Well whuddya know.... Intelligence Report Links Saddam, Usama Saturday, November 15, 2003 NYPOST.COM Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein (search) gave terror lord Usama bin Laden's thugs financial and logistical support, offering Al Qaeda (search) money, training and haven for more than a decade, it was reported yesterday. Their deadly collaboration — which may have included the bombing of the USS Cole (search) and the 9/11 attacks — is revealed in a 16-page memo to the Senate Intelligence Committee (search) that cites reports from a variety of domestic and foreign spy agencies compiled by multiple sources, The Weekly Standard (search) reports. Saddam's willingness to help bin Laden plot against Americans began in 1990, shortly before the first Gulf War, and continued through last March, the eve of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, says the Oct. 27 memo sent by Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith. Two men were involved with the collaboration almost from its start. Mamdouh Mahmud Salim — who's described as the terror lord's "best friend" — was involved in planning the bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998. Another terrorist, Hassan al-Turabi, was said by an Iraqi defector to be "instrumental" in the relationship. Iraq "sought Al Qaeda influence through its connections with Afghanistan, to facilitate the transshipment of proscribed weapons and equipment to Iraq. In return, Iraq provided Al Qaeda with training and instructors," a top-level Iraqi defector has told U.S. intelligence. The bombshell report says bin Laden visited Baghdad in January 1998 and met with Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz. "The goal of the visit was to arrange for coordination between Iraq and bin Laden and establish camps in Nasiriyah and Iraqi Kurdistan," the memo says. Though the bombing of the USS Cole on Oct. 12, 2000 was an Al Qaeda job, the secret memo says the CIA believes "fragmentary evidence points to possible Iraqi involvement." The relationship between Saddam and bin Laden continued to grow in the aftermath of the Cole attack when two Al Qaeda terrorists were deployed to Iraq to be trained in weapons of mass destruction and to obtain information on "poisons and gases." CIA reporting shows the Saudi National Guard went on a "kingdom-wide state of alert in late December 2000 after learning Saddam agreed to assist Al Qaeda in attacking U.S./U.K. interests in Saudi Arabia," the memo says. And the report contains new information about alleged meetings between 9/11 mastermind Mohamed Atta and former Iraqi intelligence chief Ahmed Khalil Ibrahim Samir al Ani in the Czech Republic. Even some Bush administration officials have been skeptical about a purported meeting in April 2001. But the secret memo says Atta met two other times in Prague with al Ani, in December 1994 and June 2000. It was during one of these meetings that al Ani "ordered the [Iraqi Intelligence Service] finance officer to issue Atta funds from IIS financial holdings in the Prague office," the memo says. The memo says the relationship between Saddam and bin Laden went forward even after 9/11. Both sides allegedly reached a "secret deal" last year in which Iraq would provide "money and weapons" and obtain 90 Iraqi and Syrian passports for Al Qaeda members. Al Qaeda associate Abu Maseb al Zarqwari also helped set up "sleeper cells" in Baghdad starting in October 2002. The memo was sent to Sens. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.) and Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) of the Senate Intelligence Committee. For more news, entertainment and sports coverage, click here for NYPost.com.
Snacks me as reaching or manufactured (initial reaction) because many other sources had said that there is not link between those two. So why the sudden revelation? It is not inconceivable but I will prefer to wait and see more to really buy inot. We know propaganda is part of war (a major part) and this could be another propaganda twist. Sincerely I don't know who to trust now - it seems like every move is policality motivated not done out of candid goodwill and truthfullness. I leave it all in God's hands.
So stuff gets sent to to the intelligence committee when, by virtue of nebulous sources and unsubstantiated offerings, it plays to the administration's benefit but the result when documents might hurt the administration is stonewalling or "editing" by those in question.
i have a theory that the Administration's had the evidence all along, and is waiting for after the democratic nomination is sewed up to spring it. rove will let Dean, or whoever, get as far out on that "Bush Lied" limb as possible, before saying "uh, dude, you might wanna consider this...," undercutting his campaign's entire reason for existence. just my own theory...
Plausible, but why let your ratings fall to a point where they may not recover? Why let the country mourn 400 Americans or more by the time you spring this? By that point, it could be too late. If they had good info, I'm thinking it would have been out by now... or at least a steady drip of stuff.
Without prejudice, Dr. Deans stance was arguement was that he would not support a war where the UN and our other allies save for Aussies and Brits do not support. He also questioned the veracity of the presence of WMD. So far he has not missfired on those. I still say this - what makes people think the good doctor is a shoo-in for the dems? Anything can happen. So it will folly business and naive for Karl Rove and co to plan for something that is not guarranteed. It is simply amateurish.
tex- do you have a link to the weeklystandard article cited? i can't seem to get to their site right now.
well, at this point deans the definite front runner, particularly from a financing standpoint. in any case, all the dems have made variations of the "bush lied" argument, so i think the strategy could work in any eventuality. and even if WMDs are never found, a definitive Osama-Saddam link will trump all else. i think it would be very difficult in that case for anyone to make a case that the war wasn't justifiable...unless they happen to live at the elysee palace...
in any case, all the dems have made variations of the "bush lied" argument, so i think the strategy could work in any eventuality. and even if WMDs are never found, a definitive Osama-Saddam link will trump all else. If Bush knew all along about links, and that becomes clear down the road, that's a disaster for Bush. Basically, it says that he was willing to sacrifice world opinion (which helps inspire terrorists and the link) and put more American lives in danger as a result of that lack of support (which could have been gotten if there was clear evidence of an Osama-Saddam link) ... all to score political points at home. That would be a sad statement about Bush and his priorities.
I thought all the anti-war stuff in America wasn't supposed to be aiding the terrorists? Anti-war stuff here isn't. The worldwide view of this being imperialist America attacking an Islamic country without justification and without the support of her traditional allies certainly is. That gives Osama a huge recruiting tool to justify how evil America is. Protests here have no effect on anything except domestic politics.
WELL WHAT DO YOU KNOW, as the CIA predicted, one result of our war could be that Osama and Sadam, though previously enemies, would start to oooperate. Thanks, Dubya.
glynch, this explains a lot. You just don't read material you don't want to hear. You need to have more of an open mind...
they started to cooperate before GWI, although i suppose it's easier to just make snide comments than read the article.
The only sourcing in there was from Iraqi defectors which of course had to be known before the war since you can't defect from a government that doesn't exist. Sounds like a bunch of repackaged speculative info that we've already known about. Repackage and repackage with more speculations until more people believe. Iraqi defectors have hardly proven accurate. Prior to the war they were quoted as giving us all kinds of info on Iraqi WMD and it's gotten us nowhere. This is a big *snooze*.
i understand the gut instinct to just trash the source, but wouldn't it more responsible to just wait until the facts are known? at the very least it's highly intriguing, and the source appears to be a memo to the intelligence committee from several intelligence agencies, not just the CIA. you're so quick to believe anything that a democrat says, and to disparage anything that could redound to G-Dub's credit. why not see where this leads, or would the thought of an Osama-Saddam link justifying the war be just to horrible for your small, closed mind to contemplate?
No the gut instinct is to look at the info on it's merits which are sketchy as usual. The gut instinct is also to look at the track record of sources and assertions used and given by this administration which have also been extremely sketchy and unreliable. If this administration were a witness on the stand in a trial it would have no credibility at all. The rest of your post is too stupid for me to comment on. Keep your tired personal attacks to yourself.
