Post by RHSadly, many Americans think that Iraq was involved in 9-11
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/003/033jgqyi.asp?pg=2
* Iraqi defectors had been saying for years that Saddam's regime trained
"non-Iraqi Arab terrorists" at a camp in Salman Pak, south of Baghdad.
U.N. inspectors had confirmed the camp's existence, including the
presence of a Boeing 707. Defectors say the plane was used to train
hijackers; the Iraqi regime said it was used in counterterrorism
training. Sabah Khodada, a captain in the Iraqi Army, worked at Salman
Pak. In October 2001, he told PBS's "Frontline" about what went on
there. "Training is majorly on terrorism. They would be trained on
assassinations, kidnapping, hijacking of airplanes, hijacking of buses,
public buses, hijacking of trains and all other kinds of operations
related to terrorism. . . . All this training is directly toward
attacking American targets, and American interests."
* On February 13, 2003, the government of the Philippines asked Hisham
al Hussein, the second secretary of the Iraqi embassy in Manila, to
leave the country. According to telephone records obtained by Philippine
intelligence, Hussein had been in frequent contact with two leaders of
Abu Sayyaf, an al Qaeda affiliate in South Asia, immediately before and
immediately after they detonated a bomb in Zamboanga City. That attack
killed two Filipinos and an American Special Forces soldier and injured
several others. Hussein left the Philippines for Iraq after he was
"PNG'd"--declared persona non grata--by the Philippine government and
has not been heard from since.
According to a report in the Christian Science Monitor, an Abu Sayyaf
leader who planned the attack bragged on television a month after the
bombing that Iraq had contacted him about conducting joint operations.
Philippine intelligence officials were initially skeptical of his
boasting, but after finding the telephone records they believed him.
* No fewer than five high-ranking Czech officials have publicly
confirmed that Mohammed Atta, the lead September 11 hijacker, met with
Ahmed Khalil Ibrahim al-Ani, an Iraqi intelligence officer working at
the Iraqi embassy, in Prague five months before the hijacking. Media
leaks here and in the Czech Republic have called into question whether
Atta was in Prague on the key dates--between April 4 and April 11, 2001.
And several high-ranking administration officials are "agnostic" as to
whether the meeting took place. Still, the public position of the Czech
government to this day is that it did.
That assertion should be seen in the context of Atta's curious stop-off
in Prague the previous spring, as he traveled to the United States. Atta
flew to Prague from Germany on May 30, 2000, but did not have a valid
visa and was denied entry. He returned to Germany, obtained the proper
paperwork, and took a bus back to Prague. One day later, he left for the
United States.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/gunning/interviews/khodada.html
After your service in the army, you worked for a secret part of the
Iraqi government?
Some of it is not very secretive. But there's another part, which has a
lot to do with international terrorism and this kind of operation --
this is very secretive.
Maybe you could tell me what this section is called, and who runs it.
And what did it do?
It's called the Division of Special Operations. ... This whole camp
where their training is run by the Iraqi [security service]... The
government organization [that] basically possesses or have control of
the camp is the Iraqi intelligence. But different training people who
come, they are headed or sent by different people in the Iraqi government.
You say that this is a secret camp. But what was it like? Was it
something you drove by and could see on the highway? Did you need
special clearance to go there? How would you describe this place, this
location?
If you're driving on those farm roads, you could probably see the edges
of the camp, but you wouldn't realize this is a special camp. The camp
is huge. And the locations for the training are far from anybody can see
them from the outside. But even when we have visitors, even at the level
of a minister, or even higher than a minister in the Iraqi government,
they will have to drive around the camp or be driven in the camp inside
very specific type of a vehicle. They will sit on the back seat, for
example, of this vehicle and they would have ... in addition to the
shaded windows, they will have to pull down curtains and they snap those
curtains on the bottom, to make sure nobody can see anything outside
this vehicle while they're driven around.
This is even government officials [who] are not allowed to see this kind
of training?
Yes. At the very highest level, they cannot see this training.
What kind of training went on, and who was being trained?
Training is majorly on terrorism. They would be trained on
assassinations, kidnapping, hijacking of airplanes, hijacking of buses,
public buses, hijacking of trains and all other kinds of operations
related to terrorism.
The people being trained were Iraqis in one group, and non-Iraqis, or
foreign nationals, in another?
Non-Iraqis were trained separately from us. There were strict orders not
to meet with them and not to talk to them. And even when they conduct
their training, their training has to occur at times different from the
times when we conduct the Iraqis our own training.
Sabah Khodada was a captain in the Iraqi army from 1982 to 1992. He
worked at what he describes as a highly secret terrorist training camp
at Salman Pak (see Khodada's hand-drawn map of the camp), an area south
of Baghdad. In this translated interview, conducted in association with
The New York Times on Oct. 14, 2001, Khodada describes what went on at
Salman Pak, including details on training hijackers. He emigrated to the
U.S. in May 2001. (Editor's Note: Although U.S. officials acknowledge
terrorists were trained at Salman Pak, they say it is unlikely that
these activities were related to the Sept. 11 attacks. It should also be
noted that the two defectors interviewed for this report have been
brought to FRONTLINE's attention by members of the Iraqi National
Congress (INC), a dissident organization seeking to overthrow Saddam
Hussein.)
So you were training Iraqis, Saddam's fedayeen, members of the militia
in Iraq. And someone else, other groups, were training the non-Iraqis?
They were special trainers or teachers from the Iraqi intelligence and
al-Mukhabarat. And those same trainers or teachers will train the
fedayeen, the Iraqi fedayeen, and also the same group of those teachers
will train the non-Iraqis, foreigners who are in the camp. Personally,
my profession is not this kind of training. My profession is to train
people on infantry, typical infantry training, such as training on
machine guns, pistols, hand grenades, rocket launchers on the shoulder
and this kind of training. The special training that I'm talking about,
such as the kidnapping and so, is conducted by those trainers who are
not from the army; they are from ... al-Mukhabarat.And there was a
person who is very famous. They call him Al-Shaba. [ph]. This is Arabic
word means "The Ghost," who was responsible for all the training, and
those trainers or the teachers.
Why was he called the Ghost?
I don't know exactly why he's being called the Ghost. I came there and
his name was the Ghost. But I know that he has conducted several
terrorist operations in Lebanon and in other countries all over the
world. And I know that he told us that he's been requested to be
arrested by the Interpol. This is probably why he called himself the Ghost.
And the foreign nationals, the Arabs who are there, but who are not
Iraqis -- what were they like? Were they Egyptians, Saudis? Do you know
where they came from?
They look like they're mostly from the Gulf, sometimes from areas close
to Yemen, from their dark skin and short bodies. And they also are
Muslims. ...
Were they religious?
I don't know exactly because I saw them seldom very [briefly]. But some
of them has beards, long beards, which is an indication of being a
religious Muslim. ...
How long were you at this base, at this secret location?
Approximately six months.
What was your job?
Administrational things, such as providing food, leave of absence
permissions, general training. Ammunition ... providing them with
ammunition when needed.
How did you meet the Ghost? And what did he say?
I meet him several times a day. We usually meet in the morning when they
go to training. We meet in the afternoon or the noontime when they come
back from training. And several times, we'll meet at the evening to
drink tea. And he will come, him and other teachers who always with him.
They always talk about their operations proudly. For example, they were
telling us about how they were able to penetrate the American forces
during the 1990 Gulf War, where they went inside the Saudi Arabia
territory, and they were able to bring exact coordinates of the Dharan
airbase where it was hit by the Scud missiles and many Americans were
killed.
He is an Iraqi, the Ghost?
Yes.
Did he explain what kind of training they were giving to the people who
were there, especially to the non-Iraqis?
He tried not to talk about training as much as possible. I even, out of
curiosity, asked him about those Arabs. Sometime he told me, "Don't ask
about them. This is something we're not supposed to talk about."
So the Ghost said, "I can't talk to you about these Arabs who are
training, or what we're training them in."
Yes.
So did you find out what kind of training was going on?
I don't necessarily know what kind of training they do, but they were
trained exactly at the same locations, and they were trained by the same
teachers who were training ... [the fighters for] Saddam. Training
includes hijacking and kidnapping of airplanes, trains, public buses,
and planting explosives in cities, sabotaging villages, sabotaging
houses, assassinations.
And the training also included how to prepare for suicidal operations.
For example, they will train them how to belt themselves around with
explosives, and jump in a place and explode themselves out as part of
the suicidal training. I think the trainings of the Arabs was much
harsher, and much stricter, than the training of the Iraqis.
Why?
Because we know that Arabs, non-Iraqis who come to train in these kind
of camps, are going to be sent to very dangerous and important
operations outside Iraq; not inside Iraq. And they will be conducting
very specific operations and dangerous operations in their own cities,
or in their own countries, or other countries all over the world. Those
Arabs are real volunteers. They come in small numbers, and they come
with the intention to do some real suicidal operations. ...
There are other types of training, such as physical training, which we
are all familiar with. But there's another kind of special training,
which is called "self-confidence training." ... For example, a bunch of
the fedayeen will be taken in a helicopter. They will fly them away to
an unknown area, and they will be asked to jump out of the plane without
knowing if there is underneath them a desert or a house or there's
water. But they're supposed to jump. So, they will jump.
Another type of self-confidence training would be, for example, they
will pull the pin of a hand grenade, and they will throw the hand
grenade from one to another until the last one will throw it in the air
and it will explode in the air. Another type of self-confidence training
would be, they will put a hand grenade in a pipe, and they will pull the
pin and throw it in the pipe, and stand near the pipe saluting the hand
grenade until it explodes.
Other type of self-confidence training would be holding a rocket
launcher, which is an Army GB-7, and holding it vertically, then
shooting the rocket vertically, which is very unusual, but the backfire
of this hand grenade will hit the ground next to you. And if you don't
have self-confidence, you cannot do it. This is another kind of
self-confidence training.
And they trained people to hijack airplanes?
Yes.
For what purpose?
... It has been said openly in the media and even to us, from the
highest command, that the purpose of establishing Saddam's fighters is
to attack American targets and American interests. This is known.
There's no doubt about it.
All this training is directed towards attacking American targets, and
American interests. The training does not only include hijacking of
planes and sabotage. ... Some other people were trained to do
parachuting. Some other areas were training on how to penetrate enemy
lines and get information from behind enemy lines. But it's all for the
general concept of hitting and attacking American targets and American
interests.
Who controlled this operation?
In terms of training, they will train in this special camp. But after
this training, they will go in small groups. These small groups are
directly connected with Saddam, or to Saddam's son. For example, the
Iraqi fighters, they will be spread all over the country. Occasionally
those individual groups, very small groups, will be called for. They
might encounter different kind of special training beyond this training
on specific things. I'll give you an example. They were calling for some
of these groups to train intensively to learn English language, Persian
language, Hebrew language, to be sent out to different places of the
world to conduct such kind of ... different kind of operations. I
suspect that the higher level of training, or the additional training
they encounter, has a lot to do with what happened. And there's a lot of
similarity with what happened with New York and Washington on September 11.