The 9-11 Commission is Just Plain Wrong

[bobbcat]

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Evidence abounds that members of Al Qaeda cells trained in Iraq and had other ties in Iraq. I wonder what's the matter with these people.

[auryn]

Originally Posted by bobbcat

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Evidence abounds that members of Al Qaeda cells trained in Iraq and had other ties in Iraq. I wonder what's the matter with these people.

When you make the statement that they are wrong, do you mean that they are wrong for investigating it at all? If that is what you are saying, I somewhat agree. Like the article said, it makes them seem partisan. However, if like me, a person is on the liberal end of the partisan side, they will just say that they wanted people to know the truth.

If they are wrong because they say there's no tie between Saddam and bin Laden, how so? All this so-called "evidence" is not evidence at all. It's all stuff like - a terorist moved to Iraq and got a job. There are terrorists in America too, legally, making a salary. There are people all over the United States stockpiling weapons, meeting secretly to discuss attacking citizens, etc. Is that a tie between the United States government and any organization, terrorist or otherwise? Of course not, not to a conservative Bush supporter. To the rest of us, maybe we'd like to believe it, or, even if we don't believe it, try to convince others of it, but it's not true.

Blaming Saddam for 9-11 is just as plausible as blaming Bush for it.

[CagedTroll]

Originally Posted by bobbcat

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Evidence abounds that members of Al Qaeda cells trained in Iraq and had other ties in Iraq. I wonder what's the matter with these people.

Instead of pointing out that it's the NY POST or that it's an op-ed piece, I figured (as bored as I am) I might as well go ahead and rip apart the "facts" Miniter sites, one-by-one. That'll be something of a challenge. For one thing, of the twelve (?) bullet points, I'm almost certain he got at least a couple of them right. And I'm sure that a couple more are probably in dispute. But more importantly, with regards to this diversion, is that I don't wanna to spend all day on it.

From the op-ed..., in the NY POST:

* Abdul Rahman Yasin, a member of the al Qaeda cell that detonated the 1993 World Trade Center bomb, fled to Iraq. U.S. forces recently discovered a cache of documents in Tikrit, Saddam's hometown, that show that Iraq gave Yasin both a home and a salary.

Iraq put Yasin in prison. They offered to turn him over to the U.S. [Only registered and activated users can see links. Either login above or Register Now] (The articles not dated, but the copyright at the bottom is MMII, before we invaded Iraq.)

Okay, I'm gonna go grab some coffee, because what I just did wasn't as amusing as I'd hoped it would be. I'll get to the next one later.

[auryn]

Originally Posted by CagedTroll

Okay, I'm gonna go grab some coffee, because what I just did wasn't as amusing as I'd hoped it would be. I'll get to the next one later.

It was amusing to me!

[mayor]

Even more amusing is this CORRECTION regarding the mainstream media interpretation of the 9/11 commission comments...

-------------

Staffer Jonathan Stull says:

I'd recommend that you look directly at Staff Statement No. 15 when discussing the Iraq-al Qaeda issue, specifically regarding the Commissions' hearing today. Note that the paragraph in question is on page 5 of the attached statement. I'd point out that it is but one paragraph in a 12-page statement. The AP and others have picked up on one sentence, which was carefully worded: "We have no credible evidence that Iraq and al Qaeda cooperated on attacks against the United States."

The rest of the paragraph concisely summarizes the cases where we can identify cooperation and other connections where they exist.

The other relevant information is included on page 8 of Staff Statement No. 16. In the statement, which exhaustively discusses the 9-11 plot, we address the movements of the hijackers in the years leading up to the attacks. This paragraph addresses reports that Mohammed Atta met with an Iraqi intelligence agency in Prague on April 9, 2001.

While some have criticized the questioning during public hearings, I have seen few quibbles with our staff statements. I urge you to look over all of the statements.

---------------------------

But I can see where one would be troubled if he/she accepted all his/her news from the designated "reliable" sources.

Was this an oversight? Oh, look out the window! It's a flying pig! ;-)

Mayor

[mayor]

Incidently, if anyone wishes to read the entire staff statements, they are here.

For the record, I agree that the commission is a sham, not because of my position on Bush/Iraq/Saddam, but because of the tremendous conflict of interests displayed and blatant partisan attempts to make Bush look bad. I just can't take it seriously.

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Mayor

[CagedTroll]

Originally Posted by auryn

It was amusing to me!

For some reason, ^^^THAT^^^ made me laugh!

[prism68]

Originally Posted by mayor

...the commission is a sham, not because of my position on Bush/Iraq/Saddam, but because of the tremendous conflict of interests displayed and blatant partisan attempts to make Bush look bad. I just can't take it seriously.


Mayor

I agree. I have been prone to dismiss most of what they say ever since they attacked Condi Rice during her testimony. The partisanship displayed in THAT fiasco totally turned me off from thinking there might be some real good come out of it.

[CagedTroll]

Next, from Miniter---

* Bin Laden met eight times with officers of Iraq's Special Security Organization, a secret police agency run by Saddam's son Qusay, and with Saddam's external intelligence service, according to intelligence made public by Secretary of State Colin Powell, at the United Nations Security Council on Feb. 6, 2003.

One of the tricky ones. Powell's presentation to the UN Security Council was [Only registered and activated users can see links. Either login above or Register Now], and I think there was a rebuttal to comments by Blix, al Baradei, and the Iraqi ambassador to the U.N. a day or two later. There was a lot of "intelligence made public" in those few days. About mobile bio-weapons labs, for example. And anodized aluminum tubes that just had to be for enriching uranium. I'm not going to go through all the trouble of showing where all of that has been debunked (or at least been dubbed "questionable") since then.

Just going to point out, that since Feb. 6, 2003, George Bush has said there was "no evidence" linking Saddam to 9/11, Powell said earlier this year: ''I have not seen smoking gun, concrete evidence about the connection...", and the United States weapons inspector of choice, David Kay, has said: ''But we simply did not find any evidence of extensive links with Al Qaeda, or for that matter any real links at all."

Of course, I have lots of links. You may have [Only registered and activated users can see links. Either login above or Register Now]. Enjoy.

[monkee]

The major problem I've had with the commission all along is that it doesn't seem to be remotely interested in figuring out what went wrong and how to prevent it in the future. All they want to do is dig up something, anything at all, to lay blame somewhere, on someone (read: Bush). I honestly don't get that they give a rat's behind what really happened or why. The whole thing is just a big partisan joke. Too bad it's not the least bit funny, considering that if they had acutally taken their task seriously, we might have been able to gain something from it.

[CagedTroll]

Originally Posted by monkee

The major problem I've had with the commission all along is that it doesn't seem to be remotely interested in figuring out what went wrong and how to prevent it in the future.

It's a commision appointed by Bush... Chaired by a Republican. A few statements here and there doth not their results make.

Anyways, back to the NY POST op-ed---

* Bin Laden met the director of the Iraqi mukhabarat in 1996 in Khartoum, according to Powell.

Think I offered an answer to that above, unless somebody's got a more recent statement from Powell where he's suddenly found the "smoking gun" he didn't have in February of this year.

* An al Qaeda operative now held by the U.S. confessed that in the mid '90s, bin Laden had forged an agreement with Saddam's men to cease all terrorist activities against the Iraqi dictator.

This one I sort of agree with in theory, but I don't think it was an "agreement with Saddam's men" and I'm too lazy to look it up right now. I think it was an agreement with either Sudanese or Afghani governments at the time. I'll look into it later.

* In October 2000, another Iraqi intelligence operative, Salah Suleiman, was arrested by Pakistani authorities. Suleiman was shuttling between Iraqi intelligence and Ayman al Zawahiri, al Qaeda's No. 2.

Interesting. No source. No date. So I'll offer one: [Only registered and activated users can see links. Either login above or Register Now]!

the only allegations of an Iraqi connection to the September 11 attacks have come from Israel's military intelligence service, Aman. According to Jane's Foreign Report, Aman officers believe that two of the world's foremost terrorist masterminds, the Lebanese Imad Mughniyeh, head of the special overseas operations for Hezbollah, and the Egyptian Dr Ayman Al Zawahiri, senior member of Al-Qaeda, directed the September 11 mission. They claim that for the past two years Iraqi intelligence officers were shuttling between Baghdad and Afghanistan, meeting with Al Zawahiri, and that one of the Iraqi intelligence officers, Salah Suleiman, was captured last October by the Pakistanis near the border with Afghanistan. The Iraqis are also reported to have established strong ties with Mughniyeh.

Now, if there's any evidence the Pakistanis (such the loyal Coalitionists) have turned Suleiman over to the U.S. for questioning, it'd be nice to see.

[CagedTroll]

* Spanish investigators have uncovered documents seized from Yusuf Galan — who is charged by a Spanish court with being "directly involved with the preparation and planning" of the Sept. 11 attacks — that show the terrorist was invited to a party at the Iraqi embassy in Madrid. The invitation used his "al Qaeda nom de guerre."

Yeah, I have much faith in [Only registered and activated users can see links. Either login above or Register Now]. Anyway, Galan's full name is Luis Jose Galan Gonzalez, he's a native of Spain, with alleged ties to a Basque independence group, the ETA.

Also arrested by Spanish authorities, in connection with the Madrid train bombings, is Jamal Zougam, who is connected with Ansar al Islam. Ansar al Islam is currently connected with Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Please, try to remember that Ansar al Islam is a mostly KURDISH terrorist group that had a base in NORTHERN Iraq, an area that Saddam hasn't had access to, or control of, because it was patrolled and protected by the U.S. It was actions by Kurdish groups like the PAK and Ansar al Islam that led to Saddam "gassing his own people".

And please also try to remember that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi has been the main link between Iraq and al Queda. And that this administration [Only registered and activated users can see links. Either login above or Register Now], before we went to war with Iraq.

So, in a NUTshell..., Zarqawi (friend of Osama) hooked up with a Ansar al Islam (enemies of Saddam) which might have been hooked up with the ETA (enemies of Spain) of which Luis Jose Galan Gonzalez might have been a member of...(which would make him an enemy of Saddam Hussein). Thus disproving an al Queda-Saddam connection.

I'm trying to get to a point here, but Miniter saved his most idiotic "fact" till near the end of this. It's the funny one, and I'm just hoping I can stay awake long enough to get there.

[EDIT:] Just saw where the above covered Miniter's 11th bullet point.

* Abu Musaab al-Zarqawi oversaw an al Qaeda training camp in Afghanistan. Wounded, he sought medical treatment in Baghdad in May 2002. When he recovered, he restarted a training camp in northern Iraq. Zarqawi's Iraq cell was later tied to the October 2002 murder of Lawrence Foley, a U.S. Agency for International Development official. The captured assassin confessed that he received orders and funds from Zarqawi's cell in Iraq.

Didn't do that intentionally, but it has saved me some time!

[auryn]

Originally Posted by monkee

The major problem I've had with the commission all along is that it doesn't seem to be remotely interested in figuring out what went wrong and how to prevent it in the future. All they want to do is dig up something, anything at all, to lay blame somewhere, on someone (read: Bush). I honestly don't get that they give a rat's behind what really happened or why. The whole thing is just a big partisan joke. Too bad it's not the least bit funny, considering that if they had acutally taken their task seriously, we might have been able to gain something from it.

Since Bush appointed the commission, I guess it is only logical that they want to blame Bush. (?)

[crazytimes]

Originally Posted by prism68

I agree. I have been prone to dismiss most of what they say ever since they attacked Condi Rice during her testimony. The partisanship displayed in THAT fiasco totally turned me off from thinking there might be some real good come out of it.

Couldn't agree with you more. I saw that and had it with the "Commission." I love how they were acting like it was a trial..."Yes or no answers please."

Excuse me?

You spend who knows how much money, considering EVERYTHING the government does ends up costing way more than it should, to put on this show. Well then I EXPECT more than a ONE WORD ANSWER FROM OUR POLITICIANS.

They are there for OUR sake. WE want to know WHAT WENT WRONG and we can't do that with one word answers.

On another note...why wont anyone believe that maybe NOTHING went wrong. I truly believe that 9/11 was inevitable. There is no way the U.S. could be safe from terror forever. But no one expected something of that magnitude. Maybe there was no intelligence failure, because MAYBE there WAS NO intelligence that would give anyone reason to believe that hijackers would fly planes into the WTC and Pentagon. I dunno just a thought.

[CagedTroll]

* An Iraqi defector to Turkey, known by his cover name as "Abu Mohammed," told the Sunday Times of London that he saw bin Laden's fighters in Iraq in 1997. At the time, Mohammed was a colonel in Saddam's Fedayeen. He described an encounter at Salman Pak, the training facility southeast of Baghdad, where militants trained to hijack planes with knives — on a full-size Boeing 707.

[Only registered and activated users can see links. Either login above or Register Now]. And defectors. And other fun details.

Another defector, who was identified only as a retired lieutenant general in the Iraqi intelligence service, said that in 2000 he witnessed Arab students being given lessons in hijacking on a Boeing 707 parked at an Iraqi training camp near the town of Salman Pak, south of Baghdad. In separate interviews with me, however, a former C.I.A. station chief and a former military intelligence analyst said that the camp near Salman Pak had been built not for terrorism training but for counter-terrorism training. <SNIP...> The C.I.A. offered similar training in counter-terrorism throughout the Middle East. <SNIP...> Inspectors recalled seeing the body of an airplane—which appeared to be used for counter-terrorism training—when they visited a biological-weapons facility near Salman Pak in 1991, ten years before September 11th. It is, of course, possible for such a camp to be converted from one purpose to another. The former C.I.A. official noted, however, that terrorists would not practice on airplanes in the open. “That’s Hollywood rinky-dink stuff,” the former agent said. “They train in basements. You don’t need a real airplane to practice hijacking. The 9/11 terrorists went to gyms. But to take one back you have to practice on the real thing.”

The other fun part to this story is that in some cases translators were provided to the Pentagon by [Only registered and activated users can see links. Either login above or Register Now]'s group.

A month later, however, a team of C.I.A. agents went to interview the man with their own interpreter. “He says, ‘No, that’s not what I said,’” the former intelligence official told me. “He said, ‘I worked at a fedayeen camp; it wasn’t Al Qaeda.’ He never saw any chemical or biological training.”

Okay, so that's about half of what the op-ed piece in the NY POST had to offer. And half my day completely wasted, but I shall continue, after I get more coffee.