Murray Waas
Posted on 11/23/2005 5:34:50 AM PST by Homer1
Ten days after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, President Bush was told in a highly classified briefing that the U.S. intelligence community had no evidence linking the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein to the attacks and that there was scant credible evidence that Iraq had any significant collaborative ties with Al Qaeda, according to government records and current and former officials with firsthand knowledge of the matter.
The administration has refused to provide the Sept. 21 President's Daily Brief, even on a classified basis, and won't say anything more about it other than to acknowledge that it exists.
The information was provided to Bush on September 21, 2001 during the "President's Daily Brief," a 30- to 45-minute early-morning national security briefing. Information for PDBs has routinely been derived from electronic intercepts, human agents, and reports from foreign intelligence services, as well as more mundane sources such as news reports and public statements by foreign leaders.
One of the more intriguing things that Bush was told during the briefing was that the few credible reports of contacts between Iraq and Al Qaeda involved attempts by Saddam Hussein to monitor the terrorist group. Saddam viewed Al Qaeda as well as other theocratic radical Islamist organizations as a potential threat to his secular regime. At one point, analysts believed, Saddam considered infiltrating the ranks of Al Qaeda with Iraqi nationals or even Iraqi intelligence operatives to learn more about its inner workings, according to records and sources.
(Excerpt) Read more at nationaljournal.com ...
The CIA had no 'feet on the ground' thanks to Clinton and Her Heinous who thought spies weren't 'nice'. Another gift from Bill and Hill.
Exactly.
Thanks. LOL. Nita's title made a great mnemonic :)
It's irrelevant. Bush never claimed there was an Al Qeada/Iraqi connection. This is just the MSM continuing to repeat a non story in the hopes anyone reading it hasn't been paying attention for the last 3 years.
Since this is patently untrue, I did not bother with the rest.
Those $25,000 checks to families of Palestinian suicide bombers weren't proof enough he was involved in terrorism?
1) Clinton's Justice Department prepared an indictment of al-Qaeda's leader, Osama bin Laden, in which a prominent passage located in the fourth paragraph reads:
Al-Qaeda reached an understanding with the government of Iraq that al Qaeda would not work against that government and that on particular projects, specifically including weapons development, al Qaeda would work cooperatively with the government of Iraq.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/985906/posts?page=30#30
2) The CIA said there were no connections between Iraq and AQ? Really? That's not what they said some time ago:
3) List of CIA and various Reports regarding Iraq's support for terrorists, terrorism and AQ.
September 16, 2004. The Weekly Standard.
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/004/631slkle.asp
4) Osama bin Laden was considered an Iraqi Intelligence asset.
October 14, 2004. National Review.
http://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1246505/posts
5) Even the MSM wrote about Saddam and OBL reaching out to each other - before 9/11!
Saddam reaching out to OBL
January 1, 1999. Newsweek
http://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1158277/posts
ABC news reports on the Osama/Saddam connections
January 14, 1999. ABC News
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1229608/posts?page=1
List of newspaper articles written in the 90's which mention the world's concern regarding the growing relationship between OBL and Saddam.
July 14, 2003. FrontPage Magazine.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/946809/posts?page=1
6) that and more, here:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1327993/posts
Murray Waas
oops...my bad
Doesn't matter, there were ties even if not operational at the time. He provided terrorists of many stripes sanctuary and funding and he is prominent in conversations as well as documents contacting Al Qaeda before 9-11.
BTW, the 14 resolutions, gassing of the Kurds and numerous attacks on our interests for years that also had contact with him are reason enough for me. I can't even mention the number of murals of Father Saddam with the attack of 9-11 all around Iraq. Why would those be there? Or the planes unburied that Al Qaeda trained on before 9-11 as well as other camps in Iraq.
I would imagine that the president receives all information from all perspectives.
"Mr. President, we have seen nothing linking AQ with Iraq."
"Mr. President, there are reports that Iraq was funding AQ terrorists and harboring wanted fugitives thought to be part of bin Laden's group."
"Mr. President, there is a report that shows Iraq has been trying to buy material to build a nuclear bomb."
"Mr. President, there is a report that says the first report is false."
Welcome to FreeRepublic.
Member since 11/18/05.
I’m almost done with General Tommy Franks’ autobiography “American Soldier” but I’d thought I’d share this passage from page 418:
I met with King Abdullah II of Jordan in his home in Amman on the afternoon of Thursday, January 23, 2003. “General,” he said, “from reliable intelligence sources, I believe the Iraqis are hiding chemical and biological weapons.”
The Jordanians did have reliable intelligence sources in Iraq. I trusted them, and I trusted the king’s judgment. And I wasn’t surprised at what his sources had reported. I’d spent days and nights over the previous twelve years worrying about Saddam’s WMD program, and the effect that such weapons could have on our troops – or on my country. I thanked the king, left his home, drove to the hotel, and straight to the Comm room to pass the information I’d been given to Secretary Rumsfeld.
[snip section about how General Franks’ plane was diverted to Cairo, Egypt]
Hosni Mubarak was friendly as always. But he was clearly concerned with our military buildup and the tension in Iraq.
He leaned close and spoke to me in accented but readily comprehensible English. “General Franks,” he said, choosing his words carefully, as Abdullah had done. “You must be very, very careful. We have spoken with Saddam Hussein. He is a madman. He has WMD – biologicals, actually – and he will use them on your troops.”
The maddening fact is that Hussein, indisputably, had weapons of mass destruction; and almost nobody believed he willingly destroyed his arsenal.
Nice work, Peach!
The MSM can't rewrite history anymore.
The New Media will see to that!
Funny, a new article says they STILL cannot disprove that it was Mohammad Atta that visited Al-Ani in Czechoslovakia in April 2001, or account for where MA got $8,000 suddenly in a bank account after that meeting.
The CIA is like the Clintons - their statements must be carefully "parsed" to get to the true meaning. They are masters at making factual statements in a manner which conveys a lie.
In this case, their statement that they "had no evidence" is clearly intended to give the impression that they had all the facts and the reason is because it was untrue. Their statement, however, is also fully congruent with the reality that their sources who would be in a position to know are almost non-existent and their incompetence so pervasive that they just flat-out missed it.
This is the same sort of parsing they have used to try to discredit the Czech intelligence service's adamant confirmation of the meeting in Prague between Mohammed Atta and an Iraqi intelligence official.
They say that "we cannot confirm it" means it never happened, when what it really means is that they're incompetent hacks who couldn't get the job done and missed it and are determined to cover their asses.
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