No Iraq Links to Al-Qaeda...

"A declassified report released yesterday by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence revealed that U.S. intelligence analysts were strongly disputing the alleged links between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda while senior Bush administration officials were publicly asserting those links to justify invading Iraq.

Far from aligning himself with al-Qaeda and Jordanian terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, Hussein repeatedly rebuffed al-Qaeda’s overtures and tried to capture Zarqawi, the report said. Tariq Aziz, the detained former deputy prime minister, has told the FBI that Hussein “only expressed negative sentiments about [Osama] bin Laden.”

The report also said exiles from the Iraqi National Congress (INC) tried to influence U.S. policy by providing, through defectors, false information on Iraq’s nuclear, chemical and biological weapons capabilities. After skeptical analysts warned that the group had been penetrated by hostile intelligence services, including Iran’s, a 2002 White House directive ordered that U.S. funding for the INC be continued."

Woohaa, Bush funding Iran’s intelligence service ! ! !

Hmmmm, how can they spin this and blame the CIA???

[quote]Wreckless wrote:

"A declassified report released yesterday by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence revealed that U.S. intelligence analysts were strongly disputing the alleged links between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda while senior Bush administration officials were publicly asserting those links to justify invading Iraq.

Far from aligning himself with al-Qaeda and Jordanian terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, Hussein repeatedly rebuffed al-Qaeda’s overtures and tried to capture Zarqawi, the report said. Tariq Aziz, the detained former deputy prime minister, has told the FBI that Hussein “only expressed negative sentiments about [Osama] bin Laden.”

The report also said exiles from the Iraqi National Congress (INC) tried to influence U.S. policy by providing, through defectors, false information on Iraq’s nuclear, chemical and biological weapons capabilities. After skeptical analysts warned that the group had been penetrated by hostile intelligence services, including Iran’s, a 2002 White House directive ordered that U.S. funding for the INC be continued."

Woohaa, Bush funding Iran’s intelligence service ! ! !

Hmmmm, how can they spin this and blame the CIA???[/quote]

A better headline:
CIA/Senate to JeffR: You’re wrong! (again)

Its interesting how they ignore this thread and others like it because It just doesn’t fit in with what they think.

Saddam’s support for terrorism was well known. Rather than clutter up my post with links, howsabout you fellas google “Saddam suicide bombers” and see for yourselves.

I would imagine that there aren’t a lot of replies to this thread because who wants to read “So what?” over and over again?

We had reason enough to remove Saddam a long time ago.

[quote]lothario1132 wrote:
Saddam’s support for terrorism was well known. Rather than clutter up my post with links, howsabout you fellas google “Saddam suicide bombers” and see for yourselves.

I would imagine that there aren’t a lot of replies to this thread because who wants to read “So what?” over and over again?

We had reason enough to remove Saddam a long time ago.[/quote]

Bush said they had nothing to do with it, not too mention that I could post a shitload of links saying the Illuminati took down the WTC. Links don’t mean much.

As I recall, many on this board used that for ammunition on why we attacked them…they are strangely silent now.

Admit that there was other reasons for Iraq, because very simply, there was.

[quote]FightinIrish26 wrote:
As I recall, many on this board used that for ammunition on why we attacked them…they are strangely silent now.

Admit that there was other reasons for Iraq, because very simply, there was.[/quote]

It could be argued that the War on Terror being declared pretty much on account of 9/11 shows that there is an indirect link from Al-Qaeda to any terrorist organization or terrorism-supporting state.

Here’s the chain reaction:
#1 Al-Qaeda fucks up
#2 We get pissed at all terrorists
#3 We blow up terrorists and those who help them

I don’t suppose that the actions of OBL had anything to do with our willingness to finally get off our asses and do something about the idiot in charge of Iraq, does it? Wouldn’t it be honest of us to say that 9/11 was a kind of “wake-up call” to let us know that we can’t just sit back and watch?

When we did what we could in Afghanistan, OBL lucked out and escaped. So we went for #2 on the asshole list: Saddam. Is #3 Amedinejad? I don’t know.

[quote]lothario1132 wrote:

It could be argued that the War on Terror being declared pretty much on account of 9/11 shows that there is an indirect link from Al-Qaeda to any terrorist organization or terrorism-supporting state.
[/quote]

Indirect link? No, no no.

Show me a link. If you can, than you’re doing something the administration can’t, because if they could, they would.

Again, how does Iraq fit in?

Al-Queda was probably as much a threat to him as anyone else who does not rule by the Quran. So show me the connection.

Wake up call against what? Dictators?

Bin Laden hit us on Sept. 11. We attacked Afghanistan, a just invasion from my point of view.

So, again, how does Iraq fit in at all to anything about 9-11?

[quote]

When we did what we could in Afghanistan, OBL lucked out and escaped. So we went for #2 on the asshole list: Saddam. Is #3 Amedinejad? I don’t know.[/quote]

Hah.

You can’t just dispose assholes at will- if we could, I would hope that we go for one of those assholes that are our “Friends”, such as the abusive, completely unhumanitarian leaders of Saudi Arabia (the place where the hijackers were actually from by the way).

Assholes? How about we start with Kim Jong Il?

Or China?

Hell, half the countries in the Middle East are guilty of what Saddam was guilty of. Why not go after them?

Oh, wait, they fight back.

C’mon now. There are many threating people in the world, Saddam of which, was one.

However, the most threating? I think not. We’re finding that out now.

All right, I’ll try this again.

  1. Al-qaeda fucks up
  2. We get pissed
  3. Anybody who helps terrorists is targeted
  4. Saddam famously helps terrorists
  5. We say “game over, bitch” to Saddam

There you go, a five step process. Deos this mean that Saddam and OBL were in cahoots? No, and it doesn’t matter. What matters is number four on the list above: if you have any part of terrorism, your time is coming.

…if it doesn’t matter to you [in general] that you’ve been lied too over and over again by the current administration, then i don’t understand the love you [say you] have for your country…

[quote]ephrem wrote:
…if it doesn’t matter to you [in general] that you’ve been lied too over and over again by the current administration, then i don’t understand the love you [say you] have for your country…[/quote]

If you are American, you should have enough sense to not believe a politician in the first place.

If I got upset every time a politician lied, I would be dead from stress by now.

[i]“I’m not a crook.”

“Read my lips, no new taxes.”

“I did not have sex with that woman.”

“I’m sorry, I can’t recall.”

“I didn’t inhale.”[/i]

I could go on here for hours.

Look, I support the Iraq invasion, even if I don’t approve of some of the tactics used by the Administration to get us there. But I say that same thing about any politician and pretty much any action they take. I have a hard time in general finding stuff to like about these guys.

[quote]lothario1132 wrote:
ephrem wrote:
…if it doesn’t matter to you [in general] that you’ve been lied too over and over again by the current administration, then i don’t understand the love you [say you] have for your country…

If you are American, you should have enough sense to not believe a politician in the first place.

If I got upset every time a politician lied, I would be dead from stress by now.

[i]“I’m not a crook.”

“Read my lips, no new taxes.”

“I did not have sex with that woman.”

“I’m sorry, I can’t recall.”

“I didn’t inhale.”[/i]

I could go on here for hours.

Look, I support the Iraq invasion, even if I don’t approve of some of the tactics used by the Administration to get us there. But I say that same thing about any politician and pretty much any action they take. I have a hard time in general finding stuff to like about these guys.[/quote]

…F9-11 was aired on a public network yesterday, and the one thing that stuck in my mind was the mother of a young soldier who got killed in a helicopter crash. Prior to him going to Iraq, she was proud of him and the military, and she thought the military was an excellent employer, especially in an economic wasteland like Flint, Michigan…

…the pain and suffering she endured after she got the news of her son’s death did away with all of those sentiments. Is it ‘good’ to go to war and die if the reason for going war is based on lies? Should you support a government that has no regards for human suffering, but goes into war for personal reasons?

…i don’t understand the blind acceptance of the righteousness of those in charge. In another thread someone objected to, what he perceived, as disrespecting the president because the president, just for being the president, deserves utter respect. Where does that come from?

…if you don’t trust politicians, why do you trust them with the lives of your fellow country men/women? The US government lied about the existence of illegal prisons to their allies. They lied about the reasons for invading Iraq. What else do they have to lie about in order for you to say, no more?

[quote]ephrem wrote:
…if you don’t trust politicians, why do you trust them with the lives of your fellow country men/women? The US government lied about the existence of illegal prisons to their allies. They lied about the reasons for invading Iraq. What else do they have to lie about in order for you to say, no more?
[/quote]

Okay, I hear you. Now please try to listen to me.

Politicians lie. All of them. To be more specific here, if we were to take a truth serum and give it to every single elected official in the world, and we asked them this question:

“Have you ever had to avoid the whole truth in a professional issue, in a professional capacity, while in your service to the city/county/state/federal government?”

The answer, 100% of the time, will be “OF COURSE.”

Now, knowing this, how are we to deal with them? Is it time for an all-out hatefest? That’s how some folks do it. They pick a side and vehemently go after the perceived “bad guy liars” they see as their opponents, while conveniently overlooking or downplaying the liars in their own camp.

In politics, there’s no such thing as “too much lying”. However, there IS such a thing as “too many mistakes”. The difference between the two is enormous.

Example: Clinton was doing just fine until a blue dress with DNA evidence was produced. Mistake number one. Then, he fucked up again when he perjured himself on the stand in front of a grand jury and was busted on it. Mistake number two. Result: impeached.

If there had never been a dress, would we be talking about this now?

Let’s make this bold text here: The reason I support the Iraq invasion has nothing to do with what Bush or his cronies said to anybody. What doomed Saddam in my mind are the actions that he took, and continued to take, while he was in charge of Iraq. Plain and simple, the guy was trouble and he needed to go. Of course he had WMD’s, everybody and their grandma knows he used them on the Iranian army and the Kurds. He was a dick to UN weapons inspectors, proving that they were next to useless in their capacity to keep an eye on him. He violated almost every single provision in the UN sanctions against him, and was using the sanctions as a weapon against his own people. Rather than disarm and capitulate to the collective world’s (read: sane folks’) will, he continued his illegal stockpiling and weapons acquisitions and development while his nation’s people starved.

What made him doubly dangerous was the amount of wealth he was sequestering by illicit means on account of him being in charge of the world’s second largest oil fields. His mindset is mercenary and self-serving – as soon as it would have been feasible or advantageous to him, he would have done any number of monstrous deeds, up to and including selling his sarin gas to terrorist interests. The fact that he was paying the families of suicide bombers in Palestine large sums of money didn’t help matters either.

I hope this clears things up a little bit. I could give a shit what Bush said or didn’t say. What needed to get done is what happened.

But let’s pretend for a second that Saddam wasn’t such a fuck. THEN I would have a serious problem with invading Iraq on account of lies, because it would have been unnecessary.

[quote]lothario1132 wrote:
Okay, I hear you. Now please try to listen to me.

Politicians lie. All of them. To be more specific here, if we were to take a truth serum and give it to every single elected official in the world, and we asked them this question:

“Have you ever had to avoid the whole truth in a professional issue, in a professional capacity, while in your service to the city/county/state/federal government?”

The answer, 100% of the time, will be “OF COURSE.”

Now, knowing this, how are we to deal with them? Is it time for an all-out hatefest? That’s how some folks do it. They pick a side and vehemently go after the perceived “bad guy liars” they see as their opponents, while conveniently overlooking or downplaying the liars in their own camp.

In politics, there’s no such thing as “too much lying”. However, there IS such a thing as “too many mistakes”. The difference between the two is enormous.

Example: Clinton was doing just fine until a blue dress with DNA evidence was produced. Mistake number one. Then, he fucked up again when he perjured himself on the stand in front of a grand jury and was busted on it. Mistake number two. Result: impeached.

If there had never been a dress, would we be talking about this now?[/quote]

…did Clinton get impeached? I thank you for your answer, and i do hear what you’re saying, but it isn’t satisfactory. Aren’t you saying that it doesn’t matter how actions are justified as long as you agree with the end result? That’s a scary proposition, 'coz where do you draw the line?

…in the '80s, when he served a purpose to the US government, that wasn’t a big deal at all. When the USA realised he couldn’t be controlled, then he became a liability. You do see how this is merely a matter of priorities, and not of ethics and morals?

[quote]What made him doubly dangerous was the amount of wealth he was sequestering by illicit means on account of him being in charge of the world’s second largest oil fields. His mindset is mercenary and self-serving – as soon as it would have been feasible or advantageous to him, he would have done any number of monstrous deeds, up to and including selling his sarin gas to terrorist interests. The fact that he was paying the families of suicide bombers in Palestine large sums of money didn’t help matters either.

I hope this clears things up a little bit. I could give a shit what Bush said or didn’t say. What needed to get done is what happened.

But let’s pretend for a second that Saddam wasn’t such a fuck. THEN I would have a serious problem with invading Iraq on account of lies, because it would have been unnecessary.[/quote]

…okay, i do see your point, but if you want to rid the planet of all megalomaniacs and other assholes, for instance: Kim ll Sung, the military regime controling Birma, several african nations, totalitarian regimes in the Kaukasus, who all are in some way a threat to the stability of the world, you’ll never stop fighting…

…can you see how attacking Iraq was arbitrary and motivated by other reasons than what was right and just?

[quote]ephrem wrote:
…if it doesn’t matter to you [in general] that you’ve been lied too over and over again by the current administration, then i don’t understand the love you [say you] have for your country…[/quote]

Please list the lies.

Bush has never said Iraq was about 9/11 - other than it is a part of the GWOT.

I think we did the right thing by taking out Sadaam. I think we should do the same in Iran, Syria, and the rest of the middle east that harbors and supports the radical islamic jihadists.

[quote]rainjack wrote:
ephrem wrote:
…if it doesn’t matter to you [in general] that you’ve been lied too over and over again by the current administration, then i don’t understand the love you [say you] have for your country…

Please list the lies.

Bush has never said Iraq was about 9/11 - other than it is a part of the GWOT.[/quote]

…1. Saddam was supposed to have WMD’s and able to utilize them within 45 minutes. 2. Saddam was supposed to have ties with OBL. 3. The USA did not have illegal, overseas prisons.

…the war in Iraq was justified by the first 2. The third lie was a result of that war. I know you don’t care RJ, but you asked nicely…

…and don’t forget Saudi-Arabia. I’ve asked you this before, but as an accountant how do you suppose the US is going to pay for such an all out war? What consequence will that have on the economy over the next 10 years? If the USA goes bankrupt, who do you think will forclose on you?

[quote]ephrem wrote:
rainjack wrote:
ephrem wrote:
…if it doesn’t matter to you [in general] that you’ve been lied too over and over again by the current administration, then i don’t understand the love you [say you] have for your country…

Please list the lies.

Bush has never said Iraq was about 9/11 - other than it is a part of the GWOT.

…1. Saddam was supposed to have WMD’s and able to utilize them within 45 minutes. 2. Saddam was supposed to have ties with OBL. 3. The USA did not have illegal, overseas prisons.

…the war in Iraq was justified by the first 2. The third lie was a result of that war. I know you don’t care RJ, but you asked nicely…

I think we did the right thing by taking out Sadaam. I think we should do the same in Iran, Syria, and the rest of the middle east that harbors and supports the radical islamic jihadists.

…and don’t forget Saudi-Arabia. I’ve asked you this before, but as an accountant how do you suppose the US is going to pay for such an all out war? What consequence will that have on the economy over the next 10 years? If the USA goes bankrupt, who do you think will forclose on you? [/quote]

There were many reasons for going to Iraq. WMD’s were one of them. We went off the best info we had at the time. Monday morning QBing is much easier than making the decision in real time.

I think Sadaam’s ties with terrorism is pretty well documented. His relationship with UBL was real. Anyone with any ties to Bin Laden has blood on their hands.

I have no problem with foreign prisons. Whether the gov’t admits to it, or not, the prisons are a good thing.

If we could go back to 9-12-01 knowing what we know now - I am sure we would have done things differently. However - we don’t have that luxury.

If we stop fighting a PC war, and play to win - it would be a much cheaper, and much shorter war.

War implies death and destruction. We are trying to minimize both, and that creates the quagmire you see today.

Starting this thread is a waste of time for the changing the minds of the right wingnuttery on this forum.

Bush will go down in history as the worst president since Harding.

Let the flames begin.

Greetings!!!

I leave and all hell breaks loose!!

First of all, thank you lumpy!!! I appreciate your post on this issue. It would be amusing to have the CIA directly reference me. I’d tell them, “Don’t feed the monster!!!”

I must admit, I haven’t had time to read the 400 page report.

However, I need to translate for you: If carl levin is declaring there are no links and this is “devastating,” then: There were obvious links between saddam and al qaeda and Bush was more right than he knows. It’s like schumer talking about gun control.

Now, when I read the 400 page report (gasp!!!) I’ll be looking closely to see if this report (two years in the making) took into account the saddam tapes. Please keep in mind that their existence apparently only became known in late 2005 and early 2006 to the big-wigs in the intelligence community.

If this new Senate panel didn’t refute or explain the early translation of the tapes, then it becomes invalid. I can show you that our intelligence services viewed the tapes as authentic. I can also show you that (at last report) 35,000 documents had yet to be translated.

I’ve got a few links that should illustrate my points:

I’ve tried to include a variety of sources so my bobble-head friends have more difficulty dismissing them.

Here is cnn commenting on their authenticity:

www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/02/18/hussein.tapes/index.html

Here is CNSNEWS covering the intelligence summit.

www.cnsnews.com/ViewNation.asp?Page=\Nation\archive\200602\NAT20060221b.html

Unless these issues have been directly addressed in this report, I would simply say, “stay tuned.”

I must point out something rather humorous. It’s amusing to see the bobbleheads who have been screaming, “Bush lied, everyone died. Bush manipulated the CIA. The CIA screwed up” now hanging their hat on this new report.

I wanted to highlight the bobblehead thinking on the CIA. Here we go: The CIA believed that there were mass production of WMD after 1991 (bad). The CIA doesn’t believe there were al qaeda links to saddam (good).

You amuse me!!!

I’ll get back to you when I digest the report. Wish me luck!!!

JeffR

[quote]marmaprick wrote:

Bush will go down in history as the worst president since Harding.

[/quote]

Spoken like a true “independent.”

JeffR

[quote]JeffR wrote:
marmaprick wrote:

Bush will go down in history as the worst president since Harding.

Spoken like a true “independent.”

JeffR
[/quote]

I like Bush but he did a horrible job in securing Iraq and never captured OBL.

He sucks and you swallow…get over it!