Posted on 04/26/2003 2:36:35 PM PDT by Timesink
LONDON (Reuters) - Britain's Sunday Telegraph newspaper said it had discovered documents showing Iraqi intelligence hosted an envoy from Osama bin Laden in 1998 and sought to meet the alleged September 11 mastermind in person.
The finding, if verified, would appear to support Washington's assertion of links between ousted Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and bin Laden, one of the justifications for the U.S.-led war in Iraq.
The paper said the documents, which its correspondent found in the wrecked headquarters of the Iraqi Mukhabarat intelligence service, showed Iraq brought a bin Laden aide to Baghdad in early 1998 from his former base in Sudan to arrange closer ties.
Iraqi officials sought to have the envoy pass on a verbal message setting up a direct meeting with bin Laden, the paper said.
The 1998 visit described in the documents would have taken place before bin Laden became a household name in the West, when Washington blamed him for the bombings of two U.S. embassies in Africa later that year.
According to the Telegraph, bin Laden's name had been concealed in several places on the Iraqi documents with white correction fluid. Its correspondent scraped the fluid off with a razor to uncover the name.
In one document quoted by the paper an Iraqi official wrote: "We suggest permission to call the Khartoum station (Iraq's intelligence office in Sudan) to facilitate the travel arrangements for the above-mentioned person to Iraq.
"And that our body carry all the travel and hotel costs inside Iraq to gain the knowledge of the message from bin Laden and to convey to his envoy an oral message from us to bin Laden."
A handwritten note on the same page said the letter had been passed on to the deputy director general of the intelligence service, recommending that he "bring the envoy to Iraq because we may find in this envoy a way to maintain contacts with Iraq."
The documents do not make clear whether the hoped-for meeting between Iraqi officials and bin Laden took place.
Before the war, Saddam's government repeatedly denied any links with bin Laden's al Qaeda network.
You make good point though. There are some hard-core leftys who write for the Journal news section which is why a lot of news stories get broken by the editorial writers.
Therefore by implication, France supports Al Qaeda.
Can't take vacation NOW ... election week then OTC!
Now about those 61 beers ... how about you just buy several rounds at the next H.A.T. meeting.
Not really, I just keep picking random numbers of increasing size.
I have to think you're right - the "anti-war" folks are unlikely to acept any evidence as enough, whether it be related to WMD, Al-Queda or Saddam's atrocities. They've essentially painted themselves into a corner and will refuse to come out for any reason.
These documents are very pleasant (at least, for them to be made public is pleasant), however, I suspect that we've known all along that Hussein was backing al-qaeda due to Ramsi Yousef's known Iraq/al-Qaeda/WTC Bombing back in 1993.
The connection that I want to see made public, however, is that of Hussein to Palestinians, in particular, the PFLP (aka Black September). The payments from Hussein to Palestinian martyrs (or at least, to their families), are just too overwhelming (evidentiary) to overlook, and I can't help but think that the connection goes deeper than mere money for anti-Israeli terror.
An Arafat to Hussein to PFLP to 9/11 connection would force even the recalcitrant UN to smack down the Intifada against the Israelis...and you know that the tool for the smackdown would be the U.S. military, something that even uneducated Palestinians understand is unstoppable.
As a betting man, I'd even go so far as to speculate that the Clinton administration had to keep the McViegh/OKC bombing a "domestic" issue due to some as yet unknown (by the public) connection to Palestinians. After all, Clinton could only get the Nobel Peace Prize if he brought peace to the Middle East, something that would incent him to coverup PFLP involvement, if there was any such actual involvement back then.
There are simply too many events that can be explained if one knows that the PFLP was an Iraqi-financed player. Such an explanation would wrap up nearly every loose end that is currently outstanding.
But who knows, I could be wrong, or worse, Arafat's luck might even continue to hold up.
You just can't please the media. You give 'em an all expense paid trip, protection and a mission; and they still can't seem to just report the bombshell. Journalists have to whine and complain about how it wasn't done right.
Something is wrong with this picture.
Surely we are not stupid enough to fail to guard these offices and buildings and to guarantee the security of documents that could point to the holy grail (WMD), confirm war crimes, help locate the old man and many other things of interest to the U.S. Government. Something just doesn't add up here. This doesn't look like your normally smooth CIA operation in good old Baghdad. Could it be that we are leaking these documents to friendly reporters.
Nah, we would never do that.
Oh. And, BUMP!
But, hey, maybe it's true. But again, I just don't think so.
All of those incriminating papers I simply do not believe were found at random, by some enterprising reporting sifting through the ashes.
I believe copies of these papers were in posession of someone, somewhere. Maybe one of the many in the deck of cards that the coalition captured.
Then the copies were sent to the British newspapers, interestingly enough, which published them after sending a reporter they liked to go and sort through the rubble at the Information Ministry....go quick, it's left unguarded just for you. Who knows what the reporter found, maybe some charred papers which the home office said were fine, we have good copies right here.
I think the plan to release this information via British newspapers had already been agreed on by Bush and Blair before the war. They both decided that when the information was found, a way would be found to funnel it to British newspapers. I don't know why, maybe it's what Blair wanted after the pounding he got by the public.
The Times and the other one, forget the name, agreed to make it look like the papers were accidentally "found". The papers required that they be able to say that their reporter found them and deny any governmental aid.
If these papers had been found by the coalition, who would have believed their authenticity? As it is, so far it is only the wise I who has figured out the truth.
Okay, maybe it's a wrong-headed idea but you can paint me green and put me on a stick if I believe some upshot reporter found these internationally important papers by sifting through the wet and dirty rubble of a bombed out Iraqi Information Ministry.
Your mileage may vary.
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