The Ties The Lib’s Deny

Funny how the Senate is releasing a report that states Iraq had NO ties to Al-Qaeda:

There’s no evidence Saddam Hussein had a relationship with Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and his Al-Qaida associates, according to a Senate report on prewar intelligence on Iraq. Democrats said the report undercuts President Bush’s justification for going to war.

The declassified document being released Friday by the Senate Intelligence Committee also explores the role that inaccurate information supplied by the anti-Saddam exile group the Iraqi National Congress had in the march to war.

When the resolution authorizing the use of force by Congress stated:

“Whereas members of al-Qaida, an organization bearing responsibility for attacks on the United States, its citizens, and interests, including the attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, are known to be in Iraq;

How is it they could disregard the mountain of information that proves that there was indeed a tie between Iraq & Al-Qaeda:

OSAMA BIN LADEN and Saddam Hussein had an operational relationship from the early 1990s to 2003 that involved training in explosives and weapons of mass destruction, logistical support for terrorist attacks, al Qaeda training camps and safe haven in Iraq, and Iraqi financial support for al Qaeda–perhaps even for Mohamed Atta–according to a top secret U.S. government memorandum obtained by THE WEEKLY STANDARD.

The memo, dated October 27, 2003, was sent from Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas J. Feith to Senators Pat Roberts and Jay Rockefeller, the chairman and vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee. It was written in response to a request from the committee as part of its investigation into prewar intelligence claims made by the administration. Intelligence reporting included in the 16-page memo comes from a variety of domestic and foreign agencies, including the FBI, the Defense Intelligence Agency, the Central Intelligence Agency, and the National Security Agency. Much of the evidence is detailed, conclusive, and corroborated by multiple sources. Some of it is new information obtained in custodial interviews with high-level al Qaeda terrorists and Iraqi officials, and some of it is more than a decade old. The picture that emerges is one of a history of collaboration between two of America’s most determined and dangerous enemies.

According to the memo–which lays out the intelligence in 50 numbered points–Iraq-al Qaeda contacts began in 1990 and continued through mid-March 2003, days before the Iraq War began. Most of the numbered passages contain straight, fact-based intelligence reporting, which some cases includes an evaluation of the credibility of the source. This reporting is often followed by commentary and analysis.

The relationship began shortly before the first Gulf War. According to reporting in the memo, bin Laden sent “emissaries to Jordan in 1990 to meet with Iraqi government officials.” At some unspecified point in 1991, according to a CIA analysis, “Iraq sought Sudan’s assistance to establish links to al Qaeda.” The outreach went in both directions. According to 1993 CIA reporting cited in the memo, “bin Laden wanted to expand his organization’s capabilities through ties with Iraq.”

The Bill Clinton administration stated the same thing in 1998:

Additionally, the indictment states that Al Qaeda reached an agreement with Iraq not to work against the regime of Saddam Hussein and that they would work cooperatively with Iraq, particularly in weapons development.

A 1999 Newsweek article:

Here’s what is known so far: Saddam Hussein, who has a long record of supporting terrorism, is trying to rebuild his intelligence network overseas–assets that would allow him to establish a terrorism network. U.S. sources say he is reaching out to Islamic terrorists, including some who may be linked to Osama bin Laden, the wealthy Saudi exile accused of masterminding the bombing of two U.S. embassies in Africa last summer. U.S. intelligence has had reports of contacts between low-level agents. Saddam and bin Laden have interests–and enemies–in common. Both men want U.S. military forces out of Saudi Arabia. Bin Laden has been calling for all-out war on Americans, using as his main pretext Washington’s role in bombing and boycotting Iraq. Now bin Laden is engaged in something of a public-relations offensive, having granted recent interviews, one for NEWSWEEK (following story). He says “any American who pays taxes to his government” is a legitimate target.

The AP in 1999:

Iraqi President Saddam Hussein has offered asylum to bin Laden, who openly supports Iraq against the Western powers.

The Federation of American Scientists in Jan of 1999: (not known for their conservative views)

On Dec 26, as AP reported, Al Sharq Al Awsat published an interview with bin Ladin in which he said, “‘The British and the American people loudly declared their support for their leaders’ decision to attack Iraq. ‘ . . . This made it ‘the duty of Muslims to confront, fight and kill’ Britons and Americans.”

A series of articles followed in the international, particularly Arabic, press about links between Iraq and bin Ladin. Some party/ies wanted to put the story out, it seems. Some information in the articles is known and reliable, like the role of Hassan Turabi, head of Sudan’s Islamic movement, in putting Osama bin Ladin in contact with Iraqi intelligence, during bin Ladin’s residence in Khartoum. But other information would not likely be known to outsiders and seems invented.

That said, on Dec 28, the Italian paper, Corriere della Sera, reported “Saddam Husayn and Osama Bin Ladin have sealed a pact. Faruq Hijazi, the former director of the Iraqi secret services and now the country’s ambassador to Turkey, held a secret meeting with the extremist leader on 21 December. . . . Hijazi reiterated Iraq’s amenability to offering shelter to Osama and to his mujahedin, ‘You will always be a welcome guest. . . We cannot forget our debt of gratitude. This was a reference to the establishment last February of the ‘International Islamic Front against the Crusaders and the Jews,’ announced by Osama in the midst of one of the periodic crises between Iraq and the United Nations. . . The same ritual was reenacted during the most recent crisis. The day after the air strikes, Osama called an international news conference and issued a new statement, including threats that neither Washington nor London are taking lightly. . . . ”

On Jan 1, the Paris-based, Al Watan Al Arabi, reported that in late Oct, 98, an Iraqi and Sudanese visited bin Ladin in Afghanistan. “Informed intelligence sources . . . were convinced that it was part of a new plan for cooperation and coordination, or more accurately a renewed one, between Iraq, bin Ladin and Sudan. Information available to these sources confirmed that bin-Ladin began to establish close ties with Iraq at least five years ago, specifically when the leader of Muslim extremists chose to reside in Sudan with the blessing and protection of Dr. Hassan al-Turabi, leader of the National Islamic Movement. These sources asserted that they received in the past few years confirmed and detailed information that cooperation between bin Ladin and Iraq entered ‘an important and grave stage’ through their cooperation in the field of producing chemical and biological weapons. “Al Watan al-Arabi’s information indicated that several western diplomatic and security sources, including European ones, which have good relations with Sudan, warned in secret reports they sent at the end of last year that Iraq, Sudan, and bin Ladin were cooperating and coordinating in the field of chemical weapons. These reports said that several chemical factories were built in Sudan. They were financed by bin Ladin and supervised by Iraqi experts and technicians following a deal between Baghdad, Khartoum, and bin-Ladin. . . . “Informed sources asserted that the meeting was extremely serious. The two sides laid down the details of the biggest act of cooperation and coordination between the extremist Islamic organizations and Baghdad for confronting the United States, the common enemy. This information indicated that the meeting focused on the ways with which Iraq could help the germ and chemical weapons laboratories. A second meeting was held later in which “Bin Ladin stressed to the Iraqi envoys that he could reach areas, which the Iraqi intelligence could not reach. He referred to the spread of his cells in the Arab countries and the world and focused on his ability to penetrate Arab and Islamic countries through fundamentalist groups.”

On Jan 10, the Saudi-financed, London-based, weekly, Al-Majallah, reported that in Oct 98, an Iraqi intelligence official met with the Taliban leader, Mullah Omar, Osama bin Ladin, and Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri, leader of Egypt’s Jihad movement. In Dec, according to Al-Majllah, the Iraqi embassy in Islamabad held a series of meetings with “leaders of a number of Pakistani fundamentalist movements and elements from the Taleban, with the knowledge of Pakistani military intelligence . . . On 21 December a high-ranking Iraqi diplomat normally based in Turkey visited Taleban leader Mullah Omar’s residence in Kandahar, then headed for Khowat where he met with bin Ladin and al-Zawahiri. . . . [He] affirmed to his Afghan and Arab audience Iraq’s willingness to provide financial, logistic, political and informational support for the Taleban and the Afghan Arabs.”

On Jan 3, the Daily Telegraph, reported on the UK/US investigation into the Dec 29 kidnapping of 16 UK, US, and Australian tourists and fatal shooting of four, by fundamentalists in Yemen. The Telegraph said that authorities suspected that the Anglo-Saxons “were kidnapped as ‘direct retribution’ for last month’s air strikes on Iraq, and not to achieve the release of local Islamic militants as Yemeni authorities claimed originally. The detectives suspect that the tourists may have been kidnapped to ‘shield’ Saddam Hussein from further bombing raids, with a warning that they would die if Iraq was attacked again.”

On Jan 12, Al-Ittihad (Abu Dhabi) reported, “Kuwaiti security authorities have received an important report indicating that there are hundreds of ‘Arab Afghans’ receiving advanced military training at al-Nasiriyah District in the south of Iraq. . . . The ‘Arab Afghans’ are being trained within the context of ‘an alliance’ struck recently between the Iraqi Government and an international network of militants. Kuwaiti security authorities are said to have been able to dent that alliance when they smashed a ‘subversive cell’ made up of 25 Egyptians, which operated on Kuwaiti territory. . . It emerged from investigations that there is an agreement in place between Iraq’s intelligence services and a front comprising six militant organizations whose ranks included former fighters in the Afghan war effort. . . . “‘Al-Ra’y al-Amm,’ a Kuwaiti daily newspaper, said yesterday that the country’s security police had rounded up 25 people . . . The daily said that the 25 were working on behalf of Iraq and that along with them were seized leaflets urging that the Arabs rise against the Americans. The fliers also featured words of incitement against the regime in Kuwait. The arrested suspects confessed to being members of a cell that had been organized by the Iraqi regime to engage in activity designed to hurt the stability and security of the state of Kuwait. . . “‘Al-Ittihad’ has come by a copy of the leaflets that were caught with the 25 Egyptians. One of them led with this sentence: ‘A statement from the Liberation Party-the Province of Kuwait.’ The leaflet urged the population of Kuwait to drop their arms and refrain from fighting against the Iraqis considering that ‘your taking up arms against your fellow Muslims who come from other nations in point of fact has nothing to do with jihad because it is a sin for a Muslim to do battle against other Muslims. . . .”

Finally, Al Watan Al Arabi, Jan 22, suggested that Saddam’s Jan 6 Army Day speech, calling on Arabs to overthrow their governments, “was made in the context of a grand and well-thought-out plan designed so as to turn the clock back to a climate not unlike the run-up to operation ‘Desert Storm.’ . . . The Iraqi president is said to have huddled with his sons Uday and Qusay in late November, with the private session ending in the three making up their mind to fight their last battle that would see the Iraqi leader join a common cause and join forces with all extremist groups, Islamic and otherwise, who are known for their hostility to the United States. The scenario drawn up by President Saddam Husayn and his sons calls for that alliance to launch a global terrorist war against the great Satan, the United States, and its allies. The campaign would pursue, in the words of the Iraqi president, an uncompromising and scorched earth policy. . . . “It is said that the contribution made by Iraqi Army soldiers and security personnel in the war in southern Sudan and in south Yemen has had the effect of fostering Baghdad’s relations with the extremists who happened to be there in Sudan and Yemen, both of which are ‘allies’ of Iraq. In fact, Hasan al-Turabi and Ali Abdallah Salih, the president of Yemen, have continued to play a role on behalf of Iraq, winning over Islamic groups for the Baghdad government. Yemen had been regarded as a rearguard base for those extremists who came from various nationalities. Yemen had been using them as much to advance its own national interests as to help Iraq, which viewed the presence of those militants on Yemen’s soil as leverage with which it could bring pressure to bear on Gulf states. The abduction of 16 Western hostages a few weeks ago by the Aden-Abyan Islamic Army was to retaliate for the US-UK air strikes against Iraq. . . . “The intelligence sources saw in the arrest of 25 Islamists in Kuwait for their involvement in the distribution of leaflets hostile to the Americans a fresh warning that this new front had actually begun to activate its cells in concert with Islamic groups based in a number of countries. . . . Finally, al Watan al Arabi described events of the first half of 1993. “In the month of June of that year, the Iraqi President Saddam Husayn surprised the world when he made the threat in response to the military strike carried out against Iraq then [the US cruise missile attack on Iraqi intelligence headquarters] that he would unleash ‘terrorist attacks against the United States and its allies. . . . The threats made by Iraq to lead terror attacks against US and Zionist and other interests coincided with the investigation into the bombing of the World Trade Center in New York in the month of February 1993. Several months later, the investigation led to the discovery of a threat linking Islamic extremists with the Iraqi regime. That was confirmed when it emerged that the key suspect, Ramzi Yusuf, had sought refuge in Iraq after the New York blast and remained in Iraq for a number of months.”

Indeed, some Arab governments suspect/are aware that Iraq was behind the Trade Center bombing. One of those involved in the bombing, Mahmud Abu Halima, an Egyptian fundamentalist, fled to his family home in the Nile delta, where he was quickly found and arrested by Egyptian authorities. Under harsh interrotgation, Abu Halima told them that two Iraqis had participated in the bombing, one of whom had been the mastermind, (Abu Halima knew Ramzi Yousef as an Iraqi.) It was only two years after the Gulf war and the Egyptians understood that Iraq was behind the bomb. As one official Egyptian source told Newsweek’s Chris Dickey, they didn’t understand why the US did nothing about it. But the Clinton administration did, or thought it did, although its response to the suspected Iraqi role in the Trade Center bombing was related to events elsewhere, including in NYC. The Trade Center bombing was followed by an FBI undercover operation, carried out in the spring of 93, aimed at the local fundamentalists. A Sudanese emigre picked up the bait to make jihad. His original target was a Manhattan armory. But he had two “friends” at Sudan’s UN mission–intelligence officers. They suggested he target the UN instead and offered to provide diplomatic plates to get a bomb laden van into the UN parking garage. They also suggested adding another target, New York’s federal building. Two tunnels were added as well. When the FBI had the evidence it needed–the conspirators on videotape, mixing what they thought was a bomb–the FBI arrested them, on Jun 24. Two days later, Clinton attacked Iraqi intelligence headquarters. Publicly, he said the attack was retaliation for Saddam’s attempt to kill George Bush. But Clinton also meant it for the two New York bombing conspiracies. NY FBI, like the Egyptians, suspected Iraq was behind the Trade Center bomb. And US authorities knew of Sudan’s involvement in the second plot, as the FBI was running it. The White House recognized that Sudan alone didn’t make sense. US-Sudanese relations were not that hostile. The White House thought in terms of fundamentalism and thought Sudan was fronting for Iran. But Iran had no reason to attack the UN. After all, the 1988 UNSC cease-fire that ended the Iraq-Iran war determined that Iraq was the aggressor in that war and declared that Iraq owed Iran large reparations. But who hates the UN more than anyone else? And also has good relations with Sudan? Of course, Iraq. But the White House did not understand that. When Clinton struck Iraqi intelligence headquarters, Jun 26, he believed that the attack would stop Saddam from carrying out any more terrorist attacks, while it would serve as warning to Sudan and Iran. Thus, Tom Friedman reported, in an article dated Jun 27, that appeared in the NYT, Jun 28, “White House officials said today that their only regret about the missile attack on the Iraqi intelligence headquarters was that there was no CNN crew there to broadcast the event live so it could be watched in the Sudan, Iran and other countries suspected of involvement in terorism. Administration officials say they have no conclusive evidence that the Sudanese or Iranian intelligence services were involved with the Muslims recently arrested in the New York area and accused of plotting to bomb the United Nations and other sites. But they said that when the White House was planning the strike in Baghdad, it had not only the Iraqi audience in mind, but also the intelligence services of countries suspected of sponsoring terrorism, like the bombing of the World Trade Center in New York.” Thus, as the prominent Iraqi journalist, Salah Mukhtar, wrote in Al Jumhuriyah, Jul 3, “It is . . . a wrong conclusion on Clinton’s part that striking the intelligence headquarters will ease the Iraqis’ anger. [ED: ie stop Iraq’s terrorism, which is driven by anger]. This also confirms Clinton’s weakness and naivete.” Or as “Iraq News” told then NSC adviser on the Middle East, Martin Indyk, in Dec 94, “One strike on an empty building at night is not going to stop Saddam forever.”

Even Saddam’s own memo’s prove there was a relationship:

The Reform and Advice Committee:

Headed by the Saudi Usamah Bin Ladin [UBL], who is a member of a wealthy Saudi family with his roots going back to Hadhramut. This family has a strong ties with the ruling family in Saudi. He is one of the leaders of the Afghan-Arabs, who volunteered for jihad in Afghanistan. After the expulsion of the Russians, he moved to live in Sudan in 1992 subsequent to the Islamists arrival to power in Sudan.

[A]s a result of his antagonistic positions against the ruling Saudi family in opposition to the foreign presence in Saudi Arabia, the Saudi authorities issued a decree to withdrawing his Saudi Citizenship. We approached the committee by doing the following:

A. During the visit of the Sudanese Dr. Ibrahim Al-Sunusi to Iraq and his meeting with Mr. `Uday Saddam Hussein, on December 13th 1994, with the presence of the respectable, Mr. Director of the Intelligence Services, he [Dr. Al-Sunusi] pointed out that the opposing Usamah Bin Ladin, residing in Sudan, who expressed reservations and fear that he may be depicted by his enemies as an agent for Iraq; is ready to meet with us in Sudan (The Honorable Presidency was informed of the results of the meeting in our letter 782 on December 17th 1994).

B. An approval to meet with opposer Usama Bin Ladin by the Intelligence Services was given by the Honorable Presidency in its letter 138, dated January 11th 1995 (attachment 6). He [UBL] was met by the previous general director of M ‘I M 4 [QCC: possible the previous General Director of Intelligence] in Sudan, with the presence of the Sudanese, Ibrahim Al-Sannusi, on February 19th 1995. A discussion ensued with him about his organization, he [UBL] requested the broadcasting of the speeches of Sheikh Sulayman Al-`Udah (who has an influence within Saudi Arabia and outside, due to his religious and influential personality), to designate a program for them through the radio broadcast directed inside Iraq, and to perform joint operations against the foreign forces in the land of Hijaz. (The Honorable Presidency was informed of the details of the meeting in our letter 370 on March 4th 1995, attachment 7)

C. The approval was received from the Leader, Mr. President, may God keep him, to designate a program for them {QCC: UBL and the Sheikh] through the directed radio broadcast. We were left to develop the relationship and the cooperation between the two sides to find out what other avenues of cooperation and agreement would open up. The Sudanese were informed of the Honorable Presidency’s approval of the above through the representative of the Respectable Director of Intelligence Services our Ambassador in Khartoum.

D. Due to the recent situation in Sudan, and being accused of supporting and embracing terrorism, an agreement with the opposer Saudi Usamah Bin Laden was reached, to depart Sudan to another region; whereas, he left Khartoum in July of 1996. The information indicates that he is currently in Afghanistan.

The relationship with him is ongoing through the Sudanese side. Currently, we are working to revitalize this relationship through a new channel in light of his present location.

And I could go on and on and on…..but you get the point.

There is a mountain of evidence that Osama had a relationship with Saddam. Was Saddam directly involved in 9/11, highly doubtful. But to even try to allege that there was no relationship is just rewriting history. As the liberals are doing with “The Path To 9/11” they are attempting to make their legacy appear bright and shiny when in reality it is anything but.

Curt

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