Another mistaken 'conceptzia'
by Laurie Mylroie
Al-Qaida has struck again, or so it seems. "A virtual enemy," as a Clinton administration official describes it, al-Qaida is everywhere and anywhere. It is no less a threat than it was a year ago, according to CIA director George Tenet although the Taliban are defeated; al-Qaida's leadership is dead or on the run; and more than 3,000 others have been detained. "You see it in Bali. You see it in Kuwait," Tenet affirmed. And now, presumably, we saw it in Mombasa. |
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"Study of Revenge," the sequel to the New York Times best-seller "Saddam Hussein and the Crisis in the Gulf," co-authored by Laurie Mylroie and Judith Miller, exposes the threat Saddam Hussein still poses to Americans.
The Gulf War never ended for Saddam Hussein. He had already recovered sufficiently by 1993 to undertake a campaign of terror, of which only the first two acts were planned in advance: the January shootings outside CIA headquarters in Virginia and the February bombing of one tower of the World Trade Center in New York, in an attempt to topple it against its twin.
"Study of Revenge" is, first of all, the story of the Trade Center bombing. Mylroie contends that the mastermind behind the bombing was an Iraqi intelligence agent, Ramzi Yousef, who escaped and left behind the Muslim fundamentalists who participated in the plot and were meant to be caught. She argues that the Clinton administration's mishandling of the event led to the emergence of a fraudulent and dangerous theory about Middle East terrorism--that it is no longer primarily state-sponsored but is carried out by individuals or "loose networks." The misunderstanding is particularly dangerous in light of the prospects for biological terrorism.
In addition to her account of events around the bombing, Mylroie describes how Saddam Hussein has steadily regained strength and eroded the system of postwar constraints that were supposed to hold him in check. She suggests that because of the proscribed unconventional-weapons capabilities Saddam retained in violation of the Gulf War cease-fire--and without the check of U.N. weapons inspectors--he is far more dangerous than is generally recognized.
Mylroie bases her case on a meticulous analysis of the government's evidence in the terrorism trials that followed the Trade Center bombing. Her book is written as a detective story, and the reader is invited to conduct the investigation into state sponsorship of the terrorism that the U.S. government failed to conduct. |
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Paul Wolfowitz, Deputy Secretary of Defense
The destruction of the twin towers of the World Trade Center and the attack on the Pentagon -- all within one hour on September 11, 2001 -- demonstrated America's shocking vulnerability to terrorism.
Yet terror had already emerged on America's shores eight years earlier, when the mysterious terrorist mastermind, Ramzi Yousef (arrested after a botched attempt to down a dozen U.S. airlines) bombed the World Trade Center in an attempt to fell the buildings. His attacks were viewed as the harbinger of a new terrorism, carried out by an elusive enemy driven by religious fanaticism to unprecedented hatred of the United States.
But is that perception accurate? A real-life detective story, The War Against America engages the reader in a gripping examination of the evidence regarding Yousef and his terrorism. It reveals the split between New York and Washington that emerged during the investigation and tells a terrifying tale of America left exposed and vulnerable following the mishandling of what was once the most ambitious terrorist attack ever attempted on U.S. soil.
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THE award for the most indefinite position has to go to Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton. When her press secretary, Philippe Reines, was asked her position, he sent a transcript of Mrs. Clinton's remarks last Friday on CNN and a news account of her comments on Monday during a visit to Watervliet, N.Y. (It seems that the senator, still a bit first ladylike, is reluctant to pick up the phone.) March 6, 2003, NYT, Hawks, Doves and a Flock on the Line, JOYCE PURNICK |
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE [YOU KNOW] 'UPDATED'
GREENFIELD: Tonight, a conversation with Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton on the nation and the world after September 11, on GREENFIELD AT LARGE. THE COMPLETE ANNOTATED INTERVIEW (NB: a very long, you know, download because of the, you know, clinton criminal, you know, redundancy.)
PUFFY-faced polemicist Christopher "Hellbound" Hitchens claims Bill Clinton is a "lousy crook." ... He rips into jokes about President Bush's intellect as "another liberal snig that annoys me a lot these days," adding, "The fact has to be faced: the intellectual candlepower of this administration is a great deal brighter than the Clinton administration . . . [and] the level of professionalism is very much higher." HALF A HOUSE, HALF A BRAIN: Why the clintons hit on Simon & Schuster When will the 4th Estate finally VET this dangerous, repugnant fraud? |
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If the Powell evidence made anything plain, it's this: The idea of "monitoring" a dictator is ludicrous. Saddam is quite happy to participate for another decade or two in an eternal ongoing U.N. field study of dictatorship MARK STEYN, JUST LIKE MONICA. |
The Powell evidence was, in fact, superfluous. For anyone capable of critical thinking, the absurdity of the task was self-evident. What the Powell evidence did make plain, however, was this:
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It is obvious to anyone who bothers to remove his political blinders. It is so patently obvious that even those whose political blinders are a permanently fixed fashion statement -- that is to say, even Hollywood -- can see it. (Just ask Whoopie Goldberg...or Rosie O'Donnell...) Bush's poll numbers are a reflection of this self-evident truth. What is manifestly obvious and confirmed on a daily basis is the plain fact that Democrats are, by definition, constitutionally unfit to navigate the ship of state through these troubled, terrorist waters. Democrats were unfit before 9/11, but few could see it then. It was 9/11 and its aftermath that made this truth crystal clear even to the most simpleminded among us. The unwashed masses, the uninformed, the disinformed can see it now. All America can see it now. Self-preservation is kicking in, trumping petty politics at every turn. And this is why Democrat demagoguery and stupidity and sedition are achieving new lows... We are witnessing the last gasp of a political relic. The Democrat party is not merely obsolete. As 9/11 and clinton-clinton-Daschle action and inaction have demonstrated, the Democrat party is very dangerous. We must now make sure that this fact, too, is obvious to all... |
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