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.
“Most of the remaining population is willing to tolerat AQ’s killing of occupation forces.”
That is not what the reports are saying. The reports are saying that the Iraqis are fed up with having their family members killed and are killing, arresting or turning in Al Quaeda to coalition forces.
The Iraqis don’t want US troops killed any more than they want their families killed by AQ.
I’ve always thought the Saddam-to-AQ link sounded weak. Plenty of other terror support from that waste of human flesh, but there has always been zero chance that the MSM would report it.
IMHO Bush’s greatest mistake regarding Iraq, one that has wound up doing great damage to his entire presidency, was that he jacked around with the (useless and worthless) UN long enough that Saddam was able to whisk all his WMD-related materiel into Syria.
MM (in TX)
pan-islamist and pan-arabist are not the same thing, for what it’s worth.
both clintons are of impeccable integrity?
harharharharharhahrhahr!!!!!!!
—What about the Weimar Republic was bad? Seems to me our republic had a little trouble in 1861—
Yes, but the United States kept its troubles at home, and at the end our constitutional republic survived intact. We didn’t start a world war that killed over 50 million people, attempt to conquer Europe from the Pyrenees mountains to the Moscow suburbs, kill 6 million Jews, and, when it was over, allow the spread of Soviet Communism that would kill over 100,000 more Americans in Korea and Vietnam. The Weimar Republic was an abortion; it was bound to fail. The only question is whether it would go Communist or fascist. If the US was able to keep out of the Great War, it would have been fought to a standstill. Europe would have been stable, and the horrors of 1939-1945 (and the Cold War) would not have happened. The Weimar Republic was to governments what the Yugo was to automobiles.
Was this the same US intelligence that blew the call on WMDs, that allowed Bush to ebellish? Good thing they were right on the facts that support your stance on things, huh?
I remember that at the time this fairy tale was used to quite effectively to scare conservatives into believing that the war somehow related to national defense rather than the truth that it was a Wilsonisan crusade.
The facts prove out that Hussein was working to undermine US security, both in the US and abroad; involvement in the 1993 WTC bombing and sponsorship of regional and worldwide terrorism. Anyone who says otherwise in intellectually dishonest.
It’s so predictable how the left is all too thrilled to say this report is truth, when in the past, the disavowed most anything that came out from the military.
Hundreds of thousands of innocent Vietnamese were murdered. Then Cambodia fell to the communists and millions of innocent people were murdered. This is the model advanced, perhaps unwittingly, by you and others for for Southwest Asia.
It was a mistake to abandon South Vietnam. It would have been better to have had a continued presence, as we do in Japan, Germany, and South Korea.
Abandoning our allies in Iraq would be a mistake also. Don't allow yourself to be misled by the America haters, they don't have our interests at heart.
Good point. Perhaps the conflicting claims can be reconciled by focusing on the word “operational.”
American forces and many Sunni tribes are working together to defeat Al Qaeda in Iraq. But neither side exerts operational control over the other. We do not give, or receive, orders; that would be operational control. We work together to achieve some common objectives. Compelling evidence for operational ties do not exist.
I think it was the same way with Saddam and and a variety of terrorist organizations, to include Al Qaeda. He worked with the terrorists, they worked with him. Neither side ordered the other around. They merely worked together against America and our allies.
Worth the read about when al-Zarqawi came to Iraq. Remember that they 9al-Qaeda) planned the assassination of Diplomat Foley in Jordan from a base camp in Iraq before the Iraq war.
Al Qaeda Plans Terrorist Attack in Chemical Weapons against Jordan
Viet Nam is now the garden spot of Southeast Asia. Americans travel there on cruise ships and by air to play on their fine golf courses, to vacation at their resorts, and to sample their excellent cuisine. American companies do billions of dollars of business with the Vietnamese.
The same could be true of Cuba if only our political leaders would wake up to reality and stop pandering to the R party hatemongers.
My, how carefully those excusing the mistakes of R leaders must now parse their words to avoid accusations of outright falsehood.
One must, when dealing w/libs...but you'd know all about that, right MM?
I don't know if that is true. To the extend that Vietnam is no longer a prison state, thank Ronald Reagan and George Bush for their victory over the Soviet Union. How's Cambodia doing today? Another garden spot? Perhaps you credit Pol Pot for all the bodies that push up daisies.
The communists murdered millions of people across Vietnam and Cambodia. I mentioned this before but apparently you don't care. It only happened because the Congress elected in 1974 abandoned our allies, giving the communists the green light to resume the war. You want to repeat that mistake today.
There are journalist and Democrats that are very aware of multiple documents connecting Saddam to terrorism and links to al Qaeda.
These journalists know who they are and don't mind committing treason against their country.
We will expose them soon
post #196 also meant for all
You fool, communism is supposed to be such a paradise for your kind but somehow it can’t survive without begging for investment and spending from evil capitalists. Cuba and Vietnam should be thriving without any outside help according to leftist dimwits, yet you whine that Cuba is embargoed by the USA. Leftists should celebrate the embargo and demand that it continue in perpetuity..... or did you forget that Castro came to power railing against America, capitalism, and prostitution...... well now he has created a record number of prostitutes, but they “work” for a few dollars instead of the big bucks that Eliot Spitzer’s gals make......
Can you imagine what type of mischief Saddam Hussein and his oil money would be conducting right now, had we not taken him out when we did.
Hussein already was a hero and substantial influence among the radical Jihadist groups in the MidEast and elsewhere in the months and years following the 9/11 attacks on the WTC and Pentagon.
If President Bush had not acted with force in "draining the swamp" as they said at the time... then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Iran, Darfuhr, sections of Pakistan and other radical countries would be celebrating with glee at the thought that "paper tiger" America was too scared to act in the wake of terror attacks.
Libya’s rapid dissembling of its nuclear weapon manufacturing centers following the invasion of Iraq by the U. S. (and subsequently even shipping this equipment to the U. S.!) was indeed a huge gain - and huge victory. Too easily forgotten.
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