Wednesday, August 11, 2004
Iraq and Al Qaeda
Were there links between Iraq and Al Qaeda? What has Bush claimed? What has been shown to be true or untrue? What is still an open question?
Again FactCheck.org has a pretty good summary of the issue, which seems pretty fair.
I would like to add a few of my own comments:
- For some reason, FactCheck makes an issue out of a non-issue by repeatedly making the mistake of stating and also implying that Cheney's comments about terrorists in Iraq were from before the war began, in an attempt to justify the use of force. But clearly they were from September 2003, and they are referring to the fact that terrorists had moved into Iraq to destabilize the U.S.-led effort to build a democracy:
Cheney (Sept. 14, 2003): If we’re successful in Iraq, if we can stand up a good representative government in Iraq, that secures the region so that it never again becomes a threat to its neighbors or to the United States, so it’s not pursuing weapons of mass destruction, so that it’s not a safe haven for terrorists, now we will have struck a major blow right at the heart of the base, if you will, the geographic base of the terrorists who have had us under assault now for many years, but most especially on 9/11 . . .
There is nothing controversial in Cheney's statement regarding Iraq and terrorism -- it is common knowledge terrorists have been operating in Iraq since sometime after Saddam was deposed.
So what we do on the ground in Iraq, our capabilities here are being tested in no small measure, but this is the place where we want to take on the terrorists. This is the place where we want to take on those elements that have come against the United States, and it’s far more appropriate for us to do it there and far better for us to do it there than it is here at home. - Regarding the supposed Muhammad Atta meeting with Iraqi intelligence in Prague, that is still an unanswered question.
Commissioner Hamilton: What we said was that we do not think he was in Prague based on what we have. Here again we are open to evidence. But the Vice President's statement . . . itself he said the proof was not clear one way or another. And there has been confusion, I think, or a difference of opinion in the Prague government as well. This meeting is simply not proven one way or the other.
Also, I find it very suspicious that Atta withdrew $8,000 cash from his bank account just 5 days before he was allegedly spotted by Czech intelligence in Prague. Isn't this about the price of a first-class, round-trip ticket to Europe, purchased at the last minute? - Note there is evidence that a senior Iraqi intelligence officer may have been "a very prominent member of Al-Qaeda", and present at a meeting when the 9/11 attacks were planned.
(C)aptured documents list someone named Ahmed Hikmat Shakir as a senior officer in Saddam's Fedayeen paramilitary forces, and that someone also named Ahmed Hikmat Shakir was present at a January 2000 al-Qaeda meeting in Kuala Lumpur at which the September 11 attacks were planned. What remains to be confirmed, of course, is whether they're the same person or not, and if so whether that shows Saddam played any role in the September 11 attacks.
So while the degree of Iraq and Al Qaeda relationship is still an open question, and there is no clear evidence linking Iraq to 9/11, there was some evidence of a connection between Saddam and Iraq. This is what the Bush Administration has said from the start, and is in agreement with the 9/11 report.
Let me highlight what the Democrat Vice Commissioner of the 9/11 Commision said:
I've looked at these statements quite carefully from the administration -- they are not claiming that there was a collaborative relationship between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda, with regard to the attacks on the United States . Now all must understand that when you begin to use words like relationship, and ties, and connections and contacts, everybody has a little different view of what those words mean. But if you look at the core statements that we made in the staff statement I don’t think that there’s a difference of opinion with regard to those statements.
In other words, the conventional wisdom that the Bush Adminstration differs from the 9/11 Commission on Iraq-Al Qaeda connections simply is not true.
