Even Pentagon Study Debunks Saddam's Alleged Links to al Qaeda

Read this and weep. Some of us were shouting this from the rooftops in 2003, but all the flag-waving lock-steppers thought we were delusional or worse. We were lied into invading Iraq through the momentum of emotionalism generated by 9/11 and the subsequent fear-mongering and blind vengeance-seeking, a war that has cost over a million lives if you accept the latest findings from British statistical analysts, has wounded countless more, driven millions into exile, turned vast swaths of Iraq into toxic wastelands and sewages, and destoyed infrastructure throughout that hapless country. But somehow this is a good thing to some Americans, certainly to the White House, which would like to see this onslaught against humanity continue for decades, as if Iraqis are cattle in a slaughterhouse, just another bloody commodity.

McClatchy Washington Bureau

Posted on Mon, Mar. 10, 2008

Exhaustive review finds no link between Saddam and al Qaida

Warren P. Strobel | McClatchy Newspapers
last updated: March 10, 2008 07:39:58 PM

WASHINGTON — An exhaustive review of more than 600,000 Iraqi documents that were captured after the 2003 U.S. invasion has found no evidence that Saddam Hussein's regime had any operational links with Osama bin Laden's al Qaida terrorist network.

The Pentagon-sponsored study, scheduled for release later this week, did confirm that Saddam's regime provided some support to other terrorist groups, particularly in the Middle East, U.S. officials told McClatchy. However, his security services were directed primarily against Iraqi exiles, Shiite Muslims, Kurds and others he considered enemies of his regime.

The new study of the Iraqi regime's archives found no documents indicating a "direct operational link" between Hussein's Iraq and al Qaida before the invasion, according to a U.S. official familiar with the report.

He and others spoke to McClatchy on condition of anonymity because the study isn't due to be shared with Congress and released before Wednesday.

President Bush and his aides used Saddam's alleged relationship with al Qaida, along with Iraq's supposed weapons of mass destruction, as arguments for invading Iraq after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Then-Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld claimed in September 2002 that the United States had "bulletproof" evidence of cooperation between the radical Islamist terror group and Saddam's secular dictatorship.

Then-Secretary of State Colin Powell cited multiple linkages between Saddam and al Qaida in a watershed February 2003 speech to the United Nations Security Council to build international support for the invasion. Almost every one of the examples Powell cited turned out to be based on bogus or misinterpreted intelligence....(click here to read the entire article).

Photos of the Blackwater Protest at Moyock, NC

A hardy coalition of peace and justice activists took on Blackwater USA Saturday, Oct 20, 2007 at their world headquarters, outraged by a long history of bloody incidents in Iraq and Afghanistan and culminating in the Nisour Square massacre in Baghdad on Sept 16. I posted a news item a few days ago on Mosquito Blog which you can check out later for more information.

Meanwhile, independent photographer Joe Filipowski sent me a CD full of photos of the Blackwater Protest in Moyock last Saturday, with the request that I get them out to the public, so I have been doing that. I took some 80 plus of his best photos and loaded them on my Kodak Gallery space for everyone's perusal, but I thought I would show you a few of them here at Mosquito Blog to twik your interest. You can follow them up via the link to the rest of the photos at the bottom of this post.

To briefly summarize, there were protesters outside of the Blackwater entrance along both sides of the roadway and bleeding onto a nearby city street. There was a guerilla theater partial reenactment of the Nisour Square massacre, and there were seven arrests of activists who quietly chose to practice civil disobedience. The police were pretty cool about this and the whole event went off very successfully.

There was local and Virginia coverage of the protest, with some independent media types joining in, or protesters simply being their own media journalists and photographers. The message got out that there is very vocal resistance on both coasts now to Blackwater's martial ambitions and violence.





























You can see the rest of Joe's photos by clicking here . You don't have to sign in, just go to "view slideshow".

It is hoped that this protest will serve as an inspiration to others who are challenging the government/corporate war machine that is devastating humanity and the planet.