The Report
of the Iraq Inquiry
Iraq’s
links with Al Qaida
The
Assessment stated that:
•
There had been
“sporadic links between Al Qaida and the Iraqi regime since
at
least the
early 1990s”.
•
Saddam
Hussein’s attitude to Al Qaida had “not always been consistent”; he
had
“generally
rejected suggestions of co‑operation”.
•
“Intelligence
nonetheless indicates that […] meetings have taken place
between
senior
Iraqi representatives and senior Al Qaida operatives.”
•
“Some reports
also suggest that Iraq may have trained some Al Qaida
terrorists
since
1998.”
•
“Al Qaida has
shown interest in gaining chemical and biological expertise
from
Iraq, but
we do not know whether any such training was
provided.”
•
There was “no
intelligence of current co‑operation between Iraq and Al
Qaida”.
•
There was
intelligence on an Al Qaida presence in Iraq.
•
Abu Musab
al‑Zarqawi, “a prominent Al Qaida associated operational planner,
was
in Baghdad”
and appeared “to act with a considerable degree of autonomy”. It
was
“possible
that he could be acting independently of the senior Al Qaida
leadership”.
•
In addition,
there were “a number of Al Qaida extremists (possibly in
the
hundreds)”,
“linked to al‑Zarqawi”, in the Kurdish Autonomous Zone
(KAZ)
in northern
Iraq. Some were “involved in development and production of
CB
substances
at a facility near Halabjah, within a base run by the Kurdish
extremist
group
Ansar
al‑Islam (associated
with Al Qaida).”
•
There was “no
evidence of control” by the Iraqi regime over either Ansar
al‑Islam
or the Al
Qaida elements in the KAZ.
Iraq’s
links with other terrorist groups
Senior
Iraqi Government officials had “sought to establish contact
with Hizballah” in
the
summer of
2002, but “those approaches were rejected”; Hizballah would “not
respond in
any way
that might be perceived as support for Saddam”.
There had
also been Iraqi “attempts to increase co‑operation” with
“major Palestinian
terrorist
groups”. The JIC
assessed that they would remain preoccupied with events
in
Israel and
the Occupied Territories; and that they would “be influenced more
by Iran and
Syria – who
want to avoid antagonising the US – than by Saddam”. Individual
Palestinian
terrorists
and groups under Saddam Hussein’s influence had “limited
capabilities, but
could mount
small scale attacks”.
399.
A further
JIC Assessment, ‘International Terrorism: The Current Threat
from
Islamic
Extremists’, was produced on 16 October 2002.
400.
In the light
of recent terrorist attacks, including an attack on a French
supertanker
off Yemen
on 6 October, an attack against US Marines in Kuwait on 8 October
and the
270