Update:
Update II:
According to Lieut. Mike Kafka, a spokesman at the headquarters of the Second Fleet, based in Norfolk, Virginia, the Eisenhower Strike Group, bristling with Tomahawk cruise missiles, has received orders to depart the United States in a little over a week. Other official sources in the public affairs office of the Navy Department at the Pentagon confirm that this powerful armada is scheduled to arrive off the coast of Iran on or around October 21.
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Update:
Twenty-first century Islamo-fascist terrorists, however, have refined the model and moved beyond an image of anger to a new form of prepared global ambush that integrates murder, terror and instant media.
The ambush technique coordinates blood-spilling violence with sensational imagery and rhetoric using a dispersed network of media operatives, guerrillas and terrorists. Networked, Coordinated Blood-spilling plus Sensationalism — hence the technique’s acronym: the CBS ambush.
Update:
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“According to debriefs of multiple detainees-including Saddam Hussein and former Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz- and captured documents, Saddam did not trust al-Qa’ida or any other radical Islamist group and did not want to cooperate with them.”
“when told there was clear evidence that the Iraqi government had previously met with bin Ladin, Saddam responded, “yes.” Saddam then specified that Iraq did not cooperate with bin Ladin. In response to the suggestion that he might cooperate with al-Qa’ida because “the enemy of my enemy is my friend,” Saddam answered that the United States was not Iraq’s enemy. He claimed that Iraq only opposed U.S. policies.”
“According to Tariq Aziz, “Saddam only expressed negative sentiments about bin Ladin.“
“During the FBI’s debrief of a top official in Saddam’s government, Abid Hamid Mahmoud al-Kattab al-Tikriti, al-Tikriti noted that Saddam Hussein’s position was that Iraq should not deal with al-Qa’ida.”
“Postwar debriefs provided information on the 1995 meeting between bin Ladin and senior Iraq Intelligence Service official Faruq Hijazi. According to the FBI, Hijazi stated during his debriefing that he met bin Ladin once in Sudan in early 1995. The meeting came in response to a request to the Iraqi government through the government of Sudan on behalf of bin Laden. Hijazi told debriefers that he was selected by Saddam because he was secular, which would make him less sympathetic to bin Ladin’s radical message. Hijazi also noted that Saddam gave him explicit instructions that he was “only to listen” and not negotiate or promise anything to bin Ladin.’”
In a response to questions from Committee staff asking if DIA recovered or received information or intelligence, after the raid on Salman Pak in April 2003 that indicated non-Iraqis received terrorist training at the Salman Pak facility, DIA said it has “no credible reports that non-Iraqis were trained to conduct or support transnational terrorist operations at Salman Pak after 1991.” DIA assessed that the foreigners were likely volunteers who traveled to Iraq in the months before Operation Iraqi Freedom began to fight overtly alongside Iraqi military forces. “The Iraqi government encouraged this support . . . and trained these fighters in basic combat techniques. The former regime used the Salman Pak Unconventional Warfare Training Facility . . . to train a variety of Iraqi military and security elements and, DIA assesses, foreign fighters overtly aligned with Iraq.” The facilities included a derelict aircraft and train intended for counter-terrorism training.“
“A November 2003 assessment from DIA noted that postwar exploitation of the facility found it “devoid of valuable intelligence.” The assessment added that CIA exploitation “found nothing of intelligence value remained and assessed the Iraqi Intelligence Service (IIS) cleaned it out.” The DIA assessment concluded that “we do not know whether the ex-regime trained terrorists on the aircraft at Salman Pak. Intelligence in late April 2003 indicated the plane had been dismantled. DIA and CENTCOM assess the plane was sold for scrap.“[emphasis added]”
“M14, directed by Muhammad Khudayr Sabah Al Dulaymi, was responsible for training and conducting special operations missions. It trained Iraqis, Palestinians, Syrians, Yemeni, Lebanese, Egyptian, and Sudanese operatives in counterterrorism, explosives, marksmanship, and foreign operations at its facilities at Salman Pak. Additionally, M14 oversaw the “Challenge Project,” a highly secretive project regarding explosives. Sources to date have not been able to provide sufficient details regarding the “Challenge Project.””-ISG rpt Vol I, pg 78
“Beginning in 1998, these camps began hosting “Arab volunteers from Egypt, Palestine, Jordan, ‘the Gulf,’ and Syria.” It is not clear from available evidence where all of these non-Iraqi volunteers who were “sacrificing for the cause” went to ply their newfound skills. Before the summer of 2002, most volunteers went home upon the completion of training. But these training camps were humming with frenzied activity in the months immediately prior to the war. As late as January 2003, the volunteers participated in a special training event called the “Heroes Attack.” This training event was designed in part to prepare regional Fedayeen Saddam commands to “obstruct the enemy from achieving his goal and to support keeping peace and stability in the province.” ”-Iraqi Perspectives Project Report pg 54
“Bin Ladin now had a vision of himself as head of an international jihad confederation. In Sudan, he established an “Islamic Army Shura” that was to serve as the coordinating body for the consortium of terrorist groups with which he was forging alliances. It was composed of his own al Qaeda Shura together with leaders or representatives of terrorist organizations that were still independent. In building this Islamic army, he enlisted groups from Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Iraq, Oman, Algeria, Libya, Tunisia, Morocco, Somalia, and Eritrea. Al Qaeda also established cooperative but less formal relationships with other extremist groups from these same countries; from the African states of Chad, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, and Uganda; and from the Southeast Asian states of Burma, Thailand, Malaysia, and Indonesia. Bin Ladin maintained connections in the Bosnian conflict as well.” -911 Commission Final Report pg 58
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Views of the relationship between the Iraqi government and al-Qa’ida;
. Iraqi government contacts with al-Qa’ida;
. Iraqi government training of al-Qa’ida in chemical-biological weapons, poisons or terrorist tactics;
. Iraqi government provision of “safehaven” for al-Qa’ida;
. Iraqi government knowledge and/or support for the attacks of September 11,and;
. Iraqi government use of al-Qa’ida terrorists as a response to threat of invasion by the United States.
“Did Saddam have the capability to provide WMD,
and if so would he have provided WMD to Al Queda?”
“Yes, Saddam did have the ability to give WMD to Al Queda.”
[RBT emphasis]
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“The CIA assessed that: Regarding the Iraq-al-Qaida relationship, reporting from sources of varying reliability points to a number of contacts, incidents of training, and discussions of Iraqi safe haven for Usama bin Laden and his organization dating from the early 1990's. Iraq's interaction with al-Qaida is impelled by mutual antipathy toward the United States and the Saudi royal family and by bin Ladin's interest in unconventional weapons and relocation sites. The relationship between Iraq and al-Qaida appears to more closely resemble that of two independent actors trying to exploit each other - their mutual suspicion suborned by al-Qaida's interest in Iraqi assistance, and Baghdad's interest in al-Qaida's anti-U.S. attacks. The Intelligence Community has no credible information that Baghdad had foreknowledge of the 11 September attacks or any other al-Qaida strike, but continues to pursue all leads.”
“Due to the limited amount and questionable quality of reporting on the leadership intentions of Saddam Hussein and Usama bin Ladin, the CIA was unable to make conclusive assessments in "Iraqi Support for Terrorism" regarding Iraq's relationship with al-Qaida. The CIA stated in the Scope Note: Our knowledge of Iraq's ties to terrorism is evolving...This paper's conclusions-especially regarding the difficult and elusive question of the exact nature of Iraq's relations with al-Qaida-are based on currently available information that is at times contradictory and derived from sources with varying degrees of reliability...While our understanding of Iraq’s overall connections to al-Qaida has grown considerably, our appreciation of these links is still emerging.”
…
Section 13 of the Senate Intelligence Committee report, titled Intelligence Community Collection Activities Against Iraq's links to Terrorism, points out the problem with stating categorically if there were ties or no ties between Saddam’s regime and Al Queda:
“Notwithstanding four decades of intelligence reporting, IC officials and analysts expressed frustration over the lack of useful intelligence collected on Iraq’s involvement in terrorism, particularly on links to al-Qaida. A January 2003 IC assessment of Iraqi support for terrorism explained, "Our knowledge of Iraq’s ties to terrorism is evolving and (REDACTED)".
Based on information provided to Committee staff, these gaps had three main causes:
1. a late start collecting against the target,
2. the lack of a U.S. presence in Iraq, and
3. reliance on foreign government services, opposition groups and defectors for current intelligence.” [emphasis added]
“Simply stated, this second series of reports is designed to point fingers
in Washington and at the Administration. The conclusions in the reports were crafted with more partisan bias than we have witnessed in a long time in Congress. The “Phase II” investigation has turned the Senate Intelligence Committee, a committee initially designed to be the most bipartisan committee in the Senate, into a political playground stripped of its bipartisan power, and this fact has no gone unnoticed in the Intelligence Community.”pg146
• 18% of the docs reviewed=a conclusion? UNACCEPTABLE
• based on interrogations of detainees by FBI? UNACCEPTABLE
• based on the word of Saddam, Aziz, al Tikriti, and Hijazi UNACCEPTABLE
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