The Truth On The Iraq/al-Qaeda Connections

Flopping Aces ^ | 04-07-07 | Curt

[Starman417]

This latest MSM piece is just one more in a long line of half truths and misinformation on the connections between Saddam and al-Qaeda.

Captured Iraqi documents and intelligence interrogations of Saddam Hussein and two former aides "all confirmed" that Hussein's regime was not directly cooperating with al-Qaeda before the U.S. invasion of Iraq, according to a declassified Defense Department report released yesterday.

The declassified version of the report, by acting Inspector General Thomas F. Gimble, also contains new details about the intelligence community's prewar consensus that the Iraqi government and al-Qaeda figures had only limited contacts, and about its judgments that reports of deeper links were based on dubious or unconfirmed information. The report had been released in summary form in February.

Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.), who requested the report's declassification, said in a written statement that the complete text demonstrates more fully why the inspector general concluded that a key Pentagon office -- run by then-Undersecretary of Defense Douglas J. Feith -- had inappropriately written intelligence assessments before the March 2003 invasion alleging connections between al-Qaeda and Iraq that the U.S. intelligence consensus disputed.

Of course the IG report does not state why the intelligence assessment was "inappropiate" if the activity broke no laws and violated no policies. What is so inappropriate about having different agencies developing different analysis reports on intelligence? Isn't alternative viewpoints a very important tool in developing a consensus?

Be that it may lets get into some facts about the very real connections between al-Qaeda and Iraq. While I agree with all the intelligence agencies that Saddam most likely did not have a very strong operational connection with the group nor was he involved in 9/11 (at this point, more evidence may come up which does in fact tie the two together) I do not agree with most of the left leaning think tanks, MSM outfits and blogs that there was NO connections.

I've asked Scott Malensek to do a rebuttal on this WaPo article which he will try to do tonight. He emailed me a few minutes ago with this:

Simply put, there was no pre-war CIA investigation into ties that made any conclusions that there were either ties or not ties. There was no post-war CIA investigation at all. Moreover, the WaPo piece ignores the ties that the ISG report DOES cite (like Saddam training AQ, using Abu Nidal and ANO as intermediary to AQ, and more). That WaPo piece is a full-on partisan hard-on that cherry picks a report, makes assumptions and claims where none are in the report, and makes deliberately false statements contrary to the facts/intel in the report. Man, such a huge subject...so many things to contradict, so little time and space.

Amen. There is just a TON of evidence and facts to point out that any post on this matter would take up hundreds of pages. Just take a look at my Iraq/Al-Qaeda category, lots of pages there.

Of course this editorial at the WaPo calls all this evidence "delusional"

Here are a few examples of intelligence that taken as a whole (along with my many other posts on the subject, the book The Connection, the released Saddam documents, Ray Robisons new book, and Scott Malensek 124 page rebuttal to the IG report) point to a definite connection.

First lets start with a Stephen Hayes article:

Indeed, more than two years after the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein was ousted, there is much we do not know about the relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda. We do know, however, that there was one. We know about this relationship not from Bush administration assertions but from internal Iraqi Intelligence Service (IIS) documents recovered in Iraq after the war--documents that have been authenticated by a U.S. intelligence community long hostile to the very idea that any such relationship exists.

We know from these IIS documents that beginning in 1992 the former Iraqi regime regarded bin Laden as an Iraqi Intelligence asset. We know from IIS documents that the former Iraqi regime provided safe haven and financial support to an Iraqi who has admitted to mixing the chemicals for the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center. We know from IIS documents that Saddam Hussein agreed to Osama bin Laden's request to broadcast anti-Saudi propaganda on Iraqi state-run television. We know from IIS documents that a "trusted confidante" of bin Laden stayed for more than two weeks at a posh Baghdad hotel as the guest of the Iraqi Intelligence Service.

We have been told by Hudayfa Azzam, the son of bin Laden's longtime mentor Abdullah Azzam, that Saddam Hussein welcomed young al Qaeda members "with open arms" before the war, that they "entered Iraq in large numbers, setting up an organization to confront the occupation," and that the regime "strictly and directly" controlled their activities. We have been told by Jordan's King Abdullah that his government knew Abu Musab al Zarqawi was in Iraq before the war and requested that the former Iraqi regime deport him. We have been told by Time magazine that confidential documents from Zarqawi's group, recovered in recent raids, indicate other jihadists had joined him in Baghdad before the Hussein regime fell. We have been told by one of those jihadists that he was with Zarqawi in Baghdad before the war. We have been told by Ayad Allawi, former Iraqi prime minister and a longtime CIA source, that other Iraqi Intelligence documents indicate bin Laden's top deputy was in Iraq for a jihadist conference in September 1999.

How about Ahmed Hikmat Shakir? Who is he? Well take a look at my post on him from two years ago:

Ahmed Hikmat Shakir, a 37 year old Iraqi citizen, was a greeter at Kuala Lumpur International Airport in Malaysia in August 2000 (I know, sounds kinda like wal-mart but apparently greeters are quite common in Southeast Asia). How was he hired to be a greeter? Ahmed had told associates that he had been hired by contact's in the Iraqi embassy. What's unusual is that it was this contact, not his employer, who told him when and where to report to.

In late December of 1999 the CIA, NSA and The State Department all received intelligence that indicated there would be a Al-Qaeda meeting in Malaysia in early January of 2000. The NSA had intercepted communications from those tied to the 1998 Kenya/Tanzania embassy bombings. The information was incomplete but did contain the names of three people, Khalid, Nawaf, and Salem.

The CIA and Malaysian intelligence set up a joint operation to track the meeting. They got many photographs of the principals arriving. Principals such as Khalid al Mihdhar (A known al-Qaeda associate), Nawaf al Hazmi, Yazid Sufaat (another known al-Qaeda associate) and Ramzi bin al Shibh. An interesting note about Ramzi, he would later brag to be the "coordinator of the holy tuesday operation" (9/11).

Ahmed was told to work the day these guys showed up. After greeting these fine folks Ahmed didn't go back to work but left with them to the meeting. The meeting ended on Jan 8th and Ahmed quit on the 10th.

The purpose of this meeting? The planning of attack on the USS Cole and 9/11. Malaysian and American intelligence bear this out. Don't believe it? Then guess who was on flight 77 on 9/11? Nawaf al Hazmi, his brother Salem and Khalid al Mihdhar...that's right, the same folks photographed upon their arrival for the above meeting.

On Sept 17th, 2001 authorities in Qatar arrested Ahmed and found a huge amount of information on high level terrorists with strong ties to al-Qaeda and indirect links to Iraq.

Among his contacts? Zahid Sheikh Mohammed, the brother of 9/11 planner Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. Musab Yasin, the brother of the 93 WTC bomber Abdul Rahman Yasin. Interestingly Musab was harbored by Iraq for a decade after the 93 bombing.

Want more? When he was arrested he had the telephone number for Mamdouh Mahmud Salim. The number was to the desk of Taba Investments, one of the best known front companies used by Osama Bin Laden.

So you have a known Iraqi citizen being paid by the Iraqi embassy in Kuala Lumpur, attending a meeting by known al-Qaeda members, some of whom later turn up on one of the planes on 9/11. After 9/11 he is arrested and found to have information on some high level al-Qaeda contacts who have direct links with Iraq. Add all this up and what does it tell ya? Maybe Iraq had links with al-Qaeda after all.

How about the fact that Saddam Hussein supported Syrian religious extremists in their efforts to overthrow Syrian leader Hafez al Assad. In 1982 Assad brutally put down this rebellion at which point the extremists, who had formed the group Syrian Muslim Brotherhood, scattered. Some went to Iraq where they trained with Iraqis at the al Rashdiya camp outside Baghdad.

One of the Syrians who spent time at the camps was Imad Eddin Barakat Yarkas who would later become the leader of al-Qaeda's operations in Spain. He stayed in Iraq until 1986.

Yarkas was captured in Madrid in November 2001, along with papers that included a invitation to a party at the residence of the Iraqi ambassador to Spain. The invitation was addressed to Luis Galan Gonzales (a known al-Qaeda associate who took the muslim name Yusaf Galan.

It also turns out Yarkas was the roommate of lead hijacker Mohamed Atta in Germany (must be a coincidence tho huh?). Since then intelligence departments around the world have found that many leaders of the al-Qaeda cells in Madrid and Hamburg, the cells that executed 9/11, were onetime Syrian Muslim Brotherhood members.

On May 5th, 1998 Iraqi state-run tv reported that vice president Taha yasin Ramadan met with leaders of the SMB in Baghdad.

What does Saddam's relationship with SMB show us, not only that he was not hostile to Islamic Radicals as suggested by many in the left, but openly welcomed them.

How about the fact that on January 19th, 1991, Ahmed J. Ahmed and Abdul Kadham Saad, two Iraqi students living in the Philippines, attempted to detonate a bomb at a US government building. The consul general at the Iraqi embassy in Manila (Muwufak al-Ani) met with the two bombers at least 5 times in the days leading up to the attack, they even used his car to deliver the bombers to within a few blocks of their target. The bomb was accidently detonated one block short of their target when they went to check it. Saad survived the blast, badly burnt, and at the hospital he directed the nurses to notify the Iraqi embassy and recited the embassy's number. Muwufak's business card was found in his pocket. Think that may point to Saddam actively supporting terrorists?

Many of Saddam's documents also contain evidence of the link such as this one from the late 90's:

B. An approval to meet with opposer Osama bin Laden by the Intelligence Services was given by the Honorable Presidency in its letter 138, dated January 11, 1995 (attachment 6). He [bin Laden] was met by the previous general director of M4 in Sudan and in the presence of the Sudanese, Ibrahim al-Sanusi, on February 19, 1995. We discussed with him his organization. He requested the broadcast of the speeches of Sheikh Sulayman al-Uda (who has influence within Saudi Arabia and outside due to being a well known religious and influential personality) and to designate a program for them through the broadcast directed inside Iraq, and to perform joint operations against the foreign forces in the land of Hijaz. (The Honorable Presidency was informed of the details of the meeting in our letter 370 on March 4, 1995, attachment 7.)

Another:

D. Due to the latest conditions in Sudan and accusing her harboring of supporting and harboring terrorism it was agreed with the opposition person the Saudi Osama Bin Laden to leave Sudan to another place where he left Khartoom in the month of July 1996 and the information indicate that he is Afghanistan at the present moment. There is stil relation with him through the Sudanese side and we work in the present moment to activate this relation with him through a new channel in light of the current place where he stays.

[...]The approval of the Honorable Presidency was granted to meet with the opposition person Osama Bin Laden by the Apparatus

[...]a discussion occurred about his organization, and he requested the broadcasting of Sheikh Sleiman AL Awada (who has influence in Saudia and outside since he is a known and influential religious personality) and dedicate a program for them through the station directed inside the country and make joint operations against the forces of infidels in the land of Hijaz

How about Saddam’s ten years of harboring of 1993 World Trade Center bomber Abdul Rahman Yasin?

Or the Clinton administration's top counter-terrorism official, Richard Clarke’s, assertions that Saddam had offered bin Laden asylum after the embassy bombings, and Clarke’s memo to Sandy Berger advising him not to fly U-2 missions against bin Laden in Afghanistan because he might be tipped off by Pakistani Intelligence? From the 9/11 Commission report:

It would require Pakistani approval, he wrote; and “Pak[istan’s] intel[ligence service] is in bed with” Bin Ladin and would warn him that the United States was getting ready for a bombing campaign: “Armed with that knowledge, old wily Usama will likely boogie to Baghdad.”

How about the fact that high-ranking Clinton administration officials insisted to the 9/11 Commission that the 1998 strikes against a Sudanese pharmaceutical factory was justified because the factory was a chemical weapons facility tied to Iraq and bin Laden?

Finally, but not last by any long shot, we have the Clinton Justice Department's indictment against bin Laden

In addition, al Qaeda reached an understanding with the government of Iraq that al Qaeda would not work against that government and that on particular projects, specifically including weapons development, al Qaeda would work cooperatively with the Government of Iraq.

Want more? Scott's piece tonight will detail much more I'm sure. Or check out my Iraq/Al-Qaeda category, or Scott's rebuttal to the IG report, or Ray Robisons new book (in ebook format at the moment) which details many more connections.

The evidence is staggering, except to our MSM outfits and the lefties in this country who wish to keep their heads in the sand. All in the name of politics.

The truth be damned.

UPDATE

Woops

[Peach]

The Iraq/AQ relationship goes back to the early 90’s. It was so well established that the MSM (Newsweek, NYT, etc.) wrote dozens of articles about the world’s alarm at the growing relationship.

Also, the Clinton Justice Department mentioned the relationship between Iraq and AQ in their federal indictment of Osama bin Laden.

That and more can be found here:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1698371/posts

[EagleUSA]

The MSM has chosen what they are and thank God, most Americans know exactly what and who they are, and who they are beholding to. The lap dogs of the socialist corrupt left. This is just another example of their complicity in lies, deceit, criminality and anti-Americanism.

[alloysteel]

As much as possible, the belief that al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein were partners in the planning and execution of the events of 9/11 has to be suppressed. Or at least in the eyes of those who want to escape blame for their inattention to duty in the critical years between the end of the first Gulf War and the onset of the invasion of Iraq in 2003.

Even the “Shan” (previously known as the “Former Occupant of the Oval Office, 1993-2001”) was certain that al-Qaeda was the driving force behind the planning and execution of the attack on the World Trade Center and related attacks on the Pentagon and what was presumed to be an attack on the White House or Capitol itself. But al-Qaeda did not exist in a vacuum, and Afghanistan simply did not have the sophisticated infrastructure for training in methods of overpowering and taking down the crew of a jetliner. Saddam had just such a facility, at Salman Pak. This HAD to be coordination at a very high level.

Occam’s Razor. The simpler explanation is very likely the more nearly correct one. Making up all kinds of stories, that the destruction of the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were somehow the work of a cabal within the Federal government, gets so far-fetched as to be the source of shaking one’s head.

Both Osama bin Ladin and Saddam Hussein had enough dislike for America, that easily overcame any distaste they had for each other. Iraq and al-Qaeda were allies BEFORE the invasion in 2003.

[supercat]

Both Osama bin Ladin and Saddam Hussein had enough dislike for America, that easily overcame any distaste they had for each other. Iraq and al-Qaeda were allies BEFORE the invasion in 2003.

Further, regardless of whether or not Al Qaeda was allied with Iraq before 2003, and regardless of whether it was right for us to go in, if Al Qaeda are with the troublemakers there now, that's a good reason to stay.

[hophead]

“Hussein’s regime was not directly cooperating with al-Qaeda”

NOT DIRECTLY is the operable term here.

[Para-Ord.45]

Referance Ping

[Enchante]

The forthcoming book by Ray Robison, et al, looks to be very important in understanding Saddam and Al Qaeda:

http://rayrobison.typepad.com/ray_robison/2007/04/announcement_a_.html

It’s available now as an e-book in a preliminary form and will be in print soon, apparently.

Of course, the MSM and Demagogues will try desperately to ignore and/or provide more misinformation on this subject, and Republicans are all running scared, afraid to touch it (with the notable exception of VP Cheney!).

[ikez78]

LA Times news desk 213-237-5000, ask for Peter Speigel

Washington Post 1 800-627-1150, R. Jeffrey Smith.

Please call these two writers if you’d like to challenge the contents of their stories. Just please be polite and simply ask for these people through those numbers, should only take seconds, and ask why those authors did not mention x, y and z. You Freepers the x, y and z. If you don’t you could simply ask them to look at the websites www.rayrobsion.typepad.com, Scottmalensek.com, iraqdocs.blogspot.com, www.husseinandterror.com and www.regimeofterror.com

I personally talked to both these guys earlier and they both admitted little background knowledge on the subject. Please don’t mention this but try to help them get in touch with the facts and evidence that they continually leave out of their stories on the subject.

[Jabba the Nutt]

Liberal lies and propaganda never die. Hoovervilles.

[swmobuffalo]

Bump

[Peach]

Thanks for remembering and for the ping.

The evidence is so staggering that I keep forgetting the media would prefer we all have amnesia about this matter.

Just these two little facts from the article are enough to make us realize the lies the media are trying to force-feed us:

How about the fact that high-ranking Clinton administration officials insisted to the 9/11 Commission that the 1998 strikes against a Sudanese pharmaceutical factory was justified because the factory was a chemical weapons facility tied to Iraq and bin Laden?
Finally, but not last by any long shot, we have the Clinton Justice Department’s indictment against bin Laden

In addition, al Qaeda reached an understanding with the government of Iraq that al Qaeda would not work against that government and that on particular projects, specifically including weapons development, al Qaeda would work cooperatively with the Government of Iraq.