Mark Eichenlaub's recent piece on Iraqi government allegations of Ba'athist - al Qaeda cooperation is now up at Pajamas Media. It will be interesting to see the reaction of the Syrian government to Iraq's request for Muhammad Yunis Al-Ahmad and Sattam Farhan. The Iraqi government wants the reported former Saddam Hussein loyalists Al-Ahmad and Farhan for supporting terrorist attacks in Iraq. After the Pajamas Media piece was submitted (asking the Iraqi government to provide evidence of the Ba'ath - al Qaeda link) al Qaeda claimed credit for recent Iraq attacks while a cell of reported Saddam Hussein loyalists was detained.

If this recent attack was a joint Ba'ath - al Qaeda operation it's interesting that the attack came near the anniversary of another operation the two allegedly connected on.

Mark was also on the August 26, 2009 edition of Frank Gaffney's new radio show Secure Freedom Radio to discuss Iraqi allegations of Ba'ath - al Qaeda cooperation on recent and prior attacks.

Aseel Kami, recently reported for Reuters that some officials in the current Iraqi government are making a push for the return of millions of Saddam Hussein-era Iraq documents (previously the subject of Congressional inquiries and public controversy) that were seized by the U.S. government and other non-government entities following the former regime's fall in 2003.

Kami wrote:

The files include intelligence papers on Iraqis kept by Saddam Hussein's feared secret police, information on weapons arsenals, detailed plans of massacres of the regime's enemies and even tapes of songs praising Saddam, officials said.

Some of these files have been made public while others were made available to the authors of The Iraqi Perspectives Project, Duelfer Report and other investigations into Saddam Hussein's activities.

Others just went missing in the chaos and looting in the early months of the U.S.-led invasion which toppled Saddam.

"Dictatorships document everything, from the simplest details to the biggest events in their citizens' lives," said Saad Eskander, director of the national library and archives. He added that he thought some were still with the CIA.

The Iraqi National Library and Archive (found here) is reportedly leading the pursuit of documents though it is likely that Iraq's "Red Museum" will be another party involved in the efforts.

One of the non-government entities in possession of the former Iraqi regime's documents is the Hoover Foundation. Officials with knowledge of the Hoover Foundation's cache indicated that the millions of documents they obtained from the Iraq Memory Foundation are a fraction of the approximately 100 million the Department of Defense and other U.S. agencies have. Those officials further said that documents are still being organized for a possible move to digital format before a planned move to the internet for historians and researchers to analyze though they urged caution with the release of documents that name former regime officials and their allies as well as their victims.

When asked about reported CIA possession of such documents current and former CIA officials directed requests for information to the Department of Defense and another former intelligence official, who was familiar with the story, told this site that originals were all supposed to be in Iraq or Qatar and that if the Iraqis wanted to expedite process they should contact their in-country DIA representative and prepare a large data store.

When reached for comment on this story Pentagon spokeswoman Lt. Col. Almarah Belk said that while her knowledge of the topic was limited she was able to confirm that the process of archiving and digitizing materials was a joint effort by the DOD and intelligence community and was moving forward though some documents may need further exploitation and many were still classified. Belk said that Secretary Robert Gates favored plan was to return all of Iraq's material to their country of origin though she was unaware of a definite timeline for that return. While it was premature to talk about a timeline for return at this point Belk said that in the coming days and weeks there will be a better public understanding on the use of the documents and that the plan was to complete the copying of the data before eventually making copies available to selected scholars and historians in an appropriate manner.

With the former regime's documents so physically and digitally vast, and dispersed to multiple locations, there may remain an undetermined amount of time before the current Iraqi government's efforts are satisfied. Those interested in further and additional analysis of Saddam Hussein's regime and files should continue monitoring DOD efforts to transfer and/or release relevant documents and monitor future analysis by Iraqi and U.S. scholars.

Mark Eichenlaub's piece for Pajamas Media on the CIA's analysis of the Saddam Hussein, al Qaeda question is now up here. Paul Pillar and Bruce Tefft, two veterans of the CIA, were kind enough to provide their takes on the CIA's analysis of this topic.

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During a series of email and telephone exchanges Matthew Degn relayed to www.regimeofterror.com his vast array of experiences working with intelligence issues relating to the current and former situation in Iraq. Among his responsibilities during his years in Iraq Degn worked as a civilian interrogator attached to the U.S. Army in Iraq before working as a Senior Policy/Intelligence Adviser to Deputy General Kamal and other top intelligence officials with the Iraq's Ministry of Interior. Degn, currently working on a book about his experiences in Iraq (personal website here), continues to argue against those that feel there was no link between terrorism and Saddam Hussein's regime based on his involvement with hundreds of interrogations in Iraq and his involvement with many of the Iraqi Intelligence officials with the Ministry of Interior. Degn says that much of the public perception about Saddam Hussein's regime and terrorism are incorrect.

Degn is currently the Director of the Intelligence Studies Program and a professor at American Military University currently a professor at American Military University whose testimony about events in Iraq has been cited by NPR, ABC News, the Washington Post and elsewhere. According to his American Military University bio Degn (pronounced Dayne) also:

"has extensive experience in the Middle East, serving most recently as a senior intelligence/policy advisor to the Iraqi Ministry of Interior in Baghdad." He also "he was the senior civilian advisor in the creation of the Iraqi Counter-terrorism Agency, mentored Iraqi senior government intelligence officials at the Deputy Minister level, and witnessed the inner workings of the Iraqi government at the highest levels." "Professor Degn has also been involved in the screening and interrogation process within Iraq. He served at Abu Ghraib prison and was among the last Americans in the prison facility before its closing. He witnessed the harmful effects the infamous prison scandal had on U.S. foreign policy and the interrogation process. While in different prison facilities he has interviewed members of Al Qaida, Jaysh-al-Mahdi (Mahdi Army), Badr Corps, Iranian, Syrian, and Saudi insurgents, and members of other terrorist entities from Iraq and the surrounding region. Moreover, he has experience as a senior counter-terrorism analyst in Washington D.C. and in the military. Professor Degn is the author of numerous essays and other writings with subjects ranging from foreign policy and violent militias to terrorist methodologies, private security companies in war, and the use of intelligence within the Middle East."

In addition to the hundreds of detainees listed in his American Military University bio Degn participated in the interrogations of members of the Abu Nidal organization and Ba'ath party officials at Camp Cropper, Abu Ghraib and elsewhere.

Former regime's links to al Qaeda
When asked about recent media reports citing Saddam Hussein's denial to the FBI about links to al Qaeda Degn viewed these reports as part of an ongoing attempt to rewrite history saying these reports stand in stark contrast to what he saw and heard firsthand in Iraq. In fact, Degn said that to many of the detainees links between Saddam Hussein's regime and terrorist groups including al Qaeda was not even a point of contention but freely acknowledged. Many of the high value detainees took it as a given that their captors were aware of Iraq - al Qaeda links. Some even bragged about those links.

Degn said:

I interviewed plenty of Saddam’s associates, as well as numerous members of Al Qaeda while at Abu Ghraib prison and elsewhere in 06 and spoke with many who were quite familiar with the inner workings of the Saddam regime while at the Ministry of Interior (MOI). Did they cooperate or have animosity towards each other? Well, this is a tough question to answer- as it seemed that different individuals had a variety of feelings about the subject. Some detainees alleged that members of AQI (al Qaeda in Iraq) were in support of Saddam and began attaching the CF (coalition forces) for money, religious reasons, thrills, etc. On the other hand, there were those I spoke with who were opposed to Saddam and happy to see him removed. Still, the reasons for attacking the CF were much the same.

One thing many fail to understand is that Al Qaeda is not a unified group throughout the Middle East, or even regionally. Many small groups take the title of “Al Qaeda” to bolster their notoriety, to feel they are part of the larger effort against the US forces, or for other reasons.

As for how supporters of Saddam felt about AQI- again it would depend on the individual. Many I spoke with claimed they were against the group- probably because that is what they figured I wanted to hear. Some claimed Saddam was against the group because members of AQ were a bit too religious or threatening to his rule. While, other detainees claimed he used various groups as intermediaries to arrange arms and money transfers to the group in order to attack a common enemy- Iran, as well as US interests in the region. Still, there were other hard core detainees, part of Saddam’s core, or members of other groups such as former ANO members (Abu Nidal Organization) as a few alleged, that claimed they would associate with Saddam-ites as well as AQI from time to time as the need would arise.

When pressed for specifics Degn said that Hussein's regime, like many other Middle Eastern groups, used the "Hawala" system to secretly move money to al Qaeda and made it nearly impossible to "prove" in a legal system that the transfers took place. The "Hawala" system uses multiple layers of middle men couriers to transfer money and leaves no paper trail, making tracing such transactions virtually impossible.

Degn said that Iraqi assistance given to al Qaeda also included safehaven. Degn said al Qaeda used that safehaven for at least two training camps in Western Iraq and the Anbar province. Degn argued that Saddam Hussein's government was certainly aware that the provision of safehaven was being used for these camps. (Related: Captured Iraqi terrorist says al Qaeda had camps in Saddam's Iraq)

Degn said he had heard reports that indicated that al Qaeda affiliates had multiple, possibly competing, cells in Iraq during Saddam Hussein's Iraq. One cell was affiliated with Abu Musab al Zarqawi, who had not yet "officially" sworn allegiance to Osama bin Laden. Another al Qaeda cell, linked to Ayman al Zawahiri's Egyptian Islamic Jihad, was reportedly simultaneously operating in Saddam Hussein's Iraq. This detail appears to match up with that of former CIA Director George Tenet's and Major General William Caldwell on the topic. He cited this as an example of the ability of al Qaeda's cells to operate independently, a theme he heard more than once during his interactions. Degn said that from what he saw it was true that many al Qaeda operatives got directives and money from al Qaeda's core closest to Osama bin Laden but many were capable of making independent decisions and relationships.

Degn said that while Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda did have mixed feelings for one another, at best, Hussein praised nearly all of al Qaeda's attacks as well as anti-Western attacks committed by other terror groups. Degn argued that if he didn't have some kind of hand in these attacks that he certainly wanted to as he definitely considered the U.S. an enemy (as well as Iran) and thus supported a number of Sunni groups.

Degn says that at least some of the U.S. intelligence community likely knew of the support for regional anti-Western Sunni groups all along.

Former regime's links to other terrorist groups

Degn said he also saw overwhelming firsthand evidence of links between Saddam Hussein's regime and numerous other regional terrorist/militant groups.

As noted in the Institute for Defense Analysis report, Degn argued that Hussein's regime cooperated with regional terrorist groups who opposed Western interests all the way up to the invasion and became increasingly active in the region just prior to the 2003 U.S. led invasion.

When pressed for specific examples of attacks Degn replied that detainees and sources in Iraq's current government knew that Hussein's Iraq sponsored repeated attacks on Westerners and U.S. forces in Kuwait. One particular attack was on a U.S. naval ship and another killed 3 U.S. marines, who were Degn's friends, during their service in Kuwait.

Degn said that he saw links between both the Abu Nidal Organization (ANO) and al Qaeda and the Abu Nidal Organization and the former Iraq regime during detainee interrogations and interviews. Degn said that ANO, according to intelligence reports also had training camps and facilities inside Iraq known to the former regime.

Degn said that Hussein's regime used primarily anti-Western Sunni groups. While many of these groups operated independently, many of them were also loosely affiliated with al Qaeda and at least one Shi'ite group (Hezbollah) was mentioned as a group Hussein's regime may have sponsored for attacks on Western targets in Israel and elsewhere.

Analysis

Those who feel that the complete story of Saddam Hussein and terrorism has yet to be told will agree with Degn when he asserts that others with firsthand experiences with the topic should speak up. Degn also champions the idea of civilian counterparts working alongside the military to offer a different point or perspective to decision makers in Iraq and elsewhere. He was among those involved with this number of interrogations who has opted to speak now and let others know of his experiences.

Degn's testimony should not viewed as entirely contradictory to that of former CIA officer Charles Faddis (interview here) but supplementary. Faddis's interview came from a different time period and likely involved different detainees (Ansar al Islam affiliates from northern Iraq) and both sets of detainees agreed that the groups held some animosity towards one another.

With the understanding that both Saddam Hussein's regime and al Qaeda had internal disagreements about cooperation and both would use compartmentalization to protect widespread knowledge of sensitive issues, that would comprimise their operations, it is understandable why conflicting reports on Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda continue to persist.

Another reason for conflicting reports that Degn pointed out is both the chain of command in the U.S. government's many agencies and compartmentalization of information ("need to know"). Degn said he saw firsthand how these two factors led to vital wartime information being "watered down" before it mades its way to official reports and investigations.

Degn's recollection of detainee testimony and many discussions within the Iraqi MOI roughly matches the document based work of Kevin Woods in his report The Iraqi Perspectives Project -- Saddam and Terrorism: Emerging Insights from Captured Iraqi Documents on regional terrorism, though Degn thinks the links to al Qaeda were more substantial. Degn's findings, primarily through detainee testimony and assocations within the Iraqi MOI, supports the take on the topic that writers such as Richard Miniter, Andrew McCarthy, Christopher Hitchens, Ray Robison, Jeffrey Goldberg, Ken Timmerman, Christopher Holton, Eli Lake, Rowan Scarborough, Stephen Hayes/Thomas Joscelyn, the Wall Street Journal, Ryan Mauro, Scott Malensek, Scott Peterson, Deroy Murdock and many others whose writing has given heart to those that feel that important evidence on Saddam Hussein and terrorism was largely being ignored and/or overlooked.

As members of the many agencies that were likely involved in the interrogations of Saddam Hussein and others come forward, and additional agencies (following the FBI's lead) continue declassifying and releasing more documents relating to Iraq and terrorism a more comprehensive look at this incredibly complex topic will become available. Those unsatisfied with the current public understanding and perception hope that these revelations come sooner rather than later.

In recent weeks at least two denials relating to Saddam Hussein's Ba'ath party links to al Qaeda have surfaced, neither of which should be taken at face value in light of, at minimum, the post-invasion cooperation that took place between elements of both groups.

One denial that was revealed came from the website of the Iraq Ba'ath party and was reported on by CBS News Internet Terror Monitor. In the posting the Ba'ath party claimed:

“Our party has never had any relation with what’s known as al Qaeda, not before the occupation nor after,” the statement said. “As a matter of fact, many of our men and cadres have been victims of assassinations and kidnappings carried out by this group because of their rejection of the sectarian ideology that was introduced to Iraq upon the advent of the occupation,” it added.

The other denial was not made recently but was given additional public attention when the FBI released documents relating to their interrogation/interview of Saddam Hussein on the topic of al Qaeda when he again denied relations with the terror group.

(Moderator note: comments for www.regimeofterror.com are now activated at the end of each post)

After repeated questioning about links to al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden, Saddam Hussein admitted the two sides had had meetings (though he initially denied this as well) but said his regime denied al Qaeda's requests for support over what he claimed were incompatible ideologies.

Below is a summary of one of FBI agent George Piro's question and answer sessions (obtained by George Washington University's "National Security Archive"). In this June 28, 2004 document Hussein also said his country did not support al Qaeda because the U.S. was not his enemy. Hussein's motivation to speak the truth must be critically on this and any other matter he may have considered incriminating. Regarding viewing the U.S. as an enemy Hussein had previously indicated the exact opposite. In another FBI interview, as well as private and public statements Hussein revealed feelings that undermine this denial of viewing the U.S. as an enemy.
saddam_fbi_ubl062804

Eli Lake mentions information from the Institute for Defense Analysis paper that counters Saddam Hussein's denial of any links to al Qaeda in this Washington Times piece

An analysis of 600,000 documents from Saddam's ruling Ba'ath Party, released in 2008 by the Institute for Defense Analysis, a Pentagon think tank, found that while there was no "operational relationship" between Iraq and al Qaeda, the Iraqi state collaborated with other jihadist organizations affiliated with bin Laden's organization.

Glenn Kessler at the Washington Post also wrote on the story, comparing Saddam Hussein's statements with the former Bush administration's on Iraq-al Qaeda links.

Piro raised bin Laden in his last conversation with Hussein, on June 28, 2004, but the information he yielded conflicted with the Bush administration's many efforts to link Iraq with the terrorist group. Hussein replied that throughout history there had been conflicts between believers of Islam and political leaders. He said that "he was a believer in God but was not a zealot . . . that religion and government should not mix." Hussein said that he had never met bin Laden and that the two of them "did not have the same belief or vision."

Thomas Joscelyn, at The Weekly Standard, has an interesting take on the FBI's motive and effectiveness in questioning Hussein on his links to terrorism.

To Piro's credit, he cited some of the evidence that contradicted Saddam's denial--but just some. Piro noted that one of Saddam's top intelligence officers, Faruq Hijazi, met with Osama bin Laden in 1994. He could have also pointed out that Hijazi also met with bin Laden shortly after Operation Desert Fox in December 1998. That meeting was reported around the world.

Piro also noted that Abu Hafs al Mauritani traveled to Baghdad twice, and even requested a payment of $10 million. This is especially interesting because al Mauritani is a top al Qaeda theologian. It is yet another piece of evidence demonstrating that al Qaeda's ideology did not preclude it from seeking Saddam's support.

Saddam admitted that Hijazi met with bin Laden in 1994 and that Abu Hafs traveled twice to Baghdad. He reportedly denied paying the $10 million to Abu Hafs.

But are we really to take Saddam's denial at face value? He lied about so much else, including his regime's ties to the PLF, which no one seriously disputes. He also refused to answer questions about acts that took place decades prior. As mentioned, Saddam also had the audacity to pretend that America was not his enemy, and therefore there was no reason to work with al Qaeda.

Basic reason suggests that no one should take Saddam's denials at face value. But this has not stopped the press from splashing his denials on the front page.

There is more evidence that Piro could have questioned Saddam about. For example, he could have asked Saddam about the numerous Iraqi regime documents that illustrate important ties to al Qaeda. Unfortunately, Saddam he did not have to answer any questions about those documents during his interview with the FBI. And the press has not been especially curious about the documents either.

The bottom line is that there is no evidence in the documents released thus far that the FBI ever "broke" Saddam, or even got any meaningful intelligence from him. That the FBI and the press repeat Saddam's meaningless denials demonstrates just how poorly understood and researched these matters are.

The entire piece by Joscelyn is worth reading and his final sentence about further understanding being needed by the public and the press is spot on.

Analysis:
It should first be noted that media reports at the time of Hussein's arrest indicate that the FBI was not only one of many agencies to interview Hussein but had at least two other agencies (Army intelligence and CIA) had access to Hussein prior to the FBI. This means that recent documents released by the FBI, while important and relevant, should in no way be considered the totality of Hussein's remarks during his time in U.S. custody.

As noted in one of the FBI documents Saddam Hussein had very little reason to tell the entire truth over issues that would further incriminate him on terrorism or other issues and the FBI was aware of this point. His repeated denials of human rights violations were finally met with video and documentary evidence which reportedly get him to soften his denials.

Hussein's testimony included a number of internal inconsistencies as well as comments that conflicted with other available evidence. For example, Hussein claimed that it was al Qaeda who attempted to initiate a relationship with him when they came to him for money,, yet there is evidence that efforts also came from Hussein's regime to aid al Qaeda. According to the FBI's released documents Hussein was not presented with the evidence from al Qaeda and Ba'ath detainee testimony and documents that led former CIA director George Tenet to be justifiably concerned about Iraq and al Qaeda.

This site's request to the FBI for comment on whether or not Saddam was presented with overwhelming evidence of links to terrorism, as he was overwhelmed with evidence on other issues, was handled by Paul Bresson. Bresson's FBI reply will be posted when it becomes available.

Update: Upon request to the FBI, through FOIA, for copies of all their files on Saddam Hussein this site has acquired a much more detailed report than what was made available in recent media reports. Additional details will be posted as time permits.

- See also Saddam Hussein's FBI interview (part I)

James Gordon Meek of the New York Daily News has posted two recent stories based on documents obtained through FOIA on the FBI's interview of Saddam Hussein.

Meek says that, according to the documents, Saddam denied links to al Qaeda just as he did prior to the invasion and the Baath party recently denied again on their website.

In one of the documented interviews Hussein referred to America as his enemy and in another interview discussed Iraq's relationship with, and level of support for anti-Israel groups linked with Abu Nidal and Abu Abbas, who he referred to as "guests."

Hussein's FBI interview with special agent George Piro has also been reported on by Ronald Kessler of Newsmax and in a CBS "60 minutes special."

Meek indicated that more released documents relating to the interview may be posted soon on the New York Daily News website.

Update: In Meek's latest post on another FBI document relaying the George Piro interview of Saddam Hussein, Hussein said that he would have been willing to use WMD's against the U.S. if he had them.

"By God, if I had such weapons, I would have used them in the fight against the U.S.”

See also Saddam Hussein's FBI interview, part II

FBI photo of Saddam Hussein being fingerprinted after being captured.

In a recent interview with this site, former CIA Operations Officer, and co-author of "Operation Hotel California," Charles "Sam" Faddis, talked about leading the CIA's first team into northern Iraq in 2002 and what he found. Faddis, now the president of Orion Strategic Services and working on another book about the future of the CIA, says that while interviewing dozens of al Qaeda/Ansar al Islam detainees he saw no signs of cooperation between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda. Faddis also talked about battling Saddam Hussein's Fedayeen, why Saddam Hussein might not have attacked an al Qaeda/Ansar al Islam outpost in Iraq and more.

ROT: Before discussing some of the specifics of your assignment in Iraq can you please explain what your official position was at the time of the invasion and what your background was to that. CF: I was Chief of Base Salahalldin at the time conventional forces invaded. I was running all CIA operations in that portion of Northern Iraq controlled by the KDP. I had been in that capacity since the Fall of 2002. Prior to that, for several months, I was responsible for all CIA personnel in Northern Iraq. Once we began to plus up, in the Fall of 2002, and the scope of operations began to grow, we divided the North into two zones. I took KDP territory. My former deputy took PUK territory (ROT: PUK officials talked more of Saddam-al Qaeda links than did KDP).

ROT: In an interview with Congressional Quarterly's Jeff Stein you said that you saw intelligence reports that al Qaeda was in Iraq prior to the U.S. led invasion but Saddam Hussein's regime was working against them and working to infiltrate them. Can you talk about what kind intel there was on this? Testimony from members of Saddam's regime who defected or were in custody? Members of al Qaeda/Ansar al Islam who were in custody? Intercepted phone calls or documents? Something else?
CF: There were al Qaeda personnel inside what was technically Iraqi territory. They were located in the area along the Iranian border controlled by a radical Islamic group called Ansar al Islam. This area was not under the functional control of Saddam nor was it under friendly Kurdish control. It was, in effect, an independent mini Islamic state. My team acquired information on this presence and on Iraqi collection regarding it directly. We captured many of the Ansar and al Qaeda personnel and questioned them. I personally did many of these interrogations. We also ran a large number of clandestine sources who reportedl directly to us. Our conclusions regarding the situation on the ground were not based on one or two reports. They were based on literally hundreds of reports that we produced ourselves.

ROT: Where were the majority of the your intel reports on Saddam's regime coming from? It has been reported in the 9-11 Commission and elsewhere that the intelligence community had a lot of difficulty penetrating the former regime when it came to looking at WMD's and whether or not they cooperated with terrorists. Can you comment on this?
CF: We ran a large number of assets. We debriefed defectors. We had Kurdish teams operating across the Green Line. We pulled in a lot of information. That said, I would never be so naive as to think that means we knew everything that was going on.

ROT: A lot of disinformation and misinformation has come into play about intelligence relating to Iraq/terrorism over the past 7+ years. Is it possible that some of that information was let out to muddy the waters and overshadow the little reported stories of cooperation between the former regime and terrorists that has been found in al Qaeda and Baath documents? Is it possible that there is still information about what happened in the shadowy al Qaeda and Baath official meetings that hasn't been released?
CF: I suppose anything is possible. My personal opinion is that trying to prove a lashup between Saddam and al Qaeda is a waste of time and an example of a tendency to try to oversimplify a dangerous, complex and chaotic world. Saddam was a monster. I volunteered to help overthrow him for a reason. The world is a better place without him. Osama is a dangerous fanatic, and the world will be safer when he is dead. None of that means that those two individuals must be in league or that they worked in concert. It just means there are a lot of dangerous people out there, and that it is sometimes a difficult task to understand their motivations and goals.

ROT: When you were working with intelligence on northern Iraq prior to the invasion did the name Abu Wa'el ever surface? What was known of him?
CF: If I recall correctly he was an Ansar leader. Not sure what I can tell you about him. It has been a number of years, and, obviously, I no longer have access to any of the reporting we produced on him.

ROT: What did you make of some of the press accounts mentioning foreign jihadist suicide bombers (perhaps hundreds) awaiting coalition forces in Baghdad early in the invasion?
CF: I am not sure I am aware of hundreds of jihadist suicide bombers awaiting coalition forces. My understanding of what ensued in Iraq post occupation was that we, through gross incompetence, allowed a very dangerous vacume in security to appear. In effect, we created an opening for al Qaeda and other Sunni extremist groups, and they were not slow to exploit it.
I have never seen anything which suggests that these people were sitting there pre invasion waiting for us. Everything I have ever seen says they flooded in once we let the place go up in flames.

ROT: Did you get any intelligence reports about the thousands of Islamic militants who reportedly (according to the Insitute for Defense Analysis study) passed through regime-run training camps for the decade leading up to the invasion? If so, what did you make of those reports?
CF: I don't know anything about such reports. Also, just to be clear, neither I nor anyone else I know is trying to make a case that Saddam never had any contact with any terrorists or that he never assisted them. That would be silly.

ROT: Is it possible that al Qaeda, Zarqawi and others could have really operated in Saddam Hussein's Iraq if the former regime did not want them there? Specifically, is it possible that they were in Baghdad, going back to 2002, which many of their members and internal documents point to them being?
CF: I think we are back to the same point again. I can't vouch for every report the CIA ever had on this topic. But, I don't know of any operational cooperation between Saddam and AQ. What I saw with my own eyes inside Iraq was that Saddam and his intelligence apparatus regarded Ansar and their AQ allies as very dangerous. There was no indication of any support or liaison. There was plenty of evidence that Saddam was spying on Ansar and AQ in order to keep tabs on what they were doing and prevent them from being a threat to his regime.

ROT: Regarding the spying by Saddam Hussein's regime on Ansar al Islam and AQ, it would seem that if the two groups were really enemies the regime could have easily stomped a few hundred of them out if they wanted to. It would have been cost-free politically at a time when Iraq could have really used some international goodwill and yet there were no accounts of open conflict between the two? (as opposed the fighting that was taking place between the Kurdish government and Ansar al Islam/al Qaeda) Couldn't the regime have been spying on Ansar al Islam to make sure they were attacking their mutual enemy, the Kurdish government? (ROT note: Press accounts at the time even mentioned some members of Ansar al Islam in the north praying for Saddam Hussein's survival)
CF: Ultimately, I cannot prove a negative. Meaning that I am never going to be able to say that it was absolutely impossible for Saddam to have had any links with Ansar and al Qaeda. That said, everything I ever saw and that my team collected told me there were no such links ongoing. Certainly, what I can say definitively is there was no material aid flowing. Ansar was getting arms and munitions from lots of places, but none of them from Saddam. Ansar's little enclave was really in an area along the Iranian border where Saddam could not get to it. Essenially hemmed in along the border by PUK. Plus, given the no fly zone and sensitivity about any move he would make into Kurdish areas, I think it would have been opening the door to a lot of unpredictable international response to have moved north in any direction. Finally, I suspect Ansar (al Islam) just did not make the cut for a threat so immediate that he felt compelled to act. They were basically surrounded by the PUK and they occupied a fairly small area of what is, frankly, pretty lousy territory. He did not like them. He wanted to keep his eye on them. They were not an immediate threat in the sense that if he did not kill them all today he was doomed.

ROT: What motivation would al Qaeda and Ansar al Islam detainees have had to tell the truth about their goals and relations? Were all of those detainees captured in northern Iraq or were some from Mosul and other Sunni areas in Iraq where Baathists were soon captured working alongside some Ansar al Islam and al Qaeda agents?
CF: We interrogated dozens of Ansar and AQ guys summer of 2002. I conducted a number of those interviews myself, including some of the most high profile ones. Why did they talk? Because we broke them down. As to exactly how we did that, I think the less said about that the better. We have already spilled enough detail about our methodology to the world. These detainees were captured in many different places. Most of the AQ guys were caught as they tried to make it to Ansar territory following their flight from Afghanistan. I never met any Ansar or AQ guys who ever said anything positive about Saddam. In Spring 2003 SF and our guys in PUK territory overran Ansar and captured a large number of them. I would not be the guy to talk to for the gospel on what all those guys said, but I never heard any info that suggested they told us anything we did not already know.

What I always told my team in 2002 was that the day we found hard evidence of a link between Saddam and AQ, I would gladly send that message to Washington. I considered both Saddam and Osama enemies of the United States. That said, as a pro, I also stressed that we were not going to cut any corners or shade anything. We were going to do it by the numbers, check all our sources and call it as we saw not as someone wanted us to. We never found that smoking gun. In fact, everything I saw, as I have noted, told me that Saddam considered Ansar and AQ to be adversaries whom he needed to watch very carefully.

ROT: Back to the reports on the foreign suicide bombers in Baghdad. These types of reports were privately confirmed to me by a writer for NEWSWEEK who was in Baghdad during this time and indicated that he saw evidence of a pipeline of suicide bombers coming via Syria months before the invasion. Did these accounts not make it to your area of responsibility?
CF: I am well aware of the existence of a "pipeline" across Syria for foreign fighters coming into Iraq to fight the coalition. I do not have any information regarding the existence of this "pipeline" in advance of the invasion or of any organized effort by Saddam, in cooperation, with Islamic extremists to bring in suicide bombers. That does not mean it did not exist, it means simply I have no information on that topic. My team engaged heavily against the Fedayeen after the invasion began. I recall no information suggesting that any of the folks with whom we engaged were foreigners or Islamic radicals.

ROT: Is it your opinion that the close cooperation that has gone on since days after the invasion between some of the Baathist holdovers and al Qaeda was put together all after U.S. forces arrived?
CF: Again, I suppose on some level anything is possible. What I understand to have happened is as follows. We invaded Iraq with a relatively small force. All of our planning for post-invasion control of that nation, to the extent it existed, was predicated on the basis of our having the cooperation of the bulk of the Iraqi Army and security forces. That is part of the reason that my team spent so much time working on coopting the Iraqi military. Then, for reasons which remain mysterious to me to this day, a decision was made at some level, I would assume by the President, to change course, formally disband the Iraqi Army and other security forces, and take on the task of policing a large, populous nation composed of a myriad of different ethnic and religious groups, by ourselves. These groups had never peacefully coexisted except when forced to do so, and all Saddam's reign of terror had done was to suppress the differences and hatreds and to so brutalize the society as to largely destroy any sense of the rule of law or civil society. What ensued was a lot like what you would see in a pressure cooker if you took the lid off at full heat. The water boiled, and it boiled furiously. We were besieged by a host of different elements. Sometimes these elements cooperated. Sometimes they acted independently but based on a common opposition to our presence. Al Qaida is nothing but opportunistic. They can smell blood. They came running as well. What amazes me to this day, is that the men and women of our military and intelligence services, despite the horrific strategic errors made by their leaders, found a way to walk through that firestorm and, ultimately, to survive it.

On a broader level, my suggestion would be that we spend less time trying to prove President Bush, for whom I voted twice, and Vice-President Cheney right and more drawing the correct conclusions and figuring out a way to win the war which is still going on against Islamic terror. Bill Clinton demonstrated what happens when you pretend like there is no war and don't fight back. Bush demonstrated what happens when you combine great power with ignorance and arrogance. Somewhere in between is a middle ground, where we fight intelligently and emerge victorious.

ROT: How can readers get a copy of your book and what should they expect from it?
CF: Which book? Operation Hotel California is available from most online book sellers. My new book, on the future of the CIA, comes out this fall.

Analysis
The testimony of Faddis, and others with intimate experience with the interrogations/interviews of members of al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein's regime, is important when attempting to unravel the true feelings members of the al Qaeda movement and Saddam Hussein's regime had for one another. Faddis's testimony also supports the work that writers and analysts such as Walter Pincus, Michael Isikoff, Spencer Ackerman, Murray Waas, Jonathan Landay and Warren Strobel, Daniel Benjamin, Steven Simon and many many others have produced highlighting the animosities between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda.

It remains important to note that Saddam Hussein's regime and al Qaeda both valued compartmentalization (many in al Qaeda were opposed to the Septemeber 11 attacks, strategies or even totally unaware of major al Qaeda plots until they happened, while many Iraqi leaders believed the country had WMD's in 2003 while many did not). Regarding the post-invasion insurgency in Iraq internal al Qaeda documents, reported on by the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point Abu Musab al Zarqawi and Osama bin Laden had disagreements over working with "apostates" while the remnants of the Iraqi Baath party have split into at least 2 wings with starkly differing opinions over cooperating with Islamists. According to an analyst of the Iraq insurgency at the Jamestown Foundation, one wing is said to be led by Mohammed Younis al Ahmed al Muwali with secular goals and the other being led by Izzat Ibrahim al Douri who is said to be more open to working with a less inclusive group of Islamists.

To further understand the incredibly complex, and often contradictory, stories of what cooperation, exchanges and conflicts between Saddam Hussein's regime and al Qaeda more people like Charles Faddis, who have had much more exposure to al Qaeda and Baath intentions than the public has had access to, will need to come forward in the coming years and tell their story of what those detainees have said and put all the information into the public discussion.

Over the past many months a number of interviews, documents, admissions and other revelations have come to light that continue to undermine the notion that al Qaeda and al Qaeda linked groups were not able to operate inside Iraq during the rule of Saddam Hussein. These findings match up with older reports on the hotly contested that may now deserve re-examination.

A study by The Combating Terrorism Center at West Point of al Qaeda documents deemed the "Sinjar Records" indicates that al Qaeda was, in fact, able to operate inside the country during the rule of the former regime. The center also has previously posted internal al Qaeda documents in which al Qaeda members revealed to one another that "some of them went to Saddam" likely in referrence to al Qaeda members fleeing Afghanistan to Iraq.

These documents match the testimony of what a former overseer of Iraqi prisons, Don Bordenkircher, claims he was told by numerous prisoners. In an interview with Ryan Mauro, Bordenkircher says that he was told that al Qaeda was not limited to areas beyond Saddam Hussein's control but was present in Mosul and Kirkuk and received assistance from one of Saddam Hussein's sons.

In an interview with FrontPage magazine, Osama al Magid, a former police officer in Saddam Hussein's Iraq from 1992-2003, said that al Qaeda was present and protected in Saddam Hussein's Iraq.

FP: How about Al Qaeda in Iraq?
Al-Magid: Al Qaeda and other people who believed the same as Al Qaeda had been in Iraq for many years. When I say “believed” I mean people who hated America and wanted to destroy the U.S. Saddam had this in common with Al Qaeda and this is why he provided them protection.

In an interview last year conducted by Michael Totten a Sunni Iraqi stated that al Qaeda wasn't out in the open in Saddam Hussein's Iraq but was there in some capacity.

“We can't compare that to the situation we have now with all these different types of organizations running around all over the country. Before there was nothing like an Al Qaeda organization here. I mean, they were here, but they were secretive, they were not in the field, they were not recognized yet. But now we feel that they are serious, that something big is going on.”

Also on this topic Thomas Joscelyn points out that a fairly recent Senate Intelligence Committe report on prewar Bush adminstration statements on the topic backed up allegations that al Qaeda was in Saddam's Iraq and not limited to Kurdistan. Joscelyn found that the report included the following statements:

Statements that Iraq provided safe haven for Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and other al Qaeda-related terrorist members were substantiated by the intelligence assessments. Intelligence assessments noted Zarqawi's presence in Iraq and his ability to travel and operate within the country. The intelligence community generally believed that Iraqi intelligence must have known about, and therefore at least tolerated, Zarqawi's presence in the country.

Joseph Shahda translated and explained a 2008 al Qaeda document, reportedly written by Saif al Adel, who denied links between the group and Saddam Hussein's regime but said the group did have a presence in the Sunni areas of Iraq building cells prior to invasion.

Jeff Stein's interview with former CIA operative Charles Faddis revealed that al Qaeda did have a presence in Iraq prior to invasion though Faddis argues that there was no link to Saddam Hussein's government (more on Farris's thoughts on the topic will be shared in a yet to be published interview with this website).

A story posted on al Sumaria's website (link is now down) stated that followers of Saddam Hussein welcomed al Qaeda into Iraq during the invasion and worked together to cause chaos in the country.

It is to be noted that in the wake of the US invasion to Iraq, Sunni Arabs, followers of former President Saddam Hussein welcomed Al Qaeda and allowed for the flow of foreign fighters across the borders to fuel insurgency in Anbar province and establish quasi military structures in Falluja mainly. Al Qaeda and Saddam supporters have imposed their power in these regions and went through fierce battles with the Marines. However, as Al Qaeda’s arbitrary violence has mounted against civilians, Arab tribes formed awakening councils funded by the US aimed against Al Qaeda.

In another Senate report looking into the reported mistreatment of detainees Senior Guantanamo Bay interrogator David Becker told the committee interviewing him that "only 'a couple of nebulous links''' were uncovered between al Qaida and Iraq (An interview with someone in charge of interviewing detainees in Iraq by this website is also in the works.)

In a post on his Global Terror Alert website in January 2006 Evan Kohlman analzyed al Qaeda in Iraq's "Distinguished Martyrs" series which included a document discussing Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and other al Qaeda members and saying that they did not fight alongside members of Saddam Hussein's regime at the start of the Iraq war though the document does not give the reasons for this decision.

Abu Umar al-Masri - A 37-year old senior Egyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ) leader trained in Yemen and Afghanistan who later joined a group of other elite EIJ operatives in Albania preparing for jihad in nearby Kosovo. When other members of the infamous "Albanian Returnees" group were seized in a joint mission by Albanian security services and the CIA for targeting the U.S. embassy in Tirana, Abu Umar fled Albania for Italy, where he was imprisoned for several years as a suspected terrorist. After a harrowing trip through Germany, Afghanistan, Iran, and Syria, Abu Umar eventually ended up in Iraq just prior to the fall of Saddam Hussein and joined Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

Evan Kohlman also posted another document which old CT Blog post cited Abu Ismail al-Muhajir saying:

"As I have explained before, the brothers in Iraq decided to stay out of the war and not to fight alongside Saddam until the war was over and Saddam’s regime was eliminated. They had many reasons for making this decision... Nonetheless, the situation took a turn for the worse after the regime’s collapse... we decided to stay and hide [in Iraq].

The Institute for Defense Analysis investigation of Saddam Hussein era documents showed regime support for EIJ and EIJ has been documented as having had a presence in Saddam's Baghdad.

Nikolas K. Gvosdev , a professor at the Naval War College and editor at The National Interest, relayed a guest post from Alexis Debat in a June 2006 at The Washington Realist stating that :

According to Jordanian intelligence sources, these individuals were highly instrumental in setting up Zarqawi's network in Iraq in 2002. Abu Ayyub al Masri, for example, was reported by the US military to have set up Zarqawi's first cell in Baghdad in mid-2002. This Egyptian group, led by al Masri, is reported to have played a critical role in Al Qaeda in Iraq, which cell structure and modus operandi are almost identical to those of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad in the 1980s.

Abu al Masri was also said to have close ties to Ayman al Zawahiri, who reportedly had links to Iraq going back many years. In 2004 TIME magazine reported on al Qaeda documents showing Zarqawi and some of his associates were in Baghdad during Saddam's rule:

He spent the months leading up to the war moving through Iran and northern Iraq, where he attached himself to the Kurdish Islamist group Ansar al-Islam. A confidential al-Tawhid document obtained by TIME describes a fighter killed in Fallujah last April as having joined al-Zarqawi in Baghdad "just before the fall of the previous regime"—a claim that backs up the Bush Administration's disputed assertions that al-Zarqawi passed through the Iraqi capital while Saddam Hussein was in power. Al-Zarqawi has built his network in Iraq by exploiting the furies unleashed by the fall of Saddam.

The notion that an Iraq-al Qaeda link was based solely, or even primarily, on one or a few mistreated al Qaeda detainees is not a very serious one when al Qaeda documents, Baath documents, detainee admissions and other revelations, both old and new, show that al Qaeda was in areas of Iraq under Saddam Hussein's control and the full extent or reason for this presence has yet to be thoroughly explained to the general public.

This Associated Press investigative piece is an excellent read on the shadowy links between the various extensions of Saddam Hussein's regime and a prominent terrorist who was said to be devoutly religious and still hunted by coalition forces in Iraq. This man is/was an expert in terrorism.

The entire article is worth a close read.