Snippets:

(1) No ties between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda?

The political left continues to claim that there were no ties between al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein’s regime. Yet, according to the CIA, there have been ties between the two going back a decade, an indication that the CIA first became aware of the ties in the 1990s when Bill Clinton was in office.

Those who suspect the CIA is not telling the truth need to explain why former president Bill Clinton doesn’t come out denying knowledge of the ties between al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein and say that the CIA never reported the al-Qaeda-Saddam ties to him.

Reflecting Saddam’s support for al-Qaeda and his evil intentions toward the U.S., Iraq’s official media propaganda applauded al-Qaeda’s terrorist attacks on U.S. interests as long ago as 1995 when U.S. military offices in Riyadh were bombed.

A November 14, 1995, Agence France Presse report from Baghdad quoted an official Iraqi paper as saying, "The Tigers of the Gulf have shaken the Saudi throne and made Washington tremble." The paper praised the emergence of a "secret Saudi opposition movement" and predicted "dramatic events" in the country.

On July 21, 2001, (i.e. less than two months before 9/11), Iraq’s official publication Al-Nasiriya praised Osama bin Laden as "a healthy phenomenon in the Arab spirit" and suggested that Osama bin Laden was "thinking seriously about how to bomb the Pentagon" and that he would "strike America on the arm that’s already hurting". Sounds like a reference to the U.S. economy which was in recession in 2001.

The question is: How could Saddam Hussein’s regime know so much about Osama bin Laden’s thinking and his plots against the U.S. before 9/11 if it had no ties with al Qaeda?

Members of the public need to ask themselves: How could it be that a man with such a strong interest in al-Qaeda’s terrorist plots and attacks against the U.S. like Saddam Hussein would refrain from establishing covert ties with al-Qaeda? Where is the political left’s rationale?

(2) Difficult choices:

Before the Iraq War, the U.S. was facing a difficult choice. Critics say the U.S. shouldn’t have invaded Iraq to topple the Saddam Hussein regime, because it didn’t pose an imminent threat to the U.S., because U.S. troops would face serious difficulties in post-Saddam Iraq.

Fine, but let’s suppose the U.S. had not invaded Iraq. That way, Saddam Hussein would have stayed in power with his military, his intelligence establishment, his security forces, his torture chambers and mass graves, his financial resources, his ties with various terrorist groups, his WMD programs, and, last but not least, his evil intentions toward the U.S.

While evil intentions may not necessarily mean an imminent threat, an evil regime with evil intentions toward the U.S. as well as enormous financial resources, intelligence resources, ties with terrorist groups, and WMD programs could become an imminent danger to U.S. allies and U.S. interests at any time of its choosing.

Can anyone guarantee that there was no Iraqi connection in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing? Can anyone guarantee that there was no Iraqi connection in the 1995 Oklahoma Federal Building bombing? Can anyone guarantee that the Saddam Hussein regime had no prior knowledge of the 9/11 plot?

Thus, the difficult choice facing the U.S. was to either let Saddam’s regime stay in power with its evil plots and WMD programs until such time as the political left also saw imminent danger, or take out Saddam’s regime preemptively. President Bush chose the latter. As an ancient Chinese maxim goes, "He who takes preemptive action puts himself in a strong position."

(3) The murky world of intelligence:

Anyone who has ever read spy stories should know that the intelligence community is a murky world where secret agents just know what their opponents are doing without being able to provide solid proof.

After all, this murky world is not a court of law where the accused has to be proven guilty beyond reasonable doubt. The term "murky" is a reference to the fact that what is clear to top intelligence officials in the know may appear quite blurred to outside experts. In other words, one can choose to give the CIA the benefit of the doubt or provide solid proof that the CIA is wrong.

As of this moment, however, it is crystal clear that there are terrorists in Iraq. On August 19, 2003, a truck packed with explosives crashed into the United Nations Headquarters in Baghdad, killing at least 17 people including U.N. Envoy Sergio de Mello.

This is an indication that terrorists may have been in Iraq under Saddam’s protection or on Saddam’s payroll all along, though there may be new arrivals from Syria and Iran. Anyhow, no one can guarantee that Saddam Hussein has had no ties whatsoever with any terror groups.

Rather, terrorists may have been in and out of Iraq all the time during Saddam’s reign of terror. The political left seems to have forgotten that the Saddam Hussein regime was an illegitimate gang capable of anything. How can it be so sure that Saddam’s regime had no ties with al-Qaeda?

Sincerely,

Robert M. Liu