Update: O.k., I'm guilty of skimming, and of not digging a bit deeper into the issues... First off, the article mentioned below states that the U.S. believes a senior Iraqi intelligence agent had penetrated Ansar al-Islam, and that he offered assylum to Al-Qaeda fighters. Now, let's look at this for a minute -- these Iraqi intelligence officials seem to be very adept at the human intel game (unlike the U.S., see the previous post below). Not only have they infiltrated a fundamental Islamic militant group (which must be opposed to Saddam if it's located in Northern Iraq, unless of course the whole organization is an Iraqi-created entity), but Powell also said that Iraqi intelligence had a source or a mole in the U.N. inspections team... Man, I wish our intelligence services were this effective. If so, we'd have operatives in Hussein's ruling circle and we'd be in governments all over the region. Instead we use "informants" who are paid money in return for their intelligence, which leads these people to think "hey, if I give this American guy stuff he wants to hear, he'll give me money". We need to develop a better way to do this sort of work -- perhaps Hussein can give us a few pointers?
Original post:
Err... What was that? How exactly does a Kurdish rebel group's links to Al-Qaeda then tie Al-Qaeda to Saddam Hussein? Aren't these guys fighting against Saddam? (New York Times) For those who don't have a NYtimes login (I highly suggest you get one, they're free), the article states that the U.S. has asked that sanctions be enacted against Ansar al-Islam, a Kurdish rebel group, because of its ties to Al-Qaeda. Colin Powell then is quoted further down in the article as saying that this points to the ties between Al-Qaeda and Iraq... Well, sure, that's _Northern_ Iraq, which is controlled by the United States, which supports Kurdish rebel groups, at least as long as they fight Hussein and don't fight Turkey... So, to assume that this rebel group somehow has ties to Saddam Hussein is pushing things just a tad.
Andrew 1:32 PM : |
