SAUNDERS: Misinformation vs. missed information

SEN. Jay Rockefeller sent out a press release Friday as the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence released a report on pre-war Iraqi intelligence. According to the press statement, the intelligence committee found "that the Bush administration's case for war in Iraq was fundamentally misleading."

As senators never use a one-syllable word when they can use a three- or four-syllable word, that's Senate-ese for: Bush lied.

The thing is, if you read the "Accuracy Report" -- as Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., calls it -- then you see that, if the Bushies were wrong to read too much into intelligence reports that suggested Saddam Hussein had WMD and links with al Qaeda, Bush haters are wrong to argue that there was no reason to think those links existed.

News stories dutifully reported that the intelligence committee found that Hussein did not harbor al Qaeda operative Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and that Hussein had no known organizational ties to al Qaeda. It also found that some intelligence sources were complete frauds.

But the committee also noted that before the war in Iraq began, the CIA reported learning from credible sources of "at least eight direct meetings between senior Iraqi representatives and top al Qaeda operatives." In 2004, the Iraq Survey Group -- the group that reported that there were no WMD in Iraq -- found a document that showed, in 1992, Iraqi intelligence wanted to establish ties with bin Laden.

A top Iraqi intelligence official met with bin Laden in Sudan in 1995, although the report found that Hussein later directed the official not to give bin Laden the office, land mines and military training bin Laden sought -- which the West Virginian Democrat noted.

Or as Rockefeller said before he voted for the war resolution: "We also should remember we have always underestimated the progress Saddam has made in development of weapons of mass destruction."

It is indeed a good read. The Rats erred on the side of caution in 2003 in supporting war resolution, as well they needed to. Now, in hindsight they are trying to blame their actions back then on Bush when in fact the intelligence was coming from multiple US and international agencies, including the CIA which was full of Clintonoids and Clinton holdovers. Hopefully the Pubbies will counter this, but don't look for the anti-Bush DBM to have more than a sentence or two buried in some other story.

One source of good info is:

http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=23264

In addition; these two little gems:

(1)Among the first WTC bombing conspirators was Mohammed A. Salameh. In many ways he was the weakest link. He was born near Nablus, on the West Bank. According to one source, Salameh was from a long line of guerrilla fighters on his mother's side. A maternal uncle of Salameh was arrested in 1968 for "terrorism" and served 18 years in an Israeli prison before he was released and deported, making his way to Baghdad, where he became number two in the "Western Sector," a PLO terrorist unit under Iraqi influence. Before the arrival of Ramzi Yousef into the team of WTC conspirators, Salameh ran up thousands of dollars in phone bills to his uncle in Baghdad. The uncle, at the time, held a position in Saddam's government. And Ramzi Yousef himself? From where did he travel on his way to the U.S.? Baghdad. The intelligent speculation is that the blind sheik and his followers, like Salameh, had more modest plans at the start and only after the arrival of Ramzi Yousef (after Salameh's many calls to Baghdad) did Yousef's plans take over the entire mission. And in the end, the blind sheik and his dupes like Salameh were left; giving the appearance that the eventual incident was their design all along - leaving no veritable suspicion of Iraq intelligence working their own ideas through their willing accomplice, Ramzi Yousef.

(2)During the Iraqi subjegation of Kuwait, the official records and documents of the Kuwaiti government were taken away by Saddam's agents when they were not destroyed. Among those documents were thousands of Kuwaiti passports. The last meeting of the Al Queda members planning for 9/11 was held in Malaysia. We did not know the nature of the meeting at the time, but we had alerted Malaysia to watch for one of the Al Queda members we knew was heading to Malaysia at the time. His arrival and his activities and his departure was monitored by the Malaysian's, who shared their observations with us. That Al Queda member was picked up at the Kuala Lampur airport by a man carrying a Kuwait passport who was employed as a "driver" by an Iraqi living in Malaysia. That driver accompanied the Al Queda member into the meeting and drove him back to the airport. A few days later he left Malaysia, heading back to Kuwait according to his travel papers, but Kuwait has no record of his arrival there.

Saddam's worldwide intelligence apparatus was, in little bits and pieces (Atta in Prague), all over 9/11, whether or not it was Osma's idea and his network that carried it out. At a minimum, it is clear that Saddam's intelligence units were "in the know".

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