Reply #16: I wish I could access the article, but it's completely gone now ~

[Catrina]

Error 404 The page you are looking for could not be found. It may have been removed, or is otherwise unavailable.

Also, the Boston.com/Daily News link is no longer available.

As far as the 'tin'legged terrorist' story, it's difficult to discern where that story actually began, but it was from Colin Powell that most people heard it for the first time, that Al Zarqawi was the link between Al Queda and Iraq. In his speech to the UN, he claimed that Al Zarqawi had his leg amputated in Iraq. Here's one article from Newsweek which attempted to sort out the facts:


An undated photo of Zarqawi, released by Jordanian police

Distorted Intelligence?
Secret German records cast doubt on the Saddam-Al Qaeda connection.

Much of the debate revolves around claims that Saddam had large stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons—stockpiles that so far have not been found. But an equally fierce debate has been taking place behind the scenes about the handling of sketchy, and at times, contradictory evidence relating to Saddam’s supposed connections with Al Qaeda.

Zarqawi was at the center of those claims. In a Cincinnati speech delivered Oct. 7, on the eve of a congressional vote authorizing him to wage war on Iraq, President Bush asserted that “Iraq and Al Qaeda have had high-level contacts that go back a decade.” His chief example was that “one very senior Al Qaeda leader” had “received medical treatment in Baghdad”—an obvious reference to Zarqawi, who had his leg amputated there in 2002.

Zarqawi received even more prominence in secretary of State Colin Powell’s Feb. 5 presentation to the United Nations Security Council. In that address, Powell described Zarqawi as “an associate and collaborator of Osama bin Laden and his Al Qaeda lieutenants.” During his stay in Baghdad, Powell claimed that “nearly two dozen…al Qaeda affiliates” converged on the Iraqi capital and “established a base of operations there.”

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/3067876/

For the purpose of getting the war started, this was the link the Bush administration made between Iraq and Al Queda, and Colin Powell delivered the 'evidence' to the Un as he was asked to do.

But things changed regarding Zarqawi's 'tin leg' when, in the middle of hearings on the torture at Abu Ghraib, a tape was released which, we were told, showed the murder of Nick Berg. The Administration claimed that the leader of the terrorists in the video, was Al Zarqawi.

But the claim that man in the video was Al Zarqawi was debunked, ironically based on their own claim that Zarqawi had only one leg, because the man in the video, clearly had two legs. Supporting this was an article in the Times, although how reliable any of this is, people have to decide for themselves:

Zarqawi ‘sleeps in suicide belt’

The sheikh also claimed one of the most widely circulated pieces of supposed western intelligence about Zarqawi — that he sought treatment in Iraq after losing a leg in a US missile strike on Al-Qaeda militants — is false.

Ansari confirmed that he has both his legs and “walks with confidence and balance”.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2089-2003822,00.html

How did the Administration handle the conflicting stories? If they agree that the terrorist in the Berg video has two legs, that debunks their own Iraq/Al Queda link story that led us to war in Iraq. Here's a little on how the amputated leg story was dealt with after another video, showing Al Zarqawi running around in the desert proved that he actually still had both legs:

In fact, by 2004, officials in the Pentagon and elsewhere were sheepishly acknowledging that, well, OK, maybe Zarqawi's leg was never amputated after all. Here's what Powell's former aide, Lawrence Wilkerson, said about it all on Nov. 27, 2005, in the New York Daily News:

But Powell was skeptical, Wilkerson recalled. He said the peg leg tale - now believed to be untrue - proved in hindsight "how little we knew about the man."
"There just seemed to be no direct evidence making him an Al Qaeda member and quite a bit of evidence that demonstrated he was doing his own thuggish thing," Wilkerson said.

http://www.attytood.com/archives/003169.html

Yes, and Rumsfeld seemed to agree with that, that Zarqawi was NOT Al Queda, but rather a rival of that group, in Oct. 2004 as I posted elsewhere in this thread.

Iow, this administration has never really addressed the lies told about Al Zarqawi in order to convince the American people to go to war. Since then, one or the other of their spokesperson have 'used' Al Zarqawi without referring to his missing leg, whenever it is expedient to do so. If the press had done its job of course, we'd have some of them on the record. But, with the exception of a few reporters, the press has let them slide once again, on what is a very important question.

There's lots more available information. I hope that helps a little. And I hope someone puts it all together in a way that makes it easier for people to understand, those who have been depending on the MSM for their news.