SwiftVets.com

[fortdixlover]

When I read Op-Eds like this one, I begin to believe the New York Times is on the payroll of hostile foreign governments or hostile non-governmental organizations. The likelihood that there is more than meets the eye regarding the outrageous, deliberate, sloppily-researched, mind-bending anti-U.S. government positions of the Times should at least be considered.

Compare and contrast this NY Times "Op-Ed" with the excerpts from http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/06/18/saddam.terror/ , below.

FDL

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New York Times, June 19, 2004
Show Us the Proof

When the commission studying the 9/11 terrorist attacks refuted the Bush administration's claims of a connection between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden, we suggested that President Bush apologize for using these claims to help win Americans' support for the invasion of Iraq. We did not really expect that to happen. But we were surprised by the depth and ferocity of the administration's capacity for denial. President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney have not only brushed aside the panel's findings and questioned its expertise, but they are also trying to rewrite history.

Mr. Bush said the 9/11 panel had actually confirmed his contention that there were "ties" between Iraq and Al Qaeda. He said his administration had never connected Saddam Hussein to 9/11. Both statements are wrong.

***** Note to readers, and especially ROTC DAD and other Linguistic Wrong Way Feldmans: Wrong (Merriam-Webster): the state, position, or fact of being or doing wrong: as: the state of being mistaken or incorrect

Before the war, Mr. Bush spoke of far more than vague "ties" between Iraq and Al Qaeda. He said Iraq had provided Al Qaeda with weapons training, bomb-making expertise and a base in Iraq. On Feb. 8, 2003, Mr. Bush said that "an Al Qaeda operative was sent to Iraq several times in the late 1990's for help in acquiring poisons and gases." The 9/11 panel's report, as well as news articles, indicate that these things never happened.

(Al-Queda affiliate Ansar Al-Islam in N. Iraq notwithstanding, the NYT is saying that the connections weren't fruitful that we can prove in court, therefore they were irrelevant and did not occur at all...I think I now know where ROTC DAD is getting his lessons in linguistic b.s. and irrelevancy from...e.g., proof by LACK of evidence...and taking things to their illogical conclusions...Gee, I've never seen Adams drink, therefore, Adams is one of those Amish people...but I digress...

Mr. Cheney said yesterday that the "evidence is overwhelming" of an Iraq-Qaeda axis and that there had been a "whole series of high-level contacts" between them. The 9/11 panel said a senior Iraqi intelligence officer made three visits to Sudan in the early 1990's, meeting with Osama bin Laden once in 1994. It said Osama bin Laden had asked for "space to establish training camps, as well as assistance in procuring weapons, but Iraq apparently never responded." The panel cited reports of further contacts after Osama bin Laden returned to Afghanistan in 1996, but said there was no working relationship. As far as the public record is concerned, then, Mr. Cheney's "longstanding ties" amount to one confirmed meeting, after which the Iraq government did not help Al Qaeda. By those standards, the United States has longstanding ties to North Korea.

(Commission chairman Thomas Kean, the former Republican governor of New Jersey, downplayed any conflict at a news conference following Thursday's hearings. "What we have found is, Were there contacts between al Qaeda and Iraq? Yes. Some of them were shadowy but they were there," Kean said.

http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/004/248eaurh.asp?pg=2 : By week's end, several 9/11 panel commissioners sought to clarify the muddled report. According to commissioner John Lehman on Fox News, "What our report said really supports what the administration, in its straight presentations, has said: that there were numerous contacts; there's evidence of collaboration on weapons. And we found earlier, we reported earlier, that there was VX gas that was clearly from Iraq in the Sudan site that President Clinton hit. And we have significant evidence that there were contacts over the years and cooperation, although nothing that would be operational."

Commissioner Slade Gorton supports Lehman's comments, adding, "The Democrats are attempting to say that this gives the lie to the administration's claim that there was a connection between 9/11 and Saddam," he said. "But the administration never said that.")

Mr. Bush has also used a terrorist named Abu Musab al-Zarqawi as evidence of a link between Iraq and Al Qaeda. Mr. Bush used to refer to Mr. Zarqawi as a "senior Al Qaeda terrorist planner" who was in Baghdad working with the Iraqi government. But the director of central intelligence, George Tenet, told the Senate earlier this year that Mr. Zarqawi did not work with the Hussein regime, nor under the direction of Al Qaeda.

When it comes to 9/11, someone in the Bush administration has indeed drawn the connection to Iraq: the vice president. Mr. Cheney has repeatedly referred to reports that Mohamed Atta met in Prague in April 2001 with an Iraqi intelligence agent. He told Tim Russert of NBC on Dec. 9, 2001, that this report has "been pretty well confirmed." If so, no one seems to have informed the C.I.A., the Czech government or the 9/11 commission, which said it did not appear to be true. Yet Mr. Cheney cited it, again, on Thursday night on CNBC.

(MY GOD. The commission said it didn't appear to be true BECAUSE ATTA'S CELL PHONE WAS USED BY SOMEONE IN THE U.S. AT THE TIME ATTA WAS SUPPOSED TO BE IN PRAGUE. IS THIS A FORENSIC COMMISSION THAT'S COMPOSED OF SERIOUS PEOPLE, OR A THREE STOOGES COMMISSION OF BUFFOONS, GIRL SCOUTS AND UTTER DILETTANTES? THIS COUNTRY IS INDEED IN TROUBLE IF THAT'S HOW SPECIAL COMMISSIONS MAKE DECISIONS ON U.S. SECURITY MATTERS...)

Mr. Cheney said he had lots of documents to prove his claims. We have heard that before, but Mr. Cheney always seems too pressed for time or too concerned about secrets to share them.

Gee, I wonder why Cheyney might be too busy to schmooze? Perhaps matters more important than the New York Times?

Last September, Mr. Cheney's adviser, Mary Matalin, explained to The Washington Post that Mr. Cheney had access to lots of secret stuff. She said he had to "tiptoe through the land mines of what's sayable and not sayable" to the public, but that "his job is to connect the dots."

The message, if we hear it properly, is that when it comes to this critical issue, the vice president is not prepared to offer any evidence beyond the flimsy-to-nonexistent arguments he has used in the past, but he wants us to trust him when he says there's more behind the screen. So far, when it comes to Iraq, blind faith in this administration has been a losing strategy.

Such as "flimsy evidence" as stated by the Commission leaders, below. Instead, we should have blind faith in the New York Times, Jason Blair scandal and all.

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Compare to:

http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/06/18/saddam.terror/

(CNN) -- Russian President Vladimir Putin said his country warned the United States several times that Saddam Hussein's regime was planning terror attacks on the United States and its overseas interests.

Putin's comments in Kazakhstan came amid a new debate in the United States about the extent of ties between Saddam and the al Qaeda terrorist network triggered by a preliminary report from the commission investigating the September 11 attacks.

"I can confirm that after the events of September 11, 2001, and up to the military operation in Iraq, Russian special services and Russian intelligence several times received ... information that official organs of Saddam's regime were preparing terrorist acts on the territory of the United States and beyond its borders, at U.S. military and civilian locations," Putin said.

......

Bush told reporters Thursday that the administration never said that "the 9/11 attacks were orchestrated" between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda. "We did say there were numerous contacts between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda," he said. "The reason I keep insisting that there was a relationship between Iraq and Saddam and al Qaeda, because there was a relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda," Bush said. (Full story)

Vice President Dick Cheney said Thursday the evidence of that relationship was "overwhelming." "There clearly was a relationship. It's been testified to. The evidence is overwhelming," Cheney said in an interview with CNBC's Capitol Report. "It goes back to the early 90s. It involves a whole series of contacts, high-level contacts with Osama bin Laden and Iraqi intelligence officials." Cheney told CNBC that cooperation included a brigadier general in the Iraqi intelligence service going to Sudan, where bin Laden was based prior to moving his operations to Afghanistan, to train al Qaeda members in bomb-making and document forgery. (Full story)

Commission chairman Thomas Kean, the former Republican governor of New Jersey, downplayed any conflict at a news conference following Thursday's hearings. "What we have found is, Were there contacts between al Qaeda and Iraq? Yes. Some of them were shadowy but they were there," Kean said.

But let's not allow these contacts to concern us. After all, Saddam is a trustworthy facist who did not want to collaborate with Al Queda. We can trust Saddam not to change his mind! HE'S THE MAN! It's that guy Bush we can't trust!! BUSH LIED!!!!!!

Vice-chairman Lee Hamilton, a Democrat, said that the reported differences [between the 9/11 Panel findings and Bush] "are not that apparent to me."

Commission member James Thompson told CNN on Friday that the controversy was "a little mystifying." "We said that there is no evidence to support the notion that al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein collaborated to produce 9/11," the former Illinois governor said. "President Bush said that weeks ago [that there is no direct evidence of a collaboration ON 9/11], he said it again yesterday. Vice President Cheney said it again yesterday."

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Here's Power Line Blog's analysis: http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/006950.php

Another Disgrace at the New York Times

This morning's lead editorial in the New York Times is another vicious attack on the Bush administration, titled "Show Us the Proof." The theme of the editorial is that President Bush and Vice-President Cheney are lying when they insist that there were ties between Saddam Hussein's government and al Qaeda. The editorial begins:

When the commission studying the 9/11 terrorist attacks refuted the Bush administration's claims of a connection between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden, we suggested that President Bush apologize for using these claims to help win Americans' support for the invasion of Iraq. We did not really expect that to happen. But we were surprised by the depth and ferocity of the administration's capacity for denial. President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney have not only brushed aside the panel's findings and questioned its expertise, but they are also trying to rewrite history.
We have written repeatedly of the many connections between Iraq and al Qaeda, and I won't repeat all of that here. I want to focus instead on the Times' own effort to rewrite history. Later in its editorial, the Times makes this argument, which is crucial to its thesis:

Mr. Bush has also used a terrorist named Abu Musab al-Zarqawi as evidence of a link between Iraq and Al Qaeda. Mr. Bush used to refer to Mr. Zarqawi as a "senior Al Qaeda terrorist planner" who was in Baghdad working with the Iraqi government. But the director of central intelligence, George Tenet, told the Senate earlier this year that Mr. Zarqawi did not work with the Hussein regime, nor under the direction of Al Qaeda.
This is a grotesque mischaracterization of what Tenet told the Senate Armed Services Committee on March 9, 2004. Far from contradicting the Bush administration's claims about the relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda, Tenet explicitly supported those claims.

The Tenet testimony referred to by the Times was an exchange with Senator Mark Dayton; here is the exchange in full:

SENATOR DAYTON: The linkage that has been asserted with al Qaeda going back to even 9/11, as alluded in reference -various references made by -- it was one that I don't recall was ever asserted by you or your agency. And in fact, I think that you -- al Qaeda leaders reportedly told interrogators in Guantanamo that there wasn't any partnership between bin Laden and Saddam. Is that -- yet that has been an assertion that has continually been made.
MR. TENET: We in -- I think in testimony before this committee, we posited contacts, training and safe haven as the issues that we raised at the time. And when we published our paper and when we testified up here -October/November, and then we published a paper in January of 2003. I believe in questioning either in this committee or Senate Intelligence Committee we talked at length about our concerns about Zarqawi, who we posited to be a senior associate and collaborator of al Qaeda, documented his role in the Foley assassination, his operations in Baghdad in the summer of 2002.

SEN. DAYTON: Right. When the -

MR. TENET: I think we also said that we did not -- I think I said publicly in one of these committees that we did not have command and control between these individuals and the regime.

SEN. DAYTON: So when the president stated in November of 2002 that Saddam was, quote, "dealing with," close quote, al Qaeda; and at the U.N. Secretary Powell said that there was, quote, "A sinister nexus," close quote, between Iraqi dictator and al Qaeda; and aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln on May 1st, the president called Saddam, and I quote, "ally," close quote, of al Qaeda; were those accurate reflections of the information that you were providing?

MR. TENET: I think the information of concern at the time went to contacts with Iraqi regime members going back to the mid-'90s; training that had been provided by the Iraqi regime.

SEN. DAYTON: The president said that Saddam was dealing with al Qaeda.

MR. TENET: Well, if they provided training, sir -

SEN. DAYTON: Current tense.

MR. TENET: -- that would be dealing with, at the time. And then the whole question of the safe haven, or the fact that these people could operate in Iraq, I think I said in testimony before this committee, it was inconceivable to me that Zarqawi and two dozen EIJ operatives could be operating in Baghdad without Iraq knowing, although I posited we didn't know about command, control and sustenance. So the safe haven argument was -


So what Tenet told the Senate was that 1) Saddam's regime has provided training to al Qaeda; 2) Zarqawi is a "senior associate and collaborator" of al Qaeda; 3) Iraq knowingly gave Zarqaqi and his group "safe haven" to operate out of that country, such operations including, among others, the murder of an American diplomat; and 4) the CIA "didn't know" whether Saddam's regime commanded, controlled and sustained Zarqawi's network. For the Times to cite this testimony as a refutation of the Bush administration's claims of a relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda is an outrageous falsehood.

Note, too, the Times' weird hair-splitting: the editorial insists that Zarqawi doesn't operate "under the direction of" al Qaeda. What's the point? Tenet says that Zarqawi is a "senior associate and collaborator" of al Qaeda. What's the difference? In fact, as everyone knows (except maybe the Times), the administration's successful war on al Qaeda has largely destroyed, fragmented and driven that organization underground, so that it is unclear to what extent al Qaeda, as a coherent organization, "directs" anyone.

But Zarqawi's willingness to take direction from Osama bin Laden (or whatever al Qaeda leaders are still alive) appears manifest from the conclusion of the letter he directed to al Qaeda's leadership, via an al Qaeda operative, in February:

So if you agree with it and are convinced of the idea of killing the perverse sects, we stand ready as an army for you, to work under your guidance and yield to your command. Indeed, we openly and publicly swear allegiance to you by using the media, in order to exasperate the infidels and confirm to the adherents of faith that one day, the believers will revel in God's victory. If you think otherwise, we will remain brothers, and disagreement will not destroy our cooperation and undermine our working together for what is best. We support jihad and wait for your response.
As a news organization, the New York Times is illegitimate. It no longer seeks to inform its readers; rather, its daily effort is to misinform and mislead them. You simply can't believe anything you read in the Times.

[Marine's Wife]

You can add ALL the mainstream media,Gore,Kerry,Dean Kennedy, and about half the Senate,Nancy Pelosi, and the rest of the libs to that payroll. All sucking up to their "sugar daddy" George Soros.They ALL give Aid and Comfort every time they open their mouth!

[Scott]

The New York Times new slogan:

"All the News That Fits, We Print"


_________________
Bye bye, Boston Straggler!

[hist/student]

retracted

[Marine's Wife]

I liked your post so much,I "borrowed" it.I hope you don't mind. We're all trying to get the TRUTH out,Right?

Bryan Wilson of 'Weekend Live' said this morning , that he was on vacation last week,in middle heartland,when the Times piece hit. He said that ALL he could hear or see was THE FAR LEFT.

Thank you for posting it,there is some real "in depth" viewing in this post if people will only take the time to click,and read the links you've given!

I certainly appreciate the effort you must have put into it!

P.S. I hope you won't send me to jail for "borrowing".I too,am trying to reach places that have absolutely NO ACCESS to anything but the LEFT B.S.

[GoophyDog]

I agree with MW, great reads FDL.

One link touches lightly on intel source ratings and I refer you to the other posts in this forum in particular, George Tenet's testimony before Congress:

Mr. Tenet referred to "solid" intelligence regarding links between Iraq and Al-Qaida. He further mentions "credible" intelligence in other areas regarding those links.

Solid intelligence is considered a higher rating than credible, either backed with several unrelated sources or a source with a proven track record who is in the position to DIRECTLY know.

So given that, and the lower "credible" rating given to the information provided by defector Jabir Salim, just imagine what type of source or sources we had in order to rate the links noted in the Tenet testimony as solid.

Personally, I wish I was going to be around in 50 or 70 years from now when some of that source material will become unclassified.