The Cold Hard Truth

Sunday, October 17, 2004

This looks like "evidence" to me.

This is some of the "evidence" that Democrats keep insisting doesn't exist with regard to Saddam and Al Qaeda: An article I wrote about an event at nassau.

Iraq was a threat, said Laurie Mylroie; President of the Washington think tank Information for Democracy and the author of Study of Revenge and Saddam Hussein and the Crisis in the Gulf with New York Times reporter Judith Miller, while speaking at Nassau Community College in October of 2002.
Mylroie’s contention is that in the years following the Gulf War and the passing of U.N. resolution 687 (which called for Iraq to declare all the components of its nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons programs within 105 days so they could be destroyed by inspectors and sanctions could be lifted) Saddam Hussein’s regime has been actively pursuing weapons of mass destruction and supporting terrorism directed at the United States. “A major mistake was made in the 90’s that lead to the events of 9/11,” said a mournful Mylroie before laying out the case that Iraq was complicit in several terrorist attacks directed at the U.S. including the first world trade center bombing and 9/11.
Mylroie began her presentation with a brief history of the aftermath of Desert Storm, recounting Saddam’s refusal to comply with the “core element” of the 1991 cease fire agreement resolution 687: declaring his nuclear, biological, and chemical materials so inspectors could destroy them. Instead Hussein kicked inspectors out, and thus sanctions weren’t lifted. As a Middle East advisor to Bill Clinton’s campaign in 92 and a critic of his handling of terrorism once in office, Mylroie explained that the prevailing wisdom at that time was that lifting sanctions against Iraq would put Saddam “in the weapons business.” Therefore the foreign policy intelligencia believed sanctions would effectively contain the danger that Iraq posed to the U.S. In August 1995 Khamil Hussein, Saddam’s stepson, defected and informed on the regime to U.S. authorities. Khamil claimed he supervised Iraq’s unconventional weapons program. He maintained that Iraq had “huge amounts” of unconventional weapons banned by U.N., including chemical agents like VX gas. This came a year after Iraq admitted to having anthrax, synthesized from a biological program intended for “peaceful purposes.” Other “stunning revelations” that were revealed from Khamils’ defection included that Iraq had 25 scud missiles with biological warheads strategically pointed to be fired at Israel and Saudi Arabia if the regime fell. She spends less time on the weapons, possibly because before the Iraq war the belief that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction was widely held as a “given.” Her most compelling argument for deposing Saddam is that Iraq has attacked the United States several times, “hiding behind” the veil of Islamic militancy. She contends these attacks have resulted in the death of thousands of Americans, but have been wrongly attributed to terrorist networks operating independently of state sponsorship.
“But The Gulf War never really ended. The two phenomena the ongoing war with Iraq and the spread of Islamic militancy existed at the same time, the 1990s, and in the same space, the Sunni Muslim Middle East. Did they merge?” Mylroie asks. This question frames her thesis that Iraq has been behind both world trade center attacks. In fact the Middle East expert said “Iraq was almost certainly directly involved in those attacks. After 1996, when Osama bin Laden moved from Sudan to Afghanistan, Iraqi intelligence became an integral part of Al Qaeda, or so it would seem.” Mylroie, who holds a doctorate in political science from Harvard, lays out the evidence of the Iraq-Al Qaeda link like a professor “Since September 11, 2001, American authorities have learned a great deal more about Al Qaeda. As they now understand, a clan lies at the heart of the major acts of Islamic terrorism directed against America from the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center though the September 11 strikes. That family consists of the person known as Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and a number of his "nephews." So far, five such individuals have been publicly named, and there are probably more. Mohammed is the recognized mastermind of the September 11 attacks…The most well-known of Mohammed's supposed nephews is Ramzi Yousef, who is the recognized mastermind of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.” She insists this connection isn’t meaningless; it reveals the extent of Iraqi involvement in terrorism. “The individuals in this "family" are all Baluch, a Sunni Muslim people who live in Eastern Iran and Western Pakistan…Saddam Hussein's intelligence apparatus had deep and well-established ties with the Baluch on both sides of the Iranian-Pakistani border…This whole "family" of terrorist masterminds is, quite arguably, a construction of Iraqi intelligence: While Iraq occupied Kuwait, Iraqi intelligence tampered with Kuwait's files to create legends for elements of its Baluch network. That is why these people appear to be a family,” explained Mylroie with the degree of absolute certainty that had been a theme of her lecture.
Mylroie insists that the Washington bureaucracy has been blind to any connection between Iraq and Al Qaeda. She pontificates that a resistance to acknowledge mistakes, inarguably leaving Saddam in power after the Gulf war, has been partially to blame. Also she believes the Clinton administration “spun America’s terrorist problem” while ignoring Iraqi ties to militant Islam and believing that terrorist networks like Al Qaeda which are headed by fundamentalists like Osama wouldn’t be linked with Saddam Hussein because he is a secularist. She notes that differences can always be worked out in the interest of a common enemy. She concludes the secular vs. religious argument isn’t definitive reason to dismiss a possible connection. Mylroie offers searing indictments of those in the political community who believe that terrorists could be capable of such devastating attacks without some form of state backing. That notion, she says, is “wishful thinking.” She concluded confidently by stating “If the administration were to lay out all the evidence it has linking Iraq to al Qaeda, including the 9/11 attacks, it could also explain that the U.S. has no choice but to finish off Saddam — he is already at war with us.” Mylroie has been steadfast in sticking by her assessment, even after the 9/11 comissions’ report that Iraq and Al Qaeda didn’t collaborate in 9/11. In an article in the New York Sun she wrote “The claim of the 9/11 commission that "no credible" evidence exists linking Iraq to Al Qaeda's assaults on America, including the attack of September 11, 2001, is itself not credible.” She is resolute in her analysis and never in doubt and her presentation is provoking because it deals with an issue that has been largely dismissed by the press. Laurie Mylroie certainly isn’t letting this story go.

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