Ted Re..So your argument is that giving money to the families of suicide bombers is an example of a well known supporter of terrorism. I don't agree with that argument. To me supporting terrorism is giving aid to those who commit an act of terrorism and not to their families after the fact.
Are you nuts. Saddam was helping the terrorist organizations recruit suicide bombers, by promising 25,000 to their descendants; which by the way, in not a small amount in Palestine.
My concern is to go after the perpetrators of 9/11. What's yours?
Good one. Certainly that is one way to stick your head in the sand and do nothing as all of the 9/11 perpetrators are dead. My main concern is to rid the US, and the world of terrorism. Which means going after the organizations, terrorists, etc, who compel their members to commit acts of destruction against the general public. Al Qaeda is hardly the only terrorist organization doing that. Secondly, if you limit yourself to just Al Qaeda, what is to keep OBL and his ilk from disbanding Al Qaeda, and starting another, just as deadly terrorist organization. And what is to keep the financiers from contributing to another terrorist group, if you limit yourself to just Al Qaeda.
I don't want us starting wars based on someone's vision or hallucination.
Don't worry, nobody has ever accused any current democrat of being a visionary. So sad.
Sooooooo......how much oil is Iraq producing? They aren't anywhere close to pre war production levels. In fact, they have failed to meet their production goal of 3 million barrels by the end of December.........
There you go again with that vision thing. It isn't how much Iraq is producing today. It is how much Iraq can produce, once the economy is rebuilt, and how much power in the Arab world,Iraq, can take away from SA.
Because we are smart enough to protect our asses.
Duh Isn't it just the opposite? Al Qaeda hasn't been able to easily penetrate our defenses, and therefore, is going after less secure, Iraqi civilians. Which will backfire on them. Terrorist organizations need the support of the people. How long before even the most devoted Iraqi Sunni, tires of the senseless killing of his neighbors. How long before the fanatical Wahhabbi clerics decide, their sending their parishoners to their deaths, isn't a good long term plan.
Of course they are.....no one is saying these are good people. That's why I wish we would have gone after them rather than Saddam.
We are doing both in Iraq. Because Al Qaeda is expending a lot of energy and manpower trying to stop democracy in Iraq, you conclude that that isn't detracting from Al Qaeda? Get real. It is forcing Al Qaeda to harm the people it is trying to recruit. It is allowing our soldiers to understand Al Qaeda's methods, and figure out counter measures. It is taking the fight to them, on our terms, against our best soldiers, in a land they don't want to fight on. They want to destroy Americans and America. All they are destroying now is Iraqi civilians, their aura of invincibility, and their image of being for Muslims. Take them out of their elements, and they can, and will be beaten.
Thank you for making my point.
What point? That you think Al Qaeda can only be beaten one way.
Really, I don't have time for such nonsense.
Of course you don't. Why worry about technicalities, it just gets in the way of your lying. You can call the war in Iraq many things, but pre-emptive isn't one of them. But what the heck. Give me a link to the peace treaty, both the US and Iraq signed.
In fact, I knew Bush was lying in the fall of 2002. Its no surprise to me there are no WMDs and no al Qaeda links.
You sure?
weeklystandard.com
From the November 24, 2003 issue: The U.S. government's secret memo detailing cooperation between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden.
by Stephen F. Hayes
11/24/2003, Volume 009, Issue 11
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Editor's Note, 1/27/04: In today's Washington Post, Dana Milbank reported that "Vice President Cheney . . . in an interview this month with the Rocky Mountain News, recommended as the 'best source of information' an article in The Weekly Standard magazine detailing a relationship between Hussein and al Qaeda based on leaked classified information."
Here's the Stephen F. Hayes article to which the vice president was referring.
-JVL
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OSAMA BIN LADEN and Saddam Hussein 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--according to a top secret U.S. government memorandum obtained by THE WEEKLY STANDARD.
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 some cases includes an evaluation of the credibility of the source. This reporting is often followed by commentary and analysis.
The relationship began shortly before the first Gulf War. According to reporting in the memo, bin Laden sent "emissaries to Jordan in 1990 to meet with Iraqi government officials." At some unspecified point in 1991, according to a CIA analysis, "Iraq sought Sudan's assistance to establish links to al Qaeda." The outreach went in both directions. According to 1993 CIA reporting cited in the memo, "bin Laden wanted to expand his organization's capabilities through ties with Iraq."
The primary go-between throughout these early stages was Sudanese strongman Hassan al-Turabi, a leader of the al Qaeda-affiliated National Islamic Front. Numerous sources have confirmed this. One defector reported that "al-Turabi was instrumental in arranging the Iraqi-al Qaeda relationship. The defector said Iraq sought al Qaeda influence through its connections with Afghanistan, to facilitate the transshipment of proscribed weapons and equipment to Iraq. In return, Iraq provided al Qaeda with training and instructors."
One such confirmation came in a postwar interview with one of Saddam Hussein's henchmen. As the memo details:
4. According to a May 2003 debriefing of a senior Iraqi intelligence officer, Iraqi intelligence established a highly secretive relationship with Egyptian Islamic Jihad, and later with al Qaeda. The first meeting in 1992 between the Iraqi Intelligence Service (IIS) and al Qaeda was brokered by al-Turabi. Former IIS deputy director Faruq Hijazi and senior al Qaeda leader [Ayman al] Zawahiri were at the meeting--the first of several between 1992 and 1995 in Sudan. Additional meetings between Iraqi intelligence and al Qaeda were held in Pakistan. Members of al Qaeda would sometimes visit Baghdad where they would meet the Iraqi intelligence chief in a safe house. The report claimed that Saddam insisted the relationship with al Qaeda be kept secret. After 9-11, the source said Saddam made a personnel change in the IIS for fear the relationship would come under scrutiny from foreign probes.
4. According to a May 2003 debriefing of a senior Iraqi intelligence officer, Iraqi intelligence established a highly secretive relationship with Egyptian Islamic Jihad, and later with al Qaeda. The first meeting in 1992 between the Iraqi Intelligence Service (IIS) and al Qaeda was brokered by al-Turabi. Former IIS deputy director Faruq Hijazi and senior al Qaeda leader [Ayman al] Zawahiri were at the meeting--the first of several between 1992 and 1995 in Sudan. Additional meetings between Iraqi intelligence and al Qaeda were held in Pakistan. Members of al Qaeda would sometimes visit Baghdad where they would meet the Iraqi intelligence chief in a safe house. The report claimed that Saddam insisted the relationship with al Qaeda be kept secret. After 9-11, the source said Saddam made a personnel change in the IIS for fear the relationship would come under scrutiny from foreign probes.
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