Posted on 01/06/2006 8:20:55 PM PST by wagglebee
The Bush administration is preparing to release never-before-seen documents captured when U.S. forces liberated Baghdad that chronicle the extensive training of thousands of radical Islamic terrorists by Saddam Hussein's regime.
"The secret training took place primarily at three camps in Samarra, Ramadi, and Salman Pak," reports the Weekly Standard's Stephen Hayes, who adds that the operations began two years before the 9/11 attacks and were "directed by elite Iraqi military units."
The existence of these documents, and the nature of what they describe, has been confirmed to the Standard by eleven U.S. government officials, Hayes says.
If true, the documents represent a bombshell finding that shatters the claims of Iraq war critics who have maintained for three years that Saddam Hussein had no connection whatsoever to Islamic terrorism.
More intriguing still is the documentation on Salman Pak - a camp previously described by Iraqi defectors as the location of airline hijacking dress rehearsals that bear a striking resemblance to what took place on 9/11.
Hayes reports that the materials currently being reviewed for release include photographs, handwritten notes, typed documents, audiotapes and videotapes - plus information recovered from compact discs, floppy discs and computer hard drives.
Taken together, the material chronicles a massive operation that trained 2,000 terrorists to attack Western interests each year from 1999 to 2002.
The volume of material examined so far represents the tip of the iceberg. Of the 2 million items recovered from Saddam's regime, just 50,000 have been thoroughly translated and analyzed.
"Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has convened several meetings in recent weeks to discuss the Pentagon's role in expediting the release of this information," the Standard says.
"According to several sources familiar with his thinking, Rumsfeld is pushing aggressively for a massive dump of the captured documents."
Let's just wait and see how this plays out.
He needs to detail it in the State of the Union.
MSM: Nothing to see here, move on.
Only if he can prove the case beyond a shadow of a doubt.
But Valerie Plame's husband will go on a trip and determine that Bush lied about the papers.
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/006/550kmbzd.asp
Here's the original article.. it sounds like only summaries have been released
>>ON NOVEMBER 17, 2005, Michigan representative Pete Hoekstra wrote to John Negroponte, the director of national intelligence. Hoekstra is chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. He provided Negroponte a list of 40 documents recovered in postwar Iraq and Afghanistan and asked to see them. The documents were translated or summarized, given titles by intelligence analysts in the field, and entered into a government database known as HARMONY. Most of them are unclassified.<<
If a tree falls in the forest, and no one hears it . . . .
Is the New York Times likely to print this story? The Washington Post?
Will NBC,CBS,ABC,CNN,MSNBC go with it in prime time news? Will even the new, improved Fox News go with it?
Are the Democrats likely to admit that they have mud all over their faces? Will Pinch Sulzberger appear in the middle of Times Square beating his breast and shouting "Mea culpa!"
I doubt it.
The hijack training stuff is really old I remember the picture of a 727 (I think) that they used for hijack training. The democrats said the plane was for training stewardesses.
I agree, the State of the Union is Bush's only reasonable assurance that the public will find out.
Maybe it's just me being cynical, but has ANYTHING from Newsmax come close to approaching a "front page" scoop?
I wonder why this is just now coming out?
FReeper Voltage has the right idea, if Bush discusses this during the State of the Union address, the general public will hear it and there isn't a damn thing the left can do about it.
Today there have been different news sources picking up this story. If it's true, which it sounds like it is, it will be hard for the MSM to ignore it. This could be the breakthrough that tubes the nay sayers.
The hijack training stuff is old, but until now was not sourced to actual documents from the regime. Up until this the use of the aircraft at Salman Pak for training terrorists was just eyewitness info and common-sense speculation.
Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi will respond thusly: "Once again, the President has chosen to spin and distract from the lack of WMD."
It isn't newmax, it is:
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/006/550kmbzd.asp?pg=1
This info has been out there for a while...lots of documents were found after we went into Iraq...I assume Bush as usual has bidded his time for optimal effect
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