Some Phase II Conclusions (particularly #9) Beyond Comprehension
Future DOCEX Efforts Dismissed In Order To Buttress SSCI Phase II Report Conclusions as Comprehensive
In the ‘Iraqi Links to Al-Qaeda’ section of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence’s Phase II Report on prewar intelligence on Iraq, Conclusion 9 - the final conclusion – asserts that “additional reviews of documents recovered in Iraq are unlikely to provide information that would contradict the Committee’s findings or conclusions.” This is a bold statement for many reasons, not the least of which is that this can be interpreted as an assertion that the Committee’s findings hold an air of conclusiveness and/or comprehensiveness.
The Intelligence Community has yet to assemble a comprehensive, definitive report on Iraq’s ties to al-Qaeda. The Phase II Report itself notes “the absence of a single comprehensive Intelligence Community analytic product on Iraq’s links to terrorism” on page 6. Therefore, none of the input data considered by the Committee can be considered comprehensive in nature. Yet, the Phase II Report takes on just such a definitive air, especially when considering Conclusion 9’s bold determination that the millions of recovered Iraqi documents “are unlikely to provide information that would contradict the Committee’s findings or conclusions.”
Yet, there is much collected intel and data outside the publicly available DOCEX collection that does contradict many of the Committee’s findings. The unfortunate reality is that much of this data simply was not considered. While it is impossible to consider every item, prudence and the importance of the Senate Intelligence Committee’s oversight role in the American Intelligence programs would dictate that more information should have been considered than was for the Phase II Report.
Brooks Comment on Salman Pak Field Intelligence Expunged
Some information was removed from consideration, as noted in the Committee Action section (Pg. 135), including the observations of Brigadier General Vincent Brooks upon the US offensive and takeover of the terrorist training camp at Salman Pak. Available in open source, General Vincent told an AP reporter that “The nature of the work being done by some of those people we captured, their inferences about the type of training they received, all these things give us the impression that there is terrorist training that was conducted at Salman Pak. It reinforces the likelihood of links between this regime and external terrorist organizations." This is actionable field intelligence, shared in part by the deputy operations commander in Iraq, which led to the offensive on Salman Pak.
Conclusion 4 reads, “Postwar findings support the April 2002 Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) assessment that there was no credible reporting on al-Qa’ida training at Salman Pak or anywhere else in Iraq.”
There are two issues with this statement. Firstly, the report in Conclusion 4 does not use language to confirm that Salman Pak was indeed a terrorist training camp, but rather seems to skirt the issue by instead stating that it cannot be confirmed as an al-Qaeda terrorist training camp. Even if so, the War is not limited to defending against card-carrying al-Qaeda terrorists, nor should it be.
Secondly, there is much evidence to support claims that al-Qaeda was indeed training elsewhere in Iraq, namely the presence of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi at Ansar al-Islam camps in Iraq immediately following the 2001 US invasion of Afghanistan, from where he had fled to Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. This will be detailed subsequently in latter installments of this series that will focus on Zarqawi and Ansar al-Islam.
Forged Documents Mentioned, Others Ignored Entirely
As the SSCI Phase II Report notes and rightly dismisses “a number of forged documents captured in Iraq on a variety of topics” including some regarding Zarqawi, not included among those forged documents – nor apparently among the genuine documents that the Committee considered - are those mentioned by a Jordanian security official within the context of describing the manner in which the Hussein regime ignored repeated Jordanian requests for the extradition of Zarqawi. According to the Jordanian official’s account described in the Washington Post, “documents recovered after its overthrow in 2003 show that Iraqi agents did detain some Zarqawi operatives but released them after questioning. Furthermore, the Iraqis warned the Zarqawi operatives that the Jordanians knew where they were.” The existence of these documents has not been disputed, yet these important potential indicators of high-level Iraqi regime support for Zarqawi before the 2003 invasion are not considered in the Committee’s report.
While understood by most of the American public as the deceased leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq and responsible for attacks on both coalition forces and civilians – including gruesome taped beheadings as propaganda messages – it should be remembered that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was long before connected to the December 1999 millennium plot designed for coordinated attacks in the United States, Jordan and Israel.
Dr Muhammed al-Masari, like bin Laden, is a Saudi Arabian dissident who opposes the royal family's leadership. al-Masari supports bin Laden and his views and, from London, hosts a jihadi website that posts al-Qaeda news and messages. Described in Intelligence circles as a well-connected al-Qaeda front man, al-Masari helps al-Qaeda engage in the Information Warfare battle for the hearts and minds of potential jihadists. He described al-Qaeda’s influx into Iraq through the terrorist group Ansar al-Islam. While described as “anti-Hussein” and “anti-secular,” their primary foe on the ground in Iraq were the Kurds, a common enemy also held by Saddam, who is currently on trial for crimes against humanity for, among other things, using chemical weapons (mustard gas and VX nerve agents) on Kurdish villages.
Noting that Saddam Hussein, fearing a US military invasion once Afghanistan would be decided, began to actively court the “Arab Afghan” al-Qaeda terrorists to come to Iraq and form a jihadi resistance against a more powerful common enemy. It is worth noting at this point that the SSCI Phase II Report gives full credence to Saddam Hussein’s statement from jail that he did not view America as an enemy, and that “Iraq only opposed U.S. policies. He specified that if he wanted to cooperate with the enemies of the U.S., he would have allied with North Korea or China.”
The SSCI Phase II report accepts Hussein’s postwar words and logic at face value to support a conclusion that there were no ties between Iraq and al-Qaeda. However, it fails to carry this accepted logic to support a view that would contradict Phase II Conclusion 6 which finds that Ansar al-Islam was seen only as “a threat to the regime” and that the IIS only “attempted to collect intelligence” on them.
To apply Hussein’s logic accepted by the SSCI Phase II report, if he wanted to cooperate with the enemies of the Kurds, whose civilian population he directly used chemical weapons against, he would have allied with Ansar al-Islam. Rather, the report ignores this and applies his statement to only support their conclusion regarding ties to al-Qaeda proper without presenting it as contradictory to its conclusion that there were no ties between Iraq and Ansar al-Islam beyond adversarial.
Yet, the al-Qaeda front man, Dr Muhammed al-Masari, described how Saddam was paying for the terrorists’ move into Iraq. “According to Masari, Saddam saw that Islam would be key to a cohesive resistance in the event of invasion. Iraqi army commanders were ordered to become practising Muslims and to adopt the language and spirit of the jihadis. On arrival in Iraq, Al-Qaeda operatives were put in touch with these commanders, who later facilitated the distribution of arms and money from Saddam’s caches.”
Previous Intelligence Reports Contradicted
While this relationship is dismissed by the report, it is not merely a spur of the moment relationship of survival or convenience. The SSCI Phase II Report in fact acknowledges a DIA report that states al-Qaeda has “proven ties to Ansar al-Islam.”
The SSCI Phase II Report also contradicts the 9-11 Commission Report, which documents Iraqi ties with al-Qaeda, including at least one meeting between the Iraqi Intelligence Service and al-Qaeda leaders. Chapter 2 of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States Report (aka 9-11 Commission Report) states in part:
"In mid-1998, the situation reversed; it was Iraq that reportedly took the initiative. In March 1998, after Bin Ladin's public fatwa against the United States, two al Qaeda members reportedly went to Iraq to meet with Iraqi intelligence. In July, an Iraqi delegation traveled to Afghanistan to meet first with the Taliban and then with Bin Ladin. Sources reported that one, or perhaps both, of these meetings was apparently arranged through Bin Ladin's Egyptian deputy, Zawahiri, who had ties of his own to the Iraqis. In 1998, Iraq was under intensifying U.S. pressure, which culminated in a series of large air attacks in December."
The meetings between Farouq Hijazi, at the time head of the Iraqi Intelligence Service's external operations, and al-Qaeda - reportedly at least one with bin Laden personally - cannot be responsibly dismissed as irrelevant in any assessment exploring Iraq/al-Qaeda ties. The SSCI Phase II Report appears to do just this.
Illogical Confidence In DOCEX Success
Many Iraqi documents are not considered by the Committee’s Phase II report while also confidently prophesying that the millions of other recovered Iraqi documents yet to be analyzed will not come into conflict with any of the Phase II conclusions. Considering that the Phase II Report’s conclusions with regard to Iraqi ties to terrorism often conflict with those of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence’s own Phase I Report and the 9/11 Commission’s final report, this bold statement is even more curious.
The Committee’s Phase II report openly acknowledges that of 120 million Iraqi documents recovered after the 2003 invasion, only “34 million pages have been translated and summarized to some extent” as of early 2006. Precisely how much analysis is entailed in being “translated and summarized to some extent” for those documents is also unclear.
The documents recovered in Iraq are part of the DOCEX efforts and the task of analyzing them is nothing short of daunting. The ‘documents’ include paper files, government and private hard drives, diskettes and CD’s as well as audio and video tapes. The number of documents – in paper, digital and other media forms – is in the millions, a staggering number. Many of the unclassified documents recovered in Iraq are made publicly available through the US Army Foreign Military Studies Office.
Just how many of the documents have been analyzed is classified information, but to be sure it is a very small percentage. A January 2006 article by Stephen Hayes suggested that there had been at that time only “50,000 documents translated completely out of a total of 2 million.” The Phase II Report rightly points to the fact that the initial wave of analysis focused on WMD, and said one former military intelligence officer quoted in Hayes’ article, "At first, if it wasn't WMD, it wasn't translated. It wasn't exploited." While indicative of a concerted effort, it remains to be seen just how effective these efforts were, especially considering a focus on terrorism came along only later. It cannot be known until all of the documents have been properly translated and vetted.
Speaking to the sheer volume of documents yet to be exploited and the linear approach currently employed to tackle them, Michael Tanji, former chief of the media exploitation division in the office of document exploitation at the Defense Intelligence Agency said to The Weekly Standard, “As most of this material has come to us without any context (‘hard drives found in Iraq’ was a common label attached to captured media) that approach means our great-grandchildren will still be dealing with this problem.”
Conclusion
With these considerations, Conclusion 9 appears to be included in the SSCI Phase II Report for the limited purposes of buttressing the previous eight conclusions while dismissing the value of the remaining millions of documents that may well provide data to support conflicting views. With regards to DOCEX, there are millions of documents yet to be translated and reviewed.
The SSCI Phase II Report in its current form is banking on perfection in US Military and Intelligence procedure and execution in vetting WMD and terrorism related documents written in Arabic, often by hand. Considering the intimidating volume of documents and the relative dearth of Arabic linguists to perform the work, this confidence is misplaced. But this misplaced confidence is through no fault of the analysts and linguists combing though mostly mundane documents, as Michael Tanji puts it, by “brute force.”
With the current linear process for achieving a full review a task requiring years to achieve, Conclusion 9 seeks to assure us that “our great-grandchildren” will have found nothing to contradict the conclusions of a Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Report that utilized select non-comprehensive reports to arrive at purportedly indisputable conclusions. This assertion in Conclusion 9 falls outside the scope of logic and reason, existing data outside the scope of DOCEX notwithstanding.
Comments (9)
Very interesting analysis, better than I have seen at many conservative websites. The Phase II was indeed an utter disaster and embarressment from what I have read.
Posted by: Seixon_Fan | September 28, 2006 5:40 PM
Posted on: September 28, 2006 17:40
Fascinating stuff. It never ceases to amaze me that Saddam Hussein's word was taken as virtual gospel in regards to his ties with terrorist organizations. The idea that any rational person would even believe him when he states that he didn't oppose the U.S., only their policies, is hard to fathom. If the report was not politically motivated in some way, it was simply the height of incompetence.
Posted by: John | November 11, 2006 12:55 PM
Posted on: November 11, 2006 12:55
Mark,
Saw your comments at MacsMind and thought I'd visit. Excellent analysis. I have bookmarked you and hope that you find the time to do more writing on your blog.
Specter
Posted by: Specter![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://regimeofterror.com/nav-commenters.gif)
|
November 28, 2006 8:40 AM
Posted on: November 28, 2006 08:40
"Fascinating stuff. It never ceases to amaze me that Saddam Hussein's word was taken as virtual gospel in regards to his ties with terrorist organizations. The idea that any rational person would even believe him when he states that he didn't oppose the U.S., only their policies, is hard to fathom. If the report was not politically motivated in some way, it was simply the height of incompetence."
Saddam was interviewed by the FBI, his word was not taken as gospel as he was interrogated by the best interrogators the US has (the FBI), and his statements were subsequently verified by his underlings, and on top of that there is no documentary evidence (aside from one meeting in 1995) that Saddam and al Qaeda had any kind of relationship.
It is fairly definitive in my mind and I doubt the DIA analysts are politically motivated.
Saddam had ties to the Palestinian groups, but nobody disputed that before the war; not even Saddam. What is in dispute and in considerable doubt is Iraq's connections to al Qaeda.
All we have in favor of that connection is one meeting in 1995, but there is no additional evidence that Iraq provided safe haven, weapons, training, direction, command, control, money, or papers to al Qaeda or al Qaeda affiliates. Four years after the invasion and this connection is still a matter of dispute, thus it is unlikely there was a connection to begin with.
Posted by: James M | December 25, 2006 1:54 PM
Posted on: December 25, 2006 13:54
James M,
Thanks for your reply.
I understand you think there is "no evidence" that there was a relationship and the sole meeting between the two sides was in 95 in Sudan but how do you account for Iraq's Mukhabarat listing bin Laden as an Iraq asset in Syria in 1992 (before any meetings even took place according to your analysis) and Hijazi admitting to it? If they didn't meet until 95 how was UBL an admitted Iraqi asset (according to the very same SSCI report) in 1992?
I also suggest rereading the section of the SSCI report in which Saddam and his aides admit agreeing to broadcast pro al Qaeda messages into Saudi Arabia, on UBL's behalf, if they had "no relationship" and only "one meeting"?
What about the Zawahiri trip to Baghdad in 1998 that the Clinton administration was aware of and been discussed by the 9-11 commission and verified to me personally by Lt. Col. Buzz Patterson? The meeting involved Saddam or one of his top aides reportedly giving Zawahiri 300k in Baghdad. This meeting wasn't even addressed in the report.
I don't think the FBI or DIA (no comment on the CIA) are politicized organizations but the report is NOT an FBI or DIA report, it is a Senate Intel report that has already admitted picking and choosing intelligence (ex. striking out the testimony of Gen. Vincent Brooks) and we still don't know what else the FBI and DIA told the SSCI, we only know what they decided to put in their final report.
Posted by: ikez78![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://regimeofterror.com/nav-commenters.gif)
|
December 26, 2006 11:27 AM
Posted on: December 26, 2006 11:27
"I understand you think there is "no evidence" that there was a relationship and the sole meeting between the two sides was in 95 in Sudan but how do you account for Iraq's Mukhabarat listing bin Laden as an Iraq asset in Syria in 1992 (before any meetings even took place according to your analysis) and Hijazi admitting to it? If they didn't meet until 95 how was UBL an admitted Iraqi asset (according to the very same SSCI report) in 1992?"
The SSCI report is no longer available on the website, but from what I read of it Hijazi denied meeting bin Laden in Syria in 1992, but confirmed the 1995 meeting. Also the SSCI did not state the IIS listed bin Laden as an Iraqi asset as early as 1992; this information comes from Stephen Hayes, and has been widely discredited.
“I also suggest rereading the section of the SSCI report in which Saddam and his aides admit agreeing to broadcast pro al Qaeda messages into Saudi Arabia, on UBL's behalf, if they had "no relationship" and only "one meeting"?”
You have to re-read the report yourself; the broadcasts were sermons by an anti-Saudi government cleric that was a friend of bin Laden, and they were to be broadcast in Iraq not Saudi Arabia. Al Qaeda had nothing to do with the broadcasts, nor is al Qaeda ever mentioned by name in ANY Iraq document. Lastly it was never confirmed by the interviews, or documents that the sermons were ever actually broadcast as that decision was delegated to another level of the government.
“What about the Zawahiri trip to Baghdad in 1998 that the Clinton administration was aware of and been discussed by the 9-11 commission and verified to me personally by Lt. Col. Buzz Patterson? The meeting involved Saddam or one of his top aides reportedly giving Zawahiri 300k in Baghdad. This meeting wasn't even addressed in the report.”
I don’t know who Buzz Patterson is, but there are a lot of problems with the alleged 1998 meeting. First of all 300K isn’t a lot of money for guys like Zawahiri and bin Laden; it wouldn’t fund much of al Qaeda’s operations. Also why would Zawahiri go to Baghdad to collect such a small amount of money; were there not front companies, shell accounts, third parties, that could be used to transfer the money? Why risk such an endeavor for 300K? Why would Saddam meet with Zawahiri for 300k when he doesn’t even meet with Hamas leaders? Citing the Clinton Administration and its woeful record on intelligence doesn’t help your case either.
“I don't think the FBI or DIA (no comment on the CIA) are politicized organizations but the report is NOT an FBI or DIA report, it is a Senate Intel report that has already admitted picking and choosing intelligence (ex. striking out the testimony of Gen. Vincent Brooks) and we still don't know what else the FBI and DIA told the SSCI, we only know what they decided to put in their final report.”
The DIA vetted the DOCEX program; the DIA agent stated they had gone through 120 million pages of documents and were confident that none of them would show a link between al Qaeda and Iraq, thus the reason I included the DIA. But you are correct that it is a Senate Intel report; but it was also a Republican-controlled Senate, and Committee that released the report, so perhaps it has something to do with internal Republican politics.
Posted by: James M | December 28, 2006 12:52 PM
Posted on: December 28, 2006 12:52
"I understand you think there is "no evidence" that there was a
relationship and the sole meeting between the two sides was in 95 in Sudan
but how do you account for Iraq's Mukhabarat listing bin Laden as an Iraq
asset in Syria in 1992 (before any meetings even took place according to
your analysis) and Hijazi admitting to it? If they didn't meet until 95 how
was UBL an admitted Iraqi asset (according to the very same SSCI report) in
1992?"
The SSCI report is no longer available on the website, but from what I read
of it Hijazi denied meeting bin Laden in Syria in 1992, but confirmed the
1995 meeting. Also the SSCI did not state the IIS listed bin Laden as an
Iraqi asset as early as 1992; this information comes from Stephen Hayes,
and has been widely discredited.
Hijazi said that the memo showing UBL as an Iraqi asset in 1992 was accurate, he didnt say he had met UBL by then but said someone else in the regime must have done so. The report says Hijazi admitted UBL was an Iraqi Intel asset in 1992 but made zero effort to explain why or how. I'd like some answers and it bothers me that not many people want to even ask these questions of the SSCI report.
?I also suggest rereading the section of the SSCI report in which Saddam
and his aides admit agreeing to broadcast pro al Qaeda messages into Saudi
Arabia, on UBL's behalf, if they had "no relationship" and only "one
meeting"??
You have to re-read the report yourself; the broadcasts were sermons by an
anti-Saudi government cleric that was a friend of bin Laden, and they were
to be broadcast in Iraq not Saudi Arabia. Al Qaeda had nothing to do with
the broadcasts, nor is al Qaeda ever mentioned by name in ANY Iraq
document. Lastly it was never confirmed by the interviews, or documents
that the sermons were ever actually broadcast as that decision was
delegated to another level of the government.
al Qaeda was certainly mentioned in numerous Iraqi documents. Many of them were made available by the DOC EX site and talked about by ABC News, Fox, the Toronto Star and others. Surprised you didn't know this. Also, Saddam and his top aides said they broadcast the messages. Read the whole report, like you told me. Saying al Qaeda wasn't mentioned in "ANY" Iraq document is the type of absolutism that has no place in this debate, especially when the intel community, let alone YOU, have had a chance to go through ALL the documents.
?What about the Zawahiri trip to Baghdad in 1998 that the Clinton
administration was aware of and been discussed by the 9-11 commission and
verified to me personally by Lt. Col. Buzz Patterson? The meeting involved
Saddam or one of his top aides reportedly giving Zawahiri 300k in Baghdad.
This meeting wasn't even addressed in the report.?
I don?t know who Buzz Patterson is, but there are a lot of problems with
the alleged 1998 meeting. First of all 300K isn?t a lot of money for
guys like Zawahiri and bin Laden; it wouldn?t fund much of al Qaeda?s
operations. Also why would Zawahiri go to Baghdad to collect such a small
amount of money; were there not front companies, shell accounts, third
parties, that could be used to transfer the money? Why risk such an
endeavor for 300K? Why would Saddam meet with Zawahiri for 300k when he
doesn?t even meet with Hamas leaders? Citing the Clinton Administration
and its woeful record on intelligence doesn?t help your case either.
Clinton wasn't "the" intelligence community, he was president while there was an intelligence community. Patterson was the lead in Clinton's inner circle, had the nuclear codes and access to all kinds of top secret intelligence. Someone that's worth listening to.
300k might not be a lot to you in the bigger scheme but the 9-11 plot cost less than that, it's enough money to do a lot of terrorizing. The reason they said Zawahiri was there was Baghdad's ANNUAL Islamic Conference that included Sudanese Islamicists, Egyptian ones, Phillipine ones, etc. He had these every year and they were always promoted anti Americanism. Look up NEWSWEEK's Chris Dickey's work on this, I believe he went to one of the conferences.
?I don't think the FBI or DIA (no comment on the CIA) are politicized
organizations but the report is NOT an FBI or DIA report, it is a Senate
Intel report that has already admitted picking and choosing intelligence
(ex. striking out the testimony of Gen. Vincent Brooks) and we still don't
know what else the FBI and DIA told the SSCI, we only know what they
decided to put in their final report.?
The DIA vetted the DOCEX program; the DIA agent stated they had gone
through 120 million pages of documents and were confident that none of them
would show a link between al Qaeda and Iraq, thus the reason I included the
DIA. But you are correct that it is a Senate Intel report; but it was also
a Republican-controlled Senate, and Committee that released the report, so
perhaps it has something to do with internal Republican politics.
Well the Senate intel said ONE DIA agent skimmed a portion of the documents. Why not wait until they've all been looked at?
I know of at least a few more ex DIA agents, one still active, who saw evidence to the contrary of the report. I'd suggest reading what Michael Tanji, who LED the DOC EX program has said about what the docs revealed regarding Saddam's terror links, he's also said that there's a lot of stuff thats far more damning but he won't break his classified clearances.
Internal Republican politics? Snowe and Hagel, both anti Iraq war, sided with the Democrats and gave them a majority to control the final report. It's really that simple.
Posted by: ikez78![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://regimeofterror.com/nav-commenters.gif)
|
December 30, 2006 2:54 AM
Posted on: December 30, 2006 02:54
“Hijazi said that the memo showing UBL as an Iraqi asset in 1992 was accurate, he didnt say he had met UBL by then but said someone else in the regime must have done so. The report says Hijazi admitted UBL was an Iraqi Intel asset in 1992 but made zero effort to explain why or how. I'd like some answers and it bothers me that not many people want to even ask these questions of the SSCI report.”
The exact quote is “The Syrian section has a relationship with him”, but the document doesn’t expound upon the nature of the “relationship”, could be a phone number, could be a guy who knows a guy who knows UBL, who knows. Later we find out that one meeting occurred in 1995, UBL asks for a bunch of stuff, and it was all rejected by Saddam personally. So the “relationship” ends there as far as I am concerned; before UBL’s fatwas against the US and before Al Qaeda’s attacks on the US.
“al Qaeda was certainly mentioned in numerous Iraqi documents. Many of them were made available by the DOC EX site and talked about by ABC News, Fox, the Toronto Star and others. Surprised you didn't know this. Also, Saddam and his top aides said they broadcast the messages. Read the whole report, like you told me. Saying al Qaeda wasn't mentioned in "ANY" Iraq document is the type of absolutism that has no place in this debate, especially when the intel community, let alone YOU, have had a chance to go through ALL the documents.”
Perhaps I misspoke but I didn’t see Al Qaeda mentioned by name, at least not in the DOCEX program; bin Laden’s group was referred to as Advice and Reform Committee in the only Iraqi document that confirmed the only meeting between the two entities. As to the sermons, this is from the report: “According to Hijazi, Saddam immediately refused bin Laden’s requests for the office, mines, and military training, but expressed some willingness to broadcast the request speeches from the anti-Saudi cleric. Hijazi stated he did not know if Iraq ever actually broadcast the speeches because he stated that Saddam delegated the decision to a lower level of the government.” Page 75 SSCI Report. I don’t see anything that indicated the sermons were broadcast, and if they were it was someone else’s doing. But even if they were broadcast, it isn’t terrorism it’s propaganda and every government worth its salt engages in it.
“Clinton wasn't "the" intelligence community, he was president while there was an intelligence community. Patterson was the lead in Clinton's inner circle, had the nuclear codes and access to all kinds of top secret intelligence. Someone that's worth listening to.”
The intelligence in the 1990s was woeful though is my point. Either the IC’s collection and analysis of the data or the Clinton Administration’s use or non-use of it or both was bad. Patterson held the football, and maybe he was privy to the same bad intelligence that Clinton had, but that intelligence has become outdated and much of it refuted by the updated intelligence we have from the Iraq archives. Buzz Patterson flies airplanes now, and has no access to the current intelligence.
“300k might not be a lot to you in the bigger scheme but the 9-11 plot cost less than that, it's enough money to do a lot of terrorizing. The reason they said Zawahiri was there was Baghdad's ANNUAL Islamic Conference that included Sudanese Islamicists, Egyptian ones, Phillipine ones, etc. He had these every year and they were always promoted anti Americanism. Look up NEWSWEEK's Chris Dickey's work on this, I believe he went to one of the conferences.”
Attending an annual conference is a big difference from being in a personal audience with Saddam. We know too well how porous Iraq’s borders can be, and a man like Zawahiri could easily bribe his way through to Baghdad and not have a thing to do with the regime. Guess what the KKK still meets throughout the US, but it doesn’t mean the US government knows about it or condones it.
“Well the Senate intel said ONE DIA agent skimmed a portion of the documents. Why not wait until they've all been looked at?”
It also said that most of the documents had been put in a database for all members of the IC to look at, that’s potentially a lot of people to find these alleged links.
”I know of at least a few more ex DIA agents, one still active, who saw evidence to the contrary of the report. I'd suggest reading what Michael Tanji, who LED the DOC EX program has said about what the docs revealed regarding Saddam's terror links, he's also said that there's a lot of stuff thats far more damning but he won't break his classified clearances.”
The US government leaks like a sieve yet one guy who works for the TRC now, and outside of government, and knows the truth about the documents which could alter American perceptions of the war at a time when popular support for the war are at an all time low, yet won’t reveal what he knows because he won’t break his classified clearances? Doubtful. If anyone in the government had any evidence regarding Saddam’s ties to terrorism post-1991, it would have been leaked by now in all probability.
“Internal Republican politics? Snowe and Hagel, both anti Iraq war, sided with the Democrats and gave them a majority to control the final report. It's really that simple.”
They’re still Republicans, and thus it is an issue for the Party.
Posted by: James M | January 2, 2007 9:06 PM
Posted on: January 2, 2007 21:06
James M.
Thanks again for your thoughtful and well reasoned comments.
"The exact quote is “The Syrian section has a relationship with him”, but the document doesn’t expound upon the nature of the “relationship”, could be a phone number, could be a guy who knows a guy who knows UBL, who knows. Later we find out that one meeting occurred in 1995, UBL asks for a bunch of stuff, and it was all rejected by Saddam personally. So the “relationship” ends there as far as I am concerned; before UBL’s fatwas against the US and before Al Qaeda’s attacks on the US."
How do you know it was "all rejected by Saddam?"
You don't and to pretend to "know" isn't just speculation, not really debating.
"Perhaps I misspoke but I didn’t see Al Qaeda mentioned by name, at least not in the DOCEX program; bin Laden’s group was referred to as Advice and Reform Committee in the only Iraqi document that confirmed the only meeting between the two entities. As to the sermons, this is from the report: “According to Hijazi, Saddam immediately refused bin Laden’s requests for the office, mines, and military training, but expressed some willingness to broadcast the request speeches from the anti-Saudi cleric. Hijazi stated he did not know if Iraq ever actually broadcast the speeches because he stated that Saddam delegated the decision to a lower level of the government.” Page 75 SSCI Report. I don’t see anything that indicated the sermons were broadcast, and if they were it was someone else’s doing. But even if they were broadcast, it isn’t terrorism it’s propaganda and every government worth its salt engages in it."
Read Tom Joscelyn's review of the report, he shows the exact pages where Saddam first admits , then denies, broadcasting the messages. Kinda strange how only the part where he denies broadcasting the messages is cited by you.
The broadcasting of propaganda in and of itself isn't the problem. The fact that al Qaeda specifically requested is. Do you think Saddam was really going to do this and request nothing in return?
Also, Saddam also gave his airwaves to Abu Abbas to promote terrorism as well as the two Saudi hijackers that his regime took in and gave sanctuary to in 2001. These men were given the full treatment, were professional hijackers by nearly any measure, and were then given free air time to blast the Saudi ruling family. The point isn't that they disliked the Saudis but that Saddam had a habit of giving up his airwaves to TERRORISTS.
"The intelligence in the 1990s was woeful though is my point. Either the IC’s collection and analysis of the data or the Clinton Administration’s use or non-use of it or both was bad. Patterson held the football, and maybe he was privy to the same bad intelligence that Clinton had, but that intelligence has become outdated and much of it refuted by the updated intelligence we have from the Iraq archives. Buzz Patterson flies airplanes now, and has no access to the current intelligence."
No access to current intelligence? Says who?
So because the Intel community had probs during the 90's, as they did after Clinton, and so ANYTHING and EVERYTHING that they saw was false? Sorry, just more speculation that I am not buying. It was multi sourced.
"Attending an annual conference is a big difference from being in a personal audience with Saddam. We know too well how porous Iraq’s borders can be, and a man like Zawahiri could easily bribe his way through to Baghdad and not have a thing to do with the regime. Guess what the KKK still meets throughout the US, but it doesn’t mean the US government knows about it or condones it."
I don't know if you are just playing devils advocate or intentionally being far too skeptical of everything but these conferences were HOSTED by Saddam's regime in Baghdad, not just "in Iraq."
"It also said that most of the documents had been put in a database for all members of the IC to look at, that’s potentially a lot of people to find these alleged links."
Please show me the quote for that one.
"The US government leaks like a sieve yet one guy who works for the TRC now, and outside of government, and knows the truth about the documents which could alter American perceptions of the war at a time when popular support for the war are at an all time low, yet won’t reveal what he knows because he won’t break his classified clearances? Doubtful. If anyone in the government had any evidence regarding Saddam’s ties to terrorism post-1991, it would have been leaked by now in all probability."
Well the conventional wisdom and dominant thought inside the intel community is that there were no links, thus the MSM coverage slants to that nature. Read some Ray Robison, Michael Tanji, Bruce Spertzel and some of the others involved in the ISG's work. They saw the documents before they went to the State's and CIA's archives. These are the people who weren't even looking at Saddam's terror ties until a few weeks before the war and would prefer to CYA and not expose what they DIDN'T know after all the other holes in their reporting that have been exposed.
Posted by: ikez78![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://regimeofterror.com/nav-commenters.gif)
|
January 2, 2007 9:52 PM
Posted on: January 2, 2007 21:52