Saddam had “no operational ties” to AQ: Pentagon

Hot Air ^ | March 11, 2008 | by Ed Morrissey

[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.

[Getsmart64]

You’re still here? Guess they keep you around as a play toy eh?

[anglian]

The Fall 2004 Duelfer report concluded that Saddam had intended to reconstitute his WMD program after sanctions were lifted, and desired to maintain the expertise necessary to do so. And it is still fair to ask, if Saddam was not trying to acquire WMDs, what was he doing? The Duelfer report notes the following changes in Iraq's Military Industrialization Commission (MIC), Saddam's secret organization in charge of WMD development, in the years leading up to the war:

Between 1996 and 2002, the overall MIC budget increased over forty-fold from ID 15.5 billion to ID 700 billion. By 2003 it had grown to ID 1 trillion. MIC's hard currency allocations in 2002 amounted to approximately $364 million. MIC sponsorship of technical research projects at Iraqi universities skyrocketed from about 40 projects in 1997 to 3,200 in 2002. MIC workforce expanded by fifty percent in three years, from 42,000 employees in 1999 to 63,000 in 2002.

So the MIC enjoyed a budget increase from fifteen billion to one trillion Dinars over seven years for nothing? MIC technical research projects increased 80-fold for no particular reason? Then there was the very well-chronicled systematic deception campaign that U.N. inspectors encountered every time they went into Iraq. In more than one case inspectors would pull up to a site and be halted; surveillance would pick up vehicles being loaded in the back and hurrying away; inspectors would then be allowed in. What was being carted away so quickly? If nothing was there, what was going on? One theory behind the deception campaign was that it was itself a deception — it was not so much that Saddam had something to hide, but rather he wanted to make us think he had something to hide in order to deter us from attacking him. That rationale was clearly too clever by half if true, at least judging by the results. (It is better to act like North Korea and say you have nuclear weapons whether you do or not.)

But I don't buy that explanation. The deception campaign was too systematic, too thorough, in ways that went well beyond what would be necessary simply to generate suspicion. This activity continued during and after the war when it would make no difference. One case in point — an exploitation team went to check out an apartment in an otherwise unexceptional residential area that was allegedly being used as a WMD site. They arrived to find the apartment stripped. The floor tiles were missing, the walls cleaned, the plumbing fixtures gone, the pipes under the floors ripped out. This was not the result of looting — the apartment had been sanitized, disinfected. How many such sites could there have been in Iraq? Were they all found and checked? Strains of biological organisms that could be weaponized were found in a scientist's home refrigerator — how much such dispersal took place? Not to mention allegations that critical nuclear and chemical program components were taken to Syria, Iran, or Russia. http://www.nationalreview.com/robbins/robbins200504010813.asp

[paleorite]

—The problem with those who disparage a “Wilsonian Crusade” is that they fear it may actually work.—

Those who disparage “Wilsonian Crusades” do so because they drag nations into expensive messes from which they have a hard time extricating themselves. They also have a lousy success rate. The first Wilsonian Crusade made the world safe for Nazism and—later—Stalinism. Talk about blowback on steroids.

[Lucky9teen]

Who cares? Saddam was a dictator who killed thousands of innocent people, and he needed to be taken down. There’s nothing anyone can say that will make me care what was or was not found to tie Al-Q with Iraq or Saddam.

Good for Bush to take him down!!!

[paleorite]

—Who cares? Saddam was a dictator who killed thousands of innocent people, and he needed to be taken down.—

So every time some third world tribal nutcase acts up and murders his own people we should intervene? See you in Darfur.

[GEC]

Has jveritas seen this?

[SeaHawkFan]

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.

Headline should read "Saddam Sponsored Terrorist Groups".

[RetiredArmy]

Okay. With draw the troops. Apologize for the invasion. Put Saddam back in power. Oh, wait, he's dead. Never mind, put one of his son's in power. Oh, crap, their dead also. Never mind. Now in sports, the Rockets won their 99th consecutive game. Weather with Julie soon.

[WhistlingPastTheGraveyard]

Saddam was a thug, but a secular one.

A Sunni "secular" thug who added the words "Allah Akbar" written in his own hand to the Iraqi flag, sent Ba'ath Party officials to mandatory Islamic universities (built by Saddam), ordered an official state broadcast of the daily call to prayer, constructed a "Mother of All Battles" mosque in Baghdad, hosted Islamists terrorists at the most technologically advanced terrorist training camp ever discovered by American forces (Salman Pak, where he had a palace so he could oversee the camp's activities), permitted al Qaeda affiliate Ansar al Islam to operate with impugnity in the north, provided housing and a salary to 1993 WTC bomber Abdul Rahman Yasin, provided safe harbor, medical treatment and free reign to plot a terrorist insurgency to senior AQ operative Abu Musab al Zarqawi. The same Saddam who offered Osama bin Laden asylum in 1999, and provided chemical weapons training for al Qaeda members in Sudan as late as 1998.

And the Sunni Saddam was such a fierce opponent of Sunni al Qaeda that they never even attempted a single attack on his regime or his interests. Not once. Not ever.

If Americans are dumb enough to believe this idiotic, demonstrable lie, we deserve to lose this war.

[AllseeingEye33]

If what you say is true, why do our borders remain wide open for terrorists to flood our country.

[varyouga]

I don’t believe in the Gulf War I and II idea.

I just see it as a continuous military operation that started when he invaded Kuwait. We never really left Iraq since then.

Saddam never fully complied with the terms of his surrender(no fly zones, WMD inspections, etc) so we ended the war in 2003.

[r-q-tek86]

ping

[Mad_Tom_Rackham]

Yeah, he went home evry night and pet his dog, played with his kids, kissed his wife, and had an adult beverage, just like everybody else.

[varyouga]

Not every nutcase invades a country, launches random missiles at civilians and then thumbs his nose for 10+ years at the world while killing even more people. All this while the UN and rest of the world did nothing and Saddam lived in luxury.

See my post 91

[LS]

This one seems to be working pretty damn well-—and I think that’s the fear around here in some quarters. Afghanistan? Neutralized. Iraq? A democracy on its way to becoming stable. Libya? Got the message. Yep. Pretty good. As for Wilson, not my favorite guy, but the Weimar Republic was a good idea, and certainly not much different from modern Germany.

[Raycpa]

Hypothetical:

Two members of separate gangs want to kill your family. One of those members manages to kill a member of your family. The other gang member continues to threaten the family.

Why in the world would you care if the two gang members ever had tea together?

[RightOnTheLeftCoast]

So what? Saddam had non-operational ties, supportive ties, physical ties, to AQ and other terrorists, for whom he provided safe harbor, weapons and funding. And y’know what: none of that matters, because the blunt fact is that he was in violation of the 1991 terms of armistice and umpteen UN resolutions. Regime change was the policy of the US since 1998. Bush just acted instead of bloviating and kicking the can down the road for the next President to deal with as his predecessor did. Tens of millions of Iraqis are free as a result.

[varyouga]

Why in the world would you care if the two gang members ever had tea together?

Because people just don't like being lied to. No-matter what the purpose.

There were enough reasons to take out Saddam without the shaky intelligence. See my posts 91-95

[RightOnTheLeftCoast]

"The only reason AQ still has any presence in a few provinces is that they are attracted by American soldiers."

[varyouga]

Yep. Iraq is like a ‘woodstock’ for Muslim fanatics.

Instead of attacking us here or killing civilians in other nations, they go up against the US military and usually fail miserably.