RICHARD CLARKE'S IRAQ CONFUSION
By DEROY MURDOCK - NY Post
March 27, 2004 -- <font size=4>BUSH bashers have deployed former counter- terrorist Richard Clarke as a weapon of mass denunciation. They are using him and his new book, "Against All Enemies," to condemn the Bush administration for allegedly obsessing over Iraq rather than al Qaeda.
Clarke made war critics swoon by chanting one of their cherished mantras: "There is absolutely no evidence that Iraq was supporting al Qaeda ever," he declared on CBS' "60 Minutes." So, the theory goes, President Bush squandered American lives hunting Saddam Hussein rather than Osama bin Laden.
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This view totally overlooks extensive connections between
Baghdad and bin Laden. Just ask Richard Clarke.
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* On Wednesday, he told the 9/11 Commission about Abdul
Rahman Yasin, the al Qaeda operative who federal
prosecutors indicted for bombing the World Trade Center in
1993, killing six, and injuring 1,042.
"He was an Iraqi," Clarke observed. "Therefore, when the
explosion took place, and he fled the United States, he
went back to Iraq." While he believes Baghdad didn't
orchestrate that attack, he concedes that Hussein embraced
this assassin: "The Iraqi government," he said, "didn't
cooperate in turning him over and gave him sanctuary."
* In a Jan. 23, 1999, Washington Post article, Clarke
defended the Clinton administration's 1998 cruise-missile
strike on Sudan's El Shifa pharmaceutical plant. That
mission avenged al Qaeda's demolition of U.S. embassies in
Kenya and Tanzania that Aug. 7. The Post quoted Clarke
as "sure" that Iraqi experts there produced a VX nerve gas
component. The Post reported that Clarke "said that
intelligence exists linking bin Laden to El Shifa's
current and past operators, the Iraqi nerve gas experts
and the National Islamic Front in Sudan."
* Meanwhile, Palestinian terrorist Abu Abbas made news
March 9 by dying in U.S. military custody in Iraq. Green
Berets captured him last April in Baghdad, where he had
relaxed since 2000. After masterminding the 1985 Achille
Lauro cruise ship hijacking, in which U.S. retiree Leon
Klinghoffer was murdered, Abbas slipped Italian custody.
How? "Abu Abbas was the holder of an Iraqi diplomatic
passport," Italy's then-premiere Bettino Craxi announced
then. So, Rome let him split for Yugoslavia.
* Speaking of diplomacy, the Philippines booted an
official at Iraq's Manila embassy, Hisham al Hussein, in
February 2003 after discovering that the mobile phone that
reached his number on Oct. 3, 2002, six days later rang
another cell phone strapped to a bomb at the San Roque
Elementary School in Zamboanga in the Philippines.
While that device failed, another exploded one day earlier
in Zamboanga, wounding 23 and killing three, including
U.S. soldier Mark Wayne Jackson. That mobile phone also
registered calls to Abu Madja and Hamsiraji Ali, leaders
of Abu Sayyaf, al Qaeda's Philippine branch.
* Washington Times correspondents Bill Gertz and Rowan
Scarborough reported March 19 on a 20-page, Arabic-
language document from the Iraqi Intelligence Service
(IIS). Stamped "top secret," it lists IIS "collaborators,"
among them Osama bin Laden. It says he is a "Saudi
businessman and is in charge of the Saudi opposition in
Afghanistan . . . And he is in good relationship with our
section in Syria." A U.S. official found this 1993 record
(signed "Jabar")authentic.
* "Since Operation Enduring Freedom, we have solid
evidence of the presence in Iraq of al Qaeda members,
including some that have been in Baghdad," CIA Director
George Tenet wrote the Senate Intelligence Committee on
Oct. 7, 2002. "Iraq's increasing support to extremist
Palestinians, coupled with growing indications of a
relationship with al Qaeda, suggest that Baghdad's links
with terrorists will increase, even absent U.S. military
action."
Critics of Operation Iraqi Freedom ignore these and many more ties among Saddam Hussein, al Qaeda and other Islamofascists. Why? Acknowledging these contacts would concede a major casus belli behind Coalition efforts. The fact that Mohamed Atta did not charge his plane ticket to Hussein's Platinum Visa card does not render the Butcher of Baghdad a virgin among militant Muslims. In fact, Saddam Hussein loyally supported global terrorists, including al Qaeda.
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If Clarke and others who oppose Bush's Iraq policy still
don't see this, they're either blind or in a state of deep
denial.
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NEW YORK POST |
