WAR ON TERROR: LINKS TO IRAQ: IS SADDAM TO BLAME?;

The Mirror | September 20, 2001 | Nathan Yates

[Wallaby]

Not for commercial use. Solely to be used for the educational purposes of research and open discussion.

WAR ON TERROR: LINKS TO IRAQ: IS SADDAM TO BLAME?; IRAQI DICTATOR 'HAD THE MOTIVE AND THE MEANS'

Nathan Yates The Mirror NEWS; Pg. 6,7 September 20, 2001, Thursday

AMERICA is investigating a possible link between Saddam Hussein and the suicide attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

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"If Mylroie and Fox are right, then it was Iraq that went after the World Trade Center last time, which makes it much more plausible that Iraq has done so again."

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The Iraqi dictator is the only man with the resources and motive to carry out a strike on that scale, according to former CIA director James Woolsey.

He said: "Intelligence and law enforcement officials investigating the case would do well to consider the possibility that the attacks were sponsored, supported, and perhaps even ordered by Saddam Hussein.

"It could be a very fruitful marriage between Saddam and Osama bin Laden. "Bin Laden gets the publicity he wants, while Saddam is the sleeping partner who gets revenge and causes disruption, while still selling his oil and keeping the support of Russia and China."

Saddam is still brooding over his defeat by America and her allies in the Gulf War and has made increasingly aggressive moves over the past few months. He is also sitting on a multi-billion pound war chest from oil sales.

FBI investigators believe one of the suicide pilots, Mohamed Atta, met Iraqi agents while he was organising his terrorist cell in the German city of Hamburg.

Liberal peer Baroness Nicholson,who reports on Iraq for the European Parliament, is among those who believe the circumstantial evidence against Saddam is compelling.

She said: "For me, Saddam's fingerprints are all over this. In recent weeks his speeches have become increasingly aggressive, and he has been urging a jihad (holy war) against the United States.

"He has also severed links with the West, including quite close ties he was developing with a number of French companies.

"History has shown Saddam has hardly ever desisted from policies of aggression. He was at war with Iran, then when that ended he bombed the Kurds. After that he invaded Kuwait.

"To believe he is not engaged in some kind of warmongering now would be naive to say the least."

Iraqi has denied any involvement. In a sinister new twist, the Iraqi News Agency said Foreign Minister Naji Sabri met foreign ambassadors in Baghdad yesterday and told them: "The wicked United Kingdom is attempting to include Iraq in baseless accusations" about the attacks on the US.

The report did not say why Sabri blamed the UK. Supporters of the theory that Saddam was behind the US massacres say there is evidence that he had a hand in the bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993. The mastermind was a 27-year-old Pakistani called Ramzi Yousef, who was also known as Abdul Basit.

But last year, terrorism scholar Laurie Mylroie revealed that senior members of the FBI believed Yousef was an Iraqi agent.

James Fox, the FBI's chief investigator into the 1993 bombing, thought a follower of Saddam had assumed the real Basit's identity.

Police files in Kuwait (where the real Abdul Basit lived in 1990) were allegedly doctored by Iraqi intelligence during their occupation of the country. James Woolsey said: "If Mylroie and Fox are right, then it was Iraq that went after the World Trade Center last time, which makes it much more plausible that Iraq has done so again."

Saddam's response to last week's atrocities could also put him in the frame.

He is the only world leader who openly welcomed the attacks, although he has since offered a muted message of sympathy to the US.

Saddam claimed America deserved what had happened, adding: "Irrespective of the conflicting human feelings about what happened, America is reaping the thorns planted by its rulers in the world.

"There is hardly a place that does not have a memorial symbolising the criminal actions committed by America against its natives."

The demolition of the WTC twin towers is said to have led to celebrations at Saddam's headquarters in Baghdad.

Answering claims yesterday that Iraqi intelligence had met hijacker Mohamed Atta, Foreign Minister Naji Sabri said: "There is no such thing at all.

"The US administration and its allies know very well that we have no relation whatsoever with groups that are being accused now by the US of committing what happened in the United States."

He then blamed the UK for making the "baseless accusations".

Sabri, who took office last month, said "unfair" US foreign policies had prompted the attacks.

He added: "It is unreasonable for the United States to impose on the world its definition of terrorism and include any armed action that targets its interests, policies and injustices."

Sabri said Sudan had called for a meeting of Arab foreign ministers.

He said: "We think Arab countries need to co-ordinate and take a unified attitude because Arab countries are being targeted."

Senior US officials, including Vice-President Dick Cheney, have said there is so far no evidence linking Iraq to the attacks.

CAPTION: TYRANT: Saddam at a meeting in Baghdad earlier this week. He has denied involvement

[Wallaby]

FYI. Also see:

• IS BAGHDAD BEHIND A SERIES OF UNEXPLAINED DISASTERS?

[alloysteel]

Osama bin Laden has indeed provided a useful cover for activities of the Iraqi terrorist activities, and it is almost certain that Saddam and Osama have coordinated many of their strikes. It is only that the attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were so spectacular, that so many other lesser incursions and scrimmages seem to have been unnoticed. But the second big shoe has not yet been dropped.

[Ragtime Cowgirl]

Manny, I could use your common-sense perspective on this thread: Clinton's final gift to GW?Dec.20, 2000...give us Osama in 30 days (inaugeration day) or else! Tough talk, little action again. Osama yawns.