Posted on 06/20/2005 12:05:35 PM PDT by West Coast Conservative
While Western press agencies continue to report years-old allegations of Qu'ran abuse from detainees as if they were new, the Exempt Media completely missed important corroboration from Iraq's new government that Saddam sheltered and even encouraged al-Qaeda terrorists during his reign of terror. CQ reader Jason Smith at Generation Why? notes this revelation from the Italian news portal AKI which confirms that Saddam's regime sponsored an Islamist conference and specifically invited AQ's #2 man and Zarqawi to attend:
The number two of the al-Qaeda network, Ayman al-Zawahiri, visited Iraq under a false name in September 1999 to take part in the ninth Popular Islamic Congress, former Iraqi premier Iyad Allawi has revealed to pan-Arab daily al-Hayat. In an interview, Allawi made public information discovered by the Iraqi secret service in the archives of the Saddam Hussein regime, which sheds light on the relationship between Saddam Hussein and the Islamic terrorist network. He also said that both al-Zawahiri and Jordanian militant al-Zarqawi probably entered Iraq in the same period."Al-Zawahiri was summoned by Izza Ibrahim Al-Douri – then deputy head of the council of the leadership of the revolution - to take part in the congress, along with some 150 other Islamic figures from 50 Muslim countries," Allawi said.
According to Allawi, important information has been gathered regarding the presence of another key terrorist figure operating in Iraq - the Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
"The Jordanian Abu Musab al-Zarqawi entered Iraq secretly in the same period," Allawi affirmed, "and began to form a terrorist cell, even though the Iraqi services do not have precise information on his entry into the country," he said.
Last week, King Abdullah told a Saudi newspaper that the Jordanians knew Saddam to be sheltering Zarqawi in the last years of the Ba'athist reign of terror and demanded his extradition. Saddam refused to turn Zarqawi over to the Jordanians. Abdullah had been clear on that point; the Ba'athists had not claimed they could not reach him, but that they flatly refused to hand him over.
Last year, Stephen Hayes wrote about the Islamist conference in his book The Connection, which outlined a number of such ties between the Saddam regime and the AQ network, as well as other terrorists. Now that the new Iraqi government has possession of Saddam's old files, they have begun to corroborate Hayes' work. Far from being an enemy to the Islamists, Saddam reached out to the fanatics as an ally in order to covertly support attacks on Western nations, either directly or indirectly. The IIS records that Allawi has on Zawahiri shows that al-Douri -- currently running the ex-Ba'athist insurgency in Iraq -- knew who to contact in order to set up those connections.
Does the Exempt Media report this? Not to my knowledge. They have already set their story line on Saddam and terrorism, and they apparently have no interest in evidence that contradicts it. The media, however, stands willing to report every captured terrorist's claims of abuse as gospel truth, as well as the Amnesty International's hyperbolic rhetoric proclaiming the Gitmo detention center -- which houses illegal combatants captured in battle -- as the equivalent of the Soviet gulag. Small wonder the public continues to lose confidence in the integrity and the objectivity of American media outlets.
The media, however, stands willing to report every captured terrorist's claims of abuse as gospel truth, as well as the Amnesty International's hyperbolic rhetoric proclaiming the Gitmo detention center ...
Ummmmm, wasn't it the MSM that went to the Viet Cong to undermine the Swift Boat Vets? Is anyone seeing a pattern here?
Hehehehe.....thank you, Corporal Hicks, for your keen analysis of the situation.
Never said they were "buddies". But it is well known that Saddam offered safe haven to terrorists.
My2Cents - thank you so very much for remembering my interest in this matter.
I will add it to my list.
And for those who haven't seen it, below is a link which lists, chronologically, the growing relationship between OBL and Saddam. Something the MSM wrote about extensively in the 90's but would prefer we forget.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1327993/posts
You've done a stellar job with those links.
Those were probably pictures of Iraq's latest aerial assault weapon for dispersing chemical weapons.
What do you expect from a grunt?
Will add article to Connect the Dots...Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden.
See also HUSSEINandTERROR.com
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I'll bump to that.
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Why, Oh why...
...did the CLINTONS refuse 3 Free Offers from the Sudan during the 1990's to give us our No. 1 Terrorist Enemy OSAMA bin LADEN on a silver platter...
...thus allowing him to hit us really hard here at home after they left the White House..?
Why, Oh why...
....did the CLINTONS support our No. 1 Terrorist Enemy, Communist North Vietnam's Dictator HO CHI MINH, against us during the Vietnam War..?
The Enemy is now Within...
and always has been.
.
thank you
Thanks for the post. It is a rehash, but most certainly worth repeating over and over, for those that just don't want it to sink in that Saddam supported terrorist, and allowed them in his country in a few areas to set up shop. No way around the facts that have been voiced over and over for over two years now.
Bump
BTTT
Good stuff ~ Bump!
Yes, and Mark Felt, former #2 man at the FBI, denied talking to Woodward and Bernstein for about 30 years, until he finally came clean.
The notion that people in the government wouldn't lie in order to cover their rear ends is so 1950s.
Ronnie, do you really need an answer to those questions? (I suspect being rhetorical, and we all know the answers.)
This looks similar to one of my former posts. Glad to see that someone in the media is looking into this.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1410104/posts
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