CNN Breaking News

The leader of al Qaeda in Iraq has been arrested, an Iraqi Defense Ministry spokesman tells The Associated Press.

UPDATE: Or not.

Comments

[Brendan]

Does this mean the war is over?

[john]

No brendan, but it means the best guy Al Qaeda had in Iraq is out of the picture. So now the guy running the show isn't quite as competent as the old guy. Every time we catch a ranking member, it theoretically lowers the level of stategy the enemy employs.

It's good news, but only worthy of a CNN newsbreak in an effort to balance the (imagined or not) negative bias of wartime news coverage.

[Brendan]

Don't you mean "strategery"? :)

Okay, sorry, I'm in a snarky/goofy mood. It is indeed good news, obviously.

[copndor]

Teehehe.

typo. boogers.

[yea]

i think intrade should have bets on whether bin laden gets caught within 2 months of election day. id be curious to see what the odds are.

all half kidding aside, this is excellent news. the sooner we withdraw resources from iraq the better off we'll all be, and hopefully this will make that withdrawal more possible.

[Sandy Underpants]

Yes!!! They finally got the guy. This makes the 3,459th Al Queda leader, 2nd or 3rd in command guy to go down. This thing is almost done now. Of course there were 0 Al Queda in Iraq before the war, but I know that's not important.

[john]

apparently, the news is unconfirmed. And the article gives two different names for the "head guy"... so I'm dubious. Regardless of the veracity of the report, Sandy underpants has been confirmed to have sand in his underpants. Again.

[Jim]

"So now the guy running the show isn't quite as competent as the old guy."

That's *usually* true. Every once in a while though, somebody special comes along. :/

[JO]

The important news here is that he was arrested by Iraqi police/military rather than just being JDAM'd by the US military.

Of course there were 0 Al Queda in Iraq before the war, but I know that's not important

Uh yeah, whatever.

[USC 2L]

[i]No brendan, but it means the best guy Al Qaeda had in Iraq is out of the picture. So now the guy running the show isn't quite as competent as the old guy.[/i]

This assumes Al-Qaeda in Iraq is efficient in appointing their #1s.

MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!

[David K.]

Uh yeah, whatever.

This attitude is what scares me most about Bush adherents. Regardless of your views on whether the war in Iraq was a good idea or a bad idea, the fact is before this Iraq wasn't friendly to al Qaeda and now its become a terrorist breeding ground. Thats a bad thing and its something that needs to be taken very seriously. That people can be so blind in their devotion to the Bush and the right wing talking points that they are willing to dismiss a very important and valid criticism of the war because it comes from his opponents, especially given that the criticism has a direct tie in to the supposed aim of keeping us SAFER from terrorism is mind boggling in its short sightedness.

[Andrew]

Regardless of your views on whether the war in Iraq was a good idea or a bad idea, the fact is before this Iraq wasn't friendly to al Qaeda and now its become a terrorist breeding ground.

Except this is exactly false; Saddam did have ties to al Qaeda. We've been arguing this issue on the blog for the past five years, and the false meme you're spewing just won't die. At some point, even though we are right, it's useless continuing the argument. So, "Uh, yeah, whatever" is the appropriate response to people who are impervious to the facts.

[Mad Max, Esquire]

Maybe we should capture (or kill) the leader of al Qaeda in Afghanistan. You know, the one who killed 3,000 Americans on September 11th? That guy? Remember him? What's his name again? Saddam Hussein? No. Ahmadinejihad? That's not it. Hmmmm.

[Mad Max, Esquire]

Andrew-

The facts are the only supposed link between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda was Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who was wounded in Afghanistan during the U.S. campaign against the Taliban and who hid in Baghdad to recover. The facts - according to the CIA and other intelligence services - is that Zarqawi was in the country on his own and that Saddam's people had very little contact with him during that period. In fact, prior to 9/11, Zarqawi had refused to join forces with al Qaeda altogether.

Saying Saddam did have ties to al-Qaeda based on Zarqawi is like saying that George W. Bush had ties to al-Qaeda because Mohamed Atta was operating in the United States before 9/11.

The only one impervious to the facts is you, Andrew.

[Andrew]

Allow me to quote from that right-wing publication, Wikipedia

In March 2008, a Pentagon-sponsored study was released, entitled Saddam and Terrorism: Emerging Insights from Captured Iraqi Documents, based on the review of more than 600,000 Iraqi documents captured after the 2003 US invasion. The study "found no 'smoking gun' (i.e., direct connection) between Saddam's Iraq and al Qaeda."[91] It did note some early contacts between the regime and terrorist organizations, including Egyptian Islamic Jihad (which was led by Ayman al-Zawahiri and later merged with al Qaeda). The abstract states that, "while these documents do not reveal direct coordination and assistance between the Saddam regime and the al Qaeda network, they do indicate that Saddam was willing to use, albeit cautiously, operatives affiliated with al Qaeda as long as Saddam could have these terrorist–operatives monitored closely...This created both the appearance of and, in some ways, a 'de facto' link between the organizations. At times, these organizations would work together in pursuit of shared goals but still maintain their autonomy and independence because of innate caution and mutual distrust." [92] Further:

“ Saddam's security organizations and bin Laden's terrorist network operated with similar aims, at least for the short term. Considerable operational overlap was inevitable when monitoring, contacting, financing, and training the regional groups involved in terrorism. Saddam provided training and motivation to revolutionary pan-Arab nationalists in the region. Osama bin Laden provided training and motivation for violent revolutionary Islamists in the region. They were recruiting within the same demographic, spouting much the same rhetoric, and promoting a common historical narrative that promised a return to a glorious past. That these movements (pan-Arab and pan-Islamic) had many similarities and strategic parallels does not mean they saw themselves in that light. Nevertheless, these similarities created more than just the appearance of cooperation. Common interests, even without common cause, increased the aggregate terror threat. ”

The report also stated that "captured documents reveal that the regime was willing to co-opt or support organizations it knew to be part of al Qaeda." In July 2001, the Director for International Intelligence in the IIS had ordered an investigation into a terrorist group called The Army of Muhammad. The investigation revealed the group "threatened Kuwaiti authorities and plans to attack American and Western interests" and was working with Osama bin Laden. According to the report, "A later memorandum from the same collection to the Director of the IIS reports that the Army of Muhammad is endeavoring to receive assistance [from Iraq] to implement its objectives, and that the local IIS station has been told to deal with them in accordance with priorities previously established. The IIS agent goes on to inform the Director that 'this organization is an offshoot of bin Laden, but that their objectives are similar but with different names that can be a way of camouflaging the organization.'"

The report goes on to point out that while both Saddam and al-Qaeda had a common enemy in the United States, "the similarities ended there: bin Laden wanted - and still wants - to restore the Islamic caliphate while Saddam, despite his later Islamic rhetoric, dreamed more narrowly of being the secular ruler of a united Arab nation. These competing visions made any significant long-term compromise between them highly unlikely. After all, to the fundamentalist leadership of al Qaeda, Saddam represented the worst kind o f "apostate" regime - a secular police state well practiced in suppressing internal challenges."

As to Saddam's intentions toward the United States, the report states:

“ One question remains regarding Iraq's terrorism capability: Is there anything in the captured archives to indicate that Saddam had the will to use his terrorist capabilities directly against United States? Judging from examples of Saddam's statements before the 1991 Gulf War with the United States, the answer is yes.}

In the years between the two Gulf Wars, UN sanctions reduced Saddam's ability to shape regional and world events, steadily draining his military, economic, and military powers. The rise of Islamist fundamentalism in the region gave Saddam the opportunity to make terrorism, one of the few tools remaining in Saddam's "coercion" toolbox, not only cost effective but a formal instrument of state power. ... Evidence that was uncovered and analyzed attests to the existence of a terrorist capability and a willingness to use it until the day Saddam was forced to flee Baghdad by Coalition forces.

However, the evidence is less clear in terms of Saddam's declared will at the time of OPERATION IRAQI FREEDOM in 2003. Even with access to significant parts of the regime's most secretive archive, the answer to the question of Saddam's will in the final months in power remains elusive.”

Case closed.

[BK]

JO: "The important news here is that he was arrested by Iraqi police/military rather than just being JDAM'd by the US military."

YES! Now we can waterboard the hell out of the guy! Who wants to put a laser-guided missle up someone's butt when you can slowly kill him.

(In all honesty, I'm not sure if I'm trying to being facetious or not)

[David K.]

Case closed indeed, what you quoted points to little to no link between Hussein and al Qaeda, and the fact that you used Wikipedia as your source is downright hilarious.

[David K.]

Case closed indeed, what you quoted points to little to no link between Hussein and al Qaeda, and the fact that you used Wikipedia as your source is downright hilarious.

[thebeef]

David, your opinions about Iraq's connections to terrorism seem to be a little short sighted.

I hope you and like-minded individuals understand that the United States was "at war" with terrorists prior to 9-11, and that the enemies in that war consisted of more than AQ.

Now, AQ should undoubtedly be our focus. And surely there's a very legitimate argument that invading Iraq was an unwise shift of focus away from AQ.

But to suggest that Iraq had nothing to do with the war on terrorism or that it did not support terrorism is absurd in the extreme.

Saddam Hussein harborded Abu Nidal and his affiliates (the Abu Nidal Organization), as well as provided training camps to teach terrorists how best to hijack commercial airliners. Saddam made payments to Abu-Sayyaf, the AQ affiliated and Phillipine based terror organiztion that sought to down a dozen US airliners over the Pacific. And who can forget the bounties Saddam paid to the families of Palestinian suicide bombers?

Perhaps our focus should have stayed with AQ. But to suggest that it was ridiculous to support an invasion of a country that harbored and financed terrorist organizations, while allegedly sitting on a pile of WMD, is absurd. And to pretend tha Saddam is some sort of victim, who had no ties to AQ or AQ allies, is dishonest

[Joe Mama]

thebeef and Andrew are exactly right. Saddam clearly supported terrorists, which not even the most ardent BDS-suffering leftist can deny. Moreover, Saddam and AQ may not have had a "collaborative operational relationship", to use the 9/11 Commission's words, but as the 9/11 Commission report itself showed, there were clear connections between Saddam and AQ throughout the mid-90s (e.g., efforts to establish training camps, procure weapons, etc). These were friendly contacts between organizations that obviously shared a hatred of the U.S., and to suggest that "Iraq wasn't friendly to al Qaeda" before 2003 is simply false.

[Angrier and Angrier]

Andrew-

Wikipedia isn't "right wing," but I'm not so sure about some of the members of the Institute for Defense Analyses, the group that put together the report for the Pentagon. For your consideration...

General Larry D. Welch, USAF (Ret.)
IDS President and member of the Rumsfeld Commission in the 1990s.

Admiral Steve Abbot, USN (Ret.)
Member of IDS Board of Trustees. Former Deputy Director of Homeland Security. Executive Director of Vice President Cheney's National Preparedness Review.

Seems to me it would be easy for some neo-cons in sheep's clothing to insert a sentence or two into a report to support Bush's position.

[Joe Loy]

Case reopened: It wasn't him. Mistaken identity. Yer Man is still In the Wind. Yes it's another Triumph for the security forces of sovereign & democratic Iraq. Now that these standup guys have Stood up, we can Sit down. / Then we can subcontract compilation of our airline Terrorist Watch List to 'em. That'll be good. ;>

(OK, so I'm in a nasty zero-tolerance Perfectionist mood today. Error is not an Option. Yoo gotta Problem wid dat? :)

[B. Minich]

How's come CNN doesn't post "CNN Breaking News Corrections"? They should.

[Angrier and Angrier]

At least CNN runs corrections. Fox News acts like nothing ever happened so there is no need to correct.

[Brendan Loy]

Actually, I noticed when I added the "UPDATE" that CNN's homepage didn't have an article saying "oops, it wasn't him." I was going to link to that, instead of the CBS News article my dad linked, just to stay within the CNN, uh, umbrella. But I couldn't find a "corrective" article at a quick glance, so I gave up.

I don't necessarily think CNN needs to send out Breaking News Corrections via e-mail, but surely if a news story is important enough to warrant an e-mail alert, the revelation that it was false should at least get a spot near the top of the CNN homepage!

[Sandy Underpants]

If you believe every single thing the Bush Administration says then the best you can do connecting Al Queda to Hussein is that Al-Zarqawaii had his leg amputated in Iraq during the 90s. Of course since his leg later grew back, you may want to question even that piece of "intelligence".

The other kick I get out of reading Thebeef, Joe Mama, Alisdair and Andrew is that they have been so completely wrong on everything they have said over the last 7 years leading up to the war in Iraq and throughout that they still are 100% certain of the things they say today. If I was as consistently wrong as them, I would have stopped lecturing around the time the White House released the statement that said "We were all wrong" and there were no WMD's in Iraq. But then again, it's entertaining so please don't quit.

[Angrier and Angrier]

Sandy-

Keep in mind these guys also believe we would have won Vietnam if we had just sent more troops in there to die.

[Alasdair]

A&A - actually, while I do believe that the US could have won in Vietnam from a military perspective, given the civilian leadership in Congress at the time, it just wasn't going to happen ... and, according to your standards, since it's all the President's doing anyway, then it wuz yer innocent peace-loving Democrats Kennedy and Johnson wot got youse into yer Vietnam war in the first place, and it was the eeeevilll war-mongering GOP President wot got you out of the Vietnam war ...

So - to recap, in simple words, yes, the US had the military to win, but it didn't have the civilian will to win ...

In Iraq, the US had the military to win the military conflict and has done so ... in the civilian post-military aftermath, while military is being used, as long as the cilvilian side doesn't fold, the Iraq war will end up with similar results to the Japan war and the Germany war ...

In the Germany war, we (the US) still have troops in Germany 60+ years later, and the now-Iran's equivalent is the then-Soviet-Union ... according to Pelosi and Reid and Obama, we should pull out of Iraq cuz otherwise we'll make Iraq angry ... fortunately, at the end of the Germany war, we had leaders who had learned somewhat from history and they didn't let us pull out ... and France and Holland and Belgium and the rest of western Europe was spared what Cambodia and Laos experienced after the fall of Vietnam ...

And the Nazis didn't get to consolidate the indutrial powerhouse of a united Europe-as-Reich ... cuz, if they had, by now, the only North American language would be Deutsch ... and there would be no Irish Trojan's Blog - cuz Brendan's mother would not have survived ...

Me - I prefer my planet this way, rather than ruled by Ein Reich ... we can survive D-lists - and they are better than having Schindler's Lists ...

Are we going to be able to be smart enough to follow the successful Germany model ? Or are we going to make sure the Vietnam model gets repeated in the Middle East ?

On a lesser, yet important note, per your beliefs, people win things by sending "more troops in there to die", whereas we win by sending more troops in so that opposing troops die ... (QV Germany, Japan, Gulf War I, Gulf War II) ... so - back to your worship of Neville Chamberlain and Jimmy Carter (and Chamberlain's reincarnation as Senator Obama) ...

Oh - and, Sandy Underpants, this "Alisdair" person must be highly intelligent to be in agreement with the well-respected Andrew and Joe Mama and thebeef ... would that you considered Mere Humble Innocent Little Moi worthy of consideration in that group ...

(grin)

[Joe Mama]

Keep in mind these guys also believe we would have won Vietnam if we had just sent more troops in there to die.

No, but we may have won in Vietnam if we had fewer idiots undermining the war effort in the U.S.

[David K.]

The fact that you keep equating Germany, Japan and WWII with the current Iraq war demonstrates that you don't have a clue when it comes to military history or strategy. I should also point out that it was a Republican President who pulled us out of Vietnam, so that would (according to your logic that all wars are the same) make your party the cowards right?

[Alasdair]

David - of course all wars aren't the same ... you *lost* the War of 1812, didn't you ? Ooops - my bad - you "strategically" tricked the Brits into burning the White House so you could declare it a victory ...

If you try reading what I type, rather than just knee-jerk responding to what you emote that I type, you would have noticed that I addressed that part to A&A and to *his* belief that it's all the President's fault/blame ...

[Alasdair]

David - I would put *my* strategic skills up against *your* strategic skills in almost any situation ... when someone equates Iraq and Vietnam, that person betrays a spectacular strategic and cultural cluelessness ...

[Mad Max, Esquire]

Alasdair-

Comparing Iraq to Germany is comparing apples to oranges. During WWII, the U.S. destroyed the German military and the will of Nazi sympathizers to fight through an effort of total war. In our rush to Baghdad, we did not destroy the Iraqi army. We did not destroy the will of the Sunni, Kurd and Shi'ite factions to fight - us or each other. Everything we are doing now in Iraq is only delaying the inevitable - an all out civil war in Iraq. Whether we stay there 15 years or leave tomorrow, the end result will be the same. Sunnis, Kurds and Shi'ites will kill each other until power vacuums are filled and factions gain the power they are incapable of gaining through elections that don't include everyone.

And, no, we couldn't win Vietnam. LBJ couldn't do it. Nixon couldn't do it. It was a lost cause because you can't fight other people's wars for them.

[Mad Max, Esquire]

"No, but we may have won in Vietnam if we had fewer idiots undermining the war effort in the U.S."

You mean like Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger? Seems to me they were in charge for most of the war.

[Mad Max, Esquire]

Alasdair-

FYI - There are infinitely more similarities between Iraq and Vietnam than there are between Iraq and Germany.

First, the U.S. faces/faced an insurgency in Iraq and Vietnam. There was no tangible insurgency in Germany after the Nazis fell.

Second, both Vietnam and Iraq were/are wrestling with internal power struggles within the population. Once we took out the Nazi regime, there were no power struggles within the Allied-occupied part of Germany.

Third, the insurgencies in both Vietnam and Iraq were/are against an occupying force - France in Vietnam (initially) and the U.S. in Iraq. As I said, there was no insurgency from the Germans.

Fourth, Vietnam and Iraq were/are essentially guerrilla wars. Germany was not.

Fifth, the lack of support for the wars in Vietnam and Iraq are derived from no clear goals by the government and no clear strategy for winning or getting out. The goals and strategy in WWII were clear cut and communicated well to the population.

Sixth, finally, don't blame the civilian population's lack of support for Vietnam and Iraq on Americans. Blame it on the leaders who have failed to lead (regardless of party).

[David K.]

Alasdair, Max allready pointedouta number of flaws in your logic but here's some more food for thought. Americans were not behind the war in Vietnam and arrlsnt behind the war in Iraq. Your ready to blame them for our problems ( which is hillarious since Bush had a rubber stamp congress for most of his Presidency) but how exactly are citizens beinf critical of the war preventing Bush and his general from coming up with a clear set of goals and a plan to achieve them?

The people got it then and they get it now. These types of wars are unwinnable because the leaders who start wars like this are lacking in military knowledge to begin with. Of course that's on top of the other reasons these wars are tough to win as Max highlighted above.

Our leaders are not the only ones lacking in military knowledge.