Clarke: Iraq Teamed Up With bin Laden to Produce WMDs

The media are fascinated with the parts of former White House terrorism czar Richard Clarke's book that trash President Bush as being out to lunch on the al-Qaida threat before 9/11.

But reporters aren't talking about the chapter of "Against All Enemies" that describes how Osama bin Laden cooperated with Iraqi scientists to make weapons of mass destruction - a development that, if true, would more than justify President Bush's decision to go to war in Iraq.

In his book, Clarke describes how the Clinton CIA determined in 1996 that Sudan's Shifa chemical plant, which was allegedly bankrolled by bin Laden, was producing the chemical EMPTA.

"EMPTA is a compound that had been used as a prime ingredient in Iraqi nerve gas," writes Clarke. "It has no other known use, nor had any other nation employed EMPTA to our knowledge for any purpose."

"What was an Iraqi chemical weapons agent doing in Sudan?" the terrorism authority asked.

He then explains:

"UNSCOM and other U.S. government sources had claimed that the Iraqis were working on something at a facility near Shifa. Could Sudan, using bin Laden's money, have hired some Iraqis to make chemical weapons? It seemed chillingly possible."

Invoking the 2001 testimony to U.S. interrogators of captured al-Qaida operative Jamal al-Fadl, Clarke says that he "matter-of-factly described his role in traveling to Sudan for his terrorist organization. [Al Fadl] said his assignment was to follow the work al Qaeda had underway in Khartoum to develop chemical weapons."

In fact, much remains in dispute over just what was going on at the Shifa plant, which was bombed to smithereens in a 1998 cruise missile attack ordered by President Clinton.

But since the press has crowned Richard Clarke as America's ultimate authority on the al-Qaida threat, they ought to at least be honest enough to acknowledge that his account provides ample justification for Bush's decision to oust the regime that Clarke says teamed up with bin Laden to make WMDs in Sudan.

Editor's note: