About Tommy Franks
Quote:In August 2002, General Tommy Franks gathered a few of his senior officers, and together they predicted what Iraq might look like four years after an invasion and the fall of Saddam Hussein. These projections, assembled in a PowerPoint presentation, were recently obtained by the National Security Archives (a non-governmental research organization) through a Freedom of Information Act request. There we find that had the prophecies of Franks group proved true, today there would be only 5,000 American troops remaining in Iraq, while a representative government would be in place and the Iraqi army would be keeping the peace throughout the country.
Hardly an impartial teller of war tales.
Quote:
Shiite sacred mosque explosion in Samarra
In Baghdad, National Security Adviser Mouwafak al-Rubaie blamed religious zealots such as the al-Qaida terror network, telling Al-Arabiya television that the attack was an attempt "to pull Iraq toward civil war."
The country's most revered Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, sent instructions to his followers forbidding attacks on Sunni mosques, especially the major ones in Baghdad. He called for seven days of mourning, his aides said.
...
President Jalal Talabani condemned the attack and called for restraint, saying the attack was designed to sabotage talks on a government of national unity following the Dec. 15 parliamentary election.
Quote:Capture of al-Qaeda mastermind of Golden Mosque explosion
Abu Qudama operated under terrorist cell leader Haitham al-Badri.
Al-Badri was "a known terrorist," a member of Ansar al-Sunna before he joined terror group al Qaeda in Iraq, al-Rubaie said.
However, Iraqi authorities "were not aware of his being the mastermind behind the golden mosque explosion" until Abu Qudama's arrest, al-Rubaie said.
"The sole reason behind his action was to drive a wedge between the Shiites and Sunnis and to ignite and trigger a sectarian war in this country," al-Rubaie said, referring to al-Badri.
===========================================================================
THE MASS MURDERERS OF IRAQI NON-MURDERERS ARE THE ONES WHO CAUSED THE 23,482 DEATHS OF IRAQI NON-MURDERERS IN 2006.
===========================================================================
Quote:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2006-11-10-iraq_x.htm?csp=34
Al-Qaeda in Iraq taunts Bush, claims it's winning war
Updated 11/10/2006 2:33 PM
BAGHDAD (AP) -- A recording Friday attributed to the leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq mocked U.S. President George W. Bush as a coward whose conduct of the war had been rejected by U.S. voters, challenging him to keep American troops in the country to face more bloodshed.
"We haven't had enough of your blood yet," terror chieftain Abu Hamza al-Muhajir, identified as the speaker on the tape, said as he claimed to have 12,000 fighters under his command who "have vowed to die for God's sake."
The Egyptian said his fighters would not rest until they blew up the White House and occupied Jerusalem.
It was impossible to verify the authenticity of the 20-minute recording, posted on a website used by Islamic militants.
Al-Muhajir, also known as Abu Ayyub al-Masri, boasted that al-Qaeda in Iraq was moving toward victory faster than expected because of Bush's mistakes.
Quote:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/iraq_dc
Dozens of al Qaeda killed in Anbar: Iraq police By Waleed Ibrahim and Ibon Villelabeitia
Thu Mar 1, 3:17 PM ET [2007]
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraqi security forces killed dozens of al Qaeda militants who attacked a village in western Anbar province on Wednesday, during fierce clashes that lasted much of the day, police officials said on Thursday.
Sunni tribal leaders are involved in a growing power struggle with Sunni al Qaeda for control of Anbar, a vast desert province that is the heart of the Sunni Arab insurgency in Iraq.
In Baghdad, U.S. and Iraqi troops are engaged in a security crackdown to stop bloodshed between Shi'ites and Sunni Arabs.
U.S. and Iraqi military officials said troops would soon launch aggressive operations to seize weapons and hunt gunmen in the Shi'ite militia bastion of Sadr City, signaling resolve to press ahead with the plan even in sensitive areas.
Dozens of loud explosions that sounded like mortar bombs rocked southern Baghdad in quick succession on Thursday evening, Reuters witnesses said.
Iraqi military spokesman Brigadier Qassim Moussawi said the blasts were part of the new security offensive, Iraqiya state television reported, without giving details. A U.S. military spokeswoman said she had no information on the explosions.
Interior Ministry spokesman Abdul Karim Khalaf said foreign Arabs and Afghans were among some 80 militants killed and 50 captured in the clashes in Amiriyat al Falluja, an Anbar village where local tribes had opposed al Qaeda.
A police official in the area, Ahmed al-Falluji, put the number of militants killed at 70, with three police officers killed. There was no immediate verification of the numbers.
A U.S. military spokesman in the nearby city of Falluja, Major Jeff Pool, said U.S. forces were not involved in the battle but had received reports from Iraqi police that it lasted most of Wednesday. He could not confirm the number killed.
Another police source in Falluja put the figure at dozens.
"Because it was so many killed we can't give an exact number for the death toll," the police source told Reuters.
Witnesses said dozens of al Qaeda members attacked the village, prompting residents to flee and seek help from Iraqi security forces, who sent in police and soldiers.
Quote:
http://edition.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/11/10/iraq.main/
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- A purported audio recording by the leader of al Qaeda in Iraq vows to step up the group's fight against the United States, saying, "We haven't had enough of your blood yet."
The recording was posted Friday on an Islamist Web site and the speaker is identified as Abu Hamza al-Muhajer, successor to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Al-Muhajer is also known as Abu Ayyub al-Masri.
"Come down to the battlefield, you coward," the speaker says on the recording, which CNN cannot independently confirm as the voice of al-Muhajer.
Calling President Bush a "lame duck" the speaker tells Bush not to "run away as your lame defense secretary ran away," referring to Donald Rumsfeld, who resigned Wednesday.
Critics of the U.S.-led war in Iraq have placed much of the blame for its problems on Rumsfeld. The war's growing unpopularity contributed to toppling the majority Republican Party in both chambers of Congress in Tuesday's election. (Watch Rumsfeld acknowledge what's going wrong -- 2:23)
Much of the Iraqi insurgency has been blamed on al Qaeda in Iraq, whose former chief al-Zarqawi was killed in a U.S.-led airstrike in June.
The speaker on the tape vows that al Qaeda in Iraq will not stop its jihad "until we sit under the olive trees in Rumiya after we blow up the wicked house known as the White House." He says the first phase of the jihad is now over, and that the next phase -- building an Islamic nation -- has begun.
"The victory day has come faster than we expected," he says. "Here is the Islamic nation in Iraq victorious against the tyrant. The enemy is incapable of fighting on and has no choice but to run away."
The speaker claims his al Qaeda army has 12,000 soldiers -- with 10,000 more waiting in the wings to join them.
Quote:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/02/15/iraq/main2479937.shtml
BAGHDAD, Iraq, Feb. 15, 2007
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(CBS/AP) The leader of al Qaeda in Iraq was wounded and an aide was killed Thursday in a clash with Iraqi forces north of Baghdad, the Interior Ministry spokesman said.
The clash occurred near Balad, a major U.S. base about 50 miles north of the capital, Brig. Gen Abdul-Karim Khalaf said.
Khalaf said al Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Ayyub al-Masri was wounded and his aide, identified as Abu Abdullah al-Majemaai, was killed.
Khalaf declined to say how Iraqi forces knew al-Masri had been injured, and there was no report on the incident from U.S. authorities. Deputy Interior Minister Maj. Gen. Hussein Ali Kamal said he had no information about such a clash or that al-Masri had been involved.
Al-Masri took over the leadership of al Qaeda in Iraq after its charismatic leader, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, was killed in a U.S. air strike last June in Diyala province northeast of Baghdad.
Meanwhile U.S. and Iraqi forces pushed deeper into Sunni militant strongholds in Baghdad -- where cars rigged with explosives greeted their advance -- while British-led teams in southern Iraq used shipping containers to block suspected weapon smuggling routes from Iran.
The series of car bomb blasts, which killed at least seven civilians, touched all corners of Baghdad. But they did little to disrupt a wide-ranging security sweep seeking to weaken militia groups' ability to fight U.S.-allied forces -- and each other.
The attacks, however, pointed to the critical struggle to gain the upper hand on Baghdad's streets. The Pentagon hopes its current campaign of arrests and arms seizures will convince average Iraqis that militiamen are losing ground.
It will take a lot of convincing.
Iraqis, such as Sunnis living on Haifa Street in central Baghdad, still live in mortal fear, reports CBS News chief foreign correspondent Lara Logan.
"Right now it is very difficult with the enemy that is around here in this area -- it is a real hostile area" says Lt. Juan Cantu, whose Crazyhorse Troop is guarding Haifa Street. "These people are scared just to go outside their front door"
Quote:
http://terrorism.about.com/od/groupsleader1/p/AlQaedainIraq.htm
Al Qaeda in Iraq -- A profile of Sunni jihadist organization Al Qaeda in Iraq
From Amy Zalman, Ph.D.,
Your Guide to Terrorism Issues.
FREE Newsletter. Sign Up Now!
Name: Al Qaeda in Iraq
"Al Qaeda in Iraq is a shortening of the organization's original name Tanzim Qaidat Al Jihad fi Bilad Al Rafidin: Organization of Qaidat Al Jihad in the Land of Two Rivers. Iraq is called the land between two rivers, the Euphrates and the Tigris.
There has been considerable speculation about the name of the organization and how it was arrived at.
According to Egyptian journalist Abd Al Rahim Ali, the name "Qaida Al Jihad" is interesting because it reveals the roots of the joint organization formed in 2001 when Al Qaida head Osama bin Laden and Al Jihad of Egypt head Ayman Al Zawahiri joined forces to create "Qaida Al Jihad."
In the view of the U.S. State Department the name is "understood to mean the base of organized jihadist operations in Iraq" (The word "al qaeda" means "base"). This name was given by Jordanian born Abd al Musab Al Zarqawi, who assumed leadership in late 2004, after pledging allegiance to bin Laden.
Quote:
Iraq Army captures al-Qaeda
IA Captures Al Qaeda In Iraq Cell Leader, Recovers Weapons Cache
BAGHDAD -- Soldiers of the 5th Iraqi Army Division captured a suspected Al Qaeda in
Iraq cell leader during operations Feb. 15 in Muqdadiyah. The suspect is believed
responsible for coordinating and carrying out several improvised explosive device and
rocket attacks targeting Iraqi civilians and Iraqi Security Forces in the area.
During the operation, several munitions caches were recovered by Iraqi Forces.
Munitions confiscated included 12 152mm artillery projectiles, ten 130mm artillery
projectiles, five 105mm artillery projectiles, ten 120mm mortar rounds, 15 82mm mortar
rounds, ten 60mm mortar rounds, 23 anti-tank mines, explosives and detonation cord.
The operation was planned and conducted by 5th IA Division forces. Coalition
Forces accompanied the Iraqi force in an advisory role. Operations caused minimal
damage and there were no Iraqi civilian, Iraqi forces or Coalition Forces casualties.
The operation is another example of the increasing capability of Iraqi Forces to
combat violent elements operating within Iraq and Iraqi Forces ability to provide for the
safety and security of citizens within Muqdadiyah.
Quote:
attacks on al-Qaeda in Iraq
Daily Iraq Report for February 27, 2007
Less than two weeks after the official announcement of the Baghdad security plan, "reporting of sectarian murders is at the lowest level in almost a year," and "170 suspected insurgents have been arrested and 63 weapons caches of various sizes have been seized," reports Stars and Stripes. Bomb attacks have decreased by 20 percent.
Over the past 24 hours, Iraqi and Coalition forces have pressed raids against al Qaeda in Iraq targets. Yesterday, U.S. forces captured 15 al Qaeda, including an emir (equivalent to a battalion commander in the U.S. military), during raids in Baghdad, Ramadi, Mahmudiyah, and Samarra. The Iraqi Army detained 6 insurgents near Baqubah. Today, 11 al Qaeda, including an emir, were captured during raids in Baghdad, Mosul and Ramadi.
One reason for the decrease in sectarian attacks is the pressure being placed on the Mahdi Army. While Muqtada al-Sadr is hiding in Iran, Iraqi and Coalition forces continue to dismantle his Mahdi Army. U.S. and Iraqi troops conducted raids throughout Sadr City, Muqtada's stronghold in Baghdad, and 16 Mahdi fighters were detained. The rumor in Baghdad is that Sadr himself is "doing some very deadly housecleaning," as "Mahdi Army members have been disappearing or turning up dead in the Sadr City, Kadhimiya, and Baladiyat areas of the capital." But Iraqi and Coalition forces have been conducting a shadow war against Sadr since last summer, maintaining the fiction that only "rogue elements of the Mahdi Army" are being targeted.
Two major attacks have occurred in the past 24 hours. The most significant was an explosion yesterday at the Ministry of Public Works, which nearly killed Adel Abdul Mahdi, one of Iraq's two vice presidents, as well as Riad Ghraib, the minister of public works. Twelve were killed and 42 wounded after a bomb placed in the ceiling of a ministry conference room exploded. Mahdi and Ghraib were both "lightly wounded" in the explosion, and were treated for "scratches" at a U.S. military hospital. An American intelligence source informs us that al Qaeda and Sadr are the prime suspects. Today, an IED attack outside of a Ramadi mosque killed 15 civilians and wounded 9, including women and children. Al Qaeda recently targeted a mosque in Habbaniyah, and assassinated an imam that spoke out against al-Qaeda.
The evidence that Iran is supplying weapons and explosives to insurgents and militias continues to mount. Iraqi newspapers are now reporting on this development, and are blaming Iran for fueling the violence in Baghdad. A significant find linking weapons and explosives back to Iran was discovered by the U.S. Army in the violent Diyala province. The cache included Iranian made C-4 explosives and mortars. "The explosives were found alongside enough bomb-making materials to build 150 EFPs [Explosively Formed Projectiles] capable of penetrating heavily armored vehicles, according to the expert, Maj. Martin Weber." This latest find follows an MNF-Iraq briefing that provided further evidence of Iranian munitions and support being supplied to insurgents and militias, as well as evidence that Austrian Steyr HS50 sniper rifles purchased by Iran had found their way into Iraq.
revel wrote:About Tommy Franks
Quote:In August 2002, General Tommy Franks gathered a few of his senior officers, and together they predicted what Iraq might look like four years after an invasion and the fall of Saddam Hussein. These projections, assembled in a PowerPoint presentation, were recently obtained by the National Security Archives (a non-governmental research organization) through a Freedom of Information Act request. There we find that had the prophecies of Franks group proved true, today there would be only 5,000 American troops remaining in Iraq, while a representative government would be in place and the Iraqi army would be keeping the peace throughout the country.
Hardly an impartial teller of war tales.
His false predictions are not evidence that what I excerpted from Franks' book is false. The probability of the truth of what he said
he actually saw is not the same as the probability of the truth of what he
predicted would happen after he retired. I think his prediction of what would happen after he retired was probably based on what
he would have done if he had not retired. On the otherhand, what Frank would have done is unlikely to have been what was actually done by others. Also, if forced to do other than what he thought would work, Franks would probably have chosen to retire early. ........ Whoops! Franks did retire early! .............. hmmmmmmmm.................
Over 3,200 Americans dead because of this administrations lies and deceit.
Over 3,200 Americans dead because this administration believes their ideology is more important than human life.
And we have conservatives out there who are proud of that.
Quote:Hussein's Prewar Ties To Al-Qaeda Discounted
Pentagon Report Says Contacts Were Limited
By R. Jeffrey Smith
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, April 6, 2007; A01
Captured Iraqi documents and intelligence interrogations of Saddam Hussein and two former aides "all confirmed" that Hussein's regime was not directly cooperating with al-Qaeda before the U.S. invasion of Iraq, according to a declassified Defense Department report released yesterday.
The declassified version of the report, by acting Inspector General Thomas F. Gimble, also contains new details about the intelligence community's prewar consensus that the Iraqi government and al-Qaeda figures had only limited contacts, and about its judgments that reports of deeper links were based on dubious or unconfirmed information. The report had been released in summary form in February.
The report's release came on the same day that Vice President Cheney, appearing on Rush Limbaugh's radio program, repeated his allegation that al-Qaeda was operating inside Iraq "before we ever launched" the war, under the direction of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the terrorist killed last June.
"This is al-Qaeda operating in Iraq," Cheney told Limbaugh's listeners about Zarqawi, who he said had "led the charge for Iraq." Cheney cited the alleged history to illustrate his argument that withdrawing U.S. forces from Iraq would "play right into the hands of al-Qaeda."
Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.), who requested the report's declassification, said in a written statement that the complete text demonstrates more fully why the inspector general concluded that a key Pentagon office -- run by then-Undersecretary of Defense Douglas J. Feith -- had inappropriately written intelligence assessments before the March 2003 invasion alleging connections between al-Qaeda and Iraq that the U.S. intelligence consensus disputed.
The report, in a passage previously marked secret, said Feith's office had asserted in a briefing given to Cheney's chief of staff in September 2002 that the relationship between Iraq and al-Qaeda was "mature" and "symbiotic," marked by shared interests and evidenced by cooperation across 10 categories, including training, financing and logistics.
Instead, the report said, the CIA had concluded in June 2002 that there were few substantiated contacts between al-Qaeda operatives and Iraqi officials and had said that it lacked evidence of a long-term relationship like the ones Iraq had forged with other terrorist groups.
"Overall, the reporting provides no conclusive signs of cooperation on specific terrorist operations," that CIA report said, adding that discussions on the issue were "necessarily speculative."
The CIA had separately concluded that reports of Iraqi training on weapons of mass destruction were "episodic, sketchy, or not corroborated in other channels," the inspector general's report said. It quoted an August 2002 CIA report describing the relationship as more closely resembling "two organizations trying to feel out or exploit each other" rather than cooperating operationally.
The CIA was not alone, the defense report emphasized. The Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) had concluded that year that "available reporting is not firm enough to demonstrate an ongoing relationship" between the Iraqi regime and al-Qaeda, it said.
But the contrary conclusions reached by Feith's office -- and leaked to the conservative Weekly Standard magazine before the war -- were publicly praised by Cheney as the best source of information on the topic, a circumstance the Pentagon report cites in documenting the impact of what it described as "inappropriate" work.
Feith has vigorously defended his work, accusing Gimble of "giving bad advice based on incomplete fact-finding and poor logic," and charging that the acting inspector general has been "cheered on by the chairmen of the Senate intelligence and armed services committees." In January, Feith's successor at the Pentagon, Eric S. Edelman, wrote a 52-page rebuttal to the inspector general's report that disputed its analysis and its recommendations for Pentagon reform.
Cheney's public statements before and after the war about the risks posed by Iraq have closely tracked the briefing Feith's office presented to the vice president's then-chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby. That includes the briefing's depiction of an alleged 2001 meeting in Prague between an Iraqi intelligence official and one of the Sept. 11, 2001, hijackers as one of eight "Known Iraq-Al Qaida Contacts."
The defense report states that at the time, "the intelligence community disagreed with the briefing's assessment that the alleged meeting constituted a 'known contact' " -- a circumstance that the report said was known to Feith's office. But his office had bluntly concluded in a July 2002 critique of a CIA report on Iraq's relationship with al-Qaeda that the CIA's interpretation of the facts it cited "ought to be ignored."
The briefing to Libby was also presented with slight variations to then-Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, then-CIA Director George J. Tenet and then-deputy national security adviser Stephen J. Hadley. It was prepared in part by someone whom the defense report described as a "junior Naval Reservist" intelligence analyst detailed to Feith's office from the DIA. The person is not named in the report, but Edelman wrote that she was requested by Feith's office.
The briefing, a copy of which was declassified and released yesterday by Levin, goes so far as to state that "Fragmentary reporting points to possible Iraqi involvement not only in 9/11 but also in previous al Qaida attacks." That idea was dismissed in 2004 by a presidential commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks, noting that "no credible evidence" existed to support it.
When a senior intelligence analyst working for the government's counterterrorism task force obtained an early account of the conclusions by Feith's office -- titled "Iraq and al-Qaida: Making the Case" -- the analyst prepared a detailed rebuttal calling it of "no intelligence value" and taking issue with 15 of 26 key conclusions, the report states. The analyst's rebuttal was shared with intelligence officers on the Joint Chiefs of Staff, but evidently not with others.
Edelman complained in his own account of the incident that a senior Joint Chiefs analyst -- in responding to a suggestion by the DIA analyst that the "Making the Case" account be widely circulated -- told its author that "putting it out there would be playing into the hands of people" such as then-Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz, and belittled the author for trying to support "some agenda of people in the building."
But the inspector general's report, in a footnote, commented that it is "noteworthy . . . that post-war debriefs of Sadaam Hussein, [former Iraqi foreign minister] Tariq Aziz, [former Iraqi intelligence minister Mani al-Rashid] al Tikriti, and [senior al-Qaeda operative Ibn al-Shaykh] al-Libi, as well as document exploitation by DIA all confirmed that the Intelligence Community was correct: Iraq and al-Qaida did not cooperate in all categories" alleged by Feith's office.
From these sources, the report added, "the terms the Intelligence Community used to describe the relationship between Iraq and al-Qaida were validated, [namely] 'no conclusive signs,' and 'direct cooperation . . . has not been established.' "
Zarqawi, whom Cheney depicted yesterday as an agent of al-Qaeda in Iraq before the war, was not then an al-Qaeda member but was the leader of an unaffiliated terrorist group who occasionally associated with al-Qaeda adherents, according to several intelligence analysts. He publicly allied himself with al-Qaeda in early 2004, after the U.S. invasion.
Staff writer Dafna Linzer and staff researcher Julie Tate contributed to this report.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/05/AR2007040502263_pf.html
Hussein's Prewar Ties To Al-Qaeda Discounted
Pentagon Report Says Contacts Were Limited
Quote:Captured Iraqi documents and intelligence interrogations of Saddam Hussein and two former aides "all confirmed" that Hussein's regime was not directly cooperating with al-Qaeda before the U.S. invasion of Iraq, according to a declassified Defense Department report released yesterday.
The declassified version of the report, by acting Inspector General Thomas F. Gimble, also contains new details about the intelligence community's prewar consensus that the Iraqi government and al-Qaeda figures had only limited contacts, and about its judgments that reports of deeper links were based on dubious or unconfirmed information. The report had been released in summary form in February.
The report's release came on the same day that Vice President Cheney, appearing on Rush Limbaugh's radio program, repeated his allegation that al-Qaeda was operating inside Iraq "before we ever launched" the war, under the direction of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the terrorist killed last June.
"This is al-Qaeda operating in Iraq," Cheney told Limbaugh's listeners about Zarqawi, who he said had "led the charge for Iraq." Cheney cited the alleged history to illustrate his argument that withdrawing U.S. forces from Iraq would "play right into the hands of al-Qaeda."
Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.), who requested the report's declassification, said in a written statement that the complete text demonstrates more fully why the inspector general concluded that a key Pentagon office -- run by then-Undersecretary of Defense Douglas J. Feith -- had inappropriately written intelligence assessments before the March 2003 invasion alleging connections between al-Qaeda and Iraq that the U.S. intelligence consensus disputed.
The report, in a passage previously marked secret, said Feith's office had asserted in a briefing given to Cheney's chief of staff in September 2002 that the relationship between Iraq and al-Qaeda was "mature" and "symbiotic," marked by shared interests and evidenced by cooperation across 10 categories, including training, financing and logistics.
Instead, the report said, the CIA had concluded in June 2002 that there were few substantiated contacts between al-Qaeda operatives and Iraqi officials and had said that it lacked evidence of a long-term relationship like the ones Iraq had forged with other terrorist groups.
"Overall, the reporting provides no conclusive signs of cooperation on specific terrorist operations," that CIA report said, adding that discussions on the issue were "necessarily speculative."
The CIA had separately concluded that reports of Iraqi training on weapons of mass destruction were "episodic, sketchy, or not corroborated in other channels," the inspector general's report said. It quoted an August 2002 CIA report describing the relationship as more closely resembling "two organizations trying to feel out or exploit each other" rather than cooperating operationally.
The CIA was not alone, the defense report emphasized. The Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) had concluded that year that "available reporting is not firm enough to demonstrate an ongoing relationship" between the Iraqi regime and al-Qaeda, it said.
But the contrary conclusions reached by Feith's office -- and leaked to the conservative Weekly Standard magazine before the war -- were publicly praised by Cheney as the best source of information on the topic, a circumstance the Pentagon report cites in documenting the impact of what it described as "inappropriate" work.
Feith has vigorously defended his work, accusing Gimble of "giving bad advice based on incomplete fact-finding and poor logic," and charging that the acting inspector general has been "cheered on by the chairmen of the Senate intelligence and armed services committees." In January, Feith's successor at the Pentagon, Eric S. Edelman, wrote a 52-page rebuttal to the inspector general's report that disputed its analysis and its recommendations for Pentagon reform.
Cheney's public statements before and after the war about the risks posed by Iraq have closely tracked the briefing Feith's office presented to the vice president's then-chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby. That includes the briefing's depiction of an alleged 2001 meeting in Prague between an Iraqi intelligence official and one of the Sept. 11, 2001, hijackers as one of eight "Known Iraq-Al Qaida Contacts."
The defense report states that at the time, "the intelligence community disagreed with the briefing's assessment that the alleged meeting constituted a 'known contact' " -- a circumstance that the report said was known to Feith's office. But his office had bluntly concluded in a July 2002 critique of a CIA report on Iraq's relationship with al-Qaeda that the CIA's interpretation of the facts it cited "ought to be ignored."
The briefing to Libby was also presented with slight variations to then-Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, then-CIA Director George J. Tenet and then-deputy national security adviser Stephen J. Hadley. It was prepared in part by someone whom the defense report described as a "junior Naval Reservist" intelligence analyst detailed to Feith's office from the DIA. The person is not named in the report, but Edelman wrote that she was requested by Feith's office.
The briefing, a copy of which was declassified and released yesterday by Levin, goes so far as to state that "Fragmentary reporting points to possible Iraqi involvement not only in 9/11 but also in previous al Qaida attacks." That idea was dismissed in 2004 by a presidential commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks, noting that "no credible evidence" existed to support it.
When a senior intelligence analyst working for the government's counterterrorism task force obtained an early account of the conclusions by Feith's office -- titled "Iraq and al-Qaida: Making the Case" -- the analyst prepared a detailed rebuttal calling it of "no intelligence value" and taking issue with 15 of 26 key conclusions, the report states. The analyst's rebuttal was shared with intelligence officers on the Joint Chiefs of Staff, but evidently not with others.
Edelman complained in his own account of the incident that a senior Joint Chiefs analyst -- in responding to a suggestion by the DIA analyst that the "Making the Case" account be widely circulated -- told its author that "putting it out there would be playing into the hands of people" such as then-Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz, and belittled the author for trying to support "some agenda of people in the building."
But the inspector general's report, in a footnote, commented that it is "noteworthy . . . that post-war debriefs of Sadaam Hussein, [former Iraqi foreign minister] Tariq Aziz, [former Iraqi intelligence minister Mani al-Rashid] al Tikriti, and [senior al-Qaeda operative Ibn al-Shaykh] al-Libi, as well as document exploitation by DIA all confirmed that the Intelligence Community was correct: Iraq and al-Qaida did not cooperate in all categories" alleged by Feith's office.
From these sources, the report added, "the terms the Intelligence Community used to describe the relationship between Iraq and al-Qaida were validated, [namely] 'no conclusive signs,' and 'direct cooperation . . . has not been established.' "
Zarqawi, whom Cheney depicted yesterday as an agent of al-Qaeda in Iraq before the war, was not then an al-Qaeda member but was the leader of an unaffiliated terrorist group who occasionally associated with al-Qaeda adherents, according to several intelligence analysts. He publicly allied himself with al-Qaeda in early 2004, after the U.S. invasion.
Beat you to it revel by 1 minute.
Here's my favorite part, although there are so many others to choose from:
Quote:The briefing to Libby was also presented with slight variations to then-Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, then-CIA Director George J. Tenet and then-deputy national security adviser Stephen J. Hadley. It was prepared in part by someone whom the defense report described as a "junior Naval Reservist" intelligence analyst detailed to Feith's office from the DIA. The person is not named in the report, but Edelman wrote that she was requested by Feith's office.
I think the Senate Intelligence Committee would be interested in interviewing the "junior Naval Reservist" and have forwarded a message to several Senators requesting that be done soon.
Joe(So, how was Douglas Feith as a supervisor?)Nation
The reasons given in the following quotes for invading Iraq and Afghanistan are valid and sufficient, regardless of whether or not the other reasons Bush et al gave are valid and sufficient.
Congress wrote:
Congress's Joint Resolution September 14, 2001
emphasis added
SEC. 2. AUTHORIZATION FOR USE OF UNITED STATES ARMED FORCES.
...
(a) IN GENERAL- That the President is authorized to use all necessary and appropriate force against those
nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or
harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations or persons.
Congress wrote:
Congress's Joint Resolution Oct. 16, 2002
Public Law 107-243 107th Congress Joint Resolution (H.J. Res. 114) To authorize the use of United States Armed Forces against Iraq.
...
[10th]Whereas members of al Qaida, an organization bearing responsibility for attacks on the United States, its citizens, and interests, including the attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, are known to be in Iraq;
[11th]Whereas Iraq continues to aid and harbor other international terrorist organizations, including organizations that threaten the lives and safety of United States citizens;
...
Select Committee wrote:
Congressional Intelligence Report 09/08/2006
REPORT OF THE SELECT COMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE
Conclusion 6. Postwar information indicates that the Intelligence Community accurately assessed that al-Qa'ida affiliate group Ansar al-Islam operated in Kurdish-controlled northeastern Iraq, an area that Baghdad had not controlled since 1991.
General Tommy Franks wrote:
American Soldier, by General Tommy Franks, 7/1/2004
"10" Regan Books, An Imprint of HarperCollins Publishers
page 483:
"The air picture changed once more. Now the icons were streaming toward two ridges an a steep valley in far northeastern Iraq, right on the border with Iran. These were the camps of the Ansar al-Isla 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 [Tomahawk Land Attack Missile] bashing. Soon Special Forces and [Special Mission Unit] operators, leading Kurdish Peshmerga fighters, would be storming the camps, collecting evidence, taking prisoners, and killing all those who resisted."
page 519:
"[The Marines] also encountered several hundred foreign fighters from Egypt, the Sudan, Syria, and Lybia who were being trained by the regime in a camp south of Baghdad. Those foreign volunteers fought with suicidal ferocity, but they did not fight well. The Marines killed them all. "
Quote:
ANSAR AL-ISLAM
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ansar_al-Islam
Ansar al-Islam (Supporters or Partisans of Islam) is a Kurdish Sunni Islamist group, promoting a radical interpretation of Islam and holy war. At the beginning of the 2003 invasion of Iraq it controlled about a dozen villages and a range of peaks in northern Iraq on the Iranian border. It has used tactics such as suicide bombers in its conflicts with the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan and other Kurdish groups.
Quote:
Ansar al-Islam was formed in December 2001 as a merger of Jund al-Islam (Soldiers of Islam), led by Abu Abdallah al-Shafi'i, and a splinter group from the Islamic Movement in Kurdistan led by Mullah Krekar. Krekar became the leader of the merged Ansar al-Islam, which opposed an agreement made between IMK and the dominant Kurdish group in the area, Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK).
Ansar al-Islam fortified a number of villages along the Iranian border, with Iranian artillery support.
Ansar al-Islam quickly initiated a number of attacks on the peshmerga (armed forces) of the PUK, on one occasion massacring 53 prisoners and beheading them. Several assassination attempts on leading PUK-politicians were also made with carbombs and snipers.
Ansar al-Islam comprised about 300 armed men, many of these veterans from the Afghan war, and a proportion being neither Kurd nor Arab. Ansar al-Islam is alleged to be connected to al-Qaeda, and provided an entry point for Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and other Afghan veterans to enter Iraq.
Quote:UN CHARTER Article 51
Nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self-defense if an armed attack occurs against a Member of the United Nations, until the Security Council has taken measures necessary to maintain international peace and security. Measures taken by Members in the exercise of this right of self-defense shall be immediately reported to the Security Council and shall not in any way affect the authority and responsibility of the Security Council under the present Charter to take at any time such action as it deems necessary in order to maintain or restore international peace and security.
Iraq's Real 'Civil War'
Sunni tribes battle al Qaeda terrorists in the insurgency's stronghold.
BY BING WEST AND OWEN WEST
OpinionJournal
Thursday, April 5, 2007 12:01 a.m. EDT
ANBAR PROVINCE, Iraq--Last fall, President Bush, citing the violence in Baghdad, said that the U.S. strategy in Iraq was "slowly failing." At that time, though, more Americans were dying in Anbar Province, stronghold of the Sunni insurgency. About the size of Utah, Anbar has the savagery, lawlessness and violence of America's Wild West in the 1870s. The two most lethal cities in Iraq are Fallujah and Ramadi, and the 25-mile swath of farmlands between them is Indian Country.
Imagine the surprise of the veteran Iraqi battalion last November when a young sheik, leader of a local tribe outside Ramadi, offered to point out the insurgents hiding in his hometown. "We have decided that by helping you," he said, "we are helping God."
For years, the tribes had supported the insurgents who claimed to be waging jihad. Now, citing the same religion, a tribe wanted to switch sides. Col. Mohammed, the battalion commander, accepted the offer. "The irhabi (terrorists) call themselves martyrs. They are liars," he said. "I lost a soldier and when I pulled off his armor, there was the blood of a martyr."
With Iraqi soldiers and Marines providing protection, the sheik and his tribesmen rolled through town, pointing at various men. The sweep netted 30 insurgents, including "Abu Muslim," who was wanted for the murder of a jundi (Iraqi soldier). "He was just standing there waving at us with all the others," one jundi said during the minor celebration at the detention facility.
Six months ago, American intelligence reports about Anbar were dire. Although the Marines won the firefights, insurgents controlled the population--the classic guerrilla pattern. Among the groups, the extremists called al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) had achieved dominance. In 2004, AQI briefly held Fallujah, where they whipped teenagers who talked back, bludgeoned women who wore lipstick and beheaded "collaborators"--hapless passersby and truckers. AQI preached a persuasive message: Our way or the grave.
In Anbar, AQI became the occupier, shaking down truck drivers and extorting shop owners. In the young sheik's zone, AQI controlled the fuel market. Each month, 10 trucks with 80,000 gallons of heavily subsidized gasoline and five trucks with kerosene were due to arrive. Instead, AQI diverted most shipments to Jordan or Syria where prices were higher, netting $10,000 per shipment and antagonizing 30,000 shivering townspeople. No local cop dared to make an arrest. The tribal power structure, built over centuries, was shoved aside. Sheiks who objected were shot or blown up, while others fled.
In late 2005, acceptably-trained Iraqi battalions began to join the persistent Americans in Anbar. AQI resorted to suicide attacks and roadside bombs, and avoided direct fights. Sub-tribes began to kill AQI members in retaliation for individual crimes, and discovered that AQI was ruthless, but not tough. Near the Syrian border, an entire tribe joined forces with the Marines and drove AQI from the city of al Qaim.
By the fall of 2006 AQI had become the oppressor, careless in its destructive swath, while the American and Iraqi forces persisted with their mix of force of arms and civil engagement. When an AQI suicide car bomb attacked an Anbar market in November, killing a Marine and nine civilians, the Marine battalion commander and his Iraqi counterpart offered medical care at the local clinic for the entire town, including the first gynecological examinations many local women had seen. This was not an isolated event, and the people noticed.
With a war-weary population buoying them, 25 of the 31 Anbar sub-tribes have pledged to fight the insurgents over the past five months, sending thousands of tribesmen into the police and army. Led by Sheik Abu Sittar, who has called this an "awakening," the tribes believed they were joining the winners.
Politics in Baghdad have swirled around reinstating former Baathists to their prior jobs, thereby supposedly diminishing the insurgency. The central government, though, has given Anbar such paltry funds that jobs are scant, Baathist or not. In Anbar, reconciliation theories count far less than that eternal adage: Show me the money.
When the sheiks delivered thousands of police recruits, they consolidated their patrimonial power by providing jobs, plus pocketing a fee rumored at $400 paid by each recruit. The tribal police then provided security that permitted American civic action projects profitable to contractors connected, of course, to the sheiks. Our Congress has just appropriated an emergency supplemental for our troops that included millions to grow spinach and store peanuts; in Anbar, the sheiks are filling potholes that can conceal IEDs.
There remain problems that require military solutions, however. Neither the coalition nor the Iraqi government is prepared to imprison the sharp increase in killers like Abu Muslim who are being netted in the surge in Baghdad and the tribal awakening in Anbar. No one wants to take the heat from the mainstream press that would accompany the construction of prisons and the indefinite incarceration of several tens of thousands of insurgents.
In response to the 2003 abuses at Abu Ghraib, the U.S. military and the Iraqi government instituted a catch-and-release system that Sweden would find too liberal. Unlike uniformed prisoners who in past wars were held until the war was over, in Iraq most detainees are released within a few months. To some, this represents a scrupulous adherence to the rule of law, with every insurgent provided the right of habeas corpus.
To the sheiks, it is both naïve and deadly. The Iraqi judicial system in Anbar is nonexistent. Locals are quick to relate stories of killers who returned to murder those who snitched. So it's no surprise that while most insurgents are arrested, some simply disappear. The American command in Anbar has issued a clear order barring support to any unauthorized militia. But guidance from the Iraqi ministries has been vague. If the insurgents have a complaint, they can take it up with Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.
In recent weeks, al Qaeda has struck back with suicide bombers, blowing up a Sunni mosque in the young sheik's area, killing 40 worshipers, and then detonating a series of chlorine truck bombs in residential neighborhoods outside Fallujah. They hope that if they murder random groups of women and children, the tribes will fall back in line. These tactics have locked AQI in a fight to the death against the tribal leaders. It reflects an enemy who has lost popular support for his jihad, clinging to fear alone. Had any American analyst predicted AQI would attack local Sunnis with weaponized chemicals nine months ago, he would have been laughed at.
In itself, the tribal shift is significant but not decisive. The intensity of tribal loyalty varies across the province and is weakest in the cities. While perhaps only a quarter of the males in Anbar heed the orders of the sheiks, their cohesion gives them larger sway. Others will follow their lead, provide tips or stay out of their way. Numerical estimates aren't possible because there has been no systematic effort to identify via biometrics the military-age males in the Sunni Triangle, a gross military error in combating an insurgency. The tribes aren't trained fighters. They occasionally engage AQI in a melee, but they need American or Iraqi soldiers to destroy insurgent bands, especially when holed up in houses that serve as concrete pillboxes.
The real value of the tribes lies in providing specific information and recruits for the police and army. The tribes openly acknowledge that it has been the personal behavior, strength of arms and persistence of the American forces that convinced them to join the fight. "The American coalition is the only thing," Sheik Abureeshah of Ramadi said, "that makes the Iraqi government give anything to Anbar."
The tribes want their share of oil revenues, more power and a cut of the American contracts. With American combat forces likely to leave within a year or two, it is the Iraqi Government that must determine the modesty of the demands. But to put the state of the province in perspective, six months ago the head of Central Command, Gen. John Abizaid, told the Congress that "Anbar was not under control." Last week the U.S. commander in Anbar, Maj. Gen. Walt Gaskin, said he was "very, very optimistic."
Gen. David Petraeus, the top general in Iraq, recently persuaded Mr. Maliki to visit Ramadi and meet with the tribes. That was the start of the bargaining. The Iraqi government faces a classic risk-versus-reward calculation. The reward is that the tribes will provide the information, recruits and local policing that shrinks the area where AQI operates. With less area to search, the Iraqi Army can concentrate wherever al Qaeda tries to rest or regroup, eventually drying up the swamp. The risk is that, if the Shiite-dominated government refuses reasonable terms, the tribes use their military muscle to reach a truce with AQI and the province reverts.
Baghdad is the critical battleground. But it is only in Anbar that the Congress agrees with the president that U.S. forces must combat the AQI terrorists. The tribes will learn to play that card to keep pressure on the central government not to neglect them.
Civil war between the Sunni tribes and the extremists has broken out in Anbar Province, the stronghold of the insurgency, and the U.S. and Iraqi government should support it. Anbar is like the American West in the 1870s. Security will come to towns in Anbar as it came to Tombstone--by the emergence of tough, local sheriffs with guns, local power and local laws.
Bing West, a correspondent for The Atlantic, is currently on his 12th trip in Anbar Province. Owen West, his son, is a managing director at a Wall Street bank and just returned from Anbar where he was a Marine adviser.
emphasis added
xingu wrote:
...
Quote:Hussein's Prewar Ties To Al-Qaeda Discounted
Pentagon Report Says Contacts Were Limited
By R. Jeffrey Smith
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, April 6, 2007; A01
Captured Iraqi documents and intelligence interrogations of Saddam Hussein and two former aides "all confirmed" that Hussein's regime was not directly cooperating with al-Qaeda before the U.S. invasion of Iraq, according to a declassified Defense Department report released yesterday.
The declassified version of the report, by acting Inspector General Thomas F. Gimble, also contains new details about the intelligence community's prewar consensus that
the Iraqi government and al-Qaeda figures had only limited contacts, and about its judgments that reports of deeper links were based on dubious or unconfirmed information. The report had been released in summary form in February.
The report's release came on the same day that Vice President Cheney, appearing on Rush Limbaugh's radio program, repeated his allegation that
al-Qaeda was operating inside Iraq "before we ever launched" the war, under the direction of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the terrorist killed last June.
...
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/05/AR2007040502263_pf.html
Can you now
really continue to not understand that the Pentagon Report's assertions and Cheney's assertions are not mutually exclusive -- that is, are not contradictory -- that is, they all are true at the same time?
There is a preponderance of evidence that:
al-Qaeda was operating inside Iraq "before we ever launched" the war, under the direction of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the terrorist killed last June.
There is also a preponderance of evidence that:
Hussein's regime was not directly cooperating with al-Qaeda before the U.S. invasion of Iraq
AND
the Iraqi government and al-Qaeda figures had only limited contacts,
AND
Saddam did not respond to America's request to extradite the leadership of al-Qaeda in Iraq.
Al-Sadr's party expels 2 lawmakers for meeting with U.S.
Al-Sadr's party expels 2 lawmakers
By Leila Fadel
McClatchy Newspapers
BAGHDAD, Iraq
Two legislators were expelled from anti-American Shiite Muslim cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's political bloc Wednesday for meeting with U.S. officials, an indication that al-Sadr and his supporters are trying to distance themselves from suggestions they have been cooperating with the United States on Baghdad security.
"We don't negotiate with the Americans and we never have," said Abdul Mehdi al-Mtiri, a member of the Sadr Political Committee, explaining why the legislators had been ousted. "We have a line and we stay on that. Those who cross it should be out."
The two men, Qusay Abdul Wahab and Salam al-Maliki, will maintain their seats in the legislature, and the practical impact of their expulsions is unclear.
But the quick reaction to their reported meeting with Americans underscores the tensions that have been roiling al-Sadr's movement since the U.S. and Iraqi governments began implementing a plan Feb. 15 to control sectarian violence in the Iraqi capital.
Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki leads the government largely because of al-Sadr's support, yet U.S. forces have arrested hundreds of members of al-Sadr's Mahdi Army militia, and al-Sadr has told his followers not to resist the security plan.
Many in al-Sadr's movement are dismayed at those developments. Last month, gunmen attempted to kill the mayor of Baghdad's Sadr City neighborhood, Rahim al-Darraji, after he negotiated with U.S. military officers over plans to send troops into Sadr City, a Mahdi Army bastion. Darraji was seriously wounded, and the head of al-Sadr's legislative bloc denied earlier this week that the mayor ever had belonged to al-Sadr's party.
"We do not negotiate with Americans," Nassar al-Rubaie said.
The expelled legislators are considered moderates. Salam al-Maliki at one time served as the minister of transportation.
U.S. officials declined to comment on the expulsions or to confirm that the two had met with American officers. Salam al-Maliki denied on Arabic-language television that he had been expelled and that he had met with American officials.
Rubaie said legislators must obey orders from al-Sadr's political committee and that Salam al-Maliki hadn't. "Legislators commit to whatever the committee says," he said.
The latest development is further evidence of division within al-Sadr's camp, which controls the largest bloc in parliament and several Cabinet seats and which has an extensive social-welfare network among the country's Shiites that has cemented their political loyalty.
The Mahdi Army fought two uprisings against American forces in 2004 and its influence is still pervasive. Last month, the U.S. military released a top al-Sadr aide, Sheik Ahmed al-Shaybani, after two years in prison in an effort to keep al-Sadr's support for the security plan.
But analysts are divided on whether al-Sadr controls his movement. American officials say he has sought refuge in Iran, which his supporters deny.
Al-Sadr's supporters and detractors agree, however, that the movement is unlikely to disarm in the face of the security plan and that it may pose as great a threat to the government it backs as to the Americans.
"This is a power to be reckoned with, and it is pushing Shiite political leaders to crush the power," said Sheik Moayed al-Khazraji, who broke with al-Sadr last year. "The Sadrists will not give up their weapons."
Death squad killings, largely attributed to al-Sadr's militia, have declined. Maj. Gen. William Caldwell, the American military spokesman in Baghdad, said the number of people executed monthly had dropped by 26 percent in March but that car bombings and suicide attacks, generally attributed to Sunni Muslim insurgents and to al-Qaida, hadn't diminished.
Caldwell and Iraqi government spokesman Ali Dabbagh also said that more U.S. troops would be sent to Ninevah province to help tamp down growing sectarian violence there. Last week, nearly 150 people died in two days of violence in the town of Tal Afar, which began with a suicide bombing that killed primarily Shiites and ended with Shiites pulling dozens of Sunnis from their homes and executing them in the street.
Caldwell didn't say how many American troops would be sent or where they'd come from. He said three of five additional U.S. brigades had arrived in Baghdad as part of President Bush's buildup intended to help establish security.
Meanwhile, violence continued. Police reported that 22 shepherds had been kidnapped from the fields of al-Razaza, a few miles west of Karbala in southern Iraq. Police accused Sunni insurgents of posing as police officers and abducting the Shiite men. They said cars carrying the men had headed toward the Sunni city of Fallujah.
In Baghdad, a car bomb injured four people and mortar rounds fell in three neighborhoods. Ten unidentified bodies were found on the streets.
Special correspondents Hussein Kadhim in Baghdad and Hussam Ali in Karbala contributed to this report.
Quote:
There is a preponderance of evidence that:
al-Qaeda was operating inside Iraq "before we ever launched" the war, under the direction of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the terrorist killed last June.
There is not a preponderance of evidence of this, sorry.
Zarqawi was not affiliated with AQ before the Iraq war started. It's amazing to me that you don't realize that 'Al Qaeda in Iraq' was a name created post-war by their group.
Cycloptichorn
Quote:Pentagon Officer Created Phony Intel on Iraq/al-Qaeda Link
By Matt Renner
t r u t h o u t | Report
Friday 06 April 2007
Newly released documents confirm that a Pentagon unit knowingly cooked up intelligence claiming a direct link between Iraq and al-Qaeda in order to win support for a preemptive strike against the country.
A report prepared by the Defense Department's Inspector General for Carl Levin, the Democratic Chairman of the Armed Services Committee, explicitly shows how former Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith used his Defense Department position to cook intelligence claiming a connection between the terrorist organization and Saddam Hussein's regime.
The Inspector General's report, "Review of the Pre-Iraqi War Activities of the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy," focuses specifically on Feith's intelligence gathering operations in the months prior to the March 2003 invasion. An executive summary of the report was declassified in February. The full report was declassified and released Thursday at Levin's request.
]"It is important for the public to see why the Pentagon's inspector general concluded that Secretary Feith's office 'developed, produced and then disseminated alternative intelligence assessments on the Iraq and al-Qaeda relationship,' which included 'conclusions that were inconsistent with the consensus of the Intelligence Community,' and why the Inspector General concluded that these actions were 'inappropriate,'" Levin said. "Until today, those details were classified and outside the public's view."[/b]
Documents released in conjunction with the inspector general's findings include a July 25, 2002 memorandum and briefing from Feith's Office of Special Plans titled "Iraq and al-Qaida: Making the Case" that claimed a "mature, symbiotic relationship [between Iraq and al-Qaida]" existed.
But according to the IG's declassified report, "a Senior Intelligence Analyst working in the Joint Intelligence Task Force-Combating Terrorism (JITF-CT) countered point-by-point, each instance of an alleged tie between Iraq and al-Qaida ..."
According to the IG report, both the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) had throughly examined the possibility of an active relationship between Iraq and al-Qaida and determined there were "no conclusive signs [of a relationship]," and "direct cooperation ... has not been established."
Feith's Office of Special Plans, however, created a briefing based on a previous report, "Assessing the Relationship Between Iraq and al Qaida." The presentation was aimed at discrediting the conclusions of the CIA and the DIA.
"The very title of the Feith briefing slides [Assessing the Relationship Between Iraq and al Qaida] contradicts his claim on February 16, 2007 that 'we didn't do intelligence assessments,' as well as his claim on February 14, 2007 that the briefing was simply 'a critique of the CIA's work on the Iraq-al-Qaeda relationship,' and no more than an effort to 'raise questions about CIA work,'" Levin said Thursday.
Specifically, one slide titled "Fundamental Problems with How Intelligence Community is Assessing Information," called the expertise of the Intelligence Community into question. According to the report, the Office of Special Plans, a policy shop with no official role in intelligence collection or vetting, "accuse[d] the Intelligence Community of applying a standard requiring juridical evidence for reports, underestimating the importance for both Iraq and al-Qaida to keep their relationship hidden, and assuming that the two would not cooperate because of religious differences." This particular slide was omitted from the presentation when it was given to the directors of the CIA and the DIA.
In a statement released in February, Senator Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.), Chairman of the Senate Committee on Intelligence, said, "the Senate intelligence committee was never informed of these activities. Whether these actions were authorized or not, it appears that they were not in compliance with the law."
The last slide of the presentation concludes with a hypothetical assertion that an Iraq/al-Qaida "relationship would be compartmented by both sides; closely guarded secret; indications of excellent operational security by both parties," implying that this relationship existed but was so secret that it would be impossible for the CIA or DIA to discover it.
On August 15, 2002, a briefing on Feith's findings was held by former Director of Central Intelligence George Tenent. However, left out of the presentation was the slide titled "Fundamental Problems With How the Intelligence Community is Assessing Information," because according to the IG report, Feith thought "it had a critical tone."
After this briefing was presented to the DIA and CIA, Tenent told Feith, "get this back into analytical channels and out of policy channels."
Despite being rebuked, Feith fast-tracked the information and presented the findings to then Deputy National Security Director Steven Hadley and I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, former chief of staff to Vice President Cheney
According to Thursday's IG report, the briefing was altered to include not only the slide that was critical of the work done by the Intelligence Community, but also a new slide entitled "Facilitation: Atta Meeting in Prague." According to the IG report, this new slide "discussed the alleged meeting between [al-Qaida hijacker] Mohammad Atta and [Iraqi intelligence officer Ahmad] al-Ani in April 2001 in Prague without caveats regarding Intelligence Community consesnus."
But the IG states that the CIA "called the reporting on the alleged meeting between Atta and al-Ani as 'inconclusive,'" yet Feith's Office of Special Plans presented it to these top officials of the Bush administration as fact and it was subsequently used by President Bush and Vice President Cheney in speeches prior to the March 2003 invasion.
Long after the relationship between Iraq and al-Qaida was debunked, Bush continued to insist it existed. On June 17, 2004, in response to the 9/11 Commission report, Bush said "The reason I keep insisting that there was a relationship between Iraq and Saddam and al-Qaeda [is] because there was a relationship between Iraq and al-Qaeda."
Matt Renner is a reporter for Truthout.
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/040607A.shtml
Looks like Ican and Bush have something in common; both are in States of Denial.
xingu wrote:Quote:Pentagon Officer Created Phony Intel on Iraq/al-Qaeda Link
By Matt Renner
t r u t h o u t | Report
Friday 06 April 2007
Newly released documents confirm that a Pentagon unit knowingly cooked up intelligence claiming a direct link between Iraq and al-Qaeda in order to win support for a preemptive strike against the country.
...
Long after the relationship between Iraq and al-Qaida was debunked, Bush continued to insist it existed. On June 17, 2004, in response to the 9/11 Commission report, Bush said "The reason I keep insisting that there was a relationship between Iraq and Saddam and al-Qaeda [is] because there was a relationship between Iraq and al-Qaeda."
...
Looks like Ican and Bush have something in common; both are in States of Denial.
About 15 months before America invaded Iraq, there was a relationship between Iraq and al-Qaeda. That relationship consisted of al-Qaeda's residence in northeastern Iraq.
On the other hand, the uncertain nature of the relationship between al-Qaeda and Saddam is a completely separate issue. Perhaps it was no more than this:
Quote:circa December 2001
bin Laden: Hello Saddam Hussein. This is Osama bin Laden.
Saddam: What the hell do you want?
bin Laden: I called to let you know that a contingent of al-Qaeda is being established in northeastern Iraq.
Saddam: I know that! Why in hell did you think I didn't know that? Do you think I am a fool? I know everything that's going on in Iraq.
bin Laden: I wanted to find out if you object.
Saddam: Object? Hell, up to now, the damn Americans have made it clear that I have no control over northeastern Iraq. Do what you damn well please there.
bin Laden: Ok! Just so you know, we are training more fighters there for more attacks on Americans and their allies.
Saddam: Damn it! That's none of my business. Just so you know, this damn phone conversation never took place. Goodbye!
