ADEMÁS DE STEPHEN HAYES, a quien me referí en un post anterior, la relación entre el Iraq de Saddam Hussein y al-Qaeda no es en absoluto una fantasía de Bush o de los neoconservadores, como muchos críticos afirman. Están documentadas desde mucho tiempo antes de que el cowboy de Texas llegara a la Casa Blanca y eran aceptadas de forma rutinaria por medios y analistas, incluyendo muchos que de los que ahora afirman que esa relación no es más que un burdo invento para justificar la guerra de Iraq. Otro ejemplo a añadir: en 1999, Yossef Bodansky escribía esto en 1999, en su libro Bin Laden: The Man Who Declared War on America (via Classical Values):

[T]wo of bin Laden's senior military commanders, Muhammad Abu-Islam and Abdallah Qassim, visited Baghdad between April 25 and May 1 [1998] for discussions with Iraqi intelligence. The importance of these contacts to Baghdad was shown by their meeting with Qusay Hussein, Saddam's son, who is now responsible for intelligence matters and was personally involved in both the Iraqi contribution to the Somalia operation and later the intelligence cooperation with Iran. Both sides were very satisfied with the results of the negotiations.

One of the first concrete outcomes of these contacts was Baghdad's agreement to train a new network of Saudi Islamist intelligence operatives and terrorists from among bin Laden's supporters still inside Saudi Arabia. Special clandestine cross-border passages were organized by Iraqi intelligence to enable these Saudis to make it to Iraq without passports or any other documents. The first group of Saudi Islamists crossed over in mid-June for a four-week course in the al-Nasiriyah training camp. Most were trained in intelligence—how to collect intelligence on American targets and plan and launch strikes. The Other Saudis were organized into a network for smuggling weapons and explosives from Iraq into Saudi Arabia, This group has returned to Saudi Arabia and is operational, having smuggled in the first loads of weapons and explosives. Later in the summer a second group of eleven Saudi lslami'stS received a month of training in the most sophisticated guerrilla techniques. By then Iraqi intelligence anticipated a marked expansion in the training of Saudi Islamisrs, for Iraqi intelligence took over two training camps they had previously used for training the Iranian Mujahideen-ul-Khalq.

Bin Laden moved quickly to solidify the cooperation with Saddam Hussein. In mid-July, Ayrnan al-Zawahiri traveled to Iraq clandestinely. He met senior Iraqi officials, including Taha Yassin Ramadan, to discuss practical modalities for the establishment of bin Laden's base in Iraq, the expansion of training for his mujahideen, and a joint strategy for an anti-U.S. jihad throughout the Arab world and North Africa. Baghdad could not have been more helpful, conditioning its support on bin Laden's promise not to incite the Iraqi Muslim Brotherhood into establishing an Islamic state in Iraq; in other words not to compete with Saddam Hussein's reign. While in Iraq, Zawahiri was also taken to visit a potential site for bin Laden's headquarters near al-Fallujah and terrorist training camps run by Iraqi intelligence. In al-Nasiriyah he saw the training provided to Saudi Islamists. In the name of Osama bin Laden, Zawahiri assumed responsibility for a training camp in the al-Nasiriyah desert established by Iraqi intelligence in about 1997 for terrorists from Saudi Arabia and the gulf states.

[...] In retrospect, the U.S.-Iraqi crisis of mid-November [1998] was the turning point in galvanizing Baghdad's resolve to strike out and sponsor an unprecedented terrorist campaign. A well-connected Arab source stated that "Saddam Hussein became convinced for the first time that Washington was seriously seeking to topple him and had decided to bring him down in any possible way. He chose to confront [the United States] with all possible means) too, particularly extremism and terrorism) since he had nothing else to lose." Convinced that he had Co act urgently, Hussein held lengthy discussions with the two people he truly trusts -- his sons Qusay and Uday -- on how to confront the Unired States and spoil its designs against their family. Qusay argued, and Saddam ultimately agreed, that there was no way emaciated Iraq could deflect a determined American attempt to assassinate them and bring down the regime. The key to their survival was in deterring such a campaign in the first place through a series of devastating anti-American terrorist attacks that would persuade Washington of the futility of challenging the Hussein regime. The option of conducting such a terrorist campaign under bin Laden's "deniable" banner was irresistible.

A few days after this conversation Qusay dispatched rwo of his most loyal intelligence operatives—al-Jubburi and al-Shihabi—to Afghanistan. They held a series of lengthy meetings with bin Laden, Zawahiri, Abu-Hafs, and other senior Islamist terrorist commanders in an isolated building not far from Kabul. Al-Jubburi and al Shihabi brought with them detailed lists of Iraq's contributions to the joint effort, including the anticipated arrival of the chemical weapons experts. They then worked out a detailed, coordinated plan for a protracted anti-American war. They decided that spectacular and martyrdom operations should be carried out throughout the world. In addition bin Laden agreed that Islamist hit teams should hunt down Iraqi opposition leaders who cooperated with the United States and the West against the Hussein regime. Bin Laden assured the Iraqis that the Islamists could now reach areas that Iraqi intelligence could not. The series of meetings concluded with an agreement to study closely and formulate details of specific operations and then meet again to decide on the first round of strikes.

Dos años antes del 11-S.

Por cierto, hablando de los argumentos dados por la administración Bush para justificar la guerra en Iraq, los críticos suelen afirmar que ésta se ha basado en un sólo motivo, eligiendo entonces uno, y sólo uno de ellos -de entre la amenaza de las armas de destrucción masiva, los vínculos entre Saddam y el terrorismo internacional, y las cuestiones relacionadas con los atropellos a los derechos humanos perpetrados por el régimen de Saddam- para a continuación pasar a desmentirlo como si fuera el único. Estas personas deberían leer esta tesis doctoral de una estudiante de la Universidad de Illinois, que personalmente no está a favor de la guerra, y que concluye tras un minucioso estudio que el número de argumentos empleados fue exactamente de veintisiete. Y algunos de ellos, como el tan discutido vínculo entre Saddam y el 11-S, fueron planteados no por la administración Bush, sino por los medios de comunicación que especulaban sobre tal posibilidad y preguntaban sobre ello en las ruedas de prensa.

Si os interesa, aquí tenéis un artículo sobre la tesis en el periódico de la universidad, y aquí una columna de William Raspberry en el Washington Post de la semana pasada.

ACTUALIZACIÓN: Leed también este interesantísimo artículo de Andrew McCarthy.