June 22, 2004

Buried
Posted by Jon Henke

Remember all the large-font headlines indicating no connection between Iraq and Al Qaeda? Well, you won't see this on any front pages...

“There's really very little difference between what our staff found, what the administration is saying today and what the Clinton administration said,” said commissioner John Lehman, speaking Sunday on NBC's “Meet the Press.” “The Clinton administration portrayed the relationship between al-Qaida and Saddam's intelligence services as one of cooperating in weapons development. There's abundant evidence of that.”

“The Bush administration has never said that [Iraq] participated in the 9/11 attack,” Lehman said. “They've said, and our staff has confirmed, there have been numerous contacts between Iraqi intelligence and al-Qaida over a period of 10 years, at least.”[emphasis added]

I've been wondering what happened to George Tenet's allegations that "Iraq has provided training to al-Qa'ida members in the areas of poisons and gases and making conventional bombs". Commissioner Lehman appears to be confirming the existence of this evidence.

You won't see it in the headlines, and you won't see it from the left side of the blogosphere. You should, though. They've been misrepresenting this long enough.

I refuse to call them liars. They are not. But I have to ask why this aspect of the story goes unreported. The answer, I think, is simply that they are partisans.

UPDATE: This story - based on a Google News search - is showing up in all of two places...the cited MSNBC story (which I had to dig to find) and this FrontPageMag story.

Huh.

UPDATE II: From the Meet the Press transcript, a bit more...

In fact, as you'll soon hear from Joe Klein, President Clinton justified his strike on the Sudan "pharmaceutical" site because it was thought to be manufacturing VX gas with the help of the Iraqi intelligence service.

Since then, that's been validated. There has been traces of Empta that comes straight from Iraq, and this confounds the Republicans, who accused Clinton of doing it for political purposes. But it confirms the cooperative relationship, which were the words of the Clinton administration, between al-Qaeda and Iraqi intelligence.

The Bush administration has never said that they participated in the 9/11 attack. They've said, and our staff has confirmed, there have been numerous contacts between Iraqi intelligence and al-Qaeda over a period of 10 years, at least.

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Comments

They may not have been liars, but their research definitely lacks credibility. Furthermore, if they continue to push the no connection argument perhaps my opinion on their credibility may change.

Posted by: Curt Mitchell at June 22, 2004 08:03 AM

what liberal media???


oh... that one...

Posted by: great satan at June 22, 2004 11:07 AM

Turns our it's two different guys with very similar, but different names, so basically, stick it.

Posted by: Alsatian at June 22, 2004 12:38 PM

I consider my self well informed on what's going on in politics and in Iraq in general. I have to say this was an absolute bombshell to me.

VX Gas? Confirmed and traced straight back to Iraq?

abundant evidence of AQ and Saddams intel working on weapons? This is big f***ing news to me. This should be all over the place in the media. Will specifics come out on this? Evidence wise?

Posted by: Dash at June 22, 2004 12:41 PM

from a wapo article today:

"An allegation that a high-ranking al Qaeda member was an officer in Saddam Hussein's private militia may have resulted from confusion over Iraqi names, a senior administration official said yesterday...Yesterday, the senior administration official said Lehman had probably confused two people who have similar-sounding names."

Posted by: catherine at June 22, 2004 01:00 PM

Turns our it's two different guys with very similar, but different names, so basically, stick it.


- - -Wow. That'd be relevant if I had mentioned him here. But I didn't, so....

In fact, I've already downplayed that story yesterday. I don't think there's much to it, even if it was the same person.

But thanks for catching up.

Posted by: Jon Henke at June 22, 2004 01:25 PM

Is this an example of why a majority of Americans think that Sadam Hussein had "connections" with Al Queda?

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

1999 Newsweek: Saddam + Bin Laden? America's two enemies are courting.
Newsweek | January 11, 1999 | Dickey, Christopher, Vistica, Gregory L., Watson, Russell


Posted on 06/22/2004 6:04:02 PM PDT by nwrep


IN THE NO-FLY ZONES OF northern and southern Iraq, Saddam Hussein's gunners blindly fired surface-to-air missiles at patrolling American and British warplanes. In Yemen, terrorists seized a group of British Commonwealth and American tourists, and four of the hostages died in a shootout. In Tel Aviv, the U.S. Embassy abruptly closed down after receiving a terrorist threat. Perhaps it was just a typical week in the Middle East. But in a region where no one puts much faith in blind coincidence, last week's conjunction of Iraqi antiaircraft fire and terrorism aimed at the countries that had just bombed Iraq convinced some that a new conspiracy was afoot.

Here's what is known so far: Saddam Hussein, who has a long record of supporting terrorism, is trying to rebuild his intelligence network overseas--assets that would allow him to establish a terrorism network. U.S. sources say he is reaching out to Islamic terrorists, including some who may be linked to Osama bin Laden, the wealthy Saudi exile accused of masterminding the bombing of two U.S. embassies in Africa last summer. U.S. intelligence has had reports of contacts between low-level agents. Saddam and bin Laden have interests--and enemies--in common. Both men want U.S. military forces out of Saudi Arabia. Bin Laden has been calling for all-out war on Americans, using as his main pretext Washington's role in bombing and boycotting Iraq. Now bin Laden is engaged in something of a public-relations offensive, having granted recent interviews, one for NEWSWEEK (following story). He says ``any American who pays taxes to his government'' is a legitimate target.

Saddam's terrorism capability is still small-time, according

Posted by: GM at June 22, 2004 09:48 PM