Oh, so the capture of an aide to Bin Laden doesn't count as evidence al Qaida is in Iraq? Well, I don't expect to see this story on CNN anytime soon.
Or these:
But how clear is Iraq's involvement in the 1993 attacks? Some say evidence of Baghdad's sponsorship is compelling.
Beyond Ramzi Yousef's Iraqi passport and Abdul Rahman Yasin's subsidy from Saddam, terrorist expert Laurie Mylroie has insisted for years that Iraq helped Yousef execute his plan. She says that Jim Fox, the FBI's New York bureau chief in 1993, who headed up the WTC bombing probe, was thoroughly convinced of a connection.
After pursuing possible Iraqi links, Fox was yanked from the investigation and he died a few years later. But two months after the bombing he told ABC News he thought the attack might have been revenge for the first Gulf War against Iraq.
"During the Gulf war, we took very seriously the threat to the United States from terrorist elements," Fox told ABC's Ted Koppel. "In fact, we tripled our commitment, agent commitment, to terrorist matters during the Gulf war and thereafter. Some of the individuals involved in this case [the '93 attack] came to our attention, as you can imagine."
Former CIA Director James Woolsey also finds evidence tying Iraq to the '93 attack persuasive.
So does conservative commentator George Will, who told MSNBC's Chris Matthews last year, "People are convinced that the Iraqi fingerprints were all over the first attack on the World Trade Center."
"Do you believe that?" asked Matthews.
"I think the evidence is quite compelling," replied Will.
Incredulous at the response, Matthews repeated, "Do you believe that Iraq had something to do with blowing up the World Trade Center in 1993?"
Will answered simply, "I do."
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's Account Links 9/11 to '93 WTC Attack
CIA can confirm two Atta visits to Prague--in Dec. 1994 and in June 2000; data surrounding the other two--on 26 Oct 1999 and 9 April 2001--is complicated and sometimes contradictory and CIA and FBI cannot confirm Atta met with the IIS. Czech Interior Minister Stanislav Gross continues to stand by his information.
It's not just Gross who stands by the information. Five high-ranking members of the Czech government have publicly confirmed meetings between Atta and al Ani. The meeting that has gotten the most press attention--April 9, 2001--is also the most widely disputed. Even some of the most hawkish Bush administration officials are privately skeptical that Atta met al Ani on that occasion. They believe that reports of the alleged meeting, said to have taken place in public, outside the headquarters of the U.S.-financed Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, suggest a level of sloppiness that doesn't fit the pattern of previous high-level Iraq-al Qaeda contacts.
Whether or not that specific meeting occurred, the report by Czech counterintelligence that al Ani ordered the Iraqi Intelligence Service officer to provide IIS funds to Atta might help explain the lead hijacker's determination to reach Prague, despite significant obstacles, in the spring 2000. (Note that the report stops short of confirming that the funds were transferred. It claims only that the IIS officer requested the transfer.) Recall that Atta flew to Prague from Germany on May 30, 2000, but was denied entry because he did not have a valid visa. Rather than simply return to Germany and fly directly to the United States, his ultimate destination, Atta took pains to get to Prague. After he was refused entry the first time, he traveled back to Germany, obtained the proper paperwork, and caught a bus back to Prague. He left for the United States the day after arriving in Prague for the second time.
The U.S. government's secret memo detailing cooperation between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden.
Bush on Oct. 10 named Yasin as one of the world's 22 Most Wanted Terrorists for his role in the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center. Bush's list is headed by Osama bin Laden and his cohorts in al-Qaida, the terror group accused of finishing the destruction of the New York landmark begun by Yasin and others.
There is no doubt about Yasin's whereabouts after the 1993 outrage. The FBI agents who perfunctorily questioned Yasin in New York and were conned by his pleasant manner quickly understood their mistake in letting him go. They got his brother to telephone Yasin in Baghdad repeatedly to ask him to come back for more questioning. Guess what?
Mr. Yasin sent his regrets.
In 1998 then-FBI Director Louis Freeh said publicly that the fugitive was "hiding in his native Iraq." The Iraqi National Congress, the leading anti-Saddam movement, earlier obtained a photograph of Yasin in Baghdad and provided it to Washington. Every indication points to Yasin's not having left Iraq since then, a senior U.S. official tells me.