Terror Suspect Accused Of Masterminding The Killing Of Five American Soldiers Released Eleven Months After Obama Administration Turned Him Over To Iraq

To understand just how disgusting the news coming out of Iraq today about the release of Ali Musa Daqduq is, you have to understand that he was handed over by this President and his radical terrorist loving  administration.

The Obama administration chose to turn over terrorism suspect Ali Musa Daqduq to Iraq, a blow to U.S. military and intelligence officials who wanted him tried by a U.S. tribunal.

By Eli Lake
Dec 17, 2011 12:17 AM EST
As it formally wrapped up war operations in Iraq, the Obama administration handed over terrorism suspect Ali Musa Daqduq to Baghdad’s government, dealing a blow to U.S. military and intelligence officials who wanted him tried by a U.S. tribunal on charges he plotted the killings of five American soldiers.

The White House said Friday night it has tried to secure assurances from Iraq that Daqduq will be tried in that country for his role in the January 2007 killings, but U.S. intelligence fears he will eventually be released to Iran, where he has been linked to Hizbullah and the notorious Quds Force.

The administration’s decision drew a swift, harsh rebuke from a Republican senator who had pressed in recent weeks to have Daqduq tried by a U.S. military tribunal. 

“Daqduq is one of the worst of the worst,” Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa said. “He’s got a significant record of terrorist activity with Hizbullah and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Quds Force, even training them. The handover to the Iraqi government causes grave concerns in my mind that he’ll find his way back to the battlefield where undoubtedly innocent people will be killed.

“And, to add further insult, the decision to turn this terrorist over to the Iraqi government is a slap in the face to the families of the five service members who were killed under Daqduq’s direction,” Grassley lamented.

The resolution of Daqduq’s status was one of the thorniest remaining issues as U.S. troops leave the country this month.

Plans as recent as this summer envisioned some U.S. forces remaining on bases in Iraq and working out a way to at least monitor the custody of Daqduq. But after President Obama failed to reach a new troop agreement with his Iraqi counterpart, Nuri al-Maliki, the U.S. was compelled to transfer the last of thousands of prisoners it kept in jails on U.S. bases.

 "Daqduq is one of the worst of the worst. 

He’s got a significant record of terrorist activity."

(Wathiq Khuzaie, AFP / Getty Images)

Daqduq was one of hundreds senior Shiite and al Qaeda suspects kept in detention centers on U.S. bases when Obama took office. But slowly, most of those prisoners were released. The highest-profile prisoners released until Friday were Laith and Qais Qazali, two brothers who led a network that provided Iran-supported militias in southern Iraq with lethal roadside bombs known as EFPs, or explosively formed penetrators.

White House National Security Council spokesman Tommy Vietor said Friday night that the United States “sought and received assurances that he will be tried for his crimes.”

Last month, though, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta acknowledged that Daqduq “would certainly find better justice here.”

One reason Daqduq could not be sent to the United States is that Obama had not allowed new detainees to be sent to the Guantánamo prison in Cuba.

Intelligence officials are frustrated by the outcome. “This is one of many things we just dropped,” one intelligence officer told The Daily Beast, predicting that some of those turned over by the U.S. in recent days will be released and “will go back to the Iranian terror mac

hine.”

Source: The Daily Beast

Fast Forward To Today, November 16, 2012

McCain to Obama: Take action against Iraq for terror suspect release

By Julian Pecquet - 11/16/12 01:03 PM ET

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) called Iraq's Friday release of a Lebanese man accused of killing five U.S. soldiers an “outrage” and urged the Obama administration to respond in kind.

“This is an outrage,” the top Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee told reporters on Capitol Hill. “Families of those who were killed by this terrorist should also be outraged and appropriate actions should be taken with regards to our relationship with the Iraqi government.”

The release of Ali Mussa Daqduq, a suspected operative of the Iranian-backed Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, was expected after an Iraqi court acquitted him of the charges. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, however, had told Reuters that he had received “assurances” from Iraq that the country would not let him go.

Daqduq, who was captured in 2007, has been a source of U.S.-Iraqi tensions ever since Iraq refused to extradite him. He flew back to his native Lebanon on Friday.

Source: The Hill

 

Michael Braun, former Assistant Administrator and Chief of Operations, U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration spoke to the Center for Security Policy's National Security Group on Capitol Hill about developments on the Mexican border with an eye towards the 2012 elections. He also discussed the nexus between Latin American drug cartels and Middle Eastern terrorists.
WEBSITE: CENTER FOR SECURITY POLICY

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Former DEA Chief: Hezbollah Eyeing Southwest Border, ‘Hell to Pay in the Not Too Distant Future’

By Penny Starr

February 2, 2012

(CNSNews.com) – 

The Iranian-supported Shi’ite terrorist group Hezbollah has spread its influence all the way to the U.S. border with Mexico, a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing on Iran’s influence in the Western Hemisphere heard on Thursday.

Michael Braun, a former chief of operations at the Drug Enforcement Agency, said Hezbollah had developed relationships with the powerful Mexican drug cartels to “move their agenda forward.” He cited a plot, recently uncovered by the DEA, involving an Iranian operative in Mexico allegedly planning to assassinate the Saudi ambassador in Washington, D.C.

“Hezbollah are absolute masters at forming close relationships with existing organized crime groups around the world that helps them facilitate what they need to do to move their agendas forward,” Braun told CNSNews.com following the hearing. “And if anyone thinks for a moment that they don’t have their eye on the southwest border and all of our country, then they couldn’t be more wrong.”

In his prepared remarks Braun, who also served as interim director of the Department of Justice’s Drug Intelligence Fusion Center, said Hezbollah and other terrorist groups understand that the Mexican cartels are already operating successfully inside the United States.

“If anyone thinks for one moment that these terrorist organizations do not understand that the Mexican drug trafficking cartels now dominate drug trafficking in our country – reportedly in more than 250 cities – than they are very stupid or very naive,” he said.

“And these groups most assuredly recognize the strategic value of exploiting that activity, and all that has been built to support it, for moving their vision forward in this part of the world.”

Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.), chairwoman of the committee, cited Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Quds Force and its connections to the Zeta drug cartel in the foiled assassination attempt on U.S. soil.

She asked Braun whether he believed Iran had “strategic interests” in Central America and the southwest border.

Braun said Quds Force and Hezbollah work “very, very hard” to develop relationships with criminal groups that already have in place systems for illegal activities, including drug and human trafficking, money laundering and forged document operations.

“And by developing those relations it provides them with the ability to operate far from home in our neighborhood and – as I said earlier – on our doorstep,” he replied.

Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas), committee member and chairman of the Homeland Security Committee’s subcommittee of oversight and investigations, asked about Hezbollah’s relationship to criminal organizations in the Western Hemisphere and what it means for U.S. security.

Braun warned that those relationships allow “these groups to operate freely in our neighborhood” and said the U.S. would regret it if the threats were not taken seriously.

“I don’t want to sound too crude, but I think there’s going to be hell to pay in the not too distant future,” he said.

For the most part the tone of the hearing was bipartisan in nature, with Democrats on the committee agreeing that Iran is trying to exert influence in the Western Hemisphere.

Rep. Gary Ackerman (D-N.Y.) said Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s recent trip to Venezuela, Cuba, Ecuador and Nicaragua, is proof that Iran is “up to no good.”

Read more of the story here

Related Links:
Iran’s Ties in Latin American Region Pose Threat to U.S. Security, Ros-Lehtinen Says at Hearing
The Investigative Project On Terrorism

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