User:Huysman/Sandbox3

See the preceding chapters:
 * 1) User:Huysman/Sandbox1
 * 2) User:Huysman/Sandbox2

Atta in Prague
In the days following 9/11, a picture was published of MOHAMED ATTA, one of the leaders of the attacks. Officials of the Czech Republic immediately identified ATTA as the man who met Ahmad Samir al-Ani, the consul at the Iraqi Embassy, at a café in Prague. This story, first reported on September 18, 2001--the day the deadly anthrax letters were mailed--was immediately disputed. As it stands today, U.S. officials doubt the accuracy of the story, including Vice President Dick Cheney, a former proponent of the alleged connection. But certain Czech officials still believe ATTA is the man who met al-Ani and was deported from the country. Other evidence obtained in Iraq links Atta to Saddam's regime.

In the final analysis, the 9/11 Commission Report makes this statement (Page 229): "These findings cannot absolutely rule out the possibility that ATTA was in Prague on April 9, 2001. He could have used an alias to travel and a passport under that alias, but this would be an exception to his practice of using his true name while traveling (as he did in January and would in July when he took his next overseas trip)."

The fallacies of the 9/11 Commission's purported debunking went largely uncriticized. For nearly 3 years, the meeting was reported as occurring on April 8, 2001, but the story was changed to April 9. Though MOHAMED ATTA's cell phone was used on April 6, 9, and 11 to call lodging sites in the U.S.A., his cell phone was not used on the day in question. AL ANI was scheduled to meet a Hamburg student on April 8 and was in Prague that day with a Middle Eastern male, not 60 miles away as AL ANI had told his interrogators. ATTA had made 2 trips to Prague in 2000, on May 30 and June 2. His May 30 trip (which is sometimes incorrectly reported as another Pakistani with a different name), was marked by his urgency and careful avoidance of most security cameras, only possible by inside knowledge of the airport. A moustachioed ATTA and AHMED AL-ANI had been previously photographed on the outskirts of Prague. The X Report performed careful comparisons between the man walking with AL ANI and AA Flight 11 terrorist pilot ATTA are the similarities between the man in the photo and other photos of ATTA in eyebrows, eyes, hairlines, nose, Adam's apple, lips, jawbone, and ears. Atta also had false documentation that was provided by RAMZI BINALSHIBH.

Atta in Baghdad
On December 14, 2003 Con Coughlin of the UK Telegraph reported that a handwritten letter from the former chief of the Iraqi Intelligence Service dated July 1, 2001 mentions Atta's involvement with a planned but unidentified Iraqi-sponsored attack. Former Iraqi Intelligence Service chief Tahir Jalil Habbush al-Tikriti allegedly sent a 7/1/01 handwritten memo to SADDAM HUSSEIN stating that MOHAMED ATTA had completed 3 days of training in Baghdad with deceased Palestinian terrorist ABU NIDAL: Details of Atta’s visit to the Iraqi capital in the summer of 2001, just weeks before he launched the most devastating terrorist attack in U.S. history, are contained in a top secret memo written to Saddam Hussein, the then Iraqi president, by Tahir Jalil Habbush al-Tikriti, the former head of the Iraqi Intelligence Service. The handwritten memo, a copy of which has been obtained exclusively by the Telegraph, is dated July 1, 2001 and provides a short resume of a three-day “work programme” Atta had undertaken at Abu Nidal’s base in Baghdad.'' In the memo, Habbush reports that Atta “displayed extraordinary effort” and demonstrated his ability to lead the team that would be “responsible for attacking the targets that we have agreed to destroy”. Ayad Allawi backs the validity of this document. Some allege that Abu Nidal killed by the Iraqi Mukhabarat on the order of Saddam Hussein to cover up Iraqi 9/11 complicity. The recipient of the memo states that the source is highly reliable. The authenticity of this document has been called into question but it has never been formally authenticated or debunked. The letter is still in the possession of the new Iraqi government. Newsweek experts attempted to debunk the memo. Their arguments can be summarized as follows: However, Fox News commentator and blogger Ray Robison crticized the debunking. Robison argued:
 * 1) "The memo also says that Iraq was receiving Niger shipments from Libya and Syria, but this story was discredited."
 * 2) "The memo is too explicit, including details like 'small team from the Al Qaeda organization' and 'responsible for attacking the targets that we have agreed to destroy'?"
 * 3) "Atta's timeline precludes a 3 day training session in Baghdad."
 * 1) The Niger uranium story was based on credible intelligence and known facts.
 * 2) The objection about the explicit nature of the memo is meaningless since many genuine Iraqi freedom documents contain very incriminating information.

Many other captured documents contain incriminating information: "Document BIAP 2003-000654 was translated by Joseph Shahda and generated an article in the Weekly Standard. [21] The document is a memo from the commander of an Iraqi Air Force base requesting a list of "the names of those who desire to volunteer for Suicide Mission to liberate Palestine and to strike American Interests." [22]" "A series of "Sheen 27" documents show Saddam's regime was very involved in training fighters in the use of "improvised explosive devices" or IEDs. In a news report by Laurie Mylroie, several documents are discussed that speak of "Arab Fedayeen" (i.e. non-Iraqis) and the use of "of the people" bombs. Mylroie asserts that one of the documents that was posted was then taken down. [26]" "Another document suggests that the Iraqi government planned to respond to the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq with "camels of mass destruction" -- camels fitted with suicide bombs that would meet the invading army.[32] In another document, Saddam's son Qusay orders captured Kuwaitis to be used as "human shields" against the invaders.[33]"
 * 1) The document expert cited by Newsweek as discrediting the memo did not even look at the document.
 * 2) The memo does not specify the date of the training but Con Coughlin says that if it occurred it probably occurred in summer 2001.

To find opportunities other than summer 2001, we might extend the timeframe back to early 2001. Atta was out of the U.S. from 1/4 to 1/10 in 2001, and he spent at least part of that time in Spain. He inquired about cropduster planes in March 2001 and the next time he was confirmed in the U.S. is 4/3 or 4/4.

Salman Pak
A training camp in Salman Pak, south of Baghdad, was claimed by a number of defectors to have been used to train international terrorists (assumed to be al-Qaeda members) in hijacking techniques using a real airplane as a prop. The defectors were inconsistent about a number of details, such as. The camp has been discovered by U.S. Marines, but intelligence analysts do not believe it was used by al-Qaeda. Some believe it was actually used for counterterrorism training, while others believe it was used to train foreign terrorists but not al-Qaeda members. While it was said to be a counter-terrorist training camp by Douglas MacCollan, this is immediately supect given the existence of a "Tiger Group" of suicide bombers, and MacCollan's claim was falsified. In 1998 former Iraqi army captain Sabah Khalifa Khodad Alami reported the training of foreign terrorists by Mukhabarat officers in hijacking using knives at the Salman Pak facility. This was done on a jet. Since then, the existence of this plane was confirmed by satellite photos. Saddam Hussein had lied that there was no plane there. Khodada's drawing from memory of the Salman Pak facility is accurate, and he had not exaggerated his rank. He told PBS Frontline on October 14, 2001, "This camp is specialized in exporting terrorism to the whole world." Former Fedayeen officer and Unit 999 trainer Abu Mohammad claims that he first encountered Al Qaeda operatives at the Salman Pak facility in 1998. Additionally, there were 3 boxcars at Salman Pak where terrorists trained in railroad attacks, and there was an urban assault training center. Stephen F. Hayes reported: "Beginning in 1994, the Fedayeen Saddam opened its own paramilitary training camps for volunteers, graduating more than 7,200 “good men racing full with courage and enthusiasm” in the first year. Beginning in 1998, these camps began hosting “Arab volunteers from Egypt, Palestine, Jordan, ‘the Gulf,’ and Syria.” It is not clear from available evidence where all of these non-Iraqi volunteers who were “sacrificing for the cause” went to ply their newfound skills. Before the summer of 2002, most volunteers went home upon the completion of training. But these camps were humming with frenzied activity in the months immediately prior to the war. As late as January 2003, the volunteers participated in a special training event called the “Heroes Attack.” This training event was designed in part to prepare regional Fedayeen Saddam commands to “obstruct the enemy from achieving his goal and to support keeping peace and stability in the province.”"

9/11
The charge of "The Estate of John Patrick O'Neill vs. The Republic of Iraq, et al" hit the nail on the head when they said, "The horrific events of September 11th were the result of a world-wide terror conspiracy against the United States involving Defendants Saddam Hussein, the Estate of Qusay Hussein, the Estate of Uday Hussein, Husham Hussein, Tahya Yassin Ramadan, Muhammed Madhi Salah, Faruq Al-Hijazi, Salah Suleiman, Ahmed Khalil Ibrahim Samir al-Ani, Habib Faris Adullah al-Mamouri, Abdel Hussein, a/k/a “The Ghost,” Haqui Ismail, Taha Al Alwani, Abu Agab, and Abu Waiel, Osama Bin Laden, The Al Qaeda Islamic Agency, Egyptian Islamic Jihad, Abu Sayyaf, Hamsiraji Sali, Abu Musab Zarqawi, Abu Zubaydh, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Abu Abdul Rahman, Al Jazeera, Mohammed Jasmin al-Ali, Schreiber & Zindel, Dr. Frank Zindel, Engelbert Schreiber, Engelbert Schreiber, Jr., Martin Wachter, Erwin Wachter, Sercor Treuhand Anstalt, Abdul Rahman Yasin, Ahmad I. Nasreddin, Al Taqwa Bank, Al Taqwa Trade, Property, and Industry, Ltd., Al-Gammah Al Islamiah, Ayman al-Zawahiri, Albert Freidrich Armand Huber a/k/a/ “Armand Huber,” Ali Ghaleb Himmat, Asat Trust Reg., Nada Management Organization, S.A., Yousef M. Nada, Yousef M. Nada & Co, Gesellschaft, M.B.H, Barzan e-Tikriti, Metalor, Banca del Gottardo, Abdulaziz al Omari, Wail al Shehri, Waleed M. Al Shehri, Satam M.A. al Squami, Mohammed Atta, Fayez Ahmed a/k/a Banihammad Fayez, Ahmed al-Ghamdi, Hamza al-Ghamdi, Marwan al-Shehhi, Mohald al-Shehri, Khalid al-Midhar, Nawaf al-Hazmi, Salem al-Hazmi, Hani Hanjour, Majed Moqued, Saeed al Ghamdi, Ahmed Ibrahim A. al Haznawi, Ahmed al Nami, Ziad Samir Jarrah, Zaracias Moussaui, Muhammad Atef, The Taliban, Muhammad Omar, Muslim Brotherhood – Syrian Branch, Muslim Brotherhood – Egyptian Branch, Muslim Brotherhood – Jordanian Branch, Muslim Brotherhood – Kuwaiti Branch, Muslim Brotherhood – Iraqi Branch, and John Does 1-99, who have conspired for many years to attack the United States and murder United States’ citizens. Defendants supported, conspired, aided and abetted, sponsored, planned and executed the September 11th terror attacks that killed thousands of people and injured many thousands more."

Dr. Laurie Mylroie and James Woolsey provided expert testimony in a case brought to U.S. District Court of Judge Harold Baer. The plaintiffs were the family of victims of the 9/11 attacks that sued Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden for the wrongful death of their family members. Judge Baer ruled in part that the plaintiffs had "shown, albeit barely ... that Iraq provided material support to Bin Laden and al-Qaeda." 

ISGZ-2004-009247
The Reform and Advice Committee:

Headed by the Saudi Usamah Bin Ladin [UBL], who is a member of a wealthy Saudi family with his roots going back to Hadhramut. This family has a strong ties with the ruling family in Saudi. He is one of the leaders of the Afghan-Arabs, who volunteered for jihad in Afghanistan. After the expulsion of the Russians, he moved to live in Sudan in 1992 subsequent to the Islamists arrival to power in Sudan.

[A]s a result of his antagonistic positions against the ruling Saudi family in opposition to the foreign presence in Saudi Arabia, the Saudi authorities issued a decree to withdrawing his Saudi Citizenship. We approached the committee by doing the following:

A. During the visit of the Sudanese Dr. Ibrahim Al-Sunusi to Iraq and his meeting with Mr. `Uday Saddam Hussein, on December 13th 1994, with the presence of the respectable, Mr. Director of the Intelligence Services, he [Dr. Al-Sunusi] pointed out that the opposing Usamah Bin Ladin, residing in Sudan, who expressed reservations and fear that he may be depicted by his enemies as an agent for Iraq; is ready to meet with us in Sudan (The Honorable Presidency was informed of the results of the meeting in our letter 782 on December 17th 1994).

B. '''An approval to meet with opposer Usama Bin Ladin by the Intelligence Services was given by the Honorable Presidency in its letter 138, dated January 11th 1995 (attachment 6). He [UBL] was met by the previous general director of M 'I M 4 [QCC: possible the previous General Director of Intelligence] in Sudan, with the presence of the Sudanese, Ibrahim Al-Sannusi, on February 19th 1995. A discussion ensued with him about his organization, he [UBL] requested the broadcasting of the speeches of Sheikh Sulayman Al-`Udah (who has an influence within Saudi Arabia and outside, due to his religious and influential personality), to designate a program for them through the radio broadcast directed inside Iraq, and to perform joint operations against the foreign forces in the land of Hijaz. (The Honorable Presidency was informed of the details of the meeting in our letter 370 on March 4th 1995, attachment 7)'''

C. The approval was received from the Leader, Mr. President, may God keep him, to designate a program for them {QCC: UBL and the Sheikh] through the directed radio broadcast. We were left to develop the relationship and the cooperation between the two sides to find out what other avenues of cooperation and agreement would open up. The Sudanese were informed of the Honorable Presidency's approval of the above through the representative of the Respectable Director of Intelligence Services our Ambassador in Khartoum.

D. Due to the recent situation in Sudan, and being accused of supporting and embracing terrorism, an agreement with the opposer Saudi Usamah Bin Laden was reached, to depart Sudan to another region; whereas, he left Khartoum in July of 1996. The information indicates that he is currently in Afghanistan.

'''The relationship with him is ongoing through the Sudanese side. Currently, we are working to revitalize this relationship through a new channel in light of his present location.'''

Other Notes
Hayes: I have very mixed feelings about George Tenet's resignation. It is clear that no significant intelligence reform was going to happen under his watch. He was protective of a slow-moving bureaucracy that in many cases didn't deserve protecting. One example: in March 2002 Jeffrey Goldberg from the New Yorker magazine published a remarkable story in which he interviewed several detainees in a Kurdish prison who spoke openly about extensive contacts between Iraq and al Qaeda. The Kurds who had captured the prisoners let them speak to Goldberg in part because the CIA, having been informed of their presence and given the basic outlines of their allegations, showed little interest in interviewing them. I assumed that after Goldberg's article, the Agency would have been so embarrassed of its negligence that it would have immediately dispatched interrogators to northern Iraq. Wrong. A senior intelligence official told the Washington Post some six months later that although the agency was aware of the prisoners and their stories, no one had yet been sent to interview them. Inexcusable. Tenet probably should have been fired on the spot.

But from that point forward, Tenet consistently showed an openness to exploring the Iraq-al Qaeda relationship that put him squarely at odds with the bureaucracy beneath him. He authored a letter to the Senate Intelligence Committee in October 2002 that laid out some highlights of the Iraq-al Qaeda relationship and reiterated many of his points in congressional testimony as late as March 2004. Publicly discussing the relationship in that fashion certainly didn't make the agency look good since, as you've pointed out, they downplayed it for years. 

Jeffrey Goldberg The Great Terror New Yorker magazine March 25, 2002

Excerpts

The allegations include charges that Ansar al-Islam has received funds directly from Al Qaeda; that the intelligence service of Saddam Hussein has joint control, with Al Qaeda operatives, over Ansar al-Islam; that Saddam Hussein hosted a senior leader of Al Qaeda in Baghdad in 1992; that a number of Al Qaeda members fleeing Afghanistan have been secretly brought into territory controlled by Ansar al-Islam; and that Iraqi intelligence agents smuggled conventional weapons, and possibly even chemical and biological weapons, into Afghanistan. If these charges are true, it would mean that the relationship between Saddam's regime and Al Qaeda is far closer than previously thought.

On the surface, a marriage of Saddam's secular Baath Party regime with the fundamentalist Al Qaeda seems unlikely. His relationship with secular Palestinian groups is well known; both Abu Nidal and Abul Abbas, two prominent Palestinian terrorists, are currently believed to be in Baghdad. But about ten years ago Saddam underwent something of a battlefield conversion to a fundamentalist brand of Islam.

"It was gradual, starting the moment he decided on the invasion of Kuwait," in June of 1990, according to Amatzia Baram, an Iraq expert at the University of Haifa. "His calculation was that he needed people in Iraq and the Arab world—as well as God—to be on his side when he invaded. After he invaded, the Islamic rhetorical style became overwhelming"—so overwhelming, Baram continued, that a radical group in Jordan began calling Saddam "the New Caliph Marching from the East." This conversion, cynical though it may be, has opened doors to Saddam in the fundamentalist world. He is now a prime supporter of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad and of Hamas, paying families of suicide bombers ten thousand dollars in exchange for their sons' martyrdom. This is part of Saddam's attempt to harness the power of Islamic extremism and direct it against his enemies.

The Kurdish intelligence officials I spoke to were careful not to oversell their case; they said that they have no proof that Ansar al-Islam was ever involved in international terrorism or that Saddam's agents were involved in the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. But they do have proof, they said, that Ansar al-Islam is shielding Al Qaeda members, and that it is doing so with the approval of Saddam's agents.

Kurdish officials said that, according to their intelligence, several men associated with Al Qaeda have been smuggled over the Iranian border into an Ansar al-Islam stronghold near Halabja. The Kurds believe that two of them, who go by the names Abu Yasir and Abu Muzaham, are high-ranking Al Qaeda members. "We don't have any information about them," one official told me. "We know that they don't want anybody to see them. They are sleeping in the same room as Mala Krekar and Abdullah al-Shafi"—the nominal leaders of Ansar al-Islam.

The real leader, these officials say, is an Iraqi who goes by the name Abu Wa'el, and who, like the others, spent a great deal of time in bin Laden's training camps. But he is also, they say, a high-ranking officer of the Mukhabarat. One senior official added, "A man named Abu Agab is in charge of the northern bureau of the Mukhabarat. And he is Abu Wa'el's control officer."

Abu Agab, the official said, is based in the city of Kirkuk, which is predominantly Kurdish but is under the control of Baghdad. According to intelligence officials, Abu Agab and Abu Wa'el met last July 7th, in Germany. From there, they say, Abu Wa'el travelled to Afghanistan and then, in August, to Kurdistan, sneaking across the Iranian border.

The Kurdish officials told me that they learned a lot about Abu Wa'el's movements from one of their prisoners, an Iraqi intelligence officer named Qassem Hussein Muhammad, and they invited me to speak with him. Qassem, the Kurds said, is a Shiite from Basra, in southern Iraq, and a twenty-year veteran of Iraqi intelligence.

Qassem said that he was one of seventeen bodyguards assigned to protect Zawahiri, who stayed at Baghdad's Al Rashid Hotel, but who, he said, moved around surreptitiously. The guards had no idea why Zawahiri was in Baghdad, but one day Qassem escorted him to one of Saddam's palaces for what he later learned was a meeting with Saddam himself.

Qassem's capture by the Kurds grew out of his last assignment from the Mukhabarat. The Iraqi intelligence service received word that Abu Wa'el had been captured by American agents. "I was sent by the Mukhabarat to Kurdistan to find Abu Wa'el or, at least, information about him," Qassem told me. "That's when I was captured, before I reached Biyara."

I asked him if he was sure that Abu Wa'el was on Saddam's side. "He's an employee of the Mukhabarat," Qassem said. "He's the actual decision-maker in the group"—Ansar al-Islam—"but he's an employee of the Mukhabarat." According to the Kurdish intelligence officials, Abu Wa'el is not in American hands; rather, he is still with Ansar al-Islam. American officials declined to comment.

The Kurdish intelligence officials told me that they have Al Qaeda members in custody, and they introduced me to another prisoner, a young Iraqi Arab named Haqi Ismail, whom they described as a middle- to high-ranking member of Al Qaeda. He was, they said, captured by the peshmerga as he tried to get into Kurdistan three weeks after the start of the American attack on Afghanistan. Ismail, they said, comes from a Mosul family with deep connections to the Mukhabarat; his uncle is the top Mukhabarat official in the south of Iraq. They said they believe that Haqi Ismail is a liaison between Saddam's intelligence service and Al Qaeda.

Ismail wore slippers and a blanket around his shoulders. He was ascetic in appearance and, at the same time, ostentatiously smug. He appeared to be amused by the presence of an American. He told the investigators that he would not talk to the C.I.A. The Kurdish investigators laughed and said they wished that I were from the C.I.A.

Ismail said that he was once a student at the University of Mosul but grew tired of life in Iraq under Saddam Hussein. Luckily, he said, in 1999 he met an Afghan man who persuaded him to seek work in Afghanistan. The Kurdish investigators smiled as Ismail went on to say that he found himself in Kandahar, then in Kabul, and then somehow—here he was exceedingly vague—in an Al Qaeda camp. When I asked him how enrollment in an Al Qaeda camp squared with his wish to seek work in Afghanistan, he replied, "Being a soldier is a job." After his training, he said, he took a post in the Taliban Foreign Ministry. I asked him if he was an employee of Saddam's intelligence service. "I prefer not to talk about that," he replied.

Later, I asked the Kurdish officials if they believed that Saddam provides aid to Al Qaeda-affiliated terror groups or simply maintains channels of communication with them. It was getting late, and the room was growing even colder. "Come back tomorrow," the senior official in the room said, "and we'll introduce you to someone who will answer that question."

A year later, there was a new development: Othman told Jawad to smuggle several dozen refrigerator motors into Afghanistan for the Iraqi Mukhabarat; a cannister filled with liquid was attached to each motor. Jawad said that he asked Othman for more information. "I said, 'Othman, what does this contain?' He said, 'My life and your life.' He said they"—the Iraqi agents—"were going to kill us if we didn't do this. That's all I'll say.

"I was given a book of dollars," Jawad went on, meaning ten thousand dollars—a hundred American hundred-dollar bills. "I was told to arrange to smuggle the motors. Othman told me to kill any of the smugglers who helped us once we got there." Vehicles belonging to the Taliban were waiting at the border, and Jawad said that he turned over the liquid-filled refrigerator motors to the Taliban, and then killed the smugglers who had helped him.

Jawad said that he had no idea what liquid was inside the motors, but he assumed that it was some type of chemical or biological weapon. I asked the Kurdish officials who remained in the room if they believed that, as late as 2000, the Mukhabarat was transferring chemical or biological weapons to Al Qaeda. They spoke carefully. "We have no idea what was in the cannisters," the senior official said. "This is something that is worth an American investigation."

When I asked Jawad to tell me why he worked for Al Qaeda, he replied, "Money." He would not say how much money he had been paid, but he suggested that it was quite a bit. I had one more question: How many years has Al Qaeda maintained a relationship with Saddam Hussein's regime? "There's been a relationship between the Mukhabarat and the people of Al Qaeda since 1992," he replied.

Carole O'Leary, a Middle Eastern expert at American University, in Washington, and a specialist on the Kurds, said it is likely that Saddam would seek an alliance with Islamic terrorists to serve his own interests. "I know that there are Mukhabarat agents throughout Kurdistan," O'Leary said, and went on, "One way the Mukhabarat could destabilize the Kurdish experiment in democracy is to link up with Islamic radical groups. Their interests dovetail completely. They both have much to fear from the democratic, secular experiment of the Kurds in the safe haven, and they both obviously share a hatred for America."

Saddam's conversion On the surface, a marriage of Saddam's secular Baath Party regime with the fundamentalist Al Qaeda seems unlikely. His relationship with secular Palestinian groups is well known; both Abu Nidal and Abul Abbas, two prominent Palestinian terrorists, are currently believed to be in Baghdad. But about ten years ago Saddam underwent something of a battlefield conversion to a fundamentalist brand of Islam.

"It was gradual, starting the moment he decided on the invasion of Kuwait," in June of 1990, according to Amatzia Baram, an Iraq expert at the University of Haifa. "His calculation was that he needed people in Iraq and the Arab world—as well as God—to be on his side when he invaded. After he invaded, the Islamic rhetorical style became overwhelming"—so overwhelming, Baram continued, that a radical group in Jordan began calling Saddam "the New Caliph Marching from the East." This conversion, cynical though it may be, has opened doors to Saddam in the fundamentalist world. He is now a prime supporter of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad and of Hamas, paying families of suicide bombers ten thousand dollars in exchange for their sons' martyrdom. This is part of Saddam's attempt to harness the power of Islamic extremism and direct it against his enemies.

Baathist jihad

'Illegal trial will turn a new page for the Jihad' October 19, 2005 Edition 1

Nicosia - Saddam Hussein's ousted Ba'ath party called on supporters in Iraq to step up attacks on US and Iraqi forces as his trial starts today, according to an Internet statement.

"Salute the leader at the trial by firing bullets and mortars of death at the occupier, its men, equipment and bases, as well as agents in the army and the symbols of treason," it said.

The statement, whose authenticity could not be verified, was addressed to the "Ba'athist resistance", "resistance fighters" and "Fedayeen (men of sacrifice) of Saddam Hussein".

"This illegal trial will turn a new page for the Jihad (holy war) of the Iraqi armed resistance ... organised for the long run by our companion and leader," it said. - Sapa-AFP

Leaks by Intelligence Community

Republican says US readying crackdown on leaks Tue Jul 11, 2006 8:32pm ET By David Morgan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Bush administration is preparing a crackdown on intelligence leaks to the media and will try to pursue prosecutions in some recent cases, the chairman of the House of Representatives Intelligence Committee on Tuesday.

Michigan Republican Rep. Peter Hoekstra also suggested some unauthorized leaks could have been deliberate attempts to help al Qaeda.

"More frequently than what we would like, we find out that the intelligence community has been penetrated, not necessarily by al Qaeda, but by other nations or organizations," he said.

"I don't have any evidence. But from my perspective, when you have information that is leaked that is clearly helpful to our enemy, you cannot discount that possibility," he added.

In recent months, two major intelligence operations were leaked to the media: the National Security Agency's domestic surveillance program and the Treasury Department's tracking of international banking transactions.

"There will be a renewed effort by the Justice Department in a couple of these cases to go through the entire process ... so they can prosecute," Hoekstra said in a speech to the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank.

Justice Department officials were not immediately available for comment.

Hoekstra also said the newly-installed CIA director Michael Hayden was conducting aggressive internal investigations against leakers.

CIA spokeswoman Jennifer Millerwise Dyck declined to comment on investigations but said Hayden believes greater communication within the agency could eliminate staff frustrations that lead to leaks.

Hoekstra, a staunch ally of President George W. Bush on most intelligence issues, broke with the president in May when he sent the White House an angry letter complaining that his committee had been kept in the dark about still other secret programs, until whistle blowers in the intelligence community told him about them.

In his letter to Bush, Hoekstra said that the U.S. Congress "simply should not have to play 'Twenty Questions' to get the information that it deserves under our Constitution."

Notes and References
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