| WASHINGTON ? An exhaustive review of more than 600,000 Iraqi documents that were captured after the 2003 U.S. invasion has found no evidence that Saddam Hussein's regime had any operational links with Osama bin Laden's al Qaida terrorist network. The Pentagon-sponsored study, scheduled for release later this week, did confirm that Saddam's regime provided some support to other terrorist groups, particularly in the Middle East, U.S. officials told McClatchy. However, his security services were directed primarily against Iraqi exiles, Shiite Muslims, Kurds and others he considered enemies of his regime. The new study of the Iraqi regime's archives found no documents indicating a "direct operational link" between Hussein's Iraq and al Qaida before the invasion, according to a U.S. official familiar with the report. |
| Saddam, whose regime was relentlessly secular, was wary of Islamic extremist groups such as al Qaida, although like many other Arab leaders, he gave some financial support to Palestinian groups that sponsored terrorism against Israel. [...] A September 2006 report by the Senate Intelligence Committee concluded that Saddam was "distrustful of al Qaida and viewed Islamic extremists as a threat to his regime, refusing all requests from al Qaida to provide material or operational support." |
As best I can tell, there were no links of a nature that would have been sufficient to qualify even as partial justification for going to war against Iraq. I'm not arguing here there were no reasons for the war, just that this particular issue would not have been one of them.
As best I can tell, there were no links of a nature that would have been sufficient to qualify even as partial justification for going to war against Iraq. I'm not arguing here there were no reasons for the war, just that this particular issue would not have been one of them.
Both Saddam Hussein and Bin Laden supported Ansar al Islam - an anti-Kurdish al Qaida offshoot group.
UP just curious, would you support going to war with countries with a link to al Qaida?
So you supported the US invasion of Afghanistan and
continue to support the NATO operation there?
ok but I just don't see a true libertarian supporting the US
being in Afghanistan for the extended period we have been there.