Posted 3/19/2004 by Pierre Legrand
Knight Ridder caught practicing Joseph Goebbels famous dictum. "Repeat a lie often enough and the people will believe it!"
These are the sorts of articles that do tremendous damage to the cause. We cannot fight the war with this sort of nonsense being passed off as serious thought. There is not a single FACT in this entire article; instead, we have opinions of the famous un-named sources. My feelings on un-named sources in these grave days are this, anything to do with the war is important enough to make a stand. Any idea worth repeating is worth backing with your honor and name. Why is it that we accept such grave pronouncements in days of such import from un-named sources? Would anyone accept information in a matter of life or death from an un-named caller? Would you stake your children's life on it? Absurd to imagine and yet we do it every day with sources that affect how we defend ourselves. Un-named sources are more in line with budget battles and scandals, not a war as desperate as what we are fighting, where a mistake can cost thousands of lives.

Bold font for the offending article everything else is a response.
Iraqi exile group fed false information to news media: "Iraqi exile group fed false information to news media"

So lets take a quick look at some of the "facts". Here is the first accusation.

The former Iraqi exile group that gave the Bush administration exaggerated and fabricated intelligence on Iraq also fed much of the same information to leading newspapers, news agencies and magazines in the United States, Britain and Australia.
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In fact, many of the allegations came from the same half-dozen defectors, weren't confirmed by other intelligence and were hotly disputed by intelligence professionals at the CIA, the Defense Department and the State Department.

Lets see we have crucial intelligence, is it flatly rejected by all of the intelligence professionals? Nope its hotly disputed. Hotly disputed means that there are some who think it merits attention and some who are so blind you could hit them upside the head with a 767 and they still wouldnt get it.

Other Iraqi groups made similar allegations about Iraq's links to terrorism and hidden weapons that also found their way into official administration statements and into news reports, including several by Knight Ridder.

Oops didn't this article just a few lines back claim that the intelligence wasn't confirmed by other intelligence, and yet here are other intelligence assets giving the same picture. What exactly is the definition of corroboration? For some obviously the only evidence that would be considered legitimate is a video of Bin Laden and Saddam talking about their love child Mohammed Atta.

Saddam collaborated for years with bin Laden and was complicit in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Intelligence officials said there is no evidence of operational ties between Iraq and al-Qaida, and no evidence of an Iraqi hand in the attacks.

This is a combination of outright misinformation and wishful misinformation. The outright lie is that intelligence officials said there was no evidence of operational ties between Iraq and Al Queda. George Tenet I would imagine qualifies as an Intelligence official and he has made repeated statements about the operational ties going back ten years. Here in his own words he dismisses those in the press who state that the CIA dismisses linkage between the Al Queda and Saddam. Keep in mind that this statement was in 2002 when he didnt have the advantage of all the information we have now.
George Tenet 2002 Senate Testimony.
There was a press story today that said CIA dismisses these linkages. Well, you don't dismiss linkages when you have a group like al-Qa'ida who probably buys and sells all kinds of capabilities for people who have converging interests, whether Sunni or Shi'a, and how they mixed and matched training capabilities, safe harboring, and money is something we're taking a look at.

The wishful misinformation is hope that the Saddam link to 9/11 won't be pressed. The fact of the matter is Atta went to Prague more than once and the Czech Foreign minister stands by his intelligence service in stating that the saw Atta meeting with Al Ani the Iraqis "Ambassador". But more on the 9/11 is ahead in this article. The Bush administration should be pushing this story, linking Saddam to all of his terrorism was always the surest bet to have the backing of the American People.

Another defector told one interviewer that the aircraft fuselage on which Islamic extremists received training in hijacking belonged to a Boeing 707 and was quoted in a later story as saying that it came from a Russian-made Tupolev.

Some of the information, such as the charge that Iraq ran a terrorist training camp in Salman Pak, found its way into administration statements, including a Sept. 12, 2002, White House paper.

Many articles quoted defectors as saying that Saddam was training extremists from throughout the Muslim world at Salman Pak, outside Baghdad.

"We certainly have found nothing to substantiate that," said a senior U.S. official.
Instead, he said, U.S. intelligence analysts believe that Iraqi counterterrorism units practiced anti-hijacking techniques on an aircraft fuselage at the site.

Marines capture suspected terrorist training camp By RAVI NESSMAN, Associated Press
SALMAN PAK, Iraq (AP) - The rusted shell of an old passenger jet sat out in a field, its tail broken off. Good for hijacking practice, U.S. Marines speculated Sunday as they examined an Iraqi training base about 20 miles south of Baghdad. The Americans also found a full obstacle course - with wooden walls and other barriers to be climbed over or crawled under - as well as a three-story concrete tower draped with ropes, apparently for rappelling. President Saddam Hussein's regime has said the camp, part of a larger military reservation in a bend of the Tigris River, was used for anti-terrorism training for Iraqi Special Forces. But U.S. officials and others have long suspected the camp trained terrorists.

The absurd claim swallowed hook line and sinker by the CIA that the Airliner was used to train Saddam's anti terror squads is just too much to bear. Anyone in the CIA who believes that tripe should not only be fired but shot. What is going to be next, that those mobile bio warfare labs really only supplied Hydrogen to balloons...oh wait they are trying that nonsense.

Right now the evidence of Saddams links to terror are undeniable. He has engaged in terrorist acts, he stands as the only head of state to attempt to assassinate a Former US President coincidently by using the terrorist tool of choice a truck bomb. The left attempts to deride this by stating that George W Bush cannot bring us to war for revenge of an attack on his Daddy, avoiding the fact that his father was a US President. Also avoiding the fact that his father gave Saddam plenty of reason to hate him and Saddam did what he knew best, he tried to blow him up. The evidence of this is attempt isnt disputed by anyone serious about the truth. President Clinton believed the evidence enough to launch a punitive raid on Iraq.

He provided sanctuary to Abdul Yasin the Second most important person in the attempt to kill over 250,000 people by collapsing the South Tower into the North in the 93 WTC bombing. Dear old Yasin was the assistant bombmaker, a bomb that may stand as the largest truck bomb assembled. The crater this bomb left was six stories high in the basement of the WTC. He gave sanctuary to Abu Nidal one of the most wanted terrorists in the world, who committed suicide by shooting himself in the head hundreds of times. Supposedly, Abu Nidal refused to train some of the Arab terrorists because they were so loony. But none of this apparently is enough to believe that Saddam had ties to Al Queda...apparently only a picture of Saddam and Bin Laden sharing a latte over a video of NYC burning would be enough to convince Knight Ridder.

But for the rest of us it pays to listen to what James Woolsey had to say about intelligence.

James Woolsey, let me ask you first. Is there any direct evidence of a connection between the September Eleventh hijackers and Iraq?
Woolsey: It depends on what you mean by direct. Much of intelligence is hearsay, and would not be admissible for example in a court. There’s some very suggestive evidence. For example, there are at least five individual witnesses -- two American inspectors and three Iraqi defectors -- who tell us about Iraqi government training of non-Iraqi Arabs at Salman Pak, on the southern edge of Baghdad, on an old Boeing 707 [aircraft], in hijacking techniques, including hijacking with knives. Now is that direct evidence? It strikes me that it’s pretty darn suggestive evidence. Would it alone convict Saddam in a court before a jury beyond a reasonable doubt? Probably not. But there’s more

The Bush administration after having diddled around so long that Saddam was able to hide or move his WMD's needs to hammer these points home to regain some of the lost trust the fiasco of David Kay caused. By the way, David Kay needs to visit the woodshed and the question needs to be asked was he turned in the same fashion as Scott Ridder? Given the stakes, some loosening of the rules about intelligence is in order to give a better picture to the American Public of what we are facing. I believe that the Feith Memo was an attempt to do just this but it needs to be followed up. Hammer it home.