U.S. Military Shuts Down 'Notorious' Iraqi Terror Camp (Salman Pak)

Geostrategy Direct.com ^ | September 23, 2003 | Bill Gertz -Washington Times

[rftc]

A terrorist training camp at Salman Pak was shut down by military operations in Iraq, a White House report disclosed last week.

It was the first time that the camp located 25 miles outside of Baghdad had been offically mentioned. A second camp used by the Al Qaeda affiliated group Ansar al Islam was shut down in Northern Iraq.

'Many terrorist groups' used the Salman Pak camp for training, the report stated.

U.S. Officials said that satellite photographs of the camp disclosed a commerical jetliner at the site, an indication that terrorists were using the camp to practice hijacking techniques.

Iraqi military defectors disclosed the existence of the Boeing 707 near a rail track and provided other details prior to US Military Operations.

Some 40 Saudi, Egyptian and Chechan terrorists spent up to five months in training at the camp.

[rftc]

The reports were true.

[BenLurkin]

Nope, GWB lied about Saddam's terror connections. The Iraqis used that fuselage to train their COUNTER - hijacking teams. /sarcasm

[rftc]

Of course, that plane was there to bring in medical supplies to Iraqi children!

[JohnGalt]

Seeing as Salman Pak was captured in early April, I wonder why this is considered news by Bill Gertz?

It certainly proved to be a let down since many thought a 9/11 connection could be found at Salman Pak, but apparently there was none.

[tsmith130]

I think they were training stewardesses on the fine art of serving passengers while wearing a burka, which can be quite difficult without proper training. </sarc

[Arrowhead1952]

RC, more good news from Iraq

[rftc]

Was that ever verified?

[vin-one]

no connection at all

Al queda factions have not been caught and or killed in Iraq
No connection at all.

They didn't have a terror training camp there no, nothing to see move along
Open your eyes, who would you rather have as President Gore, or Bush?

[rftc]

Or it was a plane for the Red Crecent to ship baby's milk!

[JohnGalt]

I am not sure what you mean by verified. It looks like Gertz simply reported that it was in a gubmint report last week, which I found odd. I respect Gertz as a gutsy national security writer, but this wreaks of recycling old news for propaganda effects.

Of course, Carl has yet to print a correction that Salman Pak was not linked to 9/11, but nevertheless:

Sunday, April 6, 2003 2:48 p.m. EDT

Saddam's 9/11 Hijack Training Camp Destroyed
http://www.newsmax.com/showinside.shtml?a=2003/4/6/144706

[ravingnutter]

It certainly proved to be a let down since many thought a 9/11 connection could be found at Salman Pak, but apparently there was none.

Oh really...

Going back to the Clinton administration, American weapons inspectors working for the U.N. witnessed what they said were hijacking practice sessions conducted aboard a Russian Tupelov 154 airliner parked in an open field at Salman Pak.

The revelation that those sessions may have been dress rehearsals for the 9/11 attacks would leave more than a few in the intelligence community with some explaining to do.

"Once people focus on what was known beforehand," said Beasley, "then the obvious question is, well gee, what were you guys doing before 9/11."

Beasley said that after the attacks, several members of the Iraqi intelligence service Mukhabarat who had worked at Salman Pak and later defected to the U.S. described the layout of the camp to U.S. investigators.

In satellite photos taken over Baghdad on April 25, 2000, a commercial airliner parked in a field at Salman Pak is plainly visible.

"They didn't have the benefit of the satellite photo when they were drawing their pictures," Beasley told Malzberg. "But this one fella, Sabah Khodada, who was a captain there and one of the trainers of the Fedayeen Saddam, drew a picture that matched almost identically the satellite photos that we had."

Khodada, who worked at Salman Pak for eight years, defected to the U.S. five months before the 9/11 attacks. In November 2001 he told the London Observer, "The method used on 11 September perfectly coincides with the training I saw at the camp. When I saw the twin towers attack, the first thought that came into my head was, 'this has been done by graduates of Salman Pak.'"

The fact that the accounts of Khodada and others matched the satellite photo evidence lends credence to other parts of their testimony.

"Khodada also told a bunch of different people that they were training these non-Iraqi Islamic fundamentalists in groups of four or five on how to take over aircraft using non-conventional weapons," Beasley said. "That's exactly what we saw [on 9/11]."

Source

Okay, I have UN inspectors and several Iraqi defectors that say you are wrong. Where is your proof that this camp was not used to train al Qaeda hijackers?

[JohnGalt]

Are you a paid propogandist?

The point is that many scribs claimed that Salman Pak was a link to between Saddam and 9/11; I linked to an article in National Review and another post to a Newsmax article to offer some evidence for my charge.

I agree with the President that there is no link between Saddam and 9/11.

As a Bush supporter I am very concerned that many, perhaps like yourself, really are only interested in tanks and bombs, and not discovering the real puppetmasters of 9/11.

[JohnGalt]

The President, Rummy and Condi all said there was no connection between Saddam and 9/11. I tend to believe them and trust they have more access to intelligence than I do.

I don't subscribe to tin-foil hat theories.

[tsmith130]

I'm not sure where in that article there is made a link between Salman Pak and 9/11. I think you cannot deny that there was a link between Salman Pak and terrorists training. Perhaps not specific 9/11 terrorists but terrorists nonetheless. If your interpretation is such, then you are making the leap.

[Ann Archy]

Gertz has great inside sources....there is a reason.

[Ragtime Cowgirl]

Admin. officials did state that No specific proven connection yet existed between SADDAM and 9-11. The press inserted the rest of the story, which the administration than spent valuable time debunking.

They never said there was no connection between Iraq and 9-11, or Al Qaeda + Iraq + 9-11. Just the opposite. They haven't ruled out a Saddam connection, yet, either.

[WL-law]

The President, Rummy and Condi all said there was no connection between Saddam and 9/11. I tend to believe them and trust they have more access to intelligence than I do.

They said they had no "evidence" of a connection.

So it appears that you fail Logic 101. The lack of evidence (i.e., of a connection) is not positive proof of a non-connection.

As Rummy has said before, there are
(1) the things you know you know,
(2) the things you know you don't know, and
(3) the things you don't know you don't know.
We are "officially" in #3 land on this question, although we may "know" and are not telling yet.

And, oh-by-the-way, there is plenty of circumstantial evidence, as has been pointed out here.

Washington-speak has, post Janet Reno, apparently required that any evidence less than a smoking gun must be called "no evidence", although I don't understand why Rummy and the Bush people don't flat-out reject that bromide -- I suspect that they've thought it through, gamed it out, and concluded that the press will outspin them if they try to re-assert a normal understanding of the word.

[vin-one]

No, I am not a paid propogandist, are you?
It sure seems like it to me
you are constantly slamming the administration, on things they have said and things twisted by the press
I believe we know who are the puppetmasters of 9/11, and who supports terrorist activities
that have obviously been shown to occur in Iraq
Now witch is it, did Iraq support terrorists or not
there may not be a definitive link yet,
there may never be a hard and fast link to 9/11,
but there is links with terrorists.

Also check Ragtime cowgirls post 16, she nails it

[JohnGalt]

Depends what the meaning of 'evidence' is?

LOL

[ravingnutter]

I tend to believe them and trust they have more access to intelligence than I do.

Oh yeah...the CIA/FBI are really credible. Those are the same boneheads that said the Niger claim was false due to the fact that Saddam already had enough uranium and wouldn't need more. Also the same boneheads that said that when they videotaped convoys of trucks crossing into Syria before the war it "didn't register" with them at the time that they could contain WMDs. Give me a break.