Saudis' role in Iraq insurgency outlined
Sunni extremists from Saudi Arabia make up half the foreign fighters in Iraq, many suicide bombers, a U.S. official says.
By Ned Parker
Times Staff Writer
July 15, 2007
BAGHDAD — Although Bush administration officials have frequently lashed out at Syria and Iran, accusing it of helping insurgents and militias here, the largest number of foreign fighters and suicide bombers in Iraq come from a third neighbor, Saudi Arabia, according to a senior U.S. military officer and Iraqi lawmakers.
About 45% of all foreign militants targeting U.S. troops and Iraqi civilians and security forces are from Saudi Arabia; 15% are from Syria and Lebanon; and 10% are from North Africa, according to official U.S. military figures made available to The Times by the senior officer. Nearly half of the 135 foreigners in U.S. detention facilities in Iraq are Saudis, he said.
Fighters from Saudi Arabia are thought to have carried out more suicide bombings than those of any other nationality, said the senior U.S. officer, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the subject's sensitivity. It is apparently the first time a U.S. official has given such a breakdown on the role played by Saudi nationals in Iraq's Sunni Arab insurgency.
He said 50% of all Saudi fighters in Iraq come here as suicide bombers. In the last six months, such bombings have killed or injured 4,000 Iraqis.
The situation has left the U.S. military in the awkward position of battling an enemy whose top source of foreign fighters is a key ally that at best has not been able to prevent its citizens from undertaking bloody attacks in Iraq, and at worst shares complicity in sending extremists to commit attacks against U.S. forces, Iraqi civilians and the Shiite-led government in Baghdad.
The problem casts a spotlight on the tangled web of alliances and enmities that underlie the political relations between Muslim nations and the U.S.
Geeze, I guess this kind of undercuts the rational for expanding the war into Iran. Joe Lieberman (I-Israel) is likely to blow his stack when this hits the wire, and doesn't this also recall thoughts, of post-9/11 shock...our good friends in Saudi Arabia...home to Osama and 19 of the hijackers...what? How? Why?
oops, not supposed to question that link, must focus on Iran...they are evil, they hate freedom, they hate women...
But isn't Saudi Arabia the land where women are essentially treated as pets, forbidden to drive, teach, etc, and aren't there women in the Iranian government? Aren't there women who work as teachers? As doctors?
Geeze...take away that freak, (the Iranian president) and you don't have that evil looking of a nation...except for the fact they overthrew the shah, who we all know was the most generous, loving, wonderful ruler in the world...
This is as sad as it is disheartening...
Kind of like how Bush refused to attend the annual conference 5 years in a row!
Earlier in the day, and standing in the middle of 10 podiums, nine of them empty but waiting for Republican candidates, U.S. Rep. Tom Tancredo asked, “Do you think we should wait a few minutes to see if these other guys show up?”
The Colorado Republican was the only one of 10 GOP candidates who accepted an invitation to speak at the convention.
“Do they know something that I don’t know,” Tancredo said. “The fact is that I know something that they don’t. We may not agree on all issues, but we do have a very common cause – that the playing field is level for everyone, and the gates of opportunity are open for all.”
One of the leading critics of immigration legislation on Congress, Tancredo used his three-minute opening statement to talk about the issue, calling it one of the most serious domestic problems facing the nation.
“The federal government refuses to do its job,” he said.
The audience gave Tancredo a standing ovation, more because he was the only Republican to show up, rather than approving of his stance on issues.
truthdig by Robert Scheer
Bush's Pakistan Paradox
[posted online on July 11, 2007]
As Iraq continues to disintegrate, and our top generals and in-country ambassador predict that US troops will need to die there for decades in order to prevent a full-scale regional bloodbath, it is important to recall the reasons why we got into this mess. The marker of what will go down in history as "Bush's folly" is that this idiot of a President invaded a country that had absolutely nothing to do with terrorist attacks on the United States or WMD threats to America while coddling the military junta in Pakistan, which was guilty on both counts.
(For editors inclined to strike my reference in this syndicated column to our "idiot President" as excessively pejorative, I refer them to one definition of idiot in Webster's New Riverside University Dictionary: "being unable to guard against common dangers and being incapable of learning connected speech.")
Two news stories this week underscore the extreme irrationality and utter moral depravity of the Bush Administration in exploiting the 9/11 attack to justify the invasion of Iraq. They both concern Pakistan, the close ally of the Taliban government when Afghanistan hosted Osama bin Laden and his Al Qaeda terrorist network. And, as opposed to Iraq, Pakistan did have weapons of mass destruction and facilitated their proliferation to "rogue nations." Both examples provide damning evidence that Bush cared not a whit about WMD or about preventing another 9/11-style attack, because the danger of both existed in Pakistan, which he befriended, rather than in Iraq, which he invaded.
The first report details that Pakistan has effectively lifted the minimal house arrest restraints imposed on A.Q. Khan, the father of the "Islamic bomb," who presided over the transfer of nuclear technology to North Korea, Libya and Iran. The second is a devastating New York Times report that the United States failed to attack an important Al Qaeda gathering in Afghanistan at which top terrorist leaders were present, out of fear of alienating Pakistan's dictator, Gen. Pervez Musharraf.
Recall that Bush boasted in his 2004 presidential debate with Democratic candidate John Kerry that "we busted the A.Q. Khan network," when, in fact, neither Khan nor any of the top ringleaders of his nukes-for-sale operation have ever been brought to trial. Some had to hold high positions in the Pakistani government in order for the shipment of Pakistan's most highly valued nuclear technology to go unimpeded. Perhaps it is for that reason US agents have never been allowed to interview Khan, let alone subject him to the waterboarding torture reserved for those who wouldn't know a nuke if it hit them upside the head.
While American agents still aren't allowed to talk to Khan, an AP reporter had no difficulty interviewing him this week, reporting that the minimal restraints of his house arrest have been lifted. Thus, he is now, echoing that Southwest Airlines commercial, free to move about the country--if not the world. So, Bush did not bust Khan's network, but on the contrary he allowed it to function for years out of fear of embarrassing Musharraf at a time when Bush was cozying up to the dictator who had quickly pardoned Khan of all possible crimes.
Not offending Musharraf also led the Bush Administration in 2005 to jettison a planned attack on a high-level Al Qaeda gathering in Pakistan that US intelligence had learned of. Bin Laden's No. 2, Ayman Al-Zawahiri, was in attendance, and the capture of the man thought to be actually running Al Qaeda would have allowed Bush to begin making good on his promise to get the perpetrators of 9/11 "dead or alive."
Instead, as the New York Times reported, the mission was abandoned in the final moments, as Navy SEALs in parachute gear sat on C-130 cargo planes, because "it could jeopardize relations with Pakistan." The Times quoted Bruce Hoffman, a terrorism expert at Georgetown University, as saying, "The reluctance to take risk or jeopardize our political relationship with Musharraf may well account for the fact that five-and-a-half years after 9/11, we are still trying to run bin Laden and Zawahiri to ground."
No wonder that top US officials charged with defeating al-Qaida feel frustrated. As the Times reported, "Their frustration has only grown over the past two years, they said, as Al Qaeda has improved its ability to plan global attacks and build new training compounds in Pakistan's tribal areas, which have become virtual havens for the terrorist network."
Heckuva job, Bushie.
