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Yes, Iraq Had Unsettling al Qaida Connections

Nicholas M. Guariglia - 5/4/2008

The proposition that Iraq, prior to our intervention, never had a connection to al Qaida, or to any jihadist movement in a broader sense, has prematurely congealed into conventional wisdom. Nevertheless, this exemption of the Hussein family is fallacious and untrue. It would be appropriate if we can look at the history and information we have — the known knowns, let’s say — in an empirical and apolitical manner, separating this discussion from the debate as to whether or not any of this merited war.

That is a separate opinion and another topic. With that said, until I hear a conclusive argument otherwise, I will consider the issue of Iraq’s sponsorship of terrorism a dead horse which requires continued beating.

This is the kind of stuff that is made up of scrambled captured data and thousands of pages of government documents, many of which have yet to be translated. So it may be best to keep it at the theoretical:

What do we know about collaboration?

We know that, despite continued insistence by some Czech officials, contrary evidence pretty much cements that the Atta-Prague story — where the lead 9/11 hijacker supposedly met with Iraqi intelligence agents prior to the attacks — is false. Iraq, we can positively claim, had nothing to do with the events of that day.

We know that the 9/11 Commission, which has been trumpeted as the end all-be all regarding this issue, states “to date we have seen no evidence that (earlier Iraq-al Qaida contacts) ever developed into a collaborative operational relationship.” The findings continue, “Nor have we seen evidence indicating that Iraq cooperated with al Qaida in developing or carrying out any attacks against the United States.”

Let’s concede these points. Three counterpoints arise, however. Firstly, it should be noted that it was always unclear whether or not al Qaida’s relationship with the Ba’athist government (which it distrusted immensely) had reached a collaborative level; secondly, it should be noted that al Qaida is unique amongst the world’s terrorist networks in that it has few, if not zero, “collaborative” and “operational” relationships with other states and regimes (including their long-time patrons and ideological clones, the Islamists in Sudan and the Salafist Taliban guerrillas); and thirdly, the entire premise behind preemptive/preventative intervention is to prevent such collaboration.

Yet what does the 9/11 Commission report say about the relationship?

Some cite this testimony and are acute in washing their hands of the issue. “Iraq never attacked us, never worked with al Qaida, end of story,” the reasoning goes. But there is more to it than meets the eye. In the same 9/11 Commission report which discounts a collaborative link, there is recognition of long-held attempts by both parties to cooperate against common opponents.
During his time in Sudan, we know that bin Laden himself “met with a senior Iraqi intelligence officer in Khartoum in late 1994… (bin Laden) is said to have asked for space to establish training camps, as well as assistance in procuring weapons, but there is no evidence that Iraq responded to the request,” the report reads. The next few years saw “additional efforts to establish connections,” as bin Laden and Dr. Zawahiri sent out “a number of feelers to the Iraqi regime, offering some cooperation.”

The investigation continues, stating “Hussein’s efforts at this time to rebuild relations with the Saudis… led him to stay clear of bin Laden.” But in mid-1998, “the situation reversed; it was Iraq that reportedly took the initiative.” The report goes on, detailing how in March and July of that year al Qaida operatives met with Iraqi intelligence agents. In 1999, during a period of “strains” with the Taliban, “Iraqi officials offered bin Laden a safe haven in Iraq. Bin Laden declined, apparently judging that his circumstances in Afghanistan remained more favorable than the Iraqi alternative.” Two years later, Kurdish Islamists in Iraq “with bin Laden’s help… reformed into an organization called Ansar al Islam.” Intelligence suggested at the time, and suggests today, that the “Iraqi regime tolerated and may even have helped Ansar al Islam against the common Kurdish enemy,” namely, the other secular Kurdish leaders Jalal Talabani and Masoud Barzani, who were despised equally by the Islamists and the Ba’athists.

What does this all mean?

The point is not that there was any provable impending doomsday on the horizon, or that the Iraqi Ba’athists and the al Qaida chaps were fond of each other. They were not fond of each other, and were ideologically in disagreement, inasmuch as the Ba’athists in Damascus and their Hezbollah surrogates in Beirut, or the Shi’a mullahs in Tehran and their Sunni beneficiaries in Gaza, conjure up diametrical opposition.

The point is simply that those who discount any unsettling link — or worse, and even more irresponsible, discount the possibility that the two entities might curtail their pride, hold their noses, and collude against innocents — ought to be challenged. And they ought to be challenged by sources and references they themselves cite when they assert there was no reason ever to be concerned.

So, there we have it: requests for basing privileges and offers of asylum, each of which were turned down not due to hostility but due to the unfavorable logistics of the moment. One looks at Hussein’s history of offering safe haven to the world’s most wanted men (Abu Nidal, Abu Abbas, etc.), and Iraq’s preponderance to support jihadist groups, affiliated with al Qaida, as far away as Algeria (the GSPC) and the Philippines (the Abu Sayyaf Group), and it should be acknowledged that it was not entirely unreasonable for a statesman to look at Iraq and al Qaida’s unclear relationship and say, “This is as far as it is ever going to get.”