National Review Online Confirms Iraq-al-Qaeda Link

[Axis Kast]

Cross-posted from Stuart Slade's forum. Originally posted by gan123.

October 21, 2003, 9:34 a.m.
Saddam's Terror Ties
Iraq-war critics ignore ample evidence.

As President Bush more robustly promotes his Iraq policy, he should confront directly those who dismiss Saddam Hussein's ties to terrorism and, thus, belittle a key rationale for Operation Iraqi Freedom. Bush's critics employ a flimsy argument that nonetheless enjoys growing appeal among a largely hostile press corps. Since Hussein did not order the September 11 attacks — the fuzzy logic goes — he has no ties to terrorists, especially al Qaeda. Therefore, the Iraq war was bogus, and Bush should be defeated.

"Iraq was not a breeding ground for terrorism. Our invasion has made it one," said Senator Ted Kennedy (D., Mass.) on October 16. "We were told Iraq was attracting terrorists from al Qaeda. It was not...We should never have gone to war in Iraq when we did, in the way we did, for the false reasons we were given."

West Virginia's Jay Rockefeller, the Senate Intelligence Committee's ranking Democrat, told the Los Angeles Times that Iraq's alleged al Qaeda ties were "tenuous at best and not compelling." In a September 16 editorial, the Times slammed Vice President Dick Cheney for making "sweeping, unproven claims about Saddam Hussein's connections to terrorism." On August 7, former vice president Al Gore stated reassuringly: "The evidence now shows clearly that Saddam did not want to work with Osama bin Laden at all."

Bush and his national-security team should repeatedly devote entire speeches and publications — complete with documents, names, and visuals, including photographs of terrorists and their innocent victims — to remind Americans and the world that Baathist Iraq was a general store for terrorists, complete with cash, training, lodging, and even medical attention.

The evidence for Hussein's cooperation with and support for global terrorists is abundant and increasing. Recall, for instance:

Hussein paid bonuses of up to $25,000 to the families of Palestinian homicide bombers. "President Saddam Hussein has recently told the head of the Palestinian political office, Faroq al-Kaddoumi, his decision to raise the sum granted to each family of the martyrs of the Palestinian uprising to $25,000 instead of $10,000," Iraq's former deputy prime minister, Tariq Aziz, declared at a Baghdad meeting of Arab politicians and businessmen on March 11, 2002, Reuters reported two days later. Mahmoud Besharat, who the White House says dispensed these funds across the West Bank, gratefully said: "You would have to ask President Saddam why he is being so generous. But he is a revolutionary and he wants this distinguished struggle, the intifada, to continue." Between Aziz's announcement and the March 20 launch of Operation Iraqi Freedom, 28 homicide bombers injured 1,209 people and killed 223 more, including at least eight Americans.

According to the State Department's May 21, 2002 "Patterns of Global Terrorism," the Abu Nidal Organization, the Arab Liberation Front, Hamas, the Kurdistan Worker's party, the Mujahedin-e-Khalq Organization and the Palestinian Liberation Front all operated offices or bases in Hussein's Iraq. Hussein's hospitality towards these mass murderers placed him in violation of United Nations Security Council Resolution 687, which prohibited him from giving safe harbor to or otherwise supporting terrorists.

Coalition forces have found alive and well key terrorists who enjoyed Hussein's hospitality. Among them was Abu Abbas, mastermind of the October 1985 Achille Lauro hijacking and murder of Leon Klinghoffer, a 69-year-old Manhattan retiree who Abbas's men rolled, wheelchair and all, into the Mediterranean. Khala Khadr al-Salahat, accused of designing the bomb that destroyed Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland in December 1988 (259 killed on board, 11 dead on the ground), also lived in Baathist Iraq.

Before fatally shooting himself four times in the head on August 16, 2002, as Baghdad claimed, Palestinian terrorist Abu Nidal had resided in Iraq since 1999. As the AP's Sameer N. Yacoub reported on August 21, 2002, the Beirut office of the Abu Nidal Organization said he entered Iraq "with the full knowledge and preparations of the Iraqi authorities." Nidal's attacks in 20 countries killed at least 275 people and wounded some 625 others. Among other atrocities, ANO henchmen bombed a TWA airliner over the Aegean Sea in 1974, killing all 88 people on board.

Coalition troops destroyed at least three terrorist training camps including a base near Baghdad called Salman Pak. It featured a passenger-jet fuselage where numerous Iraqi defectors reported that foreign terrorists were instructed how to hijack airliners with utensils. (The Bush administration should bus a few dozen foreign correspondents and their camera crews from the bar of Baghdad's Palestine Hotel to Salman Pak for a guided tour. Network news footage of that ought to open a few eyes.)

As for Hussein's supposedly imaginary ties to al Qaeda, consider these disturbing facts:

The Philippine government expelled Hisham al Hussein, the second secretary at Iraq's Manila embassy, on February 13, 2003. Cell-phone records indicate that the diplomat had spoken with Abu Madja and Hamsiraji Sali, leaders of Abu Sayyaf, just before and just after this al Qaeda-allied Islamic militant group conducted an attack in Zamboanga City. Abu Sayyaf's nail-filled bomb exploded on October 2, 2002, injuring 23 individuals and killing two Filipinos and U.S. Special Forces Sergeant First Class Mark Wayne Jackson, age 40. As Dan Murphy wrote in the Christian Science Monitor last February 26, those phone records bolster Sali's claim in a November 2002 TV interview that the Iraqi diplomat had offered these Muslim extremists Baghdad's help with joint missions.

Journalist Stephen F. Hayes reported in July that the official Babylon Daily Political Newspaper published by Hussein's eldest son, Uday, ran what it called a "List of Honor." The paper's November 14, 2002, edition gave the names and titles of 600 leading Iraqis, including this passage: "Abid Al-Karim Muhamed Aswod, intelligence officer responsible for the coordination of activities with the Osama bin Laden group at the Iraqi embassy in Pakistan." That name, Hayes wrote, matches that of Iraq's then-ambassador to Islamabad.

Carter-appointed federal appeals judge Gilbert S. Merritt discovered this document in Baghdad while helping Iraq rebuild its legal system. He wrote in the June 25 Tennessean that two of his Iraqi colleagues remember secret police agents removing that embarrassing edition from newsstands and confiscating copies of it from private homes. The paper was not published for the next ten days. Judge Merritt theorized that the "impulsive and somewhat unbalanced" Uday may have showcased these dedicated Baathists to "make them more loyal and supportive of the regime" as war loomed.

Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, formerly the director of an al Qaeda training base in Afghanistan, fled to Iraq after being injured as the Taliban fell. He received medical care and convalesced for two months in Baghdad. He then opened a terrorist training camp in northern Iraq and arranged the October 2002 assassination of U.S. diplomat Lawrence Foley in Amman, Jordan.

While Iraqi Ramzi Yousef, ringleader of the February 26, 1993 World Trade Center bombing plot, fled the U.S. on a Pakistani passport, he arrived here on an Iraqi passport.

Author Richard Miniter reported September 25 on TechCentralStation: "U.S. forces recently discovered a cache of documents in Tikrit, Saddam's hometown, that show Iraq gave Mr. Yasin both a house and a monthly salary." Indiana-born, Iraqi-reared al Qaeda member Abdul Rahman Yasin was indicted for mixing the chemicals in the bomb that exploded beneath the World Trade Center, killing six and injuring some 1,000 New Yorkers.

Along Iraq's border with Syria, U.S. troops captured Farouk Hijazi, Hussein's former ambassador to Turkey and suspected liaison to al Qaeda. Under interrogation, Hijazi "admitted meeting with senior al Qaeda leaders at Saddam's behest in 1994."

While sifting through the Mukhabarat's bombed ruins last April 26, the Toronto Star's Mitch Potter, the London Daily Telegraph's Inigo Gilmore and their translator discovered a memo in the intelligence service's accounting department. Dated February 19, 1998 and marked "Top Secret and Urgent," it said the agency would pay "all the travel and hotel expenses inside Iraq to gain the knowledge of the message from bin Laden and to convey to his envoy an oral message from us to bin Laden, the Saudi opposition leader, about the future of our relationship with him, and to achieve a direct meeting with him." The memo's three references to bin Laden were obscured crudely with correction fluid.

Despite the White House's inexplicable insistence to the contrary, tantalizing clues suggest Saddam Hussein might not have shared the world's shock when fireballs erupted from the Twin Towers.

Recall that his Salman Pak terror camp taught terrorists air piracy on an actual jet fuselage.

On January 5, 2000, Ahmad Hikmat Shakir — an Iraqi airport greeter reportedly dispatched from Baghdad's embassy in Malaysia — welcomed Khalid al Midhar and Nawaz al Hamzi to Kuala Lampur and escorted them to a local hotel where these September 11 hijackers met with 9/11 conspirators Ramzi bin al Shibh and Tawfiz al Atash. Five days later, according to Stephen Hayes, Shakir disappeared. He was arrested in Qatar on September 17, 2001, six days after al Midhar and al Hamzi slammed American Airlines Flight 77 into the Pentagon, killing 216 people. On his person and in his apartment, authorities discovered papers tying him to the 1993 WTC plot and "Operation Bojinka," al Qaeda's 1995 plan to blow up 12 jets over the Pacific at once.

The Czech Republic stands by its claim that 9/11 leader Mohamed Atta met in Prague in April 2001 with Ahmed Khalil Ibrahim an-Ani, an Iraqi diplomat/intelligence agent. He was expelled two weeks after the suspected meeting with Atta for apparently hostile surveillance of Radio Free Europe's Prague headquarters, from which American broadcasts to Iraq emanate.

Clinton-appointed Manhattan federal judge Harold Baer ordered Hussein and his ousted regime to pay $104 million in damages to the families of George Eric Smith and Timothy Soulas, both killed in the Twin Towers along with 2,790 others. "I conclude that plaintiffs have shown, albeit barely, 'by evidence satisfactory to the court' that Iraq provided material support to bin Laden and al Qaeda," Baer ruled. An airtight case? No, but sufficient evidence tied Hussein to 9/11 and secured a May 7 federal judgment against him.

If one has the time or professional duty to connect these dots, a portrait emerges of Saddam Hussein as sugar daddy to global terrorists, including al Qaeda and perhaps the 9/11 conspirators. Why won't Team Bush paint this picture? One administration communications specialist told me the government is bashful on this front because these links are difficult to prove. Yes, but prosecuting the informational battle in the war on terror is not like prosecuting a Mafia don, with wiretaps, hidden cameras and deep-cover "stool pigeons." Evidence of terrorist ties can be even more shadowy than a Costa Nostra whack job. While this makes metaphysical proof elusive, the White House and relevant agencies owe it to America's national security to highlight what they know about Saddam Hussein and terrorism, even if some of the evidence against him is only circumstantial.

Assuming he wishes to sway domestic and global opinion, President Bush and his administration should guide Americans and the world through the sometimes-murky data and identify the patterns and conclusions that arise. While Saddam Hussein never may endure a courtroom cross-examination, plenty already exists in the public record (and surely more should be declassified) to confirm that his ouster, the liberation of Iraq and its current rehabilitation were and are necessary phases of the war on terror. The president and his top advisers should present the case, not haphazardly, but systematically and in as comprehensive, well-documented, and well-illustrated a fashion as their vast resources will allow.

[Patrick Degan]

So... essentially, we have one or two Iraqi officials meeting with one or two people connected to Al Qaeda associated groups in the early 90s, one being given an apartment in Baghdad at some point in the mid-90's, some Iraqis who "remember" something, a newspaper blurb published by a man of questionable rationality, a prisoner who will say whatever his captors want him to, and the ruling of a judge based not on material evidence but showboating, and this "proves" a grand Iraq/Al Qaeda axis, eh?

The word "bullshit" springs to mind.

Oh, and BTW:

Multiple intelligence officials said that the Prague meeting, purported to be between Atta and senior Iraqi intelligence officer Ahmed Khalil Ibrahim Samir al-Ani, was dismissed almost immediately after it was reported by Czech officials in the aftermath of Sept. 11 and has since been discredited further.

The CIA reported to Congress last year that it could not substantiate the claim, while American records indicate Atta was in Virginia Beach, Va., at the time, the officials said yesterday. Indeed, two intelligence officials said yesterday that Ani himself, now in US custody, has also refuted the report. The Czech government has also distanced itself from its original claim.

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/artic ... hallenged/


So much for the claim that the Czechs "stand by" the discredited Atta-in-Prague story.

Try again.

[Vympel]

Cross-posted from Stuart Slade's forum. Originally posted by gan123.

October 21, 2003, 9:34 a.m.
Saddam's Terror Ties
Iraq-war critics ignore ample evidence.

As President Bush more robustly promotes his Iraq policy, he should confront directly those who dismiss Saddam Hussein's ties to terrorism and, thus, belittle a key rationale for Operation Iraqi Freedom. Bush's critics employ a flimsy argument that nonetheless enjoys growing appeal among a largely hostile press corps. Since Hussein did not order the September 11 attacks ? the fuzzy logic goes ? he has no ties to terrorists, especially al Qaeda. Therefore, the Iraq war was bogus, and Bush should be defeated.

Bush made the 9/11 Iraq connection repeatedly, not his opponents. That he repeatedly invoked 9/11 to justify his Iraq policy justifies the reaction that "there is no evidence that Iraq was involved in 9/11" (despite this guy's 'evidence' that is) resulted in.

Hussein paid bonuses of up to $25,000 to the families of Palestinian homicide bombers. "President Saddam Hussein has recently told the head of the Palestinian political office, Faroq al-Kaddoumi, his decision to raise the sum granted to each family of the martyrs of the Palestinian uprising to $25,000 instead of $10,000," Iraq's former deputy prime minister, Tariq Aziz, declared at a Baghdad meeting of Arab politicians and businessmen on March 11, 2002, Reuters reported two days later. Mahmoud Besharat, who the White House says dispensed these funds across the West Bank, gratefully said: "You would have to ask President Saddam why he is being so generous. But he is a revolutionary and he wants this distinguished struggle, the intifada, to continue." Between Aziz's announcement and the March 20 launch of Operation Iraqi Freedom, 28 homicide bombers injured 1,209 people and killed 223 more, including at least eight Americans.

Wow, complete with idiotic redundant terms like "homicide bomber". Giving money to the families of terrorists does not equal terror. Furthermore, Palestine vs Israel has nothing to do with the United States. Though I'm sure it never occured to National Review.

According to the State Department's May 21, 2002 "Patterns of Global Terrorism," the Abu Nidal Organization, the Arab Liberation Front, Hamas, the Kurdistan Worker's party, the Mujahedin-e-Khalq Organization and the Palestinian Liberation Front all operated offices or bases in Hussein's Iraq. Hussein's hospitality towards these mass murderers placed him in violation of United Nations Security Council Resolution 687, which prohibited him from giving safe harbor to or otherwise supporting terrorists.

If 'according to the State Department' was confirmation I'm sure we would've found Iraq's huge WMD stockpiles by now.

Coalition forces have found alive and well key terrorists who enjoyed Hussein's hospitality. Among them was Abu Abbas, mastermind of the October 1985 Achille Lauro hijacking and murder of Leon Klinghoffer, a 69-year-old Manhattan retiree who Abbas's men rolled, wheelchair and all, into the Mediterranean.

Dishonest. He was pardoned and hadn't engaged in any terrorist acts for over a decade. That they have to stretch this far to go after a terrorist in retirement to prove "Iraq's terror ties" is a rich indicator of how much strength this 'confirmation' carries.

Khala Khadr al-Salahat, accused of designing the bomb that destroyed Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland in December 1988 (259 killed on board, 11 dead on the ground), also lived in Baathist Iraq.

Shocking. I guess any country were someone lives must automatically support everything that person does. Fucking moron logic ...

Before fatally shooting himself four times in the head on August 16, 2002, as Baghdad claimed, Palestinian terrorist Abu Nidal had resided in Iraq since 1999. As the AP's Sameer N. Yacoub reported on August 21, 2002, the Beirut office of the Abu Nidal Organization said he entered Iraq "with the full knowledge and preparations of the Iraqi authorities." Nidal's attacks in 20 countries killed at least 275 people and wounded some 625 others. Among other atrocities, ANO henchmen bombed a TWA airliner over the Aegean Sea in 1974, killing all 88 people on board.

His organization would have reason to claim that, considering that they claimed the Iraqis had assassinated him. I'm not surprised that an article with an agenda takes only the favorable interpretation and ignores the other versions- note that it takes the Palestinian claim that he was shot four times in the head as fact, not merely an assertion.

Coalition troops destroyed at least three terrorist training camps including a base near Baghdad called Salman Pak. It featured a passenger-jet fuselage where numerous Iraqi defectors reported that foreign terrorists were instructed how to hijack airliners with utensils. (The Bush administration should bus a few dozen foreign correspondents and their camera crews from the bar of Baghdad's Palestine Hotel to Salman Pak for a guided tour. Network news footage of that ought to open a few eyes.)

The Bush administration would do that, fortunately they're not stupid enough to, considering that the CIA debunked these defectors information as entirely not credible- not surprising, considering they were fresh from Chalabi's INC propaganda arm. In addition, numerous counter-terrorist forces, including Australia's SAS, use jet fuselages to practice against hijackings.

As for Hussein's supposedly imaginary ties to al Qaeda, consider these disturbing facts:

The Philippine government expelled Hisham al Hussein, the second secretary at Iraq's Manila embassy, on February 13, 2003. Cell-phone records indicate that the diplomat had spoken with Abu Madja and Hamsiraji Sali, leaders of Abu Sayyaf, just before and just after this al Qaeda-allied Islamic militant group conducted an attack in Zamboanga City. Abu Sayyaf's nail-filled bomb exploded on October 2, 2002, injuring 23 individuals and killing two Filipinos and U.S. Special Forces Sergeant First Class Mark Wayne Jackson, age 40. As Dan Murphy wrote in the Christian Science Monitor last February 26, those phone records bolster Sali's claim in a November 2002 TV interview that the Iraqi diplomat had offered these Muslim extremists Baghdad's help with joint missions.

What part of this is supposed to compelling?

Journalist Stephen F. Hayes reported in July that the official Babylon Daily Political Newspaper published by Hussein's eldest son, Uday, ran what it called a "List of Honor." The paper's November 14, 2002, edition gave the names and titles of 600 leading Iraqis, including this passage: "Abid Al-Karim Muhamed Aswod, intelligence officer responsible for the coordination of activities with the Osama bin Laden group at the Iraqi embassy in Pakistan." That name, Hayes wrote, matches that of Iraq's then-ambassador to Islamabad.

Carter-appointed federal appeals judge Gilbert S. Merritt discovered this document in Baghdad while helping Iraq rebuild its legal system. He wrote in the June 25 Tennessean that two of his Iraqi colleagues remember secret police agents removing that embarrassing edition from newsstands and confiscating copies of it from private homes. The paper was not published for the next ten days. Judge Merritt theorized that the "impulsive and somewhat unbalanced" Uday may have showcased these dedicated Baathists to "make them more loyal and supportive of the regime" as war loomed.

Uh huh. Can we see this newspaper then? Or is it another nugget fresh from the oh-so reliable Iraqi National Congress?

Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, formerly the director of an al Qaeda training base in Afghanistan, fled to Iraq after being injured as the Taliban fell. He received medical care and convalesced for two months in Baghdad.

Because as well all know, it's impossible to get medical care in a country without the government knowing about it, approving of it, and knowing everything about you ... right?

He then opened a terrorist training camp in northern Iraq and arranged the October 2002 assassination of U.S. diplomat Lawrence Foley in Amman, Jordan.

That camp being not under Iraqi control. Funny how they leave that bit out, eh?

While Iraqi Ramzi Yousef, ringleader of the February 26, 1993 World Trade Center bombing plot, fled the U.S. on a Pakistani passport, he arrived here on an Iraqi passport.

Erm ... So?

Author Richard Miniter reported September 25 on TechCentralStation: "U.S. forces recently discovered a cache of documents in Tikrit, Saddam's hometown, that show Iraq gave Mr. Yasin both a house and a monthly salary." Indiana-born, Iraqi-reared al Qaeda member Abdul Rahman Yasin was indicted for mixing the chemicals in the bomb that exploded beneath the World Trade Center, killing six and injuring some 1,000 New Yorkers.

Right, because people have never worked a day in their lives if they're terrorists, right?

Along Iraq's border with Syria, U.S. troops captured Farouk Hijazi, Hussein's former ambassador to Turkey and suspected liaison to al Qaeda. Under interrogation, Hijazi "admitted meeting with senior al Qaeda leaders at Saddam's behest in 1994."

This is not news. It is also not evidence of 'terror ties'.

While sifting through the Mukhabarat's bombed ruins last April 26, the Toronto Star's Mitch Potter, the London Daily Telegraph's Inigo Gilmore and their translator discovered a memo in the intelligence service's accounting department. Dated February 19, 1998 and marked "Top Secret and Urgent," it said the agency would pay "all the travel and hotel expenses inside Iraq to gain the knowledge of the message from bin Laden and to convey to his envoy an oral message from us to bin Laden, the Saudi opposition leader, about the future of our relationship with him, and to achieve a direct meeting with him." The memo's three references to bin Laden were obscured crudely with correction fluid.

Completely unconfirmed by any official intelligence sources. Easily planted by the Iraqi National Congress (who also peddled other forgeries). Regardless, this is also not evidence of 'terror ties'.

Despite the White House's inexplicable insistence to the contrary, tantalizing clues suggest Saddam Hussein might not have shared the world's shock when fireballs erupted from the Twin Towers.

Now the ever so desperate author goes off into fantasy land.

Recall that his Salman Pak terror camp taught terrorists air piracy on an actual jet fuselage.

Using discredited defector reports as fact.

On January 5, 2000, Ahmad Hikmat Shakir ? an Iraqi airport greeter reportedly dispatched from Baghdad's embassy in Malaysia ? welcomed Khalid al Midhar and Nawaz al Hamzi to Kuala Lampur and escorted them to a local hotel where these September 11 hijackers met with 9/11 conspirators Ramzi bin al Shibh and Tawfiz al Atash. Five days later, according to Stephen Hayes, Shakir disappeared. He was arrested in Qatar on September 17, 2001, six days after al Midhar and al Hamzi slammed American Airlines Flight 77 into the Pentagon, killing 216 people. On his person and in his apartment, authorities discovered papers tying him to the 1993 WTC plot and "Operation Bojinka," al Qaeda's 1995 plan to blow up 12 jets over the Pacific at once.

The Czech Republic stands by its claim that 9/11 leader Mohamed Atta met in Prague in April 2001 with Ahmed Khalil Ibrahim an-Ani, an Iraqi diplomat/intelligence agent. He was expelled two weeks after the suspected meeting with Atta for apparently hostile surveillance of Radio Free Europe's Prague headquarters, from which American broadcasts to Iraq emanate.

Liar. They do not. Nor does the FBI. Period. Clearly this author is not concerned with actual facts. Maybe he can explain also why the FBI insists he never made the trip

Clinton-appointed

Who gives a fuck if he was Clinton-appointed? What the? "Well, he was appointed by the devil-incarnate of rabid conservatives everywhere, so even DEMOCRAT LIEBERALS (not a typo) must believe him!"

Manhattan federal judge Harold Baer ordered Hussein and his ousted regime to pay $104 million in damages to the families of George Eric Smith and Timothy Soulas, both killed in the Twin Towers along with 2,790 others. "I conclude that plaintiffs have shown, albeit barely, 'by evidence satisfactory to the court' that Iraq provided material support to bin Laden and al Qaeda," Baer ruled. An airtight case? No, but sufficient evidence tied Hussein to 9/11 and secured a May 7 federal judgment against him.

How desperate is this idiot? He *does* know that they won by default because there was no response from the Iraqi goverment, doesn't he?

(in this courtcase, the plaintiffs presented well known 'attack-Iraq' loons like Laurie Mylorie- who've pretty much claimed that Iraq has done everything bad that's happened to America since 1991)

If one has the time or professional duty to connect these dots, a portrait emerges of Saddam Hussein as sugar daddy to global terrorists, including al Qaeda and perhaps the 9/11 conspirators. Why won't Team Bush paint this picture? One administration communications specialist told me the government is bashful on this front because these links are difficult to prove. Yes, but prosecuting the informational battle in the war on terror is not like prosecuting a Mafia don, with wiretaps, hidden cameras and deep-cover "stool pigeons." Evidence of terrorist ties can be even more shadowy than a Costa Nostra whack job. While this makes metaphysical proof elusive, the White House and relevant agencies owe it to America's national security to highlight what they know about Saddam Hussein and terrorism, even if some of the evidence against him is only circumstantial.

Assuming he wishes to sway domestic and global opinion, President Bush and his administration should guide Americans and the world through the sometimes-murky data and identify the patterns and conclusions that arise. While Saddam Hussein never may endure a courtroom cross-examination, plenty already exists in the public record (and surely more should be declassified) to confirm that his ouster, the liberation of Iraq and its current rehabilitation were and are necessary phases of the war on terror. The president and his top advisers should present the case, not haphazardly, but systematically and in as comprehensive, well-documented, and well-illustrated a fashion as their vast resources will allow.

I can sum up this "ample evidence" thusly: thin, circumstantial, and in some cases fundamentally dishonest (when you omit inconvenient facts or other interpretations, that's what you are).

[Axis Kast]

Wow, complete with idiotic redundant terms like "homicide bomber". Giving money to the families of terrorists does not equal terror. Furthermore, Palestine vs Israel has nothing to do with the United States. Though I'm sure it never occured to National Review.

Iraq was a state sponsor of terrorism, possible connections to al-Qaeda aside.

Saddam Hussein put money in the hands of terrorists who assured him that it would be later divvied up among the families of Palestinian suicide bombers. Regardless of whether or not that money made it to the destinations originally specified, it’s proof that Saddam Hussein was furthering an agenda shared with terrorists – and that he had no qualms handing over financial resources to murderous organizations based on faith alone. That money was irretrievable – and uncontrollable – once it left Iraqi hands. That form of behavior is not the kind we want to see again and again.

Shocking. I guess any country were someone lives must automatically support everything that person does. Fucking moron logic ...

Iraq wasn’t handing him over. But we knew where Saddam stood on these issues long before the NRO article; this is really icing on the cake.

Because as well all know, it's impossible to get medical care in a country without the government knowing about it, approving of it, and knowing everything about you ... right?

We return to the “might makes right” equation. It’s part of a technical justification that permits action on the basis of the Ansar al-Islam camp alone. As the argument goes, the United States is assuming responsibility for the security Saddam Hussein could evidently no longer provide (for whatever reason, in this case being his past history of aggression which forced emasculation of Iraq while under his leadership and thus perpetuated a catch-22 situation).

And before you try to complain that the al-Qaeda men responsible for September 11th trained in the United States, I point you to realpolitik. Nobody can defend Iraq from becoming the victim of American national security imperatives; we’re not about to be subjected to the same standards ourselves.

This is not news. It is also not evidence of 'terror ties'.

Then it’s proof.

[MKSheppard]

One thing is right - he was a state sponsor of terrorism, paying $10k
each to the familys of Palestinian Suicide Bombers

[Vympel]

Iraq was a state sponsor of terrorism, possible connections to al-Qaeda aside.

Saddam Hussein put money in the hands of terrorists who assured him that it would be later divvied up among the families of Palestinian suicide bombers. Regardless of whether or not that money made it to the destinations originally specified, it?s proof that Saddam Hussein was furthering an agenda shared with terrorists ? and that he had no qualms handing over financial resources to murderous organizations based on faith alone. That money was irretrievable ? and uncontrollable ? once it left Iraqi hands. That form of behavior is not the kind we want to see again and again.

Actually, the money was delivered in the form of checques direct to the families doorsteps, or at local meetings. That's how it was reported.

Iraq wasn?t handing him over.

Why wasn't Mohammed Atta arrested in America?

But we knew where Saddam stood on these issues long before the NRO article; this is really icing on the cake.

Yes the selective cherry picking and outright falshoods make for quite the icing.

We return to the ?might makes right? equation. It?s part of a technical justification that permits action on the basis of the Ansar al-Islam camp alone.

It could've been blown to bits at any time.

As the argument goes, the United States is assuming responsibility for the security Saddam Hussein could evidently no longer provide (for whatever reason, in this case being his past history of aggression which forced emasculation of Iraq while under his leadership and thus perpetuated a catch-22 situation).

Actually, the United States was directly responsible for Northern Iraq by virtue of the no-fly zones. So there was really no reason for not blowing that camp up.

And before you try to complain that the al-Qaeda men responsible for September 11th trained in the United States, I point you to realpolitik.

Nobody can defend Iraq from becoming the victim of American national security imperatives; we?re not about to be subjected to the same standards ourselves.

It's not about the bankrupt reasoning of realpolitik, it's about realitic standards. Simply pointing out that a terrorist did *something* in the country in question is not a confirmation of an offical link with that country, for fuck's sake- which is what the 19 hijackers training in the US illustrates. Terrorists have been to many countries and have done many things in those countries- it's confirmation of nothing.

Then it?s proof.

Ha ha ha. Pithy.

[Axis Kast]

Actually, the money was delivered in the form of checques direct to the families doorsteps, or at local meetings. That's how it was reported.

You have evidence of this?

Why wasn't Mohammed Atta arrested in America?

Are you implying we would not have arrested Atta had we known his intentions beforehand? The point is that there were convicted terrorists in Iraq, being harbored from facing charges elsewhere.

Yes the selective cherry picking and outright falshoods make for quite the icing.

I had my own reason for posting this; I'm cherry-picking because you seemed to have denied that Saddam financed terrorism.

It could've been blown to bits at any time.

But not by Saddam Hussein.

Actually, the United States was directly responsible for Northern Iraq by virtue of the no-fly zones. So there was really no reason for not blowing that camp up.

Correct; but the justification would be technically correct were we to hold Saddam ultimately responsible.

It's not about the bankrupt reasoning of realpolitik, it's about realitic standards. Simply pointing out that a terrorist did *something* in the country in question is not a confirmation of an offical link with that country, for fuck's sake- which is what the 19 hijackers training in the US illustrates. Terrorists have been to many countries and have done many things in those countries- it's confirmation of nothing.

Pointing out that they have infrastructure that isn't being savaged is however a legitimate tactic of debate.

Ha ha ha. Pithy.

Yet true nonetheless.

[Vympel]

You have evidence of this?

Linky

Every news article on the topic you care to dig up states that the Arab Liberation Front distributed cheques for Saddam- either in public or privately. If you don't know what the ALF is, then perhaps you should look it up- it's a small pro-Iraqi Palestinian political party- complete with portraits of Saddam in their offices. It has negligible political influence and hasn't been linked to any terrorist attacks- indeed, the only thing it's been noted for is it's aforementioned 'charity' work- so, not only were the cheques distributed, not made, by the ALF, even if they were made by the ALF, there is no indication that "Saddam Hussein put money in the hands of terrorists".

Are you implying we would not have arrested Atta had we known his intentions beforehand? The point is that there were convicted terrorists in Iraq, being harbored from facing charges elsewhere.

Prove they were being harbored.

I had my own reason for posting this; I'm cherry-picking because you seemed to have denied that Saddam financed terrorism.

No, I have not seen any Al Qaeda ties. Which is what you are claiming this mockery of journalism 'confirms'.

But not by Saddam Hussein.

Considering it was in Kurdish controlled and USAF patrolled Northern Iraq- Duh.

Correct; but the justification would be technically correct were we to hold Saddam ultimately responsible.

No, it wouldn't be.

Pointing out that they have infrastructure that isn't being savaged is however a legitimate tactic of debate.

The US was capable of blowing up that camp at any time it wished.

Yet true nonetheless.

Uh huh. If it's not 'evidence' it must be 'proof'. Well that makes perfect sense.

[Axis Kast]

Prove they were being harbored.

As long as they weren't being hunted down vigorously, we have cause for action.

No, I have not seen any Al Qaeda ties. Which is what you are claiming this mockery of journalism 'confirms'.

Ties to terrorism.

No, it wouldn't be.

Absolutely incorrect. The United States may be to blame for hypocritical inaction, but that doesn't change the circumstances of the situation: had he not been deemed too aggressive, the problem would have been that of Saddam Hussein anyway. By forcing us to incapacitate him, it was impossible that he could police territory nominally his own. Technically, blame can be apportioned to Baghdad for Ansar al-Islam's unchallenged existence. Unfair, perhaps, but legally binding.

[Vympel]

As long as they weren't being hunted down vigorously, we have cause for action.

And who decides how 'vigorous' the hunting is?

Ties to terrorism.

Then you shouldn't have put it in the thread title. Regardless, Iraq's ties to terrorism per se are just as piss poor.

Absolutely incorrect. The United States may be to blame for hypocritical inaction, but that doesn't change the circumstances of the situation: had he not been deemed too aggressive, the problem would have been that of Saddam Hussein anyway. By forcing us to incapacitate him, it was impossible that he could police territory nominally his own. Technically, blame can be apportioned to Baghdad for Ansar al-Islam's unchallenged existence. Unfair, perhaps, but legally binding.

Legally binding? What law? What e you on about? That you can construct such a tortured technicality on which to base action speaks volumes as to the strength of your position. The far easier solution to any percieved threat by this pissant little camp would've been several 500kg JDAMs.

[SirNitram]

No, I have not seen any Al Qaeda ties. Which is what you are claiming this mockery of journalism 'confirms'.

Ties to terrorism.

Ah yes, the magic bullet of 'TERRORISM! TERRORISM!'. Hrm, I wonder what Merriam-Webster's says Terrorism is?

The organized use of fear as coercian...

Hrm.. That sounds like the fearmongering the State department has does around 9/11 and Iraq.. By Axis Logic, we should now introduction regime change in America.

[Iceberg]

Regime change via bullets should only be embraced if regime change via ballots fails.

[Axis Kast]

And who decides how 'vigorous' the hunting is?

The party enforcing punishment. We return to realism. Again, this is neither pretty nor fair.

Then you shouldn't have put it in the thread title. Regardless, Iraq's ties to terrorism per se are just as piss poor.

Iraq was a state sponsor of terrorism. End of story.

Legally binding? What law? What e you on about? That you can construct such a tortured technicality on which to base action speaks volumes as to the strength of your position. The far easier solution to any percieved threat by this pissant little camp would've been several 500kg JDAMs.

It isn't to validate the war per se; it's more an explanation of how one would presume to draw ties to al-Qaeda in the first place. It's acknowledged to be tortured.

Legally binding from the point of view of the obligations of statehood as sovereign states have been wont to see them. Throughout history, we've seen invasion after invasion on one argument alone: you failed to deal with the threat yourself.

[Patrick Degan]

Just can't resist yet another temptation to make a public fool of yourself, can you Axi? At the very least, you could try to be a bit more original than flogging the same threadbare non-evidence over which you've already made a fool of yourself several times.

[Vympel]

The party enforcing punishment. We return to realism. Again, this is neither pretty nor fair.

And that's the problem. Your appeal to the bankrupt reasoning of "well we're strong so we'll do what we like" is practically a concession. You can offer no real reasons save for tortured acrobatics and sophistry.

Iraq was a state sponsor of terrorism. End of story.

And I see your return to your dogma, having had your piss poor 'article' duly annihilated for what it is- circumstantial inneuendo at best, and outright lies at its worst.

It isn't to validate the war per se; it's more an explanation of how one would presume to draw ties to al-Qaeda in the first place. It's acknowledged to be tortured.

And this is supposed to convince anyone!? With pathetic evidence like this, it's no wonder the media is 'hostile' (quite a change from pre-war cheer leading but anyway)

Legally binding from the point of view of the obligations of statehood as sovereign states have been wont to see them. Throughout history, we've seen invasion after invasion on one argument alone: you failed to deal with the threat yourself.

Even if such reasoning were sound (i.e. I for one have heard of few invasions to deal with a 'threat' that the nation being invaded wasn't dealing with- greed and ideology is the norm and both fit Iraq wonderfully) this is nothing but a fallacious appeal to tradition- and to call presume to impose the word 'legal' on it makes a mockery of the concept of the law.

[Axis Kast]

And I see your return to your dogma, having had your piss poor 'article' duly annihilated for what it is- circumstantial inneuendo at best, and outright lies at its worst.

Iraq supports terrorism. That statement is truth, not dogma.

[Patrick Degan]

And I see your return to your dogma, having had your piss poor 'article' duly annihilated for what it is- circumstantial inneuendo at best, and outright lies at its worst.

Iraq supports terrorism. That statement is truth, not dogma.

The token widows-and-orphans fund? Puhleeze...

[Vympel]

Iraq supports terrorism. That statement is truth, not dogma.

Ah, answer criticism of your blanket assertion with yet more matter of fact unsupported claims. In case you didn't know- making unsupported claims in the absence of fact is: dogma.

[BoredShirtless]

And I see your return to your dogma, having had your piss poor 'article' duly annihilated for what it is- circumstantial inneuendo at best, and outright lies at its worst.

Iraq supports terrorism. That statement is truth, not dogma.

The token widows-and-orphans fund? Puhleeze...

Woah deja-vu! Again.