Who is Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi?

The Alleged Al-Zarqawi Sponsored Chemical and Biological Attacks

Powell’s UN statement with regard to Al Zarqawi rested on the existence of a chemical-biological weapons plant in Northern Iraq producing ricin, sarin and other biological weapons, allegedly to be used in terror attacks on the US and Western Europe.
With reference to the North Iraqi facility where the ricin was allegedly produced, The London Observer’s correspondent in Northern Iraq (9 February 2003) blatantly refutes Colin Powell’s statement:
” There is no sign of chemical weapons anywhere – only the smell of paraffin and vegetable butter used for cooking. In the kitchen, I discovered some chopped up tomatoes but not much else. The cook had left his Kalashnikov propped neatly against the wall. Ansar al-Islam – the Islamic group that uses the compound identified as a military HQ by Powell – yesterday invited me and several other foreign journalists into their territory for the first time. ‘We are just a group of Muslims trying to do our duty,’ Mohammad Hasan, spokes-man for Ansar al-Islam, explained. ‘We don’t have any drugs for our fighters. We don’t even have any aspirin. How can we produce any chemicals or weapons of mass destruction?’”
Barely a few weeks later, at the height of the military campaign, US Special Forces, together with their “embedded” journalists, entered the alleged chemical biological weapons facility in Northern Iraq:
“What they found was a camp devastated by cruise missile strikes during the first days of the war. A specialized biochemical team scoured the rubble for samples. They wore protective masks as they entered a building they suspected was a weapons lab. Inside they found mortar shells, medical supplies, and grim prison cells, but no immediate proof of chemical or biological agents. For this unit, such evidence would have been a so-called smoking gun, proof that it has banned weapons. But instead, this was a disappointing day for these troops on the front line of the hunt for weapons of mass destruction here. Jim Sciutto, ABC News, with US Special Forces in Northern Iraq ” (ABC News, 29 March 2003)

The Ricin Threat

On February 8th 2003, three days after Colin Powell’s UN speech, the ricin threat remerges this time in the US. Al Zaqwari was said to be responsible for “the suspicious white powder found in a letter sent to Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist which contained the [same] deadly poison ricin.”
In a CIA report which was apparently “leaked” to Newsweek, a group of CIA analysts predicted that there was
“a 59 percent probability that an attack on the U.S. homeland involving WMD would occur before 31 March 2003″… It all seems so precise and frightening: a better than 90 percent chance that Saddam will succeed in hitting America with a weapon spewing radiation, germs or poison. But it is important to remember that the odds are determined by averaging a bunch of guesses, informed perhaps, but from experts whose careers can only be ruined by underestimating the threat.” (Newsweek, 24 February 2003, http://newsmine.org/archive/propoganda/terror-threats/2003/terror-alert-assumptions-hints.txt)
The picture of Al Zarqawi, the mastermind is featured prominently in the Newsweek feature article.
In the National Review (February 18, 2003), Al Zarqawi was described as Al Qaeda’s “chief biochemical engineer”:
“It is widely known [from where, what evidence] that Zarqawi, al Qaeda’s chief biochemical engineer, was at the safe house in Afghanistan where traces of Ricin and other poisons were originally found. What is not widely known-but was briefly alluded to in Sec. Powell’s U.N. address-is that starting in the mid-1990s, Iraq’s embassy in Islamabad routinely played host to Saddam’s biochemical scientists, some of whom interacted with al Qaeda operatives, including Zarqawi and his lab technicians, under the diplomatic cover of the Taliban embassy nearby to teach them the art of mixing poisons from home grown and readily available raw materials.”

Radioactive Dirty Bombs

There were rumors of attacks within the US also using ricin, sarin and other poisonous gases. In the immediate aftermath of Powell’s speech, there was an orange code alert. Official statements also pointed to the dangers of a dirty radioactive bomb attack in the US.
Again Al Zarqawi was identified as the number one suspect.
The various ricin and dirty bomb terror alerts proved to be fabricated. A fabricated story emanating from the CIA on so-called ‘radioactive dirty bombs’ had been planted in the news chain (ABC News, 13 Feb 2003). A few days following his address to the UN, Sec. Powell warned that:
“it would be easy for terrorists to cook up radioactive ‘dirty’ bombs to explode inside the U.S. … ‘How likely it is, I can’t say… But I think it is wise for us to at least let the American people know of this possibility.’”(ABC This Week quoted in Daily News (New York), 10 Feb. 2003).
Meanwhile, network TV had warned that “American hotels, shopping malls or apartment buildings could be al Qaeda’s targets as soon as next week…”. Following the announcement, tens of thousands of Americans rushed to purchase duct tape, plastic sheets and gas-masks.
It later transpired that the terrorist alert was fabricated by the CIA, in all likelihood in consultation with the State Department (ABC News, 13 Feb. 2003). The FBI, for the first time had pointed its finger at the CIA. While tacitly acknowledging that the alert was a fake, Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge decided to maintain the ‘Orange Code’ alert:
“Despite the fabricated report, there are no plans to change the threat level. Officials said other intelligence has been validated and that the high level of precautions is fully warranted.” ( ABC News, 13 Feb. 2003 ).
A few days later, in another failed propaganda initiative, a mysterious Osama bin Laden audio tape was presented by Sec. Colin Powell to the US Congress as ‘evidence’ that the Islamic terrorists “are making common cause with a brutal dictator”. (US official quoted in The Toronto Star, 12 Feb. 2003). Curiously, the audio tape was in Colin Powell’s possession prior to its broadcast by the Al Jazeera TV Network. (Ibid.)
Meanwhile, Al Zarqawi had been identified as the mastermind behind the (thwarted) ricin attacks in several European countries including Britain and Spain.
In London, in January 2003, there was a ricin terror alert, which had apparently also been ordered by Al Zarqawi. The ricin had allegedly been discovered in a London apartment. It was to be used in a terror attack in the London subway.
British press reports, quoting official statements claimed that the terrorists had learnt to produce the ricin at the camp in Northern Iraq. Yet when US Special Forces in March 2003 raided the camp in Northern Iraq, nothing resembling biological or chemical weapons was found (see ABC report quoted above).
It is worth mentioning, in this regard, that news stories on the chemical weapons plant in Northern Iraq, have continued to be churned out, despite the fact that US Forces said that it did not exist. In a recent story in the Washington Times:
Zarqawi stands as stark evidence of a link between Saddam Hussein’s autocratic regime and bin Laden’s al Qaeda terror network. Zarqawi, 38, operated a terrorist camp in northern Iraq that specialized in developing poisons and chemical weapons.(Washington Times, 8 June 2004)

The Spanish Connection

Meanwhile in Spain, Bush’s coalition partner, Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar had initiated his own disinformation campaign, no doubt in liaison with US officials.
Perfect timing! While Colin Powell was presenting the Al-Zarqawi dossier to the UN, on the very same day, February 5, 2003, Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar was busy briefing the Spanish parliament on an alleged chemical terror attack in Spain.
According to Aznar, Al Zarqawi was apparently linked to a number of European Islamic “collaborators” including Merouane Ben Ahmed, “an expert in chemistry and explosives who visited Barcelona” (reported in El Pais, February 6 2003).
Prime Minister Aznar’s speech to the Chamber of Deputies (Camera de diputados) intimated that the 16 alleged Al Qaeda suspects, who apparently were in possession of explosives and lethal chemicals, had been working hand in glove with Al Zarqawi.
The information had been fabricated. The Spanish Ministry of Defense report confirmed that the “lethal chemicals” turned out to be “harmless and some were household detergent… ” (quoted in Irish News, 27 February 2003, emphasis added):
A defence ministry lab outside Madrid tested the substances – a bag containing more than half a pound of powder and several bottles or containers with liquids or residues- for the easy-to-make biological poison ricin…The Spanish defence ministry, which carried out the tests, and the lab itself declined to comment ” (Ibid)