Just How Much Digging Did Senate Do?

The headline blares that a Senate report found no ties between al Qaeda and Iraq. That would certainly be news to anyone who's been following counter terror operations and foreign policy for the better part of a decade.

NBC News' Brian Williams breathlessly leads the newscast tonite saying that there are no links, and that this report shreds the argument that there were links between al Qaeda and Iraq.

The problem for Williams and others making such arguments is that there were more than a few links between Iraq and al Qaeda, and they've been documented for quite some time.

The links are numerous and they're well documented, even by the very Senate committee that produced this report. And there's also questions over the individual responsible for the production of the section on the Iraq-al Qaeda connection. In fact, according to Mark Levin's sources, the person responsible was a Kerry operative who somehow managed to get a job with Sen. Chuck Hagel (R) and other staffers found that he was cherry picking information.

Mark Levin also took aim and fired for effect, namely the ways that Iraqi intel agents operated to secretly coordinate activities with al Qaeda for fear of being discovered by foreign intel operations. Steven Hayes has much more:

One such confirmation came in a postwar interview with one of Saddam Hussein's henchmen. As the memo details:

4. According to a May 2003 debriefing of a senior Iraqi intelligence officer, Iraqi intelligence established a highly secretive relationship with Egyptian Islamic Jihad, and later with al Qaeda. The first meeting in 1992 between the Iraqi Intelligence Service (IIS) and al Qaeda was brokered by al-Turabi. Former IIS deputy director Faruq Hijazi and senior al Qaeda leader [Ayman al] Zawahiri were at the meeting--the first of several between 1992 and 1995 in Sudan. Additional meetings between Iraqi intelligence and al Qaeda were held in Pakistan. Members of al Qaeda would sometimes visit Baghdad where they would meet the Iraqi intelligence chief in a safe house. The report claimed that Saddam insisted the relationship with al Qaeda be kept secret. After 9-11, the source said Saddam made a personnel change in the IIS for fear the relationship would come under scrutiny from foreign probes.

Flopping Aces goes back to the Authorization for Use of Military Force against Iraq in 2003, and finds the following statement:

“Whereas members of al-Qaida, an organization bearing responsibility for attacks on the United States, its citizens, and interests, including the attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, are known to be in Iraq;

We know that various terrorist operatives were found in Iraq well before the US invasion in 2003, including Abu Nidal.

Saddam Hussein's own memos give lie to the fact that there was no connection or relationship:

Headed by the Saudi Usamah Bin Ladin [UBL], who is a member of a wealthy Saudi family with his roots going back to Hadhramut. This family has a strong ties with the ruling family in Saudi. He is one of the leaders of the Afghan-Arabs, who volunteered for jihad in Afghanistan. After the expulsion of the Russians, he moved to live in Sudan in 1992 subsequent to the Islamists arrival to power in Sudan.

[A]s a result of his antagonistic positions against the ruling Saudi family in opposition to the foreign presence in Saudi Arabia, the Saudi authorities issued a decree to withdrawing his Saudi Citizenship. We approached the committee by doing the following:

A. During the visit of the Sudanese Dr. Ibrahim Al-Sunusi to Iraq and his meeting with Mr. `Uday Saddam Hussein, on December 13th 1994, with the presence of the respectable, Mr. Director of the Intelligence Services, he [Dr. Al-Sunusi] pointed out that the opposing Usamah Bin Ladin, residing in Sudan, who expressed reservations and fear that he may be depicted by his enemies as an agent for Iraq; is ready to meet with us in Sudan (The Honorable Presidency was informed of the results of the meeting in our letter 782 on December 17th 1994).

B. An approval to meet with opposer Usama Bin Ladin by the Intelligence Services was given by the Honorable Presidency in its letter 138, dated January 11th 1995 (attachment 6). He [UBL] was met by the previous general director of M ‘I M 4 [QCC: possible the previous General Director of Intelligence] in Sudan, with the presence of the Sudanese, Ibrahim Al-Sannusi, on February 19th 1995. A discussion ensued with him about his organization, he [UBL] requested the broadcasting of the speeches of Sheikh Sulayman Al-`Udah (who has an influence within Saudi Arabia and outside, due to his religious and influential personality), to designate a program for them through the radio broadcast directed inside Iraq, and to perform joint operations against the foreign forces in the land of Hijaz. (The Honorable Presidency was informed of the details of the meeting in our letter 370 on March 4th 1995, attachment 7)

C. The approval was received from the Leader, Mr. President, may God keep him, to designate a program for them {QCC: UBL and the Sheikh] through the directed radio broadcast. We were left to develop the relationship and the cooperation between the two sides to find out what other avenues of cooperation and agreement would open up. The Sudanese were informed of the Honorable Presidency’s approval of the above through the representative of the Respectable Director of Intelligence Services our Ambassador in Khartoum.

D. Due to the recent situation in Sudan, and being accused of supporting and embracing terrorism, an agreement with the opposer Saudi Usamah Bin Laden was reached, to depart Sudan to another region; whereas, he left Khartoum in July of 1996. The information indicates that he is currently in Afghanistan.

The relationship with him is ongoing through the Sudanese side. Currently, we are working to revitalize this relationship through a new channel in light of his present location.

It's interesting to note that the countries that keep popping up in these memos and documents are the same ones where the fight against Islamic fundamentalism is being fought - Afghanistan, Sudan, and Somalia. Specifically, Sudan is a facilitator between Iraq and al Qaeda, and was the former home for Osama before he departed for Afghanistan.

Security Watchtower also notes the inconsistencies between the report's summaries and its contents:

It would not be accurate to say this report concludes there was no relationship between al Qaeda and Iraq.

As for Iraq and its relationship to Al Qaeda, again, that is such a large topic. But there is plenty to suggest the SCI missed the boat here.

See Thomas Joscelyn's article Rogue Bureaucrat, or the Hayes and Joscelyn article The Mother of all Connections. See Mark Eichenlaub's website, or read Sam Pender's book. There is much that the SCI did not address in this report.

As for Zarqawi and Ansar al Islam, the report says prewar intelligence "expressed uncertainty" over Iraqi support for Zarqawi and Ansar al Islam.

Among the intelligence that the SCI report dismisses as "uncertainty" is this passage from the very Iraqi Support for Terrorism report it used as a baseline.

On the one hand, they're claiming that there was a paucity of intel to either support or deny any ties, but on the other they claim with definitive knowledge that there were no such ties. That inconsistency is found throughout.

The US continues to uncover links between al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein's regime, in the course of going through the millions of documents recovered, along with debriefing various Iraqi officials. They were partners in terror, and it extended well before the war in Iraq started in 2003. Those ties became much closer after the invasion.

Thomas Joscelyn doesn't find the report to be persuasive at all:

The committee's staff made little effort to determine whether or not the testimony of former Iraqi regime officials was truthful. In fact, Saddam Hussein and several of his top operatives--all of whom have an obvious incentive to lie--are cited or quoted without caveats of any sort. In Saddam's debriefing it was suggested that he may cooperate with al Qaeda because "the enemy of my enemy is my friend." According to the report, "Saddam answered that the United States was not Iraq's enemy. He claimed that Iraq only opposed U.S. policies. He specified that if he wanted to cooperate with the enemies of the U.S., he would have allied with North Korea or China."

Anyone with even a partial recollection of the controversy surrounding Iraq in the 1990s will recall that Saddam made it a habit of cursing and threatening the United States. His annual January "Army Day" speeches were laced with threats and promises of retaliation against American assets. That is, when Saddam claimed that the United States was "not Iraq's enemy," he was quite obviously lying. But nowhere in the staff's report is it noted that Saddam's debriefing was substantially at odds with more than a decade of his rhetoric.

The testimony of another former senior Iraqi official is more starkly disturbing. One of Saddam's senior intelligence operatives, Faruq Hijazi, was questioned about his contacts with bin Laden and al Qaeda. There is a substantial body of reporting on Hijazi's ties to al Qaeda throughout the 1990s.

Hijazi admitted to meeting bin Laden once in 1995, but claimed that "this was his sole meeting with bin Ladin or a member of al Qaeda and he is not aware of any other individual following up on the initial contact."

This is not true. Hijazi's best known contact with bin Laden came in December 1998, days after the Clinton administration's Operation Desert Fox concluded. We know the meeting happened because the worldwide media reported it. The meeting took place on December 21, 1998. And just days later, Osama bin Laden warned, "The British and the American people loudly declared their support for their leaders decision to attack Iraq. It is the duty of Muslims to confront, fight, and kill them."

This report, in sum, was an unserious and deeply flawed piece that does nothing to shed light on the extent of the relationship between al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein's Iraq.