It seems like it was just yesterday that President Trump gave his approval for a US military strike on 6/20/2019 against Iran for its having downed a US surveillance drone during the early morning of the 18th of June 2019, but at the last minute, he decided to cancel the military operation, with the explanation that he felt concern about the Generals’ estimated possibility of 150 Iranian casualties.

Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Israel have been egging on the US military to attack their nemesis Iran, for years. But there are the two countries of China and Russia which have been strongly opposed to any such action.

It’s no accident that after President Trump nixed the US striking Iranian sites at the last minute, that the Iranian hawks, the NSA Adviser John Bolton headed out to Israel and the Secretary of  State Mike Pompeo traveled to meet with officials from Saudi Arabia and UAE United Arab Emirates to calm the waters regarding the US  president not acting according to the original plans.

This is a serious business…

“By the Secretary of State Mike Pompeo endeavoring to float the falsehood that what’s happening in Iran being somehow tied to al Quaeda, which is from the same playbook that the President George Bush’s administration resorted to, in order to garner public support for the 2003 US military invasion of Iraq, means that there are plans for the US to eventually attack Iran.”

“Frankly, the current US actions of having pulled out of the 2015 Iran Nuclear deal and the imposition of harsh sanctions against Iran, spells the goal for regime change which is not going to happen under current circumstances. There’s only one option left.”

Prior to 2003, when President George Bush’s GOP administration marketed to the American public that there was a connection between Iraq and and al Qaeda, and that Iraq was somehow connected to the 9/11/2001 terrorist attacks on US soil, this was an outright lie.

For the record, the terrorists /hijackers in the September 11, 2001 attacks were 19 men affiliated with al-Qaeda, 15 of the 19 were citizens of Saudi Arabia, two were from the United Arab Emirates (UAE), one was from Lebanon, and one was from Egypt.

Incidentally, the republican President Donald Trump’s current National Security Adviser John Bolton was one of VP Dick Cheney’s crowd during the Bush years who pushed hard for the 2003 US invasion of Iraq and ever since, he has been arguing that the US should mount an attack against Iran.

By attempting to market this alternative fact that there’s a connection between al-Qaeda and Iran, the Secretary Pompeo is telling us that the US has plans for some type of attacks on Iran.

Secretary Pompeo is attempting to make the case about al Qaeda links as a way to avoid having to ask the US Congress for a new Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) for military action against Iran.

But this time the US Congress isn’t buying into the hype…

Rep. Maxine Waters keeps tweeting that there has to be Congressional autorization before the US can attack Iran. Here are a couple of her tweets:

As per a 6/18/2004 NTI publication, “Bush Repeats Allegation of Iraq, al-Qaeda Ties:

“U.S. President George W. Bush yesterday reiterated his claim that there had been “numerous contacts” between al-Qaeda and Iraq prior to the U.S. invasion of that country last year. Bush’s remarks came in response to statements by the commission investigating the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, that it had found no “credible evidence” that Iraq was involved in those events, the BBC reported (see GSN, June 17).”

“The reason I keep insisting that there was a relationship between Iraq and Saddam [Hussein] and al-Qaeda is because there was a relationship between Iraq and al-Qaeda,” Bush said.”

“He added that his administration had never claimed Iraq was involved in the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11.”

“This administration never said that the 9/11 attacks were orchestrated between Saddam and al-Qaeda. We did say there were numerous contacts between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda,” he said.”

“The commission found that a meeting between al-Qaeda mastermind Osama bin-Laden and Iraqi intelligence officers had occurred in Sudan during the 1990s, but found no evidence that those discussions led to any collaboration (BBC News, June 17).”

As per Wikipedia, “On the more specific question of whether Saddam Hussein was behind the attacks of September 11, 2001, the consensus view is that there is no credible evidence of his government’s involvement. On March 20, 2006, President Bush made clear that his administration did not have any evidence to prove Saddam played a role in those attacks.”

“In the initial stages of the war on terror, the Central Intelligence Agency, under George Tenet, was rising to prominence as the lead agency in the Afghanistan war. But when Tenet insisted in his personal meetings with President Bush that there was no connection between Al Qaeda and Iraq, V.P. Dick Cheney and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld initiated a secret program to re-examine the evidence and marginalize the CIA and Tenet. The questionable intelligence acquired by this secret program was “stovepiped” to the vice president and presented to the public. In some cases, Cheney’s office would leak the intelligence to reporters, where it would be reported by outlets such as The New York Times. Cheney would subsequently appear on the Sunday political television talk shows to discuss the intelligence, referencing The New York Times as the source to give it credence.”

“On March 21, 2006, Bush sought to distance himself from the allegation of any link. He said: “First, just if I might correct a perception, I don’t think we ever said—at least I know I didn’t say that there was a direct connection between September the 11th and Saddam Hussein. Bush reaffirmed the White House position in even stronger terms in a press conference on 21 August 2006. Ken Herman of Cox News asked, “What did Iraq have to do with … the attack on the World Trade Center?” Bush replied, “Nothing.” Bush elaborated on his answer and added, “Nobody has ever suggested that the attacks of September the 11th were ordered by Iraq.”

“Opponents of his Iraq policy charged that his statement was inconsistent with his letter to Congress of March 21, 2003 and a minority (Democrat) staff report by the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Government Reform claimed that “in 125 separate appearances, they [Bush, Cheney, Powell, Rumsfeld and Rice] made … 61 misleading statements about Iraq’s relationship with al-Qaeda.”

“2004 9/11 Commission Report: The official report issued by the 9/11 Commission in July 2004 addressed the issue of a possible conspiracy between the government of Iraq and al-Qaeda in the September 11 attacks. The report addressed specific allegations of contacts between al-Qaeda and members of Saddam Hussein’s government and concluded that there was no evidence that such contacts developed into a collaborative operational relationship, and that they did not cooperate to commit terrorist attacks against the United States.”

On June 24, 2019, Michael Hirsh of Foreign Policy penned the following report, “U.S. Intelligence Undercuts Trump’s Case on Iran-al Qaeda Links” (“Despite claims by Pompeo, Tehran and al Qaeda have been at odds more often than they’ve been aligned since 9/11.

To bolster the Trump administration’s case against Iran, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has given classified briefings to Congress in recent weeks alleging close ties between Iran and al Qaeda. But experts familiar with the views of the U.S. intelligence community are contradicting these claims, saying that the Iran-al Qaeda relationship almost certainly does not include active collaboration in terrorist acts and is even less evident now than it was at the time of 9/11.

“The administration is grasping at straws,” said Seth Jones of the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “We are at the lowest point since 9/11 in terms of al Qaeda numbers in that country. The numbers I have looked at suggest it’s less than five [people].”

Jones, a former senior official in U.S. Special Operations Command and a counterterrorism specialist, co-wrote a study that came to this conclusion at the end of last year, and the U.S. intelligence community believes little has changed since then despite the rapidly rising tensions between the United States and Iran, experts say.

“Beyond that, there is general agreement among experts that to the extent Iran and al Qaeda have a relationship, it is not one of terrorist collaboration but rather a cautious modus vivendi defined by mutual forbearance, in which they agree not to attack each other and occasionally supply harbor (in Iran’s case, to use as a bargaining chip with Washington).”

“Indeed, given their religious enmity, Shiite Iran and Sunni-dominated al Qaeda have been mostly at odds since the terrorist group first emerged in the mountains of neighboring Afghanistan and Pakistan. Well before 9/11, Tehran had been backing the Northern Alliance Afghan guerrillas—who were also U.S. allies—fighting the Taliban hosts of al Qaeda. After 9/11, the Iranians rounded up and allegedly placed under house arrest several al Qaeda figures who were inside Iran, and those numbers have fluctuated since then.”

“Skeptics on Capitol Hill believe Pompeo is making the case about al Qaeda links to avoid asking Congress for a new Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) for military action against Iran. The current AUMF, in force since 9/11, is focused entirely on al Qaeda and associated forces, authorizing the president to use force “against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons.”

In 2019, CNN published the following exposé,  “Exclusive Report: Sold to an ally,lost to an enemy” by Nima Elbagir, Salma Abdelaziz, Mohamed Abo El Gheit and Laura Smith-Spark.(“The US shipped weapons and secrets to the Saudis and Emiratis. Now, some are in the hands of fighters linked to al Qaeda and Iran.”)

Saudi Arabia and its coalition partners have transferred American-made weapons to al Qaeda-linked fighters, hardline Salafi militias, and other factions waging war in Yemen, in violation of their agreements with the United States, a CNN investigation has found.”

“The weapons have also made their way into the hands of Iranian-backed rebels battling the coalition for control of the country, exposing some of America’s sensitive military technology to Tehran and potentially endangering the lives of US troops in other conflict zones.”

“Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, its main partner in the war, have used the US-manufactured weapons as a form of currency to buy the loyalties of militias or tribes, bolster chosen armed actors, and influence the complex political landscape.”

Link to entire report Exclusive: Sold to an Ally, Lost to an Enemy ..

See: MAPS OF IRAQ AND SYRIA SHOWING LOCATION OF THE KURDS, SUNNIS AND SHIITES