Posted on 03/11/2008 5:56:52 AM PDT by jdm
A new study commissioned by the Pentagon has reviewed over 600,000 documents captured in the invasion of Iraq, and the analysis shows no evidence of operational ties between Saddam Hussein’s regime and al-Qaeda. It did find operational ties and more between Saddam and other terrorist groups, however, which will likely be lost in an avalanche of I-told-you-sos:
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 Newspapers. 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.
The study found, though, that Saddam Hussein turned Iraq into a state sponsor of terrorism, including for groups with “global” scope. Saddam had openly bragged about some of his activities. He made a great show of paying $25,000 to families of Palestinian suicide bombers, for instance, and at one point held a convention for international terrorists in Baghdad.
McClatchy reporter Warren Strobel also includes a strange passage in this report:
As recently as last July, Bush tried to tie al-Qaida to the ongoing violence in Iraq.
“The same people that attacked us on September the 11th is a crowd that is now bombing people, killing innocent men, women and children, many of whom are Muslims,” the president said.
That has little to do with pre-war intelligence. Not too many people dispute that AQ has an active presence in Iraq in the post-invasion period, mostly because AQ keeps reminding people of it. The argument which the Pentagon report addresses is whether AQ existed in Iraq before we invaded, or whether they entered Iraq as a consequence of the invasion. Clearly, the Pentagon report believes it to be the latter.
As this report makes clear, though, Saddam sponsored terrorist groups outside of Iraq as well as conducted terror inside Iraq with his own security forces. He made himself into a malevolent force in the region, and he represented a threat to American and Western interests in the region. Had we let the sanctions regime collapse — which was what was happening when we invaded — Saddam would have restarted his WMD programs and would have continued in his ambitions to make himself the leader of a unified and hostile Arab state.
He attacked US planes in the no-fly zones and even offered $14,000 for anyone who could bring down a US plane. Al-Zaraqwi and other al-Qaeda members setup camp in Iraq after Afghanistan fell to the coalition forces and from Iraq planned the assassination of US diplomat Foley in Jordan. They carried out that assassination in October of 2002 and fled back to Iraq.
He NEVER ONCE honored the armistice agreement -- game over!
He also violated the 1991 treaty numerous times, which is reason enough.
However, I'm not buying that Saddam didn't have links to al Qaeda.
How many Afghanis were on those planes?
Bonus Question: a) How many airliners used to train in weaponless hijackings did we find in terrorist training camps in Afghanistan? b) How many such planes did we find in terrorist training camps in Iraq?
Where he lived in an apartment provided by Saddam Hussein, on a salary paid by Saddam Hussein.
No "operational ties" there... just an act of charity and goodwill to a homeless man from the benevolent, secular-humanist dictator.
And if you ever read Osama Bin Ladens infamous 1998 fatwa calling for the slaughter of all Americans he justifies it in part in the name of Iraq. He spends 20% of that fatwa on Iraq.
Osama's 1998 Fatwa calling for the Slaughter of Americans in the name of Iraq
bs
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1983988/posts
Clinton first linked al Qaeda to Saddam
THE WASHINGTON TIMES ^ | Published June 25, 2004 | By Rowan Scarborough
Posted on 03/11/2008 12:22:16 PM PDT by newbie2008
The Clinton administration talked about firm evidence linking Saddam Hussein’s regime to Osama bin Laden’s al Qaeda network years before President Bush made the same statements. The issue arose again this month after the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States reported there was no “collaborative relationship” between the old Iraqi regime and bin Laden. Democrats have cited the staff report to accuse Mr. Bush of making inaccurate statements about a linkage. Commission members, including a Democrat and two Republicans, quickly came to the administration’s defense by saying there had been such contacts. In fact, during President Clinton’s eight years in office, there were at least two official pronouncements of an alarming alliance between Baghdad and al Qaeda. One came from William S. Cohen, Mr. Clinton’s defense secretary. He cited an al Qaeda-Baghdad link to justify the bombing of a pharmaceutical plant in Sudan.
So you admit they are there!!! Good girl
But, but, but... I thought Osama HATED "secular" Saddam? How can that be?
I am not aware of any lie by either Hillary or Bill Clinton. Both Clintons are of impeccable integrity and it is despicable to compare either of them to Bush, who is a complete stranger to truth about Iraq, the unemployment rate, Social Security, Bush's military service, and other issues of importance to me and other Americans.
Okay, now you’re just going for yucks. Try a lampshade on the head or something more subtle.
"More than 600,000 Iraqi children have died due to lack of food and medicine and as a result of the unjustifiable aggression (sanction) imposed on Iraq and its nation. The children of Iraq are our children. You, the USA, together with the Saudi regime are responsible for the shedding of the blood of these innocent children. Due to all of that, what ever treaty you have with our country is now null and void."
"CLINTON: Good evening.
Earlier today, I ordered America's armed forces to strike military and security targets in Iraq. They are joined by British forces. Their mission is to attack Iraq's nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programs and its military capacity to threaten its neighbors.
The hard fact is that so long as Saddam remains in power, he threatens the well-being of his people, the peace of his region, the security of the world.
The best way to end that threat once and for all is with a new Iraqi government -- a government ready to live in peace with its neighbors, a government that respects the rights of its people."
President Clinton
Oval Office Address to the American People
December 16, 1998
http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/stories/1998/12/16/transcripts/clinton.html
I can feel the trolls slowly backing away from this thread. Hard facts will do that.
Oh good grief, not more of this crap.
I’m getting sick and tired of the endless debates over whether we were right or wrong to go to war with Iraq. None of it’s going to change the fact that our soldiers are still over there and we have an obligation to the Iraqi people to leave their country in capable hands.
Honestly, who among us gives a flip why we invaded anyway? I don’t care and I’m willing to be that the soldiers over there don’t care either. All we’re doing is wasting time and distracting ourselves from the important task that still remains.
And to the inevitable “We told you so’s” that are to come; WE DON’T CARE! And frankly, only an idiot would say the world isn’t better off with one less murderous tyrant to worry about.
No liberal moonbat can logically and coherently address post #154. As you say, they just disappear at this juncture. They are pathetic and dumb as rocks to boot!
ha ha ha..... oh, MurryMom, so nice to see you here again! I think we can ask Eliot Spitzer to vouch for the “integrity” of both Clintonistas, since he knows so well what integrity means to Demagogues. btw, were you involved in running that prostitution ring that “Governor” Spitzer found so enticing?
Thanks for the laughs. Everything that W said about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq was also said by both clintons (along with almost every other democrat "leader") numerous times from 1998 to 2002. As for the unemployment rate, Bush can only quote the rates published by the Bureau of Labor Statitistics, which confirms the fact that throughout his presidency Bush has seen unemployment rates at or below the unemployment rates enjoyed for most of the prosperous glory days of the the clinton administration. If you are interested, at the US Department of Labor Bureau of Labor Statistics Home Page you can find that the latest available Unemployment rate figures are as follows: February 2008 - 4.8%, Annual Average Rate for 2007 - 4.6%
As for social security, Bush is the only one who has been honest enough to point out that the social security program will fall apart sometime in the next generation and if we wait until then to fix it, we will have waited too late; bill and hillary have consistently lied about the severity of the social security crisis and what it will take to fix it.
bill and hillary are such congenital liars that I doubt that either one of them even has the capacity to tell whether or not they are telling the truth on any subject.
A snippet from a Statement by the President, Feb. 6, 2003:
The Iraqi regime has acquired and tested the means to deliver weapons of mass destruction. All the world has now seen the footage of an Iraqi Mirage aircraft with a fuel tank modified to spray biological agents over wide areas. Iraq has developed spray devices that could be used on unmanned aerial vehicles with ranges far beyond what is permitted by the Security Council. A UAV launched from a vessel off the American coast could reach hundreds of miles inland.Those are, of course, non-operational ties he's referring to.Iraq has never accounted for thousands of bombs and shells capable of delivering chemical weapons. The regime is actively pursuing components for prohibited ballistic missiles. And we have sources that tell us that Saddam Hussein recently authorized Iraqi field commanders to use chemical weapons -- the very weapons the dictator tells the world he does not have.
One of the greatest dangers we face is that weapons of mass destruction might be passed to terrorists, who would not hesitate to use those weapons. Saddam Hussein has longstanding, direct and continuing ties to terrorist networks. Senior members of Iraqi intelligence and al Qaeda have met at least eight times since the early 1990s. Iraq has sent bomb-making and document forgery experts to work with al Qaeda. Iraq has also provided al Qaeda with chemical and biological weapons training.
We also know that Iraq is harboring a terrorist network, headed by a senior al Qaeda terrorist planner. The network runs a poison and explosive training center in northeast Iraq, and many of its leaders are known to be in Baghdad. The head of this network traveled to Baghdad for medical treatment and stayed for months. Nearly two dozen associates joined him there and have been operating in Baghdad for more than eight months.
Aren't we glad McCain only speaks the truth, all the time?
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