Posted on 11/13/2004 12:47:08 PM PST by Willie Green
It was one of the biggest mysteries of the presidential campaign and indeed modern American politics. Whether they favored Democratic nominee John Kerry or not, why didn't most voters turn sharply against the Iraq war launched by President Bush?
All the makings of an antiwar tidal wave seemed to be in place, ranging from continuing U.S. casualties, a stubborn enemy, high and rising economic costs, poor intelligence and planning, a credibility gap over claims about weapons of mass destruction and an al Qaeda connection, and round-the-clock media coverage of American losses and failures. Even many one-time supporters of the war have either voiced grave doubts or jumped ship.
In short, the Iraq war clearly has been America's most difficult military venture since Vietnam, and parallels with that conflict appear easy to draw. Yet not only did major mistakes, misjudgments and false promises fail to ignite a political revolt. According to the exit polls, voters still approve the original decision to invade Iraq by 51 to 47 percent — even though by 52-43 percent, the electorate believes the war is going "badly," not "well."
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ...
Alan Tonelson ping
Because most people understand that Iraq was indeed working with Al Qaeda and probably involved in 9/11.
A high ranking Iraqi fedayeen soldier attended at least one pre planning 9/11 meeting with AQ.
Saddam knew 9/11 was coming and where we were going to be hit.
Even the Clinton Justice Department was able to obtain an indictment against OBL which cited the terrorist's ties to Iraq.
A federal judge has granted two 9/11 families a multi-million dollar judgement - against Iraq.
During the 90's, the mainstream press wrote about the world's alarm at the growing relationship between Saddam and Osama bin Laden. Old Media thinks we can't look these things up.
Hundreds of articles and links in this thread http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1224050/posts
And perhaps because the contacts between Iraq and Al Qaeda were so numerous only an idiot believes that Iraq was working with OBL and AQ. List of details here: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/989201/posts?page=23
Those links are as follows:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1224050/posts
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/989201/posts?page=23
Hmmm. "...the Iraq war launched by President Bush?"
Wasn't there a coalition of about 30 nations that did that? I seem to remember some other nations are fighting with us in Iraq.
Guess he's got a rather limited memory.
No, I think you're just a little too quick to hide behind a rock,
trying to deny who led the "coalition of the willing".
Most of the US populace are not moronic, liberal idiots waiting to be spoonfed the next soundbite lie from a treasonous MSM!
Well, you said it....
The Senate Select Intelligence Committee report concluded the CIA had repeatedly informed the administration that Hussein "generally viewed Islamic extremism, including the school of Islam known as Wahhabism, as a threat to his regime, noting that he had executed extremists from both the Sunni and Shi’a sects to disrupt their organizations. The CIA provided two specific HUMINT [Human Intelligence] reports that support this assessment, both of which indicated that Saddam Hussein’s regime arrested and in some cases executed Wahhabists and other Islamic extremists that opposed him. The CIA also provided a HUMINT report … that indicated the regime sought to prevent Iraqi youth from joining al Qaeda."
Surely you have seen the reports that fully half the CIA is opposed to the Bush doctrine and openly oppose him?
Explain away this and then perhaps I will give your link some validity:
* Abdul Rahman Yasin was the only member of the al Qaeda cell that detonated the 1993 World Trade Center bomb to remain at large in the Clinton years. He fled to Iraq. U.S. forces recently discovered a cache of documents in Tikrit, Saddam's hometown, that show that Iraq gave Mr. Yasin both a house and monthly salary.
* Bin Laden met at least eight times with officers of Iraq's Special Security Organization, a secret police agency run by Saddam's son Qusay, and met with officials from Saddam's mukhabarat, its external intelligence service, according to intelligence made public by Secretary of State Colin Powell, who was speaking before the United Nations Security Council on February 6, 2003.
* Sudanese intelligence officials told me that their agents had observed meetings between Iraqi intelligence agents and bin Laden starting in 1994, when bin Laden lived in Khartoum.
* Bin Laden met the director of the Iraqi mukhabarat in 1996 in Khartoum, according to Mr. Powell.
* An al Qaeda operative now held by the U.S. confessed that in the mid-1990s, bin Laden had forged an agreement with Saddam's men to cease all terrorist activities against the Iraqi dictator, Mr. Powell told the United Nations.
* In 1999 the Guardian, a British newspaper, reported that Farouk Hijazi, a senior officer in Iraq's mukhabarat, had journeyed deep into the icy mountains near Kandahar, Afghanistan, in December 1998 to meet with al Qaeda men. Mr. Hijazi is "thought to have offered bin Laden asylum in Iraq," the Guardian reported.
* In October 2000, another Iraqi intelligence operative, Salah Suleiman, was arrested near the Afghan border by Pakistani authorities, according to Jane's Foreign Report, a respected international newsletter. Jane's reported that Suleiman was shuttling between Iraqi intelligence and Ayman al Zawahiri, now al Qaeda's No. 2 man.
(Why are all of those meetings significant? The London Observer reports that FBI investigators cite a captured al Qaeda field manual in Afghanistan, which "emphasizes the value of conducting discussions about pending terrorist attacks face to face, rather than by electronic means.")
* As recently as 2001, Iraq's embassy in Pakistan was used as a "liaison" between the Iraqi dictator and al Qaeda, Mr. Powell told the United Nations.
* Spanish investigators have uncovered documents seized from Yusuf Galan -- who is charged by a Spanish court with being "directly involved with the preparation and planning" of the Sept. 11 attacks -- that show the terrorist was invited to a party at the Iraqi embassy in Madrid. The invitation used his "al Qaeda nom de guerre," London's Independent reports.
* An Iraqi defector to Turkey, known by his cover name as "Abu Mohammed," told Gwynne Roberts of the Sunday Times of London that he saw bin Laden's fighters in camps in Iraq in 1997. At the time, Mohammed was a colonel in Saddam's Fedayeen. He described an encounter at Salman Pak, the training facility southeast of Baghdad. At that vast compound run by Iraqi intelligence, Muslim militants trained to hijack planes with knives -- on a full-size Boeing 707. Col. Mohammed recalls his first visit to Salman Pak this way: "We were met by Colonel Jamil Kamil, the camp manager, and Major Ali Hawas. I noticed that a lot of people were queuing for food. (The major) said to me: 'You'll have nothing to do with these people. They are Osama bin Laden's group and the PKK and Mojahedin-e Khalq.'"
* In 1998, Abbas al-Janabi, a longtime aide to Saddam's son Uday, defected to the West. At the time, he repeatedly told reporters that there was a direct connection between Iraq and al Qaeda.
*The Sunday Times found a Saddam loyalist in a Kurdish prison who claims to have been Dr. Zawahiri's bodyguard during his 1992 visit with Saddam in Baghdad. Dr. Zawahiri was a close associate of bin Laden at the time and was present at the founding of al Qaeda in 1989.
* Following the defeat of the Taliban, almost two dozen bin Laden associates "converged on Baghdad and established a base of operations there," Mr. Powell told the United Nations in February 2003. From their Baghdad base, the secretary said, they supervised the movement of men, materiel and money for al Qaeda's global network.
* In 2001, an al Qaeda member "bragged that the situation in Iraq was 'good,'" according to intelligence made public by Mr. Powell.
* That same year, Saudi Arabian border guards arrested two al Qaeda members entering the kingdom from Iraq.
* Abu Musaab al-Zarqawi oversaw an al Qaeda training camp in Afghanistan, Mr. Powell told the United Nations. His specialty was poisons. Wounded in fighting with U.S. forces, he sought medical treatment in Baghdad in May 2002. When Zarqawi recovered, he restarted a training camp in northern Iraq. Zarqawi's Iraq cell was later tied to the October 2002 murder of Lawrence Foley, an official of the U.S. Agency for International Development, in Amman, Jordan. The captured assassin confessed that he received orders and funds from Zarqawi's cell in Iraq, Mr. Powell said. His accomplice escaped to Iraq.
*Zarqawi met with military chief of al Qaeda, Mohammed Ibrahim Makwai (aka Saif al-Adel) in Iran in February 2003, according to intelligence sources cited by the Washington Post.
* Mohammad Atef, the head of al Qaeda's military wing until the U.S. killed him in Afghanistan in November 2001, told a senior al Qaeda member now in U.S. custody that the terror network needed labs outside of Afghanistan to manufacture chemical weapons, Mr. Powell said. "Where did they go, where did they look?" said the secretary. "They went to Iraq."
* Abu Abdullah al-Iraqi was sent to Iraq by bin Laden to purchase poison gases several times between 1997 and 2000. He called his relationship with Saddam's regime "successful," Mr. Powell told the United Nations.
* Mohamed Mansour Shahab, a smuggler hired by Iraq to transport weapons to bin Laden in Afghanistan, was arrested by anti-Hussein Kurdish forces in May, 2000. He later told his story to American intelligence and a reporter for the New Yorker magazine.
* Documents found among the debris of the Iraqi Intelligence Center show that Baghdad funded the Allied Democratic Forces, a Ugandan terror group led by an Islamist cleric linked to bin Laden. According to a London's Daily Telegraph, the organization offered to recruit "youth to train for the jihad" at a "headquarters for international holy warrior network" to be established in Baghdad.
* Mullah Melan Krekar, ran a terror group (the Ansar al-Islam) linked to both bin Laden and Saddam Hussein. Mr. Krekar admitted to a Kurdish newspaper that he met bin Laden in Afghanistan and other senior al Qaeda officials. His acknowledged meetings with bin Laden go back to 1988. When he organized Ansar al Islam in 2001 to conduct suicide attacks on Americans, "three bin Laden operatives showed up with a gift of $300,000 'to undertake jihad,'" Newsday reported. Mr. Krekar is now in custody in the Netherlands. His group operated in portion of northern Iraq loyal to Saddam Hussein -- and attacked independent Kurdish groups hostile to Saddam. A spokesman for the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan told a United Press International correspondent that Mr. Krekar's group was funded by "Saddam Hussein's regime in Baghdad."
* After October 2001, hundreds of al Qaeda fighters are believed to have holed up in the Ansar al-Islam's strongholds inside northern Iraq.
Some skeptics dismiss the emerging evidence of a longstanding link between Iraq and al Qaeda by contending that Saddam ran a secular dictatorship hated by Islamists like bin Laden.
In fact, there are plenty of "Stalin-Roosevelt" partnerships between international terrorists and Muslim dictators. Saddam and bin Laden had common enemies, common purposes and interlocking needs. They shared a powerful hate for America and the Saudi royal family. They both saw the Gulf War as a turning point. Saddam suffered a crushing defeat which he had repeatedly vowed to avenge. Bin Laden regards the U.S. as guilty of war crimes against Iraqis and believes that non-Muslims shouldn't have military bases on the holy sands of Arabia. Al Qaeda's avowed goal for the past ten years has been the removal of American forces from Saudi Arabia, where they stood in harm's way solely to contain Saddam.
The most compelling reason for bin Laden to work with Saddam is money. Al Qaeda operatives have testified in federal courts that the terror network was always desperate for cash. Senior employees fought bitterly about the $100 difference in pay between Egyptian and Saudis (the Egyptians made more). One al Qaeda member, who was connected to the 1998 embassy bombings, told a U.S. federal court how bitter he was that bin Laden could not pay for his pregnant wife to see a doctor.
Bin Laden's personal wealth alone simply is not enough to support a profligate global organization. Besides, bin Laden's fortune is probably not as large as some imagine. Informed estimates put bin Laden's pre-Sept. 11, 2001 wealth at perhaps $30 million. $30 million is the budget of a small school district, not a global terror conglomerate. Meanwhile, Forbes estimated Saddam's personal fortune at $2 billion.
So a common enemy, a shared goal and powerful need for cash seem to have forged an alliance between Saddam and bin Laden. CIA Director George Tenet recently told the Senate Intelligence Committee: "Iraq has in the past provided training in document forgery and bomb making to al Qaeda. It also provided training in poisons and gasses to two al Qaeda associates; one of these [al Qaeda] associates characterized the relationship as successful. Mr. Chairman, this information is based on a solid foundation of intelligence. It comes to us from credible and reliable sources. Much of it is corroborated by multiple sources."
The Iraqis, who had the Third World's largest poison-gas operations prior to the Gulf War I, have perfected the technique of making hydrogen-cyanide gas, which the Nazis called Zyklon-B. In the hands of al Qaeda, this would be a fearsome weapon in an enclosed space -- like a suburban mall or subway station.
War is hell, but there are times it is necessary. I recommend you read "Beyond Terror". It will give you a fresh outlook on the reasons for war - Iraq included.
What do you not understand about the words in bold? Do you not believe the Senate had access to this information? What hold on the truth do you have that the legislative branch of these United States, controlled by the Republican party at the time mind you, does not have? Surely they saw these 'facts' as well but somehow still came to the conclusion that they did. But your only argument is that the 'CIA was against Bush' even though the Senate Intelligence Committee believed it strongly enough to put it in the report?
What? Is the Senate 'against Bush' as well now? I would take the Senate intelligence committee's report as factual for 'explaining away' your arguments. That is unless you want to doubt the veracity of the United States Senate as a body. But I expect you can do that too can't you?
And which part of the dozens of high level contacts between Iraq and Al Qaeda don't you understand?
And which part of the fact that the Senate gets its intelligence from the CIA don't you understand? Surely you don't believe those suits in the Senate, whether they are Republican or Democrat, are out there in the field collecting humit all by themselves?
Senate Intelligence Committee Report or the 9/11 Commission Report, both of which cited the many connections between Iraq and AQwhen in fact that's not true as I quoted from the Senate Intelligence Committee. I'm just confused. You misquote (well you didn't really misquote since you couldn't have found any statement backing up your 'claim') the Senate Intelligence Committee to say there were connections, but then on this thread you dismiss the same said Senate Intelligence Committee.
What part of the truth do you not understand? You know I bet Kay needs some help looking for WMDs. Wait a minute, he's no longer looking is he? He couldn't find any. Oh, that's right, the administration said they're now in Syria, so then it must be true....
You seem to have missed the link to TechCentral in my earlier post, but don't let the facts get in the way.
And you are still being deliberately obtuse. The Senate gets their intelligence information from the CIA. The CIA has not only done a poor job in general but many of the agents within the agency don't support the Bush doctrine and do everything they can to undermine the administration.
As to your ascertion that the Senate Intelligence Committee didn't find links between Iraq/AQ, that is a flat out lie. And you are also forgetting the 9/11 Commission which did indeed find links.
The Senate Intelligence Committee report stated that Iraq provided Al Qaeda with bomb making, chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear training. According to an earlier, more specific version of the CIA's Iraqi Support for Terrorism, "the general pattern that emerges is one of al Qaeda's enduring interest in acquiring chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear (CBRN) expertise from Iraq." The Senate reports add to this understanding, citing "twelve reports received [redacted] from sources the CIA described as having varying reliability" that pointed to "Iraq or Iraqi national involvement in al Qaeda's CBW [chemical/biological weapons] efforts."
The Report stated that direct meetings took place between top Iraqi military officers and Al Qaeda operatives between the early 1990s and 2003.
The Senate report summarized the findings on Iraqi Intelligence support for terrorism this way: "The CIA provided 78 reports, from multiple sources, [redacted] documenting instances in which the Iraqi regime either trained operatives for attacks or dispatched them to carry out attacks....Iraq continued to participate in terrorist attacks throughout the 1990s." No wonder the Clinton administration cited Iraqi support for terrorism as one of the main reasons that Saddam Hussein's regime posed a threat to the United States.
the Senate Intelligence Committee reported:
* That George Tenet provided the Senate Intelligence Committee this assessment in a closed session on September 17, 2002: "There is evidence that Iraq provided al Qaeda with various kinds of training--combat, bomb-making, [chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear] CBRN. Although Saddam did not endorse al Qaeda's overall agenda and was suspicious of Islamist movements in general, he was apparently not averse, under certain circumstances, to enhancing bin Laden's operational capabilities. As with much of the information on the overall relationship, details on training are [redacted] from sources of varying reliability."
* That according to a CIA report called Iraqi Support for Terrorism, "the general pattern that emerges is one of al Qaeda's enduring interest in acquiring chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear (CBRN) expertise from Iraq."
* That the Iraqi regime 'certainly' had knowledge that Abu Musab al Zarqawi -- described in Iraqi Support for Terrorism as "a senior al Qaeda terrorist planner" -- was operating in Baghdad and northern Iraq
The 9/11 Commission Report Page 66:
“According to the reporting, Iraqi officials offered Bin Ladin a safe haven in Iraq. Bin Ladin declined, apparently judging that his circumstances in Afghanistan remained more favorable than the Iraqi alternative. The reports describe friendly contacts and indicate some common themes in both sides’ hatred of the United States.”
Page 128:
On November 4, 1998, the US Attorney for the Southern District of New York unsealed its indictment of Bin Ladin, charging him with conspiracy to attack U.S. defense installations. The indictment also charged that al Qaeda had allied itself with Sudan, Iran, and Hezbollah. The original sealed indictment had added that al Qaeda had “reached an understanding with the government of Iraq that al Qaeda would not work against that government and that on particular projects, specifically weapons development, al Qaeda would work cooperatively with the Government of Iraq.” This passage led (Richard) Clarke, who for years had read intelligence reports on Iraqi-Sudanese cooperation on chemical weapons, to speculate to Berger that a large Iraqi presence at chemical facilities in Khartoum was “probably a direct result of the Iraq-Al Qaida agreement” Clarke added that VX precursor traces found near al Shifa were the “exact formula used by Iraq”.
"I don't think there's any doubt but that there were some contacts between Saddam Hussein's government and al-Qaeda, Osama Bin Laden's people." (9-11 Commission Vice Chairman Lee Hamilton, News Hour with Jim Lehrer, June 16, 2004)’
"We have solid reporting of senior level contacts between Iraq and al-Qa'ida going back a decade. Credible information indicates that Iraq and al-Qa'ida discussed safe haven and reciprocal non-aggression. Since Operation Enduring Freedom, we have solid evidence of the presence in Iraq of al-Qa'ida members, including some that have been in Baghdad. (CIA Director George Tenet, Letter to Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Graham, October 7, 2002)
"Yes, there were contacts between Iraqi and al-Qaeda, a number of them, some of them a little shadowy. They were definitely there." (9-11 Commission Chairman Thomas Kean, News Hour with Jim Lehrer, June 16, 2004)
I must say I have trouble understanding the flak over this. The vice president is saying, I think, that there were connections between al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein's government. We don't disagree with that. What we have said is just what [Republican co-chairman Tom Kean] just said: We don't have any evidence of a cooperative or collaborative relationship between Saddam Hussein's government and al Qaeda with regard to the attacks on the United States. So it seems to me that the sharp differences that the press has drawn, that the media has drawn, are not that apparent to me.
This is but the tip of the iceberg. But carry on and keep your blinders on. I know it must give you a false sense of security and it's a way for you to handle your fright.
Really, if you want to be taken even halfway seriously (even though I don't see how anyone that believes there was a connection can be), please use the entire context of the statement? Here, let me post it you for then....
There is also evidence that around this time Bin Ladin sent out a number of feelers to the Iraqi regime, offering some cooperation. None are reported to have received a significant response. According to one report, Saddam Hussein's efforts at this time to rebuild relations with the Saudis and other Middle Eastern regimes led him to stay clear of Bin Ladin.74I can see how you missed the second part of the paragraph you quoted. A 'possible' meeting that 'may' have occurred and the 'reports' that you choose to wave are the same reports that are discounted in the following sentence. The simple fact that it denies your 'theory' could cause some problems couldn't it? Namely the truth? But keep spinning.In mid-1998, the situation reversed; it was Iraq that reportedly took the initiative. In March 1998, after Bin Ladin's public fatwa against the United States, two al Qaeda members reportedly went to Iraq to meet with Iraqi intelligence. In July, an Iraqi delegation traveled to Afghanistan to meet first with the Taliban and then with Bin Ladin. Sources reported that one, or perhaps both, of these meetings was apparently arranged through Bin Ladin's Egyptian deputy, Zawahiri, who had ties of his own to the Iraqis. In 1998, Iraq was under intensifying U.S. pressure, which culminated in a series of large air attacks in December.75
Similar meetings between Iraqi officials and Bin Ladin or his aides may have occurred in 1999 during a period of some reported strains with the Taliban. According to the reporting, Iraqi officials offered Bin Ladin a safe haven in Iraq. Bin Ladin declined, apparently judging that his circumstances in Afghanistan remained more favorable than the Iraqi alternative. The reports describe friendly contacts and indicate some common themes in both sides' hatred of the United States. But to date we have seen no evidence that these or the earlier contacts ever developed into a collaborative operational relationship. Nor have we seen evidence indicating that Iraq cooperated with al Qaeda in developing or carrying out any attacks against the United States.76
The only fright I have is knowing there are more than a few citizens of the respective states that believe it is not only the responsibility, but the right of this nation of states to preemptively attack third world nations that do not, nor ever did, present a direct threat to the borders of this nation of states under the auspices of 'spreading democracy' or whatever excuse they end up having to use after all reported 'threats' have been discounted
Nice to see you can't debate each and every contact between Iraq/AQ. But keep believing they don't all work together. It may help you sleep at night. But it doesn't change the central fact that everyone with a brain understands the jihadists work with anyone who will give them cash and sanctuary. And Iraq was one of the world's leading state sponsors of terrorism.
See, this is the problem I have with those that refuse to look past their partisanship and are nothing more than cheerleaders for a party
But to date we have seen no evidence that these or the earlier contacts ever developed into a collaborative operational relationship. Nor have we seen evidence indicating that Iraq cooperated with al Qaeda in developing or carrying out any attacks against the United States.
What do you not understand about these words? This is from the same Senate report that you so gleefully quote from. Matter of fact it's from the same paragraph. As for your other stated 'facts', Tech Central Station and unsubstantiated statements from administration officials on weekend 'news' shows do not hold the same water as Intelligence reports. They may in your world of 'Republican good, all else bad' but for most it doesn't. I could care less what talking heads on Sunday morning shows say, whether it's the VP, the Sec of Def, even the President of these United States making comments off the top of their heads. What I do care about is a report from the United States Senate that has unrefutable documentation behind it.
But it doesn't change the central fact that everyone with a brain understands the jihadists work with anyone who will give them cash and sanctuary
Wow, what a statement. Nonetheless it doesn't change the fact of how did the Senate Intelligence Committee put it again? Oh, yes..." Nor have we seen evidence indicating that Iraq cooperated with al Qaeda in developing or carrying out any attacks against the United States."
And Iraq was one of the world's leading state sponsors of terrorism.
Interesting that you should state that. Considering the statement above from the 9/11 commission. Listen real close. I'll make it as crystal clear for you as I possibly can. As long as the nation of Iraq, or any other nation for that matter, does not engage in attacks on this nation of states, which said 9/11 report states, I could care less how they carry on their business with other nation states.
BTW, are you planning to hang on to this faulty thinking of yours as long as you did the search for invisible WMDs? Just want to know in advance...
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