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

To: DuckTapeSunroof who wrote (763573)	7/19/2007 12:38:15 PM
From: pompsander	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769670

Insurgents' leader never existed: U.S. Character created by Al Qaeda in Iraq to mask foreign influence in Iraqi group, military says Jul 19, 2007 04:30 AM Michael R. Gordon New York Times BAGHDAD–For more than a year, the leader of one the most notorious insurgent groups in Iraq was said to be a mysterious Iraqi called Abu Omar al-Baghdadi. As the titular head of the Islamic State in Iraq, al-Baghdadi issued incendiary pronouncements. Despite claims by an Iraqi interior ministry official in May that al-Baghdadi had been killed, he appeared to have persevered unscathed. Yesterday, the chief U.S. military spokesperson here, Brig.-Gen. Kevin Bergner, provided a new explanation for al-Baghdadi's ability to escape attack: He never existed. Bergner told reporters that a senior Iraqi insurgent captured this month said the elusive Baghdadi was actually a fictional character whose declarations on audiotape were read by a man named Abu Abdullah al-Naima. Bergner said the ruse was devised by Abu Ayyub al-Masri, the Egyptian-born leader of the insurgent group Al Qaeda in Iraq. While the group is mostly Iraqi, much of its leadership is foreign, and al-Masri was reportedly trying to mask the outsiders' dominance. Bergner said al-Masri's ploy was to invent al-Baghdadi, a figure whose very name was meant to establish an Iraqi pedigree, install him as the head of a front organization called the Islamic State of Iraq, and then arrange for al-Masri to swear allegiance to him. Adding to the deception, he said, the deputy leader in Osama bin Laden's group Al Qaeda, Ayman al-Zawahri, publicly supported Baghdadi in a video and Internet statements. The captured insurgent who was said to have alerted the Americans was identified as Khalid Abdul Fatah Daoud Mahmud al-Mashadani. He was said to have been detained by U.S. forces in Mosul on July 4. According to Bergner, al-Mashadani is the most senior Iraqi operative in Al Qaeda in Iraq. Bergner said that al-Mashadani was an intermediary between Masri in Iraq and bin Laden and Zawahri, whom the Bush administration says are remotely supporting and guiding Al Qaeda in Iraq. But critics have accused the administration of exaggerating the relationship between the groups. An important part of the U.S. strategy against Al Qaeda in Iraq has been to drive wedges between the group, other insurgent groups and the Sunni Arab population, and Bergner's briefing continued that theme. "Mashadani confirms that al-Masri and the foreign leaders with whom he surrounds himself, not Iraqis, made the operational decisions," Bergner said. As proof that al-Mashadani had been captured, the military displayed a picture of him and an identification card Bergner described as the false ID he was found with. Al Qaeda in Iraq has fired its own shots in the publicity war. Videos have been issued under the banner of the Islamic State of Iraq that were said to show a bomb attack in Diyala on a U.S. Bradley armoured vehicle and an assault on an Iraqi military checkpoint. Bruce Riedel, a former CIA official and Middle East expert, acknowledged experts had long wondered if al-Baghdadi actually existed. Still, Riedel suggested the briefing yesterday may not be the final word. "They say we have killed him," Riedel said, referring to earlier statements by Iraqi government officials. "Then we heard him after his death, and now they are saying he never existed. That suggests that our intelligence on Al Qaeda in Iraq is not what we want it to be.'' Riedel said the military needed to guard against the possibility that al-Mashadani might be trying to protect a real person by telling the Americans that al-Baghdadi was imaginary. The military insists that al-Mashadani provided his account because he resented the role played by foreign leaders in Al Qaeda in Iraq. They say he has not repudiated the group.

To: DuckTapeSunroof who wrote (763573)	7/19/2007 12:50:23 PM
From: goldworldnet	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769670

If there was a Congressional declaration of war, Sheehan couldn’t go on TV spewing her rhetoric, could she? I thought in real wars, war protestors were thrown in jail. * * *