I'm a lying NAZI GOP Thug.

IGMY--You really have to stop perpetrating right-wing spin here. Below is the AP article that directly refutes the lie you have chosen to embrace and toss around like the garbage it is:

Published on Wednesday, June 16, 2004 by the Associated Press
9/11 Commission: No Link Between Al-Qaida and Saddam
by Hope Yen

WASHINGTON - Bluntly contradicting the Bush administration, the commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks reported Wednesday there was ``no credible evidence'' that Saddam Hussein helped al-Qaida target the United States.

In a chilling report that sketched the history of Osama bin Laden's network, the commission said his far-flung training camps were ``apparently quite good.'' Terrorists-to-be were encouraged to ``think creatively about ways to commit mass murder,'' it added.

Bin Laden made overtures to Saddam for assistance, the commission said in the staff report, as he did with leaders in Sudan, Iran, Afghanistan and elsewhere as he sought to build an Islamic army.

While Saddam dispatched a senior Iraqi intelligence official to Sudan to meet with bin Laden in 1994, the commission said it had not turned up evidence of a ``collaborative relationship.''

The Bush administration has long claimed links between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaida, and cited them as one reason for last year's invasion of Iraq.

On Monday, Vice President Dick Cheney said in a speech that the Iraqi dictator ``had long established ties with al-Qaida.''

The bipartisan commission issued its findings as it embarked on two days of public hearings into the worst terrorist attacks in American history.

The panel intends to issue a final report in July on the hijackings on Sept. 11, 2001 that killed nearly 3,000, destroyed the World Trade Centers in New York and damaged the Pentagon outside Washington. A fourth plane commandeered by terrorists crashed in the countryside in Pennsylvania.

The staff report pieced together information on the development of bin Laden's network, from the far-flung training camps in Afghanistan and elsewhere, to funding from ``well-placed financial facilitators and diversions of funds from Islamic charities.''

Reports that bin Laden had a huge personal fortune to finance acts of terror are overstated, the report said.

The description of the training camp operations contained elements of faint, grudging praise.

``A worldwide jihad needed terrorists who could bomb embassies or hijack airliners, but it also needed foot soldiers for the Taliban in its war against the Northern Alliance, and guerrillas who could shoot down Russian helicopters in Chechnya or ambush Indian units in Kashmir,'' it said.

According to one unnamed senior al-Qaida associate, various ideas were floated by mujahadeen in Afghanistan, the commission said. The options included taking over a launcher and forcing Russian scientists to fire a nuclear missile at the United States, mounting mustard gas or cyanide attacks against Jewish areas in Iraq or releasing poison gas into the air conditioning system of a targeted building.

``Last but not least, hijacking an aircraft and crashing it into an airport or nearby city,'' it said.

The Iraq connection long suggested by administration officials gained no currency in the report.

``Bin Laden is said to have requested space to establish training camps, as well as assistance in procuring weapons, but Iraq apparently never responded,'' the report said. ``There have been reports that contacts between Iraq and al-Qaida also occurred'' after bin Laden moved his operations to Afghanistan in 1996, ``but they do not appear to have resulted in a collaborative relationship,'' it said.

``Two senior bin Laden associates have adamantly denied that any ties existed between al-Qaida and Iraq,'' the report said.

In a separate report, the commission staff said that senior al-Qaida planner Khalid Shaihk Mohammed initially proposed a Sept. 11 attack involving 10 planes. An expanded target list included the CIA and FBI headquarters, unidentified nuclear plants and tall buildings in California and Washington state.

That ambitious plan was rejected by bin Laden, who ultimately approved a scaled-back mission involving four planes, the report said. Mohammed wanted more hijackers for those planes - 25 or 26, instead of 19.

The commission has identified at least 10 al-Qaida operatives who were to participate but could not take part for reasons including visa problems and suspicion by officials at airports in the United States and overseas.

From a seamless operation, the report portrays a plot riven by internal dissent, including disagreement over whether to target the White House or the Capitol that was apparently never resolved prior to the attacks. Bin Laden also had to overcome opposition to attacking the United States from Mullah Omar, leader of the former Taliban regime, who was under pressure from Pakistan to keep al-Qaida confined.

The United States toppled the regime in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks, but Omar has eluded capture, as has al-Qaida.

© Copyright 2004 Associated Press

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:laugh: Maybe I can sell you on a certain bridge in Brooklyn?

This is right up there with the people who were claiming that no planes ever actually flew into the WWTC or the Pentagon. Ya know what that was based on? That they found no evidence of the planes in the rubble! OMG! My side's hurting from laughing so hard! :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh:

I rarely ever ignore a link someone presents me with. I skimmed the page, but I didn't need to read it -and I realize how arrogant and closeminded that sounds to you- because of a little exercise I did when I found a link to the 9-11 Commission report, and I ask you to do the same. Click on the link below and type "Saddam" and tell me what you find, these are some exerpts I found:
http://www.9-11commission.gov/report/911Report.pdf

"Bin Ladin was also willing to explore possibilities for cooperation with Iraq, even though Iraq's dictator, Saddam Hussein, had never had an Islamist agenda - save for his opportunistic pose as a defender of the faithful against "Crusaders" during the Gulf War of 1991. Moreover, Bin Ladin had in fact been sponsoring anti-Saddam Islamists in Iraqi Kurdistan, and sought to attract them into his Islamic army."

You're telling me Saddam - a control freak dictator - would want to "join forces" with unpredictable terrorists that wanted to depose him?

"There is also evidence that around this time Bin Ladin sent out a number of feelers to the Iraqi regime, offering some cooperation. None are reported to have received a significant response. According to one report, Saddam Hussein's efforts at this time to rebuild relations with the Saudis and other Middle Eastern regimes led him to stay clear of Bin Ladin"

Mohammad Atta's opinion of Saddam Hussein:
"To him, Saddam Hussein was an American stooge set up to give Washington an excuse to intervene in the Middle East."

I saw that same program last night, and I perhaps this was accidental, perhaps intentional, I don't know, but I noticed in your recount of the program you did not mention how non-chalante "the father of the modern conservative movement" Richard Viguerie was about basic facts and reporting without spin or just down right lies. I would like to direct everyone to the transcript of this very revealing program (I wish they had the video up) of just how wreckless "the conservative noise machine" really is with the facts. All it cares about is winning the election for the next Republican Candidate, no matter how many "inconvenient facts" about Bush's incompetence before Sept.11th or how many of Bush's lies before the Iraq war they have to step over and ignore. And no matter how many lives are lost in the process.

http://www.pbs.org/now/transcript/transcript351_full.html

Here's a selection:

MOYERS: This past election Americans experienced the full might and moxie of the right wing media — frontline partisan warriors of a multibillion-dollar communications empire — whose goal is to shape public discourse, influence public opinion and win elections.

Think back to how right wing pundits ganged up to spread the message, without a shred of hard evidence, that Osama bin Laden's latest video, which arrived just days before the election meant the terrorist was supporting John Kerry.

LIMBAUGH [11/1/04]: This is highly suspicious to me, but it is what it is. I mean, Bin Laden sounds like the Kerry campaign. Bin Laden sounds like John Kerry.

MOYERS: Bin Laden "Urges Bush Defeat" read the headline in right wing tycoon Rupert Murdoch's NEW YORK POST. The very next day a POST columnist wrote that "A vote for Kerry is a vote for …terrorists….and Al Qaeda."

And listen to Sean Hannity:

HANNITY [10/29/04]: Why would Osama bin Laden, who's been quiet for so long, come out and virtually try and influence the election today in favor of John Kerry by attacking the president the way he did?

MOYERS: Do you think what Sean Hannity said is fair?

VIGUERIE: Oh, absolutely.

MOYERS: But there's no fact to back that up. There's no effort to substantiate that with documentation.

VIGUERIE: That's what journalism is. It's just all opinion. Just opinion.

MOYERS: So says Richard Viguerie, a founding father of the modern conservative movement and still one of its most powerful figures. In this new book, Viguerie tells the story of how over the past 40 years the right came to dominate American politics by creating alternative and new media, everything from computerized direct mail to Fox News.

O'REILLY [10/29/04]: This Osama bin Laden video was just released late this afternoon. And I believe it will help President Bush.

MOYERS: Fox whipped the Osama tape into a perfect storm of Republican propaganda.

Bill O'Reilly.

O'REILLY [10/29/04]: But I want to know if you believe the way I do that this helps Bush or not?

MOYERS: Fred Barnes.

BARNES [10/29/04]: Next to actually capturing Osama Bin Laden, having him campaign against you was probably the best thing that could happen.

MOYERS: Peggy Noonan.

NOONAN [10/29/04]: George Bush weakened him. He hates Bush.

MOYERS: Dick Morris.

MORRIS [10/29/04]: So obviously it's a design on his part to help Kerry.

MOYERS: All opinion…not a whiff of reporting or documentation or evidence.

REPORTER: Conservative broadcaster Sean Hannity brought some friends to Pensacola to rally Republicans.

MOYERS: What do you make of the fact that Sean Hannity went barnstorming for the Bush-Cheney ticket the weekend before the election?

VIGUERIE: I just wish he could have done a little bit more. I thought it was just great. And we're not gonna play, Bill, by the liberal establishment's rules. They say, "This is acceptable and this is not acceptable."

Those days are gone and gone forever.

You find this acceptable IGotMailYAY?