Healing Power of Prayer Fails Test

Here are excerpts from a news report documenting prayer’s healing failure in the largest study so far:

A study of more than 1,800 patients who underwent heart bypass surgery has failed to show that prayers specially organized for their recovery had any impact, researchers said on Thursday.

In fact, the study found some of the patients who knew they were being prayed for did worse than others who were only told they might be prayed for -- though those who did the study said they could not explain why.

Read the entire study.


Tests like this are of course contributory signs of our growing agnostic and secular times; thus even such a benign but very reverentially sacrosanct practice as praying is now put to a litmus test. Tested essentially to determine its efficacy in healing illnesses of people being prayed for or being prayed over.

To be fair the test really was focused on group praying rather than individual, personal or family praying. And praying done essentially by strangers. Most probably buoyed up and inspired by some reported successes of group intercessory prayers. Like those typically witnessed in religious revival meetings and those conducted in charismatic movements and similar gatherings or movements.

And for further illustration, the Catholic Sacrifice of the Mass would be a perfect example of group praying. And another would be praying done by those in monasteries. The report skirts the more thorny issue of personal prayers with the carte blanche statement that such was popularly believed to be efficacious. Quite ironic considering that even a statement of Christ would defer more to group praying rather than individual praying. Christ avers in the following paraphrased statement that: when two or more of you gather and pray in my name, I will be in your midst. Implying that his presence, and hopefully intercession, is guaranteed under such a milieu.

Praying and prayers have historically and traditionally been viewed with awe-some deference in most major if not all religions. As a ritual and regular practice, devotees have always been enjoined to develop the habit of praying, especially during times of need, both personal and otherwise.

Some religions more than others have embraced praying as a very critical and integral component and vehicle of worship and adoration.

And devotees are strongly encouraged to pray for anything and everything their hearts may desire. So long as they are all for morally good and upright purposes.

Growing up Catholic, we were taught that one’s entire day of actions, words, and thoughts could be all rolled up and offered as one big efficacious prayer. The formula was to intone the Morning Offering first chance in the morning.

It went this way:

O Jesus, through the Immaculate Heart of Mary, I offer You my prayers, works, joys and sufferings of this day for all the intentions of Your Sacred Heart, in union with the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass throughout the world, in reparation for my sins, for the intentions of all my relatives and friends, and in particular for the intentions of the Holy Father. Amen

We were quite unquestioning and unequivocal about praying and prayer. We simply did it. And hoped for the best.

Many of us never really delved into the whys and wherefores, or even if it made sense at all given what we know about our created existence and the God who made that possible. The God who is all-knowing, all-powerful and all- mighty.

Thus, for example, it never occurred to us kids that that God already knows everything because he is omniscient. He already knows everything past, present, and future. Thus, in His eyes everything for everybody including inanimate objects in creation is already neatly laid out, unchangeable and unalterable. Why then, the need for praying to ask for things or to allow things to happen? What could we possibly do, either individually or collectively, to affect or change any or all that?

Nor did we consider the very obvious dilemma as characterized by prayers for victory being offered by two opposing teams prior to their competition. How could that one same all-good God possibly resolve which team would get His nod?

Just the same the efficacy of praying was never in doubt, whether for its healing powers or its abilities to bring about things wished for.

Here’s an earlier blog entry dealing more deeply into Praying and Prayer.


But to reiterate, from an Ignatian Perspective, here is how praying should be viewed and undertaken:

That we must pray as though the matter we desire depended entirely on God and then work on it as though it depended entirely on ourselves.

Hot-Button Issue: Emigration and Immigration

Very much like the physical movements of the earth around fault lines, the tectonic plate-like upheavals of different peoples around the globe have also caused both fears and concerns centering around impacts, both positive and negative, on the different "plates" or regions of the world. Europe mulls over its growing Muslim populations which have grown exponentially during the last three decades, creating many fissures or enclaves of splintered parts exerting social and political pressures and sore points within the different citizenries. The population components in countries like Holland have shifted considerably because of immigration and in Paris, certain areas are now off-limits to certain authorities such as the police due to pressures exerted by their largely unassimilated minority populations. And the US is no stranger to such cataclysmic tremors, maybe as a consequence of its very liberal policies on immigration, or very lax enforcement of immigration laws. The US Senate is now locked in heated discourses about a pending a immigration bill that addresses the over 11 million illegal immigrants who reside within its borders and over 75% of whom come from Mexico and Latin American countries, with more being added each day as the porous southern borders continue to be largely neglected. Taking a macro view then of all these temblors, one may be able to take a much more rounded and detached view of how this "pale blue dot" looks given all these upheavals. One such site looks at all these people movements and plots how these shifts are remapping and realigning the different regional "plates". It is the WorldMapper. Take a little time to find out how the globe now looks because of the world-wide emigration, people departing from their places of origins, and the resulting immigration of people getting into new areas. First, take a look at the Total Land Area in the globe. Each territory's size on the map is drawn according to its land area:

The total land area of these 200 territories is 13,056 million hectares. Divided up equally that would be 2.1 hectares for each person. A hectare is 100 metres by 100 metres. However, population is not evenly spread: Australia's land area is 21 times bigger than Japan's, but Japan's population is more than six times bigger than Australia's.

Second Map: Total World Population The size of each territory shows the relative proportion of the world's population living there.

In Spring 2000 world population estimates reached 6 billion; that is 6 thousand million. The distribution of the earth's population is shown in this map.India, China and Japan appear large on the map because they have large populations. Panama, Namibia and Guinea-Bissau have small populations so are barely visible on the map. Population is very weakly related to land area. However, Sudan which is geographically the largest country in Africa, has a smaller population than Nigeria, Egypt, Ethiopia, Democratic Republic of Congo, South Africa and Tanzania

Third Map: Total Population During Year One This map shows the distribution of the world population in 1AD

The population two thousand years ago is estimated to have been 231 million. At this time North and South America were sparsely populated, as was Asia Pacific. The estimated population of New Zealand was zero. Southern Asia, Northern Africa, China and Southern Europe (parts of the same land mass) had relatively high populations. Colder Northern latitudes tended to have lower populations. The territories that now encompass the Ganges, Tigris, Yangtze, Nile and Po rivers were the most populous.

Fourth Map: Total Immigrants The territory size shows the number of international immigrants that live there.

Three percent of the world population in 2000 were born in a territory different to where they now live: one hundred and seventy-four million people have moved to a new territory. The United States receives the highest number of international immigrants (people born in another territory and no longer resident there); however Andorra has highest proportion of immigrants living within its borders. Four out of every five people in Andorra are international immigrants. In the Philippines and Guyana, territories experiencing some of the lowest immigration, only one person in every 500 is an international immigrant.

Fifth Map: International Emigrants Territory size shows the number of international emigrants originating there.

This map shows the proportion of the world's international emigrants coming from each territory. This map indicates that the worldwide spread of origins is not dominated by any single region. Nevertheless variations exist. Regional averages for the percentage of the population that emigrate range from one percent of the population in Southern Asia, Eastern Asia and Japan, to eight percent in Eastern Europe and nine percent in the Middle East.

Sixth Map: Net Immigration Territory size shows the relative levels of net immigration in all territories (immigration less emigration).

Richer territories tend to experience net immigration (greater immigration than emigration). Just under half of the 200 territories mapped currently experience net immigration. Those territories with net emigration (greater emigration than immigration) have size zero on this map. Regions experiencing the highest net immigration are North America, Western Europe and the Middle East. Together these three regions account for 79.5% of world net immigration. The United States alone receives 37.1% of the world net total.

Seventh Map: Net Emigration Territory size shows the relative quantity of net emigration in all territories (emigration less immigration).

Over half of the territories in the world are currently experiencing net emigration. More people are leaving them than are coming to them. Territories with net emigration generally are poorer than those with net immigration. Mexico is the country with the highest net emigration, with a net loss of 8.8 million people in 2000. Mexico is in North America, the region whose territories have the largest net immigration. The United State's high immigration rate is linked to Mexican emigration. Were the United States and Mexico combined to be one territory then this movement of people would not be recorded as immigration nor emigration.

Visit the site, there are more maps, such as relating to tourism, projections of population growth, etc. Gives one a more comprehensive and global outlook.

Is The Name DARPA familiar?

Well, it is only the precursor of the present-day Internet. Before the blogosphere, and all the other spheres in the cyber-firmament, even before WWW, there was Arpanet of DARPA.

It is the acronym for The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and is the central research and development organization of the US Department of Defense (DoD).

Its primary mission:

.. to manage and direct selected basic and applied research and development projects for DoD, and to pursue research and technology where risk and payoff are both very high and where success may provide dramatic advances for traditional military roles and missions.

In the current Iraqi War, the most pernicious and deadly problem encountered by the Coalition forces, and including the Iraqi civilians, has been the almost unstoppable effectiveness of the IEDs, or the improvised explosives devices. Or simply your home-made roadside bombs.

Iraq is one of the most heavily mined nations in the world. As of early 2003, it was estimated that there were over 10 million mines already in the ground—8 million antipersonnel (AP) and 2 million antitank (AT), with Iraq both a producer and exporter of AP mines.

DARPA is in the middle of all this planning and research to try to neutralize the effectiveness of IEDs.

Check this out.
The latest experiment of scientists has been to try and create an army of cyber-insects that can be remotely controlled, like many roadside bombs are, to check out explosives and send transmission.

Here’s the rest of the report from the BBC:

The idea is to insert micro-systems at the pupa stage, when the insects can integrate them into their body, so they can be remotely controlled later.

Experts told the BBC some ideas were feasible but others seemed "ludicrous".

A similar scheme aimed at manipulating wasps failed when they flew off to feed and mate.

The new scheme is a brainwave of the Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa), which is tasked with maintaining the technological superiority of the US military.

It has asked for "innovative" bids on the insect project from interested parties.

'Assembly-line'

Darpa believes scientists can take advantage of the evolution of insects, such as dragonflies and moths, in the pupa stage.

"Through each metamorphic stage, the insect body goes through a renewal process that can heal wounds and reposition internal organs around foreign objects," its proposal document reads.

The foreign objects it suggests to be implanted are specific micro-systems - Mems - which, when the insect is fully developed, could allow it to be remotely controlled or sense certain chemicals, including those in explosives.

The invasive surgery could "enable assembly-line like fabrication of hybrid insect-Mems interfaces", Darpa says.

A winning bidder would have to deliver "an insect within five metres of a specific target located 100 metres away".

The "insect-cyborg" must also "be able to transmit data from relevant sensors, yielding information about the local environment. These sensors can include gas sensors, microphones, video, etc."

'Fiction'

Scientists who spoke to the BBC news website were unconvinced.

Entomology expert Dr George McGavin of the Oxford University Museum of Natural History said the idea appeared "ludicrous".

"Not all wacky ideas are without value. Some do produce the goods. My feeling is this will probably not produce the goods," he said.

"What adult insects want to do is basically reproduce and lay eggs. You would have to rewire the entire brain patterns."

Dr McGavin said it appeared impossible to connect the technology to the right places during the metamorphic phase, particularly with regard to flight.

Prof Andrew Parker, research leader at the Natural History Museum's zoology department and a specialist in bio-mimetics, said the concept was not too far fetched but had its limits.

Technology could help direct an insect to chemicals such as in roadside bombs, he said, but controlling full flight was "a long way off".

Entomology expert at the museum, Stuart Hine, agreed it was plausible to use insects to detect explosives.

But he added: "I feel that the reality of such cyborg fusion between insect and machine lies squarely in the realms of fiction."

To receive micro-signals from the insects would require a dish "quite close and several feet in diameter, rendering it a less than covert operation".

Darpa's previous experiments to get bees and wasps to detect the smell of explosives foundered when their "instinctive behaviours for feeding and mating... prevented them from performing reliably", it said.

Darpa was founded in 1958 to keep US military technology ahead of Cold War rivals.

Its website says it has around 240 personnel and a $2bn (£1.1bn) budget. Supporters say much of its work has been successful, but it has also drawn criticism for unusable "blue-sky" projects.

A former director said in 1975: "When we fail, we fail big."

In The Philippines: Of Cacao trees, Chocolate, and Tablea

I'm sure many of us have often wondered how the cacao trees started to grow in the old homeland. We have somehow assumed that it is native to our place, because it is a tropical tree.

But searches about its origins do not point to any Far East connections. Usual reports point to Latin American roots, specifically Aztec ones.

So, if not native to us, how did it get to the Philippines?

One possible explanation is contained in this little chronology:

* Chocolate was first noted in 1519 when Spanish explorer Hernando Cortez visited the court of Emperor Montezuma of Mexico. American historian William Hickling's History of the Conquest of Mexico (1838)reports that Montezuma "took no other beverage than the chocolatl, a potation of chocolate, flavored with vanilla and spices, and so prepared as to be reduced to a froth of the consistency of honey, which gradually dissolved in the mouth and was taken cold." The fact that Montezuma consumed his "chocolatl" in goblets before entering his harem led to the belief that it was an aphrodisiac.

* In 1528 Cortez brought chocolate back from Mexico to the royal court of King Charles V. Monks, hidden away in Spanish monasteries, processed the cocoa beans and kept chocolate a secret for nearly a century. It made a profitable industry for Spain, which planted cocoa trees in its overseas colonies.

If this is true, I suppose we have to give credit to Mother Spain for bringing it to our shores.

At present, cacao beans are almost as commonplace as coffee beans. And the cacao trees now form part as an important component in the intercropping farming methods used in many areas where coconut trees are also abundant. Many will find these cacao trees growing underneath rows of the taller coconut trees. And like coconut trees that can grow as high as 3000 feet, cacao trees adapt also to higher altitude.

Chocolate and cocoa drinks are now daily staple or food items for most countries in the world.

It serves us right to know where their basic ingredients come from.

Global Terrorism: Iraqi Philippine Connections

Here's the latest as a cover story from the Weekly Standard.

Though it has always been suspected all along that the home-grown terrorist group in the Philippines called Abu Sayyaf had international connections, most notably with Libya's Qaddafi, now translated documents coming from the treasure trove of captured documents from Iraq are beginning to paint a clearer and documented picture of these connections.

Reproduced below is the complete and comprehensive report on the translated documents:

Saddam's Philippines Terror Connection
And other revelations from the Iraqi regime files.
by Stephen F. Hayes
03/27/2006, Volume 011, Issue 26

SADDAM HUSSEIN'S REGIME PROVIDED FINANCIAL support to Abu Sayyaf, the al Qaeda-linked jihadist group founded by Osama bin Laden's brother-in-law in the Philippines in the late 1990s, according to documents captured in postwar Iraq. An eight-page fax dated June 6, 2001, and sent from the Iraqi ambassador in Manila to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Baghdad, provides an update on Abu Sayyaf kidnappings and indicates that the Iraqi regime was providing the group with money to purchase weapons. The Iraqi regime suspended its support--temporarily, it seems--after high-profile kidnappings, including of Americans, focused international attention on the terrorist group.

The fax comes from the vast collection of documents recovered in postwar Afghanistan and Iraq. Up to this point, those materials have been kept from the American public. Now the proverbial dam has broken. On March 16, the U.S. government posted on the web 9 documents captured in Iraq, as well as 28 al Qaeda documents that had been released in February. Earlier last week, Foreign Affairs magazine published a lengthy article based on a review of 700 Iraqi documents by analysts with the Institute for Defense Analysis and the Joint Forces Command in Norfolk, Virginia. Plans for the release of many more documents have been announced. And if the contents of the recently released materials and other documents obtained by The Weekly Standard are any indication, the discussion of the threat posed by Saddam Hussein's Iraq is about to get more interesting.

Several months ago, The Weekly Standard received a set of English-language documents from a senior U.S. government official. The official represented this material as U.S. government translations of three captured Iraqi documents. According to this source, the documents had been examined by the U.S. intelligence community and judged "consistent with authentic documents"--the professionals' way of saying that these items cannot definitively be certified but seem to be the real thing.

The Weekly Standard checked its English-language documents with officials serving elsewhere in the federal government to make sure they were consistent with the versions these officials had seen. With what one person characterized as "minor discrepancies," they are. One of the three documents has been posted in the original Arabic on the website of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. A subsequent translation of that document is nearly identical to the English-language text that we were given.

These documents add to the growing body of evidence confirming the Iraqi regime's longtime support for terrorism abroad. The first of them, a series of memos from the spring of 2001, shows that the Iraqi Intelligence Service funded Abu Sayyaf, despite the reservations of some IIS officials. The second, an internal Iraqi Intelligence memo on the relationships between the IIS and Saudi opposition groups, records that Osama bin Laden requested Iraqi cooperation on terrorism and propaganda and that in January 1997 the Iraqi regime was eager to continue its relationship with bin Laden. The third, a September 15, 2001, report from an Iraqi Intelligence source in Afghanistan, contains speculation about the relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda and the likely U.S. response to it.

ON JUNE 6, 2001, the Iraqi ambassador to the Philippines sent an eight-page fax to Baghdad. Ambassador Salah Samarmad's dispatch to the Secondary Policy Directorate of the Iraqi Foreign Ministry concerned an Abu Sayyaf kidnapping a week earlier that had garnered international attention. Twenty civilians--including three Americans--had been taken from Dos Palmas Resort on Palawan Island in the southern Philippines. There had been fighting between the kidnappers and the Filipino military, Samarmad reported. Several hostages had escaped, and others were released.

"After the release of nine of the hostages, an announcement from the FBI appeared in newspapers announcing their desire to interview the escaped Filipinos in order to make a decision on the status of the three American hostages," the Iraqi ambassador wrote to his superiors in Baghdad. "The embassy stated what was mentioned above. The three American hostages were a missionary husband and wife who had lived in the Philippines for a while, Martin and Gracia Burnham, from Kansas City, and Guillermo Sobrero, from California. They are still in the hands of the Abu Sayyaf kidnappers from a total of 20 people who were kidnapped from (Dos Palmas) resort on Palawan Island." (Except where noted, parentheses, brackets, and ellipses appear in the documents quoted.)

The report notes that the Iraqis were now trying to be seen as helpful and keep a safe distance from Abu Sayyaf. "We have all cooperated in the field of intelligence information with some of our friends to encourage the tourists and the investors in the Philippines." But Samarmad's report seems to confirm that this is a change. "The kidnappers were formerly (from the previous year) receiving money and purchasing combat weapons. From now on we (IIS) are not giving them this opportunity and are not on speaking terms with them."

Samarmad's dispatch appears to be the final installment in a series of internal Iraqi regime memos from March through June 2001. (The U.S. government translated some of these documents in full and summarized others.) The memos contain a lengthy discussion among Iraqi officials--from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Iraqi Intelligence Service--about the wisdom of using a Libyan intelligence front as a way to channel Iraqi support for Abu Sayyaf without the risks of dealing directly with the group. (The Libyan regime had intervened in an Abu Sayyaf kidnapping in 2000, securing the release of several hostages by paying several million dollars in ransom. Some observers saw this as an effort by Muammar Qaddafi to improve his image; others saw it as an effort to provide support to Abu Sayyaf by paying the ransom demanded by the group. Both were probably right.)

One Iraqi memo, from the "Republican Presidency, Intelligence Apparatus" to someone identified only as D4/4, makes the case for supporting the work of the Qaddafi Charity Establishment to help Abu Sayyaf. The memo is dated March 18, 2001.



1. There are connections between the Qaddafi Charity Establishment and the Abu Sayyaf group in the Philippines; meanwhile, this establishment is providing material support to them.

2. This establishment is one of the Libyan Intelligence fronts.

3. The Tripoli post has indicated that there is a possibility to form what connections are available with this establishment as it can offer the premise of providing food supplies to [Ed: word missing] in the scope of the agreement statement.

Please review . . . it appears of intelligence value to proceed into connections with this establishment and its intelligence investments in the Abu Sayyaf group.
The short response, two days later:


Mr. Dept. 3:
Study this idea, the pros and the cons, the relative reactions, and any other remarks regarding this.

That exchange above was fully translated by U.S. government translators. The two pages of correspondence that follow it in the Iraqi files were not, but a summary of those pages informs readers that the Iraqi response "discourages the supporting of connections with the Abu Sayyaf group, as the group works against the Philippine government and relies on several methods for material gain, such as kidnapping foreigners, demanding ransoms, as well as being accused by the Philippine government of terrorist acts and drug smuggling."

These accusations were, of course, well founded. On June 12, 2001, six days after Samarmad's dispatch, authorities found the beheaded body of Guillermo Sobrero near the Abu Sayyaf camp. Martin Burnham was killed a year later during the rescue attempt that freed his wife.

A thorough understanding of the relationship between Iraq and Abu Sayyaf (the name, honoring Afghan jihadi Abdul Rasul Sayyaf, means "Father of the Sword") will not come from an analysis of three months' correspondence between Manila and Baghdad in 2001. While it is certainly significant to read in internal Iraqi documents that the regime was at one time funding Abu Sayyaf, we do not now have a complete picture of that relationship. Why did the Iraqis begin funding Abu Sayyaf, which had long been considered a regional terrorist group concerned mainly with making money? Why did they suspend their support in 2001? And why did the Iraqis resume this relationship and, according to the congressional testimony of one State Department regional specialist, intensify it?

ON MARCH 26, 2003, as war raged in Iraq, the State Department's Matthew Daley testified before Congress. Daley, the deputy assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs, told a subcommittee of the House International Relations Committee that he was worried about Abu Sayyaf.

"We're concerned that they have what I would call operational links to Iraqi intelligence services. And they're a danger, they're an enemy of the Philippines, they're an enemy of the United States, and we want very much to help the government in Manila deal with this challenge," Daley told the panel. Responding to a question, Daley elaborated. "There is good reason to believe that a member of the Abu Sayyaf Group who has been involved in terrorist activities was in direct contact with an IIS officer in the Iraqi Embassy in Manila. This individual was subsequently expelled from the Philippines for engaging in activities that were incompatible with his diplomatic status."

This individual was Hisham Hussein, the second secretary of the Iraqi Embassy in Manila. And Daley was right to be concerned.

Eighteen months before his testimony, a young Filipino man rode his Honda motorcycle up a dusty road to a shanty strip mall just outside Camp Enrile Malagutay in Zamboanga City, Philippines. The camp was host to American troops stationed in the south of the country to train with Filipino soldiers fighting terrorists. The man parked his bike and began to examine its gas tank. Seconds later, the tank exploded, sending nails in all directions and killing the rider almost instantly.

The blast damaged six nearby stores and ripped the front off of a café that doubled as a karaoke bar. The café was popular with American soldiers. And on this day, October 2, 2002, SFC Mark Wayne Jackson was killed there and a fellow soldier was severely wounded. Eyewitnesses almost immediately identified the bomber as an Abu Sayyaf terrorist.

One week before the attack, Abu Sayyaf leaders had promised a campaign of terror directed at the "enemies of Islam"--Westerners and the non-Muslim Filipino majority. And one week after the attack, Abu Sayyaf attempted to strike again, this time with a bomb placed on the playground of the San Roque Elementary School. It did not detonate. Authorities recovered the cell phone that was to have set it off and analyzed incoming and outgoing calls.

As they might have expected, they discovered several calls to and from Abu Sayyaf leaders. But another call got their attention. Seventeen hours after the attack that took the life of SFC Jackson, the cell phone was used to place a call to the second secretary of the Iraqi embassy in Manila, Hisham Hussein. It was not Hussein's only contact with Abu Sayyaf.

"He was surveilled, and we found out he was in contact with Abu Sayyaf and also pro-Iraqi demonstrators," says a Philippine government source, who continued, "[Philippine intelligence] was able to monitor their cell phone calls. [Abu Sayyaf leaders] called him right after the bombing. They were always talking."

An analysis of Iraqi embassy phone records by Philippine authorities showed that Hussein had been in regular contact with Abu Sayyaf leaders both before and after the attack that killed SFC Jackson. Andrea Domingo, immigration commissioner for the Philippines, said Hussein ran an "established network" of terrorists in the country. Hussein had also met with members of the New People's Army, a Communist opposition group on the State Department's list of foreign terrorist groups, in his office at the embassy. According to a Philippine government official, the Philippine National Police uncovered documents in a New People's Army compound that indicate the Iraqi embassy had provided funding for the group. Hisham Hussein and two other Iraqi embassy employees were ordered out of the Philippines on February 14, 2003.

Interestingly, an Abu Sayyaf leader named Hamsiraji Sali at least twice publicly boasted that his group received funding from Iraq. For instance, on March 2, 2003, he told the Philippine Daily Inquirer that the Iraqi regime had provided the terrorist group with 1million pesos--about $20,000--each year since 2000.


ANOTHER ITEM from the Iraq-Philippines files is a "security report" prepared by the Iraqi embassy's third secretary, Ahmad Mahmud Ghalib, and sent to Baghdad by Ambassador Samarmad. The report provides a behind-the-scenes glimpse of the Iraqi Intelligence operation in the Philippines. A cover memo from the ambassador, dated April 12, 2001, gives an overview: "The report contain[s] a variety of issues including intelligence issues and how the Philippines, American and Zionist intelligence operate in the Philippines, especially the movements of the American intelligence in their efforts to fight terrorism and recruiting a variety of nationalities, particularly Arabs."

Ghalib's report is a rambling account of a phone conversation he had with an Iraqi intelligence informer named Muhammad al-Zanki, an Iraqi citizen living in the Philippines, who is referred to throughout the document as Abu Ahmad. The embassy official is looking for information on a third person, an informer named Omar Ghazal, and believes that Abu Ahmad might have some. (To review: Salah Samarmad is the Iraqi ambassador; Ahmad Mahmud Ghalib is the embassy's third secretary, most likely an Iraqi intelligence officer and author of the "security report"; Abu Ahmad is an Iraqi intelligence informer; and Omar Ghazal is another Iraqi intelligence informer.)

As the conversation begins, Abu Ahmad tells his embassy contact that he doesn't know where Omar Ghazal is and would have told the embassy if he did. He then tells the embassy contact that when he called Omar Ghazal's aunt to check on his whereabouts, she used a word in Tagalog--walana--which means "not here." But Abu Ahmad says its connotations are not good. "That word is used when you target one of the personnel who are assigned to complete everything (full mission). Then they announce that he is traveling and so on, and that's what I'm afraid of." The Iraqi embassy contact asks him to elaborate. "I have been exposed to that same phrase before, when I asked about an individual, and later on I found out that he was physically eliminated and no one knows anything about him."

The embassy official assures Abu Ahmad that Iraqi intelligence has also lost track of Ghazal, and became alarmed when he abruptly stopped attending soccer practice at a local college. Abu Ahmad fears the worst. "I'm afraid they might have killed him and I'm very worried about him," he says, according to the report. "The method that those people use is terrible and that's why I refuse to work with them."

The Iraqi embassy official interrupts Abu Ahmad. "Who are they? I would like to know who they are."

"Didn't I tell you before who they are?"

"No."

"The office group," says Abu Ahmad.

"Which office?" asks his Iraqi embassy handler.

"A long time ago the American FBI opened up an office in the Philippines, under American supervision and that there are Philippine Intelligence groups that work there. The goal of the office is to fight international terrorism (in the Philippines of course) and they have employees from various nationalities that speak of peace and international terrorism and how important it is to put an end to terrorism. The office also has other espionage affairs involving Arab citizens to work with them in order to provide them with information on the Arabs who are living in the Philippines and also for other spying purposes."

Abu Ahmad continues: "They also monitor diplomacy, and after I tried to lessen my amount of office work, I became aware that the office group was trying to get in contact with the person who is in charge of temporary work, Malik al-Athir, when he was alone."

Abu Ahmad tells his Iraqi embassy contact, Ghalib, that "the office" was trying to recruit an Arab to monitor Arab citizens in the Philippines. The Iraqi embassy contact suggests that Abu Ahmad volunteer for the job. Abu Ahmad says he had other plans. "I am leaving after I finish selling my house and properties and will move to Peshawar [Pakistan]. There I will be supplied with materials, weapons, explosives, and get married and then move to America. Do you know that there are more than one thousand Iraqi extremists who perform heroism jobs?" The speaker presumably means martyrdom operations.

The Iraqi embassy contact asks Abu Ahmad how he knows that those people are not "Saudis, Kuwaitis, Iranians."

Abu Ahmad replies: "They are bin Laden's people and all of them are extremists and they are heroes. Do you want me to give you their names?"

"Why not? Yes, I want them," says the Iraqi embassy contact.

"I will supply you with the names very soon. I will write some for you because I am in touch with them," says Abu Ahmad.

This report raises more questions than it answers. Who is Omar Ghazal and why did he disappear? What is the "office group" and how is it connected to Americans? What happened to Abu Ahmad? Were his stated plans--moving to Peshawar to obtain weapons and explosives and then moving to the United States--just bluster to impress his Iraqi embassy handler? A way to discontinue his work for the Iraqi regime? Or was he serious? Is he here now?

A SECOND internal Iraqi file obtained by The Weekly Standard concerns relations between Iraqi Intelligence and Saudi opposition groups. The document was apparently compiled at some point after January 1997, judging by the most recent date in the text, and discusses four Saudi opposition groups: the Committee for Defense of Legitimate Rights, the Reform and Advice Committee (Osama bin Laden), People of al Jazeera Union Organization, and the Saudi Hezbollah.

The New York Times first reported on the existence of this file on June 25, 2004. "American officials described the document as an internal report by the Iraqi intelligence service detailing efforts to seek cooperation with several Saudi opposition groups, including Mr. bin Laden's organization, before al Qaeda had become a full-fledged terrorist organization." According to the Times, a Pentagon task force "concluded that the document 'appeared authentic,' and that it 'corroborates and expands on previous reporting' about contacts between Iraqi intelligence and Mr. bin Laden in Sudan, according to the task force's analysis."

The most provocative aspect of the document is the discussion of efforts to seek cooperation between Iraqi Intelligence and the Saudi opposition group run by bin Laden, known to the Iraqis as the "Reform and Advice Committee." The translation of that section appears below.


We moved towards the committee by doing the following:

A. During the visit of the Sudanese Dr. Ibrahim al-Sanusi to Iraq and his meeting with Mr. Uday Saddam Hussein, on December 13, 1994, in the presence of the respectable, Mr. Director of the Intelligence Service, he [Dr. al-Sanusi] pointed out that the opposing Osama bin Laden, residing in Sudan, is reserved and afraid to be depicted by his enemies as an agent of Iraq. We prepared to meet him in Sudan (The Honorable Presidency was informed of the results of the meeting in our letter 782 on December 17, 1994).

B. An approval to meet with opposer Osama bin Laden by the Intelligence Services was given by the Honorable Presidency in its letter 138, dated January 11, 1995 (attachment 6). He [bin Laden] was met by the previous general director of M4 in Sudan and in the presence of the Sudanese, Ibrahim al-Sanusi, on February 19, 1995. We discussed with him his organization. He requested the broadcast of the speeches of Sheikh Sulayman al-Uda (who has influence within Saudi Arabia and outside due to being a well known religious and influential personality) and to designate a program for them through the broadcast directed inside Iraq, and to perform joint operations against the foreign forces in the land of Hijaz. (The Honorable Presidency was informed of the details of the meeting in our letter 370 on March 4, 1995, attachment 7.)

C. The approval was received from the Leader, Mr. President, may God keep him, to designate a program for them through the directed broadcast. We were left to develop the relationship and the cooperation between the two sides to see what other doors of cooperation and agreement open up. The Sudanese side was informed of the Honorable Presidency's agreement above, through the representative of the Respectable Director of Intelligence Services, our Ambassador in Khartoum.

D. Due to the recent situation of Sudan and being accused of supporting and embracing of terrorism, an agreement with the opposing Saudi Osama bin Laden was reached. The agreement required him to leave Sudan to another area. He left Khartoum in July 1996. The information we have indicates that he is currently in Afghanistan. The relationship with him is ongoing through the Sudanese side. Currently we are working to invigorate this relationship through a new channel in light of his present location.
(It should be noted that the documents given to The Weekly Standard did not include the attachments, letters to and from Saddam Hussein about the status of the Iraq-al Qaeda relationship. And the last sentence differs slightly from the version provided to the New York Times. In the Weekly Standard document, Iraq is seeking to "invigorate" its relationship with al Qaeda; in the Times translation, Iraq is seeking to "continue" that relationship.)

Another passage of the Iraq-Saudi opposition memo details the relationship between the Iraqi regime and the Committee for Defense of Legitimate Rights (CDLR), founded by Dr. Muhammad Abdallah al-Massari. Once again, Dr. Ibrahim al-Sanusi, the senior Sudanese government official, was a key liaison between the two sides. Al-Massari is widely regarded as an ideological mouthpiece for al Qaeda, a designation he does little to dispute. His radio station broadcasts al Qaeda propaganda, and his website features the rantings of prominent jihadists. He has lived in London for more than a decade. The Iraqi Intelligence memo recounts two meetings involving Dr. al-Sanusi and CDLR representatives in 1994 and reports that al-Massari requested assistance from the Iraqi regime for a trip to Iraq.

In 1995, the Iraqis turned to another Saudi to facilitate their relationship with al-Massari. According to the Iraqi memo, Ahmid Khudir al-Zahrani was a diplomat at the Saudi embassy in Washington who applied for political asylum in the United States. His application was denied, and al-Zahrani contacted the Iraqi embassy in London, seeking asylum in Iraq. His timing was good. Al-Zahrani's request came just as Iraqis were stepping up efforts to establish better relations with the Saudi opposition. According to the Iraqi Intelligence memo:


A complete plan was put in place to bring the aforementioned [al-Zahrani] to Iraq in coordination with the Foreign Ministry and our [intelligence] station in Khartoum [Sudan]. He and his family were issued Iraqi passports with pseudonyms by our embassy in Khartoum. He arrived to Iraq on April 21, 1995, and multiple meetings were held with him to obtain information about the Saudi opposition.
These contacts were not, contrary to the speculation of some Middle East experts, simply an effort to keep tabs on an enemy. The memo continues, summarizing Iraqi Intelligence activities:


We are in the process of following up on the subject, to try and establish a nucleus of Saudi opposition in Iraq, and use our relationship with [al-Massari] to serve our intelligence goals.

The final document provided to The Weekly Standard is a translation of a memo from the "Republican Command, Intelligence Division," dated September 15, 2001. It is addressed to "Mr. M.A.M.5."


Our Afghani source number 11002 (his biographic information in attachment #1) has provided us information that the Afghani consul Ahmed Dahestani (his biographic information attachment #2) has talked in front of him about the following:

1. That Osama bin Laden and the Taliban group in Afghanistan are in communication with Iraq and that previously a group of Taliban and Osama bin Laden have visited Iraq.

2. That America has evidence that the Iraqi government and the group of Osama bin Laden have cooperated to attack targets inside America.

3. In the event that it has been proven that the group of Osama bin Laden and the Taliban planning such operations, it is possible that America will attack Iraq and Afghanistan.

4. That the Afghani consul heard of the relation between Iraq and the group of Osama bin Laden while he was in Iran.

5. In the light of what has been presented, we suggest to write to the committee of information.

This document is speculative in parts, and the information it contains is third-hand at best. Its value depends on the credibility of "source number 11002" and of Ahmed Dahestani and of the sources Dahestani relied on, all of which are unknown.

We are left, then, with three small pieces to add to a large and elaborate puzzle. We will never have a complete picture of the Iraqi regime's support for global terrorism, but the coming release of a flood of captured documents should get us closer.

A new and highly illuminating article in Foreign Affairs draws on hundreds of Iraqi documents to provide a look at the Iraq war from the Iraqi perspective. The picture that emerges is that of an Iraqi regime built on a foundation of paranoia and lies and eager to attack its perceived enemies, internal and external. This paragraph is notable:


The Saddam Fedayeen also took part in the regime's domestic terrorism operations and planned for attacks throughout Europe and the Middle East. In a document dated May 1999, Saddam's older son, Uday, ordered preparations for "special operations, assassinations, and bombings, for the centers and traitor symbols in London, Iran and the self-ruled areas [Kurdistan]." Preparations for "Blessed July," a regime-directed wave of "martyrdom" operations against targets in the West, were well under way at the time of the coalition invasion.

Think about that last sentence.



Stephen F. Hayes is a senior writer at The Weekly Standard.



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