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

To: LindyBill who wrote (39432)	8/22/2002 11:19:44 AM
From: JohnM	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 281500

I think it is obvious that Sadamm has been supporting Terrorists with money, training camps, etc, and that includes Al Queda. He has played it close to his chest, but it keeps leaking out. He is trying to avoid a "Smoking Gun" situation. He wants to help them engage in further actions without his fingerprints. This is exactly where my doubts lie. Let's see if I can state them clearly. It's obvious he has supported regional "terrorists". So I'll get that off the table. We agree on that. But that's not global terrorists. And, for me, that's Al Q. At the moment, I think (a) the evidence of a link to 9-11 remains thin but Safire thickened it slightly today; (b) there is apparently no doubt there is an Al Q presence in northern Iraq but Saddam's relation to it is still not clear; (c) since he's not given evidence of suicidal tendencies in the past, I think it unlikely he'll use wmd, unless pushed into a corner; (d) thus, the argument that he will help arm Al Q with wmd is still a weak one to me.

To: LindyBill who wrote (39432)	8/22/2002 12:48:56 PM
From: Hawkmoon	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

IMO, Saddam did not have his "fingers" on 9/11 directly. He may have been informed just before during the "disputed" meeting. For sure he knew something was going to happen. After it happened, He announced that he was delighted. Hmmm... So SH just told his intelligence officers to do their own thing?? NOT LIKELY... While he may not have known the specific details of 9/11, any connections between his intelligence officers and Atta (and others involved in 9/11) are ALL WE NEED TO KNOW to justify hunting him down like the dog he is. SH is the captain of the ship there in Iraq. And I hardly believe that any of his intelligence officers would act on their own in such a manner without having the blessing of SH and others in Iraq. It may have only been "do what you need to do to strike at the heart of America and make them suffer", with no direct operational knowledge of the actual means of attack. But I hardly believe he would permit his covert operators to act independently. This alleged meeting with Atta at the Iraqi embassy in Prague is, therefore, crucial to making the case against Saddam and generating the international support required to justify his removal. And I think the Czech Prime Minister would not have said what he said unless his own Intel Weenies were sure that this was Atta who was meeting with the Iraqis. And given the previous complicity of Iraq with the first WTC bombing, related to Ramzi Yousef and others, one can logically deduce that while they failed to take down the WTC the first time around, they wanted to succeed in the second (to save face on a failed operation). tnr.com middleeastdialogue.org observer.co.uk fas.org Hawk