Bush let Zarqawi go...three times. When will he be asked why?

[xray s]

A good debate question,,,why did you let Zarqawi go?

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4431601/

Answer;

Military officials insist their case for attacking Zarqawi’s operation was airtight, but the administration feared destroying the terrorist camp in Iraq could undercut its case for war against Saddam.

Now he is running around Iraq lopping off heads.

[girl gone mad]

1. Let's hope Kerry..

brings it up during the debates.

[Bread and Circus]

6. Kerry can't ask him directly ! It's part of the anti-democracy rules..

that Democrats and Republicans came up with when "crafting" the outline for the debates.

They can ask "rhetorical" questions, but they can't ask each other questions.

This two-party system sucks.

If Clark was running as an Independent, I'd vote for him.

[SoCalDemocrat]

12. Kerry should talk about this

"In the final analysis, the White House, Pentagon and CIA concluded it was not worth risking American lives to go after these people and not worth the adverse publicity that would surely follow any U.S. operation inside Iraq. " -- Aug 20th ABC News

http://abcnews.go.com/sections/wnt/DailyNews/iraq_mission_aborted020819.html

One month later Powell cited this camp to the United Nations as a hand in glove example of Al Qaeda working with Saddam Hussein, and the terrorist link as to why we needed to invade Iraq.

[SoCalDemocrat]

7. lets do this

CSMonitor has a good article with bacground from November 2002.

http://www.csmonitor.com/2002/1122/p01s02-wome.html

Kurdish officials liken this current front line to the Tora Bora standoff between Al Qaeda and US forces in Afghanistan late last year. Some say that Ansar has dug into the mountains, and built houses over their cave entrances in some of the 18 villages local commanders say are under Ansar control. "We can only fight Ansar from the sky, just as America fought the Taliban from the sky," says a senior Kurdish official. "This kind of work can't be done just with machine guns."

But several officials suggest that Ansar can be crushed handily with Iranian help, or even if Iran allowed the PUK - with which it has close ties - to temporarily enter Iranian territory and attack from behind. "If Iran helps the PUK to cross the border, the PUK can get rid of 80 percent of them," says defector Said. "If Iran engages itself, it would be a big victory. And if the US Air Force comes, I will not give them days, but hours. Ansar is not prepared for air attack."

The massacre of the Kurdish fighters in Oct. 2001 was the event that "made everything clear to me," says the defector. "Now I believe made many mistakes, that are not part of Islam.

"My thoughts and ideas have now changed," says Said, quietly. "If they did not, I would not be talking to you."



Iraq's Tora Bora
Al Ansar was based in the U.S. no-fly zone, on the Northwest border with Iran.

Al Ansar wanted to overthrow Saddam, but also fought regularly with the PUK whom they disagreed with.

Al Ansar had ties to Al Qaeda, some members shared training camps in Afghanistan.

Zarquawi linked up with Al Ansar in 2000 or therabouts, and was in this camp for quite some time. While there he developed chemical and biological weapons which were unleased on targets in Europe.

The U.S. was fully aware of his presence and the base from the get go.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/2149499.stm

According to this source, An Alsar was in secret discussions with the U.S. to help overthrow Saddam Hussein, which was also one of their goals. Al Ansar is also cited as being a secular leaning group, which was in conflict with PUK.

Iran has for some time had a strong relationship with the PUK, but is said to be displeased with the Kurdish groups' secret discussions with the Americans about plans to overthrow Saddam Hussein.

But Iran equally has no desire to see Saddam displaced by an American-led regime change that would put US forces on Iran's western flank.


The Ansar Al Islam leader threatened to go on record and tell about his links to the Bush administration and the secret talks. Based on what we know now, this sounds extremely credible.

http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/030503_ansar.html


DUBAI, Feb 1 (AFP) - The suspected leader of a Kurdish Islamic extremist group threatened in an interview published Saturday to produce evidence of his contacts with Washington prior to the September 11 suicide hijackings.

" I have in my possession irrefutable evidence against the Americans and I am prepared to supply it ... if (the United States) tries to implicate me in an affair linked to terrorism," Mullah Krekar, who is believed to front Ansar al-Islam, told Al-Hayat newspaper.

He dismissed as "fabrications" reports linking his group to Al-Qaeda, saying they were designed to justify a strike against Iraq.

Krekar told the Arabic-language daily he had been approached by the United States before September 11.

" I had a meeting with a CIA representative and someone from the American army in the town of Sulaymaniya (Iraqi Kurdistan) at the end of 2000. They asked us to collaborate with them ... but we refused to do so," he said.

British and US news reports this week claimed that Krekar, who has enjoyed political refugee status in Norway since 1991, and Ansar al-Islam would be key elements of US Secretary of State Colin Powell's proof of links between Al-Qaeda and Baghdad to be presented to the UN Security Council on Wednesday.

Kurdish officials said the Americans have been paying particular attention in recent month to a mountainous enclave controlled by Ansar al-Islam fighters in Kurdistan near Iran.

The opposition Kurdisih Democratic Party considers the group, whose name means Support of Islam, to be a link between the Baghdad regime and Osama bin Laden's Al-Qaeda.

Krekar, whose real name is believed to be Fateh Najmeddin Faraj, was arrested in the Netherlands last September and was questioned by US agents about his links while in custody.

Ansar al-Islam is an extremist alliance of Muslim guerrillas including some who reportedly fought in Afghanistan.

hf/tm/bp/al
Iraq-Kurds-US

[bluedeminredstate]

2. Excellent!!

Kerry just needs to quote the news article so he's not tagged as a nutty tin foiler, and ask the Chimp to explain himself. If Chimpy says that the press got it wrong - as usual - Kerry can then ask why the WH never corrected this "erroneous" story. Surely they must have been outraged to be accused of such terrible manipulation!!

I'd love to see Kerry use this in some way even if he can't directly pose the question to Bush. Maybe he could make it a hypothetical: "Maybe MSNBC is wrong when they report such-and-such, but if this is true I would have handled this much differently..." Then he can call into question Bush's credibility - did he REALLY do everything possible to avoid sending America's men and women to battle?

[SoCalDemocrat]

10. proof

Here is more proof that Bush called off the strike to take out Ansar Al Islam. We know know why.


http://abcnews.go.com/sections/wnt/DailyNews/iraq_mission_aborted020819.html


Bush Cancels Iraqi Strike Calls Off Operation to Take Out Al Qaeda-Sponsored Poison Gas Lab

W A S H I N G T O N, Aug. 20 — President Bush called off a planned covert raid into northern Iraq late last week that was aimed at a small group of al Qaeda operatives who U.S. intelligence officials believed were experimenting with poison gas and deadly toxins, according to administration officials.

The experiments were being run under orders from a senior al Qaeda official who was providing money and guidance from elsewhere in the region.
U.S. officials familiar with the joint CIA and Pentagon operation said they were concerned they might be dealing with what could have been a budding chemical weapons laboratory.

Intelligence sources said the al Qaeda operatives were under the protection of a small radical Kurdish group called Ansar al Islam. It is a radical Islamic faction closely allied with al Qaeda that operates in a part of northern Iraq controlled by Kurds.

Since the Persian Gulf War, the United States has operated a so-called no-fly zone over much of northern Iraq to protect the Kurds from Saddam Hussein's periodic crackdowns. U.S. officials say they have no evidence Saddam's government had any knowledge of the al Qaeda operation.

Intelligence sources told ABCNEWS there is evidence the terrorists tested ricin in water, as a powder and as an aerosol. They used it to kill donkeys, chickens and at one point allegedly exposed a man in an Iraqi market.

They then followed him home and watched him die several days later, sources said.

As U.S. surveillance intensified, officials concluded the operation was not a major threat to the United States and definitely not a sophisticated laboratory.

Instead, it appeared to be a few terrorists with relatively small amounts of poisons who were being encouraged to experiment by al Qaeda managers elsewhere in the region.



But as part of this operation, intelligence analysts did discover that al Qaeda money was again flowing, that new people had stepped in to manage and encourage far-flung projects like this one — offering glimpses of a terrorist network trying to put itself back together again.





Ansar al-Islam was established after 11 September 2001 in an enclave in northeastern Iraq, near the porous border with Iran - an area outside of Saddam Hussein's control. In late March 2003, US-led forces attacked its mountain stronghold, a cluster of some 16 villages and a network of caves in the Halabja Valley. Some 200 of the 800 fighters were killed, according to the PUK. Many of those who survived fled into Iran.
From Jane's

http://www.janes.com/regional_news/asia_pacific/news/jtsm/jtsm040308_1_n.shtml

On 23 October 2003, the Pentagon declared that Ansar al-Islam had become the principal 'terrorist adversary' of US forces in Iraq. Suspicions about its links to Al-Qaeda have hardened as the ferocity of suicide attacks against US and other targets in Iraq has intensified. This, Coalition intelligence believes, is the work of Ansar al-Islam.

Ansar al-Islam was established after 11 September 2001 in an enclave in northeastern Iraq, near the porous border with Iran - an area outside of Saddam Hussein's control. In late March 2003, US-led forces attacked its mountain stronghold, a cluster of some 16 villages and a network of caves in the Halabja Valley. Some 200 of the 800 fighters were killed, according to the PUK. Many of those who survived fled into Iran.

[speedoo]

3. The author is Jim Miklaszewski.

The highly respected NBC Pentagon correspondent.

In other words, the story can be presumed solid.

[A_Possum]

4. That's huge!

And yes, when Bush pulls out the beheadings as this horrific reason why we must be in Iraq, Kerry should simply say, but you had the chance to hit Zarqwari, why didn't you? We could have saved those lives if you had done it.

It's particularly damning because it's what they accuse Clinton of doing about not hitting Osama's camp.

[SoCalDemocrat]

13. three times

Kerry needs to say that Ansar has killed 700 persons since then, and they are the backbone of the terrorist actions against U.S. troops and civilians in Iraq. All being led by Zarquawi.

Bush turned down the Pentagon on THREE SEPERATE OCCASIONS when they requested permission to bomb this known terrorist encampment. Our planes were already flying over it daily as part of the no-fly zone. We knew they were linked to terrorist activity. We knew Zarquawi was in the camp. The Kurds had pleaded with us multiple times to help them.

Bush refused.

He did it solely so he could hold it up as an excuse to invade Iraq. This PROVES Bush knew at the time that this camp was not linked to Saddam Hussein. They knew exactly what this camp was about, and that they were religous extremists, a Kurdish splinter group, that was opposed to Saddam Hussein.

[SoCalDemocrat]

5. This is EXCELLENT

I wondered when this would finally surface. Oh I hope the media runs with this story. They really NEED to run with it. I was so pissed off at the time because Bush wouldn't authorize bombing that camp. The Kurds were fighting with Al Ansar or whatever they ar called, where Zarquawi eventually holed up. The camp was under the U.S. no-fly zone on the border with Iran on one side, and the Kurds on the other. The Kurds couldn't dislodge them due to the rugged terrain.

The Kurds pleaded with the U.S. for months to help them and to bomb the camp, but we refused. I've long suspected it was because Bush wanted to use the excuse that terrorists were actually in Iraq as his reason.

This needs to be made a main talking point. This is HUGE, and could break the campaign open and expose Bush for the fraud that he is.

[joanne]

8. This should be a MAJOR headline in every newspaper in the country!

What's it going to take to wake people up?

[SoCalDemocrat]

11. Bush is responsible for 700 deaths of Ansar Al Islam

size=18]One month after the third attack plan was aborted, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell told the United Nations that Ansar's presence in Iraq was evidence that Saddam was working fist in glove with al Qaeda, and thus the United States was morally justified in invading Iraq... for this and so many other reasons.

[A_Possum]

15. The OP article is from way back in March

It seems nobody in the media has put these two pieces of the puzzle together.

Now would be a good time, as we see what Zarqawi is capable of, and how horrible it is that we didn't even make the attempt to stop him.

[Eric J in MN]

9. Good point. Al Franken said that Bush isn't "evil" and this is

only "perfidy" (treachery) for Bush to avoid killing Zarqawi before the war to use Zarqawi as a justification for the war.

I consider deceit to start a war to be evil, especially if it involves letting a terrorist go.

[A_Possum]

14. kick

hoping Kerry campaign notices this

[savistocate]

17. The Shrub Evil named Zarqawi Wed

(Thrs?) in Rose Garden Alawi press conf. Among his stupider lying trecherous statements--"Imagine if Saddam was still in power (free) like (stumbling badly names) Abu Nidal aa-and Zarqawi" !!! First thought was DID NOT name Osama bin Laden..but the
bravado/bluster as well naming Zarqawi as still free.

[Zero Division]

16. This issue definitely needs more media attention

:kick:

[DeepModem Mom]

18. kick