Feb. 17, 1998, Clinton – speaking at the Pentagon – warned of the "reckless acts of outlaw nations and an unholy axis of terrorists, drug traffickers and organized international criminals." He said these "predators of the twenty-first century," who are America's enemies, "will be all the more lethal if we allow them to build arsenals of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons and missiles to deliver them. We simply cannot allow that to happen. There is no more clear example of this threat than Saddam Hussein's Iraq."
Clinton White House Saw Saddam-Osama Connection
Jon E. Dougherty, NewsMax.com
Monday, July 12, 2004
To hear controversial filmmaker Michael Moore tell it in his new movie, "Fahrenheit 9/11," the only government officials who knew in advance that al-Qaida was a threat to the United States were members of the Bush administration.
At least they're consistent," Moore writes. "They never needed to see a single weapon of mass destruction before sending our kids off to die."
"Every single fact I state in [the movie] is the absolute and irrefutable truth," Moore says in a blog on his Web site. He goes on to take another jab at the administration after hearing White House spokesman Dan Bartlett describe the movie as "outrageously false," even though Bartlett said he had yet to see it.
Moore and other members of the political left, none of whom have ever been fans of the Bush administration, have been chanting endlessly to anyone who will listen that the White House was wrong to invade Iraq because, they say, WMD have not been found and Saddam Hussein was not allied with al-Qaida in any way.
Even one-time liberal supporters of war in Iraq – including Democrat Sens. John Kerry of Mass., the party's likely presidential nominee, and Tom Daschle of South Dakota, the Senate minority leader – have begun taking jabs at the administration regarding its Iraq war policies, though they voted for the invasion based on the very information offered by the administration.
And why? Because their political predecessors and soulmates in the Clinton administration had made exactly the same cases against Iraq, though President Clinton was never strong enough politically to wage full-scale war against America's terrorist enemies.
Early Admissions
Even as recently as July 6, mainstream media leaders whose editorial positions routinely lean to the political left discounted the administration's claims regarding Iraq.
For example, in its July 7 edition, The New York Times – in a story aimed at refuting claims by Vice President Dick Cheney that he had access to better intelligence regarding Iraq than the federal 9/11 panel appointed to investigate the attacks – reminded readers of the so-called "party line," noting, "A report issued by the commission's staff last month found that there did not appear to have been a 'collaborative relationship' between Iraq and the terrorist network, a finding that appeared to undermine a justification cited by President Bush and Mr. Cheney for invading Iraq and toppling Saddam Hussein."
Shortly after the 9/11 attacks, which were quickly linked to al-Qaida, President Bush and key administration officials made assertions that there were not-so-tenuous, if not completely obvious, connections between al-Qaida and Saddam Hussein. The administration also said Saddam was attempting to build weapons of mass destruction.
Administration officials have maintained ever since that their early assertions were true. "Fifteen months ago, Saddam's regime was an enemy of America and the civilized world; today Iraq's government is an ally of both," Bush said in remarks delivered in Turkey June 28, the day power was transferred in Iraq.
"Fifteen months ago, Iraq was a state sponsor of terrorism; today Iraq's leaders, with our support, are systematically fighting terrorists across their country. Fifteen months ago, we faced the threat of a dictator with a history of using weapons of mass destruction; today the dictator is a threat to no one from the cell he now occupies."
But there were reasons why the Bush White House made the connections – most notably because the prior Clinton administration had done the same thing, for the same reasons.
While blame has been placed on Bush and Cheney for failing to stop the attacks, in fairness it must be noted that the president, in office less than eight months on Sept. 11, 2001, had still not assembled a complete governing team. Many Clinton holdovers, including FBI Director Robert Mueller and CIA Director George Tenet, the backbone agencies for the nation's intelligence, were still in office and still operating their departments the same way they had for Clinton.
Similar Claims
Also, according to an increasing number of published accounts, it was likely that President Bush and Vice President Cheney were getting much the same information about Iraq and al-Qaida as Bill Clinton and Al Gore had received, if for no other reason than because both administrations were making similar claims.
One such report was published by The Weekly Standard in its July 5-12 issue. Stephen F. Hayes, author of the new book "The Connection: How al-Qaeda's Collaboration with Saddam Hussein has Endangered America," says Clinton administration officials in the late 1990s and beyond were making regular references to Saddam, his WMD programs and association with al-Qaida.
For example, Hayes writes that just two years ago, in July 2002, former Clinton State Department spokesman James Rubin hosted a PBS documentary that examined "the nature of the threat posed by Saddam Hussein."
"Ten years after the Gulf War and Saddam is still there and still continues to stockpile weapons of mass destruction," Rubin said. "Now there are suggestions he is working with al-Qaida, which means the very terrorists who attacked the United States last September may now have access to chemical and biological weapons."
As Hayes notes, Rubin – who is now John Kerry's senior presidential campaign adviser – said earlier this month on a cable talk show that he wasn't responsible, as the host, for producing the content of the program.
"Fair enough," Hayes writes. "But on the PBS program, Rubin spoke in a manner that suggested he did, in fact, believe the evidence presented by [the show's producer, investigative filmmaker Gwynne] Roberts, pressing one interview subject about the possibility of Saddam's passing weapons of mass destruction to 'the al Qaeda people in the film he's already trained.'"
Clinton-Gore 'Amnesia'
Hayes goes on to point out that the most "striking case of political amnesia" goes to the top two Clintonites – former Vice President Gore and the man himself, Bill Clinton.
On June 24, "Today" show co-host Katie Couric, not known for her tenacity of questioning regarding Democrats and liberals, interviewed Clinton and asked, "What do you think about this connection that Cheney, that Vice President Cheney continues to assert between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaida?"
Clinton, of course, didn't know. "All I can tell you is I never saw it, I never believed it based on the evidence I had."
The same day, Gore – in a venomous speech at Georgetown University School of Law – accused Bush of "intentionally misleading the American people by continuing to aggressively and brazenly assert a linkage between al-Qaida and Saddam Hussein. If he is not lying, if he genuinely believes that, that makes them [sic] unfit in battle against al-Qaida. If they believe these flimsy scraps, then who would want them in charge?"
Really?
Back on Feb. 17, 1998, Hayes notes, Clinton – speaking at the Pentagon – warned of the "reckless acts of outlaw nations and an unholy axis of terrorists, drug traffickers and organized international criminals." He said these "predators of the twenty-first century," who are America's enemies, "will be all the more lethal if we allow them to build arsenals of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons and missiles to deliver them. We simply cannot allow that to happen. There is no more clear example of this threat than Saddam Hussein's Iraq."
And later the same spring, Clinton's Justice Department prepared an indictment of al-Qaida's leader, Osama bin Laden, in which a prominent passage located in the fourth paragraph reads:
"Al-Qaeda reached an understanding with the government of Iraq that al-Qaeda would not work against that government and that on particular projects, specifically including weapons development, al-Qaeda would work cooperatively with the government of Iraq."
More Evidence
The U.S. attorney involved in preparing that indictment, Patrick Fitzgerald, told the federal 9/11 Commission that the intelligence surrounding the indictment came from one Jamal al Fadl, a former high-ranking al-Qaida leader who, before the Sept. 11 attacks, gave the U.S. its first real look at the terrorist organization.
Fadl said an associate of bin Laden's, Mamdouh Mahmud Salim (Abu Hajer al Iraqi) "tried to reach a sort of agreement where they wouldn't work against each other – sort of 'the enemy of my enemy is my friend' – and that there were indications that within Sudan when al-Qaeda was there, which al-Qaeda left in the summer of '96, or the spring of '96, there were efforts to work on jointly acquiring weapons."
Within several months, al-Qaida bombed a pair of U.S. embassies in East Africa. In retaliation, Bill Clinton used an Iraq-al-Qaida connection, Hayes said, when he ordered the cruise missile attack on the al Shifa pharmaceutical plant in Sudan.
On Aug. 24, 1998, a "senior intelligence official" was made available by the administration and cited "strong ties between the plant and Iraq" as the basis for the attack.
A day later Thomas Pickering, undersecretary of state for political affairs and one of only a few officials involved in planning the al Shifa strike, confirmed an Iraq-Sudan (and, by proxy, al-Qaida) connection: "We see evidence that we think is quite clear on contacts between Sudan and Iraq. In fact, al Shifa officials, early in the company's history, we believe were in with Iraqi individuals associated with Iraq's VX program."
Five days later, Hayes notes, U.N. Ambassador Bill Richardson (now the governor of New Mexico) made an appearance on CNN, where he talked of "direct evidence of ties between Osama bin Laden" and Sudan's Military Industrial Corporation.
"You combine that with Sudan support for terrorism, their connections with Iraq on VX, and you combine that, also, with the chemical precursor issue, and Sudan's leadership support for Osama bin Laden, and you've got a pretty clear-cut case."
That is, unless you're the Bush administration trying to make the same points.
More Admissions of Iraqi-Osama Guilt
Sandy Berger, Clinton's national security adviser, penned an op-ed for the Washington Times on Oct. 16, 1998. In it he asserted that the administration "had physical evidence indicating that al Shifa was the site of chemical weapons activity."
"Other products were made at al Shifa," he continued. "But we have seen such dual-use plants before – in Iraq. And, indeed, we have information that Iraq has assisted chemical weapons activity in Sudan."
Richard Clarke, the counterterrorism czar for both Clinton and Bush who, in a recent book, laid most of the blame for 9/11 at the feet of the current administration, told the Washington Post in a Jan. 23, 1999, interview that the U.S. was "sure" Iraq was behind the VX precursor being manufactured at the al Shifa plant.
The Post reported: "Clarke said U.S. intelligence does not know how much of the substance was produced at al Shifa or what happened to it. But he said that intelligence exists linking bin Laden to al Shifa's current and past operators, the Iraqi nerve gas experts, and the National Islamic Front in Sudan."
Even Clinton's defense secretary, William Cohen, confirmed the association between Iraq and Sudan in testimony before the 9/11 Commission, Hayes writes. But many of these officials now disclaim any prior knowledge of any Baghdad-Khartoum-bin Laden connection.
Baghdad Tattled
The regime of Saddam, however, may have disclosed some of the most damning evidence to date.
According to the New York Times, which has never editorialized its belief in an al Qaida-Iraq connection, has disclosed details of an Iraqi intelligence paper that discusses the Baghdad-bin Laden "relationship," as well as plans for bin Laden to work with Iraq against the ruling family in Saudi Arabia, the latter nation the birthplace of bin Laden.
According to the Times, the document states that "cooperation between the two organizations should be allowed to develop freely through discussion and agreement." The Iraqi document refers to the period of the first Clinton term and has been "authenticated by the U.S. government."
"Taken together with other evidence of the close relationship between al-Qaeda and the Sudanese government, the information in the Times article makes it less likely that Iraq and al-Qaeda were unwitting allies," Hayes writes.
The Iraqi-al-Qaida plan to disrupt the House of Saud did not end when bin Laden left the oil-rich kingdom in 1996. Hayes notes a top-secret CIA report summarized in a Pentagon memo sent to the Senate Intelligence Committee in the fall of 2003: "The Saudi Arabian National Guard went on a kingdom-wide heightened state of alert in late December 2000 after learning that Saddam agreed to assist al-Qaeda in attacking U.S. and U.K. interests in Saudi Arabia."
Bump