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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Hawkmoon who wrote (39387)	8/22/2002 1:11:18 AM
From: LindyBill	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Safire feeds us, from his sources, what the CIA thinks is going on with Saddam. NYT today. August 22, 2002 Saddam and Terror By WILLIAM SAFIRE Brent Scowcroft and his leave-Saddam-alone acolytes on the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board insist "there is scant evidence to tie Saddam to terrorist organizations." But here are two names of intense current interest to American counterterror agents. One is Fowzi Saad al-Obeidi, an Iraqi intelligence officer who supposedly defected from Saddam Hussein's ranks but whose family continues to enjoy privileges in Baghdad. Under the name of Abu Zubair, Lieutenant Saad headed a force of some 120 Arab terrorists backed by about 400 renegade Kurds who were remnants of a defeated separatist group. Their "Supporters of Islam" organization was sent by Saddam into the portion of northern Iraq under U.S. aerial protection to assassinate the democratic Kurdish leadership and to establish crude chemical warfare facilities in remote villages near the Iranian border. The other name is of a senior Al Qaeda commander, Abu Omer al-Kurdi. Known at the Qaeda headquarters in Jalalabad, Afghanistan, by the name of Rafid Fatah, this bin Laden aide helped train many of these infiltrators and accompanied them on their mission. Several of their attempts to kill the Kurdish leaders Massoud Barzani and Jalal Talabani or their deputies late last year, with the latest strike at a top aide just last week, were bloodily repulsed, with a score of the terrorists captured ? including the Saddam agent, Saad, and the Qaeda operative, al-Kurdi. However, the terrorist mission to set up facilities to weaponize poisons in Iraqi Kurdistan's mountainous equivalent of Afghanistan's Tora Bora has been more successful. One produces a form of cyanide cream that kills on contact. A shipment of this rudimentary panic-spreader, produced by what interrogators say is a Qaeda-Saddam joint venture, was recently intercepted in Turkey on its way to terror cells in the West. The chemicals are not weapons of mass destruction, but for individuals who touch it ? 'tis enough, 'twill do. Such verification of data obtained from the captured terrorists awakened C.I.A. bureaucrats who for nearly a year waved reporters away from evidence of Qaeda-Iraqi links lest it justify U.S. action. Belatedly, a C.I.A. team interrogated some of the terrorists held in northern Iraq ? comparing what they found with information gleaned from Al Qaeda prisoners at Guantánamo and elsewhere. Even religiously motivated terrorists crack in dismay at how much the interrogator already knows. When added to prisoners' family details provided by Kurdish sources, the scope of our knowledge led captives in Kurdistan to talk about poison production and Iraqi links because they figured there was little left to hide. The new information has changed much intelligence analysis. The C.I.A. has even stopped discrediting reports from Czech intelligence about a different point of Qaeda-Saddam contact: the meeting between the Sept. 11 hijackers' leader, Mohamed Atta, and a top Saddam spymaster in Prague. But the new, non-scant evidence of Saddam's close connection with terrorists seeking to kill Kurds under our air protection and to export crude poison weaponry poses an immediate operational problem: Should we send in Special Forces to find and root out the hidden facilities near the Iraq-Iran border? The answer apparently is "Not now." Why? For the same reason we have not sent antitank weapons and gas masks to the 70,000 Kurdish fighters eager to join an American effort to topple the Iraqi dictator: It might provide a provocation for Saddam to take out the lightly armed Kurds before America has forces in place to launch a coordinated assault, probably early next year. Let's not pretend we must "make the case" that Saddam personally directed 9/11. The need to strike at an aggressive despot before he gains the power to blackmail us with the horrific weapons he is building and hiding is apparent to most Americans, including those who will bear the brunt of the fight. But it would make sense for him to use his new weaponry through terrorist cutouts. That is why it is worthwhile to discover and expose the likelihood of Saddam's previous and present connections to mass murder. That is why people who oppose the finishing of this fight ? on strategic, self-justifying, political or pacifist grounds ? should open their minds to the signs that terror's most dangerous supporter can be found in Baghdad. nytimes.com

To: Hawkmoon who wrote (39387)	8/22/2002 1:56:09 AM
From: Maurice Winn	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Hawk, another good post. When Raygun took over from Carter, I thought the hostage crisis would be over soon. That was because I thought Raygun would say "Look, I don't understand all that diplomatic stuff and negotiating this that and the other. If you don't let them go now, I'm going to blow up all of Iran". The Iranians took one look at the wacko guy and realized he was serious. The age-old tradition of eternally-prolonged discussions, manipulation, prevarication and lies was cut short and Carter was the guy who negotiated the hostages' freedom [thanks to Raygun]. Then, Gorby and Raygun almost got rid of all the nukes in one go because Raygun simply figured that mucking around was a waste of time and Gorby wasn't a bad bloke after all. The disarmament negotiations were too complicated so go straight to the bottom line. Hordes of Afghans ran for it after 911 because they thought the USA would simply nuke the place or would certainly be pretty heavy-handed in any event. The USA used nukes on Japan and it worked. Unconditional surrender. There is a global Islamic Nation which purports to and does indeed act in unison. So, since the majority of Moslems is in favour of attacks like the 911 destruction of the Twin Towers, why muck around? For example, what's that big block of rock in Mecca called? It could be disassembled with a Tomahawk tactical nuke, like the twin Buddhas in Afghanistan were removed. Then, every time there's another attack, remove more components of Islam from the face of the earth. I'd say there has already been sufficient cause from enough Moslems around the world, who all like to make a trip to Mecca, to justify removing that icon of Islam. They removed the twin icons of capitalism and freedom. Tit for tat. Go nuts. They do. Saudi Arabia is getting nervous and rightly so. Telling the USA they can't have a base there, right where the source of the murder was, is pushing their luck and giving the fingers to their 'great friends'. If they can't tame Osama and their other offspring, which is admittedly sometimes hard, then somebody else will. But, get them at both ends and give them a way out = revamp the United Nations and take over the mess created, using the oil to fund political stability in those countries instead of the money going to pay for attacks on the oil buyers and a profligate lifestyle for the ruling gang. There is something to be said for absorbing minor things and turning the other cheek, recognizing grievances. But when advice to cease and desist is ignored, it's time to go ape. When the big monkey goes ape, watch people run for cover and forget about throwing stones. Americans are 98% chimp DNA and the part that isn't is not happy to be murdered either. So, turn the limbic system loose! Or lose if they can't spell. George II needs to mispronounce 'nuclear' a few times, loose or lose his inhibitions and suggest they not misunderestimate him - they'll get the message. bushorchimp.com Mqurice

To: Hawkmoon who wrote (39387)	8/22/2002 10:36:41 AM
From: LindyBill	Respond to of 281500

A few segments pulled from a longer article by Jay Nordlinger. I think the first one is a classic, for the "PC" Crowd here. ....from Ann Arbor: A female law student got her a** kicked by a homeless man in the law quad on Saturday here at U of M. A coworker of mine called Campus Security to hear a report of what happened, as we work in the law quad. I was the only one confused to hear, in the report, the homeless man being referred to as RESIDENTIALLY CHALLENGED..... More about those "Nasty Israelis" ....The Israeli Supreme Court has ruled that the army may not use Palestinian civilians as human shields. They had been doing this: putting Palestinians in bulletproof vests and sending them up to the doors of known terrorists. Oh, hang on: They put on bulletproof vests first? The Difference Between the Israelis and Their Enemies, Lesson 2,331.... (On Cuba).....Thought you might like to hear about that high-ranking Cuban defector, Alcibiades Hidalgo, who barely made it to Florida on a raft, just like hoi polloi... Hidalgo was Cuban ambassador to the U.N., deputy foreign minister, chief of staff to defense minister Raúl Castro, and a lot of other things. But few here care about him, because, you know: He's anti-Castro, pro-democratic, and therefore insane. The AP ran a report on him, however, and here are some of the points he made: The political élite of Cuba is nervous, guarding against a "social explosion." Food is scarce. The top brass of the military say that, if there's an uprising, they'll use force, Tiananmen style. Any officer balking will regret it. And, sure, Cubans have access to the country's "free health-care system",but there's no medicine there, and hasn't been for years. (In Cuba, of course, there's strict "medical apartheid," where certain hospitals and clinics are only for the elites.) Man's "first right," said Hidalgo, "is the right to independent thought", and that's one of the main things that drove him out. Finally, any lifting of the U.S. travel embargo would be, in Hidalgo's words, "a gift for Fidel." But what does he know, Alcibiades Hidalgo? Must be a Batista stooge, anyway. (Those Batista stooges are getting pretty old, don't you think?)....... nationalreview.com