Iraq's Terrorist Connections

It has been a long-standing claim among the war protesters that there was no connection between Saddam’s Iraq and al Qaeda. Again, this is more wishful thinking than reality.

I have lost contact with my Middle-eastern NSA/State Department source, so this part will have to remain undocumented. He told me that an Iraqi newspaper reported on the pending 9/11 attack three months prior to the attack. An undocumented source but a creditable source that deserves further investigation. My remaining sources are much more creditable.

The Weekly Standard reported in March 2006 a direct link between Iraq and al Qaeda through official Iraqi channels. The heart of the article is based on the following:

These documents add to the growing body of evidence confirming the Iraqi regime's longtime support for terrorism abroad. The first of them, a series of memos from the spring of 2001, shows that the Iraqi Intelligence Service funded Abu Sayyaf, despite the reservations of some IIS officials. The second, an internal Iraqi Intelligence memo on the relationships between the IIS and Saudi opposition groups, records that Osama bin Laden requested Iraqi cooperation on terrorism and propaganda and that in January 1997 the Iraqi regime was eager to continue its relationship with bin Laden. The third, a September 15, 2001, report from an Iraqi Intelligence source in Afghanistan, contains speculation about the relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda and the likely U.S. response to it.

Al Qaeda and affiliated terrorist groups ARE in Iraq today and the fight against them is obviously a fight against terrorism, which makes the war in Iraq part of the war on terrorism. The only point that may be argued is, were the terrorists there before the U.S. troops or did they suddenly appear there overnight.

For those of us who are at the front in the War on Terrorism, we see the links through multiple sources on a regular basis. All stories that are neglected by the mainstream media because they do not advance their political agendas. Then, as far as the protesters are concerned, if it was not reported in the New York Times, it did not happen.