Exact text of Bush's Saddam/WTC links

[Patrick Degan]

Hello again, moron. I was wondering when you'd slink back out of your bolt-hole.

Ah yes, the "Sept 11th changed everything because it did because it did because it did because it did because it did because it did because it did because it did because it did" argument. Because without this little bit of sophistry, there is no credible argument that Iraq was a military threat.

Are you honestly so stupid that you refuse to believe that national security policy and assumption haven’t changed vastly since September 11th?

Nowhere near as stupid as to think that all situations are essentially the same, as you seem to believe.

Golden Mean fallacy.

Let me make myself more clear.

Yes let's have another regurgitation of the party line, shall we?

A poor nation is not an impotent nation. What the least have done, so too might others.

Hey, on that logic, we can just imagine anything and justify anything, can't we?

Iraq is no friend of the United States. They were a state sponsor of terrorism,

Yes, their scary token widows-and-orphans fund for suicide bombers who, in any case, were not targeting Americans.

and for decades nursed dreams of regional preeminence under a bloody dictatorship.

Which doesn't mean dick. A threat is only as good as the ability to actually carry it out. How many times must that be said and in how many different ways?

What part of: “They had just as much obvious reason as Afghanistan to hit us” do you not understand?

The part where they very demonstrably lacked the capability to attack us and made no move to do so for twelve years, shitwit.

And don’t give me that, “But they weren’t involved!” shit. It doesn’t make discussing the possibility an attempt at deception.

Of course not. Why allow reality more weight than your sophistries? Doesn't it bother you in the slightest that you are not only so terminally fact-challenged, but that you're going further and further off-script with the White House?

Responsibility implies deliberate intent. If Americans were not deliberate targets of violence occuring in a known war zone where anybody travels into at their own risk, then there is insufficent cause for retaliation.

Where possible, we must make it clear: attacks on American citizens by foreign governments or organizations are, for any reason and in any location unacceptable. We could easily have afforded to do so with Iraq.

Except a government wasn't involved in the Palestinian terror, and terrorists aren't likely to be too impressed by America insisting or dictating anything. To date, 315 U.S. soldiers have been knocked off by people none too impressed by our War on Terror. And in any case, you still can't make a case for how this has anything to do with attacking a weak, defenceless country which not only did not attack us but showed no inclination to do so.

I'm not responsible for your fantasies.

Reading problems, eh? It happens. Perhaps you just didn’t notice the part where somebody mentioned that Iraq handed the money for Palestinian suicide bombers’ families directly to a terrorist middleman.

Sigh:

Knife, you're reading too much into my statement. I argued Iraq was not sponsoring terrorism, but admitted Iraq was adding to the overall instability of the region by being involved. So many countries are involved in some way. Are they all sponsoring terrorists?

"Sponsoring terrorism" means providing logistics, military or funds for the terrorist organisation. The money here was getting distributed by the terrorist organisation; it wasn't for them.

You can narrow down "sponsoring terrorism" to your liking if you want. Which I guess for you requires us to believe the families of Palestinian suicide bombers are terrorists. But you can't expect the world to accept your definition; it's too controversial [Palestinian families defending their land are considered rebels by most]. Invading a country because they're "sponsoring terrorists" requires proof of:

The Government is sponsoring a recognised terrorist organisation by providing logistics, military hardware or funds

I haven't head of a single Palestinian family getting put on any government "terror list". Have you?

Token support —not actively training terrorists, not arming them covertly or overtly, not providing sanctuary or military intelligence or anything beyond token support. You'd best see to your own reading-comprehension problem before presuming to comment on anybody else's problems.

Sorry, but that does not make a case for war being the sole alternative. We've already been over this ground. Continual surveilance was quite capable of covering for Blix's observations.

Where did I say that it was a case for war as the sole alternative? I merely pointed out fact: Hans Blix could not sustain a more comprehensive search than the United States military after Saddam was out of power.

That was your argument on the last two threads you got your sorry ass kicked over, and in this very thread you stated that "there was no substitution for total occupation". Now it seems you're down to trying to weasel out of some of your own statements. Pathetic.

My argument is that Bush’s original assessment – that Blix couldn’t be as effective as other options – was correct, despite your anti-war views.

As you wish...

Another pathetic attempt at cleverness on your part but it avails you nought. Blair is already desperately scrambling to distance himself from the specious "45 minute launch capability" claims while his defence minister and press secretary hand in their resignations, John Howard in Australia is trying now to "qualify" his parroting of the Bush party line after the fact, and we've got Bush flunkies falling on their own swords for making unsubstantiated claims about WMDs and this whole administration backpedalling on the implied Saddam/9-11 linkage. Lies by implication, lies by omission, and outright direct lies; their stench rises to high heaven as the justifications for the late war collapse like a termite-eaten house. As the evidence continues to pile up, the evident dishonesty of the case for war becomes increasingly manifest. "Begging the Question"? A laughable assertion. If Bush, Blair, and Howard were so sincere in their belief that Iraq was the Great Black Beast they made it out to be, they'd be standing behind every last one of their assertions without the merest hint of doubt. Or they'd be tendering their own resignations as a matter of principle. They would not now be trying to weasel out of their own words or scrambling to find new justifications after the fact for the war to save their own political lives.

Here's a clue: when the story keeps changing, that indicates a guilty mind.

Here’s another clue: Nobody in the Bush administration ever tied Hussein directly to September 11th – they merely broached the possibility that he was tied to al-Qaeda. Given Iraq’s history and orientation, it’s not the worst possibility they could have sought to investigate.

From Jimmy Breslin's column in Newsday:

Look now at the lie that George Bush carries into the United Nations today:

We went into Iraq because they were part of the World Trade Center attack.

That's what they told you, and Americans, who honor their government, believed what their government told them. And so did all those young people as they were about to put up their lives in the desert.

On Oct. 14, 2002, Bush said, "This is a man [Saddam] that we know has had connections with al-Qaida. This is a man who, in my judgment, would like to use al-Qaida as a forward army."

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said, on Sept. 26, 2002, "Yes, there is a linkage between al-Qaida and Iraq."

Condoleezza Rice, the national security adviser, said on Sept. 25, 2002, "There have been contacts between senior Iraqi officials and members of al-Qaida going back for actually quite a long time."

They knew exactly what they were saying and what it would do. It was using a Big Lie in an age of screens and faxes. What did you think it was, a government telling you the truth? Why should they do that?

At summer's end, suspicions rose. It was time to change the lie before it became a liability. How do you do that? By using the ultimate con: telling the truth.

Here in the world of professional lying is how you use the truth to defuse a lie when it becomes dangerous to keep: Suddenly, Donald Rumsfeld on Sept. 16 announced, "I've not seen any indication that would lead me to believe that I could say that Saddam Hussein was involved in the Sept. 11 attacks."

That same day, Condoleezza Rice jumped up and chirped, "And we have never claimed that Saddam Hussein had either ... direction or control of 9/11. What we've said is that this was someone who supported terrorists, helped train them."

And then the next day, George Bush said, "There's no question that Saddam Hussein has al-Qaida ties. We have no evidence that Saddam Hussein was involved with the Sept. 11 attacks."

So the three now say that they never said that Hussein was involved in the World Trade Center attack. Look up what we said. We never said it.

Of course they did. Anybody who thinks they didn't is a poor fool. Take a half-word out of a sentence, replace it with a smug smile or chin motion and the meaning is there. Saddam was in on the Trade Center with bin Laden. Of course Bush and his people said it. Then go to the whip, go to the truth.

Only the strong memory is an opponent, and there are few of them. Otherwise, the only thing that can remind people and maybe even inflame them are these dead bodies coming back from Iraq to Heber, Calif. They arrive here in silence. We have no idea of how many wounded are in government hospitals with no arms or legs. You never hear Bush talking about them. He often acts as if subjects like this have nothing to do with him.

http://www.newsday.com/news/columnists/ ... columnists


When 2002 began, attempts were made to sell to the American public an alledged meeting between Al-Qaeda operatives and representatives of Iraqi Military Intelligence in Prague just prior to the September 11th attack —a myth which was subsequently exploded by Czech Intelligence. Not that such a trival little detail stopped this White House's flacks from constantly pushing the "Osama Hussein" mythology by implication and indirect word-gamesmanship.

A lie by implication is still a lie, no matter how desperately you twist yourself to say otherwise —something I believe I've said to you already. And the history is that Iraq had no ties to Al-Qaeda, which CIA Director George Tenet testified to on Capitol Hill in February of 2002.

[Patrick Degan]

Oh, and BTW, Comical Axi:


Experts doubt Iraq, al-Qaeda terror link
Last Updated Fri, 01 Nov 2002 22:16:17

WASHINGTON - U.S. President George W. Bush alleges that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda are working together to threaten the United States.

Bush says Iraq and al-Qaeda are co-operating in the pursuit of terror. But that view is being challenged by many in the U.S. intelligence community.

Bush has painted an alarming picture of Iraq's ties to the al-Qaeda terror network both at public rallies and in the Oval Office.

"You can't distinguish between al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein when you talk about the war on terror," he said.

"The regime has long-standing and continuing ties to terrorist organizations and there are al-Qaeda terrorists inside Iraq."

There's only one problem with the ties the White House alleges between Saddam and al-Qaeda. According to most experts on Iraq , those ties barely exist, if they exist at all.

"While there are contacts, have been contacts, there is no co-operation. There is no substantial, noteworthy relationship," said Daniel Benjamin, former terrorism adviser to the U.S. National Security Council.

Experts point out that Saddam, a secular Iraqi nationalist who refuses to rule by the Muslim religious law of Sharia, is a natural enemy of Osama bin Laden.

As for bin Laden, he has vowed to topple Arab leaders like Saddam who don't embrace Islamic fundamentalism.

"Osama bin Laden hates Saddam Hussein and considers him an infidel," said Bari Atwan, editor of the London-based Arabic newspaper Al Quds . He says bin Laden was even ready to help liberate Kuwait when it was invaded by Iraq in 1990.

That of course doesn't exclude Saddam forging an alliance with bin Laden more recently.

Bush makes these specific claims:
- that Iraq and al-Qaeda have had high-level contacts
- that Iraq is a safe haven for al-Qaeda fugitives
- that Iraq instructed al-Qaeda about weapons of mass destruction.

According to George Tenet, the director of the CIA, those claims are based on "sources of varying reliability." Information has come from detainees the U.S is holding in Guantanamo Bay, and from people like Ahmed Chalaby, an exiled Iraqi opposition leader whose claims the CIA disputes.

Vincent Cannistraro, a former CIA chief of counter-terrrorism, says the Bush administration is putting fierce pressure on the CIA to produce evidence about the Iraq al-Qaeda link that it doesn't have.

"They are not getting it from the CIA because the CIA, to its credit, is telling it the way they see it, which is what they should be doing, describing the world as it is, not as policy-makers wish it to be, or hope it to be, but as it is."

There is little doubt why the Bush administration is making these claims. The more it can link Iraq with the perpetrators of the Sept. 11 attacks the more public support it can win for going to war against Saddam Hussein.

Written by CBC News Online staff

http://www.cbc.ca/stories/2002/11/01/bushiraq021101


Report Cast Doubt on Iraq-Al Qaeda Connection

In a nationally televised address last October in which he sought to rally congressional support for a resolution authorizing war against Iraq, President Bush declared that the government of Saddam Hussein posed an immediate threat to the United States by outlining what he said was evidence pointing to its ongoing ties with al Qaeda.

A still-classified national intelligence report circulating within the Bush administration at the time, however, portrayed a far less clear picture about the link between Iraq and al Qaeda than the one presented by the president, according to U.S. intelligence analysts and congressional sources who have read the report.

The National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq, which represented the consensus of the U.S. intelligence community, contained cautionary language about Iraq's connections with al Qaeda and warnings about the reliability of conflicting reports by Iraqi defectors and captured al Qaeda members about the ties, the sources said.

"There has always been an internal argument within the intelligence community about the connections between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda," said a senior intelligence official, who, like others interviewed for this article, spoke on condition of anonymity. "The NIE had alternative views."

Similar questions have been raised about Bush's statement in his State of the Union address last January that the British had reported Iraq was attempting to buy uranium in Africa, which the president used to back up his assertion that Iraq had a reconstituted nuclear weapons program. In that case, senior U.S. officials said, the CIA 10 months earlier sent a former senior American diplomat to visit Niger who reported that country's officials said they had not made any agreement to aid the sale of uranium to Iraq and indicated documents alleging that were forged. Details of that CIA Niger inquiry were not shared with the White House, although the agency succeeded in deleting that allegation from other administration statements.

Bush, in his speech in Cincinnati on Oct. 7, made his case that Iraq had ties with al Qaeda, by mentioning several items such as high-level contacts that "go back a decade." He said "we've learned" that Iraq trained al Qaeda members "in bomb-making and poisons and deadly gases." Although the president offered essentially circumstantial evidence, his remarks contained none of the caveats about the reliability of this information as contained in the national intelligence document, sources said.

The presidential address crystallized the assertion that had been made by senior administration officials for months that the combination of Iraq's chemical and biological weapons and a terrorist organization, such as al Qaeda, committed to attacking the United States posed a grave and imminent threat. Within four days, the House and Senate overwhelmingly endorsed a resolution granting the president authority to go to war.

The handling of intelligence on Iraq's banned weapons programs and its links to al Qaeda has come under increased scrutiny on Capitol Hill, with some leading Democrats charging that the administration exaggerated the case against Hussein by publicizing intelligence that supported its policy and keeping contradictory information under wraps. The House intelligence committee opened a closed-door review into the matter last week; its Senate counterpart is planning similar hearings. The Senate Armed Services Committee is also investigating the issue.

Bush has defended his handling of intelligence before the war, calling his critics "revisionist historians."

"The intelligence services of many nations concluded that he had illegal weapons, and the regime refused to provide evidence they had been destroyed," Bush said in his weekly radio address yesterday. He vowed to search for "the true extent of Saddam Hussein's weapons programs, no matter how long it takes."

Questions about the reliability of the intelligence that Bush cited in his Cincinnati address were raised shortly after the speech by ranking Democrats on the Senate intelligence and armed services panel. They pressed the CIA to declassify more of the 90-page National Intelligence Estimate than a 28-page "white paper" on Iraq distributed on Capitol Hill on Oct. 4.

In one of the more notable statements made by the president, Bush said that "Iraq could decide on any given day to provide a biological or chemical weapon to a terrorist group or individual terrorists," and added: "Alliance with terrorists could allow the Iraqi regime to attack America without leaving any fingerprints."

Bush did not indicate that the consensus of U.S. intelligence analysts was that Hussein would launch a terrorist attack against the United States only if he thought he could not stop the United States from invading Iraq. The intelligence report had said that the Iraqi president might decide to give chemical or biological agents to terrorists, such as al Qaeda, for use against the United States only as a "last chance to exact vengeance by taking a large number of victims with him." And it said this would be an "extreme step" by Hussein.

These conclusions in the report were contained in a letter CIA Director George J. Tenet sent to Sen. Bob Graham (D-Fla.), then the chairman of the Senate intelligence panel, the day of Bush's speech.

While Bush also spoke of Iraq and al Qaeda having had "high-level contacts that go back a decade," the president did not say -- as the classified intelligence report asserted -- that the contacts occurred in the early 1990s, when Osama bin Laden, the al Qaeda leader, was living in Sudan and his organization was in its infancy. At the time, the report said, bin Laden and Hussein were united primarily by their common hostility to the Saudi Arabian monarchy, according to sources. Bush also did not refer to the report's conclusion that those early contacts had not led to any known continuing high-level relationships between the Iraqi government and al Qaeda, the sources said.

The president said some al Qaeda leaders had fled Afghanistan to Iraq and referred to one "very senior al Qaeda leader who received medical treatment in Baghdad this year." It was a reference to Abu Mussab Zarqawi, a Jordanian. U.S. intelligence already had concluded that Zarqawi was not an al Qaeda member but the leader of an unaffiliated terrorist group who occasionally associated with al Qaeda adherents, the sources said.

As for Bush's claim that Iraq had trained al Qaeda members in bomb-making and use of poisons and deadly gases, sources with knowledge of the classified intelligence estimate said the report's conclusion was that this had not been satisfactorily confirmed.

"We've learned," Bush said in his speech, "that Iraq has trained al Qaeda members in bomb-making and poisons and deadly gases." But the president did not mention that when national security adviser Condoleezza Rice had referred the previous month to such training, she had said the source was al Qaeda captives.

The CIA briefed congressional committees about the National Intelligence Estimate but did not deliver the classified version until the evening of Oct. 1, just before a Senate intelligence committee hearing the next day, congressional sources said. At that closed-door session, several senators raised questions about qualifying statements made in the report, which was circulated only among senior national security officials.

On Oct. 4, three days before the president's speech, at the urging of members of Congress, the CIA released its declassified excerpts from the intelligence report as a "white paper" on Iraq's weapons programs and al Qaeda links. The members wanted a public document to which they could refer during floor debates on the Iraq war resolution.

The white paper did contain passages that hinted at the intelligence community's lack of certitude about Iraq's weapons programs and al Qaeda ties, but it omitted some qualifiers contained in the classified version. It also did not include qualifiers made at the Oct. 2 hearing by an unidentified senior intelligence official who, during his testimony, challenged some of the administration's public statements on Iraq.

"Senator Graham felt that they declassified only things that supported their position and left classified what did not support that policy," said Bob Filippone, Graham's deputy chief of staff. Graham, now a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination, opposed the war resolution.

When the white paper appeared, Graham and Sen. Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.), an intelligence panel member and at that time chairman of the Armed Services Committee, asked to have additional portions of the intelligence estimate as well as portions of the testimony at the Oct. 2 hearing made public.

On the day of Bush's speech, Tenet sent a letter to Graham with some of the additional information. The letter drew attention because it seemed to contradict Bush's statements that Hussein would give weapons to al Qaeda.

Tenet released a statement on Oct. 8 that said, "There is no inconsistency between our view of Saddam's growing threat and the view as expressed by the president in his speech." He went on to say, however, that the chance that the Iraqi leader would turn weapons over to al Qaeda was "low, in part because it would constitute an admission that he possesses" weapons of mass destruction.

On Oct. 9, the CIA sent a letter to Graham and Levin informing them that no additional portions of the intelligence report would be made public.

© 2003 The Washington Post Company

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dy ... -2003Jun21



August 8, 2003

Iraq-al Qaeda links weak, say former Bush officials

By Peter H. Stone, National Journal

As criticism over the Bush administration's use of prewar intelligence on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction continues, a new wave of accusations seems ready to break—this time, over complaints that in its efforts to sell the war, the White House also hyped claims about the links between al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein's regime.

Three former Bush administration officials who worked on intelligence and national security issues have told National Journal that the prewar evidence tying al Qaeda to Iraq was tenuous, exaggerated, and often at odds with the conclusions of key intelligence agencies. The Bush alumni, as well as other intelligence veterans and some members of Congress, say they see parallels between how the administration painted the Qaeda connection to Iraq and the way that the White House often portrayed intelligence about weapons of mass destruction as being definitive or rock solid.

"Our conclusion was that Saddam would certainly not provide weapons of mass destruction or WMD knowledge to al Qaeda because they were mortal enemies," said Greg Thielmann, who worked at the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research on weapons intelligence until last fall. "Saddam would have seen al Qaeda as a threat, and al Qaeda would have opposed Saddam as the kind of secular government they hated."

Other Bush veterans concur that the evidence linking Al Qaeda to Iraq was overblown.

"Anyone who followed al Qaeda for a living would not have considered Iraq to be in the top tier of countries to be worried about," said Roger Cressey, who left the administration last fall after working on counterterrorism issues at the National Security Council and as a top aide to cyberterrorism czar Richard Clarke. "I'd argue that Iraq would be in the third tier." By contrast, Cressey said, Iran would rate in "the top tier."

And Flynt Leverett, who worked on Middle East issues at the National Security Council until earlier this year and is now with the Brookings Institution's Saban Center for Middle East Policy, said that some administration officials pushed the intelligence envelope on the Qaeda connection. "After September 11, there was a concrete effort by policy makers, particularly in the Pentagon and the vice president's office, to come up with links between al Qaeda and Iraq."

Generally, these and other former intelligence officials who talked to National Journal felt that the United States needed to confront Saddam Hussein. But the analysts questioned the war's timing and wondered whether the attack should have come before the battle against al Qaeda was sufficiently far along.

In the reviews that the Senate and the House Intelligence panels are conducting into the accuracy of prewar intelligence, the claims on Iraq and al Qaeda are also a topic of inquiry. Republican leaders of those committees have generally defended the administration's prewar assessment of Qaeda-Iraq links. Democrats, however, have been skeptical.

"I have never believed that the prewar links between al Qaeda and Iraq were very strong," declared Rep. Jane Harman, D-Calif., the ranking Democrat on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, who voted in favor of the war last fall. "The evidence on the al Qaeda links was sketchy."

Her counterpart on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence also sounded dubious about the administration's effort to link al Qaeda and Iraq. "I think the ties were always tenuous at best," said Sen. Jay Rockefeller IV, D-W.Va., who also voted for the war. "The evidence about the ties was not compelling." Rockefeller said that his panel has a staff group focusing on the question and that the panel may hold a hearing just on this issue in the fall.

In two periods during the run-up to the war against Iraq— in late September and early October of 2002, just before the vote in Congress, and then this year in the weeks before the war—administration heavyweights highlighted what they portrayed as significant ties between Iraq and al Qaeda. President Bush, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of State Colin Powell, and National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice all weighed in on this point, sometimes in a broad-brush way, sometimes with hints of tantalizing specifics.

Powell, in his major speech to the United Nations on February 5, cited the presence of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian terrorist who was in Baghdad in May 2002 receiving medical treatment for wounds he received in Afghanistan. Powell referred to al-Zarqawi as "an associate and collaborator of Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda lieutenants."

But several intelligence experts say that Powell overstated these ties. Al-Zarqawi "is at best seen as having linkages to al Qaeda, instead of being a card-carrying member," Cressey said. "There's no question that Zarqawi is a terrorist, but there are real questions about whether he's a member of al Qaeda," said Vince Cannistraro, a former head of counterterrorism operations at the CIA.

In his State of the Union address in January, Bush made the Qaeda-Iraq connection. "Evidence from intelligence sources, secret communications and statements by people now in custody," the president said, "reveal that Saddam Hussein aids and protects terrorists, including members of al Qaeda." Bush darkly added, "Secretly and without fingerprints, [Saddam] could provide one of his hidden weapons to terrorists or help them develop their own."

In perhaps the boldest assertion before the war, Defense Secretary Rumsfeld on September 27 stated that the administration had several "bullet-proof" sentences in intelligence reports about ties between Iraq under Saddam and al Qaeda. "We have what we consider to be very reliable reporting of senior-level contacts going back a decade," Rumsfeld said.

Bush echoed Rumsfeld's remarks in his major address in Cincinnati on October 7, asserting as well that al Qaeda and Iraq had "high-level contacts that go back a decade." He also stated that "we've learned" that Iraqis trained Qaeda members in "bomb making and poisons and deadly gases." And Bush posited that Iraq "could decide on any given day to provide a biological or chemical weapon to a terrorist group or individual terrorists."

But even as the president made these comments, the key classified National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq making the rounds in the Bush administration presented a more nuanced and less alarmist view. For instance, according to a recent Washington Post account, Bush didn't mention a key conclusion of the intelligence report: that although high-level contacts between al Qaeda and Iraq had taken place in the early 1990s when bin Laden was based in Sudan, these contacts had not been followed by any significant ties between Al Qaeda and the Iraqi government. Similarly, intelligence sources have said that the claim that Bush made about Iraq training Qaeda members in bomb making or poison gas use had not been fully verified.

"There wasn't the kind of link between Iraq and al Qaeda that people wanted," said one Bush administration alum. The CIA, he added, had "some measure of intellectual responsibility and didn't come up with a case."

Moreover, the president failed to mention the report's conclusion that the prevailing view in the intelligence community was much more guarded about the prospect of Saddam's transferring weapons of mass destruction to terrorists. In fact, CIA Director George J. Tenet wrote to Sen. Bob Graham, D-Fla., who was then the chairman of the Senate Intelligence panel, that only if a U.S. attack against Iraq seemed imminent or inevitable might Saddam "decide that the extreme step of assisting Islamist terrorists in conducting a WMD attack against the U.S. would be his last chance to exact vengeance.... "

Ken Pollack, a former CIA analyst and Iraq expert who is now director of research at the Saban Center at Brookings, said he also believed before the war that it was "extremely unlikely" that Saddam would have turned over weapons of mass destruction to al Qaeda. Furthermore, Pollack has since concluded that there's a "much stronger" argument to be made that "the administration exaggerated its case for war in terms of the al Qaeda issue than on the WMD issue."

Bush particularly irked intelligence analysts when he landed on an aircraft carrier right after Baghdad fell and proclaimed that the U.S. had just "removed an ally of al Qaeda." Thielmann, the former State Department analyst, calls the statement "an outrageous distortion" and a "shameless falsehood."

Bush, when specifically asked at his news conference on July 30 whether the links between Iraq and al Qaeda were exaggerated and whether he now had more definitive evidence pointing to them, gave a long answer justifying the war on other grounds. But on the links between al Qaeda and Iraq, he said only that David Kay, the former U.N. weapons inspector now in Iraq looking for evidence of weapons of mass destruction, was also going through piles of documents to look for such links. "It's going to take time for us to gather the evidence and analyze the mounds of evidence, literally the miles of documents that we have uncovered," Bush said.

Some critics argue that by linking al Qaeda and Iraq, the administration has not only misled the public about Iraq but about the real and continuing danger from al Qaeda.

The Bush administration "created a powerful impression for the American public that al Qaeda and Iraq were joined," said Dan Benjamin, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and the co-author of "The Age of Sacred Terror." Benjamin added, "People don't understand that al Qaeda is a global insurgency distinct from states, and is eager to topple some states."

Other former intelligence officials are also dismayed by Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz's recent statement that the fight against Iraq is the "central battle" in the Bush administration's war on terrorism. "The idea that the battle in Iraq is the central battle in the war on terrorism flies in the face of reality and all that we know about al Qaeda, Hezbollah, and other globally active terrorists," Leverett said.

Looking ahead, some critics worry that the Iraq war could ultimately help al Qaeda more than hurt it. "A lot of people who could have been very helpful working on al Qaeda were working on Iraq," Graham, a presidential candidate, said. "We shifted intelligence assets as well as military and intelligence people to Iraq."

Other Democrats concur. "The war enormously deepened the pool of eager recruits for al Qaeda," Rockefeller said. "I think that al Qaeda was, is, and always will be a greater threat than Iraq."

http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/0803/080803nj2.htm



Eat it.

[BoredShirtless]

Eat it.

But don't run to the toilet to vomit it back out! Let it digest. This stuff is healthy, full of supported opinions and information, it's good for you!

Seriously Axis, in all these months you've been debating here, have any of us made you change your mind about anything? Because when I see you conceed a point, one month later it's like you never conceeded. Why don't our arguments stick with you? It's clear you love your country. But why have you let that love blind you, to the truth behind our arguments, and to your governments lies? Don't be a sucker Axis. You can still love your country and poke holes in your governments policies at the same time.

[Axis Kast]

Nowhere near as stupid as to think that all situations are essentially the same, as you seem to believe.

Who the hell argued that the situations had to be exactly the same? What are you, some kind of fucking moron unable to understand the utility of comparison in the making of foreign policy? September 11th set a new bar for analysis of the Third World, into which Iraq clearly falls. Unless you’re looking for conspiracy theories under every rock and pebble, it’s evidently clear that President Bush committed no grand crime or evil deception in drawing parallels between the events of September 11, 2001 and the potential ambitions of Saddam Hussein.

Hey, on that logic, we can just imagine anything and justify anything, can't we?

Don’t even try this bullshit. Iraq is a state sponsor of terrorism – whether or not you blame American citizens for their own misfortunes in Israel. There was no reason to discount Hussein from the realm of possible responsibility; no reason to dismiss the question of whether an Iraqi, given enough money, could somehow organize or sustain a terrorist attack similar to that of September 11th.

Yes, their scary token widows-and-orphans fund for suicide bombers who, in any case, were not targeting Americans.

You’re purposely skirting the point. Saddam Hussein passed money into the hands of terrorists in order to fulfill a collective ambition. Iraq was a state sponsor of terrorism.

Which doesn't mean dick. A threat is only as good as the ability to actually carry it out. How many times must that be said and in how many different ways?

Iraq has more money than Afghanistan. They had plenty of time in which to act, or at least set wheels in motion. It’s all they’d have needed.

The part where they very demonstrably lacked the capability to attack us and made no move to do so for twelve years, shitwit.

Since 1988, the Afghanis were supposedly amicable to the United States, even if not downright congenial. The situation can change with time. In the end, your charge is wrong. Bush was leading no one to unfair conclusions when he referenced Saddam Hussein and state-sponsored terrorism in the same breath.

Of course not. Why allow reality more weight than your sophistries? Doesn't it bother you in the slightest that you are not only so terminally fact-challenged, but that you're going further and further off-script with the White House?

Have you stepped back to take a look at your own argument? You’re trying to indict Washington in a lie because Saddam Hussein was discussed as a possible source of terrorist attacks similar to September 11th. Did it ever occur to you that Bush would have been negligent if he hadn’t done so? There was no way around 70% of Americans assuming Saddam did it.

Except a government wasn't involved in the Palestinian terror, and terrorists aren't likely to be too impressed by America insisting or dictating anything. To date, 315 U.S. soldiers have been knocked off by people none too impressed by our War on Terror. And in any case, you still can't make a case for how this has anything to do with attacking a weak, defenceless country which not only did not attack us but showed no inclination to do so.

Iraq handed money to Palestinian terrorists for distribution to a third party. This isn’t a matter off speculation anymore. Saddam’s ties to terrorism are fact.

We’re not making the case for or against Iraq. Don’t try to veer off.

Token support —not actively training terrorists, not arming them covertly or overtly, not providing sanctuary or military intelligence or anything beyond token support. You'd best see to your own reading-comprehension problem before presuming to comment on anybody else's problems.

So, in your opinion, that Saddam Hussein was passing money to terrorists responsible for the deaths of American citizens was, in fact, absolutely permissible? Good to know.

That was your argument on the last two threads you got your sorry ass kicked over, and in this very thread you stated that "there was no substitution for total occupation". Now it seems you're down to trying to weasel out of some of your own statements. Pathetic.

It’s truth. Blix wasn’t about to be more effective than an occupation force.

A lie by implication is still a lie, no matter how desperately you twist yourself to say otherwise —something I believe I've said to you already. And the history is that Iraq had no ties to Al-Qaeda, which CIA Director George Tenet testified to on Capitol Hill in February of 2002.

Any discussion of al-Qaeda and Iraq would have led ignorant or uninformed members of the public to consider Hussein responsible for 9/11. Many still do despite Bush’s adamant denials that there was ever a link of responsible for that attack. And that’s what we’re talking about. The attack itself – not what Bush couldn’t have stopped: the public opinion onslaught. From the moment Bush drew the parallels he was required to have drawn by the responsibility of his own office, people went wild on assumption.

[Joe]

Fuck it, I'm tired of apologizing for this President. I still approve of the war and acting on doubtful intelligence like the yellowcake lead, but if it were a Democrat spewing forth this purposefully deceptive bullshit I'd be pitching a gigantic fit. I give up, this just isn't worth it anymore.

[Hamel]

Fuck it, I'm tired of apologizing for this President. I still approve of the war and acting on doubtful intelligence like the yellowcake lead, but if it were a Democrat spewing forth this purposefully deceptive bullshit I'd be pitching a gigantic fit. I give up, this just isn't worth it anymore.

Politics gives you a bigger butt than lobster and shrimp scampi (not to mention chocolate milk)

[Joe]

Fuck it, I'm tired of apologizing for this President. I still approve of the war and acting on doubtful intelligence like the yellowcake lead, but if it were a Democrat spewing forth this purposefully deceptive bullshit I'd be pitching a gigantic fit. I give up, this just isn't worth it anymore.

Politics gives you a bigger butt than lobster and shrimp scampi (not to mention chocolate milk)

...

[Hamel]

Fuck it, I'm tired of apologizing for this President. I still approve of the war and acting on doubtful intelligence like the yellowcake lead, but if it were a Democrat spewing forth this purposefully deceptive bullshit I'd be pitching a gigantic fit. I give up, this just isn't worth it anymore.

Politics gives you a bigger butt than lobster and shrimp scampi (not to mention chocolate milk)

...

Well how the hell you think my butt got so big, mon?

[Joe]

Well how the hell you think my butt got so big, mon?

The salmon mousse.

[BoredShirtless]

Politics gives you a bigger butt than lobster and shrimp scampi (not to mention chocolate milk)

...

Well how the hell you think my butt got so big, mon?

Someone's being listening to the end of Shrek wwwaaayyyyyyyy too many times. "I....like....big.....butts and I cannot lie! You otherbrothers can't deny!"

[Patrick Degan]

The above reply was posted by accident while incomplete. Could the moderators please delete it? Thank you.

[Durandal]

Done, Patrick.

[Patrick Degan]

Just determined to spin this out to the bitter bloody end, eh? How stupid of you.

Nowhere near as stupid as to think that all situations are essentially the same, as you seem to believe.

Who the hell argued that the situations had to be exactly the same?

"What some have done, others may do" or words to that effect is what you said, imbecile.

What are you, some kind of fucking moron unable to understand the utility of comparison in the making of foreign policy?

Still trying to justify lies, I see.

September 11th set a new bar for analysis of the Third World, into which Iraq clearly falls. Unless you’re looking for conspiracy theories under every rock and pebble, it’s evidently clear that President Bush committed no grand crime or evil deception in drawing parallels between the events of September 11, 2001 and the potential ambitions of Saddam Hussein.

Constantly chanting the "September 11th changed everything" mantra over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again does not answer all questions, stop all analysis, and end all discussion no matter how much you wish it did.

Hey, on that logic, we can just imagine anything and justify anything, can't we?

Don’t even try this bullshit.

The only bullshit here is your own, Comical Axi.

raq is a state sponsor of terrorism – whether or not you blame American citizens for their own misfortunes in Israel.

Strawman distortion.

There was no reason to discount Hussein from the realm of possible responsibility; no reason to dismiss the question of whether an Iraqi, given enough money, could somehow organize or sustain a terrorist attack similar to that of September 11th.

Not if you don't count the stunning lack of evidence of his involvement with any organisation like Al-Qaeda or in any action even remotely approaching the scale of the WTC strike, that is.

Yes, their scary token widows-and-orphans fund for suicide bombers who, in any case, were not targeting Americans.

You’re purposely skirting the point. Saddam Hussein passed money into the hands of terrorists in order to fulfill a collective ambition. Iraq was a state sponsor of terrorism.

I'm skirting nothing. The token payoffs to the families of delusional suicide bombers acting against Israel is on the same scale as Saudi payments in that direction. By the sort of (we can hardly call it) "logic" you're employing, there is sufficrnt cause for a full-scale war, invasion, and billion-dollar-a-week occupation of Saudi Arabia.

Which doesn't mean dick. A threat is only as good as the ability to actually carry it out. How many times must that be said and in how many different ways?

Iraq has more money than Afghanistan. They had plenty of time in which to act, or at least set wheels in motion. It’s all they’d have needed.

Except that Iraq was never involved in any operation even remotely on the scale of the WTC strike, never was involved in terrorism on any scale which deliberately targeted Americans, and never represented a terrorist threat on the scale of Al-Qaeda. And you're mistaken on another point: Afganistan didn't finance 9-11. Osama binLaden was quite able to pay for that out-of-pocket from his share of the family fortune.

Since 1988, the Afghanis were supposedly amicable to the United States, even if not downright congenial. The situation can change with time.

Uh huh. So full-scale war is now justifiable entirely on speculation. Please tell me you're not really that insane.

In the end, your charge is wrong. Bush was leading no one to unfair conclusions when he referenced Saddam Hussein and state-sponsored terrorism in the same breath.

Since he was leading everyone to the wrong conclusion of the Iraq/Al-Qaeda Axis and the implicit link of Saddam with 9-11, the charge that he was lying to the American public is quite valid.

Have you stepped back to take a look at your own argument? You’re trying to indict Washington in a lie because Saddam Hussein was discussed as a possible source of terrorist attacks similar to September 11th. Did it ever occur to you that Bush would have been negligent if he hadn’t done so? There was no way around 70% of Americans assuming Saddam did it.

The only reason 70% of the American public were led to that assumption was due to this White House constantly putting together Iraq and 9-11 in the same statements, the same speeches, and even the same sentences. Bush wasn't avoiding negligence, as you would have it —he was being outright dishonest.

Iraq handed money to Palestinian terrorists for distribution to a third party. This isn’t a matter off speculation anymore. Saddam’s ties to terrorism are fact.

So has Saudi Arabia, so I guess we must now immediately conquer Saudi Arabia.

We’re not making the case for or against Iraq. Don’t try to veer off.

It is you who is so desperately attempting to veer this discussion off-topic. The question before the bar was whether Bush was lying about Iraq and Al-Qaeda, Saddam and 9-11, and the evidence clearly shows that he was.

So, in your opinion, that Saddam Hussein was passing money to terrorists responsible for the deaths of American citizens was, in fact, absolutely permissible? Good to know.

You're just so fond of your ridiculous strawmen, aren't you?

That was your argument on the last two threads you got your sorry ass kicked over, and in this very thread you stated that "there was no substitution for total occupation". Now it seems you're down to trying to weasel out of some of your own statements. Pathetic.

It’s truth. Blix wasn’t about to be more effective than an occupation force.

No, it's a lie. Not only has the evidence to date confirmed Blix and contradicted Bush, but this:


Pilger claims White House knew Saddam was no threat
September 23, 2003 - 2:33PM

Australian investigative journalist John Pilger says he has evidence the war against Iraq was based on a lie which could cost George W Bush and Tony Blair their jobs and bring Prime Minister John Howard down with them.

A television report by Pilger aired on British screens last night said US Secretary of State Colin Powell and National Security Adviser Condoleeza Rice confirmed in early 2001 that Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein had been disarmed and was no threat.

But after the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington on September 11 that year, Pilger claimed Rice said the US "must move to take advantage of these new opportunities" to attack Iraq and claim control of its oil.

Pilger uncovered video footage of Powell in Cairo on February 24, 2001 saying, "He (Saddam Hussein) has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction. He is unable to project conventional power against his neighbours."

Two months later, Rice reportedly said, "We are able to keep his arms from him. His military forces have not been rebuilt."

Powell boasted this was because America's policy of containment and its sanctions had effectively disarmed Saddam.

Pilger claims this confirms that the decision of US President George W Bush - with the full support of British Prime Minister Blair and Howard - to wage war on Saddam because he had weapons of mass destruction was a huge deception.

Pilger interviewed several leading US government figures in Washington but said he did not ask Powell or Rice to respond to his claims.


http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/09/ ... 78207.html


pretty much puts to rest any doubt that this Administration wasn't lying about the actual military threat posed by Iraq as well.

Any discussion of al-Qaeda and Iraq would have led ignorant or uninformed members of the public to consider Hussein responsible for 9/11. Many still do despite Bush’s adamant denials that there was ever a link of responsible for that attack. And that’s what we’re talking about. The attack itself – not what Bush couldn’t have stopped: the public opinion onslaught. From the moment Bush drew the parallels he was required to have drawn by the responsibility of his own office, people went wild on assumption.

This has to be the single most pathetic bit of sophistry you've spun on this board to date. You really imagine that the Saddam/9-11 connection just came out of nowhere? For a whole year, this White House and its flacks kept putting Saddam and 9-11, Iraq and Al-Qaeda, together in their every thought, word, and deed in every public venue at every opportunity. The chimerical threat of Saddam's alledged WMD arsenal wasn't enough to whip up war fever, so it became necessary to constantly wave the Bloody Shirt of 9-11 in everybody's face to convince the people that the Great Black Beast Saddam Hussein Blofeld was on the verge of launching his Vast Terrorist Armies against us to nuke our cities and spread germs and chemicals on the irradiated ruins unless we invade NOW!!! Only now, it's becoming quite evident that Saddam's WMD threat was non-existent, the Iraq/Al-Qaeda Axis was a myth, Saddam had no involvement with the WTC strike, conquering Iraq has had zero effect on terrorism and that the people there increasingly hate us, and that the war and all the assumptions about the peace to follow have proven to be based on an edifice of lies which is now visibly crumbling.

Bush lied. He lied about WMDs, lied about the connection to 9-11, lied about how easy the peace would go. Bush Lied. No matter what depths of intellectual dishonesty you wish to indulge to continue your increasingly desperate effort to deny the facts of the matter, BUSH LIED. And now, his lies are catching up with him, and with Blair, and with Little Johnny Howard. You can either summon up the courage to recognise this, or you can keep playing Capt. Queeg on the witness stand, insisting upon the existence of things which simply were never real.

[Axis Kast]

What some have done, others may do" or words to that effect is what you said, imbecile.

First of all, stop playing the semantics game.

Second of all, it wouldn’t have been deception even if Bush had said: “We need to deal with people like Saddam because there’s a chance they could steal a page from al-Qaeda.” All Osama needed to commit his crimes was cash and a motive. Saddam had plenty of both – not to mention a professional intelligence agency.

Still trying to justify lies, I see.

So any hypothesis that is not validated by reality at some point down the line is an abject lie? Are you actually familiar with how national security estimates work?

Constantly chanting the "September 11th changed everything" mantra over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again does not answer all questions, stop all analysis, and end all discussion no matter how much you wish it did.

The only question I’ve got to answer is whether Bush lied to the public about connections between Saddam Hussein and September 11th. The answer is no, and nothing you’ve slapped up on this board can deny that, either.

The only bullshit here is your own, Comical Axi.

Nice ad-hominem attack. It doesn’t change things though. You’re still backing yourself into a corner.

Strawman distortion.

Liar. I have proven that Iraq was a state sponsor of terrorism. You have not been able to deny that.

Not if you don't count the stunning lack of evidence of his involvement with any organisation like Al-Qaeda or in any action even remotely approaching the scale of the WTC strike, that is.

As chief executive, Bush was responsible for dealing with the what-ifs of Saddam Hussein’s regime. Those included potential collaboration with other groups interested in doing damage to the United States and its national security interests.

I'm skirting nothing. The token payoffs to the families of delusional suicide bombers acting against Israel is on the same scale as Saudi payments in that direction. By the sort of (we can hardly call it) "logic" you're employing, there is sufficrnt cause for a full-scale war, invasion, and billion-dollar-a-week occupation of Saudi Arabia.

And nobody is vindicating the Saudis or striking them from the list. Piss in your pants all you want about it.

Yes, there is sufficient cause for war, invasion, and a billion-dollar-a-week occupation of Saudi Arabia. No, that doesn’t mean we have to do jack crap about it, now or ever. There was no universal imperative to choose one over the other. Iraq is a state sponsor of terrorism that passed money into the hands of terrorists. It doesn’t matter where that money ended up. It’s over. End of discussion.

Except that Iraq was never involved in any operation even remotely on the scale of the WTC strike, never was involved in terrorism on any scale which deliberately targeted Americans, and never represented a terrorist threat on the scale of Al-Qaeda. And you're mistaken on another point: Afganistan didn't finance 9-11. Osama binLaden was quite able to pay for that out-of-pocket from his share of the family fortune.

Iraq tried to assassinate an American president. Terrorism that deliberately targeted Americans. Iraq encouraged Palestinian suicide bombers and promised cash to their impoverished families. Terrorism that resulted in American deaths.

Iraq’s history is relevant, but not to the point that it excludes that nation from the line of suspects.

Afghanistan is the nation-state most identified with supporting Bin Laden. They harbored and abetted a terrorist, making it possible for him to consolidate his organization from a place of safety. If you think Iraq couldn’t have done what Bin Laden did through middle-men of its own, you’re dangerous presumptive.

Uh huh. So full-scale war is now justifiable entirely on speculation. Please tell me you're not really that insane.

Strawman. We didn’t go to war solely because of potential connections between Iraq and al-Qaeda.

Since he was leading everyone to the wrong conclusion of the Iraq/Al-Qaeda Axis and the implicit link of Saddam with 9-11, the charge that he was lying to the American public is quite valid.

Get it through your skull.

President George W. Bush, by virtue of his job – chief executive of the United States of America – was required to deal with the potential for new attacks from organizations and nation-states beyond al-Qaeda and Afghanistan. He made no mistake in drawing parallels between Hussein and al-Qaeda. No matter what, the American public would have run with it.

The only reason 70% of the American public were led to that assumption was due to this White House constantly putting together Iraq and 9-11 in the same statements, the same speeches, and even the same sentences. Bush wasn't avoiding negligence, as you would have it —he was being outright dishonest.

First of all, Bush was required to broach possible connections or potentials, which means that he couldn’t have avoided the public misperception on fear of being negligent.

Furthermore, I want proof that the administration was responsible for public perceptions of Saddam’s guilt. Prove to me that Bush is the one solely responsible for linking Saddam to 9/11 in the minds of American citizens, after such-and-such an amount of media hype or such-and-such report.

So has Saudi Arabia, so I guess we must now immediately conquer Saudi Arabia.

Strawman, but concession accepted on Iraqi terrorist just the same.

It is you who is so desperately attempting to veer this discussion off-topic. The question before the bar was whether Bush was lying about Iraq and Al-Qaeda, Saddam and 9-11, and the evidence clearly shows that he was.

No. The question was whether Bush lied about Saddam’s role in September 11th. You have not proven that he did.

You're just so fond of your ridiculous strawmen, aren't you?

You implied no problem with Saddam’s activities. In your opinion, it wasn’t worthy of action, apparently.

No, it's a lie. Not only has the evidence to date confirmed Blix and contradicted Bush, but this:

This is over whether Bush lied about Saddam and September 11th. I don’t care about anything else in relation to this argument. You still haven’t proven that Bush was solely responsible for the public misperceptions, either, and so you cannot make the case that any of the issues on which you claim he’s misled the American public actually mattered in that regard. It’s solely your opinion – which, I remind you, is no better than anybody else’s.

No matter what, the most comprehensive inspection could have occurred only after Saddam was out of power and forces were on the ground in an occupying role. Period. End of discussion. No, I’m not implying we must have had this kind of coverage. I’m simply stating fact regarding it.

Bush lied. He lied about WMDs, lied about the connection to 9-11, lied about how easy the peace would go. Bush Lied. No matter what depths of intellectual dishonesty you wish to indulge to continue your increasingly desperate effort to deny the facts of the matter, BUSH LIED. And now, his lies are catching up with him, and with Blair, and with Little Johnny Howard. You can either summon up the courage to recognise this, or you can keep playing Capt. Queeg on the witness stand, insisting upon the existence of things which simply were never real.

You’ve lied. You’ve lied that Bush is responsible for the public misconception regarding 9/11. He never said anything linking Hussein to that attack. You’ve provided no proof that his attempted connections exacerbated the situation from the public’s point of view.

[Patrick Degan]

What some have done, others may do" or words to that effect is what you said, imbecile.

First of all, stop playing the semantics game.

To quote you directly:

"Let me make myself more clear. A poor nation is not an impotent nation. What the least have done, so too might others."

Date-stamped Thu Sep 25, 2003 9:03 pm 

Your words, I believe.

Second of all, it wouldn’t have been deception even if Bush had said: “We need to deal with people like Saddam because there’s a chance they could steal a page from al-Qaeda.” All Osama needed to commit his crimes was cash and a motive. Saddam had plenty of both – not to mention a professional intelligence agency.

All your handwaving does not erase the dishonesty this White House engaged in by constantly making the Iraq/Al-Qaeda connection. And there is absolutely zero evidence of Saddam doing anything other than making token payments to the families of suicide bombers in Palestine, so you can just stop flogging this particular red herring of yours.

Still trying to justify lies, I see.

So any hypothesis that is not validated by reality at some point down the line is an abject lie? Are you actually familiar with how national security estimates work?

Threat-assesment based upon evident capability and extant actions, not paranoid delusional fever dreams. Constantly overstating the threat represented by another country where they have no such capability and no means to acquire said capability is an abject lie. Sorry if that doesn't suit you.

Constantly chanting the "September 11th changed everything" mantra over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again does not answer all questions, stop all analysis, and end all discussion no matter how much you wish it did.

The only question I’ve got to answer is whether Bush lied to the public about connections between Saddam Hussein and September 11th. The answer is no, and nothing you’ve slapped up on this board can deny that, either.

Lie by implication. Guilt-by-association lie. Your endless denials do not erase this, no matter how you dearly wish it did.

Nice ad-hominem attack. It doesn’t change things though. You’re still backing yourself into a corner.

It's just so cute when you think you're clever. Unfortunately, empty bluster will not help you.

Strawman distortion.

Liar. I have proven that Iraq was a state sponsor of terrorism. You have not been able to deny that.

The defender of lies calling me a liar. How amusing. And your "proof" amounts only to the uncovering of a token payoff fund for the families of suicide bombers. Not any sign that Iraq was providing logiostical support, or intelligence, or sanctuary, or arms. In other words, dick.

Not if you don't count the stunning lack of evidence of his involvement with any organisation like Al-Qaeda or in any action even remotely approaching the scale of the WTC strike, that is.

As chief executive, Bush was responsible for dealing with the what-ifs of Saddam Hussein’s regime. Those included potential collaboration with other groups interested in doing damage to the United States and its national security interests.

More handwaving on your part. The CIA already demonstrated that no such ties existed where Iraq was concerned.

I'm skirting nothing. The token payoffs to the families of delusional suicide bombers acting against Israel is on the same scale as Saudi payments in that direction. By the sort of (we can hardly call it) "logic" you're employing, there is sufficrnt cause for a full-scale war, invasion, and billion-dollar-a-week occupation of Saudi Arabia.

And nobody is vindicating the Saudis or striking them from the list. Piss in your pants all you want about it.

What a pathetic comeback. And no answer to the question at hand. Concession accepted.

Yes, there is sufficient cause for war, invasion, and a billion-dollar-a-week occupation of Saudi Arabia. No, that doesn’t mean we have to do jack crap about it, now or ever.

Ah, now trying to have it both ways, I see.

There was no universal imperative to choose one over the other. Iraq is a state sponsor of terrorism that passed money into the hands of terrorists. It doesn’t matter where that money ended up. It’s over. End of discussion.

Sorry, but if the standard is that token payoffs to the families of suicide bombers constitutes state sponsorship of terrorism, then Saudi Arabia is an enemy the same as Iraq and justifies war against Saudi Arabia. If Saudi's actions aren't sufficent to justify war, then the argument that war against Iraq on those grounds was justified fails.

Iraq tried to assassinate an American president.

On that logic, Libya is justified in declaring war against the United States, since we tried to assasinate their sitting leader (but bungled it and killed his daughter instead).

Terrorism that deliberately targeted Americans.

One American —and the plot was uncovered, thwarted, and due retaliation delivered which deterred any such future attempt. This does not point to wholesale terrorism targeting Americans indiscriminately.

Iraq encouraged Palestinian suicide bombers and promised cash to their impoverished families. Terrorism that resulted in American deaths.

Americans who were incidental casualties and not deliberate targets. Get that through your thick skull.

Iraq’s history is relevant, but not to the point that it excludes that nation from the line of suspects.

Never mind that there is no evidence to back your contention in this regard.

Afghanistan is the nation-state most identified with supporting Bin Laden. They harbored and abetted a terrorist, making it possible for him to consolidate his organization from a place of safety. If you think Iraq couldn’t have done what Bin Laden did through middle-men of its own, you’re dangerous presumptive.

EXCEPT THAT NO SUCH IRAQ/AL-QAEDA ALLIANCE EXISTED. Neither directly nor indirectly, no matter how many what-if games you wish to indulge in to fill in the great gaping void where you have no evidence to back your contention.

Uh huh. So full-scale war is now justifiable entirely on speculation. Please tell me you're not really that insane.

Strawman. We didn’t go to war solely because of potential connections between Iraq and al-Qaeda.

"What the least have done, so too might others."

"Another terrorist attack could occur at any time. A dirty bombing. A car bombing. Even another attempt to hijack an airplane could always result in a crash-landing in populated areas. These things can still happen whether or not we’re more prepared, Edi. To assume otherwise is eminently foolish."

Not a strawman. You argued that because of WMDs which might exist, we had to go to war. You argued that because of Iraq's possible ties with Al-Qaeda, we had to go to war. Everytime you've failed the challenge to provide the hard evidence to back the war justifications, YOU argued that "we can't be sure it isn't so, therefore war". You've been trying to validate war based upon nothing but sheer speculation on three threads now.

Since he was leading everyone to the wrong conclusion of the Iraq/Al-Qaeda Axis and the implicit link of Saddam with 9-11, the charge that he was lying to the American public is quite valid.

Get it through your skull.

President George W. Bush, by virtue of his job – chief executive of the United States of America – was required to deal with the potential for new attacks from organizations and nation-states beyond al-Qaeda and Afghanistan. He made no mistake in drawing parallels between Hussein and al-Qaeda. No matter what, the American public would have run with it.

No, he wasn't making mistakes, he was lying through his teeth. The CIA found no evidence to back his Iraq/Al-Qaeda/9-11 formulation. None. How long will you continue in your denial that the facts of the matter contradict the White House?

The only reason 70% of the American public were led to that assumption was due to this White House constantly putting together Iraq and 9-11 in the same statements, the same speeches, and even the same sentences. Bush wasn't avoiding negligence, as you would have it —he was being outright dishonest.

First of all, Bush was required to broach possible connections or potentials, which means that he couldn’t have avoided the public misperception on fear of being negligent.

You never tire of trying to rationalise away outright lying.

Furthermore, I want proof that the administration was responsible for public perceptions of Saddam’s guilt. Prove to me that Bush is the one solely responsible for linking Saddam to 9/11 in the minds of American citizens, after such-and-such an amount of media hype or such-and-such report.

Are you trying to argue that Bush didn't realise the impact of his own words?!?! Are you trying to say that he was powerless to forbid his subordinates from making unsupported contentions in public? Are you going to stand there and say he didn't comprehend what his meaning was when, in the course of arguing for the war in his own State of the Union speech, he talked about the threat of Iraq and its alledged WMDs and openly speculated about the September 11th terrorists having nuclear weapons instead of "just" planes to do their damage? What part of "we had to go to war in Iraq because of September 11th" eludes you? And if Bush didn't intend or desire for such a formulation to be made, then why didn't he come right out last year and state unequivocally that Saddam Hussein had no connection to 9-11?

Sorry, Comical Axi, but the evidence is Bush's own words and his doing nothing to correct the impression they were forming with the public. The only alternatives to Bush being dishonest are that he is negligent or that he is an idiot.

So has Saudi Arabia, so I guess we must now immediately conquer Saudi Arabia.

Strawman, but concession accepted on Iraqi terrorist just the same.

Once again, I'm not responsible for your fantasies.

It is you who is so desperately attempting to veer this discussion off-topic. The question before the bar was whether Bush was lying about Iraq and Al-Qaeda, Saddam and 9-11, and the evidence clearly shows that he was.

No. The question was whether Bush lied about Saddam’s role in September 11th. You have not proven that he did.

Yes I have, actually. You just think that sticking your fingers in your erars and going "LA LA LA LA LA LA LA I CAN'T HEAR YOU" makes inconvenient facts go away.

You implied no problem with Saddam’s activities. In your opinion, it wasn’t worthy of action, apparently.

Lie. My argument is that incidental American casualties incurred in actions not deliberately targeting Americans was not in itself sufficent cause for war.

This is over whether Bush lied about Saddam and September 11th. I don’t care about anything else in relation to this argument. You still haven’t proven that Bush was solely responsible for the public misperceptions, either, and so you cannot make the case that any of the issues on which you claim he’s misled the American public actually mattered in that regard. It’s solely your opinion – which, I remind you, is no better than anybody else’s.

Yes, by all means keep up with your pathetic denials in the face of Bush's own words, those of his flacks, and his doing nothing to correct any misperception.

No matter what, the most comprehensive inspection could have occurred only after Saddam was out of power and forces were on the ground in an occupying role. Period. End of discussion. No, I’m not implying we must have had this kind of coverage. I’m simply stating fact regarding it.

Colin Powell and Condoleeza Rice both knew in February of 2001 that Iraq was disarmed and neutralised and John Pilger's video evidence on that score is the smoking gun. The evidence post-war has vindicated Blix. The WMD threat was a lie, and Iraq's utter inability to rebuild its war machine or threaten any of the neighbouring states in the region is the only fact that matters.

Bush lied. He lied about WMDs, lied about the connection to 9-11, lied about how easy the peace would go. Bush Lied. No matter what depths of intellectual dishonesty you wish to indulge to continue your increasingly desperate effort to deny the facts of the matter, BUSH LIED. And now, his lies are catching up with him, and with Blair, and with Little Johnny Howard. You can either summon up the courage to recognise this, or you can keep playing Capt. Queeg on the witness stand, insisting upon the existence of things which simply were never real.

[Capt.Queeg]You’ve lied. You’ve lied that Bush is responsible for the public misconception regarding 9/11. He never said anything linking Hussein to that attack. You’ve provided no proof that his attempted connections exacerbated the situation from the public’s point of view.[/Queeg]

Before September the 11th, many in the world believed that Saddam Hussein could be contained. But chemical agents, lethal viruses and shadowy terrorist networks are not easily contained. Imagine those 19 hijackers with other weapons and other plans -- this time armed by Saddam Hussein. It would take one vial, one canister, one crate slipped into this country to bring a day of horror like none we have ever known. We will do everything in our power to make sure that that day never comes.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases ... 28-19.html


Bush's own words, in his 2003 State of the Union speech.

And:


excerpt:

WASHINGTON – In his prime-time press conference last week, which focused almost solely on Iraq, President Bush mentioned Sept. 11 eight times. He referred to Saddam Hussein many more times than that, often in the same breath with Sept. 11.

http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0314/p02s01-woiq.html


and


excerpt:

Bush's opponents say he encouraged this misconception by linking al Qaeda to Hussein in almost every speech on Iraq. Indeed, administration officials began to hint about a Sept. 11-Hussein link soon after the attacks. In late 2001, Vice President Cheney said it was "pretty well confirmed" that attack mastermind Mohamed Atta met with a senior Iraqi intelligence official.

Speaking on NBC's "Meet the Press," Cheney was referring to a meeting that Czech officials said took place in Prague in April 2000. That allegation was the most direct connection between Iraq and the Sept. 11 attacks. But this summer's congressional report on the attacks states, "The CIA has been unable to establish that [Atta] left the United States or entered Europe in April under his true name or any known alias."

Bush, in his speeches, did not say directly that Hussein was culpable in the Sept. 11 attacks. But he frequently juxtaposed Iraq and al Qaeda in ways that hinted at a link. In a March speech about Iraq's "weapons of terror," Bush said: "If the world fails to confront the threat posed by the Iraqi regime, refusing to use force, even as a last resort, free nations would assume immense and unacceptable risks. The attacks of September the 11th, 2001, showed what the enemies of America did with four airplanes. We will not wait to see what terrorists or terrorist states could do with weapons of mass destruction."

snip

A number of nongovernment officials close to the Bush administration have made the link more directly. Richard N. Perle, who until recently was chairman of the Pentagon's Defense Policy Board, long argued that there was Iraqi involvement, calling the evidence "overwhelming."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dy ... Found=true


and


Published on Wednesday, July 16, 2003 by the lnter Press Service

Key Officials Used 9/11 As Pretext for Iraq War

by Jim Lobe

 
WASHINGTON - With demands for a full-scale investigation of the manipulation of intelligence by the administration of Pres. George W. Bush mounting steadily, it appears increasingly clear that key officials and their allies outside the administration intended to use the Sep. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks as a pretext for going to war against Iraq within hours of the attacks themselves.

Within the administration, the principals appear to have included Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, Vice Pres. Dick Cheney, and his national security adviser, I. Lewis Libby, among others in key posts in the National Security Council and the State Department.

Outside the administration, key figures included close friends of both Wolfowitz and Rumsfeld, including Richard Perle, former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) chief James Woolsey -- both members of Rumsfeld's Defense Policy Board (DPB); Frank Gaffney, head of the arms-industry-funded Center for Security Policy; and William Kristol, editor of Rupert Murdoch-owned Weekly Standard and chairman of the Project for the New American Century (PNAC), among others.

PNAC, which is based on the fifth floor of American Enterprise Institute (AEI) building, in downtown Washington, was founded in 1997 with the signing of a statement of principles calling for ”a Reaganite policy of military strength and moral clarity”, signed by 25 prominent neo-conservatives and right-wingers, including, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Cheney and Libby, as well as several other senior Bush administration officials.

A close examination of the public record indicates that all of these individuals -- both in and outside the administration -- were actively preparing the ground within days, even hours, after the 9/11 attacks, for an eventual attack on Iraq, whether or not it had any role in the attacks or any connection to al Qaeda.

The challenge, in their view, was to persuade the public that such links either did indeed exist or were sufficiently likely to exist that a preventive strike against Iraq was warranted. Their success in that respect was stunning, although, in order to pull it off, they also had to distort and exaggerate the evidence being collected by U.S. intelligence agencies.

A hint of a deliberate campaign to connect Iraq with the 9/11 attacks and al Qaeda surfaced last month in a June televised interview of Gen. Wesley Clark on the popular public-affairs program, 'Meet the Press.' In answer to a question, Clark asserted, ”There was a concerted effort during the fall of 2001, starting immediately after 9/11, to pin 9/11 and the terrorism problem on Saddam Hussein”.

”It came from the White House, it came from other people around the White House. It came from all over. I got a call on 9/11. I was on CNN, and I got a call at my home saying, 'You got to say this is connected. This is state-sponsored terrorism. This has to be connected to Saddam Hussein'.”

While Clark has not yet identified who called him, Perle, Woolsey, Gaffney, and Kristol were using the same language in their media appearances on 9/11 and over the following weeks.

”This could not have been done without help of one or more governments,” Perle told The Washington Post on Sep. 11. ”Someone taught these suicide bombers how to fly large airplanes. I don't think that can be done without the assistance of large governments.”

Woolsey was more direct. ”(I)t's not impossible that terrorist groups could work together with the government...the Iraqi government has been quite closely involved with a number of Sunni terrorist groups and -- on some matters -- has had direct contact with (Osama) bin Laden,” he told one anchorman in a series of at least half a dozen national television appearances on Sep. 11 and 12.

That same evening, Kristol echoed Woolsey on National Public Radio. ”I think Iraq is, actually, the big, unspoken sort of elephant in the room today. There's a fair amount of evidence that Iraq has had very close associations with Osama bin Laden in the past, a lot of evidence that it had associations with the previous effort to destroy the World Trade Center (in 1993)”.

While Kristol and Co. were trying to implicate Hussein in the public debate, their friends in the administration were pushing hard in the same direction. Cheney, according to published accounts, had already confided to friends even before Sep. 11 that he hoped the Bush administration would remove Hussein from power.

But the evidence about Rumsfeld is even more dramatic. According to an account by veteran CBS newsman David Martin last September, Rumsfeld was ”telling his aides to start thinking about striking Iraq, even though there was no evidence linking Saddam Hussein to the attacks” five hours after an American Airlines jet slammed into the Pentagon.

Martin attributed his account in part to notes that had been taken at the time by a Rumsfeld aide. They quote the defense chief asking for the ”best info fast” to ”judge whether good enough to hit SH (Saddam Hussein) at the same time, not only UBL (Usama bin Laden). The administration should ”go massive...sweep it all up, things related and not”, the notes quote Rumsfeld as saying.

Wolfowitz shared those views, according to an account of the meeting Sep. 15-16 of the administration's war council at Camp David provided by the Washington Post's Bill Woodward and Dan Balz. In the ”I-was-there” style for which Woodward, whose access to powerful officials since his investigative role in the Watergate scandal almost 30 years ago is unmatched, is famous:

”Wolfowitz argued (at the meeting) that the real source of all the trouble and terrorism was probably Hussein. The terrorist attacks of Sept 11 created an opportunity to strike. Now, Rumsfeld asked again: 'Is this the time to attack Iraq'”?

”Powell objected”, the Woodward and Balz account continued, citing Secretary of State Colin Powell's argument that U.S. allies would not support a strike on Iraq. ”If you get something pinning Sept 11 on Iraq, great”, Powell is quoted as saying. But let's get Afghanistan now. If we do that, we will have increased our ability to go after Iraq -- if we can prove Iraq had a role”.

Upon their return to Washington, Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz convened a secret, two-day meeting of the DPB chaired by Perle. Instead of focusing on the first steps in carrying out a ”war on terrorism”, however, the discussions centered on how Washington could use 9/11 to strike at Iraq, according to an account in the Wall Street Journal. Unlike Ahmed Chalabi, the head of the opposition Iraqi National Congress (INC), neither the State Department nor the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) was invited to participate in the meeting.

After those deliberations concluded, however, Woolsey was sent -- it remains unclear under whose authority -- to London to collect evidence of any possible ties between Baghdad and al Qaeda.

Although he returned empty-handed, that did not prevent him and his close associates on the DPB from writing and speaking out in the press about Hussein's alleged -- and completely unconfirmed -- role in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and any other rumor, dubiously-sourced story, or allegations by INC-supplied defectors that appeared to implicate Hussein in terrorist activities in general and with al Qaeda in particular.

But even as the DPB was locked in the Pentagon, Kristol was gathering signatures on a letter to Bush, eventually published in PNAC's name in The Washington Times Sep. 20, advising him on targets in his war on terrorism, an agenda that so far has anticipated to a remarkable degree the evolution of Bush's actual policy. In addition to calling for the ouster of the Taliban and war on al Qaeda -- as well as cutting off the Palestinian Authority (PA) under Yassir Arafat and other moves -- the letter stated explicitly that Saddam Hussein must go regardless of his relationship to the attacks or al Qaeda.

”It may be that the Iraqi government provided assistance in some form to the recent attack on the United States,” it said. ”But even if evidence does not link Iraq directly to the attack, any strategy aiming at the eradication of terrorism and its sponsors must include a determined effort to remove Saddam Hussein from power. Failure to undertake such an effort will constitute an early and perhaps decisive surrender in the war on international terrorism.”

The letter was signed by 38 prominent neo-conservatives, many of whom -- especially Perle, Kristol, Gaffney, William Bennett, DPB member Eliot Cohen, AEI's Reuel Marc Gerecht and Kirkpatrick, Robert Kagan, syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer, Clifford May and Randy Scheunemann (who would go on to head the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq) -- would emerge, along with Woolsey, as the most ubiquitous champions of war with Iraq outside the administration.

It was the same people who, on behalf of their friends in the Pentagon, also mounted an almost constant campaign against the CIA, the State Department, and anyone else who tried to slow the drive to war or question the administration's assertions about Hussein's links with al Qaeda or the threat he posed to U.S. security.

Their success is beyond question. By last October, just before the House of Representatives was to vote on giving Bush authority to go to war, a survey by the Pew Research Center found that two-thirds of adult respondents believed that ”Saddam Hussein helped the terrorists in the Sep. 11 attacks”.

While that percentage has declined over time, a strong majority was found late last month to believe that Hussein supported al Qaeda, and a remarkable 52 percent believe that the U.S. has actually found ”clear evidence in Iraq” of close ties between the two. A mere seven percent in the latter poll said they believed ”there was no connection at all”, the finding which most accurately reflects the views of the U.S. intelligence community.

© 2003 IPS

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0716-10.htm


and


excerpt:

Of the half-dozen books that have been written about Bush since he was sworn into office two years ago, the recurring theme throughout all of them is the strong desire by the administration to find a reason to start a war with Iraq—be it allegations that the country is concealing weapons of mass destruction or using 9–11 as an excuse to launch an immediate assault—without caring about how such a war would alienate the UN and the public or the fact that the U.S. cannot make a good case to justify a war with Iraq.

Woodward wrote in “Bush at War” that Vice President Dick Cheney was “hell bent for action against Saddam. It was as if nothing else existed.” Following the 9–11 terrorist attacks on the Pentagon and the World Trade Center, Woodward wrote that Rumsfeld “could take advantage of the terrorist attacks and make Iraq a target immediately.” Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz said, without a shred of evidence to back it up, that there was a 10 to 50 percent chance that Saddam Hussein was involved in 9–11, Woodward wrote.

David Frum, the former White House speechwriter who coined the phrase “Axis of Evil,” wrote in “The Right Man,” his book about the year he spent in the Bush administration, that the U.S. received intelligence information from Czechoslovakia that it could not confirm that a meeting took place between
Mohammed Atta, the alleged lead 9–11 hijacker, and an Iraqi intelligence officer in Prague in April 2001 “suggesting some degree of cooperation between the al-Qaeda and the Iraqi dictator.” That information, which has never been confirmed by U.S. intelligence, according to Frum, became the
excuse the Bush administration would use to attack Iraq and link 9–11 to Saddam Hussein. But according to Woodward, who spent ample time with Bush before writing his book, Bush had no evidence that Iraq was involved in 9–11. He only had a gut feeling.

“I believe Iraq was involved but I am not going to strike them now. I don’t have the evidence at this point,” Bush said to his war cabinet, which includes Rumsfeld, Cheney, Powell and Wolfowitz, Woodward wrote.

Hard evidence linking Iraq to 9–11 never materialized. Still, the Bush administration debated the idea of using 9–11 as an excuse to attack Iraq and remove Saddam from power, which Frum wrote in his book “was quite a gamble but also quite a prize.”

http://www.onlinejournal.com/Special_Reports/ 022703Leopold/02-27-03_Leopold.pdf -



And the whole sorry history of this White House's casting around for any reason to justify war against Iraq, no matter how unsupported by fact, and the clear inclination and means to foster a lie with the American public. A lie that nobody in this administration took the least step to correct or retract until four months after the war supported on the basis of that lie.

[Axis Kast]

Let me make myself more clear. A poor nation is not an impotent nation. What the least have done, so too might others.

And what of it? It’s fucking true. You’re only denying it because it came out of my mouth.

All your handwaving does not erase the dishonesty this White House engaged in by constantly making the Iraq/Al-Qaeda connection. And there is absolutely zero evidence of Saddam doing anything other than making token payments to the families of suicide bombers in Palestine, so you can just stop flogging this particular red herring of yours.

What part of, “Saddam Hussein passed money into the hands of a known terrorist organization,” don’t you fucking comprehend? Jesus H. Christ. You’re a moron.

Whether the al-Qaeda connection panned out is irrelevant; you first need to prove that the public wouldn’t have held Hussein responsible for 9/11 even had Iraq only been mentioned in passing as a potential source of copy-cat attacks.

Threat-assesment based upon evident capability and extant actions, not paranoid delusional fever dreams. Constantly overstating the threat represented by another country where they have no such capability and no means to acquire said capability is an abject lie. Sorry if that doesn't suit you.

Osama Bin Laden didn’t arm his men with a nuclear bomb. They were paid cash to act as hijackers. You’re telling me Saddam has no capability to do this whatsoever? Do you even read what you type before you click: “Reply”?!

Lie by implication. Guilt-by-association lie. Your endless denials do not erase this, no matter how you dearly wish it did.

You need to prove that the American public didn’t and wouldn’t have believed this anyway.

The defender of lies calling me a liar. How amusing. And your "proof" amounts only to the uncovering of a token payoff fund for the families of suicide bombers. Not any sign that Iraq was providing logiostical support, or intelligence, or sanctuary, or arms. In other words, dick.

Cash for terrorists who could have used it any way they pleased. Don’t be a fucking moron. Just admit it: you only challenged the point because it was mine. You can’t actually be that much of an idiot.

More handwaving on your part. The CIA already demonstrated that no such ties existed where Iraq was concerned.

He was still responsible for pressing an ongoing investigation and looking into the possibility of copy-cat attacks.

What a pathetic comeback. And no answer to the question at hand. Concession accepted.

Because it was a false dilemma. What concession? Suddenly we have to go to war with anybody who fits a certain description? Nice one, jackass.

Sorry, but if the standard is that token payoffs to the families of suicide bombers constitutes state sponsorship of terrorism, then Saudi Arabia is an enemy the same as Iraq and justifies war against Saudi Arabia. If Saudi's actions aren't sufficent to justify war, then the argument that war against Iraq on those grounds was justified fails.

Do you need mental help? Do you know anything of military strategy? It changes situation by situation. Saudi Arabia is a major source of American oil and a major staging ground for American troops. What part of: “It’s difficult to fucking maneuver there,” can’t you wrap your empty head around?

On that logic, Libya is justified in declaring war against the United States, since we tried to assasinate their sitting leader (but bungled it and killed his daughter instead).

Legally? Absolutely. I’d love to see them try though.

One American —and the plot was uncovered, thwarted, and due retaliation delivered which deterred any such future attempt. This does not point to wholesale terrorism targeting Americans indiscriminately.

It makes you a liar.

Never mind that there is no evidence to back your contention in this regard.

Launching an investigation requires suspicion, not evidence, Sherlock.

EXCEPT THAT NO SUCH IRAQ/AL-QAEDA ALLIANCE EXISTED. Neither directly nor indirectly, no matter how many what-if games you wish to indulge in to fill in the great gaping void where you have no evidence to back your contention.

But it was a legitimate point of concern, you fucking moron.

"What the least have done, so too might others."

"Another terrorist attack could occur at any time. A dirty bombing. A car bombing. Even another attempt to hijack an airplane could always result in a crash-landing in populated areas. These things can still happen whether or not we’re more prepared, Edi. To assume otherwise is eminently foolish."

Not a strawman. You argued that because of WMDs which might exist, we had to go to war. You argued that because of Iraq's possible ties with Al-Qaeda, we had to go to war. Everytime you've failed the challenge to provide the hard evidence to back the war justifications, YOU argued that "we can't be sure it isn't so, therefore war". You've been trying to validate war based upon nothing but sheer speculation on three threads now.

Where the fuck did I say we had to go to war? I’m vindicating the President’s statements, not making a case for or against war on the basis of these analysis alone.

Where did I say, “So therefore, war!”? Where? Where, you fucking liar?

No, he wasn't making mistakes, he was lying through his teeth. The CIA found no evidence to back his Iraq/Al-Qaeda/9-11 formulation. None. How long will you continue in your denial that the facts of the matter contradict the White House?

The argument is that he had to point out to the American people that Iraq could copy al-Qaeda, and was right to report an investigation. From that alone, Saddam would have been assumed guilty.

You never tire of trying to rationalise away outright lying.

I’m not the one trying to claim in roundabout ways that Bush made some kind of actual link between Saddam Hussein and 9/11 without any concrete proof.

Are you trying to argue that Bush didn't realise the impact of his own words?!?! Are you trying to say that he was powerless to forbid his subordinates from making unsupported contentions in public? Are you going to stand there and say he didn't comprehend what his meaning was when, in the course of arguing for the war in his own State of the Union speech, he talked about the threat of Iraq and its alledged WMDs and openly speculated about the September 11th terrorists having nuclear weapons instead of "just" planes to do their damage? What part of "we had to go to war in Iraq because of September 11th" eludes you? And if Bush didn't intend or desire for such a formulation to be made, then why didn't he come right out last year and state unequivocally that Saddam Hussein had no connection to 9-11?

Sorry, Comical Axi, but the evidence is Bush's own words and his doing nothing to correct the impression they were forming with the public. The only alternatives to Bush being dishonest are that he is negligent or that he is an idiot.

He can forbid all he wants; Bush doesn’t control every single word or thought of a man named Richard Pearle.

No matter what Bush did, Saddam would have been painted a terrorist – even had he stopped at, “We’re investigating,” or, “There’s a potential Iraq could do something similar.” Saddam Hussein was virtually the embodiment of all evil in the world even after Osama Bin Laden stumbled onto the scene.

What’s wrong with having to go to war with Iraq because of September 11th? The changing face of international security highlighted the importance of charging in on rogue nations while we still could – and that’s exclusive of the WMD. It was just good strategy.

Why didn’t Bush say something before? Perhaps because investigations hadn’t run their course entirely? They didn’t just stop with the CIA.

Yes I have, actually. You just think that sticking your fingers in your erars and going "LA LA LA LA LA LA LA I CAN'T HEAR YOU" makes inconvenient facts go away.

No; you have no solid evidence. You have opinion. Mine’s just as good.

Yes, by all means keep up with your pathetic denials in the face of Bush's own words, those of his flacks, and his doing nothing to correct any misperception.

Get it through your head. You’ve only proven that you have a strong opinion (which, apparently, you can’t back up with solid fact).

Colin Powell and Condoleeza Rice both knew in February of 2001 that Iraq was disarmed and neutralised and John Pilger's video evidence on that score is the smoking gun. The evidence post-war has vindicated Blix. The WMD threat was a lie, and Iraq's utter inability to rebuild its war machine or threaten any of the neighbouring states in the region is the only fact that matters.

No matter what, Hans Blix could never have been more comprehensive than an occupation. This is fact – regardless of your opinion of what it meant in terms of going to war.

Before September the 11th, many in the world believed that Saddam Hussein could be contained. But chemical agents, lethal viruses and shadowy terrorist networks are not easily contained. Imagine those 19 hijackers with other weapons and other plans -- this time armed by Saddam Hussein. It would take one vial, one canister, one crate slipped into this country to bring a day of horror like none we have ever known. We will do everything in our power to make sure that that day never comes.

Extremely valid point.

Bush's opponents say he encouraged this misconception by linking al Qaeda to Hussein in almost every speech on Iraq. Indeed, administration officials began to hint about a Sept. 11-Hussein link soon after the attacks. In late 2001, Vice President Cheney said it was "pretty well confirmed" that attack mastermind Mohamed Atta met with a senior Iraqi intelligence official.

Speaking on NBC's "Meet the Press," Cheney was referring to a meeting that Czech officials said took place in Prague in April 2000. That allegation was the most direct connection between Iraq and the Sept. 11 attacks. But this summer's congressional report on the attacks states, "The CIA has been unable to establish that [Atta] left the United States or entered Europe in April under his true name or any known alias."

Bush, in his speeches, did not say directly that Hussein was culpable in the Sept. 11 attacks. But he frequently juxtaposed Iraq and al Qaeda in ways that hinted at a link. In a March speech about Iraq's "weapons of terror," Bush said: "If the world fails to confront the threat posed by the Iraqi regime, refusing to use force, even as a last resort, free nations would assume immense and unacceptable risks. The attacks of September the 11th, 2001, showed what the enemies of America did with four airplanes. We will not wait to see what terrorists or terrorist states could do with weapons of mass destruction."

snip

A number of nongovernment officials close to the Bush administration have made the link more directly. Richard N. Perle, who until recently was chairman of the Pentagon's Defense Policy Board, long argued that there was Iraqi involvement, calling the evidence "overwhelming."

I can’t speak for anybody else but Bush. His argument about the “four airplanes” was however quite valid. What part of: “He’s required to draw those kinds of connections and ask those kinds of questions!” can’t you accept?

Bush could not stop Pearle from saying what he would.

Spanish intelligence even confirmed that Atta spoke to an Iraqi, if I remember correctly. That had to be worth more than the Czech opinion, at the time. And the CIA’s failed to confirm, not proven that anybody lied outright.

Bush's opponents say he encouraged this misconception by linking al Qaeda to Hussein in almost every speech on Iraq. Indeed, administration officials began to hint about a Sept. 11-Hussein link soon after the attacks. In late 2001, Vice President Cheney said it was "pretty well confirmed" that attack mastermind Mohamed Atta met with a senior Iraqi intelligence official.

Speaking on NBC's "Meet the Press," Cheney was referring to a meeting that Czech officials said took place in Prague in April 2000. That allegation was the most direct connection between Iraq and the Sept. 11 attacks. But this summer's congressional report on the attacks states, "The CIA has been unable to establish that [Atta] left the United States or entered Europe in April under his true name or any known alias."

Bush, in his speeches, did not say directly that Hussein was culpable in the Sept. 11 attacks. But he frequently juxtaposed Iraq and al Qaeda in ways that hinted at a link. In a March speech about Iraq's "weapons of terror," Bush said: "If the world fails to confront the threat posed by the Iraqi regime, refusing to use force, even as a last resort, free nations would assume immense and unacceptable risks. The attacks of September the 11th, 2001, showed what the enemies of America did with four airplanes. We will not wait to see what terrorists or terrorist states could do with weapons of mass destruction."

snip

A number of nongovernment officials close to the Bush administration have made the link more directly. Richard N. Perle, who until recently was chairman of the Pentagon's Defense Policy Board, long argued that there was Iraqi involvement, calling the evidence "overwhelming."

You’ve failed to prove that the opinions wouldn’t have materialized anyway. Hell, if 52% of people believe we found evidence that Hussein was involved – something that would have been difficult to intimate to anybody who doesn’t follow the news very, very closely -, there doesn’t appear to have been much Bush could have done either way.

[Keevan_Colton]

Threat-assesment based upon evident capability and extant actions, not paranoid delusional fever dreams. Constantly overstating the threat represented by another country where they have no such capability and no means to acquire said capability is an abject lie. Sorry if that doesn't suit you.

Osama Bin Laden didn?t arm his men with a nuclear bomb. They were paid cash to act as hijackers. You?re telling me Saddam has no capability to do this whatsoever? Do you even read what you type before you click: ?Reply??!

I'd love to hear your source for this fact....I'd also love to know what the salary for suicide attackers is these days along with the pension plan.

[Axis Kast]

They needed cash to take training. They needed cash to enter this country and subsist here. To create contacts.

You're telling me that Saddam couldn't ever have contacted equally willing candidates via his intelligence agency and provide them with the financial means to do something similar?

[Keevan_Colton]

So, it cost money to organise, that isnt the same things as paying them to do it....
Religous fundies are a breed apart in dumbass acts...

[Axis Kast]

It doesn't change the potential.

[Keevan_Colton]

It doesn't change the potential.

Actually it does, by your logic, any large company is a potential agent of terrorism since they have lots of money.
Get fucking real, you need the money and the loonies.
Saddam lacked the right kind of loonies.

[Axis Kast]

Not every large company has the motive to attack the United States of America, dimwit. Saddam tried to assassinate an American President. Who says Saddam doesn't have access to those kinds of people? Why wouldn't they take his money?

[Keevan_Colton]

Not every large company has the motive to attack the United States of America, dimwit. Saddam tried to assassinate an American President. Who says Saddam doesn't have access to those kinds of people? Why wouldn't they take his money?

For various reasons
a) religious loonies are by defenition, fucking loony, this is a pre-requisit for suicide attackers.
b) only complete fucking loonies will commit suicide just to take others with them, money alone is not enough to tempt such people since dead people cant spend money.
c) Saddam was a secular leader, the religious loonies that hate the US also hate him just as much, therefore they'd be more likely to spit, piss, shit, or drop bombs on him that willingly take his money.

Remember that there's no real fucking proof for the Al Queda - Saddam connection.

[Axis Kast]

People can't be crazy but still use Hussein's money to reach their goals?

I know.

[Alex Moon]

Not every large company has the motive to attack the United States of America, dimwit. Saddam tried to assassinate an American President. Who says Saddam doesn't have access to those kinds of people? Why wouldn't they take his money?

For various reasons
a) religious loonies are by defenition, fucking loony, this is a pre-requisit for suicide attackers.
b) only complete fucking loonies will commit suicide just to take others with them, money alone is not enough to tempt such people since dead people cant spend money.

Suicide bombers are often coerced into doing the job by promises that their family will be taken care of. The average annual income for Palistenians is less than $2000 a year. When you're the only one in your family of 4 that's working, then $25,000 can be very tempting. Especially if you've already been exposed to massive anti-jewish, anti-western propoganda.

c) Saddam was a secular leader, the religious loonies that hate the US also hate him just as much, therefore they'd be more likely to spit, piss, shit, or drop bombs on him that willingly take his money.

Saddam was more than willing to use religion when it suits his purpose.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0, ... 50,00.html

To the horror of archaeologists, Saddam has reconstructed Babylon to provide a fitting monument to his own reign. The 10-year multi-million pound building project is complete and huge arches in sharp-edged yellow brick rise above the broken 2,500-year-old stone. Vast crenellated walls once again surround the throne room of Nebuchadnezzar. The king had his name inscribed on the original bricks in jagged cuneiform script. Now the walls carry inscriptions in swirling Arabic telling of the glory of 'the great protector of Iraq... the ever victorious Saddam Hussein'.

The unpleasant truth is that the sanctions suit Saddam. So the question remains: what next? In the sermon given nine days ago to mark the beginning of Ramadan - the Muslim holy month - Dr Mahmud al-Saadi, the sheikh at one of the biggest mosques in Baghdad, gave a glimpse of one possible future. The British and Americans want to keep Iraqis from the Koran and from their Prophet, he said. 'The Prophet Muhammad waged the Muslims' first war against heretics during Ramadan and now we face the same circumstances. We must unite to fight,' he said. He was speaking with the full backing of the regime.

Saddam has recently launched the Alhamlalamaniyah (Enhancement of Islamic Belief) campaign. Since then drinking and gambling have been restricted, religious education expanded in schools and the state-controlled media packed with religious programming. Even the youth channel run by Uday, Saddam's 36-year-old son, carries hours of lectures by clerics. A few months ago, a radio channel entirely devoted to readings from the Koran was launched. Work is also under way on what is thought will be one of the world's largest mosques - to be known as the Saddam Hussein mosque - in Baghdad. State propaganda now constantly stresses the President's recently discovered blood links to Muhammad and portraits of Saddam praying or in the robes of a religious leader are going up everywhere. It seems that the old-style Saddam in bad sunglasses and epaulettes or shiny pin-striped suits - the uniform of post-colonial nationalist socialism - is being phased out.

There have also been shifts in foreign policy. In the past year Saddam has made great efforts to cultivate the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. This time last year the US claimed that another delegation had met Osama bin Laden, the alleged terrorist mastermind and tried to woo him to Iraq.

Senior officials claim that the Islamisation programme is an attempt to defuse the threat of Islamic militancy rather than encourage it. 'There are some who are being drawn to extremism [in Iraq],' said Professor Qiwanuddin Abdu Sattar Muhammad Haiti, the dean of the new Saddam college of religious studies. 'It is our aim to stop this by educating them about true and moderate Islam.'

But the social desolation wrought by war and sanctions has made Iraq fertile ground for the politics of hate. And with their jets killing children, America and Britain are clear and obvious enemies. Already there are signs of a growing devotion to Islam in a country known for decades for its secular and tolerant traditions. Attendance at mosques has rocketed in the past two years, more young women wear the veil, enrolment in religious schools is rising fast and the rhetoric of the preachers is getting harsher and harsher.

The fact that Saddam didn't simply shoot these people like he has done to so many of his opponents speaks to the fact that he felt at some level he could use them. Saddam also created a Jerusalem army as a symbolic act to show support for the Intifada, which is fueled in large part by radical islamic forces in the middle east. Obviously, Saddam is willing to use religion when it suits his purposes, and there are radicals who are willing to use him. It's not like this is such a bizzare concept, "The enemy of my enemy is my friend" is one of the oldest concepts in human history.