BUSH LIED; pt1/5 "Those NO TIES Lies"

Actually it was Richard Clarke who linked Saddam to Al Qaeda.

How? When? Link?

Kind of like the immanent threat and the WMD stuff. The media misquotes and puts words in the mouths of white house officials.

http://www.austinreview.com/archives/2004/06/the_ties_that_b_1.html

If Saddam weren't removed, the big political fight today would be, 'How can Bush claim to be fighting a war on terror while the biggest terrorist of all sits in Bagdhad defying the World Community?"

The presidency is an impossible job!

September 22, 2000 - Bin Ladin issues tape saying he would attack U.S. Ships

October 12, 2000 - USS Cole attacked

Albright acknowledges that Yemen had been taken off the terrorist list.

Thanks.

"Boogie to Baghdad"
Aspirin factory

Do these ring bells?

"If we invade Afghanistan then wily old Osama will likely "boogie to Baghdad;" - Richard Clarke

Google that quote.

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"If we invade Afghanistan then wily old Osama will likely "boogie to Baghdad;" - Richard Clarke

Google that quote.

Nevertheless, top U.S. officials were so worried about the possibility of an Iraq-al Qaeda collaboration that they took care not to provoke bin Laden into a closer relationship with Saddam. In February 1999, for example, the CIA proposed U-2 aerial-surveillance missions over Afghanistan. The report says that Richard Clarke, then the White House counterterrorism chief, worried that the mission might spook bin Laden into leaving Afghanistan for somewhere where it might be even more difficult for American forces to reach him:

Clarke was nervous about such a mission because he continued to fear that Bin Ladin might leave for someplace less accessible. He wrote Deputy National Security Advisor Donald Kerrick that one reliable source reported Bin Ladin's having met with Iraqi officials, who "may have offered him asylum." Other intelligence sources said that some Taliban leaders, though not Mullah Omar, had urged Bin Ladin to go to Iraq. If Bin Ladin actually moved to Iraq, wrote Clarke, his network would be at Saddam Hussein's service, and it would be "virtually impossible" to find him. Better to get Bin Ladin in Afghanistan, Clarke declared.

National-security adviser Sandy Berger suggested that the U.S. send just one U-2 flight, but the report says Clarke worried that even then, Pakistan's intelligence service would warn bin Laden that the U.S. was preparing for a bombing campaign. "Armed with that knowledge, old wily Usama will likely boogie to Baghdad," Clarke wrote in a February 11, 1999 e-mail to Berger. The report says that another National Security Council staffer also warned that "Saddam Hussein wanted bin Laden in Baghdad."

National Review

Also, I had this info in my files, connected to the Berger theft:

We already know exactly what Berglar took and why...pay close attention to the last para on the Clarke/Kerrick memo. From Ashcroft's testimony:
The NSC's Millennium After Action Review declares that the United States barely missed major terrorist attacks in 1999 — with luck playing a major role. Among the many vulnerabilities in homeland defenses identified, the Justice Department's surveillance and FISA operations were specifically criticized for their glaring weaknesses. It is clear from the review that actions taken in the Millennium Period should not be the operating model for the U.S. government.
In March 2000, the review warns the prior Administration of a substantial al Qaeda network and affiliated foreign terrorist presence within the U.S., capable of supporting additional terrorist attacks here. [My note: AD info?]
Furthermore, fully seventeen months before the September 11 attacks, the review recommends disrupting the al Qaeda network and terrorist presence here using immigration violations, minor criminal infractions, and tougher visa and border controls.
Post #745
It falls directly into the AD timeline. In that same post, I note that what Sandy Berger stole was the versions of the after action report:

The missing copies, according to Breuer and their author, Richard A. Clarke, the counterterrorism chief in the Clinton administration and early in President Bush's administration, were versions of after-action reports recommending changes following threats of terrorism as 1999 turned to 2000. Clarke said he prepared about two dozen ideas for countering terrorist threats. The recommendations were circulated among Cabinet agencies, and various versions of the memo contained additions and refinements, Clarke said last night.

Therefore, they were never provided to the Commission, as evidenced by the Commission Report footnotes (#769):

46. NSC email, Clarke to Kerrick,“Timeline,”Aug. 19, 1998; Samuel Berger interview (Jan. 14, 2004). We did not find documentation on the after-action review mentioned by Berger. On Vice Chairman Joseph Ralston’s mission in Pakistan, see William Cohen interview (Feb. 5, 2004). For speculation on tipping off the Taliban, see, e.g., Richard Clarke interview (Dec. 18, 2003).
And to what does footnote (46) refer? On p. 117, Chapter 4, we find this:

Later on August 20, Navy vessels in the Arabian Sea fired their cruise missiles. Though most of them hit their intended targets, neither Bin Ladin nor any other terrorist leader was killed. Berger told us that an after-action review by Director Tenet concluded that the strikes had killed 20–30 people in the camps but probably missed Bin Ladin by a few hours. Since the missiles headed for Afghanistan had had to cross Pakistan, the Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs was sent to meet with Pakistan’s army chief of staff to assure him the missiles were not coming from India. Officials in Washington speculated that one or another Pakistani official might have sent a warning to the Taliban or Bin Ladin. (46)
How about that? How many times have we heard Clinton say that he missed Bin Ladin by just a few hours? Yet the after-action report is missing, so the Commission relied on Sandy Berger's testimony.

Then the Clarke/Kerrick memo peaked my interest and I found this (#784):

Clarke was nervous about such a mission because he continued to fear that Bin Ladin might leave for someplace less accessible. He wrote Deputy National Security Advisor Donald Kerrick that one reliable source reported Bin Ladin's having met with Iraqi officials, who "may have offered him asylum." Other intelligence sources said that some Taliban leaders, though not Mullah Omar, had urged Bin Ladin to go to Iraq. If Bin Ladin actually moved to Iraq, wrote Clarke, his network would be at Saddam Hussein's service, and it would be "virtually impossible" to find him. Better to get Bin Ladin in Afghanistan, Clarke declared.

Kerry and crew could not afford to have this info come out before the election.

Another NR article:

On Wednesday, he [Richard Clarke] told the September 11 Commission about Abdul Rahman Yasin, the al Qaeda operative who federal prosecutors indicted for mixing the chemicals in the bomb that rocked the World Trade Center, killed six, and injured 1,042 people on February 26, 1993.
"He was an Iraqi," Clarke observed. "Therefore, when the explosion took place, and he fled the United States, he went back to Iraq." While Clarke believes Baghdad did not orchestrate that attack, he concedes that Hussein embraced this assassin.
"The Iraqi government," Clarke continued, "didn't cooperate in turning him over and gave him sanctuary, as it did give sanctuary to other terrorists."
< snip >
WorldNetDaily.com excavated on Tuesday a January 23, 1999, Washington Post article in which Clarke defended the Clinton administration's August 20, 1998, cruise-missile strike on the El Shifa pharmaceutical plant in Khartoum, Sudan. That mission avenged al Qaeda's demolition of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania that August 7, which killed 224 individuals and injured more than 5,000. The Post quoted Clarke as "sure" that Iraqi experts there produced a powdered VX nerve gas component. According to the Post, Clarke "said that intelligence exists linking bin Laden to El Shifa's current and past operators, the Iraqi nerve gas experts and the National Islamic Front in Sudan."
National Review

Remember — please remember — ‘Boogie to Baghdad’

BUMP!

President Bush has answered this question more than once. Before 911, Iraq was shooting at our war planes everyday as they enforced the no-fly zones. After 911, the US was not going to allow such a man or regime to continue to threaten us everyday.

So before 911, Iraq was an irritation, after 911, it was something we were no longer going to deal with.

did you even read the article?

it has nothing to do with onw or osw

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BUSH LIED; pt1/5 "Those NO TIES Lies"

“Notwithstanding four decades of intelligence reporting, IC officials and analysts expressed frustration over the lack of useful intelligence collected on Iraq’s involvement in terrorism, particularly on links to al-Qaida. A January 2003 IC assessment of Iraqi support for terrorism explained, "Our knowledge of Iraq’s ties to terrorism is evolving and (REDACTED)". Based on information provided to Committee staff, these gaps had three main causes: 1. a late start collecting against the target, 2. the lack of a U.S. presence in Iraq, and 3. reliance on foreign government services, opposition groups and defectors for current intelligence.” [emphasis added]

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