September 19, 2003, 9:00 a.m.
No Question About It
Saddam and the terrorists.
James S. Robbins
NRO Contributing Editor
When President Bush stated that "we've had no evidence that Saddam
Hussein was involved with the September 11th" attacks, his critics
quickly spun this into "Saddam Hussein had no links to terrorism."
This was despite the fact that in the same breath the president had
said, "there's no question that Saddam Hussein had al Qaeda ties."
According to Editor & Publisher, the story got little play, though it
is certain to come back to haunt the president during the election
campaign when Democrats seek to wedge the Iraq and al Qaeda issues.
Thus, it is useful to review the bidding on the known facts of the
relationship between the two.
While it is still debatable to what degree Saddam Hussein supported
the global terrorist network, it is becoming increasingly clear that
Iraq provided terror groups with some forms of logistical,
intelligence, transportation, training, weapons, and other support.
The emerging evidence points to the conclusion that al Qaeda had a
cooperative relationship - that is, a strategic alliance - with Iraq.
The conventional wisdom has been that this could not have been the
case because bin Laden, an Islamic fanatic reactionary, and Saddam, a
secular Baathist modernizer, could never align or cooperate. On a
personal level, they probably hated each other. If intelligence
analysts approach their task with the premise that a relationship
could not exist, they will lack the analytical framework necessary to
piece together the clues that could demonstrate that it did. Maybe an
Elvis Presley/Richard Nixon-type photo of the two would convince them,
but not much else.
INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS 101
But the premise is facile. The principle that drove Iraq and al Qaeda
together is one of the oldest in international-relations theory - the
enemy of my enemy is my friend. The motive for their alliance was a
common hatred for the United States and Israel. Ideology seldom
determines wartime-alliance structures, and for both Saddam and Osama
the 1990s were wartime. The Iraq/al Qaeda combination is as reasonable
as the temporary strategic alliance between the U.S. and the Soviet
Union against Nazi Germany, or Syrian and American troops fighting
side by side during Operation Desert Storm. (Note that it is hard to
distinguish Syria from Iraq ideologically, and Baathist solidarity was
certainly not a motivating factor in the relationship between the two
countries.) Moreover, despite their personal dislike for each other,
Saddam Hussein was the only state leader openly to praise bin Laden's
attacks on the U.S. (if not bin Laden himself).
Saddam Hussein showed no reluctance to support terrorism per se during
his career. The fact that he gave money to the families of Palestinian
suicide terrorists and had a close working relationship with the PLO
was well known, and something he admitted. The Iraqi regime maintained
a terrorist training camp at Salman Pak near Baghdad where foreign
terrorists were instructed in methods of taking over commercial
aircraft using weapons no more sophisticated than knives (interesting
thought that). Saddam also harbored Abu Nidal and other members of his
international terror organization (ANO) in Baghdad. Abu Nidal died
under suspicious circumstances in Baghdad in August 2002, an apparent
multiple gunshot suicide. Abd-al-Rahman Isa, ANO's second in command
based in Amman, Jordan, was kidnapped September 11, 2002, and has not
been heard from since. Coalition forces did recently apprehend ANO
member Khala Khadr al-Salahat, the man who reputedly made the bomb for
the Libyans that brought down Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie,
Scotland. He was hiding out in Baghdad. Another bomb maker, Abdul
Rahman Yasin, was also a Baghdad resident. He was one of the
conspirators in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing who had fled there
after being detained briefly by the FBI. Recent document finds in
Tikrit show that Iraq supplied Yasin with both money and sanctuary.
The 1993 WTC attack was masterminded by Yasin's associate Ramzi
Yousef, who received financial support from al Qaeda through Khalid
Shaikh Mohammed, a key 9/11 planner.
There is also the case of Abu Zubayr, an officer in Saddam's secret
police who was also the ringleader of an al Qaeda cell in Morocco. He
attended the September 5, 2001 meeting in Spain with other al Qaeda
operatives, including Ramzi Bin-al-Shibh, the 9/11 financial chief.
Abu Zubayr was apprehended in May, 2002, while putting together a plot
to mount suicide attacks on U.S. ships passing through the straits of
Gibraltar. He has allegedly since stated that Iraq trained and
supplied chemical weapons to al Qaeda. In the fall of 2001 al Qaeda
refugees from Afghanistan took refuge in northern Iraq until they were
driven out by Coalition forces, and Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi, an al Qaeda
terrorist active in Europe and North Africa, fled from Baghdad during
Operation Iraqi Freedom. He has reportedly been sent back to Iraq to
coordinate al Qaeda activities there.
Iraq made direct payments to the Philippine-based al Qaeda-affiliated
Abu Sayyaf group. Hamsiraji Sali, an Abu Sayyaf leader on the U.S.
most-wanted terrorist list, stated that his gang received about one
million pesos (around $20,000) each year from Iraq, for chemicals to
make bombs. The link was substantiated immediately after a bombing in
Zamboanga City in October 2002 (in which three people were killed
including an American Green Beret), when Abu Sayyaf leaders called up
the deputy secretary of the Iraqi embassy in Manila, Husham Hussain.
Six days later, the cell phone used to call Hussain was employed as
the timer on a bomb set to go off near the Philippine military's
Southern Command headquarters. Fortunately, the bomb failed to
detonate, and the phone yielded various contact numbers, including
Hussain's and Sali's. This evidence, coupled with other intelligence
the Philippine government would not release, led to Hussain's
expulsion in February 2003. In March, ten Iraqi nationals, some with
direct links to al Qaeda, were rounded up in the Philippines and
deported as undesirable aliens. In addition, two more consulate
officials were expelled for spying.
The most intriguing potential link is reflected in documents found by
Toronto Star reporter Mitch Potter in Baghdad in April, 2003. The
documents detail direct links between al Qaeda and Saddam's regime
dating back at least to 1998, and mention Osama bin Laden by name. The
find supports an October 2001 report by William Safire that noted,
among other things, a 1998 meeting in Baghdad between al Qaeda #2
Ayman al Zawahiri and Saddam's vice president, Taha Yasin Ramadan.
Other reports have alleged bin Laden himself traveled to Iraq around
that time, or at least planned to. Former Iraqi ambassador to Turkey,
Farouk Hijazi, now in custody, allegedly met with bin Laden before the
9/11 attacks.
THE ATTA CASE
The alleged meeting between 9/11 team leader Mohammed Atta and Iraqi
intelligence agents in Prague, Czech Republic (CR) is a unique case in
that the Czechs have been more adamant about proving it than the
United States. Interior Minister Stanislav Gross held a press
conference on October 26, 2001, revealing the details of the Prague
connection. According to Czech police, visa records indicate that Atta
visited Prague twice in 2000. His first confirmed visit was while he
was in transit from Hamburg to Newark, New Jersey, June 2-3, 2000. The
German newspaper Das Bild reported on October 25, 2001 that according
to unnamed FBI sources, Atta met with Iraqi diplomat Ahmad Samir
al-Ani in a cafe in Prague on June 2. Another report has it that Atta
did not leave the airport terminal since he lacked a visa. Later that
summer Atta flew back to the CR. He stayed one night in the Prague
Hilton, and may have spent a brief period of time in the town of Kutna
Hora, 35 miles north of Prague, under the name Mohammed Sayed Ahmed.
During his second visit, he allegedly met with Ahmed Hedshani, the
former Iraqi ambassador to Turkey.
The more controversial part of the story is the alleged meeting
between Atta and al-Ani in the Iraqi embassy in Prague in the spring
of 2001. Atta was identified based on photographs published after the
9/11 attacks by an informer who was at the embassy at the time and had
met Atta, though said he was "not 100 percent sure" it was him. The
Czech counterintelligence service (BIS) gives it a 70 percent
probability. Al-Ani was expelled from the Czech Republic in April 22,
2001, for "activities which conflicted with his status." He was
allegedly plotting an attack on Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
(RFE/RL), which was also supporting Radio Free Iraq.
But if they met, why? It is unlikely they were discussing the alleged
RFE/RL operation, since Atta had more important things to do and the
Iraqis did not need his help with that one anyway. They might have
been discussing the 9/11 attacks, but there is no evidence to support
that claim. The article in Das Bild raised another, more intriguing
possibility: The Iraqis were supplying Atta with anthrax spores for
use in attacks on the United States. The anthrax attacks had commenced
shortly before the article was published, and the idea seemed
plausible at the time. In fact, it still does - the anthrax used in
the attacks was weapons grade, the attacks originated from areas near
where the hijackers had been active, and two years of investigation
have not turned up the presupposed domestic perpetrator. At some
point, you would think Occam's Razor would come into play.
The U.S. Justice Department disputes most of the above. At the time of
the alleged 2001 meeting, Atta had been residing in the United States
for some time and was under tight surveillance. Because the U.S. has
no independent evidence that the 2001 meeting occurred, and since Atta
was apparently being watched closely, Justice concluded that the
meeting could not have taken place. Yet, it came and went in a day or
so. If Atta was under such a high degree of scrutiny, one wonders why
the FBI did not know more about him or what he was up to. (Iraqi
deputy prime minister, Tariq Aziz also denied the meetings took
place.) The affair has been a matter of contention between the U.S.
and CR. Interior Minister Gross, BIS chief Jiri Ruzek, and Jan Klas,
chairman of the parliamentary commission overseeing the BIS, have
stated that thus far they have seen no evidence to challenge their
conclusions. Clearly, the essential person to talk to is al-Ani. He
was reportedly apprehended by U.S. forces on July 2, 2003, though
where he was caught, where he is now, and what he has had to say about
the alleged meetings, are all unanswered questions.
Last June, former CIA Director James Woolsey said that "there were
enough connections [between al Qaeda] and Iraq and Iraqi intelligence
that we ought to be looking at this very hard, as we capture files and
people and hard disk drives in Iraq and so on, and see what we can
turn up." There are more open-sourced links than those noted here - I
would refer readers to Appendix A of Richard Miniter's Losing Bin
Laden for some more noteworthy incidents and possible evidence of
collusion. As I have noted before, Saddam Hussein had means, motive,
and opportunity to be involved with global terrorism, and al Qaeda in
particular. Much remains to be revealed, and one hopes the
administration is compiling a dossier to make the case in detail and
beyond doubt. The president has stated that there is no question these
ties existed, and it is frustrating that something unquestionable
keeps being questioned so persistently.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Ken (NY)
Chairman,
Department Of Redundancy Department
____________________________________
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"Clearly, a civilization that feels guilty
for everything it is and does will lack
the energy and conviction to defend itself."
--Jean Francois Revel
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A: Telling your parents you’re gay.
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