Who's Spinning Intel? Captured Iraqi documents tell a different story

[Iriemon]

Leaked reports is the best I can do:

[/I]

That's from the Feith memo and is a dissemination of captured Iraqi documents.

I don't think I saw one reference to a captured document in that excerpt. To which phrase are you referring?

 

[Trajan Octavian Titus]

I don't think I saw one reference to a captured document in that excerpt. To which phrase are you referring?

DOCEX used to be on the DOD website, and now it's gone. It's everywhere though just look for it if you want, here's a translation used in the DOCEX project:

JVERITAS - TRANSLATING THE IRAQ DOCUMENTS: Saddam Regime Document: Purchasing “Chemical Materials for Very Special Usage”

Do you even know what DOCEX is?

Oh and buddy IIS reports stands for Iraqi Intelligence Services reports, IE captured documents.

 

[Iriemon]

Leaked reports is the best I can do:

[/I]

That's from the Feith memo and is a dissemination of captured Iraqi documents.

If all you can show to prove the "facts" of the captured documents is a memorandum by Feith, then it is fair to consider whether the Feith is an objective source of information on Iraq.

Accroding to Wiki:

His work on US-Soviet detente, arms control and Arab-Israeli issues generated considerable debate. In particular, his Pro-Israeli Zionist views have drawn criticism.

Feith has long advocated a policy of peace through strength. He was an outspoken skeptic of U.S.-Soviet detente and of the Oslo, Hebron and Wye Processes on Palestinian-Israeli peace.

Two years later, Feith and other former U.S. officials signed an open letter to President Bill Clinton calling for the United States to oust Saddam Hussein. Feith was part of a group of former national security officials in the 1990s who supported Ahmad Chalabi and the Iraqi National Congress and encouraged the U.S. Congress to pass the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998.

Feith also served on the board of the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA), a think tank that promotes a military and strategic alliance between the United States and Israel.

Feith also cofounded the organization One Jerusalem to oppose the Oslo peace agreement. Its purpose is "saving a united Jerusalem as the undivided capital of Israel."

Senator Carl Levin: "Were you comfortable with Mr. Feith’s office [21] [22] approach to intelligence analysis?"
CIA Director Michael Hayden: "No, sir, I wasn’t. I wasn’t aware of a lot of the activity going on, you know, when it was contemporaneous with running up to the war. No, sir, I wasn’t comfortable." [23]

Feith led the controversial Office of Special Plans at the Pentagon from September 2002 to June 2003. [41] This now defunct intelligence gathering unit has been accused of manipulating intelligence to bolster support for the 2003 US invasion of Iraq. [42] According to the British newspaper, The Guardian, "This rightwing intelligence network [was] set up in Washington to second-guess the CIA and deliver a justification for toppling Saddam Hussein by force."[43]

Two years later, Feith and other former U.S. officials signed an open letter to President Bill Clinton calling for the United States to oust Saddam Hussein. Feith was part of a group of former national security officials in the 1990s who supported Ahmad Chalabi and the Iraqi National Congress and encouraged the U.S. Congress to pass the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998. That act was approved by Congress and signed into law by President Clinton.

Feith also served on the board of the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA), a think tank that promotes a military and strategic alliance between the United States and Israel.

According to the Washington Post, 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 CIA had concluded in June 2002 that there were few substantiated contacts between al-Qaeda operatives. The contrary conclusions reached by Feith's office -- and leaked to the conservative Weekly Standard magazine before the war were publicly praised by Dick 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." [64]

Douglas J. Feith - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

As to the memo itself:

A major source for the articles and book was a memo from Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas J. Feith to the U.S. Congress on 27 October 2003.[3] The so-called Feith Memo was based on leaked intelligence, which the Defense Department subsequently rejected as "inaccurate," noting that the information leaked "was not an analysis of the substantive issue of the relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda, and it drew no conclusions."[4] Hayes published a commentary on the Defense Department's response.[5]

Stephen F. Hayes - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Based on his background, Feith does not seem to me to be unbiased.

If the best evidence of Hussein-Al-Queda "connections" and the "ongoing and collaborative relationship between AQ and Iraq," or "documents prove that the Pentagon is wrong" is Feith, IMO that falls far short of establishing these things as "well established fact."

 

[Trajan Octavian Titus]

If all you can show to prove the "facts" of the captured documents is a memorandum by Feith, then it is fair to consider whether the Feith is an objective source of information on Iraq.

Accroding to Wiki:

His work on US-Soviet detente, arms control and Arab-Israeli issues generated considerable debate. In particular, his Pro-Israeli Zionist views have drawn criticism.

Feith has long advocated a policy of peace through strength. He was an outspoken skeptic of U.S.-Soviet detente and of the Oslo, Hebron and Wye Processes on Palestinian-Israeli peace.

Two years later, Feith and other former U.S. officials signed an open letter to President Bill Clinton calling for the United States to oust Saddam Hussein. Feith was part of a group of former national security officials in the 1990s who supported Ahmad Chalabi and the Iraqi National Congress and encouraged the U.S. Congress to pass the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998.

Feith also served on the board of the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA), a think tank that promotes a military and strategic alliance between the United States and Israel.

Feith also cofounded the organization One Jerusalem to oppose the Oslo peace agreement. Its purpose is "saving a united Jerusalem as the undivided capital of Israel."

Senator Carl Levin: "Were you comfortable with Mr. Feith’s office [21] [22] approach to intelligence analysis?"
CIA Director Michael Hayden: "No, sir, I wasn’t. I wasn’t aware of a lot of the activity going on, you know, when it was contemporaneous with running up to the war. No, sir, I wasn’t comfortable." [23]

Feith led the controversial Office of Special Plans at the Pentagon from September 2002 to June 2003. [41] This now defunct intelligence gathering unit has been accused of manipulating intelligence to bolster support for the 2003 US invasion of Iraq. [42] According to the British newspaper, The Guardian, "This rightwing intelligence network [was] set up in Washington to second-guess the CIA and deliver a justification for toppling Saddam Hussein by force."[43]

Two years later, Feith and other former U.S. officials signed an open letter to President Bill Clinton calling for the United States to oust Saddam Hussein. Feith was part of a group of former national security officials in the 1990s who supported Ahmad Chalabi and the Iraqi National Congress and encouraged the U.S. Congress to pass the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998. That act was approved by Congress and signed into law by President Clinton.

Feith also served on the board of the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA), a think tank that promotes a military and strategic alliance between the United States and Israel.

According to the Washington Post, 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 CIA had concluded in June 2002 that there were few substantiated contacts between al-Qaeda operatives. The contrary conclusions reached by Feith's office -- and leaked to the conservative Weekly Standard magazine before the war were publicly praised by Dick 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." [64]

Douglas J. Feith - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

As to the memo itself:

A major source for the articles and book was a memo from Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas J. Feith to the U.S. Congress on 27 October 2003.[3] The so-called Feith Memo was based on leaked intelligence, which the Defense Department subsequently rejected as "inaccurate," noting that the information leaked "was not an analysis of the substantive issue of the relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda, and it drew no conclusions."[4] Hayes published a commentary on the Defense Department's response.[5]

Stephen F. Hayes - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Based on his background, Feith does not seem to me to be unbiased.

If the best evidence of Hussein-Al-Queda "connections" and the "ongoing and collaborative relationship between AQ and Iraq," or "documents prove that the Pentagon is wrong" is Feith, IMO that falls far short of establishing these things as "well established fact."

Every bit of the Feith memo and Hayes article is based on captured Iraqi documents, and comfirmed by detainees Feith was going through DOCEX to prove the intelligence assertions before the documents were captured; such as, meetings between OBL and IIS and Zawahiri and Saddam.

 

[Iriemon]

DOCEX used to be on the DOD website, and now it's gone.
It's everywhere though just look for it if you want, here's a translation used in the DOCEX project:

JVERITAS - TRANSLATING THE IRAQ DOCUMENTS: Saddam Regime Document: Purchasing “Chemical Materials for Very Special Usage”

No thanks. You are the one asserting this stuff is undisputed fact based on the captured Iraqi documents. If you are asserting that but can't find any of these documents, I'll just take that as going to the weight of your assertions.

Do you even know what DOCEX is?

What difference does that make?

Oh and buddy IIS reports stands for Iraqi Intelligence Services reports, IE captured documents.

I figured that. I'm just like to have a look at *one* of these captured Iraqi documents that you claim show the Hussein-Al Queda "ongoing and collaborative relationship" is an "established fact."

The fact that you cannot produce any makes me suspicious of the claim. If there was such a document, they'd have posted it on the White House website.

 

[Iriemon]

Every bit of the Feith memo and Hayes article is based on captured Iraqi documents,

And you know this because you personally viewed the documents yourself and can vouch for their otherwise biased credibility?

and comfirmed by detainees

What detainees? Where do detainees confirm Feith and Hayes?

Feith was going through DOCEX to prove the intelligence assertions before the documents were captured; such as, meetings between OBL and IIS and Zawahiri and Saddam.

I don't have any reason to doubt Feith was doing that. I have reason to doubt that Feith reported things in an unbiased manner, based on his background.

 

[Trajan Octavian Titus]

And you know this because you personally viewed the documents yourself and can vouch for their otherwise biased credibility?

Are Joe Klein of the Times, Former CIA director George Tenet, Feith, Hayes, the Pentagon's Iraqi perspective project, and the author of the OP all lying about the exact same documents?

What detainees? Where do detainees confirm Feith and Hayes?

Ibn Al-Shaykh al-Libi for one.

 

[Iriemon]

Are Joe Klein of the Times, Former CIA director George Tenet, Feith, Hayes, the Pentagon's Iraqi perspective project, and the author of the OP all lying about the exact same documents?

Are you relying on "Slam dunk" Tenant's credibility about Iraq? Are you asserting that Feith and Hayes are unbiased?

What did Klein say about the documents being undisputed evidence of the ongoing relationship?

As to whether they are lying, distorting the truth our being straight up, there's only one well to tell.

Show us the documents.

Ibn Al-Shaykh al-Libi for one.

Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi (ابن الشیخ اللبّی) was a Libyan paramilitary trainer for Al-Qaeda. After being captured and interrogated by American forces, the information he gave under torture was cited by the Bush Administration in the months preceding the 2003 invasion of Iraq as evidence of a connection between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda. That information was frequently repeated by members of the Bush Administration even though then-classified reports from both the Central Intelligence Agency and the Defense Intelligence Agency strongly questioned its credibility, suggesting that al-Libi was "intentionally misleading" interrogators.

Tortured confession. There you go. More undisputed fact.

 

[Trajan Octavian Titus]

Originally Posted by Iriemon
Are you relying on "Slam dunk" Tenant's credibility about Iraq?

Tenet was repeating the consensus of all 16 intelligence agencies at the time, I bring Tenet up because the Washington Post reports of a consensus amongst the intelligence community outlined in the Pentagon report that there was no relationship when in reality that is pure fantasy as is proven by the statements of the head of the CIA. And I forgot to mention the 9-11 Commission are they lying too?

Are you asserting that Feith and Hayes are unbiased?

Not any more biased than the CIA analysts who are holdovers from the Clinton administration.

What did Klein say about the documents being undisputed evidence of the ongoing relationship?

This:

Documents indicate that Saddam had long-term, low-level ties with regional terrorist groups—including Ayman al-Zawahiri, dating back his time with the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood. There is strong evidence as well that elements of the Special Republican Guard ran terrorist training camps...

http://thomasjoscelyn.blogspot.com/2006/09/show-us-documents.html

However I don't really understand how meetings between AQ's number 2 and Iraq's number 1 could be a low level relationship.

As to whether they are lying, distorting the truth our being straight up, there's only one well to tell.


Show us the documents.

Funny that you don't demand the same thing from the post, but they used to be freely available on the internet here:

http://fmso.leavenworth.army.mil/products-docex.htm

but I guess they were taken down for security concerns here's a few that have already been translated:

FOXNews.com - Documents Support Saddam-Taliban Connection - International News | News of the World | Middle East News | Europe News

Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi (ابن الشیخ اللبّی) was a Libyan paramilitary trainer for Al-Qaeda. After being captured and interrogated by American forces, the information he gave under torture was cited by the Bush Administration in the months preceding the 2003 invasion of Iraq as evidence of a connection between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda. That information was frequently repeated by members of the Bush Administration even though then-classified reports from both the Central Intelligence Agency and the Defense Intelligence Agency strongly questioned its credibility, suggesting that al-Libi was "intentionally misleading" interrogators.

Tortured confession. There you go. More undisputed fact.

Wikipedia claims of torture? You got to be sh!tting me, do you have any evidence that he was tortured? Secondly the CIA reports mentioned were based on conflicting testimony from other detainees, but why should we believe some detainees that don't agree with the connection while dismissing those that do? Anyways we could call into question the validity of his confession if the captured Iraqi documents did not agree with his story but they infact do IE just like with the case of Yasin we have eyewitness's and firm documentation in conjunction.

 

[Iriemon]

Tenet was repeating the consensus of all 16 intelligence agencies at the time, I bring Tenet up because the Washington Post reports of a consensus amongst the intelligence community outlined in the Pentagon report that there was no relationship when in reality that is pure fantasy as is proven by the statements of the head of the CIA. And I forgot to mention the 9-11 Commission are they lying too?

The consensus was about WMDs, not a "collaborative relationship between AQ and Iraq" which you claim as "well established fact"

Not any more biased than the CIA analysts who are holdovers from the Clinton administration.

Oh, I think it was about right when Condi (reportedly) said: "Thanks Doug, but when we want the Israeli position we'll invite the ambassador."

This:

This:

Quote:
Documents indicate that Saddam had long-term, low-level ties with regional terrorist groups—including Ayman al-Zawahiri, dating back his time with the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood. There is strong evidence as well that elements of the Special Republican Guard ran terrorist training camps...

Thomas Joscelyn: Show Us The Documents

However I don't really understand how meetings between AQ's number 2 and Iraq's number 1 could be a low level relationship.

I tried to find that quote on other sources to corraborate it, and found it is reported on only a handful of sites, some refer back to your source, others source to time.com but the quoted language isn't there.

Even if true (and official sources say otherwise) how does that show an ongoing corroborative relationship between Hussein and Al-Queda?

Funny that you don't demand the same thing from the post, but they used to be freely available on the internet here:

http://fmso.leavenworth.army.mil/products-docex.htm

but I guess they were taken down for security concerns here's a few that have already been translated:

FOXNews.com - Documents Support Saddam-Taliban Connection - International News | News of the World | Middle East News | Europe News

That talks about the Taliban, and is dubious at that. How is that show as a well established fact an ongoing corroborative relationship between Hussein and Al-Queda?

Wikipedia claims of torture? You got to be sh!tting me, do you have any evidence that he was tortured? Secondly the CIA reports mentioned were based on conflicting testimony from other detainees, but why should we believe some detainees that don't agree with the connection while dismissing those that do? Anyways we could call into question the validity of his confession if the captured Iraqi documents did not agree with his story but they infact do IE just like with the case of Yasin we have eyewitness's and firm documentation in conjunction.

Nope, not ******** ya. Here's a number of other sources saying the similar things:

The CIA sent him to Egypt for interrogation in 2002. There, al-Libi made a number of claims of al-Qaeda's contacts with Iraq and their cooperation on chemical and biological weapons.

Despite concerns from American intelligence officers, these statements were used as a foundation of the Bush administration's pre-invasion claims regarding such cooperation.

Later in 2002, he was transferred to the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. He appears to have been transferred again, to an unknown location.

In 2004, al-Libi recanted these claims and claimed the Egyptians had tortured him. Egypt has denied the allegation.

Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi

Let me guess, you are just shocke to think they'd torture people in Egypt,

Interrogation: A Tortured Debate - Newsweek: World News - MSNBC.com

According to this source, he later recated:

Al Qaeda-Iraq Link Recanted (washingtonpost.com)

Did you not know that; or just figure it wasn't relative to the accuracy of the facts you are relying on his testimony about; or just being misleading?

The CIA report appears to support a recently declassified document that revealed the Defense Intelligence Agency thought in February 2002 that the source, Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, was lying to interrogators.

http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/11/10/iraq.intel/index.html

 

[Iriemon]

And I forgot to mention the 9-11 Commission are they lying too?

Good question. You claim that a "collaborative relationship between AQ and Iraq" is a "well established fact."

Are all these folks lying?

2001 Presidential Daily Briefing
Ten days after the September 11, 2001 attacks, President Bush receives a classified Presidential Daily Briefing (that had been prepared at his request) indicating that the U.S. intelligence community had no evidence linking Saddam Hussein to the September 11th attacks and that there was "scant credible evidence that Iraq had any significant collaborative ties with Al Qaeda." The PDB writes off the few contacts that existed between Saddam's government and al-Qaeda as attempts to monitor the group rather than attempts to work with them.

2002 DIA reports
The DIA report also cast significant doubt on the possibility of a Saddam Hussein-al-Qaeda conspiracy: "Saddam’s regime is intensely secular and is wary of Islamic revolutionary movements. Moreover, Baghdad is unlikely to provide assistance to a group it cannot control."[78] In April 2002, the DIA assessed that "there was no credible reporting on al-Qa'ida training at Salman Pak or anywhere else in Iraq

2002 British intelligence report
In October 2002, a British Intelligence investigation of possible links between Iraq and al-Qaeda and the possibility of Iraqi WMD attacks issued a report concluding: "al Qaeda has shown interest in gaining chemical and biological expertise from Iraq, but we do not know whether any such training was provided. We have no intelligence of current cooperation between Iraq and al Qaeda and do not believe that al Qaeda plans to conduct terrorist attacks under Iraqi direction

2003 CIA report
In January 2003, the CIA released a special Report to Congress entitled Iraqi Support for Terrorism. The report concludes that "In contrast to the patron-client pattern between Iraq and its Palestinian surrogates, the relationship between Iraq and al-Qaida appears to more closely resemble that of two independent actors trying to exploit each other — their mutual suspicion suborned by al-Qaida's interest in Iraqi assistance, and Baghdad's interest in al-Qaida's anti-U.S. attacks…. The Intelligence Community has no credible information that Baghdad had foreknowledge of the 11 September attacks or any other al-Qaida strike." (See below).[81] Michael Scheuer, the main researcher assigned to review the research into the project, described the review and his conclusions: "For about four weeks in late 2002 and early 2003, I and several others were engaged full time in searching CIA files -- seven days a week, often far more than eight hours a day. At the end of the effort, we had gone back ten years in the files and had reviewed nearly twenty thousand documents that amounted to well over fifty thousand pages of materials.... There was no information that remotely supported the analysis that claimed there was a strong working relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda. I was embarrassed because this reality invalidated the analysis I had presented on the subject in my book.[82]
2003 British intelligence report

In January 2003, British intelligence completed a classified report on Iraq that concluded that "there are no current links between the Iraqi regime and the al-Qaeda network." The report was leaked to the BBC, who published information about it on February 5, the same day Colin Powell addressed the United Nations. According to BBC, the report "says al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden views Iraq's ruling Ba'ath party as running contrary to his religion, calling it an 'apostate regime'. 'His aims are in ideological conflict with present day Iraq,' it says."

2003 Israeli intelligence
In February 2003, Israeli intelligence sources told the Associated Press that no link has been conclusively established between Saddam and Al Qaeda.

2004 9/11 Commission Report
The official report issued by the 9/11 Commission in July 2004 addressed the issue of a possible conspiracy between the government of Iraq and al-Qaeda in the September 11 attacks. The report addressed specific allegations of contacts between al-Qaeda and members of Saddam Hussein's government and concluded that there was no evidence that such contacts developed into a collaborative operational relationship, and that they did not cooperate to commit terrorist attacks against the United States. The report includes the following information:

“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. 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.
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. As described below, the ensuing years saw additional efforts to establish connections. There is also evidence that around this time Bin Ladin sent out a number of feelers to the Iraqi regime, offering some cooperation. None are reported to have received a significant response. According to one report, Saddam Hussein’s efforts at this time to rebuild relations with the Saudis and other Middle Eastern regimes led him to stay clear of Bin Ladin. In mid-1998, the situation reversed; it was Iraq that reportedly took the initiative. 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. 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.

2004 Senate Report of Pre-war Intelligence on Iraq
Looking at pre-war intelligence on Iraq, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence examined "the quality and quantity of U.S. intelligence on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, ties to terrorist groups, Saddam Hussein’s threat to stability and security in the region, and his repression of his own people;" and "the objectivity, reasonableness, independence, and accuracy of the judgments reached by the Intelligence Community".[88] In Section 12 of the report, titled Iraq's Links to Terrorism, the Senate committee examined the CIA's "five primary finished intelligence products on Iraq’s links to terrorism." The report focused specifically on the CIA's 2003 study. After examining all the intelligence, the Senate committee concluded that the CIA had accurately assessed that contacts between Saddam Hussein's regime and members of al-Qaeda "did not add up to an established formal relationship."

2004 CIA report
In August, the CIA finished another assessment of the question of Saddam's links to al-Qaeda. This assessment had been requested by the office of the Vice President, who asked specifically that the CIA take another look at the possibility that Jordanian terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi constituted a link between Saddam and al-Qaeda, as Colin Powell had claimed in his speech to the United Nations Security Council. The assessment concluded that there was no evidence that Saddam Hussein's regime harbored Jordanian terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. A U.S. official familiar with the new CIA assessment said intelligence analysts were unable to determine conclusively the nature of the relationship between al-Zarqawi and Saddam. "It's still being worked," he said. "It (the assessment) ... doesn't make clear-cut, bottom-line judgments" about whether Saddam's regime was aiding al-Zarqawi. The official told Knight Ridder "What is indisputable is that Zarqawi was operating out of Baghdad and was involved in a lot of bad activities," but that the report didn't conclude that Saddam's regime had provided "aid, comfort and succor" to al-Zarqawi. According to Knight Ridder, "Some officials believe that Saddam's secular regime kept an eye on al-Zarqawi, but didn't actively assist him." Knight Ridder reporters called the CIA study "the latest assessment that calls into question one of President Bush's key justifications for last year's U.S.-led invasion of Iraq."[89][90]

2005 update of CIA report
In October 2005, the CIA updated the 2004 report to conclude that Saddam's regime "did not have a relationship, harbor, or even turn a blind eye toward Mr. Zarqawi and his associates," according to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (see 2006 report below).[91] Two counterterrorism analysts told Newsweek that Zarqawi did likely receive medical treatment in Baghdad in 2002, but that Saddam's government may never have known Zarqawi was in Iraq because Zarqawi used "false cover." An intelligence official also told Newsweek the current draft of the report says that "most evidence suggests Saddam Hussein did not provide Zarqawi safe haven before the war. It also recognizes that there are still unanswered questions and gaps in knowledge about the relationship." According to Newsweek, "The most recent CIA analysis is an update—based on fresh reporting from Iraq and interviews with former Saddam officials—of a classified report that analysts in the CIA's Directorate of Intelligence first produced more than a year ago

2006 Pentagon study
In February 2006, the Pentagon published a study of the so-called Harmony database documents captured in Afghanistan.[93] While the study did not look specifically at allegations of Iraq's ties to al-Qaeda, it did analyze papers that offer insight into the history of the movement and tensions among the leadership. In particular, it found evidence that al-Qaeda jihadists had viewed Saddam as an "infidel" and cautioned against working with him.

 

[Iriemon]

And these all lied too?

2006 Senate Report of Pre-War Intelligence
In September 2006, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence released two reports constituting Phase II of its study of pre-war intelligence claims regarding Iraq's pursuit of WMD and alleged links to al-Qaeda. These bipartisan reports included "Findings about Iraq's WMD Programs and Links to Terrorism and How they Compare with Prewar Assessments"[97] and "The Use by the Intelligence Community of Information Provided by the Iraqi National Congress".[98] The reports concluded that, according to David Stout of the New York Times, "there is no evidence that Saddam Hussein had prewar ties to Al Qaeda and one of the terror organization’s most notorious members, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi."[99] The "Postwar Findings" volume of the study concluded that there was no evidence of any Iraqi support of al-Qaeda, al-Zarqawi, or Ansar al-Islam. The "Iraqi National Congress" volume concluded that "false information" from INC-affiliated sources was used to justify key claims in the prewar intelligence debate and that this information was "widely distributed in intelligence products" prior to the war. It also concluded that the INC "attempted to influence US policy on Iraq by providing false information through defectors directed at convincing the United States that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction and had links to terrorists." The Senate report noted that in October 2002, "the DIA cautioned that the INC was penetrated by hostile intelligence services and would use the relationship to promote its own agenda."

The "Postwar Findings" report had the following conclusions about Saddam's alleged links to al-Qaeda:

Conclusion 1: The CIA's assessment that Iraq and al-Qaeda were "two independent actors trying to exploit each other" was accurate only about al-Qaeda. "Postwar findings indicate that Saddam Hussein was distrustful of al-Qa'ida and viewed Islamic extremists as a threat to his regime, refusing all requests from al-Qa'ida to provide material or operational support."

Conclusion 2: Postwar findings have indicated that there was only one meeting between representatives of Saddam Hussein and representatives of al-Qaeda. These findings also identified two occasions "not reported prior to the war, in which Saddam Hussein rebuffed meeting requests from an al-Qa'ida operative. The Intelligence Community has not found any other evidence of meetings between al-Qa'ida and Iraq."

Conclusion 3: "Prewar Intelligence Community assessments were inconsistent regarding the likelihood that Saddam Hussein provided chemical and biological weapons (CBW) training to al-Qa'ida. Postwar findings support the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) February 2002 assessment that Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi was likely intentionally misleading his debriefers when he said that Iraq provided two al-Qa'ida associates with chemical and biological weapons (CBW) training in 2000.... No postwar information has been found that indicates CBW training occurred and the detainee who provided the key prewar reporting about this training recanted his claims after the war."

Conclusion 4: "Postwar findings support the April 2002 Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) assessment that there was no credible reporting on al-Qa'ida training at Salman Pak or anywhere else in Iraq. There have been no credible reports since the war that Iraq trained al-Qa'ida operatives at Salman Pak to conduct or support transnational terrorist operations."

Conclusion 5: Postwar findings support the assessment that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and associates were present in Baghdad from May-November 2002. "Prewar assessments expressed uncertainty about Iraq's complicity in their presence, but overestimated the Iraqi regime's capabilities to locate them. Postwar information indicates that Saddam Hussein attempted, unsuccessfully, to locate and capture al-Zarqawi and that the regime did not have a relationship with, harbor, or turn a blind eye toward Zarqawi."
Conclusion 6: Prewar interactions between Saddam Hussein's government and al-Qaeda affiliate group Ansar al-Islam were attempts by Saddam to spy on the group rather than to support or work with them. "Postwar information reveals that Baghdad viewed Ansar al-Islam as a threat to the regime and that the IIS attempted to collect intelligence on the group."
Conclusion 7: "Postwar information supports prewar Intelligence Community assessments that there was no credible information that Iraq was complicit in or had foreknowledge of the September 11 attacks or any other al-Qa'ida strike.....

Conclusion 8: "No postwar information indicates that Iraq intended to use al-Qa'ida or any other terrorist group to strike the United States homeland before or during Operation Iraqi Freedom."

2007 Pentagon Inspector General Report
In February 2007, the Pentagon's inspector general issued a report that concluded that Feith's Office of Special Plans, an office in the Pentagon run by Douglas Feith that was the source of most of the misleading intelligence on al-Qaeda and Iraq, had "developed, produced, and then disseminated alternative intelligence assessments on the Iraq and al Qaida relationship, which included some conclusions that were inconsisent with the consensus of the Intelligence Community, to senior decision-makers." The report found that these actions were "inappropriate" though not "illegal." Senator Carl Levin, Chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee, stated that "The bottom line is that intelligence relating to the Iraq-al-Qaeda relationship was manipulated by high-ranking officials in the Department of Defense to support the administration's decision to invade Iraq. The inspector general's report is a devastating condemnation of inappropriate activities in the DOD policy office that helped take this nation to war."[1]

 

[Trajan Octavian Titus]

The consensus was about WMDs, not a "collaborative relationship between AQ and Iraq" which you claim as "well established fact"

Ya um it's you who brought up the "slam dunk," statement in order to attack his credibility.

Oh, I think it was about right when Condi (reportedly) said: "Thanks Doug, but when we want the Israeli position we'll invite the ambassador."

How exactly does this relate to my statement?

I tried to find that quote on other sources to corraborate it, and found it is reported on only a handful of sites, some refer back to your source, others source to time.com but the quoted language isn't there.

It was orignally published in Times Magazine, I don't think the article is on the net or you might need a subscription to read it.

Even if true (and official sources say otherwise) how does that show an ongoing corroborative relationship between Hussein and Al-Queda?

Umm he says it right there that Zawahir and Saddam had a relationship going all the way back to his time with the Muslim Brotherhood.

That talks about the Taliban, and is dubious at that. How is that show as a well established fact an ongoing corroborative relationship between Hussein and Al-Queda?

It was an example of some of the documents that were captured in Iraq, they all used to be on the internet but were taken off due to security concerns over some of the WMD and nuclear information that was on them.

Nope, not ******** ya. Here's a number of other sources saying the similar things:

The CIA sent him to Egypt for interrogation in 2002. There, al-Libi made a number of claims of al-Qaeda's contacts with Iraq and their cooperation on chemical and biological weapons.

Despite concerns from American intelligence officers, these statements were used as a foundation of the Bush administration's pre-invasion claims regarding such cooperation.

Later in 2002, he was transferred to the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. He appears to have been transferred again, to an unknown location.

In 2004, al-Libi recanted these claims and claimed the Egyptians had tortured him. Egypt has denied the allegation.

"According to al-libi," ya because AQ operatives wouldn't be under direct orders to lie about torture if captured now would they?

1 . At the beginning of the trial, once more the brothers must insist on proving that torture was inflicted on them by State Security [investigators ]before the judge.

2. Complain [to the court] of mistreatment while in prison.

http://www.disastercenter.com/terror/Al_Qaeda_Manual_Eighteen_LESSON.htm

Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi

Let me guess, you are just shocke to think they'd torture people in Egypt,

Interrogation: A Tortured Debate - Newsweek: World News - MSNBC.com

According to this source, he later recated:

Al Qaeda-Iraq Link Recanted (washingtonpost.com)

Did you not know that; or just figure it wasn't relative to the accuracy of the facts you are relying on his testimony about; or just being misleading?

The CIA report appears to support a recently declassified document that revealed the Defense Intelligence Agency thought in February 2002 that the source, Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, was lying to interrogators.

http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/11/10/iraq.intel/index.html

Like I said we could call into question the legitimacy of his statements if not for the fact that the captured documents prove that he was telling the truth.

 

[Iriemon]

Ya um it's you who brought up the "slam dunk," statement in order to attack his credibility.

And for good reason.

It was orignally published in Times Magazine, I don't think the article is on the net or you might need a subscription to read it.

I couldn't find it.

Umm he says it right there that Zawahir and Saddam had a relationship going all the way back to his time with the Muslim Brotherhood.

In the unconfirmed report of what Klein supposedly wrote. It was supposedly on his blog. Maybe he missed typed. Who knows. What else corraborates this long term relationship?

the 9-11 commission reported: "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."

The claims of these later meetings were later rejected in the 2006 Senate Report of Pre-War Intelligence:

Postwar findings have indicated that there was only one meeting between representatives of Saddam Hussein and representatives of al-Qaeda. These findings also identified two occasions "not reported prior to the war, in which Saddam Hussein rebuffed meeting requests from an al-Qa'ida operative. The Intelligence Community has not found any other evidence of meetings between al-Qa'ida and Iraq."

Are there other objective sources of information about Al Zawahiri and Hussein, their relationship, and when if ever they met?

It was an example of some of the documents that were captured in Iraq, they all used to be on the internet but were taken off due to security concerns over some of the WMD and nuclear information that was on them.

It's amazing there are no copies of documents which would purport to show an Iraq-Al-Queda corroboration. If such documents existed, I would expect that the Bush Admin would have used them extensively to demonstrate the justification for the war.

"According to al-libi," ya because AQ operatives wouldn't be under direct orders to lie about torture if captured now would they?

Several official sources discounted his testimony.

Why would we believe one version over the other? On reason is that his handlers, ie the US Govt, wanted information to show the connection.

Like I said we could call into question the legitimacy of his statements if not for the fact that the captured documents prove that he was telling the truth.

Whether they do or not is the question, isn't it. One would expect if such documents indeed showed an ongoing corrobatorative relationship, which would be crucial, vital information to support the Bush Administration's Iraq war policy, one of the official agencies of the his government would have reported that.

 

[Trajan Octavian Titus]

Good question. You claim that a "collaborative relationship between AQ and Iraq" is a "well established fact."

Are all these folks lying?

2001 Presidential Daily Briefing
Ten days after the September 11, 2001 attacks, President Bush receives a classified Presidential Daily Briefing (that had been prepared at his request) indicating that the U.S. intelligence community had no evidence linking Saddam Hussein to the September 11th attacks and that there was "scant credible evidence that Iraq had any significant collaborative ties with Al Qaeda." The PDB writes off the few contacts that existed between Saddam's government and al-Qaeda as attempts to monitor the group rather than attempts to work with them.

Meetings between Saddam and Zawahiri were not significant?

2002 DIA reports
The DIA report also cast significant doubt on the possibility of a Saddam Hussein-al-Qaeda conspiracy: "Saddam’s regime is intensely secular and is wary of Islamic revolutionary movements. Moreover, Baghdad is unlikely to provide assistance to a group it cannot control."[78] In April 2002, the DIA assessed that "there was no credible reporting on al-Qa'ida training at Salman Pak or anywhere else in Iraq

Wrong, Saddam held "Islamic Conferences," in which radical Islamists the world over were welcomed.

2002 British intelligence report
In October 2002, a British Intelligence investigation of possible links between Iraq and al-Qaeda and the possibility of Iraqi WMD attacks issued a report concluding: "al Qaeda has shown interest in gaining chemical and biological expertise from Iraq, but we do not know whether any such training was provided. We have no intelligence of current cooperation between Iraq and al Qaeda and do not believe that al Qaeda plans to conduct terrorist attacks under Iraqi direction

Ya they didn't have DOCEX because those documents were captured in Iraq.

2003 CIA report
In January 2003, the CIA released a special Report to Congress entitled Iraqi Support for Terrorism. The report concludes that "In contrast to the patron-client pattern between Iraq and its Palestinian surrogates, the relationship between Iraq and al-Qaida appears to more closely resemble that of two independent actors trying to exploit each other — their mutual suspicion suborned by al-Qaida's interest in Iraqi assistance, and Baghdad's interest in al-Qaida's anti-U.S. attacks…. The Intelligence Community has no credible information that Baghdad had foreknowledge of the 11 September attacks or any other al-Qaida strike." (See below).[81] Michael Scheuer, the main researcher assigned to review the research into the project, described the review and his conclusions: "For about four weeks in late 2002 and early 2003, I and several others were engaged full time in searching CIA files -- seven days a week, often far more than eight hours a day. At the end of the effort, we had gone back ten years in the files and had reviewed nearly twenty thousand documents that amounted to well over fifty thousand pages of materials.... There was no information that remotely supported the analysis that claimed there was a strong working relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda. I was embarrassed because this reality invalidated the analysis I had presented on the subject in my book.[82]

Again pre-DOCEX.

2003 British intelligence report

In January 2003, British intelligence completed a classified report on Iraq that concluded that "there are no current links between the Iraqi regime and the al-Qaeda network." The report was leaked to the BBC, who published information about it on February 5, the same day Colin Powell addressed the United Nations. According to BBC, the report "says al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden views Iraq's ruling Ba'ath party as running contrary to his religion, calling it an 'apostate regime'. 'His aims are in ideological conflict with present day Iraq,' it says."

Pre-Docex.

2003 Israeli intelligence
In February 2003, Israeli intelligence sources told the Associated Press that no link has been conclusively established between Saddam and Al Qaeda.

Pre DOCEX.

2004 9/11 Commission Report
The official report issued by the 9/11 Commission in July 2004 addressed the issue of a possible conspiracy between the government of Iraq and al-Qaeda in the September 11 attacks. The report addressed specific allegations of contacts between al-Qaeda and members of Saddam Hussein's government and concluded that there was no evidence that such contacts developed into a collaborative operational relationship, and that they did not cooperate to commit terrorist attacks against the United States. The report includes the following information:

“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. 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.
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. As described below, the ensuing years saw additional efforts to establish connections. There is also evidence that around this time Bin Ladin sent out a number of feelers to the Iraqi regime, offering some cooperation. None are reported to have received a significant response. According to one report, Saddam Hussein’s efforts at this time to rebuild relations with the Saudis and other Middle Eastern regimes led him to stay clear of Bin Ladin. In mid-1998, the situation reversed; it was Iraq that reportedly took the initiative. 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. 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.

From that report:

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.

Furthermore; those groups who AQ was sponsoring were enemies of Saddam's enemies IE the U.S. backed Kurds. Also in the report they comfirm meetings between Saddam and Zawahiri, and meetings between OBL and IIS operatives. Not only that but the Commissions findings don't agree with there conclusions take their comfirmation of the weapons cooperation:

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.

2004 Senate Report of Pre-war Intelligence on Iraq
Looking at pre-war intelligence on Iraq, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence examined "the quality and quantity of U.S. intelligence on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, ties to terrorist groups, Saddam Hussein’s threat to stability and security in the region, and his repression of his own people;" and "the objectivity, reasonableness, independence, and accuracy of the judgments reached by the Intelligence Community".[88] In Section 12 of the report, titled Iraq's Links to Terrorism, the Senate committee examined the CIA's "five primary finished intelligence products on Iraq’s links to terrorism." The report focused specifically on the CIA's 2003 study. After examining all the intelligence, the Senate committee concluded that the CIA had accurately assessed that contacts between Saddam Hussein's regime and members of al-Qaeda "did not add up to an established formal relationship."

Umm the CIA said that there was such a relationship, didn't you read the letter from George Tenet?

 

[Trajan Octavian Titus]

2004 CIA report
In August, the CIA finished another assessment of the question of Saddam's links to al-Qaeda. This assessment had been requested by the office of the Vice President, who asked specifically that the CIA take another look at the possibility that Jordanian terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi constituted a link between Saddam and al-Qaeda, as Colin Powell had claimed in his speech to the United Nations Security Council. The assessment concluded that there was no evidence that Saddam Hussein's regime harbored Jordanian terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. A U.S. official familiar with the new CIA assessment said intelligence analysts were unable to determine conclusively the nature of the relationship between al-Zarqawi and Saddam. "It's still being worked," he said. "It (the assessment) ... doesn't make clear-cut, bottom-line judgments" about whether Saddam's regime was aiding al-Zarqawi. The official told Knight Ridder "What is indisputable is that Zarqawi was operating out of Baghdad and was involved in a lot of bad activities," but that the report didn't conclude that Saddam's regime had provided "aid, comfort and succor" to al-Zarqawi. According to Knight Ridder, "Some officials believe that Saddam's secular regime kept an eye on al-Zarqawi, but didn't actively assist him." Knight Ridder reporters called the CIA study "the latest assessment that calls into question one of President Bush's key justifications for last year's U.S.-led invasion of Iraq."[89][90]

2005 update of CIA report
In October 2005, the CIA updated the 2004 report to conclude that Saddam's regime "did not have a relationship, harbor, or even turn a blind eye toward Mr. Zarqawi and his associates," according to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (see 2006 report below).[91] Two counterterrorism analysts told Newsweek that Zarqawi did likely receive medical treatment in Baghdad in 2002, but that Saddam's government may never have known Zarqawi was in Iraq because Zarqawi used "false cover." An intelligence official also told Newsweek the current draft of the report says that "most evidence suggests Saddam Hussein did not provide Zarqawi safe haven before the war. It also recognizes that there are still unanswered questions and gaps in knowledge about the relationship." According to Newsweek, "The most recent CIA analysis is an update—based on fresh reporting from Iraq and interviews with former Saddam officials—of a classified report that analysts in the CIA's Directorate of Intelligence first produced more than a year ago

A) Who said anything about Zarqawi?

B) How did Zarqawi make it into a Baghdad hospital in a totalitarian secret police riddled state like Iraq without the knowledge of the Baathists?

2006 Pentagon study
In February 2006, the Pentagon published a study of the so-called Harmony database documents captured in Afghanistan.[93] While the study did not look specifically at allegations of Iraq's ties to al-Qaeda, it did analyze papers that offer insight into the history of the movement and tensions among the leadership. In particular, it found evidence that al-Qaeda jihadists had viewed Saddam as an "infidel" and cautioned against working with him.

Funny those documents paint a very different picture than the one you are asserting, those are the DOCEX documents.

 

[Trajan Octavian Titus]

And these all lied too?

2006 Senate Report of Pre-War Intelligence
In September 2006, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence released two reports constituting Phase II of its study of pre-war intelligence claims regarding Iraq's pursuit of WMD and alleged links to al-Qaeda. These bipartisan reports included "Findings about Iraq's WMD Programs and Links to Terrorism and How they Compare with Prewar Assessments"[97] and "The Use by the Intelligence Community of Information Provided by the Iraqi National Congress".[98] The reports concluded that, according to David Stout of the New York Times, "there is no evidence that Saddam Hussein had prewar ties to Al Qaeda and one of the terror organization’s most notorious members, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi."[99] The "Postwar Findings" volume of the study concluded that there was no evidence of any Iraqi support of al-Qaeda, al-Zarqawi, or Ansar al-Islam. The "Iraqi National Congress" volume concluded that "false information" from INC-affiliated sources was used to justify key claims in the prewar intelligence debate and that this information was "widely distributed in intelligence products" prior to the war. It also concluded that the INC "attempted to influence US policy on Iraq by providing false information through defectors directed at convincing the United States that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction and had links to terrorists." The Senate report noted that in October 2002, "the DIA cautioned that the INC was penetrated by hostile intelligence services and would use the relationship to promote its own agenda."

The "Postwar Findings" report had the following conclusions about Saddam's alleged links to al-Qaeda:

Conclusion 1: The CIA's assessment that Iraq and al-Qaeda were "two independent actors trying to exploit each other" was accurate only about al-Qaeda. "Postwar findings indicate that Saddam Hussein was distrustful of al-Qa'ida and viewed Islamic extremists as a threat to his regime, refusing all requests from al-Qa'ida to provide material or operational support."

Conclusion 2: Postwar findings have indicated that there was only one meeting between representatives of Saddam Hussein and representatives of al-Qaeda. These findings also identified two occasions "not reported prior to the war, in which Saddam Hussein rebuffed meeting requests from an al-Qa'ida operative. The Intelligence Community has not found any other evidence of meetings between al-Qa'ida and Iraq."

Conclusion 3: "Prewar Intelligence Community assessments were inconsistent regarding the likelihood that Saddam Hussein provided chemical and biological weapons (CBW) training to al-Qa'ida. Postwar findings support the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) February 2002 assessment that Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi was likely intentionally misleading his debriefers when he said that Iraq provided two al-Qa'ida associates with chemical and biological weapons (CBW) training in 2000.... No postwar information has been found that indicates CBW training occurred and the detainee who provided the key prewar reporting about this training recanted his claims after the war."

Conclusion 4: "Postwar findings support the April 2002 Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) assessment that there was no credible reporting on al-Qa'ida training at Salman Pak or anywhere else in Iraq. There have been no credible reports since the war that Iraq trained al-Qa'ida operatives at Salman Pak to conduct or support transnational terrorist operations."

Conclusion 5: Postwar findings support the assessment that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and associates were present in Baghdad from May-November 2002. "Prewar assessments expressed uncertainty about Iraq's complicity in their presence, but overestimated the Iraqi regime's capabilities to locate them. Postwar information indicates that Saddam Hussein attempted, unsuccessfully, to locate and capture al-Zarqawi and that the regime did not have a relationship with, harbor, or turn a blind eye toward Zarqawi."
Conclusion 6: Prewar interactions between Saddam Hussein's government and al-Qaeda affiliate group Ansar al-Islam were attempts by Saddam to spy on the group rather than to support or work with them. "Postwar information reveals that Baghdad viewed Ansar al-Islam as a threat to the regime and that the IIS attempted to collect intelligence on the group."
Conclusion 7: "Postwar information supports prewar Intelligence Community assessments that there was no credible information that Iraq was complicit in or had foreknowledge of the September 11 attacks or any other al-Qa'ida strike.....

Conclusion 8: "No postwar information indicates that Iraq intended to use al-Qa'ida or any other terrorist group to strike the United States homeland before or during Operation Iraqi Freedom."

I suggest you read the dissenting opinions of that report:

For the past two years, rather than to pursue our oversight roll to insure that some of the key findings and recommendations of these reports and others were enacted, this Committee’s usefulness as an oversight body and as a key element in our national security apparatus has been consumed by a rear-view mirror investigation pursued for political ends.

Simply stated this second series of reports is designed to point fingers in Washington and at the administration. The conclusions in the reports were crafted with more partisan bias than we have witnessed in a long time in Congress. The “Phase II” investigation has turned the Senate Intelligence Committee, a committee initially designed to be the most bipartisan committee in the Senate, into a political playground stripped of its bipartisan power, and this fact has not gone unnoticed in the Intelligence Community.

http://intelligence.senate.gov/phaseiiaccuracy.pdf

And then there's this:

How Bad Is the Senate <br>Intelligence Report?

2007 Pentagon Inspector General Report
In February 2007, the Pentagon's inspector general issued a report that concluded that Feith's Office of Special Plans, an office in the Pentagon run by Douglas Feith that was the source of most of the misleading intelligence on al-Qaeda and Iraq, had "developed, produced, and then disseminated alternative intelligence assessments on the Iraq and al Qaida relationship, which included some conclusions that were inconsisent with the consensus of the Intelligence Community, to senior decision-makers." The report found that these actions were "inappropriate" though not "illegal." Senator Carl Levin, Chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee, stated that "The bottom line is that intelligence relating to the Iraq-al-Qaeda relationship was manipulated by high-ranking officials in the Department of Defense to support the administration's decision to invade Iraq. The inspector general's report is a devastating condemnation of inappropriate activities in the DOD policy office that helped take this nation to war."[1]

How was there a consensus amongst the intelligence community? Tenet said there was infact a relationship. What exactly was misleading about Feith's intelligence?

 

[Trajan Octavian Titus]

And for good reason.

It doesn't lack any credibility he was providing the President with the consensus of all 16 members of the intelligence community.

I couldn't find it.



In the unconfirmed report of what Klein supposedly wrote. It was supposedly on his blog. Maybe he missed typed. Who knows. What else corraborates this long term relationship?

DOCEX

the 9-11 commission reported: "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."

The claims of these later meetings were later rejected in the 2006 Senate Report of Pre-War Intelligence:

The 2006 intelligence report is a joke.

Postwar findings have indicated that there was only one meeting between representatives of Saddam Hussein and representatives of al-Qaeda. These findings also identified two occasions "not reported prior to the war, in which Saddam Hussein rebuffed meeting requests from an al-Qa'ida operative. The Intelligence Community has not found any other evidence of meetings between al-Qa'ida and Iraq."

Are there other objective sources of information about Al Zawahiri and Hussein, their relationship, and when if ever they met?

DOCEX.

Several official sources discounted his testimony.

Based on what? Oh ya they took the statements of other AQ members at face value and said that we shouldn't believe Al-Libi, it makes no sense.

Why would we believe one version over the other?

We should believe Al-Libi due to the fact that DOCEX proves he was telling the truth.

Whether they do or not is the question, isn't it. One would expect if such documents indeed showed an ongoing corrobatorative relationship, which would be crucial, vital information to support the Bush Administration's Iraq war policy, one of the official agencies of the his government would have reported that.

It's your lucky day I found translations of DOCEX that prove the connections:

Document: Iraqi Intelligence met with Bin Laden in 1995



In the Pentagon/FMSO document ISGZ-2004-009247 there is a clear report about the relation between Iraq and Bin Laden that dated back to 1995. This document contains a 9 page report from the Iraqi Intelligence Apparatus and it is titled “The Saudi Opposition and Achieving the Relation and Contact With Them”. In the report they talk about there meeting with Osama Bin Laden and that Bin Laden in 1995 and how to establish relations wiht him. In the meeting Bin Laden asked the Iraqis for joint operations with them against the Foreign forces (US military) in the land of Hijaz (Saudia or Saudi Arabia).

I did a partial translation of the report that is related to Osama Bin Laden

(Translation of Part of Page 1)

In the Name of God the Most Merciful and the Most Compassionate.


The Saudi Opposition and Achieving the Relation and Contact With Them


(Translation of part of Page 4)


2. The Comission of Reform and Advise

Lead by the Saudi Osama Bin Laden who belongs to a wealthy Saudi family with her roots go back to Hadramoot and connected strongly with the ruling family in Saudia, and he is one of the leaders of the Arab Afghan who volunteered for Jihad in Afghanistan, and after the expulsion of the Soviets he moved to stay in Sudan in the year 1992 after the arrival of the Islamists to power in Sudan.

And because of his stands against the Saudi Royal family because of the foreign presence inside it, the Saudi authorities made a decision to withdraw his Saudi citizenship, and we moved toward The Comission from our side and through the following:

Translation of page 5

A. During the visit of the Sudanese Dr. Abrahim Al Sanoosi to the country and his meeting with Mr. Uday Saddam Hussein on 13/12/1994 and with the presence of the respectful Sir the Director of the Apparatus he indicated that the opposition person Osama Bin Laden who is staying in Sudan and who was cautious and fears that he will be accused by his opponents that he became an agent for Iraq, is ready to meet with him in Sudan (The results of the meeting were written to the Honorable Presidency according to our letter 872 on 17/12/1994).

B. The approval of the Honorable Presidency was granted to meet with the opposition person Osama Bin Laden by the Apparatus according to letter 128 on 11/1/1995 (attachment 6) and the meting with him was completed by Mr. M.A ex-4th Directory in Sudan and with the presence of the Sudanese Dr. Abrahim AL Sanoosi on 19/2/1995 and a discussion occurred about his organization, and he requested the broadcasting of Sheikh Sleiman AL Awada (who has influence in Saudia and outside since he is a known and influential religious personality) and dedicate a program for them through the station directed inside the country and make joint operations against the forces of infidels in the land of Hijaz ( the Honorable Presidency has been notified with the details of the meeting according to our letter 370 in 4/3/1995 attachment 7).

Translation of page 6

C. The approval of Mr. President the Leader God protect him was granted to dedicate and program for them through the station directed and we leave to develop the relation and cooperation between the two sides what open in front of it in discussion and agreement through other cooperation doors. The Sudanese side was informed about the approval of the Honorable Presidency above through the representative of the respectful Sir the Director of the Apparatus our ambassador in Khartoom.

D. Due to the latest conditions in Sudan and accusing her harboring of supporting and harboring terrorism it was agreed with the opposition person the Saudi Osama Bin Laden to leave Sudan to another place where he left Khartoom in the month of July 1996 and the information indicate that he is Afghanistan at the present moment. There is stil relation with him through the Sudanese side and we work in the present moment to activate this relation with him through a new channel in light of the current place where he stays.

JVERITAS - TRANSLATING THE IRAQ DOCUMENTS: Document: Iraqi Intelligence met with Bin Laden in 1995

If you notice that while the link is broken it is a link to the DOCEX release from the Pentagon that has already been taken down.

 

[Trajan Octavian Titus]

This site is a gold mine:

Thursday, September 21, 2006

Iraqi Documents Contradict Senate Report that Saddam Regime was “Intensely Secular”



“Saddam's regime is intensely secular and is wary of Islamic revolutionary movements”. This is a quote from page 77 of the Senate Select Intelligence Committee (SSIC) report on Saddam regime WMD and his ties to terrorism issued on September 8th 2006. The disgraceful and politically motivated SSIC report wanted to mislead the public that Saddam regime was strongly secular and the report wanted to make his relation with AL Qaeda as an impossible one because Al Qaeda is an extreme muslim group despite the fact that documents already have shown a meeting between Saddam Intelligence Service and Bin Laden in Sudan in 1995.
However there are two documents dated September 2002 that totally destroy this notion that Saddam regime was “secular”. Document CMPC-2004-005167.pdf is an Islamic FATWA for JIHAD against the United States and its allies because of the coming war against Iraq. This FATWA for JIHAD was issued by the International Islamic Conference Organization in Iraq and called on all the muslims in the world to use any available means to fight the United States and that it is the duty of each muslim to conduct JIHAD against the US. Another document, CMPC-2004-005285.pdf, contains memos from the writer of the FATWA for JIHAD to Saddam deputy Prime Minister and head of the Iraqi Military Industrialization Ministry informing him that they sent him copies of the FATWA for JIHAD and then a response form Saddam deputy Prime Minister thanking him for the copies.

Beginning of partial translation of CMPC-2004-005285.pdf
The Republic of Iraq
The Presidency of the Republic
The Military Industrialization Commission
The Bureau of the Minister
Number 1/1/5/1567
Date: 18/9/2002
To the Respected Dr. Abed AL Latif Hamim The General Secretary of the Popular Islamic Conference Organization
Subject: The JIHAD FOLDER
Your letter numbered (254) on 9/9/2002
We received with all thanks and appreciation ten copies of the JIHAD FOLDER that was issued by the International Popular Islamic Conference Organization and sent to us by your previous letter wishing you all success to achieve these goals and the goals of your organization under the banner of Allah Akbar that is raised by Mr. President the Leader the Moujahed Saddam Hussein (God protect him and shepherd him).
With all my admiration
Signature
Abed Al Tawab Abed Allah Al Mulah Howeish
Deputy Prime Minister
The Minister of Military Industrialization
17/9/2002
End of partial translation of CMPC-2004-005285.pdf

Now document CMPC-2004-005167.pdf below reveals what the JIHAD FOLDER was about.

Beginning of partial the translation of document CMPC-2004-005167.pdf
Popular Islamic Conference Organization
General Secretariat
Number: 251
Date: 5/9/2002

A communiqué issued by the International Popular Islamic Conference Organization to the Islamic World
In the Name of God the most Merciful, the most Compassionate
Zealous Muslims
Nation of the great Quran
Great Muslims:
It is not hidden from anyone what the American administration of evil, the Pharaoh of this age, and those enemies of Islam who are with them cause injustice to the worshipers, and corruption in this earth without any right, this state that call itself Great in today’s world, and she indeed is great in its evil and sins, and it bad influence on the world, since its crimes against humanity is more known than fire on a flag, and what its doings in Japan, Vietnam, Palestine, and Afghanistan, and other countries in the world, and today she targets the center of power in the Islamic world, politically, economically, socially, and militarily, and direct its sinful strikes, under false mottos that does not convince except the simples among humans.
And she made the preparations to conduct a new aggression against Iraq, against the Iraq of patient Mujahedeens, the beating heart of the Islamic world, and its treasure of achievements, this pious country that said in its full mouth to America-the Pharaoh of this age- (NO), and warn the world from the danger of silence against her injustice, and proved with witness and proof trough its experience that he paid heavily for it with his blood and money, that if the dominance of this State is not stopped, she will spoil the earth and attack each just cause in the world.
Muslims…. Children of the unification, and men of unification
The legal duty obliges all the muslims, wherever they are and wherever they stay, to call upon each other, speak their words, and make a stand to prevent this aggression, with all the available means, to prevent the spelling of the pure blood of more muslims, and to preserve what is left from their wealth, and to respect who still have sovereignty over their countries, and if this aggression occurs- God forbid- then the declaration of JIHAD against the American administration of evil, is a clear duty for each muslim capable of JIHAD through money or SELF and the same applies against the international parties that stand behind and with this aggression. They must declare their solidarity with the Iraqi muslim people, and that they should come out in heavy marches and big demonstrations and declare their stand side to side with the their brethren in Iraq, and start their volunteering for the honored fighting with them and against who want them death and destruction, and they must work to boycott the American administration of evil, and who stand behind her politically, economically, and strike their interests, and everyone who wishes to weaken their power and disappoint them.
God is great and the honor is for islam and muslims This FATWA was signed by more than 500 scholars
Signature
Dr. Abed Al Latif Hamim
Secretary General
Dr. Khaled Shaker Awad Al Kobisi
The Chairman of Quran Sciences in Saddam Academy for Imams and Speakers.
End of partial translation of document CMPC-2004-005167.pdf

JVERITAS - TRANSLATING THE IRAQ DOCUMENTS

 

[Stinger]

:lamo it's sad how the right keeps trying so desperately to revive this long debunked myth.

Actually you have it backwards, every investigation has shown Saddam had ties, and wanted to further those ties and create new ones. Try refuting what was posted.

couple points
1) weekly standard? really?

Yeah, better than most of your sources who keep reporting that since Saddam didn't personally fly the planes into the WTC he had no ties to terrorist.

2) few soldiers say this yet all the other hard evidence says otherwise - you sure they weren't coerced?

The preponderance of evidence is exactly as the article cited.

3) coercion forces out many things.

Try posting some facts yourself and not assertions as you do here. Simple dismissals and baseless assertions do not substitute for facts and rebutal.

 

[Trajan Octavian Titus]

Here's another good one:

2003 Document: Saddam Ordered To Treat The Arab Feedayeen Terrorists The Same As Iraqi Soldiers



Document ISGQ-2004-00060580 is a memo that contains a direct order form Saddam Hussein in the middle of the war asking to treat the Arab Feedayeen i.e. the non Iraqi Foreign Arab Terrorists as equal as the Iraqi soldier in salary and benefits and not just any soldier but like those in the Special Forces. These are the same Arab terrorists who stayed in Iraq after the removal of the regime and caused those horrible attacks mostly on innocent civilians. This document is a follow on another document where the Iraqi were training Foreign Arab terrorist since the year 2000 (please see those two translations: Document: Iraqi Intelligence To Train Arab Feedayeen Terrorists In the Year 2000 http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1617431/posts Document: Saddam Regime Training and Using Foreign Arab Terrorists As Suicide Bombers. http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1600367/posts ). The extremely strong connection between Saddam and Terrorism is something that we need to tell the whole world about it, because for this reason alone we would have all the right to remove this Terrorist Regime after the 9/11, we just cannot afford to live with it.


Begining of the translation

In the Name of God the Most Merciful The Most Compassionate

Republic Of Iraq
Directorate of the General Military Intelligence
No 9/39/1/
Date: 4 April 2003

Secret

To: The 8th Directorate
Subject: Order

The secret and urgent letter of the Presidential Secretariat K-1997 on 29/3/2003 including… The order of The President The Leader to the armed forces God protects him and according to the following:

The Volunteers Arab Feedayeen will be treated the treatment of the solider in the army (Special Forces) regarding the salary and benefits.

Please review and take what is necessary.

Signature

Staff General

Director of the General Military Intelligence

April 2003
End of the Translation

 

[Trajan Octavian Titus]

Oh look Saddam was planning to have suicide bombers attack U.S. interests:

Wednesday, April 05, 2006

March 2001 Document: Saddam Regime Recruits Suicide Terrorists to Hit US Interests (Translation)



Page 6 from document BIAP 2003-000654 is a Top Secret letter dated March/11/2001 six months prior to 9/11/2001, proves that not only Saddam Regime supported terrorists organization like Hamas and Al Qaeda as we have learned from other documents but also they were recruiting Suicide Terrorist Bombers to hit US interests. Saddam Regime was a TERRORIST REGIME and there was no other way but to destroy it after 9/11.

Beginning of the translation of page 6 from document BIAP 2003-000654

In the Name of God the Merciful The Compassionate

Top Secret

The Command of Ali Bin Abi Taleb Air Force Base

No 3/6/104

Date 11 March 2001

To all the Units

Subject: Volunteer for Suicide Mission

The top secret letter 2205 of the Military Branch of Al Qadisya on 4/3/2001 announced by the top secret letter 246 from the Command of the military sector of Zi Kar on 8/3/2001 announced to us by the top secret letter 154 from the Command of Ali Military Division on 10/3/2001 we ask to provide that Division with the names of those who desire to volunteer for Suicide Mission to liberate Palestine and to strike American Interests and according what is shown below to please review and inform us.

Air Brigadier General

Abdel Magid Hammot Ali

Commander of Ali Bin Abi Taleb Air Force Base

Air Colonel

Mohamad Majed Mohamadi.

End of translation of page 6

 

[Trajan Octavian Titus]

Another good one:

Document: Saddam Regime Training and Using Foreign Arab Terrorists As Suicide Bombers.



In the Prewar Iraq documents posted on the Pentagon/FMSO website I found document ISGP-2003-00028868 where on pages 20, 21, and 22 of the pdf document there is a top secret memo on how to train and use the Arab Feedaeyeens as Suicide Bombers or as the memo call them “Estishehadeyeen” which means in Arabic “Suicide Martyrs”. The Arab Feedaeyeens are definitely foreigners non Iraqi Arabs who came to Iraq from all over the Middle East and North Africa and they were greatly welcomed by Saddam regime and trained by his military and intelligence apparatus to become Suicide Bombers. The Iraqi Feedaeyeens are known as “Feedaeyeen Saddam” so not to confuse between the two groups. This document proves that not only there were non Iraqi Arab terrorists in Iraq before the war but they were also trained by Saddam regime on how to become suicide bombers by using their own bodies, or suicide bombers using cars and motorcycles full of explosive, or even become suicide bombers using Camels carrying explosives.

These are the non Iraqi Arab terrorists that later on brought death and destruction upon the Iraqi people through many suicide bombings.

NB: The writing in between the () in the body of the translation are part of the original memo in Arabic.

Beginning of the translations of pages 20, 21, and 22 of the pdf document ISGP-2003-00028868

Translation of Page 20 in the pdf document:

In the Name of God the most Merciful and the most Compassionate

Top Secret

Recommendation on how to use the Arab Feedaeyeens (Suicide Martyrs)

1. Supervision for training and usage

Formation of a devoted commission headed by Lieutenant General Hamza Alwan Zaher from the Directory of Military Engineering and the membership of Staff General Azawi Saleh Hassan from the Directory of Planning and the and Colonel Dr. Abdel Rahim Abdel Saheb Ali from the Directory of Political Orientation and that the commission will be related to Mr. assistant of Chairman of Army Training Staff.

2. The Training Course

The commission will prepare a very intensive training course for a period of week where it will be focused to raise the physical fitness and train on how use the automatic rifle Kalashnikoff and hand grenades and the largest section of the course will be specialized to focus of using the explosive material in the body, in motorcycle, in cars, and in camels.

3. Instructors

They must be dedicated from the Special Forces Command, from the Directory of Military Engineering and from the First Military School those that appear in them competence and capability.

(1-3) Top Secret

Translation of page 21 in the pdf document:

Top Secret

4. Requirement of duty

A. The Explosives

All the explosives and its attachments will be provided by the Directory of Military Engineering.

B . The Cars

All the cars and motorcycles that will be used in fulfilling the duties will be provided by the Department of Armament and Equipping.

C. The Camels

Will be provided by the Directory of General Military Intelligence.

D. Light Weapons

The Kalashnikoff rifles and the hand grenades will be provided by the Department of Armament and Equipping.

5. Usage

The Directory of General Military Intelligence will take the responsibility to provide the dictations and supervise the execution of duties and that this will occur after that the end of extensive training period.

(2-3) Top Secret

Translation of page 22 in the pdf document.

Top secret

6. General issues

A. The representative of the Directory of Political Orientation and the Religious Scholars from among the volunteers to give religious sermons that emphasis on Jihad for the Arab volunteers outside the hours dedicated for training.

B. Provide the Badwen clothing and other equipments (Travel homes,…) by the directory of general military intelligence.

Signature….. 28/2

(3-3) Top secret.

FR Discussion

 

[jfuh]

Actually you have it backwards, every investigation has shown Saddam had ties, and wanted to further those ties and create new ones. Try refuting what was posted.

Yeah, better than most of your sources who keep reporting that since Saddam didn't personally fly the planes into the WTC he had no ties to terrorist.
The preponderance of evidence is exactly as the article cited.

Try posting some facts yourself and not assertions as you do here. Simple dismissals and baseless assertions do not substitute for facts and rebutal.

:lamo you forgot your tin foil hat - either that or you must not have been paying attention to the hundreds of times on this site in which this myth you make has been thoroughly debunked. Saddam had no ties with AQ. Salman Pak was a counter terrorist training facility. AQ was not in Iraq until after we invaded. Those are the facts. All you can do is spin. But try this, admit you are wrong. Even your darling Bush admits that Saddam had nothing to do with those who attacked us on 9/11 even though he said otherwise.
You and your neocon crowd have been wrong about everything about this war, nothing you said was ever true nor will it ever be true and here you have the nerve to go around daily with your spins. Have you no shame?

 

[Stinger]

:lamo you forgot your tin foil hat - either that or you must not have been paying attention to the hundreds of times on this site in which this myth you make has been thoroughly debunked.

Actually they had been reaffirmed right here. As I said try posting some facts yourself and not assertions as you do here. Simple dismissals and baseless assertions do not substitute for facts and rebutal.