By Bryan Keefer
A recent article by Stephen Hayes in the Weekly Standard detailing the contents of a classified Defense Department memo has become the focal point in a debate about links between Iraq and Al Qaeda. A number of pundits have seized on the memo to suggest that, as Hayes puts it, "there can no longer be any serious argument about whether Saddam Hussein's Iraq worked with Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaeda to plot against Americans." Yet these sweeping conclusions vastly overstate the implications of the memo as reported in Hayes's article.
The memo in question was written by Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith for Senators Pat Roberts (R-KS) and Jay Rockefeller (D-WV), the chairman and vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee. It lays out fifty pieces of evidence suggesting contacts between Iraq and Iraqis and members of Al Qaeda, including Osama bin Laden (Hayes prints a substantial fraction of the numbered points, but not the entire memo).
The memo does provide evidence of several meetings between Iraqi agents and members of Al Qaeda, including several meetings between Iraqi intelligence officials and members of Al Qaeda, mostly between 1992 and 1998. The memo also includes evidence of an agreement between Iraq and Al Qaeda not to take action against one another.
Yet many of the memo's pieces of evidence come with caveats. For example, in regard to several meetings, the memo states that "None of the reports have information on operational details or the purpose of such meetings" (which are obviously crucial to establishing an "operational relationship" between Iraq and Al Qaeda). Other evidence is indirect, such as a note that "According to sensitive CIA reporting, . . . the Saudi National Guard went on a kingdom-wide state of alert in late Dec 2000 after learning Saddam agreed to assist Al Qaeda in attacking U.S./U.K. interests in Saudi Arabia." (ellipsis in Hayes article).
The memo also details the actions of Ahmed Hikmat Shakir, an Iraqi living in Malaysia. Yet the only documented contact between Shakir and the Iraqi government is Shakir's own claim that he obtained a job at an airport "through an Iraqi embassy employee." And regarding the controversial meeting between Sept. 11 hijacker Mohammed Atta and Iraqi intelligence officer in Prague, the memo substantiates two meetings (one in December 1994 and one in June 2000) but notes that evidence surrounding two others, including one in April 2001 that has been cited by Bush administration officials, "is complicated and sometimes contradictory".
The connections reported between Iraq and Al Qaeda after Sept. 11, 2001 are also vague and far from conclusive. They include an alleged offer of safe haven in Iraq to Al Qaeda members, the provision of weapons to "Al Qaeda members in northern Iraq" beginning in "mid-March," roughly the time of the beginning of US military action; and assistance provided by an Iraqi intelligence agent to Ansar al-Islam, an Al Qaeda-affiliated group which operated prior to the war in Kurdish-controlled northeastern Iraq.
Moreover, there are questions about the reliability of the information contained in the memo. The Defense Department released a statement which describes "[t]he items listed in the [memo]" as "either raw reports or products of the CIA, the National Security Agency or, in one case, the Defense Intelligence Agency," and says that the memo "was not an analysis of the substantive issue of the relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda, and it drew no conclusions." (According to reports, the classified version of the National Intelligence Estimate of October 2002 also indicated that those contacts had not precipitated any lasting relationship between Saddam and Al Qaeda.)
As Michael Isikoff and Mark Hosenball have pointed out, the memo also omits evidence that casts doubt on some of its claims. For example, while the memo details a meeting between Iraqi intelligence officer Farouk Hijazi, Isikoff and Hosenball note that "as Vince Cannistraro, a former CIA counterterrorism official, says, the Feith-Carney memo omits the rest of the story: that bin Laden actually rejected the Hijazi overture, concluding he did not want to be 'exploited' by a regime that he has consistently viewed as 'secular' and fundamentally antithetical to his vision of a strict Islamic state." Regarding the alleged April 2001 meeting between Atta and an Iraqi intelligence agent, "the Iraqi agent in question, Ahmed Khalil Ibrahim Samir al-Ani, has been in U.S. custody for months and, according to U.S. intelligence sources, denies ever meeting Atta."
In short, the evidence remains contested, and the memo itself does not demonstrate the sort of high-level coordination between Iraq and Al Qaeda implied by phrases such as "operational relationship."
Yet several pundits have implied that the memo documents such a connection, often including the suggestion that the memo justifies military action in Iraq. Former CIA director James Woolsey was one of the first, suggesting on CNN's "Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer" on the 14th that "Anybody who says there is no working relationship between Al Qaeda and Iraqi intelligence going back to the early '90s--they can only say that if they're illiterate. This is a slam dunk."
Others suggested some sort of personal link between Saddam and Bin Laden (which nothing in the memo supports). On the 17th, Rush Limbaugh trumpeted the article on his radio show (Windows Media Audio), claiming that "It says what I have suspected all along... And that is that there's been a tie, a link between Iraq and Al Qaeda dating back all the way to the early 90s, particularly Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein." The New York Post editorial board also weighed in on the 17th with the suggestion that the Hayes article "documents an even more profound linkage: between none other than Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin Laden." It continues, "The memo provides enormous evidence that the Bush team was right all along about Saddam's terrorist ties - despite charges to the contrary by the president's foes, particularly Democrats."
Syndicated columnist Frank Gaffney overstated the implications of the memo in a slightly different way last Monday, suggesting that "Saddam Hussein's regime had been guilty as charged – tied for over a decade to Osama bin Laden and his Al Qaeda network (among other terrorist groups) for the purpose of waging attacks on their mutual foe, the United States." The memo simply decribes evidence linking Iraq and Al Qaeda – it does not suggest that the purpose of the relationship was to wage attacks specifically on the United States.
On October 21st, Oliver North took the spin a step further, quoting Hayes and then suggesting that "[I]n their attempt to continue to undermine the president, the media is largely ignoring this memo -- and the few that are reporting on it have cast doubts about its contents."
These sorts of claims both ignore questions about the reliability of the evidence contained in the memo, and unfairly generalize what the evidence suggests. In such a heated debate, commentators must note caveats about such information and fairly represent it to the public rather than making sweeping claims that distort the facts.
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Related links:
-Spinsanity on Iraq