I am in Australia and haven't seen your book yet; and also missed your radio appearance just now. There are two issues I want to bring up.
1. Have you noticed that the Waco siege began two days after the first World Trade Center bombing? And it ended just after former president Bush returned from the trip to Kuwait which ultimately provided the pretext for retaliation against Iraq later in the year.
Also note: exactly two years from Kuwait's liberation to the WTC bombing; exactly two years from Waco to Oklahoma City. It's as if McVeigh was saying, I won't let you spin it away this time.
2. What is the evidence for an Iranian or Syrian connection? Maybe Iraq and Iran are in it together, stranger things have happened; but I see ample evidence linking the attacks on the American homeland to Iraq, and next to nothing connecting them with Iran.
Yet there are people who are determined to portray Iran as the mastermind. I read at your website that you went on radio with Patrick Lang and Larry Johnson. They were in the media more recently, during the Chalabi affair, suggesting that the war in Iraq was a mistake and the result of Iranian disinformation. Yossef Bodansky, of the famous Congressional Task Force, wrote a whole book on the 1993 bombing blaming it on Iran, and indeed on a slew of other countries (Syria, Sudan, Pakistan) - but not Iraq; and he somehow fails to mention that it took place on the second anniversary of Iraq's defeat!
So what's going on here? Do people seriously think Iran, not Iraq, is the real enemy? Or is it just another cover story?
Mitchell Porter
P.S. I also have a problem with Laurie Mylroie's 'stolen identity' theory. I think it's much simpler to suppose that Ramzi Yousef is both Abdul Basit Karim and an Iraqi asset. That would actually explain the irregularities in his Kuwaiti file just as well; and Laurie has nothing to say about the fact that Abdul Basit's other uncle, Zahid Sheikh Mohammed, was Kuwait's version of Osama bin Laden, back in the 1980s. But that complaint belongs in another thread.
Excellent Thread Here! ;)
It seems like Laurie Mylroie's 'stolen identity' theory may be easy to test. Laurie Mylroie in the WSJ http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110004906 questioned Ramzi Yousef’s identity based on questionable Kuwaiti documents which indicated Iraqi involvement. Also questionable is the identity of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (mastermind of 911 attacks) based on these documents.
According to these documents, Mohammed is Ramzi Yousef's "uncle," and two other al Qaeda masterminds are Yousef's "brothers."
A former deputy chief of Israeli Military Intelligence, Amos Gilboa, has observed that "it's obvious" that these identities are fabricated. A family is not at the core of the most ambitious, most lethal series of terrorist assaults in U.S. history. These are Iraqi agents, given "legends," on the basis of Kuwait's files, while Iraq occupied the country.
Question: Do the documents indicate Ramzi Yousef and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed are blood relatives? Both Yousef and KSM are in U.S. custody. Has a DNA check ever been performed to verify whether they are related?
A DNA test is simple to perform and would conclusively prove whether they are blood relatives.
There's been some news reports that the FBI checked old fingerprints of Basit still had at Swansea School in England -- reports say they matched Yosef's.