That's no news for me, but I wish this report had come out about 5 years earlier.

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2004 VW Jetta TDI (manual)

Past MB's: '96 E300D, '83 240D, '82 300D, '87 300D, '87 420SEL

Unfortunately no link to the actual report. I'd rather read it and come to my own conclusions than have that done for me by ABC news.

This also in the same article:

The study does, however, show that Saddam Hussein did much to support terrorism in the Middle East and used terrorism "as a routine tool of state power." Saddam's government, for example, had a program for the "development, construction, certification and training for car bombs and suicide vests in 1999 and 2000." The U.S. military is still dealing with the fall-out from this particular program.

The report says Saddam's bureaucrats carefully recorded the regime's connections to Palestinian terrorists groups and its financial support for the families of suicide bombers

***

Saddam did much to promote terrorism in the region, especially to help himself get richer and stay in power. In a sense he, and his country's research into new and innovative ways to kill civilians and thus incite terror were very much for sale to whomever had the money to buy.

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-livin' in the terminally flippant zone

No, I'm saying that what you wrote seems to show a great lack of knowledge regarding the Muslims that are hell bent on taking over the world and destroying Western Civilisation along the way.

Incidentally, you seem to think that a robust Intelligence Program that infiltrates militant Islamic groups can instantaneously be created and that we can do this effectively without the ability to survey their communications or associate with people who do bad things. As Peter pointed out; we decided to not do those things and instead take very nice pictures from orbit. It'll take quite a bit of time to re-invigorate those abilities. More so since every action along those lines appears to require a political fight with the Democrats in Congress as well as a media fight for public opinion. Essentially, about the worst way to conduct meaningful intelligence operations.

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-livin' in the terminally flippant zone

A terrorist is always a freedom fighter in someone else's view. The US has supported a number of so-called "freedom fighters" in recent history as well. The mujahadeens fighting the Soviets in Afghanistan is only one example. Talk about a fall-out from that "program".

__________________
2004 VW Jetta TDI (manual)

Past MB's: '96 E300D, '83 240D, '82 300D, '87 300D, '87 420SEL

I never said we shouldn't do this or that to infiltrate terrorist groups. I say do whatever it takes. The Europeans are doing it quite effectively and it's usually a much smarter approach than sending a big portion of our military to invade another country based on cherry-picked intelligence.

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2004 VW Jetta TDI (manual)

Past MB's: '96 E300D, '83 240D, '82 300D, '87 300D, '87 420SEL

Right. One more reason we should not have invaded Iraq.

That European Intelligence that you speak so highly of is the "cherry picked" intelligence that was used. In fact, the British have never rescinded their claim that Hussein was pursuing uranium in Nigeria and other weapons platforms. In addition, that exceptional European Intelligence, German this time, provided us with the "inside man" that made many erroneous claims about Saddams chem/bio capabilities on which we acted.

Unfortunately, hindsight is 20/20 and not foresight. It's easy enough to, after the fact, armchair quarterback decisions made based upon valid intelligence at the time. At least this time things weren't treated as a criminal investigation and then agencies prohibited from sharing data (they do that well enough on their own).

Trying to pin intelligence failure on "one day chopping trees and squirrel hunting" while ignoring the deliberate defunding and hamstringing of Intelligence Agencies in the 90's is ridiculous.

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-livin' in the terminally flippant zone

.

Right wing nut jobs trying to blame Democrats for their problems.

Lets see, it is republicans that started this war, and want to continue it.

Democrats want to find a way for our country to be energy independent.

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At least some truth is finally coming out.
That this war is about oil.

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Do you really want to drive your vehicle on blood.
How many people have to die for you to fill your tank ?

----

Get a grip, we do not need all this excess.
We need each other.

----

Find compassion !


RichC

.

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When the power of love overcomes the love of power the world will know peace.
Jimi Hendrix

The Democrats voted for it before they voted against it.

B

The democrats want energy independence?!
Give me a break!
Energy independence is easy.
Build nuclear electrical power plants ( not popular with the loony left)
Drill in ANWAR (n not popular with the loony left)
Drill in the Gulf of Mexico ( NIMBY)
We could completely replace Military East Oil in 10 years, or less if we really wanted to.

Who blocks all these ideas while telling us they are for the little guy?
Who is happy at higher gas prices? ( The answer is the same)

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1982 300SD " Wotan" ..On the road as of Jan 8, 2007 with Historic Tags

Bot, you got half of the quiz.

The Falcon was the most successful new car launch until its descendant, the original Mustang.

The most successful new car introduction prior to Falcon was also a Ford product. People rioted to get even a glimpse. Salesman wrote orders with only a picture of one. It was front page news for days.

Need another hint?

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1982 300SD " Wotan" ..On the road as of Jan 8, 2007 with Historic Tags

The Germans tried hard to get the US to understand they didn't find Curveball credible. The US didn't care.


You forgot pre-Crusades, and pre-Roman conquests, not to mention Christian attempts to conquer the world, which not only has been more effective than Muslim conquest, but still holds control of most of the territory they conquered. The Crusaders came from European countries, converted by the sword to Christianity. And, even worse, the insidious Christians still hold those lands.
Gimme a break. Talk about paying for the sins of the father. When do we invade Mongolia since Genghis Khan tried to conquer the world?

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1984 300TD

As far as I can tell, only the Vatican is a Christian country.

And only Iran is a Muslim country.

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1984 300TD

If you look at the various constitutions of the governments, few (if any) western democracies assert a Christian foundation of gov.

If you look at Muslim-dominant countries I don't think you will find any that don't specifically mention islam as the foundation of their system of gov.

I'm more than willing to be proven wrong.

B