-Caveat Lector- Print this article | Close this window No proof of Iraq, al-Qaeda links: analysts By Julian Borger, Michael Howard and Richard Norton-Taylor January 31 2003
President George Bush used his State of the Union address to paint a terrifying picture for the American people of another attack like September 11 - but this time with chemical, biological or nuclear weapons. The British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, reinforced the message, telling the House of Commons: "We do know of links between al-Qaeda and Iraq. We cannot be sure of the exact extent of those links." However, a number of well-placed sources in the British public service insisted there is no intelligence suggesting such a link. "While we have said there may possibly be individuals in the country [Iraq] we have never said anything to suggest specific links between al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein," said one. Establishing the link is essential to persuading the public that Iraq represents an imminent threat, and Mr Bush insisted that hard evidence in the shape of "intelligence sources, secret communications, and statements by people now in custody" proved the connection was real. But the intelligence analysts in the US and Britain on whose work Mr Bush's claim was supposedly based say the connections are tangential at best, and the available evidence falls far short of proving a secret relationship between Baghdad and Osama bin Laden. One intelligence source in Washington, who has seen CIA material on the link, described the case as "soft" and "squishy". That case relies heavily on a man called Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian member of the al-Qaeda leadership who was wounded in the leg in the US- led bombing of Afghanistan. In late 2001, according to US intelligence sources, he sought medical treatment in Iran but was deported and fled to Baghdad, where his leg was amputated. Telephone calls he made to his family in Jordan were intercepted. The question is whether Saddam Hussein's regime knew who he was and whether it offered him any assistance. "Yes, we have him telling his family I'm here in Baghdad in hospital, but he's not saying: 'And by the way, I'm getting all this help from Saddam'," a well-informed source in Washington said. According to Jordanian intelligence, Zarqawi left Baghdad after his surgery and travelled to northern Iraq, where he joined up with Ansar al-Islam, a militant Islamic group controlling a string of villages on the Iranian border of the Kurdish self-rule area. The group is thought to be the creature of Osama bin Laden's second in command, Ayman al- Zawahiri. Its leader, Mullah Krekar, was detained by Dutch police last September after arriving on a flight from Iran because Jordan had asked for his extradition, accusing him of drug trafficking. He now enjoys refugee status in Norway. While evidence of Ansar al-Islam's links to al-Qaeda are comparatively strong, its links with Saddam remain largely circumstantial. Villages in the area around Ansar territory have reported seeing Iraqi Mukhabarat agents making contact with Ansar operatives. There are also reports that TNT seized from Ansar during one of its assassination attempts on Kurdish officials was produced by the Iraqi military, and that arms are sent to the group from areas controlled by Saddam. About a dozen senior members of Ansar trained at a camp in Afghanistan which specialised in chemical and biological weapons, such as ricin. Mr Bush said the evidence for a Baghdad-Bin Laden connection also came from "statements by people now in custody". But according to a US official familiar with CIA thinking on the issue, the senior al-Qaeda members in captivity, such as Abu Zubeidah and Ramzi bin al-Shibh, have not implicated Iraq. The Guardian This story was found at: http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/01/30/ 1043804465839.html Forwarded for your information. 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