Wednesday and Jim Jackson, you guys obviously have your pre-
conceived opinions (as well as your clear personal
vendettas against me).

But if you looked more objectively, you'd see that the
whole world thought Saddam Hussein had WMD's prior to
March 2003.
The intelligence of every nation on Iraq reflected this,
NOT just the United States.
In addition, I hasten to add that the Clinton
administration and virtually every Democrat in the House
and Senate as well, supported regime change in Iraq
since 1998 !
Howard Dean is the only prominent Democrat I'm aware of who
initially opposed regime change.


As many times as I post these facts, you continue to ignore
them.

From the New York Post, and my comments on
it, from page 14 of the "It's not about oil or
Iraq..." topic:

Quote:

Dave the Wonder Boy said:
I was curious what AFLAC's New York Post link was
about. Here it is:

Quote:


_________________________________________

SADDAM-OSAMA LINK
.
By CLEMENTE LISI

.
November 15, 2003 -- Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein gave
terror lord Osama bin Laden's thugs financial and
logistical support, offering al Qaeda money, training and
haven for more than a decade, it was reported yesterday.
.
Their deadly collaboration - which may have included the
bombing of the USS Cole and the 9/11 attacks - is revealed
in a 16-page memo to the Senate Intelligence Committee
that cites reports from a variety of domestic and foreign
spy agencies compiled by multiple sources, The Weekly
Standard reports.
.
Saddam's willingness to help bin Laden plot against
Americans began in 1990, shortly before the first Gulf
War, and continued through last March, the eve of the U.S.-
led invasion of Iraq, says the Oct. 27 memo sent by
Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith.
.
Two men were involved with the collaboration almost from
its start.
.
Mamdouh Mahmud Salim - who's described as the terror
lord's "best friend" - was involved in planning the
bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in
1998.
.
Another terrorist, Hassan al-Turabi, was said by an Iraqi
defector to be "instrumental" in the relationship.
.
Iraq "sought al Qaeda influence through its connections
with Afghanistan, to facilitate the transshipment of
proscribed weapons and equipment to Iraq. In return, Iraq
provided al Qaeda with training and instructors," a top-
level Iraqi defector has told U.S. intelligence.
.


The bombshell report says bin Laden visited Baghdad in
January 1998 and met with Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister
Tariq Aziz.
.
"The goal of the visit was to arrange for coordination
between Iraq and bin Laden and establish camps in an-
Nasiriyah and Iraqi Kurdistan," the memo says.
.
Though the bombing of the USS Cole on Oct. 12, 2000 was an
al Qaeda job, the secret memo says the CIA
believes "fragmentary evidence points to possible Iraqi
involvement."
.
The relationship between Saddam and bin Laden continued to
grow in the aftermath of the Cole attack when two al Qaeda
terrorists were deployed to Iraq to be trained in weapons
of mass destruction and to obtain information on "poisons
and gases."
.
CIA reporting shows the Saudi National Guard went on
a "kingdom-wide state of alert in late December 2000 after
learning Saddam agreed to assist al Qaeda in attacking
U.S./U.K. interests in Saudi Arabia," the memo says.
.
And the report contains new information about alleged
meetings between 9/11 mastermind Mohamed Atta and former
Iraqi intelligence chief Ahmed Khalil Ibrahim Samir al Ani
in the Czech Republic.
.
Even some Bush administration officials have been skeptical
about a purported meeting in April 2001.
.
But the secret memo says Atta met two other times in Prague
with al Ani, in December 1994 and June 2000. It was during
one of these meetings that al Ani "ordered the [Iraqi
Intelligence Service] finance officer to issue Atta funds
from IIS financial holdings in the Prague office," the
memo says.
.
The memo says the relationship between Saddam and bin Laden
went forward even after 9/11.
.
Both sides allegedly reached a "secret deal" last year, in
which Iraq would provide "money and weapons" and obtain 90
Iraqi and Syrian passports for al Qaeda members.
.
Al Qaeda associate Abu Maseb al Zarqwari also helped set
up "sleeper cells" in Baghdad starting in October 2002.
.
The memo was sent to Sens. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.) and Jay
Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) of the Senate Intelligence Committee.
.
__________________________________




.
This is new from what I've seen previously about a link
between Saddam's Iraq and Al Qaida. Prior reports did
not state a direct link, this one does.
.
An earlier January 2003 New York Times article
discussed Saddam employing Al Qaida as mercenaries to
fight Kurdish rebels in the North of Iraq.
.
I previously discussed a book by Laurie Mulroie, about
terrorists who had trained in camps inside Iraq, using a
grounded 747 jet to learn hijacking techniques, that
arguably could have been utilized in the 9/11 hijacking.
She also discussed ties between Saddam, 1993 WTC bomber
Ramsey Yousef, and Khalid Sheikh Mohammad. The information
was from defectors to the U.S. who had trained in Saddam's
terrorist camps. And a documented Saddam plot to
assassinate George Bush Sr.
"The World's Reaction to the War" topic

http://www.rkmbs.com/showflat.php?Cat=&Number=212973&page=13&view=collapsed&sb=5&o=&fpart=3&vc=1
.
The only report contradicted by FBI investigation is the
report by Czech intelligence that Mohammad Atta had met
with a Saddam intelligence official in Prague, just prior
to the 9/11 bombing.
The FBI found that Atta had an open rental agreement for
that period, so the FBI rejected that meeting validly
reported.
.
But the report cited in this New York Post article
cites two other meetings between Atta and Saddam's
intelligence official. It occurred to me that he could
have opened a rental agreement and left the car for
someone else to use, while he was out of the country in
the Czech Republic.
.
In any case, even without Al Qaida links, Saddam was a
major sponsor of terror groups in Israel, offering
training, weapons and other support to various Palestinian
terror groups, and Saddam paid $25,000 to the families of
every Palestinian suicide bomber.
.
I reject the idea that Bush's invasion of Iraq is or ever
was about "greed".
.
Certainly, Bush has been clear that Iraq's resources
belong to Iraq, and that the U.S. plans to leave as
soon as Iraq establishes a self-sufficient police and
defense force, to insure a healthy and stable Iraqi
democracy.
Far from the notion of "greed" and profit, the evidence is
abundantly clear that Iraq has already cost, and will
continue to cost, the United States a great deal.
.
If the U.S. is successful, it will have --in establishing a
democracy in the Middle East-- done a great deal to
benefit the Muslim world, certainly far more than any
other nation, and something it will no doubt never get
credit for, from either the Muslim world or other U.S.-
bashers around the world.
.
Mistakes have been made, certainly. Mistakes occur in
any war. But I still support what has occurred in
Iraq. It is certainly better than anyone else's
alternative. Although there really are no alteratives
offered, just condemnation.
.
Except for notions that we "should have waited for the
U.N." (which is a clear contradiction of the fact that
France, and possibly Germany and Russia as well, made
clear they would veto ANY resolution to invade Iraq, so
waiting would never have borne fruit, and is just so much
anti-American liberal revisionism that has no basis in
fact).
.
And the U.N. with its most recent resolution now supports
U.S. action and opens the door to nations like Japan,
Turkey, and many other nations to send assistance.
.
But the assistance of these other U.N. nations combined
would offer at most 30,000 troops, and probably
a lot less.
So regardless of any cooperation of Bush with the U.N., the
overwhelming brunt of it is and will remain on the U.S.,
no matter what is conceded by the U.S. And other nations
don't WANT to take command from the U.S.
.
For any invasion of Iraq to have occurred, the U.S. had to
do what it did, because the U.N. was giving zero
cooperation, DESPITE seeing the same potential threat of
Iraq as the U.S. cited. As U.N. resolutions against Iraq,
and private intelligence of European nations makes clear.
.
What really pisses me off is that if the U.S. sends in more
troops (as they did after the official end of the war, to
do the job right against guerilla fighters) Democrats
label it a "miserable failure" or a "quagmire" or "another
Vietnam."
And if they lessen troop strength, then Bush is accused
of "endangering the mission" and "caving in to political
pressure" (the very political pressure that Democrats
themselves are providing, to get out !)
.
I dislike the partisan accusations of Democrats, that
criticize Bush's conduct of the war in Iraq, no matter
what Bush does to stay the course.
.
Some of the criticism is warranted (such as vastly
underestimating the cost of the war). But much of it is
unfair criticism that has no consistency, and vaccilates
from one hysterical extreme to the other (too much, not
enough...)



And by the way, this is the Ronald Reagan topic, not the
Iraq and WMD topic. It would be nice if you could
separate the two, and not force me to respond here.


--------------------

"This Man, This Wonder Boy..."