Posted on 09/29/2004 8:00:45 AM PDT by finnman69
As I said - not as you inferred - I think pushing this theory has been very good for Mylroie. I did not call her a flake, and you are a liar mewzilla if you say I did. Quote me.
Who's most?
The vast majority of those I've read and heard who have written and commented on it.
And who are they that I should give them any credence?
No, it is that you can't write. And you sure can't pick up the first couple of layers and look underneath. Try a new exercise. Ask yourself, what interests does Jordan have in the answer to this question? It is truly amazing what asking critical questions can reveal, as opposed to simply regurgitating the evidence you like and dismissing the rest.
Tomorrow is my day to mentor and I feel like I'm missing the pre-game warm-up!
I don't care if you give them credence or not. You've already shown that you aren't real interested in the truth if it differs from your established view.
That's your comment. It doesn't take an English major to see that you are trying to conflate the two.
There was no indication of exactly which meeting was involved prior to my initial post. That meeting is by no means the only one between Saddam's agents and aQ. They even traveled to Afganistan for a face to face with OBL prior to 911.
My "stupid" point was referencing an explicit comment.
And it turns out that this meeting was only one of several.
Nor is it clear that we are speaking of two different people particularly when the 9/11 Commission was desparately trying to claim that there was no connection between SH and 9/11.
Wolfowitz has said that he believes Saddam is behind 9/11. There are one or two other admin officials who have said as much, openly.
But given how the press (and some freepers) react and want absolute proof (like a videotape or something), I think most administration officials are more cautious.
This is an interview Cheney gave a while ago and it reminded me that the Atta connection has never been disproved.
It involves a whole series of contacts, high-level contacts between Osama bin Laden and Iraqi intelligence officials. It involves a senior official, a brigadier general in the Iraqi intelligence service going to the Sudan before bin Laden ever went to Afghanistan to train them in bomb-making, helping teach them how to forge documents. Mr. Zarqawi, who's in Baghdad today, is an al-Qaida associate who took refuge in Baghdad, found sanctuary and safe harbor there before we ever launched into Iraq. There's a Mr. Yasin, who was a World Trade Center bomber in '93, who fled to Iraq after that and we found since when we got into Baghdad, documents showing that he was put on the payroll and given housing by Saddam Hussein after the '93 attack; in other words, provided safe harbor and sanctuary. There's clearly been a relationship.
There's a separate question. The separate question is: Was Iraq involved with al-Qaida in the attack on 9/11?
BORGER: Was Iraq involved?
Vice Pres. CHENEY: We don't know. You know, what the commission says is that they can't find any evidence of that. We had one report which is a famous report on the Czech intelligence service and we've never been able to confirm or to knock it down.
BORGER: Well, let me just get to the bottom line here...
Vice Pres. CHENEY: But it's very important that people understand these two differences. What The New York Times did today was outrageous. They do a lot of outrageous things but the headline, Panel Find Qaida-Iraq Tie. The press wants to run out and say there's a fundamental split here now between what the president said and what the commission said. Jim Thompson is a member of the commission who's since been on the air. I saw him with my own eyes. And there's no conflict. What they were addressing was whether or not they were involved in 9/11. And there they found no evidence to support that proposition. They did not address the broader question of a relationship between Iraq and al-Qaida in other areas, in other ways.
BORGER: Well, my reading of the report is that it says that, yes, contacts were made between al-Qaida and Iraq, but they could find no evidence that any relationship, in fact, had been forged between al-Qaida and Iraq.
Vice Pres. CHENEY: And you're talking generally now, not just 9/11.
BORGER: Not just 9/11. And let's talk generally and then we'll get to 9/11.
Vice Pres. CHENEY: Talk generally.
BORGER: Generally.
Vice Pres. CHENEY: That's not true.
BORGER: So you disagree?
Vice Pres. CHENEY: Absolutely. Look at the Zarqawi case. Here's a man who's Jordanian by birth. He's described as an al-Qaida associate. He ran training camps in Afghanistan back before we went to war in Afghanistan. After we went in and hit his training camp, he fled to Baghdad. Found safe harbor and sanctuary in Baghdad in May of 2002. He arrived with about two dozen other supporters of his, members of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, which was Zawahiri's organization. He's the number two to bin Laden, which was merged with al-Qaida interchangeably. Egyptian Islamic Jihad, al-Qaida, same-same. They're all now part of one organization. They merged some years ago. So Zarqawi living in Baghdad. We arranged for information to be passed on his presence in Baghdad to the Iraqis through a third-party intelligence service. They did that twice. There's no question but what Saddam Hussein really was there. He was allowed to operate out of Baghdad. He ran the poisons fact ory in northern Iraq out of Baghdad, which became a safe harbor for Ansar al-Islam??? as well as al-Qaida fleeing Afghanistan. There clearly was a relationship there that stretched back over that period of time to at least May of '02, a year before we launched into Iraq. He is the worst offender. He's probably killed more Iraqis than any other man in Iraq today. He is probably the leading terrorist still operating in Iraq today.
BORGER: Now some say that he corresponded with al-Qaida only after Saddam was deposed.
Vice Pres. CHENEY: That's not true. He had been involved working side by side, as described by the CIA, with al-Qaida over the years. This is an old established relationship. He's the man who killed our man Foley in Jordan, an AID official, during this period of time. To suggest that there's no connection between Zarqawi, no relationship if you will, and Iraq just simply is not true.
BORGER: Well, let's get to Mohammad Atta for a minute, because you mentioned him as well. You have said in the past that it was, quote, "pretty well confirmed."
Vice Pres. CHENEY: No, I never said that.
BORGER: OK.
Vice Pres. CHENEY: Never said that.
BORGER: I think that is...
Vice Pres. CHENEY: Absolutely not. What I said was the Czech intelligence service reported after 9/11 that Atta had been in Prague on April 9th of 2001, where he allegedly met with an Iraqi intelligence official. We have never been able to confirm that nor have we been able to knock it down.
BORGER: Well, now this report says it didn't happen.
Vice Pres. CHENEY: No. This report says they haven't found any evidence.
BORGER: That it happened.
Vice Pres. CHENEY: Right.
BORGER: But you haven't found the evidence that it happened either, have you?
Vice Pres. CHENEY: No. All we have is that one report from the Czechs. We just don't know.
BORGER: So does this put it to rest for you or not on Atta?
Vice Pres. CHENEY: It doesn't add anything from my perspective. I mean, I still am a skeptic. I can't refute the Czech plan. I can't prove the Czech plan. It's ...(unintelligible) the nature of the intelligence (unintelligible).
BORGER: OK, but let's...
Vice Pres. CHENEY: But that is a separate question from what the press has gotten all in a dither about, The New York Times especially, on this other question. What they've done is, I think, distorted what the commission actually reported, certainly according to Governor Thompson, who's a member of the commission.
BORGER: But you say you disagree with the commission...
Vice Pres. CHENEY: On this question of whether or not there was a general relationship.
BORGER: Yes.
Vice Pres. CHENEY: Yeah.
BORGER: And they say that there was not one forged and you were saying yes, that there was. Do you know things that the commission does not know?
Vice Pres. CHENEY: Probably.
BORGER: And do you think the commission needs to know them?
Vice Pres. CHENEY: I don't have any--I don't know what they know. I do know they didn't talk with any original sources on this subject that say that in their report.
BORGER: They did talk with people who had interrogated sources.
Vice Pres. CHENEY: Right.
BORGER: So they do have good sources.
Vice Pres. CHENEY: Gloria, the notion that there is no relationship between Iraq and al-Qaida just simply is not true. I'm going to read this material here. Your show isn't long enough for me to read all the pieces...
BORGER: Sure it is.
Vice Pres. CHENEY: ...but in the fall of '95 and again in the summer of '96, bin Laden met with Iraqi intelligence service representatives at his farm in Sudan. Bin Laden asked for terror training from Iraq. The Iraqi intelligence service responded. It deployed a bomb-making expert, a brigadier general in the Iraqi intelligence.
BORGER: OK, but now just let me stop you there, because what this report says is that he was not given the support that he had asked for from Iraq, that he had requested all of these things but, in fact, did not get them.
Vice Pres. CHENEY: He got this. We know for a fact. This is from George Tenet's testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee February 12th, 2003, etc. I mean, it's there. It's ...(unintelligible).
BORGER: So is the commission credible as far as you're concerned?
Vice Pres. CHENEY: I haven't read their entire report on everything. I think they're doing good work. I think it's a very tough job they've been doing and I don't mean to be overly critical of them. I think this is not an area they looked at. According to Governor Thompson again, they didn't spend a lot of time on the question of Iraq and al-Qaida except for the 9/11 proposition.
That's what they're asked to look at. They did not spend a lot of time on these other issues. They've got one paragraph in the report that talks about that. And so the notion that you can take one paragraph from the 9-11 Commission and say, `Ah, therefore that says there was never a connection between Iraq and al-Qaida.' It's just wrong. It's not true. I'd love to go on on all of this stuff, but the fact of the matter is there clearly was a relationship there. Now...
BORGER: Let me just ask you, bottom line, though, on 9/11...
Vice Pres. CHENEY: On 9/11...
BORGER: ...Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with 9/11?
Vice Pres. CHENEY: We have never been able to prove that there was a connection there on 9/11. The one thing we have is the Czech intelligence service report saying that Mohammad Atta had met with the senior Iraqi intelligence official at the embassy on April 9th, 2001. That's never been proven. It's never been refuted.
Again, (sigh - I'm talking slowly so you'll understand) there is a link I posted previously from the book The Connection, that Jordanian Intelligence believe Shakir is an Iraqi intelligence officer.
If there were two of these guys whose word convinces you that one was in Iraq at the time of the meeting?
We do know that the handler left the airport job immediately after the terrorist meeting was concluded. I believe the 911 Report indicated he returned to Iraq at this time but I would have to check my book since it could have been another Intelligence operative handling another meeting.
Inconvenient Facts
John Kerry has now decided that he must deny any links between Saddam's Iraq and terrorism. There are some facts which he should be confronted with at tomorrow's debate.
by Stephen F. Hayes
09/29/2004 7:39:00 AM
THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION argues that the Iraq war was the central front in the war on terror. Not long ago, John Kerry agreed. He called Saddam Hussein a terrorist. He worried about Iraq passing weapons to terrorists. His running mate prominently cited Iraq's terrorist connections as a chief reason for the war. As recently as early September, Kerry praised soldiers in Iraq as freedom fighters in the war on terror.
All of this has changed. The Iraq war, Kerry says now with borrowed conviction, was a distraction.
"The invasion of Iraq was a profound diversion from the battle against our greatest enemy: al Qaeda," Kerry claimed, adding, "Iraq is now what it was not before the war--a haven for terrorists."
In an interview with Time magazine, Kerry claimed that the 9/11 Commission found not only that Iraq was not behind the September 11 attacks, but that Iraq had "nothing to do with al Qaeda."
In the past two weeks, his surrogates have gone even further. To wit: "There was no terrorism in Iraq before we went to war," said Stephanie Cutter, chief spokeswoman for the Kerry campaign, on September 9. "Iraq and terrorism had nothing to do with one another. Zero," said Teresa Heinz Kerry in a September 22 speech in Arizona. "Saddam Hussein and Iraq never were a threat to our national security or to the United States," claimed Ted Kennedy in an appearance on Hardball on Monday.
Why is Team Kerry so eager to separate the Iraq war from the broader war on terror? If voters believe that Iraq is an important part of the war on terror, they are more likely to be patient with difficulties there. On the flip side, if Kerry were able to convince voters that the Iraq war was a distraction from the war on terror, he would erode confidence not only in Bush's handling of Iraq but also of the broader war on terror. According to numbers released in yesterday's USA Today/CNN/Gallup poll Kerry needs to do just that. Self-identified likely voters were asked about whether they approve of Bush's handling of the situation in Iraq and the war on terror. Forty-eight of those surveyed approved of Bush's handling of the "situation in Iraq" and 49 percent disapproved. But the numbers spike when likely voters were asked about Bush's handling of the war on terror; 62 percent approve and only 36 percent disapprove.
So it's not difficult to understand why Kerry's campaign wants to separate Iraq and the war on terror. But to claim that Saddam had "nothing to do with al Qaeda?" That there was no terrorism in Iraq before the war? That Iraq has never been a threat to the United States? These are preposterous statements. They're not debatable, or a matter of interpretation. They are demonstrably false.
Here are some relevant facts about Iraqi support for terrorism:
* On March 28, 1992, the Iraqi Intelligence Service compiled a 20-page list of terrorists the regime considered intelligence assets. Atop each page was the designation "Top Secret." On page 14 of that list is Osama bin Laden. The Iraqi Intelligence document reports that bin Laden "is in good relationship with our section in Syria." The document has been vetted and authenticated by the Defense Intelligence Agency. The existence of the document was first reported on CBS's 60 Minutes. It has been widely ignored.
* Saddam Hussein hosted regular conferences for terrorists in Baghdad throughout the 1990s. Mark Fineman, a reporter for the Los Angeles Times, reported on one such gathering in an article published January 26, 1993. "There are delegates from the most committed Islamic organizations on Earth," he wrote. "Afghan mujahideen (holy warriors), Palestinian militants, Sudanese fundamentalists, the Islamic Brotherhood and Pakistan's Party of Islam." One speaker praised "the mujahid Saddam Hussein, who is leading this nation against the nonbelievers. Everyone has a task to do, which is to go against the American state."
* Abdul Rahman Yasin is an Iraqi who mixed the chemicals for the bomb used in the first World Trade Center attack on February 26, 1993. We know this because he has confessed--twice to the FBI and once on national television in the United States. He fled to Iraq on March 5,1993, with the help of an Iraqi Intelligence operative working under cover in the Iraqi Embassy in Amman, Jordan. A reporter for Newsweek interviewed Yasin's neighbors in Baghdad who reported that he was living freely and "working for the government." U.S. soldiers uncovered Iraqi government documents in postwar Iraq that confirm this. The documents show Yasin was given both safe haven and financing by the Iraqi regime until the eve of the war in Iraq.
* Later that same month--March 1993--Wali al Ghazali was approached by an Iraqi Intelligence officer named Abdel Hussein. Ghazali, a male nurse from Najaf, met another IIS agent named Abu Mrouwah who gave him an urgent mission: assassinate former President George H.W. Bush on his upcoming trip to Kuwait. On April 14, Kuwaiti police found Ghazali and other Iraqi Intelligence assets with two hundred pounds of explosives in a Toyota Landcruiser. Ghazali, the would-be assassin, told a Kuwait court that he had "been pushed by people who had no mercy." He said: "I fear the Iraqi regime, the Iraqi regime pushed me."
* According to numerous press reports, the deputy director of Iraqi Intelligence, Faruq Hijazi, met face-to-face with Osama bin Laden in 1994. Bin Laden asked for anti-ship mines and al Qaeda training camps in Iraq. There is no indication that Iraq made good on his requests.
* That same year, according to internal Iraqi Intelligence documents authenticated by the U.S. intelligence community and reported in the June 25, 2004, New York Times, a Sudanese government official met with Uday Hussein and the director of Iraqi Intelligence to facilitate the relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda.
* According to the New York Times, the same Iraqi Intelligence document said that bin Laden earlier "had some reservations about being labeled an Iraqi operative" and that "presidential approval" had been granted to the Iraqi Intelligence service to meet with him. Bin Laden "also requested join operations against foreign forces" in Saudi Arabia. At bin Laden's request, Saddam Hussein also agreed to broadcast on Iraqi television sermons of an anti-Saudi cleric.
* The Clinton administration cited an "understanding" between Iraq and al Qaeda in its 1998 indictment of Osama bin Laden. "Al Qaeda reached an understanding with the government of Iraq that al Qaeda would not work against that government and that on particular projects, specifically including weapons development, al Qaeda would work cooperatively with the Government of Iraq."
* The 9/11 Commission reports that Iraq and al Qaeda had a series of "friendly contacts" that did not appear to have developed into a "collaborative operations relationship." The final report provides details of meetings between senior Iraqi Intelligence officials and al Qaeda terrorists throughout the spring and summer of 1998 and indicates that "Iraqi official offered bin Laden a safe haven in Iraq."
* The offer of asylum was also included in the Senate Intelligence Committee's unanimous, bipartisan review of prewar intelligence. From p. 335 of the Senate report: "A [CIA Counterterrorism Center] operational summary from April 13, 1999, notes four other intelligence reports mentioning Saddam Hussein's "standing offer of safe haven to Osama bin Laden."
* This, from p. 316 of the Senate Intelligence Committee report: "From 1996 to 2003, the [Iraqi Intelligence Service] focused its terrorist activities on western interests, particularly against the U.S. and Israel. The CIA summarized nearly 50 intelligence reports as examples, using language directly from the intelligence reports. Ten intelligence reports, from multiple sources, indicated IIS 'casing' operations against Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty in Prague began in 1998 and continued into early 2003. The CIA assessed, based on the Prague casings and a variety of other reporting, that throughout 2002 the IIS was becoming increasingly aggressive in planning attacks against U.S. interests."
* Page 331 of the Senate report: "Twelve reports received [redacted] from sources that the CIA described as having varying reliability, cited Iraq or Iraqi national involvement in al Qaeda's CBW [chemical and biological weapons] efforts."
* Abu Musab al Zarqawi traveled to Iraq in May 2002. He lived in Baghdad with the knowledge--and perhaps sponsorship--of the Iraqi regime. A passage from p. 337 of the Senate Intelligence Committee report cites a CIA report called Iraqi Support for Terrorism: "A variety of reporting indicates that senior al Qaeda terrorist planner al Zarqawi was in Baghdad [redacted]. A foreign government service asserted that the IIS knew where al Zarqawi was located despite Baghdad's claims it could not find him." More, from p. 338: "Al Zarqawi and his network were operating both in Baghdad and in the Kurdish-controlled region of Iraq. The HUMINT reporting indicated that the Iraqi regime certainly knew that al Zarqawi was in Baghdad because a foreign government service gave that information to Iraq."
* More recently, Hudayfa Azzam, the son of bin Laden's longtime mentor Abdullah Azzam, told Agence France Presse that the Iraqi regime worked closely with al Qaeda in Iraq before the war. "Saddam Hussein's regime welcomed them with open arms and young al Qaeda members entered Iraq in large numbers, setting up an organization to confront the occupation," he said in an interview published August 29, 2004. Azzam added that al Qaeda fighters "infiltrated into Iraq with the help of Kurdish mujahideen from Afghanistan, across mountains in Iran" and that once they arrived, Saddam "strictly and directly" controlled their activities.
Does John Kerry truly believe that "Iraq and terrorism had nothing to do with one another?" Good question.
Does Jim Lehrer read THE DAILY STANDARD?
Stephen F. Hayes is a staff writer at The Weekly Standard and author of The Connection: How al Qaeda's Collaboration with Saddam Hussein has Endangered America.
© Copyright 2004, News Corporation, Weekly Standard, All Rights Reserved.
What is your source that any of these people knew that 9/11 was coming?
As far as giving money to individuals goes that is no proof of anything.
When the hijackers came here they tapped into networks long established to help moslem immigrants and were assisted. But that in no way shows they were knowingly aiding a terror attack.
It is deceptive to claim that knowledge of a phone number shows that the possessor of that number knows anything. I could know your phone number without you knowing a thing about me or my intentions.
Haven't you answered your own question in the link you provided previously?
An Iraqi man was at a 9/11 planning meeting. His name was Shakir. Originally it was thought he was Fedayeen. THen it was discovered he was just an Iraqi national. Jordanian intelligence believe he is an Iraqi intelligence officer (link provided to you previously).
From your link: Lehman was referring to a Wall Street Journal editorial from May 27 (long before the staff statement was issued, actually) saying captured documents list someone named Ahmed Hikmat Shakir as a senior officer in Saddam's Fedayeen paramilitary forces, and that someone also named Ahmed Hikmat Shakir was present at a January 2000 al-Qaeda meeting in Kuala Lumpur at which the September 11 attacks were planned. What remains to be confirmed, of course, is whether they're the same person or not, and if so whether that shows Saddam played any role in the September 11 attacks.
(NOTICE: The 9/11 Commission Report released July 22 contradicts thespeculation about Shakir's identity. Buried in Footnote 49 of Ch. 6:
Commission Report: Mihdhar was met at the Kuala Lumpur airport by Ahmad Hikmat Shakir, an Iraqi national. Reports that he was a lieutenant colonel in the Iraqi Fedayeen have turned out to be incorrect. They were based on a confusion of Shakir's identity with that of an Iraqi Fedayeen colonel with a similar name, who was later (in September 2001) in Iraq at the same time Shakir was in police custody in Qatar.)
Clarke intimated that he believed SH was behind OKC in his testimony and that SH and OBL were working together in the Sudan.
I didn't see it either but heard some audio clips on Rush. He sounded awful. First, fumbling as he tried to offer spin. Then a little angry when Sawyer pressed him.
A lot of people believe that Saddam was behind the first WTC bombing, the OKC bombing and the second WTC bombing. Legitimate people.
But this is what the Rats do. They attack the people when they can't attack the evidence.
Does anyone know if Kerry is still orange today? Hoping it doesn't fade by tomorrow :-)
BORGER: Well, let's get to Mohammad Atta for a minute, because you mentioned him as well. You have said in the past that it was, quote, "pretty well confirmed."
Vice Pres. CHENEY: No, I never said that.
BORGER: OK.
Vice Pres. CHENEY: Never said that.
BORGER: I think that is...
Vice Pres. CHENEY: Absolutely not. What I said was the Czech intelligence service reported after 9/11 that Atta had been in Prague on April 9th of 2001, where he allegedly met with an Iraqi intelligence official. We have never been able to confirm that nor have we been able to knock it down.
Never said that? Never said that?
December 9, 2001, Meet the Press
RUSSERT: Let me turn to Iraq. When you were last on this program, September 16, five days after the attack on our country, I asked you whether there was any evidence that Iraq was involved in the attack and you said no.
Since that time, a couple of articles have appeared which I want to get you to react to. The first: The Czech interior minister said today that an Iraqi intelligence officer met with Mohammed Atta, one of the ringleaders of the September 11 terrorists attacks on the United States, just five months before the synchronized hijackings and mass killings were carried out.
And this from James Woolsey, former CIA director: ``We know that at Salman Pak, in the southern edge of Baghdad, five different eye witnesses--three Iraqi defectors and two American U.N. inspectors--have said, and now there are aerial photographs to show it, a Boeing 707 that was used for training of hijackers, including non-Iraqi hijackers, trained very secretly to take over airplanes with knives.''
And we have photographs. As you can see that little white speck, and there it is.
RUSSERT: The plane on the ground in Iraq used to train non-Iraqi hijackers.
Do you still believe there is no evidence that Iraq was involved in September 11?
CHENEY: Well, what we now have that's developed since you and I last talked, Tim, of course, was that report that's been pretty well confirmed, that he did go to Prague and he did meet with a senior official of the Iraqi intelligence service in Czechoslovakia last April, several months before the attack.
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