1 - 7 November 2001
Issue No.558
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Al-Ahram Weekly Online 1 - 7 November 2001 Issue No.558 |
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Targeting an old foe
As the sabre-rattling continues in Washington, people are asking whether Iraq will be next on the US hit-list. Salah Hemeid reports
Addressing the American Jewish Congress national convention last week, former CIA Director James Woolsey singled out Iraqi President Saddam Hussein as a sponsor of terrorism and accused him of having dealings with Osama Bin Laden.
"If evidence continues to develop pointing to Iraqi involvement in the terrorist incidents against the United States of 11 September and afterwards, the American people will not only not tolerate, but will demand victory over Iraq," said Woolsey. "We must wage this war quickly, powerfully and ruthlessly, contrary to the failure in 1991 to finish Saddam. This time, no more Mr Nice Guy," he told his cheering audience.
Addressing the same audience prior to Woolsey, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz also brought up Saddam Hussein. Wolfowitz criticised countries that are urging Washington to limit its campaign against terrorism to Afghanistan to avoid further inflaming the Arab world.
"We cannot have a victory if we make a coalition that sacrifices the interests of some for the interests of others. The mission will determine the coalition -- the coalition will not determine the mission," Wolfowitz told the gathering.
Baghdad has long been on the list of states that Washington alleges are sponsors of terrorism. And there is no shortage of voices inside the Bush administration who are urging the president to go after Iraq -- even in the absence of evidence that the Gulf country was involved in the assaults.
It is no secret that Wolfowitz is the most vociferous of the proponents of an assault on Iraq, and he has reportedly assigned Woolsey the task of coordinating efforts to discover evidence affirming Iraq's involvement in the events of 11 September.
Reports leaked to the press during the last week, apparently by Pentagon hawks, suggested that several Western intelligence agencies had uncovered a trail of clues pointing to Baghdad.
One report suggested that Iraqi Ambassador to Turkey Farouk Hijazi, who is also a senior intelligence officer, is Hussein's conduit to Bin Laden. According to the report, Hijazi and Bin Laden had discussed the 11 September attacks during a 1998 meeting in Afghanistan. Another report spoke of an air base on the outskirts of Baghdad that has been used for training terrorists in hijacking planes and their use in suicide attacks.
At the centre of the debate about whether Iraq played a role in orchestrating the hijackings and the current spate of anthrax attacks is the possible connection between Mohamed Atta, one of the hijacking suspects, and an Iraqi diplomat who was formerly posted to the Czech Republic. On Sunday, Czech Minister of Interior Stanislav Gross said his government had informed the United States shortly after 11 September that Atta had met with Ahmed Khalil Ibrahim Samir Al- Ani. The meeting was alleged to have taken place several weeks before Al-Ani was expelled from Prague on 22 April 2001 for conduct incompatible with his diplomatic status.
The Czech Republic expelled Al-Ani because he was suspected of plotting an attack against Radio Free Iraq, a US-backed Iraqi opposition radio station that has its headquarters in downtown Prague. Italian newspapers also reported another meeting between Atta and Habib Faris Al- Mamouri, an Iraqi intelligence agent who was sent to Italy to run a school for the children of Iraqi diplomats. Al-Mamouri disappeared in July.
The reports of Atta's alleged meetings have not been independently confirmed and no court of justice is likely to view them as admissible as evidence. However, in its pursuit of Bin Laden, the Bush administration has demonstrated its disregard for international legal mechanisms and their attendant requirements.
Iraq's Deputy Prime Minister Tareq Aziz has said that any meetings between Atta and Iraqi officials would have only been chance encounters.
On Sunday, Aziz denied Iraqi involvement in the hijackings and the dissemination of anthrax, although he predicted that the United States and Britain would use the incidents as a pretext to launch attacks on his country. In an interview with Britain's Sunday Telegraph newspaper conducted in Baghdad, Aziz said, "We know they are preparing for such an attack," Aziz told the paper.
The threats against Iraq have, however, drawn some criticism from the Arab world. Egypt and Saudi Arabia said that attacks against any Arab country, including Iraq, would be unacceptable. Because fresh assaults on Iraq would probably jeopardise the carefully constructed international coalition against terrorism, Baghdad may be safe for the time being.
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