Who's Spinning Intel?
Captured Iraqi documents tell a different story.
by Thomas Joscelyn
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/013/510ixmdf.aspLAST WEEK, the Washington Post ("Hussein's Prewar Ties To Al-Qaeda Discounted") covered the latest round in Senator Levin's ongoing struggle to prove that the connection between Iraq and al Qaeda was nothing more than a fiction. Levin has been at this game for a while, and this time the Post's story centered on Levin's request for the declassification of a report written by the Pentagon's acting inspector general, Thomas F. Gimble. The report's conclusion: a Pentagon analysis shop, once headed by former Undersecretary of Defense Douglas J. Feith, "developed, produced, and then disseminated alternative intelligence assessments on the Iraq and al-Qaida relationship, which included some conclusions that were inconsistent with the consensus of the Intelligence Community, to senior decision-makers."
The inspector general determined that Feith's shop did nothing illegal, but still maintained that his office's analyses were "inappropriate." Why? According to the inspector general, Feith & Co. did not sufficiently explain that their conclusions were at odds with the CIA's (and the DIA's) judgments. That was enough for Levin to go on the attack once again.
But Levin's story, which was simply repeated without any real investigation by the Post or even the inspector general's office, relies on a false dichotomy. The senator now pretends that the CIA and other intelligence outfits had reached a rock-solid conclusion that there was no noteworthy relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda in 2002, but Feith's shop improperly pressed on. The Post summarized the inspector general's report as saying: " the CIA had concluded in June 2002 that there were few substantiated contacts between al-Qaeda operatives and Iraqi officials and had said that it lacked evidence of a long-term relationship like the ones Iraq had forged with other terrorist groups."
This is simply revisionist history at its worst.
Although there were certainly disagreements between the CIA and Feith's shop, both argued in 2002 that there was a relationship between Saddam's Iraq and al Qaeda. George Tenet, then the director of central intelligence, stated the CIA's position quite clearly in an October 7, 2002 letter to then head of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Senator Bob Graham (D-FL). Tenet explained, "We have solid reporting of senior level contacts between Iraq and al-Qaeda going back a decade." Iraq and al Qaeda "have discussed safe haven and reciprocal non-aggression." Tenet warned, "We have credible reporting that al-Qaeda leaders sought contacts in Iraq who could help them acquire WMD capabilities. The reporting also stated that Iraq has provided training to al-Qaeda members in the areas of poisons and gases and making conventional bombs." And, "Iraq's increasing support to extremist Palestinians, coupled with growing indications of a relationship with al-Qaeda, suggest that Baghdad's links to terrorists will increase, even absent US military action."
Tenet was far from alone in these assessments. Michael Scheuer, the one-time head of the CIA's bin Laden unit, also used to be certain that Iraq and al Qaeda were working together. Scheuer's first book on al Qaeda, Through Our Enemies' Eyes, which was published in 2002, went into elaborate detail about the support the Iraqi regime was providing to al Qaeda. Among the areas of concern was Iraq's ongoing support for al Qaeda's chemical weapons development projects in the Sudan.
In 2004, after fashioning a career as a critic of the Bush administration, Scheuer did an about face. He suddenly claimed that there was no evidence of a relationship. He even decided to re-write history--literally. He revised Through Our Enemies' Eyes to be consistent with his newly formed opinion by claiming he was simply mistaken.
The bottom line is that members of the CIA, including the Agency's director, certainly believed in 2002 that there was a relationship between the Iraqi regime and al Qaeda. And no matter what he says now, Senator Levin knows that. In a June 16, 2003 appearance on NewsHour, Senator Levin explained:
"We were told by the intelligence community that there was a very strong link between al-Qaida and Iraq, and there were real questions raised. And there are real questions raised about whether or not that link was such that the description by the intelligence community was accurate or whether or not they [note: "they" here refers to the intelligence community, not the Bush administration] stretched it."
The idea that Feith's analysts cooked up the connection, while the CIA shunned the very notion, is pure fantasy--a fantasy dreamed up by Senator Levin and some former CIA members who have repeatedly made clear their disdain for the Bush administration.
But all of this is almost entirely beside the point. Instead of focusing on Levin's "who said what in Washington" game, we'd be better served by focusing on the best evidence available: Saddam's own intelligence files. Here, the Post's account is thoroughly lacking.
The story leads off with this startling conclusion, purportedly gleaned from the inspector general's report:
"Captured Iraqi documents and intelligence interrogations of Saddam Hussein and two former aides 'all confirmed' that Hussein's regime was not directly cooperating with al-Qaeda before the U.S. invasion of Iraq. "
Taking the denials of Saddam and his goons at face value is, of course, ridiculous. But exactly which "captured Iraqi documents" confirmed that Saddam's regime and al Qaeda were "not directly cooperating?" The Post doesn't say. And the inspector general did not perform a thorough review of the Iraqi intelligence documents captured during the Iraq war.
Here is just a small sample of what some of the Iraqi intelligence documents and other evidence collected in postwar Iraq has revealed:
1. Saddam's Terror Training Camps & Long-Standing Relationship With Ayman al-Zawahiri. As first reported in THE WEEKLY STANDARD, there is extensive evidence that Saddam used Iraqi soil to train terrorists from throughout the Middle East. Among the terrorists who received Saddam's support were members of al Qaeda's Algerian affiliate, formerly known as the GSPC, which is still lethally active, though under a new name: al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb.
Joe Klein, a columnist for Time magazine and an outspoken critic of the Bush administration, has confirmed the existence of Saddam's terrorist training camps. He also found that Iraqi intelligence documents demonstrated a long-standing relationship between Saddam and al Qaeda bigwig Ayman al-Zawahiri.
Other evidence of Saddam's terror training camps was reported in a paper published by the Pentagon's Iraqi Perspectives Project. A team of Pentagon analysts discovered that Saddam's paramilitary Fedayeen forces were hosting camps for thousands terror of from throughout the Middle East.
2. A 1992 IIS Document lists Osama bin Laden as an "asset." An Iraqi Intelligence memorandum dated March 28, 1992 and stamped "Top Secret" lists a number of assets. Osama bin Laden is listed on page 14 as having a "good relationship" with the Iraqi Intelligence Service's section in Syria.
3. A 1997 IIS document lists a number of meetings between Iraq, bin Laden and other al Qaeda associates. The memo recounts discussions of cooperating in attacks against American stationed in Saudi Arabia. The document summarizes a number of contacts between Iraqi Intelligence and Saudi oppositionist groups, including al Qaeda, during the mid 1990's. The document says that in early 1995 bin Laden requested Iraqi assistance in two ways. First, bin Laden wanted Iraqi television to carry al Qaeda's anti-Saudi propaganda. Saddam agreed. Second, bin Laden requested Iraqi assistance in performing "joint operations against the foreign forces in the land of Hijaz." That is, bin Laden wanted Iraq's assistance in attacking U.S. forces in Saudi Arabia.
We do not know what, exactly, came of bin Laden's second request. But the document indicates that Saddam's operatives "were left to develop the relationship and the cooperation between the two sides to see what other doors of cooperation and agreement open up." Thus, it appears that both sides saw value in working with each other. It is also worth noting that in the months following bin Laden's request, al Qaeda was tied to a series of bombings in Saudi Arabia.
The document also recounts contacts with Mohammed al-Massari, a known al Qaeda mouthpiece living in London.
4. A 1998 IIS document reveals that a representative of bin Laden visited Baghdad in March 1998 to meet with Saddam's regime. According to the memo, the IIS arranged a visit for bin Laden's "trusted confidant," who stayed in a regime-controlled hotel for more than two weeks. Interestingly, according to other evidence discovered by the U.S. intelligence community, Ayman al-Zawahiri was also in Baghdad the month before. He collected a check for $300,000 from the Iraqi regime. The 9-11 Commission confirmed that there were a series of meetings (perhaps set up by Zawahiri, who had "ties of his own" to the Iraq regime) in the following months as well.
5. Numerous IIS documents demonstrate that Saddam had made plans for a terrorist-style insurgency and coordinated the influx of foreign terrorists into Iraq. In My Year in Iraq, Ambassador Paul Bremer says a secret IIS document he had seen "showed that Saddam had made plans for an insurgency." Moreover, "the insurgency had forces to draw on from among several thousand hardened Baathists in two northern Republican Guard divisions that had joined forces with foreign jihadis."
Cobra II, a scathing indictment of the Bush administration's prosecution of the Iraq war by New York Times authors Michael Gordon and General Bernard Trainor, offers additional detail about the terrorists who made their way to Iraq in advance of the war. "Documents retrieved by American intelligence after the war show that the Iraqi Ministry of Defense coordinated border crossings with Syria and provided billeting, pay, and allowances and armaments for the influx of Syrians, Palestinians, and other fighters."
Still another IIS document contains Saddam's orders to "utilize Arab suicide bombers" against the Americans. Saddam's agents were also ordered to provide these terrorists with munitions, cash, shelter, and training.
These are just five examples of the types of documents that have been discovered in postwar Iraq. There are many more examples not listed here. They all undermine the conventional wisdom that there was never any relationship between Saddam's Iraq and al Qaeda.
But you won't see Senator Carl Levin calling attention to any of these documents. And the Washington Post has shown no interest in bringing them to his attention either. Instead, Levin and the Post like to pretend that the relationship between Saddam and al Qaeda was cooked up by neoconservatives bent on war. The Post even initially--and incorrectly--reported that a copy of a memo from Feith's shop was leaked to THE WEEKLY STANDARD prior to war. (In reality, Stephen Hayes reported on the memo months after the war began. The implication of the Post's misreporting was clear: this was all about justifying war.
But instead of worrying about a memo written by Feith's analysts, perhaps the Post should take more interest in what Saddam's files have to say. They're a lot more interesting.
Thomas Joscelyn is a terrorism researcher and economist living in New York.
On the Iraq/Qaeda Connection, It's Senator Levin, Not the (AWOL) Bush Administration, Who's Spinning the Intelligence
By Andrew McCarthy
http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZjlhZjQ5NDc0MGQ1NjZmY2ZkMGY0NWM2YjdkNzI5NWE=The invaluable terrorism researcher Tom Joscelyn had a devastating piece in yesterday's Daily Standard (on the Weekly Standard's website), demonstrating the lengths to which Senator Carl Levin and the Washington Post continue to go to bury and discredit solid evidence of a meaningful relationship between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda. Levin's revisionist narrative that the connection was cooked up by neconservatives like former Defense under secretary Doug Feith, over the complete objection of the CIA, as a false justification for toppling the Iraqi regime is flat-out fantasy — although fantasy with legs given the uncritical recitals it gets in the mainstream media and the inexplicable failure of the Bush administration to counter it with facts.
(Aside: This is one of the worst abdications in the Bush record — the administration's insistence that it is "looking forward, not back," clearly motivated by fear that revisiting pre-war intelligence is a political loser given the unpopularity of the war. The administration has facts on its side on this critical issue, and the legacy of the war — the crucial connection of Iraq to the overall war on terror — depends on it. It is just reprehensible to shy from this debate.)
As Tom notes, Sen. Levin
"...now pretends that the CIA and other intelligence outfits had reached a rock-solid conclusion that there was no noteworthy relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda in 2002, but Feith's shop improperly pressed on. The Post summarized the inspector general's report as saying: " the CIA had concluded in June 2002 that there were few substantiated contacts between al-Qaeda operatives and Iraqi officials and had said that it lacked evidence of a long-term relationship like the ones Iraq had forged with other terrorist groups."
This is simply revisionist history at its worst.
Although there were certainly disagreements between the CIA and Feith's shop, both argued in 2002 that there was a relationship between Saddam's Iraq and al Qaeda. George Tenet, then the director of central intelligence, stated the CIA's position quite clearly in an October 7, 2002 letter to then head of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Senator Bob Graham (D-FL). Tenet explained, "We have solid reporting of senior level contacts between Iraq and al-Qaeda going back a decade." Iraq and al Qaeda "have discussed safe haven and reciprocal non-aggression." Tenet warned, "We have credible reporting that al-Qaeda leaders sought contacts in Iraq who could help them acquire WMD capabilities. The reporting also stated that Iraq has provided training to al-Qaeda members in the areas of poisons and gases and making conventional bombs." And, "Iraq's increasing support to extremist Palestinians, coupled with growing indications of a relationship with al-Qaeda, suggest that Baghdad's links to terrorists will increase, even absent US military action."
Tenet was far from alone in these assessments. Michael Scheuer, the one-time head of the CIA's bin Laden unit, also used to be certain that Iraq and al Qaeda were working together. Scheuer's first book on al Qaeda, Through Our Enemies' Eyes, which was published in 2002, went into elaborate detail about the support the Iraqi regime was providing to al Qaeda. Among the areas of concern was Iraq's ongoing support for al Qaeda's chemical weapons development projects in the Sudan.
In 2004, after fashioning a career as a critic of the Bush administration, Scheuer did an about face. He suddenly claimed that there was no evidence of a relationship. He even decided to re-write history—literally. He revised Through Our Enemies' Eyes to be consistent with his newly formed opinion by claiming he was simply mistaken.
The bottom line is that members of the CIA, including the Agency's director, certainly believed in 2002 that there was a relationship between the Iraqi regime and al Qaeda. And no matter what he says now, Senator Levin knows that. In a June 16, 2003 appearance on NewsHour, Senator Levin explained:
"We were told by the intelligence community that there was a very strong link between al-Qaida and Iraq, and there were real questions raised. And there are real questions raised about whether or not that link was such that the description by the intelligence community was accurate or whether or not they [note: "they" here refers to the intelligence community, not the Bush administration] stretched it."
The idea that Feith's analysts cooked up the connection, while the CIA shunned the very notion, is pure fantasy—a fantasy dreamed up by Senator Levin and some former CIA members who have repeatedly made clear their disdain for the Bush administration.
Tom also sorts through just some of what is known from the haul of Iraqi intelligence documents recovered after the U.S. invasion. (And here, it is worth noting that the Bush administration has, for some reason, allowed the shut down by the Intelligence Community of a project to make these documents publicly available for analysts — the government itself plainly did not make reconstructing the workings of Saddam's regime a priority, and the IC is clearly content that we remain ignorant.) Here's some of what Tom notes the known intel (which is but a fraction of the total) tells us:
Saddam's Terror Training Camps & Long-Standing Relationship With Ayman al-Zawahiri.
A 1992 IIS Document lists Osama bin Laden as an "asset."
A 1997 IIS document lists a number of meetings between Iraq, bin Laden and other al Qaeda associates.
A 1998 IIS document reveals that a representative of bin Laden visited Baghdad in March 1998 to meet with Saddam's regime.
Numerous IIS documents demonstrate that Saddam had made plans for a terrorist-style insurgency and coordinated the influx of foreign terrorists into Iraq.
Forgetting all of these circumstances, among others, Tom also recalls, as Steve Hayes, myself, and others have for some time, that in 1998, "Ayman al-Zawahiri was in Baghdad ... and collected a check for $300,000 from the Iraqi regime." I would add, for context, that this was in the same time frame as bin Laden and Zawahiri's infamous fatwa calling for the murder of Americans — which, if you read it, argues that American actions against Iraq are a big part of the justification. It also came just a few months before al Qaeda bombed the U.S. embassies in east Africa, the Clinton administration bombed a Sudanese phramaceutical factory because intel indicated it was a joint Iraqi/Qaeda chemical weapons venture, and Clinton counter-terror honcho Richard Clarke fretted that "wily old Osama would boogie to Baghdad" — of all places — if the U.S. made things too hot for Qaeda in Afghanistan.
Sure, maybe all this is just a big coincidence. But, given that al Qaeda is a 24/7 terror operation whose main target is the U.S., I've always wondered for what earthly purpose Senator Levin and other connection naysayers figure Saddam Hussein gave Ayman Zawahiri 300K?
More Connection -- the 1998 Fatwa
By Andrew McCarthy
http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=M2JhMTAxOTVkNTI5MWM5MmYyNzE0YWM3NTE1ODM4OTk=Can't help but belabor this point. Over the years, the media, the Intelligence Community, the Justice Department, the Congress and various investigative bodies like the 9/11 Commission have repeatedly pointed to Osama bin Laden & Co.'s infamous 1998 fatwa, the summons to "Jihad Against Jews and Crusaders," calling for the murder of all Americans, whether civilian or military, anywhere on earth where they are found. That, of course, is the command — the direction about what is to be done. But very little has been said publicly about bin Laden's stated rationale for this command.
Below is al Qaeda's justification for the command to kill all Americans. As you read this — recalling the meetings and exchanges of funds between Iraq and al Qaeda in 1998, the Clinton administration's retaliation against the Sudanese pharmaceutical factory (believed to be a joint Iraq/Qaeda weapons operation) that followed the embassy attacks, the Clinton administration's fear that bin Laden would move his operation to Baghdad — note how focused bin Laden was on Iraq in the months before bombing our embassies. Note also his allusions to the "rulers" of countries in the Arabian Peninsula, including Iraq — there is no trace of the hostility that the Intelligence Community often maintains was a constant between jihadist bin Laden and secular Saddam.
No one argues today about three facts that are known to everyone; we will list them, in order to remind everyone:
____________________________________________________________________
First, for over seven years the United States has been occupying the lands of Islam in the holiest of places, the Arabian Peninsula, plundering its riches, dictating to its rulers, humiliating its people, terrorizing its neighbors, and turning its bases in the Peninsula into a spearhead through which to fight the neighboring Muslim peoples. If some people have in the past argued about the fact of the occupation, all the people of the Peninsula have now acknowledged it. The best proof of this is the Americans' continuing aggression against the Iraqi people using the Peninsula as a staging post, even though all its rulers are against their territories being used to that end, but they are helpless. Second, despite the great devastation inflicted on the Iraqi people by the crusader-Zionist alliance, and despite the huge number of those killed, which has exceeded 1 million... despite all this, the Americans are once against trying to repeat the horrific massacres, as though they are not content with the protracted blockade imposed after the ferocious war or the fragmentation and devastation. So here they come to annihilate what is left of this people and to humiliate their Muslim neighbors. Third, if the Americans' aims behind these wars are religious and economic, the aim is also to serve the Jews' petty state and divert attention from its occupation of Jerusalem and murder of Muslims there. The best proof of this is their eagerness to destroy Iraq, the strongest neighboring Arab state, and their endeavor to fragment all the states of the region such as Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Sudan into paper statelets and through their disunion and weakness to guarantee Israel's survival and the continuation of the brutal crusade occupation of the Peninsula.
____________________________________________________________________
All these crimes and sins committed by the Americans are a clear declaration of war on Allah, his messenger, and Muslims. And ulema have throughout Islamic history unanimously agreed that the jihad is an individual duty if the enemy destroys the Muslim countries.... On that basis, and in compliance with Allah's order, we issue the following fatwa to all Muslims:
The ruling to kill the Americans and their allies — civilians and military — is an individual duty for every Muslim who can do it in any country in which it is possible to do it, in order to liberate the al-Aqsa Mosque and the holy mosque [Mecca] from their grip, and in order for their armies to move out of all the lands of Islam, defeated and unable to threaten any Muslim. This is in accordance with the words of Almighty Allah, "and fight the pagans all together as they fight you all together," and "fight them until there is no more tumult or oppression, and there prevail justice and faith in Allah."
So said Osama bin Laden, Ayman Zawahiri and their Sunni jihadist confederates, who, according to today's congressional leadership, had no real interest in Shiite-majority, secularly-ruled Iraq until the United States invaded five years later.
Al Qaeda In Saddam’s Baghdad
Thomas Joscelyn
http://www.weeklystandard.com/weblogs/TWSFP/2007/05/al_qaeda_in_saddams_baghdad.aspIn his new book, George Tenet refers to two members of Egyptian Islamic Jihad who were operating out of Baghdad for much of 2002. Tenet explains:
More al-Qa'ida operatives would follow, including Thirwat Shihata and Yussef Dardiri, two Egyptians assessed by a senior al-Qa'ida detainee to be among the Egyptian Islamic Jihad's best operational planners, who arrived by mid-May of 2002. At times we lost track of them, though their associates continued to operate in Baghdad as of October 2002. Their activity in sending recruits to train in Zarqawi's camps was compelling enough.
There was also concern that these two might be planning operations outside Iraq. Credible information told us that Shihata was willing to strike U.S., Israeli, and Egyptian targets sometime in the future. Shihata had been linked to terrorist operations in North Africa, and while in Afghanistan he had trained North Africans in the use of truck bombs. Smoke indeed. But how much fire, if any?
Who are Thirwat Shihata [which is frequently spelled with an “r,” as in Shirhata] and Yussef Dardiri? And why might they have been allowed to freely operate in Saddam’s capital?
According to this account from the BBC, Shirhata is Ayman al-Zawahiri’s “deputy in [the] Egyptian Islamic Jihad group.” The BBC adds, “He has received two death sentences in absentia in Egypt for alleged terrorist activities.” This account from MSNBC implies that his ties to Zawahiri go back some years, since he is “believed to have been part of the plot to assassinate Anwar Sadat,” which occurred on October 6, 1981. MSNBC adds that Shirhata is “believed to be in Iranian control.” That is, he is thought to be one of the terrorists under a loose form of “house arrest” in Iran.
Yussef Dardiri is none other than Abu Ayyub al-Masri, the presumed leader of al Qaeda in Iraq who the Iraqis reported (and this is unconfirmed) killed today. This claim has been made before, so we will wait for official confirmation. Globalsecurity.org provides a good biography of al-Masri that lists his many aliases and other important details. Globalsecurity.org says “he is the last remaining original member of the Mujahideen Shura Council.” That is, he is an al Qaeda bigwig. “He has manufactured explosives in Iraq, particularly car and truck bombs” and “has also helped foreign fighters move from Syria to Baghdad, and oversaw al-Qaeda's activities in southern Iraq.” Globalsecurity.org adds, “He has been a terrorist since 1982, when he joined Ayman al-Zawahri's Egyptian Islamic Jihad.”
The bottom line on al-Masri and Shirhata is this: they were and are high-level al Qaeda operatives who have been loyal to al-Zawahiri for decades. Also, according to Tenet’s new book and other available evidence, they were operating freely out of Baghdad long before American troops got there.
This brings us to our next question: Why were they operating out of Saddam’s capital?
The answer may lie in Ayman al-Zawahiri’s longstanding relationship with Saddam’s regime. As the 9-11 Commission reported, al-Zawahiri had “ties of his own to the Iraqis” and attended at least a few meetings with senior Iraqi officials in 1998. At one of these encounters, the Iraqis gave him $300,000. (“For what reason?,” you might ask.) Joe Klein, who is an ardent critic of the Bush administration, has confirmed that documents discovered in post-invasion Iraq demonstrate that al-Zawahiri had a long-term relationship with Saddam’s regime. There is, undoubtedly, more to this story. But it is not unreasonable to speculate that al-Zawahiri himself may have played some role in arranging safe haven for two of his comrades in Saddam’s Baghdad.
Author
Logged
