Marcus Bryant
10-27-2004, 07:36 PM
http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110005814
As Bill Clinton Once Said . . .
Saddam did have links to al Qaeda.
BY STEPHEN F. HAYES
The Wall Street Journal
Wednesday, October 27, 2004 2:00 p.m. EDT
With Bill Clinton alongside him at a campaign rally on Monday, John Kerry said he'd asked his fellow Democrat if he had anything in common with George W. Bush. Mr. Clinton's tart response--we were told--had been: "In eight days and 12 hours, we will both be former presidents."
Well, it appears that Messrs. Clinton and Bush have a lot more in common than that piece of wishful thinking. Both have warned--Mr. Clinton first, of course--that the nexus between rogue states like Iraq and terrorists like al Qaeda poses the greatest threat to America. On this point, in fact, Mr. Clinton has much more in common with Mr. Bush than he does with John Kerry.
According to 9/11 Commission co-chairman Thomas Kean, Mr. Clinton believed with "absolute certainty" that Iraq provided al Qaeda with weapons of mass destruction expertise and technology in the 1990s. He believed it as president when he ordered the destruction of the al Shifa pharmaceutical factory in Sudan, and he believes it now. And it's not just Mr. Clinton. According to Mr. Kean, "Top officials--Bill Clinton, Sandy Berger and others--told us with absolute certainty that there were chemical weapons of mass destruction at that factory and that's why we sent missiles."
A brief chronology: On Aug. 7, 1998, al Qaeda terrorists bombed U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, killing 257--including 12 Americans--and injuring more than 5,000.
On Aug. 20, 1998, the Clinton administration retaliated. Tomahawk missiles struck an al Qaeda terrorist training facility in Afghanistan and a pharmaceutical factory in Khartoum, Sudan. Destroying a bin Laden camp in Afghanistan was a no-brainer. But the decision to take out the al Shifa plant in Sudan was immediately controversial. Top Clinton administration officials said that the building was a chemical weapons factory. "There is no question in my mind that the Sudanese factory was producing chemicals that are used--and can be used--in VX gas," said President Clinton, addressing the nation after the strikes. "This was a plant that was producing chemical warfare-related weapons, and we have physical evidence of that."
The Sudanese denied this. And when reporters on the ground found aspirin bottles and other drug paraphernalia the Clinton administration, on Aug. 24, 1998, made available a "senior intelligence official" to provide more information. The official told reporters that the intelligence indicated "strong ties between the plant and Iraq." He cited the presence of O-ethylmethylphosphonothioic acid, known as Empta. It is a precursor for deadly VX nerve gas. The official was asked which countries make VX using Empta. "Iraq is the only country we're aware of," the official responded. "There are a variety of ways of making VX, a variety of recipes, and Empta is fairly unique."
The following day, Undersecretary of State Thomas Pickering, one of a handful of top officials involved in the decision to target al Shifa, spoke to reporters at the National Press Club. He was asked about an Iraqi connection. "We see evidence that we think is quite clear on contacts between Sudan and Iraq. In fact, al Shifa officials, early in the company's history, we believe were in touch with Iraqi individuals associated with Iraq's VX program."
Both the Iraqis and the Sudanese denied this. Sudanese officials made their case by pointing out that the al Shifa factory had been granted a contract for $199,000 to produce goods under the U.N.'s Oil-for-Food program. But the contract was never fulfilled and that program has, since the fall of Saddam's regime, been exposed as an elaborate money-laundering scheme that allowed Saddam to circumvent sanctions. In the days after the U.S. strikes, the Iraqi regime was characteristically defiant: Iraqi Vice President Taha Yasin Ramadan denounced U.S. "terrorism" against Sudan and on Aug. 27, 1998, Babel, a state-run Iraqi newspaper published by Uday Hussein, pronounced Osama bin Laden an "Arab and Islamic hero."
Under press scrutiny, the Clinton administration vigorously defended the strikes. Bill Richardson, U.S. ambassador to the U.N., cited "Sudan's support for terrorism, their connections with Iraq on VX . . . and Sudan's leadership support for Osama bin Laden." Sandy Berger suggested that al Shifa was a dual-use facility like those U.N. inspectors had found in Iraq. The Clinton administration had "information linking bin Laden to the Sudanese regime and to the al Shifa plant," he wrote in the Washington Times on Oct. 16, 1998. He added: "We have information that Iraq has assisted chemical weapons activity in Sudan."
This was not a peripheral argument. To justify its response to these al Qaeda attacks the Clinton administration repeatedly cited an Iraqi connection with al Shifa.
Mr. Kean says that the 9/11 Commission heard from some intelligence officials who raised questions about the presence of chemicals at al Shifa. "We still can't say for certain that the chemicals were there," Mr. Kean says, naming Clinton administration officials who testified before the commission. "If they're right and there was stuff there, then it had to come from Iraq. They're the ones who had the stuff, who had this technology."
Whatever the outstanding questions on al Shifa, there is little doubt that Iraqi scientists were helping al Qaeda terrorists in Sudan. Michael Scheuer, who ran the CIA's bin Laden unit from 1996 to 1999, wrote in his 2002 book "Through Our Enemies Eyes," that "we know for certain . . . that Iraq and Sudan have been cooperating with bin Laden on CBRN [chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear] weapons acquisition and development." (Mr. Scheuer, who writes as "Anonymous," has been a favorite of Bush administration critics since the publication this summer of "Imperial Hubris," his scathing indictment of the war on terror.)
John Gannon, former chairman of the National Intelligence Council and deputy director of the CIA, agrees. "The consistent stream of intelligence at that time said it wasn't just al Shifa," Mr. Gannon recalls. "There were three different structures in the Sudan. There was the hiring of Iraqis. There was no question that the Iraqis were there. Some of the Clinton people seem to forget that they did make the Iraqi connection."
That journalists also seem to have forgotten that the Clinton people made the Iraqi connection is strange. The central question of the presidential campaign is this: Was the Iraq war a diversion from the war on terror, as John Kerry claims, or the central front of the war on terror, as George W. Bush contends? Recent intelligence that Iraqi scientists provided WMD expertise to al Qaeda--especially if that intelligence led to military action--seems highly relevant.
So who is right? Did Iraq provide al Qaeda with WMD technology and expertise, as Bill Clinton claimed in the late 1990s and continues to believe today? Or is John Kerry correct when he claims, as he did last week in Dayton, Ohio, that Iraq "had nothing to do with al Qaeda?"
Now is a good time to ask.
Mr. Hayes, of The Weekly Standard, is the author of "The Connection: How al Qaeda's Collaboration with Saddam Hussein Has Endangered America," recently published by HarperCollins.
As Bill Clinton Once Said . . .
Saddam did have links to al Qaeda.
BY STEPHEN F. HAYES
The Wall Street Journal
Wednesday, October 27, 2004 2:00 p.m. EDT
With Bill Clinton alongside him at a campaign rally on Monday, John Kerry said he'd asked his fellow Democrat if he had anything in common with George W. Bush. Mr. Clinton's tart response--we were told--had been: "In eight days and 12 hours, we will both be former presidents."
Well, it appears that Messrs. Clinton and Bush have a lot more in common than that piece of wishful thinking. Both have warned--Mr. Clinton first, of course--that the nexus between rogue states like Iraq and terrorists like al Qaeda poses the greatest threat to America. On this point, in fact, Mr. Clinton has much more in common with Mr. Bush than he does with John Kerry.
According to 9/11 Commission co-chairman Thomas Kean, Mr. Clinton believed with "absolute certainty" that Iraq provided al Qaeda with weapons of mass destruction expertise and technology in the 1990s. He believed it as president when he ordered the destruction of the al Shifa pharmaceutical factory in Sudan, and he believes it now. And it's not just Mr. Clinton. According to Mr. Kean, "Top officials--Bill Clinton, Sandy Berger and others--told us with absolute certainty that there were chemical weapons of mass destruction at that factory and that's why we sent missiles."
A brief chronology: On Aug. 7, 1998, al Qaeda terrorists bombed U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, killing 257--including 12 Americans--and injuring more than 5,000.
On Aug. 20, 1998, the Clinton administration retaliated. Tomahawk missiles struck an al Qaeda terrorist training facility in Afghanistan and a pharmaceutical factory in Khartoum, Sudan. Destroying a bin Laden camp in Afghanistan was a no-brainer. But the decision to take out the al Shifa plant in Sudan was immediately controversial. Top Clinton administration officials said that the building was a chemical weapons factory. "There is no question in my mind that the Sudanese factory was producing chemicals that are used--and can be used--in VX gas," said President Clinton, addressing the nation after the strikes. "This was a plant that was producing chemical warfare-related weapons, and we have physical evidence of that."
The Sudanese denied this. And when reporters on the ground found aspirin bottles and other drug paraphernalia the Clinton administration, on Aug. 24, 1998, made available a "senior intelligence official" to provide more information. The official told reporters that the intelligence indicated "strong ties between the plant and Iraq." He cited the presence of O-ethylmethylphosphonothioic acid, known as Empta. It is a precursor for deadly VX nerve gas. The official was asked which countries make VX using Empta. "Iraq is the only country we're aware of," the official responded. "There are a variety of ways of making VX, a variety of recipes, and Empta is fairly unique."
The following day, Undersecretary of State Thomas Pickering, one of a handful of top officials involved in the decision to target al Shifa, spoke to reporters at the National Press Club. He was asked about an Iraqi connection. "We see evidence that we think is quite clear on contacts between Sudan and Iraq. In fact, al Shifa officials, early in the company's history, we believe were in touch with Iraqi individuals associated with Iraq's VX program."
Both the Iraqis and the Sudanese denied this. Sudanese officials made their case by pointing out that the al Shifa factory had been granted a contract for $199,000 to produce goods under the U.N.'s Oil-for-Food program. But the contract was never fulfilled and that program has, since the fall of Saddam's regime, been exposed as an elaborate money-laundering scheme that allowed Saddam to circumvent sanctions. In the days after the U.S. strikes, the Iraqi regime was characteristically defiant: Iraqi Vice President Taha Yasin Ramadan denounced U.S. "terrorism" against Sudan and on Aug. 27, 1998, Babel, a state-run Iraqi newspaper published by Uday Hussein, pronounced Osama bin Laden an "Arab and Islamic hero."
Under press scrutiny, the Clinton administration vigorously defended the strikes. Bill Richardson, U.S. ambassador to the U.N., cited "Sudan's support for terrorism, their connections with Iraq on VX . . . and Sudan's leadership support for Osama bin Laden." Sandy Berger suggested that al Shifa was a dual-use facility like those U.N. inspectors had found in Iraq. The Clinton administration had "information linking bin Laden to the Sudanese regime and to the al Shifa plant," he wrote in the Washington Times on Oct. 16, 1998. He added: "We have information that Iraq has assisted chemical weapons activity in Sudan."
This was not a peripheral argument. To justify its response to these al Qaeda attacks the Clinton administration repeatedly cited an Iraqi connection with al Shifa.
Mr. Kean says that the 9/11 Commission heard from some intelligence officials who raised questions about the presence of chemicals at al Shifa. "We still can't say for certain that the chemicals were there," Mr. Kean says, naming Clinton administration officials who testified before the commission. "If they're right and there was stuff there, then it had to come from Iraq. They're the ones who had the stuff, who had this technology."
Whatever the outstanding questions on al Shifa, there is little doubt that Iraqi scientists were helping al Qaeda terrorists in Sudan. Michael Scheuer, who ran the CIA's bin Laden unit from 1996 to 1999, wrote in his 2002 book "Through Our Enemies Eyes," that "we know for certain . . . that Iraq and Sudan have been cooperating with bin Laden on CBRN [chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear] weapons acquisition and development." (Mr. Scheuer, who writes as "Anonymous," has been a favorite of Bush administration critics since the publication this summer of "Imperial Hubris," his scathing indictment of the war on terror.)
John Gannon, former chairman of the National Intelligence Council and deputy director of the CIA, agrees. "The consistent stream of intelligence at that time said it wasn't just al Shifa," Mr. Gannon recalls. "There were three different structures in the Sudan. There was the hiring of Iraqis. There was no question that the Iraqis were there. Some of the Clinton people seem to forget that they did make the Iraqi connection."
That journalists also seem to have forgotten that the Clinton people made the Iraqi connection is strange. The central question of the presidential campaign is this: Was the Iraq war a diversion from the war on terror, as John Kerry claims, or the central front of the war on terror, as George W. Bush contends? Recent intelligence that Iraqi scientists provided WMD expertise to al Qaeda--especially if that intelligence led to military action--seems highly relevant.
So who is right? Did Iraq provide al Qaeda with WMD technology and expertise, as Bill Clinton claimed in the late 1990s and continues to believe today? Or is John Kerry correct when he claims, as he did last week in Dayton, Ohio, that Iraq "had nothing to do with al Qaeda?"
Now is a good time to ask.
Mr. Hayes, of The Weekly Standard, is the author of "The Connection: How al Qaeda's Collaboration with Saddam Hussein Has Endangered America," recently published by HarperCollins.