WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Bush directed the Pentagon to develop plans to confront Iraq if it tried to exploit the U.S. military's engagement with Afghanistan in fall 2001, a White House official said Wednesday. But spokesman Scott McClellan insisted the "contingency" plan was not a blueprint for a full-scale invasion of Iraq, as Bush's former counterterrorism chief contends in a new book.
"Obviously, it was important to have contingencies in place in case Iraq tried to take advantage of the president's military action in Afghanistan," McClellan said.
Moreover, Iraq had been firing for years at American pilots patroling the no-fly zone there, McClellan said.
But he stressed that the decision to invade Iraq a year ago "came much later."
Any suggestion that Bush was drawing up plans in 2001 for the Iraq war he launched in March 2003 is "revisionist history," McClellan said.
Clarke wrote in the book that Bush was preoccupied with Iraq before and after the attacks, at the expense of fighting al-Qaida. Bush asked him just after the Sept. 11 terror attacks to find out whether Iraq was involved in the suicide hijackings, Clarke wrote.
The White House has bristled at the suggestion that Bush planned to invade Iraq before March 2003 -- an accusation that former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill, another administration official now critical of Bush, also made in a recent book.
With Deutch focusing on relations with the President and Congress, Slatkin, 40, is not only the highest-ranking woman in CIA history but also the most powerful executive director in memory. Her job: running the day-to-day operations of a $3 billion agency that employs 17,000 people. Her mission: reinventing a bureaucracy stubbornly resistant to the accountability Congress is demanding. At the CIA, sighs former Director Robert M. Gates, ``they understand how foreign policy and politics are carried out in every country in the world except one. Unfortunately, that's the one they operate in.''
``She wouldn't know an agent if he came up and kissed her,'' sniffs a former CIA officer.
ex-CIA hands, who claim their feelings are shared by dozens of current spymasters, dismiss Slatkin as ``a demanding little blonde from Brooklyn.'
When President Clinton tapped the panel's chairman, the late Les Aspin, to be Defense Secretary, Aspin took Slatkin along. She worked for Deutch, then the Pentagon's acquisitions chief, who in turn pushed her for head of procurement at the Navy, where she oversaw a $26 billion annual acquisition budget. There, her tough questions unsettled the brass and earned her the nickname ``Tora Nora.''
Slatkin's limited managerial experience, one congressional source lumps her with a group of aides who ``wound up in positions not due to the fact that they were superbly competent, but they happened to have a connection to Les Aspin.''When he became CIA director, he named her to her current $122,688-a-year job.
She would meet her husband at work. Slatkin and Oklahoman Deral E. Willis, a laid-back retired paratrooper who works for Senator Ernest F. Hollings (D-S.C.) on defense and foreign policy, first crossed paths when she was at the CBO and he was the Army's congressional liaison with the office. They married in 1982.
Budgets are tight, the CIA's reputation is bruised, and its galvanizing force, the Evil Empire, is gone.
Imagine, an administration that thinks of everything and tries to protect us in case some country tries to take advantage of us at a vulnerable time.
We can rest assured such things will not happen in a Kerry presidency, should there be one.
Excellent posting. This thread is a real treasure trove.
Good Im glad he was. Next!
I for one was steaming last night watching some of the talk shows. I wish the guests would flat out correct the hosts when they say things that are incorrect. For example, Keith Oblermann said last night Condi refused to testify (wrong, she did, just not in public). And Chris Mathews is all bent out of shape because he thinks W invaded Iraq because W believes Saddam was responsible for 9/11. He can not comprehend the bigger Global War on Terrorism is anything other than getting al-Qaeda, not withstanding the fact that there is quite a bit of evidence linking Iraq and al-Qaeda (and a few smaller pieces linking Iraq and 9/11). Part of it is media bias and part of it is the hosts simply do not do enough research. We are better informed here on FR than most journalists.
thanks. maybe i can find the rest of it with this.
Thaks. Think I can dig up the rest of it with this.
Reference Post #130: "Clinton White House axed terror-fund probe" Washington Times"Mr. Al-Arian and Mazen Al-Najjar, director of the Islamic Concern Project, have been the focus of federal investigations since the mid-1990s. No criminal charges have been filed against the two, although the government shut down the World and Islam Studies Enterprise."
More links on Al-Arian and connections that broaden the scope:
-Sami Al-Arian and Mazen Al-Najjar-
University of South Florida Al-Arian Page Lots of Links
Terrorism in Tampa - Sami Al-Arian - Tampa Bay Online 3-25-03 Timeline / Links to Stories from 2-1-95 until arrest in right hand column
Timeline of events in the investigation into Sami Al-Arian AP/FR
Timeline: Events in the Al-Arian Case Fox News
Clinton White House axed terror-fund probe "The Clinton administration shut down a 1995 investigation of Islamic charities" Washington Times 4-2-02
U.S. Government’s “Secret Evidence” Against Mazan Al-Najjar Has Yet to Produce Indictments Aug.'98 Begin from perspective of the 'other side' - Washington Report on Middle East Affairs - John Sugg
Al-Arian takes Al-Najjar's cause to the masses (brother-in-law and former USF adjunct professor) Oracle (University of South Florida Newspaper) 10-8-02
USF-WISE (University of South Florida - World and Islam Studies Enterprises)
The USF-WISE contract calls for the two parties to co-host lectures, jointly train students and share libraries.
USF President Betty Castor, Interim Provost Michael Kovac and Middle East studies committee chairman Mark Orr said in interviews that they didn't know about WISE's shared leadership with the ICP.
Three WISE officials - Al-Arian among them - also are among the six registered officers of ICP's (Islamic Committee for Palestine) corporate parent organization. Those three, Al-Arian, Ramadan Abdullah and Mazin Al-Najjar, are all USF faculty members as well. Abdullah and Al-Najjar teach part time.
Castor and Kovac did not assume their present roles until early 1994, two years after the contract was signed. Although it named one of USF's faculty as a prime terrorist supporter, Castor and Orr said they have not seen the documentary. Kovac said he only saw parts of it.
Among the speakers invited to USF under the WISE agreement are two people the United States considers terrorist leaders. One, exiled Tunisian Rashid el-Ghanoushi, was refused a visa by the State Department.
The other, Hassan Turabi, who did come, is generally considered the real leader of the Sudanese government, although he holds no official position. The United States considers Sudan a training ground for terrorists.
``Anybody who brings in Hassan Turabi is supporting terrorists,'' said Oliver ``Buck'' Revell, the FBI's former top counterterrorist official, now retired and working as a security consultant.
Al-Arian did it twice, once at USF and once at the annual ICP conference. Those meetings, held in a Chicago hotel ballroom from 1989-92, amounted to a militant all-star team.
Besides Turabi, Odeh, Rahman and Ghanoushi, Mohammed Sakr, one of Hamas' leaders, also made an appearance.
The Simon Wiesenthal Center, a privately supported organization known for research into neo-Nazi movements and tracking Nazi war criminals, complained to the U.S. State and Justice departments that the 1989 ICP conference was a ``who's who of radical Islamic fundamentalism.''
Wiesenthal Center founder Marvin Hier wrote to the agencies asking why such people were allowed into the country. Two months later, the State Department wrote back saying, in essence, it didn't know.
May 2, 1996: USF places Al-Arian on paid leave, effective Aug. 7, pending the outcome of a federal investigation into whether he was running fronts for terrorist organizations. The university lets him return two years later, citing a staffing need and no law enforcement action.
**Former USF President Betty Castor, Democrat Candidate for US Senate in Florida**
Behind Al-Arian's facade (founded the World and Islam Studies Enterprise at USF a decade ago) St. Petersburg Times 11-1-01
Al-Arian remained untouched by Castor until:
Judy Genshaft inherited Al Arian problem when she became President of USF in July 2000.
USF trustees endorse President Judy Genshaft's decision to suspend Al-Arian with pay on grounds of campus safety. 9-28-01
President's Statement of Intent to Dismiss Dr. Al-Arian Dec. 19, 2001
President's (Genshaft) Update Regarding Dr. Sami Al-Arian 8-21-02
U. South Florida Fires Prof. with Alleged Ties to Terrorism Accuracy in Academia University caught heat for firing!
ENEMIES IN OUR MIDST NY Post 2-21-03
A JIHADI IN FLORIDA NY Post 2-21-03
A 19-YEAR DECEIT NY Post Steve Emerson 2-21-03
Feds expose Florida 'cell' World Net Daily 2-21-03
Al-Arian in White House Complex CNN
The Florida professor indicted last week on terrorism charges was granted entry to the White House complex and briefed by a senior administration official as part of a 160-person group in June 2001, according to a White House official.
Officials would not release the name of the senior administration official who briefed the group. A member of the president's Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives also briefed them, according to the White House.
Sami Al-Arian, 45, was arrested Thursday and charged with conspiracy to commit murder in connection with his alleged support of Palestinian Islamic Jihad, which the State Department has labeled a terrorist organization. If convicted, he faces up to life in prison.
Al-Arian, who taught at the University of South Florida, has five children and denied any links to terrorism.
The White House said Al-Arian entered the Eisenhower Executive Office Building with the American Muslim Council as part of what the White House called an "outreach meeting."
"This demonstrates that the Justice Department is pursuing terrorism regardless of whether someone attended a White House meeting or not," White House spokesman Taylor Gross said.
This meeting was the only time Al-Arian was on the White House grounds during the Bush administration. However, the White House official said Secret Service records show Al-Arian also visited June 23, 2000, during the Clinton administration.
MUSLIM INTERN FOR REP. DAVID BONIER KICKED OUT OF MEETING WITH BUSH ADMINISTRATION BY SECRET SERVICE 7-5-01
National Lawyers Guild and Its Terrorist Network and more
American Muslim Voice - The rally against Patriot Act was endorsed by:
ACLU, Amnesty International, American Muslims Voice, Blue Triangle Network, Global Exchange, SF Gray Panthers, Justice for New Americans, National Lawyers Guild, Not in Our Name, Tri City CAREs, Tri City Action, Refuse & Resist!, Pakistani American Alliance, South Alameda Peace & Justice Coalition and Vanguard Foundation
'Democracy Now' Lynne Stewart Website Democracy Now Soros Link / Pacifica Administration
Justice for Lynne Stewart Website Sponsored by Open Society Institute (scroll to bottom of page)
The Open Society Institute also supports radical black Muslims, who idolize gangsters waging a bloody war against the nation’s police. In 2001, OSI gave $65,000 to the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement.
Arab Media Internet Network - (AMIN) Additional Link: AMIN stands for Arabic Media Internet Network, but its acronym also means "faithful" in Arabic. AMIN received startup funding from the Open Society Institute and is currently staffed on a volunteer basis.
Palestinian National Authority - Constitution Related Links - Open Society Institute
Terrorist PAC: Abdurahman Alamoudi and Sami al-Arian's plot to gain political power Front Page Magazine 11-21-03
Baghdad Bonior World Net Daily 10-8-02
American Muslim Alliance Responds To Return Of Donations By Clinton Campaign October 27, 2000 American Museum Council
October 26, 2000
Hillary Clinton to Return Muslim Donations
Is Hillary Clinton Hostile to Both Israel and the Truth? Mrs. Clinton's June 30, 2000 Federal Election Commission filing cited Alamoudi's May 25 donation of $1,000 to her war chest. Oddly enough, his occupation is not listed as "American Muslim Council" but "American Museum Council." The Clinton campaign calls this a typo.
The letters L and I in "Muslim" are on the right side of English-language computer keyboards while the E and U in "Museum" are on the left and middle. It's hard to believe that "Muslim" conveniently morphed into "Museum" due to a slip of a typist's fingers rather than a deliberate effort to conceal a potentially embarrassing contribution.
Sami Al-Arian Web Site
Links, Minaret of Freedom Institute
... Abu Salah Home Page. Sami al-Arian's web site. ... Open Society "Independent foundations,programs created and supported by philanthropist George Soros to foster ...
www.minaret.org/Links.htm - 59k - Cached - Similar pages
"Charitable" Foundations: ATMs for the Left Front Page / FR 3-2-04
These organizations are intended to serve partisan functions: to elect or intellectually bolster Democrats, and although these groups are to the Left, they fall within the mainstream of the political discussion. However, much of Soros’ money goes to organizations on the wrong side of the War on Terror. Soros has given multiple millions of dollars to the ACLU over the years. Likewise, the Ford Foundation gave the ACLU more than $335,000 last year alone. The ACLU’s leftist orientation has been well known since 1988, when Michael Dukakis lost the election in part because of their stance on capital punishment and the Pledge of Allegiance. But the ACLU has more important flags to burn; in recent years, the ACLU has lied about the effects of the Patriot Act, rallied to defend Maher “Mike” Hawash (who has since pleaded guilty to providing support for the Taliban), protested the Justice Department’s arrest of illegal immigrants from Iraq on the eve of war, falsely accused John Ashcroft of abusing his authority (without evidence, naturally) and protested for the inhumane treatment of terrorist fundraiser and professor Sami al-Arian (on the grounds that he had an inalienable right to change his underwear more than once a week). The Ford Foundation also got in on the act, giving the ACLU endowment fund $7 million in 1999 alone.
Despite its deep hostility to the War on Terrorism, many classify the ACLU as a mainstream “liberal” organization. Be that as it may; George Soros’ funding is hardly reserved to the mainstream. OSI also funded the fantasies of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee Research Institute. This is the same group that falsely accused the Justice Department of inhumane treatment of a Muslim prisoner, claiming they forcibly extracted numerous teeth, brutalized him and forced him to eat pork – all later proven to be lies. ADC Communications Director Hussein Ibish has defended Palestinian suicide bombers (as long as they don’t target “civilians”; how big of you, Hussein!), praised Hamas for “running hospitals and schools and orphanages,” defended Sami al-Arian and praised Mao Tse-tung.
Charities deny bankrolling terror Atlanta Journal Constitution 11-16-03
The leaders of an intricate web of nonprofit groups and companies in this quiet suburb in Virginia allegedly have conspired to support several Islamic terrorist groups, says an affidavit filed in federal court
The Safa group gave $50,000 to Al-Arian's World Islamic Studies Enterprise in Florida, according to the affidavit. In a Nov. 19, 1991, letter, Al-Alwani refers to the donation, saying that it is offered "regardless of the side or the facade you use" it for.
Terror Probe Points to Va. Muslims Washington Post 10-18-03
The affidavit charges that overlapping companies in the Safa Group were deliberately set up to "layer" or obscure the final destination of millions of dollars that moved in complicated transactions among organizations led by the same small group of people.
Al-Arian kicked off school board World Net Daily 2-23-03
Al-Arian faces tough mob law (RICO) Oracle (University of South Florida Newspaper) 2-25-03
Al-Arian Contributed to McKinney AP 2-25-03
Bill O'Reilly ties Hillary Clinton to terrorists Fox News 2-25-03
No Mea Culpas National Review 3-19-04
Scoring Points for Justice Judge rules Al-Arian stays behind bars National Review 4-15-03
Al-Arian Wants to Be Own Attorney Fox News 5-1-03
Al-Arian Nation Weekly Standard 5-5-03
Academic group stops short of censuring USF in firing professor for terrorism charges AP 6-14-03
Warrants against Al-Arian shredded St. Petersburg times 12-10-03
Report Tells Of Al-Arian Talks Tampa Tribune 12-12-03
Al-Arian's Ex-Attorney Faces Court Order Tampa Tribune 3-12-04
Democrats Unlearn 9/11 New York Sun 1-7-04
"Holy moly! There's a lot there!" was how another FBI agent, Joe Navarro, characterized the flood of new information in the Al-Arian case. He described getting hold of it as "one of those awesome moments." Two months ago, the undersecretary of defense for policy, Douglas Feith, formally contrasted the pre- and post-9 /11 approaches: think back, he suggested, to the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and to the attacks on Khobar Towers in 1996, on the U.S. East African embassies in 1998, on the U.S.S. Cole in Yemen in 2000. When such attacks occurred over the last decades, U.S. officials avoided the term "war." The primary response was to dispatch the FBI to identify individuals for prosecution. Recognizing the September 11 attack as war was a departure from the established practice. It was President Bush's seminal insight, the wisdom of which I would say is attested by the fact that it looks so obvious in retrospect.
Obvious for a while, yes. Now, key Democrats repudiate this insight and insist on a return to the pre-9 /11 dispensation.
Doing so would amount to a momentous step backwards, however. This new kind of war involves criminality, to be sure, but it still is war. To unlearn the painful lesson of September 11 is a good way to lose that war.
Soros Resolves to Bring Bush Down Insight Magazine 12-1-03
The United States is a great danger to the planet, and defeating President George W. Bush rather than the terrorists "is a matter of life and death."
While Soros is getting few fellow billionaires to join him, his brain trust for the effort includes Morton Halperin, the left-wing mastermind who after Watergate and the Vietnam War designed the successful political and legal campaign to strip the FBI and CIA of many of their surveillance, intelligence-collection and covert-operations capabilities.
Over the summer, Soros enlisted Halperin, most recently a senior Clinton foreign-policy official, to develop a strategy with Democratic political warriors John Podesta and others, Democratic insiders say. Halperin's involvement alarms counterterrorism practitioners. They recall his years as director of the Washington office of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) at the Stuart Mott House on Capitol Hill, where he founded the ACLU National Security Litigation Project to hog-tie the FBI and CIA during the anti-intelligence hysteria of the 1970s.
President Bill Clinton appointed Halperin as an assistant secretary of defense in 1993, but the Senate regarded him as a radical and wouldn't confirm him. Clinton withdrew Halperin's nomination to the Pentagon post but appointed him to other senior positions in the State Department and National Security Council that did not require Senate confirmation. Just as loyalists of Saddam Hussein are relying on Bush's political foes in Washington to undermine his staying power in Iraq, some of those same political opponents are relying on the guerrillas to increase their attacks on U.S. troops. "The Soros initiative should gain support as the situation in Iraq worsens," observes Ohio State University law professor John Quigley, "and as the public becomes more aware that President Bush took us to war based on false information about Iraq's weaponry and about its connection to terrorist groups."
Rachel Ehrenfeld, author of the important new book Funding Evil, has watched Soros and his operations for years. "Soros uses his philanthropy to change - or, more accurately, deconstruct - the moral values and attitudes of the Western world, and particularly of the American people,"
This effort by Soros and other big-rich lefties takes place in the context of a pull-out-all-stops attempt by top Democrats in Congress to use any means necessary to defeat the president in 2004, according to GOP professionals. A multiplier for Soros and his allies, frustrated administration officials say, is the expert way in which congressional Democrats have been waging powerful political-warfare operations by exploiting and abusing the national-security oversight process.
In the Halperin style, Soros watchers say, the once collegial and bipartisan Senate Select Committee on Intelligence has been turned into a dysfunctional and bitterly partisan battleground. Indeed, that $15 million pledge by Soros came just as it was revealed by commentator SeanHannity that Sen. Jay Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.), vice chairman of the committee, had directed staff to prepare options for abusing the Intelligence Committee's investigative powers to discredit the Bush administration and undermine the war in Iraq [see "Democrats Target Pentagon Planning"]. Hannity then produced the memo.
"This strategy memo lays bare what we've started to see for some time: an orchestrated effort by Democrats at a time of war to improperly use an intelligence investigation as a weapon against President Bush," said Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.). "The memo completely shreds Democrats' claims of bipartisanship in this investigation and falsely attributes ugly motives to the president, members of his administration and fellow members of Congress. It has reached conclusions about this investigation before it's even been concluded."
Committee Chairman Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.) said on the Fox News program Hannity & Colmes, "I had a conversation with Sen. Rockefeller. He's indicated in his statement that he instructed his staff to prepare the report. I'm not going to go any further than that."
WOW, what a compilation...thanks a LOT for the ping and the info. This is getting sent out to a large number of people and bookmarked.
You're welcome, nopardons! Thanks for passing the info on.
I always pass the GOOD stuff on. The major media fails, miserably,but you and a few others here do yeomen work. :-)