Shortly before a carefully orchestrated series of terrorist attacks devastated the eastern seaboard of the United States on the morning of September 11, 2001, several western intelligence agencies received an intriguing report to the effect that Saddam Hussein, President of Iraq had placed his troops on AlertG , the highest state military readiness Iraqi troops had seen since 1991 Gulf War, intelligence agents based in Iraq claimed that Saddam himself had retreated to one of his highly fortified bunkers in the family fiefdom of Tikrit, in northers Iraq.
Meanwhile his two wives, Sajida and Samira, women who in normal circumstances shunned each other’s company, had been moved to another of Saddam’s secret bunkers. The clear implication was that Saddam had retreated to Tikrit in early September 2001 because he had prior information of the September 11 attacks, in which groups of suicidal al-Qaeda terrorists flew fully laden civilian airliners into the twin towers of New York’s World Trade Centre and the Pentagon in Washington D.C. killing thousands of innocent civilian office workers and military personnel.
A fourth team of Islamic terrorists had planned to hijack their aircraft into the White House but were prevented from doing so by the heroism of some of the passengers who tackled the hijackers thereby causing the aircraft to crash in a field south of Pittsburgh, killing everyone on board.
In the chaotic days that followed the world’s worst terrorist atrocity Saddam Hussein’s Iraq soon emerged as one of the most likely targets for retaliation, the intense secrecy and security that surrounded Saddam’s every move meant that it was. impossible to say for sure if the intelligence reports about the Iraqi leader’s action prior to September 11 attacks were accurate.
But even though American and British intelligence were unable to find a clear proof of Saddam’s involvement in September 11 attacks, Washington’s deep seated institutional antipathy toward the Iraqi dictator was such that President George. W. Bush, in the days immediately following the atrocity, found himself having to urge restraint on his more hawkish colleagues.
Bush believed all available evidences linked the hijackers directly to Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda, Bush’s speech on September 20 did have a scraping mention of Saddam’s whereabouts in the morning of September 11.
Where was Saddam on the morning of 9/11 ?
Interior minister of Czech Republic issued a report that Mohammed Atta, one of the ringleaders of September bombings had met an Iraqi intelligence officer five months before the attack. Atta was believed to have entered Prague in April 2001 where he met Ahmed-al-Ani, an Iraqi intelligence officer. Ani, who worked as a Second Consul at the Iraqi Embassy in Prague was suspected of engaging in activities beyond his diplomatic duties, the euphemism used to denote espionage.
Atta was the lead suicide bomber in the plane that dashed into World Trade Centre !!
Although there was nothing to link the Iraqi agent with the September 11 bombings the very fact that the formidable intelligence apparatus controlled by the world’s most notorious dictator might have established contact with the world’s most ruthless terrorist organisation meant that Saddam might quickly find himself in the cross hairs of Pentagon’s military planners.
The Prague report was conclusively discarded by FBI and CIA and it was learnt that Atta never met Ani prior to 9/11. That Saddam’s name should be implicated in the first place came as no surprise to the international counter terrorist experts who had been investigating the Iraqi dictator’s links with international terrorism since the early 1970’s.
The butchery side of Saddam Hussein. But Saddam Hussein was no saint. In November 2004, Human Rights Watch estimated 250,000 to 290,000 Iraqis were killed or disappeared by the regime of Saddam Hussein.
The estimate of 290,000 disappeared and presumed killed included more than 100,000 Kurds during the 1987-88 Anfal campaign and lead-up to it; between 50,000 and 70,000 Shia were arrested in the 1980s and held indefinitely without charge. Did these atrocities play a part to implicate Saddam ?
An estimated 8,000 males of the Barzani clan were removed from resettlement camps in Iraqi Kurdistan in 1983; 10,000 or more males were separated from Feyli Kurdish families deported to Iran in the 1980s.
Saddam was a dictator who never believed anyone, even his own family. He was always under the notion that the world is at a loss to understand his ambitions, his intentions, his military prowess.
He lacked subtlety. Given the long history of tension between Washington and Baghdad, Saddam Hussein did not exactly help his cause during the crucial weeks, in late 2001, when the Bush Administration was formulating its policy on how best to prosecute the war on terrorism.
In late October Saddam published a rambling open letter to the American people in which he condemned the military action USA had taken in Afghanistan to defeat the Taliban. He also claimed the US foreign policy was being driven by Zionism and hinted that the US mainland could be subjected to further terrorist attacks !
Saddam rejected UN inspection of weapons in Iraq as the Iraqi dictator was accused of using nerve gas to bulldoze enemies into defeat; and to add insult to injury, an Iraqi Government Survey Commissioned at the end of the year proclaimed Osama-bin-Laden as Iraq’s Man of the Year 2001, an accolade awarded for his dedication in defying the USA and championing Islam.
The Government owned Iraqi TV station showed an Iraqi tribal chieftain reciting a poem he had written,
With the Soviet Union no longer in existence, Saddam’s Iraq had become a dangerous anachronism.
Saddam continued to irritate Washington in the Spring of 2002 when he ordered his security officials to provide aid to the families of Palestinian suicide bombers !
The Bush Administration quickly formed to view that the war on terror should be extended to include Saddam Hussein, even if many of Washington’s western allies were averse to vilify Iraq as no conclusive evidence emerged regarding Saddam’s involvement in 9/11 attacks.
Tony Blair was baffled as the British Premier had delivered an emotional speech on September 14 citing unconditional support to Washington fighting terrorism but later felt disquiet, like other western allies, in supporting renewed hostilities against Iraq. MI5 and MI6 had worked closely with American intelligence but they could never find anything but bits and pieces information about Saddam’s involvement.
It was Osama all the way and it is of importance to note that Osama-bin-Laden was eventually hunted down and killed in Abbottabad, Pakistan by US Navy SEALS of Seal Team Six in May 02, 2011, ten years after the September 11 attack.
President Barack Obama oversaw the whole operation with Ms. Hillary Clinton, Secretary of State and the entire team, but in 2001 President Bush did not have a plan in place to annihilate Osama and the closest he went was to pour his disdain on Saddam Hussein.
The warrior Saddam (!). In spite of all his misadventures, Saddam Hussein deserved a better deal from the United States of America. It was a huge folly on part of George Bush to misread Saddam’s intentions and his involvement in 9/11 attacks - a folly for which the European allies, the Arabs and the rest would not forgive him. Ever.
Bush Junior would continue to be recognised as one of the most inefficient American presidents that sat in the White House, one of the weakest world leaders in present history !!
As a warrior and a soldier, we salute you President Saddam Hussein !!
This was a strategy by United States to try to make the invasion look less stupid.
You see, United States invaded Iraq for a single reason. Oil.
Saddam was a dictator, particularly against Shia Muslims
Things were cheap, so cheap and affordable. Fuel was less than 10 cents per liter.
Good analysis
Ma chudao