Connecting Saddam to Osama

Authored by Michael Pate on November 18th, 2003 at 1:13 AM

One of the constant themes of the anti-war media blitz was that Osama and Saddam were enemies due to Saddam’s secularism (or skin-deep Islamism prior to the first Gulf War) and Osama’s fanatical Islamist beliefs. Osama, they said, could not abide a secularist such as Saddam and probably was working against him. Believers in this meme — and there were many — argued that an American war that deposed Saddam benefited al-Qaeda rather than hinder it. Cynical essays were published during the brief war that had Osama celebrating the Americans doing his dirty work in Iraq. - Ed Morissey

Documents found in Iraq are doubted; confessions by detainees are received as universally suspect; reports of meetings between officials of the former Iraqi regime and al Qaeda operatives are discounted as having been nothing more than empty formalities, with such characters shuttling between places like Iraq, Afghanistan and Sudan, perhaps to share tea and cookies. Any conclusions or even inferences about contacts between Saddam’s regime and al Qaeda are subjected these days to the kind of metaphysical test in which existence itself becomes a highly dubious philosophical problem, mired in the difficulty of ever really being certain about anything at all. Certainty is then imposed in the form of assurances that there was no connection. This notion that there was no Saddam-al Qaeda connection is invoked as an argument against the decision to go to war in Iraq, and enjoined as part of the case that we were safer with Saddam in power, and that, even now, the U.S. and its allies should simply cut and run. - Claudia Rosett

But they are diametrically opposed. Absolutely, diametrically opposed. It seems the US State Department and others do not understand the basic, big difference in ideology between Iraq and al-Qaeda. - Alex Standish

Iraq had no connection to the war on terror. Of all the states in the Middle East to give chemical, biological or nuclear weapons to terrorists, least likely was Iraq. - Wesley Clark

Mr. President, we need to know what the basis was for Secretary Rumsfeld’s assertion that the US had bulletproof evidence linking al-Qaeda to Iraq, despite the fact that U.S. intelligence analysts have consistently agreed that Saddam did not have a “meaningful connection” to al-Qaeda. - Howard Dean

Neither Iraq, nor even renegade Iraqis, had anything to do with Sept. 11, notwithstanding Bush’s crude attempts now at connecting Iraq to Al Qaeda. - Haroon Siddiqui

Having supported the Palestinian Liberation Organization before it toned down its activities a bit at Anwar Sadat’s urging, for example, he later switched his support to Abu Nidal and other radical rivals to the PLO’s leadership. Yet, ironically, his “support” for these groups usually meant giving them refuge in Iraq — and then restraining them from actually doing anything. It was as if Hussein wanted to look like a powerful Arab nationalist but didn’t actually want them to use Iraq as a launching pad for anything that would bring down destruction upon him. To be a terrorist living in Baghdad was to be a showpiece of the dictator, kept behind glass. - Christopher Scheer, Robert Scheer and Lakshmi Chaudhry

In July, for example, polls found that 45 percent of the public believed U.S. forces had found “clear evidence in Iraq that Hussein was working closely with al Qaeda.” In September, 49 percent believed that. - Jim Lobe

Abu Nidal began working with Iraqi intelligence while representing Fatah in Baghdad, experts say. He formed his organization with Iraq’s help and began by attacking Syria and the PLO. In 1983, Iraqi President Saddam Hussein expelled Abu Nidal and his group in an attempt to win American military support for Iraq’s 1980s war with neighboring Iran. Once the war ended, Iraq resumed its support of Abu Nidal. - Council on Foreign Relations

We have obtained a document discovered in Iraq from the files of the Iraqi Intelligence Service (IIS). The report provides new evidence of links between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. The 1993 document, in Arabic, bears the logo of the Iraqi intelligence agency and is labeled “top secret” on each of its 20 pages. The report is a list of IIS agents who are described as “collaborators.” On page 14, the report states that among the collaborators is “the Saudi Osama bin Laden.” - Bill Gertz and Rowan Scarborough

The Iraqi document states that Mr. bin Laden’s organization in Sudan was called “The Advice and Reform Commission.” The Iraqis were cued to make their approach to Mr. bin Laden in 1994 after a Sudanese official visited Uday Hussein, the leader’s son, as well as the director of Iraqi intelligence, and indicated that Mr. bin Laden was willing to meet in Sudan. A former director of operations for Iraqi intelligence Directorate 4 met with Mr. bin Laden on Feb. 19, 1995, the document states. - Thom Shanker

In August 1995, Atta went to Egypt with Ralph Bodenstein, a fellow student. Both had to write a university paper on architecture in Cairo. Bodenstein later told a German television team that he had tough political discussions with Atta while they were in Cairo. These concerned the Palestinians, Iraq and the war in former Yugoslavia. Atta believed in a conspiracy of Christians against the Muslims and Islam. - Emerson Vermaat

The Taliban claimed in a 1997 meeting with U.S. officials that it had blocked attempts by both Iraq and Iran to contact Osama bin Laden, according to a previously confidential State Department memo made public yesterday. - Eli J. Lake

Third, if the Americans’ aims behind these wars are religious and economic, the aim is also to serve the Jews’ petty state and divert attention from its occupation of Jerusalem and murder of Muslims there. The best proof of this is their eagerness to destroy Iraq, the strongest neighboring Arab state, and their endeavor to fragment all the states of the region such as Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Sudan into paper statelets and through their disunion and weakness to guarantee Israel’s survival and the continuation of the brutal crusade occupation of the Peninsula. - Osama Bin Laden

“In addition, 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,” the indictment said. - Judy Aita

Both indictments offer new information about Mr. bin Laden’s operations, including one deal he is said to have struck with Iraq to cooperate in the development of weapons in return for Mr. bin Laden’s agreeing not to work against that country. - Benjamin Weiser

Let me be very clear about this. There is no question in my mind that the Sudanese factory was producing chemicals that are used - can be used - in VX gas, that this was a plant that was producing chemical warfare-related weapons and we have physical evidence of that. - Sandy Berger

Yeah, I would like to consult my notes just to be sure that what I have to say is stated clearly and correctly. We see evidence that we think is quite clear on contacts between Sudan and Iraq. In fact, al Shifa officials, early in the company’s history, we believe were in touch with Iraqi individuals associated with Iraq’s VX program. - Thomas Pickering

We know for a fact, physical evidence, soil samples of VX precursor—chemical precursor at the site. Secondly, Wolf, direct evidence of ties between Osama bin Laden and the Military Industrial Corporation—the al Shifa factory was part of that. This is an operation—a collection of buildings that does a lot of this dirty munitions stuff. And, thirdly, there is no evidence that this precursor has a commercial application. So, you combine that with Sudan support for terrorism, their connections with Iraq on VX, and you combine that, also, with the chemical precursor issue, and Sudan’s leadership support for Osama bin Laden, and you’ve got a pretty clear cut case. - Bill Richardson

Moreover, in the mid-nineties, the Iraq-born Salim supposedly put his knowledge and his nationality to use as Al Qaeda’s liaison to Iraqi intelligence. - Chris Smith

The document was apparently authored in early 1997 and 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. - Tom Joscelyn

Mylroie says the Riyadh bombing that killed five Americans was probably Saddam’s response to a negative United Nations weapons inspectors’ report and was aimed at US troops still in the region from the Gulf War. She quotes an unnamed senior Saudi official: “Of course that was Iraq. That was a professional bomb. It was not made by a bunch of Saudis sitting in a tent.” She admits: “There is no proof Iraq was behind the Riyadh bombing. Yet Iraq should have been considered a prime candidate, and it was not.” She says progress in the Mideast peace process at the time created a “climate of euphoria incompatible with the notion that the war with Iraq was not yet over.” - Joe Lauria

QUESTION: In connection with a US attack on Iraq, many Islamic organizations in the Middle East, including bin Laden, have another call attacking US authorities and Americans in and outside the US. Any comment? MR. FOLEY: Well, I don’t have anything specific to address. Especially since August, following the bombings of our embassies in Dar-Es-Salaam and Nairobi, we’ve been extraordinarily vigilant. And, of course, from time to time we’ve shared information with you, involving threats and involving changes in the posture of our embassies around the world because we have received a marked increase in the number of threats to our installations since August. - State Department Briefing, December 21st, 1998

While U.S. intelligence officials disclosed shortly after the missile attack that they had obtained a soil sample from the El Shifa site that contained a precursor of VX nerve gas, Clarke said that the U.S. government is “sure” that Iraqi nerve gas experts actually produced a powdered VX-like substance at the plant that, when mixed with bleach and water, would have become fully active VX nerve gas. Clarke said U.S. intelligence does not know how much of the substance was produced at El Shifa or what happened to it. But he said that intelligence exists linking bin Laden to El Shifa’s current and past operators, the Iraqi nerve gas experts and the National Islamic Front in Sudan. - Vernon Loeb

It was Saddam Hussein’s information minister, Mohammed Saeed Sahhaf, often referred to in the Western press as “Baghdad Bob,” who approached an official of the African nation of Niger in 1999 to discuss trade — an overture the official saw as a possible effort to buy uranium. That’s according to a new book Joseph C. Wilson IV, a former ambassador who was sent to Niger by the CIA in 2002 to investigate reports that Iraq had been trying to buy enriched “yellowcake” uranium. Wilson wrote that he did not learn the identity of the Iraqi official until this January, when he talked again with his Niger source. - Susan Schmidt

Iraqi agents have been negotiating with criminal gangs in the Democratic Republic of Congo to trade Iraqi military weapons and training for high-grade minerals, possibly including uranium, according to evidence obtained by the Guardian. - James Astill and Rory Carroll

A representative of al-Qaeda bought enriched uranium capable of being used in a so-called dirty bomb from the Congolese opposition in 2000, according to sworn testimony quoted in a French newspaper Thursday. - Expatica

Suppose that the Americans have attacked an Islamic country and kidnapped my children, the children of Osama bin Laden, to use as a shield, and then started to kill Muslims as is the case in Lebanon, Palestine, and these days in Iraq, and also when they supported the Serbs in massacring the Muslims in Bosnia. According to Islamic jurisprudence if we abstain from firing on the Americans lest we should kill these Muslims (used by them as shields), the harm that could befall Muslims at large, who are being attacked, outweighs the good of saving the lives of these Muslims used as a shields. - Osama Bin Laden

Saddam Hussein’s regime has opened talks with Osama bin Laden, bringing closer the threat of a terrorist attack using chemical, biological or nuclear weapons, according to US intelligence sources and Iraqi opposition officials. The key meeting took place in the Afghan mountains near Kandahar in late December. The Iraqi delegation was led by Farouk Hijazi, Baghdad’s ambassador in Turkey and one of Saddam’s most powerful secret policemen, who is thought to have offered Bin Laden asylum in Iraq. - Julian Borger

KSM acknowledges formally joining al Qaeda in late 1998 or 1999, and states that soon afterward Bin Ladin also made the decision to support his proposal to attack the United States using commercial airplanes as weapons… Bin Ladin summoned KSM to Kandahar in March or April 1999 to tell him that al Qaeda would support his proposal. The plot was now referred to within al Qaeda as the “planes operation.” - September 11th Commission

The number two of the al-Qaeda network, Ayman al-Zawahiri, visited Iraq under a false name in September 1999 to take part in the ninth Popular Islamic Congress, former Iraqi premier Iyad Allawi has revealed to pan-Arab daily al-Hayat. In an interview, Allawi made public information discovered by the Iraqi secret service in the archives of the Saddam Hussein regime, which sheds light on the relationship between Saddam Hussein and the Islamic terrorist network. He also said that both al-Zawahiri and Jordanian militant al-Zarqawi probably entered Iraq in the same period. - AKI

The issue re-emerged three days after the 9/11 attack when the CIA intelligence liaison was told by the BIS that the Hamburg “student” who had met with al-Ani on April 8 had been tentatively identified as the 9/11 hijacker Mohamed Atta. Since al-Ani was an officer of Saddam Hussein’s intelligence (and diplomatic) service, this identification raised the possibility that Saddam might have had a hand in the 9/11 attack. - Edward Jay Epstein

There are reports by Iraqi defectors of bin Laden’s people being trained in Iraqi terrorist camps. They are credible stories, because they don’t contradict each other. They confirm each other in types of training, places, the people trained. In a covert operation like this, you don’t expect much more information. There will be no smoking gun. All sightings confirm a multi-layered coordination between Saddam and bin Laden, in terms of training, support, and supplies. - Khidhir Hamza

The allegations include charges that Ansar al-Islam has received funds directly from Al Qaeda; that the intelligence service of Saddam Hussein has joint control, with Al Qaeda operatives, over Ansar al-Islam; that Saddam Hussein hosted a senior leader of Al Qaeda in Baghdad in 1992; that a number of Al Qaeda members fleeing Afghanistan have been secretly brought into territory controlled by Ansar al-Islam; and that Iraqi intelligence agents smuggled conventional weapons, and possibly even chemical and biological weapons, into Afghanistan. If these charges are true, it would mean that the relationship between Saddam’s regime and Al Qaeda is far closer than previously thought. - Jeffrey Goldberg

First, Saddam did partner with al-Qaeda, long before the war, as the Jordanian government confirmed earlier this year and as intelligence reports have demonstrated. He hosted a conference of Islamist terrorists in 1999 that included both Ayman al-Zawahiri and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, and sheltered the latter well before the 2003 invasion. In fact, Jordan asked for the extradition of Zarqawi in 2002, a request Saddam refused, not because he couldn’t be found but because the Ba’athists didn’t want him arrested. - Ed Morrissey

America has long named Zarqawi as the “missing link” between al-Qaeda and Saddam, describing how the fighter was given a new leg in Baghdad last summer, replacing one lost in Afghanistan. But the allegation that Zarqawi brought two dozen al-Qaeda affiliates to the capital, who have since spent eight months freely moving people, money and supplies, was startling. - Dominic Kennedy

The Abu Nidal organization had, by this time, begun its long slide into obscurity. Operations were slowing as the 1990s dawned, with the mass murders giving way to assassinations, and eventually to defunctitude. In 1998, the group moved its headquarters to Iraq, and in 1999, Arab governments in the Middle East essentially eviscerated the organization and choked off its financing. - Rotten.com

Iraq’s deputy prime minister, Tariq Aziz, confirmed last night that Abu Nidal had committed suicide at his flat in Baghdad. He gave no further details of the events surrounding the 65-year-old terrorist chief’s death on Monday although he promised to give a press conference today. - Diala Saadeh

Once a legend, Nidal—sick and operationally crippled—had long since become a liability for Baghdad. A Reuters report yesterday cited a high-level Palestinian source claiming Nidal was killed after a visit by Iraqi government agents. Perhaps he knew too much. After all, his group had served the interests of the Iraqi regime by terrorizing Saddam’s foes through much of the 1970s. Or perhaps more importantly, Nidal was a hazard because his presence suggested a link between Saddam and Sept. 11. - Asla Aydintasbas

It has now become very clear and much confirmed that the Iraqi regime headed by Saddam Hussein was directly responsible for the assassination of the Palestinian terrorist Sabri al-Bana, known to the world as Abu Nidal. - Mohammed Najib

Iraqi intelligence documents discovered in Baghdad by The Telegraph have provided the first evidence of a direct link between Osama bin Laden’s al-Qa’eda terrorist network and Saddam Hussein’s regime. - Inigo Gilmore

Through an unusual set of circumstances, I have been given documentary evidence of the names and positions of the 600 closest people in Iraq to Saddam Hussein, as well as his ongoing relationship with Osama bin Laden. - Gilbert S. Merritt

Other groups are: Muslim Youths, the Islamic Armed Group (al-Qa’ida tie), Islamic Jihad, the Islamic Liberation Party, the Armed Vanguards of Muhammad’s Second Army, and the Abu Hafs al-Masri Brigades (making a connection with Muhammad Atef, a close aide of Usamah bin Laden, the founder of al-Qa’ida). - Michael Jansen

Iraqi police have arrested four men over the bombing of Iraq’s most holy Shi’ite Muslim shrine. Najaf governor Haidar Mehdi Matar said the four suspects were two Iraqis from Saddam Hussein’s fallen regime and two Arab nationals, categorised as Sunni Muslim radicals. A senior police official said earlier that all four had connections to Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda terror network. - Tarek Al-Issawi

Most of the administration’s public assertions have focused on a supporter of Osama bin Laden, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. He is believed to have run terrorist training camps in both Iraq and Afghanistan and received medical care in Baghdad. U.S. officials have accused al-Zarqawi of trying to train terrorists in the use of poison for possible attacks in Europe, running a terrorist haven in northern Iraq and organizing an attack that killed an American aid executive in Jordan last year. But U.S. officials familiar with intelligence say the administration has evidence of other contacts between Iraq and al-Qaida. - John Solomon

Osama Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein had an operational relationship from the early 1990s to 2003 that involved training in explosives and weapons of mass destruction, logistical support for terrorist attacks, al Qaeda training camps and safe haven in Iraq, and Iraqi financial support for al Qaeda—perhaps even for Mohamed Atta—according to a top secret U.S. government memorandum obtained by The Weekly Standard. - Stephen F. Hayes

Well, I’m not someone used to reading classified CIA documents and being able to separate the wheat from the chaff. But reading Stephen Hayes’ summary of the document, I have to say this strikes me as a Big Deal. - Andrew Sullivan

The bombshell report says bin Laden visited Baghdad in January 1998 and met with Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz. “The goal of the visit was to arrange for coordination between Iraq and bin Laden and establish camps in an-Nasiriyah and Iraqi Kurdistan,” the memo says. - Clemente Lisi

Iraq’s coalition government claims that it has uncovered documentary proof that Mohammed Atta, the al-Qaeda mastermind of the September 11 attacks against the US, was trained in Baghdad by Abu Nidal, the notorious Palestinian terrorist. Details of Atta’s visit to the Iraqi capital in the summer of 2001, just weeks before he launched the most devastating terrorist attack in US history, are contained in a top secret memo written to Saddam Hussein, the then Iraqi president, by Tahir Jalil Habbush al-Tikriti, the former head of the Iraqi Intelligence Service. - Con Coughlin

U.S. forces in Iraq captured a leader of the insurgency who is believed to be a close associate of Abu Musab Zarqawi, described by some as a key link between the al-Qaida terrorist network and toppled Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, a senior American official said Friday. U.S. troops captured Husam al-Yemeni last Thursday, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. He is described by U.S. officials as the leader of an insurgency cell in Fallujah, west of Baghdad. The official said al-Yemeni is the highest-level member of Ansar al-Islam captured so far. - Robert Burns

New footage has been released purporting to show Saddam Hussein paying large sums of money to a terrorist group. Liberal Democrat peer Baroness Nicholson says the footage is “incontrovertible proof” of the former Iraqi dictator’s links to international terrorism. It appears to show the former Iraqi President plotting crimes and paying money to members of an international terrorist group. - Sky News

American officials here have obtained a detailed proposal that they conclude was written by an operative in Iraq to senior leaders of Al Qaeda, asking for help to wage a “sectarian war” in Iraq in the next months. The Americans say they believe that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian who has long been under scrutiny by the United States for suspected ties to Al Qaeda, wrote the undated 17-page document. Mr. Zarqawi is believed to be operating here in Iraq. - Dexter Filkins

Anybody who says there is no working relationship between al Qaeda and Iraqi intelligence going back to the early ’90s—they can only say that if they’re illiterate. This is a slam dunk. - James Woolsey

There were three different structures in the Sudan. There was the hiring of Iraqis. There was no question that the Iraqis were there. Some of the Clinton people seem to forget that they did make the Iraqi connection. - John Gannon

The reason I keep insisting that there was a relationship between Iraq and Saddam and Al Qaeda, is because there was a relationship between Iraq and Al Qaeda - George W. Bush

Can we finally put to rest the discredited argument that Saddam was not a threat to our national security? - Citizen Smash

Links in this entry:

A link between Saddam and bin Laden? No way
Abu Nidal
Abu Nidal Organization
Abu Nidal killed himself, says Iraqi minister
Abu Nidal murder trail leads directly to Iraqi regime
Abu Nidal, September 11 and Saddam
African gangs offer route to uranium
As Bill Clinton Once Said
Bill Clinton Was Right
Bin Laden's Terror Networks in Europe
Bin Laden, Atef Indicted in U.S. Federal Court for African Bombings
Blast suspects linked to bin Laden, Saddam
Book Names Iraqi in Alleged '99 Bid to Buy Uranium
Captured insurgent said linked to al-Qaida
Case Closed
Clarke linked Saddam and OBL
Congo rebels sold Al-Qaeda uranium
Daily Press Briefing
Editorial Response To Bush Speech: Predictable
Excerpt: The Five Biggest Lies Bush Told Us About Iraq
Good Morning from the Zundelsite
Iraq-al Qaeda Cooperation Documented
Iraq: Former PM reveals Secret Service data on birth of Al-Qaeda in Iraq
Iraqis, Seeking Foes of Saudis, Contacted bin Laden, File Says
Is Wesley Clark the One?
Justice Delayed
Links with al-Qaeda exist at the most senior levels
Making Cole-slaw of history
Memo shows Iraq, Iran tried to contact bin Laden
Osama Must Be Relishing Thought of US Invasion
Osama and Saddam
Osama's Peace with Saddam
Prague Revisited
Saddam Hussein and the Iraqi weapons program
Saddam and Osama: The New Revelations
Saddam and al Qaeda
Saddam in Terror Tape
Saddam link to Bin Laden
Saddam-Al Qaeda link exists: Bush
Saddam-Osama Link
Saudi Arabia Text of Fatwa Urging Jihad Against Americans
Saudi is indicted in bomb attacks on U.S. Embassies
Seeking Saddam's smoking gun
Sign the petition demanding that Bush answer the sixteen questions
State-Sponsored Terrorism
Stiffening resistance
Terror Suspect
Terrorist behind September 11 strike was trained by Saddam
The Clinton View of Iraq-al Qaeda Ties
The Great Terror
The Hazards of Watching Fox News
The Saddam-Osama Memo cont.
The proof that Saddam worked with bin Laden
This Story Mustn't Die
U.S. Says Files Seek Qaeda Aid in Iraq Conflict
U.S. Sees Some Iraq Contact With al-Qaida

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Connecting Saddam to Osama

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