Jonathan Schanzer has a fascinating article in The Weekly Standard exploring the connections between Saddam’s Mukhabarat secret police and al-Qaeda. Schanzer interviewed a former Mukhabarat agent captured in Iraqi Kurdistan who worked directly with Abu Wael, another Mukhabarat agent who worked directly with the Qaeda splinter group Ansar-i-Islam.
“Do you know this man?” I asked al-Shamari. His eyes widened and he smiled. He told me that he knew the man in the picture, but that his graying beard was now completely white. He said that the man was Abu Wael, whose full name is Colonel Saadan Mahmoud Abdul Latif al-Aani. The prisoner told me that he had worked for Abu Wael, who was the leader of a special intelligence directorate in the Mukhabarat. That directorate provided assistance to Ansar al Islam at the behest of Saddam Hussein, whom Abu Wael had met “four or five times.” Al-Shamari added that “Abu Wael’s wife is Izzat al-Douri’s cousin,” making him a part of Saddam’s inner circle. Al-Douri, of course, was the deputy chairman of Saddam’s Revolutionary Command Council, a high-ranking official in Iraq’s armed forces, and Saddam’s righthand man. Originally number six on the most wanted list, he is still believed to be at large in Iraq, and is suspected of coordinating aspects of insurgency against American troops, primarily in the Sunni triangle.
Why, I asked, would Saddam task one of his intelligence agents to work with the Kurds, an ethnic group that was an avowed enemy of the Baath regime, and had clashed with Iraqi forces on several occasions? Al-Shamari said that Saddam wanted to create chaos in the pro-American Kurdish region. In other words, he used Ansar al Islam as a tool against the Kurds. As an intelligence official for the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (one of the two major parties in northern Iraq) explained to me, “Most of the Kurdish fighters in Ansar al Islam didn’t know the link to Saddam.” They believed they were fighting a local jihad. Only the high-level lieutenants were aware that Abu Wael was involved.
Of course now it is clear that Ansar-i-Islam is working directly with the remaining Ba’athists to attack coalition soldiers in Iraq. It is equally clear that there were several direct ties between Iraqi and al-Qaeda. Abu al-Zarqawi, the top Qaeda agent currently in Iraq fled to Baghdad from Afghanistan after the Northern Alliance and coalition forces overran the country – long before the current war. It now appears based on this new information that Abu Wael was yet another direct link between Saddam’s security and terrorism apparatus and al-Qaeda.
The arguments that there was absolutely no contact between Iraq and al-Qaeda are based on ignorance of a mountain of evidence that does connect the two. At the very least it is indisputable that Zarqawi was sheltered by the Iraqi regime after Operation Enduring Freedom.
For those that are keeping score Iraq has been connected with Abu Zarqawi, Abu Wael and Ansar-i-Islam, connections between Iraq WMD efforts pre-1991 and al-Qaeda operative Abu Hajer al Iraqi, funding suicide attacks in Israel through Hamas and Islamic Jihad, sheltering wanted terrorist Abu Abbas, sheltering the murderers of US diplomat Laurence Foley, and now we know beyond any doubt that al-Qaeda and the Ba’athists are working together in the Iraqi insurgency.
The idea that Iraq wasn’t a central hub for Islamic terrorism is prima facie absurd when Hussein had a visceral hatred for the US, publically praised terrorists, and had the money and resources to provide substantial aid to terrorist cells. The idea that these things wouldn’t come together at some point is to ignore a very real threat – of course when so many are willing to stick their heads in the sand in order to further their domestic political agenda, it’s not at all surprising that so many would be willing to ignore such evidence.
it’s true that -if it does exist- this connection could have turn into a terrible threat: Saddam could have give them the WMDs he didn’t have!!!
I’ve heard that line before, except it doesn’t ring true. Bin Laden may not have liked Saddam, but he hated the US more. Remember, bin Laden dislikes anything that even remotely resembles Western culture, but that doesn’t mean that al-Qaeda doesn’t use things like the Internet or television to spread their message. Bin Laden may be a religious zealot, but he’s also a malignant narcissist. Anything that would expand his personal power he’d use – be it “un-Islamic” technology like the Internet or whatever help Iraq would give him.
As for Ansar-i-Islam, the connections are clear. Zarqawi was trained in Afghanistan by al-Qaeda, and left when the US invaded. Ansar-i-Islam is getting outside help, and we know that Zarqawi was in regular correspondance with al-Qaeda leadership. Again, all it takes is to put two and two together to see that there’s some kind of operational relationship between the two. al-Qaeda has always been decentralized, and Ansar-i-Islam is one branch of that structure.
“Bin Laden may not have liked Saddam, but he hated the US more. Remember, bin Laden dislikes anything that even remotely resembles Western culture, but that doesn’t mean that al-Qaeda doesn’t use things like the Internet or television to spread their message.”
Again, missing the entire point, which is that if bin Laden is willing to conduct himself contary to his professed beliefs (which obviously he did if you’re right) then you CANNOT declare skepticism on the issue “absurd” on its face. Bin Laden saw Saddam as a traitor, and I’d rather have 15 minutes alone in a room with Benedict Arnold than with George III. Ignoring the fact that bin Laden would have detested Saddam, coupled with ignoring the fact that bin Laden called for uprisings AGAINST Saddam, means that we’d have to suspend one hell of a lot of disbelief to buy that a direct relationship existed. Either that, or we’d need some terrible intelligence. Speaking of which, what part of that NY Times piece saying that the intel we have on Ansar al-Islam isn’t as conclusive as you continue to say didn’t sink in?
See, I think the problem is credibility. When Jay Reding says:
“all it takes is to put two and two together to see that there’s some kind of operational relationship between the two. al-Qaeda has always been decentralized, and Ansar-i-Islam is one branch of that structure,”
all I have to do is look at the NY Times and see that people who are much, much smarter and in a far better position to know are nowhere near making an assertion like that, especially since the evidence is showing RIFTS, not connections, at this point. But that would only matter if a person read that article, wouldn’t it? If you didn’t read that piece, you might never know that Jay’s irrefutable, 2+2=4 evidence might not be as clear-cut as he seems to think.
Isn’t that funny?
If we accept that logic, then Saudi Arabia never supported al-Qaeda, because Bin Laden saw the House of Saud as nearly as evil as the US. Yet we know that the Saudis were more than happy to pay off al-Qaeda and al-Qaeda was more than happy to recieve Saudi money.
Yes, bin Laden didn’t like Hussein, but that doesn’t mean that he wouldn’t or didn’t work with him. That also doesn’t mean that other Qaeda-linked groups wouldn’t have, and that doesn’t mean that that there weren’t connections between the two.
What we do know is that Zarqawi was a top Qaeda operative in Afghanistan who fled in December of 2001 and ended up in Iraq. We know that he’s coordinating attacks in Iraq, and we know that he’s still in contact with al-Qaeda.
Even if Iraq wasn’t working directly with al-Qaeda, they still were involved in hiding Zarqawi and Abu Abbas, as well as the killers of Laurence Foley. We also know that they were paying off suicide bombers in Israel and were a major risk for proliferation. If you want a causus belli for Iraq, there are plenty to pick from each which supports the validity and necessity of action.
“If you want a causus belli for Iraq, there are plenty to pick from each which supports the validity and necessity of action.”
Would you mind not pushing those points ex post facto?
Also, you’re incorrect to say that we know Zarqawi was al Qaeda. Check out the BBC:
“Intelligence reports indicated he was in Baghdad and – according to Mr Powell – this was a sure sign that Saddam Hussein was courting al-Qaeda, which, in turn, justified an attack on Iraq.
But some analysts contested the claim, pointing to Mr Zarqawi’s historical rivalry with bin Laden.
Both men rose to prominence as “Afghan Arabs” – leading foreign fighters in the “jihad” against Soviet forces in Afghanistan in the 1980s.
After the Soviets were defeated, Mr Zarqawi went back to Jordan.
He spent seven years in prison there, accused of conspiring to overthrow the monarchy and establish an Islamic caliphate.
Not long after his release, he fled the country.
Jordan tried him in absentia and sentenced him to death for allegedly plotting attacks on American and Israeli tourists.
Western intelligence indicates Mr Zarqawi had sought refuge in Europe.
German security forces later uncovered a militant cell which claimed Mr Zarqawi was its leader.
The cell-members also told their German interrogators their group was “especially for Jordanians who did not want to join al-Qaeda”.
According to the German intelligence report, this “conflicts with… information” from America. ”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/3483089.stm
(Just so you know, normally I’d simply ignore this point, but because I no longer give the intelligence cited by the Administration instant credibility, I had to see if there were dissenting opinions on the matter.)
Add to that this: Zarqari fled to Iraq in 2001. The State Department claimed that a senior agent in Saddam’s employ was the person within Ansar al-Islam that offered Zarqari sanctuary. Have we seen evidence of anything other than an antagonistic relationship between Saddam and Ansar al-Islam, other than through this claim?
The only one I’ve found is a claim that Iraqi intelligence operatives gave them $35,000 and arms. This is Chalabian intelligence, by the way, so “grain of salt” rules apply. Considering that the group was targeting mostly Kurds (PUK and KDP, both in rebellion against Saddam), and wasn’t likely to be destroyed as quickly in the event of an attack by the US, it’s not too unlikely that Saddam did deal with them in their capacity as a reserve force to fight against a likely US invasion.
Considering that IraqiNews.com says the group did not form until December 2001, offering them money for information and arms for resistance to invasion does not indicate a tie between Iraq and al-Qaeda, especially not pre-9/11 al Qaeda. It could indicate a tie between Saddam and Ansar al-Islam, but by the time that group formed the stability of al Qaeda leadership was nil, considering they were hiding entirely in caves and being shot at by US forces.
It matters because if we created this relationship between Ansar al-Islam (not necessarily a branch of al-Qaeda, and operating under local leadership) and Saddam through our threat to invade, it is hard to say it was a reasonable excuse for said invasion. Even if Chalabi was right about the arms and money, there is nothing that would have kept us from eliminating Ansar al-Islam if there was a connection to al Qaeda without a full-scale invasion.
I’d just like to know, Jay, where it is that you get this incredible faith in our prewar intelligence, given what we now know about its accuracy. It’s inspiring, sort of like the Flat Earth Society.