Read about what the press was saying in the 90's about the links between Iraq and AQ http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/946809/posts?page=1

Growing evidence of AQ/Iraq link: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/946997/posts

Saddam and Bin Laden vs. the World: http://www.guardian.co.uk/alqaida/story/0,12469,798270,00.html

Saddam link to bin Laded: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/866105/posts

The Al Qaeda connections: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/866105/posts

NYT - 1998 - OBL and Iraq agree to cooperate:http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/985906/posts

Document links AQ and Iraq: http://www.nationalreview.com/robbins/robbins091903.asp

Iraq and terrorism: http://www.nationalreview.com/robbins/robbins091903.asp

WSJ - Iraq and AQ: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/987129/posts

Iraq and Iran contact AQ: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/981055/posts

Proof Saddam worked with AQ: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=%2Fnews%2F2003%2F04%2F27%2Fwalq27.x ml

Saddam's AQ Connection:http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/969032/posts

Terrorist killed in Iraq after refusing to train Al Qaeda terrorists:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2002/08/25/wnidal25.xml

Osama's Best Friend: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1007969/posts

Case Closed - OBL and Iraq agree to work together:http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/003/378fmxyz.asp

Terrorist behind 9/11 trained in Iraq:http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1039898/posts?page=154

The Clinton view of Iraq/AQ ties: http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/003/527uwabl.asp

Saddam's ties to terror: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1005579/posts

NYT - tape shows Wesley Clark tying AQ and Iraq: Linkhttp://tennessean.com/nation-world/archives/03/06/34908297.shtml?Element_ID=34908297http://tennessean.com/nation-world/archives/03/06/34908297.shtml?Element_ID=34908297

Great sources there! ;) The same folks who surely would have considered Mao and Stalin cooperative friends!

If you check any less biased sources on recent history, you will learn that Al-Qaeda always hated Saddam and wanted him dead, and vice versa. The two did not share the any political objectives or world views- on the contrary, the 2 are at nearly opposite poles of mideastern politics. Of course, to Free Republic and National Review, any "ragheads" who wind up at odds with Uncle Sam are all lumped into the same category of villains. Murky allegations of liaisons just can't reconcile political oil and water.

If you sincerely would like to learn about the history of Al-Qaeda and the Ba'ath Party, I'll be glad to point you to some history, instead of propaganda.

I guess its all who you belive isn't it? Everyone has their spin don't they? So I give good links but you have given none, what does that say about your spin on this?

its not about spin, its about confirmation by more than one source. Thats how CNN and BBC can claim to be un biased. Even FOX news is tons better.

Yo Cosmic!

Here's a link for you. Just so you don't think I'm spinning like a top it just sends you off to google. Then you can pick any link you want!

http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=carlyle+bush+bin+laden&btnG=Google+Search&meta=

and I'll even throw in a quote or two.

"We will starve the terrorists of funding," he said. "If you do business with terrorists, if you support or sponsor them, you will not do business with the United States of America."
George Bush, 24 September 2001


Through his lofty position at Carlyle and as a consultant, George Bush Sr. is closely linked to the bin Ladens. As are other powerhouse U.S. politicians.


The Wall Street Journal said in an investigative dispatch."through this investment and its ties to Saudi royalty, the bin Laden family has become acquainted with some of the biggest names in the Republican Party." "In recent years, former president George H W Bush, ex-secretary of state James Baker and ex-secretary of defence Frank Carlucci have made the pilgrimage to the bin Laden family's headquarters in Jeddah (Saudi Arabia).


Yossef Bodansky, director of the House Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare, said "Osama maintains connections" with some of his nearly two dozen brothers.
San Antonio Express-News,' 14 September 1998


Osama directed the family business in carrying out at least two large projects for the CIA, one in the 1980s and one in the late 1990s, building facilities to be used by terrorists.

So Err Cosmic. What Terrorists supporting scum sucking country should we fuck over next eh?

Yours?
Dee Cee

"So I give good links but you have given none, what does that say about your spin on this?"

I'll take that as a plea for help, which I did offer, so let's enjoy another brief tour together:

The U.S. Council on Foreign Relations (http://cfrterrorism.org/groups/alqaeda2.html) is a fitting place to start: You can look here for Iraqi branches on the left side links, and find them in many places including the USA (they are a little behind the times because Al-Qaeda is reportedly having a field day in post-Ba'athist Iraq. Follow the Q&A on the right to Iraq info, and you will come to:

some Iraq-watchers suspect that al-Qaeda members attended Iraq’s Salman Pak terrorist training camp. Widely circulated reports said that Muhammad Atta, a mastermind of the September 11 attacks, met an Iraqi intelligence agent in Prague. And fleeing al-Qaeda members reportedly took refuge in Iraq. But U.S. officials say they doubt that the Atta meeting took place, and many experts and State Department officials say that any al-Qaeda presence in Iraq probably was in northern regions of the country beyond Saddam’s control. Some analysts say there was scant evidence of ties between al-Qaeda and Saddam’s secular regime, a claim supported by the lack of such evidence found after Saddam’s downfall. The CIA in May 2003 began an internal review of prewar intelligence reports, including those related to suspected connections between Iraq and terrorism.

On the same original page I linked, you can follow a link at lower left to:

The Bush administration insists that hatred of America has driven the two closer together, although many experts say there’s no solid proof of such links and argue that the Islamist al-Qaeda and Saddam’s secular dictatorship would be unlikely allies.

On to a representative article introducing the internal US intel community doubts about connections the Bush administration began alleging between Iraq and al-Qaeda immediately aftr 9-11 (Sidney Morning Herald (http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/06/22/1056220477957.html)):

The National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq report, which represented the consensus of US intelligence officials and experts, was circulated in the Bush Administration late last year. It contained cautionary language about Iraq's connections with al-Qaeda and warnings about the reliability of conflicting reports by Iraqi defectors and captured al-Qaeda members

Here are the declassified portions of that report (http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/2003_cr/h072103.html), so you can read for yourself. As mentioned in many articles like the SMH one above, even Congressmen privy to the classified version found no definitive linkage in this or any intelligence. Whenever the Bush Administration has been challenged to produce evidence of this allegation there has been stonewalling and no evidence.

Understand, evidence of cooperation, in credible intelligence or journalism, requires more than disjointed accounts of a shadowy meeting. Making such a case requires establishing common interests, and showing a coherent chain of events with even circumstantial evidence indicating substantial cooperation.

Faulty evidence of support for Al-Qaeda includes reference to the presence of Al-Qaeda agents, as in their presence in the United States- This can be couched to sound shadowy, as in times when the USA was accused of officially harboring the IRA.

Faulty evidence also includes construing contact with co-operation. In less-than-overt operations, it does routinely occur that various points of contact occur from time to time between mutually hostile, if not actively conflicting agencies. Such interludes do not require any successful bargain be intended or struck.

With this in mind, let's move on to Rohan Gunaratna (http://www.iht.com/articles/87151.html), author of Inside Al-Qaeda: Global Network of Terror (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0425191141/104-2466815-2071120?v=glance):

...I have examined several tens of thousands of documents recovered from Al Qaeda and Taliban sources. In addition to listening to 240 tapes taken from Al Qaeda's central registry, I debriefed several Al Qaeda and Taliban detainees. I could find no evidence of links between Iraq and Al Qaeda. The documentation and interviews indicated that Al Qaeda regarded Saddam, a secular leader, as an infidel. ...He did not transfer chemical and biological weapons to terrorist groups, probably because he knew that they could one day be used against his secular regime.

I'll stop this tour of less biased sources for now with some of Senator Byrd's comments (http://www.slaw.neu.edu/students/nuslaws/byrdcomments.html) on White House hyping and distortion of intelligence regarding Iraq. It's well worth reading his entire statement.

I will be happy to help more at your sincere request. Or you can just try attentively reading regularly from a wider variety of sources: The truth may be a little bit uncomfortable and frightening, but you'll feel better about yourself in the end.

Hype,

Ex-Klansman Byrd's comments? That's hillarious!!! :D

What a waste of fucking time it is to argue over who's sources are more accurate.

When will you people get it through your thick skulls? As far as these terrorists are concerned, ANYONE who does not share their twisted views is an enemy. It matters not that you are an ally of Israel or the US.

Hype,

As far as these terrorists are concerned, ANYONE who does not share their twisted views is an enemy. It matters not that you are an ally of Israel or the US.

Uhmmm. Who was it that said, 'You are either with us or against us' (http://www.cnn.com/2001/US/11/06/gen.attack.on.terror/)

spectacular point dsdsds. But the difference is that America's god is the one *True* god, so its ok for us to make statements like that.

Yes ds, good point. Way to point out my poor wording. What I meant to say was: ANYONE who does not share their twisted views deserves to die. Last I checked, Bush has never publicly stated that all non-Christians should convert or die.

Well he did say that the War was a crusade...

A vigorous concerted movement for a cause or against an abuse. This is one of the definitions of the word crusade. What don't you understand Undecided?

A Crusade is a Christian movement, like Jihad is a Islamic one. You don't hear Muslims calling for a Crusade? Do you?

immane1: "Ex-Klansman Byrd's comments?"
What? Please explain. Why is this Senator an inaccurate source, and what has he ever had to do with the KKK?

A long time ago Byrd was part of the KKK. He has since grown-up.

my enemy's enemy is my friend

in the late 90's, as Colin Powell has stated, an al-Qaeda team was sent to Baghdad to talk to Saddam about a possible partnership

even if it never took place, this was a strategic threat.
if someone was to declare war on al-Qaeda on sept.10/2001, it would be unacceptable.
in a post-9/11 world, pre-emption and strategic threats are taken more heavily into consideration

candy: "A long time ago Byrd was part of the KKK. He has since grown-up."

Thanks. Byrd's past had escaped me, and I stand corrected:

“Becoming involved with the KKK was the most egregious mistake I have ever made,” Byrd said. “Upon introspection, I find the entire episode difficult to understand. The only conclusion I can draw for myself is that I was sorely afflicted by a dangerous tunnel vision, the kind of tunnel vision that, I fear, leads young people today to join gangs or hate groups.” -Sen. Robert Byrd (http://www.da.wvu.edu/archives/990904/news/990904,03,02.html)

I think it's nevertheless reasonable to say that Sen Byrd is now become a voice for reason amid the most contentious issues of our day. So there's even hope for you, Pothead. ;)

I've brought this over from another thread (http://www.sciforums.com/showthread.php?t=41920)- Arditezza 31oct04 0705am :


Here are the facts;

These are all from various news sources, and not all from American intelligence. You can't tell me that there are not ties between the two. Anyone who believes that there are no ties, has got to be ignorant.

*
*
*
*
*
*
[points of evidence Arditezza provides (that were clipped/plagiarized from this article (http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/989201/posts) found at Free Republic (http://www.freerepublic.com/home.htm)) will be examined in specific below, as my time permits- I'll start with the first 2, and encourage others to debunk this nonsense]

Now please refute all of this evidence and tell me that Iraq did not support al-Queda before AND after the attacks on the U.S.

As I've already mentioned in this thread-

"Understand, evidence of cooperation, in credible intelligence or journalism, requires more than disjointed accounts of a shadowy meeting. Making such a case requires establishing common interests, and showing a coherent chain of events with even circumstantial evidence indicating substantial cooperation.

Faulty evidence of support for Al-Qaeda includes reference to the presence of Al-Qaeda agents, as in their presence in the United States- This can be couched to sound shadowy, as in times when the USA was accused of officially harboring the IRA.

Faulty evidence also includes construing contact with co-operation. In less-than-overt operations, it does routinely occur that various points of contact occur from time to time between mutually hostile, if not actively conflicting agencies. Such interludes do not require any successful bargain be intended or struck."

I would also emphasize that co-operation between Saddam Hussein's Baathist government and al-Qaeda would have required at least some common political and ideological objectives between the two. Saddam and al-Qaeda did not share the same objectives regarding the United States, or the Mideast, when it comes to forms of Arab government. During the periods surrounding the first and second WTC attacks, Saddam was in a mode of avoiding confrontation with the USA. Within Iraq, Saddam consistently repressed any political movement in Iraq besides his own. He did not allow al-Qaeda, or other fundamentalist groups any breathing-room in Baathist Iraq- But his overthrow at US hands certainly did.

With that understanding, let's take Richard Miniter (http://www.washtimes.com/op-ed/20030922-090026-8355r.htm)'s "evidence" piece by piece.


* Abdul Rahman Yasin was the only member of the al Qaeda cell that detonated the 1993 World Trade Center bomb to remain at large in the Clinton years. He fled to Iraq. U.S. forces recently discovered a cache of documents in Tikrit, Saddam's hometown, that show that Iraq gave Mr. Yasin both a house and monthly salary.

Abdel Rahman Yassin (AKA Abboud Yassin) was arrested in 1994[/i] (http://www.gulf-news.com/Articles/news.asp?ArticleID=53288) by Saddam's people on arrival in Iraq after the 1st 1993 WTC attacks, and he was held out as a bargaining-chip (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/2022991.stm), to be handed over to US authorities at the brink of the US invasion. During the chaos of the invasion, Yassin has since disappeared. I suppose you could construe Iraqi prison as a "house with a monthly salary", and imprisonment as state sponsorship, but I think it's obvious that such asn interpretation stretches the truth more than a bit.



* Bin Laden met at least eight times with officers of Iraq's Special Security Organization, a secret police agency run by Saddam's son Qusay, and met with officials from Saddam's mukhabarat, its external intelligence service, according to intelligence made public by Secretary of State Colin Powell, who was speaking before the United Nations Security Council on February 6, 2003.

This is ridiculous as evidence of collusion. As explained in this Peter S. Canellos / Bryan Bender (http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0803-04.htm) article, in the political underworld, contacts do not equate to collaborations:

''While there have been a number of promising intelligence leads hinting at possible meetings between Al Qaeda members and elements of the former Baghdad regime, nothing has been yet shown demonstrating that these potential contacts were historically any more significant than the same level of communication maintained between Osama bin Laden and ruling elements in a number of Iraq's Persian Gulf neighbors, including Saudi Arabia, Iran, Yemen, Qatar, and Kuwait''

"...current and former intelligence specialists caution that such meetings occur just as often between enemies as friends. Spies frequently make contact with rogue groups to size up their intentions, gauge their strength, or try to infiltrate their ranks, they said. The United States sometimes seeks such contacts..."

That's all I'm going to address of this post for now, but I plan to revisit, and encourage anyone else interested to look into these allegations. They may seem tired, but it is a familiar pattern now, an attempt to distort history by repeating unsubstantiated allegations and dithering the contexts of various component stories.

I would also add that pasting in a quote without providing the source, as Arditezza has done, even representing it as his own words, is impolite. It forces anyone refuting his argument to spend considerably more time refuting it than Arditezza has invested, and that's not fair. Writing your own opinion with minimal corroboration is not unkind, but using someone else's words as if they are your own, without a link to the source, casts doubt on how well-informed and honest you are personally.

free Republic is the largest piece a shiznit I have ever seen. (I would say the same from a site like Moveon.org kids)



it's basically the same to me than linking to Project for the New American Century.

Also, I didn't get it from freerepublic.com. I got them from another source. They aren't plagarized, as I stated that the opinion was not my own and come from a different source.

You got them all from one source, and then insinuated that they were your own list of press snippets. They all came from one Richard Miniter article that you did not mention or link to through any source in any way. Here's how you introduced the points you made:


First of all, I'm a she, not a he. Here are the facts;

These are all from various news sources, and not all from American intelligence. You can't tell me that there are not ties between the two. Anyone who believes that there are no ties, has got to be ignorant.

What you meant to convey (if anything at all) about your sources doesn't really matter. I was only bitching in an aside, about how very much longer it takes to refute a post like yours, than it takes for one to slap together someone else's thoughts. You have asked that we consider an unmentioned Mr. Miniter's collection of past headlines and story fragments as some sort of proof of past events, with present and future implications. I'll revisit each of his "facts" as I have time to.

Now you are just nit-picking, I never stated they were my own. They came from this site; http://www.techcentralstation.com/092503F.html

Which is an article by Miniter. The snippets are from other articles that he took from other sources, so not really his own, either. All sources were cited in the individual points.

Your points however, are from sources that are as sensational as they are dishonest and totally biased. Are you telling me that the 10+ sources that were cited in Miniters article are all some grand conspiracy to link the two? It must have taken great effort for all of those people involved to come up with this theory and be able to back it all up with physical proof like documents, photographs and eye-witness accounts.

I cited this article because it has the most information in one place. It's all things i have heard before, I was saving time but I also did the homework and made sure that they were all provable by looking up the sources.

" Are you telling me that the 10+ sources that were cited in Miniters article are all some grand conspiracy to link the two?"

You are getting warmer. I am telling you that they are all a product of wishful thinking. Al-Qaeda and Saddam's regime were not compatible in ideology, goals, or tactics. I'll take each point apart in turn.

Now I'll turn to the 3rd one:

* Sudanese intelligence officials told me that their agents had observed meetings between Iraqi intelligence agents and bin Laden starting in 1994, when bin Laden lived in Khartoum.

No, wait- I've already debunked that one. IT DOESN"T MEAN ANYTHING IF IRAQI OPERATIVES MET QAEDA OPERATIVES! CIA operatives meet and have met with al-Qaeda operatives. Saddam likely made attempts to infiltrate Qaeda. The CIA most likely requested he do so in Qaeda's earlier years, and during Saddam's cooperative (with CIA) years.

No, wait- I've already debunked that one. IT DOESN"T MEAN ANYTHING IF IRAQI OPERATIVES MET QAEDA OPERATIVES! CIA operatives meet and have met with al-Qaeda operatives. Saddam likely made attempts to infiltrate Qaeda. The CIA most likely requested he do so in Qaeda's earlier years, and during Saddam's cooperative (with CIA) years.

Strawman argument. The two do not operate in the same way. They are not the same agency, and they do not play by the same rules.

And, please provide proof to your claims that the CIA made Saddam converse with Osama.

In fact, how about you provide proof that Saddam was ever influenced by the CIA to operate as a intelligence gatherer.

"how about you provide proof that Saddam was ever influenced by the CIA to operate as a intelligence gatherer."

(sigh) OK. Don't think me unkind. Words are hard to find. But then you Goo


Goo

Goooooogle them: Saddam worked for the CIA.
UPI (http://www.rise4news.net/Saddam-CIA.html)

Do I need to educate you further on this basic and established fact?

Just an amusing bit of trivia. The Miles Copeland quoted in that article is the father of Stewart Copeland of The Police, and Miles Copeland the third, who founded I.R.S. records. The secret agent guy that is the symbol for I.R.S. is supposed to be a tribute to their father, and his career in the C.I.A.

The fact that Saddam, between 1950-1990 was a tool for the CIA, does not prove one iota that he provided the CIA with intelligence reports. None of your "report" is established fact, just heresay as there seems to be no names to attribute these accusations to so that people could be questioned. There is no truth, when you cannot cite your actual sources so that they can be questioned by other sources to back up the story.

But, giving someone weapons and intelligence so that we have a ally in a region that we once saw as key does not mean that we used Saddam himself for information. In fact, it cites that there was a dentist that was involved with the CIA past the Iran-Iraq war, but that Saddam was, in your reports account, "was known as having no class. He was a thug -- a cutthroat." and that the Baath party was, " "as its instrument.".

The CIA provided the Iraqi Baath Party and the Iraqi military with support and information, not the other way around. It's important to understand that Saddam Hussein was never an intelligent man, he borrowed his power from the Egyptian and American governments when he could. When exposed for doing so by his enemies both within Iraq and outside the Iraq borders, he turned on both.

addam Hussein was never an intelligent man, he borrowed his power from the Egyptian and American governments when he could. When exposed for doing so by his enemies both within Iraq and outside the Iraq borders, he turned on both.
How is that not intelligent? What would be more intelligent?

He was a tool. You don't need to be smart to be used by other governments to accomplish their goals. How smart was he to overestimate his reach, and underestimate his enemies? Iran eventually was used against him to bring him down.

It's funny how much credit people give Saddam, when the CIA put him there and the Egyptian government kept him in power. When it was clear that he was more of a danger than an asset, he was removed.

"When it was clear that he was more of a danger than an asset, he was removed."

Close: When it was wrongly assumed by the Bush Administration that an orderly transition to a pro-American government was achievable, the entire Ba'ath apparatus was removed, creating a sudden power vacuum destined to culminate in civil war, and the foreign occupation lacks and will always lack the means to prevent (it can only prolong) its initiation.