| Topic: |
Politics > Politics-USA |
| User: |
"Sogobia" |
| Date: |
25 Oct 2004 06:15:24 PM |
| Object: |
Bush's quagmire. |
Sunday Herald - 24 October 2004
Secret report: terrorism spreading across Iraq
Exclusive: By James Cusick Westminster Editor and David Pratt Foreign Editor
Coalition claims that Iraq may still be able to hold elections in January
are seriously undermined by secret intelligence material passed to the
Sunday Herald which reveals the full extent of the resistance in the
country.
Far from a limited number of pro-Saddam resistance groups fighting coalition
forces, well-funded cells and militias representing a spectrum of Islamic
groups are now spread across Iraq.
They include Sunni resistance groups, Ba'athist groups loyal to the ousted
Saddam regime, Shi'ite resistance groups, and other terrorists groups that
have moved into Iraq from Iran, Syria, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan,
Chechnya, Pakistan and Egypt since the occupation began in the spring of
last year.
The intelligence revision of the scale of the insurgency, which puts the
number of militant cells at over 50 and growing, indicates that the current
level of coalition forces will struggle to cope with an increased level of
insurgent activity as the election approaches next year.
The documents show that terrorist and militia activity is spreading across
Iraq and is not just limited to Baghdad and Fallujah.
The increasing number of anti-coalition militias are believed to receive
funds from wealthy Saudi donors and to be in receipt of funds from money
placed in Syrian banks before the fall of Saddam. As much as $1 billion
belonging to Saddam may have found its way to Syria before the coalition
invasion.
The militia problem is compounded by criminals now rampant inside the almost
lawless parts of Iraq.
The picture painted by the rise in the number of resistance groups, allied
to a rise in the number of attacks on coalition forces, points to serious
question marks now over Ayad Allawi's interim government. Allawi still
claims that elections will be held across all parts of Iraq and will also be
fair and democratic. The United Nations have recently voiced concern over
the interim Iraqi government's plans to limit the election and yet still
claim it is legitimate.
The timing of the rise in militia violence and the dangerous picture of an
Iraq far from under control, is also bad news for the re-election prospects
of President George Bush.
In the run-in to the US presidential election, one of Bush's key messages is
that a democratic Iraq will make the world a safer place. That claim is key
to the White House's justification for the invasion.
The more the claim looks suspect, the likelihood is that swing voters -
crucial to the outcome of the election race - could turn to Bush's
challenger, Senator John Kerry.
The fears of a pro-Saddam resistance network and increased instability
outlined in the intelligence reports seen by the Sunday Herald were born out
by 24 hours of exceptional violence across Iraq.
Earlier yesterday a suicide car bomber killed at least 16 Iraqi policemen
and injured 40 other people at a police station near a US Marine base near
Ramadi, in western Iraq and in Baghdad a roadside bomb exploded near an
American military convoy, injuring five soldiers.
Another suicide bomber blew up his vehicle near a checkpoint manned by Iraqi
National Guards in the village of Ishaqi, close to the town of Samarra,
north of Baghdad, killing four guards, and a policeman was killed by a
roadside bomb in Samarra.
There was no let up in violence elsewhere across the Sunni Arab heartland of
central Iraq that the interim government and Washington blame on Saddam
Hussein supporters and foreign Islamic militants. One Iraqi militant group
the Army of Ansar al-Sunna said it had beheaded the Iraqi man it accused of
collaborating with US forces and posted pictures of the killing on the
Internet.
Guerrillas also killed two Turkish truckers and wounded two in an attack on
a convoy near the northern city of Mosul, police said.
In central Baghdad guerrillas fired two mortar rounds, killing two civilians
and wounding one, and six U.S. soldiers were wounded when their armoured
vehicle was hit by a bomb on a highway leading to the airport.
Saboteurs also bombed two oil pipelines transporting crude from northern and
eastern Iraq to Baghdad's Dora refinery.
Meanwhile, the U.S. military said it had captured a lieutenant of Abu Musab
al-Zarqawi, and five other suspects in an overnight raid on what it said was
a hideout of the Jordanian militant's network in the south of Falluja.
U.S. forces also launched air strikes on the rebel-held militant stronghold
city, about 30 miles west of Baghdad, killing two people and wounding three.
http://www.sundayherald.com/print45619
--
They Knew...
Despite the whitewash, we now know that the Bush administration was warned
before the war that its Iraq claims were weak
http://www.inthesetimes.com/site/main/article/they_knew_0802/
--
It is a historical fact that Saudi Arabia and the Bush family have a history
of deal making. It is a historical fact that the Saudi Arabian government
was funding 911 terrorists as they lived in the U.S. It is a historical
fact that Bush was warned on August 6, 2001 that al Qaeda was planning
terrorist attacks inside the U.S. using air planes. It is a historical fact
that John Ashcroft cut funding to the FBI's counter terrorism budget in the
summer of 2001 and told the acting director that he didn't want to hear any
more about al Qaeda or the Islamic terrorist threat. It is a historical fact
that fifteen out of the eighteen 911 terrorists were Saudi Arabian. It is a
historical fact that Bush allowed the bin Laden family and other Saudi
Arabians to fly out of the U.S. as quickly as possible after 911, even with
U.S. airliners grounded. It is a historical fact Saudi Arabia is helping
fund the Iraqi insurgency.
.
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