Talk:Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda link allegations/Archive 11

Powell's 2001 WMD claims

Why do people keep deleting this?

Powell's 2001 WMD remarks====

During a press conference in early 2001, while in Cairo on state business, Powell said of Saddams WMD and military capabilities:

"And frankly they [sanctions on Iraq] have worked. He [Saddam] has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction. He is unable to project conventional power against his neighbors." [1]

It shows he stating something VERY different than he would later claim. Thanks - FaAfA 02:19, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

Because he's not saying anything there about whether Saddam had ties to al-Qaeda. Saddam's links to WMDs or his conventional threat to the region is really not relevant to this page. csloat 02:26, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

I know this page isn't primarily about WMD's but when there are sections like :

2003 CIA report - "The next day, President Bush gave a brief talk at the Roosevelt Room in the White House with Powell by his side and stated the following: "One of the greatest dangers we face is that weapons of mass destruction might be passed to terrorists who would not hesitate to use those weapons...Iraq has bomb-making and document forgery experts to work with Al Qaeda. Iraq has also provided Al Qaeda with chemical and biological weapons training."

2002 British intelligence report -In October 2002, a British Intelligence investigation of possible links between Iraq and al-Qaeda and the possibility of Iraqi WMD attacks issued a report concluding: "al Qaeda has shown interest in gaining chemical and biological expertise from Iraq, but we do not know whether any such training was provided

Powell 2003 -The support that (inaudible) describes included Iraq offering chemical or biological weapons training for two Al Qaida associates beginning in December 2000. He says that a militant known as Abu Abdula Al-Iraqi (ph) had been sent to Iraq several times between 1997 and 2000 for help in acquiring poisons and gases. Abdula Al-Iraqi (ph) characterized the relationship he forged with Iraqi officials as successful.

I feel Powell's contrary claims in 2001 are relevent, but if you don't, I won't pursue it. I'll check for an Iraq and WMD article. I'm sure there is one. I had this article checklisted. Not even sure why! FaAfA 03:45, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

Those quotes all deal with an al-Qaeda connection. The article on Iraq and WMD is here. csloat 20:32, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

Links Between Saddam and al-Qaeda

The book, TheConnection, outlines a set of contacts between Al-Qaeda, and the Saddam Regime. I will expand on the specifics in a future update. To my knowledge the Book (The Connection) has not been discredited. There are some doubts about the Atta meeting in Czech, but that is about it. I will try to eventually list its major points.

Similarly, I note that almost all the most Western Intelligence Agencies, including the prior Clinton Administration believed that the Saddam Regime had restarted his WMD program. This reference was also deleted. Again one has to demonstrate that this citation is wrong before deleting it.

From a context perspective, I will note that Saddam had WMDs and was within three years of a nuclear weapon in 1991. Otherwise this article would imply there is no factual basis for the US concern on WMDs. In particular, the 9/11 attacks reveal that a non-state actor with access to WMDs could destroy several US cities. The doctrine of mutually assured destruction via massive retaliation does not work with non-state actors. These facts, along with increasing globalization has dramatically changed the US strategic calculus. There is a greater emphasis on premptive wars and not waiting a threat to fully mature before striking first.

My notes below will obviously generate dispute among editors. I am requesting comments as to truthfulness of these assertions and if truthful, why they should not be in the article. As it stands, the current article reflects an strong anti-Iraq War perspective and explicitly denies any valid basis for this invasion. I think this is not the case; at the very least both viewpoints should be well represented in this article.

Below is list of Eighteen (18) links (mainly journalists) on the links between Saddam and Al Qaeda. At mininum he provided money, training, weapons, passports, safe haven, and medical treatments. Joint Operations were at least discussed. Direct Operations with Ansar al-Isalm were carried out. As the 9/11 Chairman notes: Were there contacts between al Qaeda and Iraq? Yes," Thomas H. Kean (R), the panel's chairman, said at a news conference. "What our staff statement found is there is no credible evidence that we can discover, after a long investigation, that Iraq and Saddam Hussein in any way were part of the attack on the United States."

As noted by the NY Times, the statements made by the Bush Admin. on the contacts between Saddam and Al-Qaeda were essentially Correct. They never stated that Saddam had an operational role in the 9/11 Attacks: Bush Admin (Correctly) Claims Relationship between Saddam and Al Qaeda: http://work.colum.edu/~amiller/iraq-quaeda.htm

It is obviously hard to get details on the Inner workings of a small terrorist organization, but in WWII the US destroyed entire cities on the basis of information that had the same level of credibility as these articles. The 18 links I noted above are as follows:

Al Qaeda proposed Operational Cooperation with Saddam (2006): http://www.nysun.com/article/29746

Ansar al-Islam and Al Qaidia Cooperated in Killing Anti-Saddam Kurds. http://www.nysun.com/article/39631

Al Qaeda Training in Northern Iraq (under Saddam): www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1868301/posts

Al Qaeda Contacts with Saddam (from 9/11 Report): http://www.nationalreview.com/mccarthy/mccarthy200406170840.asp

Detainee Assets Operational Contacts with Saddam: http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/005/804yqqnr.asp

Senator Clinton (2002) Notes Al Qaeda and Saddam Contacts: http://www.weeklystandard.com/weblogs/TWSFP/2007/10/the_abcs_of_iraq_and_al_qaeda.asp

Note on Al Qaeda + Saddam contacts in Report: http://www.nationalreview.com/mccarthy/mccarthy200507011134.asp

W. Safire Note on Report listing Contacts: http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E05EFDA1239F932A15755C0A9629C8B63

A list of Al Qaeda Contacts with Saddam: http://www.travelbrochuregraphics.com/extra/iraq_alqaeda_connection.htm

Links Missed by 9/11 Report: http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=39025

Saddam Trained Thousands of Terrorists, many Al Qaida Afflicated: http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/006/550kmbzd.asp

Original Summary of Defense Review of Contacts: http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/003/378fmxyz.asp

Ansar Al-Islam in Iraq http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Printable.aspx?GUID={9E091170-6A9D-48CA-BC7B-02FF7F84A443}

Zarqawi Trained by Al-Qaeda in 1989, in IRAQ in 2000: http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,,1793632,00.html

Al Qaida and Antrax Attack: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/11/14/usnews/whispers/main3500524.shtml http://www.americanthinker.com/2007/11/startling_implications_of_a_ji.html

Review of Selected Sources on Saddams Support of Terror and Al Qaeda: http://www.regimeofterror.com/

Saddam & Terror Funding (some Al Qaeda Links): http://www.husseinandterror.com/

Saddam & Al Qaeda Links (2003): http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=31597 —Preceding unsigned comment added by ITBlair (talk • contribs) 07:40, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

All this stuff is fleshed out in chronological order in the timeline. Please refer there; most of the above is nonsense from non-WP:RS sources, but the little that has been published in reliable sources is already well-documented and discussed in Wikipedia on the timeline page. csloat (talk) 09:12, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

Four View Points

Two views are proposed between Saddam and Al-Qaeda (1) Cooperative Effort and (2) Operational Role in the 9/11 Attacks. I think we should add (3) Iraq & Al-Qaeda Contacts and (4) General Iraqi Support for Terrorism to the list. I think the evidence is clear that Saddam at least provided Safe Haven, Funding, Weapons, Training and Medical Treatment to Al-Qaeda. This was in keeping with a broad range of support for Terroism Movements against his enemies. For example he provided a safe Haven and funding for individuals involved in the 1993 World Trade Attack.

The Bush Administrative has never stated that there were operational links where Saddam and Al-Qaeda planned operations together. The Evidence is not that good. There are notes, where Al Qaeda suggests joint operations against the Saudis.

After the 9/11 Attacks the Strategic Outlook changed. Mutually Assured Destruction does not work against non-state actors who follow suicide tactics and have no well-defined home to destroy. The Bush Administration felt that the US could not wait for these non-state actors to obtain WMDs. Thus, a reasonable step was to premptively move against the States that support them and might provide access to WMD weapons or Technology. ITBlair (talk) 09:03, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

I think we should remove the stuff about how many "viewpoints" there are entirely until we can find a WP:RS that says there are two, or four, viewpoints on this. The "citation needed" tag on that section has been there a long time and nobody has come up with a citation; I think it is original research to make that claim, but I'd like to hear what others think. As for what the Bush admin said, I think the best thing to do is quote them directly and not go back and forth about whether they are claiming an "operational" link or not when Cheney says, for example, that Atta met an Iraqi diplomat in Prague.... Again, we wind up straying into original research when we try to interpret stuff like that. What we do know is that the senate concluded that there was only one actual meeting between Saddam's agents and al Qaeda's and that that meeting led to mutual hostility rather than cooperation. The other stuff in the above comment about MAD and WMD is an interesting opinion but it is irrelevant to improving the article -- let's not make this article about whether or not the Iraq war was a good idea; that will only lead to POV fighting back and forth with no real conclusion. csloat (talk) 09:09, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

Fair Enough, we should eliminate all mention of viewpoints. I was keying off the Viewpoints section of this article. The viewpoints currently posited as a Cooperative Relationship (Undefined) and an Operational Relationship.

I should note that the small changes I made (and I believe deleted) in the Lead section came from the NY Times. This is an obvious WP:RS, even from a Liberal Viewpoint. The cited article pointed out the no one in the Bush Administration has every stated there were Operational Links. An operational link means that Al-Qaeda and Saddam joint planned and/or executed terror attacks. The theme of this article posits an operational link stated by Bush Admin., but no such statement was ever made. When Atta met an Iraqi diplomat is not an operational link, it is a proposed contact. One may or may not infer an operational link from such contacts. I agree that we should focus on the proposed Saddam and Al-Qaeda Contacts and Let the Wiki Readers make what inferences they feel appropriate. This means that the Lead Section has to be rewritten as a summary of contacts and then perhaps what different parties infer from these contacts.

I agree the WMD and MAD material as uncited does not improve the article. I think I can find some relevant citations from the Bush Administration and the Intelligence Agencies.

ITBlair (talk) 05:08, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

Re the viewpoints thing - I've always disliked that section as it does not reference any sources, and there are clearly more than two ways to think about the issue. But I think the info there is useful and that info could be presented in a manner that does not state that these are the only two viewpoints possible. As for the changes to the lead - I did not object to the NYT. My edit summary got cut off unfortunately but what I meant to say was that the information about "non-operational" links is already clearly spelled out in the article and in the timeline page -- it really doesn't belong in the lead, in my opinion. I also don't think it's accurate - the definition of "operational" could be debated, but I would think it includes funding, training, and planning attacks, all of which were asserted by the Bush Admin. As for "contacts," this article shouldn't be about "contacts" but about actual links. The Senate was able to confirm only one actual contact between Saddam and AQ and it ended in utter disaster on both sides. The lead should not be a summary of contacts but should rather be a summary of the conclusions of all official sources on this matter, which was that there were no links between Saddam and al Qaeda. Rewriting this to list "contacts" would be a massive POV shift that is at odds with the consensus of all intelligence agencies in the world as well as all journalists outside of a small clique writing in the Weekly Standard and National Review.

I urge you to read through the timeline page. Several people from radically different political viewpoints have worked on this article for a couple of years now and while the discussions were sometimes extremely adversarial, the result was very good -- an extremely detailed timeline that mentions every single possible "contact" that was raised by those who believe there were links between Saddam and al Qaeda alongside whatever other information is actually known about those alleged contacts. If you find anything missing in the timeline in terms of specific contacts, that would be the place to add it, I think. csloat (talk) 05:20, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

Ran Across a Democratic Web cite with a Summary of Quotes from the Bush Admin on both Saddam and Al-Qaeda. Although most of them seem to be after the Invasion.

http://oversight.house.gov/IraqOnTheRecord/

We might divide the discussion into (a) Contacts (we talked), (b) Links (funding, training, safe-haven, passports, conferences), (c) Operational Links (plan & execute operations). Some more context could be provided by a new Article on Saddam's (a) Contacts, (b) Links) and Operational Links to other Terrorist groups. It would provide some more context. Also, there is a question of proported contacts made before the war and then what the post-invasion analysis found. And then new Contacts found have the Invasion. ITBlair (talk) 05:20, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

We might divide it that way, yes, but then we would be doing original research. Get this taxonomy published and then we can include it here, but we shouldn't impose a taxonomy on the literature that is not already described in the literature. csloat (talk) 07:11, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

The theme of this article posits an operational link stated by Bush Admin, but no such statement was ever made. Post-invasion, the vice president said the connection between the 9/11 hijacker Mohamed Atta and Saddam Hussein's government was "pretty well confirmed." [2] The State Dept. issued a background paper which advanced claims made by 'defectors' that Iraq had trained terrorists on how to hijack commercial aircraft using only simple weapons like knives at a facility near the town of Salman Pak, south of Baghdad. Post invasion, the vice president said: "We haven't really had the time yet to pore through all those records in Baghdad. We'll find ample evidence confirming the link, that is the connection if you will between al Qaida and the Iraqi intelligence services. They have worked together on a number of occasions." [3] That's just off the top of my head. smb 21:49, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

Saddam - Oklahoma City

i skimmed through the talk archives and couldnt find if it was discussed anyplace prior to this. has anyone seen information on possible ties between iraq and the oklahoma city bombing? while i personally have not seen enough evidence to convince me of a credible link there are those that insist Ramzi Yousef was an iraqi agent and had ties with Terry Nichols. information places them both in Cebu Philippines at a meeting and some have theorized Terry Nichols may have also been involved in a plot to blow up 12 jetliners over the pacific in the 90s. i dont want to go digging all this stuff up if it has been discussed here already. the tie to al-qaida would be through his uncle, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, and that he was caught at an al-qaida safe house in pakistan. RodentofDeath 08:16, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Conspiracy theories about oklahoma city really don't belong in this article; I would check the articles about the Oklahoma City bombing and such. csloat (talk) 09:11, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

Weekly Standard Spin

I figured it was only a matter of time before someone did this. Sometimes I think the government releases these reports just to send Stephen Hayes into a tizzy. The mainstream media is reporting that this pentagon study found no links between Saddam and AQ. Each of the so-called links that Hayes mentions is already discussed and contextualized on the extensive timeline that we have developed with this page. If you find anything new there that belongs on the timeline feel free to add it there. But this page should deal only with the official conclusions, even if you feel those conclusions are wrong or being misstated by the mainstream media. The fringe opinion of Stephen Hayes is not really notable as part of these categories - we can include some of it on the timeline instead. Thanks! csloat (talk) 16:40, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

How convienent it is that anyone who disagrees with you is "not notable"! Laurie Mylorie and Stephen Hayes are influencial within the administration and have had an effect on U.S. policy, whether you agree with them or not. The Truther article argues that Truther opinion should be taken seriously because 36 percent of the population subscribes to it. I suspect the number of Americans who believe Saddam was involved is higher than that. Is the 9/11 Commission report version, with 19 untrained hijackers doing their thing with minimal assistance, really notable or plausible either? Four of the hijackers used the names of people who died in Chechnya years earlier. We have no idea who they really were. Kauffner (talk) 15:00, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

Oh please. That's not what I said and you know it. This page is not for fringe voices like Mylroie and Hayes -- they are both very well represented on the timeline page which is far more detailed. But this page reflects the conclusion of official investigations. Of course you're right that Hayes and Mylroie are notable in that they had an effect on the administration -- they bear some of the shame of the miserable failure that is this country's Iraq policy as a result. But that really isn't notable in terms of this page, which relates the conclusions of official investigations into the existence of ties between Saddam and al-Qaeda. I'm not sure what the truther stuff has to do with this page, but I do agree that a section on US public opinion polls would be useful here, or on the timeline. And to answer your other questions, yes, the 911 Commission conclusions are notable, and no, the opinions of random conspiracy theorists are not. csloat (talk) 00:56, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

If something is believed by the American public by a margin of 41 percent to 33 percent,[4] is it still a "fringe opinion"? The belief that Saddam was involved in 9/11 is tbe principle reason Bush decided to liberated Iraq, at least according to Woodwood's Bush at War. But the conclusion you're likely to reach after reading this article is no one ever believed there was a link and it was just a big lie all along. Who decided the article was about official investigations? There are many, many references and links to material other than official investigations. There is a tape of Saddam telling an aide, "This [biological terrorism] is coming, this story is coming but not from Iraq."[5] How do you suppose he knew that? Yet this article has nothing about anthrax at all.Kauffner (talk) 01:50, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Hayes and Mylroie are fringe opinions among journalists and "experts." As I said above, I'd welcome information about the number of Americans duped by this nonsense, but I don't think we should fill this page with fringe opinions that are already well-represented on the timeline. Re-read the article if you are having trouble understanding it; your claim that "the conclusion you're likely to reach after reading this article is no one ever believed there was a link" is utter nonsense. The article is quite clear on who believed there was a link and even Dr. Mylroie is included there. As for the Saddam tape (yet another piece of evidence against Hayes et al), it is also discussed on the timeline as it should be. You ask who decided this page was for official investigations; that was the result of a consensus that developed as the separate timeline page was spun out -- it was too unwieldy and difficult to read to have everything on one page, so the minute details (like Saddam's comment, or like the court decision the anon editor below is whining about) were moved to a timeline page while this page was reserved for major official investigations and developments. One should not have to wade through all the stuff on the timeline just to find out the main thrust of what is known about this (non)relationship. As for anthrax, that just isn't the topic of this article at all. I'm not sure what your point is. (Maybe it refers to this, which is already cited in the article?) csloat (talk) 04:02, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

According the way the article is phrased now, Mylorie was “very influential among several top Bush Administration officials,” but “very few people share Mylroie's view.” This implies that her theories were promoted as a cynical gambit. This view is demonstrably false: Polls show that an overwhelming majority of Americans at the time believed that Saddam and al-Qaeda were in cahoots. But the larger problem is that if you dismiss all the mainstream theories about the origin of the war as “nonsense,” you’re left without an explanation of why the world is the way it is. If the Saddam had no WMDs and no links with al-Qaeda, why did the U.S. send troops to Iraq? Did the Saudis pay Bush off, as Michael Moore argues? And why did Saddam fight when he could have just let the UN inspectors do their thing? Was he too dumb to know that he didn’t have WMDs? Kauffner (talk) 12:37, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps we could change that sentence to indicate that very few outside of those she duped in the bush admin shared her view. Personally I don't think it was a "cynical gambit"; I think Cheney and others believed Mylroie's theories were true until it became impossible to ignore how full of it she was. Again, please stop bringing up polls, they are not relevant here -- it doesn't matter how many Americans were duped. If you want a separate section for polls, gather the info and let's do it. Your various conspiracy theories about why the war started are intriguing, I suppose, but totally irrelevant here; all we know from the evidence is that there were no links to al Qaeda. WMDs are simply not the topic of this page (but I think the evidence also shows there were none of those; you ask why did Saddam fight; I would ask why didn't he -- if he had WMDs he never used them, and if he had ties to al Qaeda he never got them to do anything to help him out. Was he too dumb to know that he had WMDs?) Anyway it may be an interesting thought experiment but it has nothing to do with this page. csloat (talk) 15:46, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

We have a whole page chock-full with voices like Hayes, Mylroie et al. Their influence has waned in the face of hard evidence, and surely it cannot have escaped your attention that they've little or zero credibility in this field today. A sizeable chunk of the population also believe in ghosts. Make of that what you will. smb (talk) 16:58, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

If ghosts don't exist, how do you explain Dick Cheney?  ;) csloat (talk) 19:28, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

May I make some observations?

1. Invoking public opinion is never a good way to ascertain the view that is held among experts. More specifically, we now know that the allegations Bush et all promulgated were not supported by any solid evidence. Clearly we can accept that what the intelligence agencies knew was not the same as what was told.
2. Whatever the reason for invading Iraq, that is not a mandatory answer to establish the discrepancy from point 1.
3. Regarding those reasons how about: 1 establishing a continuing state of emergency and a culture of fear to validate implementing the notion The Leader is doing important stuff and therefor should not be bothered with technicalities as the rule of law -something that already was judged to be illegal and certainly unwanted-, introducing what could be seen as a police state, keeping tabs on dissident voices, for details see the alleged blue-print to the war on terror 2 Increasing revenue for certain companies, i.e. Haliburton, Blackwater.

Nomen Nescio^{Gnothi seauton} 17:12, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

It shouldn’t matter whether “experts” agree with it, whether editors agree with it, or whether the general public agrees with it. Neoconservative opinion on this issue deserves a place in the article because it had a major impact on U.S. policymaking, at least if you assume that Bush and other policymakers held these views sincerely. How can a reader hope to understand the behavior of a conservative administration if the article treats conservative opinion as a fringe point of view, the equivalent of believing in ghosts? If I follow Norman Nescio response, you don’t need understand the neoconservative view because the war in Iraq has nothing to do with 9/11. Bush just woke up on September 12, 2001 and decided he was a fascist.Kauffner (talk) 18:18, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Neoconservative opinion already has a place in this article and it is all over the place on the timeline article where such things belong. I don't see anything in the article speculating on what Bush decided when he woke up in the morning, or calling anyone a fascist -- can you please indicate which language in the article itself you are hoping to change? Thanks. csloat (talk) 19:28, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

While there's nothing wrong with opening up the issue of whether or not Bush held a view sincerely, any discussion of that should carry a mention of Paul O'Neill's report that Bush was seeking to invade Iraq long before 911:

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/01/09/60minutes/main592330.shtml

Whether you agree with O'Neill or not, he is a source of some importance as a former member of the administration. O'Neill does not claim that Bush just suddenly woke up on September 12, 2001, and decided he was a fascist. O'Neil claims that Bush was talking about invading Iraq in January 2001 and had begun mapping out Iraqi oil fields by March. So, yes, by all means, let's include information about Bush's early intentions. But let's not cherry-pick the sources to favor Laurie Mylroie's point of view. O'Neill is a valid source to cite. You can come up with others and extend the list.

2003 court ruling

Let me be clear: I'm not against mentioning the court ruling, but it must be expressly made clear that R. James Woolsey's testimony (r.e. Salman Pak facility and Mohamed Atta's alleged Prague connection) is contradicted by FBI, CIA and DIA reports. Terror "expert" Laurie Mylroie also gave evidence at trial (r.e. the 1993 World Trade Center bombing). [6] On this basis, Judge Harold Baer, Jr. concluded...

"Although these experts provided few actual facts of any material support that Iraq actually provided, their opinions, coupled with their qualifications as experts on this issue, provide a sufficient basis for a reasonable jury to draw inferences which could lead to the conclusion that Iraq provided material support to al Qaeda." [7]

To assert that "The case remains the guiding legal decision on the topic in the US court system" is, quite frankly, laughable. So I'm rolling back until we can agree on balance. smb (talk) 12:10, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

House of cards smb (talk) 12:15, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

The court ruling is already receiving appropriate mention on the timeline page. There is no reason to bring it up here as it relies entirely on testimony that has been found to be false, and there was no testimony by the "opposing side" during the trial. csloat (talk) 20:38, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

Whether you choose to laugh, or not, the statement is fact. If as you claimed earlier the INC provided testimony, by all means add that with a source. The fact is in terms of legal standing this court decision is more important than anything else mentioned in the entire article. I'm replacing the section. If you continue to delete it I'm going to add a bias tag. --72.146.230.122 (talk) 05:42, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

"Whether you choose to laugh, or not, the statement is fact." No, it's not. The judgment is controversial because it rested almost entirely on false evidence. The case is not "the guiding legal decision on the topic in the US court system", as you claim. Rather, it was a one-off. So please stop adding unfounded statements to the page. smb (talk) 11:32, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

Rahman allegations

I reverted recent edits because I searched the Pentagon report for the claims that had been added and did not see them. On closer inspection, this appears to be what the user was referring to. "Extract 12" in the report refers to a memo; this is what the report says about the memo: "Drafted in Saddam's office, it refers to an agreement with Islamic terrorists to conduct operations against the Egyptian regime during the first Gulf War (1991) and for continued financial support for the terrorists after hostilities ended." The memo referred to mentions "agreement since December 24, 1990, with the representative of the Islamic Group organization in Egypt on a plan to move against the Egyptian regime by carrying out commando operations provided that we guarantee them financing and training..." It goes on to say that Saddam directed that "only financial support is available for now" and refers to a top secret March 25 1992 letter from Saddam indicating that "intelligence operatives and contacts should be maintained in any movement in the Arab homeland."

Now, there is a footnote explaining that "This document appears to refer to the Egyptian Islamic Group (EIG), and notes that the group's spiritual leader Sheikh Rahman is in prison for involvement in the 93 attack on the WTC. The footnote then notes that "Since 1998, several of EIG's leaders have renounced its violent past."

I don't think we should put this in the main article but perhaps it can go on the timeline. There is no reason to take one particular footnote from this document and interpret it somewhat wildly as conclusive proof of "connection" when the study plainly concluded that there was no connection, and it mentions that this contact only "appears to refer" to EIG, and notes that EIG leaders have since renounced violence. Whatever agreement may have existed here was quite clearly about terrorism directed at Egypt, and the document never even hints that Saddam may have played any role in the WTC attack, whereas the edits I reverted clearly gave the impression that Saddam may have played such a role. (In fact, this study isn't even making the claim with any certainty that this is referring to EIG at all.)

What's more, the next paragraph in the report after the excerpt from the document states that it is "not surprising" that Saddam would be supporting revolutionary nationalist groups but that "many of these nationalist groups changed in the late 1990s. Saddam viewed these groups through the eyes of a pan-Arab revolutionary, while the leaders of the growing Islamist movements viewed them as potential affiliates for their Jihad. In other words, two movements, one pan-Arab and the other pan-Islamic, were seeking and developing supporters from the same demographic pool." The document goes on to discuss other examples of Saddam's contact with terrorist groups and notes that "one could argue that keeping some of these extremist groups active outside of Iraq was a pragmatic defensive measure against them."

Even more importantly, none of the mainstream media commentary on this document, except the somewhat absurdly speculative comments of Mylroie in the tabloid NY Post Sun, has seen fit to even mention this particular footnote, and certainly not to jump to the conclusion that Saddam supported the 1993 WTC attack. In fact, the document more explicitly and extensively treats the conspiracy theory's usual main claim, that Saddam supported Yasin after he fled to Iraq, and indicates that the evidence rebukes that theory pretty significantly, and even discusses Saddam's speculation about whether the 93 attack was done by US intelligence. It's clear from the study that the authors believed Saddam had no idea whether Yasin was behind the WTC hit (and had a lot of doubt that he was capable of it), but he wanted to use Yasin for propaganda purposes in the Arab world. Mylroie makes the laughable claim that the meeting was a cover hiding Saddam's real intentions. This is a tape of a private meeting that Saddam had no way of knowing would wind up in the Pentagon's hands, and her claim is ridiculous speculation.

Anyway, this page shouldn't be for mentioning every little sentence or footnote in a document that has been twisted out of context by the likes of Mylroie, and giving such a footnote such importance, especially in the context of the material I point out above, is a real problem in terms of WP:NOR and WP:UNDUE. csloat (talk) 07:50, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

"Financing and training" Rahman's Islamic Group is far too important to be left out of this entry. The footnote says it was that group. The point is, Saddam was financing and training the group behind the 1993 attack, although he knew nothing about that operation.

This isn't a "little sentence or footnote," it's several paragraphs. It hasn't been "twisted out of context by the likes of Mylroie," she denies Rahman's involvement in the 1993 attacks altogether!

(BTW Mylroie didn't claim Saddam was talking so the tape "would wind up in the Pentagon's hands." She argued that he and his aides were rehearsing their cover story to be fed to the Clinton Administration. And her oped wasn't published in the Post, check again.)

Hecht (talk) 18:24, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

(1) We don't even know it was Rahman's group, we just know it "appears to be." The Pentagon was not confident of this claim, we should not be either -- your claim that the footnote says it was that group is false. (2) This is just a footnote, referring to a single memo, and the footnote does not make the wild leaps of logic that you and Mylroie are making on this topic. There is certainly NOTHING making this footnote more notable than the others in the study. It is not "several paragraphs," unless you include the ones I cited above, which essentially lead to the opposite conclusion than you are trying to push on this article. (3) You claim the group was financed and trained; see above, Saddam limited it to financing. (4) You leave out the Pentagon's conclusion that this was not at all about Saddam cooperating with terrorists but about him diminishing the threat they posed to his regime as well as exploiting the populations that were sympathetic to them for his own nationalistic purposes. (5) Mylroie's claim is illogical no matter how generously you interpret it. On what basis does she claim to know Saddam's motives? Oh that's right, she's reasoning backwards from her conclusions rather than the other way around. That's one of the reasons her "work" would never survive peer review and why she publishes her nonsense with AEI. In any case, if she meant what you say she meant, why didn't she write that? Not that any of it matters since we're not quoting her here either way. (6) Pulling this footnote out of context and making it this important is a severe WP:UNDUE problem. No mainstream sources have quoted this. (7) The Pentagon report concludes that the EIG leaders have abandoned violence since 1998. (8) The WTC connection implied in your edit is especially troubling since the Pentagon came to the opposite conclusion on that one. Please do not revert again before responding to all 8 of these arguments. csloat (talk) 19:23, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

(1) We do know it was that group, there's no other Egyptian terror group of that name and using the word "appears" to pretend the report doubts this isn't at all convincing. (2) There's more than that, see a couple of pages later. I object to your statement: "wild leaps of logic that you and Mylroie are making." I'm contradicting Mylroie (who exonerates Rahman's group) and following the Pentagon's logic. The extract is several paragraphs and there's more a couple of pages later. (3) Check the extract again: "we guarantee them financing and training." (4) Fine, add that quote. (5) I agree, her claim is implausible. But when there's material against her, we must include her rebuttals, plausible or not. (6) Again, it's not just a footnote. (7) Right. Your point? (8) Rahman's group did the '93 attack. Saddam financed and trained that group. Still, he didn't know about the attack. That's the evidence in the report. BTW, I responded to your points, but you have no right to impose such conditions, especially as some of your statements (2, 3) are untrue. Hecht (talk) 20:06, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

(1) It's nice that you have such confidence, but the Pentagon does not, and they expressed their lack of confidence in the study itself. For you to ignore that and impose your confidence on the article is WP:OR and is also extremely deceptive.

(2) What do you want me to look at "a couple pages later"? It helps if you are more specific and precise, as I have been.

(3) Saddam's letter concerning the group you believe to be the EIG clearly states that Saddam directed that "only financial support is available for now"; what are you referring to?

(4) I should not have to add more quotes to correct a false and misleading addition of non-notable material to the article -- better to not include the non-notable and misleading material in the first place.

(5) No, we must only include notable material, and not everything Mylroie says is notable.

(6) What else are you suggesting to include then?

(7) My point is your addition is false and misleading.

(8) The report does not carry any evidence about who did the 93 attack and you should not pretend that it does.

(9) Statements 2 and 3 were not untrue. If there is additional material you would like to discuss here please refer to it precisely rather than suggesting that "a couple pages later" something different is written. csloat (talk) 20:15, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

By the way, I am looking around at the pages nearby and I notice there is a list of terrorist groups that Saddam's IIS had contacts with and EIG is not even on the list. I still don't see the additional evidence you think I will find here but hopefully you'll point it out soon. csloat (talk) 20:22, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

(1) The Pentagon does have confidence, which is why they interpreted it as Rahman's group. If you check Vol. 3 (in the PDF, p. 411) Rahman is named, which should settle the matter. (2) Vol. 1, p. 18 (PDF p. 26), Rahman's group named (as Jamaal Islamiya). (3) Previous paragraph refers to guarantees of "financing and training" since 1990. (4) You're so industrious that you fill the Talk page with long numbered messages and demand a point-by-point reply, so I think you can be bothered to add a couple of lines to an entry! (7) My edit was about 1993. EIG abandoned violence 1998. I don't object to further edit that Saddam backed terrorists in early '90s but they abandoned terrorism in late '90s. (8) Untrue. The footnote says that EIG's leader, Rahman, is in prison for his role in 1993. (9) Your statement about "wild leaps of logic that you and Mylroie..." was untrue. Mylroie wrote nothing about Saddam's backing for Rahman. Instead she denied Rahman's role. Your denial that Iraq financed/trained EIG was untrue. And your denial that the report mentions Rahman's role in 1993 is untrue. I note that you also called my accurate edit "extremely deceptive." Since Rahman is named in the documents I intend to restore my edit and I assume there'll be no further problem. Hecht (talk) 23:07, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

(1)If they had confidence they would have said that. If you're going to cite this at all we must be clear on what the pentagon actually said, not what you think is a reasonable interpretation. Once we include all of the caveats spelled out above -- not just the "appears" but the full context of what they said -- we are talking about adding about 5,000 more words or so to the article, all based on a footnote (and allegedly something else you found buried on p. 411 of volume 3), which creates a huge WP:UNDUE problem. Again I stress that there are no mainstream sources addressing this pentagon report that even mention this particular detail. It's trivia, frankly, in the context of this page.

(2) That appears to refer to Zawahiri's group, not the EIG, which is never referred to as Jamaal Islamiya. EIJ (Zawahiri's group) is called in Arabic Jamaah Islamiya.

(3) The previous paragraph is not the only paragraph there. What it says is they wanted funding and training but then Sadaam's memo states that only funding is available at this time. You are cherry picking what you like to create a completely false portrait of the Pentagon study.

(4) I am not complaining about the work here - re-read my point 4 above. I am saying that the proper remedy for misleading and non-notable material is to delete the material, not to add more non-notable material just to make it less misleading. You are basically demanding the insertion of falsities into the article and then demanding that instead of deleting them, I add the material that shows that they are falsities. It's a very disruptive way of editing.

(5) and (6) you are conceding, correct?

(7) No, your edit removed "early contacts" that would have established that we are talking about the early 1990s and replaced it with the vague but suggestive "connections", making it sound as if Sadaam was literally connected to these organizations rather than using members of them for his own purposes or playing them against his enemies. Then you add the line about the 1993 WTC in order to make it even more suggestive that Saddam attacked the WTC even though you admit that such a theory is patently absurd.

(8) Yes it says Rahman is in prison for the WTC hit but it doesn't present any evidence that he did it nor does it even pretend to investigate who did it. If you don't think Saddam was behind it, why do you insist that we make it look like he was all throughout wikipedia??

(9) So you're conceding my argument above and complaining that I compared you to Mylroie. It's only because you are inserting her least notable and most absurd comments all over Wikipedia as if they were agreed upon facts. You say that I said things that are untrue but that is false as I have shown above. You are playing fast and loose with the language of the report in order to string together a theory that is explicitly refuted by the report. You want to censor the fact that the Pentagon could only go so far as to say - in a minor footnote - that the reference of a single memo "appears to" have been to EIG, and you want to censor the fact that Saddam explicitly sent a letter saying that only funding and not training was available at this time. If the group was EIG - something we do not know - Saddam certainly did not train them.

Yes I called your edit extremely deceptive because it was. I suggest you correct the problem immediately. Thanks. csloat (talk) 23:46, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

(1) I regret your refusal to admit your mistake. The same document naming Rahman appears again and again in Vol. 3. Try adding a sentence from the Vol. 1 footnote if you think anyone else will read it the way you do.

(2) Again, your mistake. It's Rahman's Islamic Group in Arabic.[8] Zawahiri's EIJ is Al-Jihad al-Islami in Arabic.[9]

(3) The financing/training agreement was 1990 onwards. Saddam changed that to financing around 1993. I'll change my edit to "supporting" if you prefer.

The rest isn't worth commenting on; I don't need to spend ages correcting every mistake. Quoting Mylroie's replies to venomous personal attacks (which I haven't done in this entry) isn't the same as agreeing with her. You don't see why it's relevant that Saddam was supporting the 1993 terrorists although he didn't order the 1993 attacks; presumably you'd see the relevance if we found that someone was supporting the 9/11 terrorists although he didn't order the 9/11 attacks.

I note that even after I pointed to your errors, you again accused me of "extremely deceptive" editing. Remember WP:AGF please.

Hecht (talk) 00:38, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

As an aside (hopefully a somewhat humurous one), I'd like to say that both of you know far too much about these things, and just reading this is making my head hurt. However, if there is going to be a disagreement that I enjoy reading on wikipedia, its one full of cites like you guys are throwing at each other. Good on you, and happy arguing! Arkon (talk) 00:48, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

I don't enjoy arguing with Commodore Sloat. It's a waste of time. He demands point-by-point replies to his long Talk messages, you show they're full of beginner's mistakes (like confusing Rahman's Islamic Group with Zawahiri's Al-Jihad al-Islami), then he reverts anyway, and insults you ("extremely deceptive") for good measure. Hecht (talk) 01:02, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps if you provided actual replies to my arguments, you would enjoy it more. You can accuse me of "beginner's mistakes," but you are actually the one wrong about these things. Here we go again:

(1) Please re-read my comment above. The remedy for bad information is to delete the bad information, not to create WP:UNDUE problems by adding several paragraphs explaining why it is bad information. If the information was that notable to begin with this might be an issue, but the only place you see anyone talking about this is the NY Sun. And, thanks to you, Wikipedia. Congratulations -- you've turned an encyclopedia into a promotional device for conspiracy nuts.

(2) Looks like your mistake to me, or perhaps the Pentagon's -- at best we can say the reference is ambiguous. EIG is never referred to as "Jamaal Islamiya"... the closest you get on your link is "Jamaat al-Islamiyya" or "Jama'a Islamia." But the CFR that you cite clearly does not agree with you. Whereas a google search for the phrase the OPentagon used, Jamaal Islamiya, finds a bunch of copies of the pentagon report and a link to a WSJ article by a former member of Zawahiri's Jemaah Islamiya as well as several references to the Indonesian group of that name. The question I have, apart from your errors, is why this is relevant at all? You include info about Rahman and the 93 WTC attack as if it were relevant here yet you admit that there is no evidence of Saddam being connected to the 93 attack and you say Mylroie is wrong about this. If that's the case why is it so important to mention Rahman (who was in jail already) and the WTC attack at all?

(3) I would prefer you cite what is actually in the document if you are going to cite at all, and the document clearly shows Saddam offering financing but not training, even though training was discussed in 1990. There is no evidence presented of training in the 1990-3 period.

You have conceded the rest of the arguments, several of them stand independently - I assume you will be reverting your edit so we can remove the NPOV tag from the section? Thanks. csloat (talk) 01:52, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

(1) Of course if it was trivial you wouldn't be so determined to remove it. The info is good and you know that quoting a phrase from the footnote or a line or two from the text wouldn't add "5,000 more words" to the entry. Rahman's prosecutor says the same as I do about the Pentagon report, I wonder if you call him a "conspiracy nut"?

(2) Wrong, again. Rahman's Islamic Group is Al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya = "Jamaal Islamiya" (various spellings). Same name is used by related groups in several Asian countries. Islamic Jihad is translated as Al-Jihad al-Islami. Rahman and Zawahiri groups used to work together, so they're sometimes grouped together. Please admit your mistake and stop rv'ing accurate info.

(3) Training wasn't just "discussed" in 1990, there was an "agreement" in 1990.

I don't concede any of your other arguments, as I've said already: I'm just not playing your little game of having to reply point-by-point to long Talk messages from someone who won't admit his mistakes and rv's anyway. I note that after twice accusing me of being "extremely deceptive" you're accusing me of creating a "promotional device for conspiracy nuts." Yet again, WP:AGF.

Hecht (talk) 02:38, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

(1) No, I am determined to remove it because it is trivial. If it wasn't trivial, the primary source promoting this footnote would not be Wikipedia. If Rahman's prosecutor thinks Saddam was behind the WTC attack then yes I consider him a conspiracy nut too. I realize you claim you don't believe that but then I wonder why you are so adamant about adding in such claims here. I realize also that you are not adding that specific claim, but putting in that Saddam sponsored a group that was behind the WTC attack amounts to making Wikipedia a platform to give support to such claims. Why not add the claim without the innuendo if you are so adamant to add the claim? Why not just include EIG on the list as we have EIJ?

(2) I think you are correct, but here's the problem I am having: you are very confident about a claim that the Pentagon is not so confident (hence their qualifier "it appears"), and then the Pentagon uses a transliteration that does not appear on any of the pages you cite. But you are correct about the name for Zawahiri's group, and my confusion came from the fact that the groups worked together, as you said. (For example, read Tawfik Hamid's statement, “As a former member of Jemaah Islamiya, a group led by al Qaeda’s second in command, Ayman al-Zawahiri....”[10]).

(3) Yes, an "agreement" that did not lead to any "training."

(4) If you choose not to answer an argument, I can only assume you are conceding it. If you find a specific argument unconvincing, explain why; it's that simple. I do admit my mistakes (see above), and I am assuming good faith. I'm not speculating on your motives, but what I am saying is the result of your actions is to make this page a promotional device for conspiracy theories.

Anyway, I will not revert your changes for now; I will look at this over the next few days and see if I can reword your additions in a manner that I can live with; it may not take 5,000 words but there will definitely need to be a lot more said. And it's a bit annoying to have to do that when this material is clearly not notable to begin with (at least, it is no more notable than the scores of other "contacts" and memos discussed throughout the report's several volumes). Perhaps there is room for these claims on the timeline but it doesn't make sense that this particular detail would be highlighted on the main page like this when it hasn't gotten any more specific attention from the mainstream media than any other "contact" in the report. The question of whether it should be removed entirely perhaps should go to RfC. csloat (talk) 20:10, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Your friendly neighbourhood WP:Third Opinion here. I feel like I'm throwing myself to the sharks somewhat, but I've read all the relevant points made by both parties and I have come to the following conclusions:

Fundamentally if someone can reasonably read ambiguity into something it is ambiguous. Were it not ambiguous one could not construe (in good faith) ambiguity from it.

With respect to WP:Fringe theories and WP:UNDUE it would significantly aid the case for inclusion if another source could be cited that provided the same information.

I agree with the point "[...] the proper remedy for misleading and non-notable material is to delete the material, not to add more non-notable material just to make it less misleading." although I would not refer to the material as misleading, merely 'potentially ambiguous'.

In accordance with Wikipedia:Verifiability#Questionable_sources "articles about [questionable sources] should not repeat any contentious claims the source has made about third parties, unless those claims have also been published by reliable sources."

I cannot help but feel that csloat's reasons for wanting this removed are sound and although I do not agree with every point he has made I believe that his fundamental reasoning regarding policy is valid. Rushyo (talk) 00:36, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

Hecht, do you have any response to this? Given the third opinion, I'm going to go ahead and remove the material again if you have no further objections. csloat (talk) 17:20, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

heck no

Saddam had nothing to do with al Queida so all of you iggnorant people can shut up and face the facts. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.114.25.223 (talk) 18:03, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki

"In an interview with the British Broadcasting Corporation on Monday, Mr. Maliki said all of the recent attacks had resulted from coordination between Qaeda militants and elements of Mr. Hussein’s Baathists.” - Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki April 28 2009 NYT: [11]

--OxAO (talk) 02:21, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

Lawrence Wright material

Look, I'm ok with this material on the timeline if it meets WP:V criteria but it doesn't belong here - the consensus of editors who edit this page have always agreed that this should focus on the major public statements on the issue. We constructed the timeline page (see Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda link allegations timeline) precisely for the purpose of including minor details and allegations like the one that was added here. I'm ok with that being added to the timeline page if it is verifiable -- but so far we haven't been told where this information is from. I don't see it in my copy of Wright's book so please tell us where to find it. I also question the context which is another reason I'd like to know what page it is on. csloat (talk) 07:42, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

In addition to Lawrence Wright's work, it is a well established meeting that was revealed from a government memo. The beginning of the second source I included states, "The memo, dated October 27, 2003, was sent from Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas J. Feith to Senators Pat Roberts and Jay Rockefeller, the chairman and vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee." That should cover your "major public statements" requirement.

As for Cs32en's "No independent secondary source given to establish notability." I would love it if wikipedia entries required at lease two sources, much less one. There is loads of "citation needed" hogwash throughout this cesspool, and no one sees it as legitimate to start deleting all the fabricated fairytales. If this page has a higher standard...great...secondary source added. User:erics1one —Preceding undated comment added 19:02, 11 June 2009 (UTC).

User Erics1one: "In addition to Lawrence Wright's work..."

Assuming Lawrence Wright's source is not Stephen Hayes. Please provide page numbers so editors who have the book can examine the context in which this claim is repeated.

User Erics1one: "[I]t is a well established meeting that was revealed from a government memo."

The opposite is true. This memo is a mixture of raw Intelligence (i.e. unverified claims) and dubious accounts, as reported by Newsweek in 2004. [12] Dynablaster (talk) 20:16, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

The secondary source is about the subject of Wright's allegations, not about Wright making these allegations. Thus, it does not establish the notability of Wright's allegations. The condition for inclusion here is that the allegation itself is notable. If the allegation is not notable, but the content of the allegation can be verified by reliable sources, then it may go to the Timeline article. If there is enough material on actual communication between Hussein and al Queda, as evidences by reliable sources, a new article Saddam Hussein and al Quaida may be created.  Cs32en  21:06, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

User Dynablaster: "Please provide page numbers so editors who have the book can examine the context in which this claim is repeated."

Page number (295-296) added to Looming Tower reference.

User Dynablaster: "The opposite is true. This memo is a mixture of raw Intelligence (i.e. unverified claims) and dubious accounts, as reported by Newsweek in 2004."

The article you linked does not refute the meeting being discussed. The only mention that might have made an attempt would be with:

"Culling through intelligence files, the Feith team indeed found multiple “reports” of alleged meetings between Iraqi officials and Al Qaeda operatives dating back to the early 1990s when Osama first set up shop in Sudan. But many of these reports were old, uncorroborated and came from sources of unknown if not dubious credibility, U.S. intelligence officials say."

1) There are many alleged meetings in the "early 90s," that term alone doesn't address the specific 1992 meeting mentioned in the Weekly Standard article 2) Al-Turabi's name doesn't appear in the article and 3) "old, uncorroborated, and unknown if not dubious credibility" is a statement of opinion, not a refutation based on fact. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Erics1one (talk • contribs) 21:08, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

This is precisely the kind of nitpicky nonsense we created the other page for, so we could keep it off of this page. No, it is not just a "statement of opinion" - it is the conclusion of a consensus of sources that have investigated the Feith memo. You're right the Newsweek article does not mention this specific meeting, but the point is the entire memo is considered not credible. You could just as easily pull anything off the memo and complain that it isn't specifically disproven -- please consider that the burden of proof would be with those who claim a specific meeting happened, not those who express skepticism about such a meeting, especially when the entire memo that the meeting was mentioned on is considered unreliable. csloat (talk) 04:29, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

 Cs32en "The secondary source is about the subject of Wright's allegations, not about Wright making these allegations. Thus, it does not establish the notability of Wright's allegations. The condition for inclusion here is that the allegation itself is notable."

The additional source was not meant to verify that Wright made the allegations. It does establish the notability of Wright's allegations since it is an "independent secondary source given to establish notability," that you personally requested.

 Cs32en "If the allegation is not notable, but the content of the allegation can be verified by reliable sources, then it may go to the Timeline article. If there is enough material on actual communication between Hussein and al Queda, as evidences by reliable sources, a new article Saddam Hussein and al Quaida may be created."

So if it's not notable it needs to go in the "Timeline" article, but if it is notable, a new article "Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda" must be created? Is this page supposed to be locked down? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Erics1one (talk • contribs) 21:15, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

If it's not notable it doesn't go anywhere. If it's notable it goes on the timeline article, which includes all the unverified rumors from the Feith report, while this page contains only the material from official government sources and investigative reports. I'm not opposed to including a section for the Feith Report on this page that summarizes the issues regarding it, but even then I don't think this specific level of detail is necessary. Again, that's what the timeline is for -- a deeper level of detail. csloat (talk) 04:22, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

I went ahead and added a Feith memo section to the article; if people want to add to that section, fine, but I don't think we should start adding every little detail there -- again, that's on the timeline -- unless we want to reproduce the entire memo, like we wound up doing with the Powell speech. But my preference is to synthesize (and I think we should drastically shorten the Powell speech section, or fork all that to a separate article). Perhaps the Feith memo could be its own page as well? csloat (talk) 04:39, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

This is a reversal of the usual Wiki criteria for judging sources. The official reports are primary sources are require secondary sources to explain them and show that they are notable. Wright's book is exactly the kind of secondary source the article should be based on. Kauffner (talk) 04:49, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

Kauffner, do me a favor -- can you actually read the article? You are just sticking this paragraph in randomly in a section where it makes no sense. After you read the article could you come back to this page and re-read my explanation above? If we put every little detail of every meeting that is alleged to have occurred here, this page will be ridiculously long. It is already far too long.

By the way, I want to emphasize that context is important, if we do include this on the timeline. Take a look at the paragraph you are edit-warring over:

Lawrence Wright reports in his Pulitzer Prize winning book the "Looming Tower" that in 1992 Hassan al-Turabi arranged a meeting between the Iraqi intelligence service and Al Qaeda, with the goal of creating a common strategy for deposing pro-Western Arab governments. The Iraqi delegation met with Bin Laden, even flattered him, claiming that he was the prophesied Mahdi the savior of Islam. They wanted him to stop backing anti-Saddam insurgents, Bin Laden agreed. But in return he asked for weapons and training camps inside Iraq. That same year, Ayman al-Zawahiri traveled to Bagdad where he met Saddam Hussein in person.

My gosh, I wonder what Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Lawrence Wright says, oh, I don't know, how about in the very next freakin sentence that you choose to edit out of the quote:

"But there is no evidence that Iraq ever supplied al-Qaeda with weapons or camps, and soon bin Laden resumed his support of Iraqi dissidents."

Here's a google books link, see for yourself. Taking a source completely out of context and making it seem like it says the opposite of what it says is pretty despicable, frankly. csloat (talk) 05:01, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

Well, you certainly have quite an emotional investment in defending Saddam's innocence. How despicable of me to libel the good name such an upstanding citizen. It was a sad day when the Iraqis hanged him, wasn't it? Kauffner (talk) 05:45, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

That's a non sequitur. Saddam was a miserable thug and I have never defended him. But we were talking about the utter lack of intellectual ethics involved in a Wikipedia editor quoting a source to appear to support a completely opposite conclusion from the actual one. Are we done here? csloat (talk) 05:54, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

I reverted because the only reason you gave for removing the material it was that belonged in some other article, which is a bogus, dishonest argument. I didn't check the sources myself earlier, but I now that I have really don't see the problem. The Feith memo says: "Overriding the internal factional strife that was developing, bin Laden came to an "understanding" with Saddam that the Islamic Army would no longer support anti-Saddam activities." (in 1993). Kauffner (talk) 06:17, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

Bogus and dishonest? This from the person who blatantly falsely quoted the Wright book? The argument is not dishonest at all, and you haven't even addressed it! You were adding that material in a section it didn't belong in on a page it doesn't belong in, and you do not appear to have even bothered to read the page to see whether this material fits in at all. Quoting the Feith memo as if it supports you, when we have shown you again and again that the memo has been discredited, is just bizarre. csloat (talk) 06:41, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

You keep accusing me of misquoting Wright, but you must know that it was Erics1one who wrote the passage and selected the quote. He's obviously somebody's sockpuppet, but not mine. Like I wrote earlier, I didn't check his sources, didn't read the passage in Wright. I reverted strictly on the basis that an article entitled "Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda link allegations" is the right place for, you know, allegations. Kauffner (talk) 07:29, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

OK, no problem, so we're agreed the material should not be added back then? csloat (talk) 08:35, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

References

Sources

The additional sources section contains duplicate and expired links. Should we trim or remove it altogether? Dynablaster (talk) 12:02, 12 June 2009 (UTC)