The Savage Republican

Well the document dump began over a week ago and since it began, more and more is coming out about pre-war Iraq and it all seems to be justifying the President's reasons for going into Iraq. Give credit where credit is due, ABC News has been doing a fairly decent job of translating and reporting on the document dump.

Except for this...in reporting on a document that states plainly that OBL did indeed meet with officials of the Iraqi government it opines:

"(Editor's Note: The controversial claim that Osama bin Laden was cooperating with Saddam Hussein is an ongoing matter of intense debate. While the assertions contained in this document clearly support the claim, the sourcing is questionable — i.e., an unnamed Afghan "informant" reporting on a conversation with another Afghan "consul." The date of the document — four days after 9/11 — is worth noting but without further corroboration, this document is of limited evidentiary value.) "

Powerline posts this from a reader who studied some of the documents along with the 9/11 Commission report:

"The reason this is interesting is because the Iraq document translated by ABC states that “bin Laden had to leave Sudan in July 1996 after it was accused of harboring terrorists.” So, does this report confirm that it is possible that Bin Ladin was indeed in the Sudan in July 1996, making it possible for the meeting with Iraq to have taken place? It doesn’t confirm it, of course, but the 9/11 Report’s primary objection to the intelligence of the July 1996 meeting was that it did not fit its own timeline. At the very least, this document calls into question the accuracy of the 9/11 Report’s timeline and, at best, adds more corroboration to the intelligence of the July 1996 meeting."

A translation of a taped conversation that Saddam had with his advisors had this little gem in it.

"True Sir, but the information that came to the Special Committee didn’t all come at the same time. They get some information, then a little more, and so on and so forth. So it looks like they got the information in the fall of last year. ... Right now Sir, this is a meeting of the highest leadership in our country, we did actually produce biological weapons. It’s not a lie to say that we worked in this field. And the materials that came here came for this purpose, not for the medical use like we told the Special Committee. So when there’s proof, you are a man of law, when there’s a case in a court, and there’s proof, it leads to the conclusion. So the conclusion that the Special Committee came to is correct, it’s not a lie. The conclusion said that you imported a large quantity of materials that are used for medical purposes, and at the same time they are raw materials to produce biological weapons. You said it’s for medical purposes, using it for medical purposes only requires kilograms not tons. Meaning that the Ministry of Health can use 200 kilograms the entire year for examinations, but it doesn’t use 37 tons. "

Here is one of Saddam's own admitting (to Saddam) that yeah we lied to the UN and that they should have realized that we were lying because medical usage of these biologicals only requires kilograms and not the massive tonnage that they had....

Maybe the dumb cowboy from Texas was right all along...maybe Saddam was in league with al Qaeda and maybe he did have WMD's, and maybe just maybe the President had access to intelligence that the rest of the country (especially the MSM who couldn't keep a secret if their lives depended on it) didn't have. Do you suppose?

Stephen Hayes of the Weekly Standard deserves all the credit for these documents coming to the forefront. He worked long and hard to get the administration to release these documents. The Weekly Standard is posting information on the translations so you should go there frequently to get the latest on this unfolding story.

UPDATE: I posted this before I got to this in my online edition of the New York Sun. A telling quote was this one from former Senator and 9/11 Commission member Bob Kerrey of Nebraska:

"Mr. Kerrey said he believed America's understanding of the deposed tyrant's relationship with Al Qaeda would become much deeper as more captured Iraqi documents and audiotapes are disclosed."

I also found this Mona Charon article this morning after writing this post. She sheds some worthwhile insight into the "bad faith" that was shown by the President's critics and how it is being spotlighted now that the Saddam documents have come out. Ms. Charon certainly puts what I wanted to say here in much better form than I did. The meme of "Bush lied" is put to rest with the release of these captured documents. All I can say is it's about time.