The Weekly Standard (whose site is still down) has managed to uncover a secret memo distributed to the Senate Intelligence Committee exposing the connections between Iraq and al-Qaeda. The Weekly Standard‘s Steven Hayes uncovered evidence that Osama bin Laden met with then Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Azis in January of 1998. The memo also described several high-level ties between the Hussein regime and the terror group including the creation of several “sleeper cells” in Baghdad after September 11, cells which are now involved with attacks against US troops.
It is increasingly evident that the old canard that “Iraq is unimportant to the war on terror” cannot survive much scrutiny. Even if Iraq’s al-Qaeda connections are dismissed, it is indisputable that the Hussein regime was supporting other terror groups including Hamas, Hizb’Allah, the Muslim Brotherhood, and others that were actively destabilizing the region. Hussein’s terrorist ties have been well documented by Youssef Bodansky and others, and the removal of the Hussein regime has put other terror-sponsoring states such as Syria, Iran, and Saudi Arabia on notice, increasing the pressure on the worldwide infrastructure of Islamic terrorism.
This just in: evidence that Osama bin Laden bought a hot dog in Bagdad proves the Iraqi-al Queda connection!
No, but numerous high level contacts over a period of several years does tend to show that *something* is going on between the two. Note that al-Qaeda has tested chemical weapons before – now where might those have come from?
Yeah, it’s actually pretty hard to believe that Iraq and al-Qaeda wouldn’t have viewed the US as a common foe.
But it doesn’t seem like they were working close enough to merit an invasion. I guess I don’t see how their connection provides support for the war.
Ah, we have another case of Berg’s Law in action: “No liberal commentator is capable of discussing more than one of the justifications for the liberation of Iraq at a time; doing so introduces a context in which their argument can not survive.”
Given that the Hussein regime was:
* Oppressing and committing mass murder of their own people (the justification used for military action againt Serbia)
* Funding terrorist groups like Hamas and Hizb’Allah which destablizing the Middle East.
* Connected to the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.
* May well have had high-level connections to al-Qaeda.
* Were quite possibly developing weapons of mass destruction. (And yes, they haven’t been found yet. That’s because in all liklihood they’re not in Iraq – remember that we know that thousands of trucks crossed the Iraq/Syria border in the months before the war. Any one of them could have contained WMD materials.) The absence of evidence is not necessarily the evidence of absence. Based on the preliminary Kay Report there is no justification to argue that Saddam did not have a WMD program – his own generals, UN inspectors, abd countless Western intelligence services have already shown significant evidence otherwise.
Any of those reasons would justify military action. The combination of all of them more than justify the removal of the Hussein regime.
I posted this as a comment at another blog a little while ago:
The Weekly Standard recently published that now-widely-cirulated article with that memo asserting ‘links’ between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden. (Several pro- and anti-war bloggers have now blogged about that.) I’ve written about this issue [re: the alleged ‘links’ between Iraq and al-Qaeda] before several times.
Please take a look at my comment (my first one) posted at this entry at the blog of “Oscar Jr.”
http://www.oscarjr.us/archives/000391.html
He responded to mine and other comments, and I posted a second comment there, and may post another response soon. But if you look through the links provided in my first comment there, you can see how the Weekly Standard has hardly a leg to stand on in alleging ‘links’ to bin Laden and al-Qaeda… That magazine, along with other neoconservatives and neoliberals, backed the policies of the Clinton/Gore/Albright administration, policies which aided and financed Islamic terrorists in the Balkans who had strong ties to Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda. As I pointed out in my writings that I link to in that comment post, those policies helped bin Laden, and could be one of factors relating to why we haven’t found him yet.
Funny, Jay, didn’t I cite several off those reasons to you last week, asking why you were not accordingly calling for war with Saudi Arabia? As I recall, you were unable to justify attacking Iraq when Saudi Arabia was guilty of at least as many crimes and provided the majority of the 9/11 attackers.
Oh, and by the by:
DoD Statement on News Reports of al-Qaida and Iraq Connections
News reports that the Defense Department recently confirmed new information with respect to contacts between al-Qaida and Iraq in a letter to the Senate Intelligence Committee are inaccurate.
A letter was sent to the Senate Intelligence Committee on October 27, 2003 from Douglas J. Feith, Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, in response to follow-up questions from his July 10 testimony. One of the questions posed by the committee asked the Department to provide the reports from the Intelligence Community to which he referred in his testimony before the Committee. These reports dealt with the relationship between Iraq and al-Qaida.
The letter to the committee included a classified annex containing a list and description of the requested reports, so that the Committee could obtain the reports from the relevant members of the Intelligence Community.
The items listed in the classified annex were either raw reports or products of the CIA, the NSA, or, in one case, the DIA. The provision of the classified annex to the Intelligence Committee was cleared by other agencies and done with the permission of the Intelligence Community. The selection of the documents was made by DOD to respond to the Committee’s question. The classified annex was not an analysis of the substantive issue of the relationship between Iraq and al Qaida, and it drew no conclusions.
Individuals who leak or purport to leak classified information are doing serious harm to national security; such activity is deplorable and may be illegal.
http://www.defenselink.mil/releases/2003/nr20031115-0642.html
It’s just too damn easy sometimes.
So I assume you’ll be issuing a correction, right? I mean, you characterized a defense of Administration actions to the Senate as some sort of groundbreaking document instead of a restatement of previously explained points. You’ve made the exact same point I made to you last week–that war against Iraq cannot be justified on those grounds unless we’re willing to go to war with other states in violation (including at least one member of our “coalition”)–and you did it while shifting the minimum requirements for going to war from WMD to active programs, citing only the Kay report which doesn’t prove any programs existed in 2002-2003.
I mean, even for a blog this is crappy journalism.
The DoD press release does not deny the veracity of the information and in fact confirms that such a memo does exist. No correction is necessary, if anything it shows that Mr. Hayes article is based on real information.
Active programs are specifically denied under the Gulf War cease fire agreement. (UN Resolution 687) The resolution specifically states:
That means that any active programs violate the Gulf War cease fire.
The Kay Report indicates that Saddam did have a biological weapons program, was developing missiles in violation of the 150km range ban and had the ability to reconstitute a nuclear program at any time, any of which would be in violation of Resolution 687.
Then go elsewhere.
Even crappy journalism can be great entertainment, Jay!
The secrecy of the memo was not the issue, but rather your characterization of it. If you see the Kay Report as containing 400 American soldiers worth of incrimination, when we already had the area contained prior to the war, then we judge the information in it differently. I see in the Kay report no threat to the United States, and I saw from the swiftness of the ground war in Iraq no threat to the military might of Israel, which I’d give split odds in a war against Western Europe.
“No correction is necessary, if anything it shows that Mr. Hayes article is based on real information,” ignores the criticism completely. I know the memo was real, but to call it anything other than a restatement of the Administration’s arguments is to mischaracterize it. It was intended as a defense of Administration actions, (and I’ll bet you dollars to doughnuts that Jay Rockerfeller will have a field day ripping its content apart in hearings, but that’s O/T) and should have been reported as such.
And, once again from the DoD memo, used in this context as a direct rebuttal to the title of your post:
“The classified annex was not an analysis of the substantive issue of the relationship between Iraq and al Qaida, and it drew no conclusions.”
Unlike the Weakly Standard.