Originally Posted By Beaumandy From my earlier link. Still laughing at the Laughing Place at STPH who insisted the report was so very accurate. "There is much to quarrel with in the report. But it is worth spending a moment to consider the vast amount of information that was left out of the committee's treatment of Iraq's links to al Qaeda. A few examples: There is no mention in the report of Abdul Rahman Yasin, an Iraqi who admitted mixing the chemicals for the bomb used in the 1993 World Trade Center attack, cited in the July 2004 Senate report as an al Qaeda operation. The mastermind of that attack, Ramzi Yousef, is the nephew of 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. Two weeks after the bombing, according a July 2004 report issued by the same Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Yasin fled to Iraq with Iraqi assistance. ABC News reported in 1994 that a Baghdad neighbor of Yasin's told them that he travels freely and "works for the government." There is no mention of documents recovered in postwar Iraq confirming that the Iraqi regime provided Yasin with housing and funding after his return to Iraq until the beginning of the Iraq War in 2003. Vice President Dick Cheney has discussed these documents in television and radio interviews. There is no mention of documents unearthed by reporters with the Toronto Star and the London Telegraph. The documents, expense reports from the Iraqi Intelligence Service, contain an exchange of memos between IIS officers about who will pay for a March 1998 trip to Baghdad by a "trusted confidante" of Osama bin Laden. The documents were provided to the U.S. intelligence community. "I have no doubt that what we found is the real thing," wrote Mitch Potter, a reporter for the Toronto Star, and one of the journalists who found the documents in the bombed-out headquarters of the Iraqi Intelligence Service days after the fall of Baghdad. Intelligence and military sources tell THE WEEKLY STANDARD that the documents are corroborated by telephone intercepts from March 1998. There is no mention of documents showing that the Iraqi regime cultivated a relationship with bin Laden's chief deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, throughout the 1990s. Time magazine's Joe Klein, an Iraq War critic who is dubious of a broader Iraq-al Qaeda relationship, noted last week: "Documents indicate that Saddam had long-term, low-level ties with regional terrorist groups--including Ayman al-Zawahiri, dating back to his time with the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood. There is strong evidence as well that elements of the Special Republican Guard ran terrorist training camps." (One quibble: Is it possible for the leader of Iraq to have "low-level" ties with the leader of Egyptian Islamic Jihad?) The 9/11 Commission reported that Zawahiri "had ties of his own to the Iraqis." In June 2003, U.S. News & World Report described what a defense official called a "potentially significant link" between Iraq and al Qaeda that came, at that early date, from a single source. "A captured senior member of the Mukhabarat, Iraq's intelligence service, has told interrogators about meetings between Iraqi intelligence officials and top members of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, a group that merged with al Qaeda in the 1990s. The prisoner also described $300,000 in Iraqi transfers to the organization to pay for attacks in Egypt. The transfers were said to have been authorized by Saddam Hussein." There is no mention of captured Iraqi documents that indicate the regime was providing financial support to Abu Sayyaf, an al Qaeda affiliate group in the Philippines. On June 6, 2001, the Iraqi ambassador to the Philippines, Salah Samarmad, faxed an eight-page report on an Abu Sayyaf kidnapping to the Iraqi Foreign Ministry. According to the fax, the Iraqi Intelligence Service had provided assistance to Abu Sayyaf, but following the high-profile kidnapping decided to suspend this support. According to the document: "The kidnappers were formerly (from the previous year) receiving money and purchasing combat weapons. From now on we (IIS) are not giving them this opportunity and are not on speaking terms with them." There is no mention of alleged Iraqi complicity in Abu Sayyaf attacks in October 2002 that claimed the life of U.S. Special Forces soldier Mark Wayne Jackson. One week after that attack, Filipino authorities recovered a cell phone that was to have detonated a bomb placed on the playground of a local elementary school. The cell phone , which belonged to an Abu Sayyaf terrorist, had been used to make calls to Abu Sayyaf leaders. Investigators also discovered that the phone had also been used to call Hisham Hussein, the second secretary of the Iraqi Embassy in Manila, just 17 hours after the attack that took the life of the American soldier. Hussein was ordered out of the Philippines for his associations with terrorist groups, including Abu Sayyaf. There is no mention of the Clinton administration's 1998 indictment of Osama bin Laden, which noted that al Qaeda had "reached an understanding with the government of Iraq that al Qaeda would not work against that government and that on particular projects, specifically including weapons development, al Qaeda would work cooperatively with the Government of Iraq." The language was dropped from a superseding indictment of bin Laden, after the August 7, 1998, East Africa embassy bombings allowed prosecutors to narrow their charges. Patrick Fitzgerald, a U.S. attorney involved in preparing the original indictment (who would later gain national prominence in the CIA leak case), testified before the 9/11 Commission. He told the panel that the claim in the indictment came from Jamal al Fadl, who told prosecutors that a senior Iraqi member of al Qaeda, Mamdouh Mahmud Salim, had worked out the agreement between Iraq and al Qaeda. According to Fitzgerald's testimony, Salim "tried to reach a sort of agreement where they wouldn't work against each other--sort of the enemy of my enemy is my friend--and that there were indications that within Sudan when al Qaeda was there, which al Qaeda left in the summer of '96, or the spring of '96, there were efforts to work on jointly acquiring weapons." There is no mention of the Clinton administration's many public claims that Iraq was working with al Qaeda on chemical weapons development in Sudan. According to the 9/11 Commission Report, the passage in the indictment of bin Laden "led [Richard] Clarke, who for years had read intelligence reports on Iraqi-Sudanese cooperation on chemical weapons, to speculate to [National Security Adviser Sandy] Berger that a large Iraqi presence at chemical facilities in Khartoum was 'probably a direct result of the Iraq-al Qaeda agreement.' Clarke added that VX precursor traces found near al Shifa were the 'exact formula used by Iraq.'" There is no mention of telephone intercepts, cited by a "senior intelligence official" in August 1998, connecting al Shifa officials with Emad al Ani, the father of Iraq's VX program. William Cohen, secretary of defense under Bill Clinton, reviewed the intelligence in testimony before the 9/11 Commission on March 23, 2004, and claimed that the plant owner had visited Baghdad to meet al Ani. "This particular facility [al Shifa], according to the intelligence we had at that time, had been constructed under extra ordinary security circumstances, even with some surface-to-air missile capability or defense capabilities; that the plant itself had been constructed under these security measures; that the--that the plant had been funded, in part, by the so-called Military Industrial Corporation; that bin Laden had been living there; that he had, in fact, money that he had put into this Military Industrial Corporation; that the owner of the plant had traveled to Baghdad to meet with the father of the VX program." On it goes. In addition, there are numerous omissions that could shed light on Iraq's involvement in trans regional terrorism .
Originally Posted By gadzuux Ask yourself - what is to be gained by attempting to undermine the credibility of the US senate committee report? In order to do this, quotes from 2003 are dredged back up - from members of this same administration that was making an urgent case for war. We know that they were using faulty intelligence at the time - everybody understands that. But it's STILL what they use today to try and justify the iraq war after the fact. >> Here's what CIA Director George Tenet had to say about Iraq-Al Qaeda links before the Senet Select Committee On Intelligence in February of 2003 << And where is tenant now? Oh, that's right - he got cashiered and handed his hat by the white house. >> As early as 1982, the Iraqi regime was openly supporting, training, and funding the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood << Or, as in beau's post, we're being told about perceived iraq transgressions dating to 1982. During that time period, we were openly supporting the contras, but nobody's suggesting we start a war over it now. >> I didn't want to let this thread slide since RoadTrip said Bush lied and STPH said the Intelligence report proved there was no Saddam - Al Quaida connection. << Let's talk about who "doesn't get it". It's not STP saying there was no saddam/al qaeda connection - it's the U.S. Senate. It's not roadtrip saying "bush lied" - it's the facts at hand. In order for bush supporters to go on supporting bush and his administration, they have to dispute the facts. Or live with the inconsistencies. That's why all of the 'neo-con talking points' are now emerging - to provide a crutch for those that are determined to stubbornly stick with the status quo. It's a pretty rickety crutch though - I wouldn't trust it to get you very far.
Originally Posted By DouglasDubh <Ask yourself - what is to be gained by attempting to undermine the credibility of the US senate committee report?> How about the truth? It seems to me that it's proper to undermine the credibility of something that is wrong. <But it's STILL what they use today to try and justify the iraq war after the fact.> That's not what they are doing. They are countering those who claim they lied about the justifications for our removal of Saddam. <And where is tenant now? Oh, that's right - he got cashiered and handed his hat by the white house.> I don't think that's exactly what happened, but even if it is, what's your point? Mr Tenet believed in 2003 that there were links between Saddam's Iraq and Al Qaeda. It's silly to now claim President Bush was lying because he believed Mr Tenent, especially when Mr Tenet's beliefs were largely true. <It's not roadtrip saying "bush lied" - it's the facts at hand.> But the facts don't show that. One has to ignore most of the facts and misinterpret the rest to come to that conclusion.
Originally Posted By gadzuux Like I said - "talking points". I saw william bennett on the tube last night, shilling for bush and his terror plan. What does william bennett - convicted felon and author of "the book of virtues" - know about the topic of interrogating POWs? Nothing, of course. But they're scraping the bottom of the GOP barrel to find people willing to go in front of the public and rattle off rove's pre-scripted talking points. It's horrible and funny at the same time.
Originally Posted By Beaumandy <<Ask yourself - what is to be gained by attempting to undermine the credibility of the US senate committee report? >> Uhh, because the democrats who gave us their conclusion on this report were full of it and they need to be called out for misleading people....again. The people like STPH and RT who decided to be suckers and buy the conclusion of this report need to be reminded that they are once again wrong and that this thread is a joke. <<Let's talk about who "doesn't get it". It's not STP saying there was no saddam/al qaeda connection - it's the U.S. Senate. It's not roadtrip saying "bush lied" - it's the facts at hand. >> The Democrats spun the conclusion of the report to say their was no Saddam - al Quaida connection when we all knew there were MANY connections. STPH and RT decided to be little pawns once again and buy the Democrat spin job. Then RT got a thread going called Bush Lied!! After a while it gets boring smacking down the desperate people on here. But it needs to be done.
Originally Posted By Beaumandy <<As always with Beau He doesn't credit his source The Weekly Standard>> Yes I did. More lies RT. Come on dude.
Originally Posted By BlueState_Republican I cant believe people are still ranting "Bush lied". ????????? I am noticing 5 years later no attacks on U.S. soil. Even if he did lie, and he DID NOT, I am glad of the outcome. Every American should be.
Originally Posted By gadzuux That argument only works until the next hit. If you credit bush with keeping us safe, you then have to assign responsibility to him when he doesn't.
Originally Posted By SingleParkPassholder Given the state of the world, I'd call it the luck of the draw.
Originally Posted By Beaumandy <<That argument only works until the next hit. If you credit bush with keeping us safe, you then have to assign responsibility to him when he doesn't.>> Just like you give Bush credit for bringing the gas prices down this past week? What?? You don't give Bush credit for the lower gas prices? If and when the terrorists finally get an attack off, the country is going to ask you libs what you did to try and prevent it. It will take about 2 minutes for the country to see that not only did the left try and stop the attack, but they HELPED the terrorists along the way.
Originally Posted By Beaumandy <<Given the state of the world, I'd call it the luck of the draw.>> We have stopped dozens if not more attacks. That's not luck.
Originally Posted By DlandDug >>Given the state of the world, I'd call it the luck of the draw.<< Luck? Wow, that's pretty lame. I trust that the next report that is issued by any Senate committee supporting the actions of the Administration will be given full and unstinting approval here on these boards. To hear some tell it, this report is the absolute be-all and end-all when it comes to the subject at hand. Yet, when it's anything-- anything that supports the Administration, it's just political pandering to the powers that be. Can't have it both ways, my friends. Unless, of course, the whole thing is simply spin based on a visceral hatred of Bush. But how judgemental it would be to draw such a conclusion...
Originally Posted By SingleParkPassholder "Luck? Wow, that's pretty lame." Lame? LOL. Come on. Given that when some Al Qaeda threat gets thwarted it makes front page news for days and all sorts of rules are tightened, I'd take this line of "we've stopped dozens of threats" with a huge grain of salt. Moreover, they seem to always be stopped in London. The train plot, then the gel explosives in airplanes. Around the world, say in Bali, Spain and elsewhere, they've sure seem to have gone unabated. That they haven't struck here yet could very possibly be because they now want to play "can you top this" as it relates to 9/11, and those things take time. Remember, they chose the World Trade Center because the 1993 bombings didn't accomplish what they wanted. For many people to say out of one side of their mouths "it's only a matter of time until they hit us hard again" and then say "Bush has done great the last five years" out the other side is nothing but doublespeak. He's either doing great with whatever it is he's doing or whatever he's doing won't matter because they will get us. People should pick one and stay with it.
Originally Posted By bboisvert Since I started wearing Reeboks instead of Nikes, my neighbors haven't parked their car in fron of my house. Coincidence? I don't think so. We weren't attacked on American soil between 1942-1993 yet I didn't hear any other administration from Roosevelt thru Bush Sr. crowing about that fact. I also can't recall any other candidates claim that we'd be attacked again if we voted for the other party. Scare me again.
Originally Posted By HyperTyper >> You're a liar. << >>> Stay civil. I am civil. The word "liar" is neither vulgar, obscene or offensive. You used it (falsely) in describing the President. Not one soul can point to Bush's "lie," for if it was a "lie" it was the same "lie" as Clinton's, Albright's, the U.N.'s, etc. A person who falsely calls someone a liar is, by definition, a liar. Sorry it sounds harsh, but you've hardly been gentle.
Originally Posted By gadzuux You omitted the rest of my quote ... >> You're affronted by my comments about a president that you revere. But it's not a lie, and I've shown you why. << It's relevant. I explained in some detail (a week ago) how my beliefs are justified. >> Not one soul can point to Bush's "lie," << I can. For one thing, he specifically said that he would return to the U.N. to seek a resolution for war with iraq. He never did. He lied. The result is what we see today. The white house has been running the war without oversight, locking up anyone they felt like indefinitely without charges, maintaining secret prisons, torturing suspects - up to and including killing them by torture, dismissing international treaties as irrelevant and even "quaint", declaring that the geneva conventions no longer applied, and overriding every manner of checks and balances. In the process, they have diminished what being an "american" means. And there are those who stand by and support this, and think it's the new "american way". They're wrong. I guess these people don't know right from wrong. What other explanation could there be? But do not on one hand advocate for torture, illegal detention, denial of due process, and suppression of constitutionally guaranteed liberties, and then on the other hand presume to sit in judgement of me and my integrity. I'll stack my honor and inegrity against any bush supporter and I'll win every time. You're known by the company you keep. If you want to lay down with bush and his deceitful bunch, you're free to do so. But then don't complain when you're ethics and reasoning are called into question.
Originally Posted By gadzuux >> Not one soul can point to Bush's "lie," << I found another one - they're not hard to find - CIA Learned in '02 That Bin Laden Had No Iraq Ties, Report Says By Walter Pincus Washington Post Staff Writer Friday, September 15, 2006 >> On Sept. 25, 2002, President Bush told reporters: "Al-Qaeda hides. Saddam doesn't, but the danger is, is that they work in concert. The danger is, is that al-Qaeda becomes an extension of Saddam's madness and his hatred and his capacity to extend weapons of mass destruction around the world. . . . [Y]ou can't distinguish between al-Qaeda and Saddam when you talk about the war on terror." <<
