Pat asks, "Is Bush Seeking a 'Decent Interval'?" (on Iraq withdrawal)

American Conservative ^ | Oct. 28, 03 | Buchanan

[Chancellor Palpatine]

I have an even better solution, one that will annoy the crap out of the paleocons - every time a bomb goes off, a radical mosque meets dynamite and a violence exhorting mullah gets whacked. This goes along with a plan of secret assassination of every Saudi prince and oilman who ever wrote a check to fund Jihad. That would solve the problem, but you a-holes would see it as helping the Jews, and your banshee howling would reverberate worldwide.

[Reagan Man]

The president’s problem in Iraq is the result of an unnecessary war.

Pat was once a reasonable, sensible and proud conservative. This doom and gloom from Buchanan is defeatist rhetoric and makes him look foolish.

After 9-11, Bush and company realized the war on terrorism is better fought over there, then over here. Let's keep it that way.

[XJarhead]

Thanks. But that rationale has been floated out there a number of times, just not stated as clearly as it should have been. Jack Straw touched on it when he pointed at the presence of U.S. and British troops being the only reason for Saddam's cooperation. And at some point, Wolfowitz gave an interview after the war at which he identified three reasons to support going to war. Once of which was that our maintaining a long term presence in Saudi Arabia was not viable, and was destabilizing.

We also heard prior to the war of complaints that attacking Iraq would increase terrorism against the U.S. Part of the response to that was that we got 9-11 under the status quo, so clearly they hate us even without an invasion of Iraq.

It all touched upon the same point: the status quo in that region prior to the invasion was unacceptable, and amounted to an acceptance of a long-term destabilizing U.S. presence in that region. That's why those who talked about "containment" being a success missed the boat -- 9-11 proved that there were unacceptable costs to an indefinite policy of containment.

We had to either fish or cut bait. So we fished. I just hope we hear that explained a bit more clearly during the election cycle. Because as soon as some Dem argues that "containment was working", Dubya can lower the boom by saying "No it wasn't. Containment is what got us 9-11."

[ravingnutter]

As far as 9/11 goes, I offer the following...

Here is a Press the Meat transcript:

MR. RUSSERT: The Washington Post asked the American people about Saddam Hussein, and this is what they said: 69 percent said he was involved in the September 11 attacks. Are you surprised by that?

VICE PRES. CHENEY: No. I think it’s not surprising that people make that connection.

MR. RUSSERT: But is there a connection?

VICE PRES. CHENEY: We don’t know. You and I talked about this two years ago. I can remember you asking me this question just a few days after the original attack. At the time I said no, we didn’t have any evidence of that. Subsequent to that, we’ve learned a couple of things. We learned more and more that there was a relationship between Iraq and al-Qaeda that stretched back through most of the decade of the ’90s, that it involved training, for example, on BW and CW, that al-Qaeda sent personnel to Baghdad to get trained on the systems that are involved. The Iraqis providing bomb-making expertise and advice to the al-Qaeda organization.

We know, for example, in connection with the original World Trade Center bombing in ’93 that one of the bombers was Iraqi, returned to Iraq after the attack of ’93. And we’ve learned subsequent to that, since we went into Baghdad and got into the intelligence files, that this individual probably also received financing from the Iraqi government as well as safe haven.

Now, is there a connection between the Iraqi government and the original World Trade Center bombing in ’93? We know, as I say, that one of the perpetrators of that act did, in fact, receive support from the Iraqi government after the fact. With respect to 9/11, of course, we’ve had the story that’s been public out there. The Czechs alleged that Mohamed Atta, the lead attacker, met in Prague with a senior Iraqi intelligence official five months before the attack, but we’ve never been able to develop anymore of that yet either in terms of confirming it or discrediting it. We just don’t know.

Transcript in Post #26

According to a report Sunday by the Associated Press, 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed "told his interrogators he had worked in 1994 and 1995 in the Philippines with Ramzi Yousef, Abdul Hakim Murad and Wali Khan Amin Shah on the foiled Bojinka plot to blow up 12 Western airliners simultaneously in Asia."

Yousef, of course, was the man who plotted and executed the failed 1993 World Trade Center bombing, who entered the U.S. on an Iraqi passport the year before and whose partner in the plot, Abdul Rahman Yasin, was granted sanctuary by Saddam Hussein after the attack. Yasin is still at large.

Unmentioned by the AP, Mohammed's account of meetings with Yousef has been corroborated by Yousef's Bojinka partner, Abdul Hakim Murad. After his capture in 1995, Murad told the FBI that he and Yousef were contacted by Mohammed repeatedly during their time in the Philippines. Murad's FBI 302 witness statements detailing the contacts are reprinted in the new book "1000 Years for Revenge," by investigative reporter Peter Lance.

Another intriguing detail unmentioned by the AP, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is Ramzi Yousef's uncle.

Just last week, new documents uncovered by U.S. investigators in Iraq implicated Saddam's regime in the 1993 attack.

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's Account Links 9/11 to '93 WTC Attack

And more on Yasin:

Eight years have passed since Abdul Rahman Yasin bade hasty farewell to New York and flew to Baghdad. There he initially passed the time by fielding telephone calls placed by solicitous FBI agents and finding a niche in Saddam Hussein's police state. By all appearances, Yasin has lived a quiet, secluded life there.

Bush on Oct. 10 named Yasin as one of the world's 22 Most Wanted Terrorists for his role in the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center. Bush's list is headed by Osama bin Laden and his cohorts in al-Qaida, the terror group accused of finishing the destruction of the New York landmark begun by Yasin and others.

There is no doubt about Yasin's whereabouts after the 1993 outrage. The FBI agents who perfunctorily questioned Yasin in New York and were conned by his pleasant manner quickly understood their mistake in letting him go. They got his brother to telephone Yasin in Baghdad repeatedly to ask him to come back for more questioning. Guess what? Mr. Yasin sent his regrets.

In 1998 then-FBI Director Louis Freeh said publicly that the fugitive was "hiding in his native Iraq." The Iraqi National Congress, the leading anti-Saddam movement, earlier obtained a photograph of Yasin in Baghdad and provided it to Washington. Every indication points to Yasin's not having left Iraq since then, a senior U.S. official tells me.

Will We Find Abdul Rahman Yasin?

And here is the theory concerning why Bush won't make the link:

Senior investigators and analysts in the U.S. government have concluded that Iraq acted as a state sponsor of terrorism against Americans and logistically supported the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States - confirming news reports that until now have emerged only in bits and pieces. A senior government official responsible for investigating terrorism tells Insight that while Saddam Hussein may not have had details of the Sept. 11 attacks in advance, he "gave assistance for whatever al-Qaeda came up with." That assistance, confirmed independently, came in a variety of ways, including financial support spun out through a complex web of financial institutions in Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Italy and elsewhere. Long suspected of having terrorist ties to al-Qaeda, they now have been linked to Iraq as well. Insiders say the failure to assign responsibility for the Sept. 11 attacks to Iraq, Afghanistan or any other nation-state is intentional. "The administration does not want the victims of Sept. 11 interfering with its foreign policy," says Peter M. Leitner, director of the Washington Center for Peace and Justice (WCPJ).

Leitner says the Bush administration may be concerned that if other victims of the Sept. 11 attacks also filed lawsuits and won civil-damage awards it would reduce Iraqi resources that the administration wants to use to rebuild the country. Leitner and others say this explains Bush's reticence at this time to report the convincing evidence linking Saddam and al-Qaeda that has been collected by U.S. investigators and private organizations seeking damages. "The [Bush] administration is intentionally changing the topic," claims Leitner, and sidestepping the issue that "Iraq has been in a proxy war against the U.S. for years and has used al-Qaeda in that war against the United States."

FR Thread

BTW, you also might want to check this post of mine that details Iraq/Al Qaeda meetings other than the Prague meeting and predictions made (as in BEFORE it happened) in Iraqi newspapers of the 9/11 attack.

[Britton J Wingfield]

Japan will not help.

BS. Japan voted to send a cadre of engineers, which is a groundbreaking event in their post-WWII history.

[carton253]

And Japan sent money!

[FairOpinion]

"To paraphrase Jack Nicholson, you apparently can't handle it. "

==

And you, apparently, keep ignoring fact after fact.

Here is just a recent one:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1010196/posts
Spy chief says Iraq moved weapons

Iraqi military officers destroyed or hid chemical, biological and nuclear weapons goods in the weeks before the war, the nation's top satellite spy director said yesterday.
Retired Air Force Lt. Gen. James Clapper, head of the National Imagery and Mapping Agency, said vehicle traffic photographed by U.S. spy satellites indicated that material and documents related to the arms programs were shipped to Syria.

[Honestfreedom]

Pat has the potential to be the next Arianna Huffington. Drifts from one obscure position to another with fewer and fewer followers. He sets up the choices well but comes up with the worst conclusion. If we back out of Iraq now, we lose the war on terror.

[Ruth A.]

There is a difference between how the search process is being done now. Under Blix, Saddahm was able to continue his programs and hide them. Now, the programs have been stopped while we search. There's a awful lot of sand that can be used as cover.

Further, what about the mass graves? That isn't important in the equation to you? The stories of freedom, water flowing, marriages taking place, etc. have no meaning to you either.

For all the naysaying there is one irrefuteable fact: since the war was taken over there, terrorism has not happened over here.

[WOSG]

Is Pat hitting the sauce again?

Either that, or his cable TV blew out and he's getting his news from Al Jazeera... my GOd this is almost a PARODY of feeble anti-Bush quagmire-lamenting. And it's wholly wrong:

We are virtually friendless in Baghdad. Our NATO allies, Brits and Poles excepted, have left us to stew in our own juice. Wolfowitz gave speeches to cheering crowds last week. Most of Iraq is better now than it has ever been - electricity, economy, schools, all coming back ... and the people have freedom. Most are happy. Russia will not help. Japan will not help. Japan pledges several billion last week in aid, Russia pledged too. Poland has thosands of troops in Iraq.

Pat B. is not telling the truth!!

The president’s UN address, sandwiched as it was between speeches by Kofi Annan and Jacques Chirac, earned perfunctory applause, while they received ovations. I see. this was written a month ago? So what if UN dolts dont appreciate President Bush. They are wrong. Bush is right. IS PAT SERIOUSLY SAYING WE SHOULD FOLLOW THE UN'S "LEAD" ON THIS MATTER?

[tbpiper]

WMDs was the reason, we were told, that we had to go in. Yet there wasn't any evidence of them.

Spread some of that on your yard now and by next spring it will be green as....well, grass.

[tbpiper]

Where are the WMDs?

Syria, thanks to the French and their UN.

[mrustow]

Regardless of who wins the 2004 elections, the United States will hand over power to the democratically-elected government of sovereign Iraqi state on schedule, in April 2005. (Just 18 months away.)

That's way too soon. If we needed five years in West Germany, we need at least as long in Iraq. And we unofficially occupied West Germany years after we officially handed over power to Adenauer.

[ravingnutter]

That story I was looking for finally appeared...

WASHINGTON, Oct. 28 — The director of a top American spy agency said Tuesday that he believed that material from Iraq's illicit weapons program had been transported into Syria and perhaps other countries as part of an effort by the Iraqis to disperse and destroy evidence immediately before the recent war.

The official, James R. Clapper Jr., a retired lieutenant general, said satellite imagery showing a heavy flow of traffic from Iraq into Syria, just before the American invasion in March, led him to believe that illicit weapons material "unquestionably" had been moved out of Iraq.

Iraqis Removed Arms Material, U.S. Aide Says

[rmlew]

Isolationism trumps all.
Why doi you think he will have writers from the Nation ion the magazine?