Saddam and Terror

Today’s Wall Street Journal has an editorial discussing the links between Saddam Hussein and terrorist groups. They discuss evidence found in a report on the study of “the trove of "exploitable" documents, audio and video records, and computer files captured in Iraq.” The report itself can be read here.

The Wall Street Journal notes:

Throughout the 1990s, the Iraqi Intelligence Service (IIS) cooperated with Hamas; the Palestine Liberation Front, which maintained a Baghdad office; Force 17, Yasser Arafat's private army; and others. The IIS gave commando training for members of Egyptian Islamic Jihad, the organization that assassinated Anwar Sadat and whose "emir" was Ayman al-Zawahiri, who became Osama bin Laden's second-in-command when the group merged with al Qaeda in 1998.

At the very least the report should dispel the notion that outwardly "secular" Saddam would never consort with religious types like al Qaeda. A pan-Arab nationalist, Saddam viewed radical Islamists as potential allies, and they likewise. According to a 1993 memo, Saddam decided to "form a group to start hunting Americans present on Arab soil; especially Somalia," where al Qaeda was then working with warlords against U.S. humanitarian forces. Saddam also trained
Sudanese fighters in Iraq.

They state later:

[T]he report offers "evidence of logistical preparation for terrorist operations in other nations, including those in the West." In 2002, an IIS memo explained to Saddam that Iraqi embassies were stockpiling weapons, while many of the terrorists trained in Fedayeen camps were dispatched to London with counterfeit documents, where they circulated throughout Europe.

Deroy Murdoch also discusses the report in a column on National Review Online. Murdoch writes about the report:

Iraq-war critics dismiss all this and focus on one sentence in this 94-page paper: “This study found no ‘smoking gun’ (i.e., direct connection) between Saddam’s Iraq and al Qaeda.” They also overlook this contradictory passage: “In pursuit of their own separate but surprisingly ‘parallel’ visions, Saddam and [Osama] bin Laden often found a common enemy in the United States. . . . Saddam supported groups that either associated directly with al-Qaeda (such as the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, led at one time by bin Laden’s deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri) or that generally shared al Qaeda’s stated goals and objectives.”While Saddam Hussein may not have been Islamic terrorism’s Meyer Lansky, he was its Al Capone — a resourceful, cunning, and deadly gangster who America had every right, and indeed a vital obligation, to topple.

Saddam Hussein was not responsible for the September 11th Attacks, but he was supporting terrorism and therefore a threat to the United States and the world at large.