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Originally Posted by aceventura3
First there is intel that allegedly supports the report that Zarqawi was in Iraq. Two of the people convicted of the murder indicated there was a link with al queda and that they received orders from Zarqawi.
http://archives.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/m...ordan.killing/
There are also reports that the men convicted of the murder talked about the links to Iraq.
http://thomasjoscelyn.blogspot.com/2...nce-foley.html
It is possible these men lied. It is possible that the intel is wrong. Perhaps there was a link to Iraq and Saddam did not know that his country was being used, which I doubt.
But, regardless the author of the editorial stated that "perhaps" there was a link. I don't think we know with certainty either way. You speculate, just like the author of the editorial. So, what does that prove?
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ace, your
http://thomasjoscelyn.blogspot.com/2...nce-foley.html piece, is dated three months before Bush himself folded his al Zarqawi "card".
Your
http://archives.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/m...ordan.killing/ citation, is nearly four years before....
Ace, read what I've quoted from you.....I'm not challenging the notion that "Zarqawi was in Iraq"....it's a bullshit move from you to word it that fucking way.....I am challenging this LIE:
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Originally Posted by the President 08-21-06
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/relea.../20060821.html
......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. Imagine what the world would be like with him in power. The idea is to try to help change the Middle East. .......
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Do you comprehend that the question was not whether "al Zarqawi was in Iraq", or whether Saddam knew that he was, because our own Pentagon Inspector General's report of Feb., 2007, tells us:
[quote]
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...502263_pf.html
....The report, in a passage previously marked secret, said Feith's office had asserted in a briefing given to Cheney's chief of staff in September 2002 that the relationship between Iraq and al-Qaeda was "mature" and "symbiotic," marked by shared interests and evidenced by cooperation across 10 categories, including training, financing and logistics.
Instead, the report said, the CIA had concluded in June 2002 that there were few substantiated contacts between al-Qaeda operatives and Iraqi officials and had said that it lacked evidence of a long-term relationship like the ones Iraq had forged with other terrorist groups......
[quote]
WHAT CHANGED IS THAT BUSH AND TONY SNOW FOLDED THE "al Zarqawi was in Iraq", "card", as a means of justifying the invasion and occupation of Iraq.
After that happened, it became unreasonable...."fringe", to continue to refer to that as a reason to invade Iraq and remove Saddam and his government. Only Cheney continued to cite that as a reason, after Bush folded, and even he hasn't said it in a year, now. Bush never used it again, ace, after 9-15.06.
Before 9-15-06, I documented the fact that he used it as justification, frequently, over a nearly 4 year span.
Neither any page on IBD and you, ace, cannot attempt to advance "al Zarqawi was in Iraq and may have had a relationship with Saddam and or his government, before we got there",
and expect to be taken seriously when you do it, ace......at least not since 9-15-06 !
Do you want to be taken seriously, ace? Bush apparently does, and most pundits and publications apparently want to be....that is why they have stopped making that reference....cold...done....it's relegated to a tiny denialist fringe, because:
ace, I've shown you....with linked statements, dated 9-12-06 (Tony Snow), and 9-15-06 (George Bush), and with a video of Bush actually reciting the words....that neither was willing or able to state what you inserted into your last post.
Bush did not challenge Martha Raddatz, when she asked:
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THE PRESIDENT:....Martha.
Q 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?
THE PRESIDENT: 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. I never said there was an operational relationship. .....
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White house press secretary Tony Snow did not challenge the conclusion that there were no ties between Saddam's government and al Zarqawi:
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Press Gaggle Spetember 12, 2006
.....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.
Q Saddam Hussein knew they were there; that's it for the relationship?
MR. SNOW: That's pretty much it. ....
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ace, is it just a coincidence, that, after this.....after August 21, 2006, Bush stopped telling this lie?:
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http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/08/wa...9intelcnd.html
Senate Panel Releases Report on Iraq Intelligence
By MARK MAZZETTI
Published: September 8, 2006
As recently as two weeks ago, President Bush said at a news conference that Mr. Hussein “had relations with Zarqawi.’’ But a C.I.A. report completed in October 2005 concluded instead that Sadddam Hussein’s regime “did not have a relationship, harbor, or even turn a blind eye toward Mr. Zarqawi and his associates,” according to the new Senate findings.
The C.I.A. report also directly contradicted claims made in February 2003 by Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, who mentioned Mr. Zarqawi by name no fewer than 20 times during a speech to the United Nations Security Council that made the administration’s case to go to war. In that speech, Mr. Powell said that Iraq “today harbors a deadly terrorist network’’ headed by Mr. Zarqawi, and dismissed as “not credible’’ assertions by the Iraqi government that it had no knowledge of Mr. Zarqawi’s whereabouts.
In fact, the Senate investigation concluded that Mr. Hussein regarded Al Qaeda as a threat rather as a potential ally, and that the Iraqi intelligence service “actively attempted to locate and capture al-Zarqawi without success.’’
The C.I.A. report also directly contradicted claims made in February 2003 by Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, who mentioned Mr. Zarqawi by name no fewer than 20 times during a speech to the United Nations Security Council that made the administration’s case to go to war. In that speech, Mr. Powell said that Iraq “today harbors a deadly terrorist network’’ headed by Mr. Zarqawi, and dismissed as “not credible’’ assertions by the Iraqi government that it had no knowledge of Mr. Zarqawi’s whereabouts.
In fact, the Senate investigation concluded that Mr. Hussein regarded Al Qaeda as a threat rather as a potential ally, and that the Iraqi intelligence service “actively attempted to locate and capture al-Zarqawi without success.’’....
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