This Katie Couric is one smart cookie.....That's right Katie, there are terrorists in every middle eastern country....except Iraq.
Katie Couric: Did We Attack the Wrong Country?
In the wake of the news that the upcoming 9/11 Commission report includes evidence that several of the 9/11 hijackers may have been given safe passage through Iran, NBC "Today Show" host Katie Couric wondered aloud Monday morning whether President Bush hadn't "attacked the wrong country."
Couric's guest, former CIA Director James Woolsey, urged her to take a look at the recently released Senate Intelligence Committee report on Iraq, which he noted "has far more details about the Iraqi-al Qaida connections, particularly in Chapter 12."
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"People ought to go over that with some care," he recommended.
For those who may find wading through Chapter 12 too tedious, we recommend the far more pithy "Conclusions" section. Here are a few of the Intelligence Committee's findings that Couric and her media brethren apparently missed:
The CIA's judgment that Saddam Hussein, if sufficiently desperate, might deploy terrorists with a global read - [including] al Qaida - to conduct terrorist attacks in the event of war, was reasonable.
The CIA's assessment on safehaven - that al Qaida or associated operatives were present in Baghdad and northeastern Iraq in an area under Kurdish control - was reasonable.
The CIA's examination of contacts, training, safehaven and operational cooperation as indicators of a possible Iraq-al Qaida relationship was a reasonable and objective approach to the question.
The CIA reasonably assessed that there were likely several instances of contacts between Iraq and al-Qaida throughout the 1990s, but that these contacts did not add up to an established formal relationship.
The CIA's assessment that Iraq had maintained ties to several secular Pakistani terrorist groups and with the Mujahidin e-Khaliq, was supported by the intelligence. The CIA was also reasonable in judging that Iraq appeared to have been reaching out to more effective terrorist groups, such as Hizballah and Hamas, and might have intended to employ such surrogates in the event of war. [END OF EXCERPT]
Though not specified in the report's Conclusion section: Saddam gave safe haven to 1993 World Trade Center bomber Abdel Rahman Yasin, notorious Palestinian terrorist Abu Nidal, Achille Lauro hijacker Abu Abbas and Khala Khadr al Salahat, who furnished Libyan agents with the Semtex bomb that destroyed Pan Am Flight 103.
Then there's al Qaida kingpin Abu Musab al Zarqawi, who was admitted to a Baghdad hospital run by Uday Hussein before the Iraq war - not to mention a Mukahbarat document uncovered last December placing lead 9/11 hijacker Mohamed Atta in Baghdad two months before the 9/11 attacks.
Though Newsweek immediately challenged the document as "a probable forgery," soon-to-be Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi said at the time the evidence was convincing.
"We are uncovering evidence all the time of Saddam's involvement with al Qaida," he told the London Telegraph. "But this is the most compelling piece of evidence that we have found so far. It shows that not only did Saddam have contacts with al-Qaeda, he had contact with those responsible for the September 11 attacks."
Of course, the folks at NBC were never particularly receptive to evidence tying Saddam to 9/11. When Dr. Allawi broached the topic with Tom Brokaw in an interview earlier this month, the NBC anchorman tried to shut him down.
"Prime minister, I’m surprised that you would make the connection between 9/11 and the war in Iraq," the distressed Brokaw insisted. "The 9/11 Commission in America says there is no evidence of a collaborative relationship between Saddam Hussein and those terrorists of al Qaida."
Whatever you say, Tom.
Katie Couric: Did We Attack the Wrong Country?
In the wake of the news that the upcoming 9/11 Commission report includes evidence that several of the 9/11 hijackers may have been given safe passage through Iran, NBC "Today Show" host Katie Couric wondered aloud Monday morning whether President Bush hadn't "attacked the wrong country."
Couric's guest, former CIA Director James Woolsey, urged her to take a look at the recently released Senate Intelligence Committee report on Iraq, which he noted "has far more details about the Iraqi-al Qaida connections, particularly in Chapter 12."
Story Continues Below
"People ought to go over that with some care," he recommended.
For those who may find wading through Chapter 12 too tedious, we recommend the far more pithy "Conclusions" section. Here are a few of the Intelligence Committee's findings that Couric and her media brethren apparently missed:
The CIA's judgment that Saddam Hussein, if sufficiently desperate, might deploy terrorists with a global read - [including] al Qaida - to conduct terrorist attacks in the event of war, was reasonable.
The CIA's assessment on safehaven - that al Qaida or associated operatives were present in Baghdad and northeastern Iraq in an area under Kurdish control - was reasonable.
The CIA's examination of contacts, training, safehaven and operational cooperation as indicators of a possible Iraq-al Qaida relationship was a reasonable and objective approach to the question.
The CIA reasonably assessed that there were likely several instances of contacts between Iraq and al-Qaida throughout the 1990s, but that these contacts did not add up to an established formal relationship.
The CIA's assessment that Iraq had maintained ties to several secular Pakistani terrorist groups and with the Mujahidin e-Khaliq, was supported by the intelligence. The CIA was also reasonable in judging that Iraq appeared to have been reaching out to more effective terrorist groups, such as Hizballah and Hamas, and might have intended to employ such surrogates in the event of war. [END OF EXCERPT]
Though not specified in the report's Conclusion section: Saddam gave safe haven to 1993 World Trade Center bomber Abdel Rahman Yasin, notorious Palestinian terrorist Abu Nidal, Achille Lauro hijacker Abu Abbas and Khala Khadr al Salahat, who furnished Libyan agents with the Semtex bomb that destroyed Pan Am Flight 103.
Then there's al Qaida kingpin Abu Musab al Zarqawi, who was admitted to a Baghdad hospital run by Uday Hussein before the Iraq war - not to mention a Mukahbarat document uncovered last December placing lead 9/11 hijacker Mohamed Atta in Baghdad two months before the 9/11 attacks.
Though Newsweek immediately challenged the document as "a probable forgery," soon-to-be Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi said at the time the evidence was convincing.
"We are uncovering evidence all the time of Saddam's involvement with al Qaida," he told the London Telegraph. "But this is the most compelling piece of evidence that we have found so far. It shows that not only did Saddam have contacts with al-Qaeda, he had contact with those responsible for the September 11 attacks."
Of course, the folks at NBC were never particularly receptive to evidence tying Saddam to 9/11. When Dr. Allawi broached the topic with Tom Brokaw in an interview earlier this month, the NBC anchorman tried to shut him down.
"Prime minister, I’m surprised that you would make the connection between 9/11 and the war in Iraq," the distressed Brokaw insisted. "The 9/11 Commission in America says there is no evidence of a collaborative relationship between Saddam Hussein and those terrorists of al Qaida."
Whatever you say, Tom.
