Clarification/Follow-up by excon on 03/16/04 11:10 am:

Chou:

I make my case in my comments to ETWolverine. Tell me one they've lost.

excon

Clarification/Follow-up by XCHOUX on 03/16/04 11:37 am:
OH, I see it. Thanks e.

Clarification/Follow-up by ETWolverine on 03/16/04 1:53 pm:
Excon,

Proof of the link between al-qaeda and Iraq.

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Officer: Saddam trained al-Qaida pre-9-11
Iraqi paper says Fedayeen supervised hijack drills in summer 2001

Posted: October 20, 2003
5:00 p.m. Eastern
© 2003 WorldNetDaily.com
Saddam Hussein ordered the training of al-Qaida members two months before the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, according to an independent Iraqi weekly.
The Fedayeen, under the command of Saddam's late son Uday, directly supervised 100 al-Qaida fighters who were split into two groups, reported Al-Yawm Al-Aakher, citing an Iraqi officer identified by the initial L.
One group went to Al-Nahrawan and the second to Salman Pak, near Baghdad, where they were trained to hijack airplanes, the officer said in an article translated by the Washington, D.C.-based Middle East Media Research Institute.
According to the testimony of Iraqi military defector Sabah Khalifa Khodada Alami, Iraqi intelligence had a Boeing 707 fuselage at Salman Pak used to train groups how to hijack planes without weapons. His claims were consistent with commercial satellite photos showing the fuselage. Saddam's regime insisted to U.N. inspectors Salman Pak was an anti-terror training camp for Iraqi special forces.
The Iraqi weekly, quoting the anonymous officer, said senior Fedayeen officers visited the al-Qaida fighters almost daily, "especially during the final days when they transferred them, late at night in two red trucks that belonged to the Ministry of Transportation, to an undisclosed destination."
"I witnessed that with my own eyes because on that day I was the duty officer," he said.
The officer recalled one day a Land Cruiser belonging to Saddam's personal security force, Al-Amn Al-Khass, arrived, and a senior officer, one of Saddam's personal bodyguards, stepped out.
After a two-hour meeting with a select group of officers at the Special Forces school, the officer said "we were informed that we would have dear guests, and that we should train them very well in a high level of secrecy – not to allow anyone to approach them or to talk to them in any way, shape or form."
About 100 trainees arrived a few days later, he said, a mixture of Arabs, Arabs from the Saudi peninsula, Muslim Afghans and other Muslims from various parts of the world.
The training, he said, was under direct supervision of a major general he identified only by his initials, M. DH. L, who he said now serves as a police commander in one of the provinces.
Most left Iraq after completion of their training, but others stayed through the last battle in Baghdad against coalition forces earlier this year.
The officer said he remembers the leader of the group was a Saudi cleric named Muhammad "who was a fervent and audacious individual and did not require much training."
"He was highly skilled, and could fire accurately at a target while riding a motorcycle," the Iraqi officer said. "Additionally, he used to deliver fiery sermons calling for jihad and for fighting the Americans anywhere in the world."
Surprisingly, he continued, "this man's picture, alongside the commander of the Special Forces school, was televised several times before the beginning of the war and the fall of the former regime."
At the beginning of the Iraq war this year, the officer said, "we were surprised to see the same people whom we had trained return to the Special Forces school and with them 100 additional individuals. The high command asked us to retrain them and to divide them into several groups to be deployed in various areas in Iraq."
"Truth be told," he said, "most of these individuals competed to go to war and to the front lines. Therefore, under pressure they participated immediately in extremely fierce battles that astonished the Iraqis and the Americans."
On April 5, about 100 of the foreign trainees were sent to the 11th company division on the front lines in Nasiriya.
"And for the sake of history," he said, "I will say that this division's endurance was due to some formidable fighters, the commanding officer and members of al-Qaida who fought with intensity and brutality that are seldom matched, while they were praising Allah: Allahu Akbar [Allah is great] … Allahu Akbar. …"
These battled, which took place for 17 days, forced coalition troops to withdraw and re-enter from the industrial areas of Nasiriya, he noted.
Others went to al-Kifl, he said, and participated in "extremely brutal battles."
"Not many of them retreated and they sacrificed their lives to Apache [helicopter] fire, amid the admiration of the Iraqis and the Americans themselves," he said. "The proof is that some of them blew themselves up in the midst of American forces."

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http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/cold/photos_prove_connection_between_iraq_and_al_qaeda_terrorists.guest.html

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27-4-2003
The proof that Saddam worked with bin Laden
Inigo Gilmore

The proof that Saddam worked with bin Laden
By Inigo Gilmore(Filed: 27/04/2003)

Iraqi intelligence documents discovered in Baghdad by The Telegraph have provided the first evidence of a direct link between Osama bin Laden's al-Qa'eda terrorist network and Saddam Hussein's regime.

Papers found yesterday in the bombed headquarters of the Mukhabarat, Iraq's intelligence service, reveal that an al-Qa'eda envoy was invited clandestinely to Baghdad in March 1998.

The documents show that the purpose of the meeting was to establish a relationship between Baghdad and al-Qa'eda based on their mutual hatred of America and Saudi Arabia. The meeting apparently went so well that it was extended by a week and ended with arrangements being discussed for bin Laden to visit Baghdad.

The papers will be seized on by Washington as the first proof of what the United States has long alleged - that, despite denials by both sides, Saddam's regime had a close relationship with al-Qa'eda.

The Telegraph found the file on bin Laden inside a folder lying in the rubble of one of the rooms of the destroyed intelligence HQ. There are three pages, stapled together; two are on paper headed with the insignia and lettering of the Mukhabarat.

They show correspondence between Mukhabarat agencies over preparations for the visit of al-Qa'eda's envoy, who travelled to Iraq from Sudan, where bin Laden had been based until 1996. They disclose what Baghdad hopes to achieve from the meeting, which took place less than five months before bin Laden was placed at the top of America's most wanted list following the bombing of two US embassies in east Africa.

Perhaps aware of the sensitivities of the subject matter, Iraqi agents at some point clumsily attempted to mask out all references to bin Laden, using white correcting fluid. The dried fluid was removed to reveal the clearly legible name three times in the documents.

One paper is marked "Top Secret and Urgent". It is signed "MDA", a codename believed to be the director of one of the intelligence sections within the Mukhabarat, and dated February 19, 1998. It refers to the planned trip from Sudan by bin Laden's unnamed envoy and refers to the arrangements for his visit.

A letter with this document says the envoy is a trusted confidant of bin Laden. It adds: "According to the above, we suggest permission to call the Khartoum station [Iraq's intelligence office in Sudan] to facilitate the travel arrangements for the above-mentioned person to Iraq. And that our body carry all the travel and hotel costs inside Iraq to gain the knowledge of the message from bin Laden and to convey to his envoy an oral message from us to bin Laden."

The letter refers to al-Qa'eda's leader as an opponent of the Saudi Arabian regime and says that the message to convey to him through the envoy "would relate to the future of our relationship with him, bin Laden, and to achieve a direct meeting with him."

According to handwritten notes at the bottom of the page, the letter was passed on through another director in the Mukhabarat and on to the deputy director general of the intelligence service.It recommends that "the deputy director general bring the envoy to Iraq because we may find in this envoy a way to maintain contacts with bin Laden". The deputy director general has signed the document. All of the signatories use codenames.

The other documents then confirm that the envoy travelled from Khartoum to Baghdad in March 1998, staying at al-Mansour Melia, a first-class hotel. It mentions that his visit was extended by a week. In the notes in a margin, a name "Mohammed F. Mohammed Ahmed" is mentioned, but it is not clear whether this is the the envoy or an agent.

Intriguingly, the Iraqis talk about sending back an oral message to bin Laden, perhaps aware of the risk of a written message being intercepted. However, the documents do not mention if any meeting took place between bin Laden and Iraqi officials.

The file contradicts the claims of Baghdad, bin Laden and many critics of the coalition that there was no link between the Iraqi regime and al-Qa'eda. One Western intelligence official contacted last night described the file as "sensational", adding: "Baghdad clearly sought out the meeting. The regime would have wanted it to happen in the capital as it's only there they would feel safe from surveillance by Western intelligence."

Over the past three weeks, The Telegraph has discovered various other intelligence files in the wrecked Mukhabarat building, including documents revealing how Russia passed on to Iraq details of private conversations between Tony Blair and Silvio Berlusconi, the Italian prime minister, and how Germany held clandestine meetings with the regime.

A Downing Street spokesman said last night: "Since Saddam's fall a series of documents have come to light which will have to be fully assessed by the proper authorities over a period of time. We will certainly want to study these documents as part of that process to see if they shed new light on the relationship between Saddam's regime and al-Qa'eda.

© Copyright of Telegraph Group Limited 2003

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Excon,

The war in Iraq and the war on terror are ONE AND THE SAME. They always have been. And if you see fit to ignore the very strong evidence to that effect, then there is nothing that I can do to convince you. Which is a shame, because you are generally a very intelligent arguer.

We are both in agreement that we currently have weak borders. We are both in agreement that our airports are not as secure as they should be. We both agree that people are getting into this country who should not be allowed to get in.

Yet there has not been an attack on US soil in 916 days, so far.

I wonder why.

Could it be that attacking Iraq kept al-qaeda from being able to attack us? And if so, why? Could it be that Iraq and al-qaeda are so interconnected that an attack on one weakens the other? Could it be that the forces of al-qaeda are so busy fighting in Iraq that they have been unable to attack us here? Could it be that by attacking their strongholds and supporters in Afghanistan and Iraq has left them too weak to attack us yet? And if that is the case, doesn't that constitute a good result from a security point of view?

Until now, we have been able to keep the terrorists off balance. Eventually the terrorists will get their feet under them again. And when that happens, we will have to attack another of their strongholds and force them off balance again. I don't doubt that they will eventually get a strike in on us. It may be a big one... potentially bigger than 9-11. But the only way to keep such attacks from becoming every day occurances as they have become in Israel is to keep attaking the terrorists wherever they hide. Including Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Syria, Jordan, the PA, Pakistan, India, and everywhere else they are. If there is a connection to any regime, no matter how tenuous, that link needs to be cut off, and the terrorists need to be isolated with no support, monetary or military. And that means going in to the places that YOU, excon, don't neccessarily agree with going in to. It means going in to places that haven't actually attacked us. The fact that you believe that we should be going in to Pakistan and Saudi Arabia makes it clear that you agree with this much.

I find it interesting that you feel that attacking Iraq and Afghanistan is wrong, but attacking Saudi Arabia and Pakistan is ok. You feel that we should not have attacked Iraq and Afghanistan because Iraq and Afghanistan never actually attacked America. Well, neither did Saudi Arabia or Pakistan. Why are you advocating attacking those countries but are so against attacking Iraq and Afghanistan? Could it be that you are not against attacking Iraq or Afghanistan per se, but are just against any decision that Bush makes? If Bush had decided to attack Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, you would be arguing about us attacking THEM and that we should have attacked Iraq and Afghanistan, because that is where the terrorists are hiding and training.

Simply put, excon, your bias is showing again. You agree that the war on terror needs to be fought. And you agree that going in to other countries to fight terrorists is neccessary too. But you refuse to accept that Iraq is one of those places. If you cannot except photographic, eye-witness and documentary evidence of Iraq's connection with al-qaeda, then there's nothing to talk about. Because all the evidence you need exists, and is there for you to look at. And the only reason that you would fail to do so is if you are predisposed against such evidence because it would prove you wrong about Bush. And you so sorely hate being wrong about Bush.

Elliot

Clarification/Follow-up by tomder55 on 03/17/04 7:08 am:
Iraq ties to al Qaeda /9 -11 etc.(these are only a few of the links available . In my view ,this casus belli was not used enough in the pre-war debate :

Mohammd Atta trianed by Abu Nidal in Iraq .




Case Closed by Stephen F.Hayes



The Iraq Al Qaeda Connections By Richard Miniter

Clarification/Follow-up by excon on 03/17/04 1:07 pm:

Hello again, Elliot:

Let’s see…. I’m biased and you have the truth on your side. And then you cite Rush Limprod as your source “for the truth”. I suppose I ought to believe it too. Rush screams at me from the side of every bus in town, “that he has arrived at the truth”. Well here’s his truth. He still thinks the government is swell, while the DEA is trying to stick it deep inside him. That kind of truth, I can live without.

Reams? I don’t see no steenking reams. Plus, I don’t doubt that some Al Qaida dude met with some Iraqi dude. And I don’t doubt further that given enough time, they would have conspired to do us harm. That connection, however, isn’t grounds for a pre-emptive attack, and we were busy at the time. The terrorists were Saudi Arabians, not Iraqi’s.

You misrepresent my views on other accounts as well. Let me clear things up for you. I hit back. Hitting back is good. We absolutely should have attacked Afghanistan. But, in our own inimitable way, we screwed it up. We didn’t finish the job, because the neo-cons wanted to go after Saddam. PLUS (emphasis is my own) we’re up to our old two faced, hypocritical, foreign policy tricks again. The Northern Alliance (our SOB who replaced their SOB), grows opium – and we look the other way. That kind of thinking is what got us into trouble in the first place. In Iraq, we’re doing it again, replacing their SOB with our SOB.

However, I digress.

We should have gone after, and in the following order: Afghanistan and the Taliban, Syria (Lebanon) and Hamas, Iran and Hezobollah, Saudi Arabia (our SOB’s are selling us out), Pakistan (our SOB is selling us out), Abu Nidal in the Philippines, North Korea, Libya (although Kadaffy capitulated), the PLO, and maybe we should help our Russian friends out and go after the Chechnya rebels. Plus if Egypt and Jordan don’t start cleaning up their act, we should kick their butts too. I may have left some other terrorist organizations off my list, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t take care of them too. I just don’t happen to know who they all are.

Have I made myself clear?

excon

Clarification/Follow-up by ETWolverine on 03/17/04 2:53 pm:
Excon,

1) Rush's website was only ONE of the sources I cited. I see no mention of the other sources I used or the ones that Tomder used. You conveniently ignore 5 other sources of proof and concentrate on only one... and you have yet to refute that one, other than to say "oh, its from Rush, so it doesn't count."

2) There are REAMS of this information. Tom and I only provided 6 such sources. There's plety more available, if you're willing to look for it. A few minutes doing an internet search should provide you with hundreds, if not thousands of applicable hits.

3) You are biased against Bush. You have pretty much made that clear in our conversations. Pardon me all to heck for pointing out what anyone who has followed our conversations already knows... that you are biased against Bush, and I'm biased in favor of him. But unlike you, I have provided sources for my claims of the connection between al-qaeda and Iraq. You have simply made accusations of "replacing their SOB with our SOB", and "Bush screwed up". Frankly, another day has passed since my last post, and we STILL haven't seen an attack on American soil. So if Bush screwed up, you sure can't see it from a military point of view.

4) Yes you have made yourself quite clear. You are quite willing to fight the terrorists wherever they hide. You just disagree with Bush's priorities, and leave Iraq off your list. So again I need to ask you: whay makes attacking Syria, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and all those other countries you cite okay, but attacking Iraq wrong? Why is Iraq not on that list? Can you really tell me there's a difference between Iraq and Libya, or between Iraq and Iran, or between Iraq and Syria? Why are those countries open season, but Iraq is hands off? Could it be because it's the one that Bush chose --- which of course taints it in your eyes?

Elliot

Clarification/Follow-up by tomder55 on 03/18/04 8:05 am:
it would be old news to rehash all the reasons to take out Saddam that were given prior to the war .everyone clings to WMD because the case is not closed on them ,and lack of connection to terrorism (?)or was that al qaeda (?) or was that 9-11(?).

That Saddam funded terrorism is not debatable . His training of terrorist at Salman Pak in the skills needed to hijack planes is compelling enough ,but the evidence of the level of cooperation between Saddam and al qaeda grows everyday .(I do not know how much of this info. was known prior to the war because ---well --- at least from the public's view ,our intelligence system is flawed ).

I was upset that we did not finish the job in 1990-91 . In my view it was a huge betrayal to incite the Iraqis to rebellion ,and then stand there and watch Saddam's Republican Guard slaughter them . I figure that we owed them this .

Something had to be done there. The sanction regime was not working ,and was weakening daily thanks to our buddies like France ,Germany ,and the corrupt officials at the U.N. We were stuck in this stupid game of having our jets shot at while patrolling no fly zones ,watching sanctions being routinely violated ,and our response was to lob an occasional cruise missle .

What was the incentive for Saddam to comply ? He was living high on the hog ;building palaces with money skimmed from the illegal sales of oil ,or the legal sale of oil that the profits were supposed to buy food and medicine for the people .His grip on power was strengthening ,and the Iraqi people had another generation of Uday and Kusay to look forward to when Saddam was gone .

Whether it was a priority to invade Iraq is certainly debatable . I don't buy the argument that because Afghanistan is not a done deal that we should suspend activities elsewhere. From a strategic point of view ,toppling Saddam has sent a powerful message . The Saudi's are now cooperating with us ,the Pakistani's have become the leopard that changed his spots(and Musharraf
has put himself in harms way to do so.)Libya has unilaterally disarmed . Iranian clerics have a democratic movement in the country they will eventually fall to.

Check out Fred Barnes article today on the one year anniversary of the invasion . Anyway it is sliced or diced ; Taking out Saddam was the right thing to do.

Fred Barnes