Background
On December 13, 2003, the day of Saddam Hussein's capture by US forces, The Daily Telegraph of London ran a front-page story that not only claimed Saddam Hussein had trained one of the hijackers behind the September 11 attacks, but also that his government, assisted by a "small team from the Al Qaeda organization", was expecting to receive a suspicious consignment from the country of Niger. This exclusive article, and a second piece, were both written by Con Coughlin, executive foreign editor to the paper.
Coughlin's information came from a secret intelligence memorandum, purportedly handwritten during Saddam Hussein's final days in power and discovered later by the newly-formed Iraqi Interim Government, which summarized an operational relationship between Mohamed Atta, a known associate of al-Qaeda and one of the organizers of the aforementioned attacks, and the Iraqi Intelligence Service (IIS). The letter was signed by General Tahir Jalil Habbush al-Tikriti, chief of IIS, and directed to the president of Iraq. Coughlin said that he had received this document from a "senior member of the Iraqi interim government", though this person "declined to reveal where and how they obtained it."
Read more about this topic: Habbush Letter
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