Saturday, September 09, 2006
No connection?
There are a great many folks who spit through gritted teeth their belief that there were absolutely no links between Saddam's Iraq and al-Qaeda. As we approach the five-year anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, they should chew on this:
According to Laurie Mylroie, who served an adviser on Iraq early in the Clinton Administration, President Clinton's decision to hit Baghdad with cruise missiles on June 26, 1993, was made in part because he believed Iraq had been involved in the first World Trade Center bombing four months earlier. Indeed, Ramzi Ahmed Yousef, a former Iraqi intelligence officer, was among those arrested following the al-Qaeda-sponsored attack.
"He said publicly that the U.S. strike on Iraqi intelligence headquarters was retaliation for Saddam's attempt to kill President [George H.W.] 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. It was hopelessly naive."
Mylroie said that Martin Indyk, White House National Security Council Advisor on the Middle East, had revealed Clinton's true motivation for the June 1993 missile attacks during a private conversation in December 1994. "Indyk believed that the strike on Iraqi intelligence headquarters had stopped Saddam," she recalled. 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.
Based on information provided by Iraqi defectors, U.S. intelligence suspected for many months prior to 9/11 that the Salman Pak military camp, located near Baghdad, was being used to train foreign terrorists, including members of al-Qaeda.
Here's what the New York Times said about the camp six weeks after 9/11:
"New information does suggest that [Saddam] Hussein was actively training terrorists to attack American interests throughout the 1990s. One example is the testimony of Sabah Khodada, a captain in the Iraqi army who emigrated to the United States in May after working for eight years at what he described as a terrorist training camp at a bend in the Tigris River just southeast of Baghdad."
According to the Times, Khodada described the camp as "a highly secret installation" where "non-Iraqi Arabs from Persian Gulf countries, including Saudi Arabia" received training in "assassinations, kidnapping, hijacking of airplanes, hijacking of buses, hijacking of trains, and all other kinds of operations related to terrorism." In comments unmentioned by the Times but covered by PBS's Frontline, Khodada said that when he saw the WTC fall he thought to himself, "This was done by graduates of Salman Pak."
Here's how National Public Radio characterized Iraq's link to the 9/11 attacks in a report the same month:
"The case against Iraq is based on three things. First, Mohammed Atta, believed to be the key organizer of the September 11 attacks, met earlier this year with an Iraqi agent in Prague. Second, Iraq's stockpiled anthrax as a biological weapon. And third, recent allegations that there's a camp in Iraq where foreign terrorists are trained. The allegation about the terrorist training camp comes through a recent Iraqi defector. According to this story, the camp is located near the town of Salman Pak, southeast of Baghdad, and it contains a Boeing jetliner that could be used to train hijackers how to seize a plane."
Charles Deulfer, former Deputy Head, U.N. Special Commission for Iraq, told NPR, "There were lots of places in Iraq where training of non-Iraqis, or things, which by our lexicon would be considered terrorism, was taking place. That's why Iraq is on the terrorist list. Having a large aircraft, a 707, in a peninsula, completely visible from the air or from satellite, with no airline runways nearby, that's not there by accident."
Last year, NBC's Tim Russert stated on a broadcast of Meet the Press that "no one" believes in an Iraq-9/11 link. However, interviewing Vice President Dick Cheney in December 2001, Russert cited the then-recent comments of former CIA Director James Woolsey:
"We know that at Salman Pak, on the southern edge of Baghdad, five different eyewitnesses - three Iraqi defectors and two American U.N. Inspectors - have said - and now there are aerial photographs to show it - a Boeing 707 that was used for training of hijackers, including non-Iraqi hijackers trained very secretly to take over airplanes with knives."
Russert then displayed satellite imagery of Salman Pak for his audience, saying, "And we have photographs. As you can see that little white speck – and there it is, the plane on the ground in Iraq used to train non-Iraqi hijackers." Then the NBC newsman asked the Vice President, "Do you still believe there's no evidence that Iraq was involved in September 11?"
In late October 2001, New York Times columnist William Safire detailed the extensive ties between Osama bin Laden, his henchmen and Saddam's intelligence service leading up to 9/11:
"Faruq Hijazi, in 1994 Saddam's secret service director and now his ambassador to Turkey, has had a series of meetings with bin Laden. These began in Sudan, arranged by Hassan al-Tourabi, the Sudanese Muslim leader, and continued in Afghanistan. The conspiracy was furthered in Baghdad in 1998 between bin Laden's No. 2 man, Ayman al-Zawahiri, and Saddam's vice president, Taha Yasin Ramadan."
"To strengthen Saddam's position in the Arab world during his 1998 crisis with the U.N., bin Laden established the 'World Islamic Front for Jihad Against the Jews and the Crusaders.' The Muslim-in-name Iraqi dictator reciprocated by promising secure refuge in Iraq for bin Laden and his key lieutenants if they were forced to flee Afghanistan.
"Bin Laden sent a delegation of his top al-Qaeda terrorists to Baghdad on April 25, 1998, to attend the grand celebration that week of Saddam's birthday. It was then that Saddam's bloody-minded son Uday agreed to receive several hundred al-Qaeda recruits for terrorist training in techniques unavailable in Afghanistan.
"That Baghdad birthday party, according to an unpublished spying report, celebrated something else: Uday Hussein's agreement with bin Laden's men to formally establish a joint force consisting of some of al-Qaeda's fiercest 'Afghan Arab' fighters and the covert combatants in Iraqi intelligence unit 999."
Not only have William Safire's earlier claims been corroborated by information uncovered by U.S. forces in Iraq, in May 2003, Manhattan U.S. District Judge Harold Baer ruled that Iraq played a material role in the 9/11 attacks in a case brought against Baghdad by families of two World Trade Center victims.
'Nough said ...
According to Laurie Mylroie, who served an adviser on Iraq early in the Clinton Administration, President Clinton's decision to hit Baghdad with cruise missiles on June 26, 1993, was made in part because he believed Iraq had been involved in the first World Trade Center bombing four months earlier. Indeed, Ramzi Ahmed Yousef, a former Iraqi intelligence officer, was among those arrested following the al-Qaeda-sponsored attack.
"He said publicly that the U.S. strike on Iraqi intelligence headquarters was retaliation for Saddam's attempt to kill President [George H.W.] 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. It was hopelessly naive."
Mylroie said that Martin Indyk, White House National Security Council Advisor on the Middle East, had revealed Clinton's true motivation for the June 1993 missile attacks during a private conversation in December 1994. "Indyk believed that the strike on Iraqi intelligence headquarters had stopped Saddam," she recalled. 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.
Based on information provided by Iraqi defectors, U.S. intelligence suspected for many months prior to 9/11 that the Salman Pak military camp, located near Baghdad, was being used to train foreign terrorists, including members of al-Qaeda.
Here's what the New York Times said about the camp six weeks after 9/11:
"New information does suggest that [Saddam] Hussein was actively training terrorists to attack American interests throughout the 1990s. One example is the testimony of Sabah Khodada, a captain in the Iraqi army who emigrated to the United States in May after working for eight years at what he described as a terrorist training camp at a bend in the Tigris River just southeast of Baghdad."
According to the Times, Khodada described the camp as "a highly secret installation" where "non-Iraqi Arabs from Persian Gulf countries, including Saudi Arabia" received training in "assassinations, kidnapping, hijacking of airplanes, hijacking of buses, hijacking of trains, and all other kinds of operations related to terrorism." In comments unmentioned by the Times but covered by PBS's Frontline, Khodada said that when he saw the WTC fall he thought to himself, "This was done by graduates of Salman Pak."
Here's how National Public Radio characterized Iraq's link to the 9/11 attacks in a report the same month:
"The case against Iraq is based on three things. First, Mohammed Atta, believed to be the key organizer of the September 11 attacks, met earlier this year with an Iraqi agent in Prague. Second, Iraq's stockpiled anthrax as a biological weapon. And third, recent allegations that there's a camp in Iraq where foreign terrorists are trained. The allegation about the terrorist training camp comes through a recent Iraqi defector. According to this story, the camp is located near the town of Salman Pak, southeast of Baghdad, and it contains a Boeing jetliner that could be used to train hijackers how to seize a plane."
Charles Deulfer, former Deputy Head, U.N. Special Commission for Iraq, told NPR, "There were lots of places in Iraq where training of non-Iraqis, or things, which by our lexicon would be considered terrorism, was taking place. That's why Iraq is on the terrorist list. Having a large aircraft, a 707, in a peninsula, completely visible from the air or from satellite, with no airline runways nearby, that's not there by accident."
Last year, NBC's Tim Russert stated on a broadcast of Meet the Press that "no one" believes in an Iraq-9/11 link. However, interviewing Vice President Dick Cheney in December 2001, Russert cited the then-recent comments of former CIA Director James Woolsey:
"We know that at Salman Pak, on the southern edge of Baghdad, five different eyewitnesses - three Iraqi defectors and two American U.N. Inspectors - have said - and now there are aerial photographs to show it - a Boeing 707 that was used for training of hijackers, including non-Iraqi hijackers trained very secretly to take over airplanes with knives."
Russert then displayed satellite imagery of Salman Pak for his audience, saying, "And we have photographs. As you can see that little white speck – and there it is, the plane on the ground in Iraq used to train non-Iraqi hijackers." Then the NBC newsman asked the Vice President, "Do you still believe there's no evidence that Iraq was involved in September 11?"
In late October 2001, New York Times columnist William Safire detailed the extensive ties between Osama bin Laden, his henchmen and Saddam's intelligence service leading up to 9/11:
"Faruq Hijazi, in 1994 Saddam's secret service director and now his ambassador to Turkey, has had a series of meetings with bin Laden. These began in Sudan, arranged by Hassan al-Tourabi, the Sudanese Muslim leader, and continued in Afghanistan. The conspiracy was furthered in Baghdad in 1998 between bin Laden's No. 2 man, Ayman al-Zawahiri, and Saddam's vice president, Taha Yasin Ramadan."
"To strengthen Saddam's position in the Arab world during his 1998 crisis with the U.N., bin Laden established the 'World Islamic Front for Jihad Against the Jews and the Crusaders.' The Muslim-in-name Iraqi dictator reciprocated by promising secure refuge in Iraq for bin Laden and his key lieutenants if they were forced to flee Afghanistan.
"Bin Laden sent a delegation of his top al-Qaeda terrorists to Baghdad on April 25, 1998, to attend the grand celebration that week of Saddam's birthday. It was then that Saddam's bloody-minded son Uday agreed to receive several hundred al-Qaeda recruits for terrorist training in techniques unavailable in Afghanistan.
"That Baghdad birthday party, according to an unpublished spying report, celebrated something else: Uday Hussein's agreement with bin Laden's men to formally establish a joint force consisting of some of al-Qaeda's fiercest 'Afghan Arab' fighters and the covert combatants in Iraqi intelligence unit 999."
Not only have William Safire's earlier claims been corroborated by information uncovered by U.S. forces in Iraq, in May 2003, Manhattan U.S. District Judge Harold Baer ruled that Iraq played a material role in the 9/11 attacks in a case brought against Baghdad by families of two World Trade Center victims.
'Nough said ...
# posted by Joltin' Django @ Saturday, September 09, 2006 
