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Thread 4. http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1084291/posts |
Posted on 02/05/2004 8:31:17 PM PST by Mossad1967
Edited on 02/09/2004 3:20:18 PM PST by Admin Moderator. [history]
SANAA, Yemen, Jan. 24 (UPI) -- A purported statement by al-Qaida in Yemen warned Saturday of a "major strike" soon in the United States.
The statement, distributed by the Yemeni Tagamoo Party for Reforms, said: "A major strike, a big event will take place in America soon," reminiscent of the Sept. 11 attacks.
WASHINGTON - In a sign of how Republicans may try to quell criticism of prewar intelligence in Iraq, the head of the House Intelligence Committee tried Wednesday to direct blame to the Clinton administration.
Rep. Porter J. Goss, R-Fla., said he heard a 1998 speech in which then-President Clinton warned that something must be done about Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein and his weapons of mass destruction.
"Unfortunately, he did not complete that task before his term expired," Goss said at a Capitol Hill press conference.
Goss said the Clinton administration gutted intelligence assets in the 1990s and today's intelligence analysts "did the best they could with what they had."
Goss also said Clinton rarely, if ever, met with intelligence officials and that top officials in the administration were not "particularly engaged" on the subject.
Goss said an effort at political correctness prompted intelligence agencies to stop using "distasteful people" for human intelligence, meaning America lost people who served as its eyes and ears around the world.
Calls to Clinton's office were not immediately returned Wednesday. But a former Clinton aide on security disputed Goss' statement.
"I respect Porter Goss and his service to the CIA, but I think he's part of the administration's attempt to redirect attention from what's really going on here, which is their distortion of the evidence" against Saddam, said Robert Boorstin, who was Clinton's national security speechwriter.
The Bush administration has come under severe criticism for saying it was going to war to disarm Iraq and then failing to find alleged banned weapons.
Critics want a review of why the intelligence was bad and whether Bush and others in his administration purposely exaggerated the intelligence to justify war and oust Saddam.
"Nobody would disagree that the guy had to go," said Boorstin. "But the question is do you distort the evidence ... do you deliberately mislead the American people and the world."
Now a senior vice president for national security at the Center for American Progress, Boorstin also said it was actually Bush's father who was first to cut intelligence spending after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989.
When intelligence spending was increased in 1993, Goss complimented the Clinton administration "for going into this and seeing our true need," Boorstin quoted Goss as saying at the time.
MR. SENOR: Ambassador Bremer met with several members of the Governing Council over the past 24 hours as part of the formal briefing of the Zarqawi memo. During these meetings he also certainly today expressed his condolences and deepest sympathies to the Iraqis for the past two tragedies that occurred over the past 24 hours. And he reinforced the message that he's conveyed all along: that we will stand with the Iraqi people as they face these cowardly terror attacks.
About an hour and a half ago, the coalition released -- formally released the full 17-page Zarqawi memo. This is a blueprint for terror in Iraq. It outlines very clearly that the blueprint calls for unleashing civil war, provoking one ethnic group in Iraq against another ethnic group with the hope of tearing the country apart. It talks about continued attacks against any individual working with the coalition.
But the document also includes a blueprint for how this terror strategy will fail. It is very clear it will fail if we continue to ramp up the number of Iraqis serving in security services. It is very clear that the terrorist strategy will fail if America continues to show its resolve the coalition has demonstrated over the past 10 months. And the terrorist strategy will fail if we hand over sovereignty to the Iraqi people on June 30th as outlined in the November 15th political agreement.
The fact that that time period is referenced specifically underscores a trend we have been seeing for some time: that the foreign terrorists coming into this country, elements associated with al Qaeda, feel threatened by the prospect of a sovereign, democratic Iraq. And that is all the more reason to continue to forge ahead in handing over more and more authority to the Iraqi people, to continue to train more and more Iraqis who are stepping forward to protect their own country.
The other encouraging detail in this memo is the frustration expressed by Mr. Zarqawi, the frustration expressed by the fact that there are so few Iraqis willing to cooperate, willing to sympathize with this terror strategy. He talks about the number of sympathizers who will bring the terrorists into their homes as being -- he characterizes them as being as rare as, quote, unquote, "red sulfur," which we believe is quite telling.
The document is available in Arabic. We have English translations for the key components, what's sort of the action plan in the document. And we are happy to take your questions.
Click on link to read entire transcript.
No she called him a racist. And I made no such suggestion that anyone leave FR.
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