ann coulter

[Black Dog]

According to the October 2003 PIPA report, it was considered erroneous to believe that there had been a solid connection found between Iraq and al Qaeda. They said that Fox News viewers believed this by a rate of 4 to 1 over PBS viewers and NPR listeners.

There's been absolutely no evidence of a solid connection between AQ and addam. None. Zip. Nada.

National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States: Staff Statement #15

Bin Ladin also explored possible cooperation with Iraq during his time in Sudan, despite his opposition to Hussein's secular regime. Bin Ladin had in fact at one time sponsored anti-Saddam Islamists in Iraqi Kurdistan. The Sudanese, to protect their own ties with Iraq, reportedly persuaded Bin Ladin to cease this support and arranged for contacts between Iraq and Al Qaeda. A senior Iraqi intelligence officer reportedly made three visits to Sudan, finally meeting Bin Ladin in 1994. Bin Ladin is said to have requested space for training camps, as well as assistance in procuring weapons, but Iraq apparently never responded. There have been reports that contacts between Iraq and al Qaeda also occurred after Bin Ladin had returned to Afghanistan, but they do not appear to have resulted in a collaborative relationship. Two senior Al Qaeda associates have adamantly denied and ties existed between al Qaeda and Iraq. We have no credible evidence that Iraq and al Qaeda cooperated on attacks against the United States.

I thought I was having a attack of deja vu, but then I realized we've been through this routine before.

For your edification, that 's the same thread where you claimed:

Whoops. There is no reference to "no credible evidence" in the 9/11 report. The Post just made it up. No wonder they are derided as the Washington ComPost.

Whoops! Wrong again! You should change your name to Montgomery Burned.

Just like CBC did with her. They did a 3 hour interview with her, found one tiny error (Canadians actually did fight in the Vietnam War), only played that 3 minutes of the 3 hours and gleefully suggested she was an idiot.

Coulter's quote:

Canada used to be one of our most loyal friends and vice versa. Canada sent troops to Vietnam.

The clear implication is that soldiers from the Canadian armed forces fought in Vietnam. This is not the case. Mor ethan 10,000 Canadians fought in Vietnam as members of the United States' armed forces.

The NY Times' 380 tons of Iraqi weapons disappeared under the military's nose lie.

Lie? The missing explosives story was confirmed by eyewitnesses from both the U.S. and Iraqi side. Hell, the 101st airborne was caught on tape checking out the stockpiles.

So which is it?

[Montgomery Burns]

There's been absolutely no evidence of a solid connection between AQ and addam. None. Zip. Nada.

NEW YORK — A federal judge in New York City on Wednesday found Iraq among those liable for the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and awarded nearly $104 million to the families of two men who died in the World Trade Center.

The ruling by U.S. District Judge Harold Baer marked the first time that a court had pinned some blame for the attacks on Iraq.

A court of law came up with this ruling.

The Black Dog got dogged again.

Black Dog's quote...

Bin Ladin also explored possible cooperation with Iraq during his time in Sudan, despite his opposition to Hussein's secular regime. Bin Ladin had in fact at one time sponsored anti-Saddam Islamists in Iraqi Kurdistan. The Sudanese, to protect their own ties with Iraq, reportedly persuaded Bin Ladin to cease this support and arranged for contacts between Iraq and Al Qaeda. A senior Iraqi intelligence officer reportedly made three visits to Sudan, finally meeting Bin Ladin in 1994. Bin Ladin is said to have requested space for training camps, as well as assistance in procuring weapons, but Iraq apparently never responded. There have been reports that contacts between Iraq and al Qaeda also occurred after Bin Ladin had returned to Afghanistan, but they do not appear to have resulted in a collaborative relationship. Two senior Al Qaeda associates have adamantly denied and ties existed between al Qaeda and Iraq. We have no credible evidence that Iraq and al Qaeda cooperated on attacks against the United States.

...is about no credible evidence that Al Qaeda and Iraq cooperated on attacks against the US during the 1990s..

Didn't you bother to read your own link or did you think that you could pull a fast one?

Black Dog busted again.

And you must have missed this part from Page 3 of the report:

With al Qaeda as its foundation, Bin Ladin sought to build a broader Islamic army that also included terrorist groups from Egypt, Libya, Algeria, Saudi Arabia and Oman, Tunisia, Jordan, Iraq, Lebanon, Morocco, Somalia and Eritrea. Not all groups from these states agreed to join, but at least one from each did. With a multinational council intended to promote common goals, coordinate targeting and authorize asset sharing for terrorist operations, this Islamic force represented a new level of collaboration among diverse terrorist groups.

Lie? The missing explosives story was confirmed by eyewitnesses from both the U.S. and Iraqi side. Hell, the 101st airborne was caught on tape checking out the stockpiles.

So which is it?

Not Joshua *ugh* Marshall's version.

There never were was 380 tons of explosives that disappeared under the US military's nose. Hell, the Iraqi interim govt said so; the US said so and credible eyewitnesses on both sides said that Saddam had moved them before the invasion. Indeed NBC News' embedded reporter put the NY Times claim to rest.

You should pay me for having to continuously educate you.

[newbie]

Judge Baer apparently relied on evidence from ex-CIA director James Woolsey under Clinton, Laurie Mylroie (a right wing terrorist expert) and three Iraq defectors. His ruling, in his words, was "circumstantial at best." It obviously pleased the families of the victims of 911 and I hope it can bring them some closure. The real question is, Does the judge's ruling provide the absolute proof of linkage (Iraq/911)?

[Montgomery Burns]

Judge Baer apparently relied on evidence from ex-CIA director James Woolsey under Clinton, Laurie Mylroie (a right wing terrorist expert) and three Iraq defectors.  His ruling, in his words, was "circumstantial at best." It obviously pleased the families of the victims of 911 and I hope it can bring them some closure. The real question is, Does the judge's ruling provide the absolute proof of linkage (Iraq/911)?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Judge Baer said it offered enough proof to persuade a reasonable jury.

His ruling does not provide "absolute proof". But the very nature of the murky world of intelligence and counter-intelligence makes it hard - at the best of times - to come up with "absolute proof."

I'm unsure why you refer to Laurie Mylroie as a rightwinger. She was a member of Clinton's own team on Iraqi affairs.

[Black Dog]

NEW YORK — A federal judge in New York City on Wednesday found Iraq among those liable for the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and awarded nearly $104 million to the families of two men who died in the World Trade Center.

The ruling by U.S. District Judge Harold Baer marked the first time that a court had pinned some blame for the attacks on Iraq.

Baer relied on testimony from former CIA director James Woolsey and from author Laurie Mylroie in determining that Iraq "provided material support" to Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda. He also cited Colin Powell's speech to the United Nations on Feb. 5 in which the secretary of State linked Iraq to Islamist terrorism.

The testimony, Baer wrote, "barely" established a link between al-Qaeda and Iraq but offered enough proof to persuade a "reasonable jury."

Myrolie is a crackpot. No one with any knowledge of her work would take her seriously.

is about no credible evidence that Al Qaeda and Iraq cooperated on attacks against the US during the 1990s..

Didn't you bother to read your own link or did you think that you could pull a fast one?

Black Dog busted again. 

And you must have missed this part from Page 3 of the report:

With al Qaeda as its foundation, Bin Ladin sought to build a broader Islamic army that also included terrorist groups from Egypt, Libya, Algeria, Saudi Arabia and Oman, Tunisia, Jordan, Iraq, Lebanon, Morocco, Somalia and Eritrea. Not all groups from these states agreed to join, but at least one from each did. With a multinational council intended to promote common goals, coordinate targeting and authorize asset sharing for terrorist operations, this Islamic force represented a new level of collaboration among diverse terrorist groups.

Uh....there's no mention of any Iraq involvement in 9-11 in the 9-11 report. Presumably, the limited contact OBL had with Iraq in the 1990's was the end of it. There remains no credible evidence linking Iraq with 9-11.

As for your own pull quote: are you dim? The quote refers to terrorist organizations, not government. I repeat: there remains no credible evidence linking Iraq with 9-11.

There never were was 380 tons of explosives that disappeared under the US military's nose. Hell, the Iraqi interim govt said so; the US said so and credible eyewitnesses on both sides said that Saddam had moved them before the invasion. Indeed NBC News' embedded reporter put the NY Times claim to rest.

There's no evidence they were moved before the war. Such an operaton would require a fleet of trucks each moving about ten tons of explosives. All this during was a time when the U.S. hasd total air superiority and, presumably, would have had a major installation like Al Qaqaa under surveillance for signs of WMD activity.

As for the NBC report, the unit they were with stopped only briefly at the site. From the reporters interview with CNN:

Lai Ling Jew: When we went into the area, we were actually leaving Karbala and we were initially heading to Baghdad with the 101st Airborne, Second Brigade. The situation in Baghdad, the Third Infantry Division had taken over Baghdad and so they were trying to carve up the area that the 101st Airborne Division would be in charge of. Um, as a result, they had trouble figuring out who was going to take up what piece of Baghdad. They sent us over to this area in Iskanderia. We didn't know it as the Qaqaa facility at that point but when they did bring us over there we stayed there for quite a while. Almost, we stayed overnight, almost 24 hours. And we walked around, we saw the bunkers that had been bombed, and that exposed all of the ordinances that just lied dormant on the desert.

AR: Was there a search at all underway or was, did a search ensue for explosives once you got there during that 24-hour period?

LLJ: No. There wasn't a search. The mission that the brigade had was to get to Baghdad. That was more of a pit stop there for us. And, you know, the searching, I mean certainly some of the soldiers head off on their own, looked through the bunkers just to look at the vast amount of ordnance lying around. But as far as we could tell, there was no move to secure the weapons, nothing to keep looters away. But there was – at that point the roads were shut off. So it would have been very difficult, I believe, for the looters to get there.

AR: And there was no talk of securing the area after you left. There was no discussion of that?

LLJ: Not for the 101st Airborne, Second Brigade. They were -- once they were in Baghdad, it was all about Baghdad, you know, and then they ended up moving north to Mosul. Once we left the area, that was the last that the brigade had anything to do with the area.

As a result, NBC, did not push that angle, and later backed off:

Following up on that story from last night, military officials tell NBC News that on April 10, 2003, when the Second Brigade of the 101st Airborne entered the Al QaQaa weapons facility, south of Baghdad, that those troops were actually on their way to Baghdad, that they were not actively involved in the search for any weapons, including the high explosives, HMX and RDX. The troops did observe stock piles of conventional weapons but no HMX or RDX. And because the Al Qaqaa facility is so huge, it's not clear that those troops from the 101st were actually anywhere near the bunkers that reportedly contained the HMX and RDX. Three months earlier, during an inspection of the Al Qaqaa compound, the International Atomic Energy Agency secured and sealed 350 metric tons of HMX and RDX. Then in March, shortly before the war began, the I.A.E.A. conducted another inspection and found that the HMX stockpile was still intact and still under seal. But inspectors were unable to inspect the RDX stockpile and could not verify that the RDX was still at the compound. Pentagon officials say elements of the 101st airborne did conduct a thorough search of several facilities around the Al QaQaa compound for several weeks during the month of April in search of WMD. They found no WMD. And Pentagon officials say it's not clear at that time whether those other elements of the 101st actually searched the Al QaQaa compound.

Now, Pentagon officials say U.S. troops and members of the Iraq Survey Group did arrive at the Al QaQaa compound on May 27. And when they did, they found no HMX or RDX or any other weapons under seal at the time. Now, the Iraqi government is officially said that the high explosives were stolen by looters. Pentagon officials claim it's possible -- they're not sure, they say, but it's possible that Saddam Hussein himself ordered that these high explosives be removed and hidden before the war. What is clear is that the 350 metric tons of high explosives are still missing, and that the U.S. or Iraqi governments or international inspectors, for that matter, cannot say with any certainty where they are today.

Keep thos einoperative memes coming. You're a laff.

[newbie]

"I'm unsure why you refer to Laurie Mylroie as a rightwinger. She was a member of Clinton's own team on Iraqi affairs."

I think if you read her works you'd come to the same conclusion. If I may quote a portion of the reviews from her book, Saddam Hussein's Unfinished War Against America,

"... Its (her book) acknowledgements fulsomely thanked John Bolton and the staff of AEI for their assistance, while Richard Perle glowingly blurbed the book as "splendid and wholly convincing." Lewis "Scooter" Libby, now Vice President Cheney's chief of staff, is thanked for his "generous and timely assistance." And it appears that Paul Wolfowitz himself was instrumental in the genesis of Study of Revenge: His then-wife is credited with having "fundamentally shaped the book," while of Wolfowitz, she says: "At critical times, he provided crucial support for a project that is inherently difficult." ...

Oh, and she was only an Iraq advisor to Clinton during his 1992 campaign.

[Black Dog]

Armchair Provoceteur

with the bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993, the first act of international terrorism within the United States, which would launch Mylroie on a quixotic quest to prove that Saddam's regime was the most important source of terrorism directed against this country. She laid out her case in Study of Revenge: Saddam Hussein's Unfinished War Against America, a book published by AEI in 2000 which makes it clear that Mylroie and the neocon hawks worked hand in glove to push her theory that Iraq was behind the '93 Trade Center bombing. Its acknowledgements fulsomely thanked John Bolton and the staff of AEI for their assistance, while Richard Perle glowingly blurbed the book as "splendid and wholly convincing." Lewis "Scooter" Libby, now Vice President Cheney's chief of staff, is thanked for his "generous and timely assistance." And it appears that Paul Wolfowitz himself was instrumental in the genesis of Study of Revenge: His then-wife is credited with having "fundamentally shaped the book," while of Wolfowitz, she says: "At critical times, he provided crucial support for a project that is inherently difficult."

None of which was out of the ordinary, except for this: Mylroie became enamored of her theory that Saddam was the mastermind of a vast anti-U.S. terrorist conspiracy in the face of virtually all evidence and expert opinion to the contrary. In what amounts to the discovery of a unified field theory of terrorism, Mylroie believes that Saddam was not only behind the '93 Trade Center attack, but also every anti-American terrorist incident of the past decade, from the bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania to the leveling of the federal building in Oklahoma City to September 11 itself. She is, in short, a crackpot, which would not be significant if she were merely advising say, Lyndon LaRouche. But her neocon friends who went on to run the war in Iraq believed her theories, bringing her on as a consultant at the Pentagon, and they seem to continue to entertain her eccentric belief that Saddam is the fount of the entire shadow war against America.

[newbie]

Thanks for the whole quote BD.

[Guest eureka]

The Baer decision only highlights the political nature of the American system of judicial appointments: a system that so many in Canada want to emulate.

Baer should be removed from the Bench not cited as support for the proven false story of Al Quaeda in Iraq.

[Montgomery Burns]

Myrolie is a crackpot. No one with any knowledge of her work would take her seriously.

Ahhh, Clinton-appointed federal Judge Harold Baer is stoopid. If only he had listened to Black Dogg!

And Myrolie - from the liberal NYT - is a crackpot!

I love it when the left turns on their own when they are trapped.

There remains no credible evidence linking Iraq with 9-11.

Judge Baer is stoopid. And that large mural found in the police state of Iraq showing planes flying into the Twin Towers was done behind the back of Saddam. And it is the purest of coincidence that Saddam put his troops on highest military alert since the Gulf war two weeks before the suicide attacks on 9/11.

Black Dogg casually dismisses this and insists that he is sure that there was no connection between Saddam and 9/11. IF only he would offer up some proof...

As for your own pull quote: are you dim? The quote refers to terrorist organizations, not government. I repeat: there remains no credible evidence linking Iraq with 9-11.

Do you honestly think that Saddam had no idea that terrorists and terrorist groups were running around in the country he ruled with an iron fist?

Now who is the dim one?

As for the Election Eve surprise by the liberal NYT on the 377 tons of weapons stolen right under the noses of the US:

1. The IAEA could not possibly know whether the explosives were removed after American troops appeared at Al Qaqaa, and cannot even get its story straight, as to when its personnel last inspected Al Qaqaa;

2. A CBS News story from April 4, 2003 surfaced, reporting that there were no explosives at Al Qaqaa. Note, too, that CBS’ earlier report set the last date of an IAEA inspection as February 18, 2003, not March 16 of that year. IAEA has since claimed that its last inspection at the depot was on January 14, 2003;

3. As NBC’s Pentagon reporter Jim Miklaszewski reported on October 25, "NBC News [presumably Dana Lewis; see #11] was embedded with troops from the Army's 101st Airborne as they temporarily take over the Al-Qaqaa weapons installation south of Baghdad. But these troops never found the nearly 380 tons of some of the most powerful conventional explosives, called HMX and RDX, which is now missing" (from Robert B. Bluey of CNS News);

4. As Colonel David Perkins, the commander of the Army Third Infantry Division has reported, it would have been impossible to truck anything out of the Al Qaqaa complex after April 3, because the adjacent road was taken over with round-the-clock coalition supply convoys: “It would be almost impossible. There was one main road packed for weeks, bumper-to-bumper, with U.S. convoys pushing toward Baghdad.”

5. As syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer argued, the insurgency couldn’t have made off with the alleged explosives, because at that point, the insurgency did not exist;

6. The Pentagon claimed that satellite photos from before the fall of Baghdad, had shown large trucks parked near bunkers at Al Qaqaa;

7. As the New York Post’s military writer, Ralph Peters, observed on October 28, in “The Myth of the ‘Missing Explosives’: A Shameless Lie,” “looters” could not possibly have stolen the explosives, because moving such weight would have required fork lifts and a fleet of trucks, and without trained personnel, the “looters” would have ended up blown up all over the countryside, along with their booty (“Even if repeated inspections by U.S. troops had somehow missed this deadly elephant on the front porch, and even if the otherwise-incompetent Iraqis had been so skilled and organized they were able to sneak into Al-Qaqaa and load up 400 tons of Saddam's love-powder, it would have taken a Teamsters' convention to get the job done.”);

8. Peters and others have noted that military reconnaissance satellites and aircraft would have picked up on and photographed any such massive movement of non-coalition trucks and materiel after the April 9 fall of Baghdad;

9. As the Pentagon has pointed out repeatedly, 377 tons are but one-tenth of 1 percent (one-thousandth) of the amount -- 400,000 tons – found and destroyed by coalition troops in Iraq (sure, they want to cover their derrieres, but the point is still valid);

10. As Martha Raddatz -- with research from Luis Martinez -- reported on ABC’s World News Tonight on October 27, massive discrepancies obtain between the IAEA and Iraqi estimates of the missing explosives: "We have obtained a confidential report from the inspectors [presumably the UN inspectors]. In this report, there seems to be a significant discrepancy between what the Iraqis say is missing and what the inspectors said was missing. The Iraqis say there was 141 tons of the explosive RDX in July of 2002. The inspectors, in this report, said there were only three tons left in January of 2003";

11. Dana Lewis, an NBC News reporter who was embedded with the 101st Airborne when it entered Al Qaqaa in April, 2003, then said at the time, "[T]hese troops never found the nearly 380 tons of some of the most powerful conventional explosives, called HMX and RDX, which is now missing," and since the Al Qaqaa story was published, emphasized that it would have been “pretty tough” to move the 377 tons of explosives at the time;

12. As reported by Bill Gertz in the October 27 Washington Times, Undersecretary of Defense John A. Shaw insisted that Russian special forces “almost certainly” had spirited the explosives out of the country, to Syria;

13. On October 28, an ABC News videotape from April 18, 2003 surfaced, allegedly shot at Al Qaqaa, showing that explosives were still at the depot;

14. Not even Ted Koppel of ABC News, who had done yeoman’s work for the Kerry campaign, in airing an October 14 report which Koppel claimed supported John Kerry’s official swift boat record in the War in Vietnam, would support the story. In closing the October 28 edition of his show, Nightline, Koppel recalled having personally been in Al Qaqaa on the road to Baghdad on April 2, 2003, showed film footage of him interviewing a U.S. Army captain there, and cited a “friend” who is a “senior military commander” who “believes that the explosives had already been removed by Saddam’s forces, before we ever got there. The Iraqis, he said, were convinced that the U.S. was going to bomb the place”;

15. At an October 29 Pentagon press conference, Army Maj. Austin Pearson, an ammunition management officer who was at the Iraqi ammunition depot Al Qaqaa (which he knew at the time as “Objective ELMS”) in April, 2003 with the Army 3rd Infantry Division, estimated that his unit removed 200-250 tons of explosives, explosives, which were destroyed in June, 2003, at Logistic Support Area Dogwood in Iraq.

Whoops

The missing weapons story has holes big enough to drive a truck through it, the media quickly backed off the story, but Black Dogg insists it is true.

Keep your mantras coming. I do find them amusing.

[Montgomery Burns]

The Baer decision only highlights the political nature of the American system of judicial appointments: a system that so many in Canada want to emulate.

Baer should be removed from the Bench not cited as support for the proven false story of Al Quaeda in Iraq.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Iraq was not hosting Zarqawi (after the US overthrew the Taliban), the well-known Al Qaeda operative, and did not give him aid, comfort, and medical treatment.

Iraq was not the only country in the world in which Al Qaeda was able to field brigade-sized formations in 2003, and they did not precisely do that in northern Iraq, under the banner of Ansar al Islam.

Abdul Yasin, one of the two men who bombed the World Trade Center in 1993, was not traced to a Baghdad apartment and placed on the Ba'athist payroll.

Zawahiri, Al Qaeda's 2nd in command, was not invited to a conference in Iraq by a member of Iraq's cabinet. Another of Saddam's cabinet members did not offer him sanctuary in Iraq in 1999, well after the African embassy bombings.

And of course, even though Al Qaeda was in Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Indonesia, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Spain, Morocco, Lybia, Algeria, Palestine, Israel, and the U.S., the U.K., and the Phillipines, somehow Al Qaeda was miraculously absent from Iraq.

But according to Eureka, "Baer should be removed from the Bench not cited as support for the proven false story of Al Qaeda in Iraq."

No wonder even your leftwing buddies here refused to comment on your ludicrous statement.

How can you be so blindly ignorant of Al Qaeda's ties with Iraq?

[Black Dog]

Ahhh, Clinton-appointed federal Judge Harold Baer is stoopid. If only he had listened to Black Dogg!

I'm not really surprised you don';t even know what Baer said.

"However, the opinion testimony of the plaintiffs' experts is sufficient to meet plaintiffs' burden that Iraq collaborated in or supported bin Laden/al Qaeda's terrorist acts of September 11. Although these experts provided few actual facts of any material support that Iraq actually provided, their opinions, coupled with their qualifications as experts on this issue, provide a sufficient basis for a reasonable jury to draw inferences which could lead to the conclusion that Iraq provided material support to al Qaeda and that it did so with knowledge and intent to further al Qaeda's criminal acts" 262 F.Supp.2d 217, 232.

In other words, no evidence, just speculation and conjecture.

Let's break it down: on Monty's side, we've a no-name judge and a whackhjob consiracy theorist. On the other, the Dufler report, the 9-11 Commission and the freaking President (who would have a very vested interest in showing a link between Saddam and 9-11) all saying, essentially, there's no link.

And really, Myrolie wouldn't be the first crackpot employed by the Times, nor the

last.

Judge Baer is stoopid. And that large mural found in the police state of Iraq showing planes flying into the Twin Towers was done behind the back of Saddam. And it is the purest of coincidence that Saddam put his troops on highest military alert since the Gulf war two weeks before the suicide attacks on 9/11.

Black Dogg casually dismisses this and insists that he is sure that there was no connection between Saddam and 9/11. IF only he would offer up some proof...

Whoa! A MURAL! Why didn't you say so, man? Have you alerted the President?

Now who is the dim one?

Still you, sweetheart.

But according to Eureka, "Baer should be removed from the Bench not cited as support for the proven false story of Al Qaeda in Iraq."

No wonder even your leftwing buddies here refused to comment on your ludicrous statement.

How can you be so blindly ignorant of Al Qaeda's ties with Iraq

Because, as the 9-11 commission report indicated, the issue isn't whether or not any AQ affiliates or members were in Iraq, but if there was a working relationship between Saddam's regime and teh organization. And, again, according to the commission's report (the results of which have not been disputed by the administration, which, again, would have a vested interest in demonstrating such a relationship), there was " no collaborative relationship" between the two camps.

But i am curious about one thing: if ther eis such an overwhelming mountain of evidence linking the two, why isn't that evidence being trotted out every single day by the PUSA in response to criticism on Iraq. Why would the administration sit on iformation that would be so very beneficial to them politically?

[Guest eureka]

Baer may not be "stoopid" and he may even be able to spell the word.

If so, then he is guilty of an impeachable offense. The laeger offense, of course, since his opinion has no legal merit, is that the world is full of idiots who want to believe him and he is pandering to them.

[Montgomery Burns]

Baer may not be "stoopid" and he may even be able to spell the word.

If so, then he is guilty of an impeachable offense. The laeger offense, of course, since his opinion has no legal merit, is that the world is full of idiots who want to believe him and he is pandering to them.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

A judge's opinion has no legal merit?

Okay.

And because of the "laeger" offense, said judge should be impeached?

Wow.

[Montgomery Burns]

Black Dog:

I'm not really surprised you don';t even know what Baer said.

Actually I do. And anyone with reading comprehension skills knows what he wrote:.

"However, the opinion testimony of the plaintiffs' experts is sufficient to meet plaintiffs' burden that Iraq collaborated in or supported bin Laden/al Qaeda's terrorist acts of September 11. Although these experts provided few actual facts of any material support that Iraq actually provided, their opinions, coupled with their qualifications as experts on this issue, provide a sufficient basis for a reasonable jury to draw inferences which could lead to the conclusion that Iraq provided material support to al Qaeda and that it did so with knowledge and intent to further al Qaeda's criminal acts" 262 F.Supp.2d 217, 232.

Expert's opinions are dismissed in court cases? Only in the Bizarro world you live in.

Let's break it down: on Monty's side, we've a no-name judge

Hahahaha. No-name judge. More slurs against anyone who doesn't agree with Black Dog.

and a whackhjob consiracy theorist.

Hahahaha. More slurs against anyone who doesn't agree with Black Dog.

9/11 commission Chair Thomas Kean said, "Were there contacts between al-Qaida and Iraq? Yes. Some of them were shadowy, but they were there."

"There were connections between al-Qaida and Saddam Hussein's government. We don't disagree with that," said commission Vice Chair Lee Hamilton.

The 9/11 commission staff report details a series of contacts between Saddam Hussein's regime and Osama bin Laden. The report in effect confirms everything Colin Powell said about Iraq/al-Qaida ties in his February 2003 presentation to the UN. Nazi Germany and Tojo's Japan had a "collaborative relationship" before and during WW II which was, to put it mildly, troublesome for the US, even though there is "no credible evidence" that Hitler was involved in planning the attack on Pearl Harbor.

But the fact is that the only legal ruling concluded that a reasonable jury would conclude that Iraq was involved in 9/11.

We will probably never know 100%, but in this day and age of Islamic terrorism, Bush correctly concluded that one cannot sit back and demand DNA or photographic evidence, like Black Dogg appers to be suggesting.

And really, Myrolie wouldn't be the first crackpot employed by the Times, nor the last.

Says the guy who linked to a Washington Monthly article titled "Laurie Mylroie: The Neocons' favorite conspiracy theorist.

Btw, I like their Mission Statement:

Are you fed up with the imperial Bush White House? The timid Democrats? The spinnable national media?

Oh, that legendary biased rightwing national media.

Well, now is the time to join people such as Warren Buffett, Paul Krugman, Garry Trudeau, Molly Ivins,

All raving lunatics except for Warren Buffet.

Bill Clinton,

Impeached for lying under oath

and the producers of "60 Minutes"

Of fake memos infamy.

Real credible source there. And I love how the left turns against their own (Harvard's Mylroie and the NYT) when something is reported that they don't like.

A mural at a military base in Iraq. Iraq allowed Al Qaeda to use his terrorist training camp at Salman Pak (before 9/11) which featured a passenger jet on which Al Qaeda terrorists sharpened their air piracy skills. And it is the purest of coincidence that Saddam put his troops on highest military alert since the Gulf war two weeks before the suicide attacks on 9/11.

If there is absolutely no evidence whatsoever, where is your proof?

Why do I get the feeling that Black Dogg believes that OJ never murdered Nicole Simpson and Ron Goldman?

Because, as the 9-11 commission report indicated, the issue isn't whether or not any AQ affiliates or members were in Iraq, but if there was a working relationship between Saddam's regime and teh organization.

Nonsense. They said over and over again that there were ties between the two. I suggest getting your news from other sources besides the CBC.

But i am curious about one thing: if ther eis such an overwhelming mountain of evidence linking the two, why isn't that evidence being trotted out every single day by the PUSA in response to criticism on Iraq.

They have said it over and over again. Where have you been?

[Montgomery Burns]

Hot off the press:

The Iraqi links the 9/11 Commissioners left out of their report

[Guest eureka]

Of course expert testimony should be dismissed if there is no evidence to support it. Or don't you know the difference between evidence and testimony?

[Black Dog]

Expert's opinions are dismissed in court cases? Only in the Bizarro world you live in.

As I've already noted, Myrolie is a crackpot. Any judge willing to accept her testimony is flirting with crackpotdom himself.

9/11 commission Chair Thomas Kean said, "Were there contacts between al-Qaida and Iraq? Yes. Some of them were shadowy, but they were there."

"There were connections between al-Qaida and Saddam Hussein's government. We don't disagree with that," said commission Vice Chair Lee Hamilton.

"no collaborative relationship"

What do you suppose that means? It certainly allows for the possibility of contact between huessin and AQ, and indeed, such contacts have been documented. However, there's absolutely no evidence of any working relationship . None.

Real credible source there. And I love how the left turns against their own (Harvard's Mylroie and the NYT) when something is reported that they don't like.

A few pointers for our reality-impaired friend:

The New York Times is not "left wing" (indeed, jailed Times reporter Judith Miller was a key figure in dissemenating administrations WMD claims to the public), nor is Myrolie left wing by association.

If there is absolutely no evidence whatsoever, where is your proof?

You can't prove a negative.

A mural at a military base in Iraq. Iraq allowed Al Qaeda to use his terrorist training camp at Salman Pak (before 9/11) which featured a passenger jet on which Al Qaeda terrorists sharpened their air piracy skills. And it is the purest of coincidence that Saddam put his troops on highest military alert since the Gulf war two weeks before the suicide attacks on 9/11.

Again: all this would constitute "smoking gun evidence" of Iarq's involvement, yet the Bush administartion has been completely silent and has disavowed any links between Iraq and 9-11. Why would they do that Monty? Why would they leave that information to fringe right-wing web sites, bloggers and discussion forum posters when they would have so much to gain by showing such a link? I've asked this question more times han I care to count, and have not recieved an answer, I expect because the "evidence" is overblown, exaggerated (a mural?!) and unsupported by any real evidence.

I'm done.

[Montgomery Burns]

Of course expert testimony should be dismissed if there is no evidence to support it. Or don't you know the difference between evidence and testimony?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Evidence was given. Are you not aware of the passenger jet at Salman Pak?

Pay attention - like Judge Harold Baer did.

[Montgomery Burns]

Black Dog:

As I've already noted, Myrolie is a crackpot. Any judge willing to accept her testimony is flirting with crackpotdom himself.

Laurie Myrolie is an internationally recognized expert on Iraq and terrorism.

She was an Assistant Professor in Harvard's Political Science Department, before becoming an Associate Professor in the Strategy Department at the US Naval War College. She was a member of the staff of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. She also served as advisor on Iraq to the 1992 Clinton presidential campaign and has worked as a consultant on terrorism to the Departments of Defense and Energy

She is the author of Study of Revenge: Saddam Hussein.s Unfinished War Against America. Published in paperback, as The War Against America, the book was hailed by Deputy Secretary of Defense, Paul Wolfowitz: "argues powerfully"; and Richard Perle, former Assistant Secretary of Defense, "splendid and wholly convincing". J. Gilmore Childers, lead prosecutor in the World Trade Center bombing trial, described it as "work the US govt should have done".

Her first book, Saddam Hussein and the Crisis in the Gulf, (co-authored with Judith Miller) was a #1 New York Times bestseller, translated into 13 languages.

Her articles have appeared in The American Spectator, The Atlantic Monthly, Commentary, Jane.s Intelligence Review, The National Interest, The New Republic, and Newsweek, as well as The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Washington Post, among others.

But according to BC, she is a crackpot because some guy writing in a liberal magazine raged about her and 'neocons'.

Ditto for Judge Harold Baer.

"no collaborative relationship"  What do you suppose that means?

Able Danger. Ever heard of that?

People are starting to call the 9/11 Commission Report the 9/11 Omission Report. What do you suppose that means?

It certainly allows for the possibility of contact between huessin and AQ, and indeed, such contacts have been documented.

How gracious of you.

1) Abdul Rahman Yasin was the only member of the Al Qaeda cell that detonated the 1993 World Trade Center bomb to remain at large in the Clinton years. He fled to Iraq. US forces discovered a cache of documents in Tikrit, Saddam's hometown, that show that Iraq gave Yasin both a house and monthly salary.

2) Bin Laden met at least 8 times with officers of Iraq's Special Security Organization, a secret police agency run by Saddam's son Qusay, and met with officials from Saddam's mukhabarat, its external intelligence service, according to intelligence made public by Colin Powell, who was speaking before the UNSC in February 2003.

3) Sudanese intelligence officials said their agents had observed meetings between Iraqi intelligence agents and bin Laden starting in 1994, when bin Laden lived in Khartoum.

4) Bin Laden met the director of the Iraqi mukhabarat in 1996 in Khartoum, according to Colin Powell.

5) An Al Qaeda operative now held by the US confessed that in the mid-1990s, bin Laden had forged an agreement with Saddam's men to cease all terrorist activities against the Iraqi dictator, Colin Powell told the UN.

6) In 1999 the UK's Guardian newspaper reported that Farouk Hijazi, a senior officer in Iraq's mukhabarat, had journeyed deep into the icy mountains near Kandahar, Afghanistan, in December 1998 to meet with Al Qaeda men. Mr. Hijazi is "thought to have offered bin Laden asylum in Iraq," the Guardian reported.

7) In October 2000, another Iraqi intelligence operative, Salah Suleiman, was arrested near the Afghan border by Pakistani authorities, according to Jane's Foreign Report, a respected international newsletter. Jane's reported that Suleiman was shuttling between Iraqi intelligence and Ayman al Zawahiri, now Al Qaeda's #2 man.

8) As recently as 2001, Iraq's embassy in Pakistan was used as a "liaison" between the Iraqi dictator and Al Qaeda, Colin Powell told the UN.

9) Spanish investigators uncovered documents seized from Yusuf Galan - who was charged by a Spanish court with being "directly involved with the preparation and planning" of the Sept. 11 attacks - that show the terrorist was invited to a party at the Iraqi embassy in Madrid. The invitation used his "Al Qaeda nom de guerre," London's Independent reported.

10) An Iraqi defector to Turkey, known by his cover name as "Abu Mohammed," told Gwynne Roberts of the Sunday Times of London that he saw bin Laden's fighters in camps in Iraq in 1997. At the time, Mohammed was a colonel in Saddam's Fedayeen. He described an encounter at Salman Pak, the training facility southeast of Baghdad. At that vast compound run by Iraqi intelligence, Muslim militants trained to hijack planes with knives - on a full-size Boeing 707. Colonel Mohammed recalls his first visit to Salman Pak this way: "We were met by Colonel Jamil Kamil, the camp manager, and Major Ali Hawas. I noticed that a lot of people were queuing for food. The major said to me: 'You'll have nothing to do with these people. They are Osama bin Laden's group and the PKK and Mojahedin-e Khalq.'"

11) In 1998, Abbas al-Janabi, a longtime aide to Saddam's son Uday, defected to the West. At the time, he repeatedly told reporters that there was a direct connection between Iraq and Al Qaeda.

12) The Sunday Times found a Saddam loyalist in a Kurdish prison who claims to have been Dr. Zawahiri's bodyguard during his 1992 visit with Saddam in Baghdad. Dr. Zawahiri was a close associate of bin Laden at the time and was present at the founding of Al Qaeda in 1989.

13) Following the defeat of the Taliban, almost two dozen bin Laden associates "converged on Baghdad and established a base of operations there," Colin Powell told the UN in February 2003. From their Baghdad base, the secretary said, they supervised the movement of men, materiel and money for Al Qaeda's global network.

14) In 2001, an al Qaeda member "bragged that the situation in Iraq was 'good,'" according to intelligence made public by Colin Powell.

15) That same year, Saudi Arabian border guards arrested two Al Qaeda members entering the kingdom from Iraq.

16) Abu Musaab al-Zarqawi oversaw an Al Qaeda training camp in Afghanistan. His specialty was poisons. Wounded in fighting with US forces, he sought medical treatment in Baghdad in May 2002. When Zarqawi recovered, he restarted a training camp in northern Iraq. Zarqawi's Iraq cell was later tied to the October 2002 murder of Lawrence Foley, an official of the US Agency for Int'l Development, in Amman, Jordan. The captured assassin confessed that he received orders and funds from Zarqawi's cell in Iraq. His accomplice escaped to Iraq.

17) Zarqawi met with military chief of Al Qaeda, Mohammed Ibrahim Makwai (aka Saif al-Adel) in Iran in February 2003, according to intelligence sources cited by the Washington Post.

18) Mohammad Atef, the head of Al Qaeda's military wing until the US killed him in Afghanistan in November 2001, told a senior Al Qaeda member now in US custody that the terror network needed labs outside of Afghanistan to manufacture chemical weapons, Colin Powell said. "Where did they go, where did they look?" said the secretary. "They went to Iraq."

19) Abu Abdullah al-Iraqi was sent to Iraq by bin Laden to purchase poison gases several times between 1997 and 2000. He called his relationship with Saddam's regime "successful," Colin Powell told the UN.

20) Mohamed Mansour Shahab, a smuggler hired by Iraq to transport weapons to bin Laden in Afghanistan, was arrested by anti-Hussein Kurdish forces in May, 2000. He later told his story to American intelligence and a reporter for the New Yorker magazine.

21) Documents found among the debris of the Iraqi Intelligence Center show that Baghdad funded the Allied Democratic Forces, a Ugandan terror group led by an Islamist cleric linked to bin Laden. According to a London's Daily Telegraph, the organization offered to recruit "youth to train for the jihad" at a "headquarters for international holy warrior network" to be established in Baghdad.

22) Mullah Melan Krekar, ran a terror group (the Ansar al-Islam) linked to both bin Laden and Saddam Hussein. Mr. Krekar admitted to a Kurdish newspaper that he met bin Laden in Afghanistan and other senior Al Qaeda officials. His acknowledged meetings with bin Laden go back to 1988. When he organized Ansar al Islam in 2001 to conduct suicide attacks on Americans, "three bin Laden operatives showed up with a gift of $300,000 'to undertake jihad,'" Newsday reported. Mr. Krekar is now in custody in the Netherlands. His group operated in portion of northern Iraq loyal to Saddam Hussein - and attacked independent Kurdish groups hostile to Saddam. A spokesman for the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan told a UPI correspondent that Mr. Krekar's group was funded by "Saddam Hussein's regime in Baghdad."

23) After October 2001, hundreds of Al Qaeda fighters are believed to have holed up in the Ansar al-Islam's strongholds inside northern Iraq.

However, there's absolutely no evidence of any working relationship . None.

Absolutely no evidence of any working relationship...

A few pointers for our reality-impaired friend:

The New York Times is not "left wing" (indeed, jailed Times reporter Judith Miller was a key figure in dissemenating administrations WMD claims to the public), nor is Myrolie left wing by association.

A few pointers for our reality-impaired friend:

The editor for the NYT - in an op-ed - admitted that the paper was liberal, and said that anyone who didn't notice this has not been paying attention.

Pay attention, BD.

As for Judith Miller, I don't know if she is "leftwing", but the fact that she works for the self-admitted liberal NYT, and the fact that liberal Tom Brokaw visited her in jail and demanded her release, might make a reasonable person conclude she is a liberal. However she does not seem to be a LLL.

I just can't envision Brokaw visiting, say a Mark Steyn, in jail and demanding his release.

You can't prove a negative.

Er, yes you can. Logic 101. Study it.

Again: all this would constitute "smoking gun evidence" of Iarq's involvement, yet the Bush administartion has been completely silent and has disavowed any links between Iraq and 9-11. Why would they do that Monty? Why would they leave that information to fringe right-wing web sites, bloggers and discussion forum posters when they would have so much to gain by showing such a link? I've asked this question more times han I care to count, and have not recieved an answer, I expect because the "evidence" is overblown, exaggerated (a mural?!) and unsupported by any real evidence.

I never said it was "smoking gun evidence". I said that there were many suspicious happenings between the two - which might make a reasonable person conclude that Iraq might have been involved with 9/11. Certainly the Boeing 707 at the terrorist training camp at Salman Pak is very suspicious.

Yet you have claimed that there is absolutely nothing to conclude that the two were tied.

Where is your evidence to back up your claim?

Since when did the Telegraph, Judge Harold Baer, and the US Military become "fringe right-wing web sites, bloggers and discussion forum posters"? That's rich coming from someone who links to the far-left Washington Monthly.

And the Bush Administration has not specifically mentioned that Iraq was involved with 9/11, but they have repeatedly and strongly told the public about Al Qaeda's ties with Iraq.

Again, if you are so cocksure that there was absolutely no involvement by Iraq whatsoever in 9/11, where is your proof?

And no, I don't mean "proof" like your ludicrous claim that the Duefler Report (which was about stockpiles of WMD) "proves" that Iraq and Al Qaeda had no link.

I'm done.

Buh-bye.

[Black Dog]

never said it was "smoking gun evidence". I said that there were many suspicious happenings between the two - which might make a reasonable person conclude that Iraq might have been involved with 9/11. Certainly the Boeing 707 at the terrorist training camp at Salman Pak is very suspicious.

Well, you've been going on and on about Salman Pak, and any other shred of heresay, speculation and innuendo you can. In that way, you're very much like left-wing conspiracy nuts who take any bit of heresay, speculation and innuendo they can to show, for example, that the Pentagon was not hit by a plane on 9-11 but a cruise missile or some other such conspiracy theory demonstrating the U.S. government's knowledge of or outright complicity in the events of 9-11. That's what makes conspiracy theories so seductive: they draw threads from every which way in and tie them together in a neat little package. Nonetheless, no matter what you present, the fundamental fact is that the administration has made no attempt to connect Saddam to 9-11 and has offered up (in fact, disavowed) any solid link between the two, despite the fact it the political benefits of doing so would be enormous. The only reasonable conclusion one could reach from that simple fact is that the intelligence is just too weak to allow them to make a strong claim. And given this particular administration's past useage of weak evidence based on unreliable testimony ("Curveball", anyone?), that must be saying something.

[Shady]

Great post Montgomery Burns! There's so much intelligence and evidence of Iraq's connections to terrorism, that it's almost too much to post, but good job.

Russia Warned U.S. About Iraq, Putin Says

Russian President Vladimir Putin said yesterday that his intelligence service had warned the Bush administration before the U.S. invasion of Iraq that Saddam Hussein's government was planning attacks against U.S. targets both inside and outside the country.

Putin, who opposed Bush's decision to go to war in Iraq, did not go into detail about the information that was forwarded, and said Russia had no evidence that Hussein was involved in any attacks.

"After Sept. 11, 2001, and before the start of the military operation in Iraq, the Russian special services, the intelligence service, received information that officials from Saddam's regime were preparing terrorist attacks in the United States and outside it against the U.S. military and other interests," Putin said, according to RIA Novosti, the Russian news agency. "American President George Bush had an opportunity to personally thank the head of one of the Russian special services for this information, which he regarded as very important," the Russian president told an interviewer while in Astana, capital of Kazakhstan

Washington Post

Oh, and about Ann Coulter. She makes some really good points. Especially about us not having to equip a real military for protection. America protects us and saves us billions of dollars each year because of it. Just think of the situation our "free" healthcare and "free" education would be in, if we instead had to invest billions more in our military.

[Montgomery Burns]

Dang Shady. Good catch. I forgot about Putin's remarks. There is so much evidence that it is difficult to remember it all.

As for Ann Coulter, yes she is a flame-thrower, but she is usually right on the money and she drives the left insane with rage.

I like that.

[losiguy]

n

[mcqueen625]

Give it up! The reality is that our pathetic armed forces altogether couldn't defend PEI from invasion by New Brunswick. Our government for years tries to act all independant but the reality is that because of neglect of our own miliyary we are forced to rely on the U.S. for our protection if their ever was an invasion. For us to act as if we are independent of the U.S is noting if not asinine. Most of our major corporations are simply subsiduaries of U.S. corporations, so stop feeling so high and mighty. Critism of Canada by the U.S. is justified in my opinion, I don't feel I have anything to feel patriotic about being Canadian born, in fact I admire how patriotic Americans are of their country meanwhile whole provinces in Canada are promoting that this country break up, and they elect MP's specifically for that purpose.

Why would any Canadian be proud? Proud of what? Having a federal government so corrupt that they think nothing of stealing moeny and passing it to their business friends in the form of grants, yet we re-elect them to office knowing that they are a bunch of thieves and liars. That's not something I can be proud of.

More than 15 years ago our federal government made a committment to eliminate child poverty by 2000, and here it is 2005 and child poverty is just as bad or worse than it was 15 years ago. In fact the numbers of homeless has grown significantly, and the usage of soup kitchens and food banks continues to grow as I write this. I am involved as Treasurer of a small local food bank and I can tell you that not a week goes by without a new family coming through our doors needing help with groceries. I perdict with the gouging allowed to go on by the insurance and oil industries because our governments continue to nothing, this winter is going to cause our numbers to break even more records of usage., not that we haven't continually exceeded the previous years numbers every year already. Our politicians tell us that everything is rosy, the economy is in great shape, and I have to wonder who they are talking about, because it certainly isn't anyone I have been in contact with. The people I talk to are worried about such things as being able to pay their heating oil or hydro bills in order to heat their homes. They worry about wether thay are going to be able to afford the medications their doctors have prescribed, or are they going to have enough food to eat. Of course our politician's don't think about things like that because they have never had to deal with living in poverty, They think only of their own comforts and that of their corporate buddy's who concern themselves with things like which cruise they are going to go on when the cold weather hits, or how long they should stay in Florida. Things people living in poverty can only dream about, but what do our politicians care about them, exactly nothing!