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Clarke feared bin Laden might
'boogie' to Iraq
9-11 report says counterterror czar
believed Saddam offered asylum
Posted: July 24, 2004
1:00 a.m. Eastern
� 2004 WorldNetDaily.com
Richard
Clarke |
Former counterterrorism czar
Richard Clarke insisted to media during the spring 9-11 commission
hearings that Saddam Hussein had no connection to al-Qaida, but the
panel's final report says that in February 1999 he feared Osama bin Laden
might flee to Baghdad.
The report, on page 134
[Requires PDF viewer], says Clarke was nervous about a U-2
surveillance mission over Afghan tribal areas proposed by the CIA, because
"he continued to fear" that bin Laden might "leave for someplace less
accessible."
Clarke wrote to Deputy National Security Advisor Donald Kerrick,
according to the 9-11 report, that "one reliable source reported [bin
Laden's] having met with Iraqi officials, who 'may have offered him
asylum.'"
Other intelligence sources, the 9-11 report continues, said that some
Taliban leaders, though not Mullah Omar, had urged bin Laden to go to
Iraq.
If bin Laden actually moved to Iraq, wrote Clarke, his network would be
at Saddam Hussein's service, and it would be "virtually impossible" to
find him.
It would be better, Clarke declared, to get bin Laden in Afghanistan.
The 9-11 report says former National Security Adviser Sandy Berger, now
the subject
of a federal probe for allegedly pilfering top-secret documents,
suggested sending one U-2 flight, "but Clarke opposed even this."
It would require Pakistani approval, Clarke wrote, and Pakistan's
intelligence service is "in bed with" bin Laden and would warn him that
the United States was getting ready for a bombing campaign.
"Armed with that knowledge, old wily Usama will likely boogie to
Baghdad," Clarke wrote.
The 9-11 report says: "Though told also by Bruce Riedel of the
[National Security Council] staff that Saddam wanted bin Laden in Baghdad,
Berger conditionally authorized a single U-2 flight."
The CIA was able to find other ways to get its information, so the U-2
flight never occurred, the report says.
WorldNetDaily reported
yesterday that Berger blocked four separate plans of action against
the al-Qaida terrorist network from 1998 to 2000, according to the 9-11
commission report.
As WND
reported, in a March interview
with Lesley Stahl on "60 Minutes," Clarke denied Saddam had any connection
to al-Qaida.
Stahl pressed Clarke further, asking, "Was Iraq supporting al-Qaida?"
Clarke replied: "There is absolutely no evidence that Iraq was
supporting al-Qaida ever."
In 1999, however, he defended President Clinton's attack on a Sudanese
pharmaceutical plant by revealing the U.S. was "sure" it manufactured
chemical warfare materials produced by Iraqi experts in cooperation with
bin Laden.
Clarke told the Washington Post in a Jan. 23, 1999, story U.S.
intelligence officials had obtained a soil sample from the El Shifa
pharmaceutical plant in Khartoum, which was hit with Tomahawk cruise
missiles in retaliation for bin Laden's role in the Aug. 7, 1998, embassy
bombings in Africa.
The sample contained a precursor of VX nerve gas, which Clarke said
when mixed with bleach and water, would have become fully active VX nerve
gas.
Clarke told the Post the U.S. did not know how much of the substance
was produced at El Shifa or what happened to it.
"But he said that intelligence exists linking bin Laden to El Shifa's
current and past operators, the Iraqi nerve gas experts and the National
Islamic Front in Sudan," the paper reported.
Related story:
In
'99, Clarke saw Iraq-al-Qaida link
