Saddam’s and Iraq’s Links to Al Qaeda
September 15th, 2006 | by Craig R. Harmon |Eli Lake reports in the New York Sun today about the links between Saddam and Al Qaeda.
In a speech in which he challenged the belief of war critics that Iraqis’ lives are now worse than under Saddam Hussein, Barham Salih said, “The alliance between the Baathists and jihadists which sustains Al Qaeda in Iraq is not new, contrary to what you may have been told.” He went on to say, “I know this at first hand. Some of my friends were murdered by jihadists, by Al Qaeda-affiliated operatives who had been sheltered and assisted by Saddam’s regime.”
Okay, this is one person. He may, indeed probably, has a grudge against Saddam Hussein so one might consider this something that Mr. Salih is making up, except that we know that Ansar Al Islam was a terrorist group in Iraq and that it was being materially supported by Al Qaeda as late as 2002 (The 9/11 Commission Report, p. 61). I was not aware of the allegation that Ansar Al Islam was “in part funded and directed by Saddam Hussein’s Republican Guard” reported in the Sun’s report.
Anyway, I would hardly call this conclusive proof but it is an indication that, at the very least, Saddam and Al Qaeda both had interests in funding and directing the activities of a terrorist group. I offer it for your perusal.
9 Responses to “Saddam’s and Iraq’s Links to Al Qaeda”
By Dusty on Sep 15, 2006 | Reply
Well, the recently declassified report by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence states no way there were ties between Sadaam and Al-Qaeda, infact it was the opposite:
“Far from aligning himself with al-Qaeda and Jordanian terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, Hussein repeatedly rebuffed al-Qaeda’s overtures and tried to capture Zarqawi, the report said “
So, I guess it comes down to who you want to believe doesn’t it?
By Craig R. Harmon on Sep 15, 2006 | Reply
Hmmm. Yes I guess it does. So do we believe the Senate Select committee, sitting in Washington, depending upon testimony of the people that thought Saddam had WMD or do we believe someone who lived in Saddam’s Iraq and was threatened by terrorists in his own country, materially supplied by both Saddam’s own army and by Al Qaeda?
Hmmmm. Yes, that’s a tough call.
What that particular quote ignores are the repeated overtures by Saddam to reach out to Al Qaeda, including his offer of sanctuary to UBL in Iraq. It ignores that ideology does not necessarily prevent ideologically opposed groups from finding common enemies a sufficient cause for working together. America was never ideologically compatible with tyranical regimes but we prop them up when our interests are sufficiently tied to theirs. America was never ideologically compatable with radical Islam but we armed and backed Islamists in Afghanistan against Russia.
But, as you say, it depends upon whom you believe.
By Paul Watson The Cranky Brit on Sep 15, 2006 | Reply
In which case, Craig, how can you seriously talk about spreading democracy, when you don’t want it spread to those dictators we’re propping up? It makes the argument look a trifle silly, doesn’t it? “We hate dictatorship, except for the Saudis. Oh, and the Pakistanis, and Chinese. And Uzbekistan, almost forgot that one.” Is it any wonder people look for ulterior motives when the ones given are that consistent?
And as for the “enemy of my enemy is my friend” I think we’re seeing just how bad the consequences of that can be now. We supported Stalin to fight Hitler. We supported Islamic Terrorists ™ to fight Stalin. Now what kind of repressive bastard will we support to fight them and how long until they move to being our enemy, do you think?
By Paul Watson The Cranky Brit on Sep 15, 2006 | Reply
To clarify, I know the enemy of my enemy is sometimes a neessary evil, but maybe we should start planning for what to do when they turn on us as part of the relationship? And I’m not using the you as a perjorative, just that, well, you are one of the few defenders of the war here, so obviously everything that happens concerning Iraq is entirely your fault.
By Craig R. Harmon on Sep 15, 2006 | Reply
Paul,
Hi. I’m not advocating propping up tyrants and backing radical Islamists, just pointing out that we’ve done so. I suppose that both of those actions are defensible from the standpoint of American interests at the time, even though the results have been pretty bad looking back. I’m just not good enough a historian or geopolitical wonk to make the case. Then again, my argument works without my having to defend those aliances. My argument above is that, just because Saddam was a confirmed secularist, which UBL hates and just because UBL is a confirmed Islamist, which Saddam had no particular use for most of the times, that alone cannot be used to say that UBL and Saddam would never work together. We know that meetings took place to see if such working together might be possible. The question is whether they ever did work together. I’m not convinced that they did.
But then we have Iraqis like Barham Salih saying what he is saying. I’m not saying it’s a slam-dunk…a term I’ve come to avoid since the whole WMD thing went south. I’m saying that it’s another indication that doesn’t fit neatly into what conventional wisdom is, even in congressional subcommittees and reports.
Saudi Arabia isn’t hard to understand. We could
1. Ignore them. That is, neither support the Saudis nor actively oppose the regime.
2. Actively oppose the Saudi regime, without forcefully removing them but without propping them up;
3. Remove them by force ala Iraq.
4. Continue to support them while encouraging democratic reforms as we do now.
So why do 4 rather than 1, 2 or 3? Two reasons: primarily our need for affordable oil and their cooperation regarding terrorism. Yes, it damages our credibility but what is our credibility without oil? Yes, that is reason to actively work to reduce our dependence on oil.
As for enemies finding common cause, the fact that it can have bad results doesn’t stop enemies from finding common cause. My point was that some people say that Saddam and UBL would never work together. This in the face of repeated reaching out to one another from both sides when each side felt that external conditions warranted reaching out. It does seem, some slight and questionable evidence to the contrary, that the two never got together directly to work together — when Saddam offered UBL sanctuary in Iraq, UBL felt safe in Afghanistan. When UBL reached out to Iraq, Saddam showed little interest. That is not to say that they mightn’t have found sufficient common cause to put aside their differences to work together, just that they don’t appear to have done so to any appreciable degree.
What repressive bastard will we support now? Hopefully none. Hopefully our alliances with non-oppressive bastards will remain sufficiently strong that we won’t need to fall back on our former ways. That was, in part, point of finally militarily engaging the militant Islamists with a coalition of forces and militarily removing Saddam: we would not try to work our will in the region on the cheap via powers that are otherwise offensive to us such as Saddam and UBL.
By Craig R. Harmon on Sep 15, 2006 | Reply
Paul,
Regarding comment # 4, all I can say is “Heh!”
By Paul Watson The Cranky Brit on Sep 15, 2006 | Reply
I think that’s about as much eloquence as that post deserved, Craig. I just read it back after posting and it sounded like I was blaming you for the foreign policy.
By Craig R. Harmon on Sep 15, 2006 | Reply
Hey, I can take it. Broad shoulders, you see. :^)
By ken grandlund on Sep 15, 2006 | Reply
I certainly don’t think it impossible or even improbable that Saddam and bin Laden could have forged a working relationship based on the “enemy of my enemy” principal, however, the evidence to suppoort such claims is particularly flimsy. Did they meet or talk? Probably. But or own SecDef met with Saddam many times. Does that mean the Rumsfeld was working with Saddam to bring down the USA? To assert such might well be considered ridiculous, especially when Rummy can work to bring us down all on his own, albeit through a failed policy and not necessarily a desire to destroy the US per se.
So the fact (if it is indeed provable as such) that Saddam had met with al-Qaeda does not become de facto proof that he was aligned with terrorist interests, at least not so far as al-Qaeda and their aims were concerned. (Saddam had his own special terroristic tendencies and means that suited his aims, but not for the creation of an Islamic world.) To claim as much, and then to use that claim as justification for deposing Saddam, means that one is using faulty rationale at best for starting a war in Iraq. But of course, when it comes to Team Bush, faulty rationale is par for the course.