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The One and Only... · #1

Saturday, Dec. 13, 2003 11:08 p.m. EST
9/11 Bombshell: Mohamed Atta Trained in Baghdad

A bombshell memo written to Saddam Hussein in 2001 and recently uncovered by Iraq's new coalition government shows that lead 9/11 hijacker Mohamed Atta was trained in Baghdad to attack the U.S.

The memo, authored by Iraqi intelligence chief Tahir Jalil Habbush al-Tikriti, is dated July 1, 2001, and describes the "work program" undertaken by Atta at a base in Baghdad run by notorious Palestinian terrorist Abu Nidal, reports London's Sunday Telegraph, which obtained the document exclusively.

If authentic, the document would be the first explicit evidence implicating Iraq in the attack on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, since it makes a direct reference to what appears to be the 9/11 plot.

In one passage, the Iraqi intelligence chief reportedly informs Saddam that Atta had demonstrated his capability as leader of the team "responsible for attacking the targets that we have agreed to destroy."

Iraqi officials refused to disclose how and where they had obtained the document, the paper said. But Dr. Ayad Allawi, a member of Iraq's ruling seven-man Presidential Committee, said the document was genuine.

"We are uncovering evidence all the time of Saddam's involvement with al-Qaeda," he told the Telegraph. "But this is the most compelling piece of evidence that we have found so far. It shows that not only did Saddam have contacts with al-Qaeda, he had contact with those responsible for the September 11 attacks."

In October 2001, two Iraqi defectors told U.S. intelligence that they helped train militant Muslim fundamentalists to overcome U.S. flight crews, using hijacking techniques never seen before 9/11, at a south Baghdad training camp known as Salman Pak.

One of the defectors, Sabah Khodada, subsequently told PBS that he believed the 9/11 attacks were perpetrated by "graduates of Salman Pak."

In what could turn out to be one of the greatest intelligence blunders of the post-9/11 era, the CIA and FBI dismissed Khodada and other eyewitness accounts of the hijack training regimen at Salman Pak, though their story was corroborated by satellite photography showing the fuselage of the airliner on which they trained.

The Telegraph report makes no mention of Salman Pak or the accounts from eyewitnesses suggesting the camp may have played a role in 9/11.

sspadowsky · #2

*sniff*

Does anybody else smell bullshit around here?

Zhukov · #3

Do you have a link to this story, other than newsfiter?

Personaly I don't believe it is the truth. But don't feel bad,I don't believe much.

The One and Only... · #4

Okay then, don't believe it. I expect this to come out on the major news sources once it has been varified. I can't say I'm suprised.

I can't find the source for this article, but here is one that pretty much says the same thing: http://www.nypost.com/news/worldnews/42706.htm

Zhukov · #5

Link?

The One and Only... · #6

I just posted it.

Cosmo Electrolux · #7

*cough* *cough* *bullshit* *cough*

Suck 'n' Fuck · #8

I call bullshit.

Bennett · #9

Given the means through which this information was obtained combined with the fact that you are a libertarian (correct?), I would assume that you would be angry at this news, if anything.

ranxer · #10

almost laughable, considering all the links to terrorist training with our tax dollars.. we set up the Al Qaeda network.. we helped set up the madrasas.. we trained bin laden etc.. on and on.

we even had General Mahmoud Ahmad the so called bagman for Mohamed Atta who the cia confirmed wired Atta $100,000 as a guest in D.C. from the 4th to the 13 of september. He met with administration officials to discuss what?!! i wonder since they won't say.

not only that some 70% or so of 9/11 investigation has been classified top secret.. gee i wonder why.

And to make matters worse, saddam(as a secular dictator) had a history of routing fundamentalism in iraq and was threatened by terrorists throughout his regime. sure he may have invested in a terrorist here or there but its peanuts compared to saudi arabia, iran, and the U.S.! if we are to treat these terrorist supporters as total criminals we should not look the other way when we fund similar groups for our own reasons.

mburbank · #11

I think you're getting suckered.

Think of it like this. The administration thought the forged Nigerian papers were legitimate enough looking to exploit, although many senior officials knew they were fakes.

They don't seem to think this 'bombshell' has even that much credability. The dateline on that story is Saturday. Don't you think if W's boys lent it any credence at all, even the most meager hint, they'd have put that information into the either the press conference or the presidents speech?

Or do you think that just now, after all this time and so many gaffs and deliberate missinformation they SUDDENLY learned caution? Wasn't it you who gleefully posted the new story about chemical weapons being siezed at the Kuwaiti border?

The One and Only... · #12

I think that this may well turn out to be authentic, since more than one source has talked about it.

Bush is probably waiting to be sure, along with big media networks, because they do not want to blunder. He did the same thing after he found out that we had caught Saddam.

mburbank · #13

What you mean waited sixteen hours?

I guess your right though. He sure held off before he announced we'd found weapons of mass destruction. And then he held off when he announced it again. Dick Chenney held off before announcing that the Iraquis had a nuclear weapon. The britts held off before realeasing the uranium papers that bushg held off on putting in his state of the union. And then they held off on declaring the hydrogen trucks were mobile weapons labs. He's a hold off kind of guy, always holding off until he's real, real sure of a thing. It's pattern with him. He's a guy who never ever shoots his mouth off without being certain of something. That's why today we not only have Sadaam Hussein, all his weapons of mass destruction most of whioch could be launched within 45 minutes. The ones that Rummy held off saying we knew where they were until he really, really did. Caution is by word with these guys. It's just lucky for us Sadaam came back from Syria and had all his facial reconstruction reversed.

kellychaos · #14

Teehee. Max is making me giggle again ... sorry ... teehee.

The One and Only... · #15

All I'm saying is that if this pans out, it justifies the war in my view. If it doesn't, it obviously remains a bad move.

kellychaos · #16

You know what I like? I like pan-fried perch. It tastes really good.

ScruU2wice · #17

where did you get this information you didn't provide a link

Phil the anorak · #18

I seem to recall the sunday torygraph being responsible for some good disinfo during the actual conflict with some papers being found conveniently which had something to do with wmd's or something.

That ended in nothing probably just like this will.

Its not exactly earth shattering though. If you want to learn the theory and practice of terrorism you ain't likely to find that on the syllabus at Yale, Harvard, Oxford and Cambridge are u?

Berkeley, possibly, Iraq, Libya, Algeria, Afghanistan definately!

ranxer · #19

killing 7thousand plus iraqi civilians and tens of thousands of soldiers, not including our own is justified by one terrorist training group?

do you care to apply the same standards to those responsible for training osama?

do you care that every missle and stray bullet that killed a civilian may have just created a terrorist enemy of america?

do you care that many of those in favor of the war are making huge sums of money on it?

did you know that the turkey dinner bush showed up to was paying 30 some bucks a plate to haliburton?

bah, why do i bother?

i think you have to be either racist against the middle east or just plain ignorant to think this was a justified war.

Perndog · #20

Hey, a person can hate the middle east without bringing race into the picture.

Ant10708 · #21

Yea they just might hate Muslims.

Perndog · #22

Exactly. And Islam is a religion, not a race.

Ant10708 · #23

Exactly so by hating all Muslims we aren't racists

GAsux · #24

Yeah, well you're still ignorant! If you don't agree with Raxers world view, you're clearly a moron!

Anyway, back the subject, they mentioned this story on the O'Rielly show this evening. It must be true. I mean, it's a no spin zone or something like that so it's gotta be just the facts.