Apparently a Pentagon-backed study will be out in a few days that says there was no operational link between Iraq and al-Qaeda and some of the cherry picked quotes were leaked to the MSM:
An exhaustive review of more than 600,000 Iraqi documents that were captured after the 2003 U.S. invasion has found no evidence that Saddam Hussein’s regime had any operational links with Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaida terrorist network.
The key word here is operational. We here at Flopping Aces have our own exhaustive work on the TIES between the two which can be found here if you have the time. Lots of stuff there.
The problem with all this is that they, meaning the MSM, are coming to the conclusion that because they were not operating together then there were no ties between the two. Which is complete and utter baloney. The many documents we highlighted here bear this out as being baloney.
At least the media does concede one point:
The Pentagon-sponsored study, scheduled for release later this week, did confirm that Saddam’s regime provided some support toother terrorist groups, particularly in the Middle East , U.S. officials told McClatchy .
Saddam supported terrorism.
Should I say it again? Saddam supported terrorism……period.
I like Rob’s take on this: (from Say Anything)
Trying to obfuscate that fact by saying he didn’t support al Qaeda “directly” is like saying that Charles Manson is an ok guy because child molestation didn’t happen to be among his crimes against society.
Hell, take a look of this footage that aired on Iraqi TV in August of 2005 of terrorist Ramzi Hashem Abed explaining his work with al-Zarqawi, the fact that Zarqawi was part of Osama’s organization, AND that AQ had been training in Fallujah prior to the invasion. (h/t Amy Proctor)
But this is where the media really goes over the deep end:
As recently as last July, Bush tried to tie al Qaida to the ongoing violence in Iraq . “The same people that attacked us on September the 11th is a crowd that is now bombing people, killing innocent men, women and children, many of whom are Muslims,” he said. . . .
Sen. John McCain , the presumptive GOP nominee, mocked Sen. Barack Obama , D-Ill, recently for saying that he’d keep some U.S. troops in Iraq if al Qaida established a base there.
“I have some news. Al Qaida is in Iraq ,” McCain told supporters.
Are they serious? Are they trying to say that al-Qaeda isn’t in Iraq now?
Coalition forces near Ad Dawr targeted the leader of a terror cell for the southern Karkh al Qaeda in Iraq network. Intelligence led coalition forces to a location where the wanted individual was believed to be operating. The ground force detained one suspect, who then provided information on the whereabouts of another alleged terrorist.
Northeast of Samarra, coalition forces targeted an alleged al Qaeda in Iraq leader for the Kanan village. In the raid, forces killed eight terrorists, including the wanted individual. Seven suspects were detained.
Also in Samarra, forces captured three suspected terrorists. One of the suspects allegedly is a leader for the al Qaeda in Iraq network in Samarra. Another is believed to be a direct associate of al Qaeda in Iraq senior leadership.
As security improves across Iraq, Iraqi security forces and coalition forces are continuing to put pressure on the al Qaeda in Iraq network, specifically its senior leaders, a Multinational Force Iraq spokesman said today.
In recent weeks, Iraqi and coalition forces have captured or killed 26 senior al Qaeda in Iraq network leaders, Army Maj. Gen. Kevin Bergner told reporters in Baghdad. Of the 26, eight were emirs who exercised responsibility for a geographic or functional area, five were cell leaders, and 13 were terrorist facilitators.
The emirs captured included the emir of Sharqat, who was wanted for attacks against Iraqi and coalition security forces and civilians; the emir of Tikrit, who led efforts to import foreign terrorists and to make and move weapons for terror attacks; and the military emir of Karkh, who coordinated and carried out car-bomb attacks in the western and southern areas of Baghdad.
Coalition forces killed Abu Yasir al-Saudi, also known as Jar Allah, who was the al Qaeda emir for southeastern Mosul and directed the terror network there, Bergner said. The coalition also killed Abu Hassam, who was the deputy military emir for Diyala province.
Thats just in the last week. If they are seriously going to go this route with their reporting then they are opening themselves up for ridicule they have yet to see up to this point.
See author page
Steve, I do not go to ”coctail parties” I go to work every day and get unfiltered and unslanted reports from Afghanistan itself. I am slated to go to either Iraq or Afghanistan mid summer to fall unless the Army changes something. I am putting MY LIFE where my mouth is.
THAT is the REALITY I DEAL IN.
You’re new projectionist “neoconservative” hate rants are as bad and untrue as your projectionist “conservative” rants.
See, I go to the cocktail parties. Rove just won’t take me off his guest list no matter how sauced I get. This one time-at conservative camp….
Seriously, has anyone seen this report that was supposed to have come out today? I’d like to read it.
Scott…the Pentagon said they aren’t giving anything to anybody but if you want a copy, they will mail it to you in the form of a CD.
libtards amaze me.
Well THAT helps… A report supposedly released that now will not be released. I just searched the net and Sen Levin’s website… nothing as of 8:31pm tonight. I doubt there will be much when I check again later this week.
I trust this man more that the snippets of a report we are getting
http://iraqdocs.blogspot.com/2006_04_01_archive.html
Here is the link to the story and how to get a copy…
http://blogs.abcnews.com/rapidreport/2008/03/pentagon-report.html
Read this book. Ray Robison was on the ISG and I am nearly finished with the third read-through.
Ray has also been on our BTR show.
http://bothinonetrench.com/
Re: “So what did the Review Panel expect to find amongst the 600,000 files? A memo from Saddam to Osama (or vice-versa) coordinating the 9-11 attack? Or even an accounts payable invoice for suicide bomber vests? Puhleez!”
It would help. It is the Conservatives on this board who keep boasting about ironclad proof. I just asked if, since the proof is so soild, why doesn’t President Bush go on national television and present it?
Do you even read comments Steve?
On those documents there is a whole category with dozens of posts on what those documents said. It’s called Saddam Documents.
Steve #47:
Steve, you are moving the goal posts….your original implication, earlier in this thread in referencing 9/11 and Saddam, is in regards to the run-up to war.
We weren’t greeted as liberators? During the march into Baghdad, were there not Iraqis cheering our arrival? When the statue of Saddam was brought down, were those puppets of the CIA dressed as Iraqis, tearing it down and hitting it with their shoes?
No, Steve. Thank you for wasting my time and shooting yourself repeatedly in the foot. I say again: Reading/Listening/Comprehension problem.
Philly Steve #49:
What is wrong with the Cheney statement? And how does that translate into: “Saddam responsible for 9/11”?
That’s funny. Here’s what VP Dick Cheney said the Sunday right after 9/11:
You BDS sufferers cherrypick quotes, and hear what you want to hear, ignoring what’s actually said and meant.
MTP 9/08/02:
Again, from your own link earlier:
Wordsmith…very commendable and your trouncing the pathetic creature is admirable. However, the poor thing is way out of its league and will not be able to stomach the admission that IT has been sold a bill of goods from ITS handlers. The BDS crowds have a liberal pathology and it is a mental illness of which they suffer from so badly. Dr Rossiter is exactly correct in his clinical diagnosis of The Liberal Mind.
I can hardly wait for this coming weekend as we face down the frauds of Winter Soldier II.
EAGLES UP at Operation Eagles Muster!
Ya know, I really don’t like to comment on a report I haven’t read in full, but I would like to ask if anyone’s read the key judgments section yet?
http://people.rwj.harvard.edu/~riyengar/insurgency.pdf
This is interesting because in many ways it is CONTRARY to what the McLatchy reporter claims. He claims there was no “operational relationship,” and that’s only partially true because the report does say Iraq was a state sponsor of terror, and did have operational ties to various groups-including Islamic radicals (another thing the reporter got wrong), and if we look closer anyone who knows anything about AQ knows that 2/3 of its leadership stemmed from Egyptian Islamic Jihad of which there’s plenty of evidence (FBI even confirms this) that Iraq supported EIJ . The report also suggests that Iraq sponsored other AQ affiliates, and it sounds like those groups were the forerunners of the AQ in Iraq coalition which was in Iraq before the war (and before they renamed themselves Al Queda in Iraq).
Honestly, just reading the the summary that I linked to makes it sound like
1) Almost all of the repeated claims from the right re regime ties are correct-NOT wrong
2) the McLatchy newspapers report is a COMPLETELY incorrect characterization of this report
One final thing, this is apparently pt II of V. The first part (The Iraqi Perspectives Project report) mentioned something called Blessed July, and that’s included in more detail in this.
I cannot WAIT to get a copy to read!!!
And, don’t forget the Bhutto-Taliban-HUM birthing, either. Maulana Fazlur Rahman, the big daddy of the Taliban and the Mulah Omar were all in bed with Saddam and Qaddafi.
These libtards are just all out of sorts and lost to boot.
Reading the link now.
Wordsmith,
“We weren’t greeted as liberators? During the march into Baghdad, were there not Iraqis cheering our arrival? When the statue of Saddam was brought down, were those puppets of the CIA dressed as Iraqis, tearing it down and hitting it with their shoes?”
Just a small point/question. We had the “not greeted as liberators” discussion way back then at a forum I used to post in, now defunct. I recall in one of the Iraqi blogs, I’m thinking it was Iraq the Model because that’s the one I read most frequently, that the Iraqis were afraid to come out because they still feared the secret police. Some did come out, cheered, kissed our troops, etc. but many others were afraid to be seen cheering and I did post this in the old forum. Do you remember this?
I’ve tried to go back and find the reference in the past, because this constantly comes up, but was never able to locate it again.
So far the only tie I have been able to see is that they both have entries in Wikipedi
Well John, in all sincerity, I really want to read the who report and not just the highlights. However, it’s clear from reading the highlights that the “no ties” mantra is completely wrong, and that the writer of the article was careful to say “operational ties” rather than describe the relationship as it is in the report. This is understandable since the writer of the McLatchy piece only could comment on what he was told from an anonymous source and he himself is commenting on a report he’s never seen.
First off, the “relentlessly secular” claim from the article is completely contrary to the previous Iraqi Perspectives Project report as well as the highlights from this one, and most likely equally contrary to the details of the report that the reporter never even saw. It’s not that Saddam wasn’t secular, but that he went to great efforts to pretend NOT to be secular, and more importantly the “relentlessly secular” line is there to suggest that a secular Saddam would never work with Islamic extremists, but the first IPP report and the highlights from this one as well as others make it abundantly clear that Saddam’s regime did work with/use Jihadis for the individual and joint benefit of both the regime and those Islamic mujahedeen.
Second, the reporter tries to insinuate that Al Queda in Iraq didn’t exist inside Iraq until 2004, but that’s only when the various Islamic extremist groups found working with the regime started to work close enough together to call each other Al Queda in Iraq rather than a laundry list of confusing independent groups bent on Islamic Holy War. Prior to the common name in 2004, they all were in Iraq, they all worked with Saddam, and they were all Al Queda affiliates (recall that UBL etc only run the councils of “The Base”/Al Queda, and that it’s from this “Base” that they coordinate the actions of other groups…groups like those which were in Iraq in 2001, 02, 03+).
Lastly, this bit about “operational ties.” There are a few problems with the idea that there’s evidence of operational ties.
1) not a lot of people would be involved in coordination between the regime and AQ groups=not a lot of people to get intel from=little intel
2) not a lot of people=not a lot of documentation (my guess is that there’s not a lot of clerks in the caves of Afghanistan)
3) the Iraqi Intelligence services selectively burned “stuff”, poured “stuff” into the desert sand, and moved truckloads, shiploads, and planeloads of “stuff” out of Iraq. It’s not at all inconceivable that the most damning evidence would be burned, dumped, or shipped out in 15-17months of preparation time.
Still, even with all that…the highlights from this report as well as previous reports (particularly the previous Iraqi Perspectives Project Report) suggest that operations like the “Blessed July” operation and more were in fact examples of the regime working with AQ affiliates.
Nope. The reporter that “broke” the story based on a leak from an anonymous source was waaaaaaay off. Had he just read the highlights, he’d have seen the difference between what he believed and wrote, and what is real and should have been written.
Sorry, wrong link to executive summary pdf of the report
Here’s the right one
http://abcnews.go.com/images/Politics/Saddam%20and%20Terrorism%20Redaction%20EXSUM%20Extract.pdf
I’m not asking why the Conservatives on this board are 100% convinced that Sddam had a WMD program when the invasion took place in 2003. I’m asking why, if the evidence is so ironclad, that President Bush does not preempt all of the televisoin coverage on night and display all this 100% solid proof to the United States and the World.
He has that authority. If the evidence completely exonerates his administration about the “no WMD’s” conclusion of the previous administration reports, why does George W. Bush not go on TV and declare, “I told you so”?
Conservatives here can, and will, post volumes of that “rock-solid” proof. Why do we not see it from the Oval Office? The Bush Administration sent Colin Powell to dsplay all those “Mobile Biological Weapons” factories to the world when they thought they were not weather balloon trailors. So there is precedent. Why does the White House not do it again?
Steve, no one would believe him. He already made a lot of the claims, and they were dismissed, spun away by half truths, half quotes, and incorrect assumptions. The mass media (imo) sees itself as a check and balance to power, and as such automatically does whatever it can to cast doubt on claims from the admin in power. We saw that with the constant investigations of Pres Clinton, and with the constant denials of Bush Admin claims. Meanwhile, you might take note that most of the quotes you see here, and certainly all of the pics I present….have come from the admin; not Newsmax, Fox, or whatever you see as a conservative/biased source. Me, I try to use govt reports almost exclusively-like the one that the article which started this thread points to, and this is THE GREATEST example of EXACTLY WHAT YOU’RE ASKING.
Here we have a thread about an article where a guy gets an anonymous tip about a report on regime ties to AQ. He writes all kinds of stuff about the report without ever having seen it, without corroborating sources, and the article goes everywhere. MSNBC carries it, then CNN, FOX, NYT, LAT, every anti-war site on the web, and so on. Fast forward 2days, and when the report comes out it turns out almost everything in the original article was wrong. Why would that be? Here we have the media version supported by the political opposition on the web, and then the government version that tells the truth but doesn’t get the same coverage-not even on FOX. Why would that be? Why doesn’t the government version that we so often point to, or the version from the troops like Chris who have actually been there…why doesn’t that get reported, and instead all we get is your talking points that are almost always half quotes and the like?
Answer (imo), to face the truth: that the invasion of Iraq was in fact necessary (and imo inevitable), is to admit the failures of the Golden Age of the Democratic Party; the 1990’s. It’s also very hard for people in the media to admit that the threat from Saddam in terms of WMD and terror was ignored (see also CNN’s admission that they deliberately didn’t report on atrocities in Iraq when they were in Iraq), and it’s ultimately hard (again imo) for bureaucrats who rose to power in the 90’s to admit their share of the blame for the effects of failed “containment” policies against Saddam.
Just ask yourself, why is the article that started this thread so completely opposite from the real report?
Then why bring up, within your same comment, two paragraphs later
???
Missy asked #64:
I’m not quite sure I follow what you are asking me. Are you talking about a previous discussion here at FA? Or just the incident, itself, you describe of Iraqis who feared showing open support against Saddam’s regime?
Re: “Steve, no one would believe him.”
Re: “Answer (imo), to face the truth: that the invasion of Iraq was in fact necessary (and imo inevitable), is to admit the failures of the Golden Age of the Democratic Party; the 1990’s.”
Of course. Once again it is all someone else’s fault.
“Of course. Once again it is all someone else’s fault.”
No, not all, but do you dare even imagine that not everything is “Bush’s fault” (ie BDS)? No way.
Steve, you asked why the Bush admin doesn’t put out this information. They do. The problem is only half of it gets reported. I ask, WHY do we only get half quotes that mislead instead of the full quotes presented by the admin? How many times have I seen the quote where Powell says he never saw evidence of regime ties, but the second half of the quote is omitted-the part where he says he expects to see em. How many times do we hear “no evidence” based on the Sen Intel Com phase I report, but no mention of how the report says no evidence is a result of no evidence gathering, and that the matter should be investigated further? How many times do we hear references to the 911 Commission’s statement of no collaborative ties, but the request by 911 Commission members to have the issue of regime ties re-examined and reassessed in light of captured docs and detainees that suggest the relationship was deeper than expected? It’s the world of half quotes and half truths as presented by the opposition politicals and the msm. Steve asks why doesn’t the admin tell us this stuff, and my answer is that they have, but it was only half reported because some people don’t want to hear the other half of the truth. It’s too ugly. Easier to fingerpoint/scapegoat “neocons” or “conservatives” or Bush, etc.
If you want to ask why the admin doesn’t report this “stuff”, then (since the admin does report it), one has to ask why we only hear cherry-picked half quotes and misperceptions presented as fact? Take a look back Steve. You’ll see that those you consistently label as conservatives or neocons or Bush apologists, or whatever…do not rely on Newsmax, Free Republic, or Fox as you claim. Most take their information from govt reports, military blogs, or have actually been at war and are reporting on what they saw as opposed to what the protest leaders describe in their rantings. It shouldn’t be about conservative or liberal, but about truth-THE WHOLE TRUTH, and not the spin you get from the left, or from a media that’s too often lazy, biased, and/or covering their own ineptitudes.
Some absolute slam dunks by Scott.
Scott, I’ll assume you know the full version of the report is out now and I expect you to do something more in depth on it soon.
Yeah Mark. I know. Thanks. Already got one draft of a detailed response, but I want to post it with a detailed review of the actual report as well.
Put simply, the article that came out before the report (the article based on the word of a single anonymous source rather than the report itself) was almost completely wrong, and this report should not only reopen the issue of ‘how deep was the relationship’, but it should also confirm/document that yes, removing Saddam was in fact a direct part of the war against Al Queda. Anyone who still doubts that….just hasn’t read the report. Anyone who rants the “there were no ties”…..either hasn’t read the report and is ignorant, or has read the report and is being deceitful.
Thanks Mark
No problem Scott. All this excitement has gotten my juices re-stirred. Despite not having time to write something up I am going to write a post anyway on this and will link whatever you get up.