The Candidate With No Name

www.netwmd.com ^ | July 29, 2004 | Andrew Jaffee

[stevejackson]

The Candidate With No Name By Andrew L. Jaffee, July 29, 2004	Home   Search   Forum   Terms

”Defeat Bush – VOTE In 2004!” I’ve seen more bumper-stickers with this platitude than I’ve seen ones that simply state, “Kerry/Edwards 2004.” While my liberal friends rarely mention Kerry and Edwards, they constantly remind me of how much they hate President Bush. This year, the politics of hate rule. The Left doesn’t even have a candidate. They are galvanized mainly by visceral hatred -- a hatred which stands on shaky assumptions, like the lies that Michael Moore sells as truths.

In Fahrenheit 9/11, Moore insinuates that it was President Bush who ordered the Bin Laden family flown out of the U.S. It wasn’t. It was the Left’s now-discredited champion, Richard Clarke. He implicated himself in May:

Richard Clarke, who served as President Bush's chief of counterterrorism, has claimed sole responsibility for approving flights of Saudi Arabian citizens, including members of Osama bin Laden's family, from the United States immediately after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

In an interview with The Hill yesterday, Clarke said, "I take responsibility for it. I don't think it was a mistake, and I'd do it again."

Senator Joe Lieberman, a Democrat, and Senator John McCain, a Republican, have debunked Clarke’s claims that the Bush Administration did a "terrible job" in dealing with terrorism before 9/11. So much for Clarke’s championship.

”There are no WMDs in Iraq.” Tired of hearing it? It’s not even true. The BBC reported that Polish troops recovered 17 warheads last month in southern Iraq. Some of these warheads tested positive for cyclosarin, which is much more deadly than sarin. According to the Beeb,

…the ammunition had been buried in order to avoid it being discovered by UN weapons inspectors.

Iraq weapons inspector David Kay found all sorts of evidence that Saddam was violating U.N. restrictions on WMD development. Kay's team found evidence of organic precursors for biological weapons. They found "suspected mobile biological agent laboratories." Kay's team found evidence that Saddam's goons were working on ballistic missile systems with ranges far in excess of the U.N.-mandated limits.

”We were misled in going to war in Iraq.” Again, not even close to being true. John Kerry and John Edwards both looked at the same intelligence presented to President Bush, and they voted for the Iraq war. Don’t forget that the UN Security Council voted unanimously on 08/11/2002 to hold “Iraq in ‘material breach’ of its obligations under previous resolutions.” The same resolution “recall[ed] [a] repeated warning of ‘serious consequences’ for continued violations” by Iraq.

Who’s doing the misleading? Sandy Berger, advisor to the Kerry campaign, stole “highly classified documents [a report] from the National Archives:”

The report was the result of a review done by Richard Clarke, then the White House counterterrorism chief, of efforts by the Clinton administration to stop terrorist plots at the turn of the year 2000. At several points in the September 11 commission hearings, Democrats pointed to the millennium case as an example of how a proper counterterrorism program should be run. But sources say the report suggests just the opposite. Clarke apparently concluded that the millennium plot was foiled by luck — a border agent in Washington State who happened to notice a nervous, sweating man who turned out to have explosives in his car — and not by the Clinton administration's savvy anti-terrorism work. The report also contains a number of recommendations to lessen the nation's vulnerability to terrorism, but few were actually implemented.

”There was no connection between Saddam and al-Qaeda.” Another patent lie. Infamous al-Qaeda operative Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, known now for sawing off heads in Iraq, received treatment at a Baghdad hospital under Saddam. The New York Times revealed June 25 that it had obtained a copy of

…an internal report by the Iraqi intelligence service detailing efforts to seek cooperation with several Saudi opposition groups, including Mr. bin Laden's organization, before Al Qaeda had become a full-fledged terrorist organization.

The Times interviewed several U.S. government officials to verify the authenticity of the document

…which asserts that Mr. bin Laden "was approached by our [Iraqi] side," states that Mr. bin Laden previously "had some reservations about being labeled an Iraqi operative," but was now willing to meet in Sudan, and that "presidential approval" was granted to the Iraqi security service to proceed.

So now even the Times is admitting that Saddam himself approved contacts between his operatives and al-Qaeda. It’s about time. On November 15, 2003 the Weekly Standard revealed it had obtained an October 27 memo from the Dept. of Defense to the Senate Intelligence Committee, disclosing evidence that Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden had been coordinating terrorist activities from 1990 through 2003. Among other damning evidence, the memo disclosed meetings between 9/11 hijacker Mohamed Atta and Iraqi intelligence.

From the Weekly Standard article:

OSAMA BIN LADEN and Saddam Hussein had an operational relationship from the early 1990s to 2003 that involved training in explosives and weapons of mass destruction, logistical support for terrorist attacks, al Qaeda training camps and safe haven in Iraq, and Iraqi financial support for al Qaeda--perhaps even for Mohamed Atta--according to a top secret U.S. government memorandum obtained by THE WEEKLY STANDARD.

The memo, dated October 27, 2003, was sent from Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas J. Feith to Senators Pat Roberts and Jay Rockefeller, the chairman and vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee. It was written in response to a request from the committee as part of its investigation into prewar intelligence claims made by the administration. Intelligence reporting included in the 16-page memo comes from a variety of domestic and foreign agencies, including the FBI, the Defense Intelligence Agency, the Central Intelligence Agency, and the National Security Agency. Much of the evidence is detailed, conclusive, and corroborated by multiple sources. Some of it is new information obtained in custodial interviews with high-level al Qaeda terrorists and Iraqi officials, and some of it is more than a decade old. The picture that emerges is one of a history of collaboration between two of America's most determined and dangerous enemies.

The memo contains 50 detailed bullets outlining Iraqi/al-Qaeda cooperation. Among the points laid out:

• Numerous meetings between Iraqi high-level officials and al Qaeda (including bin Laden himself).
• An agreement by Saddam to allow al-Qaeda operations as long as they left his regime alone (remember that Osama initially considered the Iraqi secular regime to be an enemy of Islam).
• The Iraqi Intelligence Service trained bin Laden in bomb-making techniques.
• Iraqi funding for meetings with al-Qaeda.
• Meetings between Iraqi officials and the Taliban in both Pakistan and Afghanistan.
• al-Qaeda set up a terrorist training camp in northern Iraq.
• Iraq provided safe harbor, funding, weapons, and fake passports to al-Qaeda -- even after 9/11.
• Involvement by countries like Jordan, Egypt, and Sudan in meetings between Iraqi representatives and al-Qaeda.

But the most disturbing revelations were Iraq's possible involvement in the 9/11 attacks. The memo disclosed that 9/11 hijacker Mohamed Atta and an Iraqi intelligence officer met as many as four times in Prague in 1994, 1999, 2000, and 2001. The Weekly Standard added that 5 high-ranking Czech government officials "have publicly confirmed" meetings between Atta and the Iraqi intelligence officer. Even more alarming, it was revealed that Iraq offered funding to Atta. Whether or not the funds were transferred remains a mystery.

President Bush's critics have lambasted him for insinuating a connection between Saddam and al-Qaeda. Remember all the pooh-poohing of the one meeting between Atta and Iraqi agent in Prague? Turns out there were four meetings -- and a whole hell of a lot of other evidence of Iraqi/al-Qaeda connections.

I certainly won’t cast my vote based on visceral hatred, nor the ranting of Michael Moore. I’ll cast my vote based on facts and in the hope that keeping President Bush in office will help preserve our most cherished values of freedom, tolerance, democracy, and safety from crazed, Islamist homicide bombers.

[Russ]

There they go again, trying to confuse the Democrats with facts. I just wish the Bush campaign team would use these facts in TV ads, speeches, or something.

[jonno]

bump