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Helping Scott Ritter to Fisk Himself, Part 2: Saddam & bin Laden
09/14/2002
At this point, I'd like to turn the reins over to David Asman (after all, it was his interview) [with some interjections from me]:
ASMAN: We know there are people out there willing to do the dirty deed, and we also know Saddam Hussein has had contacts with these people in the past.
RITTER: No, you don't know that.
ASMAN: We know from Czech intelligence. Czech intelligence says that an Iraqi met with Mohammed Atta twice.
RITTER: What does the CIA and FBI say? [Keep this rejoinder in mind for later use.]
ASMAN: The FBI and CIA say the situation is not clear but Czech intelligence says it is. And why is it that the only person, the only Arab leader that Usama bin Laden likes and approves of and speaks highly of is Saddam Hussein, why?
RITTER: That's an absurdity, David. Usama bin Laden in 1991 was offering his services to the Saudi government confront Saddam Hussein. Usama bin Laden has issued fatwas against Saddam Hussein. [A: "absurdity"]
ASMAN: We talked to representatives of Al Qaeda here in 1998 shortly after the bombings of those embassies in Africa. The only Arab leader — I spoke to them personally — the only Arab leader they were willing to praise, not to condemn, was Saddam Hussein. Why?
RITTER: Well, I'm just telling you that the fact of the matter is the Iraqi government — and I'm not an apologist for the Iraqi government, Saddam Hussein is the most brutal dictator I can think of today and from my lips to God's ear, I wish he was dead — but the fact of the matter is Iraq is a secular dictatorship that has struggled against Islamic fundamentalists for 30 years.
ASMAN: Exactly. So why is it that Usama bin Laden supports this secular individual?
RITTER: Well, first of all, I don't think that case has been made. [B: "I don't think"]
ASMAN: It's been made not only by Usama bin Laden himself but by representatives of Al Qaeda to me personally on air. We've got the tape. I can show it to you.
RITTER: I'm not disputing that.
ASMAN: You were disputing it.
RITTER: I'm not disputing that people have sat before you and said these things. I'm disputing that Al Qaeda is somehow in allegiance with Saddam Hussein. [So he's not disputing the proof, just the reality that it is proof of.]
ASMAN: Why shouldn't they be? They both want the destruction of the United States. You don't think they do? You don't think Usama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein want the destruction of the United States?
RITTER: Let's keep Usama bin Laden out of this equation because I'm not linking them. [C: "let's keep Usama... out of this"]
Well, in that case, call off the war... Scott Ritter isn't "linking them." Sounds a bit as if Ritter, like many of the anti-attack-Iraq folks, chooses to simply leave out big chunks of the counterargument that he can't deal with. I've heard this assertion that al Qaeda and Hussein don't mix ideologically before, so, let's take a look at it.
At the very least, one can say that bin Laden has changed his position on Hussein. According to MSNBC, "He considered Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein an ally until Hussein threatened to invade Saudi Arabia." Subsequently, Saudi Arabia kicked him out, and he moved to the Sudan, which, according, happily, to "Fisking's" namesake, Robert Fisk, "is [was?] despised by Saudi Arabia for its support of Saddam Hussein."
Once Saudi Arabia sided with the U.S. against Iraq, bin Laden seems to have had a change of heart. As Eurasianet puts it, "while he did not approve of Saddam Hussein's 1990 invasion of neighboring Arab Muslim Kuwait, bin Laden — along with millions of other Muslims in the Middle East and elsewhere — sided with Saddam as soon as it became clear that the United States would oppose him with force," which coincided with bin Laden's big hang-up: U.S. troops accepted on Saudi land.
And let's not forget Saddam's conversion. Jeffrey Goldberg wrote of Saddam's conversion to radical Islam in his famous New Yorker article:
"It was gradual, starting the moment he decided on the invasion of Kuwait," in June of 1990, according to Amatzia Baram, an Iraq expert at the University of Haifa. "His calculation was that he needed people in Iraq and the Arab world — as well as God — to be on his side when he invaded. After he invaded, the Islamic rhetorical style became overwhelming" — so overwhelming, Baram continued, that a radical group in Jordan began calling Saddam "the New Caliph Marching from the East." This conversion, cynical though it may be, has opened doors to Saddam in the fundamentalist world. He is now a prime supporter of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad and of Hamas, paying families of suicide bombers ten thousand dollars in exchange for their sons' martyrdom. This is part of Saddam's attempt to harness the power of Islamic extremism and direct it against his enemies.
So, having seen that there's no reason ideology ought to have been a barrier to al Qaeda/Iraq cooperation, what evidence is there, beyond the Czech intelligence and Mr. Asman's interview with al Qaeda officials that suggests that Ritter is absurd for unilaterally declaring that he's "not linking them"?
First, Laurie Mylroie, in her ongoing investigation of Saddam's links to the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and the Oklahoma City bombing, cites collusion with bin Laden on some of the attacks for which the latter is given credit. An interesting note that will come up again with reference to Ritter's resignation from UNSCOM is this, taken from an April 2001 review of her book in the Washington Times: "Miss Mylroie argues that Bill Clinton[, his administration, and the intelligence agencies controlled by it] purposely ignored these leads because he didn't want to deal with Baghdad."
Second, Sabah Khodada, a captain in the Iraqi army from 1982 to 1992, told PBS's Frontline that he was sure that Saddam was behind September 11. He elaborated thus:
When we were in Iraq, Saddam said all the time, even during the Gulf War, "We will take our revenge at the proper time." He kept telling the people, "Get ready for our revenge."
We saw people getting trained to hijack airplanes, to put explosives. How could anybody not think this is not done by Saddam? Even the grouping, those groups were divided into five to six people in the group. How about the training on planes? Some of these groups were taken and trained to drive airplanes at the School of Aviation, northern of Baghdad ... .Everything coincides with what's happening.
Third, Goldberg also found Iraqi Kurds making the link to al Qaeda via a sort of terrorist "division":
The stories, which I later checked with experts on the region, seemed at least worth the attention of America and other countries in the West.
The allegations include charges that Ansar al-Islam has received funds directly from Al Qaeda; that the intelligence service of Saddam Hussein has joint control, with Al Qaeda operatives, over Ansar al-Islam; that Saddam Hussein hosted a senior leader of Al Qaeda in Baghdad in 1992; that a number of Al Qaeda members fleeing Afghanistan have been secretly brought into territory controlled by Ansar al-Islam; and that Iraqi intelligence agents smuggled conventional weapons, and possibly even chemical and biological weapons, into Afghanistan. If these charges are true, it would mean that the relationship between Saddam's regime and Al Qaeda is far closer than previously thought.
And fourth, just for flavor, remember ABC News's interview with Saddam's supposed mistress, Parisoula Lampsos:
As U.S. officials look for current links between Saddam and al Qaeda, Lampsos said she was told the Iraqi leader has met and given money in the past to Osama bin Laden, according to one of several written excerpts from the Primetime Thursday broadcast.
Lampsos saw bin Laden at Saddam's palace in the 1980s, she said, and claimed Saddam's son Oday told her his father met with bin Laden again in the mid-1990s and gave him money.
* Coming tomorrow: Ritter shifts his position about the U.N. and who was spying on whom and why and lies about why he left Iraq and UNSCOM — all while calling his boss a liar and another disagreeing expert a "fraud."
Posted by Justin Katz @ 12:46 PM EST
2 comments
I hope you realize what an ill informed, pathetic asshole you are by this time.
jimsegal @ 11/12/2003 10:39 PM EST
Hmmm... yes, I can see where a single, gratuitously insulting comment would scuttle the entirety of a lengthy post with multiple sources provided.
Thank you, Jim, for your well wishes.
Justin Katz @ 11/12/2003 10:45 PM EST