Exhaustive review finds no link between Saddam, al Qaida

Infinity · 03-10-2008, 10:10 PM

By Warren P. Strobel, McClatchy Newspapers
Mon Mar 10, 7:08 PM ET

WASHINGTON — An exhaustive review of more than 600,000 Iraqi documents that were captured after the 2003 U.S. invasion has found no evidence that Saddam Hussein's regime had any operational links with Osama bin Laden's al Qaida terrorist network.

The Pentagon-sponsored study, scheduled for release later this week, did confirm that Saddam's regime provided some support to other terrorist groups, particularly in the Middle East , U.S. officials told McClatchy . However, his security services were directed primarily against Iraqi exiles, Shiite Muslims, Kurds and others he considered enemies of his regime.

The new study of the Iraqi regime's archives found no documents indicating a "direct operational link" between Hussein's Iraq and al Qaida before the invasion, according to a U.S. official familiar with the report.

He and others spoke to McClatchy on condition of anonymity because the study isn't due to be shared with Congress and released before Wednesday.

President Bush and his aides used Saddam's alleged relationship with al Qaida, along with Iraq's supposed weapons of mass destruction, as arguments for invading Iraq after the September 11, 2001 , terrorist attacks.

Then-Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld claimed in September 2002 that the United States had "bulletproof" evidence of cooperation between the radical Islamist terror group and Saddam's secular dictatorship.

Then-Secretary of State Colin Powell cited multiple linkages between Saddam and al Qaida in a watershed February 2003 speech to the United Nations Security Council to build international support for the invasion. Almost every one of the examples Powell cited turned out to be based on bogus or misinterpreted intelligence.

As recently as last July, Bush tried to tie al Qaida to the ongoing violence in Iraq . "The same people that attacked us on September the 11th is a crowd that is now bombing people, killing innocent men, women and children, many of whom are Muslims," he said.

The new study, entitled "Saddam and Terrorism: Emerging Insights from Captured Iraqi Documents", was essentially completed last year and has been undergoing what one U.S. intelligence official described as a "painful" declassification review.

It was produced by a federally-funded think tank, the Institute for Defense Analyses , under contract to the Norfolk, Va .-based U.S. Joint Forces Command.

Spokesmen for the Joint Forces Command declined to comment until the report is released. One of the report's authors, Kevin Woods , also declined to comment.

The issue of al Qaida in Iraq already has played a role in the 2008 presidential campaign.

Sen. John McCain , the presumptive GOP nominee, mocked Sen. Barack Obama , D-Ill, recently for saying that he'd keep some U.S. troops in Iraq if al Qaida established a base there.

"I have some news. Al Qaida is in Iraq ," McCain told supporters. Obama retorted that, "There was no such thing as al Qaida in Iraq until George Bush and John McCain decided to invade." (In fact, al Qaida in Iraq didn't emerge until 2004, a year after the invasion.)

The new study appears destined to be used by both critics and supporters of Bush's decision to invade Iraq to advance their own familiar arguments.

While the documents reveal no Saddam-al Qaida links, they do show that Saddam and his underlings were willing to use terrorism against enemies of the regime and had ties to regional and global terrorist groups, the officials said.

However, the U.S. intelligence official, who's read the full report, played down the prospect of any major new revelations, saying, "I don't think there's any surprises there."

Saddam, whose regime was relentlessly secular, was wary of Islamic extremist groups such as al Qaida, although like many other Arab leaders, he gave some financial support to Palestinian groups that sponsored terrorism against Israel .

According to the State Department's annual report on global terrorism for 2002— the last before the Iraq invasion— Saddam supported the militant Islamic group Hamas in Gaza , Palestinian Islamic Jihad and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command , a radical, Syrian-based terrorist group.

Saddam also hosted Palestinian terrorist Abu Nidal , although the Abu Nidal Organization was more active when he lived in Libya and he was murdered in Baghdad in August 2002 , possibly on Saddam's orders.

An earlier study based on the captured Iraqi documents, released by the Joint Forces Command in March 2006 , found that a militia Saddam formed after the 1991 Persian Gulf war, the Fedayeen Saddam, planned assassinations and bombings against his enemies. Those included Iraqi exiles and opponents in Iraq's Kurdish and Shiite communities.

Other documents indicate that the Fedayeen Saddam opened paramilitary training camps that, starting in 1998, hosted "Arab volunteers" from outside of Iraq . What happened to the non-Iraqi volunteers is unknown, however, according to the earlier study.

The new Pentagon study isn't the first to refute earlier administration contentions about Saddam and al Qaida.

A September 2006 report by the Senate Intelligence Committee concluded that Saddam was "distrustful of al Qaida and viewed Islamic extremists as a threat to his regime, refusing all requests from al Qaida to provide material or operational support."

The Senate report, citing an FBI debriefing of a senior Iraqi spy, Faruq Hijazi , said that Saddam turned down a request for assistance by bin Laden which he made at a 1995 meeting in Sudan with an Iraqi operative.

ON THE WEB:

Earlier report from the Iraqi Perspectives Project:

http://www.jfcom.mil/newslink/storyarchive/2006/ipp.pdf

Wait, so could Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and Rice have been wrong??????

deep · 03-10-2008, 11:31 PM

I still believe there is a Obama / Hussein connection.
I think they at least met.

Barack Hussein Obama, Sr. is his father

BVS · 03-10-2008, 11:42 PM

I have a resolution and satellite footage to prove it...

Irvine511 · 03-10-2008, 11:55 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by deep
I still believe there is a Obama / Hussein connection.
I think they at least met.

Barack Hussein Obama, Sr. is his father

**Diemen** · 03-11-2008, 12:07 AM

Awesome picture.

deep, you're trying waaaaay too hard now.

deep · 03-11-2008, 03:40 AM

no effort
at all

Irvine had emailed me that
he had a great picture

for the easily amused

I do like your shots of half dome

BrownEyedBoy · 03-11-2008, 01:16 PM

No shit.

unico · 03-11-2008, 01:43 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Irvine511

U2isthebest · 03-11-2008, 03:04 PM

"Exhaustive review finds no link between Saddam, al Qaida"

Hey, remember when we knew that...back in early 2003?

Harry Vest · 03-11-2008, 06:53 PM

Even if there "was no connection" there was for the simple fact that they both were funding likeminded terrorist groups. I think people got so into the small details of the "no connection" argument simply because there wasn't anything formal (i.e. personal meetings, records etc.). Most people knew there was no connection as stated above but that didn't let Saddam off the hook for funding bombings in Isreal etc. Let me also state that I was NOT for the war (even at the very beginning) - if the United States was really going after the worst "terrorists" they would have invaded Saudi Arabia and tried to force those assholes to become a "democracy" instead of playing buddy-buddy with them like the Bush's (as well as other Presidents) have done all these years.

Infinity · 03-12-2008, 12:17 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Harry Vest
Even if there "was no connection" there was for the simple fact that they both were funding likeminded terrorist groups. I think people got so into the small details of the "no connection" argument simply because there wasn't anything formal (i.e. personal meetings, records etc.). Most people knew there was no connection as stated above but that didn't let Saddam off the hook for funding bombings in Isreal etc. Let me also state that I was NOT for the war (even at the very beginning) - if the United States was really going after the worst "terrorists" they would have invaded Saudi Arabia and tried to force those assholes to become a "democracy" instead of playing buddy-buddy with them like the Bush's (as well as other Presidents) have done all these years.

I'm glad you are against the war. I'm glad you were against it from the very beginning like me because in the very beginning most people were for it. But the "no connection" thing is a big deal since the whole administration not only said that there was a connection but used it as a major reason for the war. On top of that, they even implied that Saddam had a role in 9/11. Most Americans thought he was part of the attacks. When you have people like Donald Rumsfeld saying that the U.S. has BULLETPROOF evidence that there is a link and then now we find out that was a complete 100% LIE, it gets irritating. Even worse, the second major reason why we invaded Iraq: WMD's, is also a complete LIE. That is when the details start mattering. If the simple fact was that Saddam also had funded certain terrorist groups then they should have said that instead of claiming that they have evidence of an al-Qaeda-Saddam connection and leading 3/4 of the nation and most of Congress to believe them.

Irvine511 · 03-12-2008, 04:07 PM

wow! it's like the Soviet Union!

[q] Pentagon Report on Saddam's Iraq Censored?
March 12, 2008 1:58 PM

ABC News' Jonathan Karl Reports: The Bush Administration apparently does not want a U.S. military study that found no direct connection between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda to get any attention. This morning, the Pentagon cancelled plans to send out a press release announcing the report's release and will no longer make the report available online.

The report was to be posted on the Joint Forces Command website this afternoon, followed by a background briefing with the authors. No more. The report will be made available only to those who ask for it, and it will be sent via U.S. mail from Joint Forces Command in Norfolk, Virginia.

It won't be emailed to reporters and it won't be posted online.

Asked why the report would not be posted online and could not be emailed, the spokesman for Joint Forces Command said: "We're making the report available to anyone who wishes to have it, and we'll send it out via CD in the mail."

Another Pentagon official said initial press reports on the study made it "too politically sensitive."[/q]

BVS · 03-12-2008, 04:36 PM

Quote:

Asked why the report would not be posted online and could not be emailed, the spokesman for Joint Forces Command said: "We're making the report available to anyone who wishes to have it, and we'll send it out via CD in the mail."

WTF, how does this make any sense?

You people are idiots...

plus, so not cost effective.

Infinity · 03-12-2008, 04:41 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by BonoVoxSupastar

plus, so not cost effective.

Don't worry, the only cost will be the ink and paper used to print the money.

BUSH = SADDAM

phillyfan26 · 03-12-2008, 04:42 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Infinitum98
BUSH = SADDAM

Infinity · 03-12-2008, 04:43 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Irvine511
wow! it's like the Soviet Union!

ABC News' Jonathan Karl Reports: The Bush Administration apparently does not want a U.S. military study that found no direct connection between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda to get any attention. This morning, the Pentagon cancelled plans to send out a press release announcing the report's release and will no longer make the report available online.

The report was to be posted on the Joint Forces Command website this afternoon, followed by a background briefing with the authors. No more. The report will be made available only to those who ask for it, and it will be sent via U.S. mail from Joint Forces Command in Norfolk, Virginia.

It won't be emailed to reporters and it won't be posted online.

Asked why the report would not be posted online and could not be emailed, the spokesman for Joint Forces Command said: "We're making the report available to anyone who wishes to have it, and we'll send it out via CD in the mail."

Another Pentagon official said initial press reports on the study made it "too politically sensitive."

I wonder what Strongbow and 2681U2 have to say about this.

Vincent Vega · 03-12-2008, 05:00 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Infinitum98

BUSH = SADDAM

I think it's important to stress here that Infinitum is not a liberal.

Infinity · 03-16-2008, 05:50 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Vincent Vega

I think it's important to stress here that Infinitum is not a liberal.

I think most people must know that from all my Ron Paul support in this forum.

03-10-2008, 10:10 PM	#1
Infinity Refugee Join Date: Aug 2003 Posts: 1,188 Local Time: 04:13 AM	Exhaustive review finds no link between Saddam, al Qaida By Warren P. Strobel, McClatchy Newspapers Mon Mar 10, 7:08 PM ET WASHINGTON — An exhaustive review of more than 600,000 Iraqi documents that were captured after the 2003 U.S. invasion has found no evidence that Saddam Hussein's regime had any operational links with Osama bin Laden's al Qaida terrorist network. The Pentagon-sponsored study, scheduled for release later this week, did confirm that Saddam's regime provided some support to other terrorist groups, particularly in the Middle East , U.S. officials told McClatchy . However, his security services were directed primarily against Iraqi exiles, Shiite Muslims, Kurds and others he considered enemies of his regime. The new study of the Iraqi regime's archives found no documents indicating a "direct operational link" between Hussein's Iraq and al Qaida before the invasion, according to a U.S. official familiar with the report. He and others spoke to McClatchy on condition of anonymity because the study isn't due to be shared with Congress and released before Wednesday. President Bush and his aides used Saddam's alleged relationship with al Qaida, along with Iraq's supposed weapons of mass destruction, as arguments for invading Iraq after the September 11, 2001 , terrorist attacks. Then-Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld claimed in September 2002 that the United States had "bulletproof" evidence of cooperation between the radical Islamist terror group and Saddam's secular dictatorship. Then-Secretary of State Colin Powell cited multiple linkages between Saddam and al Qaida in a watershed February 2003 speech to the United Nations Security Council to build international support for the invasion. Almost every one of the examples Powell cited turned out to be based on bogus or misinterpreted intelligence. As recently as last July, Bush tried to tie al Qaida to the ongoing violence in Iraq . "The same people that attacked us on September the 11th is a crowd that is now bombing people, killing innocent men, women and children, many of whom are Muslims," he said. The new study, entitled "Saddam and Terrorism: Emerging Insights from Captured Iraqi Documents", was essentially completed last year and has been undergoing what one U.S. intelligence official described as a "painful" declassification review. It was produced by a federally-funded think tank, the Institute for Defense Analyses , under contract to the Norfolk, Va .-based U.S. Joint Forces Command. Spokesmen for the Joint Forces Command declined to comment until the report is released. One of the report's authors, Kevin Woods , also declined to comment. The issue of al Qaida in Iraq already has played a role in the 2008 presidential campaign. Sen. John McCain , the presumptive GOP nominee, mocked Sen. Barack Obama , D-Ill, recently for saying that he'd keep some U.S. troops in Iraq if al Qaida established a base there. "I have some news. Al Qaida is in Iraq ," McCain told supporters. Obama retorted that, "There was no such thing as al Qaida in Iraq until George Bush and John McCain decided to invade." (In fact, al Qaida in Iraq didn't emerge until 2004, a year after the invasion.) The new study appears destined to be used by both critics and supporters of Bush's decision to invade Iraq to advance their own familiar arguments. While the documents reveal no Saddam-al Qaida links, they do show that Saddam and his underlings were willing to use terrorism against enemies of the regime and had ties to regional and global terrorist groups, the officials said. However, the U.S. intelligence official, who's read the full report, played down the prospect of any major new revelations, saying, "I don't think there's any surprises there." Saddam, whose regime was relentlessly secular, was wary of Islamic extremist groups such as al Qaida, although like many other Arab leaders, he gave some financial support to Palestinian groups that sponsored terrorism against Israel . According to the State Department's annual report on global terrorism for 2002— the last before the Iraq invasion— Saddam supported the militant Islamic group Hamas in Gaza , Palestinian Islamic Jihad and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command , a radical, Syrian-based terrorist group. Saddam also hosted Palestinian terrorist Abu Nidal , although the Abu Nidal Organization was more active when he lived in Libya and he was murdered in Baghdad in August 2002 , possibly on Saddam's orders. An earlier study based on the captured Iraqi documents, released by the Joint Forces Command in March 2006 , found that a militia Saddam formed after the 1991 Persian Gulf war, the Fedayeen Saddam, planned assassinations and bombings against his enemies. Those included Iraqi exiles and opponents in Iraq's Kurdish and Shiite communities. Other documents indicate that the Fedayeen Saddam opened paramilitary training camps that, starting in 1998, hosted "Arab volunteers" from outside of Iraq . What happened to the non-Iraqi volunteers is unknown, however, according to the earlier study. The new Pentagon study isn't the first to refute earlier administration contentions about Saddam and al Qaida. A September 2006 report by the Senate Intelligence Committee concluded that Saddam was "distrustful of al Qaida and viewed Islamic extremists as a threat to his regime, refusing all requests from al Qaida to provide material or operational support." The Senate report, citing an FBI debriefing of a senior Iraqi spy, Faruq Hijazi , said that Saddam turned down a request for assistance by bin Laden which he made at a 1995 meeting in Sudan with an Iraqi operative. ON THE WEB: Earlier report from the Iraqi Perspectives Project: http://www.jfcom.mil/newslink/storyarchive/2006/ipp.pdf Wait, so could Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and Rice have been wrong?????? __________________

03-10-2008, 11:31 PM	#2
deep Blue Crack Addict Join Date: Apr 2002 Location: A far distance down. Posts: 28,600 Local Time: 03:13 AM	I still believe there is a Obama / Hussein connection. I think they at least met. Barack Hussein Obama, Sr. is his father __________________

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03-10-2008, 11:42 PM	#3
BVS Blue Crack Supplier Join Date: Aug 2002 Location: between my head and heart Posts: 41,228 Local Time: 05:13 AM	I have a resolution and satellite footage to prove it...

03-11-2008, 12:07 AM	#5
Diemen Resident Photo Buff Forum Moderator Join Date: Sep 2000 Location: Somewhere in middle America Posts: 13,578 Local Time: 06:13 AM	Awesome picture. deep, you're trying waaaaay too hard now.

03-11-2008, 03:40 AM	#6
deep Blue Crack Addict Join Date: Apr 2002 Location: A far distance down. Posts: 28,600 Local Time: 03:13 AM	no effort at all Irvine had emailed me that he had a great picture for the easily amused I do like your shots of half dome

03-11-2008, 01:16 PM	#7
BrownEyedBoy Rock n' Roll Doggie Join Date: Jun 2001 Location: San Pedro Sula, Honduras Posts: 3,510 Local Time: 05:13 AM	No shit.

03-11-2008, 03:04 PM	#9
U2isthebest ONE love, blood, life Join Date: Aug 2006 Location: Vision over visibility.... Posts: 12,332 Local Time: 07:13 AM	"Exhaustive review finds no link between Saddam, al Qaida" Hey, remember when we knew that...back in early 2003?

03-11-2008, 06:53 PM	#10
Harry Vest Refugee Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: Winnipeg, Canada Posts: 2,455 Local Time: 06:13 AM	Even if there "was no connection" there was for the simple fact that they both were funding likeminded terrorist groups. I think people got so into the small details of the "no connection" argument simply because there wasn't anything formal (i.e. personal meetings, records etc.). Most people knew there was no connection as stated above but that didn't let Saddam off the hook for funding bombings in Isreal etc. Let me also state that I was NOT for the war (even at the very beginning) - if the United States was really going after the worst "terrorists" they would have invaded Saudi Arabia and tried to force those assholes to become a "democracy" instead of playing buddy-buddy with them like the Bush's (as well as other Presidents) have done all these years.

03-12-2008, 04:07 PM	#12
Irvine511 Blue Crack Supplier Join Date: Dec 2003 Location: Washington, DC Posts: 32,394 Local Time: 07:13 AM	wow! it's like the Soviet Union! [q] Pentagon Report on Saddam's Iraq Censored? March 12, 2008 1:58 PM ABC News' Jonathan Karl Reports: The Bush Administration apparently does not want a U.S. military study that found no direct connection between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda to get any attention. This morning, the Pentagon cancelled plans to send out a press release announcing the report's release and will no longer make the report available online. The report was to be posted on the Joint Forces Command website this afternoon, followed by a background briefing with the authors. No more. The report will be made available only to those who ask for it, and it will be sent via U.S. mail from Joint Forces Command in Norfolk, Virginia. It won't be emailed to reporters and it won't be posted online. Asked why the report would not be posted online and could not be emailed, the spokesman for Joint Forces Command said: "We're making the report available to anyone who wishes to have it, and we'll send it out via CD in the mail." Another Pentagon official said initial press reports on the study made it "too politically sensitive."[/q]