Friday, May 9, 2003 7:22 a.m. EDT
9/11 Bombshell: Judge Rules Saddam Trained Hijackers
In a bombshell finding virtually ignored by the American media, a U.S. district court judge in Manhattan ruled Wednesday that Salman Pak, Saddam Hussein's airplane hijacking school located on the outskirts of Baghdad, played a material role in the devastating Sept. 11 attacks on America.
The ruling renders moot complaints from Bush administration critics that the U.S. has so far failed to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, since an official verdict that Baghdad was complicit in the attacks provides more than enough justification for the decision to topple Saddam Hussein's regime.
In reporting Judge Harold Baer's $104 million judgment against Hussein and Osama bin Laden, only the Philadelphia Inquirer and the Chinese news service Xinhua mentioned Salman Pak by name.
But according to courtroom testimony by three of the camp's instructors, the facility was a virtual hijacking classroom where al-Qaeda recruits practiced overcoming U.S. flight crews using only small knives - a terrorist technique never employed before 9/11.
At least one veteran of Salman Pak, Sabah Khodad, has maintained that the 9/11 hijackers were actually trained by Saddam's henchman. He told PBS in October 2001 that the World Trade Center attack "was done by graduates of Salman Pak."
The Inquirer called the finding "dramatic," noting that it was the first legal claim tying Baghdad to America's darkest day.
Meanwhile, the New York Times and the Washington Post, which opposed the war in Iraq, have so far declined to report the first official ruling linking Saddam to 9/11.
Baer's ruling represents a huge victory, not only for the families of Timothy Soulas and George Eric Smith - the two 9/11 victims in whose name the suit was brought - but also for former CIA Director James Woolsey, one of the earliest proponents of the Salman Pak-9/11 connection.
His authoritative testimony, backed by satellite photos showing a Russian-built Tupolev 54 airliner parked in the middle of an open field, offered key support for lawyer James Beasley's argument that Salman Pak played a role in the attacks.
Beasley told the Inquirer that persuading the court about the link was "a hell of a hurdle to get over."
One significant obstacle faced by the Philadelphia lawyer was that Woolsey's successor at the CIA, George Tenet, has never included Salman Pak among evidence tying Iraq to al-Qaeda - and has publicly denied that Baghdad played any role whatsoever in the 9/11 attacks.
Tenet's decision to ignore the critical role played by the camp is said to be based in part on friction between the CIA and the Iraqi National Congress, which helped several Salman Pak veterans defect to the U.S. and made them available to the media.
Tenet's opposition is believed to have been key in the decision by the Bush administration not to spotlight Iraq's 9/11 role, leaving White House officials with the sole argument that Saddam Hussein threatened the U.S. with weapons of mass destruction.
But as the postwar search for WMDs enters its fourth week without any major find, some now fear that the Bush administration's decision to side with Tenet over Woolsey on Salman Pak is shaping up as a major political blunder.
Read more on this subject in related Hot Topics:
Bush Administration
War on Terrorism
9/11 Bombshell: Judge Rules Saddam Trained Hijackers
In a bombshell finding virtually ignored by the American media, a U.S. district court judge in Manhattan ruled Wednesday that Salman Pak, Saddam Hussein's airplane hijacking school located on the outskirts of Baghdad, played a material role in the devastating Sept. 11 attacks on America.
The ruling renders moot complaints from Bush administration critics that the U.S. has so far failed to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, since an official verdict that Baghdad was complicit in the attacks provides more than enough justification for the decision to topple Saddam Hussein's regime.
In reporting Judge Harold Baer's $104 million judgment against Hussein and Osama bin Laden, only the Philadelphia Inquirer and the Chinese news service Xinhua mentioned Salman Pak by name.
But according to courtroom testimony by three of the camp's instructors, the facility was a virtual hijacking classroom where al-Qaeda recruits practiced overcoming U.S. flight crews using only small knives - a terrorist technique never employed before 9/11.
At least one veteran of Salman Pak, Sabah Khodad, has maintained that the 9/11 hijackers were actually trained by Saddam's henchman. He told PBS in October 2001 that the World Trade Center attack "was done by graduates of Salman Pak."
The Inquirer called the finding "dramatic," noting that it was the first legal claim tying Baghdad to America's darkest day.
Meanwhile, the New York Times and the Washington Post, which opposed the war in Iraq, have so far declined to report the first official ruling linking Saddam to 9/11.
Baer's ruling represents a huge victory, not only for the families of Timothy Soulas and George Eric Smith - the two 9/11 victims in whose name the suit was brought - but also for former CIA Director James Woolsey, one of the earliest proponents of the Salman Pak-9/11 connection.
His authoritative testimony, backed by satellite photos showing a Russian-built Tupolev 54 airliner parked in the middle of an open field, offered key support for lawyer James Beasley's argument that Salman Pak played a role in the attacks.
Beasley told the Inquirer that persuading the court about the link was "a hell of a hurdle to get over."
One significant obstacle faced by the Philadelphia lawyer was that Woolsey's successor at the CIA, George Tenet, has never included Salman Pak among evidence tying Iraq to al-Qaeda - and has publicly denied that Baghdad played any role whatsoever in the 9/11 attacks.
Tenet's decision to ignore the critical role played by the camp is said to be based in part on friction between the CIA and the Iraqi National Congress, which helped several Salman Pak veterans defect to the U.S. and made them available to the media.
Tenet's opposition is believed to have been key in the decision by the Bush administration not to spotlight Iraq's 9/11 role, leaving White House officials with the sole argument that Saddam Hussein threatened the U.S. with weapons of mass destruction.
But as the postwar search for WMDs enters its fourth week without any major find, some now fear that the Bush administration's decision to side with Tenet over Woolsey on Salman Pak is shaping up as a major political blunder.
Read more on this subject in related Hot Topics:
Bush Administration
War on Terrorism
