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Saddam's Iraq a Training Ground for Terrorists

Discussion in '2006 Archive' started by carpro, Jan 12, 2006.

  1. carpro

    carpro Well-Known Member
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    http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/006/550kmbzd.asp

    Saddam's Terror Training Camps
    What the documents captured from the former Iraqi regime reveal--and why they should all be made public.
    by Stephen F. Hayes
    01/16/2006, Volume 011, Issue 17

    EXCERPT

    THE FORMER IRAQI REGIME OF Saddam Hussein trained thousands of radical Islamic terrorists from the region at camps in Iraq over the four years immediately preceding the U.S. invasion, according to documents and photographs recovered by the U.S. military in postwar Iraq. The existence and character of these documents has been confirmed to THE WEEKLY STANDARD by eleven U.S. government officials.

    The secret training took place primarily at three camps--in Samarra, Ramadi, and Salman Pak--and was directed by elite Iraqi military units. Interviews by U.S. government interrogators with Iraqi regime officials and military leaders corroborate the documentary evidence. Many of the fighters were drawn from terrorist groups in northern Africa with close ties to al Qaeda, chief among them Algeria's GSPC and the Sudanese Islamic Army. Some 2,000 terrorists were trained at these Iraqi camps each year from 1999 to 2002, putting the total number at or above 8,000. Intelligence officials believe that some of these terrorists returned to Iraq and are responsible for attacks against Americans and Iraqis. According to three officials with knowledge of the intelligence on Iraqi training camps, White House and National Security Council officials were briefed on these findings in May 2005; senior Defense Department officials subsequently received the same briefing.
     
  2. Daisy

    Daisy New Member

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    Yeah, see, documents - secret documents - that pro-admin Hayes somehow got access to prove that Saddam supported the gasp! Sudanese Islamic Army.

    Well, that's interesting in it's own leaky way, I guess, but wake me when the documents are disclosed and verified.
     
  3. carpro

    carpro Well-Known Member
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    Sounds like you may be a bit partisan about what leaked information you believe. [​IMG]
     
  4. Johnv

    Johnv New Member

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    Saddam's Iraq no longer exists. There is no shortage of Iraqi's who are quite happy with that fact.
     
  5. carpro

    carpro Well-Known Member
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    Saddam's Iraq no longer exists. There is no shortage of Iraqi's who are quite happy with that fact. </font>[/QUOTE]So , basically you're suggesting I should have added "was" to the title.

    Oh well, not everyone is perfect.
     
  6. Johnv

    Johnv New Member

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    Umm, it didn't occur to me, but... okay, sure. Sounds good.

    Can I go get my caffiene free diet coke now?
     
  7. carpro

    carpro Well-Known Member
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    Sure. Why not?

    If I was there , I'd buy it for you.
     
  8. Daisy

    Daisy New Member

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    Why would you say such a thing?

    Do you think that a secret document selectively leaked is proof of anything? It's not even good evidence.
     
  9. carpro

    carpro Well-Known Member
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    It certainly can't be proof of anything when publicized by someone you consider "pro-admin", now can it?

    But it would maybe be gospel if publicized by the New York Times?

    I'll make a prediction right now. Write it down. This report will turn out to be entirely correct, whether it fits your agenda or not. :D
     
  10. Daisy

    Daisy New Member

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    Of course, it can, but can is not is. Furthermore, that the article was written by someone "pro-admin" was not my objection, but that it was based on a secret document, selectively leaked which no one can fact-check. Such things always smell fishy.

    Of course not - that's a foolish thing to say.

    And what is my "agenda" and who gets to decide? If you would, please keep to the OP and slack off the insults and insinuations. My comments have been about the topic. If your entire defense of what is posted is simply to attack me on a personal level, then I assume that you have nothing of substance to say, but "Is too!" :rolleyes:

    First, what report? The article by Hayes? I presume that it is correct in the details, but misleading in what it leaves out. But if you mean the secret documents are correct in their entirety, well, that bet will be a long time in settling.

    Second, do you think Saddam's support of the Sudanese Islamic Army is really justification for wrecking Iraq? Who are they and what have they done in this world? How does his support of them compare to our support of the Taliban and mujahadeen in terms of danger to the USA and the stability of the MidEast?

    Third, and I repeat as you declined to answer before, do you think that a secret document selectively leaked is proof of anything? Do you think it is really important news or admin spin?
     
  11. carpro

    carpro Well-Known Member
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    Certainly,it's important.

    Much has been made of Saddam's apparent disconnect from terrorist activities.

    Instead he was very heavily involved in training and financing terrorists. One day, when this report is proved up, as it will be, some liberal anti-war nabobs will have to acknowledge there was more to Iraq than WMDs. Until then, they will try to minimize the importance of this information, just as you have.

    BTW This is not the first we have heard of this, but it was universally ignored before. Now we have more corroboration, but it will be covered up , ignored, and outright suppressed until there is no choice but to address it.

    http://www.intelmessages.org/Messages/National_Security/wwwboard/messages/811.html

    Meanwhile, it is now becoming clear that al-Qaeda is not the only organisation providing terrorist training for Muslim fundamentalists. Since the early 1990s, courses of this type have also been available in Iraq. At the beginning of October, two INC activists in London travelled to eastern Turkey. They had been told that a Mukhabarat colonel had crossed the border through Kurdistan and was ready to defect. The officer - codenamed Abu Zeinab - had extraordinary information about terrorist training in Iraq. In a safe house in Ankara, the two London-based activists took down Zeinab‘s story. He had worked at a site which was already well known - Salman Pak, a large camp on a peninsular formed by a loop of the Tigris river south of Baghdad.

    However, what Zeinab had to say about the southern part of the camp was new. There, he said, separated from the rest of the facilities by a razor-wire fence, was a barracks used to house Islamic radicals, many of them Saudis from bin Laden‘s Wahhabi sect, but also Egyptians, Yemenis, and other non-Iraqi Arabs.

    Unlike the other parts of Salman Pak, Zeinab said the foreigners‘ camp was controlled directly by Saddam Hussein.

    SNIP

    Zeinab and Khodad said the Salman Pak students practised their techniques in a Boeing 707 fuselage parked in the foreigners‘ part of the camp. Yesterday their story received important corroboration from Charles Duelfer, former vice chairman of Unscom, the UN weapons inspection team.

    Duelfer said he visited Salman Pak several times, landing by helicopter. He saw the 707, in exactly the place described by the defectors. The Iraqis, he said, told Unscom it was used by police for counter-terrorist training. ‘Of course we automatically took out the word "counter",‘ he said. ‘I‘m surprised that people seem to be shocked that there should be terror camps in Iraq. Like, derrrrrr! I mean, what, actually, do you expect? Iraq presents a long-term strategic threat. Unfortunately, the US is not very good at recognising long-term strategic threats.‘
     
  12. Daisy

    Daisy New Member

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    We'll see, but it looks like mere spin.

    You seem not to have understood the argument if that is the conclusion you've drawn. Much of the impetus for the Iraqi invasion was gained by the admin's deft linking of Saddam Hussein with Osama bin Laden (who?) when there was little connection between them or between Saddam and al Qaeda. However, it was well-known and rarely denied that Saddam was connected to Palestinian terrorism and the Hamas. The Hamas are still around, actually gaining some legitimacy in the recent elections. They never posed much threat to the US.

    The Sudanese Islamic Army posed even less threat to the US.

    Yeah, but which terrorists - ones who posed a threat to us or ones who did not? Remember, much was made of it being a "pre-emptive strike" with the US being under threat of an imminent attack and force to defend herself. This really has not turned out to be the case.

    The administration could verify & release the secret document whenever it choses. The antiwar nabobs have always maintained that there was more to Iraq than the WMDs - namely oil (which has not turned out to expectations) and a strategic military-political base in the Mideast (which has also turned out rather badly).

    Is there anything new in this secret information? What is the information contained in the secret document? How can anyone judge the worth of the document or the information it contains while it remains secret? All we have is an article about some selectively leaked information which may stand or which may be contradicted by other information in the secret document.

    The first we heard of what? I never heard of the Sudanese Islamic Army before.

    Covered up? It's a SECRET document - if anyone is covering it up, it would have to be those who keep it secret. Ignored? The White House leaked it to a nationally known pundit who wrote about it. Suppressed? Well, it is secret, but hardly suppressed.

    [ January 13, 2006, 07:07 PM: Message edited by: Daisy ]
     
  13. Daisy

    Daisy New Member

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    That links to an interesting site. Here is Dr. Poontz's take on Bert and Osama (who?) and anthrax, back when Bert was evil:
    In the first paragraph of the article you link to:
    However, our own government says that he was not in Prague at that time; he was in the US.
    At the very least, it is disputed.
     
  14. carpro

    carpro Well-Known Member
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    We'll see, but it looks like mere spin.


    Yeah, but which terrorists - ones who posed a threat to us or ones who did not? Remember, much was made of it being a "pre-emptive strike" with the US being under threat of an imminent attack and force to defend herself. This really has not turned out to be the case.

    </font>[/QUOTE]It seems like spin to you because you want it to sound like spin.

    As for the terrorists. No distinction was made by the President about which terrorists we are at war with.

    "We will make no distinction between the terrorists who committed these acts and those who harbor them." -- George W. Bush, 9/20/01

    "From this day forward, any nation that continues to harbor or support terrorism will be regarded by the United States as a hostile regime." -- George W. Bush, 9/20/01

    "Every nation has a choice to make. In this conflict, there is no neutral ground. If any government sponsors the outlaws and killers of innocence, they have become outlaws and murderers themselves."

    George W. Bush
     
  15. Daisy

    Daisy New Member

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    No, it seems like mere spin because the source is from the administration which is in a position to make the secret documents in question available for scrutiny but won't, not even heavily redacted.

    Exactly. We invaded Iraq, which posed no real threat to us, on the pretext that it did, on the cynical pretext that one group was exactly the same as another.

    As for sponsoring "outlaws and killers of innocence" take a gander at Reagan's policies in Central American and the Mideast. Look at the history of the mujahadeen. Look at Secretary of State Rumsfeld's 1983 trip to Iraq, after Saddam gassed his own people.
     
  16. emeraldctyangel

    emeraldctyangel New Member

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    Hmm selective targeting of terrorists? That's profiling. And that's wrong. [​IMG]

    I really wasnt aware that a distinction should be made of which terrorists are bad and which arent so bad, - okay, arent so bad 'today'.

    Saddam has never thought of the Kurds as 'his people'. And the ones I met? Well, lets just say the feeling was mutual.
     
  17. Daisy

    Daisy New Member

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    **sigh** Racial profiling is wrong because it it too broad and unspecific - too many innocent people will be targetted for simply being the wrong race. I'm surprised that you would make that mistake.

    Then Bush's message has succeeded with you.

    I try to make that point from time to time, but I doubt most people care to understand - perhaps because the phrase is so catchy.
     
  18. emeraldctyangel

    emeraldctyangel New Member

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    Not sure which phrase is so catchy. I am sure the Kurds within the Iraqi borders didnt like Saddam because they were constantly the targets of his own brand of terrorism.

    As far as being a terrorist goes, there should be no distinction made. If you are a terrorist, then you get what you get. In any land on any sea. I have no idea what the 'Bush message' is, but having seen enough of those scourges of the earth, I have arrived at that conclusion all on my own.

    You have no idea when someone is laughing at your posts, do you? I am pretty sure I know what racial profiling is, but it is quite evident that you dont. Thanks anyway. LOL
     
  19. Daisy

    Daisy New Member

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    "His own people"

    You're saying we should not distinguish between those who attack us, who pose a threat, and those who do not?

    How about between those we sponsor and those we do not?

    Often it is hard to tell when a person who consistently posts ignorant, thoughtless and inflammatory stuff is sincere and when they are not.

    Like I said, it is hard to tell when certain people are feigning ignorance given the general tenor of their posts. Since you claim to know what I do not, please inform me on the difference between racial profiling and criminal profiling.
     
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