Clinton first linked al Qaeda to Saddam
By Rowan Scarborough
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
The Clinton administration talked about firm evidence linking Saddam
Hussein's regime to Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network years before
President Bush made the same statements.
The issue arose again this month after the National Commission on
Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States reported there was no
"collaborative relationship" between the old Iraqi regime and bin Laden.
Democrats have cited the staff report to accuse Mr. Bush of making
inaccurate statements about a linkage. Commission members, including a
Democrat and two Republicans, quickly came to the administration's defense
by saying there had been such contacts.
In fact, during President Clinton's eight years in office, there were at
least two official pronouncements of an alarming alliance between Baghdad
and al Qaeda. One came from William S. Cohen, Mr. Clinton's defense
secretary. He cited an al Qaeda-Baghdad link to justify the bombing of a
pharmaceutical plant in Sudan.
Mr. Bush cited the linkage, in part, to justify invading Iraq and
ousting Saddam. He said he could not take the risk of Iraq's weapons falling
into bin Laden's hands.
The other pronouncement is contained in a Justice Department indictment
on Nov. 4, 1998, charging bin Laden with murder in the bombings of two U.S.
embassies in Africa.
The indictment disclosed a close relationship between al Qaeda and
Saddam's regime, which included specialists on chemical weapons and all
types of bombs, including truck bombs, a favorite weapon of terrorists.
The 1998 indictment said: "Al Qaeda also forged alliances with the
National Islamic Front in the Sudan and with the government of Iran and its
associated terrorist group Hezbollah for the purpose of working together
against their perceived common enemies in the West, particularly the United
States. In addition, al Qaeda reached an understanding with the government
of Iraq that al Qaeda would not work against that government and that on
particular projects, specifically including weapons development, al Qaeda
would work cooperatively with the government of Iraq."
Shortly after the embassy bombings, Mr. Clinton ordered air strikes on
al Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan and on the Shifa pharmaceutical
factory in Sudan.
To justify the Sudanese plant as a target, Clinton aides said it was
involved in the production of deadly VX nerve gas. Officials further
determined that bin Laden owned a stake in the operation and that its
manager had traveled to Baghdad to learn bomb-making techniques from
Saddam's weapons scientists.
Mr. Cohen elaborated in March in testimony before the September 11
commission.
He testified that "bin Laden had been living [at the plant], that he
had, in fact, money that he had put into this military industrial
corporation, that the owner of the plant had traveled to Baghdad to meet
with the father of the VX program."
He said that if the plant had been allowed to produce VX that was used
to kill thousands of Americans, people would have asked him, " 'You had a
manager that went to Baghdad; you had Osama bin Laden, who had funded, at
least the corporation, and you had traces of [VX precursor] and you did
what? And you did nothing?' Is that a responsible activity on the part of
the secretary of defense?"
--
USAF VET
3rd LES CAB, PI
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