Author claims US invasion of Iraq 'fulfilled Osama bin Laden's wish'

[EV_Ares]

The only western journalist to interview al Qaeda's leader says the US invasion of Iraq "fulfilled Osama bin Laden's wish."

In a recent interview with Australian television, Al Quds editor Abdul Bari Atwan claimed that the terror leader had sought to draw US troops into a fight in the Middle East.

"He told me personally that he can't go and fight the Americans and their country. But if he manages to provoke them and bring them to the Middle East and to their Muslim worlds, where he can find them or fight them on his own turf, he will actually teach them a lesson," Atwan said. "It seems the invasion of Iraq fulfilled Osama bin Laden's wish. That's why the Americans are losing in Iraq."

Atwan said al Qaeda did not have any connection to Iraq before the US invasion, which destabilized the country and allowed for an influx of foreign fighters who have pledged loyalty to bin Laden's group.

"Iraq is a safe haven for Al Qaeda because it has about 50 million pieces of arms. It has about five million tonnes of ammunition left by Saddam Hussein regimes and also the Sunni community, which was deposed from power by the American invasion, and they were actually very, very frustrated, very humiliated," he said. "So it was the best environment for Al Qaeda to set up its bases there."

In his 1996 interview, which was reprinted after 9/11, bin Laden told Atwan that "Iraq is not an option" for al Qaeda to establish a stronghold. Atwan said bin Laden hoped to get the US mired in a war in Somalia after al Qaeda shot down an American helicopter, killing 19 soldiers.

((entire article @ link below))

http://rawstory.com/news/2007/Author_claims_US_invasion_of_Iraq_0824.html

[wake.up.america]

1. That is exactly as he wished. He might be cruel, but not stupid, unlike Bush.

[Benhurst]

6. Yeah, unlike Bush who is both cruel and stupid.

[MethuenProgressive]

2. Osama bin Laden smarter than George W. Bush? Gee, who knew?

Fuck you, George W. Bush.

[Roland99]

3. And smarter than the neocon remora

[SidDithers]

4. K&R...

it's not a new theory, but it sure does makes sense.

Sid

[The Vinyl Ripper]

5. Well, duh!!

This guy has a firm grasp on the blatantly obvious.

Move not unless you see an advantage; use not your troops unless there is something to be gained; fight not unless the position is critical. If it is to your advantage, make a forward move; if not, stay where you are. Anger may in time change to gladness; vexation may be succeeded by content.
- Sun Tzu

No leader should put troops into the field merely to gratify his own spleen; no leader should fight a battle simply out of pique. But a kingdom that has once been destroyed can never come again into being; nor can the dead ever be brought back to life. Hence the enlightened leader is heedful, and the good leader full of caution.
- Sun Tzu

[LynnTheDem]

7. And another "Well DUHHHHH" here.

And other than far too much of America, the world knew that before bush's illegal "supreme crime" invasion of Iraq.

[H2O Man]

8. Peter Bergen

is, I suspect, a "western journalist."

[CJCRANE]

9. Trouble is

Bin Laden's wishes and Bush-Cheney's wishes seem similar sometimes.