Posted on 03/04/2004 5:59:22 AM PST by JohnGalt
Hussein ties to al Qaeda appear faulty
The administration's case on ties between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda relied on intelligence that was weaker than that on Iraq's illegal weapons programs.
By WARREN P. STROBEL, JONATHAN S. LANDAY AND JOHN WALCOTT
WASHINGTON - The Bush administration's assertion that Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein had ties to al Qaeda -- one of the administration's central arguments for a preemptive war -- appears to have been based on even less solid intelligence than the administration's claims that Iraq had hidden stocks of chemical and biological weapons.
Nearly a year after U.S. and British troops invaded Iraq, no evidence has turned up to verify allegations of Hussein's links with al Qaeda, and several key parts of the administration's case have either proved false or seem increasingly doubtful.
Senior U.S. officials now say there never was any evidence that Hussein's secular police state and Osama bin Laden's Islamic terrorism network were in league. At most, there were occasional meetings.
Moreover, the U.S. intelligence community never concluded that those meetings produced an operational relationship, American officials said. That verdict was in a secret report by the CIA's Directorate of Intelligence that was updated in January 2003, on the eve of the war.
''We could find no provable connection between Saddam and al Qaeda,'' a senior U.S. official acknowledged.
The administration's allegations that Hussein still had weapons of mass destruction have been the subject of much greater public and political controversy than its suggestions that Iraq and al Qaeda were in league. They were based on the Iraqi leader's long history of duplicity regarding such weapons, which appeared to be confirmed by spy satellite photographs, information from defectors and electronic eavesdropping.
But the evidence of Iraq's ties to al Qaeda was always sketchy, based largely on testimony of Iraqi defectors and prisoners, with limited reports from foreign agents and electronic eavesdropping.
Much of the evidence that's now available indicates that Iraq and al Qaeda had no close ties, despite repeated contacts between the two; that the terrorists who administration officials claimed were links between the two had no direct connection to either Hussein or bin Laden; and that a key meeting between an Iraqi intelligence officer and one of the leaders of the Sept. 11 attacks probably never happened.
A Knight Ridder review of the Bush administration statements on Iraq's links to terrorism and what's now known about the classified intelligence has found that administration advocates of a preemptive invasion frequently hyped sketchy and sometimes false information to help make their case. Twice they neglected to report information that painted a less sinister picture.
The Bush administration has defended its prewar descriptions of Hussein and is calling Iraq ''the central front in the war on terrorism,'' as the president told U.S. troops two weeks ago.
But before the war and since, Bush and his aides made rhetorical links that now appear to have been leaps:
• Vice President Dick Cheney told National Public Radio in January that there was ''overwhelming evidence'' of a relationship between Hussein and al Qaeda. Among the evidence he cited was Iraq's harboring of Abdul Rahman Yasin, a suspect in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.
Cheney didn't mention that Iraq had offered to turn over Yasin to the FBI in 1998, in return for a U.S. statement acknowledging that Iraq had no role in that attack. The Clinton administration refused the offer, because it was unwilling to reward Iraq for returning a fugitive.
• Administration officials reported that Farouk Hijazi, a top Iraqi intelligence officer, had met with bin Laden in Kandahar, Afghanistan, in 1998 and offered him safe haven in Iraq.
They left out the rest of the story, however. Bin Laden said he would consider the offer, U.S. intelligence officials said. But according to a report later made available to the CIA, the al Qaeda leader told an aide afterward that he had no intention of accepting Saddam's offer because ``if we go there, it would be his agenda, not ours.''
• The administration linked Hussein to a terrorism network run by Palestinian Abu Musab al Zarqawi. That network may be behind the latest violence in Iraq, which killed at least 143 people Tuesday.
But U.S. officials say the evidence that Zarqawi had close operational ties to al Qaeda appears increasingly doubtful.
Asked for Cheney's views on Iraq and terrorism, vice presidential spokesman Kevin Kellems referred Knight Ridder to the vice president's television interviews Tuesday.
Cheney, in an interview with CNN, said Zarqawi ran an ''al Qaeda-affiliated'' group. He cited an intercepted letter that Zarqawi is believed to have written to al Qaeda leaders, and a White House official who spoke only on the condition of anonymity said the CIA has described Zarqawi as an al Qaeda ``associate.''
But U.S. officials say the Zarqawi letter contained a plea for help that al Qaeda rebuffed.
• Iraqi defectors alleged that Saddam's regime was helping to train Iraqi and non-Iraqi Arab terrorists at a site called Salman Pak, south of Baghdad. The allegation made it into a September 2002 white paper that the White House issued. The U.S. military has found no evidence of such a facility.
• Bush, Cheney and Secretary of State Colin Powell made much of occasional contacts between Hussein's regime and al Qaeda, dating to the early 1990s when bin Laden was based in the Sudan. But intelligence indicates that nothing ever came of the contacts.
One word: Lawyers.
Insight Magazine
Sep 29, 2003
Senior investigators and analysts in the U.S. government have concluded that Iraq acted as a state sponsor of terrorism against Americans and logistically supported the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States - confirming news reports that until now have emerged only in bits and pieces. A senior government official responsible for investigating terrorism tells Insight that while Saddam Hussein may not have had details of the Sept. 11 attacks in advance, he "gave assistance for whatever al-Qaeda came up with." That assistance, confirmed independently, came in a variety of ways, including financial support spun out through a complex web of financial institutions in Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Italy and elsewhere. Long suspected of having terrorist ties to al-Qaeda, they now have been linked to Iraq as well.
Insiders say the failure to assign responsibility for the Sept. 11 attacks to Iraq, Afghanistan or any other nation-state is intentional. "The administration does not want the victims of Sept. 11 interfering with its foreign policy," says Peter M. Leitner, director of the Washington Center for Peace and Justice (WCPJ). Leitner says the Bush administration may be concerned that if other victims of the Sept. 11 attacks also filed lawsuits and won civil-damage awards it would reduce Iraqi resources that the administration wants to use to rebuild the country. Leitner and others say this explains Bush's reticence at this time to report the convincing evidence linking Saddam and al-Qaeda that has been collected by U.S. investigators and private organizations seeking damages. "The [Bush] administration is intentionally changing the topic," claims Leitner, and sidestepping the issue that "Iraq has been in a proxy war against the U.S. for years and has used al-Qaeda in that war against the United States."
But I believe that the re-opening of OKC investigation is going to change everything.
My point is that the Marines found exactly what we were told they would find by the defectors, a terrorist training camp. PBS Frontline did an interview in 2001 with one of the defectors and he even drew a map of the facility for them (a link to the map is at the above link). This guy was not with the INC:
Sabah Khodada was a captain in the Iraqi army from 1982 to 1992. He worked at what he describes as a highly secret terrorist training camp at Salman Pak, an area south of Baghdad. In this translated interview, conducted in association with The New York Times on Oct. 14, 2001, Khodada describes what went on at Salman Pak, including details on training hijackers. He emigrated to the U.S. in May 2001.
Everything that was found at Salman Pak by the Marines in the AP report was exactly as it was on the map. Therefore, for these fools to say that Salman Pak never existed is ridiculous.
Please allow me to explain one thing. I WAS as diehard, stuck in the mud, convinced President Bush lied to justify war with Iraq when WMD's failed to appear as anyone. Then I realized, through my friend's suggestion, that OUR intelligence was based on what Iraqi's BELIEVED about Saddam. We thought he possessed WMD's because he chose NOT to admit to the world he did NOT have the capability and would not account for the known missing stockpiles.
If you recall, even the shell game was continued in the midst of the war as to WHO had WMD's and who was to be given the order to use them. Each battalion thought the next one had the capability when actually, it appears none did.
Recall also, Scott Ritter telling Congress Iraq possessed no viable WMD program, but Iraq still failed to be totally truthful, but no explaination from Iraq followed.
http://www.fas.org/spp/starwars/congress/1998_h/ws915981.htm
Pay especially close attention to Ritter's last paragraph and this remark, "If recent history is any guide, there will be many pressures placed upon the Special Commission, most behind the scenes and as such out of public view, to make compromises of substance concerning Iraq's unfulfilled disarmament obligations."
Saddam offered to meet secretly with President Bush in '93 - but he would not because Saddam's interest was to remain in control of Iraq. It is likely Saddam would have admitted to President Bush the why's and how's of him not coming clean with the world.
http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/news/special_packages/7192639.htm
Certainly, I'm not running interference for Kerry or the left - I'm trying to understand how our intelligence could have been so WRONG. In light of what I see now, I don't believe President Bush was lying, but that the deceit was purposed in Iraq by Saddam and the CIA bought into the ploy. For whatever that's worth, that's how I see it NOW.
Really ? What about this:
Part of document found by Start Reporter Mitch Potter suggesting a meeting with Osama Bin Laden, whose name had been obscured.
Toronto Star Link: http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1051125568646&call_pageid=1045739058633
Whether the terrorists wore the name tag 'Al Queda' or not is beside the point. They all serve the same master in the end.
You may call it a 'diversion of resources'. I call it a long overdue house cleaning.
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