Our leftwing friends leaped with glee on the leak about this report – because the leak had that the report was all about how Saddam wasn’t connected to al-Qaeda. This was a false leak – the report doesn’t say that. What it says (page ES-1) is that no “smoking gun” was discovered showing a direct connection between Saddam’s regime and al Qaeda. This is a far cry from the leaked assertion that Saddam had nothing to do with al Qaeda. Further undermining the series of lies the left has spread about Saddam and terrorism, the report notes that Saddam’s regime had strong ties to various Islamic fundamentalist terrorist organizations – the left assuring us endlessly that Saddam’s allegedly secular regime was the sworn enemy of Islamic fundamentalism, and thus Saddam would never have cooperated with al Qaeda.
The report has some other interesting facts:
1. In 1999, the top ten graduates of Saddam’s terrorist training were dispatched to London, on call at a moment’s notice to conduct terrorist operations around the world.
2. Saddam’s terror masters stockpiled weapons (via “diplomatic pouch” to Saddamite embassies) in Romania, Greece, Austria, Pakistan, India, Thailand, Czech Republic, Turkey, Yemen, Azerbaijan, Lebanon and the Gulf States.
3. As war impended in 2002, Saddam’s terror masters concerned themselves with how to dispose of these terrorist weapon stockpiles in nations likely to come in to the anti-Saddam coaltion.
4. Saddam’s intelligence service developed high tech car bomb technology as early as 1999.
5. Saddam’s intelligence service developed means of smuggling suicide vests past checkpoints.
6. Saddam’s intelligence service developed means of producing IED’s as early as August of 2001.
7. There is a memo dated September 22, 2001 listing highly educated, Baath party members who are designated for suicide terrorist actions.
8. An August 2002 memo indicates that Saddam’s intelligence service will set up suicide training for non-Iraqi suicide volunteers during the summer vacation period.
9. A 1993 memo detailing Saddam’s support for Fatah, Palestine Liberation Front, Force 17 (a Palestinian terror group), Renewal and Jihad Organization, The Palestinian Abd al-Bari al-Duwaik, Islamic Jihad Organization, Islamic Ulama Group, The Afghani Islamic Party, Jam’iyat Ulama Pakistan.
10. A 1993 memo showing Saddam providing training for terrorists from Palestine, Lebanon, Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Sudan, Syria, Eritrea and Morrocco.
11. A 1993 memo showing that Saddam wanted to use his trained terrorists to kill Americans bringing humanitarian assistence to Somalia.
12. A September, 2001 memo showing Saddam wanting to work with Islamic radicals to undermine the Kuwait government.
13. A 2001 memo showing that various Palestinian terror cells were at Saddam’s disposal as a quid-pro-quo for Saddam’s support for Palestinian terror groups.
14. A January, 1988 memo showing Saddam providing $2.5 million to the terrorist Abu Abbas (who was later found dead in Saddam’s Iraq right before the start of the liberation).
15. A pre-9/11 memo from 2001 showing Saddam’s agents carrying out deliberate attacks on American aid workers.
16. A July, 2001 memo showing a direct interest by Saddam’s regime in working with the bin-Laden affiliated terror group, The Army of Muhammed.
What we have here is a complete demolition of the leftwing narrative about Saddam vis a vis the terrorist threat we faced, and still face.
Saddam was not “boxed in”; Saddam was more than willing to work with Islamist groups; Saddam was preparing for conflict long before 9/11 – in fact, if you look at some elements of Saddam’s program, it is a clear parallel to al Qaeda…foreign fighters recruited for “martyrdom” operations and then set out to do their master’s bidding. The report cleverly notes that the best way to look at Saddam’s regime and bin-Laden’s terrorist group is like the differences between the Cali and Medellin drug cartels – competitors, but with a shared interest in thwarting US attempts to stop their activities.
The critics can keep their head in the sand, if they wish, but when President Bush stated that Saddam’s Iraq was a growing threat, he was speaking the absolute truth. Taking out Saddam’s regime has greatly reduced the ability of terrorist’s to strike at us and thus made the United States, and the world, a safer place.
Blogs For Victory 
42. Christian Wright | March 16th, 2008 at 8:04 pm
Deleted – slander against the late President Reagan.
You mean libel.
What it says (page ES-1) is that no “smoking gun” was discovered showing a direct connection between Saddam’s regime and al Qaeda. This is a far cry from the leaked assertion that Saddam had nothing to do with al Qaeda.
I disagree – it is not a far cry from “no link”.
Wow, when liberals are backed into a corner they are as vicious as badgers.
They fall back to the typical lies and insults as seen by the numerous “deleted off topic” posts.
I love the “logic” since no WMDs were found we must ASSume they were destroyed before the invasion. No words can describe the utter stupidity of that statement. He/She uses WIKIPEDIA for his “source” with a reference to the UN. UH, the UN has documentation that counts the WMDs destroyed by them vs the known quantities had by Saddam. Guess what, there is a large difference in the totals favoring “weapons unaccounted for”.
They use the “fall back” talking point – “we are no safer now than before”. Questions: how can the disruption (on the total scale we will never know) of the Al Qaeda network, human and financial, not make the US safer than before? The removal of a “government(s)” friendly to Al Qaeda, namely Afghanistan and Iraq where they had sanctuary and training sites available, not make us safer?
The laughable –
“why did we invade Iraq” – with complete disregard for the original cease fire agreement as if it never existed.
“we invaded illegally” – again, with complete disregard for the original cease fire agreement as if it never existed.
“Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld etc etc. lied to us” (when liberals were saying the same with a very select few not)
“Iraq is worse than before (and cite some ridiculous statistic of electricity and power)” – while knowing that Saddam used power and electricity to keep his people in line
– the liberal BS list can go on and on.
Reality will never touch their minds. They have been fooled into their beliefs by extreme BDS. They will never stop being the complete USEFUL IDIOTS that the leftist government types need them to be.
This is the truth:
1. Saddam was not connected to 9/11
2. Saddam was not allied with Al Qaeda
3. Saddam was no where close to having an A bomb.
4. Even if Saddam had an a-bomb, he would not have given that diplomatic pressure prize away covertly to islamic terrorists he was not aligned with!
5. We all know he was a bad person and had terrorist friends. But since we parleyed and used some of the same terrorists when it suited our needs, ala Afghanistan, it’s hardly like our hands are clean.
THEREFORE: Your commentary is just more disingenous misleading palaver that is the staple of professional liars like AM talk show hosts. It proves nothing and is basically dishonest and/or misleading. This has nothing to do with your politics Mark, just your attitude towards the truth.
Tiredof Lib BS
You happy that your little friends in Iraq are chumming up to the Iranians? Of course you people had that all figured out, right?, since we all know what geniuses you are. But I’m supposed to be overjoyed we freed some Jew hating Islamic swine agains their will.
As far as I am concerned, the Iraqis deserved Saddam, as well as the Iranians. It’s fun to support war when you keyboard warriors don’t have to worry about a bomb ripping your little world apart. And you get a tax cut to boot so you really are sacrificing it all for the Big Push!
MajorIdiot……
“This is the truth”. From there it was just the usual lib BS.
Uh, rant your BS elsewhere.
Come back when you have something intelligent to say (it will be a looooonnnnnngggggg wait).
The liberal response to terrorists would have been likened to Bugs Bunny and Yosemite Sam. With Bugs saying, “I dare you to cross this line.” Sam crosses it. Bugs says and draws another, and the process repeats. Similar to the lib response on the Iraq war. They keep changing the lies and targets for “success”. When in their case they have put all their eggs into the failure basket.
Too bad, all the intelligence for the past 10 years does not support the lib talking points that you mindlessly regurgitate.
Big Push?
Okay USELESS IDIOT regurgitate some more BS.
TiredofHisOwnBullsh**-
“They (liberals) keep changing the lies and targets for “success”. ”
LMAO!!!!!!! OMG that was just the best laugh I’ve had all week. Liberals keep changing the goal post for success in Iraq. LMAOROTF!!!!!!!!!!!
Reverse history much Keefer?
You are just too much of USELESS IDIOT . LOL
Hey NIP,
Ever crawl out from under that rock, pull your head out of your (expletive deleted) to see the reality of things? Want to provide proof of your statement?
Obviously not. Nothing is every good in Iraq when it comes to liberals. First is “no plan to win the peace”, the surge moves in then it was “political progress is slow”. – to name the two biggest “arguments” the libs use. They keep changing the targets because they need Iraq to fail that is what they have been running on since the 2004 presidential election. FACT, UNDENIABLE!!!
Revising history? You dolts do not know history, period! You can’t determine if history has been revised because your version of history changes millisecond to millisecond.
In case you were educated in a government school , a millisecond is one-thousandth of a second.
Now, go ahead, reinsert your head and crawl back under your rock. I am sure your exposure to society has had an emotional cost to your mentality.
http://regimeofterror.com/archives/2008/03/media_swings_and_misses_on_ida_1/
good post and points Mark. My take on the report is above. I’ll have more soon though. The report was neither exhaustive nor a repudiation of Saddam/al Qaeda links. Just said Saddam didn’t have control of them, which noone ever argued to begin with.
“After the first Gulf War Saddam Hussein’s conventional military had been word down due to sanctions and military defeat but his animosity of the U.S. continued and so he reached out to and supported others who also saw the U.S. as their enemy: “Islamic fundamentalists and related terrorist organizations.”
From 1991 through 2003, the Saddam regime regarded inspiring, sponsoring, directing, andexecuting acts of terrorism as an element of state power.”
Islamic terrorists and Saddam both see the U.S. as the enemy so Saddam helps these guys. What is so difficult to understand about that?