posted on June 16, 2004 01:37:54 PM new
9/11 Panel Says Iraq Rebuffed Bin Laden
By HOPE YEN
WASHINGTON (AP) - Bluntly contradicting the Bush administration, the commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks reported Wednesday there was ``no credible evidence'' that Saddam Hussein helped al-Qaida target the United States.
In a chilling report that sketched the history of Osama bin Laden's network, the commission said his far-flung training camps were ``apparently quite good.'' Terrorists-to-be were encouraged to ``think creatively about ways to commit mass murder,'' it added.
Bin Laden made overtures to Saddam for assistance, the commission said in the staff report, as he did with leaders in Sudan, Iran, Afghanistan and elsewhere as he sought to build an Islamic army.
While Saddam dispatched a senior Iraqi intelligence official to Sudan to meet with bin Laden in 1994, the commission said it had not turned up evidence of a ``collaborative relationship.''
The Bush administration has long claimed links between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaida, and cited them as one reason for last year's invasion of Iraq.
On Monday, Vice President Dick Cheney said in a speech that the Iraqi dictator ``had long established ties with al-Qaida.''
The bipartisan commission issued its findings as it embarked on two days of public hearings into the worst terrorist attacks in American history.
The panel intends to issue a final report in July on the hijackings on Sept. 11, 2001 that killed nearly 3,000, destroyed the World Trade Centers in New York and damaged the Pentagon outside Washington. A fourth plane commandeered by terrorists crashed in the countryside in Pennsylvania.
The staff report pieced together information on the development of bin Laden's network, from the far-flung training camps in Afghanistan and elsewhere, to funding from ``well-placed financial facilitators and diversions of funds from Islamic charities.''
Reports that bin Laden had a huge personal fortune to finance acts of terror are overstated, the report said.
The description of the training camp operations contained elements of faint, grudging praise.
`A worldwide jihad needed terrorists who could bomb embassies or hijack airliners, but it also needed foot soldiers for the Taliban in its war against the Northern Alliance, and guerrillas who could shoot down Russian helicopters in Chechnya or ambush Indian units in Kashmir,'' it said.
According to one unnamed senior al-Qaida associate, various ideas were floated by mujahadeen in Afghanistan, the commission said. The options included taking over a launcher and forcing Russian scientists to fire a nuclear missile at the United States, mounting mustard gas or cyanide attacks against Jewish areas in Iraq or releasing poison gas into the air conditioning system of a targeted building.
`Last but not least, hijacking an aircraft and crashing it into an airport or nearby city,'' it said.
The Iraq connection long suggested by administration officials gained no currency in the report.
`Bin Laden is said to have requested space to establish training camps, as well as assistance in procuring weapons, but Iraq apparently never responded,'' the report said. ``There have been reports that contacts between Iraq and al-Qaida also occurred'' after bin Laden moved his operations to Afghanistan in 1996, ``but they do not appear to have resulted in a collaborative relationship,'' it said.
`Two senior bin Laden associates have adamantly denied that any ties existed between al-Qaida and Iraq,'' the report said.
In a separate report, the commission staff said that senior al-Qaida planner Khalid Shaihk Mohammed initially proposed a Sept. 11 attack involving 10 planes. An expanded target list included the CIA and FBI headquarters, unidentified nuclear plants and tall buildings in California and Washington state.
That ambitious plan was rejected by bin Laden, who ultimately approved a scaled-back mission involving four planes, the report said. Mohammed wanted more hijackers for those planes - 25 or 26, instead of 19.
The commission has identified at least 10 al-Qaida operatives who were to participate but could not take part for reasons including visa problems and suspicion by officials at airports in the United States and overseas.
From a seamless operation, the report portrays a plot riven by internal dissent, including disagreement over whether to target the White House or the Capitol that was apparently never resolved prior to the attacks. Bin Laden also had to overcome opposition to attacking the United States from Mullah Omar, leader of the former Taliban regime, who was under pressure from Pakistan to keep al-Qaida confined.
The United States toppled the regime in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks, but Omar has eluded capture, as has al-Qaida.
~~~ • ~~~ • ~~~ • ~~~ • ~~~
If it's really "common" sense, why do so few people actually have it?
posted on June 16, 2004 01:53:35 PM new
The 9/11 Panel, now thats a non partisan unpolitical operation.
DOJ Released Gorelick Documents to 'Set Record Straight'
Posted May 4, 2004
By Shaun Waterman
Attorney General John Ashcroft released a series of documents showing the role of one member of the Sept. 11 commission in decisions about the much-derided "wall" between law enforcement and intelligence to "set the record straight," according to a Justice Department official.
The official said that the March testimony before the commission of former Bush White House counterterrorism czar Richard Clarke had opened a floodgate of criticism aimed at the current administration, which was only halted when Ashcroft declassified and released a 1995 memo from commission member Jamie Gorelick, a senior official in the Clinton-era Justice Department.
"For three weeks [members of the commission] were beating up on us daily in the press, sometimes anonymously. What were we supposed to do?" the official told United Press International on condition they not be identified.
The White House has criticized the release of the documents, saying President George W. Bush was "disappointed" by the affair.
The Justice Department official declined to comment directly on the White House's statements but said that Ashcroft had been "the point man" for rebutting criticism of the administration's pre-Sept. 11 record on counterterrorism. "Sometimes," the official added, "the best form of defense is attack."
The March 1995 memo dealt with the relationship between two specific intelligence and law-enforcement investigations directed against the same group of indicted terror suspects, laying down procedures about information sharing between them. Following a request from two GOP senators, the Justice Department last week released a further series of documents relating to a set of guidelines promulgated in July 1995, which established similar procedures for general application in all other cases.
Critics of Gorelick have said these documents show she was deeply implicated in the establishment of the legal and procedural artifact that has come to be known as "the wall" -- the idea that law enforcement and intelligence gathering must be kept separate because of the different legal and constitutional contexts in which they operate -- and that she therefore has a conflict of interest. Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), one of the two who requested the further releases, has led calls from GOP lawmakers for Gorelick to give public testimony under oath before the commission about her role.
Gorelick's defenders -- who number among them professional staff who served with her at the Justice Department, as well as Democratic political appointees -- say that the wall predated both the memo and the guidelines; that both documents were designed to facilitate, not impede, information sharing; and that the incoming Bush administration did little about the wall until after the Sept. 11 terror attacks.
"Ashcroft is trying to politicize this issue," one former Justice Department official told UPI. "As a matter of policy, this was dealt with consistently over four administrations."
The serving official acknowledged that the wall had predated Gorelick's term and had persisted under the current administration. "We're not trying to blame anyone [for the wall]," the official said, "we were just trying to tell the other side of the story, to set the record straight in the face of all these leaks from the commission."
The former official was scathing about the White House's criticism of the document release. "If the president was really so disappointed, do you think those documents would still be on the department's Website?"
He said that the public criticism was a way of "making nice" with the commission -- all of whose members, including the Republicans, have publicly defended Gorelick -- but suggested there might also be a more Machiavellian motive. "It's not too cynical to conclude, I think, that at the same time, those comments [by the White House] were actually intended to draw attention to the documents," the former official said.
Gorelick has repeatedly declined to comment, and the commission has said that she has recused herself from parts of the investigation that relate to her service at the Justice Department.
"The Secret Service has announced it is doubling its protection for John Kerry. You can understand why — with two positions on every issue, he has twice as many people mad at him." —Jay Leno
posted on June 16, 2004 01:55:40 PM new
Kerry & Company’s Homeland Insecurity
Joan Swirsky
Thursday, May 27, 2004
Whatever the 9/11 Commission report reveals when it is issued at the end of July, it will still lack the testimony of Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry, whose failure to act – in light of fair warning and overwhelming evidence – holds the key to his unacceptability as a national and international leader.
Of course the credibility of the report is already in question, given not only its timing, during a presidential election year, but also the blatantly partisan nature of its panel and a number of its interviewees – all of whom seem unable to resist mugging for the ever-present cameras, grandstanding and offering their own often caustic and slanted opinions.
But whatever the Commission’s findings, it’s important to remember that two of the four planes the Islamic terrorists commandeered that fateful September day took off from Logan Airport in Boston, the home turf that Kerry has served as senator for nearly 20 years.
While the airline captains, attendants and passengers were completely oblivious to their imminent and horrifying deaths – having never been warned that anything was amiss – Kerry cannot claim the same.
That is because in May of 2001, four months before our nation was changed forever, Kerry received a letter from Brian Sullivan, who had recently retired as a special agent with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), where he spent over 10 years as a risk-management specialist charged with the security of air traffic control facilities throughout New England.
Sullivan’s letter told Kerry that, based on numerous government reports, Logan Airport was especially vulnerable to terrorist infiltration. His letter held these prophetic words:
"With the concept of jihad, do you think it would be difficult for a determined terrorist to get on a plane and destroy himself and all other passengers? Think what the result would be of a coordinated attack that took down several domestic flights on the same day. With our current screening, this is more than possible. It is almost likely.”
A few weeks later, Bogdan Dzakovic – former FAA chief of the national airport-security covert Red Team (which conducted special ops in aviation-security matters) – was asked to hand-deliver a videotape to Jamie Wise, a staff person in Kerry’s office. He told Wise that the film depicted the ease with which undercover operatives had successfully broken through Logan’s security shields with potentially deadly weapons. Not once but 10 times!
“I received no feedback," Dzakovic said.
Shortly after, FAA special agent Steve Elson – a member of the Red Team, ex-Navy SEAL and the creative force behind the video that revealed Logan’s vulnerability – prevailed upon Mr. Wise to pass the video along to Kerry.
Wise told him, in essence: Sorry, no access to Kerry because you’re not a constituent!
Undaunted, Elson tried to reach Kerry’s legislative director, Gregg Rothschild – again to no avail.
Kerry is campaigning hard to convince the American public that he will protect our country more effectively than the sitting president. So, what did he do with the letter and videotape that Sullivan sent him?
Throughout May and June and most of July, he did virtually nothing! But at the end of July, he contacted Sullivan to inform him not that he had forwarded the letter and videotape to the State Police or the Massachusetts Port Authority (which was fined $178,000 by the FAA in 1999 for 136 security violations); not that he had stood up in the Senate to alert his colleagues; not that he had warned his constituents; and not that had alerted the president of the United States!
All he told Sullivan was that he had passed the letter on to the Department of Transportation's Office of the Inspector General (DOT OIG), which Sullivan had warned him would be pointless, given the DOT’s consistent failure to take corrective action after investigating warning after warning.
More than 80 of Kerry’s constituents met their untimely deaths aboard American Airlines Flight 11 and United Airlines Flight 175. So much for how seriously he took the threat that his own state was one of two or three at the highest risk for a terrorist attack.
According to Sullivan, who is a registered Independent and decidedly nonpartisan, there is plenty of blame to go around when it comes to the failures of airport security that made 9/11 possible.
He also filed a complaint with the hotline of the FAA’s chief administrator, Jane Garvey, and sent the videotape to Garvey herself, a holdover from the Clinton administration (ostensibly to provide continuity of airport and airline safety and security).
According to Sullivan, “Garvey and her boss, Secretary of Transportation Norman Mineta [another Clinton holdover] don't have a leg to stand on in claiming they were unaware of the threat or for failing to advise the National Security Council and President Bush. Ignorance is not an excuse. They knew the threat information before 9/11, or damn well should have!”
In fact, during the spring and summer of 2001, Garvey’s FAA sent out a CD-ROM of the incipient threats prepared by her security chief, Mike Canavan, to 700 airlines and airport executives. The FAA also had extensive data about al-Qaida and Osama bin Laden that was contained in the aviation agency’s Criminal Acts Against Civil Aviation reports for 1999 and 2000. Those reports included the following excerpts:
In a May 1998 interview, bin Laden suggested that he could use a shoulder-fired surface-to-air missile to shoot down a military passenger aircraft transporting U.S. military personnel, adding that his attacks would not distinguish between U.S. civilians and military personnel ... an exiled Islamic leader in the United Kingdom proclaimed in August 1998 that bin Laden would “bring down an airliner or hijack an airliner to humiliate the United States.”
Ramzi Yousef masterminded the 1994 conspiracy to place explosive devices on as many as 12 U.S. airliners flying out of the Far East. In September 1996, Yousef was convicted for this plan and for placing a device on a Philippine Airlines plane in December 1994 as a test for his more elaborate scheme. Although Yousef is currently in prison, at least one other accused participant in the conspiracy remains at large. There are concerns that this individual or others of Yousef’s ilk who may possess similar skills pose a continuing threat to civil aviation interests.
... [T]he terrorist threat remains. The most recent significant aviation-related terrorist action was the December 1999 hijacking of an Indian Airlines plane by members of a Kashmiri separatist group. There continues to be concern that the hijacking may either be copied or spur others to commit acts because this incident succeeded in gaining the release of prisoners and the hijackers have never been caught. Another threat is attributed to terrorist financier Osama Bin Laden ... [who] has both the motivation and the wherewithal to do so.
In spite of all this, "I-don’t-know-nuthin’" Garvey – in true Clintonesque fashion – not only claimed ignorance of these threats in her 9/11 Commission testimony but also so much as said that Canavan had not provided her with the CD-ROM her own agency had distributed, and that she hadn’t seen it until after September 11!
Aiding and abetting Garvey and Mineta’s buck-passing, Sullivan said, is Jamie Gorelick, a 9/11 Commission interrogator who was Clinton’s deputy attorney general and general counsel of his Defense Department.
Gorelick certainly had a vested interest in allowing her Democrat colleagues to paint themselves in a less-than-culpable light before the panel – and an equally vested interest in not being called before the Commission herself!
Sullivan agrees. “There is ample evidence that Garvey and Mineta were aware of the threat since it was a DOT agency, the FAA, which issued 15 warnings in 2001, at least one of which was the direct result of information provided at Richard Clarke’s counter terrorism support group (CSG) meeting in early July of 2001.”
After the meeting, he said, the FAA sent Information Circulars (ICs) to airports, “but these are nothing more than vague warnings that have no urgency. What those in positions of power failed to do was issue Security Directives (SDs) that have more muscularity and would have yielded concrete action.”
“In effect,” he continued, “they did nothing down the chain of command and nothing up the chain of command to their superiors like the president’s national security-affairs advisor or to the president himself.”
Sullivan points to the testimony of the president's national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, as a prime example. When questioned by the Commission's John Lehman, Rice said she had never been informed by the FAA or the DOT prior to 9/11 that:
# The entire Federal Air Marshal (FAM) force consisted of only 36 air marshals and none of them were assigned to domestic flights.
# There was a disconnect between FAA guidance and information contained in the Air Transport Association's (ATA) Checkpoint Operators’ Guide (COG) pertaining to whether box cutters were or were not a prohibited item.
# Knives with blades less than 4 inches long were not prohibited from being taken onboard our commercial airliners.
# The FAA's Red Team had been successful at penetrating our aviation security system over 95 percent of the time.
# The airlines both before and after 9/11 could be sued if more than two Arab males were pulled aside for secondary screening.
"If anyone needed proof that the old Clinton crowd didn't inform the new Bush crowd as to what was going on," Sullivan said, "Rice's testimony said it all."
“And how,” Sullivan asks, “could Gorelick have said that her fellow Democrats, Garvey and Mineta, were unaware of what was taking place? She can't – and she should have her feet held to the fire for this obvious display of partisanship.”
He suggested that Mineta and Garvey be recalled before the Commission – and that Gorelick testify as well, “with no softball questions!”
But in spite of all this, Mineta and Garvey and Canavan and Gorelick are not running for president!
Kerry is – and this is what he has had to say on the campaign trail: “I sounded the alarm prior to 9/11."
Sullivan said he begs to differ. “Kerry washed his hands of the whole thing. A number of his constituents died on those two flights out of Logan on September 11 and if he'd look in the mirror, he’d admit he could have and should have done more with the information we provided him.”
“The most egregious failure,” Sullivan added, “was that instead of Kerry demanding immediate corrective action at Logan when he received my letter and videotape, he contacted the very agency I told him was dragging its feet.”
Still blanching from the security failures that led to the most deadly attack in our nation’s history, Sullivan – who said, “I threw up when those two planes hit the Twin Towers” – explained: “Mohammed Atta was doing surveillance at Logan during the time I issued my warnings and if anything had been done to address them, security might have been enhanced and served as a deterrent to Atta and the other terrorists.”
Sullivan also cited the failure of congressional oversight and the FAA’s decision to place the airlines’ bottom line over the safety and security of the flying public – in spite of their awareness of increased threats and numerous reports from the DOT OIG, the General Accounting Office (GAO, the investigative arm of Congress) and the media about what he called “the porous state of aviation security.”
Another failure, he said, was the neutering of the then-named Computer Assisted Passenger Profiling System, or CAPPS I. After 9/11, the title of the program was changed to the Computer Assisted Passenger Prescreening System, or CAPPS II, Sullivan explained, “because of overzealous liberals, the American Civil Liberties Union and the diversity crowd who are hell-bent on insuring that political correctness is always implemented at the expense of our basic security.”
Passenger screening policy, developed in 1997 by the Aviation Security Commission and headed by former VP Al Gore, mandated that passenger profiling must ignore ethnicity and nationality.
During the Clinton years, Sullivan said, FAA security personnel were placed in key management positions despite their limited experience in air security and their apparent ideological aversion to prescreen “high suspect” people: i.e., Arab males from the Middle East between the ages of 20 and 40.
“Despite common sense,” Sullivan said, “we failed to take a harder look at some passengers than others. This is where affirmative action and diversity, when carried to the extreme, can kill us – actually did kill us! I know this is attacking a sacred cow, but somehow common sense must be returned to the discourse.”
Sullivan is not alone in his criticism. According to a new book by David Bossie, “Intelligence Failure: How Clinton’s National Security Policy Set the Stage for 9/11,” during the Clinton administration:
# Terrorists bombed the World Trade Center in 1993, resulting in numerous deaths and injuries.
# Terrorists blew up two American embassies in Africa, resulting in numerous deaths and injuries.
# Terrorists bombed the American military barracks in Saudi Arabia, resulting in numerous deaths and injuries.
# Terrorists bombed the USS Cole, resulting in numerous deaths and injuries.
During all of these horrific attacks on our country, the Clinton administration – with the help of Jamie Gorelick and the full support and votes of John Kerry – slashed our military and intelligence budgets to ribbons!
And as we now know, while our elected and appointed watchdogs were failing to heed the warnings provided to them, bin Laden and al-Qaida were paying close attention to our government's reports in their caves in Afghanistan.
Sullivan cites yet another egregious failure: the refusal of the former administration to act on the “outside the box” recommendations of the FAA’s Red Team.
“The Red Team thought and acted like terrorists and beat our systems 95 percent of the time,” Sullivan said, “but FAA management never reacted in an effective way to their findings.”
Sullivan said that it is not too late to enhance airport safety and security significantly. His suggestions include:
1. Establish accountability. “Instead of repackaging old wine in a new bottle, we have to stop promoting bureaucratic bunglers who have proven ineffectual.” He cites as but one example Mary Carol Turano, who was removed as manager of the FAA’s Civil Aviation Security field office (CASFO) at Logan Airport after 9/11, yet was later made the Deputy Director of Screener Training and Proficiency for the new Transportation Security Association (TSA). This in spite of the fact that Logan Airport had one of the worst records of serious security violations of any airport in the U.S.
2. Abandon the extreme limits of political correctness and diversity. “Mineta's 'but for their ethnicity' rule after 9/11,” Sullivan said, “put America in jeopardy of another attack and now cripples the potential effectiveness of CAPPS II. From a security perspective, our current policy of prohibiting airlines from singling out more than two Arab males for secondary screening is both inane and dangerous.”
3. Reinforce the Patriot Act. “To do less,” Sullivan says, “helps maintain the wall between the FBI and CIA.”
4. Eliminate market influences regarding government oversight of aviation security. “As long as the airlines' bottom line is the determining factor in establishing our aviation-security system,” Sullivan says, “we are doomed to failure.”
5. Focus on aviation security. “Intelligence is both an art and a science and is open to the variances of interpretation,” Sullivan explained, “but aviation security is empirical and significantly less open to interpretation.”
Sullivan also believes that it is imperative for Kerry to testify before the 9/11 Commission.
“We practically gift-wrapped an opportunity for Kerry and others to possibly prevent 9/11. But he tried to cover his political caboose by passing the letter and video I sent him to the DOT, although I'd warned him about that agency’s complicity in failing to act on threat warnings.”
Sen. Kerry, Sullivan continued, “must now answer several questions before the 9/11 Commission including, but not limited to:
# What did he know?
# When did he know it?
# Why did he fail to take forceful action to protect Logan Airport?
Let’s not forget that Kerry said that he “sounded the alarm prior to 9/11" and that in a Washington, D.C., news report in October of 2001 expanded on that statement, saying: "We went to the Department of Transportation and brought it directly to their attention – immediately – and were told by the Department of Transportation that they were doing an undercover operation" at Logan.
The only problem with these two fictitious accounts is that (1) Kerry didn’t “sound the alarm” and (2) there was, as Kerry knew, no federal security undercover evaluation at Logan prior to 9/11!
So, why hasn’t Kerry been called before the 9/11 Commission? According to a commission spokesman, it is because Kerry’s testimony “would open the door to requests for other members of Congress to testify, which would consume the panel's remaining time.”
Their time?! Then extend the timetable! Is it truth the commission is after or is it – as most Americans now suspect – an exercise in covering the “caboose” of many of their members, particularly those from the Clinton administration?
Sullivan says the reason given for not calling Kerry before the commission “is ridiculous because no other senator had the warning we sent to him and no other senator had two planes hijacked from their home airport.”
With more hearings scheduled in Washington, D.C., in mid-June – specifically to address the issues of crisis management and the 9/11 plot – it is both the duty and responsibility of every member of the 9/11 Commission to call Kerry to testify.
It is not unreasonable to think that Commissioner Lehman, former Secretary of the Navy, would be receptive to the idea. In a May 10, 2004, article in the New York Post, he noted:
Our enemy is not terrorism [but] violent, Islamic fundamentalism. None of our government institutions were set up with receptors, or even vocabulary, to deal with this. So we left ourselves completely vulnerable. Osama bin Laden has cited this as one of his dawning moments ... the vaunted United States is a paper tiger, Americans are afraid of casualties, they run like cowards when attacked. We had watch lists with 65,000 terrorists' names on them, created by a very sophisticated system in the State Department ... that existed before 9/11, but nobody in the FAA bothered to look at it. ...
In a few days, the 9/11 Commission will look at it – coincidentally at the same time Americans are looking at presidential candidates, one of whom will lead our country through the next four perilous years.
Americans have the right to know why John Kerry failed to respond aggressively to the chilling warnings he received in the summer of 2001, why he exaggerated his role in “sounding the alarm,” what he has done in proposing legislation that will enhance our nation’s airline security, and why he hasn’t insisted on going before the Commission, given that he wants the top job of protecting American citizens.
Sullivan has put it best: “We deserve the truth. And if Senator Kerry wants to be president, he must not stonewall the American people!”
"The Secret Service has announced it is doubling its protection for John Kerry. You can understand why — with two positions on every issue, he has twice as many people mad at him." —Jay Leno
posted on June 16, 2004 02:25:09 PM new
I'm sorry but I don't trust for one minute anything this panel says.
bear is right: The 9/11 Panel, now thats a non partisan unpolitical operation.
As I watched the hearings it was so clear just how very political this whole investigation was. How the panel acted when questioning those from the Bush administration....how easy the questions were for their own side. Sad that our tax dollars were wasted on it. It will help nothing and only create more of a divide between the two parties.
And there were AQ members that have been documented going in and out of Iraq. If they weren't friendly to saddam they wouldn't have been allowed in...helped out.
posted on June 16, 2004 09:43:57 PM new
Wednesday, June 16, 2004 1:13 p.m. EDT
Reports Wednesday morning that the 9/11 Commission has determined there was no cooperation between Iraq and al-Qaida are completely false - and are undoubtedly driven by the media's determination to contradict the Bush administration's claims that such a link exists.
"9/11 Panel Says Iraq Rebuffed Bin Laden" reads the headline on the Associated Press report on today's Commission staff statement. But that's not what the Commission staff report actually said. The below passage, for instance, does more to confirm the Bush administration's claims of an Iraq-al Qaida link than it does to contradict them.
"The Sudanese, to protect their own ties with Iraq, reportedly persuaded Bin Ladin* to cease [support for anti-Saddam Islamists in Northern Iraq] and arranged for contacts between Iraq and al Qaeda*.
"A senior Iraqi intelligence officer reportedly made three visits to Sudan, finally meeting Bin Ladin in 1994. Bin Ladin is said to have requested space to establish training camps, as well as assistance in procuring weapons, but Iraq apparently never responded." [Staff Statement No. 15, Page 5]
Apparently never responded? How, pray tell, does the AP derive from those words the conclusive claim that Iraq "rebuffed" bin Laden?
The Commission statement continues:
"There have been reports that contacts between Iraq and al Qaeda also occurred after Bin Ladin had returned to Afghanistan, but they do not appear to have resulted in a collaborative relationship."
What's the evidence for this less-than-conclusive surmise?
"Two senior Bin Ladin associates have adamantly denied that any ties existed between al Qaeda and Iraq," says the Commission.
Such a statement begs the question: Why does the Commission, let alone the press, take the word of two senior bin Laden associates over, say, Iraq's new prime minister, Iyad Allawi. Last December he told the London Telegraph, "We are uncovering evidence all the time of Saddam's involvement with al-Qaeda."
Reacting to the discovery of an Iraqi intelligence document placing 9/11 hijacker Mohamed Atta in Baghdad two months before the attacks, he continued:
"This is the most compelling piece of evidence that we have found so far. It shows that not only did Saddam have contacts with al-Qaeda, he had contact with those responsible for the September 11 attacks."
In fact, nowhere does the Commission make the claim that Iraq and al-Qaida never cooperated. What it does say is "We have no credible evidence that Iraq and al Qaeda cooperated on attacks against the United States." [NewsMax italics]
Apparently Dr. Allawi's asssement counts for nothing. Even so, it's worth noting that elsewhere in today's staff statement, the 9/11 Commission asserts:
"With al Qaeda at its foundation, Bin Ladin sought to build a broader Islamic Army that included terrorist groups from Egypt, Libya, Saudi Arabia and Oman, Tunisia, Jordan, Iraq, Lebanon, Morocco, Somalia, and Eritrea. Not all [terrorist] groups from these states agreed to join, but at least one from each did." [Staff Statement No. 15, Page 3]
In other words, at least one terror group from Iraq did form an alliance with bin Laden. Another problem: If the press is going to take today's staff statement as gospel, certain long-held media assumptions will need to be drastically revised, such as the widely accepted notion that al-Qaida was involved in the first World Trade Center bombing.
Not true, says the Commission.
"Whether Bin Ladin and his organization had roles in the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center ... remains a matter of substantial uncertainty," the staff statement says, before insisting, "We have no conclusive evidence" of a bin Laden link. [Staff Statement No. 15, Page 6]
The same goes for "Operation Bojinka," the 1995 plot to hijack 12 airliners hatched by Ramzi Yousef and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed that experts say was the blueprint for the 9/11 attacks.
"[Mohammed] was not, however, an al Qaeda member at the time of the Manilla [Bojinka] plot," Commission staffers say, even though they acknowledge that he went on to mastermind the 9/11 attacks.
The press is furiously spinning the 9/11 Commission staff statement in a bid to discredit the Bush administration. Americans should go to the Sept. 11 Commission Web site and read the conclusions for themselves: http://www.9-11commission.gov/
Dennis Trepanier
P.O. Box 742
Poulsbo, WA 98370
(voice/fax) 360-697-6329
(cell) 360-981-0647
[email protected]
"The Secret Service has announced it is doubling its protection for John Kerry. You can understand why — with two positions on every issue, he has twice as many people mad at him." —Jay Leno
posted on June 16, 2004 10:10:38 PM new
[i]I'm sorry but I don't trust for one minute anything this panel says.[i]
Why not Linda? Could it be because they haven't accepted the Bush rationale hook, line and sinker?
[i]As I watched the hearings it was so clear just how very political this whole investigation was. How the panel acted when questioning those from the Bush administration....how easy the questions were for their own side.[i]
What side would that be? Don't forget who appointed this panel. Don't forget how many Republicans are on this panel, including it's chairman
___________________________________
When a dog howls at the moon, we call it religion. When he barks at strangers, we call it patriotism. - Edward Abbey
posted on June 17, 2004 08:11:43 AM new
Obviously Bill Clinton has gotten to and corrupted the 911 panel. If they check the cloakroom they will surely find Monica.
posted on June 17, 2004 08:11:46 AM new
Obviously Bill Clinton has gotten to and corrupted the 911 panel. If they check the cloakroom they will surely find Monica.
PSon't click the post reply button twice.
Would someone please tell me where the smiley face came from.
[ edited by getalife on Jun 17, 2004 08:13 AM ]
[ edited by getalife on Jun 17, 2004 08:14 AM ]
[ edited by getalife on Jun 17, 2004 08:16 AM ]
posted on June 17, 2004 09:50:17 AM new
Looks to me like the left, including the so called bipartisan 9-11 commission, are very willing to base their conclusions on the words of two of bin laden's supporters.
The commission, which concludes its public hearings today, said two senior bin Laden associates "adamantly denied any ties existed between al Qaeda and Iraq" and there was "no credible evidence that Iraq and al Qaeda cooperated on attacks against the United States."
But the Bush administration has long contended that Iraq was connected to and supportive of the al Qaeda network, a position reiterated Monday by Vice President Dick Cheney, who said in a speech at the James Madison Institute in Orlando, Fla., that Saddam had "long-standing ties with al Qaeda."
CIA Director George J. Tenet, who has worked in both the Bush and Clinton administrations, said in an October 2002 letter to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence that senior level contacts between Iraq and al Qaeda had been ongoing for more than a decade, there was "solid evidence" of the presence of al Qaeda members in Iraq, and there was credible information that al Qaeda leaders sought contacts in Iraq who could help them acquire weapons of mass destruction.
The letter was sent after Mr. Tenet modified a national intelligence estimate on Iraq to include the al Qaeda connection after a briefing from a special Pentagon unit that studied the Iraq-al Qaeda link.
In 1998, the Clinton administration also tied Iraq to al Qaeda, saying Saddam had provided technical assistance in the construction of a chemical production plant in Sudan, undertaken with al Qaeda. In retaliation for al Qaeda's August 1998 truck bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, President Clinton ordered the destruction of that chemical plant.
posted on June 17, 2004 11:53:50 AM new
Linda :The commission, which concludes its public hearings today, said two senior bin Laden associates "adamantly denied any ties existed between al Qaeda and Iraq" and there was "no credible evidence that Iraq and al Qaeda cooperated on attacks against the United States." But the Bush administration has long contended that Iraq was connected to and supportive of the al Qaeda network, a position reiterated Monday by Vice President Dick Cheney, who said in a speech at the James Madison Institute in Orlando, Fla., that Saddam had "long-standing ties with al Qaeda."
Linda, I personally believe the independent commission more than I would believe Bush. Bush wanted a war with Iraq before he took office, the 9/11 attacks were used as an excuse for Bush to go to war. Why should we believe Bush? He lied about Iraq having WMD's.
Re-defeat Bush
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June is Gay Pride Month
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All animals are created equal, but some are more equal than others.
Change is constant. The history of mankind is about change. One set of beliefs is pushed aside by a new set. The old order is swept away by the new. If people become attached to the old order, they see their best interest in defending it. They become the losers. They become the old order and in turn are vulnerable. People who belong to the new order are winners.
James A Belaco & Ralph C. Stayer
posted on June 17, 2004 11:55:44 AM new
I didn't bother to read all this. I stand by my previously posted assertion. The USA did the right thing for the wrong reason. Whatever that reason was.
My country right or left.
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You know...the best way to defeat a liberal is to let them speak.
posted on June 17, 2004 12:13:05 PM new
Yes, dave, I understand you would rather believe the word of two binladen supporters - whose word this commission has also accepted as FACT, rather than believing what our intelligence was telling us for the past three administrations.
Even if your kerry does get elected these terrorists aren't going to stop coming after our nation. I'd at least like to have a President in office who has a backbone, like this one does, to go after any threats our intelligence says is out there.
I believed the clinton adminstrations 'calls' they made against saddam...saying he was a threat...saying he had womd....saying regime change was needed. It didn't matter to me what party our president came from.
And here again are clinton's working saying exactly the same thing this administration has said about the connections.
posted on June 17, 2004 02:15:43 PM new
Bush: 'I Never Said 9/11 Was Saddam-Al Qaeda Plot'
By Susan Jones
CNSNews.com Morning Editor
June 17, 2004
(CNSNews.com) - "This administration never said that the 9/11 attacks were orchestrated between Saddam and al Qaeda, President George W. Bush said on Thursday.
"We did say there were numerous contacts between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda," Bush said at an informal news briefing with White House reporters.
President Bush offered the example of Iraqi intelligence officers meeting with Osama bin Laden in Sudan. "There's numerous contacts between the two," he said.
President Bush spoke on a day when newspaper headlines blared the 9/11 commission's finding, announced Wednesday, that there was no "credible evidence" that Saddam and al Qaeda had a "collaborative relationship" at the time of the 9/11 attacks.
According to the 9/11 commission, Iraq "apparently never responded" to al Qaeda's requests for help in acquiring weapons and setting up training camps.
"I always said that Saddam Hussein was a threat," Bush said on Thursday, noting that Saddam used weapons of mass destruction against his own people; was a sworn enemy of the U.S.; had terrorist connections -- and not just to al Qaeda; and provided safe haven for terrorists for terrorists such as Abu Musab Zarquawi "who is still killing innocents inside of Iraq," he said.
Zarquawi, an al Qaeda leader, is believed to be organizing the terrorist attacks against American forces in Iraq.
Bush said the world is better off and the world is more secure without Saddam Hussein in power.
In his comments to reporters, President Bush talked about his "firm resolve to spread freedom and therefore peace around the world.
"We fully understand terrorists will try to shake our will," he said -- adding that it won't work. "Iraq will be free. And a free Iraq is in our nation's best interests."
He also hailed the rebounding economy, pronouncing himself and his administration "optimistic" after speaking with small business owners and entrepreneurs.
"The U.S. economy is strong and getting stronger. People are going back to work," he said.
President Bush said the role of government is not to "manage" the economy, but to "create an environment in which the capital flows and entrepreneurs feel emboldened to take risks; and to make sure workers are trained for the jobs of the 21\super st\nosupersub Century.
"The Secret Service has announced it is doubling its protection for John Kerry. You can understand why — with two positions on every issue, he has twice as many people mad at him." —Jay Leno
on't click the post reply button twice.