Washington — Rebuffing U.S. government claims, the independent commission investigating the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks said Wednesday no evidence exists that al-Qaeda had strong ties to deposed Iraqi president Saddam Hussein.
In hair-raising detail, the commission said the terror network had envisioned a much larger attack and is working hard to strike again.
Although Osama bin Laden asked for help from Iraq in the mid-1990s, Mr. Hussein's government never responded, according to a report by the commission staff based on interviews with government intelligence and law enforcement officials. The report asserted “no credible evidence” has emerged that Iraq was involved in the Sept. 11 strikes.
Al-Qaeda is actively trying to replicate the destruction of that day, the report said, though the terrorist network has been weakened by losing its sanctuary in Afghanistan and many leaders to U.S. strikes and arrests. The organization also is trying to obtain a nuclear weapon and is “extremely interested” in chemical, radiological and biological attacks, including the use of anthrax, it said.
“The trend toward attacks intended to cause ever-higher casualties will continue,” the report said.
The commission staff said that Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed initially outlined an attack involving 10 aircraft targeting both U.S. coasts. Mr. Mohammed proposed that he pilot one of the planes, kill all the male passengers, land the plane at a U.S. airport and make a “speech denouncing U.S. policies in the Middle East before releasing all the women and children,” the report said.
Mr. Bin Laden rejected that plan as too complex, deciding instead on four aircraft piloted by handpicked suicide operatives. The report said the targets were chosen based on symbolism: the Pentagon, which represented the U.S. military; the World Trade Center, a symbol of American economic strength; the Capitol, the perceived source of U.S. support for Israel, and the White House. Training for the attacks began in 1999.
The attacks were planned for as early as May 2001, but they were pushed back to September, partly because al-Qaeda sought to strike when Congress would be at the Capitol. A second wave of hijackings never materialized because Mr. Mohammed was too busy planning the Sept. 11 attacks, according to the report.
Under questioning, John Pistole, the FBI's top counterterrorism official, told the commission that the government “has probably prevented a few aviation attacks” in the United States since Sept. 11 but that some operatives in those plots are still at large.
The findings were released as the commission began its final two days of hearings on the terror attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people. The second day will focus on the Federal Aviation Administration and U.S. air defences. The commission's final report is due July 26.
The first day lacked the electricity of past sessions featuring appearances by National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, CIA Director George Tenet, Attorney-General John Ashcroft and other top officials. Like previous hearings, the audience included family members of people killed in the attacks, many bearing photographs of lost loved ones.
Commission member Bob Kerrey, a former Democratic senator from Nebraska, expressed exasperation that the government did not act with greater urgency against Mr. bin Laden, given what was known about al-Qaeda before 2001.
“I believe that we missed a tremendous opportunity very early in this game to inform the Congress, inform the American people who bin Laden was, what he was doing, what he had done and as a consequence I think we simply didn't rally until it was too late,” Mr. Kerrey said.
The conclusions that al-Qaeda and Iraq had no co-operative relationship run counter to repeated assertions by U.S. President George W. Bush, Vice-President Dick Cheney and other administration officials. The claims that Mr. bin Laden and Mr. Hussein were in league were central to the administration's justification for going to war in Iraq.
As recently as Monday, Mr. Cheney said in a speech that the Iraqi president “had long-established ties with al-Qaeda.” And last fall he cited what he called a credible but unconfirmed intelligence report that Mohamed Atta, ringleader of the 19 Sept. 11 hijackers, met in Prague, capital of the Czech Republic, with a senior Iraqi intelligence official before the attacks.
The commission concluded no such meeting occurred.
Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry said the report's findings were evidence the “administration misled America and the administration reached too far.”
“They did not tell the truth to Americans about what was happening or their own intentions.” he said on Detroit radio station WDET.
Secretary of State Colin Powell, asked about the commission report, said the administration stands by its assertions that there were links between al-Qaeda and Iraq.
