Posted on 11/19/2003 4:46:55 AM PST by kattracks
(CNSNews.com) - America's greatest ally in the war on terrorism - Great Britain - is the site Wednesday for President Bush's latest defense of the rationale for invading Iraq. Against this backdrop is the renewed speculation about whether former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein and fugitive terror mastermind Osama bin Laden had a long-standing working relationship before the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States.
A report this week in the conservative magazine, the Weekly Standard, cited a leaked memo dated Oct. 27 and written by U.S. Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas J. Feith as evidence of a relationship between Hussein's regime and bin Laden's terror network between 1990 and this year. The memo was addressed to Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Pat Roberts (R-Kan.) and Vice Chairman Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.), according to the Weekly Standard.
On Tuesday, Roberts said the memo contained "highly classified material" and represented "an egregious leak." He said the committee staff was drafting a letter to be sent to the Justice Department, asking it to investigate whether the leak constituted a crime. Rockefeller reportedly also supports such an investigation.
Meanwhile, the Intelligence Committee continues to analyze the information that was collected and made available to the Bush administration in the weeks and months prior to the March 2003 invasion of Iraq. There is no timeline for the completion of the committee's report, according to an aide to Roberts.
However, another controversial memo, this one written earlier this month by a Democratic committee staff member suggesting that Democrats use the pre-war intelligence-gathering process to try to damage Bush's re-election chances, is still causing hard feelings. Some briefings for Intelligence Committee Democrats have been canceled, according to an aide to Roberts who did not want to be identified.
The eventual report produced by the Intelligence Committee might bolster the allegations of a Hussein/bin Laden working relationship and add rationale for the administration going to war with Iraq, or it might downplay the Hussein/bin Laden link and weaken the reasoning for war among many Americans, especially since no weapons of mass destruction have been found in Iraq.
Last fall and early this year, members of the Bush administration commented several times on the alleged links between Iraq and al Qaeda. National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, for example, in a September 2002 interview on PBS's The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, said the administration had learned that there were "some al Qaeda personnel who found refuge in Baghdad.
"There clearly are contacts between al Qaeda and Iraq that can be documented," Rice said at the time.
In January of this year, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld reportedly asserted that evidence of a link between Iraq and al Qaeda "has grown." Later, however, after a United Nations terrorism committee reportedly found no evidence of such links, several former Bush administration members came forward to say the claims of an Iraq/al Qaeda nexus were exaggerated.
While contending that "there's no question that Saddam Hussein had al Qaeda ties," even President Bush in September sought to downplay the connection, acknowledging that "we have no evidence that Saddam Hussein was involved with the Sept. 11" terrorist strikes.
James Phillips, a research fellow at the Heritage Foundation, said even if the evidence of an Iraq/al Qaeda link exists, the Bush administration might be reluctant to publicize it.
"One possibility is that the intelligence on weapons of mass destruction didn't hold up as well as they might have liked, so they're being extra cautious on this in order to protect their credibility," Phillips said.
"From what I've seen, there's definitely a long history of contacts, but it's unclear exactly what those contacts amounted to...I think very few people think it amounts to Iraqi control. Perhaps the Iraqis were just trying to keep informed," Phillips added.
Phillips said Vice President Dick Cheney appears to be the most aggressive member of the administration in terms of voicing the Iraq/al Qaeda suspicions, but that the CIA seems more skeptical.
One of the reasons used to dismiss the links in the past was the fact that as the secular leader of Iraq, Hussein would have little chance of developing a relationship with bin Laden, whom many people consider a religious fanatic. But Phillips said that element alone would not have discouraged such a hookup.
"That's crazy. That's an assumption that is demonstrably wrong because Saddam has cooperated with Hamas and Palestine Islamic Jihad...and that was kind of a CIA presumption...I think that doesn't really stand up," Phillips said.
Anthony Cordesman, an expert on the Middle East and South Asia at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), said the timing of the leaked memo, which served as the basis for the Weekly Standard article, "raises real questions about credibility."
"The quality of the leak and how much information is actually being leaked is unclear. You have a long chain of possibilities, uncertain evidence and invalidated claims that don't really describe the clear relationship," Cordesman said. "And it is the kind of intelligence analysis that looks like you took every indicator you could find and tried to prove a point rather than try to create an objective and balanced analysis."
Cordesman would not discount the possibility that the Feith memo had been planted, adding: "If this is an administration effort, it is a remarkably clumsy one."
The attacks currently being waged against U.S. forces in Iraq, Cordesman said, involve almost exclusively loyalists to Saddam Hussein's ousted regime.
"As of last week, people were talking about 95 percent of the force and attacks being related to former regime loyalists. Gen. [John] Abizaid [commander, CENTCOM] was very clear that out of the 20 suspects who might have al Qaeda ties, none could be confirmed," Cordesman said.
"There is no hard evidence" of an Iraq/al Qaeda nexus, Cordesman added. "There are indications of some kinds of contact, which of course, would occur in any case. Intelligence services never leave movements like this alone. And there are, shall we say, more conspiracy theories than well-reasoned analysis."
Bush White House spokesman Scott McClellan on Monday may have signaled another shift in the administration's willingness to talk about the links mentioned in the Weekly Standard report.
"The ties between, or the relationship between Saddam Hussein's regime and al Qaeda were well-documented," McClellan told White House reporters. "They were documented by Secretary [of State Colin] Powell before the United Nations, back in February, I believe. And we have previously talked about those ties that are there."
As the Senate Intelligence Committee continues to investigate any of those potential ties, the Democratic staff memo suggesting that Democrats use the panel to score political points is still making it impossible for members of the committee to conduct business as usual, according to the aide to Sen. Roberts.
"The regular give-and-take really has sort of stopped because there is a lack of trust on the chairman's part - that the minority doesn't just wish to pre-judge the whole inquiry. And no one's disavowed the memo, and no one's taken responsibility for it," the Roberts staff aide said.
There is currently no target date for the committee to complete its work.
"They don't have a time frame because just a week prior to this (Democratic staff) memo, both Roberts and Rockefeller asked for additional information from the DoD (Department of Defense), the State Department, the NSC (National Security Council) - and that information has been coming in. So there is new information they're now having to review, in addition to the things they've already looked at," the Roberts aide said.
Roberts, in a Nov. 13 op/ed in the Washington Post , said his panel's investigation "is probably the most comprehensive review of intelligence since the creation of the committee in 1976."
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The memo documents dozens of contacts between Saddam and Al Qaeda.
I wonder if they'll ever get to discussing the data, point by point. It's fascinating that one comment was, Cordesman said. "And it is the kind of intelligence analysis that looks like you took every indicator you could find and tried to prove a point rather than try to create an objective and balanced analysis."
What's fascinating is that apparently analysis = keeping data away from the American public.
Analysis = diversion. (Don't pay attention to the man behind the curtain.)
Well, well well, Jay how about that. Time to get another aide to type up a new plan.
Insight Magazine"From what I've seen, there's definitely a long history of contacts, but it's unclear exactly what those contacts amounted to...I think very few people think it amounts to Iraqi control. Perhaps the Iraqis were just trying to keep informed," Phillips added.
Sep 29, 2003Senior investigators and analysts in the U.S. government have concluded that Iraq acted as a state sponsor of terrorism against Americans and logistically supported the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States - confirming news reports that until now have emerged only in bits and pieces. A senior government official responsible for investigating terrorism tells Insight that while Saddam Hussein may not have had details of the Sept. 11 attacks in advance, he "gave assistance for whatever al-Qaeda came up with." That assistance, confirmed independently, came in a variety of ways, including financial support spun out through a complex web of financial institutions in Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Italy and elsewhere. Long suspected of having terrorist ties to al-Qaeda, they now have been linked to Iraq as well.
Insiders say the failure to assign responsibility for the Sept. 11 attacks to Iraq, Afghanistan or any other nation-state is intentional. "The administration does not want the victims of Sept. 11 interfering with its foreign policy," says Peter M. Leitner, director of the Washington Center for Peace and Justice (WCPJ). Leitner says the Bush administration may be concerned that if other victims of the Sept. 11 attacks also filed lawsuits and won civil-damage awards it would reduce Iraqi resources that the administration wants to use to rebuild the country. Leitner and others say this explains Bush's reticence at this time to report the convincing evidence linking Saddam and al-Qaeda that has been collected by U.S. investigators and private organizations seeking damages. "The [Bush] administration is intentionally changing the topic," claims Leitner, and sidestepping the issue that "Iraq has been in a proxy war against the U.S. for years and has used al-Qaeda in that war against the United States."
The Link Between Iraq and Al-Qaeda
They were more than "just informed"...
While the Prague meeting has been refuted by some officials, people seem to forget that Farouk Hijazi, an Iraqi intelligence officer met with bin Laden in Kandahar in Dec 1998.Also forgotten is that in 1998, two of bin Laden’s senior military commanders, Muhammad Abu-Islam and Abdullah Qassim, visited Baghdad for discussions with Qusay Hussein. This and info on other meetings can be found here.
Also in 1998, an Arab intelligence officer, who knows Saddam personally, predicted in Newsweek: "Very soon you will be witnessing large-scale terrorist activity run by the Iraqis." The Arab official said these terror operations would be run under "false flags" --spook-speak for front groups--including bin Laden's organization. This was reported by Laurie Mylorie.
Then there were the predictions by an Iraqi with ties to Iraqi intelligence, Naeem Abd Mulhalhal, in Qusay's own newspaper several weeks before the attacks that stated bin Laden would “demolish the Pentagon after he destroys the White House and ”bin Laden would strike America “on the arm that is already hurting.” (referencing a second IRAQI sponsored attack on the World Trade Center). Another reference to New York was “[bin Laden] will curse the memory of Frank Sinatra everytime he hears his songs.” (e.g., “New York, New York”) which identified New York, New York as a target. Mulhalhal also stated, “The wings of a dove and the bullet are all but one and the same in the heart of a believer." which references an airplane attack.
The Arabic language daily newspaper Al-Quds Al-Arabic also cited the cooperation between Iraq, bin Laden and Al December 1998 editorial, which predicted that “President Saddam Hussein, whose country was subjected to a four day air strike, will look for support in taking revenge on the United States and Britain by cooperating with Saudi oppositionist Osama Bin-Laden, whom the United States considers to be the most wanted person in the world.” This info is in the link provided in the para above. How could these people have had foreknowledge without Iraq being involved?
And what about Ramzi Yousef (known to his associates as "Rashid the Iraqi.") and his uncle Khalid Shaikh Mohammed?
There are just too many things that point to Iraqi involvement, even without the refuted evidence.
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