Free Republic

Lt. Col. Robert "Buzz" Patterson Mark Eichenlaub interview with LT Buzz Patterson “al-Qaeda #2 Ayman al-Zawahiri’s trip to Baghdad in 1998 (in which he received $300,000, possibly from Saddam Hussein himself), Abu Musab al-Zarqawi’s medical trip to Baghdad in 2002 and the terrorist training that took place in the Salman Pak camp.” Dr. Mylroie received her Ph.D. in Political Science from Harvard University and her B.A. from Cornell. She was an Assistant Professor in Harvard's Political Science Department, before becoming an Associate Professor in the Strategy Department at the U.S. Naval War College. Subsequently, she was a member of the...

<p>April15Bendovr and I have been working on a Salman Pak video. It shows the connections between Saddam and Al Qaeda. Please take a look at it.</p>

BAGHDAD, July 29 (KUNA) -- The US military said on Sunday that the 1920 Revolution Brigades have reconciled with the Iraqi government and the US military. A statement issued by the US said the "Sunni group" had rejected the Iraqi government in the past, but had reconciled with both the government and coalition forces to eliminate Al-Qaeda. The group is the military wing of the Islamic Resistance Movement in Iraq, formerly called the Iraqi National Islamic Resistance.Moreover, the US statement said the Multi-National Force (MNF) was conducting a rescue mission operation yesterday for one of the Brigade's men kidnapped by...

An interview published in Saturday's Washington Post, with a member of the Iraq insurgency, reveals another example of the deadly postwar cooperation between members of Saddam Hussein's former ruling party and al Qaeda in Iraq. In the piece, written by Joshua Hartlow, the insurgent identifies himself as "Abu Sarhan" and revealed that he "had been an officer in the Fedayeen (pictured right via Answers.com), the black-clad paramilitary force of the ousted government of Saddam Hussein." "Sarhan" told his interviewers that he had risen to the level of "'general coordinator' between al-Qaeda in Iraq and the Omar Brigade, an insurgent group...

Freepers, over the years, there have been a couple of threads that posted/summarized the numerous links of reports of terrorists in Iraq PRE-invasion; and/or of Saddam's support for terrorists pre-invasion. Can anyone point me to the relevant threads?

In a recent Washington Post Op-Ed former DIA analyst Christina Shelton discussed her intelligence work analyzing links between al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein's Iraq and countered some of the conventional wisdom on the subject while taking issue with the way her background and work were depicted in former CIA director George Tenet's recent book "At the Center of the Storm: My Years at the CIA."Responding to Tenet's charge that she claimed the debate over Iraq - al Qaeda links was "open-and-shut" and in no need of further analysis Shelton wrote: I said the covert nature of the relationship between Iraq...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: The Democrats are having an orgasm, multiple orgasms in Washington. They're just beside themselves because this two-years-in-the-making report on intelligence leading up to the war in Iraq that the Democrats in the Senate intelligence committee demanded, has been released. Four-hundred page report. Apparently the thing that's got these people all excited, is this. "It discloses for the first time an October 2005" keep that in mind: 2005, last year, "assessment that prior to the war Saddam's government 'did not have a relationship, harbor, or turn a blind eye toward Zarqawi and his associates,' according to excerpts of...

I read the senate intelligence committee report. Here are some excerpts: "The [FBI] summery said that when told there was clear evidence that the Iraqi government has previously met with Bin Ladin, Saddam responded "yes." Saddam than specified that Iraq did not cooperate with Bin Laden." (Page 67 Second paragraphs).

US Vice-President Dick Cheney repeated assertions on Sunday on links between the former Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda despite a recent Senate intelligence committee report that concluded otherwise. In defending the decision to invade Iraq despite its lack of weapons of mass destruction, Mr Cheney said the fact that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the former head of al-Qaeda in Iraq who was killed in a US air strike this year, was in Baghdad before the war was evidence that Iraq had links to al-Qaeda. “If we had to do [it] over again, we would do exactly the same thing,”...

By now, everybody knows the CIA told the Denate Intelligence Committee Osama had nothing to do with 9/11. How did the CIA know ? They asked him, of course !

September 9, 2006 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - Lefty media sources were quick to stoke the Democrat party’s squeals of delight as they floated the latest canard in the long running battle to convince the hopelessly dull that Saddam had nothing to do with terrorism and that - aside from that nasty incident gassing the Kurds, his attempted assassination of George Herbert Walker Bush, annexation of Kuwait, weapons of mass destruction programs including attempts to buy yellowcake in Africa [Yes Mr. Wilson you lying waste of human tissue, it's true...read the Butler Committee Report] a twenty year history...

Saddam Hussein rejected overtures from al-Qaida and believed Islamic extremists were a threat to his regime, a reverse portrait of an Iraq allied with Osama bin Laden painted by the Bush White House, a Senate panel has found. The administration's version was based in part on intelligence that White House officials knew was flawed, according to Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Committee, citing newly declassified documents released by the panel. The report, released Friday, discloses for the first time an October 2005 CIA assessment that prior to the war Saddam's government "did not have a relationship, harbor or turn a...

ONCE AGAIN headlines from media outlets around the country declare "No Saddam, al-Qaeda link." This time the news cycle is being fed by the release of two reports by the Senate Intelligence Committee, both of which purport to investigate the uses of prewar intelligence. The first of these two reports, titled "Postwar Findings about Iraq's WMD Programs and Links to Terrorism and How They Compare with Prewar Assessments," has pleased Democrats. Senator Carl Levin says that the report is "a devastating indictment of the Bush-Cheney administration's unrelenting, misleading, and deceptive attempts" to connect Saddam's regime to bin Laden's al Qaeda....

The media reported extensively in the 90's about the world's alarm at the growing relationship between Saddam and Osama. Clinton's federal indictment mentions their relationship. A federal judge finds Iraq partially responsible for 9/11 and finds for 9/11 families.

WASHINGTON (AP) - Saddam Hussein rejected overtures from al-Qaida and believed Islamic extremists were a threat to his regime, a reverse portrait of an Iraq allied with Osama bin Laden painted by the Bush White House, a Senate panel has found. The administration's version was based in part on intelligence that White House officials knew was flawed, according to Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Committee, citing newly declassified documents released by the panel. The report, released Friday, discloses for the first time an October 2005 CIA assessment that prior to the war Saddam's government "did not have a relationship, harbor...

Much is being disputed about the contents and conclusions asserted within the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Report attempting to compare, in three major sections, prewar Iraq intelligence estimates with postwar Iraq findings regarding ‘Iraq’s WMD Capabilities,’ ‘Iraqi Links to al-Qaeda’ and ‘Regime Intent.’ While it is being currently touted in media reports with the air of a comprehensive and definitive assessment, it is decidedly neither. This is the introduction of a collaborative series of analytical reviews of the Senate Select Intelligence Committee report titled, "Postwar Findings About Iraq's WMD Programs and Links to Terrorism And How They Compare With...

The Clinton administration talked about firm evidence linking Saddam Hussein's regime to Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network years before President Bush made the same statements. In fact, during President Clinton's eight years in office, there were at least two official pronouncements of an alarming alliance between Baghdad and al Qaeda. One came from William S. Cohen, Mr. Clinton's defense secretary. He cited an al Qaeda-Baghdad link to justify the bombing of a pharmaceutical plant in Sudan. The other pronouncement is contained in a Justice Department indictment on Nov. 4, 1998, charging bin Laden with murder in the bombings of...

WASHINGTON (AP) - There's no evidence Saddam Hussein had a relationship with Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and his Al-Qaida associates, according to a Senate report on prewar intelligence on Iraq. Democrats said the report undercuts President Bush's justification for going to war. The declassified document being released Friday by the Senate Intelligence Committee also explores the role that inaccurate information supplied by the anti-Saddam exile group the Iraqi National Congress had in the march to war. It discloses for the first time an October 2005 CIA assessment that prior to the war Saddam's government "did not have a relationship, harbor, or...

Senate: No Prewar Saddam-al-Qaida Ties By JIM ABRAMS Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON (AP) -- There's no evidence Saddam Hussein had ties with al-Qaida, according to a Senate report on prewar intelligence that Democrats say undercuts President Bush's justification for invading Iraq. Bush administration officials have insisted on a link between the Iraqi regime and terror leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Intelligence agencies, however, concluded there was none. Republicans countered that there was little new in the report and Democrats were trying to score election-year points with it. The declassified document released Friday by the intelligence committee also explores the role that...

In the latest categorical rejection of Saddam Hussein's links to al Qaeda Charlie Gibson said the following in an interview with President Bush: Gibson: And that's the one thing that I question, whether people do have any sense of that. For loathsome as he may have been, Saddam Hussein was not connected to al Qaeda This isn't just bias. It means that ABC isn't telling the truth now or wasn't telling the truth in some of their previous reporting. Charles Gibson doesn't need to even go outside of his own network to find examples of Saddam Hussein's links to al...

The recent arrest and confessions of Hamed Jumaa Farid al-Saeedi shines an uncomfortable light (uncomfortable for those who warned such cooperation wasn't possible due to ideological differences) on what many observers of the Iraq war warned wasn't possible: Cooperation between Iraqi Baathists loyal to secular Saddam Hussein and religiously fanatic al-Qaeda. al-Saeedi, also known as Abu Humam or Abu Rana, told his captors that he has been "'responsible for more attacks than he can remember' and has been involved in the insurgency almost from its beginning three years ago," according to officials. al-Saeedi admitted that "Al Qaeda in Iraq was...

Iraqi Intel Memo Describes Osama Connection FMSO has translated a new set of documents from those captured in the fall of Saddam Hussein, and one of them seems very provocative indeed. A memo from the Afghan section of the Directorate of Counterintelligence (M5) to the head of M5 dated September 15th, 2001 relays information from an Afghani source that Taliban consul discussed the relationship between Osama, Iraq, and the Taliban. Document CMPC-2003-001488 had previously been translated by Iraqi blogger Omar at Iraq the Model for Pajamas Media last March, but now has been translated by the government: Office of the...

Sachin Parashar, of The Times of India, is reporting that the American embassy in India is on heightened alert amid reports of an impending terror attack. The attack is reportedly scheduled to take place before July 30 by a 20-man cell. The cell is described as an "Iranian terror group" made up of Iranian, Afghan and Kashmiri nationals, armed with sophisticated weaponry. What is noteworthy about this report is not only that the unnamed terror group is said to have previously "backed" Saddam Hussein but that the warning for the attack was gathered, at least in part, from captured members...

Despite being widely reported in the media that the U.S. and other countries have not found any weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, surprisingly; more U.S. adults (50%) think that Iraq had such weapons when the U.S. invaded Iraq. This is an increase from 36 percent in February 2005. 72 percent believe Iraqis are better off now than they were under Saddam Hussein. 64 percent believe Saddam Hussein had strong links with al-Qaeda. 55 percent believe "History will give the U.S. credit for bringing freedom and democracy to Iraq. These are some of the results of The Harris Poll of...

Israel’s military intelligence service, Aman, suspects that Iraq is the state that sponsored the suicide attacks on the New York Trade Center and the Pentagon in Washington. Directing the mission, Aman officers believe, were two of the world’s foremost terrorist masterminds: the Lebanese Imad Mughniyeh, head of the special overseas operations for Hizbullah, and the Egyptian Dr Ayman Al Zawahiri, senior member of Al-Qaeda and possible successor of the ailing Osama Bin Laden. The two men have not been seen for some time. Mughniyeh is probably the world’s most wanted outlaw. Unconfirmed reports in Beirut say he has undergone plastic...

Harris Poll: 64% Americans believe Saddam Hussein had "strong" links to al Qaeda Saddam AP The latest Harris Poll on public opinion (hat tip Ray Robison) has some interesting results on the topic of Saddam Hussein and his possible links to al Qaeda. Of those Americans polled, 64% agree that Saddam Hussein had "strong" links to al Qaeda. This is a 2% increase over the October 2002 results for the same questions. It seems that Saddam Hussein's latest letter to the American people, urging the U.S. to

Prologue: Newly declassified documents captured by U.S. forces indicate that Saddam Hussein's inner circle not only actively reached out to the Taliban rulers of Afghanistan and terror-based jihadists in the region, but also hosted discussions with a known Al Qaeda operative about creating jihad training "centers," possibly in Baghdad. Ray Robison, a former member of the CIA-directed Iraq Survey Group (ISG), supervised a group of linguists to analyze, archive and exploit the hundreds of captured documents and materials of Saddam's regime. This is the final installment in a three-part series concerning a notebook kept by an Iraqi Intelligence Service (IIS)...

.....Believe it: Iraq had WMDs and terrorist tiesPosted: June 23, 20061:00 a.m. Eastern© 2006 WorldNetDaily.comI'm returning from my first personal vacation in the past two years, listening to news media reports on the discovery of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and noting that the anti-war crowd is apoplectic. It seems that those who want to see America lose the war against terrorism cannot accept the truth that Saddam Hussein's Iraq was a safe haven for terrorism, rife with chemical and biological weapons. I wonder … if the new al-Qaida in Iraq leader, Abu Ayyub al-Masri, were to order the...

Freeper Mark Eichenlaub will be on WCTC 1450 with Keith Rasmussen to discuss Saddam Hussein's terror ties Saturday afternoon at 3:15 ET Listen in here http://www.wctcam.com/ I will update with an 800 number later if anyone is interested.

Al-Qaeda 'coming to end in Iraq' Mr Rubaie showed documents he said were found in the Zarqawi raid The killing of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi marks the "beginning of the end" of al-Qaeda in Iraq, the country's national security adviser has said.Mowaffaq al-Rubaie said documents seized after the raid that killed Zarqawi had yielded key information about the militant group. "Now we have the upper hand," he told a news conference in Baghdad. Zarqawi, the al-Qaeda leader in Iraq, was killed last week by a US air strike near Baquba, north of Baghdad. Key records Mr Rubaie said a pocket...

Two major issues were used by the President in the run up to war with Iraq. One was the WMD issue and the other was Iraq's support for Al Qaeda. Since the war began in March 2003, the Democrats and media have repeatedly lied to the American public that Saddam didn't have a relationship with Al Qaeda or Osama bin Laden. They have been permitted to lie without challenge by Congressional Republicans or the President or his administration. It is well past time that we educate Republican Congressmen and the conservative media, and try to encourage Tony Snow and Karl...

A newly released document from Iraq demonstrates a relationship between former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein and terrorist groups – including the Islamic-based Taliban, which harbored al-Qaida in Afghanistan. The document, posted by the Pentagon's Foreign Military Studies Office, indicates that in 1999 the Taliban invited Iraqi officials to Afghanistan, Fox News reports. While some intelligence analysts have insisted Saddam's secular regime would not have collaborated with radical Muslim groups, the document says "Islamic relations with Iraq" were encouraged by the Taliban to arbitrate a meeting with the Northern Alliance rebels in Afghanistan and Russia. The document also mentions two men...

Al Qaida Leaders Caught or Killed, Linked to Saddam's Regime By Mark Eichenlaub High ranking al Qaeda leaders who have been caught or killed have turned out to be former high ranking military or intelligence officers in Saddam Hussein's regime. Abdel Fatih Isa - former Iraqi Army officer and al Qaeda emir Ahmad Hasan Kaka al-'Ubaydi - Ahmad Hasan Kaka al-'Ubaydi is a former Iraqi Intelligence Service officer, and is now believed associated with Ansar Al Islam affiliate. Rafid Ibrahim Fattah - He traveled throughout Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran and Iraq for the last 15 years, forming a relationship with al-Qaida...

Do we have hard evidence that Salman Pak was used for terrorist training?

Al Qaeda, Saddam By Helle Dale Published April 26, 2006 Bad news about Iraq is not hard to come by in current media coverage. Terrorist attacks on Iraqi citizens and U.S.troops are recorded day by day. Mistreatment of Iraqi prisoners by Iraqi security forces leaps to the headlines. Calls for Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld's resignation are gathering steam among Democrats on Capitol Hill, with Congress set to debate the issue next week. When it comes to any good news out of Iraq, the liberal media are negligent or simply silent. And if there is new information corroborating the reasons...

    Bad news about Iraq is not hard to come by in current media coverage. Terrorist attacks on Iraqi citizens and U.S.troops are recorded day by day. Mistreatment of Iraqi prisoners by Iraqi security forces leaps to the headlines. Calls for Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld's resignation are gathering steam among Democrats on Capitol Hill, with Congress set to debate the issue next week.     When it comes to any good news out of Iraq, the liberal media are negligent or simply silent. And if there is new information corroborating the reasons the United States went to war against Saddam Hussein in...

Posted on 04/18/2006 3:29:16 PM PDT by april15Bendovr Iraq Documents Prove Saddam-Osama Relationship, Meanwhile Congress Bans Use of Jewish Bullets April 18, 2006 BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: I got a note today from a friend who wanted to alert me to an interview given by Thomas Joscelyn, who is a blogger to FrontPageMagazine, David Horowitz's place, about the Iraqi intelligence documents now being combed through. It's all worth reading, but especially this part. "One document which describes Iraqi contacts with bin Laden himself also shows that Iraq was in contact with Dr. Muhammad al-Massari, the head of the Committee for Defense...

Frontpage Interview’s guest today is Thomas Joscelyn, an expert on the international terrorist network. Much of his research has focused on the role that nations such as Saddam's Iraq and the mullah's Iran have played in providing support, training and funding for terrorist entities such as al Qaeda, al Qaeda's affiliates, Hamas, Hezbollah and other terrorist groups. He has written extensively about these connections for the Weekly Standard and in several other publications. Currently, he is organizing a research project to review and translate the millions of documents captured from the fallen Iraqi regime and the Taliban. Joscelyn: For the...

E-mail Author Author Archive Send to a Friend Version April 10, 2006, 7:27 a.m. Connections Papers reveal Iraq-al Qaeda ties — again. With conservative congressional majorities at risk in next November's midterm election, President Bush repeatedly should remind everyone that a key reason Coalition troops invaded Iraq was to padlock Saddam Hussein's Wal-Mart for terrorists. Pressured by congressmen and journalists, the administration finally has started releasing intelligence documents captured in Baghdad. These papers confirm what The Weekly Standard’s Stephen Hayes, Wall Street Journal editorialists, and I have demonstrated for years: Saddam Hussein indeed was entwined with terrorists in general...

STANFORD, Calif. -- With conservative congressional majorities at risk in next November's elections, President Bush repeatedly should remind everyone that a key reason coalition troops invaded Iraq was to padlock Saddam Hussein's Wal-Mart for terrorists. The administration finally is releasing intelligence documents captured in Baghdad. Bush should use them to detail how Hussein indeed was entwined with terrorists in general and al Qaeda in particular. These papers appear on the Army Foreign Military Studies Office's Web site. (fmso.leavenworth.army.mil/products-docex.htm). The administration should promote a simple URL (e.g. iraqdocuments.gov) so readers easily can examine Hussein's terror ties. According to a March 23...

<p>Page 6 from document BIAP 2003-000654 is a Top Secret letter dated March/11/2001 six months prior to 9/11/2001, proves that not only Saddam Regime supported terrorists organization like Hamas and Al Qaeda as we have learned from other documents but also they were recruiting Suicide Terrorist Bombers to hit US interests. Saddam Regime was a TERRORIST REGIME and there was no other way but to destroy it after 9/11.</p>

The 9/11 Commission tells us in detail that the terrorist attacks on America on 9/11 were set in motion in December 1998. They report that interrogations of the plot's mastermind, Khalid Sheik Mohammed, demonstrate that the plot was set in motion in "late 98 early 99" at a meeting in Khandahar, Afghanistan. This also happens to be the time period that Iraq came under bombardment by the United States. The timing is no accident. They reported that the only time Osama bin Laden was in Khandahar during the time period of "late 98 early 99" was between December 18 and...

State-Sponsored Terrorism, Anyone? One section of this report has already been widely cited, because it mentions a meeting between the IIS and Osama bin Laden: on February 15, 1995, the IIS met with bin Laden in Sudan, and he made two requests of the Iraqis that 1) they broadcast the speeches of a radical Saudi cleric; and 2) they coordinate in attacking foreign forces inside Saudi Arabia.

Vice President Dick Cheney predicted Wednesday that thousands of boxes of documents captured from Saddam's Hussein's former regime will show that the Iraqi dictator had a much closer relationship with Osama bin Laden than was previously known. "I think what we'll find as we get a chance to go through and analyze these documents -- there's some 50,000 boxes of them that are now being made available here over the next few months -- that we'll see a pretty complete picture that Saddam Hussein did, in fact, deal with some pretty nefarious characters out there," Cheney told Fox News Radio's...

After substantial prodding -- including from this paper -- the U.S. government has finally begun to release its captured Iraqi documents and is posting them at the Web site of the Army's Foreign Military Studies Office. This material will take considerable time to absorb and analyze, but it may yet contribute significantly to our understanding of the nature of the threat Saddam Hussein posed. Most dramatically, an Iraqi intelligence report, apparently written in early 1997, describes Iraqi efforts to establish ties with various elements in the Saudi opposition, including Osama bin Ladin. Until 1996, the Saudi renegade was based in...

CAIRO, Egypt - A former Democratic senator and 9/11 commissioner says a recently declassified Iraqi account of a 1995 meeting between Osama bin Laden and a senior Iraqi envoy presents a "significant set of facts," and shows a more detailed collaboration between Iraq and Al Qaeda. In an interview yesterday, the current president of the New School University, Bob Kerrey, was careful to say that new documents translated last night by ABC News did not prove Saddam Hussein played a role in any way in plotting the attacks of September 11, 2001.

I've set out to create a sort of information clearinghouse of post-war information on Iraq's WMDs, ties to terror groups, ties to Al Qaeda in particular, Russia providing aide to Saddam, etc. I wanted to have post with a lot of background so as newly released documents continue to roll in and get translated and liberals whine "so what, this is just one document", we can always link back to this post or find older links in it. It started out mainly just for my personal use, for when I post on developments as they come, I will always link...

9/11 Commissioner and Former Democratic Sen. Bob Kerrey: Iraq-al Qaeda Docs "Tie [Saddam] into a Circle that Meant to Damage the United States" From today's New York Sun: CAIRO, Egypt - A former Democratic senator and 9/11 commissioner says a recently declassified Iraqi account of a 1995 meeting between Osama bin Laden and a senior Iraqi envoy presents a "significant set of facts," and shows a more detailed collaboration between Iraq and Al Qaeda. In an interview yesterday, the current president of the New School University, Bob Kerrey, was careful to say that new documents translated last night by ABC...

CAIRO, Egypt - A former Democratic senator and 9/11 commissioner says a recently declassified Iraqi account of a 1995 meeting between Osama bin Laden and a senior Iraqi envoy presents a "significant set of facts," and shows a more detailed collaboration between Iraq and Al Qaeda. In an interview yesterday, the current president of the New School University, Bob Kerrey, was careful to say that new documents translated last night by ABC News did not prove Saddam Hussein played a role in any way in plotting the attacks of September 11, 2001. Nonetheless, the former senator from Nebraska said that...

U.S. forces in Saudi Arabia were attacked by al Qaeda twice in the months following Saddam Hussein's decision to approve Osama bin Laden's request for help in attacking "foreign forces" in Saudi Arabia. An Iraqi intelligence document released last week states that bin Laden met in Sudan with senior Iraqi intelligence agents on Feb. 19, 1995, where he requested help in conducting "joint operations against foreign forces" in Saudi Arabia. Saddam "was informed of the details of the meeting in our letter 370 on March 4, 1995," the Iraqi intelligence memo explains. The document goes on to state: "The approval...