posted on Nov, 20 2004 @ 01:55 AM
So here is an old Arab saying,
"The enemy of your enemy is your friend"
Saddam and Terror? Any Ties here?
Our Department of State noted that that Saddam played the generous host to the Abu Nidal Organization, the Arab Liberation Front, Hamas, the
Kurdistan Worker's party, the Mujahadin-e-Khalq Organization and the Palestinian Liberation Front all of whom had offices or bases in pre-war Iraq.
Of course this was in direct violation of United Nations Security Council Resolution 687 -- but such niceties were little more than an inconvenience
to Saddam's regime.
Well well but what about Al Qaeda?
Other recipients of Saddam's largesse included Khala Khadr al-Salahat -- responsible for the destruction of Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie,
Scotland in December 1988. Abu Nidal, with an acknowledged history of terrorist attacks in over 20 countries, and who shot himself in the head (four
times) in Baghdad in 2002 had resided there since 1999. There is a citation issued by Saddam's psychopathic son Uday saluting Abid Al-Karim Muhamed
Aswod, intelligence officer responsible for the coordination of activities with the Osama bin Laden group at the Iraqi embassy in Pakistan and noted
as the Iraqi ambassador to Islamabad.
hmmmm and Al-Zarqawi?
Then of course, is the letter intercepted in Afghanistan from Jordanian terrorist Al-Zarqawi -- responsible for numerous murders in Iraq many of
them televised -- to Osama Bin Laden noting the common enemies of their causes and, while pleading for assistance, pledging solidarity in the struggle
in any event.
But Saddam Never Threatened the US right?
Thus, this is, quite simply, one of those "do the math" situations. Alliances, operational and otherwise, between Hussein's Iraq and Osama Bin
Laden were necessarily pragmatic, wary, and cynical. They may have been short-lived efforts to portray "solidarity" where there was none. That is
quite beside the point.
Once again, "my enemy's enemy is my friend," but this time writ large. The question never has been whether those who targeted the World Trade
Center and the Pentagon were allies with Saddam Hussein in the strictest sense of the term. But all shared a homicidal enmity for the United States.
Many operated freely and openly in Saddam's Iraq and continue to bedevil that emerging nation.
Posted October 12, 2004
By Frederick J. Chiaventone
a haven for terrorists