Link / Connection: Iraq-Saddam to 9/11 or

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The Link: Iraq to 9-11? or al Qaeda?

Was a Saddam-9/11 link a major reason for the war?
• No, there was no link.

Was the Saddam-al-Qaeda link a major reason for the war?
• No, the neocons spent 4 years pushing for the Iraq war before 9/11/2001.
Their push had nothing to do with al-Qaeda. The link was known all along, but the Saddam-Osama love/hate relationship was so minor neocons never mentioned it as even a tiny reason to have the Iraq war until after 9/11.

Did invading Iraq weaken al Qaeda?
• No. An Iraq war was likely to lead to al Qaeda and Iran gaining power in Iraq.
• It did.

Saddam backed anti-Israel terrorists.

There is NO evidence that Saddam was involved with 9/11.
That is the word of the President and all of his administration. They "have never made that claim" (of a link), and they have repeated this many times.

Why do most Americans think Bush & Cheney said there was a link?
1. They have said Saddam and al Qaeda are linked.
2. A couple of times they slipped and implied Saddam and 9/11 were linked.
3. Some neocons have said Saddam and 9/11 are linked.
4. Dick Cheney's tricky words.

What's really going on?
1. No evidence of Saddam/9-11 link.
2. Evidence of weak Saddam/al-Qaeda link.
3. They want us to think there was a Saddam/9-11 link without saying it.
This worked great.

What about the weak Saddam/al-Qaeda link ?!
Here's what the 9/11 Commission found

after careful study. That report is highly respected by everyone but a few right-wing and left-wing nuts.

But to date we have seen no evidence that these or the earlier contacts ever developed into a collaborative operational relationship. Nor have we seen evidence indicating that Iraq cooperated with al Qaeda in developing or carrying out any attacks against the United States. (p.66)

Attacking Afghanistan Hurt al Qaeda, Attacking Iraq Did Not. Cheney Cheney argues; al Qaeda is in "global conflict," we must attack terrorists "where we find them," Saddam was horrible, so we had to attack him. But Saddam's trademark was secular socialism and Osama is a religious fanatic. Look at Cheney's list of terrorist attacks. Every one of them was an al Qaeda attacks and none were blamed on Saddam. Taking Baghdad didn't help at all, in fact Zarqawi (the beheader) gained power and joined with Osama only because of the Iraq war. The 9/11 attack was the worst ever on American soil. We lost more people than at Pearl Harbor. Since then, we've seen attacks all over the world -- in Madrid, Casablanca, Mombassa, Riyadh, Istanbul, Jakarta, Bali, Baghdad, Beslan in Russia, and most recently in Egypt. This is a global conflict. If we fail to aggressively prosecute the war on terror, destroying terrorists where we find them and confronting governments that sponsor terror, the danger will only increase. —Cheney, Oct. 11, 2004, Batavia, Ohio. Cheney's List with Dates:
Bali	10/13/2002	183 killed, 100+ wounded
Mombasa	11/28/2002	15 killed, 80 wounded
	Baghdad falls, April, 2003.
Jakarta	9/5/2003	12 killed, 160 wounded
Riyadh	11/9/2003	28 killed, 100 wounded
Casablanca	5/16/2003	45 killed, 100 wounded
Istanbul	11/20/2003	27 killed, 450 wounded
Madrid	3/11/2004	191 killed, 1500 wounded
Beslan	9/3/2004	180+ killed, ?? wounded
Egypt	10/8/2004	40 killed, 100+ wounded
Baghdad	12/?/2004	Zarqawi swears loyalty to bin Laden/al Qaeda
Jakarta	10/2/2005	26 killed, 102 wounded
Cheney knows these attacks had nothing to do with Saddam. He is cynically attaching 9/11 and other al Qaeda attacks to the Iraq war to cover his real motives. These pre-date 9/11 and have nothing to do with al Qaeda, which the neocons rarely mentioned and never connect to Iraq until 9/11 became the perfect excuse. See Why Iraq?. Cheney quote: www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2004/10/20041011-11.html

CIA Reported to Believe Post-Saddam Iraq is Training Ground for al Qaeda
"The reputed CIA assessment says that Iraq is now playing a role similar to that of Afghanistan during the Soviet occupation - a training ground for Islamic militants who might travel elsewhere after the Iraq conflict winds down."

This is from Al Qaeda: Profile and Threat Assessment, by the Congressional Research Service,
August 17, 2005

Recall that the CIA helped fund Osama and other similar terrorist groups to fight the Russians. That's where he got his start. Someone else is funding Zarqawi.

popNotes:

Saddam was a terrorist and backed terrorists
It is great to be rid of him. But the question is this:

Should Americans have been deceived into believing he was behind 9/11 and threatened their homeland? Should we have rushed into a $200+ billion war and multi-year nation building program with little support from our allies. The sanctions had completely stopped his WMD program at very little cost, and he was a minor threat to us compared with others.

Although Saddam's link to Al Qaeda is weak, he did pay families of anti-Israel suicide bombers $35 million

total. This is minor compared with what he did to his own people and minor compared with global terrorist funding.

Osama inherited $300 million. The Saudi royal family paid $300 million in "protection money" to both Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda terror network and the Taliban. (jinsa.org). In the first year of the intifada, donation to the Palestinian Authority jumped $447 million (christianactionforisrael.org/isreport/oct02/).

http://zfacts.com/p/618.html | 01/18/12 07:26 GMT