The Clinton View of Iraq-al Qaeda Ties
From the December 29, 2003 / January 5, 2004 issue: Connecting the dots
in 1998, but not in 2003.
by Stephen F. Hayes
12/29/2003, Volume 009, Issue 16
ARE AL QAEDA'S links to Saddam Hussein's Iraq just a fantasy of the
Bush administration? Hardly. The Clinton administration also warned the
American public about those ties and defended its response to al
Qaeda terror by citing an Iraqi connection.
For nearly two years, starting in 1996, the CIA monitored the al Shifa
pharmaceutical plant in Khartoum, Sudan. The plant was known to have
deep connections to Sudan's Military Industrial Corporation, and the
CIA had gathered intelligence on the budding relationship between Iraqi
chemical weapons experts and the plant's top officials. The
intelligence included information that several top chemical weapons
specialists from Iraq had attended ceremonies to celebrate the plant's
opening in 1996. And, more compelling, the National Security Agency had
intercepted telephone calls between Iraqi scientists and the plant's
general manager.
Iraq also admitted to having a $199,000 contract with al Shifa for
goods under the oil-for-food program. Those goods were never delivered.
While it's hard to know what significance, if any, to ascribe to this
information, it fits a pattern described in recent CIA reporting on the
overlap in the mid-1990s between al Qaeda-financed groups and firms
that violated U.N. sanctions on behalf of Iraq.
The clincher, however, came later in the spring of 1998, when the CIA
secretly gathered a soil sample from 60 feet outside of the plant's
main gate. The sample showed high levels of
O-ethylmethylphosphonothioic acid, known as EMPTA, which is a key
ingredient for the deadly nerve agent VX. A senior intelligence
official who briefed reporters at the time was asked which countries
make VX using EMPTA. "Iraq is the only country we're aware of," the
official said. "There are a variety of ways of making VX, a variety of
recipes, and EMPTA is fairly unique."
That briefing came on August 24, 1998, four days after the Clinton
administration launched cruise-missile strikes against al Qaeda targets
in Afghanistan and Sudan (Osama bin Laden's headquarters from 1992-96),
including the al Shifa plant. The missile strikes came 13 days after
bombings at U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania killed 257
people--including 12 Americans--and injured nearly 5,000. Clinton
administration officials said that the attacks were in part retaliatory
and in part preemptive. U.S. intelligence agencies had
picked up "chatter" among bin Laden's deputies indicating that more
attacks against American interests were imminent.
The al Shifa plant in Sudan was largely destroyed after being hit by
six Tomahawk missiles. John McWethy, national security correspondent
for ABC News, reported the story on August 25, 1998:
Before the pharmaceutical plant was reduced to rubble by American
cruise missiles, the CIA was secretly gathering evidence that ended up
putting the facility on America's target list. Intelligence sources say
their agents clandestinely gathered soil samples outside the plant and
found, quote, "strong evidence" of a chemical compound called EMPTA, a
compound that has only one known purpose, to make VX nerve gas.
Then, the connection:
The U.S. had been suspicious for months, partly because of Osama bin
Laden's financial ties, but also because of strong connections to Iraq.
Sources say the U.S. had intercepted phone calls from the plant
to a man in Iraq who runs that country's chemical weapons program.
------------
Liberals Hate America!
.
|
