Posted on 03/06/2003 4:13:55 PM PST by Howlin
It has grown very tiresome and I find dealing with the UN embarrassing and offensive.
We need to state our business, clearly make our point, and shut up. Go in and do it, end the politics......All this talk, betting, speculation, BS etc is getting old and can only help the enemy...........
He's the boss! But we can guess, eh? My guess is three weeks. March 31. And God bless our forces.
AMEN!!
And we shall see if you're right ..
Abu Nidal as early as the mid 80s. They tried to assassinate a US National Security official and his family in Virginia. The organization is based in Bagdhad with the full and complete consent of Saddam Hussein, and after 911 their head honcho was killed there with five gunshot wounds by the Israeli Mossad. Iraq called it "suicide" but I think Hussein got the message.
DECEMBER 1998 : (SADDAM HUSSEIN SENT HIJAZI TO MEET WITH BIN LADEN, ACCORDING TO FORMER CIA COUNTER-TERRORISM CHIEF CANNISTRARO) Vince Cannistraro, the CIA's former counter-terrorism chief, said Baghdad made an overture to Mr bin Laden in December 1998. Saddam was apparently so impressed by the bombings that year of the two US embassies in East Africa that he sent Iraq's ambassador to Turkey, Farouk Hijazi, to Afghanistan to meet Mr bin Laden. The CIA believed Mr Hijazi offered Mr bin Laden and al-Qa'ida, then being pursued by the Americans, a permanent refuge in Iraq but the offer was refused.- "The suicide bomber and the Baghdad conspiracy," By Chris Blackhurst, Independent.co.uk , 14 October 2001
(* My note : This same ambassador would "coincidentally" be called back from Turkey to Iraq in September 2001 at the time of the attacks on the US, and he has not been seen since as far as I know.)
JANUARY 2000 : (MALAYSIA MEETING HOSTED BY JAMAAH ISLAMIAH'S SUFAAT & INCLUDES : 911 HIJACKERS AL-MIDHAR & ALHAZMI, IRAQI SHAKIR, SENIOR AL QAEDA OFFICIALS ) In January 2000, Khalid Al-Midhar and Nawaq Alhamzi, two hijackers aboard the jet that hit the Pentagon, met with other al-Qaeda members in a condominium in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The operatives included a suspect in the bombing of the USS Cole in Yemen in October 2000. That attack killed 17 U.S. sailors. The meeting was hosted by Sufaat, a member of the militant Muslim group Jemaah Islamiah, which U.S. officials say is linked to Osama bin Laden. Soon after the meeting, Al-Midhar and Alhamzi entered the USA and enrolled at a flight school in San Diego.- "Malaysia site of Sept. 11 plotting, FBI report says." By Jack Kelley, USA TODYusat-malaysia.htm *
(MALAYSIA HIJACKERS, ALMIHDHAR, MILLENIUM PLOT) Meeting in Malaysia, probably the hatching point of the 9/11/2002 plot. Two of the 9/11 hijackers, including Almihdhar, met with senior al-Qaida officials who had flown in from Pakistan,a counterterrorism official said. Investigators believe the meeting was called to review failed operations to bomb LA Int'l Airport and targets in Jordan during millennium celebrations, and to plan both the October 2000 attack on the USS Cole in Yemen and the 9/11/2001 attacks in the US. A Saudi analyst said officials in Riyadh believe that bin Laden had a direct role in picking the Saudi hijackers, 11 of whom were recruited into al-Qaida while fighting in Chechnya or Bosnia and came from families and tribal areas that led him to believe they were reliable. *
(IRAQI AHMAD HIKMAT SHAKIR, MALAYSIA) U.S. officials said Shakir was present at a January 2000 al Qaeda "summit" in Malaysia that was attended by two of the 9/11 hijackers. Authorities believe the summit may have been a planning session for both the October 2000 attack on the USS Cole and 9/11. - "Iraqi a Missing Link," by Aly Sujo, NY Post * When hijacker Khalid al Midhar arrived in Malaysia in January of 2000 for a meeting of key al Qaeda operatives, he was met at the airport by an Iraqi named Ahmad Shakir, who worked part-time greeting VIPs, a job he got with the help of someone in the Iraqi Embassy. One week later, al Midhar flew to the US, and 18 months later he was aboard the airliner that crashed into the Pentagon. He is considered one of the most important hijackers because he was in charge of the so-called muscle – the young Saudi men responsible for subduing the passengers. - "9/11 Bombshell: New Evidence Of Iraq-Al Qaeda Ties?," by David Martin, CBS News Oct. 1, 2002 David Martin
APRIL 2001 : (911 HIJACKERS: ATTA & IRAQI INTELLIGENCE OFFICER AL-ANI & IRAQI AMBASSADOR & AL HIJAZI MEET IN CZECHOSLAVAKIA) When the conspiracy's planning must have been nearing its final stages, Atta was back in Prague for a further brief visit - a journey of considerable inconvenience. Mohamed Atta visited Prague, Czechoslavakia at least twice, and perhaps four times during 2000-2001. Czech officials say that a meeting took place with an Iraqi intelligence agent, Ahmad Khalil Ibrahim Samir Al-Ani on his second trip in April 2001, several weeks before Al-Ani was expelled from the country. * U.S. intelligence officials that Atta was spotted in Prague in April 2001 meeting with an Iraqi agent. - The Miami Herald, "Atta faced questions about visa at MIA-INS,Police blew 4 chances to deport ringleader" , 10-19-01,| Alfonso Chardy * Czech Interior Minister Stanislav Gross has also confirmed that Atta met with al-Ani in early April 2001 in Prague. - Patrick E. Tyler with John Tagliabue, “Czechs Confirm Iraqi Agent Met With Terror Ringleader,” The New York Times, October 27, 2001.* Atta also reportedly met with Iraqi ambassador to Turkey and former Iraqi deputy intelligence director Farouk al-Hijazi in Prague sometime in early April 2001. - Evan Thomas, “The Manhunt: Cracking The Terror Code,” Newsweek, October 15, 2001.* His friends call him Abu Amin, 'the father of honesty'. At 43, he is one of Iraq's most highly decorated intelligence officers: a special forces veteran who organised killings behind Iranian lines during the first Gulf war, who then went on to a senior post in the unit known as 'M8' - the department for 'special operations', such as sabotage, terrorism and murder. This is the man, Colonel Muhammed Khalil Ibrahim al-Ani, whom Mohamed Atta flew halfway across the world to meet in Prague, five months before piloting his hijacked aircraft into the WTC. http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/fr/568298/posts * U.S. intelligence officials that Atta was spotted in Prague in April 2001 meeting with an Iraqi agent. - The Miami Herald, "Atta faced questions about visa at MIA-INS,Police blew 4 chances to deport ringleader" , 10-19-01,| Alfonso Chardy
(* My note : With regard to the Atta & al-Ani connection, so often denied by the naysayers- their denials are based on thin air, see below: )
(snip)
Yet the attempts to refute the link were feverish. The best known example is the strange case of the meetings in Prague between Mohamed Atta, the 9/11 plot's alleged leader, and Khalil Al-Ani, a Mukhabarat sabotage expert.
For at least the third time, The New York Times tried at the end of October to rebut the claim that the Prague meetings ever happened, reporting that the Czech President Vaclav Havel had phoned the White House to tell Bush that it was fiction.
Barely had the paper hit the streets before Havel's spokesman stated publicly that the story was a "fabrication".
Not only had Havel not phoned Bush, the Czechs remained convinced that Atta did meet Al-Ani. They had been tracking him continuously because his predecessor had been caught red-handed - in a plot to detonate a terrorist bomb.
As I reveal in Vanity Fair, earlier this year the Pentagon established a special intelligence unit to re-examine evidence of an Iraq-al Qaeda relationship. After initially fighting the proposal, the CIA agreed to supply this unit with copies of its own reports going back 10 years. I have spoken to three senior officials who have seen its conclusions, which are striking.
"In the Cold War," says one of them, "often you'd draw firm conclusions and make policy on the basis of just four or five reports. Here there are almost 100 separate examples of Iraq-al Qaeda co-operation going back to 1992."
All these reports, says the official, were given the CIA's highest credibility rating - defined as information from a source which had proven reliable in the past.
At least one concerns Bin Laden personally, who is said to have spent weeks with a top Mukhabarat officer in Afghanistan in 1998.
- "Saddam and al Qaeda the link we've all missed; The conventional belief is that the Iraqi dictator and Bin Laden are still foes. Recent intelligence reports tell a different story," by David Rose, The Evening Standard (London) Pg. 11 , December 9, 2002
APRIL 17, 2000: (CZECHOSLAVAKIA EXPELLS IRAQI AL-ANI FOR SPYING, IRAQIS MET WITH ATTA, AL-SHEHHI, JARRAH IN CZ & UAE) The Czechs expelled Iraqi al-Ani, who had diplomatic cover, as a hostile spy. Last night, a senior US diplomatic source told The Observer that Atta was not the only suspected al-Qaeda member who met al-Ani and other Iraqi agents in Prague. He said the Czechs monitored at least two further such meetings in the months before 11 September. The senior US intelligence source said the CIA believed that two other hijackers, al-Shehri and Jarrah, also met known Iraqi intelligence officers outside the US in the run-up to 9/11/2002. It is understood these meetings took place in the UAE - where Iraq maintains its largest 'illegal', or non-diplomatic, cover intelligence operation, most of it devoted to oil exports and busting economic sanctions. http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/fr/568298/posts
2000 spring : (911 HIJACKERS JARRAH & AL-SHEHHI MET WITH IRAQI INTELLIGENCE AGENTS) According to U.S. and foreign intelligence officials, in the spring of 2000, Iraqi intelligence agents met with September 11 th pilot hijackers Zaid Samir Jarrah and Marwan al-Shehhi in Dubai, UAE in order to advance the hijacking of U.S. aircraft to commit terrorist acts. Not long after the meeting, al-Shehhi entered the United States on May 29 and Jarrah entered on June 27, to begin preparations for attacks. - Findlaw, Ashton, et al. v. al Qaeda
APRIL 28, 2000 : (IRAQ : HUSSEIN'S SON UDAY PLAYS TAPE OF GENERAL AL-QURAIRY'S "STRIKERS" ATTACKING MOCK US WARSHIP FOR HIS FATHER'S BIRTHDAY) April 28, 2000, was a very special day in Iraq. The president, Saddam Hussein, had turned 63. Along the 106 miles of highway from the capital, Baghdad, to Saddam's official birthplace in the town of Tikrit, government officials had erected a line of marquees, from which they dispensed free rice and lamb from steaming cauldrons. In Tlkrit itself, top presidential aide Izzat Ibrahim cut an enormous, flower- shaped cake to the tune of "Happy Birth- day to you." He ended the ceremony with a prayer: "We ask God...to prolong his [Saddam's] life, and make this an occasion of victory to us and to our nation against our enemies and the enemies of humanity." Later that evening, Saddam's elder son, Uday, gave his father the perfect birthday gift. It had been a long time in the making. Uday had ordered his closest aide and confidant, Abu Zeinab al-Qurairy-a brigadier general in Iraq's feared intelligence service, the Mukhabarat-to put together a team of 30 specially trained fighters. In al-Qurairy's seasoned judgment, the men were the finest members of the secret unit he administered-the 1,200-strong commando force known as al-Qare'a, "the Strikers," Iraq's elite of elites, trained to a level far beyond ordinary special forces in sabotage, urban warfare, hijacking, and murder.
Al-Qurairy had given the 30 men new identities, complete with genuine United Arab Emirates passports supplied by a corrupt U.A.E. minister in the pay of the Mukhabarat: a means of travelling any- where, without creating the least suspicion they had originally come from Iraq. He had overseen their final training project-an exercise, using limpet mines and diving gear, to blow up a specially constructed mock-up of a U.S. Navy Fifth Fleet destroyer, moored in central Iraq's Habbaniya Lake. Like all al-Qare'a exercises, it had been conducted using real explosives and live ammunition. Uday had the fake ship's destruction videotaped, and that birthday evening he played the recording to his father.
MAY 2000 : (SCOTT RITTER MEETS IRAQI) In May 2000, appearing at a Congressional briefing, he said Saddam was incapable of ''world or regional domination'' and admitted that ''a lot of the blame for the perceptions'' to the contrary could ''be laid at my doorstep.'' That briefing proved significant, not for what Ritter said but for whom he met. Shakir al-Khafaji, a wealthy Iraqi-American businessman, was in the audience. The two men struck up a conversation. Within weeks, Ritter was telling al-Khafaji about a documentary he hoped to make, a film about Unscom that might find the audience that ''Endgame'' had missed. The two agreed to become partners in Ritter's production company, with al-Khafaji's real-estate development firm, the Falcon Management Group of Southfield, Mich., investing $400,000. While the businessman did not have any control over the editorial content, both men say, al-Khafaji would be supplying his connections as well as his money, easing Ritter's way back into Iraq. As a veteran intelligence officer, Ritter knew he ought to be wary of this deal. The F.B.I. probe had not resulted in any charges, but here he was, about to receive cash from a wealthy Iraqi with important friends in Baghdad. Ritter said he went to great lengths to check things out, though on this score he is less than convincing. Where did he get his information? ''I called a reporter who has sources in the C.I.A.'' Does he know where the $400,000 came from? ''They showed me the stocks and bonds that were being liquidated.'' Was al-Khafaji getting any quid pro quo from the Iraqi government? ''Shakir said he didn't,'' Ritter told me on one occasion. On another he said, ''That was always in the back of my mind, that the Iraqis have an interest in funding the movie.'' Before going to Baghdad, Ritter informed the F.B.I., he said. This candor was a supposed safety net. ''I raised our profile so high that the F.B.I.'s got us dead to rights. If he is getting a quid pro quo, you'd think the F.B.I. would know about it.''- "Scott Ritter's Iraq Complex: One man's continuing war with Saddam, Washington -- and himself ," by Barry Bearak, New York Times Magazine, November 24, 2002
2000 summer : (FORMER IRAQI GENERAL AL-QURAIRI SAW ARAB STUDENTS BEING TAUGHT TO HIJACK AIRCRAFT AT SALMAN PAK IN AN OLD TUPOLEV PASSENGER JET) On a satellite photo, he (al-Qurairi) picks out Sal- man Pak's main features. In the southern part of the camp, at a bend in the Tigris River, is the barracks used for non-lraqi Arabs, Islamic fundamentalists who first came to Salman Pak in 1995 to be trained in classes of 24 by al-Qurairy's closest friend, Brigadier General Jassim Rashid al-Dulaimi. He is a man who practices what he preaches: he is wanted by Lebanese authorities for the 1994 murder of an opposition leader in Beirut. As recently as the summer of 2000, al-Qurairy saw the Arab students being taught to hijack aircraft on Salman Pak's own passenger jet, an Old Russian Tupolev. They all took a special course, al Qurairi said in late 2001 -"how to gain control of the cockpit and passengers without using fire- arms." Professional pride meant the Iraqis ensured the Islamists reached a high standard: "When we train non-lraqis, we're not training them to preach in a mosque. We don't expect them to preach in a mosque, but to carry out offensive duties." But Brigadier General Jassim Rashid al-Dulaimi and his fellow instructors, all members of Saddam's secular Baath Party, regarded their Islamist students with contempt. "When Jassim and I go for a drink after work, Jassim says they are sons of bitches. They have all this work to do, but they spend half their time praying." AI-Qurairy was responsible for running the north part of Salman Pak, and for al-Qare'a. He served as the unit's staff general and supervised its formation, at Uday's behest, from the best and most politically reliable fighters from an earlier and larger special-forces group-the Fedayeen Saddam, 'Saddam's Martyrs." (He remained in charge of. the Fedayeen as well.) From the time of its conception in 1995, al- Qurairy says, al-Qare'a was seen as a super-elite, as a force inured to violent death. Faced with the aftermath\ of defeat in the Gulf War, Saddam believed that "to defend the country, sometimes you have to go on the attack." That could mean several things, including assassination, hijacking, and suicide missions. "Trainees who fail are used as targets in live ammunition exercises," al-Qurairy explains. "So they die. ... The training is purely offensive and not only offensive but suicidal. They are made to sign a document when they join that specifically says that orders will ask individual members to commit suicide on missions." The suicide-attacker principle was not original. Al-Qurairy says, "They got that idea from the Islamists." In one training procedure, regularly repeated, students had to land three helicopters on the roof of a speeding train on Salman Pak's own railroad, and then hijack it. With sudden animation, al-Qurairy gets up from his chair and performs a series of jumps and pirouettes, demonstrating the difficulty of the necessary maneuvers. "Fifty took part; 38 passed," he says. "Twelve failed. They were used as 'passengers' in sub- sequent exercises." Part of the role envisaged for al-Qare'a is to crush future internal rebellion. But the unit's primary ethos remains aggression against enemies abroad. "That's the very nature of our training," al-Qurairy says. "We have to go outside lraq-why would we train to blow up a building in Baghdad?"
JUNE 2000 : (ATTA, AL ANI, IRAQ & AL QAEDA) The intelligence agents watching thought nothing of the friendly greeting exchanged between two Middle Eastern men at Prague's Ruzyne airport in June 2000. Of the pair, one was under constant surveillance as a suspected organiser of terrorist operations. A diplomat in the Iraqi embassy, he had been the subject of a tip-off. They watched each time he left the embassy, heading to the headquarters of Radio Free Europe, the US government broadcaster. His interest in the building did not make sense, they reasoned – unless he was going to bomb it.Like all meetings involving Ahmed Khalil Ibrahim Samir Al-Ani, his warm welcome to the smart, clean-cut Middle Eastern man at first aroused suspicion. But Mohamed Atta appeared on no wanted list – and besides, he could not be the bomber of Radio Free Europe since he was only stopping off in Prague for 24 hours. Atta was booked on a flight to Newark. The Czech security agents could relax: this was not their man. He was a friend, perhaps, of Mr Al-Ani's from the old days, taking the opportunity of a stopover to catch up. And besides, as they now point out, Mr Al-Ani saw lots of people – that was his job – and there were other Middle Easterners in Prague giving them more concern than Mr Atta. But more and more, investigators now believe, the Prague connection was a key link in the chain behind the attacks in New York on 11 September. They suspect the meeting with Mr Al-Ani established Iraqi help for Atta, the hijackers' leader, to plan his attacks. They believe he was provided with a passport, courtesy of Iraq, while in Prague. As for other later meetings between Atta and Mr Al-Ani, and another hijacker and the Iraqi diplomat, all observed by Czech intelligence but not thought worth following up, the investigators are left speechless.
OCTOBER 2000 : (IRAQI AGENTS VISIT AFGHANISTAN) Israeli sources claim that for the past two years Iraqi intelligence officers have been shuttling back and forth between Baghdad and Afghanistan. According to the Israelis, one of the intelligence officers, Salah Suleiman was captured last October by the Pakistanis near the border with Afghanistan. - Janes
APRIL 2001 : (ATTA & IRAQI INTELLIGENCE OFFICER AL-ANI MEET IN CZECHOSLAVAKIA) When the conspiracy's planning must have been nearing its final stages, Atta was back in Prague for a further brief visit - a journey of considerable inconvenience. Mohamed Atta visited Prague, Czechoslavakia at least twice, and perhaps four times during 2000-2001. Czech officials say that a meeting took place with an Iraqi intelligence agent, Ahmad Khalil Ibrahim Samir Al-Ani on his second trip in April 2001, several weeks before Al-Ani was expelled from the country.
The CIA has evidence that two more hijackers, besides terror leader Mohamed Atta, met with Iraqi intelligence officials earlier this year - bolstering arguments for a Baghdad role in the attacks, it was reported yesterday. The two other skyjackers were Atta's friends and co-conspirators, Marwan al-Shehhi and Ziad Samir Jarrah, who were believed to have been at the controls of two of the pirated jets on Sept. 11. The Observer newspaper of London reported yesterday that senior U.S. intelligence sources said they have "credible information" al-Shehhi and Jarrah met with an Iraqi agent last spring. (Not in Prague but in the UAE) The secret meetings took place in the UAE, the paper reported. - New York Post, "2 (3) More September 11 Hijackers Tied To Iraq" November 12, 2001, by WILLIAM NEUMAN http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/587611/posts
APRIL 2001 : (GERMAN COMPANIES CAUGHT TRYING TO DELIVER COMPONENTS TO IRAQ) August Hanning, head of the BND (German’s Federal Intelligence service), gives an interview to a German Sunday newspaper. “New chemical weapons are being developed in Iraq. German companies apparently tried to deliver important components for the production of poison gas to Iraq’s Samara plant.” (Interview published by Welt am Sonntag, a German Sunday newspaper, on 22 April 2001, entitled: “The spy who came in from Westphalia”) This is compatible with Mr Saeed’s evidence.- Iraq - Scotsman says Saddam has weapons to wipe out world's population, nuclear bomb within 3 years "The Scotsman dossier - SPECIAL REPORT ON IRAQ" by Fraser Nelson, Westminster Editor
MAY 2001 : (IRAQ, OVER US PROTESTS, TAKES OVER UN CROP-DUSTING HELICOPTERS) Iraq takes over several crop-dusting helicopters from the UN, against US protest that they may be used for a biological weapons attack.- Iraq - Scotsman says Saddam has weapons to wipe out world's population, nuclear bomb within 3 years "The Scotsman dossier - SPECIAL REPORT ON IRAQ" by Fraser Nelson, Westminster Editor
2001 summer : (IRAQ BUYS ALUMINUM TUBES SUITED FOR USE IN CENTRIFUGES TO ENRICH URANIUM)
SEPTEMBER 2001 : (REPORTS OF IRAQI CHEMICAL WEAPONS EXERCISE) Iranian reports say 20 Iraqi soldiers based in Zaafarniyah region had died and 200 suffered severe breathing problems after taking part in chemical weapons exercise around June.- Iraq - Scotsman says Saddam has weapons to wipe out world's population, nuclear bomb within 3 years "The Scotsman dossier - SPECIAL REPORT ON IRAQ" by Fraser Nelson, Westminster Editor
SEPTEMBER 2001 : (IRAQI AMBASSADOR/INTELLIGENCE OFFICER HIJAZI IS RECALLED FROM TURKEY) Mr Farouk Hijazi, Iraq's ambassador to Turkey/intelligence officer who allegedly met with bin LAden in December 1998 is pulled out of Ankara by Baghdad.
(* ... My note- I referred to that guy earlier. Kind of cute how he got pulled just in time to keep him out of reach of any investigations stemming from the attacks on the US)
OCTOBER 2001 early : (SALMAN PAK, IRAQ) : Two Iraqi National Congress activists in London travelled to eastern Turkey. They had been told that a Mukhabarat colonel had crossed the border through Kurdistan and was ready to defect. The officer - codenamed Abu Zeinab - had extraordinary information about terrorist training in Iraq. In a safe house in Ankara, the two London-based activists took down Zeinab's story. He had worked at a site which was already well known - Salman Pak, a large camp on a peninsular formed by a loop of the Tigris river south of Baghdad.
However, what Zeinab had to say about the southern part of the camp was new. There, he said, separated from the rest of the facilities by a razor-wire fence, was a barracks used to house Islamic radicals, many of them Saudis from bin Laden's Wahhabi sect, but also Egyptians, Yemenis, and other non-Iraqi Arabs.
Unlike the other parts of Salman Pak, Zeinab said the foreigners' camp was controlled directly by Saddam Hussein. In a telephone interview with The Observer, Zeinab described the culture clash which took place when secular Baathists tried to train fundamentalists: 'It was a nightmare! A very strange experience. These guys would stop and insist on praying to Allah five times a day when we had training to do. The instructors wouldn't get home till late at night, just because of all this praying.'
Asked whether he believed the foreigners' camp had trained members of al-Qaeda, Zeinab said: 'All I can say is that we had no structure to take on these people inside the regime. The camp was for organisations based abroad.' One of the highlights of the six-month curriculum was training to hijack aircraft using only knives or bare hands. According to Zeinab, women were also trained in these techniques. Like the 11 September hijackers, the students worked in groups of four or five
In Ankara, Zeinab was debriefed by the FBI and CIA for four days. Meanwhile he told the INC that if they wished to corroborate his story, they should speak to a man who had political asylum in Texas - Captain Sabah Khodad, who had worked at Salman Pak in 1994-5. He too has now told his story to US investigators. In an interiew with The Observer, he echoed Zeinab's claims.
Zeinab and Khodad said the Salman Pak students practised their techniques in a Boeing 707 fuselage parked in the foreigners' part of the camp. Yesterday their story received important corroboration from Charles Duelfer, former vice chairman of Unscom, the UN weapons inspection team.
Duelfer said he visited Salman Pak several times, landing by helicopter. He saw the 707, in exactly the place described by the defectors. The Iraqis, he said, told Unscom it was used by police for counter-terrorist training. 'Of course we automatically took out the word "counter",' he said. 'I'm surprised that people seem to be shocked that there should be terror camps in Iraq. -"The Iraqi Connection" The Observer http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/741676/posts?page=1
OCTOBER 2001 : (IRAQI AHMAD HIKMAT SHAKIR, JORDAN) The Iraqi, Ahmad Hikmat Shakir, 37, was picked up October 2001 in Amman, and his passport showed he had recently traveled to Pakistan, Yemen and Malaysia, all key terror trouble spots. A search of one of his apartments turned up telephone records linking him to suspects in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing as well as a 1994 Philippine-based plot to blow up civilian airlines over the Pacific Ocean. - "Iraqi a Missing Link," by Aly Sujo, NY Post
OCTOBER 21, 2001 : (JORDAN, IRAQI SHAKIR) Ahmad Hikmat Shakir left Doha on October 21 for Iraq via Jordan. He is an Iraqi citizen aged 37 years, was arrested at Amman Airport on October 21 during a transit-stop on his way from Qatar to Iraq. It appears that his arrest may have been in connection with suspicions on the part of the Jordanian authorities relating to visits he had made to Pakistan, Yemen and Malaysia. Ahmad Hikmat Shakir was held in incommunicado detention for several weeks before being allowed access to a lawyer. - Amnesty International
NOVEMBER 2001, early : (ATTA, CZECHOSLAVAKIA, RADIO FREE EUROPE PLOT) Czech PM Milos Zeman says his country believes Atta and the Iraqis discussed a truck bomb attack on Radio Free Europe. A diplomatic source also told the Observer that Iraqi spies may have held at least two other meetings with yet more members of the 19-member hijacking team in Prague this year (2001). The Observer (London paper) also reported that Iraqi defectors claim Baghdad has been conducting terrorist training camps for years - New York Post, "2 (3) More September 11 Hijackers Tied To Iraq" November 12, 2001, by WILLIAM NEUMAN http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/587611/posts
NOVEMBER 2001 : (LEBANON : FORMER COOK OF THE IRAQI AL-QARE'A COMMANDO UNIT) Abu Omer, the al-Qare'a unit's former cook, whom we (Henry Porter, Vanity Fair's London editor, and I) also met in Lebanon, described the first stage of their journey. In January 2001 they boarded the ferryboat which plies daily from the Iraqi port of Umm Qasr to one of the emirates, Dubai. There, untraceable as Iraqis, they vanished.
( * My note : Iraqi "diplomats" have routinely acted against the US and have been intricately involved in acts of terrorism against the US, against its troops, and against former Iraqi citizens who have sought refuge in the west. As recently as last year we had an Iraqi diplomat involved in an Abu Sayyaf bombing in the Philippines which took the life of an American Green beret. Abu Sayyaf is part of the al Qaeda network, as is Egyptian Islamic Jihad and a host of other organizations.)
2001 - 2002 winter : (IRAQI SUPERGUN INSTRUCTIONS FOUND IN AL QAEDA CAMPS) Instruction documents on an artillery weapon known as the “Super Gun” were found in al Qaeda camps when they were captured by U.S. forces in the winter of 2001-2002. Iraq is the only state known to have purchased and assembled the super gun, a weapon so large it must be constructed in segments. It has a range of several hundred miles. - Findlaw, Ashton, et al. v. al Qaeda
JUNE 21, 2002 : (AL QAEDA MEMBERS IN IRAQ) The Washington Times reported June 21 that al Qaeda members fleeing Afghanistan were in Iraq. Some were using it as an escape route to Saudi Arabia or Yemen, officials told The Times then, accusing Baghdad of "tacit complicity." - "U.S. tracked top al Qaeda planner's visit to Baghdad, " Washington Times, 10/04/02, Rowan Scarborough
2002 summer : (A TOP 20 AL QAEDA PLANNER WAS IN BAGHDAD, IRAQ : ZARQAWI, BIN LADEN, ZUBAYDAH) A "top 20" al Qaeda planner was in Baghdad several months ago, giving further credence to the Bush administration's assertion of linkage between Saddam Hussein's regime and Osama bin Laden's terrorist organization. U.S. intelligence agencies have verified reports that Abu Musab Zarqawi met with people in Baghdad in the summer after fleeing Afghanistan when the United States began strikes to dislodge the ruling Taliban and kill al Qaeda members. A U.S. official, who asked not to be named, said intelligence agencies are trying to learn more about Zarqawi's visit to Iraq and with whom he met. He is believed to still be in the Middle East, possibly in Syria. "We know he was in Iraq for a period of time several months ago," the official said. "Zarqawi plans terrorist operations. He is in al Qaeda's top 20." The US lacks proof that Zarqawi, a Jordanian, had any role in the September 11 attacks carried out by 19 al Qaeda operatives at bin Laden's behest. But there is evidence he has orchestrated other attacks. For example, the US says Zarqawi, and bin Laden aide Abu Zubaydah, planned a major attack on tourists at a hotel in Amman, Jordan, but authorities learned of the plot and foiled it. Abu Zubaydah was captured in March in Faisalabad, Pakistan, by Pakistani authorities, the FBI and covert U.S. agents. He remains in CIA custody and has been somewhat cooperative during interrogations .- "U.S. tracked top al Qaeda planner's visit to Baghdad, " Washington Times, 10/04/02, Rowan Scarborough
AUGUST 2002 : (ZARQAWI IS IN BAGHDAD, IRAQ) Abu Musab Zarqawi, aka Ahmad Fadeel al-Khalaylah, one of al Qaeda's top 24 leaders, was last known to be in Iraq by this time enjoying Baghdad's hospitality. Zarqawi was involved in the Millenium plots, which were to include the LAX airport (see Ressam, the guy captured trying to enter the US with explosives in December 1999) and some sites in Jordan including a hotel in Amman frequented by Americans and Israelis- his co-conspirator, Abu Zubayda, is in custody and doing some talking. Zarqawi also sent three terrorists to Tel Aviv, Israel to carry out bombing in Israel, they were captured in February 2002. He may have gone from Iraq to Syria by some reports. Another al Qaeda conspirator, and Iraqi, is still inside Iraq. He is linked to the Malaysia terrorist summit where the planning for the USS Cole bombing and 9/11 occured.
SEPTEMBER 14, 2002 : (JAMIL AL HAJAJ IS DUE TO ARRIVE IN THE UAE FROM BAGHDAD) Al-Wasel & Babe, an Iraqi procurement front company, is a joint venture between the Lootah group in Dubai and the Rawame family, an Iraqi clan with close ties to Saddam Hussein, that operates primarily out of Jordan. Their agent in Baghdad, Jamil al Hajaj, hand-delivers tasking messages from the regime to procurement agents operating outside of Iraq. Al-Wasel & Babel previously has been identified by U.S. intelligence as a conduit for clandestine purchases of Japanese fiber-optic cable through China. When Insight called the group's commercial manager in the city of Dubai in the United Arab Emirates, a Pakistani named Sabr Montaz al-Qoreishi, we were told that al-Hajaj was arriving from Baghdad on Sept. 14. . - "How Saddam Got Weapons of Mass Destruction" By Kenneth R. Timmerman, Insight Magazine via WorldNetDaily.com , Tuesday, October 1, 2002 ,
SEPTEMBER 26, 2002 Thursday : (IRAQ, AL-QAEDA) WASHINGTON, (Reuters) - Senior al Qaeda leaders have been in Baghdad "in recent periods," U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said on Thursday, as the Bush administration pushed its case for possible military action against Iraq. Rumsfeld was not more specific about the timing, but his comments at a Pentagon briefing appeared designed to allay doubts among opposition Democrats and foreign allies that Iraq was a legitimate target in the U.S. war on terrorism. However, none of the evidence has been made public. "We certainly have evidence of senior al Qaeda who have been in Baghdad in recent periods. Whether they're currently there or not one never knows, because they're moving targets," he said, of the movement blamed by Washington for the Sept. 11 attacks on America that killed around 3,000 people. "If you're asking if it (intelligence) is current -- in the last period of days or weeks -- the answer is yes," the secretary said. ((Charles Aldinger, Washington newsroom, charles.aldinger@reuters.com)
SEPTEMBER 2002 late : (AL QAEDA-IRAN/IRAQ/SYRIA TIES, ZARQAWI ALSO LINKED TO HEZBOLLAH & PALESTINIAN BOMBINGS) U.S. News & World Report said in its Sept. 30 edition that the US tracked Zarqawi from Afghanistan to Iran, to Iraq, then to Syria. The magazine said Zarqawi is linked to Hezbollah and Palestinian bombings against Israel. The report came the same week Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and White House National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice publicly detailed Iraq-al Qaeda ties for the first time. "We do have solid evidence of the presence in Iraq of al Qaeda members, including some that have been in Baghdad," Mr. Rumsfeld said. "We have what we consider to be credible contacts in Iraq who could help them acquire weapons-of-mass-destruction capabilities."
Officials say that Saddam's regime had to know that such a high-ranking al Qaeda member as Zarqawi was in Baghdad."The knowledge that the intelligence community has of the al Qaeda relationship with Iraq is evolving," Mr. Rumsfeld said last week. "It's based on a lot of different types of sources of varying degrees of reliability. Some of it, admittedly, comes from detainees, which has been helpful, and particularly some high-ranking detainees."
Said Miss Rice, "This is a story that is unfolding, and it is getting clear, and we're learning more. We're learning more because we have a lot of detainees who are able to fill in pieces of the puzzle. And when the picture is clear, we'll make full disclosure about it."
- "U.S. tracked top al Qaeda planner's visit to Baghdad, " Washington Times, 10/04/02, Rowan Scarborough
2002 late : (IRAQ, SOUTH AFRICA) The Iraqi regime is turning increasingly to South Africa to procure nuclear materials and forbidden equipment needed for its weapons programs, INC sources tell Insight. A top Iraqi intelligence official, Nadhim Jabouri, has been dispatched to the Iraqi embassy in Johannesburg to handle contacts with South African nuclear engineers. He also is in touch with Armscor, the state armaments directorate (also known as Denel), which supplied Iraq with advanced 155 mm howitzers during the Iran-Iraq war. To grease the skids and arrange travel documents, Iraqi procurement agents operating in Amman, Jordan, go through the first secretary of the South African embassy, Shoeman du Plessis. The willingness of the South African government to sell nuclear material and weapons to Iraq, and their fear of getting caught, could explain the virulent outburst by former South African president Nelson Mandela, who told Newsweek recently that the U.S. — not Saddam Hussein — presents "a threat to world peace." - "How Saddam Got Weapons of Mass Destruction" By Kenneth R. Timmerman, Insight Magazine via WorldNetDaily.com , Tuesday, October 1, 2002
(* My note : South Africa is yet another nation people have claimed was "successfully disarmed" by the UN)
OCTOBER 2, 2002 : (SALIM ARRESTED BY ISRAELIS: HE IS LINKED TO IRAQ) Rakahd Salim, the General Secretary of the Front for National Liberation in the West Bank and Arafat advisor , was arrested on October 2, 2002 after documents seized by the IDF during operation "Defensive Shield" indicated that he was responsible on behalf of Saddam Hussein for the distribution of money to the families of Palestinian terrorists and suicide bombers. Salim was directly responsible for the transfer of Iraqi aid funds to the families of suicide bombers and Palestinian terrorists.
OCTOBER 2, 2002 : (ABU SAYYAF & IRAQI DIPLOMAT INVOLVED IN THE MURDER OF AN AMERICAN SERVICEMAN IN BOMB ATTACK IN PHILIPPINES) "It appeared that immediately after the bombing, there was a call to the embassy of Iraq by an alleged Abu Sayyaf guerrilla." - Blas Ople, Foreign Affairs Secretary, Philippines
JANUARY 2003 late : (US SEC OF STATE POWELL SAYS IRAQ HAS CLEAR TIES TO TERRORIST GROUPS INCLUDING AL QAEDA) American "counterterrorism officials" are still in angry denial about the pattern they refused to see that connects Qaeda terrorists in hiding with Iraqi terrorists in power. But even the Bush administration's most reluctant warrior has come to accept the validity of the link that embattled Kurds have been trying to warn us of since Sept. 11: Saddam and the followers of bin Laden are bedfellows. Iraq, concluded Secretary of State Colin Powell this weekend in Switzerland, has "clear ties to terrorist groups, including Al Qaeda." -"Safire: Clear Ties of Terror," The New York Times, 01/27/03 by William Safire
FEBRUARY 7, 2003 : (IRAQ & AL QAEDA & ANSAR AL ISLAM : WA'EL) WASHINGTON - The US has extensive proof of communication between Iraqi officials and an al Qaeda-affiliated group - but has been reluctant to reveal the information because of its sources, The Post has learned. A stream of intelligence links Saddam Hussein's government to Ansar al Islam, which wants a Taliban-style government in Kurdish northern Iraq, sources said. And a member of Ansar al Islam's ruling council, Abou Wa'el, has been identified by al Qaeda captives as a present or former Iraqi intelligence agent, said the sources. The sources said the group has been making ricin - the deadly toxin cops found in London when they busted an Islamic terror cell last month. But the US has not destroyed the "camp," partly because communications to and from it have provided useful data on al Qaeda. Britain and Germany yesterday announced new arrests of suspected al Qaeda members who may be plotting new attacks to capitalize on the Iraq crisis. German prosecutors said they are questioning three extremists connected to the infamous Hamburg cell that planned the 9/11 atrocities. In London, Manchester, Glasgow and Edinburgh, British police arrested seven people who may be planning ricin attacks. - "MUCH MORE TO SADDAM-QAEDA TIE, " by NILES LATHEM, New York Post 2/07/0
FEBRUARY 9, 2003 : (NORTHERN IRAQ : MUSHIR & 5 OTHERS ASSASSINATED) "Then, on Feb. 9, a prominent secular Kurdish leader, Gen. Shawkat Haji Mushir, and five others were murdered in the northern Kurdish region of Iraq in apparent retaliation for the Powell expose of Ansar and Zarqawi." - "Hand in Glove (Iraq and al Qaeda) ," by Mansoor Ijaz, National Review , Feb.18, 2003 (* My note : When someone asks for specific information that proves Iraq's Bio-Chemical weaponry or links between Iraq and Al-Qaeda, and the West provides specific information, our intelligence sources get killed. So far we've had Iraqi dissidents -both opposition and former officials- get murdered, and a Czechoslavakian asset get murdered for being informants on the links between Iraq and terrorist groups. Iraqi scientists have also been murdered for talking.)
FEBRUARY 11, 2003 : (PHILIPPINES : IRAQI "DIPLOMAT" aka INTELLIGENCE AGENT LINKED TO ABU SAYYAF)-- The Philippine government said Tuesday it will continue to monitor the activities of an Iraqi diplomat for alleged links to a Philippine Muslim extremist group, the Abu Sayyaf. The Iraqi Embassy denied a Philippine intelligence report, announced by Foreign Secretary Blas Ople on Monday, that Iraqi Consul Husham Husain received a call from an Abu Sayyaf member shortly after a bombing that killed three people, including an American Green Beret, in southern Zamboanga city last year. The Abu Sayyaf member, who was not identified, was later arrested. Authorities offered no other details of the alleged incident. "Allegations of diplomatic involvement in terrorism constitute a grave matter anywhere in the world and should be dealt with vigilance and immediacy," presidential spokesman Ignacio Bunye said. "The investigation should leave no stone unturned, and the results must be made known to the Filipino people and the international community." - AP WorldStream via COMTEX
FEBRUARY 26, 2003 : (NY : SYRACUSE CELL : TERROR CHARITY "HELP THE NEEDY" LINKED TO IRAQ : DHAFIR, ZAGHA, JARWAN, AL-WAHAIDY) Action News has confirmed that the U.S. Justice Department has raided a Syracuse-area charity called "Help The Needy." 3 men have been arrested in Syracuse; 4 in all are indicted on charges of illegally transfering money to Iraq. That is illegal under sanctions placed on Iraq after the Gulf War - "Justice Department Raids Local Charity " (Syracuse NY ) WSTM 2/26/03 *
A central New York charity is being prosecuted on charges of sending illegal aid to Iraq. A photocopying business on East Genesee Street in Syracuse is listed as the group's headquarters. Federal agents have also removed boxes of materials from the home of a charity accused of helping Iraq. Federal agents have raided at least three Syracuse area locations connected to a charitable organization called "Help the Needy." 4 local arrests have been made; oncologist Rafil Dhafir, Maher Zagha, Ayman Jarwan and Osamed al Wahaidy; 4 are indicted on charges of illegally transferring money to Iraq. The Help the Needy website asks for a $25-a-month donation to sponsor an Iraqi orphan or $45-a-month to sponsor an Iraqi family. Nearly $4-million was instead funneled from Key Bank and Oneida Savings Bank to banks in Jordan. U.S. Attorney Glen Suddaby says the case concerns Iraqi sanctions violations and money laundering. Federal law prohibits Americans to send aid to Iraq, in place since the Gulf War. Suddaby has scheduled a news conference this afternoon ... NewsChannel 9 will carry this live.- “Help the Needy” Aiding Iraq? , Last Update: 2/26/2003 1:12:54 PM , 2/26/03
Not OBL - or at least no evidence provided so far.
Evidently you haven't been paying any attention to all the material available so far. I've only posted a tiny portion of what is public knowledge. I of course have no access to material that is secret, but it is reasonable to assume it is far more extensive. Here's some individuals to get people started:
* Osama bin Laden : met with Farouk Hijazi, Iraq's ambassador to Turkey and an Iraqi intelligence officer - (Information from the Wisconian Project on Nuclear Arms Control, a Washington-based think tank. Gary Milhollin, its director and Professor Emeritus of the University of Wisconian Law School, gave evidence to US International Relations Committee on 4 Oct 2001).
* Farouk Hijazi : Hijazi was Iraq's ambassador to Turkey and is an Iraqi intelligence officer. while in Turkey he met with Osama bin Laden (Information from the Wisconian Project on Nuclear Arms Control, a Washington-based think tank. Gary Milhollin, its director and Professor Emeritus of the University of Wisconian Law School, gave evidence to US International Relations Committee on 4 Oct 2001).
* Abu Musab Zarqawi : Al Qaeda lieutenant who met with people in Baghdad in the summer after fleeing Afghanistan when the United States began strikes to dislodge the ruling Taliban and kill al Qaeda members.
* Mohammed Atta : The 911 hijackers' leader, who flew the first airplane into the World Trade Center, twice met a notorious Mukhabarat special-operations expert in Prague in the months before the attacks; and it is believed that his former roommate in Hamburg, Marwan al-Shehhi (who flew the second W.T.C. plane), and another Hamburg associate, Ziad Jarrah (the hijacker who piloted Flight 93 before it crashed into the ground in Pennsylvania), both met Mukhabarat intelligence service men in the U.A.E. - Vanity Fair magazine
* Marwan al-Shehhi : 9/11 hijacker who flew the second W.T.C. plane; former roomate of Mohammed Atta in Hamburg, Germany. Along with Ziad Jarrah, the pilot of Flight 93 which crashed in Pennsylvania, al-Shehhi met Iraqi Mukhabarat intelligence service men in the UAE. - Vanity Fair magazine
* Ziad Jarrah : The 9/11 hijacker who piloted Flight 93 before it crashed into the ground in Pennsylvania), along with Marwan al-Shehhi, who flew the second WTC plane on 9/11, met Iraqi Mukhabarat intelligence service men in the U.A.E. That amounts to strong evidence of a connection with the 19 hijackers. -Vanity Fair Magazine
* Abdul Rahman Yasin : a second-generation Iraqi immigrant now from Indiana. He was questioned at length after the bombing of the World Trade Centre in 1993, which caused extensive damage to one of the towers and killed six people. The FBI asked him about his flatmates in Jersey City, many of whom were later indicted for involvement in the bombing, about his contact with explosive chemicals and about his relationship with Ramzi Yousef, later identified and convicted as the operation's mastermind. Nevertheless Yasin was released and allowed to leave the country because the FBI thought it had no case against him. He is now in Iraq. Yasin was put on President W. Bush's 22 "most wanted" list of suspected terrorists by October 14, 2001 - "The suicide bomber and the Baghdad conspiracy," By Chris Blackhurst, Independent.co.uk , 14 October 2001
If Saddam-supported terrorists have attacked other countries, then let those countries go after Saddam.
By this I assume you are concerned we might be aiding other countries just for the heck of it, and not because we are concerned about American interests? Isn't that a little silly? We always act in what we see as our interests, and ONLY for reasons we see are in our interests; that's how all nations work, not just us. It is arguable that when nations believe they are acting in their interest that they may instead be making mistakes, but its tinfoil time if you think nations act in other nation's interests when they don't see any common interests, or a connection to their own national well-being.
(Are you SURE you are a Churchill buff? I know where Churchill would be on this and it wouldn't be for containment.) Nobody has offered evidence that they've attacked us.
I just did. enjoy your reading. Do you prefer to wait for him to sign his name to a few thousand vilas of anthrax, or to a dirty bomb, before you will see what is widely known already, that Hussein and others like him use terrorists precisely because of the sort of thinking you exhibit? It helps cover their ass, and it works- look at all the people denying the evidence freely available simply because they would apperently accept nothign less than a signed confession from Saddam Hussein. (Not that any of them have actually ever read one of his speeches- I have read many of them.) You won't belive because Atta (a member of Egyptian Islamic Jihad) didn't paint a fricking Iraqi national logo on the side of those airliners before they hit, or didn't mail anthrax with a return address that says:
Saddam Hussein
7th Presidential Palace
(also Arms storage & dentention center)
Bagdhad, Iraq, zip: 666.
Seriously, if you were going to attack the US, would you leave an obvious trail, or would you hire mercenaries and kep your fingerprints off of it? I wouldn't leave a trail if I was going to Teepee Al Gore's house, I sure as heck wouldn't leave a trail if I was going to do a terrorist strike on a superpower.
Once again, if containment will work against North Korea -- and Bush says it will -
Provide the quote where Bush says containment will work there. I haven't read it yet, not that it would make me believe containment works, but because I simply don't have that quote for my collection.
The reason we are careful about North Korea is not because it is the morally right thing to do, not because it is the best thing for us or for North Koreans, but because we've already goofed and North Korea has already has been allowed to become a nuclear state. North Korea is also an isolationist state (unlike the expansionist Iraq whose leader seeks a revival of an Arabic empire and has actually invaded and ANNEXED other countries in pursuit of that goal) and North Korea's location is not strategic in location nor is it particularly destabilizing to other countries around it, who are all strong and stable countries.
You would make a much better argument if you compared Iraq to Cuba, which IS a state that exports terrorism and which IS a state which is very destabilizing and which is awfully darn close to the US.
If North Korea was NOT yet a nuclear state, it is undeniable that it would be wise to prevent it from becoming one, and so prevent the present "crisis," correct?
This "crisis," by the way, has been going on for decades now and is UNCHANGED from the time Clinton first fell for the "you give uis food, we won't make nukes" line of bull. The ony reason we know about this "crisis" at all is because the Bush Administration forced Korea to admit after 911 that it had violated the Clinton agreement from the very beginning. It was not something the North just revealed on its own, out of the blue- we are the ones who revealed this at a time of the administration's choosing. It's been known for some time - for years now- the North had been violating the agreement, but only now, years after it was obvious- are the democrats making an issue of it, for purely political reasons. Suddenly they are worried? Give me a break... they knew of it since at least 1998 and expressed no concern so long as the charade wasn't on the ten o'clock news.
But its all yet another reason why we need to prevent Iraq from becoming another North Korea. It is much better to PREVENT a problem than to have to search for a cure later when you are embroiled in other things and your problem child decides to throw a temper tantrum to get a "passie" to suck on.
But it's nice to see that you are concerned about North Korea- when it comes time to deal with it, I trust we can count on your wholehearted support.
- I merely am a Bush supporter who'd like to see that Bush policy tried against Iraq.
Well, we tried it for over twelve years. Indeed, we tried the very same disarmant thing Clinton did with North Korea- a voluntary one, even before the Gulf War. Even BEFORE the Gulf War, Iraq pulled the exact same tricks North Korea has pulled since the Clinton agreement of 94. Iraq and Brazil and various French and Germany companies got together and came up with an Iraqi nuclear program and imported lots of material to Iraq to play with, along with technicians. Israel ended up bombing the Osirek reactor because that didn't work with Iraq any more than Clinton's fisaco has worked with North Korea.
"Containment" by bribing North Korea NOT to build weapons (and then not enforcing the rules when they did anyway) is not a "Bush policy," it is a Clinton policy. Containment WITH enforced rules- in contrast to the Clinton policy, has been a US policy for half a century, and one which even though supposedly enforced, did not stop North Korea from developing nukes or from selling weapons later on, because of course the same regime was still in power, with the same goals and the same determination to defy the rules.
We have yet to see how Bush will deal with North Korea, or what his policy will ultimately be, but anyone with at least two brain cells to rub together would know how stupid it would be to escalate things in North Korea while we are deployed in at least three other widely separated theaters and while we have a much more immediate problem also brewing in Venezuela and with Middle-eastern backed terrorists in South America- our own hemisphere.
We should be the ones to choose where, when and and on what terms we shall deal with threats, not let Kim Il, the UN, or Saddam Hussein tell us. It would be much better if we could deal with North Korea as we are dealing with Iraq, but we should avoid having to deal with everyone at the same time, just as in WW2 we chose certain theaters to have priority over others. We need to concentrate on addressing those problems we can most affectively deal in a timely manner in order to make the more complicated and long-term problems less troublesome when the time comes.
Just as Being for Contaiment in N Korea doesn't make Bush a traitor or disloyal, so being for containment in Iraq doesn't make me a traitor or disloyal, merely someone who wants some consistency in foreign policy.
Straw dog argument- you tried to say the policies in N. Korea which led up to the problem of N Korea's arming over the lasy 8 years is Bush's policy of containment when in fact it was a policy which preceded him and allowed the problem to fester. Bush's CHANGE in policy is what caused the North Koreans to fess up to their clandestine activities, activities which America and the current crop of liberals and peaceniks have been wholly unconcerned about for eight years or more, if ever.
You want a one-size-fits all Walmart foreign policy. It won't work, because not all situations are the same. we waited far too long with North Korea and that is why there is a problem. We practiced containment with North Korea instead of dealing with the problem. we chose before that not to free North Korea because we didn't want to fight their allies, and took McArthur from the scene because he was vocal about how North Korea would become a problem if merely "contained." We chose before that to sell out North Korea to the communists and allowed it to be divided in the first place, because of our sorry agreements with the communists in WW2.
North Korea is an isolated country- its nearest western neighbor is South Korea, which is no pushover. But if things fell apart in North Korea because we suddenly freed the country, we would see a flood of refugees like never seen before on earth, all rushing to the South. It would annhilate the South's economy with a rush of people who have been isolated from the rest of the world and kept as basically little more than peasants their entire lives, and that would not do our economy any wonders, either. It might even do to South Korea what the fall of the Wall did to West Germany- alter the political scene and put east German style leaders in power. Germany has a "former" terrorist as its defense minister- the sudden influx of east German voters played havoc.
What would a flood of North Koreans, people with no history, no familiarity with modern life do to a unified Korea? It's a complex problem- clearly many North Koeans want freedom or there would be no need for the concentration camps. In a just world, they should have this freedom and eventually, their regime will collapse; but planning fo that will take some care and consideration and a good deal of preparation, and the US has not done any preparations for much of anything tha past decade- instead, we have completely slacked off until juast a few years ago. We couldn't even get Clinton to show up for briefings. It would be best if the fall of that regime occur on our terms when both the US and South Korea are prepared and don't have too many distractions.
Just because we were stuck with a bad policies in North Korea before, is no reason to make the same mistakes with Iraq. There is no logic in having consistency if it means you must accept being consistently wrong, or at best, accept being consistently blackmailed into a stalemate.
And it is obvious to some that you're just displaying unjustified blind faith in the president.
Faith is a prerequisite for spirituality. It has no place in this situation.
Y'know what? Just a while ago, I saw the President reflect on how he had sworn an oath to protect and defend the Constitution and by extension, America itself. Then, only a few minutes later, he rejected the notion that we would only act if the United Nations gave us the thumbs-up. You are entitled to your opinion, but in my estimation, the man has earned a measure of TRUST. Don't try to paint it as an element of spirituality, that is a specious argument.
As for the differences between the situations in Iraq and North Korea, my perception of the differences is based on what *has* been made public. Why some people insist on equating the two is frankly a mystery to me. Military force against North Korea might not be the right tool for the job - yet.
I often feel the same way. But I have come to realize that, given geo-political inter-relationship norms, a certain dance has to be performed. This is because agreement as to moral principles is not as yet harmonized. Probably need another 200-300 years for that. But for now, stong leaders like GWB should and will prevail.
I feel that way very often Tom......
USA#1.
The DEMs and peacniks will complain no matter what. As such, they are unreasonable and irrelevant. The US public might enjoy getting out of the UN.
I am patient too, and have stifled my urge to predict timing!
We want to prevent North Korea from SELLING plutonium. Bush used the term "proliferation." That they have nukes is already widely assumed and accepted.
DECEMBER 13, 2002 : (BUSH WARNS N KOREA) President George W Bush warned (on Friday) that North Korea should not expect its latest nuclear threats to be followed by concessions from the West - a pattern he dismissed as "business as usual". The Bush administration struggled to keep a lid on the latest crisis to be triggered by North Korea - the most secretive and probably best-armed member of the "axis of evil" - and urged the Stalinist regime to back down from a high-stakes threat to remove international seals and monitoring equipment from a cache of plutonium it has possessed for several years. ...North Korea's threat to unseal the plutonium represents a serious escalation of the nuclear crisis that began when Pyongyang admitted in October that it had a secret uranium enrichment programme....The same plutonium cache brought the United States and North Korea to the brink of war in the early 1990s, as President Clinton ordered plans drawn up for a pre-emptive military strike on North Korea's nuclear plant at Yongbyon. That crisis was ended by a 1994 deal to freeze North Korean nuclear research, in exchange for huge amounts of food, oil and other aid. Unlike Iran and Iraq, the other two members of the axis of evil, North Korea is believed to possess nuclear weapons already, and enough plutonium to build more. It has been stored in the country under the watchful eye of international inspectors, and UN surveillance cameras, since a 1994 deal to mothball its nuclear programme. On Thursday, North Korea said it had no choice but to restart the Yongbyon complex to produce power for the bitterly cold winter, after America suspended fuel oil deliveries after the country's nuclear admissions. North Korea has a time-worn tactic of triggering an artificial crisis, then demanding aid and assistance from the outside world to resolve it. This time it may also be trying to sow dissension in South Korea, where a presidential election campaign has been marked by a surge in anti-American sentiment. - "Threats won't buy aid, Bush warns N Korea ," by David Rennie, The Daily Telegraph , December 14, 2002
APRIL 2000 : (HOUSE TRIES TO END US AID TO NORTH KOREA) "…The House Policy Committee will examine ways to put an end to the Clinton-Gore aid to Kim Jong Il's Stalinist North Korean dictatorship. That aid is being used to feed Kim Jong Il's million-man army, to provide fuel oil for North Korean military industries, and to build light water nuclear reactors that will provide plutonium for nuclear weapons. Two top nuclear scientists will discuss the dangers posed by Clinton-Gore financed light water nuclear reactors during a briefing at the Committee's weekly executive session at noon, Wednesday, April 12 in the Capitol. …….. The U.S.-supplied light water reactors will produce plutonium sufficient to arm 65 nuclear warheads each year. These warheads would pose an increased threat because they could be mounted on long-range North Korean ICBMs developed while the Clinton-Gore administration gave foreign aid to North Korea. ……..The two nuclear scientists who will brief the Policy Committee, Dr. William R. Graham and Dr. Victor Gilinsky, are expected to tell the House Leaders that while the facilities North Korea was building on its own would have produced enough nuclear weapons-grade material for about a dozen bombs a year, the plutonium produced by the new light water nuclear reactors U.S. taxpayers are financing can be reprocessed to arm 65 bombs a year-more than five times as many. …….Kim Jong Il's callous disregard for American -- and world -- opinion, and his regime's apparent disdain for the Clinton-Gore administration's policy of nurturing ties with the failing Communist state, do not stop there. North Korea notoriously engages in counterfeiting U.S. currency, and sells illegal drugs as a matter of national policy. Kim Jong Il is apparently not shamed by the capture of his diplomats and agents who have been caught red-handed in these criminal activities. The Clinton-Gore administration, in its sad adherence to this dangerously failed policy of appeasement-for-abuse, at least deserves credit for consistency. It has met every one of North Korea's violations of its international agreements with an apology and a rationalization. The purpose of Wednesday's meeting is to seek ways to end this craven policy, and to make protecting U.S. national security the goal once again…….Paul J. Wilkinson Director of Communications House Policy Committee ……" - policy.house.gov via Reagan.com 4/11/00
Pakistan is nuclear- what do you think they were trading when North Korea helped them out on their missile program?...:
JUNE 2000 : (NORTH KOREA BOLSTERS PAKISTANI MISSILE PROGRAM, EQUALLING INDIA'S) "…..North Korea has bolstered Pakistani missile programs with new technology and components and now Islamabad can match India's capability, Asian defense sources said. The sources said North Korean scientists and engineers were recruited by Islamabad to work on Pakistan's missile programs and completed their work last month. The result is improvements in Pakistan's Ghauri missile, Middle East Newsline reported. The Tokyo-based Sankei Shimbun said a 15-member North Korean delegation is preparing to leave for Pyongyang imminently. The newspaper quoted sources in the Pakistani government...." - WORLD TRIBUNE 6/23/00
AUGUST 2000 : (REPORTS THAT IRAQ IS FINANCING SCUD MISSILES IN SUDAN, WITH NORTH KOREAN HELP, FOR FUTURE USE BY IRAQ) "……The U.S. intelligence community fears new reports may indicate Iraq is financing construction of a Scud missile assembly plant in Sudan, enlisting North Korea’s help, ABCNEWS has learned. …….. Sources say North Korean personnel would build and run the plant, with the assembled Scuds to be held in Sudan for Iraq’s future use — a prospect that worries U.S. officials. ……The intelligence community has two separate reports that indicate such a deal is in the works. If they prove true, it raises significant concerns that Saddam Hussein is back in business trying to make Scud missiles, although outside Iraq. ….." - ABCNews 8/10/00 Barbara Starr
OCTOBER 16, 2002 Wednesday : (STATE DEPT SAYS NORTH KOREAN OFICIALS CONFIRMED THEY HAD BEEN WORKING COVERTLY TO ENRICH NUCLEAR MATERIAL FOR WEAPONS) North Korea has been working covertly to develop an enrichment capability for nuclear weapons for at least five years and has used technology obtained from Pakistan and other nations, according to U.S. officials. The issue of North Korea's nuclear-arms program came to a head earlier this month when evidence of the secret program was presented to North Korean officials. A senior North Korean official confirmed the violations of the 1994 Agreed Framework, a pact under which Pyongyang agreed to freeze and dismantle its weapons program, the State Department said Wednesday night. - "U.S. saw North Korea's work to enrich fuel for nukes" by Bill Gertz, The Washington Times, October 18, 2002
OCTOBER 17 , 2002 : (SEC DEF RUMSFELD ON N KOREA) Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said yesterday that he was not surprised by the North Korean government announcement. The U.S. intelligence community view is that "the United States has been concerned about North Korea's desire for nuclear weapons, and has assessed, since the early 1990s, that the North may have one or two weapons," Mr. Rumsfeld said. "Things are being done underground, things are being done very cleverly," he said. "And we live in a world of surprise. We live in a world of little or no warning. We ought to expect that there are going to be things that occur that we didn't know." - "U.S. saw North Korea's work to enrich fuel for nukes" by Bill Gertz, The Washington Times, October 18, 2002
Now, note that in WW2 we didn't try to invade Germany and Japan simultaneously... we chose to go after the fringes first and work our way in.
And we didn't pursue the same tactics each time so as to be "consistant."
In the big picture, Iraq threatens much more than oil. If Iraq is allowed to go nuclear it will be in a position to blackmail all the states around it, and coupled with its nice North Korean friends and better missile technology- something which was also seen recently with the discovery of longer range missiles- it will be able to blackmail even European countries.
This is a very strategic region both for oil and commerce, with much of the world's economies depending upon the Suez Canal, and much of the world's economies - and hence lours as well- dependent on this region remaining "blackmail free." The only way to keep the region "blackmail free" is if the US keeps it that way. The only way for us to keep it that way, is to have access to ports and facilities in the region where we can maintain our ships and base our aircraft and preposition equipment - things which a nuclear Iraq would be able to deny us by blackmailing their neighbors into refusing to give us access.
A hostile Iraq in the midst of this region, capable of utterly destroying its neighbors and already having proven a willingness to do just that- would effectively control the foreign policies of its weaker neighbors and its control would NOT be of the kind which would enhance personal freedom or free commerce. A nuclear Iraq could simply take Kuwait - it's not like it hasn't tried and temporarily succeeded on more than one occasion- and there would be nothing we or anyone else could do to prevent it. A nuclear Iraq would be able to fund and support global terrorism and not fear retaliation, even give nuclear material or other terrible weapons to terrorists with confidence that no one could directly strike Iraq for doing so. That terrorism would eventually control other countries and affect all the oil in the region. Worse, we already see hezbollah and al Qaeda and others in our hemisphere. I don't think we want North Korea or iraq selling nukes to Cuba, nor pouring increasingly confident support and dangerous supplies and technologies to terrorists in our hemisphere. Bush has never said we're invading Iraq to protect the supply of oil.
We're not. We're going in to protect the US, and incidentally, a lot of other nations and people, including Iraqis.
In fact, our sanctions now limit the amount Iraq can pump.
No, the UN sanctions limit the amount Iraq can "legally pump." Iraq sells much, much more illegally and in return gets virtually anything it wants. Iraq has simply gone around these sanctions to sell black market oil and its friends France and Germany have profitted enormously from this black market. Syria and other nearby countries- some reports even say Iran- have sold Iraqi oil delivered by pipeline as their own at a profit. The sanctions have accomplished nothing. Hussein has been able to build pretty much anything he pleases, import any technicians and technologies he pleases, and has grown fat while he uses the sanctions to win a public relations coup againt the UN and the US.
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