Has this article linking Saddam & Osama been debunked?

[0rganism]

This is a claim of specific interactions between Al Qaeda and the Ba'ath regime. Note that the source is, indeed, The Weekly Standard, and the information is from Herr Feith. I know these are not necessarily sources of great merit, but have they been fact-checked and/or rebutted? This may be the source of some of the belief that Al Qaeda and Saddam were materially linked.
Case Closed
Editor's Note, 1/27/04: "Vice President Cheney . . . in an interview this month with the Rocky Mountain News, recommended as the 'best source of information' an article in The Weekly Standard magazine detailing a relationship between Hussein and al Qaeda based on leaked classified information."

OSAMA BIN LADEN and Saddam Hussein had an operational relationship from the early 1990s to 2003 that involved training in explosives and weapons of mass destruction, logistical support for terrorist attacks, al Qaeda training camps and safe haven in Iraq, and Iraqi financial support for al Qaeda--perhaps even for Mohamed Atta--according to a top secret U.S. government memorandum obtained by THE WEEKLY STANDARD.

The memo, dated October 27, 2003, was sent from Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas J. Feith to Senators Pat Roberts and Jay Rockefeller, the chairman and vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee. It was written in response to a request from the committee as part of its investigation into prewar intelligence claims made by the administration. Intelligence reporting included in the 16-page memo comes from a variety of domestic and foreign agencies, including the FBI, the Defense Intelligence Agency, the Central Intelligence Agency, and the National Security Agency. Much of the evidence is detailed, conclusive, and corroborated by multiple sources. Some of it is new information obtained in custodial interviews with high-level al Qaeda terrorists and Iraqi officials, and some of it is more than a decade old. The picture that emerges is one of a history of collaboration between two of America's most determined and dangerous enemies.

According to the memo--which lays out the intelligence in 50 numbered points--Iraq-al Qaeda contacts began in 1990 and continued through mid-March 2003, days before the Iraq War began. Most of the numbered passages contain straight, fact-based intelligence reporting, which some cases includes an evaluation of the credibility of the source. This reporting is often followed by commentary and analysis.

more: http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/003/378fmxyz.asp?ZoomFont=YES

edit: There is a disavowal of the "conclusiveness" of the information on the DOD website.

DoD Statement on News Reports of Al Qaeda and Iraq Connections
News reports that the Defense Department recently confirmed new information with respect to contacts between al Qaeda and Iraq in a letter to the Senate Intelligence Committee are inaccurate.

A letter was sent to the Senate Intelligence Committee on Oct. 27, 2003, from Douglas J. Feith, under secretary of defense for policy, in response to follow-up questions from his July 10 testimony. One of the questions posed by the committee asked the department to provide the reports from the intelligence community to which he referred in his testimony before the committee. These reports dealt with the relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda.

The letter to the committee included a classified annex containing a list and description of the requested reports, so that the committee could obtain the reports from the relevant members of the intelligence community.

The items listed in the classified annex were either raw reports or products of the CIA, the National Security Agency or, in one case, the Defense Intelligence Agency. The provision of the classified annex to the Intelligence Committee was cleared by other agencies and done with the permission of the intelligence community. The selection of the documents was made by DoD to respond to the committee’s question. The classified annex was not an analysis of the substantive issue of the relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda, and it drew no conclusions.

Individuals who leak or purport to leak classified information are doing serious harm to national security; such activity is deplorable and may be illegal.

[ComerPerro]

1. Well: First off, Its the Weekly Standard, so it might be entirely bullshit

And, second, even if it is all true, I find it interesting that they are using this as irrefutable evidence.

Many of their links could be said about bin Laden and Reagan/Bush.

So, if they want to take this angle, I am all for it.

Lets find out who has been funding Osama throught the past.

Oh, wait, its Reagan ...

Nevermind. Ignore that!

[papau]

2. It was shown to be bullshit - not true in just about every assertion

:-)

But our GOP never retracts - and our media never provides "context" that says the above is a GOP lie.

The "lie" word is only used for Dems - and then it seems to always be used in error as the Dem is shown to be the truth teller.

[0rganism]

4. Hey, do you have a link to the pointwise debunking?

That could prove to be veeeeeery useful.

[papau]

5. Yes - below are a few - best is http://msnbc.msn.com/id/3540586/

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A46460-2003Nov15?language=printer

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A54452-2003Nov17?language=printer

http://www.msnbc.com/news/995706.asp?0cv=KB10

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/20/politics/20MEMO.html?pagewanted=print&position=

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A63538-2003Nov19.html

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/001763.php


http://slate.msn.com/id/2092180/

The Case of the Misunderstood Memo
The Feith "annex" highlights the Bush administration's misuse of intelligence material.

ALSO:
The only intelligence “product” of this office that has surfaced thus far is an assessment of previous intelligence reports about links between Iraq and al Qaeda. The substance of that product, originally a Power Point briefing, was contained in a Defense Department memo leaked to the Weekly Standard’s Stephen F. Hayes last winter. Hayes reported that Under Secretary of Defense Douglas J. Feith sent the memo to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence in October 2003. It documented references to contacts between Iraq and al Qaeda as published in intelligence reports dating back to the first Gulf War.

Writing in Sunday’s Washington Post, Dana Priest reported that the briefing was the product of two analysts working inside the “Policy Counterterrorism Evaluation Group” set up shortly after 9/11. The two-person effort to review past intelligence reporting on such contact wrapped up sometime in mid-2002. Shortly thereafter, their briefing became a “traveling road show.” Secretary Rumsfeld has recalled that his staff recommended the briefing to him; he says that two people briefed him and he then sent them over to see Tenet.

In his Senate testimony, Tenet told Levin that he had spent about 15 minutes with the two and then turned them over to his own analysts. Priest interviewed CIA officials who were present at Tenet’s August 2002 briefing at CIA Headquarters. She reports they were “nonplussed” by what they heard. One told her the agency “had discounted already” much of the substance of the Pentagon’s briefing. But there is no indication that Tenet or any of his staff registered objections with Rumsfeld or the Pentagon. Feith then sent the two to the White House where they briefed deputies in the National Security Council and the Office of the Vice President. Priest reports that the briefing contents never made it to the NSC Advisor, the Vice President, or the President.

Priest also reports that congressional investigators “from both parties” have yet to turn up any evidence that this group collected its own intelligence or that this analysis “significantly shaped the case the administration made for going to war.” So what’s going on here? In an on-line chat hosted by the Post, she wrote, “it just doesn’t seem to be the big deal many people are making it into.” House Intelligence Committee Chairman Porter Goss labeled Levin and Senator Ted Kennedy’s performance at the hearing “bad theater” and likened them to “two old attack dogs gumming their way through artificial outrage about something they should know a lot more about and be more responsible about.”

[0rganism]

7. Thanks! I'm reading through 'em

This recently came up in a messageboard scuffle with a long-time GOP nemesis of mine, and it's my great pleasure to give him the smackdown with articles from the so-called liberal media. I think it would be well worth assembling all the assertions and counters into an overview for those who believe there was some substance to Feith's propaganda operation. Not everyone who thinks AQ and SH were linked does so from sheer ignorance, some of them are actually misinformed.

edit: Is the Times article available on a free site that you know of? I'm not in a position to buy their archives.

This one looks good too: http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F30912FF34550C7A8CDDA80894DC404482&fta=y

Hey, I found a free copy at commondreams!

THE STRUGGLE FOR IRAQ: DIPLOMACY; Powell Admits No Hard Proof In Linking Iraq to Al Qaeda

ABSTRACT - Secretary of State Colin L Powell concedes that despite his assertions to United Nations last year, he has no 'smoking gun' proof of link between government of Iraqi Pres Saddam Hussein and terrorists of Al Qaeda; says he thinks possibility of such connections did exist, and it was prudent to consider them at that time; his remarks are stark admission that there is no definitive evidence to back administration statements and insinuations that Hussein had ties to Al Qaeda; impression of such a link in public mind has become widely accepted--and something administration officials have done little to discourage

[lapfog_1]

3. One word: Chalabi

EOM

[0rganism]

6. Also found this Newsweek piece which critiques the WS version

Case Decidedly Not Closed

Nov. 19 - A leaked Defense Department memo claiming new evidence of an “operational relationship” between Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein’s former regime is mostly based on unverified claims that were first advanced by some top Bush administration officials more than a year ago—and were largely discounted at the time by the U.S. intelligence community, according to current and former U.S. intelligence officials.

more: http://msnbc.msn.com/id/3540586

[Redleg]

8. The DOD debunked it.

I don't know where to find the source. Anything to do with Feith must be suspect since his group was responsible for finding info to justify war with Iraq and to ignore info suggesting Iraq had nothing to do with 9-11.

[0rganism]

10. Anything beyond the press release I posted?

It's more of a disavowal than a debunking, but if the DOD spokespeople made any further remarks rebutting specific portions of the memo, that would be worth finding.

Side note: if you read some of the articles Papau posted, there's references to various intelligence agencies requesting congressional investigation of the memo leak. IOW, Feith's little propaganda maneuver may be another crime in itself.

[Cocoa]

9. thoroughly, but...

neocons continue to refer to it as proof. Even Cheney, I think, referred to that memo long after it had been discredited.