Senate: Saddam believed Al-Qaida was a threat, not ally

Associated Press ^ | Sep 9, 10:06 AM (ET) | Jim Abrams

[rubeng]

WASHINGTON (AP) - Saddam Hussein rejected overtures from al-Qaida and believed Islamic extremists were a threat to his regime, a reverse portrait of an Iraq allied with Osama bin Laden painted by the Bush White House, a Senate panel has found.

The administration's version was based in part on intelligence that White House officials knew was flawed, according to Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Committee, citing newly declassified documents released by the panel.

The report, released Friday, discloses for the first time an October 2005 CIA assessment that prior to the war Saddam's government "did not have a relationship, harbor or turn a blind eye toward" al-Qaida operative Abu Musab al-Zarqawi or his associates.

As recently as an Aug. 21 news conference, President Bush said people should "imagine a world in which you had Saddam Hussein" with the capacity to make weapons of mass destruction and "who had relations with Zarqawi." ...

[dalight]

someone should have thought about how this would be distorted before they agreed to so limit the scope so that a final assessment wasn't actually being attempted.. Because the record is now unlikely to ever be corrected.

I am deeply distressed with Republican leadership that doesn't seem to have any clue how to deal with the willingness of the explosion of distortions and outright lies that are being applied to the President.

Witness the backlash about "The Path to 911" where the truth is actively being suppressed in a firestorm of charges of "inaccuracy."

Why can't we muster such firestorms?

[ikez78]

I don't want to see suppression but at least get out there and give your version of the story.

Since when is a report from the Senate above criticism?

[liberallarry]

the WMD argument was the wrong argument to make

I don't think it was.

The Administration believed that we face a grave threat from the Muslim world. They believed our approach to it was failing and had to be changed - quickly and drastically. They believed 911 afforded them a unique opportunity to do so.

The WMD and terrorist connection arguments were the only ones they had which might work. Logical appeals to strategic and tactical thinking, morality, civilized values...all were losers sure to drag out endlessly no matter how correct they were.

So they framed the arguments with as much urgency as they could while allowing for uncertainties, emphasizing that modern weapons allowed for few mistakes in judgement.

Backlash was inevitable. If one believes in the basic Administration position then not finding vast stocks of WMD was a good thing. It means we acted in time. If one doesn't then not finding such stocks is proof the government was lying about the urgency of the threat.

Congressional investigations are a good thing. They will clarify many issues of fact and provide insights for better analysis. But they won't resolve the fundamental questions.