Iraq War: The Good Old (Prewar) Days

I guess I'm feeling nostalgic today. Here's another oldie-but-goodie about a secondary prewar claim, the allegation (now also completely discredited, except possibly in Dick Cheney's mind) of active cooperation between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda.

Allies Find No Links Between Iraq, Al Qaeda Los Angeles Times 11/04/02

In recent interviews, top investigative magistrates, prosecutors, police and intelligence officials who have been fighting Al Qaeda in Europe said they are concerned about attempts by President Bush and his aides to link Iraqi President Saddam Hussein to Osama bin Laden's terror network.

"We have found no evidence of links between Iraq and Al Qaeda," said Jean-Louis Bruguiere, the French judge who is the dean of the region's investigators after two decades fighting Islamic and Middle Eastern terrorists. "And we are working on 50 cases involving Al Qaeda or radical Islamic cells. I think if there were such links, we would have found them. But we have found no serious connections whatsoever."

Even in Britain, a loyal U.S. partner in the campaign against Iraq, it's hard to find anyone in the government making the case that Al Qaeda and the Iraqi regime are close allies. In fact, European counter-terrorist veterans who are working with American counterparts worry that an attack on Iraq, especially a unilateral U.S. invasion, would worsen the threat of radical Islamic terrorism worldwide and impede their work.

"A war on Iraq will not diminish the terrorist threat. It will probably increase it," said Baltasar Garzon, Spain's best-known investigative magistrate, who is prosecuting Al Qaeda suspects in Madrid as alleged accomplices in the Sept. 11 attacks. "It could radicalize the situation in the Middle East.... As for the investigations of Sept. 11, doors would close in the Arab world that have helped in the fight against Al Qaeda. And a war would do nothing to bolster the investigation into the attacks in the United States."

But it didn't matter to Bush and Rummy and the rest of their team if there was anything to the claims, as long as they got their war against Iraq. Articles like this are a reminder that the premises and propaganda claims about the war were widely and credibly questioned before the war began.