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<channel>
	<title>Pierre Legrand&#039;s Pink Flamingo Bar &#187; Saddam Al Qaeda links</title>
	<atom:link href="http://pierrelegrand.net/category/saddam-al-qaeda-links/feed" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml" />
	<link>http://pierrelegrand.net</link>
	<description>A Common Man Looks at the War on Islamic Terror</description>
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		<item>
		<title>New Search Engine CUIL Shows with a Saddam Al Qaeda Search My Site in 4 of Top 6 Results with my site listed at #1 as well&#8230;weeeeeee.</title>
		<link>http://pierrelegrand.net/2008/07/28/new-search-engine-cuil-shows-with-a-saddam-al-qaeda-search-my-site-in-4-of-top-6-results-with-my-site-listed-at-1-as-wellweeeeeee.htm</link>
		<comments>http://pierrelegrand.net/2008/07/28/new-search-engine-cuil-shows-with-a-saddam-al-qaeda-search-my-site-in-4-of-top-6-results-with-my-site-listed-at-1-as-wellweeeeeee.htm#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 28 Jul 2008 20:25:09 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Pierre Legrand</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[9/11]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Al Qaeda]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Islam]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Saddam Al Qaeda links]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[9/11 saddam]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[al queda]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[cuil]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[saddam]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[saddam al qaeda collaboration]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[terror]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://pierrelegrand.net/2008/07/28/new-search-engine-cuil-shows-with-a-saddam-al-qaeda-search-my-site-in-4-of-top-6-results-with-my-site-listed-at-1-as-wellweeeeeee.htm</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[This blog began because of my desire to have a space to catalog all of the links that I had found regarding the collaboration of Saddam and Al Qaeda. Start here.  But don&#8217;t miss these posts either, here and here and lets not forget here. It is gratifying to know that I may have had some small effect on the debate.<br/><br/><span class="readmore"><a href="http://pierrelegrand.net/2008/07/28/new-search-engine-cuil-shows-with-a-saddam-al-qaeda-search-my-site-in-4-of-top-6-results-with-my-site-listed-at-1-as-wellweeeeeee.htm" title="New Search Engine CUIL Shows with a Saddam Al Qaeda Search My Site in 4 of Top 6 Results with my site listed at #1 as well&#8230;weeeeeee.">Continue Reading--3 words totally</a></span>]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://pierrelegrand.net/2008/07/28/new-search-engine-cuil-shows-with-a-saddam-al-qaeda-search-my-site-in-4-of-top-6-results-with-my-site-listed-at-1-as-wellweeeeeee.htm/feed</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
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		<item>
		<title>Pajamas Media has a blockbuster report on Islamic Penetration into the DOD&#8230;why am I not surprised?</title>
		<link>http://pierrelegrand.net/2008/04/08/pajamas-media-has-a-blockbuster-report-on-islamic-penetration-into-the-dodwhy-am-i-not-surprised.htm</link>
		<comments>http://pierrelegrand.net/2008/04/08/pajamas-media-has-a-blockbuster-report-on-islamic-penetration-into-the-dodwhy-am-i-not-surprised.htm#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 08 Apr 2008 19:57:44 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Pierre Legrand</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[9/11]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Al Qaeda]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Bin Laden Dead]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Iran]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Iraq]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Islam]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Saddam Al Qaeda links]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Terror war]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://pierrelegrand.net/2008/04/08/pajamas-media-has-a-blockbuster-report-on-islamic-penetration-into-the-dodwhy-am-i-not-surprised.htm</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[After all the Commander and Chief of this once great country likes to hang out with terrorists. 

For more than fifty years, the Institute for Defense Analyses (IDA) has been one of the leading government-sponsored and -funded research institutions, conducting highly classified research for the military and intelligence community’s most secret projects. Pajamas Media » Blog Archive » Your Tax Dollars Funding Terror <br/><br/><span class="readmore"><a href="http://pierrelegrand.net/2008/04/08/pajamas-media-has-a-blockbuster-report-on-islamic-penetration-into-the-dodwhy-am-i-not-surprised.htm" title="Pajamas Media has a blockbuster report on Islamic Penetration into the DOD&#8230;why am I not surprised?">Continue Reading--27 words totally</a></span>]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>3</slash:comments>
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		<title>FITNA Live Leak intimidated by Muslim Hordes&#8230;Google to the rescue&#8230;</title>
		<link>http://pierrelegrand.net/2008/03/28/fitna-live-leak-intimidated-by-muslim-hordesgoogle-to-the-rescue.htm</link>
		<comments>http://pierrelegrand.net/2008/03/28/fitna-live-leak-intimidated-by-muslim-hordesgoogle-to-the-rescue.htm#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 28 Mar 2008 21:25:12 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Pierre Legrand</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[9/11]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Bin Laden Dead]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Fitna]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Geert Wilders]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Iran]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Iraq]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Islam]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Marines]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Politics]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Saddam Al Qaeda links]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Terror war]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[free speech]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[obama]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://pierrelegrand.net/2008/03/28/fitna-live-leak-intimidated-by-muslim-hordesgoogle-to-the-rescue.htm</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Video: Fitna the Movie: Geert Wilders&#39; film about the Quran (English)

Live Leak had to pull this video because:

&#8220;Following threats to our staff of a very serious nature, and some ill informed reports from certain corners of the British media that could directly lead to the harm of some of our staff, Liveleak.com has been left with no other choice but to remove Fitna from our servers. This is a sad day for freedom of speech on the net but we have to place the safety and well being of our staff above all else. We would like to thank the thousands of people, from all backgrounds and religions, who gave us their support. They realised LiveLeak.com is a vehicle for many opinions and not just for the support of one. Perhaps there is still hope that this situation may produce a discussion that could benefit and educate all of us as to how we can accept one anothers culture. We stood for what we believe in, the ability to be heard, but in the end the price was too high.&#8221; Brennan<br/><br/><span class="readmore"><a href="http://pierrelegrand.net/2008/03/28/fitna-live-leak-intimidated-by-muslim-hordesgoogle-to-the-rescue.htm" title="FITNA Live Leak intimidated by Muslim Hordes&#8230;Google to the rescue&#8230;">Continue Reading--4 words totally</a></span>]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://pierrelegrand.net/2008/03/28/fitna-live-leak-intimidated-by-muslim-hordesgoogle-to-the-rescue.htm/feed</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>7</slash:comments>
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		<item>
		<title>Warming Stopped 10 Years Ago? Nothing to see here, move along!</title>
		<link>http://pierrelegrand.net/2008/03/22/warming-stopped-10-years-ago-nothing-to-see-here-move-along.htm</link>
		<comments>http://pierrelegrand.net/2008/03/22/warming-stopped-10-years-ago-nothing-to-see-here-move-along.htm#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sun, 23 Mar 2008 03:56:26 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Pierre Legrand</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Global Warming]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Katrina]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Saddam Al Qaeda links]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[environmentalist]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[leftwing wackos]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[obama]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://pierrelegrand.net/2008/03/22/warming-stopped-10-years-ago-nothing-to-see-here-move-along.htm</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Just this week we found out in this post that the Oceans were not warming, indeed there was a slight cooling (you might think that would get mentioned now and again) going on. Now we find out that a satellite we sent up in 2002 is turning over many of the premises scientists thought they knew about our climate models. And not only that but other signs indicate that our temperatures have not gone up for the last ten years that indeed again there had been a slight cooling. Hmm you might think that would get mentioned now and again? Hat tip Glenn Reynolds. Don&#8217;t miss the part at the end of this post that I have highlighted in red and bold and underlined&#8230;it is outrageous.<br/><br/><span class="readmore"><a href="http://pierrelegrand.net/2008/03/22/warming-stopped-10-years-ago-nothing-to-see-here-move-along.htm" title="Warming Stopped 10 Years Ago? Nothing to see here, move along!">Continue Reading--7 words totally</a></span>]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://pierrelegrand.net/2008/03/22/warming-stopped-10-years-ago-nothing-to-see-here-move-along.htm/feed</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>2</slash:comments>
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		<title>The Corner Translates Henry Kissinger and yup he thinks democratization is dumb too.</title>
		<link>http://pierrelegrand.net/2008/03/11/the-corner-translates-henry-kissinger-and-yup-he-thinks-democratization-is-dumb-too.htm</link>
		<comments>http://pierrelegrand.net/2008/03/11/the-corner-translates-henry-kissinger-and-yup-he-thinks-democratization-is-dumb-too.htm#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 11 Mar 2008 22:42:33 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Pierre Legrand</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[9/11]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Able Danger]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Al Qaeda]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Bin Laden Dead]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Iran]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Iraq]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Islam]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Saddam Al Qaeda links]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Terror war]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://pierrelegrand.net/2008/03/10/the-corner-translates-henry-kissinger-and-yup-he-thinks-democratization-is-dumb-too.htm</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[A long time ago in another life when I labored under the illusion that I could make a difference I wrote an over long but fact filled piece that got about 10 hits. Democracy a fools errand or our only way out? Jeane Kirkpatrick responds In this article I set about tearing up the idea that Democracy was some sort of a good idea. The idea for centering the article around Jeanne Kirkpatrick came to me after her passing while I was catching up on her brilliance as our UN Ambassador. Ronald Reagan knew how to pick them. In the particular piece that caught Reagan&#8217;s eye was a absolutely damning argument against forcing democracy onto everyone. You can read this wonderful article for yourself here.<br/><br/><span class="readmore"><a href="http://pierrelegrand.net/2008/03/11/the-corner-translates-henry-kissinger-and-yup-he-thinks-democratization-is-dumb-too.htm" title="The Corner Translates Henry Kissinger and yup he thinks democratization is dumb too.">Continue Reading--9 words totally</a></span>]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
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		<title>Pentagon looking for ass with both hands comes up empty&#8230;Saddam&#8217;s Connections to Al Qaeda IS a Slam Dunk!</title>
		<link>http://pierrelegrand.net/2008/03/11/pentagon-looking-for-ass-with-both-hands-comes-up-emptysaddams-connections-to-al-qaeda-is-a-slam-dunk.htm</link>
		<comments>http://pierrelegrand.net/2008/03/11/pentagon-looking-for-ass-with-both-hands-comes-up-emptysaddams-connections-to-al-qaeda-is-a-slam-dunk.htm#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 11 Mar 2008 16:03:08 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Pierre Legrand</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[9/11]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Able Danger]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Al Qaeda]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Iran]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Iraq]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Islam]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Saddam Al Qaeda links]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Terror war]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://pierrelegrand.net/2008/03/11/pentagon-looking-for-ass-with-both-hands-comes-up-emptysaddams-connections-to-al-qaeda-is-a-slam-dunk.htm</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[UPDATED: Ed Morrissey at Hot Air talking about the parts of the Pentagon report that were not covered in the Executive Summary.

Well it is just about time to publish this again seeing how the Pentagon insists on being dumb with reports like this one.  Next thing you know our government will be declaring that Islam is the religion of peace&#8230;oops. <br/><br/><span class="readmore"><a href="http://pierrelegrand.net/2008/03/11/pentagon-looking-for-ass-with-both-hands-comes-up-emptysaddams-connections-to-al-qaeda-is-a-slam-dunk.htm" title="Pentagon looking for ass with both hands comes up empty&#8230;Saddam&#8217;s Connections to Al Qaeda IS a Slam Dunk!">Continue Reading--282 words totally</a></span>]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
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		<title>Fun things I did on Summer Vacation&#8230;leaked secret attempts to stop nuclear war CHECK, leaked bungles of the CIA CHECK&#8230;weeee!</title>
		<link>http://pierrelegrand.net/2008/03/06/fun-things-i-did-on-summer-vacationleaked-secret-attempts-to-stop-nuclear-war-check-leaked-bungles-of-the-cia-checkweeee.htm</link>
		<comments>http://pierrelegrand.net/2008/03/06/fun-things-i-did-on-summer-vacationleaked-secret-attempts-to-stop-nuclear-war-check-leaked-bungles-of-the-cia-checkweeee.htm#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 06 Mar 2008 18:10:56 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Pierre Legrand</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[9/11]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Al Qaeda]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Bin Laden Dead]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Blogs for Bush]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Iran]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Iraq]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Islam]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Israel]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Saddam Al Qaeda links]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Terror war]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[leftwing wackos]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[mainstream media crime]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://pierrelegrand.net/2008/03/06/fun-things-i-did-on-summer-vacationleaked-secret-attempts-to-stop-nuclear-war-check-leaked-bungles-of-the-cia-checkweeee.htm</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The audacity and idiocy of the press continues unabated. Certainly much of this is driven by the fact that no one feels much danger these days. But regardless believing that it is immoral to force a reporter to give up his sources when those very same sources are breaking some very serious laws strikes me as absurd. Naturally it doesn&#8217;t strike the press corps as absurd&#8230;they have a right to aid and abet treachery in our supposedly secret services.<br/><br/><span class="readmore"><a href="http://pierrelegrand.net/2008/03/06/fun-things-i-did-on-summer-vacationleaked-secret-attempts-to-stop-nuclear-war-check-leaked-bungles-of-the-cia-checkweeee.htm" title="Fun things I did on Summer Vacation&#8230;leaked secret attempts to stop nuclear war CHECK, leaked bungles of the CIA CHECK&#8230;weeee!">Continue Reading--9 words totally</a></span>]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://pierrelegrand.net/2008/03/06/fun-things-i-did-on-summer-vacationleaked-secret-attempts-to-stop-nuclear-war-check-leaked-bungles-of-the-cia-checkweeee.htm/feed</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
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		<item>
		<title>Walid Phares endorses Mitt</title>
		<link>http://pierrelegrand.net/2008/02/02/walid-phares-endorses-mitt.htm</link>
		<comments>http://pierrelegrand.net/2008/02/02/walid-phares-endorses-mitt.htm#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sat, 02 Feb 2008 13:57:24 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Pierre Legrand</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Blogs for Bush]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Family]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Huckabee]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Iran]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Iraq]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Islam]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Mitt Romney]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Saddam Al Qaeda links]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Terror war]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[ron paul]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://pierrelegrand.net/2008/02/02/walid-phares-endorses-mitt.htm</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Some say that McCain&#8217;s strongest point is his desire to take the war to the enemy. But to me Bush&#8217;s weakest point was the fact that he never properly identified his enemy. Neither has McCain. 

Mitt on the otherhand has indeed identified Global Jihadism as the enemy and he did it a long time ago. When I heard him speak in Baton Rouge near the beginning of the race he was talking about Global Jihadism. Don&#8217;t we want someone who will take the battle to the enemy instead of reacting to the enemy? I do.<br/><br/><span class="readmore"><a href="http://pierrelegrand.net/2008/02/02/walid-phares-endorses-mitt.htm" title="Walid Phares endorses Mitt">Continue Reading--21 words totally</a></span>]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
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		<title>Any Questions?</title>
		<link>http://pierrelegrand.net/2008/01/06/any-questions.htm</link>
		<comments>http://pierrelegrand.net/2008/01/06/any-questions.htm#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sun, 06 Jan 2008 05:04:33 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Pierre Legrand</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[9/11]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Al Qaeda]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Bin Laden Dead]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Family]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Fred Thompson]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Iran]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Iraq]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Islam]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Politics]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Saddam Al Qaeda links]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Terror war]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://pierrelegrand.net/2008/01/06/any-questions.htm</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[I cannot say it any better than this ticked off New Jersey Housewife.

Written by a housewife from New Jersey and she sure speaks her piece and puts the facts out there!!!!!

&#160;This is one ticked off lady. <br/><br/><span class="readmore"><a href="http://pierrelegrand.net/2008/01/06/any-questions.htm" title="Any Questions?">Continue Reading--3 words totally</a></span>]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
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		<item>
		<title>Forcing Democracy into the Square Peg of Islam&#8230;</title>
		<link>http://pierrelegrand.net/2007/12/28/forcing-democracy-into-the-square-peg-of-islam.htm</link>
		<comments>http://pierrelegrand.net/2007/12/28/forcing-democracy-into-the-square-peg-of-islam.htm#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 28 Dec 2007 19:45:39 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Pierre Legrand</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[9/11]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Al Qaeda]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Bin Laden Dead]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Iran]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Iraq]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Islam]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Saddam Al Qaeda links]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Terror war]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[ron paul]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://pierrelegrand.net/2007/12/28/forcing-democracy-into-the-square-peg-of-islam.htm</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Andrew McCarthy gets it right again when he bemoans the idiocy of trying to impose democracy onto Islamic nations.

A recent CNN poll showed that 46 percent of Pakistanis approve of Osama bin Laden.

Aspirants to the American presidency should hope to score so highly in the United States. In Pakistan, though, the al-Qaeda emir easily beat out that country�s current president, Pervez Musharraf, who polled at 38 percent. Andrew C. McCarthy on Benazir Bhutto on National Review Online<br/><br/><span class="readmore"><a href="http://pierrelegrand.net/2007/12/28/forcing-democracy-into-the-square-peg-of-islam.htm" title="Forcing Democracy into the Square Peg of Islam&#8230;">Continue Reading--25 words totally</a></span>]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://pierrelegrand.net/2007/12/28/forcing-democracy-into-the-square-peg-of-islam.htm/feed</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>1</slash:comments>
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		<title>President Sarkozy, your welcome. Thank you for stating what my family believed as well!</title>
		<link>http://pierrelegrand.net/2007/11/09/president-sarkozy-your-welcome-thank-you-for-stating-what-my-family-believed-as-well.htm</link>
		<comments>http://pierrelegrand.net/2007/11/09/president-sarkozy-your-welcome-thank-you-for-stating-what-my-family-believed-as-well.htm#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 09 Nov 2007 13:18:58 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Pierre Legrand</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Al Qaeda]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Saddam Al Qaeda links]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Terror war]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://pierrelegrand.net/2007/11/09/president-sarkozy-your-welcome-thank-you-for-stating-what-my-family-believed-as-well.htm</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[We thank the French for defeating the Islamic armies at Tours, your country&#8217;s heroism saved Western Civilization.

President Sarkozy of France delivered this speech to a joint session of Congress. Pearls before swine but not all of Congress are useless leeches, witness Senator Inouye<br/><br/><span class="readmore"><a href="http://pierrelegrand.net/2007/11/09/president-sarkozy-your-welcome-thank-you-for-stating-what-my-family-believed-as-well.htm" title="President Sarkozy, your welcome. Thank you for stating what my family believed as well!">Continue Reading--4 words totally</a></span>]]></description>
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		<title>U.S. Confirms Israeli Strikes Hit Syrian Targets&#8230;Saddam&#8217;s Nuclear Program Found?</title>
		<link>http://pierrelegrand.net/2007/09/12/us-confirms-israeli-strikes-hit-syrian-targetssaddams-nuclear-program-found.htm</link>
		<comments>http://pierrelegrand.net/2007/09/12/us-confirms-israeli-strikes-hit-syrian-targetssaddams-nuclear-program-found.htm#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 12 Sep 2007 12:44:19 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Pierre Legrand</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Al Qaeda]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Iran]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Iraq]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[N Korea]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Saddam Al Qaeda links]]></category>

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		<description><![CDATA[You know I remember reports circulating that claimed Saddam&#8217;s nuclear goods such as they were had been moved to Syria. Those reports were squashed by an unlikely set of allies, anti war freaks and various intelligence sources who obviously didn&#8217;t want their respective agencies blamed for the loss. When you stop to think about who had anything to gain from finding Saddam&#8217;s weapons program in Syria the list is awfully short and doesn&#8217;t include anyone in the Government. We might have expected patriotic Democrats to highlight this administrations failure to stop the very action we went to war to prevent but on one hand most Democrats have thrown their lot in with MoveOn and the rest are laying low. <br/><br/><span class="readmore"><a href="http://pierrelegrand.net/2007/09/12/us-confirms-israeli-strikes-hit-syrian-targetssaddams-nuclear-program-found.htm" title="U.S. Confirms Israeli Strikes Hit Syrian Targets&#8230;Saddam&#8217;s Nuclear Program Found?">Continue Reading--5 words totally</a></span>]]></description>
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		<title>9/11 In Video, Never Forget</title>
		<link>http://pierrelegrand.net/2007/09/11/911-in-video-never-forget.htm</link>
		<comments>http://pierrelegrand.net/2007/09/11/911-in-video-never-forget.htm#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 11 Sep 2007 05:30:50 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Pierre Legrand</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[9/11]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Al Qaeda]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Saddam Al Qaeda links]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Terror war]]></category>

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		<description><![CDATA[]]></description>
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		<title>Don Quixote&#8217;s letter to the President, tilting at windmills can be fun</title>
		<link>http://pierrelegrand.net/2007/07/25/don-quixotes-letter-to-the-president-tilting-at-windmills-can-be-fun-2.htm</link>
		<comments>http://pierrelegrand.net/2007/07/25/don-quixotes-letter-to-the-president-tilting-at-windmills-can-be-fun-2.htm#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 25 Jul 2007 11:30:04 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Pierre Legrand</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Iraq]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Saddam Al Qaeda links]]></category>

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		<description><![CDATA[UPDATE: September 22, 2003 was the original publish date for this missive. I believed back then and events have done nothing to convince me otherwise that the Administration was making a grevious error by trying to justify the war in Iraq using the violations of UN sanctions as justification. I guessed and apparently got it right that keeping the American people believing in the war was crucial. We have squandered that advantage by approaching the justification for war in Iraq as a legal exercise. To me it is no coincidence that support for the war was at it&#8217;s highest when the American people believed that Saddam had a part in 9/11.<br/><br/><span class="readmore"><a href="http://pierrelegrand.net/2007/07/25/don-quixotes-letter-to-the-president-tilting-at-windmills-can-be-fun-2.htm" title="Don Quixote&#8217;s letter to the President, tilting at windmills can be fun">Continue Reading--15 words totally</a></span>]]></description>
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		<title>Making a fuss about the drop in applause for Suicide Bombing&#8230;but oopsy Bin Laden still riding high!</title>
		<link>http://pierrelegrand.net/2007/07/24/making-a-fuss-about-the-drop-in-applause-for-suicide-bombingbut-oopsy-bin-laden-still-riding-high.htm</link>
		<comments>http://pierrelegrand.net/2007/07/24/making-a-fuss-about-the-drop-in-applause-for-suicide-bombingbut-oopsy-bin-laden-still-riding-high.htm#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 25 Jul 2007 04:58:13 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Pierre Legrand</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Al Qaeda]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Bin Laden Dead]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Iran]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Iraq]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Islam]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Saddam Al Qaeda links]]></category>

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		<description><![CDATA[While it might be good news that there is a drop in support for suicide bombing it is also true that it might be a tad early to call this election. Consider the &#8220;moderate&#8221; state of Indonesia where the acclaimed mass murderer Bin Laden is still showing as strongly as ever. Don&#8217;t let that Pew Poll fool ya in 2005 Binny Baby was polling at 38% so his support has actually edged up.<br/><br/><span class="readmore"><a href="http://pierrelegrand.net/2007/07/24/making-a-fuss-about-the-drop-in-applause-for-suicide-bombingbut-oopsy-bin-laden-still-riding-high.htm" title="Making a fuss about the drop in applause for Suicide Bombing&#8230;but oopsy Bin Laden still riding high!">Continue Reading--13 words totally</a></span>]]></description>
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		<title>The Problem Child Iran, thinking out of the box&#8230;yes we can!</title>
		<link>http://pierrelegrand.net/2007/07/16/the-problem-child-iran-thinking-out-of-the-boxyes-we-can.htm</link>
		<comments>http://pierrelegrand.net/2007/07/16/the-problem-child-iran-thinking-out-of-the-boxyes-we-can.htm#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 17 Jul 2007 01:09:56 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Pierre Legrand</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Al Qaeda]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Bin Laden Dead]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Iran]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Iraq]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Saddam Al Qaeda links]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Terror war]]></category>

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		<description><![CDATA[Was visiting Captains Quarters tonight and came across a post where the Captain is worrying about reports that Vice President Cheney is going to convince President Bush to launch a war against Iran. Now first off worrying about reports emanating from the Guardian is a bit like worrying about reports from CBS. Not very likely that reality and those reports have much in common. But&#8230;<br/><br/><span class="readmore"><a href="http://pierrelegrand.net/2007/07/16/the-problem-child-iran-thinking-out-of-the-boxyes-we-can.htm" title="The Problem Child Iran, thinking out of the box&#8230;yes we can!">Continue Reading--25 words totally</a></span>]]></description>
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		<title>Bill Clinton apologizes for allowing Al Qaeda to gather strength during his administration&#8230;well he should!</title>
		<link>http://pierrelegrand.net/2007/07/14/bill-clinton-apologizes-for-allowing-al-qaeda-to-gather-strength-during-his-administrationwell-he-should.htm</link>
		<comments>http://pierrelegrand.net/2007/07/14/bill-clinton-apologizes-for-allowing-al-qaeda-to-gather-strength-during-his-administrationwell-he-should.htm#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sat, 14 Jul 2007 21:16:28 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Pierre Legrand</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Al Qaeda]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Blogs for Bush]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Iran]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Iraq]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Islam]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Politics]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Saddam Al Qaeda links]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Terror war]]></category>

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		<description><![CDATA[So then Bill Clinton a man who was busy seducing a fat intern while Al Qaeda launched it&#8217;s war on the United States has the sheer audacity to claim that President Bush has forgotten about Bin Gone. Oops I forget its an article of faith with the cowardly left that Bin Laden is, one still alive, two relevant even if he isn&#8217;t a collection of dust finding its way to hell. Watch and learn kiddies if you want to be a world class liar then you must make up the most outrageous sorts of lies. And Bill &#8220;the meaning of is&#8221; Clinton&#8217;s only legacy to the country is his legendary ability to tell people what they want to hear no matter how far away from the truth he must stray.<br/><br/><span class="readmore"><a href="http://pierrelegrand.net/2007/07/14/bill-clinton-apologizes-for-allowing-al-qaeda-to-gather-strength-during-his-administrationwell-he-should.htm" title="Bill Clinton apologizes for allowing Al Qaeda to gather strength during his administration&#8230;well he should!">Continue Reading--46 words totally</a></span>]]></description>
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		<title>Regime of Terror BLOG OF THE DAY!</title>
		<link>http://pierrelegrand.net/2007/07/07/regime-of-terror-blog-of-the-day.htm</link>
		<comments>http://pierrelegrand.net/2007/07/07/regime-of-terror-blog-of-the-day.htm#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sat, 07 Jul 2007 16:49:05 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Pierre Legrand</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Saddam Al Qaeda links]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Terror war]]></category>

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		<description><![CDATA[BLOG OF THE DAY&#160;

Some terrific refutation of the meme that Saddam was not linked to terror going on over at the Regime of Terror. You should visit.

Link to Regime of Terror <br/><br/><span class="readmore"><a href="http://pierrelegrand.net/2007/07/07/regime-of-terror-blog-of-the-day.htm" title="Regime of Terror BLOG OF THE DAY!">Continue Reading--3 words totally</a></span>]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>2</slash:comments>
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		<title>Standards of evidence&#8230;who sets them&#8230;and whose side are the judges on?</title>
		<link>http://pierrelegrand.net/2007/06/20/standards-of-evidencewho-sets-themand-whose-side-are-the-judges-on.htm</link>
		<comments>http://pierrelegrand.net/2007/06/20/standards-of-evidencewho-sets-themand-whose-side-are-the-judges-on.htm#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 20 Jun 2007 12:52:06 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Pierre Legrand</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Al Qaeda]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Iran]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Iraq]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Islam]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Saddam Al Qaeda links]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Terror war]]></category>

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		<description><![CDATA[Walter Williams over at Capitalism Magazine wonders about how we might create a credible disincentive to a nuclear attack on this country. He references a Victor Davis Hanson article that I discussed here.&#160;Not surprisingly he falls into the same trap as Dr. Hanson. This threat only works if those countries you are threatening believe without a doubt two very doubtful facts about the United States.<br/><br/><span class="readmore"><a href="http://pierrelegrand.net/2007/06/20/standards-of-evidencewho-sets-themand-whose-side-are-the-judges-on.htm" title="Standards of evidence&#8230;who sets them&#8230;and whose side are the judges on?">Continue Reading--7 words totally</a></span>]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>1</slash:comments>
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		<title>Al Gore taking Richard Perle&#8217;s side against Saddam&#8230;you have to see it.</title>
		<link>http://pierrelegrand.net/2007/06/12/al-gore-taking-richard-perles-side-against-saddamyou-have-to-see-it.htm</link>
		<comments>http://pierrelegrand.net/2007/06/12/al-gore-taking-richard-perles-side-against-saddamyou-have-to-see-it.htm#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 12 Jun 2007 21:39:13 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Pierre Legrand</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Al Qaeda]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Iran]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Iraq]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Politics]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Saddam Al Qaeda links]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Terror war]]></category>

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		<description><![CDATA[Al Gore making the case for Saddam being linked to terror&#8230;back in 1992 when it was important. You know when he was bashing Reagan and Bush in the election. My how times change.

Say what you will but the days of being able to make claims like this and hoping that it will disappear into the rabbit hole of history are gone. Hat tip to Powerline and Hot Air&#8230;y&#8217;all are what keep me going.<br/><br/><span class="readmore"><a href="http://pierrelegrand.net/2007/06/12/al-gore-taking-richard-perles-side-against-saddamyou-have-to-see-it.htm" title="Al Gore taking Richard Perle&#8217;s side against Saddam&#8230;you have to see it.">Continue Reading--7 words totally</a></span>]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>1</slash:comments>
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		<title>FBI talks about 6 Terrorists arrested in NJ but forgets to mention the 4 they let go&#8230;hmmmm.</title>
		<link>http://pierrelegrand.net/2007/05/14/fbi-talks-about-6-terrorists-arrested-in-nj-but-forgets-to-mention-the-4-they-let-gohmmmm.htm</link>
		<comments>http://pierrelegrand.net/2007/05/14/fbi-talks-about-6-terrorists-arrested-in-nj-but-forgets-to-mention-the-4-they-let-gohmmmm.htm#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 15 May 2007 04:03:26 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Pierre Legrand</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Al Qaeda]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Iraq]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Islam]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Saddam Al Qaeda links]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Terror war]]></category>

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		<description><![CDATA[This is a worrisome trend in our fight against the Islamic Radicals making war against our civilization. No not the fact that we are employing the FBI, though that isindeed worrisomee. What is the most worrisome is our Government agencies not telling us the score regarding the arrests they do make. See there were 10 Terrorists originally seen in the video.&#160;Four were not arrested because of&#160;lack of&#160;evidence. The four were&#160;not arrested even though they were seen in the video firing weapons and shouting Allah Akbar along with the six now&#160;in custody. Apparently there was not enough evidence to arrest them. The idiocy of treating this as a law enforcement issue was dealt with here.<br/><br/><span class="readmore"><a href="http://pierrelegrand.net/2007/05/14/fbi-talks-about-6-terrorists-arrested-in-nj-but-forgets-to-mention-the-4-they-let-gohmmmm.htm" title="FBI talks about 6 Terrorists arrested in NJ but forgets to mention the 4 they let go&#8230;hmmmm.">Continue Reading--39 words totally</a></span>]]></description>
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		<title>BAGHDAD BLUES By RALPH PETERS &#8230;why I respect the man even though we part ways on Islam</title>
		<link>http://pierrelegrand.net/2007/05/11/baghdad-blues-by-ralph-peters-why-i-respect-the-man-even-though-we-part-ways-on-islam.htm</link>
		<comments>http://pierrelegrand.net/2007/05/11/baghdad-blues-by-ralph-peters-why-i-respect-the-man-even-though-we-part-ways-on-islam.htm#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 11 May 2007 12:53:11 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Pierre Legrand</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Al Qaeda]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Iran]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Iraq]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Islam]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Saddam Al Qaeda links]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Terror war]]></category>

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		<description><![CDATA[This&#160;article by Ralph Peters dovetails nicely with the article by LTC Yingling that&#160;got so many&#160;backs up in the conservative side of the isle. Probably because this failure&#160;sits pretty hard on the Bush Administration. I say this because one thing is&#160;very evident after all these years of the administration, they are completely unwilling to penalize management for failure. Long ago Lincoln would have been firing Generals until he could find one who could&#160;fight.&#160;<br/><br/><span class="readmore"><a href="http://pierrelegrand.net/2007/05/11/baghdad-blues-by-ralph-peters-why-i-respect-the-man-even-though-we-part-ways-on-islam.htm" title="BAGHDAD BLUES By RALPH PETERS &#8230;why I respect the man even though we part ways on Islam">Continue Reading--23 words totally</a></span>]]></description>
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		<title>Smack down&#8230;the idea that there exists something called Moderate Islam.</title>
		<link>http://pierrelegrand.net/2007/05/09/smack-downthe-idea-that-there-exists-something-called-moderate-islam.htm</link>
		<comments>http://pierrelegrand.net/2007/05/09/smack-downthe-idea-that-there-exists-something-called-moderate-islam.htm#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 09 May 2007 21:47:04 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Pierre Legrand</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Al Qaeda]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Iran]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Iraq]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Islam]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Saddam Al Qaeda links]]></category>
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		<description><![CDATA[This is an old post of mine that I was just admiring and thought hey why not bring that suckerhead up front so y&#8217;all can admire my brilliance again&#8230;hehe.

Without a valid opposition party this country is in extreme danger due to the lack of debate regarding exactly who we are fighting. Are we in a religious war? Is it true that Islam is a religion of peace? What do we make of Sharia and what is its bearing on this war? Can Islam co-exist with other religions including atheism, capitalism and agnosticism? Does Al Queda speak to a small minority of Muslims? Is Saudi Arabia our ally and if so exactly how does their funding of thousands of Mosques and Madrassas that perpetuate Radical Islam fit into their role as an ally? How inconsequential is the support for terror amongst Muslims?<br/><br/><span class="readmore"><a href="http://pierrelegrand.net/2007/05/09/smack-downthe-idea-that-there-exists-something-called-moderate-islam.htm" title="Smack down&#8230;the idea that there exists something called Moderate Islam.">Continue Reading--204 words totally</a></span>]]></description>
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		<title>1993 WTC Terrorists were not very good at their jobs&#8230;.hmm.</title>
		<link>http://pierrelegrand.net/2007/05/08/1993-wtc-terrorists-were-not-very-good-at-their-jobshmm.htm</link>
		<comments>http://pierrelegrand.net/2007/05/08/1993-wtc-terrorists-were-not-very-good-at-their-jobshmm.htm#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 09 May 2007 04:24:02 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Pierre Legrand</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Al Qaeda]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Iran]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Iraq]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Saddam Al Qaeda links]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Terror war]]></category>

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		<description><![CDATA[Sometimes I worry about the National Review. This sort of comment isn&#8217;t making me feel any better about a conservative site that finds itself confused regarding abortion, whether there is a god and that somehow Christianity and Islam are comparable in regards to the terror each has brought forth.<br/><br/><span class="readmore"><a href="http://pierrelegrand.net/2007/05/08/1993-wtc-terrorists-were-not-very-good-at-their-jobshmm.htm" title="1993 WTC Terrorists were not very good at their jobs&#8230;.hmm.">Continue Reading--7 words totally</a></span>]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://pierrelegrand.net/2007/05/08/1993-wtc-terrorists-were-not-very-good-at-their-jobshmm.htm/feed</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
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		<title>The Administration defining our War&#8230;forgot a couple or more players</title>
		<link>http://pierrelegrand.net/2007/04/21/the-administration-defining-our-warforgot-a-couple-or-more-players.htm</link>
		<comments>http://pierrelegrand.net/2007/04/21/the-administration-defining-our-warforgot-a-couple-or-more-players.htm#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sat, 21 Apr 2007 18:53:26 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Pierre Legrand</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Al Qaeda]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Iran]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Iraq]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Islam]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Saddam Al Qaeda links]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Terror war]]></category>

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		<description><![CDATA[Michael Chertoff has an article in the Washington Post that is admirable because at least the administration is trying to answer the critics of the war. But the effort is half-hearted and falls short due to a reluctance to name our enemies. Even if the administration stays away from naming our philosophical enemy, Islam itself, it it should at least have the courage to name the states who are at war with us. Unfortunately for the war effort naming states like Saudi Arabia, Iran, Syria and perhaps even Pakistan as our enemies is no longer in the cards. From those brave days when President Bush himself named Iran, Iraq and North Korea as part of an Axis of Evil we have slid backwards.<br/><br/><span class="readmore"><a href="http://pierrelegrand.net/2007/04/21/the-administration-defining-our-warforgot-a-couple-or-more-players.htm" title="The Administration defining our War&#8230;forgot a couple or more players">Continue Reading--3 words totally</a></span>]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://pierrelegrand.net/2007/04/21/the-administration-defining-our-warforgot-a-couple-or-more-players.htm/feed</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
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		<title>Anyone Surprised that Prisons in Iraq Resemble Prisons in the US?</title>
		<link>http://pierrelegrand.net/2007/04/07/anyone-surprised-that-prisons-in-iraq-resemble-prisons-in-the-us.htm</link>
		<comments>http://pierrelegrand.net/2007/04/07/anyone-surprised-that-prisons-in-iraq-resemble-prisons-in-the-us.htm#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sat, 07 Apr 2007 15:09:54 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Pierre Legrand</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Al Qaeda]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Iran]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Iraq]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Saddam Al Qaeda links]]></category>
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		<description><![CDATA[Well color me shocked. The prisons in Iraq resemble the prisons in the US. Gang rule,check. Radical Muslim indoctrination, check. Sectarian violence, check. Murder and Mayhem the rule, check. Explain to me why anyone is surprised? Why are we studying this in Iraq? We cannot run prisons in the US&#8230;for the last 40 years we have been completely incapable of truly locking people down.<br/><br/><span class="readmore"><a href="http://pierrelegrand.net/2007/04/07/anyone-surprised-that-prisons-in-iraq-resemble-prisons-in-the-us.htm" title="Anyone Surprised that Prisons in Iraq Resemble Prisons in the US?">Continue Reading--69 words totally</a></span>]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
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		<title>Click to start&#8230;gloominess to follow</title>
		<link>http://pierrelegrand.net/2007/02/18/click-to-startgloominess-to-follow.htm</link>
		<comments>http://pierrelegrand.net/2007/02/18/click-to-startgloominess-to-follow.htm#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 19 Feb 2007 03:15:59 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Pierre Legrand</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Al Qaeda]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Iran]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Iraq]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Islam]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Politics]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Saddam Al Qaeda links]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://pierrelegrand.net/2007/02/18/click-to-startgloominess-to-follow.htm</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[A trip around the blogsphere does nothing but deepen my gloomy outlook on the war. And yea asking which war I am gloomy about might get you punched in the face. Getting real irratated with those cowards who claim that Iraq was not tied to the war against the terror masters. Anyways&#8230;off we go.<br/><br/><span class="readmore"><a href="http://pierrelegrand.net/2007/02/18/click-to-startgloominess-to-follow.htm" title="Click to start&#8230;gloominess to follow">Continue Reading--71 words totally</a></span>]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>11</slash:comments>
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		<title>Did we lose a helo in Iraq containing 2 Colonels, 1 Lt Colonel, 1 Major, 1 Captain, 2 Command Sgt Majors and more?</title>
		<link>http://pierrelegrand.net/2007/01/28/did-we-lose-a-helo-in-iraq-containing-2-colonels-1-lt-colonel-1-major-1-captain-2-command-sgt-majors-and-more.htm</link>
		<comments>http://pierrelegrand.net/2007/01/28/did-we-lose-a-helo-in-iraq-containing-2-colonels-1-lt-colonel-1-major-1-captain-2-command-sgt-majors-and-more.htm#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sun, 28 Jan 2007 21:16:51 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Pierre Legrand</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Al Qaeda]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Iran]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Iraq]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Saddam Al Qaeda links]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Terror war]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://pierrelegrand.net/2007/01/28/did-we-lose-a-helo-in-iraq-containing-2-colonels-1-lt-colonel-1-major-1-captain-2-command-sgt-majors-and-more.htm</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[UPDATED NEW POST EXPLAINING SOME ISSUES 

UPDATE: Here is the link to the CNN Website showing KIA in Iraq. (hat tip Dorkafork at Vodkapundit) Exactly the ranks listed by Honestjoe are listed KIA in a Blackhawk crash. Maliki is our ally? Oh my gosh the ramifications to our efforts in Iraq are dreadful&#8230;the only way to get past this is to understand that Iran is pulling the strings and take the war finally to Iran. The United States has to stop acting like a we fell off the turnip truck yesterday.<br/><br/><span class="readmore"><a href="http://pierrelegrand.net/2007/01/28/did-we-lose-a-helo-in-iraq-containing-2-colonels-1-lt-colonel-1-major-1-captain-2-command-sgt-majors-and-more.htm" title="Did we lose a helo in Iraq containing 2 Colonels, 1 Lt Colonel, 1 Major, 1 Captain, 2 Command Sgt Majors and more?">Continue Reading--99 words totally</a></span>]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://pierrelegrand.net/2007/01/28/did-we-lose-a-helo-in-iraq-containing-2-colonels-1-lt-colonel-1-major-1-captain-2-command-sgt-majors-and-more.htm/feed</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>25</slash:comments>
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		<title>US Troops authorized to kill the Iranians who have been killing them for the past 2 years&#8230;we used to just blow kisses to them</title>
		<link>http://pierrelegrand.net/2007/01/26/us-troops-authorized-to-kill-the-iranians-who-have-been-killing-them-for-the-past-3-yearswe-used-to-just-blow-kisses-to-them.htm</link>
		<comments>http://pierrelegrand.net/2007/01/26/us-troops-authorized-to-kill-the-iranians-who-have-been-killing-them-for-the-past-3-yearswe-used-to-just-blow-kisses-to-them.htm#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 26 Jan 2007 20:05:53 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Pierre Legrand</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Al Qaeda]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Iran]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Iraq]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[Saddam Al Qaeda links]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://pierrelegrand.net/2007/01/26/us-troops-authorized-to-kill-the-iranians-who-have-been-killing-them-for-the-past-3-yearswe-used-to-just-blow-kisses-to-them.htm</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Alrighty then so for the past 2 years Iranians have been doing a bang up job of killing Americans. Supplying training, equipment and funds for a bunch of murderous thugs trying to defeat the worlds greatest superpower. Naturally that is accounting for only recent past because prior to 9/11 Iranian sponsored terrorists managed to kill more Americans than any other terrorist group, Marine Barracks, Hezb&#8217;Allah anyone? And we are just now getting around to being authorized to kill them back. Neat. But even that has the Washington post scratching its head. <br/><br/><span class="readmore"><a href="http://pierrelegrand.net/2007/01/26/us-troops-authorized-to-kill-the-iranians-who-have-been-killing-them-for-the-past-3-yearswe-used-to-just-blow-kisses-to-them.htm" title="US Troops authorized to kill the Iranians who have been killing them for the past 2 years&#8230;we used to just blow kisses to them">Continue Reading--53 words totally</a></span>]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://pierrelegrand.net/2007/01/26/us-troops-authorized-to-kill-the-iranians-who-have-been-killing-them-for-the-past-3-yearswe-used-to-just-blow-kisses-to-them.htm/feed</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>2</slash:comments>
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		<title>Iraq has nothing to do with terror&#8230;</title>
		<link>http://pierrelegrand.net/2007/01/23/iraq-has-nothing-to-do-with-terror.htm</link>
		<comments>http://pierrelegrand.net/2007/01/23/iraq-has-nothing-to-do-with-terror.htm#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 23 Jan 2007 07:05:53 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Pierre Legrand</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Al Qaeda]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Iraq]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Islam]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Saddam Al Qaeda links]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://pierrelegrand.net/2007/01/23/iraq-has-nothing-to-do-with-terror.htm</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Except for a few exceptions&#8230;

WASHINGTON, Jan. 22, 2007 — &#8211; Mimicking the hijackers who executed the Sept. 11 attacks, insurgents reportedly tied to al Qaeda in Iraq considered using student visas to slip terrorists into the United States to orchestrate a new attack on American soil.  <br/><br/><span class="readmore"><a href="http://pierrelegrand.net/2007/01/23/iraq-has-nothing-to-do-with-terror.htm" title="Iraq has nothing to do with terror&#8230;">Continue Reading--57 words totally</a></span>]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>1</slash:comments>
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		<title>Uncle Sam wants US Muslims to serve</title>
		<link>http://pierrelegrand.net/2006/12/28/uncle-sam-wants-us-muslims-to-serve.htm</link>
		<comments>http://pierrelegrand.net/2006/12/28/uncle-sam-wants-us-muslims-to-serve.htm#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 28 Dec 2006 06:23:35 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Pierre Legrand</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Al Qaeda]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Iran]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Iraq]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[Saddam Al Qaeda links]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://pierrelegrand.net/2006/12/28/uncle-sam-wants-us-muslims-to-serve.htm</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Hmmm&#8230;if this article is even close to representing the views of our Government then we are farther away than I feared from naming the enemy we face. Without further ado lets review our Governments take on the matter as written by the Christian Science Monitor.<br/><br/><span class="readmore"><a href="http://pierrelegrand.net/2006/12/28/uncle-sam-wants-us-muslims-to-serve.htm" title="Uncle Sam wants US Muslims to serve">Continue Reading--21 words totally</a></span>]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
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		<title>Slowly the veils fall from our eyes regarding our enemy&#8230;</title>
		<link>http://pierrelegrand.net/2006/12/20/slowly-the-veils-fall-from-our-eyes-regarding-our-enemy.htm</link>
		<comments>http://pierrelegrand.net/2006/12/20/slowly-the-veils-fall-from-our-eyes-regarding-our-enemy.htm#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 20 Dec 2006 23:14:48 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Pierre Legrand</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Al Qaeda]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Iran]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[Saddam Al Qaeda links]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://pierrelegrand.net/2006/12/18/slowly-the-veils-fall-from-our-eyes-regarding-our-enemy.htm</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[It is fascinating to watch the slow falling of the veils from the eyes of my countrymen. Not much of a Crunchy Con fan myself as I get the feeling they want to believe in eco-nonsense because they need to be loved by smelly girls with cheesy feet. But&#8230;I will take my allies against Imperial Islam wherever they can be found.<br/><br/><span class="readmore"><a href="http://pierrelegrand.net/2006/12/20/slowly-the-veils-fall-from-our-eyes-regarding-our-enemy.htm" title="Slowly the veils fall from our eyes regarding our enemy&#8230;">Continue Reading--9 words totally</a></span>]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://pierrelegrand.net/2006/12/20/slowly-the-veils-fall-from-our-eyes-regarding-our-enemy.htm/feed</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>5</slash:comments>
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		<title>Troops? To fight a war? We don&#8217;t need no stinking troops.</title>
		<link>http://pierrelegrand.net/2006/12/18/troops-to-fight-a-war-we-dont-need-no-stinking-troops.htm</link>
		<comments>http://pierrelegrand.net/2006/12/18/troops-to-fight-a-war-we-dont-need-no-stinking-troops.htm#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 19 Dec 2006 00:49:59 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Pierre Legrand</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Al Qaeda]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Iran]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Iraq]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[Saddam Al Qaeda links]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://pierrelegrand.net/2006/12/18/troops-to-fight-a-war-we-dont-need-no-stinking-troops.htm</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[For the longest time I have been pretty upset that we have not increased Defense spending as a % of GDP above the lowest levels of the Clinton Era.  Yes you read that right. The War Time &#8220;conservative&#8221;, President Bush, has kept Defense Spending under the levels of Peace Time liberal President Clinton. Go ahead and read that again.<br/><br/><span class="readmore"><a href="http://pierrelegrand.net/2006/12/18/troops-to-fight-a-war-we-dont-need-no-stinking-troops.htm" title="Troops? To fight a war? We don&#8217;t need no stinking troops.">Continue Reading--49 words totally</a></span>]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>1</slash:comments>
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		<title>What it takes to win a war&#8230;and why is this a mystery?</title>
		<link>http://pierrelegrand.net/2006/12/17/what-it-takes-to-win-a-warand-why-is-this-a-mystery.htm</link>
		<comments>http://pierrelegrand.net/2006/12/17/what-it-takes-to-win-a-warand-why-is-this-a-mystery.htm#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sun, 17 Dec 2006 19:49:55 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Pierre Legrand</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Al Qaeda]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Iran]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Iraq]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[Saddam Al Qaeda links]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://pierrelegrand.net/2006/12/17/what-it-takes-to-win-a-warand-why-is-this-a-mystery.htm</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Break his will, nothing less, if victory is your goal in a war. Destroying every single airplane your enemy has does nothing to win the war if the opponent does not give up. It only makes it easier to continue attacking him bringing woe and misery to the enemy until he screams for mercy.  If you declare victory before you have broken his will you have only managed to give the enemy a respite allowing the enemy to rearm. Breaking your enemies will is a ugly thing, it does not play well on the evening news but anything less is not victory.<br/><br/><span class="readmore"><a href="http://pierrelegrand.net/2006/12/17/what-it-takes-to-win-a-warand-why-is-this-a-mystery.htm" title="What it takes to win a war&#8230;and why is this a mystery?">Continue Reading--30 words totally</a></span>]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://pierrelegrand.net/2006/12/17/what-it-takes-to-win-a-warand-why-is-this-a-mystery.htm/feed</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>2</slash:comments>
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		<title>Andrew C McCarthy on why we are failing in Iraq and in the war against Islamic fundamentalism</title>
		<link>http://pierrelegrand.net/2006/12/08/andrew-c-mccarthy-on-why-we-are-failing-in-iraq-and-the-war-against-islamic-fundamentalism.htm</link>
		<comments>http://pierrelegrand.net/2006/12/08/andrew-c-mccarthy-on-why-we-are-failing-in-iraq-and-the-war-against-islamic-fundamentalism.htm#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 08 Dec 2006 05:51:33 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Pierre Legrand</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Iran]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Iraq]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://pierrelegrand.net/2006/12/08/andrew-c-mccarthy-on-why-we-are-failing-in-iraq-and-the-war-against-islamic-fundamentalism.htm</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Told you so!

Brilliant article by Andrew C. McCarthy at NRO. Go read it now then come back and I will tell you why the President failed to keep the American people in the war. Besides the President&#8217;s lack of effort, the President also failed to drive home one clear fact about the war.<br/><br/><span class="readmore"><a href="http://pierrelegrand.net/2006/12/08/andrew-c-mccarthy-on-why-we-are-failing-in-iraq-and-the-war-against-islamic-fundamentalism.htm" title="Andrew C McCarthy on why we are failing in Iraq and in the war against Islamic fundamentalism">Continue Reading--207 words totally</a></span>]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://pierrelegrand.net/2006/12/08/andrew-c-mccarthy-on-why-we-are-failing-in-iraq-and-the-war-against-islamic-fundamentalism.htm/feed</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>1</slash:comments>
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		<title>Osama Bin Laden remains dead&#8230;</title>
		<link>http://pierrelegrand.net/2006/10/02/osama-bin-laden-remains-dead.htm</link>
		<comments>http://pierrelegrand.net/2006/10/02/osama-bin-laden-remains-dead.htm#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 02 Oct 2006 19:03:43 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Pierre Legrand</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Bin Laden Dead]]></category>
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		<description><![CDATA[From the Strategy Page comes this interesting take on Osama.I think this misses the point but that doesn&#8217;t mean it is entirely wrong.

Winning: The Joke&#8217;s on Osama The chatter is on again. This time there is talk of an al Qaeda video featuring the long unseen Osama bin Laden. The recent reports of his death began as rumors in Arab countries about bin Laden passing away in some inglorious and painful fashion (Typhoid was mentioned.) Actually, many of the &#8220;death reports&#8221; were actually jokes. Al Qaeda&#8217;s fortunes have sunk so low in the Moslem world that he is being mocked, via jokes about his demise. While the Western media may not be picking up on this, al Qaeda certainly is, and is eager to do something about it. The chatter also indicates that the new video release may be followed by the long rumored, and oft delayed, &#8220;major attack.&#8221; Either al Qaeda delivers this time, or the organization continues to fade from the Moslem memory.<br/><br/><span class="readmore"><a href="http://pierrelegrand.net/2006/10/02/osama-bin-laden-remains-dead.htm" title="Osama Bin Laden remains dead&#8230;">Continue Reading--35 words totally</a></span>]]></description>
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		<title>Saddam and Al Qaeda Connections and Collaboration</title>
		<link>http://pierrelegrand.net/2006/09/11/saddam-and-al-qaeda-connections-and-collaboration.htm</link>
		<comments>http://pierrelegrand.net/2006/09/11/saddam-and-al-qaeda-connections-and-collaboration.htm#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 11 Sep 2006 13:46:13 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Pierre Legrand</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Iraq]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Saddam Al Qaeda links]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Terror war]]></category>

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		<description><![CDATA[This was published as a blog post to commemorate the 5th Anniversary of 9/11. It is time to remember why we are fighting in Iraq.

Why did I make this list of Saddam’s Connections and Collaborations with Al Qaeda?

This list started out as just an area to drop links that I found relevant regarding the most obvious reason for taking Saddam out of power, his use of Islamic terrorists to wage war by proxy. This aspect of Saddam’s madness has always been the central reason for deposing him. We could not allow any Dictator who believed in using Islamic terrorists as proxies to have any sort of major weapons. The crux was his desire to use Islamic terrorists as proxies in wars against us, which he states as a viable strategy against us in his conversations with Ambassador Glaspie prior to Former President Bush&#8217;s war to take back Kuwait.<br/><br/><span class="readmore"><a href="http://pierrelegrand.net/2006/09/11/saddam-and-al-qaeda-connections-and-collaboration.htm" title="Saddam and Al Qaeda Connections and Collaboration">Continue Reading--232 words totally</a></span>]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>20</slash:comments>
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		<title>Senate Report on Saddam&#8217;s links to Al Qaeda Flawed and Dangerous, typical.</title>
		<link>http://pierrelegrand.net/2006/09/09/senate-report-on-saddams-links-to-al-qaeda-flawed-and-dangerous-typical.htm</link>
		<comments>http://pierrelegrand.net/2006/09/09/senate-report-on-saddams-links-to-al-qaeda-flawed-and-dangerous-typical.htm#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sat, 09 Sep 2006 16:17:03 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Pierre Legrand</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Iraq]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Islam]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Politics]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Saddam Al Qaeda links]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Terror war]]></category>

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		<description><![CDATA[To think I am paying good money for this sort of flawed and dangerous research by the folks responsible for defending us. There isn&#8217;t enough time this morning to disassemble all of the report though it is only a lack of time that limits the destruction I could do. Exactly how am I supposed to be confident about the future of this country when the sort of lazy ass covering thinking on display in the Senate Report is the order of the day for our government? No wonder our government is the laughing stock of terrorists the world over.<br/><br/><span class="readmore"><a href="http://pierrelegrand.net/2006/09/09/senate-report-on-saddams-links-to-al-qaeda-flawed-and-dangerous-typical.htm" title="Senate Report on Saddam&#8217;s links to Al Qaeda Flawed and Dangerous, typical.">Continue Reading--16 words totally</a></span>]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>4</slash:comments>
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		<title>No fault Government&#8230;and the disinterested citizens</title>
		<link>http://pierrelegrand.net/2006/09/01/no-fault-governmentand-the-disinterested-citizens.htm</link>
		<comments>http://pierrelegrand.net/2006/09/01/no-fault-governmentand-the-disinterested-citizens.htm#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 01 Sep 2006 06:21:18 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Pierre Legrand</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Saddam Al Qaeda links]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Terror war]]></category>

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		<description><![CDATA[We will have no more talk of the witless Clinton Administration bungling the United States Anti Terror efforts. After all such talk casts aspersions upon our Government and that makes all the little bureaucrats nervous. Don&#8217;t you know that they realize someone&#8217;s head, lots of someones, should have rolled after the failure of 9/11.<br/><br/><span class="readmore"><a href="http://pierrelegrand.net/2006/09/01/no-fault-governmentand-the-disinterested-citizens.htm" title="No fault Government&#8230;and the disinterested citizens">Continue Reading--7 words totally</a></span>]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>1</slash:comments>
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		<title>The Iraqis Plot to blow up Radio Free Europe</title>
		<link>http://pierrelegrand.net/2006/07/23/the-iraqis-plot-to-blow-up-radio-free-europe.htm</link>
		<comments>http://pierrelegrand.net/2006/07/23/the-iraqis-plot-to-blow-up-radio-free-europe.htm#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sun, 23 Jul 2006 13:58:18 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Pierre Legrand</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Saddam Al Qaeda links]]></category>

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		<description><![CDATA[Czech Republic: Havel Believes Spy Chief&#8217;s Dismissal Hurts Nation&#8217;s Reputation

By Jolyon Naegele

Prague, 3 February 1999 (RFE/RL) &#8212; Czech President Vaclav Havel expressed concern yesterday about the Czech government&#8217;s sudden dismissal of the head of the counter-intelligence service (BIS), Karel Vulterin.<br/><br/><span class="readmore"><a href="http://pierrelegrand.net/2006/07/23/the-iraqis-plot-to-blow-up-radio-free-europe.htm" title="The Iraqis Plot to blow up Radio Free Europe">Continue Reading--5 words totally</a></span>]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>5</slash:comments>
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		<title>Explosive interview Vice President Cheney January 9 2004</title>
		<link>http://pierrelegrand.net/2006/07/21/explosiveinterview.htm</link>
		<comments>http://pierrelegrand.net/2006/07/21/explosiveinterview.htm#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sat, 22 Jul 2006 04:59:57 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Pierre Legrand</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Saddam Al Qaeda links]]></category>

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		<description><![CDATA[Transcript of interview with Vice President Dick Cheney By © Rocky Mountain News and Scripps Howard News Service, 2004 January 9, 2004

Transcript of interview with Vice President Dick Cheney by M.E. Sprengelmeyer of the Rocky Mountain News:

Q: You are going to Denver. I was hoping I could first ask you for your response to the Carnegie Foundation report yesterday?<br/><br/><span class="readmore"><a href="http://pierrelegrand.net/2006/07/21/explosiveinterview.htm" title="Explosive interview Vice President Cheney January 9 2004">Continue Reading--3 words totally</a></span>]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
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		<title>How Do We Know that Iraq Tried to Assassinate President George H.W. Bush?</title>
		<link>http://pierrelegrand.net/2006/07/21/how-do-we-know-that-iraq-tried-to-assassinate-president-george-hw-bush.htm</link>
		<comments>http://pierrelegrand.net/2006/07/21/how-do-we-know-that-iraq-tried-to-assassinate-president-george-hw-bush.htm#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sat, 22 Jul 2006 02:52:09 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Pierre Legrand</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Saddam Al Qaeda links]]></category>

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		<description><![CDATA[Former President George Bush visited Kuwait between April 14 and April 16, 1993, to commemorate the allied victory in the Persian Gulf War. Accompanying Bush were his wife, two of his sons, former Secretary of State James A. Baker III, former Chief of Staff John Sununu, and former Treasury Secretary Nicholas Brady.<br/><br/><span class="readmore"><a href="http://pierrelegrand.net/2006/07/21/how-do-we-know-that-iraq-tried-to-assassinate-president-george-hw-bush.htm" title="How Do We Know that Iraq Tried to Assassinate President George H.W. Bush?">Continue Reading--7 words totally</a></span>]]></description>
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		<title>Edward Jay Epstein&#8217;s look into the Salman Pak terrorist training base</title>
		<link>http://pierrelegrand.net/2006/07/21/edward-jay-epsteins-look-into-the-salman-pak-terrorist-training-base.htm</link>
		<comments>http://pierrelegrand.net/2006/07/21/edward-jay-epsteins-look-into-the-salman-pak-terrorist-training-base.htm#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sat, 22 Jul 2006 02:46:32 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Pierre Legrand</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Saddam Al Qaeda links]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://pierrelegrand.net/2006/07/21/edward-jay-epsteins-look-into-the-salman-pak-terrorist-training-base.htm</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Question: What warning, if any, did the CIA receive from the National Reconnaissance Office concerning Arabs training on the fuselage of a passenger airliner at a terrorist training camp prior to September 11th, 2001?

Answer: After Sabah Khalifa Khodada Alami, an Iraqi military officer, defected from Iraq in 1999 to Turkey. He now lives in Fort Worth, Texas. When he was debriefed, he described his training mission at Salman Pak, a military base about 21 miles from Baghdad that had been used for the testing of secret weapons, including chemical biological warfare agents, and paramilitary training for covert actions. Captain Sabah Khalifa Khodada Alami said that as late as 1998 he trained an elite commando team, Fedayeen Saddam, in airline hijacking and sabotage. Through a translator, Mr. Alami described, according to the Wall street Journal, a daily regimen of exercises on kidnapping, assassination, and &#8212; using a Boeing 707 parked inside the complex &#8212; how to hijack a plane or bus without weapons. He said that a separate group of non-Iraqis were being similarly trained by Saddam&#8217;s intelligence service, the mukhabarat. Asked about the plane by an interviewer for Front Line, he said &#8220;Yes, there&#8217;s a real whole 707 plane, a whole real plane, standing in the middle of the training area in this camp.&#8221;<br/><br/><span class="readmore"><a href="http://pierrelegrand.net/2006/07/21/edward-jay-epsteins-look-into-the-salman-pak-terrorist-training-base.htm" title="Edward Jay Epstein&#8217;s look into the Salman Pak terrorist training base">Continue Reading--1 words totally</a></span>]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>2</slash:comments>
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		<title>Iraq’s State Sponsorship of Osama bin-Laden and the al-Qaeda Terror Network</title>
		<link>http://pierrelegrand.net/2006/07/21/iraq%e2%80%99s-state-sponsorship-of-osama-bin-laden-and-the-al-qaeda-terror-network.htm</link>
		<comments>http://pierrelegrand.net/2006/07/21/iraq%e2%80%99s-state-sponsorship-of-osama-bin-laden-and-the-al-qaeda-terror-network.htm#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 21 Jul 2006 15:09:30 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Pierre Legrand</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Iraq]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Saddam Al Qaeda links]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://pierrelegrand.net/2006/07/07/iraq%e2%80%99s-state-sponsorship-of-osama-bin-laden-and-the-al-qaeda-terror-network.htm</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Opinion

Iraq’s State Sponsorship of Osama bin-Laden and the al-Qaeda Terror Network

Essay by Chris Farrell Nov 30, 2001<br/><br/><span class="readmore"><a href="http://pierrelegrand.net/2006/07/21/iraq%e2%80%99s-state-sponsorship-of-osama-bin-laden-and-the-al-qaeda-terror-network.htm" title="Iraq’s State Sponsorship of Osama bin-Laden and the al-Qaeda Terror Network">Continue Reading--277 words totally</a></span>]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
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		<title>1998 US GRAND JURY INDICTMENT AGAINST USAMA BIN LADEN United States District Court New York</title>
		<link>http://pierrelegrand.net/2006/07/21/1998-us-grand-jury-indictment-against-usama-bin-laden-united-states-district-court-new-york.htm</link>
		<comments>http://pierrelegrand.net/2006/07/21/1998-us-grand-jury-indictment-against-usama-bin-laden-united-states-district-court-new-york.htm#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 21 Jul 2006 05:47:06 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Pierre Legrand</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Saddam Al Qaeda links]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://pierrelegrand.net/2006/07/21/1998-us-grand-jury-indictment-against-usama-bin-laden-united-states-district-court-new-york.htm</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[TEXT: US GRAND JURY INDICTMENT AGAINST USAMA BIN LADEN

United States District Court

Southern District of New York<br/><br/><span class="readmore"><a href="http://pierrelegrand.net/2006/07/21/1998-us-grand-jury-indictment-against-usama-bin-laden-united-states-district-court-new-york.htm" title="1998 US GRAND JURY INDICTMENT AGAINST USAMA BIN LADEN United States District Court New York">Continue Reading--1 words totally</a></span>]]></description>
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		<title>Senior al Qaeda official, Abu Mussab al Zarqawi, may have been in Iraq</title>
		<link>http://pierrelegrand.net/2006/07/21/senior-al-qaeda-official-abu-mussab-al-zarqawi-may-have-been-in-iraq.htm</link>
		<comments>http://pierrelegrand.net/2006/07/21/senior-al-qaeda-official-abu-mussab-al-zarqawi-may-have-been-in-iraq.htm#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 21 Jul 2006 05:35:37 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Pierre Legrand</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Saddam Al Qaeda links]]></category>

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		<description><![CDATA[From Mike Boettcher and Henry Schuster CNN

(CNN) &#8211;A senior al Qaeda leader may provide a link between that terrorist group and Iraq, according to coalition intelligence sources.

Abu Mussab al Zarqawi &#8212; a Jordanian &#8212; was recently accused by Jordanian officials of masterminding the assassination of U.S. diplomat Laurence Foley in Amman in late October.<br/><br/><span class="readmore"><a href="http://pierrelegrand.net/2006/07/21/senior-al-qaeda-official-abu-mussab-al-zarqawi-may-have-been-in-iraq.htm" title="Senior al Qaeda official, Abu Mussab al Zarqawi, may have been in Iraq">Continue Reading--5 words totally</a></span>]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
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		<title>Clinton Sec of Defense Cohen sure that Shifaa was chemical weapons factory</title>
		<link>http://pierrelegrand.net/2006/07/21/clinton-sec-of-defense-cohen-sure-that-shifaa-was-chemical-weapons-factory.htm</link>
		<comments>http://pierrelegrand.net/2006/07/21/clinton-sec-of-defense-cohen-sure-that-shifaa-was-chemical-weapons-factory.htm#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 21 Jul 2006 05:29:07 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Pierre Legrand</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Saddam Al Qaeda links]]></category>

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		<description><![CDATA[DoD News Briefing

October 10, 1998

Presenter: and Qatari Foreign Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassem bin Jabor Al-Thani<br/><br/><span class="readmore"><a href="http://pierrelegrand.net/2006/07/21/clinton-sec-of-defense-cohen-sure-that-shifaa-was-chemical-weapons-factory.htm" title="Clinton Sec of Defense Cohen sure that Shifaa was chemical weapons factory">Continue Reading--1 words totally</a></span>]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
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		<title>Well-heeled Saddam has global stash</title>
		<link>http://pierrelegrand.net/2006/07/21/well-heeled-saddam-has-global-stash.htm</link>
		<comments>http://pierrelegrand.net/2006/07/21/well-heeled-saddam-has-global-stash.htm#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 21 Jul 2006 05:28:38 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Pierre Legrand</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Saddam Al Qaeda links]]></category>

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		<description><![CDATA[By Jay Bushinsky

SPECIAL TO THE WASHINGTON TIMES

Published August 17, 2003<br/><br/><span class="readmore"><a href="http://pierrelegrand.net/2006/07/21/well-heeled-saddam-has-global-stash.htm" title="Well-heeled Saddam has global stash">Continue Reading--13 words totally</a></span>]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>1</slash:comments>
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		<title>Al Qaeda prepares bio-terror for US and Israel</title>
		<link>http://pierrelegrand.net/2006/07/21/al-qaeda-prepares-bio-terror-for-us-and-israel.htm</link>
		<comments>http://pierrelegrand.net/2006/07/21/al-qaeda-prepares-bio-terror-for-us-and-israel.htm#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 21 Jul 2006 05:25:10 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Pierre Legrand</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Saddam Al Qaeda links]]></category>

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		<description><![CDATA[January 4, 2003, 10:13 PM (GMT+02:00)

DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s intelligence sources report mounting fears within US and Israeli counter-terrorism agencies that al Qaeda’s three command centers are preparing mega-terror attacks for US and Israeli targets.<br/><br/><span class="readmore"><a href="http://pierrelegrand.net/2006/07/21/al-qaeda-prepares-bio-terror-for-us-and-israel.htm" title="Al Qaeda prepares bio-terror for US and Israel">Continue Reading--54 words totally</a></span>]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
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		<title>Newsweek reporter witnesses Saddams hosting Terrorists</title>
		<link>http://pierrelegrand.net/2006/07/21/saddamterrorconvention.htm</link>
		<comments>http://pierrelegrand.net/2006/07/21/saddamterrorconvention.htm#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 21 Jul 2006 05:21:16 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Pierre Legrand</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Saddam Al Qaeda links]]></category>

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		<description><![CDATA[Seeing the Evil In Front of Us

by Christopher Dickey &#124; Sep 09 &#8217;02

The moment of confrontation had come. President Bush warned Saddam Hussein that if he continued to interfere with United Nations weapons inspectors and to shoot at American warplanes over Iraq, he would have to pay the consequences. So Islamic radicals from all over the Middle East, Africa and Asia converged on Baghdad to show their solidarity with Iraq in the face of American aggression. Chechens in Persian-lamb hats, Moroccans in caftans, delegates who hailed &#8220;from Jakarta to Dakar,&#8221; as one Senegalese put it, poured into Baghdad&#8217;s Rashid Hotel, where Saddam&#8217;s minions urged them to embrace jihad as &#8220;the one gate to Paradise.&#8221; And the greatest holy warrior of all? &#8220;The mujahed Saddam Hussein, who is leading this nation against the nonbelievers,&#8221; they were told. &#8220;Everyone has a task to do, which is to go against the American state,&#8221; declared Saddam&#8217;s deputy Ezzat Ibrahim. The Americans had colonized Lebanon; they had colonized Saudi Arabia. But the line against them would be drawn in Iraq. Believers would triumph, said Ibrahim: &#8220;Our stand now can lead us to final victory, to Paradise.&#8221;<br/><br/><span class="readmore"><a href="http://pierrelegrand.net/2006/07/21/saddamterrorconvention.htm" title="Newsweek reporter witnesses Saddams hosting Terrorists">Continue Reading--3 words totally</a></span>]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>5</slash:comments>
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		<title>Wow it&#8217;s blog sweeps week! Better get a gratuitous post up, Paris Hilton, Pam Anderson and Bikinis galore hehe&#8230;</title>
		<link>http://pierrelegrand.net/2006/07/10/2287.htm</link>
		<comments>http://pierrelegrand.net/2006/07/10/2287.htm#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 11 Jul 2006 00:20:11 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Pierre Legrand</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[General]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Iraq]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Islam]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Politics]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Saddam Al Qaeda links]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Terror war]]></category>

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		<description><![CDATA[So naturally if it is blog sweeps week its time for some skin after all that is what drives the internet. All that nonsense about information is just a smoke screen to hide the real reason we all have broadband! Paris Hilton pictures hehe&#8230;  Pam Anderson&#8230;hehe&#8230;and bikinis galore fun fun fun. <br/><br/><span class="readmore"><a href="http://pierrelegrand.net/2006/07/10/2287.htm" title="Wow it&#8217;s blog sweeps week! Better get a gratuitous post up, Paris Hilton, Pam Anderson and Bikinis galore hehe&#8230;">Continue Reading--5 words totally</a></span>]]></description>
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		<title>Mohamed Atta-Iraq-Anthrax Connection and the FBI info Suppression</title>
		<link>http://pierrelegrand.net/2006/07/08/mohamed-atta-iraq-anthrax-connection-and-the-fbi-info-suppression.htm</link>
		<comments>http://pierrelegrand.net/2006/07/08/mohamed-atta-iraq-anthrax-connection-and-the-fbi-info-suppression.htm#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sat, 08 Jul 2006 13:40:59 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Pierre Legrand</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Iraq]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Saddam Al Qaeda links]]></category>

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		<description><![CDATA[Anthrax May Have Been Mailed To Company Posted: 12:50 p.m. EDT October 12, 2001 Updated: 6:23 p.m. EDT October 12, 2001

BOCA RATON, Fla. &#8212; The editorial director of American Media says his company knows how the man killed by anthrax was exposed to the disease. He is also making scathing comments about the Palm Beach County Health department. Steve Coz, Editorial Director at American Media in Boca Raton, says that the company knows how the anthrax bacterium got into their building, and he says there is a connection to the terrorists.<br/><br/><span class="readmore"><a href="http://pierrelegrand.net/2006/07/08/mohamed-atta-iraq-anthrax-connection-and-the-fbi-info-suppression.htm" title="Mohamed Atta-Iraq-Anthrax Connection and the FBI info Suppression">Continue Reading--7 words totally</a></span>]]></description>
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		<title>The proof that Saddam worked with bin Laden</title>
		<link>http://pierrelegrand.net/2006/07/08/the-proof-that-saddam-worked-with-bin-laden.htm</link>
		<comments>http://pierrelegrand.net/2006/07/08/the-proof-that-saddam-worked-with-bin-laden.htm#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sat, 08 Jul 2006 13:16:19 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Pierre Legrand</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Iraq]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Saddam Al Qaeda links]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Terror war]]></category>

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		<description><![CDATA[Iraqi intelligence documents discovered in Baghdad by The Telegraph have provided the first evidence of a direct link between Osama bin Laden&#8217;s al-Qa&#8217;eda terrorist network and Saddam Hussein&#8217;s regime.

Papers found yesterday in the bombed headquarters of the Mukhabarat, Iraq&#8217;s intelligence service, reveal that an al-Qa&#8217;eda envoy was invited clandestinely to Baghdad in March 1998.<br/><br/><span class="readmore"><a href="http://pierrelegrand.net/2006/07/08/the-proof-that-saddam-worked-with-bin-laden.htm" title="The proof that Saddam worked with bin Laden">Continue Reading--5 words totally</a></span>]]></description>
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		<title>Saddam running training camps for terrorists, say defectors</title>
		<link>http://pierrelegrand.net/2006/07/08/saddam-running-training-camps-for-terrorists-say-defectors.htm</link>
		<comments>http://pierrelegrand.net/2006/07/08/saddam-running-training-camps-for-terrorists-say-defectors.htm#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sat, 08 Jul 2006 13:07:25 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Pierre Legrand</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Iraq]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Saddam Al Qaeda links]]></category>

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		<description><![CDATA[Saddam running training camps for terrorists, say defectors

By Philip Delves Broughton in New York

(Filed: 09/11/2001)<br/><br/><span class="readmore"><a href="http://pierrelegrand.net/2006/07/08/saddam-running-training-camps-for-terrorists-say-defectors.htm" title="Saddam running training camps for terrorists, say defectors">Continue Reading--1 words totally</a></span>]]></description>
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		<title>There is also one report that ATTA makes a side journey to Rome on this trip.</title>
		<link>http://pierrelegrand.net/2006/07/08/there-is-also-one-report-that-atta-makes-a-side-journey-to-rome-on-this-trip.htm</link>
		<comments>http://pierrelegrand.net/2006/07/08/there-is-also-one-report-that-atta-makes-a-side-journey-to-rome-on-this-trip.htm#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sat, 08 Jul 2006 06:22:56 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Pierre Legrand</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Iraq]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Saddam Al Qaeda links]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Terror war]]></category>

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		<description><![CDATA[Article: Hijacker &#8216;Given Anthrax Flask by Iraqi Agent&#8217;

From a NewsMax article in the source linked to below:

Hijacker ‘given anthrax flask by Iraqi agent‘<br/><br/><span class="readmore"><a href="http://pierrelegrand.net/2006/07/08/there-is-also-one-report-that-atta-makes-a-side-journey-to-rome-on-this-trip.htm" title="There is also one report that ATTA makes a side journey to Rome on this trip.">Continue Reading--79 words totally</a></span>]]></description>
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		<title>&#8216;We&#8217;ll pay all expenses to gain the knowledge from bin Laden and convey a message back&#8217;</title>
		<link>http://pierrelegrand.net/2006/07/07/well-pay-all-expenses-to-gain-the-knowledge-from-bin-laden-and-convey-a-message-back.htm</link>
		<comments>http://pierrelegrand.net/2006/07/07/well-pay-all-expenses-to-gain-the-knowledge-from-bin-laden-and-convey-a-message-back.htm#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 07 Jul 2006 19:13:22 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Pierre Legrand</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Iraq]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Saddam Al Qaeda links]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Terror war]]></category>

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		<description><![CDATA[We&#8217;ll pay all expenses to gain the knowledge from bin Laden and convey a message back&#8217;

Document 1, dated February 19 1998 Marked &#8220;Top Secret and Urgent&#8221; in the margin and signed by &#8220;MDA&#8221;, thought to be the codename for the director of one of the intelligence sections within the Mukhabarat.&#8220;The envoy is a trusted confidant and known by them. According to the above mediation we request official permission to call Khartoum station to facilitate the travel arrangements for the above-mentioned person to Iraq. And that our body carry all the travel and hotel expenses inside Iraq to gain the knowledge of the message from bin Laden and to convey to his envoy an oral message from us to bin Laden, the Saudi opposition leader, about the future of our relationship with him, and to achieve a direct meeting with him.&#8221;<br/><br/><span class="readmore"><a href="http://pierrelegrand.net/2006/07/07/well-pay-all-expenses-to-gain-the-knowledge-from-bin-laden-and-convey-a-message-back.htm" title="&#8216;We&#8217;ll pay all expenses to gain the knowledge from bin Laden and convey a message back&#8217;">Continue Reading--9 words totally</a></span>]]></description>
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		<title>The Iraqi Regime&#8217;s Links to Terrorism</title>
		<link>http://pierrelegrand.net/2006/07/07/the-iraqi-regimes-links-to-terrorism.htm</link>
		<comments>http://pierrelegrand.net/2006/07/07/the-iraqi-regimes-links-to-terrorism.htm#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 07 Jul 2006 18:32:25 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Pierre Legrand</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Iraq]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Saddam Al Qaeda links]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Terror war]]></category>

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		<description><![CDATA[Dr. Ely Karmon ICT Senior Researcher

Reprinted with permission from Policywatch, Analysis of Near East Policy from the Scholars and Associates of the Washington Institute.

On August 28, 2002, a U.S. federal grand jury issued a new indictment against five terrorists from the Fatah Revolutionary Command, also known as the Abu Nidal Organization (ANO), for the 1986 hijacking of Pan Am Flight 73 in Karachi, Pakistan. Based on &#8220;aggravating circumstances,&#8221; prosecutors are now seeking the death penalty for the attack, in which twenty-two people &#8212; including two Americans &#8212; were killed.<br/><br/><span class="readmore"><a href="http://pierrelegrand.net/2006/07/07/the-iraqi-regimes-links-to-terrorism.htm" title="The Iraqi Regime&#8217;s Links to Terrorism">Continue Reading--21 words totally</a></span>]]></description>
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		<title>Laurie Mylroie: Is Iraq involved with U.S. terror attacks?</title>
		<link>http://pierrelegrand.net/2006/07/07/laurie-mylroie-is-iraq-involved-with-us-terror-attacks.htm</link>
		<comments>http://pierrelegrand.net/2006/07/07/laurie-mylroie-is-iraq-involved-with-us-terror-attacks.htm#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 07 Jul 2006 18:23:44 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Pierre Legrand</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Iraq]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Saddam Al Qaeda links]]></category>
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		<description><![CDATA[Laurie Mylroie: Is Iraq involved with U.S. terror attacks?



Laurie Mylroie is the author of &#8220;Study of Revenge: Saddam Hussein&#8217;s Unfinished War,&#8221; which outlines her case that Iraq had a central role in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. She served as an adviser on Iraq to the 1992 Clinton presidential campaign. Mylroie is currently vice-president of &#8220;Information for Democracy,&#8221; and the publisher of &#8220;Iraq News.&#8221;<br/><br/><span class="readmore"><a href="http://pierrelegrand.net/2006/07/07/laurie-mylroie-is-iraq-involved-with-us-terror-attacks.htm" title="Laurie Mylroie: Is Iraq involved with U.S. terror attacks?">Continue Reading--1 words totally</a></span>]]></description>
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		<title>TERRORISM &#8211; THE IRAQI CONNECTION IBB INTERVIEW WOOLSEY, MYLROIE</title>
		<link>http://pierrelegrand.net/2006/07/07/terrorism-the-iraqi-connection-ibb-interview-woolsey-mylroie.htm</link>
		<comments>http://pierrelegrand.net/2006/07/07/terrorism-the-iraqi-connection-ibb-interview-woolsey-mylroie.htm#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 07 Jul 2006 17:06:51 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Pierre Legrand</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Iraq]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Saddam Al Qaeda links]]></category>

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		<description><![CDATA[From the IBB article linked to below:11/24/2001 ON THE LINE NUMBER=1-01024 (Note this article is no longer available on the IBB Site)

TERRORISM &#8211; THE IRAQI CONNECTION

Host: Hello and welcome to On the Line.<br/><br/><span class="readmore"><a href="http://pierrelegrand.net/2006/07/07/terrorism-the-iraqi-connection-ibb-interview-woolsey-mylroie.htm" title="TERRORISM &#8211; THE IRAQI CONNECTION IBB INTERVIEW WOOLSEY, MYLROIE">Continue Reading--211 words totally</a></span>]]></description>
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		<title>Confirming a clear link between the terrorists targeting America and the South Florida company hit by anthrax cases</title>
		<link>http://pierrelegrand.net/2006/07/07/confirming-a-clear-link-between-the-terrorists-targeting-america-and-the-south-florida-company-hit-by-anthrax-cases.htm</link>
		<comments>http://pierrelegrand.net/2006/07/07/confirming-a-clear-link-between-the-terrorists-targeting-america-and-the-south-florida-company-hit-by-anthrax-cases.htm#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 07 Jul 2006 15:39:56 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Pierre Legrand</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Saddam Al Qaeda links]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Terror war]]></category>

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		<description><![CDATA[Hijackers linked to tabloid

Compiled from Times wires© St. Petersburg Times, published October 15, 2001

Confirming a clear link between the terrorists targeting America and the South Florida company hit by anthrax cases, the FBI said Sunday that the Sun tabloid editor&#8217;s wife rented a Delray Beach apartment to two of the hijackers.Confirming a clear link between the terrorists targeting America and the South Florida company hit by anthrax cases, the FBI said Sunday that the Sun tabloid editor&#8217;s wife rented a Delray Beach apartment to two of the hijackers.The Sun is part of the American Media Inc. tabloid chain, and it employed photo editor Bob Stevens, who died this month from inhalation anthrax. Two other AMI employees were exposed, and five more are being retested to confirm positive blood test results.<br/><br/><span class="readmore"><a href="http://pierrelegrand.net/2006/07/07/confirming-a-clear-link-between-the-terrorists-targeting-america-and-the-south-florida-company-hit-by-anthrax-cases.htm" title="Confirming a clear link between the terrorists targeting America and the South Florida company hit by anthrax cases">Continue Reading--3 words totally</a></span>]]></description>
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		<title>Letters from Saddam to the American People following 9/11</title>
		<link>http://pierrelegrand.net/2006/07/07/letters-from-saddam-to-the-american-people-following-911.htm</link>
		<comments>http://pierrelegrand.net/2006/07/07/letters-from-saddam-to-the-american-people-following-911.htm#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 07 Jul 2006 15:24:34 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Pierre Legrand</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Iraq]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Saddam Al Qaeda links]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Terror war]]></category>

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		<description><![CDATA[A first open letter from Saddam Hussein to the peoples of the United States

September 15, 2001In the name of God, Most Gracious, Most merciful”

Open letter from Saddam Hussein to the American peoples and the western peoples and their governments.<br/><br/><span class="readmore"><a href="http://pierrelegrand.net/2006/07/07/letters-from-saddam-to-the-american-people-following-911.htm" title="Letters from Saddam to the American People following 9/11">Continue Reading--73 words totally</a></span>]]></description>
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		<title>Patterns of Global Terrorism (1999): Middle East Overview U.S. Department of State</title>
		<link>http://pierrelegrand.net/2006/07/07/patterns-of-global-terrorism-1999-middle-east-overview-us-department-of-state.htm</link>
		<comments>http://pierrelegrand.net/2006/07/07/patterns-of-global-terrorism-1999-middle-east-overview-us-department-of-state.htm#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 07 Jul 2006 15:15:59 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Pierre Legrand</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Saddam Al Qaeda links]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Terror war]]></category>

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		<description><![CDATA[U.S. Department of State

1 May 2000

Middle Eastern terrorist groups and their state sponsors continued to plan, train for, and carry out acts of terrorism in 1999 at a level comparable to that of the previous year. Casualties remained relatively low, partly as result of counterterrorist measures by various governments, improved international cooperation, and the absence of major incidents that might have caused high numbers of fatalities. Nonetheless, certain terrorist groups remained active and continued to try to mount lethal attacks. These included Usama Bin Ladin&#8217;s multinational al-Qaida organization as well as The Islamic Resistance Movement (HAMAS) and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), both of which receive support from Iran.<br/><br/><span class="readmore"><a href="http://pierrelegrand.net/2006/07/07/patterns-of-global-terrorism-1999-middle-east-overview-us-department-of-state.htm" title="Patterns of Global Terrorism (1999): Middle East Overview U.S. Department of State">Continue Reading--3 words totally</a></span>]]></description>
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		<title>TENET TESTIMONY TO SENATE CURRENT AND PROJECTED NATIONAL SECURITY THREATS TO THE UNITED STATES FEBRUARY 6, 2002</title>
		<link>http://pierrelegrand.net/2006/07/07/tenet-testimony-to-senate-current-and-projected-national-security-threats-to-the-united-states-february-6-2002.htm</link>
		<comments>http://pierrelegrand.net/2006/07/07/tenet-testimony-to-senate-current-and-projected-national-security-threats-to-the-united-states-february-6-2002.htm#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 07 Jul 2006 14:46:50 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Pierre Legrand</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Politics]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Saddam Al Qaeda links]]></category>

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		<description><![CDATA[S. Hrg. 107-597   CURRENT AND PROJECTED NATIONAL SECURITY THREATS TO THE UNITED STATES =======================================================================                                  HEARING                                 before the                      SELECT COMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE                                   of the                            UNITED STATES SENATE                        ONE HUNDRED SEVENTH CONGRESS                               SECOND SESSION              CURRENT AND PROJECTED NATIONAL SECURITY THREATS                           TO THE UNITED STATES                                 __________                              FEBRUARY 6, 2002                                    U. S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE 81-064                          WASHINGTON : 2002 ___________________________________________________________________________ For Sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office Internet: bookstore.gpo.gov  Phone: toll free (866) 512-1800; (202) 512-1800   Fax: (202) 512-2250 Mail: Stop SSOP, Washington, DC 20402-0001                                                             SELECT COMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE                       BOB GRAHAM, Florida, Chairman                RICHARD C. SHELBY, Alabama, Vice Chairman CARL LEVIN, Michigan                 JON KYL, Arizona JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER IV, West         JAMES M. INHOFE, Oklahoma     Virginia                         ORRIN G. HATCH, Utah DIANNE FEINSTEIN, California         PAT ROBERTS, Kansas RON WYDEN, Oregon                    MIKE DeWINE, Ohio RICHARD J. DURBIN, Illinois          FRED THOMPSON, Tennessee EVAN BAYH, Indiana                   RICHARD G. LUGAR, Indiana JOHN EDWARDS, North Carolina BARBARA A. MIKULSKI, Maryland               Thomas A. Daschle, South Dakota, Ex Officio                   Trent Lott, Mississippi, Ex Officio                                  &#8212;&#8212;                                                      Alfred Cumming, Staff Director                   Bill Duhnke, Minority Staff Director                     Kathleen P. McGhee, Chief Clerk                                    C O N T E N T S                                &#8212;&#8212;&#8212;-                                                                                                  Page Hearing held in Washington, DC, February 6, 2002&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;..     1 Statement of:     Ford, Hon. Carl W. Jr., Assistant Secretary of State for        Intelligence and Research&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;.    28     Tenet, Hon. George J., Director of Central Intelligence,        Central Intelligence Agency&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;..     5     Watson, Dale L., Executive Assistant Director,        Counterterrorism and Counterintelligence, Federal Bureau of        Investigation&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;.    88     Wilson, Vice Admiral Thomas R., Director, Defense        Intelligence Agency&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;.    57 Supplemental Materials     Letter to Hon. George J. Tenet transmitting Questions for the        Record&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;..   163     Letter to Hon. Carl W. Ford, Jr. transmitting Questions for        the Record&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;.   232     Letter to Hon. Robert Mueller, transmitting Questions for the        Record&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;..   331     Letter to Vice Admiral Thomas Wilson transmitting Questions        for the Record&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;   294     Response to QFRs from CIA&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;   174     Response to QFRs from DIA&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;   299     Response to QFRs from State&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;.   239     Response to QFRs from FBI&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;   335                             THE WORLDWIDE THREAT                                &#8212;&#8212;&#8212;-                                                       WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 6, 2002                                         U.S. Senate,                           Select Committee on Intelligence,                                                     Washington, DC.     The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:07 a.m., in  room SH-216, Hart Senate Office Building, the Honorable Bob  Graham (chairman of the committee) presiding.     Committee Members Present: Senators Graham, Rockefeller,  Wyden, Bayh, Edwards, Shelby, Kyl, Roberts, and DeWine.     Chairman Graham. I call the meeting to order.     For several years, this Committee has had a practice of  commencing its annual oversight of the United States  intelligence community by holding a public hearing to present  to the American people and our Committee members the  intelligence community&#8217;s assessment of the current and  projected national security threats to the United States.     There is nothing more important to our national security  than timely and accurate intelligence. Intelligence forms the  foundation of our foreign policy and provides the basis of our  nation&#8217;s defense planning, strategy, and supports our  warfighters.     The intelligence community is our nation&#8217;s early-warning  system against threats to the lives and property of United  States citizens and residents here and around the world. The  importance of this mission became particularly apparent on  September 11 when our nation&#8217;s greatest strengths&#8211;our freedom,  our openness&#8211;were successfully exploited by an elusive global  network of determined zealots. The terrorist threat has been on  the intelligence community&#8217;s radar screen for years. Indeed, it  was almost exactly a year ago today, on February 7th of 2001,  when Director George Tenet testified at this same open session.     He stated, and I quote, &#8220;Usama bin Ladin and his global  network of lieutenants and associates remain the most immediate  and serious threat. His organization is continuing to place  emphasis on developing surrogates to carry out attacks in an  effort to avoid detection, blame and retaliation. As a result,  it is often difficult to attribute terrorist incidents to his  group, the al-Qa&#8217;ida.&#8221;     While the intelligence community has been aware of the  great threat posed by bin Laden and his terrorist organization,  it is a priority of this Committee to ascertain what more the  intelligence community could have done to avert the September  11 tragedy. We must identify any systemic shortcomings in our  intelligence community and fix those as soon as possible. We  owe it to the American people to do all that we can to prevent  a recurrence of September 11.     These and other issues will be explored with our witnesses  in a closed hearing this afternoon and for the remainder of  this session of Congress. I want to thank our witnesses who are  appearing here today. We have with us Mr. George Tenet,  Director of Central Intelligence; Mr. Carl Ford, Assistant  Secretary of State for Intelligence and Research; Vice Admiral  Thomas Wilson, Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency; and  Mr. Dale Watson, Executive Assistant Director for  Counterterrorism and Counterintelligence.     In order to optimize the time for questions of our  witnesses, immediately after Vice Chairman Senator Shelby makes  his opening statement, we will ask Director Tenet to present  his testimony. We will ask our other witnesses to submit their  full statements for the record. For our question-and-answer  period, we will observe the normal Committee rule of first  arrival, first to question. The questions will be limited to  five minutes per round.     Vice Chairman Shelby.     Vice Chairman Shelby. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We held our  last open hearing on national security threats one year ago  tomorrow, as Senator Graham has alluded to. Director Tenet, on  that day, you testified here that first and foremost among the  threats to the U.S. was the threat posed by international  terrorism, and specifically by Usama bin Ladin&#8217;s global  terrorist network.     We all agreed with you when you said, and I quote, &#8220;The  highest priority for our intelligence community must invariably  be on those things that threaten the lives of Americans or the  physical security of the United States.&#8221;     To fight this terrorist threat, you assured us then, and I  quote again, &#8220;The intelligence community has designed a robust  counterterrorism program that has preempted, disrupted and  defeated international terrorists and their activities.&#8221; In  fact, you told us then, &#8220;In most instances, we&#8217;ve kept  terrorists off-balance, forcing them to worry about their own  security and degrading their ability to plan and to conduct  operations.&#8221;     Seven months after your testimony, in an attack that  apparently had been years in the planning, Usama bin Ladin&#8217;s  terrorists killed nearly 3,000 innocent Americans in less than  one hour. As you know, the U.S. has an intelligence community  today and a Director of Central Intelligence in large part  because of the Pearl Harbor disaster of December 7th, 1941. The  fear of another Pearl Harbor provided the impetus for our  establishment of a national-level intelligence bureaucracy.  This system was created so that America would never have to  face another devastating surprise attack.     That second devastating surprise attack came on  September11th, and as I said, it killed more Americans than did the  Japanese assault on Pearl Harbor. All of us, I think, owe the American  people an explanation as to why our intelligence community failed to  provide adequate warning of such a terrorist attack on our soil. After  all, as Director Tenet has stated, the Director of Central Intelligence  is hired not to observe and to comment but to warn and to protect.     In the very near future, this Committee will join with the  House Intelligence Committee in an effort to provide an  explanation to the American people. Once we determine why we  were caught completely by surprise, I believe we must then work  together to ensure that there is no third Pearl Harbor.     I&#8217;m pleased that the Director of Central Intelligence,  George Tenet, and his colleagues have joined us today. These  threat hearings are important, because understanding what the  threats are is the first step toward helping our intelligence  community meet the challenge of defending against them.     Mr. Chairman, these hearings also give the respective  leaders within the intelligence community an opportunity to  speak directly to the American people. While the bulk of the  activities of the intelligence community are secret, there is a  great deal we can and I think we should discuss in a public  forum, as you called for today.     With that in mind, I ask each of our witnesses to address  members&#8217; questions to the greatest extent possible in this open  setting. Not long ago, our intelligence community faced a  single clear threat&#8211;the Soviet Union and its communist  allies&#8211;against which it could devote most of its resources and  attention.     With the end of the Cold War, the world situation facing  our intelligence agencies underwent a fundamental change. Until  that point, murky transnational threats had been only sideshows  to the main event of the East-versus-West strategic rivalry.  Today, however, coping with asymmetric transnational challenges  such as terrorism has become the most important duty of our  intelligence community.     To say the least, the post-Cold War period has been one of  difficult transition. Even before September 11, we had a rocky  history of intelligence failures&#8211;among them, the bombing of  Khobar Towers, the Indian nuclear test, the bombing of our East  African embassies, the first attack on the World Trade Center  buildings, and the attack upon the USS COLE.     Examined individually, each of these failures, tragic in  their own way, may not suggest a continuing or systemic  problem. But, however, taken as a whole and culminating with  the events of September 11, they present a disturbing series of  intelligence shortfalls that I believe expose some serious  problems in the structure of and approaches taken by our  intelligence community.     We will have many opportunities in the very near future to  discuss the structural and organizational defects inherent in  our intelligence community. But for today, we should remember  that understanding the threat is the first step along a road  that must lead to improvements in how our nation confronts  these threats.     It has become apparent that international terrorism now  poses the most significant threat to our national security and  our interests at home and abroad. I will be interested to hear  what our intelligence agencies believe such threats will look  like in the future.     Just as militaries can face defeat if they keep trying to  fight the last war, so can intelligence agencies suffer  terrible strategic surprise if they spend their time trying to  meet the last threat or if they try to meet new threats with  the mindset, tactics and obsolete mythologies of the past.     The U.S. clearly faces unprecedented dangers today, and we  will surely face new ones tomorrow. I look forward to hearing  from our witnesses today as we discuss these threats and how we  can work together to defeat them in the future.     Thank you, Mr. Chairman.     Chairman Graham. Thank you, Mr. Vice Chairman.     As indicated previously, we will now receive the testimony  from Director Tenet. We&#8217;ll ask for the other witnesses to  submit their statements, and then we will proceed to questions.     Director Tenet.     [The prepared statements of Mr. Tenet, Mr. Ford, Admiral  Wilson, and Dale Watson follow:] STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE GEORGE J. TENET, DIRECTOR OF CENTRAL  INTELLIGENCE, ACCOMPANIED BY THE HONORABLE CARL FORD, ASSISTANT  SECRETARY OF STATE FOR INTELLIGENCE AND RESEARCH; VICE ADMIRAL   THOMAS R. WILSON, DIRECTOR, DEFENSE INTELLIGENCE AGENCY; AND  DALE L. WATSON, EXECUTIVE ASSISTANT DIRECTOR, COUNTERTERRORISM      AND COUNTERINTELLIGENCE, FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION      Director Tenet. Mr. Chairman, I appear before you this year  under circumstances that are extraordinary and historic for  reasons I need not recount. Never before has the subject of  this annual threat briefing had more immediate resonance. Never  before have the dangers been more clear or more present.     September 11 brought together and brought home literally  several vital threats to the United States and its interests  that we have long been aware of. It is the convergence of these  threats that I want to emphasize with you today: The connection  between terrorists and other enemies of this country; the  weapons of mass destruction they seek to use against us; and  the social, economic and political tensions across the world  that they exploit in mobilizing their followers.     September 11 demonstrated the dangers that arise when these  threats converge and remind us that we overlook, at our own  peril, the impact of crises in remote parts of the world. This  convergence of threats has created a world I will present to  you today, a world in which dangers exist not only in those  places we have most often focused our attention, but also in  other areas that demand it; in places like Somalia, where the  absence of a national government has created an environment in  which groups sympathetic to al-Qa&#8217;ida have offered terrorists  an operational base and potential safe haven; in places like  Indonesia, where political instability, separatist and ethnic  tensions and protracted violence are hampering economic  recovery and fueling Islamic extremism; in places like  Colombia, where leftist insurgents who make much of their money  from drug trafficking are escalating their assault on the  government, further undermining economic prospects and fueling  a cycle of violence; and finally, Mr. Chairman, in places like  Connecticut, where the death of a 94-year-old woman in her own  home of anthrax poisoning can arouse our worst fears about what  our enemies might try to do to us.     These threats demand our utmost response. The United States  has clearly demonstrated since September 11 that it is up to  the challenge. But make no mistake: Despite the battles we have  won in Afghanistan, we remain a nation at war. Last year I told  you that Usama bin Ladin and the al-Qa&#8217;ida network were the  most immediate and serious threat this country faced. This  remains true, despite the progress we have made in Afghanistan  and in disrupting the network elsewhere.     We assess that al-Qa&#8217;ida and other terrorist groups will  continue to plan to attack this country and its interests  abroad. Their modus operandi is to continue to have multiple  attack plans in the works simultaneously and to have al-Qa&#8217;ida  cells in place to conduct them.     We know that the terrorists have considered attacks in the  U.S. against high-profile government or private facilities,  famous landmarks and U.S. infrastructure nodes such as  airports, bridges, harbors and dams. High-profile events such  as the Olympics or last weekend&#8217;s Super Bowl also fit the  terrorists&#8217; interests in striking another blow within the  United States that would command worldwide media attention.     Al-Qa&#8217;ida also has plans to strike against U.S. and allied  interests in Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Southeast  Asia. American diplomatic and military installations are at  high risk, especially in East Africa, Israel, Saudi Arabia and  Turkey. Operations against U.S. targets could be launched by  al-Qa&#8217;ida cells already in place in major cities in Europe and  the Middle East. Al-Qa&#8217;ida can also exploit its presence or  connections to other groups in such countries as Somalia,  Yemen, Indonesia and the Philippines.     Although the September 11 attacks suggest that al-Qa&#8217;ida  and other terrorists will continue to use conventional weapons,  one of our highest concerns is their stated readiness to  attempt unconventional attacks against us. As early as 1998,  bin Ladin publicly declared that acquiring unconventional  weapons was a religious duty. Terrorist groups worldwide have  ready access to information on chemical, biological and even  nuclear weapons via the Internet, and we know that al-Qa&#8217;ida  was working to acquire some of the most dangerous chemical  agents and toxins.     Documents recovered from al-Qa&#8217;ida facilities in  Afghanistan show that bin Ladin was pursuing a sophisticated  biological weapons research program. We also believe that bin  Ladin was seeking to acquire or develop a nuclear device. Al- Qa&#8217;ida may be pursuing a radioactive dispersal device, what  some call a dirty bomb.     Alternatively, al-Qa&#8217;ida or other terrorist groups might  also try to launch conventional attacks against the chemical or  nuclear industrial infrastructure of the United States to cause  widespread toxic or radiological damage.     We are also alert to the possibility of cyber warfare  attack by terrorists. September 11 demonstrated our dependence  on critical infrastructure systems that rely on electronic and  computer networks. Attacks of this nature will become an  increasingly viable option for the terrorists as they and other  foreign adversaries become more familiar with these targets and  the technologies required to attack them.     The terrorist threat goes well beyond al-Qa&#8217;ida. The  situation in the Middle East continues to fuel terrorism and  anti-U.S. sentiment worldwide. Groups like the Palestinian  Islamic Jihad and Hamas have escalated their violence against  Israel, and the Intifada has rejuvenated once-dormant groups  like the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. If  these groups feel that U.S. actions are threatening their  existence, they may begin targeting Americans directly, as  Hizbollah&#8217;s terrorist wing already does.     We&#8217;re also watching states like Iran and Iraq that continue  to support terrorist groups. Iran continues to provide support,  includingarms transfers, to the Palestinian rejection groups  and Hizbollah. Tehran also has failed to move decisively against al- Qa&#8217;ida members who have relocated to Iran from Afghanistan. Iraq has a  long history of supporting terrorists, including giving sanctuary to  Abu Nidal.     The war on terrorism, Mr. Chairman, has dealt severe blows  to al-Qa&#8217;ida and its leadership. The group has been denied its  safe haven and strategic command center in Afghanistan. Drawing  on both our own assets and increased cooperation from allies  around the world, we are uncovering terrorist plans and  breaking up their cells. These efforts have yielded the arrest  of nearly 1,000 al-Qa&#8217;ida operatives in over 60 countries and  have disrupted terrorist operations and potential terrorist  attacks.     Mr. Chairman, bin Ladin did not believe that we would  invade his sanctuary. He saw the United States as soft,  impatient, unprepared and fearful of a long bloody war of  attrition. He did not count on the fact that we had lined up  allies that could help us overcome barriers of terrain and  culture. He did not know about the collection and operational  initiatives that will allow us to strike with great accuracy at  the heart of the Taliban and al-Qa&#8217;ida. He underestimated our  capabilities, our readiness and our resolve.     That said, I must repeat that al-Qa&#8217;ida has not yet been  destroyed. It and other like-minded groups remain willing and  able to strike at us. Al-Qa&#8217;ida&#8217;s leaders, still at large, are  working to reconstitute the organization and resume its  terrorist operations. We must eradicate these organizations by  denying them their sources of financing, eliminating their  ability to hijack charitable organizations for their terrorist  purposes. We must be prepared for a long war and we must not  falter.     Mr. Chairman, we must also look beyond the immediate danger  of terrorist attacks to the conditions that allow terrorism to  take root around the world. These conditions are no less  threatening to U.S. national security than terrorism itself.  The problems that terrorists exploit&#8211;poverty, alienation and  ethnic tensions&#8211;will grow more acute over the next decade.  This will especially be the case in those parts of the world  that have served as the most fertile recruiting grounds for  Islamic extremist groups.     We have already seen in Afghanistan and elsewhere that  domestic unrest and conflict in weak states is one of the  factors that create an environment conducive to terrorism. More  importantly, demographic trends tell us that the world&#8217;s  poorest and most politically unstable regions, which include  parts of the Middle East and sub-Saharan Africa, will have the  largest youth populations in the world over the next two  decades and beyond. Most of these countries will lack the  economic institutions or the resources to effectively integrate  these youth into their societies.     All of these challenges come together in parts of the  Muslim world, and let me give you just one example. One of the  places where they converge that has the greatest long-term  impact on any society is its educational system. Primary and  secondary education in parts of the Muslim world is often  dominated by an interpretation of Islam that teaches  intolerance and hatred. The graduates of these schools,  madrases, provide the foot soldiers for many of the Islamic  militant groups that operate throughout the Muslim world.     Let me underscore what the President has affirmed. Islam  itself is neither an enemy nor a threat to the United States.  But the increasing anger toward the West and toward governments  friendly to us among Islamic extremists and their sympathizers  clearly is a threat to us. We have seen and continue to see  these dynamics play out across the Muslim world. Our campaign  in Afghanistan has made great progress, but the road ahead is  fraught with challenges. The Afghan people, with international  assistance, are working to overcome a traditionally weak  central government, a devastated infrastructure, a grave  humanitarian crisis, and ethnic divisions that deepened over  the last 20 years of conflict. The next few months will be an  especially fragile period.     Let me turn to Pakistan, Mr. Chairman. September 11 and the  response to it were the most profound external events for  Pakistan since the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 and  the U.S. response to that. The Musharraf government&#8217;s alignment  with the United States and its abandonment of nearly a decade  of support for the Taliban represent a fundamental political  shift with inherent political risks because of the militant  Islamic and anti-American sentiments that exist within  Pakistan.     President Musharraf&#8217;s intention to establish a moderate,  tolerant, Islamic state, as outlined in his 12 January speech,  is being welcomed by most Pakistanis, but we still have to  confront major vested interests. The speech is energizing  debate across the Muslim world about which vision of Islam is  the right one for the future of the Islamic community.  Musharraf established a clear and forceful distinction between  a narrow, intolerant, conflict-ridden vision of the past and an  inclusive, tolerant, and peace-oriented vision of the future.  The speech also addressed the jihad issue by citing the  distinction the prophet Mohammad made between the smaller jihad  involving violence and the greater jihad that focuses on  eliminating poverty and helping the needy.     Although September 11 highlighted the challenges that India  and Pakistan and their relations pose for U.S. policy, the  attack on the Indian parliament on December 13th was even more  destabilizing, resulting as it did in new calls for military  action against Pakistan and subsequent mobilization on both  sides. The chance of war between these two nuclear armed states  is higher than at any point since 1971. If India were to  conduct large-scale offensive operations into Pakistani  Kashmir, Pakistan might retaliate with strikes of its own, in  the belief that its nuclear deterrent would limit the scope of  an Indian nuclear counter-attack.     Both India and Pakistan are publicly downplaying the risks  of nuclear conflict in the current crisis. We are deeply  concerned, however, that a conventional war, once begun, could  escalate into a nuclear confrontation, and here is a place  where diplomacy and American engagement has made an enormous  difference.     Let me turn to Iraq. Saddam has responded to our progress  in Afghanistan with a political and diplomatic charm offensive  to make it appear that Baghdad is becoming more flexible on  U.N. sanctions and inspection issues. Last month, he sent  Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Azizto Moscow and Beijing to  profess Iraq&#8217;s new openness to meet its U.N. obligations and to seek  their support. Baghdad&#8217;s international isolation is also decreasing as  support for the sanctions regime erodes among other states in the  region.     Saddam has carefully cultivated neighboring states, drawing  them into economically dependent relationships in the hopes of  further undermining their support for sanctions. The profits he  gains from these relationships provide him with the means to  reward key supporters, and more importantly to fund his pursuit  of weapons of mass destruction. His calculus is never about  bettering or helping the Iraqi people.     Let me be clear. Saddam remains a threat. He is determined  to thwart U.N. sanctions, press ahead with weapons of mass  destruction, and resurrect the military force he had before the  Gulf War. Today he maintains his vise grip on the levers of  power through a pervasive intelligence and security apparatus,  and even his reduced military force, which is less than half of  its pre-war size, remains capable of defeating more poorly  armed internal opposition and threatening Iraq&#8217;s neighbors.     As I said earlier, we continue to watch Iraq&#8217;s involvement  in terrorist activities. Baghdad has a long history of  supporting terrorism, altering its targets to reflect changing  priorities and goals. It has also had contacts with al-Qa&#8217;ida.  Their ties may be limited by diverging ideologies, but the two  sides&#8217; mutual antipathy towards the United States and the Saudi  royal family suggest that tactical cooperation between them is  possible, even though Saddam is well aware that such activity  would carry serious consequences.     In Iran, we are concerned that the reform movement may be  losing its momentum. For almost five years, President Khatami  and his reformist supporters have been stymied by Supreme  Leader Khamenei and the hard-liners. The hard-liners have  systematically used the unelected institutions they control&#8211; the security forces, the judiciary, and the guardians council&#8211; to block reforms that challenge their entrenched interests.  They have closed newspapers, forced members of Khatami&#8217;s  cabinet from office, and arrested those who have dared to speak  out against their tactics.     Discontent with the current domestic situation is  widespread, and cuts across the social spectrum. Complaints  focus on the lack of pluralism and government accountability,  social restrictions and poor economic performance. Frustrations  are growing as the populace sees elected institutions such as  the Majlis and the presidency unable to break the hardliners&#8217;  hold on power.     The hard-line regime appears secure for now because  security forces have easily contained dissenters and arrested  potential opposition leaders. No one has emerged to rally  reformers into a forceful movement for change, and the Iranian  public appears to prefer gradual reform to another revolution,  but the equilibrium is fragile and could be upset by a  miscalculation by either the reformers or the hard-line  clerics.     For all of this, reform is not dead. We must remember that  the people of Iran have demonstrated in four national elections  since 1997 that they want change and have grown disillusioned  with the promises of the revolution. Social, intellectual and  political developments are proceeding. Civil institutions are  growing, and new newspapers open as others are closed.     The initial signs of Tehran&#8217;s cooperation in common cause  with us in Afghanistan are being eclipsed by Iranian efforts to  undermine U.S. influence there. While Iran&#8217;s officials express  a shared interest in a stable government in Afghanistan, its  security forces appear bent on countering American presence.  This seeming contradiction in behavior reflects a deep-seated  suspicion among Tehran&#8217;s clerics that the United States is  committed to encircling and overthrowing them, a fear that  could quickly erupt in attacks against our interests.     We have seen little sign of a reduction in Iran&#8217;s support  for terrorism in the past year. Its participation in the  attempt to transfer arms to the Palestinian Authority via the  Karine A probably was intended to escalate the violence of the  intifada and strengthen the position of Palestinian elements  that prefer armed conflict with Israel.     The current conflict between Israel and the Palestinians  has been raging for almost a year and a half, and it continues  to deteriorate. The violence has hardened the public&#8217;s  positions on both sides and increased the longstanding  animosity between Israeli Prime Minister Sharon and Palestinian  leader Arafat. Although many Israelis and Palestinians say they  believe that ultimately the conflict can only be resolved  through negotiations, the absence of any meaningful security  cooperation between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, and  the escalating and uncontrolled activities of the Palestinian  Islamic Jihad and Hamas make progress extremely difficult.     We&#8217;re concerned that this environment creates opportunities  for any number of players, most notably Iran, to take steps  that will result in further escalation of violence by radical  Palestinian groups. At the same time, the continued violence  threatens to weak the political center in the Arab world and  increases the challenge for our Arab allies to balance their  support for us against the demands of their public.     Mr. Chairman, let me now turn to the subject of  proliferation. I would like to start by drawing your attention  to several disturbing trends. Weapons of mass destruction  programs are becoming more advanced and effective as they  mature and as countries of concern become more aggressive in  pursuing them. This is exacerbated by the diffusion of  technology over time, which enables proliferators to draw on  the experience of others, and develop more advanced weapons  more quickly than they could otherwise.     Proliferators are also becoming more self-sufficient, and  they are taking advantage of the dual-use nature of weapons of  mass destruction and missile-related technologies to establish  advanced production capabilities and to conduct WMD and  missile-related research under the guise of legitimate  commercial or scientific activity.     With regard to chemical and biological weapons, the threat  continues to grow for a variety of reasons and to present us  with monitoring challenges. On the nuclear side, we are  concerned about the possibility of significant nuclear  technology transfers going undetected. This reinforces our need  for closely examining emerging nuclearprograms for sudden leaps  in capability.     On the missile side, the proliferation of ICBM and cruise  missile designs and technology has raised the threat to the  United States from weapons of mass destruction delivery systems  to a critical threshold. As outlined in our recent national  intelligence estimate on the subject, most intelligence  community agencies project that by 2015 the U.S. will most  likely face ICBM threats from North Korea and Iran, and  possibly Iraq. This is in addition to the longstanding missile  forces of Russia and China. Short- and medium-range ballistic  missiles pose a significant threat right now.     Mr. Chairman, Russian entities continue to provide other  countries with technology and expertise applicable to CW, BW,  nuclear and ballistic missile and cruise missile projects.  Russia appears to be the first choice of proliferant states  seeking the most advanced technology and training. These sales  are a major source of funds for Russian commercial and defense  industries and military research and development. Russia  continues to supply significant assistance on nearly all  aspects of Tehran&#8217;s nuclear program. It is also providing Iran  with assistance on long-range ballistic missile.     Chinese firms remain key suppliers of missile-related  technologies to Pakistan, Iran and several other countries.  This in spite of Beijing&#8217;s November 2000 missile pledge not to  assist in any way countries seeking to develop nuclear-capable  ballistic missiles. Most of China&#8217;s efforts involve solid  propellant ballistic missiles, developments for countries that  are largely dependent on Chinese expertise and materials. But  it has also sold cruise missiles to countries of concern, such  as Iran.     North Korea continues to export complete ballistic missiles  and production capabilities, along with related raw materials,  components and expertise. Profits from these sales help  Pyongyang to support its missile and probably other WMD  development programs, and in turn generate new products to  offer its customers, primarily Egypt, Libya, Syria and Iran.     North Korea continues to comply with the terms of the  agreed framework that are directly related to the freeze on its  reactor program. But Pyongyang has warned that it is prepared  to walk away from the agreement if it concluded that the United  States was not living up to its end of the deal.     Iraq continues to build and expand an infrastructure  capable of producing weapons of mass destruction. Baghdad is  expanding its civilian chemical industries in ways that could  be diverted quickly into CW production. We believe Baghdad  continues to pursue ballistic missile capabilities that exceed  the restrictions imposed by U.N. resolutions. With substantial  foreign assistance, it could flight-test a longer-range  ballistic missile within the next five years.     We believe that Saddam never abandoned his nuclear weapons  program. Iraq maintains a significant number of nuclear  scientists, program documentation, and probably some dual-use  manufacturing infrastructure that could support a reinvigorated  nuclear weapons program. Baghdad&#8217;s access to foreign expertise  could support a rejuvenated program. But our major near-term  concern is the possibility that Saddam might gain access to  fissile material.     Iran remains a serious concern because of its across-the- board pursuit of weapons of mass destruction and missile  capabilities. Tehran may be able to indigenously produce enough  fissile material for a nuclear weapon by later this decade.     Mr. Chairman, both India and Pakistan are working on the  doctrine and tactics for more advanced nuclear weapons,  producing fissile material and increasing their stockpiles. We  have continuing concerns that both sides may not be done with  nuclear testing. Nor can we rule out the possibility that  either country could deploy their most advanced nuclear weapons  without additional testing.     Mr. Chairman, I want to talk about Russia, China and North  Korea, and then we will go to questions. And I appreciate the  patience, but I think it&#8217;s important.     Mr. Chairman, with regard to Russia, the most striking  development, aside from the issues I have just raised,  regarding Russia over the past year has been Moscow&#8217;s greater  engagement with the United States. Even before September 11,  President Putin had moved to engage the United States as part  of a broader effort to integrate Russia more fully into the  West, modernize its economy, and regain international status  and influence. This strategic shift away from a zero-sum view  of relations is consistent with Putin&#8217;s stated desire to  address many socioeconomic problems that could cloud Russia&#8217;s  future.     During his second year in office, he moved strongly to  advance his policy agenda. He pushed the Duma to pass key  economic legislation on budget reform, legitimizing urban  property sales, flattening and simplifying tax rates, and  reducing red tape for small businesses. His support for his  economic team and its fiscal rigor positioned Russia to pay  back wages and pensions to state workers, and amassed a post- Soviet high of almost $39 billion in reserves. He has pursued  military reform. And all of this is promising, Mr. Chairman. He  is trying to build a strong presidency that can ensure these  reforms are implemented across Russia, while managing a  fragmented bureaucracy beset by internal networks that serve  private interests.     In his quest to build la strong state, however, we have to  be mindful of the fact that he is trying to establish  parameters within which political forces must operate. This  managed democracy is illustrated by his continuing moves  against independent national television companies. On the  economic front, Putin will have to take on bank reform,  overhaul Russia&#8217;s entrenched monopolies and judicial reform to  move the country closer to a Western-style market economy, and  attract much-needed foreign investment.     Putin has made no headway in Chechnya. Despite his hint in  September of a possible dialogue with Chechen moderates, the  fighting has intensified in recent months, and thousands of  Chechen guerrillas and their fellow Arab mujahidin fighters  remain. Moscow seems unwilling to consider the compromises  necessary to reach a settlement, while divisions among the  Chechens make it hard to find a representative interlocutor.  The war meanwhile threatens to spill over into neighboring  Georgia.     After September 11, Putin emphatically chose to join us in  the fight against terrorism. The Kremlin blames Islamic  radicalism for the conflict in Chechnya, and believes it to be  a serious threat to Russia. Moscow sees the U.S.-led  counterterrorism effort, particularly the demise of the Taliban  regime, as an important gain in countering the radical Islamic  threat to Russia and Central Asia.     So far Putin&#8217;s outreach to the United States has incurred  little political damage, largely because of his strong domestic  standing. At the same time, Mr. Chairman, Moscow retains  fundamental differences with us, and suspicion about U.S.  motive persists among Russian conservatives, especially within  the military and the security services. Putin has called the  intended U.S. withdrawal from the ABM Treaty a mistake, but has  downplayed its impact on Russia. At the same time, Russia is  likely to pursue a variety of countermeasures and new weapons  system to defeat a U.S.-deployed missile defense.     With regard to China, Mr. Chairman, I told you last year  that China&#8217;s drive to become a great power was coming more  sharply into focus. The challenge, I said, was that Beijing saw  the United States as the primary obstacle to its realization of  that goal. This was in spite of the fact that the Chinese  leaders at the same time judged that they needed to maintain  good ties with us.     A lot has happened in U.S.-China relations over the past  year, from the tenseness of the EP-3 episode in April, to the  positive image of President Bush and Jiang Zemin standing  together in Shanghai last fall, highlighting our shared fight  against terrorism.     September 11 changed the context of China&#8217;s approach to us,  but it did not change the fundamentals. China is developing an  increasingly competitive economy and building a modern military  force with the ultimate objective of asserting itself as a  great power in East Asia. And although Beijing joined the  coalition against terrorism, it remains skeptical of U.S.  intentions in Central and South Asia. It fears that we are  gaining regional influence at China&#8217;s expense, and views our  encouragement of a Japanese military role in counterterrorism  as support for Japanese rearmament, something that the Chinese  firmly oppose.     On the leadership side, Beijing is likely to be preoccupied  this year with succession jockeying, as top leaders decide who  will get what positions, who will retire at the Party Congress,  and in the changeover in government positions that will follow  next spring. This preoccupation is likely to translate into a  cautious and defensive approach on most policy issues. It  probably also translates into a persistently nationalist  foreign policy, as each of the contenders in the succession  context will be obliged to avoid any hint of being soft on the  United States.     Taiwan also remains the focus of China&#8217;s military  modernization programs. Over the past year, Beijing&#8217;s military  training exercises have taken on an increasingly real-world  focus, emphasizing rigorous practice and operational  capabilities and improving the military&#8217;s actual ability to use  force. This is aimed not only at Taiwan but at increasing the  risk to the United States itself in any future Taiwan  contingency. China also continues to upgrade and expand the  conventional short-range ballistic missile force it has arrayed  against Taiwan.     Finally, Mr. Chairman, let me say that with regard to North  Korea the suspension last year of engagement between Pyongyang,  Seoul and Washington reinforced the concerns I cited last year  about Kim Jong-II&#8217;s intentions towards us and our allies in  Northeast Asia. His reluctance to pursue a constructive  dialogue with the South, or to undertake meaningful reforms  suggests that he remains focused on maintaining internal  control at the expense of addressing the fundamental economic  failures that keep the North Koreans mired in poverty, and pose  a long-term threat to the country&#8217;s stability.     North Korea&#8217;s large standing army continues to be a primary  claimant on scarce resources, and we see no evidence that  Pyongyang has abandoned its goal of eventual reunification of  the peninsula under the North&#8217;s control.     Mr. Chairman, I skipped some things, and I&#8217;ll end there,  because I think we want to move to questions as soon as you  can. I wonder, Mr. Chairman, if I can just respond for a minute  to both of your opening statements on the whole terrorism issue  and how we proceed ahead, because I think it&#8217;s important. You  get to speak to the American people&#8211;so do I&#8211;and I think it&#8217;s  important that they hear us on this question.     We welcome the Committee&#8217;s review of our record on  terrorism. It&#8217;s important we have a record. It is a record of  discipline, strategy, focus and action. We are proud of that  record. We have been at war with al-Qa&#8217;ida for over five years.  Our collective success inside Afghanistan bears a reflection of  the importance we attach to the problem and a reflection of a  demonstrated commitment to expanding our human assets,  technical operations, fused intelligence, seamless cooperation  with the military. These are things we have been working on  very hard over the last five years.     During the millennium threat, we told the President of the  United States that there would be between five and 15 attacks  against American interests both here and overseas. None of  these attacks occurred&#8211;primarily because of the result of  heroic effort on the part of the FBI and the CIA inside the  United States and overseas to ensure that those attacks were  not successful.     A year later the COLE was bombed. We lost a battle there.  Part of the problem that we need to address as you look at this  is not only to assess what we can do unilaterally or in  conjunction with our military and law enforcement colleagues,  but the countries out there who have often deflected us, or  have not recognized there was a terrorism problem, who didn&#8217;t  help us solve problems that we could not solve simply on our  own.     In the last spring and summer we saw&#8211;in the spring and  summer of 2001&#8211;again we saw spectacular threat reporting about  massive casualties against the United States. These threat  reportings had very little texture with regard to what was  occurring inside the United States. We again launched a massive  disruption effort. We know that we stopped three or four  American facilities from being bombed overseas. We know we  saved many American lives. We never had thetexture that said  the date, time and place of the event inside the United States would  result in September 11. It was not the result of the failure of  attention and discipline and focus and consistent effort, and the  American people need to understand that.     What Tom Ridge is doing today in protecting the homeland,  in thinking about our border control policies, our visa  policies, the relationship between all our organizations&#8211; airport security&#8211;all of these things must be in place.  Intelligence will never give you 100 percent predictive  capability on terrorist events.     This community has worked diligently over the last five  years, and the American people need to understand that with the  resources and authorities and priorities the men and women of  the FBI and the CIA performed heroically. Whatever shortcomings  we may have, we owe it to the country to look at ourselves  honestly and systematically. But when people use the word  &#8220;failure,&#8221; &#8220;failure&#8221; means no focus, no attention, no  discipline&#8211;and those were not present in what either we or the  FBI did here and around the world.     And we will continue to work at it. But when the  information or the secret isn&#8217;t available, you need to make  sure your backside is protected. You need to make sure there is  a security regime in place that gives you the prospect of  succeeding&#8211;and that&#8217;s what we all need to work on together.     The decision of the President to go inside the sanctuary  and take the war to the Taliban and al-Qa&#8217;ida may be the most  significant thing that happened, because all of this  preparation has resulted in destroying that sanctuary, even as  we chase everybody around the world. We have disrupted numerous  terrorist acts since September the 11th, and we will continue  to do so with the FBI. And we welcome the Committee&#8217;s review.  It is important for the American people. But how we paint it is  equally important, because they need to know that there are  competent men and women who risk their lives and undertake  heroic risks to protect them.     Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Mr. Vice Chairman.     Chairman Graham. Thank you, Mr. Director.     Mr. Director, we are all concerned about the aftermath of  September 11 and what we are doing in order to reduce the  prospects of a similar horrific event in the future. One of the  issues that you discussed was the fact that Usama bin Ladin did  not believe that the United States would retaliate in the way  it did.     What was the basis of bin Ladin&#8217;s failure to appreciate  what the consequences of his action should be? And what is your  assessment of the similar feelings of other terrorist groups or  of the leaders of the nations that you have described as being  the most threatening to the United States as to what U.S.  response would be to their actions against the interests of the  United States here in the homeland or abroad?     Director Tenet. Well, sir, obviously in my statement&#8211;well,  I have never had a chance to talk to bin Ladin&#8211;I would love  the opportunity some day, and I speculate. But I think that the  importance of the sanctuary&#8211;I think he always believed it  would be denied as a place where we would operate directly. And  I think the importance of devastating the central command and  control node can&#8217;t be underestimated. The disruption that&#8217;s  occurred is formidable. And Afghanistan will not be replicated  other places in the world.     Other governments with whom we are working with will have  to step up to the challenge of recognizing that just because it  is Americans who are killed, in fact in the World Trade Center  many, many people from many nations were killed. Their law  enforcement practices, their visa control systems, their  willingness to change their laws to allow us to work with them  to disrupt these organizations means that what we need to tell  these people is that you cannot operate any place safely in the  world, and that rather than go up and down&#8211;rather than a  focused&#8211;you know, one of the problems is people somehow&#8211;my  fear is six months from now everybody will say, well, the World  Trade Center has receded&#8211;so the leadership that the President  has shown and the country has shown is going to make a marked  difference, because they need to understand that there will be  consequences that are very real and very direct to their  ability to try and hurt us.     Having said that, we know they&#8217;ll continue to plan. We know  that they will hurt us again. We have to minimize their ability  to do so, because there&#8217;s no perfection in this business.     The importance of Tom Ridge&#8217;s effort in unifying homeland  security cannot be underestimated as the important back end to  what we and the FBI do. And as we get better at this, what we  hope to do is change the security environment that terrorists  operate in. After all, if you look carefully, in our closed  session today, if you look at the profile of these 19 or 20  people, most were here legally. Most operated almost as sleeper  cells. Most gave the FBI no probable cause to believe something  was going to happen. Compartmentation of the information, all  of these are very difficult things for us to deal with. And we  have to get after it. So that&#8217;s how I&#8217;d answer the question,  sir.     Chairman Graham. Mr. Ford, does the State Department and  our diplomatic corps feel as if it has sufficient understanding  of the opinion of our adversaries, whether they be governments  such as those who were described as the axis of evil  governments, or non governmental groups such as other terrorist  operations&#8211;what their expectation is of a U.S. response to an  act by them that would be adverse to our interests?     Mr. Ford. Mr. Chairman, I think we all would agree that we  never have enough information. We can always use new knowledge  about all of these threats that we face. I think that the State  Department in general&#8211;our embassies overseas, the people here  in Washington&#8211;feel as if both the President and the Congress  are providing us with the resources that we need to be able to  not only understand the problems, but also, at least from a  Department of State perspective, express U.S. views overseas  through our diplomats.     I think if I had to point to one area which I think that  the State Department has as a priority, it is increasing the  number of young diplomats overseas who are reporting basically  on an unclassified basis on various groups&#8211;students, labor,  business, political leaders to be.Much of that reporting over  the last 20 years has been decimated by budget cuts and reductions in  the size of the embassies. Secretary Powell is committed to changing  that. So I think that we in INR are very grateful for the changes that  we see occurring, because there is going to be more information, more  knowledge for us to analyze and provide to the Secretary and to others  in the community.     Chairman Graham. I am going to pursue this line of  questioning further. The order of questioning will be the Vice  Chairman, followed by Senators Roberts, Rockefeller, Bayh,  DeWine and Kyl.     Mr. Vice Chairman.     Vice Chairman Shelby. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.     Director Tenet, I think your statement today is&#8211;you have  laid out a lot of the challenges and a lot of the successes,  and we all know that&#8211;only maybe the public doesn&#8217;t all know of  a lot of the successes of the CIA and the FBI and NSA, and  other members of the intelligence community. We all know that  we have some of the best and dedicated people that you could  recruit in America at the CIA, at the FBI, at the NSA&#8211;and we  can go on&#8211;and the DIA and you name it.     But some of us are worried about whether the system they  are in is designed to fail. And this would be part, I think, of  our overall inquiry which we will be into. But that&#8217;s another  day, and that&#8217;s a big thing. Because what we are really  interested in here is designing a system, helping the  intelligence community with funds and with legislative  structure to do the job to protect the security of the American  people. I think we are all in the same book, the same page and  book.     But with that in mind&#8211;and you went through it some a few  minutes ago, Director Tenet&#8211;why were we utterly unaware of the  planning and execution of the September 11 attacks? In other  words, what went wrong? We know that you are not going, as you  laid out, you are not going to ever be 100 percent. But these  attacks were so well planned, so well executed, I know they  caught us all by surprise, had to catch you by surprise. You  weren&#8217;t shocked, because you warned us before about these type  attacks. But the American people ask these questions. We will  be asking them, and I know you have asked yourselves those  questions.     Director Tenet. Well, sir, it&#8217;s an important question, but  I have to tell you that when you do this every day&#8211;and we do  this every day&#8212;-     Vice Chairman Shelby. Absolutely.     Director Tenet [continuing]. The shock was not that the  attack occurred, but where it occurred. So, was there a piece  of information that was collected that led us there? No. Did we  know in broad terms that he intended to strike the United  States? There is no doubt about that. He started in 1993. They  tried to come over the border in Canada during the millennium  threat.     The operational difficulties of what you are up against in  the United States, when you take the profile of these people&#8211; and Dale Watson should speak to this himself&#8211;and what they  showed, and how little evidence they provided to us in terms of  this is something we are now evaluating in terms of what is the  profile, how do they operate. How do we talk to states and  locals about things? What other changes need to be made?     But is there some piece of information out there, sir, that  nobody saw? That&#8217;s not the case. In fact, in July and August,  when we saw the operational tempo around the world go down  overseas, it was very clear that what had been planned had been  delayed. It was very clear in our own minds that this country  was a target. There was no texture to that feeling. We wrote  about it, we talked about it, we warned about it. The nature of  the warning was almost spectacular. Some people in town thought  that this was deception. It was never deception, because of how  much we understand this target.     Did we have penetrations of the target? Absolutely. Did we  have technical operations? Absolutely. Where did the secret for  the planning reside? Probably in the heads of three or four  people. And at the end of the day, all you can do is continue  to make the effort to steal that secret and break into this  leadership structure. And we have to keep working at it. There  will be nothing you do that will guarantee 100 percent  certainty. It will never happen.     Vice Chairman Shelby. What have we learned? What have you  learned in the intelligence community that you can share in the  open session with the American people?     Director Tenet. There are some positive things that have  been learned about what you talk about about future structure,  about all of the fusion that has occurred&#8211;the federation of  military intelligence and its analysis; the fusion of how NSA,  CIA, and the community operates in terms of bringing all  sources together, which we have worked on quite hard over the  last five years; the notion that you have&#8211;people have said  individual disciplines functioning autonomously where  information is not shared is simply untrue.     The importance of continuing clandestine human operations  to penetrate these groups, the importance of continued  cooperation with allied countries around the world who help you  do this business is absolutely indispensable. The resources  that the President has provided us to enhance our flexibility,  to maximize our ability to operate, is a very important lesson.  You can&#8217;t operate in 68 countries without a substantial  resource base, and he has given us that opportunity.     So there is an extraordinary knowledge of this target. We  did not start from a standing start. We wouldn&#8217;t have succeeded  the way we did with our military and our Bureau colleagues in  Afghanistan if we had not known how to act and a lot of the  reforms that we have been talking about had not been put in  place. The relentless pursuit of the secret and the human  penetration of these organizations is something that we have to  continue to attempt to do. And that progress over the last five  years has been substantial.     Mr. Ford. Mr. Chairman, could I add a comment? INR, as you  know, is a very small organization. We are not representative  of all of the bigger intelligence organizations. But I think  that at least from our perspective, my perspective, I learned  one important thing&#8211;is that for me getting more money or even  more people was not what I&#8211;since I didn&#8217;t get any of that&#8211;it  wasn&#8217;t something that I really missed. The factis that what I  couldn&#8217;t have gotten by without were my people, my experts. People that  have been on the job 25, 30 years, 15 years, you can&#8217;t replace them  with 10 rookies. You have one old hand that might train 10 rookies, but  you are not going to be able to have the rookies come in and start  producing right away. It&#8217;s something that you have to build for the  future.     I don&#8217;t know about the rest of the community&#8211;I think they  face the same problem we do&#8211;but over the next five to seven  years we are losing a good portion of our expertise. So that  while we don&#8217;t have a problem recruiting new people, we are  going to have to work on retaining the ones that we have got,  and making sure before they leave us that they leave us a  legacy of students and apprentices that have learned all the  tricks of the trade before they leave. And that&#8217;s something  that I think you can help the DCI and all of us with in terms  of thinking long term with personnel. I know it&#8217;s expensive. I  know it&#8217;s a problem.     You can&#8217;t have good intelligence without good people,  period.     Director Tenet. Mr. Chairman, I think it&#8217;s true.     Chairman Graham. Mr. Director.     Director Tenet. I think it&#8217;s true of all of us. By the year  2005, between 30 and 40 percent of the men and women of CIA  will have been there for five years or less. We&#8217;re about to  overhaul the entire compensation and reward system to reflect  on keeping the best and the brightest and retaining expertise.  But at the end of the day, people matter, and expertise, as is  embodied in our Counterterrorism Center and knowledge of the  target, can never be replaced.     Vice Chairman Shelby. We can help, and we will help. Thank  you, Mr. Chairman.     Chairman Graham. Senator Roberts.     Senator Roberts. Yes, thank you, Mr. Chairman.     There has been a nationwide alert, from time to time, to  the law enforcement agencies and the private sector to prepare  for the possibility of attacks against critical infrastructure  facilities. I know you&#8217;ve had some sit-downs with the  Department of Agriculture. When we asked the so-called experts  in Emerging Threats Subcommittee in the Armed Services  Committee, what keeps you up at night, they would refer to  bioterrorism; cyber attacks; chemical warfare; a weapon of mass  destruction&#8211;i.e. the dirty bomb that you referred to; their  use of explosives. But you can list about 100 things, and  they&#8217;ll probably do 101, because that&#8217;s the definition of a  terrorist.     We&#8217;ve had a discussion about the possibility of anybody  conducting what I call agriterrorism, or an attack on our food  supply, food security. I know when we asked the FBI two or  three years ago about the risk and the chance, the risk was  very high in terms of chaotic results all throughout the  country not only in farm country from an economic standpoint,  but the specter of having the National Guard, you know, handing  out your food supplies to people who are trying to hoard food.     My question to you is, where is that in your status of  worries? And what terrorist groups are the likeliest to conduct  such operations?     Director Tenet. Well, sir, first, I met with the Secretary  of Agriculture last week to discuss this, to discuss a tighter  relationship between us in working through this. But one of the  things that we&#8217;re learning, and we&#8217;ll talk a bit about it more  in closed session today, is the BW piece of this seems to be  more advanced than anything else, and the focus on pathogens  and the development of different strains of diseases.     If you think about what they will try to do to us, this al- Qa&#8217;ida/Sunni network&#8211;psychological disruption, eat away at the  fabric of your people, make it difficult to detect, and when  you think about agriterrorism, the food process, all those  things&#8211;this is something we have to get ahead of. This is  something we need to think through a lot harder, because there  is vulnerability.     Now, how you quantify it at this moment, I don&#8217;t have an  ability to quantify it, but you do know that you better get  ahead of it now, because of the way they exploit  vulnerabilities.     Senator Roberts. I&#8217;ve said that to Tom Ridge and others. It  is so easy to do. And I think the results would be absolutely  catastrophic.     Let me ask you another question on assessment of the threat  to the United States in our own hemisphere. If there&#8217;s one area  that really represents problems to the daily life and  pocketbooks of Americans in regards to drugs, in regards to  immigration, in regards to border safety, in regards to  energy&#8211;because Mexico and also Venezuela do supply a great  majority of our energy, not to mention trade&#8211;it is Latin and  Central America, or what we refer to as the 31 countries of the  Southern Command.     I&#8217;m very worried about that, more particularly in regards  to Venezuela and a fellow name Hugo Chavez, who I think could  be another Castro.     I would appreciate your assessment. You do that on page 21  of your testimony. If you could underscore that a little bit,  the threat to the U.S. within our own hemisphere, and are there  organized terrorist cells in Central and South America that  could carry out attacks against our country, such as 9/11?     Director Tenet. Sir, obviously, Venezuela is important  because they&#8217;re the third-largest supplier of petroleum. I  would say that Mr. Chavez&#8211;and the State Department may say  this&#8211;probably doesn&#8217;t have the interests of the United States  at heart. But at the same time, there is a deterioration in the  economic and general conditions in that country that he&#8217;s  responsible for. So I think he&#8217;s a tough actor for us.     Maybe you want to say some more about that.     Mr. Ford. Well, it seems to me&#8211;and I&#8217;m not an expert on  Chavez or South America&#8211;but when you can&#8217;t solve your basic,  fundamental economic problems that Venezuela faces with the  natural resources that it has available, you&#8217;ve got to blame  somebody. And I think that he&#8217;s found that it&#8217;s easier and more  politically correct for him in Venezuela to blame us.     Senator Roberts. Well, that&#8217;s what Castro does.     Mr. Ford. That&#8217;s right. And that&#8217;s why he joins with Castro  in several occasions in voicing concerns about the U.S. That  doesn&#8217;t bother me so much as long as it&#8217;s just words. But there  are alsoindications that he is sympathetic and helpful to the  FARC in Colombia and various other groups. So that I&#8217;m sure that all of  us are going to be watching very closely to see what goes on in  Venezuela and with President Chavez in particular.     Senator Roberts. Let me ask you the &#8220;axis of evil&#8221;  question, which has started some meaningful dialogue with our  allies overseas, more especially our NATO allies. From a  counterterrorism standpoint, what is more threatening about  Iran, Iraq and North Korea, in view of the President&#8217;s State of  the Union message, than other countries that are listed as  state sponsors of terrorism?     Director Tenet. I&#8217;m sorry, sir, what is more&#8212;-     Senator Roberts. What is more threatening about these  countries? Obviously, the President has indicated you have to  go to the source. He has put these countries on notice. There  is what I call some meaningful dialogue now as to what that  really means. And what I&#8217;m asking you to do is to say from a  threat standpoint, from a counterterrorism standpoint, what&#8217;s  more threatening about these countries than the others?     Director Tenet. Well, sir, first of all, the Iranians and  their support for Hizbollah, I mean Hizbollah is a world-class  terrorist organization, and their continued use of Hizbollah  and their own surrogates is a very fundamental challenge to  American interests.     Senator Roberts. I&#8217;m for the speech, by the way. I just  would like to get your take on it.     Director Tenet. Yes, sir. But from a terrorism perspective,  their continued use of both terrorist groups and their own  IRGC, not only to plan terrorist acts, but to support radical  Islamic groups, radical Palestinian groups, undermine the peace  process, when you couple that support with a WMD profile,  ballistic missiles, nuclear capability, I mean, you have&#8211;in a  regime controlled by hardliners, you have a series of twin  issues in the convergence I talk about that poses substantial  risk and challenge to the United States, and we have to pay  attention to it.     The North Korean piece, I would say is, look, the ballistic  missile threat that we talked about in our Estimate in my  testimony, you know, every&#8211;the SCUD/Nodong exports are the  basis of which so much of this ICBM capability is going to be  developed and the ability of countries to mix and match those  frames and further threaten us, not just with short-range  ballistic missiles, but with longer-range missiles that you  have to think about as becoming more prominent to you.     And the Iraqi piece, as I referenced, you know, the WMD  profile I gave you and my interest in being very careful about  was there a convergence of interest here between al-Qa&#8217;ida and  the Iraqis, don&#8217;t know the answer to the question yet&#8211;pursuing  it very, very carefully. There was a press story today that  said CIA dismisses these linkages.     Well, you don&#8217;t dismiss linkages when you have a group like  al-Qa&#8217;ida who probably buys and sells all kinds of capabilities  for people who have converging interests, whether Sunni or  Shi&#8217;a, and how they mixed and matched training capabilities,  safe harboring, and money is something we&#8217;re taking a look at.     So nobody dismisses anything. Everybody&#8217;s on the table, and  these networks of terrorism should no longer be thought about  purely in terms of the state&#8217;s interests, what they say  publicly, what their obvious interests are and how they see the  benefit in hurting the United States.     Senator Roberts. I really appreciate that. Let me ask you  one more question on what the coffee klatch or the coffee club  in Dodge City, Kansas, would ask. And that is, there have been  a number of reports, either right or not, that the CIA had  downgraded its human intelligence effort in the Afghan region.  I know that you have stated very clear that it&#8217;s not the case,  that there were serious shortages of officers within the  necessary language qualifications. That probably is the case.  And there was a disinclination to get too close to the  terrorist networks. Now I&#8217;m not trying to put that as a fact;  I&#8217;m just saying that&#8217;s background.     But what the fellows at the Dodge City coffee klatch ask me  is, if John Walker Lindh could get to talk to Usama bin Ladin,  why in the heck couldn&#8217;t the CIA get an agent closer to him?     Director Tenet. Well, I&#8217;m not going to do this in open  session, but you better tell everybody at the cafe it&#8217;s not  true.     Senator Roberts. I got you.     Chairman Graham. Thank you, Senator.     Mr. Watson. Mr. Chairman, may I just quickly comment?     I know you&#8217;re interested in the Department of Agriculture,  Senator, and they receive all our threat warnings and the  information. And additionally, a Department of Agriculture  detailee is with us since 9-11, and we&#8217;re considering that in  our Joint Terrorism Task Force.     Senator Roberts. I appreciate that. I talked with them  yesterday, and they indicate if there was a stovepipe, it  doesn&#8217;t exist anymore.     Mr. Watson. That&#8217;s right.     Chairman Graham. Senator Bayh.     Senator Bayh. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you,  gentlemen, for being with us today. I am grateful for your  service to our country. I&#8217;m reminded of I think it was a quote  put on the cover of the budget submission last year, quoting  Napoleon to the effect that a well-placed spy is worth two  divisions. With the war that we&#8217;re fighting today, I think  that&#8217;s probably an underassessment. So what you do is vitally,  vitally important.     I&#8217;m going to direct my questions to Director Tenet. Any of  the rest of you who would like to jump in, please feel free to  do so.     Director Tenet. They would love to comment, too, Senator.     Senator Bayh. I&#8217;m sure they would.     I was reminded of something Abraham Lincoln also once said,  Director, about your being the only one who was given the  opportunity to make an oral statement, about being run out of  town on a rail. He said, &#8220;Except for the honor of the thing, I  would just as soon have passed it up.&#8221; So in any event, thank  you for your presentation.     I&#8217;m going to ask about Iran. I&#8217;d first like to lay the  foundation here a little bit. You indicated, Director, that  you&#8217;ve seen little change in Iran&#8217;s sponsorship of terrorist  activities. Based upon that, I wouldassume that you would still  consider them to be the foremost state sponsor of terrorism in the  world. That true?     Director Tenet. Yes, sir.     Senator Bayh. You also indicated that they were involved  in, I think the quote was, across-the-board pursuit of weapons  of mass destruction. Now one of their top officials in the last  several days has come out and categorically denied that they  are involved in seeking chemical, biological or nuclear  weapons. So I would assume that his statements are more proof  of their mendacity than their innocence, in your opinion.     Is there any doubt in your mind, any doubt whatsoever, that  they are vigorously involved in pursuing weapons of mass  destruction?     Director Tenet. None whatsoever, Senator.     Senator Bayh. Russia and China, you indicated, have been  involved in assisting, directly or indirectly, their pursuit of  weapons of mass destruction. What should we think about that?  If Iran and some of these other regimes are an axis of evil,  are Russia and China involved with enabling evil?     Director Tenet. Well, sir, I would say that, first of all,  they are both separate. The reasons may be different. And at  times we have distinctions between government and entities. And  that&#8217;s always&#8211;and I don&#8217;t want to make it a big distinction,  but sometimes you&#8217;re dealing with both those things.     Senator Bayh. The governments in Beijing and Moscow don&#8217;t  have&#8212;-     Director Tenet. No, sir, I didn&#8217;t say that. There are  instances where you have entities that are doing business. But  if you look at the Russian relationship with the Iranians, it&#8217;s  long term, going back to the time of the czars, an interest in  a strategic relationship there for a whole host of reasons&#8211; access to water, oil and gas, whatever it is.     What is difficult to understand is why the minimal amount  of money you would gain from those kinds of activities in  generating the kind of threat they pose, not just to us, but to  the Russians and Russian interests around the world, would  continue to allow cooperation to occur by entities&#8211;with or  without the government&#8217;s knowledge&#8211;why the government can&#8217;t do  more to get on top of this and ensure that we don&#8217;t create a  ballistic missile threat in the region that will only result in  other countries in the region acquiring that capability, will  only result in all that. And quite, frankly, this is an issue  of dialogue between the President and President Putin.     Senator Bayh. What&#8217;s your answer to that question? It&#8217;s so  manifestly not in their own long-term self-interest.     Director Tenet. Sir, it must be about their perception  about how they gain influence. We haven&#8217;t talked about  conventional weapons and the importance of that. But as you&#8217;re  trying to resurrect a modern economy, you don&#8217;t have a lot of  chips to play with. Weapons are one thing you have to play  with, expertise of people and other things. And it&#8217;s  incongruous in terms of, on the one hand, you see a Russian  behavior and some very positive things President Putin has done  in terms of reforming their economy and moving in the right  direction; on the other hand, a record on proliferation that I  think belies a commitment to the kind of issues and norms that  we would expect them to pursue. So this is an ongoing  discussion.     But clearly, expertise, foreign assistance, whether it&#8217;s  Russian or Chinese, is the escalator clause in anybody&#8217;s  ability to quickly mix and match capabilities and develop  indigenous capabilities. And it is a problem. And you have to  get after, in the Chinese sense, a deeply embedded PLA interest  in earning income from these kinds of activities. You have to  get after strategic influence, particularly what it may buy you  in places like the Middle East, where your country will have an  increasing oil dependency in the future, and the thought about  how you compete against the United States.     But they pursue these for their own reasons. They are  inimical to our own interests and relationships that we would  like to establish, and they will threaten American forces and  interests. So these are problem areas that we have to continue  to talk about every year and put them out in the open because  they&#8217;re a problem.     Senator Bayh. It seems to me, in evaluating whether the  Russians and the Chinese are truly being cooperative in the war  on terror, the fight against proliferation needs to be  somewhere fairly up high on the list.     Director Tenet. And it&#8217;s interesting that in the war on  terror, they have been cooperative. You see, everybody checks  different boxes. We have had good cooperation with the Russians  and Chinese on the war on terrorism, and it&#8217;s an important&#8211;you  know, this has given the President and the Secretary of State  an opportunity to try and transform relationships.     Senator Bayh. Getting back to Iran for a minute, the reason  I&#8217;m focusing on Iran, Director, is I believe that in the long  run, this may be one of the foremost threats facing our  country, from that regime. What&#8217;s the Agency&#8217;s analysis of the  domestic situation within Iran? You mentioned the fact that the  moderates had won the last several elections. What&#8217;s the  assessment in terms of them eventually gaining more control  over the security and intelligence apparatus in that country?     Director Tenet. Well, as I noted in the statement in some  detail, I think the jury&#8217;s out. I think&#8211;you know, here&#8217;s some  interesting things to think about. Sixty-three percent of the  Iranian population was born after 1979.     They don&#8217;t have any context to judge this. There have been  elections. There&#8217;s a political dialogue in the country. There&#8217;s  a vibrancy to it.     It&#8217;s not Iraq in that sense. There are private  relationships where these things are discussed. At the same  time, you see an immature political opposition. And the  immaturity of the opposition is, I think, something to focus  on, dealing with an entrenched, tough security apparatus that  uses non-elected vehicles to break back and make it more  difficult for reform to occur as fast as it might.     So it&#8217;s an interesting and open question that we have to  continue to follow. So, on the one hand, you have behavior on  terrorism and weapons of mass destruction that you are deeply  troubled about.On the other hand, there appears to be a very  big opportunity with people who may want to have nothing to do with all  that or something to do with all that. The Iranians may well, in any  event, want weapons of mass destruction for their own historic  sensibilities of who they are in the region.     But the point is, this is a very conflicted society that is  continuing to evolve. And the question is, when does good  overcome bad, or when do people who want reform, how fast does  the opposition mature? Who&#8217;s the leader that takes them there?  How does it really flow? These are very interesting, difficult  questions for us.     Senator Bayh. I assume we&#8217;re allocating significant  resources to that.     Director Tenet. We&#8217;re paying a lot of attention to those  targets, sir.     Senator Bayh. Mr. Chairman, I have difficulty seeing the  lights from here. Is my time&#8212;-     Chairman Graham. I&#8217;m afraid you&#8217;re on the red.     Senator Bayh. I&#8217;m on the red. Okay, very good. I&#8217;d like to  thank you, gentlemen. Director, I&#8217;d like to thank you. You&#8217;re  doing a very good job, and we want to help you any way we can.     Chairman Graham. The next questioners will be Senators  DeWine, Kyl and Edwards. Senator DeWine.     Senator DeWine. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.     Mr. Watson, have we had long enough to tell what impact the  U.S. Patriot Act is having, the anti-terrorism bill? Or is the  jury still out on that?     Mr. Watson. The jury is still out on that. But, Senator,  it&#8217;s been a help, particularly the change in the words of the  FISA, the use of the grand jury material, detaining through the  INS process and those types of things. But it has been helpful  and it will continue to be helpful.     Senator DeWine. We&#8217;re interested, many of us, of course,  are in seeing what else needs to be done.     Mr. Watson. There are some items we have under discussion  with the department. But as of right now, particularly those  areas I mentioned, particularly the national security letters  we&#8217;re able to get out much quicker. We appreciate the Patriot  Act.     Senator DeWine. Mr. Tenet&#8212;-     Director Tenet. Senator, could I comment on that?     Senator DeWine. Please.     Director Tenet. I think that&#8212;-     Senator DeWine. I&#8217;m just trying to help you out here. You  don&#8217;t have to answer all the questions. Go ahead, Mr. Tenet.     Director Tenet. Access to criminal information, grand jury  information for threat purposes we&#8217;ve now been provided. It&#8217;s  been a very meaningful contribution to our understanding of a  lot of things that we can now do trend analysis on. It&#8217;s been  very, very helpful.     Senator DeWine. And that was one of the things that we  hoped.     Director Tenet. Enormously helpful to us.     Mr. Watson. That has been a tremendous help, yes,  absolutely.     Senator DeWine. Good. Mr. Tenet, let me ask you to  speculate, if you could, if you&#8217;re comfortable in talking about  it, in regard to training camps. Training camps have been  destroyed. How long does it take to set camps like that back up  again? And would you want to speculate about that in public,  about the ability to do that?     Director Tenet. Well, I guess that&#8217;s all going to be a  function, ultimately, of the interim government, its evolution,  our influence.     Senator DeWine. Well, I don&#8217;t mean necessarily there.     Director Tenet. Well, other places. As you know, there are  other places.     Admiral Wilson. I&#8217;d like to comment on it.     Senator DeWine. Admiral.     Admiral Wilson. What was removed in Afghanistan from al- Qa&#8217;ida, in my view, was the elimination of their Fort Bragg or  their Fort Irwin national training center. And when you arrest  terrorists around the world, they come from many different  nationalities. They come from different cells and  organizations. But virtually all of them have one thing in  common. They were all trained in Afghanistan, indoctrinated in  the camps. It was truly military-style training that was  ongoing. And the best and the brightest of them, they went on  up into other kind of terrorist acts.     So it is difficult to establish the scale and the  complexity of that kind of an operation that was unmolested in  Afghanistan somewhere else, because we are committed to this  global war on terrorism. It&#8217;s expensive. You can&#8217;t hide it too  easily and all those sorts of things. But it essentially was as  important to them as I think some of our national training  centers are to our military.     Senator DeWine. That puts it in perspective; appreciate it.     Mr. Watson. And, Senator, the difference, too, is that we  knew about the camps in Afghanistan for years. The difference  now is we did something about it. If somebody someplace else  tries to build a training center, I&#8217;m very confident in my  colleagues in Defense and FBI and CIA that they won&#8217;t be there  very long.     Senator DeWine. I think the President&#8217;s made that pretty  clear.     Senator Roberts asked you, Director, about South America.  He talked a little bit about the importance of that. And I  guess one of the concerns that we all have is that this is our  backyard. It&#8217;s not an area that has been overrepresented as far  as our intelligence community.     And now you have all the other problems that we have and  all the drains. We have Colombia. We have Venezuela. We have  Argentina. We have the tri-border region. All our drugs come  out of this area of the world, or most of them do. We could go  on and on and on and on.     So give me a little perspective about how, as the Director,  you can deal with that as far as the resources that you have.  And also, if you could, give me a little insight into what you  see going on in Colombia. Let&#8217;s assume that the peace  negotiations don&#8217;t turn out. We hope they do. What do you see  the FARC doing in the future, and what kind ofthreat is that to  U.S. citizens in Colombia? For example, we see the FARC moving into  urban areas more.     Director Tenet. Well, let me get to part two, and then,  with regard to the first question, we should talk about this in  closed session, because it goes to the heart of priorities and  allocation of people and resources. But we are stressed. And  the war on terrorism alone has resulted in a massive migration  of people and resources, and we&#8217;re trying to balance all these  things. Your back door is vitally important. Drugs is very,  very important.     But there is a tension about how we allocate these things,  Senator, that we&#8217;re trying to work through right now and make  the best judgments we can about how we allocate people around  the world. Carl, do you want to say something about that?     Mr. Ford. On that first part, I would only add that all of  us, I think, have noticed the coming together of drug  traffickers, organized crime, international organized crime,  and terrorists, even in the sense of just the logistics  arrangement&#8211;pass money, do favors for&#8211;so that anywhere you  have drug traffickers and organized crime and terrorists,  you&#8217;re going to have a problem. Clearly there are a number of  places in our own hemisphere that have such problems. Colombia,  other parts of South America come to mind.     This is one that it&#8217;s very difficult to try to focus on the  immediate problem. I think we in the intelligence community  have to learn flexibility. We have to realize that if you push  one button, four buttons someplace else are going to pop out  and that we have to design an approach that gives us much  greater coverage and depth at the same time. And that&#8217;s a  challenge.     Senator DeWine. Director, can you just&#8211;I know my time is  up&#8211;could you just answer briefly the question on Colombia?     Director Tenet. Well, obviously there&#8217;s an election coming  up. Obviously the peace process is not going forward. We are  concerned that the FARC is going to up the ante here and  threaten&#8211;and particularly threaten not only Colombians, but  us. So this is a situation that we&#8217;re all watching very  carefully.     We have to see how these elections come out and how a new  president decides to engage, and then look at how we want to  continue on with Plan Colombia and how we think about this  problem. But the drug problem is still there. The  narcotrafficking, the insurgency, all of these things continue  to undermine the fabric of this country. And we need to think  our way through, particularly after the election, where we&#8217;re  going to be.     Senator DeWine. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.     Chairman Graham. Thank you, Senator. Senator Kyl.     Senator Kyl. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.     First, to Mr. Tenet or other members of the panel, I&#8217;m  interested in the policy concomitant to your concerns expressed  about controlling technology transfers, especially, as you  said, because of the dual-use capabilities of weapons of mass  destruction and missile-related technologies. What would be  useful to you to better detect and therefore deter such  technology transfers?     Director Tenet. On the policy side, sir?     Senator Kyl. Yes. In other words, you&#8217;ve testified that  this is a big problem. And therefore, you must have an idea of  what might be done to eradicate the problem.     Director Tenet. Sir, one of the challenges we have in  designing a new regime is that you find there are lines that  are drawn, that activity falls beyond whether it&#8217;s a complete  missile system or components of a missile system. And I haven&#8217;t  looked at the MTCR, but it is a mistake to assume that the  regimes that are in place provide us the kind of security that  we&#8217;re looking for. And it&#8217;s a very important question. I  haven&#8217;t thought through how I&#8217;d redesign it. But I know that a  lot slips underneath.     And the problem with this issue is as follows. The  indigenous capabilities of the people you care about the most,  the component that falls outside of the regime, is all they may  need to complete that work. So we may have design regimes at  one point in time where there was a have-and-have-not quality  to this; in other words, the supplier was the dominant actor  you wanted to watch.     Well, that&#8217;s not true anymore. And as a consequence,  whatever we design has to acknowledge the fact that things that  come in under the transom, that don&#8217;t neatly fit into a  verification regime or a legal framework, are every bit as  worrisome to us. But it&#8217;s an important question.     Mr. Ford. Well, I think that this also goes back to, I  think, Senator Roberts&#8217; question&#8211;the issue of both weapons of  mass destruction and terrorism. We have this unusual  circumstance where the non-state terrorists, we know they want  them. We know they&#8217;re trying. But they have not yet succeeded  in getting weapons of mass destruction.     On the other hand, we have the states that traditionally  supported terrorism that are less involved, to some extent,  than they were in the past. But they&#8217;re going gangbusters with  weapons of mass destruction. If you look out five, 10 years and  you see both of these trends continuing and you think about New  York City, you think about the Pentagon, you think about the  horrendous danger that the world faces, not just America, all  of a sudden weapons of mass destruction takes on a different  context.     Before 9/11, we could talk about terrorism and say, &#8220;Let&#8217;s  get tough with this and let&#8217;s get tough with that.&#8221; Some of  our allies didn&#8217;t even support us. The difference now is when  we talk about proliferation, rather than a new scheme, we need  &#8220;You&#8217;re either with us or you&#8217;re agin&#8217; us.&#8221;     Senator Kyl. Sometimes we&#8217;re our own worst enemy. We&#8217;ve not  been as careful about being able to identify the end users,  which is what both of you are getting to here. We used to pay a  lot of attention to that, and I think you want us to pay more  attention to it. And so may I just request&#8211;and the reason I  point to the light is I have two or three other questions here,  and we could talk about this all day&#8211;I really would appreciate  and I think the committee would appreciate receiving some kind  of memorandum from you about ideas of what would be useful to  the intelligence community to get a better handle on  thisproblem of technology transfer, dual-use issues, end users and the  like. That would be very, very helpful to us.     I was at the Wehrkunde in Munich, Germany, the annual  security conference, with our NATO allies. And there were some  interesting comments at that conference. I just wanted to  confirm a couple of points, Director Tenet, that I think you  made earlier.     Minister of Defense Ivanov was a bit indignant about  suggestions that Russia was proliferating to Iran, for example,  and said, &#8220;There is absolutely no evidence that Russia is  providing any technology transfer to Iran,&#8221; although he did  say, &#8220;except for the nuclear program, which is for peaceful  purposes.&#8221; Is he correct in that statement?     Director Tenet. No, sir. And Sergei and I have talked about  this privately and directly. So, no, we respectfully disagree.     Senator Kyl. Thank you. And let me confirm what I think you  told Senator Bayh. Is it still correct to call Iran today the  world&#8217;s largest state sponsor of terrorism or proliferation of  terrorism?     Director Tenet. Yes, sir, I believe that. Does anybody have  a different view?     Senator Kyl. Okay. The reason I mentioned that is that the  President&#8217;s speech raised a lot of consternation among some of  our allies when he referred to the &#8220;axis of evil.&#8221;     I suggested that he wasn&#8217;t talking about a group of three  countries that were carefully calibrating their policies  together, but rather three sides of a triangle, probably  identifying the three toughest nuts to crack here in terms of  states. And in addition, of course, he made the point there are  many other kinds of organizations. Is that perhaps a more  correct way to look at what you think he might have intended to  say?     Director Tenet. I believe so, sir.     Senator Kyl. And in that regard, all three of these  countries deserve the attention not just of the United States,  but we can certainly use the help of our allies in crafting  policies that may or may not involve military means, but in  crafting policies that would direct our attention jointly to  these three separate and big challenges?     Director Tenet. Yes, sir, and that their participation with  us is absolutely essential if we&#8217;re not going to experience the  outgrowth of their behavior in some catastrophic way as well.     Senator Kyl. Mr. Chairman, I can&#8217;t tell from the lights  either, but am I on red?     Chairman Graham. You&#8217;re in the red zone.     Senator Kyl. Thank you. Thank you very much.     Chairman Graham. Senator Edwards.     Senator Edwards. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Good morning,  gentlemen.     Director Tenet, I was on the ground in Afghanistan a few  weeks ago and had the opportunity to meet with some of our  intelligence operatives there and to see the conditions under  which they&#8217;re operating. And I have to tell you it was very  impressive&#8211;the professionalism, the hard work they&#8217;re doing,  working 24 hours a day under very, very difficult conditions,  extreme weather. There may have been running water where I was,  but I didn&#8217;t see it. It was a very impressive operation, and  the information they had was also very impressive. So I wanted  to tell you that firsthand.     Director Tenet. Thank you, sir. They&#8217;re great people.     Senator Edwards. Yeah, very impressive.     But it&#8217;s obvious there&#8217;s a lot of work left to be done. Is  bin Ladin still alive?     Director Tenet. Don&#8217;t know, sir.     Senator Edwards. When is the last time we had information  indicating he was still alive?     Director Tenet. I&#8217;d be happy to talk about all of this in  closed session this afternoon.     Senator Edwards. I understand that. Is there any  information you can give us about that publicly?     Director Tenet. No, sir.     Senator Edwards. Same question about Omar.     Director Tenet. Oh, I believe he&#8217;s alive, sir.     Senator Edwards. Okay. And can you give us any information  publicly about the last time we knew his whereabouts?     Director Tenet. No.     Senator Edwards. Let me switch subjects, if I can, here, to  the United States, and, Mr. Watson, let me direct these  questions to you. What information can you give us publicly  about the presence of al-Qa&#8217;ida cells here within the United  States and the extent to which you believe we are able to  monitor their activity here, without giving away any  information.     Mr. Watson. Sure, and I&#8217;m sure we&#8217;ll talk about this in  closed a little more.     Senator Edwards. Yes.     Mr. Watson. There are hundreds of investigations that we  have open. I&#8217;ll comment on that. An interesting point that  Senator Shelby raised, I probably should address is, you know,  of the 19, the commonalities that we saw in that, a key point  to remember is, the 19 individuals all came in legally in the  U.S. Thirteen of the 19 came in real late in the process&#8211;May,  June, July of this past year.     The question I think Senate Shelby was hitting at is, why  didn&#8217;t we detect any of these people? The answer is, there were  no contacts with anybody we were looking at inside the United  States.     If they needed a driver&#8217;s license, they paid somebody $50  to $100 to do it. And there&#8217;s a whole set of commonalities,  which I&#8217;ll be glad to talk to you about in the closed session.     But the answer to your question is, there&#8217;s an ongoing,  very active program of identifying individuals and where these  individuals come from. Where we get those leads are from the  CIA and from the DIA, document exploitation in Afghanistan.  There&#8217;s a whole myriad of things that happen under this  program.     And back to Mr. Tenet&#8217;s statement, George&#8217;s statement,  quite honestly, with zero contact in the United States of any  of our known people with the 19 individuals coming here that we  had no information about, intelligence-wise, prior to, through  no one&#8217;s fault, that&#8217;s how they did it.     Senator Edwards. Can you, without disclosing anything that  would in any way hinder your investigation, can you tell us  whether, yes or no, are there al-Qa&#8217;ida cells operating within  the United States today?     Mr. Watson. I think I&#8217;ll hold that conversation to the  closed hearing. There are individuals, obviously, that I  mentioned. Are there core cells like the 19? Have we identified  anybody that carries the commonalities of the 19? No, not at  this process. But if you go back and look at the figures&#8211;and I  know I&#8217;m on your clock, and I&#8217;ll be real quick about it&#8211;if you  go back and look the commonalities of the age of the 19, how  many of those individuals have come in from the countries that  the 19 were from&#8211;Saudi Arabia, UAE, Lebanon and Egypt&#8211;you  have, since December 31st of 1999, you have over 70,000  individuals that have entered the United States under that  category. So it&#8217;s a huge, huge problem, and I look forward to  talking to you some more about those numbers.     Senator Edwards. Okay. If I can broaden that question&#8211;and  again, limit this to what you&#8217;re able to say publicly, please&#8211; Hizbollah, Islamic Jihad, Hamas cells within the United States?     Mr. Watson. Presence in the United States? Absolutely.     Senator Edwards. They all have cells within the United  States?     Mr. Watson. Yes.     Senator Edwards. Can you tell us anything, without giving  us any details, of the pervasiveness of their presence?     Mr. Watson. No. No, sir, I cannot. No.     Senator Edwards. But that is something you&#8217;ll be able to  tell us later?     Mr. Watson. Yes, sir. I&#8217;ll be glad to talk to you about  that.     Senator Edwards. Okay. Let me switch subjects. I&#8217;ve been  concerned, and in fact I&#8217;ve introduced legislation on this  issue, about the possibility and the potential threat of  cyberterrorism. What I&#8217;d like, if you would, is to have you  address that issue, tell me what you&#8217;re doing, first starting  with how serious is the threat, what is the potential damage  from cyberterrorism, and third, what are you doing, and are you  working with private business to address that problem?     Mr. Watson. Sure. First of all, there is a real threat from  the cyber arena. We have the National Infrastructure Protection  Center set up. It&#8217;s not owned by the FBI. It&#8217;s a community  center where we&#8217;ve brought down people from DOD and&#8212;-     Senator Edwards. Okay, I don&#8217;t mean to interrupt you, but  tell us first how serious the threat is and what the potential  damage is.     Mr. Watson. The threat, as we have seen in the al-Qa&#8217;ida  investigations and in terrorism investigations and across the  board in criminal investigations, the threat posed by cyber on  being able to transmit information, communicate with each other  is absolute. And that&#8217;s the wave of the future. If you&#8217;re  talking specifically, Senator, about the infrastructure and can  someone attack the infrastructure through the cyber means, they  have the capability, and that&#8217;s why we put so much time and  effort as a community on this.     Senator Edwards. And what&#8217;s the potential for harm if they  were successful at doing that?     Mr. Watson. Sure. A couple of incidents might be if&#8211;and  these are truly made-up stories here, but what if the FARC  decided that for whatever reason they wanted to change U.S.  government policy about cocaine spraying or in the drug arena,  and they had the capability of saying, if you don&#8217;t stop that,  then we&#8217;re going to turn all the lights off down in the state  of Florida, or we&#8217;re going to disrupt the power to the  northeast part of the United States. That&#8217;s a threat of the  cyber. What if&#8211;and I know my time&#8217;s short here.     But on the defensive side&#8211;and if you think about that for  a second&#8211;and I know this is an open hearing&#8211;that is a  tremendous threat. We need the capability to be able to  understand that and be able to counter that threat. Just real  quick on the statistics: 1,200 cases of our National  Infrastructure Protection Center last year, over 55 percent had  ISPs involved outside the United States.     Senator Edwards. Good.     Very quickly, Mr. Chairman.     Director Tenet, you&#8217;re shaking your head. You obviously  agree with that, you consider this a serious threat.     Director Tenet. Yes, sir.     Senator Edwards. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.     Chairman Graham. Thank you, Senator.     Senator Wyden.     Senator Wyden. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.     First question, I wanted to begin with you, Mr. Tenet, if I  could. What is your view of the degree to which the Saudis have  cooperated in identifying and capturing suspected terrorists?     Director Tenet. Well, sir, I&#8217;ll give you a short answer and  would be pleased to talk about this at length in closed  session, but I would tell you that since September 11 we have  had excellent cooperation in this regard. And I don&#8217;t want to  go beyond that here.     Senator Wyden. Can you tell us&#8211;and again, I understand the  sensitivity in a public session&#8211;whether you think that they  are moving to deal with the font of terror, these various  religious schools that provide the cadre for terror groups?     Director Tenet. Sir, I&#8217;d like to talk about all that in  closed session, thank you.     Senator Wyden. All right. Cuba is still listed by the  administration as a state sponsor of terrorism. Would you give  us an example, in your view, of how Cuba currently sponsors  terrorism?     Mr. Watson. From law enforcement&#8217;s perspective, Cuba  certainly harbors a lot of fugitives and individuals that we  still are concerned with, particularly the Puerto Rican issue  and some other big-time individuals that have been convicted of  terrorist crimes.     Mr. Ford. My staff also suggests in the answer to the  question in my book that there are 20 ETA members in Cuba, and  they provide some degree of safe haven and support to the  Colombian FARC and ELN groups. Bogota is aware of this  arrangement; apparently it does not object.     Cuban spokesmen revealed in August that Sinn Fein&#8217;s  official representative for Cuba and Latin America, who was one  of the three Provisional IRA members arrested in Colombia on  suspicion of providing explosives training to the FARC, have  been based in Cuba for five years. Some U.S. fugitives continue  to live on the island.     Senator Wyden. What can you tell us, again given the fact  that this is a public session, about what is being done to  address these threats that you describe?     [Pause.]     Senator Wyden. Sounds like everybody&#8217;s tripping over  themselves to answer.     Director Tenet. I don&#8217;t have an answer, sir.     Mr. Watson. On the law enforcement, on the fugitive side,  in public I&#8217;d rather not say what we&#8217;re doing at this point in  time. But we&#8217;re certainly working with the intelligence  community.     Senator Wyden. Is there anything else to be said with  respect to how we&#8217;re dealing with this in public?     Director Tenet. No, sir, I don&#8217;t think so.     Senator Wyden. All right. We&#8217;ll ask about that in private.     Senator Roberts. Will the senator yield? I&#8217;m over here.     Chairman Graham. Senator Roberts.     Senator Wyden. I&#8217;d be happy to yield to a Kansan.     Senator Roberts. One of the questions that I had was does  the intelligence community believe that the resumption of U.S.  trade with Cuba could hasten the economic and political reform  in Cuba, given the fact that Castro is 77 years old, and that  when he passes from the scene&#8211;and I was not aware until your  commentary that in terms of state-sponsored terrorism that they  were exporting terrorism, certainly to the degree that they  were before when they were getting, what, $2 billion from the  Soviet Union. But post-Castro with a drug cartel taking over  Cuba poses, to me, a greater national security problem.     And I&#8217;m wondering about your assessment in regards to trade  with Cuba so you can hang your hat on getting some kind of an  entrepreneurial peg down there so that we can make some  progress.     Chairman Graham. Senator, could I ask you to hold that  question? I think Senator Wyden had a final question he wanted  to ask.     Senator Wyden. I did have one last question. With your  leave, Mr. Chairman, if we could get an answer to Senator  Roberts, and then I can ask one additional one.     Chairman Graham. Certainly&#8212;-     Senator Roberts. I&#8217;m sorry for taking your time, Ron.     Senator Wyden. Not at all.     Director Tenet. Senator, can I take that for the record? I  don&#8217;t have an answer off the top of my head.     Senator Roberts. Certainly. Thank you.     Senator Wyden. The last question I had deals with  technology. I think this would be appropriate for you, Director  Tenet. My sense is right now if you look at In-Q-Tel, if you  look at the Department of Defense, if you look at the various  agencies, we&#8217;re now having the federal government flooded with  vendors and products and a variety of ideas for how to combat  terrorism. It is all very constructive. I think we welcome it.  And I&#8217;ve read publicly what In-Q-Tel has been trying to do, and  I think it&#8217;s clearly a step in the right direction. But there  doesn&#8217;t seem to be much of a process for evaluating the merits  of these various and sundry technologies.     I&#8217;m working on legislation now that would establish a  national testbed that would allow us, in one place, to look at  these various products for potential intelligence-gathering and  information-sharing technologies.     We&#8217;ve been pleased at the general comments that you all  have made about this idea. I would just like to get a statement  in the public domain here whether you think that that is  generally a sensible idea to have one place, a national testbed  where these products could be examined?     Director Tenet. I haven&#8217;t thought about it. It makes sense.  I think that with In-Q-Tel, though, I mean, it&#8217;s a very focused  effort. And we do identify very specific problems and very  specific solutions that we&#8217;ve migrated to us, at CIA, when I  say &#8220;us,&#8221; and we&#8217;re also trying to expand this to other  elements of the intelligence community. I mean, unclassified  environment, you know, access to people and technologies we  would never otherwise see; great ability to sort of really get  into a world that otherwise would not be open to us. And the  technology is applicable to all kinds of problems.     So we feel that it&#8217;s been very successful as a model. But  certainly, sir, some centralized testbed may be, you know,  helpful to all.     Mr. Watson. Senator, I think that would be very helpful in  the fact that there are departments and agencies within the  federal government that cannot communicate electronically, have  different systems. And certainly in the information-sharing  world, which we&#8217;re moving into, it would certainly be very  beneficial.     Senator Wyden. We will have draft legislation to show you  with respect to this process of testing for technology. I do  think In-Q- Tel is on to some very important initiatives. One  of the things that triggered my interest in this is that  they&#8217;ve said that they have really been at a loss as to try to  figure out how to evaluate all these products.     We&#8217;ll show you the legislation in draft form shortly.     Thank you, Mr. Chairman.     Admiral Wilson. Senator, I do want to mention, in Defense  we have the C4ISR battle lab in Suffolk, where we try to  integrate the best ideas in the Joint Task Force commander and,  you know, war- fighting setting; the Joint Interoperability  Test Center, which does the same, technically make sure things  interoperate.     So certainly it&#8217;s been a long-term challenge for us, and we  have some steps that are important going in the direction  you&#8217;re talking about. It may not be national, but they may be  built on.     Senator Wyden. Well, you all have worked very closely with  us. Dr. Wenegar testified yesterday. My concern is you&#8217;ve got  20 agencies now that are working in areas, for example, like  bioterrorism. I&#8217;ve been concerned that you if you have a  bioterror attack in a givencommunity it&#8217;s not possible today to  get in one place a list of experts who can assist with this. And what  you have, essentially, are all of these agencies proceeding with their  own kinds of rules. We&#8217;d like to bring this together in one place.     The Administration&#8217;s been very cooperative in terms of  working with us. We&#8217;ll show you the draft legislation shortly.     And I thank you, Mr. Chairman.     Chairman Graham. Thank you, Senator. Senator Rockefeller.     Senator Rockefeller. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.     A question for Mr. Watson. You know, when we talk about the  sort of al-Qa&#8217;ida and we talk about the White Aryan Nation, we  talk about different groups that are terrorists or capable of  doing terrorism, we tend to divide them into categories. And  I&#8217;ve never heard anybody address whether or not there is any  interaction, either within our country or internationally,  among those groups. Now granted, the White Aryan Nation  probably doesn&#8217;t have a very large role in Saudi Arabia, let&#8217;s  say. But what about the whole concept of terrorist groups,  potential terrorist groups, cooperating.&#8211;I mean, we have  groups in our own country that are organized in 34 states, and  you know the one I&#8217;m talking about. My question is, is there  any interaction among these types of groups on the national  level and, to whatever extent Director Tenet can tell  internationally.     Mr. Watson. Specific communications, we do see some  interaction and communications between groups. But with the  explosion of the Internet, we certainly see white supremacist  groups in contact with people in Europe, particularly in  Germany, et cetera.     We see on the terrorism, on the international terrorism  front, we see people here and overseas communicating mainly via  the Internet and talking back and forth and communicating that  way. Again, we get&#8211;we the FBI&#8211;a lot of people come in and say  you&#8217;ve got an individual down in West Virginia or Houston,  Texas, that&#8217;s complaining against the regime of government. And  these are friends of ours. And we have to look at that and take  a look at it, and that&#8217;s something that&#8217;s protected under the  Constitution.     But there are groups that do communicate. We see more and  more of that. I don&#8217;t think you were here when we were talking  about the cyber-threat, but that is a real area&#8211;a growth area,  and we&#8217;ll see more of that.     Senator Rockefeller. So there&#8217;s not direct communication  vis-a-vis higher-ups or middle-level types getting together and  talking, but they use third-party, i.e. the cyber world, in  order to do their communicating. But is it communicating of a  planning nature, or is it just keeping in touch?     Mr. Watson. I&#8217;m sure we&#8217;ll talk about this in the closed  sessions. There are a lot of indicators and key things we look  at as well as the intelligence community about codes, et  cetera. I mean, what are they talking about, what does this  mean.     And the Agency has done a great job. The CIA has done a  great job of trying to figure out what they&#8217;re talking about,  if they&#8217;re talking about key words. They do communicate  electronically. And I don&#8217;t want to mislead you in any way to  say they do not. But they do.     Senator Rockefeller. Director Tenet, there&#8217;s always the  talk of our coalition. I made a trip recently to the Middle  East, and I kept bringing up the subject of Iraq. And I did  that provocatively in order to elicit response. And always the  question of the power of the coalition or the disintegration of  the coalition was brought up in stronger or weaker terms.     But is that not something that we can assume? For me, I&#8217;m  looking at 20, 25, 30 years of this. And isn&#8217;t it probable that  as we look at coalitions we cannot assume that they&#8217;re going to  sort of stay stable, but that they&#8217;re going to ebb and flow,  that some countries will wander off, that Saudi Arabia may come  close to not being particularly friendly to us, maybe perhaps  not breaking relations or anything of that sort. But then in  two or three years, a series of events could happen, perhaps  within that country or whatever, which would bring the  coalition back into another form.     So it&#8217;s an ebb and flow type situation, and we shouldn&#8217;t  try to measure the power of our effort always according to the  aggregate sum of whatever value you attach to a coalition?     Director Tenet. No, I agree with that. I think the other  thing, particularly in that part of the world, is, as you  probably&#8211;you got a private message and a public message. And  you always see two forms. But I think in isolation, without  knowledge about what you&#8217;re thinking, I mean, everybody is very  careful.     You&#8217;re correct. I mean, when you lead, everybody follows.  Nothing ensures coalition success like success. And so the  replication of&#8211;particularly in the war on terrorism. Iraq may  be a separable issue, but there&#8217;s nothing that succeeds in  coalescing people when they see progress being made and real  results and real will to pursue whatever policy objective you  set out. It&#8217;s when you get into the stage of languish and other  things start to undermine what the original focus was that  things start to drift away from you.     So that focus and leadership brings people to you. And you  should always start from the perspective of&#8211;and this is a  policy issue; I shouldn&#8217;t be talking about it&#8211;what my  leadership means in bringing everybody to me rather than  worrying about it from the other side.     Senator Rockefeller. So another way of putting that is the  word unilateralism is used sometimes. And I&#8217;m not asking for a  comment at this point, but the point is that if a country is  showing absolute resolve, that that has an effect on what it is  that countries who may be somewhat more on the fence or are  somewhat worried will, in fact, choose to do with respect to  how they coalesce.     Director Tenet. Absolutely. And it also has an impact on  others whose behavior you&#8217;re seeking to modify at any moment in  time, because that success, they have to be mindful of it. They  have to look at the power of your operations and your policy.  So that kind of success also has an impact on behavior you want  to change someplace else. So it should not be underestimated.     Senator Rockefeller. Thank you.     Vice Chairman Shelby [presiding]. The U.S., as we all know,  has accomplished something extraordinary with its military  operation in Afghanistan, clearly in ways and with capabilities  that no other country can match, at least today. How will our  successes to date affect other countries&#8217; assessments of our  role in the world and their relationship to us? And Director  Tenet, especially how will such assessments perhaps affect our  military intelligence relationship with other nations?     Director Tenet. I think that all of these relationships  will be affected very positively and powerfully by what we&#8217;ve  done.     Vice Chairman Shelby. Out of respect?     Director Tenet. Yes, but they also have seen the power of  information-sharing, coalition warfighting, intelligence- sharing. They&#8217;ve seen benefits. And quite frankly&#8211;we can talk  about this in closed session&#8211;the Afghan scenario has  revolutionized modern warfare just in terms of technology and  its application and the mating of human capabilities on the  ground and Special Forces and your air war.     Vice Chairman Shelby. The ability to project force too.     Director Tenet. There are lots of interesting lessons here  that we&#8217;re all obviously going to study. It never gets applied  in the same way in the next place or other places, but I think  it&#8217;s had a powerful impact.     Vice Chairman Shelby. But it&#8217;s these positive lessons  learned, isn&#8217;t it?     Director Tenet. Oh, absolutely, sir.     Admiral Wilson. There&#8217;s certainly multiple consumers out  there that watch our military and intelligence community act,  and they think of ways to fight the next war as well. And so we  must not rest on the laurels of precision strike and all that  stuff, but continue to move through and analyze and understand  how our strengths can actually be used as weaknesses.     The other thing is, I think there is some concern expressed  by even friends about the widening gap between the U.S.  military capability and their own, and that we can do the heavy  lifting and then they&#8217;re in the peacekeeping and the mud and  slug and all of that.     Vice Chairman Shelby. Heavy lifting&#8211;you mean project force  and&#8212;-     Admiral Wilson. We have the ability to do&#8211;it&#8217;s a widening  gap in military capabilities, and so, as we continue to build  coalitions, we need to work hard to capitalize on military,  political, intelligence coalitions that can work well together.     Vice Chairman Shelby. To go to another area that the  Director and I have worked together on over the years, that&#8217;s  leaks. The security of our intelligence activities in the fight  that we&#8217;re in is clearly a great concern to the President, to  the Secretary of Defense, and, I know, to you, Director Tenet,  and the FBI Director. All of you have spoken out against leaks  of classified information. How damaging have such public  revelations been to the intelligence community&#8217;s efforts,  Director Tenet?     Director Tenet. Well, sir, I think you know what I&#8217;m going  to say here.     Vice Chairman Shelby. Yes.     Director Tenet. But I mean, I think that&#8212;-     Vice Chairman Shelby. Well, we&#8217;re going into a classified  hearing later.     Director Tenet. Yes. I just need to reinforce that when you  throw this information out, it often appears innocuous to  someone who&#8217;s leaking information. That&#8217;s not the prism to look  at it in. It&#8217;s the adversary&#8217;s counterintelligence capability&#8211; &#8212;     Vice Chairman Shelby. That&#8217;s right.     Director Tenet [continuing]. And his ability to put  together the pieces of the puzzle that put at risk your human  operations, your technical operations, your analytical  products, and jeopardizes investment that we&#8217;ve made to protect  the American people.     Vice Chairman Shelby. It&#8217;s a problem, isn&#8217;t it?     Director Tenet. It continues to be a problem, sir.     Vice Chairman Shelby. Mr. Watson.     Mr. Watson. I absolutely agree.     Vice Chairman Shelby. On behalf of the bureau. Go ahead.     Mr. Watson. Yes, absolutely, and it limits our ability to  obtain additional information, because people are real leery  about providing information if they think that&#8217;s going to get  found out.     Vice Chairman Shelby. Compromised, you say. Admiral Wilson.     Admiral Wilson. I think it could be devastating.     Vice Chairman Shelby. And it has at times, hasn&#8217;t it?     Admiral Wilson. To sources and methods.     Vice Chairman Shelby. Mr. Ford.     Mr. Ford. I couldn&#8217;t agree more.     Vice Chairman Shelby. We have a vote on the floor. Of  course, Senator Graham, the Chairman, has gone to vote. So I&#8217;m  going to need to vote. I&#8217;m not going to adjourn this Committee,  because Senator Graham&#8217;s coming back. We&#8217;ll stand in recess  till Senator Graham comes back. Is that okay?     Director Tenet. Yes, sir.     Vice Chairman Shelby. Thank you.     [Whereupon, a brief recess was taken.]     Chairman Graham [presiding]. The hearing will reconvene. We  are in the midst of one vote, and there&#8217;ll be another vote  following immediately. So we&#8217;ll probably just have a few more  minutes of questioning and then we&#8217;ll adjourn until 3:30 this  afternoon, when we&#8217;ll reconvene in closed session.     The issue that I&#8217;m interested in pursuing is, what are some  of the lessons that we learned on September 11, and how are we  applying actions against those lessons? In my first round, I  asked about the question of deterrence, based on the  information that apparently Usama bin Ladin did not believe  that we were committed to retaliating, and therefore, that he  could take the actions that he did with a sense of impunity.  And I&#8217;m going to be interested in closed session in pursuing  further what we&#8217;re doing to communicate to other terrorist  organizationsand nations which might harbor terrorists or  provide them with advanced means of weapons of mass destruction, so  that they do not make the same mistake that bin Ladin did relative to  what our intentions would be.     A second area that has been mentioned is the fact that  terrorists crossed our national borders and gained entry to the  United States fairly easily. I was surprised to learn that if a  U.S. consular office with someone standing in front of them  requesting a visa wanted to know what was the criminal  background of that individual or if that individual had a  criminal background, that, insofar as Interpol is concerned&#8211; the international police organization&#8211;that for about half the  countries in the world, many of the countries that we would be  most concerned about, there is no capability of providing that  information.     What steps have we taken or would you recommend that we  should take at every step in the process of a person gaining  entry to the United States, such as the grant of a visa,  screening at the point of entry into the United States that  would harden our boarders against entry by potential  terrorists?     Mr. Ford. Mr. Chairman, there is, as you know, a number of  mechanisms already in place through the consular service,  through the visa process, through an office in my bureau, which  we call TIPOFF. And it&#8217;s a community resource that provides a  list of both known terrorists and also, in some cases,  international organized crime figures. This status is supplied  by liaison services, by CIA, by FBI, DEA&#8211;whoever&#8211;so that each  of our consular posts has an electronic hookup with our  database, that when someone on our list shows up, it doesn&#8217;t  always tell them what the problem is, but it says you don&#8217;t  give a visa to this person unless you check with Washington  first. And then we can provide them with the information.     Chairman Graham. Was that system in effect prior to  September the 11th?     Mr. Ford. It was.     Chairman Graham. All right.     Mr. Ford. So that, obviously, it&#8217;s not foolproof. If you  have not been picked up as a bad actor by one of our law  enforcement agencies, intelligence agencies or one of our ally  or friend&#8217;s agencies, you won&#8217;t be on the list. You also can  have an alias. And you have to balance that in terms of, one,  both the economic and other interests that people all over the  world have in traveling to the United States. The sheer numbers  of people that go through the process, I find staggering. And  secondly, there are a lot of countries that we do not require  visas; they just simply have to have a passport. So that those  people also are very difficult to track.     Chairman Graham. But were any of the terrorists involved in  the September 11 attacks from a country where a visa was not  required?     Mr. Ford. I&#8217;ll have to take that question. I don&#8217;t think  so, but I&#8217;ll check.     [Answer supplied for the record: The ``20th hijacker,''  Zacharias Moussaoui, entered without a visa as a French  citizen.]     Admiral Wilson. Senator, I&#8217;d like to follow this up in a  closed session about a cooperative program that we have ongoing  with the Immigration and Naturalization Service, first for  counter intelligence, but it has immense applications in this  world that we&#8217;re pursuing rapidly.     Also I wanted to just comment. You mentioned about lessons  learned since September 11. And if I had to cite one thing, it  would be the value of being on the offense&#8211;the value of  getting prisoners, the value of getting documents, the value of  operating in their lairs, the value of having them move and run  and talk and all this. It gives us so much more leverage and  options than when you&#8217;re purely on the defense. And so there&#8217;s  a tremendous value to that. I&#8217;m not sure if the lesson&#8217;s  learned, but it&#8217;s a lesson reinforced.     Chairman Graham. Well, I&#8217;m going to hold the further  discussion on the immigration issue for the closed session, but  to go to the issue of value of being on the offensive, I was  interested that in the speech that he gave last week, Secretary  Rumsfeld used the term &#8220;preemptive strikes,&#8221; that we would be  prepared not to wait until we&#8217;ve been attacked, but if we saw  developments that were threatening, to move in a peremptory  manner. What are the implications of that commitment to act  peremptorily to our intelligence agencies, starting, Admiral  Wilson, to the&#8212;-     Admiral Wilson. First of all, I would say that, you know,  most people think of about preemptive strikes in terms of the  military, and certainly that is one venue for attack, but I  suspect that the Secretary was talking about preemptive strike  with all of our national capability: intelligence cooperation,  security forces, financial attacks. And it&#8217;s also combined with  this offense, in terms of not just being working on warning and  threat levels, but also targeting options, targeting packages,  the kind of work you have to do in the military. We talk about  preparing the battle space. So we have certainly increased  dramatically our efforts in the areas of preparing for future  attacks.     Mr. Ford. It&#8217;s very difficult to go on the offensive  without having good intelligence. It&#8217;s always important. But if  you&#8217;re going after specific groups or individuals, whether  through law enforcement or whether it&#8217;s through military action  or diplomatic pressure, you have to have the evidence, you have  to have the information to act on. And so that the pressure on  all of us has grown considerably after 9/11. We&#8217;ve got to get  better.     Chairman Graham. For instance, one of the things that we&#8217;ve  talked about that al-Qa&#8217;ida used were training grounds. They  prepared a whole cadre of people who they then placed around  the world to be ready to initiate action. And I think were not  all of the 19 hijackers graduates of one of al-Qa&#8217;ida&#8217;s  training programs? That would seem to be an example of  preemptive strikes. Are we gathering intelligence on the  training facilities of other terrorist groups, and are we  preparing ourselves with the kind of military, but also other,  capabilities to peremptorily take out those training  capabilities?     Admiral Wilson. Absolutely.     Chairman Graham. Maybe that&#8217;s something you&#8217;d like to  discuss in more detail in closed session.     Director Tenet. Maybe. [Laughter.]     Chairman Graham. Are there any other lessons that we have  learned from the events of September the 11th that have an  implication to our intelligence capabilities?     Mr. Watson. I think there are some things we probably  should talk about in the closed session, some other trends that  we saw as a result of the 19, Senator. Be glad to do that this  afternoon with you.     Chairman Graham. Okay.     There are some implications of what happened on September  11 that I would describe as being the over-the-horizon threats.  As an example, we know that Afghanistan had been the world&#8217;s  largest producer of heroin. We destroyed a substantial amount  of warehoused heroin during our attacks, and I would doubt that  this is going to be a friendly growing season for heroin  production in Afghanistan in the year 2002. That raises the  question of will the world&#8217;s supply be thus diminished, or will  there be other locations that might step forward to take a part  of the production that Afghanistan has traditionally provided?     A major heroin producer, relatively recent heroin producer,  is Colombia. What do we know about the possibility of a  significant increase in heroin production in Colombia to  replace what has previously come from Afghanistan? And if our  intelligence indicates that is in fact a possibility, what  steps can we take to deal with it?     Mr. Ford. Mr. Chairman, I&#8217;m not ready to write off so  quickly that Afghanistan will no longer be a problem for our  counternarcotics efforts.     Chairman Graham. Even in 2002, with the kind of  international presence that&#8217;s going to be in there?     Admiral Wilson. I think actually I&#8217;ve seen some assessments  that, because there&#8217;s relatively more freedom in Afghanistan  than there was under the Taliban and people are struggling  economically, that there may actually be not a change or even a  surge in heroin cultivation.     Mr. Ford. And there is also the storage of crops from  before, and that&#8212;-     Chairman Graham. That&#8217;s inside or outside of Afghanistan?     Mr. Ford. Inside Afghanistan.     So while I think that it will continue to be a problem, my  guess is that 2002 may be a little bit better than 2003, 2004.  But it&#8217;s still a problem. But there&#8217;s always someone somewhere  who seems to find a way to make up for any shortfalls,  unfortunately. There&#8217;s so much money involved that people are  prepared to take almost any risk to continue to provide heroin.  We&#8217;re just going to have to keep on top of it.     Director Tenet. Senator, why don&#8217;t we provide you an  assessment for the record on what the Crimes and Narcotics  Center&#8211;take all these facts and put them forward to you in a  piece of analysis. I think it might be helpful.     Chairman Graham. All right. And I&#8217;m going to hold the rest  of my questions until after we reconvene at 3:30. Senator  Rockefeller, do you have any final questions?     Senator Rockefeller. I can do it later.     Chairman Graham. We&#8217;re going to reconvene at 3:30 in a  closed session.     If there are no other questions, first, I would like to say  that I think one of the lessons that we&#8217;ve learned since  September 11 is just how good our intelligence agencies are.  The infrastructure that was in place in Central Asia that  allowed us to conduct the military operation didn&#8217;t just happen  in the afternoon of September 11. It represented a vision of  where the United States would have the need to develop  information and the maintenance of an infrastructure that put  us in a position to have the information when we needed it.     The fact that the first people on the ground in Afghanistan  were intelligence officers and that the first casualty in terms  of loss of life was an intelligence officer are examples of the  dedication and courage of the men and women who represent us  through your agencies. And on behalf of the American people,  there is a deep recognition and appreciation of what you have  done.     And I recognize that much of the commentary, including some  today, has been phrased in terms of questioning what happened  or what didn&#8217;t happen. But I hope that the American people  understand that those questions are being asked in the sense of  how, together, do we take a strong set of agencies and make  them even stronger in the face of the new threats that have now  become so apparent. And I want to personally express my  appreciation for your individual leadership and for the people  that you lead so effectively.     Director Tenet. Thank you, Senator.     [Whereupon, at 12:25 p.m., the Committee adjourned.]]]></description>
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		<title>9/11 Mysteries In Plain Sight</title>
		<link>http://pierrelegrand.net/2006/07/06/911-mysteries-in-plain-sight.htm</link>
		<comments>http://pierrelegrand.net/2006/07/06/911-mysteries-in-plain-sight.htm#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 07 Jul 2006 04:49:37 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Pierre Legrand</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Saddam Al Qaeda links]]></category>

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		<description><![CDATA[9/11 Mysteries In Plain Sight By Jim Hoagland Sunday, March 9, 2003; Page B07

Analysis and commentary are my bread and my butter. But detached perspective is in short supply when it comes to Khalid Sheik Mohammed. I hate this murdering terrorist chieftain even for being captured.<br/><br/><span class="readmore"><a href="http://pierrelegrand.net/2006/07/06/911-mysteries-in-plain-sight.htm" title="9/11 Mysteries In Plain Sight">Continue Reading--1 words totally</a></span>]]></description>
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		<title>International trail of quiet hijacker includes mysterious visit to Las Vegas</title>
		<link>http://pierrelegrand.net/2006/07/06/international-trail-of-quiet-hijacker-includes-mysterious-visit-to-las-vegas.htm</link>
		<comments>http://pierrelegrand.net/2006/07/06/international-trail-of-quiet-hijacker-includes-mysterious-visit-to-las-vegas.htm#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 07 Jul 2006 04:40:50 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Pierre Legrand</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Saddam Al Qaeda links]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Terror war]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://pierrelegrand.net/2006/07/06/international-trail-of-quiet-hijacker-includes-mysterious-visit-to-las-vegas.htm</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Wednesday, October 31, 2001 COLUMN: John L. Smith

International trail of quiet hijacker includes mysterious visit to Las Vegas

From Florida to New Jersey and out to Las Vegas, those who met Marwan al-Shehhi remembered him as a pleasant young man with good manners and a charming smile.<br/><br/><span class="readmore"><a href="http://pierrelegrand.net/2006/07/06/international-trail-of-quiet-hijacker-includes-mysterious-visit-to-las-vegas.htm" title="International trail of quiet hijacker includes mysterious visit to Las Vegas">Continue Reading--3 words totally</a></span>]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>2</slash:comments>
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		<title>PRESIDENT CLINTON &#8220;it&#8217;s not just that Saddam Hussein might put it on a Scud missile, an anthrax head&#8221;</title>
		<link>http://pierrelegrand.net/2006/07/06/president-clinton-its-not-just-that-saddam-hussein-might-put-it-on-a-scud-missile-an-anthrax-head.htm</link>
		<comments>http://pierrelegrand.net/2006/07/06/president-clinton-its-not-just-that-saddam-hussein-might-put-it-on-a-scud-missile-an-anthrax-head.htm#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 07 Jul 2006 04:31:20 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Pierre Legrand</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Iraq]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Saddam Al Qaeda links]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Terror war]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://pierrelegrand.net/2006/07/06/president-clinton-its-not-just-that-saddam-hussein-might-put-it-on-a-scud-missile-an-anthrax-head.htm</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[JIM LEHRER: On Asia, the Asia financial crisis, what business is it of the United States to save these failing Asian economies?

The Asian financial crisis

PRESIDENT CLINTON: Well, first of all, we can&#8217;t save the Asian economies if they won&#8217;t take primary steps to help themselves, the way Mexico did. You remember, we loaned Mexico some money, and they paid it back early with interest, and we made about $500 million because they took tough steps to restore economic growth, create jobs, raise incomes, and get their financial house in order.<br/><br/><span class="readmore"><a href="http://pierrelegrand.net/2006/07/06/president-clinton-its-not-just-that-saddam-hussein-might-put-it-on-a-scud-missile-an-anthrax-head.htm" title="PRESIDENT CLINTON &#8220;it&#8217;s not just that Saddam Hussein might put it on a Scud missile, an anthrax head&#8221;">Continue Reading--3 words totally</a></span>]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>2</slash:comments>
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		<title>The Western nightmare: Saddam and Bin Ladin versus the World</title>
		<link>http://pierrelegrand.net/2006/07/06/the-western-nightmare-saddam-and-bin-ladin-versus-the-world.htm</link>
		<comments>http://pierrelegrand.net/2006/07/06/the-western-nightmare-saddam-and-bin-ladin-versus-the-world.htm#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 07 Jul 2006 04:19:22 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Pierre Legrand</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Saddam Al Qaeda links]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Terror war]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://pierrelegrand.net/2006/07/06/the-western-nightmare-saddam-and-bin-ladin-versus-the-world.htm</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[OSAMA BIN LADIN AND IRAQ

Iraq News, FEBRUARY 10, 1999

By Laurie Mylroie<br/><br/><span class="readmore"><a href="http://pierrelegrand.net/2006/07/06/the-western-nightmare-saddam-and-bin-ladin-versus-the-world.htm" title="The Western nightmare: Saddam and Bin Ladin versus the World">Continue Reading--37 words totally</a></span>]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>3</slash:comments>
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		<title>Israel’s military intelligence service, Aman, suspects that Iraq is the state that sponsored the suicide attacks</title>
		<link>http://pierrelegrand.net/2006/07/06/israel%e2%80%99s-military-intelligence-service-aman-suspects-that-iraq-is-the-state-that-sponsored-the-suicide-attacks.htm</link>
		<comments>http://pierrelegrand.net/2006/07/06/israel%e2%80%99s-military-intelligence-service-aman-suspects-that-iraq-is-the-state-that-sponsored-the-suicide-attacks.htm#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 07 Jul 2006 02:15:29 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Pierre Legrand</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Saddam Al Qaeda links]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Terror war]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://pierrelegrand.net/2006/07/06/israel%e2%80%99s-military-intelligence-service-aman-suspects-that-iraq-is-the-state-that-sponsored-the-suicide-attacks.htm</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Who did it? Foreign Report presents an alternative view

Israel’s military intelligence service, Aman, suspects that Iraq is the state that sponsored the suicide attacks on the New York Trade Center and the Pentagon in Washington. Directing the mission, Aman officers believe, were two of the world’s foremost terrorist masterminds: the Lebanese Imad Mughniyeh, head of the special overseas operations for Hizbullah, and the Egyptian Dr Ayman Al Zawahiri, senior member of Al-Qaeda and possible successor of the ailing Osama Bin Laden.<br/><br/><span class="readmore"><a href="http://pierrelegrand.net/2006/07/06/israel%e2%80%99s-military-intelligence-service-aman-suspects-that-iraq-is-the-state-that-sponsored-the-suicide-attacks.htm" title="Israel’s military intelligence service, Aman, suspects that Iraq is the state that sponsored the suicide attacks">Continue Reading--43 words totally</a></span>]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>2</slash:comments>
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		<title>Anthrax attacks was it really a lone American?</title>
		<link>http://pierrelegrand.net/2006/07/06/2253.htm</link>
		<comments>http://pierrelegrand.net/2006/07/06/2253.htm#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 07 Jul 2006 02:03:51 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Pierre Legrand</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Saddam Al Qaeda links]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Terror war]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://pierrelegrand.net/2006/07/06/2253.htm</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Remember Anthrax? Despite the evidence, the FBI won&#8217;t let go of its &#8220;lone American&#8221; theory. by David Tell 04/29/2002, Volume 007, Issue 32

1) OVER THE PAST SIX MONTHS, have federal authorities altered their working theory of last fall&#8217;s anthrax murders?<br/><br/><span class="readmore"><a href="http://pierrelegrand.net/2006/07/06/2253.htm" title="Anthrax attacks was it really a lone American?">Continue Reading--11 words totally</a></span>]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>3</slash:comments>
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		<title>BRIG. GEN. VINCENT BROOKS CENTCOM confirms Salman Pak terror training base</title>
		<link>http://pierrelegrand.net/2006/07/06/brig-gen-vincent-brooks-centcom-confirms-salman-pak-terror-training-base.htm</link>
		<comments>http://pierrelegrand.net/2006/07/06/brig-gen-vincent-brooks-centcom-confirms-salman-pak-terror-training-base.htm#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 07 Jul 2006 01:51:19 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Pierre Legrand</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Saddam Al Qaeda links]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Terror war]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://pierrelegrand.net/2006/07/06/brig-gen-vincent-brooks-centcom-confirms-salman-pak-terror-training-base.htm</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[BRIG. GEN. VINCENT BROOKS, CENTCOM: I trust everyone adjusted their clocks properly here and in other places where the time zones have changed. Good afternoon.

Ladies and Gentlemen, since the coalition&#8217;s entry into Iraq, coalition forces have been focused on the objectives of the campaign. We&#8217;re in the 17th day in, and the outcome remains beyond doubt. With each day that passes, the coalition force grows stronger and more damages are inflicted upon the regime and its supporting agents, and with each day that passes, more Iraqis are celebrating freedom. Our thoughts and prayers continue to go out to the family members of those of our fallen comrades who have paid the ultimate sacrifice.<br/><br/><span class="readmore"><a href="http://pierrelegrand.net/2006/07/06/brig-gen-vincent-brooks-centcom-confirms-salman-pak-terror-training-base.htm" title="BRIG. GEN. VINCENT BROOKS CENTCOM confirms Salman Pak terror training base">Continue Reading--1 words totally</a></span>]]></description>
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		<title>Marines capture suspected Iraqi terror training camp</title>
		<link>http://pierrelegrand.net/2006/07/06/marines-capture-suspected-iraqi-terror-training-camp.htm</link>
		<comments>http://pierrelegrand.net/2006/07/06/marines-capture-suspected-iraqi-terror-training-camp.htm#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 07 Jul 2006 01:34:03 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Pierre Legrand</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Saddam Al Qaeda links]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Terror war]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://pierrelegrand.net/2006/07/06/marines-capture-suspected-iraqi-terror-training-camp.htm</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Monday, April 7, 2003

By Ravi Nessman, The Associated Press

SALMAN PAK, Iraq &#8212; The rusted shell of an old passenger jet sat out in a field, its tail broken off. Good for hijacking practice, U.S. Marines speculated Sunday as they examined an Iraqi training base about 20 miles south of Baghdad.The Americans also found a full obstacle course &#8212; with wooden walls and other barriers to be climbed over or crawled under &#8212; as well as a three-story concrete tower draped with ropes, apparently for rappelling.President Saddam Hussein&#8217;s regime has said the camp, part of a larger military reservation in a bend of the Tigris River, was used for anti-terrorism training for Iraqi special forces.<br/><br/><span class="readmore"><a href="http://pierrelegrand.net/2006/07/06/marines-capture-suspected-iraqi-terror-training-camp.htm" title="Marines capture suspected Iraqi terror training camp">Continue Reading--1 words totally</a></span>]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>5</slash:comments>
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		<title>THE UNKNOWN by JEFFREY GOLDBERG The C.I.A. and the Pentagon take another look at Al Qaeda and Iraq.</title>
		<link>http://pierrelegrand.net/2006/07/06/the-unknown-by-jeffrey-goldberg-the-cia-and-the-pentagon-take-another-look-at-al-qaeda-and-iraq.htm</link>
		<comments>http://pierrelegrand.net/2006/07/06/the-unknown-by-jeffrey-goldberg-the-cia-and-the-pentagon-take-another-look-at-al-qaeda-and-iraq.htm#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 07 Jul 2006 01:10:43 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Pierre Legrand</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Iraq]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Saddam Al Qaeda links]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Terror war]]></category>

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		<description><![CDATA[In April of 1998, President Clinton sent his United Nations Ambassador, Bill Richardson, to South Asia. Richardson&#8217;s stops included New Delhi, Islamabad, and, most unusually, Kabul, where he held the first (and, as it turned out, the last) Cabinet-level negotiations between the United States and the Taliban leaders of Afghanistan. Richardson, who is now the governor of New Mexico, is an effective diplomat. (He returned to international diplomacy briefly last month, when he met with two North Korean envoys in Santa Fe.) He is irreverent, and he is not timid, and his trip might have been a diplomatic success if it had not been an intelligence failure.<br/><br/><span class="readmore"><a href="http://pierrelegrand.net/2006/07/06/the-unknown-by-jeffrey-goldberg-the-cia-and-the-pentagon-take-another-look-at-al-qaeda-and-iraq.htm" title="THE UNKNOWN by JEFFREY GOLDBERG The C.I.A. and the Pentagon take another look at Al Qaeda and Iraq.">Continue Reading--63 words totally</a></span>]]></description>
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		<title>Islamic terrorists continue Islam’s war against what remains of Western civilization</title>
		<link>http://pierrelegrand.net/2006/07/06/islamic-terrorists-continue-islam%e2%80%99s-war-against-what-remains-of-western-civilization.htm</link>
		<comments>http://pierrelegrand.net/2006/07/06/islamic-terrorists-continue-islam%e2%80%99s-war-against-what-remains-of-western-civilization.htm#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 07 Jul 2006 00:54:15 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Pierre Legrand</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Islam]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Saddam Al Qaeda links]]></category>

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		<description><![CDATA[On January 7, 2002 Zenit.org reported that &#8220;A representative of the Islamic Republic of Iran will participate in the Assisi world prayer meeting for peace convoked by the Pope for Jan. 24.&#8221; According to Zenit, the invitation followed &#8220;a recent meeting with Cardinal Francis Arinze, president of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue,&#8221; after which &#8220;the Iranian ambassador said that his country is always willing to participate in any initiative to promote dialogue between religions.&#8221;<br/><br/><span class="readmore"><a href="http://pierrelegrand.net/2006/07/06/islamic-terrorists-continue-islam%e2%80%99s-war-against-what-remains-of-western-civilization.htm" title="Islamic terrorists continue Islam’s war against what remains of Western civilization">Continue Reading--17 words totally</a></span>]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>2</slash:comments>
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		<title>Letting Saddam Be A pre-and post-September 11 danger. By Laurie Mylroie</title>
		<link>http://pierrelegrand.net/2006/07/06/letting-saddam-be-a-pre-and-post-september-11-danger-by-laurie-mylroie.htm</link>
		<comments>http://pierrelegrand.net/2006/07/06/letting-saddam-be-a-pre-and-post-september-11-danger-by-laurie-mylroie.htm#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 06 Jul 2006 23:44:08 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Pierre Legrand</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Iraq]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Saddam Al Qaeda links]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Terror war]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://pierrelegrand.net/2006/07/06/letting-saddam-be-a-pre-and-post-september-11-danger-by-laurie-mylroie.htm</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[May 29, 2002, 8:45 a.m. Letting Saddam Be A pre-and post-September 11 danger.

By Laurie Mylroie

More American civilians died on September 11 than on any other single day in this nation&#8217;s history. Such a huge disaster is, almost necessarily, the result of major, multiple errors. The current spasm of finger-pointing and memo-leaking is bringing some mistakes to light, but they are all tactical, i.e. whether 9/11 could have been averted by vigorously pursuing suspicions of the FBI field offices. Even in the best of circumstances, U.S. authorities cannot catch every major terrorist attack in the making. When those attacks are on the scale of 9/11 even one failure is unacceptable. Notably absent in the present debate is consideration of the strategic blunder underlying 9/11.<br/><br/><span class="readmore"><a href="http://pierrelegrand.net/2006/07/06/letting-saddam-be-a-pre-and-post-september-11-danger-by-laurie-mylroie.htm" title="Letting Saddam Be A pre-and post-September 11 danger. By Laurie Mylroie">Continue Reading--17 words totally</a></span>]]></description>
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		<title>Clintonized CIA Quashed Best Evidence of Saddam-9/11 Link</title>
		<link>http://pierrelegrand.net/2006/07/06/clintonized-cia-quashed-best-evidence-of-saddam-911-link-2.htm</link>
		<comments>http://pierrelegrand.net/2006/07/06/clintonized-cia-quashed-best-evidence-of-saddam-911-link-2.htm#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 06 Jul 2006 23:32:55 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Pierre Legrand</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Iraq]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Saddam Al Qaeda links]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Terror war]]></category>

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		<description><![CDATA[Friday, Sept. 27, 2002 12:02 p.m. EDT

Clintonized CIA Quashed Best Evidence of Saddam-9/11 Link

Clinton-era holdovers still running the CIA have dismissed the best evidence that Saddam Hussein had a role in planning the 9/11 attacks because they distrust accounts from multiple Iraqi defectors who have described an airplane hijacking training school attended by al-Qaeda members near Baghdad.<br/><br/><span class="readmore"><a href="http://pierrelegrand.net/2006/07/06/clintonized-cia-quashed-best-evidence-of-saddam-911-link-2.htm" title="Clintonized CIA Quashed Best Evidence of Saddam-9/11 Link">Continue Reading--15 words totally</a></span>]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>2</slash:comments>
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		<title>Iraq and al-Qaeda Is there a link?</title>
		<link>http://pierrelegrand.net/2006/07/06/iraq-and-al-qaeda-is-there-a-link.htm</link>
		<comments>http://pierrelegrand.net/2006/07/06/iraq-and-al-qaeda-is-there-a-link.htm#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 06 Jul 2006 19:11:58 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Pierre Legrand</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Saddam Al Qaeda links]]></category>

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		<description><![CDATA[The go-to-war camp would love to prove that Saddam Hussein is doing business with Osama bin Laden. They talk up suspicions, but no one&#8217;s got proof

By Romesh Ratnesar Reported by Mark Thompson, Karen Tumulty and Douglas Waller/Washington and Andrew Purvis/Suleimaniya<br/><br/><span class="readmore"><a href="http://pierrelegrand.net/2006/07/06/iraq-and-al-qaeda-is-there-a-link.htm" title="Iraq and al-Qaeda Is there a link?">Continue Reading--5 words totally</a></span>]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>3</slash:comments>
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		<title>Israeli intelligence warned US days before attacks IAN BRUCE</title>
		<link>http://pierrelegrand.net/2006/07/06/israeli-intelligence-warned-us-days-before-attacks-ian-bruce.htm</link>
		<comments>http://pierrelegrand.net/2006/07/06/israeli-intelligence-warned-us-days-before-attacks-ian-bruce.htm#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 06 Jul 2006 18:54:08 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Pierre Legrand</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Saddam Al Qaeda links]]></category>

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		<description><![CDATA[AN BRUCE The Herald, 31 October 2001 ISRAEL&#8217;S military intelligence service, Aman,issued an urgent warning of an impending terrorist &#8220;spectacular&#8221; against America, several days before the suicide bombers flew passenger airliners into New York&#8217;s Trade Towers and the Pentagon on September 11.<br/><br/><span class="readmore"><a href="http://pierrelegrand.net/2006/07/06/israeli-intelligence-warned-us-days-before-attacks-ian-bruce.htm" title="Israeli intelligence warned US days before attacks IAN BRUCE">Continue Reading--1 words totally</a></span>]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>2</slash:comments>
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		<title>Nabeel Musawi Interview: Alleging an intelligence connection between Osama bin Laden, the Taliban, and Iraq, he tells FRONTLINE</title>
		<link>http://pierrelegrand.net/2006/07/05/nabeel-musawi-interview-alleging-an-intelligence-connection-between-osama-bin-laden-the-taliban-and-iraq-he-tells-frontline.htm</link>
		<comments>http://pierrelegrand.net/2006/07/05/nabeel-musawi-interview-alleging-an-intelligence-connection-between-osama-bin-laden-the-taliban-and-iraq-he-tells-frontline.htm#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 05 Jul 2006 05:05:56 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Pierre Legrand</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Saddam Al Qaeda links]]></category>

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		<description><![CDATA[You were saying that Sept. 11 was a coup attempt? What do you mean?

If you go by the history of the Middle East and the way coups were carried out, you aim for the financial center, you aim for the ministry of defense, and you aim for presidential palace. Of course, you usually aim for the TV and radio, but in the case of the United States, you don&#8217;t need to do that, because it&#8217;s free press. So what happened on Sept. 11 in the United States was a coup attempt, because they aimed for the White House, they aimed for the Pentagon, and they aimed for the heart of the financial center of the United States.<br/><br/><span class="readmore"><a href="http://pierrelegrand.net/2006/07/05/nabeel-musawi-interview-alleging-an-intelligence-connection-between-osama-bin-laden-the-taliban-and-iraq-he-tells-frontline.htm" title="Nabeel Musawi Interview: Alleging an intelligence connection between Osama bin Laden, the Taliban, and Iraq, he tells FRONTLINE">Continue Reading--69 words totally</a></span>]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>4</slash:comments>
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		<title>The U.S. government&#8217;s secret memo detailing cooperation between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden.</title>
		<link>http://pierrelegrand.net/2006/07/04/the-us-governments-secret-memo-detailing-cooperation-between-saddam-hussein-and-osama-bin-laden.htm</link>
		<comments>http://pierrelegrand.net/2006/07/04/the-us-governments-secret-memo-detailing-cooperation-between-saddam-hussein-and-osama-bin-laden.htm#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 04 Jul 2006 12:40:03 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Pierre Legrand</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Saddam Al Qaeda links]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Terror war]]></category>

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		<description><![CDATA[Case Closed From the November 24, 2003 issue: The U.S. government&#8217;s secret memo detailing cooperation between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden. by Stephen F. Hayes 11/24/2003, Volume 009, Issue 11



Editor&#8217;s Note, 1/27/04: In today&#8217;s Washington Post, Dana Milbank reported that &#8220;Vice President Cheney . . . in an interview this month with the Rocky Mountain News, recommended as the &#8216;best source of information&#8217; an article in The Weekly Standard magazine detailing a relationship between Hussein and al Qaeda based on leaked classified information.&#8221;<br/><br/><span class="readmore"><a href="http://pierrelegrand.net/2006/07/04/the-us-governments-secret-memo-detailing-cooperation-between-saddam-hussein-and-osama-bin-laden.htm" title="The U.S. government&#8217;s secret memo detailing cooperation between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden.">Continue Reading--73 words totally</a></span>]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>3</slash:comments>
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		<title>Protecting Saddam By WILLIAM SAFIRE (Atta in Prague)</title>
		<link>http://pierrelegrand.net/2006/07/04/protecting-saddam-by-william-safire-atta-in-prague.htm</link>
		<comments>http://pierrelegrand.net/2006/07/04/protecting-saddam-by-william-safire-atta-in-prague.htm#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 04 Jul 2006 05:48:07 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Pierre Legrand</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Saddam Al Qaeda links]]></category>

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		<description><![CDATA[By WILLIAM SAFIRE WASHINGTON &#8212; Soviet propagandists used to touch up photographs to remove the face of a Kremlin official who had fallen from favor, making him a &#8220;nonperson.&#8221;

The same disinformation technique is now being used to wipe out the fact of a meeting in Prague in April, 2001 &#8212; five months before the Sept. 11 attacks on the U.S. &#8212; between Mohamed Atta, the leading Qaeda hijacker, and Ahmed al-Ani, the Iraqi consul in Prague, who was Saddam Hussein&#8217;s intelligence case officer there.<br/><br/><span class="readmore"><a href="http://pierrelegrand.net/2006/07/04/protecting-saddam-by-william-safire-atta-in-prague.htm" title="Protecting Saddam By WILLIAM SAFIRE (Atta in Prague)">Continue Reading--5 words totally</a></span>]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>2</slash:comments>
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