40% Still Believe Saddam Behind 911

[ChumpDumper]

And really, we had Saddam in custody for months. With our reliable waterboarding and stress position techniques, shouldn't we have already gotten any information about the Saddam-al Qaeda link from Saddam himself?

Well?

[Nbadan]

Saddam had time to talk?

They couldn't kill Saddam fast enough. He should have been tried at the Hague, but he knew where all the bodies were buried, so they tried him in a kangaroo Iraq court, hand-strung his lawyers and still almost lost the one charge he was tried for.

[boutons_]

His administration a total disaster internationnally and domestically, dubya tries to relate his Iraq quaqmire to al-Qaida, those 9/11 guys, which is total bull , par for dubya.

Bush Plays al Qaida Card to Bolster Support for Iraq Policy


By Jonathan S. Landay
McClatchy Newspapers

Thursday 28 June 2007

Washington - Facing eroding support for his Iraq policy, even among Republicans, President Bush on Thursday called al Qaida "the main enemy" in Iraq, an assertion rejected by his administration's senior intelligence analysts.

The reference, in a major speech at the Naval War College that referred to al Qaida at least 27 times, seemed calculated to use lingering outrage over the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, to bolster support for the current buildup of U.S. troops in Iraq, despite evidence that sending more troops hasn't reduced the violence or sped Iraqi government action on key issues.

Bush called al Qaida in Iraq the perpetrator of the worst violence racking that country and said it was the same group that had carried out the Sept. 11 attacks in New York and Washington.

( "there he goes again!" "where's the Beef/truth?"
the stupid, lying bas )

"Al Qaida is the main enemy for Shia, Sunni and Kurds alike," Bush asserted. "Al Qaida's responsible for the most sensational killings in Iraq. They're responsible for the sensational killings on U.S. soil."

U.S. military and intelligence officials, however, say that Iraqis with ties to al Qaida are only a small fraction of the threat to American troops. The group known as al Qaida in Iraq didn't exist before the U.S.-led invasion in 2003, didn't pledge its loyalty to al Qaida leader Osama bin Laden until October 2004 and isn't controlled by bin Laden or his top aides.

( I read last year that 90% of the US deaths/casualties are by Sunnis/Baathist, who lost the most when US invaded)

Bush's references to al Qaida came just days after Republican Sens. Richard Lugar of Indiana, the top Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and George Voinovich of Ohio broke with Bush over his Iraq strategy and joined calls to begin an American withdrawal.

"The only way they think they can rally people is by blaming al Qaida," said Vincent Cannistraro, a former chief of the CIA's Counter-Terrorism Center who's critical of the administration's strategy.

Next month, the Senate is expected to debate the Iraq issue as it considers a Pentagon spending bill. Democrats are planning to offer at least three amendments that seek to change Iraq strategy, including revoking the 2002 resolution that authorized Bush to use force in Iraq and mandating that a withdrawal of troops begin within 120 days.

Bush's use of al Qaida in his speech had strong echoes of the strategy the administration had used to whip up public support for the Iraq invasion by accusing the late Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein of cooperating with bin Laden and implying that he'd played a role in the Sept. 11 attacks. Administration officials have since acknowledged that Saddam had no ties to bin Laden or 9-11.

A similar pattern has developed in Iraq, where the U.S. military has cited al Qaida 33 times in a barrage of news releases in the last seven days, and some news organizations have echoed the drumbeat. Last month, al Qaida was mentioned only nine times in U.S. military news releases.

In his speech, Bush referred only fleetingly to the sectarian violence that pits Sunni Muslim insurgents against Shiite Muslim militias in bloody -for-tat attacks, bombings, atrocities and forced mass evictions from contested areas of Baghdad and other cities and towns.

U.S. intelligence agencies and military commanders say the Sunni-Shiite conflict is the greatest source of violence and insecurity in Iraq.

( but what do they know? dubya is The Decider)

"Extremists - most notably the Sunni jihadist group al Qaida in Iraq and Shia oppositionist Jaysh al-Mahdi - continue to act as very effective accelerators for what has become a self-sustaining struggle between Shia and Sunnis," the National Intelligence Council wrote in the unclassified key judgments of a National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq (PDF) published in January. Jaysh al Mahdi is Arabic for the Mahdi Army militia of anti-American Shiite cleric Muqtada al Sadr.

The council comprises the top U.S. intelligence analysts, and a National Intelligence Estimate is the most comprehensive assessment it produces for the president and a small number of his senior aides. It reflects the consensus of all 16 U.S. intelligence agencies.

In his speech, Bush made other questionable assertions.

He claimed that U.S. troops were fighting "block by block" in Baqouba, a city northeast of Baghdad, as part of an offensive to clear out al Qaida fighters.

But Gen. Raymond Odierno, the U.S. ground commander in Iraq, said earlier this month that 80 percent of the insurgents American troops expected to encounter in Baqouba had fled before the operation began, including much of the insurgent leadership.

There was little heavy fighting. Out of 10,000 U.S. troops involved, only one has been killed.

Bush categorically blamed al Qaida for the Feb. 22, 2006, bombing of the Askariya mosque, a sacred Shiite shrine in Samarra whose destruction accelerated sectarian bloodshed.

But no group has claimed responsibility for the attack, and U.S. officials say there's no proof that al Qaida in Iraq was responsible, only strong su ions.

Critics of the war are questioning the administration's increasing references to al Qaida.

"We cannot attribute all the violence in Iraq to al Qaida," retired Army Maj. Gen. John Batiste, who commanded the 1st Infantry Division in Iraq before becoming an opponent of Bush's strategy there, told the House Foreign Affairs Committee on Wednesday. "Al Qaida is certainly a component, but there's larger components."

(Gen Batiste, I also heard there ARE larger components. )

[Yonivore]

Saddam had time to talk?

They couldn't kill Saddam fast enough. He should have been tried at the Hague, but he knew where all the bodies were buried, so they tried him in a kangaroo Iraq court, hand-strung his lawyers and still almost lost the one charge he was tried for.

Damn, you guys were right, Nbadan hearts Saddam.

[fyatuk]

His administration a total disaster internationnally and domestically, dubya tries to relate his Iraq quaqmire to al-Qaida, those 9/11 guys, which is total bull , par for dubya.

There's some really weird bits in that article. The quote from Bush blames al Qaeda for the most sensational killings in Iraq, not the most like the article seems to interpret it. I wouldn't be suprised if Bush did say that they were responsible for the most, but the quote they used didn't seem to support their claim.

Then it went on to blame the Sunni-Shiite violence for the most deaths while attributing the escalation of that violence to al Qaeda and the Mahdi army.

So the article says that al Qaeda isn't responsible for the most deaths, but share a good portion of the blame for the conflict that is responsible.

huh?

[Yonivore]

In an op-ed for the Washington Post today (reg. required), former DIA analyst Christina Shelton corrects George Tenet's mischaracterization of her analysis on Iraq's ties to al Qaeda.

Shelton says that George Tenet misrepresents a presentation authored by her in his book, At the Center of the Storm:

That day I summarized a body of mostly CIA reporting (dating from 1990 to 2002), from a variety of sources, that reflected a pattern of Iraqi support for al-Qaeda, including high-level contacts between Iraqi senior officials and al-Qaeda, training in bomb making, Iraqi offers of safe haven, and a nonaggression agreement to cooperate on unspecified areas. My position was that analysts were not addressing these reports since much of the material did not surface in finished, disseminated publications.

Tenet himself described Iraq's relationship with al Qaeda to Congress in a letter dated October 7, 2002, then failed to mention his own letter in his book. Shelton says that Tenet now tries to discredit her work by misrepresenting her background:

Tenet's response to my presentation was to attempt to denigrate my credentials. I was not a "naval reservist," as he wrote in his book, assigned to the Pentagon for temporary duty. In fact, I was a career intelligence analyst for two decades, and I spent half of that time in counterintelligence. I did not draw conclusions beyond the reporting, as he suggested. I addressed the substantive material in the reports.

Tenet has been on various sides of the Iraq/al Qaeda issue, but his subordinate Paul Pillar has been consistent: he has stuck to the view that there couldn't possibly be a significant relationship, and has dismissed all evidence to the contrary.

However, Ms. Shelton points to something interesting in Tenet's book. Tenet explains that the CIA's terrorism analysts "believed to be credible the reporting that suggested a deeper relationship," while the agency's regional analysts "significantly limited the cooperation that was suggested by the reporting."

When Tenet mentions the agency's "regional" analysts he is most certainly referring to Paul Pillar, the former National Intelligence Officer for the Near East and South Asia, and his supporting crew. Pillar has been a very vocal opponent of the idea that Saddam's Iraq and al Qaeda could cooperate. He apparently believes that ideology trumps all other concerns such that the "secular" Saddam and the Islamists of al Qaeda couldn't possibly find common ground.

This is nonsense, of course. Our enemies are not cheap cartoon caricatures. They are more than capable of overlooking even substantial ideological disagreements in order to cooperate against their common enemies (just as humans have for all of recorded history: The Soviets and Nazi Germany pre-World War II, the Soviets and the U.S. in World War II, etc.). And Saddam cloaked his regime in the language of the jihadis during the 1990's as well.

But Pillar has made a name for himself by advancing this argument. His Foreign Affairs piece published last year, for example, has been widely cited. In that piece, Pillar accused the Bush administration - including Vice President Cheney - of "cherry-picking" data. He wrote:

But the greatest discrepancy between the administration's public statements and the intelligence community's judgments concerned not WMD (there was indeed a broad consensus that such programs existed), but the relationship between Saddam and al Qaeda. The enormous attention devoted to this subject did not reflect any judgment by intelligence officials that there was or was likely to be anything like the "alliance" the administration said existed. The reason the connection got so much attention was that the administration wanted to hitch the Iraq expedition to the "war on terror" and the threat the American public feared most, thereby capitalizing on the country's militant post-9/11 mood.

The issue of possible ties between Saddam and al Qaeda was especially prone to the selective use of raw intelligence to make a public case for war. In the shadowy world of international terrorism, almost anyone can be "linked" to almost anyone else if enough effort is made to find evidence of casual contacts, the mentioning of names in the same breath, or indications of common travels or experiences. Even the most minimal and cir stantial data can be adduced as evidence of a "relationship," ignoring the important question of whether a given regime actually supports a given terrorist group and the fact that relationships can be compe ive or distrustful rather than cooperative.

The intelligence community never offered any analysis that supported the notion of an alliance between Saddam and al Qaeda...

Pillar goes on. But he never mentions that some of his colleagues within the CIA disagreed with his take - as pointed out by Tenet and Shelton. Pillar leaves no room for the possibility that there was more than one way to look at the issue of Saddam's ties to al Qaeda, or that perhaps he and his analysts in the NESA were simply wrong. Instead, Pillar pretends that only those interested in justifying a war by "capitalizing on the country's militant post-9/11 mood" could possibly think that Saddam's ties to al Qaeda were worrisome.

Pillar also does not mention that his own boss, George Tenet, thinks that there was "more than enough evidence" to worry about. Nor does he mention that his own CIA produced at least three analytic products (memos) from the summer of 2002 to the eve of the Iraq war in January 2003, all of which discussed the evidence of a relationship between Saddam's Iraq and al Qaeda. The evidence cited in a Thomas Jocelyn piece on Tenet's book goes through the intelligence that was in those three memos - as recounted by Tenet himself.

None of this has been critically examined by the mainstream press. Instead, Pillar is uncritically cited as an unbiased source. (For example, as explained by Robert Novak, Pillar became a "hero" for journalists like Michael Isikoff and David Corn.) But perhaps those journalists that rely on Paul Pillar for their (mis)understanding of these events should rethink their sourcing.

Pillar's "analysis" is based on an assumption about our enemies. There is much evidence that contradicts that assumption, but Pillar couldn't be bothered to honestly investigate it. Others in the CIA and the DIA did.

That story is still not widely known.

[Yonivore]

'What If...'

Given the problems and US casualties in Iraq, polls show a large majority of the American people believe the invasion of Iraq was a mistake. Yet, if we imagine what the world would look like today if Saddam Hussein had not been deposed, it seems clear that almost no outcome in Iraq would be as adverse to the interests of the United States as today's world with Saddam still in power.

It is important to recall that Saddam had thrown the UN weapons inspectors out of Iraq in 1998, and only allowed them to return in 2002 because of the credible threat of a US attack. In addition, the sanctions regime was collapsing—Saddam had learned how to extract billions of dollars for weapons out of the humanitarian exceptions to those sanctions--and our European friends, and perhaps UN officials themselves, were complicit in this. Under these cir stances, Saddam could not have been "contained" or rendered harmless, and Iraq could not have been indefinitely subject to UN inspections. At some point, Saddam would have been able to throw out the inspectors again, with no further action by the UN. It was clear that the UN itself would do nothing to enforce its own resolutions.

We also know from the reports of the weapons inspectors that Saddam and his scientists were working to develop nuclear weapons, work that certainly would have continued if Saddam had remained place. Saddam had already demonstrated that he would use chemical weapons, and there is no reason in logic that he wouldn't also restore his chemical weapons stocks once the inspectors had left. He had the largest army in the region, and had shown a determination to use it for expanding his control beyond Iraq. It's not far-fetched, therefore, to consider what economists call a counterfactual—what things would look like today if the US had not invaded Iraq.

First, US troops would still be in Saudi Arabia. Our troops were there because of the Saudis' fear of an Iraqi attack. We should recall that one of the principal reasons bin Laden cited for attacking us—not only on 9/11, but for many years before—was that US troops were supposedly defiling the Muslim holy places in Saudi Arabia. As absurd as this seems to us, it apparently resonated with the Mohammed Attas of this world. With Saddam still in power, American arms would be necessary to protect Saudi Arabia, and our presence there would still be a continuing irritant among militants and a source of al Qaeda-inspired terrorist attacks against the United States around the world.

Imagine, also, trying to persuade Iran to abandon the development of nuclear weapons when Iraq—which had attacked Iran—was actively engaged in doing exactly that. We hope now to change Iran's course through economic sanctions—a difficult prospect to be sure—but that would be a hopeless quest if its leaders and population believed they needed nuclear weapons to deter Iraq. Once it became clear that Iran would develop nuclear weapons, many Sunni Arab nations would want a nuclear deterrent, and Israel's position would be hideously complicated.

Then there's Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in the Palestinian territories. Before he was deposed by the US invasion, Saddam was bidding for leadership of the Arab world in its opposition to Israel and US policy in the Mideast. We can now see the resources he would have brought to bear in that effort. Saddam was a Sunni leader of a Shi'ite country. As he watched the Islamic world becoming more fundamentalist, he too became more overtly religious. Undoubtedly, he saw himself as the new Nasser, the one person who could unite the Arab and perhaps the Islamic world against the West and Israel. If he had remained in power, he would now be contesting with Iran for sponsorship of Hezbollah and Hamas. With these two regional powers competing in their militancy against Israel, there would be little chance of a Mideast peace any time soon. Gaza, now under Hamas control, would become a protectorate of Iraq, and the effectiveness of the West's financial boycott would have been nullified.

Saddam's interest in driving the US out of the Middle East would be coincident with those of al Qaeda and he would have the weapons of mass destruction that al Qaeda has been seeking. We could never be sure that if we opposed Saddam—say, in another Iraqi invasion of Kuwait—he would not make weapons of mass destruction available to al Qaeda.

In short, it would be difficult to construct a scenario in which the ultimate outcome of events in Iraq today would be as negative for the United States as a world in which Saddam remains in control of Iraq. So, while we are justifiably dismayed about what is happening today in Iraq, we should not allow this to obscure the central point—that the world is a better and safer place because Saddam is out of power. Looked at this way, we have already achieved a lot; what remains now—as the President and Senator McCain have said—is to steady ourselves and see it through.

Peter J. Wallison is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Ins ute; he was White House counsel in the Reagan administration.

[boutons_]

AEI: a viper's den of neo- ideologues, along with PNAC, who beat the war drums for the Iraqi invasion. Of course this mother ing neo- Wallison is trying to justify the gawd-awful disaster he perpetrated.

"Yet, if we imagine what the world would look like today if Saddam Hussein had not been deposed, it seems clear that almost no outcome in Iraq would be as adverse to the interests of the United States as today's world with Saddam still in power."

No, it's DOESN'T SEEM CLEAR AT ALL! The US and world and war on terror are MUCH WORSE OFF now with Iraqi totally de-stablized, infiltrated by Al-Quaida and Iranians, than it was in Feb 03 with Saddam harmlessly marginalized "in power" and nailed down by embargo and US military surveilance, flyovers, and adjacent US-occupied Arab countries.

[PixelPusher]

In short, it would be difficult to construct a scenario in which the ultimate outcome of events in Iraq today would be as negative for the United States as a world in which Saddam remains in control of Iraq.

From the same failure of imagination that brought us "greeted as liberators", "the war will pay for itself" and "insurgency in it's last throes". Any "counterfactual" thesis is premature at best, since the end result of Iraq is still unknown...and I might add that the consequences extend far beyond the borders of Iraq. (like the continuous erosion of the Army and Marine Corps)

[Yonivore]

Strategy Page has some hopeful observations on the state of al Qaeda today that kind of agree with what I've already been saying:

Al Qaeda continues to take a beating, but you can ignite a media firestorm just saying that.
***
Al Qaeda operations continue to decline, as the number of al Qaeda members, and leaders killed or captured, goes up.
***
American and Pakistani attacks (usually with missiles or smart bombs) along the Afghan border in the last two years have killed an increasing number of foreign fighters.

But that's not what worries al Qaeda, it's the increasing amount of accurate information the counter-terror forces are getting. No one is talking, but al Qaeda chatter claims that either the Americans have some wondrous new bit of technology, or Yankee money has corrupted more al Qaeda members to give up information. The Taliban is suffering the same kind of casualties, and coming up with the same paranoid theories.
***
Al Qaeda is eagerly recruiting other Islamic terrorist organizations, usually ones that have recently taken a big beating in their home country, to become part of al Qaeda. That's about the only growth al Qaeda is experiencing.
***
Al Qaeda is having some success in the Western media, and among Moslems living in Europe. But those expatriate Moslems are handicapped by many of their brethren who are not enthusiastic about Islamic terrorism. The police get tips, make arrests, and al Qaeda losses a few more true believers. Al Qaeda is desperate for another highly visible attack in the West. Many such operations are apparently being planned, but by amateurs who can get no help from al Qaeda experts. Most of al Qaedas traveling experts are dead or in prison. Inspiring amateurs to attempt poorly planned attacks, like the recent ones in Britain, only discourage recruits.

That sounds right to me. The whole picture will likely change, however, if al Qaeda succeeds in driving the U.S. out of Iraq.

Then, there's this hopeful sign...a converted Jihadi. The first if not one of the very few.

The Guardian posted this amazing letter today from a former radical to the Muslim community.

In response to the attacks and attempted bombings this weekend a former radical Islamist, Hassan Butt, called out to Muslims to renounce terror:

When I was still a member of what is probably best termed the British Jihadi Network, a series of semi-autonomous British Muslim terrorist groups linked by a single ideology, I remember how we used to laugh in celebration whenever people on TV proclaimed that the sole cause for Islamic acts of terror like 9/11, the Madrid bombings and 7/7 was Western foreign policy.

By blaming the government for our actions, those who pushed the 'Blair's bombs' line did our propaganda work for us. More important, they also helped to draw away any critical examination from the real engine of our violence: Islamic theology.

Friday's attempt to cause mass destruction in London with strategically placed car bombs is so reminiscent of other recent British Islamic extremist plots that it is likely to have been carried out by my former peers.

And as with previous terror attacks, people are again articulating the line that violence carried out by Muslims is all to do with foreign policy. For example, yesterday on Radio 4's Today programme, the mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, said: 'What all our intelligence shows about the opinions of disaffected young Muslims is the main driving force is not Afghanistan, it is mainly Iraq.'

He then refused to acknowledge the role of Islamist ideology in terrorism and said that the Muslim Brotherhood and those who give a religious mandate to suicide bombings in Palestine were genuinely representative of Islam.

I left the BJN in February 2006, but if I were still fighting for their cause, I'd be laughing once again. Mohammad Sidique Khan, the leader of the 7 July bombings, and I were both part of the BJN - I met him on two occasions - and though many British extremists are angered by the deaths of fellow Muslim across the world, what drove me and many of my peers to plot acts of extreme terror within Britain, our own homeland and abroad, was a sense that we were fighting for the creation of a revolutionary state that would eventually bring Islamic justice to the world.

believe that the issue of terrorism can be easily demystified if Muslims and non-Muslims start openly to discuss the ideas that fuel terrorism. (The Muslim community in Britain must slap itself awake from this state of denial and realise there is no shame in admitting the extremism within our families, communities and worldwide co-religionists.) However, demystification will not be achieved if the only bridges of engagement that are formed are between the BJN and the security services.

If our country is going to take on radicals and violent extremists, Muslim scholars must go back to the books and come forward with a refashioned set of rules and a revised understanding of the rights and responsibilities of Muslims whose homes and souls are firmly planted in what I'd like to term the Land of Co-existence. And when this new theological territory is opened up, Western Muslims will be able to liberate themselves from defunct models of the world, rewrite the rules of interaction and perhaps we will discover that the concept of killing in the name of Islam is no more than an anachronism.

So, you've got a jihadi convert and the Islamo-fascists haven't been as successful at fomenting jihadi violence over the Salman Rushdie knighting as they were over the Allah cartoons.

I think it's possible -- although prematurely optimistic -- that the popularity of jihad may be waning in the Islamic community. That's probably good news to everyone but the Democrats and whack-a-doos in this forum.

[Yonivore]

I don't know if this says more about the British healthcare system or the notion that jihadists are disaffected and disenfranchised Muslim youth.

'Terror ringleader' is brilliant NHS doctor