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| Iraq-Jordan |
| Saddam Possessed WMD, Had Extensive Terror Ties: New Docs! |
| 2004-10-05 |
| Grain of salt - no open corroborating evidence. Is this the first "October Surprise"? CNSNews Exclusive: Iraqi intelligence documents, confiscated by U.S. forces and obtained by CNSNews.com, show numerous efforts by Saddam Hussein's regime to work with some of the world's most notorious terror organizations, including al Qaeda, to target Americans. They demonstrate that Saddam's government possessed mustard gas and anthrax, both considered weapons of mass destruction, in the summer of 2000, during the period in which United Nations weapons inspectors were not present in Iraq. And the papers show that Iraq trained dozens of terrorists inside its borders. One of the Iraqi memos contains an order from Saddam for his intelligence service to support terrorist attacks against Americans in Somalia. The memo was written nine months before U.S. Army Rangers were ambushed in Mogadishu by forces loyal to a warlord with alleged ties to al Qaeda. Other memos provide a list of terrorist groups with whom Iraq had relationships and considered available for terror operations against the United States. ... A senior government official who is not a political appointee provided CNSNews.com with copies of the 42 pages of Iraqi Intelligence Service documents. The originals, some of which were hand-written and others typed, are in Arabic. CNSNews.com had the papers translated into English by two individuals separately and independent of each other. There are no hand-writing samples to which the documents can be compared for forensic analysis and authentication. However, three other experts - a former weapons inspector with the United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM), a retired CIA counter-terrorism official with vast experience dealing with Iraq, and a former advisor to then-presidential candidate Bill Clinton on Iraq - were asked to analyze the documents. All said they comport with the format, style and content of other Iraqi documents from that era known to be genuine. |
| Posted by:OldSpook |
| #16 Just a reminder....there has never been an October surprise. |
| Posted by: Rex Mundi 2004-10-05 1:15:27 PM |
| #15 I don't know tibor, it is October 5th. |
| Posted by: 2b 2004-10-05 12:19:24 PM |
| #14 According to John Loftus, the docs came from a senior US official in Iraq (not a political appointee) who was frustrated at the slow pace of examining the tons of documents recovered from Saddam's files. He says the docs have been examined by a former DIA guy who was skeptical about the Iraq/al Qaeda connection and declared to be authentic. The CNSNews reporter also showed the docs to Laurie Mylorie, who concurs (that's no surprise). Loftus said he got the docs from the CNSNews reporter and sent them to his US and UK intelligence contacts who are evaluating them now. If forgeries, they would be extremely clever because the contain cross references to documents in other files that presumably could be checked. Very interesting . . . . |
| Posted by: tibor 2004-10-05 11:49:45 AM |
| #13 OS, done. |
| Posted by: Steve 2004-10-05 11:35:35 AM |
| #12 the issue wont be translation, but authentication of the document. which will get into papers, inks, etc. Wont be doable over the net. I dont think so , anyway. |
| Posted by: Liberalhawk 2004-10-05 10:49:37 AM |
| #11 Remember, the FBI (and probably the CIA, too) refused to hire all those Iraqi/Arab world Jews who volunteered after 9/11, because it would upset their Muslim employees. If this stuff goes up on the internet, there will be a great many non-partisan native speakers who will be able to make exact translations. Woo hoo for the Brave New World of the internet -- harnessing the abilities of all Mankind ;-D |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2004-10-05 10:30:25 AM |
| #10 comments 1. One of the AQ affiliates mentions is Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, in afghanistan. The immediate reply to this will be a "so what, didnt we support Hekmatyar in the '80s?" 2.Better not to have used Laura Mylroie as one of their 3 experts 3. Why leak to CNS, rather than to say Fox News? 4. #11 does raise my eyebrow. Bottom line - I dont know. |
| Posted by: Liberalhawk 2004-10-05 10:22:19 AM |
| #9 In speaking with numerous returning soldiers that were in the initial rush to Baghdad and cleared palaces and ministries, truck loads of documents were gathered and sent to the rear, in addition, documents with Saddam's letterhead, or embossed/stamped were kept by soldiers and newspaper types for souvenirs. It would be good to recover these…just in case! Ya neva Know! |
| Posted by: RN 2004-10-05 10:06:03 AM |
| #8 Well that certainly raises eyebrows. |
| Posted by: Mrs. Davis 2004-10-05 10:05:13 AM |
| #7 Whent to the CNSN web site couldn't find the link,could someone post the docs? |
| Posted by: Raptor 2004-10-05 9:17:07 AM |
| #6 30 years later and it's just now sinking into the publics' consciousness that we won Nam. I firmly believe we will be vindicated in the future, but the world will still hate US because we were right once again. |
| Posted by: anonymous2u 2004-10-05 2:35:49 AM |
| #5 Saddam's WMD went to Syria and Lebanon but only after the election (Bush wins of course) will more data be brought to light. |
| Posted by: Mack Daddy 2004-10-05 2:08:12 AM |
| #4 Old Spook, I was disturbed a while back when I read that the FBI (I think) had one contractor doing translations that believed that most of the other contractors she was working with held anti-American views. She was, of course, let go almost immediately - no whistleblower protection for contractors. Are we really that bad off? |
| Posted by: Super Hose 2004-10-05 2:01:20 AM |
| #3 There is of course a big caveat. It's damn hard to authenticate Arab documents. And even if you can prove that these docs are in line with what the Mukhbarat produced in this time, this still will not help enough. The Iraqi goverment controls Saddam's intelligence now, and they would certainly be able to "produce" very authentic looking documents. Dan Rather may have given such a bad example that the production of "documents" will be questioned much more severely... even if genuine. I still believe that the reason for this war was not the contacts Saddam had before 9/11... but the ones he was much more likely to have AFTER 9/11. After all Al Qaeda had shown him a way to payback. After 9/11 he knew the U.S. would put a lot of pressure on him. So he decided to hide is WMD very well (Syria?), then hoped to play the inspector game. The inspectors would find nothing... and the logical consequences would have been: Lifting the sanctions (and frustrated U.S. looking elsewhere). THEN he would restart his WMD program and who knows, using terrorists for his goals. He probably thought that the U.S. would never start a full blown invasion... some heavy bombing which he had survived before. Unfortunately the CNS documents, should they be authentic, will come too late for this elections. The Kerry campaign will just question their authenticity and the issue is too complicated for the U.S. public to form an opinion quickly. These are not easy to debunk MS Word texts, this is Arabic scribble coming from a controlled source that has interest to help Bush. So they can be as authentic as can be, they will always be looked upon as partisan. |
| Posted by: True German Ally 2004-10-05 1:29:04 AM |
| #2 OS - I recall reading a story by some embed waaay back during the taking of Baghdad that there were rooms full of boxed documents from several former Saddam ministries - all awaiting translation. This was from some poor Infantry officer whose men had seized much of it in building clearing operations. I hope this is some of the take, and you're dead right - it certainly could be the tip of a huge iceberg of revelations... This story deserves the popcorn graphic, Fred, heh. |
| Posted by: .com 2004-10-05 1:12:15 AM |
| #1 The Iraq War was unfinished business. Even leaving alone WMDs, Saddam committed gross acts of war against the US and its allies, by abrogating the ceasefire agreement and by ordering his AA units to fire on our aircraft. This was a war that has been a long coming. I believe there are WMDs in Iraq or elsewhere and I believe in time they will be found. All to the good, but far, far more importantly, W finished this piece of national business in conjuction with the WOT. I hope this news, if true, gets disseminated far and wide. It will completely wreck the credibility of the antiwar element in American politics, and could well pave the way to further more dramatic successes in the war on terror. |
| Posted by: badanov 2004-10-05 12:14:57 AM |