9/11 panel: New evidence links Iraq-Al-Qaida

[nemo]

Source

Wonder how valid this is......

WASHINGTON, June 20 (UPI) -- The commission investigating the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks has received new information indicating that a senior officer in an elite unit of the security services of deposed Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein may have been a member of al-Qaida involved in the planning of the suicide hijackings, panel members said Sunday.

John F. Lehman, a Reagan-era GOP defense official told NBC's "Meet the Press" that documents captured in Iraq "indicate that there is at least one officer of Saddam's Fedayeen, a lieutenant colonel, who was a very prominent member of al Qaida."

The Fedayeen were a special unit of volunteers given basic training in irregular warfare. The lieutenant colonel, Ahmed Hikmat Shakir, has the same name as an Iraqi thought to have attended a planning meeting for the Sept. 11 attacks in January 2000, in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The meeting was also attended by two of the hijackers, Khalid al Midhar and Nawaf al Hamzi and senior al-Qaida leaders.

Lehman said that commission staff members continued to work on the issue and experts cautioned that the connection might be nothing more than coincidence.

"Shakir is a pretty common name," said terrorism analyst and author Peter Bergen, "and even if the two names refer to the same person, there might be a number of other explanations. Perhaps al-Qaida had penetrated Saddam's security apparatus."

Analysts say the Fedayeen was not an intelligence unit, but an irregular militia recruited from clans loyal to the regime in the capital, in Saddam's hometown of Tikrit and in the surrounding Tigris valley area. Michael Eisenstadt of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a think tank set up by the pro-Israel lobbying group AIPAC, described them to United Press International last year as "thugs and bumpkins."

He said the Fedayeen were "at the low end of the food chain in the security apparatus, doing street level work for the regime."

Nevertheless, the revelation seems sure to stoke the controversy over the extent of links between al-Qaida and Saddam's regime, links that were cited by the Bush administration as a justification for the invasion of Iraq.

On Wednesday, the commission published a staff statement saying that contacts between the regime and al-Qaida "do not appear to have resulted in a collaborative relationship" and that, "We have no credible evidence that Iraq and al-Qaida cooperated on attacks against the United States."

Critics of the Bush administration seized on the comments as evidence that the White House had sought to mislead Americans about the relationship between Saddam and al-Qaida.

President Bush's likely Democratic opponent, Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., said the president need to give "a fundamental explanation about why he rushed to war for a purpose it now turns out is not supported by the facts."

Both Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, however, continued to stress that the links were extensive. Cheney hinted that the commission did not have all the facts, telling one interviewer that he "probably" had access to intelligence commission staff and members had not seen.

Sunday, Lehman acknowledged that, "the vice president was right when he said he may have things that we don't yet have. And we are now in the process of getting this latest intelligence."

Democratic panel member Richard Ben-Veniste agreed that the panel should study any more recent intelligence, "If there is additional information, we're happy to look at it, and we think we should get it."

Lehman added that the row illustrated the political minefield the commission was trying to tiptoe through in an election year when the focus of their inquiry is such an explosive issue. "We're under tremendous political pressures. Everything we come out with, one side or the other seizes on in this election year to try to make a political point on," he said.

He pointed out that the Clinton White House had made the same charges the current administration did about the danger that Iraq might pass chemical or biological weapons to al-Qaida. Those charges, he said, formed the basis for the missile strikes against alleged terrorist targets in Sudan in August 1998. "The Clinton administration portrayed the relationship between al-Qaida and Saddam's intelligence services as one of cooperating in weapons development," he said.

Commission Vice Chairman Lee H. Hamilton, a former Democratic congressman from Indiana, played down the differences between the commission's view and that of the administration. "When you begin to use words like 'relationship' and 'ties' and 'connections' and 'contacts,'" he told ABC's "This Week," "everybody has a little different view of what those words mean. But if you look at the core statements that we made ... I don't think there's a difference of opinion with regard to those statements.

"If there is, it has to be spelled out to me. "

Chairman Thomas Kean, meanwhile, stressed that the staff statement released Wednesday did not represent the settled view of the whole commission: "These staff reports have come along every now and then in connection with our public hearings. These staff reports are interim documents. The commission, for instance, does not get involved, the members, in the staff reports. When we do the report itself, that will be a product of the entire commission."

He added that there much more evidence of links between al-Qaida and Iran or Pakistan than Iraq, and pointed out that, "Our investigation is continuing. We're not finished yet."

The commission's two days of meetings last week marked their final public gatherings. They are to deliver a final report by July 26. Congress formed the commission to look into possible U.S. intelligence failures prior to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in which some 3,000 people were killed after the hijacking of four jetliners than crashing the aircraft into buildings in New York and Washington and in rural Pennsylvania.

[Island Dog]

That's impossible. Saddam was a nice guy who would never associate with terrorists.

[Island Dog]

CPOD) Jun. 20, 2004 – Many Americans believe al-Qaeda may have worked alongside the regime of Saddam Hussein, according to a poll by Harris Interactive. 69 per cent of respondents believe the deposed Iraqi leader supported the terrorist network, while 22 per cent disagree.

Do you believe that Saddam Hussein was supporting the terrorist organization al-Qaeda, which attacked the United States on September 11, 2001?

Believe he was

69%

Do not believe he was

22%

Not sure

9%

http://www.cpod.ubc.ca/polls/index.cfm?fus...tem&itemID=3120

[nemo]

http://www.cpod.ubc.ca/polls/index.cfm?fus...tem&itemID=3120

yeah i saw that poll.... i wonder where it was taken.... and how many people took it.

[b3n]

you can find just as much evidence to link them as you can to not

that picture of saddam is just as bad as that picture with the bald eagle with its finger up

[nemo]

you can find just as much evidence to link them as you can to not

that picture of saddam is just as bad as that picture with the bald eagle with its finger up

no. you can find just as much evidence to say that Saddam and Al Queda didn't collaborate on 9/11. Nobody ever claimed that they did.

There is irrefutable evidence that Saddam and Al Queda had contacts in the past several years.

[b3n]

no. you can find just as much evidence to say that Saddam and Al Queda didn't collaborate on 9/11. Nobody ever claimed that they did.

There is irrefutable evidence that Saddam and Al Queda had contacts in the past several years.

ok

so what does this prove?

[nemo]

It proves that there have been contacts between Saddam and Al Qaeda like the Bush administration said in the first place, nulling all your claims that Bush lied.

[b3n]

i was under the impression that bush administration used suposed links between 9/11 terrorissts and sadam for the war on iraq

i realise i was now a victim of misinfomed jounalism

you have my profouse apologies :p

i still dont understand how this link would be of any use to bush

he has as many links to osama as saddam

[[david]]

http://www.cpod.ubc.ca/polls/index.cfm?fus...tem&itemID=3120

what the hell would american citizens know about it? they're not involved, and a poll is useless as evidence here.

and island, supporting the work of terrorists is different from being one.

[nemo]

what the hell would american citizens know about it? they're not involved, and a poll is useless as evidence here.

and island, supporting the work of terrorists is different from being one.

They know just as much as you Brits know.

It's asking what they believe. They're trying to use it as evidence. But you obviously can't differentiate the two.

[Dazzla Veteran]

Wasn't 9/11 more the Saudi's doing then anything else? Still linking Saddam is really grasping...

[nemo]

Wasn't 9/11 more the Saudi's doing then anything else? Still linking Saddam is really grasping...

:angry: :angry: They didn't link Saddam to 9/11. They never claimed he took part in 9/11.

Linking Saddam to Al Qaeda/Bin Ladin is not linking Saddam to the 9/11 attacks.

[Dazzla Veteran]

It says the Iraqi attended a meeting with the 9/11 hijackers, what did they talk about? The weather?

The lieutenant colonel, Ahmed Hikmat Shakir, has the same name as an Iraqi thought to have attended a planning meeting for the Sept. 11 attacks in January 2000, in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The meeting was also attended by two of the hijackers, Khalid al Midhar and Nawaf al Hamzi and senior al-Qaida leaders.

[[david]]

They know just as much as you Brits know.

It's asking what they believe. They're trying to use it as evidence. But you obviously can't differentiate the two.

yeah, but why the **** should a bunch of random americans decide whether saddam and osama were linked? none of them know! statistics aren't designed to be used here. and when did i say a survey of a bunch of random brits would be any better evidence?

could you clarify the last bit? what do the "they"s refer to?

[nemo]

It says the Iraqi attended a meeting with the 9/11 hijackers, what did they talk about? The weather?

yeah, what's your point? The Bush Administration claimed that Saddam and Al Queda and contacts - not collaborated on 9/11.

This is just evidence that they had contacts together... and this article shows that his regime had terrorists and they weren't innocent like everyone thinks.

@ dellard..... again... are you kidding me?! :angry:

who is saying that the americans are deciding it?! IT IS A POLL!!!!!!!!!!! IT IS A SURVEY!!!! HAVE YOU EVER TAKEN A SURVEY BEFORE?!

The survey isn't trying to prove anything it's just giving damn statistics on what Americans believe. Why is it so hard for you to understand that?

I meant "They're not trying to use it as evidence" They = media.

[Island Dog]

and island, supporting the work of terrorists is different from being one.

Defending Saddam again.

yeah, but why the **** should a bunch of random americans decide whether saddam and osama were linked?

It's not deciding, it's an opinion.

[Dazzla Veteran]

yeah, what's your point? The Bush Administration claimed that Saddam and Al Queda and contacts - not collaborated on 9/11.

This is just evidence that they had contacts together... and this article shows that his regime had terrorists and they weren't innocent like everyone thinks.

@ dellard..... again... are you kidding me?! :angry:

who is saying that the americans are deciding it?! IT IS A POLL!!!!!!!!!!! IT IS A SURVEY!!!! HAVE YOU EVER TAKEN A SURVEY BEFORE?!

The survey isn't trying to prove anything it's just giving damn statistics on what Americans believe. Why is it so hard for you to understand that?

I meant "They're not trying to use it as evidence" They = media.

What? Are you even reading peoples posts as well as your own? :rolleyes:

You said:

They didn't link Saddam to 9/11.

Story said:

Saddams men had 9/11 meeting with hijackers.

What exactly are you not getting about the story that you posted?

Oh, and perhaps I should have a few of these :angry: :angry: :angry: :angry: :angry: :angry: :angry: :angry: :angry: :angry: :angry: :angry:

:rolleyes:

[nemo]

What? Are you even reading peoples posts as well as your own? :rolleyes:

You said:

They didn't link Saddam to 9/11.

Story said:

Saddams men had 9/11 meeting with hijackers.

What exactly are you not getting about the story that you posted?

Oh, and perhaps I should have a few of these :angry: :angry: :angry: :angry: :angry: :angry: :angry: :angry: :angry: :angry: :angry: :angry:

:rolleyes:

I was referring to the Bush Administration. Thet never claimed that saddam collaborated with al qaeda on 9/11.

this article just shows that saddam's regime did have contacts with alqaeda, and did work together on 9/11

[Island Dog]

Prisoner: Al Qaeda Members Met With Saddam

Abu Iman al-Maliki was convicted of spying on the Kurds as an Iraqi intelligence officer. He says he worked as such for 20 years. Al-Maliki chain-smoked Marlboros as we talked, sitting on a metal chair in a T-shirt advertising a martial arts school that strained against his bulk. He is, simply put, a huge man.

Abu Iman al-Maliki was an Iraqi intelligence officer for 20 years. (ABCNEWS.com)

 

"The U.S. believes Iraq has had contact with al Qaeda," I said, "Do you know that to be a fact?"

"Yes. In '92, elements of al Qaeda came to Baghdad and met with Saddam Hussein and among them was Dr. Al-Zawahiri."

Ayman Al-Zawahiri, you may recall, has been identified as a top lieutenant of bin Laden's, and is widely thought to be a mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.

"There is a relationship between the governments of al Qaeda and the Iraqi government," he continued. "It began after the events of Kuwait approximately. That is when the relationship developed and many delegations came to Baghdad. There are elements of al Qaeda training on suicide operations, assassinations, explosions, and the making of chemical substances, and they are supervised by a number of officers, experts from the Iraqi intelligence, the Explosives Division, the Assassinations Division, different specialties."

Al-Maliki's specialty is somewhat more disturbing. He says he was part of a group of officers ordered by Saddam to hide chemical weapons throughout the Iraqi countryside. When I asked him if the U.N. weapons inspectors might find anything if they return, he smiled and said, "No. They will find nothing."

http://216.239.51.104/search?q=cache:pcbNf...&hl=en&ie=UTF-8

[[david]]

Defending Saddam again.

It's not deciding, it's an opinion.

i'm not defending him, just opposing you :p

[John S. Veteran]

yeah i saw that poll.... i wonder where it was taken.... and how many people took it.

Methodology: Telephone interviews to 991 American adults, conducted from Jun. 8 to Jun. 15, 2004. Margin of error is 3 per cent.

[John S. Veteran]

what the hell would american citizens know about it? they're not involved, and a poll is useless as evidence here.

and island, supporting the work of terrorists is different from being one.

It's just like anything in politics, perception is everything. Does the president make policy that affects the economy? Sure he does, but does he hire and fire folks? Nope. Does he invest millions of his own monies to start businesses that hire people? Nope. But the President will always get the blame or credit for these things which he has essentially little to no control over. Just ask Sputnik :laugh:

Perception, sadly, is more important. The general voting public doesn't enjoy delving into the nitpicky details of issues as we do.

[Dave Veteran]

The general voting public doesn't enjoy delving into the nitpicky details of issues as we do.

HAHA, we sure do enjoy it, don't we?

[John S. Veteran]

HAHA, we sure do enjoy it, don't we?

:laugh: yeah, takes the place of sports for me