5/24/2006

"Proof Of Al-Qaida's Links To Iraq Just Too Strong To Be Dismissed"

Richard Miniter has a nice piece in today's Investors' Business Daily. Here is part of the piece, but there is a lot more evidence if you follow the link.

. . . Rather than trumpet this new evidence, the Administration and the military seem to regard it as historical. They are more focused on today's decisions than justifying yesterday's. So the growing impression, especially among the press, is that there simply was no link between Iraq and al-Qaida. If so, they would have told us, goes the argument. . . .

These sources reveal three kinds of undisputed connections between Iraq and al-Qaida: meetings, money, and training.

MEETINGS

• Photographs taken by Malaysian intelligence in January 2000 place Ahmed Hikmat Shakir, an Iraqi intelligence operative, meeting with the Sept. 11 hijackers.

• Captured Iraqi intelligence documents show that bin Laden met with Iraqi intelligence officials in Syria in 1992.

• Sudanese intelligence officials told me that their agents had observed meetings between Iraqi intelligence agents and bin Laden starting in 1994, when bin Laden lived in Khartoum.

• Michael Scheuer, the former head of the CIA's bin Laden unit and a critic of the Bush administration, writes in "Through Our Enemies' Eyes" that bin Laden "made a connection with Iraq's intelligence service through its Khartoum station."

• Bin Laden met at least eight times with officers of Iraq's Special Security Organization, a secret police agency run by Saddam's son Qusay, according to intelligence made public by Secretary of State Colin Powell, at the United Nations on Feb. 6, 2003.

• Bin Laden met the director of the Iraqi mukhabarat, Iraq's external intelligence service, in Khartoum in 1996.

• An al-Qaida operative now held by the United States confessed that in the mid-1990s, bin Laden agreed to cease all terrorist activities against the Iraqi dictator, Powell said.

• Patrick Fitzgerald, a U.S. attorney in the Clinton Justice Department, noted in the bin Laden indictment: "Al-Qaida reached an understanding with the government of Iraq that al-Qaida would not work against that government and that on particular projects, specifically including weapons development, al-Qaida would work cooperatively with the government of Iraq."

• In 2000, Saudi Arabia went on nation-wide alert when its intelligence learned that Iraq was working with al-Qaida to attack U.S. interests there.

• Weekly Standard writer Stephen Hayes cites captured Iraqi documents: "In 1998, according to documents unearthed in Iraq's intelligence headquarters in April 2003, al-Qaida sent a 'trusted confidant' to Baghdad for sixteen days of meetings beginning March 5. Iraqi intelligence paid for his stay in Room 414 of the Mansur al-Melia hotel and expressed hope that the envoy would serve as the liaison between Iraqi intelligence and bin Laden. The DIA \[the Pentagon's Defense Intelligence Agency\] has assessed those documents as authentic."

• ABC News's Nightline interviewed a "twenty-year veteran of Iraqi intelligence," identified him by his nom de guerre, Abu Aman Amaleeki, who said: "In 1992, elements of al-Qaida came to Baghdad and met with Saddam Hussein. And among them was Ayman al-Zawahiri. I was present when Ayman al-Zawahiri visited Baghdad." Zawahiri is al-Qaida's no. 2.

• Another visit by al-Zawahiri, in 1999, was confirmed by former Iraqi premier Iyad Allawi.

• Allawi also said that al-Zawahiri was invited to attend the ninth Popular Islamic Conference by Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, Saddam's own no. 2. The Iraqi government, he said, has the invitation and other records. . . . . [the piece is much longer and contains much more information]

6 Comments:

Blogger saturdaynightspecial said...

I never cared if there were a proven connection and I never cared there were a connection (I assumed there was).

In my opinion all Arab countries appreciate what terrorists do to the US. So does it matter to prove a terrorist connection to Iraq?

The worst thing Bush did was lie about WMD's to justify war and what I knew would follow. I can't say which is worse: all the deaths and the cost in dollars, or the destruction of liberty here. And what's it worth if you believe the whole problem was caused by the US long term involvement in the Middle East? I know it was; I know 9/11 was done to try to force the US to vacate the Middle East.

Also, given all the money spent on Homeland security, what if 9/11 were the last and only attack against the US planned by terrorists? In many places here you get searched - for what ?

Plus, it created a niche for all the American born Nazis' to advocate for more government control (I hate that part the most); these fascists say it needs to be done for security and safety. Just to disagree with them I oppose most security measures.

Only one good thing has come of this: I have gotten an opportunity to see so many that know so little about freedom, and how many American-born nazis are in the country - too many.

5/24/2006 6:11 PM  
Blogger John Lott said...

Bush never lied about WMD. He mentioned multiple reasons to go to war, and was criticized for giving multiple reasons, but he never lied about any of them. Can you give one single example where he lied? Bob Woodward was in the meeting when Bush asked Tenet about the strength of the evidence about WMD and Tenet assured Bush that the evidence was as strong as it could possibly be. Every intellgence service in the world through that Sadam had WMD. Did Bush get the French to doctor evidence to support the claim? I am sorry if I am really angry when people claim that Bush lied, because people who make that claim either do not know what the word lie means or they are lying.

It is besides the point, but after the war a lot of evidence has come out about things like 20 tons of enriched uranium that was found in Iraq as well as different types of gases. If you have any questions, you can look at the books by Rich Miniter or the statements by some of Sadam's generals who have recently come forward.

5/24/2006 6:20 PM  
Anonymous Brian said...

John said:

"I am sorry if I am really angry when people claim that Bush lied, because people who make that claim either do not know what the word lie means or they are lying."

I agree completely. As John put it: "Every intellgence service in the world through that Sadam had WMD. Did Bush get the French to doctor evidence to support the claim?"

That's the killer point, all the more so when you consider that the Russians, Chinese and French, especially, stood to benefit financially to the tune of billions of dollars if they could keep the US from invading. Given how opposed these countries were to the invasion, why would they keep quiet about "the truth," viz. that Iraq had no WMD, and thereby work against their own interests?

Indeed, the UN discussion before the invasion was: "What are we going to do with Saddam Hussein and his WMD? More sanctions? Or Invasion?"

The UN discussion was not: "Does Saddam Hussein have WMD?" (That issue was settled in the affirmative: every intelligence agency out there, possibly even Iraq's, thought Saddam had 'em.)

Beyond this, there is the appalling logic of those who assert that Bush lied. It runs like this:

1) If Bush lied, we'd find no WMD.

2) We found no WMD.

3) Therefore, Bush lied.

If that logic doesn't make you cringe, it should. It's roughly the same reasoning as this:

1) Ford builds cars.

2) I see a car.

3) Therefore, I see a Ford.

The point is this: there is a fundamental difference between data that are consistent with an assertion, even a false one, and data which demonstrate an assertion to be true.

In the case of automobiles, the fact that I see a car on the street doesn't necessarily mean it's a Ford: it could be a Chevrolet or a Toyota.

Bush may have lied, but the absence of WMD (if absent they were, which is highly questionable) does not prove that he did.

The absence of WMD could be due to a massive intelligence failure, in which case Bush was a consumer of poor intelligence rather than the creator of lies; or, the absence of WMD might be a function of Saddam Hussein having removed WMD to, for example, Syria, before Iraq fell.

Before one claims that "Bush lied" about WMD one needs to revisit her logic and then account for the highly implausible notion that nations would work so hard against their own interests.

Brian

5/25/2006 2:56 AM  
Blogger saturdaynightspecial said...

It's not our government's role to intervene. It did against Nazi Germany for the benefit of France, Britain and Europe; now look at Britain. It's a collectivist regime clouded by a disguised benevolence for people. It's a government that wants everyone to believe it knows what is best for people, does what is best for people, and forces what is best on people. It is just like Nazi Germany but makes you think it's the opposite.

If one country has nuclear weapons then any other country has a right to have them. Either way, if they have them or if they don't, it hardly matters. If Iraq had WMD's it couldn't use them anymore than we could; your concern is based on the fact it would use them because it was a suicidal religious state, but Hussein was not religious. Terrorism is a patriotic effort not a religious one. Until you learn to mind your own business we will suffer.

Bush is a liar, con artist and former drug addict (alcoholic). Again and again he lies and bullshits (Cheney does the same): "we gottem on their last throes"..."vote for us or we'll get hit again"...If you think I was born yesterday and that I can't spot a liar when I hear one...And where are the WMD's? Buried in the desert?

Equally important, you ignore all the other points I make as if they are insignificant. All Presidents lie, Bush isn't any different, with the exception his lies are the most obvious because he's the worst liar - he sounds exactly the same as a drug addict who will say or do anything to get you to give him another fix or more money to buy another fix.

Their policies to wage war is less important to me - it is the constant lies that remind me of the constant lies Hitler would use. Bush is no different; if he believes the US is a better place with a better government then why the constant hustle and lie to get thousands of Americans to believe him?

This 'world police' foreign policy needs to be flushed down a toilet.

You goto your church, I'll goto mine. Your church has our government doing things that make it an imperial dictatorship. And most of this nonsense is supported by liberal democrats, terrified of terrorists, opposed to the 2nd amendment who will tell you either the 2nd amendment means state's militias only have the right to keep and bear arms, not individual citizens or they don't care what it means they don't want or trust American citizens to bear arms.

5/25/2006 5:24 AM  
Blogger saturdaynightspecial said...

Bush not only lied about WMD's but tried to blame the intelligence community for the so-called "intelligence failure", (an intelligence cover-up.) But anyone knows the CIA is the most advanced spy entity in the world and knew Iraq didn't have them. But we didn't need the CIA to tell us because we had a UN weapons inspection team that told us clearly they didn't have WMD's. If Iraq had them we would have been told this by the UN weapons inspection team that entered Iraq after the Persian Gulf War...George the First (the father of George the II) would have had them removed !! Comprende ?

More important than all of that would be this: if Iraq had WMD's then why didn't they use them to stop the US invasion into Iraq ??

I'll answer that for you: because militarily Iraq is a third world country. Third world countries don't have WMD's, they don't even have an advanced military. That is one of the reasons why, during the Persian Gulf War, it was so easy to beat them - it was, from a military view, a cakewalk. In fact, to drive Iraq out of Kuwait we never had to send in ground forces, we could have more easily beat them using only an air campaign (Kosovo.)

We are not in Iraq to oust a dictator, or to remove a WMD threat, or to install democracy in Iraq, or for our freedom; we are there because our own dictator is stupid and believes we actually need all this destruction to keep us safe here in the US. But all we have to do to end terrorism is to vacate the Middle East and stop meddling in the affairs of other countries. Allusory ?

5/25/2006 10:58 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"More important than all of that would be this: if Iraq had WMD's then why didn't they use them to stop the US invasion into Iraq ??"

"I'll answer that for you: because militarily Iraq is a third world country. Third world countries don't have WMD's, they don't even have an advanced military."

Please stop ranting. Do some research instead. It is documented that Iraq killed the Kurds with WMD. Hence, how can a comment be made that Iraq is a third world country and therefore does not have WMD.

Take the time and lookup up some documentation about Clinton and Iraq and you will realize that is possition was same as Bush's.

http://www.cnn.com/US/9812/16/clinton.iraq.speech/

It's all politics. When Clinton bombed Iraq, the Republicans were busing says that it was done to divert from the Monica Lewinsky trial, and insisted that Clinton was a liar. Now the Democrates are returning the favor. It is just politics. Sadly people can't remember far enough back. Even sadder the polititions try to destroy each other at the expense of the country.

More importantly that there is no proof that Sadam and Al-qaida's are links does not mean that they are not linked.

I more important fact is that all the anti US countries, whether Communist or Islamic Extremest or leftist communicate and support with each other, because of there common goal. The means and reasons for being anti US might be different but there goal is the same.

9/08/2006 3:06 PM  

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