Posted on 06/13/2003 11:07:26 PM PDT by OrthodoxPresbyterian
Saturday, May 31, 2003 11:45 a.m. EDT Bush WMD Debacle Prompted by Salman Pak Blunder President Bush shouldn't wait a second longer to introduce Iraqi defectors Sabah Khodada and Abu Zeinab to the American people, and fire whoever it was in his administration who advised him to ignore the defectors' eyewitness accounts tying the Baghdad terrorist training camp Salman Pak to the 9/11 attacks. Instead of relying on evidence that would have dispelled all doubts about making war on Iraq, the as-yet-unidentified presidential adviser counseled Bush to hinge his Iraq war rationale on the threat of weapons of mass destruction, evidence that - so far, at least - has yet to materialize. The blunder has given Democrats their most potent ammunition yet in their bid to unseat Bush in the 2004 presidential election. In an embarrassing series of statements on Friday, Bush challenged reports contending that Iraqi WMDs were still MIA - only to be contradicted by U.S. experts on the ground. "They're wrong, we found 'em," he told reporters in Poland. "We found weapons of mass destruction. We'll find more weapons," the president added. But in a discrepancy that's sure to become the focus of the Sunday talk shows, U.S. intelligence and military officials contradicted Bush's claims. "We were simply wrong" in expecting to find that Iraqi army and Republican Guard units had terror weapons, Lt. Gen. James Conway, commander of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, told the New York Daily News. "It's not for lack of trying," Conway explained. "We've been to virtually every ammunition supply point between the Kuwaiti border and Baghdad, but [the Iraqi WMDs are] simply not there." A lengthy report released by the CIA this week said that two suspected mobile biological weapons labs contained no traces of the actual toxins that would prove they were WMD facilities. Adding to Bush's political humiliation, the British press quotes Secretary of State Colin Powell as fearing even before the war that tenuous WMD evidence "could explode in [our] faces." Even before the news of the contradictory accounts surfaced, Democrats had seized on the fruitless WMD search as evidence that Bush had lied to lead America into war. In one particularly odious comparison, former Clinton adviser Paul Begala charged that Bush's Iraq "lies" were far worse than his old boss's perjury about Monica Lewinsky. "Which is worse: lying about a girlfriend or lying about a war?" Begala complained on Thursday. "There aren't 169 [U.S. troops] dead over Monica Lewinsky," the Democrat strategist added sarcastically. While European and American intelligence services remain convinced that Saddam Hussein had substantial quantities of WMDs before Bush targeted the country as the lead member of the Axis of Evil in his 2002 State of the Union address, delays caused by United Nation's footdragging gave the Iraqi dictator plenty of time to hide or destroy his weapons cache.
Now, after U.S. forces have spent six weeks scouring Iraq in a fruitless search for Saddam's terror weapons, the decision to focus on WMDs has turned into a political nightmare for the White House. Still, boneheaded administration strategists have refused to acknowledge evidence that might still spare the president the his worst political debacle to date - the accounts of two Iraqi defectors who say that, for years before the 9/11 attacks, they helped train al-Qaeda operatives to hijack U.S. aircraft using the tactics employed by Osama bin Laden's kamikazi crews. In an account that would have dispelled any doubts about whether the U.S. was justified in making war on Iraq regardless of whether Saddam possessed WMDs, former Salman Pak instructor Sabah Khodada told the London Observer that Muslim fundamentalist recruits from throughout the Arab world were taught to hijack planes using small knives. "The method used on 11 September perfectly coincides with the training I saw at the camp," Khodada revealed. "When I saw the twin towers attack, the first thought that came into my head was 'this has been done by graduates of Salman Pak.'" Khodada's account is corroborated by a man identified by the Observer only by his code name, Abu Zeinab, a colonel in Saddam's Mukhabarat intelligence service who also helped train for 9/11-style operations. "One of the highlights of the six-month curriculum was training to hijack aircraft using only knives or bare hands," he told the Observer. "Like the 11 September hijackers, the students worked in groups of four or five." The accounts of the two Salman Pak instructors are further corroborated by former U.N. weapons inspector Charles Duelfer - a one-time vice chairman of UNSCOM - who said he personally witnessed some of the 9/11 training aboard the parked fuselage of a Boeing 707.
Duelfer told the British paper that the Iraqis even acknowledged that hijacking dress rehearsals were taking place at Salman Pak - but they insisted it was counterterrorism training. "Of course we automatically took out the word 'counter,'" Duelfer explained. The accounts of Khodada, Zeinab and Duelfer are backed by two other eyewitnesses - a third defector and a second U.N. inspector - all of whom testified earlier this year in a lawsuit brought by 9/11 victim families against Iraq. In a May 7 decision that should have been seized upon by the Bush administration - but wasn't - Manhattan U.S. District Judge Harold Baer ruled that the Salman Pak evidence was persuasive enough to tie Baghdad to the 9/11 attacks. It's probably too late for the Bush administration to abandon its WMD argument for going to war in Iraq. And indeed, Saddam's banned weapons may eventually be found. In the meantime, the president needs to quickly focus attention on far more compelling evidence that every American would agree justified going to war - Iraq's role in the worst attack ever on U.S. soil. And just as quickly, Bush should fire the officials whose advice to ignore the Salman Pak connection could conceivably cost him his re-election next year.
I am a Christian, and a Libertarian. As the War Fervor grew last year, I never supported the War against Iraq.
For the longest time, I never supported the War against Iraq... until I read of the "Salman Pak" Terrorist Training Camp south of Baghdad. "Muslim fundamentalist recruits from throughout the Arab world were taught to hijack planes using small knives."
A strongly-circumstantial, and potentially-concrete, "Just War" Casus Belli existed on the basis of "Salman Pak" ALONE. And apparently, Bush's advisors have basically put this on the hindmost of back-burners, and essentially forgotten it. It's all about the WMDs... and there ARE NO WMDs.
Considering that this was the only direct link to 9/11 which could justify the War in my own mind, I do confess some personal disappointment that this has been shoved under the carpet.
Moreover, I consider it to be an abject Political Disappointment... "Bush should fire the officials whose advice to ignore the Salman Pak connection could conceivably cost him his re-election next year."
(/End of Rant)
This article sums up my feelings on the matter quite accurately.
This article sums up my feelings on the matter quite accurately.
If GWB really felt that he was doing right by God and was honest in his actions, then I hope he's not being unfairly maligned. Although mistakes of such magnitude are unacceptable, at least it can be called a blunder.
If however, he had an agenda and was anything less than 100% honest in regard to such grave matters, I hope he's impeached and then burns in hell where he belongs.
My goodness you sound like a liberal
I disagree. It's hardly a "hit" piece on Bush, so much as a "hit" on those advisors who counselled him to go after the WMDs (those wonderful Weapons of Mass Disappearance) rather than make the US case on the basis of Salman Pak (where we had a grounded Boeing 707 used as a training camp by Al-Queda terrorists schooling themselves in the arts of boxcutter-hijacking, as even admitted by UN inspectors who visited the site.)
What you call a "hit" piece, I call "sound advice" from some folks who, after all their "criticisms", still want to see Bush win in '04.
You may now resume your "Fox News uber alles" chants.
Sometimes NewsMax is way out there. Chris Ruddy was one of the first to come out with an op-ed criticizing how the war was going in the early stages; I don't think he ever did any sort of rebuttal either. It seems as if the administration doesn't take their 'advice' they criticize. John LeBoutillier is a big Bush basher. Right now it seems their main interest is promoting their Deck of Weasels.
It never fails.
So, this weeks attack has you a-prayin', eh? Yeah, I'll bet.
I have something better... that does exist:
I "sound like a liberal"? Well, you don't hear many "liberals" talking about Salman Pak, do you?
Of course, that's the trouble... you don't hear Bush talking about it either. And that's the problem. He should be.
This news has been out since August of last year. Is it a CRIME for me to wish that Bush would make a bigger deal of it?
It's a direct connection to 9/11. WMDs? We don't need no stinkin' WMDs. Not when there's a direct connection to boxcutter-hijackings of Boeings.
Sheesh, you people are defensive. If you're this defensive about the Weapons of Mass Disappearance, then the author's point is further validated... Bush is making the wrong case. And it's hurting him, politically.
All the other reasons for removing Saddam Hussein was nothing other then gravy
If it's all the same to you, I think I'll "hate" Bush (nice of you to define my emotions for me; thanks, babe) for making Ted Kennedy his Education Commissar, not over this Iraq thing.
I just wish he would make a bigger deal outta Salman Pak. It's a direct connection to box-cutter hijackings of Boeings.
If you really think I am a "Bush-hater", trying to steer him wrong... why don't you just tell me how it would hurt him to make that point, considering it was even confirmed by the UN inspectors who visited the site (even as the WMDs are "somewhere over the rainbow")?
Why do you think that would be a detrimental point for Bush to be making, mmm, Deb? Thrill me with your acumen...
Yeah we know sister. Everybody's the effen enemy nowadays. The libs, the libertarians, Newsmax, Worldnetdaily, the "Pitchforkers", the paleos, Chuck Baldwin, many long time FReepers etc. etc. However Bill Kristol is the good guy now! He used to be the bad guy but now he's saying nice things about GWB so he's good again!
Not for anything but all of the above (including myself and not including smirk-face McCainiac Kristol) virulently supported and fought for GWB. I met the guys from Newsmax at the protests in Broward and Palm Beach and played a part in getting his blueblooded ass into office.
You folks are beyond whacked. You have no idea what you believe anymore, no solid political philosophy (just as GWB). All you know is "Talk nice about Bush = Gooooooood, second guess Bush = baaaaaaaaad".
My God ya'll are becoming insufferable trogs.
Well, burn me at the stake if you like, but I never bought the justifications for Gulf War I. Take that as you will.
Salman Pak, OTOH... training Al-Queda terrorrists to hijack Boeings with box-cutters? A potentially-direct connection to 9/11? That's a better Casus Belli in my mind than bailing out the corrupt Kuwaiti-Wahhabist slave-ocracy ever was.
I just wish Bush would say something about it....
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