[Steven W.]

In hearings today before the 9/11 Commission, former Navy Secretary John Lehman asked Madeline Albright if she was aware Yassin (93 WTC Terrorist) or any of the other terrorists found in Baghdad were given sanctuary in Iraq and SHE SAID SHE DID NOT KNOW!

[jla]

fyi

[MEG33]

Perhaps no one wanted to be the messenger?

[Shermy]

For Clarke to say something like that is like the 13th chime of the clock. Not only is it bizarre in and of itself, it calls into question, as far as I'm concerned, everything from the same source.

Bizarre? Nothing is as bizarre as Clarke's statement that he thought Condi Rice had never heard of Al Qaeda. And that he could tell this by the expression on her face.

[kabar]

Albright also said on a MTP show a few years ago that she did not know that the US was buying oil from the Iraqis under the Oil for Food program.

[Howlin]

In his testimony today, Wolowitz quoted from Clarke's book that Clarke said that he linked the first bombing of the WTC to Iraq because of the attempted assassination of former President Bush.

The only problem is that the assassination attempt took place two months after the first WTC bombing. (Wolowitz kind of snickered when he said it.)

[Pan_Yans Wife]

AQ ping

[Waco]

In a way clarke seems to be sort of on a par with Larry King. More gas than ass.

[ladyinred]

In hearings today before the 9/11 Commission, former Navy Secretary John Lehman asked Madeline Albright if she was aware Yassin (93 WTC Terrorist) or any of the other terrorists found in Baghdad were given sanctuary in Iraq and SHE SAID SHE DID NOT KNOW!

Well I'll be darn, she really was Madeline "NOTSOBRIGHT'!

[LiteKeeper]

INTREP - Klarke - Kerry - Klintoon - IT ALL FITS

[sport]

Bump

[BykrBayb]

(Jamie) MCINTYRE, (CNN Military Affairs Correspondent) (voice-over): Powell's predecessor, Madeleine Albright, complained that during her tenure the Pentagon was too timid, failing to offer President Clinton aggressive military options for fear of failure.

MADELEINE ALBRIGHT, FORMER SECRETARY OF STATE: From my perspective, the Pentagon did not come forward with viable options in response to what the president was asking for.

So, basically, our military officials are just a bunch of wussies that hindered clintoon's heroic efforts.

MCINTYRE: But former Defense Secretary Cohen said a range of options, including a special forces hunter-killer team on alert to get bin Laden, were useless without good intelligence.

WILLIAM COHEN, FORMER SECRETARY OF DEFENSE: There were three instances each time the munitions and the people were spun up, that they were called off because the word came back, we are not sure.

Apparently, not everyone agrees.

[kcvl]

Top U.S. Officials Tell Lawmakers of Iraq-Qaeda Ties
(February 12, 2003)

By DAVID JOHNSTON




WASHINGTON, Feb. 11 — Senior Bush administration officials intensified the effort to make the case for military action against Saddam Hussein today, with testimony by Secretary of State Colin L. Powell and the director of central intelligence, George J. Tenet, linking Iraq and Al Qaeda.

Mr. Powell seized on a new audiotape believed to be of Osama bin Laden, urging Muslims to help Baghdad defend itself against an American attack, as evidence that the Qaeda leader was "in partnership with Iraq."

In testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee today, the F.B.I. director, Robert S. Mueller III, focused on the threat posed by Al Qaeda in the United States. He said several hundred Islamic militants linked to Al Qaeda were in the country, with some organized in cells that could be ordered to carry out terrorist attacks here.

Mr. Powell told the Senate Budget Committee that the bin Laden statement, broadcast this afternoon by Al Jazeera, an Arabic language television network, demonstrated that the United States could not contain Iraq through more aggressive weapons inspections or an enlarged United Nations presence.

The administration's attempt to tie Iraq to Al Qaeda also included the most explicit public statement yet by Mr. Tenet, who told the Senate intelligence committee that intelligence officials had unearthed powerful evidence showing a connection.

Mr. Tenet's testimony was especially noteworthy because some Pentagon and White House officials had privately complained that the C.I.A. was too reluctant to conclude there was an Iraq-Qaeda link.

Today Mr. Tenet said Iraq is "harboring" senior members of the Qaeda network like Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who, Mr. Tenet said, assembled a terror cell last year from a base of operations in Baghdad.

In the tape, which administration officials said they first learned of on Monday evening, an unidentified voice urged Muslims to defend Iraq against an American-led attack. Today, intelligence officials said they had not yet conducted advanced voice authentication tests, but believed that the voice was Mr. bin Laden's.

The voice called for attacks on the United States and Israel and said any cooperation with Washington by a Muslim would be anti-Islamic, which appeared to be a warning to the governments of Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Nigeria and Yemen, which have aided the United States.

Mr. Powell, who broke the news about the tape several hours before the broadcast, said, "You will be seeing as this day unfolds where once again he speaks to the people of Iraq and talks about their struggle and how he is in partnership with Iraq."

He added, "This nexus between terrorists and states that are developing weapons of mass destruction can no longer be looked away from and ignored."

Later, Mr. Powell's spokesman, Richard A. Boucher, said the tape had confirmed "that bin Laden and Saddam Hussein seem to find common ground." For Mr. Tenet, who sat silently behind Mr. Powell on Feb. 5 when the secretary presented the Bush administration's case against Iraq to the United Nations Security Council, the hearing today presented the country's intelligence chief with his first opportunity to publicly assess the intelligence on Saddam Hussein's leadership.

Mr. Tenet said the C.I.A. had carefully worded its accusations about Iraq, but he strongly supported the Bush administration's conclusion that an Iraq-Qaeda link had been firmly established even as some European officials, and some intelligence analysts within his own agency, have expressed skepticism about whether the information showed a direct Iraqi tie to Al Qaeda.

"Iraq has in the past provided training in document forgery and bombmaking to Al Qaeda," Mr. Tenet said. "It has also provided training in poisons and gases to two Al Qaeda associates. One of these associates characterized the relationship he forged with Iraqi officials as successful."

Mr. Tenet seemed to be trying to rebut skeptics among the allies and within his own agency. "This information is based on a solid foundation of intelligence," he said. "It comes to us from credible and reliable sources. Much of it is corroborated by multiple sources, and it is consistent with the pattern of denial and deception exhibited by Saddam Hussein over the past 12 years."

At the White House, the president's spokesman, Ari Fleischer, said the tape "underscores what the president and Secretary Powell have said about Al Qaeda linking up with Iraq."

He continued: "Secretary Powell already demonstrated proof of the link at the operative level. This adds further proof that the leader of the operatives, if this is indeed Osama bin Laden, is exhorting them to link up with `our mujahedeen brothers in Iraq.' "

In the past, White House officials have discouraged news organizations from broadcasting Mr. bin Laden's messages because of the danger that they might contain coded messages to his followers.

The Fox News Channel took Mr. Powell's statement about the tape as a signal to play it live as it was broadcast on Al Jazeera.

"Powell basically parsed the thing for the world, which I think took the curse off of it," said John Moody, the Fox News Channel's senior vice president.

The 16-minute tape in Arabic urged Iraqis to wear down the American forces through extended urban warfare.

"Our mujahedeen brothers in Iraq, do not be horrified about what America is propagating about their force, smart bombs, laser-directed bombs," the speaker on the tape said.

"These smart bombs have no effect in mountains and caves, forests," he continued. "They need very obvious targets to be effective. Camouflaged targets cannot be hit by either smart bombs or stupid bombs."

Mr. Tenet said Mr. bin Laden's followers appeared to focus their terror planning on specific regions. "The information we have points to plots aimed at targets on two fronts — in the United States and on the Arabian peninsula," he said. "It points to plots timed to occur as early as the end of the hajj, which occurs late this week."

"And it points to plots that could include the use of a radiological dispersion device as well as poisons and chemicals," Mr. Tenet added, referring to devices like a "dirty bomb" that detonates with a conventional explosive, throwing radioactive material into the air.

The hearing, an annual assessment of global threats, centered on Al Qaeda, Iraq and North Korea.

In his testimony, Mr. Mueller told the Senate intelligence committee that the effort to identify Qaeda cell members is the country's "most serious law enforcement challenge."

Speaking of Qaeda followers in the United States, Mr. Mueller said: "The focus of their activities centers primarily on fund-raising, recruitment and training. Their support structure, however, is sufficiently well-developed that one or more groups could be ramped up by Al Qaeda to carry out operations in the U.S. homeland."

In his testimony, Mr. Tenet seemed to agree, defending the decision last Friday by the Bush administration to ratchet up the official threat level to Code Orange, saying it was based "not on idle chatter on the part of terrorists and their associates."

"It is the most specific we have seen, and it is consistent with both our knowledge of Qaeda doctrine and our knowledge of plots this network — and particularly its senior leadership — has been working on for years," Mr. Tenet said. "The intelligence community is working directly, and in real time, with friendly services overseas and with our law enforcement colleagues here at home to disrupt and capture specific individuals who may be part of this plot."

Mr. Tenet offered no further specifics about the plot, but his testimony reflected the rapidly rising tensions around the world in a period when the United States continues preparations for possible military action in Iraq, North Korea has threatened to resume its nuclear program and Iran has disclosed that it is nearly ready to enrich uranium to fuel its nuclear energy program.

"We see disturbing signs that Al Qaeda has established a presence in both Iran and Iraq," Mr. Tenet said. "In addition, we are concerned that Al Qaeda continues to find refuge in the hinterlands of Afghanistan and Pakistan."


http://216.239.57.104/search?q=cache:gLsaxtlFcmkJ:www.iraqfoundation.org/news/2003/bfeb/12_ties.html+poisons,+gases+and+conventional+explosive&hl=en&ie=UTF-8

[kcvl]

Oct. 9, 2002


During the Oct. 2 closed hearing, Levin asked the witness to gauge the possibility that Iraq would use chemical or biological weapons in response to U.S. military action, according to the Tenet letter. “Pretty high, in my view,” the witness answered.

The CIA has had “solid reporting” of senior level contacts between Iraq and al-Qaeda over the past 10 years, Tenet wrote in the letter. The contacts have discussed safe haven arrangements and reciprocal nonaggresssion, he wrote. Since the war on terrorism began last year, there has been evidence that al-Qaeda members have been in Iraq, including Baghdad, he wrote.

“We have credible reporting that al-Qaeda leaders sought contacts in Iraq who could help them acquire WMD capabilities,” Tenet wrote. “The reporting also stated that Iraq has provided training to al-Qaeda members in the areas of poisons and gases and making conventional bombs” (New York Times, Oct. 8).

The comments and information in the letter do not damage the case that U.S. President George W. Bush made against Iraq in a speech Monday night, Tenet said in a statement released yesterday.

“There is no inconsistency between our view of Saddam’s growing threat and the view as expressed by the president in his speech,” Tenet said. “Although we think the chances of Saddam initiating a WMD attack at this moment are low —in part because it would constitute an admission that he possesses WMD — there is no question that the likelihood of Saddam using WMD against the United States or our allies in the region for blackmail, deterrence, or otherwise grows as his arsenal continues to build” (Dana Priest, Washington Post, Oct. 9).

New Evidence

U.S. officials have said that Iraq has rebuilt several sites that were associated in the past with the country’s nuclear weapons program, possibly indicating increased efforts to develop a weapon, the Associated Press reported today.

New structures have been built at al-Furat centrifuge development center, the Nassr/Taji Steel Fabrication and Military Production Facility, al-Qa’im uranium ore refinery and the Tuwaitha Nuclear Research Center, the AP reported. All four sites were damaged during the 1991 Gulf War and U.S. and British airstrikes conducted in 1998.

A recently released CIA report said that Iraq has attempted several times to obtain aluminum tubes for use in a uranium-enrichment centrifuge, placing special importance on al-Furat, according to the AP (see GSN, Oct. 7). The Nassr/Taji facility contains much of the precision manufacturing equipment that would be needed in a nuclear program, a U.S. defense official said (Matt Kelley, Associated Press/Yahoo.com, Oct. 9).


http://216.239.57.104/search?q=cache:XmL03Toz4nEJ:www.nti.org/d_newswire/issues/newswires/2002_10_9.html+poisons,+gases+and+conventional+explosive&hl=en&ie=UTF-8

[kcvl]

08.08.03

Colin Powell said this:

Iraq and terrorism go back decades. Baghdad trains Palestine Liberation Front members in small arms and explosives. Saddam uses the Arab Liberation Front to funnel money to the families of Palestinian suicide bombers in order to prolong the intifada. And it's no secret that Saddam's own intelligence service was involved in dozens of attacks or attempted assassinations in the 1990s.

But what I want to bring to your attention today is the potentially much more sinister nexus between Iraq and the al Qaeda terrorist network, a nexus that combines classic terrorist organizations and modern methods of murder. Iraq today harbors a deadly terrorist network headed by Abu Musab Zarqawi, an associate and collaborator of Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda lieutenants.

Zarqawi, a Palestinian born in Jordan, fought in the Afghan war more than a decade ago. Returning to Afghanistan in 2000, he oversaw a terrorist training camp. One of his specialities and one of the specialties of this camp is poisons. When our coalition ousted the Taliban, the Zarqawi network helped establish another poison and explosive training center camp. And this camp is located in northeastern Iraq.

You see a picture of this camp.

The network is teaching its operatives how to produce ricin and other poisons. Let me remind you how ricin works. Less than a pinch -- image a pinch of salt -- less than a pinch of ricin, eating just this amount in your food, would cause shock followed by circulatory failure. Death comes within 72 hours and there is no antidote, there is no cure. It is fatal.

Those helping to run this camp are Zarqawi lieutenants operating in northern Kurdish areas outside Saddam Hussein's controlled Iraq.

But Baghdad has an agent in the most senior levels of the radical organization, Ansar al-Islam, that controls this corner of Iraq. In 2000 this agent offered al Qaeda safe haven in the region. After we swept al Qaeda from Afghanistan, some of its members accepted this safe haven. They remain their today.

*******


letter from CIA director Tenet to Bob Graham, chairman of the Intelligence Committee, Oct 7, 2002:

Regarding Senator Bayh's Evan Bayh, Democrat of Indiana question of Iraqi links to al-Qa'ida. Senators could draw from the following points for unclassified discussions:

Our understanding of the relationship between Iraq and al-Qa'ida is evolving and is based on sources of varying reliability. Some of the information we have received comes from detainees, including some of high rank.

We have solid reporting of senior level contacts between Iraq and al-Qa'ida going back a decade.

Credible information indicates that Iraq and al-Qa'ida have discussed safe haven and reciprocal nonaggression.
Since Operation Enduring Freedom, we have solid evidence of the presence in Iraq of al-Qa'ida members, including some that have been in Baghdad.

We have credible reporting that al-Qa'ida leaders sought contacts in Iraq who could help them acquire W.M.D. capabilities. The reporting also stated that Iraq has provided training to al-Qa'ida members in the areas of poisons and gases and making conventional bombs.

Iraq's increasing support to extremist Palestinians coupled with growing indications of a relationship with al-Qa'ida, suggest that Baghdad's links to terrorists will increase, even absent U.S. military action.

[Lacey]

The fact is that there seems to be plenty of blame placed on both the Clinton administration and the Bush administration

It really burns me that the closest these talking heads ever get to criticizing Clinton or any other lib is to lump it in with "the republicans did it too."

[Benrand]

GIve Maddy a break, it's hard to pay attention when you're scrubbing floors.

[Right_in_Virginia]

BTTT

[mabelkitty]

Well Albright, Cohen, and Clinton sure tried to get us in to Iraq in 1998. Was it really because of the WMDs, or was it because they knew about al quada but didn't tell the American public in case they backed down (which they did).

[StriperSniper]

.

[ravingnutter]

Yousef and Nichols crossed paths in the Phillipines. Mohammed was Yousef's uncle. It is interesting to note that Yousef entered the United States on an Iraqi passport and had been known among the New York fundamentalists as "Rashid, the Iraqi". Another name that could be thrown into the mix is Abdul Rahman Yasin, a U.S. citizen who moved to Iraq in the 1960's and returned to the U.S. in 1992. After the 1993 WTC bombing, Yasin fled to Iraq and was given money and housing by Saddam Hussein's regime.

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