Originally posted by GScholz
... and was WIDELY believed to possess the kind of wewapons ...
Believed ... not known. I kinda like to know I'm right before starting killing people.
"... and who had displayed an open willingness to deal with terrorists."
I'd like you to elaborate on that please.
I am glad you guys live in a black and white world. Unfortunately, the rest of us don't and we have to do the best we can with the grey areas.
[NB] this will take two posts because of the HUGE AMOUNT of public source inforation linking SH and UBL!
Ask and you
and Nash shall receive:
Bin Laden Linked to Saddam Hussein.
The September 11 attacks in the United States were carried out by operatives of Osama bin Laden's Al-Qaida organization, but the initial plans for the terrorist attack were made in Baghdad six years ago.
Iraqi intelligence trained at least two of bin Laden‘s suicide pilots on Boeing jetliners the Iraqis captured during the Gulf war. The Iraqis provided several of bin Laden‘s men with forged passports and vials of anthrax, which were delivered to one of the suicide pilots, Mohammad Atta, during secret meetings in Prague.
Although the religious extremist and the extreme nationalist are polar opposites politically, international terrorist Osama bin Laden and Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein long ago set aside their differences to meet a common goal. The tragic events of September 11 mark only the first phase in their joint effort to enact revenge on their many common enemies in both the Western and the Islamic worlds.
Mohammad Atta and His Iraqi Handlers
Al-Qaida terrorist Mohammad Atta, who hijacked and piloted American Airlines flight 11 into the World Trade Center in September, met often with Iraqi intelligence officers. He met at least twice with Ahmad Khalil Ibrahim Samir al-Ani, a known Iraqi intelligence officer who worked in the Iraqi Embassy in Prague under diplomatic cover. Atta went to Prague from Hamburg by bus on June 2, 2000, to meet with al-Ani. The next day Atta left for the United States, where he enrolled in a flight school in Florida. Atta then returned to Prague in April 2001 to once again meet with al-Ani. In April, 2001 Czech authorities forced al-Ani to leave the country for "activities incompatible with his diplomatic status," a euphemism for espionage. (See footnotes 1, 2, 3)
Atta's connection to the Iraqis predates those meetings by at least a year, when he and fellow hijacker Marwav Jussuf al-Shehhi roomed together in Hamburg, Germany. Czech authorities say that Atta is believed to have also met with Farouq Hijazi in the spring of 2001. Hijazi is Iraq‘s ambassador to Turkey and a former general in the intelligence service. Hijazi is Saddam Hussein‘s personal liaison with bin Laden and is reportedly the man who as early as 1995 came up with the plan to destroy the World Trade Center with hijacked airliners. (See footnotes 4, 5, 6)
Among the items given to Atta by the Iraqi officers was a packet of documents that included at least one forged passport. German investigators believe that Atta also received at least one vial of anthrax. Atta is believed to have taken that anthrax with him to the United States. He reportedly gave it to other members of the Al-Qaida network to use in the ongoing terrorist campaign to distribute the deadly substance through the U.S. mail system. (7)
Anthrax Marked With Iraqi Signature
Various samples of the anthrax that were found in Washington contain traces of silicia and bentonite, substances that were added to anthrax spores to help keep the tiny particles separated and floating in the air so that their intended victims can more easily inhale them. Former United Nations biological arms inspector Timothy Trevan says that Iraqi scientists routinely used bentonite to enhance the effectiveness of their anthrax weapons. The anthrax that has shown up in the United States is of the Ames-type strain, samples of which were provided to Iraq for use in developing antidotes to anthrax bacteria, which often affect cattle. (1)
A growing amount of evidence shows that Iraq intelligence may have played a key role in the bin Laden organization‘s September 11 terror attacks and in the spread of anthrax in the United States. Evidence connecting the two organizations has been published in the world press for at least six years. (1, 8)
Saddam and Osama: A Long History
Former Iraqi official Ahmed Allawi, now a leader of the Iraqi National Council, said in 1999, "There is a long history of contacts between the Mukhabarat (Iraqi secret service) and Osama bin Laden." Allawi said then that the alliance between Al-Qaida and Iraqi intelligence developed over the years. (8)
Saddam Hussein, by far a devout Muslim, actively and aggressively courted Osama bin Laden. This was not an easy task, as Saddam Hussein has murdered thousands of Iraqis who shared bin Laden‘s goal of establishing governments based on his version of the Islamic Shari‘a legal codes. The Iraqi leader, however, was able to lure bin Laden by offering him access to specialized training and weaponry that Al-Qaida could not acquire themselves. That training includes using captured Kuwaiti Boeing 707 airliners to practice hijacking techniques, and the weaponry includes significant amounts of at least one biological warfare toxin: anthrax. (See footnotes 9, 10, 11)
August Terrorist Convention in Baghdad
On August 19 Saddam Hussein opened his fifth annual conference of resistance organizations in Baghdad. The guests of honor represented some of the most notorious and violent terrorist groups. Among with Iraq‘s top intelligence officers during the three days of speeches and meetings were representatives from Islamic Jihad, the Palestinian Hamas, the radical Egyptian Gamaa al-Islamiya and Osama bin Laden‘s Al-Qaida organization. In the audience were more than 100 known terrorists from groups as distant and as diverse as Somalia, the Philippines and Bangladesh. (12)
Amidst chants of "Down with America" and "Down with Israel," Saddam told the gathering of urban guerrillas, assassins, hijackers and bomb-makers that their time of vengeance was close at hand. Three weeks later, 19 members of bin Laden‘s Al-Qaida hijacked four American airliners to launch the suicide attacks that took the lives of thousands of people in New York alone. Of that number, many were foreign nationals from 80 countries. Ten were French citizens. Many more died at the Pentagon and in Pennsylvania. (See footnotes 12, 20)
The Alliance of Vengeance
Baghdad is a second home to many of the world‘s leading terrorist groups. Carlos the Jackal, Abu Nidal and other infamous terrorists of the 1970s and 1980s found refuge and financial support in Saddam Hussein‘s Iraq. During the 1990-1991 Gulf war, Iraq recruited, supported, funded, armed and trained numerous radical Palestinian and Arab terrorist organizations. Saddam openly encouraged them to commit acts of violence against the nations of the allied coalition that opposed him. (12)
Many of the key leaders of those groups were former "Afghan Arabs," volunteers from the Muslim world who, like Osama bin Laden, had fought against the Soviet occupation forces in Afghanistan. After the Gulf war, many of those terrorists who were based in Iraq sought sanctuary in the only country that remained allied to Saddam during that conflict: Sudan. Bin Laden also found refuge in Sudan, which remained his base and a magnet for his fellow "Afghan Arabs" until 1996.
Iraqi intelligence officers frequently met with Afghan Arabs and Sudanese government leaders in Sudan in the early 1990s. It was there that Iraqi intelligence and what would become the Al-Qaida first learned of each other‘s capabilities. (12)