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Dubious Link Between Atta and Saddam (document falsified)

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private_ryan Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Dec-17-03 07:15 PM
Original message
Dubious Link Between Atta and Saddam (document falsified)
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3741646/
WEB EXCLUSIVE
Newsweek
Updated: 5:53 p.m. ET Dec. 17, 2003
Dec. 17 - A widely publicized Iraqi document that purports to show that September 11 hijacker Mohammed Atta visited Baghdad in the summer of 2001 is probably a fabrication that is contradicted by U.S. law-enforcement records showing Atta was staying at cheap motels and apartments in the United States when the trip presumably would have taken place, according to U.S. law enforcement officials and FBI documents.

*snip*

The Telegraph story was apparently written with a political purpose: to bolster Bush administration claims of a connection between Al Qaeda and Saddam's regime. The paper described a "handwritten memo" that was supposedly sent to Saddam Hussein by Tahir Jalil Habbush al-Tikriti, chief of Iraqi intelligence at the time. It describes a three-day "work program" that Atta had undertaken in Baghdad under the tutelage of notorious Palestinian terrorist Abu Nidal, who lived in the Iraqi capital until his death under suspicious circumstances in August 2002.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3741646/
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Cush Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Dec-17-03 07:18 PM
Response to Original message
1. are we suprised?
Edited on Wed Dec-17-03 07:20 PM by Cush
didn't think so :-)
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Shadder Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Dec-17-03 07:21 PM
Response to Reply #1
4. Nope
Not at all.
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La_Serpiente Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Dec-17-03 07:19 PM
Response to Original message
2. I knew it
they didn't even provide the source of the document. The entire intelligence community is corrupt now.
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Just Me Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Dec-18-03 09:30 AM
Response to Reply #2
35. THIS HAS TO BE CRIMINAL,...
,...fabrication of an intelligence document,...isn't that what is being asserted by this article? If so, THAT HAS TO BE A CRIME!!!!
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jenk Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Dec-17-03 07:21 PM
Response to Original message
3. Anything on FOXNEWS about it?
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alcuno Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Dec-17-03 07:29 PM
Response to Reply #3
10. It'll never happen.
The US Ministry of Disinformation strikes again.
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louis-t Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Dec-17-03 07:21 PM
Response to Original message
5. Interesting that the story broke
at the same time SH was captured. Bushco always manage to deflect.
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aquart Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Dec-17-03 07:22 PM
Response to Original message
6. I'm shocked. Shocked.
A lie connected with this administration? Oh, the shame! The scandal!

Poor thing better get in line.
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pansypoo53219 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Dec-17-03 07:55 PM
Response to Reply #6
16. what
will we tell the children?
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Bozvotros Donating Member (394 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Dec-17-03 07:25 PM
Response to Original message
7. Say it ain't so Joe,
You too Rush, Hannity, O'Liely, Hume, Matthews and the rest of you whores who trumpeted this bogus shit as if it had been found burned into stone tablets. Between this, Kean's statement about 911 being preventable and the rapid deterioration of the official story about how Saddam was captured, this should be a good week for the official White House dry cleaner.
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robbedvoter Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Dec-17-03 07:25 PM
Response to Original message
8. Why is this web exclusive? And how widely was the lie carried?
I remember someone asking here if it was true that Brokaw said it. Did anyone confirm that? Is this another one of those lie publicly, retract privately scenarios? Hasn't this been done before the war on the same topic? Got 70% believing it? Are they fooling us twice?
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alcuno Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Dec-17-03 07:31 PM
Response to Reply #8
11. Absolutely. I've heard all the right-wingers screaming about this
important document being ignored by the mainstream media. Saw Joe Scarborough with John Loftus on last night carrying on about it.
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0007 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Dec-17-03 09:21 PM
Response to Reply #11
22. Yes and the calls to the Washington Journals about,
Edited on Wed Dec-17-03 09:23 PM by 0007
how American was missing this important document. The proof that Atta was in bed with Saddam, LOL!! Now this. Wonder how the freepers will handle this one.
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w4rma Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Dec-17-03 07:39 PM
Response to Reply #8
13. That's what I want to know. Why is this story exclusive to the internet?
It looks important enough to put in the magazine, itself, to me. :mad:
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private_ryan Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Dec-17-03 07:41 PM
Response to Reply #13
14. the magazine is already printed for this week
wait till next week?
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BigBigBear Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Dec-17-03 07:26 PM
Response to Original message
9. Frankly, I'm shocked
No...I really am....

Has anyone documented and really done a dissertation of the desperation and willful gullibility of Bush supporters on these war stories? I sure hope someone is keeping track of the Iraq War mythology in all its debunked glory - goodness knows, I have a few hundred links at home, but I'm sure I've missed a few.
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0007 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Dec-17-03 07:36 PM
Response to Original message
12. Wasn't it Atta's passport that flew out the plane that slammed
into the World Trade Center and was found three block away? Now that is wild, I mean wild.
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underpants Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Dec-18-03 10:33 AM
Response to Reply #12
41. Yes the magic passport. It made it through the explosion and fire...
was found with in an hour of the WTC coming down and was quickkly passed onto a flat foot or at least through the chain of command while NYC was in a news and telephone blackout so no one knew who supposedly were the rat bastards that did it but somehow it got to where it needed to, the passport that is.

Very incredible.
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GermanDJ Donating Member (140 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Dec-17-03 07:43 PM
Response to Original message
15. Those forged documents regarding British MP George Galloway come to mind
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truthisfreedom Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Dec-17-03 08:01 PM
Response to Original message
17. what say the glorious sheeple freepers?
have they responded to this news?
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paulthompson Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Dec-17-03 08:08 PM
Response to Original message
18. The good news...
Color me surprised this was debunked - not! Shame on the Telegraph for running such an obviously bogus story. Both the Niger uranium story and the Iraq 9/11 connection in one document? Talk about absurd!

The good news is, virtually no mainstream media picked up the story, except for the usual right wing rags. If you run a google news search, one sees that the usual suspects - NewsMax, WorldNetDaily, National Review, and that kind of ilk, ran the story. But that was it. Not even an AP or Reuters blurb on it. The only halfway respectable outlet to run it was The Age in Australia, but they gave the story a different headline: Atta Linked to Baghdad in Dubious Document.

http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/12/14/1071336810270.html

But I'm sure that in the fantasy land Rush Limbaugh fans live in, this story will be accepted as fact anyways (Rush of course has covered it as well).
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Dudley_DUright Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Dec-17-03 11:17 PM
Response to Reply #18
24. Yes, the fact that it included the Niger story also
made the whole document a transparent fake. Of course you are right that the wingnuts will forever accept this crap as the gospel truth.
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nadinbrzezinski Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Dec-17-03 08:24 PM
Response to Original message
19. Why am I not surprised
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sistersofmercy Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Dec-17-03 08:52 PM
Response to Original message
20. Well get use to the BS stories many more to come
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candy331 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Dec-17-03 09:08 PM
Response to Reply #20
21. The Man( Con Coughlin) who wrote the article was on MSNBC
Edited on Wed Dec-17-03 09:11 PM by candy331
today and said that this was authentic and did so with great enthusiasm as if he had really discovered something and was really telling the truth. "Lying Liars"

His first name is Con, enough said.
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Dudley_DUright Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Dec-17-03 11:26 PM
Response to Reply #21
25. Unbelievable quote from the "Con" man in the article
The Sunday Telegraph's Con Coughlin acknowledged that he could not prove the authenticity of the document. He said that while he got the memo about Mohammed Atta and Baghdad from a "senior" member of the Iraqi Governing Council who insisted it was "genuine," he and his newspaper had "no way of verifying it. It's our job as journalists to air these things and see what happens," he said.

No you moron. It is your job to verify the facts and check your sources before you publish this rubbish. :eyes:

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Robb Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Dec-18-03 09:38 AM
Response to Reply #25
37. Amazing
What a dipshit! Forgive me, but this is a fucking ignorant thing to say. :grr:
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KoKo Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Dec-17-03 11:12 PM
Response to Original message
23. I can't believe it! MSNBC actually "outed" that piece of c**p from the
Mudoch "Telegraph!" Unbelievable. I figured that would fly along like the rest of the Bush/PNAC lies. Good news. I hope it's good, anyway. These days, one never knows.
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prolesunited Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Dec-17-03 11:29 PM
Response to Original message
26. I would like to hold this up as evidence
to all those here who call us whacked-out leftists and tinfoil hatters when we refuse to believe anything that is put out there.
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TeeYiYi Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Dec-17-03 11:38 PM
Response to Original message
27. Original thread from "Spider" Sunday . . .
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enki23 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Dec-18-03 12:44 AM
Response to Original message
28. i don't believe it
i mean, what's more believable than an inter-terrorist MEMO confirming *both* that muhammed atta and saddam were in cahoots *and* that the niger uranium bit was also right on the mark?
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proud patriot Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Dec-18-03 12:56 AM
Response to Original message
29. well It's about time they are reporting this
Edited on Thu Dec-18-03 12:56 AM by proud patriot
Don't think for a second that I'll forget
how long The media has sat on this . :grr:

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IndianaGreen Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Dec-18-03 01:18 AM
Response to Original message
30. Was it Chalabi who produced the forged document?
He said that while he got the memo about Mohammed Atta and Baghdad from a "senior" member of the Iraqi Governing Council who insisted it was "genuine," he and his newspaper had "no way of verifying it. It's our job as journalists to air these things and see what happens," he said.

I smell the handiwork of Chalabi in this. I also take exception to Con Coughlin saying that his "job as journalists" is to air uncorroborated stories. This man is another puke, working for a Murdoch tabloid.

How many Americans and Iraqis have died for these lies? How many more will die?
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sistersofmercy Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Dec-18-03 09:49 AM
Response to Reply #30
39. Or course, it was Chalabi's doing, this whole criminal war comes down
to Chalabi's doing. I would like to see an investigation on the INC, its thugs and practices. After all, they supplied the dubious intelligence of WMD. Chalabi's been barking "imminent threat" by Saddam for years.
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Lorien Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Dec-18-03 01:41 AM
Response to Original message
31. "Web exclusive"
does this mean the only place we'll see this story is tucked away on their website for a few days?

Hmmm...quite a pattern. Publish falsified story to boost * numbers, retract story weeks later...on your website, buried beneath other headlines.:grr:
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TeeYiYi Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Dec-18-03 04:57 AM
Response to Reply #31
32. It's not just that it was published . . .
. . . that joker Con Coughlin was paraded around on every channel Sunday (all day long ad nauseum) as the story was supposedly "breaking" whilst removing Saddam from his hidey hole.

This story smelled from the jump for a reason. . . It was rancid!

TYY
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Robb Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Dec-18-03 09:40 AM
Response to Reply #31
38. We'll also see it
in the Telegraph, on page 117, beneath the tide tables.


(thanks and apologies to Berke Breathed for the joke)
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pinniped Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Dec-18-03 05:01 AM
Response to Original message
33. When you have an imposter in the WH anything goes...
Edited on Thu Dec-18-03 05:04 AM by sfg25
Even Dukakis said this was the worst admin he ever lived under.

We're all inclined to agree with him.
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cmd Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Dec-18-03 08:28 AM
Response to Original message
34. The damage has been done
Put out enough garbage to make a story and there will be plenty of people ready to lap it up. After the truth comes out, no one wants to admit they ate the garbage. They still believe it was good stuff. This is more Rovian politics.
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Guaranteed Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Dec-18-03 09:33 AM
Response to Original message
36. God DAMMIT
I'm sick of our government LYING to us in trying to build support for this BULLSHIT war.

Is this NOT fascism???
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HuckleB Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Dec-18-03 10:26 AM
Response to Original message
40. E-mail this far and wide.
We're going to have to act as our own press, that much is clear.
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UTUSN Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Dec-18-03 10:57 AM
Response to Reply #40
43. "under our direct supervision" - Haha, Scooter LIBBY's & ROVE's
The "admissions" are way explicit, direct citing of "al Qaeda". Lucienne GOLDBERG could come up with better political operative fakery.

And ISIKOFF is now acting as a journalist, eh. Were you a journalist then, or are you a journalist now.
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underpants Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Dec-18-03 10:34 AM
Response to Original message
42. Hell even CHALABI didn't buy the memo
Edited on Thu Dec-18-03 10:34 AM by underpants
Ironically, even the Iraqi National Congress of Ahmed Chalabi, which has been vocal in claiming ties between Al Qaeda and Saddam's regime, was dismissive of the new Telegraph story. "The memo is clearly nonsense," an INC spokesman told NEWSWEEK.
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skypilot Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Dec-18-03 11:04 AM
Response to Original message
44. Jesus, they just won't let this go.
Every few months they dust of this story about Atta meeting with some Iraqi in Baghdad or Prague. This administration loves to put stories in storage and then break them out again when they think that people have forgotten that the story was bogus the first time.

Did anyone see Ari Fleisher on David Letterman a while ago when he tried to claim that the Internation Atomic Energy Agency had put out a report saying that Hussein was 6 months away from developing a nuclear weapon? The IAEA had already denied the existence of such a report on numerous occasions so Ari waits a little while and then right before he steps down as press secretary he throws that lie out there one last time. That's how they operate. Putrid f*cks.
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