The Washington Times
www.washingtontimes.com
Clinton first linked al Qaeda to Saddam
By Rowan Scarborough
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Published June 25, 2004
The
Clinton administration talked about firm evidence
linking Saddam Hussein's regime to Osama bin Laden's al
Qaeda network years before President Bush made the same
statements.
The issue arose again this month after the National
Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States
reported there was no "collaborative relationship"
between the old Iraqi regime and bin Laden.
Democrats have cited the staff report to accuse Mr.
Bush of making inaccurate statements about a linkage.
Commission members, including a Democrat and two
Republicans, quickly came to the administration's
defense by saying there had been such contacts.
In fact, during President Clinton's eight years in
office, there were at least two official pronouncements
of an alarming alliance between Baghdad and al Qaeda.
One came from William S. Cohen, Mr. Clinton's defense
secretary. He cited an al Qaeda-Baghdad link to justify
the bombing of a pharmaceutical plant in Sudan.
Mr. Bush cited the linkage, in part, to justify
invading Iraq and ousting Saddam. He said he could not
take the risk of Iraq's weapons falling into bin Laden's
hands.
The other pronouncement is contained in a Justice
Department indictment on Nov. 4, 1998, charging bin
Laden with murder in the bombings of two U.S. embassies
in Africa.
The indictment disclosed a close relationship
between al Qaeda and Saddam's regime, which included
specialists on chemical weapons and all types of bombs,
including truck bombs, a favorite weapon of terrorists.
The 1998 indictment said: "Al Qaeda also forged
alliances with the National Islamic Front in the Sudan
and with the government of Iran and its associated
terrorist group Hezbollah for the purpose of working
together against their perceived common enemies in the
West, particularly the United States. In addition, al
Qaeda reached an understanding with the government of
Iraq that al Qaeda would not work against that
government and that on particular projects, specifically
including weapons development, al Qaeda would work
cooperatively with the government of Iraq."
Shortly after the embassy bombings, Mr. Clinton
ordered air strikes on al Qaeda training camps in
Afghanistan and on the Shifa pharmaceutical factory in
Sudan.
To justify the Sudanese plant as a target, Clinton
aides said it was involved in the production of deadly
VX nerve gas. Officials further determined that bin
Laden owned a stake in the operation and that its
manager had traveled to Baghdad to learn bomb-making
techniques from Saddam's weapons scientists.
Mr. Cohen elaborated in March in testimony before
the September 11 commission.
He testified that "bin Laden had been living [at the
plant], that he had, in fact, money that he had put into
this military industrial corporation, that the owner of
the plant had traveled to Baghdad to meet with the
father of the VX program."
He said that if the plant had been allowed to
produce VX that was used to kill thousands of Americans,
people would have asked him, " 'You had a manager that
went to Baghdad; you had Osama bin Laden, who had
funded, at least the corporation, and you had traces of
[VX precursor] and you did what? And you did nothing?'
Is that a responsible activity on the part of the
secretary of defense?"
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