WHAT IS KERRY THINKING?

KERRY: THERE WERE NO TERRORISTS IN IRAQ
WHERE WAS JOHN KERRY BETWEEN 1980 AND MARCH 2003? HOW CAN HE STATE, AS HE DID ON FRIDAY, THAT IRAQ WAS NOT A HAVEN FOR TERRORISTS BEFORE OUR WAR OF LIBERATION???:

"Iraq is now what it was not before the war, a haven for terrorists." John F. Kerry, September 24, 2004

Iraq and terrorism go back decades. Baghdad trained Palestine Liberation Front members in small arms and explosives. Saddam used the Arab Liberation Front to funnel money to the families of Palestinian suicide bombers in order to prolong the Intifada. And it's no secret that Saddam's own intelligence service was involved in dozens of attacks or attempted assassinations in the 1990s.

Iraq was a haven for palestinian international terrorist Abu Abbas, who was captured in Baghdad in April of 2003. Palestinian terrorists under Abbas' command hijacked the Achille Lauro in October 1985. During the hijacking, Leon Klinghoffer -- a 69-year-old wheelchair-bound American Jew who was with his wife of 36 years on the cruise -- was killed and dumped into the sea. "He created troubles. He was handicapped but he was inciting and provoking the other passengers. So, the decision was made to kill him," Abbas told the Boston Globe in 1998.
Abu Abbas had been living in Baghdad since 1994, under the protection of Saddam Hussein.

Iraq was a haven for palestinian international terrorist Abu Nidal, and The Abu Nidal Organization ("ANO"), in fact, Saddam participated in forming the ANO, sheltered the ANO, and sponsored ANO. The ANO is responsible for terrorist attacks in 20 different countries, which killed more than 300 people, as well as wounding hundreds more. In the mid-1980s, the group was seen as the world’s most dangerous terrorist organization. Experts say that Abu Nidal worked with Iraqi intelligence while representing Fatah in Baghdad. Although Saddam Hussein expelled Abu Nidal and the ANO in an attempt to win American military support for Iraq’s 1980s war with Iran, once the war ended, Iraq resumed its support of Abu Nidal. The ANO now believed to be based in Iraq, with cells in Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon.

Iraq was a haven for the radical Kurdish Islamic terrorist group Ansar al-Islam. This terrorist group has ties with both the Taliban and with al-Qaeda. It is the most radical group operating in the Iraqi Kurdistan region. Ansar al-Islam activities include: razing of beauty salons, burning a school for girls, and the murder of women for refusing to wear the burqa. It has seized a Taliban-style enclave of 4,000 civilians and several villages near the Iranian border. It is also responsible for ambushing and killing of 42 Kurdish soldiers. Ansar al-Islam is in a state of war with the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK). It was responsible for the assassination in 2001 of a senior official of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), Franso Hariri, and for the attempted killing of Burhan Salih, head of the PUK-led Iraqi Kurdistan regional government.

Iraq was a haven for the deadly terrorist network headed by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, an associate and collaborator of Usama bin Laden and his al-Qaida lieutenants. In 2002, Zarqawi was in Baghdad for medical treatment, staying in the capital of Iraq for two months. Also in 2002, an al-Qaida associate bragged that the situation in Iraq was "good," that Baghdad could be transited quickly. Also in 2002, two suspected al-Qaida operatives were arrested crossing from Iraq into Saudi Arabia. They were linked to Zarqawi's Baghdad cell and one of them received training in Afghanistan on how to use cyanide.

Zarqawi's terrorism is not confined to the Middle East. Zarqawi and his network have plotted terrorist actions against countries including France, Britain, Spain, Italy, Germany and Russia.

"Iraq is now what it was not before the war, a haven for terrorists." John F. Kerry, September 24, 2004