Connection Between Saddam And Terrorists

Forlorn · June 2004

<div class="IPBDescription">Including Al-Qaida, it indeed exists :o</div> At first, people are calling Bush a liar and pounding him on for stating that terrorist links between Saddam and Al-Qaida exist, but a new verdict is in, a completely different story:

<a href='http://www.fortwayne.com/mld/journalgazette/news/editorial/9025679.htm' target='_blank'>http://www.fortwayne.com/mld/journalgazett...ial/9025679.htm</a>

<a href='http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,123860,00.html' target='_blank'>http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,123860,00.html</a>

<a href='http://springfield.news-leader.com/opinions/today/0626-Saddam,alQ-120370.html' target='_blank'>http://springfield.news-leader.com/opinion...alQ-120370.html</a>

This is really recent (the fox news article just appeared on google news 30 minutes ago), so if you can find anything else, post a link here!

Oh, and of course, discuss <img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif' />

Nemesis_Zero · June 2004

I tried to adress all three articles points one by one, so please excuse redundancy:

<b>The Journal Gazette article:</b>

</div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'>The staff statement was a model of muddle, but this much is clear: There is nothing in it that reliably or categorically ?refutes? a connection between Iraq and al-Qaida. What?s more, in the days since its release, members of the 9/11 commission ? including co-chairmen Lee Hamilton and Tom Kean ? have appeared eager to distance themselves from the statement issued by their staff.</td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'>
Maybe, but we are not discussing the staff statement, but the question of whether Husseins regieme had strong links with Al-Quaeda here; the statements credibility means little to that either way.
The subsequent quotes from commission members are so deliberately neutral and vague that I'd prefer not to take tham as inclined into any direction, either; Mr. Kean could just as well plan on releasing a better worded version of the statement in the final report.
</div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'>CIA Director George Tenet certainly believes so. ?Credible reporting states that al-Qaida leaders sought contacts in Iraq who could help them acquire WMD capabilities,? he wrote to the Senate Intelligence Committee on Oct. 7, 2002.</td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'>
Take note of the date. Tenets memo was cited and disassembled in the course of the pre-war discussions already. I don't see how its quoting at this point changes anything.
</div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'>Top Clinton administration officials also suggested a ?collaborative? relationship. On Aug. 7, 1998, al-Qaida terrorists bombed U.S. embassies in Tanzania and Kenya, killing 257 people ? including 12 Americans. The Clinton administration struck back 13 days later, hitting a pharmaceutical plant, an al-Qaida-linked facility in Sudan.</td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'>
Oh, that's rich. Has everyone forgotten the circumstances of this affair? The ties to Al Quaeda were <i>alleged</i>. This pharmaceutical plant was origin of 50% of the domestic pharmaceutical supplies of Sudan, whichs population can generally not afford foreign meds. No terroristic links have been provable.
And <i>now</i>, this is a prove of Husseins links with Bin Laden?

<b>The FOXNews article:</b>

I assume you refer to the two statements by Mrs. Rice beginning with "Well, first of all, the administration has been very clear that this is not about Saddam Hussein or Iraq's operational control" and "Well, I can't ? you know, I can't speculate. I do know that there have just been a number of contacts, high-level contacts, over a number of years."

Trouble is that the Bush administration was very happy to let the impression that Hussein had significant influence in 9/11 bloom - to refute this claim, present me with <i>one</i> quote by a high-ranking member of the administration directely going against this.

Mrs. Rice cites decade old links between Husseins regieme and Al-Quaeda, but offers no argumentative or factual backing to them aside from "we know". Seeing the background of this controversy, I'm sorry, but I won't accept evidenceless claims by a member of the administration as fact, especially when she sees it necessary to try to support her argument by citing absolutely tangential issues - such as Husseins support of Palestenian organizations, a crime against the Bush doctrine that even US ally Saudi Arabia is guilty of.

<b>The News-Leader article:</b>

</div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'>As the vice chairman of the panel, Lee Hamilton, stated, "There were connections between al- Qaida and Saddam Hussein's government. We don't disagree on that."</td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'>
Interesting, yet, without an elaboration barely surprising. <i>What</i> connection was there?
</div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'>Maybe Saddam Hussein didn't speak directly to Osama bin Laden, but he was part of the same "family." Saddam did not personally bomb targets inside Israel (except during the 1990 Gulf War) but he rewarded the families of bombers.</td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'>
Again: Al-Quaedas main interest is not in Israel, but in Saudi-Arabia. Supporting the Palestenian movements is <i>no</i> prove of a strong link with Al Quaeda.
</div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'>Commission co-chair Thomas Kean said, "What we have found is, were there contacts between al-Qaida and Iraq? Yes, some of them were shadowy ? but they were there."

This is far removed from the headlines that screamed "Al- Qaida-Hussein Link Is Dismissed" (Washington Post); "Panel Finds No Qaida-Iraq Tie" (New York Times); "No Signs of Iraq-Al-Qaeda Ties Found" (Los Angeles Times).</td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'>
OK, so the headlines were overdrawn. <i>But where are the proves of a strong connection</i>?
</div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'>Russian President Vladimir Putin said June 18 that his government had warned Washington after 9/11 and before military operations in Iraq that Saddam Hussein's regime was preparing attacks in the United States and on its interests abroad.</td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'>
A quick Google revealed no further leading info on this. Could someone oblige? I'm pretty interested in that one, mainly because Russia was going to veto the 'war resolutions' of the US.
</div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'>"It would be naive to the point of grave danger not to believe that, left to his own devices, Saddam Hussein will provoke, misjudge or stumble into a future, more dangerous confrontation with the civilized world .... He has supported and harbored terrorist groups, particularly radical Palestinian groups such as Abu Nidal, and he has given money to families of suicide murderers in Israel .... We should not go to war because these things are in his past, but we should be prepared to go to war because of what they tell us about the future."</td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'>
Again, what about Al Quaeda? It's all nice and dandy (and nice for Bushs election campaign) that Kerry advised caution against Iraq, but that hardly means anything for the discussion at hand.

Sorry Forlorn, but I'm a little surprised by the way these links tend to juggle between the general term of 'terrorists', and Bin Ladens organization. The Bush administration cited strong, supportive links between the two, <i>not</i> between Hussein and the Palestenian movements, but between Hussein and the people who destroyed the WTC, as a reason to go to war.
This is a fairly significant difference since you'll find few Middle Eastern governments who manage to survive without of appeasing their radical minorities by supporting the Palestenian extremists. Yet, it appears that now that these strong connections with Al Quaeda are not readily provable, this is what the administrations argumentation retreats to.

DarkDude · June 2004

I saw this on Fox News yesterday, (I have no idea why I was watching that channel) and heard pretty much the same thing that these 3 articles point out; that there is supposed evidence that Iraq and Saddam had conversations and links with Al Quaeda. The problem is, "links" prove nothing. Of course Saddam would be having conversations with Al Quaeda, what Middle Eastern country that's not pro-American (or even is) <i>wouldn't</i> be at least in contact with these groups? The reason given that we invaded Iraq was because they had very strong contacts with Al Quaeda and helped plan the 9/11 attacks, and as of yet we have no proof of that at all except for some evidence of shady deals going down between the two, not exactly solid. If you're trying to point out that the commission was lying, or at the very least was mistaken about the links, then yes, I agree something went wrong there.

Forlorn · June 2004

No no no, you wasted your text there Nem0, because the links were just there to PROVE to you guys that there is in fact a story circulating about how supposed connections have been found;

but much like you guys I am in the dark as to what they are or where I can find them.

I was reading my sunday paper this morning when I read an editorial talking about how the New York Times was eating it's own words by releasing a new story citing how a strong connection has been made; whereas a few weeks ago they just released a story claiming Bush was possibly lying (or words to that effect).

Interested, I quickly went to www.nytimes.com to try and see anything, but was unsucessful, so I went to google <a href='http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&edition=us&ie=ascii&q=connection+between+Saddam+and+Al+Qaida&btnG=Search+News' target='_blank'>news</a> to try my luck and came up with this new and late breaking stuff.

So really, I read these and I thought, "Hmm... interesting that things could change, but I need/want more reliable sources and more detailed info."

So I started this thread. The idea I had was for people to help me find more info because they may know something I do not. The idea is you accept that these articles <i>may</i> be true, discuss them like they are, but then also see if any other sources can be dug up.

However, if these latest allegations are true, what implications does it have for the world?

Nemesis_Zero · June 2004

OK, if you want to discuss 'what if' scenarios (my opinion about the validity of these articles should be obvious at this point), I'd say that these special allegations would have relatively little influence:

First, we still could not say how far reaching the Iraqi support of Al Quaeda is. The kind of help Mrs. Rice cited is, all said and done, comparable to that a bunch of chemistry books and the recruitment of a skilled printer would've had (and those are not exaggerations; the RAF reached the exact same ends - knowledge of explosives as well as their their handling and help in passport forgery - via those exact means, for example).
Second, this was but one of the claims the Bush administration used to justify its strike. Seeing the relative insignificance of the alleged links and the wide existence of connections of such a magnitude throughout the region, I can not see how the cited facts would sway the publics opinion.
Third, and most importantly, even neglecting the first two points, strong terroristic activity based in Iraq would only be a good justification of the war if the military strike could've removed the country as an option to Al-Quaeda. Currently, it appears that the exact opposite is the case: The Iraq becomes more and more of a radicalist focus point, not of the same magnitude, but otherwise comparable to Afghanistan during the Soviet invasion. Thus, even <i>if</i> the assertion of Iraq as a terroristic hotbed was correct, the means employed to remedy this situation would appear badly chosen.

Burncycle · June 2004

The argument is they should have had tangable evidence of a connection _before_ an invasion. Not evidence years after the invasion going "see? turns out we were right!"

TommyVercetti · June 2004

Uh, wouldn't Al Qaeda be opposed to secular governments...?

Connection Between Saddam And Terrorists

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