Saddam’s Connections to Terrorists

And well it should. Hayes has been after the Pentagon to release at least some of the more interesting Saddam-era Iraqi intel captured after Saddam fell.

I heard several rumors in Iraq, from friends of mine, about the quantity of intelligence material we captured. (See the quote below from Hayes’ article, referencing “two million” items.) Here is the essence of a memorable if short conversation I had with a young intelligence officer in June 2004: “Colonel Bay, we have so much stuff we can’t even store it, much less start to process it.” Note that “stuff” isn’t a technical term nor a euphemism–it’s an accurate description. The young man was joshing me a bit and he and I both knew it. I knew we had to have an “analytic task force” (somewhere) sifting through the material and trying to determine what “stuff” was the most important–and I didn’t know much beyond that nor need to know it. The rumor mill churned, tantilizing comments would crop up in press reports. (Big point here: I don’t know if anybody had a real grip on what had been captured, much less what may have been stolen, lost, or destroyed. My guess is insiders had suspicions, but the millions of items took time to assess.) I knew the Iraqi interim government had already released some interesting material discovered in an Iraqi ministry: the names of individuals and corporations involved in corrupting Oil For Food. That was early spring 2004, February if memory serves. At the time the significance of that information wasn’t clear.

Saddam aided and abetted terrorists. He let “secular terrorist” Abu Nidal live in Baghdad, and the rumor mill says Saddam had Abu Nidal killed because the old killer knew too much. Several press sources reported that Saddam had contacts with Ansar al Islam, the Al Qaeda affiliate in Kurdish territory. (Hayes mentions Ansar in his article, and Saddam’s “Popular Islamic Conference,” which was an event that cropped up in open-source press reports.)

I am certain Saddam and Islamist terrorists had contact in the sewer where terror, tyranny, and crime mix. Saddam crowed about giving money to the families of suicide bombers in Palestine. Hayes says there is emerging evidence that Saddam provided logistical and training support.

THE FORMER IRAQI REGIME OF Saddam Hussein trained thousands of radical Islamic terrorists from the region at camps in Iraq over the four years immediately preceding the U.S. invasion, according to documents and photographs recovered by the U.S. military in postwar Iraq. The existence and character of these documents has been confirmed to THE WEEKLY STANDARD by eleven U.S. government officials.

The secret training took place primarily at three camps–in Samarra, Ramadi, and Salman Pak–and was directed by elite Iraqi military units. Interviews by U.S. government interrogators with Iraqi regime officials and military leaders corroborate the documentary evidence. Many of the fighters were drawn from terrorist groups in northern Africa with close ties to al Qaeda, chief among them Algeria’s GSPC and the Sudanese Islamic Army. Some 2,000 terrorists were trained at these Iraqi camps each year from 1999 to 2002, putting the total number at or above 8,000. Intelligence officials believe that some of these terrorists returned to Iraq and are responsible for attacks against Americans and Iraqis. According to three officials with knowledge of the intelligence on Iraqi training camps, White House and National Security Council officials were briefed on these findings in May 2005; senior Defense Department officials subsequently received the same briefing.

The photographs and documents on Iraqi training camps come from a collection of some 2 million “exploitable items” captured in postwar Iraq and Afghanistan. They include handwritten notes, typed documents, audiotapes, videotapes, compact discs, floppy discs, and computer hard drives. Taken together, this collection could give U.S. intelligence officials and policymakers an inside look at the activities of the former Iraqi regime in the months and years before the Iraq War…

UPDATE: Further comment– I know of no information directly connecting Saddam’s regime operationally to Al Qaeda. Hayes’ seems to think that information exists, but we haven;t seen it. Asking if there was a proveable operational connection between Saddam’s regime and Al Qaeda is a fair and necessary question, especially in the context of a court room. However, it is an incomplete question if one lives in a world where violent people with violent aims and lots of money meet occasionally, sip tea, and explore mutual interests. If one lives in a world composed solely of court rooms with honest judges protected by jolly baliffs, then the operational connection question and a clear “yes” or “no” answer to this question are determinative. No connection? Well, no military action. Case dismissed. (Call this world Never Land.) However, if one lives in the other world –and you’ve seen the Pentagon and World Trade Center attacked, you know Saddam used WMD, you know he sought it, you know he had been in violation of key UNSCRs since 1991, and you know the terror klan that launched 9/11 also seeks WMD, other pertinent questions emerge–and they are arguably more determinative. Here’s one: how do we stop the violent people from going beyond “exploring mutual interests” because the result of clandestine cooperation is so grim, costly, and deadly?

As for the young captain’s comment on the pyramids of paper left in Iraqi ministries– the material’s existence was no secret. To suggest he violated OPSEC is silly–actually, it’s beyond silly. The Iraqis were collecting a lot of the material. Based on what I remember reading in press reports, I believe some of the Oil For Food documents were turned over to the CPA by Iraqis going through material found in an Iraqi government building. That’s collection and processing. The problem government ministries and coalition intel faced was the number of documents and (apparently) the documents were also disorganized. Hayes’ two million items figure (for Iraq and Afghanistan) is the first figure I’ve seen anywhere, but strikes me as credible. There are probably more, and it will take years to examine them and try to understand them.

This Weekly Standard article by Stephen Hayes is cropping up all over the net.

Saddam's Terror Training Camps
What the documents captured from the former Iraqi regime reveal--and why they should all be made public.
by Stephen F. Hayes
01/16/2006, Volume 011, Issue 17
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/006/550kmbzd.asp

I have always believed the Democrat LIE that Saddam had following BASIC reasons:

1.) Al Qaeda is a LOOSE organization of LIKE-MINDED terrorists. Abu Sayeef trained in Afganistan. Their home is the Phillipines.

2.) Saddam EXPORTED terrorism! He paid $25,000 to families of suicide bombers.

3.) Salam Pak was a terrorist training base in Iraq.

4.) Use of Mustard Gas against the Iranians and Kurds is an act of TERROR.

5.) Slaughter of Kuwaities and Basra Shias was an act of TERROR!

There are many more examples. The question the Dams ask is what has this to do with US (U.S.)?

Biological weapons in Saddam's hands would invite Sarin or other types of attackes as attempted in Japan.

Do the Damocrats want the POTUS to wait until we have been hit with a biological or chemical attack?

OF COURSE THEY DO! So they could IMPEACH the entire PARTY!

I have always believed the Democrat LIE that Saddam had following BASIC reasons: Boy poor editing on my part. I have always believed the Democrat LIE that Saddam had nothing to do with Al Qaeda was Unsupportable for the following BASIC reasons:

Keep it up.

Also the Barrett report.

While we are it lets not forget who called Frey a F--ing Jew bastard.

The question the Dams ask is what has this to do with US (U.S.)?

1 The world has become a small interconneted place and is becoming more so everyday. The world cannot allow people like Saddam to remain in power.
2 Root causes, by liberating Iraq (in the heart of the Arab world) we are addressing (one of) the root causes of Islamic terrorism.

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