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thedrifter
05-05-07, 02:44 PM
Iraq-Al Qaeda Connection: What Do We Really Know?
W. Thomas Smith, Jr.
Author: W. Thomas Smith, Jr.
Source: National Review Online
Date: May 5, 2007

Iraq-Al Qaeda Connection: What Do We Really Know?

W. Thomas Smith, Jr.

Much has been written about whether or not there was a connection between al Qaeda and Iraq prior to the U.S. invasion of 2003. Of course, the connection is certainly there now, and opponents of the war have argued that our invasion led to the introduction of al Qaeda into that country. Proponents of our efforts have just as easily argued that because of our presence in Iraq, we now have much of al Qaeda’s global resources on ground of our own choosing.

Fine. We may all agree those two arguments exist.

But in the wake of unconfirmed reports of al Masri’s death, let’s revisit some facts — not all, but a few:

Let’s not forget the 9/11 Commission Report clearly stated, “[Osama] bin Laden himself met with a senior Iraqi intelligence officer in Khartoum in late 1994 or early 1995.”

Bin Laden asked for assistance in weapons procurement and permission to establish terrorist training facilities in Iraq.

The Commission did however say, “there is no evidence that Iraq responded to this request.”

But the "connection" (which we know very little about) was there. And the Commission also said, “the ensuing years saw additional efforts to establish connections.”

Then there was Ansar al Islam, the al Qaeda-affiliated terror group with training camps in Iraqi Kurdistan prior to our invasion.

This group was hoping to establish an Islamist state in Iraq. But the 9/11 Commission Report clearly states, “There are indications that [by 2001] the Iraqi regime tolerated and may even have helped Ansar al Islam against the common Kurdish enemy.”

One might argue, Saddam was not in control of the northern (Kurdistan) regions of his country: So to some of the war’s opponents, al Qaeda-affiliated bases in Kurdistan don’t count. But — if we were involved in a Global War on Terror (which we were after Sept. 11, 2001), and if there were terrorist training camps in Iraqi Kurdistan — how would we have been able to invade Kurdistan to seize those camps, kill and capture terrorists, and gather intelligence for future counterterrorism operations without it being an invasion of Iraq?

In her book, Masters of Chaos, U.S. News & World Report’s Linda Robinson describes a U.S. Special Forces attack on Sargat — a huge international terrorist training camp in northeastern Iraq, near the Iraqi-Iranian border. The attack took place after the 2003 invasion. The camp was an Ansar al Islam base. And according to Robinson’s conversations with the American Green Berets who led the attack, it is "more than plausible" that al Qaeda terrorists had trained there.

Robinson writes:

[A Special Forces sergeant] believed, given the heavy fortifications, ample weaponry, and quality of the fighters, that his team had just invaded the world’s largest existing terrorist training camp since the fall of the Taliban in Afghanistan. This was no way-station, in his view. It was remote yet in the heart of the region, so radicals could wreak havoc all over the Middle East.

According to Robinson [and as I reported last year at Townhall.com], the Americans "discovered among the dead in Sargat; foreign ID cards, airline-ticket receipts, visas, and passports from Yemen, Sudan, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Oman, Tunisia, Morocco, and Iran."

There were other bases in other places, throughout Iraq. As Stephen Hayes reported in his now oft-referenced Weekly Standard piece, “Secret training took place primarily at three camps — in Samarra, Ramadi, and Salman Pak — and was directed by elite Iraqi military units.”

My own sources within the special operations community told me that at the Salman Pak base, about 15 miles south of Baghdad, they found lots of terrorist propaganda materials, videos, and yes, terror weapons (I’ll get to that in a moment).

It could be argued that the truth is a bit murky regarding Salman Pak: Constantly evolving intelligence suggests it might not have been a terrorist training camp (or at least there is no absolute proof that it was) — though it was frequented by foreigners transiting through for whatever reason — and other intelligence suggests it was a terrorist training camp.

There’s no question that the late Jordanian-born terrorist leader Abu Musab al Zarqawi was in Iraq before the invasion, and — even if he wasn’t breaking bread with Saddam — he had to have had contacts, facilitators, etc. within the country before he entered and while there.

Then of course, as Victor Davis Hanson mentions at The Corner, there was Abdul Rahman Yasin and Ramsey Yusef. And as Thomas Joscelyn concludes in his latest piece at the Weekly Standard:

Some will no doubt highlight [former CIA director George Tenet’s] claims [in his new book, At the Center of the Storm] about the Bush administration hyping Saddam’s ties to 9/11. In reality, he provides little verifiable evidence to back up this claim.

But

...after reading all of Tenet’s chapter on Iraq and al Qaeda, it seems clear that neoconservatives weren’t the only ones connecting the dots between these two enemies of the United States.

Last year, Middle East terrorism expert Dr. Walid Phares — after having read and translated captured Iraqi intelligence documents for the U.S. government — told me:

There obviously were connections and talks, not only between Baghdad and the Jihadists of Osama Bin Laden, but between other Arab regimes such as Sudan, Syria and officials in Saudi Arabia and the radical Islamists who would later form Al Qaeda. In this regional maze, everybody talks to everybody and explores possibilities, plans.

Then there was Marine Maj. Neil F. Murphy, who, from his base in Ramadi, told me (and I am now reporting here for the first time at The Tank):

At Salman Pak, I was there in 2003. We [Marines] found high quality leather suicide vests, wrapped in plastic, ready for shipment. The SEALs were doing work there too. I wonder what the enemy was doing with those? We actually sent out press releases with pictures in and around April/May 2003, and it was ignored by the mainstream media.

So what do we really know? Worse, what do we not know?

Story originally ran in the NRO”s Military Blog.

tank.nationalreview.com/post/?q=YjQxMzk5MDA5YTQxNDhjNjkxZWQ1Y2RkM2M2NjE2MTg

W. Thomas Smith Jr. is director of the Counterterrorism Research Center of the Family Security Foundation and a Contributing Editor to FamilySecurityMatters.org. A former U.S. Marine infantry leader and shipboard counterterrorism instructor, Smith writes about military/defense issues and has covered conflict in the Balkans and on the West Bank. He is the author of six books, and his articles have appeared in USA Today, George, U.S. News & World Report, BusinessWeek, National Review Online, CBS News, The Washington Times, and others.

Visit W. Thomas Smith Jr. online at uswriter.com

Email W. Thomas Smith Jr. at wthomassmithjr@yahoo.com

Ellie

kato811
05-05-07, 10:16 PM
One thing is for sure.There are a lot more of them there now.