Posted on 02/09/2007 6:19:47 AM PST by SoFloFreeper
A "very damning" report by the Defense Department's inspector general depicts a Pentagon that purposely manipulated intelligence in an effort to link Saddam Hussein to al-Qaida in the runup to the U.S. invasion of Iraq, says the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee.
"That was the argument that was used to make the sale to the American people about the need to go to war," said Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich. He said the Pentagon's work, "which was wrong, which was distorted, which was inappropriate ... is something which is highly disturbing."
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
Some vague links, but nothing really hard. I never considered that a reason for going to war.
If I remember correctly, the press lauded the Pentagon for indicating Saddam did not want to surrender power to the religious Fiefdom Al Aqaeda was attempting to garner.
Now it seems to me the left is using the media to try and maneuver itself out of a fight over in Iraq. Apparently, and this is my observation. Our heroes on the left, who are SO endeared to looking out for our interests are interested in having a fight here.
Maybe the left will decide to open their arms and embrace a weapon vice embracing themselves before a crowd or a mirror let alone a camera.
SS
Very powerful argument you made with your liberal friends.
Regarding WMD:
Last March, John A. Shaw, a former U.S. deputy undersecretary of defense for international technology security, said Russian Spetsnaz units moved WMD to Syria and Lebanon's Bekaa Valley.
"While in Iraq I received information from several sources naming the exact Russian units, what they took and where they took both WMD materials and conventional explosives," Mr. Shaw told NewsMax reporter Charles Smith.
Retired Marine Lt. Gen. Michael DeLong was deputy commander of Central Command during Operation Iraqi Freedom. In September 2004, he told WABC radio that "I do know for a fact that some of those weapons went into Syria, Lebanon and Iran."
In January 2004, David Kay, the first head of the Iraq Survey Group which conducted the search for Saddam's WMD, told a British newspaper there was evidence unspecified materials had been moved to Syria from Iraq shortly before the war.
"We know from some of the interrogations of former Iraqi officials that a lot of material went to Syria before the war, including some components of Saddam's WMD program," Mr. Kay told the Sunday Telegraph.
Also that month, Nizar Nayuf, a Syrian journalist who defected to an undisclosed European country, told a Dutch newspaper he knew of three sites where Iraq's WMD was being kept. They were the town of al Baida near the city of Hama in northern Syria; the Syrian air force base near the village of Tal Snan, and the city of Sjinsar on the border with Lebanon.
In an addendum to his final report last April, Charles Duelfer, who succeeded David Kay as head of the Iraq Survey Group, said he couldn't rule out a transfer of WMD from Iraq to Syria.
"There was evidence of a discussion of possible WMD collaboration initiated by a Syrian security officer, and ISG received information about movement of material out of Iraq, including the possibility that WMD was involved. In the judgment of the working group, these reports were sufficiently credible to merit further investigation," Mr. Duelfer said.
In a briefing for reporters in October 2003, retired Air Force Lt. Gen. James Clapper Jr., who was head of the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency when the Iraq war began, said satellite imagery showed a heavy flow of traffic from Iraq into Syria just before the American invasion.
"I think the people below Saddam Hussein and his sons' level saw what was coming and decided the best thing to do was to destroy and disperse," Lt. Gen. Clapper said.
You haven't heard much about these reports, because they contradict the meme that Saddam either had no WMD, or destroyed it well before the Iraq war began.
The captured files of the Iraqi intelligence service, still mostly untranslated, could shed light on what did happen to Saddam's WMD.
The DOD Inspector Generals Office is not a democratic left wing group.
All of you who want to attack this article need to wake up !
The article is not quoting the report. The article is quoting Sen Levin. Can we read the report?
Saddam Regime Document: Iraqi Intelligence met with Bin Laden in 1995 http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1600579/posts
2003 Document: Hundreds of Palestinian Terrorists to Join Saddam And Fight US Troops http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1726660/posts
Iraqi Documents Contradict Senate Report that Saddam Regime was “Intensely Secular” http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1705635/posts
March 2001 Document: Saddam Regime Recruits Suicide Terrorists to Hit US Interests http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1610012/posts
2003 Document: Saddam Ordered To Treat The Arab Feedayeen Terrorists The Same As Iraqi Soldiers http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1618519/posts
Document: Iraqi Intelligence To Train Arab Feedayeen Terrorists In the Year 2000 http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1617431/posts
Document: Saddam Regime Training and Using Foreign Arab Terrorists As Suicide Bombers. http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1600367/posts
Document: Afghani Taliban Consul Spoke of a Relationship Between Iraq and Bin Laden http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1597459/posts
March 2002 Document: Saddam Ordered 25,000 Dollars for Each Suicide Terrorist Against Israel http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1602317/posts
2003 Document: Iraqi Intelligence Asks Hamas To Conduct Terrorist Attacks Against The US. http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1607915/posts
Saddam “Personal Memoirs” talk about his work to “Islamize” the Baath Party . http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1762631/posts
Clinton's Justice department in 1998 (indictment reference in post #48) was really just a neocon front group. That's the ticket.
Excellent work, jveritas. The one that really stood out that I hadn't seen before was Saddam's Memoirs and his desire to Islamize the Batth party.
If Saddam was so secular, why did he write the Koran in his own blood?
We're being ruined by the MSM. By this time, I'd have thought they wouldn't lie so often because of bloggers and fact checkers and the internet. Sadly, I was wrong.
Oh my goodness. Your work is deeply appreciated, jveritas and thank you for posting that information on this thread.
I've just written a note to add some of your links to my list of links about the decades-old relationship between Saddam and AQ.
You are welcome :)
[. . .Two people familiar with the findings discussed the main points and some details Thursday on condition they not be identified.]
Two people who work for that bloated hack Levin.
How do you like your Dem overlords now?
Pentagon: Pre-War Intelligence Was Legit
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1781742/posts
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