Iraq as a part of the Global War On Terrorism

[Vladimir]

http://www.weeklystandard.com/Conten...4/889pvpxc.asp

This ought to be big news. Throughout the early and mid-1990s, Saddam Hussein actively supported an influential terrorist group headed by the man who is now al Qaeda's second-in-command, according to an exhaustive study issued last week by the Pentagon. "Saddam supported groups that either associated directly with al Qaeda (such as the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, led at one time by bin Laden's deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri) or that generally shared al Qaeda's stated goals and objectives." According to the Pentagon study, Egyptian Islamic Jihad was one of many jihadist groups that Iraq's former dictator funded, trained, equipped, and armed.

I'm sure you're all just as shocked as I am. Mr. Saadam musn't have been too happy about getting owned in '91.

[Fragony]

Egyptian Islamic Jihad <--muslim brotherhood


^---not nice at all.

[Adrian II]

This ought to be big news.

Lol!

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Saddam's links to al-Qaeda refuted
Warren Strobel, Washington
March 12, 2008

Advertisement
AN EXHAUSTIVE review of more than 600,000 Iraqi documents captured after the 2003 US invasion has found no evidence Saddam Hussein's regime had any operational links with al-Qaeda's terrorist network.

The Pentagon-sponsored study, scheduled for release this week, did confirm that Saddam's regime provided some support to other terrorist groups, particularly in the Middle East, US officials said yesterday. However, his security services were directed primarily against Iraqi exiles, Shiite Muslims, Kurds and others he considered enemies.

The study of the regime's archives found no documents indicating a "direct operational link" between Saddam's Iraq and al-Qaeda before the invasion, according to a US official familiar with the report.

He and others spoke on condition of anonymity because the study is not due to be shared with Congress and released before today.

US President George Bush and his aides used Saddam's alleged relationship with al-Qaeda, along with Iraq's supposed weapons of mass destruction, as arguments for invading Iraq after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Then defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld claimed in September 2002 that the US had "bulletproof" evidence of co-operation between the radical Islamic terrorist group and Saddam's secular dictatorship.

Then secretary of state Colin Powell cited links between Saddam and al-Qaeda in a February 2003 speech to the United Nations Security Council to build international support for the invasion. Almost all of the examples Mr Powell cited turned out to be based on false or misinterpreted intelligence.

The study, Saddam and Terrorism: Emerging Insights from Captured Iraqi Documents, was essentially completed last year and has been undergoing what a US intelligence official called a "painful" declassification review.

It was produced by a Government-funded think tank, the Institute for Defence Analyses, under contract to the US Joint Forces Command.

Spokesmen for the Joint Forces Command refused to comment until the report was released. One of the report's authors, Kevin Woods, also declined to comment.

The issue has played a role in this year's presidential campaign. Republican nominee John McCain mocked Democratic hopeful Barack Obama recently for saying he would keep some US troops in Iraq if al-Qaeda established a base there.

"I have some news. Al-Qaeda is in Iraq," Senator McCain said.

Senator Obama retorted: "There was no such thing as al-Qaeda in Iraq until George Bush and John McCain decided to invade."
In fact, al-Qaeda in Iraq did not emerge until 2004, a year after the invasion.

The new study is not the first to reject the Saddam and al-Qaeda link. A 2006 report by the Senate Intelligence Committee concluded Saddam was "distrustful of al-Qaeda and viewed Islamic extremists as a threat to his regime, refusing all requests from al-Qaeda to provide material or operational support".

I am looking forward to the next spectacular Pentagon study saying that maybe Saddam didn't have weapons of mass destruction, but he certainly had, you know, soldiers and weapons and stuff...

[Tribesman]

This ought to be big news.

5 years on and despite all the evidence you are still desperately trying to convince yourself that you were not sold a pile of crap

Throughout the early and mid-1990s, Saddam Hussein actively supported an influential terrorist group headed by the man who is now al Qaeda's second-in-command

So many years before EIJ became linked with al-qaida it got Iraqi funding , yep thats news of a bulletproof link .
Hey I am sure you could dig up a link that says Iraq funded Fatah , JEPAK and the MEK too , which means them Iraqis must be really really bad ....but then again since America funds them they can't be that bed eh .

BTW vlad , them awakening councils you had a topic on . Have you noticed any pattern this past week in attacks on US forces and areas where the US sponsored terrorists have withdrawn from the sponsorship deal ?

[Vladimir]

Lol!

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Saddam's links to al-Qaeda refuted
Warren Strobel, Washington
March 12, 2008

Advertisement
AN EXHAUSTIVE review of more than 600,000 Iraqi documents captured after the 2003 US invasion has found no evidence Saddam Hussein's regime had any operational links with al-Qaeda's terrorist network.

The Pentagon-sponsored study, scheduled for release this week, did confirm that Saddam's regime provided some support to other terrorist groups, particularly in the Middle East, US officials said yesterday. However, his security services were directed primarily against Iraqi exiles, Shiite Muslims, Kurds and others he considered enemies.

The study of the regime's archives found no documents indicating a "direct operational link" between Saddam's Iraq and al-Qaeda before the invasion, according to a US official familiar with the report.

He and others spoke on condition of anonymity because the study is not due to be shared with Congress and released before today.

US President George Bush and his aides used Saddam's alleged relationship with al-Qaeda, along with Iraq's supposed weapons of mass destruction, as arguments for invading Iraq after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Then defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld claimed in September 2002 that the US had "bulletproof" evidence of co-operation between the radical Islamic terrorist group and Saddam's secular dictatorship.

Then secretary of state Colin Powell cited links between Saddam and al-Qaeda in a February 2003 speech to the United Nations Security Council to build international support for the invasion. Almost all of the examples Mr Powell cited turned out to be based on false or misinterpreted intelligence.

The study, Saddam and Terrorism: Emerging Insights from Captured Iraqi Documents, was essentially completed last year and has been undergoing what a US intelligence official called a "painful" declassification review.

It was produced by a Government-funded think tank, the Institute for Defence Analyses, under contract to the US Joint Forces Command.

Spokesmen for the Joint Forces Command refused to comment until the report was released. One of the report's authors, Kevin Woods, also declined to comment.

The issue has played a role in this year's presidential campaign. Republican nominee John McCain mocked Democratic hopeful Barack Obama recently for saying he would keep some US troops in Iraq if al-Qaeda established a base there.

"I have some news. Al-Qaeda is in Iraq," Senator McCain said.

Senator Obama retorted: "There was no such thing as al-Qaeda in Iraq until George Bush and John McCain decided to invade."
In fact, al-Qaeda in Iraq did not emerge until 2004, a year after the invasion.

The new study is not the first to reject the Saddam and al-Qaeda link. A 2006 report by the Senate Intelligence Committee concluded Saddam was "distrustful of al-Qaeda and viewed Islamic extremists as a threat to his regime, refusing all requests from al-Qaeda to provide material or operational support".

I am looking forward to the next spectacular Pentagon study saying that maybe Saddam didn't have weapons of mass destruction, but he certainly had, you know, soldiers and weapons and stuff...

*sigh* You're really fascinated with that tree aren't you?

"Saddam supported groups that either associated directly with al Qaeda (such as the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, led at one time by bin Laden's deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri) or that generally shared al Qaeda's stated goals and objectives."

Who here actually knows what al Qaeda is?

[Beirut]

Hey, some people still believe the Poles did attack that German radio station and start WWII.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

generally shared al Qaeda's stated goals and objectives

Unfortunately, this isn't very compelling.

Al Qaeda's goals include such things as keeping non-muslim military etc. away from the holiest sites in Islam; a reduction of Western influence throughout the Muslim world; the resolution of the Palestinian question on terms that favor the Palestinians....

These are hardly "contentious" positions in the Arab/Muslim world (though I suspect the MEANS of achieving them would be more so), so finding other groups that "generally share" them isn't difficult. Means very little in terms of assessing active coordination and/or networking amongst such groups.


Best evidence to date suggests that Saddam held discussions with Al Queda leadership just often enough, and routed just enough money their way, to secure their non-presence in Iraq. It's not as though the Wahabist leadership cadre in AQ would have thought very highly of Saddam. Saddam really can't be thought of as a "poster child" for the Muslim faith, regardless of which Muslim sect you are/espouse.


As a leader, Saddam's first, second, and a considerable portion of all other thoughts up to his last thought, were most probably focused on maintaining himself at the top of his power pyramid. He was demonstrably willing to kill anyone who represented a credible threat -- and quite a few who were at best incredible threats -- to his regime. He would likely have viewed AQ more as a threat than a cause to be supported. A re-established caliphate would NOT keep Sadam in power -- and would likely have given him the same finish he ended up getting. Since he couldn't kill that threat, he fobbed it off as cheaply as he could.

[Fragony]

Hey, some people still believe the Poles did attack that German radio station and start WWII.

In the end, you are saying that they are too stupid to have played us.

[Adrian II]

Best evidence to date suggests that Saddam held discussions with Al Queda leadership just often enough, and routed just enough money their way, to secure their non-presence in Iraq.

Where is this evidence? As for the rest of your post, I couldn't agree more.

[Evil_Maniac From Mars]

Hey, some people still believe the Poles did attack that German radio station and start WWII.

Even then, it would have been our fault. Everyone knows Poles don't like Charlie and his Orchestra.

[JR-]

i have always kind off suspected that after 911 america realised that there was an entire generation of nutcase's that had gone through the al-quada training camps, and more importantly that 911 represented a call to arms for every single one of them.

the solution; create televised havoc in a likely muslim country under the banner of the west that would draw as many of the nutcase's as possible into terribly efficient meat-grinder.

yes it has cost 4,000 american lives over the previous five years, but it has knocked on the head tens of thousands of jihadi's drawn from all over the world who individually had the power to wreak mayhem in the west.

was it worth it? well, i'm not a statistician, nor a mystic, but perhaps it was a gamble judged worthwhile..............

[Tribesman]

but it has knocked on the head tens of thousands of jihadi's drawn from all over the world who individually had the power to wreak mayhem in the west.

If I recall correctly thats just the line they sold about fallujah , it was swarming with foriegn fighters from all over the world .
Turned out to be bollox didn't it .

But anyway on a current note not only do we have the Sunni awakening councils pulling out of the surge deal and going back to attacking the coilition , now it looks like the mahdi militia have given up on their ceasefire

[Pannonian]

i have always kind off suspected that after 911 america realised that there was an entire generation of nutcase's that had gone through the al-quada training camps, and more importantly that 911 represented a call to arms for every single one of them.

the solution; create televised havoc in a likely muslim country under the banner of the west that would draw as many of the nutcase's as possible into terribly efficient meat-grinder.

yes it has cost 4,000 american lives over the previous five years, but it has knocked on the head tens of thousands of jihadi's drawn from all over the world who individually had the power to wreak mayhem in the west.

was it worth it? well, i'm not a statistician, nor a mystic, but perhaps it was a gamble judged worthwhile..............

Excellent plan, to fight them over there so we don't have to fight them over here. Except we did have to fight them over here, as a number of people carried bombs in their backpacks onto underground trains and buses, killing 50-odd. And they were explicitly inspired by the Iraq affair, meaning we wouldn't have had to fight them at all if we hadn't started fighting over there.

But I suppose this didn't affect Americans, so those 50-odd British lives don't count. After all, Britain still counts as "over there".

[El Diablo]

NEWS FLASH

America "actively supported and spocred" Saddam Hussien for a while (back when they were a good terrorist hotspot) similar to the Taliban who were also good terrorists once - because they fought the Russians.

(Although when terrorists fight the Russians they are called freedom fighters not terrorists. This is to avoid confusion on CNN.)

Soooooo if the US sponcered both the Taliban and Saddam - who sponcered Al Qaeda - the the US should go to the root of the axis of evil and bomb themselves.

Suppose that the consipracy theorists have got one there?

Note I am NOT anti-US I am anti-Iraq war and that includes the lap-dof like Blair that follwed.

[KukriKhan]

If I recall correctly thats just the line they sold about fallujah , it was swarming with foriegn fighters from all over the world .
Turned out to be bollox didn't it .

But anyway on a current note not only do we have the Sunni awakening councils pulling out of the surge deal and going back to attacking the coilition , now it looks like the mahdi militia have given up on their ceasefire

Which prompts (not "begs the question", please) the question(s):

-(1)can any force make Iraqis stop killing each other?

-(2)If so: How much force, and for how long?

-(3)is an average of 800 dead yanks per year (+unknown collateral damage) acceptable to (allegedly) prevent another 9-11?

If the answers are:
(1)no.
(2)100 years, and
(3)no.

then get the hell out of there. now.

Unless there's some other, previously unannounced, reason to stay; if so: now is a good time to announce the big reveal. Then maybe we'll approve the average .438 dead soldiers per day and $14 mil per day spent on that cesspool.

Heh. It'll probably turn out that 'nam was "cheaper".

[Tribesman]

kukri about #2 .
How many did Petraeus and the co-author of the strategy for Iraq say would be needed and for how long, (you know the co-author who said that the politicans changes to the surge plan made it unworkable) ?