BOMBSHELL, but really we knew this, didnt we?

[BlueEyesInLevis]

You know, just to stir the pot a little, I've seen Woody post negative stuff about the Nazis and the Palestinians, and he regularly castigates terrorist attacks by Palis as well.

Krastner is...harder to read....*chuckle*

I think it's a tough issue to talk about because of the strong passions it provokes.

Edit: I forgot to add that I've seen BB post positive comments about Hitler.

There is nothing to say that one cant give faint praise to an enemy one is commited to destroy.

Dont you agree that we should judge them by the totality of their postings and not just a few random exceptions?

 

[busybody..]

Thats right

I did say that as far as Hitler and Germany were concerned

He did a great job of restoring the might and pride of Germany, no question

Brought them outa their malaise

Then he went crazy and ruined it all

 

[Peregrinator]

There is nothing to say that one cant give faint praise to an enemy one is commited to destroy.

Dont you agree that we should judge them by the totality of their postings and not just a few random exceptions?

I prefer to judge each post individually as much as possible.

If someone who's slobbering drunk says that drinking is bad for you, he's still right.

 

[busybody..]

I prefer to judge each post individually as much as possible.

QUOTE]
Mrs Naive!

 

[BlueEyesInLevis]

I prefer to judge each post individually as much as possible.

If someone who's slobbering drunk says that drinking is bad for you, he's still right.

My statement was in context of what some might misinterpret as conflicting positions.
But your point is well taken.

 

[Peregrinator]

I prefer to judge each post individually as much as possible.

QUOTE]
Mrs Naive!

You're the best example I know of this. In aggregate, you're a raving lunatic.

 

[busybody..]

But you get a feel for who and what I am

and what I consider important


Some posters are OBVIOUSLY anti American and anti Israeli and anti Jew

The fact that they throw in

"I deplore killing on both sides" is a vain attempt to make a SKUNK smell better!

 

[Peregrinator]

But you get a feel for who and what I am

and what I consider important


Some posters are OBVIOUSLY anti American and anti Israeli and anti Jew

The fact that they throw in

"I deplore killing on both sides" is a vain attempt to make a SKUNK smell better!

I can't know why someone posts what they post, and neither can you; deploring killing is a reasonable thing to say.

 

[busybody..]

EUROPE'S TROUBLES

Europe is in trouble. For an overview of the situation in France, see “For the French, Joie de Vivre Fades Into Fear.” France’s troubles come from it’s bloated welfare state. Although the country will face a demographic crunch when the baby boomers retire, France is actually doing reasonably well demographically.

Germany, on the other hand, seems to be the first European country experiencing real effects from a demographic deficit. See “Politicians Discuss Pension Cuts for Childless Germans” which says that new statistics on the country’s declining birthrate “have sent Germany into a state of panic.” This piece seems to confirm Philip Longman’s claim in The Empty Cradle that the emerging demographic crunch is going to build pressure for pro-natalist legislation.

If you’re willing to view an ad, you can read “The politics of shrinking” or the remarkable “Cradle Snatching,” over at the website of The Economist. The old East Germany is in demographic collapse, caught between the economic after-effects of communism and the shrinking German birthrate. People are deserting parts of what used to be East Germany: apartment buildings have huge vacancy rates, and in a few areas wild animals come back to reclaim territory that humans once commanded.

For the best overview of the trouble in Europe, I recommend Claire Berlinski’s wonderful new book, Menace in Europe: Why the Continent’s Crisis is America’s, Too. (I’ve got a blurb on the back of the book.) Berlinski’s book is a tremendous read: very smart, highly informed, and filled with riveting stories about real people. Berlinski is tough as can be on the problem of European Islamism, yet also speaks knowledgeably about European Muslims she’s known and loved. It’s rare to find this kind of clear-eyed criticism from an American who knows the continent deeply. For a glimpse into Europe’s frightening future (and America’s too?) do read Claire Berlinski’s Menace in Europe.

Oh, and for a sample of Berlinski’s writing, check out her piece on the French demonstrations from yesterday’s Washington Post. As good as Berlinski’s writing there is, her book is better.

 

[busybody..]

I LOVE THIS

G-Ds Revenge on the Germans

German birthrate. People are deserting parts of what used to be East Germany: apartment buildings have huge vacancy rates, and in a few areas wild animals come back to reclaim territory that humans once commanded.


France is NEXT!

 

[Sean]

Some posters are OBVIOUSLY anti American and anti Israeli and anti Jew

Well, two out of three isn't bad.

 

[BlueEyesInLevis]

Well, two out of three isn't bad.

Admit it...you're still pissed we kicked your ass back in 1776 and 1812.

 

[BlueEyesInLevis]

Well, two out of three isn't bad.

BTW... when are you gonna us back for all that "Lend Lease" shit?

 

[busybody..]

I order you screwballs to read this, YES, I DO MEAN YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Why G-D Loves America

and why its VITAL for America to stand by Israel and Jews


Blessed America loving Jews (Bruce Walker, March 27, 2006, Enter Stage Right)


Jews voted in elections in colonial America as early as 1702. The first Jews elected to office in functioning democracies were Jews elected by non-Jewish voters in pre-Revolutionary America. Jews also attended and graduated from Christian universities in colonial America. Francis Salvador was a Jewish member of the Continental Congress during the Revolutionary War. David Emanuel was elected Governor of Georgia in 1800 and after him many Jews were elected or appointed governors, senators, congressmen, speakers of state legislatures and appointed chief justice of supreme courts throughout the South.

What about "intolerant" New England Puritans? These Puritans learned Hebrew, Puritan girls as well as Puritan boys. They created a religious structure consciously modeled after the synagogue. Puritans deliberately took Old Testament, rather than New Testament, names. These were not ignorant Puritans unconscious of what they were doing. New England Puritans were the best educated immigrant population in human history, with significant percentages of the population having degrees from great universities in Britain.

Washington's famous letter to the Jews of Newport speaks for itself: "All possess alike liberty of conscience and immunities of citizenship. It is now no more than toleration that is spoken of, as if it was by the indulgence of one class of people, that any other enjoyed the exercise of their inherent rights. For happily the government of the United States, which gives bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance, requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens, giving it on all occasions their effectual support…May the children of the Stock of Abraham, who dwell in this land, continue to merit and enjoy of their other inhabitants, while everyone shall sit in safety under his own vine and fig-tree, and there shall be none to make him afraid."

John Adams wrote to Mordecai Noah, a Jewish leader in America : "I wish your nation be admitted to all the privileges of citizenship in every country of the world." Thomas Jefferson was just as sympathetic when he wrote that he was: "…happy in the restoration of the Jews, particularly, to their social rights, and hopes they will be seen taking their seats on the branches of science as preparatory to their doing the same at the board of government." The Founding Fathers seriously considered making Hebrew the national language of America.

Two centuries ago Christians founded the American Society for Meliorating the Condition of Jews, which helped and protected Jews, whether or not they embraced Christianity. This society, sometimes known as " Israel's Advocate," had two hundred branches within the Christian community in the United States. Nothing comparable existed anywhere on earth.

The young American government repeatedly intervened on behalf of Jews across the Atlantic. When Jews approached Martin Van Buren for help in ending a ghastly persecution at the hands of Ottoman Turks in the 1830s, they found that he had already taken action so on his own. Abraham Lincoln pointedly chose a Jewish consul to the Swiss Confederation, although it offended the Swiss government. American policy was to protect persecuted Jews since the earliest days of the Republic.

Twenty years before the Balfour Declaration, a cynical effort to gain Jewish support during the First World, a petition was signed by the Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, John D. Rockefeller, J.P. Morgan and 413 of the most important American writers, clergymen and journalists calling for "an international conference to consider the condition of the Israelites and their claims to Palestine as their ancient home."

 

[busybody..]

Proof that the Zionist lobby is so powerful, so ubiquitous, that they wielded extraordinary influence even before there were any Zionists.

 

[Peregrinator]

Proof that the Zionist lobby is so powerful, so ubiquitous, that they wielded extraordinary influence even before there were any Zionists.

So is it really Adam Weishaupt's pic on the dollar bill?

 

[busybody..]

getting back to the thread that Pergy tries to divert into NONSENSE


What Does It Prove? Nothing, Yet

A few days ago, we noted one of the untranslated Project Harmony documents, dated in 2002, that looked interesting, based on this synopsis:

IIS [Iraqi intelligence] report on Kurdish activities, mention of Kurdish reporting on Al Qaida, reference to Al Qaida presence in Salman Pak.
We put out a call for translations, and two readers responded. This one is Charles Perry's:

First document, on paper with the crest of the Iraqi Republic and an ornamental border and with a stamp reading “Presidency of the Republic, Secretary, Department of Security of the Muhafaza (roughly, county) of Nineveh”:
(Beneath the crest, handwritten: Secret and personal)

Republic of Iraq

Presidency of Iraq, Secretary

Department of General Security

Department of Security of Nineveh

No. 10106/1

Date: 1 Jumada al-Akhira, 1423 (AH), 8/24/2002 AD

Directorship of General Security/ M(uhafaza) of Nineveh

Subject: Intelligence

Trustworthy (source) 1253 has informed me as follows:

1. On 8/21/2002, the undertaking of an American delegation visiting the district of Afshariyya to visit the HQ of the Iraqi Communist Party to (the district of) Shaqlawa. A representative of the Communist Party urged that the Iraqi Government be prepared to conceal elements (‘anasir) of the organization al-Qa’ida in the district of Salman Pak, in addition to elements of the Turkish Workers’ Party and the Mujahidin Khalq Iraniyya, and that they are studying the use of chemical weapons. Iraq will (use them?) in case a military strike is directed toward them.

2. The concern of the Communist Party of Kurdistan (PKK) with informing Norwegian authorities of the existence of an individual on Norwegian soil, known as Malakrikar, of Arbil, responsible for the al-Qa’ida organizations there. When the Norwegian authorities attempted to arrest him he fled to China with his family.

3. On 8/15/2002, a joint meeting of the Iraqi and Kurdish Communist Parties was convened and called for unifying political positions on the international situation and the Iraqi (context?).


Michael Slade translated the document too. Here is how he rendered the most interesting paragraph:

Source/agent 1253 informed us of what follows:
1. On 7/21/2002 an American delegation visited the _______ area headquarters of the Iraqi Communist Party in Shaqlauah. A representative of the Communist Party accused the Iraqi government of hiding elements of the organization of Al-Qaeda in the region of Salman Pak, plus elements of the Turkish Workers Party and the Iranian Mujahideen Khalq and that they were studying the use of chemical weapons and whether Iraq will use them in case of __________________________________.


Note the difference between these translations: did the Iraqi Communists "urge" the Iraqi government to conceal al Qaeda members around Salman Pak, or "accuse" the government of doing so? The latter seems more likely, coming from an opposition group. Further, how much credibility do the Iraqi Communists have? Even if we assume that they believed Saddam's government was harboring al Qaeda members in or around Salman Pak, how much weight would that carry?

I think there is a fundamental lesson here. Some observers may assume that the Harmony documents will contain bombshell revelations that will, in a paragraph or two, answer our questions about Saddam's regime. That's possible, of course; but more likely, it will require months or years of patient effort to work our way through millions of pages of documents, trying to assess the broad patterns that emerge.

This document doesn't prove that Saddam was hiding al Qaeda members in or around Iraqi military installations in the months leading up to the war, but it certainly suggests a worthwhile avenue of investigation--one of many--as the document review project continues.

Thanks to Charles and Michael. If you're interested in taking a crack at any of the untranslated documents on the Foreign Military Studies Office site, we'd encourage you to dive in. We'll be happy to publish any interesting results.

 

[busybody..]

seems pretty conclusive to me that SH while not working with OBL directly

was in the process of setting up to do so

and would have done so had the US not invaded

Something new from the Iraqi documents
SECRETARY OF STATE CONDOLEEZZA RICE on Sunday contradicted claims from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence that documents captured in postwar Iraq and now being posted on the Internet will not contain anything new or significant.

"We're going to find some important and surprising things in these documents," Rice said in an appearance on NBC's Meet the Press.

Rice also addressed revelations, important but not surprising, that former Russian ambassador to Iraq, Vladimir Teterenko, passed the U.S. war plan to Iraq shortly before the war began. The charges, based largely on two Iraqi documents captured in postwar Iraq, came in a report issued by the Joint Forces Command in Norfolk, Virginia, and released by the Pentagon late last week. Rice said she is not in a position to confirm or deny the claims but vowed to take "a hard look at the reports" of Russian betrayal.

The revelations about the Russians will be the subject of discussions this week between Bush administration officials and their Russian counterparts. "We will certainly raise it with the Russians," Rice said.

The Russian government has already denied the charges. "Similar, baseless accusations concerning Russia's intelligence have been made more than once," Russian Foreign Intelligence Service spokesman Boris Labusov said. "We don't consider it necessary to comment on such fabrications."

But Labusov has not always found such allegations baseless. In 2003 Labusov confirmed reports, based on captured Iraqi documents, that the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service was training Iraqi Intelligence operatives as late as September 2002. This is how the San Francisco Chronicle, which broke the story on April 13, 2003, reported the findings:

A Moscow-based organization was training Iraqi intelligence agents as recently as last September--at the same time Russia was resisting the Bush administration's push for a tough stand against Saddam Hussein's regime, Iraqi documents discovered by The Chronicle show.

The documents found Thursday and Friday in a Baghdad office of the Mukhabarat, the Iraqi secret police, indicate that at least five agents graduated Sept. 15 from a two-week course in surveillance and eavesdropping techniques, according to certificates issued to the Iraqi agents by the "Special Training Center" in Moscow.

The "Moscow-based organization," it turns out, was the SVR, Russia's Foreign Intelligence Service:

Russian intelligence officials have confirmed that Iraqi spies received training in specialized counterintelligence techniques in Moscow last fall--training that appears to violate the United Nations resolution barring military and security assistance to Iraq.

A spokesman for the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), Boris Labusov, acknowledged that Iraqi secret police agents had been trained by his agency but said the training was for nonmilitary purposes, such as fighting crime and terrorism.

Said Labusov: "The SVR does not refuse cooperation with secret services of different countries in the areas of counter-terrorism and war, fighting drug traffic and investigating the illegal trade of weapons."

The Chronicle article continues:

However, it seems likely that the Iraqi agents who were trained at the Moscow center were using their skills for other purposes. Found in the same Mukhabarat office with their personnel files and graduation certificates were a host of other documents, including orders for wiretaps and for break-ins at such sites as the Iranian Embassy, the five-star al-Mansour Hotel and private doctors' offices.

Rice on Sunday missed an opportunity to highlight two other significant revelations from captured Iraqi documents. The "Iraqi Perspectives Project" study, which ignited the public discussion of Russia and Iraq, also reveals that beginning in 1998 Saddam Hussein's intelligence services began training "non-Iraqi Arab volunteers" at camps in Iraq.

Another captured document details the plan of the Iraqi Intelligence Service to invigorate its relations with Saudi opposition groups, including one headed by Osama bin Laden. According to that document, which a Pentagon task force determined "appears authentic," bin Laden requested assistance from the Iraqi regime on its anti-Saudi propaganda efforts and with attacks on U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia. The documents indicate that Iraq agreed to rebroadcast al Qaeda propaganda and left open the possibility of working with al Qaeda on attacks.

 

[Peregrinator]

So is it really Adam Weishaupt's pic on the dollar bill?

Answer the question.

 

[Peregrinator]

http://www.boettge.info/boettge/img/george_washington.gif

http://www.fotosearch.com/comp/WP/NSP130/PEOP_001.JPG

http://www.ctv.es/USERS/drakul/adamweishaupt_archivos/image002.jpg

 

[busybody..]

FROM WND'S JERUSALEM BUREAU
'We're on the eve of World War III'
Ex-Mossad chief urges West to unite, warns of Muslims imposing ideology

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Posted: March 28, 2006
1:00 a.m. Eastern



© 2006 WorldNetDaily.com

JERUSALEM – Global civilization is on the verge of "World War III," a massive conflict in which the Islamic world will attempt to impose its ideology on Western nations, according to Meir Amit, a former director of Israel's Mossad intelligence agency.

Amit, one of the most esteemed figures in the international defense establishment, warned Islamic nations and global Islamist groups will continue launching "all kinds of attacks" against Western states. He urged the international community to immediately unite and coordinate a strategy to fight against the "Islamic war."


"We are on the eve of war with the Islamic world, which will wage a war and all kinds of actions and attacks against the Western world. We already noticed the terrorists in the world hit Spain, England, France. I call it World War III. You must look at it from this angle and treat it wider, not as a problem of terrorism here and there," said Amit, speaking during an exclusive interview with WND's Aaron Klein and ABC Radio's John Batchelor broadcast on Batchelor's national program, for which Klein serves as a co-host. (Listen to the Amit interview.)

Amit served as Mossad chief from 1963 to 1968. He directed some of the most notorious Mossad operations during that time and pioneered many of the tactics currently used by intelligence agencies worldwide. The subject of multiple books and movies, Amit is routinely described as a "living legend." Now in his mid-80s, Amit serves as chairman of Israel's Center for Special Studies.

The former intelligence chief referenced recent terror attacks against Israel, Europe and the United States; Iran's alleged nuclear ambitions; the insurgency in Iraq and Afghanistan; and worldwide Muslim riots.

"It looks to me like it is a kind of coordinated or contemplated problem to somehow impose the Islamic idea all over the world," Amit said.

Israel is routinely attacked by Palestinian terror groups. Since December 2000, 993 Israelis have been killed. Spain in March 2004 was struck by a series of coordinated bombings on its commuter train system, killing 192 people. London was rocked last July by bombings on its transportation system. France has been the scene of violent Muslim riots and attacks. And on Sept. 11, 2001, 2,986 people were killed when the U.S. was hit with coordinated terror attacks.

Violent Muslim riots erupted last month in the West Bank, Syria and Lebanon after cartoon images of Muhammad were printed in a Danish newspaper. The riots spread across the Middle East and throughout Europe.

At least 40 people were killed yesterday in a blast north of Mosul in Iraq. Iran and Syria have been accused of aiding the insurgency there and in Afghanistan against U.S. and European troops.

Amit urged Western nations to "unite and work together. Unfortunately, the world is not uniting. China and Russia are problems. This should be taken into consideration."

Both China and Russia have been aiding Iran's nuclear program, which Tehran claims is intended for peaceful purposes only. Russia last month received a delegation of Hamas leaders, and pledged to maintain diplomatic relations with the terror group in spite of efforts by the U.S. and Israel to isolate the newly elected Hamas-led Palestinian government.

Amit said Iran currently poses the most serious threat to the international community.

"The Iranians [are] financing terrorists in Israel and sending money," Amit said. "This is [my country's] immediate problem. But I think the most serious problem is Iran developing nuclear power."


Amit said Israel should not lead a military attack against Iran's suspected nuclear facilities, instead urging support for the course of diplomacy and sanctions.

"The problem of [Iranian] nuclear armaments is not an Israeli problem; it is a worldwide problem. Your question refers to what Israel can do. It shouldn't do anything by itself. It should maybe throw the idea that this is a world problem and all the Western world should unite, join hands and work together," said Amit.

"I am not sure whether a military operation would be the best solution. At least not the first solution. But you can put sanctions on Iran."

With regard to his warnings of a new world war, Amit clarified he was not advocating the international community take measures against all Arab countries:

"I know very well the Arab world. I have many friends in Arab world leaders. Not all of them think the same. They are also split in different groups. ... Although I think they will wage an Islamic war against the Western world, we must take into account they are not one piece. Somehow we must learn the differences between different sections and parts of the Arab world."

 

[busybody..]

Others are starting to ask the same things as I am

and see the same things I do!



IBD: A Religion of Peace?
It’s taken mainstream media an incredible amount of time to reach this point (and the New York Times never will), but an Investor’s Business Daily editorial is finally asking some of the right questions: Religion Of Peace?

What better time for CAIR and other Muslim leaders to step up, cut through the politically correct fog and provide factual answers to the questions that give so many non-Muslims pause?

Generally speaking, those questions focus on whether the Quran does indeed promote violence against non-Muslims, and how many of the terrorists’ ideas — about the violent jihad, the self-immolation, the kidnappings, even the beheadings — come right out of the text? But even more specifically:

Is Islam the only religion with a doctrine, theology and legal system that mandates warfare against unbelievers?

Is it true that 26 chapters of the Quran deal with jihad, a fight able-bodied believers are obligated to join (Surah 2:216), and that the text orders Muslims to “instill terror into the hearts of the unbeliever” and to “smite above their necks” (8:12)?

Is the “test” of loyalty to Allah not good acts or faith in general, but martyrdom that results from fighting unbelievers (47:4) — the only assurance of salvation in Islam (4:74; 9:111)?

Are the sins of any Muslim who becomes a martyr forgiven by the very act of being slain while slaying the unbelievers (4:96)?

And is it really true that martyrs are rewarded with virgins, among other carnal delights, in Paradise (38:51, 55:56; 55:76; 56:22)?

Are those unable to do jihad — such as women or the elderly — required to give “asylum and aid” to those who do fight unbelievers in the cause of Allah (8:74)?

Does Islam advocate expansion by force? And is the final command of jihad, as revealed to Muhammad in the Quran, to conquer the world in the name of Islam (9:29)?

Is Islam the only religion that does not teach the Golden Rule (48:29)? Does the Quran instead teach violence and hatred against non-Muslims, specifically Jews and Christians (5:50)?

There are other questions, but these should do for a start.

 

[busybody..]

in my continuing service of giving up to date info on the documents

I am providing this link

http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/012/037nhkgk.asp


it is a rebuttal to the NYTimes

who in its effort to show THEY were right and Bush was wrong has already dismissed the documents

its a good and important read

 

[busybody..]

if you are laszy to click, here it is




Choosing Ignorance
The New York Times finally acknowledges the Saddam documents--if only to dismiss them.
by Stephen F. Hayes
03/28/2006 2:30:00 PM

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THE NEW YORK TIMES today joined the debate about Iraqi documents with a front-page news article and an op-ed by Peter Bergen. It's been nearly two weeks since the first documents were released, but a belated acknowledgement of the news is better than nothing. One might have expected such a longtime champion of open government as the Times to have aggressively led the effort to have these once-secret documents released. Not this time.

The front-page story seeks to dismiss the importance of the documents while the op-ed by Bergen seems to find them only significant enough to warrant an attempted deconstruction. Both of these efforts fail badly. Reading the two pieces together, one gets the unmistakable impression that the Times doesn't want to know more about the documents, their contents and what they tell us about prewar Iraq. The Times, it seems, has chosen ignorance.

The news piece deserves little in the way of a response. Reporter Scott Shane casts the story as a battle between diehard supporters of the Bush administration and the truth, noting most helpfully that in other Internet projects "volunteers have tested software, scanned chemical compounds for useful drugs and even searched radiotelescope data for signals from extraterrestrial life."

Shane ignores the mostly-thoughtful commentary and analysis of the documents and chooses to quote an exuberant conservative blogger proclaiming that one document shows that Iraq had WMD and connections to terrorism, only to knock that claim down later. "The anthrax document . . . does not seem
to prove much," Shane writes. And he liberally sprinkles his piece with quotes from anonymous intelligence officials who downplay the significance of the document release. (In one case, Shane names the intelligence official, Michael Scheuer, but neglects to include any mention of Scheuer's self-contradictory analysis of Iraq and terrorism or any reminder that Scheuer might not be a disinterested party.)

Lost on Shane, it seems, is that these documents were released in large part so that we would no longer have to rely on the opinions of anonymous intelligence officials who, according to the Senate Intelligence Committee's bipartisan report, knew very little about Iraq before the war. It should hardly be surprising that the U.S. intelligence community would seek to downplay the significance of these documents after paying them little attention for three years. In any case, the release of the documents allows the debate to move from speculation to fact. It is a development one would expect the Times to welcome.


MORE BIZARRE than the Times's news piece is Bergen's op-ed on Iraq and terrorism. Bergen has long argued that religious and ideological differences between Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein would preclude their cooperation. Despite new evidence that renders this view, at best, anachronistic, Bergen is not persuaded. The pull-quote accompanying his op-ed asks this quaint question: "Why would Saddam help al Qaeda?"

An internal Iraqi Intelligence memo that Bergen describes as "one of the most credible documents," and was first reported by the Times in 2004, suggests that a better question is: "Why did Saddam help al Qaeda?" According to the document, Saddam Hussein personally approved bin Laden's request--made in a face-to-face meeting with Iraqi intelligence--to rebroadcast al Qaeda's anti-Saudi propaganda on Iraqi airwaves. Reasonable people can disagree as to whether this is significant cooperation. What is indisputable from this document, though, is that bin Laden sought cooperation from the Iraqis and the Iraqis, at least in a limited way, agreed to provide it.

 

[busybody..]

Page 2 of 2 < Back

The Iraqis left open their response to bin Laden's second request, to carry out "joint operations against foreign forces" in Saudi Arabia. According to a U.S. government translation, the Iraqi memo said: "We were left to develop the relationship and the cooperation between the two sides to see what other doors of cooperation and agreement open up."


DID OTHER DOORS of cooperation open up? Bergen thinks he knows. "The results of this meeting were . . . nothing." Really? Even if one accepts Bergen's claim that Iraq had nothing to do with two subsequent attacks on U.S. forces in Saudi Arabia, does that show that nothing came of the meeting? Hardly.

Bergen tells us that the second of those attacks, the Khobar Towers bombing in 1996, was carried out "by the Saudi branch of Hezbollah, a Shiite group aided by Iranian government officials." Once again, the implication is that ideological and religious differences make cooperation unthinkable.

But the very document that includes bin Laden's requests also shows that Saudi Hezbollah was one of four Saudi opposition groups from which the Iraqi regime sought cooperation. Indeed, the regime did not foreclose the possibility of working with Saudi Hezbollah. The memo notes that the Iraqi representative was told to "proceed cautiously" with those discussions for fear of having the Iraqi regime's "intentions" compromised.


4. The Saudi Hezbollah
A. Various meetings took place between the representative of the Honorable Directorate of Intelligence Services Office, our Ambassador in Yemen in 1993, and with the leader of the

Yemeni Hezbollah (Abdallah Ajinah). [Abdallah Ajinah] expressed willingness to obtain a secret meeting in Yemen between the representative [of IIS] and some of the members of the leadership of the Saudi Hezbollah.
B. Due to the doubt and indications that Ajinah has a relationship with the Iranian intelligence, the representative was directed to proceed cautiously in dealing with the above mentioned. To listen to what he presents only, in anticipation of the above mentioned being pressured by the Iranian intelligence to reveal our intentions of the Saudi opposition and then passing the information on to the Saudi side.


What, exactly, did the Iraqis mean by "our intentions of the Saudi opposition?" We don't know, but one might think that the Times would be interested.

Bergen continues: "Another striking feature about the supposed Qaeda-Iraq connection is that since the fall of the Taliban, not one of the thousands of documents found in Afghanistan substantiate such an alliance, even though al Qaeda was a highly bureaucratized organization that required potential recruits to fill out application forms."

Leaving aside the relevance of al Qaeda application forms, there are two points to make. First, hard as it might be to believe, the U.S. intelligence community has only recently begun to exploit many of the documents captured in Afghanistan. In a report that aired on National Public Radio on March 14, 2006, reporter Jackie Northam interviewed Major General Jay Hood, the commanding officer of the detention facilities at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Here is the relevant part of that exchange:


Major General HOOD: Jackie, we're going to go in and look here in a minute at what's called our evidence locker. It's a . . . NORTHAM: This evidence locker is a long, low building that overlooks the blue waters of the Caribbean. For the first time, a journalist is allowed to go inside. Metal shelves crammed with dark green boxes fill the cavernous room. In them are more than 120,000 documents.

Major General HOOD: Captured telephone records, captured notebooks with all sorts of engineering data in them, both real and forged money.

NORTHAM: General Hood says when the detainees were captured about four years ago, the evidence was gathered up and stuffed into garbage bags and boxes.

Major General HOOD: It was hastily inventoried, stacked up, sealed and was transported here to Guantanamo. Frankly, it's just in the last year that we've been able to take a closer look at exactly what we've got here.


One document captured in postwar Afghanistan and released with 27 others in February, is filed as AFGP-2002-601693, and called "Status of Jihad." The letter between two al Qaeda terrorists (of apparently high rank) makes several references to connections between the Islamists and Iraq. One passage notes that bin Laden's chief deputy, Ayman al Zawahiri, "went to Iraq and Iran" seeking support. Even the 9/11 Commission, which as Bergen points out was skeptical of any "collaborative operational relationship," allowed that Zawahiri had "contacts of his own" to the Iraqis.

It is worth noting that two 9/11 Commissioners also see value in the Iraqi Intelligence documents. The day after the 9/11 report was released, Commissioner John Lehman offered this prophetic warning in an interview with THE WEEKLY STANDARD: "There may well be--and probably will be--additional intelligence coming in from interrogations and from analysis of captured records and so forth which will fill out the intelligence picture. This is not phrased as, nor meant to be, the definitive word on Iraqi Intelligence activities."

Bob Kerrey, a former Democratic senator who also served as a 9/11 Commissioner, recently told Eli Lake of the New York Sun that the Iraqi Intelligence documents offer "a very significant set of facts." While cautioning that the documents don't tie Saddam to 9/11, Kerrey added that they do tie Saddam to "a circle that meant to damage the United States."

As U.S. News & World Report first reported, one high-ranking Iraqi military official told U.S. interrogators that the Iraqi regime provided Zawahiri with $300,000 in 1998. Former Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi claimed to have seen documents showing that Zawahiri had been in Iraq for a gathering of Islamists in 1999. Allawi was recently back on the front pages of U.S. newspapers with his claim that Iraq was in the midst of a civil war, but the American media has showed far less interest in his oft-repeated claims that Iraq was supporting al Qaeda.

Bergen ends his piece by reminding us that bin Laden offered to fight against Saddam Hussein's Iraq before the first Gulf War, noting that "months before the Kuwait invasion in 1990 [bin Laden] angrily warned colleagues that Iraq had designs on Persian Gulf states." This is true, and suggests that the on-again, off-again relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda was based on mutual exploitation rather than mutual admiration. But Bergen fails to acknowledge that another captured Iraqi document, this one from 1992 and authenticated by the Defense Intelligence Agency, reveals that the Iraqis considered Osama bin Laden an Iraqi Intelligence asset who had good relations with the Iraqi intelligence station in Damascus, Syria.

Why leave this out?

Many questions remain. What came of Iraq's outreach to Saudi opposition groups? Are Allawi's documents authentic? What of Zawahiri's "contacts of his own" with the Iraqis? Did Iraq pass money to Zawahiri or other al Qaeda associates? Who were the "non-Iraqi Arabs" the regime trained in Iraq beginning in 1998?

It would be nice to know more. Unless, of course, you're The New York Times.


Stephen F. Hayes is a senior writer at The Weekly Standard.