Newly Declassified Iraqi Testimony Shows Why Saddam Had to Be Removed

[Geee]

Pajamas Media:

September 11, 2001, taught us that it is too costly to allow a leader with a history of aggression and stated intent to harm the U.S. to maintain links to terrorist groups and acquire weapons capabilities to act upon that sentiment. Newly declassified documents about the testimony of Tariq Aziz, Saddam Hussein’s deputy prime minister, reminds us why Saddam had to be removed from power.

Contradicting Saddam Hussein’s testimony where he claimed he actually wanted an alliance with the U.S. against Iran, Tariq Aziz describes Saddam as an “anti-American” who was “delighted” when al-Qaeda bombed the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998. The documents do not mention Saddam’s private reaction to 9/11, but we know that his public reaction was to be possibly the only leader to refuse to condemn the attacks, as well as the only leader to openly praise them. His sons and the state-controlled press did the same. This is a critical fact that is often forgotten: Saddam’s regime was the only one to publicly hail the 9/11 hijackers and not hide its desire to see such attacks happen again.

Aziz confirms that Saddam’s regime supported terrorists like Abu Abbas, the notorious mastermind of the 1985 hijacking of the Achille Lauro, providing him with a farm for fundraising for Palestinian terrorists and for use as a training center. They even gave him the AK-47s he needed. We also know that Abu Ibrahim, called “the most dangerous bomb maker in the world bar none during my time as a CIA officer” by former CIA case officer Robert Baer, operated a network from his home in Baghdad. The Duelfer Report confirmed that Iraqi intelligence trained terrorists from around the Arab world, including at the Salman Pak facility known to house a Boeing airliner that defectors said was used to simulate hijackings. We don’t know if these terrorists were al-Qaeda members or not, but that doesn’t change the fact that Saddam not only praised 9/11 but trained jihadists in the tactics necessary to repeat it.