SO THERE'S NO LINK BETWEEN IRAQ AND AL QAEDA?
So...a quasi-atheistic socialist regime could never possibly find any reason to ally itself with a fanatical death cult bent on bringing about...whatever it is they're trying to bring about? Then explain this:He was supposed to have been a professional. He should have known better, but in the end he could not resist. Using a satellite phone, the senior al-Qa'ida operative excitedly called two associates and congratulated them on their cold-blooded assassination of an American diplomat.
The call cost the man his liberty. It may yet cost him his life but, more importantly, it could have provided America with the "smoking gun" evidence it has long sought and which apparently links the Iraqi regime to an active al-Qa'ida cell committing terror killings and planning others across Europe and the Middle East. One thing is certain: it has left Iraq needing to do a lot of explaining.
---
Though he would not have known it at the time, the deputy's congratulatory telephone call to two men accused of murdering the US diplomat Laurence Foley last October – killed in the garden of his Amman home by a volley of eight shots – was an error of incalculable proportions. The call was intercepted by Western intelligence services, possibly America's National Security Agency (NSA) or Britain's electronic eavesdropping service at GCHQ, Cheltenham, and allowed coalition operatives to trace the man from Syria, then to Turkey.
When he arrived in Turkey, those intelligence operatives took the decision to pounce. The al-Qa'ida deputy was seized and taken to one of the interrogation centres covertly operated in the region by the US Central Intelligence Agency. In many cases, America prefers certain prisoners to be questioned by the intelligence services of countries where the rules governing the use of torture or psychological pressure are less strict. In this instance, it appears America led the interrogation, using, in the words of one official, "unspecified psychological pressure" to obtain information.
US officials quoted by The New York Times say the deputy revealed that Zarqawi was operating a cell out of Iraq, that he had been given medical assistance there and that he was planning and conducting attacks across Europe and the Middle East with up to 24 al-Qa'ida fighters. Mr Foley, 62, head of America's Agency for International Development mission, was the first of the cell's targets.
Far too many in the anti-war camp overestimate Saddam's rationality. They often say that he won't use any biochem weapons against us because it would be suicide, but that assumes that he thinks the way we do. Sure, on one level it's completely insane for him to ally with al Qaeda, defy the US and the UN, and make his state a pariah. But it was also insane for him to try to assassinate former President Bush--yet we know that he tried that. Similarly, it's insane for Saddam to keep trying to build his weapons, and more insane to think he could get away with using them, but for a dozen years he has single-mindedly pursued those weapons thought it has cost Iraq billions of dollars in oil contracts and will likely cost him his life shortly. If Saddam has proven one thing over the past few years, it's that he's not a purely rational actor, at least from our point of view. The path of least resistance for him, from a rational point of view, would be to disarm on his own soil to get the UN sanctions against him lifted, open up the oil wells, and if he really wanted to keep the terror gig going, fund its activities on soil outside Iraq for some future use. But we know he hasn't chosen that path.
So while it's utterly mad for him to ally with al Qaeda, he seems to have done it anyway. Call him crazy.
UPDATE: For anyone who sees a dark Bushite conspiracy at work as to the timing of this story hitting the streets, National Review Online had this story in mid-December. And David Rose hinted such a link existed--in fact, he hinted that 100 such links exist, also back in December.