Exhaustive review sponsored by the Pentagon finds NO link between Saddam, al Qaida (1 Viewer)

[DadsDream]

You might be selling, but nobody's buying.

I'm not "selling" anything.

I'm offering an opinion. You either consider it or you don't.

 

[RebSaint]

It's perfectly fine to go back and second guess, especially in light of additional intelligence. But why must we ascribe evil, devious motives to everything the administration did? And why must people who happen to agree with the decision at the time be labeled as blind ignorant followers?

There must be some rational explanation for the continuing to defend this administration. I think it has everything to do with blind partisanship more than anything else.

As to your first claim, there's strong, STRONG evidence that it wasn't simply just a failure of intelligence. One. More. Time. It was a manipulation of intelligence to concoct a case to go to war based on a completely false premise.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/22/washington/22intel.html
http://pogoblog.typepad.com/pogo/2004/12/cia_retaliation.html

Intelligence which contradicted the administration's case was IGNORED. Evil? No. Devious? Absolutely. Dishonest? Absolutely. Disgusting? I think so.

Put simply, if you believe that this administration was victimized by simply bad intelligence, your just simply ignoring facts. Officials in the admininstration started talking about taking out Hussein long before 9-11, which common sense tells me there was a degree at least ignoring some of the intelligence which contradicted the "slam dunk" case made to the American people to invade in the first place. Sorry, you can continue believe that it was as simple as an intellegence failure. It wasn't.

To me, it's painfully obvious who continues to believe the administration DIDN'T pull the wool over anybody's eyes, and that they acted as honestly as possible here--it's painfully clear that only those most strident partisans continue to defend the administration's behavior. Sorry, but if the shoe fits.........which is why blind partisanship from any source is the scourge of modern politics.

 

[DadsDream]

Dads

Why would the article only focus on one means of military capability? I would guess that there may have been a tactical link, but was there really a stratigic link? Why would the report not focus on all three and only pick the middle to focus on?

The article picks only snippets of a report which hasn't been published yet.

Why did the article headline say "no link" when the quote in the story itself clearly says "no operational link"?

The report may very well address all three aspects, but we won't know until the report itself is published tomorrow.

If I had to hazard a guess, it might address the operational level because we are in "Operation Iraqi Freedom" at the operational level so the report addressed operational level concerns.

 

[champ76]

For me and many I know it's not second guessing.

We were right the first time and our position and analysis has not changed an iota since 2001, or even wavered in that time.

I accept that, except for that "right" thing.

 

[BullDawg]

Bin Laden was once on our payroll right? Isn't that ironclad evidence that he is a CIA operative?

I could be wrong, but I believe it has been shown that we never had bin Laden on the payroll, directly or otherwise.

And now he is in Pakistan, so he must be there with Mushareff's blessing right? So Mushareff is linked to Al Queda also...

 

[varanook]

Rumsfeld and his boss did what the weaklings of the first Administration could not do - remove a maniacal dictator from power.
You want to know who did a bad job? The liberals of moveon and Dean supporters and sheehan types in collusion with the AP and other mainstream press. Those are the people with American blood on their hands. Energizing foreign terrorists with shoddy journalism and communist inflitrated demonstrations should be puinishable by death.

No mention of Hitler?

 

[Mr. Littlejeans]

[/QUOTE]But why must we ascribe evil, devious motives to everything the administration did?"[/QUOTE]

Because when you put American lives in danger by cooking intelligence, the shoe fits

[/QUOTE]And why must people who happen to agree with the decision at the time be labeled as blind ignorant followers?[/QUOTE]

Only if they still to this day are unable or unwilling to face reality. In 2001 they didn't know any better, and had a legitimate (almost) argument that we should trust the Administration to be telling us the truth

 

[Mr. Littlejeans]

"You might be selling, but nobody's buying."

I'm not "selling" anything.

I'm offering an opinion. You either consider it or you don't.

Dad's Dream-
Let me help you with this. The poster was not assuming you were selling anything. He was using figurative language, a metaphor, I think. This may clear it up:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metaphor

I think what he meant was, you are offering an opinion, but he thinks you know in your heart it defies common sense, so you use the tactic of mincing words.
I don't think anyone else on the board thought you were actually "selling" something, but thanks for the clarification anyway.
But this kind of parsing of words makes your point of view all the more suspect.

 

[DadsDream]

I think what he meant was...

Shawn's a big boy.

Why don't you try letting him speak for himself?

 

[Saint by the Bay]

I could be wrong, but I believe it has been shown that we never had bin Laden on the payroll, directly or otherwise.

Still in the air and probably always will be. You have some ex-CIA guys who says he was and some that says he wasn't.

I don't know about anyones payroll but I know from my time doing reports on the region for briefings he was our contact into Afghanistan during the war against the Soviets and arranged a lot of our weapons shipments in. It's unlikely we were paying him anything however as he has never needed money.

BTW, he wasn't a terrorist back then so there really was no reason for America to not work with him. AQ didn't even exist back then.

 

[blackadder]

I could be wrong, but I believe it has been shown that we never had bin Laden on the payroll, directly or otherwise.

I refer to his involvement in Afghanistan. We may not have handed him cash directly -- he did not need it personally -- but we supported his organization and he worked directly to funnel that support to the mujahadden.

http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/binladen1.html

Through the MAK, he was undoubtedly a middle man for US cash and weapons going into Afghanistan.

Using the same standard that is applied to evaluate Saddam's purported "links" to Al Queda, this relationship and common goal would be enough to have been touted as "proof" of a connection to a terrorist (now).

 

[Saint by the Bay]

I refer to his involvement in Afghanistan. We may not have handed him cash directly -- he did not need it personally -- but we supported his organization and he worked directly to funnel that support to the mujahadden.

http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/binladen1.html

Using the same standard that is applied to evaluate Saddam's "links" to Al Queda, this relationship and common goal would be enough to have been touted as "proof" of a connection to a terrorist.

Yes, but he wasn't a terrorist then.

 

[blackadder]

Yes, but he wasn't a terrorist then.

Ask the Russians.

 

[Saint by the Bay]

Ask the Russians.

Tenuous at best. What they did was an act of war. You could argue that striking back, even against civilian "strategic" targets was an acceptable response. However, I suppose I'm a lot more specific in what I consider terrorism than some.