Rumsfeld: "No link between Iraq and 9-11"

This is true. However, remember that the Nazis were Aryan supremacists and wanted a world for the Aryan people. The Japanese Imperialists, obviously, were not Aryan. It was an alliance of convenience, an alliance against common enemies (the USSR and US), whatever you want to call it.

Hell, the US/UK and Soviets didn't exactly see eye-to-eye ideologically, but we banded together to fight against the Nazis and Japanese. Similarly, Osama was probably hoping for an Islamic fundamentalist government in Iraq at some point in the future, but he saw the US as the greater threat at the moment, as did Saddam. Making common cause with a lesser threat in order to fight against a greater threat is not exactly unheard of (it cracks me up when people say Saddam destroyed his WMDs but didn't tell anybody about it, even when there was a good chance it could've stopped the invasion, because he was afraid of the friggin' Iranians).

 

Well we have troops on the ground, yes, but is Iraq now a U.S. colony? Is this new governing council going to get over the perception that it's a puppet of Western powers?

If we let other countries have a say on how Iraq should be, the more quickly we can transfer real governing power from the Coalition governing body to Iraq, the better.

BUT, the less money the U.S. taxpayer has to pour into Iraq and the more other countries can into the rebuilding of the country the better (which well means reducing America's say-so in how things are run).

Iraq is not a happy place at the moment, and the average Iraqi -- specifically the ones not murdering U.S. troops on a daily basis -- still can only point a finger at the United States and ask, "When are things going to get better?"

 

Then explain the terrorist training camps in Iraq (including the one with the body of a jetliner), explain the fact that Ansar al-Islam received funding from both al-Qaeda and the Baathists, explain the fact that Islamic Jihad (which is a fundamentalist Islamic group, as opposed to slightly more secular groups like Hamas) and other Palestinian terrorist groups receieved funding from both al-Qaeda and the Baathists, explain the fact that the mastermind of the Achille Lauro hijacking (OK, not an al-Qaeda member, but certainly an Islamic fundamentalist terrorist) died in Baghdad, where he had been living for years, shortly before the invasion.

 

And i guess we should just put you in charge in Iraq and then KAZZAM!, Iraq will be a democracy right? fourmonthsandyouexpectjeffersoniandemocracyioughttopunchyouforsuchthought,imeanthenerveofyoupeople.

STOP with the personal attacks! - Dante

 

Dude, why on Earth would they acknowledge these things?

*insert insulting rant, and anti Bush defamation in response*

 

You mean up north, in the part of Iraq that Saddam didn't control?

Link?

Saddam gave, what, something like $10k to families of suicide bombers? And they blew themselves up in Israel. How many Islamic Jihad member, Hamas members and Palestinians were on the planes on September 11th?

Explain the fact that Idi Amin Dada, one of the most despotic rulers in the history of the African continent, died peacefully in Saudi Arabia, one of our staunchest "allies" in the Middle East, after living there for years.

And didn't your heroes Rumsfeld, Bush, Cheney, Rice, et al just say there was no connection between Saddam and Al Qaeda and September 11th? Why are you trying to make Rumseld, Bush, Cheney and Rice look like liars?

 

I hate the Wahhabi bastards as much as you do. But go ahead, cut off oil shipments from them to us, then see what happens. Until we find alternative answers to the energy question expect to cuddle up with those asswholes.

 

All I said was that the administration wanted to link 9/11 to Iraq. Does this direct quote not indicate that Rumsfeld wanted to find evidence to link the two?

 

This line of thinking pisses me off. Apparently we only want to fight AQ if it's convenient.

If we beat AQ without settling their benefactors, then soon we'll face the same enemy with a different name. If we settle the House of Saud and the other fellow travellers, AQ has to throw sand at passing aircraft.

You don't lose when you lose fake friends - Joan Jett for Secretary of State

Oh, and by the way, I love seeing the same righties who crucified Bill Clinton - America's finest living citizen - for playing fast and loose with the truth now saying Bush was truthful about Iraq and 9/11.

Of course, Bill Clinton's penis killed three thousand people, so that probably explains the difference.

 

I've not heard this before, do you have a link?

I will say it would be pretty strange for Saddam to be funding a group dedicated to overthrowing him.

 

I agree. It would be about as strange as it would for members of the house of Saud to fund members of al-Qaeda or the Muslim Brotherhood.

 

So the quotes submitted by So Fla Metro are actually random groupings of words and phrases bearing absolutely no relationship to the other words and phrases surrounding them. Newtonian syntax. Interesting.

Lemme try:

Some BS posters post dishonest garbage. Some of those posters think other members are too dense to detect this dishonest garbage. Some BS posters are named Alex.

Note: this is not an EXPLICIT accusation of impropriety on behalf of any specific person, living or dead. Nor a personal attack.

 

http://www.portal.telegraph.co.uk/n...21.xml&sSheet=/news/2002/04/21/ixnewstop.html
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Printable.asp?ID=5571
http://www.hrw.org/backgrounder/mena/ansarbk020503.htm (only details AAI's ties w/ al-Qaeda)
http://www.csmonitor.com/2002/0315/p01s04-wome.html

Yes, it would be. Good thing for him, Ansar al-Islam was dedicated to overthrowing the US-backed Kurdish groups that held power in northern Iraq under Saddam, protected by the no-fly zone.

 

Your missing the point.

The point is that the quotes SoFla posted DON'T SAY that Saddam had anything to do with 9/11!!

 

Yeah, because obviously you have to be in control of a given piece of land before you can be capable of giving money to people living on that land.

It's another tie between Saddam and al-Qaeda. And Israel is an American ally.

If you're looking for someone to defend Saudi Arabia, keep looking.

No, they said there was no (direct) connection between Saddam and 9/11, but there was a connection between Saddam and al-Qaeda. Didn't you have to pass a reading comprehension test to enlist in the Air Force?

 

Again, aboard the Lincoln:

“Nineteen months ago" (IMMEDIATELY AFTER AND REFERRING TO 9/11) "I pledged that the terrorists would not escape the patient justice of the United States. And as of tonight nearly one half of Al Qaida's senior operatives have been captured or killed.” (LOOK, HERE COMES THE VERY NEXT SENTENCE!) “The liberation of Iraq is a crucial advance in the campaign against terror. We have removed an ally of Al Qaida and cut off a source of terrorist funding”.

Why the hell do you think those sentences are arranged this way? (THIS IS RHETORICAL. IN THE NAME OF ALL THAT’S SACRED, PLEASE DO NOT ANSWER THIS QUESTION)

Declining to make a claim as explicit as “Saddam did 911” provides the administration plausible deniability as to its dishonesty. But obviously, nothing prevents it from repeatedly drawing such a causal relationship IMPLICITLY. All that matters is that both claims are criminally dishonest. And for anyone to maintain such an entirely irrelevant distinction is likewise dishonest.

For purposes of fraud, the law considers reckless disregard for the truth equivalent to actual knowledge of falsity. But again, neither this nor considerations of common decency deter you from drawing this legally and morally irrelevant distinction.

Which means you too are lying. Please stop.

 

Look, Bush and Rumsfeld essentially said that Cheney lied last weekend (or at least stated circumspect evidence as fact.)

Rumsfeld lied, too, when he said he knew the WMDs were between Tikrit and Baghdad.

Bush lied, too, when he used the visual of a mushroom cloud in October 7 speech to the nation.

They all did it together when they knowingly used false info regarding the uranium from Niger.

This administration repeatedly states speculation as if it were fact. Is this lying, or is this simply lacking the ability to distinguish fantasy from reality? And what kind of group psychosis is necessary for support such delusions?

They lied, people died, we lost a bunch of friends and we are throwing money down a rat hole. We should withhold all funding until Bush cleans house and is accountable for where the money is being spent.

It is highly likely that eventually Iraq becomes a better place than a year ago, but did we really need to lose our credibility, lives of soldiers, friendships and all that money in order to accomplish it?

 

You're asking was it worth it to gain an ally in the heart of the middle east whilst we are at war with terror? Yes, yes it was worth it. In a couple of years we are going to be damn glad the Iraqi's are free people.


For the 20th time, the uranium claim can not be proven false. That was garnered from British intel, who by the way stand by their claim.


When intel turns out not to be accurate, that doesn't make it a lie. So Rummy's guys thought they knew where the wmd's were. They haven't found them yet.

SO that either means that they lied, or the Iraqis moved them. Ponder these possiblities for a minute before coming to a conclusion.

 

Here's an interesting read

Here's what the New York Times said about the camp six weeks after 9/11:

"New information does suggest that Mr. Hussein was actively training terrorists to attack American interests throughout the 1990's.

"One example is the testimony of Sabah Khodada, a captain in the Iraqi army who emigrated to Texas in May after working for eight years at what he described as a terrorist training camp at a bend in the Tigris River just southeast of Baghdad."

According to the Times, Khodada described the camp as "a highly secret installation" where "non-Iraqi Arabs from Persian Gulf countries, including Saudi Arabia" received training in "assassinations, kidnapping, hijacking of airplanes, hijacking of buses, hijacking of trains, and all other kinds of operations related to terrorism."

In comments unmentioned by the Times but covered by PBS, Khodada said that when he saw the twin towers fall he thought to himself, "This was done by graduates of Salman Pak."

Here's how National Public Radio characterized Iraq's link to the 9/11 attacks in a report the same month:

"The case against Iraq is based on three things. First, Mohamed Atta, believed to be the key organizer of the September 11th attacks, met earlier this year with an Iraqi agent in Prague.

"Second, Iraq's stockpiled anthrax as a biological weapon.

"And third, recent allegations that there's a camp in Iraq where foreign terrorists are trained. The allegation about the terrorist training camp comes through a recent Iraqi defector. According to this story, the camp is located near the town of Salman Pak, southeast of Baghdad, and it contains a Boeing jetliner that could be used to train hijackers how to seize a plane."

Charles Deulfer, former Deputy Head, U.N. Special Commission for Iraq, told NPR, "There were lots of places in Iraq where training of non-Iraqis, or things, which by our lexicon would be considered terrorism, was taking place. That's why Iraq is on the terrorist list. Having a large aircraft, a 707, in a peninsula, completely visible from the air or from satellite, with no airline runways nearby, that's not there by accident."



Interviewing Vice President Dick Cheney in late 2001,Tim Russert cited the then-recent comments of former CIA Director James Woolsey.

"We know that at Salman Pak, on the southern edge of Baghdad, five different eyewitnesses - three Iraqi defectors and two American U.N. Inspectors - have said - and now there are aerial photographs to show it - a Boeing 707 that was used for training of hijackers, including non-Iraqi hijackers trained very secretly to take over airplanes with knives."

Russert then displayed satellite imagery of Salman Pak for his audience, telling Cheney, "And we have photographs. As you can see that little white speck – and there it is, the plane on the ground in Iraq used to train non-Iraqi hijackers."

New York Times columnist William Safire went even further, detailing in late October 2001 extensive ties between bin Laden, his henchmen and Saddam's intelligence service leading up to 9/11.

"Faruq Hijazi, in 1994 Saddam's secret service director and now his ambassador to Turkey, has had a series of meetings with bin Laden. These began in Sudan, arranged by Hassan al-Tourabi, the Sudanese Muslim leader, and continued in Afghanistan. The conspiracy was furthered in Baghdad in 1998 between bin Laden's No. 2 man, Ayman al-Zawahiri, and Saddam's vice president, Taha Yasin Ramadan."

Safire continued, "To strengthen Saddam's position in the Arab world during his 1998 crisis with the U.N., bin Laden established the 'World Islamic Front for Jihad Against the Jews and the Crusaders.' The Muslim-in-name Iraqi dictator reciprocated by promising secure refuge in Iraq for bin Laden and his key lieutenants if they were forced to flee Afghanistan."

More from Safire:

"Bin Laden sent a delegation of his top Al Qaeda terrorists to Baghdad on April 25, 1998, to attend the grand celebration that week of Saddam's birthday. It was then that Saddam's bloody-minded son Uday agreed to receive several hundred Al Qaeda recruits for terrorist training in techniques unavailable in Afghanistan.

"That Baghdad birthday party, according to an unpublished spying report, celebrated something else: Uday Hussein's agreement with bin Laden's men to formally establish a joint force consisting of some of Al Qaeda's fiercest 'Afghan Arab' fighters and the covert combatants in Iraqi intelligence unit 999."

With the exception of Mohamed Atta's meeting with Iraqi intelligence in Prague, none of the above information has ever been disputed. In fact, in May of this year, Manhattan U.S. District Judge Harold Baer ruled that Iraq played a material role in the 9/11 attacks in a case brought against Baghdad by families of two World Trade Center victims.

But for a mainstream press that now seems primarily interested in making the case that President Bush made war on Iraq under false pretenses, these old reports and dozens more like them are suddenly very inconvenient. That's why they've disappeared down the media's collective memory hole.

 

But life is full of ironies, isn't it. Last week, the victims's families could not stop the release of frozen Iraqi assets that would have been used as compensation. Judge Baer ruled that President Bush's executive March 20, 2003 executive order released the Iraqi assets for Iraqi reconstruction. Judge Baer upheld this action and released the remaning funds.

So either, the President does not believe Iraq was involved in 9/11 or he personally released the funds that would have been used to compensate the families of victims. I'm guessing the former.

http://edition.cnn.com/2003/LAW/09/11/911.lawsuit.iraq/

 

Manny, do you really think a president should include in his State of the Union a claim that not only could not be verified, but in fact looked at the time to be false? Our own CIA director had expressed concern with the claim. Seriously, you think this was a good call?