Posted on 11/19/2002 9:49:49 PM PST by JohnHuang2
How many of Saddam Hussein's sleeper terrorists are waiting dormant in the United States to retaliate against us when the War on Iraq begins?
The Bush administration has begun to monitor Iraqis inside our country to identify potential domestic terrorist threats posed by sympathizers of the Baghdad regime, according to The New York Times. But while the new intelligence program is tracking thousands of Iraqi citizens and Iraqi-Americans with dual citizenship who are attending our universities or working at private corporations, there is no indication of what federal authorities are doing to locate the untold numbers of illegal aliens from Iraq who have streamed across our open borders.
More than 115,000 people from Iraq and other Middle Eastern countries are here illegally. Some 6,000 Middle Eastern men who have defied deportation orders remain on the loose. And an international crime ring, led by Iraqi native George Tajirian, demonstrates the scope of the alarming problem of potential terrorists pressing at our southern gate.
Tajirian's ring guided aliens from all over the world into the United States -- usually across the Rio Grande or through El Paso, Texas, checkpoints -- and arranged transportation and lodging for them once inside. According to federal prosecutors, Tajirian charged up to $15,000 a head -- chump change for deep-pocketed terrorist enterprises. During Tajirian's trial, which resulted in a 13-year prison sentence, prosecutors introduced evidence that Tajirian was responsible for smuggling individuals with known ties to subversive or terrorist organizations as well as individuals with known criminal histories.
All told, law enforcement officials believe Tajirian and his Mexican collaborator, Angel Molina, may have smuggled more than 1,000 Middle Eastern aliens across the southwest frontier. The whereabouts of many of the smugglees remains unknown.
So far, Hussein and his Iraqi henchmen have refrained from direct, conventional terrorist attacks on American soil. But as Central Intelligence Agency Deputy Director John McLaughlin recently noted: "Should Saddam conclude that a U.S.-led attack could no longer be deterred, he probably would become much less constrained in adopting terrorist actions. Such terrorism might involve conventional means, as with Iraq's unsuccessful attempt at a terrorist offensive in 1991, or (conventional biological weapons)."
And yet, our borders remain wide open to infiltrators who may be toting more than suntan lotion and disposable cameras in their luggage. Among the few smugglers who have been caught in the past year:
In late May 2002, federal agents arrested two Egyptian nationals for allegedly trying to smuggle illegal Middle Eastern immigrants into New Jersey by way of Mexico. For a fee of $8,000, court documents say, the suspected smuggling ring flew customers on tourist visas to Brazil, then sent them to Guatemala, through Mexico, and finally across the southwest border into America.
Just last month, a Washington, D.C., jury convicted Mohammed Hussein Assadi of smuggling Iraqis into the United States through Cali, Colombia, Ecuador, and other locations in South America. Assadi supplied illegal alien Iraqis with stolen and altered European passports and round-trip airline tickets to the U.S. in exchange for up to $8,000 per person.
These Iraqi smugglees purchased documents at a commercial vendor in Northern Iraq called the "Market of Passports," which they used to travel through Turkey and Ecuador into Colombia. According to a statement from the U.S. attorney's office, Assadi instructed the aliens to destroy the fraudulent passports and tickets while en route to America and to surrender to U.S. immigration authorities without disclosing their true place of origin. The scheme relied on smug knowledge of our government's "catch and release" policy for illegal aliens who are freed pending deportation proceedings -- a policy that remains in place today.
"There is simply no way to know all those who illegally entered the United States through this defendant's efforts," Assistant U.S. Attorney Laura Ingersoll stated in a memorandum to the court.
Meanwhile, the Immigration and Naturalization Service is busy building light beacons and water stations for illegal aliens from around the world penetrating our country from the south, and the Bush White House is preparing to reward illegal border-crossers from Mexico with "earned legalization."
Our border insanity continues.
JOHN GIBSON, HOST: In the second "Impact" segment tonight, al Qaeda among us. While the military has been fighting the terrorist network in Afghanistan, the FBI has reportedly been investigating hundreds of suspected sleeper cells in the United States. Is it possible for our government to shut these sleepers down?
Joining us now from Philadelphia, Daniel Pipes, author of the new book, "Militant Islam Reaches America."
So Mr. Pipes, do you have confidence that our government can shut these sleepers down before they receive an order to attack us?
DANIEL PIPES, AUTHOR, "MILITANT ISLAM REACHES AMERICA": I'm not terribly confident, John. The government doesn't have a very good record. But it is learning, I think, on the job.
In the past, it was no good at all. Today, I'm hoping that there's a body of experience that it has been drawing on, looking at sleepers that have been caught, looking at other countries where they've been caught, looking at incidents where they've not been caught, and going backwards. That's what the intelligence community calls "walking back the cat," figuring out what people did and drawing conclusions from that.
GIBSON: All right. Well, what are they looking for? Is the FBI and counterintelligence people that are out there working right now, counterterrorism people, what are they looking for?
PIPES: Well, I think there are a variety of signs that would suggest that someone might be a sleeper. And I stress the word might. None of these are conclusive in and of themselves, but in the aggregate, if you have a bunch of these characteristics, it might suggest that someone is potentially a sleeper.
One indication: connections to countries where there is a lot of militant Islamic activity or there are wars going on, going back and forth, having communications there.
A second would be a lot of irregularities in identity, changing identity, changing names, changing spelling of names, changing passports.
A third indication is preparing for an operation, physical preparation, mental preparation, learning techniques.
A fourth would be a person's activities, who he spends time with, who he avoids, what he's doing with himself.
And the final one would be his attitudes. What does this person think about the United States, about Christians, Hindus, Jews? If you look at these various characteristics together, you have some idea of who might be a sleeper.
GIBSON: Well, just for instance, should Mohamed Atta and his band of hijackers, should they have gotten by authorities? Were they exhibiting signs that said they were sleeper terrorists among us?
PIPES: In retrospect, there are a number of indications that were suggestive. But the problem was at that time, the government had a very simple idea that a sleeper is someone who would spend a lot of time at a mosque and talk overtly about hating America. These fellows are much too clever. They didn't do that.
But they did take a number of steps, for example, in preparing themselves, in going to look at crop-dusters, in taking the lessons for airline control - taking over an airliner. That in retrospect suggests that if we had been more observant we could have caught them. I mean...
GIBSON: Are you saying, for instance, Mr. Pipes, that Americans now, taking the lesson of pre-September 11, should be looking for young Arab men who live together, who don't mix in the community, who speak furtively on the cell phone to each other and don't talk to everybody else, who keep to themselves, who mumble things about America, in other words, sort of profile them ethnically and then report them?
PIPES: I would be reluctant to focus in on young Arab men, although they're more likely than others. I would instead focus in on a person's beliefs and political outlook. And that person need not be Arab, need not be young, need not be male. I think the important thing is a person's ideas, not a person's ethnicity.
GIBSON: Earlier, I think you might have heard Colonel Hackworth say that we do have to worry about attacks from Saddam Hussein's sleeper agents in this country. Would you expect that?
PIPES: Not really. I think the significant sleeper infrastructure belongs to militant Islam. And while militant Islam is angry at the American treatment of Iraq and presumably be even more angry if there was a war, I don't think it's going to go to bat for him.
GIBSON: Mr. Pipes, thanks.
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