The Senate Intelligence Committee post-war intelligence findings phase II (or what I learned from Saddam Hussein and Tariq Aziz)

Report
While there is some genuinely valuable information in this report, some of it new, there is also a lot to be disliked here. The report echoes the Iraqi Survey Group on a lot of its findings. It should. That was a good report with which I find little fault for the information available at the time. One thing this report lacks is evolution of information, except by the very people most likely implicated in Iraqi wrongdoing, most namely Saddam Hussein. Saddam and his Foreign Minister (and fellow mass murderer) Tariq Aziz are quoted vociferously.

The report starts off with a review of the WMD intelligence. I think most of us have come to terms now with the fact that Iraq was not building up a new arsenal of WMD. Which makes sense since there was very little discussion of new WMD by the Bush administration in the run up to war. Most of the argument back then was centered on pre-1991 WMD that Saddam never accounted for. We know now that most of it was destroyed outside of the inspection process. But there were still remnants of the arsenal in Iraq, some of it in the operational control of Saddam. The question each person has to decide for themselves is was that enough to justify war? In my opinion, any WMD in Saddam’s hands was too much when viewed in the backdrop of what a few ounces of anthrax did to this country in 2001. And Saddam’s intention to restart his WMD programs was even more dangerous. But reasonable people can disagree.

Then things go bad. Real bad. According to the report, Saddam didn’t consider the United States the enemy, only its policies. No seriously. That is what it said. Apparently the 12 years of bombing the US did to Iraq was nothing to him. This is complete and utter nonsense and is a strong indicator that members of this committee were desirous to include just anything that would portray President Bush in a bad light, even to the point of refurbishing Saddam’s image as a friend of the United States. Complete fantasy and it should be an embarrassment to this esteemed committee.

The report states that it is only comparing information contained in the 2002 National Intelligence Estimate to new information that sheds light on those specific findings. While it is certainly understandable that they would have to limit the scope for this report, it also means any new information that falls outside that scope wasn’t considered.

I think the most important revelation is that the committee has decided there was no relationship between al Zarqawi and Saddam. I actually agree with that to a point. I have said it over and over, but here it is again. Saddam would not allow Jihadists running around uninvited, but would welcome them if it was done properly. This distinction was, not surprisingly, completely missed by the report. It really is a simple concept. I mean think about it. You can invite a friend over to your house every day. But then come home and find he has broken in uninvited, and that is completely different.

And Zarqawi was not Saddam’s kind of terrorist. Saddam rose to power as a brute thug. And brute thugs recognize each other as the greatest threats. No, Saddam was much more likely to work with Ayman Al Zawahiri than al Zarqawi. Zawahiri is a doctor and more cultured. Saddam is at heart, a brute thug, but portrayed himself as educated, polished, and cultured. He would want to associate with the same type of people in public. Zarqawi just wasn’t his kind of professional terrorist who could be reasoned with. Now does that mean the Bush admin was lying? Of course not. It was a reasonable conclusion at the time. 

But what really bugs me is the weight given to former regime officials who say Saddam was not interested in working with Islamic terrorists. And the report says he might work with secular terrorists like the Palestinians.

Hello.

Senators, the Palestinians are not secular terrorists. That is a myth from the 70’s promoted by the Palestinians to maintain American support. Islamic Jihad is now, and has been for some time, the leading socio-political force in the Palestinian territories. Let’s look at Rantisi who was taken out by the Israelis in 2004. He was the leader of Hamas, the same group paid off by Saddam. He was widely considered a Jihadist.

He was a doctor who went to Egyptian medical schools at the same time as Zawahiri. He was deeply involved with the Muslim Brotherhood, the same one that spawned the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, lead by the blind sheik and later by Zawahiri. Two Islamists, in Egyptian medical schools, heavily influenced by a terrorist group equivalent to Saudi wahabbism. Rantisi went back to Palestine to form Hamas which stands for the Islamic Resistance Movement. Zawahiri to al Qaeda (much later). And Saddam was paying Hamas off. Yet this committee finds no evidence Saddam would work with Islamic terrorists? BTW, none of this is specific to my work with document exploitation, it is all public record.

I really could go on, but there is not much point. The report says that officials don’t believe they have missed anything significant in the documents. But they leave the potential open. That is a good idea. Sammi and I have only just started.

Update: Thomas Joscelyn at Weekly Standard agrees H/T Rocket'sBrain

The committee's staff made little effort to determine whether or not the testimony of former Iraqi regime officials was truthful. In fact, Saddam Hussein and several of his top operatives--all of whom have an obvious incentive to lie--are cited or quoted without caveats of any sort.

Anyone with even a partial recollection of the controversy surrounding Iraq in the 1990s will recall that Saddam made it a habit of cursing and threatening the United States. His annual January "Army Day" speeches were laced with threats and promises of retaliation against American assets. That is, when Saddam claimed that the United States was "not Iraq's enemy," he was quite obviously lying. But nowhere in the staff's report is it noted that Saddam's debriefing was substantially at odds with more than a decade of his rhetoric.

And about Zarqawi:

The staff cites debriefings which support this conclusion, but do not give any weight at all to testimony which runs counter to it. For example, the Phase I Senate Intelligence report noted that a top al Qaeda operative named Abu Zubaydah "indicated that he heard that an important al-Qaida associate, Abu Mus'ab al-Zarqawi, and others had good relationships with Iraqi intelligence."

Zubaydah's testimony has since been further corroborated by a known al Qaeda ideologue, Dr. Muhammad al-Masari. Al-Masari operated the Committee for the Defense of Legitimate Rights, a Saudi oppositionist group and al Qaeda front, out of London for more than decade. He told the editor-in-chief of Al-Quds Al-Arabi that Saddam "established contact with the 'Afghan Arabs' as early as 2001, believing he would be targeted by the U.S. once the Taliban was routed." Furthermore, "Saddam funded Al-Qaeda operatives to move into Iraq with the proviso that they would not undermine his regime."

Al-Masari claimed that Saddam's regime actively aided Zarqawi and his men prior to the war and fully included them in his plans for a terrorist insurgency. He said Saddam "saw that Islam would be key to a cohesive resistance in the event of invasion." Iraqi officers bought "small plots of land from farmers in Sunni areas" and they buried "arms and money caches for later use by the resistance." Al-Masari also claimed that "Iraqi army commanders were ordered to become practicing Muslims and to adopt the language and spirit of the jihadis."

A cursory examination of Zarqawi's cell in Iraq reveals that many of his top operatives were once Saddam's military and intelligence officers. It appears, therefore, al-Masari's testimony should be taken seriously.

Yet, neither Abu Zubaydah's nor Al-Masari's statements are given any weight by the committee. Nor did they bother to examine who it was, exactly, that Zarqawi was working with in Iraq. Not that any of this matters, of course. This reports was never really about investigating the relationship between Saddam's regime and al Qaeda.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but to clarify, I am certainly not ruling out Zarqawi involvement with Saddam, but I am making the point I am skeptical on it.

Regime of Terror runs up the BS flag as well.

Comments

[Scott Malensek]

Yeah, Saddam was upset over US policies. That's all.

What's left unsaid there is that the policies he'd be "upset" over were CLINTON POLICIES

That is unless someone can tell me what GWB did to make Saddam say these:

“Our missiles could not reach Washington. If they could reach Washington, we would strike.”
-Saddam Hussein 9/3/98

“Iraq will continue to face American aggression against its cities and installations and, in the same way the Americans were forced to declare directly or indirectly their failure in Vietnam,….they will be forced to declare their failure in Iraq.”
-Saddam Hussein 6/11/00
“The United States reaps the thorns its rulers have planted in the world."
Saddam Hussein, September 12, 2001
"The real perpetrators [of September 11] are within the collapsed buildings."
Alif-Ba, September 11, 2002 (State-controlled newspaper)
"[September 11 was] God's punishment."
Al-Iktisadi, September 11, 2002 (State-controlled newspaper)
"If the attacks of September 11 cost the lives of 3,000 civilians, how much will the size of losses in 50 states within 100 cities if it were attacked in the same way in which New York and Washington were? What would happen if hundreds of planes attacked American cities?"
Al-Rafidayn, September 11, 2002 (State-controlled newspaper)
"[I]t is possible to turn to biological attack, where a small can, not bigger than the size of a hand, can be used to release viruses that affect everything..."
Babil, September 20, 2001 (State-controlled newspaper)

[Repack Rider]

You said: since there was very little discussion of new WMD by the Bush administration in the run up to war.

What universe were you living in three years ago?

"But we don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud." National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice

""We have high confidence that they have weapons of mass destruction - that is what this war was about, and is about - and we have high confidence it will be found." (Ari Fleisher)

“We believe Saddam has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons.” - VP Cheney, 3/16/03

“Iraqis were actively trying to pursue a nuclear weapons program.” - National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, 7/11/03

“Iraq has at least seven mobile factories for the production of biological agents - equipment mounted on trucks and rails to evade discovery.” -President Bush, 2/8/03

“I’m absolutely sure that there are weapons of mass destruction there and the evidence will be forthcoming. We’re just getting it now.” - Colin Powell, 5/4/03

“There can be no doubt that Saddam Hussein has biological weapons and the capability to rapidly produce more, many more…Our conservative estimate is that Iraq today has a stockpile of between 100 and 500 tons of chemical weapons agent. That is enough agent to fill 16,000 battlefield rockets.” - Colin Powell, 2/5/03

“Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction. There is no doubt that he is amassing them to use against our friends, against our allies, and against us.” -Vice President Cheney, 8/26/02

“The Iraqi regime possesses biological and chemical weapons…And according to the British government, the Iraqi regime could launch a biological or chemical attack in as little as 45 minutes.” -President Bush, 9/26/02

“Our intelligence officials estimate that Saddam Hussein had the materials to produce as much as 500 tons of sarin, mustard and VX nerve agent.” -President Bush, 1/28/03

“His regime has large, unaccounted-for stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons -- including VX, sarin, cyclosarin and mustard gas; anthrax, botulism, and possibly smallpox -- and he has an active program to acquire and develop nuclear weapons.” - Don Rumsfeld, 1/20/03

We think the Iraqi people would be a lot better off with a different leader, a different regime. But the principal offense here are weapons of mass destruction." Colin Powell

Here's the best one. No evidence = evidence:

"The fact that the inspectors have not yet come up with new evidence of Iraq's WMD program could be evidence, in and of itself, of Iraq's noncooperation," Rumsfeld said

[Scott Malensek]

No evidence of lies=lies?

Where in the two phase II reports' 400 pages, or the hundreds of pages of other reports that looked into prewar intel on Iraq's wmd and ties to AQ...are those two little words:

Bush lied

Answer:
NONE of the reports said that.
NONE of them say Bush mislead

They all say the intel was wrong, weak, and came from decrepit, fund-starved, poorly lead intel agencies that decayed post Soviet collapse; ie...
...at Pres Clinton's hands.