More evidence that the war in Iraq is illegal…additionally the U.S has now made Iraq a battle ground for terrorists to come and play ‘kill’…they’ve invited the terrorists…why do the Iraqi people deserve the honor to have their home land as a battle ground? What is this war about? http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/5328592.stm There is no evidence of formal links between Iraqi ex-leader Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda leaders in Iraq prior to the 2003 war, a US Senate report says. The finding is contained in a 2005 CIA report released by the Senate's Intelligence Committee on Friday. US President George W Bush has said that the presence of late al-Qaeda leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in Iraq before the war was evidence of a link. Opposition Democrats say the report has harmed Mr Bush's case for going to war. The BBC's Justin Webb in Washington says that the US president has again and again tried to connect the war in Iraq, which most Americans think was a mistake, with the so-called war on terror, which has the support of the nation. The report comes as Mr Bush makes a series of speeches on the "war on terror" to coincide with the fifth anniversary of the 11 September attacks. Requests rejected The report is the second part of the committee's analysis of pre-war intelligence. The first dealt with CIA failings in its assessment of Iraq's weapons programme. Saddam Hussein was distrustful of al-Qaeda and viewed Islamic extremists as a threat to his regime, refusing all requests from al-Qaeda to provide material or operational support, The committee concluded that the CIA had evidence of several instances of contacts between the Iraqi authorities and al-Qaeda throughout the 1990s but that these did not add up to a formal relationship. It added that the government "did not have a relationship, harbour or turn a blind eye toward Zarqawi and his associates". It said that Iraq and al-Qaeda were ideologically poles apart. "Saddam Hussein was distrustful of al-Qaeda and viewed Islamic extremists as a threat to his regime, refusing all requests from al-Qaeda to provide material or operational support," it said. The Senate report added that the Iraqi regime had repeatedly rejected al-Qaeda requests for meetings. It also deals with the role played by inaccurate information supplied by Iraqi opposition groups in the run-up to the war. 'Devastating indictment' White House spokesman Tony Snow told the Associated Press news agency the report contained "nothing new". "In 2002 and 2003, members of both parties got a good look at the intelligence we had and they came to the very same conclusions about what was going on," he said. But Democrat Senator Carl Levin described the report as a "devastating indictment" of the administration's attempts to link Saddam Hussein to al-Qaeda. Zarqawi, who is believed to be responsible for numerous killings and kidnappings in Iraq since the war, was killed in a US raid in June. Saddam Hussein and several close associates are standing trial for the killings of Shias in the village of Dujail in 1982 and of more than 100,000 Kurds in 1988.
When I think of the countless paragraphs of crap written here trying to defend Bush on this issue... man, I want that time back. All those hours of reading it and belittling those doing it. If it were the minimum wage, I figure I'm owned about $1173.47. Make the check out to Clutch, and put it in the tip-jar. Keep D&D Civil.
so let me get this straight. the CIA said Saddam did have WMD, but you don't believe them, and now they say no al queda/ saddam link, and you accept it uncritically?
Report: No WMD stockpiles in Iraq WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Saddam Hussein did not possess stockpiles of illicit weapons at the time of the U.S. invasion in March 2003 and had not begun any program to produce them, a CIA report concludes. In fact, the long-awaited report, authored by Charles Duelfer, who advises the director of central intelligence on Iraqi weapons, says Iraq's WMD program was essentially destroyed in 1991 and Saddam ended Iraq's nuclear program after the 1991 Gulf War. The Iraq Survey Group report, released Wednesday, is 1,200 to 1,500 pages long. The massive report does say, however, that Iraq worked hard to cheat on United Nations-imposed sanctions and retain the capability to resume production of weapons of mass destruction at some time in the future. "[Saddam] wanted to end sanctions while preserving the capability to reconstitute his weapons of mass destruction when sanctions were lifted," a summary of the report says. Duelfer, testifying at a Senate hearing on the report, said his account attempts to describe Iraq's weapons programs "not in isolation but in the context of the aims and objectives of the regime that created and used them." "I also have insisted that the report include as much basic data as reasonable and that it be unclassified, since the tragedy that has been Iraq has exacted such a huge cost for so many for so long," Duelfer said. The report was released nearly two years ago to the day that President Bush strode onto a stage in Cincinnati and told the audience that Saddam Hussein's Iraq "possesses and produces chemical and biological weapons" and "is seeking nuclear weapons." "The danger is already significant and it only grows worse with time," Bush said in the speech delivered October 7, 2002. "If we know Saddam Hussein has dangerous weapons today -- and we do -- does it make any sense for the world to wait to confront him as he grows even stronger and develops even more dangerous weapons?" Speaking on the campaign trail in Pennsylvania, Bush maintained Wednesday that the war was the right thing to do and that Iraq stood out as a place where terrorists might get weapons of mass destruction. "There was a risk, a real risk, that Saddam Hussein would pass weapons or materials or information to terrorist networks, and in the world after September the 11th, that was a risk we could not afford to take," Bush said. But Sen. Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, seized on the report as political ammunition against the Bush administration. "Despite the efforts to focus on Saddam's desires and intentions, the bottom line is Iraq did not have either weapon stockpiles or active production capabilities at the time of the war," Rockefeller said in a press release. "The report does further document Saddam's attempts to deceive the world and get out from under the sanctions, but the fact remains, the sanctions combined with inspections were working and Saddam was restrained." But British Prime Minister Tony Blair had just the opposite take on the information in the report, saying it demonstrated the U.N. sanctions were not working and Saddam was "doing his best" to get around them. He said the report made clear that there was "every intention" on Saddam's part to develop WMD and he "never had any intention of complying with U.N. resolutions." At a hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee Wednesday, panel Chairman John Warner, R-Virginia, called the findings "significant." "While the ISG has not found stockpiles of WMD, the ISG and other coalition elements have developed a body of fact that shows that Saddam Hussein had, first, the strategic intention to continue to pursue WMD capabilities; two, created ambiguity about his WMD capabilities that he used to extract concessions in the international world of disclosure and discussion and negotiation. "He used it as a bargaining tactic and as a strategic deterrent against his neighbors and others." "As we speak, over 1,700 individuals -- military and civilian -- are in Iraq and Qatar, continuing to search for facts about Iraq's WMD programs," Warner said. But Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan, ranking Democrat on the committee, said 1,750 experts have visited 1,200 potential WMD sites and have come up empty-handed. "It is important to emphasize that central fact because the administration's case for going to war against Iraq rested on the twin arguments that Saddam Hussein had existing stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction and that he might give weapons of mass destruction to al Qaeda to attack us -- as al Qaeda had attacked us on 9/11," Levin said. Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Massachusetts, asked Duelfer about the future likelihood of finding weapons of mass destruction, to which Duelfer replied, "The chance of finding a significant stockpile is less than 5 percent." Based in part on interviews with Saddam, the report concludes that the deposed Iraqi president wanted to acquire weapons of mass destruction because he believed they kept the United States from going all the way to Baghdad during the first Gulf War and stopped an Iranian ground offensive during the Iran-Iraq War in the 1980s, senior administration officials said. U.S. officials said the Duelfer report is "comprehensive," but they are not calling it a "final report" because there are still some loose ends to tie up. One outstanding issue, an official said, is whether Iraq shipped any stockpiles of weapons outside of the country. Another issue, he said, is mobile biological weapons labs, a matter on which he said "there is still useful work to do." Duelfer said Wednesday his teams found no evidence of a mobile biological weapons capability. The U.S. official said he believes Saddam decided to give up his weapons in 1991, but tried to conceal his nuclear and biological programs for as long as possible. Then in 1995, when his son-in-law Hussain Kamal defected with information about the programs, he gave those up, too. Iraq's nuclear program, which in 1991 was well-advanced, "was decaying" by 2001, the official said, to the point where Iraq was -- if it even could restart the program -- "many years from a bomb." http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/10/06/iraq.wmd.report/ You were saying?? Keep D&D Civil.
Easy answer for you. CIA is desperately trying to bend everything to prove Iraq has WMD thanks to Mr. Bush and especially Mr. Cheney, so it is natural they are wrong because they base on their procedure more on intention than facts. Now CIA is desperately trying to prove Iraq dose have WMD, and they have taken complete control of the land for three years, but fail. They are reluctant to admit the fact. See the difference? Do have some common sense.
"HAD" is the key word here. I don't think there is any doubt that "had" them in their past. But maybe if we all read some more BS articles from Stephen Hayes we would all learn to see beyond what the CIA and various intel groups say, and start believing the selective line and leaps in logic that Stephen Hayes has been asking to believe all along. Maybe he's too busy writing Cheney's propogandography to give us any more insightful articles into the connection. I have never seen a face look better with egg on it that Hayes' does now.
No doubt our resident neo-cons are thinking of a way to gloss over/ignore this latest Senate non-revelation to continue their justification for this idiotic Iraq occupation. Republican spin in 3....2....1......
What are you kidding me? The American people are so stupid that they will do nothing about what's going on in this country. The neocons are focusing on Iran already.
..........and this just in....... the Pope IS Catholic Long suspected, confirmation will please his followers.
I "uncritically" accept their apology for being so very, very wrong, yes. Yours is still forthcoming. Or are you on the Santorum bandwagon in believing that the WMD's have been found (LOL) even while Bush now says they never were there? You were so incredibly wrong, basso. And while you were being wrong you said some incredibly hateful things, some incredibly hateful and wrong things. You owe so many of us here a gigantic apology. And, considering how wrong you've been (by any standard) and considering that your "president" has admitted as much, you have a lot of damn nerve posting here without having first given the apology you so sorely owe.
Saddam was a secularist and backward islamic mentality was'nt his forte. with his millions of faults, the b*stard never supported terrorisim. the mollah's are the real terrorist sponsers. since is the godfather of terrorisim. khomenie introduced suicide bombings.
Anybody that took an honest 3 seconds to learn about Iraq and Al-Queda would have realized that Al-Queda's ultimate goal was to create an Islamic state ...which is in DIRECT contradiction to Saddam's dictatorship.
People in this country don't even know where Mexico is, do you think they would actually take 3 seconds to learn about something they can't even pronounce.
This is exactly what anti-war proponents said but they were shouted down by the pro-war crew because bad guys are bad guys and they all act in concert with one another regardless of a contradiction of goals. Saddam was part of the axis of evil after all so he HAD to be in bed with Bin Laden. I remember people on this very board posting pictures of jumbo jets in Iraq allegedly being used to train hijackers. This was concrete proof that Saddam and Bin Laden were aligned. Yeah, right.
(playing devil's advocate) often, two forces join and cooperate momentarily to right off a common enemy.
Yet some of them feel the urge to always express strong opinion about something they have no idea about, even if other people's lives might be involved. I still remember a TV program I saw in Canada. A guy pretended as a reporter, approached Americans on the street, randomly. He asked them whether US should bomb Saskatchewan (one of Canadian provinces). 9 out 10 people said with either a firm "Yes!" or a hesitant "Yes." Only one guy asked where extactly that is. Those guys who said "go ahead and bomb them", none of them knew where it was when asked.
Pre 9/11, what would have precipitated such "momentary cooperation?" What was the pressing need for Saddam to coordinate with an organization that wants to undermine him? Don't forget that W suggested links between Al-Qaeda and Saddam dating to 1995 which, if true, would suggest it wasn't "momentary." (We now know that they talked once and Sadaam said they were idiots.)
