Playing down the Iraqi terrorist links (UPDATED)

MSM outlets have been tripping over each other, breathlessly reporting that a recent study proves there were no links between Al Qaeda and Iraq thus fitting the meme that our involvement in that hell-hole was but an extension of wrongheaded Bush/Cheney cowboy-ism.

How many of you read or heard the reports and were willing to buy into it?  How many?  Raise your hands out there all of you duped once again by lying liars who are wholly invested in fooling us all to further their progressive agendas. 

Always remember people that with anything reported by today's papers and the network news you need to go deeper.  And usually, it's not that  much deeper given the shallowness represented by the main stream media.

Stephen F. Hayes goes deeper for us and, surprise, finds information that counters the prevalent thread:

In describing the relations between the Army of Muhammad and the Iraqi regime, the authors of the Pentagon study come to this conclusion: "Captured documents reveal that the regime was willing to co-opt or support organizations it knew to be part of al Qaeda--as long as that organization's near-term goals supported Saddam's long-term vision."

As I said, this ought to be big news. And, in a way, it was. A headline in the New York Times, a cursory item in the Washington Post, and stories on NPR and ABC News reported that the study showed no links between al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein.

How can a study offering an unprecedented look into the closed regime of a brutal dictator, with over 1,600 pages of "strong evidence that links the regime of Saddam Hussein to regional and global terrorism," in the words of its authors, receive a wave-of-the-hand dismissal from America's most prestigious news outlets? All it took was a leak to a gullible reporter, one misleading line in the study's executive summary, a boneheaded Pentagon press office, an incompetent White House, and widespread journalistic negligence.

On Monday, March 10, 2008, Warren P. Strobel, a reporter from the McClatchy News Service first reported that the new Pentagon study was coming. "An exhaustive review of more than 600,000 Iraqi documents that were captured after the 2003 U.S. invasion has found no evidence that Saddam Hussein's regime had any operational links with Osama bin Laden's al Qaida terrorist network." McClatchy is a newspaper chain that serves many of America's largest cities. The national security reporters in its Washington bureau have earned a reputation as reliable outlets for anti-Bush administration spin on intelligence. Strobel quoted a "U.S. official familiar with the report" who told him that the search of Iraqi documents yielded no evidence of a "direct operational link" between Iraq and al Qaeda. Strobel used the rest of the article to attempt to demonstrate that this undermined the Bush administration's prewar claims with regard to Iraq and terrorism.

So of course, that's the story that ran nationwide.  Yet, as Hayes reports, there was information uncovered that is relevant to why the reasons for war in Iraq were sound:

Among the study's other notable findings:

In 1993, as Osama bin Laden's fighters battled Americans in Somalia, Saddam Hussein personally ordered the formation of an Iraqi terrorist group to join the battle there.

  For more than two decades, the Iraqi regime trained non-Iraqi jihadists in training camps throughout Iraq.

According to a 1993 internal Iraqi intelligence memo, the regime was supporting a secret Islamic Palestinian organization dedicated to "armed jihad against the Americans and Western interests."

  In the 1990s, Iraq's military intelligence directorate trained and equipped "Sudanese fighters."

In 1998, the Iraqi regime offered "financial and moral support" to a new group of jihadists in Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq.

In 2002, the year before the war began, the Iraqi regime hosted in Iraq a series of 13 conferences for non-Iraqi jihadist groups.

  That same year, a branch of the Iraqi Intelligence Service (IIS) issued hundreds of Iraqi passports for known terrorists.

There is much, much more. Documents reveal that the regime stockpiled bombmaking materials in Iraqi embassies around the world and targeted Western journalists for assassination. In July 2001, an Iraqi Intelligence agent described an al Qaeda affiliate in Bahrain, the Army of Muhammad, as "under the wings of bin Laden." Although the organization "is an offshoot of bin Laden," the fact that it has a different name "can be a way of camouflaging the organization." The agent is told to deal with the al Qaeda group according to "priorities previously established."

It is shamefully despicable the way this report has been spun by media outlets but I tell you no more shameful than the way the Bush Administration has allowed it to happen.  I don't know who to be more upset with, the lying liars in today's prevalent press or the apathetic cowards in the Bush Administration who do nothing to counter the lies.

Do read all of Haye's piece and educate yourself and those within your own sphere of influence.  There's much at stake here people. 

Much.

UPDATE: Scott at FloppingAces sums things up nicely:

Steve Schippert’s sample of some of the more prominent headlines provides readers with what the story’s narrative looked like a few days ago:

ABC: Report Shows No Link Between Saddam and al Qaeda
New York Times: Study Finds No Qaeda-Hussein Tie
CNN: Hussein’s Iraq and al Qaeda not linked, Pentagon says
Washington Post: Study Discounts Hussein, Al-Qaeda Link
AFP: No link between Saddam and Al-Qaeda: Pentagon study

And within hours the (mainstream media) die had been cast.  Saddam was not linked to al Qaeda went the theme.

This one is definitely worth the read. Think about what it shows: NO ONE in the McLatchy Newspaper chain of editors, no one at ABC, no one at the New York Times, no one at CNN, no one at the Washington Post, no one at AFP, and no one at any of the blogosphere sites that posted the original article actually read the report. NONE. Old Media/traditional media outlets are supposed to be special because they have armies of fact checkers yet no one in any of these armies ever saw the actual report. The actual report contradicts the original article at almost every turn.

Is there a fact checker anywhere, or have these outlets collapsed into rumor parrots?

Shameful.  And again, Bush needs to be in his bully pulpit nailing the liars but good on this... but good.

Comments

[Mommynator]

Reading the report itself is one thing. We all know that we would find things we'd like and not like, but at least we'd be getting the information from the SOURCE.

I didn't even bother reading the tortured parsing by the media. They're too busy admiring the view inside their colons to be able to see anything else.

I admit with you that I'm disappointed that Bush won't crow a little more. But really, what good would it do given the media bent today? He would be portrayed as a megalomaniac shouting and spitting. I think he believes that his course of action will speak for itself eventually.

Maybe it's his way of trusting God to let the truth come out.

I share your frustration because my son is over there for the second time (stop lossed) and he said that there is a possibility he can be stop lossed again. I'd like people to understand that he is not there on a fool's mission. But again, why be portrayed as some wild white-haired warmongering mother? I know what I am. I know what my son is. I know what other peoples' sons and daughters are. They know who they are and what they're doing.

Sometimes that's the only grown up thing to do.

[Mommynator]

If you'll pardon the additional thought, I think the concept and word I was looking for was "modesty". One does not brag or fight about certain things because to do so would be self promoting and aggrandizing.

If you'll forgive a Babylon 5 reference, it's the episode where the news of complete and total victory over the shadows and Vorlons, then the liberation of earth was being viewed 100, 500 and 1000 years from the event.

In one of those, it was an academic forum discussing the significance of all that had happened and Sheridan and Delenn's role in it and they were tearing them and everything else apart, calling Sheridan a megalomaniac, etc.

And suddenly, they hear bells and the very extremely aged Delenn walks in and says very little, but confronts them with reality and in the end they are shamed by the truth. At least for a few minutes.

[Rick]

Frustrated is the right word but I hope I'm not relaying the message that I in any way diminish the mission or belittle the purpose of your son's service or the honor of his sacrifice. God bless and keep him, God bless and keep his family (and especially his Mom and Dad).

Each morning, in the weakness that is my prayer life, I shoot a prayer flare to God asking that good triumph over evil and that those in the military are led and directed by His hands. Weak but sincere, this prayer escapes my lips daily. Here's hoping your son returns safely into your arms and the arms of his loved ones and that this nation will wake up to the duty he and others like him are undertaking quietly on our behalf.

God, do bless him and his compadres, do keep him safe, do lead and guide him and surround him with angels of protection. Amen.

I never thought you were criticizing or diminishing what's being done over there. I rather thought your frustration dealt with the fact that Bush won't crow about it, won't gloat over the evidence that he's right, etc.

Thanks for your prayers. I think we're all weaker than we'd like to think and only a few of us are honest enough to admit it. I know I've had my issues these last few years, so I know exactly what you're saying.

Thanks.

[Mark Eichenlaub]

Nice recap.

[Bart DePalma]

The DoD report confirms that Iraq was supporting at least four Islamic terrorist groups in the al Qaeda network - Egyptian Islamic Jihad, Afghani Islamic Party, Ansar al Islam and Army of Muhammad

It also appears from the DoD report that Iraq was training, financing and supplying the Egyptian Islamic Group when it attacked the World Trade Center in 1993.

Finally, Iraqi Intelligence Service Documents indicate that Iraq was helping al Qaeda terror group Egyptian Islamic Jihad plan terrorist operations against the Egyptian government which were carried out in 1993. This would be the direct operational link between Iraq and al Qaeda which the DoD declined to find.

http://citizen-pamphleteer.blogspot.com/2008/03/partners-in-business-of-terror-saddam.html