"The Mother of All Connections"

Don't worry, the libbies will completely shoot it down for you, and blame Karl Rove, he's the real enemy, here.

Don't you LOVE the Weekly Standard ?

 

We have always known of the connection, but the details have been hard to come by.

When they are uncovered, they are studiously ignored by the corrupt old media.

The fix is in unless the evidence is overpowering and cannot be ignored.

 

I will have my own notes of the article posted within an hour or so, unless someone beats me to it.

 

OK, this is mostly copy and paste of the highlights, with a few of my own comments thrown in to clarify things that were left out of the notes. The information is mostly older, but some is fresh. It is about 6 pages in 10 pt. font, so it is still too long. I don't know how this copy will look-- I am sure the bullet points I have in the notes won't show through on the board.

It is assumed that the 9/11 Commission Report:
· Was based on a firm foundation of intelligence reporting.
· That the intelligence community had the type of human intelligence and other reporting that would allow senior-level analysts to draw reasonable conclusions.
Neither of these criteria is true.

John Lehman, a 9/11 commissioner, said at the time the report was released. "There may well be--and probably will be--additional intelligence coming in from interrogations and from analysis of captured records and so forth which will fill out the intelligence picture. This is not phrased as--nor meant to be--the definitive word on Iraqi Intelligence activities."
In other words, even the commissioners knew that their report wasn’t really accurate, and that there was much more to learn. In fact, a year after the report was released there is still much to learn. However, there are things that have come to light since the release of the report. This information forces one to believe that those denying an al Qaeda-Iraq relationship are denying, or hiding, the truth.

The following 13 points were used by the Department of Defense in trying to have a captured Iraqi classified as an Enemy Combatant.
1. From 1987 to 1989, the detainee served as an infantryman in the Iraqi Army and received training on the mortar and rocket propelled grenades.
2. A Taliban recruiter in Baghdad convinced the detainee to travel to Afghanistan to join the Taliban in 1994.
3. The detainee admitted he was a member of the Taliban.
4. The detainee pledged allegiance to the supreme leader of the Taliban to help them take over all of Afghanistan.
5. The Taliban issued the detainee a Kalishnikov rifle in November 2000.
6. The detainee worked in a Taliban ammo and arms storage arsenal in Mazar-Es-Sharif organizing weapons and ammunition.
7. The detainee willingly associated with al Qaida members.
8. The detainee was a member of al Qaida.
9. An assistant to Usama Bin Ladin paid the detainee on three separate occasions between 1995 and 1997.
10. The detainee stayed at the al Farouq camp in Darwanta, Afghanistan, where he received 1,000 Rupees to continue his travels.
11. From 1997 to 1998, the detainee acted as a trusted agent for Usama Bin Ladin, executing three separate reconnaissance missions for the al Qaeda leader in Oman, Iraq, and Afghanistan.
12. In August 1998, the detainee traveled to Pakistan with a member of Iraqi Intelligence for the purpose of blowing up the Pakistan, United States and British embassies with chemical mortars.
13. Detainee was arrested by Pakistani authorities in Khudzar, Pakistan, in July 2002

Pay special attention to numbers 2 and 12. These show a link between the Taliban/al Qaeda that are beyond this one man. A Taliban recruiter was in Baghdad, which we know would not have been possible without Saddam’s approval. The suspect, then a member of al Qaeda and the Taliban traveled with a member of the Iraqi intelligence service to attack embassies with CHEMICAL WEAPONS. These attacks were to have taken place in August 1998—the same month that al Qaeda attacked two embassies in Africa and the same month Clinton accused Iraq of giving chemical weapons to al Qaeda.

Iraqi intelligence service documents indicate that:
· They used bin Laden as an intelligence asset beginning in 1992.
· The former Iraqi regime provided safe haven and financial support to an Iraqi who has admitted to mixing the chemicals for the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center.
· Saddam Hussein agreed to Osama bin Laden's request to broadcast anti-Saudi propaganda on Iraqi state-run television.
· A “trusted confidante" of bin Laden stayed for more than two weeks at a posh Baghdad hotel as the guest of the Iraqi Intelligence Service.

Hudayfa Azzam, the son of bin Laden's longtime mentor Abdullah Azzam said Saddam Hussein welcomed young al Qaeda members "with open arms" before the war, that they "entered Iraq in large numbers, setting up an organization to confront the occupation," and that the regime "strictly and directly" controlled their activities.
King Abdullah said that his government knew Abu Musab al Zarqawi was in Iraq before the war and requested that the former Iraqi regime deport him.
Confidential documents from Zarqawi's group, recovered in recent raids, indicate other jihadists had joined him in Baghdad before the Hussein regime fell.
Other Iraqi Intelligence documents indicate bin Laden's top deputy was in Iraq for a jihadist conference in September 1999.
According to former CIA director George Tenet, the U.S. intelligence community never penetrated the senior ranks of the former Iraqi regime. Bob Woodward of the Washington Post explored this subject in his book on the Iraq war, Plan of Attack. Woodward interviewed "Saul," the chief of the Iraqi Operations Group, at the CIA.
Saul was discovering that the CIA reporting sources inside Iraq were pretty thin. What was thin? "I can count them on one hand," Saul said, pausing for effect, "and I can still pick my nose." There were four. And those sources were in Iraqi ministries such as foreign affairs and oil that were on the periphery of any penetration of Saddam's inner circle.
The difference between most intelligence community analysts and Bush administration policymakers can be found in how they interpret the gaps. The analysts seemed to assume, despite the history of poor collection, that the many Iraq-al Qaeda contacts reported in intelligence products and open sources were anomalous. To them, the gaps in reporting simply reflected a lack of activity. Policymakers (and a small number of analysts) took a different view. The gaps in reporting on Iraq and al Qaeda were just that: gaps in reporting. To this group, the many reports of contacts, training, and offers of safe haven were indicative of a relationship that ran much deeper.
Iraq's use of terrorism was so widespread, in fact, that it became an issue in the 1992 presidential campaign, when Al Gore accused the first Bush administration of a "blatant disregard for brutal terrorism" practiced by Hussein and ignoring Iraq's "extensive terrorism activities."
Sudan's Hasan al-Turabi supported Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait. Turabi's willingness to back Hussein gave the Iraqi dictator the Islamist street credibility he would exploit for years to come. In the debate over the former Iraqi regime's relationship with al Qaeda, it is often said that Saddam's secular Baathist regime could never work with Osama bin Laden's radical Islamist organization. It is a curious argument since Turabi, one of Saddam's staunchest allies, also happened to be one of the most influential Islamists of the past two decades. One of the principal architects of Sudan's Islamist revolution in 1989, Turabi was also the longtime mentor, friend, and host of Osama bin Laden during his stay in Sudan from 1992 until 1996.
While bin Laden's first instinct may have been to oppose the secular tyrant, his soon-to-be host in Sudan did not share these sentiments. According to an interview at the time with Turabi's cousin, Mudawi Turabi, the Sudanese leader met twice with Saddam Hussein before the Gulf war and "had appeared to be designing his own Islamic empire even then."
In October 1990, Turabi led a delegation of Islamists to Jordan to meet with Iraqi government officials. Bin Laden sent emissaries to this meeting as well. While it is not clear what bin Laden's emissaries or bin Laden himself thought of the meeting, it is clear that Turabi threw his full support behind Saddam. In a press conference after the meeting, Turabi warned "there is going to be all forms of jihad all over the world because it is an issue of foreign troops on sacred soil."
Newsweek reporter Christopher Dickey attended a Popular Islamic Conference at Baghdad's al Rashid Hotel and later recalled: "If that was not a fledgling al Qaeda at the Rashid convention, it sure was Saddam's version of it."
An internal Iraqi Intelligence memo dated March 28, 1992, lists individuals Hussein's regime considered assets of the Iraqi Intelligence Service. Osama bin Laden is listed on page 14. The Iraqis describe him as a Saudi businessman who "is in good relationship with our section in Syria."
At the same time, the Iraqis were cultivating a relationship with Ayman al Zawahiri, the leader of Egyptian Islamic Jihad and the current top deputy to bin Laden. According to Qassem Hussein Mohammed, a 20-year veteran of Iraqi Intelligence, Zawahiri visited Baghdad in 1992 for a meeting with Hussein
In 1993, at Turabi's urging, bin Laden came to an "understanding" with Saddam Hussein that the al Qaeda leader and his followers would not engage in any anti-Hussein activities. The Clinton administration later included this development in its sealed indictment of bin Laden in 1998.
Abdul Rahman Yasin was involved in the bombing of the WTC in 1993. He was detained and released by the FBI twice, even after admitting his involvement in the plot. After his second detainment he fled to Iraq with assistance from the Iraqi regime. His travel was arranged by the second secretary of the Iraqi embassy in Amman, Jordan. In 1994, a reporter for ABC News went to the home of Yasin's father in Baghdad and spoke with neighbors who reported that Yasin was free to come and go as he pleased and was "working for the government."
Shortly after the 9/11 attacks, the Iraqi regime denied any relationship with Yasin and any knowledge of his whereabouts. In an interview with PBS's Frontline that aired on October 29, 2001, Iraq's U.N. ambassador denied that Yasin was even in Iraq. "To my knowledge he is not, and there is not any relation with him." Pressed, the Iraqi diplomat went further. "Absolutely. I know that there is no relation with that guy. . . . We have no relations with these kind of guys, with all persons who are involved in terrorism."
Eight months later, on June 2, 2002, the Iraqi government abruptly changed its story. Tariq Aziz, for years the face of the Iraqi regime in the Western media, appeared on 60 Minutes and assured Lesley Stahl that Yasin had been imprisoned since his return to Iraq. Aziz claimed that the Iraqi regime held Yasin prisoner because they worried that the United States would blame Iraq for the attack if he was returned to America to face trial. Yasin himself appeared. He admitted to mixing the chemicals for the bomb. He showed viewers a scar on his leg that he claimed to have gotten preparing chemicals for the attack. He even apologized. Stahl did not ask about the Frontline interview or previous media reports that Yasin was living freely in Baghdad.
The relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda intensified in 1998. The Iraqis were growing more obdurate in their confrontation with the U.N. weapons inspectors, at times simply refusing to grant access to suspected weapons sites. The United States was losing patience--both with Iraq and with U.N. fecklessness. Al Qaeda, meanwhile, had found a home in Afghanistan and was turning out terrorists from its camps by the thousands.
On February 3, 1998, Ayman al Zawahiri, bin Laden's Egyptian deputy, came to Baghdad for meetings with Iraqi leaders. We do not have reporting on when, exactly, Zawahiri left Baghdad. But we do know from an interrogation of a senior Iraqi Intelligence official that he did not leave empty-handed. As first reported in U.S. News & World Report, the Iraqi regime gave Zawahiri $300,000 during or shortly after his trip to Baghdad.
On February 17, 1998 Clinton explained why "meeting the threat posed by Saddam Hussein is important to our security in the new era we are entering." He warned about the threats from the "predators of the 21st century," rogue states working with terrorist groups. "There is no more clear example of this threat than Saddam Hussein's Iraq."
February 19, the Iraqi Intelligence Service finalized plans to bring a "trusted confidant" of bin Laden's to Baghdad in early March. The revelation came in documents discovered after the Iraq war by journalists Mitch Potter of the Toronto Star and Inigo Gilmore of the Sunday Telegraph. The U.S. intelligence community is now in possession of these documents and has assessed that they are authentic. The documents--a series of communiqués between Iraqi Intelligence divisions--provide another window into the relationship between the former Iraqi regime and al Qaeda. The following comes from the Telegraph's translations of the documents.
The envoy is a trusted confidant and known by them. According to the above mediation we request official permission to call Khartoum station to facilitate the travel arrangements for the above-mentioned person to Iraq. And that our body carry 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.
One IIS division recommends approving the request, noting, "we may find in this envoy a way to maintain contacts with bin Laden."
Four days later, on February 23, final approval is granted. "The permission of Mr. Deputy Director of Intelligence has been gained on 21 February for this operation, to secure a reservation for one of the intelligence services guests for one week in one of the first class hotels," the Al Mansour Melia hotel in Baghdad.
That same day, Osama bin Laden and Ayman al Zawahiri, joined by leaders of four additional Islamic terrorist groups, announced the formation of the World Front for Jihad Against Jews and Crusaders, soon to become better known as al Qaeda. The grievances in the fatwa focused on Iraq. The terrorist leaders decried the presence of U.S. troops on the Arabian Peninsula. They protested the "great devastation inflicted on the Iraqi people by the crusader-Zionist alliance." They cited American support for Israel and surmised that the United States sought to distract world attention from the killing of Muslims in Jerusalem. To support this claim, the fatwa turned once again to Iraq: "The best proof of this is their eagerness to destroy Iraq, the strongest neighboring Arab state."
The fatwa declared: "The ruling to kill the Americans and their allies--civilians and military--is an individual duty for every Muslim who can do it in any country in which it is possible to do it."
In a speech at the U.S. Naval Academy on May 22, 1998, President Clinton warned that our enemies "may deploy compact and relatively cheap weapons of mass destruction--not just nuclear, but also chemical or biological, to use disease as a weapon of war. Sometimes the terrorists and criminals act alone. But increasingly, they are interconnected, and sometimes supported by hostile countries."
Shortly after Clinton's speech, the CIA produced an assessment of WMD proliferation that covered the first half of 1998. "Sudan," it said, "has been developing the capability to produce chemical weapons for many years. In this pursuit, Sudan obtained help from other countries, principally Iraq. Given its history in developing CW and its close relationship with Iraq, Sudan may be interested in a BW program as well." CIA assessments through 2002 included similar analyses.

Although Osama bin Laden left Sudan in 1996, many al Qaeda operatives stayed behind. According to testimony from several al Qaeda terrorists now in U.S. custody, al Qaeda operatives worked closely with Sudanese intelligence. Sudanese intelligence provided security for al Qaeda camps and safehouses.
Trouble was clearly brewing. On July 29, the CIA's Counterterrorism Center (CTC) warned of "possible Chemical, Biological, Radiological, or Nuclear (CBRN) attack by UBL [Osama bin Laden]." But when the attack came, it was by conventional means: On August 7, al Qaeda terrorists struck the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, killing 224--including 12 Americans--and injuring more than 4,000. Almost immediately, the CIA assigned responsibility to terrorists affiliated with Osama bin Laden.
The U.S. response came two weeks later, on August 20, striking two targets. The first of these, al Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan, was uncontroversial. The second target--the al Shifa pharmaceutical plant in Sudan--almost immediately gave rise to great controversy.
The Clinton administration pointed to several pieces of evidence: a soil sample indicating the presence of a precursor for VX nerve gas of Iraqi provenance; the presence of Iraqi chemical weapons experts at the plant; the long history of Iraq-Sudanese collaboration on chemical weapons; and telephone intercepts between senior Shifa officials and Emad Al Ani, the father of Iraq's chemical weapons program.
President Clinton's secretary of defense, William Cohen, continued to defend the decision to strike al Shifa before the 9/11 Commission last year. Cohen explained that there were "multiple, reinforcing elements of information ranging from links that the organization that built the facility [al Shifa] had both with bin Laden and with the leadership of the Iraqi chemical weapons program."
9/11 Commission co-chairman Thomas Kean said: "Top officials--Bill Clinton, Sandy Berger, and others--told us with absolute certainty that there were chemical weapons of mass destruction at that factory, and that's why we sent missiles." Kean added: "We still can't say for certain that the chemicals were there. If they're right and there was stuff there, then it had to come from Iraq. They're the ones who had the stuff, who had this technology."
Iraqis were openly involved with the al Shifa facility. Sudanese foreign minister Osman Ismail was in Baghdad when the plant was attacked. He told reporters the facility was nothing more than a pharmaceutical factory. As proof he pointed to the existence of a contract awarded to al Shifa through the U.N. Oil-for-Food program. But the contract raised questions even then. In the eight months between the signing of the $199,000 contract and the U.S. strikes on al Shifa, no goods were delivered. With the benefit of hindsight, we now understand that Saddam Hussein manipulated the Oil-for-Food program to reward friends and business partners willing to help him circumvent U.N. sanctions and rebuild his weapons programs.
Two foreign intelligence services believe that Ahmed Hikmat Shakir, an Iraqi national who escorted a September 11 hijacker to the key planning meeting for those attacks in Kuala Lumpur, was working for Iraqi Intelligence: the Malaysians, who monitored Shakir's activities as he facilitated the travel for 9/11 hijacker Khalid al Mihdhar in January 2000, and the Jordanians, who detained Shakir for three months after the September 11 attacks.
Ten days before September 11, 2001, a small group of Islamic radicals came together in the northern, Kurdish-controlled area of Iraq. They would quickly come to be known as Ansar al Islam. Their ranks swelled as hundreds of al Qaeda terrorists fled the U.S. assault on the Taliban in Afghanistan. It quickly became clear to many policymakers and intelligence analysts that the Ansar camps were fallback zones for al Qaeda.
One of Ansar's leaders would become the face of not only the Iraqi insurgency, but also of al Qaeda. Abu Musab al Zarqawi is, besides Osama bin Laden, perhaps the best known al Qaeda terrorist on the planet. He and his followers have been linked to terrorist plots the world over: from a plot in Jordan at the turn of the millennium, to the assassination of U.S. diplomat Laurence Foley in October 2002, to the Madrid train bombing on March 11, 2004. His personal role in the beheadings of hostages in Iraq has provided a stark reminder of the brutality of the jihadists.
As the war in Iraq approached, the Bush administration cited Zarqawi's presence in Baghdad from May to July 2002--allegedly, for medical treatment--as evidence that Saddam harbored and aided al Qaeda terrorists. This claim was met with a remarkable degree of skepticism.
In addition to Saddam's support for al Qaeda in Kurdish-controlled territories, we also know that Zarqawi was not alone in Baghdad. According to the bipartisan Senate Intelligence Report, the CIA "described a network of more than a dozen al Qaeda or al Qaeda-associated operatives in Baghdad" before the war.
We also have testimony from one of the suspects in the murder of Laurence Foley that Zarqawi "directed and financed the operations of the cell" responsible "before, during and after his stint in Baghdad between May and July 2002." And both of the suspects have said that "one member of the al Zarqawi network traveled repeatedly between regime-controlled Iraq and Syria after March 2002."

 

So is the evidence of governments down through the centuries using terror and fear tactics to gain power and control over their populations.

 

And we can't forget the Iraq-OKC connection which was covered up.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,153966,00.html

 

There was more to Iraq than just two ex-Army guys that got mad at the government. But, that is the primary cause of the situation. I doubt the connections to Iraq that some have tried to make. They seem to be far fetched reaches by people that run in the same circles as McVeigh for the most part. But, there is enough there to say that it can't be disproven.

Of course, I lost a few friends in the bombing and am probably too attached to the situation to be a reasonable person when talking about it.

 

In OKC there seems to be many connections between our government and the terrorists. Same as with most other recent terrorist attacks if one follows them for more than the standard two and a half weeks of media coverage. Everything is then swept under the national security rug and deemed a "conspiracy theory".

But in the case of Iraq what does it really matter if there were connections or not? We were going to war and remove Saddam anyway. As KenH documented for us it was already Bill Clinton policy to remove Saddam, and it's no secret the neocons already made up their minds to invade long before they were even in the G.W.B administration. It was how do you say...inevitable? Only the reasons were changed to suit the propaganda campaign to swing public opinion.

[ July 23, 2005, 04:36 AM: Message edited by: poncho ]

 

should've used nukes, paved it over and put in a walmart. that's what my dad says funny huh.


with the OKC thing i went to a class (basics of system selling) with a guy who was (according to him i did not check for veracity but i heard this 2 weeks after it happened) 2 or 3 blocks away (he was walking towards mcmurrah) when it happened. and He swore to me that he saw the ryder truck and the passanger was an arab. ever since then i thought there was a coverup, with no real basis, but now it appears that feller wasn't lying.

thank you and God Bless

 

My mom (a police officer at the time) was less than a block away at the time of the explosion. She heard all of the stories from the beginning, and is convinced that the story floating around about an arab was bogus. It seemed to be coming from people away form the scene. However, I am still interested in who John Doe number 3 was. He was the most wanted man in America, and then it came out that it was a mistake. I think there may have been more to it than that.

But, when you look deeper into the whole thing, it seems unlikely at best that McVeigh would be involved with Muslim terrorists. After leaving the Army, he turned toward white seperatists and the "cult" surronding The Turner Diaries. I find it hard to believe that people with this mindset would team up with there enemies, even if they both had the same objective. Additionally, the target doesn't really make sense when compared with the things the arabs have targeted in the US. I mean, it wasn't a high visibility target. A building in the heartland isn't their usual game. Finally, I can't think of the last time that an Islamic terrorist group was involved in a bombing and didn't take credit for it. More often than not, there are multiple groups all trying to get credit. In this case, that didn't happen. It just doesn't make sense.

 

Both do have the same objective:

Per Divine Right Order web site

 

The Divine Right Order is what it is. But, the fact that they are out there does not mean that all of the white seperatists or extremeists follow along.

Also, you made a point about saying that the islamic terrorists and racists share the same objective, even after I had mentioned it. However, it is a false idea when examined in depth. On the surface, each group wants to damage the US government. However, their actual objectives are quite different. One group wants to seperate from other races, or even eliminate the other races. The other group wants to convert the world to a false religion, killing anyone not willing to convert. Their objectives are quite different at deeper levels. Further, I share some objectives with people that are dangerous in one way or another. That does not mean that I will work with those people or assist those people in doing anything.

The part of this argument that bothers me the most is that it seems as if we didn't learn anything from the deaths of so many. Right after ir happened it was assumed that arabic people were responsible. After a great deal of evidence has come to the surface that debunks this myth, many are still trying to make the link. We should be aware that there are those within our own society that would do us harm. We cannot simply focus to the outside. The problem is just as large right here at home.

 

And here I thought it was about Bush's connections with the Bin Laden family.

The Bushes had a much closer and friendlier relationship with them, than Saddam.

They even bailed Dubya out of a business failure. On the other hand, Osama declared Saddam was an apostate who should be killed.

That's a connection of sorts, I guess...

 

If we have so much evidence against this enemy combatent why don't we try him?

 

Because enemy combatants shouldn't be tried until hostilities cease.