For you information, while you failed to address the point of my post, you also provide a link to Wikipedia which absolutely backs up scads of known connections between Iraq and Al Qaeda.
The article offers opinion from both sides, but definitely fails to debunk much at all, including the alleged Prague meeting. By the by, it confirms that it was an Iraqi who put several 911 hijackers together for a meeting, when it states "The CIA has concluded that....Shakir al-Azzawi was indeed an Iraqi with connections to the embassy in Malaysia who helped organize the Kuala Lumpur meeting (between three 911 hijackers. His Malaysian connection was another Iraqi with an official position in Malaysa, who got him the job he soon left after the meeting. When ultimately arrested, he possessed plans for Al Qaeda operations - Dan B.),
The article does not debunk the notion that Salmon Pak was used to train foriegn terrorists. It quotes Dulfer and others offering further testimony and indication that it was.
The article contains some glaring and wholly unsupported statements of pure bias (and this sort of thing is common in Wikipedia). For but one example we find: "1999
* January, Newsweek magazine reported Saddam Hussein is joining forces with al-Qaeda to launch joint terror counter-strikes against the US and Britain. An Arab intelligence officer, reported to know Saddam personally, told Newsweek: "very soon, you will be witnessing large-scale terrorist activity by the Iraqis." The planned attacks are said to be Saddam's revenge for the "continuing aggression" posed by the no fly zones that show the countries are still at war since Operation Desert Fox.[81] The planned attacks never materialized..."
Never materialized? Oh? But then we also find that this particular point wraps up with an opinion from the same Newsweek article that "'I'm skeptical that Saddam would resort to terrorism,' says a well informed administration official." [10]"
And what is that opinion worth when we KNOW Saddam supported terrorists by offering to, and in fact paying the families of suicide bombers?
I could go on, but suffice it to say that your characterization of the article as having "debunked" much of anything is specious indeed.
We also find in the article pre-war quotes from President Bush in which he consistently denied there was any proof of collaboration between Iraq and Al Qaeda in 911.
Dan B. |
