June 21, 2004

Linked! (or, maybe not)
Posted by Jon Henke

This development sounds interesting... (also found here)

The commission investigating the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks has received new information indicating that a senior officer in an elite unit of the security services of deposed Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein may have been a member of al-Qaida involved in the planning of the suicide hijackings, panel members said Sunday.

John F. Lehman, a Reagan-era GOP defense official told NBC's "Meet the Press" that documents captured in Iraq "indicate that there is at least one officer of Saddam's Fedayeen, a lieutenant colonel, who was a very prominent member of al Qaida."

...but, before the right side of the 'sphere goes off on it--at least, any more than they already have--it's worth reading through a bit, and really thinking about the caveats. They're important, and they're relevant.
...experts cautioned that the connection might be nothing more than coincidence.

"Shakir is a pretty common name," said terrorism analyst and author Peter Bergen, "and even if the two names refer to the same person, there might be a number of other explanations. Perhaps al-Qaida had penetrated Saddam's security apparatus."

Analysts say the Fedayeen was not an intelligence unit, but an irregular militia recruited from clans loyal to the regime in the capital...

He said the Fedayeen were "at the low end of the food chain in the security apparatus, doing street level work for the regime."[emphasis added]

Three reasons why this might not be the smoking gun it's cracked up to be.
1: The names could be a coincidence.
2: Shakir may have primarily been an Al Qaeda operative, doing espionage within Iraq, rather than for them - Al Qaeda merely keeping their eyes and ears deployed.
3: Shakir was affiliated with both organizations, but was not a "connection" between the two - in much the same way that a person can work for IBM and play softball for his church league, but not be coordinating softball strategy for IBM.

Or, perhaps there's something to it. At this point, though, it doesn't look like substantial evidence of a cooperative link between Iraq and Al Qaeda.

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Comments

I agree that this may not be a big deal: but on the other hand, it may.

Even if "Shakir may have primarily been an Al Qaeda operative, doing espionage within Iraq, rather than for them - Al Qaeda merely keeping their eyes and ears deployed," this is still important. We all agree that Saddam Hussein had WMD programs in existence, and a worry was that these WMDs and/or programs could be given to Al Qaeda. If AQ spied on Hussein, those WMDs still could have ended up in AQ's hands to be used against America, even if Saddam did not deliberately give them.

The only way for America to prevent this would be to help Saddam's security against Al Qaeda (not feasible), or remove Saddam and his WMD programs.

Is there something wrong with my reasoning?

Posted by: Rory Daulton at June 21, 2004 03:25 PM

Very good points, Rory.

Posted by: Jon Henke at June 21, 2004 03:48 PM

Does this undermine the theory that the Hikmat Shakir was an Iraqi plant at Kuala Lumpur airport, or that he was fedayeen, or both? I thought the Qataris arrested him on 17 or 18 September 2001 with all sorts of terrorist connections in his address book.

So far as I can tell this just seems to undercut the idea that he was fedayeen, not that he was an Iraqi who may or may not have facilitated layover meetings for al Qaeda members in an Indonesian airport.

Posted by: DrSteve at June 22, 2004 03:47 PM