[Tenchiro]

I dunno, shouldn't they be looking in like Saudi Arabia? Good thing Bush wants to be a "Peace President" or Iran might be in trouble.

Possible Link Between Iran, Al-Qaida Investigated

2 hours, 25 minutes ago

President George W. Bush said the United States is digging into the facts to see if there is any connection between Iran and the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, and that he is open to the idea of a national intelligence director.

Bush said the United States is investigating possible ties between Iran and al-Qaida, and he wants to know if the Iranian government played a role in the attacks.

"We will look to see if the Iranians were involved," said Bush.

Some of the 19 hijackers are believed to have passed through Iran, and details of their journey are expected to be released by the 9/11 Commission in its final report Thursday.

The commission is also expected to recommend a major overhaul of the intelligence community, and the creation of a cabinet-level position to oversee all intelligence. "We'll look at all their recommendations, and I will comment upon that having studied what they say," explained Bush.

The acting director of the CIA is against the idea, however, and one former Pentagon official called it the classic Washington response to the problem.

"Build more bureaucracy, add layers of wiring diagram, and boxes that may or may not actually address the underlying problem, which is the quality of intelligence," remarked Frank Gaffney, a former Pentagon official.

On Capitol Hill Tuesday, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence will hold a hearing to talk about reorganizing the intelligence community. That hearing will focus on a bill that calls for a national spy chief.

Legislation calling for this position was introduced back in 2002, but it has picked up momentum in recent months due to speculation of rampant intelligence failures.

The commission will release its final report Thursday at an 11:30 a.m. EDT news conference. The 500-page report will be available on the committee's Web site at 911commission.gov and at bookstores.

Iran Dismisses Talk of Sept. 11 Links as 'Fantasy'

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran dismissed as "fabrication and fantasy" Tuesday U.S. suggestions that it may have been involved in the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States.

President Bush said Monday Washington was "digging into the facts" to determine whether Iran played a role in the al Qaeda attacks on New York and Washington.

A U.S. commission investigating the attacks will detail links between Iran and al Qaeda in its final report this week. The report is expected to say that several of the 19 hijackers passed through Iran on their way to the United States.

Tehran acknowledges that some of the Sept. 11 plotters may have been in Iran before the attacks but says they did so after entering the country undetected along its lengthy and porous borders with Afghanistan and Pakistan.

"Any claim about Iran's direct or indirect links to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks is fabrication and fantasy," Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi told the official IRNA news agency.

"It is not strange that some people manage to slip through a country's borders illegally ... What is funny is the fact that the country which has given them visas, residency permits, pilot training and sabotage training is making such claims," he said.

Bush, who in 2002 labeled Iran part of an "axis of evil" alongside North Korea and Saddam Hussein 's Iraq, reiterated U.S. accusations that Iran is harboring al Qaeda leaders and urged Tehran to hand them over to their countries of origin.

Iran says it has arrested and deported about 500 al Qaeda suspects since the Sept. 11 attacks. But its refusal to hand over a number of senior al Qaeda members it is holding -- believed by security sources to include al Qaeda's security chief Egyptian Saif al Adel -- has infuriated Washington.

Bush said Monday that if Iran wanted to have better relations with Washington, "there are some things they must do," including ending what U.S. officials say is its nuclear weapons program and its support for terrorism.

Asefi said such terms were unacceptable for Iran.

"The time is over for carrot and stick policy. The Iranian nation has proved that it accepts relations with other countries only based on mutual respect and equal footing," he said.

 

[-BB-]

He probably wants to go to war w/ iran, I doubt he will get ANY support for that one.

 

[fluff]

"Any claim about Iran's direct or indirect links to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks is fabrication and fantasy," Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi told the official IRNA news agency.

"It is not strange that some people manage to slip through a country's borders illegally ... What is funny is the fact that the country which has given them visas, residency permits, pilot training and sabotage training is making such claims," he said.

What a brilliant reply!

 

[Silver]

It's interesting that the 9/11 commission apparently doesn't know anything when they happen to be critical of Bush (see al-Qaeda and Iraq connections, and numerous statements by the president and vice-president) but if they happen to support a position that Bush likes (or something that supports his "crusade") they are a definitive source.