Examining Saddam Hussein's last words
(دراسة صدام حسين الكلمات الاخيرة

In the months and weeks before his death Saddam Hussein (Uruknet photo on left) produced a number of communications to the world beyond his cell through speeches, letters and interviews. Some of these communications have been made public and reveal additional insights into the former Iraqi leader's personal beliefs and motives, particularly Hussein's views on jihad and the use of terrorism.

In his July 7, 2006 letter to the American people, Hussein (via Uruknet) referred to the insurgency in Iraq as "heroic Mujahideen, in glorious, virtuous, militant, jihadist Iraq. So God bless the heroic people of Iraq and God bless the jihad and Mujahideen."

Hussein signed the letter:

God is great…Glory to God, to our nation, our people and the Mujahideen…Long live Iraq…Long live Palestine…Long live our glorious nation and our peace l oving people. God is greater. Saddam Hussein
President of Iraq and Commander in Chief of Iraq’s Mujahideen Armed Forces

The invocations of Islam and calls for a jihad against his foes were not new for Hussein. The calls for a "jihad" against the U.S. and its allies began at least as early as 1990 during the run up to the first Gulf War when Hussein declared a holy war against the U.S. and Israel, 1993 through his right hand man at Iraq's "Popular Islamic Conference" in Baghdad, in 1998 after U.S. air strikes on Iraq , in 2000 while speaking about the USS Cole bombing and in the months before the March 2003 invasion the calls were repeated. After coalition forces entered Iraq he again invoked the call for jihad at least twice before he was captured.

In a March 2006 interview held on Al-Fayhaa TV (found by "The Bullwinkle Blog" and translated by MEMRI) Hussein claimed responsibility for unspecified terrorist attacks.

I know that people who listen to me might think that Saddam Hussein has become apathetic in prison and stopped supporting terrorism. No. I’m not ashamed to tell you that Iraq, without Saddam Hussein, isn’t worth two bits. Therefore, it will make me happy if Iraq turns into dust.

Though this may have been tough talk from a man facing his own mortality or simply talk of using violence against those from both inside and outside his former ruling Baath Party who had crossed him during his time in prison it contrasts sharply with Hussein's previous denials of links to terrorism and similar comments made by Hussein's former mouthpiece Tariq Aziz.

Further critical analysis of Hussein's speeches (other speeches found here), analysis of the upcoming "tell all" book from Hussein's former lawyer, deciphering of public and private letters, interviews (as well as the eventual declassification of interrogation logs) will undoubtedly provide a means for deeper understanding of Hussein's stated desires and impressions regarding the West, Islam/Islamists, jihad and terrorism. These reports, combined with the previous findings of the Duelfer Report, the Iraqi Perspectives Project and CIA/DIA/FBI reports (which have been partially released through the Senate Intelligence Committee's look at the subject), are necessary for a full and comprehensive view into the world according to Saddam Hussein and thus any definitive pronouncements on Hussein's real motives should be withheld until such an effort can be made.

In a recent Washington Post Op-Ed former DIA analyst Christina Shelton discussed her intelligence work analyzing links between al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein's Iraq and countered some of the conventional wisdom on the subject while taking issue with the way her background and work were depicted in former CIA director George Tenet's recent book "At the Center of the Storm: My Years at the CIA."

Responding to Tenet's charge that she claimed the debate over Iraq - al Qaeda links was "open-and-shut" and in no need of further analysis Shelton wrote:

I said the covert nature of the relationship between Iraq and al-Qaeda made it difficult to know its full extent; al-Qaeda's security precautions and Iraq's need to cloak its activities with terrorist networks precluded a full appreciation of their relationship.

Cooperation or meetings between the two sides would likely be something which would necessitate extreme secrecy and the information of such meetings/cooperation would likely be compartmentalized on a "need to know" basis if/when such meetings took.

Shelton referred to a 2002 letter from Tenet to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (available here)
that discussed the training, meetings and safehaven that were cited as details of the links between Saddam Hussein's Iraq and al Qaeda and indicated that this information (including a decade of high ranking contacts between the two) coupled with the information that was made public in Tenet's book (high ranking al Qaeda/Egyptian Islamic Jihad members moving to Baghdad prior to invasion) make a pretty compelling case for the argument that there was enough cause for concern about Iraq's links to al Qaeda (which Tenet also said in his book).

Shelton concluded her piece saying:

A more complete understanding of Iraq's relationship with al-Qaeda will emerge when historians can exploit the numerous seized documents free from the politics of the Iraq war.

A full analysis of Saddam Hussein's Iraq links to both al Qaeda and other terrorist groups, which Shelton correctly notes won't be fully possible until all of Iraq's documents and all relevant interrogation logs are released, is something this site has argued in favor of previously.

More on this story is available at Thomas Joscelyn's site (who forwarded this site the Shelton Op-Ed), Michael Tanji's new site, Ed Morrissey's site, The Raw Story and at Powerlineblog.

An interview published in Saturday's Washington Post, with a member of the Iraq insurgency, reveals another example of the deadly postwar cooperation between members of Saddam Hussein's former ruling party and al Qaeda in Iraq.

In the piece, written by Joshua Hartlow, the insurgent identifies himself as "Abu Sarhan" and revealed that he "had been an officer in the Fedayeen (pictured right via Answers.com), the black-clad paramilitary force of the ousted government of Saddam Hussein."

"Sarhan" told his interviewers that he had risen to the level of "'general coordinator' between al-Qaeda in Iraq and the Omar Brigade, an insurgent group founded in July 2005 by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi." When and how "Sarhan" joined al Qaeda was not mentioned in the story.

The Omar Brigade is a group set up by Abu Musab al Zarqawi, before his death, to counter Shi'ites, particularly the Badr Brigade, an enemy of both al Qaeda in Iraq and Baathists.

As both the New York Times' John Burns and Strategy Page analysts have recently written the destination of choice for many al Qaeda members fleeing the U.S. surge in Iraq is areas like Ramadi, Baghdad and Baqouba where Saddam Hussein loyalists continue to still have some sway (though there are also Baathist linked groups who are confronting al Qaeda). The exact origins of this pattern of cooperation between some elements of Saddam Hussein's military/security/intelligence and al Qaeda is unknown but according to at least one former intelligence agent it goes back to at least 2001.

The size and role of al Qaeda and Baathist elements within the Iraq insurgency is also being discussed at Herschel Smith's site, Bill Roggio's site, Juan Cole's site and the Small War's Journal blog.

by Joseph Shahda

In April of 2007 the media wing for al Qaeda in Iraq and the Islamic State in Iraq, Al Furqan, released a video documentary about their Kurdistan Units in Northern Iraq. The video (click images to view) includes training and documents an attack on a Kurdish militia vehicle and is titled "Al Awda Ila Al Jibal" or "The Return To The Mountains."

According to the jihadist websites (World News Network) and forums who posted copies of the video the footage was shot somewhere between 2002 and early 2003, when al Qaeda was moving fighters to Iraq under the leadership of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

Because of the totalitarian nature of Saddam Hussein's regime it is difficult to imagine that camps of this nature, involving hundreds of terrorists with more than just small arms weapons, would be allowed to conduct their training on Iraqi soil if they posed a threat to the former regime. Instead, multiple attacks against local Kurdish officials seemed to be the directive of the group and in al Qaeda video terrorists were recorded attacking the Kurdish militia, a bitter enemy of Saddam regime.

Ansar al Islam's presence in Northern Iraq has been previously discussed on this site during the interview with General Michael DeLong and two posts on roundups of media stories on the issue.

These captures and kills demonstrate the ideological divide between “secular” Baathists and Islamic extremists was not so distant

Many analysts of the insurgency in Iraq are currently debating its makeup and strength, among other things. Regardless of what percentage is currently claiming allegiance to what ideology or group, the past few years of reporting have slowly revealed that at least one deadly aspect of the insurgency in Iraq has been the cooperation of some members of Saddam Hussein's regime (though not all) and Islamic militants, particularly al Qaeda in Iraq.

Below is a list, compiled from a number of media reports over the past few years, of the names and backgrounds of some of those found to have supported or worked for the former Baath Party of Saddam Hussein's Iraq and also al Qaeda. Parts of this list were cited by World Net Daily in a story about postwar links between members of Saddam Hussein's regime and al Qaeda elements in Iraq.

Muhammed Hila Hammad Ubaydi – Ubaydi, aka Abu Ayman, was the former aide to the Chief of Staff of Intelligence during the Saddam Hussein regime for 30 years. Ubaydi later led the Secret Islamic Army in the Northern Babil Province and was said to have had strong ties to the former terror leader Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi. He was captured April 6, 2006 in Southern Baghdad. MNF - Iraq

Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri – Al-Douri (pictured right) is the former vice chairman of Saddam's Baathist Revolutionary Command Council who swore fealty to Zarqawi and reportedly provided funding for al Qaeda and significant element of the Baathist/al Qaeda converts and collaborators. GlobalSecurity.org

Abdel Faith Isa – Isa is a former Iraqi Army officer who was later identified as an al Qaeda emir. He was captured May 6, 2004. Focus-Fen news, Bill Roggio, 5-09-06

Abu Abdullah Rashid al-Baghdadi - Al-Baghdadi is "believed to be a former officer in Saddam's army, or its elite Republican Guard, who (has) worked closely with al-Zarqawi since the overthrow of the Iraqi dictator in April 2003." Al-Baghdadi was among the candidates nominated as potential Abu Musab al Zarqawi's leadership position in al Qaeda in Iraq. Associated Press

Ahmad Hasan Kaka al-’Ubaydi – Al- Ubaydi was a former Iraqi Intelligence Service officer, and believed to have later become associated with al Qaeda affiliate Ansar Al Islam. CENTCOM

Abu Aseel – Aseel is a “former high ranking Saddam official” who was working with Abu Musab al-Zarqawi since 2002. Sami Moubayed, Asia Times, 6-13, 06

Abu Asim – Asim was a Special Republican Guard officer under Saddam Hussein and is said to have been active within the insurgency since the fall of the former regime, including association with Abu Musab al Zarqawi. MNF - Iraq

Abu Maysira al-Iraqi – Al-Iraqi was reportedly a “Minister of Information” for al Qaeda in Iraq and formerly an expert in Information Technology for Saddam Hussein’s Army. “He was an expert in Information Technology in Saddam's army and was entrusted with the additional task of waging the jihad through the Internet” for Abu Musab al Zarqawi’s al Qaeda in Iraq.” B. Raman

Abdul-Hadi al-Iraqi - Hadi al-Iraqi (pictured left) is now being held in Guantanamo Bay and was called “a top leader with al-Qaida in Iraq and the Mujahedeen Shura Council and originally comes from Nineveh province. He was a Major in Saddam Hussein's army but left to travel to Iraq to fight against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1990s” and was later identified as a “liason between Bin Laden and al Qaeda's leadership in Afghanistan, and the al Qaeda network formerly headed by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in Iraq.” Al-Iraqi has also been cited as one of Osama bin Laden’s top al Qaeda commanders. NEWSWEEK

Unnamed Former Air Force Officer – A man who was killed in a coalition raid in Iraq “was later identified as a retired officer in the Iraqi Air Force serving under the Saddam Hussein regime. The male who initiated the gunfire is a suspected al-Qaeda terrorist for whom the troops were searching, as well as the retired officer’s son. The former officer was killed on April 14, 2006. MNF - Iraq

Abed Dawood Suleiman and son Raed Abed Dawood – Suleiman was a former Iraqi general believed to have become “Jordanian extremist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's ‘military adviser.’” Raed was a former Army captain in the Iraqi army and was caught April 15, 2005. News24

Mohammed Khalaf Shkarah al-Hamadani – Al-Hamadani, aka Abu Talha, was a key facilitator and financier for al Qaeda in Iraq. He was reportedly the head of an Abu Musab Al Zarqawi’s terror cell. Al-Hamadani was previously a member of Saddam Hussein’s once ruling Baath Party and a warrant officer in the former Iraqi army. Al-Hamadani was captured June 5, 2005. Associated Press

"Al-Hajji" Thamer Mubarak – Mubarak was a former Iraqi military officer turned key aide to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Mubarak was reportedly involved in the August 2003 al Qaeda attack on UN headquarters in Iraq. Evan Kohlman, Globalterroralert.com

Hasayn Ali Muzabir – Muzabir, a former Iraqi Intelligence (Mukhabarat) officer for Saddam Hussein’s regime, was later identified as al Qaeda's emir of Samarra. Muzabir was killed in Balad, Iraq on June 2, 2006. Department of Defense

Muhammad Hamza Zubaydi - Zubaydi (pictured right) was a "Baath Party official in charge of security in central Iraq and had helped put down an uprising by Shiite Muslims in southern Iraq in 1991." Zubaydi was later found to be an associate of Zarqawi's al Qaeda branch in Iraq. Washington Post

Abdul Hamid Mustafa al-Douri – Al-Douri was a relative of Saddam Hussein’s former aide Izzat al-Douri. As an aide to Abu Musab al Zarqawi, and head of the Salaheddin province al Qaeda branch and carbombing network, he was captured in a joint Iraqi police and army operation in a village in northern Tikrit. CNN

Haitham al-Badri - "Before joining al-Qaeda in Iraq, Badri was a warrant officer in the Special Republican Guard under Saddam Hussein. After the invasion, he joined the insurgent group Ansar al-Sunna, where he trained recruits and carried out attacks.” Washington Post

Salas Khabbas – Khabbas is "a former member of the Baath party and (was) closely linked with al-Qaeda.” Khabbas “specialized in attacking convoys and kidnapping." He was captured July 12, 2006 by Polish Intelligence agents. Polskie Radio

Abu Zubair – Zubair was trained in Iraq and was reportedly sent by Saddam Hussein’s government to lead “Supporters of Islam” into northern Iraq to assassinate leading Kurds and to assist in building chemical warfare facilities. Human Rights Watch citing UK government report

Rafid Fatah – Fatah, "also known as Abu Omer al-Kurdi, was also trained by Saddam and worked with (Abu) Zubair against the Kurds. It is not known when he left Iraq, but he too became a leading member of al-Qa'eda . His whereabouts are not known." UK Telegraph

Mohammed Hanoun Hamoud al-Mozani – Al-Mozani is a former Iraqi intelligence officer who was captured by police after bombings in Baghdad and Karbala. It was later revealed that he was paid by al-Qa'eda to carry out attacks on civilians. UK Telegraph

Hamed Jumaa Farid al-Saeedi – Al-Saeedi is a former member of Saddam Hussein's Intelligence Services who rose to #2 in al-Qaeda’s Iraq wing. Al-Saeedi reportedly “told interrogators that al-Qaeda in Iraq exchanges logistical support and information with supporters of Saddam Hussein.” Washington Post

Muharib Abdullah Latif al-Juburi – Al-Juburi was a Military Intelligence officer in Saddam Hussein’s army and later rose to a leading position for al Qaeda in Iraq. Al-Juburi also served as the “Information Minister” for the Islamic State of Iraq. All Headline News

Abu Mustafa – Mustafa was a Saddam Hussein era military officer (article cited by Ray Robison) who told TIME magazine that he spent his time in jail (post-invasion) "studying Salafi Islam and receiving lessons in jihad from bearded Iraqis and detainees who came from places like Syria and Saudi Arabia" before joining the jihadist fighters in Iraq. TIME

Abu Ali - (article cited by Ray Robison) Ali was “among those who have thrown their support behind the jihad...A ballistic-missile specialist in Saddam's Fedayeen militia, he fought U.S. troops during the invasion and has served as a resistance commander ever since, organizing rocket attacks on the green zone, the headquarters of the U.S. administration in Baghdad. When interviewed by TIME last fall, he spoke of a vain hope that Saddam would return and re-establish a Baathist regime.” TIME

Omar Hadid – Hadid, according to Middle East news outlets cited by Powerlineblog.com, was a former personal body guard of Saddam Hussein and had trained with al Qaeda in Afghanistan before fighting against coalition forces in Fallujah and elsewhere. Hadid, according to an al Qaeda biography after his death, also had a relative who was an official for Iraq's Intelligence Services and worked with Hadid on postwar operations. Evan Kohlman, Globalterroralert.com

A former Saddam Hussein officer was appointed as an al Qaeda leader to set up attacks on Iraqi oil sites in early 2007. Tactical Report

An unnamed former Saddam Fedayeen leader was later found to be an insurgent leader responsible for al Qaeda/foreign fighter camps in Syria. IraqSlogger, Bill Roggio.

Abu Raja - (article cited by Thomas Joscelyn) Raja hails from a family who was “well-connected” during Saddam Hussein’s rule and later joined forces with al Qaeda. The Atlantic

Abu Haydr - (article cited by Thomas Joscelyn) had an “important government job” before the invasion and later enlisted with al Qaeda. The Atlantic

A group of former Iraqi Republican Guard officers has reportedly been “giving ground-to-ground missiles, including Scud-B and Hossein missiles” and collaborating with al Qaeda to launch attacks on key targets in Iraq. Tactical Report

Adullah Rahman al-Shamary - Al-Shamary “was an officer in its (Iraq’s) feared Mukhabarat General, an intelligence service run by Saddam’s son, Qusay.” Al-Shamary told Richard Miniter, from a prison cell, that Qusay Hussein “oversaw the Mukhabarat’s relationship with Jund al-Islam, an al Qaeda wing operating in Northern Iraq before the 2003 American invasion” and he was involved in the Jund al-Islam-Mukhabarat relationship. Richard Miniter

Yasser al-Sabawi – Al-Sabawi is Saddam Hussein’s nephew and was reportedly linked to a Saddam Fedayeen cell arrested for being involved in the al Qaeda/al Zarqawi beheading of Nicholas Berg. The video of the beheading was posted on al Qaeda linked website and Berg may have been kidnapped by the al-Sabawi’s cell and then sold to Zarqawi’s group. Associated Press, MSNBC

A former Colonel in Saddam Hussein’s army was said to have later become the leader of al Qaeda’s branch in the Diyala province of Iraq. Melik Kaylan

Haydar al-Shammari – (may be the same person as Adullah Rahman al-Shamary)Al- Shammari is a former Iraqi Intelligence Officer who claimed that his Commander, Abu Wa’il, ordered him to aid al Qaeda members fleeing Afghanistan to enter Iraq through Jordan and Syria. Al-Shammari then assisted their mission in joining up with Ansar al Islam. Christopher Brown citing Al Sharq Al Awsat

Abu Iman al-Baghdadi – Al-Baghdadi (pictured left) told BBC news that Saddam Hussein’s Intelligence services were assisting al Qaeda affiliate Ansar al Islam with arms to counter the PUK and al-Baghdadi was checking on Abu Wa’il status in assisting the group. BBC

85 fighters were killed, though many escaped, when a joint Baath/al Qaeda camp was confronted by Iraqi forces in March 2005. General Adnan Thabet said the camp was “frequented by members of Saddam Hussein's Baath party and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's branch of Al Qaeda, was built after the US offensive to retake the rebel enclave of Fallujah in November. "They were Zarqawi followers and Baathists from the old military because they knew how to fight. They fought like old soldiers." ABC

The Islamic Army in Iraq – The Islamic Army in Iraq is an insurgent group that includes former members of Saddam Hussein’s Baath party, Muslim Brotherhood members and worked with al Qaeda in the past until a recent spilt in which an IAI spokesperson told al Jazeera that “the Islamic Army in Iraq had decided to disunite from al-Qaeda in Iraq...In the beginning we were dealing with Tawhid and Jihad organisation, which turned into al-Qaeda in Iraq.” Wikipedia

Mohammad's Army – Mohammed’s Army, also known as Jaish-e-Mohammed, is a group that includes pro-Saddam members of the former regime’s Intelligence, Security and Police services. Responsibility for the 2003 attack on the UN building in Iraq was claimed both by members of al Qaeda in Iraq (including Zarqawi) and Mohammed’s Army. The material for the bomb was from the former regime's stock, which members of the former regime would have had superior access to though observers said insurgents could have gained access to it on their own. Abu Omar al-Kurdi, an al Qaeda/Zarqawi associate later admitted responsibility for making the bomb after his capture. Wikipedia, Globalsecurity.org

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.

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 partial, look at the reported prewar relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda. The report's author, Kenneth Katzman, actually addresses 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 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 Ba'athists who have been caught working with and for al Qaeda. Specifically, Katzman did not ask how and when Ba'athists put aside those reported "irreconcilable differences" they had with al Qaeda.

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.

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.

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.

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.

James Gordon Meek of the New York Daily News has posted two recent stories based on documents 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.”

See also Saddam Hussein's FBI interview, part II

FBI photo of Saddam Hussein being fingerprinted after being captured.

(Moderator note: comments for www.regimeofterror.com are now activated at the end of each post)

During a series of email and telephone exchanges Matthew Degn relayed to www.regimeofterror.com his vast array of experiences working with intelligence issues relating to the current and former situation in Iraq. Among his responsibilities during his years in Iraq Degn worked as a civilian interrogator attached to the U.S. Army in Iraq before working as a Senior Policy/Intelligence Adviser to Deputy General Kamal and other top intelligence officials with the Iraq's Ministry of Interior. Degn, currently working on a book about his experiences in Iraq (personal website here), continues to argue against those that feel there was no link between terrorism and Saddam Hussein's regime based on his involvement with hundreds of interrogations in Iraq and his involvement with many of the Iraqi Intelligence officials with the Ministry of Interior. Degn says that much of the public perception about Saddam Hussein's regime and terrorism are incorrect.

Degn is currently the Director of the Intelligence Studies Program and a professor at American Military University currently a professor at American Military University whose testimony about events in Iraq has been cited by NPR, ABC News, the Washington Post and elsewhere. According to his American Military University bio Degn (pronounced Dayne) also:

"has extensive experience in the Middle East, serving most recently as a senior intelligence/policy advisor to the Iraqi Ministry of Interior in Baghdad." He also "he was the senior civilian advisor in the creation of the Iraqi Counter-terrorism Agency, mentored Iraqi senior government intelligence officials at the Deputy Minister level, and witnessed the inner workings of the Iraqi government at the highest levels." "Professor Degn has also been involved in the screening and interrogation process within Iraq. He served at Abu Ghraib prison and was among the last Americans in the prison facility before its closing. He witnessed the harmful effects the infamous prison scandal had on U.S. foreign policy and the interrogation process. While in different prison facilities he has interviewed members of Al Qaida, Jaysh-al-Mahdi (Mahdi Army), Badr Corps, Iranian, Syrian, and Saudi insurgents, and members of other terrorist entities from Iraq and the surrounding region. Moreover, he has experience as a senior counter-terrorism analyst in Washington D.C. and in the military. Professor Degn is the author of numerous essays and other writings with subjects ranging from foreign policy and violent militias to terrorist methodologies, private security companies in war, and the use of intelligence within the Middle East."

In addition to the hundreds of detainees listed in his American Military University bio Degn participated in the interrogations of members of the Abu Nidal organization and Ba'ath party officials at Camp Cropper, Abu Ghraib and elsewhere.

Former regime's links to al Qaeda
When asked about recent media reports citing Saddam Hussein's denial to the FBI about links to al Qaeda Degn viewed these reports as part of an ongoing attempt to rewrite history saying these reports stand in stark contrast to what he saw and heard firsthand in Iraq. In fact, Degn said that to many of the detainees links between Saddam Hussein's regime and terrorist groups including al Qaeda was not even a point of contention but freely acknowledged. Many of the high value detainees took it as a given that their captors were aware of Iraq - al Qaeda links. Some even bragged about those links.

Degn said:

I interviewed plenty of Saddam’s associates, as well as numerous members of Al Qaeda while at Abu Ghraib prison and elsewhere in 06 and spoke with many who were quite familiar with the inner workings of the Saddam regime while at the Ministry of Interior (MOI). Did they cooperate or have animosity towards each other? Well, this is a tough question to answer- as it seemed that different individuals had a variety of feelings about the subject. Some detainees alleged that members of AQI (al Qaeda in Iraq) were in support of Saddam and began attaching the CF (coalition forces) for money, religious reasons, thrills, etc. On the other hand, there were those I spoke with who were opposed to Saddam and happy to see him removed. Still, the reasons for attacking the CF were much the same.

One thing many fail to understand is that Al Qaeda is not a unified group throughout the Middle East, or even regionally. Many small groups take the title of “Al Qaeda” to bolster their notoriety, to feel they are part of the larger effort against the US forces, or for other reasons.

As for how supporters of Saddam felt about AQI- again it would depend on the individual. Many I spoke with claimed they were against the group- probably because that is what they figured I wanted to hear. Some claimed Saddam was against the group because members of AQ were a bit too religious or threatening to his rule. While, other detainees claimed he used various groups as intermediaries to arrange arms and money transfers to the group in order to attack a common enemy- Iran, as well as US interests in the region. Still, there were other hard core detainees, part of Saddam’s core, or members of other groups such as former ANO members (Abu Nidal Organization) as a few alleged, that claimed they would associate with Saddam-ites as well as AQI from time to time as the need would arise.

When pressed for specifics Degn said that Hussein's regime, like many other Middle Eastern groups, used the "Hawala" system to secretly move money to al Qaeda and made it nearly impossible to "prove" in a legal system that the transfers took place. The "Hawala" system uses multiple layers of middle men couriers to transfer money and leaves no paper trail, making tracing such transactions virtually impossible.

Degn said that Iraqi assistance given to al Qaeda also included safehaven. Degn said al Qaeda used that safehaven for at least two training camps in Western Iraq and the Anbar province. Degn argued that Saddam Hussein's government was certainly aware that the provision of safehaven was being used for these camps. (Related: Captured Iraqi terrorist says al Qaeda had camps in Saddam's Iraq)

Degn said he had heard reports that indicated that al Qaeda affiliates had multiple, possibly competing, cells in Iraq during Saddam Hussein's Iraq. One cell was affiliated with Abu Musab al Zarqawi, who had not yet "officially" sworn allegiance to Osama bin Laden. Another al Qaeda cell, linked to Ayman al Zawahiri's Egyptian Islamic Jihad, was reportedly simultaneously operating in Saddam Hussein's Iraq. This detail appears to match up with that of former CIA Director George Tenet's and Major General William Caldwell on the topic. He cited this as an example of the ability of al Qaeda's cells to operate independently, a theme he heard more than once during his interactions. Degn said that from what he saw it was true that many al Qaeda operatives got directives and money from al Qaeda's core closest to Osama bin Laden but many were capable of making independent decisions and relationships.

Degn said that while Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda did have mixed feelings for one another, at best, Hussein praised nearly all of al Qaeda's attacks as well as anti-Western attacks committed by other terror groups. Degn argued that if he didn't have some kind of hand in these attacks that he certainly wanted to as he definitely considered the U.S. an enemy (as well as Iran) and thus supported a number of Sunni groups.

Degn says that at least some of the U.S. intelligence community likely knew of the support for regional anti-Western Sunni groups all along.

Former regime's links to other terrorist groups

Degn said he also saw overwhelming firsthand evidence of links between Saddam Hussein's regime and numerous other regional terrorist/militant groups.

As noted in the Institute for Defense Analysis report, Degn argued that Hussein's regime cooperated with regional terrorist groups who opposed Western interests all the way up to the invasion and became increasingly active in the region just prior to the 2003 U.S. led invasion.

When pressed for specific examples of attacks Degn replied that detainees and sources in Iraq's current government knew that Hussein's Iraq sponsored repeated attacks on Westerners and U.S. forces in Kuwait. One particular attack was on a U.S. naval ship and another killed 3 U.S. marines, who were Degn's friends, during their service in Kuwait.

Degn said that he saw links between both the Abu Nidal Organization (ANO) and al Qaeda and the Abu Nidal Organization and the former Iraq regime during detainee interrogations and interviews. Degn said that ANO, according to intelligence reports also had training camps and facilities inside Iraq known to the former regime.

Degn said that Hussein's regime used primarily anti-Western Sunni groups. While many of these groups operated independently, many of them were also loosely affiliated with al Qaeda and at least one Shi'ite group (Hezbollah) was mentioned as a group Hussein's regime may have sponsored for attacks on Western targets in Israel and elsewhere.

Analysis

Those who feel that the complete story of Saddam Hussein and terrorism has yet to be told will agree with Degn when he asserts that others with firsthand experiences with the topic should speak up. Degn also champions the idea of civilian counterparts working alongside the military to offer a different point or perspective to decision makers in Iraq and elsewhere. He was among those involved with this number of interrogations who has opted to speak now and let others know of his experiences.

Degn's testimony should not viewed as entirely contradictory to that of former CIA officer Charles Faddis (interview here) but supplementary. Faddis's interview came from a different time period and likely involved different detainees (Ansar al Islam affiliates from northern Iraq) and both sets of detainees agreed that the groups held some animosity towards one another.

With the understanding that both Saddam Hussein's regime and al Qaeda had internal disagreements about cooperation and both would use compartmentalization to protect widespread knowledge of sensitive issues, that would comprimise their operations, it is understandable why conflicting reports on Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda continue to persist.

Another reason for conflicting reports that Degn pointed out is both the chain of command in the U.S. government's many agencies and compartmentalization of information ("need to know"). Degn said he saw firsthand how these two factors led to vital wartime information being "watered down" before it mades its way to official reports and investigations.

Degn's recollection of detainee testimony and many discussions within the Iraqi MOI roughly matches the document based work of Kevin Woods in his report The Iraqi Perspectives Project -- Saddam and Terrorism: Emerging Insights from Captured Iraqi Documents on regional terrorism, though Degn thinks the links to al Qaeda were more substantial. Degn's findings, primarily through detainee testimony and assocations within the Iraqi MOI, supports the take on the topic that writers such as Richard Miniter, Andrew McCarthy, Christopher Hitchens, Ray Robison, Jeffrey Goldberg, Ken Timmerman, Christopher Holton, Eli Lake, Rowan Scarborough, Stephen Hayes/Thomas Joscelyn, the Wall Street Journal, Ryan Mauro, Scott Malensek, Scott Peterson, Deroy Murdock and many others whose writing has given heart to those that feel that important evidence on Saddam Hussein and terrorism was largely being ignored and/or overlooked.

As members of the many agencies that were likely involved in the interrogations of Saddam Hussein and others come forward, and additional agencies (following the FBI's lead) continue declassifying and releasing more documents relating to Iraq and terrorism a more comprehensive look at this incredibly complex topic will become available. Those unsatisfied with the current public understanding and perception hope that these revelations come sooner rather than later.

Mark Eichenlaub's piece for Pajamas Media on the CIA's analysis of the Saddam Hussein, al Qaeda question is now up here. Paul Pillar and Bruce Tefft, two veterans of the CIA, were kind enough to provide their takes on the CIA's analysis of this topic.

Aseel Kami, recently reported for Reuters that some officials in the current Iraqi government are making a push for the return of millions of Saddam Hussein-era Iraq documents (previously the subject of Congressional inquiries and public controversy) that were seized by the U.S. government and other non-government entities following the former regime's fall in 2003.

Kami wrote:

The files include intelligence papers on Iraqis kept by Saddam Hussein's feared secret police, information on weapons arsenals, detailed plans of massacres of the regime's enemies and even tapes of songs praising Saddam, officials said.

Some of these files have been made public while others were made available to the authors of The Iraqi Perspectives Project, Duelfer Report and other investigations into Saddam Hussein's activities.

Others just went missing in the chaos and looting in the early months of the U.S.-led invasion which toppled Saddam.

"Dictatorships document everything, from the simplest details to the biggest events in their citizens' lives," said Saad Eskander, director of the national library and archives. He added that he thought some were still with the CIA.

The Iraqi National Library and Archive (found here) is reportedly leading the pursuit of documents though it is likely that Iraq's "Red Museum" will be another party involved in the efforts.

One of the non-government entities in possession of the former Iraqi regime's documents is the Hoover Foundation. Officials with knowledge of the Hoover Foundation's cache indicated that the millions of documents they obtained from the Iraq Memory Foundation are a fraction of the approximately 100 million the Department of Defense and other U.S. agencies have. Those officials further said that documents are still being organized for a possible move to digital format before a planned move to the internet for historians and researchers to analyze though they urged caution with the release of documents that name former regime officials and their allies as well as their victims.

When asked about reported CIA possession of such documents current and former CIA officials directed requests for information to the Department of Defense and another former intelligence official, who was familiar with the story, told this site that originals were all supposed to be in Iraq or Qatar and that if the Iraqis wanted to expedite process they should contact their in-country DIA representative and prepare a large data store.

When reached for comment on this story Pentagon spokeswoman Lt. Col. Almarah Belk said that while her knowledge of the topic was limited she was able to confirm that the process of archiving and digitizing materials was a joint effort by the DOD and intelligence community and was moving forward though some documents may need further exploitation and many were still classified. Belk said that Secretary Robert Gates favored plan was to return all of Iraq's material to their country of origin though she was unaware of a definite timeline for that return. While it was premature to talk about a timeline for return at this point Belk said that in the coming days and weeks there will be a better public understanding on the use of the documents and that the plan was to complete the copying of the data before eventually making copies available to selected scholars and historians in an appropriate manner.

With the former regime's documents so physically and digitally vast, and dispersed to multiple locations, there may remain an undetermined amount of time before the current Iraqi government's efforts are satisfied. Those interested in further and additional analysis of Saddam Hussein's regime and files should continue monitoring DOD efforts to transfer and/or release relevant documents and monitor future analysis by Iraqi and U.S. scholars.