make a public pledge to open his schools, mosques, hospitals and presidential palaces to inspectors.

But when Saddam would not agree, Iraqi officials instead offered Rahall a chance to inspect suspected weapons sites.

He said no. "Look, I'm not a weapons inspector," the West Virginia Democrat said he told his hosts. "I wouldn't know nuclear power from powdered sugar."

Rahall told Malzberg that he would not support a resolution giving President Bush the authority to attack Iraq, complaining that "it gives the president too broad authority; it does not limit him to Iraq."

The West Virginia Democrat also insisted there was no link between Saddam and Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda terrorist network despite the accounts from multiple Iraqi defectors who claim otherwise.

"I've been in the CIA briefings, the DIA briefings," Rahall told WABC. "There is no definitive - no conclusive proof of any link between al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein." (See: Salman Pak: Iraq's Smoking-Gun Link to 9/11?)

Rep. Rahall also defended the Palestinian intifada, hinting that terrorist attacks against Israel were a legitimate "resistance" to an occupying army.

"Some of those instances ... they truly are a resistance against occupied lands, against a country [Israel] who's also violated U.N. resolutions," he explained.