Saddam's intelligence agency's efforts to recruit jihadists to bomb Radio Free Europe in Prague in the late 1990's?
Mohammed Atta's unexplained visits to Prague in 2000, and his alleged visit there in April 2001 which — notwithstanding the 9/11 Commission's dismissal of it (based on interviewing exactly zero relevant witnesses) — the Czechs have not retracted?
The Clinton Justice Department's allegation in a 1998 indictment (two months before the embassy bombings) against bin Laden, to wit: In addition, al Qaeda reached an understanding with the government of Iraq that al Qaeda would not work against that government and that on particular projects, specifically including weapons development, al Qaeda would work cooperatively with the Government of Iraq.
Seized Iraq Intelligence Service records indicating that Saddam's henchmen regarded bin Laden as an asset as early as 1992?
Saddam's hosting of al Qaeda No. 2, Ayman Zawahiri beginning in the early 1990’s, and reports of a large payment of money to Zawahiri in 1998?
Saddam’s ten years of harboring of 1993 World Trade Center bomber Abdul Rahman Yasin?
Iraqi Intelligence Service operatives being dispatched to meet with bin Laden in Afghanistan in 1998 (the year of bin Laden’s fatwa demanding the killing of all Americans, as well as the embassy bombings)?
Saddam’s official press lionizing bin Laden as “an Arab and Islamic hero” following the 1998 embassy bombing attacks?
The continued insistence of high-ranking Clinton administration officials to the 9/11 Commission that the 1998 retaliatory strikes (after the embassy bombings) against a Sudanese pharmaceutical factory were justified because the factory was a chemical weapons hub tied to Iraq and bin Laden?
Top Clinton administration counterterrorism official Richard Clarke’s assertions, based on intelligence reports in 1999, that Saddam had offered bin Laden asylum after the embassy bombings, and Clarke’s memo to then-National Security Adviser Sandy Berger, advising him not to fly U-2 missions against bin Laden in Afghanistan because he might be tipped off by Pakistani Intelligence, and “[a]rmed with that knowledge, old wily Usama will likely boogie to Baghdad”? (See 9/11 Commission Final Report, p. 134 & n.135.)
Terror master Abu Musab Zarqawi's choice to boogie to Baghdad of all places when he needed surgery after fighting American forces in Afghanistan in 2001?
Saddam's Intelligence Service running a training camp at Salman Pak, were terrorists were instructed in tactics for assassination, kidnapping and hijacking?
Former CIA Director George Tenet’s October 7, 2002 letter to Congress, which asserted:
Our understanding of the relationship between Iraq and Al Qaeda is evolving and is based on sources of varying reliability. Some of the information we have received comes from detainees, including some of high rank.
We have solid reporting of senior level contacts between Iraq and Al Qaeda going back a decade.
Credible information indicates that Iraq and Al Qaeda have discussed safe haven and reciprocal nonaggression.
Since Operation Enduring Freedom, we have solid evidence of the presence in Iraq of Al Qaeda members, including some that have been in Baghdad.
We have credible reporting that Al Qaeda leaders sought contacts in Iraq who could help them acquire WMD capabilities. The reporting also stated that Iraq has provided training to Al Qaeda members in the areas of poisons and gases and making conventional bombs.
Iraq's increasing support to extremist Palestinians coupled with growing indications of relationship with Al Qaeda suggest that Baghdad's links to terrorists will increase, even absent U.S. military action.
Read about the Clinton indictment against OBL which cited the terrorists's connections with Iraq and the agreement OBL and Iraq had together.
Read about the articles written in the 90's by the MSM about the growing relationship between Saddam and OBL.
That and more here:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1327993/posts
Note to John Kerry: Terrorists ARE weapons of mass destruction.
Outstanding article and post, Peach. People in our culture suffer from a severe case of Attention Deficit Disorder, and unfortunately, but vitally, our President needs to continue to remind the American people why we are in Iraq, and Afghanistan, and about 70 other nations where there is some kind of American presence to combat international terrorism.
The left's reply to al the above proof:
"Nuh uh, Bush is evil"
Anybody have a connection with FOX News? Contact them and ask them to please present this list to all the Bush-hating dimocraps out there who are whining about Dubya's statement. Then ask them why in the world they STILL think there is no connection.
THAT would be bringing balance to the issue.
Thank you!
Who the hell is Andrew C. McCarthy and what the hell is the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies?
Great Post !
Thanks for posting. There are a few DURTs( dim under the radar trolls) on FR today who believe what the dems and msm feed them rather than doing their own research. Those same ones who believe that if you have a good enough lawyer, then you are innocent of a crime you committed, ala, o.j. simpson. Keep up the good work.
mark for later
I'm sure they are.
Thanks for the post, Peach.
Excellent article. Thanks for posting. Passing it on to my friends.
Very timely......
marine_uncle ....here is a good place to start!
New one to me.....now I wonder about the papers that Sandy Berger took!
Thanks Peach for the post, and your follow up analysis. Hits much right on the nail. Off course we shall continue to see folks with one cylinder that run on low test continue to miss the whole picture, let alone many of the slices. Their single spark plug seem to have been designed and manufactured by some Abu Akmed al sali el wahabbi husany while at a wmd shop in Salmon Pak. And perhaps their single distributor and high voltage spark plug wire was developed by Rama el Dupa residing in Jedda. The truth is on display for those willing to read.
Bump for later...
Please FReepmail me if you want on or off my ‘miscellaneous’ ping list.
http://www.foxnews.com/printer_friendly_story/0,3566,97063,00.html
The Connection Between 9/11 and Iraq
Thursday, September 11, 2003
This is a partial transcript of Special Report with Brit Hume, September 10, that has been edited for clarity.
Watch Special Report With Brit Hume weeknights at 6 p.m. ET
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HOWARD DEAN, DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with 9-11.
REP. DENNIS KUCINICH, D-OHIO, PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Iraq had nothing to do with 9-11.
SENATOR BOB GRAHAM, D-FLA, PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: President knew or should have known that there was no relationship between 9-11. There was no relationship between Usama Been Forgotten and Saddam Hussein.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BRIT HUME, HOST: It's an applause line. And in that case, a laughter line for the Democrats in their presidential debates. There you heard it from Howard Dean (search), from Dennis Kucinich (search) and finally, there from Senator Bob Graham (search) of Florida, the flat out statement…definitive statement, no connection between 9-11 and Iraq.
Well, certainly the administration has never claimed a connection, but is it that clear that it is definite there was not? For more on this, we turn now to FOX News foreign affairs analyst, Mansoor Ijaz, who joins us now from Berlin; the man with the best sources we know of anybody on these kinds of issues.
Mansoor, welcome. And tell us, first of all, your sense about whether it is…whether it can be definitively stated as a fact that there was no…9-11 connection to Iraq.
MANSOOR IJAZ, FOX NEWS FOREIGN AFFAIRS ANALYST: Well, Brit, I'll first…I'll say to you that with regard to Howard Dean and Congressman Kucinich, you have to forgive them because they don't know any better. But I was surprised to hear Bob Graham say that since he sat in a senior position on the Senate Intelligence Committee during the course of these events.
The fact of the matter is that as early as 1994, but certainly proof positive as of 1998, the connection between Al Qaeda (search) and Saddam Hussein was very clear. In February and March of 1998, bin Laden's No. 2 guy visited Baghdad at the request of the intelligence services of Iraq.
And he was living in Khartoum at the time at the very moment that the Sudanese intelligence chief was begging the FBI in hand written notes that were carried back and forth to come to the Sudan and look at what the data was that they had, who they were dealing with, how bin Laden's people were moving around, which ones were moving where and what they were doing.
There is no and, if's, or but's about the fact that there was a connection between al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein that early.
Now, the real question is what did they do in that two and a half weeks that they sat there and planned and plotted with each other?
We know that exactly six weeks after the meetings took place, a letter came from the FBI to the Sudanese saying we can't help you. We're not allowed to come and look at this stuff. And then six weeks after that, the embassies in Kenya and Tanzania were bombed and the Sudanese Embassy was cased.
So I would say that these people who make that kind of an argument have really no idea what the facts are. Nor do they understand what the mendacity of Saddam was to use al Qaeda for his benefit and his purposes in carrying out terrorist attacks in other parts of the world.
HUME: Well, certainly that makes pretty good circumstantial evidence on the attacks on those embassies. And it does suggest from what you have said that there have been contacts at a high level, important level, between al Qaeda and the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein. But what about something that would suggest a connection to 9-11, is there evidence there of any consequence?
IJAZ: Absolutely, and now let's take it a step further after the 1998 bombings. We then know there was a training camp called Salman Pak, which we've been able to identify the aircraft that they trained, the hijackers on. We've been able to identify other contacts between Iraqi intelligence services and directly with the 9-11 hijackers.
People would love to shove that evidence under the carpet, but the fact of the matter is that the meetings did take place, planning was going on. The Iraqi diplomatic pouch was the tool of choice to pass al Qaeda's messages around the world in different parts of the world.
There was…we know for a fact that the Philippines' embassy of Iraq in manila was used for purposes of planning what was then a thwarted effort to try and hijack airplanes across the Pacific. We know that the Pakistani…I mean, the Iraqi Embassy in Islamabad was used to facilitate contact between the Taliban, bin Laden's people, and Iraqi senior scientists to collaborate on chemical and biological weapons. I know that for a fact myself that that was going on.
So, there is just no way that anybody can convince me that there is no connection. We have not yet found the forensic tie. That may be true. But to say that there's no connection whatsoever, that is absolutely not true.
HUME: Why is it that the Bush administration, in your view, has not stressed this terrorist connection more? It did for a while, but since the appeal that was made for the U.N. resolutions back last fall, you haven't heard much from the administration on this connection from.
IJAZ: You know, Brit, that's sort of a tough question to answer in one sense. But let me give you my opinion about that. That is, the Bush administration has their hands full trying to solve the problems on the ground in Iraq right now.
They did the best that they could to and try to lay everything out. They tried to make the case to the American people. I think they made a darn good case. And when they executed what they needed to and the evidence was there. The fact is that we found evidence after the war was over that this was going on.
And so for me, it's very clear what was happening. If the Democrats don't want to accept that, they're not going to win office next time if they keep this up, because the American people are too smart to let this go on forever.
HUME: Mansoor, thank you. Always a pleasure to have you.