Bin Laden Wanted To Use Iraq As A Staging Ground For Attacks Against The US Homeland
President Bush, stressing that Americans face an ongoing threat from terrorists, shared intelligence on Wednesday asserting that Osama bin Laden was working in 2005 to set up a unit inside Iraq to hit U.S. targets. . . .
Bush said that intelligence showed that in January 2005, bin Laden tasked Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, his senior operative in Iraq, to set up the cell to use Iraq as a staging ground for attacks in the United States. Al-Zarqawi was killed in Iraq in June 2006 by a U.S. airstrike.
This information expanded on a classified bulletin the Homeland Security Department issued in March 2005. The bulletin, which warned that bin Laden had enlisted al-Zarqawi to plan potential strikes in the United States, was described at the time as credible but not specific. It did not prompt the administration to raise its national terror alert level. . . .
Around the same time, Abu Fajah al-Libi, a senior al-Qaida manager, suggested that bin Laden send Rabia to Iraq to help al-Zarqawi plan the external operations, he said. It is unclear whether Rabia went to Iraq.
Frances Fragos Townsend, the White House homeland security adviser, said new details about the plots were declassified because the intelligence community has tracked all leads from the information, and that the players were either dead or in U.S. custody.
Proof of a link between Saddam and al Qaeda? Of course not. This intelligence is from 2005, and it represents communications between al Qaeda’s chief and the terror organizations man in Iraq.
Proof that Iraq is the central front in the war on terror? At least from al Qaeda’s standpoint? Absolutely. Which is more important, at this stage in the game, than any allegations of dealings between Saddam and al Qaeda. After all, like or not, we’re in Iraq now. That toothpaste can’t be put back in the tube, so we have to do the best with the situation we have in front of us. And that situation is one where we’re fighting al Qaeda in Iraq.
So why disengage and let al Qaeda disperse the resources they’re using in Iraq to other places of the world? Like America, for instance. Or places from which they could launch attacks on America.
Anyway, the Democrats are ticked that the President would dare release intelligence which proves that Iraq is, in fact, a big part of the global war on terror. Something that’s rather inconvenient for their political agenda vis-a-vis the war.
Democrats Cry Foul
Democrats and other critics have accused Bush of selectively declassifying intelligence, including portions of a sensitive National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq…
I’m reminded of a scene from the Jim Carey movie Liar, Liar where Carey’s character, a lawyer, objects to a rather good piece of evidence presented by the opposition in a trial:
Fletcher Reede: Your Honor, I object!
Judge Stevens: Why?
Fletcher Reede: Because it’s devastating to my case!
Judge Stevens: Overruled.
Fletcher Reede: Good call!
That’s why the Democrats are objecting to this release of intelligence. It’s devastating to their stated arguments about Iraq.
Tags: Politics, War On Terror
