8th April 2003, 8:17 PM
I'm not saying that Saddam helped plan Sept 11, because I do not think that is the case, but whether their ties were made before or after Sept 11, there are still ties...and that means that Saddam is/was (if he's dead) a bigger threat than liberals like A_Black_Falcon will ever admit, because of personal vendettas.
This is a link to the entire transcript of Colin Powell's address to the UN security council.
http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/02/05/sprj.ir...ranscript/
This is a link to the section specifically about Saddam's ties to Al-Queda. I suggest that anyone who doubts there are any connections between Saddam and Al-Queda read the entire page. I'll just pull highlights out.
http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/02/05/sprj.ir...index.html
OPERATING FREELIN IN THE CAPITAL FOR MORE THAN EIGHT MONTHS. Nobody can do anything in Baghdad without Saddam's permission. He runs a totalitarian society.
This is a link to the entire transcript of Colin Powell's address to the UN security council.
http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/02/05/sprj.ir...ranscript/
This is a link to the section specifically about Saddam's ties to Al-Queda. I suggest that anyone who doubts there are any connections between Saddam and Al-Queda read the entire page. I'll just pull highlights out.
http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/02/05/sprj.ir...index.html
Quote:Iraq today harbors a deadly terrorist network headed by Abu Musab Zarqawi, an associate and collaborator of Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda lieutenants.
Quote:Baghdad has an agent in the most senior levels of the radical organization, Ansar al-Islam, that controls this corner of Iraq. In 2000 this agent offered al Qaeda safe haven in the region. After we swept al Qaeda from Afghanistan, some of its members accepted this safe haven. They remain their today.
Quote:Zarqawi's activities are not confined to this small corner of northeast Iraq. He traveled to Baghdad in May 2002 for medical treatment, staying in the capital of Iraq for two months while he recuperated to fight another day.
During this stay, nearly two dozen extremists converged on Baghdad and established a base of operations there. These al Qaeda affiliates, based in Baghdad, now coordinate the movement of people, money and supplies into and throughout Iraq for his network, and they've now been operating freely in the capital for more than eight months.
OPERATING FREELIN IN THE CAPITAL FOR MORE THAN EIGHT MONTHS. Nobody can do anything in Baghdad without Saddam's permission. He runs a totalitarian society.
Quote:Going back to the early and mid-1990s, when bin Laden was based in Sudan, an al Qaeda source tells us that Saddam and bin Laden reached an understanding that al Qaeda would no longer support activities against Baghdad. Early al Qaeda ties were forged by secret, high-level intelligence service contacts with al Qaeda, secret Iraqi intelligence high-level contacts with al Qaeda.
We know members of both organizations met repeatedly and have met at least eight times at very senior levels since the early 1990s.