[Congressional Record Volume 154, Number 63 (Monday, April 21, 2008)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3181-S3185]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      SADDAM HUSSEIN AND AL-QAIDA

  Mr. KYL. Mr. President, it has been commonplace for critics of the 
war in Iraq to minimize, if not actually dismiss entirely, the links 
between Saddam Hussein and terrorists generally and al-Qaida 
specifically. This is part of a systematic effort by some, especially 
now that there are irrefutable signs of progress from the military

[[Page S3182]]

surge in Iraq, to change the narrative on the war. Instead of debating 
the way forward, they prefer instead to relitigate the past. In fact, 
earlier this month the distinguished majority leader stated:

       Prior to the invasion of Iraq, there was not a terrorist in 
     Iraq. And now, of course, there are lots of them.

  It is true that there are a lot of terrorists in Iraq which, of 
course, is the reason why we are still there fighting them and need to 
stay there until they are defeated. But it is not true that there were 
no terrorists in Iraq prior to our invasion. In fact, Saddam's ties to 
terrorists are well known and were confirmed yet again in a recent 
report commissioned by the Pentagon's Joint Forces Command. This report 
found that Saddam Hussein actively supported and financed terrorist 
activities during the years he controlled Iraq. The report, entitled 
``Iraqi Perspectives Project: Saddam and Terrorism: Emerging Insights 
from Captured Iraqi Documents,'' was released on March 13. It was the 
product of the analysis of over 600,000 documents captured in Iraq 
since 2003. It concluded that Saddam's security forces and Osama bin 
Laden's terrorist network ``operated with similar aims (at least in the 
short term).''
  According to the report:

       Though the execution of Iraqi terror plots was not always 
     successful, evidence shows that Saddam's use of terrorist 
     tactics and his support for terrorist groups remained strong 
     up until the collapse of his regime.

  The report found that Saddam Hussein worked with several different 
terrorist groups, including groups with direct ties to al-Qaida. Many 
were engaged in a jihad against the United States and its allies. It 
wasn't necessary to read with excruciating detail the entire 1,600-page 
report to find proof of these links; all of the above was available for 
all to see in the brief abstract that accompanied the report.
  Stephen Hayes offers extensive analysis of the entire report by the 
Joint Forces Command in the Weekly Standard magazine on March 24, 2008.
  I ask unanimous consent to have his article printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

               [From the Weekly Standard, Mar. 24, 2008]

  Saddam's Dangerous Friends: What a Pentagon Review of 600,000 Iraqi 
                           Documents Tells us

                         (By Stephen F. Hayes)

       This ought to be big news. Throughout the early and mid-
     1990s, Saddam Hussein actively supported an influential 
     terrorist group headed by the man who is now al Qaeda's 
     second-in-command, according to an exhaustive study issued 
     last week by the Pentagon. ``Saddam supported groups that 
     either associated directly with al Qaeda (such as the 
     Egyptian Islamic Jihad, led at one time by bin Laden's 
     deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri) or that generally shared al 
     Qaeda's stated goals and objectives.'' According to the 
     Pentagon study, Egyptian Islamic Jihad was one of many 
     jihadist groups that Iraq's former dictator funded, trained, 
     equipped, and armed.
       The study was commissioned by the Joint Forces Command in 
     Norfolk, Virginia, and produced by analysts at the Institute 
     for Defense Analyses, a federally funded military think tank. 
     It is entitled ``Iraqi Perspectives Project: Saddam and 
     Terrorism: Emerging Insights from Captured Iraqi Documents.'' 
     The study is based on a review of some 600,000 documents 
     captured in postwar Iraq. Those ``documents'' include 
     letters, memos, computer files, audiotapes, and videotapes 
     produced by Saddam Hussein's regime, especially his 
     intelligence services. The analysis section of the study 
     covers 59 pages. The appendices, which include copies of some 
     of the captured documents and translations, put the entire 
     study at approximately 1,600 pages.
       An abstract that describes the study reads, in part:
       Because Saddam's security organizations and Osama bin 
     Laden's terrorist network operated with similar aims (at 
     least in the short term), considerable overlap was inevitable 
     when monitoring, contacting, financing, and training the same 
     outside groups. This created both the appearance of and, in 
     some way, a `de facto' link between the organizations. At 
     times, these organizations would work together in pursuit of 
     shared goals but still maintain their autonomy and 
     independence because of innate caution and mutual distrust. 
     Though the execution of Iraqi terror plots was not always 
     successful, evidence shows that Saddam's use of terrorist 
     tactics and his support for terrorist groups remained strong 
     up until the collapse of the regime.''
       Among the study's other notable findings:
       In 1993, as Osama bin Laden's fighters battled Americans in 
     Somalia, Saddam Hussein personally ordered the formation of 
     an Iraqi terrorist group to join the battle there.
       For more than two decades, the Iraqi regime trained non-
     Iraqi jihadists in training camps throughout Iraq.
       According to a 1993 internal Iraqi intelligence memo, the 
     regime was supporting a secret Islamic Palestinian 
     organization dedicated to ``armed jihad against the Americans 
     and Western interests.''
       In the 1990s, Iraq's military intelligence directorate 
     trained and equipped ``Sudanese fighters.''
       In 1998, the Iraqi regime offered ``financial and moral 
     support'' to a new group of jihadists in Kurdish-controlled 
     northern Iraq.
       In 2002, the year before the war began, the Iraqi regime 
     hosted in Iraq a series of 13 conferences for non-Iraqi 
     jihadist groups.
       That same year, a branch of the Iraqi Intelligence Service 
     (IIS) issued hundreds of Iraqi passports for known 
     terrorists.
       There is much, much more. Documents reveal that the regime 
     stockpiled bombmaking materials in Iraqi embassies around the 
     world and targeted Western journalists for assassination. In 
     July 2001, an Iraqi Intelligence agent described an al Qaeda 
     affiliate in Bahrain, the Army of Muhammad, as ``under the 
     wings of bin Laden.'' Although the organization ``is an 
     offshoot of bin Laden,'' the fact that it has a different 
     name ``can be a way of camouflaging the organization.'' The 
     agent is told to deal with the al Qaeda group according to 
     ``priorities previously established.''
       In describing the relations between the Army of Muhammad 
     and the Iraqi regime, the authors of the Pentagon study come 
     to this conclusion: ``Captured documents reveal that the 
     regime was willing to co-opt or support organizations it knew 
     to be part of al Qaeda--as long as that organization's near-
     term goals supported Saddam's long-term vision.''
       As I said, this ought to be big news. And, in a way, it 
     was. A headline in the New York Times, a cursory item in the 
     Washington Post, and stories on NPR and ABC News reported 
     that the study showed no links between al Qaeda and Saddam 
     Hussein.
       How can a study offering an unprecedented look into the 
     closed regime of a brutal dictator, with over 1,600 pages of 
     ``strong evidence that links the regime of Saddam Hussein to 
     regional and global terrorism,'' in the words of its authors, 
     receive a wave-of-the-hand dismissal from America's most 
     prestigious news outlets? All it took was a leak to a 
     gullible reporter, one misleading line in the study's 
     executive summary, a boneheaded Pentagon press office, an 
     incompetent White House, and widespread journalistic 
     negligence.
       On Monday, March 10, 2008, Warren P. Strobel, a reporter 
     from the McClatchy News Service first reported that the new 
     Pentagon study was coming. ``An exhaustive review of more 
     than 600,000 Iraqi documents that were captured after the 
     2003 U.S. invasion has found no evidence that Saddam 
     Hussein's regime had any operational links with Osama bin 
     Laden's al Qaida terrorist network.'' McClatchy is a 
     newspaper chain that serves many of America's largest cities. 
     The national security reporters in its Washington bureau have 
     earned a reputation as reliable outlets for anti-Bush 
     administration spin on intelligence. Strobel quoted a ``U.S. 
     official familiar with the report'' who told him that the 
     search of Iraqi documents yielded no evidence of a ``direct 
     operational link'' between Iraq and al Qaeda. Strobel used 
     the rest of the article to attempt to demonstrate that this 
     undermined the Bush administration's prewar claims with 
     regard to Iraq and terrorism.
       With the study not scheduled for release for two more days, 
     this article shaped subsequent coverage, which was no doubt 
     the leaker's purpose. Stories from other media outlets 
     tracked McClatchy very closely but began to incorporate a 
     highly misleading phrase taken from the executive summary: 
     ``This study found no `smoking gun' (i.e. direct connection) 
     between Saddam's Iraq and al Qaeda.'' This is how the 
     Washington Post wrote it up:
       An examination of more than 600,000 Iraqi documents, audio 
     and video records collected by U.S. forces since the March 
     2003 invasion has concluded that there is `no smoking gun' 
     supporting the Bush administration's prewar assertion of an 
     `operational relationship' between Saddam Hussein and the al-
     Qaeda terrorist network, sources familiar with the study 
     said.''
       Much of the confusion might have been avoided if the Bush 
     administration had done anything to promote the study. An 
     early version of the Pentagon study was provided to National 
     Security Adviser Steve Hadley more than a year ago, before 
     November 2006. In recent weeks, as the Pentagon handled the 
     rollout of the study, Hadley was tasked with briefing 
     President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney. It's unclear 
     whether he shared the study with President Bush, and NSC 
     officials did not respond to repeated requests for comment. 
     But sources close to Cheney say the vice president was 
     blindsided.
       After the erroneous report from McClatchy, two officials 
     involved with the study became very concerned about the 
     misreporting of its contents. One of them said in an 
     interview that he found the media coverage of the study 
     ``disappointing.'' Another, James Lacey, expressed his 
     concern in an email to Karen Finn in the Pentagon press 
     office, who was handling the rollout of the study. On 
     Tuesday, the day before it was scheduled for release, Lacey 
     wrote: ``1. The story has been leaked. 2. ABC News is doing a 
     story based on the executive summary tonight. 3. The 
     Washington Post is doing a

[[Page S3183]]

     story based on rumors they heard from ABC News. The document 
     is being misrepresented. I recommend we put [it] out and on a 
     website immediately.''
       Finn declined, saying that members of Congress had not been 
     told the study was coming. ``Despite the leak, there are 
     Congressional notifications and then an official public 
     release. This should not be posted on the web until these 
     actions are complete.''
       Still under the misimpression that the Pentagon study 
     undermined the case for war, McClatchy's Warren Strobel saw 
     this bureaucratic infighting as a conspiracy to suppress the 
     study:
       The Pentagon on Wednesday canceled plans for broad public 
     release of a study that found no pre-Iraq war link between 
     late Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and the al Qaida 
     terrorist network. . . . The reversal highlighted the 
     politically sensitive nature of its conclusions, which were 
     first reported Monday by McClatchy.
       In making their case for invading Iraq in 2002 and 2003, 
     President Bush and his top national security aides claimed 
     that Saddam's regime had ties to Osama bin Laden's al Qaida 
     terrorist network.
       But the study, based on more than 600,000 captured 
     documents, including audio and video files, found that while 
     Saddam sponsored terrorism, particularly against opponents of 
     his regime and against Israel, there was no evidence of an al 
     Qaida link.
       An examination of the rest of the study makes the White 
     House decision to ignore the Pentagon study even more 
     curious. The first section explores ``Terror as an Instrument 
     of State Power'' and describes documents detailing Fedayeen 
     Saddam terrorist training camps in Iraq. Graduates of the 
     terror training camps would be dispatched to sensitive sites 
     to carry out their assassinations and bombings. In May 1999, 
     the regime plotted an operation code named ``Blessed July'' 
     in which the top graduates of the terrorist training courses 
     would be sent to London, Iran, and Kurdistan to conduct 
     assassinations and bombings.
       A separate set of documents presents, according to the 
     Pentagon study, ``evidence of logistical preparation for 
     terrorist operations in other nations, including those in the 
     West.'' In one letter, a director of the Iraqi Intelligence 
     Service (IIS) responds to a request from Saddam for an 
     inventory of weapons stockpiled in Iraqi embassies throughout 
     the world. The terrorist tools include missile launchers and 
     missiles, ``American missile launchers,'' explosive 
     materials, TNT, plastic explosive charges, Kalashnikov 
     rifles, and ``booby-trapped suitcases.''
       The July 2002 Iraqi memo describes how these weapons were 
     distributed to the operatives in embassies.
       Between the year 2000 and 2002 explosive materials were 
     transported to embassies outside Iraq for special work, upon 
     the approval of the Director of the Iraqi Intelligence 
     Service. The responsibility for these materials is in the 
     hands of heads of stations. Some of these materials were 
     transported in the political mail carriers [Diplomatic 
     Pouch]. Some of these materials were transported by car in 
     booby-trapped briefcases.
       Saddam also recruited non-Iraqi jihadists to serve as 
     suicide bombers on behalf of the Iraqi regime. According to 
     the study, captured documents ``indicate that as early as 
     January 1998, the scheduling of suicide volunteers was 
     routine enough to warrant not only a national-level policy 
     letter but a formal schedule--during summer vacation--
     built around maximizing availability of Arab citizens in 
     Iraq on Saddam-funded scholarships.''
       The second section of the Pentagon study concerns ``State 
     Relationships with Terrorist Groups.'' An IIS document dated 
     March 18, 1993, lists nine terrorist ``organizations that our 
     agency [IIS] cooperates with and have relations with various 
     elements in many parts of the Arab world and who also have 
     the expertise to carry out assignments'' on behalf of the 
     regime. Several well-known Palestinian terrorist 
     organizations make the list, including Abu Nidal's Fatah-
     Revolutionary Council and Abu Abbas's Palestinian Liberation 
     Front. Another group, the secret ``Renewal and Jihad 
     Organization'' is described this way in the Iraqi memo:
       It believes in armed jihad against the Americans and 
     Western interests. They also believe our leader [Saddam 
     Hussein], may God protect him, is the true leader in the war 
     against the infidels. The organization's leaders live in 
     Jordan when they visited Iraq two months ago they 
     demonstrated a willingness to carry out operations against 
     American interests at any time.''
       Other groups listed in the Iraqi memo include the ``Islamic 
     Scholars Group'' and the ``Pakistan Scholars Group.''
       There are two terrorist organizations on the Iraqi 
     Intelligence list that deserve special consideration: the 
     Afghani Islamic Party of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and the Egyptian 
     Islamic Jihad of Ayman al Zawahiri.
       This IIS document provides this description of the Afghani 
     Islamic Party:
       It was founded in 1974 when its leader [Gulbuddin 
     Hekmatyar] escaped from Afghanistan to Pakistan. It is 
     considered one of the extreme political religious movements 
     against the West, and one of the strongest Sunni parties in 
     Afghanistan. The organization relies on financial support 
     from Iraq and we have had good relations with Hikmatyar since 
     1989.
       In his book Holy War, Inc., Peter Bergen, a terrorism 
     analyst who has long been skeptical of Iraq-al Qaeda 
     connections, describes Hekmatyar as Osama bin Laden's ``alter 
     ego.'' Bergen writes: ``Bin Laden and Hekmatyar worked 
     closely together. During the early 1990s al-Qaeda's training 
     camps in the Khost region of eastern Afghanistan were 
     situated in an area controlled by Hekmatyar's party.''
       It's worth dwelling for a moment on that set of facts. An 
     internal Iraqi Intelligence document reports that Iraqis have 
     ``good relations'' with Hekmatyar and that his organization 
     ``relies on financial support from Iraq.'' At precisely the 
     same time, Hekmatyar ``worked closely'' with Osama bin Laden 
     and his Afghani Islamic Party hosted ``al Qaeda's terrorist 
     training camps'' in eastern Afghanistan.
       The IIS document also reveals that Saddam was funding 
     another close ally of bin Laden, the EIJ organization of 
     Ayman al Zawahiri.
       In a meeting in the Sudan we agreed to renew our relations 
     with the Islamic Jihad Organization in Egypt. Our information 
     on the group is as follows:
       It was established in 1979.
       Its goal is to apply the Islamic shari'a law and establish 
     Islamic rule.
       It is considered one of the most brutal Egyptian 
     organizations. It carried out numerous successful operations, 
     including the assassination of [Egyptian President Anwar] 
     Sadat.
       We have previously met with the organization's 
     representative and we agreed on a plan to carry out commando 
     operations against the Egyptian regime.
       Zawahiri arrived in Afghanistan in the mid-1980s, and 
     ``from the start he concentrated his efforts on getting close 
     to bin Laden,'' according to Lawrence Wright, in The Looming 
     Tower. The leaders of EIJ quickly became leaders of bin 
     Laden's organizations. ``He soon succeeded in placing trusted 
     members of Islamic Jihad in key positions around bin Laden,'' 
     Wright reported in the definitive profile of Zawahiri, 
     published in the New Yorker in September 2002. ``According to 
     the Islamist attorney Montasser al-Zayat, 'Zawahiri 
     completely controlled bin Laden. The largest share of bin 
     Laden's financial support went to Zawahiri and the Jihad 
     organization.''
       Later, Wright describes the founding of al Qaeda.
       Toward the end of 1989, a meeting took place in the Afghan 
     town of Khost at a mujahideen camp. A Sudanese fighter named 
     Jamal al-Fadl was among the participants, and he later 
     testified about the event in a New York courtroom during one 
     of the trials connected with the 1998 bombing of the American 
     embassies in East Africa. According to Fadl, the meeting was 
     attended by ten men--four or five of them Egyptians, 
     including Zawahiri. Fadl told the court that the chairman of 
     the meeting, an Iraqi known as Abu Ayoub, proposed the 
     formation of a new organization that would wage jihad beyond 
     the borders of Afghanistan. There was some dispute about the 
     name, but ultimately the new organization came to be called 
     Al Qaeda--the Base. The alliance was conceived as a loose 
     affiliation among individual mujahideen and established 
     groups, and was dominated by Egyptian Islamic Jihad. The 
     ultimate boss, however, was Osama bin Laden, who held the 
     checkbook.
       Once again, it's worth dwelling on these facts for a 
     moment. In 1989, Ayman al Zawahiri attended the founding 
     meeting of al Qaeda. He was literally present at the 
     creation, and his EIJ ``dominated'' the new organization 
     headed by Osama bin Laden.
       In the early 1990s, Zawahiri and bin Laden moved their 
     operations to Sudan. After a fundraising trip to the United 
     States in the spring of 1993, Zawahiri returned to Sudan 
     where, again according to Wright, he ``began working more 
     closely with bin Laden, and most of the Egyptian members of 
     Islamic Jihad went on the Al Qaeda payroll.'' Although some 
     members of EIJ were skeptical of bin Laden and his global 
     aspirations, Zawahiri sought a de facto merger with al 
     Qaeda. One of his top assistants would later say Zawahiri 
     had told him that ``joining with bin Laden [was] the only 
     solution to keeping the Jihad organization alive.''
       Again, at precisely the same time Zawahiri was ``joining 
     with bin Laden,'' the spring of 1993, he was being funded by 
     Saddam Hussein's Iraq. As Zawahiri's jihadists trained in al 
     Qaeda camps in Sudan, his representative to Iraq was planning 
     ``commando operations'' against the Egyptian government with 
     the IIS.
       Another captured Iraqi document from early 1993 ``reports 
     on contact with a large number of terrorist groups in the 
     region, including those that maintained an office or liaison 
     in Iraq.'' In the same folder is a memo from Saddam Hussein 
     to a member of his Revolutionary Council ordering the 
     formation of ``a group to start hunting Americans present on 
     Arab soil, especially Somalia.'' A second memo to the 
     director of the IIS, instructs him to revise the plan for 
     ``operations inside Somalia.''
       More recently, captured ``annual reports'' of the IIS 
     reveal support for terrorist organizations in the months 
     leading up the U.S. invasion in March 2003. According to the 
     Pentagon study, ``the IIS hosted thirteen conferences in 2002 
     for a number of Palestinian and other organizations, 
     including delegations from the Islamic Jihad Movement and the 
     Director General for the Popular Movement for the Liberation 
     of al-Ahwaz.'' The same annual report ``also notes that among 
     the 699 passports, renewals and other official

[[Page S3184]]

     documentation that the IIS issued, many were issued to known 
     members of terrorist organizations.''
       The Pentagon study goes on to describe captured documents 
     that instruct the IIS to maintain contact with all manner of 
     Arab movement and others that ``reveal that later IIS 
     activities went beyond just maintaining contact.'' Throughout 
     the 1990s, the Iraqi regime's General Military Intelligence 
     Directorate ``was training Sudanese fighters inside Iraq.''
       The second section of the Pentagon study also discusses 
     captured documents related to the Islamic Resistance 
     organization in Kurdistan from 1998 and 1999. The documents 
     show that the Iraqi regime provided ``financial and moral 
     support'' to members of the group, which would later become 
     part of the al Qaeda affiliate in the region, Ansar al Islam.
       The third section of the Pentagon study is called ``Iraq 
     and Terrorism: Three Cases.'' One of the cases is that of the 
     Army of Muhammad, the al Qaeda affiliate in Bahrain. A series 
     of memoranda order an Iraqi Intelligence operative in Bahrain 
     to explore a relationship with its leaders. On July 9, 2001, 
     the agent reports back: ``Information available to us is that 
     the group is under the wings of bin Laden. They receive their 
     directions from Yemen. Their objectives are the same as bin 
     Laden.'' Later, he lists the organization's objectives.
       Jihad in the name of God.
       Striking the embassies and other Jewish and American 
     interests anywhere in the world.
       Attacking the American and British military bases in the 
     Arab land.
       Striking American embassies and interests unless the 
     Americans pull out their forces from the Arab lands and 
     discontinue their support for Israel.
       Disrupting oil exports [to] the Americans from Arab 
     countries and threatening tankers carrying oil to them.
       A separate memo reveals that the Army of Muhammad has 
     requested assistance from Iraq. The study authors summarize 
     the response by writing, ``the local IIS station has been 
     told to deal with them in accordance with priorities 
     previously established. The IIS agent goes on to inform the 
     Director that this organization is an offshoot of bin Laden, 
     but that their objectives are similar but with different 
     names that can be a way of camouflaging the organization.''
       We never learn what those ``previous priorities'' were and 
     thus what, if anything, came of these talks. But it is 
     instructive that the operative in Bahrain understood the 
     importance of disguising relations with al Qaeda and that the 
     director of IIS, knowing that the group was affiliated with 
     bin Laden and sought to attack Americans, seemed more 
     interested in continuing the relationship than in ending it.
       The fourth and final section of the Pentagon study is 
     called ``The Business of Terror.'' The authors write: ``An 
     example of indirect cooperation is the movement led by Osama 
     bin Laden. During the 1990s, both Saddam and bin Laden wanted 
     the West, particularly the United States, out of Muslim lands 
     (or in the view of Saddam, the ``Arab nation''). . . . In 
     pursuit of their own separate but surprisingly `parallel' 
     visions, Saddam and bin Laden often found a common enemy in 
     the United States.''
       They further note that Saddam's security organizations and 
     bin Laden's network were recruiting within the same 
     demographic, spouting much of the same rhetoric, and 
     promoting a common historical narrative that promised a 
     return to a glorious past. That these movements (pan-Arab and 
     pan-Islamic) had many similarities and strategic parallels 
     does not mean they saw themselves in that light. 
     Nevertheless, these similarities created more than just the 
     appearance of cooperation. Common interests, even without 
     common cause, increased the aggregate terror threat.
       As much as we have learned from this impressive collection 
     of documents, it is only a fraction of what we will know in 
     10, 20, or 50 years. The authors themselves acknowledge the 
     limits of their work.
       In fact, there are several captured Iraqi documents that 
     have been authenticated by the U.S. government that were not 
     included in the study but add to the picture it sketches. One 
     document, authenticated by the Defense Intelligence Agency 
     and first reported on 60 Minutes, is dated March 28, 1992. It 
     describes Osama bin Laden as an Iraqi intelligence asset 
     ``in good contact'' with the IIS station in Syria.
       Another Iraqi document, this one from the mid-1990s, was 
     first reported in the New York Times on June 25, 2004. 
     Authenticated by a Pentagon and intelligence working group, 
     the document was titled ``Iraqi Effort to Cooperate with 
     Saudi Opposition Groups and Individuals.'' The working group 
     concluded that it ``corroborates and expands on previous 
     reporting'' on contacts between Iraq and al Qaeda. It 
     revealed that a Sudanese government official met with Uday 
     Hussein and the director of the IIS in 1994 and reported that 
     bin Laden was willing to meet in Sudan. Bin Laden, according 
     to the Iraqi document, was then ``approached by our side'' 
     after ``presidential approval'' for the liaison was given. 
     The former head of Iraqi Intelligence Directorate 4 met with 
     bin Laden on February 19, 1995. The document further states 
     that bin Laden ``had some reservations about being labeled an 
     Iraqi operative''--a comment that suggests the possibility 
     had been discussed.
       Bin Laden requested that Iraq's state-run television 
     network broadcast anti-Saudi propaganda, and the document 
     indicates that the Iraqis agreed to do this. The al Qaeda 
     leader also proposed ``joint operations against foreign 
     forces'' in Saudi Arabia. There is no Iraqi response provided 
     in the documents. When bin Laden left Sudan for Afghanistan 
     in May 1996, the Iraqis sought ``other channels through which 
     to handle the relationship, in light of his current 
     location.'' The IIS memo directs that ``cooperation between 
     the two organizations should be allowed to develop freely 
     through discussion and agreement.''
       In another instance, the new Pentagon study makes reference 
     to captured documents detailing the Iraqi relationship with 
     Abu Sayyaf, the al Qaeda affiliate in the Philippines founded 
     by Osama bin Laden's brother-in-law. But the Pentagon study 
     does not mention the most significant element of those 
     documents, first reported in these pages. In a memo from 
     Ambassador Salah Samarmad to the Secondary Policy Directorate 
     of the Iraqi Foreign Ministry, we learn that the Iraqi regime 
     had been funding and equipping Abu Sayyaf, which had been 
     responsible for a series of high-profile kidnappings. The 
     Iraqi operative informs Baghdad that such support had been 
     suspended. ``The kidnappers were formerly (from the previous 
     year) receiving money and purchasing combat weapons. From now 
     on we (IIS) are not giving them this opportunity and are not 
     on speaking terms with them.'' That support would resume soon 
     enough, and shortly before the war a high-ranking Iraqi 
     diplomat named Hisham Hussein would be expelled from the 
     Philippines after his cell phone number appeared on an Abu 
     Sayyaf cell phone used to detonate a bomb.
       What's happening here is obvious. Military historians and 
     terrorism analysts are engaged in a good faith effort to 
     review the captured documents from the Iraqi regime and 
     provide a dispassionate, fact-based examination of Saddam 
     Hussein's long support of jihadist terrorism. Most reporters 
     don't care. They are trapped in a world where the Bush 
     administration lied to the country about an Iraq-al Qaeda 
     connection, and no amount of evidence to the contrary--not 
     even the words of the fallen Iraqi regime itself--can 
     convince them to reexamine their mistaken assumptions.
       Bush administration officials, meanwhile, tell us that the 
     Iraq war is the central front in the war on terror and that 
     American national security depends on winning there. And yet 
     they are too busy or too tired or too lazy to correct these 
     fundamental misperceptions about the case for war, the most 
     important decision of the Bush presidency.
       What good is the truth if nobody knows it?

  Mr. KYL. The Joint Forces Command report sheds light on the 
relationship between Saddam Hussein and Ayman al-Zawahiri, Osama bin 
Laden's second in command.
  I quote:

       Saddam supported groups either associated directly with al 
     Qaeda (such as the Egyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ), led at one 
     time by bin Laden's deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri) or that 
     generally shared al Qaeda's stated goals and objectives.

  Mr. Hayes notes in his article that Zawahiri's organization was being 
financed by Saddam Hussein at the very time Zawahiri was working almost 
exclusively with bin Laden. In fact, Zawahiri had been working with al-
Qaida from its inception in late 1989. By 1993, Zawahiri, as the leader 
of the EIJ, sought to merge the organization with al-Qaida and, in 
fact, the two terrorist organizations eventually merged in 1998.
  The Standard further reported that:

       Captured documents revealed that the regime was willing to 
     co-opt support organizations it knew to be part of al Qaeda 
     as long as that organization's near-term goals supported 
     Saddam's long-term vision.

  The more than 600,000 documents likely revealed only a fraction of 
what we will ultimately know of the true relationship between bin 
Laden, the global jihad, and Saddam Hussein. Given this information, it 
is a surprise that many in the mainstream media have concluded only 
that there was no smoking gun linking al-Qaida and Saddam Hussein, thus 
failing to report the key findings in the report to the American 
people.
  I am not one who supports relitigating why it was necessary for the 
United States to remove Saddam Hussein from power. But for those who 
find themselves stuck in the past, the Iraqi Perspective Project 
provides yet another substantial body of evidence, adding to that which 
was before the Congress when we authorized the Iraq mission. I want to 
refer to one item in that body of evidence, a letter, dated October 7, 
2002, from CIA Director George Tenet to the Honorable Bob Graham, then 
chairman of the Select Committee on intelligence. Among the things he 
writes in this letter, these are the items that were available to us

[[Page S3185]]

before we authorized the invasion of Iraq. He refers to a question by 
Senator Bayh about Iraqi links to al-Qaida. He says Senators could draw 
the following points from unclassified documents. There was, of course, 
much more that was classified. I will quote this brief portion of his 
letter:

       Our understanding of relationship between Iraq and al-
     Qa'ida 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-Qa'ida going back a decade.
       Credible information indicates that Iraq and al-Qa'ida have 
     discussed safe haven and reciprocal non-aggression.
       Since Operation Enduring Freedom, we have solid evidence of 
     the presence in Iraq of al-Qa'ida members, including some 
     that have been in Baghdad.
       We have credible reporting that al-Qa'ida leaders sought 
     contacts in Iraq who could help them acquire WMD 
     capabilities. The reporting also stated that Iraq has 
     provided training to al-Qa'ida members in the areas of 
     poisons and gases and making conventional bombs.
       Iraq's increasing support to extremist Palestinians, 
     coupled with growing indications of a relationship with al-
     Qa'ida, suggest that Baghdad's links to terrorists will 
     increase, even absent US military action.

  I commend the Joint Forces Command for its ongoing, exhaustive review 
of this record of intelligence collected in Iraq. I urge all colleagues 
to take the time to educate themselves on its findings. I urge the 
administration to undertake a serious effort to correct the 
misimpressions formed in recent years about this important issue.
  There can be no doubt. Saddam Hussein was a threat. He actively 
supported terrorists both in and outside of Iraq, and the world is a 
safer place for him having been removed from power.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Iowa.

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