From the White House Documents - Bill Clinton declared in Executive Order 13129
of July 4, 1999: I, William Jefferson Clinton, President of the United States of America,
find that the actions and policies of the Taliban in Afghanistan, in allowing territory
under its control in Afghanistan to be used as a safe haven and base of operations for
Usama Bin Laden and the al-Qaeda (sic) organization who have committed and threaten to
continue to commit acts of violence against the United States and its nationals,
constitute an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy
of the U.S., and hereby declare a national emergency to deal with that threat.
On June 30, 2001President
George W. Bush continued the same Executive Orderfrom Bill Clinton,
using nearly identical language in a notice repeated here:
23. On information and belief, Bin
Laden, Al Qaeda, and the hijackers also received material support and assistance from Iraq, by and through its officials, agents,
and/or employees, to carry out terrorist attacks on the United States, including the
September 11, 2001 attacks.
24. In their February 23,1998 Fatwah, Bin Laden, and Al Qaeda expressly referenced the
United States’ “continuing aggression” towards Iraq as one of their reasons
for calling on all Muslims to kill Americans “wherever and whenever” the are
found:
The best proof of this is the Americans’ continuing aggression against the Iraqi
people using the [Arabian] Peninsula as a staging post, even though all its rulers are
against their territories being used to that end, still they are helpless.
Bin Laden’s and Al Qaeda’s Fatwah also cited the alleged “great
devastation inflicted on the Iraqi people” by the United States, as well as the
United States alleged “eagerness to destroy Iraq.”
25. Bin Laden reportedly visited Baghdad for consultations in March 1998.
Giovanni De Stefano, an international lawyer visiting Baghdad on business, had a chance
encounter with Bin Laden in the lobby of the Al-Rashid Hotel, during which the two men
introduced themselves and engaged in polite conversation. De Stefano did not, at the time,
recognize Bin Laden’s name. Five months after the chance encounter, agents of Bin
Laden and Al Qaeda attacked the American embassies in Nairobi, Kenya and Dar-es-Salaam,
Tanzania.
26. Between April 25 and May 1, 1998, two of Bin Laden’s senior military commanders,
Muhammad Abu-Islam and Abdallah Qassim, reportedly visited Baghdad for
discussions with Saddam Hussein’s son -- Qusay Hussein -- the “czar” of
Iraqi intelligence matters. Qusay Hussein’s participation in the meetings highlights
the importance of the talks in both symbolic and practical terms. As a direct result of
these meetings, Iraq reportedly made commitments to provide training, intelligence,
clandestine Saudi border crossings, and weapons and explosives to support Al Qaeda.
27. By mid-June, 1998, operatives of Bin Laden and Al Qaeda reportedly were at the al-Nasiriyah
training camp in Iraq receiving instruction and training from Iraqi intelligence
and military officials on reconnaissance and targeting American facilities and
installations for terrorist attacks. Another group of Bin Laden and Al Qaeda operatives
from Saudi Arabia reportedly were trained by intelligence officials in Iraq to smuggle
weapons and explosives into Saudi Arabia, and, upon returning to Saudi Arabia,
successfully smuggled weapons and explosives into that country. A third group of Bin Laden
and Al Qaeda operatives reportedly received a month of sophisticated guerrilla operations
training from Iraqi intelligence officials later in the Summer of 1998.
28. Bin Laden reportedly sought to strengthen and reinforce the support he and Al
Qaeda received from Iraq. In mid-July 1998, Bin Laden reportedly sent Dr. Ayman
al-Zawahiri, the Egyptian co-founder of Al Qaeda, to Iraq to meet with senior Iraqi
officials, including Iraqi vice president Taha Yassin Ramadan. The reported purpose of
this meeting was to discuss and plan a joint strategy for a terrorist campaign against the
United States. Iraqi officials reportedly pledged Iraq’s full support and cooperation
on the condition that Bin Laden and Al Qaeda not incite the Iraqi Muslim Brotherhood, a
radical Islamic organization, against the regime of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.
Zawahiri reportedly toured a potential site for a new headquarters for Bin Laden and Al
Qaeda near al-Fallujah in Iraq and observed training by Iraqi intelligence officials of
Bin Laden and Al Qaeda operatives at al-Nasiriyah. In recognition of Bin Laden’s and
Al Qaeda’s leadership role in the terrorist war against the United States, Iraqi
officials allowed Zawahiri to assume formal command over the al-Nasiriyah training camp in
the name of Bin Laden and Al Qaeda.
29. By mid-November 1998, Saddam Hussein
reportedly came to the conclusion (with the advice and prompting of his son and
intelligence chief, Qusay), that a campaign of terrorist attacks against the United
States, under the banner of Bin Laden and Al Qaeda, was the most effective means of
deflecting U.S. attempts to topple his regime.
30. Shortly thereafter, Iraqi intelligence officials reportedly met with Bin Laden in
Afghanistan. Bin Laden, Al Qaeda, and Iraq reportedly agreed to join efforts in a
detailed, coordinated plan for a protracted terrorist war against the United States. Iraq
also reportedly agreed to provide Bin Laden and Al Qaeda with the assistance of an expert
in chemical weapons, and Bin Laden reportedly agreed to hunt down Iraqi opposition leaders
who cooperated with the United States against Hussein. In furtherance of this agreement,
Bin Laden reportedly dispatched four hundred of Al Qaeda’s “Afghan” Arabs
to Iraq to fight Kurds.
31. Following a four day air strike by the United States in December 1998, Iraqi trade
minister Muhammad Mahdi Salah reportedly stated that he expected terrorist activities
against the United States to increase as a result of the bombing of Iraq. The Arabic
language daily newspaper Al-Quds al-Arabi first raised the issue of cooperation between
Iraq, Bin Laden and Al Qaeda in a late December 1998 editorial, which predicted that
“President Saddam Hussein, whose country was subjected to a four day air strike, will
look for support in taking revenge on the United States and Britain by cooperating with
Saudi oppositionist Osama bin-Laden, whom the United States considers to be the most
wanted person in the world.” The editorial noted that this type of cooperation was
very likely considering that “bin-Laden was planning moving to Iraq before the recent
strike.”
32. Following the December 1998 air strikes, Saddam Hussein reportedly dispatched Faruq
al-Hijazi to Kandahar, Afghanistan in order to meet with Bin Laden. Hijazi, the former
deputy chief of Iraqi intelligence, had first met Bin Laden in 1994. During his visit to
Kandahar, Hijazi reportedly offered expanded cooperation and assistance to Bin Laden and
Al Qaeda, as well as a re-extension of the offer of shelter and hospitality Iraq
previously extended to Bin Laden and Al Qaeda. Bin Laden reportedly agreed in principle to
give Iraq assistance in a revenge campaign against the United States, but suggested
further study and coordination before committing to a specific course of action or
agreeing to a particular terrorist strike.
33. To demonstrate Iraq’s commitment to Bin Laden and Al Qaeda, Hijazi reportedly
presented Bin Laden with a pack of blank, official Yemeni passports, supplied to Iraqi
intelligence from their Yemeni contacts. Hijazi’s visit to Kandahar was reportedly
followed by a contingent of Iraqi military intelligence officials who provided additional
training and instruction to Bin Laden and Al Qaeda operatives in Afghanistan. These Iraqi
officials reportedly included members of “Unit 999,” a group of elite, Iraqi
intelligence officials who provided advanced sabotage and infiltration training and
instruction for Al Qaeda operatives.
34. In addition to the al-Nasiriyah training camp, by January 1999, Bin Laden and Al Qaeda
operatives also were reportedly being trained by Iraqi intelligence and military officers
at training camps on the outskirts of Baghdad.
35. Following the Hijazi meetings, Qusay Hussein reportedly dispatched representatives to
follow-up with Bin Laden and obtain his firm commitment to exact revenge against the
United States for the December 1998 bombing campaign. Iraq reportedly offered Bin Laden
and Al Qaeda an open-ended commitment to joint operations against the United States and
its “moderate” Arab allies in exchange for an absolute guarantee that Bin Laden,
Al Qaeda, and their allies would not attempt to overthrow Saddam Hussein’s regime in
Iraq.
36. Israeli sources reportedly claim that, for the past two years, Iraqi intelligence
officers have been shuttling back and forth between Baghdad and Afghanistan. According to
the Israelis, one of these Iraqi intelligence officers, Salah Suleiman, was captured last
October by Pakistani officials near the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan.
37. In January 1999, Iraq reportedly began reorganizing and mobilizing intelligence front
operations throughout Europe in support of Bin Laden and Al Qaeda.
38. According to Czech intelligence sources, Mohammad Atta, the operational ringleader of
the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, met in June 2000 with Ahmed Khalil Ibrahim Samir
al-Ani, a consul and second secretary at the Iraqi embassy in Prague. Al-Ani is one of
Iraqi’s most highly decorated intelligence officers, a special forces veteran, and a
senior leader of Iraq’s “M-8” special operations branch. Other reports
indicate that Al-Ani may have met with another hijacker, Khalid Almihdar.
39. Czech Interior Minister Stanislav Gross has confirmed that Atta met with al-Ani in
early April 2001 in Prague. Atta also reportedly met with the Iraqi ambassador to Turkey
and the former Iraqi deputy intelligence director, Farouk al-Hijazi, in Prague sometime in
early April 2001.
40. Czech intelligence sources further report that Atta and al-Ani embraced upon meeting
at Prague’s Ruzyne airport, and that Atta may have visited the Czech capitol on four
other occasions.
41. Czech intelligence sources also reported that al-Ani had been under surveillance
because he had been observed apparently surveying the Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
headquarters in Prague. Czech authorities believed the site had been selected for attack
by terrorists. Later in 2001, al-Ani was expelled from the Czech Republic for espionage
activities.
42. Reports of additional intelligence ties between Bin Laden, Al Qaeda and Iraq continue
to mount. The CIA reportedly believes Iraq provided falsified passports for the nineteen
hijackers who carried out the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. Further, senior U.S.
intelligence sources have revealed that, in the Spring of 2001, Marwan al-Shehri and Ziad
Jarrah -- two of Atta’s closest associates and members of the Al Qaeda
“cell” in the Federal Republic of Germany -- met with known Iraqi intelligence
agents outside the United States.
43. Italian security sources have reported that Iraq made use of its embassy in Rome to
foster and cultivate Iraq’s partnership with Bin Laden and Al Qaeda. Habib Faris
Abdullah al-Mamouri, a general in the Iraqi secret service, and, from 1982 to 1990, a
member of Iraq’s “M-A” special operations branch charged with developing
links with Islamist militants in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and the states of the Persian
Gulf, was stationed in Rome as an “instructor” for Iraqi diplomats. Al-Mamouri
reportedly met with Mohammed Atta in Rome, Hamburg, and Prague. Al-Mamouri has not been
seen in Rome since July 2001, shortly after he last met with Atta.
44. Recent Iraqi defectors provide additional details of Iraq’s support for
international terrorism throughout the 1990s. The Public Broadcasting Service documentary
program entitled “Frontline” interviewed former Iraqi intelligence and army
officers with first-hand accounts of highly secret installations run by an international
terrorist known to Iraqi staffers only as “the Ghost.” “The Ghost” is
reported to be Abdel Hussein, the chief trainer at a training camp inside Iraq, which
includes the fuselage of a Boeing 707 jetliner that is used to practice hijacking
scenarios. U.N. inspectors independently confirmed the existence of this particular
training camp inside Iraq.
45. The Iraqi defector known as “Saddam’s Bomb-maker,” Dr. Khidhir Hamza,
who served as Iraq’s Director of Nuclear Weaponization, analyzes Iraqi’s
sponsorship of Bin Laden and Al Qaeda as follows:
What I think is there is somehow a change in the level of the type of operation Bin Laden
has been carrying [out]. What we are looking at initially is more or less just attempts to
blow some buildings, just normal use of explosives for a terrorist. What we have in the
September 11 operation, [is a] tightly controlled, very sophisticated operation; the type
an Iraqi intelligence agency, well versed in the technology [could pull off]. ... So my
thinking is a guy sitting in a cave in Afghanistan is not the guy who will do an operation
of this caliber. It has to have in combination with it a guy with the sophistication and
know-how on how to carry these things.
. . . Iraq [also] has a history of training terrorists, harboring them, and taking good
care of them, by the way. A terrorist is well cared for with Saddam. So he has a good
reputation in that type of community, if you like.
46. Several leading authorities on Saddam Hussein, Bin Laden, and Al Qaeda concur on the
likelihood of Iraq’s sponsorship and coordination of the September 11, 2001 terrorist
attacks. The former head of Israel’s Mossad secret service, Rafi Eitan, and former
CIA Director James Woolsey, share the view that Iraq, Bin Laden and Al Qaeda conspired in
the attacks. Their views also are shared by Laurie Mylroie, an academic and Iraqi affairs
expert at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, D.C.. Mylroie cites the role of
Iraqi operatives in the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center to support her claim that
the September 11, 2001 attacks are a matter of unfinished business for Iraq, which
considers itself to be at war with the United States.
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