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

To: cnyndwllr who wrote (137505)	6/22/2004 2:59:35 PM
From: Andrew N. Cothran	Respond to of 281500

Here comes the evidence.9/11 Commission Wakes Up, Smells Coffee By Captain Ed on War on Terror The Washington Post reports in tomorrow's edition that the 9/11 Commission has just heard about new evidence supporting the Bush administration's contention that the Saddam Hussein regime had serious connections to al-Qaeda: The commission investigating the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks has been told "a very prominent member" of al Qaeda served as an officer in Saddam Hussein's militia, a panel member said yesterday. Republican commissioner John Lehman told NBC's "Meet the Press" that the new intelligence, if proved true, buttresses claims by the Bush administration of ties between Iraq and the militant network believed responsible for the attacks on the United States. ... "Some of these documents indicate that [there was] at least one officer of Saddam's Fedayeen, a lieutenant colonel, who was a very prominent member of al Qaeda," Lehman said. "That still has to be confirmed, but the vice president was right when he said that he may have things that we don't yet have," said Lehman, a former Navy secretary. If this sounds familiar, it should -- you read it here on my blog three weeks ago, and prior to that in the Wall Street Journal: One striking bit of new evidence is that the name Ahmed Hikmat Shakir appears on three captured rosters of officers in Saddam Fedayeen, the elite paramilitary group run by Saddam's son Uday and entrusted with doing much of the regime's dirty work. Our government sources, who have seen translations of the documents, say Shakir is listed with the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel. This matters because if Shakir was an officer in the Fedayeen, it would establish a direct link between Iraq and the al Qaeda operatives who planned 9/11. Shakir was present at the January 2000 al Qaeda "summit" in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, at which the 9/11 attacks were planned. The U.S. has never been sure whether he was there on behalf of the Iraqi regime or whether he was an Iraqi Islamicist who hooked up with al Qaeda on his own. The story has also been covered by reporter Stephen Hayes, both in the Weekly Standard and in his excellent book on Iraqi ties to al-Qaeda and Islamofascist terrorists in general, The Connection. The fact that John Lehman and the rest of the 9/11 Commission had no clue about Shakir until this weekend underscores the incompetence of this supposed blue-ribbon committee. How could they have not known of Shakir and his connections to both al-Qaeda and the Iraqi regime? The 9/11 Commission had no idea about intelligence reports that Americans can read on the newstand and in the bookstores? What have these commissioners been reading during their investigation? Mother Jones and the funny pages? captainsquartersblog.com And here is the WP article. washingtonpost.com Iraqi Officer Linked to Al Qaeda 9/11 Commission Gets New Intelligence on Militia Colonel Reuters Monday, June 21, 2004; Page A09 The commission investigating the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks has been told "a very prominent member" of al Qaeda served as an officer in Saddam Hussein's militia, a panel member said yesterday. Republican commissioner John Lehman told NBC's "Meet the Press" that the new intelligence, if proved true, buttresses claims by the Bush administration of ties between Iraq and the militant network believed responsible for the attacks on the United States. "We are now in the process of getting this latest intelligence," Lehman said. Commission Chairman Thomas H. Kean urged the administration to make any such information available to the panel quickly. "Obviously, if there is any information [that] has to do with the subject of the report, we need it, and we need it pretty fast," Kean said on ABC's "This Week" program. "We'll ask for it and see." He said the final report would be modified to take any new intelligence into account. Lehman said the information, contained in "captured documents," was obtained after the commission report was written that stated there was no evidence of a "collaborative relationship" between Iraq and al Qaeda. "Some of these documents indicate that [there was] at least one officer of Saddam's Fedayeen, a lieutenant colonel, who was a very prominent member of al Qaeda," Lehman said. "That still has to be confirmed, but the vice president was right when he said that he may have things that we don't yet have," said Lehman, a former Navy secretary. Vice President Cheney and President Bush repeated their assertions that Iraq had ties to al Qaeda after the commission report issued last week found no evidence that Iraq collaborated with al Qaeda. Lehman said there was no evidence Hussein was involved in the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States. But he said the recent information about the Fedayeen officer "demonstrates the difficulty that we've had in this commission." © 2004 The Washington Post Company