Yeah, I knew that already
Another link between Al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein. Strangely, not getting much airplay in the major news:
Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein gave terror lord Osama bin Laden’s thugs financial and logistical support, offering al Qaeda money, training and haven for more than a decade, it was reported yesterday.
Their deadly collaboration – which may have included the bombing of the USS Cole and the 9/11 attacks – is revealed in a 16-page memo to the Senate Intelligence Committee that cites reports from a variety of domestic and foreign spy agencies compiled by multiple sources, The Weekly Standard reports.Saddam’s willingness to help bin Laden plot against Americans began in 1990, shortly before the first Gulf War, and continued through last March, the eve of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, says the Oct. 27 memo sent by Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith.
Two men were involved with the collaboration almost from its start.
Update: Tom alerts me to this memo from the DoD which states:
News reports that the Defense Department recently confirmed new information with respect to contacts between al-Qaida and Iraq in a letter to the Senate Intelligence Committee are inaccurate.
A letter was sent to the Senate Intelligence Committee on October 27, 2003 from Douglas J. Feith, Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, in response to follow-up questions from his July 10 testimony. One of the questions posed by the committee asked the Department to provide the reports from the Intelligence Community to which he referred in his testimony before the Committee. These reports dealt with the relationship between Iraq and al-Qaida.
The letter to the committee included a classified annex containing a list and description of the requested reports, so that the Committee could obtain the reports from the relevant members of the Intelligence Community.
The items listed in the classified annex were either raw reports or products of the CIA, the NSA, or, in one case, the DIA. The provision of the classified annex to the Intelligence Committee was cleared by other agencies and done with the permission of the Intelligence Community. The selection of the documents was made by DOD to respond to the Committee’s question. The classified annex was not an analysis of the substantive issue of the relationship between Iraq and al Qaida, and it drew no conclusions.
Individuals who leak or purport to leak classified information are doing serious harm to national security; such activity is deplorable and may be illegal.
It seems to me the DoD is on damage control. The memo doesn’t deny any of the allegations of the original story. It just states that:
1) The DoD has not confirmed this story;
2) The DoD has not concluded there is a link;
3) Leaking classified info is a no-no.
What the memo does not do is it does not deny the underlying assertions, which would lead a reasonable person to conclude there is potentially a link, if found to be true. Since the DoD is not denying the assertions, draw your own conclusions.
I think it’s still a link.
November 16th, 2003 at 12:28 am
Nice try, Uncle, but the DoD has renounced the memo as largely bogus:
It’s raw data sans verification. In other words, much ado about nothing.
November 16th, 2003 at 12:30 am
That last paragraph is part of the quote. Not sure why it didn’t display that way.
Anyway, Kevin’s all over this, so I’ll leave it to him. More wishful thinking than anything factual.
November 16th, 2003 at 10:36 am
Actually, there are many other links between the two. Seems to me the DOD is on damage control. All they’re really saying is: here’s the facts that we have and we have not concluded on them.
Someone else has.
November 16th, 2003 at 11:47 am
The DoD didn’t actively denying the memo, but the CIA did.
I really think any attempt to paint Iraq/Al Qaeda links as anything other than tenuous at best are wishful thinking by Bush partisans. Or maybe not just Bush partisans, but also people who can’t accept that so many US lives have been wasted for no good reason.
I’m telling you, it’s Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon.
November 16th, 2003 at 7:41 pm
Even if there are Al Qaeda/Iraq ties (and I still haven’t seen proof that there was a substantial connection), don’t we all agree that there are at least five or six other countries with stronger connections, none of which we have invaded (yet)?
November 16th, 2003 at 7:51 pm
Brian: Yes.
But the connection wasn’t the reason for the invasion.
November 17th, 2003 at 11:43 am
That’s right, the al Qaeda connection wasn’t the reason we took the “war on terror” to Iraq. The nonexistent nuclear arms program was the reason we took the war on terror to Iraq.
November 17th, 2003 at 11:48 am
Actually, there were about 19 reasons. remember?
November 17th, 2003 at 12:18 pm
You’re a libertarian, you should know: Screw the UN. I’m talking about the reasons used to justify the war to the American people and the American congress. Of those reasons, there were exactly two, both of them bogus: Al-Qaeda, and WMDs.
The 19 reasons given to the UN explain why the use of force may eventually become necessary. The two (bullshit) reasons given to the American people justified why we needed to act right now.
I have to say, Uncle, your blind support of Bush on this really disturbs me. If the US DOJ used this kind of “evidence” to support actions against American citizens, you would be crucifying them, and rightly so. So why is it okay for Bush to use similarly thin evidence to send US soldiers to their graves overseas?
November 17th, 2003 at 12:19 pm
(After all, if al-Qaeda weren’t a primary justification for action in Iraq, the Administration would be openly saying “there is no link and there never was… so what?” But they’re not. They continue to dance around the issue.)
November 17th, 2003 at 12:29 pm
I don’t blindly support Bush. I do support the invasion. As I have said before, the Bush administration gets two things right:
Tax Cuts
Ousting Hussein
Everything else, they’re pretty much wrong about.
And the reasons were from the House to the senate, not the UN. Seems the congress had bought in quite early.
And you should also note that i supported that little bosnia thing, which is roughly equivalent.
November 17th, 2003 at 3:01 pm
Only roughly equivalent if you consider unilateral action to be “roughly equivalent” to acting as part of a broad-based coalition.
November 17th, 2003 at 3:06 pm
Unilateral, my ass.
November 17th, 2003 at 3:52 pm
OK, bi-lateral. My apologies.
November 17th, 2003 at 3:57 pm
italy, england, australia, japan, etc.
I read an article once that said it was 32 countries.
November 17th, 2003 at 4:00 pm
Su
Umm, yeah, including such stalwarts as Micronesia!
There are four countries with troops in that country rigfht now, and only two took part in the invasion. You can call it a duck all you want, its still a turkey.
November 17th, 2003 at 4:39 pm
I’m genuinely curious: how many countries dedicated troops to Operation Desert Shield/Storm, versus how many in Operation Infinite Justice/Iraqi Freedom/whatever they called it?