Exhaustive review sponsored by the Pentagon finds NO link between Saddam, al Qaida (2 Viewers)

"No operational link" got turned into "no link" in the media.

Over time, we tend to forget stuff like this as well...

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Saddam Pays 25K for Palestinian Bombers
Tuesday, March 26, 2002


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You're absolutely right, DD.

I've read the arguments going back and forth on the board, and frankly I'm out of my league in that debate, but I enjoy reading the back and forth.

I will say, that "No operational link" looks to be a very narrow, military definition; whereas "no link" appears to me to be a political deception perpetrated by the media, with the intention to distort reality. An attempt to paint Saddam as a relative innocent, unjustly attacked by the Bush Administration. Saddam=relative innocent, Bush Administration=unjust aggressors.
 
Oh, but I think your post did underscore the intention of somehow vindicating the very misleading propaganda campaign in which the administration engaged in before the war.

After all, all of this Monday-morning quarterbacking is about ascertaining whether or not the U.S. was justified in invading vis a vis how much of a threat did Hussein pose.

Unless I'm missing something, are there other classified documents that we're not aware of? And to the contrary, I can't see how anybody could see there would be some large body of information which would reveal that Hussein had this vast network of connections to terrorist cells. I mean, realistically what's left to look at which might be ground-breaking?

I'm pretty sure that any information which would remotely vindicate the case the administration was making before the war would have been released already. Last, just about every government agency/study into the matter has come to the same conclusion: there were little, if any--and very tenous links between radical terrorist organizations and Hussein.

Personally, I'm well beyond trying to defend the pre-War buildup by the Bush Admin. History will resolve whatever distortions that the Bush Admin presented to the American people.

Regarding the body of information yet to be translated or released from the Saddam Administration. My understanding is that one of the great shortcomings of our current intelligence agencies is the lack of Arabic translators; both for the spoken word and the written word. My understanding is that we've barely scratched the surface of releasing translations of the documents that we've captured. Either because they've yet to be translated, or because of their intelligence categorization. I wouldn't be surprised if only 1% of the documents have been released.
 
Personally, I'm well beyond trying to defend the pre-War buildup by the Bush Admin. History will resolve whatever distortions that the Bush Admin presented to the American people.

Regarding the body of information yet to be translated or released from the Saddam Administration. My understanding is that one of the great shortcomings of our current intelligence agencies is the lack of Arabic translators; both for the spoken word and the written word. My understanding is that we've barely scratched the surface of releasing translations of the documents that we've captured. Either because they've yet to be translated, or because of their intelligence categorization. I wouldn't be surprised if only 1% of the documents have been released.

Actually, the latter point would make more sense but it seems to me there would be a priority to translate these documents as soon as possible for security reasons. Further, do you have a link to support the latter claim? I mean, on the surface it's logical but given the priority of information/intelligence for the realities of the ground in Iraq, I seriously doubt only 1% of these documents have been translated.
 
Saddam=relative innocent, Bush Administration=unjust aggressors.

This is spin and almost as crazy as the saddamn being a benevolent dictator comment you made earlier. I think no one is upset he is gone, people are upset by the reasons given by the admin. on why he is gone.

Saddam was despicable but posed no threat to the USA before we attacked. We started a preemptive war based on faulty/ignored intelligence, outright lies and tenuos "ties" at best.

Bush was an "unjust aggressor"
 
You're absolutely right, DD.

I've read the arguments going back and forth on the board, and frankly I'm out of my league in that debate, but I enjoy reading the back and forth.

I will say, that "No operational link" looks to be a very narrow, military definition; whereas "no link" appears to me to be a political deception perpetrated by the media, with the intention to distort reality. An attempt to paint Saddam as a relative innocent, unjustly attacked by the Bush Administration. Saddam=relative innocent, Bush Administration=unjust aggressors.

Are you kidding?

The idea is simply that the administration intentionally insinuated, to put it mildly, a link between Saddam and 9/11. He was equated with Bin Laden to justify an attack on Iraq.

The point is our government lied repeatedly.

It has nothing to do with Saddam being in "innocent" in general terms. He can be a ruthless dictator and still be innocent of the specific charges that he was co-conspirator in the 9/11 attack.

You can't go around the world making war on every country where you find the government distasteful.

Please, God, get this nation past this self-righteousness.
 
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I will say, that "No operational link" looks to be a very narrow, military definition; whereas "no link" appears to me to be a political deception perpetrated by the media, with the intention to distort reality. An attempt to paint Saddam as a relative innocent, unjustly attacked by the Bush Administration. Saddam=relative innocent, Bush Administration=unjust aggressors.

Too bad this level of media scrutizination doesn't apply to the Bush administration. So I guess history will vindicate the administration, but the media is guilty as charged here for engaging in some nefarious plot of decieving the American people. :shrug:
 
This is spin and almost as crazy as the saddamn being a benevolent dictator comment you made earlier. I think no one is upset he is gone, people are upset by the reasons given by the admin. on why he is gone.

Saddam was despicable but posed no threat to the USA before we attacked. We started a preemptive war based on faulty/ignored intelligence, outright lies and tenuos "ties" at best.

Bush was an "unjust aggressor"

Well, here's where we simply disagree. I see Bush's actions as justified. Maybe not for all the reasons the Administration tried to use as their arguments prior to the war. Was there some shortcutting going on with the Administration's prewar arguments, I believe there was. I agree with you that it is quite possible that the Administration concluded that the "selling" of the war to the American people had to be kept simple. And that the sales job was a deliberate distortion. I would definitely be open minded to that argument.

But that is a different argument than saying the Bush Administration had no reason to invade Iraq, and thus Bush was "unjust" in his aggression. The Bush Administration, like the Clinton Administration before them, had just reasons to depose Saddam. At least that's what President Clinton signed off on.

Just because Clinton agreed that it was a just cause, doesn't mean that he thought it was practical. He could easily have believed that it was simply too big of a can of worms to open so late in his Presidency. There are reasons why Clinton, and Poppa Bush before him, deferred to the extent they could regarding deposing Saddam in Iraq. They didn't want to get stuck in the briar patch.
 
Well, here's where we simply disagree. I see Bush's actions as just. Maybe not for all the reasons the Administration tried to use as their arguments prior to the war. Was there some shortcutting going on with the Administration's prewar arguments, I believe there was. I agree with you that it is quite possible that the Administration concluded that the "selling" of the war to the American people had to be kept simple. And that the sales job was a deliberate distortion. I would definitely be open minded to that argument.

But that is a different argument than saying the Bush Administration had no reason to invade Iraq, and thus Bush was "unjust" in his aggression. The Bush Administration, like the Clinton Administration before them, had just reasons to depose Saddam. At least that's what President Clinton signed off on.

The Bush administration intentionally misled the American people based on contrived evidence to go to war in the interest of big oil. In this sense, it was an unjust, uncessary, and costly foreign policy decision done not in the name of national security--because it's been proven time and again Hussein did not pose an immediate threat to NATIONAL security.

And to compare Bush's policies with Clinton's is equally misleading. Clinton did not invade Iraq, Bush did.
 
Are you kidding?

The idea is simply that the administration intentionally insinuated, to put it mildly, a link between Saddam and 9/11. He was equated with Bin Laden to justify and attack on Iraq.

The point is our government lied repeatedly.

It has nothing to do with Saddam being in "innocent" in general terms. He can be a ruthless dictator and still be innocent of the specific charges that he was co-conspirator in the 9/11 attack.

You can't go around the world occupying every country making war on every country where you find the government distasteful.

Please, God, get this nation past this self-righteousness.

You are missing the point completely. Your focus on my statement was on the Administration's sins. My intent was to focus on, in my opinion, the deliberate, partisan distortions by the media to paint a picture of an unjust war.

I wouldn't have a problem if the media took the approach of say, Gen. Downing, that there were more efficient methods of achieving our goals regarding Saddam. But that's not the argument that the media appears to be trying to make.
 
Well, here's where we simply disagree. I see Bush's actions as justified. Maybe not for all the reasons the Administration tried to use as their arguments prior to the war. Was there some shortcutting going on with the Administration's prewar arguments, I believe there was. I agree with you that it is quite possible that the Administration concluded that the "selling" of the war to the American people had to be kept simple. And that the sales job was a deliberate distortion. I would definitely be open minded to that argument.

But that is a different argument than saying the Bush Administration had no reason to invade Iraq, and thus Bush was "unjust" in his aggression. The Bush Administration, like the Clinton Administration before them, had just reasons to depose Saddam. At least that's what President Clinton signed off on.

Just because Clinton agreed that it was a just cause, doesn't mean that he thought it was practical. He could easily have believed that it was simply too big of a can of worms to open so late in his Presidency. There are reasons why Clinton, and Poppa Bush before him, deferred to the extent they could regarding deposing Saddam in Iraq. They didn't want to get stuck in the briar patch.

We do just disagree on the general view of just/unjust then. I only see the need for war when diplomacy fails/immediate threat to US soil. I don't think all avenues were exhausted in the case of Iraq. I also don't think that all avenues were ever going to be exhausted.

Plus this idea of a ME invasion being around before Bush (wasn't this concocted by the neocons in the early 90's) makes me all the more suspicious.
To me oil and Israel don't equate to immediate threat to our nation.
Pile that on top of the simple, as you put it, reasons to give to the public and it makes things more murky for everyone involved.

It turns out to be a big mess that the tax payers have to pick up whether they want to or not.
 
because it's been proven time and again Hussein did not pose an immediate threat to NATIONAL security.

And to compare Bush's policies with Clinton's is equally misleading. Clinton did not invade Iraq, Bush did.

Based on everything I've read, you are quite correct about the immediacy of Saddam's threat, but it's an incomplete picture, we can agrue about the degree to which it's a distortion of the situation at the time.

As best I can piece together, and just reading through whatever public materials I can find when I've got the time for such matters, it's seems pretty clear that the U.N. sanctions against Saddam were falling apart. It also appears to me that Saddam had directly violated numerous U.N. sanctions.

It also appears that Saddam had the intentions of reconstituting his WMD programs, at least if you can believe the words coming from George Piro on the 60 Minutes interview. It is also apparently that Saddam had significant ties to various terrorist organizations, including Islamic Jihad, now known as al Qaeda, as well as Hamas.

So when you begin to paint a picture of Saddam, it's not a picture of a benign threat, but a picture of a potentially lethal threat. I'll concede that we've got to use the word "potential"; but it's not an unreasonable projection by any means.
 
Well, here's where we simply disagree. I see Bush's actions as justified. Maybe not for all the reasons the Administration tried to use as their arguments prior to the war. Was there some shortcutting going on with the Administration's prewar arguments, I believe there was. I agree with you that it is quite possible that the Administration concluded that the "selling" of the war to the American people had to be kept simple. And that the sales job was a deliberate distortion. I would definitely be open minded to that argument.

But that is a different argument than saying the Bush Administration had no reason to invade Iraq, and thus Bush was "unjust" in his aggression. The Bush Administration, like the Clinton Administration before them, had just reasons to depose Saddam. At least that's what President Clinton signed off on.

Just because Clinton agreed that it was a just cause, doesn't mean that he thought it was practical. He could easily have believed that it was simply too big of a can of worms to open so late in his Presidency. There are reasons why Clinton, and Poppa Bush before him, deferred to the extent they could regarding deposing Saddam in Iraq. They didn't want to get stuck in the briar patch.

They had no great case to invade and occupy Iraq. WMD had been destroyed. Saddam had let inspectors in and they claimed they accounted for all but relatively small inconsistencies in the records. See the writings of Scott Ritter.

Saddam would not let inspectors back completely on our terms in part because when the inspectors were last there we pentrated by U.S. intellignece:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/unscom/experts/faustian.html

So, Saddam became paranoid.

No fly zones? There was never any specific authorization by the UN of no fly zones. We did this on our own and cited the original authorization of force for Gulf War I but there was a real difference of opinion on legality out in the rest of the world. France withdrew from the coalition when we started bombing Iraq for turning on its radar systems.

http://www.fff.org/comment/com0211h.asp

http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/issues/iraq/2001/0220nofl.htm

So, as usual, it's not so clear cut and full of dreaded "nuance."

Sanctions and full containment, which is what we had in place, was sufficient punsihment for Iraq when you consider the costs and consequences of invading and occupying, which was not a surprise to anyone. Everyone with two brain cells to rub together knew that the probablilty of things transpiring exactly as they have after occupying Iraq was 99%.
 
Pile that on top of the simple, as you put it, reasons to give to the public and it makes things more murky for everyone involved.

It turns out to be a big mess that the tax payers have to pick up whether they want to or not.

Just my two cents, but by the time 2002 rolled around, I really believe that Diplomacy had gone as far as it could possibly go. Diplomacy has it's limits, and just my opinion, but in the case of Saddam, those limits had been exhausted.

But the whole situation is murky. To this day, we really don't know if the entire nation building of Iraq was a part of the plan or not. It's quite possible that once we got into the briar patch, we saw that the only way out was a complete re-do of the country. That we've done much of our work on the fly; I hate to think that's the case, but not everything in history has been meticulously planned.

There really are multiple phases to the Iraq argument, which is what makes it so interesting. Whether or not to remove Saddam, if we remove him, how to remove him, etc.; it's really quite fascinating.
 
I think your reasons are flimsy and stretches but agin we will just disagree.

So when you begin to paint a picture of Saddam, it's not a picture of a benign threat, but a picture of a potentially lethal threat. I'll concede that we've got to use the word "potential"; but it's not an unreasonable projection by any means.

But this word potential leads to pre-emptive and I am not for pre-emptive wars involving 200,000 troops in a standing army/nation building capacity. I can agree with pre-emptive surgical strikes on selected targets though.

It all begs the question of why we are still there to me. All goals have been accomplished. Why do we stay? Why do we need a large "embassy", why do we need 200,000 troops on the ground still? Why do we pay sheiks?

Bad foreign policy in my eyes and if I can see it, what do the Iraqis/rest of the world see?
 
Based on everything I've read, you are quite correct about the immediacy of Saddam's threat, but it's an incomplete picture, we can agrue about the degree to which it's a distortion of the situation at the time.

As best I can piece together, and just reading through whatever public materials I can find when I've got the time for such matters, it's seems pretty clear that the U.N. sanctions against Saddam were falling apart. It also appears to me that Saddam had directly violated numerous U.N. sanctions.

It also appears that Saddam had the intentions of reconstituting his WMD programs, at least if you can believe the words coming from George Piro on the 60 Minutes interview. It is also apparently that Saddam had significant ties to various terrorist organizations, including Islamic Jihad, now known as al Qaeda, as well as Hamas.

So when you begin to paint a picture of Saddam, it's not a picture of a benign threat, but a picture of a potentially lethal threat. I'll concede that we've got to use the word "potential"; but it's not an unreasonable projection by any means.


Your intention here is ultimately to defend this administration and to defend the war because you uncritically attribute all of Saddam's motivations to some desire to harm Americans.

Whatever his intentions with reagrd to weapons programs they were aimed...

1) at retaining power and suppressing internal challenges.

2) having a credible deterrent aimed at Iran and Israel, one a long standing enemy with an enormous manpower advantage, the other a nuclear armed state that had attacked Iraq in 1981.

Basic geopolitics dictates that Iraq will seek ways to defend itself from threats and Iraq faced threats too. There was simply nothing to be gained by Saddam from a terror attack on the United States but further isolation or complete loss of power.

But you continue to interpret all of Saddam's actions as aimed at the United States.
 

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