Iraqi Intelligence Documents: Saddam Trained Thousands of Terrorists in Iraq Training Camps
Jim Kouri, CPP
January 07, 2006
In one of the least reported stories in the history of journalism, documents and other materials confiscated by the US military in the wake of the Iraq invasion revealed that Saddam Hussein's regime trained thousands of terrorists inside Iraq.
According for Stephan Hayes of The Weekly Standard, Saddam Hussein trained thousands of radical Islamic terrorists from the region at camps in Iraq over the four years immediately preceding the U.S. invasion. Hayes cites documents written in Arabic and photographs recovered and confirmed by eleven US government officials.
"The secret training took place primarily at three camps--in Samarra, Ramadi, and Salman Pak--and was directed by elite Iraqi military units. Interviews by U.S. government interrogators with Iraqi regime officials and military leaders corroborate the documentary evidence," wrote Hayes in his expose' for The Weekly Standard.
Many of the over 8,000 fighters were from terrorist groups with close ties to al Qaeda, including the Sudanese Islamic Army. It's believed, based on the Iraqi intelligence documents translated, that 2,000 terrorists were trained at these Iraqi camps each year from 1999 to 2002, putting the total number at or above 8,000, says Hayes.
"Intelligence officials believe that some of these terrorists returned to Iraq and are responsible for attacks against Americans and Iraqis. According to three officials with knowledge of the intelligence on Iraqi training camps, White House and National Security Council officials were briefed on these findings in May 2005; senior Defense Department officials subsequently received the same briefing."
The documents cited include handwritten notes, typed documents, audiotapes, videotapes, compact discs, floppy discs, and computer hard drives. Taken together, this collection could give U.S. intelligence officials and policymakers an inside look at the activities of the former Iraqi regime in the months and years before the Iraq War.
Why isn't this revelation being trumpeted in Washington? Because it exposes the ineptness of the intelligence community and would embarrass many political leaders who maintain that there were no ties between Saddam and radical Islamic terrorist groups.
According to Stephan Hayes, "It exposes the flawed assumptions of the experts and US intelligence officials who told us for years that a secularist like Saddam Hussein would never work with Islamic radicals, any more than such jihadists would work with an infidel like the Iraqi dictator. It also reminds us that valuable information remains buried in the mountain of documents recovered in Afghanistan and Iraq over the past four years."
Nearly three years after the U.S. invasion of Iraq, only 50,000 of these 2 million "exploitable items" have been thoroughly examined. That's 2.5 percent. Despite the hard work of the individuals working on the "DOCEX" project, the process is not moving quickly enough, says Michael Tanji, a former Defense Intelligence Agency official who helped lead the document exploitation effort for 18 months. "At this rate," he says, "if we continue to approach DOCEX in a linear fashion, our great-grandchildren will still be sorting through this stuff."
Most of the 50,000 translated documents relate directly to weapons of mass destruction programs and scientists, since David Kay and his Iraq Survey Group--who were among the first to analyze the finds--considered those items top priority. "At first, if it wasn't WMD, it wasn't translated. It wasn't exploited," says a former military intelligence officer who worked on the documents in Iraq.
In November 2005, Michigan congressman Pete Hoekstra wrote to John Negroponte, the new director of national intelligence. Hoekstra, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, submitted to Negroponte a list of 40 documents recovered in postwar Iraq and Afghanistan and asked to see them. The documents were translated or summarized, given titles by intelligence analysts in the field, and entered into a government database known as HARMONY. Most of them are unclassified.
For several weeks, Hoekstra was promised a response. He finally got one on December 28, 2005, in a meeting with General Michael Hayden, principal deputy director of national intelligence. Hayden handed Hoekstra a letter from Negroponte that promised a response after January 1, 2006. Hoekstra took the letter, read it, and scribbled his terse response. "John--Unacceptable." Hoekstra told Hayden that he would expect to hear something before the end of the year. He didn't."I can tell you that I'm reaching the point of extreme frustration," said Hoekstra.
Other members of Congress--including Rep. Dana Rohrahacher and Senators Rick Santorum and Pat Roberts--also demanded more information from the Bush administration on the status of the vast document collection.
According for Stephan Hayes of The Weekly Standard, Saddam Hussein trained thousands of radical Islamic terrorists from the region at camps in Iraq over the four years immediately preceding the U.S. invasion. Hayes cites documents written in Arabic and photographs recovered and confirmed by eleven US government officials.
"The secret training took place primarily at three camps--in Samarra, Ramadi, and Salman Pak--and was directed by elite Iraqi military units. Interviews by U.S. government interrogators with Iraqi regime officials and military leaders corroborate the documentary evidence," wrote Hayes in his expose' for The Weekly Standard.
Many of the over 8,000 fighters were from terrorist groups with close ties to al Qaeda, including the Sudanese Islamic Army. It's believed, based on the Iraqi intelligence documents translated, that 2,000 terrorists were trained at these Iraqi camps each year from 1999 to 2002, putting the total number at or above 8,000, says Hayes.
"Intelligence officials believe that some of these terrorists returned to Iraq and are responsible for attacks against Americans and Iraqis. According to three officials with knowledge of the intelligence on Iraqi training camps, White House and National Security Council officials were briefed on these findings in May 2005; senior Defense Department officials subsequently received the same briefing."
The documents cited include handwritten notes, typed documents, audiotapes, videotapes, compact discs, floppy discs, and computer hard drives. Taken together, this collection could give U.S. intelligence officials and policymakers an inside look at the activities of the former Iraqi regime in the months and years before the Iraq War.
Why isn't this revelation being trumpeted in Washington? Because it exposes the ineptness of the intelligence community and would embarrass many political leaders who maintain that there were no ties between Saddam and radical Islamic terrorist groups.
According to Stephan Hayes, "It exposes the flawed assumptions of the experts and US intelligence officials who told us for years that a secularist like Saddam Hussein would never work with Islamic radicals, any more than such jihadists would work with an infidel like the Iraqi dictator. It also reminds us that valuable information remains buried in the mountain of documents recovered in Afghanistan and Iraq over the past four years."
Nearly three years after the U.S. invasion of Iraq, only 50,000 of these 2 million "exploitable items" have been thoroughly examined. That's 2.5 percent. Despite the hard work of the individuals working on the "DOCEX" project, the process is not moving quickly enough, says Michael Tanji, a former Defense Intelligence Agency official who helped lead the document exploitation effort for 18 months. "At this rate," he says, "if we continue to approach DOCEX in a linear fashion, our great-grandchildren will still be sorting through this stuff."
Most of the 50,000 translated documents relate directly to weapons of mass destruction programs and scientists, since David Kay and his Iraq Survey Group--who were among the first to analyze the finds--considered those items top priority. "At first, if it wasn't WMD, it wasn't translated. It wasn't exploited," says a former military intelligence officer who worked on the documents in Iraq.
In November 2005, Michigan congressman Pete Hoekstra wrote to John Negroponte, the new director of national intelligence. Hoekstra, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, submitted to Negroponte a list of 40 documents recovered in postwar Iraq and Afghanistan and asked to see them. The documents were translated or summarized, given titles by intelligence analysts in the field, and entered into a government database known as HARMONY. Most of them are unclassified.
For several weeks, Hoekstra was promised a response. He finally got one on December 28, 2005, in a meeting with General Michael Hayden, principal deputy director of national intelligence. Hayden handed Hoekstra a letter from Negroponte that promised a response after January 1, 2006. Hoekstra took the letter, read it, and scribbled his terse response. "John--Unacceptable." Hoekstra told Hayden that he would expect to hear something before the end of the year. He didn't."I can tell you that I'm reaching the point of extreme frustration," said Hoekstra.
Other members of Congress--including Rep. Dana Rohrahacher and Senators Rick Santorum and Pat Roberts--also demanded more information from the Bush administration on the status of the vast document collection.
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