March 19, 2008

We Created Terrorism in Iraq

When will the anti-war movement come to grips with the fact that 9/11 was the catalyst for every horror that has befelled us, US, the Afghanis, the Iraqis, the Patriot Act and EVERY ACTION THAT HAS DIMINISHED OUR LIBERTIES? It is way past time to confront the contradictions of the government report and have a complete, non-governmental investigation into what happened on 9/11 and more importantly, why NOTHING WORKED on that day to protect the 3,000 people who perished.
Cheney again links Iraq invasion to 9/11 attacks as bombing victims are buried
By Hannah Allam and Laith Hammoudi, McClatchy Newspapers Tue Mar 18, 5:20 PM ET
BAGHDAD — Amid tears and wails, mourners in the southern city of Najaf on Tuesday began burying victims from a suicide bombing that killed nearly 50 worshipers and injured dozens of others just before evening prayers Monday in nearby Karbala .
[...] But Vice President Dick Cheney gave an upbeat view of conditions in Iraq as he concluded his unannounced trip to mark the fifth anniversary of the U.S.-led invasion. Cheney also defended the toppling of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein as part of the struggle against terrorism following the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
This month, an exhaustive Pentagon-sponsored review of more than 600,000 Iraqi documents captured during the 2003 U.S. invasion found no evidence that Saddam's regime had any operational links with the al Qaida terrorist network.
But Cheney, who spent the night at a sprawling U.S. base in the northern town of Balad, told soldiers they were defending future generations of Americans from a global terror threat.
"This long-term struggle became urgent on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001 . That day we clearly saw that dangers can gather far from our own shores and find us right there at home," said Cheney, who was accompanied by his wife, Lynne, and their daughter, Elizabeth.
"So the United States made a decision: to hunt down the evil of terrorism and kill it where it grows, to hold the supporters of terror to account and to confront regimes that harbor terrorists and threaten the peace," Cheney said. "Understanding all the dangers of this new era, we have no intention of abandoning our friends or allowing this country of 170,000 square miles to become a staging area for further attacks against Americans."
[...] Meanwhile, at the graveyard in Najaf, police restricted funerals to eight family members, out of fears that the funerals would become a target for further attacks. Emotions ran high among mourners of the bombing victims. One man draped himself over a coffin and sobbed, "My father, my father."
[...] The Baghdad reconciliation conference was intended to bring the country's warring factions to the negotiating table.
But only half of the 700 invited guests showed up, and any real chance for negotiations dissolved when both the leading Sunni Muslim bloc and the powerful faction loyal to the rebel Shiite Muslim cleric Muqtada al Sadr announced boycotts.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/mcclatchy/20080318/wl_mcclatchy/2883358

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