Posted on 01/30/2003 9:32:30 AM PST by honway
The CIA is blocking critical intelligence that links Saddam Hussein to the 9/11 attacks, a former top terrorism advisor to President Clinton is contending, and by doing so, she says, the agency is weakening President Bush's case for war against Iraq.
Asked about Salman Pak, the terrorist training camp near Baghdad where, according to a number of Iraqi defectors, al Qaeda terrorists have practiced for years hijacking American airliners using the same methods employed on 9/11, Clinton Iraqi expert Laurie Mylroie told WABC Radio's Steve Malzberg:
"There's a huge debate within the (Bush) administration. The Defense Department wants to bring out information like that. The CIA, which is responsible for dealing with terrorism, accommodated Clinton's desire not to hear about Iraq and terrorism, does not want that information to come out. It acts as Saddam's lawyer."
Mylroie served as President Clinton's top advisor on Iraq during the 1992 campaign, and she has lectured on Middle Eastern terrorism and its origins at the Naval War College and Harvard University. Mylroie is also author of the book, "The War Against America," which details Baghdad's role in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.
Just minutes before Bush's State of the Union address Tuesday night, Mylroie told Malzberg, "For any official statement to be made by the government, there is an interagency review process and the CIA blocks (the Salman Pak) information. Their response is to say, the defectors are not reliable - because they oppose Saddam you can't believe them."
What about satellite photos backing up accounts from Salman Pak defectors who describe a Boeing 707 parked on the ground, which they say serves as a classroom for Saddam's hijack trainees?
According to Mylroie, the CIA offers the bizarre alibi that the plane "could have been used by the Iraqis for counter-hijacking."
The Clinton terrorism expert says the White House is partly to blame for not forcing U.S. intelligence services to be more forthright about the information they have on Salman Pak, complaining, "Bush has failed to discipline the bureaucracy. And they have put their careers above Bush's career."
Asked to detail the precise role of Iraq in al Qaeda operations directed against the U.S., Mylroie told WABC, "Al Qaeda acts as a front for Iraqi intelligence. Al Qaeda provides the ideology, the foot soldiers and the cover. And Iraqi intelligence provides the direction, training and expertise."
Commenting on reports that the White House would use the State of the Union address to reinforce the argument that Saddam has been working with al Qaeda for years, Mylroie noted, "I'm glad (President Bush) is going to talk about Iraq and al Qaeda. (But) I have some concern that because powerful individuals and institutions are even now unwilling to acknowledge their error, the case is going to be a lot weaker than it could be."
True!
Truth is always the best policy. Thats what this country is all about. If we can handle thousands of nuclear ICBM's pointed at us, we can handle biological madness.
That is more than just a theory...you are correct. A unclassified version of a classified 1992 GAO report spells out all the details of military shipments to Iraq during the 1980's...anthrax would be no different, as it would be considered a dual use product. Go to the following link:
Iraq: U.S. Military Items Exported or Transferred to Iraq in the 1980s
One of the more important points is that Iraq was removed from State's list of terrorist-supporting countries in 1982 and was therefore able to acquire many things during the 1980's that it cannot get now. I will try to get a specific link to the 1980 anthrax shipments for you from that site, but it may take awhile.
Everything I've posted, mind you, is based on informal anecdotal conversations I had at the time. I give a lot of credence to them because my source is one of the most honest and upright people I know.
U.S. bioinformatics firms in the 1980s received requests from a wide variety of Iraqi agencies, all claiming the materials were intended for civilian research purposes.
ATCC officials said that in the 1980s, their practice was to sell so-called Class III pathogens -- those that pose substantial risk to public health or crops -- to customers who met a few rudimentary requirements. They had to send a written request on stationery from a credible institution. They had to assume written responsibility for "the receipt, handling, storage and use of the material." They had to pay a fee averaging $78. And they had to demonstrate in a brief telephone conversation that they were scientifically literate. ATCC officials typically did not ask how the germs were to be used.
The country's success emboldened it to take a plunge into the most sensitive end of the bacterial pool with a 1986 order for 24 pathogens, including 13 more bacteria designated Class III. That shipment, which like the others received rapid approval from the U.S. Commerce Department, included the specific strains of anthrax, chlostridium botulinum, and chlostridium perfringens that Iraq later selected for mass production as germ weapons. All were sent to the University of Baghdad, but secretly paid for by the military, according to Iraqi records turned over to the United Nations.
Will try again tommorrow as this is a question for some that needs to be answered.
Unfortunately, if anybody is in denial about the outcome of the Gulf War, it is us, not Saddam Hussein. For the real story, go here: The Continuing Storm.
That's why governments always tell the truth during war time. They know it's the best policy.
One, it really helps prevents our statesmen and legislators from selling a franchises. Two, it forces the foreign nations to develop stronger broad informal relationships -- people to people -- rather than leader to leader. Three, it gives us a freer hand in action. Four -- it creates fear, confusion and awe in our enemies, who would otherwise conspire and plot against us.
Let's take your theory back a bit in time. Let's consider the possibility that the first anthrax threat came in 1995 immediately after the OKC bombing. That could certainly explain why everyone's first reaction was that it was the work of ME terrorists, and why the the FBI put out BOLOS for them--and why within a couple of hours, all that was retracted and their participation was covered up.
Consider a broad timeline. I think Hussein was genuinely shocked at how rapidly his troops were defeated in '91--and he realized he could lose it all at our whim. In '92, Toon ran on PRC money--once elected, he began returning favors by opening doors for the PRC--especially into areas of our scientific expertise. By '93, Hussein attacked the WTC. This attempt was still amateurish. IIRC, I believe I read that they actually tried to use some kind of chemical weapon in the bomb, but it was destroyed by the bomb itself. By '95, he attacked OKC--this time much more professionally. What happened in those 2 years to take his people from amateurs to pros?
I can't prove it yet, but I think he and Zemin came to terms in some kind of agreement centered around the anthrax--which I think was developed in China. By that time, the PRC had learned enough knowledge from us and refined the stuff in a formula of their own. (Spertzel said a few days ago that the anthrax letters contained anthrax that had been refined far beyond anything he'd ever seen in the US or Russia.)
Hussein would have been looking for something to keep the US from attacking his regime, and China would have been looking for a way to keep the Clinton administration cooperating in the ongoing theft of our technology.
If this threat is what occurred immediately after the OKC bombing, it would also explain why the republicans did not expose Clinton's treason and remove him from office. It would explain why the Bush administration never exposed him or really cleaned house--and why they cooperated in sweeping everything under the rug. And it would explain why Bush let the PRC get away with taking our EP3.
Is this theory correct? I don't know--but I am keeping it in the back of my mind.
ravingnutter-
Thanks for all your info in #13.
For those that interested, honway and all have done a great job of beginning to expose the threads of al-Qaeda running from OKC to the WTC on this thread:
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