e-Claire

Iraq 9/11: for the record

[Mohammed Atta’s contacts with Iraqi intelligence. The Czechs have long maintained that Atta, leader of the 9/11 hijackers in the United States ] a long-time student at Germany ’s Hamburg-Harburg Technical University , met with al-Ani [Ahmed al-Ani, an Iraqi intelligence official, posted to the Iraqi embassy in Prague ] on April 8, 2001 ... America ’s leading lights, including those in government responsible for dealing with terrorism and with Iraq , made a mammoth blunder. They failed to recognize that starting with the first assault on New York ’s World Trade Center ,Iraq was working with Islamic militants to attack the United States . This failure left the country vulnerable on September 11, 2001 . Many of those who made this professional error cannot bring themselves to acknowledge it; perhaps, they cannot even recognize it. They mock whomever presents information tying Iraq to the 9/11 attacks; discredit that information; and assert there is “no evidence.” What they do not do is discuss in a rational way the significance of the information that is presented. I myself have experienced this many times, including in testimony before the 9/11 Commission, when as I responded to a Commissioner’s question, a fellow panelist repeatedly interrupted, screeching “That is not evidence,” even as C-SPAN broadcast the event to the entire country . Former White House counter-terrorism czar Richard Clarke is a prime example of this phenomenon. Immediately after the 9/11 attacks, when President Bush asked him to look into the possibility of Iraq ’s involvement, Clarke was “incredulous” (his word), treating the idea as if it were one of the most ridiculous things he had ever heard. On September 18, when Deputy National Security Adviser Steven Hadley asked him to take another look for evidence of Iraqi involvement, Clarke responded in a similar fashion. ...ever before in this country’s history has a president ordered American soldiers into battle, without fully explaining why they are asked to risk life and limb. One would never know from the administration’s public stance that senior officials, including the President, believe that Iraq was involved in the 9/11 attacks. Iraq was indeed involved in those assaults. There is considerable information to that effect, described in this piece and elsewhere. They include Iraqi documents discovered by U.S. forces in Baghdad that U.S. officials have not made public. We are now engaged in the most difficult military conflict this country has fought in thirty years. Even before the fiasco at Abu Ghraib became widely known, both the American public and international opinion were increasingly skeptical of U.S. war aims. In taking on and eliminating the Iraqi regime, Bush corrected a policy blunder of historic proportions. His decision for war was both courageous and necessary. Now, he needs to make it clear just why that decision was made. [the author] Laurie Mylroie was adviser on Iraq to the 1992 campaign of Bill Clinton and is the author of Bush vs. the Beltway: How the CIA and the State Department tried to Stop the War on Terror . (HarperCollins) She can be reached through http://www.benadorassociates.com.

ThanQ! TBK

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