Heartache: Iraq had unsettling Al-Qaida connections
Really? yes really.
What do we know about
collaboration?We know that, despite continued insistence by some Czech officials, contrary
evidence pretty much cements that the Atta-Prague story – where the lead 9/11
hijacker supposedly met with Iraqi intelligence agents prior to the attacks – is
false. Iraq, we can positively claim, had nothing to do with the events of that
day. read more
Bottom line
The point is not that there was any provable impending doomsday on the horizon, or that the Iraqi Ba’athists and the al Qaeda chaps were fond of each other. They were not fond of each other, and were ideologically in disagreement, inasmuch as the Ba’athists in Damascus and their Hezbollah surrogates in Beirut, or the Shi’a mullahs in Tehran and their Sunni beneficiaries in Gaza, conjure up diametrical opposition.The point is simply that those who discount any unsettling link – or worse, and even more irresponsible, discount the possibility that the two entities might curtail their pride, hold their noses, and collude against innocents – ought to be challenged. And they ought to be challenged by sources and references they themselves cite when they assert there was no reason ever to be concerned.
So, there we have it: requests for basing privileges and offers of asylum, each of which were turned down not due to hostility but due to the unfavorable logistics of the moment. One looks at Hussein’s history of offering safe haven to the world’s most wanted men (Abu Nidal, Abu Abbas, etc.), and Iraq’s preponderance to support Jihadist groups affiliated with al Qaeda as far away as Algeria (the GSPC) and the Philippines (the Abu Sayyaf Group), and it should be acknowledged that it was not entirely unreasonable for a statesman to look at Iraq and al Qaeda’s unclear relationship and say, “This is as far as it is ever going to get.”
By Nicholas Guariglia of Family Security Matters
