POWELL AIDE: AL QAEDA IN BAGHDAD

Freepers are well aware.

I wonder how many will stay, and how many will disperse across the border into neighboring states? I'm thinking Hussein might loose a few of his Republican Guard if he tries to stop them :)

Al Qaeda and Saddam share logistics, geography, religion hatred of western values, hatred of America, England, and Isreal. To assume they are not bedfellows is the height of foolishness. Forthcoming revealed intel will only serve to enforce what any thinking Freeper has already determined.

That's why it's so important that we count every vote.

er, I mean give the inspectors more time.

Prior to 9/11 the Islamist Al Qaida had little to do with the secular Iraqi leadership. The two did, however, have one thing in common, their hatred for the Saudi royal family. They made their peace in the Sudan in 1991-2 when Iraq sought to recover from the Gulf War, and both had a hand in Clinton's 1993 Somalia debacle. When Bin Laden moved to Afghanistan in 1996 the nexus of Islamist terrorism moved from Khartoum to Iran, and Iraq was isolated from the Al Qaida movement. There was isolation but never a complete rupture, and when Iran, fearful of U.S. response following 9/11 shought to ensure an arm's length relationship with Al Qaida, Iraq and Saddam Hussein re-entered the picture. It will prove to be a fatal mistake.

Bump.

"There are al Qaeda in Baghdad - as we will, as we move forward, be explaining," Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in response to a question.

Biden and Dodd should not be allowed on this committee. IMHO, they will make the administration put information in the public that should not be there....

I listened to NPR on the way home and they had plenty of soundbites, edited for liberal radio, but I never heard this one til this morning.

You would think it was important.

Chuck Hagel was also pretty snippy along with the Dems on the briefing with Armitage.

with the Dems it's probably a classic case of "you're ignoring me and not telling me every detail I want to know...Waaaaaah!

But I don't know whazzup with Hagle.

Even Democrats would admit this has been a gawd-awful week for them. Indeed, not since the fall of the Berlin Wall have Democrats had a week quite this bad. Nothing seems to go right -- oops, I mean Left.
Take the Super Bowl game last Sunday. In the weeks leading-up to kick-off, speculation grew of another 9/11 in the works, Qualcomm Stadium being smack-dab in Jihad cross-hairs.
Among the deep/heavy thinkers, the deep/heavy thinking went something like this: New Year celebrations went fine 'n' dandy, true, but don't let that fool you. Al-Qaeda -- Reconstituted! Stronger than ever! Ruling Afghanistan! (See Tommy Daschle) -- was poised to strike. Bush, fixated on Saddam, no longer focused on fighting al-Qaeda, can't prevent it -- he's in no position to. So why no terror over the New Year? Ah, retorted the deep/heavy thinkers, Osama, big football 'fan' that he is, kept the powder dry in lieu of a huge Super Bowl media splash. After the game, of course.
Problem was, while the handwringers were handwringing,Team Bush, little did they know, was already on the case. The Office of Homeland Security gave the event a "level two readiness" designation, a gauntlet of Secret Service and FBI, buttressed by local authorities, provided security. As a result, that 71,500-seat stadium during game hours and after may have been the safest spot on earth.
Bottom line? Whatever terror was in the works for the game -- and there were reports of plenty 'chatter/noise' -- didn't happen.
Democrats, led by Florida Senator Bob Graham, have sought to undermine public confidence in the Bush administration, peddling the 'Bush-Isn't-Doing-Enough-On-Homeland-Security-While-Chasing-Saddam' pap on the Sunday shows week after week. Indeed, so 'concerned' was Bobby boy about the homefront, that he voted against the Iraq resolution because a *yea* vote would only make Saddam, already mad that Bush has been so mean to him, even madder still -- mad enough to use Weapons of Mass Destruction that Donkeys like Bobby Graham insist Saddam couldn't possibly have because bully 'Bush hasn't made his case', you see.
Anyway, the upshot is this: Three of the biggest events of the year -- Christmas, New Year, Super Bowl -- came and went, yet, no terrorism. The anticlimax put Democrats on defense, their charges that Bush has been derelict on Homeland Security more discredited than ever.
After Blix's scathing interim report Monday on Iraqi non-compliance, then, of course, came Bush's State-of-the-Union Address Tuesday. In it, he vowed to take away from Democrats the two things they most cherish in life: Tax money and Saddam Hussein.
You know a Republican SOTU speech is good when Teddy Kennedy can't stop sleeping. Everytime the C-Span lenses peered towards the Hero of Chappaquiddick, there he was....zzzzzzzz.
Okay, maybe he wasn't snoozing the whole time. In fact, come to think of it, something Bush said at one point seemed to rivet his attention -- something about Saddam possessing thousands of liters of this and thousands of gallons of that. Bush, of course, was talking about Anthrax spores and botulinum, but, put yourself in Teddy's shoes for a moment. There you are, drunker than Maureen Dowd after learning Catherine Zeta Jones got pregnant again. Discombobulated, you're barely able to make out a sentence, but you pick up a word here and there.
So what's a dopey, punch-bowl happy juicehead like Teddy supposed to think when words like gallons and liters are thrown around like that? Wine gallons! Whiskey liters! Booze! What else? 'Saddam's a moonshiner!' the poor boozehound probably thinks. 'No wonder the French are so chum-chum with Saddam!' Teddy imagines.
Moonshine -- a Weapon of Mass Destruction? 'Poppycock!' says Teddy.
(Then again, Saddam's son Uday Hussein once forced two liters of Whiskey down the throat of some crony who came late to a meeting -- true story!)
Given the Kennedy family history, Teddy feels a special bond, a special, er, chemistry with moonshiners like Saddam.
So strong, in fact, Teddy now seeks to revisit the whole Iraq war resolution, vowing to introduce new legislation which, if enacted, would force evil Bush to get explicit approval from Congress before launching military strikes on illegal distilleries in Baghdad.
"Much has changed in the many months since Congress debated war with Iraq," Teddy said in a press release right after Bush's State-of-the-Union Address.
Okay, I know what you're thinking: The Iraq war resolution that Teddy now seeks to repeal passed a Democrat-controlled Senate overwhelmingly, but Teddy thinks repealing it stands a snowball's chance in a GOP-controlled Senate? Well, what did you expect -- the guy's a guzzler, for crying out loud!
At any rate, the State-of-the-Union Address didn't sway many Democrats, who urge Bush to turn over control of U.S. foreign policy to France and Germany and Susan Sarandon.
Short of a mushroom cloud over New York or Chicago, followed by a live confession from Baghdad, the odds that Democrats will move away from Saddam are remote.
And even a mushroom cloud may not do it.
"I don't think the administration has presented adequate, convincing evidence" fumed Sen. Tommy Daschle Wednesday, dismissing White House charges about Iraqi Weapons of Mass Destruction.
Tommy backs Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz, who calls Bush's charges "baseless." Both challenge the Bush administration to present 'proof'.
Appearing earlier on ABC's "Good Morning America," Aziz said that "the accusations of Mr. Bush in his statement last night are baseless, simply baseless!"
Aziz, in the same interview, hotly denied any Iraqi links to al-Qaeda.
"We are quite different people," he said.
Again, Democrats agree -- no way would Saddam hang around scummy terrorist low-lives, you know. Look, Saddam may have killed tens of thousands of innocents with chemical weapons, but would the dude stoop to break bread with the likes of Osama? No way! say Democrats. C'mon, it's not like Saddam doesn't have morals and stuff, right? Even dictators have principles!
But the bad news for Democrats just kept on coming, with polls showing the President had rallied the country on Tuesday.
In one post-SOTU poll, people were asked if Saddam was cooperating with U.N. weapons inspectors. Most Democrats in Washington say yes, but a resounding 80% of Americans disagree with the Democrats.
In a CBSNEWS poll, respondents were asked if they supported military action to remove Saddam. Democrats in Washington don't just say 'no', but 'hell no!' A whopping 77% of Americans disagree with the Democrats, the poll showed.
The latest bit of bad news for Democrats: The President not only rallied the country, even Europe -- new and old -- is coming his way.
In an letter published in 12 European newspapers Thursday, the leaders of Britain, Denmark Spain, Portugal, Italy, Poland, Czech Republic and Hungry pledged their solidarity with America and the Bush administration, further isolating Baghdad and its cronies, U.S. Democrats.
"The Transatlantic relationship," they wrote, "must not become a casualty of the current Iraqi regime's persistent attempts to threaten world security. Our strength lies in unity."
In a rebuke to Baghdad allies Jacques Chirac and Gerhard Schroeder, the 8 leaders wrote that "the Iraqi regime and its weapons of mass destruction present a clear threat to world security." The statement was signed personally by all 8 heads of state.
Call it Bush's 'coalition of the willing' versus Saddam's coalition of Democrats with the willies.
Anyway, that's..
My two cents..
"JohnHuang2"

Must of missed that quote on CNN as well as the German arms bust. THANKS FOR THE POST!!!

There was another Thread on this yesterday, wherein some FReeper remarked that he wouldn't be surprized that in the deepest, darkest bowels of one of Sadaam's 200 acre palaces is Osama bin Laden.

I think bin Laden is dead. If he were alive his ego would have forced him to make some sort of statement by now.

........his ego.........

I agree.

The liberals keep demanding absolute proof that one of the worlds most super-secret terrorist organizations is linking up behind the scenes, in the dark, underground, with the world's most evil terrorist dictator.

Liberals don't have the intelligence god gave a flatworm.

As usual, Your 2 cents are worth a fortune.

Liberals and intelligence barely belong in the same sentence.

But I don't know whazzup with Hagle.

Up to this point Bush has been playing a trust-me card. Hagel's probably unwilling to accept a trust-me card where military action is concerned -- a reasonable position for a Senator to take, IMHO. His motivations are different from those of the Dems, who seem mostly interested in how this situation affects their prospects for '04.

I personally don't need to see the red meat, because I trust W to act properly. But then again, I'm not entrusted with a Senator's responsibility to give "advice and consent" to the President, either.