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Saturday, July 17, 2004

The link, the link 

More apologies for slackness; apart from cleaning up the house been busy on a blog-related spin-off project. More about it early next week, if everything goes according to the plan.

In the news today, "Time" magazine reports that it's neither of the two main favourites: Iraq or Saudi Arabia: "Next week's much anticipated final report by a bipartisan commission on the origins of the 9/11 attacks will contain new evidence of contacts between al-Qaeda and Iran...

"A senior U.S. official told TIME that the Commission has uncovered evidence suggesting that between eight and ten of the 14 "muscle" hijackers - that is, those involved in gaining control of the four 9/11 aircraft and subduing the crew and passengers - passed through Iran in the period from October 2000 to February 2001. Sources also tell TIME that Commission investigators found that Iran had a history of allowing al-Qaeda members to enter and exit Iran across the Afghan border. This practice dated back to October 2000, with Iranian officials issuing specific instructions to their border guards - in some cases not to put stamps in the passports of al-Qaeda personnel - and otherwise not harass them and to facilitate their travel across the frontier. The report does not, however, offer evidence that Iran was aware of the plans for the 9/11 attacks."
Still, if true, a damning revelation. Not to mention a reminder that is Arab Sunni extremists can cooperate with Persian Shia extremists, then what's really stopping them from working with "secular" Arab tyrants?

John Kerry has been known to contend that the war in Iraq has been a distraction from the war on terror, presumably because he's of the opinion that no ties existed between Saddam and al Qaeda. If the report does indeed find there was cooperation between the mad mullahs of Tehran and Osama bin Laden, will Kerry now call for a military action against Iran? I wouldn't hold my breath, and not just because "[a]mong Sen. John Kerry's top fund-raisers are three Iranian-Americans who have been pushing for dramatic changes in U.S. policy toward the Islamic Republic of Iran." But that would be too conspiratorial. We should instead wait for Michael Moore to produce another controversial documentary about ties between a major American political personality and a Middle Eastern dictatorship.


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