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EducateWorthington.org

The 912 Project - Glenn Beck

912 Group of Central Ohio

Please let me know if you'd like your link added

[designed to disarm Iraq of its weapons of mass destruction and to remove the Iraqi Regime from power. "]

Note the Number of reasons for going to war:

"At 9:34 PM EST on March 19, 2003 (5:34 AM local time in Baghdad on March 20), United States and United Kingdom forces consisting of 40 cruise missiles and strikes led by 2 F-117s from the 8th Fighter Squadron (supported by Navy EA-6B Prowlers) and other aircraft began conducting military operations against the state of Iraq designed to disarm Iraq of its weapons of mass destruction and to remove the Iraqi Regime from power. "

"The military objectives of Operation Iraqi Freedom consist of first, ending the regime of Saddam Hussein. Second, to identify, isolate and eliminate, Iraq's weapons of mass destruciton. Third, to search for, to capture and to drive out terrorists from the country. Fourth, to collect intelligence related to terrorist networks. Fifth, to collect such intelligence as is related to the global network of illicit weapons of mass destruction. Sixth, to end sanctions and to immediately deliver humanitarian support to the displaced and to many needed citizens. Seventh, to secure Iraq's oil fields and resources, which belong to the Iraqi people. Finally, to help the Iraqi people create conditions for a transition to a representative self-government."

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ops...aqi_freedom.htm

[Clinton defends successor's push for war]

Clinton defends successor's push for war
Says Bush 'couldn't responsibly ignore' chance Iraq had WMDs
Saturday, June 19, 2004 Posted: 10:36 PM EDT (0236 GMT)
 
(CNN) -- Former President Clinton has revealed that he continues to support President Bush's decision to go to war in Iraq but chastised the administration over the abuses at Abu Ghraib prison.

http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/06/19/clinton.i...iraq/index.html

Tell me this doesn't look like Bill Clinton is trying to undermine John Kerry's run for the President. John Kerry stands in Hillary's way. Maybe he can pull off another Howard Dean destruction.

[Edmund Burke]

Hey, AdamSmith...stay on the topic...evidence of WMDs/terrorists etc. as justification for the war.  Who cares what Clinton thinks or why he says what he does.

I listened to the SOB for 8 years, and that's enough!

Here is a file I had collected over a period of a few months, most of which pertains to this thread.  The little "Who's Distracted" snippits come from Best of the Web, and grow from a discussion that I had with the father of one of Melissa's childhood friends that the war in Iraq was a distraction:



1/28/04
WSJ Editorials
So Where's the WMD?
Anti-Bush partisans aren't listening to what David Kay is saying.

Wednesday, January 28, 2004 12:01 a.m. EST
Iraq weapons inspector David Kay speaks to the Senate today, and our (probably forlorn) hope is that his remarks will get wide and detailed coverage. What we've been hearing from him in snippets so far explains the mystery of whatever happened to Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction.
His answers, we should make clear, are a long way from the "Bush and Blair lied" paradigm currently animating the Democratic primaries and newspapers. John Kerry of all people now claims that, because Mr. Kay's Iraq Study Group has not found stockpiles of WMD or a mature nuclear program, President Bush somehow "misled" the country. "I think there's been an enormous amount of exaggeration, stretching, deception," he said on "Fox News Sunday." This is the same Senator who voted for the war after having access to the intelligence and has himself said previously that he believed Saddam had such weapons.
The reason Mr. Kerry believed this is because everybody else did too. That Saddam had WMD was the consensus of the U.S. intelligence community for years, going back well into the Clinton Administration. The CIA's Near East and counterterrorism bureaus disagreed on the links between al Qaeda and Saddam--which is one reason the Bush Administration failed to push that theme. But the CIA and its intelligence brethren were united in their belief that Saddam had WMD, as the agency made clear in numerous briefings to Congress.
And not just the CIA. Believers included the U.N., whose inspectors were tossed out of Iraq after they had recorded huge stockpiles after the Gulf War. No less than French President Jacques Chirac warned as late as last February about "the probable possession of weapons of mass destruction by an uncontrollable country, Iraq" and declared that the "international community is right . . . in having decided Iraq should be disarmed."
 
All of this was enshrined in U.N. Resolution 1441, which ordered Saddam to come completely clean about his weapons. If he really had already destroyed all of his WMD, Saddam had every incentive to give U.N. inspectors free rein, put everything on the table and live to deceive another day. That he didn't may go down as Saddam's last and greatest miscalculation.
But Mr. Kay's Study Group has also discovered plenty to suggest that Saddam couldn't come clean because he knew he wasn't. In his interim report last year, Mr. Kay disclosed a previously unknown Iraq program for long-range missiles; this was a direct violation of U.N. resolutions.
Mr. Kay has also speculated that Saddam may have thought he had WMD because his own generals and scientists lied to him. "The scientists were able to fake programs," the chief inspector says. This is entirely plausible, because aides who didn't tell Saddam what he wanted to hear were often tortured and killed. We know from post-invasion interrogations that Saddam's own generals believed that Iraq had WMD. If they thought so, it's hard to fault the CIA for believing it too.
Mr. Kay has also made clear that, stockpiles or no, Saddam's regime retained active programs that could have been reconstituted at any time. Saddam tried to restart his nuclear program as recently as 2001. There is also evidence, Mr. Kay has told the London Telegraph, that some components of Saddam's WMD program "went to Syria before the war." Precisely what and how much "is a major issue that needs to be resolved." The most logical conclusion is that Saddam hoped to do just enough to satisfy U.N. inspectors and then restart his WMD production once sanctions were lifted and the international heat was off.
 
By all means let Congress explore why the CIA overestimated Saddam's WMD stockpiles this time around. But let's do so while recalling that the CIA had underestimated the progress of his nuclear, chemical and biological programs before the first Gulf War. We are also now learning that the CIA has long underestimated the extent and progress of nuclear programs in both Libya and Iran. Why aren't Democrats and liberals just as alarmed about those intelligence failures?
Intelligence is as much art and judgment as it is science, and it is inherently uncertain. We elect Presidents and legislators to consider the evidence and then make difficult policy judgments that the voters can later hold them responsible for. Mr. Kay told National Public Radio that, based on the evidence he has seen from Iraq, "I think it was reasonable to reach the conclusion that Iraq posed an imminent threat." He added that "I must say I actually think what we learned during the inspection made Iraq a more dangerous place potentially, than in fact we thought it was even before the war."
As intelligence failures go, we'd prefer one that worried too much about a threat than one that worried too little. The latter got us September 11.



Terrance Jeffrey on Townhall.com
Politicians serious about preventing another Sept. 11 should listen to the leader of Hizballah, and then read an indictment unsealed this month in Detroit.
"Let the entire world hear me," said Sheik Hassan Nasrallah on Sept. 27, 2002. "Our hostility to the Great Satan is absolute."
There's good reason to take this sheik seriously. In 1983, his Iranian-backed Lebanese terrorist group attacked the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut, killing 241 Americans. According to the opinion of U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth in the case of Peterson v. the Islamic Republic of Iran, Nasrallah attended the meeting in Baalbek, Lebanon, where the 1983 attack was planned. Until Sept. 11, it remained the deadliest terrorist strike ever against the United States.
The sheik's Sept. 27, 2002, rally in Beirut celebrated the Palestinian intifadah. It was broadcast live on Lebanese TV and monitored by the BBC.
"Regardless of how the world has changed after 11 September," Nasrallah said that day, "Death to America will remain our reverberating and powerful slogan: Death to America!"
Six months later, according to the BBC, Nasrallah warned Americans that if the U.S. invaded Iraq, "The region's people will receive you with rifles, blood, arms, martyrdom and martyrdom operations."
Now, turn to May 3, 2003. That's when FBI agents searched the Dearborn, Mich., residence of Mahmoud Kourani, a 32-year-old illegal alien from Lebanon.
In a statement submitted last week in federal court, Assistant U.S. Attorney Kenneth Chadwell revealed words the FBI found on audiotapes there: "You alone are the sun of my lands, Nasrallah! Nasrallah!/. . . your voice is nothing less than my jihad."
"We offer to you Hizballah, a pledge of loyalty," said a tape. ". . . Rise for Jihad! . . . I offer you, Hizballah, my blood in my hand."
Kourani pleaded guilty to harboring an illegal alien. A judge sentenced him to six months. On Jan. 15, a second indictment was unsealed, charging Kourani with conspiracy to provide material support to Hizballah.
"Kourani was a member, fighter, recruiter and fundraiser for Hizballah," said the indictment. "Operating at first from Lebanon and later in the United States, Kourani was a dedicated member of Hizballah who received specialized training in radical Shiite fundamentalism, weaponry, spy craft, and counterintelligence in Lebanon and Iran."
"Kourani," Chadwell added in his statement, "is charged with conspiring with individuals at the highest levels of the terrorist organization, including one of his brothers who is the Hizballah chief of military security for southern Lebanon."
Kourani got to America, the prosecutors allege, with the help of a Mexican official.
"On approximately Feb. 4, 2001, Kourani surreptitiously entered the United States by sneaking across the U.S./Mexico border in the trunk of a car," wrote Chadwell. "He reached Mexico by paying $3,000 used to bribe an official in the Mexican Consulate in Beirut, Lebanon, to give him a Mexican visa."
Do prosecutors believe that official was Imelda Ortiz Abdala, the one-time Mexican consul in Beirut who was arrested by Mexico in November, according to the Associated Press, "on charges of helping a smuggling ring move Arab migrants into the United States from Mexico"? "They are not sure if that is the person that received the money," said Sandy Palazzolo, a spokeswoman for U.S. Attorney Jeffrey G. Collins of Detroit. "They have information that she worked there during this time frame, but they don't know if that is in fact the person that he did bribe."
In a sentencing memorandum in Kourani's alien-harboring case, Chadwell told the court Kourani's "offense of conviction was part of a continuing scheme to bring illegal aliens to the United States from Lebanon through Mexico."
Kourani has pleaded not guilty to providing material support to Hizballah. I asked his attorney, Nabih Ayad, about the claim in the indictment that Kourani was a member, fighter, recruiter and fundraiser for Hizballah. "He denies all that," said Ayad. Kourani also contests the government's assertion that he bought a Mexican visa for $3,000 in Beirut. "My client told me specifically," said Ayad, "that he got it legitimately through the Mexican consulate."
Why did Kourani come to America? "I think why millions of Americans, the immigrants, come to the United States," said Ayad. "Basically, to make some money. . . . According to his statements to the FBI agents, he was here to make some money to go back with $10,000 for his wife and children."
Whatever the eventual outcome in this case, simple prudence demands that a question be asked of our political leaders: If they don't secure our borders against illegal immigration, how can they secure our country against Hizballah?


Larry Elder 1/22/04
Did Saddam Hussein and his interest in weapons of mass destruction pose a threat to the United States? Just ask the Democrats.
Former Vermont Governor Howard Dean (D), appearing on "Face the Nation" in September 2002, said, "There's no question that Saddam Hussein is a threat to the United States and to our allies." In February 2003, during an address at Drake University, Dean said, "I agree with President Bush -- he has said that Saddam Hussein is evil. And he is. (Hussein) is a vicious dictator and a documented deceiver. He has invaded his neighbors, used chemical arms and failed to account for all the chemical and biological weapons he had before the Gulf War. He has murdered dissidents and refused to comply with his obligations under U.N. Security Council Resolutions. And he has tried to build a nuclear bomb. Anyone who believes in the importance of limiting the spread of weapons of mass killing, the value of democracy, and the centrality of human rights must agree that Saddam Hussein is a menace. The world would be a better place if he were in a different place other than the seat of power in Baghdad or any other country. So I want to be clear. Saddam Hussein must disarm. This is not a debate; it is a given."
Dean, on "Meet the Press" in March 2003, said he believed that Iraq "is automatically an imminent threat to the countries that surround it because of the possession of these weapons." Yet, in his now familiar flip-flop style, candidate Dean later declared, "I never said Saddam was a danger to the United States."
In the left-leaning New Republic, Ryan Lizza wrote: "Did Howard Dean actually support a war resolution giving Bush authority to attack Iraq? The answer is: pretty much. . . . Dean himself admitted . . . that he did indeed support (the Biden-Lugar resolution). . . . According to Biden-Lugar, all Bush had to do was 'make available to the speaker of the House of Representatives and the president pro tempore of the Senate his determination that the threat to the United States or allied nations posed by Iraq's weapons of mass destruction program and prohibited ballistic missile program is so grave that the use of force is necessary, notwithstanding the failure of the Security Council to approve a resolution.' Isn't this exactly what happened?"
Gen. Wesley Clark, before he became an anti-war Democratic presidential candidate, testified on Sept. 26, 2002, before the House Armed Services Committee: "There's no requirement to have any doctrine here. I mean this is simply a longstanding right of the United States and other nations to take the actions they deem necessary in their self-defense. . . . Every president has deployed forces as necessary to take action. He's done so without multilateral support if necessary. He's done so in advance of conflict if necessary. . . . When we took action in Kosovo, we did not have United Nations approval. . . . There's no question that Saddam Hussein is a threat. . . . Yes, he has chemical and biological weapons. . . . He is, as far as we know, actively pursuing nuclear capabilities, though he doesn't have nuclear warheads yet. If he were to acquire nuclear weapons, I think our friends in the region would face greatly increased risks as would we.
". . . I want to underscore that I think the United States should not categorize this action as pre-emptive. . . . This is a problem that's longstanding. It's been a decade in the making. It needs to be dealt with and the clock is ticking on this. . . . There's no question that . . . there have been such contacts (between Iraq and al Qaeda). It's normal. It's natural. These are a lot of bad actors in the same region together. They are going to bump into each other. They are going to exchange information. They're going to feel each other out and see whether there are opportunities to cooperate. That's inevitable in this region, and I think it's clear that, regardless of whether or not such evidence is produced of these connections, that Saddam Hussein is a threat."
Former President Bill Clinton, more recently, visited Portuguese Prime Minister Jose Manuel Durao Barroso in October 2003. The prime minister said, "When Clinton was here recently he told me he was absolutely convinced, given his years in the White House and the access to privileged information which he had, that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction until the end of the Saddam regime."
John Rockefeller (D-W. Va.), ranking minority member of the Intelligence Committee, said on Oct. 10, 2002, "There is unmistakable evidence that Saddam Hussein is working aggressively to develop nuclear weapons and will likely have nuclear weapons within the next five years. . . . We also should remember we have always underestimated the progress Saddam has made in development of weapons of mass destruction."
So, forget President Bush, Vice President Cheney and the pro-war "neo-cons." Just listen to the Democrats. On the issue of the "unilateral" invasion of Iraq, they make a pretty strong case.
 

Part two of the pervious file (it was too long for one post)




12/3
Retraction on Izzat-  they captured another guy with a similar name.

12/2
Izzat the King of Clubs?
"Izzat Ibrahim, right-hand man to Saddam Hussein and the next most wanted Iraqi leader, has been killed or captured in a U.S. raid near the city of Kirkuk, Iraqi Governing Council sources said on Tuesday," Reuters reports:
"There was a major action against a highly suspicious objective last night in Kirkuk and it is very possible that Izzat Ibrahim has been captured or killed," said one member of the Council, Mowaffaq al-Rubaie, adding he had been in contact with U.S. forces.
Ibrahim, the king of clubs, is No. 6 on the list of Iraq's most wanted, the highest-ranking regime official still at large except for No. 1, Saddam Hussein. "The U.S. military said last month that Ibrahim was directly involved in attacks on U.S. troops," but there's no American confirmation of the capture. If Ibrahim has been taken out of circulation, it's the best news we've heard all day.
This Just In
"Iraqis 'Welcome Saddam's Fall' "--headline, BBC Web site,
Dec. 1Who's Distracted?
A new U.N. report finds more than 100 countries are failing to comply with U.N. sanctions against al Qaeda-related groups. Here's the line that caught our attention:
Secessionist or terrorist groups thought to have al Qaeda connections include Jemaah Islamiyah in Singapore, Indonesia and Thailand, and Abu Sayyaf in the Philippines and possibly the Ba'athists in Iraq, the report said.
Even the U.N. acknowledges the possibility of a connection between the Iraqi Baathists and al Qaeda--which means that American politicians who keep repeating the mantra that there is no such connection are even more pro-Saddam than the U.N.

12/1
Who's Distracted?
A series of developments over the weekend help undermine the left's pro-Saddam case:
o   The Associated Press reports that "American forces have captured three members of Osama bin Laden's terrorist network in northern Iraq," all Iraqi nationals.
o   London's Observer reports that investigators believe Abu Musab al-Zarqawi--an al Qaeda-linked terrorist who was given refuge in Saddam Hussein's Iraq--was involved with last month's terror attacks in Turkey.
o   The New York Times reports that Saddam Hussein's regime "engaged in lengthy negotiations with North Korea" to obtain "a full production line to manufacture, under an Iraqi flag, the North Korean missile system, which would be capable of hitting American allies and bases around the region." Saddam paid Kim Jong Il $10 million, but Pyongyang seems to have taken the money and run--which does not, however, exonerate Saddam.

11/29 Who's Distracted?U.S. forces have captured Aso Hawleri, a k a Asad Muhammad Hasan, in Iraq, the Associated Press reports. Hawler is one of the top leaders of Ansar al-Islam, an al Qaeda-linked terror outfit in northern Iraq. Meanwhile, Reuters reports from Islamabad that "Pakistan said on Wednesday a senior al Qaeda official may be among the eight suspected militants killed in a clash with Pakistani forces near the Afghan border earlier this month." The Pak man doesn't name the man, but says "he could be among the top 10 or 15 [al Qaeda] people."

11/26
Who's Distracted?
Yemeni security forces have captured Mohammed Hamdi al-Ahdal, "a suspected mastermind of the . . . bombings of the USS Cole and a French oil tanker off the country's coast," Fox News reports. "A U.S. counterterrorism official in Washington confirmed al-Ahdal's capture. The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said he had been among the top 20 Al Qaeda figures at large."
11/25
Who's Distracted?"U.S. forces have disrupted several planned terrorist attacks against Western and other targets in the Horn of Africa and local authorities have killed or captured more than two dozen militants," the Associated Press reports from Camp Lemonier, Djibouti, where the wire service landed an interview with Brig. Gen. Mastin Robeson, who commands the Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa: "There are three issues here: there is transnational terrorist networking, at large, there are specific cells planning terrorist attacks, and there's the recruiting, training and shipping of foreign fighters into Iraq," Robeson said Saturday night at his headquarters on a former French Foreign Legion post in Djibouti. . . . Robeson said his job is to empower governments in the region to stop terrorism by helping them improve their militaries, police, coast guards and intelligence services. His troops also help the governments fight poverty through humanitarian projects. . . . Robeson [said] the 1,800 troops permanently based in Djibouti work throughout the region and are establishing a model for future operations that will depend more on intelligence and less on firepower. The focus is on helping poor countries stop terrorism before a massive U.S. military intervention, like the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, is required. "We like to use the analogy that if Iraq and Afghanistan were an apple and an orange, we're a Volkswagen," he explained. "Our mission is pure and simply to help host nations control their own destiny." An apple, an orange and a Volkswagen? It sounds as though Robeson is doing great work in Africa, but he may be reading too much Thomas Friedman.
11/17
O.J. Hussein
Have you noticed how Saddam Hussein has become the O.J. Simpson of the Angry Left? Just as antiwhite prejudice led many people (including his jury) to insist Simpson was innocent against all evidence of his guilt, today antiright prejudice is leading many on the left to mount a spirited defense of Saddam Hussein. He never had weapons of mass destruction! He had nothing to do with Sept. 11! He can't stand Osama bin Laden!
Here's a hilarious bit from today's USA Today interview with Wesley Clark:
Clark said he hadn't seen the evidence of Saddam's war crimes, a comment that prompted adviser Chris Lehane to slip him a folded note. "You should make clear that Saddam is a bad guy," the note read. Clark glanced at the note but didn't return to the topic.
In his August speech to the far-left group MoveOn.org, Al Gore echoed the Saddam-is-innocent line: "The evidence now shows clearly that Saddam did not want to work with Osama bin Laden at all, much less give him weapons of mass destruction." Not only did Saddam not work with bin Laden, he didn't even want to!
Yet according to The Weekly Standard's Stephen Hayes, the Pentagon has provided the Senate Intelligence Committee a detailed 16-page memorandum laying out evidence that Saddam and bin Laden "had an operational relationship from the early 1990s to 2003 that involved training in explosives and weapons of mass destruction, logistical support for terrorist attacks, al Qaeda training camps and safe haven in Iraq, and Iraqi financial support for al Qaeda--perhaps even for Mohamed Atta":
The memo, dated October 27, 2003, was sent from Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas J. Feith to Senators Pat Roberts and Jay Rockefeller, the chairman and vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee. It was written in response to a request from the committee as part of its investigation into prewar intelligence claims made by the administration. Intelligence reporting included in the 16-page memo comes from a variety of domestic and foreign agencies, including the FBI, the Defense Intelligence Agency, the Central Intelligence Agency, and the National Security Agency. Much of the evidence is detailed, conclusive, and corroborated by multiple sources. Some of it is new information obtained in custodial interviews with high-level al Qaeda terrorists and Iraqi officials, and some of it is more than a decade old. The picture that emerges is one of a history of collaboration between two of America's most determined and dangerous enemies.
According to the memo--which lays out the intelligence in 50 numbered points--Iraq-al Qaeda contacts began in 1990 and continued through mid-March 2003, days before the Iraq War began. Most of the numbered passages contain straight, fact-based intelligence reporting, which in some cases includes an evaluation of the credibility of the source.
Hayes quotes at length from the memo, and closes with the observation that "it covers only a fraction of the evidence that will eventually be available to document the relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda":
CIA and FBI officials are methodically reviewing Iraqi intelligence files that survived the three-week war last spring. These documents would cover several miles if laid end-to-end. And they are in Arabic. They include not only connections between bin Laden and Saddam, but also revolting details of the regime's long history of brutality. It will be a slow process.
The notion that Saddam is entitled to a presumption of innocence is itself an error. This is a war, not a criminal proceeding; and in any case the U.N. Security Council had already effectively found Saddam guilty, even if America's adversaries on the council were inclined to let him get away with his crimes. But even in a criminal proceeding, innocence is only a presumption that holds until the evidence is in.
Enraged over their loss of political power, Gore and some of his fellow Democrats have assumed the role not of supporters of their own country as it prosecutes a war, or even of impartial judges, but of Saddam's defense attorneys--not just skeptical of the charges against and suspicions about the erstwhile dictator, but outright advocates of the proposition that he is innocent.

Part 3 or 3
Who's Distracted?

By Pejman Yousefzadeh     Published      09/18/2003

A favorite refrain of critics of the decision to go to war in Iraq is that the war distracted from the general war on terrorism, and on the need to defeat al Qaeda. Most of the candidates for the Democratic presidential nomination have made this message part of their campaigns.   There is plenty of evidence to refute the notion that the general war on terrorism is somehow suffering from the decision to go to war in Iraq. While engaged in the effort to bring about regime change in Iraq, terrorists like Riduan Isamuddin, Whalid bin Attash, associates of Abu Musab al Zarqawi and Khalid Sheikh Mohammad have all been captured. And just last week, American forces in Iraq were able to announce a roundup of 80 terrorists associated with al Qaeda.   Flies to Paper?   Moreover, one of the questions currently being debated is whether there is a deliberate policy on the part of the Bush administration to draw terrorists into an Iraq occupied and administered by American armed forces, so that those terrorists may be more easily captured or killed. David Warren believes in the existence of this "flypaper" strategy, and contends that the strategy will help in the fight against terrorism in the long run. Liberal blogger Josh Marshall, on the other hand, derides the flypaper theory, and argues that it is counterproductive.   The question of whether there is or isn't a deliberate strategy at work seems inconsequential. More interesting -- and more important -- is the fact that no matter what the conclusion regarding the "flypaper" strategy, the American effort against terrorism is proceeding more successfully than many people give it credit for.   Assume for a moment that there is no deliberate strategy to draw al Qaeda and other terrorists into Iraq. This assumption still forces us to ask why there are al Qaeda and other terrorists into Iraq. Despite the connections between al Qaeda and the Ansar al-Islam terrorist group that was located in northern Iraq, those who opposed the war in Iraq argued that there were no ties between al Qaeda and the regime of Saddam Hussein, and that in fact, Saddam and al Qaeda had disparate goals. If that was the case, then one cannot help but wonder what so many al Qaeda terrorists are doing inside the country. Was there a stronger connection between al Qaeda and Saddam's former regime than opponents of military action in Iraq have contended? Does that stronger connection explain why al Qaeda members have been found and captured in Iraq? If so, such a conclusion would only serve to reinforce and validate the Bush administration's casus belli for military action in Iraq, as Iraq would clearly be found to be harboring and supporting terrorists under those circumstances.   Opponents of the war may contend that the reason so many al Qaeda terrorists are being found in Iraq has nothing to do with any connections between the group and Saddam's former regime, and that the reason al Qaeda members are being found in Iraq is that they want to destabilize the region through their activities in Iraq, ruin American efforts to rebuild and administer Iraq, and kill as many American soldiers as possible. This, opponents may argue, serves to undermine the Bush administration's reasons for removing Saddam Hussein, and serves to make Iraq a breeding ground for terrorism, instead of eradicating terrorists from Iraq.   But these arguments are rather easily refuted. First of all, Saddam's regime was never a catalyst of regional stability, especially given his decision to start a war against Iran in the 1980s; his decision to use chemical weapons in that war and against the Kurds; the fears of the international community regarding Saddam's development of weapons of mass destruction (a fear Saddam did nothing to dispel given his serial noncompliance with the relevant U.N. Security Council resolutions); his invasion of Kuwait in 1990; and his financial support of terrorist activity against Israel. Al Qaeda may be trying to maintain a state of political and strategic chaos in the region, but life with Saddam Hussein in power was hardly an improvement over what Al Qaeda intends to bring about.   As for the threat to American forces and interests, no one should be sanguine about this issue. But terrorists who choose to take on American soldiers do so with the understanding that a large number of them could be either captured or killed in the effort to disrupt American military and administrative activities. The American military obviously holds many advantages over terrorist groups in any conflict -- superior technology, superior training and numbers, and much more firepower. And American soldiers enter a conflict with terrorists being well trained in fighting terrorist forces -- especially after the military action in Afghanistan against al Qaeda and Taliban elements there.   Losing Proposition   In the end, confronting American forces in Iraq is a losing proposition for the terrorists, and the U.S. benefits from having a number of terrorist cells in one place -- where their operations and planning can be disrupted and where their personnel can be attacked and harassed -- rather than having terrorist cells widely dispersed and able to plan and carry out operations with less fear that they may be discovered by unfriendly American forces. In short, it may be better for the U.S. to invite terrorist to fight on American terms, and on ground that the United States occupies and is quite familiar with, than to have to go and search hither and yon for terrorist cells -- and fear that those cells may be planning a catastrophic attack on America or American interests in the meantime.   Obviously, even if there is a deliberate flypaper strategy being employed to draw terrorists towards Iraq, such a strategy has its limits, and should not be pursued carelessly. The U.S. should still work to monitor who is coming into Iraq in order to correctly identify incoming terrorist elements. The use of a flypaper strategy is not -- and should not be judged as being -- inconsistent with the need to reinforce and strengthen border patrols and protection in Iraq, as it would be significantly easier to capture or kill terrorists before they have a chance to fortify and establish camps inside of Iraq.   Finally, the U.S. should continue to work for a stable and peaceful domestic situation in Iraq, and for the advancement of a civil society there. If terrorists are determined to come to Iraq and try to take on the American military, the U.S. should make use of the opportunity to debilitate terrorist operations. However, it should work to ensure that terrorist cells are eliminated before they have the chance to damage the emerging Iraqi civil society. Finding and eliminating terror cells at the borders will help achieve this objective.   Terrorists may believe that they have a golden opportunity to frustrate American efforts in Iraq, and make Iraq a base of terrorist operations (if it wasn't one already). It may very well be one of the worst tactical mistakes they have ever made.


9/8
The Post reports that Abu Musab Zarqawi, the al Qaeda terrorist who was based in Iraq for a time during Saddam's rule but fled to Iran, is believed back in Baghdad directing al Qaeda operations there. "A U.S. military official said in a recent interview that there were already 220 foreign fighters in U.S. custody in Iraq."

Riduan Isamuddin — also known as Hambali — has been arrested. Officials say he is a top al Qaeda member and a leader of Jemaah Islamiyah. (Associated Press)    'No Longer a Problem' CIA Nabs Top Al Qaeda Leader, Alleged Mastermind of SE Asia Operations By Brian Ross Aug. 14— The CIA has captured a major al Qaeda leader who is believed to have planned bombings in Indonesia and other parts of Southeast Asia.
 

A top al Qaeda member and a leader of Southeast Asian militant group Jemaah Islamiyah, Riduan Isamuddin — also known as Hambali — was arrested as part of a CIA undercover operation in the last 24 hours. The operation was in cooperation with an undisclosed Southeast Asian country that wants its participation kept secret, officials told ABCNEWS. Hambali was being returned to Indonesia to face terrorism charges. The CIA called the arrest the "most significant capture since that of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed," who was nabbed in March and is believed to have been the military commander al Qaeda's global terror network and to have masterminded the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States. In the past, the CIA has called the Indonesia-born Hambali the "Osama bin Laden of Southeast Asia." Prisoners in custody have told the CIA that Hambali recently received a large sum of money from al Qaeda to carry out attacks against U.S. targets in the region. "He will certainly know about what is in the pipeline," an official told ABCNEWS. President Bush announced Hambali's capture today in San Diego when he spoke to U.S. troops, many of them just returning from Iraq. "He is no longer a problem to those who love freedom," Bush said. "We're making progress slowly but surely." A Pentagon official said Hambali is "unquestionably the A No. 1, senior terrorist in Southeast Asia." The official said Hambali, 37, was "clearly implicated" in plotting the Bali disco bombings of Oct. 12, 2002, which killed more than 200 people, and the Aug. 5 attack on the Marriott hotel in Jakarta, in which 11 people died. Hambali, whose importance only recently became known, was in on the planning of the Sept. 11 attacks, officials say. Bush called Hambali "one of the world's most lethal terrorists." The president also said the United States was conducting a "broad and unrelenting campaign against the global terror network." In talking about the U.S.-led effort to oust Iraq's Saddam Hussein and the continuing war on terror, Bush said: "Our enemies have seen the will and the might of the United States military and they are meeting the fate they chose for themselves."
 

Hey, AdamSmith...stay on the topic...evidence of WMDs/terrorists etc. as justification for the war.  Who cares what Clinton thinks or why he says what he does.

I listened to the SOB for 8 years, and that's enough!

Dain, I felt it was on topic because he knows more than most on the topic. His support shows that there is non-partisan support for the war. Two people, one from the right and one from the left have reached  the same conclusion, show broad public support for the war. An elected president must consider public support.

[Salman Pak - Iraq's Own Terrorist Training Camp]

Salman Pak - Iraq's Own Terrorist Training Camp

AFI Daily OSINT

Salman Pak - Iraq‘s own terrorist training camp

Two Iraqi Military defectors, an unnamed former Lt. General and a Captain Sabah Khodada recently gave details of an Iraqi school at Salman Pak which includes training for the hijacking of passenger airliners and other modes of transportation. The former Iraqi General said that there was a old Boeing 707 resting next to rail tracks on edge of Salman Pak being used in terrorist training, the existence of this aircraft has been confirmed by UN. Inspectors.

The General, who had been the Security Officer in charge of the camp also reported that there were mixed nationality units including Saudi‘s, Egyptians and Chechens at Salman Pak. Usually about 40 strong, these terrorist units received upto five months of intensive training. However the terrorist units were actually under the control of Iraq‘s Al- Mukhabarat Intelligence Service and in particular a section called the Division of Special Operations. Much of this was also confirmed by Captain Khodada.

The foreign fighters were segregated from Iraqi military personnel and Saddam Husseins own Fedayeen, except during certain specific training sessions. The overall training program included assassination, kidnapping, sabotage or hijacking of aircraft, buses, trains, sabotage of public utilities and most importantly of all, in the use of Chemical, Biological and possibly crude nuclear devices.

However, the training also included how to prepare and carry out suicide attacks and involved how to get access to the flight cabin, getting weapons on board, security weakness, terrorizing the passengers and crew. Captain Khodada stated " Those ‘Arabs‘ are real volunteers. They come in small numbers, and they come with the intention to do some real suicidal operations. "

http://www.intelmessages.org/Messages/Nati...ssages/826.html

http://www.intelmessages.org/Messages/Nati...oard/index.html

[Let's not forget the basics:]

Let's not forget the basics:
Iraqi government demands custody of Saddam

BAGHDAD — New rifts were exposed yesterday between U.S. authorities and the new Iraqi government, which demanded that Saddam Hussein and thousands of lesser detainees be transferred to its custody immediately after the June 30 turnover.

[Let's not forget the basics, the mass graves, that is all it took for Clinton to go to war in Bosnia]

Let's not forget the basics, the mass graves, that is all it took for Clinton to go to war in Bosnia

Official Iraqi documents recovered after the fall of Saddam’s regime suggest a staggering 5 million executions were made during Ba’ath era alone. Over 10 million were also imprisoned. They were all Shi’ite save a small percentage of Kurds. It is also very interesting to note that after the 1991 Shi’ite uprising over 300,000 were killed or captured never to be seen again, but there were no injured. This is very odd considering the logical fact that wars result in many more injuries than deaths. Under Saddam, however, people were either killed instantly or killed in mass executions soon after. With slogans such as “After today no more Shi’ites” the army had advanced into the city of Karbala. The killed were killed, the captured were killed, and the injured were killed as well. No one was spared

http://www.shianews.com/hi/articles/politi...ics/0000374.php

[Let's also not forget the unintended consequences. Every war takes unexpected turns, and this one is no acception.]

Let's also not forget the unintended consequences. Every war takes unexpected turns, and this one is no acception.

Libya to give up WMD
 
 Gaddafi's government negotiated with the US and UK
Libya has said it will give up its programmes for developing weapons of mass destruction and allow unconditional inspections.  

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/3335965.stm

[Let's also not forget the unintended consequences. Every war takes unexpected turns, and this one is no acception.]

Let's also not forget the unintended consequences. Every war takes unexpected turns, and this one is no acception.

This war exposed the UN as a fraufdulent organization not to be trusted. This alone is worth the price of admisson to me. We need to know what kind of organizations we are dealing with, and this one is corrupt and no good.

Investigative Report
Documents Prove U.N. Oil Corruption
http://www.insightmag.com/main.cfm?include...&storyid=657739

[Where did these chemicals come from? Iraq most likely]

Where did these chemicals come from? Iraq most likely

Jordan militants confess to 'chemical' plot
Alleged al-Qaida suspects wanted to kill 80,000

Al-Jayousi said he received about $170,000 from al-Zarqawi to finance the plot and used part of it to buy 20 tons of chemicals. He did not identify the chemicals, but said they “were enough for all the operations in the Jordanian arena.”

Images of what the commentator said were vans filled with blue jugs of chemical explosives were included in the broadcast.

Hussein, the car mechanic, said he met al-Jayousi in 1999 but did not clearly say when the terror plans were laid out.

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/4838076/

Al-Jayousi said he received $170,000 from al-Zarqawi via messengers from Syria to finance the truck-bomb plot and used part of it to buy tons of chemicals.

"According to my experience as an explosives expert, the whole of the intelligence department will be destroyed," al-Jayousi said.

http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/001731.php

[Great Site for the War on Terror: Osama bin Laden]

Great Site for the War on Terror: Osama bin Laden

http://www.wordiq.com/definition/Osama_bin_Laden

http://www.ict.org.il/articles/bombings.cfm

[The indictment, unsealed a few months later, prominently cited al Qaeda's agreement to collaborate with Iraq on weapons of mass destruction.]

By mid-February 1999, journalists did not even feel the need to qualify these claims of an Iraq-al Qaeda relationship. An Associated Press dispatch that ran in the Washington Post ended this way: "The Iraqi President Saddam Hussein has offered asylum to bin Laden, who openly supports Iraq against Western powers."

Where did journalists get the idea that Saddam and bin Laden might be coordinating efforts? Among other places, from high-ranking Clinton administration officials.

In the spring of 1998--well before the U.S. embassy bombings in East Africa--the Clinton administration indicted Osama bin Laden. The indictment, unsealed a few months later, prominently cited al Qaeda's agreement to collaborate with Iraq on weapons of mass destruction. The Clinton Justice Department had been concerned about negative public reaction to its potentially capturing bin Laden without "a vehicle for extradition," official paperwork charging him with a crime. It was "not an afterthought" to include the al Qaeda-Iraq connection in the indictment, says an official familiar with the deliberations. "It couldn't have gotten into the indictment unless someone was willing to testify to it under oath." The Clinton administration's indictment read unequivocally:

http://www.rightnation.us/forums/index.php...showtopic=40547