Scott,

You ask a good question. To reiterate, my original comment about Iraq being a training ground for jihadists was a response to a comment that we were killing all AQ’s valuable fighters in Iraq. If they were valuable fighters and we killed them, they weren’t suicide bombers. Further, I reassert that the battlefield is a training ground where those who survive – the truly valuable fighters – learn from combat. I don’t see how that is arguable. Now, as to the makeup of the insurgency. My layman’s understanding is that it is a mixture of foreign jihadists, home-grown resistance, remnants of Saddam’s army that faded away during the invasion, “day laborers” in it for the money, and criminals. I do not have access to the intelligence that reflects the current proportions of each. Gen. Abizaid a while back reported the small percentage for jihadists that you cite. For the sake of argument let’s assume that is the correct approximate proportion. Then, as you point out, the numbers of jihadists potentially trained in Iraq is relatively small. But that also then contradicts the assertion that Iraq is the “central front in the GWOT.” Do you think AQ is sending its best fighters and military leaders to Iraq to be decimated by our devastating war machine? If I were them I would be sending my new recruits and treating Iraq as live fire basic training. The best of those recruits survive and learn from their experience and are then available to be used elsewhere.

Meanwhile, AQ is reconstituting in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

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Dave, I want to thank you (sincerely), and offer my genuine applause at doing some research for post #67. I wanted to respond yesterday, but don’t have the time this weekend. I’ll try to if I get back early enough. In the interim, could you explain some of the stuff in the post of mine that you addressed, but seemed to miss? I’m referring specifically to the question of whether or not AQ was a substantial or small part of the insurgency? This is important because if they were a small part of the insurgency (some said only 1-10% of insurgents), and only a fraction of the AQ fighters were not suicide bombers, then the issue of AQ getting training in Iraq refers to only a “fraction” of a “small” number of people. ON THE OTHER HAND, if AQ was a substantial part of the insurgency, and only a few of the AQ fighters were not suicide bombers, then the issue is about a few AQ getting training in Iraq. My point is that the question of AQ training in Iraq is directly parallel to the size/importance of fighting AQ in Iraq (as if they wouldn’t get training in Afghanistan if there was no invasion of Iraq).

Gotta go-late already
Best
-Scott

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Near as I can tell this conversation has gone on for days, but I think I can boil it down to a few words.

Was somebody else born in a perfect world? I wasn’t.

I have some real qualms with somebody wanting absolute justice for going to war. It’s a lot like some silk suit lawyer asking the defendant on the stand in a criminal case, “So, how did you know the deceased was going to stab you, I mean besides the crazy look, the swear words and a knife in his hand?” Fact is, you don’t really know what a person will do until they do it, but if you wait, you could be dead. Or not. But as near as I can tell from actual experience, you shouldn’t bet on hindsight in those cases.

It is at that point in the conversation in front of the jury that I would grab the silk suit lawyer by the necktie, drag him real close to my face and ask him “Do you know what I am going to do next, Shithead?”

The judge would of course go fairly snakeshit, but the jury, if they were a jury of my peers, would get the point.

And so it goes.

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Dave Noble #67:

Scott,

AQ “did work *extensively* with the regime, and were planning attacks on the west.”

Substantiate that please. Who suggests that AQ was working “extensively” with Saddam’s regime.

Here’s what the Harmony Project actually says:

“But the relationships between Iraq and the groups advocating radical pan-Islamic doctrines are much more complex. This study found *no “smoking gun”* (i.e., direct connection) between Saddam’s Iraq and al Qaeda. Saddam’s interest in, and support for, non-state actors was spread across a variety of revolutionary, liberation, nationalist, and Islamic terrorist organizations. Some in the regime recognized the potential high internal and external costs of maintaining relationships with radical Islamic groups, yet they concluded that in some cases, the benefits of association outweighed the risks.”

http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=9352

Dave,

Unlike the McClatchy Reporter who never bothered to actually read the five-volume Iraqi Perspectives Project when he wrote his piece, let alone the exclusive summary as the report hadn’t even been released yet, and he received leaked portions from a Pentagon official, Scott actually went through all 1600 pages of the study, after USJFCOM decided to release all five volumes, when reporters were getting it wrong. Please go through and read:

Pentagon Report Confirms Saddam’s Regime Supported al Qaida

No Ties Between Saddam and Al Queda Network of Terrorist Groups

Saddam’s files show terror plots but raise new questions about some media claims

Scott’s written extensively on this, and I might have missed a few of his posts. He’s also researched extensively on such links, in general. As has Mark Eichenlaub

Your Cato link charges neoconservatives with “cherry-picking” from the study; yet that’s exactly what the Cato article did, even as it conceded a few points of argument.

The boundaries between one terror group from another becomes blurred, and really we should be calling them “al Qaeda network” or “al Qaeda and affiliates“. There are cross-overs, with shared funding and training, and shared common interests and objectives. “Ansar al Islam” is not the same name as “al Qaeda”, yet according to one of its captured operatives, it’s essentially bin Laden’s group. So really, when speaking of Ansar al Islam, Egyptian Islamic Jihad, and al Qaeda, is there really much of a distinction?

The whole statement, “there were no (operational) ties between Saddam and al Qaeda” obfuscates Administration claims to begin with, shifting the goal posts. Please note the following:

“Our war on terror begins with al Qaeda, but it does not end there. It will not end until every terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped and defeated.”
-President Bush in an address to a Joint Session of Congress and the American People, United States Capitol, Washington D.C., September 20, 2001.

Dave Noble writes #70:

Finally, I didn’t know there were different versions of official Pentagon reports.

There aren’t. But as in the case of the final Senate Select Committee on Intell’s phase II report, it’s was largely misrepresented by a lazy media who piggybacks upon an established narrative of “Bush lied”.

It seems to me that the quote was pretty definitive and unequivocal – “No smoking gun.” Seems to me that you should have a smoking gun to go to war and not the convoluted reasoning you are forced to employ.

Please point me to the quote where President Bush said there was an operational link between Iraq and al Qaeda, as well as the one where President Bush said Saddam had anything to do with the planning of the events of 9/11. Where was that pushed as an official justification, in one of the major speeches, for war by this President?

Finally….what MH said

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IN A NUTSHELL

When Dave Gnoebbels speaks, weasles harken, and snarl in assent.

Here’s a group shot of Dave, and some of his friends.

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Mata,

“The difference between you and I is you read the above and see “not enuf reason”, and I look at the above and see “can’t take the chance post 911″. That disparity between you and I will never change. It is the very foundation of our disagreement.”

That’s it in a nutshell, Mata.

That is so succinct, insightful, and accurate, I will close our discussion for now.

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Dave Noble, nobly continues to wage his battle against the demons of his own creation. Pity those demons.

“finally, I didn’t know…“ — Dave Noble

The only thing I’ve heard him say that makes any sense. Too bad he had to keep typing and spoil it.

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Dave… first I didn’t call CATO, which I well know is a libertarian think tank, a liberal organization. Where do you get that??

In fact, what I said was you are using the McClatcy liberal reporting tricks by singling out a paragragh that, when read alone, totally misrepresents the entire report. I blogged on McClatchy’s prerelease BS reports on this study just prior to my FA author days…

There are actually a series of Iraq Perspective reports… this was is labeled “Vol 1″ and they refer to other volumes in it. I have the original 94 pg PDF archived on my computer because the ABC link – which I provided in my response to you – download takes so dang much time.

However your link is just to a CATO op-ed talking about the report with a few excerpts. It’s an entirely different matter reading the entire 94 page report.

I’m going to assume from your sticking to your guns on the “unequivocal quote” of “no smoking gun” that Saddam’s dealings with Zawahiri for a decade means nothing to you. Nor his known association with terrorist organizations that deal with AQ.

So again you bring up Pakistan as an example. This truly is getting old, Dave.

Pakistan PRIOR to 911 was no Muslim ally. That happened under GWB and after 911. Who knows what tact would have been taken if, post 911, they did not agree to cooperate. But they did, and the US does not invade countries who’s governments formally take a stand to aid the US in intel and the GWOT.

And that is, quite simply, the difference between Pakistan and Iraq. Pakistan turned in a Muslim ally, Iraq remained defiant in the fact of 17 UN resolutions. Add to that Clinton’s regime change policy in the Iraqi Freedom Act in the mid 90s, the the pieces fall quite logically into place.

Which brings me to my purportedly terribly absurd statement:

The issue isn’t timing, you’re attacking a strawman again. Whether they were moved before, during, or after the invasion – we missed them. And if they were moved before the invasion – Why the hell did we invade?

If they were moved by Saddam, they were moved to places where we would not find them, and that he could recover them.

If you want to know *why* the Congressional majority signed the AUMF and thereby “why the hell did we invade”, I suggest you reread the resolution yourself, Dave. You err in depending upon the news soundbytes to dictate the reasoning for regime change, whittling it down to one convenient three letter expression. In reality, it was for many reasons. That the news didn’t inform you of all, or made it seem it was a revolving door of reasons, does not excuse you for knowing all the specifics. So you may want to refresh your memory.

And try not to give the DNC Congress a pass when they say “I didn’t vote for war” when the damn thing was named “Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution 2002″. If they didn’t read the “whereas” clauses included, there’s no excuse for not reading the name of the resolution.

You want more David Kay? Ah, an old subject from my Sea2Sea archives. His report was fall 2003. Here’s some excerpts from an exclusive interview with the London Telegraph in Jan 2004:

In an exclusive interview with The Telegraph, Dr Kay, who last week resigned as head of the Iraq Survey Group, said that he had uncovered evidence that unspecified materials had been moved to Syria shortly before last year’s war to overthrow Saddam.

“We are not talking about a large stockpile of weapons,” he said. “But we know from some of the interrogations of former Iraqi officials that a lot of material went to Syria before the war, including some components of Saddam’s WMD programme. Precisely what went to Syria, and what has happened to it, is a major issue that needs to be resolved.”

What WMD programme? I thought he didn’t *have* a WMD programme? DOH!

From another famous “no WMD” proponent, Charles Duelfer in his testimony April 2004:

What is clear is that Saddam retained his notions of the use of force and had experience that demonstrated the utility of WMD. He was making progress in eroding sanctions and, had it not been for the events of 9-11-2001, things would have taken a different course for the Regime. Most senior members of the Regime and scientists assumed that the programs would begin in earnest when sanctions ended—and sanctions were eroding.

All of which leaves me wondering just what you want me to say about WMD.

1: You can not point definitively to facts proving that he did *not* possess proscribed weapons and a reconstitutable (and will to do so) WMD program.

2: Duelfer and Kay dance with many words… “unable to rule out the possibility”, “based on the evidence *available*”, “unable to rule out unofficial movement”… all language in amendments with Duelfer’s 92 page addendum in March 2005 to his testimony and report. None of which says he did not possess a workable and reconstitutable WMD program. It merely says they can’t find enough evidence to fulfill your smoking gun wish.

While, on the other hand, we can point to:

1: documents and facts that proves Saddam had acquired proscribed weapons after 1998, and abandoned them in a Netherlands junkyard just prior to OIF.

2: We also have even the above naysayers stating he was busy eroding sanctions, and had the will to reconstitute his CW/BW – all WMD programs.

3: Harmony/ISG documents his relationship with terrorists as an unofficial state weapon.

The difference between you and I is you read the above and see “not enuf reason”, and I look at the above and see “can’t take the chance post 911″. That disparity between you and I will never change. It is the very foundation of our disagreement.

So do I think we were correct to remove the Saddam regime and allow Iraq to put in their own Arab democracy? You bet. Because I can read between the lines, and do not wait for a smoking gun to see the potential.

You say you oppose the war “I merely recognize that our presence in Iraq serves as a recruiting tool for them. “. That’s explains your opposition today. And why did you oppose it at the start? Because you didn’t believe, or feel there was enough proof for the single rally cry of WMD?

History has proven the intel and gut feelings the Admin had were correct. Saddam was doing business with jihad terrorists. Saddam was attempting to reconstitute his WMD/CW/BW programmes and actively working to thwart sanctions. Those two alone… despite the rest of the whereas reasons, were quite enough.

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Dave, I don’t want nor need your sympathy. Save it for Saddam and the Jihadists.

Perhaps it’s because of your willful ignorance that you cannot bring yourself to comprehend more than one thing at a time, that you separate everything out into individual strawmen to kick and set on fire

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Mike typed:

‘P.S. Jake: We lost Vietnam because DEMOCRATS forced us to abandon the fight just as we are winning’

One of the great myths driving Republican politics these past thirty odd years.

We last in Vietnam because we backed the wrong side in the wrong war.

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