The Connection: How al Qaeda's Collaboration with Saddam Hussein Has Endangered America

223 Pages·2004·1.02 MB·English

by  Stephen F. Hayes

T H E

C O N N E C T I O N

How al Qaeda’s Collaboration
with Saddam Hussein
Has Endangered America
S T E P H E N F. H AY E S

To Sergeant First Class Curtis “Paco” Mancini
and the many heroes of the War on Terror
“Because the job is never done”

CONTENTS
PREFACE ix
INTRODUCTION xv
Chapter One
CASE OPEN: WHO IS AHMED HIKMAT SHAKIR?
1
Chapter Two
A SKEPTICAL PRESS
10
Chapter Three
SADDAM FINDS RELIGION
32
Chapter Four
SADDAM AND OSAMA STRIKE BACK
45
Chapter Five
A HOME FOR TERROR
62
Chapter Six
“THE FATHER AND GRANDFATHER
OF TERRORISTS”
78
viii CONTENTS
Chapter Seven
CLINTON’S “CLOUD OF FEAR”
94
Chapter Eight
THE CONNECTION MAKES THE PAPERS
117
Chapter Nine
WHAT HAPPENED IN PRAGUE?
128
Chapter Ten
ACT GLOBALLY
153
Chapter Eleven
ANSAR AL ISLAM
158
Chapter Twelve
SEE NO EVIL
177
EPILOGUE 187
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 193
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
CREDITS
COVER
COPYRIGHT
ABOUT THE PUBLISHER
PREFACE
This book is the product of more than two years of covering the
War on Terror and Iraq for the Weekly Standard. That reporting
includes several trips to the Middle East; three to Iraq. It draws
on sources built in that time and includes hundreds of inter-
views with former Iraqi military officers; Iraqi immigrants to
the United States; senior officials in the new Iraqi government,
in Europe, and in the Middle East; current and former U.S. in-
telligence officials; soldiers and officers in the U.S. military;
and senior policy makers in both the Clinton and Bush ad-
ministrations.
Wherever possible, I identify my sources by name. The sen-
sitive nature of some of the information in this book makes it
impossible to do so in every case.
Much of the information in this book comes from “open
sources,” those readily available to anyone with patience and a
computer. The U.S. intelligence community has long been
skeptical of open-source reporting. That is changing. John C.
Gannon, then chairman of the National Intelligence Council,
addressed these changes in an October 6, 2000, speech. Open-
source reporting, he said, “is more important than ever in the