9/11
Commission: No Link Between
Al-Qaida And Saddam
By Andrew Buncombe
17 June, 2004
The Independent
The
Bush administration's credibility was dealt a devastating blow yesterday
when the commission investigating the attacks of 11 September said there
was no credible evidence that Saddam Hussein's regime had assisted al-Qa'ida
- something repeatedly suggested by the President and his senior officials
and held up as a reason for the invasion of Iraq.
A report by the
independent commission said while there were contacts between Iraq and
al-Qa'ida operatives in the 1990s, it appeared Osama bin Laden's requests
for a partnership were rebuffed. "We have no credible evidence
that Iraq and al-Qa'ida co-operated on attacks against the United States,"
the commission said. It also discounted widespread claims that Mohamed
Atta, the hijackers' ringleader, met an Iraqi intelligence official
in Prague.
The report forced
the Bush administration on to the defensive, as it appeared to undermine
one of its key justifications for the invasion of Iraq.
While Mr Bush has
been forced to admit there was no specific evidence to link Saddam to
11 September, his deputy, Dick Cheney, claimed on Monday that the former
Iraqi leader was "a patron of terrorism [with] long-established
ties with al-Qa'ida''.
Last autumn Mr Cheney
referred to the disputed meeting between Atta and an Iraqi official
in the Czech Republic.
Critics of the White
House say there was a deliberate policy to manipulate public opinion
and create an association between Saddam and the attacks on New York
and Washington. If true, such a plan has certainly been successful:
a poll taken last September by the Washington Post newspaper found 69
per cent of Americans believed that Saddam was involved in the 11 September
attacks.
The Democratic presidential
candidate John Kerry seized on the commission's report last night. "The
administration misled America and the administration reached too far,"
he told Michigan National Public Radio.
The commission's
report - issued at the start of its final two days of public hearings
into the circumstances surrounding the attacks - confirmed that in the
early Nineties al-Qa'ida and Saddam's regime had made overtures to each
other.
In 1994, for instance,
Saddam had dispatched a senior intelligence official to Sudan to meet
Bin Laden, making three visits before he finally met the al-Qa'ida leader.
Bin Laden requested
help to procure weapons and establish training camps but Iraq did not
respond, the report said. There were also reports of contact with Bin
Laden once he moved to Afghanistan in 1996 but these "do not appear
to have resulted in a collaborative relationship". It added: "Two
senior Bin Laden associates have adamantly denied that any ties existed
between al-Qa'ida and Iraq." The commission's report also revealed
that the initial plan for the attack on the US - drawn up by Khalid
Sheikh Mohammed, a senior al-Qa'ida operative who is now in US custody
- envisioned a much broader assault, simultaneously targeting 10 different
US cities on both the east and west coasts.
That expanded target
list included the FBI headquarters in the plot was to have been the
10th plane - on which he which personally have flown. Rather than attacking
a building, Mohammed would have killed all of the male passengers on
board, before contacting media and landing at an airport where he would
have released women and children. He then was to make a speech denouncing
the US. That ambitious plan was rejected by Bin Laden, who gave his
approval to a scaled-back mission involving four planes and costing
as little as between $4-500,000. Mohammed had wanted to use more hijackers
for those planes - 25 or 26, instead of 19. It said at least 10 other
al-Qa'ida operatives who were initially due to participate in the attacks
had been identified. They did not take part in the mission for a variety
of reasons including visa problems and suspicions by airport officials
in the US.
The report also
revealed that the plot was riven by internal dissent, including over
whether to target the White House or the Capitol building that were
apparently not resolved prior to the attacks. Bin Laden also had to
overcome opposition to attacking the US from Mullah Omar, leader of
the former Taliban regime, who was under pressure from Pakistan to keep
al-Qa'ida confined.
The commission confirmed
that al-Qa'ida, though drastically changed and decentralised since 9-11,
retained regional networks that were seeking to attack the US.
"Al-Qa'ida
remains extremely interested in conducting chemical, biological, radiological
or nuclear attacks," said the report. It said that its ability
to conduct an anthrax attack is one of the most immediate threats. The
network may also try to attack a chemical plant or shipment of hazardous
materials, or to use industrial chemicals as a weapon.
The report said
the CIA estimated the network spent $30m a year before September 11
on training camps and terrorist operations. The money was also used
to support the Taliban.