But the links are there and getting clearer. Again, it is stupid to say that Saddam was the President of Iraq who ruled with an iron fist and who hated America so much that he would attempt to have it's president killed, and then to have Al Qaeda actually training and moving about in his country yet "He didn't have anything to do with them".
Total tutter nonsense.
The documents are not the only evidence to point to some of the links, we have known about them for some time. For example, the Oil for Food Scandal investigation actually found a link where Saddam might have been funding Al Qaeda with some of the funds he skimmed off the top.
Flashback: Fox News September 2004:
"Investigations have shown that the former Iraqi dictator grafted and smuggled more than $10 billion from the program that for seven years prior to Saddam's overthrow was meant to bring humanitarian aid to ordinary Iraqis. And the Sept. 11 Commission has shown a tracery of contacts between Saddam and Al Qaeda (search) that continued after billions of Oil-for-Food dollars began pouring into Saddam's coffers and Usama bin Laden (search) declared his infamous war on the U.S."
Coming right in the middle of the heated 2004 Presidential Election no one paid attention to this story, and the MSM who can't compete with Fox, and wanting to perpetuate the "no link myth' simply ignored it.
But the resultant final report showed this to be exactly the case.
However more recently this article appeared in Town Hall written by W. Thomas Smith, Jr. in January of 2006, where he wrote:
"Those with connections to the U.S. special operations community have long known that the pre-war link between Saddam and the Al Qaeda terrorist network is not only a fact, but one that had to be addressed as part of the global war on terror.
I first began writing about this in August 2004 after a conversation with a good friend of mine, Commander Mark Divine, a U.S. Navy SEAL officer who had just returned from Iraq, where he was tasked with evaluating joint operations between SEALs and a then-developing Marine Corps special ops team. Divine told me, and I subsequently reported in National Review Online, “There is tremendous evidence to suggest there were terrorist training camps in Iraq before 9/11.”
In his National Review article he notes that the detrators are quick to point out that the 9/11 Commission found "We have seen no evidence that these or the earlier contacts ever developed into a collaborative operational relationship. Nor have we seen evidence indicating that Iraq cooperated with al Qaeda in developing or carrying out any attacks against the United States."
But he continues:
"U.S. Congressman Joe Wilson (R., S.C.) tells NRO that opponents of President George W. Bush often cite some of the 9/11 commission's findings while conveniently skipping over the obvious Iraqi-al Qaeda connections referenced in the same report. "The claims by the Kerry campaign are not only wrong, but disingenuous," says Wilson, who has three sons in the military, one of whom is in Iraq.
Disingenuous indeed: The Kerry camp fails to mention that the 9/11 report also says Osama bin Laden met with an Iraqi official in Khartoum during the mid-1990s and issued an appeal for space to establish terrorist training camps in Iraq. He also asked for assistance in obtaining weapons. Granted, no evidence points to an Iraqi agreement on such matters, but the report clearly states, "the ensuing years saw additional efforts to establish connections."
In March 1998, al Qaeda operatives were invited to Iraq to meet with Iraqi intelligence officers after bin Laden issued a "public fatwa" against America and her allies. In July, Iraqi officials traveled to Afghanistan where they met with both the Taliban and bin Laden. The following year, Iraq may have offered bin Laden safe haven after a period of "reported strains" between the al Qaeda leader and the Taliban. And the 9/11 commission's findings reveal there were "indications" of "friendly contacts" between Iraq and bin Laden, and an expression of "common themes in both sides' hatred" of the United States."
The fact is that prior to the war NO ONE doubted any links. In fact President Clinton believed and preached the links himself.
Which brings us to this point: That is that all American's should realize coming up to the election cycle is how the Democrats/the Left down played these connections not because they believed them not to be true, but simply to win elections and put the presdent administration in a bad light. On their side it has nothing to do with the truth, only about getting their people back at the reigns of power in Washington and they will do ANYTHING even commit treason to see it happen.
As more and more of the documents are translated the picture should become much clearer, and you can bet that the left isn't going to let that happen with a whimper. But once the American people begin to see that they have been lied to by the Democrats and the pundits of the MSM who told them "No links", the backlash will guarantee they'll see no power for decades to come.
UPDATE: Captain's Quarters with futher finds.
iraq Politics News bush war on terror spying patriot act nsa CIA saddam
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