US President George W. Bush, seeking to boost support for the unpopular war in Iraq, shared intelligence yesterday asserting that Osama bin Laden was working in 2005 to set up a unit inside Iraq to hit US targets.

Much of the information Bush cited in a commencement address at the US Coast Guard Academy described terrorism plots already disclosed, but he fleshed out details and highlighted US successes in foiling planned attacks.

Bush said that intelligence showed that in January 2005, bin Laden tasked Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, his senior operative in Iraq, to set up the cell to use Iraq as a staging ground for attacks in the United States. Al-Zarqawi was killed in Iraq in June 2006 by a US airstrike.

This information expanded on a classified bulletin the Homeland Security Department issued in March 2005. The bulletin, which warned that bin Laden had enlisted al-Zarqawi to plan potential strikes in the United States, was described at the time as credible but not specific. It did not prompt the administration to raise its national terror alert level.

In the past, the Bush White House has declassified and made public sensitive information to help rebut critics or defend programs or decisions against adverse criticism in Congress or the courts. On a few occasions the declassified materials were intended to serve as proof that terrorists see Iraq as a critical staging ground for operations.

Democrats and other critics have accused Bush of selectively declassifying intelligence, including portions of a sensitive National Security Intelligence Estimate on Iraq, to justify the US-led invasion on the ground that Saddam Hussein's regime possessed weapons of mass destruction. That assertion proved false.

Bush, who is battling Democrats in Congress over spending for the war in Iraq, also said that in the spring of 2005, bin Laden instructed Hamza Rabia, a senior operative, to brief al-Zarqawi on an Al-Qaida plan to attack sites outside Iraq. Around the same time, Abu Fajah al-Libi, a senior Al-Qaida manager, suggested that bin Laden send Rabia to Iraq to help al-Zarqawi plan the external operations, he said. It is unclear whether Rabia went to Iraq.

Bush said that another suspected Al-Qaida operative, Ali Salih al-Mari, was trained in Afghanistan and dispatched to the United States before the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

"Our intelligence community believes Ali Salih was training in poisoning at an Al-Qaida camp in Afghanistan and had been sent to the United States before 9-11 to serve as a sleeper agent ready for follow-on attacks," Bush said.

Bush also talked about how in 2003, intelligence officials uncovered and stopped an aviation plot led by another suspected senior Al-Qaida operative named Abu Bakr al-Azdi.

"Our intelligence community believes this plot was to be another East Coast aviation attack, including multiple airplanes that had been hijacked and then crashed into the United States," Bush said.

Nine US soldiers were killed in five separate attacks across Iraq over the past 48 hours, most of them by roadside bombs, the US military said yesterday.

Meanwhile, the half-naked body of one of three missing US soldiers was found yesterday in the Euphrates River in the town of Mussayab south of Baghdad, police said.

Hilla police spokesman Captain Muthanna al-Maamouri said there were bullet wounds to the torso and head of the body, which was wearing US Army-issue pants and boots and had a tattoo on the left arm.

Source: China Daily/agencies