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The Plot to Assassinate Bush I : U.S. MILITARY ACTION AGAINST IRAQI TERRORISM
USIA ^ | 06/28/93

Posted on 12/14/2003 7:18:45 PM PST by witnesstothefall

(The U.S. government presented to the U.N. Security Council June 27 the

following background fact sheet entitled "United States June 26, 1993

Military Action Against Iraqi Terrorism.")

On April 14, 1993, while former President George Bush was beginning a

three-day visit to Kuwait City, Kuwaiti authorities thwarted a terrorist

plot, seizing a powerful car bomb and other explosives and arresting 16

suspects, led by two Iraqi nationals.

In the succeeding two months, U.S. investigative teams from the FBI and the

intelligence community have conducted a thorough investigation of this

operation. Based upon that review, the Department of Justice and the

Central Intelligence Agency have concluded that Iraq planned, equipped, and

ran the terrorist operation that threatened the life of President Bush in

Kuwait City in April. Further, it is the firm judgment of our intelligence

community, from all sources of evidence available to it, that this

assassination plot was directed and pursued by the Iraqi Intelligence

Service (IIS).

The evidence that forms the basis for these conclusions includes the

following:

A. FORENSICS

1. A car bomb, hidden in a Toyota Landcruiser, was smuggled across the

Iraq-Kuwait border by the suspects during the night of April 13, 1993.

This bomb, and the other explosives that were seized, have been directly

examined by FBI forensic experts. In the judgment of these experts, key

components, including the remote-control firing device, the plastic

explosives, the blasting cap, the integrated circuitry, and the wiring were

built by the same person or persons who built bombs previously recovered

from the Iraqis. Certain aspects of these devices have been found only in

devices linked to Iraq and not in devices used by any other terrorist

groups.

2. According to the forensic experts, other explosives seized in this plot,

including "cube bombs," contained components built by the same person or

persons who built similar devices recovered in the past from the Iraqis.

3. The car bomb itself possessed devastating power. It was a sophisticated

device, involving a complicated manufacturing process, and was well-hidden

in the vehicle. It contained approximately 80 kilograms of explosives. It

was constructed to allow detonation by remote control, by a timer or

manually. The forensic experts have concluded that this bomb had the power

to kill people within a radius of 400 yards.

B. THE SUSPECTS

1. The FBI conducted extensive interviews of the 16 suspects now on

trail in Kuwait. The two main suspects -- Ra'ad al-Asadi and Wali

al-Ghazali -- are Iraqi nationals. They told the FBI that they had been

recruited and received orders in Basra, Iraq, from individuals they

believed to be associated with the Iraqi intelligence Service.

2. These suspects told the FBI that their Iraqi recruiters provided them

with the car bomb and other explosives in Basra on April 10, 1993.

3. One of the suspects, al-Ghazali, told the FBI that he was recruited for

1he specific purpose of assassinating President Bush in Kuwait City.

4. The other main suspect, al-Asadi, told the FBI that his task was to

guide al-Ghazali and the car bomb to Kuwait University (where President

Bush and the Emir of Kuwait were scheduled to appear) and to plant smaller

explosives elsewhere in Kuwait.

C. INTELLIGENCE ASSESSMENTS

1. During and immediately after the Persian Gulf War, Saddam -- through

his controlled media -- indicated that President Bush would be held

personally responsible for the war and would be hunted down and punished,

even after he left office. Various classified intelligence sources support

the conclusion that the Iraqi government ordered this attack against

President Bush.

2. From all the evidence available to it, the CIA is highly confident that

the Iraqi government, at the highest levels, directed its intelligence

service to assassinate former President Bush during his visit to Kuwait on

April 14-16, 1993.


TOPICS: Extended News; Foreign Affairs; War on Terror
KEYWORDS: 1993; assassination; assassinationplots; bush41; iraq; kuwait; plot; saddam; terrorism
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I don't know about anybody else, but this near-forgotten episode was always more than enough, far as I was concerned, for the United States to topple Sadaam Hussein.

Any tinpot dictator that goes after a US President, ex- or otherwise, should always expect to be annihilated.

Obviously, Clinton didn't feel the same.

Poetically, it was the son of the targeted POTUS that set things right....

1 posted on 12/14/2003 7:18:46 PM PST by witnesstothefall
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To: witnesstothefall
Laura Bush was also with her father-in-law in Kuwait, at that time.
2 posted on 12/14/2003 7:22:31 PM PST by Pan_Yans Wife ("Your joy is your sorrow unmasked." --- GIBRAN)
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To: witnesstothefall
I'll second that!

"W" Senior has got to be the proudest Dad in the world right now.
3 posted on 12/14/2003 7:23:32 PM PST by Delta 21 (Seen any quagmires lately?)
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To: witnesstothefall
In the interest of full disclosure, Clinton's weasel words/deeds at the time:

U.S. Navy ships launched 23 Tomahawk missiles against the headquarters of the Iraqi Intelligence Service yesterday in what President Clinton said was a "firm and commensurate" response to Iraq's plan to assassinate former president George Bush in mid-April.


-snip-

The missiles struck late at night -- between 1 a.m. and 2 a.m. Baghdad time -- because Clinton wished to minimize possible deaths of innocent civilians.



http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/inatl/longterm/iraq/timeline/062793.htm
4 posted on 12/14/2003 7:24:16 PM PST by witnesstothefall
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To: witnesstothefall
Did Clinton ever do anything about this? To paraphrase Hillary, I cannot recall...

1993 : (LIBYA ABDUCTS LIBYAN DISSIDENT KIKHIA, WHO IS A LEGAL PERMANENT RESIDENT OF THE US; LATER EXECUTES HIM) Credible evidence indicates Libya abducted prominent Libyan dissident and human rights activist Mansur Kikhia (a legal permanent resident of the United States) in 1993 and had him executed in early 1994.- "Patterns of Global Terrorism 1997 : Overview of State-Sponsored Terrorism ," http://www.usembassy-israel.org.il/publish/terrorism97/sponsored.html.

5 posted on 12/14/2003 7:34:50 PM PST by piasa (Attitude adjustments offered here free of charge.)
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To: witnesstothefall
1993 : (PENTAGON "TERROR 2000" REPORT PREDICTS AN ONSLAUGHT OF TERRORIST ATTACKS AGAINST THE US, BUT REPORT IS KEPT SECRET FOR FIVE YEARS) "Five years ago [1993] , the Pentagon commissioned a report that predicted an onslaught of terrorist attacks against the United States, but it kept the study secret. NBC News obtained a copy of the classified forecast, titled Terror 2000, and its predictions have come true. DRAFTED BY 41 terrorism experts, the report was considered so disturbing by Pentagon officials that they refused to release it to Congress or the public. "They said: This is outrageous, this is crazy," said Marvin Cetron, an author of the report, explaining the feelings of fellow participants. "They felt it was too far out and it would scare the hell out of the general public."." - MSNBC Jim Miklaszewski 8/11/98 via - ALAMO-GIRL'S DOWNSIDE LEGACY AT TWO DEGREES OF PRESIDENT CLINTON ; SECTION: BREACH OF TRUST; SUBSECTION: TERROR; Revised 1/8/01
6 posted on 12/14/2003 7:36:09 PM PST by piasa (Attitude adjustments offered here free of charge.)
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To: witnesstothefall
Any person that voted for Clinton is implicitly responsible for the pathetic and irresponsible job he did as President of the United States.

It was an act that earns them the right to eternal shame.

7 posted on 12/14/2003 7:37:32 PM PST by thinktwice (America is truly blessed ... with George W. Bush as President..)
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To: piasa
1993 : (WTC1 BOMBER, YASIN, ESCAPES TO IRAQ) Abdul Rahman Yasin mixed and made the truck bomb which wrought destruction and killed six in the first New York World Trade Center attack - then coolly boarded a plane for Baghdad, where he still resides. There is strong evidence that Ramzi Yousef, leader of both the 1993 New York bombing and a failed attempt two years later to down 12 American airliners over the Pacific, was an Iraqi intelligence officer. All this was known in the Nineties.
8 posted on 12/14/2003 7:38:42 PM PST by piasa (Attitude adjustments offered here free of charge.)
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To: piasa
I remember when they buried that! God I'd love to have a copy of that report. Wonder if Clinton had all copies destroyed....
9 posted on 12/14/2003 7:39:16 PM PST by witnesstothefall
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To: piasa
1993 : (CLINTON & AFGHANISTAN) When the Clinton administration took over in 1993, Warren Christopher mentioned bringing peace to Afghanistan in his confirmation hearings for Sec. of State, then never made a significant speech about the country again. ...But there were warnings. Peter Tomsen, a longtime State Dept. official who was a special envoy to Afghanistan, and a few others insisted that the US should help rebuild the country to protect it from extremists. By disengaging, the US risked "throwing away the assets we have built up in Afghanistan over the last 10 years, at great expense," he argued in a confidential 1993 memo to top State Department officials.
"The U.S. mistake was to ignore Afghanistan," Mr. Tomsen says today. "We walked away." After the Cold War, the US was "weary of Afghanistan," said Robin Raphel, the assistant secretary for South Asian affairs at the State Department from 1993 to 1997. "It was really a struggle to get attention and resources."
Yet to a large extent, the US deferred to Pakistan, its ally against the USSR, as Afghanistan's turbulence dragged on, according to other former officials.
"The U.S. had what I call a derivative policy toward Afghanistan," said Elie Krakowski, a former special assistant to the secretary of defense, who has written extensively on Afghanistan. "That is, it had no policy on Afghanistan on its own, and whatever Pakistan said, we bought." The US was reluctant to criticize Pakistan as it further aligned itself with the Taliban after Kabul's fall.
10 posted on 12/14/2003 7:40:54 PM PST by piasa (Attitude adjustments offered here free of charge.)
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To: piasa
JUNE 1993 ; (UN HEADQUARTS & NY TUNNEL PLOT) Eight militant Muslim fundamentalists are arrested in NY for plotting to blow up the UN headquarters, tunnels under the Hudson River and a federal office building. The arrestees were from Sudan, Egypt, the Israeli West Bank and Gaza, Jordan and Pakistan. To read the Department of Justice Inspector General's report on this incident, click here
11 posted on 12/14/2003 7:45:05 PM PST by piasa (Attitude adjustments offered here free of charge.)
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To: piasa
After the Cold War, the US was "weary of Afghanistan,"

Which means that Dick Morris correctly reported to his bent boss that the issue didn't poll above 50%, despite larger long-term policy considerations.

The Democratic Party is an albatross on this nation.

12 posted on 12/14/2003 7:46:24 PM PST by witnesstothefall
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To: piasa
1993 fall : (IRAQIS LIVING AND OPERATING IN SUDAN BY THIS TIME) With the UN inspections continuing, Baghdad committed itself to bolstering the regime in Khartoum -- a key storage site for Iraq's strategic systems. By the Fall of 1993, a large number of Iraqis moved into the area of the Red Sea mountain range -- in Madabay in Khawr Ashraf, Port Sudan, in the region of Dalawat on the Red Sea near Hala'ib, and the city of Tawker in region of Karnakanat. The Iraqis brought into these installations high-tech equipment and computers, missiles, defense systems, anti-aircraft systems and radar systems.By late 1993, the regions surrounding these installations were experiencing strict security measures and 24-hour armed patrols roam around it. In some areas, such as in the Port Sudan area, shepherds and nomads were completely removed from security zones with a 60 km circumference. - Yossef Bodansky, "The Iraqi WMD Challenge - Myths and Reality," TASK FORCE ON TERRORISM & UNCONVENTIONAL WARFARE, U.S. House of Representatives, Washington, D.C. 20515 , February 10, 1998
13 posted on 12/14/2003 7:46:57 PM PST by piasa (Attitude adjustments offered here free of charge.)
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To: witnesstothefall
I as easy to bury- the first WTC bombing was neatly and conveniently buried by the Waco seige.
14 posted on 12/14/2003 7:48:28 PM PST by piasa (Attitude adjustments offered here free of charge.)
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Then the Vincent Foster thing kind of buried a lot of terrorism related material.
15 posted on 12/14/2003 7:50:15 PM PST by piasa (Attitude adjustments offered here free of charge.)
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To: piasa
A general 1993 timeline at post #67
16 posted on 12/14/2003 7:53:35 PM PST by piasa (Attitude adjustments offered here free of charge.)
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To: piasa
It's the difference in Presidents and their legacies. The Clinton legacy, to me, was the fireball at Waco, and armed federal officers capturing a little boy and sending him back to Cuba.

The Bush legacy is tons of dead terrorists and the capture of a filthy old terror master. And soon, perhaps Bin Laden and Omar. I spit on the memory of Clinton and his filthy enabling political party. He, and they, were consumate cowards.

17 posted on 12/14/2003 7:54:37 PM PST by Enterprise
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To: witnesstothefall
Dead-on! Clinton didn't have the balls to take on such a monumental project...especially when he was surrounded by punks like himself.
18 posted on 12/14/2003 7:58:18 PM PST by I got the rope
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To: witnesstothefall
Well, I'll give credit where it is due. He did SOMETHING.

I would expect GWB to do the same if someone tried to assasinate Clinton. No matter what, he is a former President of the United States. We protect our people.
19 posted on 12/14/2003 8:23:29 PM PST by baseballmom
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To: baseballmom
No, the point of the post, is that Clinton's response was weak, ineffective and purposely so. He telegraphed the attack to allies, including the French, so as to be sure Iraq would be warned of his little midnight "attack".

It was an abdication is what it was, meant to allay a domestic political problem, not a solution to a foreign policy problem.
20 posted on 12/14/2003 8:30:20 PM PST by witnesstothefall
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