THE US, THE UN AND THE IRAQIS THEMSELVES, V. 7.0

Actually it is McG. Exactly what it is implied to be.

One of my favorite lines from the Joe Pesci movie "With Honors" was: "My cock is cleaner than your bum." Those who have seen the movie are grinning. . . .those who haven't are thinking.....well, I won't jump to any conclusions.

Agency Coordination Helps Yield Details on Al Qaeda 'Associate'

By Walter Pincus and Susan Schmidt
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, February 6, 2003; Page A29

Secretary of State Colin L. Powell yesterday presented intelligence that he said shows that Iraq has been harboring a cell of a global terrorist network run by Abu Musab Zarqawi, a Jordanian-born Palestinian whom he described as an "associate" and "collaborator" of Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda organization.

The Baghdad cell has been "operating freely in the [Iraqi] capital for more than eight months," coordinating "movement of money and supplies," Powell said. He described it as being in "regular contact" with Zarqawi's network, which Powell said has plotted acts of terrorism not only in the Middle East but also in France, Britain, Spain, Italy, Germany and Russia.

___ Powell at the U.N. ___
Colin Powell's Moment
The secretary of state played audio tapes he said proved Iraq had hidden weapons of mass destruction.

Also, pundits questioned whether Powell would have an Adlai Stevenson Moment at the U.N.

Powell, in his presentation to the U.N. Security Council, also said the network run by Zarqawi, 36, is operating a terrorist training center in northeastern Iraq that specializes in teaching the use of poisons and explosives. He called the center "a nexus that combines classic terrorist organizations and modern methods of murder."

Bush administration officials have repeatedly alleged that Iraq and al Qaeda are linked, a connection that Iraqi officials have denied and many experts on international terrorism have questioned. The evidence that Powell presented of Iraq's links to al Qaeda appeared more substantial than intelligence officials had previously suggested, though Powell did not say Iraq's president, Saddam Hussein, had any direct operational control or sponsorship of Zarqawi's network or al Qaeda. He did describe Zarqawi's network as "Iraqi-linked."

One counterterrorism official said yesterday that officials from across the intelligence community -- principally the FBI, CIA and State Department -- recently gathered under the direction of the State Department's director of policy planning, Richard N. Haass, and coordinated their information. "Up to now they had not fully shared everything," he said.

"I believe Secretary Powell laid the case out well today, including the al Qaeda connection," said Sen. Richard C. Shelby (R-Ala.), a longtime former member and onetime chairman of the Senate intelligence committee. "I don't think we need to make any more of a case against Saddam Hussein. We know his goals are similar to bin Laden's. We know he's harbored a number of people who are high-level operatives."

Shelby said he has been given classified briefings on Iraq and al Qaeda that clearly indicate that "there is some more there. If I were Powell, I wouldn't give it all away," he said.

Powell traced the history of the relationship between al Qaeda and Iraq to the early 1990s, including meetings that were previously known. "We know members of both organizations met repeatedly and have met at least eight times at very senior levels since the early 1990s," Powell said.

Although Hussein's secular government was once anathema to bin Laden's militant Islamic movement, "ambition and hatred are enough to bring Iraq and al Qaeda together," said Powell, who alleged that Hussein and bin Laden agreed in the mid-1990s, when bin Laden was based in Sudan, that al Qaeda would cease support of activities against Baghdad. "In 1996, a foreign security service tells us that bin Laden met with a senior Iraqi intelligence official in Khartoum, and later met the director of the Iraqi intelligence service," he said.

Powell said that after al Qaeda's bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998, and the attack on the USS Cole in Yemen in 2000, Hussein "became more interested" in al Qaeda.

A senior administration official said that information came from detainees being questioned by U.S. interrogators.

Senate intelligence committee Chairman Pat Roberts (R-Kan.) said: "The information shared today demonstrates the degree of cooperation we are getting from a broad coalition of countries.

"Secretary Powell's presentation also demonstrated the enormous value of our intelligence-gathering capability."

However, Judith S. Yaphe, a former CIA analyst on Iraq and now a senior research fellow at National Defense University, questioned the reliability of information provided by detainees. "You never get a clear smoking gun," she said.

Offering details of the Zarqawi network's terrorist activities in Europe, Powell sought to counter antiwar sentiment. He said that 116 members of Zarqawi's network had been arrested in France, Britain, Spain and Italy since last year.

Is this anything like al Qaeda operating freely in the USA?

Happy holidays ladies 'n' gents .....

Deadly blast in southern Thailand
At least one person has been killed and several wounded after a bomb exploded in a restive area of southern Thailand.
The blast happened at a Siam Commercial Bank branch in Sungai Kolok, a town in Narathiwat province on the border with Malaysia, said police.

The town, which is popular with Malaysian tourists, has been the scene of other explosions in the past.

Narathiwat is one of three mainly-Muslim southern provinces at the centre of an Islamic separatist insurgency.

"One man died and six were wounded, including one in critical condition with chest wounds," Wichai Wichianwattanachai, a doctor at Sungai Kolok's main hospital, was quoted by Reuters news agency as saying.

Police said the bomb was planted in a motorcycle parked in front of a cash machine beside the bank, exploding at 0900 (0200 GMT).

A blast at a bar in the town in October killed two people, including a Malaysian tourist, and wounded 20.

Teachers' strike

More than 550 people have been killed so far this year in the region as violence has increased between the country's minority Muslim community and the authorities.

Tensions rose dramatically after 85 Muslim protesters were killed in October when the army tried to stop their demonstration.


TROUBLED SOUTH
Home to most of Thailand's 4% Muslim minority
Muslim rebels fought the government up to the mid-80s
Suspected militants have upped attacks this year, targeting Buddhists
Security forces' response criticised by rights groups


Seven were shot and 78 suffocated or were crushed to death when they were loaded into army trucks.
A government-backed inquiry into the incident found that the deaths were not deliberate.

But Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra admitted the panel found that some senior officials failed to do their jobs, and left it to subordinates to handle the protest's outcome.

Thousands of teachers in the south went on strike on Thursday, urging the authorities to do more to protect them from attacks by Muslim militants.

They said they were perceived by the rebels to be representatives of the Buddhist-dominated administration.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/asia-pacific/4122863.stm

Published: 2004/12/24 04:13:27 GMT

© BBC MMIV

I agree it is unthinkable we pull out of Iraq.
Pres Bush and PM Blair have promised the Iraqis, and the Afghans before them, that we would not leave until things were stable and improving.

We owe them, those ordinary people who are blameless and who have been caught up in the conflict, at a guess the vast majority.

As I think Secretary Powell once said to the President about Iraq "You break it, you own it". We are obliged not to walk away.

The meaning of freedom seems lost ...

ci,
The 9/11 Commission echos what Powell said about "members of both organizations met repeatedly and have met at least eight times at very senior levels since the early 1990s." What is profoundly telling is the commission's complete lack of reference to Abu Musab Zarqawi. There is not a single solitary mention of Zarqawi in the commission's report.

Also, Judith S. Yaphe brought up a good point about information provided by detainees, "you never get a clear smoking gun." What with our systematic torture of detainees, the "information" they provide is highly suspect and unreliable given the conditions this "information" is garnered.

We asked them to do it on their own a while back.

We asked them to rise up against Saddam...throw him out...and build a democracy.

Now we cannot trust them to do it because we have destroyed their country.

Iraq needs a strongman to run it. The factions there have about as much chance of getting along well enough to run a country as the Israelis and Palestinians do.

It ain't gonna happen.

We can get out now...or we can get out later.

Either way, we are going to look like jerks...and the Iraqis are going to slaughter each other once we're gone.

I vote that we get out now.

And, if we make our intentions known...and the rest of the world thinks that the vacuum would be a bad thing...they can take over.

Frank, I cannot argue with you as well! And I agree with part of your last post.

The point I would make to this bit is, we asked them to rise up against Saddam before, and they did rise up, and the expected help was not forthcoming, and thousands of the rebels were executed by Saddam's men.
It's not just in the last two years we have cocked things up for the moderate Iraqis.

I know what you are saying McTag...and don't get me wrong, I appreciate it more than my suggestions indicate.

BUT...democracy will never be imposed from without...any more than peace will ever be imposed by war.

We've made an horrific blunder here...and our choices now come down to two:

Continue the blunder...add to it...and then disengage...or...

...disengage now.


I suggest that the latter is the better course.

NOT A GOOD COURSE...and in fact, I consider it a miserable course.


But I consider it a better course than its alternative.

Maybe so but at this point I see the elections as the only shot of Iraqi's being able to govern themselves. It is a small shot and it is probably ripe potential fraud on the part of our government, but if is run the way it should and the Iraqi people actually get to pick who they want to run their own country, that can't be a bad thing and would have made the lives lost on both sides at least not in total vain. I agree that is a lot of "ifs".

I am not saying that if the elections are pulled off sucessfully it justifies our lies and motives whatever they were in going to Iraq and I also don't expect it to end the violence, but it is a positive step for the Iraqi's.

I think shortly after the elections we should begin to pull out of Iraq. But I don't expect that we will.

I understand where you are coming from...but...

...and this is a huge BUT...

...there is the possibility that this much-touted election will be the final straw in the destruction of that country.

Over there, it ain't gonna be like a buncha liberal Democrats hunkering down and waiting 'til the next election to change things.

We have created an absolutely no win situation...and we seem destined to treat it just like the last no win situation we created...Vietnam.

We will make sure that as much damage, carnage, killing, maiming as possible occurs to people on both sides before doing what we should be doing right now.

We'll see.

I will never, never, never root against us in order some day to be able to say..."I told ya so."

But every sane indication is that this thing is heading in exactly that direction.

I know don't you find that implication to be about the most insulting of implications in the whole Iraq debate?

As for the rest, I hope that you are wrong. But I see your point about the possiblities of them hunkering down to wait for the next elections if they are disapointed to be a little far fetched.

As Frank has said, democracy does not come from without. Many Iraqis already see this as a puppet regime picked by the US administration. There are more problems created by this election than solutions; more people will be killed. More Iraqis are joining the insurgency to fight the Americans, because they don't see any improvement in their lives; they only see an occupation.

We're not going to leave Iraq. We're there to stay indefinitely. That's why we're renovating and fortifying the existing military forts there.

Iraq will be our centralized base of operations in the Middle East. We also aspire to control its oil reserves.

Right Infrablue. I fully agree with you.
Saddam has been the 'horse' on which the "planners" from the west have ridden into the heart of the Middle East-
but the hearses in which thousands of Americans ride out are not disturbing the United States citizens enough, to my thinking. I cannot understand how our 'parents' and top military are not more vocal in thier disagreement with this aggression that is costing us SO much.

There IS no argument to justify this war... NONE. But of course there are 'reasons' aplenty. Reasons written in blood and oil.

Last night, at the bar where I play every weekend I eavesdropped on two quintessential middle aged American men discussing policy in the ME.
I was surprised at the breadth of their knowledge of current affairs but not at their conclusion:

US policies in the Middle East have been failures since the shah was deposed. OIL is the fuel that drives American foreign policy(I'm sure these guys were driving F-350's). Military bases are being constructed at a dizzying speed for a very very long term occupation

A view from the heartland.

Frank,

TERRORIST POKER AIN'T YOUR FATHER'S POKER

Your father's poker, whether it be standard poker, WWII poker, or Vietnam poker, is significantly different from terrorist poker.

In standard poker, if you choose not to sit at the table (i.e., play), you at worst lose a chance to win some money and at best lose the chance to not lose some money.

In WWII poker, it is necessary to sit at the table until you win and replace your belligerent opponents with non-belligerent opponents or your belligerent opponents win and enslave you.

In Vietnam poker, if you choose not to sit at the table, you at worst lose the life of another player, and at best do not lose your own life.

In terrorist poker, if you choose not to sit at the table, you lose your life. If you lose this poker game, you lose your life. If you win this poker game you replace all your terrorist harboring opponents with non-terrorist harboring opponents, and thereby, win and save your life. If you refuse to bet on the hands you are dealt, you risk losing the game and your life. If you do bet on the hands you are dealt, you at worst lose the game and your life, and at best win the game and your life. In short, in terrorist poker you have only two choices: either you win and live, or you lose and die.

Capire?

That's the fattest, stupidest strawman you've constructed yet.