Exhaustive review finds no link between Saddam, al Qaida (hint to MSM, Ansar al-Islam)

Yahoo ^ | 3/10/2008 | Warren P. Strobel, McClatchy Newspapers

[tobyhill]

WASHINGTON — An exhaustive review of more than 600,000 Iraqi documents that were captured after the 2003 U.S. invasion has found no evidence that Saddam Hussein's regime had any operational links with Osama bin Laden's al Qaida terrorist network.

The Pentagon-sponsored study, scheduled for release later this week, did confirm that Saddam's regime provided some support to other terrorist groups, particularly in the Middle East , U.S. officials told McClatchy . However, his security services were directed primarily against Iraqi exiles, Shiite Muslims, Kurds and others he considered enemies of his regime.

The new study of the Iraqi regime's archives found no documents indicating a "direct operational link" between Hussein's Iraq and al Qaida before the invasion, according to a U.S. official familiar with the report.

He and others spoke to McClatchy on condition of anonymity because the study isn't due to be shared with Congress and released before Wednesday.

President Bush and his aides used Saddam's alleged relationship with al Qaida, along with Iraq's supposed weapons of mass destruction, as arguments for invading Iraq after the September 11, 2001 , terrorist attacks.

Then-Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld claimed in September 2002 that the United States had "bulletproof" evidence of cooperation between the radical Islamist terror group and Saddam's secular dictatorship.

Then-Secretary of State Colin Powell cited multiple linkages between Saddam and al Qaida in a watershed February 2003 speech to the United Nations Security Council to build international support for the invasion. Almost every one of the examples Powell cited turned out to be based on bogus or misinterpreted intelligence.

[r-q-tek86]

ping

[jazusamo]

Thanks for the ping and post.

This is proof that the enemedia sucks!

[LSUfan]

I am smelling a big, dirty rat with this latest story about Saddam and Al Qaeda.

First, they’re using that term again: “operational” ties. They never used it before Operation Iraqi Freedom. I still don’t know what the definition is. After the 9-11 Commission Report came out, the Left trumpeted this same tune loud and long basically telling the media that there was no connection between Saddam’s Iraq and Al Qaeda.

But if you read the actual 9-11 Commission report, that’s not what it says at all.

Now we get this leaked story before another actual report comes out. The report is likely to be long and few members of the media will bother to read it. But they’ve already reported that Iraq and Al Qaeda had no connections...I bet dollars to donuts that the report doesn’t say this.

I am reading a book right now called “Both In One Trench: Saddam’s Secret Terror Documents.” It is a difficult read, but the authors maintain two things:

1. Saddam had a very friendly relationship with the Taliban.

2. Zawahiri probably visited Iraq at least once and evidently got some sort of support or had communications with Iraq when he was with Egyptian Islamic Jihad...

[PGalt]

More evidence here...

http://www.husseinandterror.com/

from post #3323 of granny’s thread #11 on world terrorism. Thanks granny.

[PGalt]

Ping to every poster on this thread.

Thanks for the link, granny.

BUMP-TO-THE-TRUTH!

[nw_arizona_granny]

You are welcome.

I would say the missing link is Russia and the KGB, it was involved with all of them.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks pgalt.

according to a U.S. official familiar with the report... and others [who] spoke to McClatchy on condition of anonymity because the study isn't due to be shared with Congress and released before Wednesday.

The "others" who spoke weren't familiar with the report, and of course none of them will ever have to be named because they're anonymous.

[Wuli]

the most factual and truthful statement that could have been said about the specific documents and the ‘analysis’ of them would have been

‘the regime of saddam hussein did not leave a paper trail of their contacts and points of cooperation with osama bin laden and al queda’

whereupon, we should say: no kidding sherlock