The Daharan Bombing & TWA Crash:
Saddam's Revenge?

The July 17th attack coincided with an important Iraqi holiday that celebrates the anniversary of the coup that brought Saddam Hussein to power. On this date six years ago, Saddam started to threaten Kuwait and ordered Iraqi troops to mass on the Kuwaiti border. In early-August, Iraq invaded precipitating the Persian Gulf crisis.

Likewise, the June 25th (June 26th, Saudi time) attack in Saudi Arabia coincided with an important anniversary to Saddam Hussein. On June 26th, 1993, the United States carried out a missile attack against the Iraqi intelligence headquarters in Bagdhad in retaliation for a botched Iraqi plot to assassinate George Bush in Kuwait earlier that year.

Importantly, the February 26th, 1993 World Trade Center bombing is similar to both of the recent terrorist attacks on anniversaries important to Saddam Hussein. This brazen assault against the US occurred on the anniversary of Kuwait's liberation from Iraqi occupation in 1991.

I don't believe the timing of all these incidences is a coincidence. All the attacks are of such sophistication that they are likely state-sponsored acts of terrorism. And what state is the likely culprit? How about Saddam's Iraq? As you may surmise from reading the material presented below, it looks like Saddam has been underhandedly seeking revenge against the US through terrorist activity for some time now.

Below is a list of the articles presented here in chronological order:

1. "Netanyahu sees Iran behind bombing, but experts finger Iraq."

(Agence France Presse: June 27, 1996)

2. "An urgent mission in Saudi Arabia."

(The Boston Globe: June 27, 1996)

3. "Saddam's sly revenge."

(By Uri Dan & Dennis Eisenberg)

(The Jerusalem Post: June 27, 1996)

4. "Sly snake of Baghdad."

(By Uri Dan & Dennis Eisenberg)

(Jerusalem Post: November 23, 1995)

5. "BOOK REVIEW- Study of Revenge: Saddam Hussein's Terror Against America, Gulf War Reprise."

(By Laurie Mylroie: January 1993, unpublished to date)

(Jane's Intelligence Review: August 1, 1995)

6. "Cracking the Conspiracy- Terror: The alleged mastermind of the World Trade Center bombing is captured. But who is he?"

(RUSSELL WATSON with CHRISTOPHER DICKEY in Cairo, KAREN BRESLAU in Washington and ROBIN SPARKMAN in New York)

(Newsweek: February 20, 1995)

7. "Whose hidden hand ignited the fuse?"

(By Frank Gaffney Jr.)

(The Washington Times: January 31, 1995)

8. "Saddam's bombers."

(The Boston Globe: January 18, 1995)

9. "The bombers who got away."

(The Boston Globe: May 26, 1994)

10. "EVENTS LEADING TO KUWAIT BUSH PLOT TRIAL VERDICT"

(Reuters World Service: June 4, 1994)

11. "Saddam's Fingerprints on NY Bombings"

(By Laurie Mylroie)

(WALL STREET JOURNAL, 6/28/93)

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"We don't yet know who were the terrorists, but it is clear that Iran encourages this type of action," Netanyahu said in an interview with the Maariv newspaper following the truck bombing Wednesday at a US military complex in Saudi Arabia that killed 19 Americans and wounded hundreds.

"We are also seeing a surge in Iranian actions directly aimed at Israel," he said.

President Ezer Weizman also said he would "bet that the Iranians are behind" the bombing near the Saudi port of Dhahran.

"It is high time the world realized that Iran is one of the greatest enemies of European civilization," he said.

But specialists on Israel's intelligence community wrote Thursday in the Jerusalem Post that counter-intelligence officials were convinced that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein ordered the Dhahran attack to avenge his country's defeat by a US-led alliance in the 1991 Gulf war.

"Saddam is a man of immense cunning and revenge is integral to his mindset," one intelligence expert was quoted as saying.

They said Saddam's aim was to undermine US President Bill Clinton's hopes for reelection in November while also destabilizing the conservative regime in Saudi Arabia.

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Consequently, it would be a mistake to treat the murderous assault on a military housing complex outside Dhahran as though it were somehow an inevitable price to be paid for having troops stationed in Saudi Arabia.

The most important thing President Clinton and his advisers can do in the aftermath of this act of war is to determine who the bombers are and who might stand behind them.

The methods of the terrorists were not characteristic of amateurs. The pinpointing of a soft spot in the tightened security around US military sites in the kingdom, the size of the bomb and the logistics required to assemble and deliver it - these are all indications of a professional operation.

It is possible that a clandestine group of Saudi fundamentalists, acting on their own, planned and carried out the bombing to avenge the beheading of four Saudi nationals who had been convicted of planting a car bomb last November at a military training facility in Riyadh run by the United States.

But there are other suspects. Senior Saudi officials have said privately that Iraq was behind the November bombing, and though the monarchy might have an incentive to deflect fears of domestic instability, the professionalism of the terrorists and their target are consistent with Saddam Hussein's signature. After all, the members of the US Air Force at the bombed housing complex are there to conduct Operation Southern Watch, the patrolling of the no-fly zone in southern Iraq.

Iran, too, might want to have Americans killed in Saudi Arabia.

It is crucial that the FBI team Clinton is dispatching to Saudi Arabia have complete access to all the information acquired by Saudi officials. To prevent the next attack, the United States must determine who commanded this one.

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YESTERDAY'S massive bomb blast in Saudi Arabia which devastated the US forces' residential quarter in the "secure" Khobar zone of Daharan bore all the signs of another Iranian fundamentalist atrocity. That, at least, was the view of most "informed" experts on international terror.

Yet Israeli counter-intelligence people who have been analyzing the subject of Middle Eastern terror closely are convinced that, for once, Teheran isn't the culprit.

They point a finger directly at Saddam Hussein, who is still seeking revenge for the humiliation he suffered when US forces crushed his army and destroyed his ambition a temporary setback, in his view to topple the Kuwaiti and Saudi Arabian regimes five years ago.

A clue to Saddam's motive lies in the fact that President Clinton faces elections in November. Saddam has never forgotten how he lived up to his boast that hated enemy George Bush would be "long forgotten" while he still ruled in Baghdad.

Saddam views Clinton as another "Satan" whom he is also determined to bury for keeping his country until strict embargo conditions until very recently. " Saddam is a man of immense cunning," an Israeli expert on the Iraqi regime told us, "and revenge is integral to his mindset. Nothing will give him more joy than hearing commentators in Washington saying that the bombing in Saudi Arabia constitutes a heavy blow for Clinton before the elections.

"Saddam knows full well that the finger of suspicion will be pointed at Iran. And he will be as delighted as the cat who swallowed the cream at having fooled the entire world."

It is a fact that Israel, America, and Arab regimes like Jordan have repeatedly condemned the terrorist threat emanating from Iran. It was the main theme at the anti-terror meet in Sharm-e-Sheikh; and Clinton is hammering away at it in his attempt to persuade Western leaders to join him in outlawing the Iranian government until it stops its terror war against the rest of the world.

It has been proved that Iranians were behind the slaying of 240 US soldiers in Beirut in October 1983. Iranians were responsible for the 1992 bomb blast at the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires that resulted in over a score of deaths; and again in 1994, when 100 perished in an explosion that wrecked a Jewish communal center in the same city.

It's hardly a wonder that, with this record, the international bully boys of Teheran are now the targets of suspicion. And that's why Saddam is so pleased.

He felt snubbed by not being invited to last week's Arab summit in Cairo, and now, as our Saddam expert put it: "While the Iranians carry the can, Saddam rubs his hands in glee. He will look and feel innocent over having sent the dynamite-loaded road tanker to Khobar."

IT WAS thirst for revenge that made the Iraqi despot offer $ 5 million reward to a band of international thugs if they killed George Bush while he was on a post- presidential visit to Kuwait in March 1993. Only at the very last minute and by sheer good fortune was the plot discovered and nipped in the bud.

Back then a combined CIA-FBI team despatched to Kuwait was surprised to discover that Saddam and not Iran was behind the plot.

Revenge isn't the only reason for yesterday's murderous attack on US soldiers in Saudi Arabia.

With a bit of luck, the US will intensify its pressure on Iran, especially with Clinton now having to prove that he is tough. With a lot of luck American forces might even strike at Iran, and that would be a double revenge for Saddam, who considers Iran his greatest enemy.

It is a much-strengthened Saddam who now sits in Baghdad, looking on with satisfaction as European and Far Eastern powers jostle for a share of the vast sums which will result from their trading with Iraq. This comes in the wake of foolish and greedy action by France, Germany and other countries who persuaded the UN to ease the oil embargo against Iraq.

There is yet another reason for Saddam to strike at Saudi Arabia. Like everyone else in the Middle East, he is aware of the massive internal struggle inside the Saudi Royal family over who is to take over from the ailing King Fahd.

On one side is Prince Bandar Sultan, deputy prime minister and father of the Saudi ambassador to the US.

The Americans would like him to succeed, for his main challenger is is the religious, ultra-conservative Prince Abdullah. So anti- Western is Abdullah that he initially opposed the US Army rescuing Saudi Arabia when Saddam invaded Kuwait.

Complicating the issue is Abdullah's wife, sister to Rifat, who is the brother of Syrian President Assad. She wants Saudi Arabia to join the camp of the extremist anti-Western rulers in Damascus and Teheran. And she has immense influence over Abdullah.

When Fahd realized how Abdullah was being manipulated, he revoked his decision to put Abdullah on the throne, even though it meant delaying his retirement to the comfort of his vast fortress-palace in Malaga in southern Spain.

Yesterday's bomb blast will further unsettle the shaky position of the Royal House of Saud. Instability added to insecurity regarding the continuing flow of oil from the richest Arab country is bound to cause a jump in prices.

And all the while the cunning ruler of Baghdad will be smiling as the value of the oil the Europeans have now kindly allowed him to sell spirals upward.

This increased revenue will be very welcome. It will mean, among other things, more resources for the Iraqi tyrant to strike again at a weakened regime amid the shifting Arabian sands.

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SIGNS are Saddam Hussein is making an all-out effort to topple the royal family of Saudi Arabia. If he succeeds he could create an economic crisis by controlling oil supplies to the West, sending major shock waves echoing throughout the Middle East.

But the reaction of a team of 17 or 18 FBI investigators who flew into the Saudi capital of Riyadh less than 24 hours after a highly sophisticated car bomb devastated the Saudi National Guard facility last week pointed in a different direction. The investigators saw the explosion as part of Iran's international terrorist offensive.

Over the past few years Iran has been responsible for striking at civilian targets in the US, South America and Europe. Under the control of Ali Fallahian, Iranian minister for special affairs, Iran also directs Hizbullah in Lebanon, as well as Hamas and Islamic Jihad.

Four Americans were among the six killed, and there were at least a dozen Americans among the 60 wounded. The facility is the HQ of King Fahd's major military and security force. Its task is to prevent revolutionary movements from overthrowing the monarchy.

Earlier this week, a suicide bomber devastated the Egyptian Embassy in Islamabad, Pakistan, killing 15 people and wounding 59. A week ago, an Egyptian diplomat was assassinated in Geneva. Western and Israeli intelligence sources believed that these attacks were carried out on behalf of Iran by the Gama'at Islamiya group created by the blind Egyptian cleric Omar Abdel-Rahman, who masterminded the bombing of the World Trade Center in New York.

The Saudi bomb blast is a different story. The Saudi intelligence chief General Turki, a prince of the royal house, told American Ambassador Raymond Mabus: "The explosive device was far too sophisticated to be assembled locally. We believe it was brought into the country."

The car bomb used in Riyadh was such a powerful and skillfully assembled device that it shattered windows over a kilometer away.

The prince flew immediately to see Egypt's President Mubarak. Both men fear that the Moslem fundamentalist threat to their regimes is greater than ever before.

The FBI specialists, who investigated the World Trade Center and Oklahoma City bomb blasts, are still deep in their enquiries. President Bill Clinton has publicly declared that he wants to be certain who was behind the attack in Riyadh.

The view that Saddam Hussein masterminded the attack is held by General Hussein Kamal's entourage, now in hiding in Jordan. A source close to Kamal told US experts still debriefing him that Saddam is "as cunning as a serpent.

"He's determined to beat the US and 'topple the White House into the dust,' Kamal said. "That's one of his favorite expressions. You can judge how sly he is: He wants everybody to think it's the Iranians behind the attack. He is using them as a smoke screen, hoping to fool the world. He will go on trying to seek revenge against his enemies. Top of his list are Saudi Arabia and the US."

We are informed by intelligence sources that Saddam appears to have activated his 'sleeper' terrorist cells in Saudi Arabia. "He is thirsting for action," said Kamal. "It was a major reason why we skipped the country. He's being helped by the fact that there is growing resentment among the ordinary people of Saudi Arabia."

VISITORS to Riyadh report deep anger at the way the country's vast wealth is being swallowed up by the royal family. At last count, the family had nearly 5,000 members, and it's multiplying fast.

Welfare rights for ordinary citizens are being slashed as the king has had to borrow money from Western banks. Meanwhile, the royal princes are still the major players in the fashionable casinos of London, Las Vegas and elsewhere in the West. "I know better than anyone else how Saddam has developed technically highly advanced methods of terrorism," Kamal told his interrogators.

Up to the the present, Saddam has rarely used his well-trained terrorist units, equipped with the most modern weapons of destruction. But Kamal went on:

"I led the team buying the materiel and weapons from Western countries. They were ready to sell anything - bacterial, biological and chemical - for the right price. With the help of German and Russian scientists, we developed a unique explosive that can be integrated into the structure of suitcases, undetectable by airport screening devices."

Saddam wants to dominate most major sources of oil in the Middle East. That is why he attacked Iran in the 1980s. When that failed, he set his sights on Saudi Arabia. He invaded Kuwait not only to seize its oil wells, but to use Kuwait as a springboard for the conquest of Saudi Arabia.

Following the Gulf war, the Bush administration made the mistake of not eliminating Saddam, something the Iraqi leader deemed "decadent Western weakness."

Thirsting for revenge for his defeat, he hired local and Palestinian terrorists to slay George Bush during the ex-president's visit to Kuwait in March 1993. It was only by a stroke of luck that the attempt failed.

"Totally unpredictable," was how a security expert described Saddam.

"It's power, power, and more power which makes Saddam tick," said a member of the Kamal entourage. "He really does believe he can dominate the whole world by controlling the bulk of Middle Eastern oil. We were all certain that he is ready to plunge Iraq into another war."

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Meticulously re-examining evidence which has been presented during the ongoing trials of the bomb conspirators, Mylroie throws some of the original police work into doubt and points to alternative interpretations. The first indication that this attack was not the work of amateurs, she suggests, is the sophistication of the bomb itself.

Though only six people were killed after an explosives-filled van blew up in a parking lot located under one of the WTC's twin towers, the terrorists had been hoping for thousands of fatalities. In his sentencing of some of the bombing conspirators, Judge Duffy deplored the attempted use of cyanide gas in the bomb. If all had gone as planned, the first of the twin towers would have toppled into the second, engulfing it in a cloud of deadly cyanide gas. It is the sheer complexity of this scheme which leads Mylroie to assert that Iraq infiltrated and then used this group of bumbling amateurs to strike at the USA.

Though the New York fundamentalists are said to have been incited to carry out their attack on the WTC by the emigre Egyptian cleric, Sheikh Omar Abdul Rahman, a mysterious Iraqi national named Ramzi Ahmed Yousef was the real brains behind the bomb.

Perhaps more will be revealed when Yousef faces the judge this autumn. Whether that is the case or not, Study of Revenge sheds new light on this enigma and deserves wide publication. Many officials in the US intelligence community and beyond have privately endorsed the findings. This book is more than a tale of how a disaster did not happen; it is an important warning about the future of state-sponsored terrorism and about how inadequate our institutions are to deal with it. (Holly Porteous, Ottawa, Canada)

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Yousef might have been working for Iraq's Saddam Hussein, or for Iran or Libya, or for some Palestinian faction. Or he might have been part of a vast "Jihad" conspiracy by Islamic extremists seeking to terrorize Americans by blowing up more of their landmarks. There was evidence to support all those theories, and still others. It seemed reasonable to suspect that at some point in a shady, double-dealing career, Yousef might even have been linked, at least indirectly, to the CIA, whose enemies, for a time, were his enemies: the Soviet occupiers of Afghanistan. He could have served more than one cause. In the convoluted world of terrorism, a man may have as many masters and motives as he does passports and names.

Whoever he is, Yousef's arrest was the highlight of a banner week for the forces of counterterrorism. On Monday, a key defendant switched sides in the trial of Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman and 11 other Islamic men, who were accused of plotting a "day of terror" in New York City. Siddig Ibrahim Siddig Ali, the purported ringleader of the plot, changed his plea to guilty and described a plan to bomb the United Nations and a federal office building in Manhattan, along with the Lincoln and Holland tunnels and the George Washington Bridge. He also said he had undergone weapons training on Long Island to prepare for the assassination of prominent figures. He charged that Sheik Abdel-Rahman approved specific targets and discussed ways to avoid detection. Siddig Ali is a 34-year-old Sudanese who nearly defected to the prosecution last summer. His conversion, a week after the trial began, was overshadowed a day later when Yousef was run to earth in Pakistan.

"We'd been close to him for a while," says a U.S. official. "But of course 'close' only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades." Then an informer --thought to be a disgruntled former associate -- walked into the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad and revealed where Yousef was living. (It could take U.S. officials quite a while to decide how much, if any, of the $ 2 million reward to give to the squealer. "This guy is not a choirboy," says a U.S. source). Accompanied by Pakistani authorities, agents of the FBI and the State Department's Diplomatic Security Service raided Yousef's room at the Holiday Inn. They found him lying on a bed, his beard shaved off and his hair dyed red. Two suitcases were packed, one holding bomb components, including a remote-controlled toy car packed with explosives. Yousef also had a copy of NEWSWEEK from last July 4, which carried an article on the manhunt for him. Pakistani authorities treated the fugitive like a stick of dynamite with a burning fuse; they tossed him to the Americans, and soon he was on a plane to New York.

The last time he arrived there, in September 1992, Yousef opted for the Afghan look, wearing what an official described as "harem pants" and a "puffy-sleeved shirt." He presented an unconvincing identity card in the name of Khurram Khan. When that was rejected, he produced what appeared to be a legitimate Iraqi passport identifying him as Ramzi Ahmed Yousef. He asked for political asylum, claiming that he belonged to a Kuwaiti guerrilla group and would be tortured if he returned to Iraq. He was allowed into the country, but a traveling companion, Ahmad Ajaj, was detained for carrying a fake Swedish passport and a set of bomb-building manuals.

'Rashid the Iraqi': Yousef disappeared into the immigrant Muslim community in Jersey City, N.J., where he mingled with the followers of Sheik Rahman. They knew him as "Rashid the Iraqi." Court papers portray Yousef as the indispensable man in the World Trade Center bombing. Other alleged conspirators in the sheik's flock proved incapable of organizing such a large-scale operation, investigators charge. On Feb. 26, 1993, they argue, Yousef and a co-conspirator, Mohammad Salameh, drove a rented van full of explosives into the underground garage at the trade center and started the detonator, producing an explosion that killed six people and injured more than 1,000. Yousef flew out of the country almost before the smoke cleared; he had obtained a new passport by convincing Pakistan's consulate the he was Abdul Basit, a Pakistani born in Kuwait in 1968. Four of Yousef's alleged accomplices, including Salameh and Ajaj, were convicted and sentenced to 240 years in prison for the attack on the trade center.

As investigators tell it, the conspiracies didn't end when Yousef fled. In the "day of terror" trial, Sheik Abdel-Rahman and his followers are accused of participating in an international conspiracy, fueled by Islamic zeal, to overthrow secular Arab governments, such as Egypt's, and to attack their backers in the United States. The two alleged organizers are Siddig Ali, who has switched sides, and a former Egyptian Army officer, Emad Salem, who was a government informer from the beginning. Unlike them, Yousef may not be a true believer. "He is more of a technician than an ideologue," says Steven Emerson, author of a forthcoming book on radical Islamic networks in the United States. "There's a tremendous rage against the West, but he's not particularly religious."

Yousef apparently kept busy after he left New York. Last month FBI agents and Philippine police raided an apartment in Manila and found a treasure-trove of evidence. Some of it reportedly linked Yousef to the bombing of a Philippine airliner last December, in which one passenger died. Philippine officials connected Yousef to a plot to kill Pope John Paul II during his visit to Manila last month. And FBI officials found explosives, a bomb manual, an encrypted computer disc and timetables for Delta and American Airlines. Investigators thought Yousef was involved in a plot to simultaneously blow up five U.S. airliners over the Pacific. Yousef fled before the apartment was raided, but investigators said they found fingerprints there that matched ones taken from him when he entered the United States in 1992.

Conflicting clues: That doesn't clear up the mystery of Yousef's identity. "Ramzi Ahmed Yousef" is merely "the name we know him by, the one he got caught under," says an administration officials. The available clues go in many different directions. Yousef himself once claimed to be an Iraqi Christian. At least one Arabic-speaker who knows him says he has no Iraqi accent. Israeli intelligence listened to recordings of his voice and declared him a Palestinian, probably from Jordan. An FBI profile portrayed him as a Pakistani born in Kuwait. He apparently spoke Urdu well enough to persuade Pakistani officials in New York to give him one of their passports. Whatever his origin, U.S. officials think Yousef got his explosives training as a teenager in rebel Afghan camps in Pakistan during the 1980s -- when the CIA has helping to arm and train the anti-Soviet mujahedin.

Who employed him? Some of the circumstantial evidence points to Iraq. Apparently, the original Abdul Basit passport belonged to a real person, a Pakistani born in Kuwait who was killed there during the Iraqi occupation. And Iraq is now sheltering Abdul Rahman Yasin, the only defendant in the World Trade Center case who is still at large. Friends of his family said last week that Yasin is living in Baghdad, and as one of them put it, "He's not apprehensive that anything will happen to him." Yousef is exactly the kind of thoroughly professional terrorist who might help Iraq's leader get back at the United States. " Saddam Hussein wants revenge for our destroying his country," says Vincent Cannistraro, director of the CIA's counterterrorism division during the Bush administration. And as it happens, the World Trade Center bombing occurred on the second anniversary of Kuwait's liberation from Saddam. Whether it was from Iraq or some other source. Yousef clearly had big-time support. He had numerous false passports, a vast supply of explosives and enough monty to live well and fly first class. "Ramzi cannot have been an independent actor," says Cannistraro. These days, even an anarchist needs a well-heeled sponsor.

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Such a conclusion would rock the just-initiated, highly publicized trial of Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman and his coreligionists who have been charged with plotting to wage a campaign of terror against the United Nations and other targets in New York. It would intensify pressure on the Clinton administration to take decisive action against Saddam, both to punish him for his effort to exact revenge on the nation that defeated him in Desert Storm and to pre-empt any plans he may have to strike again. And it would demonstrate clearly that the United States government is ill-prepared to deal with the real -and growing - threat of state-sponsored terrorism on American soil.

Miss Mylroie's thesis sounds like the plot of a Tom Clancy novel: Sometime in June 1992, Iraqi intelligence learned of a bush-league campaign of 12 pipe-bombings being plotted by followers of the New Jersey-based Islamic radical, Sheik Omar. Saddam's operatives took over, targeting the very symbol of U.S. capitalism and urban civilization - New York's twin-towered, skyscraping World Trade Center (WTC) - for a far more devastating attack.

The act was planned, moreover, in such a way as to deceive the American people and their government into holding responsible not Iraq but the original plotters -and their presumed sponsors in Iran - for the bombing. In this way, Saddam could satisfy his culture's tradition of exacting revenge against an enemy. Better still, from his point of view, that enemy would be induced to retaliate against Iraq's most dangerous regional foe, Iran.

Such a tale of intrigue, terrorism and lethal double-dealing emerges, of all places, from the evidence developed in last year's trial of three followers of Sheik Omar and one other Islamic extremist convicted of conspiring to blow up the World Trade Center. Working with ABC News and Newsweek, Miss Mylroie has carefully examined thousands of pages of phone records, plane tickets, travel documents, immigration information and other materials and testimony. Among her alarming conclusions are the following:

* The bomb used in the World Trade Center was intended to employ metal additives dramatically to boost its explosive power. Had it been properly positioned and detonated according to plan, it could have toppled one of the World Trade Center's towers into the other, killing tens of thousands of people and causing incalculable damage in Lower Manhattan.

* The bomb also apparently was designed to vaporize cyanide gas - which, if distributed through the tower's ventilation system, would have assured massive casualties throughout the bombed structure.

* Iraqi intelligence may have also perpetrated the killings outside the CIA a month before the WTC attack in New York. The purpose in so doing might have been (1) to check out the escape route -via Quetta, Pakistan - that was apparently used by one of its operatives after the WTC bombing and (2) to test the efficacy of the American response to an act of international terrorism.

* U.S. intelligence, terrorist and law-enforcement agencies have failed to come to grips with what one noted Middle East expert, Douglas Feith, calls "strategic crime" - acts of state-sponsored terrorism that are a hybrid of warfare and criminal activity. As the World Trade Center affair suggests, these incidents tend to fall between America's bureaucratic cracks. For example, the prosecutors in New York seem unaware of the grounds for concern about Iraqi involvement. Counterterrorist officials in Washington seem unaware of the extent of the evidence of such involvement developed in the original World Trade Center trial. And policymakers in the Clinton administration seem determined to ignore the possibility of Saddam's role, lest they be obliged to do something about it.

* There may well be other agents of Iraqi intelligence still at large in this country (known as "sleepers") waiting to carry out far more deadly acts of revenge against the United States. In this regard, Miss Mylroie notes that on Sept. 27, 1994, as Iraqi troops tested American resolve by preparing a new assault against Kuwait, Saddam Hussein declared: "We will open the storehouses of the universe" against the United States." Two days later, Babil cize - a newspaper in Iraq owned by Saddam's son, Uday - amplified, saying: "Does the United States realize the meaning of "opening the storehouses of the universe with the will of Iraqi people ...? Does it realize the meaning of every Iraqi becoming a missile that can cross to countries and cities?"

Miss Mylroie's evidence may or may not be sufficient to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Saddam Hussein was behind the World Trade Center bombing. It certainly seems sufficient, however, to justify the opening of a formal investigation into that allegation by the U.S. government. If the executive branch persists in its apparent indifference to this ominous possibility, it behooves the new Republican-led Congress to begin its own inquiry into this matter - before the nation is rocked by even more deadly explosions.

Frank J. Gaffney Jr. is the director of the Center for Security Policy and a columnist for The Washington Times.

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Until recently, the issuing of the two rewards was the only significant government response to the information developed from the prosecution of the worst terrorist crime ever committed in the United States. Yet documentary evidence presented in court suggested that in addition to the two fugitives, there was one identified and at least one unidentified accomplice to the bombing who were not indicted. The identified "sleeper" is an Iraqi and still lives in the United States.

If Saddam's operatives manipulated simple-minded Islamic zealots to bomb the World Trade Center, it is only prudent to assume his agents are capable of striking again. In October, Saddam threatened dire action if the UN sanctions on his regime are not ended. An editorial in Babil, the paper owned by his son, explained: "The United States must understand that there is a limit to the patience of the Iraqis. . . . Does it realize the meaning of every Iraqi becoming a missile that can cross to countries and cities?"

If Saddam Hussein is the criminal ultimately responsible for the World Trade Center bombing, he must be held accountable.

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But the two Iraqis who were described during the trial as the masterminds of the Trade Center bombing, Ramzi Yousef and Abdul Yasin, are at large. They are believed to be in Iraq. The State Department has offered a $ 2 million reward for information leading to the arrest of either of them.

In everything that has to do with the two Iraqi ringleaders, American law enforcement and the custodians of US foreign policy have thus far failed abjectly. These failures are significant because there is persuasive circumstantial evidence that Yousef and Yasin are agents of Saddam Hussein's secret services and that the bombing was designed to fulfill Saddam's promise to avenge his humiliation in Kuwait. The blast occurred on the second anniversary of the end of the Gulf War.

The FBI established Yasin's return to Baghdad through his brother, who was not indicted despite his own involvement with the bombers. In the presence of FBI agents, the brother phoned Yasin in Baghdad. Yasin had been able to escape to Iraq only because he fooled agents from the New Jersey office of the FBI into considering him a "confidential informant" when they discovered him in the apartment of one of the terrorists shortly after the bombing. Yousef had flown out of New York hours after the explosion.

Yousef and Yasin would not have returned to Baghdad after the bombing unless they had nothing to fear from Saddam's interrogators, who could be expected to employ harsh methods to learn about their contacts with the FBI or with the Egyptian fundamentalist Sheik Omar Abdul Rahman (who had condemned Saddam's invasion of Kuwait). If the bombing of the World Trade Center originated in Baghdad as an act of state-sponsored terrorism, full justice was not done in Judge Kevin Duffy's courtroom.

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April 13, 1993 - Headlights darkened, two vehicles carrying 10 Iraqis slip into Kuwait from Iraq before dawn in remote desert area. Cargo includes illicit whisky, two pistols, an AK-47 assault rifle and a bag of explosives. One vehicle is booby-trapped with explosives embedded in the bodywork.

The 10 split up and variously meet three Kuwaiti and one Iraqi (a resident of Kuwait) co-accused, at several houses.

April 14 - Bush arrives for visit to honour his leadership in 1991 Gulf War ending Iraq's occupation of Kuwait. Kuwaiti police begin rounding up alleged plotters.

April 15 - Bush gives speech at school for handicapped, a change of itinerary made because university's auditorium, where alleged assassination was meant to have been carried out, was under repair. Last four gang members arrested in desert walking towards Iraq.

April 16 - Bush leaves Kuwait.

April 27 - Defence Minister Sheikh Ali al-Sabah says Iraqi intelligence planned to assassinate Bush.

Early May - U.S. sends experts from Federal Bureau of Investigation to probe the alleged plot.

May 8 - Unidentified senior U.S. official says President Bill Clinton's administration has ''credible intelligence'' that Iraqi government was behind alleged plot.

May 9 - Iraqi Information Minister Hamed Youssef al-Hummadi says alleged plot is fabrication by Kuwait and Washington aimed at justifying tighter economic sanctions against Iraq.

May 16 - Kuwaiti prosecutors lay charges against 11 Iraqis and three Kuwaitis, saying they aimed to kill Bush as part of wider bombing campaign to destabilise Kuwait. Two others arrested referred to lower court on liquor smuggling charges.

May 23 - Bush tells Chicago audience plot ''was real.''

June 5 - Trial starts at state security court; two Iraqis admit charges but one later denies knowledge of plan to kill Bush, saying he was sent only to bomb shops and car showrooms. Nine Iraqis and three Kuwaitis deny charges.

June 27 - U.S. warships fire 23 cruise missiles at Baghdad, destroying part of Iraqi intelligence headquarters. Some go astray, killing six people. Clinton calls the attack retaliation for ''loathsome and cowardly'' plot.

Nov 1 - Al-Thawra, newspaper of Iraq's ruling Baath Party, warns Kuwait's leaders they ''shall pay the price of their crimes'' for detaining the 11 Iraqis.

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Speculation about the responsibility for last week's bombing plot and the earlier World Trade Center bombing has focused on Iran, Sudan, and the fundamentalist Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman. Much energy has been spent linking the terror to Islamic fundamentalism. Yet Saddam, a secular tyrant, is also suspect.

Information already in the public domain allows us to make this case. Start with the fact that the most important person in the Trade Center bombing is an Iraqi, Ramzi Ahmad Yusuf. Known in New York as Rashid, Mr. Yusuf has 11 aliases. The U.S. press has reported that he left Iraq in early 1992, transiting Jordan to Pakistan. He entered New York in early September on Pakistan Airways. Mr. Yusuf, traveling on his Iraqi passport, passed through immigration by requesting asylum. The FBI claims the plot began in August, while Mr. Yusuf was abroad.

In late November, Mr. Yusuf allegedly ordered chemicals for the bomb and Mr. Salameh rented a locker to store them. The plot was underway. In early February, Mr. Salameh notified his landlord that he and Mr. Yusuf would leave at month's end. On Feb. 26 the World Trade Center was bombed. Messrs. Salameh and Yusuf vacated their apartment two days later.

Mr. Salameh was arrested March 4. Musaab Yassin returned home that day to find the FBI searching his apartment, while Abboud had been taken for questioning. Abboud Yassin told the FBI that he taught Mr. Salameh to drive the van that carried the bomb, that he accompanied Mr. Salameh to an apartment later identified as the bomb's testing ground; and Abboud Yassin's information helped lead the FBI to the locker where the chemicals had been stored. The U.S. press reports that Abboud Yassin then returned to Iraq, as did Mr. Yusuf. The New York Times reported that Arabs who knew Mr. Salameh and the second Palestinian arrested, Nidal Ayyad, said that the two had "close ties with two Iraqis, one of whom they say was named Rashid, but both of whom have since disappeared."

This information, although sketchy, indicates Iraqi activity. If Mr. Yusuf, the key figure, had worked for Iran, Tehran would not have let him return to Iraq. Given the totalitarian nature of the Iraqi regime, even Abboud Yassin's return to Iraq is significant. An innocent man would, arguably, have chosen to stay in the U.S.- he would have a better chance of a fair hearing in a U.S. court than before an Iraqi intelligence officer. If Abboud Yassin was involved in the bombing- but was not acting under Baghdad's instruction- then it was even more imprudent for him to return to Iraq. Mr. Yusuf and Abboud Yassin could have gone to Afghanistan, where they would not have exposed themselves to the potentially fatal suspicions of Baghdad's intelligence agencies.

That two men involved came from Iraq and returned there is reason enough to consider an Iraqi role in the World Trade Center bombing. What other possible evidence is there? It has been reported that the bombing suspects received money from abroad: up to $100,000 from Germany, Iran, and "another Middle Eastern Country." That country is probably Jordan, shielded by U.S. authorities who continue protecting Amman for the sake of the "peace process." Without knowing how much money came from each country, though, it is hard to exclude Iraq. Last but not least, it is worth noting that the February bombing occurred on the second anniversary of Kuwait's liberation.

What about last week's arrests? The FBI arrested five Sudanese and three others as it broke up a second bombing plot. The conspirators' first target was the United Nations' headquarters. Other targets were added, including FBI headquarters in New York. Additionally, four assassinations were planned, including that of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and U.N. secretary general Boutros Boutros-Ghali.

Like the Trade Center bombing, much of this operation was amateurish. The conspiracy instigator, Siddiq Ibrahim Ali, had a plan to get a car into the FBI building, but it was amateurish (he proposed shooting the guards). Professional terrorists divide their organizations into small cells, each devoted to specific tasks. These planners used a large group in which every participant was known to the others, so that the entire plot could quickly unravel once one member was caught. Yet, like the World Trade Center bombing, this was audacious. Had it suceeded, thousands could have died.

It's important to note that both the Trade Center bombing and the later plot represent something new- at least in the West. Saddam however commits that kind of carnage on a daily basis.

Two of the nations thought to be behind the second plot are not ideal suspects. Khartoum is suspected, because Sudanese played a big role in the plot. With Iran, Sudanese has been involved in a violent campaign to overthrow secular governments in North Africa, including Mr. Boutros-Ghali's own government in Cairo. But Khartoum has not sponsored terrorism against U.S. targets. That it should suddenly support potentially the most devastating anti-American attack ever makes little sense. A separate question though is whether Sudanese diplomats could be bought. This is possible, since Khartoum is broke, and months behind in paying its diplomats.

Iranian sponsorship of the plot is also unlikely. Iran has no big quarrel with the U.N.- it benefits from the U.N.'s disarmament of Iraq. The U.N. is not the obvious target for Muslim extremists. Their quarrel is with the U.S. They could have easily chosen an American target. Explaining why fundamentalists would bomb the U.N. is possible, but the explanation is strained- that they see the U.N. as a U.S. surrogate; that their violence is caused by anger at many issues involving the U.N., including Bosnia, Somalia and the Palestinians. The Trade Center suspects issued a set of demands that the U.S. stop aiding Israel and stop interfering in the internal affairs of Middle Eastern countries.

Saddam by contrast has every reason to attack the U.N. Saddam also hates Egypt's Mubarak and wants him dead, no less than he wanted George Bush dead. Baghdad Radio threatened Mr. Bush personally during the Gulf War and Mubarak as well, "Does he (Mubarak) think that the crime he committed against the people of Iraq will go unpunished?...Prepare yourself for it and shiver at the thought."

For Saddam, Iraqi sponsorship would be vengeance with a twist. Baghdad wants Washington to blame Iran for the terror striking America's shores. If it doesn't and fundamentalists are caught, that too is fine, because it promotes a hysteria about Islamic fundamentalism and Iran which, Saddam calculates, would eventually benefit Iraq. If Saddam is behind the attacks, more will surely follow.

The focus of the New York investigations should shift to the question of state sponsorship. If considerable evidence points to Saddam, then President Clinton must fulfill his Saturday pledge: "We will combat terrorism. We will deter aggrssion. We will protect our people."