Posted on 10/21/2001 9:26:21 PM PDT by Pokey78
WASHINGTON -- Veteran reporters and creaking commentators have a single goal in writing about great events: advance the story. Unearth facts that policy makers do not know, do not want to know, or do not want the public to know they know.
For years, U.S. officials kept mum about the duplicity of Saudi Arabia in financing anti-U.S. incitement while professing to be a U.S. ally. But because The New Yorker's Seymour Hersh, the oldest investigative reporter alive, held his ear trumpet to our ultra-secret Big Ear, we now have telephone intercepts between Prince Bandar, the Saudi ambassador to Washington, and his father, the defense minister. The Saudis never have been on our side in the war on terror — which our leaders have long known but most Americans did not.
What about a connection between Osama bin Laden and Iraq's Saddam Hussein? Because the Scowcroft set at the National Security Council is still in denial about its blunder a decade ago that permitted Saddam to stay in power, the C.I.A. professes to see no collaboration in Baghdad.
That wearing of blinders by our intelligence agents was recently revealed by The Washington Post's columnist and editor Jim Hoagland, who is dry behind the ears, to say the least.
He interviewed a defector from Saddam's elite militia now in the U.S. who recounted the hijacking and assassination training carried out in the Salman Pak suburb of Baghdad. This was independently confirmed by an Iraqi ex-intelligence officer now in Turkey who reported "Islamicists" training on a Boeing 707 in Salman Pak only one year ago. Both sources were unsought or dismissed by C.I.A. and F.B.I. officials aware of topside resistance to evidence of Saddam-bin Laden connections.
Allow another journageezer to dodder in, however, with a few more details to advance the unwelcome story.
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.
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.
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.
This information does not include reports of the most recent contacts between the terrorist group and the terrorist state. However, combine that late-90's groundwork to what is known of (a) bin Laden's supply this year of 400 fanatic "Afghan Arabs" to Saddam to attack free Kurds in Iraq's no- flight zone, and (b) this summer's observed contacts of Al Qaeda's suicide-hijacker Mohammed Atta with Iraqi spies under diplomatic cover in Prague. A pattern manifests itself.
Does this web of eavesdropped-upon communication provide proof positive of Saddam's participation in the Sept. 11 attack? No indisputable smoking gun may ever be found, but it is absurd to claim — in the face of what we already know — that Iraq is not an active collaborator with, harborer of, and source of sophisticated training and unconventional weaponry for bin Laden's world terror network.
"One war at a time" goes the coalitionaries' mantra, which our spymasters take to mean "Don't follow leads to Iraq." Journageezers ignore such government manipulation. Nobody has come close to my Times colleagues in covering the cataclysm and the war it triggered, but it would be good to see a new wave of reporters beat the old media bigfeet in advancing this story.
In case Safire hasn't noticed, the NY Times slept through most of the "great" events during the Clinton administration.
For years, U.S. officials kept mum about the duplicity of Saudi Arabia in financing anti-U.S. incitement while professing to be a U.S. ally. But because The New Yorker's Seymour Hersh, the oldest investigative reporter alive, held his ear trumpet to our ultra-secret Big Ear,
The NY Times has an ultra-secret big ear! LOL [sorry]
we now have telephone intercepts between Prince Bandar, the Saudi ambassador to Washington, and his father, the defense minister. The Saudis never have been on our side in the war on terror — which our leaders have long known but most Americans did not.
I don't believe for a second that the NY Times is just now finding out that the Saudi's aren't on our side in the war on terror. They only report what they want to report, when its convenient to them.
That wearing of blinders by our intelligence agents was recently revealed by The Washington Post's columnist and editor Jim Hoagland, who is dry behind the ears, to say the least.
First super-secret ears, now dry behind the ears...
"One war at a time" goes the coalitionaries' mantra, which our spymasters take to mean "Don't follow leads to Iraq." Journageezers ignore such government manipulation. Nobody has come close to my Times colleagues in covering the cataclysm and the war it triggered, but it would be good to see a new wave of reporters beat the old media bigfeet in advancing this story.
Iraq may be next in line for the bombing, but will we have the guts to take out Saddam? Want to wager??
Folks, if we don't take-out Saddam this time, the Israelis will use their war-chest!
There won't be a 'Palestinian-Problem' anymore in Israel, and several Capital cities in Iran, Iraq, Syria, Saudia Arabia, Lebanon, Yemen, and others, will glow-in-the-dark!
Actually, after reading that, I think it's a good idea!
These people have stated that they will kill us, and destroy our Country, at every opportunity, and 9/11 has occurred. Just getting antsy, I guess. Stay well and vigilant....FRegards
I asked my neighbor, Red Dullknife, that very question.
Please excuse his diction, by the way, Red has a problem
with his "L" and "R."
"We won't be taking out Saddam. The Wussians have
too much money invested in Iwaq to wet us mess up
Saddam's abiwity to expoht. Putin's pwan is to
sidwe up to Bush and be fwiendwy and pwomise
to agwee to misswe weductions and joining NATO.
Then he wiw ask Bush to not attack Saddam.
After the waw is ovah, Wussia wiw say,
"We foowed you!" And that's the twuth.
But it wiw be too wittwe, too wate.
By then, the Muswims wiw be in Honowuwu."
Tell me this isn't true?
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.
"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.
Bin Laden sent a delegation of his top Al Qaeda terrorists to Baghdad on April 25, 1998, to attend the grand ...."
Dodder on , Safire, completely ignore who was President & Commander-in-Chief & his failings. Like succumbing to Monica instead of Saddam and the inspections in Iraq.
Sequence: do the deed, a day's drive up the coast from Yemn to Jeddah (if memory serves correctly on the city name), get on a plane and the nation covers itself by calling it a hijacking, the terrorists deplane in Iraq, they disappear from view and from media reports.
Actually they were feted by Saddam and then sent back to their boss, Bin Laden, where they received a big reception for a mission accomplished.
This is taking "connect the dots" to an extreme. I have seen no evidence that the Bush W Administration is trying to dodge the bullet on possible Iraq involvement. On the contrary, Bush the Elder is very likely to argue in the opposite direction. Having messed it up himself due to pressure from the Saudis and others, the elder Bush should be very pleased to have the opportunity to watch his son finish the job that he started. And I believe that W is listening.
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