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.
PING
Murrymom is our pet liberal. She didn’t need the sarcasm tag, she’s a truther.
And a “stockpile” of chemical weapons getting older is not nearly as much a threat as “capacity to produce” a fresh batch of chem weapons. Saddam didn't have “stockpiles” but he definitely had the capacity to produce, the recipe on hand, and the plan to start up production when the UN left.
The perfumed princes are at it again.
1999 AP Flashback: Saddam has offered asylum to bin Laden
Where are the documents showing Saddam going AFTER Al Qaeda? That is the Left’s excuse, that Saddam “knew how” to shut down the terrorists in Iraq.
So where is the evidence of it?
Or was it a terror campaign where he cut off suspected political prisoners hands and raped and disembowled their wives in front of them at Abu Ghraib and that harshness was sufficient to keep the acts of terrorism down?
Which is it?
Really? How many were in the World Trade Center...oh thats right, it was an inside job by the stupidest President that ever brilliantly stole an election.
This is ‘The War on Terror’. It is NOT the ‘War on Al-Qaeda’, and it is not ‘The War to Avenge 9/11.’ Never has been.
MurryMom
Whether or not what you are saying is true—and I reserve judgment on that—you are in the same position here as someone preaching Lutheranism in 16th century Spain. Prepare to be “flamed” at the stake.
see post #65
Saddam's history, and the preponderance of evidence that he had WMD’s, and could pass these on to Islamic Jihadist surrogates, made his removal absolutely necessary.
The U. S. has removed now two of the world's most dangerous regimes: Al Queda in Afghanistan and Saddam Hussein in Iraq.
The does not minimize the problems that remain; but these problems are being gradually solved - as is evident from the feverish, and increasingly dispirited, attempt by Al Queda and regional tyrants to prevent this.
BINGO! That should have been all there was to it! Game over! And he was attacking the USA during this period by firing upon both British and American planes patrolling the No-Fly Zones.
A US-occupied Iraq puts a real crimp in the plans of Iran, Syria and rest of the bad guys.
"Fairy tale?" What are you smokin? There were hundreds of reports of al-Qaeda in Iraq, including many of the guys who actually ESCORTED them around Iraq. Course, can't believe them. They're Iraqis. The intel links that there were al-Qaeda (not just terrorists, which NO ONE denies, except maybe a kook like Ron Paul), are so numerous they couldn't be posted on a page. Stephen Hayes has documented these beyond debate.
The problem with those who disparage a "Wilsonian Crusade" is that they fear it may actually work.
That “enemy” of AQ not only allowed his top chemical guy to consort with AQ and teach them how to build chem/bio weapons, but AQ leadership was escorted around Iraq at Saddam’s request, according to one of the security guards who did the escorting. Iraq had plenty of AQ and the Supreme Dictator, who managed to assassinate anyone who disagreed with him in any way, seemed to “not notice” them for a decade.
Hi MurryMom. Long Time No Hear From.
You liberals love to use the "Bush lied" line, but I think that you really understand that it is not true. You never seem to be able to point to any particular lie. If you're talking about the WMD, then I guess by extension you are also acknowledging that clinton lied, and hillary lied, and algore lied, and Daschle lied, and Kennedy lied, and EVERY SINGLE DEMOCRAT LEADER from 1998 to 2002 lied when they made the exact same comments about Saddam Hussein and his WMD programs, his support/sponsorship of international terrorism, the threat that he posed to the region, and the need for regime change in Iraq (an official state policy of the US implemented by clinton but never acted upon). On the other hand, if you're talking about some imagined claim that Bush/Cheney accused Iraq/Hussein in being involved in 9/11, I believe you are not so ignorant or delusional as to actually believe the lie that either one of them ever claimed that Hussein was behind the 9/11 attacks. The bottom line is this: In spite of the banality of many of your posts, I sincerely believe that you are too intelligent to have actually been taken in by the whole "Bush lied..." canards of the left, and you know full well that the "Bush lied..." line is a complete and utter falsehood. So when you knowingly spout the "Bush lied..." nonsense, fully aware that it is not true, what does that make you?
Bush, Cheney et. al. were all pretty clear: they were not just going after those who had already attacked us, but trying to prevent the next attack! Remember all the “Bush didn’t connect the dots” criticism he received after 9/11?
Too many people have never read the Iraq War resolution. It’s very instructive.
The idea was that we could no longer give our enemies “one free shot” before dealing with threats. And I’m sure that actually ENFORCING the terms of the Gulf War cease-fire, rather than ignoring them like Clinton did, was deemed necessary to show the world that America can and will follow through.
One may argue with the idea of “pre-emption,” but this whole “Iraq didn’t attack us” line of criticism seems to assume that the Bush administration said it did - something the President and others were very careful NOT to say.
Does Iran have ties to AQ? How about Chavez and venezuela?
A terrorist, is a terrorist, no matter which group they are supporting. Saddam Hussein needed to go. So do the others.
Paging j, paging jveritas!
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