From today's Washington Post. Seems there's some confusion abou the links and disagreement about the interpretation of intelligence. Unwanted Debate on Iraq-Al Qaeda Links Revived By Karen DeYoung Washington Post Staff Writer Friday, September 27, 2002; Page A19 In a series of statements over the past 48 hours, the Bush administration has reignited debate over an issue it laid aside weeks ago: whether there is evidence of substantive, ongoing ties between al Qaeda and the government of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. On Tuesday, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said there is evidence of links between al Qaeda and Iraq, which he said had been discussed during a CIA briefing for NATO defense ministers meeting in Warsaw. On Wednesday, President Bush spoke of "the danger . . . that al Qaeda becomes an extension of Saddam's madness," and noted that "you can't distinguish between al Qaeda and Saddam when you talk about the war on terror." Wednesday night, White House national security adviser Condoleezza Rice said al Qaeda captives, "in particular some high-ranking detainees, have said that Iraq provided some training to al Qaeda in chemical weapons development. . . . And there are some al Qaeda personnel who found refuge in Baghdad" after U.S. attacks against them began in Afghanistan last October. While the comments appeared to announce new proof of such ties, administration officials offered no details to substantiate them, leaving what some officials acknowledged was a confusing picture of both the strength and the substance of the evidence "We have solid evidence of the presence in Iraq of al Qaeda members, including some members who have been in Baghdad," White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said yesterday. "We have solid reporting of senior-level contacts between al Qaeda and Iraqi officials going back a decade, and, as Condi said, of chemical and biological agent training." But Rumsfeld, back from Warsaw, took a somewhat different approach. He told reporters that rather than the "chemical and biological training" Rice and Fleischer said was provided by Iraq, there was "credible evidence that al Qaeda leaders have sought contacts in Iraq who could help them acquire weapons of mass destruction capabilities." That report, he said, had come from only one source. Another senior administration official with access to current intelligence, who asked that his name not be used, said that the report, dating from "the 1990s," included "no indication that those contacts were ever made or that they ever got anything." While there was evidence that "senior al Qaeda . . . have been in Baghdad in recent periods," Rumsfeld said he did not know if they were there now. The second official, again referring to intelligence information, said that "just how high those people were, or whether they were there with the knowledge and support of the Iraqis, is unknown." "We had dots," another senior official explained. "Now we have more dots. The density of the dots is increasing. Can we connect them categorically? No. Al Qaeda people have sought refuge" in Iraq, the official said. "Can we say Saddam Hussein welcomed them? We can't say that. You look for some kind of consensus on [intelligence] analysis, but it's very subjective." It was the murky nature of intelligence reporting that led Bush and his advisers to decide weeks ago to focus their appeals to Congress and the United Nations for tough new measures against Iraq on the most clear-cut case they could make. Hussein's continuing efforts to assemble an arsenal of weapons of mass destruction and defiance of a decade of U.N. Security Council resolutions were considered beyond dispute. Although Bush frequently cites the potential nexus between Iraqi weapons and anti-American terrorist groups such as al Qaeda as the greatest threat to this country, officials decided not to make it part of their public indictment against Hussein. While many are convinced the nexus exists, and cite new intelligence reports coming in daily, it was determined that raising the al Qaeda-Iraq connection risked division instead of the domestic and international unity Bush seeks. But this week, the administration seemed to veer widely by jumping directly into the al Qaeda thicket. "There's a lot of head-scratching going on," said one dismayed official. "We were all on message, and to kind of throw this out there might be perceived as an act of desperation" at precisely the time they were starting to gain traction on Capitol Hill and U.N. headquarters in New York. Testifying on Iraq before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee yesterday, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell met significant skepticism. "To say 'Yes, there is evidence here but I don't want to tell you any more about it,' that does not encourage any of us," Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.) said in reference to a Rumsfeld demurral this week. "Nor does it give the American public a heck of a lot of faith that what anyone is saying is true." Powell replied that there were proven "linkages" over the years, but that "perhaps part of the confusion on this issue is that we are learning more over time" as more captive al Qaeda members and Iraqi defectors are questioned. Much of this new information, Powell said, had been explained to them by CIA Director George J. Tenet in recent closed-door briefings. "I encourage you to look at what George said. We are doing the best we can not to strain our credibility. That is not in our interest and that is not our intention." Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.), the committee chairman, interjected: "I was at the briefing with the classified testimony, and let the record show I dissent" from Rumsfeld's characterization of the extent of the evidence. Several senior administration officials bemoaned the spotlight now focused on an issue they had chosen, at least for now, to bypass. Rumsfeld and others blamed the news media for seizing on it, and said they were merely trying to respond to reporters' questions. Rice, who made her Wednesday comments during an interview on PBS's "Jim Lehrer News Hour," had agreed to appear on the show to talk about the administration's new national security strategy document released Sept. 20, but was asked to expand on Rumsfeld's Warsaw comments, an aide said. When a reporter asked Rumsfeld yesterday why the administration was making an "orchestrated" public case, he replied: "I've been out of town, and I don't know anything about an orchestrated pattern. What I know is I was asked questions when I walked in here, so responded. If that's an orchestra, it's a funny orchestra."
nice read, rimrocker. thanks. Here's news from an (exclusive?) abcnews interview with northern Iraqis. Reliable? I dunno, but it's interesting. ---------------------------- Direct Links Detailed by Don Dahler S U L I Y A M A N I A, Iraq, Sept. 27 — In a prison in the part of Northern Iraq controlled by Kurds, I sat down with three men who claim to have first-hand knowledge of links between Osama bin Laden's organization and Iraq. The three men are in the custody of the Iraqi Kurdish government, which is opposed to Saddam Hussein's regime. All three assured me they were speaking of their own free will. They said they were not under threat of torture and they were aware they did not have to talk to me. But prison interviews are always suspect because there's no way to know if they're exaggerating or simply lying in order to curry favor from their captors, and the information is difficult to confirm. All three men appeared to be calm and sincere, and their responses were very detailed, often including names and specific dates. Talking to me, they said, was a step towards righting the wrongs of their past. 'Trying to Assassinate American Journalists' The first man sat before me with an Afghan scarf pulled up to just below his eyes. He asked not to be identified because he still has family in the area and feared for their safety. He said before his capture, he was a fighter for the radical militant Islamic group, Ansar al-Islam, that had been waging a small-scale insurgency against the Iraqi Kurdish government. This former fighter for Ansar al-Islam, requested his identity not be disclosed. (ABCNEWS.com) The United States and the Kurdish government believe Ansar al-Islam is directly linked to al Qaeda, and is part of a larger relationship between Saddam's regime and Osama bin Laden's terrorist organization. According to this prisoner, there are about 500 to 600 men in the group, whose goals and methods were similar to the Taliban and al Qaeda. They want to institute a fundamentalist Islamic society and eventually control the entire region. According to him, al Qaeda is in fact, closely linked to Ansar al-Islam. "Al Qaeda is a main finance source for al Ansar," he said, "because al Qaeda now doesn't have a particular base and is scattered. They only can provide financing to al Ansar. Definitely they have the same principles and goals which the Taliban and al Qaeda have. Because [Ansar al-Islam] is in the early stage and they are small in size, they are not able to act against America as effectively as al Qaeda and Taliban did. But nevertheless, they don't hesitate to act against America. They do it, for example, they are trying to assassinate American journalists or kidnap them. Particularly those who come to Kurdistan." That explained the heavily-armed military escort the Kurdish government insisted we take with us on our visit to the front lines where Ansar al-Islam is active. He went on to say that there were 80 al Qaeda fighters among Ansar al-Islam in the mountains of Northern Iraq at the time of his capture earlier this year. Still, al Qaeda's influence with Ansar al-Islam is a far cry from the Bush administration's claims that bin Laden's organization is closely related to the Iraqi regime. But the next man I met said he had specific information about that. Prisoner: Al Qaeda Members Met With Saddam Abu Iman al-Maliki was convicted of spying on the Kurds as an Iraqi intelligence officer. He says he worked as such for 20 years. Al-Maliki chain-smoked Marlboros as we talked, sitting on a metal chair in a T-shirt advertising a martial arts school that strained against his bulk. He is, simply put, a huge man. Abu Iman al-Maliki was an Iraqi intelligence officer for 20 years. (ABCNEWS.com) "The U.S. believes Iraq has had contact with al Qaeda," I said, "Do you know that to be a fact?" "Yes. In '92, elements of al Qaeda came to Baghdad and met with Saddam Hussein and among them was Dr. Al-Zawahiri." Ayman Al-Zawahiri, you may recall, has been identified as a top lieutenant of bin Laden's, and is widely thought to be a mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. "There is a relationship between the governments of al Qaeda and the Iraqi government," he continued. "It began after the events of Kuwait approximately. That is when the relationship developed and many delegations came to Baghdad. There are elements of al Qaeda training on suicide operations, assassinations, explosions, and the making of chemical substances, and they are supervised by a number of officers, experts from the Iraqi intelligence, the Explosives Division, the Assassinations Division, different specialties." Al-Maliki's specialty is somewhat more disturbing. He says he was part of a group of officers ordered by Saddam to hide chemical weapons throughout the Iraqi countryside. When I asked him if the U.N. weapons inspectors might find anything if they return, he smiled and said, "No. They will find nothing." 'I Killed' for Iraqi Intelligence and Al Qaeda As midnight approached, I was introduced to Muhammad Mansour Shihab Ali, a man who, if you believe his confession, is a cold-hearted killer with a deep hatred for the United States. Muhammad Mansour Shihab Ali is behind bars for murdering an Iraqi dissident. (ABCNEWS.com) His explanation of wanting to talk to an American journalist is the most perplexing of all: he had absolutely nothing to gain by doing so that I could tell. I asked him numerous times about his motives for giving us so much detailed information and his mumbled response, as gleaned by the translator, was that he thought I could do something to help his children whom he'd left behind with bin Laden's people in Afghanistan. It became obvious that he thought I was an American intelligence agent, and no amount of denial on my part could convince him otherwise. Shihab Ali is in prison for the murder of an Iraqi dissident who had been living in Iran. He was captured at a Kurdish checkpoint and found in his possession were some photographic negatives which, when developed, were a full-color record of the grisly deed. When confronted in court with the photos, he confessed all. He's still confessing. "Killing is something I did. I killed. This was for the Iraqi intelligence and al Qaeda." Shihab Ali told me he has done numerous operations for al Qaeda and Iraq over the years, including numerous assassinations and smuggling drugs and guns. Two years ago, he says he was hired by an Iraqi intelligence officer, Othman Salman Daoud, to smuggle 30 refrigerator "motors" — which I took to mean "compressors" — from Iraq to Iran, where they were handed over to men he describes as Afghan members of al Qaeda. He was paid $10,000 each for the items, which usually contain the refrigerant gas Freon, but, in this case, contained something more mysterious. Shihab Ali was warned it was dangerous to himself, and to any children he might hope to have. We have no way of knowing what was in those compressors, or what their ultimate destination was. "Only God knows what was in them," he says. Which is not entirely true; he says the compressors were ordered by the man Shihab Ali met five days later in Afghanistan — bin Laden. There were nine other operations he was expected to work on, he said, at the time he was caught, but he was reluctant to give away the details. Finally, I convinced him to tell me about one that was supposed to have happened last year. He says he and a partner were given $16 million to go to the Gulf and buy some large ships, equip them with 500 kilos of high-explosive, and set sail under Iranian flags. The crews would slip away in motorboats after being replaced with men willing to commit suicide, who would then enter Kuwaiti waters, according to Shihab Ali, and ram the ships into American tankers or military vessels. "The only reason this didn't happen is because you were captured?" I asked him as my mind filled with the mental image of the extent of death and damage such an attack might have caused. "Yes, if I hadn't been arrested, I would have done it." I left there hoping that his arrest had so compromised the operation, if indeed one had been planned at all, that it was scrapped. I have no way of knowing how truthful these men were. Shihab Ali has been interviewed by print reporters in the past, one of whom described him as "deranged" because of his boasts of having killed so many people. After seeing the photographs of his last victim, I think that's an understandable assessment, although deranged in a Jeffrey Dahmer sort of way, not as a raving lunatic. As he sat there, quietly and methodically describing his experiences, I couldn't help but think he was capable of everything he was saying. If I was sitting in the same room listening to the same man last Sept. 10, I'm not sure I would have believed a word he said. links between Osama bin Laden's organization and Iraq.
