Posted on 09/08/2002 10:44:15 PM PDT by tallhappy
Initial investigations of the first WTC bombing indicated Iraq was likely a sponsor of the group that did it. The Clinton administration chose specifically to downplay any question of state sponsorship and proceed as solely a law enforcement matter.
Here are two articles from 1993 and 1994 that broach the subject.
Chicago Sun-Times
March 26, 1993, FRIDAY , LATE SPORTS FINAL SECTION: NEWS; Pg. 28
LENGTH: 358 words
HEADLINE: Arrest May Lead U.S. to Mastermind Of Bombing
SOURCE: Associated PressAssociated Press
BYLINE: Kim Murphy
DATELINE: CAIRO, Egypt
BODY: A suspect in the World Trade Center bombing captured this week in Egypt provided interrogators with information that could help lead to the identification of the people who masterminded the bombing, sources here said.
Mahmud Abouhalima, handed over Wednesday to FBI agents in Cairo several days after his arrest, talked freely with his Egyptian captors and provided information that could link the bombing to "a Middle Eastern country," a source said.
Abouhalima, a 33-year-old New Jersey taxi driver born in Egypt, provided evidence that he received money from a doctor in Germany, a potential clue in finding the people who financed the operation in New York, said the source, who has access to senior levels of the Egyptian government. Abouhalima also provided information that might link Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman, an Egyptian cleric who is the spiritual leader of the underground Islamic militant organization, Gamaa al Islamiya, to the murder of an Egyptian national in the United States in 1991, the source said.
"This man opened a Pandora's box. He talked a lot and he gave them leads they never suspected before," the source said. "The investigators were puzzled by his naivete."
Many in Egypt familiar with the case said there is growing belief that "a Middle Eastern country," most likely Iran or Iraq, helped underwrite the operation. "These men (in New York) were easily recruited," the source said.
Al-Ahram, Cairo's semiofficial daily newspaper, did not disclose details of Abouhalima's questioning but said it had received "information" that Iraq was financing many terrorist operations "under the cover of religion."
Abouhalima was arraigned Thursday in a New York court. His lawyer, Jesse Berman, said Abouhalima had had been tortured while imprisoned in Egypt.
"He was blindfolded for 10 days in Egypt. He was tied and hung from a horizontal board like a shish kebab," Berman said. "He has cigarette burns on his genital area. He was beaten with wooden boards."
New York FBI Director James Fox said a doctor examined Abuhalima upon his arrival. But Fox would not disclose the results of the examination.
Chicago Sun-Times March 5, 1994, SATURDAY, Late Sports Final Edition SECTION: NEWS; Pg. 6
LENGTH: 379 words
HEADLINE: Police Vow They'll Catch Bomb Mastermind
BYLINE: By William Sposato
DATELINE: NEW YORK
BODY: Four men who helped carry out the bombing of the World Trade Center a year ago now stand convicted, but the suspected mastermind of the terror attack remains at large.
The shadowy suspect is Ramzi Yousef, who is believed to have ties to the government of a Middle East country.
"We will get him. If it takes 20 years, we will get Ramzi Yousef," said James Fox, the recently retired head of the New York office for the FBI who headed the investigation of the Trade Center bombing. Under U.S. law, law enforcement authorities say they have the right to grab Yousef anywhere in the world.
Yousef, 26, is believed to have lived most of his life in Kuwait. He also fought alongside Muslim rebels in Afghanistan, as did many of those with ties to Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman, an Egyptian-born cleric who has been charged in a separate indictment for conspiring to blow up the United Nations and other major New York buildings.
Yousef arrived in the United States on Sept. 1, 1992, on the same flight from Pakistan with Ahmad Ajaj, who was convicted Friday in the bombing along with Mohammad Salameh, Mahmud Abouhalima and Nidal Ayyad.
But unlike Ajaj, who was jailed for carrying a fake passport, Yousef had a valid Iraqi passport, but no American visa.
He immediately applied for political asylum. His case was pending at the time of the Trade Center blast.
Fox said it appears Yousef was guided by a foreign intelligence agency.
He said that Iraq, humiliated in the 1991 Persian Gulf War, might well have recruited the four Muslim fundamentalists convicted Friday as low-level plotters.
"As you get close to the time you want to bomb, you send in a guy like Ramzi Yousef, who is a bomb master.
But Fox acknowledged that so little is known about Yousef, even the Iraqi connection is not certain. "We say he's an Iraqi, but we just don't really know. There are some who theorize he's Iranian and that the Iranian intelligence service has become so good that they're successful in making him look Iraqi."
There is a $ 2 million reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of Yousef. Fox said that with today's sophisticated computers and unprecedented international cooperation among intelligence agencies, he has no doubt that Yousef will be caught.
See THE WORLD TRADE CENTER BOMB - Who Is Ramzi Yousef? And Why It Matters by her for a long detailed 1995 article about Iraqi sponsorship.
BOOKMARKED for proof to skeptics.
Many thanks for the link, that is just astounding! You know that the Bush administration knows all of this too. Makes me even more angry at those who profess that Iraq has done nothing lately to merit our attacking it! Also infuriates me even more that the Clinton administration did nothing about this, and he is running off his mouth criticizing President Bush for his handling of the war!!!!Isn't that something? There is no end to his gall/spin/lies. G-r-r-r-r !
 |
And her too.....
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
Let's get him! |
LOL ! Thanks. Glad you like the clintoon handcuffed pic. Hmm? Here, let me give you a preview of my preliminary Da$$hole handcuffed pic, a work in progress......
 |
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.