| Facts:
* abdul rahman yasin was the only
member of the al qaeda cell that
detonated the 1993 world trade
center bomb to remain at large in
the clinton years. he fled to iraq.
u.s. forces recently discovered a
cache of documents in tikrit,
saddam's hometown, that show
that iraq gave mr. yasin both a
house and monthly salary.
* bin laden met at least eight
times with officers of iraq's
special security organization, a
secret police agency run by
saddam's son qusay, and met
with officials from saddam's
mukhabarat, its external
intelligence service, according to
intelligence made public by
secretary of state colin powell,
who was speaking before the united
nations security council on
february 6, 2003.
* sudanese intelligence officials
told me that their agents had
observed meetings between iraqi
intelligence agents and bin laden
starting in 1994, when bin laden
lived in khartoum.
* bin laden met the director of the
iraqi mukhabarat in 1996 in
khartoum, according to mr. powell.
* an al qaeda operative now held by
the u.s. confessed that in the
mid-1990s, bin laden had forged an
agreement with saddam's men to
cease all terrorist activities
against the iraqi dictator, mr.
powell told the united nations.
* in 1999 the guardian, a british
newspaper, reported that farouk
hijazi, a senior officer in
iraq's mukhabarat, had
journeyed deep into the icy
mountains near kandahar,
afghanistan, in december 1998 to
meet with al qaeda men. mr. hijazi
is "thought to have offered
bin laden asylum in iraq," the
guardian reported.
* in october 2000, another iraqi
intelligence operative, salah
suleiman, was arrested near the
afghan border by pakistani
authorities, according to
jane's foreign report, a
respected international newsletter.
jane's reported that suleiman
was shuttling between iraqi
intelligence and ayman al zawahiri,
now al qaeda's no. 2 man.
(why are all of those meetings
significant? the london observer
reports that fbi investigators cite
a captured al qaeda field manual in
afghanistan, which "emphasizes
the value of conducting discussions
about pending terrorist attacks
face to face, rather than by
electronic means.")
* as recently as 2001, iraq's
embassy in pakistan was used as a
"liaison" between the
iraqi dictator and al qaeda, mr.
powell told the united nations.
* spanish investigators have
uncovered documents seized from
yusuf galan -- who is charged by a
spanish court with being
"directly involved with the
preparation and planning" of
the sept. 11 attacks -- that show
the terrorist was invited to a
party at the iraqi embassy in
madrid. the invitation used his
"al qaeda nom de guerre,"
london's independent reports.
* an iraqi defector to turkey,
known by his cover name as
"abu mohammed," told
gwynne roberts of the sunday times
of london that he saw bin
laden's fighters in camps in
iraq in 1997. at the time, mohammed
was a colonel in saddam's
fedayeen. he described an encounter
at salman pak, the training
facility southeast of baghdad. at
that vast compound run by iraqi
intelligence, muslim militants
trained to hijack planes with
knives -- on a full-size boeing
707. col. mohammed recalls his
first visit to salman pak this way:
"we were met by colonel jamil
kamil, the camp manager, and major
ali hawas. i noticed that a lot of
people were queuing for food. (the
major) said to me:
'you'll have nothing to
do with these people. they are
osama bin laden's group and
the pkk and mojahedin-e
khalq.'"
* in 1998, abbas al-janabi, a
longtime aide to saddam's son
uday, defected to the west. at the
time, he repeatedly told reporters
that there was a direct connection
between iraq and al qaeda.
*the sunday times found a saddam
loyalist in a kurdish prison who
claims to have been dr.
zawahiri's bodyguard during
his 1992 visit with saddam in
baghdad. dr. zawahiri was a close
associate of bin laden at the time
and was present at the founding of
al qaeda in 1989.
* following the defeat of the
taliban, almost two dozen bin laden
associates "converged on
baghdad and established a base of
operations there," mr. powell
told the united nations in february
2003. from their baghdad base, the
secretary said, they supervised the
movement of men, materiel and money
for al qaeda's global network.
* in 2001, an al qaeda member
"bragged that the situation in
iraq was 'good,'"
according to intelligence made
public by mr. powell.
* that same year, saudi arabian
border guards arrested two al qaeda
members entering the kingdom from
iraq.
* abu musaab al-zarqawi oversaw an
al qaeda training camp in
afghanistan, mr. powell told the
united nations. his specialty was
poisons. wounded in fighting with
u.s. forces, he sought medical
treatment in baghdad in may 2002.
when zarqawi recovered, he
restarted a training camp in
northern iraq. zarqawi's iraq
cell was later tied to the october
2002 murder of lawrence foley, an
official of the u.s. agency for
international development, in
amman, jordan. the captured
assassin confessed that he received
orders and funds from
zarqawi's cell in iraq, mr.
powell said. his accomplice escaped
to iraq.
*zarqawi met with military chief of
al qaeda, mohammed ibrahim makwai
(aka saif al-adel) in iran in
february 2003, according to
intelligence sources cited by the
washington post.
* mohammad atef, the head of al
qaeda's military wing until
the u.s. killed him in afghanistan
in november 2001, told a senior al
qaeda member now in u.s. custody
that the terror network needed labs
outside of afghanistan to
manufacture chemical weapons, mr.
powell said. "where did they
go, where did they look?" said
the secretary. "they went to
iraq."
* abu abdullah al-iraqi was sent to
iraq by bin laden to purchase
poison gases several times between
1997 and 2000. he called his
relationship with saddam's
regime "successful," mr.
powell told the united nations.
* mohamed mansour shahab, a
smuggler hired by iraq to transport
weapons to bin laden in
afghanistan, was arrested by
anti-hussein kurdish forces in may,
2000. he later told his story to
american intelligence and a
reporter for the new yorker
magazine.
* documents found among the debris
of the iraqi intelligence center
show that baghdad funded the allied
democratic forces, a ugandan terror
group led by an islamist cleric
linked to bin laden. according to a
london's daily telegraph, the
organization offered to recruit
"youth to train for the
jihad" at a "headquarters
for international holy warrior
network" to be established in
baghdad.
* mullah melan krekar, ran a terror
group (the ansar al-islam) linked
to both bin laden and saddam
hussein. mr. krekar admitted to a
kurdish newspaper that he met bin
laden in afghanistan and other
senior al qaeda officials. his
acknowledged meetings with bin
laden go back to 1988. when he
organized ansar al islam in 2001 to
conduct suicide attacks on
americans, "three bin laden
operatives showed up with a gift of
$300,000 'to undertake
jihad,'" newsday
reported. mr. krekar is now in
custody in the netherlands. his
group operated in portion of
northern iraq loyal to saddam
hussein -- and attacked independent
kurdish groups hostile to saddam. a
spokesman for the patriotic union
of kurdistan told a united press
international correspondent that
mr. krekar's group was funded
by "saddam hussein's
regime in baghdad."
* after october 2001, hundreds of
al qaeda fighters are believed to
have holed up in the ansar
al-islam's strongholds inside
northern iraq.
some skeptics dismiss the emerging
evidence of a longstanding link
between iraq and al qaeda by
contending that saddam ran a
secular dictatorship hated by
islamists like bin laden.
in fact, there are plenty of
"stalin-roosevelt"
partnerships between international
terrorists and muslim dictators.
saddam and bin laden had common
enemies, common purposes and
interlocking needs. they shared a
powerful hate for america and the
saudi royal family. they both saw
the gulf war as a turning point.
saddam suffered a crushing defeat
which he had repeatedly vowed to
avenge. bin laden regards the u.s.
as guilty of war crimes against
iraqis and believes that
non-muslims shouldn't have
military bases on the holy sands of
arabia. al qaeda's avowed goal
for the past ten years has been the
removal of american forces from
saudi arabia, where they stood in
harm's way solely to contain
saddam.
the most compelling reason for bin
laden to work with saddam is money.
al qaeda operatives have testified
in federal courts that the terror
network was always desperate for
cash. senior employees fought
bitterly about the $100 difference
in pay between egyptian and saudis
(the egyptians made more). one al
qaeda member, who was connected to
the 1998 embassy bombings, told a
u.s. federal court how bitter he
was that bin laden could not pay
for his pregnant wife to see a
doctor.
bin laden's personal wealth
alone simply is not enough to
support a profligate global
organization. besides, bin
laden's fortune is probably
not as large as some imagine.
informed estimates put bin
laden's pre-sept. 11, 2001
wealth at perhaps $30 million. $30
million is the budget of a small
school district, not a global
terror conglomerate. meanwhile,
forbes estimated saddam's
personal fortune at $2 billion.
so a common enemy, a shared goal
and powerful need for cash seem to
have forged an alliance between
saddam and bin laden. cia director
george tenet recently told the
senate intelligence committee:
"iraq has in the past provided
training in document forgery and
bomb making to al qaeda. it also
provided training in poisons and
gasses to two al qaeda associates;
one of these [al qaeda] associates
characterized the relationship as
successful. mr. chairman, this
information is based on a solid
foundation of intelligence. it
comes to us from credible and
reliable sources. much of it is
corroborated by multiple
sources."
the iraqis, who had the third
world's largest poison-gas
operations prior to the gulf war i,
have perfected the technique of
making hydrogen-cyanide gas, which
the nazis called zyklon-b. in the
hands of al qaeda, this would be a
fearsome weapon in an enclosed
space -- like a suburban mall or
subway station.
patmoster: try reading -- i include
sources
of course no amount of facts,
statistics, and verfiable history
scould ever convince an irrational
bush hating liberal could it?
Yes, of course they were |
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