Know War
Out of context: Reply #82
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- Cactus0
I thought you were going home. Always got to get the last word in...eh.
The so-called, Neo Conservatives in the US made no secret about wanting to overturn Saddam Hussein's regime whether he possessed WMD or not. They felt he was a permenant menace to the region. His refusal or inablilty to declare or destroy the WMD that the UN had already documented he had, was used as casus belli to bring a reluctant international community to actually enforce the UN resolutions and the 1993 Seize Fire Agreement.
The showdown with Saddam was inevitable. It was only a question when. It was probably better to confront him while he was weak rather than when he had regained military strength and resumed or progressed his WMD program. The confrontation with Iran is less fraught with danger, I would think, while Saddam is sitting jail rather than waiting exploit oppotunities while the US is preoccupied tackling his next door enemy.
You are completely uninformed about Al Qaeda/Zarqawi history in Iraq. A few references to bring you up to speed:
1. The connection was brokered by Sudanese Islamist leader Hassan al-Turabi during the first Gulf War.
Iraqi Intelligence Service (IIS) records recovered last year reveal that, by 1992, bin Laden was already regarded as an IIS asset, while Saddam was hosting Ayman al-Zawahiri of Egyptian Islamic Jihad — who would later become bin Laden's second-in-command. By 1994, the two sides came to an understanding: Al-Qaeda would not work against Iraq, but would cooperate with it on some projects, including weapons development. IIS provided al-Qaeda with phony passports; Iraq also set up secret training camps for terrorists, where the IIS special-operations division provided schooling in assassination and hijacking.2. In early February 1998, Zawahiri was in Iraq, negotiating training arrangements and collecting $300,000 from the IIS. Saddam, meanwhile, was making a mockery of weapons inspections, prompting a warning from President Clinton on February 17 against a "rogue state with weapons of mass destruction ready to use them or provide them to terrorists." Two days later, the IIS was finalizing arrangements for a visit to Baghdad by a trusted envoy of bin Laden. The envoy arrived in early March, about two weeks after bin Laden issued his infamous fatwa calling on Muslims to murder Americans, including civilians, worldwide.
3. Military records uncovered since Saddam's fall appear to indicate that Shakir was a lieutenant colonel in Saddam's elite Fedayeen. In 1999, he was assigned by IIS to Malaysian Airlines as a "greeter" — a functionary who assists VIPs through the airport customs process. The VIP Shakir was dispatched to help on January 5, 2000, was Khalid al-Midhar, one of the eventual 9/11 hijackers.
There's more if you want it.
But you will probably dismiss all this as fabrication. I don't expect you to change your ideas one iota.