In the wake of President Bush's speech to the nation Tuesday night, Democrats are complaining that he talked too much about 9/11, falsely implying that Iraq was a terrorist threat.
Too bad Mr. Bush didn't cite the mountain of evidence proving that Iraq under Saddam Hussein was a veritable Motel 6 for the world's worst terrorists - a gang of mass murderers who had killed hundreds of Americans - well before the U.S. invaded.
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According to a report last year by the Hudson Institute, the short list of terrorists laying low in Iraq would include:
• Abu Nidal. Before Osama bin Laden arrived on the scene, Nidal was the world's most notorious terrorist. His terror gang is credited with dozens of attacks that killed over 400 people, including 10 Americans. He also threatened to kill Lt. Col. Oliver North.
Abu Nidal moved to Baghdad in 1999, where he was found shot to death in Aug 2002. Rumors swirled at the time that Nidal was rubbed out by Iraqi intelligence because he knew too much about Saddam's terrorist activities.
• Abu Abbas. Abbas masterminded the 1985 hijacking of the Achille Lauro cruise ship, where wheelchair-bound American Leon Klinghoffer was pushed over the side to his death. U.S. troops captured Abbas in Baghdad on April 14, 2003. He died in U.S. custody last year.
• Abdul Rahman Yasin. Yasin was Ramzi Yousef's partner in the 1993 World Trade Center bomb plot, aiding the al Qaeda explosives mastermind in prepariing the bomb that killed six New Yorkers and wounded 1,000.
In 1996, an ABC News reporter spotted Yasin outside his government owned house in Baghdad. The key WTC 1993 co-conspirator remains at large.
• Khala Khadar al-Salahat. Al-Salahat, a top Palestinian deputy to Abu Nidal, reportedly furnished Libyan agents with the Semtex explosive used to blow up Pan Am Flight 103 in December 1988. The attack killed all 259 passengers, including 189 Americans. Al-Salahat was in Baghdad April 2003 when he was taken into custody by U.S. Marines.
• Abu Musab al Zarqawi. Zarqawi was training terrorists in Afghanistan for an attack on the U.S. embassy in Jordan when the U.S. defeated the Taliban, forcing him to flee. He relocated to Iraq, where he set up terrorist cells in the Northern part of the country.
In an indication that he enjoyed the status of guest of the state, Zarqawi was reportedly treated for a leg wound at one of Saddam's exclusive private hospitals.
After years of media reports denying that Zarqawi had ties to al Qaeda, Osama bin Laden himself dubbed Zarqawi his chief of operations in Iraq last year.
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