Pentagon Report Confirms Saddam’s Regime Supported al Qaida

For those who prefer to make up their own mind, you need to go to original sources. Now, the original sources are the 600,000 documents that were read, so the best we can do is a secondary source. But it turns out that if you rely on the tertiary source, you are being lied to by the same media that brought us "Elliot Spitzer, Caped Crusader" otherwise known as "Client 9."

The executive summary begins:

The Iraqi Perspectives Project (IPP) review of captured Iraqi documents
uncovered strong evidence that links the regime of Saddam Hussein to regional
and global terrorism. Despite their incompatible long-term goals, many
terrorist movements and Saddam found a common enemy in the United States. At
times these organizations worked together, trading access for capability. In the
period after the 1991 Gulf War, the regime of Saddam Hussein supported a complex
and increasingly disparate mix of pan-Arab revolutionary causes and emerging
pan-Islamic radical movements. The relationship between Iraq and forces of
pan-Arab socialism was well known and was in fact one of the defining qualities
of the Ba'ath movement.
But the relationships between Iraq and the groups advocating
radical pan-Islamic doctrines are much more complex. This study found no
"smoking gun" (i.e., direct connection) between Saddam's Iraq and al Qaeda.
Saddam's interest in, and support for, non-state actors was spread across a variety
of revolutionary, liberation, nationalist, and Islamic terrorist organizations. Some
in the regime recognized the potential high internal and external costs of maintaining
relationships with radical Islamic groups, yet they concluded that in some
cases, the benefits of association outweighed the risks. A review of available Iraqi
documents indicated the following:

• The Iraqi regime was involved in regional and international terrorist
operations prior to OPERATION IRAQI FREEDOM. The predominant targets of Iraqi state terror operations were Iraqi citizens, both inside and
outside of Iraq.
• On occasion, the Iraqi intelligence servIces directly targeted the regime's
perceived enemies, including non-Iraqis. Non-Iraqi casualties
often resulted from Iraqi sponsorship of non-governmental terrorist
groups.
• Saddam's regime often cooperated directly, albeit cautiously, with terrorist
groups when they believed such groups could help advance
Iraq's long-term goals. The regime carefully recorded its connections
to Palestinian terror organizations in numerous government memos.
One such example documents Iraqi financial support to families of
suicide bombers in Gaza and the West Bank.
• State sponsorship of terrorism became such a routine tool of state
power that Iraq developed elaborate bureaucratic processes to monitor
progress and accountability in the recruiting, training, and resourcing
of terrorists. Examples include the regime's development, construction,
certification, and training for car bombs and suicide vests in 1999
and 2000.

The newspaper article read thus:

“Study: Iraq had no link to al-Qaida
Pentagon finds the ‘bulletproof’ prewar evidence turned out bogus”
By WARREN P. STROBEL
McClatchy-Tribune
March 10, 2008, 11:46PM
WASHINGTON — An exhaustive review of more than 600,000 Iraqi documents that were captured after the 2003 U.S. invasion has found no evidence that Saddam Hussein’s regime had any operational links with Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaida terrorist network.

It may turn out that Warren Strobel is the fictional reporter that "reported" this little vignette.

A man is walking by the Berkley, California Zoo when he sees a little girl leaning into the lion's cage. Suddenly, the lion grabs her by the cuff of her jacket and tries to pull her inside to devour her right in front of the little girl's screaming parents.



The man runs to the cage, hits the lion square on the nose with a powerful punch. Whimpering from the pain, the lion jumps back letting go of the girl, and the man brings her to her terrified parents, who thank him endlessly.



A reporter has seen the whole scene, and addressing the man, says: "Sir, this was the most gallant and brave thing I saw a man do in my whole life."



"Why, it was nothing," said the man; "really, the lion was behind bars and I knew God would protect me just as He did Daniel in the lions den long, long ago. I just saw this little kid in danger and acted as I felt was right."



"I noticed a bible in your pocket," said the journalist.



"Yes, I'm a Christian and was on my way to a bible study," the man replied.



"Well, I'll make sure this won't go unnoticed. I'm a journalist, you know, and tomorrow's paper will have this on the front page."



The journalist leaves. The following morning the man buys the paper to see if it indeed brings news of his actions, and reads, on the first page:



"Right Wing Christian Fundamentalist Assaults African Immigrant and Steals His lunch."

For those who are too busy to read the entire report, this summary by Stephen F. Hayes in the Weekly Standard is good. in the end he comments:

What's happening here is obvious. Military historians and terrorism analysts are engaged in a good faith effort to review the captured documents from the Iraqi regime and provide a dispassionate, fact-based examination of Saddam Hussein's long support of jihadist terrorism. Most reporters don't care. They are trapped in a world where the Bush administration lied to the country about an Iraq-al Qaeda connection, and no amount of evidence to the contrary--not even the words of the fallen Iraqi regime itself--can convince them to reexamine their mistaken assumptions.

Bush administration officials, meanwhile, tell us that the Iraq war is the central front in the war on terror and that American national security depends on winning there. And yet they are too busy or too tired or too lazy to correct these fundamental misperceptions about the case for war, the most important decision of the Bush presidency.

What good is the truth if nobody knows it?