nimh wrote:
You're not answering the question. When President Bush warned us about how "The danger is clear: using chemical, biological or, one day, nuclear weapons, obtained with the help of Iraq, the terrorists could fulfill their stated ambitions and kill thousands or hundreds of thousands of innocent people in our country" - he was NOT, in your opinion, sketching an "imminent danger"?
He was, as kerry and edwards and kennedy and so many others were doing, stating a real future danger, not imminent in the sense that the attack was certain to occur any second, but rather a danger that would result in likely attack sooner or later if left unchecked.
I think you can see bush's stance in this quote of his:
"Some have said we must not act until the threat is imminent. Since when have terrorists and tyrants announced their intentions, politely putting us on notice before they strike? If this threat is permitted to fully and suddenly emerge, all actions, all words, and all recriminations would come too late."
nimh wrote:
Not according to the 9/11 Commission. Or the Senate report. "Contacts", perhaps, but no "collaborative relationship" - no "training" of al Qaeda operatives.
According to the CIA, al Qaeda's Number 2, Ayman al-Zawahiri, met with Iraqi intelligence in Baghdad in 1992 and 1998. More disturbing, according to an administration official familiar with briefings the CIA has given President Bush, the Agency has "irrefutable evidence" that the Iraqi regime paid Zawahiri $300,000 in 1998.
There are many such links between saddam and al qaeda. It's true that there isn't a al Qaeda office in the iraqi intellegence office in bagdad, but there was clear collaboration.
As far as training:
Iraqi defectors had been saying for years that Saddam's regime trained "non-Iraqi Arab terrorists" at a camp in Salman Pak, south of Baghdad. U.N. inspectors had confirmed the camp's existence, including the presence of a Boeing 707. Defectors say the plane was used to train hijackers; the Iraqi regime said it was used in counterterrorism training. Sabah Khodada, a captain in the Iraqi Army, worked at Salman Pak. In October 2001, he told PBS's "Frontline" about what went on there. "Training is majorly on terrorism. They would be trained on assassinations, kidnapping, hijacking of airplanes, hijacking of buses, public buses, hijacking of trains and all other kinds of operations related to terrorism. . . . All this training is directly toward attacking American targets, and American interests."
