No Iraq al-Qaeda Link

[Sasquatch]

Another justification for the invasion of Iraq proves false.

Report: No Saddam, al Qaeda link


By WARREN P. STROBEL
McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON -- 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 Qaeda terrorist network.

The Pentagon-sponsored study, scheduled for release this week, did confirm that Saddam's regime provided some support to other terrorist groups, particularly in the Middle East, U.S. officials told McClatchy Newspapers. However, his security services were directed primarily against Iraqi exiles, Shiite Muslims, Kurds and others he considered enemies of his regime.


The new study of the Iraqi regime's archives found no documents indicating a "direct operational link" between Saddam's Iraq and al Qaeda before the invasion, according to a U.S. official familiar with the report.


He and others spoke to McClatchy on condition of anonymity because the study isn't due to be shared with Congress and released before Wednesday.


Arguments for invasion
President Bush and his aides used Saddam's alleged relationship with al Qaeda, along with Iraq's supposed weapons of mass destruction, as arguments for invading Iraq after 9-11.


Then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said in September 2002 that the United States had "bulletproof" evidence of cooperation between the radical Islamist terror group and Saddam's secular dictatorship.
Then-Secretary of State Colin Powell cited multiple links between Saddam and al Qaeda in a watershed February 2003 speech to the United Nations Security Council. Almost every example Powell cited turned out to be based on bogus or misinterpreted intelligence.


As recently as July, Bush tried to tie al Qaeda 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.


The new study, Saddam and Terrorism: Emerging Insights from Captured Iraqi Documents, was essentially completed last year and has been undergoing what one U.S. intelligence official described as a "painful" declassification review.


It was produced by a federally funded think tank, the Institute for Defense Analyses, under contract to the Norfolk, Va.-based U.S. Joint Forces Command.


Spokesmen for the Joint Forces Command declined to comment until the report is released. One of the report's authors, Kevin Woods, also declined to comment.


Earlier studies
Saddam, whose regime was relentlessly secular, was wary of Islamic extremist groups such as al Qaeda, although he gave some financial support to Palestinian groups that sponsored terrorism against Israel.
According to the State Department's annual report on global terrorism for 2002 -- the last before the Iraq invasion -- Saddam supported the militant Islamic group Hamas in Gaza, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command, a Syrian-based terrorist group.An earlier study, released by the Joint Forces Command in March 2006 and based on the captured Iraqi documents, found that a militia that Saddam formed after the 1991 Persian Gulf war, the Fedayeen Saddam, planned assassinations and bombings against his enemies. Those included Iraqi exiles and opponents in Iraq's Kurdish and Shiite communities.


Other documents indicate that the Fedayeen Saddam opened paramilitary training camps that hosted "Arab volunteers" from outside of Iraq. What happened to the non-Iraqi volunteers is unknown, however, according to the earlier study.


The new Pentagon study isn't the first to refute earlier administration contentions about Saddam and al Qaeda.


A September 2006 report by the Senate Intelligence Committee concluded that Saddam 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."

LINK

[zrinkill]

He was sponsoring terrorist and he needed to be taken out of power.

[ConcordCowboy]

[vta]

I hope this study wasn't too costly; I could have told them the same for free.

[Sasquatch]

Originally Posted by zrinkill

He was sponsoring terrorist and he needed to be taken out of power.

Our president made a case for war that has turned out to be false on many levels yet people defend what in retrospect can only be poor judgment or deception?

Saddam didn't NEED to go. He was not the "imminent" threat to the United States the administration claimed he was. We NEEDED to finish the job in Afghanistan and bring to justice those responsible for 9/11.

[ConcordCowboy]

Originally Posted by Sasquatch

Our president made a case for war that has turned out to be false on many levels yet people defend what in retrospect can only be poor judgment or deception?

Saddam didn't NEED to go. He was not the "imminent" threat to the United States the administration claimed he was. We NEEDED to finish the job in Afghanistan and bring to justice those responsible for 9/11.

HELLO!

[Jordan55]

Spilt milk at this point, the question now is how do we remove our troops without giving empowerment to Al-Queda or Iran.
What are going to be the consequences of a quick exit strategy?
Gentlemen we are in what is known as quagmire, now what is the best way out is the question.

[ConcordCowboy]

Originally Posted by Jordan55

Spilt milk at this point, the question now is how do we remove our troops without giving empowerment to Al-Queda or Iran.
What are going to be the consequences of a quick exit strategy?

Gentlemen we are in what is known as quagmire, now what is the best way out is the question.

I say stay there for 100 years till the job is done.

[iceberg]

Originally Posted by Sasquatch

Another justification for the invasion of Iraq proves false.

Report: No Saddam, al Qaeda link

By WARREN P. STROBEL
McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON -- 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 Qaeda terrorist network.

The Pentagon-sponsored study, scheduled for release this week, did confirm that Saddam's regime provided some support to other terrorist groups, particularly in the Middle East, U.S. officials told McClatchy Newspapers. However, his security services were directed primarily against Iraqi exiles, Shiite Muslims, Kurds and others he considered enemies of his regime.


[View Full Quote]The new study of the Iraqi regime's archives found no documents indicating a "direct operational link" between Saddam's Iraq and al Qaeda before the invasion, according to a U.S. official familiar with the report.


He and others spoke to McClatchy on condition of anonymity because the study isn't due to be shared with Congress and released before Wednesday.


Arguments for invasion
President Bush and his aides used Saddam's alleged relationship with al Qaeda, along with Iraq's supposed weapons of mass destruction, as arguments for invading Iraq after 9-11.


Then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said in September 2002 that the United States had "bulletproof" evidence of cooperation between the radical Islamist terror group and Saddam's secular dictatorship.
Then-Secretary of State Colin Powell cited multiple links between Saddam and al Qaeda in a watershed February 2003 speech to the United Nations Security Council. Almost every example Powell cited turned out to be based on bogus or misinterpreted intelligence.


As recently as July, Bush tried to tie al Qaeda 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.


The new study, Saddam and Terrorism: Emerging Insights from Captured Iraqi Documents, was essentially completed last year and has been undergoing what one U.S. intelligence official described as a "painful" declassification review.


It was produced by a federally funded think tank, the Institute for Defense Analyses, under contract to the Norfolk, Va.-based U.S. Joint Forces Command.


Spokesmen for the Joint Forces Command declined to comment until the report is released. One of the report's authors, Kevin Woods, also declined to comment.


Earlier studies
Saddam, whose regime was relentlessly secular, was wary of Islamic extremist groups such as al Qaeda, although he gave some financial support to Palestinian groups that sponsored terrorism against Israel.
According to the State Department's annual report on global terrorism for 2002 -- the last before the Iraq invasion -- Saddam supported the militant Islamic group Hamas in Gaza, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command, a Syrian-based terrorist group.An earlier study, released by the Joint Forces Command in March 2006 and based on the captured Iraqi documents, found that a militia that Saddam formed after the 1991 Persian Gulf war, the Fedayeen Saddam, planned assassinations and bombings against his enemies. Those included Iraqi exiles and opponents in Iraq's Kurdish and Shiite communities.


Other documents indicate that the Fedayeen Saddam opened paramilitary training camps that hosted "Arab volunteers" from outside of Iraq. What happened to the non-Iraqi volunteers is unknown, however, according to the earlier study.


The new Pentagon study isn't the first to refute earlier administration contentions about Saddam and al Qaeda.


A September 2006 report by the Senate Intelligence Committee concluded that Saddam 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."

LINK

the titanic has sunk.
ronald reagan is dead
we still can't find jimmy hoffa.

while we're bringing up old news, that is...

[iceberg]

Originally Posted by Sasquatch

Our president made a case for war that has turned out to be false on many levels yet people defend what in retrospect can only be poor judgment or deception?

Saddam didn't NEED to go. He was not the "imminent" threat to the United States the administration claimed he was. We NEEDED to finish the job in Afghanistan and bring to justice those responsible for 9/11.

is iran a threat - are they at least listening now where saddam never did?

it's quite possible iraq was never the ultimate goal but a step to that.

[zrinkill]

Originally Posted by Sasquatch

He was not the "imminent" threat to the United States

[Hostile]

I wish we had finished off Bin Laden et al first. But I do not see why going into Iraq is a bad thing. I'm sorry, I just don't. Please don't try and explain it to me. I mean that. Please don't.

[Sasquatch]

Originally Posted by zrinkill

Right on cue?

[iceberg]

Originally Posted by Sasquatch

Right on cue?

just like a dose of sassy negativity when someone says something good about our country. : )

we *all* have our cues, sas.

[Jordan55]

Originally Posted by ConcordCowboy

I say stay there for 100 years till the job is done.

That is not exactly what McCain said, All I'm saying that for every acton there is a reaction, this one needs to thought out throughly.
We might get out and end up going back quicker then you think, Do you hand Irag over to Iran? Which essentially is what's going to happen.
Future Consequences, we have to think ahead.