Saddam, Al Qaeda, the CIA and the Lies of the American Elite

By Sean Osborne, Northeast Intelligence Network

This article has been a long time in coming. It will be a long overdue expose of truth-telling. In fact, at this point of ongoing composition this article may become the first of a multi-part series of articles under the same title. The amount of open source material evidence is that voluminous. The data I am reviewing dates to Saddam Hussein’s very real and highly advanced program to construct nuclear weapons from the inconclusive end of the Gulf War in 1991, throughout the rest of the 1990s and continuing until final year of his regime which ended in March 2003.

This report will detail more than just the “lies of the Left” as they have come to be known. This report will detail the lies of the American power elite which emanate from the Left, the Right and the politically ambiguous pundits whose commentary we are constantly spoon-fed by the Main Stream Media. This report will also address the underlying reasons why any mention of Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, the Al-Mukhbarat (Iraqi Intelligence Service) and Al Qaeda with respect to acts of war on American soil during the same period of time is strictly verboten, suppressed wholesale by the American Elite. This report is no conspiracy theory; this report is based upon verifiable facts.

Let’s begin with “the mother” of “all politically expedient reporting” — The New York Times. In a 3-page article dated November 3, 2006: U.S. Web Archive Is Said to Reveal a Nuclear Primer we read the following toward the bottom of page 2:

“Some intelligence officials feared that individual documents, translated and interpreted by amateurs, would be used out of context to second-guess the intelligence agencies’ view that Mr. Hussein did not have unconventional weapons or substantive ties to Al Qaeda. Reviewing the documents for release would add an unnecessary burden on busy intelligence analysts, they argued.”

The first sentence is clearly directed as a preemptive strike at the very professionally trained military and civilian analysts not in the employ of the New York Times or other MSM. That is a slap-in-the-face to any number of analysts like me and my colleagues at the Northeast Intelligence Network. More importantly, it is also a totally unwarranted slap-in-the-face to subject matter experts like Dr. Laurie Mylroie, who is considered to be a well renowned expert and is at the top of her class when it comes to Saddam, the Al-Mukhbarat and their acts of war on US soil.

An example of the blatant MSM suppression of Saddam’s support of international terrorists like Al Qaeda was highlighted by Dr. Mylroie just three weeks ago in an email that I received. Dr. Mylroie had forwarded a report from the English-language version of the Greek international newspaper “Kathimerini.” The article titled Embassy of Iraq hid explosives, an article that broke the news of a joint Greek-US secret service operation recovered a large cache of explosives, car bombs, detonators, guns and ammunition hidden in the basement of the Iraqi embassy in Athens. (Lord knows what the we found in the basement of the Iraqi embassy in Washington DC or the Iraqi mission to the U.N. in New York City)

The discovered weapons cache is a hard fact about the “diplomacy” of Saddam’s Iraqi and his Al-Mukhbarat. Did we read about this in the American MSM? I certainly don’t recall seeing it. Was it reported at all? If not, why not? The answer to this and other such questions can be found in Dr. Mylroie’s books.

More recently, the publication of a report Missing Link? in Investors Business Daily regarding al-Qaeda mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed’s (a/k/a KSM) “confession” to American authorities at Gitmo, links KSM in his days prior to his joining Al-Qaeda directly to the Iraqi Al-Mukhabarat and several acts of war upon American soil.

My emailed comments on the significance of this article led to yet another exchange of emails between Dr. Mylroie and myself. The topic was focused on a subsequent article by Michael Scheuer titled Khalid Sheikh Mohammad: Waging Jihad from Prison and how he was partly responsible for the out-sized image the American public has of Osama bin Laden. KSM clearly acknowledged that was working with Iraq before he was working with bin Laden. In the 1990s Iraq was cooperating with every Al-Ikhwan Al-Muslimun (The Muslim Brotherhood) “secret apparatus” terrorist cell or operative they could to extract revenge on the United States for the Gulf War.

Also noted were the discrepancies in Scheuer’s historical account of events. I concurred that Scheuer did make an out-sized image of bin Laden while he worked as the chief of Alec Station during the Clinton era. Mylroie further defined his role, that “he was the head of Alec Station–and it (Scheuer’s job nor the stations function) wasn’t analysis, it was operations. When it was set up, they couldn’t get someone from the Operations side of the Agency to take the position, so Scheuer did.

The Alec Station was an anomaly in many regards. It was the only such unit devoted to one person and it wasn’t based abroad–but in a shopping mall in the DC suburbs. The average experience of those working in Alec Station was three years. So if the CIA frequently hires newly-minted BA’s–that would make them “twenty-somethings” – without any substantial knowledge of or experience of the region.

This is supposed to be the basis for our understanding of 9/11?”

My own assessment has long held that Scheuer’s analysis consistently appears be politically expedient, whereas in prior years he painted a completely different picture.

In 2004 while a guest on “Hardball” with Chris Matthews, Michael Scheuer said he did the research on the links between Iraq and Al Qaeda. When asked by Chris Matthews about what he discovered in that research Sheuer replied, “Nothing.”

However, just two years earlier, in 2002, Michael Scheuer is on record saying that in 1993-94 (Osama) bin Laden was “for certain” working with Sudan and Iraq to acquire Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear (CBRN) weapons for al Qaeda. (Reference: Through Our Enemies Eyes).

Again, quoting Dr. Mylroie, “You’re absolutely right that Scheuer’s position shifts with the winds. So how come Jamestown finds him credible? What struck me–and you too–about KSM’s Gitmo statement was that it was not couched in Islamic terms. Scheuer ignored that, because it doesn’t fit his thesis.”

As a final note for this installment, Dr. Mylroie also noted the following:

“Finally, you’re also absolutely right. Mention of Iraqi involvement in terrorist activity against the US is verboten. And that, is after we have gone to war in Iraq and are still fighting that war? Welcome to the incredibly self-serving nature of the American elite!”

Sean Osborne, is the Associate Director, Military Affairs Northeast Intelligence Network.