So it's Official
Confirming what most conscious people knew since..oh...Oct 2001, the 9-11 commission has reported that Iraq had absolutely nothing to do with the events of 9-11-01. Furthermore it appears that Saddam didn't give Mr. Bin Laden the time of day.
quote:
"We have no credible evidence that Iraq and al-Qaida cooperated on attacks against the United States," the commission's statement reads.
The statement says bin Laden did explore possible cooperation with Saddam Hussein, asking for space for training camps and help getting weapons, but Saddam never replied to bin Laden's requests.
So again we have facts that directly contradict what President G. Bush has claimed about Iraq and still there is no impeachment proceeding being planned. Iraq is now in the throes of urban gurilla civil war. The Kurds are threatening to cede from Iraq unless they retain veto power over the new iraqi "government" and Iraq "security forces" and government officials are being killed left, right and center. And what is there to show for it? Weapons of Mass Destruction? No. Terrorist hideouts? No. Proof of alliances with so called Al _Qaida? No. Just a bunch of US businesses making off with millions of Dollars. I'm going to repost a portion of one of my poems:
"As sure as the Bible is missing books
George Bush is missing sense
and violence only breeds more violence.
but
this ain't really about Hussein
Regime change
crashing planes
or buildings falling in flames.
It's all a game
and
Those that know the rules
play the average citizens for fools."
Links:
http://washingtontimes.com/upi-breaking/20040617-070457-7073r.htm
(17 years of informed commentary)
On : 6/22/2004 2:50:00 AM d sekou (www) said:
ReplyDeleteyes , even more rotten egg on the bush administration face despite condoleezza's recent attempts at spin in an npr interview with juan williams .
williams tried , but just did not try hard enough to pin condie down on the bush administrations "al qaeda /saddam " linkage claims .
the bush administration appears to be basing their "al qaeda/saddam" linkage claims largely on one "abu musab zarqawi" a nom de guerre for an al qaeda "associate" who was named in the video of the beheading of nicholas berg .
the 'training camp" that the infamous jordanian "al zarqawi"
is supposed to have setup in iraq , was in northern iraq ..."kurdistan" in fact , a region because of the US imposed no-fly zones was not under saddam's control .
zarqawi is accused of being the beheader of nicholas berg ,but even this is disputed by some locals who say zarqawi had a wounded leg from the recent Afghan/US war amputated in baghdad and because of a prosthetic devise , walks with a limp not noticed in the berg beheading video .
other sources say zarqawi is long dead --killed during the bombings in northern iraq at the outset of the american invasion .
i found this article posted at a website messageboard and attributed to a political commentator named fred kaplan , may 20 2004 titled , "Why Did Bush Spare Zarqawi ?"
"Apparently, Bush had three opportunities, long before the war, to destroy a terrorist camp in northern Iraq run by Abu Musab Zarqawi, the al-Qaida associate who recently cut off the head of Nicholas Berg. But the White House decided not to carry out the attack because, as the [NBC News] story puts it: "the administration feared [that] destroying the terrorist camp in Iraq could undercut its case for war against Saddam."
The implications of this are more shocking, in their way, than the news from Abu Ghraib. Bush promoted the invasion of Iraq as a vital battle in the war on terrorism, a continuation of our response to 9/11. Here was a chance to wipe out a high-ranking terrorist. And Bush didn't take advantage of it because doing so might also wipe out a rationale for invasion.
The story gets worse in its details. As far back as June 2002, U.S. intelligence reported that Zarqawi had set up a weapons lab at Kirma in northern Iraq that was capable of producing ricin and cyanide. The Pentagon drew up an attack plan involving cruise missiles and smart bombs. The White House turned it down.
In October 2002, intelligence reported that Zarqawi was preparing to use his bio-weapons in Europe. The Pentagon drew up another attack plan. The White House again demurred.
In January 2003, police in London arrested terrorist suspects connected to the camp. The Pentagon devised another attack plan. Again, the White House killed the plan, not Zarqawi.
When the war finally started in March, the camp was attacked early on. But by that time, Zarqawi and his followers had departed.
This camp was in the Kurdish enclave of Iraq. The U.S. military had been mounting airstrikes against various targets throughout Iraq-mainly air-defense sites-for the previous few years. It would not have been a major escalation to destroy this camp, especially after the war against al-Qaida in Afghanistan.
The Kurds, whose autonomy had been shielded by U.S. air power since the end of the 1991 war, wouldn't have minded and could even have helped.
But the problem, from Bush's perspective, was that this was the only tangible evidence of terrorists in Iraq. Colin Powell even showed the location of the camp on a map during his famous Feb. 5 briefing at the U.N. Security Council. The camp was in an area of Iraq that Saddam didn't control. But never mind, it was something. To wipe it out ahead of time might lead some people-in Congress, the United Nations, and the American public-to conclude that Saddam's links to terrorists were finished, that maybe the war wasn't necessary. So Bush let it be.
In the two years since the Pentagon's first attack plan, Zarqawi has been linked not just to Berg's execution but, according to NBC, 700 other killings in Iraq. If Bush had carried out that attack back in June 2002, the killings might not have happened. More: The case for war (as the White House feared) might not have seemed so compelling. Indeed, the war itself might not have happened.
One ambiguity does remain. The NBC story reported that "the White House" declined to carry out the airstrikes. Who was "the White House"? If it wasn't George W. Bush-if it was, say, Dick Cheney-then we crash into a very different conclusion: not that Bush was directly culpable, but that he was more out of touch than his most cynical critics have imagined.
It's a tossup which is more disturbing: a president who passes up the chance to kill a top-level enemy in the war on terrorism for the sake of pursuing a reckless diversion in Iraq-or a president who leaves a government's most profound decision, the choice of war or peace, to his aides."
On : 6/22/2004 3:16:27 AM d sekou (www) said:
also , on the matter of the kurds , i neglected to mention a story covered on npr today that mentioned that the kurds , burned , several times over the years by the US , militarily abandoned and left to the mercy of their enemy saddam hussein , were now taking matters into their own hands this time and have of course , created their own kurdish army from the various pesh merga militias ...the kurdish commando units are reportedly being trained by the israelis-- on the ground in northern iraq...
also on npr it was mentioned in passing that 'civilian contractors' in uniforms indistinguishable from those of the guards at abu gahrib prison were carrying out interrogations of inmates and were among those photographed in the infamous abuse pics...
the two stories make one wonder who is carrying out those interrogations in Guantanamo bay Cuba...might the "in-terror-gators" include personnel in american uniforms , on loan from mossad or shin bet ?