Woolsey Probing Iraq Connection for Bush Administration
Tuesday, Nov. 27, 2001 1:01 a.m. EST
Former Clinton administration CIA Director James Woolsey revealed Monday that he is investigating Saddam Hussein's possible role in the 9/11 terrorist attacks at the behest of the Bush administration, but declined to say what his probe has turned up so far.
"I'm on four advisory boards - all these are uncompensated - for the federal government," Woolsey told Fox News Channel's Laurie Dhue. "Two for defense, one for the Navy, one for the CIA. ... Sometimes they ask me for advice, and when they do I try to pull facts together and give the best advice I can."
Woolsey said he had traveled to Britain just weeks after the attacks as part of his probe but referred all further questions on the matter to the State Department.
Still, the former CIA director left the clear impression that he thought Iraq played a key role in both the events of 9/11 and the subsequent anthrax attacks.
"As far as 9/11 and the anthrax goes, I think there are three or four relevant points," Woolsey told Fox News.
"There have been a lot of high-level contacts between al-Qaeda and the Iraqi government, particularly Iraqi intelligence" throughout the 1990s, he contended.
The former intelligence chief claimed that satellite surveillance as well as five eyewitnesses - three Iraqi defectors and two American U.N. inspectors - have confirmed that hijacker-trainees practiced on a Boeing 707 jetliner at an Iraqi terrorist camp. The exercises included "non-Iraqi hijackers trained very secretly to take over airplanes with knives," Woolsey said.
"I think that Iraq is very much at the heart of the problems of the Mideast today and Saddam Hussein's regime, in my judgment, really needs to be put in the crosshairs," Woolsey concluded.
newsmax.com |
