comments, we got comments!

in the comments "the black republican" (i love that definite article!) posted two responses to my post ticking down the wish list. i started writing a response, but it got too long for haloscan so i'll put it up here.

TBR's first comment was this:

Okay folks, time to pay the piper. You set this site up to "present facts" and "engage in a discussion of the issues" as opposed to "rhetoric".

So, why are you continuing to deny there's a link between Al Qaeda and Iraq, without even acknowledging the facts?

http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/004/152lndzv.asp

the link cited is from the weekly standard, a publication which, periodically over the past year or so has claimed to reveal a slam-dunk saddam-al-qaeda. each time, however, the evidence turns out to be old, unreliable, or already rebutted. the last big TWS thing to blow up in their face was the "feith memo", which, was claimed to be a memo written by undersecretary of defense feith and listed the links between al-qaeda and saddam. shortly after it "leaked" people in the pentagon and intelligence community tried to distance themselves from the allegations in the memo. by the end, the leak was dismissed as a desperate ploy by the administration to manufacture a saddam- al qaeda link (for more information on the feith memo controversy see this and this and this)

but just because the weekly standard has been so wrong before on this same issue does not necessarily mean that they are wrong now, so let's look at this new "revelation" on its merits.


the article, from the current issue of the weekly standard essentially claims that an officer of the iraqi feyadeen named ahmed hikmat shakir has the same name as someone who attended the al-qaeda "summit" in january 2000 where the 9-11 attacks were allegedly planned. the shakir who attended the summit spells his name differently. although it is common to have multiple spellings for arab names, it is also common for different people to have the same name in the arab world. so right from the beginning there is a serious question whether the iraqi shakir is the same guy at the summit.

a shakir (it's not clear which one because the article assumes assumes at this point that they are the same people) was later detained in doha with documents mentioning the names of people involved in the first world trade center bombing. that's right, the 1993 attack, not the 2001 attack. the 1993 attack, by the way, was not an al-qaeda operation; bin laden had not formed the group at that time. nevertheless, while the article notes that the documents carried by shakir were all from 1993 bombing suspects, it still refers to the people in the documents as "al qaeda members"

the rest of the article after telling the shakir story is criticizing the media for not playing up the iraq-al qaeda connection as much as the weekly standard wants and contains no new allegations of any such connection.

what's interesting about the article, by it's own terms, it does not establish a slam dunk connection between saddam and al qaeda. all it says is that a guy with the same name as an iraqi officer was at an al qaeda meeting and then later a guy with that name was detained while holding documents of terrorist suspects who, while not al-qaeda themselves, did an attack that later inspired al-qaeda. indeed, the weekly standard itself seems to be aware of the weakness of its own case in this paragraph:

The Shakir story is perhaps the government's strongest indication that Saddam and al Qaeda may have worked together on September 11. It is far from conclusive; conceivably there were two Ahmed Hikmat Shakirs. And in itself, the evidence does not show that Saddam Hussein personally had foreknowledge of the attacks. Still--like the long, on-again-off-again relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda--it cannot be dismissed.

if this tenuous connection is the "strongest indication" that the government has, it's only a testimony to the weakness of their case. and nothing in the article leads me to believe that an al qaeda-iraq relationship "cannot be dismissed." while the article raises questions about this shakir guy: is he the same guy who went to the al qaeda summit? was he authorized by the iraqi government? given that al-qaeda has repeatedly called for saddam's overthrow, it certainly is possible that shakir was at the summit as an iraqi agent to spy on al-qaeda, or alternatively that he was an al-qaeda member who infiltrated the iraqi military.

TBR's second comment was as follows:

Many apologies for not addressing your points in my comment. I wanted to get to the heart of the matter without delay. That said, you deserve honest rebuttal.

I won't deny that Al Qeada and Ba'athists are separate groups. I won't deny that Bush pulled out of Saudi Arabia. But don't be so simpleminded as to think that all actions are as two-dimensional as you make them appear.

Our position in Saudi Arabia was untenable without the support of the government there and the other arabs in our actions in Iraq. Unfortunately, the royal family is about as pro-American and pro-Western as you could get in Saudi Arabia right now, so to not support them and hope they can eventually steer the nation toward liberalism (that's Classical Liberalism folks, the kind all Americans share regardless of their position on the fine spectrum) would be disastrous. And if the royal family eventually falls to the mullahs, we can now use Iraq as a base from which to return there.

In short, we didn't give in to Al Qeada so much as - as we used to say in the Army - we "tactically redeployed".

i simply disagree that the saudi royal family are "about as pro-American and pro-Western as you could get... right now." all you have to do is look at the gulf states like kuwait, qatar and bahrain to see arabian culture with a more pro-western tilt.

"And if the royal family eventually falls to the mullahs, we can now use Iraq as a base from which to return there." saudi arabia is already in control of the mullahs. the saudi revolution in the early 20th century was about political islam. the mullahs in saudi arabia are all paid their salaries by the saudi royal family. the country is governed by strict shariah, probably a stricter version than is applied anywhere in the world (they cut off the hands of thieves in saudi arabia). a morals police patrols the streets of the cities making sure that women do not show too much of their hair. saudi arabia was one of only 3 countries in the world that recognized the taliban as legitimate rulers in afghanistan (the other two were pakistan and the united arab emerates, both close allies of the u.s. as well). it's unclear to me how the country would look any differently if it "fell to the mullahs"

and call it a "tactical redeployment" if you want. i was not saying in my below post that bush is intentionally doing whatever bin laden wants. rather that since 9-11 several of bush's actions have helped al qaeda meet their goals. he may not be doing it purposely to help al qaeda, but the effect of his actions is fulfilling the group's wish list. remember, the below post was a rebuttal to the argument that al qaeda wants kerry to win. in essence my response back is: (1) we don't know what al qaeda is thinking, and (2) bush's actions seems to be achieving al qaeda's goals. the fact that bush may have had his own reasons for the "redeployment" does not change my original point.