Saddam's Pre-War Ties to Islamic Terrorists

I don't really care all that much if Saddam Hussein had ties to al Qaeda before the U.S. invasion of Iraq. My concern is that, like it or not, we are in a war against al Qaeda now (the real al Qaeda), and our choice is to win that war (John McCain) or to lose that war (Barrack Obama). That's your choice, take your pick. It happens to be the same choice faced by al Qaeda, so they are fighting on despite the fact that the war is going very badly for them. The flow of foreign fighters into Iraq has declined, many of the foreign fighters who are already there are seeking to leave, jihadist leaders acknowledge serious setbacks in Iraq, and al Qaeda's popularity throughout the Muslim world has suffered a severe setback since the invasion. Thus, the recent tactical shift in Iraq associated with the troop surge offers the promise of a strategic victory in the war on terror that few envisioned at the outset. If we finish the job, the damage done to al Qaeda's global jihadist objectives will be exceeded only by the victory we will hand to them should Barack Obama assume the presidency in January of 2009.

That's the reality today, but it is still interesting to look back at Saddam's pre-war terror connections. Grownups already know that he had connections to Islamic radicals (e.g., read the 9/11 Commission report), and that's what raised reasonable suspicions about his links to al Qaeda. The adolescent left, by contrast, thinks that it's all a big snow job because the secular Saddam could not possibly have had anything to do with radical Islam. This intellectually vacuous idea is often reinforced by the bumper-sticker mentality of our mainstream media, which long ago summarized the 9/11 report as simply saying that Saddam had "no collaborative relationship" with al Qaeda. This is another great example of using the truth to mislead:

Al Qaeda-Hussein Link Is Dismissed

By Walter Pincus and Dana Milbank
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, June 17, 2004; Page A01

The Sept. 11 commission reported yesterday that it has found no "collaborative relationship" between Iraq and al Qaeda, challenging one of the Bush administration's main justifications for the war in Iraq.

The classic technique here is to refute an allegation that was never made. The same technique was used to refute the never-made allegation that Iraq posed an "imminent threat" to the United States. Bush actually said that it would be a mistake to wait until Iraq posed an imminent threat, and the fact that the U.S. invaded before the threat became imminent is why the invasion was "illegal" (under international law). Similarly, before the war, Bush argued that Saddam had connections with al Qaeda, but he never said that it was a "collaborative" relationship. But his critics are always happy to put words into his mouth and then claim that, in their own fevered imaginations, Bush essentially said what they they are now refuting. It's misleading, but it works.

In any case, the question of Saddam's pre-war ties to terror has been renewed because the Pentagon just released an extremely detailed study of the issue based on an analysis of 600,000 captured documents. The press, which is heavily invested in one particular narrative that fuels the feverish minds of the radical anti-war left, has again done just what they did before:

Study: No ties between Saddam, al-Qaida

WASHINGTON, March 12 (UPI) -- A Pentagon review of Iraqi documents has found no evidence of ties between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaida, McClatchy Newspapers reported Wednesday.

The study is scheduled to be released to the U.S. Congress and the public this week.

A U.S. official said that in more than 600,000 documents seized after the 2003 invasion none showed a "direct operational link" between the Iraqi regime and Osama bin Laden.

The Bush administration used allegations of such links as a justification for the invasion. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld claimed in 2002 that there was "bullet-proof" evidence and Secretary of State Colin Powell cited links in his February 2003 speech to the United Nations immediately before the invasion.

And there you have it. Bush lied, people died. What else do you need to know?

I learned a long time ago that you can't let the mainstream media do your thinking for you. They are well meaning, but they lean far to the left. You really can't lean far in one political direction and also be objective because ordinary humans are not adept at detecting their own biases. When you lean left (or right), you tend to jump at evidence that seems to support your world view. Thus, a story like the one quoted above tells me little except that the reporter leans to the left and can find at least one sentence that seems to support the liberal view of the world. To me, that's not news.

As usual, I went looking for the report itself. You can find it here, and Volume 1 is the one you want. For now, I am just going to provide some excerpts from the report and mainly leave it at that. Much of the report documents Saddam's support for Palestinian terrorist groups and for his planned use of suicide bombers to carry out assassinations of Iraqi opposition group leaders (in Europe and elsewhere). But what caught my attention were Saddam's connections to Islamic jihadist groups. It's quite clear that those connections were extensive and that he maintained a business-like relationship with them. As such, it's easy to see why any intelligence analyst operating in a post-9/11, pre-war environment would not look at this evidence and jump to the conclusion that we need not worry about Saddam's ties to terrorism. Quite the opposite, in fact, even though it is also true that an operational relationship with al Qaeda did not exist. And if wish, you can use that true fact to lie about Saddam's connection to international terrorism. It's great technique if your goal is to do something other than convey the truth. If you want the truth, you probably have to read the report for yourself. Here are some relevant excerpts (with lines separating different parts of the report):

Iraq was a long-standing supporter of international terrorism. The existence of a memorandum (Extract 10) from the lIS to Saddam, written a decade before OPERATION IRAQI FREEDOM, provides detailed evidence of that support. Several of the organizations listed in this memorandum were designated as international terrorist organizations by the US Department of State.

Extract 10.
[18 March 1993]

Islamic Jihad Organization [Egyptian Islamic Jihad]

In a meeting in the Sudan we agreed to renew our relations with the Islamic Jihad Organization in Egypt. Our information on the group is as follows:

It was established in 1979.

Its goal is to apply the Islamic shari' a law and establish Islamic rule.

It is considered one of the most brutal Egyptian organizations. It carried out numerous successful operations, including the assassination of Sadat.

We have previously met with the organization's representative and we agreed on a plan to carry out commando operations against the Egyptian regime.

Islamic Ulama Group - Islamic Scholars Group

It was established in 1948 and is very influential in large areas of Pakistan, especially in the northern districts. They rely on financial support from Iraq and Libya. The party is led by Ahmad Nu'mani. He has strong relations with our agency since 1981 and is ready to carry out any assignment we task him with.

The Afghani Islamic Party

It was founded in 1974 when its leader [Gulbuddin Hekmatyar] escaped from Afghanistan to Pakistan. It is considered one of the extreme political religious movements against the West, and one of the strongest Sunni parties in Afghanistan. The organization relies on financial support from Iraq and we have had good relations with Hikmatyar since 1989

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One other memorandum (Extract 12) bears consideration. Drafted in Saddam's office, it refers to an agreement with Islamic terrorists to conduct operations against the Egyptian regime during the first Gulf War (1991) and for continued financial support for the terrorists after hostilities ended.

With respect to the proposal of our special security agency [liS] regarding calling a representative of the Islamic Group in Egypt to Iraq in our topsecret personal letter dated 11 March 1993. This letter was in response to the President directing that only fmancial support is available for now. Intelligence operatives and contacts should be maintained in any movement in the Arab homeland, as indicated by the President in a top-secret letter, 38 dated 25 March 1992. [Emphasis added]

The last sentence (in italics referring to the agreement with Islamist terrorists) deserves special attention: it refers to a top-secret order for Saddam's intelligence services to maintain contact with any movement in Arab countries. While it is not surprising that Saddam, one of the last of the Middle East's revolutionary nationalists, would endeavor to support revolutionary groups, it is important to recognize that many of these nationalist groups changed in the late 1990s. Saddam viewed these groups through the eyes of a pan-Arab revolutionary, while the leaders of the growing Islamist movements viewed them as potential affiliates for their Jihad. In other words, two movements, one pan-Arab and the other pan-Islamic, were seeking and developing supporters from the same demographic pool.

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A much longer document from 1993 illuminates how the outwardly secular Saddam regime found common cause with terrorist groups who drew their inspiration from radical Islam. One could argue that keeping some of these extremist groups active outside of Iraq was a pragmatic defensive measure against them. Nevertheless, the Iraqi document reports on contact with a large number of terrorist groups in the region, including those that maintained an office or liaison in Iraq. The document goes into great depth about Iraq's links to the Egyptian Islamic Jihad and includes a memorandum, dated 8 February 1993, asking that movement to refrain from moving against the Egyptian government at that time.

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The Terror "Business" Model of Saddam Hussein

Saddam's interest in, and support for, non-Iraqi non-state actors was spread across a wide variety of revolutionary, liberation, nationalist, and Islamic terrorist organizations. For years, Saddam maintained training camps for foreign "fighters" drawn from these diverse groups. In some cases, particularly for Palestinians, Saddam was also a strong financial supporter. Saddam supported groups that either associated directly with al Qaeda (such as the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, led at one time by bin Laden's deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri) or that generally shared al Qaeda's stated goals and objectives.

Now, I am sure that a left-leaning reporter truly believes that the best way to summarize this report is to say "Study: No ties between Saddam, al-Qaida." However, the truth turns out to be a lot more interesting than that.