Press Reported Extensively on Iraq-9/11 Links

NewsMax.com ^ | 9/17/03 | Carl Limbacher and NewsMax.com Staff

[kattracks]

Confounded by a recent Washington Post poll that showed 69 percent of Americans now believe that Iraq had a hand in the 9/11 attacks, journalists are pressing the Bush administration to deny the notion unequivocally - in an apparent bid to undermine what for many was the most compelling rationale for making war on Baghdad earlier this year.

That why reporters this week questioned Vice President Dick Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and even President Bush on whether they believed that Iraq had anything to do with the kamikaze attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon.

But if reporters really want to know why Americans see ties between Baghdad and 9/11, they need look no further than their own archives, where they'll find repeated and as yet undisputed reports documenting compelling evidence of Iraq's role in the attacks

A Lexis Nexis search for the three months after 9/11 turned up no fewer than 85 mainstream news reports describing, for instance, activities at the terrorist training camp Salman Pak.

Here's what the New York Times said about the camp six weeks after 9/11:

"New information does suggest that Mr. Hussein was actively training terrorists to attack American interests throughout the 1990's.

"One example is the testimony of Sabah Khodada, a captain in the Iraqi army who emigrated to Texas in May after working for eight years at what he described as a terrorist training camp at a bend in the Tigris River just southeast of Baghdad."

According to the Times, Khodada described the camp as "a highly secret installation" where "non-Iraqi Arabs from Persian Gulf countries, including Saudi Arabia" received training in "assassinations, kidnapping, hijacking of airplanes, hijacking of buses, hijacking of trains, and all other kinds of operations related to terrorism."

In comments unmentioned by the Times but covered by PBS, Khodada said that when he saw the twin towers fall he thought to himself, "This was done by graduates of Salman Pak."

Here's how National Public Radio characterized Iraq's link to the 9/11 attacks in a report the same month:

"The case against Iraq is based on three things. First, Mohamed Atta, believed to be the key organizer of the September 11th attacks, met earlier this year with an Iraqi agent in Prague.

"Second, Iraq's stockpiled anthrax as a biological weapon.

"And third, recent allegations that there's a camp in Iraq where foreign terrorists are trained. The allegation about the terrorist training camp comes through a recent Iraqi defector. According to this story, the camp is located near the town of Salman Pak, southeast of Baghdad, and it contains a Boeing jetliner that could be used to train hijackers how to seize a plane."

Charles Deulfer, former Deputy Head, U.N. Special Commission for Iraq, told NPR, "There were lots of places in Iraq where training of non-Iraqis, or things, which by our lexicon would be considered terrorism, was taking place. That's why Iraq is on the terrorist list. Having a large aircraft, a 707, in a peninsula, completely visible from the air or from satellite, with no airline runways nearby, that's not there by accident."

"Meet the Press" host Tim Russert, who last week claimed that "no one" believes in an Iraq-9/11 link, was also singing a different tune in December 2001.

Interviewing Vice President Dick Cheney, Russert cited the then-recent comments of former CIA Director James Woolsey.

"We know that at Salman Pak, on the southern edge of Baghdad, five different eyewitnesses - three Iraqi defectors and two American U.N. Inspectors - have said - and now there are aerial photographs to show it - a Boeing 707 that was used for training of hijackers, including non-Iraqi hijackers trained very secretly to take over airplanes with knives."

Russert then displayed satellite imagery of Salman Pak for his audience, telling Cheney, "And we have photographs. As you can see that little white speck – and there it is, the plane on the ground in Iraq used to train non-Iraqi hijackers."

Then the NBC newsman asked incredulously, "Do you still believe there's no evidence that Iraq was involved in September 11?"

New York Times columnist William Safire went even further, detailing in late October 2001 extensive ties between bin Laden, his henchmen and Saddam's intelligence service leading up to 9/11.

"Faruq Hijazi, in 1994 Saddam's secret service director and now his ambassador to Turkey, has had a series of meetings with bin Laden. These began in Sudan, arranged by Hassan al-Tourabi, the Sudanese Muslim leader, and continued in Afghanistan. The conspiracy was furthered in Baghdad in 1998 between bin Laden's No. 2 man, Ayman al-Zawahiri, and Saddam's vice president, Taha Yasin Ramadan."

Safire continued, "To strengthen Saddam's position in the Arab world during his 1998 crisis with the U.N., bin Laden established the 'World Islamic Front for Jihad Against the Jews and the Crusaders.' The Muslim-in-name Iraqi dictator reciprocated by promising secure refuge in Iraq for bin Laden and his key lieutenants if they were forced to flee Afghanistan."

More from Safire:

"Bin Laden sent a delegation of his top Al Qaeda terrorists to Baghdad on April 25, 1998, to attend the grand celebration that week of Saddam's birthday. It was then that Saddam's bloody-minded son Uday agreed to receive several hundred Al Qaeda recruits for terrorist training in techniques unavailable in Afghanistan.

"That Baghdad birthday party, according to an unpublished spying report, celebrated something else: Uday Hussein's agreement with bin Laden's men to formally establish a joint force consisting of some of Al Qaeda's fiercest 'Afghan Arab' fighters and the covert combatants in Iraqi intelligence unit 999."

With the exception of Mohamed Atta's meeting with Iraqi intelligence in Prague, none of the above information has ever been disputed. In fact, in May of this year, Manhattan U.S. District Judge Harold Baer ruled that Iraq played a material role in the 9/11 attacks in a case brought against Baghdad by families of two World Trade Center victims.

But for a mainstream press that now seems primarily interested in making the case that President Bush made war on Iraq under false pretenses, these old reports and dozens more like them are suddenly very inconvenient. That's why they've disappeared down the media's collective memory hole.

Unfortunately, President Bush gave reporters a giant helping hand in perpetuating their cover-up when he said on Wednesday that even he didn't see any evidence tying Iraq to 9/11.

The White House is said to be reluctant to press the issue because CIA Director George Tenet has dismissed all evidence of a connection. The Salman Pak defectors, for instance, were reportedly treated dismissively in interviews with CIA debriefers who showed no interest in pursuing a possible Iraq-9/11 link.

Read more on this subject in related Hot Topics:
Bush Administration
Saddam Hussein/Iraq

[Prodigal Son]

I like these kinds of articles (going back and documenting what the press said).

[an amused spectator]

"Meet the Press" host Tim Russert, who last week claimed that "no one" believes in an Iraq-9/11 link, was also singing a different tune in December 2001.

Interviewing Vice President Dick Cheney, Russert cited the then-recent comments of former CIA Director James Woolsey.

"We know that at Salman Pak, on the southern edge of Baghdad, five different eyewitnesses - three Iraqi defectors and two American U.N. Inspectors - have said - and now there are aerial photographs to show it - a Boeing 707 that was used for training of hijackers, including non-Iraqi hijackers trained very secretly to take over airplanes with knives."

Russert then displayed satellite imagery of Salman Pak for his audience, telling Cheney, "And we have photographs. As you can see that little white speck – and there it is, the plane on the ground in Iraq used to train non-Iraqi hijackers."

Then the NBC newsman asked incredulously, "Do you still believe there's no evidence that Iraq was involved in September 11?"

Using Tim Russert's own words from an archive against him is probably "theft" and "copyright infringement" (AKA The Digital Millenium Free Speech Suppression Act). Carl better watch out. ;-)

[listenhillary]

Bump