What They're Finding In Iraq?
By William Fielder
May 5, 2003
aim.org
Note: I found this today while searching for Salman Pak info....
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According to Barton Gellman, writing in the March 23rd edition of the Washington Post, al Qaeda leaders, long known to covet biological and chemical weapons, have reached at least the threshold of production and may have manufactured some of them. This according to a newly obtained cache of documentary evidence and interrogations recently conducted by the U.S. government. Gellman describes the al Qaeda biochemical weapons program as being more advanced than originally thought, and included the ability to produce their own low-grade anthrax.
This information comes from data captured with Khalid Sheik Mohammed, and is chilling news, but not unexpected. Al Qaeda's original biochemical effort was centered at a site near Kandahar in Afghanistan, but was probably transferred to the allied Ansar al Islam laboratory in Northern Iraq, which has now been destroyed and taken over by the U.S. and the Kurds.
The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a subsequent briefing that traces of anthrax were found at Kandahar. Ayman al Zawahiri, al Qaeda¹s chief of bioweapons development at the Ansar al Islam compound, was treated in a Baghdad hospital under Saddam's auspices after escaping Afghanistan ahead of U.S. forces. If al Qaeda was behind the attack on Congress and news outlets in September 2001, this information indicates that the sophisticated form of anthrax used in the attack was produced by a source outside al Qaeda.
Authorities believe that these anthrax spores could have only been produced by the U.S., Russia, or Iraq. The U.S. has no offensive bioweapons effort. Russia is a possible source, but most likely, the powdered anthrax came from Iraq, which is also believed to have produced a similar agent known as 'dusty mustard,' which is designed to get inside chemical protective gear.
Nissar Hindawi, an Iraqi bioweapons specialist told the New York Times' Judith Miller that efforts to conceal Saddam's bioweapons efforts 'were all lies.² Miller reported on April 27th in the Times that Hindawi worked on botulism toxin and anthrax.
On April 7th, 2001, Mohammed Atta, the leader of the 9/11/01 hijackers flew from the US to Prague, Czech Republic, where he met with Iraqi diplomat Ahmed Khalil al-Ani, according to Czech intelligence. Was powdered anthrax from Iraq delivered to Atta at this meeting, and was it passed to an al Qaeda operative in Jersey City upon Atta's return to the U.S., for subsequent mailing to members of Congress and the news media?
The London Telegraph Newspaper has obtained documents from Iraqi Intelligence Headquarters that they claim confirm an Iraqi-al Qaeda connection. In a story filed on April 27th, 2003 the Telegraph reports that a previously disclosed meeting between an Osama bin Laden (OBL) representative and Iraqi intelligence took place in Baghdad during March 1998. An invitation was then extended for OBL to visit Baghdad. This was followed by the visit of two of bin Laden¹s chief lieutenants to Baghdad to confer with Saddam¹s son Qusay, according to author and terrorism expert Josef Bodansky.
A journalist for the London Telegraph believes that he saw bin Laden in Baghdad on a later date. We also now know that international terrorist recruits were undergoing training at Samarra and Salman Pak south of Baghdad, where they were assembled into guerrilla units that attacked US troops. Terror training may have been conducted for al Qaeda since the Afghanistan schools were put out of business.
In a possibly corresponding report, John Daniszewski of the Los Angeles Times, writes in April 2003, that other documents liberated from Iraqi intelligence claim 66 successful assassinations. Daniszewski concludes that the documents 'appear to corroborate the long-standing accusation that Saddam sanctioned assassination of his opponents abroad.' Targets included George Bush the elder during a visit to Kuwait in 1993.
Regardless, the circle is getting smaller and Iraqi efforts in support of international terror are becoming clearer. These operations may have included TWA 800 and the Oklahoma City bombing, as well as the anthrax attack following 9/11.
William Fielder is a retired Army officer with 40 years experience in U.S. intelligence. hoostwo@earthlink.net |
