Cybercast News Service: Claim of Hussein's WMD, Ties to Al Qaeda
On October 4, 2004, Cybercast News Service reported that a "senior government official who is not a political appointee" provided CNS with 42 pages of Iraqi Intelligence Service (IIS) documents which were then translated from Arabic by two CNS translators. CNS reports that the official told them that the documents answer "whether or not Iraq was a state sponsor of Islamic terrorism against the United States. It also answers whether or not Iraq had an ongoing biological warfare project continuing through the period when the UNSCOM inspections ended."[1]
CNS further claimed three experts reviewed the documents and said they were likely geniune: Laurie Mylroie, author of the book Study of Revenge: Saddam Hussein's Unfinished War against America; Bruce Tefft, a retired CIA official; and an unnamed former UNSCOM weapons inspector. The named "experts" are both individuals with a history of making ideologically charged and controversial statements in support of the war in Iraq neoconservative agenda. The anonymous individual who supplied the documents is quoted as saying it is "unlikely" that others in the U.S. government "even know this exists." The article does not explain how this is possible if this source is indeed a "senior government official." The timing of the news story, which appeared near the end of the U.S. presidential campaign, suggests that it was written with the intention of shoring up support for Bush, whom the article notes has been hurt politically by the failure of investigators to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
CNS says the documents show that Iraq bought "five kilograms of mustard gas on Aug. 21, 2000 and three vials of [ anthrax ] on Sept. 6, 2000." from what appears on the documents as "Saddam's company," which "Tefft said was probably a reference to Saddam General Establishment, "a complex of factories involved with, amongst other things, precision optics, missile, and artillery fabrication." which were received by IIS. It is worth noting that five kilograms of mustard agent would only fill up to three artillery shells. [1][2]
A memo in the alleged documents from 1993 includes "Saddam's directive" that "the party should move to hunt the Americans who are on Arabian land, especially in Somalia, by using Arabian elements ..." CNS then connects this to the Mogadishu attack in Somalia nine months later, as the rebels involved were Arab. CNS also mentions in passing the "warlord" of southern Mogadishu's (Mohammed Farah Aidid) alleged connections to Osama Bin Laden and Bin Laden's "network."
CNS additionally provides much more commentary from Tefft regarding the nature of the documents.
Links to Documents
- 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19
- 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29† | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 | 37 | 38 | 39 | 40
- 41 | 42
- †Pages 29 through 40 are reported as being duplicates of pages 2 through 12, but in different handwriting.
References
- ↑ Scott Wheeler, "Exclusive: Saddam Possessed WMD, Had Extensive Terror Ties," CNSNews.com, October 4, 2004.
External links
- Reed Irvine and Cliff Kincaid, "Journalists Who Were Right," Accuracy in Media, October 30, 2001: "Some journalists had more information on the terrorist threat to America than the FBI or CIA. ... What remains to be investigated is whether the previous Clinton Administration had a deliberate policy of turning a blind eye to these terrorist activities on American soil. One journalist who investigated one aspect of this problem was Scott Wheeler, chief correspondent for the American Investigator television program. Wheeler's 1999 documentary, Gunrunner's Suite, exposed a smuggling operation on American soil to send armaments to the terrorist government of Libya."
- Scott L. Wheeler, "The Nation: War on Terror. Terrorist Tactics for the War With the West," Insight, December 12, 2002.
- Scott L. Wheeler, "Stories Back in the News: The Link Between Iraq and Al-Qaeda," Insight Magazine, September 29, 2003; reposted Insight Magazine, June 18, 2004; posted as "Iraq-al-Qaida link revealed. Saddam part of 'money-laundering operation' for Islamic terror group," WorldNetDaily, September 30, 2003.
- Scott Wheeler, "Exclusive: Saddam Possessed WMD, Had Extensive Terror Ties," CNSNews.com, October 4, 2004.
- Jim Geraghty, "Does CNSNews.com have the story of the year?" National Review Online, October 4, 2004.
- David Thibault, "Journalistic Methodology Used to Report Details of Saddam's Terror Ties," CNS News, October 4, 2004.
- "An Update on the CNSNEWS.COM Documents," National Review Online, October 5, 2004.
- David Thibault, "CNSNews.com Publishes Iraqi Intelligence Docs," CNS News, October 11, 2004: "Upon clicking on the individual pages of Arabic documents, readers will have an opportunity to click on the unedited English translation of those documents."
- Scott Wheeler, "Inspector's Report Bolsters Credibility of Iraqi Intelligence Documents," CNS News, October 13, 2004.
- "Duelfer: 'A lot of material left Iraq and went to Syria'," WorldNetDaily, October 16, 2004: "Iraq Survey Group head does not rule out Saddam's transfer of WMD."
- Mindy Belz, "Unmasked men," World Magazine, October 16, 2004: "Leaked Iraqi intelligence documents connect Saddam Hussein to prominent terror leaders, including Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and Osama bin Laden. Only question is, when will John Kerry change his stump speech?" Also published in Front Page Magazine.
- Laurie Mylroie, "Saddam's Terrorist Ties (CNS's Iraq Documents)," New York Sun (The Mail Archive), October 19, 2004.
- Deroy Murdock, "New documents further illustrate Hussein's terror ties," Jewish World Review, November 2, 2004.
- Deroy Murdock, "Saddam Was Tied to Terror. The evidence continues to mount," National Review Online, December 13, 2004.
