…which, to those who’ve been paying attention, is of course quite different than positing a connection between Saddam and 911. Of course, for its part, our “neutral” media does its best to conflate the two—then cites as proof of Bush’s lies the very conflation they themselves continue to make and attribute (erroneously, arrogantly, and intentionally) to the Administration—before peddling it to those Americans who still rely on traditional media for their “news.”
Case in point: George Tenet’s interview and book release. I noted yesterday how ABC News’ Chris Cuomo decided to frame revelations from Tenet’s “60 Minutes” interview and book as “blockbusters” that seemed to suggest the Administration “rushed to war” and misused Tenet’s counsel, having already decided, before any serious discussions were undertaken, that they would indeed go to war no matter what. These allegations have already proven false (see, for instance, Christopher Hitchens), but no matter: those who get their news from “Good Morning America” are left with the impression that the Bushies went to war on flimsy evidence, under false pretenses, in order to………..uh, NO WAR FOR OILABURTON!
Meanwhile, the real revelations from Tenet’s book—which would undermine the Democratic / anti-war narrative that the media has done so much to help shape, disseminate, and perpetuate—were conveniently un(der)reported.
From The Weekly Standard‘s Thomas Joscelyn, “More Than Enough Evidence”:
George Tenet’s just released book, At the Center of the Storm, has created quite a stir. Over the past few days, a myriad of news accounts have referenced various snippets of the former director of Central Intelligence’s self-serving collection of remembrances. But here is something you probably have not heard or read about Tenet’s book: it confirms that there was a relationship between Saddam’s Iraq and al Qaeda. And, according to Tenet, “there was more than enough evidence to give us real concern” about it too.
[…] it is worth noting what he does not claim: that the Bush administration cooked up the connection between Saddam’s Iraq and al Qaeda in its entirety. In fact, Tenet concedes that there was evidence of a worrisome relationship. For example, Tenet explains that in late 2002 and early 2003:
There was more than enough evidence to give us real concern about Iraq and al-Qa’ida; there was plenty of smoke, maybe even some fire: Ansar al-Islam [note: Tenet refers to Ansar al-Islam by its initials “AI” in several places]; Zarqawi; Kurmal; the arrests in Europe; the murder of American USAID officer Lawrence Foley, in Amman, at the hands of Zarqawi’s associates; and the Egyptian Islamic Jihad operatives in Baghdad.
On Ansar al-Islam, Zarqawi, and Kurmal, Tenet elaborates further:
The intelligence told us that senior al-Qa’ida leaders and the Iraqis had discussed safe haven in Iraq. Most of the public discussion thus far has focused on Zarqawi’s arrival in Baghdad under an assumed name in May of 2002, allegedly to receive medical treatment. Zarqawi, whom we termed a “senior associate and collaborator” of al-Qa’ida at the time, supervised camps in northern Iraq run by Ansar al-Islam (AI).
We believed that up to two hundred al-Qa’ida fighters began to relocate there in camps after the Afghan campaign began in the fall of 2001. The camps enhanced Zarqawi’s reach beyond the Middle East. One of the camps run by AI, known as Kurmal, engaged in production and training in the use of low-level poisons such as cyanide. We had intelligence telling us that Zarqawi’s men had tested these poisons on animals and, in at least one case, on one of their own associates. They laughed about how well it worked. Our efforts to track activities emanating from Kurmal resulted in the arrest of nearly one hundred Zarqawi operatives in Western Europe planning to use poisons in operations.
According to Tenet, al Qaeda’s presence was not limited to northern Iraq:
What was even more worrisome was that by the spring and summer of 2002, more than a dozen al-Qa’ida-affiliated extremists converged on Baghdad, with apparently no harassment on the part of the Iraqi government. They had found a comfortable and secure environment in which they moved people and supplies to support Zarqawi’s operations in northeastern Iraq.
Other high-level al Qaeda terrorists set up shop in Baghdad as well […]:
More al-Qa’ida operatives would follow, including Thirwat Shihata and Yussef Dardiri, two Egyptians assessed by a senior al-Qa’ida detainee to be among the Egyptian Islamic Jihad’s best operational planners, who arrived by mid-May of 2002. At times we lost track of them, though their associates continued to operate in Baghdad as of October 2002. Their activity in sending recruits to train in Zarqawi’s camps was compelling enough.
There was also concern that these two might be planning operations outside Iraq. Credible information told us that Shihata was willing to strike U.S., Israeli, and Egyptian targets sometime in the future. Shihata had been linked to terrorist operations in North Africa, and while in Afghanistan he had trained North Africans in the use of truck bombs. Smoke indeed. But how much fire, if any?
It strains credulity to imagine that all of this was going on without, at the very least, Saddam’s tacit approval. Tenet says that the CIA did not think Saddam had “operational direction and control” over the two Egyptians, Zarqawi, or AI. But he explains, “from an intelligence point of view it would have been difficult to conclude that the Iraqi intelligence service was not aware of their activities.” “Certainly,” Tenet adds, “we believe that at least one senior AI operative maintained some sort of liaison relationship with the Iraqis.”
There was more. Tenet says that his analysts found evidence of a relationship spanning more than a decade. He explains:
In the laborious exercise undertaken by analysts to understand the history of a potential Iraq-al Qa’ida relationship, they went back and documented the basis of a variety of sources--some good, some secondhand, some hearsay, many from other intelligence services. There were, over a decade, a number of possible high-level contacts between Iraq and al-Qa’ida, through high-level and third-party intermediaries. Our data told us that at various points there were discussions of cooperation, safe haven, training, and reciprocal nonaggression.
As has been discussed in THE WEEKLY STANDARD on a number of occasions, the CIA also uncovered evidence that Iraq and al Qaeda were cooperating on chemical weapons projects in the Sudan. The Clinton administration cited the CIA’s intelligence to justify the August 20, 1998, strike on the al-Shifa pharmaceutical factory. That strike was launched in retaliation for al Qaeda’s August 7, 1998, embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania. The al-Shifa plant operated under an Iraqi oil-for-food contract and Tenet’s CIA suspected it of being one of several front companies at which Iraq was transferring chemical weapons technology (including VX nerve gas) to al Qaeda.
Tenet explains the long history of collaboration between Iraq, Sudan, and al Qaeda:
During the mid-1990s, Sudanese Islamic Front Leader Hasan al-Turabi reportedly served as a conduit for Bin Ladin between Iraq and Iran. Turabi in this period was trying to become the centerpiece of the Sunni extremist world. He was hosting conferences and facilitating the travel of North Africans to Hezbollah training camps in the Bekaa Valley, in Lebanon. There was concern that common interests may have existed in this period between Iraq, Bin Ladin, and the Sudanese, particularly with regard to the production of chemical weapons. The reports we evaluated told us of high-level Iraqi intelligence service contacts with Bin Ladin himself, though we never knew the outcome of these contacts. [Emphasis added]
Tenet also offers his thoughts on the detention of Ibn Sheikh al-Libi, “a senior military trainer for al-Qa’ida in Afghanistan.” When al-Libi was first detained he “offered up information that a militant known as Abu Abudullah had told him that at least three times between 1997 and 2000, the now-deceased al-Qa’ida leader Mohammed Atef had sent Abu Abdullah to Iraq to seek training in poisons and mustard gas.” Later, al-Libi recanted his testimony. Controversy then ensued. Critics of the Iraq war have seized on al-Libi’s reversal and claim that his admissions were made under duress, and are therefore dubious.
But Tenet says “there was sharp division on his recantation” inside the CIA. Al-Libi “clearly lied,” Tenet says, but we don’t know when. Either his initial confession or his later denial could be accurate. Tenet concludes: “The fact is, we don’t know which story is true, and since we don’t know, we can assume nothing.”
But Tenet adds an additional detail that he says lent credence to al-Libi’s initial confession: “Another senior al-Qa’ida detainee told us that Mohammed Atef was interested in expanding al-Qa’ida’s ties to Iraq, which, in our eyes, added credibility to [al-Libi’s initial] reporting.”
Some will no doubt highlight Tenet’s claims about the Bush administration hyping Saddam’s ties to 9/11. In reality, he provides little verifiable evidence to back up this claim. As Tenet’s chapter title suggests, he also believes that Saddam’s Iraq lacked “authority, direction, or control” over al Qaeda. Few would argue with this assessment. But that does not make the threads of evidence connecting Saddam’s regime to al Qaeda any less troublesome.
Of course, to the liberal Democrats, “progressives,” and anti-war activists, the only thing “troublesome” about these connections is that Tenet’s CIA believed them, and that this is the basis on which the Administration, in the wake of 911—and sensing that our intelligence agencies may not be entirely up to snuff—acted preemptively against Iraq, part of a multilevel strategy for fighting the global war against Islamic terrorism, which may have rapidly metastasized had the US responded weakly to 911.
Ironically, al Qaeda and its affiliates have become emboldened—but with the help of the delusional anti-war crowd, isolationist paleocons, and cynical, defeatist Democrats, who have decided to use troubles with the campaign in Iraq as a political wedge issue in order to regain power: given the opportunity to put up a united front against an enemy that has vowed to destroy us—using against us our short attention span, our propensity for self-flagellation, and a political culture that finds moral rectitude in dissent for dissent’s sake—the Democrats, after some wrangling within the party for control of the political narrative, have followed the (base) wishes of their “base” and have worked tirelessly, with the help of the advocacy media that props them up, to turn Bush into the villain of the Iraq war, a maneuver that has required them to ignore the wishes of the Iraqi people, pass legislation that would diminish trust in the US as a military force capable of protecting nations inclined toward reform, and give al-Qaeda the kind of propaganda victory on the world stage that they could never have achieved alone.
In fact, the argument can be made that people like Jack Murtha, Harry Reid, and Chuck Hagel are the best recruiting tool al Qaeda has, save for cutting off the heads of journalists and contractors, or desecrating the bodies of dead US soldiers, then releasing the footage on the internet.
Asks Cliff May, rhetorically, “the MSM doesn’t think this [Saddam/al-Qaeda connection] is worth sharing with its readers/viewers?”
To which the answer is, no, it does not. Because it doesn’t service the narrative to report certain facts—and too much in the way of credibility and political reputation is at stake for those who have been acting to thwart the Administration’s strategy for fighting the global Islamist threat to change course and allow “noise” into the carefully crafted narrative of Adminstration lies and hubris.
(h/t CJ Burch, Dan Collins)
Oh, this is going to drive Larry Johnson (whose CIA career, if it were a child, would be referred to in terms of months, not years) even more batshit crazy.
Which is a good thing all by itself.
(The Times)
This is a good way of cheering up a Tuesday morning. Or any morning.
This jogged a memory, so I did a little digging. On my own site:
That’s from a letter Tenet sent to Congress. In 2002.
I almost threw a plate of baked zitti at the TV screen watching ABC Evening News “cover” the Tenet “revelations” last night.
The dog was disappointed at my restraint.
Interesting…
so I guess since there are currently Al-Qaeda infiltrators in the US our government must be complicit with the organization too…
The issue isn’t whether or not they are there … the crux of the matter is whether or not Al-Qaeda and the Iraqi government had a demonstrable operational or co-operational connection: which they did not…
The simple fact—acknowledge by every military leader I have read (including the CENTCOM CinC Gen Zinni) points to the fact that Iraq posed NO threat to either its neighbors nor the US… “No one in the region felt threatened by Saddam. “
http://www.cdi.org/friendlyversion/printversion.cfm?documentID=2208
Gen Zinni, the man in charge of CENTCOM for 4 years pre-war should know the situation better than anyone since he was in charge of containment.
The Iraq war is an unnecessary disaster… and a distraction from militant Islam—which is the real infection the world suffers from.
You can keep pushing these facts trying to convince those who know the truth. It won’t work! I think it’s been proven beyond a doubt (in fact 99.999999% of all scientists in the world support it) that “secularists” like Saddam and “radical religionists” like Al Qaeda, can’t mix. It’s like matter and anti-matter. If they had contact, there would be a near-nuclear explosion. The absence of which proves they had no contact.
What’s next for you people. Fire melts steel?
I saw some of the epic under-reportage the other day in which a blonde talking head was telling the brunette talking head that “while the book alludes to some possible connections between al queda and Iraq that the evidence in them does very little to dispel the fatigue and weariness that the American public now has for this war.”
So could some talking head please explain to me just what sacrifices the “American public” has made in waging this war that has us so “fatigued and weary.” The last time I checked the life here looks pretty 2000ish , except we have lower taxes, a higher DOW, less unemployment and the damnable Boston Redsox aren’t subject to “the curse.”
Military family’s have more than enough right to bitch. However, they are by and large the group that wants to see this through. Yet in regards of the rank and file American I haven’t seen a lot of gas rationing or war bonds sales at Starbucks. If there is som hard core suffering going on there, I must not be seeing it.
I think it’s more likely that the talking heads are unaware that we’re a nation innudated with narcissistic political pussies. Of course, that does help them sale soap in between segemnts.
You sound…wistful for Saddam, RoR.
Wasn’t there some significant event in the US sometime after Labor Day 2001?
RoR,
Zinni’s remarks fail to recount the ongoing erosion of the sanctions regime (see also ”Smart Sanctions”, and, more generally elides the broader grand strategic arguments made – which were in no way dependent on the heroically oversimplified arguments you offer here.
BRD
Absolutely and totally missing the mountains of evidence and history of Saddam’s Iraq and it’s transgressions against its neighbors and yes, the United States, RoR. The comparison of the United States’ own al queda infestation problem and Iraq’s is weak beyond measure. The situations being absolutely NOTHING alike. Unless…you liken our own fascist rethuglikkkan Bush with their fascist baathist Hussein. And then, of course they’re the same damn thing.
But, I am glad to see that you realize that there is absolutely an Islamist problem to be taken seriously. That, at least, is a little encouraging.
“American Idol” is NOT on every night, while Linsay Lohan has to get her Vodka/RedBull on in the closet, while wearing Britneys Panties on her head – OH THE HUMANITY!
Can you spare some change, brother?
Fuck – the batteries in my IPod just died.
DAAMMMMMMMMMMMMMN YOUUUUUUUUUU WORLD!
I’m so weary (sigh)
Actually, just a second here…
Why does any of this actually matter?
It doesn’t matter what the deal was five or ten years ago. We’re in Iraq RIGHT NOW.
Space Aliens could arrive and tell us that they used holograms to simulate WMD as part of an experiment in practical sociology and it wouldn’t change where we’re at.
ObL could be caught naked in a threesome with Bashar al-Assad and Ahmednejad wallowing in a big pile of WMD on the floor of the UN General Assembly and it wouldn’t change where we’re at.
None of this matter, really, a damned bit – we’ve got a war to fight and that’s that.
I think I’ve heard of this “war” you mention…Maybe RTO Trainer could describe further?
I, too, have grown weary of hearing bitching and carping about the PAST. I want to know what people think the solution is to the NOW.
And to be extra careful, he went ahead and felt everyone in the region to see if they felt threatened by Saddam. Including the ones Saddam was about to throw into the plastics shredder.
Just supposing, but it might have happened that way.
I’m sure the Kurds felt safe from chemical weapons
I’m still trying to figure out how Sadaam wasn’t a threat, but needed containment. for his own safety I guess? his health?
and Major John, don’t get me started on hearing anything from RTO. heard from him a few days ago in not-Afghanistan/not-United States and my phone has been in and out since yesterday afternoon. raaaaarrrrr.
Pay phones at Manas-Bishkek not working? I hope RTO gets back very soon, and safely.
I remember seeing a picture of some moonbat at a protest holding a sign that said, “I’m sick of protesting this shit.” Well… stop doing that! Sheesh.
Let me see here… So deposing Saddam was presupposed to be a “cakewalk” but the Left predicted instead that American casualties from their clash with Saddam’s deadly army would number in the tens of thousands (or more)… and this is the same Saddam who had actually invaded a neighbor and started a very deadly shooting war with another neighbor within the last couple of decades… and the same Saddam, yet, who had gassed his own citizens and apparently shredded a bunch more… yet he was no threat. To nobody.
Good gracious, do you hear yourself, RoR?
But BRD is absolutely correct. Here we are. Let’s win, shall we?
Many on the Left declared we’d have tens of thousands of dead from Saddam’s poison gases. Oddly, these people are not being hounded for their “lies”.
I agree that we have a war to fight and that what we do next should be more important than rehashing recent history.
Unfortunately, if you let people who have no interest in acknowledging there is a war that needs to be fought get away with airbrushing that history, the more likely that they will ascend to power and embolden our enemies with their defeatism and ostrich-like worldview.
I think maybe I should elaborate a little.
The reason what happened in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq matters is that the Tenet stuff excerpted by Jeff, as well as the letter quoted by Rob, and various other materials to the same effect were all in the public record at that time.
So when mopes like RoR claim that:
RoR could not be more wrong. The public generally, and Congress specifically, had a huge debate over whether to authorize the invasion of Iraq, in no small part because the Democrats demanded we have that official debate. And what has been discussed here is what the record showed. The invasion was authorized, and not by the standard RoR suggests.
RoR is just one of the many who would like to pretend for partisan political purposes that somehow we were misled by the lies of the eeeeevil McChimpler. The fact is that the American people were not told Saddam was an imminent threat, but a growing threat. We were not told that Saddam had something to do with 9/11, or that he worked hand-in-glove with AQ, but that Iraq harbored AQ-related terrorists and that there was no way he didn’t know it or was unable to do anything about it.
The only thing suggested beforehand that turned out wrong was that there were not the stockpiles of WMDs that we—and every other country with an intell service—expected to find. Nevertheless, the Iraq Survey Group found ”In addition to preserved capability… clear evidence of his intent to resume WMD as soon as sanctions were lifted.”
RoR—and like-minded folk—want to rewrite that history to raise the standard for taking action, while pretending that has been the standard and that they did not lose that debate.
If we allow history to be distorted in that way, we will find the war much more difficult to fight.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xQk72bp7B84
“The Iraqi regime is a threat of unique urgency.”
–President Bush, 10/2/02
“This is about imminent threat.”
–White House spokesman Scott McClellan, 2/10/03
Iraq poses “terrible threats to the civilized world.”
–Vice President Dick Cheney, 1/30/03
Iraq “threatens the United States of America.”
–Vice President Cheney, 1/30/03
“Well, of course he is.â€Â
–White House Communications Director Dan Bartlett responding to the question “is Saddam an imminent threat to U.S. interests, either in that part of the world or to Americans right here at home?â€Â, 1/26/03
“Absolutely.”
–White House spokesman Ari Fleischer answering whether Iraq was an “imminent threat,” 5/7/03
“The Iraqi regime is a threat to any American. … Iraq is a threat, a real threat.”
–President Bush, 1/3/03
“There’s a grave threat in Iraq. There just is.”
–President Bush, 10/2/02
“No terrorist state poses a greater or more immediate threat to the security of our people and the stability of the world than the regime of Saddam Hussein in Iraq.”
–Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, 9/19/02
“Some have argued that the nuclear threat from Iraq is not imminent – that Saddam is at least 5-7 years away from having nuclear weapons. I would not be so certain. And we should be just as concerned about the immediate threat from biological weapons. Iraq has these weapons.”
–Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, 9/18/02
Context, please.
Note the “either or” formulation of the question. To which was Bartlett replying? Again, context, please.
After the other two, I’m starting to wonder why the questions are only paraphrased.
Both of the Rumsfeld quotes are dated earlier than all the others, and the remaining quotes refer to threats that are “real,” “terrible” and “grave”—not imminent.
Nice try, though. Thanks for playing.
Of course, Pres. Bush was not quoted there, because this is what he said:
And I would suggest he is the authority on the Bush Admin’s position.
For the record, here’s the history of the “imminent threat canard.” The summation:
Which of course brought out the usual trolls to quote every time the word “threat” was used, regardless of modifier.
But in the reality-based community, the big objection to invading Iraq was that it was, to some degree, pre-emptive in nature (though not completely so, as Saddam had been in violation of a ceasefire for about a decade). Inherent in that objection is the idea that war is being waged without an imminent threat.
That is why the the notion that Bush lied about an “imminent threat” is laughable, and the people who assert it delusional.
But it is convenient delusion for those Democrats who, for political reasons, want to disclaim responsibility for the war they helped authorize. They also delude themselves into thinking it frees them from having to think about the consequences of pulling out, as they would blame all of those on Bush also. And this is why those who care about what we do now should care about this ongoing attempt at historical revisionism.
“We are united in our determination to confront this urgent threat to America.”
President Bush, Radio Address Sept. 28, 2002
“The danger is grave and growing. The Iraqi regime possesses biological and chemical weapons and is rebuilding facilities to make more. It could launch a biological or chemical attack 45 minutes after the order is given. The regime is seeking a nuclear bomb—and, with fissile material, could build one within a year.”
White House News Release, Sept. 26, 2002
I heard Harry Reid a few days ago, he started off his speech with “Today a dozen people died in Iraq …”
I wanted to shout at the radio … they died because the murderers figured that Reid needed a little gravatas. Maybe they’re not that deliberate, but they sure do play the dems like a fiddle.
“This is about imminent threat.â€Â
–White House spokesman Scott McClellan, 2/10/03
It’s amazing how wildly out of context this quote was taken. How someone could use it in an attempt to paint someone else as dishonest is incredible. He was talking about an imminent threat to Turkey.
Turkey had asked NATO for consultations under Article IV of the treaty, which states “Parties will consult together whenever, in the opinion of any of them, the territorial integrity, political independence of security of any of the parties is threatened.” Turkey thought it was under immminent threat.
Then there’s this one:
“Absolutely.â€Â
–White House spokesman Ari Fleischer answering whether Iraq was an “imminent threat,†5/7/03
I like this one, not just because of the context:
The big reason I like it is because of the date of the quote. And it’s being used to argue that Bush lied to get us into a war. I didn’t know Ari Fleischer could travel time.
Pretty much all the rest of the quotes do not mention “imminent”, and don’t sound any different from what the Democrats were saying.
Compare:
To this post-war speech by Tenet:
Well, themistocles, you tried. You really tried. And in your little twisted world I am pretty sure that is ALL that matters. But, unfortunately, in reality, you failed in your objective. I would guess that is a usual result.
tw: hands69
Huh? They usually aren’t involved, but what the hell.
In Tenet’s book, he states that Saddam could have had a nuke by 2007.
What year is it? Does Saddam have a nuke?