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Saddam tied to bin Laden? You don't say
National Post ^ | April 29 2003 | Andrew Coyne

Posted on 04/29/2003 10:02:04 AM PDT by knighthawk

Well surprise, surprise. Documents found in the headquarters of the Mukhabarat, the Iraqi intelligence service, show that Saddam Hussein's people were talking to Osama bin Laden's people, according to a story in the Toronto Star.

Actually, make that "STAR FINDS DOCUMENTS LINKING BIN LADEN, IRAQ" -- at the Toronto Star, the Toronto Star is always the story. The minor detail that a reporter for the Daily Telegraph was also present when the documents were found, or that the crucial reference to bin Laden was spotted by their interpreter, played rather below the fold.

Still, it is fortuitous that the Star, of all people, should have stumbled upon evidence of Saddam's links to bin Laden, since for the past year-and-a-half the Star, like most of the media, has been scoffing at the notion there was any such link. Had another paper discovered the incriminating documents, at least without the Star also being present, the paper's editors might have been inclined to bury the story as just another one of those bits of "inconclusive" evidence. But Star Finds Documents was apparently too good to resist.

The documents show that an emissary from bin Laden was secretly invited to Baghdad in March of 1998, to discuss "the future of our relationship" -- based, according to the Telegraph, "on their mutual hatred of America and Saudi Arabia" -- and to lay the groundwork for a later visit by bin Laden himself. This was just months before the embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania that were to establish bin Laden as America's public enemy number one. Imagine that: Saddam, the avowed secularist, in bed with the world's leading Islamic terrorist, notwithstanding the sage advice from a thousand Western experts that this could never happen. Apparently, neither man reads the Star.

But this is hardly the first piece of evidence linking the Iraqi regime to al-Qaeda, among the many other terrorist organizations on Saddam's client list. Just the day before, American forces had captured Farouk Hijazi, the Mukhabarat's former operations director. Aside from masterminding the famous 1993 assassination plot against George Bush Sr., Hijazi is believed by U.S. intelligence to have met with bin Laden in Kandahar, the southeastern region of Afghanistan, in December of 1998.

Nor is Hijazi the only name of note linking Saddam to bin Laden. Remember Abu Musab al-Zarqawi? He's the al-Qaeda operative who, according to Colin Powell's testimony before the UN Security Council, headed a cell of some two dozen terrorists in Baghdad, and set up a chemical weapons facility at a camp run by an affiliated outfit. Perhaps Mr. Powell will get a better hearing now than he did then.

Or what about Ahmed Khalil Ibrahim Samir al-Ani? He was the Iraqi spymaster in Prague who allegedly met with Mohammed Atta, the lead plotter behind the Sept. 11 attacks, in April of 2001. The allegation had supposedly been discredited, based largely on CIA denials. But the Czechs, who ought to know, have never wavered in their insistence that indeed the two men did meet. As the Observer newspaper reported recently, "in a signed statement dated 24 February, 2003, Hynek Kmonicek, the Czech ambassador to the UN, says his government 'can confirm that during the stay of Mohamed Atta ... there was contact with Mr. al-Ani, who was on 22 April, 2001, expelled from the Czech Republic on the basis of activities not compatible with his diplomatic status [the usual euphemism for spying].' "

Then there's Ahmad Hikmat Shakir, the Iraqi embassy employee who, according to Newsweek, attended the January, 2000, al-Qaeda "summit" in Malaysia, along with two of the Sept. 11 hijackers. There's Yusuf Galan, now awaiting trial in Madrid on charges of having helped to plan the Sept. 11 attacks. Galan's links to bin Laden are not in doubt: He was photographed with him at an al-Qaeda training camp. But Spanish investigators also have documents showing he was invited to a party by the Iraqi ambassador there, under his al-Qaeda code name.

There's Mamdouh Salim, also known as Abu Hajer al-Iraqi, who is awaiting trial in New York on charges related to the 1998 East Africa embassy bombings. According to former U.S. intelligence officials, Salim was bin Laden's chief procurer of weapons of mass destruction, and served as a liaison to Iraqi intelligence.

And there's Abu Abdullah al-Iraqi, an Iraqi-born al-Qaeda operative, dispatched to Iraq on several occasions in the late 1990s, Jeffrey Goldberg writes in The New Yorker, for help in acquiring poison gases. Could he have been the unnamed envoy in the Telegraph/Star documents?

All told, David Rose reports in Vanity Fair, the CIA has more than 100 separate reports of Iraq-al-Qaeda co-operation, dating back more than a decade. Perhaps these were not enough to persuade the doubters until now. But as the documents start to surface in Iraq, and as various Iraqi and al-Qaeda officials now in captivity start to talk, how long until "there is no link between Saddam and bin Laden" takes its place alongside "the Arab street will rise" and "the Iraqi people do not want to be liberated" on the ash heap of conventional wisdom?


TOPICS: News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: afterbash; alqaeda; alqaedaandiraq; alqaida; andrewcoyne; axisofweasels; collateralbenefits; iraq; iraqcornucopia; nationalpost; osamabinladen; saddamhussein; tied; warlist

1 posted on 04/29/2003 10:02:05 AM PDT by knighthawk
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To: MizSterious; rebdov; Nix 2; green lantern; BeOSUser; Brad's Gramma; dreadme; Turk2; Squantos; ...
Ping
2 posted on 04/29/2003 10:02:26 AM PDT by knighthawk
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To: knighthawk
I'm waiting for the official NYT or CNN cross examination of these details/article before knowing how to think about it -- mind numbed demobot
3 posted on 04/29/2003 10:06:32 AM PDT by epluribus_2
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To: knighthawk; Grampa Dave; blam; Dog Gone; *war_list; W.O.T.; 11th_VA; Libertarianize the GOP; ...
Added a keyword:

IRAQcornucopia

Very nice summary of what we have found regarding links to Saddam and bin Laden.

OFFICIAL BUMP(TOPIC)LIST

4 posted on 04/29/2003 10:09:27 AM PDT by Ernest_at_the_Beach (Where is Saddam? and where is Tom Daschle?)
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To: knighthawk
Surprise surprise! If we looked in the CIA's records we would find that our people talked with both Saddam's and Bin Ladens's people. Beyond talking, we funded them both. It does not mean a thing.
5 posted on 04/29/2003 10:10:16 AM PDT by Lysander (My army can kill your army)
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To: Ernest_at_the_Beach
IRAQcornucopia = a good key word for all of these exposures coming out.
6 posted on 04/29/2003 10:11:54 AM PDT by Grampa Dave (Being a Monthly Donor to Free Republic is the Right Thing to do!)
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To: knighthawk
based, according to the Telegraph, "on their mutual hatred of America and Saudi Arabia"

The important thing to note here is that Israel is not included in this list. Saudi Arabia is. So much for American support of Israel causing bin Laden's hostility.

7 posted on 04/29/2003 10:12:47 AM PDT by Question_Assumptions
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To: Lysander
Surprise surprise! If we looked in the CIA's records we would find that our people talked with both Saddam's and Bin Ladens's people. Beyond talking, we funded them both. It does not mean a thing

Sounds to me like another tie between the success of Al Queda and Klinton...

8 posted on 04/29/2003 10:19:07 AM PDT by trebb
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To: Ernest_at_the_Beach
OK
I go to the bump list.

I looked for Saddam zero
I looked for Husian zero
I looked for Iraq zero

How do I find stuff on Iraq??/

thanks
9 posted on 04/29/2003 10:19:13 AM PDT by CHICAGOFARMER (Citizen Carry)
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To: Lysander
everyone knows we helped fund them years ago,
but proving the links goes a long way, in the war on terror.
10 posted on 04/29/2003 10:19:57 AM PDT by vin-one (I wish i had something clever to put in this tag)
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To: knighthawk
Mr. Coyne has, in this one article, proved our case.

Great find, knighthawk!

BTTT!

11 posted on 04/29/2003 10:24:50 AM PDT by dixiechick2000
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To: Lysander
If we looked in the CIA's records we would find that our people talked with both Saddam's and Bin Ladens's people. Beyond talking, we funded them both.

We talked with Iraq's people since the creation of Al Qaeda?

When did we talk to Al Qaeda and who did we talk to?

12 posted on 04/29/2003 10:30:18 AM PDT by lasereye
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To: CHICAGOFARMER
The WAR_LIST in the bump register will have a lot.

Also try the keyword IRAQ .

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/k-iraq/browse

13 posted on 04/29/2003 10:53:16 AM PDT by Ernest_at_the_Beach (Where is Saddam? and where is Tom Daschle?)
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To: epluribus_2
Heck I'm still waiting for the Headline Censored News Network to EVEN REPORT this.
14 posted on 04/29/2003 11:03:58 AM PDT by GailA (Millington Rally for America after action http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/872519/posts)
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To: knighthawk
Anyone remember the Iraq connection to the Oklahoma City bombing that Clinton and Reno covered with their own bodies?

And I STILL insist that the USS COLE was a gift to Mubarak from Clinton via Al Quaeda for services rendered.
15 posted on 04/30/2003 1:58:33 AM PDT by Nix 2 (http://www.warroom.com QUINN AND ROSE IN THE AM)
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