http://secretagent.org
Posted on 07/16/2004 7:01:41 PM PDT by RWR8189
Senior U.S. officials have told TIME that the 9/11 Commission's report will cite evidence suggesting that the 9/11 hijackers had previously passed through Iran
Next week's much anticipated final report by a bipartisan commission on the origins of the 9/11 attacks will contain new evidence of contacts between al-Qaeda and Iran—just weeks after the Administration has come under fire for overstating its claims of contacts between al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein's Iraq.
A senior U.S. official told TIME that the Commission has uncovered evidence suggesting that between eight and ten of the 14 "muscle" hijackers—that is, those involved in gaining control of the four 9/11 aircraft and subduing the crew and passengers—passed through Iran in the period from October 2000 to February 2001. Sources also tell TIME that Commission investigators found that Iran had a history of allowing al-Qaeda members to enter and exit Iran across the Afghan border. This practice dated back to October 2000, with Iranian officials issuing specific instructions to their border guards—in some cases not to put stamps in the passports of al-Qaeda personnel—and otherwise not harass them and to facilitate their travel across the frontier. The report does not, however, offer evidence that Iran was aware of the plans for the 9/11 attacks.
The senior official also told TIME that the report will note that Iranian officials approached the al-Qaeda leadership after the bombing of the USS Cole and proposed a collaborative relationship in future attacks on the U.S., but the offer was turned down by bin Laden because he did not want to alienate his supporters in Saudi Arabia.
The Iran-al Qaeda contacts were discovered and presented to the Commissioners near the end of the bipartisan panel's more than year-long investigation into the sources and origins of the 9/11 attacks. Much of the new information about Iran came from al-Qaeda detainees interrogated by the U.S. government, including captured Yemeni al-Qaeda operative Waleed Mohammed bin Attash, who organized the October 2000 attack on the USS Cole, and from as many as 100 separate electronic intelligence intercepts culled by analysts at the NSA. The findings were sent to the White House for review only this week. But Commission members have been hinting for weeks that their report would have some Iran surprises. As the 9/11 Commission's chairman, Thomas Kean, said in June, "We believe....that there were a lot more active contacts, frankly, with Iran and with Pakistan than there were with Iraq."
These findings follow a Commission staff report, released in June, which suggested that al-Qaeda may have collaborated with Hezbollah and its Iranian sponsors in the 1996 bombing of the Khobar Towers, a key American military barracks in Saudi Arabia. Previously, the attack had been attributed only to Hezbollah, with Iranian support. A U.S. indictment of bin Laden filed in 1998 for the bombing of U.S. embassies in Africa said al-Qaeda "forged alliances . . . with the government of Iran and its associated terrorist group Hezbollah for the purpose of working together against their perceived common enemies in the West, particularly the United States." But the Commission comes to no firm conclusion on al-Qaeda's involvement in the Khobar disaster.
Since 9/11 the U.S. has held direct talks with Iran—and through intermediaries including Britain, Switzerland and Saudi Arabia—concerning the fate of scores of al-Qaeda that Iran has acknowleded are in the country, including an unspecified number of senior leaders, whom one senior U.S. official called al-Qaeda's "management council". The U.S. as well as the Saudis have unsuccessfully sought the repatriation of this group, which is widely thought to include Saad bin Laden, the son of Osama bin Laden, as well of other key al-Qaeda figures.
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Does this mean we get to invade?
Nope .. the new DNC talking point is Sudan .. Iran was last week
The question is why didn't we invade Iran - and Saudi Arabia - after Afghanistan?
One at a time, dude.... One at a time.
I'm sorry...I don't seem to recall any valid criticism of the Administration for overstating such claims. Did I miss something?
Iraq was easier, and now we have a staging ground for Iran.
That's nice except we have no ground troops for Iran because we are stretched thin world wide. Also, Iran has a population that's four times the size of Iraq. Might be a frigging problem, if you catch my drift.
Might be interested in this >
"Nearly 400 Al-Qaeda Members And Other Terror Suspects In Iran":
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1172100/posts
Or might be interested in this :
"Al Qaeda and the Iranian connection"
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1172672/posts
One huge difference though. Iran is on the verge of revolution already. The students in Iran are desperate for freedom, and are willing to fight for it, unlike many Iraqi's. In short, many of those Iranians are already allies, giving us somewhat of an advantage there.
I'll say it again. A contact who LIVES IN IRAN says OBL IS IN IRAN and his whereabouts are known. Of course I don't know if this is true or just street gossip, but I heard this a month ago and now we are seeing Iran pop up in the news more and more frequently, such as the Saudi that turned himself in at the Saudi embassy in Tehran.
And will this be reported with the same fervor as Abu Ghraib?
We won't need to invade Iran. Iran will fall on it's own, and they are well on the way to doing just that.
The better point about the Iraq war will be when Saudi Arabia falls... *That* is the point when the world will be damn glad that there is a friendly and democratic Iraq next door, instead of Saddam with a couple hundred thousand troops on the border waiting to come on over.
I think alHarbi was one of the Iranian villa guests, before he turned himself over to the Saudis.
Because our intelligence told us Iraq had the means to defend Iran in a nasty way.
The road to Iran is through Iraq.
That's the strategy.
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