Talk:Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda link allegations/Archive 4

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Able Danger and other bad edits

I'm reverting Ron's POV edits. The line about "the connection" between Saddam and al-Qaeda not being controversial is especially POV because it assumes that there was such a connection.

Forgive me for saying so, but the Weekly Standard seems to be somewhat biased.

The Morrissey article clumsily attempts to link Mohamed Atta and Iraq by first noting that Shaffer claims that Able Danger placed Atta in the USA in 2000 while the 9/11 Commission says he was still in Hamburg. It then falsely asserts that most of the information indicating Atta was in Germany was from interrogation of prisoners, and it attempts to insinuate that the interrogations produced nothing but misinformation.

When the article moves on to speculation on other matters, attempting again to tie Atta to Iraq, it misrepresents the evidence given in the Report against Atta's supposed trip to Prague. It neglected to mention about half the story. To begin with, shortly after the report from the lone Czech intelligence officer was initially reviewed, "the Czech intelligence service publicly stated that there was a 70 percent probability" that the claim of an Atta-Ani meeting at 11 AM April 9, 2001 was true. This initial reservedness is pretty far from the persistent, adamant surety suggested by the article.

Two things not mentioned:

• "Czech officials have reviewed their flight and border records as well for any indication that Atta was in the Czech Republic in April 2001, including records of anyone crossing the border who even looked Arab."
• "According to the Czech government, Ani, the Iraqi officer alleged to have met with Atta, was about 70 miles away from Prague" at the time the meeting supposedly took place.

The author of the article also apparently doesn't understand the basic concept of interrogation. Morrissey doesn't seem to get that if interrogations extracted no useful information, there would be no point in doing them. The members of the Commission didn't trust KSM and others under interrogation. They trusted the agents doing the interrogating.

Aside from that, the article grossly exaggerates the importance of interrogation in the Report's conclusions about Atta. What's really bizarre is that Morrissey asserts that Ramzi Binalshibh was the Commission's source for information in the last half of the Atta item. But interrogation of Binalshibh is only given in note 69 as the source for the first paragraph. The later paragraphs that the article says are sourced from Binalshibh are actually sourced in Note 70 as "CIA analytic report, 'The Plot and the Plotters," June 1, 2003, p. 23; German BKA report, investigative summary re Shehhi, July 9, 2002." Oddly, no mention of Binalshibh there.

Also in the 9/11 Report: "There was no reason for such a meeting, especially considering the risk it would pose to the operation. By April 2001, all four pilots had completed most of their training, and the muscle hijackers were about to begin entering the United States.
"The available evidence does not support the original Czech report of an Atta-Ani meeting."

The source for this is not Ramzi Binalshibh, but American and German intelligence reports.

The Commission put out a statement explaining the points raised by Shaffer. Pentagon spokesmen have said that they can't confirm Shaffer's story.

Shaffer explains the conflict between the Able Danger and 9/11 Commission timelines by saying, "Able Danger wasn’t about dates and locations. It was about associations and linkages. That’s what the focus was." He does not explain it by asserting that the 9/11 Commission was wrong.

His main claim is that the U.S. intelligence services didn't listen when he claims he identified Atta as a threat. But he didn't start squawking about it until fairly recently. And he keeps changing his story.

--Mr. Billion 21:27, 29 August 2005 (UTC)

Mr Billion, you reverted several of my edits: 1. The list of newspapers in the Intro and the comment that the link between Saddam and al Qaeda was not controversial prior to 9/11. 2. The fact it is not known whether the CIA provided the information about the arrests in Germany or whether the 9/11 Commission ignored it. 3. The comment that the writer admitted CNS News has a good reputation. 4. The entire entry about Able Danger. You said the Talk page would explain the edits but your entry above only addresses part of point 1 and point 4.

Regarding Point 1, I invite you to read the timeline. A thorough (or even cursory) reading of the timeline will clearly show that a link between Saddam and al Qaeda existed. The real questions have to do with the nature and extent of the relationship and whether or not it included cooperation in the attacks of 9/11. On these questions, different points of view are possible. If you truly believe the link was controversial prior to 9/11, give me a source and I will agree to remove the comment from the article.

Regarding Point 4, you are in error. Most of the information in the 9/11 Commission Report regarding Atta’s travels was learned from prisoners. You wrongly point to endnotes 69 and 70 of chapter 5 which are found on pages 161-162. The information about Atta’s travels is found on pages 166-168 (Endnotes 90-105, found on pages 496-497). If you reread that section you will find both in the narrative and the endnotes that the main sources for Atta’s travels are his fellow terrorists. Finally, Col Shaffer is not alone. His claims regarding Able Danger have been corroborated by Captain Scott Phillpott, the officer who briefed the 9/11 Commission about Able Danger in 2004, and former contractor James D Smith. The new information about Able Danger brings new light to the timeline of Atta’s travels, including the possibility he travelled using an alias. According to the 9/11 Commission Report, a history of Atta using an alias would make it more likely that he did travel to Prague in April 2001. RonCram 15:08, 5 September 2005 (UTC)

Sorry, I pointed to the wrong endnotes. But I am referring to the claim on page 2 of the Weekly Standard article that "Their report details the factors that went into this rejection on pages 228-9." It then lists a few pieces of evidence against an Atta meeting (somehow neglecting other pieces), quotes a section from page 229 and says, "The Commission's source for this? Ramzi Binalshibh." The source for the listed evidence and the quoted section is not primarily the interrogation of Ramzi Binalshibh, yet the article seeks to give the impression that it is. I am taking issue with that. The listed evidence is sourced to Czech intelligence, the FBI, and the CIA (endnote 70 pp522-523). The only thing in the quoted section that could have come from Binalshibh is that Atta had a practice of traveling under his true name, and even that is not only supported by Binalshibh also but by records of Atta's traveling under his true name. The article also attempts without evidence to discredit the FBI's interrogations. There is no support for these attempts other than the author's speculation about the effectiveness of interrogation.

The Standard article's main tactic for linking Saddam and al-Qaeda is insinuation. The author has an obvious bias and agenda. --Mr. Billion 20:32, 5 September 2005 (UTC)

Mr. Billion, so what you are telling me is that you deleted my entry because you did not like the article by Morrissey in the Weekly Standard? I hate to break this to you, sir, but I am not Mr. Morrissey. If you want to delete my entries, you have to show that the entry is in error. My entry referenced the 9/11 Commission Report itself and only referenced the Morrissey article regarding Able Danger and the three people who are now on record about it. If there is something that is unclear about what I wrote, I am happy to clarify the wording of the entry to facilitate understanding. But you cannot claim the entry is not relevant to this article.RonCram 05:29, 8 September 2005 (UTC)

I agree with Mr. Billion and will add a few points. Atta's whereabouts are not just determined from other terrorists but from police records, from interviews, from flight school records, etc. Atta was not only visible to other terrorists; he sometimes had to speak to or at least be seen by apartment owners, flight school operators, policemen, bartenders, pizza store owners, etc. There is nothing I see except the insinuation of a Weakly standard writer that claims that Able Danger proves or even makes likely the Atta trip to Prague. Nothing. All you have is the idea that because the Able Danger timeline conflicts with the 9/11 Commission timeline, the latter must be presumed wrong. The wording you use is ridiculous - you say the timelines "appear to be in conflict" (so we're not sure they are, and we're certainly not sure what dates they appear to be in conflict about, and the only dates mentioned by the Weakly Standard as actual points of conflict --except in a deceptive headline -- are from a year earlier), and that the conflict makes it "more likely" that he was in Prague (how much more likely is never spelled out -- you are talking an infinitesimal fraction of a percentage at best). You also ignore all of the information that responds directly to an Atta April 01 prague trip (which does not just disappear because a conflict between two timelines may exist). Do you have any information besides Ed Morissey's speculation that suggests that the Able Danger documents claim atta was in Prague in April? Until you do I am removing this entry. Ron if you want to talk about Able Danger please do it on the appropriate page.--csloat 09:19, 6 September 2005 (UTC)

Ed Morrissey is not speculating that the Able Danger documents do not claim Atta was in Prague in April. You are trying to build a straw man argument. There is no speculation at all in the entry you continue to delete. It is a shame to see you deleting an entry you have not bothered to read. I will explain it to you again starting with a quote from the 9/11 Commission Report on Page 229: "These findings cannot absolutely rule out the possibility that Atta was i Prague on April 9, 2001. He could have used an alias to travel and a passport under that alias, but this would be an exception to his practice of using his true name while traveling (as he did in January and would in July when he took his next overseas trip)." The biggest and most important reason the 9/11 Commission can produce for why Atta was not in Prague is that it was not his practice to use an alias and false passport when traveling. The Commission admits there is nothing else in his timeline to preclude such a trip. They decide against it almost completely because it was not his practice to use an alias. Now Able Danger comes along and claims Atta is in the US in January 2000, something that is not possible unless Atta had used an alias. The big, special reason that Atta did not make the trip is nonexistent. This is not a minor issue, it is a major issue that opens up the door to the possibility Atta was in Prague. In addition, we now know that the 9/11 Commission chose to not to investigate certain information that did not fit their viewpoint of what happened. That is big news in and of itself. Of course, we interrogate terrorists to see if we can learn anything. But we are also aware they may lie to us in a disinformation effort. Who would you rather believe - terrorists or military intelligence who say Atta was in the US in January 2000? To most people, the more reliable of the witnesses would be the US military. Yet, the 9/11 Commission chose to believe the terrorists. That is big news and belongs in the timeline. I am restoring the entry. If you delete it again, I will consider it vandalism.RonCram 15:19, 7 September 2005 (UTC)

You have not responded to the critique, your argument is evasive, and removal of this section until it's hammered out here is not vandalism. You do not have the unilateral right to control this page, and I recommend you choose your words before trying to bar others from good faith efforts by labeling them vandals. It's bad faith. -- RyanFreisling @ 15:33, 7 September 2005 (UTC)

You are error. I have responded to the critique on several occasions and on different locations on this page. My argument is clear and not at all evasive. I have pointed out the error Mr. Billion made. I have pointed out the straw man argument csloat made. There is no speculation in this entry at all. Your own entry to the Talk page has made no contribution to the discussion. No one has discussed my reasons for including the entry, least of all you, Mr. Freisling. Deleting an entry without good reason is bad faith. You have provided no reason for your actions, except claiming my argument is evasive which you made no effort to show. The least you can do is read the Talk page before deleting important entries. If you do it again, it will be considered vandalism.RonCram 15:50, 7 September 2005 (UTC)

I am not 'error'. You think I'm 'in' error, fine - it's happened many times before - but in this case I'm not. And I read this page intimately, but up until now, csloat has engaged with you in good faith to undo your blatant mistruths. In this case, you HAVE NOT responded to his criticisms, you have merely repeated your own reasons for it's inclusion over and over. The section should be discussed in good faith, and you should be careful to avoid the 3RR. And it's Ms. Freisling. -- RyanFreisling @ 15:55, 7 September 2005 (UTC)

Ms. Freisling, to which of their points have I not responded? And what is your reason for deleting my entry? Contrary to your claims, I have responded both here and in the article itself. I have expanded the entry to make the relevance to the article more clear because of csloat's claim it was not relevant. csloat's claim that the entry is not relevant is pure nonsense. If it was poorly written in the beginning, I apologize for that. I should not have expected people to read the source I linked to (which would have cleared up any possible misunderstanding). As it reads now, I think the entry is both clear and relevant. If it is unclear at any point, please let me know. In the meantime, I expect you not to delete an entry without giving your own reasons for doing so.RonCram 05:44, 8 September 2005 (UTC)

As Burgess Meredith once said, "You can expect in one hand and crap in the other and see which gets filled first". Deletion of controversial content (especially content around which an edit war is brewing) is valid, especially when the content's obvious errors are unaddressed in Talk (as you did, and as I need not recount) and when the same individual is responsible for adding, and multiply reverting, the content without any other substantive feedback from other users. Your claim I did not read the source is spurious, as are your conclusions. I will treat your edits with a great deal less incredulity when you start editing in a way that inspires such respect. Until then, I will continue to be on the lookout for disinformation and lies on your part in your quest to 'shore up' this conspiracy theory (yes, conspiracy theory) of yours. -- RyanFreisling @ 05:49, 8 September 2005 (UTC)

So you are telling me you are going to continue to delete my entries without giving a reason here? You have not identified any "disinformation" or "lies" in the Able Danger entry you deleted. When I asked for a reason you deleted it, you tell me my expectations are worth nothing. You can expect your reputation in wikipedia to fall, if it has room to fall. RonCram 13:23, 8 September 2005 (UTC)

When you respond in talk, and reach consensus with csloat (who has been the 'point person' for this ongoing discussion) and attempt to resolve the untruths in your post BEFORE revert warring, I won't need to do anything. As far as a reputation - this is an encyclopedia, and I stand by my edits - that's all that matters. As far as your work is concerned, it's pretty clear you're here for one reason (to spread disinformation and filibuster good faith efforts to replace falsehood with truth), as evidenced by your contribs... so to even mention the issue of reputation is laughable - you have none. Focus on the article and stop behaving in such a childish way. -- RyanFreisling @ 13:31, 8 September 2005 (UTC)

Hey Ron, you're the one creating straw people. The alias thing is a minor point - it proves nothing with regard to Prague. As I said below (or above?) it only has an infinitesimal effect at best on the possibility of the Prague meeting. Much more important refutations of the prague meeting come from the fact that Atta was nowhere near Prague, that evidence placed him in the US, that al-Ani was 70 miles away, that the one witness who claimed to have seen the meeting was totally unreliable, that another witness has reported someone who looks like Atta, that there was another Atta who travelled to Prague in 2000, etc. None of these points are addressed by the Weakly standard. You pretend that Atta not using an alias is the only reason Prague couldn't have happened - that is the real straw person argument here. It's an absurd argument anyway; just because someone didn't use an alias one time doesn't mean they won't use it another time. Just because you find a reference to it in the 911 Commission does not mean it's the only relevant argument. The Able Danger thing has its own page; go bother them with your nonsense. It is simply not relevant here; there are only two people in the world who think it is -- you and Ed Morrissey.--csloat 18:41, 7 September 2005 (UTC)

By the way the claim that the timelines are inconsistent is your claim; that was not a straw argument. It is also the claim in the Weakly Standard article -- the subtitle of the article specifically makes it, and you made it in your entry. It seems that such an argument is essential for your speculation to have any basis whatsoever. If the timeline is not a problem, then Atta was not in Prague, as he was in the US. But so far nobody has shown that the Able Danger timeline refutes this in any way.--csloat 18:44, 7 September 2005 (UTC)

csloat, I have explained this repeatedly but will happily explain it again. (sigh) The Able Danger timeline conflicts with the 9/11 Commission in that the 9/11 Commission places Atta in Germany in early 2000 and Able Danger places Atta in the US at that time. This much is clear and indisputable. Now, if Able Danger is right, then Atta traveled to the US using a passport with a different name, an alias. Contrary to your arguments above, the 9/11 Commission did not have any evidence that could rule out that Atta traveled to Prague in April 2001. Remember the quote from the 9/11 Commission on page 229? "These findings cannot absolutely rule out the possibility that Atta was in Prague on April 9, 2001. He could have used an alias to travel and a passport under that alias, but this would be an exception to his practice of using his true name while traveling (as he did in January and would in July when he took his next overseas trip)." So then, THE SINGLE BIG REASON the 9/11 Commission presented in its report to explain why it rejected the idea Atta did not travel to Prague in April 2001 is that Atta was not known to use an alias. The 9/11 Commission reached the conclusion that Atta did not use an alias because Binalshibh said so (and the fact they had not yet learned of a time when Atta had used an alias). The 9/11 staff obviously knew that all the other terrorists would occasionally use an alias to travel. In 2003, investigators from Able Danger present information to the 9/11 Commission showing say Atta was in the US in January 2000. Apparently the 9/11 commission staff logic went like this: "If Atta was in the US in January 2000, he must have used an alias, because we don't have any record of him coming here under his own name. But we know from interrogating the terrorist Binalshibh that Atta NEVER used an alias. Therefore, the Able Danger investigators must be unreliable. We will not investigate this further." Seriously csloat, are you going to tell me you do not understand this now? Are you going to tell me this has no relationship to the article? It relates to the possibility of Atta traveling to Prague and it relates to the credibility of the 9/11 Commission Report which is about to undergo Congressional inquiry. RonCram 05:22, 8 September 2005 (UTC)

I didn't say I didn't understand your argument, Ron; I said it was ludicrous. It is a strawman and I think you know it. The alias thing is not even mentioned on the prague entry on the timeline because it is the least significant of the reasons Atta could not have met al-Ani in Prague. It may have been cited by the 911C, so what? That is not the "SINGLE BIG REASON"; read the list of reasons I provided above again. It is also not the 911C's single big reason; they looked at other intel in the report. Your alleged 9/11 staff logic doesn't return any google hits because it is nonsense. The most significant point here however is that the ONLY other person in the world besides you who seems to think that Able Danger is relevant to the Prague conspiracy theory is a second-rate journalist at a hack publication that openly spreads disinformation. The subtitle of his article announces falsely that there is a conflict in April 2001 in the timeline - not the more accurate Jan 2000 conflict that you point out. That kind of misleading headline is symptomatic of the magazine's logic throughout its treatment of this issue. That is why you can't find a refereed scholarly publication on this issue that concludes that there was any collaboration between Saddam and al-Qaeda; only stuff from this rag. You also can't find a professional intelligence analyst who believes it. Not a former DCI -- an actual analyst whose job it is to sift through thousands of reports every day, most of them false. But I'm getting off on a tangent -- the issue at hand, the connection between Able Danger and Prague, is nonsense. The press has been all over Able Danger and they would definitely be talking about this if such a connection made any sense, but it just doesn't. It is sheer fantasy to make the question of whether Atta used an alias the central point in this discussion when we have numerous much more significant responses to the Prague meeting that have never been addressed. The Prague meeting just did not happen -- and I think you know it, which is why you are grasping at this rather than addressing the reasons that have been put forth again and again.--csloat 11:22, 8 September 2005 (UTC)

I understand why you are upset. I am quoting the 9/11 Commission Report and you do not like what they say. I took your advice and added the quote to the April 2001 entry. It should have been added long ago. You provided a number of reasons why you do not think the meeting happened. Unfortunately, none of these reasons rule out the possibility of the meeting, at least according to the 9/11 Commisssion. If the one big reason is no longer a hurdle, then it dramatically increases the chance Atta traveled to Prague. ALL of the other terrorists (that I can think of) were known to use an alias on occasion. Why should Atta be the exception? It was a flimsy excuse for the 9/11 Commission to use in the first place. Nice try on taking a paragraph I wrote colored for humor and running a google search on it. As if that would prove something! Take any original paragraph and google it and you will not get anything. Your continued rant that you cannot find a professional intelligence analyst who believes in the link is preposterous. To be honest, I do not know if the Prague meeting happened or not. But I do know that the press has lied about the meeting from the beginning. The New York Times had to recant one story and should have recanted others. One story James Risen wrote claimed Atta could not be in Prague because he was in Florida. Then it was learned Atta was in Florida on April 4, which does not preclude his trip in the least. Does the term "the reasons that have been put forth" refer to your reasons Atta you don't think Atta made the trip? Or does it refer to the reasons my entry should not be a part of this article? If it refers to the former, just realize that I am accepting the position of the 9/11 Commission that there is no proof Atta did not make the trip if he used an alias. If it refers to the latter, I have demonstrated how Able Danger relates to the trip, to the credibility of the 9/11 Commission and its relevance to this article. There are no "reasons" put forward I have not discussed. RonCram 13:46, 8 September 2005 (UTC)

Once again, actually resolving the issue requires fact, a lot more than just filibustering. The section as written is woefully inadequate. You are trying to shore up your post with opinion, not fact... Just flapping your gums (or in this case, your keys) does not equal fact-finding. Your assertions as written were POV and inaccurate, and on the face of it, your 'responses' to csloat do NOTHING to achieve consensus. You should really work on your fact-checking, and stay off the Orwellian claims that the press lied. You are not an investigative journalist, and this is not a platform for you to convince others. Stick to fact, or the content does not belong. I realize that may be hard for you, as this entire article is a gossamer thread connecting pile after pile of heaping cow dung, with little if any fact to be found. Prepare for more and more culling of this tripe. -- RyanFreisling @ 13:57, 8 September 2005 (UTC)

Ryan, you have yet to point out one fact that is inaccurate. Fact-checking is my strong suit. My entry is full of facts, all of them well sourced. You act as if there are factual inaccuracies in my entry. Which fact is wrong? Which statement is not well supported? You cannot just "cull" facts because you don't like them. That is vandalism. RonCram 14:14, 8 September 2005 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but your behavior here makes your comment laughable. You talk past the issues raised by others, and use your beliefs to guide your inclusion of fact. That's bad form. Your attribution of vandalism to be is untrue, and your justification for your revert war is false. You have violated 4RR, and have not given any other users the opportunity to make themselves heard here. Your behavior here is far from factual - it's detrimental and it's disruptive to Wikipedia. Plenty of 'fact' can be culled for plenty of reasons (readability, editorial clarity, 'balance', etc... but that's not what I'm saying. The article will continue to see your false assertions changed or deleted, when they are found unfactual (as is this section under discussion). You cannot just blithely respond by talking past the points at issue, and claim others are vandalous. That's bad faith. -- RyanFreisling @ 14:26, 8 September 2005 (UTC)

First, I think Ryan is right on about your conduct, Ron, but I am going to try to assume good faith and explain this one more time. (1) The issue of the alias is not the one big reason, not even for the 9/11 C. You are right it's a silly argument, but that's why you're using it as a straw person. The Comission looked at other evidence, including the stuff mentioned in the timeline. Their statement that the other findings do not "rule out" the possibility of a meeting is like me saying I cannot rule out the possibility that the sun won't rise tomorrow. They are simply being careful; acknowledging that it is impossible to prove that something did not happen. Which is why it the burden of argumentative proof is typically on the one who asserts that something did happen. The problem with conspiracy theorists is that they switch this burden of proof -- so that a realistic disclaimer like this one can be waved around as if it were proof of its opposite. (2) the alias issue is thrown in here as an additional argument; Ron claims it "dramatically increases the chance Atta traveled to Prague." That is beyond ludicrous. Any increase in said chance is infinitesimal. The alias is not even listed as a significant argument for this on this page. And it is a minor argument for the commission. And it is a silly argument - everyone concedes that. (3) The press has not "lied about" the meeting "from the beginning" -- unless you mean the Weakly Standard. One Czech official had a problem with one NYT story but even after expressing the problem he had with it he went on to admit the substance of it was true -- that, in other words, the Czech government had backed off the claim. Do a little research in Czech sources after 2003 and you will see I am correct about this -- there are enough of them in translation on the internet. Czech politicians have even used this as an example of a well-known intel failure on the part of the Czech government. (4) You have not dealt with any of the other reasons that Atta could not have been in Prague -- all you do is say you don't trust the NYT. (And yet you do trust the Weekly Standard - go figure). Let's review them: (a) the only evidence for the meeting is the claim of a single informant known to be unreliable (b) The Czechs had slowly backed off the claim since 2002 - first by claiming Atta was there to help al-Ani attack RFE (as an aside, he was cleared of that charge) rather than to plan 9/11, then by claiming there was only a 70% chance of such a meeting, and then admitting the meeting theory had "no factual basis." And as I said now it is regarded as a joke in the Czech Republic. (c) Al-Ani was reportedly 70 miles away from the meeting (d) Al-Ani was known to have an Iraqi colleague that he met with often who was a dead ringer for Atta (e) some of the speculation about Atta's flights in 2000 comes not from an alias but from another man, a Pakistani, named Mohammed Atta (two "m"s rather than one), whose travel confused intelligence agents; (f) the FBI investigated Atta's whereabouts thoroughly and found that he did not leave the country in April; the Director is quoted: "We ran down literally hundreds of thousands of leads and checked every record we could get our hands on, from flight reservations to car rentals to bank accounts." (g) the Czech police chief could find no evidence that Atta visited Prague in 2001; (h) al-Ani is now in custody and has been cooperating and giving up reasonable intelligence under interrogation. He claims he has never met Atta, and his interrogators seem to believe him. (i) Atta hated Saddam and considered him an "American stooge". You need to deal with all of these arguments, not just the straw person argument of the alias. (5) NOBODY is talking about this except you and Ed Morrissey. This conspiracy theory connecting Able Danger to the Prague speculation is completely non-notable. (6) It's funny, you whine that it is "preposterous" that you can't find a professional intel analyst to support your claim of a Prague meeting, yet you still cannot seem to come up with a single one. Overall, this Able Danger stuff does not belong here Ron, and you know it. I suspect that's why you don't bother to bring it up on the page where such speculation would be relevant, because you know it would get shot down there even harder than it is here. And stop hiding behind the 9/11 Commission. You know what their conclusions are. What you're doing is taking one sentence out of context, twisting its meaning and then claiming it is some kind of logical a priori. "It says they can't rule out the possibility of him using an alias; therefore the alias is the lynchpin!" That's a crap argument, and I suspect you know it. --csloat 20:01, 8 September 2005 (UTC)

csloat, you are talking about everything but the issue at hand. The point is that this information is relevant whether or not you consider it convincing that it proves Atta was in Prague. I am not even convinced he was in Prague. But I am convinced that people created lots of smoke screens about the issue. A few comments related to your treatise. 1. The issue of the alias is the big issue because all of the other checking that was done was looking for "Mohamed Atta" not for whatever alias he used. 2. The alias issue is now listed as a big issue. I (and Mr. Billion) corrected your disinformation that Atta was known to be in the US from April 4-11. 3. Yes, the press has gotten the story wrong. The NY Times was rebuked by the Czech government for fabricating the story that Havel called Bush. And the quote you mentioned has also been rejected by the Czech government. The Czechs continue to support the intel that Atta was in Prague (although Havel is only 70% convinced). Your misunderstanding that Atta was known to be in the US from April 4-11 is probably due to a poorly written article by James Risen in the NY Times that has yet to be recanted or clarified. 4. You cite a number of reasons that Atta could not be in Prague. a. is not proof that Atta was not there. b. The Czechs continue to believe Atta was in Prague through 2003 and indications are they still believe it. c. Al-Ani was reportedly 70 miles away by a good friend of al-Ani who was trying to protect him, hardly a credible witness. d. Again, this info comes from the same good friend of al-Ani. e. is not proof of anything. f. Again, the FBI was searching for "Mohamed Atta" not an alias which is why the use of an alias is a big issue. g. The police chief would have to ignore the eyewitness to make this claim. h. If you were al-Ani, would you lie about it? i. This is obviously untrue. Saddam may not be liked by people in the Middle East but no one considered him a stooge or puppet of the Americans. 5. Does that prove anything? Not at all. None of the facts I stated in my entry are in doubt and the logic and relevance to the article are clear. 6. There are a number of professional intel analysts who support the link between Saddam and al-Qaeda. You can expect to see a list of them soon.

Ron you're like a broken record. Let's go one by one. (1) A lot of the checking on Atta's whereabouts - from cell phones, from him being stopped on the highway, etc. - had nothing to do with an alleged alias. (2) The alias is not a big issue. I had no disinformation there; all you guys did is replace my summary with the actual quote. Atta is thought by everyone who has studied this to have been in the US at the time. I gather from your comments that even you believe that's where he was. (3) The NYT was criticized because the Czechs were trying to avoid embarrassment. The same guy who criticized the NYT also admitted they were right about the substance -- that Havel no longer believed there was evidence of such a meeting. I'm sick of repeating myself on this particular point but you never seem to respond to it; you just keep asserting that the NYT is full of liars and traitors. And that is the implication of your argument Ron -- to knowingly lie about the whereabouts of a known terrorist who had attacked the US is not just a Jayson Blair move; it would be out-and-out treason. So please tell us who at the NYT is guilty of treason and provide some evidence of why they would lie like this. Havel backed off to 70% before the NYT article, and after the article his representative said he was no longer convinced at all. Don't tell me this is "probably due to a poorly written article" -- there is a direct quote there from Havel's office and it's listed in the timeline. (4) (a) is not proof but again you're the one with the burden of proof here. Stop trying to switch it. The fact that the informant was totally unreliable throws it radically into question. It means you need more evidence before anyone in their right mind can accept a Prague meeting. (b) You're wrong. I don't see any indication they still believe it; I see every indication they don't. There may be one or two who refuse to back off the claim just to avoid having to admit they were wrong but even those have not said anything that I am aware of since 2002. When the Weekly standard interviewed someone in 2003 (sorry I don't recall the name but you know the article) the interviewer never asked point blank if the person thought Atta was in Prague. I have already brought this up before. Finally this is being openly ridiculed in the Czech press and by Czech politicians. So even if one guy still thinks it's true, the consensus in the Czech Republic is that it is not. (c) I'm not sure where you got your information on this point - the 911 Commission says it came from the government: "According to the Czech government, Ani, the Iraqi officer alleged to have met with Atta, was about 70 miles away from Prague on April 8-9 and did not return until the afternoon of the ninth, while the source was firm that the sighting occurred at 11:00 A.M." Did you just make that up? (d) There is no evidence this person is trying to cover for Ani - he is just saying that Ani had a friend who looked like Atta. Reporters checked it out - it is an easy enough thing to check out - and this article was carried in Chicago Tribune and Boston Globe. You can't just wave these things away by impugning the source, unless you have a better source that disagrees. (e) the fact that there were two Attas is proof that Czech intelligence was already confused about his travelling and throws doubt on the 2000 trip to Prague. (f) The FBI was not just searching under his name; they "ran down literally hundreds of thousands of leads." Do you really think the FBI has never heard of anyone using an alias before? Your whole theory here presumes that the entire staffs of intelligence agencies are completely incompetent. (g) The eyewitness was unreliable and the police chief knew that. In fact, eyewitness testimony is inherently unreliable and that's why it alone does not constitute evidence. Intel gets reports from eyewitnesses all the time that turn out not to be true. That's why they try to confirm it with actual evidence. The top cop in Prague was unable to confirm this one guy's report with any actual evidence. Face it Ron, ALL of this comes down to the report of one guy who saw Atta on TV after 911 and thinks he may have seen him months earlier; and even the intel agency that he reported to does not consider him a reliable informant. Nobody has been able to confirm this at all so all we have is this guy's report from 4 years ago. Hell, we don't even know if the informant still believes his own story given all the doubt that has been thrown on it in the last 4 years!! But we do know that nobody else credible believes it anymore. (h) I don't know if I would lie under interrogation but his interrogators seem to think he is providing reliable information. I frankly don't want to think too much about how interrogators extract information from uncooperative suspects but I am pretty sure they have ways of knowing whether someone is lying or not. Also, it's not clear why Al-Ani would bother to lie about this, especially after Saddam has been deposed and the US is in control of Iraq. This guy has no intelligence agency left to protect. (i) How can you say it's "obviously untrue"? First, the source for this info was the 911 Commission which you seem to agree is credible. Second, your comment that no one considered Saddam a stooge of the US is woefully ignorant. Read papers from Iran from during either US war against Iraq and you'll see that's exactly what most Iranians thought. That view was a common element of conspiracy theories throughout the Middle East and many still believe it! Don't forget how long the US supported Saddam for. That may be ancient history to most Americans but believe me it often comes up in Middle Eastern circles. (5) This is the most important point -- this whole thing is only considered significant by you and by Ed Morrissey. So it does not belong in Wikipedia. The purpose of an encyclopedia is not to break news. If you think this is important, write some articles about it, and maybe one day they will gain notoriety enough to put in wikipedia; but for now this has no more place here than a vanity entry about your friend's band. csloat 18:36, 9 September 2005 (UTC)

csloat, you are amazing. Atta was never stopped on the highway during April 4-11. Your comment inferring he was is pure disinformation. Atta may have been in the US during this time but it is wrong to say he was because that simply is not known. It is wrong to hide evidence from readers or to slant the presentation of evidence so it fits your conclusion. These are the reasons this article has a "Disputed" label on it. Let's present the facts and let the facts speak for themselves. Do not put words in my mouth. I have never accused anyone at the NY Times of treason. I have pointed out they printed an article that was a fabrication and they had to recant. I have pointed out they have printed articles that were poorly written and misleading and they have not yet pulled the story or clarified it. But those acts are not treason. I forget who said Atta thought Saddam was a stooge of the Americans, but the 9/11 Commission did not come up with that term. I doubt any serious minded Middle Easterner would describe Saddam was a puppet of the U.S. This description (which the 9/11 Commission apparently gave some credence to) seems ridiculous on the face of it. But at any rate, it has little to do with the meeting. If Atta was working for Osama and Osama told him to go, he would go. You already know about the published reports in newspapers around the world talking about the alliance between Saddam and Osama. I agree that wikipedia is not a place to break news but Able Danger is already in the news. Wikipedia is a place to come for information you did not know. Very few people know about how Able Danger relates to the link between Saddam and al-Qaeda. RonCram 23:08, 9 September 2005 (UTC)

Atta was stopped in April. I forget the date but you're right it was after the 11th. That is not "pure disinformation" because I didn't mention a date. All of the available evidence puts Atta in the US at the time, which is all I am claiming. I am not hiding any evidence -- if you have evidence of anything please post it; as you have seen over and over I will not remove legitimate claims. You did not accuse the NYT of treason but if you are claiming that they lied about Atta's whereabouts, that is the implication. When you say they are fabricating lies about a known terrorist's whereabouts, misleading the US government and protecting someone you claim they know to be working with a terrorist -- well, it amounts to treason! I am not putting the words in your mouth, I'm just following your logic, and I find it interesting that you will not own the results of your logic, yet you want us to believe it anyway! And, just to be clear, the NYT never had to "recant" any article; the article you are talking about was not a "fabrication"; it was dismissed by a spokesman who then went on to admit that the substance of it was true. You never give any evidence to support the claim that the later story was fabricated or that it was even "poorly written"; there's a direct quote from the Havel spokesperson in it. As far as the view of Saddam as a stooge of the US -- again, you are just plain ignorant if you think people in the middle east don't believe that. The description is not ridiculous at all; it is totally consistent with what OBL himself was saying about Saddam since the 1980s, and with what a great many in the Arab world believed throughout the 1990s and even today. I just can't help you if you insist on living in a fantasy world where people only believe things that you think are reasonable. Finally, you've once again only responded to the arguments you feel like responding to, then you stomp your foot and pretend you're right. What about the rest of it? There are several points you've just ignored totally on this issue. Face it, Mr. Cram - Atta did not go in Prague in 2001, and you can't even come up with a legitimate reason that he would do so. As far as Able Danger goes, the reason that "very few people know about how it relates to the link between Saddam and al-Qaeda" is because it just plain doesn't. The only people who believe it does are you and Ed Morrissey, and Wikipedia is not the place to glorify a ridiculous conspiracy theory that is only embraced by two people, one of whom works for a total hack magazine and another who is plainly and openly ignorant about the Middle East, at least as far as this issue goes. --csloat 06:19, 10 September 2005 (UTC)

Richard Miniter?

This paragraph needs to be reworded or deleted:

Some argue that the above argument constitutes an ultra-realist point-of-view which ignores human nature, including the alliance of Franklin Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, and Joseph Stalin (who were of three vastly different ideological backgrounds and positions) during World War II. Journalist Richard Miniter, in his book Losing Bin Laden, points out that Iraqi army troops were ordered to move away from military positions during the aftermath of the attacks (p. 239). American troops found a mural of the World Trade Center attacks, featuring Saddam smoking a cigar and an Iraqi Air logo in the background [4].

I think it's reasonable to indicate here that some people (truthfully, a small right-wing clique) have a different opinion of this issue, but I am not sure how the movement of army troops or the mural have anything to do with this. I think the mural finding could go on the timeline, but what does army troop movements after 9/11 have to do with this? thanks for any explanation.--csloat 06:37, 31 August 2005 (UTC)

More manipulative edits from RonCram

This is getting ludicrous. An op-ed piece makes vague reference to the Pentagon and you interpret it as evidence that Saddam directed, funded, or trained al Qaeda? This is the epitome of one-dimensional thought. I corrected the language on the entry you made so it isn't so overtly manipulative, and used an actual quote from the paper. But this nonsense really doesn't belong here at all - it's like the mural; but even worse because you're mind-reading what someone wrote pre-911. Guess what Ron? You should start reading Arab apocalyptic fiction from the late 90s-2001. Such books (studied by David Cook if you want to look for references) are filled with tales of armageddon that involves the destruction of America's cities, esp. New York and Washington. I'm sure if you search you can find one written by an Iraqi author. Then you can come back to this page and add it, claiming that it proves Saddam knew about and therefore funded al Qaeda! Does anyone else agree that such things don't belong here?

On another note, I invited RonCram to demonstrate with his edits that he is interested in improving the page, not just in pushing his conspiracy theory, and I specifically pointed to an edit that would show such good faith, holding off on editing it myself. Instead, he adds an edit about a story by someone with a crystal ball and blows it out of proportion so it sounds like it supports this conspiracy theory. Well, it shows clearly what he's interested in, which is POV-pushing, pure and simple.--csloat 02:47, 3 September 2005 (UTC)

I have shown that the op-ed piece belongs in the timeline below under "Evidence of Foreknowledge." Regarding your challenge in your second paragraph, you have failed to persuade me that any of my edits were in error or needed revising. The note regarding the Duelfer Report and the CNS documents belong together because the Duelfer Report adds credibility to the CNS documents. It seems rather straightforward when you consider the fact the credibility of the documents were in question. I have noted you sometimes make changes to my "grammar" when my grammar was fine. Your change actually changes the meaning and not the grammar. For example, the NRO writer who questioned the timing and manner of release of the documents to CNS News did so in a way to create "some" doubt in the veracity of the documents. The writer did not issue any particular challenge to the content or the form of the documents. If the writer had pointed to particular problems in the form or content of the documents, that would be a "serious" question of validity. If it could be shown the typewriter used was not from the period claimed, like the Dan Rather docs, that would be disprove them... it would be serious. The fact the docs came out in Oct 2004 does not disprove them. The fact they were given to a small media outlet instead of a large one does not disprove them. csloat, you are overstating your case. Far better for you to find defensible ground and stick to that.RonCram 11:35, 3 September 2005 (UTC)

Look at the grammatical change I made; the sentence you had did not make sense. Sorry. The NRO writer's questioning is another issue; I was more accurately representing what the article said. The issues raised by the NRO are more serious than the ones you claim -- the question of why the govt official who thought these were important enough to give to an unknown news outlet didn't think to give them to the CIA, for example, is a much bigger question. Also the question of where did they come from. I think the docs are real, but I think they are part of an INC disinfo campaign. But the bottom line is that nobody credible has been taking these documents seriously and that is what the article should represent.--csloat 19:21, 3 September 2005 (UTC)

Evidence of Foreknowledge

csloat, you cannot say there is no evidence of foreknowledge in an entry that gives evidence of foreknowledge. It isn't done. The fact Sen Hollings considered it important evidence of foreknowledge shows that my inclusion of the data is not partisan POV. BTW, James Woolsey and Judge Baer do not need to be mentioned here. The fact they agree adds weight to my argument but only gums up the narrative. It is Sen Hollings who sees the World Trade Center in the words "arm already hurting" as my source makes clear. There is a difference between evidence and proof. If you would like to say that this evidence, by itself, is not proof of foreknowledge - that is fine by me. I can even make that change myself. But that fact it is evidence cannot reasonably be disputed. The reason this article carries the "Disputed" label is because so much information is still missing. For example, Sen Hollings had this opinion piece read into the Congressional Record. This fact is fairly well known. I can imagine a reader studying this article and saying "This thing is totally biased. It does not even include the Iraqi opinion piece that named the targets two months before 9/11!" Remember, my goal is to remove the "Disputed" label. I'm not trying to push that Iraq knew or ordered 9/11. I simply do not know that Iraq was that involved. But the fact a relationship existed is impossible to dispute. When evidence points to possible involvement in 9/11 itself, that evidence has to be included whether it is conclusive or not.RonCram 10:51, 3 September 2005 (UTC)

Read the freaking article. You have to be paranoid to believe this guy has a crystal ball. Everyone knew OBL was going to attack the US it was only a matter of time; the pentagon and the white house are obvious targets. Like I said, there were probably dozens of articlees like this all over the arab world. This also proves nothing - an opinion piece by an Iraqi does not constitute Iraqi foreknowledge even if the paper is "state-owned." There is no NY reference so I am deleting your BS - it is a bad interpretation by Woolsey that is picked up by Hollings, and just because Hollings believes it does not make it true - read it yourself, it is fantasy. Anyway even if you could prove that this guy had foreknowledge, so what? It doesn't prove Saddam had foreknowledge, which is the real issue here. The title of this article is not Random Iraqis and al-Qaeda--csloat 19:16, 3 September 2005 (UTC)

I have read the article. The man does not need a crystal ball. He is relaying what Osama said. Read it again. It says "Bin Ladin is insisting very convincingly that he will strike America on the arm that is already hurting." The man has foreknowledge. Now if this guy knows bin Laden's plans, it is not a huge stretch to figure his boss knows bin Laden's plans also. BTW, I believe it was Hollings who first attributed those words to the WTC. Woolsey and Baer spoke about it in 2003. But that really does not matter. Show the opinion piece to anyone old enough to remember the first WTC bombing and they will readily identify those words as referring to WTC.RonCram 14:58, 4 September 2005 (UTC)

Are you paranoid? "The arm that is hurting" says nothing about WTC except in the Senator's brain. And yours, apparently. What the hell do you mean "his boss" -- do you have any information about who this writer actually is? What his connection to the Iraqi government is, and when he spoke with Saddam about his predictions? As I said above this proves nothing, even if it did suggest foreknowledge. But I suppose for a conspiracy theorist a logical leap from vague predictions that turn out to be sort of correct to some sort of proof that Saddam attacked the towers counts as sound reasoning. Why not have a page Lynne Palmer and al-Qaeda, since Lynne Palmer, the astrologist, wrote in a book published in 2000, "Avoid terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001". Clearly, foreknowledge! Perhaps you can even find evidence that Ms. Palmer gave money to a new age charity that once bought Korans for their bookstore from a mosque where Mohamed Atta might have prayed when he was in Prague. --csloat 08:59, 6 September 2005 (UTC)

Evidence of foreknowledge is not the same as evidence of complicity, but it does suggest the possibility of a link. Why can't you understand the words "his boss?" The writer is an employee of a state-run Iraqi paper. That means Saddam was his boss. Perhaps you are assuming op-ed pieces in Iraq are written by independent commentators like in America? You have to realize that independent commentators were not allowed in Saddam's Iraq. He controlled the media completely. Saddam certainly had foreknowledge of the attack on 9/11. If nothing else, Saddam and officials in his government must have read this paper. So your comment really makes no sense at all and will be taken out.RonCram 14:29, 6 September 2005 (UTC)

Because Voice of America is the United State's state-run news service, Challiss McDonough's boss is George Bush. And naturally George Bush knows the content of everything published by VOA. In the same vein, Saddam Hussein was the head of government of Iraq, so everything that happened in Iraq from 1979 to 2003 = Saddam Hussein. Am I right?

It's ridiculous to call Saddam the writer's boss just because Saddam was the writer's country's leader. Cram, you're using a flawed tactic that I've seen before. You're trying to give the impression that Saddam Hussein's control was so complete that everything that came out of Iraq was because of him. But his own government employees kept secrets from him, and he wasn't even in control of all of his country. He was a power-hungry dictator, but he only wished he had the capability and level of control with which you're crediting him. --Mr. Billion 17:57, 6 September 2005 (UTC)

Just to push the point further -- I have not even seen any evidence the writer of the op-ed piece actually worked for the paper anyway, so even your minimal connection is not clear. But apart from that, none of this is relevant as you admit. Foreknowledge does not mean complicity. If 911 was an open secret in the Arab world, if OBL had told others it was going to happen, does that mean Saddam is somehow complicit? This is all a silly red herring that you are making everyone follow even though you admit there is no significance to it whatsoever.--csloat 19:28, 6 September 2005 (UTC)

Evidence of Iraqi Financial Support

Evidence of Saddam's financial support can be seen in the decision to grant Oil for Food contracts to companies with ties to financing al Qaeda. Please read the November 21, 2001 entry in the timeline for more information and the source.RonCram 13:58, 3 September 2005 (UTC)

Uh yeah. There's no evidence whatsoever Saddam even knew where that money was going. Once again you're manipulating facts to push a POV, no regard for the truth.--csloat 19:12, 3 September 2005 (UTC)

The truth is that Iraqi oil revenue went to al Qaeda. I admit this entry alone does not prove Saddam's intent to fund al Qaeda, but when coupled with published reports of their "alliance" or "pact" and evidence of training al Qaeda at Salmon Pak and in Afghanistan, it becomes strong circumstantial evidence of Iraqi financial support.RonCram 14:47, 4 September 2005 (UTC)

Oil revenue went to a lot of places. There was no evidence of training by Iraqis in Afghanistan and the evidence surrounding Salman Pak is sheer speculation from sources known to be totally unreliable; and even if the latter is true there is not a shred of evidence connecting it to oil for food money.--csloat 08:43, 6 September 2005 (UTC)

Perelman Quote

csloat, you simply cannot state there is no evidence for a statement in the entry that provides the evidence. Perhaps you might try to say there is no corroborating evidence that Saddam intended Iraqi oil revenue to go to al Qaeda. But that would not work either. The published statements of Iraq's alliance or pact with al Qaeda is enough corroboration. The mere fact al Qaeda got the money "raises the possibility" Saddam intended it. There is nothing "silly" about what Perelman said. Your statement will taken out. Besides, how would you like it if people took out all the quotes you included like the one from the Toronto Sun saying it was not likely the document found in Baghdad were the "smoking gun" the Bush Administration wanted? That statement was never fully explained and becomes much less important with the documents published by CNS News. Let's try to make the article readable and not sound so schizophrenic. Can we make a deal on that?

A quote is just an opinion, not evidence of anything. The quote is sheer speculation and doesn't belong there at all. If we are going to put it there it needs the disclaimer. So let's either take it out or let's not pretend it's "evidence."--csloat 19:30, 6 September 2005 (UTC)

RonCram 3RR vio

This user has been blocked for an hour [1] due to a violation of the 3RR. -- RyanFreisling @ 15:12, 8 September 2005 (UTC)

This is true. I considered your deletions simple vandalism and not subject to 3RR. An administrator disagreed. I am certain you are proud of yourself. But you still have not given a reason for your deletions. RonCram 14:09, 9 September 2005 (UTC)

Yes she did, as did I, Ron. And you know this. --csloat 18:00, 9 September 2005 (UTC)

She claimed my answers on the Talk page were evasive but would never say how my answers were evasive or which answers were evasive. She never pointed to any factual error in my entry. When I asked her to she wrote this: "As Burgess Meredith once said, "'You can expect in one hand and crap in the other and see which gets filled first.'" Not exactly the words you would expect would build any understanding or consensus. 69.230.203.93 21:03, 10 September 2005 (UTC)

When you take responsibility for your own actions, you will begin to build consensus. Currently, there is ZERO accountability coming from you for your actions. Like that quote? Glad it sunk in. -- RyanFreisling @ 23:15, 10 September 2005 (UTC)

Atta not known to be in US from April 4-11

csloat, your edit is in direct contradiction to the facts. The reason the 9/11 Commission said it was possible for Atta to be at the meeting in Prague on April 9 is because his whereabouts are unknown from April 4-11. Someone used Atta's cell phone inside the US three times during that time, but there is no indication it was Atta. RonCram 14:35, 9 September 2005 (UTC)

Ron my edit had "While admitting that the Commission could not 'absolutely rule out the possibility' that Atta was in Prague on April 9th travelling under an alias, the report notes that the available evidence puts him in the United States April 4-11," That is clearly supported by the facts -- the report finds that the available evidence supports the conclusion that that is where he was. Your edit, before it was fixed by Mr. Billion, had the outright distortion "The report notes that whereabouts of Atta are unknown from April 4-11 and admits that the Commission could not 'absolutely rule out the possibility' that Atta was in Prague on April 9th travelling under an alias" -- the report does not say his whereabouts are unknown at all; in fact, it has a pretty good idea of his whereabouts based on the available evidence. Mr. Billion fixed your distortion by adding the full 911C quote, which indicates that available evidence puts him in the US on various days during that week. You keep trying to rephrase things so it looks like it was likely that the Commission was wrong about their conclusion (like the "But" you added to the beginning of the next sentence). It's symptomatic of what seems to be bad faith on editing this article. Your claim "there is no indication it was Atta" that used his own phone is another example of this -- the fact is that there is no indication that it was anybody BUT Atta who used his phone.

In my list of responses to you above I forgot another very important one which you conspiracy theorists have yet to answer. Why the hell would Atta throw the whole mission that had been years in planning into jeopardy to travel 5,000 miles to have coffee in Prague with some guy that there is no indication he ever had contact with before? As the Commission notes, the planning for 9-11 was likely finished by April, and obviously there are a lot better ways to transfer money or information than a trip halfway around the world (a trip during which Atta would have spent more time on the plane than he did in Prague). Wait let me guess your answer to this - it's because someone else was using Atta's cell phone, so he couldn't just call al-Ani; he had to catch the next plane to eastern Europe.csloat 19:00, 9 September 2005 (UTC)

The existence of cell phone calls during that time period is not "available evidence" because it is not evidence. Cell phone calls could have been either incoming or outgoing and made by any one of a number of Atta's terrorist buddies. If the 9/11 Commission felt it was Atta, they would not have said Atta could have been in Prague. If Atta could have been in Prague, then his whereabouts are unknown. The question of why Atta might have found it necessary to meet with al-Ani can only authoritatively be answered by al-Ani himself and that is not likely to happen. But I do not think it uncommon for someone to have a last chat with the boss before a big project, if that is what it was. Remember the op-ed piece we talked about in the state-run Iraqi paper? Perhaps Atta was reassuring the Iraqis that everything was in place and now the Iraqis needed to come through with their side of the deal (whatever that might have been). If that was the case, al-Ani could have relayed that back to Baghdad and it ends up being published. This is all guess work, of course. But it is easy to imagine several reasons why such a meeting might have been required. It is kind of funny that the 9/11 Commission says they cannot imagine why the meeting would take place. Lack of imagination is exactly the one problem people have pointed to in the breakdown of the U.S. intelligence community. RonCram 22:37, 9 September 2005 (UTC)

First, cell phone calls are only one form of evidence. There is his photo on ATM records. There is other evidence. And frankly you have shown no reason to believe anyone else has used Atta's cell phone. You're once again trying to shift the burden of proof -- sure, there's a possibility that he let someone else use his cell, and that he took off in the middle of a big operation and risked everything so he could fly 5000 miles to sit in a coffeeshop with some guy he'd never met before for no reason that anyone can articulate or even speculate on. There's also a possibility that sheep will grow wings and mutate into angels. But the available evidence renders the scenario highly unlikely. Atta's whereabouts were "unknown" in this absolutist sense, but the available evidence places him in the U.S. As for a "last chat with the boss" - are you saying now that Al-Ani was Atta's boss?? That's a claim I haven't even seen in your favorite conspiracy paper the weekly standard. You bring up the op-ed piece as if it had anything to do with this -- ummm, what? Atta flew 5,000 miles to tell al-Ani to tell some random Iraqi author that it's OK to make some vague references to terrorist acts in a local Nasiriyah paper that nobody outside of the city likely even reads? You wrote this with a straight face?? And what evidence is there that there was an Iraqi "side of the deal" to come through with? It's ludicrous. Money trails can be followed and we had the CIA and FBI on the Atta money trail pretty damn closely. If he had gotten a penny from Saddam we would know it. Besides, there is no reason any of this had to happen in person even if your scenarios had any credibility. Atta could have easily given the OK for the op-ed piece over the phone. Oh, right, I forgot - terrorists were using his cell phone, no doubt to call the Dixie Chicks and let them know it was OK to say something bad about George Bush. You're right that the 911 Commission pointed to the "lack of imagination" that led to intel failures on 9/11, but "imagination" is not the same thing as "delusion".

Anyway, wikipedia is not the place to entertain your bizarre delusions. If we have evidence for something let's put the evidence in here. Right now there is one piece of evidence pointing to Atta in prague -- a lone eyewitness report from an unreliable informant about 6 months after the fact. Possibly one other, insofar as argument from authority constitutes evidence, since there may be one Czech official who still believes the story (but even that is uncertain since we have no direct evidence of his views today). There are many pieces of evidence running against that -- photos, travel records, other eyewitnesses, as well as the authoritative conclusions of: the 9/11 Commission, the CIA, the FBI, the DIA, the NSC, the Czech government (except perhaps one BIS official) and the Czech chief of police. I think I left a few out too - I am pretty sure there are foreign intel agencies who looked at this and concluded such a meeting was unlikely. We also have other pieces of evidence that explain the discrepancies in conflicting evidence -- specifically, testimony that Ani had another colleague who looked just like Atta. We have the interrogation of al-Ani which is believed by the interrogators, for what it's worth. And the only thing you have explaining your one piece of evidence is some bizarre narrative to suggest that Atta flew around the world just to give the go-ahead on an opinion piece in a local newspaper. I'm sorry Mr. Cram but none of this adds up. And even if it did, it's all speculation that doesn't belong here.csloat 06:45, 10 September 2005 (UTC)

9/11 commisions thoroughness questioned.

I have reviewed the discussion on RonCram's proposed Able-Danger text. It appears to be a possibly valid argumentative refutation of the 9/11 commision's dismissal of the Prague contact. I think some text about Able-Danger and the coming congressional investigation is relevant, as it calls the 9/11 commissions thoroughness into question, and their report is relied upon to considerable extent in this article. However, I think, it is premature to present the whole argumentative refutation at this point.--Silverback 20:05, September 9, 2005 (UTC)

I have made and installed an attempt at a compromise text:

• 2005, August 7 -- Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer disclosed that a highly classified U.S. Army data-mining project known as Able Danger had identified Mohamed Atta and three other 9/11 hijackers as potential al Qaeda operatives inside the U.S. with a conflicting time line for Mohammed Atta. [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] Questions about the thoroughness of the 9/11 commissions work in light of the public Able Danger revelations will be investigated by a new Congressional inquiry.

The links probably need to be pared down to those relevant to the summary points that have been made. --Silverback 20:24, September 9, 2005 (UTC)

Come on - read the discussion above; before this Able Danger thing can be relevant all of the above arguments need to be responded to, which have not been. The idea that Able Danger may question the 911 timeline belongs on the Able Danger page or on the 9/11 Commission page but not here. This so far has nothing to do with this page.csloat 20:29, 9 September 2005 (UTC)

What needs to be responded to for the point I am making, the Able Danger revelation of info about Atta not included in the 9/11 commision report and the subsequent questions about the commission's thoroughness that will be the subject of Congressional inquirey?--Silverback 21:11, September 9, 2005 (UTC)

That point is fine - but make it on a page where it is relevant. If you can show a problem with the commission's specific claim that Atta did not likely meet with al-Ani, then it becomes relevant, and then you have to respond to all of the above 9 or 10 arguments. Otherwise, you have to bring it up on a page where it is relevant, like the 9/11 Commission and Able Danger page. --csloat 21:19, 9 September 2005 (UTC)

csloat, how can it not be relevant when the 9/11 Commission is quoted as an authority on the Saddam and terrorists and the meeting in Prague? If the 9/11 Commission is impeached as an authority, that is relevant. You are asking that we provide proof of the meeting before any evidence of the meeting will be allowed in the article. That is not reasonable. RonCram 22:25, 9 September 2005 (UTC)

Stop distorting what I am saying. There is no "evidence" of the meeting left out of the article - the only "evidence" that exists is the report of a single unreliable source back in 2001, and that is certainly given more than its deserving share of space on this page. As for the Commission -- don't be ridiculous. The Able Danger stuff does not "impeach" the Commission as an authority; it simply conflicts with elements of the Commission's timeline. We don't know for sure which is right but what we do know is that the parts of the Commission's analysis that have been questioned have NOTHING to do with Saddam's links to al-Qaeda. As I said, if you really thought there was something to this, you would raise it on the appropriate pages dealing with Able Danger or the Commission. You don't do that at all and I suspect it is because you know this is just a ludicrous argument. It is simply not relevant here, any more than it would be relevant if where George Bush was quoted, I added information that Bush's story about his national guard experience has been contradicted by other credible sources. It's just absurd, the lengths you guys want to go to in order to justify a conspiracy theory that has been thoroughly debunked.csloat 22:35, 9 September 2005 (UTC)

The evidence that the 9/11 Commission refused to investigate Able Danger goes to the issue of their credibility and that is relevant to the article. I do not see how one can argue otherwise. The fact the 9/11 Commission admits Atta could have been in Prague if he had a history of using an alias is also relevant. I am not distorting what you are saying at all. The evidence that Atta may have used an alias is something you desperately want to keep out of the article. Why? The fact the 9/11 Commission refused to investigate Able Danger is something you want to keep out of the article. Why? Everyone who reads this knows it is relevant. BTW, the Able Danger info will find its way into other articles. It is only a matter of time. RonCram 22:46, 9 September 2005 (UTC)

Ron this has nothing to do with this article and you know it. If it's only a matter of time we can add it after your crystal ball proves true. For now it stays out. Nobody in the media is connecting this to the issues discussed on this page so it is wrong for you (or silverback) to include it here. I could care less whether Atta's possible use of an alias is in the article or not - it has no bearing either way on the many reasons why Atta was not in Prague in April 2001. But I do not want to see Able Danger in this article because it has nothing whatsoever to do with this article. We've been through this. The credibility of the 9/11 Commission is a valid issue on this article but not here. Able Danger is a valid issue on this article but not here. I notice you don't bother the people who edit those pages with your garbage because you probably realize it's garbage and you only assert it to advance your political POV. Everyone who reads this (except apparently Silverback) knows you are wrong here, so please stop insisting on adding nonsense to this page.--csloat 02:15, 10 September 2005 (UTC)

csloat, when reverting the Able Danger entry you wrote: "I'm not unwilling to allow their credibility to be discussed; I am just insisting that such discussion take place on the proper page. This page is not about the Commission nor does it rely on them." How can readers of this article know that an important discussion on the credibility and thoroughness of the 9/11 Commission is available on another article? This is the article that quotes the Commission as the authority on this subject. We've already already shown that Able Danger relates to information about Atta, so there is the relevance to the specific topic. Your comment "This page is not about the Commission nor does it rely on them" is not completely accurate. On this Talk page you have several times lectured me that the 9/11 Commission was the ONLY bipartisan commission to look at the link between Saddam and al Qaeda. You and I both know you prefer the findings of the 9/11 Commission over the findings of the Senate Report. RonCram 12:25, 10 September 2005 (UTC)

How can they know about it? By clicking on the link. Are you serious? How can they know that Saddam was the former leader of Iraq? How will they learn from this page that there is an important discussion about the credibility of one of your main sources on its appropriate page? Come on. This article is not about the Commission and it only quotes them along with many others. And Able Danger *might* have some negative impact on the Commission's credibility on another issue, there has been no information about this issue specifically. So, no, you have not "already shown" any relevance to Atta in prague. Not just Atta - he also has a page, if you want to go there and talk about what Able Danger says go for it. I have mentioned the Commission it's true but it has always been only one of many sources. And again, they are just summarizing other sources anyway -- the real sources of this info are various intelligence agencies and police. I don't recall saying it was the only bipartisan commission to look at this, but if I did, that is not inaccurate at all. But what you can't seem to get through your skull here is that this does not impugn their credibility on this issue at all. You're just trying to poison the well - believing that if you indict them on another topic it will hurt their credibility on every topic. All this says is that there may be a conflict on another part of the timeline they had for Atta. It does not say they can't be trusted or they are a bunch of liars. It certainly doesn't mean that Atta was in Prague, nor does it make it in any way more likely. Finally, if any of this had any implications here, we would hear about it from somewhere other than the Talk pages of Wikipedia. Nobody in the mainstream press, and only one person in the loony right wing press, is talking about this as having anything to do with this page.csloat 13:13, 10 September 2005 (UTC)

Also, read my comments on the bottom of this page. The issue here is the Atta/Prague story and the 911Commission's credibility with regard to it. Take a look at the page history -- it is you who introduced the 911C stuff to the Atta entry in the timeline. The way it was before you brought that up was that the Commission was not even cited at all on that entry. So please stop hiding behind that document as if it were the only piece of evidence on this side of the fence. Remember, your entire case rests on a single unreliable eyewitness. And you have the burden of proof here.-csloat 13:17, 10 September 2005 (UTC)

I want to support Silverback's version of the Able Danger entry. I think the question regarding the thoroughness of the 9/11 Commission is an important enough topic to require it in this article. However, the other part of my original entry is no longer valid. I just read that Able Danger included Mohamed Atta in the Brooklyn cell because of his connection to the Blind Sheikh, not because he was physically in New York. [8] I care about facts and this new information certainly changes things. RonCram 23:25, 10 September 2005 (UTC)

I see - so now that you admit that Able Danger is not related to Atta in Prague you want to support another version of the entry that does not even mention a Saddam link at all. And you refuse to even articulate a reason this time; you just announce that you want to support that version. And you conveniently ignore the arguments agaist that version above. --csloat 23:41, 10 September 2005 (UTC)

Hold that thought. It just occurred to me there may be some kind of misunderstanding by Shaffer's attorney. If Atta was not physically in NYC, why would the military lawyers say they cannot turn it over to the FBI? Something does not make sense here. Regarding your question without a question mark, the answer is "Yes!" I think the thoroughness of the 9/11 Commission is important to this conversation. After all, the conclusion reached by the Commission is in the intro. If that wasn't there, then maybe we don't need the Able Danger entry. But you shouldn't be surprised that I think Able Danger should be here even if there is no direct relationship to the link. I have said that all along. RonCram 02:47, 11 September 2005 (UTC)

Mr. Cram, for heaven's sake, at the very least finish figuring out what your reckless speculation is going to be before you insist on including it in an encyclopedia. As for the other bit, that's real nice that you think something you admit has no relevance still belongs here for some reason. Odd, it doesn't look like you've been insisting that on the page where it would actually be relevant. Anyway, there are a host of arguments for you to respond to above before anyone can take your demands seriously. Besides all of that, nobody has yet even produced a specific quote or citation indicating that the Able Danger documents actually cast significant doubt on the Commission's overall conclusions, and certainly nothing has materialized questioning this particular conclusion. So, no, this does not belong here. Perhaps when the inquiry you are waiting for finishes, perhaps at that time there might be something relevant to the 9/11 Commission page. But at this stage it doesn't look like there will ever be anything coming out of that inquiry that actually has any relevance to this page.--csloat 04:30, 11 September 2005 (UTC)

csloat, you are amazing. As you know, I have spent some time on the Able Danger page. Contrary to your remark above, the page does call into question the thoroughness and objectivity of the 9/11 Commission. In fact, one of the links quotes Congressmen Weldon as saying the 9/11 Commission could be involved in a coverup. The credibility of the Commission has been called into question, which means it conclusions have been called into question. The biggest thing to me is that some link to the Able Danger page has to appear in this article. If that link does not appear, this article will forever keep its "Disputed" label. I you want to take the first attempt at writing an entry, go for it. RonCram 13:28, 11 September 2005 (UTC)

I didn't say you didn't edit the Able Danger page, I said you put nothing on the 9/11 Commission page. This is typical of your argument style here - always avoiding the real issues, but stomping your foot and insisting you're right anyway. There are a host of arguments above about why this doesn't belong here. Most prominently, nobody in the press or anywhere but here seems to think this has any relevance to this issue. If you find evidence that the Commission covered up ties between Saddam and AQ, then it would be relevant. As it is, you're just fantasizing. That's fine, but it doesn't belong in Wikipedia.csloat 20:29, 11 September 2005 (UTC)

C'mon csloat, you mentioned both the Able Danger page and the 9/11 Commission page. I got to the Able Danger page first. Now it is on the 9/11 Commission page as well. Are there any other pages it belongs? Just let me know and eventually I will see it gets posted. Now I want to discuss your claim that mentioning Able Danger here does not relate to the specifics of the article and is just poisoning the well. You are talking about poisoning the well as if the 9/11 Commission is an eyewitness who is likely to be wrong or to lie about one aspect of a story and be right and truthful about others. It is wrong to assume that an eyewitness who was wrong or lied once will be wrong or untruthful everywhere else. But the 9/11 Commission is not an eyewitness. The commission had a job to do that required research and thoroughness. If the commission is not thorough or credible in one area of research, that automatically raises suspicion about the thoroughness of the commission elsewhere. When we know they were given credible leads and choose not to follow them up, what makes you think they did not do that in other situations with other credible information? We don't know why the 9/11 Commission did not talk about the arrest of the Iraqis in Germany. It could have been that the CIA never told them. Or it could be that the commission chose not to investigate further. It is essential that Able Danger be mentioned in this article and that readers be informed of their decision not to investigate important information. Are you going to write it or am I? RonCram 02:44, 15 September 2005 (UTC)

foreign jihadists in Iraq

Here is what the paragraph currently says:

This is distinct from the al-Qaeda presence involved in the Iraqi insurgency. After the U.S. invasion, a number of foreign jihadists migrated to Iraq to fight. Hoover Institution Senior Fellow Timothy Garton Ash wrote in July 2005 of this new al Qaeda presence, "Saddam's regime had no connection with the 2001 attacks. Iraq was not then a recruiting sergeant or training ground for jihadist terrorists. Now it is. The US-led invasion and occupation has made it so. Retired General Wesley Clark put it plainly: 'We are creating enemies.'"[3] The Bush administration has described this as a positive development, emphasizing the talking point, "America Must Fight The Enemy Abroad, So We Do Not Have To Face Them Here At Home."[4] Critics have pointed out that this view presumes a stable number of terrorists, while studies have confirmed that the foreign fighters in Iraq turned to terrorism as a means of fighting the U.S. invasion.[5]

Silverback wants to change the first sentence to include something about migrating to join Zarqawi. This is speculation that the study of hundreds of foreign fighters suggests is inaccurate - some were coming to join al-Zarqawi but most were not; most were coming to fight the US, and had no previous terrorist background. The above is more accurate. The Ash quote directly compares the new al Qaeda presence with the (lack of evidence for) the old. I left the Bush talking point stuff in, with a more accurate quote and contextualization of the point, because I know if I take it out you will scream POV. But I don't think it needs to be there at all - Bush's after-the-fact rationalization of why Americans are getting killed in a country we supposedly liberated over two years ago is really totally beside the point. So I won't object to taking it out completely, but I do object to the one-sided rephrasing you want to do to it.csloat 20:39, 9 September 2005 (UTC)

The lack of evidence for the old was related only to a 9/11 connection. And this article isn't about all "foreign fighters", but rather about those that came in to be part of al Qaeda. Perhaps there are other al Qaeda organizations that are not directly under Zarqawi, but he is the figurehead in Iraq, just as Osama is for the whole organization. Note, that despite the quality of the commisions work having been called into question, the current version still allows the report to be cited.--Silverback 21:15, September 9, 2005 (UTC)

This article is not about foreign fighters whether they are AQ or not -- this article is about pre-2003 Saddam and AQ. The only point of this paragraph is to distinguish the topics and it shouldn't be used as a soapbox for views on the war on either side. If you want to keep the Bush stuff in it should be contextualized as above - otherwise we can take it out entirely. I think the Ash quote makes a valid comparison but if it makes it in too POV a manner we can simply say this page is about something distinct from the AQ presence fighting alongside the insurgency. But claiming Zarqawi is a figurehead is silly - he became a figurehead well after the US invasion. He certainly wasn't one in early 2003, at least not outside of small circles. He wasn't even considered al Qaeda until 2004. All this is dealt with in the timeline anyway -- I think it's a distraction to bring Zarqawi up here.csloat 21:25, 9 September 2005 (UTC)

I have followed your suggestion here, avoiding Zarquawi, but getting rid of the too POV quote. The Bush stuff was only needed to balance that, on issues unrelated to this specifics of this article. The Alpha Danger revelations have spawn criticisms of the 9/11 commission, and several of the issues that the report was relied upon for here, are likely to be revisited in the Congressional inquiry, including the Atta timeline. It is too soon to have an argumentative refutation of the report in this article yet, that is why I have produced and defended a compromise text.--Silverback 23:38, September 9, 2005 (UTC)

I'm ok with the compromise on leaving out the bush stuff, though it's obvious that the Ash quote is both relevant and on-point, POV or not. I just think this isn't the place for that argument to be hashed out. As for the able danger thing, I understand you think it's a "compromise" text that you wrote, but it's not. What you wrote doesn't even mention the Saddam connection, which makes it even less relevant than before if that's possible. Perhaps more accurate, but definitely less relevant. The suggestion that it impugns the Commission's work is ludicrous. It may shed light on things they missed or ignored, but it does not throw into doubt anything else that they did. It certainly doesn't seem to indicate that the Commission (knowingly or inadvertently) covered up a trip to Prague by the world's most notorious terrorist, and it seems quite asinine to insist that we have to put something on the timeline here to hold open the possibility that that is what we might learn from this after a congressional inquiry. csloat 06:59, 10 September 2005 (UTC)

Whether they inadvertently or knowingly covered up a trip to Prague (I doubt it was knowingly), the thoroughness and credibility of the conclusions they are relied upon for here in this article are called into question. Keep in mind that the Able Danger inquirey doesn't have to reverse any of the conclusions of the commision, just put them in proper perspective. The commission for instance relied upon other organizations assessments of whether witnesses or informants were credible, and many appear to have been dismissed by other organizations without the commission having been informed of why they were not viewed as credible so they could make their own independent assessment. Saddam could have chosen to live a more open and blameless life, and there would have been no reason to suspect he was engaged in intrigue, deceit, bribery, treachery, etc. But given Saddam's character and the resources at his disposal, intelligence assessments should have erred on the side of assuming the worst. --Silverback 08:03, September 10, 2005 (UTC)

You can't be that dense. The point is if there is any questioning of the 911 Commission it belongs on a page that is actually talking about that. Unless there is specific evidence questioning their credibility on this issue, this just does not belong here. This page is not about Saddam's "character" nor is it about your assumption about how intel agencies (with decades of experience doing this sort of thing) should do their jobs. This page is about evidence of a connection between Saddam and Al-Qaeda and so far there has not been any that is credible. The 911 Commission is cited here but it is not sole source by any means, not on the Prague thing or anywhere else. And in fact the Commission is only citing evidence from other sources (mostly intelligence agency analysts). Your assertion that those analysts should have done something different than you assume they did does not merit a Wikipedia mention at all. And there is no reason to mention this stuff here if you're not even willing to bring it up on the proper pages. We already have pages on both Able Danger and the Commission. Why do you insist on placing this stuff here? I suspect it is because you're more interested in asserting a particular political POV than you are in actually having an accurate encyclopedia entry. csloat 08:41, 10 September 2005 (UTC)

PS - it is silly to think that the CIA and other intelligence agencies were unaware that Saddam was a duplicitous character, to say the least. Hell, he was a vicious, murderous, thug. The intel agencies knew that first hand for decades; hell, they knew that when they worked closely with him during the war with Iran. We had every reason to suspect him of every kind of treachery imaginable, and we did. Which is why many thought during the 90s that he was involved with al Qaeda - we had every reason to consider the possibility. And enough contacts existed that suspicion of collaboration was not beyond the pale. But by 2001 it had become clear to anyone paying close attention that a new threat had emerged that was independent of Saddam, indeed was perceived as a threat to Saddam and other venal, corrupt, vicious Arab leaders in the region. This new threat was not tied to any specific state and in fact its whole raison d'etre was against these states -- esp. Saudi Arabia but certainly Iraq and Iran as well as Egypt, Syria, Jordan, UAE, Kuwait.... Al Qaeda had ties to all these places because its members were exiles from all of them. Some cut their teeth in Egyptian and Jordanian prisons before joinging the jihad against the Soviets. Some even came from Iraq (though hardly a significant number). But this new threat operated independently of all these states. It exploited friends in many of these states, notably Saudi Arabia and Pakistan but also significantly Qatar, Kuwait, and UAE, and received a lot of its funding from wealthy people in the governments in these states. Saddam's government, however, did not fund al Qaeda, and there has been notably not a single Iraqi al Qaeda suicide bomber -- not a single one -- prior to the 2003 invasion. I don't think there ever was an Iraqi suicide bomber period before 2003. Now Saddam was an absolutely despicable dictator, a criminal and a mass murderer, on par with Milosovic and perhaps even Stalin, whom he modeled himself after. He had ties to Palestinian terrorists, and vocally praised suicide bombers there and even sent money to their families as rewards for their "martyrdom." So we had every good reason to think he would try working with al Qaeda. But the overwhelming preponderence of evidence about Saddam's contacts with al Qaeda suggests that they never amounted to a hill of beans. The leaders of al Qaeda hated Saddam -- they hated his secular regime, they hated the way he used religion as a political tool but refused to embrace it as a way of life, they hated his corruption, they hated Baathism and they hated Saddam's glorification of socialism (which of course recalled for them the Soviets, whom the jihadists had fought for a decade), and they hated that he shot people like them dead in the streets or sent them to rot in places like Abu Ghraib. Saddam was no friend to Islamist extremists; his country had it's own decade-long war against an Islamist theocracy, a country that al Qaeda would probably have loved if it were Sunni instead of Shiite. And in Saddam's Iraq, Islamist extremists were not embraced; they were not allowed to meet publicly, they were arrested, subjected to the usual brutality of Saddam's regime against his political enemies. Al-Qaeda functions in a different mode completely than modern states; it is an organization designed to operate outside the state system. That it gets help from states is indisputable, though that help generally comes through non-official channels. But in the case of Iraq -- well, very little cooperation was forthcoming on either side. Many people who originally thought Saddam must have been involved in al Qaeda eventually changed their minds after studying the issue.

This whole thing is becoming tedious. I realize I say that a lot but look - if you guys think this is really important let's bring others into the discussion. My main point here is that Able Danger does not belong here because it has no impact on the issues raised on this page. There is the potential that able danger will lead to some questioning of the credibility of the 9/11 Commission on some issues. You say you don't think there was any intentional malfeasance on the Commission's part so I assume you are ruling out the possibility of Able Danger uncovering blanket mendacity throughout the 911 Commission report. Which means the Able Danger docs only call into question those parts of the Commission's report that they directly address. And they don't directly address any connection between Saddam and al Qaeda. Also, the 911 Commission conclusions are not the only evidence cited here -- and in fact they are actually just summaries of evidence from other sources as you point out. Read through the history of edits to the article here -- I don;t think the 911 commission was cited AT ALL in the prague entry on the timeline until Mr. Cram insisted on the alias thing being put in. The main evidence came from other sources. And the Commission was not even the main appeal to authority there -- the CIA, FBI, NSC, and Czech police are all cited as sources. If you want to impugn the integrity of the 9/11 Commission, do it on the correct page -- the page called, coincidentally enough, 9/11 Commission. It is just not relevant here, in my opinion. I invite input from others.--csloat 09:17, 10 September 2005 (UTC)

I'm agreeing with csloat. I see no reason to hash out the integrity of the 9/11 Commission on this page. And I think the 9/11 Commission has more than enough credibility to be considered a reliable source. I'd also like to point out that the Weekly Standard does not appear to be an impartial, objective source. Looking over previous issues, it becomes apparent just how wrong they got things[9]. 69.121.133.154 00:29, 11 September 2005 (UTC)

questioning the 9/11 commission's credibility

It is legitimate to question the 9/11 commissions credibility anyplace it is cited as a source.--Silverback 04:01, September 12, 2005 (UTC)

Uh, suuure. Except the actual page that we have on the 9/11 Commission, apparently? It's odd that you claim to believe this is relevant only here, when there is a page where it is actually relevant - and IMHO it shows that you are grasping at straws. Look, there are quotes on this page from the Weekly Standard; should I include a paragraph about unrelated stories the Weekly Standard has gotten wrong? There are comments from the Bush Administration - should I include a paragraph about how the Bush Admin got WMD intel wrong? Or about Valerie Plame? This kind of stuff just doesn't belong here without a direct link, not some vague attempt to poison the well. If you have reason to question the Commission's credibility on this issue, let's hear it - we have heard nothing of the sort yet. Also, stop being deceptive about the arguments here -- there are several arguments above on this issue that have simply been ignored by you and Mr. Cram. Instead of responding, you create a new heading and repeat the assertion you made before. This assertion has been responded to over and over. csloat 04:28, 12 September 2005 (UTC)

Whether it is relevant or not, depends on the area of credibility that is impacted. I'm not quite sure why the timeline of the commission is emphasized in this article, it appears to be an attempt to refute the idea that there is any link between Saddam and al Qaeda and for some reason it repetitively goes over 9/11 related evidence. Since that is how the commission report is used, an inquirey inspired by evidence contrary to their timeline that they should have followed up on, is relevant. This article should not be concluding that there was no link to 9/11, even though absent a confession from Saddam, there will never be much evidence of a link. We just will never know, but some editors of this article seem to want to go further and attempt to refute the possibility of such a link.--Silverback 05:52, September 12, 2005 (UTC)

The timeline in this article grew out of contributions from a number of editors starting with the one who created it. The Commission's timeline is not "emphasized" here, nor is this article an "attempt to refute" anything - it was started by someone who believes in the conspiracy theory, over the objection of a number of us, and since then I have been especially attuned to contextualizing the information here and exposing in many cases blatant disinformation. There are quotes from the Commission as well as from numerous other sources. The Commission did not do original research on this; their conclusions are quoted here but the information they used to reach those conclusions is all laid out here in painful detail -- it comes from the CIA, FBI, NSC, BIS, etc, etc. The article "concludes" almost exactly as you say - there is no evidence of such a link. Perhaps we will "never know" as you say; we will also never know with certainty if the sun will come up tomorrow, at least not until tomorrow. But what we do know is that no evidence of such a connection has materialized and that things that have come out that appeared to be evidence for such a connection have turned out not to be. But in any case I am just responding to your vague accusation here; if there is a particular part of the article you think is incorrect you should bring that up specifically. I'm assuming you have come to your senses with regard to the Able Danger thing since you are no longer trying to defend its inclusion here.--csloat 06:39, 12 September 2005 (UTC)

I do wonder about all the emphasis on 9/11. The article should be more focused on Saddam's willingness to associate with al Qaeda, which is clearly established despite their alleged hostility towards each other. He willingly harbored many members of al Qaeda, and a man of his character would have had no qualms about using them or paying their survivors, as long the consequences wouldn't hit back at him.--Silverback 04:03, 14 September 2005 (UTC)

I'm not sure what the above comment has to do with the rest of this discussion. But in any case, their hostility was not "alleged"; it was openly expressed. I'm not sure there is any indication he harbored *any* members of al Qaeda; certainly not "many." He clearly did not "harbor" Zarqawi, as was reported, and it's unclear that he had any relationship at all with Yasin, who was an Iraqi and fled there to live with a relative and took a job with the government. Yasin was no more "harbored" by Saddam than I am being "harbored" by Arnold Schwarzenegger (I live in California and work for the state). There is some indication that Saddam offered bin Laden "harbor" at one point, but it was rejected. I'm really not sure of any other instances of alleged "harboring" on Saddam's part; please enlighten us. I certainly have nothing positive to say about Saddam's "character," which I have personally been a critic of since the 1980s, but I don't see how it constitutes evidence of any "harboring."-csloat 05:20, 14 September 2005 (UTC)

And there is this quote in the article from Clarke, about Yasin: "The Iraqi government because, obviously, of the hostility between us and them, didn't cooperate in turning him over and gave him sanctuary, as it did give sanctuary to other terrorists"--Silverback 08:18, 14 September 2005 (UTC)

First, the "other terrorists" referred to there are not al Qaeda, and even if you were right about Yasin, that would be one, not "many." Second, we know Yasin moved in with a relative. On what basis does Clarke consider that giving him "sanctuary"? It is probable that Saddam lied about whether his government could find Yasin when told by the U.S. to turn him over. If that is what you mean then, fine, Saddam gave Yasin "sanctuary." It hardly constitutes evidence of collaboration between the two, as Clarke goes on to recognize in that quote (as well as Rita Katz and others). The FBI and other agencies investigated this thoroughly. Peter Bergen writes:

Neil Herman, the F.B.I. official who headed the Trade Center probe, explained that following the attacks, one of the lower-level conspirators, Abdul Rahman Yasin, did flee New York to live with a family member in Baghdad: "The one glaring connection that can't be overlooked is Yasin. We pursued that on every level, traced him to a relative and a location, and we made overtures to get him back." However, Herman says that Yasin's presence in Baghdad does not mean Iraq sponsored the attack: "We looked at that rather extensively. There were no ties to the Iraqi government." In sum, by the mid-'90s, the Joint Terrorism Task Force in New York, the F.B.I., the U.S. Attorney's office in the Southern District of New York, the C.I.A., the N.S.C., and the State Department had all found no evidence implicating the Iraqi government in the first Trade Center attack.[10]

In sum, any "harboring" certainly did not amount to sponsorship or collaboration on terrorism. All it means it that Saddam wasn't interested in helping the U.S. solve its problems. I'm not too surprised about that, and neither was any intelligence agency that looked into it.csloat 10:01, 14 September 2005 (UTC)

This isn't about sponsorship or collaboration, but whether the US should take the risk of leaving tremendous wealth in the hands of someone of Saddam's character. His association with terrorism is part of that assessment. His willingness to harbor an al Qaeda terrorist like Yasin, gives lie to the argument that the hostility between al Qaeda and Saddam make a potential future risk implausible. --Silverback 02:03, 15 September 2005 (UTC)

What are you talking about? This page has nothiing to do with the "risk" of Saddam's "wealth." The question here is whether Saddam collaborated with al Qaeda - not whether he was evasive when the US asked him to find Yasin. Every expert who looked at the Yasin issue has concluded that there was no cooperation between Saddam and al Qaeda. Saddam's willingness to thumb his nose at the US has nothing to do with his hostility to Islamists, which has been amply demonstrated time and again. More important is the Islamists' hostility to Saddam, of course, whom they wanted to overthrow. In any case, the place where you put that claim in the article it made no sense at all.--csloat 05:11, 15 September 2005 (UTC)

csloat, this entry is a response to an earlier conversation but I wanted to post it to you here as well so you would not miss it. Questions about the 9/11 Commissions thoroughness are now on both the Able Danger page and the 9/11 Commission page. Are there any other pages it belongs? Just let me know and eventually I will see it gets posted. Now I want to discuss your claim that mentioning Able Danger here does not relate to the specifics of the article and is just poisoning the well. You are talking about poisoning the well as if the 9/11 Commission is an eyewitness who is likely to be wrong or to lie about one aspect of a story and be right and truthful about others. It is wrong to assume that an eyewitness who was wrong or lied once will be wrong or untruthful everywhere else. But the 9/11 Commission is not an eyewitness. The commission had a job to do that required research and thoroughness. If the commission is not thorough or credible in one area of research, that automatically raises suspicion about the thoroughness of the commission elsewhere. When we know they were given credible leads and choose not to follow them up, what makes you think they did not do that in other situations with other credible information? We don't know why the 9/11 Commission did not talk about the arrest of the Iraqis in Germany. It could have been that the CIA never told them. Or it could be that the commission chose not to investigate further. It is essential that Able Danger be mentioned in this article and that readers be informed of their decision not to investigate important information. Are you going to write it or am I? RonCram 02:55, 15 September 2005 (UTC)

It is essential that the Able Danger debate be carried out in the places where it is relevant. It is simply not relevant here. If you can find legitimate news sources or counterterrorism analysts who provide a justification for its relevance here then it will be worth considering but right now it has no relevance whatsoever. Your speculation about the credibility of the 9/11 Commission on issues not addressed by Able Danger is just pure speculation. From someone, I might add, whose own credibility is very much in question. I will continue to delete references to Able Danger until someone establishes their relevance in a meaningful way, not through a string of random speculations barely tied together by a thread like the above. And again, let us please remember that the 9/11 Commission is not the issue here anyway. The commission is cited but the pieces of evidence they look at are all pieces of intelligence brought out by other agencies. As for the arrest of Iraqis in Germany, again, if you find evidence or even authoritative speculation tying those arrests to Able Danger we can consider it - otherwise it is just a string of increasingly bankrupt attempts at pseudo-logic.--csloat 05:11, 15 September 2005 (UTC)

Suggested Rewrite of Certain Segments

The article currently has an Intro, then Questions about the Plausibility of the Link, then Background, then the Timeline. I am not suggesting a change to the Intro or the Timeline. But I think the intervening segments should be rewritten. I believe the major points should be covered in this order:

Background

• The official Bush Administration position is that a relationship existed because there were many contacts but no proof currently exists that ties Saddam to 9/11.
• Some senior Bush officials have tried to make the claim Saddam was involved in 9/11 and have pointed to a few bits of interesting but inconclusive evidence.
• Intelligence is difficult to gather and difficult to analyze. Evidence is often contradictory. Eyewitnesses are often terrorists who have been arrested and whose motivation to lie is strong. Many change their stories over time. Others, such as the INC, were motivated to lie in effort to get Saddam removed from power. Deciding which witnesses to believe and which not to believe is difficult.
• Deciding when intelligence is credible enough to be “actionable” is also difficult.

Implausibility of the Link

• Osama did not trust Saddam
• Documents found.
• Experts listed who support no link
• Summarize the strong points of the timeline

Evidence for the Link

• Summarize the strong points from the timeline.
• Experts listed who see a link

I think csloat would do a good job on the Implausibility segment. I know that I could write it better and stronger than it is right now and I think the link is very plausible. I would like to write the first draft of the other two segments. Are there any other points anyone feels is important to include in the Background segment? Remember, the goal here is to get the "Disputed" label removed from the article. Can we put aside our differences and try to do that? RonCram 03:43, 15 September 2005 (UTC)

It is misleading to have an "implausibility" section and to list experts that that support "no link", because it is off topic. Since there is no serious doubt about Saddam harboring Yasin, so there is a link and it misrepresents these experts to have them supporting "no link", when their real position is no link to 9/11 or collaborating on terrorist attacks. No one claims there is no link between Saddam and al Qaeda, just no credible evidence of a more substantive direct link to terrorist attacks. Of course, Saddams willingness to harbor al Qaeda, combined with his resources and character, gives all the credence the coalition needs to reduce risk by taking him out.--Silverback 04:33, 15 September 2005 (UTC)

I realize you guys want to rewrite the entire article so it appears to establish a link that did not exist and so that it appears to provide evidence that has been thoroughly discredited, but I will not support such a rewrite, nor will I legitimize it. I am happy to rewrite parts of the article to strengthen them, but what you are advocating is an article to prove the existence of angels. There is an easy way to remove the disputed label -- just remove it. As far as I am concerned there is nothing disputed here. The points you two raise have been responded to over and over again, but instead of answering the arguments you just repeat your main talking points. Sorry but that does not cut it. And the points you raise are ultimately minor - you certainly have said nothing that rises to the level of making this article "disputed". The label was actually originally put on this article by someone who thought the article was too full of disinformation about the "link" -- most of my edits over the past few months or so have been addressing these problems. So I think the disputed label could and probably should be simply removed.

I am willing to compromise by having a section on "contacts" that are not disputed between Iraq and AQ - you guys keep calling them "links" but that is really a catechresis. The evidence does not support a "link" between the two but it does support that there were "contacts" (at least until 1999) that one or both sides hoped might develop into a "link." Such links were never established as we now know. I love how you say things like "there is no serious doubt" after you refuse to respond to the doubts raised. I am also happy to have the question of collaboration explained more clearly - the fact is that there is no evidence whatsoever that Saddam ever "collaborated" with AQ on anything at all. Silverback your motivation here is particularly in question since you keep coming back to the coalition's justification for "taking him out". That is not what this article is about -- there is already an article on the justifications for the 2003 invasion of Iraq, and you can try to post your bogus reasons there. In this article it is reasonable to say that the alleged links were cited as a justification for the invasion, but it really is not the place of this article to address whether or not they are a legitimate justification.

What I am not willing to do is support the spreading of disinformation through this article. Most of the alleged "links" have been shown to be disinformation -- not just misinformation but disinformation, which is false information deliberately spread usually by an intelligence agency (in this case most of it by the INC). And most of the junk from the Weekly Standard you guys keep citing is just that -- disinformation repackaged by people who probably know that half of their arguments are lies and the other half are distortions of the evidence that does exist. I want to see whatever is included in this article supported with real evidence and I don't want to see "original research" here -- speculation about the relationship of Able Danger or whatever else, that has not been discussed in the mainstream media or in books on this topic, falls into this original research category.--csloat 05:25, 15 September 2005 (UTC)

Silverback, I appreciate your contributions to the article and your reasoning is sound. Perhaps we change the headings to "Implausibility of Collaboration" and "Evidence of Collaboration" because that is really the issue the article addresses. I believe the Background segment needs to be rewritten to clarify the Bush Administration policy and senior officials within it and to provide a short primer on intelligence analysis. Do you agree? Is there anything else it should include? RonCram 13:21, 15 September 2005 (UTC)

csloat, the "Disputed" label needs to stay on the article until reaches NPOV. While the article is much better than before, it is not there yet. Contrary to your statements above, there is evidence of collaboration between the two. First, we have the chemical weapons development in Khartoum. Next, credible witnesses of Iraq training AQ in handling CBRN. We also have published reports in newspapers around the world talking about the "pact" or "alliance" between the two. Next, the fact Saddam never acted against Ansar al Islam. If there is evidence any of this information came from INC, then it should not be included in this summary. I also do not want anything in the article that is poorly sourced or "original research." Regarding Able Danger, I have answered your "poison the well" argument. Now you want to pretend that the commission's choice not to investigate Able Danger has not been talked about in the media? C'mon. It has hurt the commission's credibility and the impression they were thorough. That has to be talked about in this article. RonCram 13:21, 15 September 2005 (UTC)

As an analogy to the Able Danger junk you want to put in - if you want to put the Bush Administration stuff in should we also include statements about the Administration's total failure to respond to Hurricane Katrina as evidence that his judgement about this issue is impaired? Didn't think so. On to your points - there is no "evidence of collaboration" that stands up under scrutiny and you know it. You are just repeating the same stuff you've been repeating for months, ignoring the arguments against it. There's been no evidence presented that Saddam had anything to do with chemicals in Khartoum, and that has been thoroughly answered. There are no "credible witness" accounts of any training; you have BS from unreliable INC sources that we now know were spreading disinformation to help Iran. The idea that Saddam never acted against Ansar al Islam is bull too - that does not prove "collaboration". Saddam never acted against Iran either, not since the end of the war they fought; do you think that means he collaborated with Iran too? Your conspiracy theory is completely paranoid. Why do you say evidence about the INC should not be included? You're just asserting bogus points now. You are the one bringing in original research with your able danger garbage and you have not responded to the arguments above; you have just repeated yourself and pretended that you have responded. Why are you wasting my time with this? You say I want to pretend Able Danger isn't in the media but you know damn well that is not what I said; I said that there was nothing in the media connecting Able Danger to this issue. Why should that be talked about in this article when nobody else in the world is asserting its relevance to this issue? That is original research, Ron. Finally as for the disputed tag - as I said, it was placed there because this article implied that there were links between Saddam and AQ that did not exist. I think I have done a decent job of fixing that impression, and I believe the disputed tag can be removed at this point. Nothing you say above has actually disputed anything on the page; you have repeated several assertions that you have already repeated over and over again but you have not responded to the actual arguments here. The worst thing about all this is that by your actions you have acknowledged that you are not interested in the truth here; you are just interested in promoting your little conspiracy theory. Personally I would rather see a page that is accurate than a page that just promotes your bizarre jumps to untenable conclusions based on bizarre strings of disputed so-called "evidence." csloat 19:39, 15 September 2005 (UTC)

csloat, you are accusing me of bad faith. I do not think that is fair at all. I want a "Background" section that actually deals with the historical background and a short primer on intelligence gathering and analysis. That information would be helpful in understanding the timeline. Right now the background section is arguing the merits of collaboration back and forth and provides little in helpful info. Some of it may belong in the "Implausibility" section which could be greatly improved by summarizing more effectively information in the Timeline. You seem to be very upset by a summary of "Evidence for Collaboration." Honestly, I do not know why that is so upsetting to you since it is already in the Timeline. As for credible evidence, I think you are confusing it with conclusive evidence. Credible evidence just means it comes from credible sources or has been deemed to be credible by the Intelligence Community. For example, the articles published in newspapers around the world about the "pact" between Saddam and Osama are thought to be crebible. The witnesses of the CBRN training described by George Tenet as of varying credibility means that some of them are credible. The fact Cohen still believes Khartoum was chemical weapons development between Saddama and Osama makes that credible. Now you can look at those pieces of evidence and say you are not convinced of a collaboration but readers will be interested to see what the evidence of the collaboration is. Putting a summary of the evidence in one place for the readers is the right thing to do. Without it, the article appears lacking NPOV. Regarding Able Danger, the fact this hurt the 9/11 Commission's credibility is all over the newspapers. It is in both the 9/11 Commission and the Able Danger articles you named earlier. This is the only article it is not in. There is no excuse for not including it. RonCram 13:53, 16 September 2005 (UTC)

I'm sorry Ron - I am trying to assume good faith but you have shown again and again that your agenda is to make the article into a platform for your conspiracy theory even when the evidence does not support that. The Background section currently does deal with the historical background, and it does currently mention facts about intelligence gathering that are relevant. But this is not the place for a "primer" on it, of course. I am not "upset" by your proposed section; I am simply refuting the supposed "evidence" you keep repeating yourself about. You are now citing articles about a "pact" as "evidence" but you know that is BS - there was never any evidence whatsoever of a "pact"; all there was was speculation. I am not saying the speculation was unreasonable - as I said above, we had every reason not to trust Saddam - but I am saying there was no evidence backing it up, as we now know. The other stuff has already been dealt with in the timeline - you are just repeating it again. What you are proposing is to put claims in the intro section that are refuted in the timeline, but you don't want the refutation in the intro -- this distorts the conclusion one would draw from reading the article. If you want to summarize the entire timeline in the intro it will be too long - why duplicate it? We already have a summary of many of the main points -- the supposed meetings with hijackers, the supposed training at Salman Pak, etc. are already there. The article is not lacking NPOV; the only ones disputing its content are you and Silverback - I have the feeling if we were to vote on the "Disputed" tag right now the vote would be to remove it. As for Able Danger, please stop repeating yourself; I am sick of repeating myself in response. There are no newspaper articles or anything else suggesting a connection between Able Danger and this topic. Except the bogus Weekly standard article, whose claims even you have now backed off of. So, no, you are just flat out wrong that it belongs here, and I beg you to stop repeating that it does like a little kid who wants candy at the grocery store.--csloat 17:54, 16 September 2005 (UTC)

Silverback are you just checking to see if I'm awake? If you want to make edits please explain them here. The Able Danger thing has been dealt with over and over. Linking it here is original research pure and simple. The other edits have been hashed out as well and instead of responding to those arguments you are just reverting. And please actually respond rather than simply repeating yourself.--csloat 08:29, 17 September 2005 (UTC)

You overestimate how well you have "dealt" with the able danger thing. It hits 9/11 credibility precisely in the subject areas it is being relied upon as authoritative in this article. As for the other changes, the edit summaries are pretty explicit that "paucity" is POV, there were contacts with al Qaeda (even sanctuary), it is just that the evidence to link Iraq to 9/11 has been classified as not credible. That shouldn't matter though, or be emphasized, since this article's subject matter is not 9/11 focused, although the current text seems to be obsessed with 9/11.--Silverback 10:00, 17 September 2005 (UTC)

I am not overestimating anything -- you haven't answered my arguments against the Able Danger thing, ever. It is original research to put it in an entry when the connection between this topic and Able Danger has not been noticed by the media or by any scholar or anyone except you and Mr. Cram. Why should I keep repeating this? As for the other stuff, the edit summaries have been responded to, and again you ignore these responses. "Paucity" is more accurate than "limited" because it refers to actual links, not "contacts." It is not just 9/11 that is not credible; it is any serious link to al Qaeda. Every single actual link has turned up dry -- the product of disinformation, mistaken identity, etc. The contacts that were established did not lead anywhere. All you can come up with is that Yasin lived with a relative there and got a job with the government; you keep calling this "sanctuary" like he was on some tropical island sipping rum and getting spa and massage treatments or something. This article is not "obsessed with 9/11" - what evidence do you have of that? You're the one trying to focus on 9/11 Commission issues here when they are not relevant. 9/11 is obviously a key moment here, as it would be in any history of any aspect of modern terrorism, and obviously it is after 9/11 that the U.S. government agencies got much more serious about investigating the alleged connection here, so there's no doubt it marks a turning point. If a 9/11 connection is emphasized here it's because the people who keep asserting a Saddam-AQ connection are asserting a 9/11 connection -- the prominence of the bogus Prague story, for example. Anyway I'm reverting your nonsense. Again, don't revert back without actually answering the arguments here - simply reasserting your original points is bogus. csloat 10:42, 17 September 2005 (UTC)

Let me lay it out for you reeeeeally sloooooow. Bush admin lying about WMD is not as relevant to the credibility of Bush admin cites in this article about links to al Qaeda, as 9/11 commission's incomplete investigation of alpha-dangers knowledge of links to al Qaeda is to the commisions credibility about links to al Qaeda. Your analogy was NOT VERY ANALOGOUS. Got it? How many ways do I have to say it?--Silverback 12:19, 17 September 2005 (UTC)

And let me lay it out for you: (1) this is the first time you've responded to that particular argument, so stop your silly posturing "how many ways do I have to say it." You're confused. I'm the one who is getting exasperated by being forced to respond to the same points again and again. (2) There are several other arguments you have not responded to; most importantly, the fact that this is original research that does not belong here. You simply chose the weakest of my arguments to respond to and are now pretending you have made a convincing case. (3) you are wrong even about this argument. Bush's lying about WMD is as tenuously connected to this page as is the 911 Commission's incompleteness surrounding AD. There is no evidence that AD revealed anything about Saddam's relationship to AQ, and it is sheer speculation and original research to insist that it might. (4) you have made other changes that you have not justified and that have also been challenged here already. Do not make changes if you feel it is too hard to respond to the arguments against them. That may be because those arguments are correct.csloat 19:52, 17 September 2005 (UTC)

Excuse me, I responded to that argument immediately when you raised it, and then repeatedly referred to the credibility issue, because your argument was so weak and had not been reinforced. Search on "Whether it is relevant or not, depends on the area of credibility that is impacted", I just laid it out a little more sloooowly here. The 9/11 commission's lack of credibility about AD would be as tenuously connected as the Bush admin's lying, if it weren't for the fact that AD is itself connected to the al Qaeda links. And there is another element that makes any questioning of the 9/11 work more relevant to its credibility. The 9/11 commission's size and focus is much smaller, so any credibility issues are more relevant. Questioning the Bush administration as a source because of alleged lies in one part, neglects the fact that 99+% of the administration does not even change with new presidents. The adminstrative branch is much larger and more diverse than the 9/11 commision.--Silverback 22:59, 17 September 2005 (UTC)

LOL. Yes I looked at that exchange, and I responded to your comments in that place too, and again you left me hanging, in terms of actually engaging the arguments. But you did not raise any response to that particular analogy there which was my point in #1 above. AD is not connected to "the al Qaeda links" if you mean the links with Saddam -- again, nobody in the real world has seen fit to comment on such a connection, and they certainly would if there was anything there. Bush analogy aside - let's say I concede that - Able Danger still has no relevance to this article, and any connection you establish through arguments here is original research. Also, remember that the 911 Commission is just one of the many sources on this page, and they are simply collecting evidence gathered from other sources -- so the listing of that evidence here would not be impacted at all even if the credibility of the Commission were in serious question. Face it, you are grasping at straws here -- trying to pull in a barely tangential piece of information that barely refutes one of the many sources of information on this page ... what is surprising is that you appear to really believe that this piece of information is both relevant and decisive here. Bizarre. --csloat 00:09, 18 September 2005 (UTC)

The article is using the 9/11 commission not only to cite other evidence, but is using the commission's assessment and characterization of the evidence as well. It's credibility is fair game. The AD evidence not only calls into question the 9/11 commissions credibility, but they timeline they use to reject al Qaeda/Iraq link evidence, while AD doesn't directly give evidence of the link, impacting this timeline would be enough to give it relevance, even if the credibility of the 9/11 commisson was so central to this article. We should at least leave this in while the questions are being investigated by Congress.--Silverback 04:30, 18 September 2005 (UTC)

Identify which part of the timeline is in conflict and how specifically it impacts the link to Saddam. Then provide some reasonable explanation why you are the only person in the world to notice (well, you and Ron) that this has anything to do with the link to Saddam. Then, finally, write an article about it for a mainstream publication and wait for that article to gain notoriety. Then and only then will it not be "original research" to enter that information here.--csloat 00:38, 19 September 2005 (UTC)

"Felzenberg said the information about Atta was considered suspect because it didn't jibe with many other findings. For example, the intelligence officer said Atta was in the United States in late 1999, but travel records confirmed that he did not enter the country until late 2000."[11] It may be hypocritical, given that the commission's credibility is being questioned, but the commission spokesperson himself, says that able danger contradicts the time line. But your criterion is too strong even though it is being met. We all can use facts to question the credibility of an authority that is used in the article. We don't have to wait for some other authority to use those facts to question the authority.--Silverback 07:50, 19 September 2005 (UTC)

Absurd. Where is it even alleged that Atta had anything to do with Saddam at those times? The only speculation that comes close is the April 2001 meeting that never actually took place -- and nobody contests that part of the timeline. The criterion you are objecting to is not mine -- it is wikipedia's: No Original Research. We most emphatically do have to "wait for some other authority to use those facts" before we can create encyclopedia entries that refer to that particular use of facts. Besides, read the entry that you keep reverting. Also there are two other changes on it that you have not justified (and you have conceded my arguments against), and the Able Danger entry itself is nonsensical - it makes no reference to the Saddam al Q@aeda connection whatsoever!csloat 08:57, 19 September 2005 (UTC)

This is about the commission credibility which is relied upon so heavily in this article. You ignore the actual AD text that is being added, it is completely factual and documented, so there is no original research. The text makes reference to the 9/11 commission and Atta, both of which are mentioned in the article. You state that the April 2001 meeting never took place. You go beyond the evidence, the fact that you mention it at all is evidence that there is evidence that it did take place. The fact that a couple of organizations have not found the source of information about that meeting credible does not mean that it didn't happen. Part of the reason that the organizations dismissed the report of the meeting was that it conflicted with an alternate timeline for Atta. That timeline has now been called into question as has the thoroughness of the 9/11 commission's work. I still think it is strange that so much effort has been extended in the article to refute a link to 9/11, when this is about links to al Qaeda, presumably as evidence of the possible danger of future collaboration as part of the case for removing Saddam. Noone is stating that the war was revenge for 9/11. Against this possible future danger, is the allegation that it is made implausible by bin Laden's hostile statements, which presumably Saddam would hold against al Qaeda, if they should approach him for assistance in attacking America. The documented contacts and assistance to al Qaeda refute that wishful thinking. Now, admittedly, the 9/11 commissions statements are mainly being used to refute the strawman proposition about cooperation on 9/11. The commissions own conclusions use language that overstates their certainty and are used here in this article to give it an overly dismissive tone regarding ANY contacts, and so it is totally appropriate and relevant to include facts which call into question the certainty of their conclusions.--Silverback 10:27, 19 September 2005 (UTC)

It feels like you're intentionally being dense. I did read the text being added and the "original research" is in the connection between that text and this article. The fact that you leave it out completely just means the entry is poorly written; it looks like a total non sequitor if you're reading it in the timeline. We don't just include everything in the timeline dealing with 9/11 or Atta as you suggest. I state the 4/01 meeting did not take place based on the preponderance of evidence which is listed in the timeline (some of which is also listed in the 911 report). My conclusion is not based on the 911 report; it is based on evidence that happens to be mentioned in that report which happened to come to the same conclusion. And who cares - this is my opinion and I certainly did not put in the article my conclusion about this non-meeting. Most of the arguments against the meeting have little to do with conflicting timelines, and you have shown no evidence that the timelines conflict on the date in question. And again this is all speculation - original research on your part. You again make the baseless charge that this article has too much about 9/11 - point to specifics here. Also this is an irrelevant point to the issue at hand - you have not justified reverting this article! There are also other changes you are reverting without justifying those reversions at all. This is practically vandalism and you are just wasting my time.--csloat 11:58, 19 September 2005 (UTC)

Only you can waste your time. I don't put my conclusion about the meeting into the article either. I am not trying to do original research here. As cited, the 9/11 commission spokesman, is the one who stated that the timeline is in conflict. Why don't you just leave this factual stuff in, until after the congressional hearings which begin shortly. We should know then more about the evidence. This way you avoid wasting your time. Articles are dynamic, you shouldn't panic over something that rather inoccuously conflicts with your POV. It ain't the end of the world, and since I am a reasonable good faith editor, it may be only temporary, if the credibility of the 9/11 commission and the timeline you prefer, survives the hearings.--Silverback 12:14, 19 September 2005 (UTC)

The proper thing to do is leave this entry out until the congressional hearings actually turn up any conflict in the timeline that would be relevant. As I said over and over again, if you think this is relevant, write an article about it, get it published, and let it gain notoriety; then, at that point, it may be relevant to include here. You want to include an entry on the basis that future congressional hearings might lead to someone claiming a connection? That is ludicrous! Why not include an entry on Hurricane Katrina, just in case someone comes out in the next few weeks and articulates a connection? I am trying to believe that you are a "reasonable good faith editor" but the evidence seems to suggest otherwise. You posture in talk and then make sweeping changes in the article, many of which you don't even try to justify. You continually revert things that have been debated to death here, and you don't even try to respond to the arguments against your position. Now you are declaring that we should include irrelevant material on the off chance that a future investigation determines that this entry is relevant.--csloat 18:49, 19 September 2005 (UTC)

I admit that I haven't evaluated the issues other than the AD stuff, but based on the quality of your arguments on the AD stuff and your sweeping reverts of it despite your failure to make your case on the AD stuff, why should I consider you as having any credibility on that other stuff? Are your arguments any better there? And if they aren't any better there are you any more likely to be intellectually honest enough yield? Frankly, I don't want to get into the minutia of the other issues, but you haven't demonstrated any credibility with your mischaracterization of my arguments and evidence and with your sweeping reverts. Remember that you are the one being deletionist here.--Silverback 06:41, 21 September 2005 (UTC)

Great. You won't respond to things in talk but you will revert them. Now you won't even justify the AD additions any more; you just want to keep adding them. I have more than bent over backwards again and again trying to explain this stuff, and trying to assume good faith, and you simply keep repeating yourself, ignoring the responses (except to vaguely ridicule them like you do above). Now you admit you have been reverting stuff without even reading it. Please stop playing games. What you're doing is at this point almost indistinguishable from vandalism. --csloat 08:01, 21 September 2005 (UTC)

Once again you mischaracterize my position, I am more than happy to justify the AD addition, as I have many times. I propose a compromise, we keep the AD stuff in, and abandon the other changes. This was implicit in my statement above. You, who claim to be editing in good faith, have you proposed any compromises? If the credibility of the 9/11 commission is not an issue here, are you willing to remove all references to it? Do you even know what the terms you throw around mean, such as "original research"? There is a cite from someone associated with the 9/11 commision to support the timeline conflict, etc. Do you have a cite for the position that AD is not relevant to the timeline or "original research"? As you see, I am more than willing to defend the AD insert. Let's try to make this decision based on the evidence.--Silverback 08:19, 21 September 2005 (UTC)

We don't compromise by letting people put stuff into wikipedia that does not belong there. This is original research. The credibility of the 9/11 Commission has not been questioned with regard to connections between Saddam and al Qaeda. You may speculate that the AD stuff may impact their credibility in other areas all you like but it is original research to put it here. Stop playing around - the burden of proof is on you to provide evidence connecting AD to this article, not on me to provide evidence that they are not connected. If you don't understand what I mean by "original research" in this context, you should not be editing wikipedia this aggressively.--csloat 08:25, 21 September 2005 (UTC)

I have inserted compromise text, that makes the NOR documentation clear. However, I'm not sure I'm happy with it. BTW, I just saw some news that the military has issued a gag order against the Able Danger officers testifying in the open. Evidently they have security concerns that will force the hearings to be closed. We need a more open seeking of the truth. If the Atta material is not relevant, why is there so much of it in the article? If the 9/11 commission rejection of information is not relevant, why is there so much of reliance on the 9/11 commision in the article?--Silverback 08:40, 21 September 2005 (UTC)

I have erased the supposed "compromise" which says absolutely nothing that makes it relevant to this page - a reader of this page would be stumped as to what it was doing there. The "original research" is the logical leap between that entry and this page; you do not solve the problem by deleting it and leaving it as an unspoken warrant for the claim. The Atta timeline information is not relevant as the only parts of the timeline in question are a year earlier than the only claim about Atta on this page. Atta is not relevant to this page other than that once supposed incident (which, as we know, is most likely false anyway).--csloat 08:48, 21 September 2005 (UTC)

Why is there all the information about Atta on the page at all? Atta is not needed to establish that Saddam had contacts with al Qaeda and that it is reasonable to fear that he might expand that to collaboration in the future. Saddams contacts with al Qaeda are numerous and substantial enough to overcome any suggestion of implausibility of future assistance. Past sanctuary and assistance, makes future sanctuary and assistance plausible. Are you disputing the purpose of this article? It does not exist just to lay out a conspiracy theory about 9/11 does it? In fact it appears to try to refute such a conspiracy theory. We may never know whether Saddam was contacted about 9/11 in advance, it doesn't appear his assistance was needed, even if it was solicitied and he may have had knowledge of it. So it doesn't seem that important. However, there is no more reason to have confidence that the Atta meeting did not occur, than that it did. If Saddam, had prior knowledge of the 9/11 attack, I don't think there was any expectation that he would warn the US, and if he didn't warn the US that could not be justification for the war. Rather the demonstrated hostility he had shown to the US, the resources he had available to exercise that, and the willingness he had shown to harbor and support terrorism are justification enough.--Silverback 09:05, 21 September 2005 (UTC)

Atta is mentioned on the page because there were allegations - most likely false - that he met an Iraqi in April 2001. There is nothing else connecting Saddam to Atta that I am aware of. This page is not about what it is "reasonable to fear." If you read things I wrote to you a few days ago you would see that I share your distrust of Saddam, and my interest in this page has nothing to do with defending him. This article was created over the objections of myself and several other editors because one editor seemed to believe the conspiracy theory presented here and detailed all of these points. This area is a significant one in my research, so I noticed that the page was full of disinformation and began painstakingly gathering the evidence about the items he put on the time line and contextualizing (and in many cases refuting) them. You are right that Saddam was not needed for 9/11 and that it is unlikely that he had anything to do with it. Your opinion about whether there were other justifications for war with Iraq is not unreasonable, but it has nothing to do with this page. The same goes for your speculation about past sanctuary and future sanctuary. (By the way it's not clear what you mean by "sanctuary" at all; as I asked you before - do you think Arnold Schwarzennegger is giving me sanctuary?) --csloat 09:35, 21 September 2005 (UTC)

the nationality excuse for harboring members of al Qaeda

csloat has put forward the nationality excuse, to argue that the harboring of an al Qaeda member was not the giving of sanctuary. What if bin Laden had been Iraqi and had gone home to Iraq? Would that fail to meet your standard for contact with and assistance to al Qaeda. Your reasoning doesn't hold water.--Silverback 09:26, 21 September 2005 (UTC)

See above. I live in California; am I being "harbored" by the governator? I even draw a salary from the state! Checks signed by the state treasurer! Horrors! Seriously, if you could produce any information that Saddam even knew this guy was in Iraq and supported his terrorist activities in some way, then you could call it "harboring" him but as it is, you have nothing. If you do put it back in you cannot make it plural as there is only one - Zarqawi was never "harbored" by Saddam even under your loose definition of it. As for OBL -- he's in Afghanistan or Pakistan right now -- would you say that Karzai or Musharraff is "harboring" him?--csloat 09:35, 21 September 2005 (UTC)

Unless the governor is aware that you are a suspect in serious criminal acts, I think you once again have proposed an analogy that isn't analogous. Both Karzai and Musharraff are hunting bin Laden, and there is no reason to believe they know his location. Zarqawi was given medical treatment at a hospital that served the Iraqi elite, before he went off to be a thorn in the Kurdish and Iranian sides.--Silverback 09:58, 21 September 2005 (UTC)

First, there is no reason to believe Saddam knew Yasin's location. As I said though he is the only one so even if this is true you cannot put it in there as if Saddam was harboring AQ terrorists -- this is just one (and he isn't really being "harbored"). The stories of Zarqawi being treated by Saddam's personal physicians turned out to be false according to terrorism expert Jason Burke. The people Zarqawi associated with were a bigger thorn in Saddam's side than in Iran's. And there is no evidence Saddam supported Zarqawi in any way. When I have more time I will probably reorganize the zarqawi section as the stuff you added is repetitive.

I didn't put the Saddam's physicians stuff in the article, and the Bush administration still believes he received medical care there, although they no longer believe it extended to leg amputation, per the cite I gave. Anyone can write a terrorism book, that doesn't mean they have access to all the intelligence that the administration has access to.--Silverback 12:37, 21 September 2005 (UTC)

More importantly - please stop adding stuff that we have decided does not belong here -- the AD stuff, you sneak it in in the intro now, assuming I would not see it buried in all your edits? very deceptive. And the line about no "credible reports" of OBL attacking Saddam - this is totally misleading as there are no such reports at all. You cite it as if there were some reports that proved to be wrong in order to discredit the fact that OBL was frequently critical of the regime. The other point you add about Saddam pretending to be a fundamentalist is already made elsewhere in the article and is not relevant there. Again, don't try to sneak edits in like that; it is poor wikipedia form.--csloat 12:20, 21 September 2005 (UTC)

We have not made a decision. You were complaining that the AD stuff did not fit where I originally had it. Putting it in the Timeline intro where general credibility issues are discussed is an attempt to address that. I'd have to check, but I thought I put an appropriate edit summary there. There were a couple of edits that didn't take however.--Silverback 12:30, 21 September 2005 (UTC)

Hah! I did put in a descriptive edit summary. "This fits more logically here, where claims and credibility are discussed"--Silverback 12:39, 21 September 2005 (UTC)

Stop distorting things. I was not complaining about where the AD stuff fits; I was saying it did not belong on this page AT ALL. And you did not respond to the arguments presented. Including it is original research. You already know this as we have been through it over and over. Putting it in also is a non sequitor the way you worded it. And the rest of your edits - you even reverted your spelling error that I corrected! Your edits seem more and more to be in bad faith, SB.--csloat 12:53, 21 September 2005 (UTC)

I quote you "it looks like a total non sequitor if you're reading it in the timeline". Case closed. I have given too much ground without anything in return. You are a moving target. This credibility and relevance issue is a matter of degree, but you refuse to exercise any judgement.--Silverback 13:22, 21 September 2005 (UTC)

Now you're just not making sense at all. My point stands - the AD stuff does not belong here as it is not relevant. Any attempt to make it relevant is original research and does not belong in wikipedia.csloat 17:29, 21 September 2005 (UTC)

If your point stands, it stands on mere assertion. Your analogies were not analogous enough, what else did you have?--Silverback 19:19, 21 September 2005 (UTC)

You're the one making mere assertions. I have made several arguments about this, the big one being the no original research claim, which you keep ignoring. The analogies that you did not like were made with regard to another argument, as you are well aware.--csloat 20:37, 21 September 2005 (UTC)

No, the analogies were with regard to the commission credibility issue. What is original research about including evidence that the repeatedly cited commission rejected information that didn't fit their view of the timeline. What is your NOR argument for that?--Silverback 16:53, 22 September 2005 (UTC)

No, the analogy was about Arnold giving me "sanctuary." I am again removing the AD claim because it again has nothing to do with the Saddam connection which is what this page is about. It is a non sequitor as written; the assumption that it has something to do with saddam is the original research issue. I'm really getting sick of this SB - please just stop.--csloat 21:53, 22 September 2005 (UTC)

While the main reason for the entry is the commision credibility issue, it also has relevance to Saddam, to the extent that the Atta timeline is relevant. One of your weak analogies was on the credibility issue, do you have anything better?--Silverback 22:37, 22 September 2005 (UTC)

If it has relevance to Saddam, someone in the real world would have noticed it besides you. Sorry this doesn't go here, and I've been through the arguments over and over and over again about this. Any connection to Saddam is original research.--csloat 23:01, 22 September 2005 (UTC)

Even if Atta were not mentioned in this article (what's his link with Saddam anyway?), the Able Danger text still goes to the 9/11 commission credibility issue, which you haven't addressed beyond a mere assertion and the "Bush lies" analogy.--Silverback 01:19, 23 September 2005 (UTC)

Are you on drugs? It's crazy you keep pressing me to explain this to you over and over. The only connection to Atta worth mentioning on this page is the April thing in the timeline. Able Danger has nothing to do with that. Able Danger does not say anything about the Commission's credibility with regard to this issue, and any attempt to claim that it does is original research, pure and simple. The "Bush lies" analogy was not my main argument against this position as you are well aware; it was an attempt to make you understand because you were being so obtuse about it. Just stop toying with this page, please. It's getting tedious and ridiculous. You're making a fool of yourself and you are trying to make this page incoherent by adding irrelevant information. Also is there anyone else following this discussion besides myself and silverback? I ask because I am completely blown away by how ridiculous his position is here - do other people agree or is there something I am missing here? --csloat 06:21, 23 September 2005 (UTC)

maybe trimming to zarqawi and yasin goes too far?

As I had mentioned in early discussions, the link between Saddam and zarqawi and yasin is sufficient to make the point in this article that the US was justified in fearing possible cooperation with al-Qaeda on future terrorist attacks. So I've started trimming with that in mind. There certainly is no need for the fruitless 9/11 conspiracy theory stuff, that is a distraction. However, I now have gotten down to the CIA summary, and I see that they concluded that the relationship was even more substantial than just Yasin and Zarqawi. Was any of the timeline, I deleted, supporting details for these CIA conconclusions? Please feel free to restore those portions that were, hopefully, we all can avoid the obsfuscation of getting into the 9/11 conspiracy theory stuff, which isn't needed to support jusfication of the war on the basis of Saddam and al-Qaeda. -- thanx, --Silverback 13:16, 23 September 2005 (UTC)

As usual I will be correcting your bogus edits. This page is not about whether the US was "justified in fearing possible cooperation" but rather whether such cooperation existed. The CIA conclusions have been clear throughout; you are distorting them. The "9/11 conspiracy stuff" is a major part of this article. You are dead wrong about justifications for the war, but it doesn't matter, as that is not what this article is about.--csloat 19:39, 23 September 2005 (UTC)

You are quite wrong, this article is about "might conspire to launch terrorist attacks ", not about "whether such cooperation existed", although such cooperation would be good evidence for the "might conspire". Perhaps your misperception has been the source of the misunderstanding and why you have been focused on conspiracy theories? All the past contacts do is get rid of the "implausibility" strawman. If Saddam was willing to give sanctuary, medical treatment, etc. to al Qaeda, he obviously wouldn't let bin Laden's past criticisms get in the way of striking a blow at the U.S. Evidently the CIA agrees, see conclusion 97.--Silverback 19:52, 23 September 2005 (UTC)

Your edits are basically vandalism and do not conform to your point at all. This page is about whether Saddam and AQ cooperated. I am not focused on conspiracy theories, except to dispute phony evidence for this particular one. Also your claims have been proven false; Saddam did give medical treatment to Zarqawi (Saddam is not even a doctor!) nor did he even know Zarqawi was treated in Iraq. He did not give "sanctuary" to anyone. And whatever you feel is "obvious" is not relevant here; the only thing relevant is actual evidence.--csloat 19:59, 23 September 2005 (UTC)

Why don't you read the introduction if you want to know what the page is about?--Silverback 20:02, 23 September 2005 (UTC)

If you want this article to be about "might conspire", how about changing its name to Speculations that Saddam might have conspired with al-Qaeda even though the evidence shows he did not?--csloat 20:42, 23 September 2005 (UTC)

Silverback's vandalism and csloats mischaracterizations

I implore others interested in this page to please join this discussion. I will be asking for outside help with this too if it does not stop. We have gone from a dispute about including original research and nonsequitors here (the "Able Danger" stuff) to MASSIVE unexplained deletions by Silverback trying to turn this page into ... I don't know what, exactly. He appears to be making a WP:POINT but it isn't a point that makes any sense at all. I think this kind of behavior is vandalism and I will report it if it does not stop. Silverback there is a reasonable way to have a reasonable discussion about making changes here, but you are not doing that. You are making massive sweeping changes without discussion at all. When you do discuss your changes you simply ignore arguments that are inconvenient for you and then you stomp your foot like a baby and demand that your changes are right. This is a severe conduct problem that is independent of the content of your edits.--csloat 19:53, 23 September 2005 (UTC)

"ignore arguments"? Evidently you feel comfortable saying "unexplained deletions" while ignoring the not only the explicit explanations, but the thread of nearly all my postings here. The way to have a "reasonable discussion" is to "reason", and not to mischaracterize the positions of others. --Silverback 20:01, 23 September 2005 (UTC)

There was no reasonable explanation given for any of those deletions. Why trim to Yasin and Zarqawi? No reason. Just because you think those are the strongest links? Get real. Why delete evidence of hostility between Saddam and al Qaeda? Why delete everything for entire years? Your "explanations" in the edit summaries were cryptic, claiming reference to "911 Conspiracy theories" without any information about what that had to do with anything. I did not ignore those edit summaries; I responded in my own edit summaries. You are not explaining these deletions nor are you even defending them; you are trying to use them to make some kind of point that doesn't follow anyway.--csloat 20:09, 23 September 2005 (UTC)

I repeatedly questioned the emphasis on 9/11, and mentioned that your focus was not on the subject of the article. My edits were totally consistent with that, except that there probably was some more good evidence of Saddam's support that I deleted. I mistakenly though that Yasin and Zarqawi was all that there was good evidence for. Yes it was all that was needed for the purpose of the article, however, there is no point in throwing away what the CIA also considered supporting evidence. When I got to the CIA section, I realized that they made an even stronger case than I thought there was, so I stopped fearing I may have deleted some good evidence.--Silverback 20:30, 23 September 2005 (UTC)

You certainly repeatedly made irrelevant points about 9/11, and repeated them over and over, but they were wrong, and you ignored counter arguments. This article is not focused on 911 it is focused on Saddam's (non)relationship with al Qaeda. I'm not sure what your comment about the CIA means; if you think the speculation that Saddam "might" commit terrorist attacks with AQ, when we know for a fact he did not, is hardly a "strong case" for anything, but whatever. In either case there is no excuse for your massive deletions especially when you admit here you didn't even read the stuff you deleted. Please please please stop the nonsense silverback this is ridiculous.--csloat 20:40, 23 September 2005 (UTC)

Silverback has done this kind of thing before: [12] [13]. Just cut it out Silverback. And csloat, please allow others the time to revert his strange edits. 69.121.133.154 01:05, 24 September 2005 (UTC)

Yes anon one, those are similar incidents in some ways. It would be an error to take the analogy too far however. I hope you are not suggesting that others should revert without familiarizing themselves with the material?--Silverback 06:45, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

I agree... some of them were bizarre but I took time to rouse... -- RyanFreisling @ 01:10, 24 September 2005 (UTC)

Thanks, and you're right anon user, I should take a wikibreak more often :) --csloat 20:26, 24 September 2005 (UTC)

Throwing around the word "vandalism"

I was reading the history of this page today, and noticed use of the word "vandalism" in many of the edit summaries. This piqued my curiosity, so I looked at the edits the past couple of days.

The term "vandalism" is often thrown around. It is an inflammatory word, and is often misused.

What it is not

Vandalism is not removing disputed chunks of text from an article. Editors can make bold edits, and they can remove text. They should be allowed to do so without being accused of vandalism. Removing text in an article, to clear it of disputed content while the dispute is being settled, is not vandalism.

Often the word "vandalism" is used as a tactical move, to put the "offender" on the defensive, and justify reverts of the text removed, so they do not count against one's 3RR limit. This is wrong.

Text you cannot blank or edit

There is some text you must always keep your hands off. Removing another editor's text from talk pages, or editing another person's words on a talk page to change their meaning, is not allowed. The rules prohibiting such edits happen to be included among the rules regarding vandalism. Such edits may not always have "vandalistic" intent, but they do break the rules addressing vandalism.

Not defending anyone's edits

I am not defending the edits of whoever it is getting accused of vandalsim. The edits may be good or bad, bold or brash, well justified to some but not to others. They may even be foolish, I don't know. What you are talking about, however, is disputed content. I am also not defending the editor for other alleged misbehavior or inability to collaborate. I am merely targeting the use of a word.

Obviously, the larger the amount of text removed, the brasher the action of removing it. Blanking an entire article is, of course, vandalism.

If you are unclear about whether something is vandalism, ask yourself, "If I reported this to an admin, and asked to have the person blocked for it, would the admin look at the changes and tell me to work out a content dispute instead?" If yes, it is clearly not vandalism, even if repeated and repeated.

Be very careful about throwing this term around. Doing it in an edit war to justify reverts is unwise; it is better to engage the editor to discuss the text and work together to make it better. You may have to compromise. paul klenk ^talk 08:26, 24 September 2005 (UTC)

I just want to say I did not mean to use the term in this way to describe Silverback's destructive edits. I generally said what he was doing was "borderline" vandalism or "basically" vandalism. But I did use it in the heading above, and should not have; thank you for the correction. My point was that this sort of aggressive editing and obnoxious refusal to engage with the discussion page is nearly indistinguishable from vandalism because it wastes everyone's time with edits that are wrong on their face. But it's not true - it actually wastes more time than regular vandalism because regular vandalism can be reverted without excessive commentary, whereas what Silverback is doing requires extensive commentary (which he ignores, repeating himself in talk: until his interlocuters get tired). Anyway I apologize for calling it vandalism but it is destructive to the purpose of wikipedia and I will continue to challenge his destructive editing.--csloat 20:32, 24 September 2005 (UTC)

Not to worry. You do make a lot of good points; there may be enough wrong with the edits to go after them on a variety of reasons. The use of the word "attack" is also thrown around the same way, to mischaracterize many statements, devaluing the word over time. Right now I'm trying to find a code among political editors that will help us with many of these problems. It will help keep these talk pages clear of certain debates, and keep them a bit more calm. Thanks so much for checking in. paul klenk ^talk 22:22, 24 September 2005 (UTC)

The "Questions about the plausibility of the link" section should be redistributed

Too much emphasis is given to bin Laden statements that never amounted to any action against Saddam. This section should be removed, and those statements and all evidence of any overtly hostile acts toward Saddam should just be put into the timeline like other evidence. The 9/11 conpiracy theory stuff should be demphasized, since it adds little to the key question of the article, which is whether Saddam should have been trusted not to collaborate with al Qaeda in the future in an attack on the US or UK. Of course, Saddams character and history would lead one to conclude he shouldn't be trusted at all, too bad for Saddam, that character actually matters. If bin Laden's statements did not result in acts, then a whole section on them definitely overemphasizes them.--Silverback 06:19, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

The statements by OBL and other AQ members are quite relevant since they speak to the plausibility of conspiring. You keep saying nonsense like "the 9/11 conspiracy should be deemphasized" but you never spell out what you mean specifically. Obviously the possibility of a connection between Saddam and 911 was a big issue in the debate about this "connection", and it was cited by many in the leadup to war. One of the biggest claims made by the conspiracy theorists is that Atta met al-Ani in Prague in April 2001. The "key question" of the article is not "whether Saddam should have been trusted not to collaborate with AQ" which is a silly question anyway. The key question is whether Saddam did collaborate with AQ, and that question is addressed adequately by this article. Whether Saddam can be trusted is a different question entirely, and I don't think anyone involved in editing this page believes that he could be. Finally, Silverback, please stop tinkering with this page - you are constantly trying to restate the case in ways that fabricate the appearance of cooperation. If you have legitimate claims to add, great, but stop fine-tuning the language to favor your POV. For example, when the CIA says Saddam "might" work with terrorists in the future, they are speculating, not "concluding." I am trying to assume good faith here but it is very difficult when every change you make is driven by this agenda, and truth seems to be a secondary concern for you at best.--csloat 20:36, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

Archive

could someone familiar with the discussions archive this thing with a move & copy whatever parts are still live back to talk? this thing is 'long. Derex 16:59, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

It looks to me like everything before ""Prague Connection" is highly disputed" could be safely archived. The later stuff is still current.--Silverback 17:59, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

hmmm, well that's a lot of 'live' stuff to copy. on the other hand, this is by far the longest talk page i've ever seen. it's just unwieldy & intimidating. does anyone mind if i 'archive' this with the understanding that current discussions should continue there; the archive page would still be 'live' until those discussions wind down. that way, we can have a fresh page for new topics? this seems to be a common talk-page problem for highly active articles. Derex 18:29, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

Archive away! I would say only keep the most recent 4 or 5 sections. We have links to the archive to refer to other sections when we need to; the only reason I can see for keeping this stuff is so it can be referred to in future discussions when certain editors start repeating themselves and their arguments have already been answered. Certainly you could at least archive everything more than a couple weeks old.--csloat 20:39, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

You suggested 4 or 5 sections. I suggested a particular breakpoint. The archiver ignored both, so I have restored the page.--Silverback 17:52, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

That was so mature of you. Look, there's no reason not to archive. We can always look back at the arguments through the archived page. I don't know how to do it myself so I will have to let Derex come back and do it again.--csloat 18:29, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

Why didn't you look back through the archives then instead mischaracterizing my participation with "you have not replied to the arguments"?--Silverback 18:51, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

I did. You haven't. You simply keep repeating yourself and ignoring the arguments which I conveniently broke down for you below. There are other arguments you miss too but these are the ones that most directly address your recent destructive edits.--csloat 19:05, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

Silverback, seems to me you don't understand the archive process. I have explained on your talk page the rationale for the way I did things. I am frankly quite annoyed by your actions and attitude, having spent 15 minutes trying to provide a service to a page I haven't been involved. I think I'll stick around and see what all the fuss is about. Derex 19:20, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

So, you don't know how to archive older material, while preserving recent material and active discussions on this page?--Silverback 18:25, 27 September 2005 (UTC)

The way to archive is a page move which preserves edit history. Do you know how to move half a page? I didn't think so. Now, do you know how to click a link? I thought you could. I also understand why you might feel that a link click is far too much of a burden; oh wait, no I don't. Sometimes a copy of the most active topic is made to the new talk just to highlight it. You wanted me to copy over 30 topics, most of which hadn't been touched in at least two weeks. Get over it, and archive stuff yourself next time without letting the page grow to 10x (320kb) the recommended limit. Derex 19:23, 27 September 2005 (UTC)

People don't generally follow postings to the archive pages, though they are only a link away. I think your problem is, that that the process you want to use, is inapproapriate for the task of properly archiving just the inactive discussions. Your argument is with the wikipedia software. It doesn't excuse your impolite disruption of discussions here.--Silverback 19:29, 27 September 2005 (UTC)

He is trying to help. I didn't see anything impolite about it; it is nice to start with a fresh page, and we can always click the link if we want to review things. csloat 20:08, 27 September 2005 (UTC)

I don't doubt his intentions, one can be impolite without that intent, it did seem a bit thoughtless of him though to read our responses and then to take actions that were dismissive of them. He probably didn't intend to vandalize my talk page either, but he did.--Silverback 20:19, 27 September 2005 (UTC)

no, i did not 'vandalize'. i said, among other things, 'what the fuck did you expect me to do'? are you really so precious that you regard that as vandalism? look, most people don't even ask before archiving, they just do it. particularly in the longest talk page in history. i solicited opinion; your opinion was to leave 30 topics most of which were untouched in two weeks leaving a talk page that was still 5x as long as when archives are supposed to happen. not to mention that would screw the edit history, because it would be a massive copy. i have explained this to you at length. if your brain cannot comprehend working on two pages at once: (one for older topics, one for new), then i don't know what else to say. surely, you edit more than one article at once. finally, this page is not just for Silverback's convenience, it is for everyone's. you may be on broadband, but lots of people are on dial-up. it is ridiculous that they have to download 1/3 MB just to even see the latest discussion. i really don't know why i care, except that your overbearing attitude really ticked me off. and no, your quarrel is with the wikipedia software; i'm just following standard procedure with which i have no problem at all. i have never encountered anyone so intransigent before they would spend this much time objecting to a purely routine archive, according to guidelines, which were designed for good reason. good day, sir. Derex 23:12, 27 September 2005 (UTC)

I make it a practice not to delete anything from my talk page, because I believe in open communications, and not communicating anything in private that I wouldn't in public. Your post to my talk page was the most abusive of the privililege of an open forum, ever posted to my talk page, other than the porn vandal, and the only other one I have had to delete. Your "standard procedure", must not be that common, because I only recall one other time I had to confront such inconsiderate behavior on a talk page.--Silverback 03:47, 28 September 2005 (UTC)

This is just a test, can Silverback stand not to have the last word? fuck. Derex 05:15, 28 September 2005 (UTC)

Csloats allegation of Silverback's destructive editing

Again, SB, I implore you to knock it off. I have asked on your user page as well, and encourage others who see Silverback's conduct as destructive to do so as well; if talking to him does not work perhaps there are grounds here for an RfC to get outside voices to at least look at what is going on here. Just to be clear on the issues I am laying them out below (though they have been discussed ad nauseum in the archived page):

1. Able Danger. this is not relevant to this page. There are no newspaper articles or other available sources of information that tie Able Danger together with the purported Saddam/AQ connection. SB says that the Able Danger stuff impacts the credibility of the 911 Commission, but (1) that commission is only one of many sources on this page; (2) nobody has tied these things together in the mainstream media, and for SB to tie them together constitutes original research. The sentence SB writes - "Any 9/11 Commission conclusions may not be reliable because it rejected information that did not agree with its preconceived conclusions." - is sheer speculation and there is no evidence to support it that specifically relates to this issue.
2. CIA conclusions: SB cites a line from the Senate report on the CIA's investigation as if it were the "conclusion" of the CIA. The CIA conclusion is clear that there was no Saddam/AQ cooperation. The passage cited speculates that Saddam "might" employ terrorists like AQ "if sufficiently desperate". This is hardly a "conclusion." The conclusion was that they did not do so, and the Senate concluded that the CIA's conclusions were justified.
3. Minor wording changes to the following paragraph:

"Much of the evidence of alleged links between Iraq and al-Qaeda is based on speculation about meetings that may have taken place between Iraqi officials and al-Qaeda members. What took place at those meetings is unclear, but often the mere act of meeting has been taken as evidence of substantial collaboration. As terrorism analyst Evan Kohlman points out,"

SB wants to change the above to: "Some of the evidence of alleged links between Iraq and al-Qaeda is based on inferences about meetings that may have taken place between Iraqi officials and al-Qaeda members. What took place at those meetings is unclear, but the act of meeting has been taken as evidence of substantial collaboration. Terrorism analyst Evan Kohlman states that"

But it is clear that "Much" is more accurate; "Most" would be even more accurate; that "speculation" is far more accurate than "inferences" (hell, many of the supposed meetings most likely did not occur at all!). Most problematically, SB changes "often the mere act of meeting has been taken as evidence of substantial collaboration" to "the act of meeting has been taken as evidence of substantial collaboration", completely reversing the meaning of the sentence. The point that is backed up by the Kohlman quote that follows is that having meetings alone does not mean cooperation. SB is trying to distort things here.

Again, all these issues have been clearly indicated in the discussion (check the archive) and SB has refused to engage the arguments yet insists on repeating his position over and over and reverting the page without ever actually responding to the arguments.--csloat 09:42, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

Quoting your edit summary "you have not replied to the arguments". As an exercise you should search on "credib" above on the talk page, and in the edit summaries. Your responses have been as unpersuasive as your characterizations of my edits have been deliberately misleading. The 9/11 commisions credibility is relevant, if it isn't then lets not use them as a source. "speculation" characterizes in a POV manner, you are violating NPOV. "mere" was POV dismissive of the inference, once again violating NPOV. If the Kolman quote backs this up, it should be the source of the POV characterizations and dismissive language, not you.

I see that when reason fails you, you call to the herd. You would be better served by putting more thought into your posts, and listening to a more objective perspective on your POV. You have been unwilling to accept any compromises, as if you are the only one who could possibly be right. --Silverback 18:05, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

I listed the arguments that you have not answered above for convenience, but it seems you found it inconvenient to respond to them, again. Yet you insist on more destructive reversions. I will revert as per the arguments above.--csloat 18:23, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

Please try to be more civil. Saying "cut it out" is not much different from "shut up". Please make informative edit summaries and comments instead.--Silverback 18:46, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

My informative comments are above which you ignored. I'm asking you to "cut it out" because we have a conduct problem, not just a disagreement. So, again, please, cut it out.--csloat 18:50, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

Now you have violated the 3RR too - you have done your fourth rv today. Do not whine that you made minor changes; you clearly violate the spirit of the 3RR. If you want to show good faith, revert back, and try to actually address the issues in talk. You have so far refused to do so. --csloat 19:21, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

I never claimed to have made minor changes. Do you have a valid wiki argument for why the able danger cite does not fit where I put it? I worked very hard to find a place to properly address the 9/11 commission credibillity issue. Shouldn't you be courteous enough to at least acknowledge the addressing of the issues that you claim I haven't done. Please search on "mere" and "speculation" above. I know that I did not violate the 3RR in spirit because I know my spirit, and I wouldn't have made that last edit, if I thought it was a violation in fact or spirit. In fact, I still don't think it was a violation, I have a clear conscience.--Silverback 19:48, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

Oh come on Silverback. We went over all this stuff about rehashing the 9/11 Commission's credibility on this page a while ago. It just isn't the place for it. This article references the CIA too, are we going to hash out their credibility on this page too? 69.121.133.154 19:58, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

The proper place to discuss the 9/11 Commission is the page on the 9/11 Commission. The propoer place to discuss Able Danger is, oddly enough, called Able Danger.--csloat 20:42, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

Are you implying that it is improper to discuss the 9/11 commission and Able Danger in this article?--Silverback 21:59, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

Are you really this dense? I'm not implying it; I am stating it, for the reasons outlined above and ignored by you. This article is about Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda. Information pertinent to that topic belongs here. Information about Able Danger belongs on this page rather than here. Stop pretending you don't understand this.-csloat 22:19, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

It was a trick question. The 9/11 commission is discussed in this article. It's sole reason for existance was this investigation, so credibility and completeness issues are relevant to the reliability of its conclusions. They seem to have drawn conclusions early and then started rejecting evidence that didn't fit. Your fear of the Able Danger text would seem to be a confirmation of its relevance, otherwise it wouldn't be a big deal, there are lots of articles where some seemingly irrelevant material has slipped in. But this Able Danger is relevant isn't it? All the more so, because the 9/11 commission's credibility is relied upon so heavily. You want to cite not just evidence presented to the commission, but the commission's conclusions, which of course, rely up its judgement, thoroughness and objectivity. They showed lack of thoroughness by not persuing the Able Danger information, they showed lack of objectivity by committing to a timeline before all the evidence was in, and they showed lack of judgement by not reconsidering when contrary evidence came in. If we get rid of the 9/11 commissions conclusions in this article, then the Able Danger information would not be relevant at this time.--Silverback 23:01, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

The 911 Commission was not formed to investigate Saddam's connection to AQ - I did not realize you were that misinformed. It was formed to investigate 9/11 (hence the name "9/11 Commission" as it is commonly called). Able Danger has found nothing relevant to the Saddam/AQ connection, and until it does, it is not relevant here. Your speculation about the 911 Commission's reasoning process is totally irrelevant to this page. I have no "fear" of the Able danger material; I just don't want it on a page where it is not relevant. The supposed lack of thoroughness of the Commission is not relevant here unless you can show that Able Danger revealed they were not thorough on this issue. You have not done so. Your speculation that it will have an impact on this issue is original research and does not belong here.--csloat 01:17, 27 September 2005 (UTC)

As the many cites in this article indicate, Saddam's connection to AQ was within its pervue, and its conclusions (not just evidence and testimony presented to it) are actually FEATURED in this article, including the introduction, I thought you knew that, I didn't realize you were misinformed. Note, that my speculation was not part of my postings to the article. If you read the supporting material, you will see that it is a summary of some of Weldon's concerns. I place that material where its relevance is apparent.--Silverback 18:24, 27 September 2005 (UTC)

Your claim -- that Able Danger has any implications for the Commission's handling of the Saddam-AQ connection -- is original research, pure and simple. How much more clearly can I state this?--csloat 20:10, 27 September 2005 (UTC)

Selective gathering of evidence based on prematurely reaching conclusions definitely is relevant to the Commisions handling. I totally understand your assertion. If you think you are correct, you don't need to make it more clearly, just more persuasively. Your idea of persuasion appears to be assert and revert.--Silverback 20:15, 27 September 2005 (UTC)

Talk about the pot and the kettle. If you are not persuaded, then you ought to be able to think of a counter-argument. Unfortunately you don't seem to be able to, so you keep repeating yourself. The point is that it is not relevant to this article, and if it were, someone in the real world outside wikipedia would have noticed. It is not wikipedia's place to make original claims such as this.--csloat 21:02, 27 September 2005 (UTC)

The "Questions about the plausibility of the link" section should be redistributed

Too much emphasis is given to bin Laden statements that never amounted to any action against Saddam. This section should be removed, and those statements and all evidence of any overtly hostile acts toward Saddam should just be put into the timeline like other evidence. The 9/11 conpiracy theory stuff should be demphasized, since it adds little to the key question of the article, which is whether Saddam should have been trusted not to collaborate with al Qaeda in the future in an attack on the US or UK. Of course, Saddams character and history would lead one to conclude he shouldn't be trusted at all, too bad for Saddam, that character actually matters. If bin Laden's statements did not result in acts, then a whole section on them definitely overemphasizes them.--Silverback 06:19, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

The statements by OBL and other AQ members are quite relevant since they speak to the plausibility of conspiring. You keep saying nonsense like "the 9/11 conspiracy should be deemphasized" but you never spell out what you mean specifically. Obviously the possibility of a connection between Saddam and 911 was a big issue in the debate about this "connection", and it was cited by many in the leadup to war. One of the biggest claims made by the conspiracy theorists is that Atta met al-Ani in Prague in April 2001. The "key question" of the article is not "whether Saddam should have been trusted not to collaborate with AQ" which is a silly question anyway. The key question is whether Saddam did collaborate with AQ, and that question is addressed adequately by this article. Whether Saddam can be trusted is a different question entirely, and I don't think anyone involved in editing this page believes that he could be. Finally, Silverback, please stop tinkering with this page - you are constantly trying to restate the case in ways that fabricate the appearance of cooperation. If you have legitimate claims to add, great, but stop fine-tuning the language to favor your POV. For example, when the CIA says Saddam "might" work with terrorists in the future, they are speculating, not "concluding." I am trying to assume good faith here but it is very difficult when every change you make is driven by this agenda, and truth seems to be a secondary concern for you at best.--csloat 20:36, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

Upon rereading the article, I found that I am still concerned about this section. A lot of it is duplicated in the timeline, and it appears to overemphasize some statements by Osama that must not have been much more than bluster, because he never followed up on them. Yes these statements appear to be whole support there is for any implausibility of future collaboration over a decade later.--Silverback 23:41, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

What are you talking about? This article is not about Osama bin Laden threats against Saddam. That stuff is included in that section because bin Laden's documented opposition to Saddam makes a link to Saddam implausible. This is not about whether he "followed up on" statements. I am not even sure what statements you are referring to -- we're not investigating threats made against Saddam. But, again, the fact is that AQ's ideological opposition to Saddam makes cooperation highly unlikely. This is independent of any "threats" made. --csloat 01:29, 27 September 2005 (UTC)

It would make them unlikely, if it had prevented the contacts and sanctuary, since it didn't, their value is reduced to mere historical curiosities, unworthy of duplicative references and a nearly dedicated section. The implausibiity section is argumentative and duplicative and its information which is not already present in the timeline should be placed there or elsewhere in the article.--Silverback 18:05, 27 September 2005 (UTC)

The "contacts" and "sanctuary" you cite are just as much "historical curiosities" as the hostility between AQ and Saddam. Certainly the latter was deemed significant by every government agency and intelligence analyst that seems to have looked at this question. And the hostility has been expressed by OBL at least as recently as 2003, and we find it expressed as early as 1988, so this is a consistent theme.

I am not the one who created the "Implausibility" section but I do think it is reasonable, since the timeline is so filled with speculation of various types that it is important to underline the main conclusions that have been drawn -- such a link is implausible at best. I would be amenable to rewriting or even redistributing this section if its main points are made clear in the redistribution, but I can tell you for sure I am likely to resist any rewriting by Silverback, who has made clear that his intention is to steamroll everyone else with massively POV edits propagandizing for (in his words) a "wonderful coalition bringing democracy to its people."--csloat 20:17, 27 September 2005 (UTC)

I think there should be a good faith summary of the case for those who think collaboration would never have occurred in the future, but it doesn't need to be made three times, and bin Laden's expressions are not conclusive. If Saddam did anything to assist with 9/11, we will probably never have conclusive evidence of it. The the possibility that he might have had some knowledge or somehow provided some assistance does not need to be the focus of this article. At the same time, I think few of us doubt that he would have loved to have contributed to that and other successful attacks on the US if he could escape the concequences, and bin Laden despite his antipathy, does not appear to be so morally pure that he would refuse to attack the US if such attack were tainted with Saddam's assistance.--Silverback 20:33, 27 September 2005 (UTC)

Interesting speculations. Maybe you could start a newsletter. In any case as I said I would not be opposed to redistributing the section but I do not trust you to do it, so I would likely be resist your changes, if they are as POV as your previous contributions to this page. But I do invite others to look at this question and would help reorganize that section if we can do so without distorting the information.--csloat 21:06, 27 September 2005 (UTC)

Anon comment

Anonymous User:68.84.232.72 wrote:

What is written here about the passage preceding the list discovered by Judge Gilbert Merritt is not true. The passage that preceded the list said,"We publish this list of great men for the sons of our great people to see." (Refer to this website http://72.14.207.104/search?q=cache:Fs7_LzIy43wJ:www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/002/889jldct.asp+Stephen+Hayes+Gilbert+Merritt&hl=en) The passage you cite was AFTER the list and may have even referred to a different list.

Might be a legitimate point; I don't know. But this is the place for it, not the article. Mr. Billion 01:35, 27 September 2005 (UTC)

There is no evidence or even speculation that the comment referred to a different list. The Hayes article from the Weekly standard even calls the newspaper article "interesting but inconclusive." The passage was not after the list but on top of the list, after the other part that is quoted. The whole thing is bizarre, but there is no evidence that it has any significance whatsoever. As the DIA guy said, it's just a list; there are lots of lists.

One big problem on all of the claims on this page is that real concrete evidence of cooperation -- e.g. a money trail -- has never materialized. Conspiracy theorists make a big deal out of small things like a newspaper article that seems to refer obliquely to something, but cannot find the real evidence that would substantiate actual cooperation (e.g. a money trail or evidence that orders were given by Saddam to do something, or whatever). There is much more evidence of Saudi cooperation with AQ than there is of Iraqi, yet there is no Saudi Arabia and al-Qaeda article.--csloat 03:53, 27 September 2005 (UTC)

Yes, and Saudi Arabia also supported payments to suicide bomber families and funded radical mosques with the Wahabi. I suspect there isn't a page, because Saudi Arabia didn't have UN sanctions and WMD programs and a history of using WMD and wasn't invaded by a wonderful coalition bringing democracy to its people.--Silverback 18:57, 27 September 2005 (UTC)

Well you've certainly made my point for me. There is way more evidence of Saudi support of AQ terrorism than there is of Iraqi support. The problem is that this page makes it seem like there is more information about Iraqi support. Hell, there is more evidence of Pakistani, Kuwaiti, Qatari support for al-Qaeda. There is even more evidence of John Ashcroft supporting al Qaeda (directly through contributions to MEK) than there is of Saddam doing so!--csloat 20:21, 27 September 2005 (UTC)

Sure, but which government would be more likely to give al Qaeda WMD at some point in the future? Only Pakistan and Iraq had credible capability. Mussarif quickly saw how serious the US was and where his own interests lay, should the US have attacked Pakistan anyway? Saddam will still under UN sanctions, tying down coalition forces enforcing the no fly zone. The no fly zones were themselves already acts of war, and he didn't allow inspectors back in until there was a buildup of forces. Saddam certainly managed the situation poorly, completely missing the best options available to him. He must have really loved oppressing.--Silverback 20:45, 27 September 2005 (UTC)

What are you talking about? This is not the WMD article and that speculation has also turned out to be false. Also, we know that the biggest worry in terms of distributing WMD to terrorists was not a state but an individual, the Pakistani AQKhan. The fact that Saddam was a bad guy has nothing to do with this article. The question here is whether Saddam worked with Al Qaeda, and we know now the answer is no.-csloat 21:08, 27 September 2005 (UTC)

The "speculation" as you call it, was confirmed, Iraq had every intention of starting up the WMD programs after sanctions were lifted.--Silverback 23:05, 27 September 2005 (UTC)

It's amazing what lengths you will go to in order to defend a war that you claim is being fought based on mind-reading -- both here with WMD and elsewhere on this page with your claim that Saddam "might" get involve with terrorists if he gets desperate some day (presumably, a US invasion and occupation of his country while he rots in jail was not sufficient to make him "desperate"?) Anyway, all of that is nice but totally irrelevant to this page. Wake me up when you have something relevant.-csloat 00:36, 28 September 2005 (UTC)

What you call mind reading, I call risk assessment, and the CIA evidently thought there was a risk. I defend the war only to point out the hypocrisy of the non-pacifists who oppose, because it is one of the most defensible and justifiable wars in history. I can respect the pacifist position. Frankly, we are dealing with rather peripheral justifications for the war here, freeing the conscripts from Saddam's oppression would be reason enough.--Silverback 03:52, 28 September 2005 (UTC)

I have to agree with Silverback, this is probably one of the most legal cases for war I have ever seen. The spin on this fable of no connection with Saddam and Al Queda is amazing. - Anon

That's nice. It's also irrelevant to this page. As for the "spin on the fable", if you have relevant evidence to add to this discussion, I'm all ears.--csloat 22:29, 28 September 2005 (UTC)