Hussein's Prewar Ties To Al-Qaeda Discounted

[seafan]

Source: Washington Post

By R. Jeffrey Smith
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, April 6, 2007; Page A01

Captured Iraqi documents and intelligence interrogations of Saddam Hussein and two former aides "all confirmed" that Hussein's regime was not directly cooperating with al-Qaeda before the U.S. invasion of Iraq, according to a declassified Defense Department report released yesterday.

The declassified version of the report, by acting Inspector General Thomas F. Gimble, also contains new details about the intelligence community's prewar consensus that the Iraqi government and al-Qaeda figures had only limited contacts, and its judgments that reports of deeper links were based on dubious or unconfirmed information. The report had been released in summary form in February.

The report's release came on the same day that Vice President Cheney, appearing on Rush Limbaugh's radio program, repeated his allegation that al-Qaeda was operating inside Iraq "before we ever launched" the war, under the direction of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the terrorist killed last June.

"This is al-Qaeda operating in Iraq," Cheney told Limbaugh's listeners about Zarqawi, who he said had "led the charge for Iraq." Cheney cited the alleged history to illustrate his argument that withdrawing U.S. forces from Iraq would "play right into the hands of al-Qaeda."

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/05/AR2007040502263.html?hpid=topnews

[Gen. Jack D. Ripper]

1. I think I speak for the progressive community when I say

well, DUH!

[rodeodance]

4. hey--Levin's been working on this for over 4 years!!

[Gen. Jack D. Ripper]

6. yeah, i guess i should cut the guy a break

that's about the level of efficiency I should expect

[Kikosexy2]

35. Now, now..

Ole Tricky Dicky is still insisting there were ties between the two...you can't undermine his credibility....bwaahahahahhahhhahahahha!...

[rodeodance]

2. I am a likin' that Headline---YUP

[struggle4progress]

10. Cheney reasserts al-Qaida-Saddam link as latest Pentagon report dismisses connection

http://www.kltv.com/Global/story.asp?S=6334315

Now that's what I call a headline :D

[Erika]

3. My tears go out for the Iraqis and our troops

May Bush be impeached.

[The_Casual_Observer]

5. Was there ever any doubt?

What was any of this information classified?

[Gregorian]

7. You can see for yourself. The redactions are quite revealing.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x585066

Wherever there is anything of any meaning, it's all blacked out. I can't make much of it, but I would guess that whatever is under that ink is useful evidence.

[seafan]

8. More

The report, in a passage previously marked secret, said Feith's office had asserted in a briefing given to Cheney's chief of staff in September 2002 that the relationship between Iraq and al-Qaeda was "mature" and "symbiotic," marked by shared interests and evidenced by cooperation across 10 categories, including training, financing and logistics.

Instead, the report said, the CIA had concluded in June 2002 that there were few substantiated contacts between al-Qaeda operatives and Iraqi officials, and said that it lacked evidence of a long-term relationship like the one Iraq had forged with other terrorist groups.
"Overall, the reporting provides no conclusive signs of cooperation on specific terrorist operations," that CIA report said, adding that discussions on the issue were "necessarily speculative."

The CIA had separately concluded that reports of Iraqi training on weapons of mass destruction were "episodic, sketchy, or not corroborated in other channels," the inspector general's report said. It quoted an August 2002 CIA report describing the relationship as more closely resembling "two organizations trying to feel out or exploit each other" rather than cooperating operationally.
The CIA was not alone, the defense report emphasized. The Defense Intelligence Agency had concluded that year that "available reporting is not firm enough to demonstrate an ongoing relationship" between the Iraqi regime and al-Qaeda, it said.

But the contrary conclusions reached by Feith's office -- and leaked to the conservative Weekly Standard magazine before the war -- were publicly praised by Cheney as the best source of information on the topic, a circumstance the Pentagon report cites in documenting the impact of what it described as "inappropriate" work.

.....

The briefing, a copy of which was declassified and released yesterday by Levin, goes so far as to state that "Fragmentary reporting points to possible Iraqi involvement not only in 9/11 but also in previous al Qaida attacks." That idea was dismissed in 2004 by a presidential commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks, noting that "no credible evidence" existed to support it.

.....

(bold emphasis added)


There was no wonder why a very large percentage of Americans thought Iraq was involved with September 11, 2001. Propaganda is a nasty thing to use against your own people, Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney, to advance your war lust for profit.

[dansolo]

17. So when is the subpeona for Feith?

I really want to see that rat bastard under oath.

[IChing]

9. It seems all of this is peeling the onion back to the mystery of 911

There was a link, but not the one Bush was selling. The link between Hussein and Bin Laden was their banker, BCCI. But the link went beyond the dictator and the jihadist -- it passed through Saudi Arabia and stretched all the way to George W. Bush and his father.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=103x272864

[ShortnFiery]

11. Damn!

:wow: The mere thought of such connections wells up tears in my eyes and simultaneously sends chills up and down my spine. Such deceit!?! :cry: :grr: :cry:

With 9-11 still relatively recent, it's no wonder Our American Society's *emotional armor* forces us to UNDERSTANDABLY reject ANY such considerations. :(

IMO, the foregoing an sociological phenomenon ... an group's emotional health type survival mechanism that should NOW be overcome for the greater good, i.e., to reclaim our Constitution and democratic republic form of government. :patriot: :thumbsup:

[ClintonTyree]

12. And it's taken how long to come up with this nugget of information?

No HONEST investigation into Bush's run-up to war ever concluded that there were any ties between Saddam and Al-Qaeda. But then again most of the corporate media, who were so quick to parrot whatever the Bush administration put forward, never considered honesty before they abetted Bush in his rush to war. What ever happened to "trust, but verify"?

We at DU had the correct information at our fingertips within weeks, if not days, that there WAS NO connection between Saddam and Al-Qaeda. And it took these bureaucratic boneheads THIS LONG to come to the same conclusion? Of course, I don't suppose there was any hurry on the part of the "loyal bushies" to come to this conclusion, was there? :grr: It didn't fit their game plan.

Every bit of information the Bush administration used to convince the American people that we HAD to go to war with Iraq has turned out to be categorically false. Coincidence? I think not. :mad:

[onehandle]

13. Put Cheney on trial now. nt

[Roland99]

14. Oh, DICK and the other batshit-insane neocons will STILL be harping on Saddam/al-Qaeda

for the next generation.


Freakin' morans.

[Warren Stupidity]

15. Ok, so more proof that deliberate lying was involved.

"contains new details about the intelligence community's prewar consensus that the Iraqi government and al-Qaeda figures had only limited contacts"

Prewar. Consensus.

LIARS. They lied. They lied to congress. They lied to the UN. They lied to the american people. The just made shit up.

They continue to lie to congress, to the world, in order to justify the conquest of Iraq.

[seafan]

16. 'This Feith analysis would be "playing into the hands of people" such as Paul D. Wolfowitz.'

Cheney's public statements before and after the war about the risks posed by Iraq have closely tracked the briefing Feith's office presented to the vice president's then-chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby. That includes the briefing's depiction of an alleged 2001 meeting in Prague between an Iraqi intelligence official and one of the Sept. 11, 2001, hijackers as one of eight "Known Iraq-Al Qaida Contacts."

The defense report states that at the time, "the intelligence community disagreed with the briefing's assessment that the alleged meeting constituted a 'known contact' " -- a circumstance that the report said was known to Feith's office. But his office had bluntly concluded in a July 2002 critique of a CIA report on Iraq's relationship with al-Qaeda that the CIA's interpretation of the facts it cited "ought to be ignored."

.....

(The briefing) was prepared in part by someone whom the defense report described as a "junior Naval Reservist" intelligence analyst detailed to Feith's office from the DIA. The person is not named in the report, but Edelman wrote that she was requested by Feith's office.

.....

Edelman complained in his own account of the incident that a senior Joint Chiefs analyst -- in responding to a suggestion by the DIA analyst that the "Making the Case" account be widely circulated -- told its author that "putting it out there would be playing into the hands of people" such as then-Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz, and belittled the author for trying to support "some agenda of people in the building."

Wonder who this "junior Naval Reservist" is, who helped write Feith's fabricated briefing, that lied us into this illegal war of aggression? She needs identification and deposition.

[leftwingnut]

18. Gawd...Cheney is such an asshole!!! n/t

[Heidi]

19. Kick.

:kick:

[bemildred]

20. Cheney reasserts al-Qaida-Saddam link

Source: AP

WASHINGTON - Vice President Dick Cheney repeated his assertions of al-Qaida links to Saddam Hussein's Iraq on Thursday as the Defense Department released a report citing more evidence that the prewar government did not cooperate with the terrorist group.

Cheney contended that al-Qaida was operating in Iraq before the March 2003 invasion led by U.S. forces and that terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was leading the Iraqi branch of al-Qaida. Others in al-Qaida planned the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

"He took up residence there before we ever launched into Iraq, organized the al-Qaida operations inside Iraq before we even arrived on the scene and then, of course, led the charge for Iraq until we killed him last June," Cheney told radio host Rush Limbaugh during an interview. "As I say, they were present before we invaded Iraq."

However, a declassified Pentagon report released Thursday said that interrogations of the deposed Iraqi leader and two of his former aides as well as seized Iraqi documents confirmed that the terrorist organization and the Saddam government were not working together before the invasion.

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070406/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/iraq_pentagon_intelligence

[mac56]

21. here's the key phrase:

"Cheney told radio host Rush Limbaugh during an interview..."

All you need to know.

[neverforget]

22. Dick is only reinforcing the dead-enders of the Republican Party by going

the Oxycotin Show. The true-believers, also known as "the base", lap this crap up because it reinforces their belief of Bush's infallibility. It's not meant for 70% of America, only the dead-enders.

[Catshrink]

23. Does anyone listen to Old Dick anymore?

He's so irrelevant.

[bemildred]

24. His sway in the Pentagon seems to be gone.

The Neoclowns no longer seem to be able to control what we are told in the press. I think Cheney's mental conditions has to be deteriorating by now.

[Catshrink]

26. How long before he resigns for "health reasons?"

[CJCRANE]

25. Zarqawi was in the no-fly zone

outside Saddam's jurisdiction and hence indirectly protected by the US/UK coalition.

[rebel with a cause]

31. Broken record cheney

Going round in circles, chasing his tail hoping to appease the people that still listen to him. Too limited to even get out of the rut and forge a new trail of lies. He leaves that to rove and the other bushettes.

[Name removed]

27. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[JuniperLea]

28. Check out the MSNBC story on this... and the comments

It's amazing how much Kool Aid poisoning there is left in the US, but there are far fewer Bushies posting on this than I would expect.


http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17975678/

[peacetalksforall]

29. One might want to say this was AIPAC initiated, but we know the

profit motive would have involved many more. But, certain people might want to get away with blaming it all on AIPAC. Is AIPAC going to be targeted?

[peacetalksforall]

30. We can't trust the DOD.

We can't trust the CIA.
We can't trust the FBI.
We can't trust Homeland Security.
We can't trust the FDA.
We can't trust the NSC (or anything starting with an N).
We can't trust the Republican COngress (and some others).
We can't trust the Media.
We can't trust the Vice-President.
We can't trust the President.

And we can't trust many, many Associations, Foundations, Societites
who plot to take down this country and our Constitution.
They have destroyed our children, a nation, our safety, our reputation, and they are on their way to owning us.

[rebel with a cause]

32. In other words, trust no one.

Not even yourself. Who knows where your minds have been. ;-)

[peacetalksforall]

34. And FEMA and the Army Corp of Engineers

[booley]

33. Ah... but the Cons have a thousand blogs...

that will say differently. And they can misquote the 9-11 report like no body's business.

So since they can scream louder, they must be right.

[UTUSN]

36. Dang!!1 & to think that all of us here KNEW this without any special

resources or intel gatherers telling us!!1

[BrklynLiberal]

39. Heh heh. Guess some of us just have super powers of reasoning and deduction!!!

[Lasher]

37. Senate Intelligence Committee Phase II, final 3 sections due in late spring/early summer

I am counting the moments until Jay finally releases this report. These sections analyze how Bush administration officials used intelligence they received in the runup to the Iraq war. Release of these 3 sections have been blocked by Whitewash Roberts.

http://rawstory.com/robertsintel.htm

[BrklynLiberal]

38. Let's see if this gets the media play that all the lies got!!!

:mad: :grr: :banghead:

[19jet54]

40. Let's see...

Cheney Logic: (1)

IF al-Qaeda is muslim
AND Iraq is muslim
THEN Iraq is al-Qaeda

Republican Parrots - "Iraq is al-Qaeda", "Iraq is al-Qaeda", "Iraq is al-Qaeda"

:dunce: :dunce: :dunce: :dunce: :dunce: :dunce: :dunce:
:dunce: :dunce: :dunce: :dunce: :dunce: :dunce: :dunce:
:dunce: :dunce: :dunce: :dunce: :dunce: :dunce: :dunce:
:dunce: :dunce: :dunce: :dunce: :dunce: :dunce: :dunce:

(1) Ref: The Complete IDIOT'S guide to being a Republican!

[daleo]

41. Hussein had no ties to Al-Queda

Yet Hussein is hanged, while the lying murderers who started the war walk free. Meanwhile, they commit the same crimes in Iraq for which Hussein was hanged.

[davekriss]

42. I hate the choice of words in this headline

"Hussein's Prewar Ties To Al-Qaeda Discounted"

Means the MSM is still playing games with these memes. There were no "prewar ties", there were only "prewar lies" by Cheney and the Bush administration.

The headline, if it were honest, whould read "Bush Claims of Ties Between Hussein and Al Qaeda were Groundless". Instead, the "liberal" press floats the meme, with this headline, that somehow there were ties between Hussein and Al Qaeda, but they're "discounted", not all they were claimed to be. Nice work there, WP and Mr. Smith, I see you're continuing to function as a tool of this administration.

[FiveGoodMen]

43. Even better would be: "Cheney's ONGOING lies about Iraq-Al Qaeda ties refuted"

[GeorgeGist]

44. In other news ...

"Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead"

[nealmhughes]

45. The only thing the Baathists and the al Qaeda crew had in common was the

Arabic language. Baathist, while panarabists, along with al Qaeda, the Baath concept of a secular "Arab Socialist" panarab state could hardly contrast more with the panarab Sharia Wahhabi vision of al Qaeda.

Saudi millionaire and billionaire al Qaeda funders are the mainstay of the monarchy there in Rihayd. On the other hand, Baathist doctrine decried the monarchies as decadent selfish oligarchies who did not an iota they could avoid to the mass of the Arab population and Sharia as an archaic Dark Age legal code that had no place in the their modern Baath State, where all would be equal and no more sheiks, tribes, mullahs or ayatollahs having a voice in the politics and daily life of the Arab people.

Iraq's two main enemies were Iran, their hereditary enemy and Shia religious state, supported by the majority of their citizens in Iraq. Their other enemies were the Arabian peninsular monarchies who feared the vision of a secular, "democratic" and "Arab socialist" Arab World.

The only common cause they had was a hatred of Crusader Franks and Persian ayatollahs. There may well have been meetings along the lines of "enemy of my enemy" stuff, but one is stretched to believe that there was any serious collaboration between the Baath Party of Iraq under Saddam and al Qaeda.

[kaal]

46. This Admin should be IMPEACHED for the LIES about the Al-Qaida-Saddam link

They've been repeating this LIE as fact, over and over again to justify their war in Iraq.


We know they are lying, but they still haven't been held to account for those lies.


Too many have died because of their lies......

[Zhade]

47. Yeah, some of us knew this BEFORE the war, you lying POS "news"paper.

NT!