Articles

Americans supported the war in Iraq not because Saddam Hussein was an evil dictator – they knew that – but because President Bush made the case that Saddam might hand weapons of mass destruction to his terrorist allies to wreak havoc on the United States. In the absence of any evidence for that theory, it’s fair to ask: where did the administration’s conviction come from? It was at the American Enterprise Institute – a conservative Washington DC thinktank – that the idea took shape that overthrowing Saddam should be a goal. Among those associated with AEI is Richard Perle, a key architect of the president’s get-tough-on-Iraq policy, and Paul Wolfowitz, now the number-two official at the Pentagon. But none of the thinkers at AEI was in any real way an expert on Iraq. For that they relied on someone you probably have never heard of: a woman named Laurie Mylroie.

KABUL, Afghanistan (CNN) — Afghan authorities have arrested three American citizens accused of running a fake prison in Kabul, U.S. State Department and Afghan officials say.

Afghan government officials raided a rented house in the capital late Sunday where the three Americans lived. They found a private prison inside the building that contained eight prisoners, a Ministry of Interior official said Friday.

PRESIDENT BUSH’S May 2003 announcement aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln that “major combat operations” had ended in Iraq has been replayed endlessly. What is less well remembered is just what the president claimed the United States had accomplished. “The battle of Iraq is one victory in a war on terror that began on September the llth, 2001,” he declared. The defeat of Saddam Hussein, he told the American people, was “a crucial advance in the campaign against terror.” In fact, the consensus now emerging among a wide range of intelligence and counterterrorism professionals is that the opposite is true: The invasion of Iraq not only failed to help the war on terrorism, but it represented a substantial setback.

WASHINGTON – Despite the finding by the 9/11 commission staff that there is no evidence of a “collaborative relationship” between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda, Bush administration officials continue to insist the two worked together. As evidence, they frequently cite Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the 37-year-old Jordanian who is arguably the most dangerous terrorist in the world today. Mr. Zarqawi, who fled his Afghan training grounds after the American invasion and found safe haven in Iraq, was most likely behind the string of bombings across Iraq on Thursday that killed more than 100; in May, he beheaded Nicholas Berg, an American communications engineer working in Iraq.

The White House preemptively gave the movie two thumbs down: “Outrageously false,” said communications director Dan Bartlett, when he was asked about some of its allegations.

Sizzling! countered Rep. Jay Inslee (D-Wash.), who plans a teach-in at a Seattle theater to tap into the “anger brewing against this administration.”

PETER BERGEN, CNN TERRORISM ANALYST: Good morning.NGUYEN: Let’s talk about Paul Johnson’s case. He is not the only American attacked in Saudi Arabia. How are these terrorist choosing their victims and why soft targets? BERGEN: Well, there’s been some 85 people who have died in terrorist attacks since May of 2003. Some have died because […]

A senior US intelligence official is about to publish a bitter condemnation of America’s counter-terrorism policy, arguing that the west is losing the war against al-Qaida and that an “avaricious, premeditated, unprovoked” war in Iraq has played into Osama bin Laden’s hands.
Imperial Hubris: Why the West is Losing the War on Terror, due out next month, dismisses two of the most frequent boasts of the Bush administration: that Bin Laden and al-Qaida are “on the run” and that the Iraq invasion has made America safer.

Al Jazeera, the Arabic-language television network based in Qatar, broadcast Wednesday what it said was a new videotape showing members of Al Qaeda receiving military training at a camp in Afghanistan.

A leading terrorism expert said the scenes appeared to be authentic, but it was more likely that training was occurring inside Pakistan’s remote tribal areas.

As you look at this tape, Peter — and it just was released several hours ago — what jumps out at you? PETER BERGEN, CNN TERRORISM ANALYST: Well, unfortunately it’s reminiscent of some other videotapes we’ve seen — for instance, the Danny Pearl videotape and also the Nick Berg videotape. Danny Pearl executed by Khalid […]

In New Jersey, a family is holding out hope tonight that Paul Johnson will be found alive and well. The American contractor who works for Lockheed Martin is missing far away from home. He was kidnapped by terrorists in Saudi Arabia on Saturday. His son says he’s likely wondering how he got himself in the […]