"More Than Enough Evidence" What George Tenet really says about Saddam's Iraq and al Qaeda.

The Weekly Standard ^ | 5-1-07 | Thomas Joscelyn

[ikez78]

GEORGE TENET'S JUST released book, At the Center of the Storm, has created quite a stir. Over the past few days, a myriad of news accounts have referenced various snippets of the former director of Central Intelligence's self-serving collection of remembrances. But here is something you probably have not heard or read about Tenet's book: it confirms that there was a relationship between Saddam's Iraq and al Qaeda. And, according to Tenet, "there was more than enough evidence to give us real concern" about it too.

Tenet devotes an entire chapter to the question of Iraq's ties to al Qaeda (Chapter 18, "No Authority, Direction, or Control"). Much of the chapter is used to vilify Douglas Feith, the former undersecretary of defense, and Vice President Cheney. Tenet claims, repeatedly, that Feith, Cheney, and others in the Bush administration exaggerated the intelligence on Saddam's ties to al Qaeda. The former DCI says they "pushed the data farther than it deserved" and "sought to create a connection between Iraq and the 9/11 attacks that would have made WMD, the United Nations, and the international community absolutely irrelevant." (In this vein, Tenet also erroneously claimed to have met Richard Perle on September 12, 2001. According to Tenet, Perle said "Iraq has to pay a price for what happened yesterday [September 11]." However, Perle was in France and, therefore, could not have met with Tenet. Perle denies the conversation took place at all.)

[ikez78]

Wow

[ikez78]

PING for Iraq al Qaeda links

[pillut48]

Hoisted by his own petard, eh? :-)

Keep talking, Tenet!

[EagleUSA]

Washington, DC paints a very sorry picture for its citizens, you know, the ones that they are supposed to working for...

[MizSterious]

Good read ping. RR-worthy?

[ikez78]

What’s RR mean?

[blitzgig]

People who say that there was no relationship between Saddam and Al Qaeda are dreaming. Anyone who knows anything about the facts on the ground knows that Saddam and Al Qaeda courted each other more than once, and that was dangerous to us and the world.

[highlander_UW]

What’s all this talk about connecting Iraq with 9/11? I do not recall that being some sort of central claim that would correspond with how much the liberals harp on it.

[popdonnelly]

When will the damned media stop cherry-picking?

[flynmudd]

Why are we still discussing the reasons we went to war with Iraq. We have been there 4 years going on 5. Argument over as far as I’m concerned. Ten years and 17 resolutions later. Enough trying to justify what has already taken place. Let’s talk about the future of Iraq and how the Iraqi’s took the bad guy out today without US or Iraqi military help. That’s the good news, the Iraqis are starting to get tired of Al Qaeda killing them regardless of which side of the fight they are on. We invaded Iraq for more reasons than we will ever know. I still think we did it to box in Iran. Just for reference, when did Iran declare they had gone nuclear? Was it around the same time?

[ikez78]

Awesome question.

The answer is when the people finally have had enough of their games.

[rightinthemiddle]

When will the damned media stop cherry-picking?

___________

Never. Ever.

[MizSterious]

You can take a look at this thread: Distributed IO by PSYOP Auxiliaries and Volunteer Counter Propagandists for the beginning of it--the pinglist that came from that thread is called Radigan's Raiders. Let me know if you'd like to be added.

[o_zarkman44]

Every truth about this war has been conveniently re-manufactured by the MSM and the demoRats.
Never is the truth touched on, only the accusations of who did what when and where and how.
Clarke, Plame, Tenet, and whoever have all become mouthpieces for the anti WOT left and their constant fight against Bush.

If they would only redirect their anger to AlQueda and away from Bush, we could be wrapping up a lot of loose ends in the WOT.

[popdonnelly]

President Bush publically said long ago that there was no evidence Iraq was involved in the 9/11 attack. Trying to link the Administration to such a claim is a futile effort.

By the way, loopy Ray McGovern has accused Cheney of being involved in the Niger documents forgeries on Tucker Carlson’s show.

[Grimmy]

Thanks for the ping.

[Reform4Bush]

Repeating my post from a previous post of this article, but it bears repeating with the apparent demise of al-Masri:

There is some very timely info in that article, regarding today's big newsmaker.

What was even more worrisome was that by the spring and summer of 2002, more than a dozen al-Qa'ida-affiliated extremists converged on Baghdad, with apparently no harassment on the part of the Iraqi government. They had found a comfortable and secure environment in which they moved people and supplies to support Zarqawi's operations in northeastern Iraq.

More al-Qa'ida operatives would follow, including Thirwat Shihata and Yussef Dardiri, two Egyptians assessed by a senior al-Qa'ida detainee to be among the Egyptian Islamic Jihad's best operational planners, who arrived by mid-May of 2002. At times we lost track of them, though their associates continued to operate in Baghdad as of October 2002. Their activity in sending recruits to train in Zarqawi's camps was compelling enough.

There was also concern that these two might be planning operations outside Iraq. Credible information told us that Shihata was willing to strike U.S., Israeli, and Egyptian targets sometime in the future. Shihata had been linked to terrorist operations in North Africa, and while in Afghanistan he had trained North Africans in the use of truck bombs. Smoke indeed. But how much fire, if any?

Yussef Dardiri is better known by most as one Abu Ayyub al-Masri

[ikez78]

No prob.

[Reform4Bush]

An Iraq/9-11 connection is very different than an Iraq/al-Qaeda connection.

The left has long been telling us there was no al-Qaeda in Iraq before Bush went to war. That statement is simply untrue.

[Vanbasten]

ping Iraq/Al Qaeda