Posted on 10/18/2002 9:45:19 AM PDT by Tumbleweed_Connection
Ex-president Bill Clinton has argued of late that President Bush should concentrate on going after those responsible for the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon - and not get distracted by Saddam Hussein.
But according Laurie Mylroie, who served as Clinton's advisor on Iraq during the 1992 presidential campaign, his decision to hit Baghdad with cruise missiles on June 26, 1993 was taken in part because he believed Iraq had been involved in the first World Trade Center bombing four months earlier.
"He said publicly that the U.S. strike on Iraqi intelligence headquarters was retaliation for Saddam's attempt to kill (ex-president) George Bush," Mylroie told WABC Radio's Steve Malzberg. "(But) he also meant it for the Trade Center bombing,"
"Clinton believed that the attack on Iraqi intelligence headquarters would deter Saddam from all future strikes against the United States," she insisted. "It was hopelessly naive."
Mylroie said that then-White House National Security Council Advisor on the Middle East, Martin Indyk had revealed Clinton's true motivation for the June 1993 missile attacks during a private conversation in Dec. 1994. "Indyk believed that the strike on Iraqi intelligence headquarters had stopped Saddam," she said.
Mylroie said the suspicion that Iraq was involved in the 1993 attack was widely believed in federal law enforcement circles. "Particularly New York FBI, then headed by Jim Fox, believed that Iraq was behind that bomb," she told Malzberg.
Though her shocking contention has yet to be taken seriously by mainstream news organizations, the former Clinton advisor is no wild-eyed conspiracy theorist.
Beyond her own recent book on the subject, "The War Against America: Saddam Hussein and the WTC Attacks," Mylroie has co-authored the New York Times bestseller, "Saddam Hussein and The Crisis in the Gulf," written with Times' terrorism expert Judith Miller. She has also taught at the U.S. Naval War College, as well as Harvard University.
Skeptics of Mylroie's contentions argue that if Clinton truly believed Iraq was tied to the 1993 Trade Center attack, he would have had no reason not to say so publicly.
But the noted Iraq expert explained that the ex-president "had a very ambitious domestic program (at the time.) If he told the American people that Saddam was trying to topple (the World Trade Center), they probably would have demanded that he do an awful lot more than simply strike Iraqi intelligence headquarters."
"They might have demanded that Clinton get rid of Saddam. And he didn't want to do that," she added.
Ashton, et al. v. al Qaeda, et al.: Complaint (PDF) Lawsuit claiming a 9/11 link between Iraq and al Qaeda. Sept. 3, 2002
Slow loading .pdf file, but lots of info (79 pages), looks like it was very well researched. I saw info in there on the 1993 bombing as well.
THE 1993 WTC BOMBING
On February 26, 1993 a bomb was detonated in the World Trade Center underground parking lot, killing six U.S. citizens. IRAQI sponsored terrorists planned, financed, executed and carried out that World Trade Center bombing.
The 1993 WTC bombing, took place on the Friday before the two year anniversary of IRAQ’s defeat in Kuwait, which was February 28, 1991. The anniversary in 1993, was a Sunday and few people would have been working at the World Trade Center that day; and IRAQ and the terrorists wanted to maximize the number of American casualties.
During the initial planning of the WTC bombing, Mahmud Abu Halima (who was later convicted for his role in the bombing) was in regular and frequent contact with his uncle Kadri Abu Bakr, who lived in IRAQ and had been a member of a PLO faction allied with SADDAM HUSSEIN. Shortly after these calls, the mastermind of the bombing, Ramzi Ahmed Yousef, an IRAQI INTELLIGENCE agent, traveled to the United States using travel documents forged in Kuwait during the Iraqi occupation of that country in 1991.
42. Ramzi Yousef arrived in New York on September 1, 1992 using an Iraqi passport and requesting asylum. On December 31, 1992, he presented photocopies of passports for Abdul Basit at the Pakistani consulate in New York claiming to be Basit and requesting replacement of his “lost” passport. The real Basit was a Pakistani citizen who had moved to Kuwait and disappeared during the Iraqi occupation in August 1990.
IRAQI INTELLIGENCE had access to the Kuwaiti Interior Ministry files and upon information and belief, inserted Yousef’s fingerprints into the file and provided him with photocopies of two older passports from Basit’s file. The Pakistani Consulate, accordingly, provided Yousef a temporary passport, based on the false documents. This provided Yousef with a means to escape the U.S. two days after the World Trade Center bombing. In fleeing the United States after the bombing, Yousef first traveled through Baluchistan, an uncontrolled region of Iran straddling the border of Iran and Pakistan with strong ties to IRAQ. By the following year, 1994, Yousef was living in the Phillippines. He fled there however, after authorities discovered a plan he was working on to bomb United States’ airliners. Yousef fled to Pakistan and was eventually sheltered at an AL QAEDA guesthouse. He was arrested in February 1995 in Pakistan and extradited to the U.S. for prosecution and was eventually convicted in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing conspiracy.
43. ABDUL RAHMAN YASIN, who was born in the United States to IRAQI parents but had been raised in Iraq, was questioned in New York and New Jersey in connection with the World Trade Center bombing, but was released after appearing to cooperate with U.S. officials. He fled the country the next day and traveled to Baghdad, IRAQ. U.S. prosecutors later learned that he, along with others, had prior training in bomb making, and had mixed the chemicals and constructed the bomb that was used on the World Trade Center. IRAQI INTELLIGENCE knew of Yasin’s presence in IRAQ and provided him refuge. On August 4, 1993 Yasin was indicted in absentia for the World Trade Center bombing.
44. In June 1994 YASIN was seen in Baghdad by an ABC news correspondent who was told that YASIN worked for IRAQI government. U.S. law enforcement officials confirmed that fugitive YASIN has been sheltered in IRAQ, a continuing violation of United Nationals Security Council Resolution 687 which makes it unlawful to harbor a suspected terrorist. In June 2002, YASIN was interviewed in Baghdad by Leslie Stahl from CBS. Yasin still remains in Iraq.
45. Ramzi Ahmed Yousef, Mohammed Salameh, Nidal Ayyad, Mahmud Abu Halima and Ahmad Mohammed Ajaj were all eventually convicted in the Southern District of New York for the 1993 conspiracy to bomb the World Trade Center.
46. Following his arrest in 1995, Ramzi Yousef told U.S. investigators that his intent was to create an explosion that would cause one of the World Trade Center Towers to fall over onto the other, destroying both and causing massive American casualties. Yousef had also planned to use sodium cyanide to create a toxic cyanide gas cloud throughout the area that would poison those in the building. Fortunately, the sodium cyanide was consumed in the blast and vaporized. Before the Gulf War, IRAQ had the largest and most diversified terrorist chemical weapons program in stockpiles of sodium cyanide, and had experience in the late 1980's using chemical weapons against its Kurdish population. Upon information and belief, it was IRAQ that supplied Yousef with the sodium cyanide.
47. During the worldwide hunt for fugitive Ramzi Yousef, he was living in the Phillippines with KHALID SHEIKH MOHAMMED. KHALID SHEIKH MOHAMMED’S involvement in terror activities became known when law enforcement authorities interrupted a plot to blow up a dozen U.S. commercial airliners flying to the United States from Asian cities. MOHAMMED’S participation in the planning of these acts of terror was uncovered by authorities after Yousef accidently started a fire in his apartment in Manila while mixing bomb chemicals. Filipino authorities were suspicious when they saw chemicals, bomb making instructions and timing devices in the apartment and they seized those items along with a computer containing the details of the airliner bombing plans. MOHAMMED and Yousef fled the country, before they could be arrested.
48. MOHAMMED eventually found sanctuary in Doha, Qatar. In early 1996, MOHAMMED was visited in Qatar by BIN LADEN. Around the same time, FBI director, Louis Freeh, wrote to the Qatari government requesting that it surrender MOHAMMED to U.S. authorities. Not long after the FBI request, with the assistance of Qatari officials, MOHAMMED fled to Prague, Czech Republic, foiling U.S. attempts to arrest him.
49. MOHAMMED’s whereabouts after his escape to Prague in May 1996 are not known, but documents and AL QAEDA members captured in Afghanistan identified MOHAMMED as a leader in the AL QAEDA terror network and actively involved in the planning, logistics and financing of the September 11 th attacks. His participation in the planned hijacking of U.S. commercial airliners was not new for him. MOHAMMED is a close associate of ABU ZUBAYDAH, a top BIN LADEN associate who was fully aware of the targets of the September 11 th hijackers. ZUBAYDAH is in the custody of United States authorities and is providing some information about AL QAEDA operations.
Didn't realize Mylroie had been an advisor to Clinton.
From her book "The War Against America--Saddam Hussein and the WTC Attacks":
"The [Clinton] administration had two distinct frameworks for dealing with the terrorist attacks. On the surface, the attacks were handled as a judicial matter. Perpetrators were held responsible, arrested, and brought to justice. The question of state sponsorship, however, was dealt with quietly.
"By dealing with state sponsorship in that way, the administration avoided riling the American public--which, if aware of the suspected involvement of countries like Iraq and Sudan in terrorism on US soil, might have demanded that we do a great deal more."
Very relevant quote, in light of what we know today. It always did seem kind of that Clinton was bombing Sadaam because of what he'd tried to do to Daddy Bush....
The Clinton military actions were timed such that they redirected press attention away from administration scandals.
June 26, 1993 – Iraq cruise missiles when the headlines were on Waco burning April 19, 1993
August 20, 1998 – Sudan/Afghanistan cruise missiles when the headlines were Clinton’s grand jury testimony on August 17
December 16, 1998 – Iraq bombing campaign when the headlines were on the impeachment vote due the very next day
March 24, 1999 – Kosovo bombing campaign begins within the 30 day extension of the Cox/Dicks committee (the espionage report had been waiting to be released since January of that year, a 90 day extension had already been granted.) The administration was redacting information from the report on espionage, lack of security in national laboratories, unconscionable conduct and squandering of national security. There had been 2,000 deaths at the time the Kosovo bombing began – which is tragic of course, but pales in comparison to Sudan (2 million) Rwanda (1 million) Sri Lanka, Indonesia, etc.
"For those convinced that ‘Wag the Dog’ is just a Hollywood invention, I offer a hard-to-find report titled ‘An Investigation into the Magnitude of Foreign Contacts.’ This document, penned, not by any Hollywood producer, but by Federal Reserve economists (document No. RWP97-14), is essentially a scientific quantification of the ‘Wag the Dog’ theory. The researchers employ a lengthy and complex mathematical model to illustrate the potential advantages of small-scale wars to presidents in distress.” Burgess, Paul. "'Wag the Dog' .... not just a movie: A chilling report on 'diversionary wars'" The Cincinnati Enquirer. June 23, 1999. http://www.freerepublic.com/forum/a37780ee535b3.htm (30 APR 2001)
Melorie ping
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