by Curt at Flopping Aces

Scott Malensek has written a rebuttel to the Senate report released a few weeks ago in which they try to allege that Saddam had no ties to Al-Qaeda. This is actually far from a rebuttal, more like a whole report. You can download the 124 page PDF file at a link on my site. (h/t Rocket’s Brain Trust)

For those of you who don’t know Scott, here is a short bio:

Scott Malensek is the author of: Black Rain For Christmas, The Secret War in South Asia, Sixth Fleet Under: Aircraft Carrier Combat in The Eastern Mediterranean, The X-MAS War, The Weekend Warriors, and 50+ Ways to Play With Your Paintballs. He’s also written several books on the Global War on Terror and Iraq under the pen name, Sam Pender. These books include: Iraq’s Smoking Gun, The Ignored War, America’s War With Saddam, How Did It Come To This?, and Saddam’s Ties to Al Qaeda

A sample:

The people who wrote the SSCI Phase II report distort and deny that reality. The mainstream media seeks to pretend that all these jihadis were not affiliated with Al Queda based on claims from Saddam and his regime clearly lied. We are expected to believe Saddam’s word and the words of lawyer politicians in DC rather than that of soldiers, Marines, and reporters who were there during the invasion. To do so is to deny history, and deny those who served the honor of recognizing the specifics of their experiences and sacrifices. They deserve to have their stories told honestly-not politically as the Senate has chosen.

I searched the entire 400 pages of this “Phase II report” (or rather both reports that make up the Phase II report), and I couldn’t find those two words: “Bush lied.” I can’t even find, “Bush mislead” in the 400 pages. What I did find was 400 pages of evidence showing that the intelligence community used small amounts of weak intelligence from a decrepit litany of agencies, and then poorly communicated that to policy makers (Bush Admin, Democrats who ran the Senate, and Republicans who ran the House).

I searched the British Butler Report and their Hutton inquiry, and neither stated that President Bush lied or mislead anyone. Australian Parliamentary investigations (bi-partisan and independent) failed to say President Bush lied or mislead anyone. The Independent and bi-partisan WMD Commission didn’t say it either. The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence’s “Phase I” report didn’t say the President lied or mislead either. In reading and re-reading all of the thousands of pages in these bi-partisan reports, I have never once seen the words, “President Bush lied” or “President Bush mislead.” I’ve never seen, “President Bush pressured analysts” or “President Bush manipulated intelligence.” Never once did I see even evidence of that. Instead, all these reports say one thing, and it’s the same thing that the 21 investigations (including the independent 911 Commission) all stated clearly. They all point the finger at small amounts of weak and bad intelligence reporting from decrepit, poorly lead, under-funded intelligence agencies.

[…]America’s war with Saddam had to end someday, and that meant regime change. Uprisings of Iraqis demanding democracy failed and resulted in 400,000 deaths. At least five CIA supported coups and uprisings had failed. The ISG “Duelfer Report” shows that sanctions were almost completely and irrevocably failed. Diplomacy clearly had failed. 50+ assassination attempts on the first night of OIF failed. Four Clinton Administration air campaigns and two sustained 11-year-long air campaigns all failed. All else failed. Another invasion really was the last resort; the inevitable last resort.

Al Queda didn’t attack the United States 5yrs ago because President George W Bush manipulated intelligence, mislead, or lied so he could invade Iraq and line oil barons’ pockets. No. Al Queda attacked the United States because no one before George W Bush had the nerve to invade Iraq, because the US had practiced a foreign policy of engage and retreat (i.e. “redeploy”), and their attacks succeeded because when the Soviet Union collapsed so did support, leadership, and efficiency in America’s intelligence networks.

There is truth in history-not in the mouths of politicians pandering for their jobs or for bigger and more powerful jobs. The lesson of Pearl Harbor was for Lady Liberty to never leave her guard down, and never ignore a belligerent’s threats. A more tactical lesson was to always strive to have the best intelligence-not the smallest and cheapest. President Bush didn’t lie. The war in Iraq and 911 both happened largely America had sought the smallest and cheapest and most PC intelligence networks possible, and because when Osama Bin Laden declared war on the US…he had to do it five times. He had to level two entire zip codes before the nation really went to war with him, and the CIA assigned more than 40 people to searching for him.

America ignored those lessons in 1941 and in 2001.

He ends the report with some corrective measures to fix this sorry Senate report and then gives the SSCI members some advice:

Finally, I believe the SSCI members owe the families of the fallen, their constituents, the American people, and the world an apology for releasing such a politically distorted report, for allowing others to believe that it was a definitive piece with conclusive conclusions and not the real body of work that it is-based on contradictory detainee interrogations, less than 1/5 of the captured documents and media, and completely ignorant of open source intelligence, mass media reports, foreign intelligence, reports from other bi-partisan investigations, and from published works.

I highly advise you download this report of Scott’s. He goes over the original report line by line and offers evidence, quotes, and citations to rebut much of the Senate’s findings.

No ties to Al-Qaeda….please.