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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: J_F_Shepard who wrote (397934)	4/23/2003 10:55:14 PM
From: Sully-	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 769667

Salman Pak - "You have a reference on this one.?????? You're not refering to the St. Olaf Manitou Messenger are you.....a student newspaper written without any attributions?" Nope. Here's a few. Want more? smh.com.au silive.com washingtontimes.com suntimes.com fusion.stolaf.edu chronwatch.com newsmax.com

To: J_F_Shepard who wrote (397934)	4/23/2003 11:05:33 PM
From: Sully-	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 769667

"That's the Kurds territory which was not under Saddam's control.....but I think you know that.." I wouldn't say the Kurds had complete control or that Saddam had none in the north....... .....The peshmerga, as the Kurdish guerillas here are known, remember how Ansar al-Islam troops surprised one of their units at Kheli Kama on September 23, 2001, and cut the throats of all their comrades there, even though they'd already surrendered. Ansar al-Islam is in the habit of videotaping its exploits, and the Kheli Kama massacre is locally available on CD-ROM. It was shortly after the attacks of September 11 that the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, the party that has controlled this area since the last Gulf War, approached the Bush administration with a little problem of its own that Washington might be interested in. For several years, radical Islamic movements had been causing headaches for the PUK leadership. On September 1, 2001, several of them had united forces in Jund al-Islam (Soldiers of Islam), which had promptly declared a holy war against all secular Kurdish parties, which, in their mind, deviated from the true path of Islam. The PUK had managed to defeat Jund al-Islam at first, but in December 2001 it resurfaced as Ansar al-Islam (Supporters of Islam) led by mullah Fateh Krekar, an Iraqi Kurd with refugee status in Norway. It was shortly after US troops had routed the Taliban and al-Qa'ida from Afghanistan, and the PUK was getting reports that al-Qa'ida fighters were making their way to Kurdish territory, where they could find refuge in the Shinerwe mountains. What's more, reporters from The New York Times had come across documents in a former al-Qa'ida guesthouse in Afghanistan that discussed the creation of an "Iraqi Kurdistan Islamic Brigade". The documents were dated only weeks before Ansar al-Islam surfaced in Kurdistan...... The peshmerga commander in Biyara, Meriwan Taha, is confident that Ansar al-Islam has been dealt a definitive blow. "We have taken back all the villages," he says. "Any remaining 'Afghans' have fled to Iran. We know because we chased them all the way to the border." We followed a convoy of peshmerga and a dozen US special forces to within yards of the border. They were obviously tracking Ansar militants hiding out in the border area. On April 1, at a rare appearance before the press in Halabja, US special forces talked about their operation here. "It was pretty damn successful," one said. "In 1½ days, a terrorist organisation that has had a grip on this region was rooted out and neutralised." He admitted that "there was a lot of fighting, the Ansar al-Islam and al-Qa'ida were not a pushover." Official PUK figures speak of 250 "Ansar and al-Qa'ida terrorists" killed out of a suspected force of 700. Some of the most recent fighting was at Sargat, the place US Secretary of State Colin Powell named in his February speech before the UN as the location of a secret chemical weapons factory and lab. When we visited the site on Monday there was no evidence of chemical weapons but we were told that specialised US and British teams had been at the site the day before and had carted off truckloads of evidence. What remained was self-made ammunition marked "Islamic Movement of Iraqi Kurdistan", underground arms caches and a network of caves..... theaustralian.news.com.au

To: J_F_Shepard who wrote (397934)	4/23/2003 11:39:27 PM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 769667

"That's the Kurds territory which was not under Saddam's control.....but I think you know that.." Not exactly. Time will tell............ .....The Bush administration has charged that Saddam Hussein was or would soon be passing material for weapons of mass destruction on to Muslim fundamentalist organizations including al-Qaida...... ...."We have found various documents, equipment, and evidence that would indicate a presence of chemical or biological weapons. It has been flown back to the United States," a Special Forces company commander said Tuesday at a joint press conference in Halabja, a Kurdish city in northern Iraq. "At this point, (exploration) of the site is ongoing.".... tribnet.com .....Liberated areas of northern Iraq have produced evidence of mass executions. In Kirkuk, a mass grave was uncovered where Kurdish separatists are believed to have been executed by Saddam's forces. Near Kirkuk, U.S. military forces discovered about 1,500 unmarked graves last week near a military base and industrial park. Officials believe they are the remains of victims of Saddam's repression of ethnic minorities, including Iraqi Kurds. Tens of thousands of Kurdish men disappeared under Saddam and were killed, according to human rights groups....... washingtontimes.com .....The Ansar group, which espouses a militant brand of Islam, is said to have links with al-Qaeda, the global terrorist network of Osama bin Laden. The Bush administration also says it is supported by Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, though most Kurdish officials cite Iran as its chief backer..... ....US and Kurdish fighters also recovered documents following their sweep, according to the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. He gave no other details, the agency said..... ....The guerrillas fall under the command of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, or P.U.K., the enthusiastically pro- American party that controls most of the eastern sector of Kurdish Iraq, or Kurdistan. They are known as peshmerga, or “those who face death,” and they were happy yet anxious; the night before, American cruise missiles had struck the positions of the two Islamist groups who control the territory a half mile to the east...... The targets include the Ansar al-Islam, who number as many as eight hundred. Among them are about a hundred and fifty so-called Arab Afghans, some of whom are believed to have trained in the Al Qaeda camps of Afghanistan. The P.U.K. and several American intelligence officials say that Ansar al-Islam is sponsored by the regime of Saddam Hussein, although others have disputed this claim...... newyorker.com theage.com.au smh.com.au adn.com