Why did Blair omit the link between Saddam and Al Qaeda from his final draft?

free republic ^

[epluribus_2]

Remember this link?

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/750766/posts

...The Sunday Telegraph said a draft version of the dossier contains detailed information on how two alleged leading al Qaeda members, Abu Zubair and Rafid Fatah, underwent training in Iraq and are still linked to the Baghdad government...

[epluribus_2]

Is there some reason this was omitted? It was in the first drafts, according to UK sources. The president (but not the VP) has been rather quiet about these links. Yesterday the links back to WTC I resurfaced here. Is Bush holding this fire until he sees the whites of the UN eyes? Congresses? It seems to me that that link would be the coup-de-grace for W to get the approvals he is seeking. When will we hear more. WHEN!

[MJY1288]

GWB hasn't shown his hand yet, When the time is right (After enough RATS show their hand) he will drop the hammer

[Mixer]

Check this link out for the funniest Typo seen in a long time.

http://www.bday.co.za/bday/content/direct/1,3523,1184147-6078-0,00.html

[elfman2]

I think it's because once we disclose that link, all doubt of our resolve and our destination is removed. Iraq will be free to strike back preemptively rather than vacillate between playing the victim and the tiger you don't want to poke with a stick. Also, no mater what we have, in a few months an attack on its validity will have an effect, and people will question why we're going to war over this "old news".

[maquiladora]

Hmmmmm...

maybe because the newspaper lied?!!!

Shock horror! A newspaper thats lies! Gasp!

[epluribus_2]

maybe - but then they would not be believed if found out. Newspapers sometimes do lie, on request, though.

[texasbluebell]

Is there some reason this was omitted?

On Fox just now, the news reader was saying that there is some information that cannot be released at all, due to security reasons, probably because it would expose some of their operatives in the field, or something along those lines.

[mitchbert]

I think your coments are right on...I was thinking this this morning when watching the news and CNN was making a big deal about the omissions.

If Blair and GWB know for a fact that Saddam has a nuke the last thing they would want to do is let him know that we know. At that point he will have no doubt we'll come after him and he could decide to "use it or lose it," perhaps on Israel. If he actually does have a working weapon (or is close) it will be one or at the most very few, unless he has a trainload of stolen Soviet nukes (highly unlikely). If a madman like Saddam has only one weapon, he's going to want to make sure that it inflicts the biggest bang for the buck, either by hitting Israel or trying to smuggle it to the U.S. or Britain. I don't think he'd save them for U.S. troops...he'd kill a lot of troops potentially but in the end it would just ensure his total destruction happened even quicker.

Bush and Blair are right to keep their highest trump cards close to their chest (and I do believe there's much more we haven't been told) until their fingers are on the trigger and the hammer is cocked. Any other approach could be extremely dangereous and destabilizing.

JMO.

[EternalHope]

This is an extremely good catch.

You can be sure it was left out for a reason. I can think of at least three:

1. It was considered too weak to include, or is being saved as a trump card for use later.
1a. If it is being saved, why? What could possibly be more important than securing political support for this war?

2. It would have revealed an information source that we do not want revealed in order to protect the source.
2a. Maybe. We certainly know a lot more than was in Tony's paper. (Apparently nothing new was revealed. I cannot believe we know nothing more than was already public.)

3. It is not going to be released unless/until we are actually attacked with WMD.
3b. Explaining the link with Al Qaida could make it easy to connect the dots: Saddam has really bad stuff. He has the means to use it against us. It is ready to go whenever he gives the word.

Do our leaders fear this knowledge would lead to panic?

I'll answer my own question:
My personal guess is that weapons of mass destruction have been pre-positioned in all major western nations, and that the leadership in each nation knows it. Germany and France have already signaled their surrender.

Our leaders hope to prevent its use, but fear what might happen if the public finds out the true situation. The resulting panic could be worse than the actual use of the weapons themselves.

What would it do to our nation if all the people living in New York and Washington DC suddenly decided their lives were in danger if they stayed? What if that extended to London, Paris, Bonn, etc.?

BTW: The usual Freeper answer to the pre-positioned WMD concept is that if Al Qaida had them, they would have used them by now. I agree. That is strong evidence that control of these weapons is not with Al Qaida.

I believe it is much more likely that Iraq has kept control of these weapons, thus keeping Saddam in control of when they are used. All he has to do to ensure their use is to let the right people know where they are. The actual perps would be Islamic fanatics who could not be detered by any rational means.

[bluewater bird]

Good catch!! LOL

[Mitchell]

We're trying to establish a new regimen of pre-emption, not implementing a simple retaliation for past events. I don't see why anybody is expecting concrete evidence of connections between Iraq and al-Qaeda, which would be tantamount to claiming that Iraq is at least partly responsible for 9/11 and/or the anthrax mailings. Revealing such proof (if it even exists) and then retaliating would be a counterproductive policy mistake at this date, unless it is absolutely needed to garner domestic political support for war (which I doubt).

Here's why. First of all, while it might get rid of Iraq as a threat, it would do nothing to add to our strategic position. After all, what would it tell people? Not that we would retaliate for an attack on New York and Washington; everybody already knows that.

In fact, what it would tell the rest of the world is that we waited more than a year to retaliate. This would tell them that we were very unsure whether we were willing to go to war and that we were waiting until we had absolute proof of the identity of the attacker.

Either way, this would suggest to others that another sneak attack might succeed. After all, they would say to themselves, our resolve is weak, and that a real sneak attack might succeed if it were carried out by someone who didn't stick out like a sore thumb the way Iraq does.

From this perspective, Pres. Bush and Prime Minister Blair are following a correct course of action. They're inaugurating a policy of pre-emption. In order for the attack on Iraq to carry this message, the rationale must be one of pre-emption, not one of retaliation for past deeds. We want others in the world to get the message that they had better not start to develop WMD or they'll suffer the same fate as Iraq.

I do not know whether Iraq is complicit in the anthrax mailings and/or 9/11. Our leadership may not know either. (They may have their suspicions, but they may not know in the sense of having proof. This truly means that Iraq might or might not be the guilty party.)

The key thing is that it does not matter. 9/11 and the anthrax mailings were, to us, an announcement that the old policy of deterrence had failed and that a new policy of pre-emption must take its place. Whether we're pre-empting Iraq from a first attack on the U.S. or from its second (or third or fourth) doesn't really matter very much.

In any case, I don't expect any kind of announcement blaming Iraq for any past events, except perhaps _after_ the war is ongoing, at which time such information could be discovered, perhaps on the ground in Iraq. The point is that we must go to war _without_ such evidence, to demonstrate what pre-emption entails.

[Only if the U.S. and U.K. governments find themselves in a position where domestic naysayers threaten actually to stop military action, rather than merely engaging in the usual heckling, would I expect any such evidence to be revealed in advance of war. But this may not be an option at all; there really may not be much concrete evidence of the sort that would satisfy those who don't already think that military action is necessary.]

[Alamo-Girl]

A very interesting analysis, Mitchell! Thank you!!!

Under your scenario, it gives a very strong message to North Korea and Iran - and to the nuclear club newbies, e.g. Pakistan, India - and the nuclear club wannabes.

Moreover, it speaks to China who is notorious for taking the long view, the message being "the cold war is over, the rules have changed and be advised, we are watching you."

Very interesting indeed!

[Mitchell]

Under your scenario, it gives a very strong message to North Korea and Iran - and to the nuclear club newbies, e.g. Pakistan, India - and the nuclear club wannabes.

Moreover, it speaks to China who is notorious for taking the long view, the message being "the cold war is over, the rules have changed and be advised, we are watching you."

Yes, that's precisely what I'm thinking.

[Alamo-Girl]

Thanks for confirming my understanding of your scenario!

It is the kind of policy I would expect from true professionals in foreign relations, balancing the venue for future generations instead of trying to make old policies 'work' in a changed world.

[cajungirl]

That is one grim scenario you are describing. I hope you are wrong! why do you think weapons are already out there positioned?

[ex-Texan]

Saw that typo .....Really quite funny.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Rather scary.!

[cajungirl]

Yeah, buying hurricane supplies here and then along comes that scenario,,will lead me to the candy aisle very fast!!

[okie01]

"We're trying to establish a new regimen of pre-emption, not implementing a simple retaliation for past events."

Your entire hypothesis is perceptive. And doubtless correct.

Some very fine minds have been at work in developing and promoting this strategy.

[Eva]

I think that you are right Bush knows alot more than he is telling.

Last night on O'Reilly, Eric Nalder, was stating that Germany has been the main supplier of materials for weapons of mass destruction to Iraq and that the Bush administration and congress know this. It is no wonder Germany does not want Iraq to be attacked for possessing what they sold to them. I think that this is the real reason for the freezing relations between the countries.