no link between Osama and Hussein

I remember a political debate here a while ago where people were asserting that Bin Laden and Hussein were linked, and that an Al Qaeda operative met with an Iraqi official in Europe.

Well, the 9/11 comission has formally said that those events never happened.

Here is the article by a British paper based entirely on the 9/11 comission's findings.

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/focus/story/0,6903,1243079,00.html

Did you watch the commission hearings? Did you catch on to how rediculous they were?

"I disagree with the way the findings have been portrayed. There's been enormous confusion over the Iraq-Al-Qaeda connection. First of all, on the question of whether or not there was any kind of a relationship. There clearly was a relationship. It's been testified to. The evidence is overwhelming. It goes back to the early 90s. It involves a whole series of contacts, high level contacts between Osama bin Laden and Iraqi intelligence officials. It involves a senior official, a brigadier general in the Iraqi intelligence service going to the Sudan, before bin Laden ever went to Afghanistan to train them in bombmaking. Helping teach them how to forge documents. Mr. Zarqawi is in Baghdad today, as an Al-Qaeda associate who took refuge in Baghdad, found sanctuary and safe harbor there before we ever launched into Iraq. There's a Mr. Yasin, who was a World Trade Center bomber in '93 who fled to Iraq after that, and we found since when we got into Baghdad, documents showing that he was put on the payroll and given housing by Saddam Hussein after the '93 attack. In other words, was provided safe harbor and sanctuary. There's clearly been a relationship.

It's very important that people understand these two differences. What the New York Times did was outrageous. Now, they do a lot of outrageous things. But the headline, "Panel finds no Qaeda-Iraqi tie." The press wants to run out and say, "There's a fundamental split here now between what the president said and what the commission said." Jim Thompson, who's a member of the commission who's since been on the air, I saw him with my own eyes saying, there was no conflict. What they were addressing was whether or not they were involved in 9/11, and there they found no evidence to support that proposition. They did not address the broader question of a relationship between Iraq and Al-Qaeda in other areas, in other ways. "

The Bush administration NEVER said Saddam was directly involved in 9/11. Our attack on Iraq was preemptive, just like WWII. Japan attacked us yes, but we chose to enter the European Theater because HITLER was a threat. Osama attacked us, so we went into Afghanistan - then found evidence that Saddam was a threat and was harboring terrorists. Even Russia knew that.

both were a threat to the safety of the united states, better safe than sorry

No Tele, you have no idea what you are talking about, and neither to media sources who are jumping the gun:

9/11 Commision spokesman Jonathan Stull:

"The report doesn't close the book on connections between Iraq and al Qaeda."

Of course you would post a link from the BBC, in which that article states:

The commission, an independent, bipartisan panel formed by primary legislation and the reluctant signature of the President

-- Hardly the epitome of journalistic integrity.

From another OPINION page:
http://www.nypost.com/postopinion/opedcolumnists/25851.htm

What Wednesday's commission statement actually said was that the panel had discovered "no credible evidence that Iraq and al Qaeda cooperated on attacks against the United States."

What the Times neglected to mention was that the commission wrote that bin Laden personally had met with a senior Iraqi intelligence officer in Sudan in 1994. Hardly an insignificant detail, particularly when it's all in the same paragraph of the commission report.

=================



[QUOTE]NY Times Flip-flops on Iraq-al Qaida Ties
Saturday, June 19, 2004 12:28 a.m. EDT

The New York Times is so determined to discredit evidence linking Iraq to al-Qaeda that it's now contradicting its own earlier reports that Iraq-based WMD specialist Abu Musab al Zarqawi was ever a key member of al Qaida.

In its lead editorial on Saturday, the Times complains that President Bush has cited Zarqawi "as evidence of a link between Iraq and Al Qaeda*."

"Mr. Bush used to refer to Mr. Zarqawi as a 'senior Al Qaeda terrorist planner' who was in Baghdad working with the Iraqi government," the paper adds. "But the director of central intelligence, George Tenet, told the Senate earlier this year that Mr. Zarqawi did not work with the Hussein regime, nor [was he] under the direction of Al Qaeda."

It turns out, however, that President Bush isn't the only one who used to say that Zarqawi worked closely with al Qaida.

Just last month, the Times wrote this about the notorious terrorist:

"He is thought to have extensive ties across the militant Islamic movement and is considered an ally of Osama bin Laden, Al Qaeda's leader. A letter that the American authorities said had been written by Mr. Zarqawi and that they released in March claims his responsibility for some 25 bombings in Iraq." [NYT - May 14, 2004]

Two days before that, the Times cited Zarqawi's activities as an example of how al Qaida had decentralized as the U.S. racheted up the pressure in the war on terror:

"Though Mr. Zarqawi reportedly has strong ties to Al Qaeda, American officials say he and Al Qaeda operate separately. He is often cited as an example of how Al Qaeda has transformed itself from a tightly knit organization into a far-flung operation comprising free-lance terrorists, drawing on Mr. bin Laden mostly for inspiration and technique." [NYT - May 12, 2004]

But Zarqawi wasn't always "free lance," at least not according to what the Times reported in 2002. Back then the paper cited European intelligence experts who had no doubts about Zarqawi's leadership role in al Qaida:

"Magnus Ranstorp, a professor at the Center for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland, described Mr. Zarqawi as 'one of the top four or five Al Qaeda figures,'" the Times noted without a hint of skepticism. [NYT - April 26, 2002]

The paper also quoted Mr. Ranstorp as saying, "Aside from Osama bin Laden, Mr. Zarqawi was one of the most senior Qaeda officers who have been neither captured nor killed."

In fact, according to the same Times report, German prosecutors believe that Zarqawi was behind the foiled Millenium bomb plot to blow up LAX airport in December 1999 - considered by experts to be the biggest al Qaida plot against the U.S. before Sept. 11.

What about Zarqawi's Iraq connections before the Iraq war - at a time when he was still working under the direction of bin Laden?

The Times, along with most media sources, doesn't say much beyond noting that he was fitted with an artificial leg at a Baghdad hospital after fleeing Afghanistan when the Taliban fell.

But there's much stronger evidence that Zarqawi was working with Iraq well before the U.S. attacked in March 2003.

At least one of the al-Qaida plotters arrested in Jordan in April as part of a foiled WMD plot that Jordanian officials say could have killed 80,000 people, has confessed that he was trained by Zarqawi in Iraq two years before the U.S. attack.

In a confession first broadcast on Jordanian television, then rebroadcast by ABC's "Nightline" on April 26, the unnamed WMD conspirator revealed:

"In Iraq, I started training in explosives and poisons. I gave my complete obedience to Zarqawi. . . . After the fall of Afghanistan, I met Zarqawi again in Iraq."

U.S. forces vanquished the Taliban government in Kabul in December 2001 - fifteen months before the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

Apparently the Times wasn't convinced that a videotaped confession by an al Qaida detainee detailing a pre-war Iraq-Zarqawi-al Qaida connection was very important, since they have yet to cover the story.[/QUOTE]

Tele, you're crazy man. The 9/11 comission said that Iraq had no hand in 9/11. No one said they did, though, so i don't see how this is new news.

Check this out: http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/06/18/saddam.terror/index.html

Russia, a nation strongly AGAINST the war, recently said that they have intelligence reports making it clear that Iraq had planned terrorist attacks (with terrorist groups) against the US.

"I can confirm that after the events of September 11, 2001, and up to the military operation in Iraq, Russian special services and Russian intelligence several times received ... information that official organs of Saddam's regime were preparing terrorist acts on the territory of the United States and beyond its borders, at U.S. military and civilian locations," Putin said.

Nos.

If Telemahkos posts a UK based report, I believe it. You're all fools who don't.

But then again I didn't watch every hour of the hearings. Didn't have pre-knowledge of the enemy before 9/11 nor did I really know what was happening period.

We should probably just ignore this too: http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/06/21/alaoofi.ap/index.html

We should. It's been stated in previous threads, replies to me (by those in the know) that these people aren't trained. It's some natural instinct or something. You just can't train a malicious killer devoid of any type of morals.

If Telemahkos posts a UK based report, I believe it. You're all fools who don't.

Putin himself isn't anti-American enough for you? Look at the quote of his i posted...

Nos.

Did I forget my <sarcasm> tags? Damnit...I need to add those to my posts.

sarcasm [squared] on the rest of that post.

But then again I didn't watch every hour of the hearings. Didn't have pre-knowledge of the enemy before 9/11 nor did I really know what was happening period.

I DID watch every hour, I DID have pre-knowledge of the enemy [the entire Middle East, their practices and beliefs], and I really DO know what's going on, and then some.

If Telemahkos reported the world was coming to an end, I wouldn't believe him until the world was over. And coming out of the UK, I take that with a grain of salt. Actually my salt is more valuable than that.

Unless I misunderstood your post that you thought I was serious.