Henry Imler September 10th, 2006

ThreatsWatch.Org: InBrief: Iraq and al-Qaeda Untied

By the report’s own acknowledgement, there has yet to be
produced a “‘fully researched, coordinated and approved position’ on
the postwar reporting on the former regime’s links to al-Qa’ida” by the
Intelligence Community with which to compare to prewar assessments.
Furthermore, especially with regard to WMD capabilities and ‘Regime
Intent,’ the incredibly thorough Iraqi Perspectives Project postwar
study produced by United States Joint Forces Command, Joint Center for
Operational Analysis, was not even considered with other postwar
assessments.

“[S]aying that you have a strong grasp on what was and
wasn’t going on in Iraq based on an “initial review” is akin to saying
that you don’t need to read the bible because you’ve memorized the ten
commandments.”

Weekly Standard: Rules of Evidence

Senator Carl Levin says that the report is “a
devastating indictment of the Bush-Cheney administration’s unrelenting,
misleading, and deceptive attempts” to connect Saddam’s regime to bin
Laden’s al Qaeda. Senator Jay Rockefeller agrees with Senator Levin’s
assessment, saying the report will confirm that “the Bush
administration’s case for war in Iraq was fundamentally misleading.”

CONSIDER TWO BRIEF examples, chosen from many:

The committee’s staff made little effort to determine whether or not
the testimony of former Iraqi regime officials was truthful. In fact,
Saddam Hussein and several of his top operatives–all of whom have an
obvious incentive to lie–are cited or quoted without caveats of any
sort. In Saddam’s debriefing it was suggested that he may cooperate
with al Qaeda because “the enemy of my enemy is my friend.” According
to the report, “Saddam answered that the United States was not Iraq’s
enemy. He claimed that Iraq only opposed U.S. policies. He specified
that if he wanted to cooperate with the enemies of the U.S., he would
have allied with North Korea or China.”

Anyone with even a partial recollection of the controversy
surrounding Iraq in the 1990s will recall that Saddam made it a habit
of cursing and threatening the United States. His annual January “Army
Day” speeches were laced with threats and promises of retaliation
against American assets. That is, when Saddam claimed that the United
States was “not Iraq’s enemy,” he was quite obviously lying. But
nowhere in the staff’s report is it noted that Saddam’s debriefing was
substantially at odds with more than a decade of his rhetoric.

The testimony of another former senior Iraqi official is
more starkly disturbing. One of Saddam’s senior intelligence
operatives, Faruq Hijazi, was questioned about his contacts with bin
Laden and al Qaeda. There is a substantial body of reporting on
Hijazi’s ties to al Qaeda throughout the 1990s.

Hijazi admitted to meeting bin Laden once in 1995, but claimed that
“this was his sole meeting with bin Ladin or a member of al Qaeda and
he is not aware of any other individual following up on the initial
contact.”

This is not true. Hijazi’s best known contact with bin Laden came in
December 1998, days after the Clinton administration’s Operation Desert
Fox concluded. We know the meeting happened because the worldwide media
reported it.

Here is a blog dedicated to looking at Saddam and Terror: Regime of Terror.

Note: Having ties to terror groups does not in anyway mean that Iraq
had anything to do with 911. But part of the war rationale was that if Saddam had WMDs,
wished to attack the United States, or get back at them for spoiling
his pan-Arabia plans, employing terror groups as delivery methods is a
possibility.

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