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Joe Mariani
Saddam and 9/11: Connect the Dots
Sept 8, 2003
Those who were against the liberation of Iraq
have, from the very beginning, become almost
violently angry over any suggestion that Saddam
was in any way connected to the events of 9/11.
Why is that? Don't they want to know the
truth, whatever it might be? Are they perhaps
hiding some secret proof that Saddam was
innocent, or are they merely following the lead
of those who want -- or need -- the US to be in
the wrong, in order to advance their own personal
or political agendas? Who would have a vested
interest in making Saddam out to be innocent?
Who would "benefit" from pretending the USA
attacked an "innocent" country? Liberals,
Leftists, and anti-Americans (including the
French and most of the United Nations) would all
gain something. However, despite their angry
protests at the mere suggestion of any
connection, there IS some evidence of a link
between Iraq and the 9/11 hijackers, enough to
prove in a US district court that Saddam's
government trained the 9/11 hijackers at Salman
Pak -- just 20 miles southeast of Baghdad. As the
second anniversary of that terrible day
approaches, I'd like to know why anyone
was against attacking one of the leaders
responsible for thousands of American deaths.
In a bombshell finding virtually
ignored by the American media, a U.S. district
court judge in Manhattan ruled Wednesday [May 7,
2003] that Salman Pak, Saddam Hussein's airplane
hijacking school located on the outskirts of
Baghdad, played a material role in the
devastating Sept. 11 attacks on America.
...according to courtroom testimony by three of
the camp's instructors, the facility was a
virtual hijacking classroom where al-Qaeda
recruits practiced overcoming U.S. flight crews
using only small knives - a terrorist technique
never employed before 9/11.
http://www.newsmax.com/showinsidecover.shtml?a=2003/5/9/72820
Judge Harold Baer ruled Wednesday that the
survivors of two people who were killed in the
World Trade Center terrorist attack had presented
enough evidence, "albeit barely," to be awarded
$104 million in damages against the state of
Iraq, Osama bin Laden, and his terrorist
network.
He reviewed the testimony of [former CIA Director
James] Woolsey and terrorism expert Dr. Laurie
Mylroie on alleged links between the Iraqi regime
and al-Qaida, including whether lead hijacker
Mohammed Atta met with a high-ranking member of
Iraqi intelligence in Prague before Sept. 11, and
whether Saddam Hussein ran a hijacking training
camp in Salman Pak, just outside of Baghdad.
"In particular, Mylroie testified about Iraq's
covert involvement in the World Trade Center
bombing in 1993 and about the proximity of the
dates of bin Laden's attack on the U.S. embassies
and Hussein's ouster of weapons inspectors."
http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1051121852966
Through a translator, [Iraqi defector Sabah
Khalifa] Alami described, according to the Wall
Street Journal ("The Iraq Connection" by Micah
Morrison, 5 Sept. 2002), a daily regimen of
exercises on kidnapping, assassination, and --
using a Boeing 707 parked inside the complex --
how to hijack a plane or bus without weapons. He
said that a separate group of non-Iraqis were
being similarly trained by Saddam's intelligence
service, the mukhabarat. Asked about the plane by
an interviewer for Front Line, he said "Yes,
there's a real whole 707 plane, a whole real
plane, standing in the middle of the training
area in this camp."
http://edwardjayepstein.com/2002question/salmanpak.htm
SALMAN PAK, Iraq -- The rusted shell of an old
passenger jet sat out in a field, its tail broken
off. Good for hijacking practice, U.S. Marines
speculated Sunday [April 6, 2003] as they
examined an Iraqi training base about 20 miles
south of Baghdad.
...U.S. officials and others have long suspected
the camp trained terrorists. Two former Iraqi
military officers told the New York Times and
PBS's "Frontline" in the fall of 2001 that Iraqis
and non-Iraqi Arabs were brought here to practice
hijacking planes and trains, planting bombs and
staging assassinations.
http://www.twincities.com/mld/pioneerpress/2003/04/07/news/nation/5574507.htm
Asked whether he believed the foreigners' camp
had trained members of al-Qaeda, Zeinab
said: "All I can say is that we had no structure
to take on these people inside the regime. The
camp was for organisations based abroad." One of
the highlights of the six-month curriculum was
training to hijack aircraft using only knives or
bare hands. According to Zeinab, women were also
trained in these techniques. Like the 11
September hijackers, the students worked in
groups of four or five.
In Ankara, Zeinab was debriefed by the FBI and
CIA for four days. Meanwhile he told the INC that
if they wished to corroborate his story, they
should speak to a man who had political asylum in
Texas - Captain Sabah Khodad, who had worked at
Salman Pak in 1994-5. He too has now told his
story to US investigators. In an interiew with
The Observer, he echoed Zeinab's claims: "The
foreigners' training includes assassinations,
kidnapping, hijacking. They were strictly
separated from the rest of us. To hijack planes
they were taught to use small knives. The method
used on 11 September perfectly coincides with the
training I saw at the camp. When I saw the twin
towers attack, the first thought that came into
my head was, 'this has been done by graduates of
Salman Pak'."
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/archive/article/0,,4296646,00.html
Where is the evidence America's enemies
surely must have that Saddam had nothing
to do with 9/11, since they dismiss this evidence
and testimony (and much more) so quickly? Can
they explain all the circumstantial evidence
away, like why Saddam's entire military went on
the highest state of alert in ten years just two
weeks before 9/11 ("Army Alert by Saddam Points
to Iraqi Role," The Sunday Telegraph (London), 23
Sept. 2001)? The main objection from most
Liberals is that Saddam is a secular Sunni, and
Osama is a religious Shi'ite -- and they feel
there's NO WAY two ideological opposite could
ever cooperate in such a way. Well, that makes a
certain amount of sense... or does it? Are some
people possibly more pragmatic than Liberals?
Try as you might, you would be hard-pressed to
find more ideological opposites that the United
States and the United Soviet of Socialist
Republics in the 1940's. The USA was an openly
Christian nation based on personal freedom, run
on capitalistic principles. The USSR was a
determinedly atheist country based on State
control of everyday life, run by a communistic
(State-enforced socialism) system. In every
conceivable way, these two countries were
opposites and opponents... deadly enemies, in
fact. Yet they put those differences aside to
defeat their common enemy, Nazi Germany, on the
principle that "the enemy of my enemy is my
friend... for now."
Perhaps the Liberals are saying they don't
believe Arabs are capable of cooperating in spite
of ideological differences as well as
Caucasians. That would fit in well enough with
their well-known elitist views, but (in the same
way) doesn't reflect reality at all. After all,
the same kind of people that believe minorities
aren't "capable" of competing on merit to enter
college, pass tests, or get jobs wouldn't think
any better of Arabs' ability to cooperate to
fight an enemy or form a democracy, would they?
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