9/11 Update
From UPI:
The commission investigating the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks has received new information indicating that a senior officer in an elite unit of the security services of deposed Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein may have been a member of al-Qaida involved in the planning of the suicide hijackings, panel members said Sunday.
John F. Lehman, a Reagan-era GOP defense official told NBC's "Meet the Press" that documents captured in Iraq "indicate that there is at least one officer of Saddam's Fedayeen, a lieutenant colonel, who was a very prominent member of al Qaida."
The Fedayeen were a special unit of volunteers given basic training in irregular warfare. The lieutenant colonel, Ahmed Hikmat Shakir, has the same name as an Iraqi thought to have attended a planning meeting for the Sept. 11 attacks in January 2000, in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The meeting was also attended by two of the hijackers, Khalid al Midhar and Nawaf al Hamzi and senior al-Qaida leaders.
...
[T]he revelation seems sure to stoke the controversy over the extent of links between al-Qaida and Saddam's regime, links that were cited by the Bush administration as a justification for the invasion of Iraq.
On Wednesday, the commission published a staff statement saying that contacts between the regime and al-Qaida "do not appear to have resulted in a collaborative relationship" and that, "We have no credible evidence that Iraq and al-Qaida cooperated on attacks against the United States."
Critics of the Bush administration seized on the comments as evidence that the White House had sought to mislead Americans about the relationship between Saddam and al-Qaida.
President Bush's likely Democratic opponent, Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., said the president need to give "a fundamental explanation about why he rushed to war for a purpose it now turns out is not supported by the facts."
Matt's Chat
While it may be just a coincidence, I don't think the Commission can make statements like "there are no connections" until they know for sure that there weren't any connections. And liberals who used that argument should be feeling a bit silly now...they aren't, of course, because they think only conservatives jump the gun on such pronouncements.9:15AM Update
From ABCNews:Five years before the worst terror attack in American history, a U.S.-educated Kuwaiti pitched an outlandish idea to Osama bin Laden. Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, now a U.S. captive, concedes his apocalyptic vision of 10 planes steered into nuclear power plants, skyscrapers and other American targets received only a lukewarm response from the al-Qaida kingpin.So, if all this was going on in 1996, why wasn't Richard Clarke shaking trees and connecting dots? Just asking. Oh, one more thing...who was president in 1996? Bill Clinton, that's right, liberals... Now, go connect some more dots and shake some more trees, please...
The meeting in Afghanistan in mid-1996, however, apparently was the genesis of the attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people on Sept. 11, 2001. Three reports issued this week by the Sept. 11 commission provide the fullest picture yet of how Mohammed's idea evolved from wild scheme to unfathomable reality and the government's chaotic response.
Mark's Remarks
They were too busy shaking booty under desks with executive kneepads. The Clinton administration built up barriers to intelligence, and failed to take advantage of opportunities to get the terrorists before 9/11. That administration had 8 years, the Bush admin had a couple hundred days. Who is more negligent, especially in light of the new revelations? Of course, even though war was declared by the terrorists on CLINTON'S watch, even though most of the attacks occurred ON CLINTON'S watch, it has to be Bush's fault, right, libs? Even though Clinton was too busy with sex and golf to order key strikes, it has to be Bush, right? Give me a break.
As to the al Queda thing...I cannot wait to hear more about the links. There are links. I think there is evidence, and I think it will be revealed soon.
