Bush told he is playing into Bin Laden's hands

[farmgirl]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1242639,00.html


Interesting article... the bold print is mine...

Thoughts?


Al-Qaida may 'reward' American president with strike aimed at keeping him in office, senior intelligence man says

Julian Borger in Washington
Saturday June 19, 2004
The Guardian

A senior US intelligence official is about to publish a bitter condemnation of America's counter-terrorism policy, arguing that the west is losing the war against al-Qaida and that an "avaricious, premeditated, unprovoked" war in Iraq has played into Osama bin Laden's hands.
Imperial Hubris: Why the West is Losing the War on Terror, due out next month, dismisses two of the most frequent boasts of the Bush administration: that Bin Laden and al-Qaida are "on the run" and that the Iraq invasion has made America safer.

In an interview with the Guardian the official, who writes as "Anonymous", described al-Qaida as a much more proficient and focused organisation than it was in 2001, and predicted that it would "inevitably" acquire weapons of mass destruction and try to use them.

He said Bin Laden was probably "comfortable" commanding his organisation from the mountainous tribal lands along the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan.

The Pakistani army claimed a big success in the "war against terror" yesterday with the killing of a tribal leader, Nek Mohammed, who was one of al-Qaida's protectors in Waziristan.

But Anonymous, who has been centrally involved in the hunt for Bin Laden, said: "Nek Mohammed is one guy in one small area. We sometimes forget how big the tribal areas are." He believes President Pervez Musharraf cannot advance much further into the tribal areas without endangering his rule by provoking a Pashtun revolt. "He walks a very fine line," he said yesterday.

Imperial Hubris is the latest in a relentless stream of books attacking the administration in election year. Most of the earlier ones, however, were written by embittered former officials. This one is unprecedented in being the work of a serving official with nearly 20 years experience in counter-terrorism who is still part of the intelligence establishment.

The fact that he has been allowed to publish, albeit anonymously and without naming which agency he works for, may reflect the increasing frustration of senior intelligence officials at the course the administration has taken.

Peter Bergen, the author of two books on Bin Laden and al-Qaida, said: "His views represent an amped-up version of what is emerging as a consensus among intelligence counter-terrorist professionals."

Anonymous does not try to veil his contempt for the Bush White House and its policies. His book describes the Iraq invasion as "an avaricious, premeditated, unprovoked war against a foe who posed no immediate threat but whose defeat did offer economic advantage.

"Our choice of timing, moreover, shows an abject, even wilful failure to recognise the ideological power, lethality and growth potential of the threat personified by Bin Laden, as well as the impetus that threat has been given by the US-led invasion and occupation of Muslim Iraq."

In his view, the US missed its biggest chance to capture the al-Qaida leader at Tora Bora in the Afghan mountains in December 2001. Instead of sending large numbers of his own troops, General Tommy Franks relied on surrogates who proved to be unreliable.

Yesterday President Bush repeated his assertion that Bin Laden was cornered and that there was "no hole or cave deep enough to hide from American justice".

Anonymous said: "I think we overestimate significantly the stress [Bin Laden's] under. Our media and sometimes our policymakers suggest he's hiding from rock to rock and hill to hill and cave to cave. My own hunch is that he's fairly comfortable where he is."

The death and arrest of experienced operatives might have set back Bin Laden's plans to some degree but when it came to his long-term capacity to threaten the US, he said, "I don't think we've laid a glove on him".

"What I think we're seeing in al-Qaida is a change of generation," he said."The people who are leading al-Qaida now seem a lot more professional group.

"They are more bureaucratic, more management competent, certainly more literate. Certainly, this generation is more computer literate, more comfortable with the tools of modernity. I also think they're much less ****e to being the Errol Flynns of al-Qaida. They're just much more careful across the board in the way they operate."

As for weapons of mass destruction, he thinks that if al-Qaida does not have them already, it will inevitably acquire them.

The most likely source of a nuclear device would be the former Soviet Union, he believes. Dirty bombs, chemical and biological weapons, could be home-made by al-Qaida's own experts, many of them trained in the US and Britain.

Anonymous, who published an analysis of al-Qaida last year called Through Our Enemies' Eyes, thinks it quite possible that another devastating strike against the US could come during the election campaign, not with the intention of changing the administration, as was the case in the Madrid bombing, but of keeping the same one in place.

"I'm very sure they can't have a better administration for them than the one they have now," he said.

"One way to keep the Republicans in power is to mount an attack that would rally the country around the president."

The White House has yet to comment publicly on Imperial Hubris, which is due to be published on July 4, but intelligence experts say it may try to portray him as a professionally embittered maverick.

The tone of Imperial Hubris is certainly angry and urgent, and the stridency of his warnings about al-Qaida led him to be moved from a highly sensitive job in the late 90s.

But Vincent Cannistraro, a former chief of operations at the CIA counter-terrorism centre, said he had been vindicated by events. "He is very well respected, and looked on as a serious student of the subject."

Anonymous believes Mr Bush is taking the US in exactly the direction Bin Laden wants, towards all-out confrontation with Islam under the banner of spreading democracy.

He said: "It's going to take 10,000-15,000 dead Americans before we say to ourselves: 'What is going on'?"

[Kitsune]

Thoughts? I think, the man hit the nail on the head.

[UkrainianAmerican]

Thoughts? I think, the man hit the nail on the head.
Your head.

[Kitsune]

You wish.

[Tane Angle]

Anonymous is right, and has my respect. As do whoever let him. They're putting their necks out there for what they believe to be necessary and right. That's courage, my friends.

[American Patriot]

Someone actually believes this trifle?

[chauncy republicans]

Someone actually believes this trifle?
Well, it's more believable than Iraq/Al-Qaida collaboration.

[MEGR]

Someone actually believes this trifle?
Well, it's more believable than Iraq/Al-Qaida collaboration.

Wait, so Al Queda is in Asia, Chechnya, US, Spain, Iran, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Africa, but not Iraq? So Zarqawi is not Al Queada? Because last time i checked he was part of Al queda, and he makes alot of bombs that killed alot of Coalition troops, civilians, and btw, he cut Nick Berg's head off.

[chauncy republicans]

Someone actually believes this trifle?
Well, it's more believable than Iraq/Al-Qaida collaboration.

Wait, so Al Queda is in Asia, Chechnya, US, Spain, Iran, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Africa, but not Iraq? So Zarqawi is not Al Queada? Because last time i checked he was part of Al queda, and he makes alot of bombs that killed alot of Coalition troops, civilians, and btw, he cut Nick Berg's head off.
I'm talking pre-war period, before they had a comon enemy. BTW the 9-11 commision hearings have found no evidence to prove an Iraq/Al-qaida link. I think they have access to more information pertaining to this matter than you, or are you just that much more smart and dont need any evidence because you already know the truth?

[wiking]

Someone actually believes this trifle?
Well, it's more believable than Iraq/Al-Qaida collaboration.

Wait, so Al Queda is in Asia, Chechnya, US, Spain, Iran, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Africa, but not Iraq? So Zarqawi is not Al Queada? Because last time i checked he was part of Al queda, and he makes alot of bombs that killed alot of Coalition troops, civilians, and btw, he cut Nick Berg's head off.

No one said that the Al-Qaida wasn't IN Iraq, they're just saying that the Government didn't work with them. What, you gonna invade every country with a Al-qaida cell in it now? Because if thats what you're saying then i'd like a littel heads up.

[MEGR]

Someone actually believes this trifle?
Well, it's more believable than Iraq/Al-Qaida collaboration.

Wait, so Al Queda is in Asia, Chechnya, US, Spain, Iran, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Africa, but not Iraq? So Zarqawi is not Al Queada? Because last time i checked he was part of Al queda, and he makes alot of bombs that killed alot of Coalition troops, civilians, and btw, he cut Nick Berg's head off.
I'm talking pre-war period, before they had a comon enemy. BTW the 9-11 commision hearings have found no evidence to prove an Iraq/Al-qaida link. I think they have access to more information pertaining to this matter than you, or are you just that much more smart and dont need any evidence because you already know the truth?

You're right, Al Queda and Iraq did not work together on 9/11, but reading the rest of the report, they do have connections in other endevors unknown.

[chauncy republicans]

Someone actually believes this trifle?
Well, it's more believable than Iraq/Al-Qaida collaboration.

Wait, so Al Queda is in Asia, Chechnya, US, Spain, Iran, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Africa, but not Iraq? So Zarqawi is not Al Queada? Because last time i checked he was part of Al queda, and he makes alot of bombs that killed alot of Coalition troops, civilians, and btw, he cut Nick Berg's head off.
I'm talking pre-war period, before they had a comon enemy. BTW the 9-11 commision hearings have found no evidence to prove an Iraq/Al-qaida link. I think they have access to more information pertaining to this matter than you, or are you just that much more smart and dont need any evidence because you already know the truth?

You're right, Al Queda and Iraq did not work together on 9/11, but reading the rest of the report, they do have connections in other endevors unknown.
WHAT REPORT??

[MEGR]

The 9/11 report, given by the 9/11 commission.

[chauncy republicans]

LINK???

[wiking]

the 9\11 report said, as i have understod it without reading it, that representatives from Al-Qaida requested a co-operation with the Iraqi government ONCE and that request was never answered.
Come on, if you were the dictator of a country the USA was pissed at just because you existed, would you fund Al-Qaida and risk more ****.
of course that theory didn't work out for them either, but still.

And seriously, do you think any country would supply Al-Qaida with WMD.
Every country knows that if Al-Qaida uses such weapons, the country who supplied them will be nuked in to a sodding parking lot.

[chauncy republicans]

the 9\11 report said, as i have understod it without reading it, that representatives from Al-Qaida requested a co-operation with the Iraqi government ONCE and that request was never answered.
Come on, if you were the dictator of a country the USA was pissed at just because you existed, would you fund Al-Qaida and risk more ****.
of course that theory didn't work out for them either, but still.

And seriously, do you think any country would supply Al-Qaida with WMD.
Every country knows that if Al-Qaida uses such weapons, the country who supplied them will be nuked in to a sodding parking lot.
Adding to this post... Saddam ran a secular govornment, why the hell would he collaborate with a man who is a radical Islamic extremist bent on creating one Islamic govornment for the whole region?

[SFontaine]

To quote Dennis Hastert


"We don't have evidence that Saddam Hussein helped plan the attack on September 11th, but we do have plenty of evidence that Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin Laden shared a similar view of the United States and were exploring ways to develop closer ties. Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin Laden are cut from the same cloth. One leads a terrorist organization, while the other led a terrorist government."


And
http://www.nationalreview.com/mccarthy/mccarthy200406170840.asp

(I realize it's a Conservative site but it has some good points, and gives a different perspective on the whole 9/11 commision thing)

[Pooga]

NewsFlash! Bin Laden hired by CIA so Bush, or Bu$h as some people cleverly call him, has a reason to go to the Middle East to get more oil! Because as we all know, oil is like, really really cool!

Er…can't find the source…had it here a minute ago…

[Pille1234]

To quote Dennis Hastert

"We don't have evidence that Saddam Hussein helped plan the attack on September 11th, but we do have plenty of evidence that Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin Laden shared a similar view of the United States and were exploring ways to develop closer ties. Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin Laden are cut from the same cloth. One leads a terrorist organization, while the other led a terrorist government."

You may add Fidel Castro and Ayatollah Ali Chamenei and many others to that list. Oh man, the attempts to justify the iraq war that way are simple pathetic.

[Tane Angle]

Someone actually believes this trifle?

I don't see any trifle there. I see a smart person with the experience to comment who is writing the truth. On what points is Anon. wrong?

On a different note, as much as I would like it if we could ensure a proper government for everyone in the world, we can't. Either fight terrorism, or fight oppressive governments, but we can't do both. It'd be nice if we could, but we can't. "Terrorist government?"

Have a good one, and just some thoughts...

[Pooga]

Oh man, the attempts to justify the iraq war that way are simple pathetic.

http://www.blackdog.net/postcards/images/occasion/thanks-hrt-lg.gif

[SFontaine]

To quote Dennis Hastert

"We don't have evidence that Saddam Hussein helped plan the attack on September 11th, but we do have plenty of evidence that Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin Laden shared a similar view of the United States and were exploring ways to develop closer ties. Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin Laden are cut from the same cloth. One leads a terrorist organization, while the other led a terrorist government."

You may add Fidel Castro and Ayatollah Ali Chamenei and many others to that list. Oh man, the attempts to justify the iraq war that way are simple pathetic.

Oh so you want to invade Cuba and Iran too? But that wouldn't blow over well with you because Iran would be for Oil and Cuba would be for bananas or something.

[Pooga]

Cuban cigars.

[Aussie E]

just some lite reading from http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/004/152lndzv.asp

The Connection
From the June 7, 2004 issue: Not so long ago, the ties between Iraq and al Qaeda were conventional wisdom. The conventional wisdom was right.
by Stephen F. Hayes
06/07/2004, Volume 009, Issue 37

Buy The Connection: How al Qaeda's Collaboration with Saddam Hussein has Endangered America
by Stephen F. Hayes.

"THE PRESIDENT CONVINCED THE COUNTRY with a mixture of documents that turned out to be forged and blatantly false assertions that Saddam was in league with al Qaeda," claimed former Vice President Al Gore last Wednesday.

"There's absolutely no evidence that Iraq was supporting al Qaeda, ever," declared Richard Clarke, former counterterrorism official under George W. Bush and Bill Clinton, in an interview on March 21, 2004.

The editor of the Los Angeles Times labeled as "myth" the claim that links between Iraq and al Qaeda had been proved. A recent dispatch from ******* simply asserted, "There is no link between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda." 60 Minutes anchor Lesley Stahl was equally certain: "There was no connection."

And on it goes. This conventional wisdom--that our two most determined enemies were not in league, now or ever--is comforting. It is also wrong.

In late February 2004, Christopher Carney made an astonishing discovery. Carney, a political science professor from Pennsylvania on leave to work at the Pentagon, was poring over a list of officers in Saddam Hussein's much-feared security force, the Fedayeen Saddam. One name stood out: Lieutenant Colonel Ahmed Hikmat Shakir. The name was not spelled exactly as Carney had seen it before, but such discrepancies are common. Having studied the relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda for 18 months, he immediately recognized the potential significance of his find. According to a report
last week in the Wall Street Journal, Shakir appears on three different lists of Fedayeen officers.

An Iraqi of that name, Carney knew, had been present at an al Qaeda summit in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, on January 5-8, 2000. U.S. intelligence officials believe this was a chief planning meeting for the September 11 attacks. Shakir had been nominally employed as a "greeter" by Malaysian Airlines, a job he told associates he had gotten through a contact at the Iraqi embassy. More curious, Shakir's Iraqi embassy contact controlled his schedule, telling him when to show up for work and when to take a day off.

A greeter typically meets VIPs upon arrival and accompanies them through the sometimes onerous procedures of foreign travel. Shakir was instructed to work on January 5, 2000, and on that day, he escorted one Khalid al Mihdhar from his plane to a waiting car. Rather than bid his guest farewell at that point, as a greeter typically would have, Shakir climbed into the car with al Mihdhar and accompanied him to the Kuala Lumpur condominium of Yazid Sufaat, the American-born al Qaeda terrorist who hosted the planning meeting.

The meeting lasted for three days. Khalid al Mihdhar departed Kuala Lumpur for Bangkok and eventually Los Angeles. Twenty months later, he was aboard American Airlines Flight 77 when it plunged into the Pentagon at 9:38 A.M. on September 11. So were Nawaf al Hazmi and his younger brother, Salem, both of whom were also present at the Kuala Lumpur meeting.
more lite reading from http://www.jaynadavis.com/story090502-wsj1.html


"When the full stories of these two incidents (1993 WTC Center bombing and 1995 Oklahoma City bombing) are finally told, those who permitted the investigations to stop short will owe big explanations to these two brave women (Middle East expert Laurie Mylroie and journalist Jayna Davis). And the nation will owe them a debt of gratitude."
- Former CIA Director James Woolsey,
Wall Street Journal, September 5, 2002
Original story link - "The Iraq Connection"

COMMENTARY

FROM THE ARCHIVES: September 5, 2002

The Iraq Connection

By MICAH MORRISON

OKLAHOMA CITY -- With the Sept. 11 anniversary upon us and President Bush talking about a "regime change" in Iraq, it's an apt time to look at two investigators who connect Baghdad to two notorious incidents of domestic terrorism. Jayna Davis, a former television reporter in Oklahoma City, believes an Iraqi cell was involved in the 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building here. Middle East expert Laurie Mylroie links Iraq to the first bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993, and has published a book on the subject.

Both cases are closed, of course -- in the public mind if not quite officially. Timothy McVeigh was convicted of murder in the Oklahoma City bombing and executed in June 2001; Terry Nichols was sentenced to life in prison for conspiracy and manslaughter, and faces a further trial on murder charges. In the World Trade Center bombing, prosecutors convicted six men of Middle Eastern origin on the theory that they operated in a "loose network." One suspect remains at large, but the apparent ringleader, known as Ramzi Yousef, was captured in Pakistan and is now in federal prison in the U.S.

The prosecutors in both episodes believe they got their men, and of course conspiracy theories have shadowed many prominent cases. Still, the long investigative work by Ms. Davis and Ms. Mylroie, coming to parallel conclusions though working largely independently of each other, has gained some prominent supporters. Former CIA Director James Woolsey, for example, recently told the Journal that "when the full stories of these two incidents are finally told, those who permitted the investigations to stop short will owe big explanations to these two brave women. And the nation will owe them a debt of gratitude."

The Vanishing John Doe No. 2

Ms. Davis, for example, has a copy of a bulletin put out by the Oklahoma Highway Patrol immediately after the Murrah bombing. It specifies a blue car occupied by "Middle Eastern male subject or subjects." According to police radio traffic at the time, also obtained by Ms. Davis, a search was on as well for a brown Chevrolet pickup "occupied by Middle Eastern subjects." When an officer radioed in asking if "this is good information or do we really not know," a dispatcher responded "authorization FBI." Law-enforcement sources tell Ms. Davis that the FBI bulletin was quickly and mysteriously withdrawn.

The next day, the federal government issued arrest warrants and sketches of two men seen together, John Doe No. 1 and No. 2. John Doe 1 turned out to be McVeigh, who was quickly picked up on an unrelated charge. Following the arrest of McVeigh and Nichols, the Justice Department changed course, saying the witnesses were confused and there was no John Doe 2 with McVeigh.

But Ms. Davis, who was covering the case at the time for KFOR-TV in Oklahoma City, says in fact there was a John Doe No. 2, and that she has identified him. The original warrant for John Doe No. 2 described a man about 5 feet 10 inches, average weight, with brown hair and a tattoo on his left arm. She says the man matching this description is an Iraqi political refugee named Hussain al-Hussaini, an itinerant restaurant worker who entered the country in 1994 from a Saudi Arabian refugee camp and soon found his way to Oklahoma City. She says she has more than 20 witnesses who can place him near the Murrah Building on the day of the bombing or finger him in parts of the conspiracy.

Seven weeks after the bombing, Ms. Davis's KFOR television station began broadcasting a series of reports on a possible Middle East connection. It did not name Mr. al-Hussaini, but did include photographs of him that digitally obscured his face. Mr. al-Hussaini sued for libel and defamation, denying any association with the bombing. In November 1999, U.S. District Court Judge Tim Leonard dismissed the lawsuit.

Citing defense contentions Mr. al-Hussaini's counsel failed to dispute, the judge ruled that Ms. Davis had proved that Mr. al-Hussaini "bears a strong resemblance to the composite sketch of John Doe #2," including a tattoo on his left arm, that he was born and raised in Iraq, that he had served in the Iraqi army, and that his Oklahoma City employer had once been suspected by the federal government of having "connections with the Palestine Liberation Organization."

Mr. al-Hussaini appealed Judge Leonard's decision to the 10th Circuit Court, where a ruling is pending. He is represented by Gary Richardson, a well-known Oklahoma lawyer who currently is an independent candidate for governor. In an interview, Mr. Richardson denounced the treatment of Mr. al-Hussaini as anathema to American values, saying he had been singled out because he was an Arab. "There is no evidence that Hussain al-Hussaini is John Doe No. 2," Mr. Richardson said. "He was grossly mistreated by the media in Oklahoma."

In 1996, Mr. al-Hussaini returned to Boston, where he had first entered the U.S. He found work as a cook at Logan Airport. According to his medical records, he was haunted by the Oklahoma City episode and the publicity surrounding his libel suit. He began drinking heavily and in 1997 was admitted to a psychiatric clinic for a depressive disorder and suicidal thoughts. Mr. al-Hussaini's lawyer says his client has since moved to another part of the country and is "trying to put his life back together."

According to notes taken by a nurse at the psychiatric clinic, Mr. al-Hussaini quit his job at Logan Airport in November 1997, nearly four years before planes from there were hijacked on Sept. 11, 2001. Her notes say he stated, "If anything happens there, I'll be a suspect."

Evidence supporting Ms. Davis's suspicions surfaced during discovery for the McVeigh trial. An FBI report, for example, records a call a few hours after the bombing from Vincent Cannistraro, a retired CIA official who had once been chief of operations for the agency's counter-terrorism center. He told Kevin Foust, a FBI counter-terror investigator, that he'd been called by a top counter-terror adviser to the Saudi royal family. Mr. Foust reported that the Saudi told Mr. Cannistraro about "information that there was a 'squad' of people currently in the United States, very possibly Iraqis, who have been tasked with carrying out terrorist attacks against the United States. The Saudi claimed that he had seen a list of 'targets,' and that the first on the list was the federal building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma."

Stephen Jones, McVeigh's lead lawyer, discusses the FBI report in his book, "Others Unknown: Timothy McVeigh and the Oklahoma City Bombing Conspiracy." Mr. Cannistraro later told Mr. Jones that he didn't know if the caller "was credible or not." But Mr. Foust's memo says Mr. Cannistraro described the Saudi official as "responsible for developing intelligence to help prevent the royal family from becoming victims of terrorist attacks," and someone he'd known "for the past 10 or 15 years."

Ms. Davis's evidence was examined by Patrick Lang, a Middle East expert and former director of the Defense Intelligence Agency's human intelligence collection section. In a memo to Ms. Davis, Mr. Lang concluded that Mr. al-Hussaini likely is a member of Unit 999 of the Iraqi Military Intelligence Service, or Estikhabarat. He wrote that this unit is headquartered at Salman Pak southeast of Baghdad, and "deals with clandestine operations at home and abroad."

Larry Johnson, a former deputy director of the State Department's Office of Counter Terrorism, also has examined Ms. Davis's voluminous research. "Looking at the Jayna Davis material," Mr. Johnson says, "what's clear is that more than Tim McVeigh and Terry Nichols were involved. Without a doubt, there's a Middle Eastern tie to the Oklahoma City bombing."

Mr. al-Hussaini and other former Iraqi soldiers colluded with McVeigh and Nichols in the attack, Ms. Davis charges. "There is a Middle Eastern terrorist cell operating in Oklahoma City. They were operating prior to the Oklahoma City bombing and they are still operating today."

The popular stereotype of McVeigh is of a twisted "patriot" out to avenge government actions at Waco and Ruby Ridge. But in March 1998 he penned a prison-cell "Essay on Hypocrisy" obsessed with Iraq. "We've all seen pictures that show a Kurdish woman and child frozen in death from the use of chemical weapons. But have you ever seen these pictures juxtaposed next to pictures from Hiroshima or Nagasaki?" With calls for war crimes trials of Saddam Hussein, "why do we not hear the same cry for blood directed at those responsible for even greater amounts of 'mass destruction?'"

In dismissing the al-Hussaini libel suit, Judge Leonard pointedly noted the indictment of McVeigh and Nichols included a charge of conspiracy "with others unknown." In sentencing Nichols, U.S. District Judge Richard Matsch remarked, "It would be disappointing to me if the law enforcement agencies of the United States government have quit looking for answers."

World Trade Center

The Sept. 11 airline crashes were not the first attempt to topple the World Trade Center towers. In February 1993, a bomb blast in a public parking garage below the North Tower of the World Trade Center killed six people and left a crater six stories deep. It could have been much worse. In her book, "The War Against America: Saddam Hussein and the World Trade Center Attacks," Laurie Mylroie says that the bomb was designed to topple the North Tower into the South Tower and envelop the scene in a cloud of cyanide gas. Hearing the case, Judge Kevin Duffy agreed, saying that if the plan had worked, "we would have been dealing with tens of thousands of deaths." After the bombing, the FBI rounded up four Muslims who moved in extremist circles in the New York area. Three others escaped overseas: a Palestinian, an Iraqi named Abdul Yasin, and Ramzi Yousef.

Ms. Mylroie's book argues that Iraq was complicit in this attack. At the very least, she notes, Saddam Hussein is harboring a wanted terrorist: Abdul Yasin. He came to the U.S. six months before the Trade Center attack and is charged with helping mix chemicals for the bomb. Picked up in an early sweep after the bombing, he talked his way out of an FBI interrogation and turned up back in Baghdad.

Beyond this, Ms. Mylroie contends that the bombing was "an Iraqi intelligence operation with the Moslem extremists as dupes." She says that the original lead FBI official on the case, Jim Fox, concluded that "Iraq was behind the World Trade Center bombing." In late 1993, shortly before his retirement, Mr. Fox was suspended by FBI Director Louis Freeh for speaking to the media about the case; he died in 1997. Ms. Mylroie says that Mr. Fox indicated to her that he did not continue to pursue the Iraq connection because Justice Department officials "did not want state sponsorship addressed."

According to phone records analyzed by Ms. Mylroie, Abdul Yasin appeared in the orbit of one of U.S. conspirators, Muhammed Salameh, some weeks after Mr. Salameh made a series of phone calls to relatives in Iraq, including to his uncle, Kadri Abu Bakr. Mr. Bakr is a senior figure in the PLO's "Western Sector" terrorist unit; at the very least, his phone calls would be monitored by Iraqi intelligence.

Ramzi Yousef also showed up after the calls to Mr. Bakr, according to Ms. Mylroie's analysis. His arrival "transformed the conspiracy from a pipe bombing plot to an audacious attack on the World Trade Center." Yousef was "the individual most responsible for building the World Trade Center bomb" -- 1,200 pounds of urea nitrate with a nitroglycerine trigger, booster chemicals, sulfuric acid and sodium cyanide.

After the bombing, Yousef vanished; he had entered with an Iraqi passport, and exited with a Pakistani passport. Yousef's Pakistani passport was in the name of Abdul Basit. He obtained it from the Pakistani consulate in New York shortly before the bombing, saying he had lost his passport and presenting photocopied pages from Abdul Basit's 1984 and 1988 passports.

Ms. Mylroie says her evidence suggests that Abdul Basit and his family were among two dozen Pakistani nationals working in Kuwait who vanished at the time of the Iraqi invasion. Law enforcement authorities believe she overplays this possibility, that Yousef is indeed Basit, and that the original Iraqi passport is the only firm link to Iraq.

After fleeing in the wake of the 1993 bombing, Yousef/Basit made his way to the Philippines, where he planted a bomb that killed the passenger taking his seat after he disembarked from a plane on the island of Cebu. Police investigating a fire in a Manila apartment he occupied found a laptop computer with plans to bomb 12 U.S. jets simultaneously. Yousef escaped but was later apprehended in Pakistan and turned over to U.S. authorities. He was convicted in both the Trade Center attack and the plane-bombing plot.

One of Yousef's confederates, Abdul Hakin Murad, was arrested at the Manila apartment and later convicted in the U.S. in the plane plot. While in custody in the Philippines, he told investigators that he and Yousef had discussed hijacking a jet and crashing it into CIA headquarters. According to a January 1995 Manila police report, Murad said "he will board any American commercial aircraft pretending to be an ordinary passenger. Then he will hijack said aircraft, control its cockpit and dive it at the CIA headquarters. There will be no bomb or any explosive that he will use in its execution. It is simply a suicidal mission that he is very much willing to execute."

The Philippine Connection

Astonishingly, the Murrah bombing and the first WTC attack share a connection. Yousef and Terry Nichols were in the Philippines simultaneously. Nichols's trips there are undisputed; his wife's relatives lived in Cebu City. Cebu is also the territory of the Islamic terrorist group Abu Sayyaf. McVeigh lawyers sought to substantiate an "others unknown" defense theory, and made extensive filings concerning Nichols's activities there.

These filings show that he was often in Cebu without his wife, and that he was in frequent contact with Ernesto Malaluan, a relative of his wife who had once lived in Saudi Arabia and owned a boarding house in Cebu City. The filing asserted that his boarding house "shelters students from a university well known for its Islamic militancy."

A defense examination of phone records found that Nichols had repeatedly called the Cebu boarding house in the weeks preceding the bombing. Some of the calls were billed to a prepaid phone card to which McVeigh also had access. The calls were often made from pay phones at truck stops and the like, and sometimes followed mysterious patterns. In one instance, for example, the same number was dialed nine times in nine minutes before someone answered and spoke for 14 minutes.

The McVeigh defense also produced two witnesses, Nichols's father-in-law and a resort worker, who said that while in the Philippines, Nichols had asked them if they knew anyone who knew "how to make bombs."

The defense team also obtained a statement from Philippines law-enforcement officials about a meeting of Nichols and Yousef. The statement was given by a putative Abu Sayyaf leader, Edward Angeles. Angeles is a murky figure. Born Ibrahim Yakub and said to be one of the founders of Abu Sayyaf, he surrendered to the Philippine Army in 1995, claiming he had been all the time a deep penetration agent for the government. Angeles was assassinated in 1999 by unknown gunmen.

The McVeigh defense filings portray the Nichols link to the Cebu City boarding house, Ramzi Yousef and Abu Sayyaf as grounds for believing that bomb-making expertise may have been passed to Nichols through "Iraqi intelligence based in the Philippines." McVeigh attorney Stephen Jones told Insight magazine recently that six months before the Oklahoma City bombing, "Tim couldn't blow up a rock. Then Terry goes to the Philippines," and their bomb-making skills take a great leap forward. The court did not grant Mr. Jones's request to comb through U.S. intelligence files in search of an Iraq connection to the Oklahoma City bombing.

Sept. 11 Footnotes

The principal reason for suspecting an Iraqi role in the Sept. 11 attacks is of course the much-discussed report of a meeting in Prague on April 8, 2001, between apparent hijacking leader Mohamed Atta and Ahmed Khalil Ibrahim Samir al-Ani, an Iraqi diplomat expelled as a spy shortly thereafter. Press reports have repeatedly cast doubt on these reports, apparently because the FBI located Atta in Virginia and Florida shortly before and after the meeting and found no record of his leaving the U.S. But the latest report, in the Aug. 2 edition of the Los Angeles Times, quotes a high Bush administration official as saying evidence of the meeting "holds up." In the face of doubts and denials, Czech officials have repeatedly maintained that they're sure the meeting took place. Atta also passed through Prague on his way to the U.S. in June of 2000, returning a second time after being refused entry for lack of a visa.


There are also reports of various contacts between Iraqis and the al Qaeda terrorist network, notably a 1998 visit to Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan by Saddam Hussein's deputy head of military intelligence at the time, Faruq al-Hijazi. In congressional testimony in March, CIA Director George Tenet noted that Iraq has "had contacts with al Qaeda," adding that "the two sides mutual antipathy toward the United States and the Saudi royal family suggest that tactical cooperation between them is possible."

Espionage writer Edward Jay Epstein has pointed out that of the eight pilots and co-pilots of hijacked planes on Sept. 11, none got off a distress call. What we know of the incidents came from stewardesses and flyers with cell phones. Commercial satellite photos show the body of an airliner at Salman Pak, where the Iraqis are thought to maintain terrorist training camps. One Iraqi defector, Sabah Khalifa Alami, has stated that Iraqi intelligence trained groups at Salman Pak on how to hijack planes without weapons. Mr. Epstein details these connections at his Web site, www.edwardjayepstein.com.

None of this is "hard evidence," let alone "conclusive evidence," that Saddam Hussein was complicit in Sept. 11 or any of the other domestic terrorist attacks. But there is quite a bit of smoke curling up from various routes to Baghdad, and it's not clear that anyone except Jayna Davis and Laurie Mylroie has looked very hard for fire. We do know that Saddam Hussein plotted to assassinate former President George Bush during a visit to Kuwait in April 1993. Could he have been waging a terror offensive against the U.S. ever since the end of the Gulf War? This remains a speculative possibility, but a possibility that needs to be put on the table in a serious way.

Mr. Morrison is a senior editorial page writer at the Journal.

Updated September 5, 2002

REVIEW & OUTLOOK (Editorial)

Making the Iraq Case

09/05/2002
The Wall Street Journal
Page A14
(Copyright (c) 2002, Dow Jones & Company, Inc.)

The critics urging President Bush to "make the case" for regime change in Iraq began to get their wish yesterday, perhaps with more vigor than they bargained for. Mr. Bush emerged from a meeting with Congressional leaders to declare that " Saddam is a serious threat," and that "doing nothing about that serious threat is not an option for the United States."

The President has also begun to aggressively shape political and diplomatic events. He declared that he will ask Congress for a resolution of support, before the November elections, and he will make his case in person to the United Nations in New York next week.

He has invited British Prime Minister Tony Blair to Camp David on Saturday, a meeting that follows Mr. Blair's pointed support for the U.S. stance on Iraq yesterday. The Prime Minister echoed Mr. Bush's point that "doing nothing . . . is not an option for the United States" and that much European criticism is "just straightforward anti-Americanism." So much for the argument that the U.S. will have to "go it alone."

No doubt Mr. Bush's argument in coming days will include Saddam 's well known litany of offenses -- trying to assassinate a former U.S. President, stockpiling biological and chemical weapons and using the latter against the Kurds, violating multiple U.N. resolutions, and of course trying to accumulate nuclear weapons. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has said more details on those weapons will be forthcoming as the Iraq debate unfolds.

If the Administration is serious, and it looks to be, then we also hope its case includes some recognition of the story reported by Micah Morrison on this page today. It distills the facts collected by two dogged investigators about the role Iraq and Saddam may have played both in the first World Trade Center attack in 1993 and in the Oklahoma City bombing of 1995. We know both cases are far from proven in the courtroom sense. But the facts are suspicious enough that we thought readers deserved to see them laid out in one place.

The two cases also bear on the genuine threat that Saddam represents as long as he remains in power. Opponents of deposing the dictator say he'd be crazy to use any weapons against the U.S. because he'd be destroyed in retaliation. But his motive to avenge his Gulf War humiliation is clear enough.

And in the twilight world of modern terrorism, Saddam can always find others to deliver that revenge. All he needs is a single cell from al Qaeda or its successor to smuggle a dirty bomb. His own role could be masked with numerous cutouts, so that the terrorists themselves don't even know where the weapons originated. Keep in mind that it took years of investigation to show that the attempted murder of Pope John Paul II had a Communist provenance.

This lesson, or warning, ought to be obvious from the continuing puzzle of last year's anthrax attacks. The FBI persists in pursuing the yellow brick road theory of a lone madman laid out by Barbara Hatch Rosenberg of the Federation of American Scientists. But the target of that theory, Steven Hatfill, has vigorously denied any role and is threatening legal action in response to the accusations. We'd note that the FAS has since issued a statement on its Web site distancing itself from Ms. Rosenberg and that the journalist who broadcast her theories, Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times, seems to have dropped the subject.

Meanwhile, the FBI has been dilatory in trying to discover if the September 11 hijackers were also behind the anthrax letters. Only recently have G-men returned to the American Media office in Florida that was the site of the first attack, close to where the hijackers also lived for a time. We know that Mohamed Atta asked about renting crop dusters and that one of the hijackers was treated for lesions on his leg that his doctor says were consistent with anthrax infection. None of this is proof beyond a reasonable doubt, but it does deserve more serious investigation.

Larry Eagleburger, once the last defender of a unified Yugoslavia, now publicly puzzles over the fact that if we think the Iraqi "danger" is so obvious, "why can't we convince our NATO allies?" Well, apparently Mr. Blair is now convinced. But the answer for other Europeans is that, unlike during the Cold War when Europe was on the front-lines, now the U.S. is uniquely threatened. Only America can project power around the globe in a way that threatens regional hegemons like Saddam , and September 11 showed that terrorists now place a special value on striking the U.S. homeland in catastrophic fashion.

Given such a threat, it is virtually impossible to conceive that any plan to reinstate arms inspectors to Iraq will be enough. Nor does one leaked White House proposal -- for "coercive inspections," meaning inspectors backed by foreign troops -- sound adequate. On this point, we'd disagree with Mr. Bush's argument yesterday that the "issue is not inspectors, the issue is disarmament." The real issue is the nature of Saddam 's regime. We hope the leaking of this option doesn't mean that Mr. Bush will settle for something less than the "regime change" he and Vice President **** Cheney have so clearly called for.

As Mr. Bush said yesterday, "today the process starts." It shouldn't stop until Iraq's people and the world are liberated from Saddam 's terror threat.
And more lite reading from http://www.techcentralstation.com/092503F.html

The Iraq -- Al Qaeda Connections

By Richard Miniter Published 09/25/2003

Every day it seems another American soldier is killed in Iraq. These grim statistics have become a favorite of network news anchors and political chat show hosts. Nevermind that they mix deaths from accidents with actual battlefield casualties; or that the average is actually closer to one American death for every two days; or that enemy deaths far outnumber ours. What matters is the overall impression of mounting, pointless deaths.

That is why is important to remember why we fight in Iraq -- and who we fight. Indeed, many of those sniping at U.S. troops are al Qaeda terrorists operating inside Iraq. And many of bin Laden's men were in Iraq prior to the liberation. A wealth of evidence on the public record -- from government reports and congressional testimony to news accounts from major newspapers -- attests to longstanding ties between bin Laden and Saddam going back to 1994.

Those who try to whitewash Saddam's record don't dispute this evidence; they just ignore it. So let's review the evidence, all of it on the public record for months or years:

* Abdul Rahman Yasin was the only member of the al Qaeda cell that detonated the 1993 World Trade Center bomb to remain at large in the Clinton years. He fled to Iraq. U.S. forces recently discovered a cache of documents in Tikrit, Saddam's hometown, that show that Iraq gave Mr. Yasin both a house and monthly salary.

* Bin Laden met at least eight times with officers of Iraq's Special Security Organization, a secret police agency run by Saddam's son Qusay, and met with officials from Saddam's mukhabarat, its external intelligence service, according to intelligence made public by Secretary of State Colin Powell, who was speaking before the United Nations Security Council on February 6, 2003.

* Sudanese intelligence officials told me that their agents had observed meetings between Iraqi intelligence agents and bin Laden starting in 1994, when bin Laden lived in Khartoum.

* Bin Laden met the director of the Iraqi mukhabarat in 1996 in Khartoum, according to Mr. Powell.

* An al Qaeda operative now held by the U.S. confessed that in the mid-1990s, bin Laden had forged an agreement with Saddam's men to cease all terrorist activities against the Iraqi dictator, Mr. Powell told the United Nations.

* In 1999 the Guardian, a British newspaper, reported that Farouk Hijazi, a senior officer in Iraq's mukhabarat, had journeyed deep into the icy mountains near Kandahar, Afghanistan, in December 1998 to meet with al Qaeda men. Mr. Hijazi is "thought to have offered bin Laden asylum in Iraq," the Guardian reported.

* In October 2000, another Iraqi intelligence operative, Salah Suleiman, was arrested near the Afghan border by Pakistani authorities, according to Jane's Foreign Report, a respected international newsletter. Jane's reported that Suleiman was shuttling between Iraqi intelligence and Ayman al Zawahiri, now al Qaeda's No. 2 man.

(Why are all of those meetings significant? The London Observer reports that FBI investigators cite a captured al Qaeda field manual in Afghanistan, which "emphasizes the value of conducting discussions about pending terrorist attacks face to face, rather than by electronic means.")

* As recently as 2001, Iraq's embassy in Pakistan was used as a "liaison" between the Iraqi dictator and al Qaeda, Mr. Powell told the United Nations.

* Spanish investigators have uncovered documents seized from Yusuf Galan -- who is charged by a Spanish court with being "directly involved with the preparation and planning" of the Sept. 11 attacks -- that show the terrorist was invited to a party at the Iraqi embassy in Madrid. The invitation used his "al Qaeda nom de guerre," London's Independent reports.

* An Iraqi defector to Turkey, known by his cover name as "Abu Mohammed," told Gwynne Roberts of the Sunday Times of London that he saw bin Laden's fighters in camps in Iraq in 1997. At the time, Mohammed was a colonel in Saddam's Fedayeen. He described an encounter at Salman Pak, the training facility southeast of Baghdad. At that vast compound run by Iraqi intelligence, Muslim militants trained to hijack planes with knives -- on a full-size Boeing 707. Col. Mohammed recalls his first visit to Salman Pak this way: "We were met by Colonel Jamil Kamil, the camp manager, and Major Ali Hawas. I noticed that a lot of people were queuing for food. (The major) said to me: 'You'll have nothing to do with these people. They are Osama bin Laden's group and the PKK and Mojahedin-e Khalq.'"

* In 1998, Abbas al-Janabi, a longtime aide to Saddam's son Uday, defected to the West. At the time, he repeatedly told reporters that there was a direct connection between Iraq and al Qaeda.

*The Sunday Times found a Saddam loyalist in a Kurdish prison who claims to have been Dr. Zawahiri's bodyguard during his 1992 visit with Saddam in Baghdad. Dr. Zawahiri was a close associate of bin Laden at the time and was present at the founding of al Qaeda in 1989.

* Following the defeat of the Taliban, almost two dozen bin Laden associates "converged on Baghdad and established a base of operations there," Mr. Powell told the United Nations in February 2003. From their Baghdad base, the secretary said, they supervised the movement of men, materiel and money for al Qaeda's global network.

* In 2001, an al Qaeda member "bragged that the situation in Iraq was 'good,'" according to intelligence made public by Mr. Powell.

* That same year, Saudi Arabian border guards arrested two al Qaeda members entering the kingdom from Iraq.

* Abu Musaab al-Zarqawi oversaw an al Qaeda training camp in Afghanistan, Mr. Powell told the United Nations. His specialty was poisons. Wounded in fighting with U.S. forces, he sought medical treatment in Baghdad in May 2002. When Zarqawi recovered, he restarted a training camp in northern Iraq. Zarqawi's Iraq cell was later tied to the October 2002 murder of Lawrence Foley, an official of the U.S. Agency for International Development, in Amman, Jordan. The captured assassin confessed that he received orders and funds from Zarqawi's cell in Iraq, Mr. Powell said. His accomplice escaped to Iraq.

*Zarqawi met with military chief of al Qaeda, Mohammed Ibrahim Makwai (aka Saif al-Adel) in Iran in February 2003, according to intelligence sources cited by the Washington Post.

* Mohammad Atef, the head of al Qaeda's military wing until the U.S. killed him in Afghanistan in November 2001, told a senior al Qaeda member now in U.S. custody that the terror network needed labs outside of Afghanistan to manufacture chemical weapons, Mr. Powell said. "Where did they go, where did they look?" said the secretary. "They went to Iraq."

* Abu Abdullah al-Iraqi was sent to Iraq by bin Laden to purchase poison gases several times between 1997 and 2000. He called his relationship with Saddam's regime "successful," Mr. Powell told the United Nations.

* Mohamed Mansour Shahab, a smuggler hired by Iraq to transport weapons to bin Laden in Afghanistan, was arrested by anti-Hussein Kurdish forces in May, 2000. He later told his story to American intelligence and a reporter for the New Yorker magazine.

* Documents found among the debris of the Iraqi Intelligence Center show that Baghdad funded the Allied Democratic Forces, a Ugandan terror group led by an Islamist cleric linked to bin Laden. According to a London's Daily Telegraph, the organization offered to recruit "youth to train for the jihad" at a "headquarters for international holy warrior network" to be established in Baghdad.

* Mullah Melan Krekar, ran a terror group (the Ansar al-Islam) linked to both bin Laden and Saddam Hussein. Mr. Krekar admitted to a Kurdish newspaper that he met bin Laden in Afghanistan and other senior al Qaeda officials. His acknowledged meetings with bin Laden go back to 1988. When he organized Ansar al Islam in 2001 to conduct suicide attacks on Americans, "three bin Laden operatives showed up with a gift of $300,000 'to undertake jihad,'" Newsday reported. Mr. Krekar is now in custody in the Netherlands. His group operated in portion of northern Iraq loyal to Saddam Hussein -- and attacked independent Kurdish groups hostile to Saddam. A spokesman for the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan told a United Press International correspondent that Mr. Krekar's group was funded by "Saddam Hussein's regime in Baghdad."

* After October 2001, hundreds of al Qaeda fighters are believed to have holed up in the Ansar al-Islam's strongholds inside northern Iraq.

Some skeptics dismiss the emerging evidence of a longstanding link between Iraq and al Qaeda by contending that Saddam ran a secular dictatorship hated by Islamists like bin Laden.

In fact, there are plenty of "Stalin-Roosevelt" partnerships between international terrorists and Muslim dictators. Saddam and bin Laden had common enemies, common purposes and interlocking needs. They shared a powerful hate for America and the Saudi royal family. They both saw the Gulf War as a turning point. Saddam suffered a crushing defeat which he had repeatedly vowed to avenge. Bin Laden regards the U.S. as guilty of war crimes against Iraqis and believes that non-Muslims shouldn't have military bases on the holy sands of Arabia. Al Qaeda's avowed goal for the past ten years has been the removal of American forces from Saudi Arabia, where they stood in harm's way solely to contain Saddam.

The most compelling reason for bin Laden to work with Saddam is money. Al Qaeda operatives have testified in federal courts that the terror network was always desperate for cash. Senior employees fought bitterly about the $100 difference in pay between Egyptian and Saudis (the Egyptians made more). One al Qaeda member, who was connected to the 1998 embassy bombings, told a U.S. federal court how bitter he was that bin Laden could not pay for his pregnant wife to see a doctor.

Bin Laden's personal wealth alone simply is not enough to support a profligate global organization. Besides, bin Laden's fortune is probably not as large as some imagine. Informed estimates put bin Laden's pre-Sept. 11, 2001 wealth at perhaps $30 million. $30 million is the budget of a small school district, not a global terror conglomerate. Meanwhile, Forbes estimated Saddam's personal fortune at $2 billion.

So a common enemy, a shared goal and powerful need for cash seem to have forged an alliance between Saddam and bin Laden. CIA Director George Tenet recently told the Senate Intelligence Committee: "Iraq has in the past provided training in document forgery and bomb making to al Qaeda. It also provided training in poisons and gasses to two al Qaeda associates; one of these [al Qaeda] associates characterized the relationship as successful. Mr. Chairman, this information is based on a solid foundation of intelligence. It comes to us from credible and reliable sources. Much of it is corroborated by multiple sources."

The Iraqis, who had the Third World's largest poison-gas operations prior to the Gulf War I, have perfected the technique of making hydrogen-cyanide gas, which the Nazis called Zyklon-B. In the hands of al Qaeda, this would be a fearsome weapon in an enclosed space -- like a suburban mall or subway station.

Mr. Miniter is a senior fellow at the Center for the New Europe and author of "Losing bin Laden: How Bill Clinton's Failures Unleashed Global Terror" (Regnery) which is now on the New York Times' bestseller list.


and finally more lite reading from http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/003/527uwabl.asp?pg=1

The Clinton View of Iraq-al Qaeda Ties
From the December 29, 2003 / January 5, 2004 issue: Connecting the dots in 1998, but not in 2003.by Stephen F. Hayes
12/29/2003, Volume 009, Issue 16

ARE AL QAEDA'S links to Saddam Hussein's Iraq just a fantasy of the Bush administration? Hardly. The Clinton administration also warned the American public about those ties and defended its response to al Qaeda terror by citing an Iraqi connection.

For nearly two years, starting in 1996, the CIA monitored the al Shifa pharmaceutical plant in Khartoum, Sudan. The plant was known to have deep connections to Sudan's Military Industrial Corporation, and the CIA had gathered intelligence on the budding relationship between Iraqi chemical weapons experts and the plant's top officials. The intelligence included information that several top chemical weapons specialists from Iraq had attended ceremonies to celebrate the plant's opening in 1996. And, more compelling, the National Security Agency had intercepted telephone calls between Iraqi scientists and the plant's general manager.

Iraq also admitted to having a $199,000 contract with al Shifa for goods under the oil-for-food program. Those goods were never delivered. While it's hard to know what significance, if any, to ascribe to this information, it fits a pattern described in recent CIA reporting on the overlap in the mid-1990s between al Qaeda-financed groups and firms that violated U.N. sanctions on behalf of Iraq.

The clincher, however, came later in the spring of 1998, when the CIA secretly gathered a soil sample from 60 feet outside of the plant's main gate. The sample showed high levels of O-ethylmethylphosphonothioic acid, known as EMPTA, which is a key ingredient for the deadly nerve agent VX. A senior intelligence official who briefed
reporters at the time was asked which countries make VX using EMPTA. "Iraq is the only country we're aware of," the official said. "There are a variety of ways of making VX, a variety of recipes, and EMPTA is fairly unique."

That briefing came on August 24, 1998, four days after the Clinton administration launched cruise-missile strikes against al Qaeda targets in Afghanistan and Sudan (Osama bin Laden's headquarters from 1992-96), including the al Shifa plant. The missile strikes came 13 days after bombings at U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania killed 257 people--including 12 Americans--and injured nearly 5,000. Clinton administration officials said that the attacks were in part retaliatory and in part preemptive. U.S. intelligence agencies had picked up "chatter" among bin Laden's deputies indicating that more attacks against American interests were imminent.

The al Shifa plant in Sudan was largely destroyed after being hit by six Tomahawk missiles. John McWethy, national security correspondent for ABC News, reported the story on August 25, 1998:

Before the pharmaceutical plant was reduced to rubble by American cruise missiles, the CIA was secretly gathering evidence that ended up putting the facility on America's target list. Intelligence sources say their agents clandestinely gathered soil samples outside the plant and found, quote, "strong evidence" of a chemical compound called EMPTA, a compound that has only one known purpose, to make VX nerve gas.

Then, the connection:

The U.S. had been suspicious for months, partly because of Osama bin Laden's financial ties, but also because of strong connections to Iraq. Sources say the U.S. had intercepted phone calls from the plant to a man in Iraq who runs that country's chemical weapons program.

The senior intelligence officials who briefed reporters laid out the collaboration. "We knew there were fuzzy ties between [bin Laden] and the plant but strong ties between him and Sudan and strong ties between the plant and Sudan and strong ties between the plant and Iraq." Although this official was careful not to oversell bin Laden's ties to the plant, other Clinton officials told reporters that the plant's general manager lived in a villa owned by bin Laden.

Several Clinton administration national security officials told THE WEEKLY STANDARD last week that they stand by the intelligence. "The bottom line for me is that the targeting was justified and appropriate," said Daniel Benjamin, director of counterterrorism on Clinton's National Security Council, in an emailed response to questions. "I would be surprised if any president--with the evidence of al Qaeda's intentions evident in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam and the intelligence on [chemical weapons] that was at hand from Sudan--would have made a different decision about bombing the plant."

The current president certainly agrees. "I think you give the commander in chief the benefit of the doubt," said George W. Bush, governor of Texas, on August 20, 1998, the same day as the U.S. counterstrikes. "This is a foreign policy matter. I'm confident he's working on the best intelligence available, and I hope it's successful."

Wouldn't the bombing of a plant with well-documented connections to Iraq's chemical weapons program, undertaken in an effort to strike back at Osama bin Laden's terrorist network, seem to suggest the
Clinton administration national security officials believed Iraq was working with al Qaeda? Benjamin, who has been one of the leading skeptics of claims that Iraq was working with al Qaeda, doesn't want to connect those dots.

Instead, he describes al Qaeda and Iraq as unwitting collaborators. "The Iraqi connection with al Shifa, given what we know about it, does not yet meet the test as proof of a substantive relationship because it isn't clear that one side knew the other side's involvement. That is, it is not clear that the Iraqis knew about bin Laden's well-concealed investment in the Sudanese Military Industrial Corporation. The Sudanese very likely had their own interest in VX development, and they would also have had good reasons to keep al Qaeda's involvement from the Iraqis. After all, Saddam was exactly the kind of secularist autocrat that al Qaeda despised. In the most extreme case, if the Iraqis suspected al Qaeda involvement, they might have had assurances from the Sudanese that bin Laden's people would never get the weapons. That may sound less than satisfying, but the Sudanese did show a talent for fleecing bin Laden. It is all somewhat speculative, and it would be helpful to know more."

It does sound less than satisfying to one Bush administration official. "So, when the Clinton administration wants to justify its strike on al Shifa," this official tells me, "it's okay to use an Iraq-al Qaeda connection. But now that the Bush administration and George Tenet talk about links, it's suddenly not believable?"

The Clinton administration heavily emphasized the Iraq link to justify its 1998 strikes against al Qaeda. Just four days before the embassy bombings, Saddam Hussein had once again stepped up his defiance of U.N. weapons inspectors, causing what Senator Richard Lugar called another Iraqi "crisis." Undersecretary of State Thomas Pickering, one of those in the small circle of Clinton advisers involved in planning the strikes, briefed foreign reporters on August 25, 1998. He was asked about the connection directly and answered carefully.

Q: Ambassador Pickering, do you know of any connection between the so-called pharmaceutical plant in Khartoum and the Iraqi government in regard to production of precursors of VX?

PICKERING: Yeah, I would like to consult my notes just to be sure that what I have to say is stated clearly and correctly. We see evidence that we think is quite clear on contacts between Sudan and Iraq. In fact, al Shifa officials, early in the company's history, we believe were in touch with Iraqi individuals associated with Iraq's VX program.

Ambassador Bill Richardson, at the time U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, echoed those sentiments in an appearance on CNN's "Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer," on August 30, 1998. He called the targeting "one of the finest hours of our intelligence people."

"We know for a fact, physical evidence, soil samples of VX precursor--chemical precursor at the site," said Richardson. "Secondly, Wolf, direct evidence of ties between Osama bin Laden and the Military Industrial Corporation--the al Shifa factory was part of that. This is an operation--a collection of buildings that does a lot of this dirty munitions stuff. And, thirdly, there is no evidence that this precursor has a commercial application. So, you combine that with Sudan support for terrorism, their connections with Iraq on VX, and you combine that, also, with the chemical precursor issue, and Sudan's leadership support for Osama bin Laden, and you've got a pretty clear cut case."

If the case appeared "clear cut" to top Clinton administration officials, it was not as open-and-shut to the news media. Press reports brimmed with speculation about bad intelligence or even the misuse of intelligence. In an October 27, 1999, article, New York Times reporter James Risen went back and reexamined the intelligence. He wrote: "At the pivotal meeting reviewing the targets, the Director of Central Intelligence, George J. Tenet, was said to have cautioned Mr. Clinton's top advisers that while he believed that the evidence connecting Mr. Bin Laden to the factory was strong, it was less than ironclad." Risen also reported that Secretary of State Madeleine Albright had shut down an investigation into the targeting after questions were raised by the department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research (the same intelligence team that raised questions about prewar intelligence relating to the war in Iraq).

Other questions persisted as well. Clinton administration officials initially scoffed at the notion that al Shifa produced any pharmaceutical products. But reporters searching through the rubble found empty aspirin bottles, as well as other indications that the plant was not used exclusively to produce chemical weapons. The strikes came in the middle of the Monica Lewinsky scandal, leaving some analysts to wonder whether President Clinton was following the conspiratorial news-management scenario laid out in "Wag the Dog," then a hit movie.

But the media failed to understand the case, according to Daniel Benjamin, who was a reporter himself before joining the Clinton National Security Council. "Intelligence is always incomplete, typically composed of pieces that refuse to fit neatly together and are subject to competing interpretations," writes Benjamin with coauthor Steven Simon in the 2002 book "The Age of Sacred Terror." "By disclosing the intelligence, the administration was asking journalists to connect the dots--assemble bits of evidence and construct a picture that would account for all the disparate information. In response, reporters cast doubt on the validity of each piece of the information provided and thus on the case for attacking al Shifa."

Now, however, there's a new wrinkle. Bush administration officials largely agree with their predecessors. "There's pretty good intelligence linking al Shifa to Iraq and also good information linking al Shifa to al Qaeda," says one administration official familiar with the intelligence. "I don't think there's much dispute that [Sudan's Military Industrial Corporation] was al Qaeda supported. The link from al Shifa to Iraq is what there is more dispute about."

According to this official, U.S. intelligence has obtained Iraqi documents showing that the head of al Shifa had been granted permission by the Iraqi government to travel to Baghdad to meet with Emad al-Ani, often described as "the father of Iraq's chemical weapons program." Said the official: "The reports can confirm that the trip was authorized, but the travel part hasn't been confirmed yet."

So why hasn't the Bush administration mentioned the al Shifa connection in its public case for war in Iraq? Even if one accepts Benjamin's proposition that Iraq may not have known that it was arming al Qaeda and that al Qaeda may not have known its chemicals came from Iraq, doesn't al Shifa demonstrate convincingly the dangers of attempting to "contain" a maniacal leader with WMD?

According to Bush officials, two factors contributed to their reluctance to discuss the Iraq-al Qaeda connection suggested by al Shifa. First, the level of proof never rose above the threshold of "highly suggestive circumstantial evidence"--indicating that on this question, Bush administration policymakers were somewhat more cautious about the public use of intelligence on the Iraq-al Qaeda connection than were their counterparts in the Clinton administration. Second, according to one Bush administration source, "there is a massive sensitivity at the Agency to bringing up this issue again because of the controversy in 1998."

But there is bound to be more discussion of al Shifa and Iraq-al Qaeda connections in the coming weeks. The Senate Intelligence Committee is nearing completion of its review of prewar intelligence. And although there is still no CIA team assigned to look at the links between Iraq and al Qaeda, investigators looking at documents from the fallen regime continue to uncover new information about those connections on a regular basis.

Democrats who before the war discounted the possibility of any connection between Iraq and al Qaeda have largely fallen silent. And in recent days, two prowar Democrats have spoken openly about the relationship. Evan Bayh, a Democrat from Indiana who sits on the Intelligence Committee, told THE WEEKLY STANDARD, "the relationship seemed to have its roots in mutual exploitation. Saddam Hussein used terrorism for his own ends, and Osama bin Laden used a nation-state for the things that only a nation-state can provide."

And Joe Lieberman, the Connecticut Democrat and presidential candidate, discussed the connections in an appearance last week on MSNBC's "Hardball with Chris Matthews." Said Lieberman: "I want to be real clear about the connection with terrorists. I've seen a lot of evidence on this. There are extensive contacts between Saddam Hussein's government and al Qaeda and other terrorist groups. I never could reach the conclusion that [Saddam] was part of September 11. Don't get me wrong about that. But there was so much smoke there that it made me worry. And you know, some people say with a great facility, al Qaeda and Saddam could never get together. He is secular and they're theological. But there's something that tied them together. It's their hatred of us."

Stephen F. Hayes is a staff writer at The Weekly Standard.
Now I now the detractors are going to say that these publications are "right-wing" propaganda etc. I just did a google search and half the stories were supporting and half were against the whole AQ-Iraq deal. I just wanted to show that there is two side to every story and posted these so people coud get a fair and balanced view.

[mattnwnc03]

Someone actually believes this trifle?
Well, it's more believable than Iraq/Al-Qaida collaboration.

Wait, so Al Queda is in Asia, Chechnya, US, Spain, Iran, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Africa, but not Iraq? So Zarqawi is not Al Queada? Because last time i checked he was part of Al queda, and he makes alot of bombs that killed alot of Coalition troops, civilians, and btw, he cut Nick Berg's head off. they werent there till we got there.bush going into iraq should be on military blunders on the history channel.about as bad as hitler going into russia before winning the war in the west.

[Mongrel]

"Oh so you want to invade Cuba and Iran too? But that wouldn't blow over well with you because Iran would be for Oil and Cuba would be for bananas or something."

Wouldn't be the first time the US went to war over Bananas. :P
Cheers!
M.

[Trident-za]

Someone actually believes this trifle?

I don't see any trifle there. I see a smart person with the experience to comment who is writing the truth. On what points is Anon. wrong?

On a different note, as much as I would like it if we could ensure a proper government for everyone in the world, we can't. Either fight terrorism, or fight oppressive governments, but we can't do both. It'd be nice if we could, but we can't. "Terrorist government?"

Have a good one, and just some thoughts...

Excellent post.

A better question, American Patriot, would be: there are people who lable this as "trifle" without thinking it through?

[budanski]

Its nothing more than preparing the ground just in case of a terrorist attack. If one happens, the dems know it will help Bush unless they can spin it the right way. This is just one way of keeping their base in line. It's very much like the democrat mantra about the hostages in Iran, you know, the thing about how Iran would have released them but they made a deal with Reagan.

This is from someone who supposedly was high up in the organization and involved in terrorism in the mid-1990s. Yet, somehow failed to predict 9/11, and what we are doing now is worse than the failures before Khobar, Cole, embassy bombings, first WTC attack etc?

[Pooga]

Its nothing more than preparing the ground just in case of a terrorist attack. If one happens, the dems know it will help Bush unless they can spin it the right way. This is just one way of keeping their base in line. It's very much like the democrat mantra about the hostages in Iran, you know, the thing about how Iran would have released them but they made a deal with Reagan.

This is from someone who supposedly was high up in the organization and involved in terrorism in the mid-1990s. Yet, somehow failed to predict 9/11, and what we are doing now is worse than the failures before Khobar, Cole, embassy bombings, first WTC attack etc?

Good call. But of course people here are going to shoot you down and then cry about it when you shoot them down.

[cqbrdy]

osama asked saddam for land, to use for training camps.
al-qaeda members hide in iraq (zarqawi)
and have been known to attack US soldiers
when fighting in places like falluja.
but hey,
theres no relationship between the 2 ;) .

[Secret Squirrel]

osama asked saddam for land, to use for training camps.
al-qaeda members hide in iraq (zarqawi)
and have been known to attack US soldiers
when fighting in places like falluja.
but hey,
theres no relationship between the 2 ;) .

This has to be one of the stupidest attempts at logic i've seen in awhile. Prove that Saddam helped AQ or catered to them. Maybe you should go look at a few history books, especially ones concerning both Saddam's and Osama's backgrounds. And please tell me, what the hell does it prove if terrorists from any organization attack U.S soldiers in Iraq? You do realize that Iraq has 6(?) borders available for groups to enter to fight their holy war. If AQ was in Iraq before the war and happily training and not being bothered, then that would be some proof. But anyone there after the coalition invaded is there because the coalition invaded. :bash:

http://img77.photobucket.com/albums/v233/SSSquirrel/TMW2-19-03Saddam.gif

[OB Kenobi]

You're right, Al Queda and Iraq did not work together on 9/11, but reading the rest of the report, they do have connections in other endevors unknown.

Heheh, they're unknown alright, because they never happened.

Why is it so hard to believe that Bin Laden disliked Saddam? Saddam was a godless socialist and a nationalist, he stood in the way of Bin Laden's Islamic revolution, just as he stood in the way of Iran's Islamic revolution.

Bin Laden is doing what he's doing for very different reasons from Saddam. As a matter of fact, Saddam hadn't really done anything besides harass Israel and attack fellow Muslims. Even more telling are pre-war Islamic terrorist statements against Saddam, that he is an infidel. They wanted him gone, so they could turn Iraq into another Iran.

I asked this many times: WHEN HAS SADDAM EVER ATTACKED AMERICA OR THE UK? Was his oil-grab in Kuwait an attack against us as Bu$h wants people to think, or did Saddam just want to grab Kuwait's oil and thought he could get away with it?

Bu$h is taking advantage of 9/11 to promote the oil mafia's agenda. That, or he is the most incompetent president in the history of the US.

Attacking Iraq was the worst thing that could have possibly been done in the war on terror, it did absolutely nothing to help, and has probably made things 100x worse. Al Qaeda is having a field day, and growing in strength as it demonstrates that the US can't stop it and that the US has turned out to be the Evil Empire they claimed it was.

This isn't nearly over yet, Bu$h FUBAR'd this country good, Bu$h is Al Qaeda's best friend, Bin Laden would vote for him if he could.

[OB Kenobi]

osama asked saddam for land, to use for training camps.

Saddam said no.



al-qaeda members hide in iraq (zarqawi)


After Saddam was gone.



and have been known to attack US soldiers
when fighting in places like falluja.


They're just obliging Bu$h, who said "Bring 'em on."



but hey,
theres no relationship between the 2 ;) .

Saddam and Bin Laden are about as friendly with each other as Bu$h and Bin Laden. Al Qaeda and Iraq are screwing up Iraq and killing Iraqis along with US troops and contractors.

[American Patriot]

I hope you are not living in the US, OB Tampon.

The truth is that Bush has waged a highly successful war on terror. Tens of thousands of Taliban and al-Qaeda were killed including 2/3rds of it's leadership. Two countries were liberated from the grip of tyranny. The filling of mass graves with 300,000 bodies were stopped. Plastic shredders for human beings were shut down permanently. Prisons for four to twelve year olds were closed. A democratic constitution has been drafted. There hasn’t been a terrorist attack in America in more than two and a half years, something no one would have predicted after 9/11. By any objective standard, the Bush war on terror is a triumph.

Bring it on.

[Secret Squirrel]

I hope you are not living in the US, OB Tampon.

The truth is that Bush has waged a highly successful war on terror. Tens of thousands of Taliban and al-Qaeda were killed including 2/3rds of it's leadership. Two countries were liberated from the grip of tyranny. The filling of mass graves with 300,000 bodies were stopped. Plastic shredders for human beings were shut down permanently. Prisons for four to twelve year olds were closed. A democratic constitution has been drafted. There hasn’t been a terrorist attack in America in more than two and a half years, something no one would have predicted after 9/11. By any objective standard, the Bush war on terror is a triumph.

Bring it on.

rofl thanks, I needed a good laugh Chuckles.

http://img77.photobucket.com/albums/v233/SSSquirrel/TMW07-16-03.gif

[American Patriot]

Posting flamebait and spam again?

[Secret Squirrel]

Posting flamebait and spam again?

Dont start whinning when someone gives you your own medicine. 90% of your posts are single sentences making weird statements that, when someone questions them, you just ignore them.

P.S- you posted "Bring it on" and the my post illustrates what Bush's message means for the troops. woot

[American Patriot]

The amount of lies the Administration critics put out is amazing. Sadly, all they are doing is appeasing the terrorists and stabbing America in the back. I wouldn't piss on the SOBs if they were on fire.


P.S- you posted "Bring it on" and the my post illustrates what Bush's message means for the troops.

What the lefties are doing (Abu Ghraib sensationalizing, attacking the commander-in-chief daily) hurts my country's Soldiers and Marines far worse than Bush challenging the remnant anti-Iraqi terrorists. Although maybe you right, I will soon find out for myself.

[Sayeret]

Its odd that the liberals here are critisizing Bush so much on the war on terrorism despite the fact their canidate has said that the US should not have ever attacked the Al Qaeda.

http://www.insightmag.com/news/2004/03/16/Politics/Kerry.Will.Abandon.War.On.Terrorism-621288.shtml

You don't have to like Bush but I there aern't any better canidates. I don't agree with Bush on some stuff but invading was something that needed to be done and even Bill Clinton and Al Gore thought so. Along with that John Kerry is friends with the anti-war Ted Kennedy. Maybe it hasn't been proven that Iraq supported the Al Qaeda but it has been proven that it supported many other terrorist groups.

One last thing even if the United States never invaded Iraq and left all of its troops in Afghanistan then they would still have to deal with the rest of Al Qaeda at some point, not all the Al Qaeda members are in Afghanistan.

I am curious what the people who opposed the war think the United States should of done? Would you have supported invading any other country besides Afghanistan or would you have wanted wait till another major terrorist attack took place?

[budanski]

I asked this many times: WHEN HAS SADDAM EVER ATTACKED AMERICA OR THE UK? Was his oil-grab in Kuwait an attack against us as Bu$h wants people to think, or did Saddam just want to grab Kuwait's oil and thought he could get away with it?
Earth to Kenobi... Last checked the first gulf war was a UN-sanctioned affair. UK/US jets composed of the coalition jets patroling the no fly zone (http://www.idsnews.com/story.php?id=11904), if you're asking whether Saddam personally attacked america or uk, well...

Bottom line: Saddam didn't "personally" attack us; he just failed to adhere to the Gulf War cease-fire, while he continued to violated one UN resolution after the other. With his continual support of terrorists around the region, his offerings of safe-haven to others (Abu Nidal, Abu Abass, Al Zarqawi/Ansar al-Islam/PLF, etc.), combined with his past record of WMD development, use and failure to account...Saddam was still a threat.

The idea that we could and should have stayed out of Iraq is ridiculous. That argument ended for serious people on September 11, 2001 ;)


Bu$h is taking advantage of 9/11 to promote the oil mafia's agenda. That, or he is the most incompetent president in the history of the US. Attacking Iraq was the worst thing that could have possibly been done in the war on terror, it did absolutely nothing to help, and has probably made things 100x worse.
How so? When did Bush become a member of OPEC? If you consider -- in the two years since terrorists attacked us, Bush's policy has liberated two countries from tyrant rulers (Taliban and Baath Party), got al-Qaida on the run, put nuclear inspectors in Lybia, Iran and North Korea without firing a shot, and captured a tyrant who slaughtered 300,000 of his own people, not to mention domestically, he's gotten us out of a recession -- that incompetent, I guess so.:roll:


Al Qaeda is having a field day, and growing in strength as it demonstrates that the US can't stop it and that the US has turned out to be the Evil Empire they claimed it was.
Having a field day how? By denying them host countries such as Sudan and Afghanistan? The training camps, safe houses and caves were the critical infrastructure for al-Qaida. That "base" is no more. The leadership has splintered and gone underground.

Give proof that Al Qaeda is growing in numbers.


Bu$h is Al Qaeda's best friend, Bin Laden would vote for him if he could.
Not if he's looking to get his lieutenants picked up or killed. Anyways, kinda hard to vote when you're dead. Then again, the Democrats are pretty skillfull at resurrecting such "votes". ;)

[Secret Squirrel]

The amount of lies the Administration critics put out is amazing. Sadly, all they are doing is appeasing the terrorists and stabbing America in the back. I wouldn't piss on the SOBs if they were on fire.


P.S- you posted "Bring it on" and the my post illustrates what Bush's message means for the troops.

What the lefties are doing (Abu Ghraib sensationalizing, attacking the commander-in-chief daily) hurts my country's Soldiers and Marines far worse than Bush challenging the remnant anti-Iraqi terrorists. Although maybe you right, I will soon find out for myself.

I guess I have to spell out what is fairly obvious for most people; the military is NOT Bush. The military doesnt decide where its being deployed, or what fights its going to take on. So again, critics of Bush, are not insulting the troops. "War is the continuation of policy by other means" and the tri-relationship elucidate the previous points clearly enough for most people to understand. Abu Ghraib, and the other prisons and other charges and other cases of abuse are reflective of either 1) a few poor soldiers and/or 2) a need for a policy change. The soldiers who are going on trial tomorrow, at least some of them, are going to try and use the Numerberg defense (ie. they were ordered). The importances of these trials and any trial, whether military or not, is to re-evaluate if the existing structures and policies are sufficent to protect both the prisoners and the troops. Maybe for once you could step back and try to see a larger picture?
Regarding lies about Bush, you mean questioning his claims regarding Iraq? Ok, so no one is allowed to question statements Bush makes? And no one has been able to question the V.P because he's only let out of his hole to make a few base-less statements, and not taking questions, before retreating into the darkness. You know, the kind of blind faith in a leader that you seem to be supporting, is what caused most of the black spots in history.

[Secret Squirrel]

Its odd that the liberals here are critisizing Bush so much on the war on terrorism despite the fact their canidate has said that the US should not have ever attacked the Al Qaeda.

http://www.insightmag.com/news/2004/03/16/Politics/Kerry.Will.Abandon.War.On.Terrorism-621288.shtml


You can take insightmag, put it together with newsmax, add in a few of Bush's speeches claiming things that have yet to be proven, and you'd produce enough bull**** to cover the middle east. I can post links that "prove" aliens live on the moon, but no one would take those seriously either. :bash:

[SOG]

Interesting article... the bold print is mine...
Thoughts?


A senior US intelligence official is about to publish a bitter condemnation of America's counter-terrorism policy, arguing that the west is losing the war against al-Qaida and that an "avaricious, premeditated, unprovoked" war in Iraq has played into Osama bin Laden's hands.
Imperial Hubris: Why the West is Losing the War on Terror, due out next month, dismisses two of the most frequent boasts of the Bush administration: that Bin Laden and al-Qaida are "on the run" and that the Iraq invasion has made America safer.

unprovoked war in iraq? ah but the policy that the former administration empowered "food for oil" through the UN in that "down to earth people" estimate a few hundred thousand died under? but those losses are okay, because we arent at war? right.....

ill give him "america is not safer because of iraq war" im guessing we upset some balances that will cool off. bin laden and al queda arent on the run? right because before, they were hanging in the mountains plotting planning, moving funds and arms, smoking fine weed, now they have 20,000 plus troops sitting in thier backyard with americas finest shooters hunting them down day and night and cia nsa freezing his funding like no tomorrow. no, no, nothings changed AT ALL. id be comfortable also if that happened to me!


In an interview with the Guardian the official, who writes as "Anonymous", described al-Qaida as a much more proficient and focused organisation than it was in 2001, and predicted that it would "inevitably" acquire weapons of mass destruction and try to use them.

how many times have i heard this? there is always a "new" terrorist org that is smarter and more unconventional than the last because the last is dead! no! trying to aquire weapons of mass distruction!? ive never heard that before! and of course from the dirtiest place on earth, russia! amaizing, ive been hearing this since the cold war, with every terror group, all blaming russia, yet somehow its never happened? makes me wonder what americas finest do when im asleep. oh yeah, kick ass. this is about as weak as bush's claims of wmd and the UN's collective claims of wmd sanctions.


He said Bin Laden was probably "comfortable" commanding his organisation from the mountainous tribal lands along the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan.

yeah, bin laden is really comfortable being hunted by how many SF? yeah, hes really comfortable when millions were frozen or stolen from his accounts and when thousands of his buddies just up and dissapeared. bull****! a country has killed thousands in your org, frozen and stolen bucket loads of your money, made concerted efforts globally to track down your cell, and has sent thousands of people to kill you! yeah, im sure hes "comfortable" because he sees everyone dying around him but himself........


The Pakistani army claimed a big success in the "war against terror" yesterday with the killing of a tribal leader, Nek Mohammed, who was one of al-Qaida's protectors in Waziristan.

add it to the thousands.


But Anonymous, who has been centrally involved in the hunt for Bin Laden, said: "Nek Mohammed is one guy in one small area. We sometimes forget how big the tribal areas are." He believes President Pervez Musharraf cannot advance much further into the tribal areas without endangering his rule by provoking a Pashtun revolt. "He walks a very fine line," he said yesterday.

well thats true, thats why we take un publicized highly illegal trips across the border ourselves. you know, the trips SF have talked about for years on end that they cant say anything about......


Imperial Hubris is the latest in a relentless stream of books attacking the administration in election year. Most of the earlier ones, however, were written by embittered former officials. This one is unprecedented in being the work of a serving official with nearly 20 years experience in counter-terrorism who is still part of the intelligence establishment.

writing a book knocking your boss while still working for your boss. in business this is called "unethical" and "disrespectfull". in amercian busines this is called, "normal". what a professional. but of course, its okay, if its about someone you dont like.......



The fact that he has been allowed to publish, albeit anonymously and without naming which agency he works for, may reflect the increasing frustration of senior intelligence officials at the course the administration has taken.

wow, guess the seniors now know what it feels like to be a grunt. im sorry is bush or said administration keeping them from doing thier job? or do they just not like there bosses? what seniors, where, how many? sounds like opposing politics? wow thats new.


Peter Bergen, the author of two books on Bin Laden and al-Qaida, said: "His views represent an amped-up version of what is emerging as a consensus among intelligence counter-terrorist professionals."

well its true we have "amped up" the hornets nest. then again we have done so many times over in the past.


Anonymous does not try to veil his contempt for the Bush White House and its policies. His book describes the Iraq invasion as "an avaricious, premeditated, unprovoked war against a foe who posed no immediate threat but whose defeat did offer economic advantage.

well thats true, unprovoked yes, no immediate threat yes, and im not a fan of fighting on two fronts. economic advantage? right, like the millions of dollars being tossed in food for oil getting the billions of oil barrels in return in the US alone on top of the iraqi dead. i can see how though, slow rape of a nation with ten fold more casualties is better than just ending it. i mean of course, we made NO enemies by enforcing unlawfull and unprovable sanctions in iraq, and of course removing them made us more enemies....


"Our choice of timing, moreover, shows an abject, even wilful failure to recognise the ideological power, lethality and growth potential of the threat personified by Bin Laden, as well as the impetus that threat has been given by the US-led invasion and occupation of Muslim Iraq."

ah, bin laden has suddenly escalated to god like, so we shouldnt have gone after him in the 1st place to give him this "world status", just like what they said with saddam. we should have done nothing instead and just let him have smoke outs in his desert caves. yeah i heard the same **** about saddam, by confronting him and backing down he is a pillar against the west to which all shall look upon as inpiration and that the US will doing nothing to them or cant. same bull**** different bloke. pin the tail on a different donkey. yeah, that turned out true....


In his view, the US missed its biggest chance to capture the al-Qaida leader at Tora Bora in the Afghan mountains in December 2001. Instead of sending large numbers of his own troops, General Tommy Franks relied on surrogates who proved to be unreliable.

ok, so a general is a **** up.


Yesterday President Bush repeated his assertion that Bin Laden was cornered and that there was "no hole or cave deep enough to hide from American justice".

Anonymous said: "I think we overestimate significantly the stress [Bin Laden's] under. Our media and sometimes our policymakers suggest he's hiding from rock to rock and hill to hill and cave to cave. My own hunch is that he's fairly comfortable where he is."

comfortable as opposed to a jungle? yes. hes fighting in familiar terain, that makes him invincible, unfindable? LOL. comfortable in knowing thousands are currently hunting and tracking you down to kill you? riiight..... im surprised he hasnt had heart failure from stress.


The death and arrest of experienced operatives might have set back Bin Laden's plans to some degree but when it came to his long-term capacity to threaten the US, he said, "I don't think we've laid a glove on him".

right because disrupting networks world wide, freezing a ton of his money and killing hundreds of expierenced taliban getting replaced by greens and thousands of taliban troops, no, we havnt disrupted or "touched" anything. ""at this time i think ill take a moment to not only undermine the administration in this book but also the thousands on the front line in a stan every day. good job, but youve done nothing. your effort and friends lives are wasted, we have virtually not touched binladen or his capability in any way shape of form.""

hi, ive got a group of burly SF that would like to talk to you behind the water fountain, mmm.... kay?

long term plans? if hes alive long term? the faith is strong in this one!

what is his recomended means of engagement, nothing?


"What I think we're seeing in al-Qaida is a change of generation," he said."The people who are leading al-Qaida now seem a lot more professional group.

like other terrorist orgs who have faded into abscurity after successfully avoiding capture distruction? or has no other terrorist group done that? more professional than before or like "ever"? so they got smarter after they paid in blood. learning from thier mistakes? 21st century terrorists? thats new? no.


"They are more bureaucratic, more management competent, certainly more literate. Certainly, this generation is more computer literate, more comfortable with the tools of modernity. I also think they're much less ****e to being the Errol Flynns of al-Qaida. They're just much more careful across the board in the way they operate."

well good for them.


As for weapons of mass destruction, he thinks that if al-Qaida does not have them already, it will inevitably acquire them.

like every other terrorist group across the board and we all stated they would get em from russia. weve been saying this since the cold war ended about every faction, splinter group and terrorist org. has it ever happened?


The most likely source of a nuclear device would be the former Soviet Union, he believes. Dirty bombs, chemical and biological weapons, could be home-made by al-Qaida's own experts, many of them trained in the US and Britain.

because the soviet union is a open legged nuclear women that sells all these weapons to anyone and everyone and..... nothing happened. been saying that for25 years now yet somehow weve managed to keep a lid on this trade? yah, home made chemical weapons. yet iraq with all its resources had....... how much wmd? in the tons i believe? uhmmm..... nope, so im supposed to think a well financed cave man could make what iraq didnt? its possible, ill give them that.


Anonymous, who published an analysis of al-Qaida last year called Through Our Enemies' Eyes, thinks it quite possible that another devastating strike against the US could come during the election campaign, not with the intention of changing the administration, as was the case in the Madrid bombing, but of keeping the same one in place.

it could happen. no really, it could. and thus proving bush's policies towards terror dont work so voting him in to fight terror again would...... get us attacked again? conspiratal slant? im sorry, why would the majority vote for someone who cant do the job? i think another attack would just dim the poll like current actions? no? americans arent tired of hearing about this?


"I'm very sure they can't have a better administration for them than the one they have now," he said.

because the one that does nothing would be better. no, really.


"One way to keep the Republicans in power is to mount an attack that would rally the country around the president."

right, because americans like to rally around a multiple engagement loser?and of course, this attack would just "happen".


The White House has yet to comment publicly on Imperial Hubris, which is due to be published on July 4, but intelligence experts say it may try to portray him as a professionally embittered maverick.

because the white house must comment publicly on everything written about them. specially bitter opposing political partizans who try and tie thier job in with thier poltics. sniff.


The tone of Imperial Hubris is certainly angry and urgent, and the stridency of his warnings about al-Qaida led him to be moved from a highly sensitive job in the late 90s.

so the former administration removed him because he was yelling a bit too much, and the current administration sees fit to put him in the thick of things and he goes nuts again. wonder where there going to move him this time. sounds like a internal problem to me.


But Vincent Cannistraro, a former chief of operations at the CIA counter-terrorism centre, said he had been vindicated by events. "He is very well respected, and looked on as a serious student of the subject."

right because we trust what the cia says. funny, you do when there on your side :)


Anonymous believes Mr Bush is taking the US in exactly the direction Bin Laden wants, towards all-out confrontation with Islam under the banner of spreading democracy.

were ramping up to hand back iraq, sit in a-stan till bin ladens dead, and thats is all out confrontation? well, we will see in a few months i guess.


He said: "It's going to take 10,000-15,000 dead Americans before we say to ourselves: 'What is going on'?"

hes predicting doom and gloom, okay, well see. anything can happen.


I don't see any trifle there. I see a smart person with the experience to comment who is writing the truth. On what points is Anon. wrong?

no, spot on, not an ounce of objectivity needed.

[SOG]

The amount of lies the Administration critics put out is amazing. Sadly, all they are doing is appeasing the terrorists and stabbing America in the back. I wouldn't piss on the SOBs if they were on fire.


P.S- you posted "Bring it on" and the my post illustrates what Bush's message means for the troops.

What the lefties are doing (Abu Ghraib sensationalizing, attacking the commander-in-chief daily) hurts my country's Soldiers and Marines far worse than Bush challenging the remnant anti-Iraqi terrorists. Although maybe you right, I will soon find out for myself.

I guess I have to spell out what is fairly obvious for most people; the military is NOT Bush. The military doesnt decide where its being deployed, or what fights its going to take on. So again, critics of Bush, are not insulting the troops. "War is the continuation of policy by other means" and the tri-relationship elucidate the previous points clearly enough for most people to understand. Abu Ghraib, and the other prisons and other charges and other cases of abuse are reflective of either 1) a few poor soldiers and/or 2) a need for a policy change. The soldiers who are going on trial tomorrow, at least some of them, are going to try and use the Numerberg defense (ie. they were ordered). The importances of these trials and any trial, whether military or not, is to re-evaluate if the existing structures and policies are sufficent to protect both the prisoners and the troops. Maybe for once you could step back and try to see a larger picture?
Regarding lies about Bush, you mean questioning his claims regarding Iraq? Ok, so no one is allowed to question statements Bush makes? And no one has been able to question the V.P because he's only let out of his hole to make a few base-less statements, and not taking questions, before retreating into the darkness. You know, the kind of blind faith in a leader that you seem to be supporting, is what caused most of the black spots in history.

bravo, well said, liked you speal on nostradamus also, ive been meaning to look him up, hes pretty interesting and sometimes scary.