Documents indicate no Iraq-al Qaeda cooperatiion

[CMF Newsman]

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Interrogations of former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein and documents seized after the 2003 US-led invasion confirmed that his regime had not been cooperating with Al-Qaeda, the Washington Post reported on its website Friday.

The report contradicted a strong argument for the invasion made by the administration of President George W. Bush that Baghdad had a working relationship with Al-Qaeda, the Afghanistan-based group led by Osama bin Laden blamed for the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States.

The Post reported that a newly released declassified Department of Defense report said information obtained after the fall of Saddam confirmed the prewar position of the US Central Intelligence Agency and Pentagon intelligence that the Iraqi government had had no substantial contacts with Al-Qaeda.

This position was shored up by interrogations of Saddam and other top officials captured by the US-led coalition forces in Iraq, said report, obtained by the Post.

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[Thorne]

Joy. Something else for the people to claim that Bush and Co. lied to us about. What amuses me about this is that the naysayers of the CIA will now have to support them, as it was the CIA and the Pentagon that told the Bush Administration that there was no link prior to the war.

Of course, you'll notice that this article said nothing about what the President knew. It mentions Cheney and then-Under Secretary Freith (two of the biggest proponents of the invasion), but it doesn't say what they told Bush to get him to believe that there was a link. Not that there had to be one, considering that said link was not the main reasoning behind the invasion (that was the lack of cooperation with the UN investigators). Not that that will make a difference in any way.

[TNBear]

The main reasoning behaind the vast majority-if not all-invasions/wars/police actions are: Power, Money, Ego, Religion. All of these should be considered as great candidates for the Four Horsemen of the Apocolypse.