Clinton Back's Bush's War in Iraq

[GePap]

From a supporter of the war, from the New Republic:

http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=20040628&s=pollack062804

There was a consensus among the governments of the world and a virtual consensus among the experts about the basic threat from Iraq; the great debate was over whether a war was necessary to remedy it. Few claimed that Iraq had no WMD programs, many of those who did seemed to have been discredited in some way or another, and they argued with less evidence than could be mustered in support of the mainstream position.

Yes, the real arguement against the war was whether the threat claimed even warranted the invasion. So even if we find after the fact evidence to bolster the pre-war claims, that does nothing at all to counter the very arguement people like myself made well over a year ago.

[Odin]

Fez, the only one lying here is you, either that or YOU have no brain.

[chequita guevara]

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2004/06/25/clinton/index.html

[Ramo]

Now don't get me wrong, this document certainly doesn't in of itself justify pre-war claims of Iraqi collaboration with al-Qaeda. But it does rather bury two extremely common memes that one encounters when discussing the subject: that Saddam Hussein and bin Laden were blood enemies and that they would never collaborate on issues of mutual interest. The former is now demonstrably untrue and regarding the latter, the only question that remains to be asked is to what degree such collaboration existed.

That's never been the contention. To be Mr.Funning my earlier response to the idea:

"As for the reasons for co-operation with al-Qaeda, the idea is that secular (and especially Arab nationalist) states don't help out radical Islamists unless there exists a practical reason to do so (since the ideological imperative is lacking).

Pakistani assistance to the Taleban was part of power plays with India (not much different from our assisstance to the Mujahadeen). The Saudi funding of al-Qaeda was part maintaining the stability of its regime. Likewise with Saddam and Ansar, an attempt at destabilizing the Kurds.

When you look at Iraq, there are two huge incentives for the gov't not to support al-Qaeda. First of all, there's the threat of American invasion because of such a provocation. Secondly, there's a very real threat of getting stabbed in its back. And of course there's absolutely no incentive for them to support al-Qaeda."

As for the poll, it's interesting that, as I pointed out in my realism thread, the CPA's own poll (released about a week and a half ago) directly contradicts their results, and says that Allawi is an extremely unpopular figure. And that's consistent with earlier results demonstrating Allawi's unpopularity.

As for the new attempt for militants to create WMD's, gee, none of us ever warned that invasion would precipitate a drive for certain Iraqis to use WMD's on us.

As for the recent Arab Nationalist- Sunni Islamist collaborations, I wonder how Darlings would explain the recent Arab Nationalist - Shia Islamist collaborations. Perhap Saddam and Sadr the Elder were best buds?

[Drake Tungsten]

The point the amdin. made was that Iraq was a THREAT to the U.S., a threat becuase it had an active WMD program and active connections with AQ.

I think it's logical that they should think such a thing, since William Cohen, Clinton's Defense Secretary, thought the exact same thing...

Clinton first linked al Qaeda to Saddam


By Rowan Scarborough
THE WASHINGTON TIMES


The Clinton administration talked about firm evidence linking Saddam Hussein's regime to Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network years before President Bush made the same statements.
    
The issue arose again this month after the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States reported there was no "collaborative relationship" between the old Iraqi regime and bin Laden.

Democrats have cited the staff report to accuse Mr. Bush of making inaccurate statements about a linkage. Commission members, including a Democrat and two Republicans, quickly came to the administration's defense by saying there had been such contacts.
    
In fact, during President Clinton's eight years in office, there were at least two official pronouncements of an alarming alliance between Baghdad and al Qaeda. One came from William S. Cohen, Mr. Clinton's defense secretary. He cited an al Qaeda-Baghdad link to justify the bombing of a pharmaceutical plant in Sudan.
   
 Mr. Bush cited the linkage, in part, to justify invading Iraq and ousting Saddam. He said he could not take the risk of Iraq's weapons falling into bin Laden's hands.
    
The other pronouncement is contained in a Justice Department indictment on Nov. 4, 1998, charging bin Laden with murder in the bombings of two U.S. embassies in Africa.
    
The indictment disclosed a close relationship between al Qaeda and Saddam's regime, which included specialists on chemical weapons and all types of bombs, including truck bombs, a favorite weapon of terrorists.
    
The 1998 indictment said: "Al Qaeda also forged alliances with the National Islamic Front in the Sudan and with the government of Iran and its associated terrorist group Hezbollah for the purpose of working together against their perceived common enemies in the West, particularly the United States. In addition, al Qaeda reached an understanding with the government of Iraq that al Qaeda would not work against that government and that on particular projects, specifically including weapons development, al Qaeda would work cooperatively with the government of Iraq."
    
Shortly after the embassy bombings, Mr. Clinton ordered air strikes on al Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan and on the Shifa pharmaceutical factory in Sudan.
    
To justify the Sudanese plant as a target, Clinton aides said it was involved in the production of deadly VX nerve gas. Officials further determined that bin Laden owned a stake in the operation and that its manager had traveled to Baghdad to learn bomb-making techniques from Saddam's weapons scientists.
    
Mr. Cohen elaborated in March in testimony before the September 11 commission.
    
He testified that "bin Laden had been living [at the plant], that he had, in fact, money that he had put into this military industrial corporation, that the owner of the plant had traveled to Baghdad to meet with the father of the VX program."
   
He said that if the plant had been allowed to produce VX that was used to kill thousands of Americans, people would have asked him, " 'You had a manager that went to Baghdad; you had Osama bin Laden, who had funded, at least the corporation, and you had traces of [VX precursor] and you did what? And you did nothing?' Is that a responsible activity on the part of the secretary of defense?"

http://www.washtimes.com/national/20040624-112921-3401r.htm

Cohen brings up a good question. Is it responsible activity on the part of the Secretary of Defense (or the administration as a whole) to ignore all these connections between Iraq and Al Qaeda just because there was no slam-dunk evidence that they were planning to attack America together? I think the administration was smart to not take any chances in this situation. If you disagree, fine, but good luck trying to sell your point of view to the American people.

[chequita guevara]

Drake, when did you start thinking Koreans were Jesus Christ reincarnated?

[Drake Tungsten]

I don't think the fact that the Washington Times was the one who printed Cohen's quote does anything to change the substance of what he said. I certainly don't like the Washington Times, but sometimes you have to get your facts from them when the other, more mainstream papers decide to bury them.

[chequita guevara]

The WT is a wing-nut paper.

[Drake Tungsten]

The WT is a wing-nut paper.

Are you accusing them of misquoting Cohen? If not, your comments are completely meaningless...

[chequita guevara]

I'm not saying one way or another. However, absent any confirmation by another source, I would tend to suspect it's made-up. It's not like they don't frequently make up stories out of whole cloth.

[Drake Tungsten]

It's time to make amends for actually linking the New York Times...

Times Games
The newspaper of record withholds Iraq/Qaeda connection evidence.

A week ago, the New York Times reported, in a screaming page-one headline, that the 9/11 Commission had found "No Qaeda-Iraq Tie." Today, in a remarkable story that positively oozes with consciousness of guilt, the Times confesses not only that there is documentary evidence of at least one tie but that the Times has had the document in question for several weeks. That is, the Times was well aware of this information at the very time of last week's reporting, during which, on June 17, it declaimed from its editorial perch that the lack of a connection between Saddam Hussein's regime and Osama bin Laden's terror network meant President Bush owed the nation an apology.Today, the Times concedes that the Defense Intelligence Agency is in possession of a document showing that, in the mid-1990s, the Iraqi Intelligence Service reached out to what the newspaper euphemistically calls "Mr. bin Laden's organization" (more on that below) regarding the possibility of joint efforts against the Saudi regime, which was then hosting U.S. forces. To be clear, the document records that it was Iraq which initiated the contacts, and that bin Laden finally agreed to discuss cooperation only after having spurned previous overtures because he "had some reservations about being labeled an Iraqi operative[.]"

Why does it matter who was enticing whom? On June 17, when, despite having this document, it was trashing the whole notion of an Iraq/Qaeda connection, the Times asserted without qualification that: The 9/11 Commission had found that any collaboration proposals had come from bin Laden's side; all such proposals had been declined by Saddam; and this scenario undermined the Bush administration's rationale for deposing the Iraqi regime. (The Times on June 17: "As for Iraq, the commission's staff said its investigation showed that the government of Mr. Hussein had rebuffed or ignored requests from Qaeda leaders for help in the 1990's, a conclusion that directly contradicts a series of public statements President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney made before and after last year's invasion of Iraq in justifying the war.")

Even now, the Times feebly endeavors to minimize the importance of the collaboration evidenced by the newly reported document. It says the information indicates "that Iraq agreed to rebroadcast anti-Saudi propaganda, and that a request from Mr. bin Laden to begin joint operations against foreign forces in Saudi Arabia went unanswered. There is no further indication of collaboration." (Emphasis added.) Nevertheless, the reader who has the patience to wade through several paragraphs of the Times disingenuously letting itself off the hook for refusing for weeks to report on this document will learn that what the newspaper really means when it says bin Laden's suggestions "went unanswered." In actuality, "the document contains no statement of response by the Iraqi leadership under Mr. Hussein to the request for joint operations[.]" Translation: Maybe there was a response and maybe there wasn't, but this document does not tell us one way or the other.

Why is this important? Because it is the continuation of a pattern — another instance of an effective but misleading tactic repeatedly used by the Times, the intelligence community, the 9/11 Commission staff, and all the Iraq/Qaeda connection naysayers. To wit: When they can't explain something, they never say they can't explain it; they say it didn't happen — even if saying so is against the weight of considerable counterevidence.

Best example? The 9/11 Commission staff, as gleefully reported by the Times last week, has concluded that there was not a meeting between top-hijacker Mohammed Atta and Iraqi Intelligence Officer Ahmed al-Ani in Prague five months before the 9/11 attacks. There is an eyewitness (a watcher for Czech intelligence) who says he saw them together, and there is substantial corroboration (including an entry in al-Ani's appointment calendar that he was to meet with a "Hamburg student," a pair of highly suspicious trips that Atta undoubtedly made to Prague in 2000 right before coming to the United States, and the fact that no witness has been found who can say he saw Atta in the U.S. when the Czechs say he was in Prague). Did the 9/11 Commission staff actually interview the eyewitness? No. Did the staff or the Times discuss the corroboration that supports the occurrence of the Prague meeting? No. Did either of them grapple with what is to be inferred from Atta's trips to Prague in 2000? No — not a word about them. Just a flat conclusion that the meeting never happened.

Since it's Clinton week, maybe it's best to put it this way: For the Times and its allies, Iraq and al Qaeda are like the former president's trysts: If there ain't a blue cocktail dress, it never happened. If there isn't a photograph of Atta and al-Ani poring over diagrams of the World Trade Center, we just conclude that they never saw each other, and we see no reason to acknowledge that there's considerable evidence that they probably did.

This morning's report is more of the same. We know there were numerous contacts between Iraq and al Qaeda after the collaborative proposals discussed in the newly reported document. How does the Times know that Saddam never responded to bin Laden's overtures? It doesn't. Neither do I. Neither do you. That's why it's called an investigation. The idea is to keep digging until you know. To the contrary, the Times's idea is: bury it, pretend you don't even know the things you do know, grudgingly admit the bare minimum, and use the enormous weight of your own inertia to make the whole thing go away. Thus we get hilarious paragraphs, like this one in today's story:

Members of the Pentagon task force that reviewed the document said it described no formal alliance being reached between Mr. bin Laden and Iraqi intelligence. The Iraqi document itself states that "cooperation between the two organizations should be allowed to develop freely through discussion and agreement."

(Emphasis added.)

That's a good one: a "formal alliance" between terrorists to terrorize. Did the Times expect a signing ceremony? What next? "The FBI's organized crime unit concluded today that there probably is no Mafia because the evidence does not describe any formal alliance between shadowy figures who, Vice President Dick Cheney claims, refer to themselves as 'Gambinos' and 'Bonannos'...."

Most pathetic of all in today's article is the Times's self-serving rationale for withholding critical information while it was accusing the president of misleading the country. First, even though the document inescapably shows a tie to bin Laden, the Times slyly suggests it may not really show a tie to al Qaeda. After all, so the story goes, this was the mid-90s, "before Al Qaeda had become a full-fledged terrorist organization." Nice try. As established by federal indictments, the embassy bombing trial, the 9/11 Commission staff report released last week, and innumerable other sources, al Qaeda was formed in Afghanistan in the late 1980s — years before this document existed.

Al Qaeda, as even the Times is forced to acknowledge, was so full-fledged by 1992 and 1993 that it was launching international attacks against the U.S. military in Yemen and Somalia. The Times fudges this by claiming: "At the time of the contacts described in the Iraqi document, Mr. bin Laden was little known beyond the world of national security experts." That may be so, but it is a far cry from saying al Qaeda wasn't really al Qaeda back then, just because the Times may not have heard of it. And what exactly is the newspaper trying to tell us with this hair-splitting? That when it was blaring that there was no connection between Iraq and al Qaeda, it was considering any contacts between Iraq and bin Laden as a separate issue? If that ludicrous position is their position, it would have been nice if they'd told us.

As existential doubts about al Qaeda clearly won't fly, the Times next drags out one of its favorite hobbyhorses: Ahmad Chalabi and the Iraqi National Congress. It appears, the Times says, that the INC was the source of this document. Translation: We get a pass for withholding this information because, after all, "[s]ome of the intelligence provided by the group is now wholly discredited[.]"

Strike two. What has allegedly been discredited are defectors who, the INC's detractors say, provided accounts about Saddam's military capabilities and the like that now appear dubious. What we are talking about here, though, is a document. Not only is it true, as the Times ruefully concedes, that "officials have called some of the documents [the INC] helped to obtain useful." This particular document, this spring, turns out to have been "reviewed by a Pentagon working group...[that] included senior analysts from the military's Joint Staff, the Defense Intelligence Agency and a joint intelligence task force that specialized in counterterrorism issues[.]" The result of that review: "The task force concluded that the document 'appeared authentic,' and that it 'corroborates and expands on previous reporting" about contacts between Iraqi intelligence and Mr. bin Laden in Sudan[.]"

And then, finally, comes strike three. With no apparent, positive reason to have doubted, and thus to have resisted reporting, this document showing a tie between Iraq and al Qaeda, the Times invents one out of whole cloth: "It is not known whether some on the task force held dissenting opinions about the document's veracity." This is just shameful.

If it is not known whether there were dissenting views, why suggest that there were? After all, the Times knows full well that there are robust dissenting views about the Commission staff's rejection of an Atta/al-Ani meeting in Prague in April 2001, yet it has had no trouble leaping with both feet on the Commission staff's conclusion. The Times knew in March, when it reported Richard Clarke's categorical claim that there was no Iraq/Qaeda connection, that in 1998, when Clarke had been the government's top counter-terrorism official, the same government filed a sealed indictment against bin Laden expressly alleging an Iraq/Qaeda connection.

The Times speculates — in what are presented as straight news stories — that there simply must be dissenting views only when such views would support the ones transparently held by the editors of the Times. And that, above all, is what this is about.

The Times has been against the Iraq war from the start. Its relentless propaganda, in conjunction with its media allies, has taken a sizable toll. President Bush has taken a ratings hit, and a poll out this morning suggests that a slim majority of Americans now believes the war was a mistake. But that could turn around in a heartbeat. No one is more aware than the "newspaper of record" that if the American people become convinced Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden were in cahoots, the national perception of the necessity for this war will drastically change, and the president's reelection will be a virtual lock.

That's what this is about. And who knows what else the Times is not telling us?

— Andrew C. McCarthy, who led the 1995 terrorism prosecution against Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman and eleven others, is an NRO contributor. He's reachable through www.benadorassociates.com.

http://www.nationalreview.com/mccarthy/mccarthy200406251321.asp

Ouch. The reputation of the Times certainly isn't getting any better.

[Drake Tungsten]

More New York Times bashing. Why? Because it's fun...

Good Times, Bad Times
From the July 5 / July 12, 2004 issue: The New York Times can't decide whether or not there's a connection between Saddam and al Qaeda.

by William Kristol
07/05/2004, Volume 009, Issue 41

Here is the New York Times, editorializing in high dudgeon on June 17:

Now President Bush should apologize to the American people. . . . Of all the ways Mr. Bush persuaded Americans to back the invasion of Iraq last year, the most plainly dishonest was his effort to link his war of choice with the battle against terrorists worldwide. . . . Mr. Bush and his top advisers . . . should have known all along that there was no link between Iraq and Al Qaeda.

Here are excerpts from a front-page article by Thom Shanker in the New York Times one week later, on June 25:

Contacts between Iraqi intelligence agents and Osama bin Laden when he was in Sudan in the mid-1990s were part of a broad effort by Baghdad to work with organizations opposing the Saudi ruling family, according to a newly disclosed document obtained by the Americans in Iraq. . . .

The new document, which appears to have circulated only since April, was provided to the New York Times several weeks ago. . . .

A translation of the new Iraqi document was reviewed by a Pentagon working group in the spring . . .

The task force concluded that the document "appeared authentic," and that it "corroborates and expands on previous reporting" about contacts between Iraqi intelligence and Mr. bin Laden in Sudan, according to the task force's analysis. . . .

The document, which asserts that Mr. bin Laden "was approached by our side," states that Mr. bin Laden previously "had some reservations about being labeled an Iraqi operative," but was now willing to meet in Sudan, and that "presidential approval" was granted to the Iraqi security service to proceed. . . .

The document is of interest to American officials as a detailed, if limited, snapshot of communications between Iraqi intelligence and Mr. bin Laden, but this view ends with Mr. bin Laden's departure from Sudan. At that point, Iraqi intelligence officers began "seeking other channels through which to handle the relationship, in light of his current location," the document states.

Members of the Pentagon task force that reviewed the document said it described no formal alliance being reached between Mr. bin Laden and Iraqi intelligence. The Iraqi document itself states that "co-operation between the two organizations should be allowed to develop freely through discussion and agreement." . . .

The Iraqi document states that Mr. bin Laden's organization in Sudan was called "The Advice and Reform Commission." The Iraqis were cued to make their approach to Mr. bin Laden in 1994 after a Sudanese official visited Uday Hussein, the leader's son, as well as the director of Iraqi intelligence, and indicated that Mr. bin Laden was willing to meet in Sudan.

A former director of operations for Iraqi intelligence Directorate 4 met with Mr. bin Laden on Feb. 19, 1995, the document states.

So much for "no link between Iraq and al Qaeda." So much for the claim of the Times editorial, and of its page-one headline the same day mischaracterizing the 9/11 Commission staff report. We look forward to the editors' apology.

More important, we look forward to the Bush administration seriously and relentlessly engaging the debate over the Saddam-al Qaeda terror connection. We hope we do not wait in vain.

Vice President Cheney did sally forth last week, the day after the release of the 9/11 Commission staff report. But he hasn't much followed up since then, and others have been mostly silent. Does the Bush team really think it can command majority support for the war in Iraq if it allows its opponents an uncontested field to make the case that Saddam had no significant links to terrorists?

After all, the situation on the ground in Iraq is likely to remain ambiguous over the next few months. So simply depending on things to turn out well after the June 30 turnover of power is, to say the least, politically risky. Large caches of weapons of mass destruction are unlikely to turn up soon. This does not mean Saddam's history of concealing his weapons programs from inspectors was not a solid ground for his removal. But it does mean that the WMD issue is not a likely winner for the administration.

The terror link issue, by contrast, should be a clear winner. Saddam and Osama had a "relationship" in the past, and sought continuing "cooperation" between their two "organizations." Could the president of the United States have simply left Saddam in power, with sanctions coming off, reconstituting his weapons programs, confident that Saddam and al Qaeda would not work together again in the future?

Would this have been a reasonable course of action?

This is a genuinely important debate for the country to have in this election year. It is a good debate for the Bush administration--if it has the wit and the nerve to engage it.

--William Kristol

http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/004/273ejlcp.asp

[GePap]

at Drake.

The debates moved past your silly little right-wing op-eds. Is that all you got? Some other yockel's opinion? Can't even get your own? Sad.

[Drake Tungsten]

The debates moved past your silly little right-wing op-eds. Is that all you got? Some other yockel's opinion? Can't even get your own? Sad.

The word is spelled "yokel." And I guess this means you don't have a response. Pwned!

[Odin]

What we should of done was to pay some people in Saddam's inner circle to kill him as well as Uday and Qusay and let the Shiites and the Kurds do the rest. then send in a UN-backed force to make sure that Iran or Saudi Arabia doesn't put in a puppet government.