CIA told Bush on September 21, 2001 there was no link between Iraq and al Qaeda

[Hurin_Rules]

Very interesting stuff, especially since the senators were NOT told the same thing and did NOT have access to this intelligence, as Bush, Cheney et al. have recently alleged.


Report: 9/11-Iraq link refuted days after attack
Magazine says administration refused to give key docs to Senate committee

Updated: 7:09 p.m. ET Nov. 22, 2005
Ten days after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, President Bush was advised that U.S. intelligence found no credible connection linking the attacks to the regime of Saddam Hussein, or evidence suggesting linkage between Saddam and the al-Qaida terrorist network, according to a published report.

The report, published Tuesday in The National Journal, cites government records, as well as present and former officials with knowledge of the issue. The information in the story, written by National Journal contributor Murray Waas, points to an abiding administration concern for secrecy that extended to keeping information from the Senate committee charged with investigating the matter.

In one of the Journal report's more compelling disclosures, Saddam is said to have viewed al-Qaida as a threat, rather than a potential ally.

Presidential brief
The president's daily brief, or PDB, for Sept. 21, 2001, was prepared at the request of President Bush, the Journal reported, who was said to be eager to determine whether any linkage between the Sept. 11 attacks and the Iraqi regime existed.

And a considerable amount of the Sept. 21 PDB found its way into a longer, more detailed Central Intelligence Agency assessment of the likelihood of an al-Qaida-Iraq connection.

The Journal story reports that that assessment was released to Bush, Vice President Cheney, then-national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, then-Secretary of State Colin Powell, and other senior policy-makers in the Bush administration.

The Senate Intelligence Committee has requested from the White House the detailed CIA assessment, as well as the Sept. 21 PDB and several other PDBs, as part of the committee's continuing inquiry into whether the Bush administration misrepresented intelligence information in the months before the start of the war with Iraq in March 2003.

The Bush administration has refused to surrender these documents.

“Indeed,” the Journal story reported, citing congressional sources, “the existence of the September 21 PDB was not disclosed to the Intelligence Committee until the summer of 2004.”

Long-alleged connection
After Sept. 11, the administration insisted that a connection existed between Iraq and al-Qaida. President Bush, in an October 2002 speech in Cincinnati, said the United States had “learned that Iraq has trained al-Qaida members in bomb-making and poisons and gas.”

And Vice President Cheney, in a September 2003 appearance on NBC's “Meet the Press,” alleged there was “a relationship between Iraq and al-Qaida that stretched back through most of the decade of the ’90s.”

Click for related content
Transcript of Cheney’s “Meet the Press” appearance

But the National Journal report said that the few believable reports of contact between Iraq and al-Qaida “involved attempts by Saddam Hussein to monitor the terrorist group.”

Saddam considered al-Qaida “as well as other theocratic radical Islamist organizations as a potential threat to his secular regime,” the Journal reported. “At one point, analysts believed, Saddam considered infiltrating the ranks” of al-Qaida with Iraqi intelligence operatives as a way to get more information about how the organization worked, the Journal said.

Journal: Little has changed
The Journal story asserts that little has changed to refute the initial absence of information linking Saddam and the al-Qaida network.

“In the four years since Bush received the briefing, according to highly placed government officials, little evidence has come to light to contradict the CIA's original conclusion that no collaborative relationship existed” between Iraq and al-Qaida, the Journal reported.

Reporter Waas quotes one former administration official, whose assessment is a problematic contradiction of the administration’s longstanding assertions:

“What the President was told on September 21 was consistent with everything he has been told since — that the evidence was just not there.”

© 2005 MSNBC Interactive



http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10164478/

[Gawain of Orkeny]

Isnt this in reality an old story? You certainly are relentless in your pursuit of Bush and the Iraq war. We did all this long ago. Bush said he asked if Iraq was involved in 911 and was told no. So we attacked Afgahnastan.


<< Previous Page

PRE-BUSH timeline/list of Iraq's Ties To Al Queda
by Sam Pender

Well, a library in Illinois was selling off some of its magazines on ebay, and I was able to get all of the US News and TIME magazines from 1997/8/9/00. I've also been reading a few interesting books published before 2000.
So, in the interest of playing the who-lied game, I compiled this list of Iraq's ties to Al Queda using only sources that are NOT from the Bush admininstration. Most come from before the current President was even a candidate. No Bush lies in this list. If you find lies....their Clinton lies. (and if such "lies" are found, I'm eager to see the equal and fair outcry of rage that Clinton-lied as has been given to the President).


Anyway, as many of these reports are compiled, I am the source of reference. Please point out the Clinton lies and I will direct you to the sources that I compiled for said lie. Also, some of the reports are listed a few times. Sorry about that. It's just an example of how well corroborated a certain report really is.

I hope you'll take the time to read this list of CLINTON LIES and comment accordingly.

Thanks -BR ------------------------

1/14/1991 Just before the outbreak of war [in 1991] Iraq sent hit squads around the world to attack diplomats and government officials of Coalition nations. Western intelligence agencies and their collaborators picked this up, and as ambassador I’d seen reports about this in Bangkok. …I went to my office, where I was handed urgent papers from a collectivity of intelligence organizations. They revealed that an Iraqi terrorist group had assembled in Bangkok with rocket-propelled grenade launchers and an array of other weapons, with which they planned to attack the U.S., Israeli, and Australian embassies. …Later there were some arrests of Iraqis in Thailand, and caches of arms were found. So the terrorist threat was real, not imaginary.-UNSCOM Chairman Dr. Richard Butler

1/17/91 * Two days after the start of the last war against Iraq in 1991, Iraqi agents tried to blow up a U.S. government cultural center in the Philippines. The bomb detonated prematurely, killing one Iraqi and severely injuring another. In the aftermath, the United States discovered more than two dozen Iraqi agents throughout the region.

1/30/91 "[America] will not be excluded from the operations and explosions of the Arab and Muslim mujahidin and all the honest strugglers in the world."-Saddam Hussein

2/15/1991 "Every Iraqi child, woman, and old man knows how to take revenge...They will avenge the pure blood that has been shed no matter how long it takes. Baghdad Domestic Service, February 15, 1991 (State-controlled)

circa 1/1/1992 1992 - Osama bin Laden made a proposal to his rivals in the pro-Iran Shiite terrorist organization Hizballah that they set aside their differences, so that they can cooperate in a common objective of killing United States troops stationed in Asia and Africa.

3/5/1993 [1993 World Trade Center bomber ] Abdul Rahman Yasin flees the United States for Iraq where he lives peacefully until his CBS interview years later.

4/1/1993 Kuwaiti Intelligence discovers an Iraqi IIS plot to assassinate former President George Bush during his April visit. [Author's note: in keeping with the tactic of a state-sponsor of terrorism, the attack was to have been carried out by terrorists not IIS operatives.]

6/27/1993 U.S. missile strike is launched against Baghdad on basis of "compelling evidence" that Iraq was involved in the April 1993 assassination attempt on former President Bush in Kuwait.

6/27/93 US launches cruise missile at Iraqi intelligence headquarters in retaliation for assassination plot against former President Bush [a plot that had been discovered 3-4 months earlier] [Author's note: while Clinton Administration officials deny that the retaliation strike was tied to the 6/24 wave of arrests in NYC or the 1993 WTC attack, the retaliation strike was the only US attack ever conducted against Iraq with so little warning and military preparation. It was also the only attack to be conducted completely unilaterally (without even the support of the UK), and it was the fdirst attack to draw massive international condemnation despite the claim that it was in retaliation for a terrorist attack that would often be deemed an act of war.]

6/30/1993 Late June 1993 About 900 Iranian Pasadran/Iranian-Hezzbollah fighters established a logistics, training, and operations base in Somalia under the guise of the Somali SRG faction. About 1200 Al-saiqah Commandos (Iraqi intelligence and Special Security Forces) were also deployed to Somalia and together these forces trained and equipped over 15,000 Somalis for guerrilla operations against the US/UN forces based on the Vietnam and Aghanistan models.


6/1/1994 June 1994 Bin Laden meets with Iraqi Director of Intelligence Services Farouq Hijazi in Khartoum. Sudanese leader Hassan Al-Turabi mediated the meeting. The intent of the meeting was to try and get Bin Laden to work more closely with Iraq, but Baghdad is still hesitant of Bin Laden's closer ties to Tehran.

9/29/1994 "Does [America] realize the meaning of every Iraqi becoming a missile that can cross to countries and cities?" Saddam Hussein, September 29, 1994












Well normally I would just cur and paste. But theres so much here even trying to pick out highlites is too exausting.
Have fun if you dare


PRE-BUSH timeline/list of Iraq's Ties To Al Queda (http://www.thisrepublic.net/newarticles/iraqs_ties_to_al_queda.php)

[Red Harvest]

Scratching my head trying to figure out what Gawain's post has to do with the topic...

...also trying to see where the AQ link is in there...nope, don't see it. Perhaps an attempt or two made by OBL, and came to naught. It reads more like a refutation of an AQ link. Is that what was intended?

[Hurin_Rules]

Scratching my head trying to figure out what Gawain's post has to do with the topic...

...also trying to see where the AQ link is in there...nope, don't see it. Perhaps an attempt or two made by OBL, and came to naught. It reads more like a refutation of an AQ link. Is that what was intended?


Not quite sure. What that is a badly edited list on a far right wing blog that lists a number of events, none with supporting evidence, most of which have to do either with Saddam or with Al Qaeda, but not with a link between the two.

Example:


5/24/1997 Pakistan formally recognized the Taliban government.

circa 1/1/1998 1998 - Reporter John Miller of ABC News interviewed bin Laden, who said, in part, "Our battle against the Americans is far greater than our battle was against the Russians. We anticipate a black future for America. Instead of remaining United States, it shall end up separated states and shall have to carry the bodies of its sons back to America."

etc.

For some reason, we are to believe this rather than the estimates of the CIA.

[Redleg]

Scratching my head trying to figure out what Gawain's post has to do with the topic...

...also trying to see where the AQ link is in there...nope, don't see it. Perhaps an attempt or two made by OBL, and came to naught. It reads more like a refutation of an AQ link. Is that what was intended?


I believe his point was really rather simple to understand - this is old news.

Now what the article is attempting to tell us - I haven't really looked at yet, Primarily because I have been actually working and just got finished playing Total War Rome with some mods. So give me a few hours of sleep - and I will attempt to see what the article is telling me that might be new.

I suspect its that the intelligence was not based to Congress - as orginally thought by many - but given that I haven't read the article other then to skim it quickly - its just a guess. Edit: another quick read confirms that assessment - the article seems to be an attempt to contect the dots to a possilbe withholding of information to congress - and possibly attempting to prove misconduct on part of the adminstration in attempting to link AQ to Iraq and that particlur justification point for Invading Iraq.

[Tribesman]

Scratching my head trying to figure out what Gawain's post has to do with the topic...


I believe his point was really rather simple to understand - this is old news.

Thats funny as only last week Gawain again raised the issue of links between Saddam and Al-qaida , maybe that was a different Gawain who had forgotten there was no link eh ~;)

[Xiahou]

I suspect its that the intelligence was not based to Congress - as orginally thought by many - but given that I haven't read the article other then to skim it quickly - its just a guess. Edit: another quick read confirms that assessment - the article seems to be an attempt to contect the dots to a possilbe withholding of information to congress - and possibly attempting to prove misconduct on part of the adminstration in attempting to link AQ to Iraq and that particlur justification point for Invading Iraq.A PDB is only a brief though- it's not intelligence, but a summary of intelligence. The idea that its some sort of scandal for the Executive not to turn over it's briefing materials to the Legislative is reaching at best.

Not to mention its old news. ~;)

[Tachikaze]

Bush said he asked if Iraq was involved in 911 and was told no. So we attacked Afgahnastan.
Wow, the memories of Bush supporters can be so short!

At the outset of the invasion of Iraq by the US, Bush associated Saddam Hussein and Al Queda. The gullible American public was duped into thinking the US was attacking the people who had attacked the WTC and Pentagon. Being full of blind rage, lynch-mob mentality (see the Oxbow Incident), and information from Fox News, they didn't question what their government told them.

The Bush Regime specifically stated that there were multiple reasons for the invasion:

1) Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.
2) Iraq was involved in the WTC/Pentagon attacks.
3) Saddam Hussein was a bad man.

The US public was not going to support the war on the last one alone, since there were plenty of bad men to go around, so the other two were cited as additional justification. Wording was carefully spun so that the administration could find loopholes (bad intelligence, lying Nigerians, etc.) when the truth finally came out.

[Adrian II]

Isnt this in reality an old story?It is, the story of the pre-war lies and how they were spread is well known. At this post-war stage we are finding out more and more about who lied to whom about what. Most important for Americans seems to be the question of what did the President know and when did he know it. Of course for all the dead Iraqi's that question comes too late.

[Gawain of Orkeny]

Wow, the memories of Bush supporters can be so short!

At the outset of the invasion of Iraq by the US, Bush associated Saddam Hussein and Al Queda. The gullible American public was duped into thinking the US was attacking the people who had attacked the WTC and Pentagon. Being full of blind rage, lynch-mob mentality (see the Oxbow Incident), and information from Fox News, they didn't question what their government told them.


Its seems its you who have a short memory. Im just going by my feeble one. But I seem to remember a big stink about Bush taking a few guys in the backroom and asking if Iraq was behind 911 as soon as it happened. This was a big story back then. They investigated it and he was told no. End of story. Wasnt there also a big stink about some PDB to Rice that said something like that. Im not sure about that one.

Also if this report is right then the 911 commision is wrong.

[Tachikaze]

Perhaps a search back through the archives of CNN or even the Backroom may shead light on the issue.

Bush quite definitely tied the invasion of Iraq to the 2001 attacks in NY and Washington.

[Grey_Fox]

I believe Wolfowitz proposed bombing Iraq since there wern't that many targets in Afghanistan. I also believe that Rice and Wolfowitz started bringing up the discredited theory that Iraq had a hand in the car-bombing of the WTC.

[Tribesman]

...also trying to see where the AQ link is in there...nope, don't see it. Perhaps an attempt or two made by OBL, and came to naught. It reads more like a refutation of an AQ link. Is that what was intended?
Don't you see the link Red Harvest~D ~D ~D

What that is a badly edited list on a far right wing blog that lists a number of events, none with supporting evidence, most of which have to do either with Saddam or with Al Qaeda, but not with a link between the two.

You don't see it either Hurin~D ~D ~D

At this post-war stage we are finding out more and more about who lied to whom about what. Most important for Americans seems to be the question of what did the President know and when did he know it.
Neither does Adrian~D ~D ~D

Heres the link ,straight from Georges mouth over a year after he was told there was no link
Tuesday 18th March 2003....

It has a deep hatred of America and our friends. And it has aided, trained and harbored terrorists, including operatives of al Qaeda.



See the link now :stupido2: Over a year after he is told there is no link he addresses the American people who are about to go to war and the Iraqi people who are about to be warred upon and links Saddam and Al-Qaida even though he has known for a long time that the link is bollox .

Its seems its you who have a short memory. Im just going by my feeble one.
It seems George shares your memory Gawain ~D ~D ~D

[Gawain of Orkeny]

Clinton said the same thing.

[Gawain of Orkeny]

If you read the link I posted all those quotes are from the clinton years and have nothing to do with Bush. Of course I doubt anyone other than I read the whole thing. Whether they were true or not everyone believed them not just Bush.

[Tribesman]

Clinton said the same thing.
But did he say it 18 months after he was told it was rubbish ~D ~D ~D

[Red Harvest]

I'm still trying to see the links in the article somehow indicating that Clinton was claiming Iraq was behind AQ. Of course, we know that any mistakes in the whole WMD/AQ justification for Iraq are Clinton's...conservatives just haven't figure out how to make the link yet. :stupido2:

[Tachikaze]

Clinton said the same thing.
Clinton didn't invade Iraq. If Bush had merely said that there was a link between Iraq and Al Queda, then went back to playing golf, I wouldn't be as upset.

[Gawain of Orkeny]

Clinton didn't invade Iraq

He didnt invade Kosovo either. He has no balls. He again bombed them. Thats his idea of war.

[Red Harvest]

He didnt invade Kosovo either. He has no balls. He again bombed them. Thats his idea of war.
And your idea is going strutting in getting your balls shot off apparently. Clinton achieved the aim without invading. Brains beats balls in this comparison.

[Tribesman]

He has no balls.
Gawains world Gawains world party on excellent:thrasher: :thrasher:
And todays subject is ???????Bush and Iraq
Noooooooo dude you are getting it totally wrong man ,its bash a different president , then move on to how we won the war in Vietnam , but we could have been the best we could have been a contender uhhhh whats the subject again ?????
Just say no to drugs and right wing blogs children~D ~D ~D