Covert mission seeks to link Iraq to al-Qaida

Special operations units in the US military have contacted Iraq’s notorious secret police to attempt to acquire documents showing Baghdad’s links with al-Qaida, it was reported today.

American officials believe the intelligence papers will also detail Saddam Hussein’s war crimes during his brutal 24-year rule and where he may be hiding weapons of mass destruction.

The covert mission to contact selected members of Iraq’s intelligence service, the Mukhabarat, could help justify the military action by the US and Britain, a senior official told the Washington Times.

He said: “One of the targets of special operations in this war is to get the raw Iraqi intelligence files, the archives.

“We’ve been in contact with those people. We know the value of the files.”

He said the documents are expected to detail direct ties the Iraqi regime has to al-Qaida and other terror networks that operate out of Syria, Lebanon and Palestine.

Washington also hopes to find evidence that Iraq has been breaking UN sanctions imposed after the last Gulf War by bribing foreign officials to sell it banned weapons.

The Bush Administration suspects French and Russian firms of shipping arms to Iraq through third parties.

“Iraq operates a buying network and people are paying off foreign businesses for the stuff it needs,” another US official told the Times.

Saddam’s younger son and heir apparent, Qusai, runs the Mukhabarat which acts as a spy agency and internal security police force.

It is believed to be the most important arm of the regime’s security system.