Hussein link to al-Qaida is nebulous (W's allegation was key prewar claim)

[Khephra]

Bush's allegation was key prewar claim

By WARREN P. STROBEL and JONATHAN S. LANDAY

Knight Ridder Newspapers


WASHINGTON — The administration's claim that Saddam Hussein had ties to al-Qaida was apparently based on even less solid intelligence than statements that Iraq had chemical and biological weapons.

Nearly a year after U.S. and British troops invaded Iraq, no evidence has turned up to verify allegations of links between Hussein and al-Qaida, and several key parts of the Bush administration's case have either been proved false or seem increasingly doubtful.

Senior U.S. officials now say there never was any evidence that Hussein's secular police state and Osama bin Laden's Islamic terrorism network were in league. At most, there were occasional meetings.

Moreover, the U.S. intelligence community never concluded that those meetings had produced an operational relationship, American officials said. That verdict was in a secret report by the CIA's Directorate of Intelligence that was updated in January 2003, on the eve of the war.

“We could find no provable connection between Saddam and al-Qaida,” a senior U.S. official acknowledged. He and others spoke on condition of anonymity, because the information involved is classified and could prove embarrassing to the White House.

more...............

http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/news/world/8089411.htm

[acmavm]

1. I'm just waiting for the day someone writes something that we didn't

already know.

[leftchick]

2. isn't that the truth...

:eyes:

[jamesinca]

3. I am just waiting for someone to write something we didn't know

a year ago. I knew there were no WMD's in Iraq. The media apparently did not figure that out until the Kay report. I knew that bin-Laden had disowned Iraq, I knew that most of the 9/11 hijackers were Saudi Arabians and no Iraqis. They are just now figuring this out?

[Media_Lies_Daily]

4. And that means that the information being provided by the...

...real U. S. intelligence agencies (CIA, DIA, NSA, etc.) was totally ignored.

What a surprise. NOT. How many of us on DU knew, based on what little real news was allowed to filter out to the masses, that Iraq couldn't possibly have had WMDs? And how long did we know that before the Iraqi war was foisted on the Iraqis? The UN kept telling anyone that would listen that Iraq's WMDs had been destroyed by the 1994-1995 time frame.

Hmmm.

I wonder what the rationale was for going after Osama Bin Laden? What's the real tangible evidence linking OBL to 911? Is it because "they" told us it was true and therefore we had to believe it? And why are the NeoCons refusing to hand over what they know about the attacks of 911?

Where there is smoke, and a lot of it, there is usually a good-sized fire.

[Barrett808]

5. Too bad the press didn't expose this when they had the chance

Before we slaughtered over 10,000 innocents.