Connecting the dots:
Saddam's Multiple Acts of Aggression Against the U.S.,
(including participation in the surprise attack of September 11, 2001).
A. Motive and Policy
After the Persian Gulf war, Saddam Hussein viewed his expulsion from Kuwait as only a temporary set-back in a continuing war with America; in 1991 his news agency carried the threat that "the American arena will not be excluded from the operations and explosions of the Arab and Muslim mujahedin and all the honest strugglers in the world" (Iraq News Agency, Jan 30, 1991, quoted by Laurie Mylroie (former CIA official [Clinton era]), Iraq News,
http://www.fas.org/news/iraq/1999/03/990304_in.htm , March 4, 1999.;
B. Alliance with Al Qaida
"Saddam's willingness to help bin Laden plot against Americans began in 1990, shortly before the first Gulf War, and continued through last March, the eve of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. It says bin Laden sent ?'emissaries to Jordan in 1990 to meet with Iraqi government officials.'' At some unspecified point in 1991, according to a CIA analysis, ''Iraq sought Sudan's assistance to establish links to al-Qaida.' [¶] The primary go-between throughout these early stages was Sudanese strongman Hassan al-Turabi, a leader of the al-Qaida-affiliated National Islamic Front." (October 27, 2003 Defense Department memo to Senate Intelligence Committee, as reported by the Weekly Standard, as reported in WorldNetDaily, November 15, 2003.)
"In November [2003], the Weekly Standard reported a 16-page top secret government memo to the Senate Intelligence Committee said bin Laden and Saddam had an operational relationship from the early 1990s to 2003 that involved training in explosives and weapons of mass destruction, as well as financial and logistical support, and may have included the bombing of the USS Cole and the Sept. 11 attacks." (2004 WorldNetDaily.com, May 27, 2004, citing the Weekly Standard, November, 2003, citing Senate Intelligence Committee memo.)
There are at least "50 instances of contacts between senior al-Qaeda officials and Iraqi operatives - starting in 1990 and continuing right up to March 2003." (Weekly Standard, Nov. 15, 2003 )
"In what could go down as the Mother of All Copyediting Errors, Babil, the official newspaper of Saddam Hussein's government, run by his oldest son Uday, last fall published information that appears to confirm U.S. allegations of links between the Iraqi regime and al Qaeda. It adds one more piece to the small pile of evidence emerging from Iraq that, when added to the jigsaw puzzle we already had, makes obsolete the question of whether Saddam and Osama bin Laden were in league and leaves in doubt only the extent of the connection. [¶] In its November 16, 2002, edition, Babil identified one Abd-al-Karim Muhammad Aswad as an ?'intelligence officer,' describing him as the ?'official in charge of regime's contacts with Osama bin Laden's group and currently the regime's representative in Pakistan.' A man of this name was indeed the Iraqi ambassador to Pakistan from the fall of 1999 until the fall of the regime." (Stephen F. Hayes, "The Al Qaeda Connection," Weekly Standard, 05/12/2003, Volume 008, Issue 34.
See generally: Stephen F. Hayes, The Connection: How al-Qaeda's Collaboration with Saddam Hussein Has Endangered America (HarperCollins, 2004).
C. The Nine Attacks:
1. First Attack on World Trade Center (February 26,1993)
On Friday, February 26, 1993, the second anniversary of the U.S. liberation of Kuwait, two Iraqi agents Ramzi Yousef (aka "Rashid the Iraqi"), the mastermind, and Abdul Rahman Yasin, along with others, organized the first attack (by bombing) of the World Trade Center, the symbol of world capitalism and of the U.S. economy;
"[T]he book The New Jackals by Simon Reeve, published in 1999 by Northeastern University Press. . . . documents connections that Ramzi Youssef, the mastermind of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, had with Iraqi intelligence officials.
. . . [¶] With regard to connections between Iraq and the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, the book makes the following points:
The author concludes that evidence of Iraqi involvement in the 1993 Twin Towers bombing is strong.
Significance was placed on the timing of the attack on Feb. 26. This date marked the second anniversary of the liberation of Kuwait.
One of the WTC conspirators, Abdul Rahman Yasin, became a fugitive and, as late as 1999, was living openly in Baghdad, possibly working for the Iraqi government.
Another conspirator, Mohammad Salameh, is the nephew of Qadri Abu Bakr, a leading figure in a Palestine Liberation Organization terrorist unit that received funding from the Iraqi regime. Before Ramzi Youssef came to the United States to oversee the WTC bombing, Salameh made the first of 46 phone calls to Baghdad, most of them to his uncle.
Ramzi Youssef came from Baluchistan, a Sunni area in Iraq that spread into Iran and Pakistan. Pakistan intelligence sources were convinced that Youssef had close links to the MKO.
American and Pakistani intelligence sources believe that while Youssef was teaching in Osama bin Laden's terrorist camps in 1992, he met with a senior Sunni representative of the MKO who was working for the government in Baghdad. The MKO official, acting under orders from Baghdad, is reported to have asked Youssef to go to the United States to prepare a spectacular terrorist attack." (Robert E. Powis, letter to the Washington Times, June 05, 2004, citing Simon Reeve, The New Jackals, Northeastern University Press, 1999, emphasis added.)
"[On September 1, 1992] . . . Ramsi You[s]sef (aka "Rashid the Iraqi") arrives in United States." (www.iraqi-freedom.com/chat/show.php/act/ST/f/1/t/743, Sam Pender, Iraq's Smoking Gun, citing Laurie Mylroie, The War Against America.) "Ramzi Yousef, who masterminded the 1993 attack and whose laptop computer contained plans to crash U.S. airliners into the World Trade Center and Pentagon, entered the U.S. with an Iraqi passport." (Carl Limbacher and NewsMax.com Staff, Monday, Sept. 15, 2003.) The passport misappropriated the identity of "Abdul Basit," a national of Kuwait then under Iraqi occupation. (Jack Kelly, Jewish World Review, August 20, 2002.)
"Ramzi Yousef is the convicted mastermind of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. He also plotted to bomb U.S. airliners in January 1995. [¶] In 1993, before the bombing, Yousef lived in Jersey City, New Jersey, with fellow bomber Mohamed Salameh, one of the first four men convicted in the WTC attack and sentenced to life in prison. According to the presiding judge in his 1998 trial, the bombing of New York's World Trade Center on February 26, 1993 was meant to topple the city's tallest tower onto its twin, amid a cloud of cyanide gas. Had the attack gone as planned, tens of thousands of Americans would have died. Instead, as we know, one tower did not fall on the other, and, rather than vaporizing, the cyanide gas burnt up in the heat of the explosion. ?'Only' six people died. . . . [¶] Pakistani police arrested Yousef a month later, on February 7, 1995, in an Islamabad hotel room. [¶] Prosecutors depicted Yousef as the leader of the cell that carried out the February 26, 1993, World Trade Center truck bombing that killed six people and injured more than 1,000 -- at the time, the worst terrorist attack on U.S. soil. Yousef's fingerprints turned up on bomb-making manuals and storage lockers used by the trade center bombers. He was believed to have bought the chemicals used to construct the 1,500-pound bomb placed inside a rented Ryder truck and detonated after the vehicle was driven into one tower's parking garage. [¶] U.S. District Court Judge Kevin Duffy sentenced Yousef to life in prison on January 8, 1998, for the trade center bombings" (http://www.terrorismfiles.org/individuals/ramzi_yousef.html.)
"We've discovered since [Iraq was liberated] documents indicating that a guy named Abdul Rahman Yasin, who was a part of the team that attacked the World Trade Center in '93, when he arrived back in Iraq was put on the payroll and provided a house, safe harbor and sanctuary. That's public information now." (Vice President Dick Cheney, National Public Radio on January 22, 2004.)
Also involved was ""a Malaysia-based Iraqi national named Ahmed Shakir. . . . Authorities found in his [Shakir's] possession contact information for terrorists involved [inter alia] in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing . . . . The CIA had previous reporting that Shakir had received a phone call from the safe house where the 1993 World Trade Center attacks had been plotted." (Newsmax, Nov. 15, 2003, citing Weekly Standard, citing in turn joint memo of the CIA, DIA, FBI, NSA, emphasis added.)
"[T]he original lead FBI official on the case, Jim Fox, concluded that ?'Iraq was behind the World Trade Center bombing.'" (Joseph Farah, WND, Posted: February 21, 2003, citing Laurie Mylroie, The War Against America: Saddam Hussein and the World Trade Center Attacks, )
See generally, Laurie Mylroie, The War Against America: Saddam Hussein and the World Trade Center Attacks - A Study in Revenge (Harper Collins, 2001); Simon Reeve, The New Jackals, Northeastern University Press, 1999.
2. Attempted Assassination of the first President Bush (April, 1993)
In April, 1993 the Saddam regime attempted to use a car bomb to assassinate former President George Herbert Walker Bush, the man who had foiled his 1991 expansionist ambitions, during the latter's visit to Kuwait;
"On April 14, 1993, Iraq plotted to assassinate former President [George H.W.] Bush during a visit to Kuwait. Two Iraqi nationals were captured with a sophisticated car bomb. They admitted under interrogation they had been recruited by Iraqi intelligence, which supplied them with the bomb. After an investigation, the CIA concluded ?'with confidence' that the recruitment of the assassins had been authorized ?'at the highest levels' of the Iraqi government." (Jack Kelly, Jewish World Review, August 20, 2002.)
3. Bombing of Murrah Building in Oklahoma City (April 19, 1995)
The Saddam regime appears to have participated in the 1995 bombing of the Murrah Building in Oklahoma City;
(a) Ramzi Yousef (the mastermind of the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center) was among former Iraqi soldiers who met with Terry Nichols in the Phillipines to provide the latter with bomb-making expertise;
"In the Philippines as part of Project Bojinka, Ramzi Youssef, on behalf of Iraq, recruited conspirators to attempt to simultaneously bomb five or more U.S. 747 aircraft over the Pacific, using delayed timer tactics with many similarities to Barbouti's 1988 bombing of Pan Am 103. Youssef also conceived of plans to highjack planes bound for the United States in order to dive them, in suicide attacks, into U.S. targets like CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, a tactic later adopted by Osama bin Laden. Youssef flew frequently from Manila to Cebu City in the Philippines in order to recruit potential terrorists at Southwest College in Cebu City. Plaintiffs assert that at some point in time Ramzi Youssef recruited a willing convert in the person of Terry Nichols who witnesses say went to the Philippines seeking technical help in learning to build a bomb. Meetings between Terry Nichols and Ramzi Youssef were witnessed by a Filipino government informant. [¶] In March 1998, Timothy McVeigh wrote ?'Essay on Hypocrisy' from federal prison in Colorado which defended Iraq's right to ?'stockpile chemical or biological weapons' because the U.S. had done so. The Pentagon asserts ?'McVeigh allegedly collected Iraqi telephone numbers' prior to his arrest. [¶] Prior to the Gulf War, Iraq had developed a covert network in the US to acquire materials for weapons of mass destruction. Lawsuit claims individuals operating as Agents of the Republic of Iraq took an active part in planning and financing bombing of Murrah Building in Oklahoma City'" (http://www.warriorsfortruth.com/iraq-911-connection.html.)
"Abdul Hakim Murrad, who was in federal custody in New York City awaiting trial for plotting to blow up airliners, told jailers - ?'and later the FBI' - that the OKC bombing ?'had been orchestrated by his former roommate in the Philippines, Ramzi Youssef,' the ?'most wanted terrorist in the world until his capture in Pakistan in February 1995.' . . . [¶] Evidence suggests that Youssef and Murrad are Iraqi agents, Charles Key, a former Oklahoma legislator and currently a primary member of the Oklahoma Bombing Investigation Committee, told WorldNetDaily yesterday. (Jon Dougherty, © 2002 WorldNetDaily.com, April 18, 2002.)
"On April 19, 1995, an imprisoned Abdul Hakim Murad told his U.S. captors that he and Ramzi Yousef were responsible for the Oklahoma City bombing. He repeated the claim to the FBI the next day.[35]" (J.M. Berger, "Did Nichols and Youssef meet?", INTELWIRE.comhttp://www.intelwire.com/nichols022004.html., citing [35] Peter Lance, 1000 Years for Revenge.)
(b) Hussain Hashem Al Hussaini, a Palestinian with a tatoo proclaiming past service in Saddam's Republican Guard, appears to have been the "John Doe # 2" seen in the company of confessed bomber Timothy McVeigh a few days before the attack.
"[T]he appeals court [U.S. 10th Circuit Court of Appeals] ?'affirmed U.S. District Judge Timothy Leonard's November 17, 1999, ruling, which upheld as 'undisputed' all 50 statements of fact and opinion which set forth on the court record implicating former Iraqi soldier Hussain al-Hussaini in the 1995 bombing.
' . . . [¶] Davis said al-Husseini also admitted in court depositions filed with his lawsuit that he did serve in the Iraqi army. . . . [¶] ?'After two separate lawsuits, both state and federal, this man was unable to produce even one witness affidavit establishing his whereabouts for the critical hours of April 19, 1995,' Davis said. ?'The testimonies of several eyewitnesses who place him in the company of executed bomber Timothy McVeigh and fleeing the scene of the worst act of terrorism in 20th century America stand undisputed.'" (Jon Dougherty, © 2003 WorldNetDaily.com, April 3, 2003)
"During the follow-up investigation, it was discovered that Timothy McVeigh had a large collection of phone numbers of Iraqis that he hid. Jayna Davis' follow-up investigation reveals that 22 witnesses saw an Arab-looking man alongside Terry Nichols and Timothy McVeigh in the minutes and seconds before the bomb detonated." (Ryan Mauro, Saddam Hussein and Bin Laden:
A Match Made Up in Propaganda?,
http://www.worldthreats.com, citing Davis, in US News, October 29, 2001.)
See generally: Jayna Davis, The Third Terrorist: The Middle Eastern Connection to the Oklahoma City Bombing, (WND/Thomas Nelson Publishers, 2004). This book has been endorsed by R. James Woolsey, CIA Director, 1993-1995.
"An FBI report records a call a few hours after the bombing from Vincent Cannistraro, a retired CIA official who had once been chief of operations for the agency's counter-terrorism center. He told Kevin Foust, a FBI counter-terror investigator, that he'd been called by a top counter-terror adviser to the Saudi royal family. Foust reported that the Saudi told Cannistraro about ?'information that there was a "squad" of people currently in the United States, very possibly Iraqis, who have been tasked with carrying out terrorist attacks against the United States. The Saudi claimed that he had seen a list of "targets," and that the first on the list was the federal building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.'" (Joseph Farah, WND, February 21, 2003.)
4. Bombing of U.S. Embassies in East Africa (August 7, 1998)
"On August 7, 1998, the United States embassies in the East African cities of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania and Nairobi, Kenya were severely damaged in nearly simultaneous truck bomb attacks. The bombings killed 213 people in Nairobi and a dozen in Dar es Salaam. An estimated 4000 were injured in the Kenyan capital and 85 in Dar es Salaam. Almost all of the victims were African civilians, as well as several US diplomats. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1998_U.S._embassy_bombings)
""a Malaysia-based Iraqi national named Ahmed Shakir. . . . Authorities found in his [Shakir's] possession contact information for terrorists involved [inter alia] in the 1998 embassy bombings." (Newsmax, Nov. 15, 2003, citing Weekly Standard, citing in turn joint memo of the CIA, DIA, FBI, NSA.)
5. Attack on USS Cole (October, 2000)
"In February 2000, according to an Iraqi defector whom claims to have shipped arms for Iraq to Al-Qaeda, senior Iraqi officials began planning at least nine operations against the United States in the Middle East and Gulf. The defector says he was told of a plot he was to take part in involving a trade ship packed with explosives to be used by suicide bombers to attack a US ship in the Gulf. The plan was revealed to the defector approximately one month after an Al-Qaeda attempt to attack the USS Sullivans, an American destroyer, in Yemen. In October 2000, Al-Qaeda successfully attacked and badly damaged the USS Cole in Yemen." (Ryan Mauro, Saddam Hussein and Bin Laden: A Match Made Up in Propaganda?,
http://www.worldthreats.com, citing Christian Science Monitor, April 3, 2002.)
""a Malaysia-based Iraqi national named Ahmed Shakir. . . . Authorities found in his [Shakir's] possession contact information for terrorists involved in [inter alia] the 2000 attack on the USS Cole, . . . . The CIA had previous reporting that Shakir had received a phone call from the safe house where the 1993 World Trade Center attacks had been plotted." (Newsmax, Nov. 15, 2003, citing Weekly Standard, citing in turn joint memo of the CIA, DIA, FBI, NSA.)
6. Second Attack on World Trade Center and Pentagon (Sept. 11, 2001)
The Saddam regime participated in the September 11, 2001 attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon;
"Manhattan U.S. District Court Judge Harold Baer ruled in May that ?'Iraq collaborated in or supported bin Laden/al Qaeda's terrorist acts of September 11.' Baer's finding was issued in response to a civil lawsuit brought against Iraq by two families of 9/11 victims." (Carl Limbacher and NewsMax.com Staff, Sept. 14, 2003; Larry Neumeister, A.P.,CBS News, May 7, 2003.) "[The] May 7, 2003, decision by Manhattan U.S. District Judge Harold Baer, . . . awarded $104 million to two families of 9/11 victims based on the testimony of [Sabah] Khodada [an Iraqi defector], Duelfer and former CIA Director James Woolsey, as well as other evidence presented to his court. [¶] In his opinion Judge Baer wrote that the case was ?'sufficient to meet plaintiffs' burden that Iraq collaborated in or supported bin Laden/al Qaeda's terrorist acts of September 11.'" (Carl Limbacher and NewsMax.com Staff, Jan. 26, 2004.)
"Russian intelligence services warned Washington several times that Saddam Hussein's regime planned terrorist attacks against the United States, President Vladimir Putin has said." (CNN, June 18, 2004.) "Putin said Russian intelligence had been told on several occasions that Saddam's special forces were preparing to attack U.S. targets inside and outside the United States." (Raushan Nurshayeva, Reuters, June 18, 2004.)
a. Saddam's continued targeting of the World Trade Center
"Ramzi Yousef, who masterminded the 1993 attack and whose laptop computer contained plans to crash U.S. airliners into the World Trade Center and Pentagon, entered the U.S. with an Iraqi passport. [¶] After his capture in 1995, the FBI flew Yousef over the World Trade Center and reminded him that his plan to destroy the Twin Towers had not succeeded. His reported response: ?'Not yet.'" (Carl Limbacher and NewsMax.com Staff, Sept. 15, 2003, reporting on a "Meet the Press" interview of Vice President Dick Cheney, emphasis added.)
b. Saddam's Planning of September 11 Attack
"Rosters of officers in Saddam's Fedayeen list Lt. Col. Ahmed Hikmat Shakir, who was present at the January 2000 al-Qaida ?'summit' in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, at which the 9-11 attacks were planned, the Wall Street Journal reports. . . . [¶] Reported accounts of the al-Qaida planning summit said Shakir had a job at the Kuala Lumpur airport he obtained through an Iraqi intelligence agent at the Iraqi embassy. [¶] Among the al-Qaida operatives in attendance were the two who flew American Airlines Flight 77 into the Pentagon - Khalid al Midhar and Nawaz al Hamzi - and Ramzi bin al Shibh, the operational planner of the 9-11 attacks. [¶] Also in attendance was Tawfiz al Atash, a high-ranking Osama bin Laden lieutenant and mastermind of the USS Cole bombing. " (2004 WorldNetDaily.com, May 27, 2004, citing the Wall Street Journal, citing recently translated documents captured by U.S. forces.)
c. Saddam's Agent Shifts from OkC Attack to September 11 Take-off Site (Boston)
"After the [1995 Oklahoma City] attack, Al-Hussaini moved from Oklahoma City to work at Boston's Logan International Airport, where several 9/11 hijackers would meet to seize airliners, including Mohammed Atta." (Ryan Mauro, Saddam Hussein and Bin Laden: A Match Made Up in Propaganda?,
http://www.worldthreats.com, citing US News, October 29, 2001; see also Jayna Davis: The Third Terrorist: The Middle Eastern Connection to the Oklahoma City Bombing, praised by R. James Woolsey, director of central intelligence, from 1993-1995.).)
"
n November 1997, Hussain Hashem Al-Hussaini - a former Iraqi Republican Guardsman whom multiple eyewitnesses identified as McVeigh's elusive accomplice, John Doe 2 - confided to his psychiatrist that he was anxious about his airport job because ?'if something were to happen there, I (Al-Hussaini) would be a suspect.' At the time, Al-Hussaini was employed at Boston Logan International Airport, where two of the four 9-11 suicide hijackings originated." (WorldNetDaily.com, May 7, 2004.)
d. Saddam Trains the Hijackers
The al-Qaida insurgents were trained at two camps - Nahrawan and Salman Pak - under the supervision of the Fedayeen Saddam. Saddam trained the al Qaeda terrorists in the art of 9/11-style hijackings in the South Baghdad terrorist training camp Salman Pak, using a Boeing 707 [alternately characterized as a Soviet-era Tupelov 154] airliner plane fusilage, later found by U.S. troops, telling the recruits that the targets were U.S. installations around the world. "Commercial satellite photos show the body of a Boeing 707 at Salman Pak." (Joseph Farah, WND, February 21, 2003.) "U.S. satellite photos confirming the existence of a Boeing 707 fuselage that Khodada and his partner say was used as a hijacking classroom. U.N. weapons inspector Charles Duelfer, who was tapped on Friday to succeed David Kay, corroborated their account. [¶] ?'We reported [the Salman Pak hijacking drills] at the time, but they've obviously taken on new significance' after the 9/11 attacks, Duelfer told USA Today at the time." (USA Today, Carl Limbacher and NewsMax.com Staff, Monday, Jan. 26, 2004.)
"U.N. inspectors had confirmed the camp's existence, including the presence of a Boeing 707. Defectors say the plane was used to train hijackers. . . . [¶] Sabah Khodada, a captain in the Iraqi Army, worked at Salman Pak. In October 2001, he told PBS's ?'Frontline' about what went on there. ?'Training is majorly on terrorism. They would be trained on assassinations, kidnapping, hijacking of airplanes, hijacking of buses, public buses, hijacking of trains and all other kinds of operations related to terrorism. . . . All this training is directly toward attacking American targets, and American interests.'" (Stephen F. Hayes, The Weekly Standard, 09/01/2003, Volume 008, Issue 48.)
" [In 1995] Saddam Hussein sent Farouq Hijaz, a former Iraqi intelligence general, and Habib Ma'muri, chief of special operations, to meet with Bin Laden representatives at Salman Pak, Iraq's top terrorist training camp.[16] According to Iraqi defectors, these meetings resulted in the revival of the plot to hijack airliners in the US to attack prominent US buildings including the World Trade Center, which had already survived the first Iraqi attack. . . . [17]" (Ryan Mauro, Saddam Hussein and Bin Laden: A Match Made Up in Propaganda?, http://www.worldthreats.com, citing Radio Free Europe, October 19, 2001.)
"A Nov. 11, 2001, report in the London Observer citing the accounts of two Iraqi defectors who say they helped train radical Islamists to overcome U.S. flight crews using only small knives - a technique never used before 9/11 - at Iraq's Salman Pak terrorist training facility. [¶] Sabah Khodada, one of the defectors, told PBS's "Frontline" that he believed the 9/11 attacks had been executed ?'by graduates of Salman Pak.'" (London Observer, November 11, 2001; Carl Limbacher and NewsMax.com Staff, Monday, Jan. 26, 2004.)
"[In 1997] the first Al-Qaeda camps in Iraq opened up. Saddam Hussein's regime increased the flow of small arms and money to Osama Bin Laden's terrorist organization.[28]" (Ryan Mauro, Saddam Hussein and Bin Laden: A Match Made Up in Propaganda?, http://www.worldthreats.com, citing Wall Street Journal, September 24, 2002)
"Saddam's contacts with al-Qaida, the [Iraqi] officers told interrogators, preceded the group's Sept. 11, 2001 strikes on New York and Washington. They said Saudi envoys arranged for al-Qaida insurgents to enter Iraq and begin training in camps around Baghdad. [¶] The al-Qaida insurgents were trained at two camps - Nahrawan and Salman Pak - under the supervision of the Fedayeen Saddam. [¶] One [Iraqi] officer who completed his interrogation was allowed to reveal details of the Saudi role in al-Qaida's operations in Iraq. The officer, identified as "L," told the independent Iraqi weekly Al Yawm Al Aakher that he saw al-Qaida members arrive in Iraq as early as July 2001 for what he described as a secret mission. [¶] ?'L'" said 100 trainees arrived, many of them from Saudi Arabia, led by a cleric named Mohammed. The officer said the Saudi cleric, himself a skilled fighter, remained in Iraq for the war against the U.S. [¶] Officers said the Salman Pak training included ways to hijack airplanes. Training was conducted under the supervision of an unidentified Iraqi general who is currently a police commander. They said many of the al-Qaida insurgents left Iraq after their training stint." (WorldNetDaily, December 26, 2003, linking Geostrategy-Direct, a subscription-based service produced by the publishers of WorldTribune.com.)
"A memo from Iraqi intelligence uncovered by the London Sunday Telegraph last month stating that lead 9/11 hijacker Mohamed Atta had completed his training regimen in Baghdad under the tutelage of notorious Palestinian terrorist Abu Nidal. The memo was dated just two months before the World Trade Center attacks. [¶] In one passage, the Iraqi intelligence chief reportedly informs Saddam that Atta had demonstrated his capability as leader of the team "responsible for attacking the targets that we have agreed to destroy." (London Sunday Telegraph, Carl Limbacher and NewsMax.com Staff, Monday, Jan. 26, 2004.)
"By the end of 2002, at least 6,000 people from terrorist groups all around the world were currently involved in Iraq's training programs. Camps like Salman Pak, al-Safar and al-Habaniya were often used to train suicide bombers. Training in everything from communications, surveillance, document forgery, infiltration, and spying to explosives creation, work with small arms, to work with poisons and toxins was offered." (Ryan Mauro, Saddam Hussein and Bin Laden: A Match Made Up in Propaganda?, http://www.worldthreats.com, citing, Daily Telegraph, October 28, 2001.) "?'We know too that several of the detainees, in particular some high-ranking detainees, have said that Iraq provided some training to al Qaeda in chemical weapons development,' Rice said." (Condoleezza Rice, in interview with PBS' "The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, CNN.com, September 26, 2002.)
"On March 12th, former CIA director James Woolsey testified in court in a lawsuit that was filed on behalf of the 9/11 victims, that he was certain that Iraq had a role in 9/11, particularly in the training of hijackers. Five witnesses reported that Al-Qaeda operatives were being trained at Iraq camps, specifically Salman Pak." (Ryan Mauro, Saddam Hussein and Bin Laden: A Match Made Up in Propaganda?, http://www.worldthreats.com, citing generally Worldnetdaily.com, March 16, 2003.) In the Manhattan district court's May 7, 2003 decision, "The account of former CIA Director Woolsey, whose testimony was summarized by Judge Baer thusly: [¶] Director Woolsey described the existence of a highly secure military facility in Iraq where non-Iraqi fundamentalists [e.g., Egyptians and Saudis] are trained in airplane hijacking and other forms of terrorism. Through satellite imagery and the testimony of three Iraqi defectors, plaintiffs demonstrated the existence of this facility, called Salman Pak, which has an airplane but no runway.' [¶] Judge Baer continued: ?'The defectors also stated that these fundamentalists were taught methods of hijacking using utensils or short knives. Plaintiffs contend it is farfetched to believe that Iraqi agents trained fundamentalists in a top-secret facility for any purpose other than to promote terrorism.'" (Carl Limbacher and NewsMax.com Staff, Monday, Jan. 26, 2004.)
e. Saddam's Ongoing Operational Contacts with the Hijackers
" [In 1998] Farouq Hijazi was promoted to ambassador to Turkey by Saddam Hussein. Not long after his appointment, Hijazi traveled to Afghanistan and met with Osama Bin Laden. The meeting resulted in an official invitation to Bin Laden to travel to Baghdad for a meeting.[32] Between April 25th and May 1, 1998, two Al-Qaeda senior military advisors, Muhammed Abu-Islam and Abdullah Qassim met with Qusay Hussein, Saddam's youngest son, in Baghdad.[33] Plans were made for the first group of Saudis belonging to Al-Qaeda to be trained in Iraq, whom crossed over in mid-June using secret infiltration routes that Iraqi intelligence had used. Upon arrival at the al-Nasariya terrorist camp, one group of Saudis was taught how to prepare for attacks and conduct surveillance, and the other group was integrated into a network to smuggle weapons and explosives into Saudi Arabia from Iraq.[34]" (Ryan Mauro, "Saddam Hussein and Bin Laden: A Match Made Up in Propaganda?", http://www.worldthreats.com, citing [32] Daily Telegraph, October 28, 2001; [33] and [34] Times of London, October 10, 2001; Bin Laden: The Man Who Declared War on America by Yossef Bodansky. Pages 323-324)
Saddam maintained contacts (through Iraqi intelligence) with at least 4 of the September 11 hijack conspirators, including their leader Mohammed Atta (the others being Marwan al-Shehri, Ziad Jarrah, and Yusuf Galan);
"The London Telegraph reported in December the discovery of a secret memo to Saddam that gives details of a visit by Atta to Baghdad just weeks before the 9-11 attacks. Information obtained by Iraq's coalition goverment indicated Atta was trained in Baghdad by Palestinian terrorist Abu Nidal." (2004 WorldNetDaily.com , May 27, 2004, and December 13, 2003, citing the London Telegraph, c. December 13, 2003, in turn citing memo by Tahir Jalil Habbush al-Tikriti, the former head of the Iraqi Intelligence Service, dated July 1, 2001.)
"Atta met as many as four times in Prague with Iraqi intelligence agent Ahmed al Ani prior to the 9/11 attacks[,]" i.e., in Dec. 1994, June 2000, Oct. 26, 1999, and April 9, 2001. (Newsmax, Nov. 15, 2003, citing Weekly Standard, citing in turn joint memo of the CIA, DIA, FBI, NSA, citing in turn Czech intelligence, Czech Interior Minister Stanislav Gross, and five high-ranking members of the Czech government ].)
"?'[A] very senior CIA man told me that, contrary to the line his own colleagues were assiduously disseminating, there was evidence of an Iraq-al-Qaida link,' Rose writes. ?'He confirmed a story I had been told by members of the anti-Saddam Iraqi National Congress - that two of the hijackers, Marwan Al-Shehhi and Ziad Jarrah, had met Mukhabarat officers in the months before 9-11 in the United Arab Emirates. This, he said, was a pattern of contact between Iraq and al-Qaida which went back years.'" (2003 WorldNetDaily.com , November 15, 2003, quoting David Rose, Vanity Fair and the United Kingdom's Evening Standard.) "Senior US intelligence sources say the CIA has 'credible information' that in the spring of this year, at least two other members of the hijacking team also met known Iraqi intelligence agents outside the United States. They are believed to be Atta's closest associates and co-leaders, Marwan al-Shehri and Ziad Jarrah, the other two members of the 'German cell ' who lived with Atta in Hamburg in the late 1990s." (The Observer, November 11, 2001.)
" A Wall Street Journal report linking Flight 93 hijacker Ziad Jarrah to Abu Nidal, who had reportedly helped train his 9/11 partner Mohamed Atta. "A constant figure in Jarrah's life in Germany was his great-uncle, Assem Omar Jarrah," the Journal said. "According to the German magazine, Der Spiegel, Assem Jarrah worked for a long time as an informer for the Stasi, the East German secret service, while maintaining connections to [Abu] Nidal's terror group." [¶] Eleven months after the 9/11 attacks, Nidal was executed in Baghdad by Saddam's secret police in what many believe was an attempted cover-up of Iraq's 9/11 complicity." (Wall Street Journal, Carl Limbacher and NewsMax.com Staff, Monday, Jan. 26, 2004.)
"Spanish evidence was also presented [at the trial of the 9/11 case against Saddam] that the 9/11 co-conspirator, Yusaf Galem, was at a party (under this same Al-Qaeda identity) thrown by the Iraqi ambassador to Spain. Why was such a person invited?[113]" (Ryan Mauro, Saddam Hussein and Bin Laden: A Match Made Up in Propaganda?", http://www.worldthreats.com, citing Worldnetdaily.com, March 16, 2003.)
"A Malaysia-based Iraqi national named Ahmed Shakir . . . is said to have ?'facilitated the arrival of one of the Sept 11 hijackers for an operational meeting in Kuala Lumpur (Jan 2000)'" (Newsmax, Nov. 15, 2003, citing Weekly Standard, citing in turn joint memo of the CIA, DIA, FBI, NSA.)
"Authorities found in his [Shakir's] possession contact information for terrorists involved in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, the 1998 embassy bombings, the 2000 attack on the USS Cole, and the September 11 hijackings. The CIA had previous reporting that Shakir had received a phone call from the safe house where the 1993 World Trade Center attacks had been plotted." (Newsmax, Nov. 15, 2003, citing Weekly Standard, citing in turn joint memo of the CIA, DIA, FBI, NSA.)
f. Saddam's Financing of the Attack
"A Defense Department memo detailing over 50 contacts between senior officials in Iraq and Osama bin Laden's minions going back to the 1980s. According to a November 2003 report in the Weekly Standard, the memo cites evidence that Ahmed al Ani, the Iraqi intelligence chief in Czechoslovakia, ?'ordered the [Iraqi Intelligence Service] finance officer to issue [Mohamed] Atta funds from IIS financial holdings in the Prague office.'" (Weekly Standard, November, 2003; Carl Limbacher and NewsMax.com Staff, Monday, Jan. 26, 2004.)
"In the past four months [prior to September 11, 2001] at least three high-ranking Iraqi intelligence officials - among them Hassan Ezba Thalaj, a veteran officer with a reputation for ruthlessness - have visited Pakistan to meet representatives of al-Qaeda. Previous visitors have taken large sums of money with them, including Ahmed al Jafari, a senior Baghdad intelligence officer who took £420,000 18 months ago. Other funds have been forwarded via banks in Lebanon." (London Telegraph, telegraph.co.uk, Sept. 23, 2001, "Alert by Saddam points to Iraq" by Jessica Berry in Jerusalem, Philip Sherwell and David Wastell in Washington.)
"Iraqi intelligence bankrolled lead 9/11 hijacker Mohamed Atta in the months leading up to the worst terrorist attack ever on U.S. soil Atta met as many as four times in Prague with Iraqi intelligence agent Ahmed al Ani prior to the 9/11 attacks. ... [D]uring one of these meetings, al Ani "ordered the [Iraqi Intelligence Service] finance officer to issue Atta funds from IIS financial holdings in the Prague office." (Newsmax, Nov. 15, 2003, citing Weekly Standard, citing in turn joint memo of the CIA, DIA, FBI, NSA, citing in turn Czech intelligence, Czech Interior Minister Stanislav Gross, and five high-ranking members of the Czech government ].)
g. Saddam's Preparation for Anticipated American Retaliation
In early September, 2001, shortly before the September 11 attacks, Saddam placed his troops on the highest state of alert and with his family retreated into heavily fortified bunkers in Tikrit, evidently fearing retaliation for the imminent attack on the U.S. (See Con Coughlin, Saddam: The Secret Life, 2002, Harper Collins, p. xxv.);
"SADDAM HUSSEIN put his troops on their highest military alert since the Gulf war two weeks before the suicide attacks on America in the strongest indication yet that the Iraqi dictator knew an atrocity was planned." (London Telegraph, telegraph.co.uk, Sept. 23, 2001, "Alert by Saddam points to Iraq" by Jessica Berry in Jerusalem, Philip Sherwell and David Wastell in Washington.)
h. Saddam Celebrates the Attack and Takes Credit
In November, 2001, bin Ladin was proclaimed Iraq's "Man of the Year," but an official poem gave Saddam the credit for the attack by the four hijacked planes;
"On December 3, 2001, a poem was recited by Sheikh Ali Bin Shallal, head of the al-Sharji tribes, at a meeting with the tribal chiefs of Basra and Maysan?-and Saddam Hussein. It is highly likely this will startle you, here is the text:
"From inside America, how five planes flew.
Such a mishap never happened in the past!
And nothing similar will happen.
Six thousand infidels died.
Bin Ladin did not do it; the luck of the president [Saddam] did it.'"
(Ryan Mauro, Saddam Hussein and Bin Laden: A Match Made Up in Propaganda?, http://www.worldthreats.com,)
During Operation Iraqi Freedom, troops found murals in Nasiriya (by marines on March 26, 2003) and in Baghdad (by the Third Infantry on April 13, 2003) at Iraqi military centers depicting the World Trade Center at the awful moment of attack, the former showing Iraqi planes as the perpetrators and the latter depicting Saddam celebrating along side of the burning twin towers;
"U.S. Marines searching Iraqi military headquarters in this southern city [Nasiriya] that was the site of intensive fighting came across a mural depicting a plane crashing into a building complex resembling New York's twin towers, a news agency photograph showed Wednesday. [¶] The plane's logo and coloring resembled that of Iraqi Airlines, said Getty Images News Service executive Brian Felber, based in New York." (NASIRIYA, Iraq, CNN, March 26, 2003, 1st Marine Exped. Force.)
"Major General Buford ?'Buff ' Blount, commander of the Third Infantry Division, stood in the middle of a dusty parade ground yesterday at a militia training center, billows of black smoke rising behind him from yet another destroyed target of Iraqi resistance. As Blount watched, his soldiers unfurled a large mural they had discovered at the facility. There, in vibrant hues, a beaming image of Saddam Hussein, victory cigar in hand, had been painted beside a rendering of the World Trade Center at the awful moment of attack. ?'God protect Saddam and Iraq,' the artist inscribed in Arabic." (Brian MacQuarrie, Boston Globe, 4/13/2003, p. A39; Baghdad, Iraq. )
7. Anthrax attacks in September 18, 2001 - October, 2001
In the days following September 11, anthrax letters were mailed, anthrax being a bioweapon used by Saddam;
"Speaking about the beginning of US retaliation for 9/11, Uday Hussein wrote the following in the Iraqi state media: ?'At this stage it is possible to turn to biological attack, where a small can, not bigger than the size of the hand, can be used to release viruses that affect everything.... The viruses easily spread by air, and people are affected without feeling it.'[77]" (Ryan Mauro, Saddam Hussein and Bin Laden: A Match Made Up in Propaganda?, http://www.worldthreats.com, citing Radio Free Europe, October 19, 2001.) Uday Hussein, wrote this in Babil on September 20, 2001, before any news had come out about the Anthrax-laced letters mailed on September 18, 2001. (Cf. Wall Street Journal, "Saddam and the Next 9/11", Feb. 14, 2003.)
"Britain's Guardian newspaper reported Sunday that American investigators probing anthrax outbreaks in Florida and New York believe they have all the hallmarks of a terrorist attack -- and have named Iraq as the prime suspect as the source of the deadly spores. [¶] "The Guardian notes that in liquid form, anthrax is useless - droplets would fall to the ground, rather than staying suspended in the air to be breathed by victims. [¶] ?'Making powder needs repeated washings in huge centrifuges, followed by intensive drying, which requires sealed environments. The technology would cost millions.' [¶] The London paper quoting CIA sources as saying that ?'Iraq has the technology and supplies of anthrax suitable for terrorist use.'. . . [¶] American officials have already revealed that anthrax bacteria used in the recent attacks is the ?'Ames strain' of anthrax originally cultivated at Iowa State University in the 1950s. Iraq is believed to have that strain." (WorldNetDaily, December 26, 2003, linking Geostrategy-Direct, a subscription-based service produced by the publishers of WorldTribune.com.)
"But if we look at the anthrax strain, which was enhanced with bentonite and silicia, Iraq is suspected. Of the few countries suspected of having anthrax weapons, Iraq is the only believed to use bentonite. Silicia and bentonite are used to separate the tiny particles, so as to be inhaled more easily. Former UN biological weapons inspector, Timothy Trevan says that the presence of bentonite in anthrax is a trademark of Iraq's anthrax.[78] Significantly, a former UN inspector and expert in biological warfare, Richard Spertzel, also have said that he believes Iraq sponsored the attack. He testified: "It has to be someone with an existing biological program. These are Russia, Syria, Iran, and Libya. Top of my list, though, is Iraq. There are known associations with intelligence personnel and al-Qaeda. Also they have the capability, and the know-how."[79] Additionally, only three countries are known to have produced anthrax in the way that they were used in the attacks (where the spores are extremely small and made in such a way to minimize potential for not being inhaled). These countries are Iraq, Russia, and the United States." (Ryan Mauro, Saddam Hussein and Bin Laden: A Match Made Up in Propaganda?, http://www.worldthreats.com, citing, [78] ABC News, October 29, 2001, [79] Sunday Telegraph, October 27, 2001.)
"There is immense evidence that ?'Waly Samar' (not his real identity), an Iraqi associate with experience in biotechnology whom worked alongside Ramzi Yousef in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, has a role in the anthrax attacks. The contacts Samar made with Yousef were paid by Abdul Rahman Yasin, the other Iraqi involved in the 1993 plot with Ramzi Yousef who was given safety by Baghdad. Samar has been teaching in New York City (but lives in New Jersey) since receiving his Ph.D. in biology from Hunter College. His graduate and current research was in Bacillus subtilis, a stimulant used in making anthrax as a potent biological weapon. . . . [¶] In 2000, Waly Samar tried to get a job at the University of Minnesota, one of the top colleges for "agricultural aviation", or crop dusting. This is the same college that Zacarias Moussaoui, the 20th hijacker, tried to take courses on crop dusting. Mohammed Atta, the 9/11 leader, is also known to have tried to buy a crop duster." (Ryan Mauro, "Saddam Hussein and Bin Laden:
A Match Made Up in Propaganda?", http://www.worldthreats.com, citing J. Adams, "Is 'Waly Samar' an Iraqi Bioterrorist on U.S. Soil?", http://www.spiritoftruth.org/samar.htm.)
8. Assassination of Laurence Foley (Oct. 28, 2002)
On October 28, 2002, the al-Zarqawi network, a Baghdad-based al-Qaida cell, allied to Saddam, assassinated Laurence Foley, a U.S. diplomat in Jordan;
"An expert in poisons and chemical weapons, Zarqawi is believed to have been providing training to the extremist group Ansar al Islam. The group is based in northeastern Iraq in territory that is under the control of neither Baghdad nor the main Kurdish groups that have divided up most of northern Iraq. [¶] Soon after Zarqawi arrived, Powell said, "nearly two dozen extremists converged on Baghdad and established a base of operations there. [¶] "These Al Qaeda affiliates, based in Baghdad, now coordinate the movement of people, money and supplies into and throughout Iraq for his network, and they are now operating freely in the capital for more than eight months," he added. Coalition officials said that no group could operate in this manner without deep engagement with Iraq's ubiquitous intelligence services. . . . [¶] The unraveling of the Qaeda story in Iraq, which is still under way, took on some of the drama of an espionage thriller when, after the murder of Foley in Amman, the Qaeda deputy to Zarqawi suffered a lapse of communications discipline. As he drove across northern Iraq to the Turkish and Syrian frontiers, he could not resist using his satellite phone to call Foley's murderers to congratulate them and tell them he was on his way to meet with them. . . . [¶] "The captured assassin says his cell received money and weapons from Zarqawi for that murder," Powell said. In December, Jordan announced that it had two men in custody who had confessed to killing Foley on the instructions of Zarqawi.. . [¶] "The captured assassin says his cell received money and weapons from Zarqawi for that murder," Powell said. In December, Jordan announced that it had two men in custody who had confessed to killing Foley on the instructions of Zarqawi." (Patrick E. Tyler, The New York Times, February 7, 2003.)
9. Attacks on U.S. Planes Monitoring "No-fly" Zones (2002 - 2003)
Even during the U.N. inspections, before the start of Operation Iraqi Freedom, the Saddam regime continuously attacked U.S. planes monitoring the "no-fly" zones.
"The no-fly zones were established by the US, the UK and France after the Gulf War for humanitarian reasons in an attempt to stop Saddam's repression of Kurdish people in the north of Iraq, and the Shia population in the south. The aim is to prevent Iraq being able to attack these people from the air. The Secretary of State commented?- [¶] Previously Saddam has used helicopter gun ships to repress the Kurdish population in the north and both fixed wing aircraft and helicopter gun ships to repress Shia muslims in the south. Coalition patrols prevent him using his air force in this way but there is no reason to suppose he would not resume the tactics if the patrols ceased.[63]" (UK Parliament, Select Committee on Defence Thirteenth Report, 27 ) "The UK and the US governments have frequently said that the basis lies in UN Security Council Resolution 688 of April 1991 which?- [¶] ?'... condemns the repression of the Iraqi civilian population in many parts of Iraq ... demands that Iraq ... immediately end this repression ... requests the Secretary-General to pursue his humanitarian efforts in Iraq ... appeals to all Member States ... to contribute to these humanitarian relief efforts.[73]' [¶] The Secretary of State told us?-... the justification is essentially based on the overwhelming humanitarian necessity of protecting people on the ground, combined with the need to monitor the effect of 688; so it is the two taken in combination that provides the legal justification.[74] " (UK Parliament, Select Committee on Defence Thirteenth Report, 30 ) In addition, the underlying legal basis was supplied by UN Security Council Resolution 678, which " . . . 2. Authorizes Member States co-operating with the Government of Kuwait, unless Iraq on or before 15 January 1991 fully implements, as set forth in paragraph 1 above, the foregoing resolutions, to use all necessary means to uphold and implement resolution 660 (1990) and all subsequent relevant resolutions and to restore international peace and security in the area" (UNSCR 678, Nov. 29, 1990; see also UNSCR 1441, Nov. 8, 2002 [reaffirming UNSCR 678].)
"The zones were established shortly after the 1991 Gulf War to protect Kurdish and Shiite Muslim groups. Iraq, which considers the zones violations of its sovereignty, frequently trie[d] to shoot down allied planes. . . . [¶] Under the [Security Council] resolution [1441], a material breach must be reported to the Security Council for new debate and could be used as possible justification for U.S.-led military action to remove Saddam's government. [¶] A U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said in Washington Friday the government considers the firing a material breach, but could not say whether or when American officials would raise the issue with the United Nations. [¶] State Department spokesman Frederick Jones said the United States had the option of reporting the Iraqi firing to the Security Council but had not decided whether to do so." (Associated Press, November 18, 2002, "Coalition planes attacked over Iraq." )
"Military officials here at the Pentagon point out there's one sort of delicate problem in calling this a material breach and initiating military action, and that is Iraq has been doing this for over 10 years. It would be a very delicate situation for the U.S. to now suddenly stand up, they say, declare this is a material breach, and that it would be grounds for going to war. [¶] But it is very, very clear Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is becoming increasingly frustrated. He told reporters earlier today that he wanted . . . to remind people, this is the only place in the world where U.S. pilots are fired upon, and there is a measured response by the U.S. military. He pointed out in any other case, there would not be such a measured response." (Wolf Blitzer with Barbara Starr, CNN, "No-Fly Zone Shootings", aired November 18, 2002, http://premium.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0211/18/sdi.06.html.)
D. Conclusion
Therefore, "if reporters really want to know why Americans see ties between Baghdad and 9/11, they need look no further than their own archives, where they'll find repeated and as yet undisputed reports documenting compelling evidence of Iraq's role in the attacks." (NewsMax.com, Sept. 17, 2003.) Not only is the evidence undisputed, but the natural conclusion from that evidence comes as no surprise to such authorities as Vice President (and former Secretary of Defense) Dick Cheney, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, former CIA director James Woolsey, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, FBI official Jim Fox, [t]he original lead official on the [1993 World Trade Center] case, U.S. District Judge Timothy Leonard [re Oklahoma City bombing] , Manhattan U.S. District Court Judge Harold Baer [re Iraq's involvement in September 11], and U.N. weapons inspector Charles Duelfer.
