| Honorific Prefix: | Major General |
| Tahir Jalil Habbush al-Tikriti | |
| Native Name: | طاهر جليل حبوش |
| Native Name Lang: | ar |
| Birth Date: | 1 January 1950 |
| Birth Place: | Iraq |
| Branch: | Ministry of the Interior |
| Serviceyears: | 1970–2003 |
| Rank: | Major General |
| Unit: | Iraqi Police Iraqi Intelligence Service |
| Occupation: | Police officer Intelligence officer |
| Battles: |
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| Awards: | Mother of All Battles Medal |
| Office: | Director of the Iraqi Intelligence Service |
| Predecessor: | Sabawi Ibrahim al-Tikriti |
| Successor: | Office abolished |
| Termstart: | 1995 |
| Termend: | 2003 |
| Termstart1: | 1997 |
| Termend1: | 1999 |
| Office1: | Director of the Directorate of General Security |
| Predecessor1: | Taha Abbas al-Ahbabi |
| Successor1: | Rafi Abdul Latif Tulfah |
Tahir Jalil Habbush al-Tikriti (Arabic: طاهر جليل حبوش التكريتي; born 1950) is a former Iraqi intelligence official who served under the regime of Saddam Hussein. In 2001, he was Iraq's head of intelligence and as such, informed MI6 in January 2003 (shortly before the start of the Iraq War) that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction.[1] He was the "Jack of Diamonds" in the US deck of most-wanted Iraqi playing cards[2] and is still a fugitive with a reward of up to $1 million for information leading to his capture.[3] It is believed that al-Tikriti at some point operated from Syria and most likely played a direct role in the day-to-day operations of the insurgency against U.S.-led Coalition forces under the command of Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri.[4]
See main article: Habbush letter.
According to the London Sunday Telegraph, Mohamed Atta is mentioned in a letter allegedly discovered in Iraq handwritten by Tahir Jalil Habbush al-Takriti, former chief of the Iraqi Intelligence Service. Habbush's July 1, 2001, memo is labeled "Intelligence Items", stating:
The memo is believed to be a forgery. According to Newsweek, "U.S. officials and a leading Iraqi document expert [say] the document is most likely a forgery, part of a thriving new trade in dubious Iraqi documents that has cropped up in the wake of the collapse of Saddam's regime."[5] In The Way of the World, author Ron Suskind alleges that the Bush administration itself ordered the forgery. Habbush then supposedly signed the letter, having already been resettled in Jordan with $5 million from the US.[6]