Posted on 06/22/2004 7:38:47 AM PDT by lugsoul
So there are TWO Iraqi's name Ahmed Hikmat Shakir, who BOTH were world travelers, worked for Iraqi embassies and have had connections with terrorists?
CIA has institutional biases.
Tell them to think outside the box, and they just build a bigger box.
Exactly.
It's so interesting that Saddam obviously knew that 9/11 was coming and he knew where it was going to happen.
Perhaps many in the Middle East knew the same thing because AQ shared that knowledge with their friends and supporters.
They certainly shared the information with Saddam which puts to bed the lie that OBL and Saddam were such enemies they could never work together.
As though people don't remember their history. We signed a pact with Stalin too during WWII -- anything to defeat a common enemy.
The factual content of your post MAY be 100% correct, but that is not the allegation that is being addressed - I didn't see Lehman say "we know that a guy who was given a job by the Iraqi embassy in Indonesia met with the hijackers." He was talking about an officer in Saddam's army. Either that is true, or it is not. If it is not, people shouldn't run around and allege that it is, EVEN IF the guy who met with the hijackers has some other tie to Iraq.
As far as the CIA and the source of the information - where do you think that the information about the greeter job being arranged by the Iraqi Embassy came from?
So....why should we try to connect the dots when there's a possibility that the dots aren't dots?
The Americian people want this pursued. The press, the Commission, and the Press want it sidelined.
Including the Saudi intelligence minister?
For starters I'd have to know the person's actual name. "The CIA" could mean anyone from Valerie Plame to George Tenet to a case officer in Somalia.
I also note that perhaps I'd be more impressed if this story actually did present "the CIA" as saying they "don't think" it is the same guy. At least then there would be intellectual honesty in presenting the finding as containing doubt. But no, instead we hear that it was "the CIA"'s "conclusion". I am wary of this term "conclusion", which seems to be a form of overreach when someone really really wants to foist an opinion about something as having overwhelming evidence behind it when the evidence is in fact quite scanty. (See also: the 9/11 Commission's "conclusion" that Atta did not go to Prague, based on, as far as I can tell, the fact that his cell phone was used here a few times..)
This word "conclusion" seems to be a red flag that the evidence for the "conclusion" is, in fact, threadbare - so don't look too hard. Just MHO
Has anyone, at any time, said "we've looked into what we saw in the documents and we do think it is the same guy?"
Yes. 1. Clearly the Bush administration believes it (i.e. Cheney). 2. Now we have this guy John Lehman saying it.
But don't get me wrong. I'm not saying it's automatically true. Just that the info revealed in this article does not cast doubt on it. If I was 85% certain it was true before, I'm still 85% certain, and not one iota less. I'm not saying I'm 100% certain. Best,
Using dots that are not really dots is a good way to ensure that the picture is distorted.
Precisely.
Considering what we have found post 9/11 about Iraq's fingerprints on the first WTC attack, it's overly simplistic thinking on the part of the CIA. Unless they have a videotape, they won't risk their careers by making assumptions and then trying to find the proof. They just wait for the proof to fall into their lap and we all know how often that happens!
The book The New Jackals dealt with Ramzi Yousef (first WTC attack) and OBL. What I had forgotten was that in August 2001, Saddam and his wives went into a bunker and didn't emerge until that October. His wives hated each other and had never before been housed together.
As well, in August 2001, the Iraqi military went on its highest state of alert since the Gulf War in '91. They knew what was coming to America and feared immediate retaliation. Had we gone into Afghanistan and Iraq simultaneously, we would not be in the political divide we are today, imo, but we wouldn't have been as prepared militarily either.
Lehman explicitly said that we haven't confirmed that it is the same guy.
Lehman actually seems to think there may be more than one AQ officer in Saddam's Fedayeen:
"Some of these documents indicate that (there was) at least one officer of Saddam's Fedayeen, a lieutenant colonel, who was a very prominent member of al Qaeda," Lehman said.
But he hasn't said that this ISN'T the same guy, either.
Thank you! I read the preceding part of the article three times trying to see the citation of an "administration official" and could not find it.
Nope - I'm just responding to an assertion that he said it was the same guy.
This is not the kind of business in which you ever get 100% accuracy. You get the cumulative weight of high probabilities. The Ahmed Hakim Shikar item is one of hundreds of "odd coincidences" that all add up to an on-going Saddam/Al Oaeda relationship.
If you wait for the dots to all be "100% Proven" before connecting them, you will end up with many dead people.
Out of a population of 5 million Iraqi Sunnis, how many will be adult males named "Ahmed Hikmat Shakir", involved in foreign intrigues and terrorist plots?
The sub-headline references a "White House official."
Suffice it to say that ALL of this intel information needs to be taken with a grain of salt - not just the information that doesn't fit with one's intended outcome.
Do you have any information that it is the same guy, or not?
Who cares if it is the same guy?
The left does. The left really really does. They put out a call during the primaries,"any one but Bush". john kerry strode foreward and bravely said "I am that man, i'm anyone but Bush".
So now the left is stuck trying to get a turnip elected and if they're going to have to do it on issues and facts well.......
hence the desparate attempt to contain a gallon (and growing) lie in a thimble. it's just not working. thus the Unnamed White House sources, which for all I know is the guy that rakes the leaves.
Fighting back all this nonsense is your pennance. you have sinned against the left, you have loved your country, you have engaged in logical thinking and quite possibly you have voted for a republican and for this you have been sentenced to the hell that is the energizer bunny like propaganda machine of the left.
I will be shocked if Bush/Cheney offered this to the commission for evidence that there was a connection and they were not sure that it was a valid link that they had thoroughly vetted. If not, then it will call into question their interpretation of intelligence in general.
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