Mohamed to the Rescue

The world has been hearing a lot about Mohamed ELBaradei since the Egyptian unrest, but will the world hear about his affiliation with International Crisis Group?

This who's who of left-leaning luminaries' other noted board members include Kofi Annan, Jan Egeland, and Mark Mallock-Brown from UN fame, and notables Wesley Clark and Sandy Berger (socks) from the US.

And George Soros.

They also count Prince Turki al-Faisal from Saudi Arabia and former Mexican president Ernesto Zedillo (now head of the Yale University School of the Study of Globalization) as special consultants. Here's a humorous quote from the blog source of this gem, from poster 'Narciso':

It's like Dr. Evil's conference table, maybe El Baradei can be Will Farrell's beturbaned fellow.

LOL. Beck will probably be all over this on Monday if he hasn't already covered it.

But is it really sinister? The group also includes former Bush guy Kenneth Adelman and long time diplomat Thomas Pickering, the latter who was deputy undersecretary of state in 1998 when Clinton bombed al-Shifa in Khartoum and felt there was indeed a Sudan-Iraq connection. Then again he also felt the Bush administration(s) both dropped the ball on Iraq, and as Obama (whom he voted for) was coming into power he vocally advocated for bi-lateral talks with Iran without pre-conditions. Surely these things have put him at odds with the Bush crowd in recent years.

As to Mr. Adelman, he has apparently had a falling out with his neocon past a few years ago.

Anyway, these international ties are certainly interesting considering how ELBaradei always appeared so patient with the Iranians on their nuke program and so impatient with George W. Bush when combined with the current rumblings. And of course a Soros connection is always interesting.

MORE 1/30/11

This is kind of a bunny trail but it ties in with Ambassador Pickering's adamant stand on the al-Shifa intelligence. Right after the completion of Operation Desert Fox in December 1998, Newsweek magazine's cover for their January 11, 1999 issue was titled "Saddam + Bin Laden? The subhead read "It would be a marriage made in hell. And America's two enemies are courting". Not really a man bites dog; there were several connections made by mainstream journalists and government officials at the time. But from the article, note this comment from "an Arab intelligence officer who knows Saddam personally":

Washington is somewhat skeptical, but this source says plans have already been put into action under three "false flags": one Palestinian, one Iranian and one "the al Qaeda apparatus," the loose collection of terrorists who receive bin Laden's patronage. "All these organizations have representatives in Baghdad," says the Arab intelligence officer.

Right there in black and white, the lefty leaning Newsweek saying AQ had an office in Baghdad, 2 1/2 years before 9/11. As to the unnamed intelligence officer, chances are he wasn't an Egyptian, maybe Yemeni, but Mubarak was one of the sources given by Tenet and others as to confirming Saddam's stash.

At any rate, Stephen Hayes pointed out later that one of the writers would be backtracking all over himself when it appeared likely Bush was actually going to do something about it in 2003. Were they just covering for Clinton all along?