Exhaustive review finds no link between Saddam and al Qaida

[Barrett808]

Source: McClatchy Newspapers

Exhaustive review finds no link between Saddam and al Qaida
By Warren P. Strobel

WASHINGTON — An exhaustive review of more than 600,000 Iraqi documents that were captured after the 2003 U.S. invasion has found no evidence that Saddam Hussein's regime had any operational links with Osama bin Laden's al Qaida terrorist network.

The Pentagon-sponsored study, scheduled for release later this week, did confirm that Saddam's regime provided some support to other terrorist groups, particularly in the Middle East, U.S. officials told McClatchy. However, his security services were directed primarily against Iraqi exiles, Shiite Muslims, Kurds and others he considered enemies of his regime.

The new study of the Iraqi regime's archives found no documents indicating a "direct operational link" between Hussein's Iraq and al Qaida before the invasion, according to a U.S. official familiar with the report.

He and others spoke to McClatchy on condition of anonymity because the study isn't due to be shared with Congress and released before Wednesday.

Read more: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/iraq/story/29959.html

[lostnotforgotten]

1. Well, Well, Well - What Do You Know! - Imagine That!

eom

[mzmolly]

9. Yeah, whoda thunk it?

:sarcasm:

[mallard]

19. What do you know ...

We could have saved $3 trilion and the world would be a safer place.

[wtmusic]

2. Someone went and got exhausted for nothin'. nt

[Bozita]

3. I'm shocked, ... shocked, I tell you to find NO fucking link here!

[Newsjock]

4. Gosh, I wonder where this will play in tomorrow's newspaper

Three paragraphs on A16, perhaps?

[laconicsax]

14. 10 word summary in the classifieds.

[jpak]

5. "I don’t think anybody could have predicted that these people…would try to use a"

lie to start a war...

[MidwestTransplant]

6. BS I read on Free Republic that he and Bin Laden were falconing buddies and their Biochem/Nuke

weapons were moved to Syria by Russian special forces just before the invasion. It's a shame that RW radio jocks and chickenhawk internet posters know more than the DoD. How are we supposed to feel safe when that's the case?

[rpannier]

16. Not Syria... Jordan

Huckabee said they're in Jordan and he talks to God

edited for spelling

[jimshoes]

7. But th, th, that would make

Deadeye Dick cheney a big fat LIAR

Cheney: Saddam had strong al-Qaida ties
VP repeats long-standing position, but offers no new evidence

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5215019/

[rpannier]

17. Not THE Al-Qaida

He said, "Hussein had strong ties with Alan Qaida."

Al Qaida for short.

[NOLALady]

25. Huh?

What's that? Al Qaida is short? He looked pretty tall to me.

[asthmaticeog]

8. Read all about it in "Shit You Knew in 2003 Weekly."

:eyes:

[Blue_Tires]

34. roger that....

[kimmylavin]

10. No shit, Sherlock.

Wonder how much this "exhaustive" review cost us?

[mzmolly]

11. Off to the greatest !

Tsk tsk, so much for the "keeping us safer" myth.

[nbcouch]

12. this is very, VERY old news

Not the 600,000 documents, but the fact that Saddam had no relationship with al Qaeda - unless you consider mutual loathing a relationship. The Islamic fundies hated Saddam for running a secular state, and they had safe haven elsewhere, so they kept their distance. The idea that Saddam and al Qaeda would have worked together or co-operated on ANYTHING is absurd.

[frog92969]

13. Absolutely, we knew long before we invaded.

That's the kind of thing our Middle East experts were in the region to learn.

[nbcouch]

18. Exactly, just like we knew

that Saddam had no WMD - no nuclear program, no chemical or biological weapons. It was never a case of faulty intelligence. They CHOSE to believe their least reliable sources, like Chalabi and al Libi, and to disregard anything that refuted them. The latter had been tortured, in fact, and was known to have intentionally misled his interrogators, but HE was their source on the "mobile weapons labs" that never existed. HE was their source of "intelligence" on Saddam's people training al Qaeda members, which never happened.

[rpannier]

15. But Cheney says there was...

So, that's good enough for the MSM

Because if it's not, he won't give them any interviews

[struggle4progress]

20. Stay tuned for further relevations in 2013: "no WMDS" and "Iraq war maybe not cakewalk"

[GoddessOfGuinness]

21. How many exhaustive reviews do we need

before we acknowledge that the Iraq war is a crime against humanity?

[dbonds]

22. And in other news, the sky is blue.

[radhika]

23. But Ideological Ass-wipes Will Still Believe

Those who are committed to ideological inanities are not swayed by facts. And of course the taxpayers underwrote this &*(^& study by the Pentagon, just like they underwrite the &*(&^ war. Was it sub-contracted to Halliburton?

[stratomagi]

24. No way really?!

A secular dictator and the islamist revolution have nothing to do with each other...i'm shocked, SHOCKED, I tell you!

:sarcasm:

[skyounkin]

26. I'll

file this under "no freaking shit".

[Initech]

27. Are you sure this wasn't published in "DUH!!! Magazine"?

[Whoa_Nelly]

28. I wanna know what bullshit media spin will be played to drown this out

Can't let the 'Murikan public git too edjamacated.

[Yavin4]

29. Faux News Viewers

Still believe that Saddam pulled off 9/11.

[happygoluckytoyou]

30. HERE IS THE PROOF ------>>>>> PROOF POSITIVE!!!!

Saddam Hu has 8 letters in his name.......Bin Laden has 8 letters in his name

Saddam Hu was hung in a Bin Laden.......Bin Laden once lived in a Saddam Hu

Saddam Hu's secretary was named Ford....Bin Laden's secretary liked Ford Fairlane

Saddam Hu was 5 foot 8 inches tall.....Bin Laden was not 5 foot 8 inches tall

If you rearrange the letters in Saddam Hu's name, it spells Bin Laden

You never see both Saddam Hu and Bin Laden in the same photographs

If you play Bin Laden's last tape backwards it says "I'm hung like Saddam Hu"

[Xenotime]

31. Great! Can we impeach now?!?

[trthnd4jstc]

32. 9-11 was an inside job.

This was BushCo's Reichstadt fire that allowed the Constitution to be shredded. These people are war criminals. I do not understand why the Democratic leadership do not support our constitution. Did they not swear to uphold and protect our constitution?

[Ian David]

33. According to the new Bush deffinitions, Saddam did not sponsor any terrorists at all.

These are the Bush Administration deffinitions:

Insurgents attack American troops.
Extremists attack non-American foreigners.
Militants attack Jews.
Terrorists attack American civilians.

Therefore, Saddam did not support terrorists-- he only supported Militants and maybe some Extremists.

[Peace Patriot]

36. Now they're trying to make Hugo Chavez and Rafael Correa out as "terrorists"--

and they have killed NO ONE, harmed NO ONE, invaded NO ONE, jailed NO ONE unfairly, and have been running scrupulously lawful, BENEFICIAL governments, in Chavez's case for ten years (repeatedly elected by the Venezuelan people in elections that put our own to shame for their transparency), and in Correa's case, for a shorter period, but with every sign, so far, of lawfulness and good social justice policy.

"Terrorists." The Bush Cartel bus boy in Colombia is calling them "terrorists"--cuz they got six hostages held by the FARC guerrillas, in Colombia's FORTY-PLUS YEAR civil war, unconditionally released, and were working on getting MORE released, which was making people think that a peaceful settlement of that long civil war might be possible. ??

"Terrorists"--because Bush U.S./Colombia bombed ECUADOR, and killed the FARC hostage negotiator and 20-some others IN THEIR SLEEP, and went in and shot any survivors IN THE BACK, as they went running around in their pajamas trying to escape death. ??

But Chavez and Correa are the "terrorists." ??

Well, it's now come out--at a press conference of the first two hostages that they got released--that their hostage party came under heavy fire from Colombian security forces, and they had to flee back into the jungle for their lives (and were released later). And the circumstances establish that the Colombian military knew exactly what it was doing. Colombia doesn't want peace. It doesn't want the hostages to be released. It has now sabotaged the entire peace process. Cuz their $5 billion in U.S. military aid (through Bushite fingers) depends on WAR.

And, funny thing, the country that the Bushites accused of having ties to Al Qaeda, and of having WMDS--both of which were 100% lies--and the DEMOCRATIC countries that the Bushites are NOW accusing of being "terrorists"--are all three sitting on some the biggest, last oil reserves on earth. With Saddam, they had a case that he was at least a bad dude (they would know--they created him). With Chavez and Correa, they have NO CASE for ANYTHING, so they're just making shit up. They've been trying to topple Chavez's ELECTED government since 2002. And now they're trying to topple Correa, because he is a Chavez ally, and also believes in social justice and South American self-determination.

And it's not as if the American people believe this made-up shit the Bushits keep spewing. 56% of the American people opposed the invasion of Iraq, way back in Feb. 03, AFTER Colin Powell's pack of lies to the UN, and just before the invasion. 56%! (NYT poll; other polls, 54-55%). 54-56% would be a landslide in a presidential election. (And believe me, it was.) Now it's grown to SEVENTY PERCENT--a whopping, unprecedented ant-war majority. And still we can't get that fucking war stopped. And how long is Oil War II: South America going to go on--if Donald Rumsfeld can get it started this yeat. (Yeah, you heard right--Rumsfeld*!) Look for trouble in Bolivia this May--from a separatist movement of rich rural landowners, funded by, and probably organized by, the Bush Junta, who intend to split off four rural provinces--where the gas and oil reserves are--from the central government of Evo Morales--the first indigenous president of Bolivia, and a Chavez ally. They will declare their "independence." And they may ask for U.S. military support. As Rumsfeld says, in the op-ed of his cited below (12/07), he wants to see "swift action" by the U.S. in support of "friends and allies" in South America. And whoever could he mean, except the fascist thugs running Colombia, and the fascist thugs planning coups within Venezuela, Ecuador, Argentina and Bolivia? Bolivia's fascist group has the plot that is closest to fruition.

-----

*"The Smart Way to Beat Tyrants Like Chávez," by Donald Rumsfeld, 12/1/07
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/30/AR2007113001800.html

[dropkickpa]

35. Well butter my ass and call me biscuit

That's the most non-new news I've heard all day.

Next?

"Rain is water that falls from the sky, say Pentagon researchers, stunning none."

film at 11

:banghead:

[progressoid]

37. Noooooo waaaaaayyyyy.

[NM Independent]

38. I've been screaming that @ the TV and PC for 7 years...

...but you won't be convincing the sheeple.

I promise :banghead: