Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community - View Single Post - Failing to Learn from History; the Neocon's are Back

host · 05-03-2006, 01:39 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ubertuber

host,

I've read every word of each article you linked. There's a lot of stuff there. However, hardly any of it has to do with the question at hand: what form did the Bush administration's alleged claims of a tie between Iraq and 9/11 take? You posted lots of stuff about Zarqawi, and lots of stuff about broad ties between Iraq and terrorism in general, and ties between Iraq and Al Qaeda in particular. However, these don't answer the question we're examining here - which is Iraq and 9/11. I'd like to focus on this one particular aspect before moving to larger things. I, for one, don't think that a general coexistance of Iraq and Al Qaeda agents is equal to a link to the 9/11 attacks. We've thought from almost the beginning that those attacks were orchestrated and executed by a small number of people within the Qaeda organization.

In all that material, the argument that the Bush administration claimed Iraq was tied to 9/11 occupied approximately 9 lines, and came to 2 things. The first was a reiterated story about Cheney citing the Czech government's confirmation that Atta met with Iraqi officials in Prague. Certainly this was faulty intelligence. There's no reason now to believe that it happened.

The second thing in ALL of those articles is op-ed columnists stating that the Bush administration was trying hard to link Iraq to 9/11. None of them cites any specific instances of this effort other than Cheney's repeated mistaken reliance on the Czech report (which was thought for some time to be true).

Here's the crux of my question. If, in fact, the administration engaged in an devious attempt to link Iraq to the 9/11 attacks, there should be a broad and clear pattern of stating this in media outlets. Can you cite these? Or is this meme due to Cheney's mis-statements on one incident and the broadly pursued theme of Zarqawi?

Since I'm going to bother to read all of the links you provide, please do me (and other posters) the courtesy of ensuring that they are topical and organized in a way that supports whatever your contention may be.

Elphaba, I apologize....but mitigating factors are....this thread is active again, and it seemed like the appropriate place to continue....because the last post on the first page is a prequel to what's happening here now....but that may have been a threadjack, too

....again....sorry!

ubertuber, I try to avoid op-ed pieces, unless they are rich in links to MSM news reports, or they add to, or provide background for actual news reporting.

Please point out any link that I've posted to an op-ed, in this discussion, that does not meet the standard that I described above. I appreciate receiving your attention and your challenge to me to make the best case that I can here.

I hope that you are not discounting the signifigance of Cheney's intimidation tactics used in an escape attempt from Gloria Borger's question. He decided to lie by adamantly denying that he had made his previously televised statement. His response was bullying, and extraordinary, given that it was about a matter so serious. Remember....Cheney "blew off" Gloria Borger in June, 2004. This report shows that it isn't possible that he just "didn't remember what he had said on Dec. 9, 2001. His reaction to Borger backs that up:

Quote:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6192327/site/newsweek/

.......Cheney, for example, called the claim of an Atta meeting with an Iraqi official in Prague “pretty well confirmed” in a Dec. 9, 2001, “Meet the Press” interview. In a Sept. 8, 2002, “Meet the Press” appearance, just weeks before the congressional vote on authorizing President Bush to go to war, Cheney again returned to the issue: “We’ve seen in connection with the hijackers, of course, Mohammed Atta, who was the lead hijacker, did apparently travel to Prague on a number of occasions. And on at least one occasion, we have reporting that places him in Prague with a senior Iraqi intelligence official a few months before the attack on the World Trade Center.” Even after CIA and FBI officials had already concluded the claims of the meeting were almost certainly false, Cheney was still referring to it in a Sept. 14, 2003 “Meet the Press” appearance. “The Czechs alleged that Mohammed Atta, the lead attacker, met in Prague with a senior Iraq intelligence official five months before the attack, but we’ve never been able to develop anymore of that yet either in terms of confirming it or discrediting it. We just don’t know.........

and....this was reported just a week after Cheney said that Atta's Prague meeting was "pretty well confirmed"....Cheney had to know about the doubts, but on Dec. 9, 2001....he said "confirmed", anyway, and he was still asserting that Atta traveled to "meetings" in Praque, nine months after the following reporting:

Quote:

http://www.nytimes.com/2001/12/16/in...gewanted=print

December 16, 2001
New Clue Fails to Explain Iraq Role in Sept. 11 Attack
By CHRIS HEDGES with DONALD G. McNEIL Jr.

When Czech officials disclosed that Mohamed Atta, the suspected mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks, had met last April with an Iraqi diplomat in Prague, it stirred immediate speculation about whether Iraq had a role in killing thousands of Americans.

But in the weeks since, the Prague meeting has emerged as an object lesson in the limits of intelligence reports rather than the cornerstone of the case against Iraq. Interviews with Iraqi defectors, Czech officials, and people who knew the Iraqi diplomat have only deepened the mystery surrounding Mr. Atta's travels through central Europe.......

.........American officials in Washington, by contrast, said the diplomat was a minor functionary who happens to have the same last name as a more important Iraqi intelligence agent. These officials said that they had no evidence that Iraq was involved in the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon.

There are even questions about whether the reports of the meeting took place. An associate said the Iraqi diplomat had a business selling cars and met frequently with a used car dealer from Germany who bore a striking resemblance to Mr. Atta. Just this week, there were even reports from Prague that the Mohamed Atta who visited Prague last April was a different man with the same name.

In a retreat from the earlier definitive statements by his government, the president of the Czech Republic, Vaclav Havel, recently said there was "a 70 percent" chance the meeting between Mr. Atta and an Iraqi agent named Ahmed Khalil Ibrahim Samir al-Ani took place............

Please consider that I can only present the "tip" of the iceberg that floats mostly below the surface. I believe that Helen Thomas's accusatory question was legitimate, and the pattern of Bush-Cheney, et al, deception, is evident in Bush's reply to Helen; "Afghanistan, Taliban, terrorists, 9/11, 9/11, 9/11.....I determined that Iraq....blah blah blah".

The administrations "linkage" of Saddam to 9/11, was a deliberate, slick, and sometimes subtle, propaganda campaign. As often as Bush supporters erroneously maintain that the 9/11 Commission, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, or the Silberman Commission, investigated and reported on how the Bush admin. analyzed, prioritized, and conveyed pre-invasion intelligence on Iraq...to congress and to the American public, all three of the reports issued by those Commissions state that they specifically avoided looking into those administration/intelligence handling related issues, and thus, did not make determinations about them, in the three reports.

Pat Roberts, chairman of the Senate-SCI, is now trying to split up the second half of his committee's report, which promised to address these issues in a timely manner....first in July, 2004, and then after a senate democrats' unanimous protest that the report was overdue....last November,
when 17 months had passed with no progress seen on finalizing the report's second phase. Now Roberts is trying to split the second half report into, two, to presumably further delay examining and issuing a report on the administration's handling of pre-Iraqi invasion, intelligence. The goal is transparent....the 2004 delay was to avoid disclosure before the November presidential election, and the new "split" proposal, is to delay issuing the report until after the November, 2006 mid-term election, and possibly beyond.

So....you can't "know" anything beyond a reasonable certainty. The rubber stamp, republican congress offers only it's track record of Sen. Pat Roberts' broken SSCI investigative "process" to bring the facts out for the American people to see. The democratic party is in the congressional minority. Democrats have no authority to convene a hearing, or to subpoena and the swear in any witness, without permission from republicans, who hold all committee and sub-committee chairs in both houses.

Of course, I think that the "evidence" that I offer you to examine, increases in stature and signifigance because the POTUS and his fellow federal elected party members have made such a thorough effort to avoid bi-partisan investigation of what the POTUS and the VP knew, by March 19, 2003, and when they knew it....vs what they told us, and what they did, not in spite of it. We now live in a climate where previously declassified material, some of it as old as forty to sixty years, is being rapidly, methodically, and secretly reclassified, and where something as simple as an FOIA request for the secret service white house logs of Abramoff's visits since 2001, was ignored, and only obtained after a judge's ruling in the lawsuit that followed:

Quote:

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/000525.php
McClellan Says White House Records Won't Show Everything
By Paul Kiel - May 2, 2006, 1:45 PM

Those White House visitor logs that were supposed to show all of Jack Abramoff's comings and goings?

The infuriating exchange from this morning's press gaggle:

QUESTION: Scott, the Secret Service has agreed to turn over records related to Jack Abramoff's visits to the White House in recent years. What's your reaction to that? Are you concerned at all --

Scott McClellan: We're aware of it. We're fine with it.

QUESTION: But are you concerned, since the White House had refused for a long time to turn over those records?

Scott McClellan: I mean, I wouldn't look at it as a complete historical record of things -- of events here at the White House. I'd just caution you on that.

QUESTION: Do you plan to make a public release --

QUESTION: What is that?

QUESTION: What does that mean?

Scott McClellan: Well, I mean, they have certain records, but I wouldn't say that -- I would just not view that as a complete record, but they have certain records that they keep and that they will be providing.

QUESTION: Did you say it was a complete historical record they're providing, or not? I thought that's what you said --

Scott McClellan: No, I wouldn't view it as a complete historical record, no.

QUESTION: Why?

QUESTION: Are you going to add to it then?

Scott McClellan: Because they -- they don't keep all those -- all historical records. It's just certain records that they keep that they will be providing.

QUESTION: Are you going to turn over your records?

Scott McClellan: Well, I've already -- I mean, I've already talked to you about what I know, and if there's anything you have to bring to my attention, you're welcome to, but I don't know of anything that's been brought --

QUESTION: But you brought it to our attention that there is more to it.

Scott McClellan: No, I didn't. There's nothing changed in terms of what I've previously said on it.

QUESTION: Are you saying in that, that Abramoff could have made other visits that are not recorded in the Secret Service records?

Scott McClellan: I'm just saying that they have -- I don't know exactly what they'll be providing, but they only have certain records, and so I just wouldn't view it as a complete historical record.

QUESTION: What other kinds of records could there be?

QUESTION: Are you going to add to it?

QUESTION: Not all visits to the White House are included in that record?

Scott McClellan: I don't know that they are.

QUESTION: -- who he was visiting when he was here?

Scott McClellan: Well, I think -- again, talk to the Secret Service. I think they only maintain certain records. I just wouldn't view it as a complete historical record.

QUESTION: You're saying they don't save everything?

Scott McClellan: I mean, what I said previously still stands. I think he attended two holiday receptions at the White House, and there are some additional staff-level meetings. But I said I couldn't rule out that there might be other large events that may have taken place that he attended. But that's what I know, and that still stands.

QUESTION: Is what you're saying is that the Secret Service doesn't have records of these parties --

Scott McClellan: I'm sorry?

QUESTION: Is what you're saying --

Scott McClellan: They have Secret Service records that they keep.

QUESTION: But they might not include some of these large receptions?

Scott McClellan: ..........

other links: http://www.forbes.com/business/energ...ap2714162.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...050200378.html

Much of what I described above is detailed here....including document reclassification, and the fact that Cheney kept the details of his 2001 "Energy Task Force" secret...not disclosed, to this day:

Quote:

http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercu...s/14462039.htm
Posted on Sat, Apr. 29, 2006

Cheney exempts his own office from reporting on classified material
BY MARK SILVA
Chicago Tribune

WASHINGTON - As the Bush administration has dramatically accelerated the classification of information as "top secret" or "confidential," one office is refusing to report on its annual activity in classifying documents: the office of Vice President Dick Cheney.

A standing executive order, strengthened by President Bush in 2003, requires all agencies and "any other entity within the executive branch" to provide an annual accounting of their classification of documents. More than 80 agencies have collectively reported to the National Archives that they made 15.6 million decisions in 2004 to classify information, nearly double the number in 2001, but Cheney continues to insist he is exempt.

Explaining why the vice president has withheld even a tally of his office's secrecy when such offices as the National Security Council routinely report theirs, a spokeswoman said Cheney is "not under any duty" to provide it.....

So....now that I've painted the case that they are obsessively secretive...the Cheney Energy Task Force meetings took place before they could use the excuse of 9/11 as a shield....here is what I've got. For me....it's enough...because it's all we're gonna get for the time being....and these folks have acted in an alarmingly un-American manner. No respect for FOIA, accountability to the people, or even respect for the structure of the constitutional government, or for the law: (I thought it would help to post these in chronological order.)

The first Bush quote reminds me of a song:
<a href="http://www.lyricsdownload.com/sprung-monkey-coconut-lyrics.html">put the lime in the coconut and mix em both up</a>

Quote:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/relea...0020925-1.html
For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
September 25, 2002

President Bush, Colombia President Uribe Discuss Terrorism
Remarks by President Bush and President Alvaro Uribe of Colombia in Photo Opportunity
The Oval Office

....... Q Mr. President, do you believe that Saddam Hussein is a bigger threat to the United States than al Qaeda?

PRESIDENT BUSH: That's a -- that is an interesting question. I'm trying to think of something humorous to say. (Laughter.) But I can't when I think about al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein. They're both risks, they're both dangerous. The difference, of course, is that al Qaeda likes to hijack governments. Saddam Hussein is a dictator of a government. Al Qaeda hides, Saddam doesn't, but the danger is, is that they work in concert. The danger is, is that al Qaeda becomes an extension of Saddam's madness and his hatred and his capacity to extend weapons of mass destruction around the world.

Both of them need to be dealt with. The war on terror, you can't distinguish between al Qaeda and Saddam when you talk about the war on terror. And so it's a comparison that is -- I can't make because I can't distinguish between the two, because they're both equally as bad, and equally as evil, and equally as destructive.........

Quote:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/relea...030128-19.html
For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
January 28, 2003

President Delivers "State of the Union"
The U.S. Capitol

..... Year after year, Saddam Hussein has gone to elaborate lengths, spent enormous sums, taken great risks to build and keep weapons of mass destruction. But why? The only possible explanation, the only possible use he could have for those weapons, is to dominate, intimidate, or attack.

With nuclear arms or a full arsenal of chemical and biological weapons, Saddam Hussein could resume his ambitions of conquest in the Middle East and create deadly havoc in that region. And this Congress and the America people must recognize another threat. Evidence from intelligence sources, secret communications, and statements by people now in custody reveal that Saddam Hussein aids and protects terrorists, including members of al Qaeda. Secretly, and without fingerprints, he could provide one of his hidden weapons to terrorists, or help them develop their own.

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. (Applause.)

Some have said we must not act until the threat is imminent. Since when have terrorists and tyrants announced their intentions, politely putting us on notice before they strike? If this threat is permitted to fully and suddenly emerge, all actions, all words, and all recriminations would come too late. Trusting in the sanity and restraint of Saddam Hussein is not a strategy, and it is not an option. (Applause.) ....

Quote:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/relea.../20030208.html
For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
February 8, 2003

President's Radio Address

......... One of the greatest dangers we face is that weapons of mass destruction might be passed to terrorists who would not hesitate to use those weapons. Saddam Hussein has longstanding, direct and continuing ties to terrorist networks. Senior members of Iraqi intelligence and al Qaeda have met at least eight times since the early 1990s. Iraq has sent bomb-making and document forgery experts to work with al Qaeda. Iraq has also provided al Qaeda with chemical and biological weapons training. And an al Qaeda operative was sent to Iraq several times in the late 1990s for help in acquiring poisons and gases.

We also know that Iraq is harboring a terrorist network headed by a senior al Qaeda terrorist planner. This network runs a poison and explosive training camp in northeast Iraq, and many of its leaders are known to be in Baghdad. ........

Quote:

http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0314/p02s01-woiq.html
from the March 14, 2003 edition

The impact of Bush linking 9/11 and Iraq
American attitudes about a connection have changed, firming up the case for war.
By Linda Feldmann | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
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.

Bush never pinned blame for the attacks directly on the Iraqi president. Still, the overall effect was to reinforce an impression that persists among much of the American public: that the Iraqi dictator did play a direct role in the attacks. A New York Times/CBS poll this week shows that 45 percent of Americans believe Mr. Hussein was "personally involved" in Sept. 11, about the same figure as a month ago.

Sources knowledgeable about US intelligence say there is no evidence that Hussein played a role in the Sept. 11 attacks, nor that he has been or is currently aiding Al Qaeda. Yet the White House appears to be encouraging this false impression, as it seeks to maintain American support for a possible war against Iraq and demonstrate seriousness of purpose to Hussein's regime.....

Quote:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/relea...0030321-5.html
For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
March 21, 2003

Presidential Letter
Text of a Letter from the President to the Speaker of the House of Representatives and President Pro Tempore of the Senate

March 21, 2003

Dear Mr. Speaker: (Dear Mr. President: )

On March 18, 2003, I made available to you, consistent with section 3(b) of the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002 (Public Law 107-243), my determination that further diplomatic and other peaceful means alone will neither adequately protect the national security of the United States against the continuing threat posed by Iraq, nor lead to enforcement of all relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions regarding Iraq.

I have reluctantly concluded, along with other coalition leaders, that only the use of armed force will accomplish these objectives and restore international peace and security in the area. I have also determined that the use of armed force against Iraq is consistent with the United States and other countries continuing to take the necessary actions against international terrorists and terrorist organizations, including those nations, organiza-tions, or persons who planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001....

.... As we continue our united efforts to disarm Iraq in pursuit of peace, stability, and security both in the Gulf region and in the United States, I look forward to our continued consultation and cooperation.

Sincerely,

GEORGE W. BUSH

Quote:

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/06/po...tel.ready.html
Report Warned Bush Team About Intelligence Doubts

By DOUGLAS JEHL
Published: November 6, 2005

WASHINGTON, Nov. 5 — A top member of Al Qaeda in American custody was identified as a likely fabricator months before the Bush administration began to use his statements as the foundation for its claims that Iraq trained Al Qaeda members to use biological and chemical weapons, according to newly declassified portions of a Defense Intelligence Agency document.

The document, an intelligence report from February 2002, said it was probable that the prisoner, Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, “was intentionally misleading the debriefers’’ in making claims about Iraqi support for Al Qaeda’s work with illicit weapons.

The document provides the earliest and strongest indication of doubts voiced by American intelligence agencies about Mr. Libi’s credibility. Without mentioning him by name, President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, Colin L. Powell, then secretary of state, and other administration officials repeatedly cited Mr. Libi’s information as “credible’’ evidence that Iraq was training Al Qaeda members in the use of explosives and illicit weapons.

Among the first and most prominent assertions was one by Mr. Bush, who said in a major speech in Cincinnati in October 2002 that “we’ve learned that Iraq has trained Al Qaeda members in bomb making and poisons and gases.’’

The newly declassified portions of the document were made available by Senator Carl Levin of Michigan, the top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Mr. Levin said the new evidence of early doubts about Mr. Libi’s statements dramatized what he called the Bush administration’s misuse of prewar intelligence to try to justify the war in Iraq. That is an issue that Mr. Levin and other Senate Democrats have been seeking to emphasize, in part by calling attention to the fact that the Republican-led Senate intelligence committee has yet to deliver a promised report, first sought more than two years ago, on the use of prewar intelligence.

An administration official declined to comment on the D.I.A. report on Mr. Libi......

....The report issued by the Senate intelligence committee in July 2004 questioned whether some versions of intelligence report prepared by the C.I.A. in late 2002 and early 2003 raised sufficient questions about the reliability of Mr. Libi’s claims.

But neither that report nor another issued by the Sept. 11 commission made any reference to the existence of the earlier and more skeptical 2002 report by the D.I.A., which supplies intelligence to military commanders and national security policy makers. As an official intelligence report, labeled DITSUM No. 044-02, the document would have circulated widely within the government, and it would have been available to the C.I.A., the White House, the Pentagon and other agencies. It remains unclear whether the D.I.A. document was provided to the Senate panel.

In outlining reasons for its skepticism, the D.I.A. report noted that Mr. Libi’s claims lacked specific details about the Iraqis involved, the illicit weapons used and the location where the training was to have taken place...