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JENS MUNCH FOR THE TORONTO STAR Part of a document found by Star reporter Mitch Potter suggesting a meeting with Osama bin Laden, whose name had been obscured.
Documents link Iraq, bin Laden
Star reporter finds terror chief's name in Iraqi dossier, covered with White-Out
TORONTO STAR STAFF
Top-secret Iraqi intelligence documents, unearthed by the Toronto Star in the bombed-out headquarters of the dreaded Mukhabarat intelligence service in Baghdad, have established the first clear link between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda organization.
The documents were found by correspondent Mitch Potter, the Star's Jerusalem bureau chief.
Potter, who has been in and out of Iraq since the war began, was digging through the rubble of the Mukhabarat's Baghdad headquarters with his translator Amir when they uncovered the intelligence treasure trove.
Bin Laden's name appears three times in the handwritten Iraqi file, but each of the references was clumsily concealed with White-Out and then blackened with ink, "presumably by agents of the Mukhabarat," writes Potter, who was travelling with Amir and Inigo Gilmore of London's Sunday Telegraph.
In his dispatch, Potter details how his translator, sitting on the end of his hotel room bed today, carefully scraped away the White Out with a scalpel to reveal bin Laden's name hidden underneath.
And he writes of Amir's stunned reaction when the name became apparent:
"It says Bin Laden!
It says Bin Laden!"
The full account will appear in tomorrow's Star.
The discovery of the document coincides with the Friday capture of Farouk Hijazi, an Iraqi spymaster the United States claims was the link between Iraq and Al Qaeda.
Hijazi, according to U.S. allegations, met bin Laden prior to the Sept. 11 attacks during Hijazi's term as Iraq's ambassador to Turkey.
"The document in question is in every way possible entirely like the hundreds of others we've been poring over in our spare hours these many nights in the safety of our hotel room while intermittent gunfire pops away in the distance," Potter writes.
Spies from the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, who scoured the building after it was bombed into rubble, apparently missed the document.
The presence of bin Laden's name on the document has been verified by four Arabic interpreters.
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Secret papers show contact with regime in 1998 Three pages point to the arrival of a messenger
Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda organization and Saddam Hussein's regime shared direct contact as early as 1998, according to top-secret Iraqi intelligence documents obtained by the Star.
The documents, discovered yesterday in the bombed-out headquarters of the Mukhabarat, Iraq's most feared intelligence service, amount to the first hard evidence of a link long suspected by the United States but dismissed as fiction by many Western leaders.
The handwritten file, three pages in all, relates to the arrival of a secret envoy sent by bin Laden to Iraq in March, 1998, apparently to establish a clandestine relationship with the Iraqi regime.
The purpose of the trip was "to gain the knowledge of the message from bin Laden and to convey to his envoy an oral message from us to bin Laden," according to the final page of the Iraqi document, a handwritten letter dated Feb. 19, 1998.
The letter describes bin Laden as an "opponent" of the regime in Saudi Arabia and said the message to convey to him through the envoy would relate to "the future of our relationship with him (bin Laden) and to achieve a direct meeting with him."
The signature beneath the letter is a codename, "MDA," believed to be that of a director of one of the intelligence sections within the Mukhabarat.
A second signature on the page, also in code, recommends bringing the unnamed agent to Iraq because "we may find in this envoy a way to maintain contact with bin Laden."
The remaining pages confirm bin Laden's agent arrived in Baghdad on March 5 and stayed a full 16 days as a guest of the Iraqi government at the Mansur Melia Hotel, one of the capital's premier accommodations.
The contact came less than five months before bin Laden became America's most-wanted fugitive in the wake of deadly bomb attacks on two U.S. embassies in East Africa.
The White House has linked the invasion of Iraq to the war on terror maintaining that ousted Iraqi president Saddam harboured terrorists, including Al Qaeda operatives.
Bin Laden's name appears three times in the handwritten Iraqi file, but each of the references was concealed clumsily with corrective fluid and then blackened with ink, presumably by agents of the Mukhabarat.
But after the masking material was carefully removed yesterday, bin Laden's name was clearly legible in each reference.
The translation of the document was confirmed independently by five Arabic interpreters.
The discovery coincides with the Friday capture of Farouk Hijazi, an Iraqi spymaster the United States claims was the link man between Iraq and Al Qaeda.
Hijazi, according to U.S. allegations, met bin Laden before the Sept. 11 attacks during Hijazi's term as Iraq's ambassador to Turkey.
The Osama papers obtained by the Star were discovered yesterday within a file folder lying in rubble in a partially destroyed building inside the sprawling Mukhabarat compound west of the Tigris River in Baghdad.
Around the tree-lined facility hundreds of thousands of papers litter the ground.
The final page, a handwritten letter dated Feb. 19 and marked "Top Secret and Urgent," refers to the planned trip from Sudan by an unnamed agent close to bin Laden.
The letter describes the envoy as "a trusted confidant (of bin Laden) and known by them (Al Qaeda)."
It continues:
"According to the above we suggest permission to call the Khartoum station (the Iraqi intelligence station in Sudan) to facilitate the travel arrangements for the abovementioned person to Iraq.
And that our body carry all the travel and hotel expenses inside Iraq to gain the knowledge of the message from bin Laden and to convey to his envoy an oral message from us to bin Laden."
According to notes at the bottom of the page the letter was then passed on through another director within the Mukhabarat to the deputy director general of the intelligence services.
The other two pages of the file, dated Feb. 23 and March 24, relate to correspondence between different agencies within the Mukhabarat over preparation and approval for Iraq to cover the costs of the bin Laden envoy's stay at the Mansur hotel.
Each is countersigned by a number of codenamed Iraqi officials.
One is addressed to "M4/7" and signed by "MD1/3."
The three pages were found bound with a staple.
Margin notes on the letter show a signature of the Mukhabarat's deputy director general, also in code.
It mentions that the visit of the envoy was extended by a week.
In a margin note, it mentions the name Mohammed F. Mohammed Ahmed, but there is no indication whether this is the envoy.
The documents do not indicate whether an actual meeting took place, or whether any follow-up contact was planned.
Bin Laden's five years in Sudan ended in 1996, when he was ousted and returned to Afghanistan, home of the mujahideen fighters from which he launched Al Qaeda.
But it is believed remnants of his Sudanese operations remained behind.
Hijazi, the captured spymaster, was known to be a senior operative within the Mukhabarat before joining Iraq's ambassadorial ranks.
He was first proposed as Iraq's ambassador to Canada, but the placement was refused.
In 1998, he became ambassador to Turkey.
According to U.S. officials, Hijazi travelled to Kandahar, Afghanistan, in December, 1998, for an alleged meeting with bin Laden near his expanding network of terrorist training camps.
Details of that meeting are not known, but U.S. officials cite the allegation as the clearest link to date between Iraq and Al Qaeda.
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The proof that Saddam worked with bin Laden
By Inigo Gilmore (Filed:27/04/2003)
Iraqi intelligence documents discovered in Baghdad by The Telegraph have provided the first evidence of a direct link between Osama bin Laden's al-Qa'eda terrorist network and Saddam Hussein's regime.
Papers found yesterday in the bombed headquarters of the Mukhabarat, Iraq's intelligence service, reveal that an al-Qa'eda envoy was invited clandestinely to Baghdad in March 1998.
The documents show that the purpose of the meeting was to establish a relationship between Baghdad and al-Qa'eda based on their mutual hatred of America and Saudi Arabia.
The meeting apparently went so well that it was extended by a week and ended with arrangements being discussed for bin Laden to visit Baghdad.
The papers will be seized on by Washington as the first proof of what the United States has long alleged - that, despite denials by both sides, Saddam's regime had a close relationship with al-Qa'eda.
The Telegraph found the file on bin Laden inside a folder lying in the rubble of one of the rooms of the destroyed intelligence HQ. There are three pages, stapled together;
two are on paper headed with the insignia and lettering of the Mukhabarat.
They show correspondence between Mukhabarat agencies over preparations for the visit of al-Qa'eda's envoy, who travelled to Iraq from Sudan, where bin Laden had been based until 1996.
They disclose what Baghdad hopes to achieve from the meeting, which took place less than five months before bin Laden was placed at the top of America's most wanted list following the bombing of two US embassies in east Africa.
Perhaps aware of the sensitivities of the subject matter, Iraqi agents at some point clumsily attempted to mask out all references to bin Laden, using white correcting fluid.
The dried fluid was removed to reveal the clearly legible name three times in the documents.
One paper is marked "Top Secret and Urgent".
It is signed "MDA", a codename believed to be the director of one of the intelligence sections within the Mukhabarat, and dated February 19, 1998.
It refers to the planned trip from Sudan by bin Laden's unnamed envoy and refers to the arrangements for his visit.
A letter with this document says the envoy is a trusted confidant of bin Laden.
It adds:
"According to the above, we suggest permission to call the Khartoum station [Iraq's intelligence office in Sudan] to facilitate the travel arrangements for the above-mentioned person to Iraq.
And that our body carry all the travel and hotel costs inside Iraq to gain the knowledge of the message from bin Laden and to convey to his envoy an oral message from us to bin Laden."
The letter refers to al-Qa'eda's leader as an opponent of the Saudi Arabian regime and says that the message to convey to him through the envoy "would relate to the future of our relationship with him, bin Laden, and to achieve a direct meeting with him."
According to handwritten notes at the bottom of the page, the letter was passed on through another director in the Mukhabarat and on to the deputy director general of the intelligence service.
It recommends that "the deputy director general bring the envoy to Iraq because we may find in this envoy a way to maintain contacts with bin Laden".
The deputy director general has signed the document.
All of the signatories use codenames.
The other documents then confirm that the envoy travelled from Khartoum to Baghdad in March 1998, staying at al-Mansour Melia, a first-class hotel.
It mentions that his visit was extended by a week.
In the notes in a margin, a name "Mohammed F. Mohammed Ahmed" is mentioned, but it is not clear whether this is the the envoy or an agent.
Intriguingly, the Iraqis talk about sending back an oral message to bin Laden, perhaps aware of the risk of a written message being intercepted.
However, the documents do not mention if any meeting took place between bin Laden and Iraqi officials.
The file contradicts the claims of Baghdad, bin Laden and many critics of the coalition that there was no link between the Iraqi regime and al-Qa'eda.
One Western intelligence official contacted last night described the file as "sensational", adding:
"Baghdad clearly sought out the meeting.
The regime would have wanted it to happen in the capital as it's only there they would feel safe from surveillance by Western intelligence."
Over the past three weeks, The Telegraph has discovered various other intelligence files in the wrecked Mukhabarat building, including documents revealing how Russia passed on to Iraq details of private conversations between Tony Blair and Silvio Berlusconi, the Italian prime minister, and how Germany held clandestine meetings with the regime.
A Downing Street spokesman said last night:
"Since Saddam's fall a series of documents have come to light which will have to be fully assessed by the proper authorities over a period of time.
We will certainly want to study these documents as part of that process to see if they shed new light on the relationship between Saddam's regime and al-Qa'eda.
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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2003/04/27/walq27.xml&sSheet=/news/2003/04/27/ixnewstop.html
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