[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 74 (Tuesday, June 1, 2004)]
[House]
[Pages H3568-H3571]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
THE CONNECTION BETWEEN SADDAM HUSSEIN AND OSAMA BIN LADEN
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the
gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Burton) is recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. BURTON of Indiana. Mr. Speaker, there has been a lot of concern
over the past year or so about whether or not Saddam Hussein was tied
in with Osama bin Laden and the terrorist network and al Qaeda.
There is an article in The Weekly Standard this week called ``The
Connection,'' and I would urge all of my colleagues to read this
article. It shows a picture of Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden, and
some other terrorists on the front page of the magazine. The article is
written by a gentleman named Stephen Hayes, and it follows an article
that was written in the Wall Street Journal last week, and I would like
to read some information from the two articles that I think verifies
without much doubt that Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden, al Qaeda
and other terrorist organizations were working together to try to
destroy the United States and Western Civilization.
Let me read from the Wall Street Journal of May 27, 2004:
``One striking bit of new evidence is that the name of Ahmed Hikmat
Shakir appears on three captured rosters of officers in Saddam
Fedayeen, the elite paramilitary group run by Saddam's son Uday and
entrusted with doing much of the regime's dirty work. Our government
sources, who have seen translations of the documents, say Shakir is
listed with the rank of lieutenant colonel. This matters because if
Shakir was an officer in the Fedayeen, it would establish a direct link
between Iraq and the al Qaeda operatives who planned'' the 9/11 attack
on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
``Shakir was present at the January 2000 al Qaeda `summit' in Kuala
Lumpur, Malaysia, at which the 9/11 attacks were planned. The U.S. has
never been sure whether he was there on behalf of the Iraqi regime or
whether he was an Iraqi Islamicist who hooked up with al Qaeda on his
own.''
The fact is he was an officer in the elite military of Saddam. He
worked with his son Uday, and he was there when they planned the attack
on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
Further, the article goes on to say: ``The CIA has confirmed that al
Qaeda's number 2, Ayman al-Zawahiri, met with Iraqi intelligence in
Baghdad
[[Page H3569]]
in 1992 and 1998. There is irrefutable evidence that the Iraqi regime
paid Zawahiri $300,000 in 1998, around the time his Islamic jihad was
merging with al Qaeda. Four sources have confirmed the payment.''
So here again is another connection.
``Since Operating Enduring Freedom, we have solid evidence Iraq and
al Qaeda discussed safe haven and reciprocal non-aggression. We have
solid evidence of the presence in Iraq of al Qaeda members. Through
interrogations of high-level Iraqi detainees, we have evidence that al
Qaeda members visited Baghdad, sought weapons and training in areas
such as poisons, gases, and conventional bomb making.''
Another item: ``Farouk Hijazi, former Iraqi ambassador to Turkey, has
admitted meeting senior al Qaeda leaders at Saddam's behest in 1994. It
is believed Hijazi met with Osama bin Laden and offered him safe haven
in Iraq in 1998.'' That is another example.
``Al Qaeda operatives held in Guantanamo have corroborated reports of
a series of meetings in Khartoum, Sudan, home to al Qaeda during the
mid-1990s. Abu Abdullah al-Iraqi,'' an al Qaeda weapons of mass
destruction specialist, ``was sent by Osama bin Laden to seek WMD
training, and possibly weapons, from the Iraqi regime. His associates
held meetings in Baghdad with Uday,'' Saddam's son, ``in April 1998.''
Another example.
``Secretary of State Colin Powell's presentation to the U.N. in
December 2002 detailed intelligence showing that Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi,
a Jordanian jihadist and known al Qaeda associate, traveled to Baghdad
for medical treatment. Among al-Zarqawi's many crimes, he is a key
suspect'' we just saw recently on television ``in the abduction and
beheading of American Nicholas Berg.''
{time} 1930
It is believed Saddam Hussein's nephew, Yasser al-Sabawi, and their
Fedeyyen Saddam paramilitary cronies worked with Al Zarqawi and his
accomplices in the abduction, transfer, and execution of Mr. Berg. That
investigation is still in progress, but the linkage between Saddam and
al Qaeda is reinforced by video and other evidence collected thus far.
There is a high probability that Zarqawi was the masked man who
beheaded Berg. Saddam's nephew is described as the ringleader of
suspects in the case.
Another item: Statements by Iraqi defectors have been corroborated by
new evidence seized by Coalition troops that Saddam's regime trained
non-Iraqi Arab terrorists at a camp in Salman Pak, South of Baghdad.
The existence of this training camp was verified by U.N. inspectors. A
Boeing 707 was used at the camp to simulate terrorist hijackings.
Another item: In February, 2003, the government of the Philippines
asked a senior Iraqi diplomat, Hisham al Hussein, to leave the country
after establishing frequent contact with leaders of Abu Sayyaf, an al
Qaeda affiliate in Southeast Asia. This Iraqi official had contact with
Abu Sayyaf immediately before and after they detonated a bomb in
Zamboanga city that killed two Filipinos and an American Special Forces
soldier.
High ranking Czech officials have confirmed that Mohammed Atta, the
lead 911 hijacker, met with Ahmed Khalil Ibrahim al Ani, an Iraqi
intelligence officer, 5 months before the hijacking.
Ansar al-Islam, the Al Qaeda cell formed in Northern Iraq in June
2001, has expanded its attacks against Kurds and has joined with
remnants of Saddam's regime in their insurgency against Coalition
forces. It is believed that the bombing of the U.N. headquarters was a
result of a joint operation between Baathists and the Al Qaeda
affiliate, Ansar al-Islam.
When Osama bin Laden issued a fatwa against America in February 1998
there is evidence Saddam Hussein paid $300,000 to bin Laden's deputy
Ayman al-Zawahiri.
Mr. Speaker, I submit herewith for the Record the article by Stephen
Hayes I referred to earlier:
[From the Weekly Standard, June 7, 2004]
The Connection
(By Stephen F. Hayes)
``The president convinced the country with a mixture of
documents that turned out to be forged and blatant false
assertions that Saddam was in league with al Qaeda,'' claimed
former Vice President Al Gore last Wednesday.
``There's absolutely no evidence that Iraq was supporting
al Qaeda, ever,'' declared Richard Clarke, former
counterterrorism official under George W. Bush and Bill
Clinton, in an interview on March 21, 2004.
The editor of the Los Angeles Times labeled as ``myth'' the
claim that links between Iraq and al Qaeda had been proved. A
recent dispatch from Reuters simply asserted, ``There is no
link between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda.'' 60 Minutes anchor
Lesley Stahl was equally certain: ``There was no
connection.''
And on it goes. This conventional wisdom--that our two most
determined enemies were not in league, now or ever--is
comforting. It is also wrong.
In late February 2004, Christopher Carney made an
astonishing discovery. Carney, a political science professor
from Pennsylvania on leave to work at the Pentagon, was
poring over a list of officers in Saddam Hussein's much-
feared security force, the Fedayeen Saddam. One name stood
out: Lieutenant Colonel Ahmed Hikmat Shakir. The name was not
spelled exactly as Carney has seen it before, but such
discrepancies are common. Having studied the relationship
between Iraq and al Qaeda for 18 months, he immediately
recognized the potential significance of his find. According
to a report last week in the Wall Street Journal, Shakir
appears on three different lists of Fedayeen officers.
An Iraqi of that name, Carney knew, had been present at an
al Qaeda summit in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, on January 5-8,
2000. U.S. intelligence officials believe this was a chief
planning meeting for the September 11 attacks. Shakir had
been nominally employed as a ``greeter'' by Malaysian
Airlines, a job he told associates he had gotten through a
contact a the Iraqi embassy. More curious, Shakir's Iraqi
embassy contact controlled his schedule, telling him when
to show up for work and when to take a day off.
A greeter typically meets VIPs upon arrival and accompanies
them through the sometimes onerous procedures of foreign
travel. Shakir was instructed to work on January 5, 2000, and
on that day, he escorted one Khalid al Mihdhar from his plane
to a waiting car. Rather than bid his guest farewell at that
point, as a greeter typically would have, Shakir climbed into
the car with al Mihdhar and accompanied him to the Kuala
Lumpur condominium of Yazid Sufaat, the American-born al
Qaeda terrorist who hosted the planning meeting.
The meeting lasted for three days. Khalid al Mihdhar
departed Kuala Lumpur for Bangkok and eventually Los Angeles.
Twenty months later, he was aboard American Airlines Flight
77 when it plunged into the Pentagon at 9:38 a.m. on
September 11. So were Nawaf al Hazmi and his younger brother,
Salem, both of whom were also present at the Kuala Lumpur
meeting.
Six days after September 11, Shakir was captured in Doha,
Qatar. He had in his possession contact information for
several senior al Qaeda terrorists: Zahid Sheikh Mohammed,
brother of September 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed;
Musab Yasin, brother of Abdul Rahman Yasin, the Iraqi who
helped mix the chemicals for the first World Trade Center
attack and was given safe haven upon his return to Baghdad;
and Mamdouh Mahmud Salim, otherwise known as Abu Hajer al
Iraqi, described by one top al Qaeda detainee as Osama bin
Laden's ``best friend.''
Despite all of this, Shakir was released. On October 21,
2001, he boarded a plane for Baghdad, via Amman, Jordan. He
never made the connection. Shakir was detained by Jordanian
intelligence. Immediately following his capture, according to
U.S. officials familiar with the intelligence of Shakir, the
Iraqi government began exerting pressure on the Jordanians to
release him. Some U.S. intelligence officials--primarily at
the CIA--believed that Iraq's demand for Shakir's release
was pro forma, no different from the requests governments
regularly make on behalf of citizens detained by foreign
governments. But others, pointing to the flurry of phone
calls and personal appeals from the Iraqi government to
the Jordanians, disagreed. This panicked reaction, they
said, reflected an interest in Shakir at the highest
levels of Saddam Hussein's regime.
CIA officials who interviewed Shakir in Jordan reported
that he was generally uncooperative. But even in refusing to
talk, he provided some important information: The
interrogators concluded that his evasive answers reflected
counterinterrogation techniques so sophisticated that he had
probably learned them from a government intelligence service.
Shakir's Iraqi nationality, his contacts with the Iraqi
embassy in Malaysia, the keen interest of Baghdad in his
case, and now the appearance of his name on the rolls of
Fedayeen officers--all this makes the Iraqi intelligence
service the most likely source of his training.
The Jordanians, convinced that Shakir worked for Iraqi
intelligence, went to the CIA with a bold proposal: Let's
flip him. That is, the Jordanians would allow Shakir to
return to Iraq on condition that he agree to report back on
the activities of Iraqi intelligence. And, in one of the most
egregious mistakes by U.S. intelligence after September 11,
the CIA agreed to Shakir's release. He posted a modest bail
and returned to Iraq.
He hasn't been heard from since.
The Shakir story is perhaps the government's strongest
indication that Saddam and al Qaeda may have worked together
on September 11. It is far from conclusive; conceivably there
were two Ahmed Hikmat Shakirs.
[[Page H3570]]
And in itself, the evidence does not show that Saddam Hussein
personally had foreknowledge of the attacks. Still--like the
long, on-again-off-again relationship between Iraq and al
Qaeda--it cannot be dismissed.
There was a time not long ago when the conventional wisdom
skewed heavily toward a Saddam-al Qaeda links. In 1998 and
early 1999, the Iraq-al Qaeda connection was widely reported
in the American and international media. Former intelligence
officers and government officials speculated about the
relationship and its dangerous implications for the world.
The information in the news reports came from foreign and
domestic intelligence services. It was featured in mainstream
media outlets including international wire services,
prominent newsweeklies, and network radio and television
broadcasts.
Newsweek magazine ran an article in its January 11, 1999,
issue headed ``Saddam + Bin Laden?'' ``Here's what is known
so far,'' it read:
Saddam Hussein, who has a long record of supporting
terrorism, is trying to rebuild his intelligence network
overseas--assets that would allow him to establish a
terrorism network. U.S. sources say he is reaching out to
Islamic terrorists, including some who may be linked to Osama
bin Laden, the wealthy Saudi exile accused of masterminding
the bombing of two U.S. embassies in Africa last summer.
Four days later, on January 15, 1999, ABC News reported
that three intelligence agencies believed that Saddam had
offered asylum to bin Laden:
Intelligence sources say bin Laden's long relationship with
the Iraqis began as he helped Sudan's fundamentalist
government in their efforts to acquire weapons of mass
destruction. . . . ABC News has learned that in December, an
Iraqi intelligence chief named Faruq Hijazi, now Iraq's
ambassador to Turkey, made a secret trip to Afghanistan to
meet with bin Laden. Three intelligence agencies tell ABC
News they cannot be certain what was discussed, but almost
certainly, they say, bin Laden has been told he would be
welcome in Baghdad.
NPR reporter Mike Shuster interviewed Vincent Cannistraro,
former head of the CIA's counterterrorism center, and offered
this report:
Iraq's contacts with bin Laden go back some years, to at
least 1994, when, according to one U.S. government source,
Hijazi met him when bin Laden lived in Sudan. According to
Cannistraro, Iraq invited bin Laden to live in Baghdad to be
nearer to potential targets of terrorist attack in Saudi
Arabia and Kuwait. . . . Some experts believe bin Laden might
be tempted to live in Iraq because of his reported desire to
obtain chemical or biological weapons. CIA Director George
Tenet referred to that in recent testimony before the Senate
Armed Services Committee when he said bin Laden was planning
additional attacks on American targets.
By mid-February 1999, journalists did not even feel the
need to qualify these claims of an Iraq-al Qaeda
relationship. An Associated Press dispatch that ran in the
Washington Post ended this way: ``The Iraqi President
Saddam Hussein has offered asylum to bin Laden, who openly
supports Iraq against Western powers.''
Where did journalists get the idea that Saddam and bin
Laden might be coordinating efforts? Among other places, from
high-ranking Clinton administration officials.
In the spring of 1998--well before the U.S. embassy
bombings in East Africa--the Clinton administration indicted
Osama bin Laden. The indictment, unsealed a few months later,
prominently cited al Qaeda's agreement to collaborate with
Iraq on weapons of mass destruction. The Clinton Justice
Department had been concerned about negative public reaction
to its potentially capturing bin Laden without ``a vehicle
for extradition,'' official paperwork charging him with a
crime. It was ``not an afterthought'' to include the al
Qaeda-Iraq connection in the indictment, says an official
familiar with the deliberations. ``It couldn't have gotten
into the indictment unless someone was willing to testify to
it under oath.'' The Clinton administration's indictment read
unequivocally:
``Al Qaeda reached an understanding with the government of
Iraq that al Qaeda would not work against that government and
that on particular projects, specifically including weapons
development, al Qaeda would work cooperatively with the
Government of Iraq.''
On August 7, 1998, al Qaeda terrorists struck almost
simultaneously at U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. The
blasts killed 257 people--including 12 Americans--and wounded
nearly 5,000. The Clinton administration determined within
five days that al Qaeda was responsible for the attacks and
moved swiftly to retaliate. One of the targets would be in
Afghanistan. But the Clinton national security team wanted to
strike hard simultaneously, much as the terrorists had. ``The
decision to go to [Sudan] was an add-on,'' says a senior
intelligence officer involved in the targeting. ``They wanted
a dual strike.''
A small group of Clinton administration officials, led by
CIA director George Tenet and national security adviser Sandy
Berger, reviewed a number of al Qaeda-linked targets in
Sudan. Although bin Laden had left the African nation two
years earlier, U.S. officials believed that he was still
deeply involved in the Sudanese government-run Military
Industrial Corporation (MIC).
The United States retaliated on August 20, 1998, striking
al Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan and the al Shifa
pharmaceutical plant outside Khartoum. ``Let me be very clear
about this,'' said President Bill Clinton, addressing the
nation after the strikes. ``There is no question in my mind
that the Sudanese factory was producing chemicals that are
used--and can be used--in VX gas. This was a plant that was
producing chemical warfare-related weapons, and we have
physical evidence of that.''
The physical evidence was a soil sample containing EMPTA, a
precursor for VX nerve gas. Almost immediately, the decision
to strike at al Shifa aroused controversy. U.S. officials
expressed skepticism that the plant produced pharmaceuticals
at all, but reporters on the ground in Sudan found aspirin
bottles and a variety of other indications that the plant
had, in fact, manufactured drugs. For journalists and many at
the CIA, the case was hardly clear-cut. For one thing, the
soil sample was collected from outside the plant's front
gate, not within the grounds, and an internal CIA memo issued
a month before the attacks had recommended gathering
additional soil samples from the site before reaching any
conclusions. ``It caused a lot of heartburn at the agency,''
recalls a former top intelligence official.
The Clinton administration sought to dispel doubts about
the targeting and, on August 24, 1998, made available a
``senior intelligence official'' to brief reporters on
background. The briefer cited ``strong ties between the plant
and Iraq'' as one of the justifications for attacking it. The
next day, undersecretary of state for political affairs
Thomas Pickering briefed reporters at the National Press
Club. Pickering explained that the intelligence community had
been monitoring the plant for ``at least two years,'' and
that the evidence was ``quite clear on contacts between Sudan
and Iraq.'' In all, at least six top Clinton administration
officials have defended on the record the strikes in Sudan by
citing a link to Iraq.
The Iraqis, of course denied any involvement. ``The Clinton
government has fabricated yet another lie to the effect that
Iraq had helped Sudan produce this chemical weapon,''
declared the political editor of Radio Iraq. Still, even as
Iraq denied helping Sudan and al Qaeda with weapons of
mass destruction, the regime lauded Osama bin Laden. On
August 27, 1998, 20 days after al Qaeda attacked the U.S.
embassies in Africa, Babel, the government newspaper run
by Saddam's son Uday Hussein, published an editorial
proclaiming bin Laden ``an Arab and Islamic hero.''
Five months later, the same Richard Clarke who would one
day claim that there was ``absolutely no evidence that Iraq
was supporting al Qaeda, ever,'' told the Washington Post
that the U.S. government was ``sure'' that Iraq was behind
the production of the chemical weapons precursor at the al
Shifa plant. ``Clarke said U.S. intelligence does not know
how much of the substance was produced at al Shifa or what
happened to it,'' wrote Post reporter Vernon Lieb, in an
article published January 23, 1999. ``But he said that
intelligence exists linking bin Laden to al Shifa's current
and past operators, the Iraqi nerve gas experts, and the
National Islamic Front in Sudan.''
Later in 1999, the Congressional Research Service published
a report on the psychology of terrorism. The report created a
stir in May 2002 when critics of President Bush cited it to
suggest that his administration should have given more
thought to suicide hijackings. On page 7 of the 178-page
document was a passage about a possible al Qaeda attack on
Washington, D.C., that ``could take several forms.'' In one
scenario, ``suicide bombers belonging to al Qaeda's Martyrdom
Battalion could crash-land an aircraft packed with high
explosives (C-4 and semtex) into the Pentagon, the
headquarters of the Central Intelligence Agency, or the White
House.''
A network anchor wondered if it was possible that the White
House had somehow missed the report. A senator cited it in
calling for an investigation into the 9/11 attacks. A
journalist read excerpts to the secretary of defense and
raised a familiar question: ``What did you know and when did
you know?''
But another passage of the same report has gone largely
unnoticed. Two paragraphs before, also on page 7, is this:
``If Iraq's Saddam Hussein decide[s] to use terrorists to
attack the continental United States [he] would likely turn
to bin Laden's al Qaeda. Al Qaeda is among the Islmaic groups
recruiting increasingly skilled professionals,'' including
``Iraqi chemical weapons experts and others capable of
helping to develop WMD. Al Qaeda poses the most serious
terrorist threat to U.S. security interests, for al Qaeda's
well-trained terrorists are engaged in a terrorist jihad
against U.S. interests worldwide.''
CIA director George Tenet echoed these sentiments in a
letter to Congress on October 7, 2002:
--Our understanding of the relationship between Iraq and Al
Qaeda is evolving and is based on sources of varying
reliability. Some of the information we have received comes
from detainees, including some of high rank.
--We have solid reporting of senior level contacts between
Iraq and Al Qaeda going back a decade.
--Credible information indicates that Iraq and Al Qaeda
have discussed safe haven and reciprocal nonaggression.
[[Page H3571]]
--Since Operation Enduring Freedom, we have solid evidence
of the presence in Iraq of Al Qaeda members, including some
that have been in Baghdad.
--We have credible reporting that Al Qaeda leaders sought
contacts in Iraq who could help them acquire W.M.D.
capabilities. The reporting also stated that Iraq has
provided training to Al Qaeda members in the areas of poisons
and gases and making conventional bombs.
--Iraq's increasing support to extremist Palestinians
coupled with growing indications of relationship with Al
Qaeda suggest that Baghdad's links to terrorists will
increase, even absent U.S. military action.
Tenet has never backed away from these assessments. Senator
Mark Dayton, a Democrat from Minnesota, challenged him on the
Iraq-al Qaeda connection in an exchange before the Senate
Armed Services Committee on March 9, 2004. Tenet reiterated
his judgment that there had been numerous ``contacts''
between Iraq and al Qaeda, and that in the days before the
war the Iraqi regime had provided ``training and safe haven''
to al Qaeda associates, including Abu Musab al Zarqawi. What
the U.S. intelligence community could not claim was that the
Iraqi regime has ``command and control'' over al Qaeda
terrorists. Still, said Tenet, ``it was inconceivable to me
that Zarqawi and two dozen [Egyptian Islamic Jihad]
operatives could be operating in Baghdad without Iraq
knowing.''
So what should Washington do now? The first thing the Bush
administration should do is create a team of intelligence
experts--or preferably competing teams, each composed of
terrorism experts and forensic investigators--to explore the
connection between Iraq and al Qaeda. For more than a year,
the 1,400-member Iraq Survey Group has investigated the
nature and scope of Iraq's program to manufacture weapons of
mass destruction. At various times in its brief history, a
small subgroup of ISG investigators (never more than 15
people) has looked into Iraqi connections with al Qaeda. This
is not enough.
Despite the lack of resources devoted to Iraq-al Qaeda
connections, the Iraq Survey Group has obtained some
interesting new information. In the spring of 1992, according
to Iraqi Intelligence documents obtained by the ISG after
the war, Osama bin Laden met with Iraqi Intelligence
officials in Syria. A second document, this one captured
by the Iraqi National Congress and authenticated by the
Defense Intelligence Agency, then listed bin Laden as an
Iraqi Intelligence ``asset'' who ``is in good relationship
with our section in Syria.'' A third Iraqi Intelligence
document, this one an undated internal memo, discusses
strategy for an upcoming meeting between Iraqi
Intelligence, bin Laden, and a representative of the
Taliban. On the agenda: ``attacking American targets.''
This seems significant.
A second critical step would be to declassify as much of
the Iraq-al Qaeda intelligence as possible. Those skeptical
of any connection claim that any evidence of a relationship
must have been ``cherry picked'' from much larger piles of
existing intelligence that makes these Iraq-al Qaeda links
less compelling. Let's see it all, or as much of it as can be
disclosed without compromising sources and methods.
Among the most important items to be declassified: the Iraq
Survey Group documents discussed above; any and all reporting
and documentation--including photographs--pertaining to Ahmed
Hikmat Shakir, the Iraqi and alleged Saddam Fedayeen officer
present at the September 11 planning meeting; interview
transcripts with top Iraqi intelligence officers, al Qaeda
terrorists, and leaders of al Qaeda affiliate Ansar al Islam;
documents recovered in postwar Iraq indicating that Abdul
Rahman Yasin, the Iraqi who has admitted mixing the
chemicals for the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, was
given safe haven and financial support by the Iraqi regime
upon returning to Baghdad two weeks after the attack; any
and all reporting and documentation--including
photographs--related to Mohammed Atta's visits to Prague;
portions of the debriefings of Faruq Hijazi, former deputy
director of Iraqi intelligence, who met personally with
bin Laden at least twice, and an evaluation of his
credibility.
It is of course important for the Bush administration and
CIA director George Tenent to back up their assertions of an
Iraq-al Qaeda connection. Similarly, declassifying
intelligence from the 1990s might shed light on why top
Clinton officials were adamant about an Iraq-al Qaeda
connection in Sudan and why the Clinton Justice Department
included the Iraq-al Qaeda relationship in its 1998
indictment of Osama bin Laden. More specifically, what
intelligence did Richard Clarke see that allowed him to tell
the Washington Post that the U.S. government was ``sure''
Iraq had provided a chemical weapons precursor to the al
Qaeda-linked al Shifa facility in Sudan? What would compel
former secretary of defense William Cohen to tell the
September 11 Commission, under oath, that an executive from
the al Qaeda-linked plant ``traveled to Baghdad to meet with
the father of the VX [nerve gas] program? And why did Thomas
Pickering, the undersecretary of state for political affairs,
tell reporters, ``We see evidence that we think is quite
clear on contacts between Sudan and Iraq. In fact, al Shifa
officials, early in the company's history, we believe were in
touch with Iraqi individuals associated with Iraq's VX
program''? Other Clinton administration figures, including a
``senior intelligence official'' who briefed reporters on
background, cited telephone intercepts between a plant
manager and Emad al Ani, the father of Iraq's chemical
weapons program.
We have seen important elements of the pre-September 11
intelligence available to the Bush administration; it's time
for the American public to see more of the intelligence on
Iraq and al Qaeda from the 1990s, especially the reporting
about the August 1998 attacks in Kenya and Tanzania and the
U.S. counter-strikes two weeks later.
Until this material is declassified, there will be gaps in
our knowledge. Indeed, even after the full record is made
public, some uncertainties will no doubt remain.
The connection between Saddam and al Qaeda isn't one of
them.
____________________