And the evidence just keeps mounting

THE SENATE INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE has once again released a report claiming that the Bush administration hyped prewar intelligence. The so-called Phase Two report is supposed to investigate the Bush administration's handling of prewar intelligence. In reality, the report is little more than yet another attempt by partisan Democrats to make political hay out of flawed prewar intelligence. (The only Republicans to endorse the report were two of the Senate's most liberal GOP members.) The committee focused exclusively on prewar statements by Bush administration officials, ignoring similar statements by leading Democrats. Therefore, the report is intended to portray the Bush administration in the worst possible light. But even with this bias, the committee came to a noteworthy conclusion: The Bush administration was right to claim that Saddam's regime was harboring al Qaeda members.

The Senate Intelligence Committee's report includes this conclusion at the end of a terse section on the Bush administration's claims about Saddam's prewar terror ties:

Statements that Iraq provided safe haven for Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and other al Qaeda-related terrorist members were substantiated by the intelligence assessments.

Intelligence assessments noted Zarqawi's presence in Iraq and his ability to travel and operate within the country. The intelligence community generally believed that Iraqi intelligence must have known about, and therefore at least tolerated, Zarqawi's presence in the country.

Regarding postwar information collected by the U.S. intelligence community, the report reads:

Postwar information supports prewar assessments and statements that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was in Baghdad and that al Qaeda was present in northern Iraq.

These conclusions
should not be surprising. In his book At the Center of the Storm, former Director of Central Intelligence George Tenet provided a number of details concerning the safe haven al Qaeda members received in Saddam's Iraq. For example, Tenet wrote that two of Ayman al-Zawahiri's top operatives, Thirwat Shihata and Yussef Dardiri, received safe haven in Baghdad. Tenet says that there was "concern that these two might be planning operations outside Iraq."

The first report on the uses of prewar intelligence published by the Senate Intelligence Committee in July 2004 also found that Zarqawi freely roamed around Iraq and Saddam's goons must have been aware of his presence. The authors of the Butler Report, the British government's investigation into prewar intelligence, found roughly the same. Even other al Qaeda members have, on occasion, been open about the relationship between Zarqawi, other al Qaeda operatives, and Saddam's regime in prewar Iraq.

Despite all of these findings, however, the myth that Zarqawi and other al Qaeda operatives lived in Saddam's neo-Stalinist state without receiving at least the dictator's tacit support has lived on. But now, even in a partisan report designed to attack the Bush administration's credibility, the Senate Intelligence Committee has admitted that Bush and his officials were right to argue that Saddam was harboring al Qaeda fugitives. Both prewar and postwar intelligence assessments confirm their view.

rest of article here Harboring al Qaeda

Bush reasons for going in continually being vindicated. The surge working. What will the Dems do? What will they do?

Looks like someone grasping at straws to make a case for 4000 dead Americans.

and 151,000 dead Iraqis,

WHO | New study estimates 151 000 violent Iraqi deaths since 2003 invasion

Once again, trying to make a mountain out of a mole-hill.

The ACTUAL issue is that Zarqawi was PRESENT in Iraq.
That's not the same thing as "harbored" or "protected".

Intelligence assessments noted Zarqawi's presence in Iraq and his ability to travel and operate within the country. The intelligence community generally believed that Iraqi intelligence must have known about, and therefore at least tolerated, Zarqawi's presence in the country.

It's funny how the wording is markedly different from claims of "harboring" and "safe haven"...
The statement says Iraqi intelligence "must have known about", meaning there is NO PROOF they actually did.
So Bush took a man being present in a country, that the Iraqi intelligence MAY or MAY NOT have been aware of, and proclaimed that as "safe haven"...

Furthermore, the report makes one thing clear...

Iraq and al Qaeda did not have a cooperative relationship. Saddam Hussein was distrustful of al Qaeda and viewed Islamic extremists as a threat to his regime, refusing all requests from al Qaeda to provide material or operational support.

Looks like someone wants to ignore the truth.

Once again trying to dismiss out of hand, and the Senate said there was no evidence of a collaborative relationship, as this shows they knew there was cooperationa and contacts going on, this on top of the recent report of the depth and breath of Saddam's doings with terrorist groups once again vindicates his removal.

""The study was commissioned by the Joint Forces Command in Norfolk, Virginia, and produced by analysts at the Institute for Defense Analyses, a federally funded military think tank. It is entitled "Iraqi Perspectives Project: Saddam and Terrorism: Emerging Insights from Captured Iraqi Documents." The study is based on a review of some 600,000 documents captured in postwar Iraq. Those "documents" include letters, memos, computer files, audiotapes, and videotapes produced by Saddam Hussein's regime, especially his intelligence services. The analysis section of the study covers 59 pages. The appendices, which include copies of some of the captured documents and translations, put the entire study at approximately 1,600 pages.

An abstract that describes the study reads, in part:

Because Saddam's security organizations and Osama bin Laden's terrorist network operated with similar aims (at least in the short term), considerable overlap was inevitable when monitoring, contacting, financing, and training the same outside groups. This created both the appearance
of and, in some way, a 'de facto' link between the organizations. At times, these organizations would work together in pursuit of shared goals but still maintain their autonomy and independence because of innate caution and mutual distrust. Though the execution of Iraqi terror plots was not always successful, evidence shows that Saddam's use of terrorist tactics and his support for terrorist groups remained strong up until the collapse of the regime."

Among the study's other notable findings:

In 1993, as Osama bin Laden's fighters battled Americans in Somalia, Saddam Hussein personally ordered the formation of an Iraqi terrorist group to join the battle there.

For more than two decades, the Iraqi regime trained non-Iraqi jihadists in training camps throughout Iraq.

According to a 1993 internal Iraqi intelligence memo, the regime was supporting a secret Islamic Palestinian organization dedicated to "armed jihad against the Americans and Western interests."

In the 1990s, Iraq's military intelligence directorate trained and equipped "Sudanese fighters."

In 1998, the Iraqi regime offered "financial and moral support" to a new group of jihadists in Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq.

In 2002, the year before the war began, the Iraqi regime hosted in Iraq a series of 13 conferences for non-Iraqi jihadist groups.

That same year, a branch of the Iraqi Intelligence Service (IIS) issued hundreds of Iraqi passports for known terrorists.

There is much, much more. Documents reveal that the regime stockpiled bombmaking materials in Iraqi embassies around the world and targeted Western journalists for assassination. In July 2001, an Iraqi Intelligence agent described an al Qaeda affiliate in Bahrain, the Army of Muhammad, as "under the wings of bin Laden." Although the organization "is an offshoot of bin Laden," the fact that it has a different name "can be a way of camouflaging the organization." The agent is told to deal with the al Qaeda group according to "priorities previously established."""

rest is here Saddam's Dangerous Friends


These new releases from the Senate Committee proves what Bush and Clinton both said before the war. The latest reports make it beyond a doubt.

Can't chant the liberal mantra "there was no al Qaeda in Iraq" anymore.

Looks like someone wants to reply with pointless non-sequiturs...


By that mentality, we could acknowledge "there was al Qaeda in the U.S.".

Nothing was dismissed "out of hand". I looked at what the report ACTUALLY said, which was substantially different from accusations of Saddam "harboring" al Qaeda.
Predictably, you give no response to that at all...

It's not "al Qaeda in Iraq" which was the issue, but accusations of COLLABORATION between al Qaeda and Saddam.
And THOSE are false.

You talk about "vindicated his removal"...
I can't help but wonder if the ALTERNATIVE (what we actually got) is "vindicated".
* Iraq war will cost between $1 and $2 trillion. (And Iraqi responses on helping with the bill are equivalent to "We never asked for your *help*")
* U.S. soldier life 4,000 and climbing.
* Despite your claims, al Qaeda is taking an ACTIVE ROOT (beyond just an operative found to be present in the country) because we uprooted the area.
* Iraqi death rate INCREASED because of our presence in Iraq.

Your "vindication" comes at wayyyyy too high of a cost.

Strawman, the issue is Iraq.

It is proven and this just shows that the Senate, including the Dems, knew.

I kinow what the report and the latest on ACUTALLY says.

I will give you a chance to reread what I posted because there was a delay and for some reasons the first copy didn't include the part from the most recent study. By the time I got it corrected you have posted a responce.

But don't try your old trick of simply dismissing out of hand because "you know better".

Refute with facts and not out of date already discounted reports.


GEEEZ, yes it was and if you even refuse to acknowdege that fact we can go no further. You are simply being obtuse.

You really need to learn the definition of "strawman"...
Since the point was MY argument, and I never pretended it was yours, it's clearly not a "strawman".

Furthermore, my point was VERY topical.
al Qaeda just being IN Iraq is meaningless.
The ACTUAL claim by the president was that Iraq was HARBORING al Qaeda.

If you want to water down your position to simply complain that al Qaeda was IN Iraq, then have at it.
But the comment is meaningless...


Again, the president's claim was that Iraq was HARBORING al Qaeda.
THAT was the FALSE claim.


I'll get to it later.
From the looks of it, most of it is mixing the same ol' song and dance of playing fast and loose with some descriptions of "terrorists" along-side specific mentions of other vague associations to al Qaeda "terrorists".

This tactic of accusing me of being guilty for your sins is boring.


All you've done here is make generic categorizations with no substantiations.
There is nothing "out of date" about what I described, nor are they truly "discounted".


Either you don't want to understand what I'm saying, or you're trying to obfuscate it.
Considering you just quoted PART of my sentence, IGNORING the second part of the sentence which clearly had a refining factor to the discussion, I think it's the latter.

To repeat what I was ACTUALLY saying, since you obviously don't want my full argument to be heard...
It's not "al Qaeda in Iraq" which was the issue, but accusations of COLLABORATION between al Qaeda and Saddam.

You would do yourself well to engage in that activity.

Not a requirement.

"A straw man argument is an informal fallacy based on misrepresentation of an opponent's position.[1] To "set up a straw man" or "set up a straw man argument" is to describe a position that superficially resembles an opponent's actual view but is easier to refute, "

The argument that alQaeda was also in America is a strawman. We are discussing Iraq.

You'd do yourself even more good if you would avoid trying to shift the debate to style rather than substance.

And your argument is quite wrong alQaeda in Iraq WAS a MAJOR issue, since it has been proven to be correct now the left trys to dismiss it.

Sorry that dog don't hunt.

Post the exact qutoe you are talking about.

It was one of the salient points, sorry your dismissals out of hand do not score debating points.


No it wasn't. Already cited.


You need to take a better look, it is the authoritative report, when you can refute with facts not just your simple dismissals let me know.


I post cites and evidence to back up my claims you don't, you should try it.


Already cite the latest evidence which proves beyond a doubt.


[/quote]

Your distinctions without merit do not refute the facts. And we simply could not wait for them to collaborate on something, that was a chance we could not take and was fully explained at the time.