BOMBSHELL, but really we knew this, didnt we?

[busybody..]

Saddam's Archives: We're Getting Warmer

As regular readers know, we've been cautious about drawing conclusions from the tiny number of Iraqi documents that have so far been made public under Project Harmony. But today, jveritas at Free Republic, whose translation efforts we linked to here, has come up with what appears to be a highly significant memorandum. This is how he introduces the translation:

Document ISGP-2003-0001498 contains a 9 page TOP SECRET memo (pages 87-96 in the pdf document) dated March 16 2003 that talks about transferring “SPECIAL AMMUNITION” from one ammunition depot in Najaf to other ammunition depots near Baghdad. As we know by now the term SPECIAL AMMUNITION was used by Saddam Regime to designate CHEMICAL WEAPONS as another translated document has already shown. For example in document CMPC 2004-002219 where Saddam regime decided to use “CHEMICAL WEAPONS against the Kurds” they used the term “SPECIAL AMMUNITION” for chemical weapon http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1601810/posts. What is also interesting is that these “SPECIAL AMMUNITION” were listed as 122 mm, 130 mm, and 155 mm caliber shells which are not by itself SPECIAL unless it contain CHEMICAL WEAPONS. In fact the Iraqi have always used 122 mm, 130 mm, and 155 mm caliber shell as a main delivery tool for Chemical Weapons Agents by filling these type of shells with Nerve Gas, Sarin, Racin, Mustard gas and other Chemical Agents.
The translation follows:

In the Name of God the Merciful The Compassionate Top Secret Ministry Of Defense Chairmanship of the Army Staff Al Mira Department No. 4/17/ammunition/249
Date 16 March 2003

To: The Command of the Western Region

Subject: Transfer of Ammunitions

The secret and immediate letter of the Chairmanship of the Army Staff 4/17/308 on 10 March 2003

1. The approval of the Army Chief of Staff was obtained to transfer THE SPECIAL AMMUNITIONS in the ammunition depots group of Najaf and according to the following priorities:

A. The first priority

First. Ammunition (122 mm)
Second. Ammunition (130 mm)
Third. Ammunition (155 mm)

To the depots and storage of the Second Corps and the two ammunition depot groups Dijla/2/3

B. Second priority.

First. Ammunition (23 mm)
Second. Ammunition (14.5 mm)

To the ammunition depots of the air defense and distributed to the ammunition depot groups in (Al Mussayeb- Al Sobra- Saad).

2. To execute the order of the Chief Army Staff indicated in section (1) above, we relate the following:

A. Duty

Transfer of the ammunitions shown in sections (A) and (B) from the ammunitions depots of Najaf to the ammunition depots in (Dijla 2/3, and Al Mansor, and Saad, and Al Mussayeb, and Sobra and Blad Roz and Amar Weys from March 16 till April 14 2003.

Signature…

General Rasheed Abdallah Sultan
Assistant to the Army Chief of Staff- Al Mira
March 2003


jveritas concludes:

The remaining pages of this 9 pages top secret memo talk about getting the special vehicles to transfer the SPECIAL AMMUNITION and the people assigned to supervise and execute the transfer and they were top Iraqi Army and Military Intelligence officers.
The apparent significance of this document requires no elaboration. Transferring a load of ordinary munitions from Najaf to Baghdad would presumably not require the approval of the Army's Chief of Staff; nor would it be the subject of a top secret memo; nor would arrangements for "special vehicles" be necessary. Hugh Hewitt writes:

Now comes another document with more potentially significant language, and so the question grows: What do these documents mean?
The suspicion is growing that the American intelligence community never systematically checked these docs. If they did, they should produce the record of that evaluation and the conclusions reached on documents which, on their face, seem to be proof of Saddam's pre-war WMD stockpiles.

The White House as well must recognize that these documents are not yesterday's news and must not be afraid to reopen the debate about the WMDs.


As always, we want to proceed with caution. This document is dated just a few days before the war began, and, based on the prefix assigned to it, I think it came from the Iraq Survey Group. It seems almost inconceivable that the ISG could have overlooked a document with such apparent relevance to its mission.

The document can be accessed here. We'd like to get confirmation of jveritas's translation, as well as any comments on the significance of other portions of the document. We'd also be interested to get the perspective of anyone who served with the ISG. If this document is old news, and there is some innocent explanation, we're curious to know what it is.

UPDATE: Reader Bill Wiese is skeptical:

14.5mm is for machine guns (mainly) and 23mm is for anti-aircraft guns (mainly). What's special about them? Nothing. And yet, they get the "special" tag as well in the memo.
Good question, but hardly dispositive. Clearly there was something "special" about this ammunition; if it wasn't WMD, what was it? It wouldn't take an order from the Army Chief of Staff or "special" vehicles to move ordinary machine gun ammunition, nor would such a routine supply issue be the subject of a top secret memo.

I don't know whether shells as small as 14.5 mm or 23 mm can be used for delivery of WMD; do any of our readers? And, if that seems unlikely, can anyone suggest an alternative reason why these shells were "special"?

 

[busybody..]

Next time you hear those that SHIT on the Iraq policy of Bush

Please remeber, they said EXACTLY the opposite from 1998 till 2003

that includes the Dems, the Clintons and the Generals



General Zinni and Pre-War Intelligence
April 14th, 2006



Former CENTCOM commander General Anthony Zinni recently added his two cents worth to retired Army Maj. Gen. Paul Eaton’s call for the resignation of Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld, over his alleged incompetent leadership in conducting the Iraq War. Zinni resurrected the old complaints that there was a lack of “credible planning” for Iraq and that the US had acted unilaterally by “not adhering to the advice that was being given to us by others.”

These criticisms are nothing new. Zinni long ago joined the ranks of retired flag officers who voiced opposition to a war that they felt was based on intelligence manipulated by the administration. In addition, Zinni and Cold War-era techno-military author Tom Clancy expanded on this notion of flawed pre-war intelligence to proclaim that there was no casus belli for war with Iraq. General Zinni has even said that the current administration focuses on blind loyalty rather than emphasizing results:

…integrity, honesty and performance and competence have to outweigh, in this business, loyalty.

Zinni is absolutely correct on the principles espoused in his assertion. So, let’s look at his own pre-war threat evaluation, and just as important, his own loyalties to the players in the Central Region in light of these noble principles.

General Zinni assumed command of CENTCOM in August of 1997, and, as a highly credentialed soldier-statesman, embarked upon a program of “engagement” with the various corrupt, medieval rulers in the Middle East and Central Asia. Later, Gen. Tommy Franks would describe engagement as “establishing a personal rapport with the region’s government and military leaders.” Supposedly, this was one of the necessary evils to gain information about adversaries in the Central Region since CENTCOM had no permanent large-scale troop presence and no established intelligence apparatus in the area.

Nevertheless, in February of 2000, long before President Bush assumed office, Zinni felt confident enough to provide a strikingly familiar threat assessment on Iraq to the Senate Armed Services Committee:

• Iraq remains the most significant near-term threat to U.S. interests in the Arabian Gulf region. This is primarily due to its large conventional military force, pursuit of WMD [emphasis mine], oppressive treatment of Iraqi citizens, refusal to comply with United Nations Security Council Resolutions (UNSCR) …

• Despite claims that WMD efforts have ceased, Iraq probably is continuing clandestine nuclear research, retains stocks of chemical and biological munitions, … Even if Baghdad reversed its course and surrendered all WMD capabilities, it retains the scientific, technical, and industrial infrastructure to replace agents and munitions within weeks or months. [Emphasis mine]

• The Iraqi regime’s high regard for WMD and long-range missiles is our best indicator that a peaceful regime under Saddam Hussein is unlikely.

• … extremists may turn to WMD in an effort to …overcome improved U.S. defenses against conventional attack. Detecting plans for a specific WMD attack is extremely difficult, making it likely such an event would occur without warning. [Emphasis mine]

• Extremists like Usama bin Laden …benefit from the global nature of communications that permits recruitment, fund raising, and direct connections to sub-elements worldwide. Terrorists are seeking more lethal weaponry to include chemical, biological, radiological, and even nuclear components with which to perpetrate more sensational attacks. [Emphasis mine]

• Three (Iraq, Iran and Sudan) of the seven recognized state-sponsors of terrorism [emphasis mine] are within this potentially volatile area [CENTCOM], and the Taliban regime in Afghanistan has been sanctioned by the UN Security Council for its harboring of Usama bin Laden.

Also read the sections on Iran in Zinni’s testimony for a horrifying intelligence picture concerning the mullahs. Given current circumstances, his view of Iran is proving very prescient. For example: [Iran] continues to assemble an indigenous nuclear infrastructure. But I digress.

Yet, the value of intelligence gained over a decade of engagement operations by Zinni and his predecessors would later prove problematic (as Zinni now claims) when Gen. Franks was formulating plans for his campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq as part of the War on Terror. One would think that Zinni’s conclusions on Saddam’s capabilities were based on a multitude of classified bits and pieces that were analyzed and ordered into a sound threat evaluation. But in response to a question from incoming commander Gen. Tommy Franks about enemy threats in the AOR [Area of Responsibility], Zinni said,

“I wish I could tell you.” Tony spread his hands in resignation. “You’ll find our intelligence picture for this region is pretty sad. That’s another reason engagement is so important. We need friends out there who can give us the true picture. I’d like to know a lot more about what’s happening in Iraq, and with Osama bin Laden and AQ [al Qaeda]. But the fact is I do not.”[emphasis mine]

So, what changed between Zinni’s Senate testimony and his handover briefing to Gen. Franks? Why had he been so confident of the enemy situation in February of 2000 and a short while later, complained of a woeful intelligence picture? In reality, Zinni had been right all along. Yet, the charge of a lack of a casus belli persists even with the release of the tens of thousands of documents seized in the aftermath of Operation Iraqi Freedom. These recordings and papers actually confirm Zinni’s earlier warnings about Saddam and his relationship with Al-Qaeda and Iraq’s pursuit of WMD.

Zinni was right, then; but years later, the President’s rationale for going to war was wrong. Why?

The policy of engagement was supposed to substitute for a lack of intelligence assets on the ground, but this also meant being buddies with leaders who the next day might turn around and slit our throat. Pre-9-11, Zinni and other previous CENTCOM commanders publicly viewed the CENTCOM AOR as being the most dangerous area on the planet. But it’s clear that Zinni and many of his his current top brass anti-war cohorts held to the school of thought that the flawed concepts of engagement and containment could keep a lid on the Islamo-fascist cauldron.

If engagement and establishing rapport with the region’s rulers gave CENTCOM’s leaders valuable information, we cannot be so naïve as to forget that loyalty flows both ways in this part of the world. Information and favors are granted, but much is expected in return on the part of the powerbrokers in the kingdoms of the Central Region. The benefits of being taken in by legendary Middle East “hospitality” and admittance to their exclusive club of friends often include lucrative career opportunities upon retirement from military service.

In his 2000 testimony, Zinni cited the promotion of democratic values in the CENTCOM AOR as being one of the critical aspects in securing the interests of the US and providing stability to this volatile region. Now that President Bush and his national security team have actually had the courage and will to do just that, the General still slams the administration for implementing a key concept in his own operational plan.

And the influence of his Central Region buddies is evident in his parroting of the “we did this all for Israel” criticism. His anti-Israel stance is also reflected in his subtle anti-Semitic complaints against people in the administration who did the heavy lifting to deal with the very real threats he spoke about over six years ago.

When the history of the Global War on Terror is written, perhaps decades from now, the lesson for the American people should be that we need to pay attention to what our political and military leaders say, versus how they actually conduct their business. Prior to 9-11, we were lulled into a false sense of security based on canned, formulaic assessments of our national security posture, or we ignored the truth of our enemies’ capabilities when it was right before our eyes while we depended on phony reassurances from leaders with questionable motives.

As one of those leaders during the Clinton years of bread and circuses, it’s obvious that Zinni’s two years of continual carping and troubleshooting about our war effort now rings hollow. The good General needs to jump on the bandwagon to win this thing, or he should take the advice of a more distinguished military leader and just fade away.

Douglas Hanson is the national security correspondent of The American Thinker. Ed Lasky, news editor of the American Thinker, contributed research assistance for this article

 

[busybody..]

Saddam and Osama: The New Revelations
By Jamie Glazov
FrontPageMagazine.com | April 18, 2006



Frontpage Interview’s guest today is Thomas Joscelyn, an expert on the international terrorist network. Much of his research has focused on the role that nations such as Saddam's Iraq and the mullah's Iran have played in providing support, training and funding for terrorist entities such as al Qaeda, al Qaeda's affiliates, Hamas, Hezbollah and other terrorist groups. He has written extensively about these connections for the Weekly Standard and in several other publications. Currently, he is organizing a research project to review and translate the millions of documents captured from the fallen Iraqi regime and the Taliban.

FP: Thomas Jocelyn, welcome to Frontpage Interview.

Jocelyn: Thank you Jamie.

FP: Recently the government has decided to release millions of documents captured in Iraq and Afghanistan. Why are these documents being released now and why are they important?

Joscelyn: For the past several years, American forces have been collecting documents and other pieces of media from the fallen regimes in Iraq and Afghanistan. Many of the Iraqi documents were authored by Saddam’s intelligence apparatus, the Mukhabarat (Iraqi Intelligence Service), while many of the documents captured in Afghanistan were authored by al Qaeda operatives or the Taliban. Despite the potentially significant intelligence value of these documents, the U.S. government has been rather lackadaisical in getting the documents translated and analyzed. To date, less than 5% of the documents have been reviewed. So, out of a total of 2 million documents, only about 100,000 documents (give or take) have been reviewed.

This woeful state of affairs came to the attention of Stephen Hayes of The Weekly Standard last year. Since then he has published numerous articles on what is known about the documents and called for their release. The Wall Street Journal’s editorial board, bloggers and others have joined in calling for the release of the documents as well. Congressman Peter Hoekstra, who is the chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, and Senator Rick Santorum have carried the ball from there. Each has been pushing for the release of the documents. Finally, in February, President Bush told his staff to release the documents.

Since then, a small collection of documents has been released via the web. Why release these documents to the public now? Well, if the government isn’t going to take the time to look through them, then why not give researchers, the media, bloggers and the public a chance to review them?

The documents are important for a variety of reasons. They give us an unparalleled window into the Iraqi regime’s activities prior to the war. Saddam’s regime was extremely secretive and the truth is that we know little about what the regime was really doing. I think the documents can potentially shed light on Saddam’s Human Rights atrocities, connections to terrorism, what happened to Iraq’s WMD programs, Iraq’s gaming of the UN Oil-for-Food program as well as other issues.

FP: Do we have any idea what is in the Iraqi Intelligence documents regarding Saddam's ties to al Qaeda and global terrorism?

Joscelyn: Yes, we do. But first, a caveat. Since so few of the documents have been reviewed, it is difficult to say what the complete picture of Saddam’s activities will look like. We also know that a large number of documents and other pieces of media were destroyed as U.S. forces entered the country. Furthermore, the majority of the documents have not been authenticated. Great care should be exercised in analyzing these documents and we should always be wary of forgeries.

However, the Iraqi intelligence documents that have been authenticated by the U.S. intelligence community offer a startling view of Saddam’s ties to global terrorism, including al Qaeda.

One IIS document, in particular, has received significant attention. The document was apparently authored in early 1997 and summarizes a number of contacts between Iraqi Intelligence and Saudi oppositionist groups, including al Qaeda, during the mid 1990’s. The document says that in early 1995 bin Laden requested Iraqi assistance in two ways. First, bin Laden wanted Iraqi television to carry al Qaeda’s anti-Saudi propaganda. Saddam agreed. Second, bin Laden requested Iraqi assistance in performing “joint operations against the foreign forces in the land of Hijaz.” That is, bin Laden wanted Iraq’s assistance in attacking U.S. forces in Saudi Arabia.

We do not know what, exactly, came of bin Laden’s second request. But the document indicates that Saddam’s operatives “were left to develop the relationship and the cooperation between the two sides to see what other doors of cooperation and agreement open up.” Thus, it appears that both sides saw value in working with each other. It is also worth noting that in the months following bin Laden’s request, al Qaeda was tied to a series of bombings in Saudi Arabia.

The same document also indicates that Iraq was in contact with Dr. Muhammad al-Massari, the head of the Committee for Defense of Legitimate Rights (CDLR). The CDLR is a known al Qaeda propaganda organ based in London. The document indicates that the IIS was seeking to “establish a nucleus of Saudi opposition in Iraq” and to “use our relationship with [al-Massari] to serve our intelligence goals.” The document also notes that Iraq was attempting to arrange a visit for the al Qaeda ideologue to Baghdad. Again, we can’t be certain what came of these contacts.

Just recently, however, al-Massari confirmed that Saddam had joined forces with al Qaeda prior to the war. Al-Massari says that Saddam established contact with the “Arab Afghans” who fled Afghanistan to northern Iraq in 2001 and that he funded their relocation to Iraq under the condition that they would not seek to undermine his regime. Upon their arrival, these al Qaeda terrorists were put in contact with Iraqi army personnel, who armed and funded them.

Obviously, this paints a very different picture of prewar Iraq than many would like to see.

Interestingly enough, the existence of this document was first reported by The New York Times in the summer of 2004, several weeks after the 9-11 Commission proclaimed that there was no operational relationship between Saddam’s Iraq and al Qaeda. For some reason, the Times decided to sit on the document while splashing the 9-11 Commission’s conclusion on the front page.

But that conclusion is now more tenuous than ever. Bob Kerrey, a former Democratic senator who served as a 9/11 commissioner, told Eli Lake of The New York Sun that the document is a “very significant set of facts.” While cautioning that it does not tie Saddam to the September 11 attack, Kerrey said that the document “does tie him into a circle that meant to damage the United States.”

That circle includes al Qaeda’s affiliate in the Philippines, Abu Sayyaf, which was funded by bin Laden’s brother-in-law. One document, which has not yet been released to the public, indicates that Iraqi Intelligence also funded Abu Sayyaf. Steve Hayes first reported the existence of this document last month. The document includes a series of IIS memos from 2001 in which Saddam’s henchmen discuss funding the group, but consider withdrawing support after a string of high-profile kidnappings of westerners brought unwanted attention. But whatever concerns Iraqi Intelligence had appear to be short-lived. In 2003, one Abu Sayyaf leader openly admitted to the press that the Iraqis had been funding his group.

Still another document provides interesting insight into the workings of Saddam’s ultra-loyal Fedayeen martyrs. Uday Hussein, leader of the Fedayeen, authorized a wave of terror attacks in London, Iran, and “self-ruled” areas of Iraq (meaning Kurdish-controlled territory) in May 1999. The Fedayeen were ordered “to start planning from now on to perform special operations (assassinations/bombings).” One such operation was called “Blessed July.”

The document recounts explicit instructions for recruiting Fedayeen capable of carrying out these attacks. Martyrs are even reminded to use "death capsules" if "captured at the European fields"--an apparent order to commit suicide if caught. What ever came of the “Blessed July” operation or similar operations, if anything? We don’t know.

We do know, however, that the Fedayeen Saddam were trained alongside terrorists from throughout the Middle East. There are a number of unreleased documents that demonstrate that Saddam was training terrorists by the thousand. For example, a team of analysts working for the Joint Forces Command reviewed hundreds of Iraqi Intelligence documents and reported their findings in a report called the “Iraqi Perspectives Project, A View of Operation Iraqi Freedom from Saddam’s Senior Leadership.” Here is what they found in the documents:

Beginning in 1994, the Fedayeen Saddam opened its own paramilitary training camps for volunteers, graduating more than 7,200 "good men racing full with courage and enthusiasm" in the first year. Beginning in 1998, these camps began hosting "Arab volunteers from Egypt, Palestine, Jordan, 'the Gulf,' and Syria." It is not clear from available evidence where all of these non-Iraqi volunteers who were "sacrificing for the cause" went to ply their newfound skills. Before the summer of 2002, most volunteers went home upon the completion of training. But these training camps were humming with frenzied activity in the months immediately prior to the war. As late as January 2003, the volunteers participated in a special training event called the "Heroes Attack." This training event was designed in part to prepare regional Fedayeen Saddam commands to "obstruct the enemy from achieving his goal and to support keeping peace and stability in the province."

Michael Gordon and General Bernard Trainor describe similar documents in their new book Cobra II. They say that in March 2003 Saddam called back many of the terrorists his forces had trained. Some of the documents, they write, “show that the Iraqi Ministry of Defense coordinated border crossings with Syria and provided billeting, pay, and allowances and armaments for the influx of Syrians, Palestinians, and other fighters.” Paul Bremer writes in his book, My Year in Iraq, that he too saw Iraqi Intelligence documents that showed Saddam was planning on coordinating an insurgency with various jihadists.

All of this should make anyone who wants to argue that Saddam had nothing to do with terrorism or al Qaeda pause. Instead, many current and former members of the U.S. intelligence community still contend that Saddam was disconnected from the global terrorist network.

FP: Why have so many in the U.S. intelligence community been unwilling to honestly investigate Saddam's ties to terrorism?

Joscelyn: This is an interesting question. Saddam had a long history of supporting terrorist groups of various stripes: Iranian and Syrian opposition groups, Palestinian groups, etc. During the first Gulf War, in fact, more than one thousand terrorists converged on Baghdad in a show of support for Saddam. (In this regard, there are many parallels between Saddam’s behavior in 1990 and 2003.) Saddam even attempted to use some of these terrorists in operations, all of which failed miserably, against the West.

After the first Gulf War, however, the U.S. intelligence community appears to have simply assumed that Iraq was no longer a serious player in international terrorism. Even though Saddam made it clear that he would support terrorists against the West when confronted, the U.S. intelligence community was not particularly worried about this possibility. Thus, according to the Senate Intelligence Report (July 2004), we learn that there “was no robust HUMINT [Human Intelligence] collection capability targeting Iraq’s links to terrorism until the Fall of 2002.” Up until then, “HUMINT collection was heavily dependant on a few foreign government services and there were no [redacted] sources inside Iraq reporting on strictly terrorism issues.”

Think about that. From the first Gulf War until 2002 the U.S. intelligence community was asleep at the wheel when it came to Iraq’s ties to terrorism. So, when evidence surfaces showing that the CIA and others may have missed some important developments during that time, it is quite natural for the bureaucrats who oversaw this mess to pretend as if that evidence doesn’t exist. Or, to pretend as if the evidence doesn’t mean anything. Or, to pretend as if they knew what Saddam and bin Laden were thinking and that they could never work together against a common foe.

For example, we are often told that ideology precluded significant cooperation between Saddam and al Qaeda. That is, al Qaeda resented Saddam’s secularism and Saddam feared the rise of al Qaeda’s brand of Islamism. Therefore, we are told, even though the two shared the same basic list of enemies (America, Saudi Arabia, Israel, etc.), ideological differences made sustained tactical cooperation impossible. But, this is an assumption. The U.S. intelligence community did not have significant HUMINT assets inside either the Iraqi regime or al Qaeda. So, how could they actually know what the two sides were thinking?

Now, think back to the first document we discussed above. What does that document tell us about what Saddam and bin Laden were thinking? It tells us that neither bin Laden nor Saddam was letting ideology preclude the possibility of working together, under certain circumstances. This doesn’t mean that we know exactly what came of all these reports, but at the very least we should be wary of the intelligence community’s simple-minded assumptions. There are countless other pieces of evidence like this, but many in the U.S. intelligence would, unfortunately, prefer to assume this evidence away.

Despite the U.S. intelligence community’s poor intelligence collection efforts, the CIA and others did collect evidence of a relationship. But this evidence came primarily from open sources and foreign governments.

FP: In fact, news that Saddam was working with al Qaeda is not really new, right? There was a time when the worldwide media reported on the relationship?

Joscelyn: This is true. Just two years prior to President Bush taking office, the connection between the Iraqi regime and al Qaeda was a hot topic in the worldwide press.

The accounts started just after Operation Desert Fox was launched by the Clinton administration on December 16, 1998. Within days of the strike Saddam dispatched one of his top intelligence operatives, Faruq Hijazi, to Afghanistan to meet with bin Laden and his top aides. A couple of days after the meeting with Hijazi, Bin Laden issued a public statement, which read (in part), “The British and the American people loudly declared their support for their leaders decision to attack Iraq. It is the duty of Muslims to confront, fight, and kill them.” Ayman al-Zawahiri, al Qaeda’s number two, issued similar threats earlier in the month.

The meeting, as well as bin Laden and Zawahiri’s threats, set off alarm bells around the world. Milan’s Corriere Della Sera first reported in late December that Saddam and bin Laden had “sealed a pact.” That account was quickly followed up by reports around the world. Media outlets – left and right of center - in the U.S., London, Moscow, and throughout the Arab world all reported the meeting.

But, that’s not all they reported. The meeting was viewed as just one more data point connecting Saddam and al Qaeda. Many of the press accounts discussed a long pattern of contacts, training, and other areas of potential cooperation. For example, an account in Newsweek openly worried about the possibility of an Iraqi “false flag” operation carried out by bin Laden’s operatives. ABC News aired a segment on the nightly news worried about the possibility of bin Laden getting access to Saddam’s WMD technology. One account coming out of Moscow reported, “Hundreds of ‘Afghan Arabs’ are undergoing sabotage training in Southern Iraq and are preparing for armed actions on the Iraqi-Kuwaiti border. They have declared as their goal a fight against the interests of the United States in the region.”

There are plenty of additional examples to choose from, but I think you get the point. While the press has had a hard time finding evidence of a relationship since 2002, this wasn’t the case in late 1998 and early 1999.

The Clinton administration was most certainly aware of all these reports. Less than two months after the meeting between Hijazi and bin Laden, Richard Clarke worried that Osama may “boogie to Baghdad” if the U.S. struck targets in Afghanistan. In fact, there were numerous reports that Saddam had offered bin Laden safe haven. Why would Saddam offer bin Laden safe haven if they were mortal enemies? Saddam was willing to offer bin Laden safe haven, but he wouldn’t work with al Qaeda on other endeavors?

Interestingly, we know that Clarke’s worries about bin Laden’s “boogie to Baghdad” were most certainly heightened by what the intelligence community was saying about Iraqi scientists equipping al Qaeda with VX nerve gas. While the CIA did not have good HUMINT inside Iraq or al Qaeda, the agency did find evidence of a relationship in Sudan and this evidence conflicts with the prevailing assumption that ideology precluded cooperation.

After al Qaeda bombed the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in August 1998, the Clinton administration destroyed a pharmaceutical factory in Sudan as part of America’s official retaliation. The destruction of the al-Shifa factory was instantly controversial. But the Clinton administration, and especially Richard Clarke, argued that al-Shifa was a front company for al Qaeda’s WMD procurement efforts. They also argued that the intelligence connecting Iraqi scientists to al Qaeda’s WMD efforts at al-Shifa was solid.

Many of the details surrounding al-Shifa remain murky. But, the CIA argued that there were several facilities similar to al-Shifa in Sudan and that Iraqi scientists were working at all of them. It appears that this was one of the rare occasions when the CIA actually put together multiple threads of intelligence from a variety of sources.

Here, the debate over Saddam’s ties to al Qaeda intersects with the controversy surrounding what happened to his WMD programs. Perhaps the Iraqi intelligence documents can shed light on this controversy as well.

FP: Is there anything in the documents about Saddam's WMD programs?

Joscelyn: It is going to take some time to determine what the documents actually say about Saddam’s WMD programs. Even in the small number of documents released so far there are countless references to weapons of mass destruction. But, at first glance, that information is often confusing and contradictory. Putting this information together into a coherent picture will take much more work.

But, I think there are a number of ways in which the documents may be able to fill in some of the gaps in our understanding of what happened to Saddam’s WMD programs. For example, we discussed the CIA’s intelligence connecting Iraqi chemical weapons experts to al Qaeda in Sudan. In fact, in every year from 1998 through 2002 the CIA reported to Congress that Iraqi WMD programs had taken root in Sudan. Yet, when you read the Iraqi Survey Group’s official report investigating Saddam’s WMD programs, there is not a single mention of Sudan. Not one.

Apparently, even though the CIA consistently said that Iraqi WMD scientists were working in Sudan, the CIA’s own Iraqi Survey Group never thought to investigate the claim. The documents may or may not fill in this gap.

There have also been a number of reports recently suggesting that Iraq may have moved stockpiles of weapons outside of the country. I don’t know if these reports are true or not, but it would be interesting to find out if there is any information in the documents that corroborates or refutes these accounts.

FP: Thomas Jocelyn thank you for joining us today.

Jocelyn: Thank you Jamie

 

[busybody..]

ONLY JOE WILSON VISITED NIGER FOR THE NIGHTLIFE:
It turns out Bush was right about Iraq's quest for uranium (John Leo, Apr 17, 2006, Townhall)


In a surprising editorial, The Washington Post deviated from the conventional anti-Bush media position on two counts. It said President Bush was right to declassify parts of a National Intelligence Estimate to make clear why he thought Saddam Hussein was seeking nuclear weapons. And the editorial said ex-ambassador Joseph Wilson was wrong to think he had debunked Bush on the nuclear charge because Wilson's statements after visiting Niger actually "supported the conclusion that Iraq had sought uranium."

In the orthodox narrative line, Wilson is the truth-teller and the Bush is the liar. But Wilson was not speaking truthfully when he said his wife, Valerie Plame, had nothing to do with the CIA sending him to Niger. And it obviously wasn't true, as Wilson claimed, that he had found nothing to support Bush's charge about Niger when he (Wilson) had been told that the Iraqis were poking around in that uranium-rich nation.

Testifying before the Senate intelligence committee, Wilson said that the former prime minister of Niger told him he had been asked to meet with Iraqis to talk about "expanding commercial relations" between the two countries. Everybody knew what that meant; Niger has nothing much to trade other than uranium.




MORE:
Clueless Joe Wilson: How did the CIA's special envoy miss Zahawie's trip to Niger? (Christopher Hitchens, April 17, 2006, Slate)


The person whose response I most wanted is Ambassador Joseph Wilson, who has claimed to discover that Saddam was guiltless on the charge of seeking uranium from Niger, and has further claimed to be the object, along with his CIA wife, of a campaign of government persecution. On Keith Olbermann's show on April 10, Wilson was asked about my article and about Zahawie. He replied that Zahawie:

is a man that I know from my time as acting ambassador in Baghdad during the first Gulf War. ... He was ambassador to the Vatican, and he made a trip in 1999 to several West and Central African countries for the express purpose of inviting chiefs of state to violate the ban on travel to Iraq. He has said repeatedly to the press, he's now in retirement, and also to the International Atomic Energy Agency, to their satisfaction, that uranium was not on his agenda.

Once again, the details and implications of Zahawie's own IAEA background are ignored (as they were in the IAEA's own report to the United Nations about the forged Italian documents that were later circulated about Zahawie's visit). In the same press interviews to which Wilson alludes (and which I cited last week), Zahawie went a bit further than saying that uranium was "not on his agenda." He claimed not to know that Niger produced uranium at all! You may if you wish choose to take that at face value—along with his story that all he was trying to do was violate sanctions on flights to Iraq. Joseph Wilson appears to be, as they say, "comfortable" with that explanation.

And it's true that the two men knew each other during the Gulf crisis of 1990-1991. Indeed, in his book The Politics of Truth, Wilson records Zahawie as having been in the room, as under-secretary for foreign affairs, during his last meeting with Saddam Hussein. (Quite a senior guy for a humble mission like violating flight-bans from distant Niger and Burkina Faso.) I cite this because it is the only mention of Zahawie that Wilson makes in his entire narrative.

In other words (I am prepared to keep on repeating this until at least one cow comes home), Joseph Wilson went to Niger in 2002 to investigate whether or not the country had renewed its uranium-based relationship with Iraq, spent a few days (by his own account) sipping mint tea with officials of that country who were (by his wife's account) already friendly to him, and came back with the news that all was above-board. Again to repeat myself, this must mean either that A) he did not know that Zahawie had come calling or B) that he did know but didn't think it worth mentioning that one of Saddam's point men on nukes had been in town. In neither case, it seems to me, should he be trusted with another mission that requires any sort of curiosity.

 

[busybody..]

Does anyone read the shit I post on this or am I doing thos ONLY for me?

 

[Peregrinator]

I read it.

 

[busybody..]

You dont count

You are my Normal ALT

http://www.badgeplanet.co.uk/badges_large/crazy-person-1.jpg

 

[Peregrinator]

You dont count

You are my Normal ALT

http://www.badgeplanet.co.uk/badges_large/crazy-person-1.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v649/Peregrinator/HuntingBB.jpg

 

[busybody..]

:d :d

 

[busybody..]

remember the Bush SOTU address where those 16 words were said?

that EVERYONE said was a LIE?

that even Bush said was a mistake?

well, it wasnt a mistake and it was Wilson who lied, but who still gets called a LIAR?


The Butler Report, Revisited

Barcepundit reminds us that the Butler Report, which reviewed issues relating to pre-war intelligence on Iraq, has important information on the subject of Saddam's efforts to purchase uranium in Africa, the subject of the famous "sixteen words" and of Joe Wilson's mendacious campaign against the Bush administration.

You can download the Butler Report here; these are the relevant paragraphs on African uranium:

492. In the course of the first Gulf war, the facilities involved in this indigenous route were severely damaged. Subsequently, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) supervised the dismantlement of all the facilities that Iraq had built to process, enrich and fabricate uranium, and removed all potentially fissile material. Some unprocessed uranium ore was left in country, but under IAEA safeguards and subject to regular inspections. Iraq would therefore have had to seek imports of uranium or uranium ore if it wished to restart its nuclear programme covertly.
493. In early 1999, Iraqi officials visited a number of African countries, including Niger. The visit2 was detected by intelligence, and some details were subsequently confirmedby Iraq. The purpose of the visit was not immediately known. But uranium ore accounts for almost three-quarters of Niger’s exports. Putting this together with past Iraqi purchases of uraniumore fromNiger, the limitations faced by the Iraq regime on access to indigenous uranium ore and other evidence of Iraq seeking to restart its nuclear programme, the JIC judged that Iraqi purchase of uraniumore could have been the subject of discussions and noted in an assessment in December 2000 that: ...unconfirmed intelligence indicates Iraqi interest in acquiring uranium.

494. There was further and separate intelligence that in 1999 the Iraqi regime had also made inquiries about the purchase of uranium ore in the Democratic Republic of Congo. In this case, there was some evidence that by 2002 an agreement for a sale had been reached.

495. During 2002, the UK received further intelligence fromadditional sources which identified the purpose of the visit to Niger as having been to negotiate the purchase of uranium ore, though there was disagreement as to whether a sale had been agreed and uranium shipped.

497. In preparing the dossier, the UK consulted the US. The CIA advised caution about any suggestion that Iraq had succeeded in acquiring uranium from Africa, but agreed that there was evidence that it had been sought.

499. We conclude that, on the basis of the intelligence assessments at the time, covering both Niger and the Democratic Republic of Congo, the statements on Iraqi attempts to buy uranium from Africa in the Government’s dossier, and by the Prime Minister in the House of Commons, were well-founded. By extension, we conclude also that the statement in President Bush’s State of the Union Address of 28 January 2003 that:

The British Government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.
was well-founded.

503. From our examination of the intelligence and other material on Iraqi attempts to buy uranium from Africa, we have concluded that:

a. It is accepted by all parties that Iraqi officials visited Niger in 1999.

b. The British Government had intelligence from several different sources indicating that this visit was for the purpose of acquiring uranium. Since uranium constitutes almost three-quarters of Niger’s exports, the intelligence was credible.

c. The evidence was not conclusive that Iraq actually purchased, as opposed to having sought, uranium and the British Government did not claim this.

d. The forged documents were not available to the British Government at the time its assessment was made, and so the fact of the forgery does not undermine it.


Until reminded by Barcepundit, I had forgotten that, in addition to trying to buy uranium from Niger, Iraq had also tried to obtain uranium from Congo, and may have succeeded in doing so. So the "sixteen words" were doubly true.

 

[busybody..]

Saddam Paid "Arab Fedayeen"

The latest translation from jveritas indicates that during the Iraq war, Saddam paid the "Arab Fedayeen" volunteers--i.e., terrorists--just as he paid members of Iraq's own military. This document is dated April 4, 2003. For reference, it was April 9, 2003, when Baghdad fell and the statues of Saddam were toppled:

In the Name of God the Most Merciful The Most Compassionate Republic Of Iraq Directorate of the General Military Intelligence No 9/39/1/
Date: 4 April 2003

Secret

To: The 8th Directorate

Subject: Order

The secret and urgent letter of the Presidential Secretariat K-1997 on 29/3/2003 including… The order of The President The Leader to the armed forces God protects him and according to the following:

The Volunteers Arab Feedayeen will be treated the treatment of the solider in the army (Special Forces) regarding the salary and benefits.

Please review and take what is necessary.

Signature

Staff General
Director of the General Military Intelligence
April 2003


This isn't a big surprise; Saddam was encouraging volunteers to come from other Arab countries and there obviously was plenty of military cooperation. But it's interesting that the Arab Fedayeen were so fully integrated into Saddam's forces that they were paid salary and benefits on the same basis as Iraq's own troops. (Or were supposed to be paid, anyway.) It would be interesting to know whether some of the Arab Fedayeen volunteers were terrorists who had been trained in Iraq's camps prior to the war; it would also be interesting to know whether Saddam continued to fund the Fedayeen as "insurgents" after his regime fell.

 

[Randy_Random]

Well I've always wanted to be in a threesome. In fact just the thought has got me feeling quite randy MEOW!

 

[busybody..]

It Might Not Be Smoking, But It's Getting Awfully Warm

The invaluable Joseph Shahda--jveritas at Free Republic, whose translations of Project Harmony documents we have linked to on several occasions--has translated several documents relating to apparent efforts by Iraq to restart its nuclear weapons program in 2001 and 2002. I say "apparent," because I don't know what a "simulation reactor" is, and can't vouch for some of Shahda's interpretations of the documents. Here is Shahda's introduction to his translations:

This document CMPC-2004-000167 talks about a project that started in early 2001 by the Iraqi Atomic Energy Commission (IAEC) to use components from the previously destroyed TAMUZ (also known as OZIRAQ) Nuclear Reactor to build a Nuclear Simulator Reactor. The TAMUZ Nuclear Reactor was destroyed by an Israeli air attack in 1981. In September 2002, after almost a year and a half since the start of this Nuclear Project and when it became very clear to the Iraqi Regime that the UN inspectors were coming back to Iraq, a decision was made to stop this Nuclear Activity project. What is interesting in this document that the IAEC was warned by the Monitoring Directory within the IAEC that this Nuclear Project is prohibited by the UN resolutions however the IAEC went on with it until September 2002 only when the UN inspectors were on the verge of coming back to Iraq.
This document is yet another irrefutable proof that Saddam had never stopped his WMD activities and programs including Nuclear Program activities.


And here are the documents, as translated:

In the Name of God the Most Merciful The Most Compassionate The Republic of Iraq The Iraqi Atomic Energy Commission
To: The Respected Mr. Chairman of the Engineering Department

Subject: Simulation Reactor

An inspection was made to the suggested hall to build the Simulation Reactor and that contain recently laundry equipment (Laundry) and the hall was closed and the location abandoned and neglected for a long time and based on this it requires the following:

1. Remove all the laundry equipments and machines.

2. The structural division should inspect the hall and to repair and remodeling and fortify the building after determining the cost of these works.

3.Transfer the equipments and systems specialized in the control of 14 TAMUZ Reactor from storage 14a to the location of the hall and by phases.

4. Distribute the engineering and technical staff proposed for work in the project to the days of the week where engineer will be dedicated for one day.

5. Dedicate one of the technicians to fully work in the location.

6. Prepare the timeline schedule to finish the project and for the duration of a full year.

Please review and comment

With regards

Signature…
Adnan Salim Girgis
director of the Electronic Support Division
29/1/2001


The second translated page:

In the Name of God the Most Merciful The Most Compassionate The Republic of Iraq The Iraqi Atomic Energy Commission The Engineering Department Number: 10/2/1000
Date: 1/9/2001

To: The Respected Mr. Chairman of the Comission

Subject: Simulation Reactor

Previously you instructed to re-install the Simulation Reactor. Please approve the delivery of hall that was dedicated for it and currently occupied by the Laundry to the Electronic Support Division with the dedication of 15 millions Dinar for the purpose of starting the work.

Please review and comment… with regards

Signature
Doctor Hisham Mahmood Ahmad
Chairman of the Engineering Department


And, finally, here is Mr. Shahda's conclusion:

Now in page 7 of the document (the order of the pages is not chronological) there is a secret memo dated May 30 2002, the Monitoring Department within the IAEC warned the IAEC that this Nuclear Program is totally prohibited by the UN resolutions.
In page 5 of the document there is a memo dated September 12 2002 asking the IAEC Engineering Department to stop working on this project because it is prohibited by the UN. Again it took the Iraqis almost a year and half to stop working on this Nuclear Project and only after they were absolutely convinced that the UN inspectors were returning to Iraq in matter of few months as they did indeed return in November 2002.


It appears that this set of documents proves beyond reasonable debate that Iraq was carrying out prohibited nuclear work in 2001 and 2002. How serious this breach of the U.N. resolutions was, I can't evaluate, since I have no idea what a "simulation reactor" is. But, just as the current Iranian nuclear program is of great concern to pretty much everyone, Iraq's nuclear program was, and should have been, of great concern in the months and years leading up to the war, notwithstanding the mendacious Joe Wilson

 

[busybody..]

IIS Top Secret doc proves intent to hide prohibited items from UN
Ray: Proving intent. Some would believe (or at least claim to believe) that Saddam wanted to comply with UN mandates to get the sanctions removed. This document shows without a doubt (unless proven inauthentic) that this is not the case. The IIS demonstrates that not only is it procuring prohibited items but providing secret facilities to hide them from the UN. I also believe that this demonstrates proof that Iraq did hide prohibited items from the UN which were not found. I have seen nothing about these computers in UN reports. Please let me know if anyone finds a reference to this in the literature. CMPC-2003-015065.pdf

Translator’s notes:
-Document CMPC-2003-015065 is composed of 35 pages of memos between different intelligence directorates regarding the procurement of new computers.
- Page 3/35 is translated. It is dated January 1st 1999.

Top secret

Presidency of the Republic
Directorate of Intelligence

To: Director of the Intelligence service
Subject: Providing a secret location

In view of the upcoming execution of the computer installation project which is going to be contracted and because the mentioned computers are advanced and highly capable on the technological level they are therefore part of the equipment which the UN has prevented its import to the country. Because we are worried that UN inspection teams might visit the Directorate’s headquarters and while searching the computers’ building they will find those advanced computers which in the future will store the data of the different directorates of Intelligence.
Therefore we propose the following:
Provide a secret house for the new computer which would be close to the headquarters….
(Translator’s notes: the remaining of the page deals with the technicalities of the operation.)

Ray: From Secretary Powell's UN briefing

"Tell me, answer me, are the inspectors to search the house of every government official, every Baath Party member and every scientist in the country to find the truth, to get the information they need, to satisfy the demands of our council?

Our sources tell us that, in some cases, the hard drives of computers at Iraqi weapons facilities were replaced. Who took the hard drives. Where did they go? What's being hidden? Why? There's only one answer to the why: to deceive, to hide, to keep from the inspectors.

Numerous human sources tell us that the Iraqis are moving, not just documents and hard drives, but weapons of mass destruction to keep them from being found by inspectors."

 

[busybody..]

more translations that PROVE that SH did have WMDs

where are they?


2001 Top Secret Document: Production of Prohibited Nerve Gas Detectors (Translation)
Pentagon/FMSO website for Iraq Pre-war documents ^ | May 1 2006 | jveritas


Posted on 05/01/2006 1:05:30 PM PDT by jveritas


Saddam Regime Document CMPC-2003-016083 dated in 2001 contains a series of Top Secret memos that address the production of Nerve Gas Detectors which was prohibited by the United Nations resolutions concerning Iraq according to the document itself. The importance of the production of the Nerve Gas Detector is shown by the top secret letters exchange between the Presidential Office and the head of the Iraqi Military Industrialization Commission (M.I.C). This documents is yet another indication that Saddam Regime never stopped his WMD programs, and the nerve Gas Detector which some can see it a “defensive in nature” is not to be considered so when it comes to Saddam Regime, everything has an offensive and aggressive use.


Beginning of Translation of page 5 of document CMPC-2003-016083

In the Name of God the Most Merciful The Most Compassionate

TOP SECRET

The Republic of Iraq

The Presidency of the Republic

The Military Industrialization Commission

Number 2/4/44

Date 13/1/2001

To: THE PRESIDENTIAL SECRETARIAT

Subject: Detection Equipment

Your top Secret letter number AA’/128 on 10/12/2000, we would like to show the following:

1. On 10/12/2000 a laboratory test was done on the new equipment and the results of the test was similar to the required quality compared with the Russian equipments

2. On the light of the above (1) a second equipment was received from the Ministry of Industry and Minerals and the total tests were done on it on 24/12/2000 using laboratory equipment to Chemical Detection Device (GSU-12) and with the presence of the Chemical Class representatives and the manufacturing party and its success was proven from the perspective of detection and reaction to NERVE AGENTS.

Please review… with regards

Signature

Abd AlTwab Abdallah AL Mulah Huwaish

The Minister of Military Industrialization

13/1/2001

End of translation of page 5.

Now on page 71 of the document there is a section that mentions that the production of “Nerve Gas Detectors” is PROHIBITED

Beginning of Partial Translation of page 71

Based on what is in the letter of the respected Presidential Secretariat (Top Secret) aa’/4 on 22/1/2001 followed by the Top Secret letter of (M.I.C) 2/4/44 on 13/1/2001 and after review of the technical report the commission recommend the following:

1. Consider it a work that reach level of Invention Works because it replace the need that occur to the Russian equipment that has an expired efficiency and that exist in the storages of the Chemical Class, and it is a PROHIBITED EQUIPMENT where the price of the effective material in it can reach 51,000 Dollars

End of partial translation of page 71.

 

[Iced_Cherry]

Maybe they were on Mars?

Or the moon?

Maybe Mexico?

 

[Iced_Cherry]

more translations that PROVE that SH did have WMDs

where are they?


2001 Top Secret Document: Production of Prohibited Nerve Gas Detectors (Translation)
Pentagon/FMSO website for Iraq Pre-war documents ^ | May 1 2006 | jveritas


Posted on 05/01/2006 1:05:30 PM PDT by jveritas


Saddam Regime Document CMPC-2003-016083 dated in 2001 contains a series of Top Secret memos that address the production of Nerve Gas Detectors which was prohibited by the United Nations resolutions concerning Iraq according to the document itself. The importance of the production of the Nerve Gas Detector is shown by the top secret letters exchange between the Presidential Office and the head of the Iraqi Military Industrialization Commission (M.I.C). This documents is yet another indication that Saddam Regime never stopped his WMD programs, and the nerve Gas Detector which some can see it a “defensive in nature” is not to be considered so when it comes to Saddam Regime, everything has an offensive and aggressive use.


Beginning of Translation of page 5 of document CMPC-2003-016083

In the Name of God the Most Merciful The Most Compassionate

TOP SECRET

The Republic of Iraq

The Presidency of the Republic

The Military Industrialization Commission

Number 2/4/44

Date 13/1/2001

To: THE PRESIDENTIAL SECRETARIAT

Subject: Detection Equipment

Your top Secret letter number AA’/128 on 10/12/2000, we would like to show the following:

1. On 10/12/2000 a laboratory test was done on the new equipment and the results of the test was similar to the required quality compared with the Russian equipments

2. On the light of the above (1) a second equipment was received from the Ministry of Industry and Minerals and the total tests were done on it on 24/12/2000 using laboratory equipment to Chemical Detection Device (GSU-12) and with the presence of the Chemical Class representatives and the manufacturing party and its success was proven from the perspective of detection and reaction to NERVE AGENTS.

Please review… with regards

Signature

Abd AlTwab Abdallah AL Mulah Huwaish

The Minister of Military Industrialization

13/1/2001

End of translation of page 5.

Now on page 71 of the document there is a section that mentions that the production of “Nerve Gas Detectors” is PROHIBITED

Beginning of Partial Translation of page 71

Based on what is in the letter of the respected Presidential Secretariat (Top Secret) aa’/4 on 22/1/2001 followed by the Top Secret letter of (M.I.C) 2/4/44 on 13/1/2001 and after review of the technical report the commission recommend the following:

1. Consider it a work that reach level of Invention Works because it replace the need that occur to the Russian equipment that has an expired efficiency and that exist in the storages of the Chemical Class, and it is a PROHIBITED EQUIPMENT where the price of the effective material in it can reach 51,000 Dollars

End of partial translation of page 71.

I never trust offiicial USA or British government translations when it serves their agenda and their motivation is clear.

They remind me of the many fake Osama tapes where the translations are deliberately wrong, and the fake video with the fat nosed Osama

http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/IMAGES/binladen8.jpg

Every supposed bin Laden statement since 2001 has been a fake.

 

[Jaelen]

Does anyone read the shit I post on this or am I doing thos ONLY for me?

There were too many words to read, but I believe ya.

 

[busybody..]

I never trust offiicial USA or British government translations when it serves their agenda and their motivation is clear.

They remind me of the many fake Osama tapes where the translations are deliberately wrong, and the fake video with the fat nosed Osama

http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/IMAGES/binladen8.jpg

Every supposed bin Laden statement since 2001 has been a fake.

1- The translations above were NOT from US and Brit translators

2- OBL is dead and the tapes are made in Hollywood. EVERYONE KNOW THAT!

 

[busybody..]

How Many Weather Balloons Did They Need?

Captain Ed notes a new translation of an Iraqi document by Joseph Shahda that indicates the Iraqi military was ordering new mobile laboratories as of late 2002. Ed and his commenters have interesting observations on the document.

These days, most people assume it's somehow been proven that the mobile labs captured in Iraq during the war had nothing to do with bioweapon production, contrary to what was initially believed. I don't know, maybe so; but intuitively, I've always thought the most common benign explanation for the labs--that they were used to produce hydrogen for weather balloons--bordered on the bizarre. It's possible, I suppose, that on the eve of war Saddam's government thought it worthwhile to invest tens of millions of dollars to beef up its weather balloon capacity. But somehow I suspect that the real explanation lies elsewhere. Whether bioweapon production is the right explanation will, one hopes, become clear when more documents have been translated.

 

[busybody..]

Iraq, WMDs and Troubling Revelations

By Jamie Glazov
FrontPageMagazine.com | May 26, 2006

http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=22645



Just recently, Saddam Hussein's former southern regional commander, Gen. Al-Tikriti, gave the first videotaped testimony confirming that Iraq had WMDs up to the American invasion in 2003 and that Russia helped removed them prior to the war.

His testimony confirms numerous other sources that have pointed to Russia's secret alliance with Iraq and the co-ordinated moving of WMDs before the American liberation. Today we've invited three experts on this subject to discuss the details of Al-Tikriti's testimony and its larger significance.

Our guests today are:


John Loftus, president of the Intelligence Summit, a non-profit, non-partisan charity to support our intelligence community and a frequent commentator on terrorism for network news. For 25 years, he has been a pro bono lawyer for whistleblowers inside US and NATO intelligence. He held a Q clearance for nuclear weapons, special access to NATO Cosmic, and a codeword clearance for special intelligence. He handled intelligence research for the US Justice Dept. during the Carter and Reagan administrations.







Paul (Dave) Gaubatz, a former U.S. Federal Agent (Arabic linguist/counter-terrorist specialist) who was deployed to Iraq at the start of Operation Iraqi Freedom. His mission was to search for WMDs. Four sites he identified were not searched by ISG (Iraq Survey Group) and he has waged a three year battle to get them searched. He is currently the Chief Investigator with the Dallas County Medical Examiner, Dallas, TX. He can be contacted at pdgaubatz@yahoo.com.







and



Ryan Mauro, who spoke at the recent 2006 International Intelligence Summit on Iraq. He is the 19-year old author of Death to America: The Unreported Battle of Iraq and founder of WorldThreats.com. He was originally hired at age 16 as a geopolitical analyst for Tactical Defense Concepts. He is also a volunteer analyst and researcher for the Northeast Intelligence Network and the Reform Party of Syria and believed to be the youngest hired geopolitical analyst in the country. He can be contacted at TDCAnalyst@aol.com.








FP: Dave Gaubatz, Ryan Mauro and John Loftus, welcome to Frontpage Sympsoium.



Ryan Mauro, your site just recently ran the first videotaped testimony, never-before-seen, of Gen. Al-Tikriti (covered in silhouette and voice modified) discussing how Iraq had WMDs and Russia's role in removing them prior to the war.



Tell us about it.



Mauro: General Al-Tikriti was known as the "Butcher of Basra" and was a southern regional commander for Saddam Hussein, a friend of his. He defected shortly before the Gulf War but has maintained contacts inside Iraq ever since, including weapons scientists.



He has confirmed in previous interviews that Iraq sent nuclear scientists and technology to Libya in the mid-1990s to continue his WMD programs, and that Syria is the holding place for Iraqi WMD today. He said that he had first-hand knowledge of discussions between Iraq and Syria to send their weapons programs to the other for safe harbor, should either Baghdad or Damascus be threatened with occupation.



In this videotape, he has his voice modified and face blacked out. However, I have sources who were at the taping, and who confirmed with the Iraqi embassy that he is legit. In this tape, he confirms that Russia had a secret alliance with Iraq, and that plans were developed to remove WMD from Iraq before an invasion. The Russians obviously wanted to cover their tracks.



FP: John Loftus what do you think of this videotape? And what do your sources tell you about Russia’s secret alliance with Iraq and the plans to remove WMDs before the American invasion?



Loftus: At first, there was more than a bit of skepticism. Some of my sources reported that the general had left Iraq three years earlier, and so was not in a position to know anything first hand. However, other sources say that Ryan found a bit of a gem here, and the story is legit.

It all is just a piece in the bigger puzzle, a tile in the mosaic of intelligence analysis. John Shaw, who was a deputy to the undersecretary of defense at the time of the Iraq invasion, corroborates Ryan's thesis outright. Shaw told a shocked audience at the Intelligence Summit that he had numerous UK and Ukranian sources track Russian Spetznatz units down into Iraq. It was these Russian special forces who moved the WMD to Syria.

All the pieces fit, the Russians threw sand in our eyes. They moved the WMD across the border while we went digging holes in the desert. Nice allies.



FP: These revelations destroy the Left’s main arguments and vindicate the Bush administration. Why isn’t the administration talking about this? Are we afraid of a confrontation with the Russians? Are we going to do anything about this?



Mr. Gaubatz? Before you help us with some of these questions, tell us about what your own sources are saying.



Gaubatz: My sources confirm much of the information that is stated by the individual who claims to be "General Al-Tikriti", but they are suspicious of anyone they can't see or can't hear in their natural voice. Arabic is such a distinctive language that native Arabic speakers can tell a lot about the person by the words, tone, and mannerisms displayed during the conversation. There is little doubt Saddam had WMDs and that the Russians were involved in hiding them and possibly also removing them.



I feel Mr. Loftus, Mr. Mauro, myself, and many others realize WMDs were/are in Iraq, but to convince others is difficult. This silhouette will not do it (again I am not a disbeliever). During the last two months I have had conversations with Congressman Curt Weldon, Congressman Pete Hoekstra, their staff, and even arranged to have three of the original Iraqi sources brought to the Congressmen's office for debriefings (ref This still hasn't resulted in suspected WMD sites from being searched in Iraq.



Based on my extensive conversations with the Congressmen and their staff, they are afraid that if they searched the suspected sites in Iraq that I identified, and the WMD has been removed by terrorists, it would destroy the upcoming elections for the Republican Party. If it was done three years ago (as I tried to get done), we would all know. Now politics is involved. We have a tough fight ahead.



FP: Thank you.



Ryan Mauro?



Mauro: The reason General Al-Tikriti's testimony needs to be heard is because he was in a position to know what would happen in the event of an invasion of Iraq and plans to hide WMD, and because we have additional information from people like General Georges Sada, the former #2 man in Saddam's air force; Jack Shaw, as Mr. Loftus pointed out; and Ion Pacepa, the former chief of Romanian intelligence, who described plans for Russia to activate a plan to move and hide WMDs out of their rogue state allies should a Western invasion be feared.



While he defected in 1990, it appears that defectors are often better at obtaining information from inside tyrannical regimes than the CIA is. I agree with Mr. Gaubatz that this silhouette won't convince the masses. I've conveyed that concern to Al-Tikriti and discussions are underway to reveal more of what he knows and how best to move forward. I am also working on several other stories that may bring forth additional evidence of a WMD transfer to Syria. A summary of most of the evidence can be seen in my previous FrontPage interview.



The release of documents found in Iraq could be promising as well. In one translated document, we see that the Chinese had information regarding a transfer to Syria, and asked the Germans, specifically Schroeder, about it, who dismissed the idea. Some of the best information and tips I've received have come from readers of my work, and hopefully, if anyone has additional information, they'll email me as well.



FP: John Loftus, a comment on the discussion thus far? And what fight do we have ahead now?



Loftus: What fight? I don’t see anyone with a will to fight. Seems like this administration just surrendered to the Russians and Chinese on the Iran vote. The UN sanctions resolution against Iran will not even mention Chapter 42 military sanctions, only Chapter 41. It seems we need Russian votes so badly against Iran, that we are willing to "forget" Russian involvement in Iraq. Some of us remember.


"Someone" in Russia illegally moved advanced Kornet anti-tank missiles into Iraq just before the war. The only two Abrams tanks penetrated were due to these Russian-made hand-held Kornet misssiles. In violation of all international prohibitions against Arms trading with Iraq, the Russians sold Saddam the Kornet, the only missile capable of destroying American tanks.

The Americans used to own the night, due to our night vision equipment, but "someone" in Russia sold the latest version to the insurgents. The list of passive aggressive hostile actions goes on and on. In the first hour of the war, "someone" in Russia electronically jammed our Patriot anti-missile systems causing our rockets to go way of course.

The Kremlin would have us believe that these incidents were caused by corrupt civilians, not by the Russian military. Of course, the Russians count as civilians anyone who temporarily swaps their uniform for civvies, such as the Spetznatz units in Iraq. Do the Russians think we are stupid?

Every senior member of a Western, European or Asian intelligence service whom I have ever met all agree that the Russians moved the last of the WMDs out of Iraq in the last few months before the war. A Syrian journalist who defected to Paris brought with him a map of where the Russians buried the WMDs. Our spy satellites confirmed a huge volume of military trucks and chemical trucks moving into Syria before the war. Do the Russians think we are stupid?

The Russians sold their WMD support to Saddam for oil. That is why Russia got more illegal oil payments from Saddam than all nations on earth combined. The Russians did for Saddam what they did for every Eastern European country they evacuated: they sent in Spetznatz units to shred all records of Russian involvement and truck the WMDs back to Russia.

The problem is only partly with a lazy and indolent media. The problem is that this State Department has decided that all Russian peccadillos must be overlooked for the greater good of preventing Iran from getting WMDs. I think Rumsfled was right when he said that we need an American desk at the State Department. I like Condi and I even liked Colin, but neither of them have tamed the beast of appeasement that dwells in foggy bottom. That is why nothing is ever done about Russian involvement in hiding Iraqi WMD, or anything else. This administration is begging the Russians for votes on Iran. No matter how much we offer, we will never get them.

The Pentagon knows the truth about appeasement and is planning for war. The Iranians know we know and they are planning for war too, only a war against Israel. Kill a few Jews and the Americans will back off is the Iranian game plan. Iran's paid stooges, Hezbollah and Hamas, may have already received some of the Syrian stockpile of Saddams WMDs. I toured the Israeli defenses on the border with Lebanon and the Golan heights, and the IDF officers there are preparing for the day when Saddam's "missing" chemical and biological weapons start showing up in force. I wish the White House was as ready.



FP: This is truly a depressing picture. The Russians, if this is all true, are literally our enemies. The Cold War never ended. We just got the War on Terror on top of it now.



Gaubatz: The interview with General Al-Tikriti needs to be shown, but it would be much better if he would not disguise his voice. I can somewhat understand a silhouette, but see no purpose in disguising his voice. His voice could be analyzed by experts and more people would support our beliefs.



In my intelligence reports during the war I advised all Departments of DOD, DOJ, CIA, etc.... that not only were the Russians involved in many aspects of daily life in Iraq (weapons factories, businesses, supplying non conventional technology/weapons to Iraq) but the Iranians were coming into southern Iraq by the thousands. There was no intelligence failure, only an intelligence dissemination failure.



I have been fighting a 3 year battle to have four suspected WMD sites inspected in southern Iraq. It is unbelievable what I am having to go through. When I speak to Congressmen they want to know what evidence I have to support my claim. I am not a man who normally curses, but "hell" my evidence is ME! The U.S. Government (which most days includes Congressmen) handpicked me to deploy to Iraq specifically to look for WMD. They spent several hundred thousand dollars to send me to 2500 hours of Arabic language instruction, 3 week immersion tours in Jordan, months in Saudi Arabia. I had worked counter-terrorism and counter-intelligence for 15 plus years, and had a Top Secret/SCI clearance. Again, "hell", but all I should have had to do is say I have a "gut feeling" WMD may be at a certain location and the place should have been torn apart. Yet, I provided everything imaginable and can't get them searched.



I can't quit until I pound the media a bit. I read and watch all news everyday, and just shake my head at some of the crap. We have spent weeks on the NSA phone records issue, and all of this was based on an "anonymous source". Yet I contact the media (for the sole purpose of having WMD sites searched so our children will not experience a WMD attack, and everyone of them want me to produce classified documents (which I don't have), they want every Iraqi source identified to talk on TV (they are fearful for their lives), they want pictures of the WMD. If it were that easy I would have carried the barrels on my back to get them out of the terrorists’ hands. Greta Van Susteran can spend 1.5 years of almost daily airtime on one possible homicide in Aruba, and I can't get 5 minutes to prevent America from being hit with chemical and biological weapons which can kill millions.



I am just thankful we have people like Jamie Glazov and FrontPageMag who make every attempt to get the truth out.



FP: Well thank you David Gaubatz, we try our best, but it is warriors and soldiers like you gentlemen that courageously get the truth to put in our hands. Ryan Mauro?



Mauro: My Iraqi sources do believe some WMD remain in Iraq, as Mr. Gaubatz says. However, I personally don't see why the Russians would leave anything behind. Mr. Loftus correctly criticizes the State Department. I hold them responsible for a lot of issues not being solved (that could be solved!) such as the WMD, Syria, Iran, etc. At the same time, I'm truly disappointed that the Administration has dropped the ball on this topic. Either the top officials haven't been presented with all this in one lump sum, and only have received fragments here or there, or their incompetent. Or there's some other big game being played that I can't grasp.



I know for a fact that a lot of people in government, military and intelligence believe and have supporting information for this issue. I know average citizens of the Middle East have supporting information (I've received some, coordinates included, but the intelligence agencies never called me back).



If any readers of this Symposium have information and can legally do so, step up and help us press this issue. FrontPage has a very educated and influential readership and together, we can get the truth out to mainstream America.



FP: John Loftus, a final word?



Loftus: Ryan has covered a lot of territory in his book and in his talks that some government agencies simply do not want to discuss. Dave may have uncovered weapons sites so embarrassing that no bureaucrat wants to find them, A lot of folks inside the beltway have bet their careers that no WMD will be found in Iraq. Their careers are more important to them than the truth or the national interest.



As President of the Intelligence Summit, I was appalled to find that so many agencies tried to suppress what Bill Tierney had to say at our conference in February. Bill's expert translation of the long-forgotten Saddam wiretaps shows that this is a very controversial topic to say the least. As a result of Bill's heroic efforts, the President ordered his intelligence community to reverse course, reopen the wmd issue, and accelerate the translation of the documents and tapes we captured from saddam.

All is not last. We have quiet heroes among us. Gary Metz of RegimeChangeIran.com is a key link between Iranian dissidents and American readers. Yet, Gary never gets a cent of compensation from the US Government, despite the fact that his website is read by virtually every iranian desk officer in US intell. Gary is going quietly broke, and will go under unless he gets some financial sponsors from private individuals.

Another quiet hero of mine is Eric Shawn. His new book, "The U.N. Exposed" does just that. The problem of indifference is not confined to American bureacrats, it is endemic at the international level. Still, somehow, we will muddle through. Perhaps because we have such people as Dave, Ryan and Eric who fight for the truth. They are the kind of people who still believe in the meaning behind the words inscribed on the wall at the CIA: "Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free."



It has been my honor to be in their company.




FP: And it has been an honor for me to be in your gentlemen's company. Dave Gaubatz, Ryan Mauro and John Loftus, thank you for joining Frontpage Symposium.

 

[busybody..]

What Happened to Those Chemical Weapons?

We now what happened to some of them, at least, because of a Project Harmony document translated by Joseph Shahda. The document is dated September 2002, six months before the Iraq war began. If I'm not mistaken, it is addressed to Uday Hussein himself, and it concerns a quantity of chemical weapons (or the materials for such weapons) that were buried to preserve them from discovery by U.N. inspectors, and apparently forgotten:

In the Name of God The Most Compassionate The Most Merciful The Republic of Iraq The Presidency of the Republic Saddam Feedayeens Secretariat The Supervisor of Saddam Feedayeens
2002/9

The Respected Supervisor of Saddam Feedayeens
Subject: Information
Salute and regards Sir

We received information that state the following:

1. A team from the Military Industrialization Commission when Hussein Kamel Hussein was conducting his responsibilities did bury a large container said that it contains a Chemical Material in the village (Al Subbayhat) part of the district of Karma in Fallujah in a quarry region that was used by SamSung Korean company and close to the homes of some citizens.

2. The container was buried using a fleet of concrete mixers.

3. Before the departure of the international inspectors in 1998 a United Nations helicopter flew over the region for two hours.

4. A large number of the region residents know about this container from the large number of machines used to hide it then.

5. It was noticed a non ordinary smell in the region.

6. No official visited the burial site through out the years which give the impression that it is not currently known by the Military Industrialization Commission.

7. Positions for the air defense were digged in the region that surrounds the quarry place without them knowing anything about the container. Also next to it are important headquarters like (Saddam factories-The warehouses of the Commerce ministry- Headquarters of Mujaheeden Khlaq).

Please your Excellency review and order what is appropriate Sir… With regards

Signature
General
Moohsen Abdel Karim Mahmood
General Relations

15/9/2002


The CIA describes Iraq's Military Industrialization Commission as "the key organization through which WMD activities were funneled under Husayn Kamil." It seems clear that the chemicals in question were buried to preserve them for future use after U.N. inspections had terminated. If the writer of this letter was correct, and MIC had forgotten the existence of this particular site, a logical inference would be that this was one of a number of instances where the Iraqi government buried chemical weapons underground, rather than destroying them as it claimed to have done.

We don't know yet what Uday Hussein ordered done with this particular cache, if anything. Nor do we know whether the chemicals are still there. And, of course, it is always possible that the intelligence related in the letter could be incorrect, even though the letter on its face seems credible. But this document appears to provide at least a partial answer to the question of what happened to the substantial volume of chemical weapons that the U.N. reported as unaccounted for.

The further question, of course, is what ultimately happened to this and, presumably, other buried caches? Are they still there? Were they dug up and moved? Or destroyed? Destruction seems the least likely alternative; why would Saddam's regime go to the trouble of digging up the chemicals and destroying them (as it claimed to have done years earlier) without taking credit for it with the U.N.? But if the chemicals were still there as of late 2002, why weren't they used in the ensuing war?

As we've said before, no single document or handful of documents will answer the important questions that still exist regarding Iraq's WMD programs. But this one seems particularly significant.

 

[busybody..]

translation of a Project Harmony document that I don't believe has previously been disclosed. The document is a set of written notes taken by an Iraqi intelligence agent on a 1999 meeting between Saddam Hussein's Vice-President, Taha Yassin Ramadan, and Maulana Fazlur Rahman, a Pakistani cleric who was a key mentor to the Taliban, who at that time ruled Afghanistan and harbored Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda. Rahman was a good friend of Mullah Omar, the head of the Taliban, and apparently was sent as an emissary to enlist Saddam's help with regard to Russia.

The memo is interesting in its entirety, but this passage stands out:

Fazlur Rahman: Gwadar is the shortest road for them and we spoke with the Afghani government. I met Mullah Omar the leader of Afghanistan and he welcomed the establishment of Islamic relations with Iraq and we foresee to tell them about our needs and they would like to have contacts with Russia but they feel that the Russians (unclear) with Afghanistan, they go to America (RR: probably means that the Russians side with the US against the Taliban). ... They (RR: probably the Taliban) want Iraq to intervene with Russia.
Fazlur Rahman says that he wants to meet Saddam Hussein, but the memo does not disclose whether anything came of this. What it appears to show clearly is that the Taliban (and, by extension, al Qaeda) was looking to Iraq for help, and was happy to establish "Islamic relations" with Iraq. Which further refutes the dogma that Saddam's ostensibly secular regime couldn't have cooperated with Islamic extremists like the Taliban and al Qaeda.

 

[busybody..]

Was Saddam Regime a Broker for Terror Alliances?

Sunday , June 25, 2006

Ray Robison




Prologue | Translation | Analysis | Epilogue

Prologue:

Newly declassified documents captured by U.S. forces indicate that Saddam Hussein's inner circle not only actively reached out to the Taliban rulers of Afghanistan and terror-based jihadists in the region, but also hosted discussions with a known Al Qaeda operative about creating jihad training "centers," possibly in Baghdad.

Ray Robison, a former member of the CIA-directed Iraq Survey Group (ISG), supervised a group of linguists to analyze, archive and exploit the hundreds of captured documents and materials of Saddam's regime.

This is the final installment in a three-part series concerning a notebook kept by an Iraqi Intelligence Service (IIS) agent called Khaled Abd El Majid, and covers events taking place in 1999. The translation is provided by Robison's associate, known here as “Sammi.”

The first two translations from this notebook detailed an agreement between members of the Saddam regime and the Taliban to establish diplomatic and intelligence based cooperation. This final translation further advances the link between the Saddam regime and world-wide Islamic Jihad terrorism.

Click here for more on Ray Robison and the Saddam Dossier

The relationship between the Taliban and Saddam appears to have been mediated by a Pakistani named Maulana Fazlur Rahman. Another document captured in Afghanistan and written by an Al Qaeda operative confirms the relationship between the Maulana and Saddam. The translation provided here includes an early 1999 meeting between the director of the IIS and the Maulana.

Another notebook entry records a meeting with Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, an Afghani Islamic Jihadist and leader of the Islamic Party in Afghanistan. Hekmatyar made news recently with the BBC article Afghan Rebel’s pledge to al-Qaeda that reports on a video statement from Hekmatyar in which he states he will fight alongside A Qaeda. In this translation, Hekmatyar makes specific requests for a “center” in Baghdad and/or Tajikistan.

A third meeting involves an Islamist representing Bangladesh that we believe to be Fazlur Rahman Khalil. Another page of the notebook indicates Khalil is coming or came to Iraq. Khalil is a Taliban/Al Qaeda associate who signed the 1998 fatwa from Usama bin Laden declaring war on the United States.

Editor's notes: "Sammi" puts translation clarifications in parenthesis. Robison (RR) uses parenthesis for clarification and bold-face type for emphasis.

Translation:

Translation for ISGP-2003-0001412 follows (PDF):

Page 70, Left Side:

Saturday 3/20 at 11:45

Met with him Mr. MS4 (translator’s note: MS4 is the code name for the high ranking IIS official).

1. Intelligence and security cooperation.

2. Mr. MS4 informed him that the Iraqi president and Iraqi leadership are interested in him.

3. “We are ready to help you in any country and against your enemies”. (translator’s note: most probably this is MS4)

4. Fadlul Haq - The governor of Peshawar that was assassinated.

(translator’s note: points 5 and 6 are direct quotes from the Afghani)

5. “We are facing a vicious international plot against the Islamic Party and cannot find any country to help us at the time being”.

6. “Iran helped us at the beginning and we brought 2,000 fighters but things changed at the time being. Also the Russians called to help but we do not trust them. Moscow and Iran want the war to drag on.” (RR: this is probably the Taliban vs. Northern Alliance conflict). This is why he is coming to Baghdad for help. Asked Baghdad to help open a center in Tajikistan or in Baghdad and they will bring them (translator’s note: not clear what them refers to) in through Iran or Northern Iraq.

He asked for help in printing Afghani money in Baghdad or help in printing it in Moscow.

Page 69, Right Side:

Stinger missiles have a range of 5 kilometers. (translator’s note: there is only this one sentence on this page)

Page 69, Left Side:

Meeting of MS4 with 6951 on 4/10 at 8 p.m. in room 710.

He (6951) inquired about our relation with Usama (bin Laden).

(translator’s note: The Iraqi answer is not reported.).

He (6951) proposed to the Taliban to form a front with Iraq, Libya and Sudan.

He met some of them in Hajj (Translator’s note: Pilgrimage to Mecca in Saudi Arabia, it is one of the five pillars of Islam) and he came to the conclusion that they do not know anything about Foreign Relations.

The Taliban defense minister is Abdul Razzak (unclear) Association of Muslim Clerics.

They openly claim that they are against America.

He said that he was ready to build relations between the Taliban and Iraq.

(translator’s note: meeting continues on both sides of page 68/76, with questions about Pakistani politics and the other Islamic parties.) The Iraqi official says, “I suggest that the parties come closer together because that means power to Islam against the American and Zionist policies”.

Page 39, Left Side:

Meeting with an Islamist leader from Bangladesh. He promises support to Iraq. He says: “Let them know that I made Bangladesh a second country to Mr. President and we have 125 million (people).” (RR: Although no name is given for this meeting, it is important to note Fazlur Rahman Khalil, noted for meeting with Iraqi officials in the previous article, signed the 1998 fatwa as “Fazlur Rahman, Amir of the Jihad Movement in Bangladesh”. This is a strong indication that this meeting is with Khalil or his representative.)

Page 27, Left side:

(translator’s note: contains notes with information on prior meetings recorded in the notebook.)

The mentioned person (Translator’s note: Fazlur Rahman) arrived to the country on 11/27/1999 and he was hosted in Al Rachid Hotel suite number 526. He will leave on 12/1/1999.

(translator’s comment: note No. 1 in a list of notes.)

He visited Iraq on the beginning of April 1999 and the ex-director of the intelligence, may God rest his soul, instructed him to mediate between the Taliban and the leader of the Afghani Islamic party, Hekmatyar following the request for mediation done by Hekmatyar to the leadership of Iraq during a visit when they met us on 3/19/1999.

End Translation

Analysis:

Because Arabic writing is right to left, the pages in this notebook go in reverse chronological order. The note on page 27 indicates that Hekmatyar met with the IIS on March 19, 1999. The translation of page 70 is dated March 20 and it refers to someone from the Islamic Party, which is Hekmatyar’s group. Therefore it makes sense that the meeting on page 70 is with Hekmatyar.

The note on page 27 also says the meeting was with the director if the IIS, so we believe MS4 is his code-name. It appears that Hekmatyar, a jihadist leader warring with the Taliban for control of Afghanistan at the time, asked Baghdad “to help open a center in Tajikistan or in Baghdad and they will bring them (translator’s note: not clear what them refers to) in through Iran or Northern Iraq.” There is a strong indication that this requested “center” is a jihadist training camp.

From a US Department of State report Patterns of Global Terrorism, 1996:

Gulbuddin Hekmatyar … maintained training and indoctrination facilities in Afghanistan, mainly for non-Afghans. They continue to provide logistic support and training facilities to Islamic extremists despite military losses in the past year. Individuals who trained in these camps were involved in insurgencies in … Tajikistan…

It looks very much like Hekmatyar, a long-time jihad leader and recently self-identified Al Qaeda associate, is asking the Saddam regime for a jihad training camp in Tajikistan and/or Baghdad.

Page 27 tells us that the Maulana Fazlur Rahman was meeting with the IIS Director in early April. The meeting on page 69 fits the time frame, has the code for the IIS director, and the guest speaks for the Taliban indicating that “6951” is the Maulana. According to these notes, the Maulana “proposed to the Taliban to form a front with Iraq, Libya and Sudan.” He also enquires about the IIS relationship to Usama bin Laden.

In researching the Maulana, a third document has been found that demonstrated the relationship between Saddam and the Maulana. The document which appears to be an IIS memo also mentions a relationship with Hekmatyar. There is no government authentication of the document. Because this document matches closely with what we find in the IIS agent notebook we will reference it so that the reader may decide.

The article entitled Exclusive: Saddam Possessed WMD’s, Had Extensive Terror Ties states:

A senior government official who is not a political appointee provided CNSNews.com with copies of the 42 pages of Iraqi Intelligence Service documents. The originals, some of which were hand-written and others typed, are in Arabic. CNSNews.com had the papers translated into English by two individuals separately and independent of each other.

The CNS report includes a translation of a memo from the IIS to Saddam. The memo is dated January 25, 1993. The subject is IIS influence with two groups: the JUI, led by Maulana Fazlur Rahman; and, the Afghani Islamic Party led by Hekmatyar. These are the same two men meeting with the IIS in Baghdad in 1999, according to the notebook.

The document states that the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (JUI) depended upon Pakistani support as well as foreign help from Iraq and Libya. It also mentions that the secretary general of the JUI has had a good relationship with the IIS since 1981, and that he is “ready for any mission”.

The IIS document reported on by CNS News also states that the Islamic Party of Hekmatyar relies on Iraqi funding. It says the relationship has existed since 1989 and has improved under Hekmatyar’s leadership. Although this document has not yet been validated by the U.S, government, we can see very specific information, not publicly available before 2004, that matches what we find in the IIS notebook. It indicates a long history of Saddam regime support to Islamic jihad groups, and that the IIS considers them organizations that will take on missions for Iraq’s interests.

Epilogue:

Let’s review what we have learned from the IIS notebook.

• We learned that in 1999 the IIS met with three significant leaders of Islamic jhad from Afghanistan: a warlord and Islamic jihadist; an Al Qaeda leader; and, a man known as the “Father of the Taliban.”

• The Saddam regime and Taliban leadership agreed to diplomatic ties and a secret intelligence service relationship. They discussed security cooperation with Hekmatyar’s Islamic Jihad group. The Taliban representative also agreed to support the Saddam regime in Pakistan’s North-West Frontier, a region sympathetic to and actively involved with the Taliban, Al Qaeda, and the world-wide Islamic jihad movement. An Islamist, most likely the Al Qaeda and Taliban affiliated Fazlur Rahman Khalil, promised the support of Bangladesh.

• We see a request to the Saddam regime for a training center in Baghdad or Tajikistan from a jihad leader accused by the U.S. State Department during the Clinton Administration of running Islamic extremist training camps.

• There is a discussion about transporting something into these centers, including a discussion that appears to mention surface-to-air missiles.

• And, we have numerous statements of Islamic fidelity between Afghani jihad leaders and the Saddam regime, with many statements of mutual animosity towards the United States and intent to cooperate.

This notebook thus provides significant evidence that the Saddam regime collaborated with and supported Islamic jihad elements in Afghanistan at a time when the Taliban and Al Qaeda were attacking United States citizens and their interests and plotting the 9/11 attacks.

In this notebook, we see a Saddam Hussein actively seeking to expand his sphere of influence in a region at the heart of the world-wide Islamic jihad movement.

This now-public relationship between Maulana Fazlur Rahman and Saddam Hussein deserves great scrutiny.

As we researched the Maulana, a picture came into focus that our team was not looking to find: The Maulana is a senior leader of an affiliation of Pakistani groups supportive of Islamic jihad. These groups include the JUI and the Jamaat Islami (JI). The JUI provided direct support to both the planner and paymaster of the 9/11 attacks. The Pakistani government accused the JI of working with Al Qaeda. The Maulana mediated an intelligence pact between the IIS and the Taliban.

Clearly, this evidence indicates that the Maulana was in a position to procure assistance from Iraq for the 9/11 attacks.

Dr. Laurie Mylroie, an expert on Iraq, testified in front of the 9/11 commission in 2003:

After al Qaeda moved to Afghanistan, Iraqi intelligence became deeply involved with it, probably, with the full agreement of Usama bin Ladin. Al Qaeda provided the ideology, foot soldiers, and a cover for the terrorist attacks; Iraqi intelligence provided the direction, training, and expertise…

This notebook demonstrates that Islamic jihad leaders in Afghanistan were seeking IIS assistance and Saddam was giving them that assistance.

The author welcomes your comment on the translation and analysis of this document. You can contact Ray Robison by emailing him at: saddamdossier@gmail.com.

 

[busybody..]

It can NEVER EVER be argued again

there were NO WMDs and that they are NOT finding more all the time in Iraq

Saddam’s WMD: Discovery and Denial
June 28th, 2006



Last week, Senator Rick Santorum and Rep. Pete Hoekstra revealed declassified portions of a report by the National Ground Intelligence Center (NGIC) that said Coalition forces in Iraq have recovered several hundred munitions containing degraded mustard or sarin nerve agent. The report also stated that “filled and unfilled pre-Gulf War chemical munitions are assessed to still exist.”

Now that our units in Iraq have discovered the smoking gun that the left has seemingly wanted for the past three years, they have shifted the goalposts again. And one more time, the facts of Saddam’s WMD must be presented to the American people to counter the lies of the media, and regrettably, some people in our own government agencies.

The left and their allies in the press are apparently too dense to understand the significance of the Coalition previously finding biological agent seed cultures, several hundred tons of purified nuclear material, and tons of chemical weapon (CW) precursors. But this entire controversy has never been about the weapons themselves, the age of the munitions, or the media promoted fantasy of pallets of chemical rounds ready to be loaded into Iraqi artillery pieces. From the beginning it has been about the campaign of disinformation and deception of the antique media and the shadow government within our intelligence agencies to discredit the administration in a time of war.

The SecState and Pre-war Intelligence

A typical response to the NGIC report on these chemical weapons is found in a piece by Dafna Linzer in the Washington Post. After briefly covering Santorum’s and Hoekstra’s news conference, Linzer quotes the proverbial unnamed “intelligence officials” who said that these,

…shells were old and were not the suspected weapons of mass destruction sought in Iraq after the 2003 invasion.

This is a false statement and in fact, directly contradicts publicly divulged US and European pre-war intelligence estimates as stated by both the President in his 2003 State of the Union address, and former Secretary of State Colin Powell’s speech before the UN a little over a week later.

According to the US and the UN, the age of the weapons was immaterial. The primary issue has always been one of accountability. The weapons and banned material either had to have been verified as destroyed or be made available for inspection and inventory by UN agencies. Since Saddam actively resisted the inspectors, and then later kicked them out of Iraq, Powell was obligated to present to the UN key intelligence assessments about the unknown status of Iraq’s chemical weapons:

• Saddam Hussein has never accounted for vast amounts of chemical weaponry: 550 artillery shells with mustard, 30,000 empty munitions and enough precursors to increase his stockpile to as much as 500 tons of chemical agents. [Emphasis mine]

• If we consider just one category of missing weaponry—6,500 bombs from the Iran-Iraq war—UNMOVIC says the amount of chemical agent in them would be in the order of 1,000 tons

• We know that Iraq has embedded key portions of its illicit chemical weapons infrastructure within its legitimate civilian industry. [Emphasis mine] Illicit and legitimate production can go on simultaneously; or, on a dime, this dual-use infrastructure can turn from clandestine to commercial and then back again.

Because of the NGIC report, we now know that Powell’s number of 550 unaccounted for CW rounds was amazingly accurate. Coupled with previous reporting on precursors and on accounts provided by Ken Timmerman, who could now logically contradict Powell’s pre-war intelligence on CW? Ironically, the people who most regret the information provided during the speech are Powell himself and his former military aide. Somebody had better give them a call and tell them that at least on the CW intelligence portion of his speech, Powell was right.

Coalition Forces and Chemical Weapons

What is surprising in the wake of the report is that the military leadership seems to have joined the “nothing to see here” crowd, even though it has been Army and Marine units in Iraq that have done the heavy lifting in uncovering Saddam’s CW. Almost from the very start of Operation Iraqi Freedom Coalition troops discovered CW precursors co-located with military ordnance yards or in ammo dumps. These finds included huge warehouses and caches of “commercial and agricultural” chemicals, including 55 gallon drums buried in bunkers six feet underground. Notably, this is another instance where the former SecState’s assessment has been proven true.

Tests performed on these substances by chemical warfare specialists produced positive results for sarin, cyclo-sarin, and mustard agents. But later, the ISG pronounced all of the military’s tests as flawed, and the CW uncovered as inconsequential. Meanwhile, the media and the ISG focused on the technical minutiae of Powell’s data on mobile bio-war labs to divert attention from the significance of our troops’ discoveries.

As the NGIC report shows, units continued to turn up large amounts of chemical munitions whose potency could last for well over 20 years. Yet, in response to the potential force protection problems should these rounds ever be used against our troops, the Coalition command in Iraq has seemingly adopted the ISG’s tactics of minimization and disinformation. Major William Willhoite, a spokesman for Multi-National Forces-Iraq (MNF-I) stated

No old chemical weapons have yet been rigged to improvised explosive devices used by Iraq’s insurgents. “We have never had an IED utilizing anything but conventional munitions,”

The good Major is either not very well read or he has completely ignored open source civilian and military accounts of our forces’ encounters with WMD since the end of major combat operations:

• In May of 2004, elements of the 1st Cavalry Division encountered a 155mm binary chemical artillery shell wired as an IED http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,120268,00.html. The round exploded before it could be rendered safe exposing two US soldiers to the deadly nerve agent, who then displayed the classic symptoms of sarin exposure: dilated pupils and nausea. Later tests confirmed that the shell contained three to four liters of sarin.

• On May 2, 2004, a 155mm shell filled with mustard agent was discovered; this one also rigged as an IED. In keeping with the tradition of dismissing Coalition forces recovering WMDs, ISG testing concluded that the mustard gas was “stored improperly” and was thus “ineffective.”

• Later in May, the 1st Cavalry Division again discovered CW when Troop D, 9th Cavalry Regiment seized over forty 155mm artillery rounds suspected of containing a chemical warfare agent because they were leaking an unknown substance.

• And finally last August, US troops raided a warehouse in Mosul and discovered a chemical weapons factory containing 1,500 gallons of 11 different chemical agent precursors. A military spokesman said that the facility was a new one that was established after the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

And before all of these incidents, in January of 2004, Danish forces in Southern Iraq discovered 120mm mortar shells with a mysterious liquid inside that initially tested positive for blister agents. Further tests by the ISG were, of course, negative.

In many ways, the effort to publicize declassified portions of the NGIC report is similar to the Weekly Standard’s fight with the DIA to release tens of thousands of unclassified documents seized after OIF. But as Santorum and Hoekstra point out (sign-in required), this episode of obstructing the requests of our lawmakers occurred because elements within our own intelligence community deliberately abused their classification authority to withhold open source information about discoveries of Saddam’s chemical weapons.

Keep in mind that there is a lot more material left to be “declassified.”

The White House is also downplaying the NGIC report, and has for years avoided talking about open source reports on uncovering WMDs that essentially prove one of its reasons for invading Iraq. Quite possibly they have realized that making the case for war focusing on disarming Saddam of his WMDs was unwise given the inherent imperfections of intelligence collection and analysis, and, as it turns out, the presence of an embedded opposition in both the intelligence and military bureaucracies.

By trumpeting the WMD “stockpile” image, the left and the media could bend and shape public opinion when the imagined stacks of chemical munitions out in the open failed to quickly materialize. It was holding the President and our units in the field to a standard that they could not possibly meet, especially when the factual accounts concerning CW finds quickly fell into the memory hole thanks to a compliant press establishment.

Ultimately though, I believe the specifics of the “slam dunk” on Saddam’s WMD will largely be proven true thanks to the hard work of men like Santorum and Hoekstra and of course, with thanks to our courageous men and women fighting in the War on Terror.

Douglas Hanson is the National Security Correspondent of the American Thinker.