some Pentagon officials are intrigued by hints that bin Laden and Al-Zawahiri may be hiding in Iran

[The Straight Story]

(Note, included the entire Conclusion section as is, was from a PDF but linked via tinurl to an HTML version of it)
--Paper Date, May 2004

CONCLUSIONS
During a recent Meet the Press interview, Senator Hillary Clinton of New York was asked
by the moderator Tim Russert about her recent trip to Afghanistan and if she believed Osama
Bin Laden was still alive and in the region.

Her response:
I believe he is alive and I believe he is in the region. I’m glad you turned to
Afghanistan, because as, you know, one young soldier said to me, “Welcome to
the front lines in the war against terrorism,” we have forgotten that that’s where
those horrible attacks against us were planned and implemented from.

Russert’s follow-up question: “Will we get bin Laden?” Clinton’s answer:
We better. We better, because the failure to get him fuels the kind of myth of
fundamentalism and extremism and serves as a recruiting tool for people who
would wish us ill.

A counter to this line of thought comes from the magazine Newsweek:
It’s difficult to know where or how Osama bin Laden fits in...The CIA seems to
believe that bin Laden and Zawahiri are either on the Afghan-Pakistani border or
in a teeming Pakistani city like Karachi, while some Pentagon officials are
intrigued by hints that bin Laden and Al-Zawahiri may be hiding in Iran. Last
week Marine General Peter Pace, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told
reporters that “bin Laden has taken himself out of the picture.”

I agree with Senator Clinton. Even if Bin Laden has taken himself out of the picture, we
need to take a lesson from the ancient Romans who pursued the leaders of a Jewish revolt to
Massada in Palestine with the thought “we are coming after you and will get you sooner or
later.”

This may serve as a deterrent for others who would wish us ill.

In this paper I have postulated the center of gravity for Al Qaeda as Osama Bin Laden and
his brand of Islamist extremism. In our war against terrorism, an analysis of COG candidates
with the respective capabilities, requirements, and vulnerabilities all point to Al Qaeda’s
leadership and ideology as the center of gravity at the strategic level. Eliminating Bin Laden will
lead to the unraveling of his movement because his followers will be demoralized from the loss
of a leader of almost mythical proportions. It will take patience, timing, and skill – the
characteristics of a hawk described by Sun Tzu so long ago to break the body of its prey – and
today that hawk is the American Eagle and his prey is Osama Bin Laden.

http://tinyurl.com/2prykm

[Niccolo_Macchiavelli]

1. a Sunni hiding in i Shia country

um..yeah. right. :rolleyes:

[Supersedeas]

14. the neo-cons have conflate more specious things

[MetaTrope]

16. And no doubt he flies home to Saudi Arabia every weekend...

[Richard Steele]

2. Well, of COURSE they are! What with capturing binLaden being such a high priority and all...

:sarcasm: :puke:

[EFerrari]

3. Yeah, Bin Laden is going to go to Iran, where the government hates him

and is his enemy.

:crazy:

[monktonman]

4. If OBL is in Iran then I guess we can stop worrying about an attack

Dicky boy would never bomb his only begotten son

[IDemo]

5. Nobody could see this tactic coming.. n/t

[Gman]

6. Now there's the beginnings of a new lie

They just dangle that carrot out there in the direction they want to go.

[Gman]

7. ...

dupe from a posting error

[Cha]

8. BULLSHIT~ Whatever happened to the

buSHITS' WMD??????

[canadianbeaver]

9. This is getting to be too predictable......

This administration is a joke....it's really making the USA look like a friggin idiots...or rather being run by friggin idiots...I mean really, who do they think they are foolin.

fool me once
fool me ... can't get fooled again.. - idiot in charge.

[sinkingfeeling]

10. Sure, let's just 'move' bin Laden to Iran and there's another great excuse for starting

Bush's 3rd. war! Since I'm beginning to think even bin Laden is fictional (after 6 1/2 years of lies, it's getting harder to distinguish truth), why not just magically uproot him to Iran.

[BurtWorm]

11. And at the next Correspondent's dinner he can joke, "Nope. No bin Laden here."

:eyes:

[H2O Man]

12. It is very possible

that Usama bin Laden has spent some periods of time in Iranian territory, though not as a guest of the Iranian government.

[Emit]

13. Neocon Ledeen sez they're in Iran, and Ledeen gave testimony @ Sen Comm. last year

U.S. Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs
Subcommittee on Federal Financial Management, Government Information, Federal Services, and International Security

Title: Iran's Nuclear Impasse: Next Steps
Date: 7/20/06
Time (EST): 1:30 PM
Place: Dirksen Senate Office Building, Rm. 342
********
The purpose of the hearing is look at the status on Iran’s nuclear weapons capabilities, European negotiations and the UN Security Council, and the feasibility of further negotiations, democracy promotion, sanctions, and/or military options.

Witnesses Testimony

Panel 1
Amir Abbas Fakhravar , Independent Student Movement
Ilan Berman , American Foreign Policy Council
Michael Ledeen , American Enterprise Institute
Ray Takehy , Council on Foreign Relations
Jim Walsh , Massachusetts Institute of Technology

http://hsgac.senate.gov/index.cfm?Fuseaction=Hearings.Detail&HearingID=378

PREPARED TESTIMONY OF DR. MICHAEL A. LEDEEN TO THE SENATE
HOMELAND SECURITY AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS
SUBCOMMITTEE ON FEDERAL FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT,
GOVERNMENT INFORMATION, AND INTERNATIONAL SECURITY

I am most grateful for your kind invitation to discuss American policy toward Iran.
Sadly, recent events, most notably the Iranian-sponsored attacks against Israel from
Lebanon and Gaza--have made this discussion more urgent than ever. But that is what
often happens when successive administrations, of both political parties and of various
political convictions, avoid dealing with a serious problem. It doesn’t go away. Instead,
the problem gets worse and the cost of dealing with it becomes more and more
burdensome. The theocratic tyranny in Tehran is a very serious problem, and it is
becoming graver. It has already cost a great number of American lives, and an even
greater number of innocent Iranians, Iraqis, Israelis, Lebanese, Argentinians and others
around the world have fallen prey to the mullahs. And now they are hell-bent to become
a nuclear power.

The bottom line is that the Islamic Republic of Iran has been at war with us for twentyseven
years, and we have yet to respond.

~snip~

They have waged an unholy proxy war against us ever since. They created Hizbollah and
Islamic Jihad, and they support most all the others, from Hamas and al Qaeda to the
Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine–General Command. Iran’s proxies range
from Shi’ites to Sunnis to Marxists, all cannon fodder for the overriding objective to
dominate or destroy us.

~snip~

The nuclear threat is inseparable from the nature of the regime. If there were a freely
elected, democratic government in Tehran, instead of the self-selecting tyranny of the
mullahs, we would in all likelihood be dealing with a pro-Western country that would be
more interested in good trade and cultural relations than in nuclear warheads.
In other words, it’s all about the regime. Change the regime, and the nuclear question
becomes manageable. Leave the mullahs in place, and the nuclear weapons directly
threaten us and our friends and allies, raising the ante of the terror war they started
twenty-seven years ago.
And still no Western leader at any time in all these years has advocated regime change in
Iran.

~snip~

That leaves us with three courses of action, none of which is automatically exclusive of
the others: sanctions, military strikes, and support for democratic revolution.

~snip~

http://hsgac.senate.gov/_files/072006Ledeen.pdf

Here's what Ledeen is up to these days: http://pajamasmedia.com/2007/09/the_iranian_time_bomb.php

Excerpts:

Topic 1: http://pajamasmedia.com/2007/02/blog_week_in_review_michael_le.php

Ledeen describes evidence of Tehran's financing of involvement in Iraq - al Al-Qaeda in Iran, etc. Bin Laden went to Iran, and his son is there now. Ledeen thinks bin Laden is dead now. Al-Zawahiri in and operating out of Iran -- all top leadership operating out of Iran. He is asked by the interviewer, "As the Czar for American Foreign Policy for Western Civilization..." what would you do? Ledeen details his ideas for regime change, including regime change, funding radio/tv stations in Iran, etc.

Topic 2: (Can't find link yet) Asked again about what he'd do to address Iran. Ledeen's solution? First, threaten regime change in Iran -- have Bush and Rice "publicly announce US support of regime change in Iran..." Second, "...exercise legitimate self defense..." -- target bases.

Topic 3: http://pajamasmedia.com/2007/09/the_iranian_time_bomb.php
Discussion about Iranian Labor leaders who were recently jailed. Advocate that trade unions in the west should help Iranians build up a strike fund.

Here's the link to all: http://pajamasmedia.com/2007/09/the_iranian_time_bomb.php

[Megahurtz]

15. Oh Brother.

:eyes:

Wow, they're really desperately scraping the bottom for this one aren't they?
Cheney must've conjured this one up right out of one of his Bunkers.