Senate reports say Saddam rejected cooperating with terrorists

[jackschmittusa]

ProfJohn

If it was such a well known fact that Saddam rejected cooperating with Al Qaeda then why is this story just now coming to light, 3 years after the war started?!?!

There were a lot of people at the time (before the war) that claimed that the ascertion of Sadaam co-operating with AQ was ludricrous, myself included. How is it that even Joe Average like me understood back then that there was such a huge gulf between the political and religious ideology of the two, that they had no basis for co-operative effort, but the Administration seems to have no clue?

Nobody in this Administration ever seemed to filter anything they said or did through even the basics of M.E. culture, politics, or religion to get a hint of how things really were, or possible outcomes of our actions. Bush even used the word "crusade" 3 times in speaches before the war. A perfect example of sheer ignorance.

Unfortunately, GWB counted on the general public to be as ignorant as he was, and he was right.

 

[DealMonkey]

Originally posted by: DealMonkey

Originally posted by: ProfJohnHowever, to my friends on the left who are about to go into orgasm mode over this story.
If it was such a well known fact that Saddam rejected cooperating with Al Qaeda then why is this story just now coming to light, 3 years after the war started?!?!

The question you should be asking is - why was the war started three years too soon before we knew one iota about Iraq.

You should answer the question above, ProfJohn. Why the rush to war before we had our facts straight and a plan to not only defeat Iraq militarily but to secure the country afterwards? What was the downside of waiting? Saddam wasn't going anywhere. Between the UN inspectors and the no-fly zones, he was effectively rendered harmless.

 

[shira]

Originally posted by: ProfJohn
However, to my friends on the left who are about to go into orgasm mode over this story.
If it was such a well known fact that Saddam rejected cooperating with Al Qaeda then why is this story just now coming to light, 3 years after the war started?!?!

Maybe because the truly reliable information is only coming out now, as a result of de-classification.

You know the info I'm referring to, don't you? That incredible stuff Cheney was smoking. That stuff about which Cheney - when challenged on his assertions about Iraq-Al Qaeda ties - would say, "If you had access to the classified information I do . . . ." Except that it turns out that Cheney's amazing classified information - now being de-classified - is even more damning about this Administration's willful disregard for what the CIA was telling it than any of us have imagined.

To quote directly from the article: "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,"

Read it again, postwar findings, which means we did not know this before the war started. Which means Bush and company relied on the CIA for information, and as in the WMD reports the CIA let us down as a country.

Well, that's certainly an interesting quote. Except that the article-writer (and you, apparently) haven't been reading widely enough:
9-9-06 Wash Post Article: Iraq's Alleged Al-Qaeda Ties Were Disputed Before War

A few choice excerpts:

A declassified report released yesterday by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence revealed that U.S. intelligence analysts were strongly disputing the alleged links between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda while senior Bush administration officials were publicly asserting those links to justify invading Iraq.

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. . . the report concluded that information provided by an INC source was cited in that estimate and in Secretary of State Colin L. Powell's February 2003 speech to the United Nations as corroborating evidence about Iraq's mobile biological weapons program. Those citations came despite two April 2002 CIA assessments, a May 2002 Defense Intelligence Agency fabrication notice and a July 2002 National Intelligence Council warning -- all saying the INC source may have been coached by the exile group into fabricating the information.

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In a classified January 2003 report, for instance, the CIA concluded that Hussein "viewed Islamic extremists operating inside Iraq as a threat." But one day after that conclusion was published, Levin noted, Vice President Cheney said the Iraqi government "aids and protects terrorists, including members of al-Qaeda."

Intelligence reports in June, July and September 2002 all cast doubts on a reported meeting in Prague between Iraqi intelligence agents and Sept. 11 hijacker Mohamed Atta. Yet, in a Sept. 8, 2002, appearance on NBC's "Meet The Press," Cheney said the CIA considered the reports on the meeting credible, Levin said.

In February 2002, the Defense Intelligence Agency concluded that "Iraq is unlikely to have provided bin Laden any useful [chemical and biological weapons] knowledge or assistance." A year later, Bush said: "Iraq has also provided al-Qaeda with chemical and biological weapons training."

The Administration's response to these revelations? "It's old news." They only wish.

 

[alien42]

to add insult to injury, by removing saddam, we also removed Irans primary enemy.

 

[dexvx]

Originally posted by: ProfJohn
Media Bias in the article title???

Does anyone else see this? The article's title is "Senate reports say Saddam rejected cooperating with terrorists" We all know though that Saddam was sending money to Hamas though, or at least to the families of Hamas suicide bombers. Does that not show that Saddam did "cooperate" with at least some terrorist?

By saying "Saddam rejected cooperating with terrorists" the newspaper is making it look like Saddam rejected all terrorists, which is not true. Is this a mistake by the newspaper, or are they trying to make it look like Saddam had nothing to do with terror in order to hurt Bush?

One of the myths of pre-invasion Iraq led by the Neo-Cons. Saddam sent money to ALL palestinian familiies killed in Israeli (including suicide bombers AND innocent bystanders). The reason behind this was Saddam was Sunni and most Palestinians, including Hamas was Sunni as well. Subsequently, it meant he sent money to all Hamas deaths in addition to non-Hamas deaths. The Neo-Cons left out the latter. What they said was true, however, it was somewhat distorted.

Originally posted by: ProfJohn
Now as far WMD and CIA. Every other country on the planet said Saddam had WMDs. France, Russia, England etc etc, so I don't think you can say the administration was "cherry picking" inteligence findings to see only what they wanted to see. Now if France, Russia and England all said "he doesn't have WMD anymore" and we ignored them that would be a major problem.

France and Russia didn't know if Saddam had WMD. They wanted to give the inspectors more time and take Hans Blix's word when he was finished. The reason they opposed the invasion was because more time was needed.

---

Anyways, its interesting to see how P&N has changed since the invasion. When it started, I'd say the majority of the people were pro-war fanatics thinking we'd find WMD's in a week because the UN Inspectors were retards.

 

[ProfJohn]

Originally posted by: DealMonkey

Originally posted by: DealMonkey

Originally posted by: ProfJohnHowever, to my friends on the left who are about to go into orgasm mode over this story.
If it was such a well known fact that Saddam rejected cooperating with Al Qaeda then why is this story just now coming to light, 3 years after the war started?!?!

The question you should be asking is - why was the war started three years too soon before we knew one iota about Iraq.

You should answer the question above, ProfJohn. Why the rush to war before we had our facts straight and a plan to not only defeat Iraq militarily but to secure the country afterwards? What was the downside of waiting? Saddam wasn't going anywhere. Between the UN inspectors and the no-fly zones, he was effectively rendered harmless.

An answer for you, to the best of my ability.
1. There was no "rush" to war as is commonly mistated by those on the left.
As show by this timeline:
Sep. 12, 2002: President Bush addresses the UN, challenging the organization to swiftly enforce its own resolutions against Iraq. If not, Bush contends, the U.S. will have no choice but to act on its own against Iraq.
Oct. 11, 2002: Congress authorizes an attack on Iraq.
Nov. 8, 2002: The UN Security Council unanimously approves resolution 1441 imposing tough new arms inspections on Iraq and precise, unambiguous definitions of what constitutes a "material breach" of the resolution. Should Iraq violate the resolution, it faces "serious consequences," which the Security Council would then determine.
Jan. 27, 2003: The UN's formal report on Iraqi inspections is highly critical, though not damning, with chief UN weapons inspector Hans Blix stating that "Iraq appears not to have come to a genuine acceptance, not even today, of the disarmament that was demanded of it."
Mar. 20, 2003: The war against Iraq begins 5:30 AM Baghdad time (9:30 PM EST, March 19), when the U.S. launches Operation Iraqi Freedom. Called a "decapitation attack," the initial air strike of the war attempted to target Saddam Hussein and other Iraqi leaders in Baghdad.

Now, counting on fingers, 6 months passed between when we started the march to war and when the war actually happened. That was 6 months in which Saddam could have given unlimited access to inspectors and could have gone out of his way to prove he did not have weapons. If Saddam had nothing to hide why did he make such a mess of the new inspections?

The reason the administration could not wait any longer past March was that they did not want to fight a war in the Summer. Secondly, I think they felt that if they backed down it would make the US look weak. We know from history that the lack of response to the Cole bombing emboldened the radicals in the Islamic world. Had we backed down and given Saddam all summer he would have taken that as a victory.

Let's be completely honest here, if we had wait a year or even two years to invade and then the results were same as they are now people would have been complaining about the "rush" to war.
Also, in hindsight if we had taken the threat of Osama seriously before the 1998 embassy bombings and made a better effort to eliminate him then 9-11 may have never happened. But then to many people did not want to rush into things, or did not see him as the threat he grew into.

The question you should be asking is - why was the war started three years too soon [/b]before we knew one iota about Iraq.

Do you really think we would know what we know now if we did not invade Iraq? Most of this information we are talking about now was not learned, at least not in 100% concret terms, until after we invaded.

One more point, Condi Rice was on Fox News Sunday, as was Howard Dean ie.good balance, and she stated that the opinions that Saddam and al-queda did not work together was just one of MANY opinions of events floating around pre-invasion. Bush and Rice relied mainly on the CIA reports that said otherwise.
Read this gem from the Clinton years. Seems they believed that Saddam al-qaida worked together.

Clinton's Justice Department prepared an indictment of al-Qaida's leader, Osama bin Laden, in which a prominent passage located in the fourth paragraph reads: "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."

Saddam and al-qaida working together, maybe Bush was just following the Clinton lead since we all know what a great job he did on terrorism :roll:

 

[ProfJohn]

More fun stuff on the Iraq and al-aqaida connection.

Much of the press (ABC, CBS, CNN) were stating yesterday that a "central argument" made by the White House for removing Saddam Hussein from power was the alliance or links between Iraq and al-Qaeda.

Nowhere in the resolution does it say that one of the reasons, much less a central or key reason, for liberating Iraq was the cooperation between Iraq and al-Qaeda. The only reference to al-Qaeda in the resolution reads:

Whereas members of al-Qaida, an organization bearing responsibility for attacks on the United States, its citizens, and interests, including the attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, are known to be in Iraq;

So, the actual law authorizing force never states that al-Qaeda and Iraq were allied.

http://hnn.us/articles/1282.html