Saddam Links to 9-11 (merged threads)

Iraq Forum

Planning of the Attack


Lieutenant Colonel Ahmed Hikmat Shakir is listed in the roster of Saddam's Fedayeen (and tied by telephone records to a New Jersey location used in connection with the 1993 World Trade Center bombing). (See "Iraq & Militant Islam" by former U.S. prosecutor, Andrew C. McCarthy, National Review Online, June 01,

2004) Significantly, Shakir's Fedayeen was in charge of Iraq's Salman Pak terrorist training camp where the 9-11 hijackers were trained. According to a post obtained through Saddam's Mukhabarat intelligence service, Shakir was stationed at the Iraqi Embassy in Kuala Lampur at the time of the 9-11 planning session. ("Saddam's Files Show 'Direct' 9/11 Link," May 27, 2004, NewsMax.com, Wall Street Journal.) Ra'ad al-Mudaris, a former Iraqi Intelligence Officer, assigned to the Iraqi embassy in Malaysia, secured Shakir a cover job as a VIP greeter for Malaysian Airlines at Kuala Lampur in August 1999. Al-Mudaris told Shakir when to work and when take a day off. ("The Mother of All Connections," by Stephen F. Hayes & Thomas Joscelyn, Weekly Standard, July 18, 2005 issue.)

Pursuant to al-Mudaris instruction, on or about January 5, 2000, Shakir met Al Qaeda agents al-Midhar and al -Hazmi (who later piloted Flight 77 into the Pentagon on the morning of September 11, 2001). After meeting them at the Kuala Lampur airport, Shakir accompanied them in their car to the Kuala Lampur Hotel for the 9-11 planning session. (See McCarthy, supra, National Review Online, June 01, 2004)

On Sept. 17, 2001, six days after the 9-11 attack, Shakir was arrested in Qatar, at which time he was carrying phone numbers of the 1993 World Trade Center bombers' safe houses and contacts, as well as information relating to Operation Bojinka, a plot devised by Iraqi 1993 trade center bomber Ramzi Yousef that became the blueprint for the 9/11/01 attacks. ("Saddam's Files Show 'Direct' 9/11 Link," May 27, 2004, NewsMax.com, Wall Street Journal.)

Training for the Attack


"Bin Laden sent a delegation of his top Al Qaeda terrorists to Baghdad on April 25, 1998, to attend the grand celebration that week of Saddam's birthday. It was then that Saddam's bloody-minded son Uday agreed to receive several hundred Al Qaeda recruits for terrorist training in techniques unavailable in Afghanistan." ("Press Reported Extensively on Iraq-9/11 Links," NewsMax.com, 9/17/03, Carl Limbacher and NewsMax.com Staff, citing N.Y. Times column by William Safire.)

Documents and photographs recovered by the U.S. military in postwar Iraq, corroborated by Iraqi regime leaders and military leaders, and U.S. officials, show that from 1999 to 2002, under the direction of elite Iraqi military units, Saddam's regime trained some 8,000 terrorists (including terrorists with close ties to al Qaeda) at three camps, in Samarra, Ramadi, and Salman Pak. ("Saddam's Terror Training Camps," by Stephen F. Hayes, Weekly Standard, 01/16/2006.)

The Salman Pak camp is located located 30-40 km (about 21 miles) SE of Baghdad on a peninsula caused by a bend in the Tigris river, approximately five kilometers (km) from the arch located in the town of Salman Pak. "The camp is divided into distinct sections. On one side of the camp young, Iraqis who were members of Fedayeen Saddam are trained in espionage, assassination techniques and sabotage. The Islamic militants trained on the other side of the camp, in an area separated by a small lake, trees and barbed wire." The training ground did not include an air strip, but nevertheless harbored a plane fuselage similar to that of a Boeing 707. The fuselage is clearly visible in photos of the camp taken by US KH-11 reconnaissance satellites. "The militants reportedly spent time training, usually in groups of five or six, around the fuselage of the airplane. There were rarely more than 40 or 50 Islamic radicals in the camp at one time." Despite Saddam's implausible (albeit revealing) claim to UN inspectors that Salman Pak was "an anti-terror training camp for Iraqi special forces," defectors from Iraqi intelligence "stated that they had worked for several years at the secret Iraqi government camp, which had trained Islamic terrorists in rotations of five or six months since 1995. Training activities including simulated hijackings carried out in an airplane fuselage [said to be a Boeing 707] at the camp." ("Edward Jay Epstein’s look into the Salman Pak terrorist training base," http://pierrelegrand.net/, July 21, 2006; see also "Former Iraqi military officers describe highly secret terrorist training facility," http://pierrelegrand.net/, July 3rd, 2006.)

The fact of the plane fuselage in a terror training camp is corroborated first by the photographic evidence. "Given that Salman Pak was not an air base, a Boeing 707 on the ground there would have stood out like a sore thumb. . . . After September 11th, a private US satellite photo company, Space Imaging, went through its archives and found a photo that included a plane parked in the Salman Pak compound." ("Edward Jay Epstein’s look into the Salman Pak terrorist training base," http://pierrelegrand.net/, July 21, 2006.)

In addition to the documentary and photographic evidence found in April, 2003 by invading marines (per General Brooks) and subsequent thereto, the use of the fuselage at Salman Pak for the training of non-Iraqi pan-Islamic terrorists (including Al Qaeda) in hijacking airliners was confirmed, inter alia, by four defectors, two UN inspectors, and a former CIA Director. Defectors included (1) Abu Zeinab al Qurairy (code-name), a colonel with the Iraqi intelligence service Mukhabarat, (2) Sabah Khalifa Khodada Alami, a captain in the Iraqi army (who emigrated to Texas in May, 1999 after working as an instructor for eight years at Salman Pak), (3) a former Iraqi sergeant in the intelligence service who spent nearly five years at the camp, and (4) a lieutenant general, once one of the most senior officers in the Iraqi intelligence service, the Mukhabarat. U.N. inspectors included (1) Charles Duelfer, the former vice chairman of Unscom, the U.N. weapons inspection team, who actually visited the Salman Pak camp several times, (2) Richard Sperzel, former chief of UN biological weapons inspection teams in Iraq. The former CIA Director (Clinton Era) is James Woolsey.

As to the defectors, (1) Al Qurairy stated "that one of the highlights of Salman Pak's six-month curriculum was training to hijack aircraft using only knives or bare hands. Like the Sept. 11 hijackers, the students worked in groups of four or five, he explained." ("Salman Pak: Iraq's Smoking Gun Link to 9-11?," NewsMax.com, Aug. 13, 2002.) (2) Alami described a daily regimen of exercises involving a separate group of non-Iraqis, using a Boeing 707 parked inside the complex, in how to hijack a plane or bus without weapons. ("Edward Jay Epstein’s look into the Salman Pak terrorist training base", July 21, 2006, http://pierrelegrand.net/, citing the Wall street Journal,.) When Alami saw the twin towers fall he thought to himself, "This was done by graduates of Salman Pak." ("Press Reported Extensively on Iraq-9/11 Links," NewsMax.com, 9/17/03, Carl Limbacher and NewsMax.com Staff, citing PBS.) (3) The former Iraqi intelligence service sergeant, recalling his nearly five years at Salman Pak, noted of the Islamic foreigners that "We could see them train around the fuselage," and "could see them practice taking over the plane." ("Salman Pak: Iraq's Smoking Gun Link to 9-11?," NewsMax.com, Aug. 13, 2002.) Finally, (4) the Iraqi Lieutenant General, acknowledged that in 2000 he had been "the security officer in charge of the unit" at Salman Pak and had seen Arab students being taught there how to hijack airliners using a Boeing 707 fuselage. (topic/salman-pak-facility, http://www.answers.com/, citing a PBS special.) He observed that, "We were training these people to attack installations important to the United States." The reason for such training (as he and his men were "repeatedly told"), was that "The Gulf War never ended for Saddam Hussein. He is at war with the United States." ("Salman Pak: Iraq's Smoking Gun Link to 9-11?," NewsMax.com, Aug. 13, 2002; see also "Defectors Cite Iraqi Training for Terrorism," by Chris Hedges, New York Times, November 8, 2001.)

Corroborating the foregoing are the observations of the UN Inspectors. (1) Charles Duelfer, the former vice chairman of Unscom, the U.N. weapons inspection team, actually visited the Salman Pak camp several times. "He saw the 707, in exactly the place described by the defectors," the Observer reported. Duelfer and his team were "of course" unimpressed by the Saddam regime's purported explanation to Unscom that the fuselage was used by police for "counterterrorist training," but instead, "automatically took out the word 'counter'." As Duelfer explained, "I'm surprised that people seem to be shocked that there should be terror camps in Iraq. Like, derrrrrr! I mean, what, actually, do you expect?" ("Salman Pak: Iraq's Smoking Gun Link to 9-11?," NewsMax.com, Aug. 13, 2002.) Deulfer, the former Deputy Head, U.N. Special Commission for Iraq, noted to NPR that, "There were lots of places in Iraq where training of non-Iraqis, or things, which by our lexicon would be considered terrorism, was taking place. That's why Iraq is on the terrorist list. Having a large aircraft, a 707, in a peninsula, completely visible from the air or from satellite, with no airline runways nearby, that's not there by accident." ("Press Reported Extensively on Iraq-9/11 Links," NewsMax.com, 9/17/03, Carl Limbacher and NewsMax.com Staff.) (2) Dr. Richard Sperzel, former chief of United Nations Biological Weapons inspection reported based on their observations, "that he and other UN Team members believed that simulated hijackings were being conducted in the Boeing 707 at Salman Pak before they were expelled in 1998." ("Defectors Cite Iraqi Training for Terrorism," by Chris Hedges, New York Times, November 8, 2001.)

Yet another corroboration came on April 6, 2003, after U.S. Marines overran the super secret Salman Pak facility (which four months earlier the CIA had erroneously dismissed as innocuous). CENTCOM spokesman, Brig. Gen. Vincent Brooks, revealed to reporters that the Iraqis defending the camp against the marines were not run of the mill soldiers. "The nature of the work being done by some of those people we captured, their inferences about the type of training they received, all these things give us the impression that there is terrorist training that was conducted at Salman Pak.". Brooks also added that "some of them come from Sudan, some from Egypt, some from other places . . . It reinforces the likelihood of links between this regime and external terrorist organizations," ("Leakgate, the CIA, Iraq and 9/11," NewsMax.com Staff, Nov. 7, 2005.)

http://www.frontpagemag.com/Article...le.asp?ID=13323

The Saddam-9/11 Link Confirmed
By Laurie Mylroie
FrontPageMagazine.com | May 11, 2004



Important new information has come from Edward Jay Epstein about Mohammed Atta’s contacts with Iraqi intelligence. The Czechs have long maintained that Atta, leader of the 9/11 hijackers in the United States, met with Ahmed al-Ani, an Iraqi intelligence official, posted to the Iraqi embassy in Prague. As Epstein now reports, Czech authorities have discovered that al-Ani’s appointment calendar shows a scheduled meeting on April 8, 2001 with a "Hamburg student."


That is exactly what the Czechs had been saying since shortly after 9/11: Atta, a long-time student at Germany’s Hamburg-Harburg Technical University, met with al-Ani on April 8, 2001. Indeed, when Atta earlier applied for a visa to visit the Czech Republic, he identified himself as a “Hamburg student.” The discovery of the notation in al-Ani’s appointment calendar about a meeting with a “Hamburg student” provides critical corroboration of the Czech claim.



Epstein also explains how Atta could have traveled to Prague at that time without the Czechs having a record of such a trip. Spanish intelligence has found evidence that two Algerians provided Atta a false passport.



The Iraqi Plot against Radio Free Europe



Prior to the 9/11 attacks, the Czechs were closely watching the Iraqi embassy. Al-Ani’s predecessor had defected to Britain in late 1998, and the Czechs (along with the British and Americans) learned that Baghdad had instructed him to bomb Radio Free Europe, headquartered in Prague, after RFE had begun a Radio Free Iraq service earlier that year.



On April 8, 2001, an informant for Czech counter-intelligence (known as BIS), observed al-Ani meet with an Arab man in his 20s at a restaurant outside Prague. Another informant in the Arab community reported that the man was a visiting student from Hamburg and that he was potentially dangerous.



The Czech Foreign Ministry demanded an explanation for al-Ani’s rendezvous with the Arab student from the head of the Iraqi mission in Prague. When no satisfactory account was forthcoming, the Czechs declared al-Ani persona non grata, and he was expelled from the Czech Republic on April 22, 2001.



Hyman Komineck was then Deputy Foreign Minister and had earlier headed the Czech Foreign Ministry’s Middle East Department. Now Prague’s ambassador to the United Nations, Komineck explained in June 2002, “He didn’t know [what al-Ani was up to.] He just didn’t know.” As Komineck told the Times of London in October 2001, "It is not a common thing for an Iraqi diplomat to meet a student from a neighboring country."



Following the 9/11 attacks, the Czech informant who had observed the meeting saw Mohammed Atta’s picture in the papers and told the BIS he believed that Atta was the man he had seen meeting with al-Ani. On September 14, BIS informed its CIA liaison that they had tentatively identified Atta as al-Ani’s contact.

Production of Anthrax



The Salman Pak biological warfare facility was located on a peninsula caused by a bend in the Tigris river, approximately five kilometers (km) from the arch located in the town of Salman Pak. The facility area comprised more than 20 square km, and might have been known as a farmers (or agricultural) experimentation center. The peninsula was fenced off and patrolled by a large guard force. Immediately inside and to the east of the fence line were two opulent villas: the larger built for Iraqi president Saddam Hussein and the other for his half-brother, Barazan al-Tikriti. A main paved road ran through the center of the Salman Pak facility/peninsula. [GulfLINK]

"Plans were made in the mid-1980’s to develop the Salman Pak site into a secure biological warfare research facility. Dr Rihab Taha, head of a small biological weapons research team, continued to work with her team at al-Muthanna until 1987 when it moved to Salman Pak, which was under the control of the Directorate of General Intelligence.

"Located at the facility are several buildings. The probable main research building at the site is a modern building, composed of twenty four rooms, housing a major BW research facility. Using current technology the research area alone had sufficient floor space to accommodate several continuous-flow or batch fermenters that could produce daily sufficient anthrax bacteria to lethally assault hundreds of square kilometers. Adjacent to the research building is a storage area which contains four munitions type storage bunkers with lightning arrestors. Two of these bunkers have facilities for storage of temperature sensitive biological material. Approximately a mile down the road from the research area is a complex US intelligence believed to be an engineering area. One building in this complex was thought to contain a fermentation pilot plant capable of scale up production of BW agents. A construction project comprising several buildings was begun in early 1989 adjacent to the engineering area, and was near completion in 1990. This new complex was assessed as a pharmaceutical production plant. As such, this facility would have an extensive capability for biological agent production. [GulfLINK]

"Salman Pak, located 30-40 km SE of Baghdad, engaged in laboratory scale research on Anthrax, Botulinum toxin, Clostridium, perfringens (gas gangrene), mycotoxins, aflatoxins, and Ricin. Researchers at this site carried out toxicity evaluations of these agents and examined their growth characteristics and survivability.

"Equipment-moving trucks and refrigerated trucks were observed at the Salman Pak BW facility prior to the onset of bombing, suggesting that Iraq was moving equipment or material into or out of the facility. Information obtained after the conflict revealed that Iraq had moved BW agent production equipment from Salman Pak to the Al Hakam suspect BW facility."

("Salman Pak Former Iraqi military officers describe highly secret terrorist training facility," http://pierrelegrand.net/, July 3rd, 2006.)

Saddam and the Post September 11 Anthrax Attacks




"At this stage it is possible to turn to biological attack, where a small can,
not bigger than the size of the hand, can be used to release viruses that affect everything....
The viruses easily spread by air, and people are affected without feeling it."

- Uday Hussein, 9/20/01 (prior to reports of the first Anthrax-laced letters mailed 9/18/01)


Under the direction of Rihab Taha ("Dr. Germ"), in 1986 Iraq implemented a five year biological weapons program. In 1987 the anthrax research was transferred to the Salman Pak facility (the same facility which trained foreign terrorists in the art of hijacking planes). In 1997, Dr. Huda Ammash ("Mrs. Anthrax") was placed in charge of rebuilding the biological program.

Iraq is the only country known to have used anthrax against humans (e.g. Iranian POWs). Israeli intelligence indicates that Iraqi agent al-Ani passed an anthrax vial to lead hijacker Atta (AFP (Berlin) October 25, 2001) whose hands were subsequently infected (Palm Beach Post, October 11, 2001.)

Shortly after September 11, letters containing anthrax spores were sent to various members of Congress. The letter spores were of a type requiring development in sophisticated governmental laboratories, and looked ‘‘virtually identical’’ to those found in Iraq by UN weapons inspectors in 1994. (Dany Shoham, International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence, 16 39-68 2003.) First, the anthrax strain applied in the letters ("Strain Ames") had been the focus of Iraqi research. (Ibid.) Second, there is an additive in that anthrax, bentonite, which is used to cause the anthrax to not stick together, and float in the air. Iraq is the only party known to have produced anthrax with bentonite." ("Is Iraq involved with U.S. terror attacks?," CNN interview of Laurie Mylroie, October 29, 2001.) Not only was the resemblance to Iraqi anthrax noticed by UN inspectors Timothy Trevan (ABC News, October 26, 2001) and Richard Spertzel (Washington Post, Monday, October 28, 2002), but it was immediatedly recognized by

Dr. Khidhir Hamza, a former top official in Iraq's program on weapons of mass destruction, who exclaimed to CNBC: "This is Iraq. This is Iraq's work." (NewsMax.com, 8-17-02.)

Saddam Boasts of Promised Attack on U.S. - Then Goes Into Hiding
July 21, 2001: A Saddam-controlled publication anticipated the September 11 attack:

"In this man's heart (Osama bin Laden) you'll find an insistence, a strange determination that he will reach one day the tunnels of the White House and will bomb it with everything that is in it.....with the seriousness of the Bedouin of the desert about the way he will try to bomb the Pentagon after he destroys the White House. ...the revolutionary bin Laden is insisting very convincingly that he will strike America on the arm that is already hurting [1993 WTC Bombing?]. That the man....will curse the memory of Frank Sinatra every time he hears his songs. [a reference to Sinatra's "New York, New York"?]"
From the Iraqi publication Al-Nasiriya: July 21, 2001

August 19, 2001 (less than a month prior to September 11), Saddam addressed a terrorist convention in Baghdad (including representatives of Al Qaeda, Hamas, and Islamic Jihad), telling them that their time of vengeance against the U.S. and Israel was close at hand. ("Why We Fight." by J. Anthony Ruth, citing Daily Telegraph [London] 10/28/01 ["Every day, the case mounts against Saddam"].)

Two weeks before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, Iraqi President Saddam Hussein "put his troops on their highest military alert ["Alert G"] since the [1991] Gulf war two weeks before the suicide attacks on America in the strongest indication yet that the Iraqi dictator knew an atrocity was planned.
" . . .
"Saddam has remained out of the public eye in his network of bunkers since the military alert at the end of August and moved his two wives, Sajida and Samira, away from the presidential palaces in Baghdad to an undisclosed location in Tikrit, his home town 100 miles to the north."
(see "Army alert by Saddam points to Iraqi role," The Sunday Telegraph, London, Sept. 23, 2001.)

Saddam Celebrates the Attack and Takes Credit

In November, 2001, bin Ladin was proclaimed Iraq's "Man of the Year," but an official poem gave Saddam the credit for the attack by the four hijacked planes;

“On December 3, 2001, a poem was recited by Sheikh Ali Bin Shallal, head of the al-Sharji tribes, at a meeting with the tribal chiefs of Basra and Maysan-and Saddam Hussein. It is highly likely this will startle you, here is the text:

“From inside America, how five planes flew. Such a mishap never happened in the past! And nothing similar will happen. Six thousand infidels died. Bin Ladin did not do it; the luck of the president [Saddam] did it.’”

(Ryan Mauro, Saddam Hussein and Bin Laden: A Match Made Up in Propaganda?, http://www.worldthreats.com,)

During Operation Iraqi Freedom, troops found murals in Nasiriya (by marines on March 26, 2003) and in Baghdad (by the Third Infantry on April 13, 2003) at Iraqi military centers depicting the World Trade Center at the awful moment of attack, the former showing Iraqi planes as the perpetrators and the latter depicting Saddam celebrating along side of the burning twin towers;

“U.S. Marines searching Iraqi military headquarters in this southern city [Nasiriya] that was the site of intensive fighting came across a mural depicting a plane crashing into a building complex resembling New York's twin towers, a news agency photograph showed Wednesday. [¶] The plane's logo and coloring resembled that of Iraqi Airlines, said Getty Images News Service executive Brian Felber, based in New York.” (NASIRIYA, Iraq, CNN, March 26, 2003, 1st Marine Exped. Force.)

“Major General Buford ‘Buff ' Blount, commander of the Third Infantry Division, stood in the middle of a dusty parade ground yesterday at a militia training center, billows of black smoke rising behind him from yet another destroyed target of Iraqi resistance. As Blount watched, his soldiers unfurled a large mural they had discovered at the facility. There, in vibrant hues, a beaming image of Saddam Hussein, victory cigar in hand, had been painted beside a rendering of the World Trade Center at the awful moment of attack. ‘God protect Saddam and Iraq,’ the artist inscribed in Arabic.” (Brian MacQuarrie, Boston Globe, 4/13/2003, p. A39; Baghdad, Iraq. )

http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/...28/114140.shtml

By the NewsMax.com Staff
For the story behind the story...


Friday, May 28, 2004 11:39 a.m. EDT
Iraq and 9/11: What the Judge Said

In light of Thursday's Wall Street Journal report detailing new evidence tying Iraq to the 9/11 attacks, it's worth noting that the only time the question of an Iraq-9/11 connection has been legally tested, the verdict was affirmative.

In a woefully underreported decision on May 8, 2003, Manhattan U.S. District Court Judge Harold Baer ruled in favor of two 9/11 victim families who had sued Iraq and others claiming they were culpable in the attacks. The court awarded plaintiffs $104 million based on the Baer's findings.

The ruling by Judge Baer - a [Clinton] appointee, by the way - was quite detailed. In fact, we suspect that the reason for the media's near-blackout on the case is because most Americans would consider his findings to be very persuasive.

Here, in part, is what Judge Baer had to say about the Iraq-9/11 connection:

"The opinion testimony of the plaintiffs' experts is sufficient to meet plaintiffs' burden that Iraq collaborated in or supported bin Laden/al Qaeda's terrorist acts of September 11. . .

"Their opinions, coupled with their qualifications as experts on this issue, provide a sufficient basis for a reasonable jury to draw inferences which could lead to the conclusion that Iraq provided material support to al Qaeda and that it did so with knowledge and intent to further al Qaeda's criminal acts."

Judge Baer continued:

"[Former CIA] Director [James] Woolsey reviewed several facts that tended in his view to show Iraq's involvement in acts of terrorism against the United States in general and likely in the events of September 11 specifically.

"First, Director Woolsey described the existence of a highly secure military facility in Iraq where non-Iraqi fundamentalists [e.g., Egyptians and Saudis] are trained in airplane hijacking and other forms of terrorism. Through satellite imagery and the testimony of three Iraqi defectors, [he] demonstrated the existence of this facility, called Salman Pak, which has an airplane but no runway.

"The defectors also stated that these fundamentalists were taught methods of hijacking using utensils or short knives. Plaintiffs contend it is farfetched to believe that Iraqi agents trained fundamentalists in a top-secret facility for any purpose other than to promote terrorism.

"Second, Director Woolsey mentioned a meeting that allegedly occurred in Prague in April 2001 between Mohammad Atta, the apparent leader of the hijackings, and a high-level Iraqi intelligence agent. According to James Woolsey, the evidence indicates that this was an 'operational meeting' because Atta flew to the Czech Republic and then returned to the United States shortly afterwards. The Minister of Interior of the Czech Republic, Stanislav Gross, stated on October 26, 2001:

"'In this moment we can confirm, that during the next stay of Muhammad Atta in the Czech republic there was the contact with the official of the Iraqi Intelligence, Mr. Al Ani, Ahmed Khalin Ibrahim Samir, who was on 22nd April 2001 expelled from the Czech Republic on the basis of activities which were not compatible with the diplomatic status . . . '

"Third, Director Woolsey noted that his conclusion was also based on 'contacts,' which refer to interactions between Hussein/Iraq and bin Laden/al Qaeda that are described in a letter from George Tenet, the Director of Central Intelligence, to Senator Bob Graham on October 7, 2002. Director Tenet's carefully worded letter included in substance the same allegations, but with less detail, that Secretary of State Colin Powell made before the U.N. Security Counsel on Feb. 5, 2003, in his remarks about 'the potentially much more sinister nexus between Iraq and the al-Qaida terrorist network. . . .'

"Both Director Tenet and Secretary Powell mentioned 'senior level contacts' between Iraq and al Qaeda going back to the early 1990s [although both acknowledged that part of the interactions in the early to mid-1990s pertained to achieving a mutual non-aggression understanding]; both mentioned that al Qaeda sought to acquire poison gas and training in its use from Iraq; both mentioned that al Qaeda members have been in Iraq, including Baghdad, after September 2001. . . .

"Finally, plaintiffs also place considerable weight on an article that appeared in a regional Iraqi newspaper in July 2001, two months before the disaster of September 11. This article, a paean to bin Laden, mentions that bin Laden 1] 'will try to bomb the Pentagon after he destroys the White House,' 2] 'is insisting very convincingly that he will strike America on the arm that is already hurting,' and 3] 'will curse the memory of Frank Sinatra every time he hears his songs.' See Exs. 16-18, Naeem Abd Muhalhal, America, An Obsession Called Osama Bin Ladin, Al-Nasiriya, July 21, 2001 [original, translation, and certificate of accuracy of translation].

"Because, according to Director Woolsey, 'all publications in Iraq really appear at the sufferance of and with a full vetting by the Iraqi regime,' see Tr. 158, and because of the coincidences and the fact that '[t]here is a certain propensity, I think, on bin Laden's part and on Saddam's part ... to try to communicate in somewhat vague terms,' Director Woolsey concluded that there is a probability of a vague foreknowledge of what was contemplated. See Tr. 159." [End of Excerpt]

Judge Baer also found the testimony of terrorism expert Dr. Laurie Mylroie persuasive, writing:

"Dr. Mylroie described Iraq's covert involvement in acts of terrorism against the United States in the past, including the bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993. Dr. Mylroie testified to at least four events that served as the basis for her conclusion that Iraq played a role in the September 11 tragedy:

"First, she claimed that Iraq provided and continues to provide support to two of the main perpetrators of the bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993. Specifically, Abdul Rahman Yasin returned to Baghdad after the bombing and Iraq has provided him safe haven ever since. See Tr. 175-76. Also, Ramsey Yusef arrived in the United States on an Iraqi passport in his own name but left on false documentation - a passport of a Pakistani who was living in Kuwait and whom the Kuwaiti government kept a file on at the time that Iraq invaded Kuwait. See Tr. 174.

"Second, she noted bin Laden's fatwah against the United States, which was motivated by the presence of U.S. forces in Saudi Arabia to fight the Gulf War against Iraq. See Tr. 177.

"Third, she noted that threats by bin Laden in late 1997 and early 1998 which led up to the bombing of the U.S. embassies [on August 7, 1998] were 'in lockstep' with Hussein's threats about ousting the U.N. weapons inspectors, which he eventually did on August 5, 1998. See Tr. 178-79.

"Dr. Mylroie concluded that 'Iraq, I believe, did provide support and resources for the September 11 attacks. I agree with [Iraqi defector] Captain [Sabah] Khodada when he said that ... it took a state like Iraq to carry out an attack as really sophisticated, massive and deadly as what happened on September 11.' See Tr. 182." [End of Excerpt]

To be sure, Judge Baer also noted that the case for Iraq's involvement in 9/11 is far from a slam dunk, concluding, "Plaintiffs have shown, albeit barely, 'by evidence satisfactory to the court' that Iraq provided material support to bin Laden and al Qaeda."

Nevertheless, that's a far cry from media claims - not to mention President Bush's incredibly ill-advised statement last fall - that there's no evidence tying Iraq to 9/11.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

In summation, please consider the following:

(1) Saddam had a clear motive: his arrogant ambitions to control the entire Middle East, followed by his humiliation in being pushed back out of Kuwait in 1991.

Predictably, in his eyes he was still at war with the U.S. and made plans with bin Ladin in the early 1990s to collaborate in bringing terrorism to the U.S. Bin Ladin was also offended by the U.S. defense of his country Saudi Arabia against Saddam during the Persian Gulf War. (Two different ideological parties with a common enemy, the U.S.)

(2) The 1993 bombing attack on the WTC involved two Iraqis, Yousef (the mastermind) and Yasin (who mixed the chemicals). Since the bombing was only partially successful, there would have to be a follow-up later.

(3) The 1995 bombing attack on the Murrah Bldg. in Oklahoma City involved two Iraqis, al-Hussaini (the "third terrorist" who was seen with McVeigh) and Yousef (who instructed Nichols in the Phillipines). McVeigh had been involved in the 1991 Persian Gulf war and somehow was persuaded that we had wronged Saddam in pushing him back into Iraq.

(4) Shakir, a lieutenant colonel in Saddam's Fedayeen assigned to Iraq's Malaysian embassy, participated in the planning of the 9-11 attack at the meeting in Kuala Lampur, Malaysia, a meeting which included some of the 9-11 hijackers.

(5) Saddam's terrorist Abu Nidal trained lead hijacker Muhammed Atta in Iraq, as shown by documentary evidence.

(6) The terrorist camp at Salman Pak had a Boeing 707 fuselage used to train the 9-11 hijackers, as confessed by four defectors from Saddam's forces, the presence of the tail-less fuselage being captured in satelite photography, and viewed by UN weapons inspectors and later by coalition forces.

(7) Saddam's agent in Prague, al-Ani met numerous times with lead-hijacker Atta, one such meeting having been surreptitiously photographed, revealing certain moles, etc., matching those on Atta's face. (Czech intelligence still stands behind this fact - despite the pseudo-skepticism expressed by certain disloyal elements of the CIA.)

(8) Saddam then boastfully predicted the attack several months prior to September 11, and then (apparently anticipating retaliation) went into hiding.

(9) Subsequent to the 9-11 attack, Saddam's overwhelming ego forced him to take credit for the attack in murals (later found by marines in Nasirya and the Third Infantry in Baghdad) and in poetry read to him by tribal chiefs.

(10) The anthrax attacks which quickly followed 9-11 were predicted by Saddam's son Uday and the anthrax contained in the letters (using bentonite) was of a type identical to that viewed by UN inspectors in Iraq. It was also recognized by the former head of Saddam's biological weapons program, who exclaimed: "This is Iraq. This is Iraq's work."

(11) This past year (2006) it has been revealed that we have recovered documents and voice-recordings from Iraq showing Saddam's plotting of revenge against the U.S. as far back as the mid-1990s.



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Appendices


Planning of the Attack


Lieutenant Colonel Ahmed Hikmat Shakir is listed in the roster of Saddam's Fedayeen (and tied by telephone records to a New Jersey location used in connection with the 1993 World Trade Center bombing). (See "Iraq & Militant Islam" by former U.S. prosecutor, Andrew C. McCarthy, National Review Online, June 01, 2004) Significantly, Shakir's Fedayeen was in charge of Iraq's Salman Pak terrorist training camp where the 9-11 hijackers were trained.

According to a post obtained through Saddam's Mukhabarat intelligence service, Shakir was stationed at the Iraqi Embassy in Kuala Lampur at the time of the 9-11 planning session. ("Saddam's Files Show 'Direct' 9/11 Link," May 27, 2004, NewsMax.com, Wall Street Journal.) Ra'ad al-Mudaris, a former Iraqi Intelligence Officer, assigned to the Iraqi embassy in Malaysia, secured Shakir a cover job as a VIP greeter for Malaysian Airlines at Kuala Lampur in August 1999. Al-Mudaris
told Shakir when to work and when take a day off. ("The Mother of All Connections," by Stephen F. Hayes & Thomas Joscelyn, Weekly Standard, July 18, 2005 issue.)

Pursuant to al-Mudaris instruction, on or about January 5, 2000, Shakir met Al Qaeda agents al-Midhar and al -Hazmi (who later piloted Flight 77 into the Pentagon on the morning of September 11, 2001). After meeting them at the Kuala Lampur airport, Shakir accompanied them in their car to the Kuala Lampur Hotel for the 9-11 planning session. (See McCarthy, supra, National Review Online, June 01, 2004) On Sept. 17, 2001, six days after the 9-11 attack, Shakir was arrested in Qatar, at which time he was carrying phone numbers of the 1993 World Trade Center bombers' safe houses and contacts, as well as information relating to Operation Bojinka, a plot devised by Iraqi 1993 trade center bomber Ramzi Yousef that became the blueprint for the 9/11/01 attacks. ("Saddam's Files Show
'Direct' 9/11 Link," May 27, 2004, NewsMax.com, Wall Street Journal.)

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Training for the Attack


"Bin Laden sent a delegation of his top Al Qaeda terrorists to Baghdad on April 25, 1998, to attend the grand celebration that week of Saddam's birthday. It was then that Saddam's bloody-minded son Uday agreed to receive several hundred Al Qaeda recruits for terrorist training in techniques unavailable in Afghanistan."

("Press Reported Extensively on Iraq-9/11 Links," NewsMax.com, 9/17/03, Carl Limbacher and NewsMax.com Staff, citing N.Y. Times column by William Safire.)

Documents and photographs recovered by the U.S. military in postwar Iraq, corroborated by Iraqi regime leaders and military leaders, and U.S. officials, show that from 1999 to 2002, under the direction of elite Iraqi military units, Saddam's regime trained some 8,000 terrorists (including terrorists with close ties to al Qaeda) at three camps, in Samarra, Ramadi, and Salman Pak. ("Saddam's Terror Training Camps," by Stephen F. Hayes, Weekly Standard, 01/16/2006.)

The Salman Pak camp is located located 30-40 km (about 21 miles) SE of Baghdad on a peninsula caused by a bend in the Tigris river, approximately five kilometers (km) from the arch located in the town of Salman Pak. "The camp is divided into distinct sections. On one side of the camp young, Iraqis who were members of Fedayeen Saddam are trained in espionage, assassination techniques and sabotage. The Islamic militants trained on the other side of the camp, in an area separated by a small lake, trees and barbed wire." The training ground did not include an air strip, but nevertheless harbored a plane fuselage similar to that of a Boeing 707. The fuselage is clearly visible in photos of the camp taken by US KH-11 reconnaissance satellites. "The militants reportedly spent time training, usually
in groups of five or six, around the fuselage of the airplane. There were rarely more than 40 or 50 Islamic radicals in the camp at one time." Despite Saddam's implausible (albeit revealing) claim to UN inspectors that Salman Pak was "an anti-terror training camp for Iraqi special forces," defectors from Iraqi intelligence "stated that they had worked for several years at the secret Iraqi government camp, which had trained Islamic terrorists in rotations of five or six months since 1995.

Training activities including simulated hijackings carried out in an airplane fuselage [said to be a Boeing 707] at the camp." ("Edward Jay Epstein’s look into the Salman Pak terrorist training base," http://pierrelegrand.net/, July 21, 2006; see also "Former Iraqi military officers describe highly secret terrorist training facility,"

http://pierrelegrand.net/, July 3rd, 2006.)

The fact of the plane fuselage in a terror training camp is corroborated first by the photographic evidence. "Given that Salman Pak was not an air base, a Boeing 707 on the ground there would have stood out like a sore thumb. . . . After September 11th, a private US satellite photo company, Space Imaging, went through its archives and found a photo that included a plane parked in the Salman Pak compound." ("Edward Jay Epstein’s look into the Salman Pak terrorist training base,"

http://pierrelegrand.net/, July 21, 2006.)

In addition to the documentary and photographic evidence found in April, 2003 by invading marines (per General Brooks) and subsequent thereto, the use of the fuselage at Salman Pak for the training of non-Iraqi pan-Islamic terrorists (including Al Qaeda) in hijacking airliners was confirmed, inter alia, by four defectors, two UN inspectors, and a former CIA Director.

Defectors included (1) Abu Zeinab al Qurairy (code-name), a colonel with the Iraqi intelligence service Mukhabarat, (2)
Sabah Khalifa Khodada Alami, a captain in the Iraqi army (who emigrated to Texas in May, 1999 after working as an instructor for eight years at Salman Pak), (3) a former Iraqi sergeant in the intelligence service who spent nearly five years at the camp, and (4) a lieutenant general, once one of the most senior officers in the Iraqi intelligence service, the Mukhabarat.

U.N. inspectors included (1) Charles Duelfer, the former vice chairman of Unscom, the U.N. weapons inspection team, who
actually visited the Salman Pak camp several times, (2) Richard Sperzel, former chief of UN biological weapons inspection teams in Iraq.

The former CIA Director (Clinton Era) is James Woolsey.

As to the defectors, (1) Al Qurairy stated "that one of the highlights of Salman Pak's six-month curriculum was training to hijack aircraft using only knives or bare hands. Like the Sept. 11 hijackers, the students worked in groups of four or five, he explained." ("Salman Pak: Iraq's Smoking Gun Link to 9-11?," NewsMax.com, Aug. 13, 2002.)

(2) Alami described a daily regimen of exercises involving a separate group of non-Iraqis, using a Boeing 707 parked inside the complex, in how to hijack a plane or bus without weapons. ("Edward Jay Epstein’s look into the Salman Pak terrorist training base", July 21, 2006, http://pierrelegrand.net/, citing the
Wall street Journal,.) When Alami saw the twin towers fall he thought to himself, "This was done by graduates of Salman Pak." ("Press Reported Extensively on Iraq-9/11 Links," NewsMax.com, 9/17/03, Carl Limbacher and NewsMax.com Staff, citing PBS.)

(3) The former Iraqi intelligence service sergeant, recalling his
nearly five years at Salman Pak, noted of the Islamic foreigners that "We could see them train around the fuselage," and "could see them practice taking over the plane." ("Salman Pak: Iraq's Smoking Gun Link to 9-11?," NewsMax.com, Aug. 13, 2002.)

Finally, (4) the Iraqi Lieutenant General, acknowledged that in 2000 he had been "the security officer in charge of the unit" at Salman Pak and had seen Arab students being taught there how to hijack airliners using a Boeing 707 fuselage. (topic/salman-pak-facility, www.answers.com/, citing a PBS special.) He observed that, "We were training these people to attack installations important to the United States." The reason for such training (as he and his men were "repeatedly told"), was that "The Gulf War never ended for Saddam Hussein. He is at war with the United States." ("Salman Pak: Iraq's Smoking Gun Link to 9-11?," NewsMax.com, Aug. 13, 2002; see also "Defectors Cite Iraqi Training for Terrorism," by Chris Hedges, New York Times, November 8, 2001.)

Corroborating the foregoing are the observations of the UN Inspectors. (1) Charles Duelfer, the former vice chairman of Unscom, the U.N. weapons inspection team, actually visited the Salman Pak camp several times. "He saw the 707, in exactly the place described by the defectors," the Observer reported. Duelfer and his team were "of course" unimpressed by the Saddam regime's purported explanation to Unscom that the fuselage was used by police for "counterterrorist training," but
instead, "automatically took out the word 'counter'." As Duelfer explained, "I'm surprised that people seem to be shocked that there should be terror camps in Iraq. Like, derrrrrr! I mean, what, actually, do you expect?" ("Salman Pak: Iraq's Smoking Gun Link to 9-11?," NewsMax.com, Aug. 13, 2002.) Deulfer, the former Deputy Head, U.N. Special Commission for Iraq, noted to NPR that, "There were lots of places in Iraq where training of non-Iraqis, or things, which by our lexicon would be considered terrorism, was taking place. That's why Iraq is on the terrorist list. Having a large aircraft, a 707, in a peninsula, completely visible from the air or from satellite, with no airline runways nearby, that's not there by accident." ("Press Reported Extensively on Iraq-9/11 Links," NewsMax.com, 9/17/03, Carl
Limbacher and NewsMax.com Staff.)

(2) Dr. Richard Sperzel, former chief of United Nations Biological Weapons inspection reported based on their bservations, "that he and other UN Team members believed that simulated hijackings were being conducted in the Boeing 707 at Salman Pak before they were expelled in 1998." ("Defectors Cite Iraqi Training for Terrorism," by Chris Hedges, New York Times, November 8, 2001.)

Yet another corroboration came on April 6, 2003, after U.S. Marines overran the super secret Salman Pak facility (which four months earlier the CIA had erroneously dismissed as innocuous). CENTCOM spokesman, Brig. Gen. Vincent Brooks, revealed to reporters that the Iraqis defending the camp against the marines were not run of the mill soldiers. "The nature of the work being done by some of those people we captured, their inferences about the type of training they received, all these things give us the impression that there is terrorist training that was conducted at Salman Pak.". Brooks also added that "some of them come from Sudan, some from Egypt, some from other places . . . It reinforces the likelihood of links between this regime and external terrorist organizations," ("Leakgate, the
CIA, Iraq and 9/11," NewsMax.com Staff, Nov. 7, 2005.)


----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Production of Anthrax

The Salman Pak biological warfare facility was located on a peninsula caused by a bend in the Tigris river, approximately five kilometers (km) from the arch located in the town of Salman Pak. The facility area comprised more than 20 square km, and might have been known as a farmers (or agricultural) experimentation center.

The peninsula was fenced off and patrolled by a large guard force. Immediately inside and to the east of the fence line were two opulent villas: the larger built for Iraqi president Saddam Hussein and the other for his half-brother, Barazan al-Tikriti. A main paved road ran through the center of the Salman Pak facility/peninsula.
[GulfLINK]

"Plans were made in the mid-1980’s to develop the Salman Pak site into a secure biological warfare research facility. Dr Rihab Taha, head of a small biological weapons research team, continued to work with her team at al-Muthanna until 1987 when it moved to Salman Pak, which was under the control of the Directorate of General Intelligence.

"Located at the facility are several buildings. The probable main research building at the site is a modern building, composed of twenty four rooms, housing a major BW research facility. Using current technology the research area alone had sufficient floor space to accommodate several continuous-flow or batch fermenters that could produce daily sufficient anthrax bacteria to lethally assault hundreds of square kilometers.

Adjacent to the research building is a storage area which contains four munitions type storage bunkers with lightning arrestors. Two of these bunkers have facilities for storage of temperature sensitive biological material.

Approximately a mile down the road from the research area is a complex US intelligence believed to be an engineering area. One building in this complex was thought to contain a fermentation pilot plant capable of scale up production of BW agents.

A construction project comprising several buildings was begun in early 1989 adjacent to the engineering area, and was near completion in 1990. This new complex was assessed as a pharmaceutical production plant. As such, this facility would have an extensive capability for biological agent production. [GulfLINK]

"Salman Pak, located 30-40 km SE of Baghdad, engaged in laboratory scale research on Anthrax, Botulinum toxin, Clostridium, perfringens (gas gangrene), mycotoxins, aflatoxins, and Ricin. Researchers at this site carried out toxicity evaluations of these agents and examined their growth characteristics and survivability.

"Equipment-moving trucks and refrigerated trucks were observed at the Salman Pak BW facility prior to the onset of bombing, suggesting that Iraq was moving equipment or material into or out of the facility. Information obtained after the conflict revealed that Iraq had moved BW agent production equipment from Salman Pak to the Al Hakam suspect BW facility."
("Salman Pak Former Iraqi military officers describe highly secret terrorist training facility," http://pierrelegrand.net/, July 3rd, 2006.)

Under the direction of Rihab Taha (“Dr. Germ”), in 1986 Iraq implemented a five year biological weapons program. In 1987 the anthrax research was transferred to the Salman Pak facility (the same facility which trained foreign terrorists in the art of hijacking planes).

In 1997, Dr. Huda Ammash ("Mrs. Anthrax") was placed in charge of rebuilding the biological program.

Iraq is the only country known to have used anthrax against humans (e.g. Iranian POWs). Israeli intelligence indicates that Iraqi agent al-Ani passed an anthrax vial to lead hijacker Atta (AFP (Berlin) October 25, 2001) whose hands were subsequently infected (Palm Beach Post, October 11, 2001.)

Shortly after September 11, letters containing anthrax spores were sent to various members of Congress. The letter spores were of a type requiring development in sophisticated governmental laboratories, and looked ‘‘virtually identical’’ to those found in Iraq by UN weapons inspectors in 1994. (Dany Shoham, International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence, 16 39-68 2003.)

First, the anthrax strain applied in the letters ("Strain Ames") had been the focus of Iraqi research. (Ibid.)

Second, there is an additive in that anthrax, bentonite, which is used to cause the anthrax to not stick together, and float in the air. Iraq is the only party known to have produced anthrax with bentonite." ("Is Iraq involved with U.S. terror attacks?," CNN interview of Laurie Mylroie, October 29, 2001.)

Not only was the resemblance to Iraqi anthrax noticed by UN inspectors Timothy Trevan (ABC News, October 26, 2001) and Richard Spertzel (Washington Post, Monday, October 28, 2002), but it was immediatedly recognized by Dr. Khidhir Hamza, a former top official in Iraq's program on weapons of mass destruction, who exclaimed to CNBC: "This is Iraq. This is Iraq's work." (NewsMax.com, 8-17-02.)