Team Infidel
Forum Spin Doctor
FNC
March 20, 2008
Special Report with Brit Hume (FNC), 6:00 PM
BRIT HUME: Earlier this week, Senator McCain quickly retracted a remark that Iran supports al Qaeda in Iraq. Some observers suggest McCain was right that Iran has had ties with al Qaeda. So what is the evidence?
National security correspondent Jennifer Griffin has been investigating that question.
JENNIFER GRIFFIN: Iran doesn’t support al Qaeda because Iranians are Shi’a Muslims and al Qaeda are Sunni – at least that is the way it is often reported. The truth however is more complicated according to U.S. military officials.
MAJ. GEN. WILLIAM CALDWELL [Former Multi-National Force-Iraq Spokesman]: We have in fact found some cases recently where some Iranian intelligence services have provided to some Sunni insurgent groups some support.
GRIFFIN: That was a year ago. Today, a spokesman for U.S. forces in Iraq scaled back the U.S. military assessment of Iranian links to al Qaeda, saying some of the lethal aid from Iranian backed sources may end up in the hands of al Qaeda affiliates, but most still goes to Shi’a extremists.
"Reporting of Sunnis trained inside Iran alongside Shi’a insurgents, has little detail about specific groups," the spokesman wrote in response. Al Qaeda may have bought the Iranian munitions on the open market, another military official told Fox.
Last year, the U.S. general in charge of central Iraq, an area that shares a border with Iran, showed what he said was evidence of Iranian support of al Qaeda. From Arab Jabour, al Qaeda smuggled these new Iranian weapons along with the fighters that would use them into Baghdad. Maj. Gen. Lynch told Fox --
MAJ. GEN. RICK LYNCH: I’m not into the politics of what’s going on. I just tell we’ve got Iranian munitions, we’ve got IEFPs attacking our soldiers, and we’ve got training being conducted in Iran – all of which we’re concerned about and we’re working against.
GRIFFIN: And a report by the Iraq Survey Group in 2004 said 320 Ansar al-Islam fighters, a group tied to al Qaeda living in Northern Iraq had moved to Iran where they received military training. Similarly, a five-year investigation by the U.S. military into Saddam Hussein’s pre-war connections to terrorists showed a murky marriage of convenience regarding his support for terrorist groups. Quote, “Despite their incompatible long-term goals, many terrorist movements and Saddam found a common enemy in the United States.”
The report from the Iraqi Perspectives Project looked at 600,000 documents of Saddam archives. It did not find a smoking gun connecting Saddam to al Qaeda.
But what many in the media missed in the report was the training that Saddam Hussein provided these groups in the use of car bombs and suicide vests. And the working connections he had according to the report with a range of nationalists and Islamic terrorist organizations.
At the Pentagon, Jennifer Griffin, Fox News.
March 20, 2008
Special Report with Brit Hume (FNC), 6:00 PM
BRIT HUME: Earlier this week, Senator McCain quickly retracted a remark that Iran supports al Qaeda in Iraq. Some observers suggest McCain was right that Iran has had ties with al Qaeda. So what is the evidence?
National security correspondent Jennifer Griffin has been investigating that question.
JENNIFER GRIFFIN: Iran doesn’t support al Qaeda because Iranians are Shi’a Muslims and al Qaeda are Sunni – at least that is the way it is often reported. The truth however is more complicated according to U.S. military officials.
MAJ. GEN. WILLIAM CALDWELL [Former Multi-National Force-Iraq Spokesman]: We have in fact found some cases recently where some Iranian intelligence services have provided to some Sunni insurgent groups some support.
GRIFFIN: That was a year ago. Today, a spokesman for U.S. forces in Iraq scaled back the U.S. military assessment of Iranian links to al Qaeda, saying some of the lethal aid from Iranian backed sources may end up in the hands of al Qaeda affiliates, but most still goes to Shi’a extremists.
"Reporting of Sunnis trained inside Iran alongside Shi’a insurgents, has little detail about specific groups," the spokesman wrote in response. Al Qaeda may have bought the Iranian munitions on the open market, another military official told Fox.
Last year, the U.S. general in charge of central Iraq, an area that shares a border with Iran, showed what he said was evidence of Iranian support of al Qaeda. From Arab Jabour, al Qaeda smuggled these new Iranian weapons along with the fighters that would use them into Baghdad. Maj. Gen. Lynch told Fox --
MAJ. GEN. RICK LYNCH: I’m not into the politics of what’s going on. I just tell we’ve got Iranian munitions, we’ve got IEFPs attacking our soldiers, and we’ve got training being conducted in Iran – all of which we’re concerned about and we’re working against.
GRIFFIN: And a report by the Iraq Survey Group in 2004 said 320 Ansar al-Islam fighters, a group tied to al Qaeda living in Northern Iraq had moved to Iran where they received military training. Similarly, a five-year investigation by the U.S. military into Saddam Hussein’s pre-war connections to terrorists showed a murky marriage of convenience regarding his support for terrorist groups. Quote, “Despite their incompatible long-term goals, many terrorist movements and Saddam found a common enemy in the United States.”
The report from the Iraqi Perspectives Project looked at 600,000 documents of Saddam archives. It did not find a smoking gun connecting Saddam to al Qaeda.
But what many in the media missed in the report was the training that Saddam Hussein provided these groups in the use of car bombs and suicide vests. And the working connections he had according to the report with a range of nationalists and Islamic terrorist organizations.
At the Pentagon, Jennifer Griffin, Fox News.