Oil-for-Food May Have Funded 9/11 Attacks
 

http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2...4/121101.shtml

Oil-for-Food May Have Funded 9/11 Attacks

In what may be the most shocking news to emerge from the already stunning Oil-for-Food scandal, investigators say that Saddam Hussein bankrolled key al-Qaida players in the late 1990s - a period of time when the terror group was planning the 9/11 attacks and the Iraqi dictator was ripping off billions from the U.N. program.

"Saddam had given $300,000 in cash to Ayman Al Zawahri, Osama bin Laden's number two man, in the spring of 1998," the Weekly Standard's Stephen Hayes told WABC Radio's Monica Crowley on Saturday.

"It's likely that Saddam was giving some of his [Oil-for-Food] money to al-Qaida."

In an eerie coincidence, an October 2001 estimate by the Justice Department put the entire cost of the 9/11 operation at $300,000.

While the inception of Iraq's financial relationship with al-Qaida predated the 1996 Oil-for-Food program, the U.N. jackpot enabled Saddam to become much more generous toward his terrorist allies in the years before 9/11.

Hayes said the total amount of Iraqi cash funneled into al-Qaida reached into the "millions."

"Saddam had pretty strong ties to bin Laden when bin Laden was in Sudan," he said, based on what a former CIA counterrorism official had told him.

"He talked about this system of Saddam funneling money, usually cash payments, to a variety of al-Qaida-linked Islamic terrorist groups," the Standard reporter said.

Freelance reporter Claudia Rosett, who single-handedly broke the Oil-for-Food story last year, first broached the possibility of a U.N. connection to the 9/11 attacks in the Weekly Standard last August:

"By 1996, remember, bin Laden had been run out of Sudan, and seems to have been out of money. He needed a fresh bundle to rent Afghanistan from the Taliban, train recruits, expand al Qaida's global network, and launch what eventually became the 9/11 attacks.

"Meanwhile," Rosett continued, "over in Iraq about that same time, Saddam Hussein, after a lean stretch under United Nations sanctions, had just cut his Oil-for-Food deal with the U.N., and soon began exploiting that program to embezzle billions meant for relief."

Rosett noted that just prior to Saddam's $300,000 payment to Al Zawahri in 1998, bin Laden issued a fatwa against the U.S. that included references to "the Americans' continuing aggression against the Iraqi people" as well as "the great devastation inflicted on the Iraqi people by the crusader-Zionist alliance."

No! It can't be true! Say it isn't so! I'm shocked, I'm appalled....

Not.

Wonder how long it will take MSM to finally jump on the "news".

Gypsy:

Don't hold your breath re MSN.

Terry

Oh I won't Sir. I'd have been dead a long time ago...

You stay safe Gypsy.

BTW, I spent several hours sitting in O'hare yesterday, it seems I spend more time cooling my heels in O'Hare due to missed flights, WX, you name it, than any other airport.

Terry

And you and Nancy do the same Sir.

That is a shame you were stuck with delays it does seem that O'Hare is slipping in that department. Though I'm unsure as to weather conditions in other parts of the country that may have affected things. Today we have a very thick fog that seems to finally be lifting but only slightly.

I shall PM you my cell number, the next time you find yourself "stuck" for several hours perhaps you'll allow me to buy you an adult beverage of choice!

Safe travels and be well.

Gypsy:

You got a deal!

Terry

Is newsmax a credible source or a bunch of wackos? :munchin

I have perceived O'Hare to have an efficient gate-to-bar ratio. :D

From what I've seen most the stuff I've read off there ends up true.

The evidence they present, while I hope it is true, seems out of left field. I've never heard any of it before.