Do we care??? Speaking for myself, yup. I find these fascinating.

But I think we have to ask ourselves WHY some industrious members of the Fifth Estate aren't ripping into these documents. Most have been translated for crying out loud! There must be buckets of valuable insight when availed of private papers from a totalitarian regime, wouldn't you think? Here is one I just read. It comes from Saddam Hussein on September 15, 2001.

In the name of God the merciful the compassionate
Presidency of the Republic

Intelligence Service
2/913/5th directorate

Sir: Director General of the 5th directorate

Subject: Information

Our Afghani source #002 (info on him in paper slip '1') has informed us that Afghani
consular Ahmed Dahistani (info on him in paper slip '2') had spoken before him of the
:following

1-That Usama Bin Ladin and the Taliban group in Afghanistan are in contact with
Iraq and that a group from the Taliban and Usama Bin Ladin's group had conducted a
.visit to Iraq

2-That America possesses evidence that Iraq and Usama Bin Ladin's group had
.cooperated to strike targets inside America

3-Incase Taliban and Usama's group are proven involved in those sabotage
.operations, it will be possible that America directs strikes at Iraq and Afghanistan

4-That the Afghani consular had heard about the Iraq connections with Usama Bin
.Ladin's group during his presence in Iran

5-In the light of what preceded we suggest writing to the Intentions Committee about
.the above information

.Please be informed…..your feedback please…..with appreciation
(signature) (signature)

Information office send immediately to the
Of the 5th directorate/3 Intentions Committee

9/15/2001

Here is the government site for industrious folks to plow through for even more information. Where it leads? Beats me. But it just seems worthwhile to delve deeply across the board rather than nitpickingly examining every breath of who said what about Mrs. Wilson, por ejemplo.

http://fmso.leavenworth.army.mil/products-docex.htm

I don't know if any of you will read this stuff, but a random scanning of just a few will prove illuminating. How would you like to have been within the inner circle of Saddam or Qusay -- like a fly on the wall? Like a fly who understood Arabic?! Well, you can do it with these documents.

Try this one:

http://fmso.leavenworth.army.mil/documents-docex/Iraq/Audio-transcripts/ISGQ-2003-M0001714_TRANS.pdf

Eventually, I suppose, some member of the press will put these on the front pages of American papers. Right? Oh, maybe it's just "old news."

Susan

     
“Half a truth is often a great lie.”

Ben Franklin

How can this be ?  The press and their "experts" have informed us that there could not be any collusion between a secular regime and a fundamentalist group. There is no connection between Saddam's Irag and Al Queda or the Taliban. Evidence be damned. Including the previous evidence from 2 years ago. I am sure the MSM will have their experts to tell us what these things "really" are. With so much invested , how can they change their story now?

Preemptive response may have nipped it in the bud as it were.

     
“Half a truth is often a great lie.”

Ben Franklin

March 16, 2006 — - Following are the ABC News Investigative Unit's summaries of four of the nine Iraqi documents from Saddam Hussein's government, which were released by the U.S. government Wednesday. ...

(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.)

Wow, not just a reporter-an official ABC Investigative Unit. Ok then. They fooled me, better than quoting an outside "expert " .

And thanks to the Editor for explaining the ins and outs of evidentiary value. I guess that has become important --  as of today.

The Weekly Standard has been discussing some of these type of documents for about a year now. I've not mentioned it because, well, because The Weekly Standard is a conservative mag and I knew it would be viewed as spin or pooed-pooed on (lemonade sure sounds great for some reason BTW). I figured sooner or later these documents would come out and the MSM (the group who truly can be trusted you know to tell us the full story) would help everyone out on what's what.

Now that the govt is actually putting these documents out for anyone to actually interpret and investigate (govt doesn't have the manpower to do it), this should be interesting (wish I knew Arabic because I'd have a lot of these things printed out and stacked on the floor next to the bed).

The ABC News article discusses four documents and summarizes (dare I say regurgitate) each, but they always throw in for good measure, "But there's no proof" or something along those lines. Granted some of the initial translations are not any smoking guns regarding connection between Al Qaeda and Iraq, or the truth behind IRaq's WMDs, they will add a whole new, maybe more interesting (possibly factual?) layer of debate to this whole issue that has been needed for quite some time. One thing is for sure, we can now possibly see some of the type of intelligence and documents and information that the US govt was receiving in the past few years which might help shed some light on the subject.

Now that specific translation above, I'm not going to start saying that this is the connection between AQ and Iraq that some have suggested. I don't think it's enough. But it is interesting that four days after 9/11 (about the time we all were learning about Al Qaeda) that some govt leader wrote this little memo up, and number 2 strikes me quite hard. I'll need to go back through all of our 2001 newspapers and magazines to see when excatly Al Qaeda was first mentioned.

Regarding #1 - simplying being in contact doesn't necessarily mean that they were in contact with the Iraqi govt, but the fact that the Iraqi govt knew that they were in contact with someone(s) in IRaq does suggest that the contacts may have been on a govt level or at least somewhat noticable. But it's not conclusive. One thing is confirmed - there was an Al Qaeda element in Iraq before US invasion (even if it was preliminary and small). The question then is - where there ties between the Iraq govt and AQ? Something tells me that these documents will shed the light on that.

Can't say much about 3 really. But number four does seem to confirm that there was a connection between Bin Laden and Iraq. How much, well that's hard to say, but that seems to suggest that the Chezch intelligence that is always scoffed at about may actually be true in some form.

I'm thrilled this stuff is now coming out. May change nothing, but could change everything with regards to this debate and the truth. Let the translations begin!  

Jordan .

I was curious that ABCNews had used an Editors note concommitant with the posting of an article, telling us about evidentiary value all of a sudden. When sources are against the military MSM outlets don't bother with any vetting. In those cases a source (completely unvetted!) makes the front page.

Here we are today,not 24 hours later, with a NYTimes Editors note not with the original article , but a week later after they were exposed for their charade.

And it is typical, not a one time mistake by the MSM clowns .

A front-page article last Saturday profiled Ali Shalal Qaissi, identifying him as the hooded man forced to stand on a box, attached to wires, in a photograph from the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal of 2003 and 2004. He was shown holding such a photograph. As an article on Page A1 today makes clear, Mr. Qaissi was not that man.

The Times did not adequately research Mr. Qaissi's insistence that he was the man in the photograph. Mr. Qaissi's account had already been broadcast and printed by other outlets, including PBS and Vanity Fair, without challenge. Lawyers for former prisoners at Abu Ghraib vouched for him. Human rights workers seemed to support his account. The Pentagon, asked for verification, declined to confirm or deny it.

Despite the previous reports, The Times should have been more persistent in seeking comment from the military. A more thorough examination of previous articles in The Times and other newspapers would have shown that in 2004 military investigators named another man as the one on the box, raising suspicions about Mr. Qaissi's claim.

The Times also overstated the conviction with which representatives of Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International expressed their view of whether Mr. Qaissi was the man in the photograph. While they said he could well be that man, they did not say they believed he was.

 

NYTEditor says above:Quassi's account had already been broadcast and printed by other outlets, including PBS and Vanity Fair and went unchallenged.

Great defense NYT. Sometimes I wonder how many stories over the years were bullshet. How many  times have things gone unchallenged and accepted as fact ? And conversly how many true accounts have been quashed by these dangerous a holes. Gives me the creeps.

A little off topic but yet another (they occurr several times each week) MSM Bullshet Story. Will someone put these phonies out of business. Jeez ! Today alone, ABCNEWS and again NYT.

Another Bad Slip for 'NY Times': Katrina Victim Unmasked

By E&P Staff

Published: March 23, 2006 10:10 AM ET

NEW YORK For the second time in less than a week, The New York Times today admitted to a serious error in a story. On Saturday it said it had misidentified a man featured in the iconic "hooded inmate" photograph from Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. Today it discloses that a woman it profiled on March 8 is not, in fact, a victim of Hurricane Katrina--and was arrested for fraud and grand larceny yesterday.

As it did in the Abu Ghraib mistake, the Times ran an editors' note on page 2 of its front section, along with a lengthy news article (this time on the front page of Section B). Again mirroring the Abu Ghraib episode, the newspaper revealed a surprising and inexplicable lapse in fact-checking on the part of a reporter and/or editor.

The original article, more than 1000 words in length, was written by Nicholas Confessore. He also wrote the news article about the error today. Without saying that he wrote the first story, he wrote today: "The Times did not verify many aspects of Ms. Fenton's claims, never interviewed her children, and did not confirm the identity of the man she described as her husband."

The editors' note states:

"An article in The Metro Section on March 8 profiled Donna Fenton, identifying her as a 37-year-old victim of Hurricane Katrina who had fled Biloxi, Miss., and who was frustrated in efforts to get federal aid as she and her children remained as emergency residents of a hotel in Queens.

"Yesterday, the New York police arrested Ms. Fenton, charging her with several counts of welfare fraud and grand larceny. Prosecutors in Brooklyn say she was not a Katrina victim, never lived in Biloxi and had improperly received thousands of dollars in government aid. Ms. Fenton has pleaded not guilty.

"For its profile, The Times did not conduct adequate interviews or public record checks to verify Ms. Fenton's account, including her claim that she had lived in Biloxi. Such checks would have uncovered a fraud conviction and raised serious questions about the truthfulness of her account."

Last Saturday, the Times editors' note disclosed that Ali Shalal Qaissi, pictured on the front page "as the hooded man forced to stand on a box, attached to wires, in a photograph from the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal of 2003 and 2004," was not that man. "The Times did not adequately research Mr. Qaissi's insistence that he was the man in the photograph," it related.