Good news from Iraq

[Tigermike 3,055]

The Iraqi Army has just started its operation in Mosul to break al-Qaeda’s last stronghold in the western provinces, and from all indications, they appear to be succeeding. Reuters reports that Iraq has captured over 1,000 gunmen in the city and its environs, and many more have taken advantage of an amnesty offer:

Iraqi forces detain 1,000 in al-Qaida crackdown

Offensive aims to crush terrorism network's reach in northern region

updated 1:23 p.m. CT, Sat., May. 17, 2008

BAGHDAD - Iraqi forces have detained more than 1,000 suspects in an offensive aimed at crushing al-Qaida in northern Iraq, the military commander of the operation said on Saturday.

Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki returned to Baghdad on Saturday after spending several days in the city of Mosul and surrounding Nineveh province to supervise the crackdown.

Many gunmen from Sunni Islamist al-Qaida have regrouped in Nineveh after being pushed out of other areas. The U.S. military said Mosul is al-Qaida's last major urban stronghold in Iraq.

Lieutenant-General Riyadh Jalal Tawfiq, head of the Iraqi-led offensive that began a week ago, said 1,068 suspects had been detained so far. (Don't send them to Gitmo, the dims want them all turned loose.)

"This operation will last until we finish off all the terrorist remnants and outlaws," he said. (A nice positive statement wouldn't you say?)

On Friday, Maliki said fighters who handed in their weapons within 10 days would be given an amnesty and unspecified cash rewards. His offer applies to gunmen who have not killed anyone.

Defense Ministry spokesman Major-General Mohammed al-Askari said scores of militants had already handed over their guns.

"We are committed to the amnesty and have reassured them there will be no judicial pursuit against them," he said, adding the government would soon make public the compensation available for different kinds of weapons handed in.

Iraqi law states that each household may legally own one semi-automatic rifle.

Suspected of blasts

U.S. officials blame al-Qaida in Iraq for most big bombings in the country, including an attack on a Shiite shrine in Samarra in February 2006 that set off a wave of sectarian killings that nearly tipped Iraq into all-out civil war.

An influx of additional U.S. troops last year and a decision by Sunni Arab tribes to turn against al-Qaida has enabled U.S. and Iraqi forces to push the militants out of Baghdad and the western province of Anbar, their former strongholds.

The Iraqi military wants to repeat that success in Mosul.

Police and soldiers have raided some towns on the Syrian border, where many foreign al-Qaida fighters enter Iraq, as part of the operation and turned over some suspects to U.S. forces.

In late March, Maliki took control of a military operation against Shiite militias in the southern oil city of Basra. The operation started badly, as the Mehdi Army of Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr put up fierce resistance.

Iraqi troops, backed by the U.S. military, gradually took control of Basra but fighting spread to Baghdad, drawing security forces into daily gun battles with militiamen claiming allegiance to Sadr.

A week-old truce deal between Sadr's parliamentary bloc and the ruling Shiite alliance has helped ease fighting, especially in capital's Shiite slum of Sadr City, a Mehdi Army bastion.

Residents said Sadr City was quiet on Saturday. Police said they were able to gain access to parts of the slum to start clearing streets of roadside bombs.

The renewed fighting with the Mehdi Army thrust the Iraq war back to the center of the U.S. presidential election campaign.

U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a key Democrat critic of President George W. Bush's war policy, landed in Baghdad on Saturday for talks with U.S. and Iraqi officials, the U.S. embassy said.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24680701/

Nouri al-Maliki has gotten his troops off to a good start. A victory here could spell the end of AQI and deliver a bitter defeat to Osama bin Laden. Even though rr says AQ is not in Iraq.

[LegalEagle 22]

Surely you have sense enough to know that Democrats don't want AQ turned loose, right?

But the program you describe gives them money AND turns them loose. If they are AQ, what sense does that make. I'm sure the money is enough for them to buy a better weapon, no?

My guess is that every poor bastard who can find a gun is turning themselves in to get free $ from the U. S. taxpayers.

Don't forget, there were no AQ in Iraq before we invaded.

Good news, I guess. I just wish that U. S. soldier hadn't used the quran for target practice, huh?

http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/meast/05/17/...uran/index.html

[AURaptor 1,126]

Don't forget, there were no AQ in Iraq before we invaded.

Good news, I guess. I just wish that U. S. soldier hadn't used the quran for target practice, huh?

http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/meast/05/17/...uran/index.html

Yes, there were AQ in Iraq before we invaded. And a host of other terrorist groups as well.

As for using the quran for target practice, at least they hit their mark!

After the shooters left, an Iraqi policeman found a target marked in the middle of the bullet-riddled Quran.l

[LegalEagle 22]

Don't forget, there were no AQ in Iraq before we invaded.

Good news, I guess. I just wish that U. S. soldier hadn't used the quran for target practice, huh?

http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/meast/05/17/...uran/index.html

Yes, there were AQ in Iraq before we invaded. And a host of other terrorist groups as well.

As for using the quran for target practice, at least they hit their mark!

After the shooters left, an Iraqi policeman found a target marked in the middle of the bullet-riddled Quran.l

Do you have a link please on AQ under Sadaam?

Your other statements are too disgraceful to warrant rebuttal.

[AURaptor 1,126]

Going back to the early and mid-1990s, when bin Laden was based in Sudan, an Al Qaida source tells us that Saddam and bin Laden reached an understanding that Al Qaida would no longer support activities against Baghdad. Saddam became more interested as he saw Al Qaida's appalling attacks. A detained Al Qaida member tells us that Saddam was more willing to assist Al Qaida after the 1998 bombings of our embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. Saddam was also impressed by Al Qaida's attacks on the USS Cole in Yemen in October 2000.

Iraqis continued to visit bin Laden in his new home in Afghanistan. A senior defector, one of Saddam's former intelligence chiefs in Europe, says Saddam sent his agents to Afghanistan sometime in the mid-1990s to provide training to Al Qaida members on document forgery. From the late 1990s until 2001, the Iraqi embassy in Pakistan played the role of liaison to the Al Qaida organization.l

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saddam_Hussei...-Qaeda#Timeline

[TitanTiger 20,511]

Going back to the early and mid-1990s, when bin Laden was based in Sudan, an Al Qaida source tells us that Saddam and bin Laden reached an understanding that Al Qaida would no longer support activities against Baghdad. Saddam became more interested as he saw Al Qaida's appalling attacks. A detained Al Qaida member tells us that Saddam was more willing to assist Al Qaida after the 1998 bombings of our embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. Saddam was also impressed by Al Qaida's attacks on the USS Cole in Yemen in October 2000.

Iraqis continued to visit bin Laden in his new home in Afghanistan. A senior defector, one of Saddam's former intelligence chiefs in Europe, says Saddam sent his agents to Afghanistan sometime in the mid-1990s to provide training to Al Qaida members on document forgery. From the late 1990s until 2001, the Iraqi embassy in Pakistan played the role of liaison to the Al Qaida organization.l

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saddam_Hussei...-Qaeda#Timeline

From that same article:

Much of the evidence of alleged links between Iraq and al-Qaeda is based on speculation about meetings that may have taken place between Iraqi officials and al-Qaeda members. The idea that a meeting could have happened has been taken as evidence of substantial collaboration. As terrorism analyst Evan Kohlman points out, "While there have been a number of promising intelligence leads hinting at possible meetings between al-Qaeda members and elements of the former Baghdad regime, nothing has been yet shown demonstrating that these potential contacts were historically any more significant than the same level of communication maintained between Osama bin Laden and ruling elements in a number of Iraq's Persian Gulf neighbors, including Saudi Arabia, Iran, Yemen, Qatar, and Kuwait.

2001 Presidential Daily Briefing

Ten days after the September 11, 2001 attacks, President Bush receives a classified Presidential Daily Briefing (that had been prepared at his request) indicating that the U.S. intelligence community had no evidence linking Saddam Hussein to the September 11th attacks and that there was "scant credible evidence that Iraq had any significant collaborative ties with Al Qaeda." The PDB writes off the few contacts that existed between Saddam's government and al-Qaeda as attempts to monitor the group rather than attempts to work with them. According to the National Journal, "Much of the contents of the PDB were later incorporated, albeit in a slightly different form, into a lengthier CIA analysis examining not only Al Qaeda's contacts with Iraq, but also Iraq's support for international terrorism." This PDB was one of the documents the Bush Administration refused to turn over to the Senate Report of Pre-war Intelligence on Iraq, even on a classified basis, and refuses to discuss other than to acknowledge its existence.[27]

2001-2 Atta in Prague investigations

After the allegation surfaced that 9/11 hijacker Mohamed Atta was seen in Prague in 2001 meeting with an Iraqi diplomat, a number of investigations looked into the possibility that this had occurred. All of them concluded that all known evidence suggested that such a meeting was unlikely at best. The January 2003 CIA report Iraqi Support for Terrorism noted that "the most reliable reporting to date casts doubt on this possibility" that such a meeting occurred.[64] (See below). Director of Central Intelligence George Tenet released "the most complete public assessment by the agency on the issue" in a statement to the Senate Armed Services Committee in July 2004, stating that the CIA was "increasingly skeptical" any such meeting took place.[65] John McLaughlin, who at the time was the Deputy Director of the CIA, described the extent of the Agency's investigation into the claim: "Well, on something like the Atta meeting in Prague, we went over that every which way from Sunday. We looked at it from every conceivable angle. We peeled open the source, examined the chain of acquisition. We looked at photographs. We looked at timetables. We looked at who was where and when. It is wrong to say that we didn't look at it. In fact, we looked at it with extraordinary care and intensity and fidelity."[66] A New York Times investigation involving "extensive interviews with leading Czech figures" reported that Czech officials had backed off the claim.[67][68] Both the FBI and the Czech police chief investigated the issue and came to similar conclusions; FBI director Robert S. Mueller III noted that the FBI's investigation "ran down literally hundreds of thousands of leads and checked every record we could get our hands on, from flight reservations to car rentals to bank accounts."[69][70] The 9/11 Commission investigation, which looked over both the FBI and Czech intelligence investigations, concluded that "[n]o evidence has been found that Atta was in the Czech Republic in April 2001." The Commission still could not "absolutely rule out the possibility" that Atta was in Prague on 9 April traveling under an alias, but the Commission concluded that "There was no reason for such a meeting, especially considering the risk it would pose to the operation. By April 2001, all four pilots had completed most of their training, and the muscle hijackers were about to begin entering the United States. The available evidence does not support the original Czech report of an Atta-Ani meeting." (p. 229)

2003 CIA report

The Intelligence Community has no credible information that Baghdad had foreknowledge of the 11 September attacks or any other al-Qaida strike." (See below).[73] Michael Scheuer, the main researcher assigned to review the research into the project, described the review and his conclusions: "For about four weeks in late 2002 and early 2003, I and several others were engaged full time in searching CIA files -- seven days a week, often far more than eight hours a day. At the end of the effort, we had gone back ten years in the files and had reviewed nearly twenty thousand documents that amounted to well over fifty thousand pages of materials.... There was no information that remotely supported the analysis that claimed there was a strong working relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda. I was embarrassed because this reality invalidated the analysis I had presented on the subject in my book."

2005 update of CIA report

In October 2005, the CIA updated the 2004 report to conclude that Saddam's regime "did not have a relationship, harbor, or even turn a blind eye toward Mr. Zarqawi and his associates," according to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (see 2006 report below).[82] Two counterterrorism analysts told Newsweek that Zarqawi did likely receive medical treatment in Baghdad in 2002, but that Saddam's government may never have known Zarqawi was in Iraq because Zarqawi used "false cover." An intelligence official also told Newsweek the current draft of the report says that "most evidence suggests Saddam Hussein did not provide Zarqawi safe haven before the war. It also recognizes that there are still unanswered questions and gaps in knowledge about the relationship." According to Newsweek, "The most recent CIA analysis is an update—based on fresh reporting from Iraq and interviews with former Saddam officials—of a classified report that analysts in the CIA's Directorate of Intelligence first produced more than a year ago."[83]

I mean, these things just go on and on about how there was no cooperation, no significant presence of AQ in Iraq, actually shows antipathy between Saddam and AQ. And out of all that, you cherry pick one assessment that goes against all the others? All you did was quote Powell's speech to the UN Security Council.

Sorry, the AQ-Iraq link is weak, weak, weak. Certainly nothing that would stand up as a pretext to an invasion.

[AURaptor 1,126]

I mean, these things just go on and on about how there was no cooperation, no significant presence of AQ in Iraq, actually shows antipathy between Saddam and AQ. And out of all that, you cherry pick one assessment that goes against all the others? All you did was quote Powell's speech to the UN Security Council.

Sorry, the AQ-Iraq link is weak, weak, weak. Certainly nothing that would stand up as a pretext to an invasion.

There's nothing in the quotes you posted which disputes what I posted. That there's no evidence of COLLABORATIVE association between Iraq and A.Q. only means they weren't working together, and says nothing a to whether or not A.Q. was still IN Iraq, allowed to reside there or not.

[Tiger Al 0]

I mean, these things just go on and on about how there was no cooperation, no significant presence of AQ in Iraq, actually shows antipathy between Saddam and AQ. And out of all that, you cherry pick one assessment that goes against all the others? All you did was quote Powell's speech to the UN Security Council.

Sorry, the AQ-Iraq link is weak, weak, weak. Certainly nothing that would stand up as a pretext to an invasion.

There's nothing in the quotes you posted which disputes what I posted. That there's no evidence of COLLABORATIVE association between Iraq and A.Q. only means they weren't working together, and says nothing a to whether or not A.Q. was still IN Iraq, allowed to reside there or not.

They've been allowed to live here in the US. What does that mean? Think about this stuff, Raptor.

[TitanTiger 20,511]

Raptor, it amazes me sometimes that as smart a person as you are that you make some of the arguments you do. I understand standing up for conservative principles or whatever principles you hold dear. But there's no need to defend the indefensible. If a liberal tried to make the same kind of argument you're making in support of some decision by one of their own, you'd lampoon it and rightly so.

[rexbo 104]

Wait, if we defeat them, who are we going to negotiate with??? Can't we leave just one guy around for a nice photo-op with the Great Man of Hope?

[AURaptor 1,126]

Raptor, it amazes me sometimes that as smart a person as you are that you make some of the arguments you do. I understand standing up for conservative principles or whatever principles you hold dear. But there's no need to defend the indefensible. If a liberal tried to make the same kind of argument you're making in support of some decision by one of their own, you'd lampoon it and rightly so.

All I'm saying is that Iraq was home to many terrorist organizations, and not because Saddam had a " working relationship" with each and every one of them. A Q wasn't the reason we went into Iraq, but to say they weren't there at all before the we moved on Iraq is, I think, fairly naive.

[Tiger Al 0]

Raptor, it amazes me sometimes that as smart a person as you are that you make some of the arguments you do. I understand standing up for conservative principles or whatever principles you hold dear. But there's no need to defend the indefensible. If a liberal tried to make the same kind of argument you're making in support of some decision by one of their own, you'd lampoon it and rightly so.

All I'm saying is that Iraq was home to many terrorist organizations, and not because Saddam had a " working relationship" with each and every one of them. A Q wasn't the reason we went into Iraq, but to say they weren't there at all before the we moved on Iraq is, I think, fairly naive.

But, when you say that members of al Qaeda may or may not have lived in Iraq, aren't you implying that Saddam knew who, what and where they were and gave, at least, tacit approval of them? If that's not your implication, then what does it mean when you say they were there? If it is your implication, then I think you ascribe a level of omniscience to Saddam that I really don't think he possessed.

[arnaldoabru 11]

What happened to the big press conference about the big cache of captured weapons that were supplied by Iran?

[CCTAU 3,350]

What happened to the big press conference about the big cache of captured weapons that were supplied by Iran?

ANNNNND...Another successful deflection....NOT.

Al Quaida in the US is being pursued and put in jail if found. Not sure they were pursued or even disliked by Sadaam. They weren't a driving force, but Sadaam had proven to be VERY agreeable with many terrorists in the past. Just a smoke and fire type of connection.

[AURaptor 1,126]

Raptor, it amazes me sometimes that as smart a person as you are that you make some of the arguments you do. I understand standing up for conservative principles or whatever principles you hold dear. But there's no need to defend the indefensible. If a liberal tried to make the same kind of argument you're making in support of some decision by one of their own, you'd lampoon it and rightly so.

All I'm saying is that Iraq was home to many terrorist organizations, and not because Saddam had a " working relationship" with each and every one of them. A Q wasn't the reason we went into Iraq, but to say they weren't there at all before the we moved on Iraq is, I think, fairly naive.

But, when you say that members of al Qaeda may or may not have lived in Iraq, aren't you implying that Saddam knew who, what and where they were and gave, at least, tacit approval of them? If that's not your implication, then what does it mean when you say they were there? If it is your implication, then I think you ascribe a level of omniscience to Saddam that I really don't think he possessed.

No omniscience at all w/ Saddam. He gave free reign to terrorist groups who wanted to call Iraq home. At least those groups who had goals that matched his. What about this is so hard for you to grasp ? Or are you just not wanting to , for political reasons ?

[autigeremt 6,717]

Since the democrats have no real sense of how to defeat the enemy, they have to deflect everything with a lie or half-truth. Everyone knows that!!!! Even Hamas has Obama on their "Dream Ticket"