Mar 16 2006
Saddam Tied To Al Qaeda
Consider this the final nail in the coffin of the liberal fantasy about Al Qaeda ties to Iraq:
The Bush administration Wednesday night released the first declassified documents collected by U.S. intelligence during the Iraq war, showing among other things that Saddam Hussein’s regime was monitoring reports that Iraqis and Saudis were heading to Afghanistan after the Sept. 11 attacks to fight U.S. troops.
The documents, the first of thousands expected to be declassified over the next several months, were released via a Pentagon Web site at the direction of National Intelligence Director John Negroponte.
Many were in Arabic _ with no English translation _ including one the administration said showed that Iraqi intelligence officials suspected al-Qaida members were inside Iraq in 2002.
The Pentagon Web site described that document this way: “2002 Iraqi Intelligence Correspondence concerning the presence of al-Qaida Members in Iraq. Correspondence between IRS members on a suspicion, later confirmed, of the presence of an Al-Qaeda terrorist group. Moreover, it includes photos and names.”
Al Qaeda is in Iraq in 2002, confirmed by Saddam. Saddam knows the US is gunning for him and goes to the UN to sanction Iraq for its WMD capabilities and the risk it will pass this capability to Al Qaeda – who incidentally just killed 3,000 people on 9-11 the year before.
So Saddam needs to demonstrate to the world community he is not a threat. He has all sorts of hidden technology (gas centrifuge for nuclear processing in a rose bush at the home of one of his top scientists) and he has known Al Qaeda in country. How does he demonstrate good faith to the UN and EU? Does he give up the centrifuge? Does he give up the Al Qaeda operatives in Iraq?
No. He hides them. Do liberals require a 2×4 with this revelation?
On February 3, 1998, Ayman al Zawahiri, bin Laden’s Egyptian deputy, came to Baghdad for meetings with Iraqi leaders. The visit came as Islamic radicals gathered once again in the Iraqi capital for another installation of Hussein’s Popular Islamic Conferences. Iraqi vice president Taha Yasin Ramadan welcomed them on February 9 with the language of jihad: “The Islamic nation’s ulema, advocates and preachers, are called upon to carry out a jihad that God wants them to carry out through honest words in order to expose the U.S. and Zionist regimes to the world peoples, to explain facts, and to say what is right and to call for it. This is their religious duty. The Muslim ulema are called upon before Almighty God to act among the Muslim ranks to confront the infidel U.S. moves and to raise their voices against the U.S.-Zionist evil.”
The release of these documents will be “Death by 2 Million Paper Cuts” for the Dems.
Now if only I could read Arabic…
I saw the pics of Zarqawi though. Neat.
i can read arabic. the funny thing is that the supposed picture of zarqawi is labeled “ahmed fadeel nizaal al-khilayla.”
it’s also odd that i can’t find the word “al-qaeda” (القاعدة) anywhere in the document. (which would not be all that surprising if that was a picture of zarqawi because in 2002 zarqawi was a member of the rival tawhid wa-jihaad, not al-qaeda)
it is pretty hard to read though
Time to Rumble…
There is about to be a “blast” heard around the world as the Bush administration soon releasing some fourty-eight thousand documents related to Saddam’s Regime…
Zarqawi is just one of the names he uses. Many of the terrorists have multiple names they go by… I guess the Western intelligence agencies decided that Zarqawi was easier than Ahmed Fadeel Nizaal al-Khilayla.
Operation Iraqi Freedom Documents Posted…
The long awaited public release has occurred. To view the documents, visit the Foreign Military Studies Office Joint Reserve Intelligence Center….
ha! you guys are funny. it turns out the document is the iraqi equivalent of an APB. iraqi intelligence was concerned that zarqawi might be in the country and sought to have him arrested
as for myself, i still can’t read most of the damn document. but i think it’s hilarious how the non-arabic reading rightwing is waving the document around like it’s some kind of slam-dunk.
Does anyone have the link to the documents. I can’t read Arabic, but I know a little. The trouble is that they write so small.
Never mind–the WP has the link.
Here is the link to the documents
http://fmso.leavenworth.army.mil/products-docex.htm
snapple,
this is the specific document right blogistan seems to be getting are excited about.
good luck reading it. it’s a bad copy on top of the fact that whoever wrote it has really illegible handwriting.
seriously, i’ve spent a bit of the day picking out a word or two here and there. i think you have to be a native to make any sense of it.
“ha! you guys are funny. it turns out the document is the iraqi equivalent of an APB. iraqi intelligence was concerned that zarqawi might be in the country and sought to have him arrested
as for myself, i still can’t read most of the damn document.”
The link you provided has no translation of the document. It went from Juan Cole linking to this description: “a letter from an Iraqi intelligence official, dated August 17, 2002, asked agents in the country to be on the lookout for Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and another unnamed man whose picture was attached.”
Where is the translation?
i wonder if it’s actually translatable. as i said, i can’t read it.
the cole post just illustrates the danger of relying on a document for an argument when you can’t read it.
the final nail…
the funny wingnut moment of this week comes with the bush administration’s sudden decision to declassify a bunch of documents dating to just before the iraq war……
Regarding the Juan Cole piece….IIS agents actually did arrest some of Zarqawi’s agents…..only to later arrest them and warn them that Jordanian officials were after them.
Craig Whitlock, Washington Post, 9-27-04