Posted on 07/19/2004 4:16:22 PM PDT by Salem
The Sucker of Israel:
Bodansky’s Revelations: Part I
Israeli-born Yossef Bodansky has been the director of the U.S. Congressional Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare for more than a decade. His latest book, The Secret War of the Iraq War (Harper-Collins 2004), is the basis of this article. Indeed, I will quote extensively from Chapter 3 of his book and inject comments en passant.
Chapter 3 refers to an investigation that had begun in the fall of 2002 in Israel, and which involved the intelligence services of more than six countries. “The investigators’ findings,” writes Bodansky, “provided the ‘smoking gun’ supporting the [Bush] administration’s insistence on Iraq’s centrality to global terrorism, the availability of operational weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, and proof of the close cooperation between Iraqi military intelligence and al-Queda.”
The data accumulated during this investigation could have provided the casus belli—the justification for war—and urgent imperative to take on Saddam Hussein. Yet in the first of several indecisive and self-contradicting political maneuvers, the Bush administration preferred to accommodate [Prime Minister Tony] Blair’s pressure to keep Israel at arm’s length, not implicate Arafat [who was working strategically with Saddam], and placate Blair’s fellow West European leaders rather than go public with the findings of the investigation. Despite mounting international criticism and skepticism in the media, the American public was not presented with one of the strongest and most explicit justifications for the war with Iraq (p.51).
Had the public been informed of the Arafat/Saddam/al-Queda nexus—which would conjure in American minds the horror of 9/11—President Bush’s restraints on Israel and even his road map to Palestinian state would have appeared ludicrous. Indeed, exposing that “axis of evil” would have required Bush to encourage Israel’s Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, to eliminate Arafat’s Palestinian Authority in coordination with the war on Iraq.
But now for another Bodansky revelation:
On the night of September 13, 2002, Israeli Special Forces intercepted and captured a three-man squad attempting to cross the Jordan River and enter Palestinian territories [sic] on their way to Arafat’s compound in Ramallah. Their interrogation revealed that they were highly trained members of the Baghdad-based Arab Liberation Front (ALF), sent to conduct spectacular strikes under the banner of Arafat’s Fatah….
The three ALF terrorists were trained for several missions, including an operation that involved shoulder-fired missiles to shoot down civilian airliners as they approached Ben-Gurion Airport and using anti-tank rockets and missiles to ambush convoys—including American groupings on their way to Iraq. They were also to organize and train Palestinian terrorists …
The three had been briefed in Baghdad that they would get the missiles, heavy weapons, and explosives they might need from Fatah via [Tafiq] Tarawi [chief of the Palestinian Authority’s General Intelligence Service and Arafat’s closest confidant…
The Israel interrogators were most interested in what the three had to say about their training … at Salman Pak—a major base near Baghdad—by members of Unit 999 of Iraqi military intelligence. They recounted that in an adjacent part of the camp, other teams of Unit 999 were preparing a select group of Islamist terrorists specifically identified as members of al-Queda.
The three ALF terrorists told the Israelis that … the Islamists also received elaborate training with chemical weapons and poisons, specifically [the extremely potent poison] ricin. Moreover … the ALF terrorists recounted, Islamist detachments traveled to Turkey, where they were to strike American bases with chemical weapons once the war [on Iraq] started….
Within a week of the capture of the ALF trio, a delegation of senior Israeli intelligence officers traveled to Washington to brief the White House about their findings….
Since the Bush administration was hard-pressed to justify going to war with Iraq, one would think it would readily publicize Israel’s intelligence data. Not at all! The White House, says Bodansky, “was reluctant to advertise this evidence because it demonstrated Israeli intelligence’s major contribution to the war on terrorism.”
Nevertheless, and despite Europe’s pro-Palestinian posture, Israel quietly shared the acquired data with several European governments. This led to the destruction and capture of several Arab and Chechen terrorist networks in Paris and London, as well as support networks in Spain and Italy. As Bodansky sees, “Israel had in fact demonstrated to the Europeans why Saddam Hussein had to be toppled, and soon.” And yet, “most Western European governments adamantly refused to address Iraqi training of al-Queda in the use of chemical weapons and poisons.” But this is not all.
As Bodansky points out, acceptance of the evidence provided by Israel would also acknowledge the intimate involvement of Yasser Arafat and the Palestinian Authority in international terrorism. The European governments insisted not only on separating the Palestinians from the war on Iraq, but demanded that the Arab world be compensated for the American-led attack, by forcing Israel to accept a political solution favorable to Arafat, regardless of the extent of Palestinian terrorism! Moreover, Tony Blair led a European effort to salvage Arafat and reward him with a Palestinian state, hoping to demonstrate that the war was not indiscriminately anti-Arab.
As for the Bush administration, “Having to choose between further alienating the Western Europeans, who insisted on keeping Arafat out of the war, and bolstering its case against Iraq by providing concrete Israeli evidence, the White House decided to go with the Europeans …” The Palestinian Authority’s involvement with Iraqi terrorism and weapons of mass destruction was thus hushed up, as was Israel’s contribution to the effort to disarm Iraq.
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Smooth adds:
Yossef Bodansky is the Director of the Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare of the U. S. Congress, as well as the World Terrorism Analyst with the Freeman Center for Strategic Studies (Houston TX). He is a contributing editor of Defense and Foreign Affairs; Strategic Policy, the author of three books (Target America, terror, and crisis in Korea), several book chapters, and numerous articles in several periodicals including Global Affairs, JANE's Defence Weekly, Defense and Foreign Affairs; Strategic Policy, Business Week. In the 1980s, he acted as a senior consultant for the Department of Defense and the Department of State. Source.
I've read enough over the last year and half since the war in Iraq to know Hussein and his demonic sons had their fingers in a lot of things, which now, all of a sudden, are found "hard to prove." Some FReepers have accused others who are inquisitive of the Bush Administration's motives in not more aggressively defending their Middle East policy in the face of the global leftist assault on America in the political, intellectual, and moral arenas of our times, of "thinking we know more than the U.S. Intelligence community."
Uh, well, yeah, I'm a FReeper and with the constant flow of open source information coming through here every day, YES, we know more. Or, rather, in light of this commentary and the Bodansky literary work, which I have just ordered, it's not a matter of "thinking we know more" than the "experts," it's a matter of political appeasement and trying to placate the Arabs at the expense of our only real ally in the Middle East, Israel.
Now, everybody who knows me knows I'm one of the biggest Bush sycophants around here. He's the only one in over two decades to finally take the major steps to confront "Jihadistan" effectively. But it was Israeli intelligence resources that nailed Saddam to the wall, and not aggressively exploiting their evidence and input is going to be suicidal for longterm American interests, if not another Bush term, the way his enemies are slandering and maligning him.
Finally, this just isn't going to work, not with militant Islam....
Has anybody else read this one yet?
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I've been hearing bits and snippets of this for years, and it doesnt surprise me one bit.
I wouldn't be surprised to find out Al Qaeda is behind the current uprising in Gaza either.
Israel is a great friend of the United States, and has done a lot to protect Americans from these goblins. Its time we truly realize who our friends are and who isnt.
BookMark for later.
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Bodansky is one of those guys-much like John Loftus-who has made his name off of a few insightful observations, while generally being wrong about most of the problems he is commissioned to solve.
I trust people like Rita Katz, Peter Bergen, Stephen Emerson and Daniel Pipes.
Bodansky is best left to the conspiracy-minded and habitually paranoid, who frequent websites like Debka.com.
I work from the hypothesis that all of radical Islam is all in the same league, and that the different teams (Hamas, HizbAllah, Al-Qaida, Islamic Jihad, Fatah, Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigade, etc) operate in harmony, according to a generally-agreed-upon plan of attack, probably led and coordinated in Tehran. So whatever is going on in Gaza is part of this drama: the uprising against Arafat is part of a plan to cause something that is actually to the benefit of radical Islam (for example, to allow Egypt to argue that it cannot POSSIBLY take over the Gaza Strip until security there is more certain--which means that Egypt will never, ever take over the Gaza Strip because security there will never, ever be certain).
You are incorrect about Bodansky.
Daniel Pipes over Bodansky???? So you base what you accept via your political view over empirical evidence? Pipes is fine but he is a political writer not an analyst.
Perhaps I overstated the case against him, but I just believe that someone who dogmatically adheres to the theory that Russia did not lose the Russian-Afghan war (because they were able to install a puppet government that managed to hold out for a few more years before being destroyed by the mujahadeen), is kind of off his rocker.
But that's just me!
Let me say also thanks, SJ. Furthermore, in a culture replete with oral tradition, having oral agreements would be the norm. Do we expect to find negotiated contracts between UBL and Hussein or between Hussein and Arafat? Even if not, why then assassinate Abu Nidal as Hussein did? All of these dealings could have been written in the sand, agreed to, and smooshed aside with a sandal, or discussed on throw away cell phones.
I hold that theory too. The USSR did not lose the Afghan war. Their man (Was it Najibullah?) stayed on in poewer in Kabul well after the Russians left. The Mujahadeen never took Kabul and never knocked out Russia's allies from the war.
I read his pre-9/11 UBL book in the week after 9/11 and was disturbed that his reporting was ignored. Bondansky probably wrote a better 9/11 report before 9/11 than those political hacks who are going to press with their "report" on Thursday.
However, what's even more disturbing is that three years later Bondansky's work is still being ignored!
I think because Bodansky does not appeal to a vanity mindset that portrays American intel and military as all knowing and all victorious in the war on terror (even pre 9/11) and thus tends to be ignored or blown off becaus eof the uncomfortable truths that he brings to light. It is uncomfortable reading for those on the left (because he destroys Clinton policy) and right (like demolishsing sacred cows like victory in Afghanistan).
Intel is more of an art than a science and there may be sources that had lied or assertions that later prove to be false, but I would like to know why you think Bodansky is generally wrong?
Looking at current world events I'd say Bodansky was 90% correct in a world where everyone else was 30% correct.
I'm not saying that his theory is completely invalid. I mean, if Congress hadn't cut off funding for the South Vietnamese government during the Ford administration, I'm sure that they could have held off the communists for an indefinite amount of time.
In fact, it might have evolved into a North/South Korea situation, where the two sides eventually came to an uneasy armistice and a clear demarcation of borders.
Unfortunately, that never happened and we are left to deal with the consequences.
All I'm trying to convey is the fact that some of Bodansky's theories don't pass the smell test.
Even though I respect his work establishing the connection between the Sudanese and Iranian governments and the rise of UBL's Al Qaeda network, he wasn't the only terrorism expert-or even the most prominent-to have revealed these ties prior to Semptember 11th, 2001.
No, but the allies of the Soviets and then the Russians formed the Northern Alliance and held on until after 9/11/01 and we used Russia's Northern Alliance to take Afghanistan from the Taliban. The USSR did not win the Afghan war - but it did not lose it either (or if you want to make it easier to swallow - the USSR did not lose as badly as we in the West all assumed).
Just a thought.
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