Saddam's Links to Al Qaeda

[Pookie]

Saddam's Links to Al Qaeda
By Roger Aronoff | December 2, 2005
Even Hillary Clinton acknowledged the Saddam-Al Qaeda connection in her
speech announcing support for the authorization of the use of force against
Iraq in 2002.

It is frustrating to have to keep correcting the media. And it is even more
frustrating when national television programs deliberately distort the
evidence on a matter as important as Saddam Hussein's links to Al Qaeda.
It's an old controversy but some in the media still insist on getting the
facts wrong.

For example, the Veteran's Day edition of Chris Matthews' Hardball show on
MSNBC-TV, in order to make President Bush out to be a serial liar, continued
to ignore key evidence showing Saddam's links to Al Qaeda.

Reporter David Shuster, who left the Fox News Channel because it was too
conservative, did a report showing Bush and Vice President Cheney making
various statements which he said had all been cast into doubt.

Shuster said that, initially, after 9/11, Vice President Cheney said that
there was no link between Saddam and 9/11, but that later President Bush
started claiming that Iraq and al Qaeda are one and the same. He showed a
sound bite of the President saying, "You can't distinguish between Saddam
and al Qaeda when you talk about the war on terror." And that "We've learned
that Iraq has trained al Qaeda members in bomb-making and poisons and deadly
gasses." And later, that "Saddam is a threat because he is dealing with al
Qaeda."

All of these statements, in Shuster's view, were distortions.

Shuster then said, "In pushing the Saddam/Iraq/9/11 connection, the
President and vice president made two crucial claims: First, they alleged
there had been a 1994 meeting in the Sudan between bin Laden and an Iraqi
intelligence official." He then showed Bush saying, "We know that Iraq and
al Qaeda have had high level contacts that go back a decade."

But after the Iraq war began, reported Shuster, the 9/11 commission was
formed and reported that while bin Laden may have requested Iraqi help,
"Iraq apparently never responded."

The other crucial prewar White House claim was that 9/11 hijacker Mohammed
Atta met with a senior Iraqi intelligence official in the Czech Republic in
April of 2001. To disprove this point, the report played "gotcha" with two
apparently contradictory statements by Vice President Cheney, and quoting
from the 9/11 commission, which said, "We do not believe such a meeting
occurred." Why? Because cell phone records from the time show Atta was in
the United States. Nonetheless, Shuster reported, "the White House strategy
worked. In March of 2003, 45% believed Saddam was personally involved in
9/11."

And on the eve of the Iraq War the White House sent a letter to Congress
telling lawmakers that force was "authorized" against those who "aided the
9/11 attacks." "Yet the Bush Administration continues to say it never
claimed Iraq was linked to 9/11," Shuster said.

"The irony, of course, the brutal irony," said Shuster, "is that while
implications about a 9/11 connection, innuendo or false claims, if you will,
helped take us into Iraq, the Iraqi war itself has created real al Qaeda
links that might keep us from getting out."

Let's step back from these charges and examine the facts.

To his credit, Matthews had Stephen Hayes of The Weekly Standard on to
discuss the charges. Hayes pointed out that Cheney never said there was an
Iraqi role in 9/11. Hayes said that when Bush was twice asked if Iraq was
behind 9/11, he said we have no evidence to suggest that. The issue for the
administration, Hayes noted, was that 9/11 changed everything, and the risk
from Iraq had become unacceptably high.

On the matter of Iraq and al Qaeda, it bears repeating that Bush's exact
words were: "You can't distinguish between al Qaeda and Saddam when you talk
about the war on terror." He wasn't saying they were one and the same, only
that they were both involved in terror.

As far as the 9/11 commission is concerned, its work has been partially
discredited because of its failure to take seriously the work of Operation
Able Danger, the Pentagon probe into Al Qaeda's operations worldwide.

Even Hillary Clinton acknowledged the Saddam-Al Qaeda connection in her
speech announcing support for the authorization of the use of force against
Iraq in 2002. She said, "In the four years since the inspectors left,
intelligence reports show that Saddam Hussein has worked to rebuild his
chemical and biological weapons stock, his missile delivery capabilities,
and his nuclear program. He has also given aid, comfort and sanctuary to
terrorists, including Al Qaeda members." (emphasis added).

A recent controversy emerged in the case of a Defense Intelligence Agency
document from February 2002 that was released by Democratic Senator Carl
Levin. "We now have conclusive evidence," wrote Frank Rich of the New York
Times in his weekly Bush-bashing column, "that the administration's
disinformation campaign implying a link connecting Saddam to Al Qaeda and
9/11 was even more duplicitous and manipulative than its relentless flogging
of nuclear Armageddon."

He called it "Senator Levin's smoking gun," and said that "It warned that a
captured Qaeda terrorist in American custody was in all likelihood
'intentionally misleading' interrogators when he claimed that Iraq had
trained Qaeda members to use illicit weapons." They were referring to Ibn
Al-Shaykhal-Libi (al-Libi), who ran al Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan
till he was picked up there in late 2001.

This became the be-all, end-all of the story. Since al-Libi later recanted
his story, any case that these links existed was now viewed by many in the
media as having been disproven. For example, Andrea Mitchell asked in a
report on the November 14 NBC Evening News, "What about the White House
claim of a connection between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden?" She
answered her own question by offering just one example, saying, "A year
before the war the Pentagon knew the al-Qaeda prisoner making that claim was
lying. A Pentagon report said it is more likely this individual is
intentionally misleading the debriefers. But no one told Congress."

But one questionable claim doesn't undermine all of the other documented
Saddam-Al Qaeda connections. Much of it has been thoroughly documented by
Stephen Hayes in his book "The Connection." The Senate Intelligence
Committee's report on the intelligence leading up to the war also provided
some evidence of those connections.

Ignoring all of this, George Stephanopoulos, former Clinton aide and current
host of ABC's This Week, piled on the administration on the Don Imus show.
Referring to administration claims of ties between Iraq and al Qaeda as an
issue where the administration can be fairly criticized, and referring to
the documents released by Sen. Levin, he said that "They knew in 2002 that
the informant who was telling them that Iraq was training al Qaeda in the
use of chemical and biological weapons made it up."

So one questionable informant disproves the entire case? This is not
logical.

Stephanopoulos, who used to work for Clinton, should remember that, back in
1998, the Clinton Administration issued a sealed indictment of bin Laden
that read, in part, "...Al-Qaida reached an understanding with the
government of Iraq that al-Qaida would not work against that government and
that on particular projects, specifically including weapons development,
al-Qaida would work cooperatively with the government of Iraq." What
evidence did they have?

And ABC reported in December of 1999 that "ABC News has learned that in
December, an Iraqi intelligence chief, named Farouq Hijazi, now Iraq's
Ambassador to Turkey, made a secret trip to Afghanistan to meet with bin
Laden. Three intelligence agencies tell ABC News they cannot be certain
what was discussed, but almost certainly, they say, bin Laden has been told
he would be welcomed in Baghdad."

Reports of this type were common then. No one doubted Saddam's link to
radical Islamic terrorists, including Abu Nidal and Abu Abbas, who had
sought and gained refuge there. He also had links to Al Qaeda. Reports to
the contrary are primarily anti-administration propaganda and
disinformation.

http://www.aim.org/media_monitor/4198_0_2_0_C/

[Joe S.]

"Pukie" <pooki...@optonline.net> wrote in message
news:JiHkf.1470$Kf4...@fe08.lga...

> Saddam's Links to Al Qaeda
> By Roger Aronoff | December 2, 2005

[ Nothing of value snipped. ]

It's frustrating to keep reminding Pukie that:
1. Everything his sources quote comes from BEFORE the US war on Iraq. This
is important because after we invaded Iraq, we had complete, unfettered
access to their people and their records.
2. Based on a thorough examination of the record, interview with Iraqis,
and turning over every rock, the 9/11 Commission concluded that there were
no Iraq-Al Qaeda ties, except for occasional, perfunctory, polite meetings.

[Al Dykes]

The Presidential Daily Brefing of Oct 21, 2001 (yes, 10 days
after 9-11) reportedly says that Saddam hated OBL/AQ and was
about to work against them. The 9-11 commission requested
ths PBD and Bush has refused to release it.

Google "PDB oct 21 2001" for more info.

--
a d y k e s @ p a n i x . c o m

Don't blame me. I voted for Gore.

[Pookie]

"Joe S." <an...@mous.com> wrote in message
news:dmvfp...@news3.newsguy.com...

The same 9/11 Commission that ignored Able Danger?

[Al Dykes]

In article <EBIkf.1078$O05...@fe09.lga>,

That's a divsersion, and may be true, and I want it fully investigated.

There is no record of Iraq-AQ cooperation and the Oct 21, 2001 PDB
that Bush refused to release to the 9-11 commission says that SH
considered OBL and AQ a thret to his regime and he wasn't going to
cooperate with OBL.

[Pookie]

"Al Dykes" <ady...@panix.com> wrote in message
news:dmvv81$1q$1...@panix5.panix.com...

Hey, Air America Al, didya hear the news...

On Friday, Air America announced their 500th station & also the fact that
they're going to be heard on the Armed Forces Radio Network!!!

What? That wasn't Air America? It was Sean Hannity. Oh, sorry...

http://tinypic.com/i5x7v8.jpg

[Drew]

Hell it has been reported that OBL wanted Saudi Arabia to arm his own
militia to kick Saddam out of Kuwait.

[gah...@comcast.net]

I guess your point is that the armed forces, who Bushie is the
Commander in Chief of is only going to be supplying GOP approved
propoganda to the troops via AFRS. Your point is taken, although it
looks like you are using the wrong thread for it. In other words, keep
to the subject.

[Pookie]

<gah...@comcast.net> wrote in message
news:1133743297....@g44g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...

I started the thread, but OK...

The Mother of All Connections
From the July 18, 2005 issue: A special report on the new evidence of
collaboration between Saddam Hussein's Iraq and al Qaeda.
by Stephen F. Hayes & Thomas Joscelyn
07/18/2005, Volume 010, Issue 41

"In August 1998, the detainee traveled to Pakistan with a member of
Iraqi Intelligence for the purpose of blowing up the Pakistan, United States
and British embassies with chemical mortars."

U.S. government "Summary of Evidence" for an Iraqi member of al Qaeda
detained at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba

FOR MANY, the debate over the former Iraqi regime's ties to Osama bin
Laden's al Qaeda network ended a year ago with the release of the 9/11
Commission report. Media outlets seized on a carefully worded summary that
the commission had found no evidence "indicating that Iraq cooperated with
al Qaeda in developing or carrying out any attacks against the United
States" and ran blaring headlines like the one on the June 17, 2004, front
page of the New York Times: "Panel Finds No Qaeda-Iraq Tie."

But this was woefully imprecise. It assumed, not unreasonably, that
the 9/11 Commission's conclusion was based on a firm foundation of
intelligence reporting, that the intelligence community had the type of
human intelligence and other reporting that would allow senior-level
analysts to draw reasonable conclusions. We know now that was not the case.

John Lehman, a 9/11 commissioner, spoke to The Weekly Standard at the
time the report was released. "There may well be--and probably will
be--additional intelligence coming in from interrogations and from analysis
of captured records and so forth which will fill out the intelligence
picture. This is not phrased as--nor meant to be--the definitive word on
Iraqi Intelligence activities."

Lehman's caution was prescient. A year later, we still cannot begin to
offer a "definitive" picture of the relationships entered into by Saddam
Hussein's operatives, but much more has already been learned from documents
uncovered after the Iraq war. The evidence we present below, compiled from
revelations in recent months, suggests an acute case of denial on the part
of those who dismiss the Iraq-al Qaeda relationship.

There could hardly be a clearer case--of the ongoing revelations and
the ongoing denial--than in the 13 points below, reproduced verbatim from a
"Summary of Evidence" prepared by the U.S. government in November 2004. This
unclassified document was released by the Pentagon in late March 2005. It
details the case for designating an Iraqi member of al Qaeda, currently
detained in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, as an "enemy combatant."

1. From 1987 to 1989, the detainee served as an infantryman in the
Iraqi Army and received training on the mortar and rocket propelled
grenades.
2. A Taliban recruiter in Baghdad convinced the detainee to travel
to Afghanistan to join the Taliban in 1994.
3. The detainee admitted he was a member of the Taliban.
4. The detainee pledged allegiance to the supreme leader of the
Taliban to help them take over all of Afghanistan.
5. The Taliban issued the detainee a Kalishnikov rifle in November
2000.
6. The detainee worked in a Taliban ammo and arms storage arsenal in
Mazar-Es-Sharif organizing weapons and ammunition.
7. The detainee willingly associated with al Qaida members.
8. The detainee was a member of al Qaida.
9. An assistant to Usama Bin Ladin paid the detainee on three
separate occasions between 1995 and 1997.
10. The detainee stayed at the al Farouq camp in Darwanta,
Afghanistan, where he received 1,000 Rupees to continue his travels.
11. From 1997 to 1998, the detainee acted as a trusted agent for
Usama Bin Ladin, executing three separate reconnaissance missions for the al
Qaeda leader in Oman, Iraq, and Afghanistan.
12. In August 1998, the detainee traveled to Pakistan with a member
of Iraqi Intelligence for the purpose of blowing up the Pakistan, United
States and British embassies with chemical mortars.
13. Detainee was arrested by Pakistani authorities in Khudzar,
Pakistan, in July 2002.

Interesting. What's more interesting: The alleged plot was to have
taken place in August 1998, the same month that al Qaeda attacked two U.S.
embassies in East Africa. And more interesting still: It was to have taken
place in the same month that the Clinton administration publicly accused
Iraq of supplying al Qaeda with chemical weapons expertise and material.

But none of this was interesting enough for any of the major
television networks to cover it. Nor was it deemed sufficiently newsworthy
to merit a mention in either the Washington Post or the New York Times.

The Associated Press, on the other hand, probably felt obliged to run
a story, since the "Summary of Evidence" was released in response to a
Freedom of Information Act request filed by the AP itself. But after briefly
describing the documents, the AP article downplayed its own scoop with a
sentence almost as amusing as it is inane: "There is no indication the
Iraqi's alleged terror-related activities were on behalf of Saddam Hussein's
government, other than the brief mention of him traveling to Pakistan with a
member of Iraqi intelligence." That sentence minimizing the importance of
the findings was enough, apparently, to convince most newspaper editors
around the country not to run the AP story.

It's possible, of course, that the evidence presented by military
prosecutors is exaggerated, maybe even wrong. The evidence required to
designate a detainee an "enemy combatant" is lower than the "reasonable
doubt" standard of U.S. criminal prosecutions. So there is much we don't
know.

Indeed, more than two years after the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein
was ousted, there is much we do not know about the relationship between Iraq
and al Qaeda. We do know, however, that there was one. We know about this
relationship not from Bush administration assertions but from internal Iraqi
Intelligence Service (IIS) documents recovered in Iraq after the
war--documents that have been authenticated by a U.S. intelligence community
long hostile to the very idea that any such relationship exists.

We know from these IIS documents that beginning in 1992 the former
Iraqi regime regarded bin Laden as an Iraqi Intelligence asset. We know from
IIS documents that the former Iraqi regime provided safe haven and financial
support to an Iraqi who has admitted to mixing the chemicals for the 1993
attack on the World Trade Center. We know from IIS documents that Saddam
Hussein agreed to Osama bin Laden's request to broadcast anti-Saudi
propaganda on Iraqi state-run television. We know from IIS documents that a
"trusted confidante" of bin Laden stayed for more than two weeks at a posh
Baghdad hotel as the guest of the Iraqi Intelligence Service.

We have been told by Hudayfa Azzam, the son of bin Laden's longtime
mentor Abdullah Azzam, that Saddam Hussein welcomed young al Qaeda members
"with open arms" before the war, that they "entered Iraq in large numbers,
setting up an organization to confront the occupation," and that the regime
"strictly and directly" controlled their activities. We have been told by
Jordan's King Abdullah that his government knew Abu Musab al Zarqawi was in
Iraq before the war and requested that the former Iraqi regime deport him.
We have been told by Time magazine that confidential documents from
Zarqawi's group, recovered in recent raids, indicate other jihadists had
joined him in Baghdad before the Hussein regime fell. We have been told by
one of those jihadists that he was with Zarqawi in Baghdad before the war.
We have been told by Ayad Allawi, former Iraqi prime minister and a longtime
CIA source, that other Iraqi Intelligence documents indicate bin Laden's top
deputy was in Iraq for a jihadist conference in September 1999.

All of this is new--information obtained since the fall of the Hussein
regime. And yet critics of the Iraq war and many in the media refuse to see
it. Just two weeks ago, President Bush gave a prime-time speech on Iraq.
Among his key points: Iraq is a central front in the global war on terror
that began on September 11. Bush spoke in very general terms. He did not
mention any of this new information on Iraqi support for terrorism to make
his case. That didn't matter to many journalists and critics of the war.

CNN anchor Carol Costello claimed "there is no evidence that Saddam
Hussein was connected in any way to al Qaeda." The charitable explanation is
ignorance. Jay Rockefeller, the West Virginia Democrat who serves as vice
chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, knows better. Before the war
he pointed to Zarqawi's presence in Iraq as a "substantial connection
between Iraq and al Qaeda." And yet he, too, now insists that Saddam
Hussein's regime "had nothing to do with Osama bin Laden, it had nothing to
do with al Qaeda."

Such comments reveal far more about politics in America than they do
about the Iraq-al Qaeda relationship.

* * *

"Despite four decades of intelligence reporting on Iraq, there was
little useful intelligence collected that helped analysts determine the
Iraqi regime's possible links to al Qaeda."

Senate Intelligence Committee report, July 7, 2004

UNTIL SHORTLY BEFORE THE IRAQ WAR, the consensus view within the U.S.
intelligence community was simple: Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden were
natural enemies who, despite their common interests, would not work
together. Daniel Benjamin, a senior counterterrorism official in the Clinton
administration, summarized this view in a New York Times op-ed on September
30, 2002. He wrote: "Saddam Hussein has long recognized that al Qaeda and
like-minded Islamists represent a threat to his regime. Consequently, he has
shown no interest in working with them against their common enemy, the
United States. This was the understanding of American intelligence in the
1990s."

Benjamin later elaborated in an interview with Mother Jones. "In 1998,
we went through every piece of intelligence we could find to see if there
was a link [between] al Qaeda and Iraq. We came to the conclusion that our
intelligence agencies had it right: There was no noteworthy relationship
between al Qaeda and Iraq. I know that for a fact."

Judith Yaphe, a longtime CIA analyst on the Middle East and Iraq, was
only slightly less categorical in testimony before the House Armed Service
Committee on April 21, 2004. "I know that there's a small number of people
who say that Saddam was working cooperatively with al Qaeda and Osama bin
Laden. I do not believe that. I know the intelligence is not there."

Yaphe was right about one thing: The intelligence was not there. The
CIA's collection against the Iraqi target was abysmal. According to former
CIA director George Tenet, the U.S. intelligence community never penetrated
the senior ranks of the former Iraqi regime. Bob Woodward of the Washington
Post explored this subject in his book on the Iraq war, Plan of Attack.
Woodward interviewed "Saul," the chief of the Iraqi Operations Group, at the
CIA.

Saul was discovering that the CIA reporting sources inside Iraq were
pretty thin. What was thin? "I can count them on one hand," Saul said,
pausing for effect, "and I can still pick my nose." There were four. And
those sources were in Iraqi ministries such as foreign affairs and oil that
were on the periphery of any penetration of Saddam's inner circle.

Woodward reports that the Iraqi Operations Group was known inside the
CIA's Near East Division as "The House of Broken Toys." "It was largely
populated with new, green [Directorate of Operations] officers and problem
officers, or old boys waiting for retirement. . . . Past operations read
almost like a handbook for failed and stupid covert action. It was a
catalogue of doomed work--too little, too late, too seat-of-the-pants, too
little planning, too little realism. The comic mixed with the frightening."

The Senate Select Intelligence Committee did not find it so amusing.
The committee's bipartisan report was released last summer. Most of the
attention at the time focused on the report's assessment of flaws in
intelligence on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction programs. The lengthy
section on "Iraq's Links to Terrorism" received considerably less attention.
What emerges in the 66 pages of the report is a picture of an intelligence
community with a woefully inadequate collection capability on the Iraqi
target. In some ways more disturbing, though, was the lack of interest. In a
stunning moment of candor, an "IC analyst" provided this characterization of
the collection effort on Iraq: "I don't think we were really focused on the
CT [counterterrorism] side, because we weren't concerned about the IIS
[Iraqi Intelligence Service] going out and proactively conducting terrorist
attacks. It wasn't until we realized that there was the possibility of going
to war that we had to get a handle on that."

So on the one hand we know that there was virtually no human
intelligence on Iraq and terrorism. Yet the intelligence community, if this
analyst is to be believed, was so confident in its assessment that Iraqi
Intelligence was not in the terrorism business that collecting on that
target was tantamount to cramming for a test.

The Senate report's conclusions were devastating:

Despite four decades of intelligence reporting on Iraq, there was
little useful intelligence collected that helped analysts determine the
Iraqi regime's possible links to al Qaeda. . . . The Central Intelligence
Agency (CIA) did not have a focused human intelligence (HUMINT) collection
strategy targeting Iraq's links to terrorism until 2002. The CIA had no
[redacted] sources on the ground in Iraq reporting specifically on
terrorism.

It was not just reporting on Iraq that was inadequate. "The CIA had no
[redacted] credible reporting on the leadership of either the Iraqi regime
or al Qaeda, which would have enabled it to better define a cooperative
relationship, if any did in fact exist."

This left policymakers in a bind. There was reporting on the
relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda, but much of it was secondhand. This
reporting was supplemented by widespread coverage of the Iraq-al Qaeda
connection in "open sources," including the amnesiac American press. And
contrary to the assessments coming from many analysts in the intelligence
community, much of this reporting seemed to indicate a significant
relationship.

The difference between most intelligence community analysts and Bush
administration policymakers can be found in how they interpret the gaps. The
analysts seemed to assume, despite the history of poor collection, that the
many Iraq-al Qaeda contacts reported in intelligence products and open
sources were anomalous. To them, the gaps in reporting simply reflected a
lack of activity. Policymakers (and a small number of analysts) took a
different view. The gaps in reporting on Iraq and al Qaeda were just that:
gaps in reporting. To this group, the many reports of contacts, training,
and offers of safe haven were indicative of a relationship that ran much
deeper.

After September 11, the mere existence of a long relationship between
Iraq and al Qaeda had to be considered an urgent threat.

* * *

"Attack them our beloved people. You are the glory of our nation.
Attack them. . . . The Mother of all Battles is not the past."

Saddam Hussein, January 17, 1993

THE U.S. INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY was apparently not much concerned by
Iraqi support for terrorism in the 13 years between the Gulf war and the
Iraq war. To students of Iraq-U.S. relations that might seem bizarre. Saddam
Hussein had used such asymmetric warfare for decades, against enemies
foreign and domestic, real and imagined. What's more, he had demonstrated
his willingness to use terrorism and terrorist surrogates against his
enemies when confronted by superior conventional military forces during the
Gulf war. By some accounts, more than 1,400 terrorists made their way to
Baghdad in the final months of 1990 as he prepared to face the coalition
assembled by the United States to oust him from Kuwait. He dispatched others
to attack U.S. interests around the world. On January 18, 1991, one day
after the Gulf war began, an Iraqi terrorist posing as a day laborer managed
to plant 26 sticks of TNT in a flower box below a window of the U.S.
ambassador's residence in Jakarta, Indonesia. The dynamite wasn't completely
buried, and a gardener found it before the bomb exploded. The following day
in the Philippines, two Iraqis blew themselves up in a plot known to CIA
veterans as Operation Dogmeat, a botched attempt to bomb the U.S.
Information Service headquarters at the Thomas Jefferson Cultural Center in
Manila. The failed attack on the U.S. government-run center received the
active support of the Iraqi ambassador to the Philippines.

Saddam Hussein openly encouraged these attacks. "It remains for us to
tell all Arabs, all militant believers . . . wherever they may be that it is
your duty to embark on holy war. You should target their interests wherever
they may be," he said on January 20, 1991.

Iraq's use of terrorism was so widespread, in fact, that it became an
issue in the 1992 presidential campaign, when Al Gore accused the first Bush
administration of a "blatant disregard for brutal terrorism" practiced by
Hussein and ignoring Iraq's "extensive terrorism activities."

Many Islamic radicals voiced opposition to Saddam Hussein after he
invaded Kuwait. Sudan's Hasan al-Turabi was not one of them. Turabi's
willingness to back Hussein gave the Iraqi dictator the Islamist street
credibility he would exploit for years to come. In the debate over the
former Iraqi regime's relationship with al Qaeda, it is often said that
Saddam's secular Baathist regime could never work with Osama bin Laden's
radical Islamist organization. It is a curious argument since Turabi, one of
Saddam's staunchest allies, also happened to be one of the most influential
Islamists of the past two decades. One of the principal architects of
Sudan's Islamist revolution in 1989, Turabi was also the longtime mentor,
friend, and host of Osama bin Laden during his stay in Sudan from 1992 until
1996.

Immediately after Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, bin Laden approached the
Saudi regime and offered to lead Muslim forces in driving Saddam out of
Kuwait. Many who downplay the relationship between the former Iraqi regime
and al Qaeda point to this as an example of the hostility between Hussein
and bin Laden. But Osama's spurned offer is only part of the story. While
bin Laden's first instinct may have been to oppose the secular tyrant, his
soon-to-be host in Sudan did not share these sentiments. According to an
interview at the time with Turabi's cousin, Mudawi Turabi, the Sudanese
leader met twice with Saddam Hussein before the Gulf war and "had appeared
to be designing his own Islamic empire even then."

In October 1990, Turabi led a delegation of Islamists to Jordan to
meet with Iraqi government officials. Bin Laden sent emissaries to this
meeting as well. While it is not clear what bin Laden's emissaries or bin
Laden himself thought of the meeting, it is clear that Turabi threw his full
support behind Saddam. In a press conference after the meeting, Turabi
warned "there is going to be all forms of jihad all over the world because
it is an issue of foreign troops on sacred soil."

Turabi continued in his self-designated role as pan-Islamic leader by
convening terrorist confabs in Khartoum known euphemistically as the Popular
Arab Islamic Conference. Encouraged by Turabi, Saddam began hosting his own
Popular Islamic Conference in Baghdad. The conferences shared a central
purpose: to bring together Islamic and secular radicals from around the
world to oppose U.S. involvement in the Gulf war and the continued presence
of American troops on Saudi soil.

The Baghdad conferences, which were held annually until the regime
fell, were filled with the rhetoric of jihad. A statement issued at the
closing ceremony of the 1992 conference was a call to arms. The 500
Islamists in attendance affirmed "that maintaining and defending the unity
of Iraq's land, people and sovereignty is an Islamic duty that must be
performed because Iraq is the fortress of Islamic jihad targeted by the
atheist forces." The statement called on Islamic groups "to meet and discuss
the establishment [of] a free world front to confront the U.S. hegemony and
its new world order."

Newsweek reporter Christopher Dickey attended a Popular Islamic
Conference at Baghdad's al Rashid Hotel and later recalled: "If that was not
a fledgling al Qaeda at the Rashid convention, it sure was Saddam's version
of it."

We do not yet know how many future al Qaeda leaders attended the
conferences. (We do know that the conferences were carried on Iraqi
state-run television and that the attendees signed the closing statements. A
comparison of those lists with known al Qaeda terrorists would be an
interesting and potentially productive undertaking, as would a careful
review of any photographic evidence from the session.) By this time,
however, it appears that Hussein had already forged relationships with the
two men who would later lead al Qaeda.

An internal Iraqi Intelligence memo dated March 28, 1992, lists
individuals Hussein's regime considered assets of the Iraqi Intelligence
Service. Osama bin Laden is listed on page 14. The Iraqis describe him as a
Saudi businessman who "is in good relationship with our section in Syria."

At the same time, the Iraqis were cultivating a relationship with
Ayman al Zawahiri, the leader of Egyptian Islamic Jihad and the current top
deputy to bin Laden. According to Qassem Hussein Mohammed, a 20-year veteran
of Iraqi Intelligence, Zawahiri visited Baghdad in 1992 for a meeting with
Hussein. In a 2002 interview with the New Yorker's Jeffrey Goldberg from a
Kurdish prison in northeastern Iraq, the IIS veteran described his duties as
a bodyguard for Zawahiri during his visit. This was not Zawahiri's only
meeting with top Iraqi officials. According to a May 2003 debriefing of a
senior Iraqi Intelligence official, Zawahiri met with Iraqi Intelligence
officials in Sudan several times from 1992 to 1995. A foreign intelligence
service has corroborated that report, adding that at one of those meetings
Zawahiri received blank Yemeni passports from an Iraqi Intelligence
official.

In 1993, at Turabi's urging, bin Laden came to an "understanding" with
Saddam Hussein that the al Qaeda leader and his followers would not engage
in any anti-Hussein activities. The Clinton administration later included
this development in its sealed indictment of bin Laden in 1998. According to
the indictment: "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."

* * *

"Abdul Rahman Yasin, a fugitive of the [1993 World Trade Center]
attack, is of Iraqi descent, and in 1993, he fled to Iraq with Iraqi
assistance."

Senate Intelligence Committee report

ON FEBRUARY 26, 1993, a powerful bomb exploded in the garage of the
World Trade Center in New York City. The attack killed six and injured more
than 1,000. It could have been much worse. The bombers hoped to topple one
tower into the other. The men responsible for the attack aimed to kill tens
of thousands of Americans.

One of those men was Abdul Rahman Yasin, an Iraqi who had come to the
United States six months before the attack. In the days after the attack,
Yasin was detained twice by the FBI. Although he admitted his role in the
bombing and offered investigators details of the plot, he was inexplicably
released. Twice. The second time the FBI even drove him home. According to
the bipartisan Senate Select Committee on Intelligence report, Yasin
promptly "fled to Iraq with Iraqi assistance." His travel was arranged by
the second secretary of the Iraqi embassy in Amman, Jordan. In 1994, a
reporter for ABC News went to the home of Yasin's father in Baghdad and
spoke with neighbors who reported that Yasin was free to come and go as he
pleased and was "working for the government."

Shortly after the 9/11 attacks, the Iraqi regime denied any
relationship with Yasin and any knowledge of his whereabouts. In an
interview with PBS's Frontline that aired on October 29, 2001, Iraq's U.N.
ambassador denied that Yasin was even in Iraq. "To my knowledge he is not,
and there is not any relation with him." Pressed, the Iraqi diplomat went
further. "Absolutely. I know that there is no relation with that guy. . . .
We have no relations with these kind of guys, with all persons who are
involved in terrorism."

Eight months later, on June 2, 2002, the Iraqi government abruptly
changed its story. Tariq Aziz, for years the face of the Iraqi regime in the
Western media, appeared on 60 Minutes and assured Lesley Stahl that Yasin
had been imprisoned since his return to Iraq. Aziz claimed that the Iraqi
regime held Yasin prisoner because they worried that the United States would
blame Iraq for the attack if he was returned to America to face trial. Yasin
himself appeared. He admitted to mixing the chemicals for the bomb. He
showed viewers a scar on his leg that he claimed to have gotten preparing
chemicals for the attack. He even apologized. Stahl did not ask about the
Frontline interview or previous media reports that Yasin was living freely
in Baghdad.

We now know more about Yasin's stay in Baghdad. "We know, for example,
in connection with the original World Trade Center bombing in '93 that one
of the bombers was Iraqi, returned to Iraq after the attack of '93," Vice
President Dick Cheney told Tim Russert in a September 14, 2003, appearance
on Meet the Press. "And we've learned subsequent to that, since we went into
Baghdad and got into the intelligence files, that this individual probably
also received financing from the Iraqi government as well as safe haven.
Now, is there a connection between the Iraqi government and the original
World Trade Center bombing in '93? We know, as I say, that one of the
perpetrators of that act did, in fact, receive support from the Iraqi
government after the fact."

Those documents are now in possession of the FBI. Despite requests for
declassification of the documents from both Cheney's office and the
Pentagon, the FBI refuses to release them. In March, The Weekly Standard
requested an interview with FBI officials to discuss the Iraqi intelligence
documents and the status of the Yasin case. The request was denied last
week. An FBI spokeswoman said FBI officials refuse to discuss Yasin. Yasin
remains on the FBI's "Most Wanted Terrorists" list and is believed to be
still in Iraq. If there is a good reason to keep these historical documents
classified, the FBI declined to provide it.

Just two months after the 1993 World Trade Center attack, the Iraqi
Intelligence Service attempted to assassinate former President George H.W.
Bush. The IIS recruited a male nurse from Najaf as a suicide bomber to kill
the former president on a trip to Kuwait. The plot was foiled when Kuwaiti
police, thinking they had broken up a smuggling ring, learned of the Iraqi
plans. The Clinton administration responded by bombing an empty Iraqi
Intelligence Service headquarters at night.

* * *

"Cooperation between the two organizations should be allowed to
develop freely through discussion and agreement."

Internal Iraqi Intelligence memo on Iraq-al Qaeda cooperation, June
25, 2004, New York Times

THE RELATIONSHIP CONTINUED with high-level meetings throughout 1994
and 1995. The 9/11 Commission staff report that made headlines last year by
declaring that such meetings between Iraq and al Qaeda "do not appear to
have resulted in a collaborative relationship" also reported that the
Sudanese government arranged for "contacts between Iraq and al Qaeda." The
staff report continued: "A senior Iraqi intelligence officer reportedly made
three visits to Sudan, finally meeting bin Laden in 1994. Bin Laden is said
to have requested space to establish training camps, as well as assistance
in procuring weapons, but Iraq apparently never responded."

That senior Iraqi intelligence officer was Faruq Hijazi, former deputy
director of Iraqi Intelligence and longtime regime liaison to al Qaeda.
According to several Bush administration officials with access to his
debriefings, as well as a top secret Pentagon summary of intelligence on
Iraq and al Qaeda known as the Feith Memo, Hijazi described a face-to-face
meeting with bin Laden that took place in 1994. The language in the Feith
Memo corresponds closely to that in the 9/11 Commission staff report.
"During a May 2003 custodial interview with Faruq Hijazi, he said in a 1994
meeting with bin Laden in the Sudan, bin Laden requested that Iraq assist al
Qaeda with the procurement of an unspecified number of Chinese-manufactured
antiship limpet mines. Bin Laden thought that Iraq should be able to procure
the mines through third-country intermediaries for ultimate delivery to al
Qaeda. Hijazi said he was under orders from Saddam only to listen to bin
Laden's requests and then report back to him. Bin Laden also requested the
establishment of al Qaeda training camps inside Iraq."

An internal Iraqi Intelligence document obtained by the New York Times
provides a window into the state of the relationship during the mid-1990s. A
team of Pentagon analysts concluded that the document "appears authentic."
The memo reports that a Sudanese government official met with Uday Hussein
and the director of the Iraqi Intelligence Service in 1994 and reported that
Bin Laden was willing to meet in Sudan. As a consequence, according to the
Iraqi document, bin Laden was "approached by our side" after "presidential
approval" for the liaison was given. The former head of Iraqi Intelligence
Directorate 4 met with bin Laden on February 19, 1995. The document further
states that bin Laden "had some reservations about being labeled an Iraqi
operative."

But the absence of a formal relationship hardly precludes cooperation,
as the document makes clear. Bin Laden requested that Iraq's state-run
television network broadcast anti-Saudi propaganda; the document indicates
that the Iraqis agreed to do this. The al Qaeda leader also proposed "joint
operations against foreign forces" in Saudi Arabia. There is no response
provided in the documents. When bin Laden leaves Sudan for Afghanistan in
May 1996, the Iraqis seek "other channels through which to handle the
relationship, in light of his current location." The IIS memo directs that
"cooperation between the two organizations should be allowed to develop
freely through discussion and agreement."

There are other reports of varying reliability of Iraqi support for al
Qaeda during the mid-1990s. One senior al Qaeda operative in U.S. custody
since 1995, Wali Khan Amin Shah, told FBI interrogators that an al Qaeda
leader named Abu Hajer al Iraqi maintained a good relationship with Iraqi
Intelligence. Abu Hajer al Iraqi ran al Qaeda's WMD procurement operation
until his capture in 1998 and was described by another al Qaeda member as
Osama bin Laden's "best friend." According to the Senate Intelligence
Committee report, Wali Khan testified that he had knowledge of two "direct
meetings" between the leadership of Iraqi Intelligence and Abu Hajer al
Iraqi.

According to the presentation at the United Nations Security Council
by Colin Powell on February 5, 2003, an al Qaeda member named Abu Abdullah
al Iraqi received training in chemical and biological weapons in Iraq
beginning in 1997. The information comes from another high-ranking al Qaeda
detainee named Ibn Shaykh al-Libi, who ran bin Laden's notorious Khalden
Camp outside of Kandahar. Said Powell: "The support that [al-Libi] describes
included Iraq offering chemical or biological weapons training for two al
Qaeda associates, beginning in December 2000. He says that a militant known
as Abu Abdullah al-Iraqi had been sent to Iraq several times between 1997
and 2000 for help in acquiring poisons and gases. Abdullah al-Iraqi
characterized the relationship he forged with Iraqi officials as
'successful.'" Al-Libi's reporting also formed the basis of several
statements from CIA Director George Tenet.

Al-Libi has since recanted some of the information he provided. The
debate about whether to give more credence to his original statement or his
retraction continues. But the Senate Intelligence Committee report concluded
that the terrorism section of Powell's speech "was carefully vetted by both
terrorism and regional analysts" and that it did not differ "in any
significant way" from earlier published CIA assessments.

* * *

"To gain the knowledge of the message from bin Laden and to convey to
his envoy an oral message from us to bin Laden, the Saudi opposition leader,
about the future of our relationship with him, and to achieve a direct
meeting with him."

Internal Iraqi Intelligence memo describing the goal of meetings with
an al Qaeda envoy, February 19, 1998

BY ALL ACCOUNTS, the relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda
intensified in 1998. The Iraqis were growing more obdurate in their
confrontation with the U.N. weapons inspectors, at times simply refusing to
grant access to suspected weapons sites. The United States was losing
patience--both with Iraq and with U.N. fecklessness. Al Qaeda, meanwhile,
had found a home in Afghanistan and was turning out terrorists from its
camps by the thousands.

On February 3, 1998, Ayman al Zawahiri, bin Laden's Egyptian deputy,
came to Baghdad for meetings with Iraqi leaders. The visit came as Islamic
radicals gathered once again in the Iraqi capital for another installation
of Hussein's Popular Islamic Conferences. Iraqi vice president Taha Yasin
Ramadan welcomed them on February 9 with the language of jihad:

The Islamic nation's ulema, advocates and preachers, are called upon
to carry out a jihad that God wants them to carry out through honest words
in order to expose the U.S. and Zionist regimes to the world peoples, to
explain facts, and to say what is right and to call for it. This is their
religious duty. The Muslim ulema are called upon before Almighty God to act
among the Muslim ranks to confront the infidel U.S. moves and to raise their
voices against the U.S.-Zionist evil.

We do not have reporting on when, exactly, Zawahiri left Baghdad. But
we do know from an interrogation of a senior Iraqi Intelligence official
that he did not leave empty-handed. As first reported in U.S. News & World
Report, the Iraqi regime gave Zawahiri $300,000 during or shortly after his
trip to Baghdad.

On February 17, 1998, Bill Clinton traveled the short distance from
the White House to the Pentagon to prepare the nation for a confrontation
with Iraq. The symbolism was obvious, the rhetoric belligerent. Clinton
explained why "meeting the threat posed by Saddam Hussein is important to
our security in the new era we are entering." He warned about the threats
from the "predators of the 21st century," rogue states working with
terrorist groups. "There is no more clear example of this threat than Saddam
Hussein's Iraq." War seemed imminent.

Two days later, on February 19, the Iraqi Intelligence Service
finalized plans to bring a "trusted confidant" of bin Laden's to Baghdad in
early March. The revelation came in documents discovered after the Iraq war
by journalists Mitch Potter of the Toronto Star and Inigo Gilmore of the
Sunday Telegraph. The U.S. intelligence community is now in possession of
these documents and has assessed that they are authentic. The documents--a
series of communiqués between Iraqi Intelligence divisions--provide another
window into the relationship between the former Iraqi regime and al Qaeda.
The following comes from the Telegraph's translations of the documents.

The envoy is a trusted confidant and known by them. According to the
above mediation we request official permission to call Khartoum station to
facilitate the travel arrangements for the above-mentioned person to Iraq.
And that our body carry all the travel and hotel expenses inside Iraq to
gain the knowledge of the message from bin Laden and to convey to his envoy
an oral message from us to bin Laden, the Saudi opposition leader, about the
future of our relationship with him, and to achieve a direct meeting with
him.

A note at the bottom of the page from the director of one IIS division
recommends approving the request, noting, "we may find in this envoy a way
to maintain contacts with bin Laden."

Four days later, on February 23, final approval is granted. "The
permission of Mr. Deputy Director of Intelligence has been gained on 21
February for this operation, to secure a reservation for one of the
intelligence services guests for one week in one of the first class hotels,"
the Al Mansour Melia hotel in Baghdad.

That same day, Osama bin Laden and Ayman al Zawahiri, joined by
leaders of four additional Islamic terrorist groups, announced the formation
of the World Front for Jihad Against Jews and Crusaders, soon to become
better known as al Qaeda. The grievances in the fatwa focused on Iraq. The
terrorist leaders decried the presence of U.S. troops on the Arabian
Peninsula. They protested the "great devastation inflicted on the Iraqi
people by the crusader-Zionist alliance." They cited American support for
Israel and surmised that the United States sought to distract world
attention from the killing of Muslims in Jerusalem. To support this claim,
the fatwa turned once again to Iraq: "The best proof of this is their
eagerness to destroy Iraq, the strongest neighboring Arab state."

The fatwa declared: "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."

The al Qaeda envoy to Iraq arrived in Baghdad on March 5, 1998. Notes
in the margins of the Iraqi Intelligence memos indicate that Mohammed F.
Mohammed stayed for more than two weeks in Room 414 of the Al Mansour Melia
Hotel as the guest of Iraqi Intelligence. After extending his trip by one
week, bin Laden's emissary departed on March 16.

Adding to the intrigue, the 9/11 Commission reported that "[i]n March
1998, after bin Laden's public fatwa against the United States, two al Qaeda
members reportedly went to Iraq to meet with Iraqi intelligence." Were there
two separate al Qaeda trips to Iraq in March 1998? It's possible that the
IIS documents and the 9/11 Commission report refer to the same meeting. But
the Iraqi Intelligence documents refer to one al Qaeda envoy, the 9/11
Commission report mentions two--raising the possibility that two separate
meetings took place.

* * *

"The consistent stream of intelligence at that time said it wasn't
just al Shifa. There were three different [chemical weapons] structures in
the Sudan. There was the hiring of Iraqis. There was no question that the
Iraqis were there."

Interview with John Gannon, former chairman of the CIA's National
Intelligence Council, October 25, 2004

OPEN SOURCE REPORTING suggests the relationship continued throughout
the spring and summer of 1998. William Safire of the New York Times and
Yossef Bodansky, former director of the Congressional Task Force on
Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare, have both reported the presence of an
al Qaeda delegation at a birthday celebration for Saddam Hussein in April
1998.

In a speech at the U.S. Naval Academy on May 22, 1998, President
Clinton warned that our enemies "may deploy compact and relatively cheap
weapons of mass destruction--not just nuclear, but also chemical or
biological, to use disease as a weapon of war. Sometimes the terrorists and
criminals act alone. But increasingly, they are interconnected, and
sometimes supported by hostile countries." Hostile countries such as Iraq,
Afghanistan, and Sudan.

Although Osama bin Laden left Sudan in 1996, many al Qaeda operatives
stayed behind. According to testimony from several al Qaeda terrorists now
in U.S. custody, al Qaeda operatives worked closely with Sudanese
intelligence. Sudanese intelligence provided security for al Qaeda camps and
safehouses. These agents intervened when local Sudanese authorities arrested
al Qaeda members for exploding bombs at an al Qaeda farm, securing the
release of the detained terrorists. Jamal al Fadl, an al Qaeda terrorist who
later cooperated with U.S. prosecutors, testified that he was ordered by
Sudanese intelligence to assassinate a political rival to Hassan al-Turabi.
Even after bin Laden's departure, al Qaeda and Sudanese intelligence were
virtually indistinguishable.

Shortly after Clinton's speech, the CIA produced an assessment of WMD
proliferation that covered the first half of 1998. "Sudan," it said, "has
been developing the capability to produce chemical weapons for many years.
In this pursuit, Sudan obtained help from other countries, principally Iraq.
Given its history in developing CW and its close relationship with Iraq,
Sudan may be interested in a BW program as well." CIA assessments through
2002 included similar analyses.

In July 1998, according to the 9/11 Commission report, "an Iraqi
delegation traveled to Afghanistan to meet first with the Taliban and then
with bin Laden." Referring to the March and July meetings between Iraq and
al Qaeda, the Commission noted that "sources reported that one, or perhaps
both, of these meetings was apparently arranged through bin Laden's Egyptian
deputy, Zawahiri, who had ties of his own to the Iraqis." In a maddening
omission, the report does not elaborate on the "ties" between al Qaeda's No.
2 and the Iraqi regime.

Trouble was clearly brewing. On July 29, the CIA's Counterterrorism
Center (CTC) warned of "possible Chemical, Biological, Radiological, or
Nuclear (CBRN) attack by UBL [Osama bin Laden]." But when the attack came,
it was by conventional means: On August 7, al Qaeda terrorists struck the
U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, killing 224--including 12
Americans--and injuring more than 4,000. Almost immediately, the CIA
assigned responsibility to terrorists affiliated with Osama bin Laden.

The U.S. response came two weeks later, on August 20, striking two
targets. The first of these, al Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan, was
uncontroversial. The second target--the al Shifa pharmaceutical plant in
Sudan--almost immediately gave rise to great controversy.

In justifying the strike on al Shifa, the Clinton administration
pointed to several pieces of evidence: a soil sample indicating the presence
of a precursor for VX nerve gas of Iraqi provenance; the presence of Iraqi
chemical weapons experts at the plant; the long history of Iraq-Sudanese
collaboration on chemical weapons; and telephone intercepts between senior
Shifa officials and Emad Al Ani, the father of Iraq's chemical weapons
program.

The press treated these claims with great skepticism. But Clinton
administration officials and many intelligence analysts would continue to
defend the intelligence surrounding al Shifa for years. In a January 23,
1999, article in the Washington Post, National Security Council
counterterrorism director Richard Clarke defended the president's choice of
target and said that "intelligence exists linking bin Laden to al Shifa's
current and past operators, the Iraqi nerve gas experts and the National
Islamic Front in Sudan." In an email he sent on November 4, 1998, to
National Security Adviser Sandy Berger, Clarke concluded that the presence
of Iraqi chemical experts in Sudan was "probably a direct result of the
Iraq-Al Qaeda agreement."

President Clinton's secretary of defense, William Cohen, continued to
defend the decision to strike al Shifa before the 9/11 Commission last year.
Cohen explained that there were "multiple, reinforcing elements of
information ranging from links that the organization that built the facility
[al Shifa] had both with bin Laden and with the leadership of the Iraqi
chemical weapons program."

In an interview with THE WEEKLY STANDARD last fall, 9/11 Commission
co-chairman Thomas Kean said: "Top officials--Bill Clinton, Sandy Berger,
and others--told us with absolute certainty that there were chemical weapons
of mass destruction at that factory, and that's why we sent missiles." Kean
added: "We still can't say for certain that the chemicals were there. If
they're right and there was stuff there, then it had to come from Iraq.
They're the ones who had the stuff, who had this technology."

In fact, the Iraqis were openly involved with the al Shifa facility.
Sudanese foreign minister Osman Ismail was in Baghdad when the plant was
attacked. He told reporters the facility was nothing more than a
pharmaceutical factory. As proof he pointed to the existence of a contract
awarded to al Shifa through the U.N. Oil-for-Food program. But the contract
raised questions even then. In the eight months between the signing of the
$199,000 contract and the U.S. strikes on al Shifa, no goods were delivered.
With the benefit of hindsight, we now understand that Saddam Hussein
manipulated the Oil-for-Food program to reward friends and business partners
willing to help him circumvent U.N. sanctions and rebuild his weapons
programs. U.S. counterterrorism officials tell The Weekly Standard that
relatively few Oil-for-Food contracts went to Sudanese companies, and that
the contract with al Shifa stands out as troubling.

There was reporting about an Iraqi presence at a number of facilities
in Sudan. The Clinton administration chose al Shifa for destruction largely
because it was outside of Khartoum and was thus unlikely to result in a
large number of casualties. There were several other potential targets. "The
consistent stream of intelligence at that time said it wasn't just al
Shifa," says John Gannon, who was chairman of the National Intelligence
Council at the time. "There were three different [chemical weapons]
structures in the Sudan. There was the hiring of Iraqis. There was no
question that the Iraqis were there."

As for the August 1998 Iraq-al Qaeda plots against the U.S. and
British embassies in Pakistan, revealed in the Guantanamo Summary of
Evidence obtained by the AP, we are left with more questions than answers.
Has the detainee's story been corroborated? Were the attacks in Pakistan
what the CIA's counterterrorism center warned about on July 29? Were they to
have been carried out in tandem with the August 7, 1998, al Qaeda embassy
bombings? Were they intended as a rejoinder to the U.S. strikes on al Shifa?
A Pentagon spokesman says the government's policy against discussing
detainees prevents him from providing any answers. Other Bush administration
and intelligence officials contacted by The Weekly Standard either did not
know about the detainee or refused to discuss the case.

On August 27, 1998, Iraq's Babel newspaper, published by Uday Hussein,
labeled Osama bin Laden an "Arab and Islamic hero."

* * *

"Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin Laden have sealed a pact."

Milan's Corriere della Sera, December 28, 1998, as cited in the Senate
Intelligence Committee report, p. 328

SADDAM HUSSEIN continued to defy U.N. weapons inspectors throughout
the fall of 1998. Noncompliance was the norm. Confrontations about access to
suspected WMD sites became almost a daily occurrence.

Back in Washington, members of both parties urged President Clinton to
increase the pressure on Iraq. Congress was considering legislation that
would make "regime change" in Iraq official U.S. policy. The United States
also began broadcasting anti-Hussein messages into Iraq via Radio Free Iraq.
The broadcasts were housed in the Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
headquarters in Prague. The first broadcast went out on October 30, 1998.
The Iraqis were furious and threatened retaliation. On November 8, 1998, a
commentator on Iraqi state television insisted the broadcasts would do
nothing to affect the "jihad spirit" of the Iraqis. A statement three days
later from Saddam's Baath party called on Muslims to be steadfast in the
ongoing Mother of All Battles and to undertake "unprecedented heroisms" to
fight the Zionists and Crusaders. And then, a call for attacks:

All living capabilities of the Arab nation should be toward the
unity of the pan-Arab [world] and toward escalating the struggle to the
highest levels of jihad. . . . The escalation of the confrontation and the
disclosure of its dimensions and the aggressive intentions now require an
organized, planned, influential and conclusive enthusiasm against U.S.
interests.

This was not, apparently, just bluster. The Iraqi regime wired
$150,000 to an account in Prague, according to Jabir Salim, the man on the
receiving end. Salim was the Iraqi station chief in the Czech Republic and
with the money he received an order: Recruit a young Islamic radical to blow
up the headquarters of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. Salim had difficulty
finding someone to commit the martyrdom operation, he told British
Intelligence after defecting to the West when the U.S. launched Operation
Desert Fox--a series of cruise missile attacks on Iraqi targets--on December
16, 1998. Salim also told interrogators that the Iraq-al Qaeda relationship
had intensified after the August 1998 embassy bombings and that the Iraqi
Intelligence station in Pakistan served as the hub of Iraq-al Qaeda
activity.

Operation Desert Fox would last four days. Saddam Hussein's response
was revealing. On December 21, he dispatched one of his most trusted
intelligence operatives, Faruq Hijazi, to Afghanistan to meet bin Laden.
Hijazi had met with both Zawahiri and bin Laden on many occasions earlier in
the decade. On December 26, Osama bin Laden condemned the U.S.-led attacks.
"The British and the American people loudly declared their support for their
leaders' decision to attack Iraq," bin Laden proclaimed. He added that this
support made it the "duty of Muslims to confront, fight and kill" British
and American citizens.

The meeting between bin Laden and Hijazi instigated a burst of
intelligence reporting on Iraq and al Qaeda. One source reported that "the
Iraqi regime was trying to broaden its cooperation with al Qaeda. Iraq was
looking to recruit Muslim 'elements' to sabotage U.S. and U.K. interests."

These claims were not limited to sensitive intelligence reporting. In
the weeks that followed the meeting, dozens of press outlets from around the
world reported on it as well as several others. The reports indicated that
Saddam had offered bin Laden safe haven, had already trained al Qaeda
operatives, and was supporting bin Laden's efforts to attack Western
targets.

The details reported were striking. On December 28 Milan's Corriere
della Sera reported "Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin Laden have sealed a pact."
In its issue dated January 11, 1999, Newsweek quoted an anonymous "Arab
intelligence officer who knows Saddam personally" as warning that "very soon
you will be witnessing large-scale terrorist activity run by the Iraqis"
against Western targets. The Iraqi plan would be run under one of three
"false flags": Palestinian, Iranian, and the "al Qaeda apparatus." All of
these groups, Newsweek reported, had representatives in Baghdad.

The reports did not end there. Throughout February and March 1999,
there was media speculation that bin Laden would relocate from Afghanistan
to Iraq. Behind the scenes, Clinton administration officials were engaging
in similar conjecture. According to the 9/11 Commission report, Richard
Clarke sent an email to National Security Adviser Sandy Berger on February
11, 1999. Clarke told Berger that if bin Laden learned of U.S. operations
against him, "old wily Osama will likely boogie to Baghdad." Days later
Bruce Riedel of the National Security Council staff also emailed Berger,
warning that "Saddam Hussein wanted bin Laden in Baghdad." Reports of Iraqi
offers of safe haven, cooperation, and training continued throughout 1999.

* * *

"The Shakir in Kuala Lumpur has many interesting connections that are
so multiple in their intersections with al Qaeda-related organizations and
people as to suggest something more than random chance."

9/11 Commissioner John Lehman, July 22, 2004

TWO FOREIGN INTELLIGENCE SERVICES believe that Ahmed Hikmat Shakir, an
Iraqi national who escorted a September 11 hijacker to the key planning
meeting for those attacks in Kuala Lumpur, was working for Iraqi
Intelligence: the Malaysians, who monitored Shakir's activities as he
facilitated the travel for 9/11 hijacker Khalid al Mihdhar in January 2000,
and the Jordanians, who detained Shakir for three months after the September
11 attacks.

Shakir began working as a VIP greeter for Malaysian Airlines in August
1999. He told associates he had gotten the job through a contact at the
Iraqi embassy named Ra'ad al-Mudaris. In fact, al-Mudaris controlled
Shakir's schedule--telling him when to report to work and when to take a day
off. The Senate Intelligence Committee report reveals that "another source
claimed that Mudaris was a former IIS officer."

Al-Mudaris apparently told Shakir to report to work on January 5,
2000, the same day September 11 hijacker Khalid al Mihdhar arrived in Kuala
Lumpur. Shakir escorted al Mihdhar to a waiting car and then, rather than
bid his guest farewell, jumped in the car with him. U.S. intelligence
officials will not say whether Shakir was an active participant in the
meeting, but with photographs provided by Malaysian intelligence, there is
little doubt he was there. The meeting lasted from January 5 to January 8.
Shakir reported to work twice after the meeting broke up and then
disappeared.

He was arrested in Doha, Qatar, on September 17, 2001. He had been
employed by the Qatari government in its Ministry of Religious Development.
Authorities found what Newsweek's Michael Isikoff and Daniel Klaidman
described as a "treasure trove": contact information--both on Shakir and
back at his apartment--for several high-ranking al Qaeda terrorists. They
include: Zaid Sheikh Mohammed, brother of 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh
Mohammed; Musab Yasin, brother of Abdul Rahman Yasin, the Iraqi who
participated in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing; Abu Hajer al Iraqi, the
Iraqi national alleged to have been Osama bin Laden's "best friend"; and
Ibrahim Suleiman, a Kuwaiti native whose fingerprints were found on the
bombmaking manuals authorities say were used in preparation for the 1993
Trade Center bombing. We also know that in January 1993, shortly before the
first attack on the World Trade Center, Shakir had received a phone call
later traced to the New Jersey safehouse that served as the headquarters for
that operation.

Despite this, the Qataris released Shakir. (The Qatari government has
not responded to numerous interview requests.) But he was detained again on
October 21, 2001, this time by Jordanians in Amman, where he was to have
caught a flight to Baghdad. The Jordanians held him for three months. The
Iraqi regime repeatedly contacted the Jordanian government and pressed for
his release. The Jordanians, who had concluded that Shakir was working for
Iraqi Intelligence, devised a plan and presented it to the CIA. The
Jordanians proposed releasing Shakir, but only after extracting from him a
promise to report back on the activities of Iraqi Intelligence from inside
Iraq. Perhaps mindful of the woeful lack of human sources in Iraq, the CIA
approved. The Jordanians set him free in late January 2002, at which point
he returned to Baghdad.

He was never heard from again.

The Weekly Standard asked 9/11 Commissioner John Lehman about Shakir
last year, shortly after the commission's final report was released. "The
Shakir in Kuala Lumpur has many interesting connections that are so multiple
in their intersections with al Qaeda-related organizations and people as to
suggest something more than random chance," he said. We clarified: "With
respect to both al Qaeda and the Iraqi regime?"

"Yes. Both."

* * *

"Following the expulsion of al Qaeda from Afghanistan and their
arrival in northern Iraq, Abu Musab al Zarqawi (a senior al Qaeda figure)
was relatively free to travel within Iraq proper and to stay in Baghdad for
some time. Several of his colleagues visited him there."

The Butler Report, July 14, 2004

TEN DAYS BEFORE September 11, 2001, a small group of Islamic radicals
came together in the northern, Kurdish-controlled area of Iraq. They would
quickly come to be known as Ansar al Islam. Their ranks swelled as hundreds
of al Qaeda terrorists fled the U.S. assault on the Taliban in Afghanistan.
It quickly became clear to many policymakers and intelligence analysts that
the Ansar camps were fallback zones for al Qaeda.

In time, one of Ansar's leaders would become the face of not only the
Iraqi insurgency, but also of al Qaeda. Abu Musab al Zarqawi is, besides
Osama bin Laden, perhaps the best known al Qaeda terrorist on the planet. He
and his followers have been linked to terrorist plots the world over: from a
plot in Jordan at the turn of the millennium, to the assassination of U.S.
diplomat Laurence Foley in October 2002, to the Madrid train bombing on
March 11, 2004. His personal role in the beheadings of hostages in Iraq has
provided a stark reminder of the brutality of the jihadists.

As the war in Iraq approached, the Bush administration cited Zarqawi's
presence in Baghdad from May to July 2002--allegedly, for medical
treatment--as evidence that Saddam harbored and aided al Qaeda terrorists.
This claim was met with a remarkable degree of skepticism.

Prior to September 11, there was nary a mention of Zarqawi. It appears
that the intelligence community did not pay much attention to him until
after 9/11, when, according to the Senate Intelligence Committee report, "an
ongoing collection" became "aggressively worked." Thus, there is much
uncertainty concerning his origins and exactly when his relationship with
Saddam's regime began.

Recently, Ayad Allawi, the first post-Saddam prime minister of Iraq,
stated that Iraqi intelligence documents show that Zarqawi was in
Saddam-controlled parts of Iraq in late 1999. The documents, according to
Allawi, also show that Zarqawi was setting up sleeper cells with the full
knowledge of Saddam's intelligence services. If the documents are authentic,
and we cannot offer a judgment one way or another, then they will put to
rest any doubts about Zarqawi's involvement with Saddam's regime prior to
the war.

There were many early reports that Iraqi intelligence officers were
among Ansar's leadership and thus Zarqawi's cohorts. One of these was a man
known by his nom de guerre, Abu Wael. Ansar's Kurdish enemies, and several
IIS and al Qaeda detainees, claimed from the beginning that Abu Wael was an
Iraqi Intelligence officer who managed the relationship between Ansar and
Saddam's regime. The Kurds have also repeatedly claimed that he, as well as
other IIS officers, supplied Ansar with funding and arms.

The case of Abu Wael remains unresolved, but the Kurds' claims that
the Iraqi regime provided al Qaeda members with weapons and funding has been
validated by other intelligence reporting. A May 2002 signals intelligence
report, included in the Feith memo, stated that "an Iraqi intelligence
official, praising Ansar al Islam, provided it with $100,000 and agreed to
continue to give assistance." Another report from the National Security
Agency in October 2002 said that "al Qaeda and Iraq reached a secret
agreement whereby Iraq would provide safe haven to al Qaeda members and
provide them with money and weapons." It was this agreement that "reportedly
prompted a large number of al Qaeda members to head to Iraq."

In addition to Saddam's support for al Qaeda in Kurdish-controlled
territories, we also know that Zarqawi was not alone in Baghdad. According
to the bipartisan Senate Intelligence Report, the CIA "described a network
of more than a dozen al Qaeda or al Qaeda-associated operatives in Baghdad"
before the war.

The intelligence community has downplayed the possibility that the
Iraqi regime supported Zarqawi's prewar activities, including the
assassination of Laurence Foley. Intelligence community analysts, according
to the Senate Intelligence Committee report, point out that "neither of the
two suspects" in the shooting "provided any information on links between
al-Zarqawi and the Iraqi regime."

But we also have testimony from one of the suspects in the murder that
Zarqawi "directed and financed the operations of the cell" responsible
"before, during and after his stint in Baghdad between May and July 2002."
And both of the suspects have said that "one member of the al Zarqawi
network traveled repeatedly between regime-controlled Iraq and Syria after
March 2002."

Thus, many in the intelligence community implausibly assume that
Zarqawi could have planned terrorist attacks from neo-Stalinist Baghdad and
had one of his operatives travel in and out of Iraqi regime-controlled
territory without Saddam's approval. The next question is obvious: If it is
so easy for regime foes to maintain a long-term presence in Baghdad and to
transit in and out of Iraq, why was it so difficult for the CIA to operate
there? This assumption flies in the face of everything we know about Saddam
and his control over Iraq.

* * *

"The CIA had no [redacted] credible reporting on the leadership of
either the Iraqi regime or al Qaeda, which would have enabled it to better
define a cooperative relationship, if any did in fact exist. As a result,
the CIA refrained from asserting that Iraq and al Qaeda had cooperated on
terrorist attacks."

Senate Intelligence Committee report, July 7, 2004

THE CONCLUSION of the Senate Intelligence Committee report--that the
CIA did not have the type of intelligence reporting that "would have enabled
it to better define a cooperative relationship"--was ignored by the press.
We now have reporting that demonstrates the nature of the relationship. One
day there will be much more. At a large warehouse in Doha, Qatar, the
Defense Intelligence Agency is reviewing millions of pages of documents from
the former Iraqi regime. That process is painfully slow due to a lack of
resources and a lack of interest in pursuing the full story of Iraqi support
for terrorism.

That lack of interest is not new. As the anonymous intelligence
analyst told the Senate Intelligence Committee: "I don't think we were
really focused on the CT [counterterrorism] side, because we weren't
concerned about the IIS going out and pro-actively conducting terrorist
attacks." That the intelligence community did not pay particular attention
to Saddam Hussein's terrorist aspirations created a sizable blind spot.

Why wouldn't Saddam Hussein conduct terrorist attacks against U.S.
interests? The United States regularly bombed targets in Iraq--at times
almost daily--in support of the no-fly zones. We conducted more significant
attacks in January and June 1993, and again in 1996 and 1998. The CIA
attempted to foment a coup in 1996. The U.N. sanctions sought to deprive
Saddam of the resources he needed to sustain a robust military. The weapons
inspections occupied his top officials and hundreds of intelligence
officers. From 1998 forward, after the passage of the Iraq Liberation Act,
the official policy of the United States was to end his regime. With that
policy came support of Iraqi opposition groups who existed to remove him
from power. For Saddam, then, the Gulf war never ended. He routinely accused
the United States of "terrorism" and "genocide." The state-run Iraqi media
threatened to exact revenge for more than a decade.

Further, Saddam had proven his willingness to use asymmetric means of
retaliation time and again. He attempted to use his own intelligence service
and terrorist surrogates against the United States during the first Gulf
war. He assisted a fugitive from the 1993 World Trade Center attacks. He
attempted to assassinate George H.W. Bush. He sought to blow up the U.S.
government's Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty headquarters. He openly
supported terrorist activity in the region. "From 1996 to 2003," according
to the Senate Intelligence Committee report, "the IIS focused its terrorist
activities on western interests, particularly against the U.S. and Israel."

We know that in the context of a decade-long confrontation with the
United States, Saddam reached out to al Qaeda on numerous occasions. We know
that the leadership of al Qaeda reciprocated, requesting assistance in its
endeavors. We know that reports of meetings, offers of safe haven, and
collaboration persisted.

What we do not know is the full extent of the relationship. But we
know enough to know that there was one. And we know enough to know it was a
threat.

Stephen F. Hayes is a senior writer at The Weekly Standard and author
of The Connection (HarperCollins). Thomas Joscelyn is an economist and
writer living in New York.

http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/005/804yqqnr.asp?pg=1

[Al Dykes]

In article <pTLkf.149$ug1....@monger.newsread.com>,

Yup. And when the Saudi princes let the US into the holy places
instead to kick Saddam's butt instead of OBL it really ticked him off
and he declared war on the "far enemy"

CIte: _Ghostwars : the secret history of the CIA, Afghanistan,
and bin Laden, from the Soviet invasion to September 10, 2001_ by Coll, Steve.

and *many* other authors

[Pookie]

"Al Dykes" <ady...@panix.com> wrote in message

news:dn07bt$kn4$1...@panix5.panix.com...

Here ya go, Al...refute 'em all...& then I'll send you more...

[Joe S.]

"Pookie" <pooki...@optonline.net> wrote in message
news:EBIkf.1078$O05...@fe09.lga...

ABLE DANGER? Oh, you mean the fairy tale that evaporated like the morning
dew when Congress started asking to see proof, to question people, and the
like? That ABLE DANGER?

[Northern Storm]

On Sun, 4 Dec 2005 14:18:59 -0500, "Pookie"
<pooki...@optonline.net> wrote:

>Saddam's Links to Al Qaeda

...and a selection of other complete lies the goosesteppers love to
cling to long after they've been proven false.

[Pookie]

"Joe S." <an...@mous.com> wrote in message

news:dn086...@news1.newsguy.com...

The Mother of All Connections

[Al Dykes]

In article <15Okf.1664$L7....@fe12.lga>,

If it's as clear as Heyes says, why isn;t Cheny shouting it from the rooftops ?

FYI: The last Article I've seen by Heys was still talking about Atta
and another name i don't recall as being Iraq-AQ connections and *all*
the literatire for the last couple years had those names as mistaken
identity. heyes doesn;t rank real high in my book for doing his research.

[Liman Jig Tacker]

On Sun, 4 Dec 2005 14:18:59 -0500, "Pookie" <pooki...@optonline.net> wrote:

>Saddam's Links to Al Qaeda

People will believe a big lie sooner than a little one;and if you repeat it frequently enough people will sooner or later believe it.

Joseph Goebbels

[Pookie]

"Al Dykes" <ady...@panix.com> wrote in message

news:dn0bf4$ffv$1...@panix5.panix.com...

Heyes? Cheny?

> FYI: The last Article I've seen by Heys was still talking about Atta

Heys?

> and another name i don't recall as being Iraq-AQ connections and *all*
> the literatire for the last couple years had those names as mistaken
> identity. heyes doesn;t rank real high in my book for doing his research.

literatire? heyes doesn;t?

Please get some more sleep, Al!!!

[Pookie]

"Liman Jig Tacker" <Liman...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:9oc7p11ro5r3k1g8j...@4ax.com...

The Mother of All Connections

From the July 18, 2005 issue: A special report on the new evidence of
collaboration between Saddam Hussein's Iraq and al Qaeda.
by Stephen F. Hayes & Thomas Joscelyn
07/18/2005, Volume 010, Issue 41

[Al Dykes]

In article <p0Wkf.1953$O05....@fe09.lga>,

Pookie <pooki...@optonline.net> wrote:
>
>"Liman Jig Tacker" <Liman...@aol.com> wrote in message
>news:9oc7p11ro5r3k1g8j...@4ax.com...
>> On Sun, 4 Dec 2005 14:18:59 -0500, "Pookie" <pooki...@optonline.net>
>wrote:
>>
>> >Saddam's Links to Al Qaeda
>>
>>
>>
>> People will believe a big lie sooner than a little one;and if you repeat
>it frequently enough people will sooner or later believe it.
>>
>> Joseph Goebbels
>
>The Mother of All Connections
>From the July 18, 2005 issue: A special report on the new evidence of
>collaboration between Saddam Hussein's Iraq and al Qaeda.
>by Stephen F. Hayes & Thomas Joscelyn
>07/18/2005, Volume 010, Issue 41
>
>
>
>
> "In August 1998, the detainee traveled to Pakistan with a member of
>Iraqi Intelligence for the purpose of blowing up the Pakistan, United States
>and British embassies with chemical mortars."
>
> U.S. government "Summary of Evidence" for an Iraqi member of al Qaeda
>detained at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba

If Hayes' information is fo solid why hasn't Bush used in his speeches?

[Amanda Williams]

"Pookie" <pooki...@optonline.net> posted in news:JiHkf.1470$Kf4.197
@fe08.lga:

[... much boring old drivel mercifully snipped ...]

>
> http://www.aim.org/media_monitor/4198_0_2_0_C/
>

Warmed over bullshit... brought to you from the same drooling morons who
claimed the MSM were "covering up" Vince Foster's "murder" and were
"ignoring the fact" that WMDs had been "found".

*YAWN*

--
AW

<small but dangerous>

[Pookie]

"Al Dykes" <ady...@panix.com> wrote in message

news:dn1er5$j2b$1...@panix5.panix.com...

Fo? Yes, you are my fo (sic)...

It's old news...now they're on to combatting current Dim/media
distortions...

[Pookie]

"Amanda Williams" <p...@fu.com> wrote in message
news:4394406a$0$14848$9a6e...@unlimited.newshosting.com...

Gee...sounds like you're still hungry...

The Mother of All Connections
From the July 18, 2005 issue: A special report on the new evidence of
collaboration between Saddam Hussein's Iraq and al Qaeda.
by Stephen F. Hayes & Thomas Joscelyn
07/18/2005, Volume 010, Issue 41

"In August 1998, the detainee traveled to Pakistan with a member of
Iraqi Intelligence for the purpose of blowing up the Pakistan, United States
and British embassies with chemical mortars."

U.S. government "Summary of Evidence" for an Iraqi member of al Qaeda
detained at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba

FOR MANY, the debate over the former Iraqi regime's ties to Osama bin

12. In August 1998, the detainee traveled to Pakistan with a member

of Iraqi Intelligence for the purpose of blowing up the Pakistan, United
States and British embassies with chemical mortars.

[Al Dykes]

In article <GqXkf.1935$Kf4....@fe08.lga>,

Pookie <pooki...@optonline.net> wrote:
>
>"Amanda Williams" <p...@fu.com> wrote in message
>news:4394406a$0$14848$9a6e...@unlimited.newshosting.com...
>> "Pookie" <pooki...@optonline.net> posted in news:JiHkf.1470$Kf4.197
>> @fe08.lga:
>>
>> [... much boring old drivel mercifully snipped ...]
>>
>> >
>> > http://www.aim.org/media_monitor/4198_0_2_0_C/
>> >
>>
>> Warmed over bullshit... brought to you from the same drooling morons who
>> claimed the MSM were "covering up" Vince Foster's "murder" and were
>> "ignoring the fact" that WMDs had been "found".
>
>Gee...sounds like you're still hungry...
>
>The Mother of All Connections
>From the July 18, 2005 issue: A special report on the new evidence of
>collaboration between Saddam Hussein's Iraq and al Qaeda.
>by Stephen F. Hayes & Thomas Joscelyn
>07/18/2005, Volume 010, Issue 41
>
>
>
>
> "In August 1998, the detainee traveled to Pakistan with a member of
>Iraqi Intelligence for the purpose of blowing up the Pakistan, United States
>and British embassies with chemical mortars."
>

> U.S. government "Summary of Evidence" for an Iraqi member of al Qaeda
>detained at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba
>

And how does Hayes know this?

You're missing a URL, please post the source for this crap. I want to read it.

[Pookie]

"Al Dykes" <ady...@panix.com> wrote in message

news:dn1gip$123$1...@panix5.panix.com...

http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/005/804yqqnr.asp?pg=1

& if you really want to read more...

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1589396847/qid=1107488925/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/103-6573725-0576666?s=books&v=glance&n=283155

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0060746734/103-6573725-0576666?v=glance&n=283155

[Al Dykes]

In article <XcYkf.1941$Kf4...@fe08.lga>,

AFIKT Hayes provides no citations for any of his quotes so it's impossible
to check each of his many claims. I'd rather see ONE claim, thorughly sources. Just one
would be enough to make your (and his) case.

Until shown otherwise, IMO he's Making Shit Up.

The last time I got a cited claim by Hayes I was able to cite the
evidence for why it might have been believed years ago but was no
longe considered true.

Echo Chamber Fuel.

Keep your eye on the Republican indictments, updated Nov 29, 2005

http://www.waynemadsenreport.com/gopscorecard.htm

[Pookie]

"Al Dykes" <ady...@panix.com> wrote in message

news:dn1qer$pqm$1...@panix5.panix.com...

Oh, OK ;-)