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.
Someone please remind me, how many Iraqi planes have been hijacked to date?
?????
Jus whose side is the US State Deparment on, exactly?
So, just check their transcripts. Then we'll know.
bmp
clinton/Kerry.
The point is that if anyone believes Saddam, that they were "counter-terror" drills, I think we could sell them not one, but two Brooklyn Bridges.
Good question.
more clintonoids and subversives in power - See GRAMSCI!
http://school.gohotpsrings.com enter: gramsci in the search box!
Antonio Gramsci, 1891-1937
Focus on Freedom
C L Steplock
In 1919 an Italian socialist named Antonio Gramsci began to publish a newspaper in Milan called, L'Ordine Nuovo, or "The New Order." Loosely rendered, he concluded that the average person would never voluntarily reject the faith and culture of the West. He concluded that the best way to implement a collectivist government was to use an intellectual elite to destroy traditional values by attacking fundamental Jewish and Christian beliefs.
Antonio Gramsci, 1891-1937
...A. The New Order (L'Ordine Nuovo)
......1. Italian Communist newspaper, founded 1919
......2. Co-founder of Italian Communist Party, 1921
......3. Pre-Prison Writings, ed. Richard Bellamy (Cambridge, 1994)
......4. Selections from the Prison Notebooks (Intl. Publishers, 1971)
...B. Lenin was wrong, and the Leninist revolution will fail
......1. The workers will see the revolutionary government as a new boss
......2. When the revolution fails, the west will re-import Capitalism
...C. Gradual revolution through infiltration & subversion by revolutionaries
......1. Infiltrate the State: elective & appointed office; judgeships
......2. Infiltrate the military: enlist & subvert from within
......3. Infiltrate justice: undermine and discredit state constitutions
......4. Infiltrate education: professors & administrators
......5. Infiltrate & discredit religion: scoundrels as clergymen
......6. Register, then license, then confiscate all privately held weapons
...D. Form or infiltrate international organizations to promote goals such as "global understanding," "economic development," "transfer of resources"
...E. Both Capitalism and Judaeo-Christian culture must be destroyed before a Communist revolution can succeed
......1. Religious sentiment cannot be destroyed through legislation, as Lenin believed, but must be redirected from the divine to the state
.........a. Terror will only drive Religion underground
.........b. Religion will then reemerge when Leninism fails
.........c. So Religion must be destroyed in the minds of men
......2. Infiltrate religious academies and become priests and clergymen
.........a. Subtly promote heresy within religious organizations
.........b. Infiltrators must act so as to discredit the church
............(1) Cause financial and sexual scandals
............(2) See that this is given a high profile in the news
............(3) Like-minded infiltrators in the media will cooperate
......3. Once religion is discredited from within, continuously promote the idea that only the state can solve the problems that have been traditionally brought before the church
...F. When propagating revolutionary ideas, cloak them in polite terms
......1. National Consensus
......2. Popular Mandate
......3. National Pacification
......4. Pluralism
......5. Global Community
......6. Economic Justice
......7. Economic Democracy
......8. Liberation Theology
......9. Direct Action
...G. Marxists "must enter into every civil, cultural, and political activity in every nation, leavening them as yeast leavens bread."
Gramski's Archives
Gramsci-(original Italian) = Gramschi = Gramski-(sp prefered by communists)
In the recent past, the State Dept has also believed the claims by the North Koreans and the Iranians that they are not attempting to produce nuclear weapons. Given this track record, it's a good thing the State Dept is not on our side. I just want to know when the jdamming of Foggy Bottom starts.
And I have some land in the Florida swamps...
The State Dept. is full of career bureacrats and Clinton holdover. They should put Rumsfeld in charge and let him do some housecleaning.
this would be laughable if it weren't such a dire problem. We have so many damn smoking guns with Saddam and enemies of the president worked full time to exinguish them as soon as they were found. History will not be kind to these traitors.
yeah. and i'm the friggin easter bunny.
BUMP
We all know the Boeing 707 at Salman Pak was used to increase the professionalism of Iraqi stewardesses. Saddam Hussein's Iraqi Airlines was planning on competing with Jet Blue in the American domestic airline. This training facility was a key part of the preparation of this entrance into the American airline market. It was only George Bush's illegal war against Iraq on behalf of the domestic airline industry fearful of foreign competition that stopped Saddam's revamped Iraqi Airlines.
/tongue removed from cheek
"Someone please remind me, how many Iraqi planes have been hijacked to date?"
See! See! The Counter-terror training worked.
CIA and State ...... the toxic twins. Way too many self satisfied, fat ass leftists feeding at the public trough there
Fools All.
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