05e823f0dfe641014217…

On January 5, 2000, Ahmad Hikmat Shakir — an Iraqi airport greeter reportedly dispatched from Baghdad’s embassy in Malaysia — welcomed Khalid al Midhar and Nawaz al Hamzi to Kuala Lampur and escorted them to a local hotel where these September 11 hijackers met with 9/11 conspirators Ramzi bin al Shibh and Tawfiz al Atash. Five days later, according to Stephen Hayes, Shakir disappeared. He was arrested in Qatar on September 17, 2001, six days after al Midhar and al Hamzi slammed American Airlines Flight 77 into the Pentagon, killing 216 people. On his person and in his apartment, authorities discovered papers tying him to the 1993 WTC plot and “Operation Bojinka,” al Qaeda’s 1995 plan to blow up 12 jets over the Pacific at once.

The Czech Republic stands by its claim that 9/11 leader Mohamed Atta met in Prague in April 2001 with Ahmed Khalil Ibrahim an-Ani, an Iraqi diplomat/intelligence agent. He was expelled two weeks after the suspected meeting with Atta for apparently hostile surveillance of Radio Free Europe’s Prague headquarters, from which American broadcasts to Iraq emanate.

Clinton-appointed Manhattan federal judge Harold Baer ordered Hussein and his ousted regime to pay $104 million in damages to the families of George Eric Smith and Timothy Soulas, both killed in the Twin Towers along with 2,790 others. “I conclude that plaintiffs have shown, albeit barely, ‘by evidence satisfactory to the court’ that Iraq provided material support to bin Laden and al Qaeda,” Baer ruled. An airtight case? No, but sufficient evidence tied Hussein to 9/11 and secured a May 7 federal judgment against him.

http://www.nationalreview.com/murdock/murdock200310210934.asp

I wonder if this new denial of any links is the link of Mr. England…

http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/019446.php

The document shows that an Iraqi intelligence officer, Abid Al-Karim Muhamed Aswod, assigned to the Iraq embassy in Pakistan, is ”responsible for the coordination of activities with the Osama bin Laden group.”

The document shows that it was written over the signature of Uday Saddam Hussein, the son of Saddam Hussein. The story of how the document came about is as follows.

Saddam gave Uday authority to control all press and media outlets in Iraq. Uday was the publisher of the Babylon Daily Political Newspaper.

On the front page of the paper’s four-page edition for Nov. 14, 2002, there was a picture of Osama bin Laden speaking, next to which was a picture of Saddam and his ”Revolutionary Council,” together with stories about Israeli tanks attacking a group of Palestinians.

On the back page was a story headlined ”List of Honor.” In a box below the headline was ”A list of men we publish for the public.” The lead sentence refers to a list of ”regime persons” with their names and positions.

The list has 600 names
and titles in three columns. It contains, for example, the names of the important officials who are members of Saddam’s family, such as Uday, and then other high officials, including the 55 American ”deck of cards” Iraqi officials, some of whom have been apprehended.

Halfway down the middle column is written: ”Abid Al-Karim Muhamed Aswod, intelligence officer responsible for the coordination of activities with the Osama bin Laden group at the Iraqi embassy in Pakistan.”

The story Judge Merritt relates is similar to an account reported in The Weekly Standard last May. Splashed across the front page of the November 16, 2002, edition of Uday Hussein’s Babil newspaper were two “honor” lists, one of which included Aswod (spelled “Aswad”) and identified him as the “official in charge of regime’s contacts with Osama bin Laden’s group and currently the regime’s representative in Pakistan.”

http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/002/889jldct.asp

looks like the CSG (clinton shadow goverment) strikes again!

Now, when you add to that the fact that Saddam did violate UN sanctions repeatedly, and that he did shoot at our planes patroling the no fly zone, and that he did have operational ties to other terror groups… Just what exactly were we supposed to do less than two years after 3,000 Americans were incinerated? I don’t want American politicians playing the odds with my security by not going after someone that poses a threat.

Jim C

Not too mention the report mentions nothing of the HUNDREDS of Baath detainees or Izzat al Douri who have admitted cooperation with al Qaeda in the days right after the war. (see http://www.regimeofterror.com) Were they even asked about when that cooperation began? Maybe but if they were a bunch of partisan Democrats who have alleged Bush lied about the subject are the LAST people in the world to be trusted on conducting a study on the topic yet this is exactly who penned this report and who this leftist hack journalist thinks is the end all be all on the subject.

How anybody can forget that stuff is inexplicable to me.

-SeLFMaDE on March 11, 2008 at 3:11 PM

I think you should re-read the original AUMF. If all that was justification for invasion, we wouldn’t have wasted time with sending in inspectors and talking about UN disarmament resolutions. We would have just invaded.

Loons of a feather need to be plucked.

Whatever their name.

SeLFMaDE on March 11, 2008 at 3:11 PM

I wish every time somebody pulled the “no AQ in Iraq” crap that those of us with half a working brain would remind them about the shooting at our planes just after we were attacked on 9/11. Couple that with the $25,000 payment to suicide bomber families in Israel and you get invasion. How anybody can forget that stuff is inexplicable to me.

Unfortunately, it isn’t a matter of forgetting. The bottom line is this: OBL declared war on the US in something like 1996. Now, do you take that declaration seriously and treat 9/11 as an act of that war, or do you say that an individual cannot declare war and therefore 9/11 was the crime of mass murder?

If you do the former, then invading Iraq makes sense. If you’re of the latter mind, it doesn’t. Case in point: Iraq had been shooting at our planes and sending those checks for years. They had not been cause for war before, why are they now? Convincing people that the action in Iraq is justified has to start with convincing them that there actually is a war.

The Houston Chronical’s Study, Iraq had no link to al-Qaida, confirms information that we already knew; there was not an operational link between Iraq and al-Qaida. But what about informal links to al-Qiada and direct links to other terrorist org…

We were just attacked. We were worried. We were suspicious, as were all of our allies. We went in because there was no way in hell that the President was going to take any chances and allow us to be attacked in any way shape or form again, and the most significant reason…….

SADDAM HAD HIS GOONS SHOOTING AT OUR PLANES ON A DAILY BASIS!

Remember the no-fly zones? Yes, check your history folks, they were shooting at our planes patrolling the no-fly zones even while the UN inspectors were there “supposedly” doing their job.

I wish every time somebody pulled the “no AQ in Iraq” crap that those of us with half a working brain would remind them about the shooting at our planes just after we were attacked on 9/11. Couple that with the $25,000 payment to suicide bomber families in Israel and you get invasion. How anybody can forget that stuff is inexplicable to me.

Shut up Libber. I think the Kossaks calling you. go away.
WayWard Fundamentalist Christian on March 11, 2008 at 2:14 PM

Yeah, cause all us libbers are real in favor of continuing the mission in Iraq, which, if you’d read the gist of my post, I support.
I may not post all that often, but I’ve been here a while, noob.

When we went into Afghanistan, we knew that Pakistan was going to be a no-go from the beginning. We hoped to have caught the Taliban enough with their pants down that they would not make it to Pakistan, but that was far too optimistic a scenario.

If the Talibs and Al-Q (parts of a family tree what don’t branch) made it to “safe” parts of Pakistan, we would be fighting in Afghanistan for years while the Talibs regrouped in Pakistan. And indeed, this is how things shook out.

In the meantime, at our backs we had Iraq and Iran. The mullah-ocracy of Iran was rule by a clique, and the Iranian government in its present form with its present containment options would remain intact, no matter which Mullah kicked the bucket.

Iraq, on the other hand, was organized along much the same lines as Syria, except Iraq had more oil than Syria. We were more than aware of bribes being made through Oil For Food. When you consider that containment failed on Syria the moment Hafez Assad died, and Saddam was no spring chicken, the assessment was made that we could not allow Saddam to die while still “President” of Iraq.

Trust me, it’s possible.

Anyway, at least our borders are secure.

Not too many people dispute that AQ has an active presence in Iraq in the post-invasion period

However, most leftists draw a distinction between “real” AQ (in Afghanistan and Pakistan) and “fake” AQ (in Iraq).

I say if your plan is to defeat terrorism by showing average Muslims what freedom and democracy can do for them, do you do it in a smashed, barely-functioning, Islamic fundamentalist narco-state like Afghanistan or do you go someplace like Iraq, with an educated and somewhat secular populace which also has loads of natural resources and lots of infrastructure (albeit decaying)?

Of course you go to Iraq, and the fact that they’ve been violating a cease-fire for twelve years just makes the deal sweeter. All of which begs the question: If Iraq had been as peaceful as say, Jordan, would we have invaded a different country and, if so, which one?

I’m am 100% all for finishing the job we started and not leaving till Iraq is stable, but ya gotta take the blinders off sooner or later and start accepting these things.

SouthernDem on March 11, 2008 at 9:01 AM

Shut up Libber. I think the Kossaks calling you. go away.

This is the SAME Governmental Organization who told us, that they had actionable intelligence that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction. We now know that they did not.

This is the same Governmental Organization that tells us that they couldn’t even tell 100% for sure if Iran has nuke program or not.

Why do people continue to believe what these incompetent idiots tell them?

WFC

We need to strategically place right thinking Americans into the positions responsible for selecting text books for public education — college professors of history would be good too.

tommylotto on March 11, 2008 at 1:30 PM

No offense intended, but you must be high. We lost education to the libs a long time ago. They’re already rewriting the past and turning science into myth.

We can’t even redeem McCarthy with the Verona report. I have no hope that history will be more kind to Bush. I’d love to be proven wrong though.

“No operational relationship” ah ha, Bush lied…

I’ve given up trying to defend the war to the current anti-war crowd. The next battle will be for the history books. We need to strategically place right thinking Americans into the positions responsible for selecting text books for public education — college professors of history would be good too.

and others he considered enemies of his regime.

…and whom might that be? Perchance the USA?

“No one in my office ever claimed there was an operational relationship. There was a relationship.”

“The policy office has been smeared for years by allegations that its pre-Iraq War work was somehow ‘unlawful’ or ‘unauthorized’ and that some information it gave to congressional committees was deceptive or misleading. The office’s accusers always couched the charges in vague language, making them difficult to refute with precision. The charges have been repeated persistently despite the lack of any substantiation. The inspector general’s report has now thoroughly repudiated the smears.”

An operational relationship was never claimed by the Bush administration. Operational meaning they collaborated to carry out missions jointly… that was never a claim by anyone. But it is a fact that al-Qaeda and Saddam had mutual interests, which is why al-qaeda operatives were traveling back and forth to Iraq and back to their various countries of origin.

This Iraqi terrorist worked for al-Qaeda and describes his affiliation with bin Laden and Zarqawi’s groups, and that under the “former regime”, i.e., Saddam, al-Qaeda had a camp in Fallujah, although in 2005 he said al-Qaeda was now “scattered”.

I think this report is misleading; Saddam and al-Qaeda were never operational, but still maintained a relationship.

I haven’t even seen any honest, intelligent debates. It’s all about plugging your ears and repeating the same nonsense over and over. Whoever comes up with the best one-liners, or yells the loudest, or makes the most serious allegations wins?

reaganaut on March 11, 2008 at 9:32 AM

There was plenty of that on both sides. Some on the left thinking that any military action is criminal and then some on the right dismissing questions about overall strategy or the competenece of Rumsfeld, Bremmer, et al.