Talk:Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda link allegations/Archive 12

what this page is not about
Please do not hijack this page to make other points, even valid ones. The page already makes clear what it is about. This edit is an attempt to insert this irrelevant information through the back door. Mead's analysis of the situation may be correct but it's irrelevant here - the page, as is clearly already stated in the intro, is about allegations that "were made by some U.S. Government officials who claimed that a highly secretive relationship existed between former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and the radical Islamist militant organization Al-Qaeda from 1992 to 2003, specifically through a series of meetings reportedly involving the Iraqi Intelligence Service (IIS)." Adding a clause about what the page is not about is just a way of bringing that stuff into the page where it doesn't belong, especially when you add the citations to the comment. It boils down to an invalid synthesis of research. We might as well add that this page is not about Michael Jackson's funeral. csloat (talk) 20:47, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

History of claims section
I made a quick attempt to reorganize the "history of claims" section into a near-chronological statement of various claims by the bush admin on this topic. I didn't delete anything but moved everything around and added subheadings. I think the section on the OIF documents can probably go; it seemed important at the time to a number of folks but that story has long seen its day. I think we could add a section on pre-9/11 claims even though these weren't as prominent. For right now the "cherry-picking" claim is in with the torture revelations but we should separate those out and add information about that claim and specifically name the Feith report there. Any other suggestions? (Or am I the only one left still watching this page? lol) Happy holidays.... csloat (talk) 19:51, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

This article...
is one of the most appalling examples of the partisanship of wikipedia, and the uselessness of this website as a resource.129.133.127.112 (talk) 00:40, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

Some Authoritative Sources
Some of you may have read al-Qaeda expert Peter Bergen's 2010 book The Longest War: The Enduring Conflict Between America and al-Qaeda. On pages 130-150, he lays out his skeptical viewpoint on Iraq-Al-Qaeda ties in more detail, especially his skepticism of Laurie Milroyie's credibility.

In former CIA director George Tenet's memoir ''At the Center of the Storm, pages 341-358, Tenet details the CIA's conflicting reports about Iraqi al-Qaeda ties and the Agency's conclusions on them, admitting that these reports are not 100%-true concrete evidence that al-Qaeda never collaborated with Saddam.

Personally, I agree with their conclusions that Iraq and al-Qaeda had a vague relationship of some mere contacts and offers. Of course, I realize that there are some hardcore neocons out there that love to jump on isolated data points about the relationship and portray it as "proof" that bin Laden and Saddam were in love with each other. For you guys, read the book Cheney by Stephen Hayes. He has lots of information about Iraq-al-Qaeda contacts, probably gleaned from his earlier book The Connection:How al-Qaeda's Collaboration with Saddam Hussein Has Endangered America. That book has no bibliography, making it unreliable, so do not use it on this page.

Regardless of my skepticism of the extent of Iraq-al-Qaeda linkages, these books should stop all the crazy,table-thumping neocon-vs-liberal debate and finally let the so-called "controversy" rest. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.173.140.53 (talk) 00:21, 7 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Saddam was just too nice a guy to be mixed up with anything like 9/11? Kauffner (talk) 00:57, 5 March 2012 (UTC)


 * Maybe someone forgot to tell that to Al Qaeda, in their 1998 Fatwa against America two of their three clearly stated grievances concerned offenses against Iraqi Muslims. That's why they attacked on 9/11. Batvette (talk) 11:22, 3 August 2012 (UTC)

Intelligence community claims and doubts
After reading this section I went to its singular reference as cited. PBS Frontline "The Dark Side" Transcript and it appears the editor responsible for that passage has provided his own original research in lieu of what the transcript ever claimed. Since I assume this article has watchers I will wait about a week or two to assess opinions before I delete or otherwise modify that passage toward a more sensible version. The PBS piece is biased enough,(for instance claiming the CIA was pressured in its production of the NIE yet admitting the Senate found that was not the case-) it seems whoever wrote that section took it far above that even. Couldn't find "stovepiped" mentioned in there anywhere. Batvette (talk) 11:17, 3 August 2012 (UTC)

Paragraph: Skepticism of the link
Much of the opening of this part focuses on Saddam's effort against the Shia factions and those allied to Iran. This in itself cannot constitute proof against the allegation of the article's subject because al-Qaeda is a Sunni Muslim organisation and subsequently it too is in a permanent state of conflict with the Shia world. Over all, during Saddam's time, Sunnis were about 35% of Iraq but about half were ethnically Kurdish; most Kurds in turn mainly concentrated on self-determination regardless of a Kurdish person's faith. So between Kurds and Arabs, the overall population that might have been Sunni Islamist is around 20%. During Ba'ath rule, there was indeed discrimination directed at this grouping from the government which included non-Sunnis in prominent positions. That kind of thing can be used in such an article but the page is so long and things like the anti-Shia campaigns don't belong to this article. --IHBR-YSA (talk) 03:24, 5 February 2014 (UTC)

External links modified
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 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/20070929144157/http://www.defenselink.mil/releases/2003/nr20031115-0642.html to http://www.defenselink.mil/releases/2003/nr20031115-0642.html

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External links modified
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 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20070929144157/http://www.defenselink.mil/releases/2003/nr20031115-0642.html to http://www.defenselink.mil/releases/2003/nr20031115-0642.html
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