New Documents Reveal Saddam Hid WMD, Was Tied to Al Qaida

[Gary H]

Recently discovered Iraqi documents now being translated by U.S. intelligence analysts indicate that Saddam Hussein's government made extensive plans to hide Iraq's weapons of mass destruction before the U.S. invasion in March 2003 - and had deep ties to al Qaida before the 9/11 attacks.

The explosive evidence was discovered among "millions of pages of documents" unearthed by the Iraq Survey Group weapons search team, reports the Weekly Standard's Stephen Hayes.

In the magazine's Nov. 21 issue, Hayes reveals that the document cache now being examined contains "a thick stew of reports and findings from a variety of [Iraqi] intelligence agencies and military units."

Though the Pentagon has so far declined to make the bombshell papers public, Hayes managed to obtain a list of titles on the reports.


Topics headlined in the still embargoed Iraqi documents include:
• Chemical Agent Purchase Orders (Dec. 2001)

• Formulas and information about Iraq's Chemical Weapons Agents

• Locations of Weapons/Ammunition Storage (with map)

• Denial and Deception of WMD and Killing of POWs

• Ricin research and improvement

• Chemical Gear for Fedayeen Saddam
• Memo from the [Iraqi Intelligence Service] to Hide Information from a U.N. Inspection team (1997)

• Iraq Ministry of Defense Calls for Investigation into why documents related to WMD were found by UN inspection team

• Correspondence between various Iraq organizations giving instructions to hide chemicals and equipment

• Correspondence from [Iraqi Intelligence Service] to [the Military Industrial Commission] regarding information gathered by foreign intelligence satellites on WMD (Dec. 2002) • Cleaning chemical suits and how to hide chemicals

• [Iraqi Intelligence Service] plan of what to do during UNSCOM inspections (1996)

Still other reports suggest that Iraq's ties to al Qaida were far deeper than previously known, featuring headlines like:

• Secret Meeting with Taliban Group Member and Iraqi Government (Nov. 2000)

• Document from Uday Hussein regarding Taliban activity

• Possible al Qaeda Terror Members in Iraq

• Iraqi Effort to Cooperate with Saudi Opposition Groups and Individuals

• Iraqi Intel report on Kurdish Activities: Mention of Kurdish Report on al Qaeda - reference to al Qaeda presence in Salman Pak

• [Iraqi Intelligence Service] report on Taliban-Iraq Connections Claims

• Money Transfers from Iraq to Afghanistan

While the document titles sound stunning enough to turn the Iraq war debate on its head, Hayes cautions that it's hard to know for certain until the full text is available.

It's possible, he writes, "that the 'Document from Uday Hussein regarding Taliban activity' was critical of one or another Taliban policies. But it's equally possible, given Uday's known role as a go-between for the Iraqi regime and al Qaeda, that something more nefarious was afoot."

"What was discussed at the 'Secret Meeting with Taliban Group Member and Iraqi Government' in November 2000? It could be something innocuous. Maybe not. But it would be nice to know more."

Hayes also notes that an additional treasure trove of evidence on Saddam Hussein's support for al Qaida may be lost forever.

"When David Kay ran the Iraq Survey Group searching for weapons of mass destruction, he instructed his team to ignore anything not directly related to the regime's WMD efforts," he reports.

"As a consequence, documents describing the regime's training and financing of terrorists were labeled 'No Intelligence Value' and often discarded, according to two sources."

http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2005/11/16/122915.shtml

So, maybe the "fat lady" has yet to sing. ( I mean size challenged female. )

 

[javafiend]

Interesting. We need to definitely watch this story and see how it develops.

 

[psyopspec]

 

[Kurush]

Though the Pentagon has so far declined to make the bombshell papers public, Hayes managed to obtain a list of titles on the reports.

Topics headlined in the still embargoed Iraqi documents include:
[...]
Men: Attract Women Now

My god... the implications...

 

[Gary H]

That is funny. I deleted the insert..sorry.

Who knows if this is another "red herring". Partial stories are just that.

 

[Lone_Gunman]

Wow. I wouldn't put much faith in this.

Remember, Saddam was a secularist. Al qaeda are fundamentalists. In general, these groups have nothing in common.

Bin Laden thought Saddam was part of the problem, not part of the solution.

I would severely doubt the authenticity of this.

 

[Boss Spearman]

I also doubt it. What I constantly heard was Hussein and Bin Laden hated each other, and Hussein kept Al Quaida out of Iraq. This story to me sounds like a bogus story to support going to war. It'll be interesting to hear more about these documents.

 

[Headless Thompson Gunner]

Do you have a source for this?

Anything this important needs serious corroboration.

 

[Jeff White]

It doesn't matter if these documents are real and prove that Saddam was flying the plane that hit the North tower of the WTC and bailed out just before impact. The opposition will insist they are fake and most people will believe them. The administration has already lost the war here on the home front.

For all of Karl Rove's suppossed political genius, they sure managed to screw this one up. They failed to heed the lessons of history and we are now doomed to repeat the mistakes of the 1960s and 70s.

List of mistakes they made:

1) They failed to ask congress for a declaration of war in September 2001. If they had done that, the administration could have had it's hunting license to go anywhere and kill whoever needed killing. I imagine that in the days right after 9-11 it would have passed with just a couple of dissenting votes. Instead they chose to continue down the same path we have with military action since 1945. This opened the conduct of future operations up to the political debate we see now.

2) They failed to listen to the professional soldiers and prosecuted the war on the cheap. They didn't expand the Army by calling up the Guard and Reserve in 2001 and letting the force build to a sufficient size to sustain a long conflict. They failed to recognize that you can't just go in and liberate a country that would have really been three countries had the Europeans not ignored natural ethnic boundries when they left the area. Surely they didn't actually believe that peace and democracy would spring up in the vacuum we left after we removed Saddam? Are they really that out of touch with history, and I mean really recent history like the Balkans after the collapse of the Soviet Union?

3) They failed to give the American people a stake in the war. "Go about your normal lives, just give up a few of your civil liberties and don't mind the body cavity search when you fly and everything will be all right." Was the message coming out of Washington. I have read that much of the rationing etc. that went on here in WWII was actually unnecessary, but the Roosevelt administration kept the polices in place to give everyone on the home front a stake in the fight. This administration failed to give the public a stake in the fight. Even though we are in a war for our very way of life, most people don't recognize that. And I thnk it's too late to convince them now.

4) They failed to understand fourth generation warfare. Even though the Secretary of Defense is supposedly tranforming the force into something to fight this type of war, they ignored the war for the hearts and minds of the American people. The most press saavy administration failed to get it's message out.

It's deja vu all over again. Almost like I woke up in 1969.........Jeff

 

[shootinstudent]

Jeff,

I think that is one solid critique of the Admin's handling of this war. Do you think the next president will be able to correct the situation, or do you see the only possible outcome being withdrawal-losing?

 

[Gary H]

Do you have a source for this?

Read the initial post.

Remember, Saddam was a secularist. Al qaeda are fundamentalists. In general, these groups have nothing in common.

Saddam fought a war with Iran and over 800,000 people were killed, but in the first "Gulf War" (that's a joke..how many wars??) Saddam sent his fighter planes to Iran. You know, the enemy of my enemy and so on.

 

[Jeff White]

shootinstudent,

I don't think they can turn it around now. They sat back and let it go on for too long. I think the public's mind is made up. That's very sad, because we are fighting for our very way of life and it will take another attack on American soil to wake people up again. The danger of that is that so many people are now conditioned to give up freedom for the appearance of security. I'm sure that after the next large attack, Patriot Act III and IV will change our way of life forever.

WE are winning on the gorund in Iraq, just like we were winning on the ground in Vietnam. But I think domestic politics will force us to pull out before the job is completed and then we will have lost. Osama's theory of how to fight the Americans will be proven to the radicals and they will continue on their merry way towards moving the West back to the 3d century.

The next couple administrations will look at what the war in Iraq did to the Bush administration and steadfastly refuse to project American power. It took from 1975 until 1989 before we decisively used military force. It may be longer this time, the country is too politicized.

Jeff

 

[Headless Thompson Gunner]

I disagree.

If these documents turn out to validate the President's claims, then the Democrats are going to lose in a big way. The Democrats have been spewing all sorts of filth about how Bush "lied" about this and that, about how Bush got us into a war for no reason, and about how Iraq was the wrong thing to do. They've been gambling on the fact that there were never any WMD in Iraq. This has looked like a pretty safe bet recently. But now...?

The Democrats made their bed, and now they get to lie in it. So did the President. These documents (if legitimate) could decide who is vindicated and who is proven wrong.

We do know that Saddam had WMD at one point in time. Maybe these documents can finally explain what happened to them.



There isn't even a whisper of this story on any other news site. If this is true, you'd expect it to be all over the place. Right?

 

[Kurush]

I for one am very skeptical. Even if the titles are legit I don't see a single one that is unambiguous evidence of anything. Yes, Iraq was stirring trouble in its neighbor countries, big deal. Yes, Iraq had chemical weapons and was evading weapons inspectors at one time. Everybody already knows there were al-Qaeda members in the Kurdish areas, it was a group called Ansar al-Islam and they wanted to overthrow Saddam. The documents referring to the Taliban are worthless. So what? The Taliban was not itself a terrorist organization. They were insane, certainly but their craziness was internally focused.

If the documents are released and prove otherwise I'll be happy to reconsider my opinion. Heck, I'd love to find out this whole war wasn't just a huge waste of life and money.

 

[Jeff White]

I haven't seen a whisper of this story on any other news site. If this is true, you'd expect it to be all over the place. Right?

How many stories about how the war is really going do you see? This isn't the kind of story that will get page one coverage anyplace else but The Weekly Standard. I know for a fact that the PAOs are sending the news releases out. But the story doesn't fit the agenda so it doesn't get published/airplay.

Who are our heros of this war? I bet if you took a poll the majority of the American people would say Jessica Lynch. I bet that not many here could post the name of the soldier getting the MOH.

Jeff

 

[Don't Tread On Me]

Smells like BS.


Will keep an eye on that though, but if we apply rational thought to all of this, it falls apart quickly. It doesn't make sense why an administration would take a pounding for years now over WMD's and not rush the Pentagon to release anything that would prove or suggest an Iraqi cover-up of their WMD program.


Al-Qaeda and Saddam aren't allies. In fact, they hate each other. Chances are they wouldn't work together. That isn't a guarantee though. Al-Qaeda would be willing to waive their religious and ideological positions to ally with anyone or any powerful state that opposes America and Israel. So it is possible, just not probable. Saddam would probably support any group that hates or fights against America, so long as this group doesn't challenge his power in Iraq.


Anyhow...keep an eye on this, but don't hold your breath. After the "mobile WMD lab" photos with arrows and diagrams that Powell presented before the UN, it will be next to impossible for this Administration to ever claim anything is authentic. They've been proven liars and have fabricated the evidence. Classic case of crying wolf.

 

[c_yeager]

A newsmax journalist using a Weekly Standard journalist as a source does not add up to anything more than nonsense^2 untill there is some kind of *actual* corroboration.

If this document exists why wasnt it published along with the original story in the first place? Or is it one of those "secret documents" that is just secret enough that one can divulge the entirety of it's contents but just a little too secret to prove?

Im getting a little too tired of BS news stories on both sides of the Iraq issue to put much stock in items that do not include something other than the supposition of a journalist with an agenda.

 

[Don't Tread On Me]

LMAO,


These post-war claims of being hot on the trail of the phantom WMD's are strangely similiar to the post-trial "we'll find the real killers" claims from the O.J. camp.


In each instance they just become more and more insulting as time goes on.

 

[NorthernExtreme]

It could proove interesting to see how this works out. Either side of the issue could be responsible for this. The administration to proove the Dems wrong. Or the Dems to try and proove more deception on the part of the administration.

Only time will tell, and only facts will matter. I for 1 do not see any proof that Bush lied (rite now), but I see plenty of lies coming from the Dems I can proove.

I'll be cautious and wait to see!!

 

[denfoote]

I also doubt it. What I constantly heard was Hussein and Bin Laden hated each other, and Hussein kept Al Quaida out of Iraq. This story to me sounds like a bogus story to support going to war. It'll be interesting to hear more about these documents.

The timing is very suspect!!

A lot of people, including myself, thought that "sure Bush is gunna find WMDs over there and they are going to have the "made in the USA" label painted over!! Well, it turned out that .gov/neocon couldn't do that because there were to many people watching!!
This is the next best thing!!

BTW, what DID happen to the Iraqi Air Force?? Surly one plane conveniently found buried in the sand did not compose the whole thing!!

 

[Geno]

What he said.

Jeff +1!

Doc2005

 

[XavierBreath]

Reams of paper do not WMDs make.

Saddam himself could confess to keeping a nuke under his bed and the confession would be called coerced.

 

[Don Gwinn]

I'll believe it when I see it--and by "it," I do not mean a list of titles of documents one reporter claims have been discovered.

Wait and see.

 

[Oldtimer]

If this info proves to be false, give it to Dan Rather. He'll report it as being factual!

On a more serious note, the American intelligence agencies have millions of seized documents that haven't been translated or analyzed yet, due to not having enough translators.

Iraq is about the same size as California. To thoroughly search such a vast area would take DECADES, not just a couple of years. Add to that, French and German contractors built numerous underground facilities for Saddam, and they were supposedly "shielded" so that ground-search radar wouldn't detect the locations. I can't recall where I saw it, but there have only been two of those underground facilities found, so far, and one of the French contractors "hesitantly" divulged that he had overseen the completion of more than one dozen.

I went through jungle warfare school in the Phillipines, back in 1966. We were informed that caves were "off limits", due to the danger of them being booby-trapped by the Japanese during WW-II.
About an hour after the initial indoctrination that we received, there was a BOOM that sounded fairly close. One of the instructors said that such explosions were "common" in the region, and that it was probably a Japanese hand grenade, with the pin pulled out, that had been placed underneath a bamboo bed inside of one of the caves. As the bamboo rotted away through the years, the grenades would go off.

Putting all of that into perspective, vindication of our current President MIGHT not take place for quite a few years....when there's a mushroom cloud in, say, the year 2025....when one of those "never existed" WMD's erodes to the point of detonation.

As for the collusion between the Iraqi leadership and al Qaeda, don't overlook the FACT that Saddam was sending personal checks to the families of Palestinian suicide bombers. Saddam LIKED terrorism, and used it on his own people! Saddam DIDN'T like the USA, which was something that he had in common with the al Qaeda. Personally, I think that Saddam and Osama were probably "drinking buddies" at one time or another.

 

[Manedwolf]

The explosive evidence was discovered among "millions of pages of documents" unearthed by the Iraq Survey Group weapons search team, reports the Weekly Standard's Stephen Hayes.

Huh. Wonder if the ink and Rove's fingerprints were still fresh on them.

BTW, if you're going to use a source, don't use Newsmax, which is even more of a talking-points-rubberstamping administration PR agency than Fox News is.

Oh, and just a little reminder. It's late 2005. Five years later. Osama bin Laden is STILL ALIVE. Why? Ask the administration that.