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herfacechair -> RE: Back from Iraq for a short time, ready to answer your questions if you have any... (7/7/2010 6:32:50 PM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: vincentML
REPEAT POINT
quote:
ORIGINAL: vincentML
quote:
HFC: Wrong. Even the 9/11 report acknowledged that there were at least two terror groups in Iraq that were a part of Al Qaeda. Then we had Salman Pak, terror training camp in Iraq, that trained terrorists to do things, like hijact aircraft. The last Iraqi commander in charge of that post admitted to training Al Qaeda. So there were terrorists in Iraq. The Iraqis call Saddam, "the grandfather of terrorism." The terrorists are in Iraq today, albeit with a lesser presence than before thanks to our efforts.
The following are accounts from the 9-11 Commission's Report regarding the question of Iraq. The first regards Richard Clarke, the National Security Advisor:
quote:
Clarke has written that on the evening of September 12, President Bush told him and some of his staff to explore possible Iraqi links to 9/11. "See if Sad-dam did this," Clarke recalls the President telling them. "See if he's linked in any way."60 While he believed the details of Clarke's account to be incorrect, President Bush acknowledged that he might well have spoken to Clarke at some point, asking him about Iraq.61
Responding to a presidential tasking, Clarke's office sent a memo to Rice on September 18, titled "Survey of Intelligence Information on Any Iraq Involvement in the September 11 Attacks." Rice's chief staffer on Afghanistan, Zalmay Khalilzad, concurred in its conclusion that only some anecdotal evidence linked Iraq to al Qaeda. The memo found no "compelling case" that Iraq had either planned or perpetrated the attacks. It passed along a few foreign intelligence reports, including the Czech report alleging an April 2001 Prague meeting between Atta and an Iraqi intelligence officer (discussed in chapter 7) and a Polish report that personnel at the headquarters of Iraqi intelligence in Baghdad were told before September 11 to go on the streets to gauge crowd reaction to an unspecified event. Arguing that the case for links between Iraq and al Qaeda was weak, the memo pointed out that Bin Ladin resented the secularism of Saddam Hussein's regime. Finally, the memo said, there was no confirmed reporting on Saddam cooperating with Bin Ladin on unconventional weapons.62
The second report regards Secretary of State Colin Powell:
quote:
Secretary Powell recalled that Wolfowitz-not Rumsfeld-argued that Iraq was ultimately the source of the terrorist problem and should therefore be attacked.66 Powell said that Wolfowitz was not able to justify his belief that Iraq was behind 9/11. "Paul was always of the view that Iraq was a problem that had to be dealt with," Powell told us. "And he saw this as one way of using this event as a way to deal with the Iraq problem." Powell said that President Bush did not give Wolfowitz's argument "much weight."67 Though continuing to worry about Iraq in the following week, Powell said, President Bush saw Afghanistan as the priority.68
Perhaps you could show us your source in the 9-11 Report for the claim that "Even the 9/11 report acknowledged that there were at least two terror groups in Iraq that were a part of Al Qaeda."
I think you might be perpetuating a propagandist fabrication; but maybe not. I invite you to set the record straight and give us the quote from the 9-11 Commision Report.
REPEAT POINT
My reply, post number 718, dated 6/22/2010:
Wrong. Even the 9/11 report acknowledged that there were at least two terror groups in Iraq that were a part of Al Qaeda. Then we had Salman Pak, terror training camp in Iraq, that trained terrorists to do things, like hijact aircraft. The last Iraqi commander in charge of that post admitted to training Al Qaeda. So there were terrorists in Iraq. The Iraqis call Saddam, "the grandfather of terrorism." The terrorists are in Iraq today, albeit with a lesser presence than before thanks to our efforts.
The following are accounts from the 9-11 Commission's Report regarding the question of Iraq. The first regards Richard Clarke, the National Security Advisor:
No, the above was a cherry picked, small part, of the 9/11 Commission Report, not the report in its entirety. From this small part, you emphasized sentences you thought "supported" your web of deception as to what the report was trying to communicate. Richard Clarke is a bad example to use if you want to present an argument to people with critical thinking abilities. The man is a charlatan who'll shift his views to cater to what he thinks is the majority opinion... in order to "make a buck."
Clarke has written books. Going against a person, that the media disagrees with, gives Clarke something that writers covet... free large scale publicity via the mainstream media... which translates into new prospects, new clients/customers, which leads to increased sales... at minimal marketing costs.
RE: Clarke has written that on the evening of September 12, President Bush told him and some of his staff to explore possible Iraqi links to 9/11. "See if Sad-dam did this," Clarke recalls the President telling them. "See if he's linked in any way."60 While he believed the details of Clarke's account to be incorrect, President Bush acknowledged that he might well have spoken to Clarke at some point, asking him about Iraq.61
We have a case of he said/she said here. On one hand Clarke claims that Bush asked to entertain possible Iraqi involvement in 9/11. If this were true, it'd be a reasonable request, considering that we've been in a state of war with Iraq since operation Desert Storm. A cease fire isn't peace declared, but war put on hold. Saddam attempted to carry terror attacks against our interests around the time of Operation Desert Shield/Desert Storm.
The wording is also deceptive.
"Believed" is designed to weaken the confidence that one thing happened. This, in the face of a statement of what Clarke wrote... something evidenced by what he wrote... Compare these two and the author's intentions become obvious, that Clarke has "more credibility and believability," than Bush did. Which isn't the case to a critical thinker.
What really happened is that Clarke said one thing, and Bush said another thing, about the encounter. Since Bush has been consistent, and Clarke has been whishy washy, logic dictates that Clarke's account has a dash of shodiness to it.
The author should've stated that Clarke believed that Bush tried to raise the possibility, while Bush believed that some, or all of, Clarke's account was wrong, and that they both agreed that they met each other.
quote:
Responding to a presidential tasking, Clarke's office sent a memo to Rice on September 18, titled "Survey of Intelligence Information on Any Iraq Involvement in the September 11 Attacks." Rice's chief staffer on Afghanistan, Zalmay Khalilzad, concurred in its conclusion that only some anecdotal evidence linked Iraq to al Qaeda. The memo found no "compelling case" that Iraq had either planned or perpetrated the attacks. It passed along a few foreign intelligence reports, including the Czech report alleging an April 2001 Prague meeting between Atta and an Iraqi intelligence officer (discussed in chapter 7) and a Polish report that personnel at the headquarters of Iraqi intelligence in Baghdad were told before September 11 to go on the streets to gauge crowd reaction to an unspecified event. Arguing that the case for links between Iraq and al Qaeda was weak,
The degree of confidence, by a bunch of desk jockeys, on the links is subjective... it's what they decide it should be. Their opinion doesn't change the facts though.
I've dealt with gathering tactical intelligence before, the concepts that we use are the same as above, where we report information with low to high confidence. When we reported something "with low confidence," we weren't saying that what it was we were reporting is wrong, or isn't the case. I've had one experience where I reported information that everybody else dismissed because they had low confidence in what I was looking at, and what I concluded from it. They dismissed my report, and raw data... just to have that action bite them in the arse later on... talking about being vindicated. [:D]
What they dismiss as "anecdotal" information is what you'd describe from firsthand experience. For instance, let's say you witness a fight on the yard across from your home. What your friends saw and described, as well as what you saw and described of the fight, is anecdotal evidence. It's what you saw, and you describe it in a way that shows the listener what you saw. Labeling it as anecdotal evidence doesn't make, what you observe, something other than the fact.
The part of your source that I emphasized, the Czech and Polish reports, are based on someone's firsthand account of what happened. The only reason to why this get's the "weak evidence" case is that the number of reports doesn't match their arbitrarily picked minimum number of reports required to make this a "strong" report.
This is as ridiculous as someone saying that the evidence that there were a couple of dead snakes within 75 meters of each other, on the same side of my running path, back in Virginia, is very weak, as I was the only one that saw and reported them.
The report doesn't support what you're insinuating, but it does add to my argument about the nature of asymmetrical warfare.
RE: the memo pointed out that Bin Ladin resented the secularism of Saddam Hussein's regime.
Again, we have desk jockeys trying to come up with an authoritative assessment on people they didn't bother trying to understand. Their conclusions ignore both, Arab thought process and human nature. It ignores Arab thought process, as the following is an Arab saying: "An enemy of my enemy is my friend!" It also ignores human nature... two disagreeing parties closing ranks to fight what they see is a common enemy... one more threatening to them than they are to each other.
It's the same human nature that caused the United States and Soviet Union to fight on the same side, with support going from one to the other... something they wouldn't have done under a different situation given the animosity they had toward each other.
Even one of the leaders of the post Iraq invasion WMD inspection teams touched on the asymmetrical danger that we faced:
"...And in a world where we know others are seeking WMD, the likelihood at some point in the future of a seller and a buyer meeting up would have made that a far more dangerous country." -- David Kay
RE: Finally, the memo said, there was no confirmed reporting on Saddam cooperating with Bin Ladin on unconventional weapons.62
This is a deceptive statement; it implies physical contact, or near physical contact, between Osama and Saddam, something that's not needed in a joint Iraqi-Al-Qaeda operation. For instance, the American and Iraqi forces are carrying out the mission in Iraq, neither Obama nor the Iraqi PM are physically together, in Iraq, making things happen.
Saying the above statement is like saying that the United States and Iraq didn't work together during our deployment, because the US President and the Iraqi PM weren't on the ground here, side by side, making things happen on a daily basis. They weren't "working together" on Iraqi streets to make things happen.
Completely asinine, and defies logic.
quote:
ORIGINAL: vincentML
The second report regards Secretary of State Colin Powell:
quote:
Secretary Powell recalled that Wolfowitz-not Rumsfeld-argued that Iraq was ultimately the source of the terrorist problem and should therefore be attacked.66 Powell said that Wolfowitz was not able to justify his belief that Iraq was behind 9/11. "Paul was always of the view that Iraq was a problem that had to be dealt with," Powell told us. "And he saw this as one way of using this event as a way to deal with the Iraq problem." Powell said that President Bush did not give Wolfowitz's argument "much weight." 67 Though continuing to worry about Iraq in the following week, Powell said, President Bush saw Afghanistan as the priority.68
This part destroys one of the rubbish that your side of the argument likes to throw around, the rubbish that Bush "believed" that Iraq was behind 9/11, as in directly responsible, without co-conspirators. The Administration didn't argue from that angle, but from an asymmetrical warfare angle.
George Bush dismissed the idea that Iraq was solely, or mainly, responsible for the 9/11 attacks. He identified the country that we had to go to first in the War on Terrorism... Afghanistan. He saw Afghanistan as the primary target. Meanwhile, while this was happening, we had the issue of Saddam not coming clean with WMD.
Under Asymmetrical Warfare, Saddam could give WMD to Al-Qaeda, who could deliver it to the United States, then use it. Saddam gets plausible deniability, while Al Qaeda gets bragging rights. Both accomplish their goals of inflicting damage on the United States. This is the asymmetrical warfare aspect that the administration argued.
vincentML: Perhaps you could show us your source in the 9-11 Report for the claim that "Even the 9/11 report acknowledged that there were at least two terror groups in Iraq that were a part of Al Qaeda."
http://www.9-11commission.gov/report/911Report_Ch2.htm
Bin Ladin now had a vision of himself as head of an international jihad confederation. In Sudan, he established an "Islamic Army Shura" that was to serve as the coordinating body for the consortium of terrorist groups with which he was forging alliances. It was composed of his own al Qaeda Shura together with leaders or representatives of terrorist organizations that were still independent. In building this Islamic army, he enlisted groups from Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Iraq, Oman, Algeria, Libya, Tunisia, Morocco, Somalia, and Eritrea. Al Qaeda also established cooperative but less formal relationships with other extremist groups from these same countries; from the African states of Chad, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, and Uganda; and from the Southeast Asian states of Burma, Thailand, Malaysia, and Indonesia. Bin Ladin maintained connections in the Bosnian conflict as well.37 The groundwork for a true global terrorist network was being laid."
NOTE: It's this confederation that people have in mind when they say, "Al Qaeda." The authors try to separate the two, given the fact that it indicates that Bin Laden enlisted groups from countries that included Iraq. When you enlist, you join. Bin Laden's actions and statements tie him and Iraq under Saddam as a "team." More from the same source.
"He spoke of the suffering of the Iraqi people as a result of sanctions imposed after the Gulf War, and he protested U.S. support of Israel."
"Bin Ladin and al Qaeda have given answers to both these questions. To the first, they say that America had attacked Islam; America is responsible for all conflicts involving Muslims. Thus Americans are blamed when Israelis fight with Palestinians, when Russians fight with Chechens, when Indians fight with Kashmiri Muslims, and when the Philippine government fights ethnic Muslims in its southern islands. America is also held responsible for the governments of Muslim countries, derided by al Qaeda as "your agents." Bin Ladin has stated flatly, "Our fight against these governments is not separate from our fight against you."14 These charges found a ready audience among millions of Arabs and Muslims angry at the United States because of issues ranging from Iraq to Palestine to America's support for their countries' repressive rulers."
NOTE: When Bin Laden says "our," he's talking about the confederation that he built, he's talking for them, as their leader.
"Meanwhile, al Qaeda finance officers and top operatives used their positions in Bin Ladin's businesses to acquire weapons, explosives, and technical equipment for terrorist purposes. One founding member, Abu Hajer al Iraqi, used his position as head of a Bin Ladin investment company to carry out procurement trips from western Europe to the Far East."
"To protect his own ties with Iraq, Turabi reportedly brokered an agreement that Bin Ladin would stop supporting activities against Saddam. Bin Ladin apparently honored this pledge, at least for a time, although he continued to aid a group of Islamist extremists operating in part of Iraq (Kurdistan) outside of Baghdad's control. In the late 1990s, these extremist groups suffered major defeats by Kurdish forces. In 2001, with Bin Ladin's help they re-formed into an organization called Ansar al Islam. There are indications that by then the Iraqi regime tolerated and may even have helped Ansar al Islam against the common Kurdish enemy.5"
"With the Sudanese regime acting as intermediary, Bin Ladin himself met with a senior Iraqi intelligence officer in Khartoum in late 1994 or early 1995. Bin Ladin is said to have asked for space to establish training camps, as well as assistance in procuring weapons, but there is no evidence that Iraq responded to this request.55 As described below, the ensuing years saw additional efforts to establish connection"
NOTE: Not true, Salman Pak was a terror training camp in Iraq. Their commander admitted, to the Marines that captured the terror training camp, that they had trained Al Qaeda. There was a real airplane on this site, which was used as a training aid for hijacking aircraft. This is something that didn't exist in Afghanistan.
"In mid-1998, the situation reversed; it was Iraq that reportedly took the initiative. In March 1998, after Bin Ladin's public fatwa against the United States, two al Qaeda members reportedly went to Iraq to meet with Iraqi intelligence. In July, an Iraqi delegation traveled to Afghanistan to meet first with the Taliban and then with Bin Ladin. Sources reported that one, or perhaps both, of these meetings was apparently arranged through Bin Ladin's Egyptian deputy, Zawahiri, who had ties of his own to the Iraqis. In 1998, Iraq was under intensifying U.S. pressure, which culminated in a series of large air attacks in December."
NOTE: "An enemy of an enemy is a friend." --Arab saying
vincentML: I think you might be perpetuating a propagandist fabrication; but maybe not. I invite you to set the record straight and give us the quote from the 9-11 Commision Report.
In order to claim that I'm perpetrating propaganda, you have to prove me "wrong," which you've consistently failed to do. Propaganda is doing things like cherry picking someone's post, cutting their answers off, then claiming that they "didn't" answer your question. Propaganda is doing what you did with the 9/11 Commission Report, cherry picking what you thought supported your argument, while ignoring what I had to pull out for you... mentions of the link between Iraq and Al-Qaeda prior to the invasion.
This is a feeble attempt on your part to come across as "someone in the middle," but your attitude and posts here give you away as someone that's on the far left, someone opposing me for ideological reasons.
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