Posted on 07/17/2004 4:53:20 PM PDT by MadIvan
Iran gave free passage to up to 10 of the September 11 hijackers just months before the 2001 attacks and offered to co-operate with al-Qa'eda against the US, an American report will say this week.
The all-party report by the 9/11 Commission, set up by Congress in 2002, will state that Iran, not Iraq, fostered relations with the al-Qa'eda network in the years leading up to the world's most devastating terrorist attack.
The bipartisan commission has established that between eight and 10 of the September 11 hijackers, who had been based in Afghanistan, travelled through Iran between October 2000 and February 2001. The terrorists in question are believed to have been the "muscle" - hired to storm the aircraft cockpits and overpower crew and passengers.
Iranian officials were instructed not to harrass al-Qa'eda personnel as they crossed the border and, in some cases, not to stamp their passports.
According to testimony received by the commission - based on information from prisoners at Guantanamo Bay and about 100 electronic intercepts by the National Security Agency - an alliance of convenience was established between the Shia Muslim Iranian leadership and the Sunni terrorist organisation, well before September 11, 2001.
The report is expected to confirm the claim by Thomas Kean, its chairman, last month that "there were a lot more active [al-Qa'eda] contacts, frankly, with Iran and Pakistan, than there were with Iraq".
It will further inflame tensions between Washington and Teheran, where hardliners are threatening to restart its uranium enrichment programme, a key step towards building nuclear weapons.
A commission official, quoted in the latest edition of Time magazine, alleges that Iranian officials approached Osama bin Laden after the bombing of the USS Cole in 1999, proposing a joint strategy of attacks on US interests.
A preliminary report from commission staff, released last month, stated: "Bin Laden's representatives and Iranian officials discussed putting aside Shia-Sunni divisions to co-operate against the common enemy."
The offer is said to have been turned down by bin Laden, who was reluctant to alienate Sunni supporters in Saudi Arabia. Nevertheless, in the wake of September 11, Iran sheltered al-Qaeda militants fleeing Afghanistan.
The full report by the commission is also expected to endorse initial conclusions that al-Qa'eda may have been involved in the 1996 bombing of the Khobar Towers complex in Saudi Arabia, when 19 American servicemen were killed. The attack has long been blamed solely on Hizbollah, a Lebanese terrorist group backed by Iran.
Iran was declared part of an "axis of evil", along with Iraq and North Korea, by President George W. Bush in 2002. The report will add to pressure for Iran's theocratic rulers to be the first target of a re-elected Bush administration. Hawks within the administration want a concerted effort to overturn the regime by peaceful means.
Some Bush officials are privately contemplating a possible military strike against Iran's nuclear facilities before Russian fuel rods are delivered next year.
Teheran said yesterday that it had arrested an unspecified number of Iranian al-Qa'eda supporters.
The bumbling peanut farmer did indeed pull the rug out from under the Shah. And thousands of Americans have died because of it. Carter was a disgusting incompetent dimwit.
Enterprise, your comment fits my tagline.
In '79-80-'81, during the American hostage crisis, we had bumper stickers with a mischievious Mickey Mouse figure smiling and a raised middle finger with the words " Hey, Iran!" I would love to modify it for today with my tagline's words.
With the peanut farmer in charge it was all we could do apparently at the time. I'll never forget it, nor will I ever cease to be grateful to Ronald Reagan who rescued us from the idiot from Georgia.
Hmmm, do I sense a compromise here?
As in, "OK, you want Iraq to be cleansed of its proven guilt and we'd love to see Iran in the proper light....you scratch my bias and I'll scratch yours..."
That said, I've no problem with the likely outcome; Iran is way overdue and we should be able to do it with little or no military intervention.
We ousted the Shah, we should be willing to 'stand back and watch' [quietly assist] in restoring rational governance in another non-arab state.
My sentiments exactly. President Reagan was going to take serious action. And I LOVE that tagline! President Reagan got the hostages released - and he sent that idiot bumbler packing. A great man passed recently, a truly great man.
One in partiuclar has a love of America, Freedom and Liberty that rivals ours. You can't believe his knowledge of Amerian History...puts me to shame!
That said i really do believe this war was inevitable and started with the origins of Islam back in the 500's. That religon never had an enlightenment and has been quaigmired in dark ages. It want's The West eradicated. With the radicals of that religon, it's them or us.
I prefer to eradicate them.
prisoner6
I think maybe carter's CIA had a lot to do with the fall of the Sha of Iran. Jimmy carter had a lot to do with the fall of Nicaragua for sure.
I don't doubt your reasoning, believe me. Their brutal way of spreading Islam preceded America. What we must understand is that, as you have suggested, Islam has not changed! It's WAR - and Iran is next!
pakistan lodged a protest against the US at the UN against US strikes that targetted osama bin laden's camp in afghanistan in 1998, saying US cruise missiles violated paki airspace. I mean look at their nerve.
do a google search and go to results from august 1998.
Ah, yes. Stansfeld Turner strikes again.
Operation Iranian Freedom begins on Novermber 5th!
the west should realize that it has to address all three threats.
America can't do it on its own.
1- israel should take out iran's nuclear facilties.
2- India and russia should take out pakistan with US air support.
3- US and the rest of the world should decide on measures against saudi arabia.
All the crazy muslims are cohorts. It doesn’t take a brain surgeon to figure that out.
bump
On an up-note, I think we do have to recognize that the terrorists are currently so holed up that their only recent tactic has been to kidnap individuals in predominantly Moslem countries, execute them and then post it on the internet. This tactic means they have been seriously damaged. They would certainly be bombing embassies and ships if they could.
For those who think this is a new war, BTW, remember that the man who killed Robert Kennedy, Sirhan Sirhan was a Palestinian national. They've been at war with us since we backed Israel in 67. We've just ignored it, at least until 9/11.
1- Well if we take the iranian reactors out and if they have no uranium enrichment facilities, we could prevent them from a bomb by taking the major component of their bomb making potential out, without which they can never make a bomb.
2- Pakistan is a threat that needs to be addressed. In my opinion musharraf isn't better than anyone. He is co-operating with us, because he doesn't have a choice.
Even then his co-operation has been minimal just to avoid sanctions or a US led war. He hasn't addressed either the nuclear or terror issue decisively.
We need to look beyond musharraf at the possibility of those nukes falling into wrong hands when we think of pakistan.
paki nukes are no good unless they can get them airborne. We can get them on the ground with our superior airpower by grounding their airforce and wrecking their communications. The indian army can then break pakistan up and russia could contribute troops for peace keeping.
3- As for saudi arabia, we have a shiite iran. we have a shiite majority iraq. We don't need another powerful shiite state in the region. We don't need to be confronted with 3 irans in the region. saudi arabia should be broken up into numerous small sheikdoms the size of qatar if possible, we don't need to carve a powerful shiite enclave out of it.
I haven't met an Iranian Muslim who doesn't love freedom, democracy, and the United States living in the US. I even came across the same type of feelings traveling through Iran. Unfortuantely the ruling thugs are what we have to worry about and i totally agree with your eradicate 'em conclusion.
islamic might will always give them a reason to aspire for power. we have to address this might by breaking them up
into small states.
The threat from these states can decisively addressed only when we first dismantle their nukes and then break them
up into numerous small states the size of qatar.
A WMD state can be addressed if we can get their nukes on the ground, which is possible if we couple our airpower
with an element of surprise.
Surprise is easy to attain with the range the US military has, our stealth technology and the fact that they don't have long range early warning systems. We would also have to keep all muslims and people from the region out to prevent leaks.
However we shouldn't delay it any further. It becomes difficult as they stockpile and add missiles to their fleet.
It's more than just the ruling thugs.
The problems goes down to the very society in each case.
islam isn't like communism. Whereas communism and nazi ideology were systems enforced by the state
islam is an ideology that is preached from parent to child and forced upon the state by the populace.
Most islamic states can't enforce measures against the islamic sentiment, because the islamic sentiment enjoys
popular support in these countries.
Iran might have a few reformists, but for the mullahs to be in power, they'd have to have support amongst the masses or else they would have been toppled.
pakistan has taliban allies running 2 out of its 4 provinces. While the muslim league, another creation of the same
intelligence that created al qaeda andthe taliban forms their central govt. The muslim league together with more radical
islamic parties should account for more than 60% of the paki vote.
the saudi monarchy again cannot displease the wahhabi majority.
In such a case, a change of govt is usually just cosmetic. It never addresses the problem, instead just buys it time.
to address these countries they have to be broken up into small states, that emphasize ethnicities over the islamic
sentiment.
But their WMD might has to be dismantled first.
They then have to be broken up into numerous small states to replace the islamic sentiment with ethnic hostility so that we get allies like the kurds.
However some sects like the wahhabis, the shiites and the pashtuns are deeply islamic and have to be incorporated into majorities hostile to them.
Instead of dividing islamic countries along religious lines, the effort should be divide them along ethnic lines to curb the islamic sentiment.
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