Who's Running This War, Anyway?

[skunk]

U.S. Denies German 9/11 Retrial Key Witness

By Mark Trevelyan
Reuters
Tuesday, August 10, 2004; 8:21 AM

HAMBURG, Germany -- Washington has barred German judges access to al Qaeda captives in the retrial of the only Sept. 11 suspect ever convicted, a Hamburg court heard on Tuesday, throwing the case into doubt.

Mounir Motassadeq, 30, is charged with plotting the 2001 attacks with Mohamed Atta and others, and membership of a terrorist organization.

His first conviction was overturned because judges had no access to a key al Qaeda figure in U.S. custody.

In a letter to the German embassy in Washington, read out in court, U.S. authorities said they had to protect the sources and methods of the security services.

The letter said "interactive access" to such prisoners could hamper their interrogation and lead to critical secret information, including about terrorist threats, being divulged.

The U.S. decision casts doubts on the new proceedings.

In February 2003, Motassadeq became the first person anywhere to be tried over the Sept. 11 attacks and he remains the only person convicted. He was sentenced to 15 years in jail.

In March this year a higher court ruled the verdict unsatisfactory as judges had no access to testimony from Ramzi Binalshibh, a key member of the al Qaeda Hamburg cell who was captured in Pakistan in 2002. It ordered a new trial.

The German authorities asked the United States in May to give them access to six key witnesses including Binalshibh, but the U.S. letter said even information on whether a given individual was in custody was classified as secret.

It said it was not possible for the United States to confirm whether the persons named, who also include top al Qaeda figure Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, were in U.S. custody or not.

The issue has led to tension between Germany and the United States, which clearly wants a conviction in the case but is unwilling to allow testimony from the interrogation of al Qaeda captives to be aired in open court.

Washington reacted angrily when Motassadeq was freed from custody in April, describing him as dangerous.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A53267-2004Aug10.html
Damned inconvenient, these law-abiding governments, aren't they? Lily-livered peaceniks! We know how to run a war:

Leak allowed al-Qaeda suspects to escape
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) — The disclosure to reporters of the arrest of an al-Qaeda computer expert allowed several wanted suspects from Osama bin Laden's terror network to escape, government and security officials said Tuesday.

Muhammad Naeem Noor Khan, a 25-year-old Pakistani computer engineer, was nabbed in a July 13 raid in the eastern city of Lahore. He then led Pakistani authorities to a key al-Qaeda figure and cooperated secretly by sending e-mails to terrorists so investigators could trace their locations.

His arrest was first reported in American newspapers on Aug. 2 after it was disclosed to reporters by U.S. officials in Washington. Later, the Pakistan government also confirmed his capture but gave no other details.

Two senior Pakistani officials said the reports in "Western media" enabled other al-Qaeda suspects to get away.

"Let me say that this intelligence leak jeopardized our plan and some al-Qaeda suspects ran away," one of the officials said on condition of anonymity.

National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice acknowledged Sunday that Khan's name had been disclosed to reporters in Washington "on background," meaning that it could be published, but the information could not be attributed by name to the official who had revealed it.

The Pakistani officials said that after Khan's arrest, other al-Qaeda suspects abruptly changed their hide-outs and moved to unknown places.

The first official described the publication of the news of Khan's arrest as "very disturbing."

"We have checked. No Pakistani official made this intelligence leak," he said.

Without naming any country, he said it was the responsibility of "coalition partners" to examine how a foreign journalist was able to have an access to the "classified information" about Khan's arrest.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2004-08-10-pakistan-intel_x.htm
Indeed it is. Perhaps "total fecking incompetence in the White House" would cover it?

[Leo Hubbard]

The letter said "interactive access" to such prisoners could hamper their interrogation and lead to critical secret information, including about terrorist threats, being divulged.

And if they did release that prisoner and he did give away information to a court appointed lawyer or some other person that allowed other terrorists to escape, perhaps terrorists we were watching and didn't realize we were watching. Then you would be talking about Bush's incompentency and political expediency. So he can't win, no matter what he does you'll always see the worse.

[skunk]

And what about the second point?

[Colirio]

I'd say that the second article proves what they said in the first article.

I believe the point that Leo was making was that they are going to get flack no matter what decision they make.

[zimv20]

I believe the point that Leo was making was that they are going to get flack no matter what decision they make.
and does this manifest itself in the way you and Leo defend the bush administration no matter what? would you be more critical of bush if none of us were here?

[Colirio]

No, I am critical of Bush because of my own free will, not because of the arguments of others. Likewise, I defend him of my own free will when I see him getting an unfair rap.

Here's a short summary:

Critical - Domestic policies, government spending, trying to appease political opponents rather than his base

Unfair - War on terror: Any president would have done things similar to Bush
- War in Iraq: WAY too much spin against him
- Economy: Was being blamed for it a month before he was even inaugurated
- Handling of intelligence: It's a brand new country after September 11th. Everything has changed policy-wise and they are still learning it the same as we are. Mistakes are bound to happen.

[Leo Hubbard]

and does this manifest itself in the way you and Leo defend the bush administration no matter what? would you be more critical of bush if none of us were here?
I am critical of Bush elsewhere, I don't bother here because there are already too many Bush bashers in my opinion.

He risked our troops lives by listening to Colin Powell in trying to appease those in the UN who were being bribed by Saddam to not be appeased. They wasted 12 months that could have been used to prepare Saddam's troops and cause us more problems then they did.

He wasted time with Kennedy and the education bill trying to appease the Democrats while trying to prove he was a uniter instead of a divider but instead just proved that he was a sap.

He spends too much money on items that should be none of the National Governments business and created a bigger deficit then is necessary.

I won't list them all. When it comes right down to it, he is better then Kerry. He won't turn out court system, or our military over to the UN. Or at least I hope he won't. Kerry would. He won't turn back the tax cuts that he enacted, allowing those who earn their own money to keep more of it. I just hope he can get congress to curb spending. Oh, and I deffinitely don't want democrats getting Supreme court seats. Not when they traditionally ignore the constitution and place a higher priority on making judgements based on "their feeeelings", or on the UN's mandate or point of view. That is not what the supreme court is suppose to do.

[diamond geezer]

Hubbard, can you please explain why the US had to invade Iraq.

Please don't use WOMD, 911 as reasons as these have both been shown to be BS.

[Colirio]

I can:

1. We talk about the amount of money spent on the war, but, nobody talks about the amount of money we spent from the first Gulf War until now through UN resolutions, bombing raids, spy planes, drone planes, missles, and everything else over the period of the last 10 - 12 years. This was the end to a war that has been going on since 1990. This is not even to mention the amount of money that would have been spent in the following years had we not taken action when we did.

2. In the wake of September 11th, people were not willing to take a chance that there "could be" a stockpile of WMD there. This included a 3/4's Senate majority.

3. UN Resolutions had demanded that the UN would take action unless Saddam produced proof of his disarmament of the WMD he possessed. We knew he possessed them cause he used them. The UN Resolutions were very specific in stating that the burden of proof was on Saddam to produce evidence of his disarmament and not with the UN to prove he was manufacturing them. Saddam did not comply with the peace treaty in these regards.

4. Saddam had commited SEVERAL attrocities through the years including war crimes for which he needed to be brought to trial.

5. In the War on Terror, we declared that any countries harboring known terrorists would be considered as enemies to our cause. In the first two months of the invasion, the US captured at least three well-known, wanted Al-Quaeda operatives and dissolved no less than 3 Al-Quaeda training camps.

6. The WMD have not been proven to be non-existent. Just because they have not found them does not mean that they do not exist. Many intelligence sources STILL hold to their declarations that they were being manufactured. There was a three and a half year period in which Saddam had kicked the UN weapons inspectors out of Iraq. Then, at the end of that time he allowed them to come back in. Plenty of time to prepare by buring or shipping weapons.


All in all, many liberals did not support the war in Iraq from the very beginning for political reasons. They opposed the war even before proof had been registered regarding whether or not WMD existed. What this says to me is that the opposition and hatred of Bush is STILL being fueled by those same political components.

France, Russia, and all the rest opposed it as well BEFORE the proof was obtained AFTER having signed resolutions to the contrary in the UN. Then, it was later discovered that many of these people had secret deals with Saddam through the UN's Oil for Food program.


The fact of the matter is that the War happened. There is no going back on it now. So, we can either clean up the rest of the mess or we can sit around arguing about who did what some more. For some reason, seems that way too many people want to dwell on the latter. <sigh>

[IJ Reilly]

You are conveniently ignoring the fact that most of the world wanted the weapons inspections to continue, and had they continued, we would know without war what it took us a war to discover: that Saddam did NOT have a stock of WMDs.

[zimv20]

1. We talk about the amount of money spent on the war, but, nobody talks about the amount of money we spent from the first Gulf War until now through UN resolutions, bombing raids, spy planes, drone planes, missles, and everything else over the period of the last 10 - 12 years. This was the end to a war that has been going on since 1990.
so how much was it?

[Colirio]

so how much was it?
I don't know... Nobody talks about it! :p



You are conveniently ignoring the fact that most of the world wanted the weapons inspections to continue, and had they continued, we would know without war what it took us a war to discover: that Saddam did NOT have a stock of WMDs.
That was covered in my point about there being 3 and 1/2 years of no inspections. By the time the UN went back in there a couple of months before the invasion, it was too late already. The damage had already been done.

And as far as the countries who would rather have us continue with useless inspections goes, the coalition of countries that went to war against Iraq was more numerous than the countries in the Allied Forces of WWII. That's not exactly a unilateral effort!

[aussiemac86]

Firstly, a "war on terror" has to take place. But that war can take many forms, and the one chosen by the whitehouse was probably the worst of all of them for actually achieving the purpose of stamping out terror. This method has created a focus for terrorists against the US (The invasion/occupation of Iraq) , which has undoubtedly made it much easier for them to recruit new members.

The most effective forms of a "War on terror" would have consisted of no conventional war but mainly an intelligence agency based one, where cells and groups were infiltrated and shut down, this causes little or no death to innocent people and does not give the terrorists a focus against the US/Western world with which they can recruit more terrorists. This would have to be supplemented by large amounts of aid going towards building up the breeding grounds of terrorists to have a standard of living similar to the west, and no this would not cost a ridiculous amount of money compared to that used in the war on Iraq.

Sure Saddam was not a good guy to have ruling a country, from the point of view of the citizens in that country. That is reason enough for him to be ousted/persuaded to leave. However a full scale war is not need to achieve this. Also Saddam being a bad ruler to his people was not main a reason the public were given for the war on Iraq, it was because of his WMD's and his threat to the US. The problems with these points are that:
1. He had no WMD's and years of inspections had proved this
2. He was much less of a threat to the US than having him not in power, in power he crushed all opposition groups to him, and that meant pretty much any non government groups. There were no al Qaida training camps found in Iraq, if there were the whitehouse would have made sure everyone knew about it. Also Osama and Saddam are documented as hating each other, Osama approached him years ago to combine against the US but Saddam hated extremist religious groups, and Osamas ideologies. Saddam probably would have had Osama put in jail/tortured/killed if he was discovered in Iraq whilst he was in power.


And as far as the countries who would rather have us continue with useless inspections goes,

Why do you say the inspections were useless, they found nothing, and that appears to be what there was, nothing.

No matter what the reasons were for going to war in the first place here we are right now, and this is what we know. In Iraq now there are far more terrorists than there were under Saddam, most of these appear to have being recruited based on the war.
I would say that if all of the people in Iraq are considered, there are more since the war than before it that are a danger to the members of the coaltion of the willing.

Also lets not forget that thousands more Iraqis have died since the war than would have was Saddam still in power for that period of time.

[Leo Hubbard]

Firstly, a "war on terror" has to take place. But that war can take many forms, and the one chosen by the whitehouse was probably the worst of all of them for actually achieving the purpose of stamping out terror. This method has created a focus for terrorists against the US (The invasion/occupation of Iraq) , which has undoubtedly made it much easier for them to recruit new members.

Having the war in Iraq means we don't have to have it in our backyard. The terrorist concentrated their forces and instead of stretching this out for years we are getting it over much faster. Think of ripping off a band aid. The terrorist has had a war on the US for over 30 years and had no problems with recruitment. This war in Iraq simply means the terrorist die faster.

Sure Saddam was not a good guy to have ruling a country, from the point of view of the citizens in that country. That is reason enough for him to be ousted/persuaded to leave. However a full scale war is not need to achieve this. Also Saddam being a bad ruler to his people was not main a reason the public were given for the war on Iraq, it was because of his WMD's and his threat to the US. The problems with these points are that:
1. He had no WMD's and years of inspections had proved this

years of inspections have proved that inspections were useless.

2. He was much less of a threat to the US than having him not in power, in power he crushed all opposition groups to him, and that meant pretty much any non government groups. There were no al Qaida training camps found in Iraq, if there were the whitehouse would have made sure everyone knew about it. Also Osama and Saddam are documented as hating each other, Osama approached him years ago to combine against the US but Saddam hated extremist religious groups, and Osamas ideologies. Saddam probably would have had Osama put in jail/tortured/killed if he was discovered in Iraq whilst he was in power.

He was a threat to our allies. He may not have been a direct threat to the US, but he was a threat to us through our allies. He had at least 3 terrorist training camps in his country and if he was so inclined he could've closed all of them down. It did not serve his interest to do so.

Why do you say the inspections were useless, they found nothing, and that appears to be what there was, nothing.

They found nothing because they weren't suppose to be detectors.
They weren't suppose to go hunting for WMD's.
Saddam was suppose to lead them to the WMD's to be destroyed. If Saddam did destroy the WMD's he had, he wasn't suppose to destroy them in secret, that did not fullfill his agreements. Problem isn't whether or not there were WMD's, we know there were. Problem is, where are they now?

Also lets not forget that thousands more Iraqis have died since the war than would have was Saddam still in power for that period of time.
Don't forget millions more Iraqis had died while Saddam was in power and we may have saved hundreds of thousands of Iraqis lives by going to war with Saddam. How many more mass graves would there be had we not go in. Not that mass graves is necessarily a valid legal reason for going to war with someone.

[amnesiac1984]

2. In the wake of September 11th, people were not willing to take a chance that there "could be" a stockpile of WMD there. This included a 3/4's Senate majority.


The behaviour of a scared child lashing out comes to mind. This is not the behaviour of responsible mature nations. You can't launch pre-emptive wars, its just an excuse. Any war could have been called pre-emptive by the people who started it.

[Leo Hubbard]

The behaviour of a scared child lashing out comes to mind. This is not the behaviour of responsible mature nations. You can't launch pre-emptive wars, its just an excuse. Any war could have been called pre-emptive by the people who started it.
With modern weapons it is suicide to let the other guy strike the first blow.

[amnesiac1984]

Having the war in Iraq means we don't have to have it in our backyard. The terrorist concentrated their forces and instead of stretching this out for years we are getting it over much faster. Think of ripping off a band aid. The terrorist has had a war on the US for over 30 years and had no problems with recruitment. This war in Iraq simply means the terrorist die faster.
No the terrorists won't die faster, cos they're not in Iraq! Meanwhile other Muslim countries are recruiting more terrorists, even our own countries show signs of this (think finsbury park, London). The war on iraq is just another ****ty thing on top of all the other ****ty things the US has done over the last thirty years, that is what is recruiting terrorists.


years of inspections have proved that inspections were useless.

what was so useless about them? Because they didn't find any weapons, maybe because they're aren't any. I know you're going to say we don't know that yet, but as time goes by they look less likely to be found or even exist. THe burden of proof is on bush and the people who believe in WMD, you can't disprove the existence of anything. Even if the US controlled the whole world you still couldn't disprove the existence of WMD.


He was a threat to our allies. He may not have been a direct threat to the US, but he was a threat to us through our allies. He had at least 3 terrorist training camps in his country and if he was so inclined he could've closed all of them down. It did not serve his interest to do so.

was he really in a position to be a threat to anyone?


Don't forget millions more Iraqis had died while Saddam was in power and we may have saved hundreds of thousands of Iraqis lives by going to war with Saddam. How many more mass graves would there be had we not go in. Not that mass graves is necessarily a valid legal reason for going to war with someone.

nobody was suggesting not doing anything about saddam, ever. Just that this was the worst possible way to deal with it.

[takao]

With modern weapons it is suicide to let the other guy strike the first blow.

isn't that "we attacked them because we think that they might have made plans to attack us" or "they are perhaps sending terror groups over to us which is a attack on us ,we will answer with a full scale invasion" game getting old ?

aren't there pentagon experts working on invasion plans for every country on the world ?

with 'modern weapons' even a preemptive strike can be suicide

[aussiemac86]

Having the war in Iraq means we don't have to have it in our backyard. The terrorist concentrated their forces and instead of stretching this out for years we are getting it over much faster. Think of ripping off a band aid. The terrorist has had a war on the US for over 30 years and had no problems with recruitment. This war in Iraq simply means the terrorist die faster.

You are assuming all the "terrorists" in Iraq at the moment have flocked from all over the world directly to Iraq and that none of these "terrorists" are newly recruited from Iraq and the surrounding countries. There appear to be more terrorists dyeing more quickly, which satisfies our need for instant gratification, but it is not doing any good for the "war on Terror". Think about it, everytime a person is killed by the US, how many brothers, cousins etc will they have that are willing to die in attempting to hurt whoever killed their family member, for every terrorist that is killed in Iraq several more normal people will become terrorists. Hence killing terrorists in a public way, whilst occupying a country is perhaps one of the stupidest things you could do.

Just think of it from your perspective, if the US were occupied by a group of Muslim countries, who said that they were there to save you from George W Bush, and they had tanks on the streets and walked the streets with AK's, imposing curfews on people. How many people do you think would be willing to go out and fight them, would you? would members of your family? your friends?
This is something of what it appears to the Iraqi people. Just remember one mans terrorist is anothers freedom fighter.

[Leo Hubbard]

You are assuming all the "terrorists" in Iraq at the moment have flocked from all over the world directly to Iraq and that none of these "terrorists" are newly recruited from Iraq and the surrounding countries. There appear to be more terrorists dyeing more quickly, which satisfies our need for instant gratification, but it is not doing any good for the "war on Terror". Think about it, everytime a person is killed by the US, how many brothers, cousins etc will they have that are willing to die in attempting to hurt whoever killed their family member, for every terrorist that is killed in Iraq several more normal people will become terrorists. Hence killing terrorists in a public way, whilst occupying a country is perhaps one of the stupidest things you could do.

Just think of it from your perspective, if the US were occupied by a group of Muslim countries, who said that they were there to save you from George W Bush, and they had tanks on the streets and walked the streets with AK's, imposing curfews on people. How many people do you think would be willing to go out and fight them, would you? would members of your family? your friends?
This is something of what it appears to the Iraqi people. Just remember one mans terrorist is anothers freedom fighter.
First paragraph; I don't really think "all" of the terrorists flocked to Iraq. I do think a large number did. Large enough to draw them from other countries.

Second paragraph; I understand that point. However, unlike Saddam, Bush doesn't have millions of deaths to his credit in mass graves dug accross our country. And neither did he sign a surrender agreement agreeing to turn over all WMD's like Saddam did.

[brap]

The rest of this thread looks pretty generic, but where the hell did this come from? (w/ emphasis)He risked our troops lives by listening to Colin Powell in trying to appease those in the UN who were being bribed by Saddam to not be appeased.
Is this seriously what your solid right-wing Republican Christian majority believe?

[Leo Hubbard]

The rest of this thread looks pretty generic, but where the hell did this come from? (w/ emphasis)

Originally Posted by Leo Hubbard
He risked our troops lives by listening to Colin Powell in trying to appease those in the UN who were being bribed by Saddam to not be appeased.

Is this seriously what your solid right-wing Republican Christian majority believe?

NEW YORK — This is the tale of a bribe linked to the U.N. oil-for-food program in Iraq.

The bribe itself, paid to Saddam Hussein's regime, first made the news in late 2002. What got no attention at the time, however, was just how odd a response it drew from the United Nations. There, it was treated as just another modest irregularity in oil-for-food — worthy of polite inquiry, but not the outrage and immediate expert investigation it deserved.

Certainly there was far less fury from the United Nations over this bribe than Secretary-General Kofi Annan and his aides have since expressed in rejecting criticisms that the world body ran a crooked oil-for-food program. But here's the charm at the center of it all (and one that various investigators now sorting through oil-for-food might want to keep in mind): U.N. procedure itself, even in a matter as serious as bribery, evidently entailed treating Saddam not like a totalitarian ruler under strict sanctions, but as just another esteemed head of state — albeit one with a particularly large U.N. welfare program underway.

Here's the story of the bribe itself — or rather, of its discovery.

this story continues http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,124298,00.html
Other sources for the same story.
http://www.heritage.org/Research/InternationalOrganizations/wm438.cfm
http://www.defenddemocracy.org/in_the_media/in_the_media_show.htm?doc_id=230956
http://www2.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2004-03/20/content_316612.htm
http://209.157.64.200/focus/f-news/1123873/posts
http://www.portal.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=%2Fnews%2F2004%2F04%2F25%2Fwoil25.xml
http://www.nationalreview.com/issue/editors200404301202.asp
http://yconservatives.com/Bozmoski-84.html
http://www.americandaily.com/article/3745
http://www.danwismar.com/archives/wizblog/001626.html
http://www.libertypost.org/cgi-bin/readart.cgi?ArtNum=55661

Some of these stories limit themselves to the kickbacks made to the UN, others expand to secret deals made by the French, Chinease, Russians, and some others in providing money now for oil later when the sanctions are lifted. That was before the war.

I believe the main reason Saddam kept playing his hide and seek game with WMD's, regardless as to whether or not they really exist he still tried to make everyone think they did, is because he thought the French and others would keep us out. Kerry's right, a threat of force would have been enough, if Saddam actually believed that threat. Problem is he didn't, because too many people were telling him we were bluffing.

[brap]

this story continues...
I stand informed... at least somewhat perturbed at the fact this hadn't been given much publication, foundation or otherwise. At least the Guardian's story was fairly neutral.

I do, however, find it difficult to believe that the Saddam had 'thousands' of UN employees in his pocket; sure there may have been some, it was high stakes. The thing is, it smacks of just another post-war justification - and oh, this is one to really get your teeth into.

[Leo Hubbard]

I stand informed... at least somewhat perturbed at the fact this hadn't been given much publication, foundation or otherwise. At least the Guardian's story was fairly neutral.

I do, however, find it difficult to believe that the Saddam had 'thousands' of UN employees in his pocket; sure there may have been some, it was high stakes. The thing is, it smacks of just another post-war justification - and oh, this is one to really get your teeth into.
It explains why the sanctions weren't working.