Posted on 11/17/2003 12:58:17 PM PST by PJ-Comix
Williams: I think the case is not to refute it. I think the case is to prove it, and it's yet to be proven.
Tapes could emerge of Saddam and Osama slow-dancing naked in Macys window, and Juan Williams would still not see the love.
So if Time Magazine and CNN report something, the rest of the media usually ignores it?
Do you dispute the substance of the report?
What evidence do you have to counter the facts listed in the report?
I've not seen anybody challenge the facts in the report. I've only seen official statements that refuse to agree (or disagree) with the conclusions drawn from those facts.
Wrong. The evidence is strong, they just don't want to go that route and here is why...
Insight Magazine
Sep 29, 2003
Senior investigators and analysts in the U.S. government have concluded that Iraq acted as a state sponsor of terrorism against Americans and logistically supported the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States - confirming news reports that until now have emerged only in bits and pieces. A senior government official responsible for investigating terrorism tells Insight that while Saddam Hussein may not have had details of the Sept. 11 attacks in advance, he "gave assistance for whatever al-Qaeda came up with." That assistance, confirmed independently, came in a variety of ways, including financial support spun out through a complex web of financial institutions in Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Italy and elsewhere. Long suspected of having terrorist ties to al-Qaeda, they now have been linked to Iraq as well.
Insiders say the failure to assign responsibility for the Sept. 11 attacks to Iraq, Afghanistan or any other nation-state is intentional. "The administration does not want the victims of Sept. 11 interfering with its foreign policy," says Peter M. Leitner, director of the Washington Center for Peace and Justice (WCPJ). Leitner says the Bush administration may be concerned that if other victims of the Sept. 11 attacks also filed lawsuits and won civil-damage awards it would reduce Iraqi resources that the administration wants to use to rebuild the country. Leitner and others say this explains Bush's reticence at this time to report the convincing evidence linking Saddam and al-Qaeda that has been collected by U.S. investigators and private organizations seeking damages. "The [Bush] administration is intentionally changing the topic," claims Leitner, and sidestepping the issue that "Iraq has been in a proxy war against the U.S. for years and has used al-Qaeda in that war against the United States."
That's both false and irrelevant. The Administration has never said that Saddam or Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. What they've said is that there is no concrete evidence linking the two. Absence of evidence does not equal evidence of absence. They've made that exact point so many times its like a broken record. Yet still, people get it wrong.
Moreover, the CIA memo does not claim that Iraq had something to do with 9/11. It does say that Iraq had something to do with Al Qaeda. That's significant because contact between Iraq and Al Qaeda refutes the argument that Iraq and Al Qaeda would never work together.
"We have no evidence that Saddam Hussein was involved with the 11 September attacks "
President Bush
Which CIA memo? The Feith Memo, I have read, is related to the Office of Special Plans not the CIA. The CIA has for many months criticized the way intelligence reports were handled by the OSP.
So if Time Magazine and CNN report something, the rest of the media usually ignores it?
To this day, the official position of this administration is that Saddam had nothing to do with 9/11 (as just one example.)
No, the official position is that they have no concrete evidence linking them to that specific event. But they do not take the position that Iraq did not have a connection to 911. They just say nothing has emerged that makes the case.
The case that the Saddam Hussein regime had connections to Al Qaeda in general is pretty much solid, even if the Bush Administration is still reluctant to state it that way. The evidence is out there for all to see.
I believe the Bush Administrations reluctance to officially conclude the obvious has more to do with political timing than anything else. In other words, they will lay their conclusion and declassified evidence on the table sometime next summer, when it will have the most impact.
Oddly enough, all my friends have no interest in politics at all. I did have one friend interested in politics but he passed away about a year ago.
But Cheney isn't...
Here is a Press the Meat transcript:
MR. RUSSERT: The Washington Post asked the American people about Saddam Hussein, and this is what they said: 69 percent said he was involved in the September 11 attacks. Are you surprised by that?VICE PRES. CHENEY: No. I think its not surprising that people make that connection.
MR. RUSSERT: But is there a connection?
VICE PRES. CHENEY: We dont know. You and I talked about this two years ago. I can remember you asking me this question just a few days after the original attack. At the time I said no, we didnt have any evidence of that. Subsequent to that, weve learned a couple of things. We learned more and more that there was a relationship between Iraq and al-Qaeda that stretched back through most of the decade of the 90s, that it involved training, for example, on BW and CW, that al-Qaeda sent personnel to Baghdad to get trained on the systems that are involved. The Iraqis providing bomb-making expertise and advice to the al-Qaeda organization.
We know, for example, in connection with the original World Trade Center bombing in 93 that one of the bombers was Iraqi, returned to Iraq after the attack of 93. And weve learned subsequent to that, since we went into Baghdad and got into the intelligence files, that this individual probably also received financing from the Iraqi government as well as safe haven.
Now, is there a connection between the Iraqi government and the original World Trade Center bombing in 93? We know, as I say, that one of the perpetrators of that act did, in fact, receive support from the Iraqi government after the fact. With respect to 9/11, of course, weve had the story thats been public out there. The Czechs alleged that Mohamed Atta, the lead attacker, met in Prague with a senior Iraqi intelligence official five months before the attack, but weve never been able to develop anymore of that yet either in terms of confirming it or discrediting it. We just dont know. [The Czechs still stand by their story on the Prague meeting]
More [links between 9/11 and 1993 WTC bombing]:
According to a report Sunday by the Associated Press, 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed "told his interrogators he had worked in 1994 and 1995 in the Philippines with Ramzi Yousef, Abdul Hakim Murad and Wali Khan Amin Shah on the foiled Bojinka plot to blow up 12 Western airliners simultaneously in Asia."Yousef, of course, was the man who plotted and executed the failed 1993 World Trade Center bombing, who entered the U.S. on an Iraqi passport the year before and whose partner in the plot, Abdul Rahman Yasin, was granted sanctuary by Saddam Hussein after the attack. Yasin is still at large.
Unmentioned by the AP, Mohammed's account of meetings with Yousef has been corroborated by Yousef's Bojinka partner, Abdul Hakim Murad. After his capture in 1995, Murad told the FBI that he and Yousef were contacted by Mohammed repeatedly during their time in the Philippines. Murad's FBI 302 witness statements detailing the contacts are reprinted in the new book "1000 Years for Revenge," by investigative reporter Peter Lance.
Another intriguing detail unmentioned by the AP, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is Ramzi Yousef's uncle.
Just last week, new documents uncovered by U.S. investigators in Iraq implicated Saddam's regime in the 1993 attack.
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's Account Links 9/11 to '93 WTC Attack
It has been proven that Saddam also harbored one of the 1993 WTC bombing culprits [mentioned by Cheney as well]:
Eight years have passed since Abdul Rahman Yasin bade hasty farewell to New York and flew to Baghdad. There he initially passed the time by fielding telephone calls placed by solicitous FBI agents and finding a niche in Saddam Hussein's police state. By all appearances, Yasin has lived a quiet, secluded life there.Bush on Oct. 10 named Yasin as one of the world's 22 Most Wanted Terrorists for his role in the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center. Bush's list is headed by Osama bin Laden and his cohorts in al-Qaida, the terror group accused of finishing the destruction of the New York landmark begun by Yasin and others.
There is no doubt about Yasin's whereabouts after the 1993 outrage. The FBI agents who perfunctorily questioned Yasin in New York and were conned by his pleasant manner quickly understood their mistake in letting him go. They got his brother to telephone Yasin in Baghdad repeatedly to ask him to come back for more questioning. Guess what? Mr. Yasin sent his regrets.
In 1998 then-FBI Director Louis Freeh said publicly that the fugitive was "hiding in his native Iraq." The Iraqi National Congress, the leading anti-Saddam movement, earlier obtained a photograph of Yasin in Baghdad and provided it to Washington. Every indication points to Yasin's not having left Iraq since then, a senior U.S. official tells me.
Will We Find Abdul Rahman Yasin?
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