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Nope, no link

Via XRLQ, we learn that the Saddam/Osama connection was established a couple of years before Bush took office.

CNN said Saddam offered asylum to Bin Laden. The Guardian says the same thing.

Posted in uncategorized on June 23rd, 2004 by SayUncle | RSS 2.0 |

9 Responses to “Nope, no link”

  1. Thibodeaux Says:
    June 23rd, 2004 at 8:24 am

    You’re moving the goalposts again!

  2. Brian A. Says:
    June 23rd, 2004 at 9:43 am

    Interesting article. Of course as far as we know bin Laden never did take refuge in Iraq. So the intelligence/speculation at that time turned out to be wrong.

  3. tgirsch Says:
    June 23rd, 2004 at 9:56 am

    So what you’re saying then is that either the GOP-led 9/11 Commission is incompetent, or that the GOP-led 9/11 Commission is intentionally trying to make Bush look bad.

  4. Xrlq Says:
    June 23rd, 2004 at 10:18 am

    Speaking of moving goalposts, I had to delete and rebuild the post, so the 1638 in the Permalink is now 1642

  5. tgirsch Says:
    June 23rd, 2004 at 10:49 am

    I should also point out that this still doesn’t contradict the claim that there was no collaborative relationship. Attempts were made to form a working relationship, and nothing ever came of any of it. John Kerry and John McCain explored a working relationship, and nothing came of that either. If John Kerry were the greatest threat to America, would it make sense to attack John McCain based on this?

    Also, if this information is such a slam-dunk of a link, why has the Administration never trumpeted it, instead preferring to use the long-since debunked Prague-Atta connection.

  6. kevin Says:
    June 23rd, 2004 at 11:11 am

    BZZZT! Wrong again!
    http://www.dfw.com/mld/dfw/news/8094015.htm?1c

    Here is the money quote form the Guardian:

    The key meeting took place in the Afghan mountains near Kandahar in late December. The Iraqi delegation was led by Farouk Hijazi, Baghdad’s ambassador in Turkey and one of Saddam’s most powerful secret policemen, who is thought to have offered Bin Laden asylum in Iraq.

    and here is the money quote form the more recent article:

    Administration officials reported that Farouk Hijazi, a top Iraqi intelligence officer, had met with bin Laden in Kandahar, Afghanistan, in 1998 and offered him haven in Iraq.

    They left out the rest of the story. Bin Laden said he’d consider the offer, U.S. intelligence officials said. But according to a report later made available to the CIA, the al Qaeda leader told an aide afterward that he had no intention of accepting Saddam’s offer because “if we go there, it would be his agenda, not ours.”

    So, four years before 9/11, you have a member of Saddam’s intelligence who might have offered Bin Laden asylum — an offer Bin Laden refused. Even if you remove all doubt as to why Saddam would want to do this (and the idea that Saddam would have liked to have had under his thumb a man who had declared him an enemy of the faith must have crossed your mind. if it didn’t — why the heck not? The Middle East is a dangerous place, and even nations that we consider friends have had these kinds of contacts with al-Queda. At least some of that is an attempt to prevent al-Queda form harming their countries. Explain to me why Iraq would be the only country stupid enough to not attempt to infiltrate the organization of its enemy.) you still don;t have a connection. If you ask a woman out and she says no, you don’t have a connection to her — you have a rejection. They are different things.

    And don’t you dare say “Well, it proves that he wanted to have connections to terrorists”. First, as already noted, there are lots of reasons a dictator in the middle east would want to know what a bunch of frigging religious lunatics were doing. Second, who cares what he wanted — he was obviously not getting it. Wanting and getting are not the same thing, and I should really not have to point out that there were other nations in the region — like Pakistan, Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia — who actually got close ties to al-Queda. So, again, you would just be arguing that we should have invaded the country who was really, really bad at getting closer to al-Quiada instead of the countries that were really, really good at it. Not, I must say, a terribly convincing argument.

  7. Lean Left Says:
    June 23rd, 2004 at 12:49 pm

    More Al-Qaeda Saddam Link Nonsense
    This seems to be going around the right wing blogoshere, offered up up as some kind of proof of the…

  8. Xrlq Says:
    June 23rd, 2004 at 1:29 pm

    Kevin: you are desperate, aren’t you?

  9. Lean Left Says:
    June 23rd, 2004 at 3:58 pm

    Random Thoughts on Iraq and Terror
    In the wake of the 9/11 Commission’s finding that there is “no credible evidence” that Iraq and al-Qaeda ever had…

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