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Iraq alqaeda { August 21 2002 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A42094-2002Aug20.htmlhttp://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A42094-2002Aug20.html
Al Qaeda Presence In Iraq Reported
Baghdad Knows, Rumsfeld Says
By Bradley Graham
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, August 21, 2002; Page A01
At least a handful of ranking members of al Qaeda have taken refuge in Iraq, U.S. intelligence officials said yesterday. Their presence would complicate U.S. efforts against the terrorist network's leadership but also would give the Bush administration another rationale for possible military action against the Iraqi government.
Iraq has frequently been cited by administration officials as a haven for al Qaeda fighters who have fled the U.S. military campaign in Afghanistan. But what is new, officials said, is the number and senior rank of the al Qaeda members who have been mentioned in recent classified intelligence reports as being in Iraq.
"There are some names you'd recognize," one defense official said.
Alluding to these reports, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld yesterday repeated earlier assertions about al Qaeda's presence in Iraq, but he declined to elaborate on the evidence.
"I suppose that, at some moment, it may make sense to discuss that publicly," he said at a news conference. "It doesn't today. But what I have said is a fact -- that there are al Qaeda in a number of locations in Iraq."
The reports of a more significant al Qaeda presence in Iraq come amid Pentagon planning for a possible invasion of the country and would appear to back President Bush's arguments for toppling President Saddam Hussein. Eager to bolster the case for military action, administration hawks have pressed for months for whatever evidence can be uncovered about any links between Hussein's government and Osama bin Laden's terrorist network.
One of the most tantalizing claims, involving a Czech report of a meeting in Prague in April 2001 between Sept. 11 hijacker Mohamed Atta and an Iraqi intelligence agent, has yet to be corroborated. But U.S. officials continue to probe this and other possible connections.
As fresh evidence of Hussein's links to terrorism, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer yesterday pointed to the death this week of Palestinian terrorist Abu Nidal, who died in Baghdad, where he had been living for the past four years. "The fact that only Iraq would give safe haven to Abu Nidal demonstrates the Iraqi regime's complicity with global terror," Fleischer said.
Mindful of the additional advantage that any verifiable association with al Qaeda would hand the Bush administration, the Iraqi government has appeared to distance itself from the fugitive terrorists. A senior U.S. intelligence official said there is no evidence that Hussein has formally "welcomed in or sheltered" the terrorists.
"They aren't the official guests of the government," another official said, describing them largely as still "on the run."
But Rumsfeld scoffed at the notion that al Qaeda members are hiding in Iraq without the full knowledge of the government or its protection.
"In a vicious, repressive dictatorship that exercises near-total control over its population, it's very hard to imagine that the government is not aware of what's taking place in the country," the Pentagon leader said.
Tariq Aziz, Iraq's deputy prime minister, said in an interview with CBS News yesterday that members of al Qaeda are operating in Iraq, but in the northern part of the country under the control of Kurdish opposition leader Jallal Tallabani, "an ally of Mr. Rumsfeld."
"It is not under the control of the government," Aziz said.
The Bush administration has been working with Tallabani and the leaders of other Iraqi opposition groups to build a united front against Hussein.
Qubad Talabany, Washington representative of the Kurdish Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, which operates in northern Iraq, said a group of about 120 Arabs with some links to al Qaeda did arrive in the eastern town of Biyara last September. Their numbers have grown since the U.S. war in Afghanistan began, Talabany said.
Al Qaeda has often used northern Iraq to travel between Afghanistan and other countries. So, U.S. officials said, they are not surprised to find some members taking shelter in Iraq.
"Given that people dispersed in a variety of different directions, you would expect those with Iraqi ties or nationality to show up in Iraq," the intelligence official said.
Of particular interest to U.S. authorities, though, are what two officials characterized as a handful of "second- and third-tier" al Qaeda operatives in Iraq.
It is people of this rank in the network who have become a greater focus of U.S. anti-terrorism efforts around the world as bin Laden and his top lieutenants have disappeared from view for months. These operatives are considered responsible for managing much of the terrorist group's activities and may possibly still be in a position to plan future attacks against the United States, officials said.
At one point in yesterday's news conference, Rumsfeld expressed a measure of frustration with the intense public attention that the administration's deliberations about Iraq have received in recent weeks. He said news organizations are mistaken "to focus excessively on this one subject and particularize everything to it," calling the debate "a little out of balance."
"I don't know what one can do about that, except that I've found that from time to time, I'll give an interview and never mention the word Iraq, and I find that the whole interview is cast around Iraq," he said.
Staff writer Dana Priest contributed to this report.
© 2002 The Washington Post Company
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