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Waited on this one too -- 'Found: a Smoking Gun'

Feb 11, 2004 4:48AM PST
Found: A Smoking Gun
By WILLIAM SAFIRE


Published: February 11, 2004

n the town of Kalar, about a hundred miles northeast of Baghdad, Kurdish villagers recently reported suspicious activity to the pesh merga.

That Kurdish militia has for years been waging a bloody battle with Ansar al-Islam, the terrorist group affiliated with Al Qaeda in Afghanistan and supported by Saddam Hussein in Iraq. It captured a courier carrying a message that demolishes the repeated claim of Bush critics that there was never a "clear link" between Saddam and Osama bin Laden.

The terrorist courier with a CD-ROM containing a 17-page document and other messages was Hassan Ghul, who confessed he was taking to Al Qaeda the Ansar document setting forth a strategy to start an Iraqi civil war, along with a plea for reinforcements. The Kurds turned him over to Americans for further interrogation, which is proving fruitful.


USERNAME == speakeasygang
PASSWORD == speakeasy

Discussion is locked

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Dave, Dan, Josh, Charlie; comments?
Feb 11, 2004 6:06AM PST

Tell us it aint so.

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(NT) Bill & Dave's answers pretty much sum up what I would have said.
Feb 11, 2004 11:14PM PST

.

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Link to story ...
Feb 11, 2004 9:25AM PST

I'm still not sure I found the original NYT story Safire referenced (it may be U.S. Aides Report Evidence Tying Al Qaeda to Attacks)

There is also this:
The 'Al Qaeda' memo, Zarqawi, and civil war in Iraq at the Christian Science Monitor.

However, a quick (perhaps too-quick) read through these articles does not clarify the relevant questions: (1) Was there a link before the US invasion?; and (2) If there was a link before the war, did we know about it or was it merely speculative?

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Re:Link to story ... make that stories years back...
Feb 12, 2004 1:35AM PST

Hi Bill,

Yes, those are some links to the latest references of connections but they go back a bit farther.

Try http://www.casi.org.uk/discuss/2002/msg00966.html (actually biased against any claim of ties, BUT it tries to present both sides of the claim and can be looked at in the light of the latest intelligence discovery).

This one at www.washingtoninstitute.org has quite a bit of info that the 17 page memo appears so far to be confirming.
In August 2001, leaders of several Kurdish Islamist factions reportedly visited the al-Qaeda leadership in Afghanistan with the goal of creating an alternate base for the organization in northern Iraq. Their intentions were echoed in a document found in an al-Qaeda guest house in Afghanistan vowing to "expel those Jews and Christians from Kurdistan and join the way of Jihad, [and] rule every piece of land . . . with the Islamic Shari'a rule." Soon thereafter, Ansar al-Islam was created using $300,000 to $600,000 in al-Qaeda seed money, in addition to funds from Saudi Arabia.

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Re: 'a Smoking Gun' -- Ed, no one disputes...
Feb 11, 2004 12:13PM PST

... that Al Qadea is actively involved NOW in trying to kill Americans in Iraq and drive us out. That says NOTHING about Iraqi ties to them before the invasion.

-- Dave K, Speakeasy Moderator
click here to email semods4@yahoo.com

The opinions expressed above are my own,
and do not necessarily reflect those of CNET!

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I thought that was pretty obvious -nt
Feb 12, 2004 12:09AM PST

.

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Go back and re-read it Dave...
Feb 12, 2004 12:55AM PST

The ties go back to BEFORE any attack on Iraq.

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'Found: a Smoking Gun' - Many buried suitcases I bet :(
Feb 12, 2004 7:42AM PST
In his U.N. speech the following month, Colin Powell publicly identified the Palestinian, born in Jordan, as one who oversaw a terrorist training camp in Afghanistan three years before: "Iraq today harbors a deadly terrorist network headed by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, an associate and collaborator of Osama bin Laden."
Now we have documentary evidence of Ansar's current operation: employing suicide bombers to foment a civil war in Iraq that would reinstate safe haven for terrorists.


It's all so true considering all the suicide bombers the Iraqi people are having to put up with. Sad