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UNCORRECTED TRANSCRIPT OF ORAL EVIDENCE To be published as HC 36-i House of COMMONS MINUTES OF EVIDENCE TAKEN BEFORE FOREIGN AFFAIRS COMMITTEE
Foreign Policy Aspects of the War against Terrorism
Tuesday 23 November 2004 MR DAMIEN McELROY and MR KAMRAN AL- KARADAGHI Evidence heard in Public Questions 1-61
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Oral Evidence Taken before the Foreign Affairs Committee on Tuesday 23 November 2004 Members present Donald Anderson, in the Chair Mr David Chidgey Mr Eric Illsley Mr John Maples Mr Bill Olner Sir John Stanley ________________ Witnesses: Mr Kamran al-Karadaghi, Institute for War and Peace Reporting, and Mr Damien McElroy, Sunday Telegraph, examined. Q1 Chairman: Mr al-Karadaghi, may I welcome you on behalf of the Committee. You currently work for the Institute for War and Peace Reporting in Iraq and you have been a regular visitor to Iraq, for a time running Radio Free Iraq. As you know, this is in the context of the work of the Committee on foreign policy aspects of the war against terrorism. We are keen to have evidence from those who know Iraq and have been recently to Iraq, so it is in that context that I invite you, first, to give an overview to the Committee of how you see the broad security situation as evolving. I just add this: as you know, we were hoping that you would be joined by Mr Damien McElroy who writes for The Sunday Telegraph. We hope that he is on the way and when he comes I shall welcome him on behalf of the Committee but we are confident you are more than able to hold the fort and to help the Committee. Firstly, you have been a fairly regular visitor to Iraq yourself, I understand. Mr al-Karadaghi: Yes, I have been visiting Iraq regularly and, of course, I am originally an Iraqi. I visited Iraq when I was running Radio Free Iraq and now I have joined the Institute for War and Peace Reporting. I have been in Baghdad in the north and in Kirkuk, so I have quite a good idea of what is going on in Iraq. Then, of course, I keep in touch; almost daily I speak to people in Baghdad and other places. Q2 Chairman: It is extremely important for us to interpret the situation. Clearly, like all people in this country, we see on our television screens the violence, the hostage-taking and the atrocities against the forces of order in Iraq. How general is that? Are there swathes of Iraq where people are able to live a normal life? Mr al-Karadaghi: Of course, the general security situation in Iraq is not good, to say the least, and it has worsened over the last few months. The main problems are in Baghdad and the so-called Sunni Triangle, and then, further to the north, in Mosul, and parts of Kirkuk, but not all. Mosul is now the big problem. However, the situation in the south and the so-called central Euphrates area has been relatively calm, especially since the confrontation ended between the coalition and Iraqi forces, on the one hand, and the fighters of the Al-Mahdi Army led by the young cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. I think one should also exclude from the Sunni Triangle the province of Tikrit which, surprisingly, had been relatively calm. I think there are reasons for that, and if you want me to explain why Tikrit has been calm I can say that. The situation in the north is completely different. Q3 Chairman: That is in the Kurdish areas? Mr al-Karadaghi: That is the Kurdish controlled areas. Arbil, Sulaymaniyah and Dahuk-three provinces-are completely under the control of the Kurdish authorities and the coalition forces in that area are really having a picnic-like time (if you would like to call it that) because there are no problems. The Kurds have managed to enforce law and order in the region. But, of course, the big problem is Baghdad and the Sunni Triangle. Q4 Chairman: In relation to those areas, particularly in the south, which you described as relatively calm, does that mean that the public services are functioning-the water, the electricity? Are ordinary people able to carry on their lives in a normal way? Mr al-Karadaghi: In a way, yes. A lot has been done in that area but, of course, it has not been easy because under the previous regime life in the south-that is the Shia, of course-was really so miserable that people sometimes had to travel from Karbala or Najaf to Baghdad to get clean water for drinking. It was a very, very bad situation under the previous regime. Q5 Chairman: And now? Mr al-Karadaghi: Now it is getting better. The coalition forces and the local authorities are trying to improve the situation, which is not always easy because when I said it is relatively calm that also means that from time to time there are troubles-as you all know, in Basra, for example, especially when there was confrontation with the Al-Mahdi Army of Muqtada al Sadr. These disturbances and trouble spread from Najaf and Karbala further to Amarah and even Basra. Of course, unfortunately, some of the British troops were victims of that confrontation in Basra. Q6 Chairman: There is no further trouble from the Al-Mahdi Army following the agreement? Mr al-Karadaghi: Apparently not. Since the end of August, after interference by the Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, Muqtada al-Sadr gave instructions and orders to his followers for a ceasefire and then, later, to surrender their weapons. Of course there is a problem here, because we know from the people on the ground that many of al-Sadr's fighters who surrendered their weapons and, also, some of the citizens in Shia areas like Saddar City north of Baghdad, exchanged them for money. The coalition forces and the Iraqi Government bought these weapons from them. Now we hear that many of them bought new weapons. Q7 Chairman: So there is a regular supply of weapons? Mr al-Karadaghi: Yes. That is really a problem. The other problem is Muqtada al-Sadr's late father, who was a Grand Ayatollah, Mohammed Sadiq al-Sadr, co-operated for many years with Saddam Hussein's regime but only in the last two years of his life he rebelled against the Government, and eventually Saddam gave orders to kill him, and many people in Iraq, many expert people who know the situation, think that still al-Sadr's organisation is infiltrated by some of Saddam's previous security elements. Q8 Chairman: These are Shia? Mr al-Karadaghi: Yes, Shia. Q9 Chairman: The Shia would be loyal to Saddam Hussein? Mr al-Karadaghi: Well, under Saddam Hussein the brutality which took place in the Shia areas against the Shia population was also not only by his Sunni Army, or by the security people, but among them were many Shia because they were really either forced to do so or they were bribed to do so, but the facts remain that in those areas many Shia operated with the Government. Of course, nobody knows exactly because many people think that some of Saddam's loyals who are still with Muqtada al-Sadr might be Sunni but they pretend to be Shia. Q10 Chairman: Help us on this: can you give the Committee a profile of the insurgents? Who are the insurgents? Mr al-Karadaghi: This is a very good question, sir. The insurgents in Iraq mainly are two groups: the old Ba'ath party Saddamists. That means hard-core Ba'athists, Saddam security and intelligence, remnants of the Republican Guards, of the Special Republican Guards and of the Fedayeen of Saddam Hussein, which was led by his son Uday. So this is part of the insurgency. The other part is the so-called Jihadists-that is the Islamists. Q11 Chairman: From outside? Mr al-Karadaghi: From outside and from inside. From inside, a lot of them are represented by the associations for Islamic clerics, which is a Sunni organisation. Also, Salafis are, of course, members of a sect in Islam which is very strict and so these are the second group. Then, of course, there are the outsiders. I remember, personally, when I first went to Iraq from Jordan immediately after the fall of the regime of Saddam Hussein, the borders were absolutely open and that situation continued for several months, during which nobody can count, really, how many people came to Iraq with an agenda, with a goal of organising insurgency against the coalition forces. So these are the two groups. Immediately, of course, after the fall of the regime the Ba'ath party was in a big panic, so that was the time when you could say that the insurgency was mainly led by the Islamists, Jihadists, foreigners and locals but the Ba'ath party managed very quickly to reorganise itself. If I follow, for example, the website of the Iraqi Ba-ath party you can see the evolution; how they managed to do so. Their first major statement was issued in June 2003 and if you read that statement one would be surprised how quickly they reorganised themselves and how they managed to fulfil all the pledges they made in that first statement. Q12 Chairman: Before I turn to Fallujah, Mr al-Karadaghi, can you finally give some indication of how much popular support there is for the insurgency, and, indeed, in what way it is manifested? Mr al-Karadaghi: It really depends on what area you are talking about. For example, if we take Baghdad, there were always areas purely Sunni or Ba-ath or Arab nationalist areas, like the area which has been in the news lately which is called al-Adhamiya, and this is a purely Sunni Arab area. It has always been, I would say, since the 1950s or 1960s. It is a stronghold of Arab nationalists and then of the Ba'athist party, and in fact you can even say that this was the area where the Ba'athists started to organise and fought against the regime of ---- Q13 Chairman: That is outside Baghdad? Mr al-Karadaghi: No, that is Baghdad. Q14 Chairman: But outside Baghdad? Mr al-Karadaghi: A suburb of Baghdad, yes. It is part of Greater Baghdad. Q15 Chairman: But the groups who support the insurgents outside Baghdad, how significant is their support? Mr al-Karadaghi: Of course, we have Fallujah. Chairman: Can I move on to Fallujah now? Q16 Mr Olner: On Fallujah, do you think the operation has been successful? Mr al-Karadaghi: From a military point of view, yes, they were successful but whether they were successful in general and they will reduce the level of insurgency, I really doubt. Q17 Mr Olner: Do you think the insurgents escaped Fallujah, have gone somewhere else and regrouped? Mr al-Karadaghi: Most of them maybe escaped; according to my information they went to Mosul. Mosul now will be the next battleground. It might be a very nasty battleground. Q18 Mr Olner: Prime Minister Allawi was very prominent in ensuring that it was an Iraqi-led military operation in Fallujah. Is that a commonly held view within Iraq, or is it seen as just a front for a US-led attack? Mr al-Karadaghi: I think the Iraqi people are now clever enough to know whether a certain decision is taken by the Prime Minister or by the coalition. I think, in general, the common understanding is that this was mainly decided by the Americans; the Prime Minister, of course, was in consultation but the real decision was taken by the Americans, and people realise that the attack on Fallujah happened immediately after the US presidential elections. Q19 Mr Olner: Finally, the Committee sometime ago conducted another report into international terrorism. Do you think any of these insurgents in Fallujah and wider in Iraq are, indeed, al Qaeda? Mr al-Karadaghi: Yes, there are al Qaeda people, but not only al Qaeda. It is still really doubtful whether, for example, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi is or was al Qaeda; he works on his own although, of course, he issued a statement which was attributed to him saying that he declared his loyalty to Osama bin Laden. I really do feel that there are definitely people who belong to al Qaeda among the insurgents. Q20 Mr Olner: Finally, you mentioned that the new battleground after Fallujah might be Mosul. Do you think that is a battle that has got to be won before elections can take place in January? Mr al-Karadaghi: Yes, I think this will be a very big challenge for the coalition and the government. Mosul is the second largest city in Iraq. There are some estimates that at least 200,000 people in Mosul were really dependent on the former Iraqi regime working in the army, the Republican Guard, the security and intelligence and, of course, they all became unemployed immediately when the coalition decided to dismantle the Iraqi army. Mosul, also, historically, is a stronghold of Arab nationalism and now, according to the whole indication, the insurgency is concentrating on Mosul. Mosul is divided into two parts by the River Tigris. The western part is controlled by Kurds and the eastern part is controlled by Arab nationalists and, I would say, by the insurgency. It is very, very difficult for the government to really distinguish, even among the newly formed Iraqi forces, the Iraqi police, who is Saddamist and who is not Saddamist. Just a few days ago the chief of police in Mosul was arrested and we heard that several thousand Iraqi police in Mosul, newly established, have already switched to the side of the insurgents. Also, on the other hand, the Kurds are very nervous about the situation there and we know there is information that lately something like 50 Kurds were killed in Mosul by Arabs just because they were Kurds. If there is a big battle, which the Kurds might join, then I think this will be a big problem. Q21 Mr Olner: Could it start a civil war? Mr al-Karadaghi: No, I do not think it will be a civil war but it will be bad. Chairman: We have now been joined by Mr McElroy. Mr McElroy, you are a correspondent of The Sunday Telegraph, you have travelled extensively in Iraq. We welcome you. Mr Maples will begin the questions. Q22 Mr Maples: I would like to ask both of you whether you think elections can successfully and properly be held in January? Obviously, they will not be perfect but are they going to be good enough to give credibility to the National Assembly or the Constitution, or whatever it is, that flows from that? Mr al-Karadaghi: My personal, honest view is that it would be better to postpone the elections. People are not ready for elections in Iraq. Not only that but, also, I think, few other groups, except the Shia groups, are happy with the elections, and that includes the Prime Minister's party. It is very difficult for him. I think he has been in a dilemma. I heard one of his very close aides saying "How on earth can we provide 120,000 policemen to protect the elections?" This is something very difficult, and that is what is demanded by the UN in order to provide security. On the other side, for example, the Kurds are unhappy because now they are saying that in Kirkuk there will not be any proper voting. A few days ago on the Kurdish Party's initiative there was a very big meeting in the north, all the major political parties were invited including the party of the Prime Minister and the Shia parties, and the Kurds demanded at that meeting to postpone the elections in Kirkuk. They have two grievances: one, they say that Kurdish deportees have not been returned to Kirkuk and Arab settlers have not been sent back out of Kirkuk. Of course, some of the Shia parties were against that, but, nevertheless, the meeting decided to establish a committee from these parties to study the proposal by the Kurds. The third thing, of course, is because the Arab Sunnis are now bent to boycott the elections, and no matter what we think about that it is true that although Arab Sunnis in Iraq might not be more than 15 per cent of the population it will create a big problem because the Sunni area is in the heart of Iraq. However, having said this, I think that if elections are to take place then the coalition and the government should really make a special effort in Tikrit because Tikrit is a different situation. Despite the fact that Saddam Hussein was from Tikrit, Saddam's clan was mainly restricted to a few villages including al-Owja, which is his birthplace. Tikrit suffered under Saddam Hussein, especially the tribes. Saddam did not belong to any prominent clan or tribe in Tikrit, so the prominent clans became his victims, and the coalition managed in Tikrit to work well with these tribes. Also, the difference between Tikrit and Fallujah is that Tikritis are not poor people, they are well-off. In the beginning they were very frightened of the fall of the regime because they were convinced that Shias and Kurds would slaughter them because they belonged to Saddam Hussein clans. What happened, to their surprise, was that the coalition forces actually protected them, so I think this made them behave in a different way. Now we see there are Sunni parties led by Tikritis which will participate in the elections. So I think if there are elections there must be a special effort to make sure that Tikritis will vote, because if you come out of elections with a majority of Tikritis, which is an important part of the Arab Sunni population, if you come out with 65/70 per cent of Tikritis participating, that will of course give a legitimacy to the elections. Otherwise, if the Sunnis boycott the elections they will not change their mind, no matter what will happen; they have already in advance decided that whether now or after elections the government has no legitimacy and the result of the elections will not be legitimate. That is another problem. This is why I am saying that people are not ready. Mr McElroy: I guess my first big problem with the question of whether to hold the elections or not is I do not understand how not having elections will help you have elections later. The elections have been a focal point for very many people through this and a lot of people, surprisingly enough, have not lost heart in the way that you might imagine. If you postpone elections then you possibly put those people in the position of losing heart, because their opponents will say, "There. You see. America never really wanted to have a democratic Iraq anyway; it just wants to rule by itself." Secondly, you have the possibility of real unrest in Shia areas if you postpone the elections, because I do not think Ayatollah al-Sistani would be quite the restraining force he is if they took away the prospect of elections in a very few weeks. The security problem is quite limited. In many ways, if you are looking at the run-up to an election it is unquantifiable how much the opponents of the election will target the election process. We can presume they will but we do not know by how much and where. The places where the election will be targeted are, presumably, mostly Baghdad and about three or four cities in the Sunni Triangle-Mosul, Fallujah and Ramadi (places that I am sure you are familiar with). Will they be able to achieve a total wipe-out of the electoral process in these areas? That is doubtful. You could re-run the elections in certain neighbourhoods if that proved to be the case, because I do not think they would be able to cause a blanket collapse of the electoral process in whole swathes of the country. I just do not think that is going to happen. Sunni participation is a problem, but elections are about whether you wish to vote or not wish to vote and there is an evolution in that in which you almost give the Sunnis an incentive to vote next time if they get excluded from it this time. I think there is a special problem in Fallujah in the sense that the city has been more or less cleared-will these people go back-and whether there is time left to allow these people to vote in the neighbourhood that they are from. On the whole, I think the election is a point in the calendar that much of the effort to normalise Iraq has been aimed at, and if you take that away, even if you say "There will definitely be elections in six months after this", then (a) people will not believe you as much as they did before and (b) you are going to give ammunition to your opponents. So I think it opens up a whole panoply of problems. The problems of holding elections are very clear to us but when you say you do not have elections then, suddenly, the problems of not holding elections will open up. So I do not see what there is to be gained. Q23 Mr Maples: As I understand it, the way the elections are organised is on a national basis so it would not be possible to have elections in those parts of the country where it is felt that elections could be properly held and, maybe, delay the election in places where it could be different. Am I right in thinking it would be very difficult to do that? Mr McElroy: It would be very difficult, but I guess you could have re-polling and provisional results. These things could be accommodated, but, yes, it would be difficult. Q24 Mr Maples: And nationalists are candidates, are they not? Do you agree with that? Mr al-Karadaghi: The entire Iraq will be one electoral constitutency. This is also a problem. You cannot tell several hundred thousands of voters in Mosul or in Ramadi to go and vote in Najaf, for example. This will be a problem. Also, I am not saying that there should not be elections; elections, I think, until now, will go ahead although I do not exclude surprises to the run-up to the elections. However, there are many other problems which have no relation to the security situation. For example, until now most Iraqis do not know what the election is about or what the election process is. There was no time in Iraq, because of the security problems, to educate people about the elections. Many people have difficulties in understanding the election process. Then there is another problem of, for example, how the Iraqis who live abroad will join the elections. There are more than 3 million Iraqis abroad and the higher election committee in Iraq estimates 1.1 million of those are eligible to vote. They identified 14 countries where Iraqis can vote; that includes Iran, Syria and Jordan in the region and, also, in Europe, the United Kingdom, and some other countries, but still there are many countries which are excluded. People say that if it is a principle, there are many Iraqis in Australia and many as far as New Zealand; they will not be able to travel to Europe to vote. So there are these kinds of problems also. This is why I am saying that people are not ready, really, for elections. It is now too late to change the agenda because this has been decided. I think, whether many groups in Iraq who are participants of the political process and in the government like it or not, they have to go on with the elections. I, for one, for example, cannot see why, if there are elections, the insurgency will become weaker. Q25 Sir John Stanley: When we invaded Iraq we clearly hoped that we would quite rapidly stabilise the security situation and it would then improve. In practice, as we know, the reverse has happened, particularly the downward spiral starting back in February/March this year when the kidnappings began in earnest. I would like to ask you, do you think it was inevitable we were going to get into a deteriorating security situation in Iraq, or do you feel that we, in part (I say "we"-the Americans and ourselves), brought it upon ourselves and made mistakes that could have been avoided? Mr al-Karadaghi: I would say that, to be fair, nobody, not even the Iraqis, expected that this would happen in Iraq. To blame the United States or Britain, the coalition, and say they brought it on themselves would not be fair because I do not think there is any Iraqi who thought, expected or predicted the situation. We knew that there would be problems, we knew that there would be, in some areas, resistance but not to this extent. Nobody expected that. Of course, there were big mistakes committed at the beginning. There was no consistency. The decision to dissolve the entire Iraqi forces, Iraqi army, the Republic Guard, was a big problem because I do not think the situation was prepared for that. For example, many Iraqis thought that it would be a very good idea to dissolve the Republican Guard, the Special Republican Guard, and the security and intelligence Fedayeen of Saddam, but nobody thought that the regular army would also be dissolved. The regular army in Iraq was somehow a kind of national institution, and because they were victimised by the Republican Guard people thought that this regular army could be a nucleus for a new army, but all the Iraqi armed forces were dissolved. So this was a problem. Then, for example, the idea of de-Ba'athification. If this process was properly done it would have very good results. I personally was a very strong supporter of de-Ba'athification in Iraq but the way it was conducted was not proper. Then the Iraqi government, led by Mr Allawi, who himself is a former Ba'athist, decided that he can gain the minds and hearts of Ba'athists and, until now, he refuses to blame the Ba'athists as Ba'athists; he always distinguishes between Ba'athists and Sadammists. The result is that the Ba'athists infiltrated his own security and he had recently to arrest his chief of security, who was a former Ba'athist. This was the main mistake of de-Ba'athification. De-Ba'athification was not managed properly and it gave very bad results. Now we have seen, really, a situation where we have re-Ba'athification. Q26 Sir John Stanley: Did we make mistakes or was the security deterioration pretty well inevitable? Mr McElroy: I think the actions of the coalition allowed it to happen. I think in Iraq there were, pretty much, no institutions that had penetrated down to the lowest levels of society after the occupation, and you cannot possibly hope to police a society-even a western society-if you do not have that forest of coverage. Many of the elements who are behind the insurgency were, of course, in Iraq when the regime fell. A lot of them lay low; a lot of the Ba'athists, a lot of the regime hierarchy, basically, went back to their sort of farmyards and their city compounds and lay low for three months and started networking. They obviously had substantial resources. So there was this sort of honeymoon period in which they, first of all, allowed the chaos of looting to happen, which was enormously symbolic because it allowed people to think that there was this level of activity that you could engage in against which there would be no sanction. Obviously, the prisons had been opened so lots of criminals had also come to the surface during this looting. Then these people started cherry-picking; they started building up their insurgency from amongst these types of people and, also, the disaffected from the army who had been let go. Where was anybody to stop them? There was not really anybody to stop them. The Americans did exist in large numbers but they were engaged in building bases, they were engaged in securing supply lines, they were engaged in, essentially, setting themselves up on the ground so that they could operate like the American army operates wherever it goes. So that is where the fire took light and started to spread. Could we have stopped it? Yes, if there had been more of a decapitation strategy within the invasion and there had been, at least, some level of police and army retained intact. For example, I was in Mosul on the day it fell; I went to a police station and there was a police chief who had turned up to work and was trying to keep three or four people milling about because he maintained that he was a police chief. I went back five days later and that police station was abandoned, and during the time that I was in it, while he was there, helicopters were buzzing it because they wanted to establish who was in control, so they were buzzing up and down the city flying very low and creating conditions in which people would stay in their houses-the Americans are in charge. That was the level that they came in, and this is well-known to an extent. They did not appreciate how well-equipped the insurgency would be or how mentally prepared many of these people were for an insurgency. I do not know because I have never seen if there were any plans for insurgency but it certainly seemed that over a three- to four-month period an insurgency took shape, and these people were able to roll themselves out as quite competent terrorists. Q27 Sir John Stanley: Thank you for giving your perspective on what has happened in the past. Perhaps we can now look forward, and the perspective I would like to have from you both, please, is what you think the Iraqi government and, particularly, the American and British Governments should be doing to try and reverse the security deterioration that has taken place and to try and get on top of it, bearing in mind it is clearly covering all the key arteries as far as the Iraqi nation state is concerned: they are going for the economy through the reconstruction, they are going for international organisations, whether it is the UN or international charities, they are going for the security forces-the police and the Iraqi Army-and they are going for the top echelons in the civil service (there have been a number of very serious assassinations of senior civil servants in Iraq). It is right across the board. They have shown that all the key sinews, arteries, of any nation state are vulnerable. So can you tell us: do the American and British governments, as the key external players, and the Iraqi Government have a prospect of getting on top of this and reversing the security position? Give us your perspective on the way forward and where we are going to be-leaving the elections aside-in six months to a year from now? Mr McElroy: It is obviously very difficult. You know this from past jobs, but if you have got a terrorist organisation targeting members of their community who are working for the government then the government is obviously depleted in how it acts. I will say that I have met many Iraqis who are willing to disguise themselves, wander away from home in the mornings and not tell anyone in their neighbourhood where they are going or what they are doing, to the point of asking their children: "What does daddy do?" and, when the child says: "You work for the British Embassy" or "You work for the electricity ministry", upbraiding the child and saying "No, I am an itinerant bookseller", or something. A large part of that is that there is money and there are jobs available and so people have to get jobs and earn. The insurgency is not, as far as I know, providing general community welfare payments; it may be paying its own people and the people who provide safe houses, etc, but it is not funding the lifestyle of neighbourhoods, or anything like that. So people do need money and there has always been an element of Iraq being a contest between the forces of chaos and the forces of money. Obviously, you know very well about the bottlenecks in getting money into Iraq. For much of the time I was going there the money just was not getting out; what was being allotted was not spent and what was spent was being spent on, basically, lots of foreigners who were hired on wages far beyond what an Iraqi would get. There were good reasons for that but there also was not the general spend. I am told that general spending is picking up, that more and more people are being absorbed in jobs but people need an incentive; they need to feel that the government is going somewhere, that the government will take root, that the government will establish itself. Most people do have a horror of what is happening, a horror of the chaos that they see on the television or that they experience, so they do not want it. There is obviously a sizeable minority who facilitate terrorism; there are militias and alienated communities that those militias spring from. What will the security situation be like in six months? I would guess not terribly different from today but there would be a slow train improvement in the capacity of the government to deal with it, and I would hope that there would be far more people employed, Iraqi people, so that they are doing normal things; going out and earning a living, coming back and spending that money in the community and looking after their families. That is the only long-term way it will improve. Mr al-Karadaghi: I think if things continue as they are now then the security situation might not be better, but if there is a change of policy then, I think, within six months there will be a big difference. The change which is needed from my point of view is to take the initiative. The problem of the coalition and the government is that they are merely reactive; the initiative now is in the hands of the insurgency and in the hands of, maybe, the Ba'athists who are very organised, much more than we think. So there is only reaction to what they are doing. I think this is wrong; there must be a very well-studied plan to take the initiative, militarily and in terms of security, to try to change the situation. That is very important. What the coalition and the government, I think, must do is put more pressure on some of the neighbouring countries of Iraq: Syria and Iran-especially Syria. The new Ba'athist leadership is really based in Syria. We have information that they have recently elected a new leadership; they had a meeting in the Al-Hasakah area on the Iraqi border, they elected a new general secretary temporarily because they still consider Saddam Hussein as their leader. So they have elected a general secretary from Tikrit, and the sons of Saddam Hussein's brothers-his relatives-are in Syria, really, establishing companies so that they have money. Iran, also, is doing a lot. So I think this is a relevant place where the coalition should take the initiative and be more aggressive, because failure in Iraq will not only be failure for Iraqis it will be failure for the coalition as well. Without a change in the approach of the security situation things might yet even worsen. Q28 Sir John Stanley: So you are saying that, in your view, there is still a substantial movement of people from both Syria and Iran into Iraq and they are providing the manpower for the terrorism? Mr al-Karadaghi: It is not necessarily the manpower. Syria, for example, may not have the manpower but the possibility is there of providing, especially to the Ba'ath Party in Syria, and that is very dangerous. Also, the neighbouring countries, like Syria-even Jordan in a way-and Saudi Arabia, can do a lot if they take a very firm stance-if they were to make very clear to the insurgents inside Iraq that they are supportive of the Iraqi Government and that they will not tolerate any anti-Iraqi movement within their own countries, that they will be more aggressive in this context. The Arab countries were always used to the fact that Iraq was run by Arabs who were always part of the larger Arab nationalist group. This has to be changed because it was not natural, really, for a country to be run for eight years by 15 per cent of the population. If these neighbouring countries make their position clear this will affect, also, the Sunni Arabs inside Iraq and they will, in turn, try and change their position and their attitude to the new Iraq. Of course, we always speak about neighbours and we do not mention, for example, Turkey, which should change its position in regard to Kirkuk because this has created tension in the area. Although I think Turkey is a very important country and they showed that they are very pragmatic and they know the restrictions and they know the fine lines, but they can be more positive. Q29 Chairman: Gentlemen, I am going to ask each of you a final question. How effective do you think the contribution of the United Kingdom has been and how can it be improved? Mr McElroy: I think they tried very hard obviously and that is what they do. Obviously there were fairly high-level people put in the CPA when it existed. I am not sure that they had a contribution which in any way came out in the wash. Indeed I have heard that they expressed some frustration with exactly how they were listened to. Essentially, most of them did not have an executive function. Much of the top-level executive function in the CPA was done by Mr Bremmer and he was very jealous about his power and how he exercised it. There were technical British contributions. I think technically what the CPA in the south did in terms of restoring infrastructure and trying to get governments up and running, trying to do district elections, trying to get the police forces running just aside from what the Army has done which has been much praised, I think the actual British-run CPA in the south was a model that the central and northern CPA operation could have very well emulated and markedly did not. Q30 Chairman: How could it now be improved? Mr McElroy: Well, now of course the government is an Iraqi Government and there are British diplomats in these places trying to feed into what they are doing. They are tremendously hamstrung by the security situation. They cannot physically leave an area about two miles square without a personal protection team and when you think about the logistics of just making an appointment outside the office, well, if you are going to want to make an approach to someone, in many cases they do not have an extensive list of contacts and they rely on people coming to them rather than them getting out to meet people. I think what DFID is doing is quite effective. At least I have been briefed by the representative there and he seemed very proactive. He seemed very determined actually to make the money that he was spending go into pockets on the ground and he seemed determined to orientate what they were doing to that effect. British diplomats, they obviously are engaged. They try very hard, and it is a big embassy, but I am not sure that they have got really the levers to pull whenever it comes to a situation where they need to pull levers. Mr al-Karadaghi: I really agree with Mr McElroy's assessments, but I say that despite the fact that the British were frustrated almost all the time by the way that the Americans were conducting things, but still I think that the parts of Iraq where the British were in charge were really very lucky because of the way that the British conducted themselves in these areas. There are a lot of problems. It is not becoming really a problem with the coalition embassies, particularly the United States and British embassies, because of obviously the security situation, but sometimes they are becoming out of touch because they have no means to communicate with people and they cannot leave these areas, so that is a problem which I really do not know how it should be solved because it is a security problem, but communication with people is very important to understand what is going on. Also I am aware of the activities of DFID which are very effective. Q31 Chairman: What should we do which we are not doing? How could we improve our performance? Mr al-Karadaghi: Well, I think one important thing would be maybe to send to Baghdad, to the embassy, more people who know the area, more experts maybe who have been in touch with the Iraqis, not necessarily inside Iraq, but outside Iraq, who work with Iraqis and who have a better understanding or a very good understanding of the nature of the Iraqi society, and I think this will help, or at least to involve more people to advise the diplomats. Chairman: Gentlemen, your insights have been extremely helpful to the Committee. May I thank you both. Witness: Ms Jane Corbin, British Broadcasting Corporation, examined. Q32 Chairman: The Committee meets again Ms Corbin. You have been tracking al-Qaeda with Panorama for the last seven years. You have recently worked on the insurgency in Iraq and the evolution of al-Qaeda from a terror organisation to "a movement". It is with both those areas of interest that we seek your advice, so perhaps I may, therefore, first turn to Iraq and ask you how, in your judgment, does al-Zarqawi fit into the global picture of terrorism? We knew before the war that al-Zarqawi worked in this enclave adjoining the Iranian border and that was largely destroyed during the war, and now he has moved somewhere near Fallujah, but he is operating fairly freely within the country. How, in your judgment, does al-Zarqawi and his own organisation fit into the wider al-Qaeda picture? Ms Corbin: I think that al-Zarqawi has sought to affiliate himself with al-Qaeda rather than being sent to the region as an emissary for al-Qaeda and I think that is important because it tells us something about the way the organisation has evolved into a looser network of affiliated groups. His organisation, Ansar, in that northern part of Iraq, as you say, was allied to al-Qaeda and then, as it were, developed a life of its own, partly I think because it was deliberately targeted by coalition forces in the early stage of the war and was bombed, so you perhaps had the element of revenge to add to what was already a very potent view held by al-Zarqawi about America. However, and I think a lot of people would agree, I think it is perhaps too simplistic to say that al-Zarqawi himself is part of al-Qaeda or that bin Laden deliberately sent him to the region. Q33 Chairman: Does he have a subordinate role? Ms Corbin: He would like to be part of it and in fact earlier this year when I was in Iraq an interesting thing happened which was that a courier was intercepted between him and bin Laden and a series of correspondence was revealed in which al-Zarqawi sought bin Laden's help and support almost, as it were, to give credence and credibility to what he, al-Zarqawi, was trying to do in Iraq, and there is no question that he is trying to pursue the same philosophy to destabilise and to attack the coalition forces, but it was almost as if he was pleading to have the umbrella of al-Qaeda over his organisation to give it legitimacy and I think that is very much what he aims to do. We know that he knows bin Laden, he has spent time in Afghanistan, and he has, as it were, the stamp of the Afghan veteran on his passport, so there are links in that way, but I think it is simplistic to say he is part of al-Qaeda or he was sent there to fulfil a role. I think he looks for credibility from bin Laden and he looks to be part of his organisation, but we do not know whether he is able to travel freely over and back, or whether he is able to take any kind of instruction from him in any way. I think one of the problems with al-Zarqawi is that we in the West, and I think this is particularly true of America perhaps more than Britain, we like to know the face of the enemy that we are dealing with and we have perhaps accorded him a higher profile than he might have had because with the failure to capture bin Laden and, as it were, bin Laden disappearing from the radar screens, which he did until fairly recently, just before the US election, there was a need perhaps to give the War on Terror a face and that face in Iraq certainly became al-Zarqawi. The media too had given him a higher profile and closely linked him to al-Qaeda in a way which does not reflect the reality. Q34 Chairman: A higher profile than he deserves? Ms Corbin: Yes. It may be that we are giving him more credibility and in a way by giving him that profile, giving him publicity, it is a circle, it is a cycle, and he then becomes, in the minds of those who would give allegiance to such groups, a bigger figure and it is something we have created. I think intelligence experts who have looked at him and his background feel that he is a terrorist, but some feel that he is a psychopath, that he is criminally insane as well as being a person who has a terrorist philosophy, and, therefore, by giving such a person a high profile, we have perhaps contributed to the myth of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi which is by no means clear. Q35 Chairman: How much popular support does he enjoy? Ms Corbin: I think he enjoys very little popular support certainly amongst the Iraqis that I have spoken to in the many months that I have been going there over the past couple of years. I certainly see no support for him at street level in the way that Iraqis would support some of their own home-grown insurgents. Q36 Chairman: But presumably if he were able to move fairly freely, which means, one assumes, that people are unwilling to report on him and he has safe houses, then, whether by intimidation or otherwise, he has a certain almost invulnerable position? Ms Corbin: Well, I think he is able to move freely because of the chaos in Iraq and he has been able obviously to move in areas like Fallujah and the "Sunni triangle" where that chaos is far more serious than it is in other parts of the country which operate still in a reasonable way, so I think that that is why he is able to move with impunity and gather followers and to perpetrate some of the really awful hostage-taking that we have seen. Q37 Chairman: But he has a large price on his head and there are many people who must observe what is happening, so why is the intelligence not better? Ms Corbin: I think that it is very hard to penetrate some of those areas. It has been a problem for Western intelligence right throughout this War on Terror, their inability to act on the ground and to recruit people to actually learn what is going on. When you see that al-Zarqawi has managed to integrate himself and to, as it were, lose himself in the general insurgency in Iraq, I think you can appreciate why it is very, very difficult to find one particular individual. Q38 Mr Illsley: We can separate al-Zarqawi presumably from the insurgents, can we? He is not one of these guys who is going to take a group of people on the street with a rifle and take on the US Marines. It is criminal activity quite separate from the insurgency? Ms Corbin: I do not think we can separate it from the insurgency. I think we could in the early days when you heard more about foreign fighters and perhaps if we go back to last August with the bombing of the UN Headquarters, that was very specifically seen as Islamic militancy directed against the UN, but from that time to where we are now a year later, there has been a mixing, a finding of a common cause between what was a secular insurgency and an extreme form of Islamic militancy and I think that it is very difficult now to distinguish the different strands. That may be why al-Zarqawi is able to hide more closely and to infiltrate those areas because we have seen the development of the insurgency in Iraq from what it was a year ago. Q39 Mr Illsley: Is he likely to become a leader figure to the rest of the insurgents? Is he going to be revered as a ---- Ms Corbin: I do not think so. I think it is a marriage of convenience. I think that as long as there is a common cause fighting the coalition, these groups will act together in certain circumstances and on certain operations, but I think that a person like Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, even if we were to accept that he has a certain leadership amongst the Islamic militant tendency within those groups, I think it would be impossible that he would become a leader in the broader sense-of the Ba'athist elements, for example. Q40 Chairman: Are you surprised that he has not been shot? Ms Corbin: I am not. There is another very large price on Osama bin Laden's head. There are heavy prices on a number of heads of the known leaders of al-Qaeda, and very few of them have been shot. They have nearly all been killed or captured in shoot-outs rather than as a result of insider information. It does not work like that in those areas where tribal loyalties are strong, where fear of course is an enormous factor, and in the general chaos that we have in Iraq and in the Sunni Triangle, I am not surprised. Q41 Sir John Stanley: I am going to ask you the big question: do you think the world is a safer or less safe place following the invasion of Iraq? Ms Corbin: From my observations within Iraq and in other parts of the world, I do not think it is safer in any way. I would have to, if I am honest, say that I feel that the world is a less safe place because of the fracturing of these groups, their ability to form looser and looser affiliations and to grow their network. I think that the CIA is recently on record as admitting that they are amazed at the ability of al-Qaeda to replicate. I think when I appeared before you just over a year ago I said that I believed in the first six months after 9/11 in the war in Afghanistan that al-Qaeda was severely hit, it was difficult for them to operate, but what has been extraordinary is their ability to fight back not as a single organisation, and it never was that by the way, but its ability to grow other organisations and to form affiliations. Therefore, a more diffuse network is more difficult to deal with and, consequently, I think, therefore, that the world is less safe and Iraq I feel has certainly added to the problem. Q42 Sir John Stanley: Can I just turn to how this grim form of terrorism is evolving. You have obviously been watching it closely, particularly in Iraq, but also elsewhere, so what is your judgment as to the degree to which al-Qaeda terrorists or determined insurgents are increasing their level of sophistication of operation, particularly combining conventional forms of terrorism with the use of suicide attacks? Do you feel that they are on a learning curve and becoming that much more difficult or not? Ms Corbin: I think that 9/11 proved how sophisticated an operation they could mount, so I think it is not that they have become more sophisticated, but perhaps they have found new opportunities, they have recruited new people. In Iraq, for example, in the early days of the suicide bombings, it was said that it could not possibly be Iraqis doing this, but I think we have seen that the sheer number of such attacks has grown and the sheer frequency that there can be little doubt that Iraqis, perhaps people who were once very secular, have been persuaded that this ideology of "martyrdom" is something that they can follow, so I think that is very worrying. I think we are seeing an increase, for example, in these suicide bombings, so that is one thing that worries me, and I am not one of the people who feels, as some do, that 9/11 was the last hurrah, if you like, that they are not capable of mounting such an attack or a similar kind of attack in terms of sophistication. I think it will take a long time, but they are very, very patient and they are prepared to wait for years until the right cell in the right place can come up with the right plan. Therefore, I feel that they have by no means finished, they have not been finished and they still have the capability to mount such an attack or something similar. Q43 Sir John Stanley: Can I just take you through some of the particular terrorist techniques which are in operation now quite clearly in Iraq. What is your judgment as to the degree of emphasis they are placing on infiltration, particularly infiltration of the Iraqi police and the Iraqi army recruits? Would you agree that some of the cold-blooded murders that we have seen clearly depended on penetrating the security of those organisations and working in conjunction with people inside who knew about lorry movements and where concentrations of the police or members of the armed forces were likely to be found? Ms Corbin: Yes, and I think infiltration of course has been a very effective weapon that they have used, but again I would differentiate between the more al-Qaeda-allied Islamic militants and the Ba'athist insurgents. The Ba'athist insurgents have used to great effect a lot of the military tactics that, after all, they have learnt. Many of them are thought to be former police and army officers and also have access to explosives, so they have used those techniques very successfully and in the cold-blooded murder of large numbers of Iraqi recruits to the police services and security services, so infiltration is one thing they have used very effectively. I think the other thing we have all watched with growing horror is the practice of hostage-taking and kidnapping and this certainly can be linked back as a tactic to al-Qaeda. I think we all remember the capture, kidnap and eventual horrible murder of Daniel Pearl shortly after 9/11 and before that there are other examples in Kashmir, for example, involving some British hostages way back before 9/11, so this is a technique they have used. I think they have allied it increasingly to another skill which they have become very adept at using which is the whole business of propaganda, videos, pictures on the Internet and the spread of those techniques, and that has been used to horrific effect with these beheadings which they find a way of getting on to television or the Web very quickly and that has obviously had a big effect not only on the way people in Iraq feel, but we have seen it even here with the taking of some of the British hostages, the kind of effect it has had on public opinion back here. This is tool of terrorism, this is what terrorism is, it seeks to terrify, and this is a very effective weapon that we have seen them willing to use more and more in recent months. Q44 Sir John Stanley: You have very acutely anticipated my next two questions which were precisely in those areas, about the use of kidnapping and the use of media manipulation. Could I just ask you on the area of media manipulation, you very well are able to give us your perspective from your particular background, but is it your judgment that the showing of these appalling scenes on television, including the beheading and murder of people, in media terms that is working to al-Qaeda's advantage or do you think this is actually showing millions of people around the world the sheer horror of these people and repelling people rather than attracting them? Ms Corbin: Well, I think that there are different audiences that these videos are directed at. There is the western audience and the desire there is to terrify, to spread the message of terror and I think that is very effective. I think for a very small segment of the population that al-Qaeda seeks to recruit and to attract, if you like, the angry element of young, perhaps dispossessed Muslim youth, somehow the way that these videos portray the ability of terrorists to exercise power over westerners who are often seen in that society as being the ones who exercise the controlling influence, that is quite potent with that particular small group of recruits and it is meant to be, so I think there are different messages going out to different people. Bin Laden himself does not use those kind of videos. He presents himself in a much more, if you can use the term and he would like to think certainly, statesman-like way. He gives speeches, he makes announcements things and you do not see him in these blood-thirsty, awful videos, but you see some of his fighters using these techniques, so again I think the sophisticated element is the way that different videos are made in different ways and directed at different segments of his audience. Again he appeals sometimes to the broader opinion in parts of the Middle East where there is anger at American policy, British policy and European policy in, the Israeli/Palestinian question, for example, and the skilful use made of video footage of the killing of Palestinians, for example, and that is another element they use very well in their videos, so I think different messages to different groups and some of them very effective. Yes, you are right, they are very, very off-putting and they are cruel and evil in the extreme, and to the audience that receives them in that way, the message of terror I think is very clearly taken. Q45 Sir John Stanley: Terrorism coupled with kidnap coupled with media exposure, do you judge that that is going to remain confined essentially to Iraq and possibly one or two neighbouring countries, possibly even Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan, or do you have any anxiety that this is a particular form of terrorist technique which might get used more widely? Ms Corbin: Well, I think that we have seen actually something a little more encouraging in the last few weeks and certainly when I speak to contacts in Iraq, as I do on a daily basis, the information that I have is that the awful video, which we have not seen, but some Arab stations have shown, of what happened to Margaret Hassan has actually turned public opinion in Iraq in quite a dramatic way. Now, whether that will last or not, I do not know, but people have been horrified because here was an aid worker who had given her life to Iraq. It may be that that was a video too far, but, on the other hand, we have seen of course the release in Afghanistan just today of some western hostages, so I would like to think that perhaps that is another encouraging sign that we have seen the tide turn in using this as a technique. I am afraid that these things go in waves and it may go quiet for a while now, but that does not mean that we have seen the end of hostage-taking as a purely criminal endeavour because a lot of it is about raising ransom money and this, I think, will continue, so I do not think we have seen the end of it, although, as I say, there are some encouraging signs that it has backfired, if you like, on the kidnappers. Q46 Sir John Stanley: Do you agree with the reports that the hostage-takers in Afghanistan, and we all hugely share your relief at the release of those three hostages, that that particular group in fact was doing it for commercial reasons rather than plain terrorism? Ms Corbin: I think, knowing Afghanistan and kidnap is a long and honourable tradition, or not so honourable a tradition in certain areas, it was probably for money at the end of the day. Q47 Sir John Stanley: I would like just to turn to Afghanistan now. What is your view as to whether we are winning the war against terrorism in Afghanistan, whether it is still stale-mated or whether we are actually losing it as of now? Ms Corbin: Well, I think the recent elections were very encouraging, that President Karzai received a mandate to govern that country and will now be seen to be independent. I think the parliamentary elections, which will come in April, will be perhaps even more revealing if they can be held in an atmosphere of relative calm. I think there will be the temptation for more violence there because it will be easier for people to intimidate through violence in all the different regions, so I think it remains to be seen, but I think that the security situation is not good. It is not possible to move around outside Kabul and the warlords still reign supreme. Personally, I think it is a matter of great concern that the opium production is up 400 per cent from the year 2001 and that it may mean that some element of that production is being used to finance what remnants of al-Qaeda and the Taliban still exist in the country and over the border in Pakistan, so I think the situation is very unstable. We have done better perhaps in the War on Terror in Afghanistan than we seem to have done so far in Iraq. I think it is early days yet and I think that perhaps with the efforts to find an exit strategy in Iraq by both the British and the US Governments, which obviously are going to be key in the next year or so, perhaps the pendulum will swing and more resources and more effort will be put back into Afghanistan and into those areas particularly in the south and the east where we still believe that al-Qaeda is able to operate across those borders and where I still believe bin Laden and those around him may well be. Q48 Sir John Stanley: I would like to come to Europe and the United States and the degree of risk there in a moment, but let's take some of the other parts of the world. What is your judgment at the moment as to whether we are, in simplistic terms, winning or losing the battle against what can broadly be called al-Qaeda? Clearly we have had some extremely serious al-Qaeda-type terrorist attacks in Saudi, we have had serious attacks elsewhere in the Middle East and we have had another attack against an Australian target in Indonesia. Do you feel that worldwide we are losing or do you feel in fact that we are still getting on top of al-Qaeda? Ms Corbin: I think in some areas there have been encouraging signs. I think al-Qaeda, through the offices of Algerian militants, have tried to expand into the Sahel region, into Chad, Mauritania and northern Nigerian where there are obviously large Muslim populations and I understand that local forces, aided with specialist expertise from American forces, have been able to push back that attempted expansion. However, on the other hand, we have seen, for example, in south-east Asia and Australia difficulties in getting to grips with Jamaarh Islamia who are believed to have been behind the Bali bombing and although we have had the arrest of important operatives, amongst them Hambali who was very key in that Bali bombing planning, we have new local leaders. This goes back to what I said about al-Qaeda's ability to regenerate itself, to split, to form new groups. There is somebody called Zulkarnean, a former Afghan veteran, who, it seems, has replaced Hambali. It is almost like an alphabet soup of names in that for everyone who is taken out of circulation, you can point to another one who begins to become important within the hierarchy, so it is mixed news. There have been successes in certain parts of the world and I think in other parts and certainly in Saudi I think the problem still remains very, very acute, just as the Saudi authorities, who seem to be far more focused now on their hunt for these people, just as they arrest or kill one leader of al-Qaeda, al-Qaeda is able to announce the formation of a new group and a new leader, so I think in those areas we cannot say that we are getting on top of the problem. Al-Qaeda remains a threat and it is always looking through affiliated groups, through like-minded organisations who share the same philosophy and it is always looking for opportunities, for weaknesses in states, for difficulties that it can exploit to bring into being, and to encourage, local chapters. Q49 Sir John Stanley: Coming to Europe now, clearly all the European governments have been doing their utmost to put in place tougher legislation to deal with terrorism, and in the UK we have had some more announced here today. We have had the Spanish rail terrorism and clearly there are relatively high terrorist threats on any sort of western target throughout Western Europe, including of course the UK. What is your judgment as to the degree of vulnerability we have to al-Qaeda now compared to just before 9/11? Ms Corbin: I think we have to be vigilant because just as it is undoubtedly true that bin Laden and, if you like, al-Qaeda central is part of an old formation of al-Qaeda which has less day-to-day control and has been replaced with this new, more diffuse organisation, which even intelligence agencies tend now to characterise as new al-Qaeda rather than old al-Qaeda, we know that the hard core, if you like, old al-Qaeda is still capable of running operations long-term and I think in the case of Madrid, there is a strong feeling, and also in Turkey where the attacks were against our own consulate, that there was an element of central al-Qaeda being involved in the planning of those operations. I think this shows that they still have the reach to Europe and to British interests in places like Turkey which are obviously on the border between the East and the West, so I think we have to remain vigilant. I do not think we can say that al-Qaeda has mutated into something less dangerous, that day-to-day control has been taken away from bin Laden, or that they are no longer interested in, or capable of, carrying out long-term terror attacks. They may not be capable of such ambitious attacks as 9/11, but, goodness, Madrid of course was a terrible, terrible attack. Q50 Chairman: And not very sophisticated. Ms Corbin: And not very sophisticated, but quite sophisticated as to its timing, as to the near simultaneous bombing on the four trains. No, the methods, the backpacks with the explosives all bought from a mining company, were relatively unsophisticated, but the sophistication of using mobile phone detonators and having four teams able to do that near-simultaneously, that is the hallmark of al-Qaeda and I think shows they are still able to do it and that is why vigilance is important as is the whole process of law-enforcement and intelligence-gathering, which I have always felt was more of an answer long-term than a military solution in the war against terror. Q51 Sir John Stanley: Then the United States. We were very interested in your extremely illuminating recent programme on Panorama with the relatives of the 9/11 victims, and clearly they have, understandably, and right across the United States there is still, a very real fear of being subjected to another terrorist attack. How far do you feel that the US Administration has conferred a significant extra degree of security on that now? Ms Corbin: We see a number of alerts from orange to red to yellow which constantly changes. I think the awareness is there of course post-9/11 and given it did to the psyche of that country. The work that was done by the 9/11 Commission I think has meant that the US public will be far more prepared and far more alert. Some have been critical saying that it is scaremongering, that fear is being unreasonably stirred up. However though I think that they are more prepared, how prepared can an open country, a democracy, ever be against people who are very determined to do this kind of thing? Every road tunnel, every bridge, every railway, every tube station is a potential target and it is impossible to protect, but better intelligence-gathering, better sharing of information-and certainly the American public is aware in a way that it never was before, and some would say it was complacent before-I think are the best safeguards, but you cannot have 100 per cent security and the ability to guard against terror attacks. Q52 Sir John Stanley: Al-Qaeda and al-Qaeda-related elements have been using conventional weapons, conventional explosives for doing terrorist attacks, 9/11 and subsequently. What is your judgment as to the degree of risk that they may try to move into WMD and where do you see the risks that they might be able to do that in terms of what they might be able to procure? Ms Corbin: I think that when I last appeared I said that I felt the intention was there, but not the ability above and beyond a sort of crude ability to create poisons in terms of chemical and biological weapons, but the nuclear option I felt was still quite a long way off. I have not seen any information and I have not come across any information in the last year or so that tells me they are any closer to their objective and I still believe that it is an objective of bin Laden's. I note that the US Marines have said that in the combing through of Fallujah in the last two days, they have found a cache of chemicals, crude chemicals, but chemicals that might be incorporated into the kind of bombs that the insurgents would be using in Fallujah, some of them are Islamic militants, so again I think they may not have the ability to strike in a way that would endanger a whole city, but they are looking for it all the time. They are looking for the value added, in their terms, and I do not think I can say too much about it, but certain things, events in this country and arrests that have been made, though I do not want to stray into legally difficult areas here, have also shown that those who are accused of having sympathies or perhaps being involved in these organisations have sought such materials, but again I do not think I should talk about it too much given that it is as yet going through the courts. Q53 Mr Illsley: On something you mentioned earlier, a courier from al-Zarqawi to bin Laden was intercepted, it just struck me, are we any closer to finding bin Laden? Again this follows on from another thing you said about the ability of the organisation to recreate itself. Donald Rumsfeld said on the 4th October, I think it was, that more than two-thirds of al-Qaeda's leadership have been arrested, detained or killed. That obviously contradicts what you have been saying and tends to give me the worry that we will never find bin Laden. Ms Corbin: Well, perhaps I can just deal with Donald Rumsfeld's comments and come back to bin Laden. Yes, this is a message that comes constantly from the Bush Administration, and the figure they give is that between two-thirds and three-quarters of al-Qaeda's leadership has been dealt with, but this was the three-quarters of the leadership that we knew about on 9/11 and that is three years ago, and there is an alternative leadership now. First of all, they have not taken out the people at the very top and those underneath them, we are led to believe, have been replaced by others, for example, in Saudi where whenever they take one leader out and then al-Qaeda announces that it now has different person, and Amer Azizi is a new name that comes up who is a man still at large and believed to be behind the Madrid bombing, a new al-Qaeda figure. We could talk about names endlessly, but I personally do not believe that you can say that the majority of al-Qaeda's leaders are taken out. I think the ones we knew about then have been taken out and have been replaced with other leaders and also people below that in the strata, because it has always operated in cells anyway and I am not quite sure how important leaders, in the sense that we understand them in the West as military operational chiefs. I am not sure how important they are, I am less confident that the organisation has been decapitated and still the man at the very top and indeed his deputy and indeed Mullah Omah, who were the three top wanted figures when the War on Terror was launched, are still at large, and whether they exercise day-to-day control or not, they are figureheads and they are very important, I think, as propaganda tools for al-Qaeda. Q54 Mr Illsley: Are we still looking for them? Ms Corbin: Yes. Q55 Mr Illsley: The reason I ask that is you have just said that the organisation can operate without them and I just wondered whether the West was now perhaps looking to spend more time, effort and resources dealing with anti-terrorism at home rather than going looking for, if you like, the leadership and whether, even if we find them, it will make any difference to a terrorist attack. Ms Corbin: Well, I think it is important for political reasons and the kind of propaganda we have been talking about where the videos and audiotapes that continue to come out are powerful recruiting tools, so making bin Laden still very effective. We can talk a little about the latest tape, if you like, because I think that was a particularly key moment, the appearance of bin Laden on video after more than two and a half years. On the hunt for bin Laden, we are led to believe that the trail has gone cold. The belief is that he is still in the border area between Afghanistan and Pakistan and indeed his video is believed to be genuine and he makes comments in it that date it to recent months, but the idea that anybody has got any closer to him has certainly gone away. There was a period in the summer when we saw intense activity in the tribal areas on the Pakistani side of the border, an operation known as the "Hammer and Anvil" whereby the Pakistani forces were attempting to drive across the militants to be trapped, if you like, against the anvil of American forces on the Afghan side, but people were unsure as to how much that was for political effect to show that President Musharraf was a trustworthy ally in the War on Terror and how much was down to the real indication that they had al-Qaeda people cornered. There was certainly a rumour that they believed al-Zawahiri was in that area, but I never heard of real concrete evidence that they had bin Laden cornered at that point. Since then, my information is that the trail has gone cold. Q56 Mr Illsley: Just moving, as Sir John mentioned, to the situation in Europe, I just wondered what your take was on the murder of Theo Van Gogh, the film-maker, whether that was just an incident of a backlash from the Muslim community against the film that they saw as offensive, a Satanic Verses-type issue, or whether this has developed into something far more serious and will produce perhaps a backlash against the Muslim communities in Europe where there are now attacks on mosques and so on in the Netherlands. Are the two linked or would it be possible to isolate the incident? Ms Corbin: I think there were similarities to the Satanic Verses in that I understand that the film which sparked this particular attack was very controversial and put forward views which would be offensive to many Muslims, but I think, on the other hand, there is no doubt a section of young Muslim men usually who are very angry, who feel dispossessed and disillusioned in our society, whether it be the Netherlands or here in Britain. I think the fear of those who track these developments, and I think it is something for our own Government and I know our own Government is very interested and concerned about, is how do you head off that anger and that feeling of alienation and dispossession before it is put to potent use by those who would recruit from that alienated section of our society. I think it is a very real problem for us in this country. It is not new, it has been that way for some time and I think 9/11 brought it to a head. I think again, if I can just go back to Iraq, that those insurgents who have been captured recently, whether they be on the Ba'athist end of the scale or the Islamic militant end of the scale, they are very angry and sometimes very incoherent about what their reasons are for wanting to fight and kill coalition forces, but there is a common theme which is an anger and a feeling of futility and loss in not quite knowing the motive for what they are doing and what the future holds for them. I think that can be paralleled in a less extreme way in our own society and in the Netherlands as well and it is a potent mix and it is a mix that we have to get to terms with and we have to try and find long-term solutions to. Q57 Sir John Stanley: You have just touched on the area that I wanted to come on to which is what are the policy options and whether there are things that particularly the British Government, which we are particularly concerned with here, could be doing and are not doing now. We all recognise that this is by far and away the most difficult terrorist issue in our lifetime because these are people who basically have a non-negotiable agenda. Do you feel, against that background, that in terms of trying to overcome them that we have any options other than the military and intelligence options in dealing with the al-Qaeda hard-core? Do you feel that there are any political policy options or negotiating options that we can entertain? Ms Corbin: I think that law-enforcement and intelligence have to be the option with the hard-core because it is perhaps too late to do anything about the way that they feel about our society, but I think it is very important that a different attitude be taken to those who might find themselves swimming in that direction or might find themselves susceptible to joining and that is to do with integration into our society, being part of it, being given opportunity, and also, it has to be said, solving the kind of political problems long-term that anger many of the Muslim world, whether it be the Israeli/Palestinian question or the lack of democracy across the Arab world. However, for the hard-core I believe that you have to keep a firm intelligence-gathering and legal framework, law-enforcement framework, but the whole point of the operation is to stop that sector growing and to head people off before they join. There are initiatives, like, for example, the attempt to regulate the kind of religious teachers that come to Britain and teach in mosques, to encourage a more home-grown, moderate form of Islam than the importation of mullahs who follow a more extreme Wahabist creed of Islam, though that seems quite a long-term view, but it is important. On the other hand, I think that when terrorist attacks occur as happened in Madrid and we in the UK see that and we feel that to be very close to home, then it is important too that the Muslim community here stands up and is counted in (a) saying it is wrong and (b), if they have information, being encouraged to report it and to make sure that these kind of terrorist cells are not allowed to develop here. I think responsibility lies there as well. Q58 Sir John Stanley: How up the agenda for the British Government and indeed other western governments should be the whole issue of trying to support reformist, more democratic movements inside some of the key Middle Eastern states, African states, Saudi, and down the Gulf? I think we are all very conscious that there is a sort of small two-way conflicting push here which to a degree we experience in this country. Terrorism tends to make governments reach for suppressive, intrusive and potentially dictatorial instruments, but at the same time if you pursue those policies, as the Saudis are certainly experiencing, you create a potential cauldron which is likely to overcome your regime. Do you feel that the British Government is doing enough in the reformist agenda or do you think that it is going to have to accept the realities of terrorism and recognise that a lot of countries will say, "Our first priority is to keep our state together", and they are not going to take whatever measures unless they can ensure that happens? Ms Corbin: I think Britain has taken a tougher stance. I am not sure that it would have taken it if America had not taken it following 9/11 and the fact that 19 of the hijackers were Saudi. I think this has changed public opinion in America towards Saudi Arabia and has driven their Government's policy, so I think we have followed on from them, and I am not confident that the British Government would have perhaps taken that line alone. Recent and very interesting work has been done in Norway on the reasons why terrorists become terrorists and particularly suicide bombers. It was often thought that poverty was a key factor, but their work has shown that it is not poverty, but one of the key factors is repression, the lack of democracy and the feeling that they have no voice in their own country, so I think that research bears out the importance of pushing in that direction, pushing for more democracy in those countries where it is lacking. Q59 Chairman: Following Sir John's theme, in terms of the implication for us in the UK of these wider movements, there was an interesting juxtaposition in today's morning press where The Independent suggested that the Government was seeking to create a climate of fear as if exaggerating the threat, yet the Daily Mail had a large piece about the danger or the threat to Canary Wharf. How do you respond? Ms Corbin: Well, in the book that I wrote about al-Qaeda, I did actually give details about Canary Wharf as a possible target and the fears of our own intelligence and security apparatus about Canary Wharf, but I have never seen any evidence that suggests that a plot has actually been uncovered to attack Canary Wharf. There certainly was information about an attack on Heathrow Airport and that was well documented and troops were sent to surround Heathrow Airport. The fear was there that a shoulder-launched missile could have been used against a plane taking off or landing, but I was a bit surprised at the Daily Mail headline today. I do not know of an actual plot to fly planes into ---- Q60 Chairman: Are you sceptical about it? Ms Corbin: I am very sceptical, but I know that this is something which has concerned our authorities here because it is a landmark, it is an icon, it is very big, and I think post-9/11 we know that al-Qaeda goes for the spectacular and that any country that has something similar to the World Trade Center would be wise to look at its security. There is an enormous amount of chatter always in the websites associated with al-Qaeda about potential targets and you never know whether it really is for real or how genuine it is, but governments have to look at all eventualities because the press will attack them if they are found to have been wanting in acting on any information about a threat which they had received. Q61 Sir John Stanley: In the very interesting analysis you have given us about al-Qaeda's motivation, you focused obviously on their sense of anger, particularly if they feel they have been invaded by occupiers in their own country and you focused on suppression of democracy and not having any sort of outlet, but you have not so far referred at all to any religious motivation, and most of the Muslim world would say a mistaken religious motivation, but do you think that amongst the kernel hard-core of al-Qaeda, they are actually driven positively from their standpoint by a view that they have a duty to remove the infidel world, in other words, the non-Muslim world, so is that a serious widespread motivation? Ms Corbin: Yes, but I think we have seen an evolution. I think that is what was so interesting about the recent videotape from Osama bin Laden. It was quite different from earlier ones which had harped on the religious themes, that there was a need for jihad, and there was no mention of jihad in the latest video. The latest video was very political in a sense in which we would understand it, appealing to the public over the heads of politicians to say, "It is not what you are that angers us, it is your policies", or the policies of your Government. It was an attempt to make the public understand why al-Qaeda is opposed to us, so I think that we saw a diminution of the religious rhetoric in this recent video and in fact in the audiotape that preceded that, I do not know if you remember there was an audiotape a month after the Madrid bombing in April in which bin Laden first presented, if you like, this attempt to appear more reasonable and more political. He is trying to shape himself into a political figure, to rely less on the religious rhetoric and to present a more global agenda. We should not be deceived by it because the real hard-core message to the hard-core supporters is violence, terrorism still, but I think that is the direction in which he is seeking to move. It may be because the original motive that fired him, which was the presence, as he saw it, of infidel US troops in the Holy Land of the Saudi Peninsula, has now been removed and events have moved on. Therefore, I think he is actually clever and adept at moving, if you like, with the times in the way he represents himself and that is why we see now more of a focus on these kind of reasons in his statements and the statements of others in al-Qaeda than the original religious rhetoric, but of course it remains a core motive for that organisation. Chairman: Ms Corbin, naught for our comfort, but we thank you for your presentation, nevertheless. Thank you very much. |