Let’s look at some of the facts…because now I have a clearer understanding as to why information like this (click here) has completely disappeared from the public consciousness. Or should I say…has been MADE to completely disappear.

The Bush administration had a three-prong case for the war; Saddam Hussein’s brutality against his fellow Iraqis; the failure of the Iraqi regime to account for its weapons of mass destruction; and the most controversial of the three; Iraq’s connections with Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda.

By the time the Iraq War began, the evidence of Iraqi links to al Qaeda went well beyond a few dots; it was a veritable constellation.

An important participant in the first Al Qaeda attack on American soil, the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center, had been given safe haven in Iraq. Both bin Laden and Saddam had repeatedly voiced their desire to kill Americans. CIA director George Tenet reported at least eight meetings between high-level Iraqi intelligence officials and senior al Qaeda terrorists. At least twice, the deputy director of Iraqi intelligence met bin Laden personally. In its 1998 indictment of bin Laden, the Clinton administration cited an “understanding” between Iraq and al Qaeda whereby bin Laden agreed not to agitate against the Iraqi regime in exchange for help on “weapons development”. Fresh intelligence indicated that Iraq had provided training to al Qaeda terrorists on poisons and gases. Senior al Qaeda associates were operating openly in Baghdad before the war.

Critics of the Bush administration, including many experts and politicians who once warned about Iraq-al Qaeda connections, now conveniently shrug off this evidence. President Bush simply doesn’t have that luxury.

One of the most often repeated cliches to come out of the attacks on the Pentagon and the World Trade Center is that September 11 changed everything. It’s half right. September 11 changed little for the terrorists. they had been at war with the US for a decade, and the September 11 attacks were simply a more successful battle ina much longer campaign.

What changed, then, was America’s response to terror. The battle was joined. The war would involve more than warnings, more than demarches, more than back-channel diplomacy, more than empty threats. Terrorists and the states that sponsor them would be eliminated.

Saddam Hussein was one of those terrorists and he ran one of those states. His regime harbored, financed, supported, and armed terrorists to kill Americans.

He was, in the words of one of his own generals, “the father and grandfather of terrorists.”

In 2000-August, Ahmed Hikmar Shakir, a 37-year-old Iraqi, quietly began his job as a “greeter” at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport in Malaysia. The job, a common one in Southeast Asia and the Middle East, normally involves little more than welcoming visiting dignitaries and making sure they move smoothly through the laborious entry process.

But Shakir was not a typical greeter. Although he was nominally employed by the Malaysian Airlines, he had told associates he had been hired by a contact in the Iraqi embassy. More important, it was his embassy contact, not his employer, who told him when to report and when to take days off. So when the Iraqi embassy contact told him to report to work on 5-January-2000, Shakir dutifully complied. His assignment that day would later make him the subject of an international manhunt and suspect in the worst single act of terrorism on American soil.

The events of that day and those that followed-provide the government’s strongest links to Saddam and al Qaeda and that they worked together on September 11 to achieve their murderous goal of mass murder on American soil. (Which they were both claiming would happen.)

This is akin to two differing factions of the mafia joining together to achieve a common goal. They may have hated each other inititally, but Arabs believe “the enemy of my enemy is my friend”, and they called a truce regarding their hatred of one another in order to join together to direct their hatred of America TOGETHER.

These events are an unfortunate example of the difficulty of maintaining effective laison relationships between American and foreign intelligence services, and of how, even in the months following the worst failure in American history-dangerous terrorists were allowed to walk away from their cramped holding cells as free men.

In late December 1999, the CIA, the NSA, and the State Department all received intelligence about a meeting of al-Qaeda-associated terrorists to take place in Malaysia in early January of that year. The NSA had intercepted communications from individuals tied to the 1998 al Qaeda attacks on US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. Although the information was incomplete, the intercepts picked up three first names; Khalid, Nawar and Salem.

The CIA on high alert for potential attacks on millennium celebrations, immediately sent word to operatives around the world to track the would-be terrorists. On December 31, 1999, CIA officials in Pakistan cabled to HQ that they “were following the situation.” Nawaf was in Pakistan and Khalid was in Yemen. The CIA determined that they planned to meetin Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, arriving on January 4, 2000, and established an operation-to be conducted jointly with Malaysian intelligence-to monitor the comings and goings of the men. CIA officials assumed the meeting was called to plan attacks on Southeast Asia.

That same day, the CIA obtained a photocopy of the passport belonging to one of the suspected participants, Khalid al Mihdhar. Although al Mihdhar, a Saudi citizen, was known to have connections with al Qaeda and the Yemeni mujahideen, he was not yet on any terrorist watch lists on April 7, 1999, when the US consulate in Jidda, Saudi Arabia, had given him a one-year visa granting him multiple-entry privilege to the US.

The intelligence on Nawaf al Hazmi, at that point known only by his first name, was sketchier. The CIA determined that he was scheduled to leave Karachi, Pakistan, for Mayalsia on January 4, 2000. In fact, he had departed two days earlier.

On 5-January-2000, officials at CIA HQ in Langley, Virginia, sent a dispatch to operatives around the world that “we need to continue the effort to identify these travelers and their activities…to determine if there is any true threat posed.” Information about the meeting was included in the Al Qaeda-related intelligence given to the most senior officials in the US Government. On at least two occasions, the direct of the CIA’s al Qaeda unit gave briefings to his superiors about the meeting.

Khalid al Mihdar, a thin, dark-haired man with a slightly crooked face, arrived at the Kuala Lampur International Airport on January 5. The airport is an architectural wonder-a glass-enclosed tribute to modernity that attracts even tourists who arrive elsewhere in the Malaysian capital. The marble floors are buffed constantly, producing a surface so shiny, it’s possible to catch a glimpse of yourself by looking down. Rount white beams shoot like three-dimensional spiderwebs from the floor to the unfinished ceiling, and Western stores such as the tie Rack line the halls of the main terminal.

Ahmed Himar Shakir, the Iraqi greeter, met al Mihdhar shortly after he deplaned and escorted him through the bureaucratic red tape for entry. Malaysian authorities photographed the arrival.

When they’d finished the paperwork, Shakir walked al Mihdhar to a waiting car, much as any facilitator would. But then, rather than bidding his VIP good-bye and returning to work, Shakir jumped in the car and accompanied al Mihdhar to a condominium owned by Yzaid Sufaat, an American-educated al Qaeda associate, where he was once again photographed by Malaysian intelligence. The Kuala Lumpur condo would serve as the site of a three-day meeting that the CIA later concluded was the main planning seession for the October 12, 2000 bombing of the USS Cole and for the attacks of September 11, 2001. It isn’t yet known whether Shakir took an active part in the meeting, but he was certainly in fast company. The FBI believes as many as nine top al Qaeda terrorists attended the meeting, including Ramzi bin al Shibh, who later boasted to a journalist of his role as “coordinator of the Holy Tuesday operation”-the September 11 attacks.

The meeting ended on January 8, 2000, when three of the participants-Khalid al Mihdhar, Nawar al Hazmi, and Khalid bin Attash-left Kuala Lumpur for Bangkok, Thailand. Of the three, the CIA was still able to identify only al Mihdhar by his full name. CIA officials in Kuala Lumpur notified their counterparts in Thailand and asked them to pick up the surveillance, and the agency’s Langley, Virginia HQ sent an urgent cable the next day with the same instructions. These messages came to late; the al Qaeda suspects had disappeared into the busy streets of Bangkok.

Shakir, the Iraqi greeter, reported to work at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport on 9&10-January. He never showed up again.

On 12-January-2000, the chief of the CIA’s al Qaeda unit brief his bosses about the Kuala Lumpur meeting. The official, apparently unaware that the meeting had broken up four days earlier, reported erroneously that the surveillance in Kuala Lumpur was continuing. Three days later, unbeknownst to US officials, al Hazmi and Al Mihdhar slipped onto a United Airlines flight from Bangkok to Los Angeles.

On 11-September, 2001, Nawaf al Hazmi and his brother Salem, along with Khalid al Mihdhar, hijacked American Airlines flight 77. At 9:38 a.m., the airplane struck the Pentagon.

Six days later, authorities in Qatar arrested Shakir in Doha, the nation’s capital, where he had begun working as a mid-level employee at Qatar’s Ministry of Religious Development. The CIA had learned Shakir’s identity, but not his whereabouts, after the Kuala Lumpur meeting ended. In the short time since the 9/11 attacks, the FBI identified al Hazmi and Al Mihdar as two of the hijackers and placed Shakir at the meeting in Malaysia.

Shakir’s presence at the gathering in Kuala Lumpur wasn’t the only thing that piqued investigators’ interest in him. According to CIA reporting, authorities found both on his person and in his Doha apartment, a stunning collection of information on some very dangerous characters. The terrorists in touch with Shakir had both strong ties to al Qaeda and indirect links to the former regime in Iraq. Several of them had been involved in bloody attacks on Americans dating back to the early 1990’s. The stash wasn’t a complete surprise.

The CIA had previous reportin gthat Shakir had received at least one phone call from the planning HQ for the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center.

Among Shakir’s contacts were Zahid Sheikh Mohammed, the brother of September 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed; Musab Yasin, the brother of 1993 World Trade Center bomber Abdul Rahman Yasin, who was harbored and supported by the Iraqi regime for a decade after that attack; and Ibrahim Ahmad Suleiman, a US citizen born in Kuwait, whose fingersprints were found on the bomb-making manuals authorities found after the 1993 WTC attack.

One contact stood out as a special indicator of Shakir’s standing with al Qaeda; an old telephone number for Mamdouh Mahmud Salim, whose roots are suggested by his nom de guerre, Abu Hajer al Iraqi. The number reached a desk at Taba Investments, perhaps the best-known of Osama bin Laden’s front companies. Abu Hajer, a founding member of al Qaeda, was described by another al Qaeda operative as Osama bin Laden’s “best friend”.

The preceding information reflects the consensus of the US intelligence community. Virtually no one disputes the details. What happened next, however, and what it all means, remains a source of intense debate inside the halls of US intelligence agencies.

Despite Shakir’s direct connections with several of the world’s most dangerous terrorists, the Qatari government released him from custody. On October 21, 2001, he boarded a plane for Baghdad. But he didn’t arrive there; he was detained at his connection in Amman by Jordanian intelligence. Immediately following his capture, according to SU officials familiar with the intelligence on Shakir, the Iraqi government began exerting pressure on the Jordanians to release him. Just how much pressure depends on whom you ask.

Some US intelligence officials, primarily the CIA, believe that Iraq’s demand for Shakir’s release was pro forma, no different from the requests governments regularly make on behalf of citizens detained by a foreign government. Others inside the CIA and in the national security hierarchy disagree. These officials point to the flurry of phone calls, diplomatic cables, and personal appeals from the Iraqi government to the Jordanians and contend that the reaction was anything but typical. This concern, they say, reflected an interest in Shakir at the highest levels of Saddam Hussein’s regime.

The Iraqi regime was not the only source of pressure for the Jordanian government. Within days of Shakir’s capture, and before it had been publicly reported, the Amman-based office of Amnesty International sent a letter to Jordan’s interior minister demanding an explanation of Shakir’s detention. “It appears that his arrest may have been in connection with suspicions on the part of the Jordanian authorities relating to visits he had made to Pakistan, Yemen and Malaysia,” read a subsequent Amnesty International report, which also expressed concern that Shakir was “held in incommunicado detention for several weeks before allowed access to a lawyer” and that “he had lost weight during his detention and appeared to be traumatized.”

While in custody, Shakir was questioned first by Jordanians and then by the CIA. The CIA officials who talked to Shakir reported that he was generally uncooperative. But even in refusing to talk, he provided some important information; the interrogators concluded that his evasive answers reflected counterinterrogation techniques so sophisticated that they likely had been learned from a government intelligence service. Shakir’s nationality, his contacts with the Iraqi embassy in Malaysia, and the keen interest of Baghdad in his case make Iraq the most likely candidate.

There are two different schools of thought on this. The CIA had not previously identified Shakir’s contact as an intelligence officer. Saddam usually, after all, assigned his intelligence agents to high-ranking diplomatic posts, and US intelligence officials agree that Shakir’s contact was relatively low-ranking. Did CIA officials overlook his potential connections to Iraqi intelligence because his position didn’t fit its reporting on the practices of Iraqi intelligence offocials in embassies throughout the world? Some CIA officials later discounted Shakir’s alleged connections to Iraqi intelligence, citing his contact’s low rank as a primary reason.

Others at the CIA, Pentagon, and the NSA, disagree. Given the obvious gaps in the American government’s knowledge about Iraqi intelligence, it would be dangerously rigid thinking to assume that every Iraqi agent-with no exception-occupied a high-profile embassy position. And even if this is consistently true of intelligence operatives in Iraq embassies, how can we be sure that every Iraqi embassy employee in Malaysia fits that same pattern?

In any case, Jordanian officials conluded not only that Shakir’s embassy contact was likely from Iraqi intelligence, but that Shakir himself was working on behalf of the Iraqi Intelligence Service (IIS) and played an important role.

So the Jordanians-who cooperated so extensively with US intelligence after 9/11 that CIA director George Tenet would later praise them in congressional testimony as “courageous leaders” in the War on Terror-approached the CIA with an extraordinary proposal; release Shakir and try to flip him. That is, allow him to return to Iraq on the conditon that he agrees to report back on the activities of Iraqi intelligence.

It was a risky plan. Shakir was a potentially valuable link between Saddam’ regime and al Qaeda’s September 11 plot. Even if he wasn’t working for Iraqi intelligence, Shakir was one of a small group of terrorists still alive who might have had firsthand knowledge of the details of the Kuala Lumpur meeting. Could someone involved, however indirectly, in the worst terrorist attack in American history, and who was found with contact information for terrorists involved in several other attacks on America, be trusted to report back to Jordanian and US intelligence officials on Iraqi’s intelligence?

In one of the most breathtaking mistakes by the US intelligence community after September 11, the CIA agreed to release Shakir. He posted a modest bail and returned to Iraq.

He hasn’t been heard from since.

In late February 2004, Christopher Carney made an astonishing discovery. Carney, a political science professor from Pennsylvania on leave to work at the Pentagon, was poring over a list of officers in Saddam Hussein’s much-feared security force, the Fedayeen Saddam. One name stood out: Lieutenant Colonel Ahmed Hikmat Shakir. The name was not spelled exactly as Carney had seen it before, but such discrepancies are common. Having studied the relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda for 18 months, he immediately recognized the potential significance of his find. According to a Wall Street Journal report, Shakir appears on three different lists of Fedayeen (the inner sanctum of the Makharabat) officers.

More on this here, here and here.

This piece from NRO talked about the 9/11 Commission’s shoddy conclusions, and refers to Shakir AKA Ahmad Hikmat Shakir Azzawi.

Here is Part II.

Here is Part III.