Still Clueless About Al Qaeda in Iraq
http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/still-clueless-about-al-qaeda-iraq_576537.html
Speaking in Iraq, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta reportedly told U.S. troops: “The reason you guys are here is because on 9/11 the United States got attacked. And 3,000 Americans — 3,000 not just Americans, 3,000 human beings, innocent human beings — got killed because of al-Qaeda. And we’ve been fighting as a result of that.”
The Washington Post’s Craig Whitlock and Thomas Erdbrink took issue with Panetta’s comment because it appeared to be at odds with the Democrats’ talking points.
. . . .
The Post’s reporters are right about one thing: President Obama has argued, as have many other Democrats, that al Qaeda did not have “a presence in Iraq before the U.S.-led invasion in 2003.” It is easy see that they are wrong, but that is their talking point.
. . .
It also ignores the fact that al Qaeda was in Baghdad and regime controlled territory, too.
In his book, At the Center of the Storm, George Tenet discussed at length the intelligence concerning al Qaeda’s presence in Baghdad. Tenet says the CIA found “more than enough evidence” connecting Saddam’s Iraq to al Qaeda. The CIA was particularly concerned about a group of al Qaeda operatives and allies – including Ayman al Zawahiri’s lieutenant, Abu Musab al Zarqawi (the first leader of al Qaeda in Iraq), and Abu Ayyub al Masri (who stepped in for Zarqawi as leader of al Qaeda in Iraq but was killed in 2010) – who had set up shop in Baghdad prior to the war.
Abu Ayyub al Masri’s widow has since confirmed the CIA’s pre-war intelligence, explaining that she and her husband moved to Baghdad in 2002.
(Try try and try again to understand the FACTS
given in this article. Zim.)
Mad Poet Strikes Again.
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