Hayes: Clinton Administration Knew About Iraq/al Qaeda Ties
Written by Jean Shaw
Wednesday, December 24, 2003
In yet another Weekly Standard article documenting the links between
Iraq and al-Qaeda, Stephen F. Hayes turns his attention to the Clinton
administration and finds a wealth of information.
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.
The senior intelligence officials who briefed reporters laid out the
collaboration. ''We knew there were fuzzy ties between [bin Laden] and
the plant but strong ties between him and Sudan and strong ties between
the plant and Sudan and strong ties between the plant and Iraq.''
Although this official was careful not to oversell bin Laden's ties to
the plant, other Clinton officials told reporters that the plant's
general manager lived in a villa owned by bin Laden.
Several Clinton administration national security officials told THE
WEEKLY STANDARD last week that they stand by the intelligence. ''The
bottom line for me is that the targeting was justified and
appropriate,'' said Daniel Benjamin, director of counterterrorism on
Clinton's National Security Council, in an emailed
response to questions. ''I would be surprised if any president-with
the evidence of al Qaeda's intentions evident in Nairobi and Dar es
Salaam and the intelligence on [chemical weapons] that was at hand from
Sudan--would have made a different decision about bombing the plant.''
The current president certainly agrees. ''I think you give the
commander in chief the benefit of the doubt,'' said George W. Bush,
governor of Texas, on August 20, 1998, the same day as the U.S.
counterstrikes. ''This is a foreign policy matter. I'm confident he's
working on the best intelligence available, and I hope it's
successful.''
Wouldn't the bombing of a plant with well-documented connections to
Iraq's chemical weapons program, undertaken in an effort to strike back
at Osama bin Laden's terrorist network, seem to suggest the Clinton
administration national security officials believed Iraq was working
with al Qaeda?
----------
Liberals Hate America!
.
|
