WASHINGTON — The U.S. government has finally begun to release
documents from the huge cache it has captured during Operation
Iraqi Freedom, and they are being posted to the website of the Army’s Foreign Military
Studies Office. One of the most interesting reports to appear is
an Iraqi Intelligence Service (IIS) review of Iraqi efforts to
establish ties with the Saudi opposition in the years following
the 1991 Gulf war. (Document # ISGZ-2004-009247; the Arabic
original is available here.
For the full text of our translation, click here.)
One section of this report has already been widely cited, because
it mentions a meeting between the IIS and Osama bin Laden: on
February 15, 1995, the IIS met with bin Laden in Sudan, and he
made two requests of the Iraqis that 1) they broadcast the
speeches of a radical Saudi cleric; and 2) they coordinate in
attacking foreign forces inside Saudi Arabia.
That, of course, is startling news. Yet the document’s
significance is much broader. Bill Clinton introduced a novel
concept into the U.S. understanding of terrorism which has far
out-lived his presidency: namely, that states had become
irrelevant and that even very major attacks were now the work of
groups and “networks,” unaided by states. This document, however,
suggests otherwise: states remain important, and their resources
far out-strip those of individuals and groups. This document also
suggests that the much-ballyhooed division between “secular” and
“Islamic” figures is, in fact, non-existent.
Mohammed al-Mas’ari and the CDLR
This undated review was apparently written in early 1997 (January
11, 1997, is the last date that appears in the document). It
shows that Iraq was actively pursuing contacts with opponents of
the Saudi government and begins by describing Iraqi efforts to
establish ties with the “Committee for the Defense of Legitimate
Rights,” an Islamic group somewhat less radical than bin Laden,
but also more popular at the time.
Muhammad al-Mas’ari, who was seeking asylum in Britain, headed
the CDLR. In September 1994, Ibrahim al-Sanusi, a Sudanese
official, arranged for the IIS to meet in Khartoum with one of
Mas’ari’s representatives, who proposed “joint co-operation” with
Iraq and presented a “work plan.” Subsequently, Sanusi visited
London to meet with Mas’ari himself. In December, Sanusi traveled
to Baghdad, where he met Saddam’s son, Uday, and the IIS
director. They discussed “in detail the Saudi opposition” and
“studied the recommendations that Sanusi proposed on behalf of
Mas’ari.” The Iraqis agreed to Mas’ari’s request that they
broadcast opposition programs into Saudi Arabia, even as they
sought closer ties with him, independent of the Sudanese.
The IIS established another channel to Mas’ari through a Saudi
diplomat, Ahmad Khidhayyar al-Zahrani, who, although posted to
the United States, requested political asylum in Britain. The
British turned him down, and following an offer from the Iraqis,
as the British were about to deport him, Zahrani took refuge in
Baghdad. He spoke with Mas’ari from Iraq a number of times; their
last conversation was on January 11, 1997. Mas’ari said that he
could not leave Britain with his asylum application pending, but
he would visit Iraq soon. Zahrani also contacted another Saudi
figure in Britain, Saad al-Faqih.
This section of the report ends, “We are thus following up this
issue to achieve the goal of establishing the nucleus for the
Saudi opposition in the country.” (It is unclear whether “the
country” refers to Iraq or Saudi Arabia, as Ayad Rahim notes.)
Bin Laden and the Reform and Advice
Committee
Bin Laden is the second major figure described in this report. In
1994, while based in Sudan, he established the “Reform and Advice
Committee,” which had an office in London. Al Qaeda was then a
small, very secretive organization and is not mentioned in this
document. Apparently, the IIS did not know of its existence.
(U.S. intelligence was equally ignorant. As late as August 7,
1998, when two U.S. embassies in Africa were bombed nearly
simultaneously, al Qaeda was not even on the official U.S. list
of terrorist groups; it was added subsequently.)
During his visit to Baghdad, Sanusi also reported on Sudan’s
efforts to establish contact between bin Laden and Iraq. Bin
Laden had fears that his enemies would denounce him as an Iraqi
agent, but he agreed to meet Sanusi. The Sanusi-bin Laden meeting
led to a direct meeting between the IIS and bin Laden in
Khartoum, in which bin Laden asked that Iraq broadcast the
speeches of Shaykh Salman al-Awdah and carry out “joint
operations against the foreign forces in the Land of Hijaz.”
Baghdad approved the first request, but the report says nothing
about Iraq’s response to the second. Bin Laden, the report
explains, was forced to leave Sudan for Afghanistan in July 1996,
and “the relationship with him continues to be through the
Sudanese side,” even as the IIS is seeking “a new channel in
light…of his current whereabouts.”
The IIS Station in Yemen and Stations
Elsewhere
As in Sudan, Iraq’s ambassador to Yemen was an IIS agent. Both
countries were major centers of Iraqi intelligence activity, but
the station in Sana’a did not enjoy the same degree of support
from local authorities as that in Khartoum. As the report notes,
“the Yemeni side did not keep the promise it gave” to work
together to cultivate the Saudi opposition.
In an effort to establish relations with Saudi Hizbullah (a Shia
organization), the IIS met several times with the leader of
Yemeni Hizbullah. However, the IIS suspected his ties to Iranian
intelligence and dealt cautiously with him, lest Iran’s
involvement lead to the Saudi government’s learning about Iraq’s
activities with the Saudi opposition.
The report also notes IIS efforts to develop ties with Saudis
through its stations in New Delhi, Islamabad, and New York, none
of which proved fruitful.
Implications
Were British authorities aware of the efforts of Iraqi
intelligence to establish contact with Saudis resident in
Britain? Were they aware that Ibrahim al-Sanusi, who presided
over a “Popular Arab and Islamic Conference,” held in Khartoum on
a biannual basis, was essentially acting as a front for Iraqi
intelligence?
Why did bin Laden ask for Iraqi support in attacking foreign
[i.e. U.S.] forces in Saudi Arabia? The most evident explanation
is that he wanted to do so, but lacked the capability to carry
out such an attack on his own.
Finally, the report suggests that states have a continuing
importance, while ideology is not as important as many would have
it. Once approached by Iraq, Mas’ari and bin Laden both sought
things from that country. Iraq’s resources outstripped theirs in
almost all respects. Mas’ari seemed to have had no objection to
working with Baghdad; bin Laden’s concern appeared to center on
how others might perceive him. Ideology — whether the Saudis
were “secular” or religious — was irrelevant to the Iraqis, as
was the Sunni-Shia divide, although a practical concern — Iran
— inhibited them from contacting Saudi Hizbullah through the
Yemeni branch. Sudan played an important role in facilitating
Iraq’s contacts with Saudi oppositionists, but efforts to
establish such ties in Yemen were unsuccessful, largely because
the Yemeni government did not cooperate with Baghdad.
***
Below is additional commentary from Ayad Rahim,
translator of the Iraqi intelligence report discussed above by
Ms. Mylroie:
ONE OF THE MOST AMAZING THINGS in this document for Iraqis is the
openness with which the Iraqi regime acknowledged that it engaged
in terrorism, and particularly in its embassies. Iraqis have long
considered the Baath regime a terrorist organization, the
intelligence services its external terrorist arm, and the
embassies as posts for the intelligence services (the dreaded
mukhabarat). When an Iraqi came anywhere near an Iraqi
embassy, he shuddered with fear. And God help you, if you
actually had business to conduct in an embassy. You fretted about
it for weeks, dared not go alone, posted friends outside, in case
you lingered too long, then recovered from the humiliation. Since
the fall of the regime, machine guns, weapons-silencers and
torture implements have been found in abandoned embassy safes.
The document is also a reminder of how a gang of thugs took over
a rich country, yet saw themselves as a legitimate enterprise,
and conducting themselves accordingly. They addressed each other
with honorifics and had a code of conduct and a core of beliefs,
such as the myth of an Arab nation, with sections, ultimately to
be united. They put together delineated reports about their
doings, sent them up the line of command, and wrote in flowery
language — albeit not very elegant.
An amusing phenomenon suggested in this document is Saddam’s Iraq
granting people political asylum. While Iraqis fled the country
in droves, seeking legitimate asylum elsewhere (an estimated four
to five million ended up abroad, more than a million of them,
forcibly driven out), the regime went searching far and wide,
inviting “Arabs,” purely for their terrorist utility. Meanwhile,
as actual Iraqis feared going to Iraq and had the doors of Iraqi
embassies and consulates literally and figuratively slammed in
their faces, their Arab “brothers” were being lavished with
scholarships, the royal treatment and exorbitant sums of money,
at their expense.
Finally, to Iraqis, the notion that Saddam wouldn’t deal with
Islamists, because he was “secular,” is laughable. Iraqis, who
witnessed on television Saddam’s dealings with any and all
terrorists, have considered him the world’s biggest terrorist and
have seen him ride whichever wind would prevail for him. During
his war with Iran, he “became” Shi’a — among other things,
posters of Muhammad’s family tree were circulated showing Saddam
and his sons as descendents of the Prophet. In the '90s, he had a
revelation, and called for “a campaign of faithfulness,” putting
the country on a fundamentalist track. Alcohol was banned,
extreme tribal ways were advocated for dealing with women, and
hundreds of women were beheaded in public (allegedly for
prostitution, but actually for dissent), and their heads posted
in front of their homes. Then there was his constant championing
of “the Palestinian cause” and pan-Arabism, while hosting and
sponsoring terrorist groups and conferences of every stripe and
flavor — with, as we see in this document, a process of
give-and-take, in the mix.
