Washington — Some months ago, when Michael Ledeen’s coolly
argued book, The War Against the Terror Masters, came out
I thought he had tipped the balance in favor of regime change in
Iraq. Not only did he make the case that Saddam Hussein has aided
and abetted international terrorism, he also linked Hussein to Al
Qaeda. At least he made a strong enough case for me. Thus I was
surprised when Official Washington ignored the case, and then
claimed it was all very murky. Who could say how closely Hussein
was to any terrorists, let alone Al Qaeda?
Well, now it seems President George W. Bush and our intelligence
community is ready to make the case. One of the striking things
about the President’s fine State of the Union speech was that he no
longer asked Saddam for anything. It appears the President’s mind
is made up. Saddam’s transgressions against humanity warrant regime
change, and one of Saddam’s transgressions is support of
terrorists, including Al Qaeda, the murderous madmen who killed
3,000 Americans on September 11, 2001.
The other night the President said that his government now has
sufficient intelligence to link Hussein to the international
assassins of innocent people. He said we have this intelligence
from intercepted communications, from the interrogations of
prisoners captured in the war on Al Qaeda and the Taliban, from
defectors, and from other intelligence gathering. Frankly I have
never understood why over the past few months it was considered so
controversial to link Hussein to terror. The reports kept coming
in.
The most damning linkage between Iraq and Al Qaeda came shortly
after 9/11 when Czech authorities revealed that one of 9/11’s
hijackers met in Prague prior to the attacks on New York and
Washington with a known Iraqi intelligence officer. Though but a
lowly student of architecture in Germany, Mohammad Atta, who
probably flew the first plane to hit the World Trade Center, met in
April 2001 with the second-secretary to Iraq’s embassy in Prague,
Khalil Ibrahim Samir Al-Ani. Al-Ani was later expelled from the
Czech Republic on suspicion of spying and of plotting to destroy
American installations. I hope he is now back in Baghdad and very
close to President Hussein. They deserve the same fate.
Curiously American officials have long doubted that this meeting
took place, but the Czechs stand by their story. Now we have other
evidence that Iraq has been complicitous with Al Qaeda. The Islamic
extremists group Ansar al-Islam is operating in northern Iraq
against Kurdish forces, obviously with Iraqi’s approbation. Before
September 11 members of Ansar al-Islam were trained in Al Qaeda
camps in Afghanistan. Moreover an Al Qaeda operative responsible
for planning chemical and biological attacks, Abu Mussab al
Zarqawi, has been spotted in Baghdad where he was treated for
injuries received while fighting in Afghanistan.
Of course even before the connections between Iraq and members
of Al Qaeda were established anyone who cared to look into it could
find out that Iraq was a safe haven for terrorists, just as Syria
and Iran have been safe havens for terrorists. It has long been
know that one of the most dangerous terrorists of the 1980s, Abu
Nidal, had been the recipient of Iraqi hospitality. Nidal was
responsible for some 90 terrorists attacks accounting for the
deaths of nearly 900 people, 12 of whom were Americans. He died
violently in Iraq not long ago having exhausted his usefulness to
Islamic extremists. More recently, the Associated Press reports
that Abu Abbas, the mastermind behind the hijacking of the
Achille Lauro, in which one American was killed, has
returned to Baghdad.
All this evidence of Saddam Hussein’s involvement with terror
has been available for months. Now the President reports that next
week Secretary of State Colin Powell will divulge still more
evidence. That combined with the evidence that arms inspector Hans
Blix has come up with makes the case overwhelmingly. It is time for
America’s most effective peace movement to roll into Iraq — that
is to say the American armed forces and their allies.
