Lawsuit links Saddam to September 11 attacks

11.45 - by ANDREW BUNCOMBE

WASHINGTON - Relatives of those killed on September 11 have launched a USUS$1trillion lawsuit against Iraq, alleging that Saddam Hussein and his officials knew what al Qaeda was planning.

"Since Iraq could not defeat the US military, it resorted to terror attacks on US citizens," according to the lawsuit filed in US District Court in Manhattan seeking damages on behalf of 1,400 victims.

The suit names al Qaeda, Iraq and Osama bin Laden as defendants.

The lawsuit brought by the Kreindler & Kreindler law firm - experts in aviation disaster litigation and the company seeking compensation from Libya over the Lockerbie bombing - attempts to draw a strong link between al Qaeda and Iraq.

It is precisely this link that hawks in Washington have been trying - and failing - to prove in order to support their call for military action against Saddam Hussein.

The lawsuit relies in part on a newspaper article published in Iraq on July 21, 2001. A columnist writing under the byline Naeem Abd Muhalhal described Mr bin Laden as thinking "seriously, with the seriousness of the Bedouin of the desert, about the way he will try to bomb the Pentagon after he destroys the White House".

The suit alleges that Mr Muhalhal writes a regular column for the weekly newspaper in which the article appeared and that one former associate claimed the writer had been connected with Iraqi intelligence since the early 1980s.

It said Mr Muhalhal was praised by Saddam in a subsequent article for his "documentation of important events and heroic deeds that proud Iraqis have accomplished".

- INDEPENDENT

Further reading:
Feature: Iraq

Iraq links and resources