Posted on 07/18/2004 11:38:50 AM PDT by adam_az
The report is a heavily redacted PDF file. Click on the link to download it.
If anyone has a way to convert it to text format so it would be searchable, please do so!!!
Some interesting excerpts:
For example
'direct meetings between senior Iraqi representatives and top al Qaeda operatives took place from the early 1990s to the present,' meaning Jan, 2003
Multiple, credible sources are cited that Iraq provided al-Qaeda with various kinds of training, combat, bomb-making, along with chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear training.
It confirms this statement by George Tenet: "Iraq has in the past provided training and document forgery and bomb-making to al-Qaeda. It has also provided training in poisons and gasses to two al-Qaeda associates."
It discusses how from 1996 to 2003, Iraq was planning attacks against US operations like Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty in Praque (p. 316) and (p317) 43 incidents backed by 48 intelligence reports of Iraqi military intelligence planning terrorism actions, including targeting US facilities in Turkey and trying to rent properties near the US embassy in Baku.
It discusses their links to Palestinian terrorist groups, including financial support and training. Abu Abbas's group, HQ'ed in Iraq, was planning for attacks against US forces (p 319) Iraqi officials met with HAMAS representatives. They also wanted to establish a relationship with Hizballah.
P. 321 discusses the CIA's assessment that Iraq offered a safe haven to Al Qaeda beginning in the early 1990's. The CIA's assessment isn't that they were cooperating, but that they were using each other - "Iraq's interaction with al-Waida is impelled by mutual antipathy towards the United States and the Saudi royal family and by bin Ladin's interest in unconventional weapons and relocation sites. In contrast to the patron-client pattern between Iraq and it's Palestinian surrogates, the relationship between Iraq and al-Qaida appears to more closely resemble that of two independt actors trying to exploit each other - their mutual suspicion suborned by al-Qaida's interest in Iraqi assistance, and Baghdad's interest in al-Qaida's anti-U.S.attacks..."
p.324 abu Zubaydah in questioning said that he didn't know of Iraq-AQ ties, but that if they existed, they'd be heavily compartmentalized, and said that he heard rumorst of certain other AQ agents having a good relationship with Iraqi intelligence, like Zarqawi. He didn't think UBL would 'ally' with Iraq, but that "it was possible that there were AQ-Iraq communications or emissaries to which he was not privy."
p 339 discusses Iraqi links to the 1993 wtc bombing
p. 340 discusses Ahmed Hikmat Shakir who facilitated the travel of one of the 9'/11 hijackers to Malaysia for a meeting in Jan 2000. He worked as an airport facilitator in Kuala Lumpur at the end of 1999 to early 2000, and he claimed he got his job through an Iraqi embassy employee, Ra'ad al Mudaris. though the CIA couldn't prove this was done at the behest of the IIS.
p. 345 (U) Conclusion 92. The Central Intelligence Agency's examination of contacts, training, safehaven, and operational cooperation as indicators of a possible Iraq-al-Qaida relationship was a reasonable and objective approach to the question."
p. 346 "The Central Intelligence Agency reasobably assessed that there were likely several instances of contacts between Iraq and al Qaida throughout the 1990s but that these contacts did not add up to an established formal relationship."
(Should we have waited to this to mature to fruition before acting??? That is the question.)
A January 2003 CIA assessment from reliable, clandestine sources states that quote 'direct meetings between senior Iraqi representatives and top al Qaeda operatives took place from the early 1990s to the present,' meaning all the way up to January 2003.
Multiple, credible sources are cited that Iraq provided al-Qaeda with various kinds of training, combat, bomb-making, along with chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear training, backing up public and private statements by former CIA director George Tenet."
George Tenet: "Iraq has in the past provided training and document forgery and bomb-making to al-Qaeda. It has also provided training in poisons and gasses to two al-Qaeda associates."
The report states that the CIA had multiple sources telling them that Saddam Hussein had issued a standing offer of safe haven to Osama bin Laden and his organization in 1999. The details in the report seem to shoot down at least two of former White House counter-terrorism director Richard Clarke's bold claims. Clarke told 60 Minutes in March quote, 'There's absolutely no evidence that Iraq was supporting al Qaeda. Ever.' Clarke also claimed that Iraq had not been involved in anti-U.S. terrorism since the failed 1993 plot to assassinate the first President Bush in Kuwait.
But page 316 of the Senate report states that the CIA provided 78 reports from various sources that from 1996 to 2003, Saddam Hussein's regime was actively training Iraqi intelligence operatives for terrorist attacks against U.S. interests.
The CIA assessed, based on the Prague casings and a variety of other reporting that throughout 2002, that Iraq was becoming increasingly aggressive in planning attacks against U.S. interests.
So Iraq was planning to attack the United States according to 78 different sources.
What does the report say about the 1993 WTC bombing and Iraq?
p 339 (349 of the PDF) discusses Iraqi links to the 1993 wtc bombing
It discusses the personal ties to Iraq of some of the parties.
What is a pdf file anyway?
Should I download it to a disk?
bump
Try a Google search on PDF to text conversion......there may be some tools out there.
"Try a Google search on PDF to text conversion......there may be some tools out there."
Won't work, they are all image files... not PDF text.
If you're a MacOS X user like me, just download the file and double-click on it because there's already a fine PDF viewer built in.
Looks like it's worth viewing at least if you have a lot of time on your hands. You might want to print it out to read it when you're not near a computer since it's 521 pages. Better use an office laser printer; it would be cost-prohibitive to print on an inkjet.
Hope that helps.
D
It does help; thank you!
Stephen Hayes, editor of The Weekly Standard, said this in a recent article about the Senate Intelligence Committee Report:
We are left, then, with the following scenario. Before the Iraq war, the U.S. intelligence community reported that from 1996 to 2003 the Iraqi Intelligence service had focused its terrorist activity on Western interests, including the United States; "throughout 2002, the IIS was becoming increasingly aggressive in planning attacks against U.S. interests"; Saddam Hussein was open "to enhancing bin Laden's operational capability" and may have provided training to al Qaeda; bin Laden had made direct and specific requests for Iraqi assistance; al Qaeda had demonstrated an "enduring interest" in WMD expertise from Iraq; the Iraqi regime "certainly" knew that al Qaeda agents were operating in Baghdad and northern Iraq; and Saddam Hussein had made a "standing offer" to Osama bin Laden for safe haven in Iraq.
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