....and a 'toon also...
marked
....and a 'toon also...
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Related Major threads:
al-Qaeda’s Zawahiri And Saddam Hussein Were Planning Attacks After 9-11
AND
Kurdish Paper: Cooperation Between Saddam Regime, Al-Qaeda (2002 letter from the Iraqi presidency )
Prior to 9/11, Al Qaeda attacked the U.S. at home and abroad repeatedly.
Since 9/11, Al Qaeda has not attacked inside the U.S.; it has not attacked a U.S. embassy anywhere in the world, and it has not attacked a U.S. military facility.
Yet Osama bin Laden is still alive and free. Ayman al-Zawahiri is still alive and free.
What has changed?
SADDAM HUSSEIN IS DEAD. His regime is gone.
February 10, 2007
A Trip Down Memory Lane
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Video at the Link
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The current flap over the Pentagon Inspector General's report on Douglas Feith's Office of Special Plans has embarrassed the Associated Press, the Washington Post and, if he has any shame, the Inspector General. The controversy does have the merit, though, of raising once again the issue of the relationship between Saddam's Iraq and al Qaeda and other terrorists.
The Inspector General said it was "inappropriate" for Feith's group to question the wisdom of the CIA's dogma that Saddam Hussein, a "secularist," would never cooperate with bin Laden or other Islamic terrorists. There was a time, though, when the likelihood of such collaboration was widely reported and understood. Thus, courtesy of Power Line Video, we are rescuing from the memory hole this ABC News report from 2000.
If you have a web site, feel free to use the "get code" button to reproduce the video on your site.
UPDATE: Tom Joscelyn writes:
The original ABC News report you linked to was from January 1999, I believe, and not 2000. The report was similar to numerous accounts in the worldwide press following Operation Desert Fox. That Clinton-ordered air campaign lasted from December 16 to December 19, 1998. Its purpose was to degrade Saddam's WMD and intelligence capabilities. Reports from more recent years indicate that the campaign nearly plunged Saddam's regime into chaos.In any event, Saddam's response was telling. Just two days after Operation Desert Fox ended he dispatched one of his top intelligence operatives, Faruq Hijazi, to Afghanistan to meet with bin Laden. As I and others have written, Hijazi was no low-level flunky. He was one of Saddam's most trusted goons and was responsible for overseeing a good deal of the regime's terrorist and other covert activities. It was this meeting that led to widespread reporting on the relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda. I collected a bunch of these reports, including the ABC News report, in "The Four-Day War." Another, earlier piece also discusses Saddam's conspicuous response to Operation Desert Fox.
The consensus in the media then was that there was a relationship between the two and that Saddam's regime was very willing to work with al Qaeda against their common foe: America. And vice versa. Indeed, the reporting indicated that they had been working together even long before Operation Desert Fox.
The reports from late 1998 and early 1999 are tough for naysayers to explain away for a variety of reasons, but that hasn't stopped them from trying. For example, last year's Senate Intelligence Report on Iraq's ties to al Qaeda (the report was written, primarily, by a former John Kerry for President campaigner) unhesitatingly cited Hijazi's testimony, in which he claimed that he did not meet with bin Laden again after a lone incident in the mid 1990's. The Senate Intelligence report did not cite any of the voluminous reporting, by ABC News and other outlets, following the meeting in December 1998. Obviously, that reporting demonstrates Hijazi is a liar. I asked the Senate Intelligence Committee's staff about this after the report came out. They said they didn't have any evidence that contradicted Hijazi's testimony and that is why they cited it unquestioningly. I think that is a good demonstration of the ignorance or bias or both that clouds this issue.
Of course, at the same time that the worldwide media was reporting all of this, various CIA and National Security Council officials were watching as well. Thus, Richard Clarke worried in February 1999 about bin Laden's possible "boogie to Baghdad." A month earlier he defended intelligence tying Saddam's VX nerve gas program to a suspected al Qaeda front company in Sudan. Michael Scheuer also at one time found it convenient to cite some of this evidence. In his original 2002 edition of Through Our Enemies' Eyes he approvingly cited several of the media's late 1998/early 1999 accounts. Of course, they both now pretend none of this really means anything.
Such is the state of affairs in today's Washington establishment.
To comment on this post, go here.
News Flashback 1998. Why is Bush being persecuted for doing what Clinton said must be done? If Clinton followed through, he would be the hero of the ages.
Tacoma News Tribune December, 20th 1998
U.S. and Britain halt air strikes against Iraq
Citing ‘significant damage’ Clinton says Saddam must be ousted to avoid future threats
BAGHDAD, Iraq - President Clinton ended the air strike campaign against Iraq on Saturday saying “I’m confident we have achieved our mission.” Yet despite suffering more than 400 punishing bomb and missile strikes over four nights, Saddam Hussein’s government remained defiant and said it will bar any return of U.N. inspectors to the country.
Snip -
In blunt language, Clinton called for the ouster of the Iraq leader. “So long as Saddam remains in power, he will remain a threat to his people, his region and the world.”
excerpt.....
And oh by the way I saved this paper and have it at my desk, because of the front page headline, “Clinton Impeached”
ping
self bump
WSJ: Saddam-terrorist connections get no media coverage
Hot Air ^ | March 24, 2008 | Ed Morrissey
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Posted on Mon 24 Mar 2008 03:07:02 PM PDT by Ernest_at_the_Beach
The Wall Street Journal’s editors took the time to read the Pentagon report on the connections between Saddam Hussein and terrorist groups, and wonder why the national media have ignored the story. The analysis of the Harmony documents got initially misreported, and after the Pentagon released the full analysis, few if any news agencies opted to correct the initial distortions they published — and the WSJ says that leaves Americans misinformed:
Five years on, few Iraq myths are as persistent as the notion that the Bush Administration invented a connection between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda. Yet a new Pentagon report suggests that Iraq’s links to world-wide terror networks, including al Qaeda, were far more extensive than previously understood.
Naturally, it’s getting little or no attention. Press accounts have been misleading or outright distortions, while the Bush Administration seems indifferent. Even John McCain has let the study’s revelations float by. But that doesn’t make the facts any less notable or true.
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We covered the misrepresentations earlier in these posts. In one, I used the title that should have been used to headline this story: “Saddam supported at least two al-Qaeda groups”. That was the lede that the American media buried, thanks to a distortion that came from an anonymous Pentagon source that took one sentence from the executive summary out of context and a curious reluctance to address the actual evidence that the report highlights.
The Journal wonders what the media needs to report this story correctly.
(Excerpt) Read more at hotair.com ...
bttt
1999,... hmmmmmm.... and which political party held the White House and thought they were a shoe in for a win in the next elections??????? Oh yea! The RATS!
So it seems ABC has forgotten what they had to say about the Butcher of Baghad prior to the invasion.
thanks, bfl