'HOSPICE FOR RETIRED TERRORISTS'

Saddam's regime tied to secondary players

Experts say Iraq did not have connections with ambitious groups such as al-Qaida but backed several others

Newsday.com
BY KEN FIREMAN
WASHINGTON BUREAU; Knut Royce contributed to this story.

June 20, 2004

WASHINGTON - Saddam Hussein's regime did have ties to terrorists - but those who got his support were either secondary players with narrow agendas or former A-list members well past their prime - not groups with global ambitions.

That is the conclusion of several experts on terrorism in the Middle East, one of whom said Friday that Hussein was running a "hospice for retired terrorists" and had nothing to offer a sophisticated network such as al-Qaida in any case.

... Ironically, a similar conclusion was reached by the U.S. State Department in annual reports on terrorism issued in the years before the Bush administration decided to wage war against Hussein in 2003.

...In the reports, covering the years 2000, 2001 and 2002, Iraq is identified as a state sponsor of terrorism. But there al-Qaida is not mentioned, and the active groups that are named as recipients of Iraqi patronage focused their violent energies on targets in specific countries such as Israel or Iran.

For example, the 2001 report notes direct Iraqi support for five terrorist groups: the Mujahedin-e-Khalq (MEK), the Kurdistan Workers Party, the Palestine Liberation Front, the Abu Nidal organization and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.

The MEK is dedicated exclusively to violent acts against Iran's theocratic regime. The Kurdish group has directed its attacks entirely against Turkey. The other three groups are pro-Palestinian organizations that attack targets in Israel.

...The State Department report covering 2002, which was issued after Bush ordered U.S. forces into Iraq, paints a more dire portrait. It says Hussein's intelligence service "laid the groundwork for possible attacks" against U.S. and Western targets and accuses Iraq of being a safe haven and transit point for groups that seek to attack the United States, Israel and other countries. It offers no supporting details.

The 9/11 commission report discusses three meetings between al-Qaida and an Iraqi intelligence official in Sudan in the early 1990s, the last involving bin Laden. At that 1994 meeting, bin Laden asked Iraq to provide space for al-Qaida training camps and to help in obtaining weapons, but the Iraqis never responded.

Bush and Cheney last week both cited the Sudan meetings as evidence that a relationship had existed between al-Qaida and Hussein's regime. But several experts said the Sudan meetings prove nothing of the kind. They said it is not uncommon for intelligence services throughout the region and the world - including some from countries friendly to the United States - to meet quietly with terrorist groups that they have no interest in actively supporting.

"You use these groups," said Anthony Cordesman, a fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. "Intelligence services do this all over the world. They often have informal contacts . . . just to know what they're doing. If you don't want them operating in your country, you provide just enough cooperation so they don't."

Knut Royce contributed to this story.