Posted on 09/16/2001 10:33:34 AM PDT by Clinton's a liar
Vice President Cheney said today that there is "no doubt" that bin Laden was involved in the terrorist attacks last Tuesday. It is most important to prove connections to Saddam Hussein if we are to truly eradicate this terrorist threat.
The information I'm posting here is from the book: BIN LADEN: The Man Who Declared War on America, published in 1999 by Prima Publishing. The book can be found/ordered here: http://www.primalifestyles.com/books/book/2621/
PAGES 234-325:
The development of the Iranian-Saudi rapprochement back in spring of 1998 caused Turabi to revive his efforts to mediate between Saddam Hussein and bin Laden. Baghdad had been impressed by the anti-American zeal displayed by the Islamists during the U.S.-Iraqi crisis. Turabi was apprehensive about Tehran’s promise to Riyadh to stop terrorism and subversion against Arab regimes and began looking for alternate support system should the need arise to confront the House of al-Saud. As a consequence two of bin Laden’s senior military commanders, Muhammad Abu-Islam and Abdallah Quassim, visited Baghdad between April 25 and May 1 (1998)* for discussions with Iraqi intelligence. The importance of these contacts to Baghdad was shown by their meeting with Qusay Hussein, Saddam’s son, who is not responsible for intelligence matters and was personally involved in both the Iraqi contribution to the Somalia operation and later the intelligence cooperation with Iran. Both sides were very satisfied with the results of the negotiations.
One of the first concrete outcomes of these contacts was Baghdad’s agreement to train a new network of Saudi Islamist intelligence operatives and terrorists from among bin Laden’s supporters still inside Saudi Arabia. Special clandestine cross-border passages were organized by Iraqi intelligence to enable these Saudis to make it to Iraq without passports or any other documents. The first group of Saudi Islamists crossed over in mid-June (1998)* for a four-week course in the al-Nasiriyah training camp. Most were trained in intelligence – how to collect intelligence on American targets and plan and launch strikes. The other Saudis were organized into a network for smuggling weapons and explosives from Iraq into Saudi Arabia. This group has returned to Saudi Arabia and is operational, having smuggled in the first loads of weapons and explosives. Later in the summer, a second group of eleven Saudi Islamists received a month of training in the most sophisticated guerilla techniques. By then, Iraqi intelligence anticipated a marked expansion in the training of Saudi Islamists, for Iraqi intelligence took over two training camps they had previously used for training the Iranian Mujahideen-ul-Khalq.
Bin Laden moved to solidify the cooperation with Saddam Hussein. In mid-July (1998)*, Ayman al-Zawahiri traveled to Iraq clandestinely. He met senior Iraqi officials, including Taha Yassin Ramadan, to discuss practical modalities for the establishment of bin Laden’s base in Iraq, the expansion of training for his mujahideen, and a joint strategy for an anti-U.S. jihad throughout the Arab world and North Africa. Baghdad could not have been more helpful, conditioning its support on bin Laden’s promise not to incite the Iraqi Muslim Brotherhood into establishing and Islamic state in Iraq; in other words not to conspire against Saddam Hussein’s reign. While in Iraq, Zawahiri was also taken to visit a potential site for bin Laden’s headquarters near al-Fallujah and terrorist training camps run by Iraqi intelligence. In al-Nasiriyah, he saw the training provided to Saudi Islamists, in the name of Osama bin Laden, Zawahiri assumed responsibility for a training camp in the al-Nasiriyah desert established by Iraqi intelligence in about 1997 for terrorists from Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States. This largely symbolic event indicates Baghdad’s recognition of bin Laden as the “local authority” in the struggle against the U.S. presence in and influence on the Arabian Peninsula.
The strategic significance of bin Laden’s improving relations with Baghdad, whether he decides to move there or not, lies in Saddam Hussein’s hatred of the House of al-Saud. If bin Laden decides to strike at the House of al-Saud rather than at American targets in Saudi Arabia, despite the positions taken by Tehran and Islamabad, Baghdad will surely provide him with all possible support. At present bin Laden shows no inclination to violate the strategy formulated with Tehran. The mere existence of an Iraqi-sponsored option, however, already alarms Riyadh. Meanwhile Baghdad will be only too happy to help bin Laden strike any American objective anywhere in the world, even with weapons of mass destruction.
*(1998) was added by me to remind the readers here of the dates the author is talking about.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Author Yossef Bodansky, in internationally renowned military and threat analyst, is the director of the Congressional Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare. In addition he is the director of research of the International Strategic Studies Association (ISSA) and a senior editor for the Defense & Foreign Affairs group of publications. The author of seven books on international terrorism and global crises and a former terrorism and global crises and a former senior consultant to the U.S. Departments of Defense and State, Mr. Bodansky actively participates in international forums and conferences in the United States and abroad.
Sleep deprivation.
This is World War III, and we will win. God bless our president, our military, and our nation.
God bless you too, Connie!
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