Posted on 03/06/2006 11:58:48 AM PST by smoothsailing
March 6, 2006
Why Do Democrats Fear the Al-Qaida/Saddam Relationship?
By Michael Barone
The issue is historical now, but still worth exploring. Why, for two distinct groups of Americans, has it become a matter of conviction held with religious intensity that there cannot have been any relationship between al-Qaida and Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq?
One group consists of Democratic politicians who oppose the Bush administration's policy in Iraq. The Minnesota Democratic Party recently protested as "un-American" an ad showing military veterans and their families supporting the president's policies for saying, "Our enemy in Iraq is al-Qaida -- the same terrorists who killed 3,000 Americans on 9-11, the same terrorists from the first World Trade Center bombing, the USS Cole, Madrid, London and many more."
The Democrats, unfactually, say that these words "make a connection between Iraq and the 9-11 terrorists attacks and suggest that the war in Iraq will prevent an attack by al-Qaida in America." But of course, the ad is factually correct -- al-Qaida is attacking Americans in Iraq -- and the Minnesota Democratic Party is in no position to guarantee that al-Qaida will not attack America.
The other group consists of intelligence and other career government professionals, many of them Arabists. Case in point: Paul Pillar, CIA national intelligence officer for the Near East and South Asia from 2000 to 2005, now retired, writing in the most recent Foreign Affairs magazine. The "greatest discrepancy between the administration's public statements and the intelligence community's judgments concerned not WMD (there was indeed a broad consensus that such programs existed), but the relationship between Saddam and al-Qaida. The enormous attention devoted to this subject did not reflect any judgment by intelligence officials that there was or was likely to be anything like the 'alliance' the administration said existed." But the Senate Intelligence Committee report showed that the CIA did obtain evidence of an al-Qaida-Saddam relationship from foreign intelligence and open sources.
That's not surprising. CIA Director George Tenet in October 2002 told Congress of "growing indications of a relationship with al-Qaida." And of course evidence of contacts between al-Qaida and Saddam's regime went back to the 1990s and were cited, without murmur of dissent, by President Bill Clinton.
So why do these Democrats and these government professionals seem to have such a conviction that there must have been no collaboration between al-Qaida and Saddam? The Democrats fear that more Americans would support Bush and the war effort if they believed there was. The career professionals, with their many years of training in the subtleties of the Middle East, have developed a vested interest in the notion that religious Wahhabis like al-Qaida could never collaborate with a secular tyrant like Saddam. If alliances could be formed across religious lines, what use would all their learning be?
The Minnesota Democrats cite the 9-11 commission's report that it found no evidence of "operational" cooperation between al-Qaida and Iraq, although it did find evidence of many contacts. But, as Donald Rumsfeld likes to say, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Neither al-Qaida nor Saddam operated under a Freedom of Information Act. Any collaboration between them on 9-11 would have been kept very secret -- al-Qaida did not want to leave a return address. We do not know that there was such collaboration. But we also do not know that there was not.
Going back to the days before our military action in Iraq, it would have been irresponsible for any president to have assumed that there was no relationship between al-Qaida and Iraq, given previous contacts between them and their proven hostility to the United States.
President Clinton, responsibly, did not assume that, and neither did President Bush. Nor was there any information that intelligence could have been acquired that could have assured us, with 100 percent certainty, that there was no such relationship.
Light on the Saddam regime's collaboration with terrorists will almost certainly be shed by analysis of some 2 million documents captured in Iraq. But, as the intrepid Stephen Hayes of The Weekly Standard has pointed out, almost none of those documents has been translated or released either to the public or to the congressional intelligence committees. It appears that career professionals and, perhaps, political appointees have been blocking release of these documents.
Why do their superiors not order them released? Many Americans cling with religious intensity to the notion that somehow Saddam had no terrorist ties -- a notion used to delegitimize our war effort. We should bring the truth, or as much of it as is available, out into the open.
Copyright 2006 Creators Syndicate
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/Commentary/com-3_6_06_MB.html
The attack on the pharmaceutical plant in the Sudan was to destroy Ricin. Only one country in the Middle East was maunfacturing Ricin. Go ahead say it. SAY IT! RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAgh!
Thanks for all the links. You are, well, a PEACH! ;^)
Marking for later reading. Thank you for the post.
Thanks for all of the reference material.... marking for later reading.
If the stronger evidence for the Saddam-Al Qaida links and the movement of WMD to Syria were known by this administration before the last election, would they have sat on the information with such a close election outcome? This is what puzzles me. Were they so confidant that they had the election precisely measured and won, that they could hold onto these trump cards?
You're my kinda Freeper.
Michael Barrone he make way to much sense the demo/socialists are never going to fall for his clear-headed assessment.
Bookmarking...BUMP!
Michael Barone has immense credibility. I am so glad to read his thoughtful summary and hope these sensible views get plenty of attention. Ask a lefty who the name callers on the right are, and they'll reply Ann Coulter and Bill O'Reilly. But IMO there are signs dedicated liberals are becoming more willing to hear the voices of right-wing pundits like Peggy Noonan, who speaks in a more NPR-like understated fashion and is heard on NPR these days. Michael Barone is similarly an excellent spokesman, and yes it does matter to me what liberals think. Among other reasons, I'm married to one.
ping
Bookmarking!
Between MSM, the Libs and their ilk, bringing out info on connections, or for that matter, anything regarding the war in a positive light , would be futile. The brainwashing of America continues.
I think most leftists admit there were SOME connections between Saddam's Iraq and Al Qaida. However, they contend that Al Qaida had connections with many other countries, as the UAE deal has shown, but we aren't invading those countries like we did with Iraq.
See phenomenal post #4 by Peach.
Absolutely awesome cataloguing/research/annotation.
See #4 for help with your endeavor.
Since you are married to a liberal you may be able to answer my question. How can intelligent people support something that is so obviously based on lying and distorting the truth?
I am thinking specifically of media people who distort and hide the truth as a matter of practice. Why? Don't they see that something that must be lied about is not worthy of their support.
I am an old guy who grew up with the Communist threat and I know a great deal about it. I am not looking for Communist techniques but instead what goes on in the minds of those Lenin called "useful idiots".
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