Jan 23 2006

Iraq And Terrorism

14 responses so far

14 Responses to “Iraq And Terrorism”

1. HaroldHutchison says:

   January 23, 2006 at 9:37 am

   It’s a pleasure to be back.

2. BIGDOG says:

   January 23, 2006 at 9:59 am

   More to consider.

   INTELLIGENCE INCLUDED IN A SECRET MEMO from then-undersecretary for Defense Policy, Douglas Feith, to the Senate Intelligence Committee in 2003 includes a summary of a debriefing of a “senior Iraqi intelligence officer.” This intelligence officer told his interrogators that Turabi brokered several meetings between Iraqi intelligence and al Qaeda beginning in 1992. Ayman al-Zawahiri, al Qaeda’s number two, and Faruq Hijazi, one of Saddam’s most trusted operatives, were both at the first of these meetings.

   Turabi’s role in facilitating the meetings between Iraqi intelligence and al Qaeda was recognized by the 9-11 Commission. The Commission’s report noted that Turabi’s government had arranged for “contacts between Iraq and al Qaeda.” The staff report continued: “A senior Iraqi intelligence officer reportedly made three visits to Sudan, finally meeting bin Laden in 1994. Bin Laden is saidto have requested space to establish training camps, as well as assistance in procuring weapons, but Iraq apparently never responded.” Bin Laden’s request, of course, demonstrates he was not ideologically opposed to working with Saddam as many have claimed.

   http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/005/884ygeya.asp

3. Ghost Dansing says:

   January 23, 2006 at 4:39 pm

   Your buddy is dredging up debunked nonsense.

   Sept 18 2003: President George Bush conceded for the first time that ousted Iraqi President Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with the Sept 11, 2001 terror attacks.

   Mr Bush had earlier insisted that Saddam was somehow involved in the attacks. He repeated this claim even in his Sept 7 televised address to the nation.

   But while talking to reporters at the White House on Wednesday evening, Mr Bush said: “We’ve had no evidence that Saddam Hussein was involved with Sept 11.”

   Mr Bush, however, said he had no doubt that the deposed Iraqi president had links with Al Qaeda, the terrorist network linked to the attacks.

   And those links would be what? They’re on the same planet together?

   Saddam’s intelligence service was keeping track of them? Maybe agents even met with al Qaeda?

   Saddam would work with al Qaeda under one circumstance, and one circumstance only: They’d work for him.

   Saddam was a Baathist (Arab Fascist)that used Islam as it suited him. Saddam is just the kind of Arab leader that Bin Laden would have loved to overthrow, and you can bet the paranoid Saddam knew it.

   In January 2004, Secretary of State Colin Powell reversed a year of administration policy, acknowledging he had seen no “smoking gun [or] concrete evidence” of ties between former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and al-Qaida.

   Your Republican idols are liars and cheats. They lie as long as they can ,until they can lie no more…then time goes by and Republican bloggers dredge up the old lies hoping everybody forgot.

   I’ll take the on-the-record admissions from Bush and Powell, thank you.

4. Ghost Dansing says:

   January 23, 2006 at 5:09 pm

   Oh, and as far as Douggie Feith:

   The Office of Special Plans, which existed from September, 2002, to June, 2003, was a Pentagon unit created by Donald Rumsfeld and led by Douglas Feith, dealing with intelligence on Iraq.

   OSP was created in order to find evidence of that Saddam Hussein had close ties to Al Qaeda, and that Iraq had an enormous arsenal of chemical, biological, and possibly even nuclear weapons that threatened the region and, potentially, the United States.

   An annex to the first part of Senate intelligence committee’s ” Report of Pre-war Intelligence on Iraq” published in July 2004 found the CIA’s judgments were right on the Iraq-al Qaeda relationship.

   The OSP, connected to an “Iraqi intelligence cell” also headed by Feith sought to discredit and cast doubt on CIA analysis in an effort to establish a connection between Saddam Hussein and terrorism.

   In one instance, in response to a cautious CIA report, “Iraq and al-Qa’eda: A Murky Relationship”, the annex relates that “one of the individuals working for the intelligence cell led by Feith stated that the June [2002] report, ‘…should be read for content only – and CIA’s interpretation ought to be ignored.”

   In another instance, an “Iraqi intelligence cell” briefing to Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz in August 2002 condemned the CIA’s intelligence assessment techniques and denounced the CIA’s “consistent underestimation” of matters dealing with the alleged Iraq-al Qaeda co-operation. In September 2002, two days before the CIA’s final assessment of the Iraq-al Qaeda relationship, Feith briefed senior advisers to Dick Cheney and Condoleezza Rice, undercutting the CIA’s credibility and alleging “fundamental problems” with CIA intelligence-gathering.

   OSP deployed several extra-legal and unapproved task force missions” in Iraq both before and after the beginning of combat in 2003. The teams had a political rather than military mission; specifically, to find Iraqi intelligence officers willing come up with evidence of WMD in Iraq whether or not such weapons actually existed.

   Feith’s OSP was a censorship and disinformation organism set up to support the misguided and misguiding policies of Dubya’s Republican administration. That’s called propaganda, not intelligence. Douggie is a propagandist, not a patriot.

5. BIGDOG says:

   January 23, 2006 at 5:43 pm

   Hey ghost. Shall we debate this. I would love to.

   You said: ” In January 2004, Secretary of State Colin Powell reversed a year of administration policy, acknowledging he had seen no “smoking gun [or] concrete evidence”

   Heres the real quote: ““I have not seen smoking gun, concrete evidence about the connection, but I do believe the connections existed,”

   The 9-11 commissions final report in dec of 2005, said there indeed was contacts. Just nothing directly related to 9-11.

   Powells belief they existed and lack of solid evidence doesnt mean; as you put it: ” Your Republican idols are liars and cheats.” well guess what Powells belief was founded on something, something he realizes is intellegence, noting that intellegence is not concrete evidence, but later on mentions in this same article at MSNBC.

   Powell himself made the case most strongly in February, when he urged the U.N. Security Council to back U.S. military action in Iraq. “Iraqi officials deny accusations of ties with al-Qaida,” Powell said then. “These denials are simply not credible.”

   Powell defended those comments Thursday, even as he cast doubt on their conclusions. He said that at the time, he was referring specifically to the presence of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in Baghdad for medical treatments.

   The United States has accused al-Zarqawi of being a close associate of bin Laden’s, but intelligence agencies in France and other European countries that opposed the U.S. war argued that al-Zarqawi was an independent operator.

   Friday, January 21, 2005 (CNN) — Abu Musab al-Zarqawi pledges allegiance to Osama bin Laden. Bin Laden gives his blessing to al-Zarqawi.

   So much for being an independent operator. All these developements came after Powell had left his position. Furthermore if you havent researched the Iraq, Sudan, Al qaida connection then you really have some homework to do to catch up. Thats is if you are interesting in finding out the truth about these so-called non existing connections. Oh and did i mention saddams return to Islam.

   In an account in the New York Times on December 6, 1994, Turabi described his relationship with the Iraqi dictator as “very close.” He even defended the Iraqi regime’s Islamic credentials. Turabi explained, “Saddam is gradually reintroducing Islam. He has restricted liquor. Koranic studies are mandatory for all students, all teachers and all Baathist party members. He knows the society is returning to Islam.” He explained, “Arab governments are collapsing. They know it. . . . The Arabs are changing from below. Arab nationalism is finished and the Islamic spirit is rising in places like Saudi Arabia. This is one of the consequences of the gulf war.”

   Ghost said:
   “Saddam was a Baathist (Arab Fascist)that used Islam as it suited him. Saddam is just the kind of Arab leader that Bin Laden would have loved to overthrow, and you can bet the paranoid Saddam knew it.”

   So im not so sure your opinion has merit concerning your above statement.

   The Wash Times, Oct 24, 1996, citing unnamed officials, reported that “Mr. Bin Ladin was in contact with Iraqi intelligence agents while based near Khartoum, Sudan.” In fact, Sudan, in particular, Hassan Turabi, head of Sudan’s National Salvation Front, has long-standing ties to Iraq, which, like Sudan is a Sunni Muslim, Arabic speaking country. In 1986, Turabi helped lure to Sudan the most intellectually formidable of Saddam’s Shi’a clerical opponents, Mehdi al-Hakim, and Iraqi assassins gunned him down in Khartoum. Sudan supported Iraq during the Gulf war. And following the war, Baghdad established Khartoum as a major center for Iraqi intelligence. The Iraqi ambassador, who just left Khartoum a few months ago, Abd al Samad al-Ta’ish, was a long-time intelligence agent, who held the rank of General Director in Iraqi intelligence. He arrived in Khartoum in July, 1991, with some thirty-five intelligence officers to establish it as a major base for Iraqi intelligence.

   Meanwhile, by 1994 bin Laden’s al Qaeda had become firmly rooted in Sudan. Bin Laden’s investments and Sudanese government facilities had become inextricably intertwined. Bin Laden’s al Qaeda operatives worked closely with Sudanese officials and intelligence. His companies continued to improve the nation’s infrastructure by building roads and a variety of business facilities. Clinton administration officials would later explain that his investments were a vital part of the Sudanese “military industrial complex.”

   Please note all my quotes show the news agency and the dates. These dates are pre 9-11 and were made during the Clinton administartion. meaning there is NO BUSH lied or how did you put it? “Your Republican idols are liars and cheats.” Seems to me, as of right now, you have alot of explaining to do Ghost, as to why i cant lump you into your own rhetoric of liars and cheats.

6. Snapple says:

   January 23, 2006 at 7:36 pm

   GhostDansing—
   This is not as sinple as it is presented in the media–as some fight between the Office of Special Plans and the CIA. I am no expert, but here is the CIA Bin Laden Guy Michael Scheuer of the CIA “Alex Station,” I think, on Al Qaeda’s contacts with Iraq.

   “Scheuer’s 2002 book, “Through Our Enemies’ Eyes” offered startling conclusions regarding Saddam Hussein’s willingness to assist al Qaeda’s effort to obtain nuclear weapons. “In pursuing tactical nuclear weapons, bin Laden has focused on the FSU [Former Soviet Union] states and has sought and received help from Iraq,” wrote Scheuer. In fact, bin Laden’s “first moves in this direction were made in cooperation with NIF [Sudan’s National Islamic Front] leaders, Iraq’s intelligence service, and Iraqi CBRN [chemical-biological-radiological-nuclear] scientists and technicians.”

   “Through Our Enemies’ Eyes pointed to evidence indicating a relationship between Saddam’s Iraq and al Qaeda beginning in the early 1990s. And ‘there is information,” Scheuer wrote, “showing that in the 1993-1994 period bin Laden began work with Sudan and Iraq to acquire a CBRN capability for al Qaeda’……..Scheuer, who cited open-source reporting and other evidence–mostly from the late 1990s–to support the claim that Iraq and al Qaeda cooperated on multiple projects. Areas of cooperation included everything from assistance in the development of chemical and biological weapons facilities in Sudan and Afghanistan, to the possible training of al Qaeda operatives at Mujahedeen Khalq training camps in Iraq starting in June 1998 (the “MEK” was an anti-Iranian terrorist group sponsored by Saddam), to the possibility that MEK operatives (under Saddam’s direction) provided “technical and military training for the Taliban’s forces” as well as “running the Taliban’s anti-Iran propaganda.”

   http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/004/949ycflv.asp

   This article is very interesting for Scheuer’s views on Iraq and Al Qaeda. What he wrote is different than what he told Hardball:

   SCHEUER: The only part of that I know about, sir, is that the–I happened to do the research on the links between al Qaeda and Iraq.

   MATTHEWS: And what did you come up with?

   SCHEUER: Nothing.

   Nothing? That’s not the story Scheuer tells on, for example, pages 124-125, 184, 188-190, and 192 of Through Our Enemies’ Eyes.

   http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/004/949ycflv.asp?pg=2

   My own (non-expert) opinion is that there may be some good reasons why this government does not want to spell out the connections between Iraq/Iraqi agents and Al Qaeda right now and why they let the Democrats beat them up on this issue.

7. Snapple says:

   January 23, 2006 at 8:21 pm

   Stalin was an atheist, but when the USSR was attacked by NAZI Germany, Stalin dumped the appeals to communism. He put the Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church on the radio, and the Patriarch and asked people to fight for Mother Russia. They didn’t mention fighting for any secular ideology.

   Secular communist/Baathist regimes will make a united front with religious institutions when they need to.

   Soviet policy has fluctuated in its attitude toward religion. It held religion in contempt, but had no problem in temporary and expedient accomodations.

   Same with Saddam.

8. Ghost Dansing says:

   January 23, 2006 at 8:38 pm

   >Hey ghost. Shall we debate this. I would love to.

   >You said: ” In January 2004, Secretary of State Colin Powell reversed a year of administration policy, acknowledging he had seen no “smoking gun [or] concrete evidence”

   >Heres the real quote: ““I have not seen smoking gun, concrete evidence about the connection, but I do believe the connections existed,”

   Oh yes, of course…”faith based” intelligence…I forgot about that.

   As recently as September, President Bush declared that there was “no question” that Saddam had ties to al-Qaida.

   Dick Cheney told National Public Radio in January 2003 that there was “overwhelming evidence” of a relationship between Saddam and al-Qaida.

   Republicans are seldom in doubt, but frequently wrong.

   >The 9-11 commissions final report in dec of 2005, said there indeed was contacts. Just nothing directly related to 9-11.

   Duh. And the nature of the contact was?

   Among the evidence Cheney cited was Iraq’s harboring of Abdul Rahman Yasin, a suspect in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.
   Cheney didn’t mention that Iraq had offered to turn over Yasin to the FBI in 1998, in return for a U.S. statement acknowledging that Iraq had no role in that attack. The Clinton administration refused the offer, because it was unwilling to reward Iraq for returning a fugitive.

   Administration officials reported that Farouk Hijazi, a top Iraqi intelligence officer, had met with bin Laden in Kandahar, Afghanistan, in 1998 and offered him safe haven in Iraq.

   However, they left out the rest of the story. Bin Laden said he’d consider the offer. The al-Qaida leader told an aide afterward that he had no intention of accepting Saddam’s offer because “if we go there, it would be his agenda, not ours.”

   The administration tied Saddam to a terrorism network run by Palestinian Abu Musab al Zarqawi. But the evidence that Zarqawi had close operational ties to al-Qaida prior to the war was doubtful.

   Cheney, in an interview with CNN, said Zarqawi ran an “al-Qaida-affiliated” group. He cited an intercepted letter that Zarqawi is believed to have written to al-Qaida leaders, and a White House official who spoke only on the condition of anonymity said the CIA has described Zarqawi as an al-Qaida “associate.”

   But U.S. officials say the Zarqawi letter contained a plea for help that al-Qaida rebuffed. Linguistic analysis of the letter indicates it was written from one equal to another, not from a subordinate to a superior, suggesting that Zarqawi considered himself an independent operator and not a part of bin Laden’s organization.

   The allegation that Sept. 11 hijacker Mohamed Atta met in Prague, Czech Republic, with an Iraqi intelligence officer is contradicted by FBI evidence that Atta was taking flight training in Florida at the time. The Iraqi, Ahmed Khalil Ibrahim Samir al Ani, is now in U.S. custody and has told interrogators he never met Atta.

   Bush, Cheney and Secretary of State Colin Powell made much of occasional contacts between Saddam’s regime and al-Qaida, dating to the early 1990s when bin Laden was based in the Sudan. But intelligence indicates that nothing ever came of the contacts.

   The U.S. intelligence community never concluded that the meetings that took place produced an operational relationship.That verdict was in a secret report by the CIA’s Directorate of Intelligence that was updated in January 2003, on the eve of the war.

   The evidence of Iraq’s ties to al-Qaida was always sketchy, based largely on testimony of Iraqi defectors and prisoners, supplemented with limited reports from foreign agents and electronic eavesdropping.

   The terrorists who administration officials claimed were links between the two had no direct connection to either Saddam or bin Laden, and a key meeting between an Iraqi intelligence officer and one of the leaders of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks probably never happened.

   All that is not to mention that our friend Chalabi had a network of defectors feeding all kinds of false stuff to the U.S., and Chalabi’s buddy Dick Cheney ensured that every bit of it was used in the spin.

   >Powells belief they existed and lack of solid evidence doesnt mean; as you put it: ” Your Republican idols are liars and cheats.” well guess what Powells belief was founded on something, something he realizes is intellegence, noting that intellegence is not concrete evidence, but later on mentions in this same article at MSNBC.

   Faith based intelligence. Also expert use of intelaganda crafted by the administration’s cronies.

   >Powell himself made the case most strongly in February, when he urged the U.N. Security Council to back U.S. military action in Iraq. “Iraqi officials deny accusations of ties with al-Qaida,” Powell said then. “These denials are simply not credible.”

   Well, when it emerged that even the Saudi ambassador was told the war was going ahead before Colin Powell, it was clear just how estranged Powell had become from his boss. Powell was a good soldier, soldiering along and making his boss’s pitch. That man did not approve of how the administration was proceeding, and that is largely why he is no longer Secretary of State. He said that he was using the best judgement of U.S. intelligence, but that simply wasn’t the case. Cheney’s boys (guys like Feith) cherry picked the data, and cherry picked the talking points in the speech.

   The iraqi denials were credible. Much of the evidence available indicated that Iraq and al-Qaida had no close ties, despite repeated contacts between the two; that the terrorists who administration officials claimed were links between the two had no direct connection to either Saddam or bin Laden; and that a key meeting between an Iraqi intelligence officer and one of the leaders of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks probably never happened.

   The CIA never signed-up for this or many other arguments. The facts were given a shake ‘n bake by this Republican administration’s SPECIAL intelaganda cells, and that’s what the administration was using to feed Powell, and others. Heck, Powells own State Department intelligence was dissenting.

   >Powell defended those comments Thursday, even as he cast doubt on their conclusions. He said that at the time, he was referring specifically to the presence of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in Baghdad for medical treatments.

   Whatever. Cognitive dissonance…couldn’t face the truth, even as he knew it.

   >The United States has accused al-Zarqawi of being a close associate of bin Laden’s, but intelligence agencies in France and other European countries that opposed the U.S. war argued that al-Zarqawi was an independent operator.

   And they (France and other European Countries) were right…and so was the CIA. Dubya’s cherry-pickers had a good story, unfortunately it was all crap. Dubya decided to go to war, then bent then he and his cronies bent the intelaganda to fit the policy. There’s even a Brit memorandum to that effect.

   > Friday, January 21, 2005 (CNN) — Abu Musab al-Zarqawi pledges allegiance to Osama bin Laden. Bin Laden gives his blessing to al-Zarqawi.

   The invasion of Iraq as the second action in the war on terror was a strategic mistake of breathtaking proportions. Iraq was a big birthday present to Bin Laden. They had lost Afghanistan, and now Bush was destabilizing Iraq, creating just the kind of terrorist incubator that spawned al Qaeda in Afghanistan during its war with the Soviets. Zarqawi had an organization and a foothold and parallel goals. There was a mutually attractive opportunity to unite and they did it. And, this was 2005, not 2001, 2, or 3.

   >So much for being an independent operator. All these developements came after Powell had left his position. Furthermore if you havent researched the Iraq, Sudan, Al qaida connection then you really have some homework to do to catch up. Thats is if you are interesting in finding out the truth about these so-called non existing connections. Oh and did i mention saddams return to Islam.

   Well, so far I appear to have a lot better grip on reality than you. I know about Iraq, Sudan and al Qaeda, and none of it adds up to what this Republican administration was saying before the war. Some of the highlights are noted above.

   >In an account in the New York Times on December 6, 1994, Turabi described his relationship with the Iraqi dictator as “very close.” He even defended the Iraqi regime’s Islamic credentials. Turabi explained, “Saddam is gradually reintroducing Islam. He has restricted liquor. Koranic studies are mandatory for all students, all teachers and all Baathist party members. He knows the society is returning to Islam.” He explained, “Arab governments are collapsing. They know it. . . . The Arabs are changing from below. Arab nationalism is finished and the Islamic spirit is rising in places like Saudi Arabia. This is one of the consequences of the gulf war.”

   >Ghost said:
   “Saddam was a Baathist (Arab Fascist)that used Islam as it suited him. Saddam is just the kind of Arab leader that Bin Laden would have loved to overthrow, and you can bet the paranoid Saddam knew it.”

   >So im not so sure your opinion has merit concerning your above statement.

   Looks more like Turabi’s opionion than Saddam’s.

   >The Wash Times, Oct 24, 1996, citing unnamed officials, reported that “Mr. Bin Ladin was in contact with Iraqi intelligence agents while based near Khartoum, Sudan.” In fact, Sudan, in particular, Hassan Turabi, head of Sudan’s National Salvation Front, has long-standing ties to Iraq, which, like Sudan is a Sunni Muslim, Arabic speaking country. In 1986, Turabi helped lure to Sudan the most intellectually formidable of Saddam’s Shi’a clerical opponents, Mehdi al-Hakim, and Iraqi assassins gunned him down in Khartoum. Sudan supported Iraq during the Gulf war. And following the war, Baghdad established Khartoum as a major center for Iraqi intelligence. The Iraqi ambassador, who just left Khartoum a few months ago, Abd al Samad al-Ta’ish, was a long-time intelligence agent, who held the rank of General Director in Iraqi intelligence. He arrived in Khartoum in July, 1991, with some thirty-five intelligence officers to establish it as a major base for Iraqi intelligence.

   And you’re doing some major stretches through space and time. Keep in mind that if you go back to the war in Afghanistan with the Soviets, the United States has linkage to al Qaeda, and the U.S. backed Iraq in its war with Iran.

   During Jimmy Carter’s presidency, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 again placed the African continent into a Cold War supporting role. US diplomacy sought and obtained military base rights, facilities, and transit authorizations from East African countries close to the Persian Gulf, including Somalia, Sudan, Djibouti and Kenya.

   Within months of the Soviet invasion, Within months, however, Mr Bin Laden was sending Arab fighters – Egyptians, Algerians, Lebanese, Kuwaitis, Turks and Tunisians – into Afghanistan. He supported them with weapons and his own construction equipment. Along with his **Iraqi engineer** Mohamed Saad – who was building the Port Sudan road – Mr Bin Laden blasted massive tunnels into the Zazi mountains of Bakhtiar province for guerilla hospitals and arms dumps and cut a mujahedin trail across the country to within 15 miles of Kabul.

   And Iraq?

   Concern about the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran and about the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan prompted Iraq to reexamine seriously the nature of its relationship with the United States. This process led to a gradual warming of relations between the two countries. In 1981 Iraq and the United States engaged in lowlevel , official talks on matters of mutual interest such as trade and regional security. The following year the United States extended credits to Iraq for the purchase of American agricultural commodities, the first time this had been done since 1967. More significant, in 1983 the Baathist government hosted a United States special Middle East envoy, the highest-ranking American official to visit Baghdad in more than sixteen years. In 1984, when the United States inaugurated “Operation Staunch” to halt shipment of arms to Iran by third countries, no similar embargo was attempted against Iraq because Saddam Husayn’s government had expressed its desire to negotiate an end to the war. All of these initiatives prepared the ground for Iraq and the United States to reestablish diplomatic relations in November 1984.

   In early 1988, Iraq’s relations with the United States were generally cordial. The relationship had been strained at the end of 1986 when it was revealed that the United States had secretly sold arms to Iran during 1985 and 1986, and a crisis occurred in May 1987 when an Iraqi pilot bombed an American naval ship in the Persian Gulf, a ship he mistakenly thought to be involved in Iran-related commerce. Nevertheless, the two countries had weathered these problems by mid-1987. Although lingering suspicions about the United States remained, Iraq welcomed greater, even if indirect, American diplomatic and military pressure in trying to end the war with Iran. For the most part, the government of Saddam Husayn believed the United States supported its position that the war was being prolonged only because of Iranian intransigence.

   Hmm… I wonder… did out ally, Iraq, support mujahideen in afghanistan, like bin Laden and al Qaeda while Saddam was an ally of the United States? Probably.

   Was Sudan a base for operations for the U.S. and really, everybody under the sun over a period of time? Probably

   But it doesn’t matter, because what we WERE talking about was conditions as they existed when this Republican administration was making its case for war.

   >Meanwhile, by 1994 bin Laden’s al Qaeda had become firmly rooted in Sudan. Bin Laden’s investments and Sudanese government facilities had become inextricably intertwined. Bin Laden’s al Qaeda operatives worked closely with Sudanese officials and intelligence. His companies continued to improve the nation’s infrastructure by building roads and a variety of business facilities. Clinton administration officials would later explain that his investments were a vital part of the Sudanese “military industrial complex.”

   Of course… bin Laden is an old friend, as we’ve seen previously.

   Please note all my quotes show the news agency and the dates. These dates are pre 9-11 and were made during the Clinton administartion. meaning there is NO BUSH lied or how did you put it? “Your Republican idols are liars and cheats.” Seems to me, as of right now, you have alot of explaining to do Ghost, as to why i cant lump you into your own rhetoric of liars and cheats.

   No such luck buddy. Your Republican idols are master propagandists. Cheney and Rumsfeld knew the score…they’ve had tons of experience with intelligence, and they new just how to make inteliganda. They were either demostrably incompetent, or lying. I think they were lying.

   Heck, guys like Cheney, while the Clinton administration was being all hawkish about Iraq, was wanting to reduce sanctions so haliburton could make a buck.

   All the rhetoric that this Republican administration used to build the case for war, was borrowed from the Clinton administration’s attempts to maintain sanctions, maintain the north and south no-flys, and re-introduce the UN inspectors. The neocon cronies just took the same rhetoric, amplified it, and pitched war instead.

   If the Republicans wanted war on the basis of what the Clinton administration said, they could have demanded it in 1998 when the UN inspectors were ejected. Most Republicans were whining that they weren’t making enough money with the sanctions and all.

   I think they should be impeached for incompetence…that’s ok. If you think they weren’t spinning a tale (actually they still are), even after all that’s happened, that’s fine. I’ll take impeachment on the basis of incompetence.

   Dubya is just getting by from sound bite to sound bite, while Iraq and America sink ever deeper into the quagmire.

   Although there has been no formal declaration, all indications are that this Republican administration, which once made grand promises about a program to rebuild Iraq comparable to the Marshall Plan, doesn’t plan to ask for any more money for Iraqi reconstruction.

   So what does it mean that the Bush administration is apparently walking away from responsibility for Iraq’s reconstruction? It means that the administration doesn’t have a plan; it’s entirely focused on short-term political gain.

   They have no plan, and the Republican constituency apparently still has no clue.

9. Snapple says:

   January 24, 2006 at 8:23 am

   AJ–

   This is off topic, but I saw that President Bush is reading the new book on Mao called Mao : The Unknown Story — by Jung Chang, Jon Halliday.

   This is pretty topical, because Maoists have been cooperating with insurgents in Iraq—even according to the MSM:

   “Who’s funding the insurgents in Iraq? The list of suspects is long: ex-Baathists, foreign jihadists, and angry Sunnis, to name a few. Now add to that roster hard-core Euroleftists.

   Iraq insurgency vital to al Qaeda (6/22/05)

   More from Nation & World

   Turns out that far-left groups in western Europe are carrying on a campaign dubbed Ten Euros for the Resistance, offering aid and comfort to the car bombers, kidnappers, and snipers trying to destabilize the fledgling Iraq government. In the words of one Italian website, Iraq Libero (Free Iraq), the funds are meant for those fighting the occupanti imperialisti. The groups are an odd collection, made up largely of Marxists and Maoists, sprinkled with an array of Arab emigres and aging, old-school fascists, according to Lorenzo Vidino, an analyst on European terrorism based at The Investigative Project in Washington, D.C. ” http://www.usnews.com/usnews/news/articles/050623/23euroleft.htm

   Here is what an Amazon reviewer named CJ Griffen said about the book:

   “This is what Chairman Mao Tse-tung said to his inner circle during the so-called “Great Leap Forward,” which killed an estimated 38 million people through starvation and overwork. Mass slaughter was not the intention of the Leap, but Mao told his top echelon to not be too surprised if a myriad of deaths do happen, and to actively welcome people dying as a result of party policy. After all, according to Mao: “If people don’t die, the earth won’t be able to hold them!”

   In addition to welcoming mass death from his insane and idiotic policies, Mao also gave the impression that he might even welcome a nuclear war: “Let’s contemplate this, how many people would die if war breaks out. There are 2.7 billion people in the world. One third could be lost; or, a little more, it could be half… I say that, taking the extreme situation, half dies, half lives, but imperialism would be razed to the ground and the whole world would become socialist.”

   Amazon commentary on the book also comments:

   Mao was responsible for the deaths of well over 70 million Chinese in peacetime, and he was bent on dominating the world. As China is today emerging as an economic and military power, the world can never regard it as a benign force unless Beijing rejects Mao and all his legacies. We hope our book will help push China in this direction by telling the truth about Mao.

   ——————————————————————————–

   Breakdown of a BIG Book: 5 Things You’ll Learn from Mao: The Unknown Story

   1. Mao became a Communist at the age of 27 for purely pragmatic reasons: a job and income from the Russians.

   2. Far from organizing the Long March in 1934, Mao was nearly left behind by his colleagues who could not stand him and had tried to oust him several times. The aim of the March was to link up with Russia to get arms. The Reds survived the March because Chiang Kai-shek let them, in a secret horse-trade for his son and heir, whom Stalin was holding hostage in Russia.

   3. Mao grew opium on a large scale.

   4. After he conquered China, Mao’s over-riding goal was to become a superpower and dominate the world: “Control the Earth,” as he put it.

   5. Mao caused the greatest famine in history by exporting food to Russia to buy nuclear and arms industries: 38 million people were starved and slave-driven to death in 1958-61. Mao knew exactly what was happening, saying: “half of China may well have to die.”

10. Snapple says:

    January 24, 2006 at 9:18 am

    The radical professor Ward Churchill supported Saddam, and he supports the Iraqi Insurgency, too. See this pro-Churchill/pro-terrorist blog entry:

    http://tryworks.blogspot.com/2006/01/why-they-hate-us-7.html#comments

    The main page is http://www.tryworks.blogspot.com

    Saddam killed 300,000 Iraqis, but Ward doesn’t just support third-world genociders like “the butcher of Baghdad;” he also “jokes” about killing American babies.

    Here are Wardo’s OWN WORDS and his “joke” about “snuffing” American babies:

    “The average resident of the United States, for example, consumes about thirty times the resources of the average Ugandan or Laotian. Since a lot of poor folk reside in the United States, this translates into the average yuppie consuming about seventy times the resources of an average Third Worlder.69 Every yuppie born counts as much as another seventy Chinese.

    Lay that one on the next soccer mom who approaches you with a baby stroller and an outraged look, demanding that you to put your cigarette out, eh? It is plainly absurd for any American to complain about smoking when you consider the context of the damage done by overall U.S. consumption patterns. Tell ’em you’ll put the butt out when they snuff the kid and not a moment before. Better yet, tell ’em they should snuff themselves, as well as the kid, and do the planet a real favor. Just “kidding” (heh-heh).
    http://www.zmag.org/chiapas1/wardindig.htm

11. BIGDOG says:

    January 24, 2006 at 3:54 pm

    “Republicans are seldom in doubt, but frequently wrong.

    >The 9-11 commissions final report in dec of 2005, said there indeed was contacts. Just nothing directly related to 9-11.

    Duh. And the nature of the contact was?”

    —————————————————————–

    Harboring and supporting terrorists. BTW why was the Muslim Brotherhoods leader abu Nidal, why was he in Iraq? and not to mention Osama was an understudy of Nidals.

    So now you are admitting to contacts between Iraq and Al Qaeda. Thats a good start. You just want to know their nature, well so would i to be honest; im sure they were not sharing tea and crumpets. Then you posted “harboring of Abdul Rahman Yasin” then you posted “Farouk Hijazi, a top Iraqi intelligence officer, had met with bin Laden in Kandahar, Afghanistan, in 1998 and offered him safe haven in Iraq.” then you posted “contacts between Saddam’s regime and al-Qaida, dating to the early 1990s when bin Laden was based in the Sudan. But intelligence indicates that nothing ever came of the contacts.” ( is this faith based intllegence?)

    Well the last quote i totally disagree with, a 1998 federal indictment against bin laden, proves once again the Republicans are NOT making this up and is NOT faith based. It’s self evident what was going on and you are now trying to obfuscate the issue. The Downing street memo was easily debunked, thats why nothing came from this document. Im using pre 9-11 data, pre Bush data, in most case’s and to show you, if you say Bush lied, you are saying all of congress lied, including the Clinton administration. This in my view destroys your assertion ” Your Republican idols are liars and cheats. ” well if thats the case, then they are all cheats and liars; so is the rest of the world leaders and their intellegence agencies. However…..

    The Grand Jury charges:

    4. Al Qaeda also forged alliances with the National Islamic Front in
    the Sudan and with the government of Iran and its associated terrorist group Hezballah for the purpose of working together against their perceived common enemies in the West, particularly the United States. In addition, al Qaeda reached an understanding with the government of Iraq that al Qaeda would not work against that government and that on particular projects, specifically including weapons development, al Qaeda would work cooperatively with the Government of Iraq.

    If this is the case and i believe it is. They had contacts and a working relationship. Including Turabis direct connection between Al Qaeda and Saddam. This is not faith based intell, nor propaganda spearheaded by Republicans, it is evidence you are wanting to ignore because it doesnt fit you idealogue.

    ————————————————–

    Then you posted:

    “But it doesn’t matter, because what we WERE talking about was conditions as they existed when this Republican administration was making its case for war.”

    HUH???

    Then you said:

    “All the rhetoric that this Republican administration used to build the case for war, was borrowed from the Clinton administration’s attempts to maintain sanctions, maintain the north and south no-flys, and re-introduce the UN inspectors. The neocon cronies just took the same rhetoric, amplified it, and pitched war instead.

    If the Republicans wanted war on the basis of what the Clinton administration said, they could have demanded it in 1998 when the UN inspectors were ejected. Most Republicans were whining that they weren’t making enough money with the sanctions and all.”

    You are talking in circles Ghost. You obvioulsy are trying to make a case saying the intelligence was good enough for sanctions but not good enough for saddmas removal. Ok thast fine and thats exactly what happened until the passing of the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998.

    Seems to me the case for war was made in 1998 under the Iraqi Liberation act and these conditions you are refering to began in the 90’s during the Clinton administration. Whereas in this act, passed by congress, basically changed policy towards Iraq from containment to saddams removal. The chief reason was the cease fire agreement was being violated. In my eyes this is the only reason needed to remove sadddam. Everything we are argueing about follows under the 12 years of violations of UN sanctions and his violation of the cease fire agreement he signed. PERIOD!!!

    The real meat of this issue is saddams defiance and covert activities all contributed to his removal. Not some made up rhetoric. BTW the same build up in the 90’s towards Iraq is now happening towards Iran. So please show me where the intelligence is wrong about Iran, so we can then say its a Republican lie all over again, using your circle jerk debate style, wheres the evidence showing its a lie that Iran is going nuclear.

    Before you do that i want to show you bothe president Clintons speech about Iraq and Bush’s speech outlining the Iraqi threat and note what each president said.

    PRESIDENT WILLIAM J. CLINTON (Office of the Press Secretary)

    October 31, 1998.

    “Today I am signing into law H.R. 4655, the “Iraq Liberation Act of 1998.” This Act makes clear that it is the sense of the Congress that the United States should support those elements of the Iraqi opposition that advocate a very different future for Iraq than the bitter reality of internal repression and external aggression that the current regime in Baghdad now offers. Let me be clear on what the U.S. objectives are: The United States wants Iraq to rejoin the family of nations as a freedom-loving and law-abiding member. This is in our interest and that of our allies within the region.

    The United States favors an Iraq that offers its people freedom at home. I categorically reject arguments that this is unattainable due to Iraq’s history or its ethnic or sectarian make-up. Iraqis deserve and desire freedom like everyone else. The United States looks forward to a democratically supported regime that would permit us to enter into a dialogue leading to the reintegration of Iraq into normal international life. My Administration has pursued, and will continue to pursue, these objectives through active application of all relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions……

    !!!! The evidence is overwhelming that such changes will not happen under the current Iraq leadership. In the meantime, while the United States continues to look to the Security Council’s efforts to keep the current regime’s behavior in check, we look forward to new leadership in Iraq that has the support of the Iraqi people. The United States is providing support to opposition groups from all sectors of the Iraqi community that could lead to a popularly supported government. !!!!! (emphasis mine)

    On October 21, 1998, I signed into law the Omnibus Consolidated and Emergency Supplemental Appropriations Act, 1999, which made $8 million available for assistance to the Iraqi democratic opposition. This assistance is intended to help the democratic opposition unify, work together more effectively, and articulate the aspirations of the Iraqi people for a pluralistic, participatory political system that will include all of Iraq’s diverse ethnic and religious groups. As required by the Emergency Supplemental Appropriations Act for FY 1998 (Public Law 105-174), the Department of State submitted a report to the Congress on plans to establish a program to support the democratic opposition. My Administration, as required by that statute, has also begun to implement a program to compile information regarding allegations of genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes by Iraq’s current leaders as a step towards bringing to justice those directly responsible for such acts.”

    PRESIDENT BUSH OUTLINES IRAQI THREAT (Cincinnati Union Terminal)

    October 7, 2002,

    “Tonight I want to take a few minutes to discuss a grave threat to peace, and America’s determination to lead the world in confronting that threat.”

    !!!! “The threat comes from Iraq. It arises directly from the Iraqi regime’s own actions — its history of aggression, and its drive toward an arsenal of terror. Eleven years ago, as a condition for ending the Persian Gulf War, the Iraqi regime was required to destroy its weapons of mass destruction, to cease all development of such weapons, and to stop all support for terrorist groups. The Iraqi regime has violated all of those obligations. !!!! (emphasis mine)

    It possesses and produces chemical and biological weapons. It is seeking nuclear weapons. It has given shelter and support to terrorism, and practices terror against its own people. The entire world has witnessed Iraq’s eleven-year history of defiance, deception and bad faith.”

    “Members of the Congress of both political parties, and members of the United Nations Security Council, agree that Saddam Hussein is a threat to peace and must disarm. We agree that the Iraqi dictator must not be permitted to threaten America and the world with horrible poisons and diseases and gases and atomic weapons. Since we all agree on this goal, the issues is : how can we best achieve it?”

    Seems to me BOTH president mad eit clear saddams removal was based on the UN violations and his deceptions.

12. Ghost Dansing says:

    January 24, 2006 at 7:59 pm

    Several White House officials have been briefed about pictures of Dubya and Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff taken since 2001 but will not release them on grounds that they are not relevant to the ongoing money-for-favors investigation, aides said yesterday.

    “Trying to say there’s more to it than the president taking a picture in a photo line is just absurd,” White House spokesman Scott McClellan told reporters. Bush, he said, does not recall meeting Abramoff and did not do any favors for the disgraced lobbyist.

    Hey, just because Dubya met with Abramhoff, doesn’t mean there is a “link” there! Anyway, his meetings with Abramhoff did not result in any operational relationship.

    Source: “Linking for Fun and Profit; The Idiot’s Guide to Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon”.

13. Ghost Dansing says:

    January 24, 2006 at 8:15 pm

    Oh, yeah. Clinton didn’t have a case for war, and neither did Dubya. The only difference was one knew it, and the other spun a tale and exaggerated to the public and to Congress in order to pursue the war path.

    If there was no “iminent” threat from Iraq, which the Republican administration said it never actually claimed (despite “mushroom cloud” comments, etc.) then there was no legal basis to pursue war as a threatened sovereign nation, as opposed to pursuing war under UN sanction.

    Not only did Dubya commit a major strategic blunder in electing war, he then continued his incompetence through ineffective prosecution.

    Gen. Merrill ‘Tony’ McPeak Air Force Chief of Staff, 1990-94

    We have a force in Iraq that’s much too small to stabilize the situation. It’s about half the size, or maybe even a third, of what we need. As a consequence, the insurgency seems to be gathering momentum. We are losing people at a fairly steady rate of about two a day; wounded, about four or five times that, and perhaps half of these wounds are very serious. And we are also sustaining gunshot wounds, when, before, we’d mostly been seeing massive trauma from remotely detonated charges. This means the other side is standing and fighting in a way that describes a more dangerous phase of the conflict.

    The people in control in the Pentagon and the White House live in a fantasy world. They actually thought everyone would just line up and vote for a new democracy and you would have a sort of Denmark with oil. I blame Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and the people behind him — Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and Undersecretary Douglas Feith. The vice president himself should probably be included; certainly his wife. These so-called neocons: These people have no real experience in life. They are utopian thinkers, idealists, very smart, and they have the courage of their convictions, so it makes them doubly dangerous.

    The parallels between Iraq and Vietnam have been overblown, because we were in Vietnam for a decade and it cost us 58,000 troops. We’ve been in Iraq for nineteen months and we’re still under 1,200 killed. But there is one sense in which the parallel with Vietnam is valid. The American people were told that to win the Cold War we had to win Vietnam. But we now know that Vietnam was not only a diversion from winning the Cold War but probably delayed our winning it and made it cost more to win. Iraq is a diversion to the war on terror in exactly the same way Vietnam was a diversion to the Cold War.

    Gen. Anthony Zinni Commander in chief of the United States Central Command, 1997-2000

    The first phase of the war in Iraq, the conventional phase, the major combat phase, was brilliantly done. Tommy Franks’ approach to methodically move up and attack quickly probably saved a great humanitarian disaster. But the military was unprepared for the aftermath. Rumsfeld and others thought we would be greeted with roses and flowers.

    When I was commander of CENTCOM, we had a plan for an invasion of Iraq, and it had specific numbers in it. We wanted to go in there with 350,000 to 380,000 troops. You didn’t need that many people to defeat the Republican Guard, but you needed them for the aftermath. We knew that we would find ourselves in a situation where we had completely uprooted an authoritarian government and would need to freeze the situation: retain control, retain order, provide security, seal the borders to keep terrorists from coming in.

    When I left in 2000, General Franks took over. Franks was my ground-component commander, so he was well aware of the plan. He had participated in it; those were the numbers he wanted. So what happened between him and Rumsfeld and why those numbers got altered, I don’t know, because when we went in we used only 140,000 troops, even though General Eric Shinseki, the army commander, asked for the original number.

    Did we have to do this? I saw the intelligence right up to the day of the war, and I did not see any imminent threat there. If anything, Saddam was coming apart. The sanctions were working. The containment was working. He had a hollow military, as we saw. If he had weapons of mass destruction, it was leftover stuff — artillery shells and rocket rounds. He didn’t have the delivery systems. We controlled the skies and seaports. We bombed him at will. All of this happened under U.N. authority. I mean, we had him by the throat. But the president was being convinced by the neocons that down the road we would regret not taking him out.

    Republicans: “Tough on Americans, Weak on Terrorism”

    If you have bellicose ambitions, at least get real warriors to lead the charge.

    Lt. Gen. Claudia Kennedy Army Deputy Chief of Staff for Intelligence, 1997-2000

    From the beginning, i was asked which side I took, Shinseki’s or Rumsfeld’s. And I said Shinseki. I mean, Rumsfeld proudly announced that he had told General Franks to fight this war with different tactics in which they would bypass enemy strongholds and enemy resistance and keep on moving. But it was shocking to me that the secretary of defense would tell the Army how to fight. He doesn’t know how to fight; he has no business telling them. It’s completely within civilian authority to tell you where to fight, what our major objective is, but it is absolutely no one’s business but uniformed military to tell you how to do the job. To me, it was astonishing that Rumsfeld would presume to tell four-star generals, in the Army thirty-five years, how to do their jobs.

    Now here’s another thing that Rumsfeld did. As he was being briefed on the war plan, he was cherry-picking the units to go. In other words, he didn’t just approve the deployment list, he went down the list and skipped certain units that were at a higher degree of readiness to go and picked units that were lower on the list — for reasons we don’t know. But here’s the impact: Recently, at an event, a mother told me how her son had been recruited and trained as a cook. Three weeks before he deployed to Iraq, he was told he was now a gunner. And they gave him training for three weeks, and then off he went.

    Rumsfeld was profoundly in the dark. I think he really didn’t understand what he was doing. He miscalculated the kind of war it was and he miscalculated the interpretation of U.S. behavior by the Iraqi people. They felt they had been invaded. They did not see this as a liberation.

    As for the recent news about the 380 tons of explosives that disappeared, it’s irrelevant when they disappeared. This was known by the International Atomic Energy Agency as a site to be watched. Here is the issue: Bush tried to turn this into a political matter instead of answering questions about why he didn’t follow the warnings of the IAEA. It was another example of Bush being a cheerleader instead of a leader. Nothing in Iraq was guarded except for the oil fields, which tells you why we were there. There are any number of indications that with a larger troop strength we would have been able to deal with such sites. Here is my other concern: The IAEA gave us a list of sites to be watched, so there may have been other dumps that were looted. After all, you don’t just put one item on a list.

    So what do we do? I think it would be very irresponsible for us to simply pull out. It sounds like a very simple solution, but it would have some complexity and danger attached. Still, Iraq is a blood bath, and we need to be dealing with this in a much more sophisticated way than the cowboy named Bush.

    All prophecies that came true. Incompetence, incompetence, incompetence.

    They probably were lying through their teeth also.

14. BIGDOG says:

    January 25, 2006 at 10:40 am

    Ghost wrote:

    “Oh, yeah. Clinton didn’t have a case for war, and neither did Dubya. The only difference was one knew it, and the other spun a tale and exaggerated to the public and to Congress in order to pursue the war path.”

    ——————————————————

    Nice Ghost….. real nice….how quaint of you to forget what exactly happened on 9-11. You may consider it an “event”; i consider it an act of war by Muslim extremists, terrorists. Al Qeada is just a part of the WOT, those who harbor them are another. Yeh Iran harbors them also. Oooooooops!! there’s that build up to war speek, again and again, liken in the late 90’s. Oh thats right its how you say?…oh yeh its “faith based intelligence” right Ghost?

    So incase you havent noticed Ghost, we are at war, long before we ever acted with our military in 1991 PGW. Admittedly the PGW made alot of Muslim countries upset but war was declared on us by Radical Militant Muslims vowing our destruction, first kidnapping our people, killing our people, our military personal gaurding our embasies, our ships and our diplomats in our embassies, you know soft targets. Has this sunk in yet Ghost?

    Then somehow your thinking strayed from the FACT!!! we were attacked on 9-11 and you coveniently forgot the “act of war” against our home soil, so you dont consider NYorkers OUR people?

    Thank god almighty these crazy mullahs didnt have nukes on them planes, would that have helped you not forget the difference between what was goin on during Clintons watch and what happened on Bush’s. This i take offense to Ghost, no disrespect man and not singleing you out, but this really pisses me off about the anti-bush crowed, THEY DONT THINK!!! hence BDS.

    Now i admit i like your ferver and i’ll respect your ideas when presented. Bush’s incompentence shines like a shinny silver dollar freashly polished when he makes mistakes. I will not argue about his mistakes, im glad he became accountable saying some of the intelligence was false. He’s admitted to a big mistake, that the CIA and how other outside sources, effected and dictated our policies towards an already wounded and limping Iraq. Who’s strategic value is now rearing its ugly head. So lets be real about the thinking process and consideration of those who are still asking that old question can a nation of mixed cultures and religions become united. United to resolve this WOT and get our men and women home before this thing blows up in our collective global faces. I know im just wishing outloud, but i will not lot you get away with saying what you just said, very disengenious on your part.

    Now onto: “If there was no “iminent” threat from Iraq, which the Republican administration said it never actually claimed (despite “mushroom cloud” comments, etc.) then there was no legal basis to pursue war as a threatened sovereign nation, as opposed to pursuing war under UN sanction.”

    Beings how the first WTC attack had affiliations with Iraq, dont want to say contacts, it may be to confusing. hehehe j/k …….If those terrorists on those planes were Iraqi’s, your iminent threat case would be out the window, but because it happened the iminent threat became a reality, no matter who’s at the wheel. Why do think Kerry is adamant about guarding our ports. If saddam was still in Quwait, a huge port along with it, would it easily prove Kerry knows how iminent a port threat is? Are you understanding the scope of this war.

    Next reality check, Do you understand who else in that region has huge ports and is now going nuclear and has threatened us since the Iran/Shaw/Kidnapping days? Iran, yepp you guessed it. The mushroom cloud comments in context had No bearing on someone being misleading, nor fear mongering; as the Dems like to use as talking points. What i just layed out as my premise to show how a “legal basis to pursue war as a threatened sovereign nation, as opposed to pursuing war under UN sanction.” These are just the reasons (plural) to take a iminent threat war footing towards Iraq and Iran also. The mere threat of WMD’s, that the United States sold Iraq from 1985-92 and the unacounted for position from Iraq. Yeh thats right Ghost we have the receipts, so where did it all go?

    http://www.commondreams.org/headlines02/0908-08.htm

    Reports by the US Senate’s committee on banking, housing and urban affairs — which oversees American exports policy — reveal that the US, under the successive administrations of Ronald Reagan and George Bush Sr, sold materials including anthrax, VX nerve gas, West Nile fever germs and botulism to Iraq right up until March 1992, as well as germs similar to tuberculosis and pneumonia. Other bacteria sold included brucella melitensis, which damages major organs, and clostridium perfringens, which causes gas gangrene. Classified US Defense Department documents also seen by the Sunday Herald show that Britain sold Iraq the drug pralidoxine, an antidote to nerve gas, in March 1992, after the end of the Gulf war. Pralidoxine can be reverse engineered to create nerve gas. The Senate committee’s reports on ‘US Chemical and Biological Warfare-Related Dual-Use Exports to Iraq’, undertaken in 1992 in the wake of the Gulf war, give the date and destination of all US exports. The reports show, for example, that on May 2, 1986, two batches of bacillus anthracis — the micro-organism that causes anthrax — were shipped to the Iraqi Ministry of Higher Education, along with two batches of the bacterium clostridium botulinum, the agent that causes deadly botulism poisoning.

    In 2002, Donald Riegle, then chairman of the committee, said: ‘UN inspectors had identified many United States manufactured items that had been exported from the United States to Iraq under licenses issued by the Department of Commerce, and [established] that these items were used to further Iraq’s chemical and nuclear weapons development and its missile delivery system development programs.’ Riegle added that, between January 1985 and August 1990, the ‘executive branch of our government approved 771 different export licenses for sale of dual-use technology to Iraq.

    We sold him alot of his WMD’s and components. So were did it all go Ghost?

    Objection you are leading the witness. Why yes i am your honor…:)