The Truth about Saddam Hussein before the war

For me as a practicing Catholic to make a case for the war in Iraq and the
war on Terrorism I must show that it was just in Catholic Theology. That
means that it must be defensive. We are obliged to defend our family, our
neighbors, our nation and ourselves. We are never allowed to use more force
than is necessary to defend. We are never allowed to revenge but we are
allowed to use the force necessary for justice.

Some will say that a pre-emptive strike on Iraq, cannot be defensive. Well,
we attacked Hitler but he had not attacked us. We invaded Italy but they
had not declared war on us. They did, however, go to war against our
neighbors and as such we had the moral obligation to go to their defense.
What then is the defensive justification for war with Iraq?

Journalist Novak said that you cannot get a job in the major media today
unless you are a far left liberal, socialist or even communist, so are you
learning the truth from the news media? The news media says over and over
that there were no weapons of mass distruction found in Iraq, so why did we
go to war in the first place. The do not say there were no weapons of mass
distruction but that we did not find them. However, we did not go to war
with Iraq only because of weapons of mass distruction but also because of
his support for radical terrorists throughout the world including the
terrorists of 9-11.

Known as “The Butcher of Baghdad,” Mr. Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait, burned
its oil fields in a dastardly act of eco-vandalism, killed some 5,000 of his
own people with chemical weapons at Halabjah, and stuffed another 400,000 or
so of his constituents into mass graves. These 405,000 people are my
neighbors.

Support of Terrorism

If this is not reason enough for a just war, let us look at world wide
terror. At a minimum, we know that Saddam Hussein’s government supported
terrorism by paying "bonuses" of up to $25,000 to the families of
Palestinian homicide bombers.

Saddam Hussein’s vice president, Taha Yassin Ramadan, is the man who Israeli
intelligence believes was directly involved in funneling money from Baghdad
into the hands of the families of homicide bombers. Documents that the
Israeli Defense Force captured in the Palestinian town of Ramallah indicate
that Vice President Ramadan used the Arab Liberation Front, the Palestinian
Liberation Front, and the Palestinian branch of the Iraqi Baathist party to
pass these funds into the hands of terrorists’ families.

Usama Muhammad Id Bahr and Nabil Mahmud Jamil Halbiyyah blew themselves up
in Jerusalem's Zion Square on December 1, 2001. Before setting off
to "martyrdom," they also left a car bomb set on a timer two blocks away. It
exploded just as rescue workers and emergency personnel arrived on the
scene. Here again, the physical damage was extensive, but largely reparable.
Alas, the human toll was far more severe, what with 11 deaths and 188
injuries, ages 18-21. Saddam paid the families of the killers $20,000 each.
These 199 people are my neighbors.

On April 10, 2002, Izat Jarradat boarded a crowded bus strapped with
explosives. As the bus approached the busy Yagur junction near Haifa, he
blew himself up killing and wounding hundreds including a 14 year old
American. Between the time Saddam Hussein boosted his bonus payments to the
families of Palestinian terrorists and the March 20, 2003 launch of
Operation Iraqi Freedom, 28 homicide bombers injured 1,209 people and killed
223 more, including at least eight Americans. These 1,432 people are my
neighbors.

These bonus checks were handed out at ceremonies where banners proclaimed
the friendship of the PLO’s Yasser Arafat and Saddam Hussein. In addition
to funds, Saddam Hussein's government provided diplomatic help to Islamic
extremists.

Abu Abbas, former secretary general of the Palestine Liberation Front,
masterminded the October 7-9, 1985 hijacking of an Italian cruise ship, the
Achille Laur, on a voyage across the Mediterranean. They held some 400
passengers hostage for 44 hours. Italian officials took the hijackers into
custody. But Abbas possessed the ultimate get-out-of-jail card: An Iraqi
diplomatic passport.

After escaping Italian police in October 1985 following the Achille Lauro
hijacking (thanks to his Iraqi diplomatic passport), Abu Abbas finally ended
up in Baghdad in 1994, where he lived comfortably as one of Saddam Hussein’s
guests. U.S. soldiers caught Abbas in Iraq in April 2003. This time, he did
not get away. He died last March 9, in American custody, reportedly of
natural causes.

Abu Nidal lived comfortably in Iraq between 1999 and August 2002. As the
Associated Press reported on August 21, 2002, Nidal’s Beirut office said he
entered Iraq “with the full knowledge and preparations of the Iraqi
authorities.” 13 Prior to his relocation, he ran the eponymous Abu Nidal
Organization — a Palestinian terror network behind attacks in 20 countries,
at least 407 confirmed murders, and some 788 other terror-related injuries.
Among other savage acts, Nidal’s group used guns and grenades to attack a
ticket counter at Rome’s Leonardo da Vinci airport on December 27, 1985.
Another cell in Austria simultaneously assaulted Vienna’s airport, killing
19 people. These 1,195 people are my neighbors. My neighbors are the
innocent of the world, but if you are only interested in Americans…

Among the five Americans that Abu Nidal murdered that day was John Buonocore
III, a 20-year-old Fairleigh Dickinson College student who had studied in
Rome that fall semester. Buonocore was shot in the back while checking in
for his flight home. He had hoped to return to Wilmington, Delaware to help
his father celebrate his 50th birthday.

Americans slaughtered in ANO's September 8, 1974 bombing of a TWA jet over
the Ionian Sea en route from Israel to Greece, killing all 88 aboard: Eitan
Bard of Tuckahoe, New York, Seldon Bard of Tuckahoe, New York, Ralph H. Bosh
of Madison, Connecticut, Jon L. Cheshire of Old Lyme, Connecticut, Jeremiah
Hadley of Poughkeepsie, New York, Katherine Hadley Michel of Poughkeepsie,
New York, Frederick Hare of Bernardsville, New Jersey, Margaret Hare of
Bernardsville, New Jersey, Don H. Holliday of Mahwah, New Jersey, Dr.
Frederick Stohlman of Newton, Massachusetts and Mrs. Frederick Stohlman of
Newton, Massachusetts. The New York Times, September 10, 1974

If there is any justice here, perhaps it is the fact that Abu Nidal died in
August 2002. Saddam Hussein’s government claimed that he committed suicide
by shooting himself in the head — four times.

What About Attacks on American?

Saddam Hussein harbored terrorists (many with al-Qaeda links) responsible
for international mayhem and even the incidental deaths of Americans, but is
there any evidence that Iraq sheltered those responsible for attacks on
America?

Abdul Rahman Yasin, an Indiana-born, Iraqi-reared terrorist remains wanted
by the FBI for his role in the February 26, 1993 World Trade Center attack.
President Bill Clinton's Justice Department indicted Yasin for mixing the
chemicals in the bomb that exploded in the parking garage beneath the Twin
Towers, killing six and injuring 1,042 people in New York. Soon after the
smoke cleared, Yasin returned to Iraq. Coalition forces have discovered
documents that show he enjoyed housing and a monthly government salary.

Abu Musab al Zarqawi, after running an al-Qaeda training camp in
Afghanistan, he found his way to Baathist Baghdad, where he reportedly
checked into Olympic Hospital, an elite facility run by the late Uday
Hussein, son of the captured tyrant. Zarqawi is believed to have received
medical treatment for a leg injury sustained while dodging American GIs who
toppled the Taliban. He convalesced in Baghdad for some two months. Once he
was back on his foot, Zarqawi then opened an Ansar al-Islam terrorist
training camp in northern Iraq. Zarqawi is thought to be behind the October
28, 2002 assassination of Lawrence Foley:

Foley was a U.S. diplomat in Amman, Jordan who worked on international
development projects. For that "transgression," he was gunned down and
killed in his driveway at home.

According to dissidents, journalists who have visited, and even United
Nations weapons inspectors, Saddam Hussein appears to have offered training
to terrorists, in addition to funding, diplomatic help, safe haven and
medical care.

The Associated Press reports that Coalition forces shut down at least three
terrorist training camps in Iraq. The most notorious of these was the base
at Salman Pak, about 15 miles southeast of Baghdad. Before the war, numerous
Iraqi defectors said the camp featured a passenger jet on which terrorists
sharpened their air piracy skills. This satellite photo shows an urban
assault training site, a three-car train for railway-attack instruction, and
a commercial airliner sitting all by itself in the middle of the desert.

Sabah Khodada, a former Iraqi army captain who once worked at Salman Pak. On
October 14, 2001, granted an interview to PBS television
program “Frontline,” stating, “This camp is specialized in exporting
terrorism to the whole world.”

He added: “Training includes hijacking and kidnapping of airplanes, trains,
public buses, and planting explosives in cities ... how to prepare for
suicidal operations.”

He continued: “We saw people getting trained to hijack airplanes...They are
even trained how to use utensils for food, like forks and knives provided in
the plane.”

So does all of this, or anything else, suggest a tie between Saddam Hussein
and al-Qaeda? Some evidence is interesting but far from solid, such as this
image that appeared on the front page of the March 27, 2003 New York Post
showing U.S. troops at an Iraqi military base in Nasariyah. They encountered
a mural that seems to celebrate the destruction of the Twin Towers. Recall
that Abdul Rahman Yasin, one of the al-Qaeda bombers who hit the World Trade
Center in 1993, fled to Iraq after that attack and lived there freely,
reportedly with a government salary. That’s one clear link to al-Qaeda.

Then there is the interesting case of Ahmad Hikmat Shakir — an Iraqi VIP
facilitator who worked at the international airport in Kuala Lumpur,
Malaysia. Citing "a foreign government service," page 340 of the Senate
Intelligence Committee's report on pre-Iraq-War intelligence indicates
that, "Shakir claimed he got this job through Ra'ad al-Mudaris, an Iraqi
Embassy employee" in Malaysia. On January 5, 2000, Shakir greeted Khalid al
Midhar and Nawaz al Hamzi at Kuala Lampur’s airport. He then escorted them
to a local hotel where these September 11 hijackers met with 9/11
conspirators Ramzi bin al Shibh and Tawfiz al Atash. Five days later,
according to The Weekly Standard’s Stephen Hayes, Shakir disappeared.

Khalid al Midhar and Nawaz al Hamzi subsequently spent the morning of
September 11, 2001 flying American Airlines Flight 77 into the Pentagon,
killing 184 people.

Shakir, the Iraqi airport greeter, was arrested in Qatar on September 17,
2001. On his person and in his apartment, authorities discovered documents
connecting him to the 1993 WTC bomb plot and “Operation Bojinka,” al-Qaeda’s
1995 plan to blow up 12 jets simultaneously over the Pacific. Interestingly
enough, as a May 27, 2004 Wall Street Journal editorial reported, Ahmed
Hikmat Shakir's name appears on three different rosters of the late Uday
Hussein's prestigious paramilitary group, the Saddam Fedayeen. A government
source told the Journal that the papers identify Shakir as a lieutenant
colonel in the Saddam Fedayeen.

Ahmad Khalil Ibrahim Samir al-Ani, was Consul and Second Secretary at Iraq's
Czech embassy between March 1999 and April 22, 2001. He long has been
suspected of meeting with September 11 ringleader Mohamed Atta, most likely
on April 8, 2001, perhaps at other times, too. While skeptics dismiss this
encounter, Czech intelligence found Al-Ani's appointment calendar in Iraq's
Prague embassy, presumably after Saddam Hussein's defeat. Al-Ani's diary
lists an April 8, 2001 meeting with "Hamburg student." Maybe, in a massive
coincidence, Al-Ani dined with a young scholar and chatted about Hegel and
Nietzsche.

Or perhaps Al-Ani saw a former student from Hamburg named Mohamed Atta to
discuss more practical matters. The Czech government sticks to their
contention that they did observe this Iraqi diplomat meeting with Mohamed
Atta just five months before 9-11. As Czech U.N. Ambassador Hynek Kmonicek
explained in a letter to Philadelphia attorney James Beasley, Jr.: “In this
moment we can confirm, that during the next stay of Mr. Muhammad Atta in the
Czech Republic, there was the contact with the official of the Iraqi
intelligence, Mr. Al Ani, Ahmed Khalin Ibrahim Samir, who was on 22nd April
2001 expelled from the Czech Republic on the basis of activities which were
not compatible with the diplomatic status.” 21 Al-Ani was kicked out of
Prague for casing the headquarters of Radio Free Europe and Radio Free Iraq,
presumably because he wanted to blow them up.

Of course, we know what happened next. Mohamed Atta and his henchmen went to
airports on the East Coast. Here he is in Portland, Maine at 5:45 a.m. on
September 11, 2001. Within just three hours, he and the other pilots were in
the air, about to reshape history. He and his evil colleagues turned this
lovely vista of America's premier city …

They killed 2,749 innocent souls from the American family and decapitated
the most powerful skyline man ever built.

As the May 8, 2003 New York Post and other news outlets reported, Judge Baer
ruled that Saddam Hussein’s government was complicit in the September 11
attacks and that the Baathist government owed the plaintiffs a judgment of
$104 million.

Thus, there is abundant and undeniable evidence that Saddam Hussein provided
money, diplomatic services, shelter, medical care, and training to
terrorists of every stripe, including those complicit in the 1993 WTC
bombing and — according to a Clinton-appointed federal judge — the September
11 attacks. The Iraqi dictator aided al-Qaeda and other global terrorists
who murdered Americans, both at home and abroad.

Notes:

Proof of the above found on http://www.husseinandterror.com/ by Deroy
Murdock

This is not a support for President Bush or even for his reasons for the
war. It the real reason was Oil, it does not matter because God can use bad
motives to do good things. Bush does not give me good feelings because of
his family background going back to World War II. I do not want to blame him
for his family but it gives me pause.

(Z artykulu: "Opinions Supported By Facts" Richarda Salbato 8-9-2007)

Chris