Replies to post #70650 on Zeev's Turnips Talk Politics (ZTTP)

[Zeev Hed]

Both terrorists and tyrant (including Saddam, Nasser Bashir etc.) annouce quite ahead of time their intentions. So much that on August 6 2001, a month before the 9/11 attack, the president had on his desk a memo announcing El Quaida's intentions to attack major centers wih planes. He did absolutely nothing, just another signals of his "stick to itiveness", consistent, even though wrong, Iraq is the target (from day one of his administration) not El Quaida.

[harrypothead]

No hard evidence links Saddam, Al Qaeda: Rumsfeld
Pre-war intelligence faulty, he concedes

Oct. 4, 2004. 08:33 PM
ASSOCIATED PRESS

NEW YORK — U.S. Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said today there is no "hard evidence" linking deposed Iraqi president Saddam Hussein to Al Qaeda.

"To my knowledge, I have not seen any strong, hard evidence that links the two," he told the Council on Foreign Relations.

Rumsfeld said he had seen intelligence on that question "migrate in amazing ways" in the past year, adding that there were "many differences of opinion in the intelligence community." He did not elaborate on that but said relationships among terrorists "evolve and change over time."

He also said he does not expect civil war in Iraq and pointed to the recent retaking of the former insurgent stronghold of Samarra as evidence of progress in stabilizing the country before elections in January.

"I don't think it's going to happen," Rumsfeld told the council when asked about the threat of civil war. "But what has to be done in that country is what basically was done in Samarra over the last 48 hours."

Rumsfeld credited a process of first trying diplomacy, then threatening force and finally using it.

On whether Iraq had weapons of mass destruction before the war, Rumsfeld said flatly today that intelligence about such weapons before the invasion was faulty — a markedly different statement than what he told a television interviewer just a day earlier.

"It turns out that we have not found weapons of mass destruction," Rumsfeld said today. "Why the intelligence proved wrong I'm not in a position to say, but the world is a lot better off with Saddam Hussein in jail."

In an interview aired Sunday on the Fox News Channel, Rumsfeld had said he believed Saddam had weapons of mass destruction before the war, and the truth may unfold over months or years.