Be all you can be.

[javafiend]

Amusetec wrote:

javafiend-They did not violate airspace of a sovereign nation. Just one that we had a cease fire with and in the cease fire we had fly rights.

Goron wrote:

A defeated sovereign nation in material breach of the cease fire agreement.

Neither of you guys know what you are talking about here.

The truth is that a "no-fly zone" over Iraq was proclaimed by the US, UK and France after the 1991 Gulf War, but it was NOT part of any cease-fire agreement, it was NEVER agreed to by the Iraqi government, and it was NOT authorized by any UN resolution.

CHECK THE FACTS.

YOU guys are the ones who need to go back and check the facts.

I challenge you to prove me wrong. If the establishment of a no-fly zone over Iraq was ever part of a cease-fire agreement or UN resolution, then find the specific portion and cite it to me and I will publicly eat my words here on The High Road.

/throw_down_gauntlet

 

[jeff-10]

The truth is that a "no-fly zone" over Iraq was proclaimed by the US, UK and France after the 1991 Gulf War,

They lost a war and were told there was a no-fly zone by the nations to whom they lost the war to. Abide by it or lose another.

and it was NOT authorized by any UN resolution.

The UN is an irrelevant, anti-liberty, corrupt organization. Why would they have any say on US policy and security?

 

[GoRon]

They lost a war and were told there was a no-fly zone by the nations to whom they lost the war to. Abide by it or lose another.

The US, UK and France declared the no fly zones to protect the Kurds in the north and the Shiites in the south.

The UN eventually declared there was no authorization for the no fly zones and France stopped participating. Why would you want to harass such a lucrative business partner?

Javafiend once again in lockstep with the currupt UN.

 

[roo_ster]

The anti-war crowd is anything but. They are just rooting for the other side.

Supporting our troops means supporting their mission. Poll after poll of the troops over there shows that the vast majority* of them agree with their mission. Not supporting their mission is a defensible position, but then saying that, "I support the troops" is hogwash.

In the era when television ruled the information universe, televised protests and video of "dissenters" did, indeed, give heart to the enemy in Viet Nam. If you don't believe me, perhaps you will find General Vo Nguyen Giap more credible:

There will be plenty of postmortems to come on how and why the U.S. lost Indo-China. It might be more interesting to think about how the people won Indo-China -- and how the anti-war movement helped them do it.

(from the book, How We Won the War, by General Vo Nguyen Giap)

Given contemporary menas of communication, does anyone really believe that anti-war protesting & "dissent" has a lesser effect?

* Of course, some can be found who do not support the mission. Promoting them as representative is dishonest.

 

[PaulV]

This guy was really a dedicated enemy of Islamofacism:

Oil for Osama

Oil for Terror

Saddam and al Qaeda

He loves Palestinian terror groups too

Many Americans are going to have a lot to be ashamed of several years down the road. In particular how they were so willing to give the benefit of the doubt to a bloody tyrant because of their blind hatred of one man while readily pissing on their fellow countrymen because they believe the country is engaged in a noble cause.

 

[Paco]

jFruser,

My goodness, how is not supporting a war one believes to be a waste of American lives translated into supporting the other side. What kind of leap of logic is that.

So ANY war once impelled by the POTUS must be followed and supported without dissent?

Have you read any history on the revolutionary war or what our forefathers felt about such compelled silence?

Why has this thread become more about 'the right to voice dissent' and 'America-haters'. My God, if ever I've heard anti-American talk, it's to tell an American trying to get our boys home safe that they are CHEERING for the deaths of American soldiers just because they believe those same soldiers shouldn't be deployed where they are.

-Are you gonna say that to a mother or father who has a son/daughter over there? That if they, and there are many, dissent to this war, that they wish their children dead??????

 

[bountyhunter]

My goodness, how is not supporting a war one believes to be a waste of American lives translated into supporting the other side. What kind of leap of logic is that.

The same kind they used back in the 60's on the people who opposed the Viet nam war. Anybody who spoke out against that war was a "commie lover".

The bumper sticker's back then read:

"My country, right or wrong."

Things never really change.

 

[bountyhunter]

Many Americans are going to have a lot to be ashamed of several years down the road.

Agreed.

In particular how they were so willing to give the benefit of the doubt to a bloody tyrant because of their blind hatred of one man

Actually, most who oppose this war knew Saddam for what he was and knew what a disasterous and shortsighted policy it was when Reagan armed and supported him so he could pound Iran into the turf as revenge for taking our hostages. We should have stayed the hell out of that because Hussein was getting his ass kicked and he would have eventually been overthrown from within. Arabs handling Arab problems is always better than the US forcing a "solution", just check the pages of history.

Nobody had any doubt what Hussein was, because he was a carbon copy of every murdering thug the US government has backed in the last hundred years from Alliende, "Baby Doc" Duvallier, Taco Samoza, Shah of Uran, yadda, yadda, yadda. We knew exactly who he was and what he was for (a surrogate enforcer).

But none of that is relevant to the war we are in because we are at war with Islamofascism and Hussein never supported that in any material way... in fact, Hussein's regime was singled out for overthrow and publicly called an "infidel regime" by Osama Bin laden.

Did you conveniently forget that?

The bottom line is we destroyed the only regime in the region with that particular interest aligned with ours. And Iraq had done a good job of keeping Al Qaeda out of it's region and also suppressing the gathering strength of Islamofascism. That has left us isolated and friendless in that region... except of course for the great support we get from our ally saudi Arabia who funds both Al Qaeda and the Iraq insurgency and whose clerics extoll the young men to go to Iraq to kill Americans.

With allies like them, who needs enemies?

while readily pissing on their fellow countrymen because they believe the country is engaged in a noble cause.

The only "pissing" that is going on is loud objection to a failed policy with no exit plan and no end in sight. And exactly what is the noble cause? When we gave the Iraqi's the "right to choose", they immediately rejected the candidates who supported US interets and voted in a pack of Islamic radicals closely aligned with Iran.

Is creating a new satellite state for Iran "noble" in your mind?

because, to me it seems like a worst case scenario. It not only strengthens Iran's hold in the region, it completely refutes the ridiculous assumption that Bush used to justify his war: that they would choose a democracy if given the chance. They chose a THEOCRACY and they did it all by themselves.....

Theocracy: A government ruled by or subject to religious authority.

The only thing everybody in Iraq agrees on is that the new laws governing it will be derived from the Quaran.

 

[Colt]

Two Points

1 - The liberation of Iraq didn't "turn it into an Al Qaeda training ground." The increase in insurgent activity is the clearest of all indicators that a stable, free Iraq is the gravest of all threats to radical islam. The flak is always heaviest when you're over the target. The fundamentalists are coming out of the woodwork because they can see that the US is going to be successful in establishing order. The cowards are no longer able to train for 8 months in the desert, buy a ticket to the US, and put the hurt on our civilian population. These cowards are being shaken from their hidey-holes by A) their leaders who see a free Iraq as the kiss of death for their plans, and B) the US & Iraqi military. The insurgents are coming face-to-face with the most highly motivated, well trained, and formidably equipped military the world has ever known. That beats the hell out of "fighting them" with office buildings full of defensless civilians and wishful "peacenik" ideology.

2 - For those that claim we're establishing a Theocracy in Iraq, you might want to take a look at how the US came into being. Remember, it's freedom OF religion, not freedom FROM religion. Our government is the envy of the world because it was built by outstanding citizens with strong religious convictions who weren't afraid to base the rule of law and the governing ideals on those very same beliefs.

 

[PaulV]

But none of that is relevant to the war we are in because we are at war with Islamofascism and Hussein never supported that in any material way... And Iraq had done a good job of keeping Al Qaeda out of it's region and also suppressing the gathering strength of Islamofascism.

Blatantly untrue. I know it's useless to point out that I posted links to a few articles with specific claims about his support. You'll dismiss them as propoganda.

So many are blinded by hatred for Bush that short of videotape of Hussein smooching bin Laden you won't believe any source that links Hussein to Islamic terrorism.

 

[PaulV]

Al Qaida knows they can count on help from the anti-war crowd

 

[Vern Humphrey]

Al Qaida knows they can count on help from the anti-war crowd

Exactly right -- just as Ho Chi Minh knew he could count on help from the anti-war crowd.

Everyone has the right to an opinion, but those who recklessly attack the United States in this effort are contributing to the deaths of American soldiers, just as they did during the Viet Nam War.

Do not do to this generation of American soldiers what the Jane Fondas did to my generation.

 

[Colt]

But none of that is relevant to the war we are in because we are at war with Islamofascism and Hussein never supported that in any material way

In support of PaulV's well-founded contention that the above statement is patently false:

Those who try to whitewash Saddam's record don't dispute this evidence; they just ignore it. So let's review the evidence, all of it on the public record for months or years:
* Abdul Rahman Yasin was the only member of the al Qaeda cell that detonated the 1993 World Trade Center bomb to remain at large in the Clinton years. He fled to Iraq. U.S. forces recently discovered a cache of documents in Tikrit, Saddam's hometown, that show that Iraq gave Mr. Yasin both a house and monthly salary.
* Bin Laden met at least eight times with officers of Iraq's Special Security Organization, a secret police agency run by Saddam's son Qusay, and met with officials from Saddam's mukhabarat, its external intelligence service, according to intelligence made public by Secretary of State Colin Powell, who was speaking before the United Nations Security Council on February 6, 2003.
* Sudanese intelligence officials told me that their agents had observed meetings between Iraqi intelligence agents and bin Laden starting in 1994, when bin Laden lived in Khartoum.
* Bin Laden met the director of the Iraqi mukhabarat in 1996 in Khartoum, according to Mr. Powell.
* An al Qaeda operative now held by the U.S. confessed that in the mid-1990s, bin Laden had forged an agreement with Saddam's men to cease all terrorist activities against the Iraqi dictator, Mr. Powell told the United Nations.
* In 1999 the Guardian, a British newspaper, reported that Farouk Hijazi, a senior officer in Iraq's mukhabarat, had journeyed deep into the icy mountains near Kandahar, Afghanistan, in December 1998 to meet with al Qaeda men. Mr. Hijazi is "thought to have offered bin Laden asylum in Iraq," the Guardian reported.
* In October 2000, another Iraqi intelligence operative, Salah Suleiman, was arrested near the Afghan border by Pakistani authorities, according to Jane's Foreign Report, a respected international newsletter. Jane's reported that Suleiman was shuttling between Iraqi intelligence and Ayman al Zawahiri, now al Qaeda's No. 2 man.
(Why are all of those meetings significant? The London Observer reports that FBI investigators cite a captured al Qaeda field manual in Afghanistan, which "emphasizes the value of conducting discussions about pending terrorist attacks face to face, rather than by electronic means.")
* As recently as 2001, Iraq's embassy in Pakistan was used as a "liaison" between the Iraqi dictator and al Qaeda, Mr. Powell told the United Nations.
* Spanish investigators have uncovered documents seized from Yusuf Galan -- who is charged by a Spanish court with being "directly involved with the preparation and planning" of the Sept. 11 attacks -- that show the terrorist was invited to a party at the Iraqi embassy in Madrid. The invitation used his "al Qaeda nom de guerre," London's Independent reports.
* An Iraqi defector to Turkey, known by his cover name as "Abu Mohammed," told Gwynne Roberts of the Sunday Times of London that he saw bin Laden's fighters in camps in Iraq in 1997. At the time, Mohammed was a colonel in Saddam's Fedayeen. He described an encounter at Salman Pak, the training facility southeast of Baghdad. At that vast compound run by Iraqi intelligence, Muslim militants trained to hijack planes with knives -- on a full-size Boeing 707. Col. Mohammed recalls his first visit to Salman Pak this way: "We were met by Colonel Jamil Kamil, the camp manager, and Major Ali Hawas. I noticed that a lot of people were queuing for food. (The major) said to me: 'You'll have nothing to do with these people. They are Osama bin Laden's group and the PKK and Mojahedin-e Khalq.'"
* In 1998, Abbas al-Janabi, a longtime aide to Saddam's son Uday, defected to the West. At the time, he repeatedly told reporters that there was a direct connection between Iraq and al Qaeda.
*The Sunday Times found a Saddam loyalist in a Kurdish prison who claims to have been Dr. Zawahiri's bodyguard during his 1992 visit with Saddam in Baghdad. Dr. Zawahiri was a close associate of bin Laden at the time and was present at the founding of al Qaeda in 1989.
* Following the defeat of the Taliban, almost two dozen bin Laden associates "converged on Baghdad and established a base of operations there," Mr. Powell told the United Nations in February 2003. From their Baghdad base, the secretary said, they supervised the movement of men, materiel and money for al Qaeda's global network.
* In 2001, an al Qaeda member "bragged that the situation in Iraq was 'good,'" according to intelligence made public by Mr. Powell.
* That same year, Saudi Arabian border guards arrested two al Qaeda members entering the kingdom from Iraq.
* Abu Musaab al-Zarqawi oversaw an al Qaeda training camp in Afghanistan, Mr. Powell told the United Nations. His specialty was poisons. Wounded in fighting with U.S. forces, he sought medical treatment in Baghdad in May 2002. When Zarqawi recovered, he restarted a training camp in northern Iraq. Zarqawi's Iraq cell was later tied to the October 2002 murder of Lawrence Foley, an official of the U.S. Agency for International Development, in Amman, Jordan. The captured assassin confessed that he received orders and funds from Zarqawi's cell in Iraq, Mr. Powell said. His accomplice escaped to Iraq.
*Zarqawi met with military chief of al Qaeda, Mohammed Ibrahim Makwai (aka Saif al-Adel) in Iran in February 2003, according to intelligence sources cited by the Washington Post.
* Mohammad Atef, the head of al Qaeda's military wing until the U.S. killed him in Afghanistan in November 2001, told a senior al Qaeda member now in U.S. custody that the terror network needed labs outside of Afghanistan to manufacture chemical weapons, Mr. Powell said. "Where did they go, where did they look?" said the secretary. "They went to Iraq."
* Abu Abdullah al-Iraqi was sent to Iraq by bin Laden to purchase poison gases several times between 1997 and 2000. He called his relationship with Saddam's regime "successful," Mr. Powell told the United Nations.
* Mohamed Mansour Shahab, a smuggler hired by Iraq to transport weapons to bin Laden in Afghanistan, was arrested by anti-Hussein Kurdish forces in May, 2000. He later told his story to American intelligence and a reporter for the New Yorker magazine.
* Documents found among the debris of the Iraqi Intelligence Center show that Baghdad funded the Allied Democratic Forces, a Ugandan terror group led by an Islamist cleric linked to bin Laden. According to a London's Daily Telegraph, the organization offered to recruit "youth to train for the jihad" at a "headquarters for international holy warrior network" to be established in Baghdad.
* Mullah Melan Krekar, ran a terror group (the Ansar al-Islam) linked to both bin Laden and Saddam Hussein. Mr. Krekar admitted to a Kurdish newspaper that he met bin Laden in Afghanistan and other senior al Qaeda officials. His acknowledged meetings with bin Laden go back to 1988. When he organized Ansar al Islam in 2001 to conduct suicide attacks on Americans, "three bin Laden operatives showed up with a gift of $300,000 'to undertake jihad,'" Newsday reported. Mr. Krekar is now in custody in the Netherlands. His group operated in portion of northern Iraq loyal to Saddam Hussein -- and attacked independent Kurdish groups hostile to Saddam. A spokesman for the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan told a United Press International correspondent that Mr. Krekar's group was funded by "Saddam Hussein's regime in Baghdad."
* After October 2001, hundreds of al Qaeda fighters are believed to have holed up in the Ansar al-Islam's strongholds inside northern Iraq.

Edited for article credit: This was pulled from the Weekly Standard website about 2 years ago.

 

[RealGun]

So ANY war once impelled by the POTUS must be followed and supported without dissent? - Paco

Yes, pretty much, especially with bipartisan cooperation from Congress. Otherwise you get in the way and work against the military effort.

 

[MTMilitiaman]

Okay. So let me get this right...

Being skeptical of the war that might kill my brother because I love my brother means that I want to see my brother die with his fellow soldiers? And this is the logic some of you suscribe too?

That is so outrageous and appallingly stupid. Seriously. Some of you guys like to sound really hot on your soap boxes but anyone with a brain and the ability to use it can see you're full of s---.

 

[Vern Humphrey]

Being skeptical of the war that might kill my brother because I love my brother means that I want to see my brother die with his fellow soldiers? And this is the logic some of you suscribe too?

The logic I subscribe to is the logic of the battlefield. The logic of looking into a man's face before you zip him up into the bodybag, so you can check the box marked "positive identification." The logic of being wounded and still having to fight on.

I was there -- and I know how this encourages the enemy and kills American soldiers.

That is so outrageous and appallingly stupid.

What is outrageous and appallingly stupid is the willingness to irresponsibly encourage the enemy while our troops are in battle.

 

[Carl N. Brown]

If there had been no No-Fly zones, Saddam Hussein
would have exterminated the Kurds in the north and
the Shias in the south.

We are where we are today because we cut and ran in
Vietnam, cut and ran in Lebanon, cut and ran in Somalia,
and Ossam Bin Ladin has written that he is counting on
that happening in Iraq and Afghanistan.

When the Daily Show makes fun of the war protest.....

 

[Ezekiel]

?

I was there -- and I know how this encourages the enemy and kills American soldiers.

Respectfully, are you sure it wasn't that whole "lack of cohesive stategy or exit plan" thing? I'm fairly certain -- as now -- that bumbling executive lunacy was in the recipe for mayhem.

Merely a thought. :banghead:

 

[Mongo the Mutterer]

What is outrageous and appallingly stupid is the willingness to irresponsibly encourage the enemy while our troops are in battle.

Yep Vern, I remember something about a "winter soldier" a few years back.

Perhaps a few folks might want to review the US Constitution -- ARTICLE III. Section. 3. Clause 1

 

[Vern Humphrey]

Respectfully, are you sure it wasn't that whole "lack of cohesive stategy or exit plan" thing? I'm fairly certain -- as now -- that bumbling executive lunacy was in the recipe for mayhem.

I was there.

After the war I worked with people who were POWs.

I know what went on from my own experience and personal conversations with others who had experience. I didn't rely on TV and self-serving accounts written afterwards to justify what some of these people did.

 

[Vern Humphrey]

Yep Vern, I remember something about a "winter soldier" a few years back.

That's a good example of what happened -- people who were not soldiers and pretending they were.

Perhaps a few folks might want to review the US Constitution -- ARTICLE III. Section. 3. Clause 1

My old boss, Colonel Thompson, who was a POW for 9 years called Jane Fonda a traitor on national television -- and I agree with him.

 

[KriegHund]

I love it how people diss the armed forces nowadays. Its pathetic.

Yeah, lets see what happens when we have no military. Its despicable!

These people made a conscious choice to join, to protect you

The way they disrespect the armed forces is...disguisting.

*edit*

and you know what, i dont give a flying....frigate if recruiters lie. I dont think many other people do either, because these men and woman fight and die and victor.

 

[bountyhunter]

I generally don't waste time responding to urban myths so thoroughly discredited, so I will just ask one question:

Still waiting for the unanswered question:

If there is a shred of credible evidence showing Iraq provided ANY material support for terrorists (which was Bush's claim to justify the war), then exactly why has the Bush admin gone dead silent on that subject after being publicly humiliated for not being able to back up those claims?

Please answer the question.

You throw up (literally) a bunch of crap the admin wouldn't touch with a fishing pole as if it were the smoking gun, yet run from an obvious fact:

If the admin could back up EVEN ONE claim of showing Iraq was supporting terrorism, when will the press conference be where Bush waves the proof and yells: "I told you so?"

NO?

That's what I thought you said.


And for the record, I am so sick of rehashing anecdotal BS garbage our own intel services have debunked about "sightings" and "meetings" yadda, yadda, yadda, I would just say the smart move is to join Bush and Cheney and stop going back to it. It's as dead as roadkill and smells similar.



http://www.iraqfoundation.org/news/2002/isept/26_bush.html

The administration had begun deemphasizing claims of links between Hussein and global terrorism. Senior intelligence officials told The Washington Post this month that the CIA had not found convincing proof, despite efforts that included surveillance photos and communications intercepts.


http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2003-06-26-iraq-alqaeda_x.htm

U.N. committee: No Iraq-al-Qaeda link
UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The U.N. terrorism committee has found no evidence to support Bush administration claims of a link between Iraq and al-Qaeda, and the United States has provided the committee with no proof, officials said Thursday.

http://www.thememoryhole.org/war/no-saddam-qaeda.htm

Bush Flatly Declares No Connection Between
Saddam and al Qaeda

The occasion was a press conference with UK Prime Minister Tony Blair, which took place in the White House on 31 January 2003. Here's the key portion:


[Adam Boulton, Sky News (London):] One question for you both. Do you believe that there is a link between Saddam Hussein, a direct link, and the men who attacked on September the 11th?

THE PRESIDENT: I can't make that claim.

THE PRIME MINISTER: That answers your question.



Under any circumstances, these answers are remarkable for their brevity and directness. No politician answers clearly and in just one sentence. Yet on this crucial matter, Bush and Blair did just that. (True, Blair then launched into his standard speech about how we need to attack Iraq anyway, but his direct answer is brief and to the point.)

What they unambiguously admitted is that there is no connection between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden/al Qaeda. You may recall that bin Laden and al Qaeda are officially blamed for hatching, plotting, and carrying out the 9/11 attacks. That's who the British reporter was referring to. Now the President and Prime Minister have said there is no link between them and the government of Iraq. Could it be any simpler?


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A47812-2004Jun16.html

Al Qaeda-Hussein Link Is Dismissed

By Walter Pincus and Dana Milbank
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, June 17, 2004; Page A01


The Sept. 11 commission reported yesterday that it has found no "collaborative relationship" between Iraq and al Qaeda, challenging one of the Bush administration's main justifications for the war in Iraq.


http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/meast/03/11/Iraq.Qaeda.link/

Bin Laden recently declared solidarity with the Iraqi people, but he lashed out at Saddam's government. In the latest audiotaped message purported to be recorded by the al Qaeda leader, bin Laden denounced Saddam's socialist Baath party as "infidels."





http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0303-01.htm

Doubts Cast on Efforts to Link Saddam, al-Qaida
by Warren P. Strobel, Jonathan S. Landay and John Walcott


WASHINGTON - The Bush administration's claim that Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein had ties to al-Qaida - one of the administration's central arguments for a pre-emptive war - appears to have been based on even less solid intelligence than the administration's claims that Iraq had hidden stocks of chemical and biological weapons.

Nearly a year after U.S. and British troops invaded Iraq, no evidence has turned up to verify allegations of Saddam's links with al-Qaida, and several key parts of the administration's case have either proved false or seem increasingly doubtful.



http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2003/09/16/cheney_link_of_iraq_911_challenged/

Cheney link of Iraq, 9/11 challenged
By Anne E. Kornblut and Bryan Bender , Globe Staff and Globe Correspondent, 9/16/2003

WASHINGTON -- Vice President Dick Cheney, anxious to defend the White House foreign policy amid ongoing violence in Iraq, stunned intelligence analysts and even members of his own administration this week by failing to dismiss a widely discredited claim: that Saddam Hussein might have played a role in the Sept. 11 attacks.

Evidence of a connection, if any exists, has never been made public. Details that Cheney cited to make the case that the Iraqi dictator had ties to Al Qaeda have been dismissed by the CIA as having no basis, according to analysts and officials.



Even Rummy blurted out the truth once:

http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/1005/dailyUpdate.html?s=ent

US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was forced to go into damage control mode Monday hours after a statement he made began to spread through the media.
Mr. Rumsfeld "attempted to distance himself from his earlier comments that there were no links between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda," reports The Guardian.

In a statement issued several hours after he had told the Council on Foreign Relations in New York that "to my knowledge, I have not seen any strong, hard evidence that links the two",



http://www.americanprogress.org/site/pp.asp?c=biJRJ8OVF&b=92288

There was no connection between al Qaeda and Iraq. The bipartisan 9/11 Commission reported yesterday that, "We have no credible evidence that Iraq and al Qaeda cooperated on the attacks against the United States." David Kay, the Bush administration's weapons inspector in Iraq earlier concluded, "[W]e simply did not find any evidence of extensive links with al Qaeda, or for that matter any real links at all," and called a speech where Cheney made the claim, "evidence free." The supposed meeting between Osama bin Laden associate Mohammed Atta and an Iraqi intelligence officer in Praque – one of the administration's key bits of evidence – never occurred. The FBI now believes Atta was in the United States at the time.




http://www.nti.org/d_newswire/issues/2003/6/27/1s.html

Threat Assessment: U.N. Panel Finds No Iraq-Al-Qaeda Link, But Warns of Al-Qaeda WMD Ambitions
By Jim Wurst
Global Security Newswire

UNITED NATIONS — The chairman of the Security Council group monitoring sanctions against al-Qaeda and the Taliban said yesterday that while al-Qaeda is still able to function in many countries, the group has seen no evidence of a link between the terrorist organization and the former government Iraqi government of Saddam Hussein (see GSN, May 23, 2002).




No proof of Iraq, al-Qaeda links: analysts
By Julian Borger, Michael Howard and Richard Norton-Taylor
January 31 2003



http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/01/30/1043804465839.html

President George Bush used his State of the Union address to paint a terrifying picture for the American people of another attack like September 11 - but this time with chemical, biological or nuclear weapons.

The British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, reinforced the message, telling the House of Commons: "We do know of links between al-Qaeda and Iraq. We cannot be sure of the exact extent of those links."

However, a number of well-placed sources in the British public service insisted there is no intelligence suggesting such a link. "While we have said there may possibly be individuals in the country [Iraq] we have never said anything to suggest specific links between al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein," said one.



http://www.boston.com/news/nation/w...on_assertion_linking_hussein_al_qaeda?pg=full

However, a former top weapons inspector said yesterday he and other investigators have not found evidence of a Hussein-Al Qaeda link.

''At various times Al Qaeda people came through Baghdad and in some cases resided there," said David Kay, former head of the CIA's Iraq Survey Group, which searched for Iraqi weapons of mass destruction and links to terrorism. ''But we simply did not find any evidence of extensive links with Al Qaeda, or for that matter any real links at all."


http://www.twf.org/News/Y2004/0616-911report.html

Panel Says No Signs of Iraq, Qaeda Link
Deborah Charles
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Investigators have found no evidence Iraq aided al Qaeda attempts to attack the United States, a commission investigating the Sept. 11, 2001 hijackings said on Wednesday, undermining Bush administration arguments for war. . . .

President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney this week reiterated pre-war arguments that an Iraqi connection to al Qaeda, which is blamed for the Sept. 11 attacks, represented an unacceptable threat to the United States.

However, the commission said in a staff report, "We have no credible evidence that Iraq and al Qaeda cooperated on attacks against the United States."

"There is no convincing evidence that any government financially supported al Qaeda before 9/11 -- other than limited support provided by the Taliban after bin Laden first arrived in Afghanistan," it added. . . .

The report stood in contrast to comments this week by Vice President Dick Cheney, who said that ousted Iraqi leader Saddam had "long-established ties" to al Qaeda.


http://www.coalitionforworldpeace.org/news/040617wpost.html

But the report of the commission's staff, based on its access to all relevant classified information, said that there had been contacts between Iraq and al Qaeda but no cooperation. In yesterday's hearing of the panel, formally known as the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, a senior FBI official and a senior CIA analyst concurred with the finding.

The staff report said that bin Laden "explored possible cooperation with Iraq" while in Sudan through 1996, but that "Iraq apparently never responded" to a bin Laden request for help in 1994. The commission cited reports of contacts between Iraq and al Qaeda after bin Laden went to Afghanistan in 1996, adding, "but they do not appear to have resulted in a collaborative relationship. Two senior bin Laden associates have adamantly denied that any ties existed between al Qaeda and Iraq. We have no credible evidence that Iraq and al Qaeda cooperated on attacks against the United States."



http://www.dawn.com/2004/10/06/top12.htm
Rummy said it:


WASHINGTON, Oct 5: US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said on Monday he knew of no "strong, hard evidence" linking Saddam Hussein's Iraq and Al Qaeda, despite describing extensive contacts between the two before the Iraq invasion.

Mr Rumsfeld, during a question-and-answer session before the Council on Foreign Relations in New York, was asked to explain the connection between Saddam and Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network, blamed for the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on America.

"I have seen the answer to that question migrate in the intelligence community over a period of a year in the most amazing way. Second, there are differences in the intelligence community as to what the relationship was," Rumsfeld said.

"To my knowledge, I have not seen any strong, hard evidence that links the two," Rumsfeld added. "I just read an intelligence report recently about one person who's connected to al Qaeda who was in and out of Iraq. And it is the most tortured description of why he might have had a relationship and why he might not have had a relationship. It may have been something that was not representative of a hard linkage."


http://www.fpleadership.org/exec/content/108-181-184-index.htm

The President’s claim remains unsubstantiated. As a bipartisan and independent inquiry concluded there was no collaborative relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda.


The 9/11 Commission stated: “[T]o date we have seen no evidence that these or the earlier contacts ever developed into a collaborative operational relationship. Nor have we seen evidence indicating that Iraq cooperated with al Qaeda in developing or carrying out any attacks against the United States.”
“The 9/11 Commission Report," p. 61.


The 9/11 Commission reported that as early as September 18, 2001 National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice received a memo on Iraqi involvement in 9/11. “The memo found no 'compelling case' that Iraq had either planned or perpetrated the attacks… Finally, the memo said, there was 'no confirmed reporting on Saddam cooperating with Bin Laden on unconventional weapons'.”
“The 9/11 Commission Report,” p. 335.


The 9/11 Commission did find some evidence of contact between Iraq and al Qaeda during the 1990’s but concluded that nothing resulted from their meetings.
“The 9/11 Commission Report," p. 61.

 

[Ezekiel]

I know what went on from my own experience and personal conversations with others who had experience.

I won't even TRY to dispute that, it would be a discredit to you and those who served: but is it not possible that -- at the time -- none of you were terribly objective?

“Has further analysis failed to make you question, ‘what the Hell happened’, other then to blame a reluctant citizenry for the failings of our leadership?”

“Has your initial conclusion changed not at all?”

Personally, my conclusions are readily modified with additional information…

 

[Vern Humphrey]

I won't even TRY to dispute that, it would be a discredit to you and those who served: but is it not possible that -- at the time -- none of you were terribly objective?

Is it possible that none of you are being terribly objective?

Have you gone to Iraq? Have you talked with troops and officers there?

What is your source of information?

What training and experience do you have that you can bring to bear on the raw information you have gathered yourself to make a rational, objective judgement?