Posted on 09/04/2002 7:21:03 PM PDT by Fred Mertz
Goodnight.
Here are a couple more items of interest:
IPR Strategic Business Information DatabaseHijazi was quickly withdrawn as the Iraqi ambassador to Turkey and is presently in Tunisia.
October 22, 2001 INC SAYS IRAQI AMBASSADOR LINKED TO WTC ATTACK TACTIC. :An official at the Iraqi National Congress (INC) in Washington said the tactic for the attacks on the WTC and the Pentagon was hatched by Faruq Hijazi, currently Iraq's ambassador to Turkey and a former brigadier general in the General Intelligence Directorate, and its current Brigadier General Habib Ma'muri, according to an article in the "Jerusalem Post" of 14 October. Ma'muri was in charge of special operations from 1982-1990, and at the same time Hijazi lectured on espionage, assassination, and hijacking following the Gulf War. The INC official said that "the plan of controlling a civilian airplane with full fuel tanks, using teams of five and items that can be easily carried aboard a plane, such as knives, and then using the plane as a guided missile was hatched by Ma'muri and Hijazi at Salman Pak some time before 1995." The "Jerusalem Post" adds that "Newsweek" magazine says that Hijazi met suspected hijacker Muhammad Atta in Prague last April. Hijazi last gained wide press attention when he visited with Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan in 1998. (David Nissman)
Here's another little item:
A high-ranking defector who served for 16 years in an Iraqi intelligence agency said on 2 November that the Baghdad regime has controlled and funded Osama bin Laden's Al-Qaeda network since 1998. He was briefing members of the Iraq National Congress (INC) in London, according to Melbourne's "The Sunday Herald Sun" on 4 November. He claimed that the funding for Al-Qaeda came from illegal oil exports channeled through Dubai in the Persian Gulf. An INC activist said "he has first-hand information about the link between Saddam and bin Laden because he also worked as a money-launderer and sanctions- buster for the Iraqi leader." The defector's name was withheld for the sake of his personal security, but London-based sources say he has been living "in one of the Scandinavian countries." An INC activist continued to say "this is the third time a reliable Iraqi informant has come forward with disclosures about how Iraq has been in control of Al-Qaeda for the last three years." AFP reported on 3 November that "La Reppublica" of Italy had also reported on the defector's testimony before the INC. Here, the former officer is identified as "A.S." Among his claims is that Iraq had sent a ton of anthrax to bin Laden. He also said that members of bin Laden's terror network have been trained in Salman Pak in Iraq. (David Nissman)
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Daniel McGrory The Times (London) October 27, 2001, Saturday
Daniel McGrory follows clues that could link Saddam with the outbreak INTELLIGENCE agents from Prague to Swansea are uncovering a trail of clues that point to President Saddam Hussein of Iraq having a hand in al-Qaeda's terrorist missions.
Nor will Baghdad explain why Saddam's agents were spotted at various times this year with Atta in Germany, Spain, Italy and the Czech Republic. Many in the Pentagon are sure Saddam helped to orchestrate the simultaneous hijackings and the anthrax attacks, but President Bush and Tony Blair have yet to be convinced. To get proof of the Baghdad connection, senior officials in the Bush Administration even sent a former CIA Director to Britain on a covert mission. Intelligence officers in Washington have deliberately leaked the testimony of an Iraqi defector hiding in Turkey who said that Saddam set up a terrorist training school on the outskirts of Istanbul to practice hijacking a Boeing passenger aircraft. The CIA says that it is assessing the claims. Meanwhile, a special FBI team sent to Europe to uncover al-Qaeda cells say that they are studying a report from Prague that anthrax spores were given to Atta during his last meeting in Prague in April with Ahmed Khalil Ibrahim Samir al-Ani, the Iraqi consul. "If it can be shown that Atta was given a flask of anthrax," a Western intelligence official said, "then the link will have been made with Osama bin Laden and with Iraq." What is known is that Atta made at least four visits to the Czech Republic to see Mr al-Ani. Czech intelligence officers who saw them embrace at Ruzyne Airport admit that they had no idea who the man greeting Saddam's envoy was. When they were followed to the headquarters of Radio Free Europe the suspicion was that they may have been plotting to bomb it. Yesterday the German newspaper Bild suggested a more sinister motive for their meetings. The claim, according to Israeli security sources, is that Atta was handed a vacuum flask of anthrax by his Iraqi contact. From Prague, it is believed Atta flew to Newark. From New Jersey, letters laced with anthrax were sent to broadcasters and politicians in New York, Washington and Florida. Czech officials have been to Washington to reveal all they know, but they can't question the Iraqi envoy because Mr al-Ani was deported from Prague in April for "activities incompatible with his status as a diplomat". Stanislav Gross, the Czech Interior Minister, confirmed yesterday a meeting in Prague between Atta and Mr al-Ani just weeks before the envoy was expelled. US scientists believe the anthrax spores sent to Tom Daschle, the Senate Majority Leader, had been treated with a sophisticated chemical additive only three countries can manufacture: Russia, America and possibly Iraq.
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Former UN weapons inspectors suggest that Saddam could have helped bin Laden to get nuclear material. Critics of the Pentagon's view say that Iraq would not share its nuclear secrets, but might watch for others trying to buy on the black market. Italian police say they are investigating how Saddam also used his Embassy in Rome to foster his partnership with al-Qaeda. One of Saddam's intelligence agents, Habib Faris Abdullah al-Mamouri, was sent to be the new headmaster of a school for Iraqi diplomats in Italy. The bogus headmaster has not been seen in Rome since July, shortly after he also met Atta. The pair are also said to have been together in Hamburg and Prague. There is no proof the men were in direct contact, but as one intelligence source in Madrid said: "They chose a strange time and place to take a holiday." The Rome daily Il Messaggero, quoting Western intelligence sources, said of Mr al-Mamouri that "he spent more time pursuing contacts helpful to the Iraqi regime among fundamentalist Islamic groups than he had on his supposed teaching duties". Italian officials say that Mr al-Mamouri held the rank of general in the Iraqi secret service, and from 1982 to 1990 worked in the Special Operations Branch forging Baghdad's links with Islamic fundamentalist groups in Pakistan, Afghanistan, the Gulf and Sudan. He was transferred to his "teaching duties" in 1998, although all the Iraqi Embassy will say of his sudden departure is that "he had money problems". Although Colin Powell, the US Secretary of State, and others in his department are sceptical of Saddam's involvement, there are many influential figures in US intelligence who claim that Iraq's links with bin Laden go back to the early Nineties. Desperate for allies after the Gulf War, Saddam sent Faruq Hijazi, his secret service director, to Sudan in 1994, where bin Laden then had his headquarters. The meetings were brokered by Hassan al-Tourabi, the Sudanese Muslim leader, who was bin Laden's protector. The Sudanese belatedly offered to show the CIA all they knew about bin Laden and his visits, to ingratiate themselves back into the international fold, but the Americans scorned the approach. The Iraqi connection with bin Laden continued when the terrorist leader moved to Afghanistan. Mr Hijazi, who is now Saddam's envoy in Turkey, reportedly met the al-Qaeda leader at his fortified home in Kandahar and in Kabul. Mr Hijazi also disappeared from his embassy last month after the first reports of his meetings with al-Qaeda, and he is believed to have slipped back into Ankara earlier this week. The Foreign Ministry in Turkey says it has not been told that the Ambassador had returned, although the Iraqi Embassy says that he is "resting". What puzzles Turkish officials is that there are no airport records of his return. US Intelligence says Saddam cultivated the relationship with al-Qaeda at the start of 1998 by inviting the man regarded as bin Laden's deputy - Ayman Zawahiri - to dine with Taha Yasin Ramadan, the Iraqi Vice-President. That was such a success that a delegation from al-Qaeda attended Saddam's birthday celebrations that April, and it was during this trip that arrangements were made for bin Laden recruits to receive the sort of advanced weapons training they could not get in their camps in Afghanistan. The hand-picked bin Laden agents found themselves under the supervision of Saddam's violent son, Uday, who wanted to conscript some of bin Laden's skilled fighters into his own militia. Bin Laden reciprocated by dispatching "400 Afghan Arabs" to Iraq to fight Kurds. The most curious attempt to implicate Saddam was in South Wales last month when James Woolsey, the former CIA Director, is reported to have visited a Swansea college. The hope was that the testimony of college lecturers and recollections of former students could be used to convince sceptics in the US Administration and Downing Street that Saddam has helped to provide agents to carry out al-Qaeda attacks. Mr Woolsey, who refuses to give details of his British itinerary, has always believed that the Iraqi leader masterminded the 1993 terrorist bombing of the World Trade Centre. The trip to the Swansea Institute was to establish the true identity of one of bin Laden's bombers, who claims to have studied computer-aided engineering in South Wales. Additional reporting by Roger Boyes in Berlin; Richard Owen in Rome and Andrew Finkel in Istanbul |
Thanks for the late night chuckle.
You are right. Let's just give him Czheckoslovakia... Oops! Wrong era.
This is actually an interesting point -- has there been any new footage of him?
I myself think there are good reasons to remove Saddam, but I also think you're asking the right questions.
Forget the Saudi marathon fund raising for the terrorists who are blowing themselves in Israel! Forget the rabid hate and editorials in the Egyptian or Iranian media!
Good digging, Walls. Thanks.
Fred has started this thread with his own concerns and then promptly ended it with a question. I saw no problem with this--he wanted a discussion on Iraq and Hussein.
I disagreed with Fred and told him why.
Fred just wanted an honest discussion and I wish people would respect this fact.
Ghost-writing would be an interesting career, I am sure.
I heard it doesn't pay well though. I know that one of Bush's top speech writers came out of nearby Wheaton College.
Obviously, if you have read the entire thread, you have seen that MANY had a problem with the premise of this thread. And when MUCH information was given to Fred, it was either ignored, or disparaged out of hand (whether because of the content or the source of the information was often left unclear by Fred).
I suggest that if a person posts a thread, they invite comment....not automatic respect.
Perhaps you should allow Fred to speak for himself...rather than YOU being his interpreter?
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