DoD Report on Captured Iraqi Documents
 

DoD Report on Captured Iraqi Documents

Posted By Steven Aftergood On March 20, 2008 @ 10:33 am In Secrecy | 10 Comments

A Defense Department-sponsored report that examined captured Iraqi documents for indications of links between Saddam Hussein and terrorist organizations is now available online.

The five-volume report affirmed that there was “no ’smoking gun’ (i.e., direct connection) between Saddam’s Iraq and al Qaeda.” But it also said there was “strong evidence that links the regime of Saddam Hussein to regional and global terrorism.”

Although the report was publicly released on March 13, the Department of Defense declined to publish it online, offering instead to provide copies on disk. The full five-volume study has now been posted on the Federation of American Scientists web site. See “Iraqi Perspectives Project: Saddam and Terrorism: Emerging Insights from Captured Iraqi Documents,” Institute for Defense Analyses, November 2007, redacted and released March 2008.

The study was first reported prior to release by Warren P. Strobel of McClatchy Newspapers. The first of the five volumes was previously posted on the ABC News web site. The latter volumes include hundreds of pages of captured Iraqi documents, declassified and translated into English.

The Defense Intelligence Agency “made every effort to balance national security concerns, requirements of law, and the needs of an informed democracy and focused the redactions to the necessary minimum,” the report states.

The Iraqi documents themselves are an eclectic, uneven bunch.

One of them, a fifty-page Iraqi “intelligence” analysis, disparages the austerely conservative Wahhabi school of Islam by claiming that its eighteenth century founder, Ibn ‘Abd al Wahhab, had ancestors who were Jews.

In what must be the only laugh-out-loud line in the generally dismal five-volume report, the Iraqi analysis states that Ibn ‘Abd al Wahhab’s grandfather’s true name was not “Sulayman” but “Shulman.”

“Tawran confirms that Sulayman, the grandfather of the sheikh, is (Shulman); he is Jew from the merchants of the city of Burstah in Turkey, he had left it and settled in Damascus, grew his beard, and wore the Muslim turban, but was thrown out for being voodoo” (at page 20 of 56).

The analysis, produced by the Air Defense Security System of Iraq’s General Military Intelligence Directorate, is not a very reliable guide to Islamic or Jewish history, though it may explain something about Iraq’s air defenses.

“The Birth of Al-Wahabi Movement and Its Historic Roots” appears in volume 5 of the Defense Department report and is also directly available in this extract (large PDF).

http://www.fas.org/blog/secrecy/

Of course by that definition, any number of countries would have had an excuse to invade us based on CIA activities.

(As a note, the author is drawing some conclusions that are too direct. The truth is a little fuzzier).

Example
From a the NYTimes:

Generally, a country's covert intelligence involvement in questionable associations is not cause for invasion. New Zealand did not attempt to invade France for blowing up a ship in their harbor. China did not attack the U.S. for blowing up their embassy .

The US never found that Iraq was harboring Al Qaeda as was Afghanistan, and never found any weapons program that was a threat to the US. The alleged ties and links found could probably be found in most Middle East countries, including our allies and oil suppliers.

Still not worth 4,000 lives and 1-4 trillion dollars.

The strike on the Embassy is a poor example, it remains a controversial subject. The supplying of an outdated map hardly is evidence of a conspiracy. Anyway the US did not bomb it, NATO did.

Further examples of US wrong doing in the world before many reforms were put in place after Viet Nam are other bad examples of why we should or should not take military action anywhere in the world to protect our interests, Iraq not withstanding that test.

Post-Vietnam we armed and trained insurgents in Afghanistan and Nicaragua. We didn't do this because they were corrupt and sometimes brutal regimes, they were, but because they were corrupt and sometimes brutal regimes that we considered socialist or communist.

Protecting their interests in Afghanistan is one of the reasons the Soviets went broke in the 1980's. The US could probably have fought and secured Afghanistan in a one-front war. As it is, the resources we are putting into Iraq are much more than we are dedicating to Afghanistan.

I don't have many problems with what we have done since Viet Nam with a few exceptions. Otherwise I agree.

Then you agree with the US propping up Osama bin Laden in the Soviet-Afghan War?

This is an interesting read if you want to know what actually happened after the French blew up the Rainbow Warrior.

Yes, absolutely. It was a means to an end. Alliances shift with policy.

TheMercenary also approves of America abandoning American Marines on the island of Koh Tang in a misguided and poorly planned rescue of the Mayaguez. (Meanwhile the Mayaguez was not even there.) Or that Marines in Lebanon were not permitted to load their rifles even on guard duty outside that Marine Barracks where 200 were killed (more genius by Lt Col Oliver North). The car bomber drove right past Marine guards who had no loaded guns. Or the mining of Nicaragua where resulting international embarrassment forced the US to remove those mines. Tenth Mountain Division was not permitted to find bin Laden in Afghanistan. Why did we discover bin Laden in Tora Bora? CIA agents without orders sneaked into Tora Bora and found Al Qaeda hiding there. And still Americans did not go after bin Laden.

Actions approved by TheMercenary. America even disbanded Alex Station - the group tasked with getting bin Laden - in 2002. TheMercenary again approves. No wonder TheMercenary never asks, "When do we go after bin Laden?" TheMercenary even approves of protecting bin Laden.

Poor poor Ted (tw) thinks he knows what others believe. tw is now a mind reader. :lol2:

http://planetwill.jt.org/media/characters/art/ted2.jpg

Laugh all you want Merc, but that was what the US was (not) doing.

That last post of tw's (#9) is pretty funny, coming from a man who gives mute but clear testimony that he does not want us winning this war. (He doesn't seem proud of the grounds on which he doesn't, either. He's silent on that score too.) Why, he's grousing about our troops ordered to keep no rounds chambered in their rifles at the beginning of the current phase of the conflict -- as if he actually wanted us to win. Ho ho.

Re Mercenary's pic:

Subject: "It's a, uh, a life jacket. With straps."

Nurse Ratched: <jotting> This detainee has no libido.

Again Urbane Guerilla is rewriting history. For those who are new to the Cellar: Urbane Guerilla even rewrote the Pentagon Papers. His only problem is finding a publisher.

A grasp of reality? UG does not consider that a problem.

Beats your Manifesto hands down.

You really must learn how to identify different faces. He does not have my Asian eyes.