In a long awaited decision, Federal Judge George Daniels in the U.S. District Court of the Southern District of New York ruled that Iran and its Lebanese terrorist proxy Hezbollah, had joint responsibility with al-Qa’eda for the 9/11 attacks.
The ruling in the cases of Havlish, et al. v. Islamic Republic of Iran, et al., and Bingham, et al. v. Islamic Republic of Iran, et al. was in response to lawsuits filed by families of 9/11 victims.
As I mentioned previously, this is by no means new or even previously unknown material. The 9/11 Commission stated in its report that there was "strong evidence that Iran facilitated the transit of Al Qaeda members into and out of Afghanistan before 9/11, and that some of these were future 9/11 hijackers." There's more than just 'strong evidence' that Iran allowed members of al-Qaeda into Iran after we invaded their stronghold in Afghanistan. That's exactly how so many of them got to Iraq so easily via Saudi Arabia, Syria and Iran.
On page 240 of the Commission’s final report, it mentions a “senior Hezbollah operative” accompanied some of the future 9/11 hijackers on their final airline flights into and out of Afghanistan, Iran, and Lebanon.
It's now known beyond question that the “senior Hezbollah operative” was our old friend Imad Mugniyeh. You'll remember that he was not only a member of al-Qaeda but a founding member of Hezbollah and a former member of Yasser Arafat's Force 17. He was the commander of the operation that killed 247 marines in Beirut, the man who tortured to death Marine Colonel William Buckley,videotaped the proceedings and sent it to the White House, the liaison man in the Karina A arms shipment, which involved Iranian weapons sent to the PLO.
Mugniyah was the natural liaison man for the 9/11 hijackers as well,because he was one of the few people trusted by by all parties involved...Hezbollah, Iran and al- Qaeda.
The 9/11 commission urged further investigation at the time, but neither the Bush Administration or the Obama Administration ever saw fit to follow up.
As evidence given in the trials show, in addition to directing Mughniyah’s extensive involvement in recruiting, guiding, and training the hijackers, Iran provided vital material support to those hijackers by ordering its border and passport officials not to stamp their passports when they crossed Iranian territory. That meant they could enter the U.S. with clean passports, no questions asked.
This was probably what Saddam Hussein was talking about when he mentioned that he thought a strike on the U.S. was imminent, but that 'no ties to Iraq will be seen.' Given that the Iraqis had already gotten away with involvement in the first World Trade Center bombing ( and likely the Oklahoma City bombing), Saddam wasn't expecting anyone to draw a line to Iraq this time, especially since he may have known of or suspected Iran's involvement in the coming carnage.
Iranian assistance to al-Qaeda didn't stop with the 9/11 attacks, as you already know if you read this site. After Tora Bora, al-Qaeda's top leadership and a number of fighters were able to flee to safety in Iran aided and abetted by the regime, including Ayman Zawahiri and Osama bin-Laden. Many of the fighters ended up in Iraq and Afghanistan, while bin-Laden and Zawahri returned to Pakistan.
These and other details were revealed by declassified material that came out in the trial and 25 hours of sworn testimony (filed under seal) from three former Iranian intelligence officers, who described the direct participation of top Iranian government officials like current Iranian defense Minister Ahmad Vahidi as well as Imad Mughniyah's role.
The next step, since this is a civil trial, will likely be to obtain financial judgments, which may ultimately involve seeking reciprocation in European courts that recognize US judgments.
Of course, the real question to be answered is one I posed before, one some of us have been asking for a long time - exactly why did we go after Saddam Hussein and ignore the real threat in Iran? Especially since our government was made aware of Iran's complicity?
From the Iranian standpoint, they have to be astounded as well. They've taken over an American embassy with impunity, killed our soldiers, armed, trained and abetted our enemies and provided essential support for the worst terrorist strike on America's soil in our history.And these people are now actively seeking nuclear weapons via a rogue program.
Any of these actions are normally grounds for war. Yet the United States continues to attempt to 'engage' with the Iranians.
If I were them, I would assume that America was so petrified of Iran, so ineffectual and decadent that no accommodation with America was necessary and no attack or insult too insufferable to offer. I would hold America and its leaders beneath contempt.
That is likely how they regard us, and I certainly can see why.It will unfortunately make a violent confrontation at some point that much more likely.
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