Posted on 03/10/2008 8:37:51 PM PDT by tobyhill
WASHINGTON — An exhaustive review of more than 600,000 Iraqi documents that were captured after the 2003 U.S. invasion has found no evidence that Saddam Hussein's regime had any operational links with Osama bin Laden's al Qaida terrorist network.
The Pentagon-sponsored study, scheduled for release later this week, did confirm that Saddam's regime provided some support to other terrorist groups, particularly in the Middle East , U.S. officials told McClatchy . However, his security services were directed primarily against Iraqi exiles, Shiite Muslims, Kurds and others he considered enemies of his regime.
The new study of the Iraqi regime's archives found no documents indicating a "direct operational link" between Hussein's Iraq and al Qaida before the invasion, according to a U.S. official familiar with the report.
He and others spoke to McClatchy on condition of anonymity because the study isn't due to be shared with Congress and released before Wednesday.
President Bush and his aides used Saddam's alleged relationship with al Qaida, along with Iraq's supposed weapons of mass destruction, as arguments for invading Iraq after the September 11, 2001 , terrorist attacks.
Then-Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld claimed in September 2002 that the United States had "bulletproof" evidence of cooperation between the radical Islamist terror group and Saddam's secular dictatorship.
Then-Secretary of State Colin Powell cited multiple linkages between Saddam and al Qaida in a watershed February 2003 speech to the United Nations Security Council to build international support for the invasion. Almost every one of the examples Powell cited turned out to be based on bogus or misinterpreted intelligence.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
What a total crock of shit
Key word is "operational".
Should be "strategical" or "financial" or maybe just plain ol' "supportive" link.
prisoner6
http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2003/17823.htm
Feb 20, 2003. One month before the start of the war.
“There’s no question that Saddam Hussein is a threat... Yes, he has chemical and biological weapons. He’s had those for a long time. — Wesley Clark on September 26, 2002
“Hussein has chosen to spend his money on building weapons of mass destruction and palaces for his cronies.” - Madeline Albright, Clinton Secretary of State, Nov. 10, 1999
“If Saddam rejects peace and we have to use force, our purpose is clear. We want to seriously diminish the threat posed by Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction program.” - Bill Clinton, Feb. 17, 1998
“Saddam’s goal ... is to achieve the lifting of U.N. sanctions while retaining and enhancing Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction programs. We cannot, we must not and we will not let him succeed.” — Madeline Albright, 1998
“He will use those weapons of mass destruction again, as he has ten time since 1983.” - Sandy Berger, Clinton National Security Adviser, Feb 18, 1998
Yeah, right. Saddam’s awarding of $25K checks to the families of suicide bombers who blew themselves up on Israeli busses never happened.
Bull.
We know Sadaam and many Al Queda presently share an “operational link” in hell, which is eaxactly where they belong.
IDA’s staff profile says a lot.
A possible link between Saddam and Eliot Spitzer?
I thought there were over 2 million documents.
http://hoekstra.house.gov/News/DocumentSingle.aspx?DocumentID=42502
Who ever said there was an operational link between the two?!
No one has ever suggested or implied such a thing. Guess they tore that straw man to pieces!
Of course, they haven’t disproven the fact that al Qaeda did have at least one training camp in Iraq, that Zarqawi lived in Iraq, or that Saddam was paying suicide bombers.
I do not believe the administration ever claimed a specific Saddam/ Al Queda operation. They spoke of the danger of regimes like Saddam’s someday transferring the world’s most dangerous weapons to the world’s worst terror groups. This was based on a common hostility toward the United States.
Thought you might be interested in how they still deny any connection. Their keyword here might be "operational" though.
You’re right and the State Dept doc one month before the invasion is the extent of connection anyone claimed.
http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2003/17823.htm
Damn straight...saddam was targeting us since the end of desert storm....up to his ass in WTC1(bombmaker openly lived in bagdad)....the players in WTC1 clearly tied to Al Q...
gee...even I figured out in about 30 seconds...
bump
oh YES there were briefings that linked Saddam to Al Qaeda... and the pointman on that intelligence was a Pentagon Democrat named Chris Carney. After 9/11 he was placed in charge of researching the relationship between Iraq and Al Qaeda in the Policy Counterterrorism Evaluation Group.
The same Chris Carney who stands by the Saddam/Al Qaeda relationship when pushed and admits that “I know what I saw.”
Despite all that, in the midst of the Bush Lied canard, the Democrats ran Carney for Congress and MOVEON.org helped fund his campaign.
The man behind the research convincing Tenet and the White House of those ties was elected to Congress by the Democrats in 2006, funded by the “anti-war” crowd... how DARE they pretend “Bush Lied”.
A New House Democrat With an Insiders’ View of Iraq
RNC Mailing Accuses Pa. Democrat Of Helping To Start the War in Iraq
http://www.nysun.com/article/42019
What about links between Uday and AQ? The drive-by media are Clintonesque in their deception.
If I remember right, Saddam wanted 2 weeks from his military until he could launch his “secret war”. I think that took that much time for a whole BUNCH of al Qaeda to get in country and to stash huge cashes of ammo for them to use.
I think they depended on a few body bags would send our troop home packing as was the case in Somalia and Lebanon.
If a Democrat was in the White House, their theory would be correct. The troops would be sent home a long time ago and the terrorists would know just how hard to push to defeat our military. It did after all, work before.
The terrorists would know how well that worked and they can duplicate that each and every time they faced our military.
Shortly before the invasion, there was a lot of talk about Ansar-al-Islam and Zarqawi possessing RICIN.
Hmmmmm...is ricin a WMD or not? Does it depend on the definition of ‘is’?
‘direct operational link’
they are erroneously looking for a ‘smoking gun’ of a meeting where saddam, via interlocuters. engaged in command decisions with osama - as if saddam and osama were dumb enough to engage in their common interests - antipathy to the u.s. on the level of obsession - in such a direct manner and leaving a direct record as such - yea, right
one only need ask what level of co-operation with al queda was involved in an iraqi intelligence operative attending the last meeting of the 9/11 plotters in kuala lampur maylasia; an iraqi intelligence operative given his ‘job’ in maylasia - driver - by a ‘iraqi citizen’ living in maylasia; a job that finds him meeting one of the 9/11 plotters at the kuala lampur airport, driving him to the meeting, going into the meeting with him, returning him to the airport the same day and within days leaving maylasia for good himself, never to be located again by western intelligence
apparently, whatever cooperation was happening between saddam and al queda it was too sophisticated for our failed intelligence service to call it ‘direct’ or ‘operational’
http://www.meib.org/articles/0106_ir1.htm
Iraqi Complicity in the World Trade Center Bombing and Beyond
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1698239/posts
World Trade Center, 1993 Terrorist Attack (don't say it too loudly - Yousef had IRAQI passport)
http://www.fas.org/irp/world/iraq/956-tni.htm
THE WORLD TRADE CENTER BOMB:
Who is Ramzi Yousef? And Why It Matters
Hmmm, there seems to be enough Iraqi/WTC connections for me!
IAN SCHWARTZ has the video of Christopher Hitchens berating Ron Reagan on MSNBC.
here's a transcript of the heart of Hitchen's rant:Excuse me. When I went to interview Abu Nidal, then the most wanted terrorist in the world, in Baghdad, he was operating out of an Iraqi government office. He was an arm of the Iraqi State, while being the most wanted man in the world. The same is true of the shelter and safe house offered by the Iraqi government, to the murderers of Leon Klinghoffer, and to Mr. Yasin, who mixed the chemicals for the World Trade Center bombing in 1993. How can you know so little about this, and be occupying a chair at the time that you do?
Obviously, Ron doesn't want to hear things that might challenge his world view.
How could Hitch be so insensitive?
http://www.breitbart.tv/html/1602.html
http://home.comcast.net/~vincep312/
ABC News Report at link.
The report was similar to numerous accounts in the worldwide press following Operation Desert Fox. That Clinton-ordered air campaign lasted from December 16 to December 19, 1998. Its purpose was to degrade Saddam’s WMD and intelligence capabilities. Reports from more recent years indicate that the campaign nearly plunged Saddam’s regime into chaos. In any event, Saddam’s response was telling. Just two days after Operation Desert Fox ended he dispatched one of his top intelligence operatives, Faruq Hijazi, to Afghanistan to meet with bin Laden. As I and others have written, Hijazi was no low-level flunky. He was one of Saddam’s most trusted goons and was responsible for overseeing a good deal of the regime’s terrorist and other covert activities. It was this meeting that led to widespread reporting on the relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda. I collected a bunch of these reports, including the ABC News report, in “The Four-Day War.” Another, earlier piece also discusses Saddam’s conspicuous response to Operation Desert Fox.
The consensus in the media then was that there was a relationship between the two and that Saddam’s regime was very willing to work with al Qaeda against their common foe: America. And vice versa. Indeed, the reporting indicated that they had been working together even long before Operation Desert Fox.
The reports from late 1998 and early 1999 are tough for naysayers to explain away for a variety of reasons, but that hasn’t stopped them from trying. For example, last year’s Senate Intelligence Report on Iraq’s ties to al Qaeda (the report was written, primarily, by a former John Kerry for President campaigner) unhesitatingly cited Hijazi’s testimony, in which he claimed that he did not meet with bin Laden again after a lone incident in the mid 1990’s. The Senate Intelligence report did not cite any of the voluminous reporting, by ABC News and other outlets, following the meeting in December 1998. Obviously, that reporting demonstrates Hijazi is a liar. I asked the Senate Intelligence Committee’s staff about this after the report came out. They said they didn’t have any evidence that contradicted Hijazi’s testimony and that is why they cited it unquestioningly. I think that is a good demonstration of the ignorance or bias or both that clouds this issue.
Of course, at the same time that the worldwide media was reporting all of this, various CIA and National Security Council officials were watching as well. Thus, Richard Clarke worried in February 1999 about bin Laden’s possible “boogie to Baghdad.” A month earlier he defended intelligence tying Saddam’s VX nerve gas program to a suspected al Qaeda front company in Sudan. Michael Scheuer also at one time found it convenient to cite some of this evidence. In his original 2002 edition of Through Our Enemies’ Eyes he approvingly cited several of the media’s late 1998/early 1999 accounts. Of course, they both now pretend none of this really means anything.
Such is the state of affairs in today’s Washington establishment.
The weasel word is “operational”. If you can’t show a direct written command, if you can’t show an organization chart showing boxes and lines connecting Bin Ladin and Saddam, then there is no direct “operational” connection.
I know this is difficult for some people to understand, but this is why its called “espionage”. They know Saddam’s spooks met with Bin Ladin’s people several times over the years, the final meeting between an Iraqi agent and the 911 attackers taking place right before the attack.
That Uday knew about 911 before it happened.
That Iraqis were key players in the first World Trade Center attack.
That Saddam launched an assassination attempt against Bush senior. That Saddam’s people met with Bin Ladin himself in Sudan, and in Afghanistan, that there are memos translated indicating that Bin Ladin had been invited to Baghdad, that Saddam was training foreign civilian terrorists, and that when we went into Afghanistan, Bin Ladin was offered refuge in Iraq. Zarqawi accepted the offer.
We know that Saddam had connections to Philippine terrorism, as did Bin Ladin.
To say that there is no connection is clearly wrong, so they raise the bar, challenging us to find an org chart. Sorry, it doesn’t work that way. Only CIA would be so lame as to produce an org chart and then leak it to the New York Times. Tradecraft is a little tighter in most services.
Oh, please. If even Shi’ah & Sunnah can get it together to commit some terrorist acts, surely it’s not a stretch for al-Qaeda to work with Ba’athists.
Thanks g!
wstrobel@mcclatchydc.com
Let this liar know the truth.
From this:
The new study of the Iraqi regime's archives found no documents indicating a "direct operational link" between Hussein's Iraq and al Qaida before the invasion, according to a U.S. official familiar with the report.
it appears they're trumping up some very careful wording.
To be fair, is it the MSM that did that or is it the Pentagon, whose study it was?
Thanks for the ping. Thanks for the thread. Thanks for comments. It’s all connected. Take a mental paradigm shift into their world...their enablers, their liars, our liars, our deniers. Read the Quran. Witness history. Witness current events. Read this thread. Know the truth.
Anonymous sources have no credibility.
Let us never forget that Iraq was busted red handed with the sanction busting al samoud 2 missile in early 2003.
Relationship between Saddam and bin Laden’s group was akin to the Cosa Nostra’s relationship with the Westies.
ping
Thanks for the ping and post.
This is proof that the enemedia sucks!
I am smelling a big, dirty rat with this latest story about Saddam and Al Qaeda.
First, they’re using that term again: “operational” ties. They never used it before Operation Iraqi Freedom. I still don’t know what the definition is. After the 9-11 Commission Report came out, the Left trumpeted this same tune loud and long basically telling the media that there was no connection between Saddam’s Iraq and Al Qaeda.
But if you read the actual 9-11 Commission report, that’s not what it says at all.
Now we get this leaked story before another actual report comes out. The report is likely to be long and few members of the media will bother to read it. But they’ve already reported that Iraq and Al Qaeda had no connections...I bet dollars to donuts that the report doesn’t say this.
I am reading a book right now called “Both In One Trench: Saddam’s Secret Terror Documents.” It is a difficult read, but the authors maintain two things:
1. Saddam had a very friendly relationship with the Taliban.
2. Zawahiri probably visited Iraq at least once and evidently got some sort of support or had communications with Iraq when he was with Egyptian Islamic Jihad...
More evidence here...
http://www.husseinandterror.com/
from post #3323 of granny’s thread #11 on world terrorism. Thanks granny.
Ping to every poster on this thread.
Thanks for the link, granny.
BUMP-TO-THE-TRUTH!
You are welcome.
I would say the missing link is Russia and the KGB, it was involved with all of them.
according to a U.S. official familiar with the report... and others [who] spoke to McClatchy on condition of anonymity because the study isn't due to be shared with Congress and released before Wednesday.The "others" who spoke weren't familiar with the report, and of course none of them will ever have to be named because they're anonymous.
the most factual and truthful statement that could have been said about the specific documents and the ‘analysis’ of them would have been
‘the regime of saddam hussein did not leave a paper trail of their contacts and points of cooperation with osama bin laden and al queda’
whereupon, we should say: no kidding sherlock
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