U.S. Officials: Saddam's Hijack Drills Were Counter-terror Ops

NewsMax.com ^ | 6/20/04 | Carl Limbacher and the Newsmax.com staff

[kattracks]

State Department and CIA officials have quietly told reporters they accept Saddam Hussein's explanation that radical Islamists who trained in Iraq before 9/11 to hijack airplanes using small knives were engaged in counter-terrorism training.

Speaking on condition of anonymity to the Knight Ridder news service, the officials challenged the credibility of two White House reports issued last year, which had raised questions about whether activities at the notorious terrorist training camp Salman Pak were linked to the 9/11 attacks. One unnamed U.S. official cited a CIA assessment first supplied to the White House in January 2003 in response to the reports, more than a year after two Iraqi defectors told the FBI that they trained radical Muslims at Salman Pak in hijacking techniques never used before the 9/11 attacks.

"The probability that the training provided at such centers, e.g. Salman Pak, was similar to that al Qaida could offer at its own camps in Afghanistan, combined with the sourcing difficulties, leads us to conclude that we need additional corroboration before we can validate that this low level basic terrorist training for al Qaida occurred in Iraq," the CIA concluded.

Said Knight Ridder: "U.S. intelligence officials have concluded that the base was most probably used to train Iraqi counter-terrorism units in anti-hijacking tactics."

The conclusion that training at Salman Pak was innocuous is not shared by Charles Duelfer, who replaced David Kay as head of the U.S. Iraq Survey Group earlier this year.

In Nov. 2001, Duelfer - then an UNSCOM weapons inspector - said the Iraqi government made the same claim to him - that hijacking drills at Salman Pak were actually counter-terrorism exercises.

"Of course we automatically took out the word 'counter'," Duelfer said, dismissing the alibi as an obvious fraud.

"I'm surprised that people seem to be shocked that there should be terror camps in Iraq. "I mean, what, actually, do you expect?" he added.

But Duelfer's corroboration - along with satellite photos confirming the defectors' contention that the drills took place aboard an actual Boeing 707 fuselage parked nowhere near an airstrip - failed to persuade the CIA and the State Department, which continued to question their credibility.

The State Department, in particular, worked strenuously to block publication of the two White House reports, describing the Salman Pak hijack drills, Knight Ridder said.

One of those reports, dubbed "A Decade of Deception and Defiance" was released as a background paper in conjunction with Bush's Sept. 12, 2002, U.N. address, but was ignored by the press.

The second publication, "Iraq: From Fear to Freedom," was distributed abroad. It cited claims by Iraqi defector Sabah Khodada, who said he trained radical Islamists at Salman Pak to hijack U.S. airliners.

Earlier Khodada had told the London Observer that he believed the 9/11 attacks were carried out "by graduates of Salman Pak."

The Bush administration booklet reported:

"Khodada ... confirmed numerous press reports that Salman Pak had an entire Boeing 707 jetliner that was used for training in hijacking techniques - from smuggling weapons on board to methods for overpowering the crew and terrorizing passengers into cowed submission."

A senior administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Knight Ridder that the White House ordered the State Department to publish the two reports over the objections of some State Department officials.

[bd476]

Indicator light warning: engine failure imminent.

Someone or some group within the CIA and the State Department needs to be outted pronto.

[satchmodog9]

forewarded to all my friends

[Billthedrill]

You know, there are stories so stupid that even my liberal Seattle friends won't try them. This is one.

"I'm surprised that people seem to be shocked that there should be terror camps in Iraq. "I mean, what, actually, do you expect?" he added.

I think a lot of people are losing the context here. Saddam got his butt whipped in a conventional war in 1991, and he knew perfectly well that there was no way he could build another conventional army that would oppose the clamps the "coalition" was putting on his country. He had a past history of actual use of chemical weapons, a nuclear program that the Israelis hindered, but did not stop, in 1982, and a very, very great deal of money to spend. He had active contacts with a galaxy of terrorist organizations and was funding suicide bombers directly in Israel. His intelligence service was premier in all of the Middle East, taking a back seat not even to such notables as the Syrians and the Iranians.

This whole thing isn't just a product of Dubya's hostility, it is a documented, comprehensive set of proven facts that lead to no other conclusion than that he was in it up to his unwashed, fleabitten neck. It isn't going to be spun or explained away. Every intelligence service in the world knew what he was up to including the CIA, and most of them said so. This isn't even in question except in the rarified air of a D.C. committee room, by people who are starting to stutter from hypoxia.

[Poohbah]

"Treason doth not prosper, for what's the reason? For if it prosper, then none dare call it treason."