Tuesday, April 27, 2004
THE WAR ON TERROR
I had a interesting caller yesterday (among the many libs who I allow through) claiming that there's absolutely no connection between Iraq and Al Qaeda. In my belief, this is not true. Citing a number of other well documented connections between terrorists and the former Iraqi regime, I offer the following from news reports and research and a thought below:
Abu Abbas -- Iraq's terror connection was evidenced by Saddam's longstanding protection of Abu Abbas, the leader of a terrorist group that in 1985 hijacked the Achille Lauro cruise ship and murdered an elderly, wheelchair-bound American passenger named Leon Klinghoffer. This was the same Abu Abbas who in recent years, according to FBI counter-terrorism analyst Mathew Levitt, "was the conduit for Saddam Hussein's financing of the [Palestinian] suicide bombers"; the same Abu Abbas whom three captured Palestinian terrorists recently admitted they had met in December 2000, at which time they were in Iraq for training in the use of weapons and explosives. Earlier, US commandoes tracked down and arrested Abbas in Iraq, where he had indeed been living for most of the past seventeen years - just as President Bush told us.
Ansar al Islam -- it has been known for years that Saddam armed and financed Ansar al Islam, a force of some six to seven hundred extremists that operated a terror camp in northern Iraq's no-fly zone, controlling a string of villages along the Iranian border of the Kurdish self-rule area. Ansar al Islam, a bin Laden-affiliated terrorist group in Northern Iraq, which a government official says was involved in smuggling the nerve agent out of Iraq. In "The Great Terror (March 3, 2002)," Jeffrey Goldberg of the New Yorker described the relationship between Saddam Hussein's intelligence services and al-Ansar -- senior Ansar members trained at a camp in Afghanistan that specialized in the manufacture of chemical and biological weapons, such as ricin.
Abu Mussab al Zarqawi -- He is a very senior al Qaeda leader and fled Afghanistan after the Taliban was defeated, had his injured leg treated in a Baghdad hospital - surely with the knowledge of the Iraqi dictator and his secret police - after which he was sent to create a poison laboratory in the Ansar terrorist cell. The Ansar camp, incidentally, was targeted and annihilated by American warplanes.
Judge Harold Baer -- The judge in the lawsuit filed by September 11th families ruled on May 7 2003 that Iraq provided "material support and resources" to al Qaeda and conspired with them to commit the 9/11 attacks. The evidence included testimony about Salman Pak, a terrorist training facility southeast of Baghdad that featured an old passenger jet used to teach hijacking techniques to terrorists.
Sabah Khodada -- defected from the Iraqi army and came to the U.S. in May 2001. He gave an interview to the PBS Frontline program and the New York Times. U.S. troops in Iraq took control of the facility on April 6, 2003, and confirmed Khodada's account of what was at Salman Pak. CIA director George Tenet had written an October 7, 2002 letter noting that there had been "senior level contacts" between Iraq and al Qaeda "going back a decade," that Iraq and al Qaeda had "discussed safe haven and reciprocal nonaggression," that there was "solid evidence" of al Qaeda members in Iraq, and that there was "credible reporting" of al Qaeda members seeking weapons of mass destruction "capabilities" from Iraq.
These are just a few of the things I could dig up in the short time between the end of the show yesterday and this morning. There are more...but again, it is up to you to put aside your normal biases and read the reports objectively.
The problem with some of you liberals is you keep moving the bar - we are not fighting the War on September 11th...or the War on Al Qaeda...it is the War on Terror. First it becomes a test on whether there was any connection between Saddam and terrorists. Then, when that's proved to any sane persons satisfaction, it becomes a test on whether there was any connection between Saddam and Al Qaeda. Then that is proved, and it becomes a test on whether there was any connection between Saddam and September 11th. I suppose the next test will be whether Saddam purchased the box cutters at a local hardware store.
In the end, you can choose to believe that Iraq had no ties to Al Qaeda at all...he worked publicly and privately with EVERY OTHER terrorist group including Hamas, PLO, Islamic Jihad, Abu Abbas, Abu Nidal, Ansar al Islam, but NOT Al Qaeda? Saddam and Iraq somehow avoided noticing and/or working with the most successful and well-funded terrorist group in the world? Seems strange when you think about it that way...
Two of the better reports:
Stephen F Hayes report in the Weekly Standard of September 1, 2003
Washington Post article of December 12, 2002 (psst...BEFORE the war)
I had a interesting caller yesterday (among the many libs who I allow through) claiming that there's absolutely no connection between Iraq and Al Qaeda. In my belief, this is not true. Citing a number of other well documented connections between terrorists and the former Iraqi regime, I offer the following from news reports and research and a thought below:
Abu Abbas -- Iraq's terror connection was evidenced by Saddam's longstanding protection of Abu Abbas, the leader of a terrorist group that in 1985 hijacked the Achille Lauro cruise ship and murdered an elderly, wheelchair-bound American passenger named Leon Klinghoffer. This was the same Abu Abbas who in recent years, according to FBI counter-terrorism analyst Mathew Levitt, "was the conduit for Saddam Hussein's financing of the [Palestinian] suicide bombers"; the same Abu Abbas whom three captured Palestinian terrorists recently admitted they had met in December 2000, at which time they were in Iraq for training in the use of weapons and explosives. Earlier, US commandoes tracked down and arrested Abbas in Iraq, where he had indeed been living for most of the past seventeen years - just as President Bush told us.
Ansar al Islam -- it has been known for years that Saddam armed and financed Ansar al Islam, a force of some six to seven hundred extremists that operated a terror camp in northern Iraq's no-fly zone, controlling a string of villages along the Iranian border of the Kurdish self-rule area. Ansar al Islam, a bin Laden-affiliated terrorist group in Northern Iraq, which a government official says was involved in smuggling the nerve agent out of Iraq. In "The Great Terror (March 3, 2002)," Jeffrey Goldberg of the New Yorker described the relationship between Saddam Hussein's intelligence services and al-Ansar -- senior Ansar members trained at a camp in Afghanistan that specialized in the manufacture of chemical and biological weapons, such as ricin.
Abu Mussab al Zarqawi -- He is a very senior al Qaeda leader and fled Afghanistan after the Taliban was defeated, had his injured leg treated in a Baghdad hospital - surely with the knowledge of the Iraqi dictator and his secret police - after which he was sent to create a poison laboratory in the Ansar terrorist cell. The Ansar camp, incidentally, was targeted and annihilated by American warplanes.
Judge Harold Baer -- The judge in the lawsuit filed by September 11th families ruled on May 7 2003 that Iraq provided "material support and resources" to al Qaeda and conspired with them to commit the 9/11 attacks. The evidence included testimony about Salman Pak, a terrorist training facility southeast of Baghdad that featured an old passenger jet used to teach hijacking techniques to terrorists.
Sabah Khodada -- defected from the Iraqi army and came to the U.S. in May 2001. He gave an interview to the PBS Frontline program and the New York Times. U.S. troops in Iraq took control of the facility on April 6, 2003, and confirmed Khodada's account of what was at Salman Pak. CIA director George Tenet had written an October 7, 2002 letter noting that there had been "senior level contacts" between Iraq and al Qaeda "going back a decade," that Iraq and al Qaeda had "discussed safe haven and reciprocal nonaggression," that there was "solid evidence" of al Qaeda members in Iraq, and that there was "credible reporting" of al Qaeda members seeking weapons of mass destruction "capabilities" from Iraq.
These are just a few of the things I could dig up in the short time between the end of the show yesterday and this morning. There are more...but again, it is up to you to put aside your normal biases and read the reports objectively.
The problem with some of you liberals is you keep moving the bar - we are not fighting the War on September 11th...or the War on Al Qaeda...it is the War on Terror. First it becomes a test on whether there was any connection between Saddam and terrorists. Then, when that's proved to any sane persons satisfaction, it becomes a test on whether there was any connection between Saddam and Al Qaeda. Then that is proved, and it becomes a test on whether there was any connection between Saddam and September 11th. I suppose the next test will be whether Saddam purchased the box cutters at a local hardware store.
In the end, you can choose to believe that Iraq had no ties to Al Qaeda at all...he worked publicly and privately with EVERY OTHER terrorist group including Hamas, PLO, Islamic Jihad, Abu Abbas, Abu Nidal, Ansar al Islam, but NOT Al Qaeda? Saddam and Iraq somehow avoided noticing and/or working with the most successful and well-funded terrorist group in the world? Seems strange when you think about it that way...
Two of the better reports:
Stephen F Hayes report in the Weekly Standard of September 1, 2003
Washington Post article of December 12, 2002 (psst...BEFORE the war)
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