Evidence for Iraq 9-11 link

[usregimechange]

"The fact of the matter is that as early as 1994, but certainly proof positive as of 1998, the connection between Al Qaeda (search) and Saddam Hussein was very clear. In February and March of 1998, bin Laden's No. 2 guy visited Baghdad at the request of the intelligence services of Iraq...

We then know there was a training camp called Salman Pak, which we've been able to identify the aircraft that they trained, the hijackers on. We've been able to identify other contacts between Iraqi intelligence services and directly with the 9-11 hijackers.
People would love to shove that evidence under the carpet, but the fact of the matter is that the meetings did take place, planning was going on. The Iraqi diplomatic pouch was the tool of choice to pass al Qaeda's messages around the world in different parts of the world.
There was…we know for a fact that the Philippines' embassy of Iraq in manila was used for purposes of planning what was then a thwarted effort to try and hijack airplanes across the Pacific. We know that the Pakistani…I mean, the Iraqi Embassy in Islamabad was used to facilitate contact between the Taliban, bin Laden's people, and Iraqi senior scientists to collaborate on chemical and biological weapons. I know that for a fact myself that that was going on.
So, there is just no way that anybody can convince me that there is no connection. We have not yet found the forensic tie. That may be true. But to say that there's no connection whatsoever, that is absolutely not true."

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,97063,00.html

[usregimechange]

1. ?

"bin Laden's No. 2 guy visited Baghdad"??????????????????? Is that true?

[gristy]

2. Is that true?

Fox News says it is. So I guess so. :eyes:

[usregimechange]

4. well

I have never heard these claims before. Is he lying? Made them up? Insane?

[ant]

17. it might be true

Depends who they're talking about. It's important to remember that most pundits on the right will not exactly lie - that's too easy. Instead, they'll take a bit of truth and twist it into what they want.

For instance - and I'm not sure if this story is about the same #2 referred to in the article - there's Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who did get some medical treatment in Iraq. However,

That case relies heavily on a man called Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian member of the al-Qaeda leadership who was wounded in the leg in the US-led bombing of Afghanistan. In late 2001, according to US intelligence sources, he sought medical treatment in Iran but was deported and fled to Baghdad, where his leg was amputated. Telephone calls he made to his family in Jordan were intercepted.

The question is whether Saddam Hussein's regime knew who he was and whether it offered him any assistance. "Yes, we have him telling his family I'm here in Baghdad in hospital, but he's not saying: 'And by the way, I'm getting all this help from Saddam'," a well-informed source in Washington said.

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

One could argue that Saddam had such tight control of his country that he *must've* known about this guy, but even if that's true, standing back and letting someone get medical treatment in your country is very different from actively working with them to carry out terrorist plots. I'm sure that Al-Q operatives have been in and out of a variety of countries with the knowledge of that country's leadership, but that doesn't mean we go to war with all those countries. Saudi Arabia would be the obvious example.

Or maybe the original article is referring to this:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2003/04/27/walq27.xml

If you remember there was some to do about who, exactly, found these files - I think various news organizations took credit for it - and whether or not the US gov had a hand in planting them. (If you search around I'm sure you can find more info.) This story actually sounds like it's what the original article is referring to.

Either way, I think what another poster said is right on: if W and crew had strong evidence they'd be all over the place with it. I think the fact that so many of these stories have been allowed to essentially die says a lot.

Edited because it occurs to me even if those documents ARE legit, which I doubt, the fact is they were found AFTER the war and therefore do not count towards any sort of evidence the admin might have had BEFORE the war.

[charlie]

21. The UK Telegraph

claimed to have found them. Conrad Black's paper. With Richard Perle on the board of directors.

[ant]

26. I remember

Reading something about how various different news organizations, including the Telegraph, all claimed to have found these files. And a poster below links to a Toronto Star article where they claim they found them, but now I'm thinking that Conrad owns them, too...don't remember. Anyway, the article I'm thinking of was something like this one:

http://www.casi.org.uk/discuss/2003/msg02216.html

Except it was in, I think, the Guardian or maybe the BBC? Don't remember. Wish I could find it again...it went through the whole story and picked it apart pretty well.

[charlie]

28. Whoa...

That's a remarkable link. Thanks for the heads up!

[ronzo]

3. It's fog news after all...

we'll see.

[IndianaGreen]

5. It's not true, none of it is!

And to add insult to injury, the one Kurdish group that had ties to Al-Qaeda was in Northern Iraq, protected from Saddam Hussein by the US Air Force.

We are being fed a lot of revisionist history.

[ewagner]

12. Note that

All this was from the "Correspondent's" information. No backup documents. No confirmation from the Administrations along with a lame excuse that "the Administrations has its hands full in Iraq right now."

Note also the contridictions: They claim that the Bush administration did a "pretty good job" of laying out this information before the war. (I don't recall any of this crap being put out before the war) but the correspondent also says that they (whoever the hell "they" are) have "uncovered the information in Iraq since the war".

Doesn't pass the smell test!

[charlie]

6. So the Bush cabal has the stone cold goods

but they're not currently waving it in our faces. Uh-huh. And the best reason this guy can come up with is that they're too busy? What an idiot.

[liberalnurse]

7. I think the link- author is actually Sean Hannity....

Does anyone else see the family resemblance? Sean daily announces there is a connection between 911 and Iraq....

If not, what about a clone?...A cousin?

Am I on Free-Republic?

[never cry wolf]

8. This is the guy quoted in the transcript making the claims

Mansoor Ijaz is founder and chairman of The Crescent Partnerships, a family of New York investment partnerships between Ijaz, Lt. Gen. James Abrahamson (USAF Ret), former director of President Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative, and Turkey's Global Group, a major Abu Dhabi investment group and the heir of a prominent European shipping family. Former CIA Director, Amb. James Woolsey, serves as vice chairman of Crescent's Board of Governors.

http://www.saja.org/ijaz.html

[dudeness]

9. what a load of BS..

just another miserable attempt to justify an illegal invasion..no WMDs..no uranium from Niger..no nuclear weapons program..sexed up dossiers..dodgy intelligence..the list goes on..

[Postman]

10. There are so many holes in this ........I'll start with this...

"We've been able to identify other contacts between Iraqi intelligence services and directly with the 9-11 hijackers.

People would love to shove that evidence under the carpet"


The "journalist" never names the source of ANY of this information other than describing generalities, also, and this is just one thing that is just slapping me in face about his statement......If what you say is true, WHO WOULD WANT TO "SHOVE THAT EVIDENCE UNDER THE RUG"????????????Wouldn't the Democrats have embraced such evidence to justify this clusterfuck that is now going on in Iraq??????

I would think that if the administration had evidence of ANY SORT OF CONNECTION between Al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein they would have had it front and center.

[linazelle]

11. More garbage from the right...

I just read this smut. It basically says Al Qaeda's number two guy visited Iraq for two weeks between 1994 and 1998. There is NO PROOF of any CONTACT WITH SADDAM or even of the request by Iraqi intelligence.

It is a well known fact that Iraq is a country with divided interests and that the Kurds and other extremist groups also inhabited the country. There was proof of a connection with the Kurds who are Saddam's enemies.

But there was also proof of the airplane bombers being in the U.S.? By the same standards used in this article, the U. S. has a connection to Al Qaeda more recent than the one they want to link to Saddam.

What bothers me most is the attempt to hijack the issue and send us all back to the last millenium...yet again. The repukes (like you) are masters of deception and a waste of time.:puke:

[disgruntella]

13. this is actually a repetition of old news

From back in April.

The Telegraph in UK:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2003/04/27/walq27.xml

The Star in Toronto:
http://www.torontostar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1051125568646&call_pageid=968332188492&col=968793972154

However, it does not appear to be particularly conclusive evidence, as the Star itself reported months later:
<snip>
"The Star's Mitch Potter reported April 27 that documents discovered in the bombed-out headquarters of Mukhabarat, Iraq's most feared intelligence service, relate to the arrival of a secret envoy sent by bin Laden to Iraq in March, 1998.

The papers said the agent stayed 16 days as a guest of the Iraqi government at the Mansur Melia Hotel.. The documents did not indicate whether an actual meeting took place.

Still, no conclusive evidence of joint terrorist operations by Iraq and Al Qaeda has been found, several intelligence officials acknowledged, and no ties between Baghdad and the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on Washington and New York have been found."
<end snip>

http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1052251786778&call_pageid=1045739058633&col=104

[Octafish]

14. Operation BOJINKA

With Matthew Brzezinski
Special to The Washington Post
Wednesday, Jan. 2, 2002; 1 p.m. EST
EXCERPT...

Six years before the Sept. 11 attacks, Philippine police took down an al Qaeda cell in Manila that, among other things, had been plotting to fly explosives-laden planes into the Pentagon -- and possibly some skyscrapers. The CIA knew about the plot, known as Operation Bojinka. So did the FBI. "We told the Americans about the plans to turn planes into flying bombs as far back as 1995," a Philippine inspector says. "Why didn't they payattention?"

Matthew Brzezinski -- whose article about Bojinka, "Bust and Boom," appeared in Sunday's Washington Post Magazine -- was online Wednesday, Jan. 2 at 1 p.m. EST, to field questions and comments.

Brzezinski, the author of "Moscow Casino," lives in Northwest Washington.

A transcript follows.

CONTINUED...

http://discuss.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/zforum/01/magazine_brzezinski010202.htm

Unfortunately, in the worlds of counter-espionage and counter-terrorism, much information gets lost in disinformation, misinformation, lies, deceit, and subterfuge. So it's never clear what the truth is, unless you know what to look for, eh DU? — Octafish.

[BonjourUSA]

15. Hi, Hi...

"... the Iraqi Embassy in Islamabad was used to facilitate contact between the Taliban..

The terrorist armed groups never needed for intermediaries in Islamabad !!! They are at home !!! They can meet who they want where they want !!

What a bullshit !! Besides the European secret services suspect their Pakistani colleagues of conivence with these groups.

"... We have not yet found the forensic tie. That may be true..." Yes George. Saddam is going to be happy to learn he wasn't hated by Al-Q as a horrible secular.

[Zhade]

16. The "Salman Pak" angle has been debunked.

It's a crock. Here:

Then there was the report about the airline fuselage at the Iraqi military base at Salman Pak where, according to Perle and others, a defector (apparently channeled to the Pentagon from the INC) had sworn they had seen non-Iraqi Muslims being trained in hijacking. But U.S. intelligence officials, who knew about the fuselage since it was installed in the mid-1980s, also knew that it was being used to train security personnel to prevent hijackings. It didn't take them long after interviewing the defector to dismiss the allegation.

http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=16420

Defectors and exiles identified to OSP by Chalabi were channeled to reporters in the US and Europe. In October 2001 a former Iraqi army captain told the Times and PBS Frontline that the September 11 attack "was conducted by people who were trained by Saddam." Another defector, identified as a retired member of the Iraqi intelligence service, said that in 2000 he had witnessed Arab students being given hijacking lessons on a Boeing 707 at an Iraqi training camp near Salman Pak. A former CIA station chief and a former military intelligence analyst confirmed independently to Hersh that the Salman Pak camp was a training facility not for terrorism but for counter-terrorism. The camp was apparently established in the late 1980s with the assistance of Britain's MI6. Acknowledging that the camp could have in theory had a dual capability, the CIA official nonetheless asserted that terrorists would not train in the open. "That's Hollywood rinky-dink stuff," he told Hersh. "They train in basements. You don't need a real airplane to practice hijacking. The 9/11 terrorists went to gyms. But to take one back you have to practice on the real thing." The Salman Pak camp was occupied by US troops on April 6, 2003. No evidence of biological weapons or terrorist training facilities has been reported.

http://www.thedubyareport.com/prophet.html


I'm sure there is more evidence against the whole Salman Pak deal as a connection. However, I have to go to work! :P

[StandWatie]

18. Mansoor Ijaz is ISI

He knows exactly who was passing messages for whom and it was him, not Iraq.

[dudeness]

19. funnily enough I am feeling rather contented

having just feasted on my daily dose of right wing propaganda..people who write this tripe should at least do some basic research and try to grasp the politics of the region..that way you could at least give them marks for trying..

[disgruntella]

20. here's another article

from a more fair and balanced source:

Officials say intelligence supports Iraq-al-Qaida contacts, but no proof of joint attacks
By John Solomon, Associated Press, 9/13/2003 13:15

http://www.boston.com/dailynews/256/wash/Officials_say_intelligence_sup:.shtml

<snip>
"Current and former U.S. officials said whatever the intelligence ultimately concludes about the prewar contacts between Iraq and bin Laden, there is little doubt that Saddam's fall this spring has opened the door for al-Qaida to operate more overtly inside Iraq, as evidenced by a recent wave of attacks on U.S. soldiers.

''The U.S. attack on Iraq has now made a terrorist connection a self-fulfilling prophecy. We really found the one formula that maximizes al-Qaida's chances of increasing their operations in Iraq,'' said Greg Thielmann, who retired last year as the State Department's top expert on chemical, biological and nuclear weapons. "
<end snip>

[dudeness]

23. absolutely!!!

GWB has achieved a milestone..the bringing together of secular and fundamentalist Islam..once thought impossible ..now a reality..congrats GWB..and your sons and daughters will pay the price..

[disgruntella]

24. perhaps that can be Bush's 2004 campaign slogan

BUSH 2004: UNITING TERRORISTS AGAINST AMERICA!

[ThoughtCriminal]

22. Seems to be based on information from defectors

I'm wondering if it's the same ones's the administration now claims misled them on WMD evidence.

[karlschneider]

25. This guy seems to be willing to say anything as long as he's paid. Link

http://www.pakistan-facts.com/staticpages/index.php/20021121114844805

[Dancing_Dave]

27. There's a 9/11 Iraq link allright--

9/11 was done partly so that the Bush Regime would have a pretext for invading Iraq! :puke:

http://reseauvoltaire.net

[Evanstondem]

29. Your evidence is a "Fox News Foreign Affairs Analyst"

I'm LOL! You are full of it!