CONNECTED
Posted on 11/19/2005 12:55:30 PM PST by new yorker 77
What is this baloney that there were no connections between Iraq and Osama bin Laden? Even the 9/11 Commission Report, which I believe is lacking in many respects, includes some useful findings all but ignored today by the media and war critics. Consider the following excerpts:
Page 61:
Bin Ladin was also willing to explore possibilities for cooperation with Iraq, even though Iraq's dictator, Saddam Hussein, had never had an Islamist agenda — save for his opportunistic pose as a defender of the faithful against 'Crusaders' during the Gulf War of 1991. Moreover, Bin Ladin had in fact been sponsoring anti-Saddam Islamists in Iraqi Kurdistan, and sought to attract them into his Islamic army.
To protect his own ties with Iraq, [Sudan's Islamic leader] Turabi, reportedly brokered an agreement that Bin Ladin would stop supporting activities against Saddam. Bin Ladin apparently honored this pledge, at least for a time, although he continued to aid a group of Islamist extremist operating in part of Iraq (Kurdistan) outside of Baghdad's control. In the late 1990s, these extremist groups suffered major defeats by Kurdish forces. In 2001, with Bin Ladin's help they re-formed into an organization called Ansar al Islam. There are indications that by then the Iraqi regime tolerated and may even have helped Ansar al Islam against the common Kurdish enemy.
With the Sudanese regime acting as intermediary, Bin Ladin himself met with a senior Iraqi intelligence officer in Khartoum in late 1994 or early 1995. Bin Ladin is said to have asked for space to establish training camps, as well as assistance in procuring weapons, but there is no evidence that Iraq responded to his request. ... [T]he ensuing years saw additional efforts to establish common connections.
Page 66:
... In March 1998, after Bin Ladin's public fatwa against the United States, two al Qaeda members reportedly went to Iraq to meet with Iraqi intelligence. In July, an Iraqi delegation traveled to Afghanistan to meet first with the Taliban and then with Bin Ladin. Sources reported that one, or perhaps both, of these meetings was apparently arranged through Bin Ladin's Egyptian deputy, Zawahiri, who had ties of his own to the Iraqis. In 1998, Iraq was under intensifying U.S. pressure, which culminated in a series of large are attacks in December.
Similar meetings between Iraqi officials and Bin Ladin or his aides may have occured in 1999 during a period of some reported strains with the Taliban. According to the reporting, Iraqi officials offered Bin Ladin a safe haven in Iraq. Bin Ladin declined, apparently judging that his circumstances in Afghanistan remained more favorable than the Iraqi alternative. The reports describe friendly contacts and indicate some common themes in both sides' hatred of the United States. ...
The report goes on to say that no evidence was unearthed of a "collaborative operational relationship" or Iraqi cooperation in the 9/11 attacks. However, the existence of bin Ladin/al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein/Iraq connections, over a number of years, is indisputable.
Given this fact, and that both the president and Congress were informed by numerous intelligence officials and agencies that Saddam Hussein was pursuing weapons of mass destruction, it is simply a falsehood to claim that Iraq did not pose a national-security risk to the United States, or that there were no serious connections between Iraq and al Qaeda — connections which could develop further if Iraq had not been attacked.
Here's what Congress itself said in October 2002 in passing a joint resolution justifying and authorizing war against Iraq:
Whereas Iraq both poses a continuing threat to the national security of the United States and international peace and security in the Persian Gulf region and remains in material and unacceptable breach of its international obligations by, among other things, continuing to possess and develop a significant chemical and biological weapons capability, actively seeking a nuclear weapons capability, and supporting and harboring terrorist organizations;
Whereas the current Iraqi regime has demonstrated its capability and willingness to use weapons of mass destruction against other nations and its own people; Whereas members of al Qaida, an organization bearing responsibility for attacks on the United States, its citizens, and interests, including the attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, are known to be in Iraq;
Whereas Iraq continues to aid and harbor other international terrorist organizations, including organizations that threaten the lives and safety of United States citizens;
Whereas the attacks on the United States of September 11, 2001, underscored the gravity of the threat posed by the acquisition of weapons of mass destruction by international terrorist organizations;
Whereas Iraq's demonstrated capability and willingness to use weapons of mass destruction, the risk that the current Iraqi regime will either employ those weapons to launch a surprise attack against the United States or its Armed Forces or provide them to international terrorists who would do so, and the extreme magnitude of harm that would result to the United States and its citizens from such an attack, combine to justify action by the United States to defend itself; ...
Did Iraq pose a serious threat to our national security? Yes. Did Congress believe Iraq posed a serious threat? Yes. Did Iraq have or seek to obtain weapons of mass destruction? Yes. Those are the facts.
— Mark R. Levin is author of the best-selling Men In Black, president of Landmark Legal Foundation, and a radio talk-show host on WABC in New York.
Vietnam was a democrat led war.
This one is not.
Same to you, brother.
You ever spend any time at "beautiful" NAS Kingsville or Fallon before you went on the canoe ride?
If we had decided in 2003 to let it go, Al Qaeda would be mor epowerful, and Saddam would be sitting on WMD's or WMD capability. The combination is scary.
Vietnam was a democrat led war.
This one is not.
We need to fight for our young brave soldiers.
They will fight the enemy abroad.
We will fight the enemy within.
Plus, boycott the biased MSM.
This has been their goal from the beginning!
They started during the thunder run into Baghdad - calling it a quagmire!
An NEGAT on the MSM.
Thank you- I will add this to my links.
What do you mean "trying"? They did!
"You ever spend any time at "beautiful" NAS Kingsville or Fallon before you went on the canoe ride?"
No I have not.
You're right. The President didn't make 9-11 or Al Qaeda centerpieces for invading Iraq. But its no myth, WMD were the major reason behind PresBush ultimately ordering the invasion of Iraq, or as you say "the centerpiece" for war.
You need to go back and read the speeches Bush, Cheney and others gave prior to Operation Iraqi Freedom being undertaken. Example. More then half of Bush`s speech to the UN on September.12,2002 was aimed at Saddam Hussein and his WMD programs. A few snippets.
"In cells and camps, terrorists are plotting further destruction, and building new bases for their war against civilization. And our greatest fear is that terrorists will find a shortcut to their mad ambitions when an outlaw regime supplies them with the technologies to kill on a massive scale.
In one place -- in one regime -- we find all these dangers, in their most lethal and aggressive forms, exactly the kind of aggressive threat the United Nations was born to confront.
"... Saddam Hussein's regime is a grave and gathering danger.
"... Saddam Hussein has defied all these efforts and continues to develop weapons of mass destruction."
Here's another example.
"Our mission is clear in Iraq. Should we have to go in, our mission is very clear: disarmament."
--- PresBush, March.6,2003
I don't think the President could have been more clear. There were other reasons for invading Iraq. Saddam thumbing his nose at endless UN resolutions. Oppression of the Iraqi people. Keeping a free flow of oil from Iraq. Removing a haven for terrorists. But the WMD issue was the premier issue for Bush invading Iraq. As it turned out, WMD were found, just not in the quantities that were anticipated. Human Events recently gave this account of WMD found in Iraq.
• Found: 1.77 metric tons of enriched uranium
• Found: 1,500 gallons of chemical weapons
• Found: Roadside bomb loaded with sarin gas
• Found: 1,000 radioactive materials--ideal for radioactive dirty bombs
• Found: 17 chemical warheads--some containing cyclosarin, a nerve agent five times more powerful than sarin
That's exactly what they're doing. It worked once.
"The dictator of Iraq and his weapons of mass destruction are a threat to the security of free nations. He is a danger to his neighbors. He's a sponsor of terrorism. He's an obstacle to progress in the Middle East. For decades he has been the cruel, cruel oppressor of the Iraq people."
--- PresBush 3-16-2003, Azores Portugal
"My fellow citizens, events in Iraq have now reached the final days of decision. For more than a decade, the United States and other nations have pursued patient and honorable efforts to disarm the Iraqi regime without war. That regime pledged to reveal and destroy all its weapons of mass destruction as a condition for ending the Persian Gulf War in 1991."
"The danger is clear: using chemical, biological or, one day, nuclear weapons, obtained with the help of Iraq, the terrorists could fulfill their stated ambitions and kill thousands or hundreds of thousands of innocent people in our country, or any other."
--- PresBush 3-17-2003, Address to the Nation
"My fellow citizens, at this hour, American and coalition forces are in the early stages of military operations to disarm Iraq, to free its people and to defend the world from grave danger."
--- PresBush 3-19-2003, Address to the Nation
Exactly. Mr. Levin's essay proves nothing. In fact, I am embarrassed for him. He takes the ambiguous language of the 9/11 Commission Report and creates a definitive conclusion that ignores the definitive and all important conclusion of the Report.
Read the excerpts carefully. You will find these kind of caveats are littered throughout: "reportedly, apparently, There are indications, may even, is said to have, may have occurred ,indicate." That is why the Report concludes that "We have no credible evidence that Iraq and al Qaeda cooperated on attacks against the United States." and that there was no evidence that a "collaborative operational relationship" existed between Al Quaida and Iraq.
Yet Mr. Levin claims that all these weasel words support his contention that there were "serious connections between Iraq and al Qaeda."
Did Iraq pose a serious threat to our national security? Yes. Did Congress believe Iraq posed a serious threat? Yes. Did Iraq have or seek to obtain weapons of mass destruction? Yes. Those are the facts.
Those are not the facts. We know that Iraq did not pose a serious imminent threat to our national security because Iraq did not have WMD's. It had no delivery system to attack the U.S. with WMD's even if it did have them. According to the Duelfer Report, all of Iraq's unconventional weapons programs were abandoned or had decayed after Desert Storm and sanctions were applied to Iraq. Congress was misinformed, as we now know, " We were wrong about almost everything" Mr. Duelfer told the Senate committee, echoing David Kay's findings. Mr. Levin ignores facts.
Riiiight.
Just like your statements in the other thread.
Thanks for confirming what you are.
"• Found: 1.77 metric tons of enriched uranium
• Found: 1,500 gallons of chemical weapons
• Found: Roadside bomb loaded with sarin gas
• Found: 1,000 radioactive materials--ideal for radioactive dirty bombs
• Found: 17 chemical warheads--some containing cyclosarin, a nerve agent five times more powerful than sarin"
Never found: the ability of most liberal Democrats to put the US ahead of petty, partisan, political gain.
You mean the Dems, like you, ignore facts.
Like Salman Pak terrorist training camp in Iraq, and how it was there BEFORE we went into Iraq?
I agree. The more stridently and desperately conservatives defend the pretext for the war the more foolish we look.
We need to focus the reality that we are there now, the consequences of leaving early, the humanitarian good that we have done, what a bad guy Saddam was and our plan to leave Iraq with a stable friendly democracy. That is the way to get the support we need to finish the job - and to not lose the house and senate in the process.
Well said. The facts as they are now need to be dealt with, not the facts as they weren't then.
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