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29 September: Increasing intelligence reports are reaching DEBKAfile that the 200 Taliban fighters reaching North Iraqi in mid-July were in fact members of Bin Laden’s Al Qaeda. They came in response to an Iraqi offer to train Al Qaeda terrorist personnel in the use of chemical and biological warfare weapons. In northern Iraq, the men underwent a secret intensive course at the hands of Iraqi army experts and instructors in the operation, by three- or four-men squads, of bombs and explosives containing chemical and biological material.To explain the arrivals, the Iraqis fabricated an impending attack on Kurdistan, concentrating troops north ...

Lt. General Michael DeLong discusses intelligence behind U.S. concern over Ansar al-Islam terror/poison camp in Northern IraqA recent conversation Lt. General Michael DeLong revealed new information on prewar intelligence on Iraq that has received little, if any, public attention thus far. General DeLong was the deputy commander of U.S. Central Command during the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq and was directly involved with the pre-invasion preparation for Operation Iraqi Freedom. He offered the observation that Bush administration officials appear to have been reluctant thus far in explaining the prewar intelligence and evidence tying members of Saddam Hussein’s regime to the...

WASHINGTON — The first shot in the coming subpoena wars between congressional Democrats and the Bush administration likely will be fired in January by Senator Levin, a Democrat of Michigan. The Senate Armed Services Committee's Democratic staff, soon to be in the majority, is already preparing to ask the Pentagon for documents related to analysis in the lead-up to the Iraq war from the offices reporting to a former undersecretary of defense for policy, Douglas Feith.

According to a report released September 8 by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Saddam Hussein "was resistant to cooperating with al Qaeda or any other Islamist groups." It's an odd claim. Saddam Hussein's regime has a long and well-documented history of cooperating with Islamists, including al Qaeda and its affiliates. As early as 1982, the Iraqi regime was openly supporting, training, and funding the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamist organization opposed to the secular regime of Hafez Assad. For years, Saddam Hussein cultivated warm relations with Hassan al-Turabi, the Islamist who was the de facto leader of the Sudanese...

According to a report released September 8 by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Saddam Hussein "was resistant to cooperating with al Qaeda or any other Islamist groups." It's an odd claim. Saddam Hussein's regime has a long and well-documented history of cooperating with Islamists, including al Qaeda and its affiliates. As early as 1982, the Iraqi regime was openly supporting, training, and funding the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamist organization opposed to the secular regime of Hafez Assad. For years, Saddam Hussein cultivated warm relations with Hassan al-Turabi, the Islamist who was the de facto leader of the Sudanese...

Iraq-War critics are trumpeting a September 8 Senate Intelligence Committee report that concludes Saddam Hussein knew nothing about the September 11 attacks. For starters, the report’s sources include “multiple detainees -- including Saddam Hussein and former Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz.” Both are on trial and could face severe punishment. Their exculpatory remarks should be highly suspect, but appear valid to Senate Intelligence staffers. The report also quotes captured Iraqi documents. Among some 120 million such papers, only 34 million have been “translated and summarized to some extent” to speed analysis. Nevertheless, with nearly 72% of these records still unusable,...

The recent train bombings in India have intensified the scrutiny of the Pakistan-based, al Qaeda affiliated terrorist group, Lashkar-e-Tayyiba. In particular, one key question is being asked: What role does LET play in the war against Islamofascists and their allies? The al Qaeda-linked Wahhabi group, formed in 1989, has been blamed for a number of attacks on Indian officials and civilians. It was added to the U.S. terrorist list in December 2001. LET’s agenda, as announced in one of their pamphlets and detailed by MIPT Terrorism Knowledge Base, is to wage jihad with the goal of imposing their narrow version...

Harris Poll: 64% Americans believe Saddam Hussein had "strong" links to al Qaeda Saddam AP The latest Harris Poll on public opinion (hat tip Ray Robison) has some interesting results on the topic of Saddam Hussein and his possible links to al Qaeda. Of those Americans polled, 64% agree that Saddam Hussein had "strong" links to al Qaeda. This is a 2% increase over the October 2002 results for the same questions. It seems that Saddam Hussein's latest letter to the American people, urging the U.S. to

ON SUNDAY, the New York Times and the Washington Post ran stories based on excerpts of a newly declassified Defense Intelligence Agency document provided by Senator Carl Levin, the number two Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee. The stories concerned the interrogation of Ibn Shaykh al Libi, a senior al Qaeda official who told U.S. officials that Iraq had trained al Qaeda in chemical and biological weapons. The DIA was skeptical of his story; the CIA less so. Al Libi recanted in January 2004. Levin released the excerpts to demonstrate his assertions that the Bush administration exaggerated prewar intelligence on...

Every day it seems another American soldier is killed in Iraq. These grim statistics have become a favorite of network news anchors and political chat show hosts. Nevermind that they mix deaths from accidents with actual battlefield casualties; or that the average is actually closer to one American death for every two days; or that enemy deaths far outnumber ours. What matters is the overall impression of mounting, pointless deaths. That is why is important to remember why we fight in Iraq -- and who we fight. Indeed, many of those sniping at U.S. troops are al Qaeda terrorists operating...