The word parsing game played in the headline was inserting 'operational' as the qualifier. This insertion, and the omission of the title of the report, "Saddam and Terrorism: Emerging Insights from Captured Iraqi Documents" only referring to it as 'the report' are the spin. It's an attempt to 're-write' the report before it is digested by the public.
It was never claimed that Iraq had 'operational' links to AlQ. It also wasn't asserted that Iraq, or Iraqi terrorists were involved in 9/11. It was asserted that Iraq had links to AlQ and that Iraq was sponsoring international terrorism, both of which the report does confirm.
• In the same year, Saddam ordered his intelligence service to "form a group to start hunting Americans present on Arab soil; especially Somalia." At the time, Al Qaeda was working with warlords against American forces there.
• The Iraqi Intelligence Service in a 1993 memo to Saddam agreed on a plan to train commandos from Egyptian Islamic Jihad, the group that assassinated Anwar Sadat and was founded by Al Qaeda's second-in-command, Ayman al-Zawahiri.
Zawahiri was infamous in the now decimated AlQ presence in Iraq.
The insertion of 'operational' is what made the headline true. Without that the report actually confirms Iraq was sponsoring international terrorism and Jihadists. The attacks this country faced prior to OIF were not perpetrated by elephants or tigers, they were performed by Islamic Jihadists. Stateless rouge militants, they had nationalities but the were not acting on behalf of their native nations.
And what the hay..I'll go ahead and address the 'thoughts' about State Sponsors of Terrorism. The facts are that there are currently 5 (not crap loads) State Sponsors of Terrorism.
http://www.state.gov/s/ct/c14151.htm They are Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Sudan, and Syria. Before Operation Iraqi Freedom there were 9, 7 official and 2 unofficial. The 2 official that are no longer on the list are Iraq, and Lybia. The 2 unofficial were the Taliban of Afghanistan but it wasn't considered the legitimate government of Afghanistan so the nation didn't get the label, and the IRA of Ireland also not recognized as legitimate Irish representatives.
Lybia, Iraq, the Taliban, and the IRA are results of the WOT.
Question:
-Was Iraq being a sponsor of terrorism given for our action or was it that Iraq had operational links to AlQ given?
-Was providing for Iraq being self governed and it's people enjoying freedom given as a mark for success at the OIF began?
-Were we told when OIF began that it would take longer to achieve such freedom then many estimated?
-Was it asserted that Iraq was involved in 9/11 when OIF started?
I mean by the PRESIDENT which is being alleged to have lied or changed the goal, etc.
LINKS PLEASE enough BS. How much do you guys KNOW and how much have you been SOLD.
And yes, we were WRONG about the WMDs. ALOT of people were. There is a difference between being wrong and lying.
These folks were wrong too.
If we are going to veer off topic then let's get fact based. Let's grow into a serious tone if possible. Enough sophomoric rattle.