How Did Saddam Hussein Become a Grave Threat?

[techweenie]

This has been discussed at least five times on various threads -- one reason Mull made it to my 'ignore' list -- and the 'proof' has to do with weak anecdotal disinformation about an al Quaeda biggie supposedly getting some hospital treatment and an Iraqi army officer going to a jihadist summit meeting.

Hell, on that level of evidence, we should probably bomb Oklahoma for its al Quaeda ties -- i.e., allowing hijackers to go to flight school there.

[fastpat]

Originally posted by Mulhollanddose
There is no question he had a working relationship with al qaeda.

Bush'ist propaganda, much like that of the Soviet Union's machine, which is understandable since the primary neo-conservatives were communists during the 30's-50's. Trotskyites, actually.

Do you need proof, or would you prefer to bend yours knees to the leftist propaganda ministers? You are beginning to embarrass yourself, Pat.

The leftist propaganda is being spouted by you, M-dose. Worldwide government under one superpower who can decide when and who to invade with impunity is a socialist dream made real by Bush II, Clinton, Bush I, and so forth at least back to Woodrow Wilson, but more accurately back to the real neo-socialist, Lincoln.

You need a deeper understanding of politics, young man, an argument with you makes me out to be a bully.

I see you're afraid of what Hitlery, I mean Hillary might do with the same laws Bush is using to abuse the rights of Americans today, and rightly so. She'll have the precedents set by Bush II to start from. Start worrying now, she has no known, real Republican opposition.

You see, that's the way it's been for a long time. Woodrow Wilson made europe safe for socialism, Roosevelt made the world safe for communism/fascism, as did Truman, Johnson, Reagan, and now Bush II.

When will you wake up?

[Mulhollanddose]

Originally posted by klaucke
Yes, show us. We already buried this in another thread, citing where the admininstration has admitted there was no current link between Iraq and Al-Qaeda. Powell admitted there was no evidence.

Needless to say, al qaeda is concentrated in Iraq today and for some time now. The connections were outlined as far back as the Clinton Administration, in Clinton's indictment of Osama. The links are confirmed by leftist and objective press alike. Below you will find not only intelligence from American sources, but international and world press.

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.

* 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.

* 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.

* Bin Laden met the director of the Iraqi mukhabarat in 1996 in Khartoum, according to Mr. Powell.

* An al Qaeda operative now held by the U.S. confessed that in the mid-1990s, bin Laden had forged an agreement with Saddam's men to cease all terrorist activities against the Iraqi dictator, Mr. Powell told the United Nations.

* In 1999 the Guardian, a British newspaper, reported that Farouk Hijazi, a senior officer in Iraq's mukhabarat, had journeyed deep into the icy mountains near Kandahar, Afghanistan, in December 1998 to meet with al Qaeda men. Mr. Hijazi is "thought to have offered bin Laden asylum in Iraq," the Guardian reported.

* In October 2000, another Iraqi intelligence operative, Salah Suleiman, was arrested near the Afghan border by Pakistani authorities, according to Jane's Foreign Report, a respected international newsletter. Jane's reported that Suleiman was shuttling between Iraqi intelligence and Ayman al Zawahiri, now al Qaeda's No. 2 man.

* As recently as 2001, Iraq's embassy in Pakistan was used as a "liaison" between the Iraqi dictator and al Qaeda, Mr. Powell told the United Nations.

* Spanish investigators have uncovered documents seized from Yusuf Galan -- who is charged by a Spanish court with being "directly involved with the preparation and planning" of the Sept. 11 attacks -- that show the terrorist was invited to a party at the Iraqi embassy in Madrid. The invitation used his "al Qaeda nom de guerre," London's Independent reports.

* An Iraqi defector to Turkey, known by his cover name as "Abu Mohammed," told Gwynne Roberts of the Sunday Times of London that he saw bin Laden's fighters in camps in Iraq in 1997. At the time, Mohammed was a colonel in Saddam's Fedayeen. He described an encounter at Salman Pak, the training facility southeast of Baghdad. At that vast compound run by Iraqi intelligence, Muslim militants trained to hijack planes with knives -- on a full-size Boeing 707. Col. Mohammed recalls his first visit to Salman Pak this way: "We were met by Colonel Jamil Kamil, the camp manager, and Major Ali Hawas. I noticed that a lot of people were queuing for food. (The major) said to me: 'You'll have nothing to do with these people. They are Osama bin Laden's group and the PKK and Mojahedin-e Khalq.'"

* In 1998, Abbas al-Janabi, a longtime aide to Saddam's son Uday, defected to the West. At the time, he repeatedly told reporters that there was a direct connection between Iraq and al Qaeda.

*The Sunday Times found a Saddam loyalist in a Kurdish prison who claims to have been Dr. Zawahiri's bodyguard during his 1992 visit with Saddam in Baghdad. Dr. Zawahiri was a close associate of bin Laden at the time and was present at the founding of al Qaeda in 1989.

* Following the defeat of the Taliban, almost two dozen bin Laden associates "converged on Baghdad and established a base of operations there," Mr. Powell told the United Nations in February 2003. From their Baghdad base, the secretary said, they supervised the movement of men, materiel and money for al Qaeda's global network.

* In 2001, an al Qaeda member "bragged that the situation in Iraq was 'good,'" according to intelligence made public by Mr. Powell.

* That same year, Saudi Arabian border guards arrested two al Qaeda members entering the kingdom from Iraq.

* Abu Musaab al-Zarqawi oversaw an al Qaeda training camp in Afghanistan, Mr. Powell told the United Nations. His specialty was poisons. Wounded in fighting with U.S. forces, he sought medical treatment in Baghdad in May 2002. When Zarqawi recovered, he restarted a training camp in northern Iraq. Zarqawi's Iraq cell was later tied to the October 2002 murder of Lawrence Foley, an official of the U.S. Agency for International Development, in Amman, Jordan. The captured assassin confessed that he received orders and funds from Zarqawi's cell in Iraq, Mr. Powell said. His accomplice escaped to Iraq.

*Zarqawi met with military chief of al Qaeda, Mohammed Ibrahim Makwai (aka Saif al-Adel) in Iran in February 2003, according to intelligence sources cited by the Washington Post.

* Mohammad Atef, the head of al Qaeda's military wing until the U.S. killed him in Afghanistan in November 2001, told a senior al Qaeda member now in U.S. custody that the terror network needed labs outside of Afghanistan to manufacture chemical weapons, Mr. Powell said. "Where did they go, where did they look?" said the secretary. "They went to Iraq."

* Abu Abdullah al-Iraqi was sent to Iraq by bin Laden to purchase poison gases several times between 1997 and 2000. He called his relationship with Saddam's regime "successful," Mr. Powell told the United Nations.

* Mohamed Mansour Shahab, a smuggler hired by Iraq to transport weapons to bin Laden in Afghanistan, was arrested by anti-Hussein Kurdish forces in May, 2000. He later told his story to American intelligence and a reporter for the New Yorker magazine.

* Documents found among the debris of the Iraqi Intelligence Center show that Baghdad funded the Allied Democratic Forces, a Ugandan terror group led by an Islamist cleric linked to bin Laden. According to a London's Daily Telegraph, the organization offered to recruit "youth to train for the jihad" at a "headquarters for international holy warrior network" to be established in Baghdad.

* Mullah Melan Krekar, ran a terror group (the Ansar al-Islam) linked to both bin Laden and Saddam Hussein. Mr. Krekar admitted to a Kurdish newspaper that he met bin Laden in Afghanistan and other senior al Qaeda officials. His acknowledged meetings with bin Laden go back to 1988. When he organized Ansar al Islam in 2001 to conduct suicide attacks on Americans, "three bin Laden operatives showed up with a gift of $300,000 'to undertake jihad,'" Newsday reported. Mr. Krekar is now in custody in the Netherlands. His group operated in portion of northern Iraq loyal to Saddam Hussein -- and attacked independent Kurdish groups hostile to Saddam. A spokesman for the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan told a United Press International correspondent that Mr. Krekar's group was funded by "Saddam Hussein's regime in Baghdad."

* After October 2001, hundreds of al Qaeda fighters are believed to have holed up in the Ansar al-Islam's strongholds inside northern Iraq.

[Mulhollanddose]

Originally posted by fastpat
The leftist propaganda is being spouted by you, M-dose. Worldwide government under one superpower who can decide when and who to invade with impunity is a socialist dream made real by Bush II, Clinton, Bush I, and so forth at least back to Woodrow Wilson, but more accurately back to the real neo-socialist, Lincoln.

Didn't you spout this leftist propaganda? "Thomas Fleming, Pat Buchanan, Lew Rockwell, Joseph Sobran and myself that have pointed out Bush's war crimes and other unconstitutional acts."

I asked you to substantiate it and you ignored my request. Is it because you share the same vaccuous bullet points the left does?

[Mulhollanddose]

Originally posted by Mulhollanddose
There is no question he had a working relationship with al qaeda.

Originally posted by fastpat
Bush'ist propaganda, much like that of the Soviet Union's machine, which is understandable since the primary neo-conservatives were communists during the 30's-50's. Trotskyites, actually.

Do you eat your words Pat?...Or are all those links just contrivations of the right-wing Republican leftist communists who wanted to go to war with the Democratically elected tyrant from Iraq for oil?

[Mulhollanddose]

Pat, you are skipping down the propaganda road, hand-in-hand with neo-communists in Democrat drag...You know when you have joined their chorus you have taken a left where you should have taken a right.

[fastpat]

Originally posted by Mulhollanddose
Didn't you spout this leftist propaganda? "Thomas Fleming, Pat Buchanan, Lew Rockwell, Joseph Sobran and myself that have pointed out Bush's war crimes and other unconstitutional acts."

I asked you to substantiate it and you ignored my request. Is it because you share the same vaccuous bullet points the left does?

I don't respond to demands from sophamoric louts. When I feel the need to document facts, I do so. Where are yours? Any at all? Boilerplate newspaper quotes count for nothing.

Saying that those men I listed above are leftists really is silly, they have abundant writings on both the internet and in print that demonstate beyond doubt that they are either paleo-libertarians (i.e. like Thomas Jefferson) or genuine conservatives, unlike you who are obviously a neo-coinservative, i.e. a Trokskyite socialist masquerading as a conservative.

Here's a bibliography, you do the reading:

Joseph Sobran
Lew Rockwell
Pat Buchanan
Thomas Fleming
And a few more:
Paul Craig Roberts
James Bovard
Joseph Stromberg

Of particular interest will be Bovard's numerous articles during the Clinton years, and the book he wrote about Clinton, Feeling Your Pain : The Explosion and Abuse of Government Power in the Clinton-Gore Years and his book about the oh too similar George W. Bush The Bush Betrayal and the earlier Terrorism and Tyranny: Trampling Freedom, Justice and Peace to Rid the World of Evil, fine books all.

[Mulhollanddose]

Originally posted by fastpat
Saying that those men I listed above are leftists really is silly

That is why I didn't say it, however, the fictional platitudes you spew are contemporary with the finest neo-communist propaganda to-date.

This leftist drivel was my aim "Bush's war crimes and other unconstitutional acts"

[Rodeo]

I guess nobody told you the PPOT definition of "leftist"

Critical of this administration = leftist
Support this administration no matter what = "conservative"

It's a twisted place, but those are the rules as laid down by Mul, fint, daddy, JoeA and others.

[Mulhollanddose]

Originally posted by Rodeo I guess nobody told you the PPOT definition of "leftist"

Critical of this administration = leftist

No, Rodeo. It is the lies and slander, the undermining of the war effort for political gain, that makes one a leftist in the PPOT definition...It is the socialist tendencies and advocacy of the UN criminal enterprise that puts the nail in the coffin.

[techweenie]

Originally posted by Rodeo

Critical of this administration = leftist
Support this administration no matter what = "conservative"

Actually, they are happy to NOT support the administration when on the rare occasion, their mistakes are admitted: despite the fact the Bushies have said they were wrong on the Saddam - al Quaeda link and on the WMD threat, a handful of PPOT folks are clinging to the original lies, still.

[aways]

Originally posted by techweenie
Actually, they are happy to NOT support the administration when on the rare occasion, their mistakes are admitted: despite the fact the Bushies have said they were wrong on the Saddam - al Quaeda link and on the WMD threat, a handful of PPOT folks are clinging to the original lies, still.

Just curious... Do you think it's possible, within the bounds of the conceivable, that Bush (and just about every intelligence source on the planet) could have simply been mistaken about the status of Saddam's WMD program, without necessarily LYING about it? Or is it always the case that believing something that later turns out to be untrue or partially true, makes one a "liar". Usually when I accuse someone of lying, I have some sort of evidence, preferably proof, that they intentionally meant to deceive.

[techweenie]

Originally posted by aways
Just curious... Do you think it's possible, within the bounds of the conceivable, that Bush (and just about every intelligence source on the planet) could have simply been mistaken about the status of Saddam's WMD program, without necessarily LYING about it? Or is it always the case that believing something that later turns out to be untrue or partially true, makes one a "liar". Usually when I accuse someone of lying, I have some sort of evidence, preferably proof, that they intentionally meant to decieve..

Well, you're asking for a look inside a mind.

The fact that Dubya publicly stated that his intent was to remove Saddam from power two years before 9/11 is a bit of evidence.

So, too, is the commentary by several CIA employees that evidence was rejected if it did not conform to the administration's expectations.

Both the thin 'evidence' of some aluminum tubes in Saddam's possession and an obviously forged letter supposedly from Niger were thoroughly discredited long before they were used as "evidence" in presentations to the American people.

So I infer that the use of discredited and obviously false evidence is lying -- intentional lying.

If you want some documentation on this, do a search on "downing street memo."

I will grant you that Chalabi and possibly others were actively lying to the administration about Saddam's capabilities (with transparent motives). But offsetting that, I seem to recall that a general in charge of Saddam's WMD programs in the 80s escaped from Iraq in '98 and flatly stated that there were no ongoing programs to produce WMDs in Iraq.

[fastpat]

Originally posted by Mulhollanddose

Actually, the outgoing Clinton Administration briefed the incoming Bush'ists on the growing Al Qaeda threat. The Bush'ists weren't interested, immediately beginning the plan to invade Iraq. In fact, the Bush'ists wrote about the need for a catastrophic event as an enabler for their planned invasion, which they thought would take several years to happen.

As Bush'ist Richard Perle stated, the 9/11 event made him feel much better because they (the Bush'ists) could get on with their plans.

[aways]

Originally posted by techweenie
Well, you're asking for a look inside a mind.

The fact that Dubya publicly stated that his intent was to remove Saddam from power two years before 9/11 is a bit of evidence.

So, too, is the commentary by several CIA employees that evidence was rejected if it did not conform to the administration's expectations.

Both the thin 'evidence' of some aluminum tubes in Saddam's possession and an obviously forged letter supposedly from Niger were thoroughly discredited long before they were used as "evidence" in presentations to the American people.

So I infer that the use of discredited and obviously false evidence is lying -- intentional lying.

If you want some documentation on this, do a search on "downing street memo."

I will grant you that Chalabi and possibly others were actively lying to the administration about Saddam's capabilities (with transparent motives). But offsetting that, I seem to recall that a general in charge of Saddam's WMD programs in the 80s escaped from Iraq in '98 and flatly stated that there were no ongoing programs to produce WMDs in Iraq.

I'm not asking you to look inside a mind. I think that's what you're doing by assuming that you know what Bush was thinking, and that he was lying. The default position, until proven otherwise, should be that he was likely acting on bad intelligence, and not necessarily in bad faith. Your "evidence" that he was lying is far weaker that the evidence that was used to justify going into Iraq.

[Seahawk]

Originally posted by aways
I'm not asking you to look inside a mind. I think that's what you're doing by assuming that you know what Bush was thinking, and that he was lying. The default position, until proven otherwise, should be that he was likely acting on bad intelligence, and not necessarily in bad faith. Your "evidence" that he was lying is far weaker that the evidence that was used to justify going into Iraq.

Well written...I may need to re-think moving back to SoCal.

[fastpat]

Originally posted by aways
I'm not asking you to look inside a mind. I think that's what you're doing by assuming that you know what Bush was thinking, and that he was lying. The default position, until proven otherwise, should be that he was likely acting on bad intelligence, and not necessarily in bad faith. Your "evidence" that he was lying is far weaker that the evidence that was used to justify going into Iraq.

He wasn't acting on faulty intelligence. I knew there were no WMD's to be found in Iraq, and so did millions of other Americans. I have the advantage of being a trained military intelligence analyst, but anyone who cared to find out could do so from public resources.

Here's the Bush'ist (i.e. neo-Consrvative) web site wherein you can read all about their philosophy and world wide plans to restructure the planet to their liking, The Project for The New American Century Many within and without the Bush'ist government circle have written years ago about their plans.

Normally, a reasonable person would blow them off as nut cases, but they're in control of a very dangerous, powerful military and government apparatus, making everyone take them seriously.

[techweenie]

Originally posted by aways
Your "evidence" that he was lying is far weaker that the evidence that was used to justify going into Iraq.

Easy to say, but lazy thinking.

1. The Bush administration was notified that the Niger letter was a forgery in October '02, but was used as evidence by Bush in this SOTU speech in '03

2. The 'aluminum tube' evidence was disputed from the start. The tubes were not suitable for any weapon creation or delivery system.

And if you parse out the notion that Saddam was going to use these aluminum tubes to create a centrifuge to enrich uranium (hundreds of tons of which exist, naturally in the soil of Iraq), then Saddam was many steps from a 'weapon.' Then arises the question of what vehicle he might use to deliver that weapon to "American soil." At the time, it was well documented that Saddam had nothing capable of carrying a warhead 700 miles. I'm sure you know the nearest American soil is many times that distance.

So please, instead of an unthinking wave of the hand, could you tell me how these two facts are "weak?"

[Seahawk]

Originally posted by fastpat
He wasn't acting on faulty intelligence. I knew there were no WMD's to be found in Iraq, and so did millions of other Americans. I have the advantage of being a trained military intelligence analyst, but anyone who cared to find out could do so from public resources.

You now have jumpeth the sharketh...I have the advantage of being a trained militray BS analyst, the first rule of which is no military analyst EVER says says they are or were, at least those with credibility.

I call Bravo Sierra...but welcome your insight. And don't spew invectives or call me names: be specific in your charges.

[Mulhollanddose]

Originally posted by fastpat
Actually, the outgoing Clinton Administration briefed the incoming Bush'ists on the growing Al Qaeda threat. The Bush'ists weren't interested.

I stand corrected. I would imagine you have validation given that was the position of the Clinton apologists, whom you have wittingly entered an unholy alliance with. Let us forego Berger stealing top secret documents obviously incriminating to the Clinton Administration. Let us forego the wall of intelligence separation that rendered intel gathering impotent, by Jamie Goerlick (strangely enough a member of the 9-11 Commission). Let us forego the fact that Osama was offered to the Clinton Administration several times, by the Sudan, but turned down because he was an incompetent self-servant.

Is it not possible that any warnings to the Bush Administration were vague and intended only to cover-their-asses in case an eventuality like 9-11 became a reality?

Indeed, my friend, you are becoming a tool of the leftists. You are, by association, a tool of the Islamofascists. You are in bed with those who have fleas, albeit your obvious enemy (socialism) has become an opponent of your adopted enemy (establishment Republicans with all their obvious failings), you have inherited their fleas. Your unholy marriage may serve their purposes in the short term, but will accrue to their interests in the long run. Their intended product of societal chaos will pay dividends to socialism, as greater powers will be justifed because of this byproduct. The byproducts of greater insecurity and weakened national defense (as you and the left agree on a weak military).

Yes, we have leaned in the direction of socialism in the short term, but only to fix the problem before the neo-communists have the opportunity to make the situation worse and the solutions more despotic. I admit an element of faith on my part, blind as it may be, but I certainly would think twice jumping on board of the Democrat Titanic to achieve safety from a leaky but seaworthy life-raft.