Posted on 09/21/2006 4:57:05 AM PDT by Blackrain4xmas
This is my line in the sand. This is where I have decided that I will no longer allow lies about the war in Iraq, the global war on terror, or the decay of America's intelligence services.
I will make my stand here, now, on this issue.
No more will their lies go unchecked.
The Senate Phase II report has been marketed as some sort of evidence that Al Queda and Iraq are not related. They are. I examined the report, stomached it's political lies (lies it admits to having within its own text!), and I have taken my action.
I put together this little report in response to the Sen Intel Com Phase II report that claimed there were never any ties between the regime and Al Queda. Feel free to post it on your site and/or distribute it if you wish (I'd appreciate it). The real meat of my report starts about 15-20 pages into it, but the preface is good too imo.
Check it out.
You'll find it interesting.
Please feel free to share the link. Download and distribute the PDF. This is the time, This is the line, This is the end of passively sitting back and denying the realities of the world-cold as they are.
I will not let the Bush-haters get away with trying to convince the world that American soldiers and Marines did not face Islamic extremist jihadi terrorists when they invaded Iraq. Too many died in that fighting to allow the truth to be blinded by leftist politicians attempting to re-write history just so they can cover their backsides and pander to their base.
Here's the report: http://www.scottmalensek.com/PhaseIIrebuttalrpt.pdf
What is the correct spelling for Al Qaeda???
There's lots of different spellings for it. I prefer to use Al Queda just because that seems to be the most familiar to most Americans. The SSCI report spells it with an "i". Others do it differently still.
Bookmark for later read
Bookmarking for later.
Sure makes sense why these liberals need the 'war' in Iraq to get the label 'civil war', cause it fits with their attempt to reenact Vietnam.
These people act as if their very lives depend upon convincing as many as they can there was no connection.
So true, but without opposition to Iraq, the Dems have nothing to draw voters to the polls. People won't come out and vote Dem en masse because of a party position on socialized healthcare, or a min wage gig. All they've got is opposition to GWB (which is useless now), and Iraq. Sadly, their lies are picked up and sold without question by a conspiracy-biased media looking for conspiracies instead of the truth. All a journalist has to do is read 30 or so pages to see that the Phase II "conclusions" are not conclusive, but are based on less than 1/5 of the intel out there. Instead of actually reading it, a few journalists just went ahead and spewed the claim that the report somehow "proves" there were no ties to AQ. Interesting though that the conclusions specifically say-in particular the last of 9 conclusions-that the intel is was sketchy, and is still sketchy. The Phase II rpt is a fullout political propaganda piece, and the rebuttal report just kills it in general, in specifics, in logic, and in evidence. It's a Dems' nightmare.
Very detailed and powerful rebuttal. Excellent work.
Thanks-yours is outstanding!
Liked your translations re wmd, and I'd like to do another rebuttal rpt on the wmd sections of phase II, but have to see how well this one gets passed around the web and world before I decide its worth another effort. This was no small tasking, and wmd would be even bigger.
Do you have your Saddam-Al Qeda list handy? Looks like you were not the only one working on this.
Very Well Done BR!
Blackrain4xmas - thanks for posting your report - I got started reading it.
You say that intelligence gathering in Iraq was inadequate. That may be, but the big question is why would Saddam give the 9/11 terrorists weapons, and why would they take them? They were almost all Saudis (plus 2 UAE + 1 Lebanese + 1 Egyptian), the same country that had joined with the US to fight him in the Gulf War, so even if they were attacking their common enemy why would he want to help them now and why would they trust him? Culturally they had nothing in common: the terrorists are religious nationalists and Saddam was a secular leader who saw Islam as a threat and suppressed it.
If I were Saddam knowing the US was thinking of invading, I'd having been doing my best to keep my head down.
Anyway, his regime was never connected with any terrorist attacks. It wasn't his style.
You'll have to read the entire report.
Saddam DID use terrorism, and backed Islamic terrorists often. He wasn't as secular post 91 as he was pre. He built the largest mosque in the world, rediscovered his lineage to Mohammed, put Allah Ahkbar on the flag, held numerous terrorist/Islamic conferences in Baghdad, was building a mosque surrounded by a giant pool/lake complete with island in the shape of his fingerprint, and so much more. Was he REALLY a religious zealot? Nah, no one bought it, but he feigned it for a reason.
The nationality of the 911 hijackers is interesting, but don't get confused to thinking that their nationality is reflective of the plot in the least.
UBL started killing Americans-according to him-because of the US war on Iraq from 1991-1996. He set the 911 plot in motion because of the US attack on Iraq in 12/98. And so much more.
Pretty sure nothing in either the SSCI report or mine says Saddam armed the 911 hijackers btw. ;)
Can you please enlighten me? Can you give me the name of a major battle during GW 1 where a Muslim army was engaged in battle with Iraqi forces? When you say that Saddam was a secular leader, I hope you don't think that he didn't have anything to do with Islam. He was/is religious, not just as radical as other ME leaders.
(U) The Committee examined Intelligence Community assessments in six main categories:
1. . Views of the relationship between the Iraqi government and al-Qa’ida;
2. . Iraqi government contacts with al-Qa’ida;
3. . Iraqi government training of al-Qa’ida in chemical-biological weapons, poisons or terrorist tactics;
4. . Iraqi government provision of “safehaven” for al-Qa’ida;
5. . Iraqi government knowledge and/or support for the attacks of September 11,and;
6. . Iraqi government use of al-Qa’ida terrorists as a response to threat of invasion by the United States.
Now, these are good, logical questions, because they would denote significant or operational ties to al-Qa'ida. While you admit the answer is basically 'No' to all of the above, you go on to state.
While these 6 elements help to understand and illustrate the relationship between Saddam’s regime and Al Queda, they are NOT the same unit of measure that the American people-constituents of the House of Representatives, the Senate, and the White House have come to expect or compare pre-war allegations to post-war finds.
Here's where you go off track, and pretty much stay there.
The above six questions are professional level intelligence requirements that would serve national level consumers in planning and estimating the enemy situation. The area you're trying to head off into is the 'what if' realm of theoretical wargaming.
There's no possible way to prove that you are wrong, but intelligence isn't about proving things false. It's about providing corroborated evidence of what's true. What you're basically saying is that while there's no firm evidence that the above six questions had a 'yes' in any significant and material fashion, since it's can't be disproved, we can't discount the risk.
That's fine, from a conspiracy theory viewpoint, but it's also the reason why Republican congressmen with serious intelligence credentials have avoided trying to raise the issue like the plague. The only one who will touch it is VP Cheney, with the very weak Zarqaqi angle. It's all sauce and no meat. "Maybe" and "coulda" hold no currency in serious intelligence circles.
You should've at least skipped ahead and read the SSCI's conclusions then. In each case-particularly the last, the SSCI admits that the detainee claims which they base their conclusions upon are not reliable, and often contradictory-even within the report itself. Not conclusive conclusions=no conclusions.
btw, I don't affirm those 6 elements at all in the report. I say that studying them gives a good perspective, but if you'd read the report I show that the committee's conclusions in those areas are wrong and determined by flawed reasoning with political intent.
Also, the reason Republican's don't go on and on with this-regardless of intel backgrounds-is because they don't need to...most of the country is smart enough to already believe the ties were there, and in fact that recent poll information is why the dems pushed so hard to get the report out. Of course...there's more on that in the report as well.
It sounds to me like you just read the preface and not the report.
http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/060721/nyf072.html?.v=60
"Can you please enlighten me? Can you give me the name of a major battle during GW 1 where a Muslim army was engaged in battle with Iraqi forces?"
No, I mean that Iraq fought Saudi Arabia as part of the Coalition against the invasion of Kuwait (protecting the Saudis against a continuing advance by Iraq was a motivation for the GW in the first place). So, since the 9/11 terrorists were practically all Saudis with a strong hostility to leaders who just paid lip service to Islam (like their own Royal family), I doubt they'd been keen on sharing their secrets with a leader who'd had an army on their doorsteps not long before.
The basic problem with connecting the terrorists with Saddam is that they were fired up mainly with an issue that Saddam didn't care about: the continuing presence of troops in their country and near holy sites after the GW was over:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/2984547.stm (this story c 2003)
"When you say that Saddam was a secular leader, I hope you don't think that he didn't have anything to do with Islam. He was/is religious, not just as radical as other ME leaders."
Well, I don't think invading the Islamic Republic of Iran and fighting an eight year war against it shows much for his deep religious feelings.
"Saddam DID use terrorism, and backed Islamic terrorists often"
I've a little more research (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_War) and think you're right to a point - Saddam did in the 70's back some terrorist groups , and as you describe put on a show of Islamic solidarity (except for invading Iran).
I also see your point that the war on Iraq would have convinced him to believe another attack was coming (I've read this elsewhere too). However, I'm not sure that Saddam would want to involve himself in an attack like 9/11.
Having had his invasion of Iran repelled, then his invasion of Kuwait repelled, and then had his country put under UN sanctions which went on for years, would he really want to take on the US, or even be found to directly support those who did? Especially when his army turned out to be as weak as it did.
Your comments demonstrate a lesson for Saddam: conventional wars were losers. Historically, however, unconventional wars and acts of terror had been successful in driving the US from geopolitical positions. Vietnam, Beirut, Somalia, Haiti, Liberia...the lesson is not to take on the US conventionally, and another lesson is that unconventional attacks work.
All Saddam needed to do was make the request, maybe provide a little cash, an offer of safe harbor if the US came after UBL...that's it.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.