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]

3 Comments:

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 Anonymous 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  
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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