Senate report concludes: no proof of contact between

[kandrathe]

Hi,
...
Greetings, Fragbait

Ok, I found one tidbit that is at least enlightening on how either the press or the government spins the facts. So let's link to the horses mouth, rather than the media spin meisters. Right? We should read the documents ourselves, rather than parrot the talking heads.
Report of the Select Committee on Intelligence on the U.S. Intelligence Community’s Prewar Intelligence Assessments on Iraq

From page 315,

One of the strongest links identified by the CIA between the Iraqi regime and terrorist activities was the history of IIS involvement in training, planning, and conducting terrorist operations. Beginning before the 1991 Gulf War, intelligence reports and public records documented that Saddam Hussein used 11s operatives to plan and attempt terrorist attacks. The CIA provided 78 reports, from multiple sources, XXXXX documenting instances in which the Iraqi regime either trained operatives for attacks or dispatched them to carry out attacks. Each of the reports provided by the CIA was accurately reflected in Iraqi Support for Terrorism and the majority of them were summarized as examples to support the CIA’S assessment.

You can at least see why for those who are paying attention, the waters are not as clear as you make them out to be. If this testimony is refuted and these people have recanted as liars, then well I have not heard them do that. Rather, what I read were things such as "If we judge, or leave open to interpretation,that repeated questioning and challenging of intelligence assessments is inappropriate,we do ourselves a disservice as United States Senators, and limit our own ability to demand rigorous review of intelligence. We also discount the tremendous efforts and dedication of our analytic professionals by implying that they cannot perform effectively in the most critical of times. Our terrorism analysts made careful, appropriately caveated .judgments regarding Iraq’s links to terrorism, they should be commended, not characterized as weak and inclined to yield to political influence."

Sherman, set the way back machine to 2003. HEARING OF THE NATIONAL COMMISSION ON TERRORIST ATTACKS UPON THE UNITED STATES, July 9th 2003 Let's skip to some older testimony (excerpted below) before Congress by Judith Yaphe, fellow at the National Defense University. If someone works for the CIA for 20 years studying Iraq, Iran and the Persian Gulf -- well I'm going to tend to think they might know more about it than I do. So in case it doesn't just jump out at you, she said "Iraq under Saddam was an active sponsor of terrorist groups, providing safe haven, training, arms, logistical support -- requiring in exchange that the groups carry out operations ordered by Baghdad for Saddam's objectives. " and then Now, the al Qaeda connection, to move swiftly along, Did Iraq need al Qaeda? Probably Saddam might have liked a group like that, but I don't think he would have needed them. I've said given the reasons why I thought -- and it is in my testimony -- I think he saw him as a threat, Osama as a threat, rather than as a potential partner." Her opinions reflect what I understand the intelligence communities views are on the Saddam -- al Queda link. I still think it is possible that there were some IIS connections developing with al Queda, and for the record, I also think there is a slight possibility that Russia organized transport of WMD materials into Syria prior to the war. Russia tied to Iraq's missing arms

Also, of interest I found this juicy tidbit. Text of President Clinton's address to Joint Chiefs of Staff and Pentagon staff, February 17th, 1998 Of note: " In 1995, Hussein Kamal, Saddam's son-in-law, and the chief organizer of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction program, defected to Jordan. He revealed that Iraq was continuing to conceal weapons and missiles and the capacity to build many more. Then and only then did Iraq admit to developing numbers of weapons in significant quantities and weapon stocks. Previously, it had vehemently denied the very thing it just simply admitted once Saddam Hussein's son-in-law defected to Jordan and told the truth. Now listen to this, what did it admit? It admitted, among other things, an offensive biological warfare capability notably 5,000 gallons of botulinum, which causes botulism; 2,000 gallons of anthrax; 25 biological-filled Scud warheads; and 157 aerial bombs. And I might say UNSCOM inspectors believe that Iraq has actually greatly understated its production." So, is it not interesting how history is reviewed over time? What was fact in 1998, was suspect in 2003, and now a lie in 2006.

Meanwhile, Amitage On CIA Leak -- gets buried on page 4. since it makes the hatchet wielding press and Dems look bad for spending 50 million dollars and making Karl Rove deny to the Grand Jury leaking Plame to the CIA 4 or 5 times. Not that I like Karl, but its wrong to do that to people just because you despise him and for political grandstanding.

MS. YAPHE: Thank you very much inviting me. I want to thank the committee very much for inviting me to testify. And for purposes of full disclosure -- you may know this already, but let me state it for the record -- I worked for more than 20 years for the Central Intelligence Agency as a senior analyst on Iraq, Iran, the Persian Gulf. I continue to follow this in my career now, where I am at National Defense University. The comments and analysis that I am offering are my own. They don't represent the Agency, they don't represent the Department of Defense or the university. And I say that for pretty obvious reasons.

My testimony focuses on the role and actions of Iraq as a state sponsor of terrorism under the control of Saddam Hussein. Iraq under Saddam was a major state sponsor of international terrorism. They almost wrote the book, and I've read the books that have been written. Iraq under Saddam was an active sponsor of terrorist groups, providing safe haven, training, arms, logistical support -- requiring in exchange that the groups carry out operations ordered by Baghdad for Saddam's objectives. Terrorist groups were not permitted to have offices, recruitment or training facilities or freely use Iraqi territory under the regime's control without explicit permission from Saddam. To mix a metaphor, if you took Iraq's shilling you did Iraq's bidding -- or Saddam's bidding, more directly.

Saddam used foreign terrorist groups and terrorism as instruments of foreign policy. Groups hosted by Saddam were denied protection. If he wanted to improve relations with a neighboring country and encourage to attack the same countries when Saddam wanted to pressure them. If they refused Saddam's requests, they were exiled.

Now, conventional wisdom casts Saddam as a terrorist, a primary consumer of the terrorist tactics and methods, and an enemy of the United States. And that is all true. Conventional wisdom describes Iraq under Saddam as a primary state sponsor of international terrorism, and that is all true. If the mathematics is correct and the conventional conclusion must be that Saddam and Iraq are responsible for acts of terrorism against the United States, going back to the 1993 Trade Towers attack to perhaps 9/11.

Furthermore, this argument would say Saddam and al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden cooperated in planning and conducting operations on U.S. targets. These assessments are incorrect in my personal view and in my professional judgment as a scholar and intelligence officer on Iraq.

Simply put, Saddam Hussein supported extremist groups that would respond to his orders and work against his enemy. This unfortunately does not make him the primary suspect or the eminence gris for al Qaeda's attacks on the United States. Now, there are a couple of truths to keep in mind. He used terrorism to intimidate Iraqis at home and abroad, and he did that, as we all know, very well. We know by the way we have an unsolved murder in McLean of an Iraqi businessman. That was almost certainly an act of an Iraqi intelligence officer, and a very good one. Now, could there have been an al Qaeda connection? Oh, let me before I do that let me some other truths. The reasons to do that, to support Iraq's revolutionary credentials and ensure his own role as a great Arab leader, intimidate rival leaders and governments, he gave safe haven and training to a wide range of groups, the Abu Nidal group, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a Hawari group. He created the Arab Liberation Front as a personal surrogate in the war, which he used recently to pledged $25,000 to every martyr in the intifada against Israel.

Abu Nidal is one of the primary evidences. He urged Abu Nidal to attack Hafez al Asad, his primary rival for Arab leadership and Ba'athist leadership. He also encouraged attacks -- we've heard a lot about the Muslim Brotherhood this morning. They were also a group he liked. He used the Syrian faction, but only against Syria. Other than that, Saddam was not interested in religious-based Islamic extremists, because he knew he was their next target after they finished their primary target. And I would argue that spreads itself to al Qaeda, which Saddam certainly was aware had him on their list after he got the Americans out of Saudi Arabia, after the ruling families in the Gulf were liberated, Saddam would have been next on his list of undesirables to be replaced.

And you know what's interesting, because we have seen Sabri Banna, Abu Nidal, in and out of Iraq for several years. When he refused to cooperate with Baghdad on attacks against Syria, he was told to leave. He came back again later when he was found to be useful. He died last summer, almost a year ago, of four gunshot wounds to the head. The Iraqis describe this as suicide. I don't think so. I would imagine that Saddam decided to remove the evidence of his links to one of the most notorious of international terrorists at a time when the United States was increasing pressure on him to reveal weapons of mass destruction and accusing him of sponsoring al Qaeda. What could be more convenient?

Abu Abbas. Remember Abu Abbas, the Achille Lauro? He also lived for many years, and still did up until the war, in Iraq, and threatened targets during the intifada, just a year ago, from Iraq. Saddam again helped many others. But to show how this was a policy, beside the Palestinians, they are targeting the Israeli Jewish, Western and moderate Arab targets. In the 1980s he sheltered the anti-Turkish PKK, the Kurdish Workers Party.

When he wanted to pressure Turkey he let them go loose against the Turks. When he wanted to be nice to Turkey, he let them cross the border in hot pursuit to eliminate the PKK. He sheltered the Mujaheddin-e Khalq, the Iranian anti-regime group which helped him in his fight against us. He supported their attacks against Iran when it was to his benefit, and on occasion he would threaten to close them down when he wanted to get closer to Tehran for whatever reasons.

Now, Saddam security services and surrogates were successful in certain areas, especially internal, especially defectors, especially businessmen abroad were kind of sloppy. But the security services showed little success in planning or ordering operations against foreign targets. Palestinian dependents refused to launched operations against us in the prelude up to the Gulf War in late 1990, early 1991. They failed to get their own agents abroad to conduct attacks on the eve of that war. They were all arrested as they got off the plane. Very sloppy trade craft. And their attempt to assassinate President George Herbert Walker Bush I think was another example of incompetence on their part.

Now, the al Qaeda connection, to move swiftly along, Did Iraq need al Qaeda? Probably Saddam might have liked a group like that, but I don't think he would have needed them. I've said given the reasons why I thought -- and it is in my testimony -- I think he saw him as a threat, Osama as a threat, rather than as a potential partner. Do Osama and al Qaeda need Iraq? I would disagree with my colleague. I don't think they did. I think the groups were and remain global in scope, decompartmented in design and membership, in organizational infrastructure and operational planning. Many of the leaders are well educated -- you had that all this morning in earlier testimony. They operate on a need-to-know principle. It's not one just restricted to the intelligence community, the Soviets. The Muslim Brotherhood used it. The Muslim Brotherhood was effective. You've heard a lot about them. I would simply point out that they never needed state support, state sponsorship, to conduct their activities.

So we have questionable assumptions. I find troubling the use of circumstantial evidence and a corresponding lack of credible evidence. To jump to conclusions on Iraqi support for al Qaeda, I will look for credible, reliable records, open sources from the community, or clandestine. I worked on terrorism, in the Counterterrorism Center for three years. I know the kind of information you get. Nice people, heroes of their country, do not give you information. They are not patriots, they are not untarnished sources. They are people who do this stuff, people who do terrorism that you have to deal with. And you have to use your skills -- especially hard to sort out truth from fiction, who has a grudge, who is trying to convince you of something for their purposes. I don't think that guilt by circumstance should trouble anyone. I think it should trouble us. I think the chain of evidence is not good. And I would also say that because a person or an agency or a government does not agree with one's assumptions, it does not mean they are mistaken, stupid or deliberately obstructive. It means we have a trouble in gathering intelligence and gathering proper evidence, and we need to be careful.

Let me go quickly to just a few other points that I wanted to make in my few minutes remaining. It's not -- the unwillingness of Saddam and Osama to consider cooperation is not because they had different sects -- one's Sunni, one's Shi'a -- or different ideologies. Saddam was no ideologue. I think the point again was I think it was more of a danger to Saddam. It was a risk he didn't need to take. And I don't think that the evidence -- now, I do want to point just briefly, because we have had a very interesting turn of events just this morning announced, and that was the arrest of one of the al Qaeda -- excuse me, the Iraqi intelligence officer in Prague who was supposed to have met with Mohammad Atta. Now, evidence about those meetings I think we have an excellent opportunity to find out if they took place. We also have in our control the Iraqi intelligence officer, the senior operative who was also an ambassador in Turkey, Tunisia and Jordan, who allegedly went to Kabul and met with Osama both then and in Sudan in 1994, and that's Farouk Hijazi. And I don't see we've seen any evidence of his interrogation either, but we have them in custody.

My point would be simply this -- and maybe it's not so simple -- that I would expect an intelligence agent to have contact with any organization -- I don't care if it would be al Qaeda, the Soviets or any one who was willing to operate against the United States. I'd be disappointed. They wouldn't be doing their jobs. His purpose would have been to assess intent, operational capability and recruitment potential. It would not have been sufficient for both to just simply hate the United States. Saddam always demanded total loyalty from and control over any group he supported. And I don't think al Qaeda would have agreed to any of that kind of subordination or control. So I think that complicity -- we need to talk.

Now, this will bring me to my conclusion. I know my time is up. I have three simple -- three recommendations. First, I think you have to all recognize the limits as well as the strengths of intelligence. It's not a science. I think it 's an art. I especially think when you deal on Iraq and when you deal on these issues of terrorist infrastructures, networks and support, you have to do a lot of homework, you have to read a lot, and you have to I think -- it's not all going to be a smoking gun and looking for clear evidence. That's the science -- it would be nice if it were that science. So I would say that, again, recognize the limits what can and cannot be given you. And also I think one has to read carefully. Always check reliability statements and do not just accept what is not vetted or because someone says it's true it must be true, it sounds like it 's true. Again, I think we all have to remember that the sources on any of this are not the best you'd like.

My final plea would simply be intelligence does not make policy. Policy should not shape intelligence. I think one has to look very carefully. If anything, the metaphor of the onion and the Middle East is true: the more layers you peel away, the more complicated the story gets. Thank you very much.