Exhaustive review sponsored by the Pentagon finds NO link between Saddam, al Qaida

Interesting documents came out last week from the Institute For Defense Analysis. Titled: "Iraqi Perspectives Project- Saddam and Terrorism: Emerging Insights from Captured Iraqi Documents".

It's a 94 page report (pdf link to the report via ABC News website is at the bottom of the post) that is derived from translations from Saddam's captured papers. I guess the Saddam ties to al Qaeda that has been debated boils down to how narrowly one wants to define al Qaeda. Per the report, Saddam apparently had very direct ties to Zawahiri's Islamic Jihad, which is the organization that merged with al Qaeda, and now comprises roughly 2/3 of al Qaeda.

Saddam, the terrorist's friend | The Australian

Saddam, the terrorist's friend

Newly published Iraqi documents reveal just how extensive Saddam's involvement with international terrorism was. The summary of these documents, published under the heading Saddam and Terrorism, has been reported across the world and read by almost no one.Its first paragraph reads: "The Iraqi Perspectives Project review of captured Iraqi documents uncovered strong evidence that links the regime of Saddam Hussein to regional and global terrorism. Despite their incompatible long-term goals, many terrorist movements and Saddam found a common enemy in the US.

"At times these organisations worked together, trading access for capability. In the period after the 1991 Gulf War, the regime of Saddam Hussein supported a complex and increasingly disparate mix of pan-Arab revolutionary causes and emerging pan-Islamic radical movements."

The world was misled about this report because of the focus on one single sentence of the report, which said: "This study found no smoking gun (that is, a direct connection) between Saddam's Iraq and al-Qa'ida."

However, the report does portray a vast network of Iraqi support for terrorist organisations that includes numerous groups the report identifies as "part of al-Qa'ida". The misleading and declaratory sentence presumably refers only to Osama bin Laden and al-Qa'ida central itself. For example, the report states: "Captured documents reveal that the regime (of Saddam) was willing to co-opt or support organisations it knew to be part of al-Qa'ida, as long as that organisation's near-term goals supported Saddam's long-term vision." This included, for example, Saddam providing financial support for Egyptian Islamic Jihad, led by Ayman al-Zawahiri, bin Laden's deputy.

Acknowledging this support, but saying there's no smoking gun directly to al-Qa'ida itself, means the report is taking an incredibly restrictive and precise view of al-Qa'ida.

But in any event this report is not claiming, as wrongly reported in the wires, that there was no link with al-Qa'ida, merely that it found no absolute smoking gun in the translated documents.

Wake up America: Saddam and Terrorism: Emerging Insights from Captured Iraqi Documents

#1. The Iraqi regime was involved in regional and international terrorist operations prior to Operation Iraqi Freedom. The predominant targets of Iraqi state terror operations were Iraqi citizens, both inside and outside of Iraq.

#2. On occasion, the Iraqi intelligence services directly targeted the regime's perceived enemies, including non-Iraqis. Non-Iraqi casualties often resulted from Iraqi sponsorship of non-governmental terrorist groups.

#3. Saddam's regime often cooperated directly, albeit cautiously, with terrorist groups when they believed such groups could help advance Iraq's long-term goals. The regime carefully recorded its connections to Palestinian terror organizations in numerous government memos. One such example documents Iraqi financial support to families of suicide bombers in Gaza and the West Bank.

#4. State sponsorship of terrorism became such a routine tool of state power that Iraq developed elaborate bureaucratic processes to monitor progress and accountability in the recruiting, training, and resourcing of terrorists. Examples include the regime's development, construction, certification, and training for car bombs and suicide vests in 1999 and 2000.

Documents indicate that the Saddam's regime's use of terrorism was standard practice, although not always successful.

From 1991 through 2003, the Saddam regime regarded inspiring, sponsoring, directing, and executing acts of terrorism as an element of state power.

On Page #21, the report discusses Saddam's use of terror as an instrument of state power.

By page #23, an extract from a captured document from July of 2002, is presented, which is a response from the Iraqi Intelligence Service (IIS) to a letter from Saddam asking for a list of weapons available in Iraqi embassies overseas.

http://a.abcnews.com/images/pdf/Pentagon_Report_V1.pdf