Conservatives Defend Discredited Claims of Saddam-Al Qaeda ‘Collaboration’
Conservatives Defend Discredited Claims of Saddam-Al Qaeda ‘Collaboration’
On March 13, the Pentagon released a detailed study (pdf) confirming “no direct link between late Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein and the Al-Qaeda network.” The report, which involved the examination of some 600,000 Iraqi government documents and thousands of hours of interrogations of former Hussein regime employees, concluded:
In the period after the 1991 Gulf War, the regime of Saddam Hussein supported a complex and increasingly disparate mix of pan-Arab revolutionary causes and emerging pan-Islamic radical movements. The relationship between Iraq and the forces of pan-Arab socialism was well known and was in fact one of the defining qualities of the Ba’ath movement.
But the relationships between Iraq and the groups advocating radical pan-Islamic doctrines are much more complex. This study found no “smoking gun” (i.e. direct connection) between Saddam’s Iraq and Al-Qaeda.
Nevertheless, some conservatives have, bizarrely, tried to cast the report as a vindication of their wild theories about a Saddam-Al Qaeda alliance. Stephen Hayes, who has built a career on promoting the theory of a Saddam-Al Qaeda “connection” accused the Washington Post of “sowing confusion” for noting that the report indicated no ‘operational relationship’ between Saddam Hussein and the al-Qaeda terrorist network. Hayes insists that “the relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda need not have been ‘operational’ to have warranted military action to eliminate it.”
Hayes’s Weekly Standard colleague Thomas Joscelyn argued that “it is clear that Saddam saw his support for [terror] organizations in the context of striking his enemies, especially Americans,” and thus that the stated goals of both Saddam and Al Qaeda to “hunt Americans” amounted to a relationship.
On Thursday, Richard Perle attempted a similar sleight-of-hand on the Charlie Rose program. He argued that Saddam’s intelligence officers had “relationships with organization affiliated with Al Qaeda.” Watch it:
Today, the Wall Street Journal placed itself firmly among the conspiracy theorists with an editorial claiming that the new report “buttress[es] the case that the decision to oust Saddam was the right one“:
Five years on, few Iraq myths are as persistent as the notion that the Bush Administration invented a connection between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda. Yet a new Pentagon report suggests that Iraq’s links to world-wide terror networks, including al Qaeda, were far more extensive than previously understood.
Naturally, it’s getting little or no attention. Press accounts have been misleading or outright distortions, while the Bush Administration seems indifferent. Even John McCain has let the study’s revelations float by. But that doesn’t make the facts any less notable or true.
The editorial goes on to claim that the new report is “inconvenient…for those who want to assert that somehow Saddam could have been easily contained and presented no threat to the U.S.” Leaving aside whether anyone has claimed that Saddam presented “no threat,” the point is that we now know that Saddam didn’t represent nearly the threat that the Bush administration claimed, and that Saddam’s “relationship” with Al Qaeda amounted to little more than a shared hatred of the United States.
More to the point: Does anybody seriously believe that if the report had demonstrated a significant Saddam-Al Qaeda connection, as the Wall Street Journal claims, that Bush administration officials would not trumpet that fact from the rooftops? Of course they would. But, as even the Bush administration now knows, there was no significant connection between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda; those who argued that there was are now exposed as dissemblers and frauds, and they are very upset about it.
Transcript:
PERLE: When you look at the actual report, what it concludes is that Saddam’s intelligence had connections with terrorists all over the place.
ROSE: But that’s not Al Qaeda. I understand the differences but it’s not Al Qaeda. The issue here is Al Qaeda, was it not?
PERLE: It included relationships with organization affiliated with Al Qaeda. Any number of such organizations.
ROSE: Affiliated In what way?
PERLE: In the way that they were supporting individuals who were part of organizations that were linked to Al Qaeda.
10 Responses to “Conservatives Defend Discredited Claims of Saddam-Al Qaeda ‘Collaboration’”
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They also couldn’t find anything in those 600,000 thousands documents, recordings, etc. any evidence of Hussein lotting to kill 41.
March 24th, 2008 at 3:49 pmThe U.S.’ relationship with Al Qaeda was far stronger than that between Iraq and Al Qaeda, based on the same reasoning as used by these morons. U.S. -> Financing Pakistan -> Financing and Helping both the Taliban and Al Qaeda (Late 90s). U.S. -> Financing Bin Laden and the Mujahidin (Late 80s).
AND: the US/Al Qaeda relationship WAS operational (in the late 80s), and is FAR better documented than any low level contacts between Al Qaeda and Saddam’s Iraq (which all went like this: Al Qaeda to Saddam: “PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE HELP US!”; Saddam to Al Qaeda: “Go F**k youselves”).
March 24th, 2008 at 4:00 pm“A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong gives it a superficial appearance of being right”. Thomas Paine
March 25th, 2008 at 1:08 amYeah. US intelligence NEVER has ties to terrorists.
March 25th, 2008 at 3:45 pmHere we go! Re-writing history to fit their sick, delusional needs. More humor is on the way.
March 25th, 2008 at 8:40 pmListen Matt. Your side’s acting like a bunch of stalinists. This is ridiculous. Egyptian Islamic Jihad is an organization that is affiliated with al Qaeda. It’s leader is now AQ’s number 2. It formed from Qutb’s followers. And five years after Saddam briefly signs off on training their commanders, they officially join AQ. This says nothing of Saddam’s decision to send out his people in 1993 to target Americans in the middle east, particularly Somalia. If you and others want to argue with straw (ie Mylorie) then go ahead. But the report’s conclusions bolster the conclusion that Saddam had the will to use terrorism against Americans, had created a terror bureaucracy to do so, and certainly cooperated and supported international jihad. No he didn’t do 9-11. Sorry to challenge the dominant anti-war theology.
March 26th, 2008 at 12:56 amThat’s not a sleight of hand, that’s what the report says.
Clearly you would have checked whether his description of the contents of the report were accurate and therefor must be aware of this.
Little bit of sleight of hand of your own there when trying to portray this as anything other than an accurate statement.
March 26th, 2008 at 4:30 amLMAO. Could you be any more hypocritical ?
March 26th, 2008 at 4:34 amStating that EIJ has no connection to al Qaeda is less accurate than stating Halliburton has no connection to the Bush administration.
While both organisations had their former leaders in the #2 spot, Halliburton never went as far as officially merging with the Republican party.
I am still waiting for Matt or one of the other posters to tell me the difference between EIJ and al Qaeda.
They are right that there were no “links” between Saddam and al Qaeda. As long as you don’t define funding, arming, harboring or meeting with al Qaeda as a link.
Guys, I’ve said this on this site a number of times. There are a number of very valid reasons to oppose this war. There is zero reason to overreach on this topic. Saddam’s regime supported anti American terrorism and supported anti American terrorist groups, including al Qaeda. Please read the report yourselves and stop blindly believing what people tell you is in it.
It’s linked in here. All five volumes.
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=NWQzMmY4MGFmZDZkZjZmNTAwYTMzODFhNzllOWVkNDQ=
And Matt, we’ve spoken before about this and I repeatedly attempted to contact you to discuss some of the meat and potatoes of this report. You didn’t respond to any of my queries.
March 27th, 2008 at 2:27 pmThey found evidence. Not proof. That evidence included video of Saddam talking with Arafat about using carbombs/suicide vests to kill Bush Sr. There’s a difference between evidence and proof.
March 27th, 2008 at 2:31 pm