Iraqis Lead Final Purge Of Al-Qaeda

[Tug McGroin]

American and Iraqi forces are driving Al-Qaeda in Iraq out of its last redoubt in the north of the country in the culmination of one of the most spectacular victories of the war on terror.

After being forced from its strongholds in the west and centre of Iraq in the past two years, Al-Qaeda’s dwindling band of fighters has made a defiant “last standâ€￾ in the northern city of Mosul.


http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/worl...icle4276486.ece

Also see how Al-Qaeda has found three safe havens for terror training. Pakistan, Somalia and Algeria.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/worl...icle4251551.ece

 

[Veritas]

Of course, there was no Al-Qaeda in Iraq before the U.S. invasion.

Information Please® - Al-Qaeda: Osama bin Laden's Network of Terror:

Al-Zarqawi is thought to have been the mastermind behind the 1,000 to 3,000 foreign insurgents fighting in Iraq. For a time, al-Zarqawi appeared to position himself as a rival to bin Laden, but in Oct. 2004 he officially declared allegiance to al-Qaeda, changing the name of his organization from Unification and Jihad to al-Qaeda in Iraq.

 

[delldude]

Of course, there was no Al-Qaeda in Iraq before the U.S. invasion.

Information Please® - Al-Qaeda: Osama bin Laden's Network of Terror:

Give up on Wikipedia?

"No one is suggesting that al Qaeda does not exist in Iraq," asserts professor of Middle Eastern and Internal Affairs Fawaz Gerges. "The question on the table...is what...is the most effective means to strike against al Qaeda in Iraq?"

No armchair historian, Gerges was recently a Carnegie Scholar, who has just returned from the Middle East after completing a fifteen-month field study in the region. He has interviewed hundreds of civil society leaders, activists, and mainstream and radical Islamists in the Muslim world and within Muslim communities in Europe.
His articles and editorials have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, The Christian Science Monitor, International Herald Tribune, The Baltimore Sun, The Independent (London), Al Hayat (London), Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, Middle East Journal, Survival, Al Mustqbal al-Arabi, Middle East Insight, and many others.

Call it what you will but in the end many left Afghanistan to come to Iraq to join forces and kill the 'Great Satan".

 

[El Che]

Of course, there was no Al-Qaeda in Iraq before the U.S. invasion.

You mean Al C-I-A da? Which was created by the U.S. government back in the 1970's. Of course the fairy tale is that they were created to fight the Soviets who had invaded Afghanistan. The truth is slightly different. While the Soviets were no saints and no fans of mine, they invaded Afghanistan after being provoked by numerous cross border attacks (at the behest of the U.S.) by the mujahadeen (alQaida...or what ever). In the U.S. media, the Mujas were portrayed as these victimized freedom fighters. Naturally all this can be dismissed as cold war high-jinks and understandable for the times.
Today, Al Qaida is just the boogey man dujour, just like Goldstein in Orwell's 1984. A convenient excuse to destroy the U.S. constitution and a good way for the war profitteers to get richer at the dumbed down tax payers' expense.

 

[El Che]

You call this choice? Two millionaires doing their WWE routine on TV?
The sheep need to wake up!

 

[Veritas]

Call it what you will but in the end many left Afghanistan to come to Iraq to join forces and kill the 'Great Satan".

Call it what you want, but there was no insurgency or Al-Qaeda in Iraq prior to the 2003 U.S. invasion. Even your quotes, which in your stereotypical fashion are without a link to the source (PBS Frontline?), do not contradict that fact.

Boston Globe - Franchising Al Qaeda:

This was evident in the formation of Al Qaeda in Iraq. Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq until his death last summer, engaged in eight months of negotiations with the leaders of Al Qaeda before pledging his allegiance to bin Laden and merging his Tawhid wal Jihad group with Al Qaeda in October 2004. The reasons for the lengthy negotiations were probably in part due to the difficulty of transmitting secure messages between Zarqawi and the Al Qaeda leadership. However, both sides also likely hesitated due to conflicting beliefs in strategies and tactics on how to wage jihad.

 

[Tug McGroin]

Call it what you want, but there was no insurgency or Al-Qaeda in Iraq prior to the 2003 U.S. invasion. Even your quotes, which in your stereotypical fashion are without a link to the source (PBS Frontline?), do not contradict that fact.

Veritas,

Read the bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee’s July 2004 Pre-war Intelligence Report. You may want to start on document page 335 (PDF page 347).

http://intelligence.senate.gov/108301.pdf

The report acknowledges that Al-Zarqawi and his Al-Qaeda operatives fled Afghanistan in the fall of 2001 and started an Al-Qaeda funded terrorist training camp in the northern corner of Iraq’s Kurdish region. The report also concluded that Al-Zarqawi and a number of his Al-Qaeda operatives were moving freely about Baghdad in 2002 and 2003.

The report goes on to state that "The Iraqi regime was, at a minimum, aware of al Zarqawi's presence in Baghdad in 2002 because a foreign government service passed information regarding his whereabouts to Iraqi authorities in June 2002." Note: "foreign government service" was the Jordanian GID Intelligence Service that tracked Al-Zarqawi's every movement.

In February 2002, Secretary of State Colin Powell addressed the UN Security Counsel and made these statements;

“those helping to run this camp are Zarqawi lieutenants operating in northern Kurdish areas outside Saddam Hussein's controlled Iraq.

But Baghdad has an agent in the most senior levels of the radical organization, Ansar al-Islam, that controls this corner of Iraq. In 2000 this agent offered al Qaeda safe haven in the region. After we swept al Qaeda from Afghanistan, some of its members accepted this safe haven. They remain there today.

Zarqawi's activities are not confined to this small corner of northeast Iraq. He traveled to Baghdad in May 2002 for medical treatment, staying in the capital of Iraq for two months while he recuperated to fight another day.

During this stay, nearly two dozen extremists converged on Baghdad and established a base of operations there. These al Qaeda affiliates, based in Baghdad, now coordinate the movement of people, money and supplies into and throughout Iraq for his network, and they've now been operating freely in the capital for more than eight months.

Iraqi officials deny accusations of ties with al Qaeda. These denials are simply not credible. Last year an al Qaeda associate bragged that the situation in Iraq was, quote, "good," that Baghdad could be transited quickly.

We know these affiliates are connected to Zarqawi because they remain even today in regular contact with his direct subordinates, including the poison cell plotters, and they are involved in moving more than money and materiel.â€￾

The Senate Intelligence Committee’s July 2004 Pre-war Intelligence Report found that "the information provided by the Central Intelligence Agency for the terrorism portion of Secretary Powell's speech was carefully vetted by both terrorism and region analysts" and that "none of the portrayals of the intelligence reporting included in Secretary Powell's speech differed in any significant way from earlier assessments published by the Central Intelligence Agency."

You would be correct in stating that there is no evidence to suggest a link between Al-Qaeda and Iraq in the planning and execution of the 11 September 2001 attacks. The Senate Intelligence Committee agreed that Zarqawi and his Al-Qaeda opertives were, in fact, in Iraq prior to the March 2003 US invasion.

Also reference;

http://www.weeklystandard.com/Utilities/pr...idArticle=12328

 

[delldude]

Tug, you'll find your sources are right wing propaganda,tainted by Bush extremists etcetera.

Good post by the way.....

 

[Veritas]

This report, which was prepared in 2004 at a time that the Republicans controlled the Senate, also concluded that despite four decades of intelligence reporting on Iraq, there was little useful intelligence collected that helped CIA analysts determine the Iraqi regime's possible links to al-Qaida, let alone it presence there before the 2003 invasion.

It went further on to state that following 9/11/2001, CIA analysts were under tremendous pressure and as a result were bold and "purposefully assertive" in pointing out possible links between Iraq and al-Qaida.

(conclusions 99, 102)

The minority Report of an Inquiry into the Alternative Analysis of the Issue of an Iraq-al Qaeda Relationship, by Senator Carl Levin, Ranking Member, Senate Armed Services Committee, stated as follows:

The IC did not find a substantial link between Iraq and al Qaeda. According to the 9/11 Commission report, shortly after the 9/11 attacks, Richard Clarke’s office sent a memo to the National Security Adviser, Condoleezza Rice, at the President’s direction, concluding that “only some anecdotal evidence linked Iraq to al Qaeda…Arguing that the case for links between Iraq and al Qaeda was weak, the memo pointed out that Bin Ladin resented the secularism of Saddam Hussein’s regime.â€

The January 2003 report Iraqi Support for Terrorism, the final major IC report prior to the war, acknowledged that its conclusions “especially regarding the difficult and elusive question of the exact nature of Iraq’s relations with al Qaida are based on currently available information that is at times contradictory and derived from sources with varying degrees of reliability.†It stated that the relationship “appears to more closely resemble that of two independent actors trying to exploit each other,†and that “al Qaida, including bin Ladin personally, and Saddam were leery of close cooperation.†Relative to the 9/11 attacks, the report said that the “Intelligence Community has no credible information that Baghdad had foreknowledge of the 11 September attacks or any other al-Qaida strike.â€13 Moreover, the SSCI, after reviewing all available intelligence, concluded in its report that the CIA “reasonably assessed that there were likely several instances of contacts between Iraq and al-Qaida throughout the 1990s, but that these contacts did not add up to an established formal relationship.â€

The CIA’s corrections applied to numerous entries in Feith’s Summary, including some of the reports that claimed the most direct and potentially threatening connections between Iraq and al Qaeda (i.e., training in bombmaking and meetings between senior al Qaeda members and Iraqi intelligence officials). A comparison of the classified CIA-requested corrections and Feith’s Addendum reveals that while some of the CIA’s corrections were made, highly significant corrections relating to Iraq-al Qaeda contacts were not made.

The 9/11 Commission, after reviewing the relevant intelligence reports, concluded that, despite contacts between Iraq and al Qaeda, the relationship was limited and somewhat distant, and that there was “no evidence†of a “collaborative operational relationship.†As noted above, the IC characterized the relationship as “independent actors.â€

The Weekly Standard article to which Vice President Cheney referred starts with the conclusion that “Osama Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein had an operational relationship from the early 1990s to 2003 that involved training in explosives and weapons of mass destruction, logistical support for terrorist attacks, al Qaeda training camps and safe haven in Iraq… according to a top secret U.S. government memorandum...†The article ends with the conclusion that “there can no longer be any serious argument about whether Saddam Hussein’s Iraq worked with Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda to plot against Americans.â€

The article to which the Vice President referred represented that it was based on a leaked, Top Secret Defense Department document prepared by Under Secretary Feith and sent to the SSCI. By referring to the article in the way he did (including his comment that the article was “based on an assessment that was done by the Department of Defense and forwarded to the Senate Intelligence Committeeâ€), the Vice President not only implicitly condoned the unauthorized release of highly classified material; he explicitly endorsed the article’s contents.

Vice President Cheney’s view that the Feith document was the “best source of information†of the Iraq-al Qaeda relationship was not shared by the IC. Director Tenet, in testimony before the SASC on March 9, 2004, said that the CIA “did not agree with the way the data was characterized in that document†and that he would speak to Vice President Cheney to inform him of the IC’s disagreements with the information. As previously discussed, the article claimed that it was based on the Feith Summary document described earlier in this report. The CIA provided numerous corrections to that Summary to Under Secretary Feith, some key ones of which he did not make before sending the purportedly corrected version to the SASC.

As the 9/11 Commission and SSCI reports convey, the intelligence appears to indicate that contacts were sporadic and not fruitful, belying a relationship (as opposed to contacts alone) between Iraq and al Qaeda.

Life and death decisions are based on the accuracy of intelligence. When intelligence is distorted or exaggerated to support the policies of an administration, it jeopardizes our nation’s security and the lives of the men and women of our armed forces. This report provides compelling evidence of the importance of objective, independent intelligence upon which to base major policy decisions. It demonstrates how intelligence relating to the Iraq-al Qaeda relationship was manipulated by high ranking officials in the DOD to support the Administration’s decision to invade Iraq when the intelligence assessments of the professional analysts of the Intelligence Community did not provide the desired compelling case.

The IC’s analysis of the Iraq-al Qaeda relationship as a relatively weak one was as definitive as reliable reporting would permit, and their conclusions were subsequently supported by the 9/11 Commission and the SSCI investigations.

Some senior DOD policymakers were predisposed to conclude that there was a significant relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda. However, the IC failed to support that conclusion in repeated analyses. An alternative intelligence assessment process was established in the office of Under Secretary for Policy Doug Feith to look at the evidence through a different lens, one that was predisposed to finding a significant relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda. His staff then conducted its own review of raw intelligence reports, including reporting of dubious quality or reliability. Drawing upon both reliable and unreliable reporting, they arrived at an “alternative†interpretation of the Iraq-al Qaeda relationship that was much stronger than that assessed by the IC and more in accord with the policy views of senior officials in the Administration.

Misleading or inaccurate statements about the Iraq-al Qaeda relationship made by senior Administration officials were not supported by IC analyses but more closely reflected the Feith policy office views. These assessments included, among others, allegations by the President that Iraq was an “ally†of al Qaeda; assertions by National Security Advisor Rice and others that Iraq “had†provided training in WMD to al-Qaeda; and continued representations by Vice President Cheney that Mohammed Atta may have met with an Iraq intelligence officer before the 9/11 attacks when the CIA didn’t believe the meeting took place.

 

[NewHampshire Black Bears]

American and Iraqi forces are driving Al-Qaeda in Iraq out of its last redoubt in the north of the country in the culmination of one of the most spectacular victories of the war on terror.

After being forced from its strongholds in the west and centre of Iraq in the past two years, Al-Qaeda’s dwindling band of fighters has made a defiant “last standâ€￾ in the northern city of Mosul.


http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/worl...icle4276486.ece

Also see how Al-Qaeda has found three safe havens for terror training. Pakistan, Somalia and Algeria.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/worl...icle4251551.ece

////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////


Hey "Tug",,
You were quick to quote the WEEKLY STANDARD, but why stop there,.........Check in on the Heritage Foundation....The Rutherford Group...............Drudge Report, or Sean Hannity/Rush BIMBO's web sites.

They'll tell you Right Wing(Nuts)........Everything you WANT to HEAR. :down: :down:


Ps,

We ALL should prepare ourselves for ALL the soon-to-be-announced..Major Success storys about the Iraq war, at the hands of the new Iraqi army/Surge !

(Hey can someone help me out here. I'm having a tough time ...trying to remember that famous saying by...PT BARNUM) ???????

 

[delldude]

////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////


Hey "Tug",,
You were quick to quote the WEEKLY STANDARD, but why stop there,.........Check in on the Heritage Foundation....The Rutherford Group...............Drudge Report, or Sean Hannity/Rush BIMBO's web sites.

They'll tell you Right Wing(Nuts)........Everything you WANT to HEAR. :down: :down:


Ps,

We ALL should prepare ourselves for ALL the soon-to-be-announced..Major Success storys about the Iraq war, at the hands of the new Iraqi army/Surge !

(Hey can someone help me out here. I'm having a tough time ...trying to remember that famous saying by...PT BARNUM) ???????

That explains why Big'O',Harry Reid and Big Nance haven't made use of the terrible state of affairs in Iraq in his campaign then...

 

[Tug McGroin]

This report, which was prepared in 2004 at a time that the Republicans controlled the Senate, also concluded that despite four decades of intelligence reporting on Iraq, there was little useful intelligence collected that helped CIA analysts determine the Iraqi regime's possible links to al-Qaida, let alone it presence there before the 2003 invasion.

It went further on to state that following 9/11/2001, CIA analysts were under tremendous pressure and as a result were bold and "purposefully assertive" in pointing out possible links between Iraq and al-Qaida.

(conclusions 99, 102)

The minority Report of an Inquiry into the Alternative Analysis of the Issue of an Iraq-al Qaeda Relationship, by Senator Carl Levin, Ranking Member, Senate Armed Services Committee, stated as follows:

I anticipated that you would pull the “Republicans controlled the Senateâ€￾ card from your man-purse. It doesn’t work on me. Don’t start!

By accepting the facts stated in the Senate Intelligence Committee Pre-war Intelligence Report that Al-Qaeda resided in Iraq prior to the March 2003 US invasion in no way implies that Saddam Hussein and Al-Qaeda had a working, operational relationship.

This was the conclusion reached by Democrats Rockefeller, Levin, Feinstein, Wyden, Durbin, Bayh, Edwards and Mikulski. These Democrats maintained their position on the Intelligence committee in both the minority Congress (108th and 109th) and majority Congress (110th). The contents and conclusions reached by the Democrats of the 108th Senate Intelligence Committee have not changed since the Democrats took majority status in Congress (110th) and released their final report in 2008.

Your references to the 9/11 Report and Carl Levin’s “Report of an Inquiry into the Alternative Analysis of the Issue of an Iraq-al-Qaeda Relationshipâ€￾ are not relevant to the discussion on al-Qaeda’s presents in Iraq prior to the March 2003 US invasion.

 

[Veritas]

I anticipated that you would pull the “Republicans controlled the Senate†card from your man-purse. It doesn’t work on me. Don’t start!

Your references to the 9/11 Report and Carl Levin’s “Report of an Inquiry into the Alternative Analysis of the Issue of an Iraq-al-Qaeda Relationship†are not relevant to the discussion on al-Qaeda’s presents in Iraq prior to the March 2003 US invasion.

The partisan majority committee report which you cited is no more relevant than the ranking minority member's report. Most, if not all, of the sources relied upon by the committee majority to reach the conclusions that you prefer have been subsequently discredited.

In case you overlooked it, this is what Carl Levin's report states:

Vice President Cheney’s view that the Feith document was the “best source of information†of the Iraq-al Qaeda relationship was not shared by the IC. Director Tenet, in testimony before the SASC on March 9, 2004, said that the CIA “did not agree with the way the data was characterized in that document†and that he would speak to Vice President Cheney to inform him of the IC’s disagreements with the information. As previously discussed, the article claimed that it was based on the Feith Summary document described earlier in this report. The CIA provided numerous corrections to that Summary to Under Secretary Feith, some key ones of which he did not make before sending the purportedly corrected version to the SASC.

As the 9/11 Commission and SSCI reports convey, the intelligence appears to indicate that contacts were sporadic and not fruitful, belying a relationship (as opposed to contacts alone) between Iraq and al Qaeda.

It directly contradicts your assertions.

Despite some sporatic contacts between al-Qaeda and Iraq there was no realtionship and al-Qaeda had no operations or influence in Iraq prior to the 2003 invasion.

 

[Gilding the Lily]

Your references to the 9/11 Report and Carl Levin’s “Report of an Inquiry into the Alternative Analysis of the Issue of an Iraq-al-Qaeda Relationshipâ€￾ are not relevant to the discussion on al-Qaeda’s presents in Iraq prior to the March 2003 US invasion.

Tug,

You may disagree with those sources -- or the assertions therein -- but that doesn't make Veritas' sources irrelevant.

 

[El Che]

Here's a quote for all you flag waving so called patriots:
"Why, of course, the people don't want war. Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best that he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece. Naturally, the common people don't want war; neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist dictatorship....
...
Oh, that is all well and good, but, voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country"
Hermann Goering