Another article, same subject, but from the WPO...Powell Ties Iraq to 'Associate' Of Al Qaeda Terrorist Group
washingtonpost.com
Powell Ties Iraq to 'Associate' Of Al Qaeda Terrorist Group
By Walter Pincus and Susan Schmidt
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, February 6, 2003; Page A29
washingtonpost.com
Secretary of State Colin L. Powell yesterday presented intelligence that he said shows that Iraq has been harboring a cell of a global terrorist network run by Abu Musab Zarqawi, a Jordanian-born Palestinian whom he described as an "associate" and "collaborator" of Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda organization.
The Baghdad cell has been "operating freely in the [Iraqi] capital for more than eight months," coordinating "movement of money and supplies," Powell said. He described it as being in "regular contact" with Zarqawi's network, which Powell said has plotted acts of terrorism not only in the Middle East but also in France, Britain, Spain, Italy, Germany and Russia.
Powell, in his presentation to the U.N. Security Council, also said the network run by Zarqawi, 36, is operating a terrorist training center in northeastern Iraq that specializes in teaching the use of poisons and explosives. He called the center "a nexus that combines classic terrorist organizations and modern methods of murder."
Bush administration officials have repeatedly alleged that Iraq and al Qaeda are linked, a connection that Iraqi officials have denied and many experts on international terrorism have questioned. The evidence that Powell presented of Iraq's links to al Qaeda appeared more substantial than intelligence officials had previously suggested, though Powell did not say Iraq's president, Saddam Hussein, had any direct operational control or sponsorship of Zarqawi's network or al Qaeda. He did describe Zarqawi's network as "Iraqi-linked."
One counterterrorism official said yesterday that officials from across the intelligence community -- principally the FBI, CIA and State Department -- recently gathered under the direction of the State Department's director of policy planning, Richard N. Haass, and coordinated their information. "Up to now they had not fully shared everything," he said.
"I believe Secretary Powell laid the case out well today, including the al Qaeda connection," Sen. Richard C. Shelby (R-Ala.), a longtime former member and onetime chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said yesterday. "I don't think we need to make any more of a case against Saddam Hussein. We know his goals are similar to bin Laden's. We know he's harbored a number of people who are high-level operatives."
Shelby said he has been given classified briefings on Iraq and al Qaeda that clearly indicate that "there is some more there. If I were Powell, I wouldn't give it all away," he said.
Powell traced the history of the relationship between al Qaeda and Iraq to the early 1990s, including meetings that were previously known. "We know members of both organizations met repeatedly and have met at least eight times at very senior levels since the early 1990s," Powell said.
Although Hussein's secular government was once anathema to bin Laden's militant Islamic movement, "ambition and hatred are enough to bring Iraq and al Qaeda together," said Powell, who alleged that Hussein and bin Laden agreed in the mid-1990s, when bin Laden was based in Sudan, that al Qaeda would cease support of activities against Baghdad. "In 1996, a foreign security service tells us that bin Laden met with a senior Iraqi intelligence official in Khartoum, and later met the director of the Iraqi intelligence service," he said.
Powell said that after al Qaeda's bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998, and the attack on the USS Cole in Yemen in 2000, Hussein "became more interested" in al Qaeda.
A senior administration official said that information came from detainees being questioned by U.S. interrogators.
Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Pat Roberts (R-Kan.) said: "The information shared today demonstrates the degree of cooperation we are getting from a broad coalition of countries.
Secretary Powell's presentation also demonstrated the enormous value of our intelligence-gathering capability."
However, Judith S. Yaphe, a former CIA analyst on Iraq and now a senior research fellow at National Defense University, questioned the reliability of information provided by detainees. "You never get a clear smoking gun," she said.
Offering details of the Zarqawi network's terrorist activities in Europe, Powell sought to counter antiwar sentiment. He said that 116 members of Zarqawi's network had been arrested in France, Britain, Spain and Italy since last year. |
