Posted on 05/06/2004 10:57:15 PM PDT by JohnHuang2
New evidence about a meeting in Prague between September 11 plot leader Mohamed Atta and Iraqi intelligence officer Ahmad Khalil Ibrahim Samir al-Ani has been uncovered, reports Geostrategy-Direct, the global intelligence news service.
Investigative journalist Edward J. Epstein has uncovered Czech government visa records indicating al-Ani was posted to the Iraqi embassy in Prague between March 1999 and April 21, 2001, and was involved in handling Iraqi agents.
A search of the Iraq Embassy in Prague after the fall of Baghdad to coalition forces revealed al-Ani had scheduled a meeting for April 8, 2001, with a Hamburg student, according to an appointment calendar obtained by Czech intelligence.
Al-Ani then was placed under surveillance as he met with a young Arab-speaking man in Prague April 8.
After seeing Atta's photograph after Sept. 11, the Czech counterintelligence watcher identified the man he had seen meeting al-Ani as Atta. Al-Ani was expelled from Prague within two weeks.
According to Epstein, al-Ani denied he met Atta and repeated the denial after being detained by U.S. forces in July.
The CIA has been unable to confirm the Prague meeting between al-Ani and Atta. If confirmed, the meeting would indicate a role by Saddam Hussein's intelligence service in some level of support for the Sept.11 plot.
The current official U.S. intelligence conclusion is that Saddam's regime was not involved in supporting the Sept. 11 attacks.
According to Epstein, Spanish intelligence has uncovered information indicating Algerians Khaled Madani and Moussa Laouar supplied Atta and another al-Qaida member, Ramzi bin al-Shibh, with false passports.
Epstein's information supports other journalists who have uncovered a connection between Iraq and al-Qaida, including Jayna Davis, author of "The Third Terrorist: The Middle Eastern Connection to the Oklahoma City Bombing."
In her book, Davis suggests the September 11 attacks possibly could have been prevented if evidence of an Iraqi and al-Qaida link to the OKC bombing had been pursued.
Davis writes that in November 1997, Hussain Hashem Al-Hussaini – a former Iraqi Republican Guardsman whom multiple eyewitnesses identified as McVeigh's elusive accomplice, John Doe 2 – confided to his psychiatrist that he was anxious about his airport job because "if something were to happen there, I (Al-Hussaini) would be a suspect." At the time, Al-Hussaini was employed at Boston Logan International Airport, where two of the four 9-11 suicide hijackings originated.
She also reveals court records that suggest one of bombers Timothy McVeigh's and Terry Nichols's accused Middle Eastern handlers had foreknowledge of the 9-11 plot.
In addition, Davis discusses information she first uncovered eight years ago – that Nichols learned the macabre genius of terrorist bomb making under the training of Philippines-based al-Qaida explosives expert Ramzi Yousef, the convicted mastermind of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.
The left strenuously denying the meeting always made me so suspicious.
May I repeat......we KNEW the meeting took place.
We KNEW Iraq was involved with al qaeda.
We NEVER doubted it for a moment.
We also know that Iraq tried to buy yellow cake from Niger.
Wilson KNOWS too. Traitor that he is.
QUAGMIRE OF SPIN: SADDAM’S LINKS TO AL QAEDA
2000-2001: The often-refuted meetings in Prague in June 2000 and in April of 2001 between 9-11 hijack captain Mohammed Atta and Iraqi “diplomat” Ahmed Khalil Ibrahim Samir al-Ani, did indeed take place. The August 2, 2002 edition of the Los Angeles Times quotes an unnamed high official in the Bush Administration as saying that evidence of the Prague meetings “holds up.” A Czech intelligence agent has stated publicly that he witnessed and reported al-Samir and Atta hugging goodbye in the airport following the 2001 meeting.
No matter what the MMC repeatedly says, since Czech interior minister Stanislas Gross made it official on October 26, 2001 and was later corroborated by prime minister Milos Zeman, the only wavering on the matter has come from Vaslav Havel after intense pressure from the Media Left in Europe (and possibly a tad from the White House). All Havel finally said was that the meeting “MAY” not have happened. Naturally the MMC has taken this one inconclusive statement as conclusive evidence that the meeting never happened, conveniently ignoring far weightier evidence to the contrary.
Some in the media also cite CIA sources that say there is no record of Atta leaving the country during April 2001, and that he may have rented a car in Florida at that time. First, this completely ignores the June 2000 meeting, which the CIA itself has confirmed publicly. Second, it conveniently ignores that Atta routinely traveled on false passports and that his operatives may have purposely rented a car with his ID to establish an alibi presence in Florida, when he was indeed in Czechoslovakia.
The Czechs, it should be noted, spurred by the last Atta meeting with al-Ani, expelled the Iraqi agent not long after he saw Atta off at the airport. The reason was his suspected involvement in a plot to bomb Radio Free Europe. Radio Free Europe is an icon and entity of the United States of America.
CASE CLOSED (Osama-Saddam Link Proved in Intel Cmte Brief)
And then there is the alleged contact between lead 9/11 hijacker Mohamed Atta and an Iraqi intelligence officer in Prague. The reporting on those links suggests not one meeting, but as many as four. What's more, the memo reveals potential financing of Atta's activities by Iraqi intelligence.
The Czech counterintelligence service reported that the Sept. 11 hijacker [Mohamed] Atta met with the former Iraqi intelligence chief in Prague, [Ahmed Khalil Ibrahim Samir] al Ani, on several occasions. During one of these meetings, al Ani ordered the IIS finance officer to issue Atta funds from IIS financial holdings in the Prague office.
And the commentary:
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.
Abu Nidal, September 11 and Saddam: The terrorist network may be closer knit than we think
Then there were the visits to Prague by Atta. On two separate occasions, Atta--not a man given to the earthly pleasures of sightseeing--traveled to Prague to meet Khalil Ibrahim Samir al-Ani, an Iraqi agent later expelled from the Czech Republic as a spy. Since the information surfaced last fall, there have been numerous efforts to bury the story--the most tangible evidence linking Sept. 11 to Baghdad. The Czech government, however, had little reason to question its own intelligence on the Atta trips and stood by the story. Last month, a high-ranking White House official confirmed the meeting.
The Czechs didn't flip-flop. But that didn't stop the NYTimes from claiming that they did.
Reporting from "reliable sources inside the intelligence community", the Times said that Vaclav Havel had called President Bush and assured him that the Czech intelligence services had "no credible evidence" that al-Ani had ever met with Atta in Prague, as was claimed.
Two days later, they Times was forced to print a retraction. The Czech Ambassador instructed them that Havel had done no such thing.
Don't have a link, though Shermy might have one. I believe Isikoff also reported this...perhaps from the same source.
I would not be surprised if the source was our old friend, Richard Clarke...
I also found this from another source:
Kate Swoger, "Intelligence chief casts doubt on Atta meeting", Prague Post, 07/15/2002
Obviously, that somebody also has strong connections with the media.
What isn't so clear is the motivation. Offhand, I can think of three possibilities.
1. Bureaucracy: an attempt to cover-up one's own (or one's own agency's) mistaken assessments.
2. Politics: an attempt to undermine what would constitute clear public justification for the Iraq war.
3. Treason: a mole who was on Saddam's payroll. Or al-Qaeda's...
The temptation is to believe the former. But the possibility (and danger) of the latter can't be ignored.
That the middle one is even plausible says volumes...
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