Justification for the Use of Force Against Iraq

2005-06-30T21:56:00.000-07:00

Justifying the Iraq war:

reference:
Joint Resolution to Authorize the Use of United States Armed Forces Against Iraq

Index of United Nations Security Council Resolutions

Whereas the efforts of international weapons inspectors, United States intelligence agencies, and Iraqi defectors led to the discovery that Iraq had large stockpiles of chemical weapons and a large scale biological weapons program, and that Iraq had an advanced nuclear weapons development program that was much closer to producing a nuclear weapon than intelligence reporting had previously indicated;

Iraq WMDs:

US REMOVES TWO TONS OF RADIOLOGICAL MATERIALS http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/07/07/iraq.nuclear/

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The United States removed nearly two tons
of radiological and nuclear materials from Iraq last month, the Energy
Department said. The material could have potentially been used to make a "radiological dispersal device" -- a so-called dirty bomb -- "or diverted to support a nuclear weapons program," the department said Tuesday. Radiological sources for medical, agricultural or industrial purposes were not removed, the department said. Less-sensitive materials were repackaged and remained in Iraq. The departments of Energy and Defense removed "1.77 metric tons of low-enriched uranium and roughly 1,000 highly radioactive sources from the former Iraq nuclear research facility," Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham said Tuesday. "This operation was a major achievement for the Bush administration's goal to keep potentially dangerous nuclear materials out of the hands of terrorists," Abraham said. "It also puts this material out of reach for countries that may seek to develop their own nuclear weapons." The material was gathered from around Iraq and taken to the Tuwaitha Nuclear Research Center, 11 miles southeast of Baghdad
and the main site for the Iraqi nuclear program before the war. The United States notified the International Atomic Energy Agency of the planned transfer on June 19, but "requested IAEA to keep the information about the intended transfer confidential for ... security reasons," Mohamed ElBaradei said in a letter released Wednesday by the United Nations. It was then was flown to the United States on June 23, where it will be held at secure sites, said Brian Wilkes, a spokesman for the National Nuclear Security Administration.

Gas shell findings a concern for Iraq arms inspector :

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The recent discovery of two chemical artillery shells in Iraq has raised concerns among weapons inspectors that other shells may turn up in the hands of insurgents battling American troops, the head of the U.S. search team said Wednesday.

Deadly Nerve Agent Sarin Is Found in Roadside Bomb :

An artillery shell containing the nerve agent sarin exploded near a U.S. military convoy in Baghdad recently, releasing a small amount of the deadly chemical and slightly injuring two ordnance disposal experts, a top U.S. military official in Iraq said yesterday.

Polish troops find sarin warheads in Iraq :

WARSAW (AP) — Polish troops have found two warheads in Iraq believed to contain a deadly nerve agent, but it is not clear what period the weapons came from, the Defense Ministry said Thursday.

Sarin, Mustard Gas Discovered Separately in Iraq :

Bush administration officials told Fox News that mustard gas (search) was also recently discovered. Two people were treated for "minor exposure" after the sarin incident but no serious injuries were reported. Soldiers transporting the shell for inspection suffered symptoms consistent with low-level chemical exposure, which is what led to the discovery, a U.S. official told Fox News.

Saddam's Bomb :

Khidhir Hamza, once Iraq's leading nuclear physicist, defected five years ago and, so far, has lived to tell about it. In his new memoir, he recounts the inside story of how Saddam almost built an atomic weapon

Iraq Survey Group:

We have discovered dozens of WMD-related program activities and significant amounts of equipment that Iraq concealed from the United Nations during the inspections that began in late 2002. The discovery of these deliberate concealment efforts have come about both through the admissions of Iraqi scientists and officials concerning information they deliberately withheld and through physical evidence of equipment and activities that ISG has discovered that should have been declared to the UN. Let me just give you a few examples of these concealment efforts, some of which I will elaborate on later:
-A clandestine network of laboratories and safehouses within the Iraqi Intelligence Service that contained equipment subject to UN monitoring and suitable for continuing CBW research.
-A prison laboratory complex, possibly used in human testing of BW agents, that Iraqi officials working to prepare for UN inspections were explicitly ordered not to declare to the UN.
-Reference strains of biological organisms concealed in a scientist's home, one of which can be used to produce biological weapons.
-New research on BW-applicable agents, Brucella and Congo Crimean Hemorrhagic Fever (CCHF), and continuing work on ricin and aflatoxin were not declared to the UN.
-Documents and equipment, hidden in scientists' homes, that would have been useful in resuming uranium enrichment by centrifuge and electromagnetic isotope separation (EMIS).
-A line of UAVs not fully declared at an undeclared production facility and an admission that they had tested one of their declared UAVs out to a range of 500 km, 350 km beyond the permissible limit.
-Continuing covert capability to manufacture fuel propellant useful only for prohibited SCUD variant missiles, a capability that was maintained at least until the end of 2001 and that cooperating Iraqi scientists have said they were told to conceal from the UN.
-Plans and advanced design work for new long-range missiles with ranges up to at least 1000 km - well beyond the 150 km range limit imposed by the UN. Missiles of a 1000 km range would have allowed Iraq to threaten targets through out the Middle East, including Ankara, Cairo, and Abu Dhabi.
-Clandestine attempts between late-1999 and 2002 to obtain from North Korea technology related to 1,300 km range ballistic missiles --probably the No Dong -- 300 km range anti-ship cruise missiles, and other prohibited military equipment.
at least nine Iraqi scientists questioned by ISG were assassinated within the year

WMDs : Stockpiles No, Intentions Yes says Report

Whereas members of al Qaida, an organization bearing responsibility for attacks on the United States, its citizens, and interests, including the attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, are known to be in Iraq;

Saddam-al Qaeda links:

Its all about 9/11:
EXCERPT:

On that score, nobody should worry about anything the Times or David Gergen or Senator Reid has to say about all this until they have some straight answers on questions like these. What does the "nothing whatsoever" crowd have to say about:

- Ahmed Hikmat Shakir -- the Iraqi Intelligence operative who facilitated a 9/11 hijacker into Malaysia and was in attendance at the Kuala Lampur meeting with two of the hijackers, and other conspirators, at what is roundly acknowledged to be the initial 9/11 planning session in January 2000? Who was arrested after the 9/11 attacks in possession of contact information for several known terrorists? Who managed to make his way out of Jordanian custody over our objections after the 9/11 attacks because of special pleading by Saddam’s regime?

- Saddam's intelligence agency's efforts to recruit jihadists to bomb Radio Free Europe in Prague in the late 1990s?

- Mohammed Atta's unexplained visits to Prague in 2000, and his alleged visit there in April 2001 which -- notwithstanding the 9/11 Commission's dismissal of it (based on interviewing exactly zero relevant witnesses) -- the Czechs have not retracted? The Clinton Justice Department's allegation in a 1998 indictment (two months before the embassy bombings) against bin Laden, to wit: In addition, al Qaeda 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.

- Seized Iraq Intelligence Service records indicating that Saddam's henchmen regarded bin Laden as an asset as early as 1992?

- Saddam's hosting of al Qaeda No. 2, Ayman Zawahiri beginning in the early 1990s, and reports of a large payment of money to Zawahiri in 1998?

- Saddam's ten years of harboring of 1993 World Trade Center bomber Abdul Rahman Yasin?

- Iraqi Intelligence Service operatives being dispatched to meet with bin Laden in Afghanistan in 1998 (the year of bin Laden's fatwa demanding the killing of all Americans, as well as the embassy bombings)?

- Saddam's official press lionizing bin Laden as "an Arab and Islamic hero" following the 1998 embassy bombing attacks?

- The continued insistence of high-ranking Clinton administration officials to the 9/11 Commission that the 1998 retaliatory strikes (after the embassy bombings) against a Sudanese pharmaceutical factory were justified because the factory was a chemical weapons hub tied to Iraq and bin Laden?

- Top Clinton administration counterterrorism official Richard Clarke's assertions, based on intelligence reports in 1999, that Saddam had offered bin Laden asylum after the embassy bombings, and Clarke's memo to then-National Security Adviser Sandy Berger, advising him not to fly U-2 missions against bin Laden in Afghanistan because he might be tipped off by Pakistani Intelligence, and "[a]rmed with that knowledge, old wily Usama will likely boogie to Baghdad"?

- Terror master Abu Musab Zarqawi's choice to boogie to Baghdad of all places when he needed surgery after fighting American forces in Afghanistan in 2001?

- Saddam's Intelligence Service running a training camp at Salman Pak, were terrorists were instructed in tactics for assassination, kidnapping and hijacking?

- Former CIA Director George Tenet's October 7, 2002 letter to Congress, which asserted: Our understanding of the relationship between Iraq and Al Qaeda is evolving and is based on sources of varying reliability. Some of the information we have received comes from detainees, including some of high rank.

- We have solid reporting of senior level contacts between Iraq and Al Qaeda going back a decade.

- Credible information indicates that Iraq and Al Qaeda have discussed safe haven and reciprocal nonaggression.

- Since Operation Enduring Freedom, we have solid evidence of the presence in Iraq of Al Qaeda members, including some that have been in Baghdad.

- We have credible reporting that Al Qaeda leaders sought contacts in Iraq who could help them acquire WMD capabilities. The reporting also stated that Iraq has provided training to Al Qaeda members in the areas of poisons and gases and making conventional bombs.

- Iraq's increasing support to extremist Palestinians coupled with growing indications of relationship with Al Qaeda suggest that Baghdad's links to terrorists will increase, even absent U.S. military action.

Possible Link to al Qaeda Seen in Oil for Food Program :

LUGANO, Switzerland — Did Saddam Hussein use any of his ill-gotten billions filched from the United Nations Oil-for-Food program to help fund Al Qaeda?

More Connections :

SADDAM HUSSEIN "always had links with international terrorist organizations." On the face of it, this is not a controversial statement. It comes from a CNN interview of Iyad Allawi, recently chosen as the interim prime minister of Iraq. Allawi expanded on this assessment in a December 31, 2003, interview with CNN's Bill Hemmer, when he estimated that more than 1,000 al Qaeda terrorists were operating in Iraq. But his more interesting comment came moments later. The al Qaeda fighters, he said, "were present in Iraq, they came and they were active in Iraq before the war of liberation. They were inflicting a lot of problems on the--and inflaming the situation in northern Iraq, in Iraq Kurdistan. They killed once about a year and a half ago 42 worshipers in one of the mosques in Harachi [ph] in a very ugly way."

The Iraq -- Al Qaeda Connections :
EXCERPT:

* 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 Secretary of State Colin Powell, who was speaking before 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, according to Mr. Powell.
* 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, Mr. Powell told the United Nations.
* 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, Mr. Powell told the United Nations.
* 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 by Mr. Powell.
* 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, Mr. Powell said. 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, Mr. Powell said. "Where did they go, where did they look?" said the secretary. "They went to Iraq."
* 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," Mr. Powell told the United Nations.
* 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."
* After October 2001, hundreds of al Qaeda fighters are believed to have holed up in the Ansar al-Islam's strongholds inside northern Iraq.

Iraq: A convenient letter from an Al Qaeda terrorist :

A letter has been discovered in Iraq, allegedly authored by Jordanian-born Islamic fundamentalist Abu Musaab al-Zarqawi, appealing to Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda for assistance in destabilising Iraq and US efforts to create a new government.

'Iraq and Al Qaeda; There's More Evidence of a Link than the Critics Admit' :

The Bush Administration was cautious, arguably too cautious, when making its case for the liberation of Iraq. Exhibit A is what it said about the links between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda. Investigators, interrogators and even journalists are turning up evidence of a stronger relationship than the limited ties originally sketched by President Bush and Colin Powell.

That wasn‘t the big story last week of course. The big news was that Mr. Bush said he has "no evidence that Saddam Hussein was involved" in the attacks of September 11, 2001. Predictably, this is being spun as a concession from the Administration, which has been accused of exaggerating the al Qaeda link.

In truth, Mr. Bush has never gone further than what he reiterated
last week: "There‘s no question Saddam Hussein had al Qaeda ties." U.S. intelligence officials, meanwhile, have confirmed that fact once again. Abdul Rahman Yasin, a suspect in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, was being harbored in Iraq; documents recently found in Tikrit indicate that Saddam provided Yasin with monthly payments and a home. According to federal authorities, the Ramzi Yousef-led terror cell that carried out the 1993 bombing received funding from Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, alleged mastermind of the 2001 attack.

Iraq, Al Qaeda links confirmed :

Washington - Iraqi opposition leader Ahmad Chalabi said on Sunday that he has"specific information" about links between the terror group al-Qaeda and the Iraqi intelligence service Mukhabarat.

"We have specific information about visits that leaders of al-Qaeda made to Iraq in as late as 2000, and the requests for large amounts of cash," Chalabi said.

Case Closed :

OSAMA BIN LADEN and Saddam Hussein had an operational relationship from the early 1990s to 2003 that involved training in explosives and weapons of mass destruction, logistical support for terrorist attacks, al Qaeda training camps and safe haven in Iraq, and Iraqi financial support for al Qaeda--perhaps even for Mohamed Atta--according to a top secret U.S. government memorandum obtained by THE WEEKLY STANDARD.

Zarqawi medical treatment before the war :

Zarqawi, linked to the death of an American diplomat in Jordan last year, is one of the Bush administration's links between al Qaeda and the regime of Saddam Hussein. He is also among the administration's most-wanted al Qaeda figures.

Zarqawi fled Afghanistan during the U.S.-led war to oust the Taliban. He passed through Iran and then received medical treatment in Baghdad in mid-2002, U.S. officials have said.

Whereas the current Iraqi regime has demonstrated its capability and willingness to use weapons of mass destruction against other nations and its own people;

Saddam's genocide:

Genocide in Iraq :

Saddam Hussein is known for his brutality but some of his most brutal acts of genocide have focused on the Kurdish people in northern Iraq. He directed an atrocious campaign involving mass evacuations, mass
executions, and massive military actions, including chemical attacks, against Kurdish men, women and children. The town of Halabja was the victim of the most notorious chemical weapons attack. And the people of that area are still suffering serious illnesses and deformities as a result.

The Anfal Campaign Against the Kurds :

Murder, in other words--including mass execution--continued to be a fundamental tool of the regime in its dealings with the Kurds, even
though Anfal was now over and most of the countryside was ninhabited. Anyone found in a "prohibited area" was likely to be killed, as was anyone suspected of peshmerga activity in the few villages that had been spared. Some of these killings were ordered by the Ba'ath Party's Northern Bureau, and Ali Hassan al-Majid appears to have kept a close personal eye on the elimination of prominent "saboteurs."

Genocide is genocide is genocide :

Saddam's rule was murderous and brutal. According to Human Rights Watch, more than 100,000 Kurds were killed in a 1987-1988 rebellion, including some 5,000 gassed in the city of Halabja. The government also poisoned wells and blew up homes, schools and mosques. Later in 1991 after the first Gulf war, Shiites and Kurds rose up against Saddam, only to be put down with blood-curdling ruthlessness; as many as 100,000 were killed. Add, countless victims of arrests, assassinations and executions during Hussein's 30 years in power and there's no doubt that this is a first-class criminal. No wonder many compare him to Joseph Stalin, a byword for Ukrainians and many others for terror and mass murder.

Mass Graves

Over 400,000 Iraqis have been found in mass graves.

gen·o·cide ( P ) Pronunciation Key (jn-sd)n. The systematic and planned extermination of an entire national, racial, political, or ethnic group

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?r=8&q=genocide

Mass graves:

Whereas Iraq continues to aid and harbor other international terrorist organizations, including organizations that threaten the lives and safety of American citizens;

Saddam supporting terror:

Saddam Hussein, the Iraqi president, has given over $25 million to Palestinian terrorist groups in less than two years.

http://www.husseinandterror.com :

Let’s start with money. 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. How do we know this? Tariq Aziz, Hussein's own deputy prime minister, was stunningly candid about the Baathist government’s underwriting of terrorist killings in Israel.

“President Saddam Hussein has recently told the head of the Palestinian political office, Faroq al-Kaddoumi, his decision to raise the sum granted to each family of the martyrs of the Palestinian uprising to $25,000 instead of $10,000,” Aziz, announced at a Baghdad meeting of Arab politicians and businessmen on March 11, 2002, Reuters reported the next day.

Saddam Terror Support Revealed

More on Saddam's Terror Links

Iraqi Intel Documents Show Saddam's Terror Ties

Saddam's Real WMD Was Terrorism

Iraq's Legacy of Terror: Mass Graves

Exclusive: Saddam Possessed WMD, Had Extensive Terror Ties

From Saddam's Philanthropy of terror:

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.

Certificate recognizing a suicide bomber's "martyrdom." Note the attached President Saddam Hussein's Grant" check in the lower right-hand corner. (Saddam's Philanthropy of Terror)

Saddam & 9/11:

Terrorism Vice Chair: Saddam Linked to 9/11

http://www.husseinandterror.com/ :

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. Below is a rare photograph of Ahmad Khalil Ibrahim Samir al-Ani. He was Consul and Second Secretary at Iraq's Czech embassy between March 1999 and April 22, 2001. He long has been suspected ofmeeting 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.
Mural found in one of Saddam's palaces in Iraq:

Justification of the Authorization for use of force against Iraq:
EXCERPT:

Final Conclusions: The inescapable conclusion is that, with the sole exception of the claim that Iraq was "actively seeking a nuclear weapons capability", the justification for war was completely accurate. And that claim has yet to be settled either way.No facts subsequent to the war have proven any of the official justifications false.Even the nuclear claim may be described as accurate depending on the extent to which Iraq is alleged to have "sought" the capability.

Bill Clinton :

There is no more clear example of this threat than Saddam Hussein's Iraq. His regime threatens the safety of his people, the stability of his region and the security of all the rest of us.

Pictures from Iraq:

Lost In Translation:

EXCERPTS:

'Mr. Qatuo described how Saddam's army grabbed two men, each twenty years old, shot them, and then forced the families to pay for the bullets.'

'This seemed like the moment to ask the question, "What do you think of the United States?""We cry when America loses one soldier. We pray for the soldiers every night." Many Kurds had expressed the same sentiment. One had said poetically: "For every drop of American blood, we shed one thousand Kurdish tears."'

'"My life is nearly finished," he said, almost wistfully. "But will be good for my children and my children's children.""Yes," I said. "It was worth it, no?""What?" he asked, confused at my meaning."Your struggle," I said. "Now you are free." Mr. Qatou smiled and disappeared into his memories briefly, then he spoke: "My life was mostly soldier and prisoner. My children are free."'

Extended Justification of the Authorization for Use of Force Against Iraq :

This is the full justification for the Authorization for Use of Force Against Iraq

"Whereas in 1990 in response to Iraq's war of aggression against and illegal occupation of Kuwait, the United States forged a coalition of nations to liberate Kuwait and its people in order to defend the national security of the United States and enforce United Nations Security Council resolutions relating to Iraq; "

True. UN Security Council Resolutions (UNSCR) 660, 661, 662, 664, 665, 666, and 667 all had to do with Iraq's invasion of Kuwait.
http://www.un.org/Docs/scres/1990/scres90.htm
http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/18076.pdf

"Whereas after the liberation of Kuwait in 1991, Iraq entered into a United Nations sponsored cease-fire agreement pursuant to which Iraq unequivocally agreed, among other things, to eliminate its nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons programs and the means to deliver and develop them, and to end its support for international terrorism; "

True. http://www.un.org/Depts/unscom/Chronology/resolution687.htm

"Whereas the efforts of international weapons inspectors, United States intelligence agencies, and Iraqi defectors led to the discovery that Iraq had large stockpiles of chemical weapons and a large scale biological weapons program, and that Iraq had an advanced nuclear weapons development program that was much closer to producing a nuclear weapon than intelligence reporting had previously indicated; "

Based on faulty intelligence, but True. http://www.mideastweb.org/iraqtimelineunscom.htm
Also, see above "Iraq WMDs", especially ISG leader David Kay's statement to House Permanent Select Committee On Intelligence, The House Committee on Appropriations, Subcommittee on Defense, and the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.

"Whereas Iraq, in direct and flagrant violation of the cease-fire, attempted to thwart the efforts of weapons inspectors to identify and destroy Iraq's weapons of mass destruction stockpiles and development capabilities, which finally resulted in the withdrawal of inspectors from Iraq on October 31, 1998; "

True. http://www.un.org/Depts/unscom/unscmdoc.htm

"Whereas in 1998 Congress concluded that Iraq's continuing weapons of mass destruction programs threatened vital United States interests and international peace and security, declared Iraq to be in "material and unacceptable breach of its international obligations" and urged the President "to take appropriate action, in accordance with the Constitution and relevant laws of the United States, to bring Iraq into compliance with its international obligations" (Public Law 105-235); "

True. Public Law 105-235 here .

"Whereas Iraq both poses a continuing threat to the national security of the United States and international peace and security in the Persian Gulf region and remains in material and unacceptable breach of its international obligations by, among other things, continuing to possess and develop a significant chemical and biological weapons capability, actively seeking a nuclear weapons capability, and supporting and harboring terrorist organizations; "

True. UNSCR 1441:

Recognizing the threat Iraq's noncompliance with Council
resolutions and proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and long-range missiles poses to international peace and security.

Also, http://www.globalsecurity.org/intell/library/reports/2002/nie_iraq_october2002.htm , http://www.iraqwatch.org/government/US/CIA/cia-tenet-031902.htm , and President Clinton's statement above.

President Bush's speech to the UN: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/09/20020912-1.html

Refer also to David Kay's statement from the ISG linked above and excerpts here:

We have discovered dozens of WMD-related program activities
and significant amounts of equipment that Iraq concealed from the United Nations during the inspections that began in late 2002. ......
Reference strains of biological organisms concealed in a scientist's home, one of which can be used to produce biological weapons......
New research on BW-applicable agents, Brucella and Congo Crimean Hemorrhagic Fever (CCHF), and continuing work on ricin and aflatoxin were not declared to the UN......
With regard to biological warfare activities, which has been one of our two initial areas of focus, ISG teams are uncovering significant information - including research and development of BW-applicable organisms, the involvement of Iraqi Intelligence Service (IIS) in possible BW activities, and deliberate concealment activities. All of this suggests Iraq after 1996 further compartmentalized its
program and focused on maintaining smaller, covert capabilities that could be activated quickly to surge the production of BW agents.

"With regard to Iraq's nuclear program, the testimony we have obtained from Iraqi scientists and senior government officials should clear up any doubts about whether Saddam still wanted to obtain nuclear weapons. They have told ISG that Saddam Husayn remained firmly committed to acquiring nuclear weapons. These officials assert that Saddam would have resumed nuclear weapons development at some future point.......
Starting around 2000, the senior Iraqi Atomic Energy Commission (IAEC) and high-level Ba'ath Party official Dr. Khalid Ibrahim Sa'id began several small and relatively unsophisticated research initiatives that could be applied to nuclear weapons development. These initiatives did not in-and-of themselves constitute a resumption of the nuclear weapons program, but could have been useful in developing a weapons-relevant science base for the long-term.

"Whereas Iraq persists in violating resolutions of the United Nations Security Council by continuing to engage in brutal repression of its civilian population thereby threatening international peace and security in the region, by refusing to release, repatriate, or account for non-Iraqi citizens wrongfully detained by Iraq, including an American serviceman, and by failing to return property wrongfully seized by Iraq from Kuwait; "

True. Human Rights Watch :

"The Iraqi government continued to commit widespread and gross human rights violations, including the extensive use of the death penalty and the extrajudicial execution of prisoners, the forced expulsion of ethnic minorities from government-controlled areas in the oil-rich region of Kirkuk and elsewhere, the arbitrary arrest of suspected political opponents and members of their families, and the torture and ill-treatment of detainees."

The UN :

Iraq has been condemned by the United Nations' top human
rights body for conducting a campaign of "all pervasive repression and widespread terror".

The claim that this was caused by the sanctions is false.

Refer to "Saddam's Genocide" above.

"Whereas the current Iraqi regime has demonstrated its capability and willingness to use weapons of mass destruction against other nations and its own people; "

True. Refer again to "Saddam's Genocide" above.

1986 March - UN Secretary General reports Iraq's use of mustard gas and nerve agents against Iranian soldiers, with significant usage in 1981 and 1984." and "1988 March 16 - Iraq attacks the Kurdish town of Halabjah with mix of poison gas and nerve agents, killing 5000 residents.

"Whereas the current Iraqi regime has demonstrated its continuing hostility toward, and willingness to attack, the United States, including by attempting in 1993 to assassinate former President Bush and by firing on many thousands of occasions on United States and Coalition Armed Forces engaged in enforcing the resolutions of the United Nations Security Council; "

True. http://www.fas.org/irp/news/1993/930626b.htm , http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/inatl/longterm/iraq/timeline/062793.htm ,

UN Security Council Resolution 1441:

Recognizing the threat Iraq’s non-compliance with Council
resolutions and proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and long-range missiles poses to international peace and security,
Recalling that its resolution 678 (1990) authorized Member States to use all necessary means to uphold and implement its resolution 660 (1990) of 2 August 1990 and all relevant resolutions subsequent to resolution 660 (1990) and to restore international peace and security in the area,
Further recalling that its resolution 687 (1991) imposed obligations on Iraq as a necessary step for achievement of its stated objective of restoring international peace and security in the area,
Deploring the fact that Iraq has not provided an accurate, full, final, and complete disclosure, as required by resolution 687 (1991), of all aspects of its programmes to develop weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missiles with a range greater than one hundred and fifty kilometres, and of all holdings of such weapons, their components and production facilities and locations, as well as all other nuclear programmes, including any which it claims are for purposes not related to nuclear-weapons-usable material,
Deploring further that Iraq repeatedly obstructed immediate, unconditional, and unrestricted access to sites designated by the United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM) and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), failed to cooperate fully and unconditionally with UNSCOM and IAEA weapons inspectors, as required by resolution 687 (1991), and ultimately ceased all cooperation with UNSCOM and the IAEA in 1998,

"Whereas members of al Qaida, an organization bearing responsibility for attacks on the United States, its citizens, and interests, including the attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, are known to be in Iraq; "

True. See the extensive connections between Saddam's regime and al Qaeda above.

and : http://www.techcentralstation.com/092503F.html

"Whereas Iraq continues to aid and harbor other international terrorist organizations, including organizations that threaten the lives and safety of American citizens; "

True. See "Saddam supporting terror" above. Also: http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2002/cfr/stories/iraq/

"Whereas the attacks on the United States of September 11, 2001 underscored the gravity of the threat posed by the acquisition of weapons of mass destruction by international terrorist organizations; "

Opinion, but accurate.

"Whereas Iraq's demonstrated capability and willingness to use weapons of mass destruction, the risk that the current Iraqi regime will either employ those weapons to launch a surprise attack against the United States or its Armed Forces or provide them to international terrorists who would do so, and the extreme magnitude of harm that would result to the United States and its citizens from such an attack, combine to justify action by the United States to defend itself; "

True. Explained above.

"Whereas United Nations Security Council Resolution 678 authorizes the use of all necessary means to enforce United Nations Security Council Resolution 660 and subsequent relevant resolutions and to compel Iraq to cease certain activities that threaten international peace and security, including the development of weapons of mass destruction and refusal or obstruction of United Nations weapons inspections in violation of United Nations Security Council Resolution 687, repression of its civilian population in violation of United Nations Security Council Resolution 688, and threatening its neighbors or United Nations operations in Iraq in violation of United Nations Security Council Resolution 949; "

Accurate citiation of UNSC documents. See: UNSCRs 678, 660, 687, 688, and 949.

index of UNSCRs: http://www.fas.org/news/un/iraq/sres/index.html

"Whereas Congress in the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution (Public Law 102-1) has authorized the President "to use United States Armed Forces pursuant to United Nations Security Council Resolution 678 (1990) in order to achieve implementation of Security Council Resolutions 660, 661, 662, 664, 665, 666, 667, 669, 670, 674, and 677"; "

True. http://www.radford.edu/~mfranck/images/490%20seminar/Iraq%20resolution%201991.pdf

"Whereas in December 1991, Congress expressed its sense that it "supports the use of all necessary means to achieve the goals of United Nations Security Council Resolution 687 as being consistent with the Authorization of Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution (Public Law 102-1)," that Iraq's repression of its civilian population violates United Nations Security Council Resolution 688 and "constitutes a continuing threat to the peace, security, and stability of the Persian Gulf region," and that Congress, "supports the use of all necessary means to achieve the goals of United Nations Security Council Resolution 688"; "

See the above justification.

"Whereas the Iraq Liberation Act (Public Law 105-338) expressed the sense of Congress that it should be the policy of the United States to support efforts to remove from power the current Iraqi regime and promote the emergence of a democratic government to replace that regime; "

See the above justification.

"Whereas on September 12, 2002, President Bush committed the United States to "work with the United Nations Security Council to meet our common challenge" posed by Iraq and to "work for the necessary resolutions," while also making clear that "the Security Council resolutions will be enforced, and the just demands of peace and security will be met, or action will be unavoidable"; "

True. http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/09/20020912-1.html

"Whereas the United States is determined to prosecute the war on terrorism and Iraq's ongoing support for international terrorist groups combined with its development of weapons of mass destruction in direct violation of its obligations under the 1991 cease-fire and other United Nations Security Council resolutions make clear that it is in the national security interests of the United States and in furtherance of the war on terrorism that all relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions be enforced, including through the use of force if necessary; "

The UN gives its chronology of the Weapons Inspections:

23-28 Jun 1991 UNSCOM/IAEA inspectors try to intercept Iraqi vehicles carrying nuclear related equipment (Calutrons). Iraqi personnel fire warning shots in the air to prevent the inspectors from approaching the vehicles. The equipment is later seized and destroyed under international supervision.

This was a blatant violation of the cease-fire. Also: David Kay's statement to Congressional Committees: saying that Iraq pursued its chemical weapons program up to 2003.

"...it is in the national security interests of the United States..."
The overwhelming evidence against Iraq validates this section of the clause.

"Whereas Congress has taken steps to pursue vigorously the war on terrorism through the provision of authorities and funding requested by the President to take the necessary actions against international terrorists and terrorist organizations, including those nations, organizations or persons who planned, authorized, committed or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001 or harbored such persons or organizations; "

The links between Iraq and al Qaeda as documented above prove a relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda.

"Whereas the President and Congress are determined to continue to take all appropriate actions against international terrorists and terrorist organizations, including those nations, organizations or persons who planned, authorized, committed or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such persons or organizations; "

Saddam's support of other terror groups is also well documented above.

"Whereas the President has authority under the Constitution to take action in order to deter and prevent acts of international terrorism against the United States, as Congress recognized in the joint resolution on Authorization for Use of Military Force (Public Law 107-40); and "

See previous authorizations:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/10/20021002-2.html

"Whereas it is in the national security interests of the United States to restore international peace and security to the Persian Gulf region; "

This is an obvious fact.

Conclusion: Iraq had WMDs and the desire for stockpiles; links to al Qaeda; links to other terror organizations; had committed genocide against the Iraqis (sometimes with WMDs); and was a threat to the security of the United States and the world.

myblog

Justification for the Use of Force Against Iraq

Autorantic Moonbat

TBTM Rally

9/11 Mem. Petition