You know, if people aren't convinced by now that Al Qaeda isn't bloodthirsty and will do anything, no matter how depraved, will never be convinced.
docjim505
· 1 year ago
Well, judging by some of the comments, you're quite right: some people will never be convinced. Or, if they do manage to form the idea that AQ is just not nice, it will immediately be crowded out by the CERTAINTY that George Bush is far, far worse.
Del_Dolemonte
· 1 year ago
The reason for such madness is simple-Bush stole the 2000 election.
These people would rather have panties put on their heads, then be waterboarded and finally be fed into one of Saddam's people shredders, than admit that Bush could possibly be right about anything.
essucht
· 1 year ago
These people would rather have panties put on their heads, then be waterboarded and finally be fed into one of Saddam's people shredders
Now, now, as Michael Moore told us, Saddam's Iraq was a happy peaceful place, like Stalin's Russia, and Castro's Cuba. I'm sure your so-called "people shredders" were just a part of the vibrant tapistry of Iraqi culture that we should celebrate. And the Saddam boys' interests in sex education and athletic motivation were positively progressive, no?
Bogey
· 1 year ago
had we done what we were supposed to do in Gulf War in 1990 and wiped out the Republican Guard, Saddam and his sons would have been overthrown.
Internally.
no invasion. no mess.
and allowed the Iraqis to clean their own house and engage is what remains is the inevitable struggle for power.
Without us getting killed and losing billions in the middle of it.
Del_Dolemonte
· 1 year ago
We DID do what we supposed to do in Gulf War 1. We evicted Iraq from Kuwait. That's all the UN mandate called for, and many of the Gulf nations that sent troops to Pappy Bush's coalition only did so when they were assured that we wouldn't continue to Baghdad.
Bogey
· 1 year ago
there was no need to continue to Baghdad.
the war plan called for trapping all of his Republican Guard divisions south of the Euphrates and basically eliminating them.
And they indeed were all trapped but the ceasefire was agreed upon about 2 days too early, so entire divisions were later allowed to escape back into iraq untouched.
Saddam barely hung on to power in the post war rebellion which we ourselves incited and called for. Had his Repub guard been degraded or destroyed to the degree we had planned for, he would have been overthrown INTERNALLY
Bogey
· 1 year ago
well. I dunno.
after all.. it's a fact that 3000 grandmas in Palm Beach voted for Buchanan and anyone with a single brain cell would realize that had to be a mistake.
but you can't prove it. (though you know it to be true)
so you shrug your shoulders, say it's one of those "shit happens" things and move onward.
Del_Dolemonte
· 1 year ago
1. Fact: the Palm Beach county ballot was designed by a Democrat. It was fully vetted to the public before the election for public comment and review. The fact that it was allowed to remain as originally designed is your problem, not mine.
2. Florida is irrelevant to the 2000 election anyway, since Gore would never have needed to win that state to win the Presidency if he's been able to win his own home state of Tennessee. He couldn't do so.
Bogey
· 1 year ago
1) maybe but the fact remains that an amoeba could tell that 3000 grandmas didn't vote for Buchanan. He got more votes in Palm Beach than anywhere else by several thousand.
2) non sequitour.
W did lose the popular vote and handily. (why does a Electoral College exist, btw?)
but you're basically agreeing with me, that W really lost, but "shit happened" ergo he "won".
like I said - shit happens. and every day too.
Life goes on.
Del_Dolemonte
· 1 year ago
"W did lose the popular vote and handily."
False. Gore won the popular vote by 500,000 +/- votes nationally. That's one half of one percent of all votes cast in said election.
A one half of one percent margin in Florida is what triggered that state's automatic recount law.
"(why does a Electoral College exist, btw?)"
LOL. Brilliant satire!
essucht
· 1 year ago
Your boy lost fair and square.
Maybe Gore should have spent the time he did on improving America's airline security (great job Al), on fighting against the electoral college.
Bogey
· 1 year ago
nah it was more like Kennedy winning Chicago and IL in 1960 with all those dead people voting.
but like I said - shit happens.
I didn't lose any sleep over it. In fact I didn't care how it turned out. I voted for W that year (much to my everlasting regret)
but I do find it amusing how people you and dolemonte get all riled up and INSIST that W won in 2000.
nonsense. We know he lost.
(just like Dems get riled up and insist Kerry really won in 2004, which is more nonsense, W clearly won that one)
I remember having to DEFEND the Electoral College in my highschool debate class. One of the harder things I've ever had to do.
essucht
· 1 year ago
nah it was more like Kennedy winning Chicago and IL in 1960 with all those dead people voting.
That is true actually, we know for a fact that Gore got thousands of votes from illegals and the dead.
I still remember Bush was up big with 1% of precincts remaining, suddenly he was down to a bout a thousand votes and the Democrats launched plan B (recount till we win)
Good news for us, their plan A (produce votes) failed since they weren't very good at math.
Bogey
· 1 year ago
this "denial" over W and what really happened in 2000.. is almost... almost like the denial and the conspiracy theorists over how it wasn't "real Republicans" that voted in Florida.
This is funnier (and maybe more scary) than anything I read on liberal blogs.
Bogey
· 1 year ago
by Florida, I mean the McCain victory which many think was some kind of a "scam"
too funny
brightwinger
· 1 year ago
The thread here is that Al Qaeda used two girls with Down's syndrome and blew them to bits with remote control bombs.
Do you have anything to say about that?
Bogey
· 1 year ago
yeah.
why did we waste our time with iraq and not go after Al Qaeda?
I completely agree we should be eradicating these people with extreme prejudice.
wiping Saudi Arabia off the face of the map would be a good start.
red
· 1 year ago
Ha... moonbattery....heard it all before. Gore came very close to stealing that election.
Just can't hold the vision of downs syndrome women being blown up by Al Queda in your head can you? "There must be more evil in the world...Its George Bush"..
112266
· 1 year ago
bogey, yes and I can overwhelm this thread with quotes from Pelosi,Reid,Gore,Kerry,CIA,Richard Clarke,Tenet ,British,German and other agencies that say Saddam was linked with Al-qaeda and many other terrorist groups.I can quote from these same sources the "slam dunk" about Weapons of Mass destruction.Whether you want to believe the massive amount of evidence that was presented to our President and congress is up to you,but it does not give you grounds to say that Bush "sold" this war and have some massive case of amnesia when it comes to the Democrats and intelligence agencies that presented this evidence.The fact that some of the intelligence was found to be faulty AFTER the invasion(130,000 sets of boots on the ground is the only way we truly found out what Saddam had and didn't have) is not grounds to say "Bush lied" or "Sold "this war.
Bipartisan Senate Select committee report 2003:
Conclusion83: The committee did not find any evidence that Administration officials attempted to coerce,influence or pressure analysts to change their judgments related to Iraq's weapons of mass destruction capabilities.
conclusion84:The committee found no evidence that the Vice President visits to the CIA were attempts to pressure analysts,were perceived as intended to pressure analysts by those who participated in the briefings on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction programs,or did pressure analysts to change their assessments.
The 9/11 commission also found that the Bush administration neither lied nor manipulated pre-war intelligence.
The British Butler Report also found that the Bush/Blair did not lie or manipulate evidence.
The Washington post reported that all intelligence that was used to make the case for war(besides a small amount that our intelligence agencies will not declassify) was made available to all parties in congress. The case for WMD's,Saddam/Al-qaeda links,firing on our planes,Assassination attempt on elder Bush,failure to fulfill the ceasefire agreement of the first gulf war,and over 16 resolutions passed by the UN to force Saddam to comply including the use of force.
Al Gore,Sept.23,2002
"We know that he has stored secret supplies of biological and chemical weapons throughout his country."
"Nevertheless,Iraq does pose a serious threat to the stability of the Persian Gulf and we should organize an international coalition to eliminate his access to weapons of mass destruction.Iraq's search for weapons of mass destruction has proven impossible to completely deter and we should assume that it will continue for as long as Saddam is in power.Moreover, NO INTERNATIONAL LAW CAN PREVENT THE UNITED STATES FORM TAKING ACTIONS TO PROTECT IT'S VITAL INTERESTS,WHEN IT IS MANIFESTLY CLEAR THAT THERE IS NO CHOICE TO BE MADE BETWEEN LAW AND SURVIVAL.I believe, however, that such a choice is not presented in the case of Iraq. Indeed,should we decide to proceed, that action can be justified within the framework of international law rather than outside it. in fact,though a new UN resolution may be helpful in building international consensus, THE EXISTING RESOLUTIONS FROM 1991 ARE SUFFICIENT FROM A LEGAL STANDPOINT.
Gore believed Saddam was a threat,had WMD's, and though he wanted to go back for resolution #18(10 years was more than enough) clearly stated that the US had a legal right to go to war.
John Kerry,speech in 2003:
When I vote to give the President of the United States the Authority to use force,If necessary,to disarm Saddam Hussein, it is because I believe that a deadly arsenal of weapons of mass destruction in his hands is a threat,and a grave threat, to our securtiy and that of our allies in the Persian gulf region.
No doubt in this Presidential candidates mind.
Hillary Clinton addressing US Senate Oct. 10, 2002
In the four years since the inspectors left,Intelligence reports show that Saddam Hussein has worked to rebuild his chemical and biological weapons stock,his missile delivery capability,and his nuclear program.He has also given aid,comfort, and sancturay to terrorists, including Al-Qaeda members,though there is apparently no evidence of his involvement in the terrible events of Sept.11,2001." "Any vote that might lead to war should be hard,but I cast it with conviction!!"
"Every nation has to either be with us, or against us." "Those who harbor terrorists,or sho finance them, are going to pay a price."
Hillary Clinton,interview with Dan Rather September 13,2001
Another Presidential candidate who states that she saw the intelligence and came to the same conclusions as President Bush.
Nancy Pelosi,Meet the Press Nov. 17,2002
"Saddam Hussein certainly has chemical and biological weapons. There's no question about that."
You go girl!! Tell them all about it.
Joint Resolution to Authorize the use of United States Armed Forces Against Iraq:
Whereas the efforts of international weapons inspectors,United States intelligence agencies,and Iraq defectors led to the discovery that Iraq had large stockpiles of chemical Weapons and a large scale biological weapons program,and that Iraq had an advanced nuclear weapons development program that was much closer to producing a nuclear weapon than intelligence reporting had previously indicated.
Whereas Iraq, in direct and flagrant violation of the cease-fire,attempted to thwart the efforts of weapons inspectors to identify and destroy Iraq's weapons of mass destruction stockpiles and development capabilities,which finally resulted in the withdrawal of inspectors from Iraq on Oct.31,1998.
Whereas Iraq both poses a continuing threat to the national security of the United States and international peace and security in the Persian Gulf region and remains in material and unacceptable breach of its international obligations by,among other things,continuing to possess and develop a significant chemical and biological weapons capability,actively seeking a nuclear weapons capability,and supporting and harboring terrorist organizations.
Whereas members of Al-qaeda, an organization bearing responsibility for attacks on the United States,its citizens,and interests,including the attacks that occurred on September 11,2001,are known to be in Iraq.
Whereas Iraq continues to aid and harbor other international terrorist organizations,including organizations that threaten the lives and safety of American citizens.
The threat that Saddam posed was laid out in plain black and white to congress in this resolution to go to war.Republicans and Democrats,our intelligence agencies and others from around the world came to the conclusions that were stated in this resolution. To say Bush had to "sell it" or "tricked" anybody is just a bunch of cut and paste propaganda brought up by the left to run from their responsibility of their vote to send our men and women to war, to appease their liberal base,and to bash President Bush in a time of war.
The FBI guy is George Piro,
The fact that Saddam revealed in 2008 that he did not want anything to do with al-qaeda has nothing to do with the fact he harbored and assisted Al-qaeda and many other terrorist and this is the intelligence that was put forth to the President and Congress through the 90's and up until the war. Here is something else Saddam said to Piro:
"He told me he initially miscalculated ... President Bush's intentions.He thought the United States would retaliate with the same type of attack as we did in 1998...a four-day aerial attack,"says Piro. "He survived that one and he was willing to accept that type of attack." "He didn't believe the US would invade?" asks Pelley."no,not intially," answers PIro.
Once the invasion was certain, say Piro,Saddam asked his generals if they could hold the invaders for two weeks.:And at that point,it would go into what he called the secret war,"Piro tells Pelley.But Piro isn't convinced that the insurgency was Saddam's plan."Well,he would like to take credit for the insurgency,"says Piro.
Saddam still wouldn't admit he had no weapons of mass destruction, even when it was obvious there would be military action against him because of the perception he did.Because, says Piro, "for him, it was critical that he was seen as still strong, defiant Saddam. He thought that(faking having the weapons) would prevent the Iranians from re-invading Iraq." he tells Pelley.
HE ALSO INTENDED AND HAD THE WHEREWITHAL TO RESTART THE WEAPONS PROGRAM."Saddam still had the engineers.the folks that he needed to reconstitute his program are still there." says Piro. "He wanted to pursue all of WMD... to reconstitute his entire WMD program." this included chemical,biological and nuclear weapons, Piro says.
The real liar about WMD's is 6 foot under, and the world is safer and 25 million people are now free.
keemo
· 1 year ago
Well done 112266..... Even though "facts" seem to bounce right of the Bogey mans brain, you have managed to "contribute" to this thread rather than simply "take"....
Richard Romano
· 1 year ago
Bogey said,
'all true'
Then there's nothing else to say -- but this is a reflexive ploy to disavow the truth and bring in fanciful ideas and perspectives. The left is morally sick -- period, end of issue.
Dale in Atlanta
· 1 year ago
C'mon Capt'n; you KNOW Better!
Is is US!, the U.S., America, George Bushitlerchenyhaliburton, the Repthuglikkkanazis who are EVIL!
NOT "Al Qaeda", NOT "terrorists", not Radical Islamists!
IT IS US!
Just ask "Norm", and "Monkei", and all your other Anti-American/Pro-Jihadi Leftist Nutbag readers!
They'll tell you!
Strapping bombs to Downs-syndrome girls, and sending them into a Pet Mart to Murder 70+ people is BUSH'S FAULT, and AMERICAN'S fault!
Everybody else, including Al Qaeda, are just poor, innocent "victims" of some complex American-Zionist plot!
Shame Capt'n, get it right next time!
KW64
· 1 year ago
I am sure that the left would tell us that beheadings and indiscriminate bombings that kill and maim innocents are "NOT TORTURE" whereas waterboarding and barking dogs ARE TORTURE and this explains why they feel that it is the US military that is the greatest danger to the world rather than radical jihadists; because our Military tortures people and it can be seen on U-Tube.
(The Jihadis actually torture people as well as behead them and blow them up but for some reason it does this does not make it onto U-Tube)
galynn
· 1 year ago
I am waiting for leaders in the Muslim communities throughout the world to condemn these evil acts. Afterall, theirs is such a peaceloving religion. Surely they don't want the actions of Al Qaeda to reflect upon their religion!!
brightwinger
· 1 year ago
That would be a nice first step. But it requires a second step, which is that they must start killing Alqaeda members wherever they see them.
Anthony Ragan
· 1 year ago
This isn't the first time these brave, brave jihadis have done this. I recall during the 2005 elections that they used the mentally handicapped as "suicide" bombers. Same thing has happened in Gaza, where the Palestinians have played on the emotional illness of women who think they have shamed their families to convince them they can "redeem" themselves by becoming a suicide bomber.
This is what drives me nuts about the war's opponents: they refuse to acknowledge the real evil staring them in the face, instead building fantasy villains out of mere political opponents. I can't decide if they're ignorant, stupid, or morally bankrupt.
--Anthony (Los Angeles)
galynn
· 1 year ago
How about "all of the above!"
essucht
· 1 year ago
I recall that in the past AQ has put children into car bombs to fool checkpoint guards, and one attempt to murder Bhutto had involved attaching a bomb to a baby and trying to hand it to her.
As such there is pretty obviously nothing below these Islamists.
112266
· 1 year ago
Bogey, First of all,the 9/11 commission never stated that no relationship existed,just that they could not find operational ties.Your statements that Bush "sold" this war is ignorant at best .Bush did not have to "sell" the fact that Iraq had WMD's and ties to Al-Qaeda,it was a widely held belief before he became President and right on up to the vote for war that Democrats and Republicans made.
lets look at the facts on Pre-war intel instead of cut and paste propaganda from Bogey and the useful idiot parade.
"close Al-qaeda associate al Zarqawi has had an operational alliance with Iraq officials.As of Oct. 2002,Al-Zarqawi maintained contacts with the IIS to procure weapons and explosives,including surface-to-air missiles from an IIS officer in Baghad." "Zarqawi was setting up sleeper cells in Baghdad to be activated in case of a US occupation of the city,suggesting his operational cooperation with the Iraqis may have deepened in recent months.Such cooperation could include IIS provision of secure operating bases and steady access to arms and explosives in preparation for a possible US invasion". Feith memo,Feb,21,2003
"He(Zarqawi) is a senior Al-qaeda associate who has met with Bin Laden,who has received money from Al-qaeda leadership,and on my list of top 30 individuals that are required to decapitate and denigrate this organization,Mr.Zarqawi's on that list. The fact is that he is a contract terrorist where he does things on his own-but he has an intimate relationship with him and we classify him as a senior Al-qaeda associate well known to all of them."
George Tenet,testimony to Senate
"At the time,the intelligence community at the highest level repeatedly assurd us that "it never gets better than this" in terms of confidence in an intelligence conclusion regarding a hard target.There was good reason for this confidence,including multiple,reinforcing elements of information ranging from links that the organization that built the facility had BOTH WITH BIN LADEN AND WITH THE LEADERSHIP OF THE IRAQI CHEMICAL WEAPONS PROGRAM; extraordainary security when the facility was constructed:physical evidence from the site:and other information from HUMINT and technical sources.Given what we knew regarding terrorists interest in acquiring and using chemical weapons against Americans,and given the intelligence assessment provided us regarding the Al-Shifa facility,I continue to believe that destroying it was the right decision."
Secretary of Defense Cohen testimony to the 9/11 commission.
bogey,this is testimony from top CIA and Clinton administration officials that mirror what the President said and Democrats and Republicans.
According to 9/11 commission co-chairman Thomas Kean,Clinton believed with"absolute certainty" that Iraq provided Al-qaeda with weapons of mass destruction expertise and technology in the 1990's.He believed it as President when he ordered the destruction of the Al-Shifa pharmaceutical factory in Sudan,and HE BELIEVES IT NOW.And it's not just Mr. Clinton.According to Mr. Kean,"top officials-Bill Clinton,Sandy Berger and others-told us with absolute certainty that there were chemical weapons of mass destruction at that factory and that's why we sent missiles." "Iraq continues to be a safehaven,transit point,or operational node for groups and individuals who direct violence against the US,Israel, and other allies.Iraq has a long history of supporting terrorism.During the last four decades,it has altered its targets to reflect changing priorities and goals.It continues to harbor and sustain a number of smaller anti-Israel terrorist groups and to actively encourage violence against Israel.Regarding the Iraq-Al-qaeda relationship,reporting from sources of varying credibility points to a number of contacts,incidents of training,and discussions of Iraqi safehaven for Osama bin Laden and his organization dating from the early 1990's. Senate report,2003 Iraqi support for terrorism
Bush was given more than enough reasons from Democrats,Republicans,former Presidents and the CIA, to believe that Iraq had ties to Al-qaeda
Bogey
· 1 year ago
some of this is interesting.
but I believe NOTHING that Feith says about anything. In fact he was massively involved in perpetrating the Iraq/al Qeada link that no one else believed.
Tommy Franks (no genius himself) called him the dumbest "effing" guy on Earth.
re the Sudanese factory, didn' that turn out to be a milk factory? not that I don't believe al Qaeda wasn't trying to produce some kind of WMD, they surely were/are but once again, the "Iraqi" link is non believable.
I can overwhelm you with statements from other govt sources that definitely state that absolutely no operational link to al Qaeda has ever been found.
and best of all - the FBI guy who interrogated Saddam before he was hanged .. recently gave some interviews... where he said Saddam wanted nothing to do with Al Qaeda.
said they were "fanatics" and one cannot trust "fanatics".
Saddam may have been a brutal dictator but he was also brutally practical and not driven by any ideologies outside of his own power.
Del_Dolemonte
· 1 year ago
" I believe NOTHING that Feith says about anything. In fact he was massively involved in perpetrating the Iraq/al Qeada link that no one else believed."
Ah, Feith. The Looney Left's favorite punching bag. Haven't you got any better material?
You must have been on school vacation when Feith was cleared last April by the Pentagon Inspector General, who had investigated him at the request of the Democrats.
The Department of Defense had been asked by Democrats in Congress to see if Feith and/or his office had done anything illegal in their investigation and reports regarding the depth of ties between Al Queda and Saddam Hussein’s regime. The Department of Defense’s interim Inspector General said essentially that Feith and his office had acted inappropriately by giving the impression that they were an intelligence agency, but that they had not acted illegally. He was innocent of the charges made by Congressional Democrats and opponents of the war in Iraq.
Feith has been completely and utterly discredited.
he's not just the left's punching bag.. he's everyone.s
Rumsfeld's right hand man who went around check up on things for Donald told him Feith was incompetent.
I can find the guys name if you like.
Bogey
· 1 year ago
btw.. I am fairly sure that Al Qaeda sympathizing or actual AQ cells exist in many large cities in Europe..
London(istan) Hamburg Amsterdam, Rotterdam.
etc
why didn't we invade them?
Del_Dolemonte
· 1 year ago
So on your planet, al Qaeda can have cells and/or sympathizers everywhere in the world...except for ONE country?
I must come visit your world some time. Sounds like an interesting place. Do you have AQ cells there, too?
Bogey
· 1 year ago
there were AQ cells in Florida before they hijacked the jets on 9/11 Florida I assume is under our control, unlike Al Ansar's mountains in iraq (is not under Saddam's)
why didn't we invade Florida?
just in case?
Scrapiron
· 1 year ago
More proof the Islam is less of a religion than Nazism, Socialism and Communism. The are a cult that must be destroyed.
chaking
· 1 year ago
I suppose then you would be willing to say the same about other religions whenever an extremist from any other religion kills people?
Del_Dolemonte
· 1 year ago
How many other religions turn commercial airliners into guided missiles and then use them against high rise office buildings?
chaking
· 1 year ago
I don't remember any religion doing that actually. How many religions blow up the FBI bldg in Oklahoma city?
njcommuter
· 1 year ago
The Left is quick to say that the Patriot Act and ethnic profiling are such betrayals of our own ideals that our society isn't worth fighting for. But they never seem to ask about whether this judgement should be made on the terrorists: that if they have to resort to strapping bombs on the mentally retarded, what they are fighting for is irremedially tainted.
Of course, if they strapped the bombs onto chickens, PETA might have something to say about it. Or not.
Del_Dolemonte
· 1 year ago
A guy at the Portland Maine Jetport actually started to ethnically profile two guys getting on a commuter flight to Boston one Tuesday morning a few years ago. But then, despite his deep and troubling suspicions, he bowed to political correctness and let them board.
A couple of hours later, they turned the plane they were connecting to into a guided missile in downtown New York.
In response, Mikey Moore stated that if there had been black men on those planes, they never would have been hijacked.
AmendmentX
· 1 year ago
One more thought: As this attack was at a pet market, do you think PETA will finally come on board in the war?
unclesmrgol
· 1 year ago
No. Remember, PETA kills pets "owned" by humans, to prevent their abuse. PETA is cheering this attack even as we speak.
essucht
· 1 year ago
The Iraqis who have risen up against the occupation are not "insurgents" or "terrorists" or "The Enemy." They are the REVOLUTION, the Minutemen --Michael Moore
I am actually shocked at how common this sentiment is on the Left, where I have seen AQ compared to any number of "resistance" movements, from American Rev War to the French resistance during WWII.
hermie
· 1 year ago
I always wondered why in all those depictions of the brave French Resistance groups, they forgot to show the thousands of innocent French civilians that the Resistance deliberately targeted in the streets and marketplaces of Paris.
Wait a second...They Didn't!
unclesmrgol
· 1 year ago
Micheal Moore's version of the Minuteman is apparently a woman with down's syndrome blowing up in a market filled with civilians.
NAFTALI
· 1 year ago
Indeed, these are people with no sense of true honor. I mean, even in John Ford's movies, John Wayne recognized the inherent honor in the leaders of certain tribes. But in Middle East politics over the last 60 years or so, specifically the terrorist politics, there have been NO men of honor among the terrorists.
Del_Dolemonte
· 1 year ago
After flying a kite.
unclesmrgol
· 1 year ago
That would only be the case if the bombers were children. I'm sure the AQ boys are working on it.
PersonFromPorlock
· 1 year ago
Well, you have to make allowances for the artistic, uh, mind.
Bogey
· 1 year ago
I am not a supporter of Michael Moore
but I hate to break the news to you.
Intellectually speaking a very sustainable case can be made for calling the Sunnis, "freedom fighters".
MarkTheGreat
· 1 year ago
And just who's freedom are any of them fighting for? No these people fight because they want to control the lives of everyone. They have no love of, or even desire for freedom.
essucht
· 1 year ago
We have a winner.
Given a choice, the Sunni militias would have returned their sugar daddy Saddam to power and put his boot back in the faces of the Shiites and Kurds, and Al Qaeda would have killed the Shiites and Christians and put one of their own on the throne of a new Caliphate based in Baghdad.
Bogey
· 1 year ago
LET ahemmm... "FREEDOM" reign!!!!
A sobering first-hand report from Basra as the British leave:
One graffito on a wall bordering the main Al-Dijari road reads: “We warn all women of Basra, especially those who are not wearing abbaya [a long, loose black cloak worn over everyday clothes], that we will kill you.” It is signed in the name of an offshoot of the Mahdi Army, the strongest militia in Basra.
It is not just women who live in fear. Professionals such as engineers, doctors and scientists have been dragged from their homes and murdered.
Bogey
· 1 year ago
right...
and the Shiite militas have a desire for freedom?
the only ones that desire freedom over there is us.
that's why it won't happen. Not anytime soon anyways..
and not without blood being spilt.
NAFTALI
· 1 year ago
Well thank you for showing us the folly of being too intellectual. Not enough is being done to stop this rampant intellectualism and ability to rationalize just about anything through the intellect. This heinous crime should not strike at one's intellect, but one's heart. It should disgust anyone who hears about it. You are disgusted by it, right?
Bogey
· 1 year ago
of course I am disgusted by the crime.
and of course this crime was committed by al qaeda, not by Iraqis.
ya know... there were no al qaeda in Iraq before we invaded.
On the other hand, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, part of Pakistan and Yemen are absolutely CRAWLING with Al Qeada.
I wonder they we didn't go invade THEM.
btw.. you're not going to be a typical "thoughful" conservative and equate ANYTHING that the US does with "freedom" are you?
because that would be very dumb, Game set and match.
NAFTALI
· 1 year ago
Okay, I agree with your decision to invade Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, part of Pakistan and Yemen, before Iraq. Although this strategy is debatable--but if that's how you would have played it, why not? It's a war right?
Are you also disgusted with the way the Iraqi secret police would use power tools to torture their people? How about the attempted genocide of the Kurds, cool with that? Or the destruction of the marshes? Because I find those things to be reprehensible.
And why did you put words in my mouth--I never said a word about freedoms. That's like cheating when you argue. That is not very honest. Game, set, match.
Bogey
· 1 year ago
ok you didn't say anything about equating America with "freedom"
but I sensed it sitting there on top of your tongue.. it was a natural logical extension of the argument you seemed to be making.
but I'll apologize if I was wrong.
strategy in invasions/wars wouldn't have been debateable.
in fact, just by wiping out Saudi Arabia and parts of Pakistan you've have eliminated about 90% of Al Qaeda period.
since there were no Al Qaeda in iraq before the war, there would have never been any need to to "go to war" with it later. (if we define "the war" as being against Al Qaeda)
txslr
· 1 year ago
Even if I stipulate that your position regarding AQ in Iraq is correct, so what? They are there now, and they were somewhere else before that. Does this somehow logically lead to the conclusion that we shouldn't fight them in Iraq? Or that we are, through some sort of philosophical gymnastics, morally responsible for their having infiltrated Iraq and started killing people?
Oh, and while we're at it, we DID invade Afghanistan. Funny you didn't notice. It was in the papers.
Bogey
· 1 year ago
I agree. they are there now and we have to deal with them.
But I get very very angry... ENORMOUSLY angry that the people who are culpable and responsible for creating that FUBAR situation cannot be held accountable.
re Afghanistan - I was all for it. In fact you could have nuked it into oblivion for all I cared. Would've probably saved us a lot of problems.
btw. have you noticed we're "losing" in Afghanistan? latest NATO report says "we're not winning" ergo the corrolary is?
essucht
· 1 year ago
re Afghanistan - I was all for it. In fact you could have nuked it into oblivion for all I cared. Would've probably saved us a lot of problems.
How on earth would attempting to nuke Afghanistan flat have helped the American war effort?
You really don't think before you write, do you?
Bogey
· 1 year ago
well I was somewhat joking.
We're at a time and place where nuking anyone is simply not acceptable, unless they nuke you first.
but how it would have HELPED the American war effort?
are you daft?
would have wiped out the AQ there along with Bin Laden.
I thought the "war effort" was against al Qaida and Bin Laden.
not secular states in the Middle East.
btw, how are we doing in Afghanistan NOW? (5 years later?)
NATO says we're "not winning".
hmm..
essucht
· 1 year ago
Ah yes, you were...joking...but not really apparently. You certainly are amusing.
So General Strangelove, how many ICBMs are you firing? Are you getting Russian approval?
How about the other surrounding states?
And when they say, no, are you going to nuke them also?
Do you follow the Al Qaeda members that escape by nuking Pakistan also?
How about Europe to get the cells there?
Or the Iraqi cell we talked about before?
And we had cells in Florida, Buffalo, and a few other American cities, so I guess they have to go too.
And do we really let Al Qaeda affiliates like Ansar al-Islam and Abu-Sayyaf escape?
Ah, leftists, showing their superior foreign policy skills by suggesting a nuclear holocaust.
Bogey
· 1 year ago
btw.. I am not a leftist.. but what if I were?
is that supposed to be a "rebuttal"?
ah yes.. cells here?
you mean the loser gangbangers they arrested in Miami or Padilla?
too funny.
it just seems to me it's logical to attack al Qaeda by where they are instead of where they aren't.
maybe that concept is too difficult for you to understand.
Bogey
· 1 year ago
I really thought there was no one left in America claiming an Al Qaeda./Iraqi link after Dick Cheney had to shut up because it was sounding so preposterous.
I guess I was wrong. essucht, I am sure you will be the next winner of the Presidential Medal of Honor.
along with Tommy Franks and Bremer.
txslr
· 1 year ago
Good news! We are holding the guilty responsible. We are hunting them down and killing them.
As for Afghanistan, get a clue. We're not losing. We are leaning that NATO isn't worth the powder to blow it to hell, but to conclude that we are "losing" requires one hell of an imagination.
Bogey
· 1 year ago
these aren't errors in JUDGMENT.
they are errors of ENORMOUS effing stupidity!!!!!!
how can you invade a country you fervently believe to have WMD, yet you do not invade with ENOUGH troops to "seal the borders" (particularly the Syrian one) so that no WMD can be potentially be "smuggled out of the country" (as some lunatics later and still claim?)
if the fear of WMD falling into the 'wrong hands" is your first, foremost and most important concern, why would you create a situation by invading without sealing the borders that would allow precisely such a feared horror to take place?
(also - seal borders - No Al Qaeda)
txslr
· 1 year ago
Try to slow down and think a little. First, I believe it was the 4th ID that was supposed to come in through Turkey and secure the west, including the border. Remember? Turkey wouldn't let them in. Turkey's last minute change of heart left the military with a tough situation to deal with. They felt that, on balance, it would be better to proceed with what they had rather than to delay.
And also remember that the claim - a reasonalbe one, by the way - is that Saddam removed his WMD's to Syria BEFORE we invaded. How could we have sealed the Syrian border BEFORE we invaded? Or are you saying we should have invaded Syria?!
Bogey
· 1 year ago
btw.. it's only because AQ in Iraq has committed such atrocities that has turned the tide in Iraq, and we may be able to at least withdraw with honor (spare me the crap about "winning". When every single strategic assumption you made before going in was proven wrong, you cannot "win")
so in a strategic sense, such atrocities are serving our purposes by turning the Sunnis against AE (that we allowed to flood into Iraq)
keemo
· 1 year ago
Hate to break it to you Bogey; you haven't shown us (1) example of intellectual honesty since you decided to infest this nest with your highly intellectual self. You seem to be in the same category with Al "damn I'm bitchin" Gore; pretty damn sure what you have to say should be taken in as lore.
Get over your big self.....
Bogey
· 1 year ago
I respect Gore.
He was always a Dem I liked and envisioned myself voting for.
(and almost did in 2000 until he tacked hard left and then tried pandering to Cubans in Florida over Elian)
Gore is in the fine tradition of Scoop Jackson Democrat.
and he was one of the very few to get it right on Gulf War One and get it right on Iraq2003.
txslr
· 1 year ago
Allow me to interject a little bit of rationality. Al Qaeda committed atrocities in Iraq because that is what they do - it is what they are and what they stand for. It was no more a tactical or strategic decision than it is for a skunk to smell. It is in their nature. So your first sentence is equivalent to saying that it is only because AQ in Iraq is AQ in Iraq that the tide has turned. They are nasty. That's what makes us the good guys.
Secondly, even if it were remotely true that "every strategic assumption" made was wrong, where is it written that you can't adapt and win? Or is this just your effort to rationalize the bad news that victory now seems possible - an attempt to paint success as failure to make you feel better?
Bogey
· 1 year ago
I thank you for your intelligent points and though provoking questions.
I think you are correct re Al Qaeda and its nature - though it's kind of like the chicken and the egg question. I'll grant the point and most certainly vis a vis al Qaeda we are the "good guys" and always have been.
as to the 2nd, well it IS true, and not remotely. No WMD, no greeting as liberators, no occupation will pay for itself, no "democracy" (as we know it, not ANYTIME soon) on top of a de facto Iranian strategic victory.
No - sorry.. it'll never be a "victory".
perhaps in purely tactical military terms, but that was never in question.
I most certainly DO agree with you that adaptation is almost a necessary part of ultimate victory.. Wonder why it took 3 years and so many lives for W and Co to "adapt?
ignorance? stupidity? arrogance? all three?
you tell me.
txslr
· 1 year ago
As to the second, it isn't true. First, the Duelfer report concluded that Saddam intended to reconstitute his WMD programs. Now he won't. Secondly, we WERE greeted as liberators. Third, I don't recall anyone from the administration saying that the occupation would pay for itself in any direct way. Fourth, they do have a democracy - that's what all those elections were about. Finally, at this point it doesn't look like the Iranians are going to win anything in Iraq, strategically or otherwise. Their side is losing.
As to the conduct of the war, you've got that wrong too. Of course the initial campaign went better than anyone expected. After that the "insurgents" tried a number of approaches to chasing us out. They targeted our troops, but that didn't work. They targeted the fledgling Iraqi Security Forces (notably by bombing recruiting centers) and that didn't work either. Then they took to mass scale slaughter of civilians. That also didn't get them the result they wanted (i.e. a U.S. withdrawal). Then they tried to spark a civil war by fomenting sectarian killings. Do larely to Shiite forebearance born of their support for democracy, even that failed until the bombing of the Golden Mosque in Samara in 2006. The U.S. military mission in Iraq continued to believe that their approach to to Iraq would succeed, even in the aftermath of the Golden Mosque, but Bush began to disagree and sought another way. This resulted in the so-called "surge", which is working.
See, when you get the facts right it doesn't look like ignorance, stupidity or arrogance. The enemy adapted, we adapted, we're winning.
Bogey
· 1 year ago
um yeah.
the "initial campaign" went "better than expected" because we encoutered NO organized armed resistance from any regular army units.
it was like a race on top of Bradleys and Humvees to Baghdad.
the security situation was massively deteriorating way before the bombing of the mosque.
In fact immediately after liberting Baghad, the place turned into one big looting zone. It was better (or worse) than the 1967 Watts Riots.
Donald Rumsfeld said at the time, that it was just people "celebrating democracy".
umm.. err..
then he said " freedom's messy".
umm.. err.
yeah.
in the meantime some of the most valuable historical artifacts in Baghdad Museums was being pilfered and or destroyed. The country's cultural heritage.
essucht
· 1 year ago
Intellectually speaking a very sustainable case can be made for calling the Sunnis, "freedom fighters".
Wow, I'd like to know what you are smoking...
Bogey
· 1 year ago
please refute my argment.
they were overthrown from power, don't feel represented in the "new" American installed govt and they are under occupation.
what part of "freedom fighter" does that not fit? (at least be consistent, if the Contras were freedom fighters than so were the Sunnis)
txslr
· 1 year ago
Hmmm. So if I don't feel represented by the relatively newly installed Democratic Congress after the Republican leadership was voted out, and so I send a strap a bomb to a Down's Syndrome sufferer and blow up a bunch of people at the mall, I am - intellectually, mind you - a freedom fighter? Interesting!
NAFTALI
· 1 year ago
Actually, I'm not feeling that the NY Giants are the proper representatives of the NFC, does that count? What do I do with these overwhelming feelings of being repressed?
Mwalimu_Daudi
· 1 year ago
I demand a re-count of the score of the Giants-Packers game! I am sure that some touchdowns for the Packers did not get counted.
The New York Giants - Selected, not Electe-, er, Winners.
Bogey
· 1 year ago
nice try.
but you are enfranchised in a stable legally pre-agreed upon political process.
that's not the case with them.
also - their concepts of "democracy" (and this goes for Sunnis AND Shiites) have little to do with ours.
MarkTheGreat
· 1 year ago
So they are fighting for their own freedom to terrorize the rest of the country?
essucht
· 1 year ago
Kick it!
You wake up late for Jihad man you don't wanna go You ask your Imam, "Please?" but he still says, "No!" You missed two jews and no shiites But your emir preaches the Koran like you're some kind of jerk
You've got to fight For your right To terrorize the infidels.
You pops caught you drinking and he said, "No way!" That hypocrite smokes two contractors a day Man, working for Al Qaeda is such a drag Now your Imam threw away your best AK mag Busted!
You've got to fight For your right To terrorize the infidels.
Don't step out of this house if that's the explosive vest you're gonna wear I'll kick you out of my home if you don't cut that throat Your Imam busted in and said, "What's that noise?" Aw, Imam you're just jealous it's the Al Jazeera Boys!
You've got to fight For your right To terrorize the infidels.
Bogey
· 1 year ago
just like the Nicaraguan Contras?
essucht
· 1 year ago
You haven't made an argument to respond to.
So yes, please establish as to how Al Qaeda and its former Sunni militia allies were fighting for freedom.
This should be good
brightwinger
· 1 year ago
Try to focus, Bogey. The news story today is that Alqaeda used and killed two girls who had Down's syndrome by blowing them to bits with remote controlled bombs.
Your comments, please.
Bogey
· 1 year ago
my comment is that it's a tragedy that we didn't go full throttle after Al Qaeda after 9/11 and got diverted into other far less important and otherwise useless places.
and then our intelligence says the ranks of Al Qaeda swelled with new recruits after we got ahemm... "diverted".
are we going to start to go after them soon?
red
· 1 year ago
And that blowing up down syndrome women is an an act of high morality. You can intellectualize anything..that's why you lefties are so dangerous.
AmendmentX
· 1 year ago
And does anyone remember any of the Democlowns in their debate last night even mentioning or obliquely referring to the war on radical Islam? Nope. They were too busy hugging each other and jointly composing a love letter to John McCain.
jsteele98
· 1 year ago
I'm confident that the pure evil and unspeakable brutality of this will, once again, be lost on the fine people driving the left, the "progressive", movement in America and the west.
A pox on them all.
Montedoro
· 1 year ago
The Iraqis may understgand that this particular type of atrocity is evil. But, do they understand that murder of Israelis by suicide/martyr bombers is evil? Do theyunderstgand that Ahmadinejad's call to eradicate Israel is evil? Do they understand that anti-semitism is evil? Do they understand that the requirements of Sharia to wage war on Christians and Jews is evil? Do they understand that killing apostates from Islam is evil?
Montedoro
· 1 year ago
The Iraqis may understgand that this particular type of atrocity is evil. But, do they understand that murder of Israelis by suicide/martyr bombers is evil? Do theyunderstgand that Ahmadinejad's call to eradicate Israel is evil? Do they understand that anti-semitism is evil? Do they understand that the requirements of Sharia to wage war on Christians and Jews is evil? Do they understand that killing apostates from Islam is evil?
Cicero
· 1 year ago
So where are the protests of the "moderate" muslims at such a despicable atrocity committed in the name of their glorious god?
Still waiting...
alan
· 1 year ago
In Israel about 5 years ago some islamofascist arab scumbag blew himself up killing a group of handicapped schoolchildren in Jerusalem
njcommuter
· 1 year ago
I can imagine a reporter who had a grudge against the Coast Guard taking a photo of a small ship loaded and overloaded with survivors rescued from a shipwreck, and running a caption about how the CG left them all freezing on the deck, and shouldn't have gone in without a bigger ship.
The world doesn't become a nice place where the Anglosphere ends. Quite the opposite. And we've usually made things better. (Of course, multiculturalists would damn the British for suppressing suttee and Thugee, but they deserve a chance to be the victims before they make up their minds.)
chaking
· 1 year ago
Well, nobody has confirmed this is from Al-Qaeda in Iraq. The story said it's possible it's Sunni insurgents. Let's get the facts right, and if we don't know them let's not jump to conclusions...
LONDON -- Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi set up "sleeper cells" in Baghdad before the Iraq war to attack American forces occupying the country, according to a British intelligence report.
The report, dated March 2003 and released as part of an overall review of British intelligence, forecast the string of Zarqawi's attacks against American targets during the past year "using car bombs and other weapons." It said he was setting up groups of fighters to be activated at a later time, known in the intelligence field as "sleeper cells."
British Prime Minister Tony Blair claimed vindication Wednesday after a committee led by Lord Butler released its report that concluded British intelligence on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction was flawed, but said the government had not deliberately deceived anyone as it built a case for toppling Saddam Hussein.
While Butler's report faulted British intelligence for having few reliable sources and not properly analyzing information, it did credit the spies with foreseeing the al-Zarqawi strikes on coalition forces.
snip
essucht
· 1 year ago
And to add to your misery
--
11.30am Al-Qaida in Iraq leader believed dead
Mark Tran and agencies Tuesday May 1, 2007 Guardian Unlimited
In February the Iraqi government said al-Masri had been wounded by Iraqi troops but escaped in a clash north of Baghdad after soldiers stormed a base near Balad.
Al-Masri, an Egyptian, assumed the leadership of al-Qaida in Iraq after the Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was killed in a US air strike in June 2006. The US government in 2005 set a $50,000 reward for al-Masri's capture, later raising it to $5m.
Security experts say he became a terrorist in 1982 when he joined Ayman al-Zawahiri's Egyptian Islamic Jihad. He probably entered Iraq in 2002, before al-Zarqawi, and may have helped establish the first al-Qaida cell in the Baghdad area.
He had manufactured explosives in Iraq, particularly car and truck bombs, helped foreign fighters move from Syria to Baghdad, and overseen al-Qaida's activities in southern Iraq.
Shortly following al-Zarqawi's death, militant websites identified Abu Hamza al-Muhajir as his successor in Iraq. US military officials said they believed he and al-Masri were one and the same.
Joe Godfrey
· 1 year ago
This goes to show how important it is that we win in Iraq. It also shows that no matter what the enemy does, the anti-war crowd (democrats) will keep their blinders on and fail to recognize what type of enemy we are dealing with and why it is so important that we win.
curk
· 1 year ago
you people are crazy. this is propaganda.
norm
· 1 year ago
dale in atlanta... nice try. you've never seen me type anything but that al queda needs to be decimated. not once. and no matter how hard you try to conflate the two, attacking and occupying iraq never had anything to do with al queda. in fact last years nie made it clear that this administrations actions has in fact strengthened them. in fact al queda did not have a signifigant presence in iraq before this administration undertook this folly. and in fact the civilian leadership has completely bungled the occupation and have not, in five years, been able to gaurantee even a minimum of security for the populace that they now have responsibility for. is it bushs fault that al queda ruthlessly strapped bombs on disadvantaged people and walked them into a public market? of course not. that's the mindless ranting of partisan buffoons who see a relatively successful tactic as the validation of a failed strategy. but has bush created the opportunity for it to happen? any honest appraisal of the situation in iraq will answer that.
brightwinger
· 1 year ago
Do you mind if we go after, hunt down the alqaeda in Iraq since that is where many of them are, and killing them?
Was Bush in Palestine when this type of thing was done before? Oops the answer is hell no which makes your "has bush created the opportunity for it to happen?" question look mighty dumb.
Get it through your head. The ruthlessness of the fanatic murderers has nothing to do with our policies...it has to do with their fanatic beliefs which started before the US was created.
jharp
· 1 year ago
That is simply sickening and awful. Those poor Iraqis.
And to think al Qaeda didn't have a presence until we invaded.
How much longer can we let this go on. Either send 500,000 troops or whatever it takes, or get the hell out.
MichaelSmith
· 1 year ago
And to think al Qaeda didn't have a presence until we invaded.
Well, yes, prior to the invasion, what the Iraqis "had" --instead of random Al Qaeda suicide attacks -- was the organized, systematic terror campaign of Saddam, his two insane sons Uday and Qusay and their thousands of henchmen, their rape rooms to which kidnapped girls were taken, electric-shock torture rooms, prisons for children, secret police which "disappeared" thousands suspected of not being politically "reliable", industrial shredders into which dissidents were fed alive, mass killings of civilians in nerve gas attacks, blindfolded dissidents pushed from the tops of buildings, mass graves for the thousands of political executions each year, a million-plus Iraqis killed in a war launched against Iran, tens of thousands more forced to their deaths in the first Gulf War -- yes, THAT'S what the Iraqis had before we came in a totally screwed up their lives.
Bogey
· 1 year ago
all true.
but since when are we the policemen of the world.
And why do we tolerate similar (though perhaps not as evil) treatment of their populations from other dictators who are our FRIENDS?
like say... the head honcho of Equitorial New Guinea?
saving the Iraqis from Uday and Qusay wasn't our job.. and certainly not worth 4000 lives, many more thousands maimed for life and how many trillions of dollars down the shithole?
hey.. try walking the streets of Basra today without a burkha.
Under Saddam (as bad as he was) Iraq was one of the most secular countries in the ME.
txslr
· 1 year ago
The classic argument of the moral coward. "Bad things happen everyday. I can't stop all of it, so I think I'll just ignore the crime happening right in front of me and slink on home. I'll make up for it, though, by nagging people who won't hurt me."
rbj
· 1 year ago
Nope, we are not the world's policeman. But if there is a situation where we can do something, should we do nothing because we cannot do everything? If you are walking down the street and see someone in distress do you do nothing because you can't help everyone in distress in the world?
Basically, since the Gulf war, we were keeping Saddam in power (through Oil for Food) and if we had a total boycott of Iraqi oil (impossible since that enlightened nation of France under Jacques Chirac had signed oil development deals with Saddam) then the Iraqi people would have suffered even more.
Taking out the Husseins was the right thing to do. Not providing overwhelming security afterwards was an extremely costly mistake, but things are getting better there now, despite the latest setback by increasingly desperate terrorists.
gregdn
· 1 year ago
By your logic we should be in Darfur too. There's a long list of miseries in this world and we have neither blood nor treasure enough to fight them all. We need to chose our battles wisely.
red
· 1 year ago
We should go into Darfur. However, 10 minutes after we arrived the lefties would start calling us baby killers and find some pictures of prisoners that they don't like. They would make an alliance with the muslims that are suicide bombing the black citizens of Darfur and do evertying to blame the American President for the whole situation.
Bogey
· 1 year ago
you are right about ONE thing.
Taking out Hussein WAS the right thing to do.
but you don't do it by really bad PR of a WMD argument that fell flat on its face.
when they SHOULD have taken out Hussein was after the first Gulf War - he certainly deserved it them and we were in a position to do it.
but no, not by invading.
Had we merely carried out our stated war aim and destroyed the Repub Guard instead of ending the war so early (another 2 days would've done the trick) , instead of allowing it to escape back to Iraq across the Euphrates..
Saddam would have been so weakened m, when George Sr, called for the people to overthrow him, he WOULD have been overthrown (probably by another Sunni and another power struggle would've ensued, but their civil war and eventual accomodation is THEIR problem
Marc
· 1 year ago
"when they SHOULD have taken out Hussein was after the first Gulf War - he certainly deserved it them and we were in a position to do it.
but no, not by invading.
Had we merely carried out our stated war aim and destroyed the Repub Guard instead of ending the war so early (another 2 days would've done the trick) , instead of allowing it to escape back to Iraq across the Euphrates.."
Guess you forget, or conveniently ignore, the reality. As mandated by the U.N. at the time the U.S. and it's coalition had no authority to do what your advocating .
They accomplished what was asked, to drive Saddam out of Kuwait. To go further would have required another resolution.
Bogey
· 1 year ago
not true.
yes we had no mandate or authority to invade at the time (though that didn't stop us in 2003, did it? LOL)
but there was NO need to invade.
Destroying the Republican Guard was a stated war aim (read all the books about Gulf War)
and we did NOT do it.... the war was stopped early for political purposes (they liked 100 hours and Colon Powell was worried about "world opinion" about the "Highway of Death".
Division upon division of cut off Republican Guard divisions escaped back into Iraq (with all their tanks,. etc)across the Euphrates after the cease fire as very frustrated and angry American commanders had no choice but to allow them thru.
the only reason Saddam survived the post Gulf war rebellion was because had these loyal elite troops to put down the uprising (and idiot Schwarzkopf was fooled into allowing him to fly helicopters (Iraqis said they needed them to fly around officials, instead they flew them as helicopter gunships)
so there was no need to invade.
the "Saddam" problem would have solved itself.
and it would have been solved by IRAQIS. and their political future decided by Iraqis,. etc etc
Marc
· 1 year ago
"yes we had no mandate or authority to invade at the time (though that didn't stop us in 2003, did it? LOL)
but there was NO need to invade.
Destroying the Republican Guard was a stated war aim (read all the books about Gulf War)
You can read all the war books 'til your blue in the face, half of them are as full of BS as you are.
Security Council Resolution 660 (condemning the invasion and demanding a withdrawal of Iraqi troops to the positions in which they were located on 1 August 1990) and 661(placed economic sanctions on Iraq) that authorized the '91 invasion did no such thing.
Very typical rewrite of history by yet another misguided leftest who enjoys using his sphincter muscle as a necklace.
Bogey
· 1 year ago
hey NUMBNUTS
once the UN authorized war, other than invading Iraq, there was nothing preventing us from destroying the invading iraqi forces.
we couldn't chase them into Iraq - but we didn't have to.
the entire war plan was designed to cut them off from such an escape
AND to eliminate (or very very seriously degrade the Republican Guard divisions that he threw into the theater (and he threw most of them in)
the post war backslapping, claims were made that we destroyed as much as 75%^ of the Republican Guard.
This pure nonsense was put to rest shortly thereafter when a close analysis put the figure closer to 33%
the scenes of US Army commanders going apeshit as columns and columns of Iraqi tanks were allowed to cross the Euphrates bridges (held by US military) and escape back to Iraq unharmed because the "ceasefire" are not make believe.
it is fact.
what kind of DELUSIONAL world do you live in ?
Del_Dolemonte
· 1 year ago
"(read all the books about Gulf War)"
Which ones? Give us titles and authors, and tyhen we'll talk, jharp.
Bogey
· 1 year ago
err.. not jharp. I'm Bogey.
but you can start with the Generals War.. and the Commanders.
the Iraq2003 books are equally fascinating,.
Fiasco is quite good.
Bogey
· 1 year ago
don't have to read the books.
Ask anyone, or ask Colin Powell or Schwarzkopf if it was indeed one our stated war aims to destroy the Republican Guard to a significant degree?
the answer will be yes and it's irrefutable.
if you ask one of them why it wasn't done - well you'll get a lot of spin and evading the blame.
Marc
· 1 year ago
"the answer will be yes and it's irrefutable."
Oh but it is nitwit. What they write is opinion not fact, they write what they desired to happen not what was allowed.
Bogey
· 1 year ago
yes, moron.
elimination of the Republican Guard was what we DESIRED would happen.
our entire war plan (outflanking them from west with very heavy armor and cutting them off at the Euphrates, effectively trapping them in southern iraq and kuwait - this plan was designed with that very war aim in mind.
the fact it wasn't "allowed" to happen is a fiasco of decision making.
needless to say, everyone tried escaping the blame.
Bogey
· 1 year ago
I do have a personal suspicion that they were worried about completely degrading the Iraqi army to such a degree that they couldn't fight off Iran if needed or prevent at least the Eastern part of the country from falling under Iranian influence.
of course, the Iranians accomplished that objective without firing a shot in 2003 :)
Marc
· 1 year ago
"but since when are we the policemen of the world."
since 9 times out of 10 the world asks us to be.
"saving the Iraqis from Uday and Qusay wasn't our job.. and certainly not worth 4000 lives, many more thousands maimed for life and how many trillions of dollars down the shithole?
Ir was/is when he violated every commitment made when Saddam signed the 1991 "ceasefire agreement. And note that's a ceasefire not a "peace" agreement.
"hey.. try walking the streets of Basra today without a burkha."
Try walking the streets of Jakata, with or without a burka? You know, the capital of the world's largest Muslim nation.
A nation that your type all claim democracy could NEVER take place.
waltj
· 1 year ago
Actually, you won't see burqas in Jakarta. I live there, (Captain Ed, you could probably verify that by my IP address; feel free to do so) and have never seen one on an Indonesian woman. The closest I've seen here is an abayya on the wife of Arab diplomat. Headscarves, "modest" Islamic dresses, yes, and very common, but they are hardly mandatory, and you'll also see a considerable number of women (including Muslim ones, who make up 80%+ of the female population here) wearing short skirts or otherwise fashionable apparel, consistent with what they can afford. (Sometimes, you'll even see a headscarf worn with a miniskirt. Talk about cognitive dissonance). Now, places like Solo in Central Java--the hometown Jemaah Islamiyah founder Abu Bakar Ba'asyir--and some of the remote "kampungs" (vlllages) are more conservative, and head-to-toe Islamic garb more common, but still far from compulsory. Indonesia may have its problems, including Islamist terrorism, but it's not a Salafi hellhole, and most Indonesians I've talked to (and I speak Indonesian) don't want it to become one.
Bogey
· 1 year ago
I really liked Indonesia.
I wish most the world's Muslims were like they are.
Bogey
· 1 year ago
funny you say that.
I was in Jakarta last year, and many women did NOT wear even a headscarf, very few women wear burkhas there (if any)
so maybe you need to know what you are talking about before opening your mouth.
I DO agree with vis a vis Saddam violating agreements and it was better to take him out,.
but we screwed up that chance in 1990.
And you do NOT invade.
Marc
· 1 year ago
"I was in Jakarta last year, and many women did NOT wear even a headscarf, very few women wear burkhas there (if any)
so maybe you need to know what you are talking about before opening your mouth."
And I lived there for three years asshat. Are you trying, incompetently, to imply Indonesia isn't a predominately Muslim nation?
Jakarta, ISN'T the nation. Based on the 2000 census approximately 86.1% were Muslims.
Nitwit.
Maybe it's you who needs to know what you are talking about before opening your pie hole.
Bogey
· 1 year ago
of course it's a predominantly Muslim nation.
What YOU said is that most women in Jakarta wore burkhas despite it being a democracy.
And it certainly IS a democracy (with a form of Islam far less strident than the Saudi/Wahhabi variety or hard core Shiite variety)
but what you said was a complete and blatant LIE.
first of all, MOST Indonesian women wear the "hijab" which is the tradidional Islamic headscarf (but many women do not, particularly the educated and middle/upper classes)
a hijab is NOT a burkha, which is the potato sack with the two eye slits.
now who is the nitwit and who should shut their pie hole?
Another expat who mostly stayed in their expat compounds and knows little about the country/ culture perhaps?
Marc
· 1 year ago
"What YOU said is that most women in Jakarta wore burkhas despite it being a democracy.
And it certainly IS a democracy (with a form of Islam far less strident than the Saudi/Wahhabi variety or hard core Shiite variety)
but what you said was a complete and blatant LIE.
I'm lying?!
No nitwit my quote is as shown below. Where did I say anything close to what your LYING about?
Try walking the streets of Jakata, with or without a burka? You know, the capital of the world's largest Muslim nation.
A nation that your type all claim democracy could NEVER take place.
Del_Dolemonte
· 1 year ago
Hi jharp
You might sound credible if you could refute the argument of someone who actually lived there by telling us how long you actually spent in that country. He lived there for years. Did you?
Bogey
· 1 year ago
hey "genius"
or "real Republican"
or whatever you want to call yourself.
first of all I'm not jharp.
2nd of all, clearly you and your deranged buddy do NOT know the difference between a hijab and a burkha.
Yet he lived in Muslim country for three years, you figure he would have at least learned what a hijab is?
or maybe not. As I said. I've met plenty of expats like him, completely blissfully ignorant all over the world.
Marc
· 1 year ago
"Yet he lived in Muslim country for three years, you figure he would have at least learned what a hijab is?
or maybe not. As I said. I've met plenty of expats like him, completely blissfully ignorant all over the world."
First of all dick with ears, whether its a Burhka or a Hajib isn't germain. Argue semantics all day for all I care.
And BTW, it Hajib not "hijib," nitwit.
Bogey
· 1 year ago
speaking of penises.
look penis for brains.
it makes ALL the difference in the world.
a simple headscarf is standard wear for any religious Muslim woman. It's not considered "oppressive".
wearing a potato sack with two slits for the eyes is an entirely different matter.
Bogey
· 1 year ago
hijab you complete clueless moron
H I J A B
Bogey
· 1 year ago
and lastly, you do NOT make false and unprovable WMD claims and expose yourself as a complete jackass in front of the entire world ( I figured he had to have them, given the case they were making, they could have exposed the UN for the mostly useless institution it is)
but what did they do?
instead of exposing the UN, the exposed themselves.
How flat out STUPID could you be?
had they made the case for taking out Saddam based on his many violations of agreements, shooting at our planes and on the basis of being a general pest, I would have BACKED it. (but no invasion, you go in, with massive force, take him out, GET out let them settle their own matters)
but of course the war could NEVER be "sold politically" that way,. could it?
of course not.
So they essentially lied. (or let's say stretched the truth as far as they could despite the fact that had no "smoking gun" and there were elements within US intelligence apparatus who said could not be sure about his WMD)
Marc
· 1 year ago
"had they made the case for taking out Saddam based on his many violations of agreements, shooting at our planes and on the basis of being a general pest, I would have BACKED it."
But the case WAS made and very plainly outlined in the authorization to go to war passed by Congress. Just because you people decide to hang your hats on WMD's and ignore the other double digit reasons doesn't make t6hem any less valid.
Question: What was Clinton's prime reason for going into Serbia?
Answer: Because of "tens ofthousands" in mass graves.
Yet after the fact something far less have ever been found. Does that make Clinton a liar?
Del_Dolemonte
· 1 year ago
"Question: What was Clinton's prime reason for going into Serbia?
Answer: Because of "tens ofthousands" in mass graves.
Yet after the fact something far less have ever been found. Does that make Clinton a liar?"
Don't confuse these college kids with facts. Face it, even if concrete evidence turned up showing that Saddam not only had WMDs, but also personally kissed each and every one of the 9/11 hijackers before they left for America, they would rather be waterboarded than admit Bush might be right.
Don't forget that Clinton's Justice Department in 1998 said al Qaeda and Iraq WERE working together. And many media outlests, notably the BBC and ABC News, reported the same thing at the time.
Obviously, Clinton was lying about things other than sex.
Bogey
· 1 year ago
I supported the Serbian war, despite the fact it could be claimed that it had nothing/little to do with our national interests (and many many "conservatives" claimed exactly that)
fact is, they SOLD the war on false premises. you know it and I know it.
They actually had a lot of other completely VALID premises to sell it on, and I would have accepted them..
but you know and I know that those premises wouldn't have been a sale across the country.
and certainly not exactly at that time with the urgency presented
(they were lucky all lots of dems were too chickenshit to support Gulf War 1) and that turned out to be a disastrous decision on their part, so this time around, forced to a vote just prior to elections (very clever on Rove's part) they covered their asses
(precisely why HRC voted for it, as well as to burnish her "national security" credentials"./
you know and I know there was no need to invade Iraq exactly and precisely at that time.
We could have gone in anytime.
preferably after SECURING Afghanistan and killing Bin Laden at Bora Bora?
Del_Dolemonte
· 1 year ago
"I supported the Serbian war, despite the fact it could be claimed that it had nothing/little to do with our national interests"
Tell us why you supported that war.
Bogey
· 1 year ago
because asswipes like Milosevich deserved to get spanked down.
we tried playing nice with him in the beginning.
and we can't have medieval behavior in Europe of all places can we?
it was something that the Europeans should have handled by themselves but it's quite clear they're not really up to any military task these days.
Marc
· 1 year ago
"because asswipes like Milosevich deserved to get spanked down.
we tried playing nice with him in the beginning.
and we can't have medieval behavior in Europe of all places can we?"
Put another way you supported a war that had zero tactical or strategic interest to the United States.
But fail to support the 2003 Iraq war, a country headed by the same type of despicable tyrant, and also had enormous strategic implications because of the vast amounts of oil in the region.
There's a good reason why your not anywhere near the hands of power.
Bogey
· 1 year ago
look idiot.
I would have fully supported taking out Saddam at the time and place of OUR choosing.
but that time and place was not 2003, was not in the flukey way we tried selling the war, a sale NOONE bought.
(I laugh my ass off anytime I hear of "Coalition forces in Iraq")
and I would not have stayed behind to "countrybuild"
didn't your idiot boy W run on PRECISELY that kind of platform?
that small glimpse at a glimmer of intelligent thought is probably why I voted for him 2000.
Bogey
· 1 year ago
btw.. that also applied to Saddam.
I always wanted to take him out.
what I didn't want to do is invade and STAY there.
jharp
· 1 year ago
"but since when are we the policemen of the world"
100 % dead on.
We were doomed to failure the day we invaded. It is playing out EXACTLY how many predicted.
Including and probably most significantly, George H.W. Bush.
MichaelSmith
· 1 year ago
It may be "100% dead on" -- but it is also 100% irrelevant. What started this little exchange was your comment that implied that Iraqis were much better off before we caused Al Qaeda to come into Iraq. My point is simply that you cannot ignore the horrors that were going on prior to our arrival -- not if you want to make a balanced evaluation of whether or not the Iraqis were better off before the invasion..
Bogey
· 1 year ago
more nonsense,
we ignore Horrors ALL TH THE TIME.
even among govts we support.
Mwalimu_Daudi
· 1 year ago
As the surge shows positive results, the lies of the al Qaeda Left grow more zany....
Bogey
· 1 year ago
right.
what happens when the rotations run out (as they will next year anyways)
what and whom will prevent the almost inevitable civil war that is yet to come?
at the very least we'd have made serious progress in eliminating the Al Qaeda in Iraq problem we created by invading.
the only problem is that "going back to square one" will have cost 4000 lives, many more maimed and invalids for life, and trillion plus dollars.
if you want to ultimately call that "victory" - well.
General Pyrrhus I'm sure will agree.
Anthony Ragan
· 1 year ago
And to think al Qaeda didn't have a presence until we invaded.
Other than Ansar al-Islam, Zarqawi's first organization, which was operating with Saddam's support in northern Kurdistan.
essucht
· 1 year ago
I remember one of the very first real fights we had in Iraq was lending an assist to the Kurds in an assault on Ansar al-Islam's primary stronghold.
Unlike Saddam's regular forces, his Al Qaeda friends didn't just throw down their arms at the first rumor of Americans...
Bogey
· 1 year ago
you need to learn your history.
You and your friend George W.
if there was indeed even ONE minute example of an Iraq/al Qaeda link all of US officialdom would be parroting that link non stop for years to come (as they initially tried)
now they've all been forced to shut up and admit there was none.
if you want to be the last deranged stalwart, that is your right.
essucht
· 1 year ago
Wow, you've been drinking the leftist koolaide a bit too much.
The leftist talking point is that Saddam and Al Qaeda had no operational links against the US prior to the invasion, which as far as we know is true*.
They were working together to attack one of America's allies and making ever greater connections. A rational individual would say such plans were at best to cause trouble for other American allies, if not America itself, but there are not many rational men on the left any more.
Seriously, you should try reading something not linked from DailyKos. You'd find it enlightening.
* Czech intelligence famously disagrees of course, claiming Atta and Baathists met prior to 9/11. Since Atta's cell phone was used in the US at the time many claim that is impossible. Of course, he could have just left it with an associate.
Del_Dolemonte
· 1 year ago
Let's not forget, Bill Clinton's Justice Department indicted bin Laden in 1998. In that indictment, they said al Qaeda and Iraq did have a collaboration ongoing-especially in the WMD department.
As for Saddam and terrorism in general, what about this?
As for Saddam and terrorism in general, what about this?
Interesting. Of course Saddam was also behind the effort to assassinate Bush 41, so independent of Al Qaeda Saddam had a history as one of the most serious sponsors of anti-American terrorism.
I'd love to know, btw, who assassinated Saddam's guest Abu Nidal. According to all accounts Saddam did not expect an American invasion, so I can't see why he would suddenly up and kill one of his aces in the hole to try to save his own skin...
Israelis? Americans? Al Qaeda?
Del_Dolemonte
· 1 year ago
Here's your answer-Saddam had him killed becaus Nidal refused to train al Qaeda members in northern Iraq in 2002.
"A more probable reason for Nidal’s assassination is that he knew too much about Saddam’s terrorist ties and, with the possibility of an approaching war, that was a liability Saddam could not afford."
However he was eliminated, the fact remains that Abu Nidal, one of the world's most vicious and infamous terrorists, had been living in Iraq under Saddam's protection since 1999, or two years before the dawn of recorded history on the planet known as BDS.
essucht
· 1 year ago
Actually, I wonder if/when we will run across Saddam's secret police files on Nidal, should provide at least a stronger clue. But I believe we still have only translated a fraction of the capture documents.
And you're wondering if/when will run across Saddams secret police file to justify we did the right thing.
Please for the sake of our country. rethink your position.
essucht
· 1 year ago
You aren't responding to the statement I made.
Knowing what happened to Abu Nidal would be interesting, but no, not worth the cost of the war.
Removing the man that tried to assassinate an American president? That is a different story, and something we should have done, at a lower cost, in 1993.
Bogey
· 1 year ago
hahaahahahah
you guys are too funny.
yes, the FACTS, as even your heroic administration officials have admitted to, are "leftist propaganda"
hahahahah
btw.. my theory on Abu Nidal is that Saddam decided he grew tired of him and having him around made him susceptible to being charged with "harboring terrorists".
(which he did, but not AQ)
so he had Abu go to sleep with the fishes.
but NIdal wasn't AQ and there was no AQ in Iraq, until we went in, failed to seal the border and they flooded in (a brilliant strategy if I say so myself (is my sarcasm not apparent enough?)
essucht
· 1 year ago
Again, your statement is incorrect. We know for a fact that Zarqawi and al-Masri were both In Iraq prior to the Iraq war.
Bogey
· 1 year ago
once again, and for the last time.
Please show me evidence that Al Qaeda wasin Iraq other than you telling us it was.
Dick Cheney tried that... for a while at least.
then after being utterly discredited he shut his trap.
why is yours still flapping?
and Zarqawi wasn't al Qaida until after the invasion (another fact)
essucht
· 1 year ago
Too hard to read with the window this far over - I'll post in a new window
Me
· 1 year ago
PLease show us evidence that Al QUaeda was NOT in Iraq, absolutely, none, not at all! Other than you telling us they weren't.
Bogey
· 1 year ago
they were within the technical borders of Iraq, but that area was outside of Saddam's control.
if any remote cells in Baghdad or elswhere, it wasn't with Hussein's help and or support.
by your logic we should invade London and Hamburg because certainly there are most Al Qaeda cells there than in Baghdad.
In fact, you should have invaded Florida. Were't almost all the 9/11 hijackers living and training to fly planes there?
Del_Dolemonte
· 1 year ago
"btw.. my theory on Abu Nidal is that Saddam decided he grew tired of him "
If you had actually read my post, that was one of the theories I posted. Please try again. Or, Saddam had him killed simply because he ran afoul of him:
Zarqawi was a 2 bit terrorist that had NOTHING to do with AQ. he was a Jordanian interested in Israeli issues, ergo the Mossad's problem, not ours.
and he wasn't operating with "Saddam's support", if there was any given, he was on an extremely short leash.
took us how many years to kill Zarqawi? Saddam would have had him squealing in Abu Ghraib within hours.
Marc
· 1 year ago
"and he wasn't operating with "Saddam's support", if there was any given, he was on an extremely short leash.
Interesting you should claim he was on a short leash.
Then by extension you must also believe Saddam was fully aware Zarqawi controlled about a dozen villages and a range of peaks in northern Iraq on the Iranian border.
And thar ZarqawiI also used tactics such as suicide bombers in its conflicts with the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan and other Kurdish groups.
All before the 2003 invasion.
Is THAT the short leash you're referring to? Or will you now back-peddle faster than a whirling dervish?
Does it also mean you fail to believe the The 9/11 Commission Report when it reported:
"In the late 1990s, these extremist groups suffered major defeats by Kurdish forces. In 2001, with Bin Ladin's help they re-formed into an organization called Ansar al Islam. There are indications that by then the Iraqi regime tolerated and may even have helped Ansar al Islam against the common Kurdish enemy."
Bogey
· 1 year ago
Ansar al Islam was an Al Qaeda group in the mountains near Iran that operated in a territory OUTSIDE of Hussein's control.
they were also sworn enemies of Hussein.
you people are funny (or scary depending on how you want to look at it)
Bogey
· 1 year ago
non sequitours.
Zarqawi was NEVER al Qaeda, until we invaded, and he found could run around and cause REAL trouble.
Saddam had several run of the mill "terrorists". so what?
MarkTheGreat
· 1 year ago
Why this fixation on AQ? Terrorists are terrorists. Saddam was supporting terrorisxsts and terrorism. The more dead terrorists the better. I don't care who they affiliate with.
Bogey
· 1 year ago
No.... not quite.
our war on terror and terrorists is specifically a war on Al Qaeda.
there are thousands and thousands and thousands of terrorists in West Gaza for e.g.
but they don't fly airplanes into our buildings.
at least they haven't yet
(Israeli building are a different matter but that's Israel's problem)
essucht
· 1 year ago
and he wasn't operating with "Saddam's support", if there was any given, he was on an extremely short leash.
Uh...what?
Saddam was supporting Ansar al-Islam, an Al Qaeda affiliate, as his proxies versus the Kurds long before we invaded Iraq, since we would not let him attack them any more himself.
In 2002 Saddam allowed Al Qaeda to formally establish cells in Baghdad under the command of Abu Ayyub al-Masri, who later became Zarqawi's second in command in Al Qaeda's Iraqi division.
Zarqawi sought refuge in Iraq after being wounded in battle in Afghanistan. Saddam welcomed him, gave him medical aid, and allowed him to join up with the Iraqi Al Qaeda franchise.
How he came out on top of Al Qaeda proper and Ansar al-Islam is an open question though.
Bogey
· 1 year ago
this iis nonsense.
there has been NO link at all between AQ and Saddam and there were most CERTAINLY no AQ cells in Iraq.
None. Zero.
even Dick Cheney can no longer get away with babbling such nonsense. I wonder where you think you can get off with babbling it.
there certainly were some terrorists in Iraq, but these were all of the anti Israel variety (Abu Nidal, et al) but those are NOT AQ.
Zarqawi only identified with AQ after we invaded..
essucht
· 1 year ago
This is the historical time line. You don't have to like it. Al Qaeda and Ansar al-Islam were in Iraq prior to the American invasion.
Ansar al-Islam was at war with the Kurds, and supported by Saddam.
Al Qaeda was "merely" establishing itself at Saddam's welcome.
Zarqawi only identified with AQ after we invaded..
Zarqawi was in Jordan until 1999. His Bayt al-Imam group was broken up by the government. When he was let out of prison 1999 he left for Afghanistan where he joined Al Qaeda.
Just for your notes, the common leftist talking point is that he was an unimportant member of Al Qaeda.
Presumably he met with the predecessors of the Taliban when he travelled there previously in 1989 and stayed until 1993.
Bogey
· 1 year ago
finallyn looked up your little anti Kurdish terrorist group.
they operated from a mountaineous area on the Iranian border BEYOND Saddam's control.
there Zarqawi only swore fealty to Bin Laden long after the US invasion
I know he was in Afghanistan but he wasn't Al Qaeda.
sorry to deflate your little balloon.
if what you say is true, then alll the pompous blowhard administration officials wouldn't have had to admit (albeit painfully) that there was NO Iraq/Al Qaeda link.
Even W admitted to this on Meet the Press I believe.(or somewhere, but he did admit it)
if Saddam used those particular terrrorists to go after the Kurds, that would make perfect sense.
but that still doesn't make them al Qaeda.
and Zarqawi wasn't Al Qaeda until after the invasion.
essucht
· 1 year ago
The facts, which unfortunately for you are stubborn things;
Zarqawi:
1) On Zarqawi's second visit to Afghanistan, he joined Al Qaeda. 2) He fled capture/death at the hands of the Americans to Saddam's willing arms 3) He then joined Al Qaeda's Iraq division and "worked his way to the top".
Interestingly this last point either indicates that he was not the peon less ignorant leftists then yourself claim, or had phenomenal leadership potential and was therefore far to great a threat to allow to fester in Iraq.
As an aside, I'm also intrigued to what you think he was doing in Afghanistan...taking time off from killing infidels to raise goats perhaps?
Ansar al-Islam
1) Was an Al Qaeda affiliate working with Saddam against an American ally. 2) Was an American target from the beginning.
Bogey
· 1 year ago
No he did NOT join Al Qeada until he swore fealty to Bin Laden AFTER the American invasion.
that is the fact and it's an indisputable fact.
everything else ie meaningless.
there was NO Al Qeada "Iraq division".
never existed. Otherwise W and Cheney and everyone else would be proclaiming this link to us each and every day with a smug I told you so.
al Qaeda Iraq came into being WHEN Zarqawi decided to join Bin Laden
AFTER the invasion.
sure he was a terrorist... and I'm sure whatever he was doing in Afghanistan it wasn't for the betterment of humanity.
but it doesn't change the fact he wasn't Al Qaeda.
just like Uncle Joe and Uncle Mao.
both Communists. Both slaughtered/starved millions of their own people.
but one was Russian, and the other Chinese.
they were not the same.
essucht
· 1 year ago
You continue to amuse.
An Arab terrorist goes to Osama's Afghanistan, and sets up a training camp with Al Qaeda money, and when the Americans show up he fights alongside the rest of Al Qaeda. But he is not Al Qaeda.
Apparently, you don't understand what "member of" means.
BTW, you keep saying "after the invasion" but not which one. Which brings up the interesting question, are you denying he was Al Qaeda before the Iraq war or the Afghan war. If the latter, your point is still invalid, since he was still Al Qaeda when he fled to Saddam's Iraq.
He certainly did swear fealty to Osama when he formally took the reins of Al Qaeda in Iraq. I'm not quite sure why that invalidates his previous membership in the organization.
Bogey
· 1 year ago
I don't have to DENY anything you lunatic.
If Zarqawi and the other you claim were indeed fully linked to al Qaeda there would be absolutely zero controversy over the supposed "link" and almost every single administration official wouldn't have been forced to state that there was no "actionable" link.
I can start putting up the various quotes from all the administration officials and even W himself.
Or I can believe YOU. Zarqawi was a terrorist but he was never al Qaeda.
and I haven't seeen it proven he "fought" against Americans in Afghanistan with Al Qeada.
but so what if he did.
makes him an enemy. Makes him worth of getting killed.
but still doesn't make him Al Qaeda
essucht
· 1 year ago
He fought with Al Qaeda in Afghanistan, and then joined up with AL Qaeada in Iraq before the war, as I posted above (and you have not reponded to).
I'll take your silence as a tacit apology.
Bogey
· 1 year ago
nope, he joined Al Qaeda AFTER the invasion.
no apology.
and feel free to live in your own deluded world.
essucht
· 1 year ago
Deny the facts all you want, you are still wrong.
I notice you refuse to acknowledge you were wrong about Zarqawi going to Iraq before the war also.
Well, as they say, there are none so blind as those that will not see.
NAFTALI
· 1 year ago
What a paradox. Up top you made a very good case against thinking too much, and down here you're making the case for the need for any kind of thinking at all. I don't know what to think.
rbj
· 1 year ago
Yup. Saddam Hussein and his tribe were able to terrorize the Iraqis all by themselves. As well as bribe the French, Russians, the UN, Scott Ritter, George Galoway and a cast of thousands. And support terrorists in the Palestinian territories.
Bogey
· 1 year ago
this just bring to mind that THERE WAS NO AL QAEDA in Iraq prior to our invasion
and we invaded with not enough troops to seal off the border, so they flooded in.
BRILLIANT, would't you say?
Richard Romano
· 1 year ago
Oh please, get a life. You don't give a rat's arse for the Iraqi people...you're just a left wing hack who has allowed your hatred of Bush to destroy your moral compass.
Our brave men and women will get the job done, and jackasses like you will benefit. I'm quite sure that the Iraqi people in the future will be completely grateful to our military for bringing them the freedom that was unheard of just a few years ago.
People like you are the worst -- you cling to stupid theories like a child clings to an empty box of candy. To hell with you.
Bogey
· 1 year ago
first of all I'm not a left wing hack, I'm probably more of military adventurist than you are. but I pick my targets.
hmm.. "the job done"
and that "job" is? if defined what i heard before the war that might take about 100 years.(with some luck)
the Iraqi people in the future.. err.. no. read a book history preferable.
very very very few invaders in history are ever greeted as "liberators", even if they actually are.
the Shiites were very grateful for about a day (and they had the most to gain from the invasion) then they said - thank you, now get the "f" out.
Del_Dolemonte
· 1 year ago
"first of all I'm not a left wing hack"
docjim505
· 1 year ago
Normally, I don't respond to drooling stupidity like this, but in this case, I can't help myself.
Pay close attention, ass: this post was about al Qaeda's loathsome and despicable use of mentally handicapped women to commit mass murder. Now, I recognize that a moron like you has trouble getting beyond an imbecilic repitition of the reasons that you hate Bush, but I hope that it actually IS possible for your handful of functional brain cells to form just a fleeting hint of reproach for the real villains in this horror story, i.e. al Qaeda. Do try, won't you? And if you find it beyond your puny mental powers to lay off hating Bush for the two second necessary to think, "Boy, those al Qaeda guys are real bastards", then please crawl back into your parents' basement and leave the rest of us alone.
Moron.
MattHelm
· 1 year ago
Problem is, doc--he doesn't see al Queda as the villains--to him, they're the good guys and we're the bad guys and nothing we can say will convince him otherwise. Reason and logic don't work with him and his kind--they're so clouded by hate that all you can do is walk away from them.
essucht
· 1 year ago
That's not exactly it I think.
It is more that if the necessary condition of bashing George Bush is ignoring Al Qaeda atrocities, and apparently rewritting history, then that is ok, because the leftist moral imperative to show that Bush is a evil, moronic, supergenius, controlled by the Jews, the Christians, and the Saudis all at the same time.
Bogey
· 1 year ago
I do see them as the villains.
that's why I'd leave big mushroom clouds over Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia.
I just don't understand what they have to do with Iraq.
ah yes.. let's go in... open the borders..(by not securing them) allow them to hide among the disaffected parts of the population and wreak havoc.
and then finally eliminate them, thereby eliminating something that wasn't there in the first place.
maybe you can help me with the logic.
Del_Dolemonte
· 1 year ago
You honestly haven't a clue, do you?
My deepest sympathies.
keemo
· 1 year ago
Del,
The Bogey man must be quite young; I'd say between 25 & 30 tops. A deadly combination of nieveity and Liberalism...
Poor soul......
Del_Dolemonte
· 1 year ago
THAT old? I doubt it.
Bogey
· 1 year ago
yeah, I have no clue how birdbrains such as yourself exist and actually breed?
care to explain why you'd go into potential WMD territory and not secure the borders to prevent any WMD from being smuggled out.
and by sealing the borders you also break lines of supply that your opponent may have established (to speak nothing of actual Al Qaeda types that flooded in?)
birdbrain can't quite grasp that one, eh?
jharp
· 1 year ago
MattHelm,
You certainly can't and don't believe what you have just posted.
I understand that it is difficult to justify our invasion and occupation.
However, accusing someone of thinking al Qaeda are the good guys is preposterous.
Mwalimu_Daudi
· 1 year ago
jharp,
Just how much Kool-Aid have you been guzzling today? I worry about your brain, that's all. Of course the Left loves al Qaeda. This is the bed you have made. Take a nap in it.
Del_Dolemonte
· 1 year ago
LOL, better watch out, or jharp, instead of credibly debating with you, will instead call you nasty names and then accuse you of not being a college graduate.
Bogey
· 1 year ago
look idiot. it's perfectly reasonable to point out when such atrocities happen that the perpetrators of such atrocities were nowhere to be found within the country PRIOR to our invasion.
what part of that do you not understand, birdbrain?
keemo
· 1 year ago
You have personally high-jacked this thread Bogey. These boards are designed to create an environment where fair minded folks can have "tempered" conservations regarding a particular post chosen by the host of the board (Captain Ed in this case). You have managed to revive a topic (AQ in Iraq) that has been discussed at length here at CQ on numerous occasions over the past few years, and is not the subject matter of this post.
Bogey
· 1 year ago
didn't mean to do that and I wasn't around when those threads were argued.
I just think it's pathetic we've spent years and thousands of lives fighting something that we ourselves needlessly created.
jharp
· 1 year ago
Keemo,
A "tempered" conversation about Capt. Ed's post would be one post.
It was a horrible tragic event and done it sickening and horrible way.
No one can deny that and I'm pretty sure we can all agree.
To post on how it happened and how things could be better is the only patriotic thing to do.
We'll all be better off because of it. Regardless of anyone's position.
keemo
· 1 year ago
Let's face it jharp; the world remains a dangerous place today (in this century) just as it was last century... The greatest threat to our planet & mankind, is WMD in the hands of those whom have no regard for innocent life. If we can't rely upon the ruling governments of the free world, to "go to any lengths" to stop the development and transfer of WMD around the globe, then we will eventually see these weapons used against the population of the free world at some point if our future. Look at the method these creatures use to kill innocent civilians. Obviously these creatures have no regard for humans that don't fit within their religious ideology. America must remain willing to "go to any lengths" to protect our people, our homeland.... These creatures messed up big time when they attacked our homeland under the rule of a leader that actually did go to any lengths to protect it's people. The Liberal "thank you" our leader has received for his bold efforts will be well documented as history unfolds.
In the end, having the likes of Harry Reid use the floor of the Senate to announce the defeat of America in our war on terror, will be very telling to all Americans as we go on from here. The upcoming elections just might put a Democrat back in the WH; this is a fact that we all must face. Whom ever wins this race will have to face international terrorism, as these creatures will not go away unless defeated. Will the next leader of the free world have what it takes to continue the righteous battle against those who seek to destroy the free world? I can only hope so for the sake of my children, as well as my grand children. This enemy will not go away; this enemy understands the weaknesses of a "free society" and is attacking those weaknesses unlike any enemy we have ever faced.
docjim505
· 1 year ago
In other words, it's our fault.
Why am I not surprised that this is your ultimate position?
Bogey
· 1 year ago
if you wanted to carpet bomb Saudi Arabia to really get rid of most Al Qaeda and their support network, money, etc
I'd back it.
but spare me the horror stories about AQ in Iraq (they're there because we LET them in)
couldn't even seal the borders when we went in.
and ultimately such horrror work to our advantage by allowing ourselves to withdraw with honor once the locals turn against them.
Only_One_Cannoli
· 1 year ago
The only reason I've been reading your comments is to understand the context of some of the responses to you. Some of them are funny, some are thoughtful. Your ideas are loony.
To summarize:
Bogey: We've created thousands of terrorists by invading Iraq. Let's nuke Mecca and Afghanistan.
Setting aside the immorality of your proposal, if you buy into the idea that American military action is what creates terrorists then a nuclear attack on the Islamic holy land ought to turn what's left of the billion plus worldwide Muslim population against us for the rest of history. Please do take a break, you're spamming the comment section.
Bogey
· 1 year ago
that's a brilliant point. You win! I agree!
but if I don't take the argument to the extreme, I'm always merely dismissed as some "lefty peacenick".
my only point is if you are a truly foaming at the mouth fight the Islamic extremism type, then you should've been eliminating S. Arabia, Yemen and part of Aghanistan and Pakistan instead of wasting time, lives and treasure in Mesopotamia.
as to truly getting rid of them - you've highlighted the very difficulty of accomplishing the goal.
we can't aggresively go after them because they're being "tolerated/harbored" by the supposedly "moderate majorities" in the Islamic countries within.
I wish I had an answer to the problem. Perhaps you do.
Only_One_Cannoli
· 1 year ago
So rightwing sockpuppet Bogey serves to illustrate lefty peacenik Bogey's strawman argument ...
What a waste of everybody's time.
brightwinger
· 1 year ago
Wars are filled with agregious errors. Sealing the borders, or at least making an attempt at it would have been a good idea. But that is a mere tactic.
Since AlQaeda is there and it is place where we can kill a bunch, that's what we do. We are at war with alqaeda after all. So it only makes sense to do so.
Bogey
· 1 year ago
true.
but that's why wars are planned. and preplanned.
and wargamed on Pentagon computers to death.
You can argue not being ready for the Feyadeen was something they couldn't have foreseen but not sealing the borders is flat out inexcusable.
Especially when those potential WMD's that you're worried about fallling into the wrong hands can then easily move across that unsealed border.
the stupidity is almost criminal.
Bogey
· 1 year ago
it's pretty well documented now that in the course of the planning and assumptions, the "good" assumptions were always stretched to the highest levels of "likely to happen" while the "bad" assumptions were almost summarily dismissed if not ignored.
When you operate in such an environment, egregious errors are flat out guaranteed.
Del_Dolemonte
· 1 year ago
SHOW: ABC NEWS SATURDAY NIGHT ( :am ET) JANUARY 14, 1999
Transcript # 99011401-j18
TYPE: PACKAGE
SECTION: NEWS
LENGTH: 7310 words
HEADLINE: CRIME AND JUSTICE
BYLINE: J. MILLER, J. MCWETHY, S. MACVICAR, CYNTHI MCFADDEN
HIGHLIGHT: TARGET AMERICA: THE TERRORIST WAR
BODY:
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ANNOUNCER: From ABC News, this is Crime and Justice.
CYNTHIA MCFADDEN, ABC News: (voice-over) The enemy is out there. Terrorists targeting Americans around the world.
PRUDENCE BUSHNELL, U.S. Ambassador to Kenya: It is a least manly way of going to war that I can think of.
CYNTHIA MCFADDEN: (voice-over) Where will innocent people die next? Will the new front line be abroad or at home?
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: Intelligence sources telling Time magazine they believe Osama bin Laden may be planning an attack on New York or Washington.
CYNTHIA MCFADDEN: (voice-over) It's a shadowy network of radical fundamentalists led by this man.
OSAMA BIN LADEN: (through translator) We predict a black day for America.
CYNTHIA MCFADDEN: (voice-over) With a $5 million award posted for his capture.
Rep. PORTER GOSS, Chairman, Select Intelligence Committee: What amazes me a little bit is ABC seems to be able to sit down and talk to Osama bin Laden.
CYNTHIA MCFADDEN: (voice-over) Tonight, an exclusive ABC News interview with the man who declared war on the United States -- terrorist leader Osama bin Laden. His loyal foot soldiers are even here in the U.S., hidden among us, awaiting his call to deadly action.
OSAMA BIN LADEN: (through translator) We do not differentiate between those dressed in military uniforms and civilians.
CYNTHIA MCFADDEN: (voice-over) Now, the real story behind the deadly embassy bombings, over 220 dead and more than 4,000 injured. Was the government warned? And why is bin Laden in secret meetings with Saddam Hussein's top men? ABC News has learned of a high-risk mission planned by U.S. commandos. But will they get to Osama bin Laden in time? Can anything stop the slaughter?
ANNOUNCER: Tonight, "Target America: The Terrorist War." With reports from John Miller, Sheila MacVicar and John McWethy in Washington. Now, from New York, Cynthia McFadden.
CYNTHIA MCFADDEN, ABC News: Good evening. And welcome to ABC News Crime and Justice. Over the next several weeks, we'll be bringing you a series of stories about people on both sides of the law -- some fascinating, some frightening.
We start with one of the biggest threats facing the world today, terrorism. It's an issue of such great concern that ABC News assembled a team to take you moment by moment through the recent African embassy bombings and deep inside the FBI and CIA investigations.
Sheila MacVicar from London, John McWethy from the Pentagon and John Miller from our law and justice unit here in New York will tell you who was behind the bombs, how the bombings were planned and what the U.S. government is going to do about it.
Tonight, you'll hear information never before made public about the man who has been called America's number-one enemy, Osama bin Laden, and his worldwide network of devoted soldiers. We begin in East Africa on that terrible day last August. We must warn you, some of the footage you're about to see is graphic.
ONDEKO AURA, Kenyan Broadcasting: It was reminiscent of doomsday. The first thing I saw was a thick cloud of smoke billowing above my head. Minutes later, I saw people running, bleeding profusely.
CYNTHIA MCFADDEN: (voice-over) Ondeko Aura is a reporter for Nairobi Television. On the morning of August 7, 1998, he and his crew were about to do an interview two blocks away from the American embassy.
ONDEKO AURA: It brings back to memory nightmares. I'll tell you, sometimes it's not easy to sleep. Sometimes those dead bodies come back to mind. You're seeing them in your sleep. You see the injured screaming in your sleep. You wake up sweating.
CYNTHIA MCFADDEN: (voice-over) U.S. intelligence officials believe the planning for this particular nightmare began more than a year earlier. During August of 1997, in Nairobi, a small group of Islamic fundamentalists had taken up residence. True believers in the terrorist creed -- that with a pickup truck and 2,000 pounds of TNT, the power is yours. Target a superpower and become a player. One of them wrote a letter to a comrade, foreshadowing what was to come.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: "There is a war, and the situation is dangerous. The fact of these matters and others leave us no choice but to ask ourselves -- are we ready for that big clandestine battle?"
CYNTHIA MCFADDEN: (voice-over) What is shocking is that a full year before the bombs explode in Africa, the CIA and FBI had intercepted this letter. The letter ends with this...
UNIDENTIFIED MAN:..."say a lot of prayers for us so God may grant us success."
CYNTHIA MCFADDEN: (voice-over) The answer to their prayers would come as the details of their plan are put in place. According to the FBI, the following is the chain of events. By August 1, 1998, the suspects have been using the rented villa in the suburbs of Nairobi for five months. They have picked a target. They are building a bomb.
The next day they check into this hotel, leaving the elements for the bomb at the villa. August 4 -- the suspects finalize their plans, taking a practice drive past their target -- the U.S. embassy.
("Hail To The Chief" plays)
(voice-over) August 6 -- in Washington, the President is trying to conduct business as usual. If he is distracted, it is not by a terrorist plot half a world away, but by a former White House intern giving testimony today to a Washington grand jury.
Friday, August 7 -- leaving the villa just before rush hour, the suspects are driving two Toyota trucks -- one carrying the bomb. They are headed toward their target. It is a suicide mission. The U.S. ambassador to Kenya, Prudence Bushnell, says she remembers the morning clearly.
PRUDENCE BUSHNELL, U.S. Ambassador to Kenya: Every Friday, we have a senior staff meeting scheduled. And indeed, I had one scheduled that day.
CYNTHIA MCFADDEN: (voice-over) Four hundred fifteen miles away in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, American embassy personnel are also heading to work. One of them, Justena Mdobilu, is starting her morning in the usual way -- praying for God's protection.
Back in Nairobi, Joanne Huskey is bringing her kids to the embassy for their school shots. They arrive at the embassy gate at the same moment as a Toyota truck.
JOANNE HUSKEY: I noticed the truck, and I noticed that it was not an embassy truck. It was probably some kind of a delivery truck, and it seemed to have a tarpaulin over the top.
CYNTHIA MCFADDEN: (voice-over) She has no idea that inside that truck is a bomb. It's now 10:30 in the morning. The guard refuses to let the truck enter.
EMBASSY GUARD: These guys were strange. I never seen them before.
CYNTHIA MCFADDEN: (voice-over) Inside the embassy, Major Neil Kringel is enduring the Friday staff meeting.
Maj. NEIL KRINGEL: 10:35, and I was thinking, "Oh, boy, how boring this meeting was." It was really, really dragging to me. And all of a sudden, we heard this small bang.
CYNTHIA MCFADDEN: (voice-over) That small bang was a stun grenade, a diversion to help the terrorists move their truck closer to the embassy.
NEIL KRINGEL: Nine, 10 seconds later was the huge bang.
PRUDENCE BUSHNELL: Kaboom!
JOANNE HUSKEY: And the whole thing blew up.
NEIL KRINGEL: And then I realized, "Jesus, we've just been bombed."
ONDEKO AURA: There has been a powerful bomb blast at the American embassy. Numerous people are feared dead. Hundreds of others are feared injured. Ondeko Aura, KBC (ph) News, outside the American embassy, Nairobi.
CYNTHIA MCFADDEN: (voice-over) The force of the bomb sent scraps of metal and glass flying at a terrifying 21,000 miles per hour -- a deadly shower that kills many of those drawn to the windows to investigate that first explosion. Those who survive have to find a way out.
JOANNE HUSKEY: Then we heard voices calling out, and them asking where the door was, where's a door? I would say, "I know there's a door somewhere here." And finally, we saw a light.
PRUDENCE BUSHNELL: We went down an absolutely torturous journey, 21 flights of stairs, blood all over the place. And the farther down we got, the darker it became and the more smoke there was. At one point, I thought, "I'm going to die."
ONDEKO AURA: Just next to the U.S. embassy building, I see a very familiar face. Who's face is this? The U.S. ambassador Bushnell. She was bleeding from the head, from the hands.
CYNTHIA MCFADDEN: (voice-over) Seven minutes later, the American embassy in Dar es Salaam is rocked by an enormous explosion. Justena Mdobilu, who started the morning praying for protection, is inside the crumbling building.
JUSTENA MDOBILU: It was this "bhhhhh." It reverberated through my body.
CYNTHIA MCFADDEN: (voice-over) The bomb is identical to the one used in Nairobi -- 2,000 pounds of TNT. Back in Washington, the President is awakened in the hours before dawn with news of the bombings. Already medical supplies are being sent from U.S. bases in Germany, as FBI and CIA counterterrorism experts assemble at Andrews Air Force Base for a flight to Africa.
Within hours, U.S. officials will name Osama bin Laden the architect of the bombings. ABC's Sheila MacVicar reports how bin Laden became a legend in the business of terror.
SHEILA MACVICAR, ABC News: (voice-over) Just who is Osama bin Laden? He is a son of privilege, one of 53 children of a Saudi Arabian billionaire, himself married with three wives and seven children, an unlikely holy warrior. He uses his own fortune, estimated at $300 million or more, to fund his battles.
No millionaire life for him. He lives as a guerrilla fighter, his base in the mountains of Afghanistan. Barri Atwan, editor of the respected Arabic daily Al-Quds, has tracked bin Laden's life.
BARRI ATWAN, Editor, Al-Quds: He gave up wealth. He gave up money, and he decided to go and fight for Muslim causes until he dies as martyr. In the Arab world, in the Muslim world, he is a hero.
SHEILA MACVICAR: (voice-over) The United States first heard of Osama bin Laden 20 years ago. His story began during the Afghan war, the last great stand-off between Communist Soviet Union and the United States. Bin Laden was one of thousands of Arabs who volunteered alongside the Muslim Afghanis, allied to the Americans by a common cause -- the defeat of the Soviets.
But with Russians driven from Afghanistan, bin Laden began to focus on what the U.S. was doing. And he didn't like what he saw.
BARRI ATWAN: The man hates the American policies in the region. He considers America or the American administration the main enemy of the Muslim and Arab worlds.
SHEILA MACVICAR: (voice-over) In his homeland of Saudi Arabia, bin Laden was angered by the arrival of U.S. forces, welcomed by a royal family he denounced as corrupt. The Americans were occupiers, he said, with no business in the Muslim holy land.
VINCE CANNISTRARO, ABC News Intelligence Consultant: To Osama, these were infidels. These were nonbelievers, and they were there despoiling Saudi Arabia, which should be the pristine guardian of Islam.
SHEILA MACVICAR: (voice-over) He declared his own war -- a war investigators now suspect began back in 1993 at the World Trade Center, continued in Saudi Arabia and Somalia, where it was his fighters who killed 18 U.S. soldiers and forced the U.S. to leave Somalia. For bin Laden, it was an important lesson -- the U.S. could be made to withdraw.
Last February, bin Laden and other Islamic militants formed "the world Islamic front for holy war against Jews and Americans."
STANLEY BEDLINGTON, Former CIA Analyst: He is driven by his extremist version of Islam which is far, far, removed from the voices of authentic Islam.
SHEILA MACVICAR: (voice-over) He issued this ominous warning -- "Killing Americans and their allies, civilian and military," he said, "is an individual duty for every Muslim."
Three months later, ABC's John Miller was waiting to meet the man U.S. authorities now call public enemy number one.
JOHN MILLER, ABC News: (voice-over) Peshawar, Pakistan. To find Osama bin Laden, you start here. Of course, you don't find bin Laden, unless he wants you to. Days before, our contacts in bin Laden's organization instructed us to dress in the clothing of the region. At airports, we were handed tickets just before the flights. We were never told our destinations in advance.
In the late afternoon of May 20, two months before the embassy bombings, we were loaded into the back of a truck and driven toward the Khyber Pass, the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Two of bin Laden's men led us over the border into Afghanistan on foot. That night, another truck took us to bin Laden's camps. In the early morning hours of May 22, Osama bin Laden made his entrance.
(Gunshots)
(voice-over) This scene, of course, was a show for the cameras. We understood that. Even so, after two days in the camps, it was clear to us that the men around bin Laden, hundreds of them, idolize him. He is, for lack of a better comparison, like a god to them.
But bin Laden downplays his own power. He denied ordering the various attacks he'd been linked to but said he supported the attacks and knew many of the suspects. And he warned America should brace for more.
OSAMA BIN LADEN: (through translator) We predict a black day for America and the end of the United States. And they will retreat from our land and collect the bodies of their sons back to America.
JOHN MILLER: (voice-over) That was a direct threat against the U.S. military. But bin Laden was very deliberate in his next threat -- that the killing would not be limited to American soldiers.
OSAMA BIN LADEN: (through translator) We do not differentiate between those dressed in military uniforms and civilians. They are all targets in this fatwa.
(Gunshots)
JOHN MILLER: (voice-over) Like the bullets his followers fired into the sky, bin Laden's threats seemed to hang in the air that night. He did not say how Americans would die or when or where. Of course, if plans for the embassy bombings had begun in March, as the FBI now alleges, then bin Laden already knew that night in late May, how, when and where.
CYNTHIA MCFADDEN: When we come back, U.S. investigators sort through the rubble. We'll show you why they say Osama bin Laden was the mastermind.
(Commercial Break)
CYNTHIA MCFADDEN: (voice-over) Nairobi, Kenya, August 8, 1998. Over the next week, this makeshift morgue will become a painful stop for those looking for their loved ones. By week's end, more than 220 people are dead, with over 4,000 injured.
Among the dead are 12 Americans. A career diplomat and his 20-year-old son. A Marine sergeant come to cash his paycheck. A 40-year-old Air Force officer, who'd just turned down an offer to return to Washington because she loved Africa.
But in those first horrible hours, it was unclear who was dead and who was alive.
ROBERT KIRK, Embassy Worker: There were helicopters all around, and people were just -- it was just mayhem.
CYNTHIA MCFADDEN: (voice-over) After the bombing, Robert Kirk searched frantically for his wife, Arlene. Both worked at the embassy in Nairobi. Both had the day off, but Arlene decided to go in for just a minute to check her e-mail.
ROBERT KIRK: OK, I just told everyone that "I want to see my wife. I want to see her condition before I leave this place. Simple as that. And I waited there.
CYNTHIA MCFADDEN: (voice-over) All the while thinking about the life they had shared -- traveling the world and working together, raising a family. About an hour later, his worst fears were confirmed.
ROBERT KIRK: She was wrapped in a blanket, but her hair was exposed and I could tell it was her by her hair. And I remember the only thing I said was, "Oh, my God," and closed the blanket because her face was disfigured.
CYNTHIA MCFADDEN: (voice-over) That first night there was little hope for survivors until rescuers heard a voice from deep under the rubble. Rose Macharia, a 36-year-old mother of three, could be heard faintly begging for help.
RESCUER: Rose, Rose!
ONDEKO AURA: I was on top of the debris reporting, and I hear the rescuers calling, "Rose, Rose!" They call out her name.
CYNTHIA MCFADDEN: (voice-over) Businessman Vimal Shah is one of the many who try to help her.
VIMAL SHAH, Businessman: Because this could fall any time.
She was saying, "Get me out. I need help. I need assistance." And she was knocking on the concrete there.
ONDEKO AURA: Rose seems to be the driving factor of the rescue mission. She seems to give hope of at least achieving some success in retrieving somebody alive from the wreckage.
CYNTHIA MCFADDEN: (voice-over) And for five long days, rescuers struggle to free her. As the search for survivors continues, the first wave of counterterrorism investigators from the CIA and FBI begin to arrive. They are 13 hours late because of problems with a transport plane. The FBI's Mike Brooks is among the first on the scene and sets up a command post.
MIKE BROOKS, FBI: In going through the embassy and knowing that people died in that building, you see nametags. You see name plates. You see pictures, personal effects. And you wonder what happened to this person? Did this person live? Did this person die? How could anyone have survived this at all?
JOHN MILLER: (voice-over) Immediately following the embassy bombings, bin Laden vanishes from his camps. For weeks, he is deep in hiding. December 24 -- somewhere in the Afghan desert, inside a tent, Osama bin Laden meets an ABC News reporter for a second exclusive interview. With bin Laden in the tent are his top advisors. By now, the U.S. has offered a $5 million reward for bin Laden's capture.
OSAMA BIN LADEN: (through translator) If the instigation for Jihad against the Jews and the Americans is considered a crime, let history be a witness that I am a criminal.
JOHN MILLER: (voice-over) It is the first time bin Laden has been seen since the embassy bombings. He denies ordering the attacks but says he believes his calls for war on the United States have been heard.
OSAMA BIN LADEN: (through translator) Most probably these acts came about as a result of such calls and warnings, but only God knows the truth.
JOHN MILLER: (voice-over) But we asked bin Laden even if he supported the killing of Americans in the name of Jihad, how could he justify the Africans, the Muslims and children who were hurt and killed?
OSAMA BIN LADEN: (through translator) When it becomes apparent that it would be impossible to repel these Americans without assaulting them, even if this involved the killing of Muslims, this is permissible under Islam.
JOHN MILLER: (voice-over) In spite of bin Laden's denials, he was the leading suspect from day one. But before the FBI could try and prove who the bombers were working for, they had to find the bombers. The FBI's Ken Pernick tried to put himself inside the bomber's head.
KEN PERNICK, FBI: If I was the terrorist, how would I plan to do this? When I put myself in their shoes, I can begin to help focus my own investigation. What would I use? What kind of people would use?
JOHN MILLER: (voice-over) The answers to "what kind of people" came in more quickly than investigators could have imagined. August 7, the same day the bombs went off, a plane coming from Nairobi touches down in Karachi, Pakistan. At passport control, one of the passengers appears nervous. Immigration officials say he hands them this false passport.
Shift commander Riaz Gondal questions the man in this office. Gondal says they learn his real name is Muhammad Sadiq Odeh, and they say he admits to being an explosives expert, trained in bin Laden's camps.
RIAZ GONDAL, Pakistani Immigration Official: When he was being interrogated, at one point, he admitted frankly that he is a member of Al Qaeda organization, which is headed by Mr. Osama bin Laden.
JOHN MILLER: (voice-over) According to Gondal, Odeh describes planning the bombing at the Hilltop Hotel and gives the names of the other bombers. And so, within 24 hours of the bombing, alert Pakistani immigration officials hand investigators the first big break.
August 9 -- two days after the bombing. Nairobi police receive a tip about another man who went by the name Khalid. He is said to be among the injured. Peter Mbuvi is the assistant chief of detectives for Kenya's national police.
Det. PETER MBUVI, Kenya's National Police: The force behind the arrest of this person, of Khalid, came from a member of the public who became suspicious.
JOHN MILLER: (voice-over) Kenyan investigators find Khalid. They say his real name is Mohammed Al Owali. He has a deep wound in his back. The FBI says Al Owali admits he got the wound running away from the truck that carried the bomb, that he rode in the truck to the embassy, that he was the man who threw the grenade at this guard.
EMBASSY GUARD: He pull out something, then he threw.
JOHN MILLER: (voice-over) The FBI says Al Owali ran just before the explosion because he changed his mind about becoming a martyr. With two suspects talking, the FBI identifies a third, Harun Fazil, as the man who supervised the making of the bomb in that rented villa. Assistant director Lew Schiliro is the FBI's man in charge of the embassy bombing case.
LEWIS SCHILIRO, FBI Assistant Director in Charge: Fazil is believed to be originally from the Comoros Islands, is alleged to have been in Nairobi at the time of the bombings and is also have been alleged to have led the truck to the embassy.
JOHN MILLER: (voice-over) In the Comoros Islands, the FBI raids Fazil's home. Fazil is gone. Neighbors say Fazil was a serious young man who memorized the Koran and taught religious classes before moving to Kenya. ABC News obtained this video of an FBI evidence recovery team going over the house, looking for clues that might connect Fazil to the bombing.
LEWIS SCHILIRO: Fazil has become a subject of an international manhunt, somebody that's also subject to the $5 million State Department reward and is an individual we would desperately seek to get back to the United States to put on trial.
JOHN MILLER: (voice-over) ABC News also obtained this video, which FBI sources say shows Fazil on a mission for bin Laden in Kenya, as far back as 1996.
PETER MBUVI: What our investigations have revealed so far is that most of the people who are behind this incident, actually, they have all been financed by Osama bin Laden.
JOHN MILLER: (voice-over) While investigators were busy making their case, in Washington, ABC's John McWethy reports, top U.S. officials were looking for something more immediate.
("Nearer My God To Thee" plays)
JOHN MCWETHY, ABC News: (voice-over) August 12 -- by the time the bodies of the Americans killed in the embassy bombings are flown back to Washington, the President is already secretly exploring ways to retaliate.
Pres. BILL CLINTON: No matter what it takes, we must find those responsible for these evil acts and see that justice is done.
JOHN MCWETHY: (voice-over) With all evidence pointing to bin Laden, the President's national security team meets to consider options, including, ABC News has learned, sending an armed force into Afghanistan. But worry that bin Laden is preparing to hit again forces a quicker, lower-risk option -- unmanned Cruise missiles. Targets are examined, not only in Afghanistan and Sudan, but also Yemen.
(on camera) Intelligence intercepts give the White House, a key piece of information that drives both timing and location. On August 20, 13 days after the embassy bombings, bin Laden plans to gather his top lieutenants at a remote location in Afghanistan. That is the primary target. The unstated objective -- to kill Osama bin Laden.
(voice-over) But the President wants a second target and eventually chooses the Al Shifa pharmaceutical plant in Sudan, which the CIA suspects of making chemical weapons and which appears to have financial ties to bin Laden.
August 17 -- in the midst of secret preparations for the retaliation, the President is forced to testify to the Kenneth Starr grand jury about Monica Lewinsky.
Pres. BILL CLINTON: I do.
JOHN MCWETHY: (voice-over) The next day, he heads for vacation on Martha's Vineyard and seclusion. But on August 20, instead of heading to the golf course as expected...
ANNOUNCER: This is an ABC News Special Report.
JOHN MCWETHY: (voice-over) The President stuns the White House press corps.
Pres. BILL CLINTON: Today, I ordered our armed forces to strike at terrorist-related facilities in Afghanistan and Sudan.
JOHN MCWETHY: (voice-over) Sixty-six of the 79 Cruise missiles used in the attack hit remote camps in Afghanistan, what officials described as bin Laden's graduate school for terrorists. In his most recent interview with ABC News, Bin Laden insists damage was minor, though he concedes 34 were killed. He says using unmanned Cruise missiles is cowardly, showing that the U.S. military is too fearful to meet the young people of Islam face to face.
Newly released satellite imagery shows, in before and after photographs, extensive destruction of what the U.S. claims was nearly 50 buildings, including this row of huts that apparently housed the leadership. General Hugh Shelton is chairman of the Joint Chiefs.
Gen. HUGH SHELTON, Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff: We also wanted to show that the United States will act decisively and in self-defense and preemptively, if necessary.
JOHN MCWETHY: (voice-over) Intelligence officials tell ABC News that the camps that once housed 600 people in training are now empty. Some of bin Laden's top people, it appears, were injured and a high-ranking aide killed. Bin Laden himself left the camp hours before the strike, perhaps tipped off by the sudden evacuation of the U.S. embassy in Pakistan the day before.
In Sudan, the pharmaceutical plant is turned to rubble. But from the first day, this target is a much tougher "sell" to the public.
WILLIAM COHEN, Secretary of Defense: We do know that he had contributed to this particular facility. We do know that this facility produces precursors that can result in the production of VX. And that was a sufficient connection for us.
JOHN MCWETHY: (voice-over) As it turns out, the U.S. really does not know either of those things. Bin Laden's direct financial ties to that plant are vague. And the U.S. does not know if any part of nerve gas was actually made there.
STANLEY BEDLINGTON: It was wrong, a mistake. And it made a lot of people in the administration feel good. You know, "We've hit him hard." But, in fact, all we did really is turn off a lot of people in the Muslim world, and in fact, we acted as a recruiter for Osama bin Laden.
JOHN MCWETHY: (voice-over) Officially, there is no second guessing.
Gen. HUGH SHELTON: There is absolutely no question in my mind that we hit the right targets.
JOHN MCWETHY: (voice-over) The administration claims the strikes, along with vastly expanded law enforcement efforts to squeeze bin Laden's network, are forcing him to look over his shoulder as never before.
CYNTHIA MCFADDEN: The American missile strikes may have slowed down bin Laden, but could the embassy bombings have been prevented altogether if the U.S. government had only paid more attention to warnings? And later, allegations that Osama bin Laden is seeking a new ally in Saddam Hussein.
ANNOUNCER: "Target America: The Terrorist War" will continue in a moment.
(Commercial Break)
CYNTHIA MCFADDEN: (voice-over) In the year before the bombings, Ambassador Bushnell believed the bin Laden operatives in Nairobi had been disbanded. Even so, she repeatedly pled with her superiors in the State Department to move the embassy, which she considered vulnerable, in part, because it was too close to the street.
PRUDENCE BUSHNELL: It was clear that the reason they could not move our embassy was because there was not enough money.
CYNTHIA MCFADDEN: (voice-over) The ambassador took the extraordinary step of appealing directly to the Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright. But that plea, too, was turned down.
PRUDENCE BUSHNELL: The threat assessment in Nairobi was medium. For a lot of reasons, we did not meet the criteria. I understood that. I wasn't happy with it.
Adm. WILLIAM CROWE (Ret.): That was totally wrong.
CYNTHIA MCFADDEN: (voice-over) Admiral William Crowe, retired chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, headed up a team investigating embassy security worldwide in light of the African bombings. His commission report, released last week, concludes that the entire system used by the State Department, which classified Nairobi as under a medium threat, is deeply flawed.
The State Department agrees and has already begun to change the system. But Crowe points out, more money is needed, especially now.
WILLIAM CROWE: We have not seen fit, at least as yet, to invest very heavily in security and saving lives. And there are some weapons out there that they haven't used yet that would -- a very distinct possibility that they might be moving toward. That's chemical and biological.
So first of all, I believe that it is going to be an increased problem, and secondly, we would be foolish to treat it any other way.
ANNOUNCER: ABC News Crime and Justice continues after this from our ABC stations.
(Station Break)
ANNOUNCER: "Target America: The Terrorist War" continues. Once again, Cynthia McFadden.
CYNTHIA MCFADDEN: Two years before the African bombings, U.S. intelligence on Osama bin Laden was raising new suspicions. The CIA, FBI and National Security Agency were so concerned about his activities that they agreed to take an extraordinary step. They formed a multiagency task force with one purpose -- tracking bin Laden's activities. They were certain he was transforming himself from thunder to fighter.
SHEILA MACVICAR: (voice-over) Although few Americans were familiar with his name before the bombings, the U.S. government was, in fact, trying to arrest bin Laden months before the embassies were destroyed.
April 1998 -- U.N. Ambassador Bill Richardson goes to Afghanistan and secretly tries to negotiate with the Taliban, Afghanistan's fundamentalist rulers, for his arrest. He fails. Dr. Sa'ad Al Faqih, a Saudi dissident who opposes violence, says the U.S. tried again.
Dr. SA'AD AL FAQIH, Saudi Dissident: The leader of the Taliban said no way can we accept to meet the Americans when they strike us, claiming that we are involved in terrorism.
SHEILA MACVICAR: (voice-over) It is a sensitive time for the Taliban. They are looking for international recognition, but bin Laden is getting in the way. There is other pressure. The Saudis, long-time allies of the Taliban, cut off diplomatic relations and, more important, the flow of funds.
The Taliban begins suggesting they might put him on trial as a solution to their problem. The pressure is affecting his whole network. By September 23, this man, sent to London to spread bin Laden's message, has been arrested and alleged to be part of bin Laden's conspiracies.
In Germany, Mamdouh Salim, alleged to be a key military advisor and believed to be privy to bin Laden's most secret projects, is also apprehended. The U.S. government alleges he was under secret orders to procure enriched uranium for the purpose of developing nuclear weapons. These are allegations bin Laden does not now deny.
OSAMA BIN LADEN: (through translator) It would be a sin for Muslims not to try to possess the weapons that would prevent the infidels from inflicting harm on Muslims. But how we could use these weapons if we possess them is up to us.
SHEILA MACVICAR: (voice-over) With an American price on his head, there weren't many places bin Laden could go, unless he teamed up with another international pariah, one also with an interest in weapons of mass destruction.
VINCE CANNISTRARO: Osama believes in "the enemy of my enemy is my friend and is someone I should cooperate with." That's certainly the current case with Iraq.
SHEILA MACVICAR: (voice-over) Saddam Hussein has a long history of harboring terrorists. Carlos the Jackal, Abu Nidal, Abu Abbas, the most notorious terrorists of their era, all found shelter and support at one time in Baghdad. Intelligence sources say bin Laden's long relationship with the Iraqis began as he helped Sudan's fundamentalist government in their efforts to acquire weapons of mass destruction.
Three weeks after the bombing, on August 31, bin Laden reaches out to his friends in Iraq and Sudan. Iraq's vice president arrives in Khartoum to show his support for the Sudanese after the U.S. attack. ABC News has learned that during these meetings, senior Sudanese officials acting on behalf of bin Laden ask if Saddam Hussein would grant him asylum.
(on camera) Iraq was, indeed, interested. ABC News has learned that in December, an Iraqi intelligence chief, named Farouk Hijazi, how Iraq's ambassador to Turkey, made a secret trip to Afghanistan to meet with bin Laden. Three intelligence agencies tell ABC News they cannot be certain what was discussed, but almost certainly, they say, bin Laden has been told he would be welcome in Baghdad.
(voice-over) And intelligence sources say they can only speculate on the purpose of an alliance. What could bin Laden offer Saddam Hussein? Only days after he meets Iraqi officials, bin Laden tells ABC News that his network is wide, and there are people prepared to commit terror in his name who he does not even control.
OSAMA BIN LADEN: (through translator) It is our job to incite and to instigate. By the grace of God, we did that, and certain people responded to this instigation.
SHEILA MACVICAR: (voice-over) In detail, his terrible call to arms is on the Internet, relayed through some mosques, handed out at demonstrations. It can inspire thousands beyond anyone's command.
Dr. SA'AD AL FAQIH: The danger of those groups to the West is they are so scattered and splintered that they can never be eradicated. They don't have a common chain of command.
SHEILA MACVICAR: (voice-over) But they do have a common goal, and they represent thousands of recruits to his war against America. Bin Laden has even found foot soldiers here, in the United States, as John Miller has discovered.
JOHN MILLER: (on camera) FBI agents of the New York office had been probing Osama bin Laden for two years before the East African bombings. But during the bombing investigation, hundreds of leads were pouring in here, to the FBI's command post in New York. Some of the most intriguing leads were pointing to two new suspects -- both of them, American citizens.
(voice-over) This tire store on a dusty road Fort Worth, Texas, is where the FBI found Wadih Al-Hage working to support his American wife and seven children. Before moving to Texas, Al-Hage lived in Nairobi, just blocks from the U.S. embassy. Osama bin Laden admits to knowing Al-Hage and says Al-Hage was running relief agencies.
OSAMA BIN LADEN: (through translator) As for Brother Wadih Al-Hage, he is one of our brothers, whom Allah -- praise and glory be to him -- was kind enough to steer to the path of participating in relief work for Afghan refugees.
JOHN MILLER: (voice-over) A year before the bombing, Kenyan police, the FBI and CIA raided Al-Hage's relief organization in this house. They say they found that incredible document in Al-Hage's computer -- the one that appears to be from bin Laden's group, or cell.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: "We, the East Africa cell members, do not want to know about the operation plans since we are just implementers."
JOHN MILLER: (voice-over) Now, the FBI believes the letter's author is Harun Fazil -- remember, the man now wanted for the Nairobi bombing. The letter appears to warn that the bomb makers or "engineers" should be careful, due to increasing U.S. surveillance.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: "Let the brother engineers be careful and be advised that any one of us could fall in the trap."
JOHN MILLER: (voice-over) After the discovery of the letter, Al-Hage was forced to leave Kenya. When he returned to the U.S., the FBI subpoenaed him to testify in this courthouse before the federal grand jury investigating bin Laden. Al-Hage denied any knowledge of a terrorist plot and moved to Texas.
1st TV REPORTER: FBI agents in Dallas had an Arlington suspect...
2nd TV REPORTER:...believe Al-Hage at one time served as personal secretary to bin Laden.
JOHN MILLER: (voice-over) A month after the embassy bombings, Al-Hage was arrested -- charged with being part of bin Laden's organization and lying to the grand jury. He is awaiting trial in this New York jail.
There is another American in this jail. Prosecutors say the charges against him are secret for reasons of national security. Federal sources say he is a key operative for Osama bin Laden.
ALI MUHAMMED: My name is Ali Muhammed. I am a former Egyptian officer.
JOHN MILLER: (voice-over) After leaving the Egyptian army, sources say Ali Muhammed was recruited by the CIA to infiltrate terrorist groups for the U.S. but was soon terminated as unreliable.
Still somehow, in 1986, he managed to come to America and join the Army. Part of his job was to participate in seminars for elite units at the special warfare school at Fort Bragg -- seminars about Islamic culture and politics.
In 1988, while Ali Muhammed was on active duty in the U.S. Army, he went on leave -- to fight the Russians in Afghanistan. His then-commander, Steve Neely, notified the Army brass.
STEVE NEELY: His going -- the trip, though, was a sensitive point, because he was an American soldier.
JOHN MILLER: (voice-over) Sources say Ali Muhammed left the Army and went to work for the Afghanistan Service Office in New York as a training officer. These 1989 surveillance photos show some of the men Sergeant Ali trained at target practice.
In the years that followed, the men in these photos were convicted of murder and bombing the World Trade Center and plotting to blow up bridges, tunnels and the U.N. building in New York. Prosecutors charged that bin Laden was the man behind the Afghanistan Service Office, which has since gone underground and now uses the name Al Qaeda. Bin Laden remains its leader.
LEWIS SCHILIRO: Bin Laden certainly has the resources to continue to hide, the resources to continue to maintain himself. It will be a very difficult process for the government to pursue.
JOHN MILLER: (voice-over) While investigators say time is on their side, ABC's John McWethy reports the government is not just sitting back and waiting for bin Laden's next attack.
JOHN MCWETHY: (voice-over) One of the other weapons the U.S. has in its war with bin Laden is use of military force. If Americans are attacked again -- and most Pentagon officials believe it is only a matter of time -- military sources say another Cruise missile strike against his network is almost certain.
(on camera) And there are other plans. ABC News has learned since August, the U.S. has considered several clandestine efforts to go after bin Laden in Afghanistan, trying to apprehend him so he could stand trial in the United States.
(voice-over) Officials say special operations commandos, working with the CIA, are constantly rehearsing such a mission which, by all accounts, would be very risky and could result in high American casualties. One of the biggest challenges is getting up to the minute intelligence on where bin Laden is and accurate projections on where he will be next.
Rep. PORTER GOSS, Chairman, Select Intelligence Committee: What amazes me a little bit is ABC seems to be able to sit down and talk to Osama bin Laden at the very same time that those of us who would like to apprehend him and bring him to justice seem to be unable to do that.
CYNTHIA MCFADDEN: When we come back, the conclusion of our report.
(Commercial Break)
CYNTHIA MCFADDEN: (voice-over) In downtown New York City, behind the walls of this prison, four of the men the U.S. government has charged in connection with the bombing plot are under arrest. Osama bin Laden and seven others have been indicted but are still at large.
Back in Nairobi, in the five months since the bombing, scores of flowers have been placed where so many people's lives were changed forever. The State Department says there are no plans for a permanent memorial, but $119 million has been set aside to rebuild the two embassies.
CONGREGATION: (singing) Make me a channel of your peace.
CYNTHIA MCFADDEN: (voice-over) Those who survived are working on rebuilding, too. Without his wife, Arlene, Robert Kirk is struggling to raise a young son. Kirk is considering leaving Africa and joining the ministry.
Joanne Huskey, who arrived at the embassy at the same time as the truck bomb, is just thankful her family survived. She has dedicated herself to helping Kenyan families who were not so lucky.
JOANNE HUSKEY: We set up a relief fund, and we are targeting our efforts toward children.
CYNTHIA MCFADDEN: (voice-over) As for Rose Macharia, the Kenyan woman trapped beneath so much metal and concrete, rescuers spent five days guided by her voice and her will to live. But when they finally broke through to her, they were 10 minutes too late.
ONDEKO AURA: She was a source of inspiration when everybody hoped that she would be rescued, and when she died, those hopes were dashed.
PRUDENCE BUSHNELL: I keep going back to the site because I think that maybe I will develop calluses. That if I go back often enough, it won't have the emotional impact.
In point of fact, it still has the emotional impact. It is, in some respect, a sacred site, a holy site for me, because good people who were my friends and my colleagues died on that site. And every time I go into that building, I pay them respect, and I will continue to pay those people respect.
(Commercial Break)
CYNTHIA MCFADDEN: That's our broadcast for tonight. Our hearts go out to the families who have lost so much.
For continuing coverage of the Senate impeachment trial, watch Nightline after your local news and Good Morning America tomorrow. And don't forget 20/20 Friday with Barbara Walters and Hugh Downs. For more on tonight's story, go to abcnews.com.
I'm Cynthia McFadden. From all of us here at ABC News, good night.
chaking
· 1 year ago
Wow - first of all that's copyright infringement. Second of all it's irritating - 3rd, use a damn link next time please...
MarkTheGreat
· 1 year ago
Given the rate at which we have killed AQ operatives once they flooded in. I agree, it was a brilliant plan. And now we have the Iraqis eager to help us kill as many AQ as they can find. The plan is starting to look better all the time.
Bogey
· 1 year ago
yeah, except that the intelligence services said our Iraqi invasion created thousands and thousands of new terorrist consripts
or is that judgment by those intelligence services another "leftist conspiracy?"
Del_Dolemonte
· 1 year ago
"yeah, except that the intelligence services said our Iraqi invasion created thousands and thousands of new terorrist consripts
or is that judgment by those intelligence services another "leftist conspiracy?"
Those same people also said Iraq had WMDs, jharp.
Bogey
· 1 year ago
er... so now you're saying Iraq was a mistake because of OUR intelligence?
hmm..
interesting.
yes.. it was ALL the CIA's fault.
maybe it was more like as one of the books states..
stretching any "positive" assumption to the maximum.
and minimizing any "negative" asssumption to the minimum.
that's how wars/battles/games (any contest) is LOST.
p.s I don't know jharp but he strikes me a intelligent fellow.
All Comments
These people would rather have panties put on their heads, then be waterboarded and finally be fed into one of Saddam's people shredders, than admit that Bush could possibly be right about anything.
Now, now, as Michael Moore told us, Saddam's Iraq was a happy peaceful place, like Stalin's Russia, and Castro's Cuba. I'm sure your so-called "people shredders" were just a part of the vibrant tapistry of Iraqi culture that we should celebrate. And the Saddam boys' interests in sex education and athletic motivation were positively progressive, no?
Internally.
no invasion. no mess.
and allowed the Iraqis to clean their own house and engage is what remains is the inevitable struggle for power.
Without us getting killed and losing billions in the middle of it.
the war plan called for trapping all of his Republican Guard divisions south of the Euphrates and basically eliminating them.
And they indeed were all trapped but the ceasefire was agreed upon about 2 days too early, so entire divisions were later allowed to escape back into iraq untouched.
Saddam barely hung on to power in the post war rebellion which we ourselves incited and called for. Had his Repub guard been degraded or destroyed to the degree we had planned for, he would have been overthrown INTERNALLY
after all.. it's a fact that 3000 grandmas in Palm Beach voted for Buchanan and anyone with a single brain cell would realize that had to be a mistake.
but you can't prove it. (though you know it to be true)
so you shrug your shoulders, say it's one of those "shit happens" things and move onward.
2. Florida is irrelevant to the 2000 election anyway, since Gore would never have needed to win that state to win the Presidency if he's been able to win his own home state of Tennessee. He couldn't do so.
2) non sequitour.
W did lose the popular vote and handily.
(why does a Electoral College exist, btw?)
but you're basically agreeing with me, that W really lost, but "shit happened" ergo he "won".
like I said - shit happens.
and every day too.
Life goes on.
False. Gore won the popular vote by 500,000 +/- votes nationally. That's one half of one percent of all votes cast in said election.
A one half of one percent margin in Florida is what triggered that state's automatic recount law.
"(why does a Electoral College exist, btw?)"
LOL. Brilliant satire!
Maybe Gore should have spent the time he did on improving America's airline security (great job Al), on fighting against the electoral college.
but like I said - shit happens.
I didn't lose any sleep over it. In fact I didn't care how it turned out. I voted for W that year (much to my everlasting regret)
but I do find it amusing how people you and dolemonte get all riled up and INSIST that W won in 2000.
nonsense. We know he lost.
(just like Dems get riled up and insist Kerry really won in 2004, which is more nonsense, W clearly won that one)
I remember having to DEFEND the Electoral College in my highschool debate class. One of the harder things I've ever had to do.
That is true actually, we know for a fact that Gore got thousands of votes from illegals and the dead.
I still remember Bush was up big with 1% of precincts remaining, suddenly he was down to a bout a thousand votes and the Democrats launched plan B (recount till we win)
Good news for us, their plan A (produce votes) failed since they weren't very good at math.
This is funnier (and maybe more scary) than anything I read on liberal blogs.
too funny
Do you have anything to say about that?
why did we waste our time with iraq and not go after Al Qaeda?
I completely agree we should be eradicating these people with extreme prejudice.
wiping Saudi Arabia off the face of the map would be a good start.
Just can't hold the vision of downs syndrome women being blown up by Al Queda in your head can you? "There must be more evil in the world...Its George Bush"..
yes and I can overwhelm this thread with quotes from Pelosi,Reid,Gore,Kerry,CIA,Richard Clarke,Tenet ,British,German and other agencies that say Saddam was linked with Al-qaeda and many other terrorist groups.I can quote from these same sources the "slam dunk" about Weapons of Mass destruction.Whether you want to believe the massive amount of evidence that was presented to our President and congress is up to you,but it does not give you grounds to say that Bush "sold" this war and have some massive case of amnesia when it comes to the Democrats and intelligence agencies that presented this evidence.The fact that some of the intelligence was
found to be faulty AFTER the invasion(130,000 sets of boots on the ground is the only way we truly found out what Saddam had and didn't have) is not grounds to say "Bush lied" or "Sold "this war.
Bipartisan Senate Select committee report 2003:
Conclusion83: The committee did not find any evidence that Administration officials attempted to
coerce,influence or pressure analysts to change their judgments related to Iraq's weapons of mass
destruction capabilities.
conclusion84:The committee found no evidence that the Vice President visits to the CIA were attempts to pressure analysts,were perceived as intended to pressure analysts by those who participated in the briefings on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction programs,or did pressure analysts to change their assessments.
The 9/11 commission also found that the Bush administration neither lied nor manipulated
pre-war intelligence.
The British Butler Report also found that the Bush/Blair did not lie or manipulate evidence.
The Washington post reported that all intelligence that was used to make the case for war(besides
a small amount that our intelligence agencies will not declassify) was made available to all parties
in congress. The case for WMD's,Saddam/Al-qaeda links,firing on our planes,Assassination attempt on elder Bush,failure to fulfill the ceasefire agreement of the first gulf war,and over 16
resolutions passed by the UN to force Saddam to comply including the use of force.
Al Gore,Sept.23,2002
"We know that he has stored secret supplies of biological and chemical weapons throughout his country."
"Nevertheless,Iraq does pose a serious threat to the stability of the Persian Gulf and we should organize an international coalition to eliminate his access to weapons of mass destruction.Iraq's search for weapons of mass destruction has proven impossible to completely deter and we should assume that it will continue for as long as Saddam is in power.Moreover, NO INTERNATIONAL LAW CAN PREVENT THE UNITED STATES FORM TAKING ACTIONS TO PROTECT IT'S VITAL
INTERESTS,WHEN IT IS MANIFESTLY CLEAR THAT THERE IS NO CHOICE TO BE MADE BETWEEN LAW AND SURVIVAL.I believe, however, that such a choice is not presented in the case of Iraq. Indeed,should we decide to proceed, that action can be justified within the framework of international law rather than outside it. in fact,though a new UN resolution may be helpful in building international consensus, THE EXISTING RESOLUTIONS FROM 1991 ARE SUFFICIENT
FROM A LEGAL STANDPOINT.
Gore believed Saddam was a threat,had WMD's, and though he wanted to go back for resolution
#18(10 years was more than enough) clearly stated that the US had a legal right to go to war.
John Kerry,speech in 2003:
When I vote to give the President of the United States the Authority to use force,If necessary,to disarm Saddam Hussein, it is because I believe that a deadly arsenal of weapons of mass destruction in his hands is a threat,and a grave threat, to our securtiy and that of our allies in the
Persian gulf region.
No doubt in this Presidential candidates mind.
Hillary Clinton addressing US Senate Oct. 10, 2002
In the four years since the inspectors left,Intelligence reports show that Saddam Hussein has worked to rebuild his chemical and biological weapons stock,his missile delivery capability,and his nuclear program.He has also given aid,comfort, and sancturay to terrorists, including Al-Qaeda
members,though there is apparently no evidence of his involvement in the terrible events of Sept.11,2001."
"Any vote that might lead to war should be hard,but I cast it with conviction!!"
"Every nation has to either be with us, or against us."
"Those who harbor terrorists,or sho finance them, are going to pay a price."
Hillary Clinton,interview with Dan Rather September 13,2001
Another Presidential candidate who states that she saw the intelligence and came to the
same conclusions as President Bush.
Nancy Pelosi,Meet the Press Nov. 17,2002
"Saddam Hussein certainly has chemical and biological weapons. There's no question about that."
You go girl!! Tell them all about it.
Joint Resolution to Authorize the use of United States Armed Forces Against Iraq:
Whereas the efforts of international weapons inspectors,United States intelligence agencies,and Iraq defectors led to the discovery that Iraq had large stockpiles of chemical Weapons and a large scale biological weapons program,and that Iraq had an advanced nuclear weapons development
program that was much closer to producing a nuclear weapon than intelligence reporting had previously indicated.
Whereas Iraq, in direct and flagrant violation of the cease-fire,attempted to thwart the efforts of
weapons inspectors to identify and destroy Iraq's weapons of mass destruction stockpiles and development capabilities,which finally resulted in the withdrawal of inspectors from Iraq on Oct.31,1998.
Whereas Iraq both poses a continuing threat to the national security of the United States and international peace and security in the Persian Gulf region and remains in material and unacceptable breach of its international obligations by,among other things,continuing to possess
and develop a significant chemical and biological weapons capability,actively seeking a nuclear
weapons capability,and supporting and harboring terrorist organizations.
Whereas members of Al-qaeda, an organization bearing responsibility for attacks on the United
States,its citizens,and interests,including the attacks that occurred on September 11,2001,are known to be in Iraq.
Whereas Iraq continues to aid and harbor other international terrorist organizations,including organizations that threaten the lives and safety of American citizens.
The threat that Saddam posed was laid out in plain black and white to congress in this resolution
to go to war.Republicans and Democrats,our intelligence agencies and others from around the world came to the conclusions that were stated in this resolution.
To say Bush had to "sell it" or "tricked" anybody is just a bunch of cut and paste propaganda brought up by the left to run from their responsibility of their vote to send our men and women
to war, to appease their liberal base,and to bash President Bush in a time of war.
The FBI guy is George Piro,
The fact that Saddam revealed in 2008 that he did not want anything to do with al-qaeda has
nothing to do with the fact he harbored and assisted Al-qaeda and many other terrorist and this
is the intelligence that was put forth to the President and Congress through the 90's and up until the war. Here is something else Saddam said to Piro:
"He told me he initially miscalculated ... President Bush's intentions.He thought the United States
would retaliate with the same type of attack as we did in 1998...a four-day aerial attack,"says Piro.
"He survived that one and he was willing to accept that type of attack." "He didn't believe the US would invade?" asks Pelley."no,not intially," answers PIro.
Once the invasion was certain, say Piro,Saddam asked his generals if they could hold the invaders for two weeks.:And at that point,it would go into what he called the secret war,"Piro tells
Pelley.But Piro isn't convinced that the insurgency was Saddam's plan."Well,he would like to take
credit for the insurgency,"says Piro.
Saddam still wouldn't admit he had no weapons of mass destruction, even when it was obvious there would be military action against him because of the perception he did.Because, says Piro,
"for him, it was critical that he was seen as still strong, defiant Saddam. He thought that(faking having the weapons) would prevent the Iranians from re-invading Iraq." he tells Pelley.
HE ALSO INTENDED AND HAD THE WHEREWITHAL TO RESTART THE WEAPONS PROGRAM."Saddam still had the engineers.the folks that he needed to reconstitute his program
are still there." says Piro. "He wanted to pursue all of WMD... to reconstitute his entire WMD program." this included chemical,biological and nuclear weapons, Piro says.
The real liar about WMD's is 6 foot under, and the world is safer and 25 million people are now free.
'all true'
Then there's nothing else to say -- but this is a reflexive ploy to disavow the truth and bring in fanciful ideas and perspectives. The left is morally sick -- period, end of issue.
Is is US!, the U.S., America, George Bushitlerchenyhaliburton, the Repthuglikkkanazis who are EVIL!
NOT "Al Qaeda", NOT "terrorists", not Radical Islamists!
IT IS US!
Just ask "Norm", and "Monkei", and all your other Anti-American/Pro-Jihadi Leftist Nutbag readers!
They'll tell you!
Strapping bombs to Downs-syndrome girls, and sending them into a Pet Mart to Murder 70+ people is BUSH'S FAULT, and AMERICAN'S fault!
Everybody else, including Al Qaeda, are just poor, innocent "victims" of some complex American-Zionist plot!
Shame Capt'n, get it right next time!
(The Jihadis actually torture people as well as behead them and blow them up but for some reason it does this does not make it onto U-Tube)
This is what drives me nuts about the war's opponents: they refuse to acknowledge the real evil staring them in the face, instead building fantasy villains out of mere political opponents. I can't decide if they're ignorant, stupid, or morally bankrupt.
--Anthony (Los Angeles)
As such there is pretty obviously nothing below these Islamists.
First of all,the 9/11 commission never stated that no relationship existed,just that they could not find operational ties.Your statements that Bush "sold" this war is ignorant at best .Bush did not have to "sell" the fact that Iraq had WMD's and ties to Al-Qaeda,it was a widely held belief before he became President and right on up to the vote for war that Democrats and Republicans made.
lets look at the facts on Pre-war intel instead of cut and paste propaganda from Bogey and the
useful idiot parade.
"close Al-qaeda associate al Zarqawi has had an operational alliance with Iraq officials.As of Oct.
2002,Al-Zarqawi maintained contacts with the IIS to procure weapons and explosives,including surface-to-air missiles from an IIS officer in Baghad."
"Zarqawi was setting up sleeper cells in Baghdad to be activated in case of a US
occupation of the city,suggesting his operational cooperation with the Iraqis may have
deepened in recent months.Such cooperation could include IIS
provision of secure operating bases and steady access to arms and explosives in preparation for a possible US invasion".
Feith memo,Feb,21,2003
"He(Zarqawi) is a senior Al-qaeda associate who has met with Bin Laden,who has received money from Al-qaeda leadership,and on my list of top 30 individuals that are required to decapitate and denigrate this organization,Mr.Zarqawi's on that list. The fact is that he is a contract
terrorist where he does things on his own-but he has an intimate relationship with him and we classify him as a senior Al-qaeda associate well known to all of them."
George Tenet,testimony to Senate
"At the time,the intelligence community at the highest level repeatedly assurd us that "it never gets
better than this" in terms of confidence in an intelligence conclusion regarding a hard target.There
was good reason for this confidence,including multiple,reinforcing elements of information ranging
from links that the organization that built the facility had BOTH WITH BIN LADEN AND WITH THE LEADERSHIP OF THE IRAQI CHEMICAL WEAPONS PROGRAM; extraordainary security when the facility was constructed:physical evidence from the site:and other information from HUMINT and technical sources.Given what we knew regarding terrorists interest in acquiring and using chemical weapons against Americans,and given the intelligence assessment provided us regarding the Al-Shifa facility,I continue to believe that destroying it was the right decision."
Secretary of Defense Cohen testimony to the 9/11 commission.
bogey,this is testimony from top CIA and Clinton administration officials that mirror what the President said and Democrats and Republicans.
According to 9/11 commission co-chairman Thomas Kean,Clinton believed with"absolute certainty" that Iraq provided Al-qaeda with weapons of mass destruction expertise and technology in the 1990's.He believed it as President when he ordered the destruction of the Al-Shifa pharmaceutical factory in Sudan,and HE BELIEVES IT NOW.And it's not just Mr. Clinton.According to Mr. Kean,"top officials-Bill Clinton,Sandy Berger and others-told us with absolute certainty that there were chemical weapons of mass destruction at that factory and that's why we sent missiles."
"Iraq continues to be a safehaven,transit point,or operational node for groups and individuals who direct violence against the US,Israel, and other allies.Iraq has a long history of supporting terrorism.During the last four decades,it has altered its targets to reflect changing priorities and goals.It continues to harbor and sustain a number of smaller anti-Israel terrorist groups and to actively encourage violence against Israel.Regarding the Iraq-Al-qaeda relationship,reporting from sources of varying credibility points to a number of contacts,incidents of training,and discussions of Iraqi safehaven for Osama bin Laden and his organization dating from the early 1990's.
Senate report,2003 Iraqi support for terrorism
Bush was given more than enough reasons from Democrats,Republicans,former Presidents and the CIA, to believe that Iraq had ties to Al-qaeda
but I believe NOTHING that Feith says about anything. In fact he was massively involved in perpetrating the Iraq/al Qeada link that no one else believed.
Tommy Franks (no genius himself) called him the dumbest "effing" guy on Earth.
re the Sudanese factory, didn' that turn out to be a milk factory? not that I don't believe al Qaeda wasn't trying to produce some kind of WMD, they surely were/are but once again, the "Iraqi" link is non believable.
I can overwhelm you with statements from other govt sources that definitely state that absolutely no operational link to al Qaeda has ever been found.
and best of all - the FBI guy who interrogated Saddam before he was hanged .. recently gave some interviews... where he said Saddam wanted nothing to do with Al Qaeda.
said they were "fanatics" and one cannot trust "fanatics".
Saddam may have been a brutal dictator but he was also brutally practical and not driven by any ideologies outside of his own power.
Ah, Feith. The Looney Left's favorite punching bag. Haven't you got any better material?
You must have been on school vacation when Feith was cleared last April by the Pentagon Inspector General, who had investigated him at the request of the Democrats.
The Department of Defense had been asked by Democrats in Congress to see if Feith and/or his office had done anything illegal in their investigation and reports regarding the depth of ties between Al Queda and Saddam Hussein’s regime. The Department of Defense’s interim Inspector General said essentially that Feith and his office had acted inappropriately by giving the impression that they were an intelligence agency, but that they had not acted illegally. He was innocent of the charges made by Congressional Democrats and opponents of the war in Iraq.
Here's the complete findings...
http://www.fas.org/irp/agency/dod/ig020907-decl...
he's not just the left's punching bag.. he's everyone.s
Rumsfeld's right hand man who went around check up on things for Donald told him Feith was incompetent.
I can find the guys name if you like.
London(istan)
Hamburg
Amsterdam, Rotterdam.
etc
why didn't we invade them?
I must come visit your world some time. Sounds like an interesting place. Do you have AQ cells there, too?
Florida I assume is under our control, unlike Al Ansar's mountains in iraq (is not under Saddam's)
why didn't we invade Florida?
just in case?
How many religions blow up the FBI bldg in Oklahoma city?
Of course, if they strapped the bombs onto chickens, PETA might have something to say about it. Or not.
A couple of hours later, they turned the plane they were connecting to into a guided missile in downtown New York.
In response, Mikey Moore stated that if there had been black men on those planes, they never would have been hijacked.
As this attack was at a pet market, do you think PETA will finally come on board in the war?
I am actually shocked at how common this sentiment is on the Left, where I have seen AQ compared to any number of "resistance" movements, from American Rev War to the French resistance during WWII.
Wait a second...They Didn't!
but I hate to break the news to you.
Intellectually speaking a very sustainable case can be made for calling the Sunnis, "freedom fighters".
No these people fight because they want to control the lives of everyone. They have no love of, or even desire for freedom.
Given a choice, the Sunni militias would have returned their sugar daddy Saddam to power and put his boot back in the faces of the Shiites and Kurds, and Al Qaeda would have killed the Shiites and Christians and put one of their own on the throne of a new Caliphate based in Baghdad.
A sobering first-hand report from Basra as the British leave:
One graffito on a wall bordering the main Al-Dijari road reads: “We warn all women of Basra, especially those who are not wearing abbaya [a long, loose black cloak worn over everyday clothes], that we will kill you.” It is signed in the name of an offshoot of the Mahdi Army, the strongest militia in Basra.
It is not just women who live in fear. Professionals such as engineers, doctors and scientists have been dragged from their homes and murdered.
and the Shiite militas have a desire for freedom?
the only ones that desire freedom over there is us.
that's why it won't happen. Not anytime soon anyways..
and not without blood being spilt.
and of course this crime was committed by al qaeda, not by Iraqis.
ya know... there were no al qaeda in Iraq before we invaded.
On the other hand, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, part of Pakistan and Yemen are absolutely CRAWLING with Al Qeada.
I wonder they we didn't go invade THEM.
btw.. you're not going to be a typical "thoughful" conservative and equate ANYTHING that the US does with "freedom" are you?
because that would be very dumb, Game set and match.
Are you also disgusted with the way the Iraqi secret police would use power tools to torture their people? How about the attempted genocide of the Kurds, cool with that? Or the destruction of the marshes? Because I find those things to be reprehensible.
And why did you put words in my mouth--I never said a word about freedoms. That's like cheating when you argue. That is not very honest. Game, set, match.
but I sensed it sitting there on top of your tongue.. it was a natural logical extension of the argument you seemed to be making.
but I'll apologize if I was wrong.
strategy in invasions/wars wouldn't have been debateable.
in fact, just by wiping out Saudi Arabia and parts of Pakistan you've have eliminated about 90% of Al Qaeda period.
since there were no Al Qaeda in iraq before the war, there would have never been any need to to "go to war" with it later. (if we define "the war" as being against Al Qaeda)
Oh, and while we're at it, we DID invade Afghanistan. Funny you didn't notice. It was in the papers.
But I get very very angry... ENORMOUSLY angry that the people who are culpable and responsible for creating that FUBAR situation cannot be held accountable.
re Afghanistan - I was all for it. In fact you could have nuked it into oblivion for all I cared. Would've probably saved us a lot of problems.
btw. have you noticed we're "losing" in Afghanistan? latest NATO report says "we're not winning" ergo the corrolary is?
How on earth would attempting to nuke Afghanistan flat have helped the American war effort?
You really don't think before you write, do you?
We're at a time and place where nuking anyone is simply not acceptable, unless they nuke you first.
but how it would have HELPED the American war effort?
are you daft?
would have wiped out the AQ there along with Bin Laden.
I thought the "war effort" was against al Qaida and Bin Laden.
not secular states in the Middle East.
btw, how are we doing in Afghanistan NOW? (5 years later?)
NATO says we're "not winning".
hmm..
So General Strangelove, how many ICBMs are you firing? Are you getting Russian approval?
How about the other surrounding states?
And when they say, no, are you going to nuke them also?
Do you follow the Al Qaeda members that escape by nuking Pakistan also?
How about Europe to get the cells there?
Or the Iraqi cell we talked about before?
And we had cells in Florida, Buffalo, and a few other American cities, so I guess they have to go too.
And do we really let Al Qaeda affiliates like Ansar al-Islam and Abu-Sayyaf escape?
Ah, leftists, showing their superior foreign policy skills by suggesting a nuclear holocaust.
but what if I were?
is that supposed to be a "rebuttal"?
ah yes.. cells here?
you mean the loser gangbangers they arrested in Miami or Padilla?
too funny.
it just seems to me it's logical to attack al Qaeda by where they are instead of where they aren't.
maybe that concept is too difficult for you to understand.
I guess I was wrong.
essucht, I am sure you will be the next winner of the Presidential Medal of Honor.
along with Tommy Franks and Bremer.
As for Afghanistan, get a clue. We're not losing. We are leaning that NATO isn't worth the powder to blow it to hell, but to conclude that we are "losing" requires one hell of an imagination.
they are errors of ENORMOUS effing stupidity!!!!!!
how can you invade a country you fervently believe to have WMD, yet you do not invade with ENOUGH troops to "seal the borders" (particularly the Syrian one) so that no WMD can be potentially be "smuggled out of the country" (as some lunatics later and still claim?)
if the fear of WMD falling into the 'wrong hands" is your first, foremost and most important concern, why would you create a situation by invading without sealing the borders that would allow precisely such a feared horror to take place?
(also - seal borders - No Al Qaeda)
And also remember that the claim - a reasonalbe one, by the way - is that Saddam removed his WMD's to Syria BEFORE we invaded. How could we have sealed the Syrian border BEFORE we invaded? Or are you saying we should have invaded Syria?!
so in a strategic sense, such atrocities are serving our purposes by turning the Sunnis against AE (that we allowed to flood into Iraq)
Get over your big self.....
He was always a Dem I liked and envisioned myself voting for.
(and almost did in 2000 until he tacked hard left and then tried pandering to Cubans in Florida over Elian)
Gore is in the fine tradition of Scoop Jackson Democrat.
and he was one of the very few to get it right on Gulf War One and get it right on Iraq2003.
Secondly, even if it were remotely true that "every strategic assumption" made was wrong, where is it written that you can't adapt and win? Or is this just your effort to rationalize the bad news that victory now seems possible - an attempt to paint success as failure to make you feel better?
I think you are correct re Al Qaeda and its nature - though it's kind of like the chicken and the egg question. I'll grant the point and most certainly vis a vis al Qaeda we are the "good guys" and always have been.
as to the 2nd, well it IS true, and not remotely. No WMD, no greeting as liberators, no occupation will pay for itself, no "democracy" (as we know it, not ANYTIME soon) on top of a de facto Iranian strategic victory.
No - sorry.. it'll never be a "victory".
perhaps in purely tactical military terms, but that was never in question.
I most certainly DO agree with you that adaptation is almost a necessary part of ultimate victory.. Wonder why it took 3 years and so many lives for W and Co to "adapt?
ignorance? stupidity? arrogance? all three?
you tell me.
As to the conduct of the war, you've got that wrong too. Of course the initial campaign went better than anyone expected. After that the "insurgents" tried a number of approaches to chasing us out. They targeted our troops, but that didn't work. They targeted the fledgling Iraqi Security Forces (notably by bombing recruiting centers) and that didn't work either. Then they took to mass scale slaughter of civilians. That also didn't get them the result they wanted (i.e. a U.S. withdrawal). Then they tried to spark a civil war by fomenting sectarian killings. Do larely to Shiite forebearance born of their support for democracy, even that failed until the bombing of the Golden Mosque in Samara in 2006. The U.S. military mission in Iraq continued to believe that their approach to to Iraq would succeed, even in the aftermath of the Golden Mosque, but Bush began to disagree and sought another way. This resulted in the so-called "surge", which is working.
See, when you get the facts right it doesn't look like ignorance, stupidity or arrogance. The enemy adapted, we adapted, we're winning.
the "initial campaign" went "better than expected" because we encoutered NO organized armed resistance from any regular army units.
it was like a race on top of Bradleys and Humvees to Baghdad.
the security situation was massively deteriorating way before the bombing of the mosque.
In fact immediately after liberting Baghad, the place turned into one big looting zone. It was better (or worse) than the 1967 Watts Riots.
Donald Rumsfeld said at the time, that it was just people "celebrating democracy".
umm.. err..
then he said " freedom's messy".
umm.. err.
yeah.
in the meantime some of the most valuable historical artifacts in Baghdad Museums was being pilfered and or destroyed. The country's cultural heritage.
Wow, I'd like to know what you are smoking...
they were overthrown from power, don't feel represented in the "new" American installed govt and they are under occupation.
what part of "freedom fighter" does that not fit? (at least be consistent, if the Contras were freedom fighters than so were the Sunnis)
The New York Giants - Selected, not Electe-, er, Winners.
but you are enfranchised in a stable legally pre-agreed upon political process.
that's not the case with them.
also - their concepts of "democracy" (and this goes for Sunnis AND Shiites) have little to do with ours.
You wake up late for Jihad man you don't wanna go
You ask your Imam, "Please?" but he still says, "No!"
You missed two jews and no shiites
But your emir preaches the Koran like you're some kind of jerk
You've got to fight
For your right
To terrorize the infidels.
You pops caught you drinking and he said, "No way!"
That hypocrite smokes two contractors a day
Man, working for Al Qaeda is such a drag
Now your Imam threw away your best AK mag Busted!
You've got to fight
For your right
To terrorize the infidels.
Don't step out of this house if that's the explosive vest you're gonna wear
I'll kick you out of my home if you don't cut that throat
Your Imam busted in and said, "What's that noise?"
Aw, Imam you're just jealous it's the Al Jazeera Boys!
You've got to fight
For your right
To terrorize the infidels.
So yes, please establish as to how Al Qaeda and its former Sunni militia allies were fighting for freedom.
This should be good
Your comments, please.
and then our intelligence says the ranks of Al Qaeda swelled with new recruits after we got ahemm... "diverted".
are we going to start to go after them soon?
A pox on them all.
Still waiting...
The world doesn't become a nice place where the Anglosphere ends. Quite the opposite. And we've usually made things better. (Of course, multiculturalists would damn the British for suppressing suttee and Thugee, but they deserve a chance to be the victims before they make up their minds.)
--
Zarqawi set up Iraq sleeper cells: U.K. report
Updated Thu. Jul. 15 2004 11:56 PM ET
Associated Press
LONDON -- Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi set up "sleeper cells" in Baghdad before the Iraq war to attack American forces occupying the country, according to a British intelligence report.
The report, dated March 2003 and released as part of an overall review of British intelligence, forecast the string of Zarqawi's attacks against American targets during the past year "using car bombs and other weapons." It said he was setting up groups of fighters to be activated at a later time, known in the intelligence field as "sleeper cells."
British Prime Minister Tony Blair claimed vindication Wednesday after a committee led by Lord Butler released its report that concluded British intelligence on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction was flawed, but said the government had not deliberately deceived anyone as it built a case for toppling Saddam Hussein.
While Butler's report faulted British intelligence for having few reliable sources and not properly analyzing information, it did credit the spies with foreseeing the al-Zarqawi strikes on coalition forces.
snip
--
11.30am
Al-Qaida in Iraq leader believed dead
Mark Tran and agencies
Tuesday May 1, 2007
Guardian Unlimited
In February the Iraqi government said al-Masri had been wounded by Iraqi troops but escaped in a clash north of Baghdad after soldiers stormed a base near Balad.
Al-Masri, an Egyptian, assumed the leadership of al-Qaida in Iraq after the Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was killed in a US air strike in June 2006. The US government in 2005 set a $50,000 reward for al-Masri's capture, later raising it to $5m.
Security experts say he became a terrorist in 1982 when he joined Ayman al-Zawahiri's Egyptian Islamic Jihad. He probably entered Iraq in 2002, before al-Zarqawi, and may have helped establish the first al-Qaida cell in the Baghdad area.
He had manufactured explosives in Iraq, particularly car and truck bombs, helped foreign fighters move from Syria to Baghdad, and overseen al-Qaida's activities in southern Iraq.
Shortly following al-Zarqawi's death, militant websites identified Abu Hamza al-Muhajir as his successor in Iraq. US military officials said they believed he and al-Masri were one and the same.
nice try. you've never seen me type anything but that al queda needs to be decimated. not once. and no matter how hard you try to conflate the two, attacking and occupying iraq never had anything to do with al queda. in fact last years nie made it clear that this administrations actions has in fact strengthened them. in fact al queda did not have a signifigant presence in iraq before this administration undertook this folly. and in fact the civilian leadership has completely bungled the occupation and have not, in five years, been able to gaurantee even a minimum of security for the populace that they now have responsibility for. is it bushs fault that al queda ruthlessly strapped bombs on disadvantaged people and walked them into a public market? of course not. that's the mindless ranting of partisan buffoons who see a relatively successful tactic as the validation of a failed strategy. but has bush created the opportunity for it to happen? any honest appraisal of the situation in iraq will answer that.
Was Bush in Palestine when this type of thing was done before? Oops the answer is hell no which makes your "has bush created the opportunity for it to happen?" question look mighty dumb.
Get it through your head. The ruthlessness of the fanatic murderers has nothing to do with our policies...it has to do with their fanatic beliefs which started before the US was created.
And to think al Qaeda didn't have a presence until we invaded.
How much longer can we let this go on. Either send 500,000 troops or whatever it takes, or get the hell out.
Well, yes, prior to the invasion, what the Iraqis "had" --instead of random Al Qaeda suicide attacks -- was the organized, systematic terror campaign of Saddam, his two insane sons Uday and Qusay and their thousands of henchmen, their rape rooms to which kidnapped girls were taken, electric-shock torture rooms, prisons for children, secret police which "disappeared" thousands suspected of not being politically "reliable", industrial shredders into which dissidents were fed alive, mass killings of civilians in nerve gas attacks, blindfolded dissidents pushed from the tops of buildings, mass graves for the thousands of political executions each year, a million-plus Iraqis killed in a war launched against Iran, tens of thousands more forced to their deaths in the first Gulf War -- yes, THAT'S what the Iraqis had before we came in a totally screwed up their lives.
but since when are we the policemen of the world.
And why do we tolerate similar (though perhaps not as evil) treatment of their populations from other dictators who are our FRIENDS?
like say... the head honcho of Equitorial New Guinea?
saving the Iraqis from Uday and Qusay wasn't our job.. and certainly not worth 4000 lives, many more thousands maimed for life and how many trillions of dollars down the shithole?
hey.. try walking the streets of Basra today without a burkha.
Under Saddam (as bad as he was) Iraq was one of the most secular countries in the ME.
Basically, since the Gulf war, we were keeping Saddam in power (through Oil for Food) and if we had a total boycott of Iraqi oil (impossible since that enlightened nation of France under Jacques Chirac had signed oil development deals with Saddam) then the Iraqi people would have suffered even more.
Taking out the Husseins was the right thing to do. Not providing overwhelming security afterwards was an extremely costly mistake, but things are getting better there now, despite the latest setback by increasingly desperate terrorists.
Taking out Hussein WAS the right thing to do.
but you don't do it by really bad PR of a WMD argument that fell flat on its face.
when they SHOULD have taken out Hussein was after the first Gulf War - he certainly deserved it them and we were in a position to do it.
but no, not by invading.
Had we merely carried out our stated war aim and destroyed the Repub Guard instead of ending the war so early (another 2 days would've done the trick) , instead of allowing it to escape back to Iraq across the Euphrates..
Saddam would have been so weakened m, when George Sr, called for the people to overthrow him, he WOULD have been overthrown (probably by another Sunni and another power struggle would've ensued, but their civil war and eventual accomodation is THEIR problem
but no, not by invading.
Had we merely carried out our stated war aim and destroyed the Repub Guard instead of ending the war so early (another 2 days would've done the trick) , instead of allowing it to escape back to Iraq across the Euphrates.."
Guess you forget, or conveniently ignore, the reality. As mandated by the U.N. at the time the U.S. and it's coalition had no authority to do what your advocating .
They accomplished what was asked, to drive Saddam out of Kuwait. To go further would have required another resolution.
yes we had no mandate or authority to invade at the time (though that didn't stop us in 2003, did it? LOL)
but there was NO need to invade.
Destroying the Republican Guard was a stated war aim (read all the books about Gulf War)
and we did NOT do it.... the war was stopped early for political purposes (they liked 100 hours and Colon Powell was worried about "world opinion" about the "Highway of Death".
Division upon division of cut off Republican Guard divisions escaped back into Iraq (with all their tanks,. etc)across the Euphrates after the cease fire as very frustrated and angry American commanders had no choice but to allow them thru.
the only reason Saddam survived the post Gulf war rebellion was because had these loyal elite troops to put down the uprising (and idiot Schwarzkopf was fooled into allowing him to fly helicopters (Iraqis said they needed them to fly around officials, instead they flew them as helicopter gunships)
so there was no need to invade.
the "Saddam" problem would have solved itself.
and it would have been solved by IRAQIS. and their political future decided by Iraqis,. etc etc
but there was NO need to invade.
Destroying the Republican Guard was a stated war aim (read all the books about Gulf War)
You can read all the war books 'til your blue in the face, half of them are as full of BS as you are.
Security Council Resolution 660 (condemning the invasion and demanding a withdrawal of Iraqi troops to the positions in which they were located on 1 August 1990) and 661(placed economic sanctions on Iraq) that authorized the '91 invasion did no such thing.
Very typical rewrite of history by yet another misguided leftest who enjoys using his sphincter muscle as a necklace.
once the UN authorized war, other than invading Iraq, there was nothing preventing us from destroying the invading iraqi forces.
we couldn't chase them into Iraq - but we didn't have to.
the entire war plan was designed to cut them off from such an escape
AND to eliminate (or very very seriously degrade the Republican Guard divisions that he threw into the theater (and he threw most of them in)
the post war backslapping, claims were made that we destroyed as much as 75%^ of the Republican Guard.
This pure nonsense was put to rest shortly thereafter when a close analysis put the figure closer to 33%
the scenes of US Army commanders going apeshit as columns and columns of Iraqi tanks were allowed to cross the Euphrates bridges (held by US military) and escape back to Iraq unharmed because the "ceasefire" are not make believe.
it is fact.
what kind of DELUSIONAL world do you live in ?
Which ones? Give us titles and authors, and tyhen we'll talk, jharp.
but you can start with the Generals War.. and the Commanders.
the Iraq2003 books are equally fascinating,.
Fiasco is quite good.
Ask anyone, or ask Colin Powell or Schwarzkopf if it was indeed one our stated war aims to destroy the Republican Guard to a significant degree?
the answer will be yes and it's irrefutable.
if you ask one of them why it wasn't done - well you'll get a lot of spin and evading the blame.
Oh but it is nitwit. What they write is opinion not fact, they write what they desired to happen not what was allowed.
elimination of the Republican Guard was what we DESIRED would happen.
our entire war plan (outflanking them from west with very heavy armor and cutting them off at the Euphrates, effectively trapping them in southern iraq and kuwait - this plan was designed with that very war aim in mind.
the fact it wasn't "allowed" to happen is a fiasco of decision making.
needless to say, everyone tried escaping the blame.
of course, the Iranians accomplished that objective without firing a shot in 2003 :)
since 9 times out of 10 the world asks us to be.
"saving the Iraqis from Uday and Qusay wasn't our job.. and certainly not worth 4000 lives, many more thousands maimed for life and how many trillions of dollars down the shithole?
Ir was/is when he violated every commitment made when Saddam signed the 1991 "ceasefire agreement. And note that's a ceasefire not a "peace" agreement.
"hey.. try walking the streets of Basra today without a burkha."
Try walking the streets of Jakata, with or without a burka? You know, the capital of the world's largest Muslim nation.
A nation that your type all claim democracy could NEVER take place.
I wish most the world's Muslims were like they are.
I was in Jakarta last year, and many women did NOT wear even a headscarf, very few women wear burkhas there (if any)
so maybe you need to know what you are talking about before opening your mouth.
I DO agree with vis a vis Saddam violating agreements and it was better to take him out,.
but we screwed up that chance in 1990.
And you do NOT invade.
so maybe you need to know what you are talking about before opening your mouth."
And I lived there for three years asshat. Are you trying, incompetently, to imply Indonesia isn't a predominately Muslim nation?
Jakarta, ISN'T the nation. Based on the 2000 census approximately 86.1% were Muslims.
Nitwit.
Maybe it's you who needs to know what you are talking about before opening your pie hole.
What YOU said is that most women in Jakarta wore burkhas despite it being a democracy.
And it certainly IS a democracy (with a form of Islam far less strident than the Saudi/Wahhabi variety or hard core Shiite variety)
but what you said was a complete and blatant LIE.
first of all, MOST Indonesian women wear the "hijab" which is the tradidional Islamic headscarf (but many women do not, particularly the educated and middle/upper classes)
a hijab is NOT a burkha, which is the potato sack with the two eye slits.
now who is the nitwit and who should shut their pie hole?
Another expat who mostly stayed in their expat compounds and knows little about the country/ culture perhaps?
And it certainly IS a democracy (with a form of Islam far less strident than the Saudi/Wahhabi variety or hard core Shiite variety)
but what you said was a complete and blatant LIE.
I'm lying?!
No nitwit my quote is as shown below. Where did I say anything close to what your LYING about?
Try walking the streets of Jakata, with or without a burka? You know, the capital of the world's largest Muslim nation.
A nation that your type all claim democracy could NEVER take place.
You might sound credible if you could refute the argument of someone who actually lived there by telling us how long you actually spent in that country. He lived there for years. Did you?
or "real Republican"
or whatever you want to call yourself.
first of all I'm not jharp.
2nd of all, clearly you and your deranged buddy do NOT know the difference between a hijab and a burkha.
Yet he lived in Muslim country for three years, you figure he would have at least learned what a hijab is?
or maybe not. As I said. I've met plenty of expats like him, completely blissfully ignorant all over the world.
or maybe not. As I said. I've met plenty of expats like him, completely blissfully ignorant all over the world."
First of all dick with ears, whether its a Burhka or a Hajib isn't germain. Argue semantics all day for all I care.
And BTW, it Hajib not "hijib," nitwit.
look penis for brains.
it makes ALL the difference in the world.
a simple headscarf is standard wear for any religious Muslim woman. It's not considered "oppressive".
wearing a potato sack with two slits for the eyes is an entirely different matter.
H I J A B
( I figured he had to have them, given the case they were making, they could have exposed the UN for the mostly useless institution it is)
but what did they do?
instead of exposing the UN, the exposed themselves.
How flat out STUPID could you be?
had they made the case for taking out Saddam based on his many violations of agreements, shooting at our planes and on the basis of being a general pest, I would have BACKED it. (but no invasion, you go in, with massive force, take him out, GET out let them settle their own matters)
but of course the war could NEVER be "sold politically" that way,. could it?
of course not.
So they essentially lied. (or let's say stretched the truth as far as they could despite the fact that had no "smoking gun" and there were elements within US intelligence apparatus who said could not be sure about his WMD)
But the case WAS made and very plainly outlined in the authorization to go to war passed by Congress. Just because you people decide to hang your hats on WMD's and ignore the other double digit reasons doesn't make t6hem any less valid.
Question: What was Clinton's prime reason for going into Serbia?
Answer: Because of "tens ofthousands" in mass graves.
Yet after the fact something far less have ever been found. Does that make Clinton a liar?
Answer: Because of "tens ofthousands" in mass graves.
Yet after the fact something far less have ever been found. Does that make Clinton a liar?"
Don't confuse these college kids with facts. Face it, even if concrete evidence turned up showing that Saddam not only had WMDs, but also personally kissed each and every one of the 9/11 hijackers before they left for America, they would rather be waterboarded than admit Bush might be right.
Don't forget that Clinton's Justice Department in 1998 said al Qaeda and Iraq WERE working together. And many media outlests, notably the BBC and ABC News, reported the same thing at the time.
Obviously, Clinton was lying about things other than sex.
(and many many "conservatives" claimed exactly that)
fact is, they SOLD the war on false premises.
you know it and I know it.
They actually had a lot of other completely VALID premises to sell it on, and I would have accepted them..
but you know and I know that those premises wouldn't have been a sale across the country.
and certainly not exactly at that time with the urgency presented
(they were lucky all lots of dems were too chickenshit to support Gulf War 1) and that turned out to be a disastrous decision on their part, so this time around, forced to a vote just prior to elections (very clever on Rove's part) they covered their asses
(precisely why HRC voted for it, as well as to burnish her "national security" credentials"./
you know and I know there was no need to invade Iraq exactly and precisely at that time.
We could have gone in anytime.
preferably after SECURING Afghanistan and killing Bin Laden at Bora Bora?
Tell us why you supported that war.
we tried playing nice with him in the beginning.
and we can't have medieval behavior in Europe of all places can we?
it was something that the Europeans should have handled by themselves but it's quite clear they're not really up to any military task these days.
we tried playing nice with him in the beginning.
and we can't have medieval behavior in Europe of all places can we?"
Put another way you supported a war that had zero tactical or strategic interest to the United States.
But fail to support the 2003 Iraq war, a country headed by the same type of despicable tyrant, and also had enormous strategic implications because of the vast amounts of oil in the region.
There's a good reason why your not anywhere near the hands of power.
I would have fully supported taking out Saddam at the time and place of OUR choosing.
but that time and place was not 2003, was not in the flukey way we tried selling the war, a sale NOONE bought.
(I laugh my ass off anytime I hear of "Coalition forces in Iraq")
and I would not have stayed behind to "countrybuild"
didn't your idiot boy W run on PRECISELY that kind of platform?
that small glimpse at a glimmer of intelligent thought is probably why I voted for him 2000.
I always wanted to take him out.
what I didn't want to do is invade and STAY there.
100 % dead on.
We were doomed to failure the day we invaded. It is playing out EXACTLY how many predicted.
Including and probably most significantly, George H.W. Bush.
exchange was your comment that implied that Iraqis were much better off before
we caused Al Qaeda to come into Iraq. My point is simply that you cannot ignore
the horrors that were going on prior to our arrival -- not if you want to make a balanced
evaluation of whether or not the Iraqis were better off before the invasion..
we ignore Horrors ALL TH THE TIME.
even among govts we support.
what happens when the rotations run out (as they will next year anyways)
what and whom will prevent the almost inevitable civil war that is yet to come?
at the very least we'd have made serious progress in eliminating the Al Qaeda in Iraq problem we created by invading.
the only problem is that "going back to square one" will have cost 4000 lives, many more maimed and invalids for life, and trillion plus dollars.
if you want to ultimately call that "victory" - well.
General Pyrrhus I'm sure will agree.
Other than Ansar al-Islam, Zarqawi's first organization, which was operating with Saddam's support in northern Kurdistan.
Unlike Saddam's regular forces, his Al Qaeda friends didn't just throw down their arms at the first rumor of Americans...
You and your friend George W.
if there was indeed even ONE minute example of an Iraq/al Qaeda link all of US officialdom would be parroting that link non stop for years to come (as they initially tried)
now they've all been forced to shut up and admit there was none.
if you want to be the last deranged stalwart, that is your right.
The leftist talking point is that Saddam and Al Qaeda had no operational links against the US prior to the invasion, which as far as we know is true*.
They were working together to attack one of America's allies and making ever greater connections. A rational individual would say such plans were at best to cause trouble for other American allies, if not America itself, but there are not many rational men on the left any more.
Seriously, you should try reading something not linked from DailyKos. You'd find it enlightening.
* Czech intelligence famously disagrees of course, claiming Atta and Baathists met prior to 9/11. Since Atta's cell phone was used in the US at the time many claim that is impossible. Of course, he could have just left it with an associate.
As for Saddam and terrorism in general, what about this?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/1132409.stm
Interesting. Of course Saddam was also behind the effort to assassinate Bush 41, so independent of Al Qaeda Saddam had a history as one of the most serious sponsors of anti-American terrorism.
I'd love to know, btw, who assassinated Saddam's guest Abu Nidal. According to all accounts Saddam did not expect an American invasion, so I can't see why he would suddenly up and kill one of his aces in the hole to try to save his own skin...
Israelis? Americans? Al Qaeda?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=...
http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature...
http://www.nationalreview.com/murdock/murdock20...
Or, Saddam had him killed because he was afraid Nidal would work for the US as a mercenary after they invaded. That's how Jane's sees it:
http://www.janes.com/security/international_sec...
Or, Saddam had him killed simply because he ran afoul of him:
http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=...
Or...
"A more probable reason for Nidal’s assassination is that he knew too much about Saddam’s terrorist ties and, with the possibility of an approaching war, that was a liability Saddam could not afford."
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?...
However he was eliminated, the fact remains that Abu Nidal, one of the world's most vicious and infamous terrorists, had been living in Iraq under Saddam's protection since 1999, or two years before the dawn of recorded history on the planet known as BDS.
Please, you can't be serious.
1 trillion dollars, 4,100 American soldiers killed, 20-30 thousand wounded, countless Iraq's killed.
And you're wondering if/when will run across Saddams secret police file to justify we did the right thing.
Please for the sake of our country. rethink your position.
Knowing what happened to Abu Nidal would be interesting, but no, not worth the cost of the war.
Removing the man that tried to assassinate an American president? That is a different story, and something we should have done, at a lower cost, in 1993.
you guys are too funny.
yes, the FACTS, as even your heroic administration officials have admitted to, are "leftist propaganda"
hahahahah
btw.. my theory on Abu Nidal is that Saddam decided he grew tired of him and having him around made him susceptible to being charged with "harboring terrorists".
(which he did, but not AQ)
so he had Abu go to sleep with the fishes.
but NIdal wasn't AQ and there was no AQ in Iraq, until we went in, failed to seal the border and they flooded in (a brilliant strategy if I say so myself (is my sarcasm not apparent enough?)
Please show me evidence that Al Qaeda wasin Iraq other than you telling us it was.
Dick Cheney tried that...
for a while at least.
then after being utterly discredited he shut his trap.
why is yours still flapping?
and Zarqawi wasn't al Qaida until after the invasion (another fact)
if any remote cells in Baghdad or elswhere, it wasn't with Hussein's help and or support.
by your logic we should invade London and Hamburg because certainly there are most Al Qaeda cells there than in Baghdad.
In fact, you should have invaded Florida. Were't almost all the 9/11 hijackers living and training to fly planes there?
If you had actually read my post, that was one of the theories I posted. Please try again.
Or, Saddam had him killed simply because he ran afoul of him:
http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=...
and he wasn't operating with "Saddam's support", if there was any given, he was on an extremely short leash.
took us how many years to kill Zarqawi? Saddam would have had him squealing in Abu Ghraib within hours.
Interesting you should claim he was on a short leash.
Then by extension you must also believe Saddam was fully aware Zarqawi controlled about a dozen villages and a range of peaks in northern Iraq on the Iranian border.
And thar ZarqawiI also used tactics such as suicide bombers in its conflicts with the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan and other Kurdish groups.
All before the 2003 invasion.
Is THAT the short leash you're referring to? Or will you now back-peddle faster than a whirling dervish?
Does it also mean you fail to believe the The 9/11 Commission Report when it reported:
"In the late 1990s, these extremist groups suffered major defeats by Kurdish forces. In 2001, with Bin Ladin's help they re-formed into an organization called Ansar al Islam. There are indications that by then the Iraqi regime tolerated and may even have helped Ansar al Islam against the common Kurdish enemy."
they were also sworn enemies of Hussein.
you people are funny (or scary depending on how you want to look at it)
Zarqawi was NEVER al Qaeda, until we invaded, and he found could run around and cause REAL trouble.
Saddam had several run of the mill "terrorists". so what?
our war on terror and terrorists is specifically a war on Al Qaeda.
there are thousands and thousands and thousands of terrorists in West Gaza for e.g.
but they don't fly airplanes into our buildings.
at least they haven't yet
(Israeli building are a different matter but that's Israel's problem)
Uh...what?
Saddam was supporting Ansar al-Islam, an Al Qaeda affiliate, as his proxies versus the Kurds long before we invaded Iraq, since we would not let him attack them any more himself.
In 2002 Saddam allowed Al Qaeda to formally establish cells in Baghdad under the command of Abu Ayyub al-Masri, who later became Zarqawi's second in command in Al Qaeda's Iraqi division.
Zarqawi sought refuge in Iraq after being wounded in battle in Afghanistan. Saddam welcomed him, gave him medical aid, and allowed him to join up with the Iraqi Al Qaeda franchise.
How he came out on top of Al Qaeda proper and Ansar al-Islam is an open question though.
there has been NO link at all between AQ and Saddam and there were most CERTAINLY no AQ cells in Iraq.
None. Zero.
even Dick Cheney can no longer get away with babbling such nonsense. I wonder where you think you can get off with babbling it.
there certainly were some terrorists in Iraq, but these were all of the anti Israel variety (Abu Nidal, et al) but those are NOT AQ.
Zarqawi only identified with AQ after we invaded..
Ansar al-Islam was at war with the Kurds, and supported by Saddam.
Al Qaeda was "merely" establishing itself at Saddam's welcome.
Zarqawi only identified with AQ after we invaded..
Zarqawi was in Jordan until 1999. His Bayt al-Imam group was broken up by the government. When he was let out of prison 1999 he left for Afghanistan where he joined Al Qaeda.
Just for your notes, the common leftist talking point is that he was an unimportant member of Al Qaeda.
Presumably he met with the predecessors of the Taliban when he travelled there previously in 1989 and stayed until 1993.
they operated from a mountaineous area on the Iranian border BEYOND Saddam's control.
nice try.
too funny
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1oUW_Gbr2wM
That's some reliable source you got there!
plus, everything they say makes ;perfect sense.
No dictator would tie his hands or his fate to fanatics.
defies all common sense
your Al Qeada linked group operated near Iranian border and was OUTSIDE of Husseins' area of control
nice try thoughl
you'd better off invading Hamburg or London, at least in those cities the local authorities have control despite the Al Qaeda cells there
btw..
here you go
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mdlEcFfYZ2k
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJiNtpIpD6k&feat...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QWdq7hg4dLU&feat...
maybe Dick Cheney is a loony leftist.
there Zarqawi only swore fealty to Bin Laden long after the US invasion
I know he was in Afghanistan but he wasn't Al Qaeda.
sorry to deflate your little balloon.
if what you say is true, then alll the pompous blowhard administration officials wouldn't have had to admit (albeit painfully) that there was NO Iraq/Al Qaeda link.
Even W admitted to this on Meet the Press I believe.(or somewhere, but he did admit it)
if Saddam used those particular terrrorists to go after the Kurds, that would make perfect sense.
but that still doesn't make them al Qaeda.
and Zarqawi wasn't Al Qaeda until after the invasion.
Zarqawi:
1) On Zarqawi's second visit to Afghanistan, he joined Al Qaeda.
2) He fled capture/death at the hands of the Americans to Saddam's willing arms
3) He then joined Al Qaeda's Iraq division and "worked his way to the top".
Interestingly this last point either indicates that he was not the peon less ignorant leftists then yourself claim, or had phenomenal leadership potential and was therefore far to great a threat to allow to fester in Iraq.
As an aside, I'm also intrigued to what you think he was doing in Afghanistan...taking time off from killing infidels to raise goats perhaps?
Ansar al-Islam
1) Was an Al Qaeda affiliate working with Saddam against an American ally.
2) Was an American target from the beginning.
that is the fact and it's an indisputable fact.
everything else ie meaningless.
there was NO Al Qeada "Iraq division".
never existed. Otherwise W and Cheney and everyone else would be proclaiming this link to us each and every day with a smug I told you so.
al Qaeda Iraq came into being WHEN Zarqawi decided to join Bin Laden
AFTER the invasion.
sure he was a terrorist... and I'm sure whatever he was doing in Afghanistan it wasn't for the betterment of humanity.
but it doesn't change the fact he wasn't Al Qaeda.
just like Uncle Joe and Uncle Mao.
both Communists. Both slaughtered/starved millions of their own people.
but one was Russian, and the other Chinese.
they were not the same.
An Arab terrorist goes to Osama's Afghanistan, and sets up a training camp with Al Qaeda money, and when the Americans show up he fights alongside the rest of Al Qaeda. But he is not Al Qaeda.
Apparently, you don't understand what "member of" means.
BTW, you keep saying "after the invasion" but not which one. Which brings up the interesting question, are you denying he was Al Qaeda before the Iraq war or the Afghan war. If the latter, your point is still invalid, since he was still Al Qaeda when he fled to Saddam's Iraq.
He certainly did swear fealty to Osama when he formally took the reins of Al Qaeda in Iraq. I'm not quite sure why that invalidates his previous membership in the organization.
If Zarqawi and the other you claim were indeed fully linked to al Qaeda there would be absolutely zero controversy over the supposed "link" and almost every single administration official wouldn't have been forced to state that there was no "actionable" link.
I can start putting up the various quotes from all the administration officials and even W himself.
Or I can believe YOU.
Zarqawi was a terrorist but he was never al Qaeda.
and I haven't seeen it proven he "fought" against Americans in Afghanistan with Al Qeada.
but so what if he did.
makes him an enemy. Makes him worth of getting killed.
but still doesn't make him Al Qaeda
I'll take your silence as a tacit apology.
no apology.
and feel free to live in your own deluded world.
I notice you refuse to acknowledge you were wrong about Zarqawi going to Iraq before the war also.
Well, as they say, there are none so blind as those that will not see.
and we invaded with not enough troops to seal off the border, so they flooded in.
BRILLIANT, would't you say?
Our brave men and women will get the job done, and jackasses like you will benefit. I'm quite sure that the Iraqi people in the future will be completely grateful to our military for bringing them the freedom that was unheard of just a few years ago.
People like you are the worst -- you cling to stupid theories like a child clings to an empty box of candy. To hell with you.
but I pick my targets.
hmm.. "the job done"
and that "job" is?
if defined what i heard before the war that might take about 100 years.(with some luck)
the Iraqi people in the future..
err.. no.
read a book
history preferable.
very very very few invaders in history are ever greeted as "liberators", even if they actually are.
the Shiites were very grateful for about a day (and they had the most to gain from the invasion)
then they said - thank you, now get the "f" out.
Pay close attention, ass: this post was about al Qaeda's loathsome and despicable use of mentally handicapped women to commit mass murder. Now, I recognize that a moron like you has trouble getting beyond an imbecilic repitition of the reasons that you hate Bush, but I hope that it actually IS possible for your handful of functional brain cells to form just a fleeting hint of reproach for the real villains in this horror story, i.e. al Qaeda. Do try, won't you? And if you find it beyond your puny mental powers to lay off hating Bush for the two second necessary to think, "Boy, those al Qaeda guys are real bastards", then please crawl back into your parents' basement and leave the rest of us alone.
Moron.
It is more that if the necessary condition of bashing George Bush is ignoring Al Qaeda atrocities, and apparently rewritting history, then that is ok, because the leftist moral imperative to show that Bush is a evil, moronic, supergenius, controlled by the Jews, the Christians, and the Saudis all at the same time.
that's why I'd leave big mushroom clouds over Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia.
I just don't understand what they have to do with Iraq.
ah yes.. let's go in... open the borders..(by not securing them)
allow them to hide among the disaffected parts of the population and wreak havoc.
and then finally eliminate them, thereby eliminating something that wasn't there in the first place.
maybe you can help me with the logic.
My deepest sympathies.
The Bogey man must be quite young; I'd say between 25 & 30 tops. A deadly combination of nieveity and Liberalism...
Poor soul......
care to explain why you'd go into potential WMD territory and not secure the borders to prevent any WMD from being smuggled out.
and by sealing the borders you also break lines of supply that your opponent may have established (to speak nothing of actual Al Qaeda types that flooded in?)
birdbrain can't quite grasp that one, eh?
You certainly can't and don't believe what you have just posted.
I understand that it is difficult to justify our invasion and occupation.
However, accusing someone of thinking al Qaeda are the good guys is preposterous.
Just how much Kool-Aid have you been guzzling today? I worry about your brain, that's all. Of course the Left loves al Qaeda. This is the bed you have made. Take a nap in it.
it's perfectly reasonable to point out when such atrocities happen that the perpetrators of such atrocities were nowhere to be found within the country PRIOR to our invasion.
what part of that do you not understand, birdbrain?
I just think it's pathetic we've spent years and thousands of lives fighting something that we ourselves needlessly created.
A "tempered" conversation about Capt. Ed's post would be one post.
It was a horrible tragic event and done it sickening and horrible way.
No one can deny that and I'm pretty sure we can all agree.
To post on how it happened and how things could be better is the only patriotic thing to do.
We'll all be better off because of it. Regardless of anyone's position.
In the end, having the likes of Harry Reid use the floor of the Senate to announce the defeat of America in our war on terror, will be very telling to all Americans as we go on from here. The upcoming elections just might put a Democrat back in the WH; this is a fact that we all must face. Whom ever wins this race will have to face international terrorism, as these creatures will not go away unless defeated. Will the next leader of the free world have what it takes to continue the righteous battle against those who seek to destroy the free world? I can only hope so for the sake of my children, as well as my grand children. This enemy will not go away; this enemy understands the weaknesses of a "free society" and is attacking those weaknesses unlike any enemy we have ever faced.
Why am I not surprised that this is your ultimate position?
I'd back it.
but spare me the horror stories about AQ in Iraq (they're there because we LET them in)
couldn't even seal the borders when we went in.
and ultimately such horrror work to our advantage by allowing ourselves to withdraw with honor once the locals turn against them.
To summarize:
Bogey: We've created thousands of terrorists by invading Iraq. Let's nuke Mecca and Afghanistan.
Setting aside the immorality of your proposal, if you buy into the idea that American military action is what creates terrorists then a nuclear attack on the Islamic holy land ought to turn what's left of the billion plus worldwide Muslim population against us for the rest of history. Please do take a break, you're spamming the comment section.
but if I don't take the argument to the extreme, I'm always merely dismissed as some "lefty peacenick".
my only point is if you are a truly foaming at the mouth fight the Islamic extremism type, then you should've been eliminating S. Arabia, Yemen and part of Aghanistan and Pakistan instead of wasting time, lives and treasure in Mesopotamia.
as to truly getting rid of them - you've highlighted the very difficulty of accomplishing the goal.
we can't aggresively go after them because they're being "tolerated/harbored" by the supposedly "moderate majorities" in the Islamic countries within.
I wish I had an answer to the problem. Perhaps you do.
What a waste of everybody's time.
Since AlQaeda is there and it is place where we can kill a bunch, that's what we do. We are at war with alqaeda after all. So it only makes sense to do so.
but that's why wars are planned. and preplanned.
and wargamed on Pentagon computers to death.
You can argue not being ready for the Feyadeen was something they couldn't have foreseen but not sealing the borders is flat out inexcusable.
Especially when those potential WMD's that you're worried about fallling into the wrong hands can then easily move across that unsealed border.
the stupidity is almost criminal.
When you operate in such an environment, egregious errors are flat out guaranteed.
JANUARY 14, 1999
Transcript # 99011401-j18
TYPE: PACKAGE
SECTION: NEWS
LENGTH: 7310 words
HEADLINE: CRIME AND JUSTICE
BYLINE: J. MILLER, J. MCWETHY, S. MACVICAR, CYNTHI MCFADDEN
HIGHLIGHT: TARGET AMERICA: THE TERRORIST WAR
BODY:
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ANNOUNCER: From ABC News, this is Crime and Justice.
CYNTHIA MCFADDEN, ABC News: (voice-over) The enemy is out there. Terrorists targeting Americans around the world.
PRUDENCE BUSHNELL, U.S. Ambassador to Kenya: It is a least manly way of going to war that I can think of.
CYNTHIA MCFADDEN: (voice-over) Where will innocent people die next? Will the new front line be abroad or at home?
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: Intelligence sources telling Time magazine they believe Osama bin Laden may be planning an attack on New York or Washington.
CYNTHIA MCFADDEN: (voice-over) It's a shadowy network of radical fundamentalists led by this man.
OSAMA BIN LADEN: (through translator) We predict a black day for America.
CYNTHIA MCFADDEN: (voice-over) With a $5 million award posted for his capture.
Rep. PORTER GOSS, Chairman, Select Intelligence Committee: What amazes me a little bit is ABC seems to be able to sit down and talk to Osama bin Laden.
CYNTHIA MCFADDEN: (voice-over) Tonight, an exclusive ABC News interview with the man who declared war on the United States -- terrorist leader Osama bin Laden. His loyal foot soldiers are even here in the U.S., hidden among us, awaiting his call to deadly action.
OSAMA BIN LADEN: (through translator) We do not differentiate between those dressed in military uniforms and civilians.
CYNTHIA MCFADDEN: (voice-over) Now, the real story behind the deadly embassy bombings, over 220 dead and more than 4,000 injured. Was the government warned? And why is bin Laden in secret meetings with Saddam Hussein's top men? ABC News has learned of a high-risk mission planned by U.S. commandos. But will they get to Osama bin Laden in time? Can anything stop the slaughter?
ANNOUNCER: Tonight, "Target America: The Terrorist War." With reports from John Miller, Sheila MacVicar and John McWethy in Washington. Now, from New York, Cynthia McFadden.
CYNTHIA MCFADDEN, ABC News: Good evening. And welcome to ABC News Crime and Justice. Over the next several weeks, we'll be bringing you a series of stories about people on both sides of the law -- some fascinating, some frightening.
We start with one of the biggest threats facing the world today, terrorism. It's an issue of such great concern that ABC News assembled a team to take you moment by moment through the recent African embassy bombings and deep inside the FBI and CIA investigations.
Sheila MacVicar from London, John McWethy from the Pentagon and John Miller from our law and justice unit here in New York will tell you who was behind the bombs, how the bombings were planned and what the U.S. government is going to do about it.
Tonight, you'll hear information never before made public about the man who has been called America's number-one enemy, Osama bin Laden, and his worldwide network of devoted soldiers. We begin in East Africa on that terrible day last August. We must warn you, some of the footage you're about to see is graphic.
ONDEKO AURA, Kenyan Broadcasting: It was reminiscent of doomsday. The first thing I saw was a thick cloud of smoke billowing above my head. Minutes later, I saw people running, bleeding profusely.
CYNTHIA MCFADDEN: (voice-over) Ondeko Aura is a reporter for Nairobi Television. On the morning of August 7, 1998, he and his crew were about to do an interview two blocks away from the American embassy.
ONDEKO AURA: It brings back to memory nightmares. I'll tell you, sometimes it's not easy to sleep. Sometimes those dead bodies come back to mind. You're seeing them in your sleep. You see the injured screaming in your sleep. You wake up sweating.
CYNTHIA MCFADDEN: (voice-over) U.S. intelligence officials believe the planning for this particular nightmare began more than a year earlier. During August of 1997, in Nairobi, a small group of Islamic fundamentalists had taken up residence. True believers in the terrorist creed -- that with a pickup truck and 2,000 pounds of TNT, the power is yours. Target a superpower and become a player. One of them wrote a letter to a comrade, foreshadowing what was to come.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: "There is a war, and the situation is dangerous. The fact of these matters and others leave us no choice but to ask ourselves -- are we ready for that big clandestine battle?"
CYNTHIA MCFADDEN: (voice-over) What is shocking is that a full year before the bombs explode in Africa, the CIA and FBI had intercepted this letter. The letter ends with this...
UNIDENTIFIED MAN:..."say a lot of prayers for us so God may grant us success."
CYNTHIA MCFADDEN: (voice-over) The answer to their prayers would come as the details of their plan are put in place. According to the FBI, the following is the chain of events. By August 1, 1998, the suspects have been using the rented villa in the suburbs of Nairobi for five months. They have picked a target. They are building a bomb.
The next day they check into this hotel, leaving the elements for the bomb at the villa. August 4 -- the suspects finalize their plans, taking a practice drive past their target -- the U.S. embassy.
("Hail To The Chief" plays)
(voice-over) August 6 -- in Washington, the President is trying to conduct business as usual. If he is distracted, it is not by a terrorist plot half a world away, but by a former White House intern giving testimony today to a Washington grand jury.
Friday, August 7 -- leaving the villa just before rush hour, the suspects are driving two Toyota trucks -- one carrying the bomb. They are headed toward their target. It is a suicide mission. The U.S. ambassador to Kenya, Prudence Bushnell, says she remembers the morning clearly.
PRUDENCE BUSHNELL, U.S. Ambassador to Kenya: Every Friday, we have a senior staff meeting scheduled. And indeed, I had one scheduled that day.
CYNTHIA MCFADDEN: (voice-over) Four hundred fifteen miles away in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, American embassy personnel are also heading to work. One of them, Justena Mdobilu, is starting her morning in the usual way -- praying for God's protection.
Back in Nairobi, Joanne Huskey is bringing her kids to the embassy for their school shots. They arrive at the embassy gate at the same moment as a Toyota truck.
JOANNE HUSKEY: I noticed the truck, and I noticed that it was not an embassy truck. It was probably some kind of a delivery truck, and it seemed to have a tarpaulin over the top.
CYNTHIA MCFADDEN: (voice-over) She has no idea that inside that truck is a bomb. It's now 10:30 in the morning. The guard refuses to let the truck enter.
EMBASSY GUARD: These guys were strange. I never seen them before.
CYNTHIA MCFADDEN: (voice-over) Inside the embassy, Major Neil Kringel is enduring the Friday staff meeting.
Maj. NEIL KRINGEL: 10:35, and I was thinking, "Oh, boy, how boring this meeting was." It was really, really dragging to me. And all of a sudden, we heard this small bang.
CYNTHIA MCFADDEN: (voice-over) That small bang was a stun grenade, a diversion to help the terrorists move their truck closer to the embassy.
NEIL KRINGEL: Nine, 10 seconds later was the huge bang.
PRUDENCE BUSHNELL: Kaboom!
JOANNE HUSKEY: And the whole thing blew up.
NEIL KRINGEL: And then I realized, "Jesus, we've just been bombed."
ONDEKO AURA: There has been a powerful bomb blast at the American embassy. Numerous people are feared dead. Hundreds of others are feared injured. Ondeko Aura, KBC (ph) News, outside the American embassy, Nairobi.
CYNTHIA MCFADDEN: (voice-over) The force of the bomb sent scraps of metal and glass flying at a terrifying 21,000 miles per hour -- a deadly shower that kills many of those drawn to the windows to investigate that first explosion. Those who survive have to find a way out.
JOANNE HUSKEY: Then we heard voices calling out, and them asking where the door was, where's a door? I would say, "I know there's a door somewhere here." And finally, we saw a light.
PRUDENCE BUSHNELL: We went down an absolutely torturous journey, 21 flights of stairs, blood all over the place. And the farther down we got, the darker it became and the more smoke there was. At one point, I thought, "I'm going to die."
ONDEKO AURA: Just next to the U.S. embassy building, I see a very familiar face. Who's face is this? The U.S. ambassador Bushnell. She was bleeding from the head, from the hands.
CYNTHIA MCFADDEN: (voice-over) Seven minutes later, the American embassy in Dar es Salaam is rocked by an enormous explosion. Justena Mdobilu, who started the morning praying for protection, is inside the crumbling building.
JUSTENA MDOBILU: It was this "bhhhhh." It reverberated through my body.
CYNTHIA MCFADDEN: (voice-over) The bomb is identical to the one used in Nairobi -- 2,000 pounds of TNT. Back in Washington, the President is awakened in the hours before dawn with news of the bombings. Already medical supplies are being sent from U.S. bases in Germany, as FBI and CIA counterterrorism experts assemble at Andrews Air Force Base for a flight to Africa.
Within hours, U.S. officials will name Osama bin Laden the architect of the bombings. ABC's Sheila MacVicar reports how bin Laden became a legend in the business of terror.
SHEILA MACVICAR, ABC News: (voice-over) Just who is Osama bin Laden? He is a son of privilege, one of 53 children of a Saudi Arabian billionaire, himself married with three wives and seven children, an unlikely holy warrior. He uses his own fortune, estimated at $300 million or more, to fund his battles.
No millionaire life for him. He lives as a guerrilla fighter, his base in the mountains of Afghanistan. Barri Atwan, editor of the respected Arabic daily Al-Quds, has tracked bin Laden's life.
BARRI ATWAN, Editor, Al-Quds: He gave up wealth. He gave up money, and he decided to go and fight for Muslim causes until he dies as martyr. In the Arab world, in the Muslim world, he is a hero.
SHEILA MACVICAR: (voice-over) The United States first heard of Osama bin Laden 20 years ago. His story began during the Afghan war, the last great stand-off between Communist Soviet Union and the United States. Bin Laden was one of thousands of Arabs who volunteered alongside the Muslim Afghanis, allied to the Americans by a common cause -- the defeat of the Soviets.
But with Russians driven from Afghanistan, bin Laden began to focus on what the U.S. was doing. And he didn't like what he saw.
BARRI ATWAN: The man hates the American policies in the region. He considers America or the American administration the main enemy of the Muslim and Arab worlds.
SHEILA MACVICAR: (voice-over) In his homeland of Saudi Arabia, bin Laden was angered by the arrival of U.S. forces, welcomed by a royal family he denounced as corrupt. The Americans were occupiers, he said, with no business in the Muslim holy land.
VINCE CANNISTRARO, ABC News Intelligence Consultant: To Osama, these were infidels. These were nonbelievers, and they were there despoiling Saudi Arabia, which should be the pristine guardian of Islam.
SHEILA MACVICAR: (voice-over) He declared his own war -- a war investigators now suspect began back in 1993 at the World Trade Center, continued in Saudi Arabia and Somalia, where it was his fighters who killed 18 U.S. soldiers and forced the U.S. to leave Somalia. For bin Laden, it was an important lesson -- the U.S. could be made to withdraw.
Last February, bin Laden and other Islamic militants formed "the world Islamic front for holy war against Jews and Americans."
STANLEY BEDLINGTON, Former CIA Analyst: He is driven by his extremist version of Islam which is far, far, removed from the voices of authentic Islam.
SHEILA MACVICAR: (voice-over) He issued this ominous warning -- "Killing Americans and their allies, civilian and military," he said, "is an individual duty for every Muslim."
Three months later, ABC's John Miller was waiting to meet the man U.S. authorities now call public enemy number one.
JOHN MILLER, ABC News: (voice-over) Peshawar, Pakistan. To find Osama bin Laden, you start here. Of course, you don't find bin Laden, unless he wants you to. Days before, our contacts in bin Laden's organization instructed us to dress in the clothing of the region. At airports, we were handed tickets just before the flights. We were never told our destinations in advance.
In the late afternoon of May 20, two months before the embassy bombings, we were loaded into the back of a truck and driven toward the Khyber Pass, the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Two of bin Laden's men led us over the border into Afghanistan on foot. That night, another truck took us to bin Laden's camps. In the early morning hours of May 22, Osama bin Laden made his entrance.
(Gunshots)
(voice-over) This scene, of course, was a show for the cameras. We understood that. Even so, after two days in the camps, it was clear to us that the men around bin Laden, hundreds of them, idolize him. He is, for lack of a better comparison, like a god to them.
But bin Laden downplays his own power. He denied ordering the various attacks he'd been linked to but said he supported the attacks and knew many of the suspects. And he warned America should brace for more.
OSAMA BIN LADEN: (through translator) We predict a black day for America and the end of the United States. And they will retreat from our land and collect the bodies of their sons back to America.
JOHN MILLER: (voice-over) That was a direct threat against the U.S. military. But bin Laden was very deliberate in his next threat -- that the killing would not be limited to American soldiers.
OSAMA BIN LADEN: (through translator) We do not differentiate between those dressed in military uniforms and civilians. They are all targets in this fatwa.
(Gunshots)
JOHN MILLER: (voice-over) Like the bullets his followers fired into the sky, bin Laden's threats seemed to hang in the air that night. He did not say how Americans would die or when or where. Of course, if plans for the embassy bombings had begun in March, as the FBI now alleges, then bin Laden already knew that night in late May, how, when and where.
CYNTHIA MCFADDEN: When we come back, U.S. investigators sort through the rubble. We'll show you why they say Osama bin Laden was the mastermind.
(Commercial Break)
CYNTHIA MCFADDEN: (voice-over) Nairobi, Kenya, August 8, 1998. Over the next week, this makeshift morgue will become a painful stop for those looking for their loved ones. By week's end, more than 220 people are dead, with over 4,000 injured.
Among the dead are 12 Americans. A career diplomat and his 20-year-old son. A Marine sergeant come to cash his paycheck. A 40-year-old Air Force officer, who'd just turned down an offer to return to Washington because she loved Africa.
But in those first horrible hours, it was unclear who was dead and who was alive.
ROBERT KIRK, Embassy Worker: There were helicopters all around, and people were just -- it was just mayhem.
CYNTHIA MCFADDEN: (voice-over) After the bombing, Robert Kirk searched frantically for his wife, Arlene. Both worked at the embassy in Nairobi. Both had the day off, but Arlene decided to go in for just a minute to check her e-mail.
ROBERT KIRK: OK, I just told everyone that "I want to see my wife. I want to see her condition before I leave this place. Simple as that. And I waited there.
CYNTHIA MCFADDEN: (voice-over) All the while thinking about the life they had shared -- traveling the world and working together, raising a family. About an hour later, his worst fears were confirmed.
ROBERT KIRK: She was wrapped in a blanket, but her hair was exposed and I could tell it was her by her hair. And I remember the only thing I said was, "Oh, my God," and closed the blanket because her face was disfigured.
CYNTHIA MCFADDEN: (voice-over) That first night there was little hope for survivors until rescuers heard a voice from deep under the rubble. Rose Macharia, a 36-year-old mother of three, could be heard faintly begging for help.
RESCUER: Rose, Rose!
ONDEKO AURA: I was on top of the debris reporting, and I hear the rescuers calling, "Rose, Rose!" They call out her name.
CYNTHIA MCFADDEN: (voice-over) Businessman Vimal Shah is one of the many who try to help her.
VIMAL SHAH, Businessman: Because this could fall any time.
She was saying, "Get me out. I need help. I need assistance." And she was knocking on the concrete there.
ONDEKO AURA: Rose seems to be the driving factor of the rescue mission. She seems to give hope of at least achieving some success in retrieving somebody alive from the wreckage.
CYNTHIA MCFADDEN: (voice-over) And for five long days, rescuers struggle to free her. As the search for survivors continues, the first wave of counterterrorism investigators from the CIA and FBI begin to arrive. They are 13 hours late because of problems with a transport plane. The FBI's Mike Brooks is among the first on the scene and sets up a command post.
MIKE BROOKS, FBI: In going through the embassy and knowing that people died in that building, you see nametags. You see name plates. You see pictures, personal effects. And you wonder what happened to this person? Did this person live? Did this person die? How could anyone have survived this at all?
JOHN MILLER: (voice-over) Immediately following the embassy bombings, bin Laden vanishes from his camps. For weeks, he is deep in hiding. December 24 -- somewhere in the Afghan desert, inside a tent, Osama bin Laden meets an ABC News reporter for a second exclusive interview. With bin Laden in the tent are his top advisors. By now, the U.S. has offered a $5 million reward for bin Laden's capture.
OSAMA BIN LADEN: (through translator) If the instigation for Jihad against the Jews and the Americans is considered a crime, let history be a witness that I am a criminal.
JOHN MILLER: (voice-over) It is the first time bin Laden has been seen since the embassy bombings. He denies ordering the attacks but says he believes his calls for war on the United States have been heard.
OSAMA BIN LADEN: (through translator) Most probably these acts came about as a result of such calls and warnings, but only God knows the truth.
JOHN MILLER: (voice-over) But we asked bin Laden even if he supported the killing of Americans in the name of Jihad, how could he justify the Africans, the Muslims and children who were hurt and killed?
OSAMA BIN LADEN: (through translator) When it becomes apparent that it would be impossible to repel these Americans without assaulting them, even if this involved the killing of Muslims, this is permissible under Islam.
JOHN MILLER: (voice-over) In spite of bin Laden's denials, he was the leading suspect from day one. But before the FBI could try and prove who the bombers were working for, they had to find the bombers. The FBI's Ken Pernick tried to put himself inside the bomber's head.
KEN PERNICK, FBI: If I was the terrorist, how would I plan to do this? When I put myself in their shoes, I can begin to help focus my own investigation. What would I use? What kind of people would use?
JOHN MILLER: (voice-over) The answers to "what kind of people" came in more quickly than investigators could have imagined. August 7, the same day the bombs went off, a plane coming from Nairobi touches down in Karachi, Pakistan. At passport control, one of the passengers appears nervous. Immigration officials say he hands them this false passport.
Shift commander Riaz Gondal questions the man in this office. Gondal says they learn his real name is Muhammad Sadiq Odeh, and they say he admits to being an explosives expert, trained in bin Laden's camps.
RIAZ GONDAL, Pakistani Immigration Official: When he was being interrogated, at one point, he admitted frankly that he is a member of Al Qaeda organization, which is headed by Mr. Osama bin Laden.
JOHN MILLER: (voice-over) According to Gondal, Odeh describes planning the bombing at the Hilltop Hotel and gives the names of the other bombers. And so, within 24 hours of the bombing, alert Pakistani immigration officials hand investigators the first big break.
August 9 -- two days after the bombing. Nairobi police receive a tip about another man who went by the name Khalid. He is said to be among the injured. Peter Mbuvi is the assistant chief of detectives for Kenya's national police.
Det. PETER MBUVI, Kenya's National Police: The force behind the arrest of this person, of Khalid, came from a member of the public who became suspicious.
JOHN MILLER: (voice-over) Kenyan investigators find Khalid. They say his real name is Mohammed Al Owali. He has a deep wound in his back. The FBI says Al Owali admits he got the wound running away from the truck that carried the bomb, that he rode in the truck to the embassy, that he was the man who threw the grenade at this guard.
EMBASSY GUARD: He pull out something, then he threw.
JOHN MILLER: (voice-over) The FBI says Al Owali ran just before the explosion because he changed his mind about becoming a martyr. With two suspects talking, the FBI identifies a third, Harun Fazil, as the man who supervised the making of the bomb in that rented villa. Assistant director Lew Schiliro is the FBI's man in charge of the embassy bombing case.
LEWIS SCHILIRO, FBI Assistant Director in Charge: Fazil is believed to be originally from the Comoros Islands, is alleged to have been in Nairobi at the time of the bombings and is also have been alleged to have led the truck to the embassy.
JOHN MILLER: (voice-over) In the Comoros Islands, the FBI raids Fazil's home. Fazil is gone. Neighbors say Fazil was a serious young man who memorized the Koran and taught religious classes before moving to Kenya. ABC News obtained this video of an FBI evidence recovery team going over the house, looking for clues that might connect Fazil to the bombing.
LEWIS SCHILIRO: Fazil has become a subject of an international manhunt, somebody that's also subject to the $5 million State Department reward and is an individual we would desperately seek to get back to the United States to put on trial.
JOHN MILLER: (voice-over) ABC News also obtained this video, which FBI sources say shows Fazil on a mission for bin Laden in Kenya, as far back as 1996.
PETER MBUVI: What our investigations have revealed so far is that most of the people who are behind this incident, actually, they have all been financed by Osama bin Laden.
JOHN MILLER: (voice-over) While investigators were busy making their case, in Washington, ABC's John McWethy reports, top U.S. officials were looking for something more immediate.
("Nearer My God To Thee" plays)
JOHN MCWETHY, ABC News: (voice-over) August 12 -- by the time the bodies of the Americans killed in the embassy bombings are flown back to Washington, the President is already secretly exploring ways to retaliate.
Pres. BILL CLINTON: No matter what it takes, we must find those responsible for these evil acts and see that justice is done.
JOHN MCWETHY: (voice-over) With all evidence pointing to bin Laden, the President's national security team meets to consider options, including, ABC News has learned, sending an armed force into Afghanistan. But worry that bin Laden is preparing to hit again forces a quicker, lower-risk option -- unmanned Cruise missiles. Targets are examined, not only in Afghanistan and Sudan, but also Yemen.
(on camera) Intelligence intercepts give the White House, a key piece of information that drives both timing and location. On August 20, 13 days after the embassy bombings, bin Laden plans to gather his top lieutenants at a remote location in Afghanistan. That is the primary target. The unstated objective -- to kill Osama bin Laden.
(voice-over) But the President wants a second target and eventually chooses the Al Shifa pharmaceutical plant in Sudan, which the CIA suspects of making chemical weapons and which appears to have financial ties to bin Laden.
August 17 -- in the midst of secret preparations for the retaliation, the President is forced to testify to the Kenneth Starr grand jury about Monica Lewinsky.
Pres. BILL CLINTON: I do.
JOHN MCWETHY: (voice-over) The next day, he heads for vacation on Martha's Vineyard and seclusion. But on August 20, instead of heading to the golf course as expected...
ANNOUNCER: This is an ABC News Special Report.
JOHN MCWETHY: (voice-over) The President stuns the White House press corps.
Pres. BILL CLINTON: Today, I ordered our armed forces to strike at terrorist-related facilities in Afghanistan and Sudan.
JOHN MCWETHY: (voice-over) Sixty-six of the 79 Cruise missiles used in the attack hit remote camps in Afghanistan, what officials described as bin Laden's graduate school for terrorists. In his most recent interview with ABC News, Bin Laden insists damage was minor, though he concedes 34 were killed. He says using unmanned Cruise missiles is cowardly, showing that the U.S. military is too fearful to meet the young people of Islam face to face.
Newly released satellite imagery shows, in before and after photographs, extensive destruction of what the U.S. claims was nearly 50 buildings, including this row of huts that apparently housed the leadership. General Hugh Shelton is chairman of the Joint Chiefs.
Gen. HUGH SHELTON, Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff: We also wanted to show that the United States will act decisively and in self-defense and preemptively, if necessary.
JOHN MCWETHY: (voice-over) Intelligence officials tell ABC News that the camps that once housed 600 people in training are now empty. Some of bin Laden's top people, it appears, were injured and a high-ranking aide killed. Bin Laden himself left the camp hours before the strike, perhaps tipped off by the sudden evacuation of the U.S. embassy in Pakistan the day before.
In Sudan, the pharmaceutical plant is turned to rubble. But from the first day, this target is a much tougher "sell" to the public.
WILLIAM COHEN, Secretary of Defense: We do know that he had contributed to this particular facility. We do know that this facility produces precursors that can result in the production of VX. And that was a sufficient connection for us.
JOHN MCWETHY: (voice-over) As it turns out, the U.S. really does not know either of those things. Bin Laden's direct financial ties to that plant are vague. And the U.S. does not know if any part of nerve gas was actually made there.
STANLEY BEDLINGTON: It was wrong, a mistake. And it made a lot of people in the administration feel good. You know, "We've hit him hard." But, in fact, all we did really is turn off a lot of people in the Muslim world, and in fact, we acted as a recruiter for Osama bin Laden.
JOHN MCWETHY: (voice-over) Officially, there is no second guessing.
Gen. HUGH SHELTON: There is absolutely no question in my mind that we hit the right targets.
JOHN MCWETHY: (voice-over) The administration claims the strikes, along with vastly expanded law enforcement efforts to squeeze bin Laden's network, are forcing him to look over his shoulder as never before.
CYNTHIA MCFADDEN: The American missile strikes may have slowed down bin Laden, but could the embassy bombings have been prevented altogether if the U.S. government had only paid more attention to warnings? And later, allegations that Osama bin Laden is seeking a new ally in Saddam Hussein.
ANNOUNCER: "Target America: The Terrorist War" will continue in a moment.
(Commercial Break)
CYNTHIA MCFADDEN: (voice-over) In the year before the bombings, Ambassador Bushnell believed the bin Laden operatives in Nairobi had been disbanded. Even so, she repeatedly pled with her superiors in the State Department to move the embassy, which she considered vulnerable, in part, because it was too close to the street.
PRUDENCE BUSHNELL: It was clear that the reason they could not move our embassy was because there was not enough money.
CYNTHIA MCFADDEN: (voice-over) The ambassador took the extraordinary step of appealing directly to the Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright. But that plea, too, was turned down.
PRUDENCE BUSHNELL: The threat assessment in Nairobi was medium. For a lot of reasons, we did not meet the criteria. I understood that. I wasn't happy with it.
Adm. WILLIAM CROWE (Ret.): That was totally wrong.
CYNTHIA MCFADDEN: (voice-over) Admiral William Crowe, retired chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, headed up a team investigating embassy security worldwide in light of the African bombings. His commission report, released last week, concludes that the entire system used by the State Department, which classified Nairobi as under a medium threat, is deeply flawed.
The State Department agrees and has already begun to change the system. But Crowe points out, more money is needed, especially now.
WILLIAM CROWE: We have not seen fit, at least as yet, to invest very heavily in security and saving lives. And there are some weapons out there that they haven't used yet that would -- a very distinct possibility that they might be moving toward. That's chemical and biological.
So first of all, I believe that it is going to be an increased problem, and secondly, we would be foolish to treat it any other way.
ANNOUNCER: ABC News Crime and Justice continues after this from our ABC stations.
(Station Break)
ANNOUNCER: "Target America: The Terrorist War" continues. Once again, Cynthia McFadden.
CYNTHIA MCFADDEN: Two years before the African bombings, U.S. intelligence on Osama bin Laden was raising new suspicions. The CIA, FBI and National Security Agency were so concerned about his activities that they agreed to take an extraordinary step. They formed a multiagency task force with one purpose -- tracking bin Laden's activities. They were certain he was transforming himself from thunder to fighter.
SHEILA MACVICAR: (voice-over) Although few Americans were familiar with his name before the bombings, the U.S. government was, in fact, trying to arrest bin Laden months before the embassies were destroyed.
April 1998 -- U.N. Ambassador Bill Richardson goes to Afghanistan and secretly tries to negotiate with the Taliban, Afghanistan's fundamentalist rulers, for his arrest. He fails. Dr. Sa'ad Al Faqih, a Saudi dissident who opposes violence, says the U.S. tried again.
Dr. SA'AD AL FAQIH, Saudi Dissident: The leader of the Taliban said no way can we accept to meet the Americans when they strike us, claiming that we are involved in terrorism.
SHEILA MACVICAR: (voice-over) It is a sensitive time for the Taliban. They are looking for international recognition, but bin Laden is getting in the way. There is other pressure. The Saudis, long-time allies of the Taliban, cut off diplomatic relations and, more important, the flow of funds.
The Taliban begins suggesting they might put him on trial as a solution to their problem. The pressure is affecting his whole network. By September 23, this man, sent to London to spread bin Laden's message, has been arrested and alleged to be part of bin Laden's conspiracies.
In Germany, Mamdouh Salim, alleged to be a key military advisor and believed to be privy to bin Laden's most secret projects, is also apprehended. The U.S. government alleges he was under secret orders to procure enriched uranium for the purpose of developing nuclear weapons. These are allegations bin Laden does not now deny.
OSAMA BIN LADEN: (through translator) It would be a sin for Muslims not to try to possess the weapons that would prevent the infidels from inflicting harm on Muslims. But how we could use these weapons if we possess them is up to us.
SHEILA MACVICAR: (voice-over) With an American price on his head, there weren't many places bin Laden could go, unless he teamed up with another international pariah, one also with an interest in weapons of mass destruction.
VINCE CANNISTRARO: Osama believes in "the enemy of my enemy is my friend and is someone I should cooperate with." That's certainly the current case with Iraq.
SHEILA MACVICAR: (voice-over) Saddam Hussein has a long history of harboring terrorists. Carlos the Jackal, Abu Nidal, Abu Abbas, the most notorious terrorists of their era, all found shelter and support at one time in Baghdad. Intelligence sources say bin Laden's long relationship with the Iraqis began as he helped Sudan's fundamentalist government in their efforts to acquire weapons of mass destruction.
Three weeks after the bombing, on August 31, bin Laden reaches out to his friends in Iraq and Sudan. Iraq's vice president arrives in Khartoum to show his support for the Sudanese after the U.S. attack. ABC News has learned that during these meetings, senior Sudanese officials acting on behalf of bin Laden ask if Saddam Hussein would grant him asylum.
(on camera) Iraq was, indeed, interested. ABC News has learned that in December, an Iraqi intelligence chief, named Farouk Hijazi, how Iraq's ambassador to Turkey, made a secret trip to Afghanistan to meet with bin Laden. Three intelligence agencies tell ABC News they cannot be certain what was discussed, but almost certainly, they say, bin Laden has been told he would be welcome in Baghdad.
(voice-over) And intelligence sources say they can only speculate on the purpose of an alliance. What could bin Laden offer Saddam Hussein? Only days after he meets Iraqi officials, bin Laden tells ABC News that his network is wide, and there are people prepared to commit terror in his name who he does not even control.
OSAMA BIN LADEN: (through translator) It is our job to incite and to instigate. By the grace of God, we did that, and certain people responded to this instigation.
SHEILA MACVICAR: (voice-over) In detail, his terrible call to arms is on the Internet, relayed through some mosques, handed out at demonstrations. It can inspire thousands beyond anyone's command.
Dr. SA'AD AL FAQIH: The danger of those groups to the West is they are so scattered and splintered that they can never be eradicated. They don't have a common chain of command.
SHEILA MACVICAR: (voice-over) But they do have a common goal, and they represent thousands of recruits to his war against America. Bin Laden has even found foot soldiers here, in the United States, as John Miller has discovered.
JOHN MILLER: (on camera) FBI agents of the New York office had been probing Osama bin Laden for two years before the East African bombings. But during the bombing investigation, hundreds of leads were pouring in here, to the FBI's command post in New York. Some of the most intriguing leads were pointing to two new suspects -- both of them, American citizens.
(voice-over) This tire store on a dusty road Fort Worth, Texas, is where the FBI found Wadih Al-Hage working to support his American wife and seven children. Before moving to Texas, Al-Hage lived in Nairobi, just blocks from the U.S. embassy. Osama bin Laden admits to knowing Al-Hage and says Al-Hage was running relief agencies.
OSAMA BIN LADEN: (through translator) As for Brother Wadih Al-Hage, he is one of our brothers, whom Allah -- praise and glory be to him -- was kind enough to steer to the path of participating in relief work for Afghan refugees.
JOHN MILLER: (voice-over) A year before the bombing, Kenyan police, the FBI and CIA raided Al-Hage's relief organization in this house. They say they found that incredible document in Al-Hage's computer -- the one that appears to be from bin Laden's group, or cell.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: "We, the East Africa cell members, do not want to know about the operation plans since we are just implementers."
JOHN MILLER: (voice-over) Now, the FBI believes the letter's author is Harun Fazil -- remember, the man now wanted for the Nairobi bombing. The letter appears to warn that the bomb makers or "engineers" should be careful, due to increasing U.S. surveillance.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: "Let the brother engineers be careful and be advised that any one of us could fall in the trap."
JOHN MILLER: (voice-over) After the discovery of the letter, Al-Hage was forced to leave Kenya. When he returned to the U.S., the FBI subpoenaed him to testify in this courthouse before the federal grand jury investigating bin Laden. Al-Hage denied any knowledge of a terrorist plot and moved to Texas.
1st TV REPORTER: FBI agents in Dallas had an Arlington suspect...
2nd TV REPORTER:...believe Al-Hage at one time served as personal secretary to bin Laden.
JOHN MILLER: (voice-over) A month after the embassy bombings, Al-Hage was arrested -- charged with being part of bin Laden's organization and lying to the grand jury. He is awaiting trial in this New York jail.
There is another American in this jail. Prosecutors say the charges against him are secret for reasons of national security. Federal sources say he is a key operative for Osama bin Laden.
ALI MUHAMMED: My name is Ali Muhammed. I am a former Egyptian officer.
JOHN MILLER: (voice-over) After leaving the Egyptian army, sources say Ali Muhammed was recruited by the CIA to infiltrate terrorist groups for the U.S. but was soon terminated as unreliable.
Still somehow, in 1986, he managed to come to America and join the Army. Part of his job was to participate in seminars for elite units at the special warfare school at Fort Bragg -- seminars about Islamic culture and politics.
In 1988, while Ali Muhammed was on active duty in the U.S. Army, he went on leave -- to fight the Russians in Afghanistan. His then-commander, Steve Neely, notified the Army brass.
STEVE NEELY: His going -- the trip, though, was a sensitive point, because he was an American soldier.
JOHN MILLER: (voice-over) Sources say Ali Muhammed left the Army and went to work for the Afghanistan Service Office in New York as a training officer. These 1989 surveillance photos show some of the men Sergeant Ali trained at target practice.
In the years that followed, the men in these photos were convicted of murder and bombing the World Trade Center and plotting to blow up bridges, tunnels and the U.N. building in New York. Prosecutors charged that bin Laden was the man behind the Afghanistan Service Office, which has since gone underground and now uses the name Al Qaeda. Bin Laden remains its leader.
LEWIS SCHILIRO: Bin Laden certainly has the resources to continue to hide, the resources to continue to maintain himself. It will be a very difficult process for the government to pursue.
JOHN MILLER: (voice-over) While investigators say time is on their side, ABC's John McWethy reports the government is not just sitting back and waiting for bin Laden's next attack.
JOHN MCWETHY: (voice-over) One of the other weapons the U.S. has in its war with bin Laden is use of military force. If Americans are attacked again -- and most Pentagon officials believe it is only a matter of time -- military sources say another Cruise missile strike against his network is almost certain.
(on camera) And there are other plans. ABC News has learned since August, the U.S. has considered several clandestine efforts to go after bin Laden in Afghanistan, trying to apprehend him so he could stand trial in the United States.
(voice-over) Officials say special operations commandos, working with the CIA, are constantly rehearsing such a mission which, by all accounts, would be very risky and could result in high American casualties. One of the biggest challenges is getting up to the minute intelligence on where bin Laden is and accurate projections on where he will be next.
Rep. PORTER GOSS, Chairman, Select Intelligence Committee: What amazes me a little bit is ABC seems to be able to sit down and talk to Osama bin Laden at the very same time that those of us who would like to apprehend him and bring him to justice seem to be unable to do that.
CYNTHIA MCFADDEN: When we come back, the conclusion of our report.
(Commercial Break)
CYNTHIA MCFADDEN: (voice-over) In downtown New York City, behind the walls of this prison, four of the men the U.S. government has charged in connection with the bombing plot are under arrest. Osama bin Laden and seven others have been indicted but are still at large.
Back in Nairobi, in the five months since the bombing, scores of flowers have been placed where so many people's lives were changed forever. The State Department says there are no plans for a permanent memorial, but $119 million has been set aside to rebuild the two embassies.
CONGREGATION: (singing) Make me a channel of your peace.
CYNTHIA MCFADDEN: (voice-over) Those who survived are working on rebuilding, too. Without his wife, Arlene, Robert Kirk is struggling to raise a young son. Kirk is considering leaving Africa and joining the ministry.
Joanne Huskey, who arrived at the embassy at the same time as the truck bomb, is just thankful her family survived. She has dedicated herself to helping Kenyan families who were not so lucky.
JOANNE HUSKEY: We set up a relief fund, and we are targeting our efforts toward children.
CYNTHIA MCFADDEN: (voice-over) As for Rose Macharia, the Kenyan woman trapped beneath so much metal and concrete, rescuers spent five days guided by her voice and her will to live. But when they finally broke through to her, they were 10 minutes too late.
ONDEKO AURA: She was a source of inspiration when everybody hoped that she would be rescued, and when she died, those hopes were dashed.
PRUDENCE BUSHNELL: I keep going back to the site because I think that maybe I will develop calluses. That if I go back often enough, it won't have the emotional impact.
In point of fact, it still has the emotional impact. It is, in some respect, a sacred site, a holy site for me, because good people who were my friends and my colleagues died on that site. And every time I go into that building, I pay them respect, and I will continue to pay those people respect.
(Commercial Break)
CYNTHIA MCFADDEN: That's our broadcast for tonight. Our hearts go out to the families who have lost so much.
For continuing coverage of the Senate impeachment trial, watch Nightline after your local news and Good Morning America tomorrow. And don't forget 20/20 Friday with Barbara Walters and Hugh Downs. For more on tonight's story, go to abcnews.com.
I'm Cynthia McFadden. From all of us here at ABC News, good night.
or is that judgment by those intelligence services another "leftist conspiracy?"
or is that judgment by those intelligence services another "leftist conspiracy?"
Those same people also said Iraq had WMDs, jharp.
hmm..
interesting.
yes.. it was ALL the CIA's fault.
maybe it was more like as one of the books states..
stretching any "positive" assumption to the maximum.
and minimizing any "negative" asssumption to the minimum.
that's how wars/battles/games (any contest) is LOST.
p.s I don't know jharp but he strikes me a intelligent fellow.