…but it doesn’t exactly prove prove that Bin Laden and Saddam ordered a single milkshake and two spoons, if you catch our drift.”
From today’s Times:
The document, which asserts that Mr. bin Laden “was approached by [the Iraqi] side,” states that Mr. bin Laden previously “had some reservations about being labeled an Iraqi operative,” but was now willing to meet in Sudan, and that “presidential approval” was granted to the Iraqi security service to proceed.
At the meeting, Mr. bin Laden requested that sermons of an anti-Saudi cleric be rebroadcast in Iraq. That request, the document states, was approved by Baghdad.
Mr. bin Laden “also requested joint operations against foreign forces” based in Saudi Arabia, where the American presence has been a rallying cry for Islamic militants who oppose American troops in the land of the Muslim pilgrimage sites of Mecca and Medina.
But the document contains no statement of response by the Iraqi leadership under Mr. Hussein to the request for joint operations, and there is no indication of discussions about attacks on the United States or the use of unconventional weapons […].
[…] The document provides evidence of communications between Mr. bin Laden and Iraqi intelligence, similar to that described in the Sept. 11 staff report released last week.
“Bin Laden also explored possible cooperation with Iraq during his time in Sudan, despite his opposition to Hussein’s secular regime,” the Sept. 11 commission report stated.
The Sudanese government, the commission report added, “arranged for contacts between Iraq and Al Qaeda.”
“A senior Iraqi intelligence officer reportedly made three visits to Sudan,” it said, “finally meeting bin Laden in 1994. Bin Laden is said to have requested space to establish training camps, as well as assistance in procuring weapons, but Iraq apparently never responded.”
The Sept. 11 commission statement said there were reports of further contacts with Iraqi intelligence in Afghanistan after Mr. bin Laden’s departure from Sudan, “but they do not appear to have resulted in a collaborative relationship,” it added.
After the Sept. 11 commission released its staff reports last week, President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney said they remained convinced that Mr. Hussein’s government had a long history of ties to Al Qaeda.
“This administration never said that the 9/11 attacks were orchestrated between Saddam and Al Qaeda,” Mr. Bush said. “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.”
It is not clear whether the commission knew of this document. After its report was released, Mr. Cheney said he might have been privy to more information than the commission had; it is not known whether any further information has changed hands.
A spokesman for the Sept. 11 commission declined to say whether it had seen the Iraqi document, saying its policy was not to discuss its sources.
The Iraqi document states that Mr. bin Laden’s organization in Sudan was called “The Advice and Reform Commission.” The Iraqis were cued to make their approach to Mr. bin Laden in 1994 after a Sudanese official visited Uday Hussein, the leader’s son, as well as the director of Iraqi intelligence, and indicated that Mr. bin Laden was willing to meet in Sudan.
Note: the Times has had this document for several weeks. Meaning, several times longer than one week. Meaning, all that stuff they wrote about the 911 Commission finding “no ties” between Iraq and al Qaeda? Not only was that misleading, but it was completely false, too. And they knew it.
The paper of record did.
****
For a much more thorough deconstruction of the Times piece, see here. Then go here and reharmonize with your universe.
update: need more?
Cutting it off in midstream, are we?
The New York Times Lies. Again.
In Other News, Generalissimo Francisco Franco Is Still Dead…….
And yet, NPR ran an editorial piece this morning by the publisher of Harper’s predicated on the unquestionable veracity of the 9/11 Commission’s pronouncement that there are no links between Iraq and Al Qaeda and the New York Times’ shameful boosterism of Bush and his Iraq War by publishing stories about the purchase of uranium in Niger.
The Big Lie is alive and well, seemingly living off the souls of those on the Left. Apparently, the parasitic nature of the Big Lie will remain unnoticed by those it is feeding on until they awake one morning to discover that they have become intellectually hollow shells of their former selves. Al Gore may now be in the terminal stages of the disease.
Yet, Big Lie or not by the NYT, the fact remains that these “ties” did not lead to any joint terrorist activity, or Iraqi support for such endeavors.
In other words, so what? After all, the CIA had extensive “ties” to Mr. Bin Laden when he was allied with the Afghan mujahadeen. Nixon had “ties” to Augusto Pinochet. Eric Clapton had “ties” to the Yardbirds and Cream. Herbert Hoover had Clyde Tolson “tie” him up and spank him every night. Whoopie-do.
It still doesn’t prove A + B = 911…
the fact remains that these “ties” did not lead to any joint terrorist activity…
Well you see, that’s what the preemption was for.
…or Iraqi support for such endeavors.
Bzzzz. Wrong answer, Hans.
That’s brilliant Jed……
No go do some light reading smart guy…..
This is bad news for the American Left. Of course, the NYT spins it as much as it can: it takes pains to say that the mid 1990s was “before Al Qaeda had become a full-fledged terrorist organization”
What do we know about Al Quaida in the mid 1990s?
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/knew/etc/cron.html
1992: Bin Laden Organizes Attacks on U.N. Forces in Somalia
Dec 1992: In an apparent plot to kill U.S. servicemen headed to Somalia, a bomb explodes at a hotel in Aden
Feb. 26, 1993: World Trade Center Bombing ..Osama bin Laden’s name surfaces during the 1993 WTC investigation as a financier… also… was called from a safe house used by the conspirators.
April 1993: members of Al Qaeda return to Somalia to train Somali forces to attack U.N. troops.
Oct. 3-4, 1993: Eighteen American soldiers are attacked and killed in Mogadishu, Somalia… bin Laden and his followers [ trained ] the attackers.
January 1994: Bin Laden Funds Sudan Terrorist Camps
Oh, I see. When Iraq and Al Quaeda were getting friendly in 1995-1996, Bin Laden had only organized a *few* attacks on UN forces, US forces, helped bomb the World Trade Center, and funded a few terrorist camps.
Therefore only neo-con chickenhawks would see coordination between Al Quaeda and Iraq back then as …well…coordination between Al Quaeda and Iraq.
Got it.
(blogged at
http://tjic.com/blog/index_jun2004.php#25_Jun_2004_3)
Maybe you should read the small print from web page you linked, TMAN:
[Editor’s Note, June 2004: A year after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, there has been no verification of Khodada’s account of the activities at Salman Pak. It should also be noted that he and other defectors interviewed for this report were brought to FRONTLINE’s attention by the Iraqi National Congress (INC), a dissident organization that was working to overthrow Saddam Hussein.]
Do they mean the INC run by our very good pal, Mr. Chalabi? Oh yeah, we know how much verisimilitude that guy had.
For the record, I agree with Jeff that The New York Times has been especially vile lately. Their journalistic integrity is for shit. And I agree they screwed the pooch here.
> Oh yeah, we know how much verisimilitude that guy had.
Yes, he is very life-like and realistic-looking. Or did you mean to say “veracity”, you illiterate twit?
I also hear the Crossfire interviewer’s wife’s sister’s massage therapist’s second cousin works for Halliburton, so obviously nothing in this story is true. I mean, Halliburton. C’mon.
Wow, I am illiterate:
Main Entry: veri
Hey Jed, you are illiterate. You don’t even understand the meaning of the definition you posted.
Main Entry: ve
Kev, FYI:
Veracity vs verisimilitude:
I always knew Chalabi wasn’t truthful. Moreover, when he was interviewed over the years, he always came across to me as sleazy and unctuous, so even his appareance seemed to lack truthfulness; hence, he lacked verisimilitude.
Love and kisses,
The Illiterate Twit
Your rant came just as I was clarifying my usage of the word, BYNA, and like I said, I think I can safely stand behind my use.
Also: some of you folks need to relax and maybe fling more facts and fewer pejoratives.
Name calling is for little children who pick their noses and wet their undies. So wipe your fingers and clean up your skivvies, kids.
Hi Jed,
you wrote-“Do they mean the INC run by our very good pal, Mr. Chalabi? Oh yeah, we know how much verisimilitude that guy had.”
Regardless of the somewhat confusing use of vocabulary you have, I was doing you a favor of trying to educate you about Salman Pak.
But since you threw the baby out with the bathwater, now I must done spank you good.
Keep reading smart guy….
Name calling is for little children who pick their noses and wet their undies. So wipe your fingers and clean up your skivvies, kids.
The irony doesn’t drip, it gushes…
No offense, but maybe you should update your “facts,” Tman. That article you cite was written on April 7, 2003 and is, as we say in the real world, a bit of a premature ejaculation–wishful thinking at best–since this initial report of what was found at Salman Pak was later debunked by numerous credible sources, including the US military’s DIA and the CIA.
Here are two updated reports (from the May 5, 2003 and June 6, 2004 issues of The New Yorker) about Chalabi, his INC “sources” who provided all that “intelligence” everyone bought (especially you righties) in the years prior to the Iraqi invasion, and how much of it has been debunked as pure piffle and outright lies.
First this:
Selective Intelligence by Seymour M. Hersh
A key passage:
Salman Pak was overrun by American troops on April 6th. Apparently, neither the camp nor the former biological facility has yielded evidence to substantiate the claims made before the war.
Then there’s this:
The Manipulator by Jane Mayer
My favorite paragraph (and I am sure their fact checker wouldn’t have let this pass without extensive review):
On November 12, 2001, the I.N.C. provided another defector, Sabah Khalifa Khodada al-Lami, to the press through a video feed from London. Lami, who was described as a former colonel in Saddam
Hey Jed,
Answer me one question.
Why would saddam have a Boeing 707 Fueselage parked miles away from any airport?
Was it like a terrorist amusement park ride?
What terrorist training camp?
Perhaps you should have read the Hersh piece; he answered that for you:
In separate interviews with me, however, a former C.I.A. station chief and a former military intelligence analyst said that the camp near Salman Pak had been built not for terrorism training but for counter-terrorism training. In the mid-eighties, Islamic terrorists were routinely hijacking aircraft. In 1986, an Iraqi airliner was seized by pro-Iranian extremists and crashed, after a hand grenade was triggered, killing at least sixty-five people. (At the time, Iran and Iraq were at war, and America favored Iraq.) Iraq then sought assistance from the West, and got what it wanted from Britain
“Anti-terrorist” training?
In the mid 90’s?
Ten tears after the Iraq-Iran war was over?
After Saddam publicly admitted funding palestinian terrorists?
And attempted to assasinate Bush Sr. and bomb Radio Free Europe?
Or helped to house the ‘93 trade center bombers?
Or Abu-Nidal?
Or Abu Abbas?
Are you fucking kidding me?
But TMan, I am still debunking your Frontline link from above (which came out in Nov 2001–kind of old, don’t you think?), as the Iraqi “source” they used who has now been found to have been full of shit.
Further reporting on the lying by the INC and its “sources” can be found in this excellent Knight-Ridder article:
Iraqi exile group fed false information to news media By Jonathan S. Landay and Tish Wells
Alas, I must hit the gym, but it has been fun enlightening this thread with so much wisdom.
Jeff G’s take on the NYT is correct; that rag is turning into veritable lying machine.
I like the the “I can’t even find the goalposts” theme to this story, and some of these comments. Apparently it must now be proven that Iraq and al Qaeda worked together on joint acts of terrorism, otherwise OIF was mistaken.
And all along, I thought the US went into Iraq because, first, regime change was the policy of the US government since Clinton signed on in 1998, and, second, the US, in light of Iraq’s 12 years of noncompliance with the terms of the 1991 Gulf War cease fire terms–as established by 16(?) UN resolutions–decided to enforce the terms of the cease fire.
I must’ve been misled by that brilliant, smooth talking Bush guy.
I’m so confused.
And then there’s Chalabi. Again, what did he do to become so discredited? Oh, that’s right, he was discredited to begin with because he’s associated with (all those neocon chicken hawks, and) the idea of overthrowing Saddam, which is now proven to be in error because Iraq and al Qaeda didn’t run joint terrorist attacks.
Well, Saddam’s available. Why don’t we just put him back in power, and pack up and go home. Call it a do over.
Jed,
You haven’t debunked anything. Why was there a Boeing/Russian Tupelov Fueselage at Salman Pak being used in the mid 90’s?
You would rather believe the Official Saddam version of events as opposed to what defectors were saying. Because hey, why would Saddam lie, right?
Enjoy your funeral. And nice job avoiding all the other Iraqi terrorist training facilities links I gave you.
This is all I have left to say to your bullshit media fueled ignorance.
Osama And Saddam.
Now, you know the NYT wouldn’t lie. They are merely creating New Truth, since the old Truth was clearly insufficient.
“What serves the Party is Truth.” Right?
Regards,
Ric Locke
You would rather believe the Official Saddam version of events as opposed to what defectors were saying. Because hey, why would Saddam lie, right?
Actually, according to the Sy Hersh piece I linked–and obviously you did not read–US military and CIA sources BOTH debunked Chalabi and his sources, and most of the information they provided. The Mayer piece, written a year later, went even further to prove that Chalabi was a vile opportunist and liar, and has lost all credibility with US officials in the State Department, Pentagon, and intelligence services. Why would our own people lie, TMan? I only provided these two pieces because, offhand, I knew they were out there, but I could produdce ten, fifteen, maybe twenty more that would support these facts.
Enjoy your funeral. And nice job avoiding all the other Iraqi terrorist training facilities links I gave you.
I read your links. As I stated above–and apparently you failed to read what I said–the stories you provided were old and much of the information they provided has since been debunked. Whether you believe that or not isn’t my job; I merely provided reasonable evidence that, not only are Chalabi and his “sources” full of baloney, but much of the “intelligence” they provided could not be validated by US intelligence after the occupation.
This is all I have left to say to your bullshit media fueled ignorance.
As far as I know, the only way to get information in this world is through “the media.” I am not exactly sure how you could get any information without it–unless you are a billionaire and have hired an army of your own reporters, intelligence operatives, or fact finders to collect information for you. I doubt you have this at your disposal, so I am confused as to how you can be so enlightened as you think you are without “the media.”
Yeah, but Sy Hersh?
Re: Chalabi, read the piece I linked in the update to this post.
Also, I just heard James Woolsey on Hannity & Colmes corroborate all the info in the NYT piece today. Important revelations: Saddam initiated the contact, and, though there was no “formal arrangement” between Iraq and Al Qaeda(ie., no contract was signed, presumably), the relationship continued on actively—and was allowed to “freely develop”—well past 1995.
Stephen Hayes’ reaction was also very telling; he suggested that even he was shocked by today’s info, and he’s been the journalist who’s been working most actively to investigate the nexus of Iraq and terrorist groups.
And then there’s Chalabi. Again, what did he do to become so discredited? Oh, that’s right, he was discredited to begin with because he’s associated with (all those neocon chicken hawks, and) the idea of overthrowing Saddam, which is now proven to be in error because Iraq and al Qaeda didn’t run joint terrorist attacks.
Chalabi has been discredited because most of the “intelligence” he and his sources provided has turned out to be false (read the three links I provided above, for instance).
Honestly, Jeff, all this stuff is water under the bridge, more less. What matters is we can fulfill the goals set by Bush to make post-Saddam Iraq stable, and soon. If Bush can pull that off he won’t have to worry about “proving” why he invaded any more.
Saddam has been deposed, he deserved it, and whatever reason we did it for will not change the fact we did it.
But I will look further into what you have brought up here. It’s interesting, definitely.
I agree it’s water under the bridge, for all the reasons you mention.
What I get all cheesed about is the presentation of the facts to the American people by a media that is more and more interested in political activism and in the certainty of its own ossified positions.
Actually, I read the new NY Times revelation as an extended middle finger directed at Cheney. The fine people at Reading A1 have an excellent analysis of this theory.
So question, Jeff. Did you get all cheesed off at the Judith Miller fiasco? Or are you just selectively cheesed off when the ossified positions happen to correlate with your own?
Your outrage would seem to hold a lot more weight if it were not directed solely at the issues which strike at your beliefs. Again, forgive me if you’ve had some marvelously literary takedown of Miller and I have failed to notice it (couldn’t find anything by searching your site). But as political activism on the Times part, the current issue is really a tempest in a tea pot compared to the whole Miller affair. . .
Note, I’m not trying to claim the current kerfluffle is something to be ignored, but it seems that one really should have a metric regarding what cheeses one off. And – just from a casual search, granted – your metric seems to be entirely weighted by whether you agree with their political activism or not.
For the benefit of those doing metric analyses: protein wisdom was on hiatus from the end of August 2002 until mid March of 2004. All posts made during those 18 months are the exclusive province of protein wisdom’s mind, and can not be summoned by traditional search engines.
Set your decoder rings accordingly.
Also, for the benefit of those doing analyses on cheese factors: I am on record a great number of times here (the last being during the Dodd-Byrd affair, and before that, the Kos “mercenary” affair) as saying that I don’t expect everyone with a particular worldview to have to defend or apologize for every utterance made by those who happen to drape themselves in the same flag. Of course, had one previously beaten a certain drum, only to have that drum turn out to not a drum at all, but rather, say, a small naked child, I would expect, as a reader, some measure of acknowledgment for said change in drum—should one continue beating it.
Thank you for your time and consideration.
Excellent point, Hal. My foremost criticism of the NYT is because of the Judith Miller affair; so much for the “liberal bias” at the NYT, eh? One wonders if Miller’s still scrubbing herself furiously with industrial-strength cleaners to remove the stench of Chalabi that has crept into her every pore.
Just from my experience in this thread, I find it funny how the Right trashes “the media” when “the media” produces stories or facts antithetical to their cause, then on the other hand they cozy up to it like old lovers when “the media” produces stories and facts to support their cause.
Having said that, I think Jeff’s take on the NYT in this case is dead on. The NYT’s journalistic integrity is questionable, and this is further proof.
Jed—who knows me fairly well—will attest that when I suggest I’ve encountered media bias, I can (should I wish to) support my claim in agonizingly technical detail, thanks in large part to some fairly advanced familiarity with rhetoric, narrative, and linguistics.
But in the case of the Times here, no such rigorous reading is necessary. They’ve simply deployed a string of modifiers while trying to cover the fact that the story they are reporting is diametrically opposed to the editorial they ran last week—and this despite having in their possession an authenticated document putting lie to the thrust of that very editorial.
Which has nothing to do whatsoever with Judith Miller.
In fact, to prove to you how ridiculous such a concern even is as it relates to this current post, I will ask you this: Hal, where are your comments and posts congratulating me on being cheesed at, say, Bill O’Reilly or Pat Buchanan? If I go to your site—or if I search my comments here—will I find a congratulatory series of comments from you, or maybe an “attaboy, Jeff!” post on your site, thanking me for my having been cheesed at Bill O’Reilly, or Pat Buchanan, or for correcting Jonah Goldberg for misrepresenting post modernism?
Or is your concern over where I direct my “cheesed-offedness” simply some flabby rhetorical trope you (erroneously) believe exposes me to hypocrisy?
Whether Jeff took The New York Times to task for Judith Miller should have no bearing on his take on this particular issue.
Jeff can maintain the editorial balance of his weblog as he sees fit. I mean, asking him to maintain the type of “balance” and “fairness” that Hal does above is a rather disingenuous request at best and dishonest one at worst.
I’m a devout liberal and I don’t go to Eschaton or Talking Points Memo and expect a perfect, dispassionate, and disinterested balance on those blogs.
But even the most passionate polemicist for the other side of the political spectrum than mine is not necessarily always “wrong.”
Jeff has almost the complete opposite political views of mine. I don’t read his blog because his views are going to agree with mine, or because I am going to find a “fair and balanced” view on issues.
I read his blog because, beneath the vitriol, mean-spirited (and often funny) attacks, and irony beats the heart of someone with passion and love for democracy, his country, and the art of writing. And I actually care what the other side thinks, even if reading their views pisses me off. If I didn
Wow, it’s like I’m drilling your teeth or something in some sort of Marathon Man reenactment or something. The “revelation” of the Miller affair was in June or somewhere around there, so hiatus or not, certainly the current archives show you’ve been back @ blogging since this March. So while I clearly can’t hold you responsible for the mental posts you were making during that time, I think it’s perhaps reasonable that I can question the content since then. But nice ridiculing of me, none-the-less.
And I’m certainly well aware that people have editorial selection on what he does and does not wish to blog about – never implied that he didn’t. But certainly if one is on a roll about NYT reporting and such, then this would seem to make the point far better than any current scuffle with Cheney. If nothing else, because it would inoculate one’s self against any partisanship wrangling as liberals also see it as plain as day.
But I thought the other half of having a blog – especially one with comments – is to respond to those who comment on them. Or at least part of the fun.
Part of the very interesting part of the current skirmish is that Chalabi is also involved in this one. The current information that we’re discussion was provided by the INC. And if the NY Times has a problem, then Chalabi and his merry band of jackals have several orders of magnitude more problems with credibility. And at least part of the discussion should revolve around this extremely interesting fact, because regardless of how the NYT has completely lost its lunch, that doesn’t exclude the possibility that they are – in fact – completely correct in their conclusions. The still could have an agenda and be completely right about it.
Finally, wrt my post to congratulating Jeff n’ such about O’Reilly bashing, I think bashing O’Reilly is kind of like shooting fish in a barrel. It’d be like me bashing Chomsky or pointing out the follies of the Democratic Underground commenters. Sure, it’s something you can do to burnish up the old balanced rep, but nothing that anyone with brain one wouldn’t have seen through when the guy came online. The interesting thing is that there are so many people like O’Reilly on the opposite side of the isle. For every Moore we have, there’s a Rush, Hannity and Savage. For every Franken, there’s a Coulter, Frum and Goldberg. Just from a sheer content perspective, it seems that one side of this political division has the lion’s share of the moonbats. Now that would be an interesting phenomena to debate. Rather than the individual insanity of any particular case.
I’ve just started reading Jeff over the past month after he attacked me in comments on another blog, and I find him enjoyable, lucid and all the other great things that one would expect from an English professor. Kudos!
But really. My comment was quite civil and was on topic. Strange how it elicited the response it did.
Sorry for the boorishly long comment, but there was a lot said in my absence.
Judith Miller and the NYT: Feb. 17, 2004
Miller Time (Again) – Feb 12, 2004
Re Chalabi. Brought up earlier by Jed. I pointed him toward the update portion of this post.
As for the tone of my comments: I’m not sure what you’re objecting to. Decoder rings? I was being flip and glib. Flabby? I was being truthful, but I was describing the efficacy of the trope, not you.
I should add also, Hal, that I’m dealing with an irritating troll in another thread, and my fuse is short just now. So I apologize if I came across as too personally belittling toward you. I just feel like I’m making the same arguments over and over again, and I don’t wish to do so.
Re: Miller, I didn’t follow the story closely enough to comment on it. I was probably making a Michael Moore joke when I should have been paying attention.
And I apologize for the vulgarity at the end of my comment, Hal, but I still think your first comment comes across as shrill and accusatory and not “civil.”
Most of the comments in this thread attacking my arguments weren’t very civil either. In the end it gives their arguments less weight.
No problem, Jeff. I didn’t realize you were currently under attack. Having an itchy trigger finger under those circumstances is perfectly understandable. . . I can also understand the frustration at making th same points over and over to people like me who are just starting to follow you. . .
<sigh> It’s going to be a very nasty summer, isn’t it? And by the time the election rolls around. . .