Here is just a small sample of what some of the Iraqi intelligence documents and other evidence collected in postwar Iraq has revealed:
1. Saddam's Terror Training Camps & Long-Standing Relationship With Ayman al-Zawahiri. As first reported in THE WEEKLY STANDARD, there is
extensive evidence that Saddam used Iraqi soil to train terrorists from throughout the Middle East. Among the terrorists who received Saddam's support were members of al Qaeda's Algerian affiliate, formerly known as the GSPC, which is still
lethally active, though under a new name: al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb.
Joe Klein, a columnist for
Time magazine and an outspoken critic of the Bush administration, has
confirmed the existence of Saddam's terrorist training camps. He also found that Iraqi intelligence documents demonstrated a long-standing relationship between Saddam and al Qaeda bigwig Ayman al-Zawahiri.
Other evidence of Saddam's terror training camps was reported in a paper published by the Pentagon's Iraqi Perspectives Project. A team of Pentagon analysts discovered that Saddam's paramilitary Fedayeen forces were hosting camps for thousands terror of from throughout the Middle East.
2. A 1992 IIS Document lists Osama bin Laden as an "asset." An Iraqi Intelligence memorandum dated March 28, 1992 and stamped "Top Secret" lists a number of assets. Osama bin Laden is listed on page 14 as having a "good relationship" with the Iraqi Intelligence Service's section in Syria.
3. A 1997 IIS document lists a number of meetings between Iraq, bin Laden and other al Qaeda associates. The memo recounts discussions of cooperating in attacks against American stationed in Saudi Arabia. The document summarizes a number of contacts between Iraqi Intelligence and Saudi oppositionist groups, including al Qaeda, during the mid 1990's. The document says that in early 1995 bin Laden requested Iraqi assistance in two ways. First, bin Laden wanted Iraqi television to carry al Qaeda's anti-Saudi propaganda. Saddam agreed. Second, bin Laden requested Iraqi assistance in performing "joint operations against the foreign forces in the land of Hijaz." That is, bin Laden wanted Iraq's assistance in attacking U.S. forces in Saudi Arabia.
We do not know what, exactly, came of bin Laden's second request. But the document indicates that Saddam's operatives "were left to develop the relationship and the cooperation between the two sides to see what other doors of cooperation and agreement open up." Thus, it appears that both sides saw value in working with each other. It is also worth noting that in the months following bin Laden's request, al Qaeda was tied to a series of bombings in Saudi Arabia.
The document also recounts contacts with Mohammed al-Massari, a known al Qaeda mouthpiece living in London.
4. A 1998 IIS document reveals that a representative of bin Laden visited Baghdad in March 1998 to meet with Saddam's regime.
According to the memo, the IIS arranged a visit for bin Laden's "trusted confidant," who stayed in a regime-controlled hotel for more than two weeks. Interestingly, according to other evidence discovered by the U.S. intelligence community, Ayman al-Zawahiri was also in Baghdad the month before. He collected a check for $300,000 from the Iraqi regime. The 9-11 Commission confirmed that there were a series of meetings (perhaps set up by Zawahiri, who had "ties of his own" to the Iraq regime) in the following months as well.
5. Numerous IIS documents demonstrate that Saddam had made plans for a terrorist-style insurgency and coordinated the influx of foreign terrorists into Iraq. In
My Year in Iraq, Ambassador Paul Bremer says a secret IIS document he had seen "showed that Saddam had made plans for an insurgency." Moreover, "the insurgency had forces to draw on from among several thousand hardened Baathists in two northern Republican Guard divisions that had joined forces with foreign jihadis."
Cobra II, a scathing indictment of the Bush administration's prosecution of the Iraq war by
New York Times authors Michael Gordon and General Bernard Trainor, offers additional detail about the terrorists who made their way to Iraq in advance of the war. "Documents retrieved by American intelligence after the war show that the Iraqi Ministry of Defense coordinated border crossings with Syria and provided billeting, pay, and allowances and armaments for the influx of Syrians, Palestinians, and other fighters."
Still another IIS document contains Saddam's orders to "utilize Arab suicide bombers" against the Americans. Saddam's agents were also ordered to provide these terrorists with munitions, cash, shelter, and training.
These are just five examples of the types of documents that have been discovered in postwar Iraq. There are many more examples not listed here. They all undermine the conventional wisdom that there was never any relationship between Saddam's Iraq and al Qaeda.
But you won't see Senator Carl Levin calling attention to any of these documents. And the
Washington Post has shown no interest in bringing them to his attention either. Instead, Levin and the
Post like to pretend that the relationship between Saddam and al Qaeda was cooked up by neoconservatives bent on war. The
Post even initially--and incorrectly--reported that a copy of a memo from Feith's shop was leaked to THE WEEKLY STANDARD prior to war. (In reality, Stephen Hayes
reported on the memo months after the war began. The implication of the
Post's misreporting was clear: this was all about justifying war.
But instead of worrying about a memo written by Feith's analysts, perhaps the
Post should take more interest in what Saddam's files have to say. They're a lot more interesting.
Thomas Joscelyn is a terrorism researcher and economist living in New York.
Who's Spinning Intel?
