Secret intelligence memo links Saddam, bin Laden

Secret intelligence memo links Saddam, bin Laden Relationship involved training in WMD, financial support for 9-11 hijacker Atta

Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein had an operational relationship from the early 1990s to 2003 that involved training in explosives and weapons of mass destruction, as well as financial and logistical support, and may have included the bombing of the USS Cole and the Sept. 11 attacks.

That's the assessment of a 16-page top secret government memo to the Senate Intelligence Committee, reports the Weekly Standard.

The memo, dated October 27, 2003, was sent from Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas J. Feith to Senators Pat Roberts and Jay Rockefeller, the chairman and vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee. It was written in response to a request from the committee as part of its investigation into prewar intelligence claims made by the administration. The memo cites reports from a variety of domestic and foreign spy agencies including the FBI, the Defense Intelligence Agency, the National Security Agency, and the Central Intelligence Agency. Much of the evidence is detailed, conclusive, and corroborated by multiple sources.

According to the Weekly Standard, the memo reports Saddam's willingness to help bin Laden plot against Americans began in 1990, shortly before the first Gulf War, and continued through last March, the eve of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. It says bin Laden sent ''emissaries to Jordan in 1990 to meet with Iraqi government officials.'' At some unspecified point in 1991, according to a CIA analysis, ''Iraq sought Sudan's assistance to establish links to al-Qaida.''

Posted by anglian to All
On News/Activism 11/15/2003 11:01 PM PST #7 of 7

No. 851-03
IMMEDIATE RELEASE November 15, 2003

DoD Statement on News Reports of al-Qaida and Iraq Connections
News reports that the Defense Department recently confirmed new information with respect to contacts between al-Qaida and Iraq in a letter to the Senate Intelligence Committee are inaccurate.

A letter was sent to the Senate Intelligence Committee on October 27, 2003 from Douglas J. Feith, Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, in response to follow-up questions from his July 10 testimony. One of the questions posed by the committee asked the Department to provide the reports from the Intelligence Community to which he referred in his testimony before the Committee. These reports dealt with the relationship between Iraq and al-Qaida.

The letter to the committee included a classified annex containing a list and description of the requested reports, so that the Committee could obtain the reports from the relevant members of the Intelligence Community.

The items listed in the classified annex were either raw reports or products of the CIA, the NSA, or, in one case, the DIA. The provision of the classified annex to the Intelligence Committee was cleared by other agencies and done with the permission of the Intelligence Community. The selection of the documents was made by DOD to respond to the Committee’s question. The classified annex was not an analysis of the substantive issue of the relationship between Iraq and al Qaida, and it drew no conclusions.

Individuals who leak or purport to leak classified information are doing serious harm to national security; such activity is deplorable and may be illegal.

http://www.dod.mil/releases/2003/nr20031115-0642.html

Interesting. I can't help but wonder if this memo was leaked by the same individual that leaked the memo from Rockefeller's office to Hannity which detailed the democrats' plan to politicize the intelligence Committee's investigation.

Right, but such collection of information is the starting point of all intelligence. Now note that those who use the failure to get beyond the raw data collection point through the use of trusted "verifying" assets are the same folks who worked so effectively to make sure we have no such assets now that we need them. As a result they are easily duped into believing that they are being responsible by doubting and jumping to believing that our intelligence is either being misrepresented or is wrong when in fact what they are responsible for is having assured that it will not be as good as it should be and that proper verification is virtually impossible.

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