InfraBlue wrote:Operation Northern Watch ...... don't buy it.
A. THE FOLLOWING PERSUADES ME THAT AMERICANS WOULD HAVE FACED FAR GREATER RISKS BY A BUSH DECISION TO NOT INVADE IRAQ, THAN THE RISKS AMERICANS NOW FACE BY BUSH’S DECISION TO INVADE IRAQ.
B. The National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States Report, i.e., The 9-11 Commission Report alleged, 8/21/2004:
www.9-11commission.gov/report/index.htm
[CHAPTERS 1, 2.4, 2.5, 3.1] Before we invaded Afghanistan and Iraq, al Qaeda et al fomented the following mass murders of Americans:
1. 10/1983 US Marine Corps Headquarters in Beirut--241 dead Americans;
2. 2/1993 WTC in NYC--6 dead Americans;
3. 11/1995 Saudi National Guard Facility in Riyadh--5 dead Americans;
4. 6/1996 Khobar Towers in Dhahran--19 dead Americans;
5. 8/1998 American Embassy in Nairobi--12 dead Americans;
6. 12/2000 Destroyer Cole in Aden--17 dead Americans;
7. 9/2001 WTC in NYC, Pentagon, Pennsylvania Field--approx. 1500 dead Americans.
C. In "American Soldier," General Tommy Franks alleged, 7/1/2004:
[CHAPTER 10, page 421] Chalabi had risen to prominence after Congress passed, and President Clinton signed, the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998. This legislation declared that it would be the "policy of the United States to seek to remove the Saddam Hussein regime from power in Iraq and to replace it with a democratic government."
D. To the UN, Colin Powell alleged, 2/5/2003:
www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2003/17300pf.htm
1. Iraq today harbors a deadly terrorist network headed by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi an associate and collaborator of Usama bin Laden and his al-Qaida lieutenants.
2. When our coalition ousted the Taliban, the Zarqawi network helped establish another poison and explosive training center camp, and this camp is located in northeastern Iraq. ||| Those helping to run this camp are Zarqawi lieutenants operating in northern Kurdish areas outside Saddam Hussein's controlled Iraq. But Baghdad has an agent in the most senior levels of the radical organization Ansar al-Islam that controls this corner of Iraq. In 2000, this agent offered al-Qaida safe haven in the region. After we swept al-Qaida from Afghanistan, some of those members accepted this safe haven. They remain there today.
3. We asked a friendly security service to approach Baghdad about extraditing Zarqawi and providing information about him and his close associates. This service contacted Iraqi officials twice and we passed details that should have made it easy to find Zarqawi. The network remains in Baghdad. Zarqawi still remains at large, to come and go.
E. The 9-11 Commission Report alleged, 8/21/2004:
www.9-11commission.gov/report/index.htm
1. [CHAPTER 2.4] 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.54
2. [CHAPTER 2.5] The reports describe friendly contacts and indicate some common themes in both sides' hatred of the United States. But to date we have seen no evidence that these or the earlier contacts ever developed into a collaborative operational relationship. Nor have we seen evidence indicating that Iraq cooperated with al Qaeda in developing or carrying out any attacks against the United States.76
F. Charles Duelfer's Report alleged, 9/30/2004:
www.cia.gov/cia/reports/iraq_wmd_2004/Comp_Report_Key_Findings.pdf
1. [Regime Strategic Intent, Key Findings] Saddam Husayn so dominated the Iraqi Regime that its strategic intent was his alone. He wanted to end sanctions while preserving the capability to reconstitute his weapons of mass destruction (WMD) when sanctions were lifted.
2. [Regime Finance and Procurement, Key Findings] Throughout sanctions, Saddam continually directed his advisors to formulate and implement strategies, policies, and methods to terminate the UN’s sanctions regime established by UNSCR 661. The Regime devised an effective diplomatic and economic strategy of generating revenue and procuring illicit goods utilizing the Iraqi intelligence, banking, industrial, and military apparatus that eroded United Nations’ member states and other international players resolve to enforce compliance, while capitalizing politically on its humanitarian crisis.
G. In "American Soldier," General Tommy Franks alleged, 7/1/2004:
1. [CHAPTER 12, page 483] The Air Picture changed once more. Now the icons were streaming toward two ridges and a steep valley in far northeastern Iraq, right on the border with Iran. These were the camps of the Ansar al-Islam terrorists, where al Qaeda leader Abu Musab Zarqawi had trained disciples in the use of chemical and biological weapons. But this strike was more than just another TLAM [Tomahawk Land Attack Missle] bashing. Soon Special Forces and SMU [Special Mission Unit] operators leading Kurdish Peshmerga fighters, would be storming the camps, collecting evidence, taking prisoners, and killing all those who resisted.
2. [CHAPTER 12, page 519] And they had also encountered several hundred foreign fighters from Egypt, the Sudan, Syria, and Libya who were being trained by the regime in a camp south of Baghdad. These foreign volunteers fought with suicidal ferocity, but they did not fight well. The Marines killed them all.
3. [CHAPTER 12, page 522] This whole country is one big weapons dump, I thought. There must be thousands of ammo storage sites. It will take years to clear them all.
DEFINITIONS
COR = Cooperative Operational Relationship
CHR = Cooperative Harboring Relationship
A COR is a relationship in which the parties to the relationship participate in the planning, training, equipping, financing, and/or the perpetration of an action (e.g., mass murder of civilians).
A CHR is a relationship in which some parties to the relationship allocate space to some other parties to the relationship (e.g., allocation of ground for building camps to train mass murderers).
BASIC FACTS
9/11 Commission alleged in Chapter 2.4 that there was
some evidence of a CHR between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda.
9/11 Commission alleged in Chapter 2.5 that there was
no evidence of a COR between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda.
FOUR EXAMPLES OF POPULAR TWIDDLE &
WHY THESE EXAMPLES ARE TWIDDLE
1. Because the 9/11 Commission report discussed COR in Chapter 2.5 after it discussed CHR in Chapter 2.4, the Commission did not believe there was some evidence of a CHR between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda.
If the Commission actually concluded there was no evidence of CHR, then, when writing of a COR in Chapter 2.5, the Commission would have explicitly discounted in Chapter 2.5 the evidence of CHR it had previously described in Chapter 2.4.
2. The al Qaeda camps in northern Iraq were outside that part of Iraq controlled by Saddam Hussein, so Saddam Hussein did not have a CHR with the al Qaeda in these camps.
The US/Coalition controlled the air in Iraq’s northern no-fly zone and not the ground beneath. There is no evidence that US/Coalition control of the air prevented Saddam from having the CHR with al Qaeda on the ground that the Commission described in Chapter 2.4.
3. Bush, Powell, and Franks promoted the false idea that Saddam Hussein possessed ready-to-use WMD, so all the other reasons Bush, Powell and Franks stated for invading Iraq are also false.
WMD were not used in the mass murder of civilians in the US on 9/11/2001, or in the mass murder of civilians since 1991 in Iraq under Saddam Hussein, or in the mass murder of civilians in Israel financed by Saddam Hussein. Nor are WMD required by al Qaedain any future mass murders of civilians, in those and other places. However, there is significant and immediate need to do what is necessary to prevent al Qaeda from perpetrating future mass murders of civilians. One of the things that must necessarily be prevented is the harboring of al Qaeda.
4. Franks and Duelfer found evidence of additional reasons for invading Iraq after the start of the invasion of Iraq, so such evidence is too late to be relevant.
They found: (1) thousands of dumps containing weapons, munitions and explosives; (2) no evidence of WMD in Iraq after 1991, but persuasive evidence that Saddam intended to resume development of WMD after sanctions were lifted; (3) more evidence that Saddam had a CHR with al Qaeda; (4) more evidence that al Qaeda was preparing in Iraq for future mass murderers of civilians; and (5) evidence of training camps of would-be mass murderers of civilians south of Baghdad. These finds individually provide ample justification for our fears that, absent invasion of Iraq and Regime change, our lives and liberty would be continually and increasingly at significant risk.
