It's all about 9/11 (Iraq's links to AQ)

June 29, 2005, 9:12 a.m. It’s All About 9/11 The president links Iraq and al Qaeda — and the usual suspects moan.

President George W. Bush forcefully explained last night — some of us would say finally forcefully explained last night after too long a lull — why our military operations in Iraq are crucial to success in the war on terror.

It was good to hear the commander-in-chief remind people that this is still the war against terror. Specifically, against Islamo-fascists who slaughtered 3000 Americans on September 11, 2001. Who spent the eight years before those atrocities murdering and promising to murder Americans — as their leader put it in 1998, all Americans, including civilians, anywhere in the world where they could be found.

It is not the war for democratization. It is not the war for stability. Democratization and stability are not unimportant. They are among a host of developments that could help defeat the enemy.

But they are not the primary goal of this war, which is to destroy the network of Islamic militants who declared war against the United States when they bombed the World Trade Center on February 26, 1993, and finally jarred us into an appropriate response when they demolished that complex, struck the Pentagon, and killed 3000 of us on September 11, 2001.

On September 12, 2001, no one in America cared about whether there would be enough Sunni participation in a fledgling Iraqi democracy if Saddam were ever toppled. No one in lower Manhattan cared whether the electricity would work in Baghdad, or whether Muqtada al-Sadr’s Shiite militia could be coaxed into a political process. They cared about smashing terrorists and the states that supported them for the purpose of promoting American national security.

Saddam Hussein’s regime was a crucial part of that response because it was a safety net for al Qaeda. A place where terror attacks against the United States and the West were planned. A place where Saddam’s intelligence service aided and abetted al Qaeda terrorists planning operations. A place where terrorists could hide safely between attacks. A place where terrorists could lick their wounds. A place where committed terrorists could receive vital training in weapons construction and paramilitary tactics. In short, a platform of precisely the type without which an international terror network cannot succeed.

The president should know he hit the sweet spot during his Fort Bragg speech because all the right people are angry. The New York Times, with predictable disingenuousness, is railing this morning that the 9/11 references in the speech are out of bounds because Iraq had “nothing whatsoever to do with the terrorist attacks.” Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid and the tedious David Gergen, among others, are in Gergen’s words “offended” about use of the 9/11 “trump card.”

If the president is guilty of anything, it's not that he's dwelling on 9/11 enough. It's that the administration has not done a good enough job of probing and underscoring the nexus between the Saddam regime and al Qaeda. It is absolutely appropriate, it is vital, for him to stress that connection. This is still the war on terror, and Iraq, where the terrorists are still arrayed against us, remains a big part of that equation.

And not just because every jihadist with an AK-47 and a prayer rug has made his way there since we invaded. No, it’s because Saddam made Iraq their cozy place to land long before that. They are fighting effectively there because they’ve been invited to dig in for years.

The president needs to be talking about Saddam and terror because that’s what will get their attention in Damascus and Teheran. It’s not about the great experiment in democratization — as helpful as it would be to establish a healthy political culture in that part of the world. It’s about making our enemies know we are coming for them if they abet and harbor and promote and plan with the people who are trying to kill us.

On that score, nobody should worry about anything the Times or David Gergen or Senator Reid has to say about all this until they have some straight answers on questions like these. What does the “nothing whatsoever” crowd have to say about:

Ahmed Hikmat Shakir — the Iraqi Intelligence operative who facilitated a 9/11 hijacker into Malaysia and was in attendance at the Kuala Lampur meeting with two of the hijackers, and other conspirators, at what is roundly acknowledged to be the initial 9/11 planning session in January 2000? Who was arrested after the 9/11 attacks in possession of contact information for several known terrorists? Who managed to make his way out of Jordanian custody over our objections after the 9/11 attacks because of special pleading by Saddam’s regime?

Saddam's intelligence agency's efforts to recruit jihadists to bomb Radio Free Europe in Prague in the late 1990's?

Mohammed Atta's unexplained visits to Prague in 2000, and his alleged visit there in April 2001 which — notwithstanding the 9/11 Commission's dismissal of it (based on interviewing exactly zero relevant witnesses) — the Czechs have not retracted?

The Clinton Justice Department's allegation in a 1998 indictment (two months before the embassy bombings) against bin Laden, to wit: 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.

Seized Iraq Intelligence Service records indicating that Saddam's henchmen regarded bin Laden as an asset as early as 1992?

Saddam's hosting of al Qaeda No. 2, Ayman Zawahiri beginning in the early 1990’s, and reports of a large payment of money to Zawahiri in 1998?

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

Iraqi Intelligence Service operatives being dispatched to meet with bin Laden in Afghanistan in 1998 (the year of bin Laden’s fatwa demanding the killing of all Americans, as well as the embassy bombings)?

Saddam’s official press lionizing bin Laden as “an Arab and Islamic hero” following the 1998 embassy bombing attacks?

The continued insistence of high-ranking Clinton administration officials to the 9/11 Commission that the 1998 retaliatory strikes (after the embassy bombings) against a Sudanese pharmaceutical factory were justified because the factory was a chemical weapons hub tied to Iraq and bin Laden?

Top Clinton administration counterterrorism official Richard Clarke’s assertions, based on intelligence reports in 1999, that Saddam had offered bin Laden asylum after the embassy bombings, and Clarke’s memo to then-National Security Adviser Sandy Berger, advising him not to fly U-2 missions against bin Laden in Afghanistan because he might be tipped off by Pakistani Intelligence, and “[a]rmed with that knowledge, old wily Usama will likely boogie to Baghdad”? (See 9/11 Commission Final Report, p. 134 & n.135.)

Terror master Abu Musab Zarqawi's choice to boogie to Baghdad of all places when he needed surgery after fighting American forces in Afghanistan in 2001?

Saddam's Intelligence Service running a training camp at Salman Pak, were terrorists were instructed in tactics for assassination, kidnapping and hijacking?

Former CIA Director George Tenet’s October 7, 2002 letter to Congress, which asserted:

Our understanding of the relationship between Iraq and Al Qaeda is evolving and is based on sources of varying reliability. Some of the information we have received comes from detainees, including some of high rank.

We have solid reporting of senior level contacts between Iraq and Al Qaeda going back a decade.

Credible information indicates that Iraq and Al Qaeda have discussed safe haven and reciprocal nonaggression.

Since Operation Enduring Freedom, we have solid evidence of the presence in Iraq of Al Qaeda members, including some that have been in Baghdad.

We have credible reporting that Al Qaeda leaders sought contacts in Iraq who could help them acquire WMD capabilities. The reporting also stated that Iraq has provided training to Al Qaeda members in the areas of poisons and gases and making conventional bombs.

Iraq's increasing support to extremist Palestinians coupled with growing indications of relationship with Al Qaeda suggest that Baghdad's links to terrorists will increase, even absent U.S. military action.

There's more. Stephen Hayes’s book, The Connection, remains required reading. But these are just the questions; the answers — if someone will just investigate the questions rather than pretending there’s “nothing whatsoever” there — will provide more still.

So Gergen, Reid, the Times, and the rest are “offended” at the president's reminding us of 9/11? The rest of us should be offended, too. Offended at the “nothing whatsoever” crowd’s inexplicable lack of curiosity about these ties, and about the answers to these questions.

Just tell us one thing: Do you have any good answer to what Ahmed Hikmat Shakir was doing with the 9/11 hijackers in Kuala Lampur? Can you explain it?

— Andrew C. McCarthy, a former federal prosecutor, is a senior fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies.

Sure the stock market reached its peak in 2000, but unemployment didn't start to turn down until after BushCo took over

Oh come on MurryMom you know as well as anyone else that the first term of any President is affected by the previous President.

Your post didn't identify anything Bush has done to make your life better, either. It's tough to defend bankrupt policies, isn't it?

Here let me help out your liberal mind with a word you are completley unfamiliar with Freedom,Freedom for you to be a liberal moron!Freedom for the Iraqi people means a more stable Freedom for my Family. Why do you hate America so? Why is it all about money for you? Freedom gives you the chance to earn more money and help the economy thrive.

I don't know how your Check from the government looks but mine from my private employeer is more on the takehome side because of hold your breath Bush tax-cuts. I know that the tax-cuts keep you and your liberal friends from buying keyboards with shift keys but I get to take more money home or invest more in my 401k.

What else has President Bush done for me? Well he has made me and many other people all over the world Respect the Presidency again. I know this is a shock to you but people like to respect thier leader and not think of him getting oral sex in his office or cheat on his wife,Or be a serial rapist People like a President that says he believes in God and mean it.You my liberal friend miss the point though I don't need the president or the Government to do ANYTHING for me except leave me alone and quit taking more than they do from my paycheck so liberals like you don't have to work, but can live off of me.

http://www.foxnews.com/printer_friendly_story/0,3566,97063,00.html

The Connection Between 9/11 and Iraq

Thursday, September 11, 2003

This is a partial transcript of Special Report with Brit Hume, September 10, that has been edited for clarity.

Watch Special Report With Brit Hume weeknights at 6 p.m. ET

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HOWARD DEAN, DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with 9-11.

REP. DENNIS KUCINICH, D-OHIO, PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Iraq had nothing to do with 9-11.

SENATOR BOB GRAHAM, D-FLA, PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: President knew or should have known that there was no relationship between 9-11. There was no relationship between Usama Been Forgotten and Saddam Hussein.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BRIT HUME, HOST: It's an applause line. And in that case, a laughter line for the Democrats in their presidential debates. There you heard it from Howard Dean (search), from Dennis Kucinich (search) and finally, there from Senator Bob Graham (search) of Florida, the flat out statement…definitive statement, no connection between 9-11 and Iraq.

Well, certainly the administration has never claimed a connection, but is it that clear that it is definite there was not? For more on this, we turn now to FOX News foreign affairs analyst, Mansoor Ijaz, who joins us now from Berlin; the man with the best sources we know of anybody on these kinds of issues.

Mansoor, welcome. And tell us, first of all, your sense about whether it is…whether it can be definitively stated as a fact that there was no…9-11 connection to Iraq.

MANSOOR IJAZ, FOX NEWS FOREIGN AFFAIRS ANALYST: Well, Brit, I'll first…I'll say to you that with regard to Howard Dean and Congressman Kucinich, you have to forgive them because they don't know any better. But I was surprised to hear Bob Graham say that since he sat in a senior position on the Senate Intelligence Committee during the course of these events.

The fact of the matter is that as early as 1994, but certainly proof positive as of 1998, the connection between Al Qaeda (search) and Saddam Hussein was very clear. In February and March of 1998, bin Laden's No. 2 guy visited Baghdad at the request of the intelligence services of Iraq.

And he was living in Khartoum at the time at the very moment that the Sudanese intelligence chief was begging the FBI in hand written notes that were carried back and forth to come to the Sudan and look at what the data was that they had, who they were dealing with, how bin Laden's people were moving around, which ones were moving where and what they were doing.

There is no and, if's, or but's about the fact that there was a connection between al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein that early.

Now, the real question is what did they do in that two and a half weeks that they sat there and planned and plotted with each other?

We know that exactly six weeks after the meetings took place, a letter came from the FBI to the Sudanese saying we can't help you. We're not allowed to come and look at this stuff. And then six weeks after that, the embassies in Kenya and Tanzania were bombed and the Sudanese Embassy was cased.

So I would say that these people who make that kind of an argument have really no idea what the facts are. Nor do they understand what the mendacity of Saddam was to use al Qaeda for his benefit and his purposes in carrying out terrorist attacks in other parts of the world.

HUME: Well, certainly that makes pretty good circumstantial evidence on the attacks on those embassies. And it does suggest from what you have said that there have been contacts at a high level, important level, between al Qaeda and the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein. But what about something that would suggest a connection to 9-11, is there evidence there of any consequence?

IJAZ: Absolutely, and now let's take it a step further after the 1998 bombings. We then know there was a training camp called Salman Pak, which we've been able to identify the aircraft that they trained, the hijackers on. We've been able to identify other contacts between Iraqi intelligence services and directly with the 9-11 hijackers.

People would love to shove that evidence under the carpet, but the fact of the matter is that the meetings did take place, planning was going on. The Iraqi diplomatic pouch was the tool of choice to pass al Qaeda's messages around the world in different parts of the world.

There was…we know for a fact that the Philippines' embassy of Iraq in manila was used for purposes of planning what was then a thwarted effort to try and hijack airplanes across the Pacific. We know that the Pakistani…I mean, the Iraqi Embassy in Islamabad was used to facilitate contact between the Taliban, bin Laden's people, and Iraqi senior scientists to collaborate on chemical and biological weapons. I know that for a fact myself that that was going on.

So, there is just no way that anybody can convince me that there is no connection. We have not yet found the forensic tie. That may be true. But to say that there's no connection whatsoever, that is absolutely not true.

HUME: Why is it that the Bush administration, in your view, has not stressed this terrorist connection more? It did for a while, but since the appeal that was made for the U.N. resolutions back last fall, you haven't heard much from the administration on this connection from.

IJAZ: You know, Brit, that's sort of a tough question to answer in one sense. But let me give you my opinion about that. That is, the Bush administration has their hands full trying to solve the problems on the ground in Iraq right now.

They did the best that they could to and try to lay everything out. They tried to make the case to the American people. I think they made a darn good case. And when they executed what they needed to and the evidence was there. The fact is that we found evidence after the war was over that this was going on.

And so for me, it's very clear what was happening. If the Democrats don't want to accept that, they're not going to win office next time if they keep this up, because the American people are too smart to let this go on forever.

HUME: Mansoor, thank you. Always a pleasure to have you.

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