The news might not change anything, but it does shed some new light on the situation.

And the link to Syria looks like anything but pure speculation.

Not particularly. What new light exactly? That Sadaam said in 1995 that there might be terrorist attacks agains the US? Wow, how clarvoiant of him.

We now are hearing it out of the horses mouth. We are hearing it direct from the source instead of intelligence.

Saying "That Sadaam said in 1995 that there might be terrorist attacks agains the US?" is intentionally downplaying.

Saddam didn't say they might happen. He said Doesn't it seem suspicious that he is so confident that these attacks would happen? He's not saying they might happen. He's saying he knows they will happen.

And then to hear about Syria. Doesn't something seem incongruous or suspicious to you? I think there's no question that Saddam had WMD. Simple logic here means that he either buried them in the sand (seems unlikely), used them on his own people (we know he did this, but again, extremely unlikely he used all of them!!) or he peddled them off elsewhere (like Syria). I think that there's no question that at one point he DID have them.

So, while more information hasn't come to light, it looks like Syria got them (and who knows where Syria may have then peddled them off to). While all of this going on, Saddam is saying he KNOWS that terrorism will be coming to the USA. And he's specifically saying not from Iraq (to cover his butt while passing them across the border).

It is extremely fishy of him.

Of course at some point Iraq had nasty stuff- like Rummy said, he should know, as he gave Saddam the stuff personally during the Iran/Iraq war. (Probably the same **** he used on the Kurds). However, the dispute is whether they were still around when we invaded.

Among other things.

There was a major attack just 2 years prior and we never caught the person responsible for it. Anyone who thought there wouldn't be another attempt would have been completely naive.

Like I said, I'll grant that he probably had some knowledge of what was going on in various terrorist networks. He had intel. people just like we did, and obviously would have more inroads to get knowledge. But saying, "there's going to be another attack," is like saying, "they're going to build a new ride at Disneyland eventually." You don't need to be sleeping with Iger to guess that.

And I'll even bet he funded some. But I will never believe that he was anything more than minor player in that world. He was secular, and therefore on the outs with the most extreme of the extreme. And he had just invaded an Arab nation, hardly making him the doll of the region. Yes, he likely had some ties to terrorism, but "strong ties" worth comitting our resources to a long drawn out effort and taking them away from focusing on those that actually attacked us? Hardly.

Saddam wasn't guessing! He knew what was going on.

The article doesn't bring to light the certitude of which Saddam says that terror is coming to the United States in the same conversation that he's talking about his own weapons of mass destruction, and his advisors are saying that they're ready and willing to move forward and resume production.

All of this was happening in a conversation where Saddam was saying that terror will come to the United States. "But not from us."

So where will the terror becoming from? Isn't that interesting? I hear that and it seems clear that Saddam knew he was going to get those weapons to some organization who then eventually would have them to come to the United States and create utter disaster, death, and destruction.

The rest of the Azziz quote went on to say that the bottle of germs could be put into a water tank near the White House.

They were ready, willing, and able. After September 11th, what should we/could we have done knowing that this is what these people were like? We knew they weren't cooperating with weapons inspectors. We knew they were hiding these materials. We still don't know where they are.

Saddam is completely certain. He's not guessing. He's not certain with the type of attitude that a new ride will be built at Disneyland. He's saying that THIS IS COMING. I heard the quote from him on Nightline saying "This story is coming." Isn't that an odd way to put it?

And all the critics of the Bush administration are so quick to say "Oh, no connection between Saddam and Al Qaeda. Saddam wasn't the threat, Al Qaeda was the threat." Well, what was going on here? It looks obvious. He knew what was going to come, sooner or later. And when he was giving money to the Palestinian suicide bombers (20,000 a pop), you know he was facilitating what Al Qaeda was doing simply because he allowed Al Qaeda operatives to live and exist in Iraq. Whether or not he was supervising their activities or directing their activities he knew what was going on.

Now, concealing WMD. Remember what the terms of that UN resolution was. If you are in violation, it meant you were concealing WMD, you weren't cooperating fully, you were not allowing immediate and unambiguous access to these facilities.

From Nightline: Now, his top aids could be heard telling him that they were ready and at Saddam's disposal to start these programs up again. Saddam hears this and then goes on to express regret that he hadn't hit Israel because some of the restraints that were put on him during the first Gulf War and after.

Quote of Saddam: Really, this is earth-shattering stuff: talk about concealing WMD, saying in a very interestingly worded way that terror will come to the United States.

After all of these pieces to a puzzle are here, I can't imagine why some say that "Well, these tapes show that Saddam didn't have the ill intent, Saddam was just saying that this would be happening, but this just shows that Saddam wasn't the bad guy." How could you get that from all of this?

This New York Sun article really puts the pieces together about this whole situation, and why we should be focusing on it. It isn't little piddly news. It's not relevant from being 10 years old. We've got to get our minds away from the insignificant and irrelevant, and focus on stories that could affect our National Security and give us more faith that what we're doing in Iraq is the right thing.

I don't see why some people think that because someone like John Kerry says that there is no connection between Al Qaeda and Saddam that it's the end of the story. Listen to these tpaes! Why do you think he was concealing these WMD and the capability to produce them? And all in the same breath as "terrorism is coming to the United States, but not at the hands of Iraq but this story is coming"? Are we supposed to just roll the dice? I look back think of these Kerry comments (with so many of the Democrats saying the same thing) and you realize that this is why people don't trust the Democrats when it comes to National Security.

The piece in the New York Sun was terrific. Read it. It goes on to talk about how Saddam went and used aircraft to ferry chemical weapons to Syria in 2002! It also sounds like the weapons inspectors may have looked over key sites and evidence. Apparently there were some 30,000 boxes of Iraqi documents that have yet to be declassified and translated. Who knows what could be in these documents??

This is amazing stuff. I can't wait to hear the rest of the recordings.

But the way the media acts, I guess it's not important as Fuddgate.