An exhaustive Pentagon review has established definitively that there was no pre-war operational link between Saddam Hussein’s Iraq and Al Qaeda.

So here’s the question for Hillary Clinton. In the senator’s war-authorization speech in October 2002, she claimed this:

Saddam “has also given aid, comfort, and sanctuary to terrorists, including Al Qaeda members.”

The National Intelligence Estimate at the time cast serious doubts on any Al Qaeda/Iraq link. But Clinton has acknowledged she did not read the NIE.

So what was her source for this faulty intelligence?

And why did Senator Clinton believe it credible enough to use as a linchpin justification for war?

The final accounting of the hundreds of false administration statements that led us into war with Iraq has been assembled by the inestimable Center for Public Integrity.

Per their numbers, George Bush made 28 statements falsely linking Al Qaeda to Saddam Hussein, inarguably the most explosive — and least defensible — claim in the run up to war.

Bush, Cheney & Co. were not alone in pushing this falsehood. They got an invaluable assist from Senator Hillary Clinton, who echoed their claim in her October 2002 floor speech before her vote “with confidence” to authorize the war:

There was never any proof for this claim of a link between Saddam and Al Qaeda. Indeed, this alleged relationship was explicitly debunked in the National Intelligence Estimate… the one that the New York Senator never bothered to read before she voted:

From the New York Times:

In fact, the classified reports available to all senators at the time found that Iraq was not allied with Al Qaeda, and that Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden harbored feelings of deep mistrust and enmity for each other… In an interview, [Former Florida Senator] Bob Graham said: “I don’t think any agency pretended to make a case that there was a strong linkage between Saddam Hussein and 9/11. It wasn’t in the N.I.E.”

Maybe Hillary got snowed on the question of Iraq’s WMD. A lot of decent people did.

But she went out on a limb to promote the non-existent connections between Saddam and Al Qaeda — and in so doing participated in the snowing of America.

How did your senators vote on war with Iraq?

A quick reminder of how Democrats with presidential stars in their eyes cast their lots:

Bayh (D-IN), Yea
Biden (D-DE), Yea
Clinton (D-NY), Yea
Daschle (D-SD), Yea
Dodd (D-CT), Yea
Edwards (D-NC), Yea
Graham (D-FL), Nay
Kerry (D-MA), Yea

And then there’s Hillary’s hook, line, and sinker speech (YouTube):

Saddam “has given aid, comfort and sanctuary to terrorists — including al Qaeda members…. This is probably the hardest decision I’ve ever had to make. [Smiles.] Any vote that might lead to war should be hard. But I cast it with conviction!”

Um, this could be huge.

Osama bin Laden may have personally chartered one of those mysterious flights for Saudi nationals that left America PDQ right after 9/11, according to a document obtained through the Freedom of Information Act by Judicial Watch:

“ON 9/19/01, A 727 PLANE LEFT LAX, RYAN FLT #441 TO ORLANDO, FL W/ETA (estimated time of arrival) OF 4-5PM. THE PLANE WAS CHARTERED EITHER BY THE SAUDI ARABIAN ROYAL FAMILY OR OSAMA BIN LADEN…THE LA FBI SEARCHED THE PLANE [REDACTED] LUGGAGE, OF WHICH NOTHING UNUSUAL WAS FOUND.”

Developing, obviously.

You owe it to yourself to read Sy Hersh’s latest piece in The New Yorker, in which he reports that the U.S. Government is now covertly funding Sunni extremists — al Qaeda sympathizers at the very least — in an attempt to constrain Shia / Persian power, particularly in Lebanon.
Because this administration sees the rise of Iran as the greatest geopolitical threat, Hersh says, it is now cynically funnelling money to Sunni jihadists — adherents of the same “evil” ideology as bin Laden and his followers.

The criminal stupidity of treating the enemy of our enemy as our friend, when the enemy of our enemy is the enemy that attacked us on 9/11, is nearly impossible to overstate.

washingtonpost.com:

Al-Qaeda itself, now an “integral part of the social fabric of western Iraq,” has become so entrenched, autonomous and financially independent that U.S. forces no longer have the option “for a decapitating strike that would cripple the organization,” the report says. That is why, it says, the death of al-Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in June “had so little impact on the structure and capabilities of al-Qaeda,” especially in Anbar province.

Republican Senator John Warner said yesterday that Iraq was “drifting sideways.” Make that accelerating to full speed… in reverse. The war that was sold as a way to make the world safe from terror has, it seems, made Iraq safe for terrorists.

Inexplicably buried in yesterday’s Washington Post frontpage story about escalating sectarian violence is the explosive, sickening news that Sunni insurgent groups — including Al Qaeda in Iraq — have declared an independent Islamic republic in Iraq’s lawless Anbar province:

The announcement was made by a spokesman for the Mujaheddin Shura Council, an umbrella organization of insurgent groups that includes al-Qaeda in Iraq, and aired by al-Jazeera satellite television.

WTF?! How is this not in the headline? “Al Qaeda Declares Victory, Independence in Anbar”? Of course, a declaration of something doesn’t make it so.

(more…)

Responding to my post about the intersection of the torture and the Iraq intelligence scandals, Andy asks:

What torture? Leaving guys in cold rooms? Blasting Red Hot Chili Peppers music at all hours? THAT is supposed to be torture?

No Andy. Al Libi was rendered to a foreign intelligence service, reportedly the Egyptians. According to the Senate Intelligence report he was repeatedly beaten and kept in a tiny box, 50 cm by 50 cm (roughly 20″ x 20″), for up to 17 hours at a time. From page 82:

Libi stated that “he could not come up with a story and was beaten in a way that left no marks.” According to Libi, he continued “to be unable to come up with a lie about biological weapons” because he did not understand the term “biological weapons.”

Read the report (.pdf). It’s conscience shocking. All the more so because the tortured confession of this man who didn’t even know what biological weapons were was the sole basis for George Tenet later claiming: Iraq “has also provided training in poisons and gases to two al-Qa’ida associates.”

Charges that would be repeated by—Dick Cheney:

“Saddam Hussein cultivated ties to terror. He had an established relationship with Al Qaida — providing training to Al Qaida members in areas of poisons, gases and conventional bombs.”
But as the Senate report concludes:

The other reports of possible al-Qa’ida CBW [chemical and biological weapons] training from Iraq were never considered credible by the Intelligence community.