Here is an article I know many of you will like to read. It ... does an excellent job of showing what we are probably up against
Actually, I'd take that piece with a large shaker of salt. Mylroie's argument--that Saddam is behind just about everything nasty recently, and particularly the earlier WTC bombings--is simply not shared by the vast majority of serious professional analysts of the subject. (It is true, however, that some prominent neoconservatives take a more sympathetic view.)
The CIA, for example, dismisses her entirely, because they feel confident she ignores, misinterprets, or distorts crucial evidence showing that even very nasty terrorism can, and almost certainly has been, executed by loose freelance networks of extremists (people like Ramzi Yousef and Osama bin Laden) without direct major state sponsorship. While it is certainly possible that Saddam will turn out to have some role in this, the notion that major state sponsors are the "real" problem is simply not necessarily the case.
I briefly addressed the issue of Iraqi involvement here:
Message 16347904
Some reliable background reading is available here:
foreignaffairs.org
tekboy/Ares@dayjob.com
PS her point about the coordination problems between the FBI and CIA is more legitimate, although those have lessened somewhat over, say, the last five years... |
