Atta in Baghdad?

Post-9/11 Era Forum

More proof is on the way apparently connecting Saddam and 9-11. Uranium shipments AND Mohamed Atta visiting Saddam!!! I think the London Times broke it. Just heard of it and would like to know more. There's your 9-11 connection if it pans out and I think we (with brains) already know it will.

Yes, I just heard something on MSNBC but did not catch the whole thing. But I heard that it's definite proof in the form of documents showing that Atta had trained in Baghdad for 9/11. Awesome stuff coming down!

Wow, they're really digging hard aren't they? The London Times no less. Now there's an unbiased org if I ever saw one. Especially since this is the second Britian has reported Uranium shipments were coming into Iraq from other sources.

Well they screwed that one up, but this one may be too legit to quit huh?

Okay boys, if this "evidence" turns out to be just as bogus as the Niger-Uranium-Iraq document (brandished about and used in Dubya's STate of the Union address to justify war), will you (with brains) retract your support of it?

Will you also then wonder why it was even aired by Murdoch's press? Y'know, if it doesn't turn out to be fact, why would Murdoch's press run with it? You're talking about agendas Curl...what's Rupert's you reckon?

Anyway, if it is conclusively proven to be a factual document, I'll eat crow, no problem. It'll make me a lot happier, infact, knowing that these people in charge of all this power haven't completely lied to us, that they haven't made things up to justify a war.

Still, until it is proven, they HAVE lied to us - and seems you pro-war blokes are just running with these bogus reasons for going to war in the first place, despite their being no WMDs (that pre-war we were told Saddam had, that they knew Saddam had them, but now can't find) or proven link between 9-11 and Saddam. (Yes, Bush has said they have no evidence of a link between Saddam and 9-11). But he linked Al Queda and Saddam and in the same breath mentioned chemical weapons that could be lauched in 45 minutes,.... etc. Anyway we've been over this.

Anyway - despite this new document, nothing, as yet, has proven that these things exist. Nothing. Yet you blokes (with brains) are sure of it. How come? What's your intelligence? Where's your information coming from? Because every intelligence operation in the world, from the CIA to MI5 to Mossad to the former KGB were warning against and highlighting the LACK of evidence linking Saddam and Al Queda, the LACK of evidence of WMDs.

What's known so far is in:

http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2...1336810270.html

Which finishes by saying:

"While it is almost impossible to ascertain whether the document is legitimate, Iraqi officials are convinced of its authenticity, even though they decline to reveal where and how they obtained it."

Stay tooned folks. It's gonna be run with by the right through Murdoch's press before someone will spin the line we never believed it.

(Glad they caught saddam by the way. Be nice if they'd also bring in the UN and make it a world effort to rebuild the place, but that's wishful thinking isn't it. Merry Xmas).

Also, Stand by for other items. Coming down the pike is a gentlemen claiming that HE moved enriched Uranium out of Iraq into Iran (and Syria,too i think),just before the invasion!!! Of course there was ample time to do this since we telegraphed our punch. He has been waiting for us to show him a dead Hussein,captured Hussein or promise to relocate his family. Well now ,the info is about to surface! He has cancerous spots on his body from this maneuver along with his wife and son also. I heard this from Mansoor Ijaz. Spin that. He is convinced that it is all about to surface. Yes even Nuclear! I find him very credible. I think we are about to be flooded by info with the capture of Hussein. Weeks ago people were afraid to mention that they were anti-Saddam in fear of their lives still. Now people are afraid to support him. A major turning point in this battle just occurred,and the mouths will now start flapping.
Did you see the joy in the streets?? I looked at CNN and found it hard to see any coverage of the jubilation. Anyone else notice this? I saw the story break at 4 or 5 am on Fox and decided to see if there was a difference in coverage. It took HOURS before they would even show the reaction of the Iraqi people. Then of course they had to show something. At that point I consider it obligatory. Kinda like the fake motivation of France, Germany and Russia when they said they were happy to see this development. Sure they are!
I heard Matthews say it also. Sometimes I switch over to see them squirm. Entertainment at its finest. After Fox airs it,then the others MUST or they look inept. So they are forced ,so to speak. Thank God
And Lieberman is the only Dem I have ANY respect for.
How many countries are freakin' out right now,worried about what Hussein might reveal? Bribe $$ to those countries??? The truth ALWAYS surfaces. Stand the hell by.

What I find here to be disturbing is this. We have set a precedent of invading a country and finding evidence later. How is it that the foundation of our reasons for invasion has totally shifted from tons of WMD to we found documents and other materials after we’ve bombed his palaces no less, to support our position of why we invaded in the first place?

Surely if any such reports are true, then we have in the aftermath removed a dangerous man. Saddam certainly has no sympathizers here, but focusing so hard on someone to uncover evidence can be a tedious task. In searching so vigorously to find evidence to support your position, one becomes blinded and biased against any exculpatory evidence crossed while trying to prove your case. (I’m sure all of us have searched Google for support of our positions and have found something either condemning or exculpatory in the process).

My point? Well it’s simple. First how do we invade a country only to seek evidence to support our invasion 7 or 8 months later? None of the things surfacing now was asserted by Bush before the invasion. In fact, the things he did assert have come up lacking.

When one has acted in haste usually one finds themselves defending their actions. You will then find yourself desperate to find just cause to support your actions. This is why Colen Powel dismissed defector statements that were exculpatory of Saddam and embellished every position defectors gave to support US claims. This is also why we accused Saddam of having mobile labs, drone planes among other things, blindly refusing any other explanation of their existence. As we have learned we were wrong about all we accused Saddam of having and lack any evidence supporting our claims that he had an active WMD program.

Now we find ourselves reaching back as far as 15 yrs or more to support our actions. Certainly in doing so we’re exposing our on roll in the atrocities Saddam has committed.

US now find themselves on a fishing expedition to find anything linking Saddam to Al Qaeda and 9/11 as do the British in trying to justify ourselves. Stories such as this thread keep surfacing all over the web, but to prosecute first and to search for evidence later is exactly what we’ve done here.

As it would appear now, there were never any WMD in Iraq as Bush has asserted for the foundation for our invasion. If Saddam had chemicals in the late 80’s (and we know he has) then we also knew those volatile cocktails he created then were nothing but sludge by now and therefore ineffective. We also know the gases, the radiation, and vapor clouds it would take to make such quantities as Bush has claimed could not have gone unnoticed by UN inspectors, embedded spies, and US satellite and detection equipment all focused on Iraq since 1990.

The proof? As we have seen with Iraq’s military performance, they were rendered ineffective since the Gulf war. They weren’t able to wage a decent conventional war, let alone a bio or chemical war. Surely Bush and CIA intel had to know these facts and surely Bush knew them when he gave his infamous “axis of evil” speech before the world.

Saddam’s chemical weaponry production line was so low grade that when he did gas the Kurds, he had to do it right after he made the chemicals because they would degrade inside of the munitions before one shot was fired. Anthrax under extremely high grade production conditions only has a shelf life of 3 yrs at best. Why as some would assert, would Saddam or Syria import tons of sludge into Syria to hide them from the world? Syria was even accused of giving Saddam safe haven to explain why we could not find him prior to yesterday (12/14/03).

Did Saddam not account for these weapons prior to our invasion? No he did not, but in the absence of any evidence that Saddam had an active WMD program or that he had recently made a batch of these WMD we should have allowed inspectors their requests to search. He was effectively neutralized.

No one here is naïve enough to believe that Saddam wouldn’t screw the US given the chance, but is he any different than any other nation that harbors animosity against the west? Certainly on the merits given AFTER the invasion, many dictators fit the label of terrorist supporting countries.

Is it reasonable to believe that we had other motives in invading Iraq? I’m sure some will continue to disagree despite any developments to the contrary. Saddams capture was the high point of a war riddled with lows, but it does little to absolve us of our actions. We will never find something that isn’t there despite our assertion that it is. Accusations do little to render the truth ineffective.

Simply put, although this has deposed a terrible man, we will always appear as unjust to the world because of our lack of understanding, diplomacy and evidence. This we simply cannot deny.

Re: New "Atta connection" document

Geeze - I wish they would be more careful with this stuff. I find it highly suspect.

But then again, l we did catch Saddam...

We shall see. PErsonally I never saw/assumed any direct connection, but indirect strategic links have always been compelling for me.

I believe Saddam Hussein played a role in 9/11 about as much as I believe Scott Peterson killed his wife.


--JV

So if Atta trained in Iraq to carry out an attack on U.S. soil before 9/11 and they now come up with a document to prove it, how is that a bad thing?
If Saddam supported Al Queada in ANY way, then he supported terrorism. Period. If Saddam did not know what attack was planned, it doesn't matter, he is still guilty of supporting terrorism.
If this document does prove to be true, then this would be even more justification to take him out.

USA you don't see this as an after thought? And if it's so, then how is it that the focus has shifted from WMD? This was the main reason Bush gave for invading. He said Saddam would supply them to terrorist right?

To bomb then look for evidence is not compelling to me. Saddam and 9/11 were never even mentioned by Bush until he wanted to justify this war. I can fully understand why you've lost focus though. Bush hasn't uttered Osama's name in more than a year now. He visited Baghdad and never set foot in Afghanistan.

Now does this sound like a focused individual? All we hear about is Saddam and Iraq and how Saddam had chemical weaponry. All of which lacked support of fact.

If it's found out that Atta trained there, then that doesn't justify war. If it were found out that Saddam had WMD, then this would certainly prove Bush right, however it wouldn't prove Bush was telling the truth. It just would mean that Saddam indeed have them. However, I don't believe they were there. Our search will be in vein. In as much as this is certain with every passing day, it appears that Bush embellished to say the least his story to invade that country.

Oh PS, now that Saddam is indeed in custody, this would raise the bar for arguing that maybe the war was worth it. Though I'm still torn about it because I don't believe we're there to fight terror or free anyone. We're there for our own agendas.

I guess nothing will ever change your beliefs. Oh well... life goes on.

USA the capture of Saddam is a very good thing, no one can deny that. However the capture of Osama, where the real terrorist front is would have been 50x better for the fight against terror as it is so often put.

Cops breaking into your house looking for stolen equipment because they said you had it 15 yrs ago, but finding user manuals in your home is no reason to prosecute you. Especially after they've searched your entire home illegally might I ad.

Look, we're all glad he's caught, but it doesn't make Bush out to be telling the truth now does it? We still have no WMD, you know the reason we invaded in the first place?

Why would you think the focus has changed? You think they have given up looking? Not hardly.
Put it this way, if they lied, why would they keep looking for something that doesn't exist knowing full well they would never find it and all the time risking American lives. Get real!
They'll get OBL, I am absolutely certain of that.

USA really, when was the last time you even heard Bush mention OBL? You think he's focused on him when all he concentrates on is Baghdad?

For more than a year all we heard was how Saddam had WMD. Prior to that, Bush was talking about Osama and never once mentioned Saddam name after 9/11 until he wanted to justify the invasion. Tell me how can Saddam all of a sudden be tied to 9/11 and we didn't even hear him mention in connection to this for over a year after. All we heard then was Osama and Al Qaeda.

Now you honestly think Bush is focused on Osama? Can you explain then why didn't he visit the troops in Afghanistan like he visited the troops in Baghdad?

Where have you been? Because our media seems to pick up the "Story of the Day" doesn't mean everything else stops. OBLs days of freedom are running out. They are tightening the noose on him as we speak.

What a great Christmas present that would be and another feather in GWB's hat.

How tight can the noose get? We've been tightening that noose working on 3 yrs now, and we're no closer to capturing him that we were at the onset of our "fight against terror".

Tell me this, when was the last time you heard Bush mention Osama's name?

Story

Wow, the silence in here is deafening!!!!

I wonder why anyone would be surprised though. This news and similar news is always coming out of London. Remember the uranium shipments from Africa?

What's funny is how desperate some people are to justify this war because of the lack of evidence we have. They will stop at nothing to convince themselves and the world that Saddam had ties to 9/11.

I think Bush was the worse though. Every thing we saw from satellite was construed as Saddam with chemical weapons. Saddam couldn't pee without Bush claiming the yellow stuff in his toilets is nerve gas.

peace,
Silence? I don't spend all day on this site, I do have a job you know...
I also don't sit waiting with baited breath listening for every word Bush says.
I listen to the people around me who are directly involved like, the two Rangers I know who have been in and out of Afganastan and Iraq for the last year and the guy I know with the 4th ID. I also watch the reports on the ongoing efforts in Afganastan. They do exist you know. In the next 2 months my son will be there too so, I would most likely listen to the word on the street instead of your rhetoric and wishful thinking. I do NOT base my opinions on the media reports. I do watch the news but, I spend time putting 2 and 2 together with what I know is true.
I do find it interesting reading all the spin from those "In the know" on this forum. It's also very hysterical at times. THe subject of this board isn't funny at all and I take it very seriously but, the idiots who think they have the answers, never really publish them, they just keep spouting their wishful thinking.
For a guy who doesn't vote, you sure have all the answers on what is wrong with our government.
As far as OBL is concerned, like they said in the beginning, the War on terrorism is not about one person. Although, I would like to see OBLs head on a stick, it's not all we have to do.

Peace,
You're the one who is side tracked. If there was a forum on Afganastan and not just Iraq, you would have daily information but, that's not the case. Walk away from your keyboard long enough to look around. It's all there, you just seem to be narrowly focused.

USA the answer was not to invade Iraq in the manner in which we did. We were wrong period. If you're putting 2 and 2 together and coming up with this equals justice, then I suggest you get a new calculator.

No one has suggested to simply do nothing. I agreed with Bush's actions until this war. He lied plain and simple. You believe his rhetoric though we lack any proof. I find THAT disturbing.

You can bury your head in the sand and pretend that we're "fighting terrorism" all you want in Iraq. It lacks merit, as simple as that. Your refusal to see it will not help the US in future endeavors to actually fight terror.

Right now we're in Iraq searching for evidence we already said we had almost a year ago. In this we are wrong plane and simple. The mentality of "the end justifies the means" is vigilante' at best.

I'm all for fighting terror, but let's do that and not put the US at more risk with our vein attempt to fight it in Iraq. No terrorist infrastructure has been dented as a result of this raid. If you think so, just turn on your TV.

peace,
You are one twisted individual. I just explained it to you.
You can't go through life with blinders on.
I think I know your problem. You only have two brain cells and can't recieve any other connections until the other is empty. It's called a shift register. One comes in and one goes out.

You can shelf the insults, they don't make your case any stronger. What you should be trying to do instead of engaging in useless rhetorical insults, is find a factual reason for our presence in Iraq since Bush can't.

moved...

One brain cell, one thought.

If you all think I'm sick, just look out into the main lobby. You'll see a twisted almost hitler like attitude when it comes to jstvr.

I hope there simply isn't more like him here, but I fear the worst in this regard. At any rate, I choose usually to ignore him. That works for me. You too will find out that that's the best solution in dealing with such a pro American anti everone else attitude.

I wouldn't be surprised if he was part of something exteme himself.

I'm not here to compare and argue people/personalities, just points that can somehow be legitimized to some degree. I am open to debate and enjoy it but i don't enjoy making enemies and trying to belittle any one individual. Carry on...

I agree Con, but if you do not want to be a target, simply do not disagree with those guys.

I like to learn new things. Although I've heard many arguments for and against the war, I still don't agree with the war. I do believe that in our haste some good things will come out of it like Saddam's end and less fear and tension in that region.

But I think the US is playing a dangerous game as world policemen. Not only that, we are not there to free anyone, we are serving our own interests.

There are many good reasons to ouster Saddam. I couldn't even begin to argue against those. But I'm bothered that we over here in America don't see the entire picture and are blinded biasly by our own prejudices, hatred, and greed.

I refuse to bend for some, but I will debate with others. I just want those to know that because we do not agree with this war doesn't make us anything but moved by our convictions. We were lied to for whatever reason to invade that country. In this being the fact, everything we discover over there is after the fact unless we discover WMD. All the sudden location of documents don't impress me one bit. There are many false documents circulated simply to make money.

What I don't understand is why aren't we asking the question why we have been lied to instead of saying "look we got Saddam". In all our after search we still come up empty. With every passing day we look more and more like liars here.

This is unfortunately the truth. I wish to God it wasn't.

Charles - can you PM me with some info on this? That sounds like a well intentioned challenge

That's sad Chuck. They are no better than some of these in these forums. Why can't one just simply agree to disagree without the insults and threats.

I'm not sure what you mean by commies, is that communists? And are they overseas or here in the US whom you're referring to?

At any rate, we all need to stop the name calling. I find myself doing it to defend my ego. I get tired of being called terrorist supporter or anti-American simply because I do not agree with THIS war on it's merit.

At any rate Chuck, although I think you're twisted.. Just kidding, although I know we don't agree I do appreciate the fact that you don't degrade to the name calling. At least with me you don't.

Happy holidays

alternet.org

{Election_2004.13.839}: Charles {charles68} Fri, 12 Dec 2003 13:36:01 CST (216 lines)

This got things rolling on that fateful day...

I had been participating heavily for 1-2 weeks prior on alternet.org

My most active thread was:

The Truth About the Lies

Things reached an anti-climax on 12/12. It was a bit disappointing because I had developed a decent rapport with many participants. In the end I think they were glad to see me go though...

Here is the mod:

Debashis, sometimes that happens, and nobody can figure out why.
That, however, is totally different from this: Charles, except for your intro line, your post {The_War.28.485} is a duplicate of your post {Election_2004.13.839}.

Other than a copy-paste demonstration of your ability to copy and paste, you accomplish nothing by spamming a post across more than one topic or more than one forum.

I have erased your duplicate post in this topic, and warn you not to do anything like that again.

* * *

Charles, they're not just threats. One more word meant one more word.
Goodbye.

* * *

Charles:

You were suspended for attempting to spam our site at the AlterNet forums, and for uncivil behavior in violation of the posted policy of our site.

This is your notification not to attempt to register and post at the AlterNet forums again.

If you do so, I will go into our server logs, identify your Internet Service Provider, furnish your ISP with sufficient information to positively identify you, and file a complaint of harassment. Harassment is inevitably a violation of every ISP's terms of service agreement, which can result in loss of your account.

Please let it go. It really isn't worth it.

Don Freidkin
Community manager, AlterNet forums
d.freidkin@sbcglobal.net

Actually reading the posts might serve some entertainment purposes. I thought I was pretty good natured during my participation and even had the author of the book offer me a free copy (I paid though and sent it to my hippy brother)

I PM'd you Charles but that is exactly what i was looking for. I'm going to go and have a look

Have fun.

The war thread was most active. To pat myself on back, my positions were so unexpected for them that a few weren't sure if I was a neo-con or a green party member...

For all you Bush bashers saying that this stuff came from him. The 2 main people in this article are Former CIA Director James Woolsey and Laurie Mylroie, (Clinton Years folks) Oh wait maybe Clinton and his administration lied also.


Not far from Baghdad, Coalition forces may uncover evidence linking Saddam Hussein's regime with airline hijackings in general and the September 11 attacks in particular.

Salman Pak, a training camp on the Tigris River some 15 miles southeast of Iraq's capital, could clarify this question. According to Iraqi defectors and U.S. intelligence analysts, this is where Hussein's agents polished the air-piracy skills of foreign Islamist terrorists.

Details on this facility and its al Qaeda ties recently emerged in a Manhattan federal courtroom. Former CIA Director James Woolsey and Iraq scholar Laurie Mylroie offered sworn expert testimony in a largely overlooked lawsuit filed by the families of two people killed on 9/11. They are suing Iraq's government, among other rogue entities and individuals, for allegedly helping to murder their loved ones.

"I believe it is definitely more likely than not that some degree of common effort in the sense of aiding or abetting or conspiracy was involved here between Iraq and the al Qaeda," Woolsey said on March 3. President Clinton's CIA chief from 1993 to 1995 added: "Even if one cannot show that...any of the individual 19 hijackers were trained at Salman Pak, the nature of the training and the circumstances suggest, to my mind, at least, some kind of common aiding, abetting, assistance, cooperation — whatever word you might want to take."

Mylroie, a Pentagon terrorism consultant and Iraq-policy adviser to Bill Clinton's 1992 presidential campaign (and author of The War Against America), also testified March 3. She believes "It took a state like Iraq to carry out an attack as really sophisticated, massive and deadly as what happened on September 11."

Top Iraqi defectors amplify these American suspicions.

"There have been several confirmed sightings of Islamic fundamentalists from Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Gulf states being trained in terror tactics at the Iraqi intelligence camp at Salman Pak," Khidir Hamza, Iraq's former nuclear-weapons chief, told the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee last July 31. "The training involved assassination, explosions and hijacking."

"This camp is specialized in exporting terrorism to the whole world," former Iraqi army captain Sabah Khodada told PBS's Frontline in an October 14, 2001 interview. Khodada worked at Salman Pak. He said that instruction there was "all for the general concept of hitting and attacking American targets and American interests." He added: "We saw people getting trained to hijack airplanes...They are even trained how to use utensils for food, like forks and knives provided in the plane...They are trained how to plant horror within the passengers by doing such actions." A map of the camp Khodada drew for Frontline closely matches satellite photos of the base, thus bolstering his story.

"I was the security officer in charge of the unit," at Salman Pak, an ex-Iraqi lieutenant general told Frontline anonymously in a November 6, 2001 interview. "This unit was under the direct supervision and control of the Iraqi Intelligence Service," he added. "And the fact that the training was concentrated on a plane made it even stranger as far as I was concerned."

Iraq's U.N. ambassador, Mohammed Aldouri, denied this to Frontline that October 29. "I am lucky that I know the area, this Salman Pak. This is a very beautiful area with gardens, with trees," Aldouri said. "It is not possible to do such a program there, because there's no place for planes."

Oddly enough, that satellite photo shows no rose bushes. But clearly evident is the Russian-built Tupolev 154 airliner on which these Iraqi emigres report hijackings were rehearsed.

"We were told it was for counterterrorist training," former U.N. weapons inspector Charles Duelfer said in the Scotsman newspaper on February 18. "We automatically knocked off the word 'counter.'" Duelfer and his team saw the jet on a January 1995 visit.

Meanwhile, in a February 24 letter to James Beasley, Jr., the attorney in the aforementioned lawsuit, Czech U.N. Ambassador Hynek Kmonicek affirms an October 26, 2001 statement by Czech Interior Minister Stanislav Gross: "In this moment we can confirm, that during the next stay of Mr. Muhammad Atta in the Czech Republic there was the contact with the official of the Iraqi intelligence, Mr. Al Ani, Ahmed Khalin Ibrahim Samir, who was on 22nd April 2001 expelled from the Czech Republic on the basis of activities which were not compatible with the diplomatic status." Atta flew from Virginia Beach, Virginia to Prague on April 7, 2001. Car-rental records place him in the Czech capitol the next day. He flew home to Florida that April 9.

"If he [Atta] goes there and meets with an Iraqi intelligence officer, and then turns right around and comes right back, it looks an awful lot to me like it was an operational meeting," Woolsey said in court. "Certainly he and Mr. Al-Ani were unlikely to be discussing or looking at the lovely architecture of Medieval Prague."

Czech officials sent Al-Ani packing just two weeks after his meeting with Atta when they caught the Iraqi casing and photographing Radio Free Europe's Prague headquarters, some believe in hopes of bombing it.

Iraq also is tied to the February 26, 1993 World Trade Center bombing. Chief conspirator Ramzi Yousef reached America bearing an Iraqi passport, although he fled to Pakistan on a Pakistani passport issued to one Abdul Basit Karim, a Pakistani-born resident of Kuwait whose identity Mylroie surmises that Yousef assumed, perhaps with the help of Iraqi intelligence agents who had access to immigration files before U.S. and allied forces drove them from Kuwait.

For his part, Indiana-born and Iraqi-reared Abdul Rahman Yasin — indicted for mixing the chemicals in the bomb that shook the Twin Towers, killing six and injuring roughly 1,000 people — returned to Iraq after the explosion, stopping first at the Iraqi embassy in Amman, Jordan. He lived freely in Baghdad for a year. Iraqi officials say they have kept him in custody since 1994, though they neither have prosecuted him nor extradited him to face American justice.

Also, according to the State Department's "Patterns of Global Terrorism — 2001,"released May 21, 2002, "Iraq was the only Arab-Muslim country that did not condemn the September 11 attacks against the United States." That day, an official Iraqi broadcast said America was "...reaping the fruits of [its] crimes against humanity."

Some have dismissed the notion that supposedly secular Saddam Hussein would conspire with Muslim extremists like Osama bin Laden and the men of al Qaeda. Woolsey and Mylroie note that Hussein sometimes embraces Islam for political purposes. The Iraqi flag, for instance, has borne the Arabic words Allahu akbar ("God is great") since 1991, the year Hussein lost Gulf War I. Terrorists often invoke this Islamic incantation before blowing themselves apart. Whatever their differences on Heaven, Hussein and bin Laden share a common foe on Earth: America.

Said Woolsey, "I've used the analogy a number of times about the Iraqi government and al Qaeda as being like two Mafia families who hate each other, kill each other's members from time to time, insult one another, but are still capable of cooperating against what they consider to be a greater enemy — namely, us."

Are these apparent ties tough to prove? You bet. Iraq's work with homicidal zealots does not resemble a municipal bond deal, with contracts registered at City Hall. As Woolsey noted, "This is putting together pieces of a puzzle in which quite likely both parties are doing everything they can to keep these pieces from being fitted together."

So why has the Bush administration not highlighted these ominous connections? One theory is that showcasing pre-9/11 evidence of Salman Pak might make people wonder why nothing was done about it before the atrocity. Another view is that federal officials who implemented President Clinton's light touch towards Iraq are in no hurry to remind Americans of how foolish their policy was.

In either case, we soon may know much more about Salman Pak — assuming it has not been thoroughly sanitized. Baghdad's liberation should snap open government file cabinets and loosen captured officials' tongues. Before long, they may reveal the extent of Saddam Hussein's complicity in the September 11 massacre.

— Mr. Murdock is a columnist with the Scripps Howard News Service.

ref: http://www.nationalreview.com/murdock/murdock040303.asp

No wonder the Iraqis didn't fight the U.S. army it sems everyone in Iraq was too busy disposing of evidence.

DU is hazardous in it's vaporized state. Therefore it's only hazardous when it hit's it's target. It is used as a hardened tip (armor piercing). So those who are in a tank or vehicle would experience it's hazard when the round went through the metal. Once it solidifies it is no longer hazardous.