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| Axis of Evil |
| Tariq sez Iraq's waging war on terrorism. Really. |
| 2002-09-25 |
| Iraq has accused the United States of spreading false propaganda by claiming Baghdad has links with al-Qa'ida, despite knowing that Saddam Hussein is helping in the fight against the Islamists. We see 'em out there every day, don't we? The US Defence Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, claimed that al-Qa'ida was given refuge in northern Iraq after the collapse of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. But Tariq Aziz, the Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister, said in Baghdad that his country had given arms and ammunition to Kurds who were attacked by al-Qa'ida. No doubt that's possible... Mr Aziz, who is Christian, insisted that the secular Iraqi government has always been against Islamists. He said that members of al-Qa'ida had attacked forces of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), led by Jalal Talibani, and the Kurds had then sought help from Baghdad. "We gave Talibani weapons and ammunition, we helped as much as we could," said Mr Aziz. "We are not allowed of course to go into what is called the semi-autonomous region of Kurdistan physically, but the help we gave helped Talibani in his fight for it." He's asking credit for a matter of self-preservation... "Talibani was among the opposition leaders who went to Washington and spoke to Dick Cheney [US Vice-President] and Rumsfeld. He told them what had happened, so they must know." It's entirely possible this is a true story, despite being carried in The Independent. Ansar al-Islam isn't an integral part of al-Qaeda; it's a clone of it. The fact that Sammy and Tariq saw a danger from them — an Islamist base in Kurdistan that was looking forward to becoming an Islamist base in Iraq proper — and took measures to avert it doesn't mean he's not involved with the mother group. Such involvement, as I've said before, probably isn't a formal agreement, but a sense of being on the same team and the occasional loan of aid and comfort... |
| Posted by:Fred Pruitt |