Intelligence reports undercut US claims of Iraq-Qaeda link: Senator

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticle.asp?xfile=data/theworld/2005/April/theworld_April357.xml§ion=theworld

WASHINGTON - A top Democratic senator on Friday released formerly classified documents that he said undercut top US officials’ pre-Iraq war claims of a link between Saddam Hussein’s regime and the Al Qaeda terror network.

“These documents are additional compelling evidence that the Intelligence Community did not believe there was a cooperative relationship between Iraq and Al Qaeda, despite public comments by the highest ranking officials in our government to the contrary,” said Senator Carl Levin.

The declassified documents undermine President George W. Bush’s administration claims regarding Iraq’s involvement in training Al Qaeda operatives and the likelihood of a meeting between September 11, 2001, hijacker Mohammed Atta and an Iraqi intelligence officer in Prague in April 2001, Levin said in a statement.

In October 2002 Bush said: “We’ve learned that Iraq has trained Al Qaeda members in bomb-making and poisons and deadly gasses.”

But a June 2002 CIA report, titled “Iraq and Al Qaeda: Interpreting a Murky Relationship,” said “the level and extent of this is assistance is not clear.

more

[leftchick]

1. um Carl?

why on a Friday news dump day? I hope to see him on some blab-show on Sunday talking about this.

[johncoby2]

2. Yawn. Wake me up when Americans pull their heads out.

The evidence would be enough to impeach any president, well except w.

[rodeodance]

3. seems like the msm is sleeping late about this also this am

[blm]

5. No -They're on call 24/7 to protect the dictatortot from REAL news.

They can't sleep late.

[UpInArms]

4. here's an interesting timeline site

excerpt:

http://www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/2003-Invasion-of-Iraq

Links between the government of Iraq and terrorist organizations

An alleged link between al Qaeda and Iraq was often mentioned in the run-up to war. Before the invasion, journalists were generally skeptical; for example, one January 2003 article in the San Jose Mercury News said the claim "stretches the analysis of U.S. intelligence agencies to, and perhaps beyond, the limit." <24> After the invasion, in January of 2004, Secretary Powell stated "I have not seen smoking-gun, concrete evidence about the connection, but I think the possibility of such connections did exist, and it was prudent to consider them at the time that we did."

Some of the evidence for a connection between the two turns out to have been misinformation coming from several sources, most notably an associate of Ahmed Chalabi who was given the code name "Curveball" and captured al Qaeda leader Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi. The Chalabi source has been thoroughly discredited, and the al Qaeda source has since recanted his story. Other al Qaeda leaders have claimed that there was no operational relationship between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda, and indeed that Osama bin Laden had forbidden such a relationship with the Iraqi leader, whom he considered an infidel.

...more...

lots of imbedded links and factoids at above link

[ECH1969]

6. Yawn

The people who still after all this time believe Saddam and Bin Laden were in cahoots aren't going to change their opinions because some democratic senator leaked some documents. And, I agree with the others that say it was the worst possible time of the week to leak such documents anyway.

[Moderator]

7. kick to combine

[Catchawave]

8. Intelligence reports undercut US claims of Iraq-Qaeda link: top US senator

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=1521&ncid=703&e=8&u=/afp/20050416/pl_afp/usiraqqaeda

WASHINGTON (AFP) - A top Democratic senator released formerly classified documents that he said undercut top US officials' pre-Iraq war claims of a link between Saddam Hussein's regime and the Al-Qaeda terror network.

"These documents are additional compelling evidence that the Intelligence Community did not believe there was a cooperative relationship between Iraq and Al-Qaeda, despite public comments by the highest ranking officials in our government to the contrary," said Senator Carl Levin.

The declassified documents undermine President George W. Bush's administration claims regarding Iraq's involvement in training Al-Qaeda operatives and the likelihood of a meeting between September 11, 2001, hijacker Mohammed Atta and an Iraqi intelligence officer in Prague in April 2001, Levin said in a statement.

In October 2002 Bush said: "We've learned that Iraq has trained al-Qaeda members in bomb-making and poisons and deadly gasses."

But a June 2002 CIA report, titled "Iraq and al-Qa'ida: Interpreting a Murky Relationship," said "the level and extent of this is assistance is not clear.

more.....

[applegrove]

9. Yeah we know. Neocons needed to set a precedent for pre-emptive

war (and they didn't want to use the human rights record as reason because they didn't want to reinforce that precedent).

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

10. Do we have someone on the national scene

who will finally say that these people out and out LIED about Iraq?

[scubadude]

11. I posted this one in general discussion.

It seems that the Freeps want to bury it by rating it low. Please vote it up and email it to your friends.

Scuba

[Catchawave]

13. Now 2.54 with 355 votes.

Do we need to kick it in GD? Maybe add to GD-politics?

[Daphne08]

20. 2.76 with 385 vote

I was hoping to see this in our press somewhere.

[chelaque liberal]

22. Levin requested the documents' declassification in April 2004

As in "pre-election"

"Levin requested the documents' declassification in April 2004 as part of his minority inquiry within the Senate Armed Services Committee into Iraq intelligence failures."

[wallwriter]

12. What could be more definitive evidence

that the American public just does not give a s***.

Somebody said something to the effect that if you win the war, no one will ask why you waged it. The problem is, that person was Hitler.

[leesa]

14. Yes. We have known this for a long time. What will you do about it?

[Moderator]

15. kick to combine

[Al-CIAda]

16. Reports undercut Iraq, al-Qaeda link -declassified documents undermine the

Reports undercut Iraq, al-Qaeda link


From correspondents in Washington
April 16, 2005
From: Agence France-Presse

A TOP Democratic senator has released formerly classified documents that he says undercut top US officials' pre-Iraq war claims of a link between Saddam Hussein's regime and the al-Qaeda terrorist network.
"These documents are additional compelling evidence that the intelligence community did not believe there was a cooperative relationship between Iraq and al-Qaeda, despite public comments by the highest ranking officials in our government to the contrary," Senator Carl Levin said today.

The declassified documents undermine the Bush administration's claims regarding Iraq's involvement in training al-Qaeda operatives and the likelihood of a meeting between September 11 hijacker Mohammed Atta and an Iraqi intelligence officer in Prague in April 2001, Senator Levin said in a statement.

In October 2002, Mr Bush said: "We've learned that Iraq has trained al-Qaeda members in bomb-making and poisons and deadly gases."

But a June 2002 CIA report, titled Iraq and al-Qa'ida: Interpreting a Murky Relationship, said "the level and extent of this is assistance is not clear".

The report said that there were "many critical gaps" in the knowledge of Iraq-al-Qaeda links due to "limited reporting" and the "questionable reliability of many of our sources", according to excerpts cited by Senator Levin.

Con't-
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,12875384-23109,00.html

[ECH1969]

17. There is already a thread about this topic

This one can be closed

[Daphne08]

18. Can you provide a link, please.

I can't find the other thread anywhere.

[Daphne08]

19. Thanks!

[chelaque liberal]

21. It's unpatriotic to bring this up. Would you rather Saddam was still

in power? Democracy is on the march. The Iraqi people got to vote!


Sarcasm off-no, there just aren't words to describe my anger and disgust about this.

[4dsc]

23. But rightie doesn't believe

so it must not be true!! LMAO!! Have you ever tried to talk to a rightie that still believes Saddam and Al Qaeda has a working relationship??? And to boot, they repeat the lie, over and over again..