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WASHINGTON - In a major foreign policy address Monday, Democratic presidential contender Howard Dean hailed the capture of Saddam Hussein as "good news for the Iraqi people and for the world," but also claimed that his capture "could have taken place six months ago." Dean foreign policy adviser Susan Rice said after the speech that the former Vermont governor meant that if the "The capture of Saddam has not made America safer," Dean also said in the speech. Lieberman: Dean in 'his own spider hole' That remark drew a caustic reply from one of Dean's rivals for the Democratic nomination, Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman. "Howard Dean has climbed into his own spider hole of denial if he believes that the capture of Saddam Hussein has not made America safer," Lieberman said. "Saddam Hussein is a homicidal maniac, brutal dictator, supporter of terrorism, and enemy of the United States, and there should be no doubt that America and the world are safer with him captured." In a question-and-answer period following the speech, Dean also said, "I have never found the evidence convincing that Iraq was ever a significant threat to the United States."... Dean attacks military, President Bush - "Should have had Saddam six months earlier" |
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April 28, 2003, 8:45 a.m. By Mansoor Ijaz
The London Telegraph's weekend revelations raise deeply disturbing questions about the extent and magnitude to which President Clinton, his national-security adviser Samuel R. "Sandy" Berger, and senior terrorism and State Department officials -- including Assistant Secretary of State for East Africa, Susan Rice -- politicized intelligence data, relied on and even circulated fabricated evidence in making critical national-security decisions, and presided over a string of intelligence failures during the months leading up to the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania. Analysis of documents found in the rubble of Iraq's intelligence headquarters show that contrary to conventional wisdom, Iraqi military and intelligence officials sought out al Qaeda leaders, not the other way around, and ultimately met with bin Laden on at least two occasions. They also show that channels of communication between al Qaeda and Iraq were created much earlier and were wider ranging in scope than previously thought. The timing of the meetings sheds important new light on how grave the Clinton administration's intelligence failures may have been.... |
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he unearthing of documents directly linking Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda organization to Saddam Hussein this weekend may have hermetically sealed the Bush administration's case that dismantling Iraq's Baathist enterprise was in part necessary to undo terrorism's dynamic duo. But closing that case may reopen a Pandora's box for ex-Clinton administration officials who still believe their policy prescriptions protected U.S. national interests against the growing threat of terrorism during the past decade.