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BOOKS TAKES ON CONVENTIONAL WISDOM: ‘CONNECTION’ ARGUES VAST TIES BETWEEN OSAMA AND SADDAM…
The Weekly Standard via The Drudge Report ^ | 5/28/2004 | Stephen F. Hayes

Posted on 05/28/2004 6:43:52 PM PDT by GVnana

"THE PRESIDENT CONVINCED the country with a mixture of documents that turned out to be forged and blatantly false assertions that Saddam was in league with al Qaeda," claimed former Vice President Al Gore last Wednesday.

"There's absolutely no evidence that Iraq was supporting al Qaeda, ever," declared Richard Clarke, former counterterrorism official under George W. Bush and Bill Clinton, in an interview on March 21, 2004. The editor of the Los Angeles Times labeled as "myth" the claim that links between Iraq and al Qaeda had been proved. A recent dispatch from Reuters simply asserted, "There is no link between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda." 60 Minutes anchor Lesley Stahl was equally certain: "There was no connection."

And on it goes. This conventional wisdom--that our two most determined enemies were not in league, now or ever--is comforting. It is also wrong. In late February 2004, Christopher Carney made an astonishing discovery. Carney, a political science professor from Pennsylvania on leave to work at the Pentagon, was poring over a list of officers in Saddam Hussein's much-feared security force, the Fedayeen Saddam. One name stood out: Lieutenant Colonel Ahmed Hikmat Shakir. The name was not spelled exactly as Carney had seen it before, but such discrepancies are common. Having studied the relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda for 18 months, he immediately recognized the potential significance of his find.

According to a report last week in the Wall Street Journal, Shakir appears on three different lists of Fedayeen officers. An Iraqi of that name, Carney knew, had been present at an al Qaeda summit in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, on January 5-8, 2000. U.S. intelligence officials believe this was a chief planning meeting for the September 11 attacks. Shakir had been nominally employed as a "greeter" by Malaysian Airlines, a job he told associates he had gotten through a contact at the Iraqi embassy. More curious, Shakir's Iraqi embassy contact controlled his schedule, telling him when to show up for work and when to take a day off.


TOPICS: Extended News; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: 911; alqaeda; alqaedaandiraq; bookexcerpt; iraqalqaeda; osama; saddam; stephenfhayes; terrorists; theconnection
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Looks like an important book. Now if I could just keep those Arabic names straight...
1 posted on 05/28/2004 6:43:53 PM PDT by GVnana
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To: GVgirl

This news will hit a stonewall in the elite media. There's no way that these people can be wrong, or possibly say something that even remotely could be linked to an apology. We might no longer hear or read about an Osama/Saddam connection, but a correction? No way.
Waters have been colored and muddied, media folks will go to infinite lengths of linkage denials.


2 posted on 05/28/2004 6:56:24 PM PDT by hermgem
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To: Grampa Dave; Trinity_Tx; Cindy; ladyinred; Sabertooth; dennisw; FITZ; Eurotwit; knighthawk

Ping


3 posted on 05/28/2004 6:59:28 PM PDT by Travis McGee (----- www.EnemiesForeignAndDomestic.com -----)
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To: Travis McGee

BaaDoink!!!

Have a safe holiday!

I may have to take up reading again. ;-)


4 posted on 05/28/2004 7:04:20 PM PDT by NormsRevenge (Semper Fi Mac ... Become a FR Monthly Donor ... Kerry thread archive @ /~normsrevenge)
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To: Travis McGee

Travis, please add me to your ping list. Thanks.


5 posted on 05/28/2004 7:05:00 PM PDT by GOPJ (NFL Owners: Grown men don't watch hollywood peep shows with wives and children.)
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To: GVgirl

The only place this book will be sold is through Newsmax. No one else will touch it.


6 posted on 05/28/2004 7:06:03 PM PDT by satchmodog9 (it's coming and if you don't get off the tracks it will run you down)
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To: satchmodog9

Maybe Michael Moore will make a movie out of this book?


7 posted on 05/28/2004 7:12:13 PM PDT by umgud (speaking strictly as an infidel,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,)
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To: GVgirl
""There's absolutely no evidence that Iraq was supporting al Qaeda, ever," declared Richard Clarke, "

Maybe not "supporting", but perhaps selling them WMDs, equipment and technology, ignoring their recruiting and training in Iraq, sharing intelligence, etc...

8 posted on 05/28/2004 7:29:37 PM PDT by bayourod (Gay weddings will provoke Muslim terrorist attacks on America, but the press will blame Bush)
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To: GVgirl

Regretably, Drudge has given it a very small headline on his site.


9 posted on 05/28/2004 7:30:56 PM PDT by Cicero (Marcus Tullius)
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To: Cicero

The link takes one to a seven page article well worth the reading. Clarke lied when he stated (for his democrat bosses) that there was absolutely no evidence, because he had seen the evidence while at CIA. Clarke is a lying seditious creep.


10 posted on 05/28/2004 7:35:36 PM PDT by MHGinTN (If you can read this, you've had life support from someone. Promote life support for others.)
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To: satchmodog9

It's available on Amazon right now, #120 on their sales list.


11 posted on 05/28/2004 7:37:53 PM PDT by EllaMinnow
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To: GVgirl

Any sane person with half a brain would know by intuition that Saddam and Osama were birds of a feather. The American people have fallen hook, line and sinker for the mainstream media pitch! This tragic mistake will cost thousands of innocent American lives down the road! You can bet on it! Please don't blame Osama and his boys. We did to ourselves!


12 posted on 05/28/2004 7:40:26 PM PDT by JLAGRAYFOX
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To: hermgem

The "No weapons of mass destruction" mantra seems to have waned since the discovery of a single shell of sarin gas. Perhaps the "no connection with 9/11" baying will be similarly inhibited with the evidence of Iraqi official attending terrorist conference including 9/11 plotters.


13 posted on 05/28/2004 7:51:39 PM PDT by luvbach1 (In the know on the border)
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To: luvbach1

The RATs jump from one lie to another, one smear to another. They're like gerbils in a wheel, perpetually running off at the mouth. They'll say and do whatever it takes. Who cares if the country is destroyed as long as Kerry and his merry band of RATS take power. They trust in the fact that half the American voters have short term memory problems and will pull the RAT lever no matter what. I hope and pray that if a terror attack is successfully pulled off in the next month or two, voters will wake up and realize this is Kerry's handiwork. He and the RATs have been appeasing and enabling terrorists since Clinton was pres. Did anyone hear Rush today mention that Mad Maddie Albright, when sec of state under Clinton, said there shouldn't be any one super power? Control of our armed forces should be under UN auspices because we might run around the world starting wars. Uh, but it was okay when Clinton bombed Kosovo.


14 posted on 05/28/2004 8:07:18 PM PDT by hershey
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To: GVgirl

Why did we go to war with Nazi Germany? It was the Japenese that attacked us and there was no evidence that the Germans were in league with the Japenese.


15 posted on 05/28/2004 8:36:54 PM PDT by Bubba_Leroy
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To: hermgem
I'm afraid you're right. I had visions of pulling down the book from a dusty shelf and telling my grandchildren, "This is the way it really was."
16 posted on 05/28/2004 9:03:40 PM PDT by GVnana
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To: Bubba_Leroy

FDR knew prior to Pearl Harbor that Japan had joined the alliance with Germany and Italy. I believe the alliance was officially drawn up in 1940.


17 posted on 05/28/2004 9:03:50 PM PDT by Susannah (Have you thanked a soldier lately for your freedom?- www.amillionthanks.org)
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To: GVgirl

Bump


18 posted on 05/28/2004 9:06:19 PM PDT by DallasMike
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To: JLAGRAYFOX

Agreed. Even if we had no causal "link", Saddam was an openly avowed enemy with plenty of ill-gotten gains to spread around. And let us not forget that he tried to assasinate Bush 41.


19 posted on 05/28/2004 9:07:41 PM PDT by GVnana
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To: GVgirl

Interestingly, the new Iraqi Prime Minister has insisted that Saddam is linked to 9-11.


20 posted on 05/28/2004 9:17:53 PM PDT by cookcounty (LBJ sent him to VN. Nixon expressed him home. And JfK's too dumb to tell them apart!)
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