CASE CLOSED (Osama-Saddam Link Proved in Intel Cmte Brief)

Weekly Standard ^ | Nov 14, 2003 | Stephen Hayes

[RobFromGa]

Case Closed
From the November 24, 2003 issue: The U.S. government's secret memo detailing cooperation between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden.
by Stephen F. Hayes
11/24/2003, Volume 009, Issue 11

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OSAMA BIN LADEN and Saddam Hussein had an operational relationship from the early 1990s to 2003 that involved training in explosives and weapons of mass destruction, logistical support for terrorist attacks, al Qaeda training camps and safe haven in Iraq, and Iraqi financial support for al Qaeda--perhaps even for Mohamed Atta--according to a top secret U.S. government memorandum obtained by THE WEEKLY STANDARD.

The memo, dated October 27, 2003, was sent from Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas J. Feith to Senators Pat Roberts and Jay Rockefeller, the chairman and vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee. It was written in response to a request from the committee as part of its investigation into prewar intelligence claims made by the administration. Intelligence reporting included in the 16-page memo comes from a variety of domestic and foreign agencies, including the FBI, the Defense Intelligence Agency, the Central Intelligence Agency, and the National Security Agency. Much of the evidence is detailed, conclusive, and corroborated by multiple sources. Some of it is new information obtained in custodial interviews with high-level al Qaeda terrorists and Iraqi officials, and some of it is more than a decade old. The picture that emerges is one of a history of collaboration between two of America's most determined and dangerous enemies.

According to the memo--which lays out the intelligence in 50 numbered points--Iraq-al Qaeda contacts began in 1990 and continued through mid-March 2003, days before the Iraq War began. Most of the numbered passages contain straight, fact-based intelligence reporting, which in

some cases includes an evaluation of the credibility of the source. This reporting is often followed by commentary and analysis.

The relationship began shortly before the first Gulf War. According to reporting in the memo, bin Laden sent "emissaries to Jordan in 1990 to meet with Iraqi government officials." At some unspecified point in 1991, according to a CIA analysis, "Iraq sought Sudan's assistance to establish links to al Qaeda." The outreach went in both directions. According to 1993 CIA reporting cited in the memo, "bin Laden wanted to expand his organization's capabilities through ties with Iraq."

The primary go-between throughout these early stages was Sudanese strongman Hassan al-Turabi, a leader of the al Qaeda-affiliated National Islamic Front. Numerous sources have confirmed this. One defector reported that "al-Turabi was instrumental in arranging the Iraqi-al Qaeda relationship. The defector said Iraq sought al Qaeda influence through its connections with Afghanistan, to facilitate the transshipment of proscribed weapons and equipment to Iraq. In return, Iraq provided al Qaeda with training and instructors."

One such confirmation came in a postwar interview with one of Saddam Hussein's henchmen. As the memo details:

4. According to a May 2003 debriefing of a senior Iraqi intelligence officer, Iraqi intelligence established a highly secretive relationship with Egyptian Islamic Jihad, and later with al Qaeda. The first meeting in 1992 between the Iraqi Intelligence Service (IIS) and al Qaeda was brokered by al-Turabi. Former IIS deputy director Faruq Hijazi and senior al Qaeda leader [Ayman al] Zawahiri were at the meeting--the first of several between 1992 and 1995 in Sudan. Additional meetings between Iraqi intelligence and al Qaeda were held in Pakistan. Members of al Qaeda would sometimes visit Baghdad where they would meet the Iraqi intelligence chief in a safe house. The report claimed that Saddam insisted the relationship with al Qaeda be kept secret. After 9-11, the source said Saddam made a personnel change in the IIS for fear the relationship would come under scrutiny from foreign probes.

A decisive moment in the budding relationship came in 1993, when bin Laden faced internal resistance to his cooperation with Saddam.

5. A CIA report from a contact with good access, some of whose reporting has been corroborated, said that certain elements in the "Islamic Army" of bin Laden were against the secular regime of Saddam. Overriding the internal factional strife that was developing, bin Laden came to an "understanding" with Saddam that the Islamic Army would no longer support anti-Saddam activities. According to sensitive reporting released in U.S. court documents during the African Embassy trial, in 1993 bin Laden reached an "understanding" with Saddam under which he (bin Laden) forbade al Qaeda operations to be mounted against the Iraqi leader.

Another facilitator of the relationship during the mid-1990s was Mahmdouh Mahmud Salim (a.k.a. Abu Hajer al-Iraqi). Abu Hajer, now in a New York prison, was described in court proceedings related to the August 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania as bin Laden's "best friend." According to CIA reporting dating back to the Clinton administration, bin Laden trusted him to serve as a liaison with Saddam's regime and tasked him with procurement of weapons of mass destruction for al Qaeda. FBI reporting in the memo reveals that Abu Hajer "visited Iraq in early 1995" and "had a good relationship with Iraqi intelligence. Sometime before mid-1995 he went on an al Qaeda mission to discuss unspecified cooperation with the Iraqi government."

Some of the reporting about the relationship throughout the mid-1990s comes from a source who had intimate knowledge of bin Laden and his dealings. This source, according to CIA analysis, offered "the most credible information" on cooperation between bin Laden and Iraq.

This source's reports read almost like a diary. Specific dates of when bin Laden flew to various cities are included, as well as names of individuals he met. The source did not offer information on the substantive talks during the meetings. . . . There are not a great many reports in general on the relationship between bin Laden and Iraq because of the secrecy surrounding it. But when this source with close access provided a "window" into bin Laden's activities, bin Laden is seen as heavily involved with Iraq (and Iran).

Reporting from the early 1990s remains somewhat sketchy, though multiple sources place Hassan al-Turabi and Ayman al Zawahiri, bin Laden's current No. 2, at the center of the relationship. The reporting gets much more specific in the mid-1990s:

8. Reporting from a well placed source disclosed that bin Laden was receiving training on bomb making from the IIS's [Iraqi Intelligence Service] principal technical expert on making sophisticated explosives, Brigadier Salim al-Ahmed. Brigadier Salim was observed at bin Laden's farm in Khartoum in Sept.-Oct. 1995 and again in July 1996, in the company of the Director of Iraqi Intelligence, Mani abd-al-Rashid al-Tikriti.

9 . . . Bin Laden visited Doha, Qatar (17-19 Jan. 1996), staying at the residence of a member of the Qatari ruling family. He discussed the successful movement of explosives into Saudi Arabia, and operations targeted against U.S. and U.K. interests in Dammam, Dharan, and Khobar, using clandestine al Qaeda cells in Saudi Arabia. Upon his return, bin Laden met with Hijazi and Turabi, among others.

And later more reporting, from the same "well placed" source:

10. The Director of Iraqi Intelligence, Mani abd-al-Rashid al-Tikriti, met privately with bin Laden at his farm in Sudan in July 1996. Tikriti used an Iraqi delegation traveling to Khartoum to discuss bilateral cooperation as his "cover" for his own entry into Sudan to meet with bin Laden and Hassan al-Turabi. The Iraqi intelligence chief and two other IIS officers met at bin Laden's farm and discussed bin Laden's request for IIS technical assistance in: a) making letter and parcel bombs; b) making bombs which could be placed on aircraft and detonated by changes in barometric pressure; and c) making false passport [sic]. Bin Laden specifically requested that [Brigadier Salim al-Ahmed], Iraqi intelligence's premier explosives maker--especially skilled in making car bombs--remain with him in Sudan. The Iraqi intelligence chief instructed Salim to remain in Sudan with bin Laden as long as required.

The analysis of those events follows:

The time of the visit from the IIS director was a few weeks after the Khobar Towers bombing. The bombing came on the third anniversary of a U.S. [Tomahawk missile] strike on IIS HQ (retaliation for the attempted assassination of former President Bush in Kuwait) for which Iraqi officials explicitly threatened retaliation.

IN ADDITION TO THE CONTACTS CLUSTERED in the mid-1990s, intelligence reports detail a flurry of activities in early 1998 and again in December 1998. A "former senior Iraqi intelligence officer" reported that "the Iraqi intelligence service station in Pakistan was Baghdad's point of contact with al Qaeda. He also said bin Laden visited Baghdad in Jan. 1998 and met with Tariq Aziz."

11. According to sensitive reporting, Saddam personally sent Faruq Hijazi, IIS deputy director and later Iraqi ambassador to Turkey, to meet with bin Laden at least twice, first in Sudan and later in Afghanistan in 1999. . . .

14. According to a sensitive reporting [from] a "regular and reliable source," [Ayman al] Zawahiri, a senior al Qaeda operative, visited Baghdad and met with the Iraqi Vice President on 3 February 1998. The goal of the visit was to arrange for coordination between Iraq and bin Laden and establish camps in an-Nasiriyah and Iraqi Kurdistan under the leadership of Abdul Aziz.

That visit came as the Iraqis intensified their defiance of the U.N. inspection regime, known as UNSCOM, created by the cease-fire agreement following the Gulf War. UNSCOM demanded access to Saddam's presidential palaces that he refused to provide. As the tensions mounted, President Bill Clinton went to the Pentagon on February 18, 1998, and prepared the nation for war. He warned of "an unholy axis of terrorists, drug traffickers, and organized international criminals" and said "there is no more clear example of this threat than Saddam Hussein."

The day after this speech, according to documents unearthed in April 2003 in the Iraqi Intelligence headquarters by journalists Mitch Potter and Inigo Gilmore, Hussein's intelligence service wrote a memo detailing coming meetings with a bin Laden representative traveling to Baghdad. Each reference to bin Laden had been covered by liquid paper that, when revealed, exposed a plan to increase cooperation between Iraq and al Qaeda. According to that memo, the IIS agreed to pay for "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." The document set as the goal for the meeting a discussion of "the future of our relationship with him, bin Laden, and to achieve a direct meeting with him." The al Qaeda representative, the document went on to suggest, might provide "a way to maintain contacts with bin Laden."

Four days later, on February 23, 1998, bin Laden issued his now-famous fatwa on the plight of Iraq, published in the Arabic-language daily, al Quds al-Arabi: "For over seven years the United States has been occupying the lands of Islam in the holiest of places, the Arabian Peninsula, plundering its riches, dictating to its rulers, humiliating its people, terrorizing its neighbors, and turning its bases in the Peninsula into a spearhead through which to fight the neighboring Muslim peoples." Bin Laden urged his followers to act: "The ruling to kill all Americans and their allies--civilians and military--is an individual duty for every Muslim who can do it in any country in which it is possible to do it."

Although war was temporarily averted by a last-minute deal brokered by U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan, tensions soon rose again. The standoff with Iraq came to a head in December 1998, when President Clinton launched Operation Desert Fox, a 70-hour bombing campaign that began on December 16 and ended three days later, on December 19, 1998.

According to press reports at the time, Faruq Hijazi, deputy director of Iraqi Intelligence, met with bin Laden in Afghanistan on December 21, 1998, to offer bin Laden safe haven in Iraq. CIA reporting in the memo to the Senate Intelligence Committee seems to confirm this meeting and relates two others.

15. A foreign government service reported that an Iraqi delegation, including at least two Iraqi intelligence officers formerly assigned to the Iraqi Embassy in Pakistan, met in late 1998 with bin Laden in Afghanistan.

16. According to CIA reporting, bin Laden and Zawahiri met with two Iraqi intelligence officers in Afghanistan in Dec. 1998.

17. . . . Iraq sent an intelligence officer to Afghanistan to seek closer ties to bin Laden and the Taliban in late 1998. The source reported that the Iraqi regime was trying to broaden its cooperation with al Qaeda. Iraq was looking to recruit Muslim "elements" to sabotage U.S. and U.K. interests. After a senior Iraqi intelligence officer met with Taliban leader

[Mullah] Omar, arrangements were made for a series of meetings between the Iraqi intelligence officer and bin Laden in Pakistan. The source noted Faruq Hijazi was in Afghanistan in late 1998.

18. . . . Faruq Hijazi went to Afghanistan in 1999 along with several other Iraqi officials to meet with bin Laden. The source claimed that Hijazi would have met bin Laden only at Saddam's explicit direction.

An analysis that follows No. 18 provides additional context and an explanation of these reports:

Reporting entries #4, #11, #15, #16, #17, and #18, from different sources, corroborate each other and provide confirmation of meetings between al Qaeda operatives and Iraqi intelligence in Afghanistan and Pakistan. None of the reports have information on operational details or the purpose of such meetings. The covert nature of the relationship would indicate strict compartmentation [sic] of operations.

Information about connections between al Qaeda and Iraq was so widespread by early 1999 that it made its way into the mainstream press. A January 11, 1999, Newsweek story ran under this headline: "Saddam + Bin Laden?" The story cited an "Arab intelligence source" with knowledge of contacts between Iraq and al Qaeda. "According to this source, Saddam expected last month's American and British bombing campaign to go on much longer than it did. The dictator believed that as the attacks continued, indignation would grow in the Muslim world, making his terrorism offensive both harder to trace and more effective. With acts of terror contributing to chaos in the region, Turkey, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait might feel less inclined to support Washington. Saddam's long-term strategy, according to several sources, is to bully or cajole Muslim countries into breaking the embargo against Iraq, without waiting for the United Nations to lift if formally."

INTELLIGENCE REPORTS about the nature of the relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda from mid-1999 through 2003 are conflicting. One senior Iraqi intelligence officer in U.S. custody, Khalil Ibrahim Abdallah, "said that the last contact between the IIS and al Qaeda was in July 1999. Bin Laden wanted to meet with Saddam, he said. The guidance sent back from Saddam's office reportedly ordered Iraqi intelligence to refrain from any further contact with bin Laden and al Qaeda. The source opined that Saddam wanted to distance himself from al Qaeda."

The bulk of reporting on the relationship contradicts this claim. One report states that "in late 1999" al Qaeda set up a training camp in northern Iraq that "was operational as of 1999." Other reports suggest that the Iraqi regime contemplated several offers of safe haven to bin Laden throughout 1999.

23. . . . Iraqi officials were carefully considering offering safe haven to bin Laden and his closest collaborators in Nov. 1999. The source indicated the idea was put forward by the presumed head of Iraqi intelligence in Islamabad (Khalid Janaby) who in turn was in frequent contact and had good relations with bin Laden.

Some of the most intriguing intelligence concerns an Iraqi named Ahmed Hikmat Shakir:

24. According to sensitive reporting, a Malaysia-based Iraqi national (Shakir) facilitated the arrival of one of the Sept 11 hijackers for an operational meeting in Kuala Lumpur (Jan 2000). Sensitive reporting indicates Shakir's travel and contacts link him to a worldwide network of terrorists, including al Qaeda. Shakir worked at the Kuala Lumpur airport--a job he claimed to have obtained through an Iraqi embassy employee.

One of the men at that al Qaeda operational meeting in the Kuala Lumpur Hotel was Tawfiz al Atash, a top bin Laden lieutenant later identified as the mastermind of the October 12, 2000, attack on the USS Cole.

25. Investigation into the bombing of the USS Cole in October 2000 by al Qaeda revealed no specific Iraqi connections but according to the CIA, "fragmentary evidence points to possible Iraqi involvement."

26. During a custodial interview, Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi [a senior al Qaeda operative] said he was told by an al Qaeda associate that he was tasked to travel to Iraq (1998) to establish a relationship with Iraqi intelligence to obtain poisons and gases training. After the USS Cole bombing in 2000, two al Qaeda operatives were sent to Iraq for CBW-related [Chemical and Biological Weapons] training beginning in Dec 2000. Iraqi intelligence was "encouraged" after the embassy and USS Cole bombings to provide this training.

The analysis of this report follows.

CIA maintains that Ibn al-Shaykh's timeline is consistent with other sensitive reporting indicating that bin Laden asked Iraq in 1998 for advanced weapons, including CBW and "poisons."

Additional reporting also calls into question the claim that relations between Iraq and al Qaeda cooled after mid-1999:

27. According to sensitive CIA reporting, . . . the Saudi National Guard went on a kingdom-wide state of alert in late Dec 2000 after learning Saddam agreed to assist al Qaeda in attacking U.S./U.K. interests in Saudi Arabia.

And then there is the alleged contact between lead 9/11 hijacker Mohamed Atta and an Iraqi intelligence officer in Prague. The reporting on those links suggests not one meeting, but as many as four. What's more, the memo reveals potential financing of Atta's activities by Iraqi intelligence.

The Czech counterintelligence service reported that the Sept. 11 hijacker [Mohamed] Atta met with the former Iraqi intelligence chief in Prague, [Ahmed Khalil Ibrahim Samir] al Ani, on several occasions. During one of these meetings, al Ani ordered the IIS finance officer to issue Atta funds from IIS financial holdings in the Prague office.

And the commentary:

CIA can confirm two Atta visits to Prague--in Dec. 1994 and in June 2000; data surrounding the other two--on 26 Oct 1999 and 9 April 2001--is complicated and sometimes contradictory and CIA and FBI cannot confirm Atta met with the IIS. Czech Interior Minister Stanislav Gross continues to stand by his information.

It's not just Gross who stands by the information. Five high-ranking members of the Czech government have publicly confirmed meetings between Atta and al Ani. The meeting that has gotten the most press attention--April 9, 2001--is also the most widely disputed. Even some of the most hawkish Bush administration officials are privately skeptical that Atta met al Ani on that occasion. They believe that reports of the alleged meeting, said to have taken place in public, outside the headquarters of the U.S.-financed Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, suggest a level of sloppiness that doesn't fit the pattern of previous high-level Iraq-al Qaeda contacts.

Whether or not that specific meeting occurred, the report by Czech counterintelligence that al Ani ordered the Iraqi Intelligence Service officer to provide IIS funds to Atta might help explain the lead hijacker's determination to reach Prague, despite significant obstacles, in the spring of

2000. (Note that the report stops short of confirming that the funds were transferred. It claims only that the IIS officer requested the transfer.) Recall that Atta flew to Prague from Germany on May 30, 2000, but was denied entry because he did not have a valid visa. Rather than simply return to Germany and fly directly to the United States, his ultimate destination, Atta took pains to get to Prague. After he was refused entry the first time, he traveled back to Germany, obtained the proper paperwork, and caught a bus back to Prague. He left for the United States the day after arriving in Prague for the second time.

Several reports indicate that the relationship between Saddam and bin Laden continued, even after the September 11 attacks:

31. An Oct. 2002 . . . report said al Qaeda and Iraq reached a secret agreement whereby Iraq would provide safe haven to al Qaeda members and provide them with money and weapons. The agreement reportedly prompted a large number of al Qaeda members to head to Iraq. The report also said that al Qaeda members involved in a fraudulent passport network for al Qaeda had been directed to procure 90 Iraqi and Syrian passports for al Qaeda personnel.

The analysis that accompanies that report indicates that the report fits the pattern of Iraq-al Qaeda collaboration:

References to procurement of false passports from Iraq and offers of safe haven previously have surfaced in CIA source reporting considered reliable. Intelligence reports to date have maintained that Iraqi support for al Qaeda usually involved providing training, obtaining passports, and offers of refuge. This report adds to that list by including weapons and money. This assistance would make sense in the aftermath of 9-11.

Colin Powell, in his February 5, 2003, presentation to the U.N. Security Council, revealed the activities of Abu Musab al Zarqawi. Reporting in the memo expands on Powell's case and might help explain some of the resistance the U.S. military is currently facing in Iraq.

37. Sensitive reporting indicates senior terrorist planner and close al Qaeda associate al Zarqawi has had an operational alliance with Iraqi officials. As of Oct. 2002, al Zarqawi maintained contacts with the IIS to procure weapons and explosives, including surface-to-air missiles from an IIS officer in Baghdad. According to sensitive reporting, al Zarqawi was setting up sleeper cells in Baghdad to be activated in case of a U.S. occupation of the city, suggesting his operational cooperation with the Iraqis may have deepened in recent months. Such cooperation could include IIS provision of a secure operating bases [sic] and steady access to arms and explosives in preparation for a possible U.S. invasion. Al Zarqawi's procurements from the Iraqis also could support al Qaeda operations against the U.S. or its allies elsewhere.

38. According to sensitive reporting, a contact with good access who does not have an established reporting record: An Iraqi intelligence service officer said that as of mid-March the IIS was providing weapons to al Qaeda members located in northern Iraq, including rocket propelled grenade (RPG)-18 launchers. According to IIS information, northern Iraq-based al Qaeda members believed that the U.S. intended to strike al Qaeda targets during an anticipated assault against Ansar al-Islam positions.

The memo further reported pre-war intelligence which "claimed that an Iraqi intelligence official, praising Ansar al-Islam, provided it with $100,000 and agreed to continue to give assistance."

CRITICS OF THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION have complained that Iraq-al Qaeda connections are a fantasy, trumped up by the warmongers at the White House to fit their preconceived notions about international terror; that links between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden have been routinely "exaggerated" for political purposes; that hawks "cherry-picked" bits of intelligence and tendentiously presented these to the American public.

Carl Levin, a senior member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, made those points as recently as November 9, in an appearance on "Fox News Sunday." Republicans on the committee, he complained, refuse to look at the administration's "exaggeration of intelligence."

Said Levin: "The question is whether or not they exaggerated intelligence in order to carry out their purpose, which was to make the case for going to war. Did we know, for instance, with certainty that there was any relationship between the Iraqis and the terrorists that were in Afghanistan, bin Laden? The administration said that there's a connection between those terrorist groups in Afghanistan and Iraq. Was there a basis for that?"

There was, as shown in the memo to the committee on which Levin serves. And much of the reporting comes from Clinton-era intelligence. Not that you would know this from Al Gore's recent public statements. Indeed, the former vice president claims to be privy to new "evidence" that the administration lied. In an August speech at New York University, Gore claimed: "The evidence now shows clearly that Saddam did not want to work with Osama bin Laden at all, much less give him weapons of mass destruction." Really?

One of the most interesting things to note about the 16-page memo is that it covers only a fraction of the evidence that will eventually be available to document the relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda. For one thing, both Saddam and bin Laden were desperate to keep their cooperation secret. (Remember, Iraqi intelligence used liquid paper on an internal intelligence document to conceal bin Laden's name.) For another, few people in the U.S. government are expressly looking for such links. There is no Iraq-al Qaeda equivalent of the CIA's 1,400-person Iraq Survey Group currently searching Iraq for weapons of mass destruction.

Instead, CIA and FBI officials are methodically reviewing Iraqi intelligence files that survived the three-week war last spring. These documents would cover several miles if laid end-to-end. And they are in Arabic. They include not only connections between bin Laden and Saddam, but also revolting details of the regime's long history of brutality. It will be a slow process.

So Feith's memo to the Senate Intelligence Committee is best viewed as sort of a "Cliff's Notes" version of the relationship. It contains the highlights, but it is far from exhaustive.

One example. The memo contains only one paragraph on Ahmed Hikmat Shakir, the Iraqi facilitator who escorted two September 11 hijackers through customs in Kuala Lumpur. U.S. intelligence agencies have extensive reporting on his activities before and after the September 11 hijacking. That they would include only this brief overview suggests the 16-page memo, extensive as it is, just skims the surface of the reporting on Iraq-al Qaeda connections.

Other intelligence reports indicate that Shakir whisked not one but two September 11 hijackers--Khalid al Midhar and Nawaq al Hamzi--through the passport and customs process upon their arrival in Kuala Lumpur on January 5, 2000. Shakir then traveled with the hijackers to the Kuala Lumpur Hotel where they met with Ramzi bin al Shibh, one of the masterminds of the September 11 plot. The meeting lasted three days. Shakir returned to work on January 9 and January 10, and never again.

Shakir got his airport job through a contact at the Iraqi Embassy. (Iraq routinely used its embassies as staging grounds for its intelligence operations; in some cases, more than half of the alleged "diplomats" were intelligence operatives.) The Iraqi embassy, not his employer, controlled Shakir's schedule. He was detained in Qatar on September 17, 2001. Authorities found in his possession contact information for terrorists involved in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, the 1998 embassy bombings, the 2000 attack on the USS Cole, and the September 11 hijackings. The CIA had previous reporting that Shakir had received a phone call from the safe house where the 1993 World Trade Center attacks had been plotted.

The Qataris released Shakir shortly after his arrest. On October 21, 2001, he flew to Amman, Jordan, where he was to change planes to a flight to Baghdad. He didn't make that flight. Shakir was detained in Jordan for three months, where the CIA interrogated him. His interrogators concluded that Shakir had received extensive training in counter-interrogation techniques. Not long after he was detained, according to an official familiar with the intelligence, the Iraqi regime began to "pressure" Jordanian intelligence to release him. At the same time, Amnesty International complained that Shakir was being held without charge. The Jordanians released him on January 28, 2002, at which point he is believed to have fled back to Iraq.

Was Shakir an Iraqi agent? Does he provide a connection between Saddam Hussein and September 11? We don't know. We may someday find out.

But there can no longer be any serious argument about whether Saddam Hussein's Iraq worked with Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda to plot against Americans.

Stephen F. Hayes is a staff writer at The Weekly Standard.

[nuffsenuff]

True. I guess I should have said "the dems should be hatin' it right now".

I've been wondering when the info was going to start coming out again. It really isn't anything new to anyone paying attention for the last 12 years.

[upcountry miss]

DU has a thread running with over 60 replies so far. They are predictably, not happy about this.

[MEG33]

btt

[backhoe]

-IRAQ- some links to terror--

[HardStarboard]

Great post Rob. Although I haven't read the whole thing, it doesn't appear to bring up any of the research done by Laurie Mylroie, a former advisor to the Clinton Administration on Iraq and terrorism, who reported prior to 9-11-01 that there was substantial circumstantial evidence linking Saddam's regime with the 1993 bombing of the WTC, and also possibly the OK City bombing of the Murrah Federal Building.

Here is the FR link to one of her articles: Enter part of title in Search and you'll get it. Long but very interesting read - and remember, it was written several years prior to 9/11.

Saddam's ties to 9/11? ~ "THE WORLD TRADE CENTER BOMB: Who is Ramzi Yousef? And Why It Matters"1995

[HardStarboard]

Ping...and raise you a one ping.

[Paul Ross]

just as much of a "jaw dropping" coincidence as the fact that Steven Hatfill used to live near a suburb caled "Greendale" in Rhodesia. The FBI took that seriously - so why aren't they taking the "Jenny" connection seriously?

That 'Greendale' link was 100% completely phony. No Greendale school existed in Rhodesia. No school. No postoffice. Period. Yet, Repeated mindlessly by the left-wing harpie who professed to be the FBI 'profile-consultant'.

A High-Tech Lynching: ABC News,
The FBI, And The Greendale School Myth

By
Nicholas Stix

Are the FBI and the elite media interested in catching the right guy, or the right-wing white guy? In the case of the terrorist who last fall murdered five people and made 13 others ill via anthrax-contaminated letters, the feds and Big Media have decided that it would be expedient to railroad scientist Steven J. Hatfill, and have engaged in collusion towards achieving that end. The only problem is, that no one has produced one iota of evidence tying Hatfill to the crime. And so, the media and law enforcement have subjected Hatfill to the death of a thousand cuts, via incredible leaks, innuendoes, irrelevancies, and even outright fabrications. Apparently, Hatfill's tormentors seek to make an eventual trial a mere formality, or perhaps even drive their victim to an act of such desperation, as to make a trial unnecessary.

"There was (and still is) only one school in the neighbourhood. In my day, it was called Courtney Selous primary school.... I checked on a NGO website which listed all the name changes which the government is proposing presently and discovered that the school is, indeed, still called Courtney Selous (after a famous 'White Hunter'. Frederick Courtney Selous, who featured prominently in early Rhodesian pioneer history). Although the school is located in Greendale, it has never been known as 'Greendale School'. No other schools have ever been built in the area."

"There isn't and never has been a Greendale School. There is a suburb in Harare called Greendale. The schools in that area were Courteney Selous School which is a school for junior kids. The only other schools in that area were for high school i.e Oriel Boys Oriel Girls and Chisipite. There is a school that is called Greengrove but is not in the school zone in the area mentioned although it is fairly close."

"I will not be railroaded."

The first two passages quoted above, are from e-mails sent to me during the past week, by two of the dozens of Zimbabwean expatriates I'd contacted, in seeking to determine if a "Greendale School" had ever existed in or near Zimbabwe's capital city of Harare. An official at the Zimbabwean Ministry of Schools, in Harare, assured me on August 2, that there is presently no "Greendale School."

The third quoted passage is a statement by biowarfare scientist, Dr. Steven J. Hatfill, from his August 11 press conference.

Since June 25, in hit pieces on Hatfill, countless American and foreign TV and print reporters have repeatedly emphasized that during the late 1970s and early 1980s, Hatfill lived near a "Greendale Elementary School" or a "Greendale School" in a suburb of Harare.

The anthrax letters sent last fall to senators Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) and Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), both carried the same return address:

"4th Grade
Greendale School
Franklin Park, N.J. 08852."

American journalists reported triumphantly, that Hatfill had lived near a Greendale School, as if this were the ultimate nail in his coffin, proving that he was guilty of having murdered five people and sickened thirteen others last fall, through anthrax-contaminated letters. And yet, not one of the articles published a single incriminating piece of evidence against Hatfill.

Readers have learned such "damning" facts as that Hatfill likes girls (the grown-up kind), carried a 9-millimeter pistol while living in a civil war zone, has studied and warned of the dangers of biowarfare attack, is "working on" a bioterrorism novel (actually he and his friend Roger Akers had completed and copyrighted it in 1998), and perhaps most pathetic of all, that federal bloodhounds had barked at Hatfill and his girlfriend. The last two charges were made in a Newsweek article that appeared on the Web on August 4, and were echoed, with a straight face, on the NBC Nightly News (guest-hosted by Storm Phillips) the following day.

(Note that the FBI leaked the "bio-terror novel" red herring to reporter Rebecca Cooper, at ABC's Washington affiliate, WJLA. Cooper, the former lover of then-Rep. Gary Condit, had provided Condit's initial alibi for the time when Chandra Levy disappeared. Later, it turned out that Cooper had gotten her days wrong.)

Cooper reported, "This novel written by Steven Hatfill envisions a biological attack on Congress. It's an attack so deadly that not only do members of Congress and congressional aides become ill, but hundreds of Washington residents become ill and many die as a result."

In the context of Hatfill's warnings since 1997, of the dangers of biowarfare attack, and his formal, 1999 study of such dangers, that he would co-write a novel on the topic would not alarm anyone who had done her homework.)

The "Greendale School" Myth was initially perpetrated by ABC News' "Chief Investigative Correspondent," Brian Ross, in a June 25 report. On June 26, the Hartford Courant's Dave Altimari, Jack Dolan, and David Lightman repeated the claim, but without attributing it to Ross. From then on, countless reporters repeated the myth, attributing it to Ross' ABC report. Even the Baltimore Sun's Scott Shane, a major player in the anthrax business, cited ABC.

In an August 8 story, USA Today reporters Kevin Johnson and Toni Locy claimed that, "In Rhodesia, Hatfill lived near a school named Greendale," without attributing the claim to ABC News.

A sage observer recently noted, "If there is a Greendale School, it is insignificant. But if there is no Greendale School, it is very significant."

What the observer meant, was that the existence of a Greendale School in Rhodesia/Zimbabwe would hardly be incriminating. There are Greendales and Greendale Schools scattered about the English-speaking world. There are sixteen Greendales in the U.S. alone. Canada has active Greendale schools in the provinces of Quebec, Ontario, and British Columbia (and a defunct one in Saskatchewan); Worcester, MA has one, as does Philadelphia; there are Greendale schools in Dublin, the Republic of Ireland, and even as far off as Christchurch, New Zealand.

And as correspondents and acquaintances have pointed out to me, even without counting reporters' fictions, "Greendale" has enjoyed a rich fictional life. In Leave it to Beaver, the title character lives in Greendale. In the Andy Griffith Show, Don Knott's character, Deputy Barney Fife, was offered a job as sheriff in the town of Greendale. And "Greendale" is the site of Sabrina, the Teenage Witch, and the role-playing kids' game, Teenagers from Outer Space.

Perhaps the most famous "Greendale" is the fictional village on the British children's TV show, Postman Pat, which has run for over twenty years, and which is even watched, for campy fun, by some adults. According to its web site, "[T]he animated television programme [is] now being shown in more than 40 countries from Australia to Japan."

The notion that the existence of a Greendale School during the time of Steven Hatfill's stay in Rhodesia/Zimbabwe, would "prove" that he was the anthrax terrorist, would only impress someone who either had convinced himself that Hatfill was guilty, or who wanted him to be guilty so badly, that he was indifferent or hostile to the truth. The Greendale Myth has been the story not of Steven J. Hatfill, but of reporters who were scientifically illiterate, lazy, and politically compromised.

After Brian Ross started the myth on its way, he was cited by hundreds of other reporters, none of whom bothered to check out the story. Scott Shane of the Baltimore Sun, who cited Ross, deserves special mention, because he has been one of the most influential reporters covering the anthrax investigation, and because he has given prominent coverage to the hoaxer who created the campaign persecuting Hatfill, Barbara Hatch Rosenberg. Shane coined the term for one of Rosenberg's hoaxes: The "bioevangelist" theory.

On rare occasion, a reporter writing on Hatfill would correctly state that there was a "Greendale neighborhood" or "district" near where Hatfill had lived or studied in Zimbabwe, but even those reporters failed to correct the false claims that he had lived near a "Greendale School."

One AP reporter, Jeremiah Marquez, went beyond the call of corruption, in fabricating the story that "A school in Harare known as the Greendale School was actually named for Courtney Selous, a famed white hunter and the namesake of the Selous Scouts."

Thus has Marquez sought to immunize from scrutiny, all those who have perpetuated the Greendale School hoax.

Marquez' failure to turn up a single incriminating fact against Hatfill, combined with his relentless repetition of politically incorrect irrelevancies from Hatfill's past, imply that he is intent on keeping hoax alive.

On August 10, long after any diligent reporter would have determined that there was no "Greendale School," ABC News' "Chief Investigative Correspondent" Brian Ross was at it again: "ABC NEWS has also reported that investigators are intrigued by the fact that Hatfill lived for years near a Greendale Elementary School while attending medical school in Zimbabwe."

On August 12, ABC's Brian Ross, co-authoring a story with his colleagues Barry Serafin and Pierre Thomas, was at it again, albeit permitting Hatfill's lawyer to contradict him and his colleagues:

"Greendale School

"Investigators are intrigued by the fact that Hatfill lived for years near a Greendale Elementary School while attending medical school in Zimbabwe, ABCNEWS has reported. Greendale School was the phony return address used in the anthrax letters.

"However, Glasberg denied Hatfill knew of such a school in Harare, Zimbabwe.

"'There is a subdivision in Harare called Greendale, [but Hatfill] did not live there,' Glasberg said. 'The information we have is that there is no such Greendale School.'"

Like the other irrelevancies that have filled reports on Hatfill, the point of constantly reaffirming the existence of a "Greendale School" in Zimbabwe, is to predispose potential jurors to see everything about Hatfill in a sinister light, and railroad him, should he be arrested and tried. 'Remember, this guy supported apartheid. Send him a message, with a vote to convict!'

The Greendale School Hoax' current incarnation is the AP version. Amazingly, other reporters have echoed Jeremiah Marquez -- his colleagues, Laura Meckler and Ted Bridis did so on August 12 and 13, respectively, and the New York Post's Niles Lathem, did so on August 13.

Lathem writes,

"While no Greendale School exists in New Jersey, a school in the Greendale suburb of Harare, Zimbabwe, is informally known as the Greendale school.

It's actually named for a white Rhodesian fighter Courtney Selous – and the Rhodesian commando unit Hatfill joined was called the Selous Scouts."

The media campaign against Hatfill was initially orchestrated by Dr. Barbara Hatch Rosenberg, chairwoman of the far-left, Federation of American Scientists (FAS) Working Group on Biological Weapons. Although FBI officials initially discredited Rosenberg's theories, instead of discouraging the campaign, the FBI and federal prosecutors have more recently exploited it to the fullest extent, with their own campaign of steady leaks. Thus, "discreet" searches of Hatfill's home were always accompanied by a full complement of reporters, and even media helicopters, and the FBI leaked to the press, that agents had found a bioterror novel on Hatfill's computer hard drive. The newest leak, is the claim that Hatfill was in London last November, at the same time that an anthrax hoax letter was sent to Sen. Tom Daschle.

I suppose, given the FBI's current standards, that being in the city from which a hoax letter was sent, is enough to convict a man on five counts of capital murder. But why bother with the formality of a trial?

One of the more notorious FBI leaks followed the August 1 search of Hatfill and his girlfriend's respective homes. FBI sources told Newsweek reporters Mark Miller and Daniel Klaidman, that bloodhounds that had been given "scent packs" from decontaminated anthrax letters to sniff, barked wildly at the sight of Hatfill. And yet, "On Sunday, a law enforcement official close to the case said the scientist has not 'received any more attention than any other person of interest in the investigation,'" according to the AP's Laura Meckler. Such statements do not help the FBI with its credibility problem. But then, Laura Meckler has a huge credibility problem of her own (to be visited in the next column).

The NBC reporter who repeated the bloodhound story said that the dogs' reaction was the basis for the criminal warrants the FBI procured on August 1, to search Hatfill's home and that of his girlfriend. On June 25, the feds had already searched, with Hatfill's consent, his Frederick, MD home and car, and a refrigerated storage locker he rents in Ocala, FL. At the time, they found nothing, which is all they ever had on Hatfill. So why keep harassing the man?

Each explanation raises more questions than the one that preceded it. Even the NBC reporter admitted that the anthrax attacker had left no fingerprints (he also did not lick the envelopes), and had surely handled the letters with rubber gloves. Getting some bloodhounds excited --perhaps with an item FBI agents had previously removed from Hatfill's apartment -- to cast suspicion on someone on whom the Bureau has no evidence, is bush league (under current circumstances, I don't know whether I want you to pardon the pun). But then, we don't know if the bloodhound story even happened.

The Bureau coined the phrase, "person of interest," which is clearly a euphemism for "suspect," but which does not carry the same legal niceties, like Miranda rights and the presumption of innocence. Unlike Hatfill, who has voluntarily sat down with FBI agents for several interviews, a suspect would have no reason to cooperate with authorities, because he would have been alerted that anything he said, could and would be used against him, in a court of law. And while the FBI still claims that Hatfill is only one of "20 or 30 persons of interest," that ruse isn't fooling anyone, especially when Bureau officials claim -- or at least ABC's Brian Ross, Barry Serafin, and Pierre Thomas on August 12 asserted the officials claimed -- that the Bureau isn't ready to "clear" Hatfill.

"Despite Steven Hatfill's strong denials this weekend of any involvement in last year's fatal anthrax attacks, FBI officials told ABCNEWS today there are new questions about the former government scientist.

"The FBI has not officially labeled Hatfill, 48, a suspect in the anthrax killings. But officials point to continued questions about the scientist and say they are also unable to clear him.

"Perhaps most significant to the FBI, authorities say a police bloodhound reacted strongly to Hatfill and his apartment after being exposed to the scent retrieved from the anthrax letters under a new technology, reports ABCNEWS' chief investigative reporter Brian Ross."

The bloodhound, again. Apparently, since August 4, the other bloodhounds had died off. It is a sad day for American law enforcement, when the people running the Federal Bureau of Investigation think that they can presume the guilt of a man on whom they have no incriminating evidence, until which time they are ready to "clear" him. This is the stuff of communist show trials. Where have you gone, Efrem Zimbalist Jr.?

As Hatfill's friend and spokesman, Pat Clawson, a former CNN reporter, told Wolf Blitzer on the latter's CNN show, on August 12,

"In all the years I covered the Justice Department for this network, I don't have a clue what a 'person of interest' is. It's not an official term. When in this country do we start casting a finger of accusation at people on national media, when does our government start doing this when it has no evidence to back up any kind of criminal charges? It's just outrageous as an American that he is being subjected to this."

In 1996, the FBI colluded with media organizations in the attempted crucifixion of hero Richard Jewell, the security guard who had saved untold lives by discovering a bomb, and evacuating a busy area at the Atlanta Olympics. The Bureau and the media cast Jewell as the bomber. Against all odds, Jewell saved himself, when he turned the tables on his persecutors. Eventually, Jewell got a public apology from the Bureau, and a couple of million dollars in settlements from media outlets.

As Hatfill said in his August 11 public statement,

"My girlfriend's home was also searched. She was manhandled by the FBI upon their entry, not immediately shown the search warrant. Her apartment was wrecked while FBI agents screamed at her that I have killed five people and that her life would never be the same again."

Previously, FBI agents had told the media that while staking out Hatfill's apartment building, they grew suspicious when they saw him throwing duffel bags of material in the dumpster in the back. Hatfill was merely preparing to move to his new job, in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. (Or so he thought; Hatfill's enemies have already succeeded in getting him suspended from his new job. The constant news glare and searches have given his new employer the willies, which was the point.)

And what were FBI agents doing staking out a man, on whom the Bureau had, and has, nothing?

The temptation to politicize the administration of criminal justice is ever present in law enforcement. The FBI suffered great embarrassment over its politically correct mishandling of investigations that properly handled, might have broken up the 911 terrorists' cells. Under intense pressure to make an arrest in the anthrax attacks by the first anniversary of 911, the Bureau is apparently willing to go PC again, and pin the anthrax attacks on the white guy. The FBI is acting increasingly like the political police in a dictatorship. Meanwhile, the media, which are supposed to be a brake on arbitrary power, have instead acted more like a state-run Ministry of Propaganda, manufacturing lies and helping the FBI terrorize Steven Hatfill.

In previous articles, I advised Hatfill that if he did not soon go on the offensive, he might find himself sharing a cell with the likes of Jose Padilla, and might not be able to speak to his attorney, let alone the world. With his August 11 press conference, Hatfill and his new civil attorney, Victor Glasberg, have signaled that they are prepared to turn the heat on Hatfill's tormentors.

As the saying goes, turnabout is fair play.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Toogood Reports contributor and "Best of the Web" award-winning writer Nicholas Stix is an investigative free-lance journalist who unearths the hidden secrets of politics, education, and race relations that elude the elite media establishment. His work appears in The American Enterprise: A National Magazine of Politics, Business, and Culture; Insight on the News; Chronicles: A Magazine of American Culture; Ideas on Liberty; Middle American News; Newsday and CampusReports.

[blanknoone]

Self ping: I will need to find this again, as this news will not appear in any other news organization. Ever.

[Howlin]

IMHO, the Congress has known about this for a long time as well. I remember the disturbed looks on most faces after top secret breifings.

I agree. I distinctly remember the look at Senator Jay Rockefeller's face.

Lying SOS.

[Matchett-PI]

What did the CIA, the State Department, et.al., know, and when did they know it? THAT is the #1 question, and Laurie Mylroie has the answer. That leftist organization, "The American Library Association", and possibly, David Pitt who wrote this "book review" below, are going to be, like Daschle, "deeply saddened" to see her work vindicated.

Bush vs. the Beltway: How the CIA and the State Department tried to Stop the War on Terror by Laurie Mylroie.

Booklist [American Library Association] September, 2003

As the subtitle suggests, Mylroie claims the CIA and the U.S. State Department (among other bureaucracies) systematically discredited vital intelligence about the threat of violence from Iraq and, in particular, about Saddam Hussein's own intentions. It seems, on the surface, an unusual claim, but the author, who advised Bill Clinton on Iraq during his 1992 presidential campaign, marshals a lot of persuasive evidence. She demonstrates how important proof of danger from Iraq was dismissed by the federal government, in large part a result of the ill-conceived notion that, after the 1993 attacks on the World Trade Center, state-sponsored terrorism against the U.S. was no longer a going concern. The book chronicles President Bush's run-ins with the bureaucracies of his government and documents the "massive intelligence failure" in the 1990s that culminated in the September 11 attacks. "George W. Bush was absolutely right," Mylroie writes, "there was no choice but war." It is a conclusion that some will not support, both here and abroad, but it is argued well. A key document in the ongoing policy debate.

David Pitt - Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

NATIONAL COMMISSION ON TERRORIST ATTACKS UPON THE U.S. [LAURIE MYLROIE TESTIFIES]JULY 9, 2003 | CHAIR: THOMAS KEAN"

[MamaLucci]

Your post just sent a chill down my spine.....
you don't suppose that any of the "government officials"
listed in Saddam's payoff files are in the CIA?

[blackie]

Hahahahahahaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagh. :)

[aquaculture]

Folks, this memo was written by Douglas Feith. It's highly likely he leaked it as well.

Relying on Feith to provide "proof" of a bin Laden-Saddam link is like asking the fox to count the chickens in the hencoop. He's not exactly an unbiased source; indeed the opposite, Feith has enormous interest in "proving" a bin Laden-Saddam connection, since he was the main architect of this war.

Surprised by the lack of skepticism here...

[Quix]

TRUE!

THANKS for your kind affirmation.

The encouragement is much needed this weekend.

Blessings,

[blackie]

FYI!

[Matchett-PI]

"you don't suppose that any of the "government officials" listed in Saddam's payoff files are in the CIA?"

I do know one thing, there are lots of Marxist and Arabist DemocRATS in the CIA, FBI, State Department, and other D.C. bureaucracies, who love Clinton, et.al., and absolutely hate G.W.Bush.

From what I understand, we found a treasure trove of meticulous records that show who was on Saddam's payroll. I'm sure there are lots of our enemies within and without that are shaking in their boots. They know who they are, and they know that now we know too, or can find out -- even if they are hiding behind some front organization that laundered the money and other perks, for them (like the Buddhist Temple did for Algore). Hahaha

Here is a link to a thread that was posted here on that subject:

Iraq Documents May Speak Volumes

[Burlem]

Soon after 9-11 Newsmax. discussed the ties with these two characters, they featured the training ground called Salmon Pak. Now there is proof, however the liberals will still disavow the memo, as a right wing column....(smile) the thing that is creepy, some of the liberals are on the Intelligence Committee that would have had some of this information but they down played it big time. When do you think the alphabet channels will discuss this?

[MamaLucci]

Yes, those files are the Presidents trump card.

[Saints fan]

Fox News are talking about the memo now.

[sirchtruth]

The left will just say that W falsified the info.

LET THEM! That's the beauty of it! The American people trust Bush and the Dems are going to keep making idiots (ie: Dean)out of themselves by saying Bush lied because that's all they got!

LET THEM!