In August 2000, Ahmed Hikmat Shakir, a thirty-seven-year-old Iraqi, quietly began his job as a âgreeterâ at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport in Malaysia. The job, a common one in Southeast Asia and the Middle East, normally involves little more than welcoming visiting dignitaries and making certain that they move smoothly through the laborious entry process.
But Shakir was not a typical greeter. Although he was nominally employed by Malaysian Airlines, he had told associates he had been hired by a contact in the Iraqi embassy. More important, it was his embassy contact, not his employer, who told him when to report and when to take days off. So when the Iraqi embassy contact instructed him to report to work on January 5, 2000, Shakir dutifully obliged. His assignment that day would later make him the subject of an international man-hunt and a suspect in the worst single act of terrorism on American soil.
The events of that day and those that followed provide the governmentâs strongest suggestion that Saddam and al Qaeda may have worked together on September 11. The evidence is far from conclusive, but it cannot be dismissed. Those events are also an unfortunate example of the difficulty of maintaining effective liaison relationships between American and foreign intelligence services, and of how, even in the months following the worst intelligence failure in American history, dangerous terrorists were allowed to walk away from their cramped holding cells as free men.
In late December 1999, the Central Intelligence Agency, the National Security Agency, and the State Department all received intelligence about a meeting of al Qaedaâassociated terrorists to take place in Malaysia in early January of the next year. The NSA had intercepted communications from individuals tied to the 1998 al Qaeda attacks on U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. Although the information was incomplete, the intercepts picked up three first names: Khalid, Nawaf, and Salem.
The CIA, on high alert for potential attacks on millennium celebrations, immediately sent word to operatives around the world to track the would-be terrorists. On December 31, 1999, CIA officials in Pakistan cabled to headquarters that they âwere following the situation.â Nawaf was in Pakistan and Khalid was in Yemen. The CIA determined that they planned to meet in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, arriving on January 4, 2000, and established an operationâto be conducted jointly with Malaysian intelligenceâto monitor the comings and goings of the men. CIA officials assumed the meeting was called to plan attacks in Southeast Asia.
That same day, the CIA obtained a photocopy of the passport belonging to one of the suspected participants, Khalid al Mihdhar. Although al Mihdhar, a Saudi citizen, was known to have connections to al Qaeda and the Yemeni mujahideen, he was not yet on any terrorist watch lists on April 7, 1999, when the U.S. consulate in Jidda, Saudi Arabia, had given him a one-year visa granting him multiple-entry privilege to the United States.
The intelligence on Nawaf al Hazmi, at that point known only by his first name, was sketchier. The CIA determined that he was scheduled to leave Karachi, Pakistan, for Malaysia on January 4, 2000. In fact, he had departed two days earlier.
On January 5, 2000, officials at CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, sent a dispatch to operatives around the world that âwe need to continue the effort to identify these travelers and their activitiesâŚto determine if there is any true threat posed.â Information about the meeting was included in the al Qaedaârelated intelligence given to the most senior officials in the U.S. government. On at least two occasions, the director of the CIAâs al Qaeda unit gave briefings to his superiors about the meeting.
Khalid al Mihdhar, a thin, dark-haired man with a slightly crooked face, arrived at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport on January 5. The airport is an architectural wonderâa glass-enclosed tribute to modernity that attracts even tourists who arrive elsewhere in the Malaysian capital. The marble floors are buffed constantly, producing a surface so shiny, itâs possible to catch a glimpse of yourself simply by looking down. Round white beams shoot like three-dimensional spiderwebs from the floor to the unfinished ceiling, and Western stores such as the Tie Rack line the halls of the main terminal.
Ahmed Hikmat Shakir, the Iraqi greeter, met al Mihdhar shortly after he deplaned and escorted him through the bureaucratic entry procedures. Malaysian authorities photographed the arrival.
When they had finished the paperwork, Shakir walked al Mihdhar to a waiting car, much as any facilitator would. But then, rather than bidding his VIP good-bye and returning to work, Shakir jumped in the car and accompanied al Mihdhar to a condominium owned by Yazid Sufaat, an American-educated al Qaeda associate, where he was once again photographed by Malaysian intelligence. The Kuala Lumpur condo would serve as the site of a three-day meeting that the CIA later concluded was the main planning session for the October 12, 2000, bombing of the USS Cole and for the attacks of September 11, 2001. It is not yet known whether Shakir took an active part in the meeting, but he was certainly in fast company. The FBI believes as many as nine top al Qaeda terrorists attended the meeting, including Ramzi bin al Shibh, who later boasted to a journalist of his role as âcoordinator of the Holy Tuesday operationââthe September 11 attacks.
The meeting ended on January 8, 2000, when three of the participantsâKhalid al Mihdhar, Nawaf al Hazmi, and Khallad bin Attashâleft Kuala Lumpur for Bangkok, Thailand. Of the three, the CIA was still able to identify only al Mihdhar by his full name. CIA officials in Kuala Lumpur notified their counterparts in Thailand and asked them to pick up the surveillance, and the agencyâs Langley, Virginia, headquarters sent an urgent cable the next day with the same instructions. These messages came too late; the al Qaeda suspects had disappeared into the busy streets of Bangkok.
Shakir, the Iraqi greeter, reported to work at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport on January 9 and 10. He never showed up again.
On January 12, 2000, the chief of the CIAâs al Qaeda unit briefed his bosses about the Kuala Lumpur meeting. The official, apparently unaware that the meeting had broken up four days earlier, reported erroneously that the surveillance in Kuala Lumpur was continuing. Three days later, unbeknownst to U.S. officials, al Hazmi and al Mihdhar slipped onto a United Airlines flight from Bangkok to Los Angeles.
On September 11, 2001, Nawaf al Hazmi and his brother Salem, along with Khalid al Mihdhar, hijacked American Airlines flight 77. At 9:38 A.M., the airplane struck the Pentagon.
Six days later, authorities in Qatar arrested Shakir in Doha, the nationâs capital, where he had been working as a mid-level employee at Qatarâs Ministry of Religious Development. The CIA had learned Shakirâs identity, but not his whereabouts, after the Kuala Lumpur meeting ended. In the short time since the 9/11 attacks, the FBI had identified al Hazmi and al Mihdhar as two of the hijackers and placed Shakir at the meeting in Malaysia.
Shakirâs presence at the gathering in Kuala Lumpur wasnât the only thing that piqued investigatorsâ interest in him. According to CIA reporting, authorities found both on his person and in his Doha apartment, a stunning collection of information on some very dangerous characters. The terrorists in touch with Shakir had both strong ties to al Qaeda and indirect links to the former regime in Iraq. Several of them had been involved in bloody attacks on Americans dating back to the early 1990s. The stash wasnât a complete surprise. The CIA had previous reporting that Shakir had received at least one phone call from the planning headquarters for the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center.
Among Shakirâs contacts were Zahid Sheikh Mohammed, the brother of September 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed; Musab Yasin, the brother of 1993 World Trade Center bomber Abdul Rahman Yasin, who was harbored and supported by the Iraqi regime for a decade after that attack; and Ibrahim Ahmad Suleiman, a U.S. citizen born in Kuwait, whose fingerprints were found on the bomb-making manuals authorities found after the 1993 WTC attack.
One contact stood out as a special indicator of Shakirâs standing with al Qaeda: an old telephone number for Mamdouh Mahmud Salim, whose roots are suggested by his nom de guerre, Abu Hajer al Iraqi. The number reached a desk at Taba Investments, perhaps the best-known of Osama bin Ladenâs al Qaeda front companies. Abu Hajer, a founding member of al Qaeda, was described by another senior al Qaeda operative as Osama bin Ladenâs âbest friend.â
The preceding information reflects the consensus of the U.S. intelligence community. Virtually no one disputes the details. What happened next, however, and what it all means remain a source of intense debate inside the halls of U.S. intelligence agencies.
Despite Shakirâs direct connections with several of the worldâs most dangerous terrorists, the Qatari government released him from custody. On October 21, 2001, he boarded a plane for Baghdad. But he didnât arrive there: he was detained at his connection in Amman by Jordanian intelligence. Immediately following his capture, according to U.S. officials familiar with the intelligence on Shakir, the Iraqi government began exerting pressure on the Jordanians to release him. Just how much pressure depends on whom you ask.
Some U.S. intelligence officials, primarily at the CIA, believe that Iraqâs demand for Shakirâs release was pro forma, no different from the requests governments regularly make on behalf of citizens detained by a foreign government. Others inside the CIA and in the national security hierarchy disagree. These officials point to the flurry of phone calls, diplomatic cables, and personal appeals from the Iraqi government to the Jordanians and contend that the reaction was anything but typical. This concern, they say, reflected an interest in Shakir at the highest levels of Saddam Husseinâs regime.
Curiously, the Iraqi regime was not the only source of pressure for the Jordanian government. Within days of Shakirâs capture, and before it had been publicly reported, the Amman-based office of Amnesty International sent a letter to Jordanâs interior minister demanding an explanation of Shakirâs detention. âIt appears that his arrest may have been in connection with suspicions on the part of the Jordanian authorities relating to visits he had made to Pakistan, Yemen, and Malaysia,â read a subsequent Amnesty International report, which also expressed concern that Shakir was âheld in incommunicado detention for several weeks before being allowed access to a lawyerâ and that âhe had lost weight during his detention and appeared to be traumatized.â
While in custody, Shakir was questioned first by the Jordanians and then by the CIA. The CIA officials who talked to Shakir reported that he was generally uncooperative. But even in refusing to talk, he provided some important information: the interrogators concluded that his evasive answers reflected counterinterrogation techniques so sophisticated that they likely had been learned from a government intelligence service. Shakirâs nationality, his contacts with the Iraqi embassy in Malaysia, and the keen interest of Baghdad in his case make Iraq the most likely candidate.
But there are elements to Shakirâs story that have left some at the CIA skeptical of his involvement with Iraqi intelligence. U.S. officials know the identity of his contact at the Iraqi embassy in Kuala Lumpur. Iraqi embassies were often heavily populated by intelligence officers, which in some cases account for more than half of all embassy employees. The CIA, which often had a good idea of which embassy employees were conducting official business and which ones were acting on behalf of Iraqi intelligence, had not previously identified Shakirâs contact as an intelligence officer. Further, Saddam usually assigned his intelligence agents to high-ranking diplomatic posts, and U.S. intelligence officials agree that Shakirâs contact was relatively low-ranking.
Did CIA officials overlook his potential connections to Iraqi intelligence because his position didnât fit its reporting on the practices of Iraqi intelligence officials in embassies throughout the world? Itâs possible. Some CIA officials would later discount Shakirâs alleged connections to Iraqi intelligence, citing his contactâs low rank as a primary reason.
Others at the CIA, the Pentagon, and the National Security Council disagree. Given the obvious gaps in the American governmentâs knowledge about Iraqi intelligence, they contend, it would be dangerously rigid thinking to assume that every Iraqi agentâwith no exceptionâoccupied a high-profile embassy position. And even if this is consistently true of intelligence operatives in Iraq embassies, how can we be certain that every Iraqi embassy employee in Malaysia fits that same pattern?
In any case, Jordanian intelligence concluded not only that Shakirâs embassy contact was likely from Iraqi intelligence, but that Shakir himself was working on behalf of the Iraqi Intelligence Service (IIS)âand playing an important role.
So the Jordaniansâwho cooperated so extensively with U.S. intelligence after September 11 that CIA director George Tenet would later praise them in congressional testimony as âcourageous leadersâ in the War on Terrorâapproached the CIA with an extraordinary proposal: release Shakir and try to flip him. That is, allow him to return to Iraq on the condition that he agrees to report back on the activities of Iraqi intelligence.
It was a plan fraught with obvious risks. Shakir was a potentially valuable link between Saddam Husseinâs regime and al Qaedaâs September 11 plot. Even if he wasnât working for Iraqi intelligence, Shakir was one of a small group of terrorists still alive who might have had firsthand knowledge of the details of the Kuala Lumpur meeting. Could someone involved, however indirectly, in the worst terrorist attack in American history, and who was found with contact information for terrorists involved in several other attacks on America, be trusted to report back to Jordanian and U.S. intelligence officials on Iraqi intelligence?
In one of the most egregious mistakes by the U.S. intelligence community after September 11, the CIA agreed to release Shakir. He posted a modest bail and returned to Iraq.
Ahmed Hikmat Shakir hasnât been heard from since.
Imagine this scenario. The U.S. intelligence community receives a document scooped up from the Baghdad headquarters of the Mukhabaratâthe Iraqi Intelligence Serviceâafter the war in Iraq. It lists individuals from Kuwait and Saudi Arabia whom the Iraqi regime considers intelligence assets. The dossier includes Osama bin Laden. A leading U.S. intelligence agency determines that the document is authentic.
Such a find would be front-page news, right? Newspapers across the country would announce the discovery in dramatic headlines: âPartners in Terror: Documents Reveal Saddam-Osama Connection.â The revelation would lead newscasts on each of the big three television networks. The cable news channels, always eager for breaking stories, might even interrupt a talk show. Pictures of Saddam and Osama would be splashed across the covers of Time, U.S. News & World Report, and Newsweek.
On March 28, 1992, the Mukhabarat compiled such a list. It is twenty pages long, with âTop Secretâ marked at the top of each page. On page 14 is a now-familiar name: Osama bin Laden. The authors of the document assert that bin Laden âis in good relationship with our section in Syria.â The list was recovered after the war by the Iraqi National Congressâa group long opposed to Saddam Husseinâand turned over to U.S. officials. The Defense Intelligence Agency has determined that the document is authentic.
The reaction to that document by the establishment media and the U.S. intelligence community provides a revealing look at the treatment of the broader Iraqâal Qaeda links.
The DIA dismissed the inclusion of bin Laden as âinsignificantâ because it didnât include any additional information on the relationship between him and Iraqi intelligence. Still, reporters who obtained copies of the document were cautioned against republishing it in full. Why? Because the FBI and DIA are investigating the scores of other people listed and their connections with Iraqi intelligence. How is it possible that bin Ladenâs inclusion on the list is âinsignificant,â but the other names are potentially so significant that two U.S. intelligence agencies are investigating their potential connections with Iraqi intelligence?
Eleven months after the list was put together, six people were killed and more than one thousand injured in a bombing at the World Trade Center. A top secret CIA document concludes that a âsolid caseâ exists that al Qaeda operatives conducted the attacks. Fragmentary evidence points to Iraqi involvement. An Iraqi terrorist admitted mixing the chemicals for the bomb. Another conspirator made forty-six phone calls to Iraq two months before the plotâs masterminds arrived in the United Statesâone of them from Baghdad. One of the bombers returned to Baghdad with the active assistance of the Iraqi embassy in Amman, Jordan, and received safe haven and financial support from the Iraqi regime for nearly a decade after those attacks.
It may be that this was a series of strange coincidences. But doesnât this set of facts, coupled with the new revelation that Iraq considered bin Laden an intelligence asset, merit further inquiry by the media and the intelligence community?
The documentâs first media mention came on March 7, 2004, on CBS Newsâs 60 Minutes. But the report was buried several minutes into a story about Ahmed Chalabi and his Iraqi National Congress and took up just thirty seconds in the ten-minute piece. News reporters might have followed up with a simple report on the existence of the document. Enterprising investigative journalists might have looked into why the Iraqi regime considered bin Laden an asset.
Instead, the story ended there. As of this writing, only the Washington Times has mentioned that the document exists.
Not all reporters ignored the Iraqâal Qaeda connection. Many instead seemed determin...
