how can this story possibly surprise anyone other than Rush Limbaugh?
-----Original Message-----
From: John Stanley [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Wednesday, June 16, 2004 7:26 AM
To: CF-Community
Subject: RE: 9/11 Panel Finds No Collaboration Between Iraq, Al Qaeda
Because they are a bunch of commie bastards ;-)
-----Original Message-----
From: Jim Campbell [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Wednesday, June 16, 2004 10:19 AM
To: CF-Community
Subject: Re: 9/11 Panel Finds No Collaboration Between Iraq, Al Qaeda
Why does the 9/11 Commission hate America so much?
- Jim
Sandy Clark wrote:
>
>Findings Contradict Comments by Cheney, Bush
>
>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A45853-2004Jun16.html
>
>9/11 Panel Finds No Collaboration Between Iraq, Al Qaeda
>Findings Contradict Comments by Cheney, Bush
>
>By Dan Eggen
>Washington Post Staff Writer
>Wednesday, June 16, 2004; 9:00 AM
>
>
>There is "no credible evidence" that Saddam Hussein's government in Iraq
>collaborated with the al Qaeda terrorist network on any attacks on the
>United States, including the Sept. 11, 2001 hijackings, according to a new
>staff report released this morning by the commission investigating the
>hijacking plot.
>
>Although Osama bin Laden briefly explored the idea of forging ties with
Iraq
>in the mid-1990s, the terrorist leader was hostile to Hussein's secular
>government, and Iraq never responded to requests for help in providing
>training camps or weapons, the panel's report says.
>
>The findings come in the wake of statements Monday by Vice President Cheney
>that Iraq had "long-established ties" with al Qaeda, and comments by
>President Bush yesterday backing up that assertion.
>
>The Sept. 11 panel, which opened its last two-day round of hearings this
>morning, said in a report on al Qaeda's history that the government of
>Sudan, which gave sanctuary to al Qaeda from 1991 to 1996, persuaded bin
>Laden to cease supporting anti-Hussein forces and "arranged for contacts
>between Iraq and al Qaeda." But the contacts did not result in any
>cooperation, the panel said.
>
>"There have been reports that contacts between Iraq and al Qaeda also
>occurred after bin Laden had returned to Afghanistan [in 1996], but they do
>not appear to have resulted in a collaborative relationship," the report
>says. "Two senior bin Laden associates have adamantly denied that any ties
>existed between al Qaeda and Iraq. We have no credible evidence that Iraq
>and al Qaeda cooperated on attacks against the United States."
>
>The conclusions provide the latest example of how the Sept. 11 commission
>has become a political irritant for the Bush administration. The 10-member
>bipartisan commission, initially opposed by the White House, has frequently
>feuded with the government over access to documents and witnesses and has
>issued findings sharply critical of the Bush administration's focus on
>terrorism prior to the Sept. 11 attacks.
>
>The findings were included in the first of three staff reports being issued
>by the commission this week. Later today, the panel is expected to release
>significant details about the planning of the attacks, including what
>sources have said previously was a plan to carry out the hijackings earlier
>in May or June of 2001.
>
>Thursday, the panel will explore shortcomings in the nation's air-defense
>system, which witnesses and commission members have said was ill-prepared
>for an event of the magnitude of the Sept. 11 attacks.
>
>The initial 12-page report is a broad examination of the history of al
Qaeda
>and bin Laden, who for years went unnoticed or underestimated by U.S.
>intelligence officials.
>
>The report says that bin Laden was intent on carrying out attacks on the
>United States as early as 1992, viewing America as "the head of the snake"
>because of its support for Israel and Arab regimes he considered corrupt.
>But U.S. officials were not aware of these plans, or knowledgeable about
any
>details of his organization, until four years later, the report says.
>
>"Contrary to popular understanding," the report says, "bin Laden did not
>fund al Qaeda through a personal fortune and a network of businesses," and
>he never received a $300 million inheritance. "Instead, al Qaeda relied
>primarily on a fundraising network developed over time," the report says.
>
>In 1998, the suicide truck bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and
>Tanzania -- which killed 224 people and injured more than 5,000 combined --
>marked a new departure in that "they were planned, directed and executed by
>al Qaeda, under the direct supervision of bin Laden and his chief aides,"
>the report says.
>
>But a January 2000 attempt to attack a U.S. warship, the USS The Sullivans,
>failed because the boat to be used in the suicide attack was overloaded
with
>explosives and sank, the report says. Ten months later, a similar attack
was
>executed successfully against the USS Cole in Yemen.
>
>Since the Sept. 11 attacks and the defeat of the Taliban in Afghanistan,
"al
>Qaeda's funding has decreased significantly," the report says. But the
>group's expenditures have decreased as well, and "it remains relatively
easy
>for al Qaeda to find the relatively small sums required to fund terrorist
>operations," the report warns.
>
>Now, the organization is far more decentralized, with operational
commanders
>and cell leaders making the decisions that were previously made by bin
>Laden, the panel found.
>
>Yet, al Qaeda remains interested in carrying out chemical, biological,
>radiological or nuclear attacks against the United States, the report says.
>Although an attempt to purchase uranium in 1994 failed -- the material
>proved to be fake -- "al Qaeda continues to pursue its strategic objective
>of obtaining a nuclear weapon," according to the report.
>
>By any means possible, it warns, "al Qaeda is actively striving to attack
>the United States and inflict mass casualties."
>
>
>
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