Posted on 12/22/2005 10:01:53 PM PST by neverdem
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December 21, 2005, 4:25 p.m. Smoking in the Background The Bush administration sits on some telling documents.
President Bushs 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 1518 ABC News/Washington Post poll. Nevertheless, Team Bush still fails to deploy readily available ammunition to combat those who demand Americas retreat from Iraq.
On two key fronts Saddam Husseins weapons of mass destruction and his generous support for Islamofascist terrorists the Bush administration maddeningly conceals evidence that justifies the presidents 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 Qaedas Collaboration with Saddam Hussein Has Endangered America reportshere, here, and here on the Pentagon papers. These mainly unclassified Iraqi Intelligence Service (IIS) materials implicate Husseins 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 Pentagons HARMONY database identifies these memos, photographs, videotapes, and other records via highly tantalizing summaries:
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:
So, a record dated ten months before 9/11 indicates that Saddam Husseins 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 Iraqs 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 Ladens] 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 Bushs 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, Americas most broadly published expert on Husseins 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 Saddams regime, what the actual terror-related and WMD-related activities of that regime were.
Incredibly, the Pentagons 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.
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http://www.nationalreview.com/murdock/murdock200512211625.asp
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I assume so! My guess is that there are on going operations that would be compromised if he did so.
I just want the news without spin. If this is true, then I appreciate multitudes of opinions... even if I don't agree. Interesting.
Hopefully, some day the truth of these countries re Iraq will come out.
One of the couples does fit your example of using the internet.
The other couple and my wife are luddites and use the internet at business and to order something at home.
I am like you when you described yourself in your last paragraph:
"I know that I have reached an age where I simply cannot function while being furious/worried/anxious/afraid. My antidote is to log on to FR and use the rest of the Internet research opportunities to gauge just what is a real threat and how much of a threat it really is."
When we travel, and I can't get to the internet and can only hear what or read what the MSM wants us to believe, it is very easy to get discouraged. I learned about 4 years ago, to put those emotions and concerns in check until I can get home to see what my Freepers have to say about any pseudo issue the MSM brings up. My wife will say on some situations while vacation, lets wait until you get home to research this on FR before you and I get upset.
Exactly!
I am trying to teach this approach to my husband, who has really taken to it. We were on vacation in November and even though the hotel had FNC, we weren't watching it very much. When something worrisome came on during the brief time we would be watching (and with a 4 hour time lag from our home added in to make it worse when the subject was weather at home), we would just go down to the lobby, log in on the Internet and check it out. Even at .50/minute, we found we could find the facts within 5 minutes or less.
Best vacation we've had in a long, long time, too!
Idle speculation.
That would be my preference also, But I get a bad feeling that Al Qaeda would like to link up with the Pali's and attack Israel. That would bring the U.S. in support of Israel and Iran in behind the the Pali's. Quickly followed by the Saudi's and the rest of the Muslim nations.
I don't think they are going to let us pick them off on nation at a time.
Timing is everything. Knowing Bush, its more important to have a Republican successor, than it is destroying a couple loud mouthed Democrat Senators.
*
You're right. Common sense tells me that, but part of me wants him to call them out publicly, crush and humiliate them and drive them from office. But, that's just me.
Meanwhile:
U.N. Hit by a Bolt From the Right ~~ Bolton causing WAVES>>>>that's good.
No more if's, and's, or BUTTS!!!
Not an easy thing to do.
Thanks, Ernest. Tis truly a MERRY CHRISTmas here in the Socialist's Sierra-Nevada CONservancy!!!
You have a very wise wife, GD.
;^)
I will tell you guys EXACTLY why he is sitting on this.
That information is PROBABLY still classified. Think back to your own reaction to the wiretaps and the radiation detector stories.
If the information didn't still have any use, they probably would have found a way to declassify it. But that isn't the case, and I can only draw ONE conclusion, that is, the information that has been found and translated is still giving the US forces in Iraq inroads and intel into what Saddam and our enemies have been up too.
It's all about security. Thankfully this White House understands that.
Thanks for posting this. I have added a link to the Murdock article to top of my page at http://FreedomKeys.com/whyiraq.htm -- all of which I'll post here later, pinging only myself.
Congrats on denying the government of all that sin tax.
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