Wizblog

Iraq - Al Qaeda Links, Part XXVIII

The 9/11 Commission Report has put to rest several persistent myths propogated by the media and the Mooreites, among them the "no links between Iraq and Al Qaeda" canard. The ever-reliable Stephen Hayes, who has been on this beat for well over a year, shows how the report documents the many contacts, meetings and involvements tying Iraq to Osama bin Laden's group:

Parts of the report and the public statements of commissioners do, however, broaden the public understanding of the Iraq-al Qaeda relationship. Taken together, they render laughable the arguments of those who still maintain there was "no connection."

Of particular interest are assessments of the Clinton administration and former White House counterterrorism official Richard Clarke, whose credibility is reaching Joe Wilson lows. It was Clarke who famously declared on March 21, 2004: "There's absolutely no evidence that Iraq was supporting al Qaeda. Ever."

The report notes that the Clinton Justice Department included the Iraq-al Qaeda connection in its spring 1998 sealed indictment of Osama bin Laden. That indictment came before the al Qaeda attacks on U.S. embassies in East Africa--after which numerous Clinton officials cited an Iraqi connection to the al Shifa pharmaceutical plant in Khartoum, destroyed by the United States in response to those al Qaeda attacks. The relevant paragraph of the indictment reads:

Al Qaeda reached an understanding with the government of Iraq that al Qaeda would not work against that government and that on particular projects, specifically including weapons development, al Qaeda would work cooperatively with the government of Iraq.

According to the 9/11 Commission report, quoting from an email from Clarke to former National Security Adviser Sandy Berger on November 4, 1998:

This passage led Clarke, who for years had read intelligence reports on Iraqi-Sudanese cooperation on chemical weapons, to speculate to Berger that a large Iraqi presence at chemical facilities in Khartoum was "probably the direct result of the Iraq-al Qida (sic) agreement". Clarke added that VX precursor traces found near al Shifa were the "exact formula used by Iraq."

No evidence? Ever?

Here is yet more documentation from the 9/11 Report, in The Weekly Standard. And here's Byron York's summary at NRO.