The law suit can be found at:
http://cryptome.org/oneill-v-iraq.htm
The New York Sun
September 3, 2003
IRAQ HAD ROLE IN SEPT. 11 ATTACKS, LAWSUIT SAYS
Family of Famed Terror Expert Accuses Saddam, Bin Laden
By COLIN MINER Staff Reporter of the Sun
Iraq played a major role in the attacks on the World Trade Center and
Pentagon - providing Al Qaeda with money, training, and material support,
according to a suit filed by the family of the man described as America's
foremost expert on terrorism.
John O'Neill, a flamboyant former top agent of the Federal Bureau of
Investigation, was killed in the attack on the trade center, where he had
started working as the Port Authority's chief of security two weeks earlier.
The 70-page complaint alleges connections between Iraq and Al Qaeda
dating back to the 1990s, when it says Iraq began actively supporting Al
Qaeda operations by providing intelligence, training, weapons, supplies,
passports, travel documents, and financial support.
"Al Qaeda, backed by Iraq, carried out the September 11th terror attacks
with the financial and logistical support of numerous individuals and
organizations," the complaint says. "These individuals and organizations
provided Al Qaeda with the means to recruit, train, and employ thousands of
terrorists."
One of those "thousands," according to the suit, was September 11
ringleader Mohammed Atta, who,"through his close connections to Iraqi
intelligence and his activities as a conduit of information and funding,
became an agent of the Iraqi Intelligence Agency."
O'Neill's estate charges that Atta not only met with an Iraqi
intelligence agent, but also met several times with Iraq's former ambassador
to Turkey, Farouk al-Hijazi. According to the suit, cooperation between Al
Qaeda and Saddam Hussein goes back more than 10 years to a 1992 visit to
Baghdad by Dr. Ayman Al-Zawahiri, the leader of Egyptian Islamic Jihad and a
top aide to Osama bin Laden.
During that visit, Dr. Zawahiri met with Saddam, according to an Iraqi
intelligence veteran quoted in the complaint, which states that Mr. bin
Laden sent Dr. Zawahiri back in 1998 for more strategy sessions with Saddam
and his top aides, including the vice president of Iraq,Taha Yassin Ramadan.
During that visit, Dr. Zawahiri also toured a potential site for a new
headquarters for Mr. bin Laden and Al Qaeda and went to an Iraqi military
base and nuclear and chemical weapons facility near al-Fallujah.
Around that time, according to the complaint, two other of Mr. bin Laden
's top aides met with Qusay Hussein, Saddam's younger son, and Mr. bin Laden
also visited Baghdad, spending time at the Al-Rashid hotel.
The complaint - citing documents seized from the bombed headquarters of
the Iraqi intelligence agency - charges that the purpose of the meetings
"was to establish a relationship between Baghdad and Al Qaeda based on their
mutual hatred of America and Saudi Arabia."
The following year, after the bombing of the American embassies in
Africa and an American retaliation strike in Afghanistan, Qusay allegedly
sent Mr. Hijazi to Afghanistan to meet with Mr. bin Laden.
Mr. Hijazi reportedly offered "an open-ended commitment to joint
operations against America and its 'moderate' Arab allies in exchange for an
absolute guarantee that Mr. bin Laden,Al Qaeda, and their allies would not
attempt to overthrow Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq."
To demonstrate Iraq's commitment to Mr. bin Laden and Al Qaeda, Mr.
Hijazi allegedly presented Mr. bin Laden with a pack of blank, official
Yemeni passports, supplied to Iraqi Intelligence from their Yemeni contacts.
Mr. Hijazi's meeting with Mr. bin Laden, the complaint charges "was
followed by a contingent of Iraqi intelligence officials who provided
additional training and instruction to bin Laden and Al Qaeda operatives in
Afghanistan."
Iraq, according to O'Neill's estate, also used the Arab TV station Al
Jazeera as a conduit to pass messages between Saddam and Mr. bin Laden.
The complaint, filed in federal court in Washington, D.C., refers to
documents captured by American forces in Iraq that identify Al Jazeera
employees who "received substantial funding from the Iraqi regime in
exchange for acting as liaisons between Iraq and Al Qaeda."
Iraq also provided Al Qaeda with financial support by siphoning off
money from the United Nations-administered food for oil program, according
to the complaint.
"Revenues from the sale of Iraqi oil under the United Nation's
food-for-oil program were laundered to help finance Al Qaeda," according to
the complaint, which adds that the laundering activity was undertaken with
the knowledge of Iraqi officials including Oday Hussein, Saddam's eldest
son.
The complaint, which seeks more than $1 billion, accuses the Republic of
Iraq, Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden, Al Qaeda, and Al Jazeera, among other
parties, with wrongful death, conspiracy, and eight other counts.
This is not the first suit charging an Al-Qaeda-Iraq link. In May, the
administrators of the estates of two people who perished when the World
Trade Center towers collapsed were awarded $104 million in damages from the
state of Iraq, Osama bin Laden, and Al Qaeda; they have yet to collect a
penny.
While the judge in that case ruled that the families had proved a link -
albeit "barely"- not everyone sees the connection. "From the point of view
of intelligence information on September 11, there is no evidence to
substantiate that," a Reagan-era director of National Security Council
Intelligence, Vincent Cannistraro, said of the claims in the O'Neill suit.
"It's incumbent on them to produce some evidence."
For those who have tried to draw a link between Iraq and Al Qaeda, this
new lawsuit could offer new ammunition. "Iraq was the major state sponsor of
terrorism in the 1990s," said Laurie Mylroie, author of "Bush vs. the
Beltway: How the CIA and the State Department Tried To Stop the War on
Terror.""They're absolutely right about that, and it's very important."
Lawyers for the O'Neill family say they will deliver on what they charge
in the suit. "This could have easily been a seven-paragraph complaint," said
one of the lawyers, Joshua Ambush. "But we felt we needed to detail what we
know, to show that this is real. And we have the documents to back it all
up."
Before heading to the Port Authority, O'Neill had spent 25 years at the
FBI where - beginning with the 1995 capture of Ramzi Yousef, the mastermind
of the first attack on the trade center - he became the nation's foremost
expert on Islamic terrorism.
He also developed the reputation of being a maverick not afraid to speak
his mind.
During the investigation into the bombing of the Khobar Towers in Saudi
Arabia, O'Neill told then-FBI director Louis Freeh that the Saudis were
"blowing smoke up your ass" after he concluded the Saudi government was
being less than cooperative.
He also was not one to shy away from controversy.
Despite having a wife and kids, O'Neill also made a separate life with a
woman he met while an agent in Chicago.When he was made assistant special
agent in charge of counterterrorism and national security and assigned to
New York City, she joined him there - as did his family.
In New York, he was almost the cliché of the man about town, frequenting
Elaine's and entertaining everyone from reporters to visiting law
enforcement officials from around the world.
In 1996, he gave his most famous speech, warning America about bin
Laden, saying, "We see the intent is for a large number of casualties."
