Saddam’s Connections to Terrorists
This Weekly Standard article by Stephen Hayes is cropping up all over the net.
And well it should. Hayes has been after the Pentagon to release at least some of the more interesting Saddam-era Iraqi intel captured after Saddam fell.
I heard several rumors in Iraq, from friends of mine, about the quantity of intelligence material we captured. (See the quote below from Hayes’ article, referencing “two million” items.) Here is the essence of a memorable if short conversation I had with a young intelligence officer in June 2004: “Colonel Bay, we have so much stuff we can’t even store it, much less start to process it.” Note that “stuff” isn’t a technical term nor a euphemism–it’s an accurate description. The young man was joshing me a bit and he and I both knew it. I knew we had to have an “analytic task force” (somewhere) sifting through the material and trying to determine what “stuff” was the most important–and I didn’t know much beyond that nor need to know it. The rumor mill churned, tantilizing comments would crop up in press reports. (Big point here: I don’t know if anybody had a real grip on what had been captured, much less what may have been stolen, lost, or destroyed. My guess is insiders had suspicions, but the millions of items took time to assess.) I knew the Iraqi interim government had already released some interesting material discovered in an Iraqi ministry: the names of individuals and corporations involved in corrupting Oil For Food. That was early spring 2004, February if memory serves. At the time the significance of that information wasn’t clear.
Saddam aided and abetted terrorists. He let “secular terrorist” Abu Nidal live in Baghdad, and the rumor mill says Saddam had Abu Nidal killed because the old killer knew too much. Several press sources reported that Saddam had contacts with Ansar al Islam, the Al Qaeda affiliate in Kurdish territory. (Hayes mentions Ansar in his article, and Saddam’s “Popular Islamic Conference,” which was an event that cropped up in open-source press reports.)
I am certain Saddam and Islamist terrorists had contact in the sewer where terror, tyranny, and crime mix. Saddam crowed about giving money to the families of suicide bombers in Palestine. Hayes says there is emerging evidence that Saddam provided logistical and training support.
Here’s the lede:
THE FORMER IRAQI REGIME OF Saddam Hussein trained thousands of radical Islamic terrorists from the region at camps in Iraq over the four years immediately preceding the U.S. invasion, according to documents and photographs recovered by the U.S. military in postwar Iraq. The existence and character of these documents has been confirmed to THE WEEKLY STANDARD by eleven U.S. government officials.
The secret training took place primarily at three camps–in Samarra, Ramadi, and Salman Pak–and was directed by elite Iraqi military units. Interviews by U.S. government interrogators with Iraqi regime officials and military leaders corroborate the documentary evidence. Many of the fighters were drawn from terrorist groups in northern Africa with close ties to al Qaeda, chief among them Algeria’s GSPC and the Sudanese Islamic Army. Some 2,000 terrorists were trained at these Iraqi camps each year from 1999 to 2002, putting the total number at or above 8,000. Intelligence officials believe that some of these terrorists returned to Iraq and are responsible for attacks against Americans and Iraqis. According to three officials with knowledge of the intelligence on Iraqi training camps, White House and National Security Council officials were briefed on these findings in May 2005; senior Defense Department officials subsequently received the same briefing.
The photographs and documents on Iraqi training camps come from a collection of some 2 million “exploitable items” captured in postwar Iraq and Afghanistan. They include handwritten notes, typed documents, audiotapes, videotapes, compact discs, floppy discs, and computer hard drives. Taken together, this collection could give U.S. intelligence officials and policymakers an inside look at the activities of the former Iraqi regime in the months and years before the Iraq War…
UPDATE: Further comment– I know of no information directly connecting Saddam’s regime operationally to Al Qaeda. Hayes’ seems to think that information exists, but we haven;t seen it. Asking if there was a proveable operational connection between Saddam’s regime and Al Qaeda is a fair and necessary question, especially in the context of a court room. However, it is an incomplete question if one lives in a world where violent people with violent aims and lots of money meet occasionally, sip tea, and explore mutual interests. If one lives in a world composed solely of court rooms with honest judges protected by jolly baliffs, then the operational connection question and a clear “yes” or “no” answer to this question are determinative. No connection? Well, no military action. Case dismissed. (Call this world Never Land.) However, if one lives in the other world –and you’ve seen the Pentagon and World Trade Center attacked, you know Saddam used WMD, you know he sought it, you know he had been in violation of key UNSCRs since 1991, and you know the terror klan that launched 9/11 also seeks WMD, other pertinent questions emerge–and they are arguably more determinative. Here’s one: how do we stop the violent people from going beyond “exploring mutual interests” because the result of clandestine cooperation is so grim, costly, and deadly?
As for the young captain’s comment on the pyramids of paper left in Iraqi ministries– the material’s existence was no secret. To suggest he violated OPSEC is silly–actually, it’s beyond silly. The Iraqis were collecting a lot of the material. Based on what I remember reading in press reports, I believe some of the Oil For Food documents were turned over to the CPA by Iraqis going through material found in an Iraqi government building. That’s collection and processing. The problem government ministries and coalition intel faced was the number of documents and (apparently) the documents were also disorganized. Hayes’ two million items figure (for Iraq and Afghanistan) is the first figure I’ve seen anywhere, but strikes me as credible. There are probably more, and it will take years to examine them and try to understand them.
UPDATE: Commenters– please review the rules for this site. No cursing, no ad hominem. (We’ll make this easy– here’s a link. Please read the post on comment rules.)
Engage in the proscribed behavior and your comments won’t appear. Petty name calling in the comments detracts from the discussion and this is an important discussion. If you don’t like the rules go to another site; lot of sites on the internet love namecalling. As it stands, most curse words won’t get through the automatic deletion routine. There are also some email addresses that lead to automatic deletion (a mix of spammers and chronic rules violators). Sometimes the automatic email deleting routine doesn’t work (we’re not sure why) and an “access denied” account gets through. When discovered those comments will get deleted. (One of the folks denied access committed identity theft, a big time no-no. It seems that silly fellow finally gave up trying to jink the system, after three months of trying. )
ANSWER TO EMAILED QUESTION: Yes indeed, any comment with “texas holdem” or a variation of that is automatically eliminated. It doesn’t make it to the moderation file. The F-bomb knocks out the post as well. Unfortunately, a few legitimate comments have gotten x-ed out because the comments inadvertently contained spam-like words. Sorry. Eliminate spambots and I’ll eliminate the spam-blocks.
Here’s Saddam’s track record: Saddam’s Iraq had chem weapons and used them– many times. Saddam wanted nuclear weapons — the Israeli strike in 1981 denied him nukes. Several Iraqis have indicated that Saddam intended to resume active programs once the sanctions withered, so WMD programs were “on ice” or “in abeyance,” but they were still programs– plans and intentions to acquire.
Most if not all front line arab states fighting Israel had a pet terrorist group they used as a cat’s paw to attack their enemies. Iraq had a thirty year history of using terrorists this way. Read any study on terrorism written before 2000. It was even obvious Iraq was doing this back in 1980 when I was studying terror tactics of the Dirty War in Argentina. Saddam had a Koran written in his own blood just to please the Islamists. He changed the Iraqi Flag. He built huge mosques. Why wouldn’t he use terrorists to get at the Americans? He’d been doing this kind of thing for years.
Comment by R Finch — 1/7/2006 @ 2:56 pm
No comments yet because some folks are trying to figure out how to prove it was a lie since Saddam can’t have had terrorist ties before we invaded. You know, he didn’t have any WMD so he certainly couldn’t have terrorist ties. Don’t expect any “you were right, we were wrongs” this late in the game, it would destroy the whole stroy they’ve mad eup in their minds about the evilness of the war and the “Bush Lied, People died” meme.
Comment by kat-missouri — 1/7/2006 @ 3:50 pm
Well, kudos to Mr. Hayes for keeping on this story for so long, and with such dogged persistence. Now we need to have someone doing similar duty, with similar persistence, on the WMD story. I’ve believed since our March 2003 invasion of Iraq–when the first reporters on the scene were eagerly reporting that our troops were finding no WMDs that the most obvious explanation for that failure was that the things had been removed to Syria. We certainly gave Saddam plenty of time to move them during our foolish and futile excursions to the UN. I recall Major Garrett of Fox News reporting that there were no WMDs, and thinking “Well, duh!” All the photographed sites which appeared to be empty had the look of hasty, recent removal about them. The “no WMDs” line has become so entrenched in the collective public consciousness that it will be difficult to dislodge, but I’ve never believed it. It simple beggars belief that Saddam didn’t have them. Satellite photos from the time show heavy cross-border movement of trucks–does anyone really think they were carrying, perhaps, furniture from the “Presidential sites?” There were also photos, readily available, of the training camp at Salman Pak–Rush Limbaugh, among others, had them posted on his website for quite a while. The MSM was simply determined to don blinders and ignore them. I’m not sure whether it was cynical lying or willful ignorance, but they refused to address the facts in the matter. This is going to jump up and bite us one of these fine days, I don’t think there’s any doubt about it. I fear that the manipulation of these facts will then be shown to have been criminal, and staggering in its magnitude.
Comment by betsybounds — 1/7/2006 @ 4:07 pm
Austin - your readers may be interested in this compilation: http://www.husseinandterror.com/
Comment by Julian Biggs — 1/7/2006 @ 4:21 pm
Since old commies like me have questioned the Bush reasons for going into Iraq and the president has said in fact that there were no WMD and that we were bring democracy etc etc then why not release some of the mess of stuff to assure the American public that we had a sufficient reason for an invasion!! 50% or less of the nation now believes we should have gone in and yet none of this made public? opPs: the guyh chattering about secrets this way needs his butt kicked for what he has said…or to lose security clearance…I know about such things and you don’t talk about twhat you are not to talk about.
Comment by fred lapides — 1/7/2006 @ 4:59 pm
I have read that the Libya nuclear project was really Saddams, that is why they gave it up after we went into Iraq, because they thought we would find out that it was Saddams. Does any one know about this?
Comment by kathie — 1/7/2006 @ 6:33 pm
RE: Libya. That story is ridiculous. As far as I know, an 2004 [?] interview with John Loftus appears to be the genesis of that rumor. Regardless, I believe the claim was that Libya had a facility to produce fissile material in a hollowed-out mountain. The facility would be run with the help of Iraqi nuclear scientists and North Korea would supply the uranium. Given that the US, UK, and IAEA dismantled Libya’s nascent nuclear weapons program in early 2004, I kinda doubt the veracity of this story. Furthermore, Libya approached the UK to start disarmament obligations prior to the Iraq invasion. There are several reasons why Libya gave up that program. But the concern you’re describing isn’t one of them.
Comment by pawlq — 1/7/2006 @ 7:43 pm
betsybounds…there were no WMD in Iraq. None. Zero. Who says so? The SSCI, the Robb-Silberman report, and the Iraq Survey Group, just to name a few. You guys gotta give this one up. The gullibility of the Right never ceases to amaze me.
Comment by pawlq — 1/7/2006 @ 7:47 pm
As for Hayes, perhaps he found something. But it’s important to remember that he’s been flogging the Iraq-AQ link for a while now, even though one of his first stories relied on a Pentagon document dump that lwas discredited about 15 minutes after that article was published. You also might want to note that the 9/11 commission and SSCI both concluded that there was no connection of any consequence between Iraq and AQ. But maybe this time it’ll be different.
Comment by pawlq — 1/7/2006 @ 7:53 pm
the gullibility of the left never ceases to amaze. the reports cited by pawlq did not say that ‘there were no wmds in iraq.’ they said saddam had tons of them, apparently got rid of most of them before the invasion, but according to the testimony of all the iraqi officials interviewed by the iraq survey group intended to resume production as soon as the threat of invasion vansihed. the left at once simplified this story into the silly slogan ‘no wdms in iraq’. nor did any official report deny saddam had no connections with terrorists; they said only there was no evidence he had been directly involved in terrorist attacks on the usa.
Comment by james dawson — 1/7/2006 @ 8:35 pm
pawlq, twist and squirm as you will, some of us can read. There was about 2 tons of enriched uranium found in Iraq. What was Saddam planning on using it for, glow-in-the-dark watch faces? Dirty bombs? Refinement into weapons grade uranium? Sarin? 1500 tons of chemical pesticides? He had a real cockroach problem? The cranial-anal impaction of the Left never ceases to amaze me. And the 9/11 commission and SSCI both concluded “no operational links” between Iraq and the 9/11 attacks. Your willfully obdurate ignorance is simply astounding. I find ‘no operational link’ between your belief system and the world as it exists.
Comment by JorgXMckie — 1/7/2006 @ 9:17 pm
pawlq, sorry to burst your bubble, every single intel agency in the world said he had wmd’s. saddam even admitted as much after GW1. the previous administration said he had them, said he’d use them, and couldn’t allow any more delays. so, when he kicked out the inspectors, we sent in the missiles. even the last UN report said saddam acted like he had something to hide. here’s a simple question: if he did have them, and we didn’t find them, then where are they? if they were destroyed, we have no evidence of such. see, that’s the left’s real problem, they act like he never had them to begin with. that’s patently false. you want to play russian roulette with him, fine. but i don’t think that was even a realistic proposition. remember, the sanctions were set to expire, he already had programs in place, and contacts to restart them. without sanctions, his buddies the french, et al., would have been more than willing to help him out. no, the real gullibility is on the left. if it was abotu something trivial, fine. but you have to overcome your deep hatred of bush and see the light. if everyone said he had them, then somebody had to be right. where they are now is not the same as they never existed. if you want to examine the former, fine, but if you subscrive to the latter, you’re a fool.
Comment by Robert Mandel — 1/7/2006 @ 9:38 pm
pawlq, the Iraq Survey Group said nothing of the sort. If you read the final report, they specifically say that they cannot say that weapons were not moved before the war.
Comment by Matt — 1/7/2006 @ 9:48 pm
pawlq, you are right, rolf ekeus, david butler, duelfer, david kay, saddams scientists would know nothing about those reports and you telling us what is in those investigations would make us belive you more than the reports themselves saying about all the weapons programs they had in addition to the centrifuge, two tons of uranium, the sarin gas found , the vx nerve gas found, the mustard gas shells founds, the 800 tons of vx missing and countless amounts of anthrax missing among other things (ricin), but then of course we believe shmucks like you who tell us that Saddam destroyed his weapons, if anyone should give it up, its you pawlq
Comment by mark — 1/7/2006 @ 9:49 pm
As for Hayes, perhaps he found something. But it’s important to remember that he’s been flogging the Iraq-AQ link for a while now, even though one of his first stories relied on a Pentagon document dump that lwas discredited about 15 minutes after that article was published. You also might want to note that the 9/11 commission and SSCI both concluded that there was no connection of any consequence between Iraq and AQ. Ya know liberals keep telling me Hayes has been discredited yet have never shown me a shred of evidence that the Pentagon did anything more than warn about whether or not every detail was accurate. And its funny how the Pentagon is a trustworthy source being that they are never sighted by the Left. Why now? It was dumb for the Pentagon to split hairs that original Hayes story. B ut those were more guarded times when you could never be too careful about what you took credit for.
Comment by Kevin D. Korenthal — 1/7/2006 @ 11:30 pm
Fish. Barrel. Bazooka: First, you all need to read the reports. If you have, then you need better reading comprehension skills. Given that several of these comments are almost verbatim the same nonsense typical of right-wing blogs, I suspect most of you haven’t read them. First of all, the question is whether Iraq had WMD. He didn’t. Whether the invasion was justified or not is another matter (though I’d be more than happy to embarrass any of you on that debate.) I will answer what is germane to the original discussion: First, it is obvious that Iraq had WMD before the first Gulf War. I am obviously talking about the state of their weapons programs when the US invaded in 2003. Mark: I defy you to post anything from the reports I cited that supports *any* of your claims. Ekeus and Butler did not work on any of them, so I’m not sure why you bother to mention their names. Anyway, I suggest you read both Kay and Duelfer’s Senate testimony from a year back or so. They stated unequivocally that there were no prohibited weapons in Iraq. Any weapons that have been found date back to pre-1991. The “missing” weapons agents are actually unaccounted-for. That doesn’t mean they still exist. Several Iraqi officials have said the weapons were destroyed, sometimes without Saddam knowing. Further, the chaos of the Iran-Iraq war likely complicated Iraq’s ability to keep track of all of its chemical weapons. In any case, the ISG concluded there were no WMD. None. I can cite numerous instances where Kay and Duelfer have said so. But I’m going to wait for your evidence and then laugh myself silly
Comment by pawlq — 1/7/2006 @ 11:32 pm
Mr. Lapides beat me to it. I was going to bet my lumch money that the first response of the left would be - prosecute the leakers. As you see, the individuals are leakers that must be prosecuted (frog-marched if memory serves)if the information helps the administration; the individuals are honorable whistleblowers when the information hurts the administration. I will note that I agree with the idea that leaks should be prosecuted regardless of motives or results, just noting for the record the disparate treatment received by leakers depending on the results.
Comment by Scott K — 1/7/2006 @ 11:36 pm
Matt, the fact that the ISG couldn’t prove a negative is unilluminating. They can’t “prove” the weapons didn’t go to Haiti, either, but I’m not sweating that too much. Anyway, the report states clearly that there is no *evidence* that the weapons were moved to Syria. Around the time that final report (an addendum, really) was issued, Duelfer told PBS the same thing in pretty stark terms.
Comment by pawlq — 1/7/2006 @ 11:36 pm
Mandel: Iraq obviously had WMD at one time. But they didn’t have them when we invaded. Some were destroyed during the 1990s under UN inspectors’ supervision. The Iraqis unilaterally destroyed the rest. My arguments are quite clearly based on the evidence contained in the reports I cited, not on hatred. Fool, indeed.
Comment by pawlq — 1/7/2006 @ 11:42 pm
Jorg, Squirm, do I? You really should read what the 3 reports cite and get back to me. First, I’m not sure what pesticides you are referring to…do you mean ones found during the 1990s? After the gulf war? In any case, there is no evidence that Iraq had CWs. Enriched uranium: I love this one..the true chump-test. The enriched uranium that was in Iraq at the time of the invasion was under IAEA safegaurds. It was not even close to being weapons-grade. Moreover, without a way to enrich it, it wasn’t much good for a nuclear weapon. If you must know, it was put in storage under IAEA seal during the 1990s when the inspectors oversaw the dismantlement of Iraq’s nuclear weapons program.
Comment by pawlq — 1/7/2006 @ 11:48 pm
RE: terrorism (Jorg and James) I said: You also might want to note that the 9/11 commission and SSCI both concluded that there was no connection of any consequence between Iraq and AQ. first, I clearly referred to AQ…obviously, Iraq had ties to some terrorists. second, there is no meaningful difference between what I wrote and the conclusions of the 9/11 commission/SSCI.
Comment by pawlq — 1/7/2006 @ 11:51 pm
James: all irrelevant, as I’ve already explained. March 2003: no WMD. when you say they were destroyed before the invasion, you really need to say that they were destroyed during the 1990s. You are also wrong about the restart, but that’s a difference discussion.
Comment by pawlq — 1/7/2006 @ 11:55 pm
Look, We know the invasion was right because it was never about WMD stockpiles, it was about Saddam, his record, his capability and what he might do in the future. The left are simply not capable of thinking in terms of statistics: it was enough that there was a reasonable probability he might do something horrible. He had the WMD program, he had the intention and he had the record (trying to assassinate a US president? Not enough proof he is potential threat?) But don’t jump in the Hayes story. We were wrong to jump to conclusions on WMD stockpiles, even though they were not the cause for the war (as I and many others wrote many times before the war). The weapons destroyed Bush credibility. Now if Hayes want he has to build a completely solid, 100% story where he proves Saddam trained terrorists. It has to be so that even ideological partisans like the Washington Post have to accept it (NYT I think would not accept anything less than a Iraqi bomb in a US city). Than you guys will have crushed the left for years to come. Imagine how they vilified Bush for “lyingâ€, all along Saddam was preparing to kill Americans. But I personally do not trust Hayes. Even thought I suspect there is much more evidence of Saddams activities in paper records (remember the crazy Bathist recorded the Anfal Genocide). There is no hurry. The more they attack Bush the sweeter the victory when the truth come out.
Comment by Teller — 1/8/2006 @ 4:58 am
320,000 bodies recoverd from mass graves. more than the atomic blasts of japan, saddam is a weapon of mass destruction
Comment by rcanderson — 1/8/2006 @ 8:10 am
Saddam’s Terror Training Camps An absolute must-read, by Stephen F. Hayes (Weekly Standard): The former Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein trained thousands of radical Islamic terrorists from the region at camps in Iraq over the four years immediately preceding the U.S. invasion, accordin
Trackback by IRIS Blog — 1/8/2006 @ 8:19 am
It is also worth pointing out that both the Kay and Duelfer reports clearly stated that, as shown by documents, Saddam was planning to get back into the WMD business once the UN sanctions were lifted. And we also know that he was doing that by buying off the UN Security Council like the cheap whores they are. So, can anyone tell me the difference between actually having a stockpile, and the ability to create one very quickly, like in the period of a few months? As for Hayes’s piece, if he is quoting actual captured documents, that sounds like a strong case to me. It is always worth remembering that going through millions of documents and other materials is time consuming. Even after World War II, it took a tremendously long time to process the miles of records we seized, and German is a far less exotic language than Arabic.
Comment by Rich — 1/8/2006 @ 8:48 am
As Carl Sagan noted: “Absences of evidence is not evidence of absence” I would suggest that since Iraq and Saddam Hussein had chemical and other weapon’s programs after the first Gulf War and that he did not provide any evidence that his country had actually destroyed (not given away such weapons) that the burden of proof on their actual absence is upon those trying to prove that they were not only not within Iraq, but destroyed. Movement of such weapon’s to another country or geographical region outside of Iraq would, indeed, confirm that Saddam Hussein had every intention of actually accounting for such things. Secondly, while the groups cited by pawlq above certainly indicate that there were not tons of weaponizeable WMD present in Iraq when they arrived, the Kay report (in particular) found that the seedbed for restarting multiple programs had been laid and hidden. Dual use equipment in chemical plants in proximity to well protected bunkers and storage facilities indicates that there was, indeed, the apparent desire to restart the previous programs once sanctions had been lifted. Most reports indicate that within six to eighteen months after the removal of sanctions there would have been a restarted chemical weapons program in Iraq under Saddam. Please also note that the Congressional Authorization for the Use of Force against Iraq cited 22 reasons for such use. Harping on WMDs and no al Qaeda links does not address the full listing of citations of wrongdoing against Saddam Hussein’s regime. Even if it was widely known that the Iraq regime had somehow disposed of its WMD *programs* (not just weapons, but programs), if it had maintained its aggressive posture and intransigence, the use of force would still be justified. Finally, on the contents of the article, I find it less than reassuring that the question of transnational cross-training and sharing of information by terrorist organizations and their supporters to be very crucial. Prewar evidence that multiple terrorist organizations had shared capability on training, organization and methods has come from members of the IRA, PLO, al Qaeda, Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad, to name a few. Prior to operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, these organizations, particularly in the late 1980s and early 1990s, shared a wealth of knowledge with each other. That this issue remains unaddressed to this day is disturbing, to me at least. From Afghanistan, captured al Qaeda videotapes showing the testing and use of chemical agents on animals indicates that they were trained on the use and precautions necessary for testing by some other organization or regime. Evidence indicates Iraq due to methodology and types of testing being performed. Iraq may not have had operational ties to *any* terrorist organizations, but housing, training and giving support to terrorists certainly indicates a hostile program of spreading capabilities far and wide. With secondary cross-training by terrorists organizations this knowledge could and may have spread far beyond the secular and Islamic terrorists organizations trained by Saddam’s people. Any individual that basically boils the Iraq conflict down to: ‘No WMDs, no justification’ I do not take seriously. The evidence proves past use, intention of future development and spread of knowledge, methods and techiniques beyond the borders of Iraq. We are only ’safer’ having removed Saddam Hussein from power. We are not safe now. And as a world we would have been far less safe with Hussein’s regime in Iraq continuing to spread its information beyond its borders.
Comment by ajacksonian — 1/8/2006 @ 9:14 am
Teller, You’re the one who needs the stats lesson, boyo. Iraq did not have WMD. It did not have any WMD programs. The US and UK had control over 2/3 of Iraq’s airspace. Iraq’s military capability was something like 40-60% of what it was prior to the 1991 Gulf War. While there had been sanctions fatigue, that was NOT the case in the spring of 2003. The ISG report notes that 9/11 effectively halted whatever erosion of the sanctions regime had been taking place. Furthermore, the presence of UN inspectors in Iraq meant that we could check to see if Saddam had indeed built any weapons or reconstituted weapons programs. Turns out he hadn’t. Moreover, the UN would have imposed a monitoring and verification regime once their task was completed. David Kay hs said such a system would “easily” have detected the reconstitution of Iraq’s nuclear program.
Comment by pawlq — 1/8/2006 @ 10:09 am
You see, the US president he tried to assassinate was named Bush, not Clinton or Carter. The left think that puts Saddam on the side of the angles. Now if he tried to take out Carter, or Little Willie, the left would be upset.
Comment by Don Meaker — 1/8/2006 @ 11:22 am
Try proving Iraq had no current program, or interest in resuming previous WMD programs, without invading. I love the 20/20 hindsight of the left. Thanks, guys. Appreciate the insight. If he really had no interest in WMD, he played a dangerous game, and lost. The foreign policy benefits have been immediate. Khadaffi may have initiated his talks with the British, but even he admitted it was the video of Saddam being dragged out of a hole that influenced his descision. Either way we win. I find the left’s lack of concern for the whereabouts of his known stockpiles (the stockpiles the Clinton administration repeatedly reported as existing before the 2000 elections) to be disturbing, to say the least.
Comment by Dark Jetho — 1/8/2006 @ 11:44 am
pawlq, You seem to regard the fact that chemical munitions that have been recovered in Iraq predate GW1 as some sort of trump card. But doesn’t that illustrate the basic problem here? Saddam wasn’t supposed to have ANY of that stuff, regardless of when it was made. Arguing that Saddam can’t be blamed because he wasn’t able to keep track of his own munitions programs doesn’t exactly ease the mind. You’ll forgive us, too, if we have little faith in a U.N. “monitoring and verification” system that “would have” been in place in Iraq. Wasn’t the U.N. “monitoring” Libya and Iran, too?
Comment by Ofc. Krupke — 1/8/2006 @ 2:13 pm
It has previously been reported that Bin Laden planned to flee to Iraq if Afghanistan was invaded. It was their ‘last best hope’. It was then the obvious next target to cut off Al Quaeda’s retreat. Leaving it intact would have just meant the problem migated elsewhere, and in fact that Saddam and Al Quaeda would officially join up - a nightmare scenario. Simple strategy justified all actions. There is no need for more discoveries to back it up.
Comment by Bruce — 1/8/2006 @ 4:56 pm
I really don’t know why the USA isn’t scanning all documents into digital forms, sending it to the USA (1 meg/page?), and farming out smart OCR programs to convert Arabic images to text. Then have automatic Arabic > English translation programs, to get initial translations of the text.
Comment by Tom Grey - Liberty Dad — 1/8/2006 @ 5:17 pm
WAR: The Training Ground Stephen Hayes’ latest from the Weekly Standard breaks the most important story of the week (via Instapundit): THE FORMER IRAQI REGIME OF Saddam Hussein trained thousands of radical Islamic terrorists from the region at camps in Iraq over the four…
Trackback by Baseball Crank — 1/8/2006 @ 6:05 pm
Austin Bay nails it… Austin Bay’s description of the situation as seen by the Bush Administration in late 2002 and early 2003 make clear that the decision to liberate Iraq was the right one. The memos and other information gleaned vindicate that decision, albeit on…
Trackback by No End But Victory — 1/9/2006 @ 10:28 am
Saddam Hussein and Islamic Terrorism Looking through unclassified documents, Weekly Standard writer Stephen Hayes has found evidence for Saddam’s training of Islamic terrorists from across the Middle East:The secret training took place primarily at three camps—in Samarra, Ramadi, and Sa…
Trackback by The Larsonian — 1/9/2006 @ 3:19 pm
[…] OF Saddam Hussein may have trained thousands of radical Islamic terrorists from the region at camps in Iraq …. (Various) DAVID WARREN: “From what I understand of his medical condition, the […]
Pingback by CaNN :: We started it. — 1/9/2006 @ 5:21 pm
[…] veal–and why they should all be made public. (Stephen Hayes in The Weekly Standard) Saddam’s Connections to Terrorists (Austin Bay, via Instapundit) Saddam’s WMD Tapes (Th […]
Pingback by MY Vast Right Wing Conspiracy » Blog Archive » “Must Read” Links — 1/9/2006 @ 9:53 pm
Saddam’s terrorist links revealed STOP THE PRESSES! More info bubbles to the surface re Saddam’s support of OBL and other terror groups. Deroy Murdock expands on Stephen Haye’s earlier article in the Weekly Stan…
Trackback by Rocket's Brain Trust — 1/12/2006 @ 8:28 pm
That Weekly Standard article is, at best, dubious. The magazines editor, William Kristol, is the son of one of the founding fathers of the radical neoconservative movement, Irving Kristol-which I believe has hijacked the true conservative party. And before his father, it was Leo Strauss. Bill Kristol, a regular political commentator on Fox News(the right-wing propaganda machine) is joined by Michale Lendeen, which is obvious with his writings such as:
And let’s not forget about the PNAC, which calls for the US to gain control of Persian oil-hence the lies about WMD. If you scroll to the bottom of the page in the link above, you will see that the Bush administration had, or did have many of the same members. What I find interesting is not just Dick Cheney being a member of both, but of John Bolton and Paul Wolfowitz and their positions now as recess appointment of ambassador to the UN and president of the World Bank. My questions, and keeping in mind rebuffed Bush administration darlings Ahmed Chalabi and ‘Curveball’, are: 1. Who is to say that these so-called documents of proof were not planted by someone like those two looking to gain power or make a few million? We already know it’s been tried before. 2. What difference would it make if the fact that they found them was released or talked about by the Bush administration now? They could tell the public that they have not been through all of them, but the ones they have suggest that Iraq had al Qaeda training grounds. A statement like that would cover them in their assertions before the war but not yet claim solid proof AND take the heat off of them because of the wrong contentions before the war that has been dogging this administration. Saying that they should wait doesn’t hold water-even to use against Democrats in the upcoming elections. If it’s true, which I doubt, the timing in the release of the information wouldn’t matter. There are good reasons to suspect the validity of those documents. The facts I have shown above are just a few of them.
Comment by Tim — 1/28/2006 @ 12:17 pm
Austin, Excellent analysis of the documents. Thought you might want to know that a former 20 year DIA intel analyst just came out to challenge the conventional wisdom as well http://regimeofterror.com/archives/2007/07/former_dia_analyst_challenges_1/ Also, from now on I’d like to link to all bloggers who talk to this issue when they do a new post (as you have in the past). Can you please email me when something new comes up so I can link you at http://www.regimeofterror.com ? Thanks, Mark
Comment by Mark Eichenlaub — 7/7/2007 @ 7:44 pm