Iraq-9/11 Connection?

[Hoops]

Not really.


WASHINGTON - Bluntly contradicting the Bush administration, the commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks reported Wednesday there was "no credible evidence" that Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) helped al-Qaida target the United States.

In a chilling report that sketched the history of Osama bin Laden (news - web sites)'s network, the commission said his far-flung training camps were "apparently quite good." Terrorists-to-be were encouraged to "think creatively about ways to commit mass murder," it added.


Bin Laden made overtures to Saddam for assistance, the commission said in the staff report, as he did with leaders in Sudan, Iran, Afghanistan (news - web sites) and elsewhere as he sought to build an Islamic army.

While Saddam dispatched a senior Iraqi intelligence official to Sudan to meet with bin Laden in 1994, the commission said it had not turned up evidence of a "collaborative relationship."

The Bush administration has long claimed links between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaida, and cited them as one reason for last year's invasion of Iraq (news - web sites).

On Monday, Vice President Dick Cheney (news - web sites) said in a speech that the Iraqi dictator "had long established ties with al-Qaida."

The bipartisan commission issued its findings as it embarked on two days of public hearings into the worst terrorist attacks in American history.

The panel intends to issue a final report in July on the hijackings on Sept. 11, 2001 that killed nearly 3,000, destroyed the World Trade Centers in New York and damaged the Pentagon (news - web sites) outside Washington. A fourth plane commandeered by terrorists crashed in the countryside in Pennsylvania.

The staff report pieced together information on the development of bin Laden's network, from the far-flung training camps in Afghanistan and elsewhere, to funding from "well-placed financial facilitators and diversions of funds from Islamic charities."

Reports that bin Laden had a huge personal fortune to finance acts of terror are overstated, the report said.

The description of the training camp operations contained elements of faint, grudging praise.

"A worldwide jihad needed terrorists who could bomb embassies or hijack airliners, but it also needed foot soldiers for the Taliban in its war against the Northern Alliance, and guerrillas who could shoot down Russian helicopters in Chechnya (news - web sites) or ambush Indian units in Kashmir (news - web sites)," it said.

According to one unnamed senior al-Qaida associate, various ideas were floated by mujahadeen in Afghanistan, the commission said. The options included taking over a launcher and forcing Russian scientists to fire a nuclear missile at the United States, mounting mustard gas or cyanide attacks against Jewish areas in Iraq or releasing poison gas into the air conditioning system of a targeted building.

"Last but not least, hijacking an aircraft and crashing it into an airport or nearby city," it said.

The Iraq connection long suggested by administration officials gained no currency in the report.

"Bin Laden is said to have requested space to establish training camps, as well as assistance in procuring weapons, but Iraq apparently never responded," the report said. "There have been reports that contacts between Iraq and al-Qaida also occurred" after bin Laden moved his operations to Afghanistan in 1996, "but they do not appear to have resulted in a collaborative relationship," it said.

"Two senior bin Laden associates have adamantly denied that any ties existed between al-Qaida and Iraq," the report said.

 

[kosar]

Cheney still sticking by his story. No details of course. Just more bullshit.



June 15, 2004ORLANDO, Fla. - Vice President Dick Cheney said Monday that Saddam Hussein had ?long-established ties? with al-Qaida, an assertion that has been repeatedly challenged by some policy experts and lawmakers.

The vice president offered no details backing up his claim of a link between Saddam and al-Qaida.

?He was a patron of terrorism,? Cheney said of Hussein during a speech before The James Madison Institute, a conservative think-tank based in Florida. ?He had long established ties with al-Qaida.?

In making the case for war in Iraq, Bush administration officials frequently cited what they said were Saddam?s decade-long contacts with al-Qaida operatives. They stopped short of claiming that Iraq was directly involved in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States, but critics say Bush officials left that impression with the American public.

Cheney listed what he described as the accomplishments of the Bush administration in the war on terror, including fledgling democracies in Afghanistan and Iraq; and the decision by Libya?s leader, Moammar Gadhafi, to abandon his nuclear ambitions.

Sen. Bob Graham, D-Fla., countered that the Bush administration had ?a sorry record in the war on terror.? Graham, former chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, spoke Sunday in a conference call arranged by John Kerry?s presidential campaign in anticipation of Cheney?s speech.

The State Department said last week it was wrong in stating that terrorism declined worldwide last year in a report that the Bush administration initially cited as evidence it was succeeding against terrorism, Graham noted. Both the number of incidents and the toll in victims increased sharply, the department acknowledged

 

[auspice]

"Afghanistan Day will serve to recall the fundamental principles involved when a people struggles for the freedom to determine its own future and the right to be free of foreign interference. Let us therefore resolve to pay tribute to the brave Afghan people by observing March 21, 1984 as Afghanistan Day."

________________

Ronald Reagan

 

[gardenweasel]

c`mon guys

c`mon guys

i could pull up any number of articles staing the exact opposite of the 9/11 group`s findings.....there are actually books written to the contrary...

i don`t know if there was direct linkage of saddam to al qaeda....there are links to sadaam and terrorism....he paid suicide bombers...we know that to be true...

as far as the 9/11 commission being bipartisan?....only democrats call the 9/11 commission bipartisan...it clearly is not....not with gorelick being an investigator......when she should clearly be an "investigatee"....

again,not making the case that invading iraq was a smart move....we`ll not know that answer for years to come....

i`m making the point that the 9/11 commission was all about partisanship....regardless of the rhetoric and political speak that was put out for public consumption...

after giving the issue much thought,i honestly believe that kerry will be the next president.....the republicans are very poor politicians....they are outflanked by the dems at every turn....the 9/11 commission was just another example of this....

maybe it will be a good thing for the country......i hope so...

it may not be very good for this board,though....

i know i won`t be throwing out threads belittling kerry every day....i will support him 100%.....i will discuss and question what i deem bad policy.....i won`t be name calling and acting like a child...

 

[djv]

Al you have to do is say Cheney. I wonder if Bush knows if he loses. I'ts because he didn't dump Cheney. God most polls show just what Americans think about him. About 35% give him good marks. Of course Fox is higher but even 41% is not good.
No one in that group ever wants to say. Hey Saudi you bastards your big part of this problem. And you say you will do something about it but it never happens. If were invadeing countries based on involvement with 9/11. We dam sure went to the wrong country.

 

[AR182]

i just heard gov. kean on hardball say that there is no proof of saddam & 9/11. but he also said that doesn't mean there is no connection between the two. in fact he said there are indications of alqaeda meeting with saddam's boys.


here is an article that i just read on this subject:

Wednesday, June 16, 2004 1:13 p.m. EDT

Media Mislead on 9/11 Commission Finding on Iraq-al Qaida Link

Reports Wednesday morning that the 9/11 Commission has determined there was no cooperation between Iraq and al-Qaida are completely false - and are undoubtedly driven by the media's determination to contradict the Bush administration's claims that such a link exists.

"9/11 Panel Says Iraq Rebuffed Bin Laden" reads the headline on the Associated Press report on today's Commission staff statement.

But that's not what the Commission staff report actually said.

The below passage, for instance, does more to confirm the Bush administration's claims of an Iraq-al Qaida link than it does to contradict them.

"The Sudanese, to protect their own ties with Iraq, reportedly persuaded Bin Ladin* to cease [support for anti-Saddam Islamists in Northern Iraq] and arranged for contacts between Iraq and al Qaeda*.

"A senior Iraqi intelligence officer reportedly made three visits to Sudan, finally meeting Bin Ladin in 1994. Bin Ladin is said to have requested space to establish training camps, as well as assistance in procuring weapons, but Iraq apparently never responded." [Staff Statement No. 15, Page 5]

Apparently never responded? How, pray tell, does the AP derive from those words the conclusive claim that Iraq "rebuffed" bin Laden?

The Commission statement continues:

"There have been reports that contacts between Iraq and al Qaeda also occurred after Bin Ladin had returned to Afghanistan, but they do not appear to have resulted in a collaborative relationship."

What's the evidence for this less-than-conclusive surmise?

"Two senior Bin Ladin associates have adamantly denied that any ties existed between al Qaeda and Iraq," says the Commission.

Such a statement begs the question: Why does the Commission, let alone the press, take the word of two senior bin Laden associates over, say, Iraq's new prime minister, Iyad Allawi.

Last December he told the London Telegraph, "We are uncovering evidence all the time of Saddam's involvement with al-Qaeda."

Reacting to the discovery of an Iraqi intelligence document placing 9/11 hijacker Mohamed Atta in Baghdad two months before the attacks, he continued:

"This is the most compelling piece of evidence that we have found so far. It shows that not only did Saddam have contacts with al-Qaeda, he had contact with those responsible for the September 11 attacks."

In fact, nowhere does the Commission make the claim that Iraq and al-Qaida never cooperated. What it does say is "We have no credible evidence that Iraq and al Qaeda cooperated on attacks against the United States." [NewsMax italics]

Apparently Dr. Allawi's asssement counts for nothing.

Even so, it's worth noting that elsewhere in today's staff statement, the 9/11 Commission asserts:

"With al Qaeda at its foundation, Bin Ladin sought to build a broader Islamic Army that included terrorist groups from Egypt, Libya, Saudi Arabia and Oman, Tunisia, Jordan, Iraq, Lebanon, Morocco, Somalia, and Eritrea. Not all [terrorist] groups from these states agreed to join, but at least one from each did." [Staff Statement No. 15, Page 3]

In other words, at least one terror group from Iraq did form an alliance with bin Laden.

Another problem: If the press is going to take today's staff statement as gospel, certain long-held media assumptions will need to be drastically revised, such as the widely accepted notion that al-Qaida was involved in the first World Trade Center bombing.

Not true, says the Commission.

"Whether Bin Ladin and his organization had roles in the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center ... remains a matter of substantial uncertainty," the staff statement says, before insisting, "We have no conclusive evidence" of a bin Laden link. [Staff Statement No. 15, Page 6]

The same goes for "Operation Bojinka," the 1995 plot to hijack 12 airliners hatched by Ramzi Yousef and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed that experts say was the blueprint for the 9/11 attacks.

"[Mohammed] was not, however, an al Qaeda member at the time of the Manilla [Bojinka] plot," Commission staffers say, even though they acknowledge that he went on to mastermind the 9/11 attacks.

 

[djv]

In other words Iraq was not involved with 9/11. Saudi money was. 15 of the 19 hijackers were from Suadi. Whats so hard to understand.

 

[Turfgrass]

"In making the case for war in Iraq, Bush administration officials frequently cited what they said were Saddam?s decade-long contacts with al-Qaida operatives. They stopped short of claiming that Iraq was directly involved in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States, but critics say Bush officials left that impression with the American public."

**The Associated Press said that the report "bluntly contradicts" the Bush Administration's claims that Saddam Hussein was linked to the September 11th terrorist attacks.

Now it is true that the 911 Commission report actually says that there was no evidence of a connection between Hussein and the 9/11 attacks.

So ... what is my problem here? The problem is that the Bush administration never ... and I mean never made a claim that such a connection existed in the first place. In fact, George Bush has repeatedly said that there is no evidence that such a connection exists. This creates a bit of a question, then, about the AP story. How can the 911 Commission report "bluntly contradict" that claim that has never been made?

There can be no "blunt contradiction" of a claim that has never been made. So, what did George Bush say? He said that there is no question that Saddam had Al Qaeda connections. The 911 Commission report, by the way, agrees.