TERRORISM: SADDAM HUSSEIN'S WEAPON OF CHOICE

National Security Online ^ | 4 February 2003 | Christopher W. Holton

[LSUfan]

Tomorrow, February 5, 2003, Secretary of State Colin Powell will present the United Nations Security Council with evidence of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction programs and efforts to hide those programs from U.N. inspectors. Faced with an obvious impending plethora of evidence showing the threat posed by Saddam Hussein in the form of ballistic missiles, chemical agents and biological weaponry, foes of toppling Saddam have changed tactics. They now focus on what they claim is a lack of evidence linking Iraq to al Qaeda.

[OXENinFLA]

http://www.historychannel.com/speeches/archive/speech_290.html

I hope he out does Adlai.

[FourtySeven]

Excellent article, thank you. This is one for the profile!

[LSUfan]

You'd have had a tough time tying Hitler to Auschwitz if you demanded hard, convincing, clear and irrefutable evidence!

[LSUfan]

The "Hollywood left" and "neo-isolationists" will never settle for satellite photos. No proof that could be produced will get their heads out of the sand.

[xzins]

In dual articles in the December issue of Vanity Fair magazine and the December 9, 2002 edition of the London Evening Standard, investigative journalist David Rose discloses that CIA files actually contain information on 100 separate meetings between Iraqi officials and Al Qaida operatives dating all the way back to 1992, before anyone in the West even heard of Al Qaida. This includes two meetings between three of the 9-11 hijackers and officers of Iraqi intelligence in the United Arab Emirates and Prague, Czechoslovakia.

[elfman2]

Thanks

[Starrgaizr]

Iraqi soldiers dressed as suicide bombers and carrying mock explosives participate in a military parade in Mosul, northern Iraq, Tuesday, Feb. 4, 2003. According to official Iraqi estimates, over 500,000 people took part in the parade. (AP Photo/Jerome Delay)

[habs4ever]

Why? No we don't.This isn't a question of legalese, where a case 'has to be made".That is outdated, Cold War containment thinking that enabled Clinton to do nadda about Osama and Iraq under the guise that its far, far away and will never affect US interests.Until a plane smashes into a skyscraper.

Containment is folly in a world of asymmetric threats.It is an invitation to those that want to kill you to take their best shot, and even that may not be enough motivation for some, to strike back.This relic of failed strategists and diplomats will never bring peace, so the idea that "evidence" to make such a case is needed beyond what you know already about Iraq and its links to terror groups,is but a sop to a mindset of appeasement and wishful thinking that once made fighting the Soviet threat a difficult proposition.Containment is for those who lack the will to defend themselves.It is so Sept 10,2001.

[TheDon]

Good article. Of course the author is singing to the choir in my case. The sooner we liberate Iraq the better I will sleep at night. Of course, Iraq is not the last of the transnational terrorist sponsoring states...

[TheDon]

"Containment is folly in a world of asymmetric threats."

Well said. It cannot be emphasized enough.

[steveegg]

Couldn't say it better myself.

[OldFriend]

The cowards think they are in charge......and for a long long time, bubba allowed them to be in charge. There's a new sheriff in town now!

[mhking]

[El Gato]

Iraqi soldiers dressed as suicide bombers

Amazing how they look so much like ex buddies of Robert Byrd.

[Stultis]

Excellent article. Is there a reason for not posting full text?

[El Gato]

Containment is for those who lack the will to defend themselves.

I would say that containment is for those who value their own skins more than their ambitions. If someone doesn't care much about their own skin, or has "plausibly deniable" allies or lackeys who don't care about theirs, then containment will and has failed.

[MHGinTN]

There is the confused notion that Al Qaeda and Iraq and Hamas and Hezbollah seek to bring American citizens to a terrorized state. This is short-sighted. Al Qaeda and Iraq (to name but two) want nothing less than the destruction of America as a world power. The traditional goal of terrorists is to immobilize a people and persuade them to not fight. The goal of these enemies of America goes much further; these enemies want to bring down this nation. Because of that reality, this 'war on terrorism' is actually a war to survive as a nation. What Colin Powell presents on Wednesday should be viewed in the context of defining a very dangerous and active enemy and that enemy's connection to fellow enemies hell-bent on our destruction, not just our immobilization.

[habs4ever]

I'm not sure I understand your post.