Posted on 01/29/2003 7:46:01 PM PST by knak
Sources say case pushed by Bush and Blair linking Saddam and Bin Laden is notbased on hard facts
President Bush used his state of the union address to paint a terrifying picture for the American people of another attack like September 11 - but this time with chemical, biological or nuclear weapons. Tony Blair reinforced the message yesterday by telling the Commons: "We do know of links between al-Qaida and Iraq. We cannot be sure of the exact extent of those links."
However, a number of well-placed sources in Whitehall insisted there was no intelligence suggesting such a link. "While we have said there may possibly be individuals in the country [Iraq] we have never said anything to suggest specific links between al-Qaida and Saddam Hussein," said one.
Establishing the link is essential to persuading the public that Iraq represents an imminent threat, and President Bush insisted that hard evidence in the shape of "intelligence sources, secret communications, and statements by people now in custody" proved the connection was real.
But the intelligence analysts in the US and Britain on whose work the president's claim was supposedly based say the connections are tangential at best, and the available evidence falls far short of proving a secret relationship between Baghdad and Osama bin Laden. One intelligence source in Washington, who has seen CIA material on the link, described the case as "soft" and "squishy".
Abu Musab al-Zarqawi
That case relies heavily on a man called Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian member of the al-Qaida leadership who was wounded in the leg in the US-led bombing of Afghanistan. In late 2001, according to US intelligence sources, he sought medical treatment in Iran but was deported and fled to Baghdad, where his leg was amputated. Telephone calls he made to his family in Jordan were intercepted. The question is whether Saddam Hussein's regime knew who he was and whether it offered him any assistance. "Yes, we have him telling his family I'm here in Baghdad in hospital, but he's not saying: 'And by the way, I'm getting all this help from Saddam,' " said a well-informed source in Washington.
Ansar al-Islam
According to Jordanian intelligence, Zarqawi left Baghdad after his surgery and travelled to northern Iraq, possibly through Iran, where he joined up with Ansar al-Islam, a militant Islamist group comprising some 700 Kurdish members controlling a string of villages on the Iranian border of the Kurdish self-rule area. The group harbours up to 120 al-Qaida members including Lebanese, Jordanians, Moroccans, Syrians, Palestinians and Afghans, and is fighting a turf war with the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan.
The group is thought to be the creature of Osama bin Laden's second in command, Ayman al-Zawahiri. Its leader, Mullah Krekar, was detained by Dutch police last September after arriving on a flight from Iran because Jordan had asked for his extradition, accusing him of drugs trafficking. He now enjoys refugee status in Norway.
While evidence of Ansar al-Islam's links to al-Qaida are comparatively strong, its links with President Saddam remain largely circumstantial. Villages in the area around Ansar territory have reported seeing Iraqi Mukhabarat agents making contact with Ansar operatives. There are also reports that TNT seized from Ansar during one of their assassination attempts on Kurdish officials was produced by the Iraqi military and that arms are sent to the group from areas controlled by President Saddam.
About a dozen senior members of Ansar trained at a camp in Afghanistan which specialised in chemical and biological weapons, such as ricin.
The Ansar-Baghdad debate in US intelligence circles reflects a rift between the CIA and a special intelligence office set up in the Pentagon by the under-secretary for defence, Douglas Feith. The CIA tends to be sceptical and hostile to the Iraqi National Congress which has produced many of the recent defectors. The Pentagon is readier to listen to the INC's defectors, and has established a separate channel of information to the White House, outside the control of the CIA director, George Tenet.
Ramzi Youssef
Paul Wolfowitz, the US deputy defence secretary, sent James Woolsey, a former CIA director, to Swansea, in search of evidence to back up the theory that Ramzi Youssef, convicted of the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Centre, was the same person as an Iraqi student who had been at the Welsh university. Mr Woolsey returned empty-handed. "The two sets of fingerprints were entirely different," says a source familiar with the investigation.
Mohamed Atta
British officials with access to intelligence dismiss claims by Washington hawks that Mohamed Atta, the ringleader of the September 11 terrorists, met an Iraqi intelligence official in Prague just months before the attacks. The allegation, first made by Czech officials, was further investigated by the Czech government. President Vaclav Havel told the White House the allegation could not be substantiated. The CIA director, George Tenet, told Congress in October that the CIA could also find no evidence.
Mujahedin e Khalq
Saddam Hussein has had links with some terrorist groups including Mujahedin e Khalq, an Iranian dissident organsiation based in Iraq. British sources interpret the murder in Baghdad of the former Palestinian terrorist leader, Abu Nidal, last August as evidence of President Saddam's concern about accusations he is harbouring terrorists, especially one on whose loyalty he could not rely.
Interrogations
President Bush said the evidence for a Baghdad-Bin Laden connection also came from "statements by people now in custody". But according to a US official familiar with CIA thinking on the issue, the senior al-Qaida members in captivity, such as Abu Zubeidah and Ramzi bin al-Shibh, have not implicated Iraq. Others among the hundreds of al-Qaida suspects in custody in Guantanamo Bay and elsewhere "may either be saying what we want to hear, or they want us to go to war with Iraq. Or it may be true. We just don't know", the official said.
American officials told Knight Ridder that the Iraqis have ordered scientists to hide evidence of their work on chemical and biological weapons and have bugged U.N. inspectors' rooms and communications systems. They said some translators and other Iraqis who worked for the United Nations were Iraqi agents.
On at least one occasion, U.S. surveillance photographed trucks speeding away from an inspection site shortly before U.N. inspectors arrived, suggesting that their visit had been learned in advance, and perhaps that contraband material was spirited away.
One official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said: "The inspection regime has been thoroughly compromised."
LOL! Oops! The ultra-left Guardian's credibility just went out the window -- if it ever had any. The purpose of Woolsey's visit was to investigate Laurie Mylroie's theory that Ramzi Yousef is precisely not the student at the Welsh university, as he is conventionally supposed to be. (That student, Abdul Basit, was a Kuwaiti, BTW, not an Iraqi.) If he discovered that the fingerprints were entirely different, then Laurie Mylroie is vindicated!
Here's the article which broached the possibility that Iraq appropriated Abdul Basit's identity: THE WORLD TRADE CENTER BOMB: Who is Ramzi Yousef? And Why It Matters. This article became the kernel for Ms. Laurie's highly-praised book, Study of Revenge: Saddam Hussein's Unfinished War Against America. Abdul Basit is supposedly the son of the sister of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the shadowy finger who organized 9-11 and is implicated in every other major bombing conspiracy against the United States since the Gulf War. Conveniently, no living relatives of these two men have been found. Annotations to their family's records in the files of Kuwait indicate that they left the country during the Iraqi occupation. Apart from that annotation, it seems their fate is a total mystery.
The Guardian places far too much faith in the New York Times' reporting. The Times did, indeed, make such a report. With particular glee...
Within hours, though, the Times was contacted by President Havel's staff, claiming that no such call had been made and that the President stood behind the reports originating from Czech intelligence.
It seems if this is confirmed, Havel indeed verifying that Atta did meet with Iraqi intel., then only the most ignorant could keep making excuses for Iraq.
How can Havel's confirmation be verified?
The Times did print a retraction. On page 42-E or thereabouts.
The Havel repudiation and the Times' retraction are both in the FR archives. I failed to bookmark them, however.
On October 21, 2002, the New York Times reported on its front page that "The Czech president, Vaclav Havel, has quietly told the White House he has concluded that there is no evidence to confirm earlier reports that Mohamed Atta, the leader in the Sept. 11 attacks, met with an Iraqi intelligence officer in Prague just months before the attacks on New York and Washington."
This scoop, which the Times' attributed to anonymous "Czech officials," suggested that the alleged meeting between Atta and the Iraqi official had not occurred, and, even worse, that President Bush had learned of the misunderstanding from the phone conversation with President Havel but he had failed to disclose it.
As it turned out, the scoop itself, and not the meeting, was the fabrication. On October 21st (after the story appeared) President Havel stated through his spokesman that he had never spoken to President Bush or the "White House" about this meeting. His spokesman, Ladislav Spacek, stated unequivocally that the Times claim that Havel had called Bush, or any other high-ranking officials of his Administration, about the Atta meeting was "a fabrication." And that "Nothing like this has occurred."
Even so, on October 23rd, the Times again used the fabricated phone conversation between Havel and the White House. This time as the basis of an editorial, entitled "The Illusory Prague Connection," that argued that all the evidence from Prague linking Iraq to terrorism was wholly illusionary.
My question: Is there evidence that was found in Prague connecting Iraq to terrorist activities directed against the US?
Answer:
Yes. First, in 1998, Czech and British intelligence received detailed information from a high-ranking Iraqi official in Prague that the government of Iraq had provided $150,000 to finance the recruitment of terrorists to detonate a truck bomb in front of the headquarters of Radio Free Europe. The Iraqi official, Jabir Salim, who was the Iraqi consul in Prague, defected to England in December 1998. Since Radio Free Europe occupied the former Czech parliament building in the center of Prague, where a truck-bomb attack could cause casualties on the order of the Oklahoma City bombing, the Clinton Administration asked the Czechs to greatly increase security around the building.
Consequently, when al-Ani replaced Salim at the Iraq Embassy, the Czech intelligence service, BIS, kept close tabs on his activities in Prague to determine if he was continuing Salim's mission of recruiting terrorists. Then, in April 2001, al-Ani was seen meeting with a foreign national who had been a resident of Hamburg. The matter was brought to the attention of Hynek Kmonicek, the deputy foreign minister. Since, as Kmonicek put it,"It is not a common thing for an Iraqi diplomat to meet a student from a neighboring country," he ordered al-Ani's expulsion. Al-Ani was the only Iraqi diplomat ever expelled from the Czech Republic.
Kmonicek, who had gone on to become the Czech Ambassador to the UN, confirmed that the "student" from Hamburg whom al-Ani was meeting in April 2001 was Mohamed Atta. On October 26th, 2002, in response to the NY Times story, he told The Prague Post not only that "the meeting took place," but that "the Czech government collected detailed evidence of the al-Ani/Atta meeting."
The meeting had been previously confirmed both by Jiri Ruzek, the head of the BIS, and Stanislav Gross, the Minister to whom Ruzek reports in May 2002. So all the officials that had been involved in the case, and its review, were satisfied that the evidence existed.
If these Czech government officials are correct in their assessment, then Atta came to Prague to meet with an Iraqi official 5 months before September 11th. Whatever their business may have been, the meeting would have been further evidence that two consecutive Iraqi intelligence officers, Salim and Al-Ani, had been involved with terrorists.
Source: edwardjayepstein.com
Foreign Desk | October 23, 2002, Wednesday
THREATS AND RESPONSES; Havel Denies Telephoning U.S. On Iraq Meeting
By PETER S. GREEN (NYT) 280 words Late Edition - Final , Section A , Page 11 , Column 4 ABSTRACT - Czech Pres Vaclav Havel's spokesman denies The New York Times report that Havel called senior Bush administration officials to explain that Czech authorities have no proof that Sept 11 hijacker Mohamed Atta met in Prague with Iraqi spy in April 2001 (S) In the long-running controversy over accusations that Mohamed Atta, one of the Sept. 11 hijackers, met in Prague with an Iraqi spy, a spokesman for President Vaclav Havel today denied a report on Monday in The New York Times that Mr. Havel had telephoned senior administration officials to explain that the Czechs had no proof such a meeting had taken place.
The spokesman, Ladislav Spacek, said Mr. Havel was still certain there was no factual basis behind the report that Mr. Atta met an Iraqi diplomat, Ahmad Khalil Ibrahim Samir al-Ani, here in April 2001.
Clintonesque, ain't it?
Taken literally, it suggests that Havel is denying only that he made a phone call.
Taken to the parse-o-matic, it suggests that Atta didn't meet a diplomat, or didn't meet al-Ani, or he didn't meet whoever it was in April -- but it might've been an agent, or somebody else named al-Ani, or it might've been June.
And, taken for the gratuitous, weasely statement that it is, it might be a slightly contorted version of what Mr. Spacek actually said...but didn't really. The "no factual basis" sounds suspiciously like a response to a reporter's acutely angled question. Meaning that the two guys on the videotape looked like Atta and al-Ani, but Czech intelligence had "no factual basis" for saying those were their true identities.
"... If he discovered that the fingerprints were entirely different, then Laurie Mylroie is vindicated!"
Exactly. Why bother to deny the story of the phone call if the substance of the phone call is affirmed? Doesn't make sense, does it? You pegged it.
On September 29, 1994, following an otherwise cryptic statement of Saddam Hussein's, the government newspaper, Babil, warned: "Does the United States realize the meaning of every Iraqi becoming a missile that can cross to countries and cities?"That sounds a lot like 9/11, no?
Probably because Yousef himself seems to have been the first person who thought up the "smash airliners into buildings" scheme.
If we can link Yousef to Iraqi intelligence, and remember he was an honoured guest of bin Laden (he stayed at a bin Laden retreat, and they probably discussed strategy), we pretty much have our smoking gun, showing that Iraqi intelligence and bin Laden are joined at the hip.
I believe that most likely, Yousef was an Iraqi agent, and he was the true architect of 9/11, as well as the 1993 WTC bombing.
D
Opinion
Iraq’s State Sponsorship of Osama bin-Laden and the al-Qaeda Terror Network
Essay by Chris Farrell
Jun 30, 2002
[Editor's Note: This article was originally published on November 30, 2001]
Osama bin-Laden represents and articulates a thoroughly developed Islamist theology and philosophy with a broader appeal that goes beyond a simple hatred of Israel. He expounds and defends a religious obligation of Muslims to attack U.S. military and civilian targets; demands the immediate expulsion of U.S. Forces from Saudi Arabia; calls for the creation of a “Muslim” nuclear weapon; criticizes harshly “moderate” Muslim states such as Egypt and Jordan for not instituting “truly” Islamic law; and he also calls for the end of all sanctions against Iraq. Osama bin-Laden sees an opportunity for holy war, literally, across half of the globe.1
The Middle Eastern terror groups of the 1970's and 1980's relied on the patronage of a number of states – principally the Soviet Union and its Warsaw Pact satellites – for financial backing, intelligence, weapons, explosives, training and logistics. Often these resources made their way to the terror groups through states acting as regional surrogates for the Communists. The infamous terrorist organization that captured headline throughout the 1970s and 80s, the “Abu Nidal Organization” was established in Baghdad by a Palestinian named Sabri al-Banna, whose nom de guerre was Abu Nidal. Iraqi intelligence, who at the time were trained by the Soviets, trained members of the organization. 2
Osama bin-Laden and the al-Qaeda terror network are a twenty first century variant on the model of the last sixty years. Bin-Laden’s personal fortune finances much of the organization terrorism. Bin-Laden wields influence, power and notoriety unlike other terror group leader, but there are still circumstances and occasions when his interests and those of the al-Qaeda network are best served through a sovereign state, or through the official apparatus of a state. Two prime examples are the advantages of official diplomatic status and a national intelligence organization. While recent news coverage has highlighted bin-Laden’s hijacking of the Taliban’s medieval administration of Afghanistan, that country provided bin-Laden simply with a haven, but not a political venue. Saddam Hussein’s Iraq has been bin-Laden’s active political, military and intelligence sponsor for just over three years.
Osama bin Laden had dealings with Iraqi Intelligence as early as 1993 in Somalia. During that period, various militant Islamic groups, to include bin Laden and Iraqi intelligence and military operatives, were in Somalia to organize, train and mobilize radical factions within the Somali populace. 3 In June 1994, bin Laden met with Faruq al-Hijazi, then the director of the Iraqi Intelligence Department, while in Khartoum. Iraqi concern over bin Laden’s militant Islamist zeal restrained their dealings with bin Laden and limited their willingness to provide practical support and cooperation. 4
Within approximately three years, Iraqi hesitance and concerns regarding bin-Laden evaporated. Pragmatic considerations, driven by the deepening political and social crises in Iraq resulting from UN sanctions as well as growing Shiite revivalism in southern Iraq and Kurdish nationalism in northern Iraq, led Saddam Hussein to reassess cooperation with bin-Laden. Bin-Laden’s charities and Islamist social services programs eased the shortfalls in food, medicine and basic necessities resulting from the UN sanctions. Arab “Afghans,” Muslim Brotherhood groups and other like-minded fundamentalist Islamists who came to Iraq in support of these new initiatives provided an ideology and structure that met Hussein’s domestic political needs and either diffused or suppressed nationalist or splinter movements. Saddam Hussein could claim credit for averting the suffering of the Iraqi people and insuring political instability at the “cost” of allowing bin-Laden a foothold in Iraq through social and religious means. 5
On February 22, 1998 bin-Laden announced the formation of the “World Islamic Front for Jihad Against the Jews and the Crusaders,” merging Egypt’s Jihad Group, the Islamic Group the Ansar Movement of Pakistani and the Bangladeshi Jihad Movement under one umbrella. 6
Bin-Laden reportedly visited Baghdad for consultations in March 1998. Giovanni De Stefano, an international lawyer visiting Baghdad on business, had a chance encounter with bin-Laden in the lobby of the five star Al-Rashid Hotel during which the two men introduced themselves and engaged in polite conversation. De Stefano did not, at the time, recognize bin-Laden’s name. Five months after the chance encounter, bin-Laden’s suicide bombers attacked the American embassies in Nairobi and Dar-es-Salaam. 7
Between April 25 and May 1, 1998, two of bin-Laden’s senior military commanders, Muhammad Abu-Islam and Abdallah Qassim visited Baghdad for discussions with Saddam Hussein’s son – Qusay Hussein – the “czar” of all Iraqi intelligence matters. 8 Qusay Hussein’s participation in the meetings highlights the importance of the talks in both symbolic and practical terms. Iraqi commitments for training, intelligence, clandestine Saudi border crossings, as well as weapons and explosives support to al-Qaeda were a direct result of the meetings. 9
An outcome of the April meetings was Iraq’s commitment to train a network of bin-Laden’s operatives within Saudi Arabia. By mid-June, 1998, bin-Laden’s operatives were at the al-Nasiriyah training camp, receiving a four week course of instruction from the Iraqi intelligence and military on reconnaissance and targeting American facilities and installations for terrorist attacks. Another group was organized and trained for smuggling weapons and explosives into Saudi Arabia – and used their return to the kingdom as the first (successful) operation. A third group of bin-Laden’s Saudi operatives received a month of sophisticated guerrilla operations training later in the Summer of 1998. 10
Bin-Laden quickly sought to strengthen and reinforce Iraqi support. In mid-July 1998, bin-Laden sent Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri, the Egyptian co-founder of al-Qaeda to Iraq to meet with senior Iraqi officials, including Iraqi vice president Taha Yassin Ramadan, to discuss and plan a joint strategy for an anti-US jihad. Baghdad pledged their full support and cooperation, on the condition that bin-Laden not incite the Iraqi Muslim Brotherhood against Saddam Hussein’s reign. Zawahiri was taken to tour a potential site for bin-Laden’s new headquarters near al-Fallujah, and to observe training at terrorist camps run by Iraqi intelligence, to include the training conducted at al-Nasiriyah to bin-Laden’s Saudi operatives. Zawahiri assumed responsibility for the al-Nasiriyah training camp in the name of Osama bin-Laden, as part of Iraq’s recognition of bin-Laden as the “local authority” in the jihad against the United States. 11
Both Saddam Hussein’s and Osama bin-Laden’s objectives are served through their alliance. They mutually loathe both the House of al-Saud and the United States. Bin-Laden accomplishes, as a non-state actor, what Hussein cannot and vice versa. The existence of an Iraqi-sponsored al-Qaeda capability or “wing,” poised to strike at Riyadh or regionally against US interests complicates and narrows counter-terrorism options for the United States and its allies.
By mid-November 1998, Saddam Hussein came to the conclusion, (with the advice and prompting of his son and intelligence chief, Qusay), that a campaign of terrorist attacks against the United States, under the “deniable” banner of Osama bin-Laden was the most effective means of deflecting U.S. attempts to topple the Hussein regime. Meetings between Iraqi intelligence operatives and bin-Laden in Afghanistan followed shortly. Both parties agreed to joint efforts in a detailed, coordinated plan for a protracted war against the United States. Iraq pledged further assistance with a chemical weapons expert while bin-Laden agreed to hunt down Iraqi opposition leaders who cooperated with the West against Hussein. 12 Bin-Laden reportedly dispatched 400 “Afghan” Arabs to Iraq to fight Kurds. 13
In December 1998, the Clinton Administration engaged in a bombing campaign against Iraq that was viewed by many, particularly Islamist leaders, as a political distraction or “Wag The Dog” side-show to diminish or reduce President Clinton’s scandals and domestic political trouble. The launching of anti-American Islamist terrorism in retaliation for the bombing campaign was certain. Iraqi trade minister Muhammad Mahdi Salah stated that he expected “terrorist activities” against the United States to increase as a result of the bombing of Iraq. 14
The Arabic daily newspaper, Al-Quds al-Arabi, first raised the issue of cooperation between Saddam Hussein’s Iraq and Osama bin-Laden’s al-Qaeda in a late December 1998 editorial that predicted, “President Saddam Hussein , whose country was subjected to a four day air strike , will look for support in taking revenge on the United States and Britain by cooperating with Saudi oppositionist Osama bin-Laden, whom the United States considers to be the most wanted person in the world.” The editorial noted that this type of cooperation was very likely considering that “bin-Laden was planning moving to Iraq before the recent strike.” 15
Following the December air strikes, Saddam Hussein dispatched Faruq al-Hijazi to Kandahar, Afghanistan in order to meet with bin-Laden. Hijazi was the former deputy chief of Iraqi intelligence and had first met bin-Laden in 1994. 16 Hijazi offered expanded cooperation and assistance to bin-Laden, as well as a re-extension of the offer of shelter and hospitality in Iraq for al-Qaeda. Bin-Laden agreed in principle to give Iraq assistance in a revenge campaign against the United States, but suggested further study and coordination before committing to a specific course of action or agreeing to a particular terrorist strike. To demonstrate Baghdad’s commitment to al Qaeda, Hijazi presented bin-Laden with a pack of blank, genuine Yemeni passports, supplied to Iraqi intelligence from their Yemeni contacts. Hijazi’s visit was followed by a contingent of Iraqi military intelligence officials who provided additional training and preparation to the al- Qaeda terrorists in Afghanistan. These Iraqi officials included members of Unit 999 of Iraqi intelligence, who conducted advanced sabotage and infiltration training for seasoned, veteran, al-Qaeda fighters. By January 1999, al-Qaeda terrorists were being trained by Iraqi intelligence and military officers at camps on the outskirts of Baghdad. 17
Following the Hijazi meetings, Qusay Hussein dispatched representatives to follow-up with bin-Laden and obtain his firm commitment to exact revenge against America. Baghdad offered an open-ended commitment to joint operations against the United States and its “moderate” Arab allies in exchange for an absolute guarantee that bin-Laden, al-Qaeda and their fundamentalist Islamists would not overthrow Saddam Hussein’s regime in Iraq. 18 Israeli sources claim that for the past two years Iraqi intelligence officers have been shuttling back and forth between Baghdad and Afghanistan. According to the Israelis, one of the intelligence officers, Salah Suleiman was captured last October by the Pakistanis near the border with Afghanistan. 19
In January 1999, Iraq began reorganizing and mobilizing intelligence front operations throughout Europe in support of al-Qaeda. 20 Iraq’s intelligence service has operated a network of outwardly legitimate businesses across Western Europe, using them as bases for espionage, terrorism and weapons procurement. Hans Josef Horchem, former chief of West Germany’s Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz (domestic intelligence service) stated that most of the Iraqi intelligence front companies are import-export firms and used-car dealerships. In the Fall of 1990, at least three firms were operating in Hamburg and the German state of Hesse – with roughly seven additional Iraqi front operations in the rest of Europe. 21 Iraq’s Unit 999 now increased the intensity of its operations – moving funds and people around Europe and activating previously dormant intelligence contacts and operatives. Together with intelligence officers assigned under diplomatic cover, these activated operatives began scouting safe houses, vehicles, letter drops, communications, arms caches and other logistical requirements for operations. Concurrent with this activation of Iraqi’s European intelligence assets, appeared the previously unheard of “Armed Islamic Front,” who it turned out, were made up of bin-Laden’s “Afghans” and “Bosniaks,” that would now conduct terror strikes against both bin-Laden’s and Hussein’s enemies. 22
According to Czech intelligence sources, Mohammad Atta, the September 11, 2001 hijacking ringleader, met in June 2000 with Ahmed Khalil Ibrahim Samir al-Ani, a consul and second secretary at the Iraqi embassy in Prague. 23 At 43, al-Ani is one of Iraqi’s most highly decorated intelligence officers: a special forces veteran and senior leader of Iraq’s “M-8," unit – the country’s “special operations branch.” 24 There are additional reports of a second meeting with another hijacker – Khalid Almihdar. Czech Interior Minister Stanislav Gross has also confirmed that Atta met with al-Ani in early April 2001 in Prague. 25 Atta also reportedly met with Iraqi ambassador to Turkey and former Iraqi deputy intelligence director Farouk al-Hijazi in Prague sometime in early April 2001. 26 Al-Ani was expelled from the Czech Republic earlier in 2001 for espionage activities. Czech Foreign Minister Jan Kavan flew to Washington, DC to deliver the intelligence files on the meetings to Secretary of State Colin Powell.
Additional intelligence surrounding the Iraqi – Al-Qaeda connection continues to mount. The CIA reportedly believes Iraq provided falsified genuine passports for the 19 hijackers of the September 11th attacks. 27 Further, senior U.S. intelligence sources say that in the spring of this year, Marwan al-Shehri and Ziad Jarrah – two of Atta’s closest associates and members of al-Qaeda’s “German cell,” met with known Iraqi intelligence agents outside the United States. 28 Czech intelligence sources reported that al-Ani had been under surveillance because he had been observed apparently “casing” the Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty headquarters in Prague. Czech authorities believed the site had been selected for attack by terrorists. 29 The intelligence sources further report that Atta and al-Ani embraced upon meeting at Prague’s Ruzyne airport, and that Atta’s may have visited the Czech capitol on four occasions. 30 Iraqi opposition leaders in Prague reported that al-Ani visited Iraqi dissidents in Prague and attempted to persuade them to return to Iraq, on one occasion allegedly threatening an Iraqi student. 31
Recent discoveries of anthrax in letters sent via the US Postal Service add further weight to the involvement or sponsorship of Iraq, as the Iraqi government has experience with biological and chemical weapons, including the chemical bombing of Kurds in northern Iraq that killed over 5000 people in 1998. Only the United States, Russia and Iraq could have produced a chemical additive enabling the anthrax spores to become airborne. 32 UN inspectors have repeatedly documented evidence of anthrax experiments on the part of the Iraqi government after the 1991 Persian Gulf War. UN inspectors have also identified and documented Iraqi government stockpiles of sarin and VX gas. 33 The German newspaper Bild, citing Israeli intelligence sources, says that Atta was handed a vacuum flask of anthrax by his Iraq contact – al-Ani. Atta flew from Prague to Newark, NJ. The letters laced with anthrax that were sent to news media and politicians were posted from New Jersey. 34
Italian security sources have reported that Iraq made use of its Rome embassy to foster and cultivate Hussein’s partnership with al-Qaeda. Habib Faris Abdullah al-Mamouri, a general in the Iraqi secret service, and from 1982 to 1990 a member of the “Special Operations Branch,” (M-8) charged with developing links with Islamist militants in Pakistan, Afghanistan and the Gulf states, was stationed in Rome as an “instructor” for Iraqi diplomats. Al-Mamouri reportedly met with Mohammed Atta in Rome, Hamburg and Prague. Al-Mamouri has not been seen in Rome since July, shortly after he last met Atta. 35
Recent Iraqi defectors provide additional details of Saddam Hussein’s support of international terrorism through the 1990s. The documentary program “Frontline,” has interviewed former Iraqi intelligence and army officers with first-hand accounts of highly secret installations run by an international terrorist known to Iraqi staffers only as “the Ghost.” 36 “The Ghost” is reportedly Abdel Hussein, the chief trainer at the camp and responsible for conducting assassinations outside Iraq to support Saddam Hussein’s regime. 37 The facility contained a Boeing 707 jet fuselage used to practice hijacking scenarios. UN inspectors independently confirmed the existence of the terrorist training camps. 38 The Iraqi defector known as “Saddam’s Bomb-maker,” Dr. Khidhir Hamza, who served as Iraq’s Director of Nuclear Weaponization analyzes Iraqi’s sponsorship of bin-Laden as follows:
“What I think is there is somehow a change in the level of the type of operation bin Laden has been carrying [out]. What we are looking at initially is more or less just attempts to blow some buildings, just normal use of explosives for a terrorist. What we have in the September 11 operation, [is a] tightly controlled, very sophisticated operation; the type an Iraqi intelligence agency, well versed in the technology [could pull off]. ... So my thinking is a guy sitting in a cave in Afghanistan is not the guy who will do an operation of this caliber. It has to have in combination with it a guy with the sophistication and know-how on how to carry these things.Several leading authorities on Saddam Hussein and bin-Laden’s al-Qaeda network concur on the likelihood of Iraq’ state sponsorship and coordination of the September 11th terror attacks. The former head of Israel’s Mossad secret service, Rafi Eitan, and former CIA Director, R. James Woolsey share the view that Saddam Hussein and bin-Laden conspired in the attacks.40 Their views are shared by Laurie Mylroie an academic and Iraqi affairs expert with the American Enterprise Institute. Mylroie cites the role of Iraqi operatives in the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center to support her claim that the September 11th attacks are a matter of unfinished business from the perspective of Saddam Hussein, who still considers himself at war with the United States. 41
... Iraq [also] has a history of training terrorists, harboring them, and taking good care of them, by the way. A terrorist is well cared for with Saddam. So he has a good reputation in that type of community, if you like.” 39
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