The Institute for Defense Analyses has just released a new report entitled “Saddam and Terrorism: Emerging Insights from Captured Iraqi Documents”. Through either a master stroke of psychological warfare or bureaucratic inertia, the Pentagon made copies somewhat difficult to obtain and decided not to hold a press briefing. Reporters ill-disposed toward our ouster of Saddam Hussein naturally intuited that the study’s conclusion must have been, in the New York Times’ words, “Oh, By the Way, There Was No Al Qaeda Link” and therefore immediately began publicizing it, without taking the precaution of reading the text first. The Times’s blog based its summary on the left-wing McClatchey Newspapers:
Remember those weapons of mass destruction that could not be found in Iraq? Well, the supposed tight links between Saddam Hussein and the Al Qaeda terrorist network have evaporated aswell. . . .
The study, entitled “Saddam and Terrorism: Emerging Insights from Captured Iraqi Documents,” concludes that while Saddam’s regime provided some support for groups in the Middle East that have been labeled as terrorist, his main efforts were directed against Israel and against groups he considered enemies of his government, including Shiite Muslims, Kurds and Iraqi exiles.
Stephen F. Hayes, who has written about the connection that the Left is at such pains to deny, has done his reading. He’ll have a major article up soon [Update: now on-line]. Meanwhile, readers in search of amusement may want to try to figure out how the report’s executive summary, reproduced below, got transmogrified by a leftist mindset into the soothing snark purveyed by McClatchey and the Times.
The Iraqi Perspectives Project (IPP) review of captured Iraqi documents uncovered strong evidence that links the regime of Saddam Hussein to regional and global terrorism. Despite their incompatible long-term goals, many terrorist movements and Saddam found a common enemy in the United States. At times these organizations worked together, trading access for capability. In the period after the 1991 Gulf War, the regime of Saddam Hussein supported a complex and increasingly disparate mix of pan-Arab revolutionary causes and emerging pan-Islamic radical movements. The relationship between Iraq and forces of pan-Arab socialism was well known and was in fact one of the defining qualities of the Ba’ath movement.
But the relationships between Iraq and the groups advocating radical pan-Islamic doctrines are much more complex. This study found no “smoking gun” (i.e., direct connection) between Saddam’s Iraq and al Qaeda. Saddam’s interest in, and support for, non-state actors was spread across a variety of revolutionary, liberation, nationalist, and Islamic terrorist organizations. Some in the regime recognized the potential high internal and external costs of maintaining relationships with radical Islamic groups, yet they concluded that in some cases, the benefits of association outweighed the risks. A review of available Iraqi documents indicated the following:
- The Iraqi regime was involved in regional and international terrorist operations prior to OPERATION IRAQI FREEDOM. The predominant targets of Iraqi state terror operations were Iraqi citizens, both inside and outside of Iraq.
- On occasion, the Iraqi intelligence servIces directly targeted the regime’s perceived enemies, including non-Iraqis. Non-Iraqi casualties often resulted from Iraqi sponsorship of non-governmental terrorist groups.
- Saddam’s regime often cooperated directly, albeit cautiously, with terrorist groups when they believed such groups could help advance Iraq’s long-term goals. The regime carefully recorded its connections to Palestinian terror organizations in numerous government memos. One such example documents Iraqi financial support to families of suicide bombers in Gaza and the West Bank.
- State sponsorship of terrorism became such a routine tool of state power that Iraq developed elaborate bureaucratic processes to monitor progress and accountability in the recruiting, training, and resourcing of terrorists. Examples include the regime’s development, construction, certification, and training for car bombs and suicide vests in 1999 and 2000.
From the beginning of his rise to power, one of Saddam’s major objectives was to shift the regional balance of power favorably towards Iraq. After the 1991 Gulf War, pursuing this objective motivated Saddam and his regime to increase their cooperation with – and attempts to manipulate – Islamic fundamentalists and related terrorist organizations. Documents indicate that the regime’s use of terrorism was standard practice, although not always successful. From 1991 through 2003, the Saddam regime regarded inspiring, sponsoring, directing, and executing acts of terrorism as an element of state power.
To some minds, I realize, those links just won’t be enough. For those who are determined to believe that a wicked neo-Zionist cabal launched an unjustified war against a peaceable tyrant, no link will ever be enough. No terrorists count except al-Qa’eda, and no association with al-Qa’eda counts unless it includes Saddam’s personal fingerprints on 9/11.
From any rational point of view, the Ba’athist regime’s willingness to aid and abet “a variety of revolutionary, liberation, nationalist, and Islamic terrorist organizations” was a more serious threat to America and the West than a single-minded relationship with al-Qa’eda would have been. The ultimate lesson of “Saddam and Terrorism” is that Iraq was at war with us for over a decade after the Gulf War. The invasion in 2003 was merely our belated recognition of that fact.
Further reading: Eli Lake, “Report Details Saddam's Terrorist Ties”
Stephen F. Hayes, “Saddam’s Dangerous Friends”
Abe Greenwald, “No Smoking Gun – Thankfully”:
Perhaps it’s me, but there seems to be something sloppy about the metaphorical turn of phrase the MSM has been repeating in describing the supposed lack of connection between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda. There is indeed “no smoking gun” in the report recently released by the Institute for Defense Analyses.
And thank God for that. There is, however, a purchased gun, some bullets, a trained shooter, and a plan to kill. “No smoking gun” is what happens when the crime is prevented. “No smoking gun” is exactly the stated outcome the Bush administration was hoping for back in 2003 when making the case for going into Iraq.
Thomas Joscelyn, “Only Connected”:
I think it is worth pointing out that the report ties Saddam’s regime to at least five different al Qaeda associated groups, including two groups that formed the core of al Qaeda.
The Iraqi Intelligence documents discussed in the report link Saddam’s regime to: the Egyptian Islamic Jihad (the “EIJ” is al Qaeda number-two Ayman al Zawahiri's group), the Islamic Group or “IG” (once headed by a key al Qaeda ideologue, Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman), the Army of Mohammed (al Qaeda's affiliate in Bahrain), the Islamic Movement of Kurdistan (a forerunner to Ansar al-Islam, al Qaeda's affiliate in Iraq), and Gulbuddin Hekmatyar (a long-time ally of Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan), among other terrorist groups. Documents cited by the report, but not discussed at length in the publicly available version (they may be in a redacted portion of the report), also detail Saddam’s ties to a sixth al Qaeda affiliate: the Abu Sayyaf group, an al Qaeda affiliate in the Philippines.
Both the EIJ and the IG were early and important core allies for Osama bin Laden as he forged the al Qaeda terror network, which comprises a number of affiliates around the world.
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