Al-Qaeda leader Bin Laden 'dead'. Again.

[Peter Lemkin]

Demanding the Evidence on Abbottabad: Even the Media Establishment Is Wary
18th May 2011

By Russ Baker
WhoWhatWhy.com

Since the Navy SEAL raid in Abbottabad, we've been raising questions (here and here) about the stories we were toldand what we were not told.

It seems we have company in feeling that the government is not leveling with us.

The Associated Press is the establishment, and so they tend to be quite cautious. Yet look at this, as reported by Atlanticwire:

President Obama's decision to withhold the visual evidence of Osama bin Laden's death has created a fundamental disagreement between the White House and one of the largest journalism organizations in the world. "This information is important for the historical record," said Michael Oreskes, senior managing editor at The Associated Press. "That's our view."

It's worth pointing out that "important for the historical record" is a tactful way of dressing up the issue. The United States is supposed to be a democracy, but for a very long time the citizens have had good reason not to trust what they are told about what is done in their name, and why. (Gulf of Tonkin, Iran Contra, Weapons of Mass Destruction, on and onname your favorite deception.)

Last Monday, the AP filed a Freedom of Information Act request for the photographic and video evidence taken during the raid on bin Laden's compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. The organization's FOIA request included a reminder of the president's campaign pledge and a plea to be more transparent than his predecessor. "The Obama White House pledged to be the most transparent government in U.S. history," wrote the AP, "and to comply much more closely with the Freedom of Information Act than the Bush administration did.'"

Again, what AP presumably really meant was that there's a staggering gap between Obama's promise to open up government and what he has actually done. For more on this, see this recent example from the publication Secrecy News, just one of hundreds. (In this case, a report on corruption in the Afghan Central Bank was removed from the USAID website after the agency reclassified some of its contents.)

Back to the AP story:

Two days later, the president told60 Minutes he would not release any of the footage related to the raid, including video of bin Laden's deep sea burial and photographs of his slain corpse. Though Oreskes voices his disagreement diplomatically, there's no way around it: The AP believes the president is wrong to maintain exclusive ownership of the evidence. "We're asking to see it," said Oreskes in an interview with The Atlantic Wire. "It's about us saying we would like to make our own news judgements about news worthy material."

Diplomatic as ever. But the difference between what members of the corporate-funded media write and what they say in private over drinks could, well, fill a newspaper. Basically, by now, even the most clueless establishment reporter is starting to get a clear sense that something ain't right in Washington, and that it doesn't really matter who is president or what party he calls his own. Not when powerful international interestsand hugely valuable natural resourcesare at stake.

The president insists that releasing bin Laden's photograph violates common decency and puts U.S. troops in harm's ways. "We don't trot out this stuff as trophies," he told Steve Kroft on 60 Minutes. "I think that given the graphic nature of these photos, it would create some national security risk."

Many in the press have agreed. "To put his head on a digital spike and display his mangled head is, indeed, not the Western way," wrote Andrew Sullivan on Wednesday.

That comment, of course, hardly backs up the claim of a national security risk. But it does underline something: the "Western way" is, increasingly, to kill by remote control, to pretend no one actually dies, to deny the human toll behind strategic and tactical decisions based on scenarios that no one can any longer properly explain. Like how Osama became such a powerhouse in the first place, what his real influence was, or why the US is still in Afghanistan.

But a journalist's prerogative is to ask questions and find answers, said Oreskes. "It's our job as journalists to seek this material."

"We're not deciding in advance to publish this material," he pledged. "We would like our journalists, who are working very hard, to see this material and then we'll decide what's publishable and what's not publishable based on the possibility that it's inflammatory."

Coming from a country where shock value is increasingly the gold standard, it's a decidedly odd notion that when a story is really big is the only time to be delicate with sensibilities.

Senator Lindsey Graham, Senator Susan Collins, Rep. Peter King and The Wall Street Journal's Peggy Noonan have each sought the photos release at one point or another. They each maintained that bin Laden, of course, is dead and the White House's narrative is to be believed. But photos should be released to tamp down conspiracy theories.

It's interesting that nobody respectable will admit to private concerns about the conflicting stories we've been told about Osama and Al Qaeda over the years. Of course the White House's narrative "is to be believed", but, um, can we please see the proof anyway? Just for the heck of it?

For Oreskes, the photo is an important piece of evidence to establish what happened during the Navy SEALs raid on bin Laden's Abbottabad compound. "In the week since the raid there's been a whole series of story-lines about what happened in this raid," said Oreskes. "At this point, anything that might shed more light on what occurred is potentially quite newsworthy. So we would like this imagery to fully understand what happened during this event."

"I can't tell you what understanding we would get," he prefaced. "But we would like to see it and compare it with other things we're being told about this raid both by U.S. officials and officials in other countries."

What he presumably means is that there's something fundamentally wrong with the inconsistencies in the White House version of events, and if we can't even resolve those, how can we ever trust it on more mundane matters?

The AP isn't alone in wanting more insight on the specifics of the raid. When it eventually surfaced that bin Laden was not killed in a firefight, his wife wasn't used as a human shield, there was no live footage of the event and the "mansion" where he lived was only worth between $250,000 and $480,000, many became skeptical of the White House's narrative. Other organizations that have filed FOIAs include Politico, Fox News, Judicial Watch and Citizens United. Oreskes sympathizes with the president. "This is obviously one of his most difficult decisions and we understand that."

Actually, we don't even really know that it was one of his most difficult decisions. And we don't even know that it is really his to make. The real story of how decisions are "made" by the temporary occupants of the White House has a lot more to do with permanent constituencies and power centers inside and outside government that have been shaping events globally for decades. Those who read accounts of former insiders, from Fletcher Prouty (former chief of special operations for the Pentagon) to Col. Lawrence Wilkerson (former chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell) to investigative reporters (sorrypersonal plugyours truly), know that there's far more intrigue in this process than even the president himself may know.

At best, presidents, who lack personal knowledge of the complex details, hidden agendas, and cooked intelligence, are dependent on how the options are presented to them and framed by unseen others. The truth is too sensitive to share with mere mortals like Obama, who at worst will be out of the way in a few short years. Meanwhile, every president has a stake in hiding how little real power he actually has.

http://blogs.alternet.org/speakeasy/2011...t-is-wary/

[Ed Jewett]

Oh dear me...

[Charles Drago]

Ceremony of blood.

Made God have mercy on the soul of Osama bin Laden ... and on the souls of whoever died in the "raid."

These deaths diminish me.

[Peter Lemkin]

Oh dear me...

I have to rethink the entire CIA [not!], as they allow men with beards. NOTE: All in those photos must be very low level grunts in the CIA - otherwise they'd not even allow their faces to be shown. Gardening or cleaning staff?

[Magda Hassan]

How Many SEALs Died?

by Paul Craig Roberts

May 21, 2011

In a sensational and explosive TV report, the Pakistani News Agency has provided a live interview with an eyewitness to the US attack on the alleged compound of Osama bin Laden. The eye witness, Mohammad Bashir, describes the event as it unfolded. Of the three helicopters, "there was only one that landed the men and came back to pick them up, but as he [the helicopter] was picking them up, it blew away and caught fire." The witness says that there were no survivors, just dead bodies and pieces of bodies everywhere. "We saw the helicopter burning, we saw the dead bodies, then everything was removed and now there is nothing."
I always wondered how a helicopter could crash, as the White House reported, without at least producing injuries. Yet, in the original White House story, the SEALs not only survived a 40-minute firefight with al Qaeda, "the most highly trained, most dangerous, most vicious killers on the planet," without a scratch, but also survived a helicopter crash without a scratch.
The Pakistani news report is available on YouTube. The Internet site, Veterans Today, posted a translation along with a video of the interview. Information Clearing House made it available on May 17.
If the interview is not a hoax and the translation is correct, we now know the answer to the unasked question: Why was there no White House ceremony with President Obama pinning medals all over the heroic SEALs who tracked down and executed Public Enemy Number One?
The notion that Obama had to keep the SEALs' identity secret in order to protect the SEALs from al Qaeda detracts from the heroic tough guy image of the SEALs, and it strains credulity that Obama's political handlers would not have milked the occasion for all it is worth.
Other than on the Veterans Today and ICH Internet sites, I have not seen any mention of the Pakistani news story. If the White House press corps is aware of the report, no one has asked President Obama or his press spokesperson about it. Helen Thomas was the last American reporter sufficiently brave to ask such a question, and she was exterminated by the Israel Lobby.
In America we have reached the point where anyone who tells the truth is dismissed as a "conspiracy theorist" and marginalized. Recently, a professor of nano-chemistry from the University of Copenhagen made a lecture tour of major Canadian universities explaining the research, conducted by himself and a team of physicists and engineers, that resulted in finding small particles of unreacted nano-thermite in dust samples from the wreckage of the World Trade Center towers, in addition to other evidence that the professor and the research team regard as conclusive scientific proof that the towers were brought down by controlled demolition.
No American university dared to invite him, and as far as I know, no mention of the explosive research report has ever appeared in the American press.
I find it astonishing that 1,500 architects and engineers, who actually know something about buildings, their construction, their strength and weaknesses, and who have repeatedly requested a real investigation of the destruction of the three WTC buildings, are regarded as conspiracy kooks by people who know nothing whatsoever about architecture or engineering or buildings. The same goes for the large number of pilots who question the flight maneuvers carried out during the attacks, and the surviving firemen and "first responders" who report both hearing and personally experiencing explosions in the towers, some of which occurred in sub-basements.
A large number of high-ranking political figures abroad don't believe a word of the official 9/11 story. For example, the former president of Italy and dean of the Italian Senate, told Italy's oldest newspaper, Corriere delia Sera, that the intelligence services of Europe "know well that the disastrous [9/11] attack has been planned and realized by the American CIA and the [Israeli] Mossad . . . in order to put under accusation the Arabic Countries and in order to induce the western powers to take part in [the invasions]."
Even people who report that there are dissenting views, as I have done, are branded conspiracy theorists and banned from the media. This extends into the Internet in addition to newspapers and TV. Not long ago a reporter for the Internet site, The Huffington Post, discovered that Pat Buchanan and I are critics of the Iraq and Afghanistan invasions. He was fascinated that there were some Reagan administration officials who dissented from the Republican Party's war position and asked to interview me.
After he posted the interview on The Huffington Post, someone told him that I was not sound on 9/11. In a panic the reporter contacted me, demanding to know if I disbelieved the official 9/11 story. I replied that being neither architect, engineer, physicist, chemist, pilot, nor firefighter, I had little to contribute to understanding the event, but that I had reported that various experts had raised questions.
The reporter was terrified that he might somehow have given a 9/11 skeptic credibility and be fired for interviewing me about my war views for The Huffington Post. He quickly added at the beginning and, if memory serves, ending of the posted interview words to the effect that my lack of soundness on 9/11 meant that my views on the wars could be disregarded. If only he had known that I was unsure about the official 9/11 story, there would have been no interview.
One doesn't have to be a scientist, architect, engineer, pilot or firefighter to notice astonishing anomalies in the 9/11 story. Assume that the official story is correct and that a band of terrorists outwitted not only the CIA and FBI, but also all 16 US intelligence agencies and those of our NATO allies and Israel's notorious Mossad, along with the National Security Council, NORAD, air traffic control and airport security four times in one hour on the same morning. Accept that this group of terrorists pulled off a feat worthy of a James Bond movie and delivered a humiliating blow to the world's only superpower.
If something like this really happened, would not the president, the Congress, and the media be demanding to know how such an improbable thing could have happened? Investigation and accountability would be the order of the day. Yet President Bush and Vice President Cheney resisted the pleas and demands for an investigation from the 9/11 families for one year, or was it two, before finally appointing a non-expert committee of politicians to listen to whatever the government chose to tell them. One of the politicians resigned from the commission on the grounds that "the fix is in."
Even the two chairmen and the chief legal counsel of the 9/11 Commission wrote books in which they stated that they believe that members of the military and other parts of the government lied to the commission and that the commission considered referring the matter for investigation and prosecution.
Thomas Kean, chairman of the 9/11 Commission, said: "FAA and NORAD officials advanced an account of 9/11 that was untrue . . . We, to this day don't know why NORAD told us what they told us . . . It was just so far from the truth."
Vice Chairman Lee Hamilton said: "We had a very short time frame . . . we did not have enough money . . . We had a lot of people strongly opposed to what we did. We had a lot of trouble getting access to documents and to people. . . . So there were all kinds of reasons we thought we were set up to fail."
As far as I know, not a single member of the government or the media made an issue of why the military would lie to the commission. This is another anomaly for which we have no explanation.
The greatest puzzle is the conclusion drawn by a national audience from watching on their TV screens the collapse of the WTC towers. Most seem satisfied that the towers fell down as a result of structural damage inflicted by the airliners and from limited, low-temperature fires. Yet what the images show is not buildings falling down, but buildings blowing up. Buildings that are destroyed by fires and structural damage do not disintegrate in 10 seconds or less into fine dust with massive steel beams sliced at each floor level by high temperatures that building fires cannot attain. It has never happened, and it never will.
Conduct an experiment. Free your mind of the programmed explanation of the towers' destruction and try to discern what your eyes are telling you as you watch the videos of the towers that are available online. Is that the way buildings fall down from damage, or is that the way buildings are brought down by explosives? Little doubt, many Americans prefer the official story to the implications that follow from concluding that the official story is untrue.
If reports are correct, the US government has gone into the business of managing the public's perceptions of news and events. Apparently, the Pentagon has implemented Perception Management Psychological Operations. There are also reports that the State Department and other government agencies use Facebook and Twitter to stir up problems for the Syrian, Iranian, Russian, Chinese, and Venezuela governments in efforts to unseat governments not controlled by Washington. In addition, there are reports that both governments and private organizations employ "trolls" to surf the Internet and to attempt to discredit in blogs and comment sections reports and writers who are out of step with their interests. I believe I have encountered trolls myself.
In addition to managing our perceptions, much is simply never reported. On May 19, 2011, the fourteen-decade-old British newspaper, The Statesman, reported that the Press Trust of India has reported that the Chinese government has warned Washington "in unequivocal terms that any attack on Pakistan would be construed as an attack on China," and advised the US government "to respect Pakistan's sovereignty."
As trends forecaster Gerald Celente and I have warned, the warmongers in Washington are driving the world toward World War III. Once a country is captured by its military/security complex, the demand for profit drives the country deeper into war. Perhaps this news report from India is a hoax, or perhaps the never-diligent mainstream media will catch up with the news tomorrow, but so far this extraordinary warning from China has not been reported in the US media. [I had it posted on OEN.]
The mainstream media and a significant portion of the Internet are content for our perceptions to be managed by psy-ops and by non-reporting. This is why I wrote not long ago that today Americans are living in George Orwell's 1984.
http://www.foreignpolicyjournal.com/2011...eals-died/

[Helen Reyes]

Gordon Duff tells Iran's Press TV Osama clone run by Raymond Davis was hit in raid:
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/180564.html
"US killed Bin Laden clone in Pakistan"

ISI and CIA concocted alternative to virulently independent Kashmir separatist organization owned Abbottabad "mansion" and there was marijuana growing in the vegetable garden according to reporters who visited after the raid:
http://www.thenewamerican.com/world-main...n-compound
"Does a CIA 'Asset' Own the bin Laden Compound?"

While an interesting prospect or 'twist', who wrote that article? I think we are now dealing with slab upon slab of disinfo mean to bury forever the truth of what happened and who was there [living there and invading there]. This worry [wring hands icon] about 'people talking too much about what happened' are crocodile tears and pure theater. It would take a NON-USA independent investigation to ever untangle this. Short of that [and we can be sure of short of that!], the clarity will become more like the fog of war...the war against all but the ultra-rich, ultra-oligarchs of his World. Sadly.

I don't know who wrote the second article. I thought it was a Pakistani at first but it was an anglo name next time I looked.

I think it's possible to reconcile the various eyewitness accounts and speculate a little with a scenario that involves the only helicopter crashing at pick up, all US Pashtun-speaking troops dying, no photographs, no Osama, possibly a hit of someone involved with Raymond Davis' organization of groups to set up a threat to Pakistan's nuclear arsenal who said too much, an ISI CIA loyalist tipped off CIA... Why send in a helicopter though? What about these supposed "safe houses" keeping a watch on the place for months? The "safe houses" might be complete non-sense, they might be part of the same chain of safehouses to which the "Osama" compound belonged, or the helicopter attack was supposed to be a diversion to keep the safehouses safely away from scrutiny ... ?

The blog entry about AP getting cold feet about the story was interesting, a sort of "pics or it didn't happen" take on reality, instead of the more stringent rules for evidence journalists and courts used to require, but even "pics or stfu" doesn't work with extreme right-wing Republican CIA careerist Barry Soetoro.

On the spectacle of the publicly clandestine victory-snatched-from-defeat orgy at CIA (in the lobby?), the orgasmic female reaching out to the avatar of hope+change recalls the entire Obama campaign, which never ended; his entire public career at the White House has been a continuation of the 2008 campaign, as if he is still trying to prove he's a viable candidate instead of looking to be doing presidential stuff in a presidential way, at a superficial level anyway. Interesting way not to infiltrate the US presidency, but his backers might not be the most creative bunch ever to steal the office.

I don't think the CIA staff pictured are cleaning staff: they're doubtless paid actors as Obama bin Biden hired for "townhall meetings" with a sprinkling of lower-level minions probably engaged in some sort of data entry or photographic analysis. You can tell they spend a lot of time in the dark from their complexions. The "man in the suit" looking the wrong way seems to imply the need for Secret Service INSIDE a CIA facility, or maybe he's just that way by nature and tends to look for the exit in any situation.

[Peter Lemkin]

Helen, others, I'm not being critical of your informed speculation - only wondering why so little is being heard from this man and his neighbor who used to buy [they say] items for the OBL estate...;plus, there are described many who heard the helicopter crash and who then entered the compound - where are their statements?! Even more confusing, or misleading, are the statements by the one wife. Where are all the others who were living in the compound, and now in [?] Pakistani custody? The silence is deafening and smells of false-flag something....exactly what, is hard to say, at this point. I don't see the American MSM or Sheeple asking for what really happened - or why the official story is so strange and was/is continually changing. I sadly am also not aware of a great push on the part of the Pakistani public; although many more are skeptical to disbelieving of the 'American story'. Who wouldn't be - with all the lies we've been spoon-fed up until now?! :gossip: Much of the informed world public just believes America and other powerful nations and leaders lie - and there is little that can be done about that. This kind of paralyzing cynicism will destroy us [all of us], as easily as the evil done behind the false flag ops and wars. IMHO. Thank goodness for the few curious, questioning, and those not swallowing what is dished out by the Propaganda Ministries! :mexican:

[Carsten Wiethoff]

From http://intelligencenews.wordpress.com/20...#more-6553

A document provided to members of the US Navy SEALs who assassinated Osama bin Laden, was left behind in bin Laden's compound by mistake, and has reportedly been accessed by The London Times. It contains remarkably detailed descriptions of the compound's occupants and frequent visitors, including their ages and legal names, all the way down to bin Laden's wives, children and grandchildren.
[more at the above link]

[Jan Klimkowski]

A mirror version of the Sunday Times article.

THE US Navy SEALs who killed Osama bin Laden were carrying a pocket guide to the occupants of his compound that was so detailed it suggests the CIA may have had a mole inside.

The document, left behind in the compound and obtained by The Sunday Times, lists the names and ages of those who were present, including bin Laden's wives, children and grandchildren.

It details where they lived in the compound and when some of them arrived. It also suggests bin Laden had fathered twins in the compound. It refers to "two unidentified children" born this year to his youngest wife Amal, 28.

Even the clothing worn by the 54-year-old al-Qa'ida leader is described. "Always wears light-coloured shawal (sic) kameez with a dark vest," it says. "Occasionally wears light-coloured prayer cap."

The document raises new questions about how bin Laden was tracked down in what President Barack Obama described as "one of the greatest intelligence successes in American history".

After the mission Mr Obama said he had been "only 45 per cent to 55 per cent sure that bin Laden was even in the compound". The document, which is said to have been carried by all the SEALs on the mission, indicates US intelligence was certain of his presence.

US officials have said that information on the compound was put together over months from a variety of sources, including a nearby CIA safe-house set up as a listening post, imagery from satellites and unmanned drones, and reports from their own agents.

But there is far more detail than seems possible from these methods - unless US drone technology is far more sophisticated than hitherto realised.

Some Pakistani officials say the briefing points to the presence of a mole in the compound.

"I think someone from inside may have given information," said Rehman Malik, the Interior Minister and former head of Pakistan's Federal Investigation Agency. "If the Americans didn't have definitive information, they couldn't have gone straight to the room where bin Laden was."

One side of the document is printed with a familiar photograph of the al-Qa'ida leader as well as a new picture of Amal - only the second known photograph of her - and an age-enhanced image of his son Khalid. From the other side stares the flabby courier Arshad Khan, looking older than the 33 years stated. There is also a description of his brother, another courier.

The two elder Saudi wives have accused Amal, who is from Yemen, of betraying bin Laden, either by supplying information or by allowing herself to be tracked to the compound.

However, Glenn Carle, a CIA officer who interrogated another senior al-Qa'ida figure before retiring four years ago, said it was more likely the information had come from a variety of sources.

"Is it possible there was a source inside? Yes," he said. "But it's also possible this was built up from a mosaic of painstakingly put together information."

The document also bears details that suggest there may be more to the story of how bin Laden was tracked down.

It reveals for the first time that the two courier brothers moved to Abbottabad in 2006 from Mardan, a city about 100km west, that is still home to thousands of Afghan refugees.

It was in Mardan that Abu Faraj al-Libbi, the al-Qa'ida No 3, was captured in May 2005. According to his Guantanamo detainee assessment published on WikiLeaks, he was caught while waiting for a courier. He had previously been living in Abbottabad.

The Sunday Times has learnt that an employee at Abbottabad post office was tracked after he received suspiciously large cash transfers. He led investigators to Umar Patek, one of the Bali bombers, arrested in Abbottabad in January. All these arrests in the same area seem more than coincidence.

"It is quite possible a false or partial narrative was given of how bin Laden was found," said a CIA official. "Intelligence can only function in silence and in the dark - protecting source and method is very important."

The garrison town of Abbottabad might seem an odd place to choose for a hiding place, given its proximity to the prestigious Kakul military academy. Bin Laden's presence there has led US officials to accuse Pakistan's intelligence services of "complicity or incompetence".

The accusations, along with outrage that the US sent commandos on a raid inside Pakistan without informing them, have prompted a tide of angry anti-Americanism, particularly in Pakistan's military barracks.

Pakistani officials fear that among the intelligence trove taken from the compound will be found something compromising.

Yesterday deputy CIA chief Michael Morell and Marc Grossman, special envoy to the region, were holding meetings in Islamabad to work out concrete steps to crack down on terrorism.

It smells like either a limited hangout, or an active psyop, to me.

One interpretation is that the "pocket guide" was a secret operational briefing document provided to the SEALs and not intended to fall into the public domain as it contains details which could be used: a) to identify the intelligence sources - human, signal etc - used prior to the raid by the US; b) embarrassingly for the White House, its existence suggests Obama lied about the extent of US knowledge of the compound (eg "Obama said he had been "only 45 per cent to 55 per cent sure that bin Laden was even in the compound".")

That interpretation would likely lead to various assorted "intelligence sources" being used to muddy the story in the Sunday Times article - as indeed such intel sources do.

A second interpretation is that this "pocket guide" was deliberately planted - leaked - to the Sunday Times, as part of the broader War on Terror psyop agenda which has Pakistan firmly in its sights for destablization and balkanization.

There are even existing examples of this precise psyop technique being used on British broadsheet hacks - ye olde intrepid hack with keen vision finds key casus belli document shining in the rubble and breathlessly publishes scoop to rapturous applause......

I present a fine example of this shameful form:

The proof that Saddam worked with bin Laden

By Inigo Gilmore
(Filed: 27/04/2003)

Iraqi intelligence documents discovered in Baghdad by The Telegraph have provided the first evidence of a direct link between Osama bin Laden's al-Qa'eda terrorist network and Saddam Hussein's regime.

Papers found yesterday in the bombed headquarters of the Mukhabarat, Iraq's intelligence service, reveal that an al-Qa'eda envoy was invited clandestinely to Baghdad in March 1998.

The documents show that the purpose of the meeting was to establish a relationship between Baghdad and al-Qa'eda based on their mutual hatred of America and Saudi Arabia. The meeting apparently went so well that it was extended by a week and ended with arrangements being discussed for bin Laden to visit Baghdad.

The papers will be seized on by Washington as the first proof of what the United States has long alleged - that, despite denials by both sides, Saddam's regime had a close relationship with al-Qa'eda.

The Telegraph found the file on bin Laden inside a folder lying in the rubble of one of the rooms of the destroyed intelligence HQ. There are three pages, stapled together; two are on paper headed with the insignia and lettering of the Mukhabarat.

They show correspondence between Mukhabarat agencies over preparations for the visit of al-Qa'eda's envoy, who travelled to Iraq from Sudan, where bin Laden had been based until 1996. They disclose what Baghdad hopes to achieve from the meeting, which took place less than five months before bin Laden was placed at the top of America's most wanted list following the bombing of two US embassies in east Africa.

Perhaps aware of the sensitivities of the subject matter, Iraqi agents at some point clumsily attempted to mask out all references to bin Laden, using white correcting fluid. The dried fluid was removed to reveal the clearly legible name three times in the documents.

One paper is marked "Top Secret and Urgent". It is signed "MDA", a codename believed to be the director of one of the intelligence sections within the Mukhabarat, and dated February 19, 1998. It refers to the planned trip from Sudan by bin Laden's unnamed envoy and refers to the arrangements for his visit.

A letter with this document says the envoy is a trusted confidant of bin Laden. It adds: "According to the above, we suggest permission to call the Khartoum station [Iraq's intelligence office in Sudan] to facilitate the travel arrangements for the above-mentioned person to Iraq. And that our body carry all the travel and hotel costs inside Iraq to gain the knowledge of the message from bin Laden and to convey to his envoy an oral message from us to bin Laden."

The letter refers to al-Qa'eda's leader as an opponent of the Saudi Arabian regime and says that the message to convey to him through the envoy "would relate to the future of our relationship with him, bin Laden, and to achieve a direct meeting with him."

According to handwritten notes at the bottom of the page, the letter was passed on through another director in the Mukhabarat and on to the deputy director general of the intelligence service.

It recommends that "the deputy director general bring the envoy to Iraq because we may find in this envoy a way to maintain contacts with bin Laden". The deputy director general has signed the document. All of the signatories use codenames.

The other documents then confirm that the envoy travelled from Khartoum to Baghdad in March 1998, staying at al-Mansour Melia, a first-class hotel. It mentions that his visit was extended by a week. In the notes in a margin, a name "Mohammed F. Mohammed Ahmed" is mentioned, but it is not clear whether this is the the envoy or an agent.

Intriguingly, the Iraqis talk about sending back an oral message to bin Laden, perhaps aware of the risk of a written message being intercepted. However, the documents do not mention if any meeting took place between bin Laden and Iraqi officials.

The file contradicts the claims of Baghdad, bin Laden and many critics of the coalition that there was no link between the Iraqi regime and al-Qa'eda. One Western intelligence official contacted last night described the file as "sensational", adding: "Baghdad clearly sought out the meeting. The regime would have wanted it to happen in the capital as it's only there they would feel safe from surveillance by Western intelligence."

Over the past three weeks, The Telegraph has discovered various other intelligence files in the wrecked Mukhabarat building, including documents revealing how Russia passed on to Iraq details of private conversations between Tony Blair and Silvio Berlusconi, the Italian prime minister, and how Germany held clandestine meetings with the regime.

A Downing Street spokesman said last night: "Since Saddam's fall a series of documents have come to light which will have to be fully assessed by the proper authorities over a period of time. We will certainly want to study these documents as part of that process to see if they shed new light on the relationship between Saddam's regime and al-Qa'eda.

[Charles Drago]

The gulf between our deep political interpretations of world events and those of the vast majority of observers grows wider with each passing day.

It is now as if we are observing two different worlds.

The most powerful psyops are those which are self-regenerating -- which is to say, self-imposed.