Do you remember Abdul Rahman Yasin? He was the bomb maker for the 1993 WTC bombing. Guess where he ran to after the bombing?
It was Baghdad, where he was given a home, a car and a stipend.
"I was the security officer in charge of the unit," at Salman Pak, an ex-Iraqi lieutenant general told Frontline anonymously in a November 6, 2001 interview. "This unit was under the direct supervision and control of the Iraqi Intelligence Service," he added. "And the fact that the training was concentrated on a plane made it even stranger as far as I was concerned."
"This camp is specialized in exporting terrorism to the whole world," former Iraqi army captain Sabah Khodada told PBS's Frontline in an October 14, 2001 interview. Khodada worked at Salman Pak. He said that instruction there was "all for the general concept of hitting and attacking American targets and American interests." He added: "We saw people getting trained to hijack airplanes...They are even trained how to use utensils for food, like forks and knives provided in the plane...They are trained how to plant horror within the passengers by doing such actions." A map of the camp Khodada drew for Frontline closely matches satellite photos of the base, thus bolstering his story.
Czech U.N. Ambassador Hynek Kmonicek affirmed an October 26, 2001 statement by Czech Interior Minister Stanislav Gross: "In this moment we can confirm, that during the next stay of Mr. Muhammad Atta in the Czech Republic there was the contact with the official of the Iraqi intelligence, Mr. Al Ani, Ahmed Khalin Ibrahim Samir, who was on 22nd April 2001 expelled from the Czech Republic on the basis of "activities which were not compatible with the diplomatic status." (in other words, he was caught spying, folks)
it's worth noting that the only time the question of an Iraq-9/11 connection has been legally tested, the verdict was affirmative.
In a woefully underreported decision on May 8, 2003, Manhattan U.S. District Court Judge Harold Baer ruled in favor of two 9/11 victim families who had sued Iraq and others claiming they were culpable in the attacks. The court awarded plaintiffs $104 million based on the Baer's findings.
Here, in part, is what Judge Baer had to say about the Iraq-9/11 connection:
"The opinion testimony of the plaintiffs' experts is sufficient to meet plaintiffs' burden that Iraq collaborated in or supported bin Laden/al Qaeda's terrorist acts of September 11. . .
"Their opinions, coupled with their qualifications as experts on this issue, provide a sufficient basis for a reasonable jury to draw inferences which could lead to the conclusion that Iraq provided material support to al Qaeda and that it did so with knowledge and intent to further al Qaeda's criminal acts."
Finally, an article that appeared in a regional Iraqi newspaper in July 2001, two months before the disaster of September 11. This article, a paean to bin Laden, mentions that bin Laden 1] 'will try to bomb the Pentagon after he destroys the White House,' 2] 'is insisting very convincingly that he will strike America on the arm that is already hurting,' and 3] 'will curse the memory of Frank Sinatra every time he hears his songs.' (google Exs. 16-18, Naeem Abd Muhalhal, America, An Obsession Called Osama Bin Ladin, Al-Nasiriya, July 21, 2001) would seem to indicate that the Iraqi government was at least aware of Bin Ladens general plan...unless of course, you believe that Iraq had a free, non-governmentally vetted press...and that members of that free press somehow got Al-Quiada information and printed it in their open forum....
I did not provide any links to the information above, for one simple reason, to those that agree with me, it's preaching to the choir.
To the Left; it's "all BushHitlerCheneyHalliburtonCo Facist propaganda", I would challenge those people to research the information on their own. Use Google and find the root sources on your own. You would simply discount me because of my politics, but go through the information tree on your own and you may just come to see that the facts bear out my position.
Now liberals, one more time, say into a mirror:
"There is no Iraqi connection to 9/11." Repeat 1000 times.
Won't make you any more correct, but it will please your DNC/ACP/MoveOn masters to see that you can drone the meme loud and long enough to never engage your brain and start to question the orthadoxy of the Left when facts come up to refute you....
The Czech meeting has been in the news many times with most people concluding that there wasn't much to it. (They met--a lot of people meet after all--and that was it.) The Iraqi news article is fascinating--I'll definitely look it up. As for material support to Al Qaeda, I'd be extremely surprised to here that people all over the globe weren't supporting Al Qaeda. The book House of Bush, House of Saud, lists proof that the Saudi royal house had paid money that went through a couple of hands before hitting a terrorist bank account. There might be some very indirect support or indirect links between Iraq and Al Qaeda. I still doubt that Iraq would be too eager to support a fundamentalist organization that sought its downfall. But who knows? The bizarre links between the global chess players seem to be beyond comprehension.
Posted by: Karlo at August 27, 2005 08:35 PMOkay. I've read the news article. Like I said above, material support for terrorists, if we followed it up, would definitely lead us to Saudi Arabia (with its strong Bush family connections). In fact, the Saudi connection is almost certainly the reason the Bush Administration blacked out parts of the reports discussing Saudi Arabia. The part about an Iraqi terrorist training camp is highly suspect. We've had "defectors" telling us all sorts of things. Like the Kuwaiti ambassador's daughter (who wasn't in Iraq at the time) appearing as an anonymous girl telling us of Iraqi troops killing babies (after being reported by all the media, the story was proven completely false). Any conservative organization can slip a few greenbacks into some Iraqis hands and tell them to say anything. Of course, normally we should lend some credence to info vetted by our own government, but the Bush administration has been so full of crap from day one, that I don't recommend believing a damn thing they say. Is this terrorist training camp you mention next to the stadium-sized missile factory that Powell told the UN about? (Remember some of those knee-slappers? As if the Iraqis could move an entire stadium-sized factory before an unannounced U.N. inspection helicopter could arrive.)
Posted by: Karlo at August 27, 2005 08:46 PMThere you have it Deltsman, Karlo proves your point -- it is all about blood for oil, Haliburton, Cheney, Bush is evil etc. Could the left get it straight, is Bush a bumbling idiot or an evil genius?
Anyone know what Frank Sinatra did to piss off the Islamos?
Posted by: Hoosierboy at August 28, 2005 09:31 AMWell if we used the same criteria, we should be attacking Saudi Arabia (except that there's much more justification in that case). I find the news article intriguing though. You seem to suggest that it proves Iraq government involvement, but why would a country tell about a terrrorist plot before it was hatched? Of course, this isn't the first time I've heard of detailed reports about the planned attack before it occurred.
Posted by: Karlo at August 28, 2005 10:12 AM