|
2007.04.29 Dem Perfidy // Islamism Delenda Est Roundup
See previous: 2007.04.28 Dem Perfidy // Islamism Delenda Est Roundup Deadlocked War Funding Bill May Halt Troop Carriers
CAMP FALLUJAH, Iraq — The armored carrier has a grim black slash across its side, burn marks on the door and a web of cracks along the window.
Like most of the Mine Resistant, Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicles in Anbar province, this one has been hit as many as three times by enemy fire and bomb blasts. Yet, to date, no American troops have died while riding in one.
But efforts to buy thousands more carriers — each costing about $1 million — could be delayed if the White House and Congress do not resolve their deadlock over a $124.2 billion war spending bill.
About $3 billion for the vehicles is tied up in the legislation. The spending plan has stalled because of a dispute over provisions that would set a timetable for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq. ...
Joe Katzman has an excellent related post here.
Bottom line: Replacing HMMWVs with MRAP's saves American lives. The Army and Marines are waiting for money to replace a bunch of 'em. They don't have it yet because the Surrendercrats are playing political games instead of taking care of the troops.
It is my fervent and heartfelt hope that when the jihadis finally manage to nuke DC Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, and Mad Jack Murtha are just far enough from Ground Zero to see the flash and have a split second to realize what happened before the shock front arrives and liquefies their bodies. Catching the three of them somewhere on the left coast for a moonbat convention would be even better, of course.
Update after a night's sleep and some time to surf the web a little: I don't really want the Three Ratateers to die in the initial blast. I'd much prefer they die slow lingering deaths trapped in the rubble, preferably under the same rubble pile so they have time to congratulate each other on how well they managed the war. (No, Bill isn't "off his meds again." I'm not wishing any worse fate for the Ratateers than will be suffered by thousands of others if they succeed in implementing their proposed policies.)
Below the fold (newest items at the top):
- Rice: 'Slam dunk' comment didn't lead to war
- Officers: Ex-CIA chief Tenet a 'failed' leader
- Scheuer: Don't Buy Tenet
- A Basic Tenet of Public Life...
- Meet the Press: Harry Reid's Plan for America
- Top general: U.S. needs a bigger Army faster
- Video: Murtha suggests impeachment
if President doesn’t “compromise”
- Good News In Anbar
- Saudi’d Straight
- And then what?
- Terrorists Ecstatic With Democrats' Debate
- 1st Assault Accordians, Advance to Rear!
- "If Osama bin Laden stood up and said 'Here's my timetable for withdrawing from Iraq'...
- "I'm ready for my fatwa"
- US aircrews show Taliban no mercy
- Certified Madness
- Winners And Losers
- Forgive My Unstiff Upper Lip
- Another big fish in Iraq?
*** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** Rice: 'Slam dunk' comment didn't lead to war
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Sunday said the administration did not use former CIA Director George Tenet's "slam dunk" comment as the reason to invade Iraq, disputing his complaints.
"We all thought that the intelligence case was strong." Rice said, speaking to CNN's "Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer," just hours before an interview with Tenet was set to air on CBS News' "60 Minutes."
The "slam dunk" issue arose last September, the fifth anniversary of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Vice President Dick Cheney told NBC's "Meet the Press" that before the U.S.-led invasion, President Bush asked Tenet how good the case was against Saddam Hussein involving weapons of mass destruction.
"It's a slam dunk, Mr. President," Tenet responded. ...
*** Officers: Ex-CIA chief Tenet a 'failed' leader
(CNN) -- In a letter written Saturday to former CIA Director George Tenet, six former CIA officers described their former boss as "the Alberto Gonzales of the intelligence community," and called his book "an admission of failed leadership."
The writers said Tenet has "a moral obligation" to return the Medal of Freedom he received from President Bush.
They also called on him to give more than half the royalties he gets from book, "At the Center of the Storm," to U.S. soldiers wounded in Iraq and families of the dead. ...
The letter, signed by Phil Giraldi, Ray McGovern, Larry Johnson, Jim Marcinkowski, Vince Cannistraro and David MacMichael, said Tenet should have resigned in protest rather than take part in the administration's buildup to the war. ...
Johnson is a former CIA intelligence official and registered Republican who voted for Bush in 2000. McGovern is a former CIA analyst.
Cannistraro is former head of the CIA's counterterrorism division and was head of intelligence for the National Security Council in the late 1980s.
The writers said they agree that Bush administration officials took the nation to war "for flimsy reasons," and that it has proved "ill-advised and wrong-headed."
But, they added, "your lament that you are a victim in a process you helped direct is self-serving, misleading and, as head of the intelligence community, an admission of failed leadership.
"You were not a victim. You were a willing participant in a poorly considered policy to start an unnecessary war and you share culpability with Dick Cheney and George Bush for the debacle in Iraq." ...
*** Scheuer: Don't Buy Tenet
Ed Morrissey
Michael Scheuer, the CIA chief of the now-defunct Osama bin Laden unit, wrote a book recounting his frustrations spanning more than a decade of counterterrorism work for Langley. The author of such books as Imperial Hubris and Through Our Enemies' Eyes has spent the last few years detailing how senior intelligence officials have failed several administrations and the nation. Now he responds to George Tenet and his new memoirs, and warns Americans that Tenet has not told the truth: At a time when clear direction and moral courage were needed, Tenet shifted course to follow the prevailing winds, under President Bill Clinton and then President Bush -- and he provided distraught officers at Langley a shoulder to cry on when his politically expedient tacking sailed the United States into disaster.
At the CIA, Tenet will be remembered for some badly needed morale-building. But he will also be recalled for fudging the central role he played in the decline of America's clandestine service -- the brave field officers who run covert missions that make us all safer. The decline began in the late 1980s, when the impending end of the Cold War meant smaller budgets and fewer hires, and it continued through Sept. 11, 2001. When Tenet and his bungling operations chief, James Pavitt, described this slow-motion disaster in testimony after the terrorist attacks, they tried to blame the clandestine service's weaknesses on congressional cuts. But Tenet had helped preside over every step of the service's decline during three consecutive administrations -- Bush, Clinton, Bush -- in a series of key intelligence jobs for the Senate, the National Security Council and the CIA. Only 9/11, it seems, convinced Tenet of the importance of a large, aggressive clandestine service to U.S. security. ...
In fact, what Scheuer describes here is only a hair short of cowardice. Tenet willingly went along with the flow, regardless of who was in charge. With Clinton, he was only too happy to undermine the intelligence for a pre-emptive strike on bin Laden, because he sensed that Clinton didn't want to take any risks. With Bush, he went along with the strongest possible analysis of the intelligence because he sensed that Bush would take action anyway. And if Tenet really means what he says in this book -- Scheuer gives examples of his accusations against Condoleezza Rice, Dick Cheney, and the "neocon" cabal -- Tenet never bothered to mention it to Congress or the 9/11 Commission, years after the fact.
Scheuer says that Tenet wants to get back into the good graces of the Democrats, his first political home. He well might. Some in Congress have already mentioned Tenet's name on witness lists for their investigation, and Scheuer sees that as a rehabilitation opportunity that Tenet will not allow to pass. Tenet apparently lets Bush off the hook, as well as Colin Powell, but seems willing to throw everyone else under the bus to protect himself.
Don't think that Scheuer is defending the decision to go into Iraq: far from it. ...
*** A Basic Tenet of Public Life...
John Hinderaker
...should be that, if you are given a vitally important responsibility and screw it up badly, you should thereafter maintain a discreet and humble silence.
Someone forgot to tell George Tenet. He's now written a book, which I haven't read and won't, in which he apparently whines about all the other people who are to blame for whatever has gone wrong in Iraq, while "taking responsibility" for the CIA's abysmal performance in the usual modern way: that is, by changing the subject.
Tenet apparently admits, as he must, that the CIA misadvised the White House and Congress about Iraq's WMD programs. Still, the war wasn't his fault. He blames the administration, and Dick Cheney in particular, for going to war without a proper debate about the need to do so. He premises this conclusion, apparently, on the fact that "those debates did not happen in the presence of Tenet or other senior CIA officials." What's too bad, really, is that discussion of intelligence matters did take place in the presence of Tenet and other CIA officials. We might all have been better off if they had been excluded from the process entirely.
As for Tenet's claim that there was no debate about whether the war was really necessary, it is ridiculous. The decision to go to war was debated in the White House; it was debated in the U.N.; it was debated in Congress; it was debated on Sunday morning talk shows; it was debated in every tavern in North America. If the decision was wrong, as Tenet apparently believes with the benefit of four years of hindsight, it wasn't for lack of debate. ...
*** Meet the Press: Harry Reid's Plan for America
Doug Ross (H/T: Lorie Byrd)
Tim Russert: Senator Reid, many on the right side of the aisle took you to task for saying the war is 'lost'. How do you respond to your critics?
Harry Reid: No one wants to succeed in Iraq more than I do, but this war cannot be won militarily. It must be won diplomatically, via earmarks, and backroom political corner-cutting.
TR: But can negotiation be expected to dampen the ever-growing threat of global extremism?
HR: We on the left side of the aisle believe war never solved anything.
TR: You mean 'war never solved anything' except for ending Slavery, Fascism, Nazism and Communism?
HR: Don't be a smart-ass, Tim. You know what I mean.
TR: Not sure that I do, Senator. How does calling the war 'lost' help anyone but Al Qaeda?
HR: The truth will set you free, Tim. How can our military possibly stand up to the terr-- uhm, insurgents' -- awful weapons of AK-47s, suicide bomb-belts, and old artillery shells? Their weapons are too powerful, their tactics too sophisticated, and their goals too evil for us to prevail! ...
[Read the whole thing.]
*** Top general: U.S. needs a bigger Army faster
SCHOFIELD BARRACKS, Hawaii (AP) -- The Army's new chief of staff said he wants to accelerate by two years a plan to increase the nation's active-duty soldiers by 65,000.
The Army has set 2012 as its target date for a force expansion to 547,000 troops, but Gen. George Casey said he told his staff to have the soldiers ready earlier.
"I said that's too long. Go back and tell me what it would take to get it done faster," he said in an interview Saturday with The Associated Press during a stop in Hawaii.
Casey became the Army chief of staff April 12 after serving as the top U.S. commander in Iraq for more than two years. ...
Casey said his staff has submitted a proposal for the accelerated timeline but that he has yet to approve the plan. He said the Army was stretched and would remain that way until the additional troops were trained and equipped.
Casey told a group of soldiers' spouses that one of his tasks is to try to limit the impact of the strain on soldiers and their families.
"We live in a difficult period for the Army because the demand for our forces exceeds the supply," he said. ...
*** Video: Murtha suggests impeachment
if President doesn’t “compromise”
Ian Schwartz
Rep. John Murtha suggested the possibility of impeachment to “influence” the President to “compromise” over funding for Iraq. Is it just me or does John Murtha sound like Vito Corleone? Does Murtha not know he is talking about impeaching the President of the United States because he is not compromising with the will of the far-left of Congress? That’s neither a high crime nor even a misdemeanor, which are the behaviors that are supposed to trigger impeachment. Murtha’s suggestion is outside the bounds of what Congress is supposed to do to influence the behavior of a sitting president, to say the least. ...
Transcript: BOB SCHIEFFER: Are you seriously talking about contemplating an impeachment of this President?
MURTHA: What I’m saying is there are four ways to influence a President.
SCHIEFFER: — and that’s one of them?
MURTHA: [unintelligible] and the fourth one is –
SCHIEFFER: — that’s an option that’s on the table?
MURTHA: I’m just saying that’s one way to influence the President
Aww gee whiz, Ian. You mean to say having the audacity to refuse to march to Congress's kazoo isn't a firing offense? Dang! There oughta be a law! [/snark] Actually, there really should be a law, against continuing to serve in Congress after the onset of senility.
Kim Priestap comments here.
*** Good News In Anbar
Ed Morrissey
Just as the Democrats have raised the white flag on Iraq, the New York Times reports that the surge strategy has started paying off in Anbar. Shops have reopened, people have moved back, and everyone's challenging the insurgents except Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi: Anbar Province, long the lawless heartland of the tenacious Sunni Arab resistance, is undergoing a surprising transformation. Violence is ebbing in many areas, shops and schools are reopening, police forces are growing and the insurgency appears to be in retreat.
“Many people are challenging the insurgents,” said the governor of Anbar, Maamoon S. Rahid, though he quickly added, “We know we haven’t eliminated the threat 100 percent.”
Many Sunni tribal leaders, once openly hostile to the American presence, have formed a united front with American and Iraqi government forces against Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia. With the tribal leaders’ encouragement, thousands of local residents have joined the police force. About 10,000 police officers are now in Anbar, up from several thousand a year ago. During the same period, the police force here in Ramadi, the provincial capital, has grown from fewer than 200 to about 4,500, American military officials say.
Life has not yet returned to normal, nor even close to it. Infrastructure still has yet to be rebuilt, and the loyalty of America's new allies still remains uncertain. What does appear certain is that this former stronghold of Ba'athist resentment no longer wants to exist in a cycle of oppression, liberation, and destruction. They want to end the fighting by eliminating the insurgents.
The question will be whether they stick with that in the face of an imminent American withdrawal. It has taken four years for Anbar to understand that Sunni domination in Iraq has ended and will not return, neither in the guise of Saddam Hussein nor in a military junta ruled by Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, the chief Ba'athist dead-ender. Now that they have finally pulled together with the US to oppose the increasingly lunatic al-Qaeda terrorists, we have lost the will to fight the insurgents ourselves -- or at least Congress has. ...
*** Saudi’d Straight
Jules Crittenden (H/T: Don Surber)
Saudi program pays radical youth to stay on the straight and narrow: The Saudi daily Al-Watan reported, citing an anonymous security source, that the Saudi interior ministry has spent over 115 million riyals over the last three years in financial aid for eligible prisoners and their families. The source stated that the aid given to the prisoners goes towards payment of debts, assisting family members in housing and health care, financing prisoners’ weddings, and purchasing cars after they complete the program and are released. He added that prisoners’ families that are needy receive monthly payments of 2,000-3,000 riyals. ...
So they’re claiming 80-90 percent success rate. That’s if none of the participants have their fingers crossed. Be interesting to know that their real re-Islamist rate is. Sounds like a great program. But I’d be happier if they’d just stop paying them to be terrorists in the first place. You know, stop the flow of $$$ to radical imams and mosques, madrassas, Iraqi car bomb factories, that kind of thing.
*** And then what?
By Jay Tea
... So, just what would happen if the United States withdrew from Iraq?
Initially, I think it would be fairly calm. There would be some attacks against our forces, as the various and sundry factions would each try to get the "final" attack on us that gives them the bragging rights for "driving out the infidels."
After that, though, there would be a brief calm period, as the factions work out their strategies.
It would be the calm before the storm - or, as a certain French monarch said, "le deluge."
"Bloodbath" would be a bit of an understatement.
The first victims of the carnage would be those people who had the foolish audacity to trust in the United States, who were a part of the current government and cooperated with us. I'm just pulling numbers out of the air here, but I'd speculate that 80% would be executed - probably in as grisly a way as possible. Another 10% would flee the nation, but 10% or so would be kept as figureheads and tokens to provide a "beard" or "fig leaf" for whatever form of government emerges.
The next thing that would happen would be a withdrawal of nearly all the Kurds into their home region for self-defense. This would be merely the latest in a long, long string of betrayals, abandonments, and blind eyes that the West has given the Kurds. ...
***
Terrorists Ecstatic With Democrats' Debate
Posted by Abdul (Hat tip: Jim Addison)
Let there be no doubt that the Democrat's debate encouraged terrorists: ... Abu Jihad said he believes if elected to the White House, the Democrats will immediately order a withdrawal from Iraq. He warned if a retreat is not carried out, the U.S. will likely be attacked on the home front.
... "The (Democrat) debate showed that like in Vietnam the American people needed these thousands of soldiers killed to see that invading other people will always result in a failure. ... I think the Democrats will win and apply an immediate withdrawal, but if they don't (withdraw), the revolutionary movements in Iraq will intensify attacks, and I think you should prepare for another big attack in the U.S." ...
Let's not forget that Al Qaeda's happiness with the election results that put the Democrats in power was confirmed by Abu Ayyub al-Masri, leader of al Qaeda in Iraq.
***
1st Assault Accordians, Advance to Rear!
Jules Crittenden
The question is, what is the relationship between this* and this.** Oh yeah, and this.***
*French hostage released.
** French foreign minister sees no long-term French troop presence in Afghanistan.
Stratfor suggests harmonic convergence. News summary: “France does not plan to keep troops in Afghanistan, French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy said. Douste-Blazy’s announcement came hours before a deadline to pull French troops out of Afghanistan in exchange for the release of two French hostages.”
*** Sarkosy vows to pull French troops from Afghanistan.
But, mes amis, how can we hunt the deer without the accordian? Can’t be easy to be French. But they can take solace in the news that they hate themselves more than everyone else hates them. ...
***
"If Osama bin Laden stood up and said 'Here's my timetable for withdrawing from Iraq'...
By AcademicElephant (Hat tip: Kim Priestap)
...it would be of significant benefit to us both tactically and strategically."
In our second interview, Jeff and I sat down with Colonel Michael Everett, who works on strategic effects for MNF-I. What this means is that he advises General Bill Caldwell and General David Petraeus on the development of the Iraqi parliament. So while Colonel Everett may not be a household name, he is deeply involved in encouraging the Iraqis to develop legislative tools to resolve their differences and advance their new nation. Colonel Everett has served 23 years in the army as an Infantry officer, as secretary to the Supreme Allied Commander in Europe and with the NATO training mission in Iraq. He then taught at the Army War College and returned to Iraq in May, 2006. ...
I asked the Colonel about the response of Iraqi politicians to the bill mandating a withdrawal of American combat troops from Iraq beginning October 1 and ending no later than March 1. They have not made an official response, but I would say that the Prime Minister is opposed to it because once again it plays into the hands of the insurgents. If Osama bin Laden stood up and said "Here's my timetable for withdrawing from Iraq" it would be of significant benefit to us both tactically and strategically.
In other words, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid are playing into the hands of the insurgents, both tactically and strategically.
Lovely.
Colonel Everett went on to say that establishing a timeline is also the goal of the Sadrists: ...
*** "I'm ready for my fatwa"
Michelle Malkin
I've blogged previously about graphic novelist/illustrator Frank Miller's renegade commentary on patriotism and al Qaeda's jihad. The L.A. Times has a new profile of Miller today with news of his latest projects--and more fodder that will set the 9/10 Hollyweirdos' teeth on edge: MUCH has been made of Miller's politics in the wake of "300." The deliriously violent and stylized sword film is based on a Spartan battle in 480 B.C., and although Miller wrote and drew the story for Dark Horse comics a decade ago, in film form it was received by many as a grotesque parody of the ancient Persians and a fetish piece for a war on Islam. Miller scoffs at those notions. "I think it's ridiculous that we set aside certain groups and say that we can't risk offending their ancestors. Please. I'd like to say, as an American, I was deeply offended by 'The Last of the Mohicans.' "
Still, Miller gets stirred up about any criticism of the war in Iraq or the hunt for terrorists, which he views as the front in a war between the civilized Western world and bloodthirsty Islamic fundamentalists.
"What people are not dealing with is the fact that we're going up against a culture that finds it acceptable to do things that the rest of the world left behind with the barbarians in the 6th century," Miller said. "I'm a little tired of people worrying about being polite. We are fighting in the face of fascists." ...
Apparently, Miller's Batman vs. al Qaeda comic book has stalled in the face of "squeamishness by executives at DC Comics and its parent, Warner Bros. Entertainment, in sending a franchise character on a blood-quest after terrorists." No surprise there.
Miller describes the plot and assails the lack of pro-American, anti-jihad backing in his industry: ...
***
[It looks like I'm getting a little smidgen of traffic from people wondering what that Apache/French business in Captain Ed's comments was about. SeeDubya explains that here.] US aircrews show Taliban no mercy
Caught in the middle of the Helmand river, the fleeing Taliban were paddling their boat back to shore for dear life.
Smoke from the ambush they had just sprung on American special forces still hung in the air, but their attention was fixed on the two helicopter gunships that had appeared above them as their leader, the tallest man in the group, struggled to pull what appeared to be a burqa over his head.
As the boat reached the shore, Captain Larry Staley tilted the nose of the lead Apache gunship downwards into a dive. One of the men turned to face the helicopter and sank to his knees. Capt Staley's gunner pressed the trigger and the man disappeared in a cloud of smoke and dust.
By the time the gunships had finished, 21 minutes later, military officials say 14 Taliban were confirmed dead, including one of their key commanders in Helmand.
The mission is typical of a new, aggressive, approach adopted by American forces in southern Afghanistan and particularly in Helmand, where British troops last year bore the brunt of some of the heaviest fighting since the fall of the Taliban in 2001.
American commanders believe that the uncompromising use of airpower in recent weeks has been a key factor in preventing the Taliban from launching their expected full-scale spring offensive against coalition forces and forcing them to rethink their tactics.
Aircrews say they have been told to show no mercy, but to press home their advantage until all their targets have been destroyed. ...
SeeDubya, Ed Morrissey and Dan Riehl all have worthy related posts.
*** Certified Madness
America might not have beaten the Japanese if Jack Murtha had been around.
By Bruce Berkowitz
One of the more interesting sections of the war funding bill Congress will soon send President Bush is its provision for "readiness." The bill prohibits spending funds "to deploy any unit of the Armed Forces to Iraq unless the chief of the military department concerned has certified in writing . . . that the unit is fully mission capable."
Rep. John Murtha (D., Pa.), chairman of the House subcommittee on defense appropriations, is mainly responsible for the clause. Mr. Murtha is a Marine Vietnam combat veteran and he's concerned that U.S. forces don't have all the resources they need to complete their missions.
U.S. Navy Ensign George Gay would have been bemused.
Ensign Gay became famous in World War II as the sole survivor of Torpedo Eight, a squadron flying off of the USS Hornet in the pivotal Battle of Midway. If ever there was a unit of the armed forces that wasn't "mission capable," it was Torpedo Eight.
In June 1942, the Navy's new torpedo bomber, the Grumman TBF Avenger, wasn't ready. So Ensign Gay and the other Americans had to fly old Douglas TBD Devastators, an aircraft that was inadequate for the task of taking on Japanese fighters.
A Devastator's top speed was about 200 mph. The Japanese interceptors--Zeros--could do around 350 mph. That's correct, the Japanese pilots had an advantage of about 150 miles per hour.
But Ensign Gay's bigger problem was training. "When we finally got up to the Battle of Midway it was the first time I had ever carried a torpedo on an aircraft," he later told a Navy interviewer, "and was the first time I had ever taken a torpedo off of a ship, had never even seen it done. None of the other ensigns in the squadron had either."
Ensign Gay and the others got the attack plan in "chalk talks" and then rehearsed the attack by walking through the steps on the flight deck.
Not a single TBD flying that day from the Hornet made it back. Ensign Gay was the only one of the 30 men in his squadron who survived the attack and he had to be fished from the sea a day after the battle. The TBDs from the other two American carriers suffered similar losses.
But by drawing the Zeros to themselves, the slow, low-flying Devastators gave U.S. dive bombers a clear shot to strike from above. The dive bombers sank three of the four Japanese carriers, a loss that decided the outcome of a battle that proved to be turning point in the war in the Pacific.
Which gets us back to Mr. Murtha's readiness provision. ...
*** Winners And Losers
Dan Riehl
Thus sayeth The Moderate Voice
Iraq Bloodbath: ‘Imminent US Defeat,’ Says A Serving Army Officer
And below sayeth a blogger in Iraq
Just as we began to see signs of progress in my country the Democrats come and say ‘well, it’s not worth it, so it’s time to leave’. Evidently to them my life and the lives of twenty five million Iraqis are not worth trying for and they shouldn’t expect us to be grateful for this.
I'n not ignorant of the tragic errors and even more tragic circumstances in Iraq. But I am also mindful that, given any particular challenge, you will find both losers and winners aligned on opposite sides with more than enough rhetoric to justify their view.
I got lazy and put off saying anything about LTC Yingdingaling's column and it's probably just as well I did. Greyhawk's related post here is a worthy read.
*** Forgive My Unstiff Upper Lip
Hatched by Dafydd ab Hugh
There is a fascinating, little back-story concerning that top al-Qaeda agent that we just announced having captured, Abd al-Hadi al-Iraqi, and our closest ally for the last, oh, 192 years. First, let's dress the stage a bit. From the Times of London: Abd al-Hadi al-Iraqi, a former major in Saddam Hussein’s army, was apprehended as he tried to enter Iraq from Iran and was transferred this week to the “high-value detainee programme” at Guantanamo Bay.
Abd al-Hadi was taken into CIA custody last year, it emerged from US intelligence sources yesterday, in a move which suggests that he was interrogated for months in a “ghost prison” before being transferred to the internment camp in Cuba.
Oh dear. I hope he wasn't inconvenienced, not being able to hide behind his barrister.
So who was Abd al-Hadi anyway? Here's part of his c.v.: Abd al-Hadi recognised the potential for turning young Muslim radicals from Britain who wanted to become mujahidin in Afghanistan or Iraq into terrorists who could carry out attacks in their home country. He realised that their knowledge of Britain, possession of British passports and natural command of English made them ideal recruits. After al-Qaeda restructured its operations in Pakistan’s tribal areas he sought out young Britons for instruction at training camps. In late 2004 Abd al-Hadi met Mohammad Sidique Khan and Shehzad Tanweer, from Leeds, at a militant camp in Pakistan and, in the words of a senior investigator, “retasked them” to become suicide bombers.
They were sent back to Britain where they led the terrorist cell that carried out the 7/7 bombings, killing 52 Tube and bus passengers.
Oh... you mean that Abd al-Hadi al-Iraqi! The mastermind behind the horrific attack in Great Britain, carried out by British subjects who happened to be Moslem jihadists.
But here is the part that is just delicious, in a bitter-sweet, black-comedy sort of way: ...
*** Another big fish in Iraq? UPDATE: Another one gaffed, cleaned, fried
See-Dubya
John from Verum Serum sends along a nice catch, so to speak: He’s been reading carefully over General Petraeus’ public comments about conditions in Iraq and noticed he dropped a name no one has yet seized upon: Abu Mustafa Al-Sheibani. Petraeus said: As you know, there are seven Quds Force members in detention as well. This involvement, again, we learned more about with the detention of an individual named Sheibani, who is one of the heads of the Sheibani network, which brings explosively formed projectiles into Iraq from Iran. His brother is the Iranian connection. He is — was in Iraq. And that has been the conduit that then distributes these among the extremist elements again of these secret cells and so forth.
Sheibani is on the Iraqi Government’s “41 most wanted” list. Not only does this guy work for and with Iran, John notes, but he’s also thought to be the first guy to bring in the Explosively Formed Projectiles. From Time, August 2005 (and that’s a good article.): The U.S. Military’s new nemesis in Iraq is named Abu Mustafa al-Sheibani, and he is not a Baathist or a member of al-Qaeda. He is working for Iran. According to a U.S. military-intelligence document obtained by TIME, al-Sheibani heads a network of insurgents created by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps with the express purpose of committing violence against U.S. and coalition forces in Iraq. Over the past eight months, his group has introduced a new breed of roadside bomb more lethal than any seen before; based on a design from the Iranian-backed Lebanese militia Hizballah, the weapon employs “shaped” explosive charges that can punch through a battle tank’s armor like a fist through the wall.
The MSM hasn’t picked up on his capture yet. One wonders when and if they will…
|
