Actually the 9-11 commission established the ties and stated that Zawahiri met directly with Saddam and OBL met directly with ISI operatives, the report is self contradictory.
How Bad Is the Senate <br>Intelligence Report?
And you really ought to read the dissenting opinions in said report
Yep he was saying that Saddam was not connected to 9-11 and he has never made that claim but that is not the same thing as not being connected to AQ, those are two different assertions.
Yes, they met up. They didn't, however, jump into an operational relationship. Al-Qaeda asked for training bases, Iraq never got back to them and that was that.
Are we talking about when Al-Qaeda met with Iraqi officials to discuss possible training facilities for Al-Qaeda fighters? As far as the reports go, Iraq never got back to them.
Besides, Saddam and Osama had an almost hateful relationship and a difference of political ideology. I believe, as I have said previously, Bin-Laden funded anti-Saddam groups and often voiced his displeasure (in his book, as well) at Saddam's leadership. So, even if they did form a relationship (which they didn't), it wouldn't of lasted long due to the volatile nature of their relationship.
To be fair, TOT, it was hardly just the senate. The CIA, the 9/11 commission, British intelligence and The EU have all launched investigations into a Saddam/Al Qaeda relationship and came up short. They came up short because Bush's claims are so obviously absurd.
Here is just a small sample of what some of the Iraqi intelligence documents and other evidence collected in postwar Iraq has revealed:
1. Saddam's Terror Training Camps & Long-Standing Relationship With Ayman al-Zawahiri. As first reported in THE WEEKLY STANDARD, there is extensive evidence that Saddam used Iraqi soil to train terrorists from throughout the Middle East. Among the terrorists who received Saddam's support were members of al Qaeda's Algerian affiliate, formerly known as the GSPC, which is still lethally active, though under a new name: al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb.
Joe Klein, a columnist for Time magazine and an outspoken critic of the Bush administration, has confirmed the existence of Saddam's terrorist training camps. He also found that Iraqi intelligence documents demonstrated a long-standing relationship between Saddam and al Qaeda bigwig Ayman al-Zawahiri.
Other evidence of Saddam's terror training camps was reported in a paper published by the Pentagon's Iraqi Perspectives Project. A team of Pentagon analysts discovered that Saddam's paramilitary Fedayeen forces were hosting camps for thousands terror of from throughout the Middle East.
2. A 1992 IIS Document lists Osama bin Laden as an "asset." An Iraqi Intelligence memorandum dated March 28, 1992 and stamped "Top Secret" lists a number of assets. Osama bin Laden is listed on page 14 as having a "good relationship" with the Iraqi Intelligence Service's section in Syria.
3. A 1997 IIS document lists a number of meetings between Iraq, bin Laden and other al Qaeda associates. The memo recounts discussions of cooperating in attacks against American stationed in Saudi Arabia. The document summarizes a number of contacts between Iraqi Intelligence and Saudi oppositionist groups, including al Qaeda, during the mid 1990's. The document says that in early 1995 bin Laden requested Iraqi assistance in two ways. First, bin Laden wanted Iraqi television to carry al Qaeda's anti-Saudi propaganda. Saddam agreed. Second, bin Laden requested Iraqi assistance in performing "joint operations against the foreign forces in the land of Hijaz." That is, bin Laden wanted Iraq's assistance in attacking U.S. forces in Saudi Arabia.
We do not know what, exactly, came of bin Laden's second request. But the document indicates that Saddam's operatives "were left to develop the relationship and the cooperation between the two sides to see what other doors of cooperation and agreement open up." Thus, it appears that both sides saw value in working with each other. It is also worth noting that in the months following bin Laden's request, al Qaeda was tied to a series of bombings in Saudi Arabia.
The document also recounts contacts with Mohammed al-Massari, a known al Qaeda mouthpiece living in London.
4. A 1998 IIS document reveals that a representative of bin Laden visited Baghdad in March 1998 to meet with Saddam's regime.
According to the memo, the IIS arranged a visit for bin Laden's "trusted confidant," who stayed in a regime-controlled hotel for more than two weeks. Interestingly, according to other evidence discovered by the U.S. intelligence community, Ayman al-Zawahiri was also in Baghdad the month before. He collected a check for $300,000 from the Iraqi regime. The 9-11 Commission confirmed that there were a series of meetings (perhaps set up by Zawahiri, who had "ties of his own" to the Iraq regime) in the following months as well.
5. Numerous IIS documents demonstrate that Saddam had made plans for a terrorist-style insurgency and coordinated the influx of foreign terrorists into Iraq. In My Year in Iraq, Ambassador Paul Bremer says a secret IIS document he had seen "showed that Saddam had made plans for an insurgency." Moreover, "the insurgency had forces to draw on from among several thousand hardened Baathists in two northern Republican Guard divisions that had joined forces with foreign jihadis."
Cobra II, a scathing indictment of the Bush administration's prosecution of the Iraq war by New York Times authors Michael Gordon and General Bernard Trainor, offers additional detail about the terrorists who made their way to Iraq in advance of the war. "Documents retrieved by American intelligence after the war show that the Iraqi Ministry of Defense coordinated border crossings with Syria and provided billeting, pay, and allowances and armaments for the influx of Syrians, Palestinians, and other fighters."
Still another IIS document contains Saddam's orders to "utilize Arab suicide bombers" against the Americans. Saddam's agents were also ordered to provide these terrorists with munitions, cash, shelter, and training.
These are just five examples of the types of documents that have been discovered in postwar Iraq. There are many more examples not listed here. They all undermine the conventional wisdom that there was never any relationship between Saddam's Iraq and al Qaeda.
But you won't see Senator Carl Levin calling attention to any of these documents. And the Washington Post has shown no interest in bringing them to his attention either. Instead, Levin and the Post like to pretend that the relationship between Saddam and al Qaeda was cooked up by neoconservatives bent on war. The Post even initially--and incorrectly--reported that a copy of a memo from Feith's shop was leaked to THE WEEKLY STANDARD prior to war. (In reality, Stephen Hayes reported on the memo months after the war began. The implication of the Post's misreporting was clear: this was all about justifying war.
But instead of worrying about a memo written by Feith's analysts, perhaps the Post should take more interest in what Saddam's files have to say. They're a lot more interesting.
Thomas Joscelyn is a terrorism researcher and economist living in New York.
Who's Spinning Intel?
Central Intelligence Agency
Washington, DC
October 7, 2002
The Honorable Bob Graham
Chairman
Select Committee on Intelligence
United States Senate
Washington, DC. 20510
Regarding Senator Bayh's question of Iraqi links to al- Qa'ida, Senators could draw from the following points for unclassified discussions:
Sincerely,
- Our understanding of the relationship between Iraq and al- Qa'ida is evolving and is based on sources of varying reliability. Some of the information we have received comes from detainees, including some of high rank.
- We have solid reporting of senior level contacts between Iraq and al-Qa'ida going back a decade.
- Credible information indicates that Iraq and al-Qa'ida have discussed safe haven and reciprocal non-aggression.
- Since Operation Enduring Freedom, we have solid evidence of the presence in Iraq of al-Qa'ida members, including some that have been in Baghdad.
- We have credible reporting that al-Qa'ida leaders sought contacts in Iraq who could help them acquire WMD capabilities. The reporting also stated that Iraq has provided training to al-Qa'ida members in the areas of poisons and gases and making conventional bombs.
- Iraq's increasing support to extremist Palestinians, coupled with growing indications of a relationship with al- Qa'ida, suggest that Baghdad's links to terrorists will increase, even absent US military action.
- [signed:] John McLaughlin (For)
George J. Tenet
Director of Central Intelligence
DCI Tenet Declassifies Further Information on the Iraq Threat
Wasn't Al-Qaeda supposed to be behind 9/11?
Paragraph #327 on page 61
Bin Ladin was also willing to explore possibilities for cooperation with Iraq, even though Iraq’s dictator, Saddam Hussein, had never had an Islamist agenda—save for his opportunistic pose as a defender of the faithful against “Crusaders” during the Gulf War of 1991. Moreover, Bin Ladin had in fact been sponsoring anti-Saddam Islamists in Iraqi Kurdistan, and sought to attract them into his Islamic army.
Paragraph #328 on page 61
To protect his own ties with Iraq,Turabi reportedly brokered an agreement that Bin Ladin would stop supporting activities against Saddam. Bin Ladin apparently honored this pledge, at least for a time, although he continued to aid a group of Islamist extremists operating in part of Iraq (Kurdistan) outside of Baghdad’s control. In the late 1990s, these extremist groups suffered major defeats by Kurdish forces. In 2001, with Bin Ladin’s help they re-formed into an organization called Ansar al Islam.There are indications that by then the Iraqi regime tolerated and may even have helped Ansar al Islam against the common Kurdish enemy.
Paragraph #329 on page 61
With the Sudanese regime acting as intermediary, Bin Ladin himself met with a senior Iraqi intelligence officer in Khartoum in late 1994 or early 1995. Bin Ladin is said to have asked for space to establish training camps, as well as assistance in procuring weapons, but there is no evidence that Iraq responded to this request.55 As described below, the ensuing years saw additional efforts to establish connections.
Paragraph #347 on page 66
In mid-1998, the situation reversed; it was Iraq that reportedly took the ini tiative. In March 1998, after Bin Ladin’s public fatwa against the United States, two al Qaeda members reportedly went to Iraq to meet with Iraqi intelligence. In July, an Iraqi delegation traveled to Afghanistan to meet first with the Taliban and then with Bin Ladin. Sources reported that one, or perhaps both, of these meetings was apparently arranged through Bin Ladin’s Egyptian deputy, Zawahiri, who had ties of his own to the Iraqis. In 1998, Iraq was under intensifying U.S. pressure, which culminated in a series of large air attacks in December.
Paragraph #348 on page 66
Similar meetings between Iraqi officials and Bin Ladin or his aides may have occurred in 1999 during a period of some reported strains with the Taliban. According to the reporting, Iraqi officials offered Bin Ladin a safe haven in Iraq. Bin Ladin declined, apparently judging that his circumstances in Afghanistan remained more favorable than the Iraqi alternative. The reports describe friendly contacts and indicate some common themes in both sides’ hatred of the United States. But to date we have seen no evidence that these or the earlier contacts ever developed into a collaborative operational relationship. Nor have we seen evidence indicating that Iraq cooperated with al Qaeda in developing or carrying out any attacks against the United States.
Paragraph #615 on page 128
Though intelligence gave no clear indication of what might be afoot, some intelligence reports mentioned chemical weapons, pointing toward work at a camp in southern Afghanistan called Derunta. On November 4, 1998, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York unsealed its indictment of Bin Ladin, charging him with conspiracy to attack U.S. defense installations.The indictment also charged that al Qaeda had allied itself with Sudan, Iran, and Hezbollah.The original sealed indictment had added that al Qaeda had “reached an understanding with the government of Iraq that al Qaeda would not work against that government and that on particular projects, specifically including weapons development, al Qaeda would work cooperatively with the Government of Iraq.”109 This passage led Clarke, who for years had read intelligence reports on Iraqi-Sudanese cooperation on chemical weapons, to speculate to Berger that a large Iraqi presence at chemical facilities in Khartoum was “probably a direct result of the Iraq–Al Qida agreement.” Clarke added that VX precursor traces found near al Shifa were the “exact formula used by Iraq.”110 This language about al Qaeda’s “understanding” with Iraq had been dropped, however, when a superseding indictment was filed in November 1998.
Now that the Prime Minister of Iraq has said that they can defend themselves, do you support our withdraw, TOT?
Or are you calling him a god damned liar? And if so, why are we propping him up?
He said they will be able to takeover security themelves by the end of the year, that A) does not mean they are able to do it now
BAGHDAD - Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki shrugged off U.S. doubts of his government's military and political progress on Saturday, saying Iraqi forces are capable and American troops can leave "any time they want."
Fair enough like I said as soon as they vote for us to leave I will support withdrawal.
Why do we have to wait for a vote? The Prime Minister said that they'll be fine without us, so what the hell are we doing there?
Right. you also know that when they released the DocEx they clearly stated that the US government "has made no determination regarding the authenticity of the documents, validity or factual accuracy of the information contained therein, or the quality of any translations". So, you don't trust your senate but you trusy a bunch of documents that your own government won't validate? Given the proven history of your current regime to lie, it wouldn't suprise me an inch if this was just some plot.
All reports, except those docex document, which we have already established as unreliable, point to there being a link, sure, but no working relationship. There have been multiple investigations by third party groups like the UN, Britain and Israel that have found no evidence of a substantial relationship.
Yes, because every time two people with opposing political viewpoints meet a budding new relationship is struck up.
Why do we have to wait for a vote? The Prime Minister said that they'll be fine without us, so what the hell are we doing there?
What is it you don't understand about "the majority of studies into an Al-Qaeda/Saddam relationship have all come back said there isn't one"?
Yes, because every time two people with opposing political viewpoints meet a budding new relationship is struck up.
What I find really funny is that you people are really in such a hurry to leave especially given the fact that al-Anbar is fixing itself because the Sunni Sheiks are sick of AQ,
What is it that you people don't understand about the "enemy of my enemy is my friend," dictum.
OK then why does the Congress get to vote on whether Bush stays or goes?
If I were the PM of Iraq listening to the Dems demand we surrender and hand al Qaeda a victory in Iraq I just might be thinking about changing sides myself. I imagine LOTS of Iraqi's are thinking the same thing.
What I don't understand is how anyone can still believe that nonsense, after decades of evidence disproving it.
What is it you don't understand about "the majority of studies into an Al-Qaeda/Saddam relationship have all come back said there isn't one"?
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