The Connection: How al Qaeda's Collaboration with Saddam Hussein Has Endangered America: Hayes, Stephen F.: 9780060746735: Amazon.com: Books

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Stephen F. Hayes

The Connection: How al Qaeda's Collaboration with Saddam Hussein Has Endangered America Hardcover – June 1, 2004

by Stephen F. Hayes (Author)

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In the wake of 9/11 no one knew when the next attack would come, or where it would come from. America's enemies seemed gathered on all sides, and for several nerve-racking months, we lived in fear that the perpetrators might be plotting another action or, worse, that our most dangerous enemies -- al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein's murderous regime in Iraq -- could be banding together against us.

The Bush administration and CIA director George Tenet warned against complacency and pointed to growing indications that al Qaeda and Iraq were in league. But their case was undercut by unnamed intelligence officials, skeptical politicians, and a compliant media. So America relaxed. A comforting consensus settled in: Osama bin Laden was an impassioned fundamentalist, Saddam a secular autocrat. The two would never, could never, work together. ABC News reported that there was no connection between them, and the New York Times said so too, and pretty soon just about everyone agreed.

Just about everyone was wrong.

In The Connection, Stephen Hayes draws on CIA debriefings, top-secret memos from our national intelligence agencies, and interviews with Iraqi military leaders and Washington insiders to demonstrate that Saddam and bin Laden not only could work together, they did -- a curious relationship that stretches back more than a decade and may include collaboration on terrorist acts, chemical-weapons training, and sheltering some of the world's most wanted radicals.

Stephen Hayes's bombshell Weekly Standard piece on this topic was cited by Vice President Cheney as the "best source of information" about the Saddam-al Qaeda connections. Now Hayes delves even deeper, exposing the inner workings of America's deadliest opponents and providing a clear-eyed corrective to reams of underreported, politicized, and just plain wrong information.

The Connection is both a gripping snapshot of the War on Terror and a case study in how bureaucratic assumptions and media arrogance can put us all at risk.

Print length

224 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Harper
Publication date

June 1, 2004
Dimensions

5.25 x 0.81 x 7.38 inches
ISBN-10

0060746734
ISBN-13

978-0060746735
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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Weekly Standard reporter Hayes marshals a wealth of evidence that, in contrast with the tenuous connections that have so far made news, point to ties between Saddam Hussein's regime and al-Qaeda. Most intriguingly, Hayes finds links between Iraq and the 1993 World Trade Center bombers, one of whom apparently received shelter and financial support from Iraq after the attack. Hayes also gets confirmation by Czech officials of the alleged Prague meeting between September 11 hijacker Mohammed Atta and an Iraqi intelligence agent. Elsewhere, Hayes points to Iraqi intelligence documents that mention a "good relationship" with bin Laden. Other sources note an alleged agreement for Iraq to assist al-Qaeda in making chemical and biological weapons. Relying both on "open sources" like news articles, transcripts from the 1998 embassy bombing trials, as well as anonymous intelligence reports and informants, Hayes allows that some of these stories may prove unreliable. But he contends that the number, consistency and varied provenance of reports of high-level contacts between al-Qaeda and Iraq throughout the past decade allows one to "connect the dots" into a clear pattern of collaboration. Despite the frustrating absence of source notes and no knowledge of what cooperative efforts ever came of these contacts, most readers will conclude from this volume that the Saddam–al-Queda thread has some play left in it.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

About the Author

Stephen F. Hayes is a senior writer for the Weekly Standard and the author of the New York Times bestseller The Connection: How al Qaeda's Collaboration with Saddam Hussein Has Endangered America. He has been a commentator on many television and radio broadcasts, including the Today show, Meet the Press, the Diane Rehm Show, Fox News Sunday, the O'Reilly Factor, and CNN's Late Edition. His writing has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Wall Street Journal, The National Review, and the New York Post. He lives on the Chesapeake Bay with his wife and two children.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Harper; First Edition (June 1, 2004)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 224 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0060746734
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0060746735
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.25 x 0.81 x 7.38 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #2,558,485 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #4,474 in Terrorism (Books)
- #13,488 in Political Leader Biographies
- #16,030 in History & Theory of Politics

Customer Reviews:
64 ratings

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Top reviews from the United States

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After 5 yrs of the Iraq war this book serves as a good review

Reviewed in the United States on March 22, 2008

Verified Purchase

As I was reading the book I couldn't help thinking over and over; "I remember reading about that..." Of course; Mr. Hayes does a good job refreshing ones memory on several of the key points regarding Saddam Hussein's support of world wide terror against America. It would have been better if more detailed references were included but the auther does give enough sourcing to jog ones memory of the original reporting.

Not having the benefit of hindsight the connections cannot be ignored. There is not a lot of new material for people that have been interested in the story enough to stay current and read up on the subject but for the casual follower of the news, this book is a good source to refresh some of the key points of contention as to if a connection does exist.

6 people found this helpful

Excellent Summary of the Evidence

Reviewed in the United States on June 24, 2004

Verified Purchase

Hayes did an excellent job in organizing the diverse information connecting Iraq with al-Qaeda. Numerous high- and mid-level contacts occurred between Iraqi intelligence agents and al-Qaeda, over many years. I won't summarize that info here, but a simple internet search of the author's name and book-title will bring up various essays by him which give such overviews. What is most shocking in the revelations is, that so little of it gets mentioned in the standard news media. It is no secret that most media journalists describe themselves as "liberals", and this suggests a willful decision to not report this kind of essential information. Anyone who wishes to develop an educated opinion about the Iraq war must read this book. There is nothing comparable to it available. My only complaint is, the general references in the text could have been gathered into a bibliography with full-length citations at the end. But enough information is given to allow the researcher to follow-up to their satisfaction.

35 people found this helpful

Debunks Democratic/Media Spin About No Saddam-Al Qaeda Ties

Reviewed in the United States on June 30, 2004

Verified Purchase

"The Connection" is a compelling and credible narrative that should be considered essential reading for anyone interested in the truth about the war on terror and particularly the war in Iraq. This book for me was a "can't put down " page-turner.
Its revelations will shock and anger you, particularly because so much of it has been under-reported by a US media culture with a political agenda against the liberation of Iraq and against the Bush administration. Indeed, one of the most shocking chapters of the book is one which details the way the media has deep-sixed, been unduly dismissive of or misrepresented the evidence of Al Qaeda ties to Saddam's regime. Left unanswered however is the question as to why some Democrats and media types feel the need to play defense for Saddam.
Hayes is careful to avoid the claim that Saddam had a role in 9-11, even though he provides tantalizing evidence that Saddam may have at least had foreknowledge of the event. Recent media reports, citing an unnamed CIA source, try to cast doubts on one of Hayes' more compelling claims, that a Saddam Fedayeen officer was the same Iraqi who hosted the 9-11 hijackers at the terrorist summit in Malaysia in 2000 where experts be lieve 9-11 was planned. Is this the same CIA that missed clues for years that Al Qaeda was planning to attack the US and that cannot figure out what became of Saddam's WMD?
Even if not the same person, what was an Iraqi working under the direction of Iraqi intelligence agents out of Saddam's embassy in Malaysia doing helping the 9-11 hijackers? And why when later arrested in Jordan did Saddam's government put extraordinary pressure on the Jordanians to release him, then traveling back to Iraq under Saddam's protection? The point still stands that an Iraqi working for Saddam's govt., even if not the same officer in Saddam's Fedeyeen forces, helped facilitate a meeting between the 9-11 hijackers and other top Al Qaeda leaders.
Further, what of the continuing insistence by Czech interior and intelligence officials that Mohammad Atta met with an Iraqi intelligence agent in Prague in the months prior to 9-11? Hayes points to the evidence indicating such a meeting did occur, including at least one eyewitness.
Hayes shows his integrity and the credibility of his book by neither drawing conclusions about such events nor claiming for certain that the Atta meeting did occur. He merely pieces together a fascinating chain of evidence.
More compelling are the many other ways Hayes details about how Saddam worked with Al Qaeda, using testimony by multiple witnesses, NSA intercepts, etc.
One example that refutes conventional wisdom that militant Islamists would never associate with a secularist like Saddam is the Al Qaeda affiliated Ansar Al Islam's collusion with Saddam. This includes the housing of Ansar's leader, top Bin Laden terrorist Al Zarqawi, in an elite Baghdad hospital reserved for top Saddam regime officials after Al Zarqawi was wounded in Afghanistan.
Further, Hayes points out that Al Zarqawi's group was co-commanded by a top Saddam intelligence officer, Abu Wael, and used to attack anti-Saddam Kurdish forces in the north. This blows away the myth that Ansar Al Islam was in territory beyond Saddam's control.
Additionally, Ansar Al Islam's bases housed hundreds of Al Qaeda and Taliban fugitives who fled Afghanistan after the US invasion. Their passports, subsequently found by US forces in Iraq, were stamped with Iraqi entrance visas indicating Saddam's regime welcomed them.
The book is full of many more such compelling pieces of evidence all of which taken together form a frightening mosaic of Saddam/Al Qaeda cooperation. It becomes clear that post 9-11, after the Taliban regime, Saddam's government was the second biggest state helper of Al Qaeda. That would tend to support President Bush's logic in making Iraq the second target in the war on terror. (Yes, Saddam apologists on the left will claim Saudi Arabia and Pakistan did more for Al Qaeda. While that was perhaps true prior to 9-11 they at least cut off dealings with Al Qaeda afterwards, even attacking them, unlike Saddam who celebrated the 9-11 attacks and deepened his relationship with Al Qaeda after 9-11 as the book shows.)
The only real negative about the book is that it tends to bog down slightly towards the middle when Hayes attempts to connect the Sudanese chemical/pharmaceutical plant destroyed by President Clinton in 1998 to both Iraq and Al Qaeda. While interesting, it is the weakest link in Hayes' case, which he is honest enough to admit by the way.
For those who might ignorantly dismiss this book as hopelessly biased keep in mind the book is published by Harper Collins, not some right wing publisher. Do not dismiss Hayes' efforts without first reading his book and seeing for yourself that he is both fair and reasonable, admitting where the case for Saddam having worked with Al Qaeda is weak, along with hard-hitting and credible evidence of such collusion. His book is thoroughly researched and will stand the scrutiny of even the most skeptical reader. Don't be swayed against this book by obviously partisan reviewers who, judging by their lack of any real detail or substantive objections, clearly have not read this book.

48 people found this helpful

Reviewed in the United States on October 15, 2005

Verified Purchase

Very informative but I wish it had references to compare to. Where were these facts coming from? I'm sure there were connections because anybody who believes two enemies of the USA would not work to destroy us because of some religious differences is very naïve. Time has shown alliances of convenience or necessity have always come about between even the fiercest of enemies.

9 people found this helpful

very informative

Reviewed in the United States on January 7, 2015

Verified Purchase

Very interesting book

Reviewed in the United States on March 12, 2016

Verified Purchase

Great Purchase

The conventional wisdom is wrong

Reviewed in the United States on June 5, 2004

Verified Purchase

Stephen Hayes takes the conventional wisdom that Osama and Saddam did not cooperate in terror and proves it wrong in a clear, cogent manner. Outstanding book.

32 people found this helpful

This book has enough evidence convince any rational person.

Reviewed in the United States on August 1, 2010

Verified Purchase

It's revealing that a book containing extensive evidence of the bin Laden/Saddam connection received so many 1 star reviews by left wing traitors. I guess the book got the fifth column in the US hysterical. The book contains fact after fact after fact linking Saddam w/ bin Laden. In addition, being in the army although never deployed to Iraq , I have heard numerous anecdotes by troops deployed to Iraq which indicated Iraq was involved in infiltrating people into the US and Europe. These troops found evidence which includes large numbers of blank drivers licenses for most US states,together with 100s of thousands of US dollars and Euros.

3 people found this helpful

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