Afghanistan, Iraq, Saddam link to terrorism

[KirtFalcon]

Iraq How-to Manual Directed Arab Military Operatives In Afghanistan

Thursday, July 06, 2006

Ray Robison

 

An Arab regime, possibly Iraq, supplied how-to manuals for Arab operatives working throughout Afghanistan before 9/11, and provided military assistance to the Taliban and Al Qaeda.

 

That's the most likely conclusion drawn from an apparent training manual unearthed in captured Iraqi government computer files translated and analyzed exclusively for Fox News, and made public for the first time.

 

The document, apparently written before the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, could bolster the Bush administration's contention that Saddam Hussein was providing support for Islamic extremists who were plotting against America.

 

The training manual warns, in stark how-to terms, of the dangers of "information leaks," and instructs Arab operatives inside Afghanistan to dress like Afghan tribesmen, to avoid being followed ("Routine is the enemy of security"), to always be armed, and "to behave as if enemies would strike at any moment."

 

The manual also cautions Arabs to "beware of rapid and spontaneous friendships with Afghans who speak Arabic," and "always make sure about the identity of your neighbors and classify them as regular people, opponents or allies."

 

That revelation is provided exclusively to Fox News by Ray Robison, a former member of the CIA-directed Iraq Survey Group. ISG supervised a group of linguists to analyze, archive and exploit the hundreds of captured documents and materials of Saddam's regime.

 

Fox News and Robison last week revealed the contents of a 1999 notebook kept by an Iraqi Intelligence Service (IIS) operative. That notebook detailed how Saddam's agents aggressively pursued and entered into a diplomatic, intelligence, and security arrangement with the Taliban and Islamist extremists operating in Afghanistan — years before the 9/11 attacks.

 

While the training manual revealed today by Fox News does not mention the IIS agent's notebook, the manual does suggest an Arab regime, most likely Saddam, may have provided the military help requested by the Taliban and Al Qaeda.

 

The manual, declassified and recently released by the Foreign Military Studies Office, advises its Arab readers never to show your "military ID." That strongly suggests that Iraq was sending professional military assistance to Afghanistan before the 9/11 attacks

 

Translation:

 

Editor's notes:

 

The translation is provided by Robison's associate, known here as "Sammi," who puts translation clarifications in parenthesis. Robison uses (RR) for clarification and bold-face type for emphasis.

 

Translator's notes:

 

This seven-page document contains instructions for a group of Arab men, military ID holders, and their families. These men appear to be joining other military men already in Afghanistan who are running "hosting places." These facilities appear to be safe houses or training facilities for other Arabs. The work involves receiving Arab men who may or may not choose to stay at the facility.

 

Even though pre-9/11 Afghanistan was teeming with Arab Mujihadeen who were proud to represent their native countries, the instructions advise the "brothers" to keep a low profile and behave as if enemies would strike at any moment.

 

Begin Translation for 2RAD-2004-600760-ELC.PDF

 

In the Name of God the Merciful

 

Personnel Security:

 

Respected brother,

 

Know that one of the main causes of information leaks is from personnel (translator's note: personnel talking), this is why we try to cooperate with you so that neither you or one of your brothers becomes the cause of a catastrophe that might hit one of the brothers or all of them.

 

Please follow these instructions:

 

1- Know as much as you need. (translator's note: don't ask too many questions)

 

2- Don't talk too much; it is said that "silence is wisdom."

 

3- It is recommended that all personnel wear Afghan clothing so they do not stand out from other people.

 

4- All the brothers should go to the market by themselves, alone.

 

5- It is not advised to move alone at night. (At night, walk the streets on foot)

 

6- As much as possible do not disclose your identity as an Arab.

 

7- Avoid excitement whether by glorifying or bashing.

 

8- Avoid being observed (translator's note: being followed and observed) and always notice who is walking behind you or following you from a distance; review the observation manual.

 

9- All brothers should be always armed even if with a small knife in their pockets.

 

10- Check your pockets and never leave important papers in them when moving around.

 

11- Always be careful in personal relations with Afghans or Pakistanis.

 

12- Avoid giving any information about the locations of your brothers.

 

13- It is forbidden to discuss work issues with the women.

 

14- It is forbidden to take children to parks and offices.

 

15- It is forbidden to talk about your work or the nature of your mission with anybody who is not related to it.

 

16- Beware of habit in your daily routine because the rule says, "Routine is the enemy of security."

 

17- If you are moving and have a large amount of money, beware of showing it in the market so you do not attract robbers.

 

18- Always beware when you are talking about the work because somebody not related to your work, the women or the children, might hear you.

 

19- Beware of rapid and spontaneous friendships with Afghans who speak Arabic.

 

20- In public places beware of talking about work issues because some Afghans know Arabic but you cannot notice this.

 

21- Always be forgiving when you are buying from, selling to or dealing with Afghans and avoid trouble.

 

22- Children are not allowed to go out by themselves whether to buy stuff or play.

 

23- Always make sure about the identity of your neighbors and classify them as regular people, opponents or allies.

 

Security of compounds:

 

The security of the house or the living quarters is one of the most important aspects of security because the house contains the personnel, the equipment and the important documents. Make the house secure, securing from all those aspects, and it is advisable that these measures be taken seriously. There are important precautions, to the security of the house, that have to be taken before renting but it is not practical to list them here.

 

(Translator's notes: several instructions for securing the houses are listed, including location, neighborhood, weapons inside, rules for children, night-time policy, and patrolling the surroundings)

 

Security of the hosting places:

 

A hosting place is the place where most infiltration takes place. What we mean by hosting place is a public place where people, who most of the time are not related to the work, are received. But in case we are receiving special guests or others, it is not considered a hosting place but it is affiliated to the security of the special offices. (Translator's notes: there are 23 instructions for the security of the hosting places; here are 10)

 

At the hosting place a room for the security unit is necessary for observation:

 

1. The hosting place should be away from the living space of the brothers and their meeting areas.

 

2. Brothers should not go often to the hosting place except for a purpose.

 

3. It is forbidden to practice any private or secret matter in the hosting place.

 

4. The hosting place where our brothers are grouped, like Kandahar

 

a. Anybody who enters it should be known

 

b. Nobody lives in it unless a known party recommends him

 

c. Persons living in the hosting place should be organized and authorized by the brother in charge of the hosting place. It should be known where the brother is going and when he is coming back.

 

5. Brothers living in Kandahar and who repetitively visit the hosting place should abide by the Holy Hadith (a sacred text of Islam), "The virtue of one's Islam is to leave what does not belong to him," and not to start a relation with the brothers living in the hosting place.

 

6. The brother in charge of the hosting place should assign a private place for each brother living in the hosting place and not leave the decision to the visitor.

 

7. There should be a schedule for night guard in the hosting place.

 

8. The communication room should be isolated in the hosting place and not close to the visitor's rooms.

 

9.The hosting place should have a reception room where the visiting brother is dealt with, before entering the hosting place, and decide if he is going to stay in it.

 

10. Public meetings are strictly forbidden in the hosting place.

 

Security of movement:

 

First: Security of cars and vehicles

 

Constant movement of cars between the houses of the brothers and their workplace is a big breach which might lead to discovery of those places if the brother driving was not aware of being watched. It is possible that the car itself, with its occupant, might be a target, therefore:

 

(Translator's notes: several instructions for driving and car security follow; here are a few)

 

- The brothers driving the cars should check their car daily to make sure it does not contain any foreign material or device.

 

- All the brothers driving the cars should be armed and should have their weapons license.

 

- Brothers driving the cars should always be wearing Afghan clothing so their identity cannot be easily discovered.

 

- Brothers driving the cars should not always follow one path and should not have a constant habit in choosing their way.

 

Second: security of movement and travel inside Afghanistan

 

Travel is one of the most important security breaches that we should be careful of because of the long absence from the brothers and facing the dangers of the road.

 

- It is absolutely forbidden for a person to travel by himself, and it is preferable that the number of travelers be at least three including a trusted Afghan.

 

- In rest areas a brother should not show his military ID.

 

- The security office should be informed about the travel before the travel, and when you reach your destination you should inform the office for follow up.

 

(Translator's notes: several instructions for mail and communications security are listed, right out of an intelligence personnel book)

 

Public meetings security:

 

The danger of public meetings is that it often groups most of the personnel present in Kandahar. If the enemy manages to know and reach the meeting place, he would have a dangerous opportunity and to make him miss this chance we should follow some precautions.

 

(Translator's notes: several instructions concerning public meetings security follow)

 

End Translation

 

Analysis:

 

This document supports a few strong conclusions. It clearly proves that an Arab country was providing professional military assistance to Arab operatives in Afghanistan. While the document does not identify the country of origin of these Arab men, it's a logical omission since it wouldn't make sense to name the country in a memo whose purpose is to instruct how to hide one's nationality.

 

It is important to note, however, that in 1999, Iraq — along with Syria — was again identified by the U.S. Department of State as a government sponsor of terrorism, the only two Arab nations classified as state sponsors of terrorism at that time.

 

The document also appears to be a professional military intelligence letter of instruction. These men have military IDs. The instruction references an intelligence manual. The letter mentions "trusted" Afghans, so we know they are working in cooperation with forces in Afghanistan. It is highly unlikely that any military would send a semi-permanent contingent with families into Afghanistan for cooperation or training unless the Afghan organization was stable and in control. It therefore seems likely that these soldiers are working closely with the Taliban.

 

There are media reports of a group of Iraqi soldiers in Afghanistan. Jeffery Goldberg reported for The New Yorker in a February 2003 article entitled The CIA and Pentagon take another look at Al Qaeda and Iraq:

 

"In interviews with senior officials, the following picture emerged: American intelligence believes that Al Qaeda and Saddam reached a non-aggression agreement in 1993, and that the relationship deepened further in the mid-nineteen-nineties, when an Al Qaeda operative — a native-born Iraqi who goes by the name Abu Abdullah al-Iraqi — was dispatched by bin Laden to ask the Iraqis for help in poison-gas training. Al-Iraqi's mission was successful, and an unknown number of trainers from an Iraqi secret-police organization called Unit 999 were dispatched to camps in Afghanistan to instruct Al Qaeda terrorists."

 

Unit 999 might sound like it's straight out of a James Bond movie, but there are many references to an actual Iraqi intelligence unit that appears to take on Special Forces missions. Global Security.org, which sources most of its information from declassified U.S. government documents, describes Unit 999:

 

This "deep penetration" unit, responsible for domestic and international clandestine operations, was headquartered at the army base at Salman Pak, southeast of Baghdad. Unit 999 activities included infiltration of opposition militias in the Kurdish enclave in northern Iraq, a planned effort by the unit to kidnap the U.S. commander General Schwarzkopf from Saudi Arabia during Desert Storm, and sabotage attacks on Iranian oil installations in the 1990s.

 

This manual provides further evidence that the Iraqi military was active in Afghanistan and working with the Taliban. The Taliban harbored and trained with Al Qaeda. The information in the document matches media reports that U.S. intelligence sources believed the IIS was training Al Qaeda in Afghanistan. It also matches information from other IIS documentation that shows requests from Islamic Jihad groups in Afghanistan for Iraqi military assistance.

 

The author welcomes your comment on the translation and analysis of this document. You can contact Ray Robison by e-mailing him at: [email protected]

[Observer]

Your Source Must be flawed

 

You are just cut and pasting....

 

LOL

 

I had to get to it first!

[KirtFalcon]

I've been waiting for the left wing nutcases to attack the source . . . it's all they got! :w00t:

 

The don't even want to discuss the merits of the report and what it means for nuts like Kerry, Gore, Dean, Pelosi, Kennedy, Shrillary and the rest of the Bush - lied blame America crowd! :w00t:

[Observer]

Why is it that they never have to recant?

 

Why no honor?

 

History keeps proving them wrong....

 

:whome:

[Guest Sideliner]

Cut and Paste what a Waste................................

[Observer]

Sideliner

 

You don't like things you can't refute?

[KirtFalcon]

The liberals with their blinders on seem to be speechless . . . or are they scrambling for their talking points! :unsure:

[Observer]

They hope nobody will notice that they were the ones not telling the truth!

[DeuceChunker03]

Translated EXCLUSIVELY for FoxNews. Believable. :whome:

 

I do find the instructions pretty funny. That's all stuff my mom and dad told me when I was like five. Don't show your money in public, don't play alone, etc. These people must not have much common sense.

[DLine06]

I'm sorry...

 

I can believe terrorism in Afghanistan.. that's obvious.

 

I can believe there are terrorists that hid and could still be hiding in Iraq and Syria.

 

I have to disagree with Saddam. Personally I truly believe Saddam was more focused on killing his own people than to harbor terrorists. That and counting how much gold he has.

 

Kirt if you find a story linking Kim Jong IL to terrorism... True or false, I would go with the article and hope they get that nut out of office.

[Observer]

So you don't think Saddam was working with Al Qaeda or any other group to attack US soldiers or even folks on the mainland?

 

Have you not read the evidence... and NO... Fox is not the only one that has paid to have things translated....

[DeuceChunker03]

It says in the opening paragraph that it was an Arab regime, possibly Iraq. That's not evidence, that's a guess.

[Observer]

Deuce... just because the evidence is not posted on this strand does not make it go away....

 

Clinton first linked al Qaeda to Saddam

By Rowan Scarborough

THE WASHINGTON TIMES

 

 

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?"

[Observer]

From CNN

 

GOP lawmaker: Saddam linked to 9/11

N.C. representative says 'evidence is clear'

 

Wednesday, June 29, 2005; Posted: 9:12 a.m. EDT (13:12 GMT)

 

 

-- A Republican congressman from North Carolina told CNN on Wednesday that the "evidence is clear" that Iraq was involved in the terrorist attacks against the United States on September 11, 2001.

 

"Saddam Hussein and people like him were very much involved in 9/11," Rep. Robin Hayes said.

 

Told no investigation had ever found evidence to link Saddam and 9/11, Hayes responded, "I'm sorry, but you must have looked in the wrong places."

 

Hayes, the vice chairman of the House subcommittee on terrorism, said legislators have access to evidence others do not.

 

Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona, said that Saddam was a dangerous man, but when asked about Hayes' statement, would not link the deposed Iraqi ruler to the terrorist attacks on New York, the Pentagon and Pennsylvania.

 

"I haven't seen compelling evidence of that," McCain, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, told CNN.

 

On Tuesday night, President Bush mentioned the September 11 attacks five times during his address on the war in Iraq, prompting criticism from congressional Democrats. (Full story)

 

The 9/11 commission, appointed by Bush, presented its final report a year ago, saying that Osama bin Laden had been "willing to explore possibilities for cooperation with Iraq" at one time in the 1990s but that the al Qaeda leader "had in fact been sponsoring anti-Saddam Islamists in Iraqi Kurdistan, and sought to attract them into his Islamic army."

 

The 520-page report said investigators found no evidence that any "contacts ever developed into a collaborative operational relationship."

 

"Nor have we seen evidence indicating that Iraq cooperated with al Qaeda in developing or carrying out any attacks against the United States," it said.

 

President Bush said in September 2003 that "We've had no evidence that Saddam Hussein was involved with the September 11 [attacks]."

 

Nevertheless, Hayes insisted that the connection between al Qaeda and Saddam and "folks who work for him" has been seen "time and time again."

 

"Nobody disputes 9/11," Hayes said. "They would do it again if not prevented."

[Observer]

Possible Saddam-Al Qaeda Link Seen in U.N. Oil-for-Food Program

Monday, September 20, 2004

By Claudia Rosett and George Russell

 

Investigations have shown that the former Iraqi dictator grafted and smuggled more than $10 billion from the program that for seven years prior to Saddam's overthrow was meant to bring humanitarian aid to ordinary Iraqis. And the Sept. 11 Commission has shown a tracery of contacts between Saddam and Al Qaeda (search) that continued after billions of Oil-for-Food dollars began pouring into Saddam's coffers and Usama bin Laden (search) declared his infamous war on the U.S.

 

Now, buried in some of the United Nation's own confidential documents, clues can be seen that underscore the possibility of just such a Saddam-Al Qaeda link — clues leading to a locked door in this Swiss lakeside resort. (To review a series of documents, audits and other stories related to Oil-for-Food, click here.)

 

Next to that door, a festive sign spells out in gold letters under a green flag that this is the office of MIGA, the Malaysian Swiss Gulf and African Chamber (search). Registered here 20 years ago as a society to promote business between the Gulf States and Asia, Europe and Africa, MIGA is a company that the United Nations and the U.S. government says has served as a hub of Al Qaeda finance: A terrorist chamber of commerce.

 

(Story continues below)

 

ADVERTISEMENTSAdvertise Here

 

 

 

[Editor's Note: This is the first in a series of articles about the U.N. Oil-for-Food program. Check back Sunday for the next installment and watch FOX's "Breaking Point" on Sunday at 9 p.m. EDT for an hour-long special on the Oil-for-Food program.]

 

In a recent interview, U.S. Assistant Treasury Secretary Juan Zarate described MIGA as "a very good example of an investment company that is used as a shell to hide and move money."

 

As is typical of terrorist financial webs, the details surrounding MIGA quickly become bewildering — part of the point being to camouflage the illicit flow of funds with legitimate business. Part of the problem in finding the truth is that cross-border transactions out of such financial havens as Switzerland are smothered in banking secrecy.

 

But even with that secrecy — and shortly after the Sept.11, 2001, attacks on the United States — both MIGA and its chief founder and longtime president, Ahmed Idris Nasreddin, landed on the U.N. watchlist of entities and individuals belonging to, or affiliated with Al Qaeda.

 

Nasreddin is a member of the terror-linked Muslim Brotherhood (search).

 

Nasreddin's longtime business partner, Egyptian-born Youssef Nada, also of the Muslim Brotherhood, likewise appears on the U.N.'s Al Qaeda watchlist, as do a slew of both Nasreddin's and Nada's enterprises. Former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill in August 2002 described Nada and Nasreddin as "supporters of terrorism" involved in "an extensive financial network providing support to Al Qaeda and other terrorist-related organizations."

 

Far less attention has been paid to the small, select band of MIGA's other charter members. But one of them, Iraqi-born Ahmed Totonji, set up shop years ago just outside Washington, D.C., and is now among those named by U.S. federal authorities in an investigation into a cluster of companies and Islamic non-profits based in Herndon, Virginia, suspected of having funneled money to terrorist groups.

 

MIGA had other founders as well. One of them, who does not appear on the U.N. terror list, is an Arab businessman now in his early 60s, Abdul Rahman Hayel Saeed.

 

Described by an acquaintance as urbane, polite and fluent in English, Hayel Saeed was born into one of Yemen's most prominent business clans, owners of a family-held global conglomerate based in the Yemeni capital of Taiz and named for its founding patriarch: the Hayel Saeed Anam Group of Companies, or HSA.

 

From Yemen, the HSA group boasts a far-flung business empire, including a Yemen-based Islamic bank, and a host of business subsidiaries, affiliates and regional trading offices in places ranging from the United Kingdom to Egypt, Morocco, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Malaysia, Indonesia, Russia and China.

 

Abdul Rahman Hayel Saeed sits on the HSA board of directors, and ranks high in the management — he is currently running HSA's regional office in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. In MIGA, Hayel Saeed holds a prominent spot, as one of four co-founders who back in 1984 delegated power of attorney to the terrorist-linked Nasreddin, giving him authority to run the company.

 

Swiss registry documents show that Hayel Saeed has never resigned from MIGA, nor revoked that power of attorney. Queried about this link to MIGA, neither Hayel Saeed nor the HSA Group's chairman of the board, Ali Mohamed Saeed, has made any response.

 

HSA is unquestionably a company involved in legitimate business. But given the involvement of Abdul Rahman Hayel Saeed, it is striking that between 1996 and 2003, while the United Nations ran its Oil-for-Food relief program in Iraq, the HSA Group — via U.N.-approved Oil-for-Food contracts — sold at least $400 million worth of goods to Saddam.

 

That might be unremarkable, had the United Nations ran Oil-for-Food with enough integrity and transparency to prevent Saddam and many of his business partners from plundering oil earnings meant to help the people of Iraq. The original United Nations plan was to let Saddam sell oil solely to buy humanitarian goods such as food and medicine, with the U.N. Secretariat (search) collecting a 2.2 percent commission on Saddam's oil sales to supervise the integrity of this process.

 

As the Oil-for-Food program actually worked, however, the United Nations let Saddam choose his own business partners. The world body also kept secret the details of those contracts and the identities of the contractors, and it let Saddam graft at least $4.4 billion out of the program through manipulated contract prices, by estimates of the U.S. General Accountability Office.

 

Saddam's standard scam was to underprice oil sales and overpay for relief supplies, thus generating fat profits for his business partners. Many of those contractors would kick back part of the take to Saddam's regime — or divert it to whatever uses Saddam might fancy. By various accounts, those uses ranged from building palaces to buying arms to supplying Saddam's sadistic son Uday with equipment for torturing Iraqi athletes.

 

One of the big questions is whether any of the money skimmed from Oil-for-Food also slopped into terrorist-financing ventures such as MIGA.

 

It's important to note that in tracking terrorist financing, the simplest starting points are the visible links, the potential connections through which money might most easily have flowed. Proving that funds actually coursed through those conduits is far more difficult.

 

In the case of Hayel Saeed, MIGA and the HSA Group, there is no public information available about the precise flow of funds, and no proof that Saddam's money made its way to MIGA. But in looking for patterns that beg for further investigation — especially by authorities with access to detailed U.N. records and information on MIGA accounts — some items here stand out.

 

Most simply, there is the question of why HSA was among those companies favored by Saddam for such a fat slice of business. It is increasingly clear that Saddam did not, on average, choose his contractors either at random, or because they were the most cost-efficient suppliers of relief for the people of Iraq. While some of the deals may have been entirely legitimate, many melded payments for humanitarian goods with illicit kickbacks and payoffs. In such cases, it was a lucrative privilege to be tapped as an Oil-for-Food contractor by Saddam's regime.

 

The lingering question, for any individual case, becomes: Was there a quid pro quo?

 

For reasons still unknown, Saddam clearly smiled upon the HSA Group. Not only does HSA account for the bulk of all Saddam's business with Yemen, but dozens of deals that appear in the United Nation's generic public records to originate elsewhere were in fact signed with HSA companies in countries such as Egypt, Malaysia and Indonesia.

 

Within that HSA empire, one company in particular stands out: A trading house called Pacific Interlink, based in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Abdul Rahman Hayel Saeed also sits on Pacific Interlink's board of directors.

 

From leaked copies of secret U.N. Oil-for-Food records, it appears that Pacific Interlink alone accounted for more than half the HSA group's sales of relief supplies to Saddam, with contracts for such goods as soap, ghee and construction materials totaling at least $246 million. Pacific Interlink (search) also belonged to the select set of companies chosen by Saddam and approved by the United Nations as authorized to buy Iraqi oil under Oil-for-Food — though whether Pacific Interlink actually got any of Saddam's fat oil contracts is something the United Nations has so far managed to keep secret. FOX News attempted to reach Pacific Interlink for comment, but to date has received no reply.

 

And though there is no public proof that Pacific Interlink took part in Saddam's kickback scams, there is an intriguing item in a study of Oil-for-Food pricing methods released last year by the U.S. Defense Contract Management Agency (DCMA).

 

Just after Saddam fell, the DCMA, together with the U.S. Defense Contract Audit Agency, looked at the terms of 759 sample contracts out of the tens of thousands of deals done by Saddam's regime under Oil-for-Food. In that sample, Pacific Interlink pops up as a purveyor of $20 million worth of palm oil to Saddam, via a contract approved by the United Nations under Oil-for-Food in mid-2001. By DCMA estimates, Saddam overpaid Pacific Interlink on that contract, to the tune of about 15 percent above market price, which would work out to some $3 million in funds diverted from relief on that deal alone.

 

If similar arrangements went on within other Pacific Interlink Oil-for-Food contracts, which totaled close to a quarter of a billion dollars, then even at the more modest rate of what has been widely described as Saddam's typical 10 percent over-pricing scam, that would suggest well over $20 million diverted from relief.

 

If so, where did it go? The question is vitally important, because much of the money grafted out of Oil-for-Food by Saddam remains unaccounted for.

 

Both HSA's and MIGA's offices overlap in locations that are hubs of normal commerce, but also served as hotspots of Al Qaeda meetings and finance, such as Dubai (where Hayel Saeed reportedly ran an HSA company, Frimex, in the late 1990s) or Kuala Lumpur (where some of the Sept. 11 hijackers gathered for a planning conference in January 2000). Pacific Interlink boasts offices or agents in places thick with terror networks, such as Algeria, Sudan, and Syria. MIGA, on its Lugano sign, lists offices in places such as Italy, Turkey, Syria, Nigeria and Kuwait, and both HSA and MIGA list offices in Morocco, Malaysia and Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, where Hayel Saeed is now based.

 

MIGA is now under active investigation by the U.S. Treasury and prosecutors in Switzerland and Italy. But there is no sign that any of these investigations have been tracking funds specifically via Oil-for-Food contracts or that any of the multiple investigations into Oil-for-Food have zeroed in on possible terror connections. It's not even clear that the United Nations has allowed terrorist-tracking authorities full access to its records.

 

And though MIGA's door in Lugano may be locked, and its president and some of his associates posted on the U.N. terror watchlist, none of these figures has been arrested. Nasreddin, long a resident in Lugano and neighboring Milan, Italy, is believed by Italian investigators to have moved about two years ago to Morocco. From there, says an Italian state investigator who asked to stay anonymous, Nasreddin maintains a global business network that includes some 2,000 links so far identified to businesses and individuals worldwide, some tied to terror, and some not.

 

It is precisely that mix of legitimate and sinister business that makes it so difficult to prosecute Nasreddin, or shut down his businesses, says this Italian investigator. Among Nasreddin's holdings, for instance, is a four-star hotel in Milan, Hotel NASCO, which opened — ironically enough — in September 2001, at the same address as Nasreddin's longtime residence. That is also the same address used by a precursor of MIGA, an outfit called the Arab Gulf Chamber. Hotel NASCO remains open for business, serving tea and crescent-moon shaped sugar cookies at its non-alcoholic lobby bar. MIGA remains active in the Lugano business registry, and listed in the Lugano phone book.

 

A recent phone call to MIGA's shuttered office in Lugano, Switzerland, was answered by someone who picked up the phone in Milan, Italy — in the Hotel NASCO (search). MIGA's network, it seems, migrates as needed.

 

Nasreddin's longtime partner, Al Qaeda-linked Youssef Nada, still lives in his plush hillside villa in a small Italian enclave on Lake Lugano, just a short drive from MIGA's office. Right next door to MIGA's Lugano office, on the same floor of the same building, is the Islamic Center of the Canton of Ticino, founded by Nasreddin in 1992 - and operated initially out of his former Lugano residence a few blocks away. The Islamic Center later moved next door to MIGA.

 

Swiss registry documents show that in 2003, after Nasreddin made it onto the U.N. terror watchlist and moved to Morocco, he resigned as president of his Lugano Islamic center. He was replaced this year by the center's current president, a man called Ali Ghaleb Himmat, who attended one of MIGA's founding meetings 20 years ago, and since 2002 has been designated by the United Nations as affiliated with, or belonging to Al Qaeda.

 

At that Lugano Islamic Center (search), which also serves as a mosque, a spokesman denies that the center has any links to Al Qaeda, and says of Nasreddin: "He was a Muslim rich man, and he prays, and he loved God, and that's it." Just down the road, Swiss businessman Fulvio Passardi, who at one point served as corporate secretary for MIGA, says he knew nothing about the chamber, saying it was "an empty box."

 

According to U.S. officials and the United Nations itself, MIGA is less an "empty box" than a container of Al Qaeda-related mysteries. One of those mysteries appears to be Abdul Rahman Hayel Saeed, with his charter MIGA membership and his prominent part in a Yemen conglomerate doing hundreds of millions worth of business with Saddam.

 

Unraveling the mystery requires much greater access to Oil-for-Food records than the United Nations currently allows.

[KirtFalcon]

The libs refuse to see the link . . . period. It doesn't fit into what they want to believe because it would validate President Bush's actions. If we found film of them holding a séance together, the liberals would find some way to try to discredit the evidence! :w00t:

[DLine06]

Originally posted by Observer

So you don't think Saddam was working with Al Qaeda or any other group to attack US soldiers or even folks on the mainland?

 

Have you not read the evidence... and NO... Fox is not the only one that has paid to have things translated....

 

Why does Saddam need help to attack somebody that he know couldn't win when the U.S. strikes back. That's a lose-lose situation and especially with all that money he has. That money trail would easily trace back to him.

 

Even with the Clinton Admin. trying to prove it, bin Laden hated Saddam more than the U.S. No matter how crazy it sounds. I don't bother with Fox, MSNBC, etc. other than CNN just for the finances, economic reports and what will NK do next.

[Observer]

Bin Laden hated Saddam?

 

You are working off of OLD news...

 

They got over their differences...

 

Old Arab Saying... "The Enemy of my Enemy is my Friend"

 

It is documented that Saddam met with a representative of Al Quaeda...

 

Hosted training

 

Paid families of suicide bombers...

 

I don't care what sources you trust and don't trust...

 

Just find the info...