Safire has found another "Smoking Gun". Who needs the CIA?

[Brotherjohn]

What to make of Safire's latest "smoking gun", the alleged transmittal (via CD courier) from al-Zarqawi to Al Qaeda asking for help in fighting the U.S. in Iraq? (http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/11/opinion/11SAFI.html)

Now, even if this document is true, the fact that militants in Iraq are asking for Al Qaeda help (or the help of anyone willing to fight us) is hardly a "smoking gun" of anything except the obvious. Why wouldn't they? What do they have to lose?

Safire ties this back to previous reports (widely discounted and seemingly held by only neo-cons in the Bush administration and himself) that Al Qaeda and Hussein were bosom buddies, and says "The notion that these serial killers (Al-Zarqawi and Hussein, along with Al Qaeda) are not central players in the global network that attacked us... is simply silly."

But in the face of actual evidence, it is Safire's assertions that are silly. I say that because his evidence amounts to unsubstantiated, self-aggrandizing quotes from his own column such as "The Iraqi dictator has armed and financed a fifth column of Al Qaeda mullahs and terrorists" , and quotes from U.S. officials such as "We couldn't make this up if we tried" (the latter, he says, is the "best" evidence that this new message is authentic). He dismisses the body of intelligence, which runs contrary to his hallowed assertions, by simply saying that "the C.I.A. blew off that report".

Hmmnnn... perhaps they did so with good reason? Perhaps U.S. officials also have good reason to doubt the authenticity of this current message (which they do).

I'm wondering, does anyone know if Safire also wrote about the last "memo" found in Iraq? The one allegedly from the head of Iraqi intel to Hussein? The one that, in two paragraphs, implicates Iraq in sponsoring and training Mohammed Atta and approving his "targets", and admits intercepting an unnamed shipment from Niger (with the help of Libya, Syria, and "a small group from the Al Qaeda organization")? You know, that one that has been widely dismissed as a forgery?

I'm guessing this "terrorist courier" intercepted with the CD-communique works for the Iraqi Governing Council.

I'm also guessing the communique was written by Ahmed Chalabi's chief of staff, Achmed "Scooter" Libibi.

[saltpoint]

1. Re Safire's column today --

-- I sent this email letter to Safire earlier this moring:

===
Ok, Bill. Put on your tattered robe and go peaceably with the nice men. They're taking you to a pleasant place to live out your remaining days. It's for your own good.

How disingenuous of you to ignore the fact that Bush lied through his goddamned teeth about the al Qaeda link. His poll numbers reflect a wave of distrust on the part of his former supporters. Independent voters who chose him warily over Al Gore in 2000 will abandon his sorry hindend in droves in November, and rightly so. And you know it.

You right-wingers should have nominated McCain when you had the chance. Too late now.

Don't waste our time with this crap about a CD. Use your energies in the service of something worth our consideration.
===

[DinahMoeHum]

2. It still doesn't prove that Saddam & al Qaeda were allies. . .

before 9/11.

Nice try, Safire.


:evilfrown:

[BigBigBear]

3. Iraq is swimming

in forged documents these days, a lucrative trade for industrious (and out of work) Iraqis eager to curry favor and make a few bucks off an intel and military occupation pressured to provide politically covenient proof of Saddam's complicity with everything from nuclear conspiracy to 9/11 to avian flu.

Nothing that comes out of that country in documentary form should be trusted.

Anyone remember the Atta-in-Baghdad memo from a few months ago, which turned out to be a forgery?

Safire evidently does not. The only thing worse than a shill for lying politicos (something the ex-Nixon aide know a little about) is a washed up shill.

He's just embarrassing himself now.