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GRAHAM: Iraq Could Distract From War
Tuesday, September 10, 2002
(12:00 AM ET)
By Carl Hulse
The New York Times

Only a few days before the hijacked planes flew into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, Graham had been on an intelligence assessment mission in Pakistan. He recalled learning of the attacks when he was back in Washington having breakfast with a top Pakistani intelligence official, talking about "the capabilities and the intentions of the Taliban and al-Qaida." But even the senator, privy to the top secrets of the intelligence community as the veteran of dozens of confidential briefings, said he was not prepared for the dimensions of the attacks.

WASHINGTON -- NYT
Sen. Bob Graham, the chairman of the Intelligence Committee, calls the Bush administration's focus on Iraq a distraction from the campaign against terrorism and lists Syria and Iran as countries that should be the first targets of any aggressive effort against state sponsors of terrorist activity.

In an interview reflecting on Sept. 11 and its consequences, Graham, D-Fla., also said he feared the United States was becoming "bogged down" in an unproductive manhunt in Afghanistan and that the nation needed an "aggressive war plan" to strike at terrorist organizations.

"Victory is going to be won on the offensive, going to where the terrorists are and aggressively taking them on," Graham said. The senator said Iraq should not be the priority, given President Bush's own criteria: countries that were accomplices in the Sept. 11 attacks or that provided a sanctuary for terrorist groups.

"By those two standards, Iraq does not make it very high on the list of a terrorist state," Graham said.

He said the anti-terrorism effort should focus on countries that had a significant al-Qaida presence or terrorist training camps. "Those are primarily in Syria, in the Syrian controlled areas of Lebanon and in Iran," the senator said.

He added a warning: "Avoid the allure of distractions. At this point, I think Iraq is a primary distraction from achieving our goals or reducing the threat of international terrorism."
(More: The Ledger News Source)
2002 © The New York Times.

Hmm-m... Wonder which war-monger I’ll listen to today...<>



Dan