September 21, 2001
By Justin Gardner | Related entries in The War On TerrorismMany on the right have called Democratic leaders liars and revisionists because they said that key intelligence was kept from them on the lead up to war.
The following story reveals that the Democrat’s story could very well be proven slightly more true than false.
Ten days after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, President Bush was told in a highly classified briefing that the U.S. intelligence community had no evidence linking the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein to the attacks and that there was scant credible evidence that Iraq had any significant collaborative ties with Al Qaeda, according to government records and current and former officials with firsthand knowledge of the matter.The administration has refused to provide the Sept. 21 President’s Daily Brief, even on a classified basis, and won’t say anything more about it other than to acknowledge that it exists.
The information was provided to Bush on September 21, 2001 during the “President’s Daily Brief,” a 30- to 45-minute early-morning national security briefing. Information for PDBs has routinely been derived from electronic intercepts, human agents, and reports from foreign intelligence services, as well as more mundane sources such as news reports and public statements by foreign leaders.
One of the more intriguing things that Bush was told during the briefing was that the few credible reports of contacts between Iraq and Al Qaeda involved attempts by Saddam Hussein to monitor the terrorist group. Saddam viewed Al Qaeda as well as other theocratic radical Islamist organizations as a potential threat to his secular regime. At one point, analysts believed, Saddam considered infiltrating the ranks of Al Qaeda with Iraqi nationals or even Iraqi intelligence operatives to learn more about its inner workings, according to records and sources.
The September 21, 2001, briefing was prepared at the request of the president, who was eager in the days following the terrorist attacks to learn all that he could about any possible connection between Iraq and Al Qaeda.
Sure, this is ONE memo, but the contents are certainly significant since it affirms a lot of what the left has said about the rationale for war: Saddam was not as big a threat as he once was considered in the early 90s and he wouldn’t align with Al Qaeda because they’re a direct threat to his power.
Of course the President can’t base his entire rationale on only one memo, but I’m sure the Democratic leadership would have liked to seen this one in particular.
I say release the memo and let the chips fall where they may.
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