Re: I think Iraq had something to do with it.
The problem with that gang of usual suspects --Bin Laden, Iraq, Hizbollah, Egypt's Muslim Brothers, etc-- is that they're supposed to be under constant surveillance. The CIA, the Mossad, the NSA, MI5 are all supposed to keep track of them. As for Saddam Hussein, it's clear the guy had no interest in a frontal attack on the US... What was --and still is-- Saddam's strategy, after all? Saddam was patiently carrying on a media-war of attrition against the US... Saddam's end-game is to cast himself as the VICTIM of US policy --NOT THE OTHER WAY AROUND!! Indeed, Saddam's PR strategy has just crumbled.
On the other hand, nobody seems to have ever kept track of Ahmad Shah Masood... Did the CIA cared about him? If they did, it likely was for the wrong reasons anyway. Masood was the puppet of the jackbooted Russian military... When he was solicited by French/Russian intelligence to carry out some dirty jobs (like hijacking a US airplane) he demanded a life insurance of sorts: he wanted to be invited in Europe as a legitimate statesman... He wanted to be piped in by Europe's highest authorities --he was officially invited by the EU Parliament's Chairwoman Nicole Fontaine, met with French minister Hubert Vedrine, Belgian Louis Michel, etc. All the European top brass greeted him with the full monty. But Masood knew that he was gonna play for high stakes: nobody wants to pull a dirty trick on the US without some kind of a cover... In case things turn nasty then, Masood thought, his swank with European leaders in full regalia would, somehow, allow him to blackmail his European bosses. Well, Masood should have reminded of Congolese leader Laurent-Desire Kabila and how the latter got double-crossed by his "senior partners"...
Gus |
