Yesterday both myself and fellow Winds of Change correspondent Robi Sen got the pleasure of attending an AEI conference on The Connection: How al Qaeda's Collaboration with Saddam Hussein Has Endangered America. The panel consisted of former CIA director James Woolsey, CNN terrorism expert Peter Bergen, former senior intelligence officer Judith Yaphe, Weekly Standard writer Stephen Hayes, and was moderated by AEI scholar Michael Ledeen.
While attending the conference, I have to admit that I was somewhat unnerved by just how many people I recognized from TV appearances were there. I think that my (as well as Robi's) biggest single reaction was something akin to, "Oh my God, that's Christopher Hitchens!" when he walked passed us. Other notables I recognized were David Corn of The Nation (whom I'll come back to later on) and Matthew Yglesias of the American Prospect as well as the Washington correspondents for al-Sharq al-Awsat and al-Hayat. If there were many major Western media correspondents there, I must confess not having seen them, though I did notice Hussein Ibish in the audience - it's hard not to miss him, the man looks like the Kingpin from Marvel comics.
One of probably the best aspects of the conference was that the discussion dealt primarily with the issue of Iraqi ties to al-Qaeda rather than the justice or lack thereof with regard to the war in Iraq. As a result, with only a handful of notable exceptions during the Q&A period, most of the conversation was entirely civil and stuck within agreed-upon facts rather than on the usual back-and-forth of whether or not Bush lied/misled the American public that all too frequently exists within these types of debates.
Out of the panel, Bergen appeared to be the most skeptical of the four as to the nature of the connection, followed by Yaphe. Woolsey was definitely on the ball, not only from a rhetorical standpoint but also because much of his analysis was struck me as being very accurate, perhaps they can tap him to return to his previous position as DCI? He also really struck home with regard to his answers concerning the often-repeated meme about "connecting the dots" and explained that while one only needs to know how to count and use a pencil in order to see the whole picture in a children's book that intelligence is a little more complicated than that.
As far as the book itself goes, all of the panelists praised Hayes for his work on the issue of Iraqi connections to al-Qaeda. The Feith memo was discussed in detail and Hayes noted that several of the journalists who had attempted to "debunk" it (a thinly-veiled reference to Newsweek's Isikoff and Hosenball in my opinion) would do well to become familiar with the actual memo before they or their anonymous sources dismissed it as wholely inaccurate.
The issue of Iraqi/al-Qaeda animosity was also discussed in detail. Bergen noted that when he interviewed bin Laden in Afghanistan during the late 1990s that the terrorist leader had shrugged and told him that Saddam Hussein was a bad Muslim who had invaded Kuwait out of greed. While I would hold that both positions are entirely accurate, it struck me as odd that Bergen would cite them as some kind of "proof" of al-Qaeda incompatability with respect to Iraq - no offense, but if bin Laden was in cahoots with Saddam Hussein, do they really believe that he would say as much to a journalist? Woolsey probably had the most sensible answer to the question, which is, as in the case of al-Qaeda ties to Iran or the Saudi royals, that the terror network is perhaps best described as being somewhat analogous to the mafia, wherein various factions may hate one another or even assassinate one another, but they can still collaborate in areas of mutual interest. Similar collaboration evidently occurred during the Cold War between any number of organizations regardless of ideological animosities. There was also some discussion of whether Zarqawi received leg or nasal surgery while in Baghdad, to which I think Christopher Hitchens put it best that regardless of whether he was hurting in the knees or hurting in the nose when he came to Baghdad, the issue is still that he was in Baghdad rather than what kind of surgery was performed on the man.
I also found it interesting to note that all of the panel participants agreed that the FBI anthrax investigation was nothing short of a disgrace. While none of them singled out Iraq as the culprit, they all concurred that the FBI's "lone nut" thesis has several holes big enough for Godzilla to walk through.
All in all, the conference was more or less a rehash of things that I had heard before (indeed, many of which I've said before) with some new information, particularly in the case of Shakir, whom Hayes identifies as a Lieutenant Colonel in the Saddam Fedayeen. As Bergen in particular noted, this all but cries out for more investigation. Woolsey also noted that now-former CIA director Tenet has not distanced himself from remarks before Congress that Iraq provided training, money, and safe haven to al-Qaeda and that Ahmed Chalabi and the INC was hardly the only source of US information on Iraqi collaboration with al-Qaeda.
Hayes also spends a great deal of time in the book discussing media perception of the Iraqi connection with al-Qaeda. Whereas the media was only to eager to uncritically report information on the collaboration between Iraq and al-Qaeda back from 1998 to 2000, this changed dramatically during the run-up to the war in Iraq. I don't want to get into the whole issue of media bias in this particular analysis, but it is very much worth noting that US charges of collaboration between Iraq and al-Qaeda neither begin nor end with the administration of George Bush.
The Q&A was more or less a rehash of many of the same conversations that we've had here at Winds of Change, though Christopher Hitchens's wit was certainly a welcome addition to the mix. I have to say, though, that near as I can tell, David Corn's entire purpose in coming to the conference was to make a cheap shot at Hayes and Ledeen over the issue of Chalabi. Not only did that strike me as unprofessional, but in all honesty it really had very little to do with the subject at hand. Yglesias, incidently, did a much better job with his question of why the administration hasn't launched a search operation on par with the Iraqi Survey Group given how much effort they invested in their pre-war allegations concerning Iraqi ties to al-Qaeda. Ibish accused Hayes of peddling a conspiracy theory that Iraq was behind the 9/11 attacks, even though he conceded that he had yet to actually read the book.
Ultimately, that seems to be the basic thing that everyone got out of the conference: read the book, look at the evidence, and then come to your own conclusions. While I very much doubt that Hayes's book will change very few minds concerning the nature of Iraqi ties to al-Qaeda, at the very least I hope that it might convince one that those of us who do believe in the existence of such ties are hardly lingering in delusion the way that the Los Angeles Times editor suggested sometime ago.
And in case anybody asks, no, I have no idea as to why Tenet resigned yesterday, though there are some suspicions floating around. James Pavitt is also set to go according to CNN. I've learned more about Beltway politics over the last several weeks than I had in over 2 years of college courses and following news reports. And just in case anybody cares, I've also been told that the recent New York Times report on people over at the Pentagon receiving polygraph information is inaccurate.
Good report, as always, Dan.
The Times article is directly contradicted by the Post's which says that only one person, a DoD employee in Baghdad, has been polygraphed.
Do you have any insight as to who, exactly, is pushing the idea that Iraq and Al Qaeda did not have an operational relationship?
That is to say, when reporters say "intelligence officials say," are they getting this from George Tenet, James Pavitt, and Cofer Black, or are they getting this from Vincent Cannistraro, Ray McGovern, Bob Baer, snd Pat Lang?
(BTW, I would like to seem a good expository article on these swirling former intelligence officials. The more I learn about some of them, the more I wonder just what they're up to. For instance, Cannistraro had attacked the CIA's Afghanistan program from the right during the 1980s while a staffer at the NSC. Pat Lang is allegedly working for an Arab government at the moment. Bob Baer seems like a self-aggrandizer with scores to settle. Yet these people seem to be running what amounts to covert intelligence operations within the US government.)
Does Hayes believe that Saddam approved a relationship, or were these liasons basically rogue operations? My assumption is that there are elements within every government in the region that are out to do us harm. For instance, surely Prince Naif is up to no good, as well as many elements of the ISI, most of the Iranian regime, and the Syrians.
I would consider that a distinct possibility. One of the things that I’ve been baffled by in understanding this whole mess is how many of these folks have definite axes to grind against any number of people and just how many of these “intelligence officials” or “senior intelligence officials” that you keep reading about are actually just the same handful of people. As far as Lang is concerned, for example, he is currently registered as the agent of a foreign government, namely Lebanon. Not that you’d ever learn that from any of the media outlets that treat him as an objective analyst.
“Does Hayes believe that Saddam approved a relationship, or were these liasons basically rogue operations? My assumption is that there are elements within every government in the region that are out to do us harm. For instance, surely Prince Naif is up to no good, as well as many elements of the ISI, most of the Iranian regime, and the Syrians.”
Hayes’s claims generally revolve around the activities of the Iraqi Mukhabarat, in particular people like Farouk Hijazi or the still-unapprehended external operations director Habbush. There’s still a lot of the information to sort through and translate as far as the documents seized after the fall of the old Iraqi regime goes (to quote Ledeen on the subject, “There was an information revolution and the information won.”) before we can understand more about the inner workings of the Mukhabarat as far as who was doing what and why. In the case of Iran, things strike me at least as being much more clear-cut since the hardliners there have decided to show us rather dramatically in the last “elections” as far as who really runs things over there.
OK, so if Pat Lang is working for the Lebanese, does that mean he is working for the Syrians?
BTW, this is sobering reading.
If AQ's strategy is to worm its operatives into the oil industry and eventually seize it, that is truly terrifying, and explains a lot about US-Saudi relations.
I like King Pin better than Baron Harkonnen :-)
asdf:
Given that Lebanon is basically a Syrian colony, that would be my own assessment of the situation. Like I said, wouldn't you want to know that information whenever the media brings him out as an expert?
Yes, I would like to know that. I would also like to know more about just what he is doing for the Lebanese, and for God's sake I'd like to find out if he's running an operation within the US government, and why.
where is this guy habbush?? john loftus said this guy was negotiating a surrender months and months ago!
also, why has no media outlet ever interviewed hamed al-bayati, one of the guys from SCIRI who apparently wrote a book with a chapter which detailed the saddam-al qaeda connection. was all of his information bogus too?
http://hippercritical.typepad.com/hipp/2003/11/saddam_and_911_.html
and finally, whatever happened with this story about the interception of smuggled iraqi wmd in kuwait?
http://worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=34881
just wondering...
where is this guy habbush?? john loftus said this guy was negotiating a surrender months and months ago!
also, why has no media outlet ever interviewed hamed al-bayati, one of the guys from SCIRI who apparently wrote a book with a chapter which detailed the saddam-al qaeda connection. was all of his information bogus too?
http://hippercritical.typepad.com/hipp/2003/11/saddam_and_911_.html
and finally, whatever happened with this story about the interception of smuggled iraqi wmd in kuwait?
http://worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=34881
just wondering...
>the terror network is perhaps best described as being somewhat analogous to the mafia
I read that too fast and I thought it said media.
Although that wouldn't be a bad analogy either. The various news outlets compete vigorously, but will buy and attribute film clips when necessary. They also quote each other constantly.
I'm sure that reporters from CNN have drinks with MSNBC, NY Times, Fox, etc.
Why do they not understand that Saddam and al-Qaeda can cooperate too?
asdf:
All of these are very good questions. Unfortunately, I'm not in a position to answer any of them.
Glenn:
If I knew where Habbush was, I would be in a position to make a great deal more money than I am right now. My guess is he's somewhere in the Sunni Triangle leading the Baathist faction that wants to pick the next Maximum Leader from the ranks of the al-Tikriti tribe rather than from the army chain of command like those under al-Douri. If he was negotiating with us, I think it quite reasonable to say that nothing has come of this.
Al-Bayati was likely not interviewed due to the fact that SCIRI has very close ties to the Iranian government and was at one point viewed as the Iranian answer to the Mujahideen-e-Khalq. As such, he is hardly an objective or credible source of information on such matters.
The story you reference on Iraqi WMDs was based on a mistranslation into English by KUNA that referred to artifacts rather than WMDs but was picked up by the Hindustan Times, WND, and a couple others. And the artifacts were indeed handed over as the story specifies.
On the issue of Iraqi/al-Qaeda animosity, I figure you can tell who Al-Quaeda really hates by where and against whom they are launching attacks. On that basis they would seem to have been pretty chummy with Saddam. If Saddam was paying them not to attack him, he probably wouldn't be the only ME government doing so.
Dan,
I gotcha with the kuwait story.
On al-bayati, i understand that he had his motivations for promoting the idea of a saddam-osama link, and that the SCIRI brings its own dirty laundry (though i thought sistani was somehow linked to the group and/or to al-bayati), but if al-bayati is "hardly an objective or credible source of information", then how did he rise so high within the Iraqi Governing Council (deputy foreign minister)?
http://www.reuters.co.uk/newsPackageArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=511985§ion=news
on second thought, you don't have to answer that question. i'd still like to hear how and where he got his info. on a saddam-osama link so i could see for myself whether it seems bogus or not (though i guess if it weren't bogus, the bush administration would have advertised his "evidence" by now).
Glenn:
SCIRI has to defer to Sistani because he's the top Shi'ite cleric inside of Iraq. If they don't listen to what he says than they risk being marginalized as a force within the Shi'ite community, a la Sadr. Al-Bayati is certainly tied to SCIRI, however, which as I said complicates the situation on a number of levels.
Al-Bayati is hardly a credible or objective source on Iraq/al-Qaeda connections because the ultimate source of anything he does possess on it is very likely to have come straight from VEVAK, and you'll forgive most sensible people for not taking VEVAK at its word, especiall here in the West. That doesn't affect his own considerable diplomatic skills, which is why nobody has any problems with him being the deputy foreign minister.
You know what the merry-go-round of retired intelligence officials reminds me of? Pakistan! All those generals (ret'd) and former ISI heads, apparently still dabbling in politics...
Here is the DOJ page about Patrick Lang. Lang is apparently an agent (whatever that actually means) of Fouad Makhzoumi's Future Millennium Foundation, Inc. (whatever it does... here's another foundation whose website I can reach).
Here they are appearing on the same episode of CNN's Late Edition (although not during the same discussion).
Here's a bit more on Lang's recent media appearances and on Makhzoumi (who is possibly a member of the Council on Foreign Relations?).
Here is Makhzoumi in the early 1990s negotiating the sale of British military surplus (small arms) to Lebanon.
Uh-oh. "I do have a good and trusted contact who seems to be able to produce excellent results in both Iraq and Saudi Arabia. His name is Mr. Fouad Makhzoumi..." From: Report of the Inquiry into the Export of Defence Equipment and Dual-Use Goods to Iraq.
I suppose the argument 'proving' that Saddam, as a secular Baathist, and al-Qa'eda, as religious extremists, could not have collaborated, would also prove that the Syrian regime (Baathist) could not be collaborating with Hezbollah (religious fanatics) or Iran (likewise). Oh, wait...
And then perhaps the argument would also prove that Marxists could never march side-by-side with Islamists, and thus the anti-war/pro-Saddam demonstrations in various European cities never happened. Oh, wait...
Good article about the conference. Such reports are always preferred to some shallow and/or biased media report.
While there are some details not mentioned it appears that you have highlighted some of the major issues discussed in the book and at the conference. Thanks.