WASHINGTON, Oct. 7, 2008
Iran Gave U.S. Help On Al Qaeda After 9/11
Former U.S. Officials Say Iran Rounded Up Hundreds Of Possible Terrorists Following Sept. 11 Attacks
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(AP / CBS)
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Fast Facts Iran Learn about the people, economy and history.
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Timeline The U.S. And Iran Key events in once friendly, now contentious relationship between Washington and Tehran.
The copies were sent to Kofi Annan, then the secretary-general of the United Nations, who passed them to the United States, and U.S. interrogators were given a chance by Iran to question some of the detainees, Leverett said in an Associated Press interview.
Leverett, a Middle East expert who was a career U.S. Foreign Service officer, said she negotiated with Iran for the Bush administration in the 2001-3 period, and Iran sought a broader relationship with the United States. "They thought they had been helpful on al Qaeda, and they were," she said.
For one thing, she said, Iran denied sanctuary to suspected al Qaeda operatives.
Some administration officials took the view, however, that Iran had not acknowledged all likely al Qaeda members nor provided access to them, Leverett said.
Many of the expelled Arabs were deported to Saudi Arabia and other Arab and Muslim countries, even though Iran had poor relations with the Saudi monarchy and some other countries in the region, Leverett said. Iranians are Persian, not Arab, and most belong to the Shiite sect of Islam rather than the Sunni, the majority sect in most Arab countries.
James F. Dobbins, the Bush administration's chief negotiator on Afghanistan in late 2001, said Iran was "comprehensively helpful" in the aftermath of the 9-11 attack in 2001 in working to overthrow the Taliban militias' rule and collaborating with the United States to install the Karzai government in Kabul.
Iranian diplomats made clear at the time they were looking for broader cooperation with the United States, but the Bush administration was not interested, the author of "After the Taliban: Nation-Building in Afghanistan," said in a separate interview.
The Bush administration has acknowledged contacts with Iran over the years even while denouncing Iran as part of an "axis of evil" and declining to consider resumption of diplomatic relations.
"It isn't something that is talked about," Leverett said in describing Iran's role during a forum at the New America Foundation, a nonpartisan policy institute.
Leverett and her husband, Flynt Leverett, a former career CIA analyst and a former National Security Council official, jointly proposed that the U.S. president who replaces George W. Bush in January seek a "grand bargain" with Iran to settle all major outstanding differences.
"The next president needs to reorient U.S. policy toward Iran as fundamentally as President Nixon did with China in the 1970s," Flynt Leverett said. Richard Nixon, a political conservative, opened the U.S.-China relationship by among other things visiting the communist country.
Among provisions of the Leveretts' recommended new Iran policy: The United States would clarify that it is not seeking change in the nature of Iran's Islamic government but rather its policies, while Iran would agree to "certain limits" on its nuclear program.
Iran considers most of its neighbors as its enemies. Among incentives for improving U.S. relations, the Leveretts said, is they feel that Pakistan and Saudi Arabia would be less provocative with a friendlier U.S.-Iranian relationship.
In Other Developments:
The ministry said the airplane, carrying a four-member Hungarian military delegation, had permission to fly over Iran, but that because of an "administrative error," characters in the craft's call signal were changed around and Iranian authorities did not recognize it.
© MMVIII, CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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- Just for YI Jose, the Israelis share military intelligence and develop some weapons that are superior to ours, about which they share their technology.
Nuff said
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Posted by apple2pie at 03:06 PM : Oct 08, 2008
I have heard about this "Sharing", however its because we, The United States, ignorantly provide them with our technology for weapons and they build on it and use it in secret. Israel, does not allow the press to come in and see everything they do to the Palestinians. Again, Israel is not that Democratic country they want the world to think that they are. They are severe violators of human rights. - Reply to this comment
- Can we impeach Bush now?
- Reply to this comment
- After 911, Iranians hit the streets in their own country, defying their government, in a show of support for the US and to demonstrate against violence. Now it has come to light that the Iranian government actually cooperated with the UN to identify terrorists.
Unbelievable. - Reply to this comment
It was in the Bu$h administration''s best interests to lie to America about many things in promoting hatred of Muslums during the runup to the oil invasion.- Reply to this comment
- Posted by josebcruz
Try this, from George Monbiot, which appeared in the Guardian UK
"A short while back I read a report that at a Knesset meeting Ariel Sharon had said to his deputy, Shimon Peres---Don''t worry about the Americans. We own America. And all along I thought WE owned it.
Not willing to accept that at face value, I contacted a reporter in Hebron to try to verify Sharon''s outburst. Sure enough, the reporter told me that news of Sharon''s offhand remark had, in fact, been broadcast from an Israeli radio station, and that both Israelis and Palestinians had heard it and were talking about it"...
Of course Koi Israel denies having broadcast the statement, (October 19, 2001) but there are reports that Sharon actually repeated it during a lecture a few days later at the University of Tel Aviv. - Reply to this comment
- Interesting News. So what did Israel do for us after 9/11 ? I believe one of their leaders said " Now You Know What a Terrorist Attck Feels Like" or something to that effect. In other words, they did NOTHING TO HELP US. However we call the Iranians our enemy? How does that add up? All the Israelis do is take money from us then spy on us, some ally.
- Reply to this comment
- Posted by easeup
Where is the opinion? this is public information, supported with court documents, try reading it again.
"...The Guardian has seen evidence that shows Bush was the director of the New York-based Union Banking Corporation (UBC) that represented Thyssen''''s US interests and he continued to work for the bank after America entered the war..."
We are indeed talking about a Bush, named Prescott.
Actually he was as much of a louse as his son and grandson, he was given a job by George Herbert Walker, the father of his new bride, who felt that it wouldn''t help the family image to have an unemployed bum as a son in law.
I understand this is hard for you, but sometimes life is just that way. - Reply to this comment
- "Gee....maybe "BUSH" had something to do with it! The memo you posted was completely irrelevant. If the Republicans are the "party of war" when FDR was in office 8 years before the start of WWII then you are smoking crack."
Again, reading is fundamental, try it again, s l o w l y.
"Although I will say both parties have actually homogenized since then, but now the Republicans are the party of war."
Although a war can be started in one day, it was after years of thought and preparation that got America into war, that preparation started with FDR, and continued under Truman. You seem to have an inability to read. - Reply to this comment
- Again, reading is fundamental. Where in my original post,(repeated so you don''''t have to search back) did I use the word Republicans?
Although I will say both parties have actually homogenized since then, but now the Republicans are the party of war.
Seems you are the one changing things. The water here is too deep for you.
Posted by brianbwb at 12:46 PM : Oct 08, 2008
Gee....maybe "BUSH" had something to do with it! The memo you posted was completely irrelevant. If the Republicans are the "party of war" when FDR was in office 8 years before the start of WWII then you are smoking crack.
You make these assertions on these boards to make yourself feel smart, then when someone challenges your posts, you start spinning like a record. Go ahead & keep posting your opinions & keep trying to portray them as "facts." It''s quite funny. - Reply to this comment
- Again, reading is fundamental. Where in my original post,(repeated so you don''''t have to search back) did I use the word Republicans?
Although I will say both parties have actually homogenized since then, but now the Republicans are the party of war.
Seems you are the one changing things. The water here is too deep for you.
Posted by brianbwb at 12:46 PM : Oct 08, 2008
Gee....maybe "BUSH" had something to do with it! The memo you posted was completely irrelevant. If the Republicans are the "party of war" when FDR was in office 8 years before the start of WWII then you are smoking crack.
You make these assertions on these boards to make yourself feel smart, then when someone challenges your posts, you start spinning like a record. Go ahead & keep posting your opinions & keep trying to portray them as "facts." It''s quite funny. - Reply to this comment
- BTW, FDR (the DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENT) began his term in 1933. Posted by easeup
Like most neocon war apologists, you seize on irrelevant statements as refutation. The evidence I referenced is public information, and just a tiny bit at that, that backs up my assertion.
You, on the other hand rely on nothing but attempts to deny the existence of the historical evidence, mixed with supposition and irrelevancies for yours.
Like I said reading is fundamental, try it. Not just what I posted, but look around, there is much information that you either do not know, or don''t wish to know, but your personal preference is irrelevant to those of us who actually have memories, and also listened in class.
Perhaps you fear true freedom, but many of us don''t. knowledge will set you free. - Reply to this comment
- "Well, let''s see, we had Prescott Bush and his wealthy US friends who helped Hitler to power, and sold the fuel for the Nazi war machine, and on the other side the US embargo on Japan is now recognized as provoked by the US to create a reason to enter a war that the rich wanted, but the non-rich people did not. You must have flunked history." Posted by brianbwb
Again, reading is fundamental. Where in my original post,(repeated so you don''t have to search back) did I use the word Republicans?
Although I will say both parties have actually homogenized since then, but now the Republicans are the party of war.
Seems you are the one changing things. The water here is too deep for you. - Reply to this comment
- "You''''ve got that part right. This recession is due to the rise in oil. people can''''t pay their morgages because opec took the money ouit of there pockets" Posted by jamster31
Worse, this is the logical conclusion of a sequence of events that started in Eisenhower''s day, the S.E. Asian debacle, from 1956 to 1973, which war profiteers used to rob the treasury of $13 trillion, forced Nixon to sell the US gold from the treasury, because the FED printed bills just to keep currency in circulation. In order to succeed, he needed a new standard, so he convinced OPEC to accept US dollars only in payment for oil. His wage /price controls (a bit socialist for a GOP-er) held hyperinflation in check, but expired during Carter''s term, so Carter got the blame for high inflation.
Enter Reagan, trickle down, union busting, the expatriation of the automakers factories, Iran Contra, and other corruptions that further weakened the US middle class.
Bush''s wholesale theft of $3 trillion for his lie-based wars, and now the last stage of the corporate feeding frenzy, the little fish are all finished, so now they start to eat each other.
The dollar has shrunk steadily since August 1972, now worth only 22% of its value then, this has actually been a 34 year contraction, or recession. - Reply to this comment
- Posted by brianbwb at 12:23 PM : Oct 08, 2008
The McCollum Memo had NOTHING to do with Republicans, yet you presented it to back up the claim that Republicans started WWII.
"Bottom line is that the major parts of WW2 were in Europe and the Far East, and the policies of the Republicans, dictated as usual by wealthy industrialists, was the major factor leading to both."
Now you have completely changed your assertion by making a blanket statement backed-up by nothing. BTW, FDR (the DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENT) began his term in 1933.
Face it, Brian, you''ve got nothing, but it was fun. - Reply to this comment
- "A few naval intelligence officers debate what will happen if Japan attacks or England folds." Posted by easeup
Reading is fundamental, try this one again.
"...10. If by these means Japan could be led to commit an overt act of war, so much the better. At all events we must be fully prepared to accept the threat of war." - H. McCollum
"If Japan attacks"? Read this one slowly, you can move your lips if that helps. - Reply to this comment
- Posted by easeup
You almost have it, FDR not only saw the memo, but acted upon it, every suggestion was followed.
Bottom line is that the major parts of WW2 were in Europe and the Far East, and the policies of the Republicans, dictated as usual by wealthy industrialists, was the major factor leading to both.
The evidence is public information and irrefutable, and a small bit of it is right before your eyes, so are your friends still yukking it up? - Reply to this comment
- The Saudis were behind the 9-11 Disaster. The ensuing war drove-up the price for a barrel of oil. OPEC is the culprit of this financial debacle.
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Posted by Petro49L at 11:20 AM : Oct 08, 2008
You''ve got that part right. This recession is due to the rise in oil. people can''t pay their morgages because opec took the money ouit of there pockets - Reply to this comment
- This is not new news. Iran was scared chitless after the invasion and wanted to help to stay on our good side. it was only after things in Iraq went downhill for us that Iran got cocky again.
- Reply to this comment
- Posted by brianbwb at 11:51 AM : Oct 08, 2008
Let me see if I have this straight. A few naval intelligence officers debate what will happen if Japan attacks or England folds. One suggested goading Japan into war. FDR (the DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENT) even sees the memo, so this makes the Republicans responsible for WWII.
Got it. - Reply to this comment
- To easeup
Are your "friends" still laughing?
I have referenced just a small bit of the mountain of evidence for my point, where is the evidence for your refutation?
Don''t have any? Then it seems you are the delusional one... - Reply to this comment
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