http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A45853-2004Jun16.html
9/11 Panel Finds No Collaboration Between Iraq, Al Qaeda
Findings Contradict Comments by Cheney, Bush
By Dan Eggen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, June 16, 2004; 9:00 AM
There is "no credible evidence" that Saddam Hussein's government in Iraq
collaborated with the al Qaeda terrorist network on any attacks on the
United States, including the Sept. 11, 2001 hijackings, according to a new
staff report released this morning by the commission investigating the
hijacking plot.
Although Osama bin Laden briefly explored the idea of forging ties with Iraq
in the mid-1990s, the terrorist leader was hostile to Hussein's secular
government, and Iraq never responded to requests for help in providing
training camps or weapons, the panel's report says.
The findings come in the wake of statements Monday by Vice President Cheney
that Iraq had "long-established ties" with al Qaeda, and comments by
President Bush yesterday backing up that assertion.
The Sept. 11 panel, which opened its last two-day round of hearings this
morning, said in a report on al Qaeda's history that the government of
Sudan, which gave sanctuary to al Qaeda from 1991 to 1996, persuaded bin
Laden to cease supporting anti-Hussein forces and "arranged for contacts
between Iraq and al Qaeda." But the contacts did not result in any
cooperation, the panel said.
"There have been reports that contacts between Iraq and al Qaeda also
occurred after bin Laden had returned to Afghanistan [in 1996], but they do
not appear to have resulted in a collaborative relationship," the report
says. "Two senior bin Laden associates have adamantly denied that any ties
existed between al Qaeda and Iraq. We have no credible evidence that Iraq
and al Qaeda cooperated on attacks against the United States."
The conclusions provide the latest example of how the Sept. 11 commission
has become a political irritant for the Bush administration. The 10-member
bipartisan commission, initially opposed by the White House, has frequently
feuded with the government over access to documents and witnesses and has
issued findings sharply critical of the Bush administration's focus on
terrorism prior to the Sept. 11 attacks.
The findings were included in the first of three staff reports being issued
by the commission this week. Later today, the panel is expected to release
significant details about the planning of the attacks, including what
sources have said previously was a plan to carry out the hijackings earlier
in May or June of 2001.
Thursday, the panel will explore shortcomings in the nation's air-defense
system, which witnesses and commission members have said was ill-prepared
for an event of the magnitude of the Sept. 11 attacks.
The initial 12-page report is a broad examination of the history of al Qaeda
and bin Laden, who for years went unnoticed or underestimated by U.S.
intelligence officials.
The report says that bin Laden was intent on carrying out attacks on the
United States as early as 1992, viewing America as "the head of the snake"
because of its support for Israel and Arab regimes he considered corrupt.
But U.S. officials were not aware of these plans, or knowledgeable about any
details of his organization, until four years later, the report says.
"Contrary to popular understanding," the report says, "bin Laden did not
fund al Qaeda through a personal fortune and a network of businesses," and
he never received a $300 million inheritance. "Instead, al Qaeda relied
primarily on a fundraising network developed over time," the report says.
In 1998, the suicide truck bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and
Tanzania -- which killed 224 people and injured more than 5,000 combined --
marked a new departure in that "they were planned, directed and executed by
al Qaeda, under the direct supervision of bin Laden and his chief aides,"
the report says.
But a January 2000 attempt to attack a U.S. warship, the USS The Sullivans,
failed because the boat to be used in the suicide attack was overloaded with
explosives and sank, the report says. Ten months later, a similar attack was
executed successfully against the USS Cole in Yemen.
Since the Sept. 11 attacks and the defeat of the Taliban in Afghanistan, "al
Qaeda's funding has decreased significantly," the report says. But the
group's expenditures have decreased as well, and "it remains relatively easy
for al Qaeda to find the relatively small sums required to fund terrorist
operations," the report warns.
Now, the organization is far more decentralized, with operational commanders
and cell leaders making the decisions that were previously made by bin
Laden, the panel found.
Yet, al Qaeda remains interested in carrying out chemical, biological,
radiological or nuclear attacks against the United States, the report says.
Although an attempt to purchase uranium in 1994 failed -- the material
proved to be fake -- "al Qaeda continues to pursue its strategic objective
of obtaining a nuclear weapon," according to the report.
By any means possible, it warns, "al Qaeda is actively striving to attack
the United States and inflict mass casualties."
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