Following last week's Wall Street Journal story (see below, May 27) about new and dramatic evidence linking Saddam Hussein to al Qaeda and even to 9/11, Stephen Hayes -- who has written a new book, The Connection, about the overall case supporting such a link -- follows up with an article pointing up the importance of this new evidence and reminding us of evidence from the past. The new disclosures follow the identification from captured documents of one Ahmed Hikmat Shakir as a Lt Colonel in Saddam's feared security force, the Fedayeen Saddam. An Iraqi of that name was known to have been present at at al Qaeda planning meeting for 9/11. Now of course, it is possible that this could have been a quite different Iraqi who just happened to have the same name. But then consider the story Hayes now unfolds:

'Six days after September 11, Shakir was captured in Doha, Qatar. He had in his possession contact information for several senior al Qaeda terrorists: Zahid Sheikh Mohammed, brother of September 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed; Musab Yasin, brother of Abdul Rahman Yasin, the Iraqi who helped mix the chemicals for the first World Trade Center attack and was given safe haven upon his return to Baghdad; and Mamdouh Mahmud Salim, otherwise known as Abu Hajer al Iraqi, described by one top al Qaeda detainee as Osama bin Laden's "best friend."

'Despite all of this, Shakir was released. On October 21, 2001, he boarded a plane for Baghdad, via Amman, Jordan. He never made the connection. Shakir was detained by Jordanian intelligence. Immediately following his capture, according to U.S. officials familiar with the intelligence on Shakir, the Iraqi government began exerting pressure on the Jordanians to release him. Some U.S. intelligence officials--primarily at the CIA--believed that Iraq's demand for Shakir's release was pro forma, no different from the requests governments regularly make on behalf of citizens detained by foreign governments. But others, pointing to the flurry of phone calls and personal appeals from the Iraqi government to the Jordanians, disagreed. This panicked reaction, they said, reflected an interest in Shakir at the highest levels of Saddam Hussein's regime.

'CIA officials who interviewed Shakir in Jordan reported that he was generally uncooperative. But even in refusing to talk, he provided some important information: The interrogators concluded that his evasive answers reflected counterinterrogation techniques so sophisticated that he had probably learned them from a government intelligence service. Shakir's Iraqi nationality, his contacts with the Iraqi embassy in Malaysia, the keen interest of Baghdad in his case, and now the appearance of his name on the rolls of Fedayeen officers--all this makes the Iraqi intelligence service the most likely source of his training.

'The Jordanians, convinced that Shakir worked for Iraqi intelligence, went to the CIA with a bold proposal: Let's flip him. That is, the Jordanians would allow Shakir to return to Iraq on condition that he agree to report back on the activities of Iraqi intelligence. And, in one of the most egregious mistakes by U.S. intelligence after September 11, the CIA agreed to Shakir's release. He posted a modest bail and returned to Iraq. He hasn't been heard from since.'

Let's pass, wincing, over yet another example of the CIA's finest hour. From this account, it appears overwhelmingly likely that Shakir was indeed an important official in Saddam's regime, and that his involvement at the heart of al Qaeda reflected Saddam's involvement. Nor should this be a surprise to anyone who looks back at what the Clinton adminstration said and believed. For as Hayes records, the Clinton administration said unequivocally that Saddam and al Qaeda were working together. Richard Clarke, Clinton's counter-terrorism official, said so -- as Hayes observes, 'the same Richard Clarke who would one day claim that there was "absolutely no evidence that Iraq was supporting al Qaeda, ever," told the Washington Post that the U.S. government was "sure" that Iraq was behind the production of the chemical weapons precursor at the al Shifa plant.'

In 1999, the Congressional Research Service report which, with remarkable prescience suggested that al Qaeda might fly planes into important US government buildings, also said this:

' "If Iraq's Saddam Hussein decide[s] to use terrorists to attack the continental United States [he] would likely turn to bin Laden's al Qaeda. Al Qaeda is among the Islamic groups recruiting increasingly skilled professionals," including "Iraqi chemical weapons experts and others capable of helping to develop WMD. Al Qaeda poses the most serious terrorist threat to U.S. security interests, for al Qaeda's well-trained terrorists are engaged in a terrorist jihad against U.S. interests worldwide." '

And CIA chief George Tenet echoed these sentiments and has never resiled from them.

How long will it be before our anti-war media -- and all those idiots who've made fools of themselves by turning tail and joining the bandwagon of mass delusion -- have no choice but to face the fact that they have all got this story totally and completely wrong?

Posted by melanie at June 1, 2004