The Washington Times joins defense of Saddam-al Qaeda link.
The Washington Times joins defense of Saddam-al Qaeda link.
On March 13, the Pentagon released a detailed study (pdf) confirming “no direct link between late Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein and the Al-Qaeda network.” But oddly, numerous conservatives and Iraq war supporters — including the Wall Street Journal — have cited the report as vindication of their theories about a Saddam Hussein-al Qaeda alliance. Today, the Washington Times joined the conservative echo chamber and even criticized “the mainstream media” for “badly misreport[ing]” the report’s conclusion:
Newly declassified documents captured in Iraq show that Saddam Hussein’s regime had extensive ties with a variety of Islamist and other terrorist groups, in some cases dating back to the early 1990s. Saddam’s Iraqi Intelligence Service (or Mukhabarat) established a working relationship with Egyptian Islamic Jihad, whose leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri, later merged the group with al Qaeda, according to a new report by the Institute for Defense Analyses.
Few stories in recent memory have been as badly misreported by the mainstream media. News outlets — including The Washington Post, the New York Times, CNN and ABC —all issued reports earlier this month declaring that the IDA report showed no link between Saddam and al Qaeda.
The Wonk Room has more.
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JFC, back and forth we go again. He said, she said, it said, they said, some frikkin dog said. It’s easier being sawn in half.
March 25th, 2008 at 3:20 pmwell gosh – if the moonies and the billionaires say so, then it must be so.
March 25th, 2008 at 3:22 pmStop the merry-go-round. I’m dizzy from the spin already.
March 25th, 2008 at 3:23 pmEveryone in Washington D.C. who is reading this please make time sometime in the next couple of days to go to any supermarket, purchase several dozen eggs, then proceed to the Washington Times. Anyone with a little baseball or softball experience should be able to accomplish this; take the eggs and get as close to their employee parking lot as possible and let the games begin! Since they already have egg on their faces why shouldn’t drive matching cars?
March 25th, 2008 at 3:23 pmI think I can
March 25th, 2008 at 3:26 pmI think I can
I think I can
I think I can
…Prove the Saddam – Al-Qaeda Link
I think I can
I think I can
I think I can
I think I can
…Prove the Saddam – Al-Qaeda Link
A poet once said after cleaning out one of the cages at the San francisco Zoo that Words are Turds there is a whole world of feelings about what is said and who says what. they are still all turds though!
March 25th, 2008 at 3:27 pmWeapons inspectors found no weapons in Iraq during the mid 90s, ergo there is no doubt there are weapons. No links have been found twixt bin Laden and Saddam, ergo there are links. Brilliant. What’s next? Cutting taxes raises tax revenue?
March 25th, 2008 at 3:32 pmAgain, as the wheels fall off the neocon wagon, all supporters of the war will do two things:
1) Disavow and distance themselves from all of their documented – yes documented – errors in judgement and cheerleading an illegal and immoral invasion.
2) Brand anybody who calls them on their obvious stenography as ‘unserious’ and ‘unpatriotic’.
The entire MSM needs to rehabilitate itself if it wants to retain credibility and a paying readership/viewership. Understand they are fighting for their lives (figuratively speaking) here – to stay in busniess. To maintain profitability and relevance. They will lie, cheet, steal, distort, demean, & obfuscate to keep their businesses intact.
People and businesses which supported the neocon regime, are neocons themselves. Different animals with the same stripes.
March 25th, 2008 at 3:35 pmIt’s like bizarro world. Up is down,black is white,no direct connection=SH and OBL sleeping together.
March 25th, 2008 at 3:38 pmAnd this is exactly why those of us in the DC metro area who have even half a brain use the Times only to wrap fish, start our fireplaces, or line the bottom of birdcages — the Moonies who run that rag long ago lost touch with reality.
March 25th, 2008 at 3:39 pmhey! Sun Myung Moon also declared himself king of the world……doesn’t necessarily make it so.
March 25th, 2008 at 3:40 pmSince when does the reichtwingnutz need the truth to spout the crap they always spout.
Grab your hip waders. It’s gonna be a long election year.
March 25th, 2008 at 3:41 pmThemanwhocouldn’tspell=poor troll can’t keep up. We are talking Iraq/Al-Qaeda links,dufus.
March 25th, 2008 at 3:41 pmMoonie hearts Bush
Bush hearts Moonie
They actually hang out.
Nuff said!!!
March 25th, 2008 at 3:42 pmI see this as a desperate last stand by the reichwingers to justify their illegal war.
March 25th, 2008 at 3:47 pmMost New Yorker’s with an IQ above room temperature would only use the Washington Times to wrap fish.
I assume they are making this leap from the following:
First, what is their definition of a “working relationship”. Then they take this giant leap from “later merged the group with al Qaeda” to mean that Saddam was dealing with AQ. All that would mean, if it were true, is that al-Zawahiri, before he became a member of AQ, had ties to Saddam.
March 25th, 2008 at 3:47 pm600,000 pages of documents and thousands of hours of video and audio tapes seized in Iraq. Saddam and his govt. was prolific in documenting many things.
Out of all of this though the main points of the Bush administrations assertions against Iraq didn’t pan out. No WMD’s (other than the depleted reserves that were known since 91. that answers caredmanl whether he wants to acknowledge it or not).
No operational ties between AQ and Saddam. None.
There was also no evidence pointing to any assasination attempt on GHWB.
March 25th, 2008 at 3:48 pmYou know, you’re right Progressive Thinker. We could have continued to “use” Saddam. I was no fan but he was a stabilizing influence in the region.
But, apparently he was worth more to the neocons dead than alive. Ain’t propaganda agreat?
March 25th, 2008 at 3:48 pm* * *
There are 2 Kinds of Republicans:
MILLIONAIRES & SUCKERS
* * *
another perfect bumper sticker… PASS IT ON!
March 25th, 2008 at 3:51 pmsee the story at alternet…
HT sam seder…
If we leave Iraq, the Iraqis will no longer have any need for foreign fighters and insurgency and will force al Qaeda to leave on their own.
There was no AQI before the invasion and there will be no AQI after it’s over… we are the only thing preventing the Iraqis from dealing with this themselves.
Links to Iran are a different story… but the Bush Administration has no one to blame but themselves for strengthening Iran’s position in the Middle East…
March 25th, 2008 at 3:51 pmSo using this Moonie “logic” we can also conclude that because Ronnie sent Rummy to meet with Saddam in the ’80s thus leading to a “working relationship” for about five years, the Gipper was responsible for 911, right?
March 25th, 2008 at 3:54 pmBilbo Hussein Baggins Says:
March 25th, 2008 at 3:47 pm
First, what is their definition of a “working relationship”. Then they take this giant leap from “later merged the group with al Qaeda” to mean that Saddam was dealing with AQ. All that would mean, if it were true, is that al-Zawahiri, before he became a member of AQ, had ties to Saddam.
According to the 9/11 Commission Report, this relationship consisted of a handful of meetings, arranged through al-Zawahiri, in the late 1990s between low-level Iraqi intelligence people and low-level al-Qa’ida people that went nowhere and established nothing because neither side trusted the other. That’s a far cry from the “smoking gun” the Bush administration was fearmongering about in 2002.
And even that information is in doubt now that we know that at least part of it was obtained by torture.
March 25th, 2008 at 3:54 pmThere’s a good reason why the Bush Administration did not think this was worth mentioning. You can imagine the conversation between the WH and right wing media: “we can’t say this publicly because we’d get killed in the press, so we need you to keep repeating that there is something there, so some percent of people will believe it.”
Using the tenuous connections here, what kind of connections could be made between the US and the IRA? or the US and al Qaeda through Afghanistan in the 1980s and early 1990s? or US and any of a number of other groups?
March 25th, 2008 at 3:55 pmAnd this is exactly why those of us in the DC metro area who have even half a brain use the Times only to wrap fish, start our fireplaces, or line the bottom of birdcages — the Moonies who run that rag long ago lost touch with reality.
How much do you want to bet, unfortunately, that Congress isn’t counted amongst that group?
March 25th, 2008 at 3:56 pmProgressive Thinker Says:
March 25th, 2008 at 3:52 pm
mary,
He was. He also was a Progressive leader.
You’re not fooling anybody, Mr. P.
March 25th, 2008 at 3:56 pmWhat the hell… 95% of the radio airwaves, right wing and let us not forget how invested they are in MIC, DO IT TOO.
March 25th, 2008 at 3:56 pmBeginning to sense a troll in disguise here…Saddam was a brutal dictator, and no progressive in this country truly believes he “wasn’t all that bad.” Of course he was. Did we have the right to unilaterally go in there and oust him based on false pretenses, even given the bad parts of SH? The answer is STILL no.
March 25th, 2008 at 3:56 pmbelac Says:
Links to Iran are a different story… but the Bush Administration has no one to blame but themselves for strengthening Iran’s position in the Middle East…
Also, what about the links to Saudi Arabia? Those are completely ignored.
March 25th, 2008 at 3:57 pmWhy are any of Bush’s enablers bothering with financing the Bush presidential library? Everything they want is in the pages of the Washing Times, the editorials of the Washington Post and the pages of the National Review—all available online.
Oh…yeah…searchable..refutable. Can’t have that. Better have an impressive building, carefully patrolled.
March 25th, 2008 at 3:58 pmI am deeply disappointed that after 6/7/8 years in Afghanistand and the Middle East, we still haven’t figured out the whole Shia / Sunni thing. Couldn’t one of our governement read a book on Muslim history ?
For that matter, our great security senator (McCain) apparently hasn’t got it figured out either based on his recent gaffe.
March 25th, 2008 at 3:59 pmcaredmanI Says:
March 25th, 2008 at 3:38 pm
I thought we gave them WMD. This site told me a while back that the USA gave Saddam WMD to gas the kurds! I guess we took em back!
Please explain to us why you’re here. What do you hope to accomplish? Do you get paid to try to convert us to whatever it is that you are? Are you hoping we all finally see your message and collectively say “Oh, now I get it. We’re supposed to make lies become the new accepted truth. Patriotism hangs in the balance of whether or not someone wears a stupid lapel pin.” Just for starters. Forgive me but, if that’s your agenda here, or anything else of the sort, just leave. You will fail. Go to redstate.com. They have plenty of brown shirt, bootlicking, blind lemmings over there. I’m sure you’ll make plenty of new playmates.
March 25th, 2008 at 3:59 pmWow, absolutely transparent. You managed to hide your troll-in-liberal’s-clothing act for what…2 posts?
Nice try, ass, no one is listening to you anymore.
March 25th, 2008 at 4:00 pmThe purpose of this post is to inform you, Progressive Thinker, that you have been put on indefinite ignore status.
Beginning now:
Progressive Thinker…..
March 25th, 2008 at 4:02 pm[Ignore Progressive Thinker]
March 25th, 2008 at 4:03 pmProgressive Thinker Says:
March 25th, 2008 at 4:01 pm
Our regime has killed more than he did.
Your name is a complete misnomer. You’re neither progressive nor a thinker.
March 25th, 2008 at 4:04 pmOT
March 25th, 2008 at 4:04 pmit is the news medicare will go broke in about 9 years… THIS IS WHY WE NEED SINGLE PAYER GOVERNMENT RUN HEALTH INSURANCE FOR ALL. every other industrialized country provide heath care to their citizens.
OH I FORGOT, WE HAVE TO SPEND MORE ON WAR AS COMPARED TO ALL OTHER COUNTRIES PUT TOGETHER FOR OUR TERRORISTS WAYS.
[/Ignore Progressive Thinker, because this sh-t is too funny]
Aww, isn’t that cute! It thinks it is being funny by trying sound like a “typical lib poster.” Everyone laugh derisively at it! HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA
Isn’t that just like a troll. Project, distract, project, distract.
March 25th, 2008 at 4:07 pmMapleStreet Says:
March 25th, 2008 at 3:59 pm
I am deeply disappointed that after 6/7/8 years in Afghanistand and the Middle East, we still haven’t figured out the whole Shia / Sunni thing. Couldn’t one of our governement read a book on Muslim history ?
8 years? Try about 200 years. Our government has been involved in the Middle East since the Barbary Wars, and we STILL don’t get it.
March 25th, 2008 at 4:08 pmAh, yes,
March 25th, 2008 at 4:09 pmA concerted effort by the rightwing publications to counter the Pentagon report, the NIE and the Frontline special on PBS.
(Sung to the tune of “raindrops keep falling on my head”)
March 25th, 2008 at 4:13 pmAll I can do is just project
But soon I’ll be getting my big fat trolling paycheck…
Progressive Thinker Says:
March 25th, 2008 at 4:06 pm
hussein toasterhead,
The US has killed and murdered more people than Saddam ever did.
That’s a fact. Care to discuss this?
I do discuss this on a daily basis, usually going back to the overthrow of Iranian president Mohammed Mossadegh in 1953 as the start of the U.S. economic empire.
However, I do not particularly care to discuss this with a conservatroll posing as a “secular progressive.” It’s a pointless waste of time as you no doubt have few facts or “truths” at your disposal.
March 25th, 2008 at 4:13 pmSaddam had no direct link to AQ, no WMD’s and was not a direct threat the security of the USA. The AUMF was initiated for these alone. It’s time to update the rationale on why our forces are in Iraq. In doing so, the admission by this administration that they were wrong needs to surface.
March 25th, 2008 at 4:14 pmIt’s the spelling errors and the comically portrayed neocon stereotype of a liberal’s viewpoints that really just give it away. Absolutely, 100% transparent. The window of fun with it has ended.
Reestablishing indefinite ignore period…
March 25th, 2008 at 4:16 pm[Ignore Progressive Thinker]
I am somewhat amused that the Washington Times has joined the conservachorus of voices claiming a Saddam/Al Qaeda link (yes, this Kevin Bacon chain obviously PROVES that Saddam ordered the 9/11 attacks!). These people examine every molecule and every speck of dirt to get evidence that supports their agenda.
Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia is completely ignored — despite a supermajority of the 9/11 hijackers being Saudi nationals, and more foreign insurgents in Iraq coming from Saudi Arabia than any other country.
What’s wrong with this picture?
March 25th, 2008 at 4:18 pmWell this makes since. Americans believed the lies about everything the White House has said. Even Powell was pimped out to lie to the UN. The Feds and Roger Stone did a great job on lying about Spitzer, guess what Americans brought it hook line and sinker. Even the number of dead soldiers is much more then 4000 but Americans believe what ever their told. Reports of only 60,000 dead Iraqi is somewhat short of the real number of 1,191.271 but Americans will believe the lie. The World knows Saddam had nothing to do with Al Qaeda. But Cheney knows if he says it long enough Americans will follow as they have done before. Just keep saying Osama and Saddam long enough and it works. Now that the facts are out even the Chinese know the 9/11 attack was planned by the Saudis and the US. That Americans will always say never happen know like now it’s said Slavery never happen in the US. It was all a fairy tale.
Time to put fear back in the mines of the American people and the Media will make sure they do their part.
March 25th, 2008 at 4:18 pmliberal traitor Says:
March 25th, 2008 at 4:16 pm
It’s the spelling errors and the comically portrayed neocon stereotype of a liberal’s viewpoints that really just give it away. Absolutely, 100% transparent. The window of fun with it has ended.
That and the obsession with Christians, because all of us card-carrying Secular Muslim Progressives are trying to eradicate Christianity from the world and spread Islam everywhere.
March 25th, 2008 at 4:18 pmSHHHHH!!! Don’t let the secret out!
March 25th, 2008 at 4:20 pmProgressive Thinker Says:
March 25th, 2008 at 4:18 pm
hussein toasterhead,
How am I a troll? If I’m posting truths that you agree with, then what’s the beef? By the way I just looked at your blog. It looks cool.
Hey, thanks! Are you going to post “Mohammed was a pedophile” all over my comments pages again? It’s so cute when you do that.
March 25th, 2008 at 4:24 pmI love this retroactive reasoning from the revisionist historians. We’re to believe that Zawahiri doing something in Iraq after the death of Saddam Hussein is evidence of a link to Saddam Hussein before the war. Maybe Chris Matthews can explain how the new rules of Irony apply to this situation.
March 25th, 2008 at 4:27 pmWell, Moonies do believe a lot of interesting stuff.
March 25th, 2008 at 4:31 pmHmmmm. One wonders exactly *HOW* these people know so much more about Al Qaeda than our intelligence services.
Republicans = Al Qaeda in America
March 25th, 2008 at 4:32 pmfletc3her Says:
March 25th, 2008 at 4:27 pm
I love this retroactive reasoning from the revisionist historians. We’re to believe that Zawahiri doing something in Iraq after the death of Saddam Hussein is evidence of a link to Saddam Hussein before the war.
After the death of Saddam? You may be thinking of Abu Musab az-Zarqawi, who started al-Qa’ida of Mesopotamia.
March 25th, 2008 at 4:48 pmIsn’t it amazing how utterly futile it is for trolls to log in with a new “progressive” sounding name and pretend to be progressive and inject absurd taking points into the dialogue?
They never last more than a couple of posts before their transparent agenda gives them away.
Although sometimes it’s their poor language skills that is the tip off.
March 25th, 2008 at 4:48 pmNew declassified info from the Office Of Special Plans have revealed that McBush/McChaney/McCracked are masters of their own ’super-race’ of indestructable monsters pretty much linked to any and all terrorists known today. If you don’t like your reality then change it..change in 08.
March 25th, 2008 at 6:45 pmFrom the Pentagon Study:
“Saddam supported groups that either associated directly with al Qaeda (such as Egyptian Islamic Jihad, led at one time by bin Laden’s deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri) or that generally shared al Qaeda’s stated goals and objectives.” …
“Saddam provided training and motivation to revolutionary pan-Arabl nationalists in the region. Osama bin Laden provided training and motivation for vioent revolutionary Islamists in the region. … These similarities created more than just the appearance of cooperation. Common interests, even without common cause, increased the aggregate terror threat.”
“Saddam Hussein was demonstrably willing to use terrorism to achieve his goals. Using this tactical method was a strategic choice of Saddam’s, often requiring direct and indirect cooperation with movements, organizzations, and individuals possessing, in some cases diametrically opposed long-term goals.
An example of indirect cooperations is the movement led by Osama bin Laden.”
March 25th, 2008 at 10:59 pm.
The ONLY reason these rag-mags are allowed to spin such LIES is because the people who perpetrated these LIES in the first place have all been rewarded with lucrative retirement packages and promotions with extended stays in office. Witness Bush, Cheney, Rice, Rumsfeld, Gonzales, Feif, Powell, et al.
NO CONSEQUENCES = lies into truths.
So, I can be the president and lie to the American public.
I can be the V.P. and lie to the American public.
I can be the Sec. of State AND/OR National Sec. Adviser and lie.
I can be an adviser to the Admin and craft lies.
I can be the Atty Gen. and lie to Congress and the American people.
HELLO NEO-AMERICA…
Good bye OLD America, where integrity counted for something, where principles based on the pursuit of happiness, life and Liberty defined what it meant to be an American. Good bye, She’ll be missed.
.
March 26th, 2008 at 12:49 am>An example of indirect cooperations is the movement led by >Osama bin Laden
Right.. “the Bloods are an armed criminal organization whose
goal is profit from violence and narcotics trafficing. the police are thier enemy”
and
“the Crips are an armed criminal organization whose
goal is profit from violence and narcotics trafficing. the police are thier enemy”
therefore, if we apply our Exlexlogicia to this sitution, we come to the obvious conclusion that the crips and bloods work together, right?
Exlexlia, i hate to say it, but your starting to sound more and more trollish every day. do you deny the united states has been just as involved with islamic nuts as saddam has?
March 26th, 2008 at 2:14 amyes or no?
“Progressive Tanker”, if your going to make an even laughable attempt at not being another herpetic “outbreak” of one of our serial offending trolls, you might want to learn to structure your sentences differently. Thats how the uneebamer
March 26th, 2008 at 2:22 amgot caught, and you’re nowhere near as intelligent….those junior college philiosophy classes leaving you with alot of free time on your hands..?
there is a whitehouse memo somewhere that said something to the effect of “halliburton contacts are being coordinated through the vp’s office”. one of halliburtons former leaders is currently the brains of the us government, and the s government continues to do favors for hallibortion. this is far and away a greater and far different sort of collaboration than the assanine “seven jihads of Kevin Al-Bakon” game you idiots try to play to put secular dictators like saddam and radical jihadists like bin laden in the same bed together..
March 26th, 2008 at 5:48 amWhen the president of 9/11 can dismiss Mr. alQaeda himself, Osama bin Ladin, as “not that important” it seems foolish to then turn over every rock and move heaven and earth searching for links to him.
March 26th, 2008 at 7:17 amSo it’s pure sophistry when The Washington Times seems to conflate the past, the future and the present in order to post-justify past actions that have precipitated the present. (ie: No al Qeada in Iraq before, but now there’s “alQeada In Iraq” in Iraq)
Years from now when the history books are re-written this article will likely be a prominent footnote.
March 26th, 2008 at 10:59 amCan someone on this board please explain to me what they mean by link or connection?
I’d consider funding, arming, training and harboring al Qaeda affiliates (which is what the report says Saddam did) something worth being worried about. Does that mean we had to invade? Of course that’s debate and certainly an argument can be made that something else could have been done but Saddam’s Iraq was recruiting, training and arming thousands of Iraqi and non-Iraqi suicide bombers and terrorists and plotted attacks on U.S. military bases, embassies and naval vessels.
There is nothing “liberal” or “progressive” about dismissing what Saddam was up to out of hand.
March 27th, 2008 at 2:45 pmEven the number of dead soldiers is much more then 4000 but Americans believe what ever their told. Reports of only 60,000 dead Iraqi is somewhat short of the real number of 1,191.271 but Americanssohbet
March 25th, 2009 at 4:55 pmBedava mp3 indir
cet will believe the lie. The World knows Saddam had nothing to do with Al Qaeda. But Cheney knows if he says it long enough Americans will follow as they have done before. Just keep saying Osama and Saddam long enough and it works.