BF2S Forums No Iraq-al Qaeda links found

Pug wrote:

Kmarion wrote:

Pug wrote:

Wait a minute Kerry.  I already crossed Cheney off my Xmas card list.  Do I send him a card or just an email?

Whatever the report says, I believe something had to be done...but the debatable part was - did it have to be us?

Just don't send him a shotgun. The point I am making is to read the actual report. I am seriously perplexed at how anyone can read it and then create a topic around the idea that it said there was no link.

People believe what they want to believe.  Proven daily here is it not?


BTW that guy Cheney shot was choppered into a hospital three blocks from my house.

True enough I guess. This is all looking back now of course. Forget the fact that Congress has always been privet to the same intelligence Bush had.  As a conservative I have lot's of other (domestic) reasons to be pissed off about when it comes to Bush.

Kmarion wrote:

http://a.abcnews.com/images/pdf/Pentagon_Report_V1.pdf

Saddam Hussein had plenty of ties to all sorts of terrorist groups, including radical Islamist jihadis.
(34-35)

The agent reports (Extract 25) that The Army of Muhammad is working with Osama bin Laden. …

    A later memorandum from the same collection to the Director of the IIS reports that the Army of Muhammad is endeavoring to receive assistance [from Iraq] to implement its objectives, and that the local IIS station has been told to deal with them in accordance with priorities previously established. The IIS agent goes on to inform the Director that “this organization is an offshoot of bin Laden, but that their objectives are similar but with different names that can be a way of camouflaging the organization.”

AoM had ambitious plans including attacks on American interests. On page 35, the Iraqis list their aims as attacking Jewish and American interests anywhere in the world, attacking American embassies, disrupting American oil supplies and tankers, and attacking the American military bases in the Middle East.The Iraqi support for AoM may not be an operational link, but it’s certainly a financial link that goes right to Osama bin Laden. The Iraqis certainly understood that much, and hoped to keep it quiet.

You might want to pay attention to the actual conclusion of the report as well.

One question remains regarding Iraq’s terrorism capability: Is there anything in the captured archives to indicate that Saddam had the will to use his terrorist capabilities directly against United States? Judging from examples of Saddam’s statements (Extract 34) before the 1991 Gulf War with the United tates, the answer is yes.

    In the years between the two Gulf Wars, UN sanctions reduced Saddam’s ability to shape regional and world events, steadily draining his military, economic, and military powers. The rise of Islamist fundamentalism in the region gave Saddam the opportunity to make terrorism, one of the few tools remaining in Saddam’s “coercion” toolbox, not only cost effective but a formal instrument of state power. Saddam nurtured this capability with an infrastructure supporting (1) his own particular brand of state terrorism against internal and external threats, (2) the state sponsorship of suicide operations, and (3) organizational relationships and “outreach programs” for terrorist groups. Evidence that was uncovered and analyzed attests to the existence of a terrorist capability and a willingness to use it until the day Saddam was forced to flee Baghdad by Coalition forces.

When attacking Western interests, the competitive terror cartel
came into play, particularly in the late 1990s. Captured documents reveal that the
regime was willing to co-opt or support organizations it knew to be part of al
Qaeda-as long as that organization's near-term goals supported Saddam's longterm
vision. A directive (Extract 24) from the Director for International Intelligence
in the IIS to an Iraqi operative in Bahrain orders him to investigate a particular
terrorist group there, The Army of Muhammad.

Captured Iraqi documents have uncovered evidence that links the regime of Saddam Hussein to regional and global terrorism, including a variety of revolutionary, liberation, nationalist and Islamic terrorist organizations. While these documents do not reveal direct coordination and assistance between the Saddam regime and the al Qaeda network, they do indicate that Saddam was willing to use, albeit cautiously, operatives affiliated with al Qaeda as long as Saddam could have these terrorist-operatives monitored closely. Because Saddam's security organizations and Osama bin Laden's terrorist network operated with similar aims (at least in the short term), considerable overlap was inevitable when monitoring, contacting, financing, and training the same outside groups. This created both the appearance of and, in some way, a "de facto" link between the organizations. At times, these organizations would work together in pursuit of shared goals but still maintain their autonomy and independence because of innate caution and mutual distrust. Though the execution of Iraqi terror plots was not always successful, evidence shows that Saddam’s use of terrorist tactics and his support for terrorist groups remained strong up until the collapse of the regime.

I seriously suggest that anyone interested in this report should read it themselves. It is being spun both ways.

Whether the report is right or wrong I simply do not understand how anyone can interpret that it is saying no link.
Again, read it yourself: http://a.abcnews.com/images/pdf/Pentagon_Report_V1.pdf

You always own in your posts, kudos.

No need to apologize.
English is not my 1. language. F.ex. I don't know what ambiguous means (but I'm going to look it up).
I was trying to express my opinion that:
1. Most of us knew this (I imagin?).
2. It's a real tragedy about the lives lost.
3. Saddam's gone - great
4. The Iraqi oil is now in US corporations control.
5. This will mean higher oil prices.
6. The neocons/CFR's/Bilderbergers allways wins and we loose (Our lives/money).

That was my point. Sorry if it came out as a mystery...

I could have told you this

people dont work for free

chittydog wrote:

TC.Troy wrote:

No matter if I agree with the reasons for the invasion or no, I 100% support the use of force THERE, instead of them using 100% force HERE...against unarmed defenseless civilian targets.

I guess you missed the point. When we invaded, we weren't fighting THEM there, we were fighting someone else there. Saddam Hussein was a dick to be sure, but he didn't let terrorists into his playground. If we really wanted to fight terrorists on their turf, we should've kept our focus on Afganistan.

No, I didnt miss the point.  Not at all.

Let me ask you this.  If you were Sadam Hussien, would you fucking document your relationship with the most wanted person/group on the face of the planet?

FEOS wrote:

While there was some rhetoric early on about a possible AQ-Saddam linkage, that was nipped pretty early. Yes, Cheney continued to make comments, but nobody took him seriously.

The invasion was NEVER about AQ and Saddam working together, and most people know that.

Yeah, Cheney is only the VP.  It's not like we should expect him to be truthful and realistic.

Kmarion wrote:

Turquoise wrote:

FEOS wrote:

While there was some rhetoric early on about a possible AQ-Saddam linkage, that was nipped pretty early. Yes, Cheney continued to make comments, but nobody took him seriously.

The invasion was NEVER about AQ and Saddam working together, and most people know that.

Yeah, Cheney is only the VP.  It's not like we should expect him to be truthful and realistic.

Or congress for that matter.

touche...  sad but true

Dilbert_X wrote:

FEOS wrote:

The invasion was NEVER about AQ and Saddam working together, and most people know that.

Oh yeah?
Here's a snippet from Bush's 'Mission Accomplished' speech.

"The liberation of Iraq is a crucial advance in the campaign against terror. We've removed an ally of al Qaeda, and cut off a source of terrorist funding. And this much is certain: No terrorist network will gain weapons of mass destruction from the Iraqi regime, because the regime is no more"

Not sure source is reliable, up to you to judge http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases … 01-15.html

So, there were no WMD, there was no linkage between Saddam and AQ - Despite Bush, Rumsfeld, Cheney etc repeatedly claiming otherwise.

What exactly was the Iraq invasion about then?
Why did the US govt feel the need to lie so freely and so repeatedly?

Do we really have to start this merry-go-round again?

Hindsight is 20/20, revisionist history...whatever you want to call your approach.

Multiple countries' intel pointed (incorrectly) to an active WMD program in Iraq. Those indicators were the result of a successful deception op by Saddam to make Iran think he had WMD. Corroborated by multiple high-level Iraqis after the war, including Saddam himself. And as you can see by Kmarion's post, there was concern that Iraq would provide some support for AQ or other terrorist orgs (based on Saddam's own words) because of common hatred for the US and the West in general.

Were there actually WMD? Probably not.

Was the invasion (in hindsight) a mistake? Of course.

Is this inane line of discussion getting fucking old? Yep.

Give it up. It's been 5 years, and no amount of bitching by you on a video game forum is going to un-invade Iraq.

FeOS wrote:

Give it up. It's been 5 years, and no amount of bitching by you on a video game forum is going to un-invade Iraq.

Blah Blah blah.
If you don't like this thread then stay off it. The report debunking the Saddam-AQ link is recent news so get bent.

Don't make dumb statements like

The invasion was NEVER about AQ and Saddam working together, and most people know that.

which are patently wrong.
I'm sorry your excuse for a President has proven you wrong with his public pronouncements, I can't help that.
Maybe you should watch the news now and then, then you'd know about this kind of thing and wouldn't end up looking so stupid.

There is no revisionist history.
That the lies are being uncovered is not revisionism - its the facts coming out.

Its not 20/20 hindsight either, it was clear at the time the WMD theories and AQ linkage were total bunk.
Take a note from GorillaTicTacs who was clearly in deeper than you.

Here are a few contemporary cartoons, not everyone believed the guff the Pentagon was spewing out. http://www.robrogers.com/




I like this one too.

A cop out of the first order.  Reminds me of a lawyer saying: If the facts are against you, argue the law, if the law is against you, argue the facts, if the facts and law are against you, call the other guy an asshole for bringing up either one.

Good point, I've noticed FeOS always starts up with the insults when he's lost the argument.

Last edited by Dilbert_X (2008-03-25 06:22:05)

FEOS wrote:

And I tire--rapidly--of people whose sum total of experience on the matter comes from the media. Not that I'm applying that characterization to GorillaTicTacs. He may very well have been privy to the raw intel, analysis, objectives, and strategic/operational level planning involved. I know for a fact that Dilbert wasn't.
...
I'm no fan of Bush, but to characterize his first words in office as "bring me my blow" and "let's invade iraq" (or words to that effect, as I can't see the post right now) is ludicrous, and below the level of quality usually seen in Gorilla's posts. Expected from Dilbert, but not Gorilla.

Here's what we find out in 2004 after O'Neill is put out to pasture...

O’Neill declared that the overthrow of Saddam Hussein in Iraq was “Topic A” at the first National Security Council meeting of the new administration, which he attended, on January 30, 2001. “From the start, we were building the case against Hussein and looking at how we could take him out,” he said. “It was about finding a way to do it. That was the tone of it. The President saying, ‘Fine. Go find me a way to do this.’”
...
But in the eyes of his colleagues in the Bush cabinet, the only question was how to obtain a suitable pretext for war. There was no objective examination of the question of weapons of mass destruction, which became the staple of Bush administration propaganda in the run-up to the war, O’Neill said.
...
“In the 23 months I was there, I never saw anything that I would characterize as evidence of weapons of mass destruction,” he told Time. “There were allegations and assertions by people. But I’ve been around a hell of a long time, and I know the difference between evidence and assertions and illusions or allusions and conclusions that one could draw from a set of assumptions. To me there is a difference between real evidence and everything else. And I never saw anything in the intelligence that I would characterize as real evidence.”

As far as my own experience, besides being an intel analyst with ME specialty, was when I switched MOS and became a sysadmin (74B) keeping my security clearance.  I was put in charge of babysitting the SIPRnet accounts for everyone up to the 2-star at a TSC in Germany.  Normally, that computer was quiet as a mouse...just one sitting in a vault.  Once a week I would need to scan something in to send from the G-2, or the 2 star might get an email that needed printed off and delivered.  Feb 2001, it goes apeshit.  5 to 10 emails a day.  Strangely:

- They were addressed to no one in particular, I had to decide by context of the content where to deliver them.  They were obviously very hastily sent out, or form letters that had been in planning a long time and just thrown out as quick as possible.
- Some of them were directly signed off by Rumsfeld or one of his undersecretaries.
- Most of them were completely benign, things that came over the NIPRnet before.  Nothing operationally secret.  Basically, there was a new obsession with classifying EVERYTHING secret/top secret.  This was the main reason for the 2000% jump in traffic.
- Without getting too specific, I'll just relay the first comments from the ASG CO, a colonel, when I delivered my first stack of crap that I couldn't figure out who they went to.  He read the top letter and was like "Looks like we're going to a desert..."  This was 14 Feb 2001.  I remember because I nearly missed V-Day with my new redhead girl, I was there past 8pm running stuff to the ASG HQ, and the Colonel was with his (very hot) wife, otherwise alone (his brutal big german lady secreatary was gone for the day), in his office ready to take him out.

Once you knew this, what you saw on TV after 9/11 and how they made an almost rythmic progression to Iraq was not surprising, just surreal.  You knew it was a done deal.  You knew no matter what diplomatic measures were reported, no matter what inspectors Saddam let in, you already knew what the answer was and what the outcome was going to be.  And you couldn't tell anyone around you, not because you were sworn to secrecy, but because you didn't want to break anyone's heart or secretly wishing you were wrong.  It was like watching a shitty movie you already knew the ending to play out in slow motion.

I agree with your shitty movie analogy. We went from "it's just an OPLAN review" in spring 2002 rapidly to "shit, we're going to do this" by summer/fall. Not so much an emotional reaction, but more the trepidation that comes with preparing to engage in combat ops, regardless of the reasons behind it.

I can remember many of us at the JOC shaking our heads, wondering why Bush and Cheney were saying there was a linkage when there were only two marginal ties (Zarqawi and AAI). I emphasize marginal. When that marginal nature was re-emphasized with the administration, the AQ-Iraq linkage rhetoric dropped off dramatically.

Be that as it may, none of the objectives we were given to plan against involved anything nefarious...it was all focused on taking out the leadership and isolating/securing the suspected WMD sites. If we knew there were no WMD, then why was securing the suspected sites and performing SSE the singular focus of the initial push?

That's the part that bugs me about Dilbert's diatribes. If everyone knew there was no WMD and it was all about oil, then why were oil fields a lower priority than the WMD sites?

It's one thing to be intellectually honest and examine ALL points of view regarding something as contentious as this. It's another to accept ONLY the stories/opinions that support one's preconceived notions without question and then dismiss without consideration those that oppose your preconceived notions.

WHAT!!?? saddam was osamas best friend. they were in school together. saddam planned 9/11. and he had wmd...