Posted on 07/24/2003 8:52:12 AM PDT by tallhappy
Now that Saddam's sons are dead, there is talk the "resistance" againts US troops should decrease.
This makes sense in that these two brothers most likely oversaw the cash to pay those attacking US troops. And it has killed their liason with al Qaeda, Qusay.
Back in 1999 Yossef Bodansky had this to say:
The other state that is rising up -- and I've elaborated a lot in the book about that -- is Iraq. Bin Laden has been dealing with Iraq intelligence since the early 1990s, where they cooperated in Sudan and in Somalia. This has been a love-hate relationship because of the Iraqi secular policies and Saddam Hussein's disdain for Islamism and even persecution of Iraqi Islamists, including veterans of Afghanistan. But in recent years, Hassan al-Turabi, the spiritual leader of Sudan and bin Laden's patron, if you want, spiritual patron, mediated a deal between Iraq and bin Laden that has since been cemented and became practical.How soon all the "guerilla attacks", as they are more and more being referred to as, continue will be reflected in how much Qusay and his also dead brother oversaw the coordination and payment for the attacks and whether or not they have anyone who was a top aide to them who can or will take over.The important thing of the recent development that should be a cause of tremendous worry is that Saddam Hussein empowered his son, Qusay to deal with the day-to-day relationship with bin Laden and coordinate the Iraqi special operations with bin Laden's terrorist activities. Last week, Qusay Hussein has been elevated into the declared successor and had taken a tremendous amount of new powers, particularly in issues of national security, intelligence operations and the like. And that will of course elevate also the standing of bin Laden and the cooperation that they have been working on. And we should be very worried about that development.
Source is Federal News Service, AUGUST 6, 1999, FRIDAY, HEADLINE: PRESS CONFERENCE NATIONAL PRESS CLUB MORNING NEWSMAKER WITH YOSSEF BODANSKY, AUTHOR SUBJECT: INTERNATIONAL TERRORISM NATIONAL PRESS CLUB WASHINGTON, D.C.
Dems have been loving the "guerilla attacks". Flashbacks of their perceived past glory -- Vietnam -- dance in their heads.
They ignore or downplay any relation or coordination of the Hussein regime with al Qaeda or terrorist groups. They will most likely be disapointed by the decrease in attacks on our troops in the same way the CA legislators were overheard discussing how a crisis in the state would benefit them politically.
Yet it was under the Clinton administration that the info about Iraq and al Qaeda came forth near the end of 1998, early 1999.
It came in wake of the visit of Farouk Hijazi, Iraq's Ambassador to Turkey at the time, to bin Laden in Afghanistan.
Guardian, 2/6/1999 , Julian Borger, Saddam link to Bin Laden
Newsweek, January 11, 1999, SECTION: INTERNATIONAL; Pg. 34, Saddam + Bin Laden?, CHRISTOPHER DICKEY, GREGORY L. VISTICA AND RUSSELL WATSON With JOSEPH CONTRERAS
So sick and sad that a statement like this rings, in part, with the truth....
I agree.
Or weren't you talking about the Dems?
Also forgotten is that in 1998, two of bin Laden’s senior military commanders, Muhammad Abu-Islam and Abdullah Qassim, visited Baghdad for discussions with Qusay Hussein. This and info on other meetings can be found here.
Also in 1998, an Arab intelligence officer, who knows Saddam personally, predicted in Newsweek: "Very soon you will be witnessing large-scale terrorist activity run by the Iraqis." The Arab official said these terror operations would be run under "false flags" --spook-speak for front groups--including bin Laden's organization.
Then there were the predictions by an Iraqi with ties to Iraqi intelligence, Naeem Abd Mulhalhal, in Qusay's own newspaper several weeks before the attacks that stated bin Laden would “demolish the Pentagon after he destroys the White House and ”bin Laden would strike America “on the arm that is already hurting.” (referencing a second IRAQI sponsored attack on the World Trade Center). Another reference to New York was “[bin Laden] will curse the memory of Frank Sinatra everytime he hears his songs.” (e.g., “New York, New York”) which identified New York, New York as a target. Mulhalhal also stated, “The wings of a dove and the bullet are all but one and the same in the heart of a believer." which references an airplane attack.
The Arabic language daily newspaper Al-Quds Al-Arabic also cited the cooperation between Iraq, bin Laden and Al December 1998 editorial, which predicted that “President Saddam Hussein, whose country was subjected to a four day air strike, will look for support in taking revenge on the United States and Britain by cooperating with Saudi oppositionist Osama Bin-Laden, whom the United States considers to be the most wanted person in the world.” This info is in the link provided in the para above. How could these people have had foreknowledge without Iraq being involved?
There are just too many things that point to Iraqi involvement, even without the refuted evidence.
Many of them cheered on 912.
It's a dicey situation...
We knew that going in ... but I believe we had, and have, no choice. We must force a radical change in Arab/Muslim culture or face the prospect of endless 911s.
Arab culture is not monolithic. Iraqis are different from Sauids, are different from Jordanians, are different from Egyptians, are different from Palestinians.
From everything I have seen and read, Iraqis are considerably less resentful of the West than are other Arabs, such as Saudis, Egyptians, and Palestinians.
Your post was the first report I've seen of Iraqis cheering on 9-12. Do you have anything with which to back that up?
Obviously true. There are also significant differences within the groups you mention. They wouldn't be human if that weren't so.
From everything I have seen and read, Iraqis are considerably less resentful of the West than are other Arabs, such as Saudis, Egyptians, and Palestinians.
That's also probably true...although not of Ba'athists and their supporters - the very people who so brutally ran the country until recently. I wonder if that had anything to do with our choice of targets?
Your post was the first report I've seen of Iraqis cheering on 9-12. Do you have anything with which to back that up?
Many people throughout the Arab world (and elsewhere, including the United States) cheered. I'll see if I can find a specific reference to Iraq.
Yes. And around the time of the articles I am citing there was apparently a State Department report on al Qaeda ties to terrorism in Chechnya which also included the connection with Iraq.
I say apparently because it was mentioned in articles I read, but I have not found the report.
Around the same time Janet Reno was testifying to congress about the potential for terrorists to use anthrax or other WMD and that was associated with this information.
It is amazing how forgotten it is that the Clinton administration presented information that today the dems say doesn't exist or wasn't a realistic concern.
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Intelligence sources say the Saudi dissident believed responsible for the bombings of American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania and a US military barracks in Saudi Arabia in 1998, is running out of options for a safe haven.
He is now thought to have overcome his initial rejection of Saddam Hussein, whom he regarded as an exploiter of the Islamic cause rather than a true believer, and is considering the offer of a bolt-hole from which he can continue to mastermind terrorism on a global scale.
A US counter-terrorist source said yesterday: "Our State Department issued a worldwide warning on December 11. We have solid information that many of the groups operating under bin Laden's patronage are planning 'spectaculars' to coincide with the period leading up to and through the millennium celebrations.
"They want to inflict maximum loss of life in return for publicity. Now we are also facing the prospect of an unholy alliance between bin Laden and Saddam. The implications are terrifying.
"We might be looking at the most wanted man on the FBI's target list gaining access to chemical, biological or even nuclear weapons courtesy of Iraq's clandestine research programmes."
The US intelligence community has been squeezing bin Laden's finances steadily for several years. His personal fortune of anything up to £500m has been whittled down to single figures, although funds continue to flow into the coffers of his Al Qaeda - Arabic for "The Base" - organisation from wealthy individuals in the Middle East.
These include members of the Saudi royal family opposed to American involvement in the region and rich businessmen in the Gulf States hoping to buy themselves immunity if bin Laden's Islamic revolution ever manages to overthrow their governments.
But the bulk of his income comes from acting as middleman and fixer for the Afghan opium producers. According to the United Nations, Afghanistan supplies 75% of the world's opium and its heroin derivatives in a narcotics' trade worth an estimated £4bn to £6bn a year.
The Taleban religious fanatics who control 85% of Afghanistan need the cash to fund their never-ending civil wars. They gave bin Laden refuge because he had connections with the Chechen and Russian mafias and their access to money-laundering in the West.
According to Middle Eastern intelligence sources, bin Laden rakes off anything up to £500m a year from his pivotal role in the drugs' trade. It is more than enough to underwrite the cost of mujahideen training camps in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Sudan and the provision of weapons for bin Laden's personal war against the US and its allies.
Up to 20 Islamic extremist groups operate under the loose control of Al Qaeda.
They include Algeria's GSPC, responsible for the casual murder of civilians in the country's Kabylie region, and a network for recruiting Muslim volunteers to fight in the Balkans and Chechnya.
Al Qaeda's tentacles spread across Europe and the Middle East, including the United Kingdom. Up to 2000 young Muslims a year were enlisted in Britain between 1995 and 1998 to fight militant Islam's cause.
They received basic survival and unarmed combat training in Britain, and were then flown to various camps in Yemen, Pakistan, and Afghanistan to be instructed in the use of firearms and explosives. A few were involved in combat in the latter stages of the Bosnian conflict.
The spread of bin Laden's influence has spawned some strange alliances.
Israel's Mossad agency is currently helping the Russians identify known fundamentalist militants in Chechnya. British, Italian and US agents reportedly co-operated with Slobodan Milosevic's regime to root out veterans of the 1979-89 Afghan-Russia war while they were themselves on opposite sides in Bosnia.
The Americans have also resorted to hi-tech destabilisation. Various agencies inserted "sniffer" software programmes into the banking systems of Europe and the Middle East from the mid-1990s onwards.
These were targeted on known or suspected accounts for bin Laden's front men in Holland, Britain, Switzerland, Italy, the US and the Caribbean.
When large amounts of cash were moved around, the programmes flagged up the transactions. Computer experts then transferred or deleted the cash electronically to starve Al Qaeda of funding.
Bin Laden has almost outstayed his welcome in Afghanistan. Despite the Taleban's public declaration of protection for a "guest", the regime is suffering from international sanctions as long as it harbours him.
The Americans have a continually updated plan for a special forces' team to snatch him from his mountain lair in the Hindu Kush.
But they look back to a Soviet raid in the same area in April, 1986, when three battalions of elite Spetznaz commandos went in after a local Afghan commander. Few came back.
Bin Laden is understood to have selected Yemen, his father's birthplace, as a first alternative. But the Yemenis could not protect him from the wrath of the West or Saudi Arabia. Chechnya was his second choice, but the province is being ground under Russia's military jackboot.
That leaves Iraq, and the potential for an alliance which would be everyone else's nightmare. - Dec 28
And Iraq, alone among the 22 members of the Arab League, failed to condemn the atrocities of Sept. 11. Indeed, Baghdad celebrated them. Saddam's government issued a statement, quoted widely in Al-Iraq and other state-run papers, that said America deserved the attacks.
Perhaps Iraq's official response indicates nothing more than a continuing hatred of America, but Mideast leaders who are no friends of the U.S. acted differently. Iran sent its condolences. Yasser Arafat expressed sorrow and gave blood. Even Libya's Moammar Gadhafi called for Muslim aid groups to help Americans, adding that the U.S. had the "right to take revenge."
from THE VISIBLE HAND
This source was posted above by tailhappy.
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