Saddam on Tape: Terrorists Will Attack D.C.

Saddam on Tape: Terrorists Will Attack D.C.
Newsmax.com ^ | Wednesday, Feb. 15, 2006 10:53 a.m. EST | Carl Limbacher and NewsMax.com Staff

Five years before Osama bin Laden attacked the World Trade Center and Pentagon, Saddam Hussein predicted that Washington, D.C. would be struck by terrorists, according to audiotapes set for broadcast tonight on ABC's "Nightline."


In an ABC Radio report to promote the show, the network's lead investigative reporter, Brian Ross, revealed that the FBI translator who leaked the tapes said they contained "damning evidence that the world should know."


In one 10-year-old recording, the Iraqi dictator is said to boast that Washington would be an easy target for a nuclear or biological weapons attack. Saddam added, however, that if such an attack should come, his regime would not be directly responsible.


In fact, Saddam's 1996 warning of a terrorist attack on Washington was followed up in Iraq's state run press with even more prescient predictions.
On July 21, 2001, less than two months before 9/11, the state-controlled Iraqi newspaper Al-Nasiriya carried a column headlined "America, An Obsession Called Osama Bin Ladin." In the piece, Baath Party writer Naeem Abd Muhalhal predicted that bin Laden would attack the U.S. "with the seriousness of the Bedouin of the desert about the way he will try to bomb the Pentagon after he destroys the White House."


In 1992, Saddam's son Uday used an editorial in Babil, the newspaper he ran, to warn of Iraqi kamikaze attacks inside America, saying, "Does the United States realize the meaning of every Iraqi becoming a missile that can cross countries and cities?" In the late 1990s, according to UPI, "a cable to Saddam from the chief of Iraqi intelligence was transmitted by Baghdad Radio. The message read, 'We will chase [Americans] to every corner at all times. No high tower of steel will protect them against the fire of truth.'"


After the 9/11 attacks, Saddam became the only world leader to offer praise for bin Laden, even as other terrorist leaders such as Yasser Arafat went out of their way to make a show of sympathy to the U.S. by donating blood for 9/11 victims.


The day after the attacks, in quotes picked up by Agence France-Press, Saddam proclaimed that "America is reaping the thorns planted by its rulers in the world."


"There is hardly a place [in the world] that does not have a memorial symbolizing the criminal actions committed by America against its natives," AFP quoted the Iraqi dictator complaining, based on reports in the Iraqi News agency.


For his part, Uday flat-out praised the 9/11 attacks, saying, "These were courageous operations carried out by young Arabs and Muslims," according to quotes picked up by the Saudi daily Asharq al-Awsat. "Nightline's" broadcast tonight will be based on 12 hours of tapes obtained by ABC News. But that's likely only the tip of the iceberg.


In his April 2005 final report on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, chief U.S. weapons inspector Charles Duelfer said he had uncovered "a large collection" of recordings of Saddam chairing his Revolutionary Command Council

In looking for a good thread to post this... this thread of Rick's appears like the perfect venue. I'll reserve further comment for the moment, just want this as part of the public record for now.


Subject: Senate Select Committee on Intelligence: Iraq and Al Qaeda



By Sean Osborne, Associate Director, Senior Analyst, Military Affairs,


Reference for this article is found in a .pdf file entitled “Postwar Findings about Iraq's WMD Programs and Links to Terrorism and How they Compare with Prewar Assessments together with Additional Views” located HERE.


10 September 2006: Since the start of my investigations into matters relating to terrorist attacks that have taken place on US soil, I have been on record with my assertion of Iraqi and al-Qaeda involvement in the attacks on US soil going back to the original WTC attack in 1993, the Oklahoma City bombing of 1995 and culminating with the attack on September 11 and the anthrax attacks in the US in 2001.


1. Having read the unclassified version of conclusions and assessments by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, particularly with respect to the 53 pages of Section III entitled "Iraqi Links to Al Qaeda", which comprise the bulk of the report respective to Iraq, the Ba'athist regime of Saddam Hussein, the Iraqi Intelligence Service (al-Mukhabarat) and their relationship with the terrorist organization Qaedat al-Jihad (Al Qaeda) led by Osama bin Ladin, Ayman al-Zawahiri and the late Abu Mus'ab al-Zarqawi,

2. And highlight with special attention to the fact that of this entire unclassifed version the most redacted, blacked-out portion of text is within the 53 pages of Section III, specifically the entirety of page 97 and top of page 98, which discuss the meeting of the Prague, Czech Republic-based Iraqi al-Mukhabarat (IIS) Chief, Ahmad Khalil Ibrahim Samir, al-Ani and the lead 9/11 hijacker, Mohammed Atta, of Al Qaeda in April 2001. The redacted portion also on this topic includes a section of pages 100 and 101,

3. And while noting the bi-partisan nature of the committee, I completely and unambiguously reject this report as a deliberate, politically motivated whitewash not unlike the similarly infamous whitewash of the 9/11 Commission Final Report. I am also dismayed by the timing of the release of this report; a fact which also evinces a decided political intent. I remind the Senate, the Congress and We The People that a major election is just fifty-seven days and a wake-up away. That's my politics.

In summary, I stand enduringly and firmly behind my original public assessment regarding the relationship between the regime of Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda, and which is based in part upon the research conducted by some of you reading this editorial report.

I am thoroughly disgusted with the United States Senate as a result of this unclassified report to the American people, and with the Congress of the United States of America as a whole for failing to formally declare war upon the enemies of this Republic.

I am also dismayed with POTUS for not pursing the issue of a formal declaration of war against all enemies foreign or domestic. If America is at war then formally declare it to be so.




http://www.homelandsecurityus.com/si...hp?storyid=576

Editing and final version complete. The above is also now back up at the NEIN website.