[Republican_Strategist]

Iraq's Tie to Al-Qaeda Terrorists, Airline Hijackings

Freeper Resource: What Team Saddam Doesn’t Want You To Know!

The Iraqi-Bin Laden Connection

The Iraqi-Oklahoma City Bombing Connection

Iraqi Complicity in the World Trade Center Bombing and Beyond

[gitmo]

We should fight Iraq under the auspices of the Bush Doctrine. They have funded, sheltered, trained and armed International Terrorists. They are, therefore, Terrorists.

This UN crud has injured our nation.

[First_Salute]

That is not a jet aircraft.

[My Favorite Headache]

I don't get why Rumsfeld,Bush, and Powell don't blast these pictures across CNN and FOX all day long.

[xzins]

ping

[Yasotay]

We have a guy here in Oregon who has remodeled a 727 into a home, is he training terrorists? .... thanks for posting the pictures.

[T. P. Pole]

Look at the copyright date on the second photo. That's almost three years old, and before the Sept 11th attacks...

[Savage Beast]

So does this mean that the Saddam Hussein regime has been supporting the Al Qaida terrorists???

"I did not know that."

Christopher Guest and Eugene Levy. Best in Show, 2000 (through the character of Gerald "Gerry" Fleck).

[wizzler]

I'd be leery of attempting to justify the war on the basis of links between Iraq and Al Qaeda. This sort of evidence may bolster the case for war, but it is not, at heart, the justification for this war.

The problem with relying on evidence like this is that it allows the argument to become one about the strength of the evidence. And so it becomes a knotty empirical debate: "This is enough evidence" / "No it's not."

Instead, we should stick with the reasons laid out clearly by the president nine days after Sept. 11, 2001, and clearly restated since that time: War was launched upon us, and we are fighting back with the goal of dismantling the foundation of Islamic terrorism. This fight involves a new policy doctrine that includes the use of preemptive attacks on states that support terrorism.

It's all very simple. There's no need to clutter up the argument -- the left will do enough of that on its own.

[LanaTurnerOverdrive]

Photos Prove Connection Between Iraq and Al-Qaeda Terrorists

Wrong, Rush. Photos prove that Iraq has a jet fusilage probably used to train for hijackings. I see nothing in these photos that proves a damn thing relating to al Quaida. Plus. I've been seeing these photos for almost a year. If they proved Iraq's links to al Quaida, why didn't Colin Powell use them in his presentation to the U.N? Why aren't GW and Rumsfeld splashing them across every screen in America? Because these photos don't prove jack. Nice try.

[apeman81]

Actually, it looks like the fuselage of an Il-86 sans landing gear resting directly upon the ground. The wings have been removed and placed on the ground as well, but out of position. While it could be used for terrorist training, it could just as well be used for airport rescue training.
It matters not. Let’s take out Iraq for refusing to meet the UN sanctions, a well established fact, and look for the terrorist ties later. To do other than that now gives legitimacy to those who try to delay action by foisting ties to terrorism as the only reason to act.
They’re wrong, let’s not be

[RaceBannon]

Great finds bump!!

[DoctorMichael]

Bump.

[DoctorMichael]

Bump.

[Pistolshot]

This may not be an aircraft, but it certainly looks like a mockup of one.
The 'wings', as it were, are in a relative position and mostlikely laying on the ground.
the shadow is at an angle so this gives a distorted view to whatever it could be.
Mockups, like I believe this to be, would have to be rebuilt frequently as using them for training involves some live fire, explosives work, and the ability to move things around to simulate the different interiors of different aircraft.
Just my $.02.

[aeronca]

Another Article on Worldnet Daily

http://worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=31546

[WarSlut]

It is not until al-Qurairy begins to talk of the terrorist training camp he used to run at Salman Pak, a 45-minute drive south from Baghdad, that he speaks with real feeling - unconcealed pride. "It's got a long-established history and we're proud to be associated with it," he says, "because it's trained the elite - the people who've carried out operations abroad, who are on the Interpol wanted lists. By the time a trainee leaves our school he can protect any V.I.P. or assassinate any V.I.P. In 1979, when Saddam Hussein executed half his Cabinet, they had the honor of executing them at the camp." Alone of all Iraq's myriad security installations, Salman Pak remains directly answerable to Saddam. "When he writes to the camp," says al-Qurairy happily, "he calls it 'the school of the liars.'"

On a satellite photo, he picks out Salman 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, he says, "how to gain control of the cockpit and passengers without using firearms." 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 al- Dulaimi and his fellow instructors, all members of Saddam's secular Ba'ath 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."
-- Vanity Fair, Inside Saddam's Terror Regime -- January 21, 2002

****************************************

NYT: What kind of training went on, and who was being trained?

Sabah Khodada: Training is majorly on terrorism. They would be trained on assassinations, kidnapping, hijacking of airplanes, hijacking of buses, public buses, hijacking of trains and all other kinds of operations related to terrorism.

NYT: The people being trained were Iraqis in one group, and non-Iraqis, or foreign nationals, in another?

Sabah Khodada: Non-Iraqis were trained separately from us. There were strict orders not to meet with them and not to talk to them. And even when they conduct their training, their training has to occur at times different from the times when we conduct the Iraqis our own training.

-- Sabah Khodada was a captain in the Iraqi army from 1982 to 1992. He worked at what he describes as a highly secret terrorist training camp at Salman Pak (see Khodada's hand-drawn map of the camp), an area south of Baghdad. In this translated interview, conducted in association with The New York Times on Oct. 14, 2001, Khodada describes what went on at Salman Pak, including details on training hijackers. He emigrated to the U.S. in May 2001.

NTY: And they trained people to hijack airplanes?

Sabah Khodada: Yes.

NYT: For what purpose?

Sabah Khodada: It has been said openly in the media and even to us, from the highest command, that the purpose of establishing Saddam's fighters is to attack American targets and American interests. This is known. There's no doubt about it.
-- New York Times interview with Iraqi Army Captain Sabah Khodada on October 14, 2001 (transcript courtesy of PBS' Frontline.

****************************************

United States Marines searching a shattered former Headquarters of the Iraqi Republican Guard have found what one military offficial calls 'critical' documents on enemy weapons and communications.

At another site they found the shell of a jet believe to be used to practice hijackings.

The finds were in Salman Pak, just southeast of Baghdad.

United States Military officials say that there is a suspected weapons of mass destruction site in the town that dates back to 1991.

There is also an airstrip in the town that the Bush Administration says Iraq used more recently to offer terrorist training to Islamic militants.
-- Associated Press, April 6, 2003

[AliVeritas]

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