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

To: NightOwl who wrote (104572)	7/10/2003 2:29:08 PM
From: Rascal	Respond to of 281500

Unraveling quickly. It has always been my opinion that this was always about SA. SA had alot to do with 9/11 and the Administration knew this on 9/12. (Even though the public did not.) SA wanted our troops out. When the administration realized the simpatico arrangements with SA were blown they needed to find a new place for our on-site presence in the mid east. Hence the needed WMD propaganda to invade and occupy Iraq. The whole story about our removal of troops from SA was very downplayed. (Interestingly enough you may recall that Osama-Been-Forgotten stated his reason for attacking the US was because of the Infidel presence in SA). Timeline will tell: U.S. report on 9/11 to be 'explosive' Government errors, Saudi ties to terrorists among highlights BY FRANK DAVIES fdavies@herald.com WASHINGTON - A long-awaited final report on the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks will be released in the next two weeks, containing new information about U.S. government mistakes and Saudi financing of terrorists. Former Rep. Tim Roemer, who served on the House Intelligence Committee and who has read the report, said it will be ''highly explosive'' when it becomes public. The staff director for the congressional investigation that produced the 800-page report, Eleanor Hill, said Wednesday that several lengthy battles with the Bush administration over how much secret data to declassify have been resolved. She expects the document to go to the Government Printing Office late this week and then be made public about a week later. ''It's compelling and galvanizing and will refocus the public's attention on Sept. 11,'' predicted Roemer, an Indiana Democrat. ``Certain mistakes, errors and gaps in the system will be made clear.'' Roemer, who is also a member of the independent commission on Sept. 11, would not discuss details of the report. He said he expects the public report to be a compromise between intelligence officials who wanted to hold back data and congressional leaders and staffers who pressed for more disclosure. A source familiar with the investigation, speaking on condition of anonymity, cited two ''sensitive areas'' of the report that will command public attention: More information on ties between the Saudi royal family, government officials and terrorists. The FBI may have mishandled an investigation into how two of the Sept. 11 hijackers received aid from Saudi groups and individuals. John Lehman, a member of the independent commission, said at a hearing Wednesday: ``There's little doubt that much of the funding of terrorist groups -- whether intentional or unintentional -- is coming from Saudi sources.'' • A coherent narrative of intelligence warnings, some of them ignored or not shared with other agencies, before the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. WARNING IN 2001 The report will show that top Bush administration officials were warned in the summer of 2001 that the al Qaeda terrorist network had plans to hijack aircraft and launch a ``spectacular attack.'' Hill would not discuss details of the report, but said it will contain ''new information'' about revelations made last year, when the joint House-Senate investigation held nine public hearings and 13 closed sessions. The final report was completed in December. Since then a working group of Bush administration intelligence officials has ''scrubbed'' the report, objecting to additional public disclosures. PUSH FOR DISCLOSURE The two chairmen from Florida who oversaw the investigation, Sen. Bob Graham and Rep. Porter Goss of Sanibel, have pushed for months for more disclosure. Graham, a Democrat running for president, has said the administration was using the excuse of national security to block ''embarrassments'' by the government. Goss blamed the declassification battle on traditional resistance from intelligence officials. The report will contain chunks of missing type or ''redactions'' to show where information was withheld, Hill said. Roemer called the report a ``well-written narrative that will be summer reading for adults the way Harry Potter is for kids.'' WIDER PROBE The 10 members of the independent National Commission on Terrorist Attacks and its staff have had the report for several months and are using it in their more wide-ranging investigation. The congressional investigation focused on intelligence before and after Sept. 11, while the independent commission's broad mandate includes immigration, airline safety and congressional oversight of counterterrorism. The commission's two leaders, Tom Kean and Lee Hamilton, complained this week that federal departments were slow in turning over documents needed for their investigation. © 2003 The Miami Herald and wire service sources. All Rights Reserved. miami.com

To: NightOwl who wrote (104572)	7/10/2003 7:56:56 PM
From: KonKilo	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

...kicking around the "fearful" President's dilemma... One of the most basic tenants of any martial art is to never act out of anger or fear...perhaps if Shrub had studied Tai Kwan Do? It should be worth the effort shouldn't it? I most certainly agree with you here...unfortunately, the situation in Iraq reminds me of the old-school football coach who eschewed the forward pass, saying that, when thrown, only three things could happen and two were bad. I found this on Best of the Blogs and feel that it summarizes the scenarios fairly well: "First, there is the best case scenario. Sometime between six months to five years from now, happy Iraqis will go to the polls and chose a new leader in an absolutely free election. Living conditions will improve, a reasonable amount of stability will return. But, we’re still going to need to keep a force of something like 150,000 troops there for the next five years minimum—many of them still engaged in sporadic combat. The number of American dead will climb steadily but if we’re really, really lucky, the evildoers will not be able to land a big hit, like, say, a barracks of Marines. The Iraq oil will eventually start flowing and the whole enterprise will wind up costing the American taxpayer $10 billion to $20 billion a year for maybe a decade until we can leave with our dignity intact. The second possibility is the Afghanistan scenario or, as some like to call it, the Rumsfeld special. We stabilize Baghdad and a few other cities, more or less, and don’t even try to impose order on the rest of the country; Paul Bremer runs the country for six months to a year while the administration passes out the rebuilding contracts and oil concessions to its cronies and big campaign contributors; we rig some kind of “council” so that our favorite Shiite is named the Karzai of Iraq, and we announce that Iraq is free and pull out, leaving behind a security force to protect the new leader. The American people will soon lose interest and move on to something else. This is by far the most likely exit strategy, based on what we know about how ShrubCo operates. The last, and scariest, option is the Gaza/Viet Nam quagmire scenario. In this one, the administration decides it will lose too much face by abandoning our new adoptee and decides to tough it out until order is imposed on the entire country and the seeds of the democratic process have been firmly planted. Instead of a brief and peaceful occupation, there are constant suicide bombings, shootouts at checkpoints, assassination attempts, guerilla insurgency, fierce independence movements from the Kurds, unpleasantness with the Turks, efforts by the Sunnis to re-grab power, and the constant threat of al Qai’da and other terrorist groups slipping back and forth from Iran and Syria to strike at American troops. Costs in lives will run into the thousands and money will run to hundreds of billions of dollars. It will be only a matter of time until we start assassinating “known terrorists,” razing their families’ homes with bulldozers, and hot pursuing insurgents into neighboring countries." bestoftheblogs.com