After repeated questioning about links to al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden, Saddam Hussein admitted the two sides had had meetings (though he initially denied this) but said his regime denied al Qaeda's requests for support over what he claimed were incompatible ideologies.

Below is a summary of one of FBI agent George Piro's question and answer sessions. In this June 28, 2004 document Hussein also said his country did not support al Qaeda because the U.S. was not his enemy. Hussein's motivation to speak the truth must be critically on this and any other matter he may have considered incriminating. Regarding viewing the U.S. as an enemy Hussein had previously indicated the exact opposite. In another FBI interview, as well as private and public statements Hussein revealed feelings that undermine this denial of viewing the U.S. as an enemy.
saddam_fbi_ubl062804

Update: Eli Lake mentions information from the Institute for Defense Analysis paper that counters Saddam Hussein's denial of any links to al Qaeda in this Washington Times piece while Glenn Kessler at the Washington Post also wrote on the story, comparing Saddam Hussein's statements to the former Bush administration on Iraq-al Qaeda links.

James Gordon Meek of the New York Daily News has posted two recent stories based on documents he obtained through FOIA on the FBI's interview of Saddam Hussein.

Meek says that, according to the documents, Saddam denied links to al Qaeda just as he did prior to the invasion and the Baath party recently denied again on their website.

In one of the documented interviews Hussein referred to America as his enemy and in another interview discussed Iraq's relationship with, and level of support for anti-Israel groups linked with Abu Nidal and Abu Abbas, who he referred to as "guests."

Hussein's FBI interview with special agent George Piro has also been reported on by Ronald Kessler of Newsmax and in a CBS "60 minutes special."

Meek indicated that more released documents relating to the interview may be posted soon on the New York Daily News website.

Update: In Meek's latest post on another FBI document relaying the George Piro interview of Saddam Hussein, Hussein said that he would have been willing to use WMD's against the U.S. if he had them.

"By God, if I had such weapons, I would have used them in the fight against the U.S.”

FBI photo of Saddam Hussein being fingerprinted after being captured.

In a recent interview with this site, former CIA Operations Officer, and co-author of "Operation Hotel California," Charles "Sam" Faddis, talked about leading the CIA's first team into northern Iraq in 2002 and what he found. Faddis, now the president of Orion Strategic Services and working on another book about the future of the CIA, says that while interviewing dozens of al Qaeda/Ansar al Islam detainees he saw no signs of cooperation between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda. Faddis also talked about battling Saddam Hussein's Fedayeen, why Saddam Hussein might not have attacked an al Qaeda/Ansar al Islam outpost in Iraq and more.

ROT: Before discussing some of the specifics of your assignment in Iraq can you please explain what your official position was at the time of the invasion and what your background was to that. CF: I was Chief of Base Salahalldin at the time conventional forces invaded. I was running all CIA operations in that portion of Northern Iraq controlled by the KDP. I had been in that capacity since the Fall of 2002. Prior to that, for several months, I was responsible for all CIA personnel in Northern Iraq. Once we began to plus up, in the Fall of 2002, and the scope of operations began to grow, we divided the North into two zones. I took KDP territory. My former deputy took PUK territory (ROT: PUK officials talked more of Saddam-al Qaeda links than did KDP).

ROT: In an interview with Congressional Quarterly's Jeff Stein you said that you saw intelligence reports that al Qaeda was in Iraq prior to the U.S. led invasion but Saddam Hussein's regime was working against them and working to infiltrate them. Can you talk about what kind intel there was on this? Testimony from members of Saddam's regime who defected or were in custody? Members of al Qaeda/Ansar al Islam who were in custody? Intercepted phone calls or documents? Something else?
CF: There were al Qaeda personnel inside what was technically Iraqi territory. They were located in the area along the Iranian border controlled by a radical Islamic group called Ansar al Islam. This area was not under the functional control of Saddam nor was it under friendly Kurdish control. It was, in effect, an independent mini Islamic state. My team acquired information on this presence and on Iraqi collection regarding it directly. We captured many of the Ansar and al Qaeda personnel and questioned them. I personally did many of these interrogations. We also ran a large number of clandestine sources who reportedl directly to us. Our conclusions regarding the situation on the ground were not based on one or two reports. They were based on literally hundreds of reports that we produced ourselves.

ROT: Where were the majority of the your intel reports on Saddam's regime coming from? It has been reported in the 9-11 Commission and elsewhere that the intelligence community had a lot of difficulty penetrating the former regime when it came to looking at WMD's and whether or not they cooperated with terrorists. Can you comment on this?
CF: We ran a large number of assets. We debriefed defectors. We had Kurdish teams operating across the Green Line. We pulled in a lot of information. That said, I would never be so naive as to think that means we knew everything that was going on.

ROT: A lot of disinformation and misinformation has come into play about intelligence relating to Iraq/terrorism over the past 7+ years. Is it possible that some of that information was let out to muddy the waters and overshadow the little reported stories of cooperation between the former regime and terrorists that has been found in al Qaeda and Baath documents? Is it possible that there is still information about what happened in the shadowy al Qaeda and Baath official meetings that hasn't been released?
CF: I suppose anything is possible. My personal opinion is that trying to prove a lashup between Saddam and al Qaeda is a waste of time and an example of a tendency to try to oversimplify a dangerous, complex and chaotic world. Saddam was a monster. I volunteered to help overthrow him for a reason. The world is a better place without him. Osama is a dangerous fanatic, and the world will be safer when he is dead. None of that means that those two individuals must be in league or that they worked in concert. It just means there are a lot of dangerous people out there, and that it is sometimes a difficult task to understand their motivations and goals.

ROT: When you were working with intelligence on northern Iraq prior to the invasion did the name Abu Wa'el ever surface? What was known of him?
CF: If I recall correctly he was an Ansar leader. Not sure what I can tell you about him. It has been a number of years, and, obviously, I no longer have access to any of the reporting we produced on him.

ROT: What did you make of some of the press accounts mentioning foreign jihadist suicide bombers (perhaps hundreds) awaiting coalition forces in Baghdad early in the invasion?
CF: I am not sure I am aware of hundreds of jihadist suicide bombers awaiting coalition forces. My understanding of what ensued in Iraq post occupation was that we, through gross incompetence, allowed a very dangerous vacume in security to appear. In effect, we created an opening for al Qaeda and other Sunni extremist groups, and they were not slow to exploit it.
I have never seen anything which suggests that these people were sitting there pre invasion waiting for us. Everything I have ever seen says they flooded in once we let the place go up in flames.

ROT: Did you get any intelligence reports about the thousands of Islamic militants who reportedly (according to the Insitute for Defense Analysis study) passed through regime-run training camps for the decade leading up to the invasion? If so, what did you make of those reports?
CF: I don't know anything about such reports. Also, just to be clear, neither I nor anyone else I know is trying to make a case that Saddam never had any contact with any terrorists or that he never assisted them. That would be silly.

ROT: Is it possible that al Qaeda, Zarqawi and others could have really operated in Saddam Hussein's Iraq if the former regime did not want them there? Specifically, is it possible that they were in Baghdad, going back to 2002, which many of their members and internal documents point to them being?
CF: I think we are back to the same point again. I can't vouch for every report the CIA ever had on this topic. But, I don't know of any operational cooperation between Saddam and AQ. What I saw with my own eyes inside Iraq was that Saddam and his intelligence apparatus regarded Ansar and their AQ allies as very dangerous. There was no indication of any support or liaison. There was plenty of evidence that Saddam was spying on Ansar and AQ in order to keep tabs on what they were doing and prevent them from being a threat to his regime.

ROT: Regarding the spying by Saddam Hussein's regime on Ansar al Islam and AQ, it would seem that if the two groups were really enemies the regime could have easily stomped a few hundred of them out if they wanted to. It would have been cost-free politically at a time when Iraq could have really used some international goodwill and yet there were no accounts of open conflict between the two? (as opposed the fighting that was taking place between the Kurdish government and Ansar al Islam/al Qaeda) Couldn't the regime have been spying on Ansar al Islam to make sure they were attacking their mutual enemy, the Kurdish government? (ROT note: Press accounts at the time even mentioned some members of Ansar al Islam in the north praying for Saddam Hussein's survival)
CF: Ultimately, I cannot prove a negative. Meaning that I am never going to be able to say that it was absolutely impossible for Saddam to have had any links with Ansar and al Qaeda. That said, everything I ever saw and that my team collected told me there were no such links ongoing. Certainly, what I can say definitively is there was no material aid flowing. Ansar was getting arms and munitions from lots of places, but none of them from Saddam. Ansar's little enclave was really in an area along the Iranian border where Saddam could not get to it. Essenially hemmed in along the border by PUK. Plus, given the no fly zone and sensitivity about any move he would make into Kurdish areas, I think it would have been opening the door to a lot of unpredictable international response to have moved north in any direction. Finally, I suspect Ansar (al Islam) just did not make the cut for a threat so immediate that he felt compelled to act. They were basically surrounded by the PUK and they occupied a fairly small area of what is, frankly, pretty lousy territory. He did not like them. He wanted to keep his eye on them. They were not an immediate threat in the sense that if he did not kill them all today he was doomed.

ROT: What motivation would al Qaeda and Ansar al Islam detainees have had to tell the truth about their goals and relations? Were all of those detainees captured in northern Iraq or were some from Mosul and other Sunni areas in Iraq where Baathists were soon captured working alongside some Ansar al Islam and al Qaeda agents?
CF: We interrogated dozens of Ansar and AQ guys summer of 2002. I conducted a number of those interviews myself, including some of the most high profile ones. Why did they talk? Because we broke them down. As to exactly how we did that, I think the less said about that the better. We have already spilled enough detail about our methodology to the world. These detainees were captured in many different places. Most of the AQ guys were caught as they tried to make it to Ansar territory following their flight from Afghanistan. I never met any Ansar or AQ guys who ever said anything positive about Saddam. In Spring 2003 SF and our guys in PUK territory overran Ansar and captured a large number of them. I would not be the guy to talk to for the gospel on what all those guys said, but I never heard any info that suggested they told us anything we did not already know.

What I always told my team in 2002 was that the day we found hard evidence of a link between Saddam and AQ, I would gladly send that message to Washington. I considered both Saddam and Osama enemies of the United States. That said, as a pro, I also stressed that we were not going to cut any corners or shade anything. We were going to do it by the numbers, check all our sources and call it as we saw not as someone wanted us to. We never found that smoking gun. In fact, everything I saw, as I have noted, told me that Saddam considered Ansar and AQ to be adversaries whom he needed to watch very carefully.

ROT: Back to the reports on the foreign suicide bombers in Baghdad. These types of reports were privately confirmed to me by a writer for NEWSWEEK who was in Baghdad during this time and indicated that he saw evidence of a pipeline of suicide bombers coming via Syria months before the invasion. Did these accounts not make it to your area of responsibility?
CF: I am well aware of the existence of a "pipeline" across Syria for foreign fighters coming into Iraq to fight the coalition. I do not have any information regarding the existence of this "pipeline" in advance of the invasion or of any organized effort by Saddam, in cooperation, with Islamic extremists to bring in suicide bombers. That does not mean it did not exist, it means simply I have no information on that topic. My team engaged heavily against the Fedayeen after the invasion began. I recall no information suggesting that any of the folks with whom we engaged were foreigners or Islamic radicals.

ROT: Is it your opinion that the close cooperation that has gone on since days after the invasion between some of the Baathist holdovers and al Qaeda was put together all after U.S. forces arrived?
CF: Again, I suppose on some level anything is possible. What I understand to have happened is as follows. We invaded Iraq with a relatively small force. All of our planning for post-invasion control of that nation, to the extent it existed, was predicated on the basis of our having the cooperation of the bulk of the Iraqi Army and security forces. That is part of the reason that my team spent so much time working on coopting the Iraqi military. Then, for reasons which remain mysterious to me to this day, a decision was made at some level, I would assume by the President, to change course, formally disband the Iraqi Army and other security forces, and take on the task of policing a large, populous nation composed of a myriad of different ethnic and religious groups, by ourselves. These groups had never peacefully coexisted except when forced to do so, and all Saddam's reign of terror had done was to suppress the differences and hatreds and to so brutalize the society as to largely destroy any sense of the rule of law or civil society. What ensued was a lot like what you would see in a pressure cooker if you took the lid off at full heat. The water boiled, and it boiled furiously. We were besieged by a host of different elements. Sometimes these elements cooperated. Sometimes they acted independently but based on a common opposition to our presence. Al Qaida is nothing but opportunistic. They can smell blood. They came running as well. What amazes me to this day, is that the men and women of our military and intelligence services, despite the horrific strategic errors made by their leaders, found a way to walk through that firestorm and, ultimately, to survive it.

On a broader level, my suggestion would be that we spend less time trying to prove President Bush, for whom I voted twice, and Vice-President Cheney right and more drawing the correct conclusions and figuring out a way to win the war which is still going on against Islamic terror. Bill Clinton demonstrated what happens when you pretend like there is no war and don't fight back. Bush demonstrated what happens when you combine great power with ignorance and arrogance. Somewhere in between is a middle ground, where we fight intelligently and emerge victorious.

ROT: How can readers get a copy of your book and what should they expect from it?
CF: Which book? Operation Hotel California is available from most online book sellers. My new book, on the future of the CIA, comes out this fall.

Analysis
The testimony of Faddis, and others with intimate experience with the interrogations/interviews of members of al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein's regime, is important when attempting to unravel the true feelings members of the al Qaeda movement and Saddam Hussein's regime had for one another. Faddis's testimony also supports the work that writers and analysts such as Walter Pincus, Michael Isikoff, Spencer Ackerman, Murray Waas, Jonathan Landay and Warren Strobel, Daniel Benjamin, Steven Simon and many many others have produced highlighting the animosities between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda.

It remains important to note that Saddam Hussein's regime and al Qaeda both valued compartmentalization (many in al Qaeda were opposed to the Septemeber 11 attacks, strategies or even totally unaware of major al Qaeda plots until they happened, while many Iraqi leaders believed the country had WMD's in 2003 while many did not). Regarding the post-invasion insurgency in Iraq internal al Qaeda documents, reported on by the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point Abu Musab al Zarqawi and Osama bin Laden had disagreements over working with "apostates" while the remnants of the Iraqi Baath party have split into at least 2 wings with starkly differing opinions over cooperating with Islamists. According to an analyst of the Iraq insurgency at the Jamestown Foundation, one wing is said to be led by Mohammed Younis al Ahmed al Muwali with secular goals and the other being led by Izzat Ibrahim al Douri who is said to be more open to working with a less inclusive group of Islamists.

To further understand the incredibly complex, and often contradictory, stories of what cooperation, exchanges and conflicts between Saddam Hussein's regime and al Qaeda more people like Charles Faddis, who have had much more exposure to al Qaeda and Baath intentions than the public has had access to, will need to come forward in the coming years and tell their story of what those detainees have said and put all the information into the public discussion.

Over the past many months a number of interviews, documents, admissions and other revelations have come to light that continue to undermine the notion that al Qaeda and al Qaeda linked groups were not able to operate inside Iraq during the rule of Saddam Hussein. These findings match up with older reports on the hotly contested that may now deserve re-examination.

A study by The Combating Terrorism Center at West Point of al Qaeda documents deemed the "Sinjar Records" indicates that al Qaeda was, in fact, able to operate inside the country during the rule of the former regime. The center also has previously posted internal al Qaeda documents in which al Qaeda members revealed to one another that "some of them went to Saddam" likely in referrence to al Qaeda members fleeing Afghanistan to Iraq.

These documents match the testimony of what a former overseer of Iraqi prisons, Don Bordenkircher, claims he was told by numerous prisoners. In an interview with Ryan Mauro, Bordenkircher says that he was told that al Qaeda was not limited to areas beyond Saddam Hussein's control but was present in Mosul and Kirkuk and received assistance from one of Saddam Hussein's sons.

In an interview with FrontPage magazine, Osama al Magid, a former police officer in Saddam Hussein's Iraq from 1992-2003, said that al Qaeda was present and protected in Saddam Hussein's Iraq.

FP: How about Al Qaeda in Iraq?
Al-Magid: Al Qaeda and other people who believed the same as Al Qaeda had been in Iraq for many years. When I say “believed” I mean people who hated America and wanted to destroy the U.S. Saddam had this in common with Al Qaeda and this is why he provided them protection.

In an interview last year conducted by Michael Totten a Sunni Iraqi stated that al Qaeda wasn't out in the open in Saddam Hussein's Iraq but was there in some capacity.

“We can't compare that to the situation we have now with all these different types of organizations running around all over the country. Before there was nothing like an Al Qaeda organization here. I mean, they were here, but they were secretive, they were not in the field, they were not recognized yet. But now we feel that they are serious, that something big is going on.”

Also on this topic Thomas Joscelyn points out that a fairly recent Senate Intelligence Committe report on prewar Bush adminstration statements on the topic backed up allegations that al Qaeda was in Saddam's Iraq and not limited to Kurdistan. Joscelyn found that the report included the following statements:

Statements that Iraq provided safe haven for Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and other al Qaeda-related terrorist members were substantiated by the intelligence assessments. Intelligence assessments noted Zarqawi's presence in Iraq and his ability to travel and operate within the country. The intelligence community generally believed that Iraqi intelligence must have known about, and therefore at least tolerated, Zarqawi's presence in the country.

Joseph Shahda translated and explained a 2008 al Qaeda document, reportedly written by Saif al Adel, who denied links between the group and Saddam Hussein's regime but said the group did have a presence in the Sunni areas of Iraq building cells prior to invasion.

Jeff Stein's interview with former CIA operative Charles Faddis revealed that al Qaeda did have a presence in Iraq prior to invasion though Faddis argues that there was no link to Saddam Hussein's government (more on Farris's thoughts on the topic will be shared in a yet to be published interview with this website).

A story posted on al Sumaria's website (link is now down) stated that followers of Saddam Hussein welcomed al Qaeda into Iraq during the invasion and worked together to cause chaos in the country.

It is to be noted that in the wake of the US invasion to Iraq, Sunni Arabs, followers of former President Saddam Hussein welcomed Al Qaeda and allowed for the flow of foreign fighters across the borders to fuel insurgency in Anbar province and establish quasi military structures in Falluja mainly. Al Qaeda and Saddam supporters have imposed their power in these regions and went through fierce battles with the Marines. However, as Al Qaeda’s arbitrary violence has mounted against civilians, Arab tribes formed awakening councils funded by the US aimed against Al Qaeda.

In another Senate report looking into the reported mistreatment of detainees Senior Guantanamo Bay interrogator David Becker told the committee interviewing him that "only 'a couple of nebulous links''' were uncovered between al Qaida and Iraq (An interview with someone in charge of interviewing detainees in Iraq by this website is also in the works.)

In a post on his Global Terror Alert website in January 2006 Evan Kohlman analzyed al Qaeda in Iraq's "Distinguished Martyrs" series which included a document discussing Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and other al Qaeda members and saying that they did not fight alongside members of Saddam Hussein's regime at the start of the Iraq war though the document does not give the reasons for this decision.

Abu Umar al-Masri - A 37-year old senior Egyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ) leader trained in Yemen and Afghanistan who later joined a group of other elite EIJ operatives in Albania preparing for jihad in nearby Kosovo. When other members of the infamous "Albanian Returnees" group were seized in a joint mission by Albanian security services and the CIA for targeting the U.S. embassy in Tirana, Abu Umar fled Albania for Italy, where he was imprisoned for several years as a suspected terrorist. After a harrowing trip through Germany, Afghanistan, Iran, and Syria, Abu Umar eventually ended up in Iraq just prior to the fall of Saddam Hussein and joined Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

Evan Kohlman also posted another document which old CT Blog post cited Abu Ismail al-Muhajir saying:

"As I have explained before, the brothers in Iraq decided to stay out of the war and not to fight alongside Saddam until the war was over and Saddam’s regime was eliminated. They had many reasons for making this decision... Nonetheless, the situation took a turn for the worse after the regime’s collapse... we decided to stay and hide [in Iraq].

The Institute for Defense Analysis investigation of Saddam Hussein era documents showed regime support for EIJ and EIJ has been documented as having had a presence in Saddam's Baghdad.

Nikolas K. Gvosdev , a professor at the Naval War College and editor at The National Interest, relayed a guest post from Alexis Debat in a June 2006 at The Washington Realist stating that :

According to Jordanian intelligence sources, these individuals were highly instrumental in setting up Zarqawi's network in Iraq in 2002. Abu Ayyub al Masri, for example, was reported by the US military to have set up Zarqawi's first cell in Baghdad in mid-2002. This Egyptian group, led by al Masri, is reported to have played a critical role in Al Qaeda in Iraq, which cell structure and modus operandi are almost identical to those of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad in the 1980s.

Abu al Masri was also said to have close ties to Ayman al Zawahiri, who reportedly had links to Iraq going back many years. In 2004 TIME magazine reported on al Qaeda documents showing Zarqawi and some of his associates were in Baghdad during Saddam's rule:

He spent the months leading up to the war moving through Iran and northern Iraq, where he attached himself to the Kurdish Islamist group Ansar al-Islam. A confidential al-Tawhid document obtained by TIME describes a fighter killed in Fallujah last April as having joined al-Zarqawi in Baghdad "just before the fall of the previous regime"—a claim that backs up the Bush Administration's disputed assertions that al-Zarqawi passed through the Iraqi capital while Saddam Hussein was in power. Al-Zarqawi has built his network in Iraq by exploiting the furies unleashed by the fall of Saddam.

The notion that an Iraq-al Qaeda link was based solely, or even primarily, on one or a few mistreated al Qaeda detainees is not a very serious one when al Qaeda documents, Baath documents, detainee admissions and other revelations, both old and new, show that al Qaeda was in areas of Iraq under Saddam Hussein's control and the full extent or reason for this presence has yet to be thoroughly explained to the general public.

This Associated Press investigative piece is an excellent read on the shadowy links between the various extensions of Saddam Hussein's regime and a prominent terrorist who was said to be devoutly religious and still hunted by coalition forces in Iraq. This man is/was an expert in terrorism.

The entire article is worth a close read.

Despite the most recent attempt by the Democrat-led Senate Intelligence Committee to "report away" Saddam Hussein's links to terrorism, evidence reportedly from inside the former regime continues to reveal efforts by the former regime to cultivate ties with active terrorist groups. The most recent piece of evidence is provided by a Kurdish newspaper translated by MEMRI (story below, picture of document to left) and cited by AJ Strata and Gateway Pundit.

Kurdish Paper: Cooperation Between Saddam Regime, Al-Qaeda

The Kurdish daily Kurdistani Nwe has published a 2002 letter from the Iraqi presidency that it says proves that there was cooperation between the regime of Saddam Hussein and Al-Qaeda.

The letter, which appeared on the paper's front page, was published by the intelligence apparatus of the Iraqi presidency and discussed an intention to meet with Ayman Al-Zawahiri in order to examine a plan drawn up by the Iraqi presidency to carry out a "revenge operation" in Saudi Arabia.

2002 letter from the Iraqi presidency

Source: www.knwe.org (http://www.knwe.org/Kurdistani%20Nwe/18-6-2008/Kurdistani%20Nwe.htm), June 20, 2008

It is worth noting that terror attacks in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia were conducted in May 2003 and were largely blamed on al Qaeda. It is also worth noting that Saddam Hussein's connections to Ayman al Zawahiri (though there is much more on this topic yet to be written) have been documented in numerous reports including the 9-11 Commission’s report and the recent IDA report. The recent IDA report also exposed Hussein’s terrorists capabilities and motives towards Saudi Arabia (internal documents discussed secret attacks on the Saudi Royal family, attacks on buildings in the country and terror plots coordinated by "Unit 999"). The extent of Hussein’s terror aspirations vs. Saudi Arabia, coupled with his previous financial links to al Qaeda #2’s Ayman al Zawahiri would indicate that this documents authenticity is at least plausible in terms of what else is known about the 2002 situations surrounding both al Qaeda (fury with the Saudis over their cooperation with the U.S.) and Saddam Hussein’s Iraq (being threatened with a U.S. led war).

That Saddam Hussein's regime had secret plans for terror attacks on buildings inside Saudi Arabia, had a special intelligence unit for conducting attacks inside Saudi Arabia, was meeting with the groups who shared the desire and capability to launch attacks against Saudi Arabia and eventually conducted such attacks may be merely coincidental to those who apply the standards of the U.S. legal system towards state sponsors of terrorism but the evidence, coupled with Hussein's treacherous past, should have long removed this presumption of innocence and burden of proof.

The past few days have seen a whirlwind of news stories and blog posts relating to a new D.O.D. sponsored study on Saddam Hussein's links to terrorism. The report, authored by Kevin M. Woods of the Institute for Defense Analysis, is now available online (link, Volumes I -V here) and has been the subject of debate over its content, release and meaning.

The storm began (as noted in Stephen Hayes must read piece) with a McClatchy news piece titled "Exhaustive review finds no link between Saddam, al Qaida." The leak-based story essentially summarizes a 94 page report down to a single, unrepresentative phrase. For the record it should be noted that once the report was made available to the public it was revealed that its author's actually say on page ES-3 that their report is not exhaustive (contrary to the early news report) stating that the list of Hussein era documents are "not an exhaustive list" beause some were in the possession of other U.S. government agencies.

This story was followed by headlines of a similar bent. Steve Schippert's sample of some of the more prominent headlines provides readers with what the story's narrative looked like a few days ago:

ABC: Report Shows No Link Between Saddam and al Qaeda
New York Times: Study Finds No Qaeda-Hussein Tie
CNN: Hussein's Iraq and al Qaeda not linked, Pentagon says
Washington Post: Study Discounts Hussein, Al-Qaeda Link
AFP: No link between Saddam and Al-Qaeda: Pentagon study

And within hours the (mainstream media) die had been cast. Saddam was not linked to al Qaeda went the theme.

The initial news reports of the study's findings were so far off base that one of the researchers involved in the report said (via Stephen Hayes) "The document is being misrepresented. I recommend we put [it] out and on a website immediately."

The full report was then posted online, and made available by ABC News, does indeed include a sentence that no "smoking gun" linking Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda was discovered during their research but goes on to give compelling evidence that mustn't meet the authors criteria in the "smoking gun" test. A closer reading of the study (see here, here, here, here, here and here) shows that Saddam Hussein's Iraq cooperated with, financed and supported a number of Islamic terrorist groups, including al Qaeda proxies (at least five according to Thomas Joscelyn) and had a larger capacity for state apparatus terrorism (car bomb training, IED training, jihadist suicide bomber recruitment, etc.) than previously believed by many.

Of the many noteworthy findings in the report is the assertion made in the conclusion that Hussein had retained not only the capacity to launch anti-West terrorist attacks but the will to use those terrorist capabilities, including directly against the United States, which was also a matter of previous debate. The report's conclusion, while noting that a perfect grasp of Hussein's mindset at the exact time of U.S. invasion remained elusive, states that "evidence that was uncovered and analyzed attests to the existence of a terrorist capability and a willingness to use it until the day Saddam was forced to flee Baghdad by Coalition forces."

Instead of newspaper and television headlines such as "Hussein had the capability and intention of striking U.S. with terror attacks" the public is presented with disappointingly shallow stories that even days after the full version of the report is out still promoting the narrow "no links" narrative. The coming days and weeks should be a time when members of the media can and should put aside their previously conceived notions on this serious and important topic and read and then seriously report on this study. The time for that is long overdue.

Baathist - al Qaeda collaboration extends beyond borders of Iraq

A recent Treasury Department designation and an October arrest in Italy appear to indicate that Baathist and al Qaeda members in both Europe and the Middle East have discussed and attempted various forms of suicide attacks on coalition forces which include the use of aircraft in suicide attacks.

As first pointed out at the Counter Terrorism Blog, on December 6 the U.S. Treasury Department announced the designation of 7 individuals for their support of the insurgency in Iraq and/or their support of former regime officials. The designations named Fawzi Mutlaq Al-Rawi (al Rawi pictured at right via Terrorist Scorecard) in the release and cited his leadership of the Iraqi branch of the Syrian Baath Party, material support for al Qaeda, supporting Muhammad Yunis Ahmad's network in Iraq, meeting with the former commander of Saddam Hussein's Army of Muhammad and attending a meeting in Ar Ramadi, Iraq, with other senior AQI representatives "where they discussed financing, unifying AQI forces, (and) conducting airborne improvised explosive device attacks."

Al-Rawi's contacts include both members of the former Iraqi regime and leading members of al Qaeda in Iraq, providing further example that not only will followers of Baathism and al Qaeda cooperate but have done so at top levels of each organization.

In October, another member of a plot involving Baath Party remnants, al Qaeda members and air craft was quietly squelched. According to Adnkronos International, Italian police arrested Saber Fadhi Hussien "a former member of late Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein's disbanded Baath Party" and allegedly "the head of an al-Qaeda cell" when he was in route to Syria for "planning attacks using suicide bombers, anti-tank weapons and ultra-light helicopters, according to investigators. They said Hussien was intending to travel to Syria and meet a contact for al-Qaeda in Iraq."

Hussien is said to have been in contact with aides of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, prior to his death and had been supplying money for al Qaeda attacks in Iraq "for some time." Italian police "also turned up the names of Hussien's contacts in Iraq, which they said would be relayed to Iraqi police and US authorities." Whether or not that information contributed to the arrest of al-Rawi or the designations by the Treasury Department has not yet been announced and the Treasury Department could not provide further details on this topic when reached for comment due to the sensitivity of the subject.

In a related note, former Iraqi Vice President and "deputy chairman of the Iraqi Revolutionary Command Council" (who has also reportedly spent time operating from Syria) was recently almost caught near Saddam Hussein's former hometown of Tikrit. Despite eluding capture, and contrary to stories of turning against al Qaeda, al Douri's recovered possessions revealed details on al Qaeda , including a detailed plan of a March attack on Mosul's Badush prison that freed over 100 al Qaeda members.

As was mentioned by IWPR's Hiwa Osman over two years ago in the Washington Post Baathist - al Qaeda cooperation was not only one of the players in the Iraq insurgency but

The backbone of the insurgency appears to be an alliance between the die-hard Baathists and the network of terrorists mostly under the command of Abu Musab Zarqawi.

Whether or not the collaboration is being led by Zarqawi's successor or someone else, Osman's description of Syria as a base of this cooperation appears to have been noticed by U.S., Iraqi and Italians officials, as evidence by the recent reports. The continued extent of that cooperation and its extent can likely be determined by the arrest of the individuals listed as wanted individuals by Iraq, those listed by the Treasury Department who continue to reside in Syria and those discussed in al Douri's recovered documents though that information will likely remain kept from public eyes until it is fully utilized.

Over past few months a number of stories related to the former Iraqi regime's links to terrorism have further developed.

Recently, former top aide of Saddam Hussein, Izzat al Douri, was said to have renounced his alliance with al Qaeda. What isn't being asked is how can Al Douri, who once told TIME of cooperating with Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, be "breaking" from al Qaeda if Baathists would not be willing to work with al Qaeda to begin with?

In a related story, former Iraqi PM (and former Baath party member) Iyad Allawi's connections to information about members of the former regime may have been reinforced when he was reportedly able to set up a meeting between representatives of Izzat al Douri and U.S. representatives. If Allawi truly has these sorts of contacts inside the ranks of the former regime it would be wise not to discount his knowledge (video and story here) regarding the former regime's links to al Qaeda, including possible meetings with al Qaeda #2 Ayman al-Zawahiri.

While reviewing the latest tape from Osama bin Laden Tom Joscelyn reminded his readers of the Associated Press's analysis of what bin Laden instructed his followers to do prior to the U.S. invasion of Iraq:

Feb. 11, 2003: Bin Laden tells his followers to help Saddam Hussein fight Americans in an audiotape broadcast on Al-Jazeera. U.S. officials say they believe the tape to be authentic

Saddam Hussein's daughter has been targeted for arrest by Iraqi officials for her financial support for terrorist groups operating inside Iraq. Much of her funding is likely to be that of the former regime's.

The Congressional Research Service (CRS) has an updated, and still flawed, look at the prewar relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda. The report's author Kenneth Katzmann actually address the extensive postwar cooperation between Saddam loyalists and al Qaeda but makes many of the same mistakes when analyzing possible relationships between the two sides by failing to actually analyze any of the actual documents from the former regime which have been found in Iraq or to look at the interrogation logs of any of the Baathists who have been caught working with/for al Qaeda and ask how and when that relationship began.

The U.S. government's wanted profile for Abdul Rahman Yasin, though the information is longer available, temporarily listed Yasin as having last been seen in the Arabian Peninsula and also as a member of al Qaeda. Though Yasin's links to the 93' World Trade Center attack have been known for some time his listing as a member of al Qaeda by the U.S. government may have been the first time. Postwar intelligence, including recovered documents, indicate that Yasin was harbored and funded by the former regime.

Continued Baathist - al Qaeda cooperation in Iraq

In the Arab Jabour of Iraq an Egyptian, still unnamed, who came to Iraq in the 80's and later became a "former high ranking official of the Ba'ath party during Saddam Hussein's reign" was arrested. Sometime after coming to Iraq he "joined al-Qaeda fighters" and led a VBIED cell which had been targeting coaltion forces.

In a story passed along to this site by Dr. Laurie Mylroie, the leader of a wanted al Qaeda in Iraq cell with links to the former regime was detained on September 3. His cell, in the Old Za'ab Village, is believed to include members of "the former Ba’ath Party, 1920th Revolutionary Brigade, Islamic State of Iraq, New Ba’ath Party and El-Huk Brigade members. Additionally, his group is suspected of orchestrating attacks in Ninewa, Salah ah Din
and At' Tamim provinces...Scouts were able to detain the leader’s deputy, a wanted member of the former Ba’ath Party. In addition, the village is believed to be a safe haven and planning node for synchronization of al Qaeda in Iraq forces."

The leader of al Qaeda in Tikrit (Tikrit being Saddam Hussein's birthplace and former stronghold), Salam Mulla Mustafa Shneidkh was caught in mid-2007 with four of his aids. Wanted members of al Qaeda continue to be captured in Tikrit and and in cooperation with members of the former regime throughout the Sunni Triangle.

In a relatively unnoticed event, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's followers, the Ba'ath party and Ansar al-Sunnah released a joint statement protesting the state of affairs in Iraq sometime after the Sharm al-Shaykh conference a few years back. The letter was written by the Ba'ath party and said the groups would double their attacks on coalition targets.

Amy Proctor has posted a video on her site of a 2005 televised confession by Ramzi Hashem Abed that mentions a number of interesting points including an al Qaeda affiliate's presence in Saddam Hussein-era Iraq as well as post-invasion cooperation between members of Hussein's regime and the al Qaeda linked group whom Abed refers to as "bin Laden's group."

In the video the native Iraqi mentions a camp in Northern Iraq that may be the same one Joseph Shahda wrote about on this site and also indicates that another terror camp was possibly used for Hussein-era training in Fallujah.

Investigator: What organization do you belong to?

Abed: Ansar Al-Islam.

Investigator: What organization is this?

Abed: It is Bin-Laden’s group.

ON BIN LADEN’S AL-QAEDA TRAINING CAMPS IN FALLUJAH UNDER SADDAM:
Abed: Our Ansar Al-Islam military camps were in Halabja.

Investigator: This was in the days of the previous regime?

Abed: Yes.

Investigator: And now?

Abed: Now, there is nothing. They were all scattered. The training area was in Falluja.

It is not clear when exactly Abed is saying the training took place in Fallujah but this is the city where Baathist/Wahhabist cooperation took place post invasion and a city in which, according to Ray Robison, Wahhabism may have been not only tolerated but assited by the former regime.

As Thomas Joscelyn correctly noted this man's words should not be accepted uncritically but there is other evidence to support this claim that Joscelyn summarizes:

the 9/11 Commission noted that there were "indications" that Saddam's regime "tolerated and may even have helped" Ansar al Islam - the group Abed admitted belonging to -set up shop in Saddam's Iraq. The Commission decided not to get into the details of what these "indications" were, but clearly the CIA was piecing together these threads of evidence prior to the U.S.-led invasion. The 9/11 Commission also noted that bin Laden "is said to have asked for space to establish training camps" as early as 1994 or 1995. The Commission said "there is no evidence that Iraq responded to this request." But, that isn't true - at least it isn't now true anyway.

Eventually this story will be sorted out as more detainees (al Qaeda, Ansar al Islam and Saddam Hussein officials) interrogation logs are made public and their accounts analyzed and compared with the those documents that have been part of the limited release of material found both in these camps and in official offices of the former regime.