MY Vast Right Wing Conspiracy

Boogie to Baghdad

• Posted by Beth on November 17th, 2005 filed in Afghanistan, General, Iraq, Journalism, Politics, Support the Troops, The War    

Whoops! Better hide this stuff in a sock! It won’t fit with the BDS Master Plan!

Saddam Hussein offered asylum

Iraqi President Saddam Hussein has offered asylum to bin Laden, who openly supports Iraq against the Western powers.

Despite repeated demands from Washington, the Taliban refused to hand over bin Laden after the August 7 bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, demanding proof of his involvement in terrorist activities.

(via Instapundit)

Remember Richard Clarke, He Who Shall Not Be Questioned? Damn, this kinda messes up his charges that Saddam had nothing to do with Al Qaeda! From the 9/11 Commission Report (via Rusty, who has a screenshot of p. 134, where this appears):

…On January 12, 1999, Clarke wrote Berger that the CIA’s confidence in the tribals’ reporting had increased. It was now higher than it had been on December 20.¹³³

In February 1999, Allen proposed flying a U-2 mission over Afghanistan to build a baseline of intelligence outside the areas where the tribals had coverage. Clarke was nervous about such a mission because he continued to fear that Bin Laden might leave for someplace less accessible. He wrote Deputy National Security Advisor Donald Kerrick that one reliable source reported Bin Ladin’s having met with Iraqi officials, who “may have offered him asylum.” Other intelligence sources said that some Taliban leaders, though not Mullah Omar, had urged Bin Ladin to go to Iraq. If Bin Ladin actually moved to Iraq, wrote Clarke, his network would be at Saddam Hussein’s service, and it would be “virtually impossible” to find him. Better to get Bin Ladin in Afghanistan, Clarke declared.¹³⁴ Berger suggested sending one U-2 flight, but Clarke opposed even this. It would require Pakistani approval, he wrote; and “Pak[istan's] intel[ligence service] is in bed with” Bin Ladin and would warn him that the United States was getting ready for a bombing campaign: “Armed with that knowledge, old wily Usama will likely boogie to Baghdad.”¹³⁵ Though told also by Bruce Riedel of the NSC staff that Saddam Hussein wanted Bin Ladin in Baghdad, Berger conditionally authorized a single U-2 flight. Allen meanwhile had found other ways of getting the information he wanted. So the U-2 flight never occurred.¹³⁶

Who’s the LIAR now?

I guess I should have read the entire 9/11 Commission Report myself–how many people did? What about all the “antiwar” Democrats/moonbats who CLAIMED they did? Either way, they’re liars–they either lied about what they read or lied about having read it at all. What’s amazing is that I don’t recall hearing ANYTHING about this until today; where was the “objective” “mainstream” media?

Byron York:

I have to admit that I have failed miserably in my small effort to make the words “Boogie to Baghdad” part of the national conversation on ties between al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein’s Iraq.

…
A search of the LexisNexis database reveals only about a dozen instances in which the phrase has appeared. A significant number of them were in articles by me, either in this newspaper or in National Review. Most of the others were in The Weekly Standard.

According to the database, the phrase has never appeared in The Washington Post, The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, Newsweek, Time or similar publications. It’s as if those words — and the Sept. 11 commission report that revealed them — never existed.

So I’ve got to wonder, what other information is being held back by the “antiwar” leftist “mainstream” media?

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Tagging this one: pre-war, pre-war intelligence, boogie, boogie to baghdad, richard clarke, clarke