WMD & Iraq/Al Queda Pre-War Evidence

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A Post on WMD evidence and an Al Queda/Iraq link before the war...............



From the NYT on June 25, 2004:

Contacts between Iraqi intelligence agents and Osama bin Laden when he was in Sudan in the mid-1990's were part of a broad effort by Baghdad to work with organizations opposing the Saudi ruling family, according to a newly disclosed document obtained by the Americans in Iraq.....

American officials described as an internal report by the Iraqi intelligence service detailing efforts to seek cooperation with several Saudi oppositions groups, including bin Laden's organization, before Al Queda had become a full-fledged terrorist organization. He was based in Sudan from 1992 to 1996, when that country forced him to leave and he took refuge in Afghanistan.....


The document, which asserts that bin Laden "was approached by our side", states that bin Laden previously "had some reservations about being labled an Iraqi operative" but now was willing to meet in Sudan, and that "presidential approval" was granted to the Iraqi security service to proceed....."

....At the meeting, bin Laden requested that sermons of anti-Saudi cleric be rebroadcast in Iraq. That request, the document states, was approved by Baghdad."

Other evidence of the link:Clinton also believed in the al Queda/Iraq link before President Bush did.........[from Washington Times article June 25,2004] "..during President Cllinton's eight years in office, there were at least two official pronouncements of an alarming alliance between Baghdad and Al Queda. One came from William S. Cohen, Clinton's defense secretary.

He cited an al Queda-Baghdad link to justify the bombing of a pharmaceutical plant in Sudan.Mr. Bush cited the linkage, in part, to justify invading Iraq and ousting Saddam Hussein. He said he could not take the risk of Iraq's weapons falling into bin Laden's hands....The other pronouncment disclosed a close relationship between al Queda and Saddam's regime, which included specialists on chemical weapons and all types of bombs, including truck bombs, favorite weapon of terrorists."

When William H. Cohen testified to the 9/11 commission regarding the proceeding disclosures, he said that "bin Laden had been living [at the plant], that he had, in fact, money that he had put into this military industrial corporation , that the owner of the plant had traveled to Baghdad to meet with the father of the VX program." He said that "if the plant had been allowed to produce VX that was used to kill thousands of Americans, people would have asked him, 'You had a manager that went to Baghdad; you had Osama Bin Laden, who funded, at least the corporation, and you had traces of VX and you did what? And you did nothing?' Is that a responsible activity on the part of the secretary of defense?" [emphasis mine]

Or a President of the United States?

President Bush did the right thing by ending the connection between Iraq and al Queda ....before we were attacked with chemical weapons.

The TRUTH is out there!