The Automatik

Many news sites are reporting that a Pentagon study has confirmed there was no link between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda.

A March 10 McClatchy newspaper article on this subject is being quoted by other news sites. The original piece states:

An exhaustive review of more than 600,000 Iraqi documents that were captured after the 2003 U.S. invasion has found no evidence that Saddam Hussein’s regime had any operational links with Osama bin Laden’s al Qaida terrorist network.

On March 12, the same website reported that:

The Pentagon on Wednesday canceled plans for broad public release of a study that found no pre-Iraq war link between late Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and the al Qaida terrorist network.

Rather than posting the report online and making officials available to discuss it, as had been planned, the U.S. Joint Forces Command said it would mail copies of the document to reporters — if they asked for it. The report won’t be posted on the Internet.

The March 12 2008 story from the ABC News “Rapid Report” reiterates the idea of the Pentagon not making the report available online, but provides a link to a nine-page extract from the report.

Page two of this report notes that it is a “redacted version of the original Iraqi Perspectives Report—Saddam and Terrorism: Emerging Insights from Captured Iraqi Documents, Volume I dated January 2007. Page ES-1 from the Executive Study states:

This study found no “smoking gun,” (i.e., direct connection) between Saddam’s Iraq and al Qaeda.

Other websites have provided links to a longer version of this report. ABC seems to be the first blog to provide a link to a 94-page—yet still redacted—version at 2:44 p.m. on March 13.

Websites like Hot Air and The Weekly Standard, find the claims of “no connection” misleading and provide links to the longer version of the report.

Hot Air reported on March 14 (with several subsequent updates) goes into great detail about the various connections between Saddam and al Qaeda such as the Army of Mohammed and Egypt’s Islamic Jihad, stating:

Nor was that Saddam’s only support for an AQ subsidiary. Saddam put money into Egypt’s Islamic Jihad. The IJ opposes the Hosni Mubarak regime for a number of reasons, but primarily because of Egypt’s shaky diplomatic relations with Israel. One leader of IJ that Westerners can easily name was Ayman al-Zawahiri, who became Osama’s chief deputy and primary mouthpiece to the world.

Hot Air provides links to The Weekly Standard article, The National Review‘s post on The Corner called “CONNECTED: Iraq and al Qaeda” and The New York Sun which calls its analysis, “Report Details Saddam’s Terrorist Ties.”

The New York Sun article again mentions Saddam’s connection to the Egyptian Islamic Jihad and states:

The report concludes that instead Iraq’s relationship with Osama bin Laden’s organization was similar to the relationship between the rival Colombian cocaine cartels in the 1990s. Both were rivals in some sense for market share, but also allies when it came to expanding the size of the overall market.

Both Hot Air and The New York Sun article highlight the following passage from Extract 34:

One question remains regarding Iraq’s terrorism capability: Is there anything in the captured archives to indicate that Saddam had the will to use his terrorist capabilities directly against United States? Judging from examples of Saddam’s statements (Extract 34) before the 1991 Gulf War with the United States, the answer is yes.

The Corner and The Weekly Standard print the abstract of the report from page 93:

Captured Iraqi documents have uncovered evidence that links the regime of Saddam Hussein to regional and global terrorism, including a variety of revolutionary, liberation, nationalist and Islamic terrorist organizations. While these documents do not reveal direct coordination and assistance between the Saddam regime and the al Qaeda network, they do indicate that Saddam was willing to use, albeit cautiously, operatives affiliated with al Qaeda as long as Saddam could have these terrorist-operatives monitored closely. 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.

These four sites seem to find all of the above extracts to be proof of specific connections between Saddam and al Qaeda, stating the following:

The Weekly Standard: Really? Saddam Hussein “supported” a group that merged with al Qaeda in the late 1990s, run by al Qaeda’s #2, and the New York Times thinks this is not a link between Iraq and al Qaeda? How does that work?

Hot Air: So we have Saddam supporting at least two AQ subsidiaries, one of which had open aspirations to attack American interests, and evidence from these captured materials that Saddam planned to use his terrorist capabilities to conduct war on the United States. Perhaps in the world of the mainstream media the big news from this would be “no smoking gun” connection to an actual attack, but for the rest of us, it shows that Saddam needed to go — and the sooner, the better.

The Corner: Once you read [the report], you might ask yourself (if you didn’t already know where the New York Times and the rest of the MSM are coming from), how anyone could read it and conclude “no link.”

The Sun: The report also undercuts the claim made by many on the left and many at the CIA that Saddam, as a national socialist, was incapable of supporting or collaborating with the Islamist al Qaeda. The report concludes that instead Iraq’s relationship with Osama bin Laden’s organization was similar to the relationship between the rival Colombian cocaine cartels in the 1990s. Both were rivals in some sense for market share, but also allies when it came to expanding the size of the overall market.

The Sun also goes on to quote a “long time skeptic of the connection between al Qaeda and Iraq and a former CIA senior Iraq analyst, Judith Yaphe,” who says:

“I think the report indicates that Saddam was willing to work with almost any group be it nationalist or Islamic, that was willing to work for his objectives. But in the long term he did not trust many of the Islamist groups, especially those linked to Saudi Arabia or Iran.” She added, “He really did want to get anti-American operations going. The fact that they had little success shows in part their incompetence and unwilling surrogates.”

Additionally, they quote a “former Bush administration official who was a member of the counter-terrorism evaluation group that analyzed terror networks and links between terrorists and states, David Wurmser,” who says:

“This is the beginning of the process of exposing Saddam’s involvement in Islamic terror. But it is only the beginning. Time and declassification I’m sure will reveal yet more. Even so, this report is damning to those who doubted Saddam Hussein’s involvement with Jihadist terrorist groups. It devastates one of the central myths plaguing our government prior to 9-11, that a Jihadist group would not cooperate with a secular regime and vice versa.”

Yet these two quotes don’t include statements that either of these folks believe in specific coordination between Saddam and al Qaeda, only that there are specific connections between Saddam and terrorism.

In fact, the extract that The Corner and The Weekly Standard quote says that the documents “do not reveal direct coordination and assistance” between Saddam and al Qaeda, but that Saddam would “use, albeit cautiously, operatives affiliated with al Qaeda” and that “Saddam’s security organizations and Osama bin Laden’s terrorist network operated with similar aims,” creating the “appearance of and, in some way, a ‘de facto’ link between the organizations.” (emphasis mine)

Let’s review exactly what many news sites are saying:

McClatchy: “no evidence of any operational links”
ThinkProgress: “no evidence of any operational links”
NPR: “no direct link”
Rolling Stone: “no pre war operational link”
CNN: “no connection between the two”
Tehran Times: “no link” and “no direct link”
The Raw Story: “no evidence of operational links”
Arab News: “no link” and “no direct link”
The Guardian: “no direct ties”
Fox News: “no link” and “no operational link”

Although the uses of the term “no link” does appear (CNN, Fox, Tehran Times, Arab News), three of the uses also include the terms “no direct link” and “no operational link.”

The extract seems to support their claims when it says, “no direct connection.” Furthermore, Hot Air et. al. charge the other media sites with putting out misleading information, but their own articles on the subject only manage to link Saddam with anti-American terrorist groups. Their own articles, despite quoting the 94-page report, cannot provide specific evidence that Saddam was in league with or collaborating with or directly supporting al Qaeda nor can they prove that he was a part of al Qaeda.

They talk about his connections to terrorism and anti-American sentiment. No one should be shocked that Saddam Hussein had connections to terrorism and no one should be shocked that terrorists with anti-American sentiment would share interests. No one should be shocked that Saddam Hussein had anti-Israeli sentiment (and this would certainly explain his support of Egypt’s Islamic Jihad).

The Iraq war was not initiated because Saddam was a terrorist or sympathized with America-haters. According to what Vice President Dick Cheney told Rush Limbaugh (full text on the White House website):

Abu Musab al Zarqawi, a Jordanian terrorist, al Qaeda affiliate; ran a training camp in Afghanistan for al Qaeda, then migrated — after we went into Afghanistan and shut him down there, he went to Baghdad, took up residence there before we ever launched into Iraq; organized the al Qaeda operations inside Iraq before we even arrived on the scene, and then, of course, led the charge for Iraq until we killed him last June. He’s the guy who arranged the bombing of the Samarra Mosque that precipitated the sectarian violence between Shia and Sunni. This is al Qaeda operating in Iraq. And as I say, they were present before we invaded Iraq.

Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld stated in 2004, “I have acknowledged since September 2002 that there were ties between Al Qaeda and Iraq.”

President Bush said in 2002:

We know that Iraq and the al Qaeda terrorist network share a common enemy — the United States of America. We know that Iraq and al Qaeda have had high-level contacts that go back a decade. Some al Qaeda leaders who fled Afghanistan went to Iraq. These include one very senior al Qaeda leader who received medical treatment in Baghdad this year, and who has been associated with planning for chemical and biological attacks. We’ve learned that Iraq has trained al Qaeda members in bomb-making and poisons and deadly gases. And we know that after September the 11th, Saddam Hussein’s regime gleefully celebrated the terrorist attacks on America.

A July 9 2005 letter purported to be from Ayman al-Zawahiri to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was released on October 11 2005 and only discusses “expel[ling] the Americans from Iraq”.

So why all the dissenting voices about there being connections between Saddam and al Qaeda?

Let’s look at Hot Air and The Weekly Standard‘s position on political affairs.

Hot Air considers itself “the world’s first full-service conservative Internet broadcast network!” There are eleven “Right Channels” links on their right menu bar and only three “Left Channels” links, however, closer inspection reveals more conservative links in other categories, such as Olbermann Watch, Drudge Report, Fox News Radio, Rush Limbaugh, Laura Ingraham, etc.

The Weekly Standard has an article called “Character is Destiny” about the Elliott Spitzer scandal in which it refers to “the liberal media.” Another article about the Pentagon report casually mentions its connections to the President, stating:

If you talk to people in the Bush administration, they know the truth about the report. They know that it makes the case convincingly for Saddam’s terror connections. But they’ll tell you (off the record) it’s too hard to try to set the record straight. Any reengagement on the case for war is a loser, they’ll say.

The Weekly Standard does not indicate which people in the Bush administration they spoke with, nor how “we,” the readers, are considered part of the “you” in the statement, in other words, they do not detail could someone who is not in the journalism field could have access to those in the Bush administration. “We” don’t, therefore, “we” rely on the media to give us their sources.

Where is the full version of this report? Crooks and Liars has a 230-page report from the Iraqi Perspectives Project on their website.

A search of the report reveals not even one mention of al Qaeda. Clearly, this is NOT the same report. We need to see Phase 2, not Phase 1.

I don’t know if I can order the full report because I live in Canada (although I am an American citizen) but I will post a link to the full report once I find it online. Any American residents who want to order this report, can do so by going here.

No comments