Some news you may not have seen: Someone has leaked 42 pages of Iraqi Intelligence Service documents
to CNS News. Be sure to follow the document link reproduced here .

snippets:
>>Other memos provide a list of terrorist groups with whom Iraq had relationships and considered available for terror operations against the United States. Among the organizations mentioned are those affiliated with Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and Ayman al-Zawahiri, two of the world's most wanted terrorists.>They detail the Iraqi regime's purchase of five kilograms of mustard gas on Aug. 21, 2000 and three vials of malignant pustule, another term for anthrax, on Sept. 6, 2000.>The memo includes Saddam's directive that "the party should move to hunt the Americans who are on Arabian land, especially in Somalia, by using Arabian elements ..." five "big, medium, and small" media organizations are looking into the documents.

Not only is Zarqawi having a bad week from our military, these memos could prove the connections between Saddam and the terrorists (and WMD) to the public in a big way. I hope these documents pan out. What an October surprise! If these docs are legit, they will blow galaxy sized holes in the 'no WMD', 'no terrorist connection' arguments.

Jdwill,

Yes, I've seen that. But I've never heard of CNS news before. I'm waiting for this to be vetted by someone I know something about.

Likewise, but it does fit. Hussein was a very bad guy, if he would put people in shredders, he wouldn't stick at some revenge against the USA for humiliating him in 91.

michael,

who will you trust to vet it for you? not cbs, i hope...

or the nyt...

or...

n

And this is more responsible journalism?

After CBS stuck their collective head in their memo hole, you would think that anyone who wanted to be considered a responsible journalist, would verify, Verify, VERIFY, before writing articles or posting alleged documents. The CSN site has no evidence to support their claim and their experts are left anonymous. They don't even publish all 42 pages, only the first page, which has no real detail in it (and still no real support for validity).

If NYT published "evidence" of this calibur, supporting Bush's critics... would you be decrying the MSM and LWMB? If so, are you being disingenous now?

Don't be partisan, be American.

Tosk

PS - Of course, there are 42 pages... and 42 is a wholy Discordian number, since The Great non-Prophet Douglas Adams spoke the words of Eris saying "The answer to Life, The Universe and Everything is, in fact, 42."

Aieeee! 42, how could I have missed that!?
Its obviously a hoax.

Whatever you do, don't read the NRO supporting post. Clearly CNS is not up to CBS standards.

Douglas Adams rules.

NRO supporting post?

I must have missed it (I'm not sure what NRO stands for here). Can you post the link? (I read everything you linked to in your first post).

The link above labeled 'to CNS News' is actually a link to a NationalReviewOnline post that has some additional bits about the story. The second link is a link to the CNS item itself.

Sorry for the confusion. I had my panic glasses on.

Oh, National review Online... I read that and still see no 'supporting' documentation. I mean, I think that they did a nice job of saying "These may be real, these may not be real". I still find it hard to believe that Rumsfeld would not know about the document (and its validity) before it was leaked.

Not saying it isn't true, it may well be... and I'll be happy to see it (anything to redeem ourselves on this gaffe).

In fact, if we, before Nov 2, find out that Saddam did indeed have WMD's, that he was planning on using them, that he was working on Nuclear weapons, etc... I will vote for Bush.

I have lots of problems with Bush, but his inability to say "I was Wrong" really bothers me. If he ends up right, then that is a big plus for him.

If, on the other hand, this remains unsubstantiated, or highly suspect, it will just get filed in the "Well, Bigfoot may be real too... but I can't plan my camping trip around that."

Tosk

Tosk,

Bruce Tefft, a retired CIA official - is a name

However, three other experts - a former weapons inspector with the United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM), a retired CIA counter-terrorism official with vast experience dealing with Iraq, and a former advisor to then-presidential candidate Bill Clinton on Iraq - were asked to analyze the documents. All said they comport with the format, style and content of other Iraqi documents from that era known to be genuine.

is more attribution than we usually get from MSM articles quoting 'senior government official' anonymous sources. Which, I realise, the document source here is labeled as.

The article is not breathless, and it has a lot of detail that should support fact checking. All in all, on the surface, better stuff than we see from the AP, Reuters, and BBC.

Just saying...

BTW, what the NRO piece adds is that some large media outfits are at least looking at, and that it has at least begun to surface on talk radio. Kinda like the Swifty story. Will just have to wait a couple of days.

More than what we get from the MSM... so instead of unsubstantiated comments from 'unnamed sources', we get 'unsubstantiated comments from 'unnamed sources who did X, Y and Z for a living'....

We shall see what happens.

I find it strange that something that is the Final, Absolute smoking gun, got out and leaked before the Administration had it verified. One would assume that the translator would have quickly recoginized the importance of the document, after the first page.

If this is valid and was leaked before it got to the Whitehouse... someone doesn't understand the meaning of 'loose lips'.

Be that as it may, I still say that hard evidence would sway my vote. (Which is why I'm still undecided.)

MJT:

None of this makes a lot of difference in any case. We did not invade Iraq because of Zarqawi. We invaded Iraq to kick off a slum-clearance program in Araby.

Yes. It's so bloody obvious, and people work so very hard to ignore it. Saddam and his Ba'athists were just one set of very bad actors that need to go. Iraq was just the most obbvious next step in the process after Afghanistan.

Thanks for fighting the good fight.

...slum-clearance program...

Hello? WMDs? Check Bush's speech before the UN in 2002. Two paragraphs on Hussein's mistreatment of his own citizens, and the bulk of the rest on terrorism and WMDs.

You may have thought that "democratic lynchpin of the middle east" was the prime rationale, but I think that was pretty low on the list for this administration.

Michael,

Never underestimate the ferocity with which those who desperately don't want Saddam to have harbored terrorists like Zarqawi and Ansar al-Islam will trumpet any doubts about his guilt.

The philosopher William James made much of this human tendency to ignore facts we find too awkward in The Will to Believe.

The CIA has reason to be ridiculously inconclusive about its every pronouncement these days. Just as other doubters (including Kerry and Edwards) have their reasons.

The facts, however, are what they are.

In fact, if we, before Nov 2, find out that Saddam did indeed have WMD's, that he was planning on using them, that he was working on Nuclear weapons, etc... I will vote for Bush.

Be cautious. It might take more than a week or two to discredit; something that looks like hard evidence might turn out just forged.

Incidentally, if it's true that Saddam was buying a few kilos of mustard gas, that sure sounds like he didn't have thousands of kilos ready to use. Similarly 3 vials of anthrax makes it sound like he didn't know one of his biologists had kept a sample.

I have lots of problems with Bush, but his inability to say "I was Wrong" really bothers me. If he ends up right, then that is a big plus for him.

If he ends up right by accident that doesn't get him off the hook for me. If he told us there's a whole lot of platinum on the moon and he took us into a gigantic moon-expedition to mine it, when he had no evidence at all and he faked some, I'd be glad if it turned out that there really was platinum on the moon that was easily minable. But I wouldn't forgive him for saying "The platinum is there and I know just exactly where to find it" and then it turned out he had to spend a year and a half prospecting before the first little bit turned up.

"We invaded Iraq to kick off a slum-clearance project in Araby."

Never heard it said better. But why is it that the CIA, which was consistently wrong about Soviet power and economic strength for decades, which wasn't worth sour owlshit in the runup to Gulf War II, suddenly becomes an infallible oracle when some craptoad leaks a document damaging to Bush?