> Yes, but according to Mr. Bush there has never been
> ANY evidence
> linking Al Queda to Iraq. He's said this plainly.
> Therefore invading
> Iraq disrupted "them", but not Al Queda.
> I'll believe anything that has proof - there is
> none, zero, zip, zilch
> proof that Al Queda has had anything to do with
> Iraq. Mr. Bush has
> explicitly stated this.
Here are some relevant facts about Iraqi support for
terrorism:
* On March 28, 1992, the Iraqi Intelligence Service
compiled a 20-page list of terrorists the regime
considered intelligence assets. Atop each page was the
designation "Top Secret." On page 14 of that list is
Osama bin Laden. The Iraqi Intelligence document
reports that bin Laden "is in good relationship with
our section in Syria." The document has been vetted
and authenticated by the Defense Intelligence Agency.
The existence of the document was first reported on
CBS's 60 Minutes. It has been widely ignored.
* Saddam Hussein hosted regular conferences for
terrorists in Baghdad throughout the 1990s. Mark
Fineman, a reporter for the Los Angeles Times,
reported on one such gathering in an article published
January 26, 1993. "There are delegates from the most
committed Islamic organizations on Earth," he wrote.
"Afghan mujahideen (holy warriors), Palestinian
militants, Sudanese fundamentalists, the Islamic
Brotherhood and Pakistan's Party of Islam." One
speaker praised "the mujahid Saddam Hussein, who is
leading this nation against the nonbelievers. Everyone
has a task to do, which is to go against the American
state."
* Abdul Rahman Yasin is an Iraqi who mixed the
chemicals for the bomb used in the first World Trade
Center attack on February 26, 1993. We know this
because he has confessed--twice to the FBI and once on
national television in the United States. He fled to
Iraq on March 5,1993, with the help of an Iraqi
Intelligence operative working under cover in the
Iraqi Embassy in Amman, Jordan. A reporter for
Newsweek interviewed Yasin's neighbors in Baghdad who
reported that he was living freely and "working for
the government." U.S. soldiers uncovered Iraqi
government documents in postwar Iraq that confirm
this. The documents show Yasin was given both safe
haven and financing by the Iraqi regime until the eve
of the war in Iraq.
* Later that same month--March 1993--Wali al Ghazali
was approached by an Iraqi Intelligence officer named
Abdel Hussein. Ghazali, a male nurse from Najaf, met
another IIS agent named Abu Mrouwah who gave him an
urgent mission: assassinate former President George
H.W. Bush on his upcoming trip to Kuwait. On April 14,
Kuwaiti police found Ghazali and other Iraqi
Intelligence assets with two hundred pounds of
explosives in a Toyota Landcruiser. Ghazali, the
would-be assassin, told a Kuwait court that he had
"been pushed by people who had no mercy." He said: "I
fear the Iraqi regime, the Iraqi regime pushed me."
* According to numerous press reports, the deputy
director of Iraqi Intelligence, Faruq Hijazi, met
face-to-face with Osama bin Laden in 1994. Bin Laden
asked for anti-ship mines and al Qaeda training camps
in Iraq. There is no indication that Iraq made good on
his requests.
* That same year, according to internal Iraqi
Intelligence documents authenticated by the U.S.
intelligence community and reported in the June 25,
2004, New York Times, a Sudanese government official
met with Uday Hussein and the director of Iraqi
Intelligence to facilitate the relationship between
Iraq and al Qaeda.
* According to the New York Times, the same Iraqi
Intelligence document said that bin Laden earlier "had
some reservations about being labeled an Iraqi
operative" and that "presidential approval" had been
granted to the Iraqi Intelligence service to meet with
him. Bin Laden "also requested join operations against
foreign forces" in Saudi Arabia. At bin Laden's
request, Saddam Hussein also agreed to broadcast on
Iraqi television sermons of an anti-Saudi cleric.
* The Clinton administration cited an "understanding"
between Iraq and al Qaeda in its 1998 indictment of
Osama bin Laden. "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."
* The 9/11 Commission reports that Iraq and al Qaeda
had a series of "friendly contacts" that did not
appear to have developed into a "collaborative
operations relationship." The final report provides
details of meetings between senior Iraqi Intelligence
officials and al Qaeda terrorists throughout the
spring and summer of 1998 and indicates that "Iraqi
official offered bin Laden a safe haven in Iraq."
* The offer of asylum was also included in the Senate
Intelligence Committee's unanimous, bipartisan review
of prewar intelligence. From p. 335 of the Senate
report: "A [CIA Counterterrorism Center] operational
summary from April 13, 1999, notes four other
intelligence reports mentioning Saddam Hussein's
"standing offer of safe haven to Osama bin Laden."
* This, from p. 316 of the Senate Intelligence
Committee report: "From 1996 to 2003, the [Iraqi
Intelligence Service] focused its terrorist activities
on western interests, particularly against the U.S.
and Israel. The CIA summarized nearly 50 intelligence
reports as examples, using language directly from the
intelligence reports. Ten intelligence reports, from
multiple sources, indicated IIS 'casing' operations
against Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty in Prague
began in 1998 and continued into early 2003. The CIA
assessed, based on the Prague casings and a variety of
other reporting, that throughout 2002 the IIS was
becoming increasingly aggressive in planning attacks
against U.S. interests."
* Page 331 of the Senate report: "Twelve reports
received [redacted] from sources that the CIA
described as having varying reliability, cited Iraq or
Iraqi national involvement in al Qaeda's CBW [chemical
and biological weapons] efforts."
* Abu Musab al Zarqawi traveled to Iraq in May 2002.
He lived in Baghdad with the knowledge--and perhaps
sponsorship--of the Iraqi regime. A passage from p.
337 of the Senate Intelligence Committee report cites
a CIA report called Iraqi Support for Terrorism: "A
variety of reporting indicates that senior al Qaeda
terrorist planner al Zarqawi was in Baghdad
[redacted]. A foreign government service asserted that
the IIS knew where al Zarqawi was located despite
Baghdad's claims it could not find him." More, from p.
338: "Al Zarqawi and his network were operating both
in Baghdad and in the Kurdish-controlled region of
Iraq. The HUMINT reporting indicated that the Iraqi
regime certainly knew that al Zarqawi was in Baghdad
because a foreign government service gave that
information to Iraq."
* More recently, Hudayfa Azzam, the son of bin Laden's
longtime mentor Abdullah Azzam, told Agence France
Presse that the Iraqi regime worked closely with al
Qaeda in Iraq before the war. "Saddam Hussein's regime
welcomed them with open arms and young al Qaeda
members entered Iraq in large numbers, setting up an
organization to confront the occupation," he said in
an interview published August 29, 2004. Azzam added
that al Qaeda fighters "infiltrated into Iraq with the
help of Kurdish mujahideen from Afghanistan, across
mountains in Iran" and that once they arrived, Saddam
"strictly and directly" controlled their activities.
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/004/696twoqc.asp?pg=1
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