Al Qaeda-Iraqi relationship proven beyond any doubt.

ABC World News Now | 4/27/2004

[Beckwith]

ABC World News Now. April 27, 2004

In an interview broadcast by ABC's World News Now, the leader of the Al Qaeda cell organizing the explosive and chemical attack on the Jordanian security headquarters and the American Embassy in Jordan stated that he received his training from Al-Zawahiri in Iraq, prior to the fall of Afghanistan.

[blackie]

Thanks Peach ~ I just heard Rush mention it.

[lugsoul]

I see your point clearly. Hopefully, you see that the converse is also true. The fact that Ansar had operations in Kurdish territory, and that Zarqawi was based there, does NOT mean that the Baghdad government was behind them. There may be other evidence of Baghdad's involvement, but Ansar's presence above the 'green line' is not evidence of Baghdad's involvement.

[lugsoul]

It is not the only evidence of a link. But it is the only evidence in the posted article. Therefore, the posted article is no evidence of a link at all.

With regard to the other issues cited in your post, I have a question - a serious one, not a rhetorical shot. Do you believe everything that is asserted by the U.S. gov't based upon "intelligence sources"? For example, do you believe those trailers were, in fact, mobile bioweapon labs, and that we just can't prove it? If not, how do you distinguish between which assertions by "intelligence sources" can be believed and which can't?

[WOSG]

???? Nice Non Sequitor

"Will you be voting for Kerry in November as well?"

NO. I'll leave the Bush-bashing and Kerry-boosting to you. We have enough of it on FR.

[Rightwing Conspiratr1]

What DO the naysayers say about Salmon Pak anyway? I'm sure they have an excuse to explain it away.

They say it was a training ground for Abu Nidal's gang and other Palestinian terrorists. Doesn't matter they are all the same gang to me. Hezbollah/Hamas/Islamic Jihad/Ansur Al Islam/Al Quaeda... they are all the same damn thing. They are all loosely allied.

[Peach]

Buckhead -

I'm so glad to "see" you! You are always a voice of reason and I look for your posts.

Thank you for weighing in.

I'm over on the "live" thread about the shock and awe going on in Fallujah right now but thought I'd check into this thread before any comments I really wanted to read got lost in the multiple responses we are all getting on the live thread.

I've made a note to save your link and comments - spot on as usual.

Be well. Peach

[WOSG]

"The argument on this thread about whether there was a Saddam/AQ connection has devolved to the issue of whether Saddam had sufficient control on the ground in the northern no fly zone to be credibly connected with the Ansar Al Islam camp there. "

Which is a red herring anyway.

Saddam gave this group money. Iraqi intelligence officers were 'embedded' in the organization.
He also gave money to Hamas in the West Bank and Algerian GIA terrorists. No-one is insisting that saddam needed to 'control' those other areas to help terrorist groups working in the area.

saddam was using ansar al-islam as a counterweight to kurdish militias that the west was protecting under no-fly zones.

Lest we forget, Saddam bankrolled and harbored Abu Nidal ... so did Saddam have to 'control' the seas to support this? ...

http://www.intelmessages.org/Messages/National_Security/wwwboard/messages_04/7234.html
Iraq used the Arab Liberation Front and the Ba‘ath Party in Palestinian-controlled areas as "payment contractors," Ehrlich says--part of a policy to encourage suicide-bombing attacks. Another organization, the Palestinian Liberation Front (PLF), headed by Mohammad Zaydan (aka Abu Abbas), was used by Iraq "as an operational tool for carrying out terrorist attacks against Israel." The PLF hijacked the Italian Achille Lauro cruise ship in 1986, tossing wheelchair-bound U.S. citizen Leon Klinghoffer overboard simply because he was a Jew.

[WOSG]

"Shock and awe time in Fallujah. Tune into FNC now. "

Someone pls keep FR posted.

I'll be mightily please if our "go slow" approach we telegraphed was a misdirection. Godspeed to our troops!

[Dr. Frank fan]

The fact that Ansar had operations in Kurdish territory, and that Zarqawi was based there, does NOT mean that the Baghdad government was behind them.

First of all, to call it "Kurdish territory" is taking it a bit far. Nobody (afaik) is claiming that the Kurd military had troops garrisoned on and holding that territory. (If they had they presumably would have wiped out the camp themselves, like I said.)

That being said, the answer to your point is, I agree, "Not necessarily". (Even if I think "behind" is something of a straw-man. "behind"? Even *I* would never say Saddam was "behind" A-a-I, and I *do* believe the links. How about just "supporting"!!)

So to be fair I think your skepticism is appropriate and would be quite warranted if this article were viewed in isolation. However, keep in mind that this article (about the Jordanian training with Zarqawi) is not an isolated data point, but is rather part of a larger pattern of data which is, to be sure, informing my inferences. That pattern includes:

-reports of Zarqawi getting medical treatment in Baghdad

-pre-war reports of Saddam's clandestine support for A-a-I as a means of fighting the Kurds/destabilizing the north (I guess such reports were considered "safe" and PC because, at that time the AQ ties to A-a-I were still considered unproven. they are not now.)

I don't know exactly how lefty anti-war types (which I'm not accusing you of being) talk away those earlier data points but I suppose they just look at them and shrug. However, while one can shrug at each individual report and say "not conclusive", after some point the weight of the pattern which they form taken together, may become undeniable. Best,

[ex 98C MI Dude]

Ansar al'Islam had a small bit of territory between Iraqi and Peshmerga (Kurdish) forces. Neither side made any heavy effort to dislodge the terrorist enclave for fear of provoking the other side. This is the place that the IRAQI government brought US and international media to show the world that the Ansar group was not manufacturing chem/bio at that site. That is where the high-speed/low-drag comm gear was observed by a member of the press, but not included in the overall tour.

The fact that the Iraqis under SH were able to walk in there without provoking violent response shows some communication and coordination between the AQ offshoot and SH's government, yes?

[Dr. Frank fan]

re: #243

Bingo! There's a pattern of evidence, and we are not required to treat each data point as separate and isolated. Thanks for the contribution.

[WOSG]

They say it was a training ground for Abu Nidal's gang and other Palestinian terrorists. Doesn't matter they are all the same gang to me. Hezbollah/Hamas/Islamic Jihad/Ansur Al Islam/Al Quaeda... they are all the same damn thing. They are all loosely allied.

RIGHT. The 'sophisticates' will try to parse these things like lawyers and miss the forest for the trees: They ARE the same damn thing. Those critics will doubt anything but a level of proof you can neve rget for secret organization and want to treat these are separate legal crimes, dont see the dots connecting, then wonder why we keep getting hit again and again without being able to respond. Glaring facts like the 1993 WTC bomber just happening to end up on Iraqi intelligence payroll is "not proof". This is the same idiocy that left us not responding to Bin Laden after he attacked us 3 times and after he DECLARED WAR on us.

Bin Laden has invoked the same issues the other groups do. Same ideology. Same goal (Sharia for the mideast. death to the west). Same cruel inhuman tactics of terrorism.

And same end I hope: on the ash-heap of history.

[LexBaird]

As if that were the only evidence tying Ansar al Islam and Zarqawi on the one hand and Saddam on the other.

But it isn't.

It's an old courtroom tactic. Attack a minor support and claim defeat of the argument. If the attack fails, attack sub-parts of the minor argument, ad infinitum. Meanwhile, the large contention goes unassaulted, but the onlookers get a perception that the whole argument is failing.

Here's the true main argument: Saddam was a major supporter of radical Islamic terrorists, who had declared America to be their enemies. Under the Bush Doctrine of going after the terrorists and the states who sponsor them and harbor them, Saddam was #2, after the Taliban, on the hit parade.

I wish we had made a left turn in the middle of Faluja and taken out Assad and Syria while we were still rolling.

[cake_crumb]

"I would wholeheartedly agree with your assessment"

That's a large part of our problem here in the West. Dependence only on media reports isn't going change things.

[Peach]

This is as big a shock and awe as the early days of the war. Are you away from a television?

Based on intelligence, we are bombing the living crap out of themin Fallujah. Using A-130 gunships.

MSNBC is reporting that yesterday we dropped leaflets on the town which said:

BEWARE, IF YOU ARE A TERRORIST, YOUR LAST DAY WAS YESTERDAY!!**

[MEGoody]

Most reasonable persons knew that Al Queda (and other terrorist organizations) were linked to Saddam. It's only the lefty loonies that have refused to believe the facts presented.

[Peach]

You have contributed greatly to this thread today and I thank you.

[Cronos]

Al Qaeda-Iraqi relationship proven beyond any doubt.

Not really, there's no proof to show that the Irqi regime supported alQ prior to 9/11 or even prior to GWII. Dubya also confirmed that there was no connection. After the war, the alQ, like the roaches they are, are moving into irq spreading turmoil. The statement
In an interview broadcast by ABC's World News Now, the leader of the Al Qaeda cell organizing the explosive and chemical attack on the Jordanian security headquarters and the American Embassy in Jordan stated that he received his training from Al-Zawahiri in Iraq, prior to the fall of Afghanistan.
is NOT proof in anyway, it's hearsay and one man's testimony that he got trained by some other guy in someplace