CHENEY MISLEADS IRAQ/AL-QAEDA CONNECTION
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| Mon, 09-13-2004 - 10:31pm |
Displaying a brazen disregard for the facts, Vice President Cheney told an audience in Cincinnati Thursday that Iraq had "provided safe harbor and sanctuary...for Al Qaeda." There is no evidence to support Cheney's claim. The 9/11 Commission - which spent months exhaustively studying the issue - concluded there was no "collaborative relationship" between Iraq and al-Qaeda.
After the release of the report, Cheney claimed there was "overwhelming" evidence of a relationship between al-Qaeda and Iraq and that he had "probably" seen evidence that was not shared with the commission. After investigating the matter, the 9/11 Commission found "it had access to the same information the vice president has seen regarding contacts between Al Qaeda and Iraq prior to the 9/11 attacks." The commission also reaffirmed its position that it had not discovered a "collaboration-cooperation between al-Qaeda and Iraq."
Sources: 1. "Cheney Says Iraq Harbored Al Qaeda," Los Angeles Times, 9/10/04, http://daily.misleader.org/ctt.asp?u=2254501&l=54791.
2. "Al Qaeda-Hussein Link Is Dismissed," Washington Post, 6/17/04, http://daily.misleader.org/ctt.asp?u=2254501&l=54792.
3. "Cheney blasts media on al Qaeda-Iraq link," CNN, 6/18/04, http://daily.misleader.org/ctt.asp?u=2254501&l=54793.
4. "9/11 Panel Upholds Iraq-al-Qaida Finding," ABC News, 7/7/004, http://daily.misleader.org/ctt.asp?u=2254501&l=54794.

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These are outrageous statements with nothing to back them up. Show me ANY evidence that Bush was TOLD there were no WMD's or chemical or biological weapons-and I mean evidence, not left wing conjecture. Find me one iota of proof that Bush pressed anyone to go out and find a reason for him to target Iraq. As I said, the matter has been thoroughly investigated and nothing has been found. Wrong intelligence, yes, the same intelligence the entire rest of the world was privy to, don't forget. I suppose when the UN security council passed 1441, every nation was relying solely on Bush's word when they declared Iraq to be a threat to the world with WMD's? Did Bush maybe use the same mystical mind control powers he used in convincing the entire intelligence community to falsely back up his claims? Your theory certainly credits Bush with unimaginable powers of persuasion, for someone who is supposed to be the dumbest, most ill-spoken person on earth.
I have read this in several different books written by principle people in intelligence or journalists who interviewed them. It is there for all to read. It is also in the 9/11 Report.
Patriotism means to stand by the Country. It does not mean to stand by the President. -- Theodore Roosevelt.
Well read some more then.....
http://washingtontimes.com/upi-breaking/20040522-112030-3178r.htm
Iraqi intelligence documents discovered in Baghdad by The Telegraph have provided the first evidence of a direct link between Osama bin Laden's al-Qa'eda terrorist network and Saddam Hussein's regime.
Papers found yesterday in the bombed headquarters of the Mukhabarat, Iraq's intelligence service, reveal that an al-Qa'eda envoy was invited clandestinely to Baghdad in March 1998.
The documents show that the purpose of the meeting was to establish a relationship between Baghdad and al-Qa'eda based on their mutual hatred of America and Saudi Arabia. The meeting apparently went so well that it was extended by a week and ended with arrangements being discussed for bin Laden to visit Baghdad.
The papers will be seized on by Washington as the first proof of what the United States has long alleged - that, despite denials by both sides, Saddam's regime had a close relationship with al-Qa'eda.
The Telegraph found the file on bin Laden inside a folder lying in the rubble of one of the rooms of the destroyed intelligence HQ. There are three pages, stapled together; two are on paper headed with the insignia and lettering of the Mukhabarat.
They show correspondence between Mukhabarat agencies over preparations for the visit of al-Qa'eda's envoy, who travelled to Iraq from Sudan, where bin Laden had been based until 1996. They disclose what Baghdad hopes to achieve from the meeting, which took place less than five months before bin Laden was placed at the top of America's most wanted list following the bombing of two US embassies in east Africa.
Perhaps aware of the sensitivities of the subject matter, Iraqi agents at some point clumsily attempted to mask out all references to bin Laden, using white correcting fluid. The dried fluid was removed to reveal the clearly legible name three times in the documents.
One paper is marked "Top Secret and Urgent". It is signed "MDA", a codename believed to be the director of one of the intelligence sections within the Mukhabarat, and dated February 19, 1998. It refers to the planned trip from Sudan by bin Laden's unnamed envoy and refers to the arrangements for his visit.
A letter with this document says the envoy is a trusted confidant of bin Laden. It adds: "According to the above, we suggest permission to call the Khartoum station to facilitate the travel arrangements for the above-mentioned person to Iraq. And that our body carry all the travel and hotel costs inside Iraq to gain the knowledge of the message from bin Laden and to convey to his envoy an oral message from us to bin Laden."
The letter refers to al-Qa'eda's leader as an opponent of the Saudi Arabian regime and says that the message to convey to him through the envoy "would relate to the future of our relationship with him, bin Laden, and to achieve a direct meeting with him."
According to handwritten notes at the bottom of the page, the letter was passed on through another director in the Mukhabarat and on to the deputy director general of the intelligence service.
It recommends that "the deputy director general bring the envoy to Iraq because we may find in this envoy a way to maintain contacts with bin Laden". The deputy director general has signed the document. All of the signatories use codenames.
The other documents then confirm that the envoy travelled from Khartoum to Baghdad in March 1998, staying at al-Mansour Melia, a first-class hotel. It mentions that his visit was extended by a week. In the notes in a margin, a name "Mohammed F. Mohammed Ahmed" is mentioned, but it is not clear whether this is the the envoy or an agent.
Intriguingly, the Iraqis talk about sending back an oral message to bin Laden, perhaps aware of the risk of a written message being intercepted. However, the documents do not mention if any meeting took place between bin Laden and Iraqi officials.
The file contradicts the claims of Baghdad, bin Laden and many critics of the coalition that there was no link between the Iraqi regime and al-Qa'eda. One Western intelligence official contacted last night described the file as "sensational", adding: "Baghdad clearly sought out the meeting. The regime would have wanted it to happen in the capital as it's only there they would feel safe from surveillance by Western intelligence."
Over the past three weeks, The Telegraph has discovered various other intelligence files in the wrecked Mukhabarat building, including documents revealing how Russia passed on to Iraq details of private conversations between Tony Blair and Silvio Berlusconi, the Italian prime minister, and how Germany held clandestine meetings with the regime.
A Downing Street spokesman said last night: "Since Saddam's fall a series of documents have come to light which will have to be fully assessed by the proper authorities over a period of time. We will certainly want to study these documents as part of that process to see if they shed new light on the relationship between Saddam's regime and al-Qa'eda.
17 April 2003: Saddam link to terror group
13 April 2003: Revealed: Russia spied on Blair for Saddam
13 February 2003: Bin Laden and Saddam link 'is a bad joke'
6 February 2003: Blair claims 'definite links' between al-Qa'eda and Baghdad
4 February 2003: Spies force retreat on 'al-Qa'eda link'
30 January 2003: White House promises proof of Saddam link to al-Qa'eda
8 August 1998: 80 killed in US embassy bombings
I'm afraid that ánything short of a written confession by
Earlier this week, President Bush claimed "we all thought we would find stockpiles of weapons"1 in Iraq, and claimed that he had no inkling that his pre-war claims about the Iraqi threat were weak. But as a major new story released today shows, the President and other top administration officials were repeatedly warned before the invasion that its case for war was weak.
The cover story for this month's In These Times analyzes declassified government documents and intelligence reports given to the White House before the war. These documents either warned the administration about its WMD and Iraq-al Qaeda claims, or totally debunked them. In some cases, intelligence experts explicitly warned top officials not to make the claims they were making, and yet they were ignored. The story wholly refutes assertions by the White House and Republicans that it was the intelligence community to blame. In fact, as the data shows, the White House deliberately ignored intelligence to mislead America.
Read the full article, with direct links to all source material, at www.inthesetimes.com.
Sources: Presidential Remarks, Whitehouse.gov, 8/02/2004.
dablacksox
Cynic: a blackguard whose faulty vision sees things as they are, not as they ought to be.---Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary.
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,944586,00.html
Saddam 'held talks on alliance with al-Qaeda'
Martin Bright and Jason Burke
Sunday April 27, 2003
The Observer
Negotiations about about a possible alliance between Saddam Hussein's regime and al-Qaeda took place in 1998, according to documents found in Baghdad by a British newspaper.
The papers found in the bombed-out headquarters of the Mukhabarat, Iraq's feared secret police, show that an envoy from the terror group was sent to the Iraqi capital in March 1998 from Sudan. It was in Sudan that al-Qaeda had been based until 1996, when its leadership moved to Afghanistan after the Sudanese government bowed to pressure from the United States to expel Osama bin Laden's organisation.
The find will be seized on by the US and British intelligence services who have so far struggled to prove a link between bin Laden and the fallen Iraqi regime.
.....
Remarkable though it is, the find is unlikely to be the 'smoking gun' the US and Britain are looking for.
Representatives from the Mukhabarat are known to have travelled to Kandahar in the late Nineties to build links with al-Qaeda. Most analysts believe, however, that the ideological differences between the Iraqis and the terrorists were insurmountable.
The talks are thought to have ended disastrously for the Iraqis, as bin Laden rejected any kind of alliance, preferring to pursue his own policy of global jihad , or holy war.
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dablacksox
Cynic: a blackguard whose faulty vision sees things as they are, not as they ought to be.---Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary.
Al Qaeda played Bush, and by extension the Bush Leaguers and Banana Republic-ans like a cheap violin.
Al Qaida 'Duped Allies into Waging War'
By Andrew Woodcock, Political Correspondent, PA News
One of al Qaida’s aims in its September 11 attacks on the US three years ago was to draw the west into military conflict on Arab soil, Prime Minister Tony Blair’s former envoy to Iraq acknowledged today.
Sir Jeremy Greenstock’s comments appeared to give some credence to the argument of critics of the Iraq War that the US and UK played into al Qaida’s hands by launching last year’s invasion.
Opponents of the war warned that it would act as a recruiting sergeant for terror chief Osama bin Laden, by appearing to confirm his claims that the West was engaged in a war on Islam, as well as providing a new field of battle for his militants.
Sir Jeremy today said the allies had “suffered the consequences” in Iraq of al Qaida’s determination to exploit the opportunities presented by a war on Arab soil.
He said that the West could not defeat bin Laden’s terror network by military means alone, but must adopt policies to reduce resentment in the Muslim world.
If the allies failed to help Iraq put an end to its current instability, they would be left “worse off than when we started”, he warned.
Sir Jeremy, who was at the centre of events in the run-up to last year’s war as UK ambassador to the United Nations, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “I think it was one of the objectives of Osama bin Laden and the al Qaida leadership originally to draw America into conflict on Arab soil as close to Saudi Arabia as possible.”
Asked if this meant the allies had in fact played into al Qaida’s hands, he responded: “To some extent, we are suffering the consequences of that"
http://news.scotsman.com/latest.cfm?id=3482358
dablacksox
Cynic: a blackguard whose faulty vision sees things as they are, not as they ought to be.---Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary.
Papers found yesterday in the bombed headquarters of the Mukhabarat, Iraq's intelligence service, reveal that an al-Qa'eda envoy was invited clandestinely to Baghdad in March 1998.
Let's see, that was 8 years ago? 5 years before the terrorist attack on the US. And as I have said before, being invited is not saying they met and in fact this account even states there was no evidence a meeging had ever taken place. I also read of an attempt to meet that never took place. Therefore it is irrelevant once again.
Patriotism means to stand by the Country. It does not mean to stand by the President. -- Theodore Roosevelt.
Patriotism means to stand by the Country. It does not mean to stand by the President. -- Theodore Roosevelt.
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