Posted on 02/20/2003 10:32:12 PM PST by JohnHuang2
It has taken a good deal of time for the Bush administration to draw the links between Saddam Hussein's Iraq and Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida – connections that go back at least a decade, according to intelligence experts.
Was Iraq directly involved in planning and approving the attacks on the United States Sept. 11, 2001?
It might be tough to prove in a court of law, but it's not difficult to make a case that Baghdad is technically, legally and morally responsible for the airline hijackings and the destruction America faced that day. In fact, I make that case, based on the evidence, in the latest issue of G2 Bulletin, my new online, subscription-based intelligence newsletter.
There are even stronger Iraqi links to two previous acts of U.S. terrorism – the 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Building in Oklahoma City and the first bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993.
Is this the stuff of conspiracy mongers? Tell it to former CIA Director James Woolsey, who told the Wall Street Journal last year "when the full stories of these two incidents are finally told, those who permitted the investigations to stop short will owe big explanations to these two brave women. And the nation will owe them a debt of gratitude."
He was referring to Jayna Davis, an investigative reporter in Oklahoma City who lost her television job due to her determination to follow the trail of an Iraqi-Islamic terrorist connection to the bombing, and Laurie Mylroie, a distinguished author who sees Iraq's hand behind Ramzi Yousef and others imprisoned for the first attack on the World Trade Center.
Davis has identified another suspect – John Doe No. 2 – originally sought by the FBI in Oklahoma City as Iraqi Hussain al-Hussaini. She says she has more than 20 witnesses who can place him near the federal building on the day of the bombing or link him to other parts of the conspiracy.
Later, Hussaini moved to Boston and got a job at Logan Airport. But he quit his job in 1997, four years before planes from there were hijacked on Sept. 11, 2001. He reportedly said, "If anything happens there, I'll be a suspect."
Gee, I wonder what he was thinking about?
While Timothy McVeigh was executed for his role in the bombing and Terry Nichols is in jail still facing murder charges in the attack, evidence introduced in their trials support the Iraqi theory. An FBI report records a call a few hours after the bombing from Vincent Cannistraro, a retired CIA official who had once been chief of operations for the agency's counter-terrorism center. He told Kevin Foust, a FBI counter-terror investigator, that he'd been called by a top counter-terror adviser to the Saudi royal family. Foust reported that the Saudi told Cannistraro about "information that there was a 'squad' of people currently in the United States, very possibly Iraqis, who have been tasked with carrying out terrorist attacks against the United States. The Saudi claimed that he had seen a list of 'targets,' and that the first on the list was the federal building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma."
In her book, "The War Against America: Saddam Hussein and the World Trade Center Attacks," Mylroie says the bomb was designed to topple the North Tower into the South Tower and envelop the scene in a cloud of cyanide gas. Hussein is responsible, says Mylroie. At the very least, she says, Hussein is harboring a wanted terrorist, Abdul Yasin, one of several suspects who got away. He came to the U.S. six months before the Trade Center attack and is charged with helping mix chemicals for the bomb. Picked up in an early sweep after the bombing, he talked his way out of an FBI interrogation and turned up back in Baghdad.
Mylroie insists the bombing was "an Iraqi intelligence operation with the Muslim extremists as dupes." She says that the original lead FBI official on the case, Jim Fox, concluded that "Iraq was behind the World Trade Center bombing." In late 1993, shortly before his retirement, Fox was suspended by FBI Director Louis Freeh for speaking to the media about the case; he died in 1997. Mylroie says Fox told her that he did not continue to pursue the Iraq connection because Justice Department officials "did not want state sponsorship addressed."
Yousef was later arrested and a laptop computer seized in the Philippines showed plans to hijack airliners and crash them into strategic buildings in the United States. Yousef and Nichols were in the Philippines at the same time – and Nichols wasn't just visiting his wife's relatives. While there he was in frequent contact with Ernesto Malaluan, a relative of his wife who had once lived in Saudi Arabia and owned a boarding house in Cebu City. The boarding house reportedly "shelters students from a university well known for its Islamic militancy."
Philippines law-enforcement officials also suggest there was at least one meeting between Nichols and Yousef. They have a statement from Edward Angeles, said to be one of the founders of the Abu Sayyaf, an al-Qaida ally. Angeles was assassinated in 1999 by unknown gunmen.
Independent investigator and author Edward Jay Epstein reports that of the eight pilots and co-pilots of hijacked planes on Sept. 11, none got off a distress call. All we know of what happened aboard the planes came from flight attendants and passengers with cell phones. Commercial satellite photos show the body of a Boeing 707 at Salman Pak, where the Iraqis maintain terrorist training camps. Iraqi defector Sabah Khalifa Alami says Iraqi intelligence trained groups at Salman Pak on how to hijack planes without weapons.
Smoking gun for Iraqi involvement in Sept. 11? No, but Saddam Hussein provided financial and logistical support for al-Qaida at least going back 10 years, according to terrorism expert Yossef Bodansky, author of "Bin Laden: The Man Who Declared War on America." He was supporting al-Qaida prior to Sept. 11 and post-Sept. 11. There are some in the administration who believe that support continues even today – and that Hussein's assassination of terrorist leader Abu Nidal was an attempt to show he was no longer supporting terrorism.
Did he plan Sept. 11? We don't know. Did he specifically finance the mission? We don't know. But the evidence strongly suggests al-Qaida could not have pulled off the mission without his help. And the prior Iraqi connections to terrorism on U.S. soil suggest he had the means, motive and opportunity to be even more directly involved.
Do you want to know more? You can learn a lot by reading the dozens of articles WorldNetDaily has published on this subject over the last six years. The case is strong. Iraq attacked us first. This war is self-defense. This is a new phase in the war on terrorism – or, more precisely, on jihadist terrorism often sponsored by non-jihadists, like Saddam Hussein, who just plain hate America for their own reasons.
It wasn't ideology but abject cowardice that kept Clinton from pursuing this. He knew that if he uncovered state-sponsored terrorism in the course of the investigations of WTC 1993 and OKC, the American people would be enraged and would demand retaliation. Instead he blamed it on right-wing nuts and used it to reverse his sinking popularity.
America does NOTHING with this Al Jazzirra media outlet allowing ObL to spread his ideas and instructions. TV station in Belgrade was bombed for much lesser sins.
Later, Hussaini moved to Boston and got a job at Logan Airport. But he quit his job in 1997, four years before planes from there were hijacked on Sept. 11, 2001. He reportedly said, "If anything happens there, I'll be a suspect."
May be he just figured out how LOOSE the security is. It does not take a rocket scientist to add piles of open Islamic threats (transmitted by all Islamic media outlets). Who wants to be a suspect?
Oklahoma City connection does not appear strong also. Investigative reporters are mostly of sensationalist ilk. No wonder that some of them are not welcome on serious media outlets. Timothy McVeigh was 'war syndrome' guy... This is a common thing - back in 1980's I met few Russian vets from Afghanistan, and some of them carried an unreleased load of aggression. War breaks weak minds. No matter how brief and victorious (or prolonged and messy) it is.
Terror (oh, it is counter-terror) adviser to Saudi royal family called CIA and framed Iraqi infiltrators?! Oh my... If he is that good and friendly, how he could miss 911 croud - mostly Saudis his fellow compatriots? Love of Saudi towards Iraq is well known. Why not to use such an info to kill two ducks:
So far, there were no convictions of Iraqis on terrorism. Can't say so about Saudis. Plus... ObL wants Iraqi scientists (Iraq is known to be the the most educated nation in the region) for his plans and Iraqis plain folks as a martyrs. Good or bad, Saddam did not let it happen. Will he do so in the future? Field of hypothesis.
Call me devil's lawyer - I would prefer America acting by law not by impulse or emotion. Overreacting on questionable clues drain resources from defusing real danger.
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