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What Mike's statement on Iraq means for the CIA
MICHAEL SCHEUER, head of the CIA's bin Laden unit and until recently a senior analyst, said something remarkable last week on Hardball with Chris Matthews. Scheuer told Matthews that he "happened to do the research on links between al Qaeda and Iraq," and Matthews asked him, "and what did you come up with?""Nothing." It was a strange and troubling response. As Thomas Joscelyn points out, Scheuer argued in his 2002 book, Through Our Enemies Eyes, that Iraq and al Qaeda worked together regularly. His claims were unequivocal. A few examples: [Bin Laden] "made a connection with Iraq's intelligence service through its Khartoum station." (p. 119). In Sudan, Bin Laden decided to acquire and, when possible, use chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear (CBRN) weapons against Islam's enemies. Bin Laden's first moves in this direction were made in cooperation with NIF [Sudan's National Islamic Front], Iraq's intelligence service and Iraqi CBRN scientists and technicians. He made contact with Baghdad with its intelligence officers in Sudan and by a [Hassan] Turabi-brokered June-1994 visit by Iraq's then-intelligence chief Faruq al-Hijazi; according to Milan's Corriere della Sera, Saddam, in 1994, made Hijazi responsible for "nurturing Iraq's ties to [Islamic] fundamentalist warriors. Turabi had plans to formulate a "common strategy" with bin Laden and Iraq for subverting pro-U.S. Arab regimes, but the meeting was a get-acquainted session where Hijazi and bin Laden developed a good rapport that would "flourish" in the late 1990s. (p. 124) Posted by: Dan Darling 2004-11-22 |
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