Lost comments

Due to a template change some comments were lost from the "newsweek" post...Here they are.

At 10/2/2004 09:36:16 PM, Anonymous said...
Here's a fact: Iraq had no connection to Al Qaida.

Here's another fact: Iraq had no WMD.

How about dem facts?

At 10/2/2004 10:29:00 PM, Mike said...
It cannot be proven as fact that Saddam had no connection to Osama and his ilk, there simply is no evidence to support that conclusion. If you have some feel free to post links to it, or some other documented reference. What the 9/11 commission report actually said, if you read the report, is that Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11 in and of itself, meaning that Iraq wasn't involved with that operation. I'll give some examples:

-Page 66: "According to one report, Saddam Hussein's efforts at this time to rebuild relations with the Saudis and other Middle Eastern regimes led him to stay clear of Bin Ladin. In mid-1998, the situation reversed, it was Iraq that reportedly took the initiative. In March 1998, after Bin Ladin's public fatwa against the United States, two al Qaeda members reportedly went to Iraq to meet with Iraqi intelligence. In July, and Iraqi delegation traveled to Afghanistan to meet first with the Taliban and then with Bin Ladin." -- There's more, but go read it.

-Page 134, section 4.4 "[Richard Clarke] wrote Deputy National Security Advisor Donald Kerrick that one reliable source reported Bin Ladin's having met with Iraqi officials, who "may have offered him asylum." Other intelligence sources say that some Taliban leaders...had urged Bin Ladin to go to Iraq. If Bin Ladin actually moved to Iraq, wrote Clarke, his network would be at Saddam Hussein's service, and it would be 'virtually impossible' to find him."

On page 334 (section 10.3) we find what people usually cite when they say Iraq had no connection, but if read in context, the passage, "The Memo found no 'compelling case' that Iraq had either planned or perpetrated the attacks." The memo in question is limited in scope to the 9/11 attacks themselves, and does not deal with Saddam's tolerance, cooperation, aid, funding, etc with al Qaeda.

Once again, it cannot be proven as fact that Saddam didn't have weapons, the fact that we have not found large stockpiles does NOT mean they weren't there. There are three possibilities: One, that he had them and hid them (not terribly hard to do in a country the size of California). Two, that he didn't have any (but wait, he USED some against his own people). Now, speaking of pre-war inspections, if he really had nothing to hide, why did he defy the UN? No matter how much you want something to be true (ie, Bush lied) you still have to square with the facts.

Remember, absence of proof is NOT proof of absence. In 99% of situations, the simplest answer that fits the facts is the correct one.

At 10/2/2004 10:34:10 PM, Mike said...
The third possibility that I refered to, but neglected to mention is that since we know Saddam had the capability to make WMD's it's possible he only kept a very small stockpile, or none at all, and that his dodging with the inspectors was to cover up the fact that he could and was making them.