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Seems 9/11 Commissioner John Lehman may have his names mixed up. [Given that Lehman was apparently getting his information from allies of Doug Feith's Office of Special Plans, what does this indicate about how scrupulous was the OSP's intelligence analysis? All those foreign names?]
This from the WaPo, via Atrios:
An allegation that a high-ranking al Qaeda member was an officer in Saddam Hussein's private militia may have resulted from confusion over Iraqi names, a senior administration official said yesterday.
Former Navy secretary John Lehman, a Republican member of the commission investigating the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, said Sunday that documents found in Iraq "indicate that there is at least one officer of Saddam's Fedayeen, a lieutenant colonel, who was a very prominent member of al Qaeda." Although he said the identity "still has to be confirmed," Lehman introduced the information on NBC's "Meet the Press" to counter a commission staff report that said there were contacts between Iraq and al Qaeda but no "collaborative relationship."Yesterday, the senior administration official said Lehman had probably confused two people who have similar-sounding names.
One of them is Ahmad Hikmat Shakir Azzawi, identified as an al Qaeda "fixer" in Malaysia. Officials say he served as an airport greeter for al Qaeda in January 2000 in Kuala Lumpur, at a gathering for members who were to be involved in the attacks on the USS Cole, the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
Iraqi military documents, found last year, listed a similar name, Lt. Col. Hikmat Shakir Ahmad, on a roster of Hussein's militia, Saddam's Fedayeen.
"By most reckoning that would be someone else" other than the airport greeter, said the administration official...He added that the identification issue is still being studied but "it doesn't look like a match to most analysts."
In an interview yesterday, Lehman said it is still possible the man in Kuala Lumpur was affiliated with Hussein, even if he isn't the man on the Fedayeen roster. "It's one more instance where this is an intriguing possibility that needs to be run to ground," Lehman said. "The most intriguing part of it is not whether or not he was in the Fedayeen, but whether or not the guy who attended Kuala Lumpur had any connections to Iraqi intelligence. . . . We don't know."
Still possible that Azzawi might, in the great scheme of probability in the universe, be affiliated with Iraqi intelligence? That would be the triumph of fantasy over probability. He might also be a billion other things. What does Lehman want Azzawi to be? Iraqi intelligence of course. Does that make it true? No.
Spencer Ackerman has more on Ahmed Hikmat Shakir, [not to confuse matters, but that would seem to actually be the same identity as the Iraqi Fedayeen Ltn. Col. described in the WaPo piece above, Hikmat Shakir Ahmad, who is not to be confused with Ahmad Hikmat Shakir Azzawi, the al Qaeda greeter in Malaysia. For future reference, Ackerman refers to the Iraqi Fedayeen colonel in his post as "Shakir"].
But because he is working from the background on Shakir provided by the Weekly Standard's Stephen Hayes, Spencer would seem to be repeating the mistake that Hayes and indeed Lehman made. Conflating the identity of Shakir the Iraqi, and Shakir Azzawi, the al Qaeda greeter in Malaysia.
Indeed, it is confusing. Good for Pincus for clearing it up.
Here's Newsday's Knut Royce's take:
The CIA concluded 'a long time ago' that an al-Qaida associate who met with two of the Sept. 11 hijackers in Malaysia was not an officer in Saddam Hussein's army, as alleged Sunday by a Republican member of the 9/11 commission...
The claim that the Iraqi officer and al-Qaida figure are the same first appeared in a Wall Street Journal editorial on May 27. A similar account was then published in the June 7 edition of the Weekly Standard, which reported that the link was discovered by an analyst working for a controversial Pentagon intelligence unit under Douglas Feith, undersecretary of defense for policy.
As correspondent R writes, "Did the OSP get *anything* right?"
Here's a handy guide:
Ahmad Hikmat Shakir, a.k.a. Hikmat Shakir Ahmad = Iraqi Fedayeen Ltn. Col.
Ahmad Hikmat Shakir Azzawi = al Qaeda greeter in Malaysia
Ahmad Hikmat Shakir does not = Ahmad Hikmat Shakir Azzawi
Update: Spencer Ackerman points to this report by Knight Ridder's Jonathan Landay on the issue of Shakir's identity, and it offers new information I hadn't seen in the other pieces: Ahmad Hikmat Shakir, the al Qaeda "greeter" in Kuala Lumpur, was an Iraqi, who "was employed with the aid of an Iraqi intelligence officer."
Ahmad Hikmat Shakir was employed with the aid of an Iraqi intelligence officer as a "greeter" or "facilitator" for Arabic-speaking visitors at the airport at Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
In January 2000, he accompanied two Sept. 11 hijackers from the airport to a hotel where the pair met with Ramzi Binalshibh, a key planner of the attacks, and Tawfiz al Atash, who masterminded al-Qaida's strike on the USS Cole in October 2000.
There's no evidence that Ahmad Hikmat Shakir attended the meeting. Four days after it ended, he left Kuala Lumpur.
Several days after the Sept. 11 attacks, Ahmad Hikmat Shakir was arrested in Qatar in possession of highly suspicious materials that appeared to link him with al-Qaida.
The Qataris inexplicably released him, and he flew to Amman, Jordan, where he was arrested again. The Jordanians freed him under pressure from Iraq and Amnesty International, and he went to Baghdad.
That would seem to offer more credence to Lehman's suspicions. What's more, as Ackerman points out, twice, "This is something we probably can know. We have three individuals in custody who either were directly present at the Kuala Lumpur meeting or pulled its strings: 9/11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and Kuala Lumpur attendees Khallad bin Attash and Yazid Sufaat."
If it's knowable, why don't we know it?
And finally, why in the world did Amesty International push for Ahmad Hikmat Shakir's release from Jordanian custody? After all, while people may be quibbling over whether he had any connection to the Iraqi security services, no one argues that he was not affiliated with al Qaeda.
Post Script: I think Ana Marie Cox gets this just about right.
More: Reader N writes Wednesday:
From what Amnesty said at the time, I don't think they 'pushed for his release' so much as asked the Jordanians for confirmation that he was being humanely treated and whether charges would be brought:
[See this Amnesty report.]
There's something a little bathetic about the final comments, given what we now appear to know, but in context it seems like form-letter stuff rather than, say, a protracted letter-writing campaign for a prisoner of conscience. So I think the K-R report, written well after the fact, overstates Amnesty's role here...
Thanks much for the letters.