Quote:

the G-man said:
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the G-man said:
As former "Nation" contributor Christopher Hitchens writes:

  • Baghdad was for years the official, undisguised home address of Abu Nidal, then the most-wanted gangster in the world, who had been sentenced to death even by the PLO and had blown up airports in Vienna* and Rome.
  • Baghdad was the safe house for the man whose "operation" murdered Leon Klinghoffer.
  • Saddam boasted publicly of his financial sponsorship of suicide bombers in Israel. (Quite a few Americans of all denominations walk the streets of Jerusalem.)
  • In 1991, a large number of Western hostages were taken by the hideous Iraqi invasion of Kuwait and held in terrible conditions for a long time.
  • After that same invasion was repelled—Saddam having killed quite a few Americans and Egyptians and Syrians and Brits in the meantime and having threatened to kill many more—the Iraqi secret police were caught trying to murder former President Bush during his visit to Kuwait.
  • Iraqi forces fired, every day, for 10 years, on the aircraft that patrolled the no-fly zones and staved off further genocide in the north and south of the country.
  • In 1993, a certain Mr. Yasin helped mix the chemicals for the bomb at the World Trade Center and then skipped to Iraq, where he remained a guest of the state until the overthrow of Saddam.
  • In 2001, Saddam's regime was the only one in the region that openly celebrated the attacks on New York and Washington and described them as just the beginning of a larger revenge.
  • Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi moved from Afghanistan to Baghdad and began to plan his now very open and lethal design for a holy and ethnic civil war.
  • On Dec. 1, 2003, the New York Times reported—and the David Kay report had established—that Saddam had been secretly negotiating with the "Dear Leader" Kim Jong-il in a series of secret meetings in Syria, as late as the spring of 2003, to buy a North Korean missile system, and missile-production system, right off the shelf. (This attempt was not uncovered until after the fall of Baghdad, the coalition's presence having meanwhile put an end to the negotiations.)




The Paper Trail: Newly released documents provide more evidence of Saddam's terror ties.

    After substantial prodding--including from The Wall Street Journal--the U.S. government has finally begun to release its captured Iraqi documents and is posting them at the Web site of the Army's Foreign Military Studies Office. This material will take considerable time to absorb and analyze, but it may yet contribute significantly to our understanding of the nature of the threat Saddam Hussein posed.

    Most dramatically, an Iraqi intelligence report, apparently written in early 1997, describes Iraqi efforts to establish ties with various elements in the Saudi opposition, including Osama bin Laden. Until 1996, the Saudi renegade was based in Sudan, then ruled by Hassan Turabi's National Islamic Front. One of Iraq's few allies, Sudan served as an intermediary between Baghdad and bin Laden, as well as other Islamic radicals. On Feb. 19, 1995, an Iraqi intelligence agent met with bin Laden in Khartoum. Bin Laden asked for two things: to carry out joint operations against foreign forces in Saudi Arabia and to broadcast the speeches of a radical Saudi cleric. Iraq agreed to the latter, but apparently not the former, at least as far as the author of this report knew. Notably, the report also states, "We are working at the present time to activate this relationship through new channels."

    This one report hints at the extensive international presence that the Iraqi Intelligence Service maintained. Iraq's ambassadors to Sudan and Yemen were intelligence agents, suggesting that those two countries were major centers of IIS activity. The report also mentions IIS stations in Islamabad, New Delhi and New York.

    Another newly released document bears the name of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. It is a flier from the "Committee for Arab Liaison with the Islamic Emirate" (i.e., Afghanistan) for recruiting volunteers in Iraq to fight in Afghanistan. It explains that the "Arab brothers" who wish to go there should send a written proposal "so that we can know him and his needs." Zarqawi is among six people listed as individuals to contact.



Nigeria, Iran, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, China. To name a few.
All have human rights violations, several have the actual ability to attack us. Yet we go after the guy with oil and a history of feuding with the Bush clan. Then we go in with no plan, but make sure to secure that oil.


"W is for Women" indeed.

Bow ties are coool.