New evidence linking Saddam to WMD and al-Qaeda

[vulturesrow]

News story

[MelchyBeau]

The news source is very right wing biased. Read up on the Prez of the service. He was on Fox claiming that everything the swiftboat biatches said was true. Its parent corporation is a right-wing media watch dog.

Also it states that the memos are unverifiable.

"Bush administration likely unaware of documents' existence

The senior government official and source of the Iraqi intelligence memos, explained that the reason the documents have not been made public before now is that the government has "thousands and thousands of documents waiting to be translated. "

I find it hard to believe that if something like this came up, the Administration wouldn't be notified.

Also Colin Powell admits it was a mistake to claim that thier were WMDs in Iraq

Melch

[andyfox]

“[Saddam] has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction. He is unable to project conventional power against his neighbors.”-- Sec. of State Colin Powell, 2/4/01

“… let's remember that [Saddam’s] country is divided, in effect. He does not control the northern part of his country. We are able to keep arms from him. His military forces have not been rebuilt.”-- National Security Advisor, Condoleezza Rice, on CNN Late Edition With Wolf Blitzer, 7/29/01

[vulturesrow]

Well did you bother to read the article? It was translated by two seperate individuals and then vetted by several experts, including a former Clinton advisor. It seems to me that the news service was very careful to neutralize any appearance of bias by going this route. I really like how you went right to attacking the source. Nice job.

And actually Rumsfeld has already made a statement about these documents.

EDIT:

Here is a link detailing the methodology used to vet the documents.

[Chris Alger]

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Well did you bother to read the article?

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What's there to read? Just the usual propaganda techniques of (1) frontloading strong claims while burying weak "evidence" down at the bottom; (2) juxtaposing scary statements about terror with quotes from original sources, thus implying while failing to assert any conneciton between the two; and (3) ignoring the text of the documents and instead relying on "interpretation" evidence from unnamed or partisan sources.

Take, for example, the documents (available only by links) that purport to “show numerous efforts by Saddam Hussein's regime to work with some of the world's most notorious terror organizations, including al Qaeda, to target Americans.” That quote is in the first paragraph.

Excavating, we find the only hint of this rests on a 1993 memo that says, in full: <ul type="square"> "In a continuity with our former book#7184/K on Dec. 20th, 1992, it's decided that the party should move to hunt the Americans who are on Arabian land, especially in Somalia, by using Arabian elements, or Asian (Muslims) or friends. Take the necessary steps
Stay well for struggle"[/list]Citing only the forgoing (falsely as proof of "Saddam's Connections to Al Qaeda"), CNN offers the following: "On Oct. 3, 1993, less than nine months after that Iraqi memo was written, American soldiers were ambushed in Mogadishu, Somalia by forces loyal to Somali warlord Mohammed Farah Aidid, an alleged associate of Osama bin Laden."

So an 11-year-old memo urging the Baath party or "friends" to "hunt Americans" in places including Somalia, coupled with the "alleged" ties between Somalian warlord Aidid, "shows" that Saddam "work[ed]" with al Qaeda to "target Americans." Of course, CNS conveniently drops the fact that al Qaeda or bin Laden are never mentioned in the key memo or that it refers only to Americans on "Arab land." But I'm sure they were careful that the only operative verb in the memo, "hunt", was scrupulously translated by their unidentified translators.

This is comical, but CNS knows its audience won't click the link or think about what they're reading. They're targeting the buffs of the liberal media conspiracy to obscure the "true facts" about Saddam's plan to conquer the U.S. while being unable to conquer his own country.

What about the documents that "show that Iraq trained dozens of terrorists inside its borders?" These we don't get to see at all. The only description of them, at the end of the article, refers to "ninety-two individuals from various Middle Eastern countries [that] are listed on the papers," "many" of whom "are described as having 'finished the course at M14,' a reference to an Iraqi intelligence agency, and to having 'participated in Umm El-Ma'arek,' the Iraqi response to the U.S. invasion in 1991." In other words, the papers list the names of people trained by Iraqi intelligence, undoubtedly Iraqi intelligence officers. Nothing about terrorism or training terrorists at all.

Only someone who thinks Laurie Mylroie should be credited as a "Clinton advisor" would be dumb enough to fall for this. You are unwittingly laundering the credentials of someone who has made a career from peddling Saddam-gonna-gitcher-momma stories, attributing to him everything from the first WTC bombing to the anthrax scare to global warming. Of course, her credibilty bolsterers are unvariably the same neocon crazies that led the march toward war, the Woolsey-Perle-Wolfowitz axis. You aren't even pausing to consider that her thesis boils down to a plot by Saddam to get the U.S. to invade his country, depose and imprison him.

[vulturesrow]

I dont have the time nor desire to point your out the errors in yet another one of your entertaing Chonskyesque rants. I will just drop one question for you.

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Only someone who thinks Laurie Mylroie should be credited as a "Clinton advisor" would be dumb enough to fall for this.

[/ QUOTE ]

Did Laurie Mylroie advise Clinton or not ? (Hint: answer = yes) If so then how is it incorrect to label her as a onetime Clinton advisor?

[Chris Alger]

[ QUOTE ]
Did Laurie Mylroie advise Clinton or not ? (Hint: answer = yes) If so then how is it incorrect to label her as a onetime Clinton advisor?

[/ QUOTE ]
That's a tough one. During the last four years this former Saddam apologist has written two scaremonger tracts promoting war with Iraq on the absurd grounds that the CIA and State Department have been covering up overwhelming evidence of Iraqi WMD and ties to al Qaeda, even though the verdict from both the Senate Intelligence Committee, the 9/11 Commission, and virtually every real expert outside a small circle of neocon imperialists is exactly the opposite. She is, in short, "a crackpot" who "believes that Saddam was not only behind the '93 Trade Center attack, but also every anti-American terrorist incident of the past decade, from the bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania to the leveling of the federal building in Oklahoma City to September 11 itself." Washington Monthly. Now her opinions are invoked to help substantiate a connection between Saddam and bin Laden with documents that say not a word about bin Laden or his group.

Fourteen years ago, she gave Clinton advice during his first campaign.

From this you defend your description of her as a "Clinton advisor," without more, to stress her likely objectivity.

Only an idiot would find this reasonable. To defend it as technically correct is the kind of quibble for which people justly ridicule lawyers.

[meow_meow]

source = "cybercast news service" formerly "conservative news service", the mouthpiece of the Media Research Center (far right of center)

[vulturesrow]

[ QUOTE ]
source = "cybercast news service" formerly "conservative news service", the mouthpiece of the Media Research Center (far right of center)

[/ QUOTE ]

Your post = "I didnt bother to critically read the article but instead immediately fall back on attacking the source"

[meow_meow]

So you beleive anything you read on the internet and never consider the source?
When this hits the mainstream newswires that don't have an agenda that fits the story, then it will be worth evaluating. Until then, I'll file it under propaganda.