U.S. implicates Syrian-based group in Israel attack-'Firm evidence' cited

We've got evidence, it's "firm" but we won't describe the evidence, except to say that it is based on "U.S. intelligence." Somehow I don't feel any more enlightened by this report. Or more comfortable about the veracity of evidence, since it's coming from "U.S. intelligence"-- the same place all our other "slam dunk" intelligence has come from.


U.S. official implicates Syrian-based group in Tel Aviv attack

'Firm evidence' cited on Palestinian Islamic Jihad's alleged role
From John King
CNN

Tuesday, March 1, 2005 Posted: 7:48 PM EST (0048 GMT)

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The United States has "firm evidence" that leaders of the Syrian-based Palestinian Islamic Jihad authorized and were "actively involved in planning" Friday's suicide bombing in Israel, a Bush administration official said Tuesday...The conclusion is likely to add to the pressure the White House already is placing on Syria because of what it considers that country's interference in Lebanon and Iraq.

A U.S. official in Washington said that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was addressing the new information in London, where she was attending a conference on ways to help the Palestinian Authority. At that conference, Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas condemned Friday's bombing outside a Tel Aviv beachfront nightclub, which killed five people and injured at least 65 just three weeks into a fragile cease-fire.

<snip>

In Washington, the Bush administration official, reading from an internal administration communication, said the United States obtained "firm evidence that the bombing on the 25th of February was not only authorized by Palestinian Islamic Jihad leaders in Damascus but that PIJ leaders also were actively involved in planning." The official declined to describe the evidence, saying only that it was based on "U.S. intelligence."

Nor would the official say whether the administration had or was planning to share the information with the government of Syria; the White House has repeatedly accused Syria of allowing terrorist organizations to operate within its borders.

<snip>

The Palestinians, however, urged Israel not to let those who aim to undermine Middle East peace achieve that objective. Islamic Jihad has a presence in Syria and is considered to be under that country's patronage. Syria denied any link to the suicide bombing.

<snip>

http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/meast/03/01/syria.attack/index.html

Firm evidence!!!

From a US Intelligence source!

Oh, stop it! You're killing me!!!

NYT, Sept. 27, 2002:

"Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said today that American intelligence had `bulletproof' evidence of links between al-Qaida and the government of President Saddam Hussein of Iraq."

http://rwor.org/a/1202/iraqlies2.htm

I have no idea if they have it right this time but their reputation proceeds them.

for his "slam dunk" evidence on Iraqi WMD, much of it coming from the extremely reliable (NOT!!!!) Mr. Curveball. So really anything is possible.

"Firm evidence," like the bogus evidence of weapons of mass destruction? Give me an fscking break.

---

"Prosperity is just around the corner." -- Herbert Hoover
"The economy has turned a corner." -- GW Bush

Herbert Hoover = GW Bush

Neither man cared about the Depression their economic policies created.

'Every statement I make today is backed up by sources, solid sources. These are not assertions. What we're giving you are facts and conclusions based on solid intelligence.'

the American military explosives used for the bombing? I contend that all great unnatural tragedies are the direct result of criminal government. Ask yourself, whom spreading global demockracy benefits the most?

this is the nightclub suicide bomber which Islamic Jihad already appears to have taken credit for, that was the big bomb in beirut which killed the former prime minister. The beirut bomb was obviously the work of syria as everyone except syria and the victims benefitted from it.

Irony doesn't always represent well in text form. I admit that I had to read that sentence twice before getting it. Maybe it was just me... However, :thumbsup: .

that we should share the "evidence" with someone we trust so that they can then also support the evidence or even (shock) corroborate it.

But, we don't trust anybody but Blair, who's credibility is less than zero already.

If only Chirac, or Schroeder, or even Pooty Poot could be trusted. Don't even think about Kofi. Who's the guy in Australia? Does he have any credibility?

Heh.

Wolf! It's the wolf!

Just wait to hear the indignation when their pronouncements of irrefutable proof are questioned.

How many Common-ists are there in the State Department, Mr. McCarthy?

LOL

/-sarcasm