This was a NY Times editorial that has gotten little attention since it came out yesterday. Certainly interesting.

William Safire Editorial

quote:

Found: A Smoking Gun By WILLIAM SAFIRE In the town of Kalar, about a hundred miles northeast of Baghdad, Kurdish villagers recently reported suspicious activity to the pesh merga. That Kurdish militia has for years been waging a bloody battle with Ansar al-Islam, the terrorist group affiliated with Al Qaeda in Afghanistan and supported by Saddam Hussein in Iraq. It captured a courier carrying a message that demolishes the repeated claim of Bush critics that there was never a "clear link" between Saddam and Osama bin Laden. The terrorist courier with a CD-ROM containing a 17-page document and other messages was Hassan Ghul, who confessed he was taking to Al Qaeda the Ansar document setting forth a strategy to start an Iraqi civil war, along with a plea for reinforcements. The Kurds turned him over to Americans for further interrogation, which is proving fruitful. The Times reporter Dexter Filkins in Baghdad, backed up by Douglas Jehl in D.C., broke the story exclusively. Editors marked its significance by placing it on the front page above the fold. Although The Washington Post the next day buried it on Page 17 (and Newsweek may construe as bogus any Saddam-Osama connection) the messages' authenticity was best attested by the amazed U.S. official who told Reuters, "We couldn't make this up if we tried." The author of the lengthy Ansar-to-Qaeda electronic message is suspected of being the most wanted terror operative in the world today: Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, long familiar to readers of this space as "the man with the limp," who personifies the link of Ansar and Al Qaeda. On Sept. 24, 2001 — not two weeks after 9/11 — Kurdish sources led me to report: "The clear link between the terrorist in hiding [Osama] and the terrorist in power [Saddam] can be found in Kurdistan. . . . The Iraqi dictator has armed and financed a fifth column of Al Qaeda mullahs and terrorists. . . . Some 400 `Arab Afghan' mercenaries . . . have already murdered a high Kurdish official as well as a Muslim scholar who dared to interpret the Koran humanely." The C.I.A. blew off that report. Our National Security Council did not learn of subsequent warfare against the Kurds by the Qaeda affiliate doing Saddam's bidding until its members read it in The Times. After Jeffrey Goldberg of the New Yorker and C. J. Chivers of The Times developed the story from inside northern Iraq, it dawned on some intelligence analysts that a "clear link" was probable. On Oct. 7, 2002, President Bush said "We know that Iraq and Al Qaeda have had high-level contacts that go back a decade. Some Al Qaeda leaders who fled Afghanistan went to Iraq. These include one very senior Al Qaeda leader who received medical treatment in Baghdad this year." The leader whose leg was treated, perhaps amputated, in Baghdad was identified here in January 2003, as Zarqawi (twice, after one misspelling). The presence of this international terrorist for two months in a Baghdad hospital required the approval of Saddam's ubiquitous secret police. In his U.N. speech the following month, Colin Powell publicly identified the Palestinian, born in Jordan, as one who oversaw a terrorist training camp in Afghanistan three years before: "Iraq today harbors a deadly terrorist network headed by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, an associate and collaborator of Osama bin Laden." Now we have documentary evidence of Ansar's current operation: employing suicide bombers to foment a civil war in Iraq that would reinstate safe haven for terrorists. The notion that these serial killers are not central players in the global network that attacked us — that the Ansar boss in Iraq must be found carrying an official Qaeda membership card signed by bin Laden — is simply silly. Of the liberation's three casus belli, one was to stop mass murder, bloodier than in Kosovo; we are finding horrific mass graves in Iraq. Another was informed suspicion that a clear link existed between world terror and Saddam; this terrorist plea for Qaeda reinforcements to kill Iraqi democracy is the smoking gun proving that. The third was a reasoned judgment that Saddam had a bioweapon that could wipe out a city; in time, we are likely to find a buried suitcase containing that, too.

Al Qaeda in Iraq! Shhh...don't let the media know. It doesn't jive with their opinion on the matter.

The issue isn't whether terrorists are in Iraq now (whose fault do you think that is?) it's whether they were there prior to the commencement of hostilities. This captured CD is the first thing even approaching solid evidence of Al-Qaeda ever being in Iraq and it's come 11 months after we went to war with Iraq over its connections to Al-Qaeda in the first place - where are these terrorist training camps we were told about? Not a document, nor an eye-witness testimony lending any credence to the idea that Saddam and Osama were on terms any better than mutual loathing (extreme secularism and extreme religioisity are hardly compatible tennets afterall)? C'mon, we had such solid evidence of a connection between the two organisations that it was worth going to war over, but 11 months later all we have is a CD that may have been written by a man called Zarqawi, who may have been in Iraq in 2002? You call that a smoking gun?

The fact that Iraq has been flooded with ideological extremists prone to using excessive violence since the fall of Baghdad is not news. Nor is the possibility that Al-Qaeda may have infiltrated Iraq and committed terrorist attacks during that time news. What is news is that a war was waged on the back of scant (since proven, largely, to be false) evidence and that more Americans have died at the hands of terrorism in Iraq than would have been lost had the troops not been sent in the first place. Iraq had nothing to do with the war on terrorism and for anyone to associate the war on Iraq with the "war on terror" would be a folly of the highest order. $87 billion could have been used on ground level intelligence perhaps capable of dismantling Al-Qaeda for good, yet, instead all we've done is free up 168,753 square miles for the terrorists to run around in. Thank you Mr Bush, Mr Blair and Mr Howard - I feel much safer now.

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quote:

Originally posted by Renegade The issue isn't whether terrorists are in Iraq now (whose fault do you think that is?)

Well D'uh. Everybody knows that the United States is to blame for everything wrong in the world. We just have a knack for making people do things. I mean it's not like anyone on the world can actually think for themselves--everybody knows that the U.S. has the most sophisticated mind control devices in the world. Strike that. Everybody knows that the U.S. IS the most sophisticated mind control machine ever known.

quote:

Originally posted by Renegade The issue isn't whether terrorists are in Iraq now (whose fault do you think that is?) it's whether they were there prior to the commencement of hostilities.

We glimpsed over these parts did we? :

quote:

snip: On Sept. 24, 2001 — not two weeks after 9/11 — Kurdish sources led me to report: "The clear link between the terrorist in hiding [Osama] and the terrorist in power [Saddam] can be found in Kurdistan. . . . The Iraqi dictator has armed and financed a fifth column of Al Qaeda mullahs and terrorists. . . . Some 400 `Arab Afghan' mercenaries . . . have already murdered a high Kurdish official as well as a Muslim scholar who dared to interpret the Koran humanely." snip: On Oct. 7, 2002, President Bush said "We know that Iraq and Al Qaeda have had high-level contacts that go back a decade. Some Al Qaeda leaders who fled Afghanistan went to Iraq. These include one very senior Al Qaeda leader who received medical treatment in Baghdad this year." snip: In his U.N. speech the following month, Colin Powell publicly identified the Palestinian, born in Jordan, as one who oversaw a terrorist training camp in Afghanistan three years before: "Iraq today harbors a deadly terrorist network headed by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, an associate and collaborator of Osama bin Laden."

quote:

C'mon, we had such solid evidence of a connection between the two organisations that it was worth going to war over, but 11 months later all we have is a CD that may have been written by a man called Zarqawi, who may have been in Iraq in 2002? You call that a smoking gun?

Wow, what a really interesting take.

Afterall do you consider the tape of Osama Bin Laden, that came MONTHS after September 11th where he mentions he dreamt of the towers being destroyed a smoking gun, or not?

Where was that solid evidence of a connection between Al Qadea and the attackers of 9-11 that it was worth going to war over? All of a sudden a few months later all we have is a TV recording that may have been recorded for a man called Osama, who may have been in Afghanistan in 2001? You call that a smoking gun?

Sorry, I hate having to do that, typically I think thats childish.. but I found it quiet essential in this case as the parrallels between the two seem remarkably striking to me, and would force you to either denouce one or the other

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quote:

Originally posted by Shakka Well D'uh. Everybody knows that the United States is to blame for everything wrong in the world. We just have a knack for making people do things. I mean it's not like anyone on the world can actually think for themselves--everybody knows that the U.S. has the most sophisticated mind control devices in the world. Strike that. Everybody knows that the U.S. IS the most sophisticated mind control machine ever known.

Were you ever any good at the political forum picture game? Try this one:

quote:

We glimpsed over these parts did we? : quote: snip: On Sept. 24, 2001 — not two weeks after 9/11 — Kurdish sources led me to report: "The clear link between the terrorist in hiding [Osama] and the terrorist in power [Saddam] can be found in Kurdistan. . . . The Iraqi dictator has armed and financed a fifth column of Al Qaeda mullahs and terrorists. . . . Some 400 `Arab Afghan' mercenaries . . . have already murdered a high Kurdish official as well as a Muslim scholar who dared to interpret the Koran humanely." snip: On Oct. 7, 2002, President Bush said "We know that Iraq and Al Qaeda have had high-level contacts that go back a decade. Some Al Qaeda leaders who fled Afghanistan went to Iraq. These include one very senior Al Qaeda leader who received medical treatment in Baghdad this year." snip: In his U.N. speech the following month, Colin Powell publicly identified the Palestinian, born in Jordan, as one who oversaw a terrorist training camp in Afghanistan three years before: "Iraq today harbors a deadly terrorist network headed by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, an associate and collaborator of Osama bin Laden."

Wow sorry, in my haste I must have overlooked that veritable wealth of objective scrutiny.

For the Bush / Powell thing, this is what I wrote on the night of the Powell speech to the UN (06/02/03):

quote:

The fourth part of the speech concerned Iraq's links with Al Qaeda, and was even more spurious than the preceding parts of the speech. The entire argument rested on the assumption that Hussein had links with a man named "Abu Musab Zarqawi" which I don't remember Colin Powell going any way to verifying. Basically Powell made out a great case as to why this "Zarqawi" is a threat to global security (making sure to specifically spell out the threat he posed to the nations present at the council - Spain, Italy, Russia etc) but his ties to Hussein were weak. Apparently the fact that he and some of his factions were working within Iraq (within the Northern Kurdish areas outside of Husseins control - by Powell's own admission) and that he had met with some Iraqi officials were enough to suggest that Hussein had ties with Al Qaeda, but, needless to say, there was no evidence presented to support this assumption. If Zarqawi is such a threat, then it is he who needs to be stopped. If these threats are coming out of the Kurdish part of Iraq, then I fail to see what Baghdad has to do with it. Also, he asserted that "Iraqis visited Osama Bin Laden in Afghanistan and provided training to al-Qaeda members" in the early 1990s and that this was grounds to condemn Hussein. But Collo, mate, didn't the US do exactly the same thing? Did they not fund and train Al Qaeda and Bin Laden? "Ambition and hatred are enough to bring Iraq and al-Qaeda together" Powell said, barely acknoledging the fact that the Secularism of Hussein and the theism of Bin Laden drive them further apart than a common hatred of the US ever could bring them together.

http://www.tranceaddict.com/forums/...&threadid=88933

This was the best intelligence the US had, and on the very night it was read out it was quite clear to me that they were filling in the blanks in their intelligence with complete crap (and I have - in the absence of evidence since then - been justified in this stance). You may also wish to read these topics:

http://www.tranceaddict.com/forums/...threadid=149599
http://www.tranceaddict.com/forums/...threadid=119488

Both the American and British security agencies dismissed the intelligence provided by the US and UK governments linking Iraq to Al-Qaeda in the lead up to the war:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/2727471.stm
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washin...h-alqaeda_x.htm

The Iraq / Al-Qaeda link was and is bullshit. One CD in 11 months isn't going to change that.

quote:

Wow, what a really interesting take. Afterall do you consider the tape of Osama Bin Laden, that came MONTHS after September 11th where he mentions he dreamt of the towers being destroyed a smoking gun, or not? Where was that solid evidence of a connection between Al Qadea and the attackers of 9-11 that it was worth going to war over? All of a sudden a few months later all we have is a TV recording that may have been recorded for a man called Osama, who may have been in Afghanistan in 2001? You call that a smoking gun? Sorry, I hate having to do that, typically I think thats childish.. but I found it quiet essential in this case as the parrallels between the two seem remarkably striking to me, and would force you to either denouce one or the other

1) I never attempted to deny that Osama bin Laden was the chief orchestrator of the Sept 11 attacks.
2) There is intelligence supporting Al-Qaeda involvement in the Sept 11 attacks, but not Al-Qaeda involvement with Iraq (or, indeed, Iraqi involvement with the Sept 11 attacks).
3) Sarcasm does not become you.

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quote:

Originally posted by Renegade Were you ever any good at the political forum picture game? Try this one:

Warning: Cars making wide turns on the ski hill?

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Retro ...

quote:

Originally posted by occrider Warning: Cars making wide turns on the ski hill?

Sarcasm doesn't become you either. Stick to the Simpsons quotes.

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quote:

Originally posted by Renegade Sarcasm doesn't become you either. Stick to the Simpsons quotes.

"Doh"

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Retro ...

quote:

Originally posted by Renegade Sarcasm doesn't become you either. Stick to the Simpsons quotes.

LOL!

I thought Occ was pretty witty myself!

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with leaves all crimson conquered,
I yearn to shout,
and dance about,
and stick pickles in my honker...

quote:

On Sept. 24, 2001 — not two weeks after 9/11 — Kurdish sources led me to report: "The clear link between the terrorist in hiding [Osama] and the terrorist in power [Saddam] can be found in Kurdistan. . . . The Iraqi dictator has armed and financed a fifth column of Al Qaeda mullahs and terrorists. . . . Some 400 `Arab Afghan' mercenaries . . . have already murdered a high Kurdish official as well as a Muslim scholar who dared to interpret the Koran humanely."

That made me laugh as much as the whole Saddam is threat to my country BS. Saddam sure had control of Kurdistan right?

At least the part from the CD about the strategy of trying to start a civil war by blowing up Iraqis seems to be happening. 50 plus dead per bomb the last couple of days is taking a horrific toll on the civilians. Wonder how long that will last until the general population gets pissed and starts going after Al-Queda in force instead of watching the US basically go it alone. After all, someone's normally watching and not saying anything about suspicious goons digging in ordnance along roadsides or roaming around in packs with some serious weaponry.

[[[smoke]]]