Word: bins
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Orthodox opinion in the Democratic Party holds that there was never any real linkage between Saddam Hussein’s regime and Osama bin Laden, and the Bush administration either “exaggerated” or outright lied about such a connection during the build-up to war. This assumption has become pervasive on talk shows and editorial pages. Indeed, many Democrats and liberal pundits speak as if the Baathist-al Qaeda connection had been conclusively refuted...
Bush was probably correct to separate Baghdad from Sept. 11 (though the Czech government still maintains that Mohammed Atta met with an Iraqi agent in Prague in April 2001). But the administration’s seeming timidity on the broader issue of pre-war links between Saddam and bin Laden is puzzling. To be sure, it is now indisputable that Baathist Iraq had some degree of contact with al Qaeda during much of the past 10 years. Those still not persuaded should consider all that’s emerged since the war began last March...
...Iraqi spymaster and former ambassador to Turkey. Hijazi has confessed to meeting with top al Qaeda brass, under Saddam’s orders, in 1994 in Sudan—as had long been speculated by American intelligence. He will not admit to a much-rumored December 1998 summit with bin Laden in Kandahar, at which time he allegedly offered the Saudi exile refuge in Iraq...
...Kandahar meeting seems quite plausible, however, given other evidence that’s come to light. For one thing, bin Laden’s “official biographer,” Hamid Mir of al Jazeera, has made indirect reference to it. Harvard lecturer and terrorism specialist Jessica Stern, a former Clinton official, writes in Foreign Affairs that Mir claims to have “‘personal knowledge’ that [Hijazi] tried to contact bin Laden in Afghanistan as early...
...Sunday Telegraph confirm that an al Qaeda envoy visited Baghdad in March 1998. The papers were found in the bombed-out headquarters of the Mukhabarat, Saddam’s intelligence service. Using Liquid Paper, the Iraqis had tried to cover up all references in the documents to bin Laden; but by applying dried fluid journalists were able to reveal his name in three separate places...