Oil-for-Food May Have Funded 9/11 Attacks

[backlash]

http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2004/12/4/121101.shtml



Saturday, Dec. 4, 2004 12:07 p.m. EST
Oil-for-Food May Have Funded 9/11 Attacks

In what may be the most shocking news to emerge from the already stunning Oil-for-Food scandal, investigators say that Saddam Hussein bankrolled key al-Qaida players in the late 1990s - a period of time when the terror group was planning the 9/11 attacks and the Iraqi dictator was ripping off billions from the U.N. program.


"Saddam had given $300,000 in cash to Ayman Al Zawahri, Osama bin Laden's number two man, in the spring of 1998," the Weekly Standard's Stephen Hayes told WABC Radio's Monica Crowley on Saturday.


"It's likely that Saddam was giving some of his [Oil-for-Food] money to al-Qaida."

In an eerie coincidence, an October 2001 estimate by the Justice Department put the entire cost of the 9/11 operation at $300,000.

While the inception of Iraq's financial relationship with al-Qaida predated the 1996 Oil-for-Food program, the U.N. jackpot enabled Saddam to become much more generous toward his terrorist allies in the years before 9/11.

Hayes said the total amount of Iraqi cash funneled into al-Qaida reached into the "millions."

"Saddam had pretty strong ties to bin Laden when bin Laden was in Sudan," he said, based on what a former CIA counterrorism official had told him.

"He talked about this system of Saddam funneling money, usually cash payments, to a variety of al-Qaida-linked Islamic terrorist groups," the Standard reporter said.

Freelance reporter Claudia Rosett, who single-handedly broke the Oil-for-Food story last year, first broached the possibility of a U.N. connection to the 9/11 attacks in the Weekly Standard last August:

"By 1996, remember, bin Laden had been run out of Sudan, and seems to have been out of money. He needed a fresh bundle to rent Afghanistan from the Taliban, train recruits, expand al Qaida's global network, and launch what eventually became the 9/11 attacks.

"Meanwhile," Rosett continued, "over in Iraq about that same time, Saddam Hussein, after a lean stretch under United Nations sanctions, had just cut his Oil-for-Food deal with the U.N., and soon began exploiting that program to embezzle billions meant for relief."

Rosett noted that just prior to Saddam's $300,000 payment to Al Zawahri in 1998, bin Laden issued a fatwa against the U.S. that included references to "the Americans' continuing aggression against the Iraqi people" as well as "the great devastation inflicted on the Iraqi people by the crusader-Zionist alliance."

[HollyBaere]

Maybe you might want to consider this "version"..........

http://inn.globalfreepress.com/modules/news/article.php?storyid=1073

Remember, even GWB's "9/11 Commission" admitted there was NO connection between Iraq or Saddam with 9/11.

Kinda blows the whole theory of your article, doesn't it Backlash??

[LanceALott]

It is more likely that 9/11 was funded by the US taxpayers.

[Lazarus]

Maybe you might want to consider this "version"..........

http://inn.globalfreepress.com/modules/news/article.php?storyid=1073


Unless you pluck out from that haystack the needle you find compelling, I am afraid that it will be needfully overlooked.


Remember, even GWB's "9/11 Commission" admitted...


Admitted? Was the commission on trial? Missed that. ;)


... there was NO connection between Iraq or Saddam with 9/11.


That a group of investigators at a particular point in time finds no evidence does not mean that there was no evidence at one time nor does it mean that there was no connection. It simply means that there was no evidence found.

What the 911 commision stated was that there was evidence of financial and other relationships between Saddam's regime in Iraq and al Qaeada--even if they could find no specific evidence of a direct link between Saddam himself and the terror attacks on 9/11/200.
[


Kinda blows the whole theory of your article, doesn't it Backlash??


Actually the 911 commision report tends to support the "theory" advanced by the article. After all, if somebody buys cocaine from the mob--even though they had no direct hand in a particular murder--the support they did give thereby may have been indispensible to the killing. ::) ::) ::)

[HollyBaere]

[Actually the 911 commision report tends to support the "theory" advanced by the article. After all, if somebody buys cocaine from the mob--even though they had no direct hand in a particular murder--the support they did give thereby may have been indispensible to the killing. ::) ::) ::)


I believe it's called...........

GRASPING AT STRAWS or SPLITTING HAIRS

[WCP]

Jews did it.

[HollyBaere]

Jews did it.


NO, Dolt-Head.........They didn't.

[WCP]

NO, Dolt-Head.........They didn't.


They didn't? :o

Musta been the Palestinians, then.

[LanceALott]

Everyone who stole money in the oil for food program, French, German, Russian or American, should be made to eat the oil for food.

Bet that would make them shit.

[Larry_Oldtimer]

One thing for sure, Holly. If "your side" ever did win, and you ended up being in territory it controlled, you wouldn't last 10 minutes before being executed. That is what those Muslim Arabs to to "uppity" women who express their own opinions. It never fails to amaze me when folks like you support those who wouldn't hesitate to kill them when victorious. Have you a suicide complex? Sure seems like it. You and LaL seem very alike in this matter. :o

[Conservinator]

Maybe you might want to consider this "version"..........

inn.globalfreepress.com/module...hp?storyid=1073

Sure...leftists will consider things from this source, as it's obviously a left-wing website.

[jAfO]

Sure...leftists will consider things from this source, as it's obviously a left-wing website.




And Newsmax is an obviously right-wing news source. What's you're point?

[Lazarus]

I believe it's called...........

GRASPING AT STRAWS or SPLITTING HAIRS


Holly, don't let the facts about what the 911 commision actually reported alter your lies about it in the least. ::) ::) ::)

[Lazarus]

There is also evidence that around this time Bin Ladin sent out a number of feelers to the Iraqi regime, offering some cooperation. None are reported to have received a significant response. According to one report, Saddam Hussein's efforts at this time to rebuild relations with the Saudis and other Middle Eastern regimes led him to stay clear of Bin Ladin.74

In mid-1998, the situation reversed; it was Iraq that reportedly took the initiative. In March 1998, after Bin Ladin's public fatwa against the United States, two al Qaeda members reportedly went to Iraq to meet with Iraqi intelligence. In July, an Iraqi delegation traveled to Afghanistan to meet first with the Taliban and then with Bin Ladin. Sources reported that one, or perhaps both, of these meetings was apparently arranged through Bin Ladin's Egyptian deputy, Zawahiri, who had ties of his own to the Iraqis. In 1998, Iraq was under intensifying U.S. pressure, which culminated in a series of large air attacks in December.75

Similar meetings between Iraqi officials and Bin Ladin or his aides may have occurred in 1999 during a period of some reported strains with the Taliban. According to the reporting, Iraqi officials offered Bin Ladin a safe haven in Iraq. Bin Ladin declined, apparently judging that his circumstances in Afghanistan remained more favorable than the Iraqi alternative. The reports describe friendly contacts and indicate some common themes in both sides' hatred of the United States. But to date we have seen no evidence that these or the earlier contacts ever developed into a collaborative operational relationship. Nor have we seen evidence indicating that Iraq cooperated with al Qaeda in developing or carrying out any attacks against the United States.76

Bin Ladin eventually enjoyed a strong financial position in Afghanistan, thanks to Saudi and other financiers...

* * *

Al Qaeda also used the Afghan state-owned Ariana Airlines to courier money into the country.77


http://www.9-11commission.gov/report/911Report_Ch2.htm


When explaining the missile strike against Iraq provoked by the plot to kill President Bush, President Clinton stated: "From the first days of our Revolution, America's security has depended on the clarity of the message: Don't tread on us. A firm and commensurate response was essential to protect our sovereignty, to send a message to those who engage in state-sponsored terrorism, to deter further violence against our people, and to affirm the expectation of civilized behavior among nations."99


http://www.9-11commission.gov/report/911Report_Ch3.htm


Though intelligence gave no clear indication of what might be afoot, some intelligence reports mentioned chemical weapons, pointing toward work at a camp in southern Afghanistan called Derunta. On November 4, 1998, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York unsealed its indictment of Bin Ladin, charging him with conspiracy to attack U.S. defense installations. The indictment also charged that al Qaeda had allied itself with Sudan, Iran, and Hezbollah. The original sealed indictment had added that al Qaeda had "reached an understanding with the government of Iraq that al Qaeda would not work against that government and that on particular projects, specifically including weapons development, al Qaeda would work cooperatively with the Government of Iraq."109 This passage led Clarke, who for years had read intelligence reports on Iraqi-Sudanese cooperation on chemical weapons, to speculate to Berger that a large Iraqi presence at chemical facilities in Khartoum was "probably a direct result of the Iraq-Al Qida agreement." Clarke added that VX precursor traces found near al Shifa were the "exact formula used by Iraq."

http://www.9-11commission.gov/report/911Report_Ch4.htm

::) ::) ::)



Again "no evidence found" does not necessarily mean "did not exist."

There was no evidence found of the manner in which Lacy Peterson was murdered. Yet, she was murdered.

[Whiskey4bfast]

NO, Dolt-Head.........They didn't.
"Dolt-Head"? ???

I thought Kerry was "Bolt-Head" ..........

Hey! Michael Moore is sick today BTW. (bedridden)

Mayhaps they'll bury him in a piano case.