More on the ties between Sadaam and 9/11

As a side note, this article is an interesting read. (Obligatory "registration" may be necessary to read it.) It details how the Chinese tried to help Sadaam withstand the American air attacks on his radar defense systems.

To the main point - the London Telegraph printed more information than I originally realized about the memo from Habbush (Director of Iraqi Intelligence) to Sadaam regarding Mohammed Atta's visit to Bahgdad in the summer of 2001. Here's the link, but I'm going to quote the important part of it here. You can make up your own mind regarding what this means, but it certainly refutes the liberal argument that there were no ties between Sadaam and al Qaeda.

Written in the neat, precise hand of Tahir Jalil Habbush al-Tikriti, the former head of the Iraqi Intelligence Service (IIS) and one of the few named in the US government's pack of cards of most-wanted Iraqis not to have been apprehended, the personal memo to Saddam is signed by Habbush in distinctive green ink.

Headed simply "Intelligence Items", and dated July 1, 2001, it is addressed: "To the President of the Ba'ath Revolution Party and President of the Republic, may God protect you."

The first paragraph states that "Mohammed Atta, an Egyptian national, came with Abu Ammer (an Arabic nom-de-guerre - his real identity is unknown) and we hosted him in Abu Nidal's house at al-Dora under our direct supervision.

"We arranged a work programme for him for three days with a team dedicated to working with him . . . He displayed extraordinary effort and showed a firm commitment to lead the team which will be responsible for attacking the targets that we have agreed to destroy."

There is nothing in the document that provides any clue to the identity of the "targets", although Iraqi officials say it is a coded reference to the September 11 attacks.

The second item contains a report of how Iraqi intelligence, helped by "a small team from the al-Qaeda organisation", arranged for an (unspecified) shipment from Niger to reach Baghdad by way of Libya and Syria.

Iraqi officials believe this is a reference to the controversial shipments of uranium ore Iraq acquired from Niger to aid Saddam in his efforts to develop an atom bomb, although there is no explicit reference in the document to this.

Habbush writes that the successful completion of the shipment was "the fruit of your excellent secret meeting with Bashir al-Asad (the Syrian president) on the Iraqi-Syrian border", and concludes: "May God protect you and save you to all Arab nations."

I don't know about you, but I have a real problem with the fact that this story has not been picked up at all in America. I can't think of a way of explaining it other than a refusal to print the truth. Does anyone think the media is ingorant enough to be unaware of this memo?