Clinton first linked al Qaeda to Saddam

By Rowan Scarborough

THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Published June 25, 2004

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The Clinton administration talked about firm evidence linking Saddam
Hussein's regime to Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network years before
President Bush made the same statements.

The issue arose again this month after the National Commission on
Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States reported there was no
"collaborative relationship" between the old Iraqi regime and bin
Laden.

Democrats have cited the staff report to accuse Mr. Bush of making
inaccurate statements about a linkage. Commission members, including a
Democrat and two Republicans, quickly came to the administration's
defense by saying there had been such contacts.

In fact, during President Clinton's eight years in office, there
were at least two official pronouncements of an alarming alliance
between Baghdad and al Qaeda. One came from William S. Cohen, Mr.
Clinton's defense secretary. He cited an al Qaeda-Baghdad link to
justify the bombing of a pharmaceutical plant in Sudan.

Mr. Bush cited the linkage, in part, to justify invading Iraq and
ousting Saddam. He said he could not take the risk of Iraq's weapons
falling into bin Laden's hands.

The other pronouncement is contained in a Justice Department
indictment on Nov. 4, 1998, charging bin Laden with murder in the
bombings of two U.S. embassies in Africa.

The indictment disclosed a close relationship between al Qaeda and
Saddam's regime, which included specialists on chemical weapons and all
types of bombs, including truck bombs, a favorite weapon of terrorists.

The 1998 indictment said: "Al Qaeda also forged alliances with the
National Islamic Front in the Sudan and with the government of Iran and
its associated terrorist group Hezbollah for the purpose of working
together against their perceived common enemies in the West,
particularly the United States. In addition, al Qaeda reached an
understanding with the government of Iraq that al Qaeda would not work
against that government and that on particular projects, specifically
including weapons development, al Qaeda would work cooperatively with
the government of Iraq."

Shortly after the embassy bombings, Mr. Clinton ordered air strikes
on al Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan and on the Shifa
pharmaceutical factory in Sudan.

To justify the Sudanese plant as a target, Clinton aides said it
was involved in the production of deadly VX nerve gas. Officials
further determined that bin Laden owned a stake in the operation and
that its manager had traveled to Baghdad to learn bomb-making
techniques from Saddam's weapons scientists.

Mr. Cohen elaborated in March in testimony before the September 11
commission.

He testified that "bin Laden had been living [at the plant], that
he had, in fact, money that he had put into this military industrial
corporation, that the owner of the plant had traveled to Baghdad to
meet with the father of the VX program."

He said that if the plant had been allowed to produce VX that was
used to kill thousands of Americans, people would have asked him,
" 'You had a manager that went to Baghdad; you had Osama bin Laden, who
had funded, at least the corporation, and you had traces of [VX
precursor] and you did what? And you did nothing?' Is that a
responsible activity on the part of the secretary of defense?"