Posted on 06/20/2004 10:21:42 AM PDT by kattracks
State Department and CIA officials have quietly told reporters they accept Saddam Hussein's explanation that radical Islamists who trained in Iraq before 9/11 to hijack airplanes using small knives were engaged in counter-terrorism training.Speaking on condition of anonymity to the Knight Ridder news service, the officials challenged the credibility of two White House reports issued last year, which had raised questions about whether activities at the notorious terrorist training camp Salman Pak were linked to the 9/11 attacks. One unnamed U.S. official cited a CIA assessment first supplied to the White House in January 2003 in response to the reports, more than a year after two Iraqi defectors told the FBI that they trained radical Muslims at Salman Pak in hijacking techniques never used before the 9/11 attacks.
"The probability that the training provided at such centers, e.g. Salman Pak, was similar to that al Qaida could offer at its own camps in Afghanistan, combined with the sourcing difficulties, leads us to conclude that we need additional corroboration before we can validate that this low level basic terrorist training for al Qaida occurred in Iraq," the CIA concluded.
Said Knight Ridder: "U.S. intelligence officials have concluded that the base was most probably used to train Iraqi counter-terrorism units in anti-hijacking tactics."
The conclusion that training at Salman Pak was innocuous is not shared by Charles Duelfer, who replaced David Kay as head of the U.S. Iraq Survey Group earlier this year.
In Nov. 2001, Duelfer - then an UNSCOM weapons inspector - said the Iraqi government made the same claim to him - that hijacking drills at Salman Pak were actually counter-terrorism exercises.
"Of course we automatically took out the word 'counter'," Duelfer said, dismissing the alibi as an obvious fraud.
"I'm surprised that people seem to be shocked that there should be terror camps in Iraq. "I mean, what, actually, do you expect?" he added.
But Duelfer's corroboration - along with satellite photos confirming the defectors' contention that the drills took place aboard an actual Boeing 707 fuselage parked nowhere near an airstrip - failed to persuade the CIA and the State Department, which continued to question their credibility.
The State Department, in particular, worked strenuously to block publication of the two White House reports, describing the Salman Pak hijack drills, Knight Ridder said.
One of those reports, dubbed "A Decade of Deception and Defiance" was released as a background paper in conjunction with Bush's Sept. 12, 2002, U.N. address, but was ignored by the press.
The second publication, "Iraq: From Fear to Freedom," was distributed abroad. It cited claims by Iraqi defector Sabah Khodada, who said he trained radical Islamists at Salman Pak to hijack U.S. airliners.
Earlier Khodada had told the London Observer that he believed the 9/11 attacks were carried out "by graduates of Salman Pak."
The Bush administration booklet reported:
"Khodada ... confirmed numerous press reports that Salman Pak had an entire Boeing 707 jetliner that was used for training in hijacking techniques - from smuggling weapons on board to methods for overpowering the crew and terrorizing passengers into cowed submission."
A senior administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Knight Ridder that the White House ordered the State Department to publish the two reports over the objections of some State Department officials.
It seems to me that since both terrorism and counter-terrorism training would involve simulating a hijacking, the distinction these State Department and CIA officials are trying to draw is specious. It'd be kind of like if a baseball team was having batting practice and the pitcher said, "No, I'm really having counter-batting practice."
I am one of those conservatives who has always been anti-CIA - I think the CIA should be shut down and its staff fired or assigned to other intel gathering services like the Navy's ONI. But whenever I bring this up statists and others go into flame mode. The CIA is an abomination of a failure. We need intel and spys no doubt but we don't need the CIA to do it for us.
Of course it was counter-terrorism training.
If you are going to be a terrorist, you don't need to study terrorists. You need to study those that are going to try to stop you.
If you are going to be a Pali' suicide bomber you study Israelie defenses not Palistinian defenses.
They are on the "Don't make waves or cause any unpleasantness" side.
Right... Hijack an Iraqi plane the pilots fly it into a building to kill the hijackers..
If really wqant to produce lots of hydrogen, all you need to do is run electricity through water. There's no reason to raise bacteria to do it less efficiently.
Precisely.
So why did the CIA not make that a centerpiece of their report on those supposed "biological hydrogen labs?"
Saddam running counter terroirst training at Salman Pak. Now thats rich.
Torie my man, check this out. It's good for a belly laugh.
powerbarf
I take it you are skeptical that Saddam was interested in honing anti-hijacking tactics, and did not believe that the US Marines or Army or the CIA would get into the hijacking business. LOL.
It has been amply demonstrated over the past 4 decades (5?) that the CIA cannot find its a$$ with both hands glued to said posterior. So the idea that Saddam conducted anti-hijacking drills for a nonexsistant airline makes perfect sense to these towering pillars of analytical ability.
And the State Dept does think of the US Marines as the 'enemy', fully capable of war crimes and mass atrocities. State doesn't work for the US. It works for every other country on the planet. The striped-pants set doesn't like the US, and thinks we don't deserve to exsist. In other words, liberal DemocRATS.
See, that just shows how effective the counter-terrorism training was!!
"Our State Dept. has an U.N. desk, and African Desk, and East European Desk, and a South American Desk.....I want to know where the AMERICAN desk is over at Foggy Bottom!!!"
They have never changed their colors.
And don't forget the mobile CBW labs that Germany manufactured for Saddam...that now the State Dept. is calling 'Weather Balloon' labs. Gee, why were they trying to flee secretly into Syria when nabbed???
It MUST be true. The kid that works at the Shell station a little down Rte 123 from the CIA told me the same thing!
Dang. This whole DOMESTIC DISINFORMATION plot the Left has been running since DAY ONE after 9-11 has me thinking it is time for a whole new web site along the lines of your Xlinton debunking one...
Abdul al-KutThrote then jumped up and reacted as trained against these terroristic air stewardesses who force others to adhere to their morality and valuation of human life.
Indeed, but to get the attention of the independents, it would be necessary to have a campaign at least as good as "Sore Loserman".
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