tha malcontent™
January 27th, 2006, 11:49 am
A Saddam connection?
While the world focuses on Osama bin Laden, some experts argue that Iraq was a likely conspirator.
By David Neiwert
http://archive.salon.com/politics/f...iraq/print.html (http://archive.salon.com/politics/feature/2001/09/21/iraq/print.html)
Sept. 21, 2001 | Even as the Bush administration and the national media focus almost exclusively on Osama bin Laden as the seemingly preordained "prime suspect" in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, evidence is beginning to emerge that a more familiar enemy may also have been involved in the devastation: Saddam Hussein's Iraq.
The central trail of evidence appears to show bin Laden's unquestionable complicity, but a second, subtler set of footprints may lead to Saddam's door. That trail originates with the first World Trade Center bombing, with evidence that some analysts believe links the 1993 operation to Iraq. That theory has gained currency over the past few years among some intelligence experts, including former CIA director R. James Woolsey. In recent days, the administration has contended that the Sept. 11 attacks likely had some state-supported assistance, and others (including Israeli intelligence) have pegged Iraq as the likely co-conspirator. Moreover, there are reports of possible ties between at least one of the hijackers and Iraqi intelligence.
All of which raises a new and troubling possibility: that last week's attacks were not just the insane acts of a small fringe fundamentalist network, but the completion of unfinished business -- and that their ultimate intent is not merely terror, but revenge for the 1991 Gulf War and subsequent military actions against Iraq.
The case against Iraq is also being made against the political backdrop of a split among Bush advisors, reported in the New York Times -- pitting hard-liners like Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz, who has long advocated action against Iraq, against more cautious officials, like Secretary of State Colin Powell. And the hypothesis of an Iraqi connection may be being pushed by conservatives who, long irritated that the U.S. did not push on to Baghdad during the Gulf War and finish off Saddam Hussein, see an opportunity to conclude that unfinished business.
The specter of Saddam's involvement in the series of hijackings and subsequent attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon was raised officially this week by administration sources who told reporters at CBS News and the Boston Globe that one of the known hijackers, Mohammad Atta, may have met with Iraqi intelligence officials during his travels to Europe this past summer. Those sources were quick to say the connection was not a "smoking gun," and Iraqi officials immediately denied their government's involvement.
This was not, however, the first indication of Iraqi complicity. A number of intelligence experts have questioned whether bin Laden's organization possessed the intelligence capacity required to pull off the Sept. 11 attacks. They say that even though bin Laden may well have provided the personnel, the most likely suspect behind the logistics of the disaster is Saddam Hussein's intelligence operation.
According to Woolsey, who was CIA director from 1993 to 1995, the model of terrorism currently at play in the media -- in which a "loose network" of Islamic fundamentalists is solely to blame for the attacks -- may well be incomplete, since it obscures the possibility of state sponsorship, and ignores the possibility that these small terror groups may in fact be useful front organizations for larger entities.
Woolsey and other intelligence analysts say that although the Sept. 11 attacks themselves were a relatively low-tech affair involving box cutters and knives used to hijack jets and convert the airliners themselves into potent bombs, the entire operation was in fact extremely sophisticated. The logistics, the planning, the coordination, the ability to apparently provide new identities for a large team of operatives and to hide them effectively within U.S. borders -- all these point to the greater likelihood of a state-operated intelligence agency's complicity.
"Unless it is bin Laden himself or one of his senior colleagues, this attack, this whole thing says to me that there was some integrated plan," says Woolsey, who also wrote of Iraq's possible involvement in the New Republic. "Terrorist groups are not -- I mean, driving a truck bomb into the Marine barracks in Beirut is one thing, but an integrated plan is not the first thing you think of when you think of a terrorist group. Even a relatively wealthy terrorist group."
The highly visible media campaign that has given bin Laden the widespread image as the world's top terrorist strikes Woolsey as disinformation: "I mean, if you look at bin Laden sitting over there issuing fatwahs and making video tapes and reciting poems, sound bites about attacking the United States, and having his lieutenants talk openly and loudly and often on open telephone lines about attacking the United States, you begin to think that there might be somebody sitting back there who is just as happy as bin Laden is for him to be front and center, because he likes the fame and being the pin-up boy. And somebody else -- possibly the Iraqis -- may like the fact that somebody else is getting the attention rather than them," Woolsey says. "They care about the damage, not the attention."
If Iraqi intelligence is involved, Woolsey does not believe that necessarily absolves bin Laden. "I'm not comfortable with the formulation of one or the other having done it," he says. "I'm more comfortable with the formulation that it was a partnership, and each one was doing what he does best. Who knows? It may have been that Iraqi intelligence handled part of the logistics, and bin Laden's group provided the people."
Woolsey and other intelligence analysts point to a number of other pieces of evidence linking Iraqi intelligence to Islamic terrorists, ranging from regular gatherings of such groups in Baghdad, to the way Saddam -- whose ruling Baath Party is avowedly atheistic -- has altered the Iraqi flag to include an Islamic blessing. But the trail of evidence most starkly goes back to the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.
The similarity of that attack to the Sept. 11 disaster extends beyond the target itself. Perhaps the most striking point is that the mastermind of that plot, when arrested two years later, had been in the process of organizing a highly coordinated mass hijacking of airliners.
And as it happens, there is plenty of evidence to suggest that this man -- contrary to the contention of the Clinton administration at the time -- was an agent of Saddam's elite intelligence unit.
A man who calls himself Ramzi Yousef is currently serving a 240-year sentence in federal prison for masterminding the 1993 World Trade Center bombing in which six people died, though even his trial judge noted at sentencing: "We don't even know what your real name is."
What is known about him is that he entered the United States in 1992 on an Iraqi passport bearing Yousef's name, and then promptly sought political asylum. Shortly afterward, he began organizing a group of Islamic radicals in the Jersey City, N.J., area who had been planning to pipe-bomb government officials and Jewish leaders in retaliation for the imprisonment of one of their martyrs, Meir Kahane assassin El Sayyid Nosair. However, Yousef promptly escalated the plot into one with a bigger target -- namely, the World Trade Center.
Yousef's real identity has been the particular obsession of intelligence analyst Laurie Mylroie, whose 2000 book, "Study of Revenge: Saddam Hussein's Unfinished War Against America," which reads now like a prophecy about the Sept. 11 attacks, and is referenced by many, including Woolsey, who question whether bin Laden was solely responsible for the attacks. Mylroie has an extensive background in Middle East intelligence, and her book is largely based on a thorough examination of the trial documents in the World Trade Center cases.
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Continued...
:)
peace...
While the world focuses on Osama bin Laden, some experts argue that Iraq was a likely conspirator.
By David Neiwert
http://archive.salon.com/politics/f...iraq/print.html (http://archive.salon.com/politics/feature/2001/09/21/iraq/print.html)
Sept. 21, 2001 | Even as the Bush administration and the national media focus almost exclusively on Osama bin Laden as the seemingly preordained "prime suspect" in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, evidence is beginning to emerge that a more familiar enemy may also have been involved in the devastation: Saddam Hussein's Iraq.
The central trail of evidence appears to show bin Laden's unquestionable complicity, but a second, subtler set of footprints may lead to Saddam's door. That trail originates with the first World Trade Center bombing, with evidence that some analysts believe links the 1993 operation to Iraq. That theory has gained currency over the past few years among some intelligence experts, including former CIA director R. James Woolsey. In recent days, the administration has contended that the Sept. 11 attacks likely had some state-supported assistance, and others (including Israeli intelligence) have pegged Iraq as the likely co-conspirator. Moreover, there are reports of possible ties between at least one of the hijackers and Iraqi intelligence.
All of which raises a new and troubling possibility: that last week's attacks were not just the insane acts of a small fringe fundamentalist network, but the completion of unfinished business -- and that their ultimate intent is not merely terror, but revenge for the 1991 Gulf War and subsequent military actions against Iraq.
The case against Iraq is also being made against the political backdrop of a split among Bush advisors, reported in the New York Times -- pitting hard-liners like Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz, who has long advocated action against Iraq, against more cautious officials, like Secretary of State Colin Powell. And the hypothesis of an Iraqi connection may be being pushed by conservatives who, long irritated that the U.S. did not push on to Baghdad during the Gulf War and finish off Saddam Hussein, see an opportunity to conclude that unfinished business.
The specter of Saddam's involvement in the series of hijackings and subsequent attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon was raised officially this week by administration sources who told reporters at CBS News and the Boston Globe that one of the known hijackers, Mohammad Atta, may have met with Iraqi intelligence officials during his travels to Europe this past summer. Those sources were quick to say the connection was not a "smoking gun," and Iraqi officials immediately denied their government's involvement.
This was not, however, the first indication of Iraqi complicity. A number of intelligence experts have questioned whether bin Laden's organization possessed the intelligence capacity required to pull off the Sept. 11 attacks. They say that even though bin Laden may well have provided the personnel, the most likely suspect behind the logistics of the disaster is Saddam Hussein's intelligence operation.
According to Woolsey, who was CIA director from 1993 to 1995, the model of terrorism currently at play in the media -- in which a "loose network" of Islamic fundamentalists is solely to blame for the attacks -- may well be incomplete, since it obscures the possibility of state sponsorship, and ignores the possibility that these small terror groups may in fact be useful front organizations for larger entities.
Woolsey and other intelligence analysts say that although the Sept. 11 attacks themselves were a relatively low-tech affair involving box cutters and knives used to hijack jets and convert the airliners themselves into potent bombs, the entire operation was in fact extremely sophisticated. The logistics, the planning, the coordination, the ability to apparently provide new identities for a large team of operatives and to hide them effectively within U.S. borders -- all these point to the greater likelihood of a state-operated intelligence agency's complicity.
"Unless it is bin Laden himself or one of his senior colleagues, this attack, this whole thing says to me that there was some integrated plan," says Woolsey, who also wrote of Iraq's possible involvement in the New Republic. "Terrorist groups are not -- I mean, driving a truck bomb into the Marine barracks in Beirut is one thing, but an integrated plan is not the first thing you think of when you think of a terrorist group. Even a relatively wealthy terrorist group."
The highly visible media campaign that has given bin Laden the widespread image as the world's top terrorist strikes Woolsey as disinformation: "I mean, if you look at bin Laden sitting over there issuing fatwahs and making video tapes and reciting poems, sound bites about attacking the United States, and having his lieutenants talk openly and loudly and often on open telephone lines about attacking the United States, you begin to think that there might be somebody sitting back there who is just as happy as bin Laden is for him to be front and center, because he likes the fame and being the pin-up boy. And somebody else -- possibly the Iraqis -- may like the fact that somebody else is getting the attention rather than them," Woolsey says. "They care about the damage, not the attention."
If Iraqi intelligence is involved, Woolsey does not believe that necessarily absolves bin Laden. "I'm not comfortable with the formulation of one or the other having done it," he says. "I'm more comfortable with the formulation that it was a partnership, and each one was doing what he does best. Who knows? It may have been that Iraqi intelligence handled part of the logistics, and bin Laden's group provided the people."
Woolsey and other intelligence analysts point to a number of other pieces of evidence linking Iraqi intelligence to Islamic terrorists, ranging from regular gatherings of such groups in Baghdad, to the way Saddam -- whose ruling Baath Party is avowedly atheistic -- has altered the Iraqi flag to include an Islamic blessing. But the trail of evidence most starkly goes back to the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.
The similarity of that attack to the Sept. 11 disaster extends beyond the target itself. Perhaps the most striking point is that the mastermind of that plot, when arrested two years later, had been in the process of organizing a highly coordinated mass hijacking of airliners.
And as it happens, there is plenty of evidence to suggest that this man -- contrary to the contention of the Clinton administration at the time -- was an agent of Saddam's elite intelligence unit.
A man who calls himself Ramzi Yousef is currently serving a 240-year sentence in federal prison for masterminding the 1993 World Trade Center bombing in which six people died, though even his trial judge noted at sentencing: "We don't even know what your real name is."
What is known about him is that he entered the United States in 1992 on an Iraqi passport bearing Yousef's name, and then promptly sought political asylum. Shortly afterward, he began organizing a group of Islamic radicals in the Jersey City, N.J., area who had been planning to pipe-bomb government officials and Jewish leaders in retaliation for the imprisonment of one of their martyrs, Meir Kahane assassin El Sayyid Nosair. However, Yousef promptly escalated the plot into one with a bigger target -- namely, the World Trade Center.
Yousef's real identity has been the particular obsession of intelligence analyst Laurie Mylroie, whose 2000 book, "Study of Revenge: Saddam Hussein's Unfinished War Against America," which reads now like a prophecy about the Sept. 11 attacks, and is referenced by many, including Woolsey, who question whether bin Laden was solely responsible for the attacks. Mylroie has an extensive background in Middle East intelligence, and her book is largely based on a thorough examination of the trial documents in the World Trade Center cases.
---
Continued...
:)
peace...