The following is an interesting article, apparently laying out a fairly good case about Iraq involvement with terror groups. Does this information hold water?
www.hudson.org/American_Outlook/index.cfm?fuseaction=article_detail&id=3153
Saddam Hussein’s Philanthropy of Terror
"Many critics of the war in Iraq belittle claims of Saddam Hussein’s ties to terrorism. In fact, for years, he was militant Islam’s Benefactor-in-Chief."
by Deroy Murdock
“I never believed in the link between Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden, al Qaeda, and Islamist terrorism,†former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright flatly declared in an October 21 essay published in Australia’s Melbourne Herald Sun.[1]
“Iraq was not a breeding ground for terrorism. Our invasion has made it one,†said Senator Ted Kennedy (D–Massachusetts) on October 16. “We were told Iraq was attracting terrorists from al Qaeda. It was not.â€[2]
As President Bush continues to lead America’s involvement in Iraq, he increasingly is being forced to confront those who dismiss Saddam Hussein’s ties to terrorism and, thus, belittle a key rationale for Operation Iraqi Freedom. Bush’s critics wield a flimsy and disingenuous argument that nonetheless enjoys growing appeal among a largely hostile press corps. Hussein did not personally order the September 11 attacks, the fuzzy logic goes, hence he has no significant ties to terrorists, especially al Qaeda. Consequently, the Iraq war was launched under bogus assumptions, and, therefore, Bush should be defeated in November 2004.
West Virginia’s Jay Rockefeller, the Senate Intelligence Committee’s ranking Democrat, exemplified this thinking recently when he told the Los Angeles Times that Iraq’s alleged al Qaeda ties were “tenuous at best and not compelling.â€[3] In a September 16 editorial, the L.A. Times slammed Vice President Dick Cheney for making “sweeping, unproven claims about Saddam Hussein’s connections to terrorism.†On August 7, former vice president Albert Gore stated flatly, “The evidence now shows clearly that Saddam did not want to work with Osama bin Laden at all.â€[4]
All of these claims about a lack of ties between Hussein and terrorists, however, are untrue, and it is important that debate on this vital issue be informed by facts. The president and his national security team should devote entire speeches and publications—complete with names, documents, and visuals, including the faces of terrorists and their innocent victims—to remind Americans and the world that Baathist Iraq was a general store for terrorists, complete with cash, training, lodging, and medical attention. Indeed, this magazine article could serve as a model for the kinds of communications that the administration regularly should generate to set the record straight about Hussein and terrorism and reassert the reasons behind the Iraq mission.
Such an effort to reinvigorate U.S. public diplomacy on Iraq should be easy. After all, the evidence of Hussein’s cooperation with and support for global terrorists is abundant and increasing, to wit:
Saddam Hussein’s Habitual Support for Terrorists
Both supporters and opponents of Islamic terror have provided abundant evidence of Hussein’s support for a wide array of terrorists. Consider the following.
· Hussein paid bonuses of up to $25,000 to the families of Palestinian homicide bombers.
“President Saddam Hussein has recently told the head of the Palestinian political office, Faroq al Kaddoumi, his decision to raise the sum granted to each family of the martyrs of the Palestinian uprising to $25,000 instead of $10,000,†Iraq’s former deputy prime minister, Tariq Aziz, announced at a Baghdad meeting of Arab politicians and businessmen on March 11, 2002, Reuters reported two days later.[5]
Mahmoud Besharat, who the White House says disbursed these funds across the West Bank, gratefully said, “You would have to ask President Saddam why he is being so generous. But he is a revolutionary and he wants this distinguished struggle, the intifada, to continue.â€[6]
Such largesse poured forth until the eve of the Iraq war.
As Knight-Ridder’s Carol Rosenberg reported from Gaza City last March 13: In a graduation-style ceremony Wednesday, the families of 22 Palestinians killed fighting Israelis received checks for $10,000 or more, certificates of appreciation, and a kiss on each cheek—compliments of Iraq’s Saddam Hussein.†She added: “The certificates declared the gift from President Saddam Hussein; the checks were cut at a branch of the Cairo-Amman bank.â€
This festivity, attended by some 400 people and organized by the then-Baghdad-backed Arab Liberation Front, occurred March 12, just eight days before American-led troops crossed the Iraqi frontier.[7]
Hussein’s patronage of Palestinian terror proved fatally fruitful. Between the March 11, 2002, increase in cash incentives to $25,000 and the March 20, 2003, launch of Operation Iraqi Freedom, 28 homicide bombers injured 1,209 people and killed 223 more, including 12 Americans.[8]
· According to the U.S. State Department’s May 21, 2002, report on Patterns of Global Terrorism,[9] the Abu Nidal Organization (ANO), the Arab Liberation Front, Hamas, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, the Mujahedin-e-Khalq Organization, and the Palestine Liberation Front all operated offices or bases in Hussein’s Iraq. Hussein’s hospitality toward these mass murderers directly violated United Nations Security Council Resolution 687, which prohibited him from giving safe haven to or otherwise sponsoring terrorists.
· Key terrorists enjoyed Hussein’s warmth, some so recently that Coalition forces subsequently found them alive and well and living in Iraq. Among them:
o U.S. Special Forces nabbed Abu Abbas last April 14 just outside Baghdad. Abbas masterminded the October 7–9, 1985, Achille Lauro cruise ship hijacking in which Abbas’s men shot passenger Leon Klinghoffer, a 69-year old Manhattan retiree, then rolled him, wheelchair and all, into the Mediterranean. Abbas briefly was in Italian custody at the time, but was released that October 12 because he possessed an Iraqi diplomatic passport. Since 2000, Abbas resided in Baghdad, still under Saddam Hussein’s protection.[10]
o Khala Khadr al Salahat, a member of the ANO, surrendered to the First Marine Division in Baghdad on April 18. As the Sunday Times of London reported on August 25, 2002, a Palestinian source said that al Salahat and Nidal had furnished Libyan agents the Semtex bomb that destroyed Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, on December 21, 1988, killing 259 on board and 11 on the ground. The 189 Americans murdered on the sabotaged Boeing 747 included 35 Syracuse University students who had spent the fall semester in Scotland and were heading home for the holidays.[11]
o Before fatally shooting himself in the head with four bullets on August 16, 2002, as straight-faced Baathist officials claimed, Palestinian terrorist Abu Nidal (born Sabri al Banna) had lived in Iraq since at least 1999. As the Associated Press’s Sameer N. Yacoub reported on August 21, 2002, the Beirut office of the ANO said that he entered Iraq “with the full knowledge and preparations of the Iraqi authorities.â€[12] Nidal’s attacks in 20 countries killed at least 275 people and wounded some 625 more. Among other atrocities, an ANO-planted bomb exploded on a TWA airliner as it flew from Israel to Greece on September 8, 1974. The jet was destroyed over the Ionian Sea, killing all 88 people on board.[13]
· Coalition troops have shut down at least three terrorist training camps in Iraq, including a base approximately 15 miles southeast of Baghdad, called Salman Pak.[14] Before the war, numerous Iraqi defectors had said that the camp featured a passenger jet on which terrorists sharpened their air piracy skills.[15]
“There have been several confirmed sightings of Islamic fundamentalists from Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Gulf states being trained in terror tactics at the Iraqi intelligence camp at Salman Pak,†said Khidir Hamza, Iraq’s former nuclear-weapons chief, in sworn testimony before the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee on July 31, 2002. “The training involved assassination, explosions, and hijacking.â€[16]
“This camp is specialized in exporting terrorism to the whole world,†former Iraqi army captain Sabah Khodada told PBS’s Frontline TV program in an October 14, 2001 interview.[17] Khodada, who worked at Salman Pak, said, “Training includes hijacking and kidnapping of airplanes, trains, public buses, and planting explosives in cities . . . how to prepare for suicidal operations.†Khodada added, “We saw people getting trained to hijack airplanes. . . . They are even trained how to use utensils for food, like forks and knives provided in the plane.†A map of the camp that Khodada drew from memory for Frontline closely matches satellite photos of Salman Pak, further bolstering his credibility.[18]
These facts clearly disprove the above-quoted statements by Senator Kennedy and the Los Angeles Times and similar claims made by others. The Bush administration could advance American interests by busing a few dozen foreign correspondents and their camera crews from the bar of Baghdad’s Palestine Hotel to Salman Pak for a guided tour. Network news footage of that might open a few eyes.
Saddam Hussein’s al Qaeda Connections
As for Hussein’s supposedly imaginary ties to al Qaeda, consider these disturbing facts:
· The Philippine government expelled Hisham al Hussein, the second secretary at Iraq’s Manila embassy, on February 13, 2003. Cell phone records indicate that the Iraqi diplomat had spoken with Abu Madja and Hamsiraji Sali, leaders of Abu Sayyaf, just before and just after their al Qaeda-allied Islamic militant group conducted an attack in Zamboanga City. Abu Sayyaf’s nail-filled bomb exploded on October 2, 2002, injuring 23 individuals and killing two Filipinos and U.S. Special Forces Sergeant First Class Mark Wayne Jackson, age 40. As Dan Murphy wrote in the Christian Science Monitor last February 26, those phone records bolster Sali’s claim in a November 2002 TV interview that the Iraqi diplomat had offered these Muslim extremists Baghdad’s help with joint missions.[19]
· The Weekly Standard’s intrepid reporter Stephen F. Hayes noted in the magazine’s July 11, 2003, issue that the official Babylon Daily Political Newspaper published by Hussein’s eldest son, Uday, had revealed a terrorist connection in what it called a “List of Honor†published a few months earlier.[20] The paper’s November 14, 2002, edition gave the names and titles of 600 leading Iraqis and included the folwing passage: “Abid Al-Karim Muhamed Aswod, intelligence officer responsible for the coordination of activities with the Osama bin Laden group at the Iraqi embassy in Pakistan.†That name, Hayes wrote, “matches that of Iraq’s then-ambassador to Islamabad.â€
Article concluded in next post.
www.hudson.org/American_Outlook/index.cfm?fuseaction=article_detail&id=3153
Saddam Hussein’s Philanthropy of Terror
"Many critics of the war in Iraq belittle claims of Saddam Hussein’s ties to terrorism. In fact, for years, he was militant Islam’s Benefactor-in-Chief."
by Deroy Murdock
“I never believed in the link between Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden, al Qaeda, and Islamist terrorism,†former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright flatly declared in an October 21 essay published in Australia’s Melbourne Herald Sun.[1]
“Iraq was not a breeding ground for terrorism. Our invasion has made it one,†said Senator Ted Kennedy (D–Massachusetts) on October 16. “We were told Iraq was attracting terrorists from al Qaeda. It was not.â€[2]
As President Bush continues to lead America’s involvement in Iraq, he increasingly is being forced to confront those who dismiss Saddam Hussein’s ties to terrorism and, thus, belittle a key rationale for Operation Iraqi Freedom. Bush’s critics wield a flimsy and disingenuous argument that nonetheless enjoys growing appeal among a largely hostile press corps. Hussein did not personally order the September 11 attacks, the fuzzy logic goes, hence he has no significant ties to terrorists, especially al Qaeda. Consequently, the Iraq war was launched under bogus assumptions, and, therefore, Bush should be defeated in November 2004.
West Virginia’s Jay Rockefeller, the Senate Intelligence Committee’s ranking Democrat, exemplified this thinking recently when he told the Los Angeles Times that Iraq’s alleged al Qaeda ties were “tenuous at best and not compelling.â€[3] In a September 16 editorial, the L.A. Times slammed Vice President Dick Cheney for making “sweeping, unproven claims about Saddam Hussein’s connections to terrorism.†On August 7, former vice president Albert Gore stated flatly, “The evidence now shows clearly that Saddam did not want to work with Osama bin Laden at all.â€[4]
All of these claims about a lack of ties between Hussein and terrorists, however, are untrue, and it is important that debate on this vital issue be informed by facts. The president and his national security team should devote entire speeches and publications—complete with names, documents, and visuals, including the faces of terrorists and their innocent victims—to remind Americans and the world that Baathist Iraq was a general store for terrorists, complete with cash, training, lodging, and medical attention. Indeed, this magazine article could serve as a model for the kinds of communications that the administration regularly should generate to set the record straight about Hussein and terrorism and reassert the reasons behind the Iraq mission.
Such an effort to reinvigorate U.S. public diplomacy on Iraq should be easy. After all, the evidence of Hussein’s cooperation with and support for global terrorists is abundant and increasing, to wit:
Saddam Hussein’s Habitual Support for Terrorists
Both supporters and opponents of Islamic terror have provided abundant evidence of Hussein’s support for a wide array of terrorists. Consider the following.
· Hussein paid bonuses of up to $25,000 to the families of Palestinian homicide bombers.
“President Saddam Hussein has recently told the head of the Palestinian political office, Faroq al Kaddoumi, his decision to raise the sum granted to each family of the martyrs of the Palestinian uprising to $25,000 instead of $10,000,†Iraq’s former deputy prime minister, Tariq Aziz, announced at a Baghdad meeting of Arab politicians and businessmen on March 11, 2002, Reuters reported two days later.[5]
Mahmoud Besharat, who the White House says disbursed these funds across the West Bank, gratefully said, “You would have to ask President Saddam why he is being so generous. But he is a revolutionary and he wants this distinguished struggle, the intifada, to continue.â€[6]
Such largesse poured forth until the eve of the Iraq war.
As Knight-Ridder’s Carol Rosenberg reported from Gaza City last March 13: In a graduation-style ceremony Wednesday, the families of 22 Palestinians killed fighting Israelis received checks for $10,000 or more, certificates of appreciation, and a kiss on each cheek—compliments of Iraq’s Saddam Hussein.†She added: “The certificates declared the gift from President Saddam Hussein; the checks were cut at a branch of the Cairo-Amman bank.â€
This festivity, attended by some 400 people and organized by the then-Baghdad-backed Arab Liberation Front, occurred March 12, just eight days before American-led troops crossed the Iraqi frontier.[7]
Hussein’s patronage of Palestinian terror proved fatally fruitful. Between the March 11, 2002, increase in cash incentives to $25,000 and the March 20, 2003, launch of Operation Iraqi Freedom, 28 homicide bombers injured 1,209 people and killed 223 more, including 12 Americans.[8]
· According to the U.S. State Department’s May 21, 2002, report on Patterns of Global Terrorism,[9] the Abu Nidal Organization (ANO), the Arab Liberation Front, Hamas, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, the Mujahedin-e-Khalq Organization, and the Palestine Liberation Front all operated offices or bases in Hussein’s Iraq. Hussein’s hospitality toward these mass murderers directly violated United Nations Security Council Resolution 687, which prohibited him from giving safe haven to or otherwise sponsoring terrorists.
· Key terrorists enjoyed Hussein’s warmth, some so recently that Coalition forces subsequently found them alive and well and living in Iraq. Among them:
o U.S. Special Forces nabbed Abu Abbas last April 14 just outside Baghdad. Abbas masterminded the October 7–9, 1985, Achille Lauro cruise ship hijacking in which Abbas’s men shot passenger Leon Klinghoffer, a 69-year old Manhattan retiree, then rolled him, wheelchair and all, into the Mediterranean. Abbas briefly was in Italian custody at the time, but was released that October 12 because he possessed an Iraqi diplomatic passport. Since 2000, Abbas resided in Baghdad, still under Saddam Hussein’s protection.[10]
o Khala Khadr al Salahat, a member of the ANO, surrendered to the First Marine Division in Baghdad on April 18. As the Sunday Times of London reported on August 25, 2002, a Palestinian source said that al Salahat and Nidal had furnished Libyan agents the Semtex bomb that destroyed Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, on December 21, 1988, killing 259 on board and 11 on the ground. The 189 Americans murdered on the sabotaged Boeing 747 included 35 Syracuse University students who had spent the fall semester in Scotland and were heading home for the holidays.[11]
o Before fatally shooting himself in the head with four bullets on August 16, 2002, as straight-faced Baathist officials claimed, Palestinian terrorist Abu Nidal (born Sabri al Banna) had lived in Iraq since at least 1999. As the Associated Press’s Sameer N. Yacoub reported on August 21, 2002, the Beirut office of the ANO said that he entered Iraq “with the full knowledge and preparations of the Iraqi authorities.â€[12] Nidal’s attacks in 20 countries killed at least 275 people and wounded some 625 more. Among other atrocities, an ANO-planted bomb exploded on a TWA airliner as it flew from Israel to Greece on September 8, 1974. The jet was destroyed over the Ionian Sea, killing all 88 people on board.[13]
· Coalition troops have shut down at least three terrorist training camps in Iraq, including a base approximately 15 miles southeast of Baghdad, called Salman Pak.[14] Before the war, numerous Iraqi defectors had said that the camp featured a passenger jet on which terrorists sharpened their air piracy skills.[15]
“There have been several confirmed sightings of Islamic fundamentalists from Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Gulf states being trained in terror tactics at the Iraqi intelligence camp at Salman Pak,†said Khidir Hamza, Iraq’s former nuclear-weapons chief, in sworn testimony before the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee on July 31, 2002. “The training involved assassination, explosions, and hijacking.â€[16]
“This camp is specialized in exporting terrorism to the whole world,†former Iraqi army captain Sabah Khodada told PBS’s Frontline TV program in an October 14, 2001 interview.[17] Khodada, who worked at Salman Pak, said, “Training includes hijacking and kidnapping of airplanes, trains, public buses, and planting explosives in cities . . . how to prepare for suicidal operations.†Khodada added, “We saw people getting trained to hijack airplanes. . . . They are even trained how to use utensils for food, like forks and knives provided in the plane.†A map of the camp that Khodada drew from memory for Frontline closely matches satellite photos of Salman Pak, further bolstering his credibility.[18]
These facts clearly disprove the above-quoted statements by Senator Kennedy and the Los Angeles Times and similar claims made by others. The Bush administration could advance American interests by busing a few dozen foreign correspondents and their camera crews from the bar of Baghdad’s Palestine Hotel to Salman Pak for a guided tour. Network news footage of that might open a few eyes.
Saddam Hussein’s al Qaeda Connections
As for Hussein’s supposedly imaginary ties to al Qaeda, consider these disturbing facts:
· The Philippine government expelled Hisham al Hussein, the second secretary at Iraq’s Manila embassy, on February 13, 2003. Cell phone records indicate that the Iraqi diplomat had spoken with Abu Madja and Hamsiraji Sali, leaders of Abu Sayyaf, just before and just after their al Qaeda-allied Islamic militant group conducted an attack in Zamboanga City. Abu Sayyaf’s nail-filled bomb exploded on October 2, 2002, injuring 23 individuals and killing two Filipinos and U.S. Special Forces Sergeant First Class Mark Wayne Jackson, age 40. As Dan Murphy wrote in the Christian Science Monitor last February 26, those phone records bolster Sali’s claim in a November 2002 TV interview that the Iraqi diplomat had offered these Muslim extremists Baghdad’s help with joint missions.[19]
· The Weekly Standard’s intrepid reporter Stephen F. Hayes noted in the magazine’s July 11, 2003, issue that the official Babylon Daily Political Newspaper published by Hussein’s eldest son, Uday, had revealed a terrorist connection in what it called a “List of Honor†published a few months earlier.[20] The paper’s November 14, 2002, edition gave the names and titles of 600 leading Iraqis and included the folwing passage: “Abid Al-Karim Muhamed Aswod, intelligence officer responsible for the coordination of activities with the Osama bin Laden group at the Iraqi embassy in Pakistan.†That name, Hayes wrote, “matches that of Iraq’s then-ambassador to Islamabad.â€
Article concluded in next post.