Daily News (New York) February 23, 2004
Rummy Points To Al Qaeda In Iraq Carnage
By James Gordon Meek
WASHINGTON - Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld blamed Al Qaeda yesterday for devastating suicide attacks in Iraq, but some intelligence experts said the case hasn't been made that Osama Bin Laden's network is responsible.
"They clearly are involved and active," Rumsfeld said of Al Qaeda during a stop at Shannon Airport in Ireland. He was on his way to visit U.S. troops in Kuwait.
"We have seen information that terrorists are trying to foment strife between the religious and ethnic groups" in Iraq, Rumsfeld said.
The Pentagon chief was referring to an intercepted 17-page letter to senior Al Qaeda leaders written by terror mastermind Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who asked for help starting a Muslim civil war between Iraqi Sunnis and Shiites. In the letter, al-Zarqawi claimed a role in two dozen suicide attacks throughout Iraq, including bombings of Shiite leaders.
The letter was found on al-Zarqawi lieutenant Hassan Ghul, a Pakistani captured in Iraq. Ghul, like his Jordanian boss, is considered an Al Qaeda member by U.S. officials.
"The letter is not proof that current attacks in Iraq are Al Qaeda-directed or supported," said Daniel Goure, a defense analyst at the Lexington Institute. "It's the terrorist version of writing a grant proposal."
In arguing that Iraq is the central battle in the global war on terror, the Bush administration has highlighted intelligence - such as the al-Zarqawi letter - that suggests Al Qaeda is behind deadly bombings there.
"It's definitely to their benefit to connect those dots," said intelligence expert John Pike of GlobalSecurity.org.
But U.S. forces haven't nabbed a single Al Qaeda operative in Iraq since the war began.
Rumsfeld described the insurgent fighters as a mix of former members of dictator Saddam Hussein's regime; criminals, and guerrillas from Al Qaeda and the Kurdish Ansar al-Islam, which is tied to al-Zarqawi.
In Iraq yesterday, the violence continued with a roadside bombing that killed an Iraqi near the northern city of Mosul. Another bomb exploded in a Baghdad neighborhood and injured four Iraqi policemen.
A Sunni Muslim cleric in Baghdad, whose organization cautioned against hasty national elections, was also killed by gunmen while walking near his mosque.
© Copyright 2004, Daily News, L.P.
