Even stronger evidence emerges Al Qaeda directly tied to Saddam Hussein: Capture of al-Baghdadi leads to new Intelligence on links

by Eric Dondero

Foreign policy experts on the Right and Defense Hawks, have been asserting since the early 2000s, that Saddam Hussein had extensive ties to Al Qaeda and Osama Bin Laden.

Richard Miniter in his 2004 book "The Shadow War: The Untold Story of how Bush is winning the War in Iraq," documented 23 instances of direct cooperation between Al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein. This included: Bin Laden meeting with officers of Iraq's Special Security Organization run by Saddam's son Qusay on at least 8 occaions; an offer of asylym in Iraq made to Bin Laden by a senior Iraqi official who traveled to Kandahar in 1998; and direct communications between Al Qaeda Number Two Ayman al-Zawahiri and Iraqi intelligence in the year leading up to 9/11.

Of course, the most damning evidence of all is the well-known asylum in Iraq granted to Zarcawi by Saddam after his injury in Afghanistan. Writes Miniter:

Wounded in fighting with U.S. forces, he sought medical treatment in Baghdad in May 2002. When al-Zarcawi recovered, he restarted a training camp in northern Iraq. (Ansar al-Islam).

Apart from Miniter's research, a Kurdish newspaper published a letter on its front page in 2008, from Saddam Hussein requesting a meeting with Ayman al-Zwahiri. According to Gateway Pundit:

The letter, which appeared on the paper’s front page, was published by the intelligence apparatus of the Iraqi presidency and discussed an intention to meet with Ayman Al-Zawahiri in order to examine a plan drawn up by the Iraqi presidency to carry out a “revenge operation” in Saudi Arabia.

But none of this was enough for the liberal media and critics of the War in Iraq.

Now it appears, the mother of all smoking guns has arrived, and the Hawks have been vindicated.

The government of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki confirmed last Tuesday, the capture of Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq. (Photo after his capture on bottom). His capture not only marks a major blow to continued threat from Islamist terrorism within Iraq, but a blow as well, to liberal media types, leftwing policy experts, anti-War activists, and even neo-isolationists on the Right, who asserted that no link ever existed.

The evidence coming out since his capture seems to contradict everything that the opponents of the War have been saying for years.

Even the NY Times now admits, if only in passing, that the ties were strong.

From the Times:

al Baghdadi was "a leader of the Sunni insurgency who had been in league with members of Saddam Hussein’s ousted Baath Party."

The article then quotes the Prime Minister's unequivocally asserting:

“This terrorist had deep ties with the former regime and created with its followers a devil’s pact reflected in bloody scenes of carnage involving innocent children and women and the elderly,” Mr. Maliki said.

The issue is particularly pertinent considering the latest attempt by many on the Left to assert that Bush and other administration officials used torture on captured Iraqi regime members, in order, to get them to confess to Saddam's purported ties to Bin Laden and Al Qaeda.

A story in the McClatchy Newspapers by Jonathan S. Landay , dated April 21 asserted the following:

The Bush administration applied relentless pressure on interrogators to use harsh methods on detainees in part to find evidence of cooperation between al Qaida and the late Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein’s regime, according to a former senior U.S. intelligence official and a former Army psychiatrist,” wrote Landay. “Such information would’ve provided a foundation for one of former President George W. Bush’s main arguments for invading Iraq in 2003. In fact, no evidence has ever been found of operational ties between Osama bin Laden’s terrorist network and Saddam’s regime.

Operative phrase - "no evidence ever found."

This led Paul Krugman of the Times to comment in his column:

“Let’s say this slowly: the Bush administration wanted to use 9/11 as a pretext to invade Iraq... So it tortured people to make them confess to the nonexistent link,” he wrote. “There’s a word for this: it’s evil.”

(Source LA Progressive)


Of course, this McClatchy story (and Krugman's column) came out days before the news broke of al-Baghdadi's capture.

Perhaps the real evil is not the former Bush administration, as Krugman asserts. But rather his unwillingness and the unwillingness of others in the liberal media to admit they were wrong.