Posted on 10/04/2004 4:00:12 PM PDT by focusandclarity
DOCUMENTS LINK IRAQ, BIN LADEN Toronto Star, 26th April
Top-secret Iraqi intelligence documents, unearthed by the Toronto Star inthe bombed-out headquarters of the dreaded Mukhabarat intelligence service in Baghdad, have established the first clear link between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda organization.
The documents were found by correspondent Mitch Potter, the Star's Jerusalem bureau chief. Potter, who has been in and out of Iraq since the war began, was digging through the rubble of the Mukhabarat's Baghdad headquarters with his translator Amir when they uncovered the intelligence treasure trove.
Bin Laden's name appears three times in the handwritten Iraqi file, but each of the references was clumsily concealed with White-Out and then blackened with ink, "presumably by agents of the Mukhabarat," writes Potter, who was travelling with Amir and Inigo Gilmore of London's Sunday Telegraph.
In his dispatch, Potter details how his translator, sitting on the end of his hotel room bed today, carefully scraped away the White Out with a scalpel to reveal bin Laden's name hidden underneath.
And he writes of Amir's stunned reaction when the name became apparent: "It says Bin Laden! It says Bin Laden!" The full account will appear in tomorrow's Star.
The discovery of the document coincides with the Friday capture of Farouk Hijazi, an Iraqi spymaster the United States claims was the link between Iraq and Al Qaeda. Hijazi, according to U.S. allegations, met bin Laden prior to the Sept. 11 attacks during Hijazi's term as Iraq's ambassador to Turkey.
"The document in question is in every way possible entirely like the hundreds of others we've been poring over in our spare hours these many nights in the safety of our hotel room while intermittent gunfire pops away in the distance," Potter writes.
Spies from the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, who scoured the building after it was bombed into rubble, apparently missed the document.
The presence of bin Laden's name on the document has been verified by four Arabic interpreters.
STAR FINDS BIN LADEN-IRAQ LINKS by Mitch Potter Toronto Star, 28th April
Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda organization and Saddam Hussein's regime shared direct contact as early as 1998, according to top-secret Iraqi intelligence documents obtained by the Star.
The documents, discovered yesterday in the bombed-out headquarters of the Mukhabarat, Iraq's most feared intelligence service, amount to the first hard evidence of a link long suspected by the United States but dismissed as fiction by many Western leaders.
The handwritten file, three pages in all, relates to the arrival of a secret envoy sent by bin Laden to Iraq in March, 1998, apparently to establish a clandestine relationship with the Iraqi regime.
The purpose of the trip was "to gain the knowledge of the message from bin Laden and to convey to his envoy an oral message from us to bin Laden," according to the final page of the Iraqi document, a handwritten letter dated Feb. 19, 1998.
The letter describes bin Laden as an "opponent" of the regime in Saudi Arabia and said the message to convey to him through the envoy would relate to "the future of our relationship with him (bin Laden) and to achieve a direct meeting with him."
The signature beneath the letter is a codename, "MDA," believed to be that of a director of one of the intelligence sections within the Mukhabarat. A second signature on the page, also in code, recommends bringing the unnamed agent to Iraq because "we may find in this envoy a way to maintain contact with bin Laden."
The remaining pages confirm bin Laden's agent arrived in Baghdad on March 5 and stayed a full 16 days as a guest of the Iraqi government at the Mansur Melia Hotel, one of the capital's premier accommodations.
The contact came less than five months before bin Laden became America's most-wanted fugitive in the wake of deadly bomb attacks on two U.S. embassies in East Africa.
The White House has linked the invasion of Iraq to the war on terror maintaining that ousted Iraqi president Saddam harboured terrorists, including Al Qaeda operatives.
Bin Laden's name appears three times in the handwritten Iraqi file, but each of the references was concealed clumsily with corrective fluid and then blackened with ink, presumably by agents of the Mukhabarat.
But after the masking material was carefully removed yesterday, bin Laden's name was clearly legible in each reference. The translation of the document was confirmed independently by five Arabic interpreters.
The discovery coincides with the Friday capture of Farouk Hijazi, an Iraqi spymaster the United States claims was the link man between Iraq and Al Qaeda. Hijazi, according to U.S. allegations, met bin Laden before the Sept. 11 attacks during Hijazi's term as Iraq's ambassador to Turkey.
The Osama papers obtained by the Star were discovered yesterday within a file folder lying in rubble in a partially destroyed building inside the sprawling Mukhabarat compound west of the Tigris River in Baghdad. Around the tree-lined facility hundreds of thousands of papers litter the ground.
The final page, a handwritten letter dated Feb. 19 and marked "Top Secret and Urgent," refers to the planned trip from Sudan by an unnamed agent close to bin Laden.
The letter describes the envoy as "a trusted confidant (of bin Laden) and known by them (Al Qaeda)."
It continues: "According to the above we suggest permission to call the Khartoum station (the Iraqi intelligence station in Sudan) to facilitate the travel arrangements for the abovementioned person to Iraq. And that our body carry all the travel and hotel expenses inside Iraq to gain the knowledge of the message from bin Laden and to convey to his envoy an oral message from us to bin Laden."
According to notes at the bottom of the page the letter was then passed on through another director within the Mukhabarat to the deputy director general of the intelligence services.
The other two pages of the file, dated Feb. 23 and March 24, relate to correspondence between different agencies within the Mukhabarat over preparation and approval for Iraq to cover the costs of the bin Laden envoy's stay at the Mansur hotel.
Each is countersigned by a number of codenamed Iraqi officials. One is addressed to "M4/7" and signed by "MD1/3." The three pages were found bound with a staple.
Margin notes on the letter show a signature of the Mukhabarat's deputy director general, also in code.
It mentions that the visit of the envoy was extended by a week.
In a margin note, it mentions the name Mohammed F. Mohammed Ahmed, but there is no indication whether this is the envoy. The documents do not indicate whether an actual meeting took place, or whether any follow-up contact was planned.
Bin Laden's five years in Sudan ended in 1996, when he was ousted and returned to Afghanistan, home of the mujahideen fighters from which he launched Al Qaeda.
But it is believed remnants of his Sudanese operations remained behind.
Hijazi, the captured spymaster, was known to be a senior operative within the Mukhabarat before joining Iraq's ambassadorial ranks.
He was first proposed as Iraq's ambassador to Canada, but the placement was refused. In 1998, he became ambassador to Turkey.
According to U.S. officials, Hijazi travelled to Kandahar, Afghanistan, in December, 1998, for an alleged meeting with bin Laden near his expanding network of terrorist training camps.
Details of that meeting are not known, but U.S. officials cite the allegation as the clearest link to date between Iraq and Al Qaeda.
U.K. OFFICIALS KNEW OF VISIT BY AL QAEDA by Linda Diebel Toronto Star, 28th April
WASHINGTON‹British intelligence officials yesterday suggested they already may have known about a possible 1998 trip to Baghdad by a purported Al Qaeda agent, as reported in the Sunday Star.
On Sunday, the Star's Mitch Potter reported on the contents of a top-secret document found in the bombed-out headquarters of Iraq's Mukhabarat intelligence service.
The handwritten file, three pages in all, detail an alleged visit to Baghdad by a secret envoy from Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda organization, apparently to establish a clandestine relationship with the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein.
The file, in which bin Laden's name was clumsily hidden with corrective fluid, shows a potential direct contact between Al Qaeda and the Iraqi regime.
Bin Laden and his Al Qaeda network were responsible for the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks on the United States and President George W. Bush cited Saddam's harbouring of terrorists as a justification for the war against Iraq.
Potter worked on the story with Inigo Gilmore, a freelancer for Britain's Sunday Telegraph.
In a report yesterday on the Sunday Telegraph story, the Times of London said there were "intelligence indicators about that time of a possible visit to Baghdad by someone purporting to represent Al Qaeda.''
However, the newspaper added "there has been no evidence of any follow-up meetings to suggest that Baghdad had forged a long-term partnership with Al Qaeda.''
And, British intelligence agents expressed doubt that any such working relationship was ever established.
In his report, Potter stressed that, without further documentation, it was impossible to surmise whether any follow-up meeting every occurred.
However, yesterday, Iraqi opposition leader Ahmed Chalabi, asked about the document on Fox News Sunday, said he has ``specific information'' about links between Al Qaeda and the Iraqi intelligence service.
Chalabi, who heads up the U.S.-backed Iraqi National Congress, said it is imperative for the U.S. to prove the link between Al Qaeda and the Saddam regime. "We have specific information about visits that leaders of Al Qaeda made to Iraq in as late as 2000, and the requests for large amounts of cash,'' he told Fox News Sunday.
Chalabi would not elaborate, however, "because we want to chase down specifically the information so there will be an actionable case for international authorities."
Chalabi is backed by many in the Bush administrationto head Iraq's postwar government. His organization has received congressional funding.
"We have captured a great many files of Saddam's (intelligence) services and there is astounding information about the extent of their networks and their efforts to recruit foreign nationals ‹ including Americans ‹ to work in the Mukhabarat,'' he told Fox News Sunday.
I'm sick of being lead to believe lies are truth by Kerry and his cohorts in Congress. Knowledge is power and the choice to make informed decisions, especially in this Presidential election. Sometimes I can't believe I'm living in the United States!
They weren't typed on proportional, Times New Roman font, were they?
this needs to be put on Drudge!
Sure, but what rate of return is Al Qaeda giving?
Kerry and the Democrats don't care. This needs to be communicated to American voters.
Good post. Criticism: your thread title should include the title from source, which was "Saddam, bin Laden link found: Canadian reporter" . You could add your editorial comment in parentheses or brackets.
major bump
Is this not the CNS report Rush talked about today that came from docs provided by a non-appointed gov't official?
J
BTTT
Send to Drudge ASAP
Looks like some of the same stuff but the articles are all from April.
AL QAEDA AND THE IRSIH REPUBLICAN ARMY ARE CONNECTED???
April 2003.
Al Queda is now sabotaging my IRA.. those dirty bastards.
Thanks for the tip. I'm still new at this...(I had a whole lot more sarcasm in that heading, which I had to cut because of the 100 character limit, in my haste, the "q" got cut off the "Iraq" (embarrassing). I'll take your suggestion in the future. Thanks again.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.