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Thursday, October 24, 2002 
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A portion of Yossef Bodansky's new book
The High Cost of Peace reviewed.
by Professor M. Kahl

The recent attacks on the U.S. Marines in Kuwait are a long anticipated part of comprehensive joint preparations of Saddam Hussein, Yasser Arafat, and Osama bin Laden to flare up the region, as well as strike at the heart of the West, in case war seems inevitable. Saddam is not passively awaiting the U.S. to start a war. Instead, he has long been adamant on preemptively launching an anti-Israel and anti-U..S. war involving both weapons of mass destruction and international terrorism. As described in detail in Yossef Bodansky's new book The High Cost of Peace, Baghdad has been preparing for such a war for a several years - from the moment Saddam concluded that Iraq's renewed strategic ascent and military build-up was bound to get him into confrontation with Washington. The High Cost of Peace reveals that the latest mile-stone in Baghdad advance toward a preemptive war took place in late June/early July 2002.

In a key strategy formulation meeting chaired by Saddam in late June, his son Qusay, who had since been nominated both Minister of Defense and Deputy Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces in anticipation for the great war, defined the nature of the Iraqi response. He argued that so far Iraq had dealt "cautiously, conservatively, rationally, and responsibly" with U.S. aggression, as well as used "only limited defensive means" in support of the Palestinians. This was about to change drastically. "I am confident that our entire Nation will be set aflame and they [the Americans] must know that the entire region will turn into rubble with Israel at the forefront. If Bin Laden truly did carry out the September attacks as they claim, then as God is my witness, we will prove to them that what happened in September is a picnic compared to the wrath of Saddam Hussein," Qusay assured his father his aides.

Meanwhile, hundreds of non-Iraqis - mainly PLO-affiliated Palestinians and al-Qaeda- affiliated Islamists - were trained by Unit 999 of Iraqi intelligence for suicide operations with the use of weapons of mass destruction. According to the senior Arab security officials, The High Cost of Peace reveals, some of these graduates already "succeeded in infiltrating several Arab countries. They are provided with instructions, secret codes, and advanced weapons." On July 12, the Baghdad-based Congress of Arab Popular Forces - Iraq's umbrella organization for sponsoring terrorism - issued a communique about the forthcoming terrorism campaign. "Political parties, parliaments, trade unions and all nationalist, Islamist and leftist [organizations] across the Arab world and among Arabs in exile should ... prepare to resist any aggression against Iraq," the communique read. "They should consider U.S. interests and presence, as well as the allies and agents who assist [Washington], a target in responding firmly to the forces of evil and strike them with all available means."

We now know that Abu-Musab Zarqawi - a senior commander and planner of bin Laden - was present at these meetings. According to data provided by Israel from recently captured terrorists, Unit 999 trained Islamist terrorists in Salman Pak (near Baghdad) and other bases in sophisticated bomb-making techniques including the use of weapons of mass destruction. The Iraqis even permitted the trainees to test-use chemical weapons in a range in southern Kurdistan near Halabja. Soon afterwards, Islamist detachments were sent on diverse missions - including attacks on the Russians in Chechnya, attacks on U.S. bases and facilities in Turkey and Jordan, as well as attacks against civilian and military objectives at the heart of Israel. Of crucial significance to the current crisis are the joint preparations of Saddam, Arafat and bin Laden to take on the Arab governments and forces that might cooperate with the U.S. against Iraq. As revealed in The High Cost of Peace, the latest phase of the terrorist preparations started last spring by the Palestinians.

Bodansky wrote:

In late March and early April, a body made up of Arafat loyalists, Palestinian Islamists, and followers of Osama bin Laden started preparing to resume international terrorism. The new terrorism campaign was explicitly modeled on Arafat's Black September Organization of the 1970s. Muhammad Dahlan and his HAMAS friend Muhammad Deif emerged as the driving force behind this initiative. Starting in the last week of March, the Gaza-based pair appealed to Libya, Iran, and Syria (via HizbAllah), as well as to Osama bin Laden and his sponsors in Pakistan, for help in establishing a terrorist organization for operations against Israel, pro-Western Arab countries, and the U.S.-led West.

According to Libyan and Egyptian sources, the new Palestinian group would "carry out martyrdom operations" against Israel and would make plans "to assassinate Arab leaders and officials colluding with the United States and Israel in the crimes against the Palestinian people." The Palestinian emissaries who approached Libya specified that their group would be based on "the Black September Organization and the groups that were led by Wadi Haddad," both of which were supported by Qadhafi in the 1970s and early 1980s. Egyptian security officials were convinced that the new group did not lack either the resources or the determination to act and that it was capable of launching operations "immediately."

The prospect of a new Black September Organization was first explicitly mentioned on March 29, when the chief of Fatah forces in Lebanon, Brigadier General Sultan Abu-al-Aynayn, hosted Palestinian officials from Beirut at his headquarters at the Al-Rashidiyah refugee camp near Tyre. The primary purpose of the meeting was to inform the officials that, on Arafat's instructions, "there were no longer any red lines constraining the Palestinians," and therefore the Fatah fighters would soon "launch attacks across the Lebanon-Israel border." However, Abu-al-Aynayn devoted most of his time to discussing Fatah's reaction to the escalating fighting in the territories, the siege of Arafat's compound, and the possibility that Arafat might be harmed by Israel. The only viable way to put an end to these activities, Abu-al-Aynayn suggested, was by forcing the United States into coercing Israel to desist. Hence, the Palestinian diaspora should be mobilized to launch attacks against "Zionist and U.S. interests" all over the world. "Our reach is long, and with this continuous struggle we have the right to respond," Abu-al-Aynayn argued. He added that if Washington failed to intervene and save Arafat and the PA, the Palestinians would resort to the tactics of Black September. "The world forced us once before to create an organization called Black September," he said. "We hope the world won't force us to use the tactics of Black September once again."

The fact that the Palestinians sought help from Osama bin Laden and his Pakistani patrons offers insight into the ideological framework of this initiative. In late March, a high-level delegation of Palestinian Islamists (based in Lebanon and Syria) arrived in Pakistan, bringing a handwritten appeal from Sheikh Ahmad Yassin. The Palestinians, Yassin wrote, were currently "the victims of the most hideous campaign of annihilation in the contemporary history of Palestine." But the Islamists did not intend to accept this situation. "We affirm that in spite of the grisly campaign our people will not kneel down and will bravely confront the attackers with the help of Allah. Moreover, our resistance factions will chase that malicious enemy in all areas of Palestine," Yassin vowed. "And it is a jihad until either victory or martyrdom!" He then appealed to the Muslim world for any possible help. The Palestinian delegation that delivered Yassin's message held extensive discussions with their Pakistani hosts as to how this help might be provided.

The initial response of the bin Laden camp came on April 2, stressing the central role of Arafat's Fatah forces. A group calling itself the bin Laden Brigades-Palestine issued a statement formally integrating the Islamist and Fatah wave of anti-Israeli terrorism into bin Laden's global jihad. The bin Laden Brigades announced that their forces were now at the disposal of "Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades and fighter commander Marwan al-Barghouti" to fight "alongside the Brigades' fighters and the Islamic factions." The statement emphasized that numerous Palestinian factions, specifically including al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, "[had] become part of the International Front for Fighting Jews and Christians, led by Osama bin Laden." They now "[had] found the path of Islam and adopted the line of genuine resistance of the jihad movement and Islamic resistance, that is the path of jihad and martyrdom for the sake of God, and discarded forever the lies of the alleged peace and the myths of negotiations."

The general thrust of this communiqué was confirmed in Gaza by the Unified Leadership of the Intifadah--the umbrella organization covering Fatah's Tanzim, Fatah's al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, HAMAS, Islamic Jihad, the PFLP, and the DFLP. On April 2, the Unified Leadership issued a communiqué calling for anti-U.S. terrorist operations all over the world. "The United States is backing the Israeli assault on the Palestinians," the communiqué said. "Therefore, U.S. facilities, targets, and interests throughout the world should be harmed."

Presently, many of these networks - deployed throughout the Middle East and the West - are ready to strike out in order to defend Iraq. The Islamists are convinced a successful U.S. attack on Iraq will be a turning point detrimental to their Jihad. Zawahiri elucidated the Islamist vision in his October 8 audio-tape, and more so the full text disseminated among Islamist circles. "The campaign against Iraq has aims that go beyond Iraq into the Arab Islamic World. It's first aim is to destroy any effective military force in the proximity of Israel," Zawahiri explains. "It's second aim is to consolidate the supremacy of Israel with weapons of mass destruction in the region without any rival. This is to ensure that subjugation of the Arabic Islamic countries is completely," Zawahiri stresses. "Therefore the attack on Iraq is expected to extend to Iran and Pakistan and destroy it's programmes relating to nuclear weapons." the campaign's "third and biggest aim is to split the Arab world into smaller states that are incapable of protecting themselves" and thus fall under U.S.-Israeli hegemony. Zawahiri warns that "these foolish shortsighted politics that will lead to an explosive situation in the region. America will be entangled in wars, it's end point only Allah knows. So perhaps this is the end of the American empire of evil." Therefore, Zawahiri declares, "the Muslim Nation [must] act immediately" in order "to stop this Satanic plots. The situation is critical. The aim is to destroy us as the Muslim Nation," Zawahiri concludes.

In that, Zawahiri was echoing bin Laden's October 6 audio-tape in which he warned that "the criminal gang at the White House, the agents of the Jews, ... are preparing to attack and partition the Islamic world," in order to destroy the Muslim World. To avert this calamity, bin Laden warned Americans, "the youth of Islam are preparing things that will fill your hearts with fear. They will target key sectors of your economy until you stop your injustice and aggression or until the more short-lived of us die."