Will Counterterrorism Experts Ignore New Evidence of Saddam's Terrorist Ties?

By Andrew Cochran

Stephen Hayes' "Weekly Standard" article on Saddam's terror training camps discloses a massive Iraqi intel stash pointing to a systematic program to train thousands of terrorists. Hayes reports that Saddam's regime "trained thousands of radical Islamic terrorists from the region at camps in Iraq over the four years immediately preceding the U.S. invasion." ALL of that evidence must be seriously examined, analyzed, and released to the public, and I hope House Intelligence Committee Chairman Rep. Peter Hoekstra sticks to his guns and forces the Pentagon to release the stash, hopefully in public hearings.

Sadly, many outstanding experts in the counterterrorism community have already made up their minds that Saddam had no serious interaction with terrorists, and they blame the development of a broader jihadist network solely on the U.S. move to liberate Iraq from Saddam's death grip. Many experts, including our Evan Kohlmann, have used the term "engine" or "breeding ground" to describe post-invasion Iraq, implying that jihadists had never been trained in Iraq before we invaded. So many experts will be very reluctant to reconsider and concur that Saddam may have developed a "breeding ground" long before American forces set foot into the country. For instance, Peter Bergen, certainly one of the best and most respected experts in the world, said 18 months ago in a debate with Hayes that the evidence of a strong al-Qaida-Iraqi connection is "rather thin" and a strong connection would have been unearthed by now. You can tell from the silence of many experts that they simply don't want to hear about new evidence unearthed in the files that might prove them wrong. I expressed support here for Hayes' thesis of Saddam's links to al Qaeda and other terrorist groups. And almost a year ago, I posted the chart released by a congressional committee depicting Saddam's payments of $25,000 to Palestinian suicide bombers' families from Oil-for-Food kickbacks. Counterterrorism experts, starting with the 9/11 Commission members and staff, owe it to the profession and the public to face this evidence squarely and honestly and accept it if it points in the direction described by Hayes.

Indeed, counterterrorism experts with knowledge of terrorist groups and individuals, from inside and outside government, should be invited to review the evidence and assist in link and transaction analysis and should be eager for the opportunity. I have seen incredibly detailed charts, developed outside the U.S. government, of links between hundreds of individuals and groups. Evan's al-Zarqawi leaderhship chart is just one small-scale example of the private sector's capabilities. Many of the Contributing Experts on the CT Blog and elsewhere are capable of providing significant assistance to the Pentagon and Congress in identifying key individuals who might have been trained, funded, and logistically supported by Saddam.

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