A reader writes to ask about the Salman Pak terrorist training camp in Saddam's Iraq, mentioned below. For the benefit of others who may not know about this, the following information comes from ''The Connection' by Stephen Hayes, pp 85-89:

Sabah Khodada, a former captain in the Iraqi army, worked at Salman Pak for six months in the mid-1990s. Khodada defected to the US in 2001 and spoke to the American media. Hayes points out very fairly that the fact that the Iraqi National Congress encouraged Khodada to speak has led some to question his story. You decide. This is some of what he said.

'This camp is specialised in exporting terrorism to the world... Training is mainly on terrorism. They would be trained on assassinations, kidnapping, hijacking of airplanes, hijacking of buses, hijacking of trains and all other kinds of operations related to terrorism...They were special trainers or teachers from the Iraqi Intelligence and al-Mukhabarat...We know that Arabs, non-Iraqis who come to train in these kind of camps, are going to be sent to very dangerous and important operations outside Iraq; not inside Iraq. They come in small numbers, and they come with the intention to do some real suicidal operations... We all met with Saddam personally... And he told us we have to take revenge from America. Our duty is to attack and hit American targets in the Gulf, in the Arab world, and all over the world. He said that openly.'

Hayes writes that UN inspectors independently verified the existence of the camps and the plane at Salman Pak. 'When they asked the Iraqis for an explanation, they were told that the instruction focused not on terrorism but on counter-terrorism.' Another Iraqi commander made available by the INC confirmed that Iraqi intelligence trained devoutly religious Arabs at the camp. And Brigadier-General Vincent Brooks, spokesman for US Central Command, said coalition troops captured foreign fighters in the vicinity of the camp who spoke of having been trained there. According to Brooks, Salman Pak was one of a number of places where there was terrorist training inside Iraq.