Okay, settle down. It’s from the New York Sun. And while these folks aren’t Moonies, I’m not sure as an organization they have the right “diversity” to be taken seriously as a news outlet.
But what the hell. Let’s take a look anyway:
A former Democratic senator and 9/11 commissioner says a recently declassified Iraqi account of a 1995 meeting between Osama bin Laden and a senior Iraqi envoy presents a “significant set of facts,” and shows a more detailed collaboration between Iraq and Al Qaeda.
In an interview yesterday, the current president of the New School University, Bob Kerrey, was careful to say that new documents translated last night by ABC News did not prove Saddam Hussein played a role in any way in plotting the attacks of September 11, 2001.
Nonetheless, the former senator from Nebraska said that the new document shows that “Saddam was a significant enemy of the United States.” Mr. Kerrey said he believed America’s understanding of the deposed tyrant’s relationship with Al Qaeda would become much deeper as more captured Iraqi documents and audiotapes are disclosed.
Last night ABC News reported on five recently declassified documents captured in Iraq. One of these was a handwritten account of a February 19, 1995, meeting between an official representative of Iraq and Mr. bin Laden himself, where Mr. bin Laden broached the idea of “carrying out joint operations against foreign forces” in Saudi Arabia. The document, which has no official stamps or markers, reports that when Saddam was informed of the meeting on March 4, 1995 he agreed to broadcast sermons of a radical imam, Suleiman al Ouda, requested by Mr. bin Laden.
The question of future cooperation is left an open question. According to the ABC News translation, the captured document says, “development of the relationship and cooperation between the two parties to be left according to what’s open [in the future] based on dialogue and agreement on other ways of cooperation.” ABC notes in their report that terrorists, believed to be Al Qaeda, attacked the Saudi National Guard headquarters on November 13, 1995.
The new documents suggest that the 9/11 commission’s final conclusion in 2004, that there were no “operational” ties between Iraq and Al Qaeda, may need to be reexamined in light of the recently captured documents.
A former Democratic Senator and 911 commissioner said this?
Pshaw.
Quick reminder: Zell Miller is a former Democratic Senator. Which can mean only one thing: former Democratic Senators are sellouts and shills.
BECAUSE BUSH LIED! PERIOD! CHRIST, HOW MANY TIMES MUST WE SAY IT BEFORE YOU TAKE IT AS THE GOSPEL CONSENSUS TRUTH?
(h/t Allah)
****
update: Also interesting. More here.
Pants.
Not for Teddy. Thankyouverymuch.
But… but… a right-winger faked a movie review! YOUR ENTIRE WORLD VIEW IS INVALID!
AHMAD CHALABI, JEFF. AHMAD FUCKING CHALABI.
There’s no official Iraqi seal! NO SEAL YOU MUST REPEAL!!
There are gay people sucking cock in the White House Press Room and Christian Whores stealing everyone’s movies on the internets, and you guys want to talk about Osama’s pet name for Kite-Flying Joe Hussein?
If it wasn’t for the fluoridation of the public skools by your fundamentalist home schoolers, you reich-wingers would learn to call homophobic rightwingers homos.
So take that!
Let the goalpost moving begin!
Osama Bin Laden never worked with Saddam Hussein…on a 4th Tuesday…uh, in January…on a leap year.
Fascists.
On his best day, I am not sure Chalabi could have forged more than say, 30 or 40 thousand of those documents. So the real question then is, can Rove account for his whereabouts in the early days of the war?
Prediction:
Thist thread won’t be nearly as long, nor have nearly as many participants, as the plagarism threads.
Maybe not, but I’m doing my bit, Tom.
Plus, I told Jeff the comments were off, so there wouldn’t be any thread at all if it weren’t for me.
No need to thank me.
Here is an article with analysis of whether it was better to remove Saddam in 1991 or 2003. Pros and cons of each.
Let the Leibermaning/Millering of Kerrey begin!
You know, Jeff, I’ve noticed that you and most of the bloggers I read will always start with the “givens” on careful interpretation of the documents. No jumping to conclusions.
It is right and noble that you do this, but the thought has occured to me after the Dommenech posts that it truly won’t make a bit of difference that you guys were taking the high road.
of course, that’s just an observation.
Trousers.
You know, Jeff, I’ve noticed that you and most of the bloggers I read will always start with the “givens” on careful interpretation of the documents. No jumping to conclusions.
It is right and noble that you do this, but the thought has occured to me after the Dommenech posts that it truly won’t make a bit of difference that you guys were taking the high road.
of course, that’s just an observation.
Well that sounds like a dumb article–and a little late to the discussion in that the calendar says it’s 2006! Kinda like discussing the timing of US entry into WW II in 1945, no?
Maybe futurist should buy some ads on Jeff’s site.
Let the Leibermaning/Millering of Kerrey begin!
Hadn’t thought that yet, glad it’s been so swiftly documented.
Depends, Forbes. When’s the last time you saw someone on DU say “Well, we disagree with Bush on the interpretation of some of that intelligence, but reasonable people can disagree and it’s all water under the bridge now, eh?”
Me, I figure as long as we keep hearing about Bush the liar, it’s still a pretty active topic.
Sorry, Charlie (Co), I was referring to Boomshakalaka’s “futurist” link. It was meant to immediately follow that post, above, but something got hung up on the ‘net, and it took about 30 minutes to post, so it’s a bit unclear what I’m referring to.
As to reading DU, I don’t have the free time to graze over there, so I appreciate your comments regarding them. Apt and true, no doubt.
Bush, a liar? I think I heard that somewhere once before. What’s that all about? By the way, I’m thirsty, is there any Kool-Aid?
I’ll venture a prediction here, with the caveat that I haven’t seen the alleged documents (neither, of course, has Our Host). On the basis of the documentary track record thus far, I suspect that this latest smoking gun will turn out in time to have been firing the same faint caps that we’ve barely heard from the administration’s earlier ordnance. I could be wrong, of course, but…give it a year. It might turn out that your early endorsements could be as embarrassing as…oh, I don’t know, a timely example eludes me.
cordially,
No matter what it can’t be more bogus than the Willie Pete nonsense, Rand. Yet I see little evidence that our firends on the left have let that go.
Why do you damn Rightwingers keep insisting on introducing facts into the discourse? The only thing that actually matters is how I feel.
Rand has confused me with Bob Kerrey, it would seem.
I’m thinking it would behoove the Bush administration to DECLASSIFY A HELL OF A LOT MORE DOCUMENTS!!
Seriously. Why wasn’t this done before?
Sparkle,
It never occurred to him or the Administration, because they know what I’ve been saying all along: It’s irrelevant. It doesn’t matter. It’s a sideshow. Whether it’s WMDs or protecting the oil, stopping the torture or violation of UN resolutions, or any of the rest of the stuff that the simpleminded have seized upon as the simple reasons they need, all of it was pretext. Saddam wasn’t the <objective</i>. Saddam was collateral damage.
All this is worth doing. General George, document translations, colored glossy photographs of Russian generals getting medals from Saddam for services above and beyond the call of duty (with or without circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one), it’s all useful as a way to rub the Left’s nose in the fact that all their heroes are tyrants, dictators, murderers, torturers, and genocidists. That’s both fun and worthwhile. Ernesto Guevara was a medical doctor who boasted that his training made him a much more effective torturer. Nothing has improved since.
But always remember: when we started out after Hitler, we started by attacking—North Africa. Sometimes the long way around is the fastest route. Why war in Iraq? ::shrug:: it was a good place to start. The rest is PR.
Regards,
Ric
TW: thinking. Sometimes it’s a good idea, even if it makes your head hurt.
Sparke, I’ve just seen another point made elsewhere (and if I could remember where I’d link it, honest): the release we just had revealed that we had learned there was a Russian “mole” in CENTCOM. It’s possible that the mole was already in custody, or otherwise insulated, but it’s also possible that CIA was trying to preserve the mole as an asset. (There are few methods as good for getting a double agent than to find a mole and convince him that his options have suddenly been much reduced. Or, you can just make sure the mole is hearing and seeing what you want him to see and hear.)
Charlie,
You’re right, of course; Jeff’s first link mentions that aspect. But I wouldn’t put too much credence in it. Note that General (Sada? is it) hasn’t said anything about having the war plans. Clearly they weren’t disseminated widely.
I rather suspect that if you’d proposed to CENTCOM that Saddam should have the war plans they’d have thought about it a bit, laughed uproariously, and asked for a fax number. Maybe knowing what they were up against contributed to the Iraqi army’s bugout during the early phases.
And watching them deal with them, I think the Administration is coming to grips with leaks; not stopping them, but finding ways to make them work in ways the leakers don’t expect. When given lemons, make lemonade… that’s one of the reasons the leaks are getting more outrageous, just out of frustration. It’s a dangerous game, as demonstrated by the Ports scandal, but it may well be all that’s doable.
Crucifying leakers soils your Armani and gets you talked about. Especially if, as I expect, it turns out that a Muslim officer or intel noncom was the spy in this case. If it is at all possible, it is worth a lot of effort to get American Muslims on “our side”, and that includes keeping this sort of betrayal under the rose to avoid stirring up the racists—and the Left is correct to point out that there are lots of racists around; they’re just a bit overoptomistic when they categorically assign all of them to the Right. If we can’t do that we run the real risk of eventual pogroms, and if there’s anybody who wants that I’d rather not know them.
So we want to be careful. It’s fun to rub the Left’s nose in the c*p they’ve been spouting, and there remains the dim possibility of paper-training the annoying yappers, but that ain’t the only consideration. My worry all along is that DU, Kos, etc. might actually figure out what it is that they’re supporting; if that ever happens it’ll be them calling for internment and nukes, and there will be absolutely nothing in any way pretty about that.
Regards,
Ric
Jeff, these peristent attempts to defend the lamest lies of the Bush administration in support of the war in Iraq are just humiliating to you.
Where’d you go to school again, Ole Miss? Or was it some community colege in Maryland? I forget.
[Towson University, Johns Hopkins, University of Denver, and summer work in crit theory at Cornell; and again, you seem to have me confused with Bob Kerrey. Tell me, is he still a Democrat? I mean, now that he’s had the gall to say we need to better scrutinize the pre-war connections that, should they prove to be true, would force people like you to surrender your entire smug worldview?
By the way, Ole Miss is a good school. Whereas you are just an asshole who needs to start commenting elsewhere – ed]
Disprove article of faith = defend lame lies
Riiiiight.
Seems to be a lot of that going around. It could be worse. I mean, Bob Kerrey’s a damn handsome man. Dated Debra Winger.
I can’t see that there’s a serious worry that he’ll be Liebermaned/Millered. Kerrey’s a former Democratic senator/governor who was a Navy SEAL, won the Medal of Honor, has dated a movie star, and is now president of a “progressive university centered in Greenwich Village”.
Kerrey’s lefty credentials are rock solid. He’s also the only well-known Democrat in the country with an unquestionably impressive military background who is also lucid, intelligent, and charismatic. I don’t think he’s someone progressives will have the balls to seriously go after. Even if they do, I don’t think the party will toss him to the wolves like they did Lieberman.
For years now I have heard that you can’t call Bush a liar based on how things turned out; the only issue is whether he relied in good faith upon the intelligence available to him at the time.
But now the BushLied meme is supposedly destroyed, by a document which has turned up years after the fact. Does that make sense to anyone?
I suppose the fact that Bush didn’t lie in the first place is lost on you.
Because of the meme.
You can/can’t call someone a liar based on whether they lied, not on whether anyone’s predictions came to pass. That seem so obvious, and yet…
tw: the truth is the thing
Once again: the relevance of an after-the-fact document to the issue of whether Bush lied is precisely what?
Um, Steve, it’s a thing called corroboration. I’ve even provided a link to the definition so that you wouldn’t get a headache trying to look it up.
You know what else I get confused by? Every Easter my Mom says she is going to color some Easter Eggs, but when I go look in the kitchen, it turns out she lied to me! Why would she do that? Then when I go outside, there are eggs laying around that turn up much later, and she tries to use this after-the-fact evidence to rationalize away the deception. I don’t understand the relevance of this either.
tw: suddenly-> I have turned into Ben Domenech
After what fact? How did a finish line get in here, and when did we cross it?
“The document, which has no official stamps or markers…â€Â
“The question of future cooperation is left an open questionâ€Â
“New documents […] did not prove Saddam Hussein played a role in any way in plotting the attacks of September 11, 2001â€Â
– Dear Josh,
Wake up: even the Neocon Neros of Washington have stopped peddling the tall tale of Saddam’s alleged “connection†with OBL
Last time I checked, Saddam Hussein was a staunchly secular Arab nationalist, a disciple of Mitchell Aflaq, the French-educated Orthodox Christian philosopher.
Christian minorities and women were actually overrepresented in Saddam’s government: Vice-President Tareq Hanna Aziz was actually Catholic and so were Saddam’s Chief of Staff and many of the senior civil servants working at the presidential palace.
And click on this article for a description of Saddam’s Tickrit “spider hole†hideout:
<i>“Pinned to the outside wall of the hut was a cardboard box depicting biblical scenes such as the Last Supper and the Madonna and child with the English inscription “God bless our home.” Inside the bedroom was a 2003 calendar in Arabic with a colorful depiction of Noah’s Ark. Soldiers were surprised at the Christian decorationsâ€Â</i>
Yes these US soldiers were “surprised†after having been brainwashed about Saddam’s penchant for Islamic fundamentalism…which turned out to be just another lie churned out by Washington’s Neo-Conmintern propaganda factory.
I think Dr. V wants to challenge your micro-fiction prowess, JG.
That is really rich. So it turns out that ol’ Uncle Saddam was just a simple Baptist minister, preachin’ to the faithful down by the river Euphrates. Who knew?
You know, Jeff, we racist, communofascist lackeys of the neo-Zionist entity (and plagiarism apologists) over at RedState have discovered that tossing out one-handed typers like Vega does wonders for that musty smell. Just a suggestion.
As to why I logged on: whyinhell didn’t the Democrats run Kerrey in 2004? Did they not want to shell out for the extra e?
Kite flying Doc, don’t forget the kites…
I’m making this my permanant signature line since it fits the trolls around here so well:
“Every villian is followed by a sophist with a sponge.”
– Lord Acton
On March 23 Dr. Vicky treated us to this gem in comments:
And today:
TW: consistency its not just for a quality of good pudding.
Dr. de la Vega is at it again:
Here he wrote of Georges Sada:
My response was to remind him of Mr. Tariq Aziz’s religious background. And now he writes:
So Sada didn’t fit the profile of a Saddamist insider last week because he was a Chaldean, but today, Saddam did surround himself with Christians. BECAUSE OF THE NEEDS OF THE NARRATIVE!
I’ll revise my prior statements. Dr. de la Vega is a Kluxer with a library card and severe retrograde amnesia.
Scurry along now, phuckwit.
Jinx! I owe you a coke!
TW: another
Heh.
Cue the twilight zone music again….
LOL. cheap bastards
The ‘bats can’t ‘prehend the facts.
So why try?
Only an ignoramus on foreign affairs would need any rationale other than UNSC Resolution 1441, and the Congress’ authorization, for our military action in Iraq.
All the other critiques of the President’s “reasons” for going to war are extra-governmental, media hype. The “Murtha Amendment” revealed that anti-war politicians are willing to play-out policy debates in their favorite media fora, but, when called to the mat in the forum constitutionally designated for the debate, they will vote against their media-position in the public Congressional record.
Talk’s cheap! And we have a lot of work to do. I expect better from my elected officials.
-Steve
Sure.
I wonder why then Bush, Cheney & Co. have felt the urge to lie on a grand scale about the nature of the Iraqi regime, repeatedly accusing Saddam Hussein of being an Islamic fundamentalist in cahoots with Osama Bin Laden and the Taleban: unfortunately, after having been bombarded with fabricated infomercials produced by Israeli “Middle-East expertsâ€Â, the American public eventually came to believe exactly what the Neocon wanted: that Saddam was kind of a later days bloodthirsty Saracen, on the verge of conquering the Infidel pastures of Wyoming and Oklahoma!
Yet, as we now know, the truth is otherwise: there never were any “links†between the Baath party and Al Qaeda, no spooky “secret meetings†in Vienna or Prague or “somewhere in Eastern Europe†between “Saddam’s diplomatic envoy and Bin Laden’s righthand man†as Vice-President Dick Cheney had alleged on numerous occasions.–
Like him or not, Saddam Hussein was a truly modernist, Westernized Arab head of state who protected women’s rights and enforced affirmative action programs in favor of Iraq’s tiny Christian minority. “Old Europe’s†foreign policy establishment viewed the Iraqi Baath party essentially as a strong bulwark against both Persian-Khomeinist fundamentalism and Wahhabi-Afghan terrorism.
The Israelis and Washington’s Neocons thought otherwise: now we have to deal with the strictures of Sharia Law, the rise of Hamas and the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) which they have deliberately brought to power…
Dr. V
Were you bullied by a Jewish kid when you were growing up? You really should see someone about that obsession of yours, it can’t be healthy.
How’s that shark look from up there, Doc. Vega?
TW: Sheeeit, as in Holy “…”
The left, because they are a bunch of lying, shameless partisan opportunists, has dragged the country through a four year “debate†(that’s in quotes because they are incapable of debating they repeat slogans and lies) over this issue.
There is not a single elected Democrat in the United States who questioned Saddam had links to al Qaeda or terrorism before the 2002 elections.
Now, they are basically ignoring commenting on the matter (Bob Kerry was actually quite serious on US foreign policy while in the Senate. (People like Drum in a childlike manner ignore this stuff) to instead focus on the “incompetence†of Bush’s Iraq policy.
Besides Tariq Aziz, who at one time was Foreign Minister, Deputy Prime Minister et al; were they are other Christians: how about Shiites or Kurds; they only comprise 60% of the population. Many sources have commented on the reluctance of some Anbar province residents; against Saddam; they were no reports of uprisings like the Shia. probably upset that too many Sunni tribesmen died fighting the Shia infidels, when poison gas;could
have done the trick. Saddam built hundred and thousands of mosques, when he was vice president
and president. He did not go after Khomeini, and
his entourage, instead much like the German general staff, in World War 1; he shipped his
problem; first to Paris, and then to Tehran &
Qum; which a year later, gave him the excuse to
break the treaty on the Shatt-al Arb; which he wanted to do anyways. He was more secular than
the Shia clergy in the 80s; although he was supported by the Wahhabist Saudi’s and at least
one of the emirates; Abu Dhabi, not Dubai. When
push came to shove after Kuwait; he began a more
gradual course of predominantly Sunni Islami-
zation; part of which entailed cooperating
with the likes of Bin Laden.funding Abu SAyyaf
in the Phillipines, and the Algerian GIA. At no point, that we can see that he directed his Mukharabat, SSO and other intelligence organs against Al Queda; as Quaddafi had begun in that same period; while he was putting his inter
mediate steps on the AQ catalogue of Atomic
devices. Another aspect of this rapprochement
with the greater Sunni ummah, was the several
expeditions to places like Niger; to gather
negotiate the sale or transfer yellow cake. like the reputed 500 tons, which could be refined into the 1.77 tons of refined ore, founnd at locations like the Tuweitha reactor; after the Fall of Baghdad.
Doc., I’m running through my little Cliff Notes of the Constitution, and I cannot seem to find the Articles In Defense Of The Public’s Right To Be Summarily Executed, or the Right To Bear Chemical Burns. Could you help me out with a few of these passages, I’d really appreciate it:
–Right to Be Raped in Front of Family Members
–Right to Have Family Members Murdered En Masse
–Right to Starvation if the Head of State, you know, Doesn’t Feel Like Cooperating with the World
–Right to Poverty
–Right for Your Vagina to be a Breeding Pit for the Head of State’s Genocidal Wars Against One’s Neighbors
–Right to Choice: Be Literate…or Dead
Thanks, Doc. It would really help me see all of these modern Arabist Rights that Uncle Joe Hussein defended.
Neo-Comintern?
Neo-Comintern?
W. T. F. ?
Er, is this a reply to Sen Bob Kerry?
Or is that what people who aren’t capable of a substantive reply say?
Finally, you or anyone else can not name a single “lie” Bush allegedly told.
I was thinking this was satire.
Apparently not.
This just goes to show you how deranged the modern left is.
Like him or not, Saddam Hussein was a truly modernist, Westernized Arab head of state who protected women’s rights
Save for all those women his sons took a fancy to.
Or those women who were family members of Saddam’s “enemies”
Rape as a dictator’s right. Yeah, a real FEMINIST that Saddam!
Well, Saddam did use modern technology for torture, and neither women, nor Christians were off limits to his thugs. I guess in a perveted sort of way, that could be construed as affirmative action. Technically speaking, that makes Ace’s quote true.
I see Dr. V isn’t encumbered by the bourgeois handicap of shame.
Well, he was a big fan of modern Western (midcentury European) methods of propaganda and mass murder, that’s for sure.
Now the standard is for links between the Baath Party and AQ? Don’t throw your back out moving those goalposts.
TW: “Who is Hikmat Shakir?” he said.
Damnit, they rejected my application to Eviiiil Medical Skool; otherwise I would have caught that.
I put a contribution to the Library Fund in the envelope with mine. It really helped.
Can anyone provide a link that states that a mole has been discovered (or not) inside of Centcom? Isn’t that er an assumption?
Lie: false statement uttered with intent to deceive.
Whether these documents establish that there were close connections between AQ and Saddam is irrelevant to the question of whether Bush lied since he didn’t make assertions regarding their connection.
Lefty lie: false statement except when uttered by lefty with good creds. Even under this expanded definition Bush did not lie about AQ/Saddam connection. But no matter!!
But Bush stated there was evidence that Saddam possessed WMD’s. This turned out to be false and therefore was a “lefty lie” because Bush has no lefty creds. QED.
Those evil bastards.
Do try to keep up, Vinnie.
Case Dismissed
Good. You understand what a lie is. Now, your argument will fly like a bird as soon as you provide the quotes in which you feel he lied, and the proof that the statements he made were untrue and intended to decieve.
This should be easy, right? Everybody knows it….
1) I don’t recall any pronouncements that Saddam or his cronies were Islamofascists, just that they were nasty psychos (true) and funded terror (true) and had used and posessed WMDs (true, and I’m working on arrangements to invite anyone who denies it to be dipped in the tons of noxious WMDs (or receive a personalized box with one of the Sarin gas warheads) we’ve already recovered, you sanctimonious lying assholes).
2) Asked a soldier if they were told that Saddam was an Islamist, looked at me and said as if to a small annoying child, “Ummm, Nooooo!”
3) Dr. Vega has been off his meds for YEARS. (Heh – invade Wyoming. Kinder gentler Saddam. Yeah, whatever. Pull the other one.)
4) There is a group of deceieving, low-down deceivers here – and as annoying as our administration can be, it ain’t them.
5) I wish I could remember when political debates weren’t like this, but I can’t.
Here’s the real question: did the links between Saddam and AQ represent such a grave threat that the only responsible action was to undertake the incredibly difficult and potentially costly (in terms of lives, treasure, and hearts-and-minds) task of invading and occupying Iraq?
The question of whether Saddam and AQ had links isn’t simply a matter of yes or no. Even absent evidence, I would assume that both sides would have some contact over the years. It would be foolish to think otherwise. So assuming that the answer is “yes,” the follow-up is, well, how serious were these contacts? How much promise did they show? Did the two sides meet and talk and then go home ranting about what assholes those other guys were, or did they shake hands on deals and move forward on deadly projects?
Unanswered. Don’t know. If anyone has evidence of significant operational relations that promised to result in material threats to the United States, they’ve yet to show it.
So the answer for the moment is, “Contact, yes; results, don’t know.”
So given that, is contact alone enough to justify invasion?
Pablo, I don’t think you read my post very closely. In no way did I mean to suggest that Bush lied in the conventional meaning of “lie”…but that according to leftoids he is a liar because some of his statements turned out to be untrue…ie we did not find WMD’s therefore he is a liar.
Whatever.
I love how you people keep changing the subject.
It wasn’t ONLY WMDs OR terrorism links OR freeing Iraqis that was the sole justification of the war. It was all of those together and then some.
Are you being purposely obtuse or just stupid?
Noah
try here:
http://gatewaypundit.blogspot.com/2006/03/ouch-photos-show-iraqi-russian-defense.html
Thanks windansea…I saw that earlier but I don’t see anything that points to a “mole” inside Centcom that some were positing elsewhere on this thread.
Pretty amazing though that the Russian generals failed to anticipate that US airpower would totally decimate the Iraqi armor. Gen. Franks tells an amusing story about how when our media was portraying us as being bogged down in that big sandstorm our air operations were hammering the shit out of their stationary tanks!!
Yes.
But this isn’t a serious question as you seem to be defending the idea, or at least implying, that a threat must be “grave” for the US to act.
Left unanswered of course is why we were spending over a billion a year and committing over 20,000 US military personnel to enforce the no-fly zones and contain Saddam.
I guess he was just a “mini-threat” but not a “grave” one.
Or something.
Media over-hyping continues. AP has a breathless print report today about escalating violence in Iraq but as you read the report you realize that the violence is actually decreasing if you had paid any attention to reporting over the past several weeks. Dutifully reprinted in this case by Fox!!
Have yet to see any report of the markedly reduced US casualties so far this month. Here’s hoping but it could come in under 30.
But then of course, the leftoids will say it is because we are hunkered down. But then I have also seen reports that Iraqi army casualties are down as well. Yeah but civilian casualties are up!! Yada, yada, yada. Bush lied, civilians died!
noah, I think that the “there’s a mole in CENTCOM” meme is just a collective gut reaction to the detailed data being in the hands of the Russians. I’ve read it on several blogs, and I haven’t seen anything in the MSM.
Some people find it simpler to blame one evil person (whether that person exists or not) than to accept poor OPSEC within CENTCOM or diligent data collection by a competent and aggressive intelligence agency. Or both, for that matter.
So the answer for the moment …
Beetroot, do those goalpost have wheels? Where do you get that type – can you provide a link? I’d like to buy one if they’re not too expensive. Most of my cash goes to taxes to support worthless layabouts.
tw: nothing personal, dhimmiwit.
The only thing that was needed to resume hostilities was for Saddam to yet again be unwilling to account for all of the WMD that the records showed he had at one time. That’s it.
All of the rest of it is just gravy. That people are still arguing this point just shows dishonesty, or the inability to comprehend the written word, or just an unwillingness to seek the truth.
Let me ask you the question you imply here: how many US cities would we have to lose to convince you it was worth it? Which ones?
yours/
peter.
It’s like the global warming debate with the teams exactly inverted.
Our decision-making in environments with a high degree of uncertainty could use some work.
There’s a new release of captured documents causing Former Senator Kerrey to change his mind on global warming? Or is this another one of those sudden fiction dealies, Bezuhov?
tw: get the led out!
Defense Guy, actually, the cassus belli to resume hostilities came when Hussein violated the cease fire agreement at the supposed conclusion of the “first” Gulf War.
megrez80
I presume you are talking about his firing on coalition pilots in the no-fly zones?
If so, yeah, but to be extra sure we did it right, we went back to the UN for yet another resolution.
I’m not trying to be obtuse OR change the subject. I’m actually trying to address Jeff’s post. He’s sharing new evidence that Saddam and Al Qaeda had contacts. I’m asking whether people think that such contacts are a justification for invasion and occupation.
Please remember that the primary justification for invading Iraq as of 2003 was the potential threat represented by the “nexus” of terrorists and rogue states. Yes, references were made to Saddam’s atrocious human rights record. But the threat he represented was what tipped the scales towards a policy of “regime change” and the subsequent invasion.
Remember, we had a policy designed to encourage Saddam to change his human rights practices. The reason we changed the policy was NOT because he failed to improve that record, but because a NEW threat to America was discerned: the so-called “nexus.” Without that threat, the President could have quite credibly stuck with his original, modest foreign policy platform (no nation-building).
So, to answer the charge, I’m not “moving the goalposts.” The goalposts were quite firmly set in 2003: Saddam represented a material threat to the UNited States based on his potential collaboration with Al Qaeda (based on that theory, of course, evidence like that presented above is irrelevant; it shouldn’t matter, according to the Bush Doctrine, whether Al Qaeda and Saddam ever had any contact in the past. All that matters according to that doctrine is that they could have contact in the future).
Well, let’s see: based on 9/11, it took just 3,000 deaths to convince me that war to eliminate the Taliban – a state sponsor of Al Qaeda – was necessary. So strictly speaking, the answer to your question is “Less than one.”
And if someone were to present evidence of an actual material collaboration between Saddam and Al Qaeda, I’d be all ears.
But again, remember that the original justification was that the threat was potential, not imminent. And the best evidence for the potential threat is sketchy “contacts” like those presented above.
So me, I’m just asking, do you all think that “contacts” alone justify the invasion?
No, you need to remember that the standing foreign policy of the United States towards Iraq was regime change. Do you concede this point or do you need to be show again?
Heh, and here I thought it was WMDs.
I don’t suppose you can prove your assertion?
Defense Guy sez:
Right. And prior to that, the policy was designed to force him to comply with his cease fire agreement.
beetroot sez:
I don’t see a point to the question. “Contacts” alone were not a justification, but one of a large number of supporting facts.
Oh, and we took out the Taliban for harboring al-Qaeda, not sponsoring them. As it was, it was more like al-Qaeda was sponsoring the Taliban.
you all?, beetroot?
If you all are gonna go all brain dead here then I just want to ask are you sure there ever was any invasion? Meebe there’s just a bunch of tourists over there that like to shoot off guns and stuff. You should prove there has been an invasion. OK? You know, links and all’a that kind’a stuff, like. So, like what invasion, dude?
Careful there, beet. Keep getting things right and they’ll drum you out of Teh Left.
Not only do beet’s goalposts have wheels, but a big ass engine and steering wheel too.
TW: car, I shit you not.
No.
No.
No.
No for the millionth fucking time No.
The primary reason was because Saddam wouldn’t follow the terms of the cease-fire regarding weapon’s inspections. This is really only interesting because it seems to completely destroy what was primarily a leftard strawman to begin with.
Ok, the kicker is never gonna be able to hit that. Let’s get Abrams in there.
You know, with the left’s inability to comprehend Jeff’s long sentences and their annoyance with multiple links in a story, and now their insistence on concentrating on one and only one reason for invading Iraq (first WMDs, now terrorist connections) at a time, I’m beginning to think they might be, uh, intellectually challenged.
I mean, playing dumb to score a few cheap points is all well and good, but they’re getting a little too good at it.
I’m mainly referring to the brutal putdown of the Kurdish/Shia uprising.
B Moe!
I humbly submit that you and the beet are talking about two different things, and that you both are correct. You’re talking about the legal justification, where Saddam has essentially been fair game at least since he kicked out the inspectors in ‘98. Beetroot on the other hand is talking about the practical post-9/11 justification for which Bush and every other member of the administration are on the record many times.
beetroot!
Well now that we have your after-the-fact threshold established, how much risk of incurring a similar amount of damage do you think is appropriate? Certainly it can’t parsed in terms of contacts and meetings between AQ and the Mukhabarat, can it?
yours/
peter
According to your narrative, the war was triggered by a new threat and you ask for evidence of the threat. My take is that the war was triggered by a re-evaluation of the level of acceptable risk vis-a-vis the existing threat. I.E.
Say there’s a 10% chance that Saddam would develop WMD’s and use them/pass them on to a group that could. Surely that’s not an unreasonable guess, even ruling out all questionable evidence.
Pre-9/11, that may have been considered an acceptable risk. Post-9/11, the equation changed.
That’s also what I mean by the parallel to global warming. One side has decided that they don’t want to hear any evidence, nor will they consider the consequences of not doing so. Pretty pathetic.
Uh, yeah. They need simple answers. They have simple minds.
Regards,
Ric
Alone, no.
I’ve got to admit that the “primary justification” arguments would be considerably more convincing if there were any agreement about what the “primary justification” was.
Personally, I think the “primary justification” for the War on Islamofascism is that 9/11 made it clear that this wasn’t an annoyance, but a real and present danger that could either be ended now, when it would be relatively easy, or ended later, when it would be expensive. (See the history of Europe from about 1933 to 1945.)
With that said, notice what the next steps were: first, we hit the enemy’s main geographic center, the place where they could operate openly with overt co-operation from the current government. Having reduced that, and made it much less convenient, we then hit a major center of financial support, and another country that was giving covert but substantial support to the enemy.
Now, observe the map. Removing Afghanistan and Iraq from open co-operative collaboration meant that lines of logistic support were cut from Pakistan to North Africa. Iran is now physically isolated. Syria, never a strong force, lost Lebanon, and the Palestinian Authority is collapsing; Israel now has significant buffers that are either relatively friendly (Jordan, Lebanon) or politically disorganized and isolated (Hamas’s camps in the Bekaa and southern lebanon, and the West Bank and Gaza strip; the PA in particular is in the midst of a real civil war for control that hasn’t been getting as much press as the Iraq unrest.) Pakistan has moved pretty strongly into our camp, and Pakistan and India are establishing much better relations.
All in all, these two campaigns, and their side effects, have turned things our direction fairly dramatically.
No, but then the contacts alone weren’t the justification in any case, so that’s a straw man. What the contacts do is present to us now, after the fact, with stronger evidence — which I suspect was available to the government internally, since some of this has been reported in the open press since before the war — that Iraq was a significant source of support and its elimination would be significant progress toward the overall goal of making Islamofascist terror too risky and expensive for Islamic states to tolerate or support.
Yeah. A sad state of affairs. Yet another example of the price of half assed efforts in diplomacy through force. We should have had their backs, but we didn’t.