Putin: Hussein Was Preparing Attacks Inside the United Stat

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http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/news/archive/2004/06/18/international0817EDT0505.DTL

Putin says Russia gave U.S. information about potential Iraqi attacks in the United States

BAGILA BUKHARBAYEVA, Associated Press Writer
Friday, June 18, 2004

(06-18) 06:13 PDT ASTANA, Kazakhstan (AP) --

Russia gave the Bush administration intelligence after the September 11 attacks that suggested Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq was preparing attacks in the United States, President Vladimir Putin said Friday.

Putin said he couldn't comment on how critical the Russians' information was in the U.S. decision to invade Iraq. He said Russia didn't have any information that Saddam's regime was actually behind any terrorist acts.

"After Sept. 11, 2001, and before the start of the military operation in Iraq, the Russian special services, the intelligence service, received information that officials from Saddam's regime were preparing terrorist attacks in the United States and outside it against the U.S. military and other interests," Putin said.

He said President Bush personally thanked one of the leaders of Russia's intelligence agencies for the information. There was no immediate comment from U.S. officials.

"It's one thing to have information that Saddam's regime is preparing terrorist attacks, (but) we didn't have information that it was involved in any known terrorist attacks," Putin said in the Kazakh capital Astana after regional economic and security summits.

Putin said the intelligence didn't cause Russia to waver from its firm opposition to the war.

"Despite that information about terrorist attacks being prepared by Saddam's regime, Russia's position on Iraq remains unchanged," Putin said.

Putin didn't elaborate on any details of the terror plots or mention whether they were tied to the al-Qaida terror network.

A commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks in the United States reported this week that while there were contacts between al-Qaida and Iraq, they did not appear to have produced "a collaborative relationship."

President Bush, however, insisted Thursday that Saddam had "numerous contacts" with al-Qaida and said Iraqi agents had met with the terror network's leader, Osama bin Laden, in Sudan.

Saddam "was a threat because he had terrorist connections -- not only al-Qaida connections, but other connections to terrorist organizations," Bush said.

Also Thursday, a top Russian diplomat called for international inspectors to conclusively resolve the question of whether Iraq had any weapons of mass destruction -- one of the main reasons Bush used to justify the war. No such weapons have been found since Saddam's fall.

"This problem must be resolved ... because to a great extent it became the pretext for the start of the war against Iraq," Deputy Foreign Minister Yuri Fedotov said in Moscow, according to Interfax news agency.

He said such a finding would allow the U.N. Security Council to "turn a page and finally close the dossier on Iraqi weapons."

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Why is this informtion just coming out now? How come the 9/11 commission wasn't privy to this info much less the American people?

Putin is a player. I don't trust him or his motives.

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Well he was making lots of money from that food for oil deal so of course he opposed intervention and deposing Saddam. I figure he's disclosing this now that the money train was derailed and trying to make amends, in his way. Getting this out is a way to kind of save face too but it looks like he's throwing in political support for Bush.

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doglover wrote:

Putin is a player. I don't trust him or his motives.

Putin is the best leader that poor country has ever had since Tsar peter.

Bozhe Tsaria xhrani...

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I would be suspicious of any statement being issued by Putin. In addition if that was the truth Bush would have shouted it from the rooftops as justification for the Iraqi invasion.
It makes you wonder what kind of deal the two a--hole buddies made?

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Putin's ploy is so transparently phony
I wonder how much or what favors Bush promised Putin to make such weird statements to shore up Bush's reelection campaign? I can hardly wait to learn what manufactored evidence will (or won't) be produced to support this claim.

BBB Rolling Eyes

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Putin said Russia's secret service had information on more than one occasion that Iraq was preparing acts of terror in the US and its facilities worldwide.

Mr Putin said he had no information the Iraqi ex-leader was behind any attacks.

So what? This came one day after US President Bush insisted there had been links between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda.

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Why is this news?

Putin made this claim after the 9/11 attacks. We were directly threatening Saddam and the suspicion that he might try to counter with an attack on the homeland was coming from other places as well.

Besides, with hindsight, he was clearly wrong.

So what?

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ebrown_p wrote:

Besides, with hindsight, he was clearly wrong.

I am reluctant to comment at all, because the proper justification for the invasion was WMD more than allegations of terror links, but your comment strikes me as illogical. What does hindsight have to do with our justifications for invasion? We didn't have the benefit of hindsight then. If we had been warned that Iraq was planning terror attacks against us, the point is that that is what we would have believed at the time of invasion.

Also, how do you know that the attacks wouldn't have taken place, had we not removed Hussein from power.

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Brand X wrote:

Well he was making lots of money from that food for oil deal so of course he opposed intervention and deposing Saddam.

Oh really? How much was Putin making?

Oh.. just another one of those "sounds good to say but has no factual basis" claims. Ho hum.

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Craven de Kere wrote:

Brand X wrote:
Well he was making lots of money from that food for oil deal so of course he opposed intervention and deposing Saddam.

Oh really? How much was Putin making?

Oh.. just another one of those "sounds good to say but has no factual basis" claims. Ho hum.

Yeah!

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I've got one too:

"Bush made $5 from invading Iraq."

Sounds kinda fishy.

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Five bucks? That's it? Why that lousy....

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Hey, don't knock it. I used to charge a big fiver myself for my services.

But seriously, this news article is pretty big stuff. I'm not sure it was any more than one of those frequent hit-or-miss threat reports and might not have had anything real behind it but Putin saying that is powerful political stuff.

It should give Bush a wee boost.

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Brandon9000 wrote:

ebrown_p wrote:

Besides, with hindsight, he was clearly wrong.

I am reluctant to comment at all, because the proper justification for the invasion was WMD more than allegations of terror links, but your comment strikes me as illogical. What does hindsight have to do with our justifications for invasion? We didn't have the benefit of hindsight then. If we had been warned that Iraq was planning terror attacks against us, the point is that that is what we would have believed at the time of invasion.

Also, how do you know that the attacks wouldn't have taken place, had we not removed Hussein from power.

You say that the "proper justification for the invasion was WMD". I wouldn't dare to argue with that justification.

In the months between 9/11 and the war, there were all sorts of rumors that *if* we attacked Iraq, there would be retaliatory terrorist strikes in the US. These threats were just part of the bluster before the war.

The war happened and Saddam had ample warning that it would. If he had the capability and the will to lauch these attacks he would have. This was just more political posturing.

Of course, hindsight is 20-20. There were no WMD's no Iraqi terror attacks and no credible links to Al Qaeda.

There was only political blustering, illogical claims and exagerrated threats.

And that is all there is now.

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Sofia was brave enough to admit that she was starting to rethink her position on Iraq. I have to admit that since the other day when we learned that Saddam and Bin Laden had contact when before we had no clue whatsoever at all of any contact between them, I began to rethink my position that I have had since the beginning of this thing. Not because of anything the administration have said. In fact I don't even think that they knew about that contact or they would have been spouting it to kingdom come from the beginning, but because of that information the other day and now what Putin is saying.

I still believe that the administration wanted to go to war with Iraq and just scrambled to find some kind of justification no matter how flimsy to justify it and they didn't know any of this stuff that is coming out when they went to war with Iraq. Plus they bungled the entire thing diplomatically and the reconstruction and the prison thing.

BUT; Iraq is starting to seem more complicated now than before and I think there is a whole lot more that we don't know and the administration didn't know. And despite the total ineptness and no nothings of the administration it is turning out to be a good thing that we went to Iraq.

(as much as I really hate to admit it. but I can't just keep buldozing and denying the reality that is shaping up or else I would be no different than the administration and its cheerleaders.)

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revel said

Quote:

. And despite the total ineptness and no nothings of the administration it is turning out to be a good thing that we went to Iraq.

Good thing? What good thing is that?

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ebrown_p wrote:

Brandon9000 wrote:
ebrown_p wrote:

Besides, with hindsight, he was clearly wrong.

I am reluctant to comment at all, because the proper justification for the invasion was WMD more than allegations of terror links, but your comment strikes me as illogical. What does hindsight have to do with our justifications for invasion? We didn't have the benefit of hindsight then. If we had been warned that Iraq was planning terror attacks against us, the point is that that is what we would have believed at the time of invasion.

Also, how do you know that the attacks wouldn't have taken place, had we not removed Hussein from power.

You say that the "proper justification for the invasion was WMD". I wouldn't dare to argue with that justification.

In the months between 9/11 and the war, there were all sorts of rumors that *if* we attacked Iraq, there would be retaliatory terrorist strikes in the US. These threats were just part of the bluster before the war.

The war happened and Saddam had ample warning that it would. If he had the capability and the will to lauch these attacks he would have. This was just more political posturing.

Of course, hindsight is 20-20. There were no WMD's no Iraqi terror attacks and no credible links to Al Qaeda.

There was only political blustering, illogical claims and exagerrated threats.

And that is all there is now.

My post had only two very specific points. Putin announced today that in the period between 9/11 and the invasion of Iraq, he had warned the US that his intelligence indicated that Iraq was planning terrorist attacks within the US. You said that it's not significant news because in hindsight it turned out to be wrong. My point is (a) what we know in hindsight now is not relevant to our decison to invade, because we didn't have the benefit of hindsight then, and (b) you really don't know that if we hadn't removed Hussein those terror attacks might indeed not have occurred. I dispute other elements of your response, but refuse to be sidetracked off the logic of the argument.

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Quote:

ASTANA (Reuters) - Russia warned the United States after the September 11, 2001 attacks that Iraq's Saddam Hussein planned to hit targets on U.S. soil, Russian President Vladimir Putin said Friday.

Putin's remarks looked certain to help President Bush, but officials at the State Department expressed bafflement, saying they knew of no such information from Russia.

Putin said Russian intelligence had been told on several occasions that Saddam's special forces were preparing to attack U.S. targets inside and outside the United States.

"After the events of September 11, 2001, and before the start of the military operation in Iraq, Russian special services several times received information that the official services of the Saddam regime were preparing 'terrorist acts' on the United States and beyond its borders," he told reporters.

"This information was passed on to our American colleagues," he said. He added, however, that Russian intelligence had no proof that Saddam's agents had been involved in any particular attack.

State Department spokesman Adam Ereli told reporters he did not know anything about the information that Putin said Russia passed on. No such information was communicated from Russia through the State Department, he said.

"Everybody's scratching their heads," said one State Department official, who asked not to be named.

Source

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Bush made another mistake. When he got Putin to make this pronouncement he forgot to tell his bootlickers to acknowledge it as the truth. Embarrassed

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Putin: Hussein Was Preparing Attacks Inside the United Stat

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