Hamas Seizes CIA Files, U.S.-Supplied Weapons from Fatah in Gaza

Congratulations, U.S. taxpayers! Your tax dollars have armed and equipped Hamas.

The conquest of Gaza by Hamas represents a major foreign policy, intelligence and defense policy disaster for the United States. On Wednesday, Hamas gunmen seized the Ansar Compound, the last major Fatah stronghold in Gaza, which housed Fatah's security forces. As reported by World Net Daily:

The U.S. in the past year has given large quantities of weapons to bolster Fatah in clashes against Hamas. Hamas officials repeatedly told WND they would seize any American weaponry provided to Fatah in Gaza.

Hamas' Al Aqsa Television broadcast footage of Hamas gunmen brandishing American assault rifles, rocket-propelled grenades, rocket launchers and ammunition the U.S. reportedly provided to Fatah over the past few months. Hamas fighters also showed what they said were 10 American-provided armored personnel carriers the terror group said it seized from Fatah security compounds it took over yesterday.

I heard one Al Aksar Brigate (Fatah) terrorist in a radio interview who said, based on what he had seen of the captured ammunition, "Hamas could fire at us and you [Israel] continuously for a year and not run of ammunition."

So the folly of the U.S. State Department and the Bush Administration in heavily arming Fatah has been fully exposed. Since the Olmert government of Israel fully cooperated with this project, it shares responsibility for this debacle.

World Net Daily also reports that the Hamas capture of the Ansar Compound has serious consequences beyond the capture of the weapons supplies by Hamas. The CIA, other U.S. intelligence agencies and Israeli intelligence heavily cooperated with Fatah. All of the Fatah intelligence files on this relationship have now fallen into the hands of Hamas, and therefore Iran.

Iran and Syria are clearly the big winners here. It is Iran that purchased weapons for Hamas, trained Hamas fighters in their use and arranged to smuggle the weapons into Gaza from Egypt.

It must also be said that this disaster is a direct result of the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza in August 2005. When the Sharon-Olmert government announced their plan to expell 7000 Israeli settlers from their homes, businesses and farms, and withdraw the Israel Defense Forces from Gaza, critics such as Frank Gaffney of the Center for Security Policy and Daniel Pipes, predicted that the result would be a new terrorist state, "Hamasistan." That is exactly what has occurred.