It might still be possible to determine whether or not Ramzi Yousef is really Abdul Basit Karim; the latter had friends in London who could identify him, and Scotland Yard possesses papers with Basit's fingerprints from 1988. If those prints match those in the tampered Kuwaiti file, then it would confirm he is indeed Basit. If they don't, then it means within a high degree of certainty that he is an Iraqi agent. However, that simple test has never been conducted by U.S. agencies.
"I think that there are very good indications that [Saddam] was involved in '93, and it's a testable hypothesis by looking at the fingerprints that Scotland Yard has," says Woolsey. "And if he was involved in '93, that substantially enhances the possibility that he was involved Sept. 11 -- because it means he was sitting over there for eight years laughing at us because he got away with the first one, and continuing to undervalue us, as he did in 1990 when he invaded."
It is difficult to say whether or not the Bush administration, in its seemingly single-minded pursuit of bin Laden, will take the time to examine the matter, despite assurances it is investigating all potential aspects of the Sept. 11 attacks. So far, officials have shied away from connecting Saddam to the disaster, though there are indications that may change soon.
On last Sunday's "Meet the Press," Vice President Cheney was asked if there was any evidence linking Iraq to the attacks, and he flatly stated, "No," adding: "In the past, there have been some activities related to terrorism by Saddam Hussein. But at this stage, you know, the focus is over here on al-Qaida [bin Laden's organization] and the most recent events in New York. Saddam Hussein's bottled up, at this point, but clearly we continue to have a fairly tough policy where the Iraqis are concerned."
The only rumblings to the contrary have come from Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who paused for five seconds at a press briefing this week when asked about the possibility of "state sponsorship" of the attacks. He finally answered that he would leave the question to Justice officials, but added: "I know a lot, and what I have said ... is that states are supporting these people."
The chief reason intelligence analysts have given for dismissing the notion of a specific Saddam/bin Laden connection has been the supposed enmity between the two men, based on Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, which bin Laden violently opposed. But Mylroie is skeptical, pointing out that the invasion occurred more than 10 years ago, which is an aeon in diplomatic years. Woolsey, too, has his doubts.
"First of all, that may be a cover story," he says. "Secondly, they have the same chief hatred, which is for us. Thirdly, bin Laden is Sunni, so there's not any of the Sunni-Shi'a tension that there would be if the allegation were that he was working with Iran.
"And finally, Saddam has gotten reasonably close in the last few years to some of the fundamentalist terrorist Sunni groups. They have meetings in Iraq -- I can't point to any personal meetings or any personal link between bin Laden and Saddam, but if you just look at his relationships with the terrorist groups generally, and particularly the fundamentalist Sunni ones, it's striking. Some of them call him 'the new Caliph' [an Islamic term for a temporal and spiritual leader]."
Certainly, identifying Saddam Hussein as one of the co-perpetrators of the Sept. 11 attack would drastically change the landscape of the "crusade" Bush has proposed against terrorism. Making such an identification would require an all-out response. Instead of focusing solely on capturing bin Laden and crushing his organization, U.S. forces would simultaneously be faced with the far more formidable task of a full-scale military assault on Iraq.
That daunting prospect might intimidate the Bush team into withdrawing from pushing the issue, preferring to continue the current course of "containing" Saddam. Laurie Mylroie says a number of key intelligence players within the administration are fighting to bring the Iraqi issue forward, but she fears that politics may ultimately hold them back.
"My main concern is that the administration will put this off and choose to just focus on bin Laden, for policy considerations," Mylroie says. "I think we run the risk of focusing on the individuals and not looking at the states -- forgoing security concerns for the sake of prosecuting criminals. If the states go untouched, we'll just have more of the same."
Woolsey contends that even if no further evidence links Saddam to the Sept. 11 attacks, the Bush administration should at least look into the evidence now in hand, and determine if he was behind the 1993 bombing. "If they determine that Iraqi intelligence was behind '93, that should be enough. We got Al Capone not for the many murders that he contracted for, but for income-tax evasion.
"In the '93 bombing, although six people died, it was certainly not as major a thing as what happened on Sept. 11. There's no statute of limitations on terrorism, and as far as I'm concerned, if he did the '93 bombing, that's enough to get him on the list of folks who need to have their regimes changed."
About the writer
David Neiwert is a freelance writer based in Seattle. He won a 2000 National Press Club award for distinguished online journalism, and is the author of "In God's Country: The Patriot Movement and the Pacific Northwest."
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