[shamrock_uk]

See it's people like you who make those kind of statements as if it's fact....as if you KNOW what they are thinking so that you can claim what they were doing even though they never said it...and never implied it...you just Bet to hell they were thinking this or that... brother....

And equally, it's people like you who make these kinds of statements as if they're fact. But lets not make this personal, as that has no place in a debate. Instead, I shall answer your accusation with a bundle of fact, because I have no interest in basing my opinions on anything but.

Allow me to quote from the 9/11 Commission panel responding directly to allegations by Bush and Cheney about Iraq and al-Qaeda links:

In a direct challenge to recent assertions by both President George W Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, the special bipartisan commission investigating the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks against New York and the Pentagon has found "no credible evidence" of any operational link between Iraq and al-Qaeda.

While the commission, which has had access to highly classified U.S. intelligence, said that al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden had sought contacts with and support from former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein after his expulsion from Sudan in 1994, those appeals were ignored.

Of course they were ignored, the last people Saddam would have wanted to work with were Islamic fundamentalists. He's a Ba'athist not an Islamist.

Contacts between Iraq and al-Qaeda after bin Laden moved to Afghanistan "do not appear to have resulted in a collaborative relationship," according to the commission's report, which was released Wednesday morning. It added that two senior al-Qaeda officials now in U.S. custody "have adamantly denied that any ties existed between al-Qaeda and Iraq."

Yep, looking like they had a great working relationship here.

Briefly to respond to John D:

Are these quotes not in the report John D? Do you still think it's 'horse manure'? They are clearly referring to long-term possibilities of a relationship here. You can choose to interpret them as only saying they "didn't have a relationship for the attacks of Sep 11th" but it seems pretty clear upon reading that the intention of the wording is "didn't have a relationship, period".

Asked about Cheney's most recent remarks at a Tuesday press conference, Bush declined to answer directly, insisting instead that Hussein had ties with "terrorist organizations," of which he cited only the late Abu Nidal, a Palestinian who split from Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat in the 1970s and created his own terrorist group.

Bush finally stops lying through his teeth months too late.

General Wesley Clark identifies the push by the administration to pin the two together:

"there was a concerted effort during the fall of 2001, starting immediately after 9/11, to pin 9/11 and the terrorism problem on Saddam Hussein." "It came from the White House, it came from other people around the White House. It came from all over. I got a call on 9/11. I was on CNN, and I got a call at my home saying, 'you got to say this is connected. This is state-sponsored terrorism. This has to be connected to Saddam Hussein.'"

I mean, this guy was one of your top military men (the top?). Surely you're not going to tell me he's making this all up? The Bush administration wanted a link, even before September 11th ever happened.


Diplomats (who are, after all the Middle-East experts):

Retired senior U.S. diplomats and intelligence officials have long doubted any operational link between al-Qaeda and Hussein, as noted by former U.S. Ambassador to Saudi Arabia Chas Freeman, who signed a statement by former top-ranking diplomats and military officials that was released here Tuesday, denouncing U.S. policy in Iraq and the Middle East. "(Hussein) and Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda were mortal enemies during this period," Freeman told reporters, adding that administration assertions that the two had such links before the war were regarded by specialists in the region as "ludicrous." "Why the vice president continues to make that claim beats me," said another former top diplomat, Ambassador Robert Oakley. "I have no idea."

Former Bush administration intelligence figures:

"Our conclusion was that Saddam would certainly not provide weapons of mass destruction or WMD knowledge to al Qaeda because they were mortal enemies," said Greg Thielmann, who worked at the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research on weapons intelligence until last fall. "Saddam would have seen al Qaeda as a threat, and al Qaeda would have opposed Saddam as the kind of secular government they hated." Other Bush veterans concur that the evidence linking Al Qaeda to Iraq was overblown. "Anyone who followed al Qaeda for a living would not have considered Iraq to be in the top tier of countries to be worried about," said Roger Cressey, who left the administration last fall after working on counterterrorism issues at the National Security Council and as a top aide to cyberterrorism czar Richard Clarke. "I'd argue that Iraq would be in the third tier." By contrast, Cressey said, Iran would rate in "the top tier." And Flynt Leverett, who worked on Middle East issues at the National Security Council until earlier this year and is now with the Brookings Institution's Saban Center for Middle East Policy, said that some administration officials pushed the intelligence envelope on the Qaeda connection. "After September 11, there was a concrete effort by policy makers, particularly in the Pentagon and the vice president's office, to come up with links between al Qaeda and Iraq."

Donald Rumsfeld catching himself out:

"to my knowledge, I have not seen any strong, hard evidence that links the two"

Comments from Al Gore

"The evidence now shows clearly that Saddam did not want to work with Osama bin Laden at all, much less give him weapons of mass destruction." So claimed Al Gore in an August 7 speech."

Ranking members of the Senate Intelligence Committee:

"There is evidence of exaggeration" of Iraq-al Qaeda links, said Carl Levin, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, who recently launched an investigation into prewar intelligence. "Clearly the al Qaeda connection was hyped and exaggerated, in my view," said Senator Dianne Feinsten. Chimed in Jane Harman, the ranking Democrat on the House Select Committee on Intelligence, as reported in the National Journal, "The evidence on the al Qaeda links was sketchy." Jay Rockefeller, the ranking Democrat on the Senate side of that committee, agrees. "The evidence about the ties was not compelling."

I'm sure you'll discount this one out of hand because it was commissioned by the UN, but:

A United Nations terrorism committee has found no evidence of links between Iraq and the al-Qaeda network, which it said had sprouted a third generation of suicide bombers in Morocco and elsewhere. The committee, charged with reporting on al-Qaeda and remnants of Afghanistan's Taliban, released a 42-page report on the state of international terrorism following the September 11, 2001, attacks in the United States. "Nothing has come to our notice that would indicate links between Iraq and al-Qaeda," said Michael Chandler, one of five outside experts who prepared the report for the committee.

I might as well add this one in as there are no British documents as yet. This comes from a leaked intelligence document:

The classified document, written by defence intelligence staff three weeks ago, says there has been contact between the two in the past. But it assessed that any fledgling relationship foundered due to mistrust and incompatible ideologies. That conclusion flatly contradicts one of the main charges laid against Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein by the United States and Britain - that he has cultivated contacts with the group blamed for the 11 September attacks.

With specific reference to the connection between Saddam and September 11th and your claim that the administration never claimed that:

“We have never claimed that Saddam Hussein ... had either direction or control of 9/11.” – National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, 9/16/03

That's what they want you to believe of course. But look here:

President Bush sent a letter to Congress on 3/19/03 saying that the Iraq war was permitted specifically under legislation that authorized force against “nations, organizations, or persons who planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001.”

Also Cheney:

Vice President Cheney said on 9/14/03 “I think it's not surprising that people make that connection” between Saddam and 9/11

Here he offers no evidence for links, and clearly is encouraging the American public to continue making the connection that I referred to in my original post. How can you tell me I'm making falsehoods about the attempts of the administration to not discourage links when you see a quote like that?


As for the more general link between Saddam and Al-Qaeda:

There's overwhelming evidence there was a connection between al Qaeda and the Iraqi government. I am very confident that there was an established relationship there." - Vice President Cheney, 1/22/04

Yet the New York Times reported that according to documents

"Saddam Hussein warned his Iraqi supporters to be wary of joining forces with foreign Arab fighters entering Iraq to battle U.S. troops. The document provides another piece of evidence challenging the Bush administration contention of close cooperation between Saddam's regime and al Qaeda terrorists." [NY Times, 1/15/04]

I could go on for hours, but frankly, I'm getting bored and tired because its 3am. You are more than welcome to go on selectively interpreting the reports and playing with semantics about exactly what type of co-operation they did or did not engage in. You've heard it from the 9/11 Commission, the Senate Intelligence Committee, current and former Bush administration figures. I don't see how a greater body of evidence from so many separate sources can fail to convince people, when all you have is the word of an administration who hasn't been straight with the American people about the war from Day 1.

I think I'll leave you with this little gem from President Bush:

Bush said Wednesday that Saddam could use al Qaeda as a "forward army" that could attack the United States with weapons of mass destruction "and never leave a fingerprint behind."

I mean, come on! As if Osama would ever let himself be commanded by someone else. And as if Hussein would let anyone like that near him. These policy makers in the Bush administration just live in a different world to reality. That quote of his is straw-clutching at its very worst, and unfortunately some people just lap it up.

[ 11-02-2004, 10:41 PM: Message edited by: shamrock_uk ]