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Cheney Still Lying About Iraq-Al Qaeda Link

thinkprogress.org — Just last month, the Senate Intelligence Committee — chaired by Bush-ally Sen. Pat Roberts (R-KS) — concluded that there was absolutely no relationship between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda operative Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Nevertheless, in an interview with a South Bend, Indiana television station yesterday, Vice President Cheney falsely asserted ..

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  • sharpfork, on 10/12/2007, -10/+26If you follow Dick's logic, anyone in the US and Bush have a relationship similar to Saddam and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. I'm talking every single person in the whole country.
    The only reason Dick says this stuff is to mislead the America people.
    He is a smart fella but completely full of crap.
  • captaineuphoria, on 10/12/2007, -44/+8http://jesusphreak.infogami.com/blog/is_digg_rigged
    • Idealistic, on 10/12/2007, -10/+27http://yes.com/is_captaineuphoria_dumb
    • minox, on 10/12/2007, -15/+2Captain, thank you for raising this issue. No one acknowledges how about 30 people actually control what reaches the front page. The way it currently runs is defeating the purpose of digg.
    • cyn0sure, on 10/12/2007, -2/+7@minox

      Wait, you mean democracy doesn't really work and is easily gamed?
    • minox, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3@cyno
      Yes, that is what I am saying.
    • fgsfds, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Minox, you understand that you're taking an anti-american position when you say that, right?
  • UGM2099, on 10/12/2007, -7/+18The connections he makes get more and more tenuous as time goes on. It's sad that he is hanging on to it rather than admitting he was wrong.
  • zelig, on 10/12/2007, -40/+10Digg me down if you must, but why do we have to read these obvious hit pieces about Bush and Cheney taken from ThinkProgress? And why do we have to read 400 articles a week submitted by aaaz?

    BTW I'm not a Republican.
    • skoles, on 10/12/2007, -8/+22Why do you hate Americas freedoms?


      Would you like to stay in a death camp? Oh did I say "death camp?" I ment Happy Camps!
    • Nick22, on 10/12/2007, -8/+21so many articles make the front page from aaz because he submits like a billion a day and spends his whole life on digg, also a bunch of friends digging his storys probably has somthing to do with it too. But iv decided i dont really care if the same people are getting on the front page all the time, as long as the content is good

      /offtopic

      PS: stfu about republicans and democrats, n00bs.
    • BigBaRay, on 10/12/2007, -8/+13""stfu about republicans and democrats, n00bs""

      Stupidest ***** think I ever heard in the comments of a story in the "Political News" section. Lol (Pawnage or whatever you kids say).
    • chivas3, on 10/12/2007, -6/+14[whine]gee, why do you liberals keep bringing up that this administration has lied. Not like conservatives would do that very thing if some "liberal" got a blowjob in the oval office. Just because our conservative lies directly led to the senseless deaths of thousands of people, it doesn't mean we want to hear about it all the time. If we could just get back to holding our leaders accountable for their lies about sexual activities...[whine]
    • captaineuphoria, on 10/12/2007, -16/+6Digg is rigged no doubt about it.
      I mean, just look at the frontpage, 70% of all news is posted by a select group of 8 people.
    • 5blocksfree, on 10/12/2007, -2/+10@chivas3...

      Let's see..on one hand we have a blowjob, and on the other we have...a war...a steady erosion of the Constitution...and an administration that changes its story more often than dubya changes his undies. You do the math.

      I think there's plenty of reason to whine - the issues here transcend party affiliation - they affect EVERYONE in very significant ways.
    • dortdruben, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2You don't have to read them.
  • origclubsoda, on 10/12/2007, -30/+14WRONG! The 9/11 Commission and evidence in Saddam's trials show that the Al Qaeda did meet with Saddam's admin. Whether or not they struck a deal is undetermined.
    • lpferris, on 10/12/2007, -25/+10Yeah, but the 9/11 Ommission Report is utter crap. Not exactly a credible source.
    • origclubsoda, on 10/12/2007, -13/+13How is it utter crap? Its was a bipartisan report that REVEALED most of the intelligence shortcomings. If this report i is crap than so is any criticism of US intelligence agencies because that criticism is based on the findings of this report.
    • provost, on 10/12/2007, -6/+27backup your claims with some evidence to show that your claims are correct, otherwise you are just spewing bs

      Bush himself has admitted there was no link
      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RX44z0lRJ4E
  • rebrane, on 10/12/2007, -8/+35It'll be news when Cheney _stops_ lying.
  • Wamzlee, on 10/12/2007, -6/+15Isn't the insurgency in its last throws? Or did I just step in Cheney *****?
    • detlev409, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6Here, you can use my scrubber. Remember to get in between the treads...this stuff stinks, and it tends to linger.
  • electronicmaji, on 10/12/2007, -23/+3Cheney still beleives iraq had links with al quieda...Iraq obviously supported terrorism and one terrorist group is no better than the other.
  • Fairchild, on 10/12/2007, -4/+14Believe a lie enough and it becomes the truth.
  • wurzelgummage, on 10/12/2007, -20/+5I wish there was a way to stop stories posted by certain people from showing up.
    • BigBaRay, on 10/12/2007, -8/+5Not that it really matters to me, I could care less who's stories arrive as long as I get flamed a few times and get to launch off some flames of my own, but doesn't it kinda seems weak that stories on Digg get promoted to the front page with such few diggs???

      I mean if Digg is the hottest thing out there and worth so much then we is it so easy to collect a few friends from WoW and become a diggmaster??? I must be missing something in the mechanics of the way Digg works are is it actually about 150 people that have dugg this story???? Seems like a small number.
  • MaceSoul, on 10/12/2007, -16/+5Hate to be a stickler for accuracy, but...

    http://intelligence.senate.gov/phaseiiaccuracy.pdf
    The data reveal FEW indications of an established relationship between al-Qa'ida and Saddam Hussein's regime before September 11, 2001. (155)


    "FEW indications" does not equal "absolutely no relationship"
    • CharlieInCO, on 10/12/2007, -14/+3... buried as inaccurate and I was going to make the same point. It's another bit of leftist, erm, inaccuracy, aloong with "*no* weapons of mass distruction" and "Bush lied" but the Clinton administration didn't, even though they said exactly the same thing about Saddam.

      But then, this isn't about accuracy, it's about who wins the horserace, isn't it?
    • GeneralFault, on 10/12/2007, -2/+8Thank you for that link. I am about half way through the document, but I had to reply to this while the thread was still relevant. I am surprised that the words "FEW indications" are the two words that stuck most for you you. The report is rife with comments such as

      "A series of failures, particularly in analytic tradecraft, led to the mischaracterization of the intelligence."

      "The Committee concludes that the Intelligence Community's decision to classify this information is without justification."

      "the intelligence in those PDBs was not markedly different from that in the NIE, but said they were "even more misleading" and "more alarmist, and less nuanced than the NIE.""

      And those are just a couple of many damning quotes in the first 10 pages that can fit in one sentence. It is a very interesting and blood boiling read.
  • MaceSoul, on 10/12/2007, -26/+3Digg this:

    * Abdul Rahman Yasin was the only member of the al Qaeda cell that detonated the 1993 World Trade Center bomb to remain at large in the Clinton years. He fled to Iraq. U.S. forces recently discovered a cache of documents in Tikrit, Saddam's hometown, that show that Iraq gave Mr. Yasin both a house and monthly salary.

    * Bin Laden met at least eight times with officers of Iraq's Special Security Organization, a secret police agency run by Saddam's son Qusay, and met with officials from Saddam's mukhabarat, its external intelligence service, according to intelligence made public by Secretary of State Colin Powell, who was speaking before the United Nations Security Council on February 6, 2003.

    * Sudanese intelligence officials told me that their agents had observed meetings between Iraqi intelligence agents and bin Laden starting in 1994, when bin Laden lived in Khartoum.

    * Bin Laden met the director of the Iraqi mukhabarat in 1996 in Khartoum, according to Mr. Powell.

    * An al Qaeda operative now held by the U.S. confessed that in the mid-1990s, bin Laden had forged an agreement with Saddam's men to cease all terrorist activities against the Iraqi dictator, Mr. Powell told the United Nations.

    * In 1999 the Guardian, a British newspaper, reported that Farouk Hijazi, a senior officer in Iraq's mukhabarat, had journeyed deep into the icy mountains near Kandahar, Afghanistan, in December 1998 to meet with al Qaeda men. Mr. Hijazi is "thought to have offered bin Laden asylum in Iraq," the Guardian reported.

    * In October 2000, another Iraqi intelligence operative, Salah Suleiman, was arrested near the Afghan border by Pakistani authorities, according to Jane's Foreign Report, a respected international newsletter. Jane's reported that Suleiman was shuttling between Iraqi intelligence and Ayman al Zawahiri, now al Qaeda's No. 2 man. (Why are all of those meetings significant? The London Observer reports that FBI investigators cite a captured al Qaeda field manual in Afghanistan, which "emphasizes the value of conducting discussions about pending terrorist attacks face to face, rather than by electronic means.")

    * As recently as 2001, Iraq's embassy in Pakistan was used as a "liaison" between the Iraqi dictator and al Qaeda, Mr. Powell told the United Nations.

    * Spanish investigators have uncovered documents seized from Yusuf Galan -- who is charged by a Spanish court with being "directly involved with the preparation and planning" of the Sept. 11 attacks -- that show the terrorist was invited to a party at the Iraqi embassy in Madrid. The invitation used his "al Qaeda nom de guerre," London's Independent reports.

    * An Iraqi defector to Turkey, known by his cover name as "Abu Mohammed," told Gwynne Roberts of the Sunday Times of London that he saw bin Laden's fighters in camps in Iraq in 1997. At the time, Mohammed was a colonel in Saddam's Fedayeen. He described an encounter at Salman Pak, the training facility southeast of Baghdad. At that vast compound run by Iraqi intelligence, Muslim militants trained to hijack planes with knives -- on a full-size Boeing 707. Col. Mohammed recalls his first visit to Salman Pak this way: "We were met by Colonel Jamil Kamil, the camp manager, and Major Ali Hawas. I noticed that a lot of people were queuing for food. (The major) said to me: 'You'll have nothing to do with these people. They are Osama bin Laden's group and the PKK and Mojahedin-e Khalq.'"

    * In 1998, Abbas al-Janabi, a longtime aide to Saddam's son Uday, defected to the West. At the time, he repeatedly told reporters that there was a direct connection between Iraq and al Qaeda.

    *The Sunday Times found a Saddam loyalist in a Kurdish prison who claims to have been Dr. Zawahiri's bodyguard during his 1992 visit with Saddam in Baghdad. Dr. Zawahiri was a close associate of bin Laden at the time and was present at the founding of al Qaeda in 1989.

    * Following the defeat of the Taliban, almost two dozen bin Laden associates "converged on Baghdad and established a base of operations there," Mr. Powell told the United Nations in February 2003. From their Baghdad base, the secretary said, they supervised the movement of men, materiel and money for al Qaeda's global network.

    * In 2001, an al Qaeda member "bragged that the situation in Iraq was 'good,'" according to intelligence made public by Mr. Powell.

    * That same year, Saudi Arabian border guards arrested two al Qaeda members entering the kingdom from Iraq.

    * Abu Musaab al-Zarqawi oversaw an al Qaeda training camp in Afghanistan, Mr. Powell told the United Nations. His specialty was poisons. Wounded in fighting with U.S. forces, he sought medical treatment in Baghdad in May 2002. When Zarqawi recovered, he restarted a training camp in northern Iraq. Zarqawi's Iraq cell was later tied to the October 2002 murder of Lawrence Foley, an official of the U.S. Agency for International Development, in Amman, Jordan. The captured assassin confessed that he received orders and funds from Zarqawi's cell in Iraq, Mr. Powell said. His accomplice escaped to Iraq.

    *Zarqawi met with military chief of al Qaeda, Mohammed Ibrahim Makwai (aka Saif al-Adel) in Iran in February 2003, according to intelligence sources cited by the Washington Post.

    * Mohammad Atef, the head of al Qaeda's military wing until the U.S. killed him in Afghanistan in November 2001, told a senior al Qaeda member now in U.S. custody that the terror network needed labs outside of Afghanistan to manufacture chemical weapons, Mr. Powell said. "Where did they go, where did they look?" said the secretary. "They went to Iraq."

    * Abu Abdullah al-Iraqi was sent to Iraq by bin Laden to purchase poison gases several times between 1997 and 2000. He called his relationship with Saddam's regime "successful," Mr. Powell told the United Nations.

    * Mohamed Mansour Shahab, a smuggler hired by Iraq to transport weapons to bin Laden in Afghanistan, was arrested by anti-Hussein Kurdish forces in May, 2000. He later told his story to American intelligence and a reporter for the New Yorker magazine.

    * Documents found among the debris of the Iraqi Intelligence Center show that Baghdad funded the Allied Democratic Forces, a Ugandan terror group led by an Islamist cleric linked to bin Laden. According to a London's Daily Telegraph, the organization offered to recruit "youth to train for the jihad" at a "headquarters for international holy warrior network" to be established in Baghdad.

    * Mullah Melan Krekar, ran a terror group (the Ansar al-Islam) linked to both bin Laden and Saddam Hussein. Mr. Krekar admitted to a Kurdish newspaper that he met bin Laden in Afghanistan and other senior al Qaeda officials. His acknowledged meetings with bin Laden go back to 1988. When he organized Ansar al Islam in 2001 to conduct suicide attacks on Americans, "three bin Laden operatives showed up with a gift of $300,000 'to undertake jihad,'" Newsday reported. Mr. Krekar is now in custody in the Netherlands. His group operated in portion of northern Iraq loyal to Saddam Hussein -- and attacked independent Kurdish groups hostile to Saddam. A spokesman for the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan told a United Press International correspondent that Mr. Krekar's group was funded by "Saddam Hussein's regime in Baghdad."

    * After October 2001, hundreds of al Qaeda fighters are believed to have holed up in the Ansar al-Islam's strongholds inside northern Iraq.
    • rtini, on 10/12/2007, -1/+16"Saddam Hussein attempted, unsuccessfully, to locate and capture al-Zarqawi and…the regime did not have a relationship with, harbor, or turn a blind eye toward Zarqawi." [p. 109] of http://intelligence.senate.gov/phaseiiaccuracy.pdf

      ...so you're saying the 9/11 commission was wrong, and that President Bush is wrong when he says there is no connection between Al Qaeda and Iraq?
  • twinklyJesus, on 10/12/2007, -20/+8This is opinion, not news. Thinkprogress.org = moveon.org...a political propaganda site.

    Marked wrong topic.
    • rtini, on 10/12/2007, -5/+16It actually is news, if you RTFA:

      "Just last month, the Senate Intelligence Committee — chaired by Bush-ally Sen. Pat Roberts (R-KS) — concluded that there was absolutely no relationship between Saddam Hussein and the late al-Qaeda operative Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Nevertheless, in an interview with a South Bend, Indiana television station yesterday, Vice President Cheney falsely asserted that Zarqawi was proof of a connection between Iraq and al Qaeda."

      The vice President lying on public television is news, isn't it?
    • Thuktun, on 10/12/2007, -3/+10Most of that article is transcript. It certainly doesn't look like an opinion piece. You can watch the video. How is that opinion versus news?
  • crapple, on 10/12/2007, -4/+11since when has the Bush admin let little things like facts get in their way?
  • resto22, on 10/12/2007, -3/+11I think the PRESIDENT is the BOMB. SHOOT, sometimes, I think about GEORGE W. BUSH and wonder if he would like the ISLAMABAD deli on 14th st here in WASHINGTON, DC. I think the felafel is to DIE for. Or even to KILL for. It's so good it makes me wanna declare a felafel JIHAD on all the other INFIDEL felafel stands in the capital -- from those near THE WHITE HOUSE to those near CAPITOL HILL. they give me heartburn, though. it's like they ASSASSINATE my belly. it really KILLS me.
    • archiesteel, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3Nice. :-)
    • converge, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2Expect the MIB's at your door.
    • nfulton, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4You are going to have an interesting few days. Have you ever met the Secret Service. They have _no_ sense of humor whatsoever.
  • themayorpwns, on 10/12/2007, -3/+5I can't wait to get these douchebags out of office. I only hope we get better leaders next time around...
  • Democritus2, on 10/12/2007, -3/+9You know what is really sad?

    There is a stronger case tying the terrorists with US leaders then Iraq. Maybe we should have invaded ourselves. Oh wait, that is happening already.
    • nfulton, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2Yeah, there is, sad to say:

      Read about George Bush and Bin Laden Here
      http://www.inthesetimes.com/issue/25/25/feature3.shtml
    • mixelplfft, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1and even more sad is the news won't touch it because those responsible own the news in one way or another. where are all the reporters with balls who will fight the man and stand up for what is right? the US sheeple need to wake-up.

      the letters i have to type in to prove i'm not a machine are as follows: DERdn

      a sign? possibly. snap! you're now awake.
  • Deathfrogg, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Simus1

    So you cite two moonie-owned(GOP) newspapers as your source? Seems to me that the Senate Committee in question would have just a tad more credibility. Face it, your hero is a raving lunatic and a damned liar. Its obvious the man should never have ever been allowed anywhere near public office, much less the helm of the biggest war corporation in the world. The man is seriously deranged.

    Wake up.
    • derfel, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1"Never ascribe to malice, that which can be explained by incompetence." - Napoleon Bonaparte

      So is he incompetent or deliberately attempt to mislead the public? Either way he shouldn't stay in office.

      "Q: Are you saying that you believe fighting in Iraq has prevented terrorist attacks on American soil? And if so, why, since there has not been a direct connection between al Qaeda and *Iraq* [emphasis added] established?
      CHENEY: Well, the fact of the matter is there are connections. Mr. Zarqawi, "

      "there are connections" to the question "And if so, why, since there has not been a direct connection between al Qaeda and Iraq established" doesn't imply Cheney lied (again)?
  • pwarf, on 10/12/2007, -5/+2Cheney's response and the quote from the Senate Intelligence Committee report address different things and are actually not contradictory. A distinction must be made between *Iraq*-Al Qaeda links and *Hussein (Iraqi government)* - al Qaeda links.

    Stipulating, for the sake of argument, that the Senate Intelligence Committee report is accurate about Zarqawi, then Zarqawi is an example of the former type of link, but is not an example of the latter.

    Reread the question Cheney was answering and his response:
    "Q: Are you saying that you believe fighting in Iraq has prevented terrorist attacks on American soil? And if so, why, since there has not been a direct connection between al Qaeda and *Iraq* [emphasis added] established?
    CHENEY: Well, the fact of the matter is there are connections. Mr. Zarqawi, who was the lead terrorist in Iraq for three years, fled there after we went into Afghanistan. He was there before we ever went into Iraq. The sectarian violence that we see now, in part, has been stimulated by the fact of al Qaeda attacks intended to try to create conflict between Shia and Sunni."

    Does this contradict anything in the Senate Intelligence Committee quote, included below?
    "Saddam Hussein attempted, unsuccessfully, to locate and capture al-Zarqawi and … the regime did not have a relationship with, harbor, or turn a blind eye toward Zarqawi. [p. 109]"
    A careful reading shows that the two statements do not contradict each other. In fact, the quote that purportedly contradicts the vice president's statement actually corroborates all the *factual* claims in the vice president's quote.

    Was the vice president's answer misleading? If so, did he intend to mislead the public?
    I think Cheney should have made it clear that while Zarqawi found refuge in Iraq after fleeing Afghanistan, he didn't receive help from Hussein or the Iraqi government; as obvious from this post and the replies, many people read his statement as implying that Zarqawi got help from the Iraqi government (though this may partially be due to the suggestive wording of the post and the ThinkProgress column). I think Cheney tried to make his argument fit into the soundbites required by the TV news format, and he oversimplified to the point where he was technically still correct but was misleading. I think that while Cheney didn't try to be misleading, he ignored the likelihood that he would be misunderstood so he could make his point more concisely. I personally don't attribute this to malice. When complex things are explained quickly this usually happens; almost any book popularizing science or history will be full of technically true but misleading statements resulting from condensing and oversimplifying. However, if you want to assume malice, I wouldn't mind a digg headline, "Vice president's statements wrongly imply Zarqawi-Hussein connection. Nefarious intentions assumed."

    In summary, Cheney was technically correct. Many people falsely inferred a claim of cooperation between Saddam and Zarqawi. Cheney's statements were way too easy to misinterpret and he should have done better. I think this was carelessness, but someone could just as easily claim it's a Rovian plot to mislead the public while technically not lying.
    • raid517, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5Quit making long winded and unnecessarily complex excuses for him. He lied and misled the American people for his own selfish ends.

      That's it. End of story.
  • waxfanatic, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Saddam's Iraq and al Qeada did have quite a few planned encounters. Each one detailed in the paperwork we confiscated from the various ministries within Iraq after the regime fell. What is not known is the nature of the relationship they had. If any. Cheney stating that al Qeada and Saddam interacted is not a lie. Insisting that anyone outside of al Qeada and Saddam's inner circle actually knows the true nature of the relationship between them is a bold faced lie. One the "Cheney lied" crowd seems happy to tell over and over.

    MS
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