Don't Hold Back

From IBD:

Posted 3/21/2006
War On Terror: It's a wonderful thing to hear President Bush make a full-throated defense of our battle against fundamentalist terror, as he did Tuesday. But it's time for him to take that defense a step further.

With the assembled media raising every negative objection possible during the lengthy press conference , Bush did an outstanding job of making the case for our war in Iraq — and the wider, and no doubt longer, war against Islamic terrorists.

Curiously omitted, however, was the growing body of evidence from the trove of Iraqi intelligence documents captured by U.S. forces in the early part of the war.

The evidence from the first batches released from the more than 48,000 boxes don't contain a smoking gun of the "Saddam shot J.R." variety. But they paint a convincing picture of Saddam Hussein's wanton, lawless regime as both supporting terrorists and making big plans to use WMD.

Americans need to know this, but they sure won't get it from the mainstream media. The same people who fought to get the Pentagon Papers published and trumpeted the "public's right to know" about both the Plame scandal and the NSA's warrantless wiretaps seem strangely incurious about getting all the information out about Saddam's odious regime.

Maybe you didn't hear, but in just the past week, the documents have revealed that:
Saddam apparently ordered the al-Quds liberation army, a Palestinian terror group, to hand out leaflets similar to those distributed by the U.S. Army, but containing anthrax.

Directorate 14, the Iraq Intelligence Service's "Special Operations" branch, operated a terrorist training camp at Salman Pak that included a passenger jet for skyjacking training. A note in Arabic on one document notes: "(Directorate 14) Responsible for training at Salman Pak and is responsible for attempted assassination of (former President George H.W.) Bush and the killing of Taleb al-Suhail (an influential Sheikh who opposed Saddam)."

Saddam's regime gave money to the Philippines-based terrorist group Abu Sayyaf, which is an affiliate of al-Qaida founded by Osama bin Laden's brother-in-law.

An Afghani source told Iraq's Mukhabarat, Saddam's brutal spy agency, just four days after 9-11 that Afghani Consul Ahmed Dahastani told him both Osama bin Laden and the Taliban were in touch with Iraq and had sent delegations there to visit.

The Iraqis and "bin Laden's group" agreed to work together on terror attacks on the U.S., and the U.S. knew it.
None of this information, taken separately, proves anything. Some sources might be wrong, some might be lying. Still, a mosaic of deception, terror and ultimate threats is emerging that makes a powerful case for taking out Saddam and prosecuting the war against al-Qaida to its fullest.

So far, the information has come in dribs and drabs, on the Internet and in some mainstream publications. (In particular, The Weekly Standard's Stephen F. Hayes has done a Pulitzer-worthy job of urging the government to release more documents.)

Still, the mainstream media seem to not care. That's why, along with his stirring defense of our war effort, we hope the president starts telling people what's being discovered about Saddam's truly dangerous regime — and the threat it posed to all humanity.