How Bad Is the Senate Intelligence Report? Very bad.
Pookie
Intelligence Report?
Very bad.
by Stephen F. Hayes
09/25/2006, Volume 012, Issue 02
According to a report released September 8 by the Senate Select
Committee on Intelligence, Saddam Hussein "was resistant to cooperating with
al Qaeda or any other Islamist groups." It's an odd claim. Saddam Hussein's
regime has a long and well-documented history of cooperating with Islamists,
including al Qaeda and its affiliates.
As early as 1982, the Iraqi regime was openly supporting, training,
and funding the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamist organization opposed
to the secular regime of Hafez Assad. For years, Saddam Hussein cultivated
warm relations with Hassan al-Turabi, the Islamist who was the de facto
leader of the Sudanese terrorist state, and a man Bill Clinton described as
"a buddy of [Osama] bin Laden's."
Throughout the 1990s, the Iraqi regime hosted Popular Islamic
Conferences in Baghdad, gatherings modeled after conferences Turabi hosted
in Khartoum. Mark Fineman, a reporter for the Los Angeles Times, attended
one of the conferences and filed a story about his experience on January 26,
1993. "There are delegates from the most committed Islamic organizations on
Earth," he wrote. "Afghan mujahedeen (holy warriors), Palestinian militants,
Sudanese fundamentalists, the Islamic Brotherhood and Pakistan's Party of
Islam." Newsweek's Christopher Dickey attended the same conference and wrote
about it in 2002. "Islamic radicals from all over the Middle East, Africa,
and Asia converged on Baghdad," he wrote, "to show their solidarity with
Iraq in the face of American aggression. . . . Every time I hear diplomats
and politicians, whether in Washington or the capitals of Europe, declare
that Saddam Hussein is a 'secular Baathist ideologue' who has nothing to do
with Islamists or terrorist calls to jihad, I think of that afternoon and I
wonder what they're talking about. If that was not a fledgling Qaeda itself
at the Rashid convention, it sure was Saddam's version of it."
Iraqi leaders frequently touted their Islamist credentials. "We are
blessed in this country for having the Islamic holy warrior Saddam Hussein
as a leader, who is guiding the country in a religious holy war against the
infidels and nonbelievers," said Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, one of Saddam's top
deputies, in an address to the terrorist confab. On August 27, 1998, 20 days
after al Qaeda attacked the U.S. embassies in Africa, Babel, the government
newspaper run by Saddam's son Uday Hussein, published an editorial
proclaiming Osama bin Laden "an Arab and Islamic hero."
None of this is a secret, as the press coverage attests. But the
authors of the Senate report seem determined to write it out of the history.
On what basis do the authors claim that Saddam Hussein was "resistant" to
cooperation with Islamists? The finding is sourced to "postwar detainee
debriefs--including debriefs of Saddam Hussein and Tariq Aziz." Well then,
that settles it.
But why take Saddam's word for it? This is, after all, the same man
who claims that he is the president of Iraq. Even assuming the man isn't a
pathological liar, isn't it the case that detainees interrogated by a
government fighting a global war on terror might have an incentive to
understate their complicity in global terror?
This appears to have occurred to the report's authors. "The Committee
believes that the results of detainee debriefs largely comport with
documentary evidence, but the Committee cannot definitively judge the
accuracy of statements made by individuals in custody and cannot, in every
case, confirm that detainee statements are truthful and accurate."
In fact, it's not clear that the results of the detainee debriefs do,
in fact, largely comport with the documentary evidence. What is clear is
that where there was a conflict, the committee almost always chose to
disregard the documentary evidence in favor of the debriefings, sometimes to
comical effect. According to the report, Saddam Hussein was asked whether he
might cooperate with al Qaeda because "the enemy of the enemy is my friend."
The report dutifully--and uncritically--offers his response. "Saddam
answered that the United States was not Iraq's enemy. He claimed that Iraq
only opposed U.S. policies."
Really? That's hard to reconcile with these instructions from Saddam
Hussein in a 1993 address. "Attack them, our beloved people," Saddam ordered
in a speech broadcast on Iraqi television. "You are the glory of our nation.
Attack them." Or this editorial: "American and British interests, embassies,
and naval ships in the Arab region should be the targets of military
operations and commando attacks by Arab political forces," argued Uday
Hussein's newspaper Babel on November 15, 1997.
A statement from Saddam's Baath party on November 8, 1998, called for
"the highest levels of jihad" against American interests. "The escalation of
the confrontation and the disclosure of its dimensions and the aggressive
intentions now require an organized, planned, influential and conclusive
enthusiasm against U.S. interests."
And Saddam Hussein celebrated the attacks on September 11, 2001. "The
American cowboys are reaping the fruit of their crimes against humanity," he
declared just days after the worst terrorist attack on American soil.
These are just four examples out of dozens. Despite his claims to the
contrary, Saddam Hussein regarded the United States as an enemy. And for
years he demonstrated his willingness to work with Islamists by, among other
things, working with Islamists. The Senate report fails to provide any of
this contextual balance to the denials of detained Iraqi officials. It is a
revealing omission that raises serious doubts about the quality of the
reporting throughout the 52 pages examining Iraq's links to al Qaeda.
There is much to quarrel with in the report. But it is worth spending
a moment to consider the vast amount of information that was left out of the
committee's treatment of Iraq's links to al Qaeda. A few examples:
There is no mention in the report of Abdul Rahman Yasin, an Iraqi who
admitted mixing the chemicals for the bomb used in the 1993 World Trade
Center attack, cited in the?July 2004 Senate report as an al Qaeda
operation. The mastermind of that attack, Ramzi Yousef, is the nephew of
9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. Two weeks after the bombing,
according a July 2004 report issued by the same Senate Select Committee on
Intelligence, Yasin fled to Iraq with Iraqi assistance. ABC News reported in
1994 that a Baghdad neighbor of Yasin's told them that he travels freely and
"works for the government."
There is no mention of documents recovered in postwar Iraq confirming
that the Iraqi regime provided Yasin with housing and funding after his
return to Iraq until the beginning of the Iraq War in 2003. Vice President
Dick Cheney has discussed these documents in television and radio
interviews.
There is no mention of documents unearthed by reporters with the
Toronto Star and the London Telegraph. The documents, expense reports from
the Iraqi Intelligence Service, contain an exchange of memos between IIS
officers about who will pay for a March 1998 trip to Baghdad by a "trusted
confidante" of Osama bin Laden. The documents were provided to the U.S.
intelligence community. "I have no doubt that what we found is the real
thing," wrote Mitch Potter, a reporter for the Toronto Star, and one of the
journalists who found the documents in the bombed-out headquarters of the
Iraqi Intelligence Service days after the fall of Baghdad. Intelligence and
military sources tell THE WEEKLY STANDARD that the documents are
corroborated by telephone intercepts from March 1998.
There is no mention of documents showing that the Iraqi regime
cultivated a relationship with bin Laden's chief deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri,
throughout the 1990s. Time magazine's Joe Klein, an Iraq War critic who is
dubious of a broader Iraq-al Qaeda relationship, noted last week: "Documents
indicate that Saddam had long-term, low-level ties with regional terrorist
groups--including Ayman al-Zawahiri, dating back to his time with the
Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood. There is strong evidence as well that elements
of the Special Republican Guard ran terrorist training camps." (One quibble:
Is it possible for the leader of Iraq to have "low-level" ties with the
leader of Egyptian Islamic Jihad?) The 9/11 Commission reported that
Zawahiri "had ties of his own to the Iraqis." In June 2003, U.S. News &
World Report described what a defense official called a "potentially
significant link" between Iraq and al Qaeda that came, at that early date,
from a single source. "A captured senior member of the Mukhabarat, Iraq's
intelligence service, has told interrogators about meetings between Iraqi
intelligence officials and top members of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, a
group that merged with al Qaeda in the 1990s. The prisoner also described
$300,000 in Iraqi transfers to the organization to pay for attacks in Egypt.
The transfers were said to have been authorized by Saddam Hussein."
There is no mention of captured Iraqi documents that indicate the
regime was providing financial support to Abu Sayyaf, an al Qaeda affiliate
group in the Philippines. On June 6, 2001, the Iraqi ambassador to the
Philippines, Salah Samarmad, faxed an eight-page report on an Abu Sayyaf
kidnapping to the Iraqi Foreign Ministry. According to the fax, the Iraqi
Intelligence Service had provided assistance to Abu Sayyaf, but following
the high-profile kidnapping decided to suspend this support. According to
the document: "The kidnappers were formerly (from the previous year)
receiving money and purchasing combat weapons. From now on we (IIS) are not
giving them this opportunity and are not on speaking terms with them."
There is no mention of alleged Iraqi complicity in Abu Sayyaf attacks
in October 2002 that claimed the life of U.S. Special Forces soldier Mark
Wayne Jackson. One week after that attack, Filipino authorities recovered a
cell phone that was to have detonated a bomb placed on the playground of a
local elementary school. The cell phone , which belonged to an Abu Sayyaf
terrorist, had been used to make calls to Abu Sayyaf leaders. Investigators
also discovered that the phone had also been used to call Hisham Hussein,
the second secretary of the Iraqi Embassy in Manila, just 17 hours after the
attack that took the life of the American soldier. Hussein was ordered out
of the Philippines for his associations with terrorist groups, including Abu
Sayyaf.
There is no mention of the Clinton administration's 1998 indictment of
Osama bin Laden, which noted that al Qaeda had "reached an understanding
with the government of Iraq that al Qaeda would not work against that
government and that on particular projects, specifically including weapons
development, al Qaeda would work cooperatively with the Government of Iraq."
The language was dropped from a superseding indictment of bin Laden, after
the August 7, 1998, East Africa embassy bombings allowed prosecutors to
narrow their charges. Patrick Fitzgerald, a U.S. attorney involved in
preparing the original indictment (who would later gain national prominence
in the CIA leak case), testified before the 9/11 Commission. He told the
panel that the claim in the indictment came from Jamal al Fadl, who told
prosecutors that a senior Iraqi member of al Qaeda, Mamdouh Mahmud Salim,
had worked out the agreement between Iraq and al Qaeda. According to
Fitzgerald's testimony, Salim "tried to reach a sort of agreement where they
wouldn't work against each other--sort of the enemy of my enemy is my
friend--and that there were indications that within Sudan when al Qaeda was
there, which al Qaeda left in the summer of '96, or the spring of '96, there
were efforts to work on jointly acquiring weapons."
There is no mention of the Clinton administration's many public claims
that Iraq was working with al Qaeda on chemical weapons development in
Sudan. According to the 9/11 Commission Report, the passage in the
indictment of bin Laden "led [Richard] Clarke, who for years had read
intelligence reports on Iraqi-Sudanese cooperation on chemical weapons, to
speculate to [National Security Adviser Sandy] Berger that a large Iraqi
presence at chemical facilities in Khartoum was 'probably a direct result of
the Iraq-al Qaeda agreement.' Clarke added that VX precursor traces found
near al Shifa were the 'exact formula used by Iraq.'"
There is no mention of telephone intercepts, cited by a "senior
intelligence official" in August 1998, connecting al Shifa officials with
Emad al Ani, the father of Iraq's VX program. William Cohen, secretary of
defense under Bill Clinton, reviewed the intelligence in testimony before
the 9/11 Commission on March 23, 2004, and claimed that the plant owner had
visited Baghdad to meet al Ani. "This particular facility [al Shifa],
according to the intelligence we had at that time, had been constructed
under extra ordinary security circumstances, even with some surface-to-air
missile capability or defense capabilities; that the plant itself had been
constructed under these security measures; that the--that the plant had been
funded, in part, by the so-called Military Industrial Corporation; that bin
Laden had been living there; that he had, in fact, money that he had put
into this Military Industrial Corporation; that the owner of the plant had
traveled to Baghdad to meet with the father of the VX program."
On it goes. In addition, there are numerous omissions that could shed
light on Iraq's involvement in trans regional terrorism more broadly.
There is no mention of Iraqi documents first reported in a monograph
published by the Joint Forces Command after 18 months' study of prewar Iraq.
According to their report, called The Iraqi Perspectives Project:
Beginning in 1994, the Fedayeen Saddam opened its own paramilitary
training camps for volunteers, graduating more than 7,200 "good men racing
full with courage and enthusiasm" in the first year. Beginning in 1998,
these camps began hosting "Arab volunteers from Egypt, Palestine, Jordan,
'the Gulf,' and Syria." It is not clear from available evidence where all of
these non-Iraqi volunteers who were "sacrificing for the cause" went to ply
their newfound skills. Before the summer of 2002, most volunteers went home
upon the completion of training. But these camps were humming with frenzied
activity in the months immediately prior to the war. As late as January
2003, the volunteers participated in a special training event called the
"Heroes Attack." This training event was designed in part to prepare
regional Fedayeen Saddam commands to "obstruct the enemy from achieving his
goal and to support keeping peace and stability in the province."
There is no mention of Iraqi documents discussing "Blessed July," a
planned wave of terrorist attacks that was also first reported in The Iraqi
Perspectives Project study.
According to the report: "The Saddam Fedayeen also took part in the
regime's domestic terrorism operations and planned for attacks throughout
Europe and the Middle East. In a document dated May 1999, Saddam's older
son, Uday, ordered preparations for 'special operations, assassinations, and
bombings, for the centers and traitor symbols in London, Iran and the
self-ruled areas [Kurdistan].' Preparations for 'Blessed July,' a
regime-directed wave of 'martyrdom' operations against targets in the West,
were well under way at the time of the coalition invasion."
It is the uneven treatment of Iraqi documents that provides perhaps
the best window into the mindset of the writers of the Iraq-al Qaeda section
of the Senate report. The first sentence of that section reads: "The purpose
of this section is to assess the accuracy of the Intelligence Community's
prewar analysis on links between the regime of Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda
using information collected since Operation Iraqi Freedom."
The Senate report concedes that the document exploitation process in
Iraq is incomplete, but it cavalierly assures readers that nothing
significant will be found. "While document exploitation continues,
additional reviews of documents recovered in Iraq are unlikely to provide
information that would contradict the Committee's findings or conclusions."
Such an assessment is at best premature according to intelligence
officials familiar with the document exploitation project. "Given my past
participation in this realm and my current status it would be imprudent to
get into detail," writes Michael Tanji, a former senior Defense Intelligence
Agency official who helped lead the document exploitation effort for 18
months. "Suffice it to say that when you are counting sheets of paper by
hundreds-of-millions (not to mention other forms of media that have been
obtained that threaten to dwarf paper holdings) and your methodology is
somewhere between inadequate and woeful, saying that you have a strong grasp
on what was and wasn't going on in Iraq based on an 'initial review' is akin
to saying that you don't need to read the bible because you've memorized the
ten commandments . . . in pig Latin."
As of March 2006, three years after the start of the Iraq War, the
document exploitation project run by the Defense Intelligence Agency had
fully translated fewer than 5 percent of the documents captured in postwar
Iraq. The Senate report, in an apparent effort to appear more authoritative,
uses a different measurement. The authors tell us that 34 million pages out
of some 120 million have been "translated and summarized to some extent."
Thirty-four millions pages seems like an impressive number. But think about
it. Just 28 percent of captured Iraqi documents have been "translated and
summarized to some extent." That is hardly the kind of exhaustive analysis
that would permit meaningful conclusions.
And, in any case, there are reasons to be skeptical of those
estimates. Intelligence officials familiar with the DOCEX project say that
the numbers in the report are inflated in an effort to impress congressional
overseers. If just the cover sheet on a 200-page document has been read once
and summarized, for example, all 200 pages are counted toward the total
number of documents that have been exploited "to some extent." A translator
who read only the cover sheet on the eight-page fax from Manila to Baghdad
would have missed the revelation that Iraq had been providing money and arms
to Abu Sayyaf. But for the purposes of the Senate report, that important
document would have made the list of documents "translated and summarized to
some extent." The real number of fully exploited documents, according to
those familiar with the DOCEX project, remains in the single digits. The
report's oracular assurances--that further exploitation is "unlikely" to
change our understanding of Iraqi links to al Qaeda--is both deeply
revealing and deeply troubling.
Where the report isn't tendentious, it is sloppy. Key names are
misspelled; it's "Shakir" on one page, and "Shakhir" on another, which might
be thought trivial. But consider: The writers of the report seem not to
understand that "Shaykh Salman al-Awdah" and "Shaikh Sulayman al-Udah" is
the same person and that he was an important spiritual mentor to al Qaeda
and its leadership. At another point, the report claims that Saddam Hussein
considered al Qaeda leader Abu Musab al Zarqawi an "outlaw." In the body of
the report, the claim is attributed to a senior Iraqi official; in its
conclusions the same information is attributed to an "al Qaeda detainee."
Where the report isn't tendentious and sloppy, it's confused. Saddam
Hussein and his cronies disclaim any relationship and yet the Senate report
itself cites two authenticated documents in which the Iraqi Intelligence
Service (IIS) itself discussed the "relationship" between Iraq and al Qaeda.
A 1992 document notes that bin Laden is "a Saudi opposition official in
Afghanistan" and claims "the Syria [IIS] section has a relationship with
him." An Iraqi Intelligence document describing the connections between Iraq
and al Qaeda in 1997 notes that "through dialogue and agreements we will
leave the door open to further develop the relationship and cooperation
between both sides."
In its conclusions, the Senate report once again sets aside this
documentary evidence of a relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda and defers
to the claims of Saddam Hussein and other Iraqi detainees. "Postwar findings
indicate that Saddam Hussein was distrustful of al Qaeda and viewed Islamic
extremists as a threat to his regime, refusing all requests from al Qaeda to
provide material or operational support." Perhaps the documents don't count
as "findings."
The Senate report is rife with such selective reading of the evidence.
Consider the case of Ahmed Hikmat Shakir. Here is the report's treatment of
Shakir.
The second lead centered on contact between Ahmad Hikat Shakir
al-Azzawi, an Iraqi national, and [9/11] hijacker Khalid al-Mihdhar, in
Malaysia in January 2000. Shakir was a part-time facilitator of Arab
visitors at the Kuala Lumpur airport for the Iraqi embassy. Some information
alleged that the Iraqi Embassy employee who gave Shakhir [sic] his job was a
former IIS officer.
The CIA assessed that Shakir, "apparently acting in his capacity as
an airport facilitator, met al-Mihdhar at the airport. The two then shared a
taxi to a Kuala Lumpur hotel, although airport facilitators were not
responsible for providing land transportation for passengers." The two were
not spotted together again. The CIA noted that Shakir's departure from
Malaysia only one week after helping al-Mihdhar, "raised suspicion about his
connections and intentions." The CIA added that, "Shakir's travel and past
contacts linked him to a worldwide network of Sunni extremist groups and
personalities including suspects in the bombing of the 1993 World Trade
Center and indirectly to senior al Qaeda associates. His relationship with
the embassy employee could suggest a link between Baghdad and Shakir's
extremist contacts, but it could also be a case of an Iraqi expatriate
finding a temporary job for a fellow national.
After Shakir's capture in 2002, a foreign government service working
in partnership with the CIA reported that Shakir was not affiliated with al
Qaeda and had no connections to the IIS. The information said there was "no
link, clue or hint to any foreign intelligence service, radical religious
group or terrorist operation."
To summarize what the report acknowledges: An Iraqi national with
known contacts to Sunni extremists and employed by the Iraqi Embassy in
Malaysia, facilitated the travel of a 9/11 hijacker and then disappeared one
week after the encounter. That alone is interesting. Now consider what the
report leaves out.
Not only did Shakir abruptly leave Malaysia one week after he helped
al-Mihdhar, he had begun his job at the Iraqi Embassy only two months
earlier. The Iraqi Embassy controlled his schedule. Among Shakir's
"contacts" with men the report describes only as "Sunni extremists" were
Musab Yasin, an Iraqi who is the brother of Abdul Rahman Yasin, discussed
above for his participation in the 1993 World Trade Center attack; Ibrahim
Suleiman, a Kuwaiti native whose fingerprints were found on the bombmaking
manuals authorities allege were used in preparation for that attack; Zahid
Sheikh Mohammed, brother of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind of the
September 11 attacks; and Abu Hajer al Iraqi, described in U.S. court
documents as Osama bin Laden's "best friend."
The Senate report tells us that "some information alleged" that
Shakir's Iraqi Embassy contact had been affiliated with Iraqi Intelligence.
That information also came from an Iraqi detainee. Why is it treated with
skepticism when the claims of other detainees are accepted as fact?
We cite the Shakir case not because it indicates that the Iraqi regime
had foreknowledge or directed the 9/11 attacks. Rather, it stands as yet
another example of the Senate report's selective use of evidence and the
alacrity with which its authors sought to reject alleged Iraqi ties to al
Qaeda.
One of the few areas where the Senate report provides new information
concerns the presence of Abu Musab al Zarqawi in Iraq before the war.
According to the Senate report: "A postwar CIA assessment on al-Zarqawi
notes that both captured former regime documents and former regime officials
show that the IIS did respond to a foreign request for assistance in finding
and extraditing al-Zarqawi for his role in the murder of U.S. diplomat
Lawrence [sic] Foley. In the spring of 2002, the IIS formed a 'special
committee' to track down al-Zarqawi, but was unable to locate and capture
him." Those documents "also show that lower-level IIS units attempted to
search for the individual."
Taken together with detainee debriefings, the documents, if authentic,
certainly raise questions about the Bush administration's prewar claims,
backed by CIA director George Tenet, that Zarqawi was being harbored by the
Iraqi regime. The Senate report quotes a 2005 CIA analysis that concluded:
"The regime did not have a relationship, harbor, or turn a blind eye toward
Zarqawi and his associates."
The CIA report may be right. But there are several additional facts to
consider in evaluating the Zarqawi-Iraq relationship, only one of which made
it into the Senate report. The report notes that the Iraqi Intelligence
Service received information from a foreign government service on five
individuals suspected of playing a role in the assassination of U.S. AID
worker Laurence Foley. One of those individuals, Abu Yasim Sayyem, was
captured in early 2003.
According to the Senate report an IIS officer "was shocked when the
Director of his division ordered Sayyem to be released. According to the
Iraqi official, the Director of his division told him that Saddam Hussein
ordered Sayyem's release." The IIS officer dismissed the possibility that
the IIS was involved with al Qaeda or Zarqawi and speculated that Saddam
intervened to free Sayyem because he might fight U.S. forces in the event of
an invasion of Iraq.
Five additional facts not included in the Senate report provide
important context. According to the July 2004 Senate Select Committee on
Intelligence report on Iraq, Abu Zubaydah, a top-ranking al Qaeda official
in U.S. custody, told interrogators "that he was not aware of a relationship
between Iraq and al Qaeda" and that he found such a relationship "unlikely."
Zubaydah "also said, however, that any relationship would be highly
compartmented and went on to name al Qaeda members who he thought had good
relations with the Iraqis." Among those he named? Abu Musab al Zarqawi. From
the July 2004 Senate report: "Abu Zubaydah indicated that he had heard that
an important al Qaeda associate, Abu Musab al Zarqawi, and others had good
relationships with Iraqi Intelligence." As noted, detainee testimony should
be treated with skepticism. But Zubaydah, who provided both good information
and bad in his debriefings, was in a position to know about Zarqawi's
associations. The two men planned a millennium attack on the Radisson Hotel
in Amman, Jordan, in 1999.
Zarqawi received medical treatment at a Baghdad hospital known for
treating senior Iraqi regime officials. (Initial reports that he had his leg
amputated were wrong. Subsequent reporting suggests Zarqawi was treated for
nasal problems.) In a 2005 interview with Al-Hayat, Jordan's King Abdullah
said: "We had information that he entered Iraq from a neighboring country,
where he lived, and what he was doing. We informed the Iraqi authorities
about all this detailed information we had, but they didn't respond."
Jordanian intelligence continues to believe that the Iraqi regime knowingly
harbored Zarqawi.
Muhammad al Masari, a known al Qaeda mouthpiece, told the editor of
the Arabic-language newspaper Al-Quds Al-Arabi, Abdel Bari Atwan, that
Saddam reached out to al Qaeda--and Zarqawi--after the fall of the Taliban
in 2001 and provided funding for al Qaeda operatives to relocate to Iraq.
"According to Masari, Saddam saw that Islam would be key to a cohesive
resistance in the event of invasion. Iraqi army commanders were ordered to
become practicing Muslims and to adopt the language and spirit of the
jihadis. On arrival in Iraq, Al-Qaeda operatives were put in touch with
these commanders, who later facilitated the distribution of arms and money
from Saddam's caches."
Finally, when Zarqawi returned to Iraq after the war, he teamed up
almost immediately with a cadre of former Iraqi Intelligence officials to
conduct attacks on U.S. troops and softer targets in Iraq.
Not only is the Senate report's section on Zarqawi woefully
incomplete, it is contradictory. The report's conclusions echo the CIA
finding: "Postwar information indicates that Saddam Hussein attempted,
unsuccessfully, to locate and capture al-Zarqawi and that the regime did not
have a relationship with, harbor, or turn a blind eye toward Zarqawi." That
Saddam Hussein himself ordered a Zarqawi associate freed--if the IIS
officer's reporting is accurate--suggests that the Iraqi regime at the very
least turned a blind eye toward Zarqawi and his network.
The mainstream press has treated the Senate report as the definitive
word on Iraqi links to al Qaeda. It is not. It is worth remembering that
while critics of the Bush administration have long since decided that there
was no relationship at all between the Iraqi regime and al Qaeda, there are
many observers who continue to hold a different view. If these individuals
disagree on the extent of the relationship and its meaning, they agree that
there was one.
"There was no question in our minds that there was a relationship
between Iraq and al Qaeda," said 9/11 Commission co-chairman Thomas Kean.
"Saddam Hussein's regime welcomed them with open arms and young al
Qaeda members entered Iraq in large numbers, setting up an organization to
confront the occupation," said Hudayfa Azzam, the son of bin Laden's
longtime mentor Abdullah Azzam.
"I believe very strongly that Saddam had relations with al Qaeda,"
said former Iraqi prime minister and longtime CIA asset Ayad Allawi. "And
these relations started in Sudan. We know Saddam had relationships with a
lot of terrorists and international terrorism."
"What our report said really supports what the administration, in its
straight presentations, has said," noted 9/11 Commissioner John Lehman.
"There were numerous contacts; there's evidence of collaboration on weapons.
And we found earlier, we reported earlier, that there was VX gas that was
clearly from Iraq in the Sudan site that President Clinton hit. And we have
significant evidence that there were contacts over the years and
cooperation, although nothing that would be operational."
And late last week, following the release of the Senate report, Barham
Salih, deputy prime minister of Iraq, had this to say: "The alliance between
the Baathists and jihadists which sustains al Qaeda in Iraq is not new,
contrary to what you may have been told." Salih continued: "I know this at
first hand. Some of my friends were murdered by jihadists, by al
Qaeda-affiliated operatives who had been sheltered and assisted by Saddam's
regime."
Some day there will be an authoritative and richly detailed history of
the nature of the relationship between the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein
and Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda and other Islamist terror groups. This latest
product of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence is unlikely to merit
even a footnote in this history.
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/012/710goolj.asp
d2e2
propaganda to rationalize away their personal responsibility in the
death and injuries of hundreds of thousands of relatively innocent human
beings.
Yep, Saddam hosted these meetings, so what! We host the United Nations
and for years we were controlled by our commitment to the organization's
charter and then came you and your like and every attempt the countries
of the world made to mediate were rebuffed by the human deviates you
continue to support. Point being, individuals not organizations are
responsible for acts of aggression. You, because you give aid and
comfort, are directly responsible for the evil that is being committed
against humanity by George W. Bush and company.
Amanda Williams
news:naZOg.461$Su....@newsfe10.lga:
> How Bad Is the Senate
> Intelligence Report?
> Very bad.
> by Stephen F. Hayes
> 09/25/2006, Volume 012, Issue 02
>
>
>
[... dribble zapped ...]
>
>
> http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/012/710g
o
> olj.asp
Poor Stevie, it must be hard for the little moron, here he is with a
"weighty tome" called "The Connection: How al Qaeda's Collaboration with
Saddam Hussein Has Endangered America" (available on Amazon for $0.43
lol) and the Senate Intelligence Committee comes along and cuts his tiny
lying shrivelled balls off...
Yes the intelligence report is VERY bad... VERY bad for Stevie and the
rest of the rightard liars...
rotfl...
There are a whole load of drooling illiterate hacks who have been making
a decent living selling lies and shit like this to gullible rightards
(as if there are any OTHER sort), so just grab the popcorn, sit back and
watch them all whine and cry... some of them might actually (shudder)
have to make an honest living rather than milk the foil-hat brigade, a
prospect that fills Stevie and his ilk with undiluted horror... I mean,
there are only so many morons to go around...
<snicker>
--
AW
<small but dangerous>
John R. Carroll
> "Pookie" <pooki...@optonline.net> allegedly said in
> news:naZOg.461$Su....@newsfe10.lga:
>
>> How Bad Is the Senate
>> Intelligence Report?
>> Very bad.
>> by Stephen F. Hayes
>> 09/25/2006, Volume 012, Issue 02
>>
>>
>>
>
> [... dribble zapped ...]
>
>>
>>
>> http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/012/710g
>> o olj.asp
>
>
>
> <snicker>
You snicker but do you have any evidence that this is really the case?
The pool looks pretty deep to me.
--
John R. Carroll
Machining Solution Software, Inc.
Los Angeles San Francisco
www.machiningsolution.com
Fred Oinka
Pookie wrote:
> How Bad Is the Senate
> Intelligence Report?
> Very bad.
> by Stephen F. Hayes
> 09/25/2006, Volume 012, Issue 02
senate intelligance commitee?
Or as Bush puts it, "It's unacceptable to think"
BC
Pookie wrote:
> How Bad Is the Senate
> Intelligence Report?
> Very bad.
> by Stephen F. Hayes
> 09/25/2006, Volume 012, Issue 02
>
How bad a liar is Stephen Effin Hayes? Very, very
bad.
> According to a report released September 8 by the Senate Select
> Committee on Intelligence, Saddam Hussein "was resistant to cooperating with
> al Qaeda or any other Islamist groups." It's an odd claim. Saddam Hussein's
> regime has a long and well-documented history of cooperating with Islamists,
> including al Qaeda and its affiliates.
But he won't mention any of that allleged "well-
documented" stuff, will he? The only thing that has
been well-documented is Hussein's support for the
Palestinians:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/2846365.stm
http://www.countercurrents.org/iraq-mccarthy290603.htm
> As early as 1982, the Iraqi regime was openly supporting, training,
> and funding the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamist organization opposed
> to the secular regime of Hafez Assad. For years, Saddam Hussein cultivated
> warm relations with Hassan al-Turabi, the Islamist who was the de facto
> leader of the Sudanese terrorist state, and a man Bill Clinton described as
> "a buddy of [Osama] bin Laden's."
Hussein use to associate with all sorts of dubious
characters in the 1980's:
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB82
> Throughout the 1990s, the Iraqi regime hosted Popular Islamic
> Conferences in Baghdad, gatherings modeled after conferences Turabi hosted
> in Khartoum. Mark Fineman, a reporter for the Los Angeles Times, attended
> one of the conferences and filed a story about his experience on January 26,
> 1993. "There are delegates from the most committed Islamic organizations on
> Earth," he wrote. "Afghan mujahedeen (holy warriors), Palestinian militants,
> Sudanese fundamentalists, the Islamic Brotherhood and Pakistan's Party of
> Islam." Newsweek's Christopher Dickey attended the same conference and wrote
> about it in 2002. "Islamic radicals from all over the Middle East, Africa,
> and Asia converged on Baghdad," he wrote, "to show their solidarity with
> Iraq in the face of American aggression. . . . Every time I hear diplomats
> and politicians, whether in Washington or the capitals of Europe, declare
> that Saddam Hussein is a 'secular Baathist ideologue' who has nothing to do
> with Islamists or terrorist calls to jihad, I think of that afternoon and I
> wonder what they're talking about. If that was not a fledgling Qaeda itself
> at the Rashid convention, it sure was Saddam's version of it."
> Iraqi leaders frequently touted their Islamist credentials. "We are
> blessed in this country for having the Islamic holy warrior Saddam Hussein
> as a leader, who is guiding the country in a religious holy war against the
> infidels and nonbelievers," said Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, one of Saddam's top
> deputies, in an address to the terrorist confab. On August 27, 1998, 20 days
> after al Qaeda attacked the U.S. embassies in Africa, Babel, the government
> newspaper run by Saddam's son Uday Hussein, published an editorial
> proclaiming Osama bin Laden "an Arab and Islamic hero."
Hussein apparently read the same book Karl Rove did
regarding dishonest opportunism:
http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0406-05.htm
"Saddam first used the combination of Islam and Iraqi/Arab
nationalism effectively against his Muslim neighbor, the
Islamic Republic of Iran, during their eight-year war in the
1980s. He started imitating the enemy by describing the
Iraqi war dead as "martyrs", an Islamic concept.
"Saddam sponsored the First Popular Islamic Conference
in Baghdad in April 1983, attended by 280 clerics and
pious laymen from 50 countries, and two years later came
the Second Popular Islamic Conference in Baghdad, again
inaugurated by Saddam. Siding with Iraq in the war, it
described the Iranian rulers as "oppressive and cruel".
"Saddam tried hard to project himself as a pious Muslim. He
overcame his weakness for Black & White whisky and gave
up alcohol altogether. During Ramadan (May-June) he
decreed that officials should hold public fast-breaking
banquets, thus creating a symbiosis between the Baathist
regime and Islam."
> None of this is a secret, as the press coverage attests. But the
> authors of the Senate report seem determined to write it out of the history.
> On what basis do the authors claim that Saddam Hussein was "resistant" to
> cooperation with Islamists? The finding is sourced to "postwar detainee
> debriefs--including debriefs of Saddam Hussein and Tariq Aziz." Well then,
> that settles it.
That plus Islamic groups like al-Qaeda wanting to replace
secular leaders like Hussein with more Islamic types. Bin
is on record calling Hussein an infidel:
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0211-11.htm
http://www.antiwar.com/justin/j021203.html
> But why take Saddam's word for it? This is, after all, the same man
> who claims that he is the president of Iraq. Even assuming the man isn't a
> pathological liar, isn't it the case that detainees interrogated by a
> government fighting a global war on terror might have an incentive to
> understate their complicity in global terror?
We don't have to take just Hussein's word for it, do we?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A47812-2004Jun16.html
> This appears to have occurred to the report's authors. "The Committee
> believes that the results of detainee debriefs largely comport with
> documentary evidence, but the Committee cannot definitively judge the
> accuracy of statements made by individuals in custody and cannot, in every
> case, confirm that detainee statements are truthful and accurate."
So the statements match up with documented evidence --
and we all know how right-wingers feel about documented
and sourced evidence.
> In fact, it's not clear that the results of the detainee debriefs do,
> in fact, largely comport with the documentary evidence.
How so? Oh, he's just going to skip over giving any reasons
for that remark, isn't her?
> What is clear is
> that where there was a conflict, the committee almost always chose to
> disregard the documentary evidence in favor of the debriefings, sometimes to
> comical effect.
Again,. how so? Also, let's not forget which bleeding heart,
Bush-hating liberal was chairman of the committee:
http://rawstory.com/news/2005/HowSenate_Intelligence_chairman_fixed_intelligence_and_diverted_blame_fromWhite_House__0811.html
http://rawstory.com/news/2005/Senate_Intelligence_Committee_stalling_prewar_intelligence_1202.html
http://www.thenation.com/blogs/capitalgames?pid=106967
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Pat_Roberts
> According to the report, Saddam Hussein was asked whether he
> might cooperate with al Qaeda because "the enemy of the enemy is my friend."
> The report dutifully--and uncritically--offers his response. "Saddam
> answered that the United States was not Iraq's enemy. He claimed that Iraq
> only opposed U.S. policies."
It's not the first time:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/02/25/iraq/main542025.shtml
> Really? That's hard to reconcile with these instructions from Saddam
> Hussein in a 1993 address. "Attack them, our beloved people," Saddam ordered
> in a speech broadcast on Iraqi television. "You are the glory of our nation.
> Attack them." Or this editorial: "American and British interests, embassies,
> and naval ships in the Arab region should be the targets of military
> operations and commando attacks by Arab political forces," argued Uday
> Hussein's newspaper Babel on November 15, 1997.
Actually, he wrote something nastier in 2002:
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/worldview/story/0,,846511,00.html
But we are talking about a brutal, murderous dictator who
admired Ronald Reagan
http://men.style.com/gq/features/landing?id=content_2544
"He weighed in on everyone from Dan Rather ("a good guy")
to Osama bin Laden ("He said he never had relations with
him," according to Paco). But Reagan was his favorite.
"He talked about how Reagan sold him planes and helicopters
and stuff," says Jesse. "And basically funded his war against
Iran," says Sean. "He said, 'I wish things were like when
Ronald Reagan was still president, and I said, 'Yeah, I wish
they were, too, because then I wouldn't be here.' "
"When Sean told him that Reagan had recently died of
Alzheimer's, Saddam got quiet for a minute, then said,
"Yes. This happens."
> A statement from Saddam's Baath party on November 8, 1998, called for
> "the highest levels of jihad" against American interests. "The escalation of
> the confrontation and the disclosure of its dimensions and the aggressive
> intentions now require an organized, planned, influential and conclusive
> enthusiasm against U.S. interests."
> And Saddam Hussein celebrated the attacks on September 11, 2001. "The
> American cowboys are reaping the fruit of their crimes against humanity," he
> declared just days after the worst terrorist attack on American soil.
> These are just four examples out of dozens. Despite his claims to the
> contrary, Saddam Hussein regarded the United States as an enemy.
Why would he think that? Oh, yeah -- the first Gulf War.
> And for
> years he demonstrated his willingness to work with Islamists by, among other
> things, working with Islamists.
Hayes keeps saying that, but without offering any evidence --
why does he do that? Oh, yeah -- he's a right winger.
> The Senate report fails to provide any of
> this contextual balance to the denials of detained Iraqi officials. It is a
> revealing omission that raises serious doubts about the quality of the
> reporting throughout the 52 pages examining Iraq's links to al Qaeda.
"Contextual balance"? The right winger discussing context
is like a fish discussing iPods.
The actual report does manage to go into the hows and
whys of its conlusions. But don't tale my word on it:
http://intelligence.senate.gov/phaseiiaccuracy.pdf
I highly recommend page 82-85, (by Adobe's count,
labelled 79-82 in the report itself)
> There is much to quarrel with in the report. But it is worth spending
> a moment to consider the vast amount of information that was left out of the
> committee's treatment of Iraq's links to al Qaeda. A few examples:
> There is no mention in the report of Abdul Rahman Yasin, an Iraqi who
> admitted mixing the chemicals for the bomb used in the 1993 World Trade
> Center attack, cited in the?July 2004 Senate report as an al Qaeda
> operation. The mastermind of that attack, Ramzi Yousef, is the nephew of
> 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. Two weeks after the bombing,
> according a July 2004 report issued by the same Senate Select Committee on
> Intelligence, Yasin fled to Iraq with Iraqi assistance. ABC News reported in
> 1994 that a Baghdad neighbor of Yasin's told them that he travels freely and
> "works for the government."
But the 1993 WTC attack was not done by al-Qaeda.
And the evidence for any connection between Yousef
and Iraq is tenuous at best:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2003-09-17-iraq-wtc_x.htm
> There is no mention of documents recovered in postwar Iraq confirming
> that the Iraqi regime provided Yasin with housing and funding after his
> return to Iraq until the beginning of the Iraq War in 2003. Vice President
> Dick Cheney has discussed these documents in television and radio
> interviews.
> There is no mention of documents unearthed by reporters with the
> Toronto Star and the London Telegraph. The documents, expense reports from
> the Iraqi Intelligence Service, contain an exchange of memos between IIS
> officers about who will pay for a March 1998 trip to Baghdad by a "trusted
> confidante" of Osama bin Laden. The documents were provided to the U.S.
> intelligence community. "I have no doubt that what we found is the real
> thing," wrote Mitch Potter, a reporter for the Toronto Star, and one of the
> journalists who found the documents in the bombed-out headquarters of the
> Iraqi Intelligence Service days after the fall of Baghdad. Intelligence and
> military sources tell THE WEEKLY STANDARD that the documents are
> corroborated by telephone intercepts from March 1998.
But the Senate report has already noted that al-Qaeda
would periodically ask Hussein for money and support
and Hussein would turn them down:
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=15&ItemID=10952
> There is no mention of documents showing that the Iraqi regime
> cultivated a relationship with bin Laden's chief deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri,
> throughout the 1990s. Time magazine's Joe Klein, an Iraq War critic who is
> dubious of a broader Iraq-al Qaeda relationship, noted last week: "Documents
> indicate that Saddam had long-term, low-level ties with regional terrorist
> groups--including Ayman al-Zawahiri, dating back to his time with the
> Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood. There is strong evidence as well that elements
> of the Special Republican Guard ran terrorist training camps." (One quibble:
> Is it possible for the leader of Iraq to have "low-level" ties with the
> leader of Egyptian Islamic Jihad?) The 9/11 Commission reported that
> Zawahiri "had ties of his own to the Iraqis." In June 2003, U.S. News &
> World Report described what a defense official called a "potentially
> significant link" between Iraq and al Qaeda that came, at that early date,
> from a single source. "A captured senior member of the Mukhabarat, Iraq's
> intelligence service, has told interrogators about meetings between Iraqi
> intelligence officials and top members of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, a
> group that merged with al Qaeda in the 1990s. The prisoner also described
> $300,000 in Iraqi transfers to the organization to pay for attacks in Egypt.
> The transfers were said to have been authorized by Saddam Hussein."
Rumors of "strong evidence" but none mentioned -- what
a surprise. This detailed account of Zawahiri doesn't
mention Hussein once:
http://jamestown.org/terrorism/news/article.php?issue_id=3228
And neither does this Aljazeera piece:
http://tinyurl.com/zd8ze
> There is no mention of captured Iraqi documents that indicate the
> regime was providing financial support to Abu Sayyaf, an al Qaeda affiliate
> group in the Philippines. On June 6, 2001, the Iraqi ambassador to the
> Philippines, Salah Samarmad, faxed an eight-page report on an Abu Sayyaf
> kidnapping to the Iraqi Foreign Ministry. According to the fax, the Iraqi
> Intelligence Service had provided assistance to Abu Sayyaf, but following
> the high-profile kidnapping decided to suspend this support. According to
> the document: "The kidnappers were formerly (from the previous year)
> receiving money and purchasing combat weapons. From now on we (IIS) are not
> giving them this opportunity and are not on speaking terms with them."
> There is no mention of alleged Iraqi complicity in Abu Sayyaf attacks
> in October 2002 that claimed the life of U.S. Special Forces soldier Mark
> Wayne Jackson. One week after that attack, Filipino authorities recovered a
> cell phone that was to have detonated a bomb placed on the playground of a
> local elementary school. The cell phone , which belonged to an Abu Sayyaf
> terrorist, had been used to make calls to Abu Sayyaf leaders. Investigators
> also discovered that the phone had also been used to call Hisham Hussein,
> the second secretary of the Iraqi Embassy in Manila, just 17 hours after the
> attack that took the life of the American soldier. Hussein was ordered out
> of the Philippines for his associations with terrorist groups, including Abu
> Sayyaf.
Well, for one thing, the *only* source for the supposed
Abu Sayyaf -- Hussein -- al-Qaeda connection appears
to be Hayes himself. A quick Google finds no official
source for this, just references to Hayes based on some
document translations that nobudy else has verified.
With that said, there is this:
http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0226/p01s03-woap.html
Which claims that one of things that Hussein did in
preparation for the upcoming war was subcontract out
some dirtywork against the US in case of war:
"But there is evidence that Iraq may be outsourcing.
Intelligence officials are concerned that Iraq is seeking
out Islamic militant groups that have little ideologically
in common with Iraq's secular Baath regime, but find
common cause against the US.
"The Philippines government, which deported an Iraqi
diplomat earlier this month, says the Iraqi embassy in
Manila was building contacts with Abu Sayyaf, a kidnap-
for-ransom group in the southern Philippines that US
soldiers have been helping to fight for the past year.
"The Iraqis are dispatching agents around the globe and
they're targeting assets of the US and its allies," says
Rohan Gunaratna, a terrorism expert and author. "It
remains to be seen if they'll be successful, or fail as
they did in 1991."
That year, at the height of the Gulf War, Iraq sought to
lash out at the US with operations based out of its
embassies in Asia and the Middle East, according to
US and Asian officials. They say that the same pattern
of behavior may be emerging again."
> There is no mention of the Clinton administration's 1998 indictment of
> Osama bin Laden, which noted that al Qaeda had "reached an understanding
> with the government of Iraq that al Qaeda would not work against that
> government and that on particular projects, specifically including weapons
> development, al Qaeda would work cooperatively with the Government of Iraq."
> The language was dropped from a superseding indictment of bin Laden, after
> the August 7, 1998, East Africa embassy bombings allowed prosecutors to
> narrow their charges. Patrick Fitzgerald, a U.S. attorney involved in
> preparing the original indictment (who would later gain national prominence
> in the CIA leak case), testified before the 9/11 Commission. He told the
> panel that the claim in the indictment came from Jamal al Fadl, who told
> prosecutors that a senior Iraqi member of al Qaeda, Mamdouh Mahmud Salim,
> had worked out the agreement between Iraq and al Qaeda. According to
> Fitzgerald's testimony, Salim "tried to reach a sort of agreement where they
> wouldn't work against each other--sort of the enemy of my enemy is my
> friend--and that there were indications that within Sudan when al Qaeda was
> there, which al Qaeda left in the summer of '96, or the spring of '96, there
> were efforts to work on jointly acquiring weapons."
Okaaaayyyy -- so if true, the agreement was that Iraq
and al-Qaeda wouldn't attack each other. Not exactly
the same as co-operation, is it?
> There is no mention of the Clinton administration's many public claims
> that Iraq was working with al Qaeda on chemical weapons development in
> Sudan. According to the 9/11 Commission Report, the passage in the
> indictment of bin Laden "led [Richard] Clarke, who for years had read
> intelligence reports on Iraqi-Sudanese cooperation on chemical weapons, to
> speculate to [National Security Adviser Sandy] Berger that a large Iraqi
> presence at chemical facilities in Khartoum was 'probably a direct result of
> the Iraq-al Qaeda agreement.' Clarke added that VX precursor traces found
> near al Shifa were the 'exact formula used by Iraq.'"
The key words here are "speculate" and "probably". Hayes
probably doesn't realize that the Senate report is part of an
overall effort to see what was wrong with US intelligence in
regards to Iraq before the war.
> There is no mention of telephone intercepts, cited by a "senior
> intelligence official" in August 1998, connecting al Shifa officials with
> Emad al Ani, the father of Iraq's VX program. William Cohen, secretary of
> defense under Bill Clinton, reviewed the intelligence in testimony before
> the 9/11 Commission on March 23, 2004, and claimed that the plant owner had
> visited Baghdad to meet al Ani. "This particular facility [al Shifa],
> according to the intelligence we had at that time, had been constructed
> under extra ordinary security circumstances, even with some surface-to-air
> missile capability or defense capabilities; that the plant itself had been
> constructed under these security measures; that the--that the plant had been
> funded, in part, by the so-called Military Industrial Corporation; that bin
> Laden had been living there; that he had, in fact, money that he had put
> into this Military Industrial Corporation; that the owner of the plant had
> traveled to Baghdad to meet with the father of the VX program."
That's funny -- "al Shifa" is the "aspirin factory" of right-wing
lore that Clinton supposedly bombed to distract from the
Monica thing:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/687099/posts
>From here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Shifa_pharmaceutical_factory
"Officials later acknowledged, however, "that the evidence
that prompted President Clinton to order the missile strike
on the Shifa plant was not as solid as first portrayed. Indeed,
officials later said that there was no proof that the plant had
been manufacturing or storing nerve gas, as initially suspected
by the Americans, or had been linked to Osama bin Laden,
who was a resident of Khartoum in the 1980s."
Not exactly a slam dunk, eh?
> On it goes. In addition, there are numerous omissions that could shed
> light on Iraq's involvement in trans regional terrorism more broadly.
Indeed, on it does go: allegations and rumors without
any hard evidence. How could the Senate committee
have overlooked all this good stuff?
> There is no mention of Iraqi documents first reported in a monograph
> published by the Joint Forces Command after 18 months' study of prewar Iraq.
> According to their report, called The Iraqi Perspectives Project:
> Beginning in 1994, the Fedayeen Saddam opened its own paramilitary
> training camps for volunteers, graduating more than 7,200 "good men racing
> full with courage and enthusiasm" in the first year. Beginning in 1998,
> these camps began hosting "Arab volunteers from Egypt, Palestine, Jordan,
> 'the Gulf,' and Syria." It is not clear from available evidence where all of
> these non-Iraqi volunteers who were "sacrificing for the cause" went to ply
> their newfound skills. Before the summer of 2002, most volunteers went home
> upon the completion of training. But these camps were humming with frenzied
> activity in the months immediately prior to the war. As late as January
> 2003, the volunteers participated in a special training event called the
> "Heroes Attack." This training event was designed in part to prepare
> regional Fedayeen Saddam commands to "obstruct the enemy from achieving his
> goal and to support keeping peace and stability in the province."
> There is no mention of Iraqi documents discussing "Blessed July," a
> planned wave of terrorist attacks that was also first reported in The Iraqi
> Perspectives Project study.
Again, of course the key phrase is "It is not clear from
available evidence". As I said, the only clear evidence is
that Hussein supported the Palestinians, that that seems
to be the case here as well:
http://counterterrorismblog.org/2006/03/did_saddam_hussein_assist_pal...
Still no al-Qaeda, though.
> According to the report: "The Saddam Fedayeen also took part in the
> regime's domestic terrorism operations and planned for attacks throughout
> Europe and the Middle East. In a document dated May 1999, Saddam's older
> son, Uday, ordered preparations for 'special operations, assassinations, and
> bombings, for the centers and traitor symbols in London, Iran and the
> self-ruled areas [Kurdistan].' Preparations for 'Blessed July,' a
> regime-directed wave of 'martyrdom' operations against targets in the West,
> were well under way at the time of the coalition invasion."
The "Blessed July" thing again appears to be a right-wing
special repeated by the usual sus[ects, with no official
or verifiable source. There is this BBC mention of it though:
http://212.58.240.35/1/hi/world/middle_east/4837276.stm
"The analysis refers to a document, not itself provided,
dated May 1999 in which Saddam's older son Uday ordered
"special operations, assassinations and bombings for the
centres and traitor symbols in London, Iran and the self-
ruled areas of [Kurdish Northern Iraq]."
"These were presumably to be against Iraqi opposition
groups.
"There is then this sentence in the article: "Preparations for
'Blessed July', a regime-directed wave of 'martyrdom'
operations against targets in the West were well under way
at the time of the coalition invasion."
What these targets might have been is not stated and the
plans, like so many drawn up by the Iraqis, came to nothing,
it seems."
Further down the article mentions something that Hayes
has been avoiding mentioning:
"Caution
"However, a note of caution is due here which is also
introduced by the US Army unit releasing the documents.
It says: "The US government has made no determination
regarding the authenticity of the documents."
"And the website actually asks readers to contact an
address if they read documents which "they feel are
inappropriately released" - that is forgeries.
"Already, the irregular army of bloggers around the world is
examining them in detail."
So basically, if Hayes's faulty logic and misrepresentation
of evidence wasn't enough, it turns out he's using
documents that have not been authenticated.
Hmmm.....I seem to recall that not so long ago how a
certain network news anchor being maliciously attacked
and smeared by the right wing because he had aired
a news segment using documents that turned out to
be not authenticated enough for broadcast standards.
Hmmm....who was that guy....
-BC
Pookie
"BC" <call...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1158516569.1...@b28g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
Friday, September 15, 2006
Senate Democrats Lie About Iraqi/al Qaeda Connection
My fellow blogger and old college buddy DFV at Conclub provides us with the
'wise man speaketh' commentary of the day. My 2004 column An Alliance of
Evil: Saddam and bin Laden
(http://www.gopusa.com/commentary/guest/2004/dmh_0719.shtml) covered much of
the evidence linking the two in their Shadow wars against the United States
and the West.
Here is a small excerpt from my column:
I believe the evidence points to a web of both cooperation and meetings
between Saddam's Iraq, particularly the intelligence services as well as the
Fedayeen, and various cells and allied groups of Al-Queda. There is no
dispute that the Taliban-like Al Ansar Islam group in Northern Iraq provided
safe haven for hundreds of Taliban and Al Queda fighters fleeing Afghanistan
and were secretly armed and funded by Saddam Hussein. Dare I even mention
the star treatment and medical treatment of al-Zarqawi while in Baghdad, as
well as the organization of dozens of terrorist sleeper cells in Saddam's
pre-invasion Iraq by the now infamous, beheading butcher and master
terrorist? The agreement in the early nineties between Saddam and Al-Queda
laid the groundwork for cooperation between the two against a common enemy.
There is also a very strong probability that Iraqi agents and Al Queda
terrorists assisted each other in multiple terrorist attacks in the years
leading up to 9-11.
NOW ON TO DFV'S COMMENTARY OF THE DAY:
I just read the recently released report of the Senate Intelligence
Committee. This is the one that caused Jay Rockefeller and Carl Levin to say
that Bush lied about the Iraq-al Qaeda connection. As you guys well know, we
have amassed amazing evidence of the connection, so I was intrigued as to
what the Committee found that we had missed.
HA!
First, you should know that the Republicans on the committee angrily
attacked the report and flatly declared that its conclusions were "contrary
to known facts." This rarely happens on an Intelligence Committee report;
usually they will compromise on the language and findings. But in this case
the Democrats wanted to politicize the once-respected committee, so they
forced it out over GOP objections. They were able to do so because
Republican Chuck Hagel, an avowed enemy of the hawks in the administration,
voted it out.
Okay, so their dramatic evidence that there was no connection? Well, they
don't actually have any of that. Like the entire media, they focus
exclusively on the alleged April 8, 2001 meeting between Atta and an Iraqi
agent in Prague, and declare that there is no reason to conclude it
occurred. Period. End of story.
Amazingly, they don't even address the two known Atta trips to Prague!
Here's the rundown for those who have forgotten. Save it, and the next time
a Democrat says there was no connection between the Iraqi regime and al
Qaeda, make them go through this line by line.
First, the known Atta-in-Prague meetings. Keep in mind that every single
one of these points is UNDISPUTED.
1. Atta flew to Prague from Hamburg on May 30, 2000. His requested visa
wouldn't be available until May 31, but he apparently had to get there on
the 30th and so he flew anyway, even though without a visa he couldn't leave
the airport. He met at the airport with someone for 6 hours and then flew
back home.
2.Three days later, Atta traveled again to Prague, this time by bus. He
disappeared for 20 hours, and then reemerged at the airport to fly to the
United States.
3. Immediately after these days in Prague, large sums of money began to
flow to the 9/11 conspirators.
4. Stationed at the Iraqi embassy during this time was one Ahmad Samir al
Ani, who was an agent of the Iraqi Intelligence Service.
Again, keep in mind that nobody disputes these meeting did in fact take
place.
Now here is the evidence FOR Atta meeting with al Ani in April of 2001,
followed by the evidence the CIA and the Intelligence Committee have AGAINST
such a meeting. You can make up your own mind.
1. Czech intelligence claimed that they spotted Atta meeting with al Ani
at a Prague restaurant on April 8, 2001. They stand by this assertion to
this very day.
2. After the fall of Baghdad, Czech intelligence searched the Iraqi
embassy in Prague and found al Ani's appointment book. For April 8, 2001 he
was scheduled for a meeting with a "Hamburg student."
3.Within days of apparently witnessing this meeting, Czech authorities
kicked al Ani out of the country because they believed that his strange
meeting with the student was suspicious.
[Atta's timeline in the United States: After piecing together every
transaction that could be made (bank transfers, ATM use, paying bills,
buying groceries, going to his health club, etc.) the FBI formulated this
itinerary for Atta in April 2001]
4. On April 4, Atta cashed an $8,000 check in Virginia Beach, VA. The FBI
has never been able to account for how this money was spent.
5. For the next week, there is no recorded activity for Atta in the US and
there is not a single witness who saw him during this time.
6. On April 11, Atta reemerges in Florida. He deposits $5,000 in cash into
a bank account and he and Marwan al Shehhi rent an apartment in Florida.
Now for the evidence AGAINST
1. There is no record of Atta using his own passport to fly to Prague. He
could have used a fake one, as George Tenet acknowledged in his testimony to
Congress.
2. Someone placed a phone call from Atta's cell phone in Florida on April
8, 2001, the day of the alleged meeting. There were no other calls made from
that phone in the entire week in question.
That's it. That's their evidence in total.
Look, if you want ignorance about all this, tune into any of the
mainstream media, all of whom "know" that there was no connection, and none
of whom have bothered to educate themselves on this stuff.
If you want politicized lies, look to congressional Democrats, all of whom
know about this evidence, but none of whom care to be up front, least of all
in an election year.
http://theinfidelsage.blogspot.com/
BC
> ....
>
> Friday, September 15, 2006
> Senate Democrats Lie About Iraqi/al Qaeda Connection
> My fellow blogger and old college buddy DFV at Conclub provides us with the
> 'wise man speaketh' commentary of the day. My 2004 column An Alliance of
> Evil: Saddam and bin Laden
> (http://www.gopusa.com/commentary/guest/2004/dmh_0719.shtml) covered much of
> the evidence linking the two in their Shadow wars against the United States
> and the West.
>
> Here is a small excerpt from my column:
>
>
> I believe the evidence points to a web of both cooperation and meetings
> between Saddam's Iraq, particularly the intelligence services as well as the
> Fedayeen, and various cells and allied groups of Al-Queda. There is no
> dispute that the Taliban-like Al Ansar Islam group in Northern Iraq provided
> safe haven for hundreds of Taliban and Al Queda fighters fleeing Afghanistan
> and were secretly armed and funded by Saddam Hussein.
Bzzzzzt. Wrong. There is plenty to dispute here --
the best evidence is that Iraq's enemy Iran and
even Saudi Arabia in some fashion helped, but
not Iraq. Why do you think it was a "safe haven"
in the first place? It was set up and maintained
by American abnd British forces to keep Hussein
from doing any more bad stuff to the Kurds there.
Check out this December, 2001 Kudish artice:
http://www.meib.org/articles/0112_ir1.htm
There was a suspicion mentioned of Hussein being
somehow connected, but the writer was hostile of Hussein
and the only "evidence" for the suspicion came from the
presence of some Sunni's from a town supportive of
Hussein. Most of the article was how the Hussein-free,
safe haven zone created by the US to provide security
to the Kurds also as a side effect made the border
area with Iran very insecure, allowing the easy transfer
of foreign fighters, weapons and money to flow across.
"The evidence appears overwhelming that armed Islamist
groups sought to establish a safe-haven within mountainous
northern Iraq. Private or public money from Saudi Arabia,
as well as from Al-Qa'ida, financed the new group. Clearly,
bin Ladin and his deputies saw a base in Iraqi Kurdistan
as a useful operating point to harm both United States
security interests as well as to destabilize Turkey.
"Just as troubling is the role of Iran in facilitating the rise of
the Jund al-Islam. The only international border into PUK
and IMK-administered territory is that of Iran. Following the
October 4 battle for Tawella, Shawkat Hajji Mushir, a local
PUK commander, commented that "if the PUK gets any
closer [to the border], PUK bullets and rockets would hit
Iranian positions." While smuggling does take place
across the border, Iranian guard posts and small forts are
visible throughout and road crossings are few. Moreover,
the Toyota land cruisers used by Jund al-Islam could not
have been smuggled into the area without the tacit approval
of the Iranian government and security apparatus. The
apparent re-supply of Jund al-Islam through Iranian territory
is further evidence of Tehran's complicity."
FYI.
-BC
Pookie
Iraqi Official Testifies to Links Between Saddam and Al Qaeda
BY ELI LAKE - Staff Reporter of the Sun
September 14, 2006
WASHINGTON - A deputy prime minister of Iraq yesterday offered a sharp
contradiction of the conventional wisdom here that Saddam Hussein's Iraq and
Al Qaeda had no connection before the 2003 war, flatly contradicting a
recent report from the Senate's intelligence committee.
In a speech in which he challenged the belief of war critics that Iraqis'
lives are now worse than under Saddam Hussein, Barham Salih said, "The
alliance between the Baathists and jihadists which sustains Al Qaeda in Iraq
is not new, contrary to what you may have been told." He went on to say, "I
know this at first hand. Some of my friends were murdered by jihadists, by
Al Qaeda-affiliated operatives who had been sheltered and assisted by
Saddam's regime."
A Kurdish politician who took his high school exams from inside a Baathist
prison, Mr. Salih said he was the target of the alliance between jihadists,
Baathists, and Al Qaeda in 2001, when a group known as Ansar al-Islam tried
to assassinate him. In 2002, envoys of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, one
of the two Kurdish parties sharing sovereignty over northern Iraq between
the two Iraq wars, presented the CIA with evidence that the organization
that tried to kill Mr. Salih had been in part funded and directed by Saddam
Hussein's Republican Guard.
Those words directly contradict a recent report from the Senate Select
Committee on Intelligence that declassified a 2005 CIA assessment of Iraq's
pre-war ties to Al Qaeda and found that none existed. In an interview after
the speech yesterday, Mr. Salih said he was unaware of the CIA assessment.
But he added, "There were links between Ansar al-Islam and Al Qaeda. The
information at time [in 2002] was quite different. Now, we could not prove
this in a court of law, but this is intelligence."
The Senate's report declassifies a July 2002 Defense Intelligence Agency
study of Ansar al-Islam as a possible link between Saddam's Iraq and Al
Qaeda that concludes that, even if it can be proven, as Mr. Salih at the
time alleged, that the Baathist regime supported the group, "it will not
necessarily implicate the regime in supporting Al Qaeda." The DIA concludes
that Ansar al-Islam "receives assistance" from Al Qaeda but is not a branch
of the terrorist organization.
Democrats in the last three days have used the Senate report as a stick with
which to beat the White House. On Tuesday, the ranking Democrat on the House
Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, Rep. Jane Harman of California,
wrote a letter to Vice President Cheney urging him to rescind his remarks on
NBC's "Meet the Press" last Sunday when he said he did not know whether an
accused September 11 hijacker, Mohammed Atta, met with a senior Iraqi
intelligence official in Prague. On that program, Mr. Cheney dismissed the
Senate committee's report and said he had not read it.
On Tuesday and yesterday, the Senate Democratic leader's communications
office sent out press releases accusing White House press secretary Tony
Snow of misleading the public on Iraq when he insisted the president
asserted that no a relationship between Al Qaeda and Iraq existed before the
war. The Senate committee's report quotes the 2005 CIA report as saying
Saddam Hussein did not know that the former commander of Al Qaeda in Iraq,
Abu Musab Zarqawi, was in his country before the war.
Clinging to the assessments of the intelligence agencies, the Democrats have
used the finding to make the broader point that the Iraq war is in no way
related to the war on terrorism. Rep. Ike Skelton, a senior Democrat on the
House Armed Services Committee from Missouri, yesterday issued a statement
saying, "Our country is engaged in two separate wars. The first is the war
against terrorism, which has its genesis in Afghanistan."
He went on to say, "The second war, in Iraq, originated because of the
alleged threat of weapons of mass destruction against America and our
interests. This was a war of choice." The two war theme was repeated by
President Carter's national security adviser, Zbigniew Brzezinski, in a
speech on new directions for American foreign policy.
But Mr. Salih at the Brookings Institution yesterday rebutted this point.
"The terrorism that we are facing is therefore not an aberration caused by
the liberation of Iraq. It is not an expression of a legitimate grievance.
It is the failure of the political culture that is the rotted offspring of
the old order, the results of decades of inequality, intolerance, injustice,
and officially-sponsored fanaticism," he said. A few breaths later, Mr.
Salih said, "We are your allies in the global war against Al Qaeda."
Mr. Salih, who was in Iran last week on official business for Iraq, also
said that he had "candid" conversations with Iranian officials and had
raised the issue of improvised explosive devices from Iran getting into the
hands of Iraqi insurgents.
http://www.nysun.com/article/39631
BC
Pookie
You have NO sense...
Connected
The ties that bind Saddam Hussein, al Qaeda, and other Islamofascists.
By Deroy Murdock
Iraq-war critics are trumpeting a Sept. 8 Senate Intelligence Committee
report that concludes Saddam Hussein knew nothing about the 9/11 attacks.
Hence, the argument goes, he had no connection to al Qaeda, and, therefore,
he lacked ties to Islamic terrorists. In short: "Bush lied, people died."
Of course, none of these propositions necessarily yields the next. But if
repeated often and quickly enough, and with little protest from the White
House, they collectively begin to resemble the truth.
This seriously flawed report relies on unreliable witnesses, ignores
potential and actual evidence of Hussein's philanthropy of terror, and yet
quietly acknowledges that he did in fact work with terrorists. If Saddam
Hussein's lawyers seek a clean bill of health for their client, this isn't
it.
For starters, the report's sources include "debriefs of multiple detainees
including Saddam Hussein and former Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz." Both
are on trial and could face severe punishment. Their exculpatory remarks
should be highly suspect, but appear valid to Senate Intelligence staffers.
On page 67, their report paraphrases Hussein's statement that he eschewed al
Qaeda's anti-Americanism because "the United States was not Iraq's enemy."
Perhaps he merely was being playful when he fired almost daily at U.S.
aircraft patrolling the No-Fly Zone and attempted to assassinate President G
.H. W. Bush in 1993. Indeed, on page 68, Aziz offers the FBI Hussein's
response to al Qaeda's August 7, 1998, bombing of America's Kenyan and
Tanzanian embassies. Hussein "was pleased at the act of terrorism because
the U.S. had bombed Iraq during the first Gulf War and tried to kill Saddam.
Saddam thought that al Qaeda was an effective organization."
The report also quotes captured Iraqi documents. Among some 120 million such
papers, only 34 million have been "translated and summarized to some extent"
to speed expert analysis. Nevertheless, with nearly 72 percent of these
records still unusable, the report concludes: "While document exploitation
continues, additional reviews of documents in Iraq are unlikely to provide
information that would contradict the Committee's findings or conclusions."
Or, in plain English: "Don't confuse us with data. Trust us. We're psychic."
This report overlooks numerous indications, some firmer than others, that
Hussein supported the 9/11 conspiracy specifically and al Qaeda broadly,
among other Islamic terrorist groups. Consider:
The report disregards the May 7, 2003, decision of Clinton-appointed U.S.
District Court Judge Harold Baer, Jr. that Baghdad backed the 9/11 attack.
Baer awarded $104 million in damages from the Baathist regime to the
families of George Eric Smith and Timothy Soulas, both killed at the World
Trade Center. As Baer ruled: "I conclude that plaintiffs have shown, albeit
barely, 'by evidence satisfactory to the court,' that Iraq provided material
support to bin Laden and al Qaeda."
This federal court decision notwithstanding, Iraq did have links to al
Qaeda. Perhaps, as the report contends, Iraq and al Qaeda lacked "an
established formal relationship." So what? Does the Cali drug cartel have
"established formal relationships" with those who market its cocaine on U.S.
streets? Are those contracts notarized, or merely stored in safe-deposit
boxes? Equally ludicrous is the idea that a dictatorial regime and a shadowy
terrorist network would arrange proper, Western-style agreements. The fact
that Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden never signed an accord in Geneva
hardly precludes their plotting evil together.
The report misses the fact that 1993 WTC-attack architect Ramzi Yousef -
nephew of 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed - landed in America on an
Iraqi passport. Nor does it mention Indiana-born, Iraqi-bred Abdul Rahman
Yasin, the al Qaeda operative who built the 1993 WTC bomb that killed six
and injured 1,040. He fled to Iraq and, documents show, received a house and
salary from Hussein's regime. As Sheila MacVicar reported for ABC News on
July 27, 1994: "Last week, [television program] Day One confirmed [Yasin] is
in Baghdad. . . . Just a few days ago, he was seen at [his father's] house
by ABC News. Neighbors told us Yasin comes and goes freely."
The report forgets that President Clinton's State Department designated Iraq
a state sponsor of terrorism as early as 1993. "Iraq continued to plan and
sponsor international terrorism in 1999," State later declared. Baghdad
"continued to provide safe haven and support to various terrorist groups."
Among Hussein's guests was Palestinian terrorist Abu Abbas, ringleader of
the 1985 Achille Lauro luxury-liner hijacking in which four Muslim fanatics
wounded passengers, then shot wheelchair-bound Leon Klinghoffer, a Jewish
retiree from New York City, and flung his corpse into the Mediterranean. Abu
Nidal, another terror master, also lived in comfort under Hussein. Nidal and
his group injured an estimated 788 innocents and murdered 407 others,
including at least 17 Americans.
The Senate document concedes "Saddam's record of support for secular
terrorist organizations like the Palestinian Liberation Front," but then
breezes past his $10,000 and $25,000 reward checks to the families of
Palestinian suicide bombers. Between the $15,000 boost in these bonuses on
March 11, 2002, and the March 20, 2003, launch of Operation Iraqi Freedom,
28 such killers wounded 1,209 people and murdered 223 more, including at
least eight Americans.
Intelligence Committee Democrats, in cahoots with Nebraska Republican Sen.
Chuck Hagel, successfully voted to exclude from the report Vincent Brooks's
remarks about Salman Pak, a suspected Iraqi terror-training camp south of
Baghdad. Brooks told reporters on April 6, 2003: "The nature of the work
being done by some of those people that we captured, their inferences to the
type of training that they received, all of these things give us the
impression that there was terrorist training that was conducted at Salman
Pak."
Why was this deleted?
Melissa Merz, press secretary for Oregon Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden, told me:
"Sen. Wyden moved to strike the statement on the grounds that it was clearly
a statement by a press spokesman and was not apparently based on any postwar
intelligence finding. No other statements by press spokesmen were included
in the report."
But Vincent Brooks is no standard flack. He is a U.S. Army brigadier general
and, at that rank, served as deputy director of operations during Iraq's
liberation. His opinions on Salman Pak should have remained in the report.
While Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice
have tried to answer this paper, President Bush himself should deliver
several major addresses detailing Saddam Hussein's extensive terror record.
Educating the public with new, declassified information would help
counteract the "Bush lied us into war" chorus. If this left-wing cantata
goes unchallenged, it could cost Republicans control of Congress and expose
Bush to greater indignities - including impeachment.
http://article.nationalreview.com/print/?q=NTY4YzY3MjFmYzRiMTNjMDQ5NTJkMjliOGUwMDNhYjI=
Clinton first linked al Qaeda to Saddam
By Rowan Scarborough
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Published June 25, 2004
The Clinton administration talked about firm evidence linking Saddam
Hussein's regime to Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network years before
President Bush made the same statements.
The issue arose again this month after the National Commission on
Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States reported there was no
"collaborative relationship" between the old Iraqi regime and bin Laden.
Democrats have cited the staff report to accuse Mr. Bush of making
inaccurate statements about a linkage. Commission members, including a
Democrat and two Republicans, quickly came to the administration's defense
by saying there had been such contacts.
In fact, during President Clinton's eight years in office, there were at
least two official pronouncements of an alarming alliance between Baghdad
and al Qaeda. One came from William S. Cohen, Mr. Clinton's defense
secretary. He cited an al Qaeda-Baghdad link to justify the bombing of a
pharmaceutical plant in Sudan.
Mr. Bush cited the linkage, in part, to justify invading Iraq and
ousting Saddam. He said he could not take the risk of Iraq's weapons falling
into bin Laden's hands.
The other pronouncement is contained in a Justice Department indictment
on Nov. 4, 1998, charging bin Laden with murder in the bombings of two U.S.
embassies in Africa.
The indictment disclosed a close relationship between al Qaeda and
Saddam's regime, which included specialists on chemical weapons and all
types of bombs, including truck bombs, a favorite weapon of terrorists.
The 1998 indictment said: "Al Qaeda also forged alliances with the
National Islamic Front in the Sudan and with the government of Iran and its
associated terrorist group Hezbollah for the purpose of working together
against their perceived common enemies in the West, particularly the United
States. In addition, al Qaeda reached an understanding with the government
of Iraq that al Qaeda would not work against that government and that on
particular projects, specifically including weapons development, al Qaeda
would work cooperatively with the government of Iraq."
Shortly after the embassy bombings, Mr. Clinton ordered air strikes on
al Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan and on the Shifa pharmaceutical
factory in Sudan.
To justify the Sudanese plant as a target, Clinton aides said it was
involved in the production of deadly VX nerve gas. Officials further
determined that bin Laden owned a stake in the operation and that its
manager had traveled to Baghdad to learn bomb-making techniques from
Saddam's weapons scientists.
Mr. Cohen elaborated in March in testimony before the September 11
commission.
He testified that "bin Laden had been living [at the plant], that he
had, in fact, money that he had put into this military industrial
corporation, that the owner of the plant had traveled to Baghdad to meet
with the father of the VX program."
He said that if the plant had been allowed to produce VX that was used
to kill thousands of Americans, people would have asked him, " 'You had a
manager that went to Baghdad; you had Osama bin Laden, who had funded, at
least the corporation, and you had traces of [VX precursor] and you did
what? And you did nothing?' Is that a responsible activity on the part of
the secretary of defense?"
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20040624-112921-3401r.htm
Documenting Saddam Hussein's State Sponsorship of Terrorism.
Thursday, June 15, 2006
Question and Answer with author "Sam Pender" (on Saddam Hussein's links to
al Qaeda)
ME: You've written 5 different books on the subject of Saddam Hussein. What
motivated you to write them?
SP: Immediately after 9-11, I had an unusual amount of free time, and I was
fascinated by the news. I began keeping track of as much as I could from the
TV, web, books, magazines, papers, etc. After a while, I had so much info
that I had to start organizing it. When the rhetoric for the invasion of
Iraq began to build, I collected information regarding Iraq as well. My
friends and I debated the issue online, and it was apparent that none of
them had the time to sift through the IMMENSE amount of political distortion
from both sides of the aisle. I tried to clear that up using the information
I'd collected, and in the process essentially compiled a book-then another
and another.
ME: Are you planning on doing another book? What will its focus be?
SP: I'd like to do a fictional series illustrating the way wars are waged
today and in the near future. I see precision-guided warfare (PGW) as the
new era in military force, but war is not just battles on a battlefield. It's
one nation imposing its POLITICAL WILL upon another. In the past this was
done solely with violent means, but now-with advent of mass communications
and a global, real time community, I think a new era of non-violent and
semi-violent protest will rise to a level of effectiveness similar to PGW,
and greater that traditional, conventional warfare. My series would
basically take a scenario and each book in the series would focus on the
different type of "warfare" used; a PGW book, a book demonstrating
non-violent protest that exploit the mass media potentials, and a book on
modern insurgency. I dunno if I'll ever find the TIME to do it, but I hope
so.
ME: Based on your experience, would you say that that the War in Iraq is
part of overall the War on Terror? Why or why not?
SP: First off, it's important to face the fact that without the US-lead war
on Iraq from 91-03, there'd have been no rebirth of Al Queda. Al Queda was
created as a support network to support the Arab Afghans against the
Soviets. When that was complete, there was no more Al Queda. Al Queda was
reborn in December 1992 with the strike on the hotel in Yemen. UBL's casus
belli was:
1)The presence of US troops in holy land of Saudi Arabia (US forces
positioned there to wage an ignored war on Saddam ala the Southern No Fly
Zone and no fewer than FOUR full-out air campaigns)
2) US 'oppression' of Muslims in places like Somalia and Iraq (specifically
Iraq-the only of UBL's casus belli to be consistent from AQ's rebirth in 92)
3) US lead sanctions against Iraq (i.e. a blockade/traditional casus belli)
People conveniently ignore that from 91-03 there was a HUGE war waged by the
US and the west on Iraq. It came in the form of a blockade that killed
hundreds of thousands of Iraqis. It came in the form of thousands of air
battles over the no-fly-zones. It came in the form of massive bombing
campaigns averaging every other year. It came in the form of US-sponsored
rebellions, coups, assassination attempts, and covert operations which left
400-500,000 Iraqis executed and which were increasingly futile. This war is
why UBL reformed Al Queda. To support (indirectly or directly or
quasi-directly) the Iraqis, Somalis, and other Muslims against the United
States. Al Queda was reborn to be a disconnected (or deniably connected)
ally to Iraq and others fighting the US (see also AQ support for Milosovic's
Serbia against the US, AQ's support for Somalis and their involvement in the
Black Hawk Down incident, and so forth). Without the 91-03 war on Iraq,
there'd be no Al Queda.
I believe the 911 attacks were Al Queda attacks, partly aided by Saddam's
Iraq, and grossly inspired by the US war on Iraq (particularly in 98/99).
The same can be said about the African Embassy Bombings and the USS Cole
attack.
Since the invasion (or just prior to it) the US war in Iraq has served as a
hunting expedition. There are many reasons for the war (this deserves
repeating: there are MANY REASONS for the war), but whether one is a
fisherman, a hunter, or a general the first rule of killing is to use bait,
and to pick the best spot (the best fishing hole, the best duck blind, the
best tree stand, or the best ground for a battlefield). The war in Iraq has
served to drain the Middle East ("The Swamp" as Sec Rumsfeld termed it) of
Al Queda operatives, holy warriors, sympathizers, and would be terrorists.
It sounds cold, but in practice, it's not much different than the American
strategy of invading France was in World War II; they didn't invade
Germany-they chose the most advantageous battlefield location.
ME: What would you say are the strongest examples of Saddam Hussein's State
Sponsorship of Terrorism that the American public should be made more aware
of?
SP: I think there are two.
First has to be the high level meetings where the highest and most powerful
members of Saddam's Intelligence Services were meeting with Al Queda (and
going to extreme measures to do so). When high level leaders meet, they do
so for strategic reasons, and I think Iraq's leaders were meeting with Al
Queda to try and get Al Queda to attack the US on their behalf (the lesson
of Desert Storm HAS to be that fighting the US in a conventional war is
suicide). Illustrating this point well is the 1998 request by Iraq to Al
Queda to have UBL moved to Iraq for his protection (similar to the offer
given and accepted by Abu Abbas, Abu Nidal, Carlos the Jackal, Yasin, Abu
Musab al Zarqawi and others). On the other hand you have Al Queda leaders
traveling at great expense and effort to meet with Iraqi leaders sometimes
even IN Baghdad. Interestingly enough, after each of the highest level
meetings in Iraq.there was always one of two things: a new declaration of
war (fatweh) from UBL or a new attack plot on the US was set in motion.
The second best example of ties between Iraq and Al Queda is probably the
embassies. It's no secret that the Iraqi embassies around the world had long
been IIS branches. This is the case with most nations. What makes their
situation is unique is that the IIS was caught making frequent calls to Al
Queda affiliate/branch groups. In some cases-like in the Philippines-this
lead to expulsion of IIS "diplomats," There are many more examples going all
the way back to 1990.
ME: For someone who doesn't follow the topic of Saddam Hussein's sponsorship
of terrorism and wants to know more on the topic what documents would you
consider must- reads? (You may include your own book)?
SP: The original 1998 indictment of Osama Bin Laden is a good place to
start. It details Al Queda well. From there, I think the 911 Commission's
final report; the Sen. Intel Com 911 investigation, the Sen. Intel Com
investigation into pre-war intel on Iraq, and the slew of recently
declassified docs that had been captured in the IIS HQ are all good places
to start. From there, I think I could suggest a huge reading list of very
well done books as well.
ME: One of your books deals with the possible relationship between Saddam
Hussein's regime and members of al Qaeda ("Saddam's Ties To Al Queda").
Since its publication have any of the major points been proven? Disproved?
Has anything newsworthy been made public since the books publication?
SP: The pre-invasion ties between Zarqawi are the easiest to see, and with
each strike he made the case that he was an evil and deadly force was proven
more substantial.
ME: There are a number of politicians, unnamed CIA and military sources,
journalists and counterterrorism analysts who argue that Osama bin Laden and
al Qaeda's affiliates would not work with Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq
because of ideological differences. The argument is that Saddam Hussein did
not trust Islamic extremists and had often worked against them, while Osama
bin Laden had called Saddam Hussein an "infidel" a number of times. What do
you make of this argument?
SP: You don't have to 'like' someone or even accept their ideology to work
with them. Historically, few noteworthy alliances have a shared ideology,
and it's the exceptions (like the US/UK relationship) that are noted.
Hitler's ideology was one of racial purity, yet he had no problem signing
treaties with the Japanese who were FAR from Aryan. Roosevelt and Churchill
hated Stalin and vice versa, but they fought the same enemy and even aided
each other (not a lot of collaborative operations though; no British troops
or US Marines at Stalingrad, and no Red Guards at Normandy).
Saddam wanted to use Al Queda, and Al Queda used Saddam. That's their
reasoning-not a shared ideology. "Bin Ladin was also willing to explore
possibilities for cooperation with Iraq, even though Iraq's dictator, Saddam
Hussein, had never had an Islamist agenda..."; 911 Comm final report pg 61.
"In mid-1998, the situation reversed; it was Iraq that reportedly took the
initiative." 911 Comm Final report pg 66. "We say it loud and clear that we
will retaliate for what is happening to the sons of our nation in Iraq. For
the crimes committed by the US against our Islamic nation will not pass
without punishment."; -Al Queda's #2 man and strategic planner just days
before UBL authorized the 911 plot and less than 100hrs before meeting with
Iraq's deputy intel chief, Faruq Hijazi. Without the Post-Desert Storm US
war on Iraq in 1991, Al Queda would never have been reborn.
They were allies-not close friends, but bad guys with a common enemy who
were not only willing to use each other, but did so often. All of my books
spend a great deal of their text detailing the relationship between the two,
and it cannot be dismissed as so many do for purely political convenience
and partisan affirmation.
ME: Another argument put forth, against the possible relationship between
Saddam Hussein's regime and al Qaeda, is that no evidence of a relationship
between the two sides has been found in either Iraq or Afghanistan since the
removal of Saddam Hussein's regime and the Taliban. Is this true?
SP: This is patently false. There's been extensive evidence of their
relationship found in Iraq, and some in Afghanistan. This claim of no
evidence of ties stems from the Senate Intelligence Committee report on
pre-war Iraq intel as well as the 911 Commission report.
Those reports said that there was "no evidence of a collaborative
relationship" and "no evidence that the two worked togther", but the reason
for the lack of evidence wasn't that none existed (since evidence has been
found in Iraq, Afghanistan, the Philippines, etc.), but rather because there
was no evidence sought between 1998 and 2002. Since then, more than one 911
Commission member has said that the issue of Saddam's Ties to Al Queda
should be re-examined because of the new evidence being made public.
Similarly, members of the Senate Intelligence Committee have said the same
thing, and the House Intelligence Committee has sought to have documents
captured from Saddam's Intelligence Headquarters made public so that the
world can see the evidence of the ties for themselves.
Those documents are very clear in proving that Saddam's regime and Al Queda
had a relationship, a mutually supportive relationship, and a relationship
far closer than many are willing to admit. I have no doubt that Saddam
distrusted Islamic extremists, and that Bin Laden has no love for Saddam,
but even more so I have no doubt that their mutual hatred of the United
States and others would allow them to overcome their dislike, and that their
own self-serving, individual desires would aid further in overcoming their
dislike. UBL might have disliked Saddam, but he HATES the US. Saddam might
not trust UBL, but he HATES the US. That there was/is a relationship has
been well-proven by post-war finds.
ME: What would you say to skeptics of links who say that the intelligence on
Iraq's possible links to al Qaeda was cherry-picked and taken out of
context?
SP: As I said, there was very little intel collected between 1998 and 2002
on the relationship between Saddam's regime and Al Queda. "Most alarmingly,
after 1998 and the exit of the U.N. inspectors, the CIA had no human
intelligence sources inside Iraq who were collecting against the WMD
target." - Senator Pat Roberts 070904 SIC Release of WMD investigation
report Press Conference transcript.
Similarly, the Senate Intelligence Committee's investigation into 911
reveals that the CIA unit tracking Bin Laden numbered between 4 and 40
people before 911. Combining those two; lack of intelligence gathering and
assessing reveals the reason why there was no evidence of ties between the
two; hardly anything was being gathered. When there's so little to go on, it's
going to look like cherry-picking.
I think your own piece on this matter is very accurate as well. Since the
invasion of Iraq, more evidence has been found, and I agree with the 911
Commission members and Senate Intelligence Committee members who have said
that the matter needs re-assessing.
ME: Sam, Thank you for your time.
http://markeichenlaub.blogspot.com/2006/06/question-and-answer-with-author-sam.html
BC
And you have no facts. And in the very rare occasions
that you do, they aren't relevant to whatever point is
trying to be made.
Here, let me summarize what the *real* evidence
show so far:
1) Hussein's support of terrorism was evidently
primarily or exclusively with the Palestinians.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/2846365.stm
http://news.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=1199662004
2) Militant Islamic groups like al-Qaeda considered
secular rulers like Hussein to be enemies to be
overthrown and replaced by religious leaders. And
by "secular", that means ruling by old school
Islamic law. While the United States and Israel
are/were considered mutual enemies, that hasn't
been enough to overcome the religious/philosophical
differences, allowing for very little if any cooperation.
http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/issues/iraq/attack/consequences/2003/0213misreading.htm
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/14/AR2006091401545.html
3) Iran and Iraq were serious enemies, their war
in the 80's was nasty and dirty with over a million
casualities and involved the extensive use of
chemical & biological weapons by Iraq:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran-Iraq_War
The United States was heavily involved in the war,
primarily in support of Iraq including supplying
as least some of the material for the biological
weapons.
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB82/
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines02/0908-08.htm
http://www.iranchamber.com/history/articles/arming_iraq.php
4) Hussein considered the Kurds to be a
nuisance and traitors (they were allied with Iran
during the war) and treated them brutally,
including a gas attack in 1988:
http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/rls/18714.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halabja_poison_gas_attack
http://www.phrusa.org/research/chemical_weapons/chemiraqgas2.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Anfal_Campaign
5) There is plenty of evidence showing that al-
Qaeda had ties to Iran and to some of the most
militant Islamic Kurdish groups like Ansar al-Islam:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A4191-2004Jul21.html
http://news.ncmonline.com/news/view_article.html?article_id=e161218bba1f1c4e029f3f622e019407
http://www.mafhoum.com/press7/203P3.htm
http://www.rotten.com/library/history/terrorist-organizations/ansar_al-islam/
6) In contrast, the "evidence" for al-Qaeda ties to
Iraq have amounted to only being sketchy, deliberate,
lying-ass rumor-mongering BS by the White House
and its crackheaded supporters like Stephen Hayes
and this Deroy Murdock fool you have here.
Let me quote from the Murdock piece:
" The report disregards the May 7, 2003, decision of
Clinton-appointed U.S. District Court Judge Harold
Baer, Jr. that Baghdad backed the 9/11 attack. Baer
awarded $104 million in damages from the Baathist
regime to the families of George Eric Smith and Timothy
Soulas, both killed at the World Trade Center. As Baer
ruled: "I conclude that plaintiffs have shown, albeit
barely, 'by evidence satisfactory to the court,' that Iraq
provided material support to bin Laden and al Qaeda."
This federal court decision notwithstanding, Iraq did
have links to al Qaeda. Perhaps, as the report contends,
Iraq and al Qaeda lacked "an established formal
relationship." So what? Does the Cali drug cartel have
"established formal relationships" with those who market
its cocaine on U.S. streets? Are those contracts
notarized, or merely stored in safe-deposit boxes?
Equally ludicrous is the idea that a dictatorial regime
and a shadowy terrorist network would arrange proper,
Western-style agreements. The fact that Saddam
Hussein and Osama bin Laden never signed an accord
in Geneva hardly precludes their plotting evil together."
WTF logic is that? They are both Middle Eastern
bad guys so they *must* be plotting evil together?!
And the Baer court decision was no more than
another frivolous lawsuit decision that was based on
now thoroughly discredited allegations of the Bush
administration at the time, and has little or nothing
to do with actual government intelligence. Many
families of the 9/11 victims rejected the special US
government fund meant to compensate them in favor
of lawsuits naming everyone from the airlines to bin
Laden, the Saudi royal family and even the President
of Venezuela:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2003-07-13-911-families-cover-usat_x.htm
And note this bit from the USA Today article
regarding the Baer decision: "The victorious plaintiffs
hoped to collect the judgment from the $1.7 billion
in Iraqi assets that had been frozen in the USA by
presidential order since 1990.
But on May 22, Bush ordered that Iraqi assets here
not be used to pay court judgments. He reserved
the money for postwar rebuilding of Iraq, except for
$300 million that was set aside for Americans who
were seized as human shields by Saddam at the
start of the Persian Gulf War in 1990."
7) By any definition, people who chronically lie, who
keep trying to deceive, in this case a very large
and gullible, Google-challenged chunk of the US
population, are bad guys, pure and simple. There is
no searching for truth here -- you and the others are
no more than sleazy used car salesmen trying to
sucker people into buying junk cars. The al-Qaeda
ties to Iraq has no wheels, the WMD program has
no engine, and the "war on terrorism" has no steering
wheel.
How does it feel to be a bad guy?
-BC