Stephen Hayes' Terror Training Joke

The most ridiculous article I've seen published in a 'serious' publication in some time, appeared recently in The Weekly Standard.

"Saddam's Terror Training Camps"
by Stephen F. Hayes

Here is my response.

It's interesting to me, the language that pro-Iraq war apologists will use when they discuss Iraq. Terrorism is a tactic. When someone is labeled a "terrorist," you have an idea about what that person does, but you have no idea who they are, what their aims are, why they did what they did, where they are from, whom they follow, or really, much of anything about them. Why don't members of the Bush administration and its supporters talk about "former Baath party members" or "Saddamists that oppose progress in Iraq"? It would be precise. But the Bush Administration has no interest in being precise. I believe they talk up terror because they wish to pimp "the connection."

In this article, Hayes mentions "terrorist" or "terrorists" 11 times. "Terrorism" appears 4 times. "Baath" or "Baathist" appears 3 times. "al Qaeda" appears twice. Sunnis aren't mentioned once. Neither is Osama bin Laden.

It used to be that "the connection" was between Saddam and al Qaeda. A sure-fire way to drum up support for an invasion of Iraq was to connect Iraq with someone or something that had actually attacked the U.S. We were told lots of things by the Bush administration insisting the connection, including:

"Saddam Hussein aids and protects terrorists, including members of al Qaeda." - Bush in January 2003 State of the Union address.

"Iraq has also provided Al Qaeda with chemical and biological weapons training." - Bush in February 2003.

Indeed, Stephen Hayes wrote a book about the connection: "The Connection: How al Qaeda's Collaboration with Saddam Hussein Has Endangered America." That's right, Hayes wrote an entire book about the direct connection between Saddam and al Qaeda.

But the original connection has been blown away. For example, this candid admission by Donald Rumsfeld:

QUESTIONER: Mr. Secretary, what exactly was the connection between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda?

RUMSFELD: I tell you, I'm not going to answer the question. I have seen the answer to that question migrate in the intelligence community over the period of a year in the most amazing way. Second, there are differences in the intelligence community as to what the relationship was. To my knowledge, I have not seen any strong, hard evidence that links the two.

And according to the 9/11 Commission report, Khalid Shaykh Muhammad and Abu Zubayda revealed to interrogators that Osama bin Laden had prohibited al-Qaeda operatives from cooperating with Saddam Hussein.

and then there's this list compiled by Juan Cole and posted at juancole.com:

1. Although it is true that Abdul Rahman Yasin, a suspect in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, was attempting to hide out in Iraq, Saddam offered to turn him over to the FBI in 1998 in return for US acknowledgment that Iraq was not involved in that incident. The Clinton administration declined the deal. Cheney cited the continued "harboring" by Iraq of Yasin as one "proof" of an Iraq-al-Qaeda connection. Yeah, Saddam and Yasin were obviously really tight.

2. Bin Laden is said to have refused an offer in 1998 to go to Iraq, made by Iraqi intelligence officer Farouk Hijazi. A report made available to the CIA, however, said that Bin Laden declined the offer because he did not want to have Saddam's agenda dictated to him. The Knight-Ridder team does not point this out, but if you read this item in conjunction with # 1 above, it seems entirely possible that Saddam thought the US wouldn't deal for Yasin because he wasn't a big enough fish, and went looking for a more important terrorist to trade them for the US favors he wanted.

3. Cheney tried to tie Saddam to Abu Mus`ab Zarqawi. Such ties haven't been proven, but even if they were, it seems clear from the Zarqawi letter that he was not part of Bin Laden's group and only lately tried to get money from Bin Laden.

4. The US charged that Saddam was training terrorists at Salman Pak. The US military has found no evidence of such a training facility at Salman Pak, according to Seymour Hersh. There certainly were no chemical weapons there.

5. Then there was the canard about Iraqi intelligence official al-Ani meeting with Muhammad Atta in Prague. CIA director George Tenet has flatly denied this report, and the FBI discounted it long ago.

6. Bin Laden/Iraq contacts in Sudan in the early 1990s, even if they did occur, led to no operational cooperation whatsoever.

Why would the secular, nationalist, Saddam cooperate with global jihadists? He had no reason to. And there is not yet any evidence that he did.

So now that the original connection has been demonstrated to be bunk, Hayes is back. Now Hayes is claiming that Saddam was in the global jihad business, but not directly in connection with al Qaeda. Instead, according to Hayes, Saddam had ties to people that had ties with al Qaeda.

In the first paragraph Hayes lays out a foundation for "the new connection" as if it were fact. Hmmm, "radical Islamic terrorists from the region at camps in Iraq over the four years immediately preceding the U.S. invasion" ... could this be the Iraqi army? However, towards the end of the piece, Hayes claims that the real proof of a Saddam-led jihadist movement of fighters from throughout the region is forthcoming. Despite Hayes' definitive language at the beginning of the article, Hayes' supporting evidence for the fabled connection is 100% hearsay. We will never see the documents that support Hayes' claims. The connection doesn't exist.

In the second paragraph, Hayes tells us that: "many of the fighters were drawn from terrorist groups in northern Africa with close ties to al Qaeda."

Do you remember in grade school how you were such a crummy writer that your teacher would use a red marker and write things in the margin like "what close ties to al Qaeda?"

What close ties to al Qaeda?

So, al Qaeda wasn't in Iraq, but some people that knew al Qaeda were. But this is all speculation. And indeed, in this paragraph, Hayes language becomes a little less definitive. Now that some details are actually being conveyed, Hayes prefaces these details with "Intelligence officials believe ..." and that "White House and National Security Council officials were briefed on these findings."

We are all quite familiar with some of the things that Intelligence and White House officials have believed, in regards to Iraq. Hey! Let's get out our red marker again: "Intelligence officials believe that some of these terrorists returned to Iraq and are responsible for attacks against Americans and Iraqis ... Mr. Hayes, what leads them to believe this?"

In the third paragraph, Hayes tells us there are pictures. But pictures of people could also be pictures of people whom are not those you think they are. The jury is still out on this.

In the fourth paragraph, Hayes speculates about the existence of "jihadist training camps in Iraq." This is merely speculation. Until some proof is presented, Hayes really goes out on a limb when he writes about "jihadist training camps in Iraq."

I said "proof". I really loved the quote from Tanji later in the article: "Critics of the war often complain about the lack of "proof"--a term that I had never heard used in the intelligence lexicon until we ousted Saddam--for going to war." Somebody tell that guy that he's never heard it used before, perhaps because the U.S. has seldom been led into such an immense commitment on such falsehoods. The last time it happened maybe made a few of us sit up and take notice.

Hayes goes on to talk about how difficult it is to sift through mountains of documents. This is beginning to sound a whole lot like the fruitless search for Weapons of Mass Destruction.

Red Marker time again! "Most of the 50,000 translated documents relate directly to weapons of mass destruction programs and scientists" ... Mr. Hayes, how do they relate to them? And what do they show?"

The article quotes Christopher Dickey as having said about an event in 1993, "Every time I hear diplomats and politicians, whether in Washington or the capitals of Europe, declare that Saddam Hussein is a "secular Baathist ideologue" who has nothing do with Islamists or with terrorist calls to jihad, I think of that afternoon and I wonder what they're talking about."

But Christopher Dickey also had this to say in Newsweek, Sept. 19, 2003:

"A Washington Post poll published earlier this month concluded that 69 percent of Americans thought it "at least likely" that the former Iraqi leader was personally involved in the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. There's nothing to back this up. So puzzled political scientist and pollsters, with evident disdain for the public, suggested the connection is just the result of fuzzy thinking: Al Qaeda is evil, Saddam is evil, the attacks on 9/11 were evil and folks just draw dumb conclusions. Other analysts pointed the finger at the administration, which spins harder and faster than Hurricane Isabel to convince us the war in Iraq is part of the war on terror begun on September 11, without quite explaining where it fits in."

He seems to have changed his mind.

The article mentions Ansar al Islam, and says that they had reached into Baghdad, implying that there was a link to Saddam, according to "officials." But Juan Cole, a widely respected historian and expert on the Middle East, says:

"The only group in al-Qaida with any Iraq links at all is a small Kurdish terrorist organization called Ansar al-Islam, which is able to operate in Kurdistan only because the United States has kicked the Baath Party out of that part of Iraq. There are no Ansar al-Islam cells in Arab Iraq, under Baathist rule. Some Kurds linked to Ansar al-Islam were in Afghanistan with al-Qaida. It is the looser political and social controls under the American fostered free Kurdish north that allows Ansar to operate."

For the record, Juan Cole has a better batting average than the administration officials do. He also speaks the language.

The entire article amounts to wishful thinking. It's the word of administration officials, against all of the evidence which is known to currently exist.

Hayes talks about the sensitivity of the documents which may someday prove "the new connection" and quotes Pentagon spokesman Larry DiRita:

"The main worry, says DiRita, is that the mainstream press might cherry-pick documents and mischaracterize their meaning."

... Hmmm, the mainstream press .... like, maybe, for example, ahem, ... perhaps, ... The Weekly Standard?

I wrote to Juan Cole via email and asked him what he thought about Hayes' article. His entire reply was as follows:

----- Original Message -----
From: Cole, Juan
To: Martin Lane
Sent: Monday, January 09, 2006 1:04 PM
Subject: RE: Weekly Standard: "Saddam's Terror Training Camps"

B.S.

cheers Juan