Posted on 06/17/2004 6:55:53 AM PDT by april15Bendovr
Third public hearing of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States Statement of Laurie Mylroie to the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States July 9, 2003
STATE SPONSORSHIP: WHO ARE THE TERRORIST MASTERMINDS? The reasons why we went to war with Iraq--as an integral part of the war on terrorism--are not as well-understood as they might be. Indeed, a major misunderstanding regarding terrorism exists.
Prior to the February 26, 1993, bombing of the World Trade Center, it was assumed that major terrorist attacks against the U.S. were state-sponsored. But that bombing is said to mark the start of a new kind of terrorism that does not involve states.
That notion is dubious. Rather, the claim that a new, stateless terrorism emerged with the 1993 Trade Center bombing was a convenient explanation in that it required no military response. Once promulgated, it was hastily accepted--even before much progress had been made in the investigation of that attack itself.
There isn't time to properly address that issue in this testimony. Study of Revenge: Saddam Hussein's Unfinished War against America contains the fullest account of this author's argument that there is no new source of major terrorist attacks on the U.S. They were state-sponsored--and remain so. That that is not understood is the result of a major intelligence and policy failure that occurred in the 1990s.
In the time allotted here, I want to address three major terrorist plots that have been attributed to so-called "loose networks," including al Qaeda, and illustrate that there is significant evidence to suggest that Iraq was involved: the 1993 Trade Center bombing; the 1995 plot in the Philippines to bomb a dozen US airplanes; and the 9/11 attacks.
The key point I want to stress is the identity of the terrorist masterminds, individuals like Ramzi Yousef and Khalid Shaikh Mohammed. Their identities rest on documents in Kuwait that predate Kuwait's liberation in 1991, and those documents are unreliable, because of the Iraqi occupation.
1993 Trade Center Bombing: New York FBI Suspected Iraq New York FBI was the lead investigative agency and its head, the late Jim Fox, thought Iraq was behind the bomb.
1) The bomb was huge, meant to topple one building onto the other. It left a crater six stories deep in the basement floors of the North Tower. Fox's background was counter-intelligence. He believed the inexperienced individuals he was arresting immediately after the bombing--like Mohammed Salameh, the 26-year old Palestinian, detained as he returned to the Ryder rental agency for his deposit on the van that carried the bomb-were incapable of carrying out such an attack themselves.
The arrests were too easy and their ease suggested to Fox a conspiracy masterminded by others, with Salameh et al. left behind to take the blame.
2) There were Iraqis all around the fringe of the plot. One, Abdul Rahman Yasin, came from Baghdad before the bombing and returned to Iraq afterwards, stopping in the Iraqi embassy in Jordan on his return. Yasin is the sole indicted fugitive from that attack and remained in Baghdad until at least 2002, when 60 Minutes interviewed him there.
3) It was just two years after the Gulf War. In terms of enemies wishing America harm, Iraq was on the top of the list.
4) Mohammed Salameh had many communications with Iraq in a crucial, early stage of the plot. Between June 10 and July 9, 1992, when his phone service was cut off, he made 46 calls to Iraq (see GX 824, US vs. Salameh et. al.)
But one can do more than just suspect Iraq's role, which, of course, is important. It can be demonstrated to a high standard, perhaps even "beyond a reasonable doubt," that Iraq was behind the attack. That demonstration revolves around the identity of the mastermind, Ramzi Yousef, without whom the bomb could not have been built.
He entered the U.S. on an Iraqi passport as Ramzi Yousef. He fled the U.S. the night of the Trade Center bombing on a Pakistani passport in the name of Abdul Basit Karim.
In December 1992, Yousef went to the Pakistani consulate in New York with xerox copies of pages from Karim's 1984 and 1988 passports. Yousef claimed to be Karim and said he had lost his passport and needed a new one to return home.
The consulate did not like the documentation, because there were no original documents, but still gave Yousef a temporary passport, which he used to flee the U.S.
Abdul Basit Karim: A "Legend" For Yousef? There really was an individual, Abdul Basit Karim, born and raised in Kuwait. He graduated high school in Kuwait, at age 18; studied in Britain for three years, receiving a degree in June 1989; before returning to Kuwait, where he got a job in Kuwait's Planning Ministry. Apparently, Karim was in Kuwait a year later, when Iraq invaded.
The copies of the Karim passports that Yousef presented to the Pakistani consulate to obtain the passport on which he fled were evidence in the trials. They appear to have been tampered with.
Notably, the signature in the 1984 passport is quite different from the signature in the 1988 passport (see GX 739-C and 739-B, US vs. Salameh et. al).
Also, a Pakistani passport has entries for both a "permanent address in Pakistan" and a "present address in Pakistan." The line for "present address in Pakistan" is blank, presumably because the family lived in Kuwait.
The permanent address is the family's place of origin. By definition, it does not change. Yet this permanent address did. The 1984 passport gives a permanent address in Karachi. The 1988 passport gives a permanent address in Baluchistan.
The copies of these two passports have different signatures and different permanent addresses. It looks like at least one page went through a scanner and was changed.
A similar problem exists with Abdul Basit Karim's file in Kuwait. As a routine matter, the Kuwaiti Interior Ministry maintained a resident alien file on Karim. That file was tampered with
Information was taken out. The file should have included copies of the front pages of Karim's passport with the picture, signature, etc. That is missing, and the Kuwaitis attributed it to Iraq's occupation. But the Kuwaitis did not recognize that the whole file had been corrupted.
There is information that should not be in the file, above all the notation that Karim and his family left Kuwait on August 26, 1990, traveling from Kuwait to Iraq, crossing from Iraq to Iran at Salamcheh, on their way to Pakistani Baluchistan, where they live now.
When someone crosses a border, he does not give authorities his whole itinerary; just where he came from directly and where he is going to directly. Moreover, on that day--August 26, 1990-there was no Kuwaiti government; there was an Iraqi army of occupation. Iraq had to have put that information into the file.
But tens of thousands of people were fleeing Iraq and Kuwait for their very lives. Iraqi authorities were not recording the travel itineraries of all those people. Karim's file received special attention.
Finally, Ramzi Yousef's fingerprints are in Karim's file in Kuwait. Since everyone's fingerprints are unique, that can mean only one of two things: 1) Yousef is really Karim; or 2) someone switched the fingerprint cards, replacing the original with Karim's prints, with another card bearing Yousef's prints.
Thus, it is a very important question: is Yousef really Karim or were the fingerprint cards switched and the file otherwise tampered with to create a false identity for a terrorist mastermind?
Many points indicate that Yousef is not Karim. That was the view of Jim Fox. That was also the view of Judge Kevin Duffy, who presided over Yousef's two trials (Trade Center bombing and plot against US airplanes.) At the end of the trials, during the sentencing hearing, Judge Duffy told Yousef, "We don't even know what your real name is."
That is correct. "Ramzi Yousef" is an alias and so is "Abdul Basit Karim."
In 1996, I met with two of Karim's teachers at the Swansea Institute in Britain. They did not believe their student was the terrorist mastermind who appeared in New York three years after Karim graduated from their school.
Karim had been a quiet, pleasant, hard-working young man, whose most immediate professional ambition was to get a master's degree. He went to the mosque on Fridays, but was not extreme in his politics or his religion.
Above all, their heights are critical. Yousef, in a US prison, is 6' tall, according to his FBI arrest card. Karim was short, according to his teachers.
In fact, when I asked Karim's teachers about his height, I was very careful not to prejudice their answer. First, I first asked how tall he was. They replied that he was short, maybe 5'6." One report, as well as a document, suggests he was 5'8." So I asked whether Karim could have been 5'8." That was possible, they replied. Then I asked if he could have been 6' tall. They both said no. They looked at each other and asked, "Did you look up at him or did you look down at him?" They agreed that they had looked down at him and that he was not 6' tall. They were sure of that.
But given the importance of this question, they felt they would have to meet Yousef in prison to be 100% certain that Yousef is not their student.
If that is right and Yousef is not Karim, that means the fingerprint card in Karim's file was switched, and the file otherwise tampered with. The evident purpose would have been to create a false identity for Yousef.
Indeed, this is a standard practice of Soviet-style intelligence agencies. As is well known, intelligence agents not posted to an embassy (and not enjoying diplomatic immunity) are "illegals." They are routinely given false identities, or "legends," to prevent their actions from being traced back to the country they work for.
If Karim's file in Kuwait was tampered with to create a legend for Yousef, there is only one party that reasonably could have done so: Iraq while it occupied Kuwait.
Jim Fox shared this view. He believed that the file in Kuwait was decisive evidence tying Iraq to the attack. In late 1994, Fox, then retired, passed it on to New York FBI.
The question of Ramzi Yousef's identity-whether he is Abdul Basit Karim or not--can be resolved in a definitive fashion by bringing Karim's teachers to the prison to meet and speak with Yousef. Yet this simple task has not been taken, largely because of very considerable bureaucratic obstructionism in the US and UK.
The 1995 Plane Bombing Plot; Three Baluch: Yousef, Murad, & Mohammed After the Trade Center bombing, Yousef reappeared in the Philippines in September 1994, plotting to bomb a dozen U.S. airplanes. In January 1995, while mixing explosives in the kitchen sink of his Manila apartment, Yousef started a fire and had to flee. He left behind a computer with information that led to his arrest a month later in Islamabad.
A co-conspirator, Abdul Hakam Murad, was arrested in Manila the night of the fire. Like Yousef, Murad was tried and convicted for that plot. Murad is supposed to be a childhood friend of Yousef, and he is also supposed to be born and raised in Kuwait.
Khalid Shaikh Mohammed was also involved in this plot. Mohammed managed to flee the Philippines and was subsequently indicted, even as he went on to become head of al Qaeda's military committee after Sudan, under U.S. pressure, expelled Usama bin Ladin to Afghanistan in 1996.
Notably, Yousef, Murad, and Mohammed did not behave like Islamic militants while in the Philippines. As the Los Angeles Times reported, "In Manila, the trio acted like anything but Islamic terrorists. All had local girlfriends. They hung out at karaoke bars and strip clubs."
9/11: A Family of Masterminds or Terrorists with Legends? Following the 9/11 attacks, there was much speculation about Iraq's possible role. I won't address those points, although some information, like the claim of two Iraqi defectors that Iraqi intelligence trained non-Iraqi Arab militants to hijack airplanes at Salman Pak deserves more attention than it has received. That is particularly so, because when U.S. Marines took Salman Pak, they captured such individuals and learned from the interrogations that they were training as terrorists.
I want to focus on the terrorist masterminds. U.S. authorities have learned much more about al Qaeda since the 9/11 strikes, than they knew before them.
That includes the key role played by Khalid Shaikh Mohammed. As one U.S. intelligence official explained after Mohammed's capture (March 1, 2003), "It wasn't until recently that any of us even realized he was part of al Qaeda. . . . The big problem nailing him down is that the informants we relied on, especially before 9/11, were mujaheddin. They'd been in Afghanistan, in Sudan, back in Afghanistan. Khalid was never a part of any of that." (emphasis added).
In addition, two of Ramzi Yousef's older brothers--Abdul Karim and Abdul Monim-have been identified as al Qaeda masterminds, capable of assuming Mohammed's role. Also, an individual, Ali Abdul Aziz, who played an important role in the financial transfers involved in the 9/11 attacks, is said to be Yousef's "younger cousin."
Thus, according to U.S. officials, at the core of the terrible series of attacks against the U.S., starting with the 1993 Trade Center bombing and culminating in the 9/11 assaults, is an unusually talented and murderous family: Yousef, his uncle, his two brothers, his cousin, and his childhood friend.
This is without precedent; no terrorist organization has at its core a family. Also, all these masterminds are Baluch. And with the possible exception of the cousin, all are supposed to have been born and raised in Kuwait--and their identities are based on documents in Kuwait that predate Kuwait's liberation.
The Baluch and Iraq The Baluch are a Sunni Muslim people, with their own language, who live on both sides of the Iranian-Pakistani border. Like the Kurds, the Baluch aspired to a state of their own, but failed to achieve it. Most Americans know nothing about the Baluch, because the U.S. has virtually nothing to do with them.
No Baluch organization is on the State Department list of terrorist states. Prior to the 1993 Trade Center bombing, no Baluch was ever involved in a terrorist attack on the U.S.
The Baluch have no evident motive for engagement in these monstrous assaults against the U.S.-save for one notable point: their ties with Iraqi intelligence.
The Iranian Baluch have long been at odds with the Shi'a government in Tehran. Those tensions were much exacerbated by Iran's Islamic revolution in 1979.
Iraqi intelligence has deep and well-established ties with the Baluch on both sides of the Iran-Pakistan border and used them against Iran. So explained Gen. Wafiq Samarrai, who headed Iraqi Military Intelligence until 1991, before he later defected. Iraqi Military Intelligence ran the Baluch as spies during the Iran-Iraq war (1980-1988) out of the Gulf shaykhdom of Dubai, according to Samarrai.
That is a critical point. The only apparent motive of these Baluch individuals for involve-ment in assaulting the U.S. would appear to be the ties that the Baluch have with Iraqi intelligence. That is particularly so as Yousef, Murad, and Mohammed do not really appear to be Islamic militants, judging from their behavior in the Philippines.
Let us consider two hypotheses to explain the identities of these terrorist masterminds. The official U.S. explanation is that they are a murderous family.
There is another explanation: these individuals are elements of Iraq's long-standing Baluch network. And while Iraq occupied Kuwait, Iraqi intelligence used documents in Kuwait to create legends for these illegals.
I recently asked a colleague, retired from the position of #2 in Israeli Military Intelligence, which explanation made more sense: a murderous family vs. illegals with legends. He replied, "It's obvious."
Indeed, Jim Hoagland has suggested the same. Hoagland asked, "How did al Qaeda, within two or three years, go from obscurity to becoming super-terrorists capable of blowing up U.S. embassies, warships, and skyscrapers with astonishing precision?" He raised the question asked here: how did a group of Baluch who grew up in Kuwait acquire such remarkable skills as terrorist masterminds, and why would they devote their lives to killing Americans? He then hinted at an answer. "Could al Qaeda have been the target of a takeover operation by an intelligence service with good legend-manufacturing skills and a great, burning desire for revenge on the United States?"
That is what happened, I think. After al Qaeda moved to Afghanistan, Iraqi intelligence became deeply involved with it, probably, with the full agreement of Usama bin Ladin. Al Qaeda provided the ideology, foot soldiers, and a cover for the terrorist attacks; Iraqi intelligence provided the direction, training, and expertise in the form of figures like Khalid Shaikh Mohammed.
Both sides benefited: bin Ladin was able to carry out major attacks for which al Qaeda had previously lacked the skill and training; Iraq escaped detection and punishment, because every attack was blamed on al Qaeda alone.
This hypothesis is easy to test. How to pursue Ramzi Yousef's identity has already been explained in terms of Karim's teachers. In addition, certain documents should be obtain-ed pertaining to Yousef, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, and the other Baluch terrorists.
As for Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, US records also exist, as there really was an individual, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, born and raised in Kuwait. After graduating high school, Mohammed attended college in the U.S. The key question-- whether the terrorist known as Khalid Shaikh Mohammed is the same person as the student--can be pursued, in a manner similar to the pursuit of Yousef's identity. If the terrorist is not the student, then Khalid Shaikh Mohammed is--like Abdul Basit Karim--a legend for a terrorist, whose real identity we do not know. And the only party that, reasonably, could have created that legend is Iraq, while it occupied Kuwait.
Conclusion A major misunderstanding regarding the nature of terrorism arose in the wake of the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center, with the claim that a new form of terrorism had emerged that was no longer state-sponsored.
On the contrary, the major terrorist strikes against the U.S. that were attributed to "loose networks" of Islamic militants, including al Qaeda, are much better explained as Iraq, working with and hiding behind the militants. In short, the 1991 Gulf War did not end with the cease-fire declared back then.
The failure to pursue the question of the identities of the terrorist masterminds is a major lapse in the investigation. Most likely, if that issue were pursued it would provide a definitive tie between Iraqi intelligence and the 9/11 strikes, as well as other major attacks.
It is unlikely that these Baluch masterminds are a family; it is far more likely that they are Iraqi "illegals," given "legends" on the basis of Kuwaiti documents, while Iraq occupied Kuwait.
The principle reason this issue has not been pursued is strong bureaucratic obstructionism in the US and UK, by individuals who cannot (or will not) recognize they have made a major mistake. Almost certainly, neither President Bush nor Prime Minister Blair understands how easy it may be to demonstrate Iraq's link to the 9/11 attacks and other acts of terrorism. It may require intervention from such a senior level to overcome the bureaucratic obstructionism.
Current News
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Commission's twelfth and final public hearing on "The 9/11 Plot" and "National Crisis Management" continues today, June 17, in Washington, DC. [more] The Commission held its eleventh public hearing on "Emergency Response" May 18-19, 2004 at New School University in New York City. [more]
Commission Members
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Thomas H. Kean Chair
Lee H. Hamilton Vice Chair
Richard Ben-Veniste Fred F. Fielding Jamie S. Gorelick Slade Gorton Bob Kerrey John F. Lehman Timothy J. Roemer James R. Thompson
Commission Staff
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Philip D. Zelikow Executive Director
Chris Kojm Deputy Executive Director
Daniel Marcus General Counsel
National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States Tel: 202-331-4060 info@9-11Commission.gov Fax: 202-296-5545
We know Saddam worked with the PLO and other terrorists, he funded them. He at LEAST knew that 9/11 was coming.
Less than two months before 9/11/01, the state-controlled Iraqi newspaper “Al-Nasiriya” carried a column headlined, “American, an Obsession called Osama Bin Ladin.” (July 21, 2001)
In the piece, Baath Party writer Naeem Abd Muhalhal predicted that bin Laden would attack the US “with the seriousness of the Bedouin of the desert about the way he will try to bomb the Pentagon after he destroys the White House.”
The same state-approved column also insisted that bin Laden “will strike America on the arm that is already hurting,” and that the US “will curse the memory of Frank Sinatra every time he hears his songs” – an apparent reference to the Sinatra classic, “New York, New York”.
(Link below)
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1106657/posts?page=1
List of newspaper article in the 90's which mention the world's concern regarding the growing relationship between OBL and Saddam: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/946809/posts?page=1
Son of Saddam coordinates OBL activities:http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/951911/posts
The AQ connection (excellent):http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/944617/posts?page=2
Western Nightmare: http://www.guardian.co.uk/alqaida/story/0,12469,798270,00.html
Saddam's link to OBL: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/866105/posts
NYT: Iraq and AQ agree to cooperate: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/985906/posts
Document linking them: http://tennessean.com/nation-world/archives/03/06/34908297.shtml?Element_ID=34908297
Iraq and terrorism - no doubt about it: http://www.nationalreview.com/robbins/robbins091903.asp
A federal judge rules there are links:http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/986293/posts
Wall Street Journal on Iraq and AQ:http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/987129/posts
Iraq and Iran contact OBL: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/981055/posts
More evidence: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=%2Fnews%2F2003%2F04%2F27%2Fwalq27.xml
Saddam's AQ connection: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/969032/posts
Further connections: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1007969/posts
What a court of law said about the connections:
http://usinfo.state.gov/topical/pol/terror/98110402.htm
Some miscellaneous stuff on connections:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/989201/posts
Saddam's Ambassador to Al Qaeda: (February 2004, Weekly Standard)
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1083778/posts
Yes - it's NewsMax but loaded with interesting bullet points.
http://freerepublic.com/focus/news/1097521/posts?page=1
Saddam's Fingerprints on NY Bombing (Wall Street Journal, June 1993)
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1115387/posts
Colin Powell: Iraq and AQ Partners for Years (CNN, February 2003)
http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/02/05/sprj.irq.alqaeda.links/
The Iraq-Al Qaeda Connections (September 2003, Richard Miniter)
http://www.techcentralstation.com/092503F.html
Oil for Food Scandal Ties Iraq and Al Qaeda (June 2003)
http://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1125899/posts
Saddam and OBL Make a Pact (The New Yorker, February 2003):
http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?030210fa_fact
Al Qaeda's Poison Gas (Wall Street Journal, April 2004):
http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110005016
Wolfowitz Says Saddam behind 9/11 Attacks:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/921398/posts
Saddam behind first WTC attack - PBS, Laurie Mylroie:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/gunning/interviews/mylroie.html
Growing Evidence of Saddam and Al Qaeda Link, The Weekly Standard, July 2003:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/946997/posts
Qusay Hussein Coordinated Iraq special operations with Bin Laden Terrorist Activities, Yossef Bodansky, National Press Club
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/951911/posts
The Western Nightmare: Saddam and Bin Laden vs. the Rest of the World, The Guardian Unlimited:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/alqaida/story/0,12469,798270,00.html
Saddam Link to Bin Laden, Julian Borger, The Guardian, February 1999
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/866105/posts
The Al Qaeda Connection, The Weekly Standard, July 2003
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/944617/posts?page=2
Cheney lectures Russert on Iraq/911 Link, September 2003:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/982713/posts
No Question About It, National Review, September 2003
http://www.nationalreview.com/robbins/robbins091903.asp
Iraq: A Federal Judges Point of View
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/986293/posts
Mohammed's Account links Iraq to 9/11 and OKC:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/987075/posts
Free Republic Thread that mentions so me books Freepers might be interested in on this topic:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/977221/posts?page=8
The Proof that Saddam Worked with AQ, The Telegraph, April 2003:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=%2Fnews%2F2003%2F04%2F27%2Fwalq27.xml
Saddam's AQ Connection, The Weekly Standard, September 2003
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/969032/posts
September 11 Victims Sue Iraq:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/2237332.stm
Osama's Best Friend: The Further Connections Between Al Qaeda and Saddam, The Weekly Standard, November 2003
Terrorist Behind 9/11 Attacks Trained by Saddam, The Telegraph, December 2003
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1007969/posts
James Woolsey Links Iraq and AQ, CNN Interview, March 2004, Also see Posts #34 and #35
http://freerepublic.com/focus/news/1104121/posts
A Geocities Interesting Web Site with maps and connections:
http://www.geocities.com/republican_strategist/Iraq-Bin-Laden.html
Bin Laden indicted in federal court, read down to find information that Bin Laden agreed to not attack Iraq and to work cooperatively with Iraq:
http://usinfo.state.gov/topical/pol/terror/98110402.htm
Case Closed, The Weekly Standard, November 03
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/003/378fmxyz.asp
CBS - Lawsuit: Iraq involved in 9/11:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/09/05/september11/main520874.shtml
Exploring Iraq's Involvement in pre-9/11 Acts, The Indianapolis Star:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/746225/posts
The Iraq/AQ Connection: Richard Minister again
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/989201/posts
Militia Defector says Baghdad trained Al Qaeda fighters in chemical weapons, July 2002
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/743892/posts
The Clinton View of Iraq/AQ Ties, The Weekly Standard, December 2003
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/003/527uwabl.asp
Saddam Controlled the Camps (Iraq/AQ Ties): The London Observer, November 01
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/741676/posts
Saddam's Terror Ties that Critics Ignore, National Review, October 2003:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1005579/posts
Tape Shows General Wesley Clark linking Iraq and AQ:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1056113/posts
Freeper list of links between AQ and Iraq:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/850346/posts
Salman Pak (Aviation Weekly)
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/865435/posts
Another freeper resource - list of links between OBL and Saddam:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/838309/posts
Saddam/911 Link (FrontPage Magazine, Laurie Mylroie, May 2004):
http://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1133317/posts
Bush says Zarqawi killed Berg, cites Saddam ties (Reuters, May 2004)
http://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1136076/posts
The Connections (May 2004, The Weekly Standard)
New Information:http://freerepublic.com/focus/news/1144123/posts?page=11
Saddam's role in 9/11. (Freeper book, May 2004)
http://freerepublic.com/focus/news/1144699/posts?page=5
Entire link and Post #5 - Clinton mentioned how AQ was developing a relationship with Iraq.
http://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1145787/posts
The House of Representatives read into the congressional record the ties that Saddam had to Osama bin Laden (read down and open links in the record): June 2004
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/B?r108:@FIELD(FLD003+h)+@FIELD(DDATE+20040601)
Exploring the links between 9/11 and Iraq (Richard Miniter, June 2004)
http://freerepublic.com/focus/news/1146319/posts?page=1
The Terrorist behind 9/11 was trained by Saddam (The Telegraph, 12/03)
http://freerepublic.com/focus/news/1146356/posts?page=1
New Iraqi Chief Links 9/11 to Saddam (June 2004, NewsMax)
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1146579/posts?page=1
Increasing evidence of Saddam's ties to 9/11 and AQ (National Review, June 2004)
http://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1146984/posts
Pre Bush Timeline of Saddam/OBL Ties (Freeper research):
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1152923/posts?page=1
Cheney claims Iraq/AQ connections (June 2004)
http://freerepublic.com/focus/news/1153781/posts?page=20
http://www.9-11commission.gov/hearings/hearing3/witness_mylroie.htm
The PDF transcript for the Third Public Hearing of the 9-11 Commision on 9 July 2003 is on this page: http://www.9-11commission.gov/archive/hearing3/9-11Commission_Hearing_2003-07-09.pdf
Mylroie's testimony begins on page 34.
Everyone seems to agree, from Lehman to Ben Veniste etc to Bush/Cheney to NYT etc that there were "links" from Iraq to Al Qaeda...but that there's no evidence to show Iraq was involved in 911.
Can't someone help me out here?!?!?! Where was Mylroie's evidence discounted by the commission? Where is the refutation of it?!?!?!
And if it cannot be refuted, then why isn't it being shouted from the MeetThePress rooftops?
My lib buddies are bombarding me with the fact that Mylroie gave her full testimony to the commission and that it was discounted both by the commission and by Bush, too! What the heck is goin on?
Laurie Mylroie as always, makes sense.
"Can you help me answer my post in #6?" ~ sam_paine
This may help -- it's the bottom line excerpt from Mylroie's article today posted below:
"...Why, then, doesn't the Bush administration say anything about this, one may well ask.
Partly, there has been no intelligence reform in the wake of the September 11 attacks. The CIA is a bureaucracy run amok, more interested in covering up its mistakes than understanding Al Qaeda. Senior administration officials responsible for the Iraq war have come under vicious attack, and they are on the defensive. This information does not move up the food chain, and it is doubtful that President Bush or Vice President Cheney are aware of it. .."
Here is todays article:
Mylroie, Odd al Qaeda Family--& Iraq,
The New York Sun June 24, 2004
All in the Family? Laurie Mylroie outlines a theory of Iraqi involvement in the two attacks on New York
The claim of the 9/11 commission that "no credible" evidence exists linking Iraq to Al Qaeda's assaults on America, including the attack of September 11, 2001, is itself not credible. Iraq was almost certainly directly involved in those attacks. After 1996, when Osama bin Laden moved from Sudan to Afghanistan, Iraqi intelligence became an integral part of Al Qaeda, or so it would seem.
This is, of course, a shocking statement, with enormous significance. Moreover, it involves the question: Who is our enemy? Who was responsible for the terrible events of September 11? And what threat do we still face? There is scarcely a subject about which it is more necessary to pay careful attention to key facts.
Since September 11, 2001, American authorities have learned a great deal more about Al Qaeda. As they now understand, a clan lies at the heart of the major acts of Islamic terrorism directed against America from the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center though the September 11 strikes. That family consists of the person known as Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and a number of his "nephews." So far, five such individuals have been publicly named, and there are probably more.
Mohammed is the recognized mastermind of the September 11 attacks. Ali Abdul Aziz Ali--who is also known as Ammar al-Baluchi and whom American officials consider a nephew of Mohammed--sent the "primary funding for the conspiracy" to the hijackers in America, as the director of the FBI, Robert Mueller, told the Congressional Joint Intelligence Committee inquiry.
The most well-known of Mohammed's supposed nephews is Ramzi Yousef, who is the recognized mastermind of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. Yousef fled New York the night of that assault. Two years later, he conspired with Mohammed and two others to bomb a dozen American airplanes in the Philippines. None of those involved in that plot, including Yousef and Mohammed, lived as Islamic militants then. They had girlfriends and frequented Manila's karaoke bars, strongly suggesting that Islamic militancy was not their motive for attacking America.
The 1995 plane-bombing plot went awry when Yousef accidentally started a fire while mixing explosives. Yousef was soon captured and brought to New York to stand trial, where he was convicted in 1996 for his role in that plot and convicted in 1997 for his role in the 1993 Trade Center bombing. Yousef is now in federal prison in Colorado.
Mohammed escaped from the Philippines and fled to Qatar. As the FBI tried to seize him there, he was tipped off and fled again, joining up with Mr. bin Laden in Afghanistan, as American authorities would learn much later. Mohammed was captured in Pakistan in March 2003. Ali was captured there a few months later.
Two more of Mohammed's nephews--Yousef's older brothers, Abdul Karim and Abdul Monem--are considered Al Qaeda masterminds, capable of replacing Mohammed, as the Washington Post reported last year, shortly after Mohammed's capture. They remain at large. Last week, Pakistani authorities announced the arrest of yet another nephew. The State Department confirmed the man's significance, but expressed doubts the Pakistanis had the right person.
Yet there is substantial reason to doubt these individuals really do constitute a family. No other major terrorist organization has a family at its core. It is without precedent. Indeed, there is no other such family within Al Qaeda. At most, such familial relationships are extremely limited associations, like Mr. bin Laden and his son, or the two pairs of brothers among the September 11 hijackers. Indeed, this family represents such an odd phenomenon that it requires far more serious attention than it has yet publicly received.
The individuals in this "family" are all Baluch, a Sunni Muslim people who live in Eastern Iran and Western Pakistan. The Baluch are a distinct ethnic group, possessing their own language and inhabiting a specific territory, although they have no state. America has virtually nothing to do with the Baluch. The Baluch have no evident motive for these stupendously murderous assaults against America--save one.
Saddam Hussein's intelligence apparatus had deep and well-established ties with the Baluch on both sides of the Iranian-Pakistani border. So Wafiq Samarrai, who headed Iraqi military intelligence until 1991 before defecting in 1994, explained to this author. Iraq long used the Baluch against the Shi'a regime in Tehran, including during the Iran-Iraq war from 1980 to 1988.The most evident motive for Baluch to attack America is their relationship with Iraq.
In fact, there are substantial uncertainties about the true identities of these people. Yousef represents the clearest case. Yousef entered America on an Iraqi passport in that name, with stamps showing a journey starting in Baghdad. However, Yousef fled New York on another passport: a Pakistani passport in the name of Abdul Basit Karim.
Yousef obtained that passport by going to the Pakistani consulate in New York with Xerox copies of pages from Karim's 1984 and 1988 passports. Yousef claimed to be Karim. He said that he had lost his passport and needed a new one to return home. The consulate did not like Yousef's papers, because he had no original documents, but it nonetheless gave him a temporary passport. Most of this surfaced during federal terrorism trials in New York, but some of it is based on a conversation with Pakistan's consul general in New York.
There really was an individual named Abdul Basit Karim, born and raised in Kuwait. Karim completed high school at the age of 18 and then studied for three years in Britain, graduating from the Swansea Institute in June 1989, and returning home, where he got a job in Kuwait's Planning Ministry. A year later, on August 2, 1990, Iraq invaded.
Kuwait's Interior Ministry maintained a resident alien file on Karim. It should have contained copies of the front pages of his passport with picture, signature, etc., but they are missing. The Kuwaitis attributed that to Iraq's occupation, but they did not recognize that the whole file was corrupted.
The file contains a notation that Karim and his family left Kuwait on August 26, 1990, traveling from Kuwait to Iraq, crossing to Iran at Salamcheh, on their way to Pakistani Baluchistan, where they live now.
Yet there was no Kuwaiti government then. Iraq occupied the country. Moreover, a traveler does not usually give authorities his whole itinerary when crossing a border--just where he is coming from and going to directly.
Iraqi officials had to have put that note into Karim's file. The most obvious purpose was to make Karim (who probably died during the occupation) appear to be Baluch.
Most significantly, Yousef's fingerprints are in Karim's file. That means either Yousef's real identity is Karim or the fingerprint cards were switched, the original card replaced with one bearing Yousef's prints. Yet Yousef is not Karim. Above all, Yousef is 6 feet tall, while Karim was 5 feet 8 inches at most, according to information obtained in Britain by an ABC News stringer; trial documents (the copies of Karim's passports that Yousef presented the Pakistani consulate), and Karim's British teachers. In 1996, I met two of them.They did not believe their student was the terrorist mastermind. Karim had been a quiet, diligent pupil.
The most concrete demonstration that Yousef and Karim are two different people, however, is their heights. When I spoke with Karim's teachers, I was careful not to disclose that I already had information about his height. I asked only, "How tall was he?" They replied that he was short, perhaps 5 feet 6. Then, I asked if he could have been 5 feet 8. They replied, "Perhaps." Then, I asked, "What about 6 feet?" They said no. They asked themselves, "Did you look up at him or did you look down at him?" They agreed they had looked down at Karim and that he was significantly shorter than 6 feet. They were certain of that.
Thus, the fingerprint cards in Karim's file in Kuwait had to have been switched. Reasonably, only Iraq could have done so, while it occupied the country.The evident purpose was to create a false identity, or "legend," for a terrorist agent, an established practice of Soviet-style intelligence agencies.
The Clinton administration, however, did not want to hear this. If President Clinton had said that in 1993 it seemed Saddam had tried to topple New York's tallest tower onto its twin and in 1995 Saddam plotted to bomb a dozen American airplanes, most probably, the American public would have demanded that he take very significant action against Iraq, and Mr. Clinton did not want to do so. After all, "only" six people died in the Trade Center bombing and fewer than 100 Americans died in all the terrorist attacks attributed to Middle Easterners during Mr. Clinton's entire term as president.
For this and other reasons, when American authorities were told Yousef was not Karim and Iraqi intelligence had switched the fingerprint card in Karim's file, they rejected that, accepting the Iraqi fiction and asserting that Yousef really was Karim. When they say now that Khalid Shaikh Mohammed is Yousef's uncle, they mean that Mohammed is Karim's uncle.
But if Yousef is not Karim, then Mohammed is almost certainly not who he claims to be. After all, wouldn't you recognize it if your nephew disappeared and another person assumed his name? Like Yousef, Mohammed claims to be born and raised in Kuwait. His identity, too, is based on documents in Kuwait that predate Kuwait's liberation from Iraqi occupation and that are therefore unreliable.
This whole "family" of terrorist masterminds is, quite arguably, a construction of Iraqi intelligence: While Iraq occupied Kuwait, Iraqi intelligence tampered with Kuwait's files to create legends for elements of its Baluch network. That is why these people appear to be a family.
Over the years, a number of knowledgeable individuals have endorsed this view. The first was James Fox, who headed the New York FBI in 1993 and led the investigation of the Trade Center bombing. Fox, who passed away in 1997, had believed that Iraq was behind the bombing. In late 1994, this author discussed Kuwait's file on Karim with Fox, pointing out that Yousef's fingerprints were in that file, but since Yousef was not Karim, the Iraqis had to have switched the fingerprint cards.
This key point had been missed. Fox readily recognized its importance and passed it on to his former colleagues in the New York FBI. In a subsequent conversation, this author asked, "You mean they know they have the smoking gun?" Fox replied, "Yes. The only question is what are they going to do about it." Fox, himself, had experienced the Clinton administration's strong resistance to pinning that assault on Iraq.
Itamar Rabinovich was then Israel's ambassador to Washington. Soon after the discussion with Fox, I met with him to explain that Iraq was behind the Trade Center bombing. Mr. Rabinovich was not keen to hear that, because he led Israel's negotiations with Syria, and like so many, looked forward to achieving a general Arab-Israeli peace. However, a protégé of Mr. Rabinovich had read the manuscript I had written on the subject (later published as "Study of Revenge") and confirmed that it really did demonstrate that Saddam was behind that attack.
Among other things, I showed Mr. Rabinovich the copies of the pages from Karim's two passports that Yousef had given the Pakistani consulate to obtain the passport on which he fled. The signatures on the passports are completely different. Also, a Pakistani passport contains space for a "Present Address in Pakistan" and "Permanent Address in Pakistan." The latter is the family's place of origin. By definition, it does not change. Yet Karim's 1984 passport gives an address in Karachi; the 1988 passport an address in Baluchistan.
Mr. Rabinovich was stunned, and he sent a cable back to Jerusalem. Prime Minister Rabin, however, was not interested. The most probable explanation for that was the "peace process" and the quasi-messianic expectations surrounding it. To deal with Saddam would have been a major distraction from that effort.
A year later, this author had much the same discussion with the Saudi ambassador in Washington, Prince Bandar. Like Mr. Rabinovich, Mr. Bandar was stunned, because the point, when properly understood, was so obvious, and because a private citizen was explaining it to him, rather than an American official. Much later, Saudi Arabia would quietly support the American war against Iraq.
Recently, this author discussed the broader question of this Baluch terrorist family, as identified by American officials, with Amos Gilboa, retired from the no. 2 position in Israeli military intelligence. When asked which was more likely: These individuals are a particularly talented and murderous family or they are Iraq's Baluch network given legends on the basis of Kuwait's files, Mr. Gilboa replied, "It's obvious" that they are Iraqi agents. In a separate discussion, Richard Perle, an assistant secretary of defense during the Reagan administration, said much the same.
In sum, the American investigation of Al Qaeda has discovered that a "family" lies at the core of the major Islamic attacks on America, starting with the bombing of the World Trade Center in February 1993 and culminating in the September 11, 2001, attacks. There is substantial reason, however, to doubt these people are, in fact, a family. The far greater likelihood is that Iraqi intelligence tampered with files in Kuwait, while Iraq occupied the country, to create legends for its network of Baluch agents, which Baghdad had developed and employed during its war with Iran.
That these terrorist masterminds are Baluch is, in and of itself, noteworthy, given Iraq's ties to the Baluch. That these people are supposed to be a family is also very suspicious. Why, then, doesn't the Bush administration say anything about this, one may well ask.
Partly, there has been no intelligence reform in the wake of the September 11 attacks. The CIA is a bureaucracy run amok, more interested in covering up its mistakes than understanding Al Qaeda. Senior administration officials responsible for the Iraq war have come under vicious attack, and they are on the defensive. This information does not move up the food chain, and it is doubtful that President Bush or Vice President Cheney are aware of it.
If they were, they would likely order that steps be taken to pursue this issue. The first essential step, however, is understanding that the American intelligence community has in fact produced a remarkably odd account of our mortal enemy--one man and his "nephews."
Ms. Mylroie was adviser on Iraq to the 1992 presidential campaign of Mr. Clinton. Her most recent book is "Bush vs. the Beltway: How the CIA and the State Department Tried to Stop the War on Terror" (HarperCollins, 2003).
http://daily.nysun.com/Repository/m2.asp?Issue=NYS/2004/06/24&ID=Ar01100&Mod e=HTML
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.