Hijacker met with Iraqi official

Washington Times ^ | 9/19/01 | Bill Gertz

[kattracks]

An Iraqi intelligence official met secretly with one of the airline hijackers a year ago, raising the likelihood of Iraqi government involvement in last week's terrorist attacks in the United States, officials said yesterday.

The unidentified Iraqi intelligence official met with Mohamed Atta, whom U.S. officials believe to have been the leader of a terrorist cell linked to Islamic terrorist Osama bin Laden. Atta traveled regularly between the United States and several countries, including Germany and Spain.

[GOPyouth]

They'll meet again one day soon.

[Travis McGee]

I am sure that if Mohamed Atta flew to Europe and met with the head of Iraqi intelligence, it was just a coincidence. Totally innocent. Let's move on.

[Uncle Bill]

SADDAM'S FINGERPRINTS ON 1993 N.Y. BOMBINGS - Links

[PRND21]

Iraq is one of the nations on the State Department's list of "state sponsors" of international terrorism.

This alone should include Iraq in the coming action.

[GeronL]

we should declare war on Hijackistan and its allies.

[GeronL]

Let's move on = whats taking so long?

I hope they tell the press nothing, but give them video after its done.

[truth_seeker]

A meeting between Atta and the head of Iraq's intelligence service was first disclosed by CBS News.

I guess the mainstream media can have loose lips. Does disclosure of this data, harm our secrecy tactic? Would we be better off if Saddam didn't know we knew this?

[Vigilanteman]

Everytime the Iraq problem is discussed, the knee-jerk reaction of the media is to question who would replace Saddam, possibly somebody worse and what about the power vacuum he would create.   I’m grateful that no such writers were around to save Hitler’ssorry ass in 1945.

 

Lesson One about Iraq is that there is no such ethnic group as Iraqis.  They are a number of ethinc groups—(1)Kurds in the north around Mosul and Kirkuk, (2)Persians on the east side of the Tigris River to approximately Al Kut, (3)Their religious kin the Shiites (many of mixed Arab blood) scattered throughout the country, (4)”Pure” Arabs, and (5)Indigeneous (sometimes called the “marsh people”) people mainly confined to a small arc bordering Kuwait and the confluence of the Tigis and Euphrates Rivers.  These are most likely the only “native” Iraqis who can trace their roots to the ancient Babylonian and Assyrian Emprires although the term “native” is relative considering the centuries other groups have lived in what is now Iraq.

 

Lesson Two is that Iraq is an artificial entity, carved out of the Ottoman Empire as an oil state for the allies.  France, who acquired Syria from the defunct Ottoman Empire, also sent their state oil company to develop the fields of Iraq.   It was Great Britain, however, that secured the League of Nations mandate until Iraq became an independent monarchy (some would say a puppet state of France) in 1932.   The monarchy was overthrown in 1958 and the Baath Party came to power a decade later.  Thus, Iraq in its present form has only been around for a third of a century.

 

Lesson Three is that Iraq’s people has a better future being partitioned along somewhat identifiable ethnic lines among their neighbors—(1)Kurds as a protectorate of Turkey with provisions for future independence, (2)Persians to Iran, (3)Shiite or mixed Arabs either to Syria or as an independent state, (4)Pure Arabs or Sunni to Saudi Arabia, (5)Marsh people to Kuwait.   The multi-ethnic Shiite/mixed Arab state would also be a natural home for the Palestinians who couldn’t stand living next to Israel or continued to be dedicated to Israel’s destruction.    Jordan could also send their malcontents to this state.  It would have few of present-day Iraq’s oil resources, but most of their population and agricultural resources.   It would be possible to coax a living from the desert soil with the two rivers as irrigation, but less possible to engage in military adventures as Saddam has done with his greater resources of oil revenue.  

 

Most of the oil fields would go to the Kurds, the marsh people and the ethnic Persians.  The Kurdswould then have leverage for eventual autonomy from the Turks (if they could quit killing each other long enough).  The marsh people would provide agriculture and labor for a willing market among the Kuwaitis and have oil resources of their own as leverage to ensure decent treatment after years of environmental despoliation by Iraq.  The ethnic Persians  could join their cousins in Iran, essentially being rewarded for being in the cross-fire during the decade long Iran-Iraq War.

[dennisw]

The Kurds don't have a homeland it seems. They are spread across 5 nations and get reamed out by them all. See how important a homeland is now? Think Israel.... the Jewish homeland where 43% of their population is Jews from the MidEast

Especially in the MidEast where Muslims kill Muslims and Christians and Jews are also under attack and pressure

[beavus]

Good thoughts except for the Palistinian exodus. People generally will not voluntarily be uprooted from their homes just b/c someone else has a more pleasing geographical world view.

[dennisw]

How about the 800,000 Jews who were driven from the Arab nations after 1948?

Seems you don't care when Jews are dispossessed from their land

[beavus]

Why should you think that Jews would like to be uprooted when Palestinians don't. You sound pretty anti-Semitic making distinctions like that.

[dennisw]

Start making sense.

[papagall]

Aren't the Kurds and Bedouins the oldest peoples in the Middle East?

[beavus]

You were the one who gleaned some distinction from my statement about "Jews [who] are dispossessed from their land" when I wrote nothing of the sort.

To respond I had to decide if you were a bigot or an illiterate. Perhaps I chose incorrectly.

[freestyle]

remember this ping.

[Peach]

I'd completely forgotten that article; thanks.