Even Clinton said there is an Iraq link to Al Qaeda

[4moreyears]

ARE AL QAEDA'S links to Saddam Hussein's Iraq just a fantasy of the Bush administration? Hardly. The Clinton administration also warned the American public about those ties and defended its response to al Qaeda terror by citing an Iraqi connection.



http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/003/527uwabl.asp

Here is just a few links found on OSINT, what we call open Intel.

* Abdul Rahman Yasin was the only member of the al Qaeda cell that detonated the 1993 World Trade Center bomb to remain at large in the Clinton years. He fled to Iraq. U.S. forces recently discovered a cache of documents in Tikrit, Saddam's hometown, that show that Iraq gave Mr. Yasin both a house and monthly salary.

* Bin Laden met at least eight times with officers of Iraq's Special Security Organization, a secret police agency run by Saddam's son Qusay, and met with officials from Saddam's mukhabarat, its external intelligence service, according to intelligence made public by the United Nations Security Council on February 6, 2003.

* Sudanese intelligence officials told me that their agents had observed meetings between Iraqi intelligence agents and bin Laden starting in 1994, when bin Laden lived in Khartoum.

* Bin Laden met the director of the Iraqi mukhabarat in 1996 in Khartoum

* An al Qaeda operative now held by the U.S. confessed that in the mid-1990s, bin Laden had forged an agreement with Saddam's men to cease all terrorist activities against the Iraqi dictator

* In 1999 the Guardian, a British newspaper, reported that Farouk Hijazi, a senior officer in Iraq's mukhabarat, had journeyed deep into the icy mountains near Kandahar, Afghanistan, in December 1998 to meet with al Qaeda men. Mr. Hijazi is "thought to have offered bin Laden asylum in Iraq," the Guardian reported.

* In October 2000, another Iraqi intelligence operative, Salah Suleiman, was arrested near the Afghan border by Pakistani authorities, according to Jane's Foreign Report, a respected international newsletter. Jane's reported that Suleiman was shuttling between Iraqi intelligence and Ayman al Zawahiri, now al Qaeda's No. 2 man.

(Why are all of those meetings significant? The London Observer reports that FBI investigators cite a captured al Qaeda field manual in Afghanistan, which "emphasizes the value of conducting discussions about pending terrorist attacks face to face, rather than by electronic means.")

* As recently as 2001, Iraq's embassy in Pakistan was used as a "liaison" between the Iraqi dictator and al Qaeda

* Spanish investigators have uncovered documents seized from Yusuf Galan -- who is charged by a Spanish court with being "directly involved with the preparation and planning" of the Sept. 11 attacks -- that show the terrorist was invited to a party at the Iraqi embassy in Madrid. The invitation used his "al Qaeda nom de guerre," London's Independent reports.

* An Iraqi defector to Turkey, known by his cover name as "Abu Mohammed," told Gwynne Roberts of the Sunday Times of London that he saw bin Laden's fighters in camps in Iraq in 1997. At the time, Mohammed was a colonel in Saddam's Fedayeen. He described an encounter at Salman Pak, the training facility southeast of Baghdad. At that vast compound run by Iraqi intelligence, Muslim militants trained to hijack planes with knives -- on a full-size Boeing 707. Col. Mohammed recalls his first visit to Salman Pak this way: "We were met by Colonel Jamil Kamil, the camp manager, and Major Ali Hawas. I noticed that a lot of people were queuing for food. (The major) said to me: 'You'll have nothing to do with these people. They are Osama bin Laden's group and the PKK and Mojahedin-e Khalq.'"

* In 1998, Abbas al-Janabi, a longtime aide to Saddam's son Uday, defected to the West. At the time, he repeatedly told reporters that there was a direct connection between Iraq and al Qaeda.

*The Sunday Times found a Saddam loyalist in a Kurdish prison who claims to have been Dr. Zawahiri's bodyguard during his 1992 visit with Saddam in Baghdad. Dr. Zawahiri was a close associate of bin Laden at the time and was present at the founding of al Qaeda in 1989.

* Following the defeat of the Taliban, almost two dozen bin Laden associates "converged on Baghdad and established a base of operations there," Mr. Powell told the United Nations in February 2003. From their Baghdad base, the secretary said, they supervised the movement of men, materiel and money for al Qaeda's global network.

* In 2001, an al Qaeda member "bragged that the situation in Iraq was 'good,'" according to intelligence made public.

* That same year, Saudi Arabian border guards arrested two al Qaeda members entering the kingdom from Iraq.

* Abu Musaab al-Zarqawi oversaw an al Qaeda training camp in Afghanistan, Mr. Powell told the United Nations. His specialty was poisons. Wounded in fighting with U.S. forces, he sought medical treatment in Baghdad in May 2002. When Zarqawi recovered, he restarted a training camp in northern Iraq. Zarqawi's Iraq cell was later tied to the October 2002 murder of Lawrence Foley, an official of the U.S. Agency for International Development, in Amman, Jordan. The captured assassin confessed that he received orders and funds from Zarqawi's cell in Iraq and his accomplice escaped to Iraq.

*Zarqawi met with military chief of al Qaeda, Mohammed Ibrahim Makwai (aka Saif al-Adel) in Iran in February 2003, according to intelligence sources cited by the Washington Post.

* Mohammad Atef, the head of al Qaeda's military wing until the U.S. killed him in Afghanistan in November 2001, told a senior al Qaeda member now in U.S. custody that the terror network needed labs outside of Afghanistan to manufacture chemical weapons and Iraq was "friendly" to their cause.

* Abu Abdullah al-Iraqi was sent to Iraq by bin Laden to purchase poison gases several times between 1997 and 2000. He called his relationship with Saddam's regime "successful,"

* Mohamed Mansour Shahab, a smuggler hired by Iraq to transport weapons to bin Laden in Afghanistan, was arrested by anti-Hussein Kurdish forces in May, 2000. He later told his story to American intelligence and a reporter for the New Yorker magazine.

* Documents found among the debris of the Iraqi Intelligence Center show that Baghdad funded the Allied Democratic Forces, a Ugandan terror group led by an Islamist cleric linked to bin Laden. According to a London's Daily Telegraph, the organization offered to recruit "youth to train for the jihad" at a "headquarters for international holy warrior network" to be established in Baghdad.

* Mullah Melan Krekar, ran a terror group (the Ansar al-Islam) linked to both bin Laden and Saddam Hussein. Mr. Krekar admitted to a Kurdish newspaper that he met bin Laden in Afghanistan and other senior al Qaeda officials. His acknowledged meetings with bin Laden go back to 1988.

When he organized Ansar al Islam in 2001 to conduct suicide attacks on Americans, "three bin Laden operatives showed up with a gift of $300,000 'to undertake jihad,'" Newsday reported. Mr. Krekar is now in custody in the Netherlands. His group operated in portion of northern Iraq loyal to Saddam Hussein -- and attacked independent Kurdish groups hostile to Saddam. A spokesman for the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan told a United Press International correspondent that Mr. Krekar's group was funded by "Saddam Hussein's regime in Baghdad."


But there is no link between Iraq and Usama Bin Laden or Al Qaeda????

[Nickdfresh]

Originally posted by 4moreyears
ARE AL QAEDA'S links to Saddam Hussein's Iraq just a fantasy of the Bush administration? Hardly. The Clinton administration also warned the American public about those ties and defended its response to al Qaeda terror by citing an Iraqi connection.



http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/003/527uwabl.asp


But there is no link between Iraq and Usama Bin Laden or Al Qaeda????

Correct, there was NO EFFECTIVE LINK!


What 4moronyears left out from the chain e-mail
The Clinton View of Iraq-al Qaeda Ties
From the December 29, 2003 / January 5, 2004 issue: Connecting the dots in 1998, but not in 2003.
by Stephen F. Hayes
12/29/2003, Volume 009, Issue 16

Do we really need this recycled, selectively posed horseshit from 2003? Why exactly are you posting this now? And when specifically did Clinton say there was a "Iraq-al Qaida connection?"

And what did Iraq have to do with 9/11 exactly?

Oh, and by the way, it's believed that the CIA met with Bin Laden and even funded him during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, so are there "links between al-Qaida and Reagan," and both Clinton and the Bushes as well? More semantic spin and horse shit and another redundant dupe thread...

[BigBadBrian]

I guess Nick doesn't like it when his boy gets dirty playing in the sandbox.

This just proves bin Laden was doing business with Saddam on Clinton's watch and he didn't do anything about it.

Who's fault was 9/11? :rolleyes:

:gulp:

[Nickdfresh]

Originally posted by BigBadBrian
I guess Nick doesn't like it when his boy gets dirty playing in the sandbox.

This just proves bin Laden was doing business with Saddam on Clinton's watch and he didn't do anything about it.

Really? Where did it prove that? What was their "business" together? Innuendo? Some ancedotes that are selectively taken out of context? Is that your "proof?"


Who's fault was 9/11? :rolleyes:

:gulp:

Um, the guy that was in office for nine months and effectively did nothing regarding terrorism...

[Warham]

What did Clinton do about terrorism after the WTC bombing in '93, other than consult the Gallup Organization? ;)

[blueturk]

All this talk of Clinton and bin Laden. The fact remains that after 9/11, Bush focused more on Hussein than bin Laden, invading Iraq for various and vague reasons while bin Laden was deemed "not a priority", (you know the quote, don't you Warham?).

[FORD]

Originally posted by Warham
What did Clinton do about terrorism after the WTC bombing in '93, other than consult the Gallup Organization? ;)

He arrested those responsible and sentenced them to prison.

Which is more than Chimpy has done with even one person connected to 9-11-01.

[Nickdfresh]

Originally posted by Warham
What did Clinton do about terrorism after the WTC bombing in '93, other than consult the Gallup Organization? ;)

Quite a bit actually. He used the CIA to intimidate the IRANIANs away from supporting terrorists for one, and he tried to kill Bin LADEN three times...

BTW, how's BUSH doing at the intimidating IRAN thing?

[Warham]

Why does Bush need to do anything about Iran? I think Israel can handle Iran quite well.

If Iran ever thinks about nuking Israel, they'll fire one right back in a heartbeat. Maybe even before Iran fires one off.

[Dr. Love]

Even Clinton said there is an Iraq link to Al Qaeda

http://www.imahosting.com/sigs/damn.gif

[BigBadBrian]

Originally posted by Warham
What did Clinton do about terrorism after the WTC bombing in '93, other than consult the Gallup Organization? ;)

Indeed.


"Al, what do the polls say today. We may need to change policy again."

:D

[DrMaddVibe]

Saddam's al Qaeda Connection
From the September 1 / September 8, 2003 issue: The evidence mounts, but the administration says surprisingly little.
by Stephen F. Hayes
09/01/2003, Volume 008, Issue 48


KIDS KNOW exactly when it comes--the point when you're repaving a driveway or pouring a new sidewalk, right before the wet concrete hardens completely. That's when you can make your mark. The Democrats seem to understand this.

For months before the war in Iraq, the Bush administration claimed to know of ties between al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein's Iraq. For months after the war, the Bush administration has offered scant evidence of those claims. And the conventional wisdom--that there were no links--is solidifying. So Democrats are making their mark.

"The evidence now shows clearly that Saddam did not want to work with Osama bin Laden at all, much less give him weapons of mass destruction." So claimed Al Gore in an August 7 speech. "There is evidence of exaggeration" of Iraq-al Qaeda links, said Carl Levin, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, who recently launched an investigation into prewar intelligence. "Clearly the al Qaeda connection was hyped and exaggerated, in my view," said Senator Dianne Feinsten. Chimed in Jane Harman, the ranking Democrat on the House Select Committee on Intelligence, as reported in the National Journal, "The evidence on the al Qaeda links was sketchy." Jay Rockefeller, the ranking Democrat on the Senate side of that committee, agrees. "The evidence about the ties was not compelling."

These are serious charges that deserve to be answered. If critics can show that the administration overplayed the al Qaeda-Saddam connection, they will undermine not only an important rationale for removing the Iraqi dictator, but the broader, arguably more important case for the war--that the conflict in Iraq was one battle in the worldwide war on terror.

What, then, did the Bush administration say about this relationship before the war? Which parts of that case, if any, have been invalidated by the intelligence gathered in the months following the conflict? What is this new "evidence," cited by Gore and others, that reveals the administration's arguments to have been embellished? Finally, what if any new evidence has emerged that bolsters the Bush administration's prewar case?

The answer to that last question is simple: lots. The CIA has confirmed, in interviews with detainees and informants it finds highly credible, that al Qaeda's Number 2, Ayman al-Zawahiri, met with Iraqi intelligence in Baghdad in 1992 and 1998. More disturbing, according to an administration official familiar with briefings the CIA has given President Bush, the Agency has "irrefutable evidence" that the Iraqi regime paid Zawahiri $300,000 in 1998, around the time his Islamic Jihad was merging with al Qaeda. "It's a lock," says this source. Other administration officials are a bit more circumspect, noting that the intelligence may have come from a single source. Still, four sources spread across the national security hierarchy have confirmed the payment.

In interviews conducted over the past six weeks with uniformed officers on the ground in Iraq, intelligence officials, and senior security strategists, several things became clear. Contrary to the claims of its critics, the Bush administration has consistently underplayed the connections between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda. Evidence of these links existed before the war. In making its public case against the Iraq regime, the Bush administration used only a fraction of the intelligence it had accumulated documenting such collaboration. The intelligence has, in most cases, gotten stronger since the end of the war. And through interrogations of high-ranking Iraqi officials, documents from the regime, and further interrogation of al Qaeda detainees, a clearer picture of the links between Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein is emerging.

To better understand the administration's case on these links, it's important to examine three elements of this debate: what the administration alleged, the evidence the administration had but didn't use, and what the government has learned since the war.

WHAT THE ADMINISTRATION ALLEGED

TOP U.S. OFFICIALS linked Iraq and al Qaeda in newspaper op-eds, on talk shows, and in speeches. But the most detailed of their allegations came in an October 7, 2002, letter from CIA director George Tenet to Senate Intelligence chairman Bob Graham and in Secretary of State Colin Powell's February 5, 2003, presentation to the United Nations Security Council.

The Tenet letter declassified CIA reporting on weapons of mass destruction and Iraq's links to al Qaeda. Two sentences on WMD garnered most media attention, but the intelligence chief's comments on al Qaeda deserved notice. "We have solid reporting of senior level contacts between Iraq and al Qa'ida going back a decade," Tenet wrote. "Credible information indicates that Iraq and al Qa'ida have discussed safe haven and reciprocal non-aggression. Since Operation Enduring Freedom [in Afghanistan], we have solid evidence of the presence in Iraq of al Qa'ida members, including some that have been in Baghdad. We have credible reporting that al Qa'ida leaders sought contacts in Iraq who could help them acquire WMD capabilities. The reporting also stated that Iraq has provided training to al Qa'ida members in the areas of poisons and gases and making conventional bombs." In sum, the letter said, "Iraq's increasing support to extremist Palestinians, coupled with growing indications of a relationship with al Qa'ida, suggest that Baghdad's links to terrorists will increase, even absent US military actions."

That this assessment came from the CIA--with its history of institutional skepticism about the links--was significant. CIA analysts had long contended that Saddam Hussein's secular regime would not collaborate with Islamic fundamentalists like bin Laden--even though the Baathists had exploited Islam for years, whenever it suited their purposes. Critics of the administration insist the CIA was "pressured" by an extensive and aggressive intelligence operation set up by the Pentagon to find ties where none existed. But the Pentagon team consisted of two people, at times assisted by two others. Their assignment was not to collect new intelligence but to evaluate existing intelligence gathered by the CIA, with particular attention to any possible Iraq-al Qaeda collaboration. A CIA counterterrorism team was given a similar task, and while many agency analysts remained skeptical about links, the counterterrorism experts came away convinced that there had been cooperation.

For one thing, they cross-referenced old intelligence with new information provided by high-level al Qaeda detainees. Reports of collaboration grew in number and specificity. The case grew stronger. Throughout the summer and fall of 2002, al Qaeda operatives held in Guantanamo corroborated previously sketchy reports of a series of meetings in Khartoum, Sudan, home to al Qaeda during the mid-90s. U.S. officials learned more about the activities of Abu Abdullah al-Iraqi, an al Qaeda WMD specialist sent by bin Laden to seek WMD training, and possibly weapons, from the Iraqi regime. Intelligence specialists also heard increasingly detailed reports about meetings in Baghdad between al Qaeda leaders and Uday Hussein in April 1998, at a birthday celebration for Saddam.

In December 2002, as the Bush administration prepared its public case for war with Iraq, White House officials sifted through reams of these intelligence reports on ties between Saddam Hussein's regime and al Qaeda. Some of the reporting was solid, some circumstantial. The White House identified those elements of the reports it wanted to use publicly and asked the CIA to declassify them. The Agency agreed to declassify some 75 percent of the requested intelligence.

According to administration sources, Colin Powell, in his presentation before the U.N. Security Council, used only 10 or 15 percent of the newly declassified material. He relied heavily on the intelligence in Tenet's letter. Press reports about preparations for the Powell presentation have suggested that Powell refused to use the abundance of CIA documents because he found them thin and unpersuasive. This is only half right. Powell was certainly the most skeptical senior administration official about Iraq-al Qaeda ties. But several administration officials involved in preparing his U.N. presentation say that his reluctance to focus on those links had more to do with the forum for his speech--the Security Council--than with concerns about the reliability of the information.

Powell's presentation sought to do two things: make a compelling case to the world, and to the American public, about the threat posed by Saddam Hussein; and more immediately, win approval for a second U.N. resolution explicitly authorizing the use of force. The second of these objectives, these officials say, required Powell to focus the presentation on Hussein's repeated violations of Security Council resolutions. (Even in the brief portion of Powell's talk focused on Iraq-al Qaeda links, he internationalized the case, pointing out that the bin Laden network had targeted "France, Britain, Spain, Italy, Germany, and Russia.") Others in the administration, including Vice President Dick Cheney, favored using more of the declassified information about Hussein's support of international terrorism and al Qaeda.

Powell spent just 10 minutes of a 90-minute presentation on the "sinister nexus between Iraq and the al Qaeda terrorist network." He mentioned intelligence showing that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a known al Qaeda associate injured in Afghanistan, had traveled to Baghdad for medical treatment. Powell linked Zarqawi to Ansar al-Islam, an al Qaeda cell operating in a Kurdish region "outside Saddam Hussein's controlled Iraq." Powell told the Security Council that the United States had approached an unnamed "friendly security service"--Jordan's--"to approach Baghdad about extraditing Zarqawi," providing information and details "that should have made it easy to find Zarqawi." Iraq did nothing. Finally, Powell asserted that al Qaeda leaders and senior Iraqi officials had "met at least eight times" since the early 1990s.

These claims, the critics maintain, were "hyped" and "exaggerated."

WHAT THE ADMINISTRATION DIDN'T USE

IF THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION had been out to hype the threat from an al Qaeda-Saddam link, it stands to reason that it would have used every shred of incriminating evidence at its disposal. Instead, the administration was restrained in its use of available intelligence. What the Bush administration left out is in some ways as revealing as what it included.

* Iraqi defectors had been saying for years that Saddam's regime trained "non-Iraqi Arab terrorists" at a camp in Salman Pak, south of Baghdad. U.N. inspectors had confirmed the camp's existence, including the presence of a Boeing 707. Defectors say the plane was used to train hijackers; the Iraqi regime said it was used in counterterrorism training. Sabah Khodada, a captain in the Iraqi Army, worked at Salman Pak. In October 2001, he told PBS's "Frontline" about what went on there. "Training is majorly on terrorism. They would be trained on assassinations, kidnapping, hijacking of airplanes, hijacking of buses, public buses, hijacking of trains and all other kinds of operations related to terrorism. . . . All this training is directly toward attacking American targets, and American interests."

But the Bush administration said little about Salman Pak as it demonstrated links between Iraq and al Qaeda. According to administration sources, some detainees who provided credible evidence of other links between Iraq and al Qaeda, including training in terrorism and WMD, insist they have no knowledge of Salman Pak. Khodada, the Iraqi army captain, also professed ignorance of whether the trainees were members of al Qaeda. "Nobody came and told us, 'This is al Qaeda people,'" he explained, "but I know there were some Saudis, there were some Afghanis. There were some other people from other countries getting trained."

* On February 13, 2003, the government of the Philippines asked Hisham al Hussein, the second secretary of the Iraqi embassy in Manila, to leave the country. According to telephone records obtained by Philippine intelligence, Hussein had been in frequent contact with two leaders of Abu Sayyaf, an al Qaeda affiliate in South Asia, immediately before and immediately after they detonated a bomb in Zamboanga City. That attack killed two Filipinos and an American Special Forces soldier and injured several others. Hussein left the Philippines for Iraq after he was "PNG'd"--declared persona non grata--by the Philippine government and has not been heard from since.

According to a report in the Christian Science Monitor, an Abu Sayyaf leader who planned the attack bragged on television a month after the bombing that Iraq had contacted him about conducting joint operations. Philippine intelligence officials were initially skeptical of his boasting, but after finding the telephone records they believed him.

* No fewer than five high-ranking Czech officials have publicly confirmed that Mohammed Atta, the lead September 11 hijacker, met with Ahmed Khalil Ibrahim al-Ani, an Iraqi intelligence officer working at the Iraqi embassy, in Prague five months before the hijacking. Media leaks here and in the Czech Republic have called into question whether Atta was in Prague on the key dates--between April 4 and April 11, 2001. And several high-ranking administration officials are "agnostic" as to whether the meeting took place. Still, the public position of the Czech government to this day is that it did.

That assertion should be seen in the context of Atta's curious stop-off in Prague the previous spring, as he traveled to the United States. Atta flew to Prague from Germany on May 30, 2000, but did not have a valid visa and was denied entry. He returned to Germany, obtained the proper paperwork, and took a bus back to Prague. One day later, he left for the United States.

Despite the Czech government's confirmation of the Atta-al Ani meeting, the Bush administration dropped it as evidence of an al Qaeda-Iraq connection in September 2002. Far from hyping this episode, administration officials refrained from citing it as the debate over the Iraq war heated up in Congress, in the country, and at the U.N.

WHAT THE GOVERNMENT HAS LEARNED SINCE THE WAR

THE ADMINISTRATION'S CRITICS, including several of the Democratic presidential candidates, have alluded to new "evidence" they say confirms Iraq and al Qaeda had no relationship before the war. They have not shared that evidence.

Even as the critics withhold the basis for their allegations, evidence on the other side is piling up. Ansar al-Islam--the al Qaeda cell formed in June 2001 that operated out of northern Iraq before the war, notably attacking Kurdish enemies of Saddam--has stepped up its activities elsewhere in the country. In some cases, say national security officials, Ansar is joining with remnants of Saddam's regime to attack Americans and nongovernmental organizations working in Iraq. There is some reporting, unconfirmed at this point, that the recent bombing of the U.N. headquarters was the result of a joint operation between Baathists and Ansar al-Islam.

And there are reports of more direct links between the Iraqi regime and bin Laden. Farouk Hijazi, former Iraqi ambassador to Turkey and Saddam's longtime outreach agent to Islamic fundamentalists, has been captured. In his initial interrogations, Hijazi admitted meeting with senior al Qaeda leaders at Saddam's behest in 1994. According to administration officials familiar with his questioning, he has subsequently admitted additional contacts, including a meeting in late 1997. Hijazi continues to deny that he met with bin Laden on December 21, 1998, to offer the al Qaeda leader safe haven in Iraq. U.S. officials don't believe his denial.

For one thing, the meeting was reported in the press at the time. It also fits a pattern of contacts surrounding Operation Desert Fox, the series of missile strikes the Clinton administration launched at Iraq beginning December 16, 1998. The bombing ended 70 hours later, on December 19, 1998. Administration officials now believe Hijazi left for Afghanistan as the bombing ended and met with bin Laden two days later.

Earlier that year, at another point of increased tension between the United States and Iraq, Hussein sought to step up contacts with al Qaeda. On February 18, 1998, after the Iraqis repeatedly refused to permit U.N. weapons inspectors into sensitive sites, President Bill Clinton went to the Pentagon and delivered a hawkish speech about Hussein's weapons of mass destruction and his links to "an unholy axis of terrorists, drug traffickers, and organized international criminals." Said Clinton: "We have to defend our future from these predators of the 21st century. . . . They will be all the more lethal if we allow them to build arsenals of nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons and the missiles to deliver them. We simply cannot allow that to happen. There is no more clear example of this threat than Saddam Hussein."

The following day, February 19, 1998, according to documents unearthed in Baghdad after the recent war by journalists Mitch Potter and Inigo Gilmore, Hussein's intelligence service wrote a memo detailing upcoming meetings with a bin Laden representative traveling to Baghdad. Each reference to bin Laden had been covered with Liquid Paper. The memo laid out a plan to step up contacts between Iraq and al Qaeda. The Mukhabarat, one of Saddam's security forces, agreed to pay for "all the travel and hotel costs inside Iraq to gain the knowledge of the message from bin Laden and to convey to his envoy an oral message from us to bin Laden." The document set as the goal for the meeting a discussion of "the future of our relationship with him, bin Laden, and to achieve a direct meeting with him." The al Qaeda representative, the document went on to suggest, might be "a way to maintain contacts with bin Laden."

I emailed Potter, a Jerusalem-based correspondent for the Toronto Star, about his findings last month. He was circumspect about the meaning of the document. "So did we find the tip of the iceberg, or the whole iceberg? Did bin Laden and Saddam agree to disagree and that was the end of it? I still don't know." Still, he wrote, "I have no doubt that what we found is the real thing. We plucked it out of a building that had been J-DAMed and was three-quarters gone. Beyond the pale to think that the CIA or someone else planted false evidence in such a dangerous location, where only lunatics would bother to tread. And then to cover over the incriminating name Osama bin Laden with Liquid Paper, so that only the most stubborn and dogged of translators would fluke into spotting it?"

Four days after that memo was written, on February 23, 1998, bin Laden and his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, issued a famous fatwa about the plight of Iraq. Published that day in al Quds al-Arabi, it reads in part:

First, for over seven years the United States has been occupying the lands of Islam in the holiest of places, the Arabian Peninsula, plundering its riches, dictating to its rulers, humiliating its people, terrorizing its neighbors, and turning its bases in the Peninsula into a spearhead through which to fight the neighboring Muslim peoples. . . . The best proof of this is the Americans' continuing aggression against the Iraqi people using the Peninsula as a staging post, even though all its rulers are against their territories being used to that end, still they are helpless. Second, despite the great devastation inflicted on the Iraqi people by the crusader-Zionist alliance, and despite the huge number of those killed, in excess of 1 million . . . despite all this, the Americans are once again trying to repeat the horrific massacres, as though they are not content with the protracted blockade imposed after the ferocious war or the fragmentation and devastation.

The Americans, bin Laden says, are working on behalf of Israel.

The best proof of this is their eagerness to destroy Iraq, the strongest neighboring Arab state, and their endeavor to fragment all the states of the region such as Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Sudan into paper statelets and through their disunion and weakness to guarantee Israel's survival and the continuation of the brutal crusade occupation of the Peninsula.

Bin Laden urges his followers to act. "The ruling to kill all Americans and their allies--civilians and military--is an individual duty for every Muslim who can do it in any country in which it is possible to do it." It was around this time, U.S. officials say, that Hussein paid the $300,000 to bin Laden's deputy, Zawahiri.

ACCORDING TO U.S. officials, soldiers in Iraq have discovered additional documentary evidence like the memo Potter found. This despite the fact that there is no team on the ground assigned to track down these contacts--no equivalent to the Iraq Survey Group looking for evidence of Saddam's weapons of mass destruction. Interviews with detained senior Iraqi intelligence officials are rounding out the picture.

The Bush administration has thus far chosen to keep the results of its postwar findings to itself; much of the information presented here comes from public sources. The administration, spooked by the media feeding frenzy surrounding yellowcake from Niger, is exercising extreme caution in rolling out the growing evidence of collaboration between al Qaeda and Baathist Iraq. As the critics continue their assault on a prewar "pattern of deception," the administration remains silent.

This impulse is understandable. It is also dangerous. Some administration officials argue privately that the case for linkage is so devastating that when they eventually unveil it, the critics will be embarrassed and their arguments will collapse. But to rely on this assumption is to run a terrible risk. Already, the absence of linkage is the conventional wisdom in many quarters. Once "everybody knows" that Saddam and bin Laden had nothing to do with each other, it becomes extremely difficult for any release of information by the U.S. government to change people's minds.

Stephen F. Hayes is a staff writer at The Weekly Standard.
© Copyright 2005, News Corporation, Weekly Standard, All Rights Reserved.

[Nickdfresh]

Originally posted by DrMaddVibe
Saddam's al Qaeda Connection
From the September 1 / September 8, 2003 issue: The evidence mounts, but the administration says surprisingly little.
by Stephen F. Hayes
09/01/2003, Volume 008, Issue 48


....

Stephen F. Hayes is a staff writer at The Weekly Standard.
© Copyright 2005, News Corporation, Weekly Standard, All Rights Reserved.

Hey ASSVIBE, it's now 2006, you can stop posting three year old articles filled will "pre-war intelligence"...

You can now stop the blame CLINTON game...

And most of this shit has been well bebunked.

Here's all you need to know, even BUSH was forced to admit this you fools!



The Iraq Connection
Al Qaeda-Hussein Link Is Dismissed

By Walter Pincus and Dana Milbank
Washington Post (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A47812-2004Jun16.html) Staff Writers
Thursday, June 17, 2004; Page A01

The Sept. 11 commission reported yesterday that it has found no "collaborative relationship" between Iraq and al Qaeda, challenging one of the Bush administration's main justifications for the war in Iraq.

Along with the contention that Saddam Hussein was stockpiling weapons of mass destruction, President Bush, Vice President Cheney and other top administration officials have often asserted that there were extensive ties between Hussein's government and Osama bin Laden's terrorist network; earlier this year, Cheney said evidence of a link was "overwhelming."

But the report of the commission's staff, based on its access to all relevant classified information, said that there had been contacts between Iraq and al Qaeda but no cooperation. In yesterday's hearing of the panel, formally known as the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, a senior FBI official and a senior CIA analyst concurred with the finding.

The staff report said that bin Laden "explored possible cooperation with Iraq" while in Sudan through 1996, but that "Iraq apparently never responded" to a bin Laden request for help in 1994. The commission cited reports of contacts between Iraq and al Qaeda after bin Laden went to Afghanistan in 1996, adding, "but they do not appear to have resulted in a collaborative relationship. Two senior bin Laden associates have adamantly denied that any ties existed between al Qaeda and Iraq. We have no credible evidence that Iraq and al Qaeda cooperated on attacks against the United States."

The finding challenges a belief held by large numbers of Americans about al Qaeda's ties to Hussein. According to a Harris poll in late April, a plurality of Americans, 49 percent to 36 percent, believe "clear evidence that Iraq was supporting al Qaeda has been found."

As recently as Monday, Cheney said in a speech that Hussein "had long-established ties with al Qaeda." Bush, asked on Tuesday to verify or qualify that claim, defended it by pointing to Abu Musab Zarqawi, who has taken credit for a wave of attacks in Iraq.

Bush's Democratic challenger, Sen. John F. Kerry (Mass.), sought to profit from the commission's finding. "The administration misled America, and the administration reached too far," Kerry told Michigan Public Radio. "I believe that the 9/11 report, the early evidence, is that they're going to indicate that we didn't have the kind of terrorists links that this administration was asserting. I think that's a very, very serious finding."

A Bush campaign spokesman countered that Kerry himself has said Hussein "supported and harbored terrorist groups." And Cheney's spokesman pointed to a 2002 letter written by CIA Director George J. Tenet stating that "we have solid reporting of senior level contacts between Iraq and al Qaeda going back a decade" and "credible information indicates that Iraq and al Qaeda have discussed safe haven and reciprocal non-aggression." Cheney's office also pointed to a 2003 Tenet statement calling Zarqawi "a senior al Qaeda terrorist associate."

White House spokesman Scott McClellan said the commission finding of long-standing high-level contacts between al Qaeda and Iraq justified the administration's earlier assertions. "We stand behind what was said publicly," he said.

Bush, speaking to troops in Tampa yesterday, did not mention an Iraq-al Qaeda link, saying only that Iraq "sheltered terrorist groups." That was a significantly milder version of the allegations administration officials have made since shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

In late 2001, Cheney said it was "pretty well confirmed" that Sept. 11 mastermind Mohamed Atta met with a senior Iraqi intelligence official before the attacks, in April 2000 in Prague; Cheney later said the meeting could not be proved or disproved.

Bush, in his speech aboard an aircraft carrier on May 1, 2003, asserted: "The liberation of Iraq is a crucial advance in the campaign against terror. We've removed an ally of al Qaeda and cut off a source of terrorist funding."

In September, Cheney said on NBC's "Meet the Press": "If we're successful in Iraq . . . then we will have struck a major blow right at the heart of the base, if you will, the geographic base of the terrorists who had us under assault now for many years, but most especially on 9/11."

Speaking about Iraq's alleged links to al Qaeda and the Sept. 11 attacks, Cheney connected Iraq to the 1993 World Trade Center bombing by saying that newly found Iraqi intelligence files in Baghdad showed that a participant in the bombing returned to Iraq and "probably also received financing from the Iraqi government as well as safe haven." He added: "The Iraqi government or the Iraqi intelligence service had a relationship with al Qaeda that stretched back through most of the decade of the '90s."

Shortly after Cheney asserted these links, Bush contradicted him, saying: "We've had no evidence that Saddam Hussein was involved with the September 11th." But Bush added: "There's no question that Saddam Hussein had al Qaeda ties."

In January, Cheney repeated his view that Iraq was tied to al Qaeda, saying that "there's overwhelming evidence" of an Iraq-al Qaeda connection. He said he was "very confident there was an established relationship there."

The commission staff, in yesterday's report, said that while bin Laden was in Sudan between 1991 and 1996, a senior Iraqi intelligence officer made three visits to Sudan, and that he had a meeting with bin Laden in 1994. Bin Laden was reported to have sought training camps and assistance in getting weapons, "but Iraq never responded," the staff said. The report said that bin Laden "at one time sponsored anti-Saddam Islamists in Iraqi Kurdistan."

As for the Atta meeting in Prague mentioned by Cheney, the commission staff concluded: "We do not believe that such a meeting occurred." It cited FBI photographic and telephone evidence, along with Czech and U.S. investigations, as well as reports from detainees, including the Iraqi official with whom Atta was alleged to have met. On the 1993 trade center bombing, the staff found "substantial uncertainty" about whether bin Laden and al Qaeda were involved.

At yesterday's hearing, commissioner Fred F. Fielding questioned the staff's finding of no apparent cooperation between bin Laden and Hussein. He pointed to a sentence in the first sealed indictment in 2001 of the al Qaeda members accused of the bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania; that sentence said al Qaeda reached an understanding with Iraq that they would not work against each other and would cooperate on acquiring arms.

Patrick J. Fitzgerald, now a U.S. attorney in Illinois, who oversaw the African bombing case, told the commission that reference was dropped in a superceding indictment because investigators could not confirm al Qaeda's relationship with Iraq as they had done with its ties to Iran, Sudan and Hezbollah. The original material came from an al Qaeda defector who told prosecutors that what he had heard was secondhand.

The staff report on Iraq was brief. Though not confirming any Iraqi collaboration with al Qaeda, it did not specifically address two of the other pieces of evidence the administration has offered to link Iraq to al Qaeda: Zarqawi's Tawhid organization and the Ansar al-Islam group.

In October 2002, Bush described Zarqawi, a Palestinian born in Jordan, as "one very senior al Qaeda leader who received medical treatment in Baghdad this year, and who has been associated with planning for chemical and biological attacks."

Zarqawi wrote a January 2003 letter to bin Laden's lieutenants, intercepted at the Iraqi border, saying that if al Qaeda adopted his approach in Iraq, he would swear "fealty to you [bin Laden] publicly and in the news media."

In March, in a statement to the Senate Armed Services Committee, Tenet described Zarqawi's network as among groups having "links" to al Qaeda but with its own "autonomous leadership . . . own targets [and] they plan their own attacks."

Although Zarqawi may have cooperated with al Qaeda in the past, officials said it is increasingly clear that he has been operating independently of bin Laden's group and has his own network of operatives.

The other group, Ansar al-Islam, began in 2001 among Kurdish Sunni Islamic fundamentalists in northern Iraq, fighting against the two secular Kurdish groups that operated under the protection of the United States. At one point, bin Laden supported Ansar, as did Zarqawi, who is believed to have visited their area more than once. Tenet referred to Ansar as one of the Sunni groups that had benefited from al Qaeda links.


Only idiotic or deceptive Republican partisans that are trying to keep their little BuSHEEP flock in line are even remotely suggesting anything else...

[Nickdfresh]

http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/meast/03/11/Iraq.Qaeda.link/


Selling an Iraq-al Qaeda connection
Some critics blame TV news for making Baghdad new enemy

From Bruce Morton
CNN
Tuesday, March 11, 2003 Posted: 10:17 AM EST (1517 GMT)
...

During testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee in mid-February, CIA Director George Tenet added, "Iraq has, in the past, provided training in document forgery and bomb-making to al Qaeda. It has also provided training in poisons and gases to two al Qaeda associates."

These assertions, however, might be as good as the case gets for U.S. officials linking the terror network to Iraq. While some members of al Qaeda could be operating out of Iraq, intelligence and investigative sources said there is evidence the group also operates out of Iran and Pakistan. And while there is evidence Iraqi officials might have helped al Qaeda years ago, the same case could be made for Pakistani, Yemeni and Saudi officials.

So, when do we invade SAUDI ARABIA?

The Iraqi president repeatedly has denied any connection between his government and bin Laden's terrorist network. "If we had a relationship with al Qaeda and if we believed in this relationship, we wouldn't be ashamed to admit it," Saddam said in a recent interview on British television. "The answer is no. We do not have any relationship with al Qaeda."

Bin Laden recently declared solidarity with the Iraqi people, but he lashed out at Saddam's government. In the latest audiotaped message purported to be recorded by the al Qaeda leader, bin Laden denounced Saddam's socialist Baath party as "infidels."

Bottom line: U.S. officials claim there is evidence of an al Qaeda-Iraq connection -- but there is no "smoking gun."
....

[Warham]

Saddam and terrorism go hand in hand.

[DrMaddVibe]

Nothing can make the libs believers.

They missed out on the Soviet meltdown and now they want to be on the same side as the terrorists and brainless whiners like Sheehan and Dean.

[blueturk]

Originally posted by DrMaddVibe
Nothing can make the libs believers.

They missed out on the Soviet meltdown and now they want to be on the same side as the terrorists and brainless whiners like Sheehan and Dean.

Meanwhile, while the neo-cons are running around trying to figure out which reason for invading Iraq sounds better, North Korea (and likely Iran) actually DO have WMD capability. Yet their "leader" prefers far more diplomatic tactics to deal with those two, and the sheep follow along....

[blueturk]

Originally posted by DrMaddVibe
Nothing can make the libs believers.... they want to be on the same side as the terrorists and brainless whiners like Sheehan and Dean.

More idiotic Bush-Speak. Fuck you. Just because I disagree with your president's idiotic handling of the war (and damn near everything else, for that matter) doesn't mean I'm siding with the terrorists. What the fuck ever happened to that bin Laden guy? Remember him? Your president sure as hell doesn't.

[Warham]

Originally posted by blueturk
Meanwhile, while the neo-cons are running around trying to figure out which reason for invading Iraq sounds better, North Korea (and likely Iran) actually DO have WMD capability. Yet their "leader" prefers far more diplomatic tactics to deal with those two, and the sheep follow along....

And what's your solution for dealing with Iran and North Korea? Go over there and give them love like Slicky Willie did?

[blueturk]

Originally posted by Warham
Saddam and terrorism go hand in hand.

I wish Dubya would read that. He'd be so proud of you!

[Warham]

Originally posted by blueturk
More idiotic Bush-Speak. Fuck you. Just because I disagree with your president's idiotic handling of the war (and damn near everything else, for that matter) doesn't mean I'm siding with the terrorists. What the fuck ever happened to that bin Laden guy? Remember him? Your president sure as hell doesn't.

He's your president too. ;) Remember, John Kerry, your choice, didn't get elected.

[blueturk]

Originally posted by Warham
And what's your solution for dealing with Iran and North Korea? Go over there and give them love like Slicky Willie did?

Clinton again.:rolleyes: Admit it Warham. Bush had a hard-on for Saddam from the second he was "elected". You honestly don't think it's a little ridiculous to invade a country based on rumors of WMD (the reason of the moment), then relatively ignore one country that has already stated it's nuclear capability, and another one that is more defiant about it's weapons than Hussein ever was?

[Dr. Love]

I hope we invade Iran soon. I'm getting tired of reading these same old topics over and over.

[blueturk]

Originally posted by Warham
He's your president too. ;) Remember, John Kerry, your choice, didn't get elected.

Nice job of ignoring the question. You've obviously learned a lot from your leader.

[blueturk]

Originally posted by Dr. Love
I hope we invade Iran soon. I'm getting tired of reading these same old topics over and over.

Don't hope too much. Dubya would fuck that up too, and all the posts would look remarkably like they do now.:D

[Nickdfresh]

Originally posted by DrMaddVibe
Nothing can make the libs believers.


They missed out on the Soviet meltdown

Really? "They caused as much of the "Soviet meltdown" as REAGAN did...
'
CARTER started supporting the Afghan mujaheddin before he was even in office..


and now they want to be on the same side as the terrorists

You're too fucking dumb to figure out where they are apparently...


and brainless whiners like Sheehan and Dean.

Why don't you enlist tough guy and fight the "terra-ists?" Even your old ass can get in now...

No matter how much brainless Goebbels-esque propaganda you throw out, no, no thinking human being can believe this shit at this point...

[Nickdfresh]

Originally posted by Warham
Saddam and terrorism go hand in hand.

Before or after 1984?

http://italy.indymedia.org/uploads/2003/02/rumsfeld-saddam.jpg

[Nickdfresh]

Originally posted by Dr. Love
I hope we invade Iran soon. I'm getting tired of reading these same old topics over and over.

Seeing as you're only 25 dude, I'm no so sure I'd be up for that if I were you...

Besides, we're not talking about invading, more like limited airstrikes...

[Warham]

We are talking about airstrikes like Clinton used to do, where we'd target civilian areas, killing janitors instead of terrorists.

[Nickdfresh]

Originally posted by Warham
We are talking about airstrikes like Clinton used to do, where we'd target civilian areas, killing janitors instead of terrorists.

You're truly delusional...

How many civilians did BUSH get killed on the way to Baghdad?

Where do you even get this bullshit? Since when have Republicans ever given a shit about Muslim Sudanese Janitors that work in chemical plants?

[4moreyears]

Originally posted by Dr. Love
I hope we invade Iran soon. I'm getting tired of reading these same old topics over and over.

One more thing for Lounge, Ford, Nicksuckdick, and blueballs to bitch about.

[Nickdfresh]

Originally posted by 4moreyears
One more thing for Lounge, Ford, Nicksuckdick, and blueballs to bitch about.

Will you be going chickenhawk? Oh yeah, you won't pass the "don't ask, don't tell" test... Because you'll keep asking around until you find another one you brainless pansy...

BTW, did you miss the part where I said I wasn't necessarily against the attacking of IRAN nuke facilities, I was just wondering with what Army we'd do it with at this point, they seem sort of busy right now. Maybe you can help? you know? like become landmine tester or cannon-fodder human shield for real men that actually serve and put their money where their mouth is...

[blueturk]

Originally posted by 4moreyears
One more thing for Lounge, Ford, Nicksuckdick, and blueballs to bitch about.

Yeah. Just another war. No problem, right? Fucking idiot...

[Dr. Love]

Originally posted by Nickdfresh
Seeing as you're only 25 dude, I'm no so sure I'd be up for that if I were you...

Besides, we're not talking about invading, more like limited airstrikes...

True. But what do they need .NET devs for?


Maybe they'll need me to write them a nice killboard. :cool:

[BigBadBrian]

Originally posted by Dr. Love
True. But what do they need .NET devs for?


Maybe they'll need me to write them a nice killboard. :cool:

Are you using Visual Studio 2005 yet, doc?

[Dr. Love]

Originally posted by BigBadBrian
Are you using Visual Studio 2005 yet, doc?

I've used it a bit... still working on some 1.1 apps as well as some 2.0 ones.

Overall I like it.

[DrMaddVibe]

Reprinted from NewsMax.com

Friday, Jan. 6, 2006 11:07 p.m. EST

New Saddam Documents Detail Terror Training

The Bush administration is preparing to release never-before-seen documents captured when U.S. forces liberated Baghdad that chronicle the extensive training of thousands of radical Islamic terrorists by Saddam Hussein's regime.

"The secret training took place primarily at three camps in Samarra, Ramadi, and Salman Pak," reports the Weekly Standard's Stephen Hayes, who adds that the operations began two years before the 9/11 attacks and were "directed by elite Iraqi military units."

The existence of these documents, and the nature of what they describe, has been confirmed to the Standard by eleven U.S. government officials, Hayes says.

If true, the documents represent a bombshell finding that shatters the claims of Iraq war critics who have maintained for three years that Saddam Hussein had no connection whatsoever to Islamic terrorism.

More intriguing still is the documentation on Salman Pak - a camp previously described by Iraqi defectors as the location of airline hijacking dress rehearsals that bear a striking resemblance to what took place on 9/11.

Hayes reports that the materials currently being reviewed for release include photographs, handwritten notes, typed documents, audiotapes and videotapes - plus information recovered from compact discs, floppy discs and computer hard drives.

Taken together, the material chronicles a massive operation that trained 2,000 terrorists to attack Western interests each year from 1999 to 2002.

The volume of material examined so far represents the tip of the iceberg. Of the 2 million items recovered from Saddam's regime, just 50,000 have been thoroughly translated and analyzed.

"Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has convened several meetings in recent weeks to discuss the Pentagon's role in expediting the release of this information," the Standard says.

"According to several sources familiar with his thinking, Rumsfeld is pushing aggressively for a massive dump of the captured documents."

[Nickdfresh]

Will they be showing any Weapons of Mass Destruction too?:D

[Phil theStalker]

Originally posted by 4moreyears
ARE AL QAEDA'S links to Saddam Hussein's Iraq just a fantasy of...

Why can't you cunts just shut up and JOIN UP.

We won't miss ya!

YOUR president needs you.


:spank:

[DrMaddVibe]

Well, at least you spelled all of the words correctly...this time!

[Phil theStalker]

Originally posted by DrMaddVibe
Well, at leest yoo spelled all aff da werds correctly...dis time!
Is 'ya' a werd? huh

Tit is t2o mmme.:D


:spank:

[Phil theStalker]

Originally posted by 4moreyears
[B]Even Clinton said there is an Iraq t2o Al CIAeda
Didn't Clinton lie t2o a Grand Jury?

If he lied under oath nothing he says can be trusted.

A wise old woman o1nce said dis t2o mme:

"Liars make a craZEE person happy."

Yoo craZEE fool.:rolleyes:


:spank:


CLINTON LIES CAUSE HE CAN
AND HE TALKS LIKE I WRITE

[Phil theStalker]

FAkking server.

I'll clean dis up and delete tit.


:spank:

[ODShowtime]

Originally posted by Warham
Why does Bush need to do anything about Iran? I think Israel can handle Iran quite well.

If Iran ever thinks about nuking Israel, they'll fire one right back in a heartbeat. Maybe even before Iran fires one off.

You really don't get it. You're talking about the end of civilization.

[Warham]

Originally posted by ODShowtime
You really don't get it. You're talking about the end of civilization.

You still don't get my sarcasm after all these months, eh?

What's it going to take, a clubbing to the head? ;)

[Phil theStalker]

Originally posted by Warham
You still don't get my sarcasm after all these months, eh?

What's it going to take, a clubbing to the head? ;) Sarcasm is trolling. You know that every board on the Internet hates trollers (even the Rogan board). It's anti-Internet. So why don't you stop wasting everybody's time and add something intelligent and constructive?


:mad:

[ODShowtime]

Originally posted by Warham
You still don't get my sarcasm after all these months, eh?

What's it going to take, a clubbing to the head? ;)

that's kinda annoying Warham. watch it or I'll tell Ford.

[Warham]

Phil, you are far too intelligent to post such drivel.

[Warham]

Originally posted by ODShowtime
that's kinda annoying Warham. watch it or I'll tell Ford.

Yeah, I'd hate to have some of my posts deleted.

[ODShowtime]

Originally posted by Warham
Yeah, I'd hate to have some of my posts deleted.



Fuck that, we'll sick the feds on your ass!

http://www.rotharmy.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=31891


oh Warham, you're about to go 5 digits! :eek:

I wonder how many times the word Clinton was used in those 10,000 posts? :cool:

[Warham]

You might be surprised what happens after I hit that magical number.

[Phil theStalker]

Post 9998.;)