Smoking in the Background - The Bush administration sits on some telling documents (Saddam's Iraq).

NRO ^ | December 21, 2005 | Deroy Murdock

[neverdem]

	E-mail Author Author Archive Send to a Friend Version

December 21, 2005,

4:25 p.m.

Smoking in the Background

The Bush administration sits on some telling documents.

President Bush’s recent speeches and media appearances defending the Iraq war are welcome and much-needed. They also seem to be paying dividends. Support for his handling of Iraq stood at 46 percent, up 10 points since November, in a December 15–18 ABC News/Washington Post poll. Nevertheless, Team Bush still fails to deploy readily available ammunition to combat those who demand America’s retreat from Iraq.

On two key fronts — Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction and his generous support for Islamofascist terrorists — the Bush administration maddeningly conceals evidence that justifies the president’s decision to topple Hussein. This information should be rolled out to counteract the destructive arguments of Democratic chief Howard Dean, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, Senator John Kerry, and other Bushophobes who relentlessly carpet-bomb American efforts in Iraq.

Stephen Hayes reveals the latest squandered opportunities in the December 19 Weekly Standard. Hayes — the pioneering author of The Connection: How al Qaeda’s Collaboration with Saddam Hussein Has Endangered America — reportshere, here, and here on the Pentagon papers. These mainly unclassified Iraqi Intelligence Service (IIS) materials implicate Hussein’s government in multifarious mischief. Much of it violated Article H, Clause 32 of United Nations Security Council Resolution 687, which prohibited Baghdad from supporting or associating with terrorists. The Pentagon’s HARMONY database identifies these memos, photographs, videotapes, and other records via highly tantalizing summaries:

“Possible al Qaeda Terror Members in Iraq”

“Money Transfers from Iraq to Afghanistan”

“Improvised Explosive Devices Plan”

“Chemical Agent Purchase Orders (Dec. 2001)”

“Correspondence between various Iraq organizations giving instructions to hide chemicals and equipment”

“Title: Order from Saddam Hussein to present $25k to Palestinian Suicide Bombers’ Families

Short Description: Order from Saddam to give money to suicide bombers’ families, letters from al-Kilani Said Ahmed, a leader of the National Islamic Front in Afghanistan (and who used to receive payments from Saddam).

Agency: DIA

Document Date: Mar-02

Document #: ISGP-2003-00014647”

“Category: Al Qaida

Title: Letters, logbook, training manual from Al Qaida Chemical Plant regarding Chem Warfare

Short Description: Contains papers concerning Iraqi officials, prices of equipment, training plans, and actions by high level officers all concerning chemical warfare

Agency: DIA

Document Date: Feb-02

Document #: ICSQ-2003-00025586”

“Title: IIS Correspondence for the Iraq Embassy in the Philippines and Iraqi MFA [Ministry of Foreign Affairs].

Short Description: Various correspondence e.g. visa forms, trade delegations, full reports on the connections between Abu Sayaf and the Qadafi Charity Establishment. Report on a certain individual traveling to Pakistan and involvements with bin Laden.

Agency: DIA

Document Date: Mar-01

Document #: ISGP-2003-00014100”

“Does the correspondence between the Iraqi Embassy in Manila and the Iraqi Ministry of Foreign Affairs shed any new light on the $25 million ransom that Muammar Qaddafi paid Abu Sayyaf in the summer of 2000, ostensibly to secure the release of 25 Westerners held hostage by the Filipino al Qaeda affiliate?” Hayes wonders. “Who traveled to Pakistan? What was his involvement with bin Laden? Did he have anything to do with the Iraqi government?”

The following text might offer answers:

*“Title: Secret Meeting with Taliban Group member and Iraqi Government

Short Description: Mtg between al Qaida and Iraqi government and decision to operate

Agency: DIA

Document Date: Nov-00

Document #: ISGP-2003-00014127”

So, a record dated ten months before 9/11 indicates that Saddam Hussein’s employees clandestinely met Taliban and al Qaeda agents regarding a “decision to operate.” Meditate on that.

According to documents Hayes cites, the former director of Iraq’s Intelligence Directorate 4 met bin Laden on February 19, 1995. Baghdad considered bin Laden an “Iraqi intelligence asset” as far back as 1992, one communiqué reads. After bin Laden left Sudan for Afghanistan in May 1996, Hussein wanted “other channels through which to handle the relationship, in light of his [bin Laden’s] current location.” The Iraqi intelligence memo continued: “Cooperation between the two organizations should be allowed to develop freely through discussion and agreement.”

Naturally, the White House and Pentagon are busy defending Bush’s policies by translating and authenticating these and similar records and promoting them among congressional and journalistic supporters and detractors.

Wrong!

The Bush administration inexplicably suppresses such papers. They reject requests for unclassified files from Hayes, America’s most broadly published expert on Hussein’s terrorist credentials. Hayes, who generally supports the president on Iraq, is flummoxed: “The Bush administration seems remarkably uninterested in discovering, now that we have reams of material from Saddam’s regime, what the actual terror-related and WMD-related activities of that regime were.”

Incredibly, the Pentagon’s Doc-Ex, or document exploitation project, may close December 31. Its roughly 700 translators in Doha, Qatar have analyzed 50,000 items among some two million captured in Iraq. This public-diplomacy treasure trove could remain hidden from the public. Far worse, intelligence data on potential mass-murder conspiracies may stay unread until after a Baathist-inspired attack kills more Americans or our allies.

The White House should pump up the volume and showcase these papers. Even now, proof that Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction and sponsored terrorist butchers, including Osama bin Laden, will demonstrate the necessity of Operation Iraqi Freedom. The alternative is to keep this vital evidence under wraps and hope that Howard Dean and the Congressional Defeat Caucus quietly disappear.

— Deroy Murdock is a New York-based syndicated columnist with the Scripps Howard News Service and a senior fellow with the Atlas Economic Research Foundation. His research on Baathist terrorist philanthropy is at www.HUSSEINandTERROR.com.

	http://www.nationalreview.com/murdock/murdock200512211625.asp

[processing please hold]

Because that which involved Iraq is intertwined with ongoing investigations into a global proliferation network whose reach we have not yet determined,

Then what actions do we have at our disposal should the investigations lead directly to a peculiar country that's pushing global proliferation? We know Russia is supplying missiles, Germany and France are in on helping Iran to build their nuclear facilities. Then what? Bush has a news conference and 'out's' those countries with evidence to what is already known? The world doesn't care. They are too consumed by self preservation and the almighty dollar to say boo to a ghost.

It appears that the US is only one of a limited few countries on the planet that has the balls to put it's neck on the line to try to prevent a nuclear armageddon.

By releasing info we have on Iraq we could inadvertantly tell others what we know about their activities, giving them time to prepare.

Time to prepare for what? They already know we know. That hasn't slowed down from anything that I can tell. If I remember correctly, Russia has sold China about four of those cruise missiles.

[Minutemen]

BTTT
Good article. This intelligence should be broken wide open for the "blind" to see. I dont know why the President is being so delicate about it. The time is overdue to open up with both barrels.

[Hegewisch Dupa]

self ping

[processing please hold]

Imagine what would happen if we exposed France, Germany and Russia as having helped Iraq develop a whole new line of WMDs while Clinton stood by and did nothing. Alot of alliances would crumble.

Nothing. It hasn't thus far. We know those countries supplied Iraq with WMD's. And what would the paperwork prove, that we were right all along? There doesn't seem to be a stigma any longer to supplying rogue nations with the means to kill hundreds of thousands of people at once.

but we're gonna need the EU AND Russia in the coming war with China.

You have that backwards, they're going to need us. They are supplying their enemy with the means with which to destroy them. And that folly will come back and bite them on their ass.

[reformedliberal]

Russia, China, France, Germany all assisted Saddam's regime in 2003 when we mobilized against Iraq. There was an *intel* site during the run on Baghdad run by those using the initials GPU. They claimed to be broadcasting the locations of US/Coalition troops. They were shown to be off by large distances. They nearly admitted to being a hoax by the end of the major operations and they disappeared from the Internet, AFAIK.

They were defending their market for their war materiel. At one point, the Russian military was gloating that this war was making them a fortune in sales of armament. IIRC, China was supposedly supplying the Iraqis with sat intel and there was talk of Chinese *sat killers* that would disable US satellite communication. At the height of the battle in Baghdad, there were EU rumors of French paratroops wearing blue helmets organizing a drop into the center of Baghdad to take on the Coalition. I recall Mansur Ijaz reporting this from Europe.

Some of this was true, since we know French, German and Russian weapons and manuals were found and are still being found. Much was hype aimed at destroying our confidence and instilling fear and trepidation.

We won anyway.

Russia will sign all sorts of accords, as will the French and Chinese. Were I Syria or Iran, I would put very little trust in them honoring any agreement. In paying for weapons from these countries, I would remember that they have ultimately been beaten by our weapons every time they were used. I think their failure rankles and they really mourn the loss of their Iraqi market.

But it is nice to have it in print, so that afterward we can use it to beat up the suppliers of the Islamofascists.

[processing please hold]

My guess, is to limit the US from ever protecting itself "arbitrarily" again. T

That won't happen. If Bush saw an immediate threat to America's safety tomorrow, he would act again just as he did the last time. He won't wait for approval. And who's approval would we need the UN's? They sat idly by while a million people were slaughtered in Rwanda. When hundreds of thousands were massacered in Dalfur(?) It will be a cold day in hell before I would wait for permission from an anti-American organization to decide when we can and cannot decide when this country needs protecting. I can't see Bush going to them to ask for permission no matter how hard I try too.

he UN will say, "Look at the mistakes you made with Iraq, how can we believe what the US is telling us?"

Who cares?

[Galveston Grl]

Could it be that the CIA won't declassify the information? Bush can't discuss it without the CIA's approval. The CIA has been politically selective in what it exposes during the Bush Administration.

[HIDEK6]

I want Bashir Assads head on a pike..

I know what you mean.

That little weasel reminds me of Jim Mora, Jr.

[SFC Chromey]

"He won't wait for approval. And who's approval would we need the UN's?"

---

I don't think he needs UN approval to do a d@mned thing. However, the globalists would shriek like the banshees that they are.

Oh, and yes Bush did wait about 6 MONTHS to get approval from the UN. We should have struck in Oct 02, instead we didn't get 'authorization to enforce UN sanctions' until Feb 03.

[processing please hold]

I wonder if the Administration thinks these documents were also forged by Plame & Co., like the Niger documents intended to "poison the well".

This president doesn't have the luxury of doubting intelligence gathering documents. If the idiots who forged those documents were brought up on charges and prosecuted, he could clean out the traitors in this country.

In these dangerous times we live in, hesitation for action could be fatal.

[processing please hold]

President Bush is playing Texas Hold'em and winning.

Winning today. What will tomorrow bring?

[processing please hold]

the globalists would shriek like the banshees that they are.

Let the b@stards shriek for all the good it will do them.

I believe if Bush had Intel that said another country was preparing to launch on the US, he would give a selected team a few hours to investigate it and if they can back and agreed with the assessment, nothing, nobody or no organization would stand in his way when it comes to protecting us. He knows if he did nothing, he would then be the president of a devastated country.

[TheForceOfOne]

lol

Oh Ye of Little Faith.

[Once-Ler]

I must've missed this news on the tube....

It certainly wasn't because the lame stream media wasn't looking for dirt to sling at Dubya. Evidently the old media doesn't think the acusations leveled would stand up to even a miniscule amount of scrutiny from those who know and care about the Balkens. Else they would not have hesitated to tear down the President's strong support from voters on the issue of foreign policy. I am certain the Administration has come to a different conclusion than the author of this opinion article.

[processing please hold]

Oh Ye of Little Faith.

No. With grandchildren who tomorrow belongs too.

[Poincare]

I assume "strategery" is involved in this nondisclosure

Good assumption.

One has to understand how we are fighting (and winning) the war on Islamofascism. First of all 911 must be seen as very much like Pearl Harbor--a tremendous mistake by the enemy. We were successful in Afganistan, but mainly all we did was bust up the schools and training camps--a good thing. But the terror network was worlldwide and loose.

By going into Iraq we did two things, we brought freedom and democracy into the HEART of Arab/Moslim culture, and we became a target for terrorists there. We wanted the loose terrorists to come to us on Iraqi soil to be killed. So we wanted to attract them by appearing weak as possible. Here's where the Dims played as useful idiots. they helped us appear weak and encouraged the terrorists with the false idea the they could defeat us. Hiding the evidence of WMD and Saddam-Alqaeda links encouraged the Dims.

We wanted to leave Zaquari(sp? free to keep calling to terrorists to go to Iraq. the terrorists thought that the Americans had technology but could not stand up in a fire fight. Boy were they wrong. Our troops, especially Rummy's small-footprint killer elite can shoot well. they have been well trained. And the Islamists can't hit sh*t. They leave their cell phones and laptops with their dead. Our troops turn over the electronic pieces to intelligence. Someday soon, when the Iraq borders are closed, etc. Bush will tell all.

[daler]

They would require a smoking A-bomb, or maybe two, in case the first was just a fluke.

Sadly, I'm beginning to believe it will take another 9/11 for the MSM and its sheeple to "get it."

[bert]

.....Why would he sit on it and not release it?....

W goes to battle at a "time and place of my choosing"

He has not yet choose a time and place.

[processing please hold]

On that I agree. He won't wait for permission for a world wide consensus. When he determines the time and place are right...he will act.

[AmusedBystander]

The Bush Administration has enjoyed high levels of support in going into Iraq and getting rid of Saddam. Nothing more was needed to have approval ratings above 60%.

Unfortunately, the Administration wasn't counting on such a vigorous insurgency. The support has dripped away with each GI killed by IEDs. When it became clear to Rove that the public pendulum had swung, the Administration came out swinging. If the troop drawdown proceeds rapidly and the body count drops by June, the incumbant congress critters will generally be re-elected.

Personally, I support the war effort because it is necessary to keep the US in the catbird seat, but there is not one thing about Iraq worth the blood of one of our troops.