The Tie That Binds (Iraq, Al-Qaida Link)

INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY ^ | Friday, June 18, 2004 | Editor

[Isara]

Terrorism: "Panel Says No Signs Of Iraq, Al-Qaida Link." That Reuters headline bears a striking similarity to many others that led the world's front pages on Thursday.

But that headline, and those like it, are wrong. They are at best lazy and intentionally misleading, and at worst, politically malicious — a cheap swipe at President Bush.

It's hard to know where to begin. Because the ties between Iraq's Saddam Hussein and al-Qaida are so numerous, it seems silly to dispute it at this point.

Bush on Thursday made the most basic case: "This administration never said that the 9-11 attacks were orchestrated between Saddam and al-Qaida. We did say there were numerous contacts between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaida. For example, Iraqi intelligence agents met with (Osama) bin Laden, the head of al-Qaida, in the Sudan."

The media have treated Bush's statement, and a similar one by Vice President Dick Cheney earlier in the week, with a skepticism verging on disdain.

In doing so, they ignore the known record of al-Qaida's ties with Saddam. It's a long one — and highly suggestive of deep links between the oil-rich dictator and the fundamentalist fanatics that killed 3,000 people on 9-11. Here are just a few:

• Last year, a leaked Defense Department memo detailed over 50 contacts between top Iraqi officials and members of al-Qaida. The contacts went back to the 1980s. That memo also provided evidence that Iraq's chief of intelligence, Ahmed al-Ani, met with lead 9-11 hijacker Mohammed Atta and provided him with funds.

• According to a Nov. 11, 2001, report in the London Observer, two Iraqi defectors claimed they helped train Islamic terrorists to seize a plane using only small knives at Iraq's Salman Pak training facility. The facility's existence was later confirmed by CIA satellite photos — and reconfirmed by a personal visit by Charles Duelfer, the chief weapons inspector in Iraq after David Kay.

• Judge Gilbert Merritt of the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, on a trip last year to Iraq to help set up a new justice system, stumbled across documentary evidence that Saddam had ongoing ties with bin Laden through Iraqi intelligence officer Abid Al-Karim Mohamed Aswod. Aswod worked in Iraq's Embassy in Pakistan, and was "responsible for the coordination of activities with the Osama bin Laden group," Merritt found.

• After President Clinton warned on Feb. 18, 1998, of "an unholy axis of terrorists, drug traffickers and organized international criminals" in Iraq, Saddam's intelligence agencies began strengthening their ties to bin Laden, according to documents found in April 2003 at Iraqi Intelligence headquarters by two journalists.

We've just scratched the surface here. There's a huge, and growing, pile of evidence suggesting ties between Saddam and al-Qaida.

Of course, any one bit of evidence can be false or misleading.

But taken together, the weight of the evidence suggests one thing: Saddam had extensive ties not just to al-Qaida, but to other terrorist groups, too. The media's wishful thinking won't make it otherwise.

[Isara]

Here is the list of evidences on Iraq, Al-Qaida Link.

[Question_Assumptions]

I really hope that this gets out and the press bias leads to people mistrusting the press rather than President Bush.

[bushfamfan]

I saw an interesting thing on CNN this morning. They had on someone involved in the 9/11 commission-unfortunately, his name isn't coming to mind-and he said the media has distorted the report. The report dealt with saying no clear evidence that Iraq was involved with Al Qaeda in the actions of 9/11. He actually said the media has manipulated the report. He even backed the President and VP's words that al Qaeda has a link to Iraq. And this Putin info has to have them very, very disappointed and saddened too.

[Richard Axtell]

Link?

[Always Right]

The commission actually has a couple of honorable Democrats on it such as Lee Hamilton. Unfortunately, the Democrats mostly has become the party represented by political hacks.

[hapy]

Putin said he told Bush that Iraq was planning terrorist attacks against the US, but I don't think Michael Moore portrayed that in his film. Also, when you watch his movie if you do, at the beginning he questions a republican congressman or senator, not sure. In any event he asked him about why there are no military sons/daughters in the service. The congressman looks at him and tells him his son and nephew are in the service, but Moore edited that part out.

I wonder why? Also Bush's numbers are going back up. I wonder if we will have another 2002 landslide. All get an account on DU so when that happens when can bring their site down again. Remember how much fun we had with them in 2002?

[cwb]

I've been listening to the media's coverage of this on the radio all morning..and they are "still" insisting that that there is no connection between AQ and Saddam. Oh...they changed their wording to "no firm connection" but it is still the same BS.

At the top of this hour, they even brought out Putin's quote. But not in support of Bush to show that he was right. They intentionally focused on how Putin warned the US ahead of time, that attacks may be coming, implying Bush knew. I have never seen this amount of outrageous media manipulation in my life...especially as it relates to life and death matters for this country.