Iraq & Militant Islam

National Review Online ^ | June 1, 2004 | Andrew C. McCarthy

[chemical_boy]

“We will pursue nations that provide aid or safe haven to terrorism. Every nation, in every region, now has a decision to make. Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists. From this day forward, any nation that continues to harbor or support terrorism will be regarded by the United States as a hostile regime." — President George W. Bush, September 20, 2001

Saddam Hussein's Iraqi regime indisputably harbored terrorists and supported terrorism. Under the Bush Doctrine that won resounding bipartisan assent in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks, and that remains as worthy today as it was back then, that should have been more than enough to justify deposing Saddam, even if there had not been ample evidence of — and decisive consensus about — his intentions and wherewithal regarding weapons of mass destruction.

DROPPED LINK: PIGHEADED SILENCE Yet, although there should be few, if any, matters more important to national security than boring into the linkage between Iraq and militant Islamic terror, the very idea of linkage has been discredited. Thanks to a withering campaign waged by ideological opponents of U.S. military operations against Iraq — led by the mainstream media, partisans such as former Clinton counterterrorism czar Richard Clarke, and disgruntled factions of the so-called intelligence community whose anonymous carping to sympathetic journalists has now reached a fever pitch — conventional wisdom now holds that secular Saddam could not conceivably have collaborated with Osama bin Laden's jihadist network.

It is, however, pigheaded blindness masquerading as wisdom. There are abundant strands of connection. It is, moreover, breathtakingly irresponsible for the press generally, and for an intelligence community purportedly dedicated to securing America from further attacks, to be ignoring or dismissing countless salient questions, rather than moving heaven and earth to answer them. There is good reason to think we have convicted several terrorists in this country on less proof than already exists regarding Saddam's Iraq. What's more, these linkage questions are not going away.

That is largely because some praiseworthy journalism is not going to let them. Most significant is the assiduous detective work of The Weekly Standard's Stephen Hayes, who has been investigating and writing about the links for months. Hayes's new book, The Connection, is being released today. It comprehensively lays out a mosaic of operational ties, and questions that Americans, far from brushing aside, should be demanding answers to. Further, the Wall Street Journal is on the case with vital new information, as are other investigative journalists such as Edward Jay Epstein. The issues they are raising may ultimately shape the legacy of the Iraq war, illustrating, in a way the Bush administration has abysmally failed to, that overthrowing Saddam's regime was a logical and worthy progression in the war against militant Islam.

THE ATTA CONNECTION Of the utmost urgency are indications, continuing to emerge, that Iraq forged operational ties with al Qaeda, sought to conduct terrorist attacks against the United States, and may in fact have had a hand in the 9/11 attacks. The focus of this evidence is the Iraqi Intelligence Service and its apparent ties with not one but at least three leaders of the suicide hijacking plot: Mohammed Atta, Khalid al-Midhar, and Nawaf al-Hazmi.

The Atta connection has been downplayed for months by the mainstream media, which has used a simple tactic, found on page one of the defense-lawyer playbook, that has repeatedly served the Iraq/Qaeda naysayers: viz., cull from an entire subject of investigation one isolated piece of equivocal evidence, suggest that this piece is representative of the entire subject, and thus debunk the subject just because the piece is not a 100-percent lock. Of course, if this facile method of determining truth were followed in law enforcement or intelligence circles, most crime would never be solved and most threats would never be identified. Happily, that is not the case, but the approach, regrettably, plays effectively in the bumper-sticker-talking-points worlds of television news and ideology-driven "reporting."

In the instant case, the subject is whether Mohammed Atta had terrorist ties to the Iraqi regime, and the isolated piece of evidence concerns the narrow question whether Atta actually had a meeting in Prague on April 8, 2001 (i.e., a mere seven months before the 9/11 attacks), with an Iraqi intelligence officer named Ahmed Khalil Ibrahim Samir al-Ani. As recently as last week, Newsweek — in its gleeful piece about Ahmed Chalabi's seeming fall from grace (presented, naturally, as a straight news story) — summarily pronounced that although Chalabi had "hyped a story, often cited by the neocons, about" the secret Prague meeting, "[a]fter months of investigation, the CIA and FBI determined that the meeting had never taken place."

[CharlotteVRWC]

bmp

[spodefly]

When a country has treated terrorism like ordinary crime for decades, military action based on apparent but murky ties to terror — especially long after the fact — seems disproportionate. Of course, if we get hit again, there will no doubt be new 9/11 Commissions demanding to know: Whatever happened to the Bush Doctrine?

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[Dr. Frank fan]

But Saddam was Secular! /sarcasm

Good post. I found this to be a valuable article tying up lots of things which, in a better world, would be read and understood by the naysayers. This includes

1. the Atta/Prague connection

2. Richard Clarke's "Saddam was checkmated by Clinton's precision bombing" idiocy ("fantasy world" is too kind)

3. the Radio Free Europe plot (which I hadn't read much about before)

4. in general, the inapplicability of "innocent until proven guilty" mentality to national security

One thing that could be added: Clinton's rationale (backed up by Richard "Saddam was checkmated!" Clarke) for the notorious 1998 "aspirin factory" bombing, which was justified (and which they still defend!) based on an Iraq-Al Qaeda connection. That just exposes the naysayers as the disingenuous self-serving phonies and/or moronic lunkheads that they are (and I'm not sure which).

In the end, however, all of these points run up against the "but if this is true why isn't Bush saying it" brick wall. McCarthy's explanation for this (he doesn't want his hand forced by backing himself into a must-attack-every-country-that-supports-terrorism corner) is as good as any other i suppose, but it still doesn't satisfy. (Neither does Mylroie's "the bureaucracy is preventing him" I'm afraid...)

I support Bush but he has a serious communications problem and this is not good for a wartime President, part of whose job must be to shore up domestic morale, the failure of which is not entirely the media's fault, but also, to some extent, his own.

[neverdem]

From time to time, I’ll post or ping on noteworthy articles about politics and foreign and military affairs. Let me know if you want off my list.

[neverdem]

From time to time, I’ll post or ping on noteworthy articles about politics and foreign and military affairs. Let me know if you want off my list.

[Travis McGee]

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[Valin]

Bump

[lainde]

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