Attempts have been made to link Al-Qaeda with the Iraqi regime with such reports as Muhammad Atta, leader of the Al-Qaeda gang that carried the New York and Washington attacks last year, used to communicate with Iraqi diplomats. It was also reported that Iraq had connections with terrorist elements in Pakistan and Turkey. None of these reports, however, has been substantiated by convincing evidence.
In a recent forum on the present Iraqi situation and its possible links with terrorism, one of the speakers argued that the close cooperation between the Iraqi regime and Al-Qaeda was such a well-known fact that it needed no evidence at all. I pointed out to him that he could bring any other charge against Saddam except of international terrorism. It is because the country has been waging a relentless war on religious fundamentalism of all hues and denominations. Nobody has so far brought even a shred of evidence to link the regime with a successful or aborted fundamentalist outrage anywhere in the world.
The United States does not need to invent a charge of imaginary crime against Saddam. His past record is full of crimes against humanity.
Anyone unfamiliar with the region may come to a hasty conclusion that Saddam, Bin Laden, Hezbollah, Jihad, Baghdad and Peshawar are all birds of same feather. They could justify such a conclusion on the ground that all these resort to the same pattern of protest —burning US flags and Uncle Sam’s effigies.
However, the only common factor shared by them is a strong anti-American feeling. Apart from that, they are radically different in their ideologies and objectives.
The US cannot attack Saddam on the charge of promoting terrorist organizations because it has not come across any evidence since the Gulf War to implicate him as a supporter of destructive activities outside its borders. The experts on Iraq also confirm that it is the only country in the region where Al-Qaeda operatives or supporters could not undertake secret or public campaigns and set up underground financing system unlike most other countries in the region.
It is also confirmed that, in fact, Iraq was the first country in the region to launch an unrelenting campaign to stamp out extremist religious movements. The regime started suppressing religious preachers and organizations since Ayatollah Khomeini gained influence in Iran displaying the banner of religion as a symbol for political change and posed a threat to Saddam. Iraqi authorities still continue the same style of repression. That is why any attempt to project Iraq and Al-Qaeda as bedfellows appears ludicrous.
On the contrary, there is every possibility that Iraq would become a fertile breeding ground for Sunni and Shiite fundamentalist movements if the Americans launch a successful war there.
Americans will also be mistaken if they believe that a war on Iraq will help their fight against religious fundamentalism. A postwar scenario will, no doubt, help Al-Qaeda and similar movements to flourish unless the Americans evolve a strategy to drive out the religious opposition as well. It will be an almost impossible task though.
Arab News Opinion 8 December 2002
