Editor's Note, 1/27/04: In today's Washington Post, Dana
Milbank reported that "Vice President Cheney . . . in an interview this
month with the Rocky Mountain News, recommended as the 'best source of
information' an article in The Weekly Standard magazine detailing a
relationship between Hussein and al Qaeda based on leaked classified
information."
Here's the Stephen F. Hayes article to which the vice president was referring.
-JVL
|
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 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.
|
