Documents 101

Started a new post on the Saddam docs, and have moved the link to Iraq the Model's translation to this post.

Here's the original doc. The DIA has already concluded this wasn't a smoking gun, since it was presumably part of the initial NIV release. I'm also assuming this letter was destined for Saddam from a Mukhabarat asset written on September 15, 2001. With that in mind here's my two centavos, piece by piece:

1-That Usama Bin Ladin and the Taliban group in Afghanistan are in contact with Iraq and that a group from the Taliban and Usama Bin Ladin's group had conducted a visit to Iraq .

This could be brand new information, or it could be someone saying, "they're on to us/you". US intelligence already believed a Ba'ath official made a trip to Afghanistan to meet with Taliban officials in the late 90s, and this would suggest they returned the favor.

Thing is, the doc is not clear whether they met with Saddam, an emmissary, or perhaps a member of AQ operating in Iraq without Saddam's blessing. However, one would think if a Taliban or AQ bigwig visited Iraq Saddam would have known about it.

2-That America possesses evidence that Iraq and Usama Bin Ladin's group had cooperated to strike targets inside America.

This is indeed interesting, since the "evidence" might be the alleged meeting between Iraqi diplomat al-Ani and Mohammed Atta in Prague. The problem is, George Bush didn't announce that publicly until September 18th. Ergo, if this information was scooped in Afghanistan it suggests the Atta-al-Ani meeting DID occur and was known to AQ members there.

3-Incase Taliban and Usama's group are proven involved in those sabotage operations, it will be possible that America directs strikes at Iraq and Afghanistan.

Again, not conclusive (with the same caveats as in number one), but here's the interesting thing. September 15th was the day Saddam read the first of two 'open letters to America'. Were his letters designed to legitimately deflect attention away from Iraq because they were innocent or to hide his own complicity? In Yossef Bodansky's "the Secret History of the Iraq War" he states that some in Israeli intelligence believed Saddam was just plain nuts, and the long and rambling letters do seem to lend support to that idea. Then again, if he was nuts that seems to provide just as much reason to remove him--especially when everyone including his own generals believed he had WMDs.

4-That the Afghani consular had heard about the Iraq connections with Usama Bin Ladin's group during his presence in Iran.

Where in Iran? If it was Baluchistan, an area hostile to the Iranian Ayatollahs and home territory of first WTC bomber Ramzi Yousef, this might be significant.

If it was in Tehran or other Mullah controlled territory, it could be disinformation designed to help push ahead Bush's attack on Saddam, or perhaps it indicates an Iranian hand in the attack. Consider this:

* On July 26, 2001, an Iranian espionage agent told CIA agents in Baku, Azerbaijan, that Osama bin Laden would attack the United States on 9/11 using six men who had already entered the country via Iran. When pressed for his sources, the agent told them that Iranian intelligence knew all about the plot.

5-In the light of what preceded we suggest writing to the Intentions Committee about the above information

This is ambiguous since it either means they considered themselves busted or they were completely innocent but needed to begin emergency mitigation efforts to address a problem not of their own creation.

Without more details this information this isn't a smoking gun, but it could become one. Let's state for the record what we all know--Iraq's intelligence services did what ALL intel services do--they snooped, spied and tried to manipulate others to their ends. Spies just being spies doesn't justify a war.

However, more documents will hopefully be able to shine light on whether Saddam was purposely tied to AQ or whether AQ was just corresponding with subversives inside the Ba'ath regime for the purposes of toppling it. The latter would implicate Iran, and that's actually a more worrisome thing. For example, will the Mullahs sit by and watch while the translated docs gradually tie them to 9/11, or will they decide to play their cards first?



ABC's AMAZING TURNAROUND 3/17/06

Regarding the document above, ABC tells us it contains "little evidentiary value". While I agree it's inconclusive, Jonathan at Crushliberalism knocks ABC's whiffle ball over the centerfield wall:

Oh, so now we the news-consuming public are supposed to take "unnamed sources" with a grain of salt? The MSM injects information from "unnamed sources" every day, and they expect us to accept their reporting as gospel...often denigrating us for having the temerity to question their "unnamed sources"! Hell, the MSM's "unnamed sources" wind up being partisan hacks who photoshop and forge (using Microsoft Word, no less), yet they tell us how their sources are "unimpeachable", right?

But now that these documents may contain information that shoots their whole "Bush lied" mantra to Hell? Why, it's imperative that we take "unnamed sources" less than seriously! I mean, I'll bet Bushrove McHitlerburton himself pounded these out with Word 2003 (Arabic edition)!

A poster there named Opinionation also makes the great point regarding ABC and Saddam's purported connections to Bin Laden. Remember Sheila MacVicar? I don't recall seeing any disclaimers with her report.


THE ORIENTAL WAY 3/18/06

Luigi from the Hatfill Deception provides a link to a CS Monitor story about Iraq's nefarious dealings in the far east, specifically with the Philippines:

Barzan Ibrahim El Hasan al Tikriti, a former head of Iraq's intelligence agency and senior adviser to Saddam Hussein, hatched a plan to dispatch a mole to Indonesia; suicide bombers to Amman, Jordan; and a woman agent to help with planned attacks in the Philippines, according to an Iraqi defector interviewed by US intelligence.

Barzan's name should ring a bell--he's Saddam's half-brother and one of the biggest disrupters at his trial.

Southeast Asia seems to have more than its share of terrorist connections. Some fun could be had by drawing inferences about all the terrorists who've passed through that area, from the WTC one bomber/planner team Ramzi Yousef and his uncle KSM, to 9/11 hijackers Khalid al Midhar and Nawaf al Hazmi who attended the 9/11 planning conference in Kuala Lumpur, all the way to Murrah Federal Building bomb conspirator Terry Nichols, who frequented the Philippines about the time Yousef was there.

But regarding that 9/11 summit, it's generally understood that an Iraqi named Hikmat Shakir greeted the hijackers at the airport. Andrew McCarthy opined about this a few years back:

Shakir is the Iraqi who got his job as an airport greeter through the Iraqi embassy, which controlled his work schedule. He is the man who left that job right after the Malaysia meeting; who was found in Qatar six days after 9/11 with contact information for al Qaeda heavyweights — including bin Laden's aforementioned friend, Salim — and who was later detained in Jordan but released only after special pleading from Saddam's regime, and only after intelligence agents concluded that he seemed to have sophisticated counter-interrogation training. Shakir is also the Iraqi who now appears, based on records seized since the regime's fall, to have been all along an officer in Saddam's Fedayeen.

New York Times reporter Michael Gordon's recent story about the last days of Saddam focused a lot of attention on the Fedayeen:

The unexpected tenacity of the Fedayeen in the battles for Nasiriya, Samawa, Najaf and other towns on the road to Baghdad was an early indication that the adversary was not merely Saddam Hussein's vaunted Republican Guard.

Moreover, American generals admitted to operating in a fog regarding these guys:

"The Baathist insurgency surprised us and we had not developed a comprehensive option for dealing with this possibility, one that would have included more military police, civil affairs units, interrogators, interpreters and Special Operations forces," said Gen. Jack Keane of the Army

If General Keane thought the insurgency was "Ba'athist" in 2003, is there any evidence the players have changed since Saddam's capture?

All of this circumstantial data tied together appears to be enough evidence to believe that Iraq used Islamic terrorists for their own local, regional and international initiatives. Most likely tied to paramilitary forces and handled through intelligence services, these operators were effectively cloaked. Perhaps Saddam didn't plan 9/11, but there's evidence he knew about it (along with Iran and others) and allowed it to happen. In hindsight, pinching the head off such an beast seems rather prudent.

Yet the American public is largely operating under an assumption that Saddam and the WoT have nothing to do with one another. Bush has never seemed gung-ho to push this information despite all the positives that would seemingly accompany it, not the least of which would be improved morale on the homefront. Maybe that's about to change with the document dump, but one could not be faulted for wondering why it took so long.

SHRINE SUSPECT NABBED IN SWARMER? 3/18/06

According to Iraqi officials, a "ringleader" suspected of being involved in the Golden Mosque attack and the murder of an Iraqi TV reporter has been captured during Operation Swarmer. The AP is reporting the arrest but isn't linking him to the Mosque attack. That's probably smart, since a lot of what we hear from Iraqi spokesmen tends to run a little hot and smokey at times, so some caution is needed.

After the attack Iraqi officials announced that 10 suspects had been arrested, but we've heard nothing since. It's quite possible these suspects fingered the Samarra guys, which prompted the raid. And this statement from al-Jaafari suggested the next attack was just around the corner:

Ibrahim al-Jaafari, described the sweep as a necessary "pre-emptive operation."

Since these suspects were grabbed in the Sunni triangle the liklihood of Iranian involvement surely has decreased. The sweep likely produced the usual AQ suspects, with perhaps a few low-level ringleaders.

Speaking of ringleaders, we haven't heard from this thug in awhile. Wonder how he's feeling these days? Bad health does seem to be a problem with Saddam's former pals of late, yet they always seem to get better. A resiliant bunch, no doubt.

MORE 3/19/06

On this the third anniversary of the beginning of Operation Iraqi Freedom the blog world is now immersed in critiquing/analyzing documents and audio recordings purportedly from the inner workings of Saddam's government. The link to DOCEX is here.

Don't know what the expert consensus is yet, but of the few audio transcripts I've read they almost appear more like political speeches than actual conversations. I think it's possible some of this stuff was deliberate misinformation knowing they might be under surveillance, with a means to convince those listening they only wanted sanctions lowered "for the children", etc. Yeah I know how that sounds. The left could have a field day with such comments and rightfully so--we were the ones pushing for the doc release. "Be careful what you wish for" is still in play here.

For example, surely the Michael Moore set is having fun with this utterance from Izzat al-Douri (speaking to Saddam):

This means our fight will be strong -- it is not a fight because we do not want to fight others. We want to express the truth, which is supported by God. We want to express our freedom, which is supported by God. We want to express our personal rights, which are supported by God. We want to express all the principles God supports. God is stronger than America and the entire globe. We do not want to mass armies and go to fight America.

C'mon, that's a little melodramatic, dontcha think?

It's clear they were most concerned with getting the oil embargo lifted, and were counting on France, Russia and China to this end. As we saw later, they had nefarious reasons for this and really didn't help the children very much. As to the 'biological file' Rolf Ekeus had opened (and the main topic of discussion) the recordings didn't make it very clear whether they were covering a program or just trying to manuever the UNSC members into understanding there wasn't one.

Bottom line so far, unimpressive and inconclusive, just as DIA said.