Posted on 06/02/2004 10:44:54 AM PDT by Nasty McPhilthy
Proponents of the war in Iraq traditionally point to three primary justifications: the threat of weapons of mass destruction (WMD), Saddam Hussein's torturous regime and Iraq's ties to international terrorism. All are legitimate areas of concern, and all are equally vulnerable to one nagging question: Why now? Did any of these represent a threat so pressing that it warranted opening another front in the middle of the unfinished business of fighting the war on terror?
Most experts and pundits answer this question by highlighting the perceived threat of Iraq's WMD program. There is no question that Hussein's totalitarian regime maintained a WMD program that not only experimented in chemical and biological weapons but also employed them against his neighbors (Iran) and his own population (the Kurds). This prewar intelligence on Iraq's WMD program showed the most clear and present threat to the United States, its allies and Iraq's neighbors, but the cloud hanging over that body of intelligence has grown more ominous with each passing day. (Such an assessment, it should be noted, is only via 20/20 hindsight. Based on the information available at the time, many analysts, myself included, supported the war because U.S. intelligence indicated that Iraq in fact possessed WMD capabilities and intended to put them to use.)
That Hussein had expansionist regional intentions, tortured his political opponents and employed the most heinous of tactics to subjugate large segments of his population are painfully well documented. These, however, were always add-on issues, not the fundamental reason for going to war. After all, many regimes with similar regional ambitions and human rights records have not prompted us to go to war.
As doubts about these features of the case for war in Iraq continue to gather force, Stephen F. Hayes takes a different tack. In "The Connection," Hayes argues that Hussein's ties to al Qaeda presented just such a pressing threat -- and, moreover, that this threat was not an interruption of but a critical component of the war on terror. This argument is not just "the most controversial casus belli," as Hayes acknowledges in his introduction -- it is also, in view of the failure to uncover significant evidence of WMDs and the rapidly spreading jihadist resistance in U.S.-occupied Iraq, the strongest remaining link in the chain of evidence for those who supported the war most vocally.
Not surprisingly, given his stand on the subject, Hayes gives the book a clearly partisan bent, including a chapter-long digression on "a skeptical press" that highlights the media's "bias" against such evidence as the purported meeting between Sept. 11, 2001, hijacker Mohamed Atta and an Iraqi intelligence officer in Prague (in fact, the media were echoing the assessments of the majority of the U.S. intelligence community, as Hayes later notes). Still, Hayes skillfully weaves old information with new revelations, and dutifully presents caveats about the veracity and verifiability of both. Much of the material he presents has been confirmed but, in large part because of the book's heavy reliance on a collection of possibilities, public statements and other circumstantial evidence, Hayes raises more questions than he answers.
Those facts that are confirmed -- e.g., meetings between senior Iraqi and al Qaeda envoys and Hussein's connections to the Kurdish al Qaeda affiliate Ansar al-Islam -- are pieces of a puzzle. On their own, and even together, they fall short of the certitude that the book's title leads readers to expect. The most explosive and damning material remains unconfirmed. Connecting these dots, one finds a disturbing outline of the former Iraqi regime's links to terrorists, but the picture still reveals no smoking gun.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
The Darwinists will be pleased to hear there is now a verifiable link that connects apes to men---Saddam Hussein is it.
It's encouraging that this is even being discussed in the press. Alas, we are back to 'smoking gun' as the standard of proof.
It seems mere documents and testimony from a few clerks was enough to convict Marsha Stewart, why is there a higher standard for Saddam's terror network?
I dont recall a smoking gun left by the killers of Nick Berg. hmmmmmmmm.
No, just a bloody knife.
Has anyone ever demanded of the liberal democrat party that they define just what they will acdcept as a 'smoking gun' with regard to terrorists and WMD and Saddam Insane? I mean, Saddam operated trainign camps where terrorists were taught how to take over airliners with nothing more than small knives (terrorize the passengers by making a bloody example of one or two), how to make and use poison gasses and poisons like Ricin, how to make and explode explosive devices for greatest damage to population centers + Saddam maintained research and development of chem-bio WMD weaponry + Saddam used ... oh, never mind. The democrat party couldn't allow ANYTHING to be smoking gun because there is the reeal chance that such a proof will still surface. I'm learning to despise the democrat party on several levels. It is spilling over to my feelings about people who blindly vote these democrat bastards back into power repeatedly!
Heck, these days, the "libs" wouldn't call a radioactive crater a smoking gun.
That sentence gets my vote for the most meaningless turn of phrase by a reporter who should know better. Exactly when is the business of fighting the war on terror supposed to be "finished"? With confirmation of the death of OBL? With the jailing or killing of each and every one the other 18,000 AQ-trained jihadists? Or something else? Whatever your stance on the WOT or the advisability of declaring "war" on something as nebulous as "terror", it should be clear that it's an ongoing process, and not a well-defined "business" that can have such a thing as a "middle" or a "finish".
BTW, Iraq lost in the lawsuit.
And it wasn't just 9/11:
Yousef and Nichols crossed paths in the Phillipines. Mohammed was Yousef's uncle. It is interesting to note that Yousef entered the United States on an Iraqi passport and had been known among the New York fundamentalists as "Rashid, the Iraqi". Another name that could be thrown into the mix is Abdul Rahman Yasin, a U.S. citizen who moved to Iraq in the 1960's and returned to the U.S. in 1992. After the 1993 WTC bombing, Yasin fled to Iraq and was given monthly salary and housing by Saddam Hussein's regime.
That question may be "nagging" (because lots of nags ask it) but it's still a pretty dumb one. Why not now? When exactly would be ok? If we invade at 3:00, couldn't we have done it at 3:05 or 2:55? "Why now?" can always be asked. It's not a very interesting question.
Did any of these represent a threat so pressing that it warranted opening another front in the middle of the unfinished business of fighting the war on terror?
Absurd complaint. If we're in the middle of the unfinished business of fighting the war on terror, and Iraq is part of that war, then what's wrong with opening up another front? "In the middle of an unfinished war" is really pretty much the only time you can open up another front in that war.
Oh I see he's assuming that Iraq isn't part of that war, there's some kind of firewall between Iraq and "terror" (even though earlier he's conceded "Iraq's ties to international terrorism).
...highlights the media's "bias" against such evidence as the purported meeting between Sept. 11, 2001, hijacker Mohamed Atta and an Iraqi intelligence officer in Prague (in fact, the media were echoing the assessments of the majority of the U.S. intelligence community, as Hayes later notes).
Um, what? "the majority of the U.S. intelligence community" most certainly does not dispute the Atta-Prague connection from what I have seen. There's some FBI informant feeding bogus disinfo to Isikoff (that they can prove Atta was in the U.S. at that time), but that's not the same thing.
Those facts that are confirmed -- e.g., meetings between senior Iraqi and al Qaeda envoys and Hussein's connections to the Kurdish al Qaeda affiliate Ansar al-Islam -- are pieces of a puzzle. On their own, and even together, they fall short of the certitude that the book's title leads readers to expect.
Wait, he acknowledges Saddam/AaI links and an Iraq/AQ meeting to be "confirmed", but he questions the book's title saying there's not as much "certitude" as the book's title suggests? Let's look at the book's title shall we: "How al Qaeda's Collaboration With Saddam Hussein Has Endangered America".
Two basic assertions then: (1) AQ collaborated w/Saddam, (2) it endangered America. In what way does the writer think the confirmed info falls short? He doesn't think the (confirmed!) Saddam/AaI links or Iraq/AQ meetings count as "collaboration"? What does, then? Or perhaps, he thinks it was collaboration but he doesn't think it endangered America? If so, he should say so (i.e. that he disagrees with the Bush doctrine)
The most explosive and damning material remains unconfirmed. Connecting these dots, one finds a disturbing outline of the former Iraqi regime's links to terrorists, but the picture still reveals no smoking gun.
This idea that one always needs some mythical thing called a "smoking gun" in order to act, is beyond idiotic when we are talking about national security. It's pretty depressing that people with this kind of "smoking gun" obsessed mindset were (and perhaps still are) working as "counterterrorism" analysts. They are supposed to connect dots in order to forestall threats, not sit around and wait for the "smoking gun" Holy Grail to drop in their lap.
But his assessment of the intelligence information on which the book's argument rests -- for example, interrogations of detainees and the famed Feith Memorandum, in which Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas J. Feith laid out the alleged links between al Qaeda and Iraq to the Senate Intelligence Committee -- rests on a series of questionable assumptions.
Such... as?
Hayes acknowledges that detainees can offer misleading information but takes the CIA in particular to task for discounting much of the information contained in the Feith memo and other reports -- even though the CIA originally gathered a good portion of that information itself.
Yes, they "gathered" it (the raw data) but Feith had to actually collate and interpret that data and connect the dots. The CIA wasn't interested in connecting those dots because, presumably, an Iraq-AQ relationship didn't fit into their 1990s "stateless actor" one-size-fits-all template for how terrorism works. Which, presumably, is Hayes's actual complaint.
Writers coming to the subject outside the intelligence community need to proceed with special care if they are going to assume away the actions and assessments of intelligence analysts and operatives.
Ah, I see. Hayes is an outsider, he shouldn't question the experts, the experts have their reasons, etc.
This guy certainly doesn't like his turf trampled upon.
So even though "The Connection" points toward disturbing links between Iraq and al Qaeda, there was a far tighter connection between al Qaeda and, say, Sudan
So f**king what??
When I say "X is true" and you say "yes perhaps but Y is also true" you're doing what's known as changing the subject. If this guy acknowledges that there were "disturbing links between Iraq and Al Qaeda", he has conceded the point. Why then does he not publicly get behind that point, instead allowing "no links whatsoever" to become conventional wisdom (to the point that Al Gore gets away with saying it)? Because he has some bee in his bonnet about Sudan? So he fraudulently downplays Iraq links? At the expense of truth and public understanding?
"By the time the Iraq war began," he writes, "the evidence of Iraqi links to al Qaeda went well beyond a few dots. It was a veritable constellation." A constellation of suggestions, however, still is not a convincing argument.
Actually, it most certainly can be, when we are talking about national security. What is wrong with these bozos? They're all stuck in a fantasy in which they're sitting on the "Twelve Angry Men" jury, or a Perry Mason episode, or something, and that the most noble heroic thing they can think of to do is raise reasonable doubt so as to prevent the innocent defendant Saddam Hussein from being unfairly convicted... This kind of defense-attorney approach and mind-set bears no relation whatsoever to the kind of mentality I would expect and demand from people charged with defending my life and those of my family against external threats. Seeing all these "counterterrorism analysts" (Richard Clarke is even worse) who seem to fancy themselves as latter-day Atticus Finches, just makes me sick to my stomach. They don't actually seem to understand what their job is. They're not supposed to be defense attorneys for our country's adversaries for God's sake!
"The Connection" raises several important questions, but it left me unconvinced and still asking: Why now?
Then he's an idiot. It was dumb enough to ask that question in the first place, to still be asking it is just pathetic.
Notice also that here he's talking about the Iraq war ("Why now?"), not the Stephen Hayes book of which this purports to be a review, for which the question "Why now?" would be utterly nonsensical. He could have concluded this review by giving his honest best-guess assessment, as a former "counterterrorism expert", of the degree to which Saddam and Al Qaeda were collaborating - thus getting to the heart of whether Hayes' thesis is correct or not.
Instead he opines about the timing of the Iraq war for some reason, which (one assumes) has nothing to do per se with whether Hayes' actual thesis (Hussein/AQ collaborated and this presented a danger to America) is correct. In effect this is yet another, slicker, subject-change.
How in the hell does it make sense to conclude a review of Hayes' book with the question "Why now?" Why what now, why did Hayes release the book now? Because he finished it and he wants to sell copies. Now that that's settled, is Hayes right or wrong, Mr. Counterterrorism-Expert Levitt?
You won't tell us, will you?
"NO SMOKING GUN"!!!!!!!!!!!!
Well that means Bush did the right thing. A gun only smokes after it is fired.
One thing the terrorists fear greatly is an administration that will act decisively before a certainty of evidence is confirmed.
So why am I reading a news report that indicates we haven't found any WMDs in Iraq?
hawk
"Heck, these days, the "libs" wouldn't call a radioactive crater a smoking gun."
Bingo! And if Slick had still been president, if we had found an extra package of Gillette safety blades in Hussein's bathroom, we WOULD HAVE FOUND WMD'S!!!
Stephen Hayes just wrote another masterful piece called "Untelling the Truth" for the weekly Standard. In it, not only does he show the obvious media bias...pointing out their own news stories from the Clinton Era connecting Saddam and AQ, but also providing further details. It is amazing the blind eye the media and Democrats are taking with regards to these connections...that have been being made for almost a decade.
Bush made clear that this war wasn't just a war on terrorists...but also on those regimes that harbor terrorists. In this resgard, Saddam was one of the most guilty. From Abu Nidal to Abu Abbas, Saddam was providing sanctuary to wanted, and in some cases, convicted, terrorists. Abbas had been calling Iraq home since 1994, with Nidal taking up residence some time in 1999.
Not only were they being provided sanctuary, each man's terrorist organization was operating camps...and recieving support, from within the country and Saddam. As someone else pointed out...before one can even contimplate having peace in the Mid-East, Saddam would have to be removed because of the financing and support he provided the Martyr Operations for suicide bombers. This put Saddam at the center of this conflict since Abbas was the direct conduit between Saddam and his PLF..that also provided resources to Hamas and Hezbullah, as these members also trained in Iraq.
Abu Nidal was another wanted terrorist for carrying out operations in over 20 countries with a death toll exceeding more the 300 people. Like Abbas, this former leader of the PLO was responsible for numerous atrocities as he went on to form another radical group named after him (ANO). His activities continued from Iraq, as there is talk that he personally met with two of the 9/11 hijackers (Atta and Jarrah) and trained others at Salman Pak...a terrorist training camp just 30 miles south of Baghdad, that has disappered from the media's radar.
When you throw in al-Zarqawi, who was setting up meetings between AQ and Iraqi Arabs and Kurds in Afghanistan...a month before the 9/11 attacks, you have Saddam hitting the trifecta of terrorists "leaders." This little get together was for the planning of a new AQ affiliate in N. Iraq known as Ansar al-Islam. While some (liberals) may take solace in the fact that it was located in N. Iraq...out of Saddam's domain, Zarqawi had spent over two months in Baghdad as he recuperated from injuries inflicted during the onset of the Afghanistan War.
The fact that Zarqawi felt comfortable enough to seek treatment in Iraq after having left Iran, dispells the myth that Saddam would have nothing to do with AQ or any of these theocratic madmen. The connection of Saddam to terrorists is there for those who wich to see it. The fact is, the media not only saw these connections...they made them when it served their purposes in helping to advance a Democrat president's agenda. Now that a Republican is in office, they have not only buried the stories, they've actually done all they can to discredit them...all in an effort to hurt the current republican president. Shame on you!
I've said it many times. I doubt if history ever again sees the US allow it's jets to be shot at (12 years in Iraq) without taking decisive action to end it. I hope not anyway. It all depends, of course, on whether there is a Dem or Repub in the Whitehouse.
This writer has to be a simpleton. Why NOW? Answer: 911!!! The ATTACK on our country opened many fronts in which to WAGE the WOT. To IGNORE a tyrannt who POSSESSES WMD that could end up in the hands of any terrorists is reason enough to RESUME HOSTILITIES against said tyrannt. Connecting these DOTS has to be the MOST OBVIOUS TASK imaginable. To IGNORE these "DOTS" would be INCOMPETENCE at best and TREASONOUS at worst.
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