|
Banned
|
Part II: Bush et al deceptions intended to justify Iraq invasion and occupation,
2004 to 2007.
Quote:
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpag...sh+said&st=nyt
January 9, 2004
THE STRUGGLE FOR IRAQ: DIPLOMACY; Powell Admits No Hard Proof In Linking Iraq to Al Qaeda
By CHRISTOPHER MARQUIS
Secretary of State Colin L. Powell conceded Thursday that despite his assertions to the United Nations last year, he had no
''smoking gun'' proof of a link between the government of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and terrorists of Al Qaeda.
''I have not seen smoking-gun, concrete evidence about the connection,'' Mr. Powell said, in response to a question at a news
conference. ''But I think the possibility of such connections did exist, and it was prudent to consider them at the time that we
did.''
Mr. Powell's remarks on Thursday were a stark admission that there is no definitive evidence to back up administration statements
and insinuations that Saddam Hussein had ties to Al Qaeda, the acknowledged authors of the Sept. 11 attacks. Although President
Bush finally acknowledged in September that there was no known connection between Mr. Hussein and the attacks, the impression of a
link in the public mind has become widely accepted -- and something administration officials have done little to discourage.
Mr. Powell offered a vigorous defense of his Feb. 5 presentation before the Security Council, in which he voiced the
administration's most detailed case to date for war with Iraq. After studying intelligence data, he said that a ''sinister nexus''
existed ''between Iraq and the Al Qaeda terrorist network, a nexus that combines classic terrorist organizations and modern
methods of murder.''
Without any additional qualifiers, Mr. Powell continued, ''Iraq today harbors a deadly terrorist network, headed by Abu Musaab al
-Zarqawi, an associate and collaborator of Osama bin Laden and his Al Qaeda lieutenants.''
He added, ''Iraqi officials deny accusations of ties with Al Qaeda. These denials are simply not credible.''...
|
Quote:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/relea...0040615-4.html
For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
June 15, 2004
President Bush Meets with President Karzai of Afghanistan
Remarks by President Bush and President Karzai of Afghanistan in a Press Availability
The Rose Garden
.... Q Mr. President --
PRESIDENT BUSH: I'm getting distracted over here, there seems to = be some noise.
Q The Vice President, who I see standing over there, said yesterday that Saddam Hussein has long-established ties to al Qaeda. As
you know, this is disputed within the U.S. intelligence community. Mr. President, would you add any qualifiers to that flat
statement? And what do you think is the best evidence of it?
PRESIDENT BUSH: Zarqawi. Zarqawi is the best evidence of connection to al Qaeda affiliates and al Qaeda. He's the person who's
still killing. He's the person -- and remember the email exchange between al Qaeda leadership and he, himself, about how to
disrupt the progress toward freedom?
Saddam Hussein also had ties to terrorist organizations, as well.....
|
Quote:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/relea...0040617-3.html
For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
June 17, 2004
President Discusses Economy, Iraq in Cabinet Meeting
Remarks by the President After Meeting with His Cabinet
The Cabinet Room
.... I'll be glad to answer a couple of questions. Deb, why don't you lead it off?
Q Mr. President, why does the administration continue to insist that Saddam had a relationship with al Qaeda, when even you have
denied any connection between Saddam and September 11th. And now the September 11th Commission says that there was no
collaborative relationship at all.
<h3>THE PRESIDENT: The reason I keep insisting that there was a relationship between Iraq and Saddam and al Qaeda, because there
was a relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda.</h3> This administration never said that the 9/11 attacks were orchestrated between
Saddam and al Qaeda. We did say there were numerous contacts between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda. For example, Iraqi intelligence
officers met with bin Laden, the head of al Qaeda, in the Sudan. There's numerous contacts between the two. ...
|
Quote:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/relea...0040618-1.html
For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
June 18, 2004
President Bush Salutes Soldiers in Fort Lewis, Washington
Remarks by the President to the Military Personnel
Fort Lewis, Washington
.....And we're beginning to see results of people stepping up to defend themselves. Iraqi police and Civil Defense Corps have
captured several wanted terrorists, including Umar Boziani. He was a key lieutenant of this killer named Zarqawi who's ordering
the suiciders inside of Iraq. By the way,
''he was the fellow who was in Baghdad at times prior to our arrival. He was operating out of Iraq. He was an Al Qaeda associate.
See, he was there before we came. He's there after we came. And we'll find him.''.....
|
Quote:
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpag...=&pagewanted=2
THE REACH OF WAR: THE INVESTIGATION; Leaders of 9/11 Panel Ask Cheney for Reports That Would Support Iraq-Qaeda Ties
By PHILIP SHENON AND RICHARD W. STEVENSON
Published: June 19, 2004
...Mr. Bartlett said Mr. Bush had no specific plans at the moment to revisit the issue in a speech, but that he would raise it
when he had the opportunity in coming weeks.
''We'll continue to talk about how Saddam Hussein was a threat, and his ties to terrorism, and we will not give an inch on what
we've said in the past,'' Mr. Bartlett said.
One outside adviser to the White House said the administration expected the debate over Iraq's ties to Al Qaeda to be ''a regular
feature'' of the presidential campaign.
''They feel it's important to their long-term credibility on the issue of the decision to go to war,'' the adviser said. ''It's
important because it's part of the overall view that Iraq is part of the war on terror. If you discount the relationship between
Iraq and Al Qaeda, then you discount the proposition that it's part of the war on terror. If it's not part of the war on terror,
then what is it -- some cockeyed adventure on the part of George W. Bush?'' ....
|
*
Quote:
http://web.archive.org/web/200503061...on/9836140.htm
Posted on Mon, Oct. 04, 2004
CIA review finds no evidence Saddam had ties to Islamic terrorists
By Warren P. Strobel, Jonathan S. Landay and John Walcott
Knight Ridder Newspapers
WASHINGTON - A new CIA assessment undercuts the White House's claim that Saddam Hussein maintained ties to al-Qaida, saying
there's no conclusive evidence that the regime harbored Osama bin Laden associate Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
The CIA review, which U.S. officials said Monday was requested some months ago by Vice President Dick Cheney, is the latest
assessment that calls into question one of President Bush's key justifications for last year's U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.
The new assessment follows the independent Sept. 11 commission's finding that there was no "collaborative relationship" between
the former Iraqi regime and bin Laden's terrorist network.
While intelligence officials cautioned that information about al-Zarqawi remains incomplete, Bush, Cheney and other top officials
have publicly made al-Zarqawi the linchpin of their contention that Saddam's Iraq had ties to al-Qaida. Questions about whether
the president and other officials overstated the intelligence about Iraq and omitted contradictory information and analysis are
now at the center of the campaign debate over Iraq policy.
Since the Sept. 11 commission's judgment in June, Bush and Cheney have repeatedly said that al-Zarqawi was an associate of bin
Laden and received safe haven from Saddam. But Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld backed away Monday from such claims,
apparently as a result of the new CIA assessment.
Bush and Cheney have charged that Saddam's regime allowed al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian native, to travel to Baghdad and to set up cells
of his Islamic terrorist network in the Iraqi capital. Al-Zarqawi is now a major figure who's directing part of the anti-U.S.
insurgency in Iraq. He has appeared in videos in which U.S. and other hostages are executed, often by beheading.
"Zarqawi's the best evidence of connection to al-Qaida affiliates and al-Qaida. He's the person who's still killing. He's the
person, remember the e-mail exchange between al-Qaida leadership and he himself about how to disrupt the progress toward freedom,"
Bush said in the Rose Garden in June.
Al-Zarqawi "was in and out of Baghdad. He ordered the killing of an American citizen from Baghdad - (U.S. Agency for International
Development official Laurence) Foley," Bush said Saturday in Ohio. "This is before ... we went in. Saddam Hussein had used weapons
of mass destruction. I understood - I understand today that the connection between weapons of mass destruction and the terrorist
network is the biggest threat we face."
According to a senior administration official and intelligence officials familiar with the review, at Cheney's request CIA
analysts spent several months reviewing new material gathered since Baghdad fell last year and re-examining earlier intelligence.
A U.S. official familiar with the new CIA assessment said intelligence analysts were unable to determine conclusively the nature
of the relationship between al-Zarqawi and Saddam.
"It's still being worked," he said. "It (the assessment) ... doesn't make clear-cut, bottom-line judgments" about whether Saddam's
regime was aiding al-Zarqawi.
He said the report contained new details of al-Zarqawi 's prewar activities in Iraq, including the arrests in late 2002 or early
2003 of three of his "associates" by the regime.
"This was brought to Saddam's attention and he ordered one of them released," he said, providing no further details.
"What is indisputable is that Zarqawi was operating out of Baghdad and was involved in a lot of bad activities," he said,
including ordering Foley's killing.
The report didn't conclude that Saddam's regime had provided "aid, comfort and succor" to al-Zarqawi, a senior administration
official said.
He added that there are now questions about earlier administration assertions that al-Zarqawi received treatment at a Baghdad
hospital in May 2002.
"The evidence is that Saddam never gave Zarqawi anything," another U.S. official said.
A congressional official said members of Congress had received an intelligence report in late August containing similar findings.
The officials who described the new assessment spoke on condition of anonymity because the matter is classified and because, as
one put it, "I don't want to get caught in the crossfire" between the White House and the CIA.
A CIA spokesman, Mark Mansfield, declined to comment on the subject or to confirm the existence of the new analysis.
The findings - delivered to Cheney last week - appear to put the Bush administration and the CIA on a collision course again over
intelligence regarding Iraq.
They could provide an early test of whether new CIA Director Porter Goss, a former Republican congressman, will protect his
analysts when they give conclusions that conflict with White House views or administration policy. In the past, some political
appointees have been angered by intelligence assessments that they thought undercut administration policy.
Rumsfeld appeared to refer to the new assessment during a public appearance Monday at which he also backed away from the
administration's broader claims that Saddam and al-Qaida were linked.
"To my knowledge, I have not seen any strong, hard evidence that links the two," Rumsfeld said during an appearance at the Council
on Foreign Relations, a Washington research center.
In September 2002, before the war, Rumsfeld had said the U.S. intelligence community had "bulletproof" evidence of such links.
Apparently referring to al-Zarqawi, the defense secretary said Monday: "I just read an intelligence report recently about one
person who's connected to al-Qaida who was in and out of Iraq and there's the most tortured description of why he might have had a
relationship and why he might not have had a relationship."
Officials said the highly classified document on al-Zarqawi was delivered to Bush, Cheney, National Security Adviser Condoleezza
Rice and her deputy, Stephen Hadley.
There's no dispute that al-Zarqawi spent time in Iraq before the U.S. invasion, but virtually all that time was in a portion of
northeastern Iraq that wasn't under Saddam's control.
Some officials believe that Saddam's secular regime kept an eye on al-Zarqawi, an Islamic extremist, but didn't actively assist
him.
Al-Zarqawi 's ties to al-Qaida are in dispute. While he clearly shares much of al-Qaida's violent ideology and ran an al-Qaida
camp in Afghanistan, the Jordanian has his own organization, acts independently and hasn't sworn fealty to bin Laden.
Secretary of State Colin Powell, in his Feb. 5, 2003, presentation on Iraq to the U.N. Security Council, said al-Zarqawi went to
Baghdad in May 2002 for medical treatment and stayed two months, during which time nearly two dozen extremists converged on the
Iraqi capital and established a base there.
Al-Zarqawi originally was reported to have had a leg amputated, a claim that officials now acknowledge was incorrect.
Much of the prewar intelligence on al-Zarqawi is reported to have come from eavesdropping by Jordan's security services.
The Bush administration has clashed repeatedly with the CIA and other intelligence community agencies over Iraq and terrorism.
Soon after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Pentagon civilians set up a small intelligence cell whose mission was to prove
that there were links between al-Qaida and secular Arab regimes such as Saddam's.
The group's analysis was presented to then-CIA Director George Tenet and his analysts, who rejected it.
In recent weeks, administration partisans have sharply criticized the U.S. intelligence community for a new analysis that offers a
pessimistic outlook on Iraq's future. They've attacked one of the report's authors, National Intelligence Council official Paul
Pillar, by name and accused the CIA of trying to undermine the president.
Bush called the report, known as a National Intelligence Estimate, a "guess," but later amended his remarks to call it an
"estimate."
|
Quote:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/relea.../20041006.html
For Immediate Release
Office of the Vice President
October 6, 2004
Remarks of Vice President Cheney and Senator Edwards in Vice Presidential Debate
Veale Center
Case Western Reserve University
Cleveland, Ohio
9:03 P.M. EDT
MODERATOR: Good evening from Case Western Reserve University's Veale Center, here in Cleveland, Ohio. I'm Gwen Ifill of the
NewsHour and Washington Week on PBS....
....Donald Rumsfeld said he has not seen any hard evidence of a link between al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein. Was this the fruit of a
report that you requested, that you received a week ago that showed there was no connection between Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and
Saddam Hussein?...
THE VICE PRESIDENT:....And he had an established relationship with al Qaeda, specifically look at George Tenet, the CIA
Director's, testimony before the Committee on Foreign Relations two years ago when he talked about the 10-year relationship....
... MODERATOR: You have 30 seconds.
SENATOR EDWARDS: Yes. Mr. Vice President, there is no connection between the attacks of September 11th and Saddam Hussein. The
9/11 Commission has said it, your own Secretary of State has said it. And you've gone around the country suggesting that there is
some connection. There's not. And, in fact, the CIA is now about to report that the connection between al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein
is tenuous, at best. And, in fact, the Secretary of Defense said yesterday that he knows of no hard evidence of the connection. We
need to be straight with the American people. ....
.....We went into Afghanistan and very quickly the administration made a decision to divert attention from that, and instead began
to plan for the invasion of Iraq. And these connections -- and I want the American people to hear this very clearly -- listen
carefully to what the Vice President is saying, because there is no connection between Saddam Hussein and the attacks of September
11th, period. The 9/11 Commission has said that's true, Colin Powell has said it's true, but the Vice President keeps suggesting
that there is. There is not, and in fact any connection with al Qaeda is tenuous at best....
.....MODERATOR: Mr. Vice President, you have 90 seconds to respond.
VICE PRESIDENT CHENEY: The Senator has got his facts wrong. I have not suggested there's a connection between Iraq and 9/11. But
there's clearly an established Iraqi track record with terror. And the point is that that's the place where you're most likely to
see the terrorists come together with weapons of mass destruction, the deadly technologies that Saddam Hussein had developed and
used over the years. ....
... MODERATOR: New question, similar topic, because I want to circle back to a question which I'm not quite certain we got an
answer to, but I will direct it to you first, Senator Edwards, which is the question of American intelligence. If the FSC report
that we read about today is true, and if Vice President Cheney ordered it and asked about this, do you think that in the future
that your administration, or the Bush administration, would have sufficient and accurate enough intelligence to be able to make
decisions about where to go next?
SENATOR EDWARDS: Well, let me speak first to what the Vice President just said, and then I'll answer that question.
This, unfortunately, what the Vice President is telling people is inconsistent with everything they see every, single day. It's a
continuation of where there's a strong connection between al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein. It's not true. It's a continuation of at
least insinuating that there's some connection between 9/11 and Saddam Hussein. It's not true. ....
....MODERATOR: Mr. Vice President.
VICE PRESIDENT CHENEY: Gwen, the story that appeared today about this report is one I asked for. I ask an awful lot of questions.
That's part of my job as Vice President. A CIA spokesman was quoted in that story as saying they'd not yet reached the bottom line
and there's still debate over this question of the relationship between Zarqawi and Saddam Hussein. The report also points out
that at one point some of Zarqawi's people were arrested, Saddam personally intervened to have them released, supposedly at the
request of Zarqawi.
But let's look at what we know about Mr. Zarqawi. We know he was running a terrorist camp, training terrorists in Afghanistan
prior to 9/11. We know that when we went into Afghanistan that he then migrated to Baghdad. He set up shop in Baghdad, where he
oversaw the poisons facility up at Kurmal, where the terrorists were developing ricin and other deadly substances to use. We know
he's still in Baghdad today. He is responsible for most of the major car bombings that have killed or maimed thousands of people.
He's the one you will see on the evening news beheading hostages. He is, without question, a bad guy. He is, without question, a
terrorist. He was, in fact, in Baghdad before the war, and he's in Baghdad now after the war. The fact of the matter is that this
is exactly the kind of track record we've seen over the years. We have to deal with Zarqawi by taking him out, and that's exactly
what we'll do....
.... MODERATOR: Senator Edwards.
SENATOR EDWARDS: Well, the Vice President talks about there being a member -- or someone associated with al Qaeda in Iraq. There
are 60 countries who have members of al Qaeda in them. How many of those countries are we going to invade? Not only that, he talks
about Iran. The reality about Iran is Iran has moved forward with their nuclear weapons program on their watch. .....
|
Quote:
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/09/politics/09intel.html
December 9, 2005
Qaeda-Iraq Link U.S. Cited Is Tied to Coercion Claim
By DOUGLAS JEHL
Editors' Note Appended
WASHINGTON, Dec. 8 - The Bush administration based a crucial prewar assertion about ties between Iraq and Al Qaeda on detailed
statements made by a prisoner while in Egyptian custody who later said he had fabricated them to escape harsh treatment, according
to current and former government officials.
The officials said the captive, Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, provided his most specific and elaborate accounts about ties between Iraq
and Al Qaeda only after he was secretly handed over to Egypt by the United States in January 2002, in a process known as
rendition.
The new disclosure provides the first public evidence that bad intelligence on Iraq may have resulted partly from the
administration's heavy reliance on third countries to carry out interrogations of Qaeda members and others detained as part of
American counterterrorism efforts. The Bush administration used Mr. Libi's accounts as the basis for its prewar claims, now
discredited, that ties between Iraq and Al Qaeda included training in explosives and chemical weapons.
The fact that Mr. Libi recanted after the American invasion of Iraq and that intelligence based on his remarks was withdrawn by
the C.I.A. in March 2004 has been public for more than a year. But American officials had not previously acknowledged either that
Mr. Libi made the false statements in foreign custody or that Mr. Libi contended that his statements had been coerced.
A government official said that some intelligence provided by Mr. Libi about Al Qaeda had been accurate, and that Mr. Libi's
claims that he had been treated harshly in Egyptian custody had not been corroborated.
A classified Defense Intelligence Agency report issued in February 2002 that expressed skepticism about Mr. Libi's credibility on
questions related to Iraq and Al Qaeda was based in part on the knowledge that he was no longer in American custody when he made
the detailed statements, and that he might have been subjected to harsh treatment, the officials said. They said the C.I.A.'s
decision to withdraw the intelligence based on Mr. Libi's claims had been made because of his later assertions, beginning in
January 2004, that he had fabricated them to obtain better treatment from his captors.
At the time of his capture in Pakistan in late 2001, Mr. Libi, a Libyan, was the highest-ranking Qaeda leader in American custody.
A Nov. 6 report in The New York Times, citing the Defense Intelligence Agency document, said he had made the assertions about ties
between Iraq and Al Qaeda involving illicit weapons while in American custody....
|
Quote:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...l?hpid=topnews
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?p...uAs&refer=home
Hussein's Prewar Ties To Al-Qaeda Discounted
Pentagon Report Says Contacts Were Limited
By R. Jeffrey Smith
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, April 6, 2007; Page A01
Captured Iraqi documents and intelligence interrogations of Saddam Hussein and two former aides "all confirmed" that Hussein's
regime was not directly cooperating with al-Qaeda before the U.S. invasion of Iraq, according to a declassified Defense Department
report released yesterday.
The declassified version of the report, by acting Inspector General Thomas F. Gimble, also contains new details about the
intelligence community's prewar consensus that the Iraqi government and al-Qaeda figures had only limited contacts, and about its
judgments that reports of deeper links were based on dubious or unconfirmed information. The report had been released in summary
form in February.....
|
Quote:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/relea...0060320-7.html
For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
March 20, 2006
President Discusses War on Terror and Operation Iraqi Freedom
Renaissance Cleveland Hotel
Cleveland, Ohio
...THE PRESIDENT: That's a great question. (Applause.) First, just if I might correct a misperception. I don't think we ever said
-- at least I know I didn't say that there was a direct connection between September the 11th and Saddam Hussein. We did say that
he was a state sponsor of terror -- by the way, not declared a state sponsor of terror by me, but declared by other
administrations. <h3>We also did say that Zarqawi, the man who is now wreaking havoc and killing innocent life, was in Iraq</h3>.
And so the state sponsor of terror was a declaration by a previous administration. But I don't want to be argumentative, but I was
very careful never to say that Saddam Hussein ordered the attacks on America....
....Your question, however, the part that's really important is, how do we regain credibility when it comes to intelligence?......
....And so what I did was <h3>I called together the Silberman-Robb Commission</h3> -- Laurence Silberman and former Senator Chuck
Robb -- to take a full look at what went right and what went wrong on the intelligence, and how do we structure an intelligence
network that makes sure there's full debate among the analysts? How do we make sure that there's a full compilation of data points
that can help decision-makers like myself feel comfortable in the decision we make?....
Quote:
http://www.wmd.gov/report/report.html#overview
REPORT TO THE PRESIDENT, MARCH 31, 2005
SUMMARY OF CONTENTS
COMMISSION MEMBERS
Charles S. Robb
Co-Chairman
Laurence H. Silberman
Co-Chairman
<h2>...Second, we were not authorized to investigate how policymakers used the intelligence assessments they received from the
Intelligence Community. Accordingly, while we interviewed a host of current and former policymakers during the course of our
investigation, the purpose of those interviews was to learn about how the Intelligence Community reached and communicated its
judgments about Iraq's weapons programs--not to review how policymakers subsequently used that information.</h2>
|
|
Quote:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/relea...0060321-4.html
For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
March 21, 2006
Press Conference of the President
James S. Brady Briefing Room
,,,THE PRESIDENT: I say that I'm talking realistically to people. We have a plan for victory and it's important we achieve that
plan. Democracy -- first of all, this is a global war on terror and Iraq is a part of the war on terror. Mr. Zarqawi and al Qaeda,
the very same people that attacked the United States, have made it clear that they want to drive us out of Iraq so they can plan,
plot, and attack America again. ,,,,
|
Quote:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/relea.../20060821.html
For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
<h3>August 21, 2006</h3>
Press Conference by the President
White House Conference Center Briefing Room
......Q Quick follow-up. A lot of the consequences you mentioned for pulling out seem like maybe they never would have been there
if we hadn't gone in. How do you square all of that?
THE PRESIDENT: I square it because, imagine a world in which you had Saddam Hussein who had the capacity to make a weapon of mass
destruction, who was paying suiciders to kill innocent life, who would --who had relations with Zarqawi.....
|
Quote:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl...w092811D33.DTL
By JIM ABRAMS, AP Writer Fri Sep 8, 12:17 PM ET
WASHINGTON - There's no evidence
Saddam Hussein had a relationship with Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and his Al-Qaida associates, according to a Senate report on prewar
intelligence on
Iraq. Democrats said the report undercuts
President Bush's justification for going to war.....
.....It discloses for the first time an October 2005
CIA assessment that prior to the war Saddam's government "did not have a relationship, harbor, or turn a blind eye toward Zarqawi
and his associates."......
|
Quote:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/relea...0060912-2.html
For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
<h3>September 12, 2006</h3>
Press Briefing by Tony Snow
...Q Well, one more, Tony, just one more. Do you believe -- does the President still believe that Saddam Hussein was connected to
Zarqawi or al Qaeda before the invasion?
MR. SNOW: The President has never said that there was a direct, operational relationship between the two, and this is important.
Zarqawi was in Iraq.
Q There was a link --
MR. SNOW: Well, and there was a relationship -- there was a relationship in this sense: Zarqawi was in Iraq; al Qaeda members were
in Iraq; they were operating, and in some cases, operating freely from Iraq. Zarqawi, for instance, directed the assassination of
an American diplomat in Amman, Jordan. But they did they have a corner office at the Mukhabarat? No. Were they getting a line item
in Saddam's budget? No. There was no direct operational relationship, but there was a relationship. They were in the country, and
I think you understand that the Iraqis knew they were there. That's the relationship.
<h2>Q Saddam Hussein knew they were there; that's it for the relationship?
MR. SNOW: That's pretty much it......</h2>
|
Quote:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14824384/site/newsweek/
Atta in Prague
The story that the ‘intelligence community’ doesn’t want you to hear.
WEB EXCLUSIVE
By Mark Hosenball
Newsweek
Updated: 7:48 p.m. ET Sept. 13, 2006
Sept. 13, 2006 - The claim that terrorist leader Mohamed Atta met in Prague with an Iraqi spy a few months before 9/11 was never
substantiated, but that didn’t stop the White House from trying to insert the allegation in presidential speeches, according to
classified documents.......
.......According to two sources familiar with the blacked-out portions of the Senate report that discuss the CIA cable's contents,
the document indicates that White House officials had proposed mentioning the supposed Atta-Prague meeting in a Bush speech
scheduled for March 14, 2003. Originated by Czech intelligence shortly after 9/11, the tendentious claim was that in April 2001,
Atta, the 9/11 hijack leader, had met in Prague with the local station chief for Iraqi intelligence. The sources said that upon
learning of the proposed White House speech, the CIA station in Prague sent back a cable explaining in detail why the agency
believed the anecdote was ill-founded.
According to one of the sources familiar with the Senate report's censored portions, who asked for anonymity due to the
sensitivity of the subject, the tone of the CIA cable was “strident” and expressed dismay that the White House was trying to
shoehorn the Atta anecdote into the Bush speech to be delivered only days before the U.S. invasion of Iraq. The source said the
cable also suggested that policymakers had tried to insert the same anecdote into other speeches by top administration
officials..........
|
Quote:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/relea...0060915-2.html
<h3>Sept. 15, 2006</h3>
......MARTHA: Mr. President, you have said throughout the war in Iraq and building up to the war in Iraq that there was a
relationship between Saddam Hussein and Zarqawi and al Qaeda. A Senate Intelligence Committee report a few weeks ago said there
was no link, no relationship, and that the CIA knew this and issued a report last fall. And yet a month ago, you were still saying
there was a relationship. Why did you keep saying that? Why do you continue to say that? And do you still believe that?
BUSH: The point I was making to Ken Herman’s question was that Saddam Hussein was a state sponsor of terror, and that Mr. Zarqawi
was in Iraq. He had been wounded in Afghanistan, had come to Iraq for treatment. He had ordered the killing of a U.S. citizen in
Jordan. <h2>I never said there was an operational relationship.....</h2>
|
Quote:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...040601116.html
Cheney Sticks to His Delusions
By Dan Froomkin
Special to washingtonpost.com
Friday, April 6, 2007; 1:20 PM
Faced with overwhelming evidence to the contrary, even President Bush has backed off his earlier inflammatory assertions about
links between al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein.
But Vice President Cheney yesterday, in an interview with right-wing talk radio host Rush Limbaugh, continued to stick to
Cheney told Limbaugh that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was leading al-Qaeda operations in Iraq before the U.S. invasion in March 2003...
|
Quote:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/relea...0070405-3.html
For Immediate Release
Office of the Vice President
April 5, 2007
Interview of the Vice President by Rush Limbaugh, The Rush Limbaugh Show
Via Telephone
1:07 P.M. EDT
Q It's always a great privilege to have the Vice President, Dick Cheney, with us. Mr. Vice President, welcome once again to our
program.
THE VICE PRESIDENT: Well, thank you, Rush. It's good to be back on......
.....Q It may not just be Iraq. Yesterday I read that Ike Skelton, who chairs -- I forget the name of the committee -- in the next
defense appropriations bill for fiscal '08 is going to actually remove the phrase "global war on terror," because they don't think
it's applicable. They want to refer to conflicts as individual skirmishes. But they're going to try to rid the defense
appropriation bill -- and, thus, official government language -- of that term. Does that give you any indication of their
motivation or what they think of the current plight in which the country finds itself?
THE VICE PRESIDENT: Sure -- well, it's just flawed thinking. I like Ike Skelton; I worked closely with Ike when I was Secretary of
Defense. He's Chairman of the Armed Services Committee now. Ike is a good man. He's just dead wrong about this, though. Think
about -- <b>just to give you one example, Rush, remember Abu Musab al Zarqawi, a Jordanian terrorist, al Qaeda affiliate; ran a
training camp in Afghanistan for al Qaeda, then migrated -- after we went into Afghanistan and shut him down there, he went to
Baghdad, took up residence there before we ever launched into Iraq; organized the al Qaeda operations inside Iraq before we even
arrived on the scene,</b> and then, of course, led the charge for Iraq until we killed him last June. He's the guy who arranged
the bombing of the Samarra Mosque that precipitated the sectarian violence...
|
As you can read, in the preceding quote box, as recently as in April, 2007, Cheney was still claiming that al Zarqawi was the "al-Qaeda" link to Saddam's Iraq, long a totally disproved falsehood. Read the 2004 VP debate excerpt near the beginning of the post. John Edwards knew what Cheney was doing, and he told him to his face. Cheney kept spewing the same BS, for three more years. Soros's fortune and his political causes didn;t put all these quotes oin white house web pages, or influence the news reporting. Blatant lies, whether you leave the intellectual safety of your own world view, or not.
Last edited by host; 01-27-2008 at 06:22 AM..
|