Soccer Dad

Okrent's farewell and follow up

In his farewell column, Daniel Okrent took issue with some of the foibles of the Times's op-ed columnists. For example:

Before his retirement in January, William Safire vexed me with his chronic assertion of clear links between Al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein, based on evidence only he seemed to possess.

Now thanks to Mystery Achievement a few more people have that evidence. In "Why Did We Invade Iraq Again?" Mystery Achievement translates an Italian news item, "Allawi: Zawahiri was in Iraq in 1999. From the translation:

"Al-Qaeda's number two man, Ayman Al-Zawahiri, visited Iraq under a false name in September 1999 to participate in the 'Ninth Islamic People's Congress'": revealed former Iraqi Premier, Iyyad Allawi, to the Arab daily, "Al-Hayat". The Shiite political figure supplied to the newspaper certain information discovered by the Iraqi Secret Service in the archives of the previous regime which clarify the ties between Saddam Hussein and Islamic terrorist organizations. "Al-Zawahiri was summoned by Izza Ibrahim Al-Douri," said Allawi, "[who at the time] was vice president of the Council of the Direction of the Revolution, in order to participate in the congress along with 150 Islamic authorities coming from 50 Islamic countries."

Posted by SoccerDad at May 24, 2005 10:30 PM