I was surprised to find this article on CNN tonight.

http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/meast/04/26/sprj.irq.britain.iraq.ap/index.html

Are you?

Sunday Telegraph ?

I read a similar article as well. To be honest I would be surprised if that was true. I mean if there had been such documents I dont think some reporter would find them, I think the CIA and the like would have been all over such places. I have read other articles about stuff people claim to have found in similar ways to prove more or less everything. For instance one that claimed that a prominent British politican has been paid by Saddam to be anti-war. I have a hard time believing in such things.

It is not out of the question though.

No, I'm not surprised.
Chances are we're going to see a lot of news like that in "Sunday" media in the near future.
Let's play "guess what nonsense is next":
*France has sold nuclear weapons to Iraq.
*North-Korea has sent troops to assist Hussein.
*UN officials have put sugar in the coalition's oil reserves.
*Hans Blix pictured in Baghdad with an Iraqi prostitute.
*Some democrat has married a son of Saddam (secretly of course)
...
Maybe we could open a thread in CS about this. :D

Time will tell. The thing is, this has been reported before by independent and respected new journalists and people disbelieved it then as well. Jeffery Goldberg, whose reputation as a reporter is very,very good visited Iraqi Kurdistan and reported that officials from Iraq were meeting with al-qaida and both of them were cooperating in coordination ansar al-islam.

Goldberg is a largely impeccable source. Doesn't mean he can't be wrong or misled though. Thing is, if he was misled it wasn't by the US government, he was over in Kurdistan on his own doing the reporting.

It is surprising though in that Iraq was a secular state that was at odds with al-qaida in the past. However, events make it pretty apparent that people who were enemies can become friends and friends become enemies right? I was sceptical of the link but I'm not willing to dismiss it off hand.

Perhaps that will be the most interesting thing about this thread, how many would disbelieve it off hand without any time given to see what develops? I honestly believe that with some people here that no amount of evidence would ever be enough, they'd rather believe that the US is engaged in a massive conspiracy because, well, they don't like the US.

Here is a link to a Slate discussion about the first article linking al-qaida and Iraq back in March 21, 2002 - it is a discussion between Jeff Goldberg and Warren Bass:

http://slate.msn.com/id/2063437/entry/2063447/

Time will tell.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/2979405.stm

The report comes only days after its sister paper, the Daily Telegraph claimed to have unearthed documents showing left-wing Labour MP George Galloway received money from the Iraqi regime.

Mr Gilmore told the BBC he found the documents after being allowed into the intelligence headquarters in Baghdad by US troops guarding the site.

He said: "Perhaps significantly the CIA had been through many of these buildings but they seem to have missed this particular document. My conclusions:

1. The story is true. Iraq was somehow involved in the 9-11 attacks. So, Amerians can feel save now. But if the story is true, it simultaneously proves that the CIA is a bunch of incompetent imbeciles. Because they were not able to prove the link before the war and what's more shocking, actually really frightening, they were in the building with those documents and THEY MISSED THEM. Ah, national security ?

2. The story is not true. The career of this journalist has ended, the reputation of the Telegraph is severly damaged. Wait, wait, ... the Telegraph has no reputation. And the journalist can always change to the "sun". What's lost, nothing. On the other hand, never underestimate the power of the "spin". A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.

it simultaneously proves that the CIA is a bunch of incompetent imbeciles. Because they were not able to prove the link before the war and what's more shocking, actually really frightening, they were in the building with those documents and THEY MISSED THEM. Well, let's not forget that these are the people whose solid, up-to-date intelligence caused the USAF to bomb the Chinese embassy in Belgrade. Can the CIA screw up? Say it ain't so...

Saddam and Bin Laden never were close friends, in fact, Bin Laden hates Saddam and called him a Stalinistic pig once. However, they do share a mutual enemy, so i wouldn't be surprised if it was true.

I have found a clear linke between Iraq and Al-Qaeda

IraQ and Al-Qaeda

Surely this enough evidence to nuke the heathen nation of Qatar, because they follow the Quran as well..

And my dyslexia friend has found evidence leading straight back to the US
The United States of AmeriQa

:roll:

@ Morgoth: Don't laugh about Qatar. The Minister of the Interior has very strong ties to Al-Qiada.

They play with your fears and try to justify something wrong. IMO Saddam was too egocentric to accept the possibility of Bin Laden be treated as a hero in his own country. :D

Foreign intelligence services and enemy files are an interesting matter. The german navy war files, now approx 50 years after WW-II, are still in british and US hands. The first thing the CIA did after the fall of the berlin wall was to steal the Stasi archives which are now in Langley, Virginia. I can't see why in the case of Iraq the US would have made a difference.

Now the US invaded iraq and overlooked iraqi secret service's files to allow journalists to loot them? Such a chance - I mean, usually you'd expect interested services to sieze such a bulding and not to leave until finished. So IMO it's either disinformation by US or british services or plain forgery by the sunday telegraph journalists.

That reminds me of the accusations (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A17210-2003Apr22.html) to Mr. Galloway (http://media.guardian.co.uk/presspublishing/story/0,7495,941140,00.html) , a US-critical british journalist and now labour MP, to have collaborated with the iraqi secret intelligence. *Proof* for that, documents was found in very much the same manner - by the daily telegraph ( :spin: weekly version of the sunday telegraph (http://www.dailytelegraph.com/opinion/main.jhtml?view=HOME&grid=P18&menuId=-1&menuItemId=-1&_requestid=161988) :roll: ) journalists snooping around in iraqi offices.

:holy: What a coincidence. Some might think someone left the stuff there to be found ...

[ May 03, 2003, 11:56: Message edited by: Ragusa ]

Interesting to see that the newspaper that uncovered this sensational news is the The Daily Telegraph.
The Daily Telegraph is run by Hollinger (http://www.hollinger.com/). Hollinger again is run by Richard Perle (http://www.hollinger.com/mgmt/mgmt.htm). According to it's website they are :shake: "making the news" and do "robust opinion writing" :shake: nicely said ...

Richard Perle is one of the leading heads of washington's neoconservatives and sits in the influential national security council. The The series of coincidences never stops ...

The difference between intelligence, propaganda, outright lies and journalism has never been smaller. Rumours become facts and, once a fact, reasons for war.

Just so you realize, the CIA is a front. The CIA has not been involved in any meaningful covert ops in 2 decades, at least. The alphabet soup always changes when they are discovered. ISA, NSA, CIA, and any others that you or I know about are blown, and are primarily used for counter-intelligence. What little they actually "discover" is fed to them by whatever agency is currently running the black ops for the US government.

Excellent, Prozac, excellent, you cut right to the heart of it, IMO.

At Darkwolf:

For me, the American secret service is just "CIA". That's even including the branch which is actually called "secret service". And that's just because CIA is a famous and simple word. While it's true, that the US-Administration has a whole bunch of "Agencies", for the simple foreigner like me, they are all reduced to either CIA or FBI, if it's somekind of federal police.That's me using CIA generally for any secret service activity

Ooops. To be not misunderstood: I seriously doubt that the CIA has anything to do with any forged papers -> That would just be plain unprofessional. Therefore not at all likely.

Ragusa's theory down there is fully convincing:

[ May 06, 2003, 09:49: Message edited by: Yago ]

I don't even think it's the CIA placing desinformation. Despite their efforts to build up the Special Operation Groups they were accused by the neocons not to provide "conform" intelligence. To put it blunt, they ask: "We need some proof to justify our plan. If you don't have it, make it."

It has been by the pentagon's own sources that shady rumours have popped up in the political discussion. Now that the neocons more or less silenced the CIA in face of their success to beat a 3rd world army, they are mauling the only remaining source of independent and non-conform intelligence, the state department.

I find it pretty plausible that Perle asks his own PR company ... err ... newspaper ... to support his policy by denouncing opponents or spreading propaganda.

http://www.tompaine.com/feature.cfm/ID/7637
http://www.truthout.org/docs_02/12.06E.pentagon.cia.htm
http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/4384408.htm