This prick just won't quit- Cheney again

[kosar]

(AP) Updated: 2 hours, 14 minutes ago

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.

The Sept. 11 Commission?s 2004 report also found no evidence of a collaborative relationship between Saddam and Osama bin Laden?s al-Qaida network during that period.

Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, had requested that the Pentagon declassify the report prepared by acting Defense Department Inspector General Thomas F. Gimble. In a statement Thursday, Levin said the declassified document showed why a Defense Department investigation had concluded that some Pentagon prewar intelligence work was inappropriate.

The report, which had been released in summary form in February, said that former Pentagon policy chief Douglas J. Feith had acted inappropriately but not illegally in reviewing prewar intelligence. Levin has claimed that Feith?s intelligence assessment was wrong and distorted but nevertheless formed part of the basis on which President Bush took the country to war.

Although Feith?s assessment in mid-2002 offered several examples of cooperation between Saddam?s government and al-Qaida, the report said, the CIA had concluded months earlier that no evidence supported the existence of significant or long-term relationships.

 

[gardenweasel]

* Iraqi defectors had been saying for years that Saddam's regime trained "non-Iraqi Arab terrorists" at a camp in Salman Pak, south of Baghdad. U.N. inspectors had confirmed the camp's existence, including the presence of a Boeing 707. Defectors say the plane was used to train hijackers; the Iraqi regime said it was used in counterterrorism training. Sabah Khodada, a captain in the Iraqi Army, worked at Salman Pak. In October 2001, he told"""" PBS's "Frontline"""(not fox news) about what went on there. "Training is majorly on terrorism. They would be trained on assassinations, kidnapping, hijacking of airplanes, hijacking of buses, public buses, hijacking of trains and all other kinds of operations related to terrorism. . . . All this training is directly toward attacking American targets, and American interests."""



"""* On February 13, 2003, the government of the Philippines asked Hisham al Hussein, the second secretary of the Iraqi embassy in Manila, to leave the country. According to telephone records obtained by Philippine intelligence, Hussein had been in frequent contact with two leaders of Abu Sayyaf, an al Qaeda affiliate in South Asia, immediately before and immediately after they detonated a bomb in Zamboanga City. That attack killed two Filipinos and an American Special Forces soldier and injured several others. Hussein left the Philippines for Iraq after he was "PNG'd"--declared persona non grata--by the Philippine government and has not been heard from since. """"

"""* No fewer than five high-ranking Czech officials have publicly confirmed that Mohammed Atta, the lead September 11 hijacker, met with Ahmed Khalil Ibrahim al-Ani, an Iraqi intelligence officer working at the Iraqi embassy, in Prague five months before the hijacking. Media leaks here and in the Czech Republic have called into question whether Atta was in Prague on the key dates--between April 4 and April 11, 2001. And several high-ranking administration officials are "agnostic" as to whether the meeting took place. Still, the public position of the Czech government to this day is that it did.""""


"""Farouk Hijazi, former Iraqi ambassador to Turkey and Saddam's longtime outreach agent to Islamic fundamentalists, has been captured. In his initial interrogations, Hijazi admitted meeting with senior al Qaeda leaders at Saddam's behest in 1994. According to administration officials familiar with his questioning, he has subsequently admitted additional contacts, including a meeting in late 1997. Hijazi continues to deny that he met with bin Laden on December 21, 1998, to offer the al Qaeda leader safe haven in Iraq. U.S. officials don't believe his denial. """


when you get some nuts(which,unfortunately, may be delayed)it may change your mindset....

don`t kill the messenger..just providing what the msm purposefully keeps hidden from the public...

 

[Chadman]

So, let's just say Cheney's comments are true...which I believe most rational people at this point do not believe, but let's just pretend...

Wouldn't it have made more sense to go after Bin Laden when we had a pretty good idea of where he was (still do, depending on the political corner the administration is painted into - witness the above commentary as an example) and continue on until we got him, SINCE Cheney said he was running the terrorist network IN Iraq?!?

At some point, these "leaders" will stop talking and making themselves even more open to ridicule. Denial should remain a big river, and not a mode of communication.

 

[StevieD]

(AP) Updated: 2 hours, 14 minutes ago

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.

The Sept. 11 Commission?s 2004 report also found no evidence of a collaborative relationship between Saddam and Osama bin Laden?s al-Qaida network during that period.

Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, had requested that the Pentagon declassify the report prepared by acting Defense Department Inspector General Thomas F. Gimble. In a statement Thursday, Levin said the declassified document showed why a Defense Department investigation had concluded that some Pentagon prewar intelligence work was inappropriate.

The report, which had been released in summary form in February, said that former Pentagon policy chief Douglas J. Feith had acted inappropriately but not illegally in reviewing prewar intelligence. Levin has claimed that Feith?s intelligence assessment was wrong and distorted but nevertheless formed part of the basis on which President Bush took the country to war.

Although Feith?s assessment in mid-2002 offered several examples of cooperation between Saddam?s government and al-Qaida, the report said, the CIA had concluded months earlier that no evidence supported the existence of significant or long-term relationships.

Appears that Cheney is wrong again. I don't know how long America willing to put up with this coward liar.

 

[gardenweasel]

""This prick just won't quit"".....

ya` think maybe kosar was talking about me?.......:shrug:

 

[The Sponge]

He is a very convincing lair if you like being lied to. He might believe his own lies like all pathological liars do.

 

[Chadman]

""This prick just won't quit"".....

ya` think maybe kosar was talking about me?.......:shrug:

Nah, I don't think so. Clearly, you've quit in many of the threads here, as I recall... :tongue

 

[Jabberwocky]

Nah, I don't think so. Clearly, you've quit in many of the threads here, as I recall... :tongue

:mj07:

 

[smurphy]

'Prick' is a good word for Cheney. I don't think it applies to Gardenweasel though. I don't picture the weasel as a manipulative, lying, theiving, murderous peice of shit.

 

[kosar]

* Iraqi defectors had been saying for years that Saddam's regime trained "non-Iraqi Arab terrorists" at a camp in Salman Pak, south of Baghdad. U.N. inspectors had confirmed the camp's existence, including the presence of a Boeing 707. Defectors say the plane was used to train hijackers; the Iraqi regime said it was used in counterterrorism training. Sabah Khodada, a captain in the Iraqi Army, worked at Salman Pak. In October 2001, he told"""" PBS's "Frontline"""(not fox news) about what went on there. "Training is majorly on terrorism. They would be trained on assassinations, kidnapping, hijacking of airplanes, hijacking of buses, public buses, hijacking of trains and all other kinds of operations related to terrorism. . . . All this training is directly toward attacking American targets, and American interests."""



"""* On February 13, 2003, the government of the Philippines asked Hisham al Hussein, the second secretary of the Iraqi embassy in Manila, to leave the country. According to telephone records obtained by Philippine intelligence, Hussein had been in frequent contact with two leaders of Abu Sayyaf, an al Qaeda affiliate in South Asia, immediately before and immediately after they detonated a bomb in Zamboanga City. That attack killed two Filipinos and an American Special Forces soldier and injured several others. Hussein left the Philippines for Iraq after he was "PNG'd"--declared persona non grata--by the Philippine government and has not been heard from since. """"

"""* No fewer than five high-ranking Czech officials have publicly confirmed that Mohammed Atta, the lead September 11 hijacker, met with Ahmed Khalil Ibrahim al-Ani, an Iraqi intelligence officer working at the Iraqi embassy, in Prague five months before the hijacking. Media leaks here and in the Czech Republic have called into question whether Atta was in Prague on the key dates--between April 4 and April 11, 2001. And several high-ranking administration officials are "agnostic" as to whether the meeting took place. Still, the public position of the Czech government to this day is that it did.""""


"""Farouk Hijazi, former Iraqi ambassador to Turkey and Saddam's longtime outreach agent to Islamic fundamentalists, has been captured. In his initial interrogations, Hijazi admitted meeting with senior al Qaeda leaders at Saddam's behest in 1994. According to administration officials familiar with his questioning, he has subsequently admitted additional contacts, including a meeting in late 1997. Hijazi continues to deny that he met with bin Laden on December 21, 1998, to offer the al Qaeda leader safe haven in Iraq. U.S. officials don't believe his denial. """


when you get some nuts(which,unfortunately, may be delayed)it may change your mindset....

don`t kill the messenger..just providing what the msm purposefully keeps hidden from the public...

Weak, very weak. I've seen that crap and since I don't visit fringe websites like worldnet, so I guess I must have seen it in the MSM.

Perhaps you should brush up on the 9/11 commission report, The CIA report on this subject and this recently declassified DOD report.

There is no percentage in continuing this nonsense, Weasel. There was no, or extremely limited contact, let alone any connection.

I know it gets harder and harder to justify this abortion in Iraq, especially after the first 30 reasons or so have collapsed, but give it up on this one.

 

[gardenweasel]

Weak, very weak. I've seen that crap and since I don't visit fringe websites like worldnet, so I guess I must have seen it in the MSM.

Perhaps you should brush up on the 9/11 commission report, The CIA report on this subject and this recently declassified DOD report.

There is no percentage in continuing this nonsense, Weasel. There was no, or extremely limited contact, let alone any connection.

I know it gets harder and harder to justify this abortion in Iraq, especially after the first 30 reasons or so have collapsed, but give it up on this one.

gimme a break...i`m balancing a notorious slip and fall lawyer in one thread..... a "mewl" of moonbats here...while posting some boxing winners in the other forum.....

it ain`t easy...

k....you mean the same 9/11 report that clinton`s boy sandy burglar tainted by stealing pertaining documents from the national archives?.....lol

kosar...i`m happy to provide you with some "nuts".....but,i can`t be expected to send every cut and run democratic congressman "nuts" as well........

i repeat....give the surge a real chance....or pull out...show some sac...

don`t undercut "OUR" troops because of political hatred for the bush administration....

(the ringing we hear is the wind whistling through defeatist liberals` ears).....

:grins:

 

[smurphy]

Kosar, maybe you should think twice before putting Weasel's nuts in your mouth.

 

[Chadman]

i repeat....give the surge a real chance....or pull out...show some sac...

I'll simplify. If we DO give this "last surge" a chance and little changes, are you committed to a withdrawal/redeployment out of Iraq? And if so, will you classify that as a surrender and a loss of the war?

 

[smurphy]

http://www.netscape.com/viewstory/2.../AR2007040502263.html?hpid=topnews&frame=true

Hussein's Prewar Ties To Al-Qaeda Discounted
Pentagon Report Says Contacts Were Limited

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 about its judgments that reports of deeper links were based on dubious or unconfirmed information. The report had been released in summary form in February.


A report criticizes an intelligence assessment by the office of Douglas Feith, then a Pentagon official, before the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
A report criticizes an intelligence assessment by the office of Douglas Feith, then a Pentagon official, before the 2003 invasion of Iraq. (By Elizabeth Dalziel -- Associated Press)

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."

Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.), who requested the report's declassification, said in a written statement that the complete text demonstrates more fully why the inspector general concluded that a key Pentagon office -- run by then-Undersecretary of Defense Douglas J. Feith -- had inappropriately written intelligence assessments before the March 2003 invasion alleging connections between al-Qaeda and Iraq that the U.S. intelligence consensus disputed.

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 had said that it lacked evidence of a long-term relationship like the ones 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 (DIA) 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.

Feith has vigorously defended his work, accusing Gimble of "giving bad advice based on incomplete fact-finding and poor logic," and charging that the acting inspector general has been "cheered on by the chairmen of the Senate intelligence and armed services committees." In January, Feith's successor at the Pentagon, Eric S. Edelman, wrote a 52-page rebuttal to the inspector general's report that disputed its analysis and its recommendations for Pentagon reform.

Cheney contradicting the Pentagon now! At least he's consistent. Every thing he ever says about Iraq is totally false.

 

[THE KOD]

Kosar, maybe you should think twice before putting Weasel's nuts in your mouth.

...................................................

what price freedom:shrug:

smurph

your totally out of control at this point mapmaker

 

[THE KOD]

I'll simplify. If we DO give this "last surge" a chance and little changes, are you committed to a withdrawal/redeployment out of Iraq? And if so, will you classify that as a surrender and a loss of the war?

...........................................

chad

you have not clue about what is going to happen when the US pulls out ?

we are going to regret it badly. It will be someone that is as much a problem as Armajakkattt

The oil problem can be a big one for the US.

Ya fawk it , pull out and lets see what happens.:SIB

 

[THE KOD]

The letter comes at a time of upheaval inside insurgent circles in Iraq. In the fall, al- Qaeda created a new jihadi super-group called the Islamic State of Iraq to unite the disparate cells fighting the U.S. and Shi'ite militias in the country. Al-Qaeda demanded all insurgent groups swear loyalty to the new organization, but some of the most active Iraqi nationalist groups refused. These included the Islamic Army in Iraq, the Brigades of the 1920 Revolution and the Mujhideen Army, all of which include many well-trained military officers of the former regime. These groups tend to shun sectarian warfare and are more focused on attacking the U.S. and the current Iraqi government with the objective of ending the occupation and restoring a Sunni-led regime.

Over the past several months, al-Qaeda has retaliated by targeting the leaders of these independent groups and killing their members. Al-Qaeda "went too far," says the letter, "by killing 30 mujahideen brothers." In doing so, al-Qaeda is beginning to spark a wildfire of tribal vendettas that will be difficult to put out. Two weeks ago, the assassination of Harith Thahir al-Dari, the son of the sheik of the Zoba tribe, turned the powerful clan against al-Qaeda. Al-Dari is also the nephew of the leader of the Islamic Scholars Association, Harith al-Dari, and was a commander of the nationalist insurgent group the Brigades of the 1920 Revolution. Clashes, the letter says, are still going on between al-Qaeda and the nationalist Brigades of the 1920 Revolution in the Abu Ghraib area, west of Baghdad.

The letter from the Islamic Army of Iraq goes on to criticize the manner in which al-Qaeda has operated in Anbar, extorting money from the wealthy, killing civilians, demanding women cover their faces and calling anyone who opposes them "infidels." After listing all the ways al-Qaeda has been mistreating the citizens of Anbar and its comrades in arms, justifying each point with a verse from the Koran, the Islamic Army of Iraq appeals directly to Osama bin Laden, telling him he can no longer distance himself from the actions of his own organization, that he has duty to defend his honor and his faith, and he must "bring in line" his followers in Iraq.

This development comes at a time when Al-Qaeda-in-Mesopotamia is already feeling pressure in the restive Anbar province, a longtime stronghold for the organization west of Baghdad. A U.S.-backed consortium of tribal sheiks, known as the Anbar Salvation Council, fed up with al-Qaeda's indifference to civilian deaths and hard-line enforcement of sharia law in their hamlets, has been given a free hand to push the network out of Anbar. On Friday the council announced it had killed four al-Qaeda operatives and found a large cache of documents in a safe house that contains letters between al-Qaeda cell members and their leaders as well as detailed files on various targeted residents of Ramadi, imams of mosques and university students. "Our work," read the statement from the sheik heading up the council, "continues until we finish them all."
.............................................................

:142smilie :142smilie :142smilie

 

[THE KOD]

It looks like trouble for our future generations. Our kids , kids and our great grandchildren.

 

[smurphy]

Maybe we'll get lucky and a Saddam will rise in Iraq, keeping Iran distracted.

 

[Chadman]

...........................................

chad

you have not clue about what is going to happen when the US pulls out ?

we are going to regret it badly. It will be someone that is as much a problem as Armajakkattt

The oil problem can be a big one for the US.

Ya fawk it , pull out and lets see what happens.:SIB

You're right, I don't have a clue what will happen, although I have a guess it won't result in much upheaval for our country. The oil would be a big problem for us? How much oil do we import from Iraq? How much worse off will we be, oilwise in Iraq, than when Saddam was in power? Was the country in total chaos, and were we worried about it being overrun by Iranians and terrorists when Saddam was in power? I would not have been in the country to begin with, so I don't consider myself responsible for the current and future upheaval of it from here on in. But I realize we have to figure something out...I think we have to move on after what I consider to have been a horrible decision.

Scott, what exactly do you advocate? Indefinite occupation of the country? At what point will it be cool to pull our troops out of harms way? For crissakes, a few days ago Iraqi forces fired on our soldiers! Does the fact that we are in Iraq now preclude us from being attacked in our country, or are soldiers at far greater risk there than they would be if they weren't there? I don't know what the answers are, but I know what my opinion is. I think a sensible redeployment is the best option for our country, now, and in the future. I think it will help repair the damage done to our military, and to our overall economic health (debt included). If oil becomes such a big problem (wait, are we reaping benefits from Iraqi oil right now?) for us, can't we lean on our great allies - Saudi Arabia and the UAE? Wayne always says they are looking out for us.

I'm not afraid of what will happen to the US if we pull out of Iraq. Concerned? Sure. But I am not willing to wait and see what this administration comes up with in the future. They have not earned my trust, support, nor willingness to "go along".