CIA: No Iraqi Officer Link In Al-Qaeda Meeting

It is only evidence if it is the same guy. If it is not the same guy, it is evidence of nothing at all.

True. As things stand we don't know whether or not it is the same guy. But we have raw reasons to believe it can be the same guy (same name, same nationality, both work in some capacity for Iraqi gov't in something dark), and no raw reasons that I can see to believe it can't be. Thus it's "evidence".

Let's say you have a pistol found in Ft. Marcy park, near a certain Honda. If it has been fired and is a matching caliber to the bullet in Foster's head, it is evidence. If not, it is a gun laying in a park.

Good example but don't you have to "vet" or "confirm" that the person who fired that gun, and me, are the same person? Otherwise it's "not evidence", right? (By your rules not mine.)

You have a roster with a name on it. If that name belongs to the guy in KL, it is evidence. If the name doesn't, it is garbage.

Ok, let me know when you've got a solid reason to prove one or the other. Otherwise I'll just stick with the 65-85% working hypothesis I've already got. Got a problem with that?

No, but you have to look further into it, to make sure it is what you think it is. It may be a gun laying in a park, but, WTH, it is DC. You can't just think you have the murder weapon because its obvious. You send it to ballistics.

Run it out. If it is the same guy, it is much, much bigger than a simple Iraq / AQ connection. It is a 9-11 connection. And if it is the same guy, the we've got another major CIA screwup by letting the guy get away in Jordan. But those two things, in combination, seem pretty unlikely to me if all we have is a Fedayeen roster to back it up.

No, but you have to look further into it, to make sure it is what you think it is.

I'd love to. Unfortunately I am but a simple layperson. I do not have access to the White House or to Langley, I don't even live in the Beltway. I have to glean what I can from open, public sources and read between the lines to draw the most reasonable inferences I can. There's really no way for me to "look further into" whether one Shakir was the other. Is there?

Unless of course you can point me to an actual link of some kind which gives a real reason to believe, or disbelieve, or even adjust my belief-level, that the two are one and the same. (Which this article was not.) (Which is all that I am saying.)

Here, you have a name. Might be the KL guy, might not. Lots of ways to pull that thread, especially when you had the guy under interrogation once before, and you've got surveillance over him in KL, and you know enough about him to match with whatever records the military may have. I'm assuming that Iraqis kept records of a Lt.Col. that had a little more than a mere name. Age? Birthdate? Home or birthplace? Tribe? background info? Training? Run it out. If it is the same guy, it is much, much bigger than a simple Iraq / AQ connection. It is a 9-11 connection. And if it is the same guy, the we've got another major CIA screwup by letting the guy get away in Jordan.

That is all true.

I am not in a position, as a layperson, to act on any of that. I can't possibly "run it out" or "pull that thread". I have to hope that others do, and then come forward to tell me in explicit terms what they find. So far, this has not happened, so I'm stuck with the foggy circumstantial evidence and my 65-85% working hypothesis. That's life.

If it is the same guy, it is much, much bigger than a simple Iraq / AQ connection. It is a 9-11 connection. And if it is the same guy, the we've got another major CIA screwup by letting the guy get away in Jordan.

This would seem to provide a nice clean motive for "the CIA" to "conclude" that it was a different guy, would it not? FWIW

But those two things, in combination, seem pretty unlikely to me if all we have is a Fedayeen roster to back it up.

Let's switch things around: if the link were real, and exposing the link would reveal a major CIA screwup, how likely would it be that the CIA would let the public know about anything other than a Fedayeen roster to back it up (which was *damn!* accidentally found by some Pentagon guy)?

Thanks, you've given me some real food for thought here. The CIA's "conclusion" is starting to make a whole lot more sense now. Best,

If the CIA had any air of competence left to defend, I might have those same musings. But could it really get any worse for them? I mean, maybe if we found the 9/11 plans back behind the drawer in some former tranlators desk, but I doubt this would make them look much worse in the public's eye. It would further diminish them in the eyes of those who were imploring that they "take another look" at Iraq's possible involvement in the attacks. It would also elevate Feith and the DIA crew.

Now that I think about it, even the letting him get away in Jordan isn't the end of it. We know that one of the major screwups was letting the two hijackers slip out of sight, and enter the US, after the KL meeting. If we had a Fedayeen under surveillance meeting with these terrorists, had surveillance photos, and then didn't connect that up while we had him in Jordan - OMG, what are these people doing? One would think that, post 9-11, everyone we had on film meeting with two of the guys who did the deed would be at the top of the pile.

If the CIA had any air of competence left to defend, I might have those same musings. But could it really get any worse for them?

It can always get worse. They still have a budget do they not?

Also now what you're saying is that their competence is so bad that it can get no worse. Why then am I paying attention to a "CIA conclusion" in the first place? Presumably a "CIA conclusion" ought to lend credence to, if anything, its opposite... ;-)

It would also elevate Feith and the DIA crew.

Which, presumably, they do not want to do. Are you trying to argue against their having a motive to "conclude" no link here, or for that motive? Seems like you're bolstering my point. (thanks)

If we had a Fedayeen under surveillance meeting with these terrorists, had surveillance photos, and then didn't connect that up while we had him in Jordan - OMG, what are these people doing?

Right, another reason to keep the "conclusion" out there that these Shakirs are diff'rent folks. I grow more and more confident of this theory every minutes. :) Best,

A bit of follow-up, this time from the WaPo:

An allegation that a high-ranking al Qaeda member was an officer in Saddam Hussein's private militia may have resulted from confusion over Iraqi names, a senior administration official said yesterday.

Former Navy secretary John Lehman, a Republican member of the commission investigating the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, said Sunday that documents found in Iraq "indicate that there is at least one officer of Saddam's Fedayeen, a lieutenant colonel, who was a very prominent member of al Qaeda." Although he said the identity "still has to be confirmed," Lehman introduced the information on NBC's "Meet the Press" to counter a commission staff report that said there were contacts between Iraq and al Qaeda but no "collaborative relationship."

Yesterday, the senior administration official said Lehman had probably confused two people who have similar-sounding names.

One of them is Ahmad Hikmat Shakir Azzawi, identified as an al Qaeda "fixer" in Malaysia. Officials say he served as an airport greeter for al Qaeda in January 2000 in Kuala Lumpur, at a gathering for members who were to be involved in the attacks on the USS Cole, the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

Iraqi military documents, found last year, listed a similar name, Lt. Col. Hikmat Shakir Ahmad, on a roster of Hussein's militia, Saddam's Fedayeen.

"By most reckoning that would be someone else" other than the airport greeter, said the administration official...He added that the identification issue is still being studied but "it doesn't look like a match to most analysts."

In an interview yesterday, Lehman said it is still possible the man in Kuala Lumpur was affiliated with Hussein, even if he isn't the man on the Fedayeen roster. "It's one more instance where this is an intriguing possibility that needs to be run to ground," Lehman said. "The most intriguing part of it is not whether or not he was in the Fedayeen, but whether or not the guy who attended Kuala Lumpur had any connections to Iraqi intelligence. . . . We don't know."

Thanks for the heads-up on the Post article. The mis-ordering of names (unlike the earlier "CIA concluded" stuff) does indeed lower my percentage, you'll be happy to hear. :-) I'd been assuming "misspelling", not different name order.

Although I do have to wonder why this Malaysia character is suddenly now being called "Ahmad Hikmat Shakir Azzawi" when in all earlier public sources he was never an "Azzawi", just a "Shakir". A Google search for the phrase "shakir azzawi" turns up exactly 218 links, all of them dated June 22, 2004. This "Azzawi" thing is completely new. They didn't know that "Azzawi" was part of his name until now? Strange. Also interesting is the revelation allowed to trickle out that, forgetting about the fedayeen guy, the Al Qaeda Shakir (Azzawi?) in Malaysia

Ahmad Hikmat Shakir [hey! again no "Azzawi"! -DrFf] was employed with the aid of an Iraqi intelligence officer as a "greeter" or "facilitator" for Arabic-speaking visitors at the airport at Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

I'd never seen it revealed that the AQ Shakir was connected to Iraqi intelligence per se like this. It was always much murkier. It seems that even if we forget about the Fedayeen Shakir, the Malaysia Shakir may have been a Mukhabarat agent, which is almost more worth following up on and would seem to make more sense.

I get lots of my stuff from Dan Darling, FYI, (scroll to heading "Shakir") who I trust as amazingly fair and informed on these things. (Another point in his favor: I remember him writing long ago, when this Fedayeen Shakir thing first came out, expressing surprise that an AQ link would go through Fedayeen and not the Mukhabarat. Maybe he was right and this Fedayeen stuff was a wild-goose chase.)

Best,

What is missing here?

I wish I knew....

The most reliable fallback for any Iraq-AQ denier has always been "if X is a Link why isn't Team Bush shouting X from the rooftops?". Sometimes it's nothing but a cheap retort but it really does point to a phenomenon which requires a more satisfying explanation. There's no question that Bush et al are not communicating well, or: are not communicating something. And this becomes a failure in leadership, in rallying the country's morale. They simply cannot keep doing that and not expect people to notice the hole in their public rhetoric. At best I suppose they might think they will squeeze through in November without disambiguating at least some of these issues, but I am not so sure. The question is not going away.

Best,

Yeah - I see it as a problem not from the standpoint of a "denier" but from the standpoint of one who recognizes that we are only getting partial information - and that you have to look at surrounding circumstances as "gap fillers." Like I said (and as Lehman said), IF the guy is connected to Iraqi intelligence, it is huge. Darling says the same thing. Now, what does Lehman say about that question? "We don't know." Now, I have to assume that Lehman knows about 800% more info on the topic than I do. And I have to assume that some in the intel community and others in the Exec Branch know about 500% more than Lehman knows. So, IF the guy is connected to Iraqi intelligence, I'm guessing someone knows. And if they know, why aren't they telling us - because it is not just a tie to AQ, it is a tie to the attacks - then the Iraq war gets cast as a direct response to those attacks [which may, of course, mean that Riyadh is next :-) ]

It does seem like a no-brainer IF it is as reported. Baffling, to say the least.

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