Replies

No matter where you go, there you are.

Iraq-al Qaeda XV: More on Atta, Prague, and MSM lies

One of the enduring mysteries to me about the 9/11 investigation is why there was such an energetic disinformation campaign, by the US government and media, about Mohammed Atta.

The 9/11 Commission report contained quite a bit of weasel-wording, which the media and government officials could cherry-pick to make the points they wanted.

For example, the Commission report says "No evidence has been found that Atta was in the Czech Republic in April 2001". But two paragraphs later, it also says "These findings cannot absolutely rule out the possibility that Atta was in Prague on April 9, 2001". Guess which sentence was quoted by the MSM?

A big part of the argument that Atta could not have been in Prague on 9 April 2001, meeting with Samir al-Ani of Iraqi Intelligence, is the absence of travel records between the US and the Czech Republic in the name of "Mohammed Atta" a that time.

But we KNOW the 9/11 hijackers had various false documents, so it is impossible to say whether he may have travelled under another name. Al Ani's own diary for the day records a meeting with a "Hamburg student", which is how Atta and some of the other hijackers were referred to in other sources and documents.

Subsequently, the 9/11 report says "The FBI and CIA have uncovered no evidence that Atta held any fraudulent passports". But this isn't altogether true. In February 2004, two Algerians names Khaled Madani and Moussa Laour were arrested in Spain on suspicion of furnishing phony passports to, among others, Mohamed Atta. Ramzi Binalshibh, the operational manager of the 9/11 plot, admitted as much in interrogation at Guantanamo Bay, although he denies Atta met al-Ani in Prague, as have al-Ani and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, both of whom are also in custody.

The Commission report also reported that Atta had visited Prague two previous times, in "1994 and 2000". It says the visit was on his way from Germany to the United States: "On the latter occasion, he arrived by bus from Germany, on June 2, and departed for Newark the following day".

This passage is both false and misleading. Atta visited Prague not once but twice in 2000, at which time he exhibited a strange determination to get there. He made the first attempt to visit Prague from Hamburg on 22 May, when he was turned around at the border for not having a Czech visa. He immediately went to Bonn and applied for a visa (on 26 May) to enter the Czech Republic, then, upon learning it wouldn't be ready until 31 May, flew to Prague without a visa on 30 May and spent the night in the airport, returning to Germany the next day. Then, with visa in hand, he returned to Prague yet again on 2 June, transferring to his flight to Newark, NJ.

That's a lot different from what the 9/11 Commission reports, and it casts the rest of the narrative in a very different light. There's a whole lot of that sort of thing in the Commission's report, and even more in the MSM coverage of the whole story.

The New York Times, in October 2002, reported that Czech President Vaclav Havel called President Bush to say he had reported the meeting did not take place. This led to a speedy and angry contradiction from Havel himself, who said that he never did any such thing.

This game went on for quite a while: the MSM would claim the Czechs had retracted their claim, then the Czechs would say "No we haven't and we still think the meeting took place". But ask any self-important bureaucrat in Washington and they will remember only the (false) page 1 headlines in the Washington Post, and will say "Those reports were discredited. The meeting didn't take place".

The more knowledgeable mandarins may cite the FBI claims, leaked to the Washington Post, that they had rental car records for Atta covering the period in April 2001 when Atta supposedly went to Prague. But, as I have reported before, there are no such records. Someone simply lied in their leak to the press in order to add credibility to a story that isn't true.

Mohammed Atta was stopped for speeding (in Marwan al-Shehhi's car) in Fort Lauderdale on 22 April 2001, at which time he was cited for not having a driver's licence. Amazingly, while awaiting his court date for not having a license, he was issued a Florida Driver's License in May 2001. If you or I were cited for driving without a license, you can bet the DMV wouldn't give us one until that charge was adjudicated, and probably not for a couple of years after that. But I guess they make special exceptions for the most bloodthirsty terrorist in history.

But while the DMV may have extended special courtesies to Mohammed Atta, I seriously doubt a rental car company would. I don't think there is any way Atta could have rented a car in early April 2001 when he didn't have a driver's license until May.

Eventually, like the missing 727, the story just died and everyone forgot about it, having never gotten to the truth.

There was apparently a pretty comprehensive, broadly-based effort in government and the media to discredit the possibility that this meeting took place, because if it did, there could be essentially no disputing Iraq involvement in 9/11. In fact, if it did in fact happen, it would seem to indicate that Iraq was the paymaster for the whole 9/11 conspiracy.

If that were true, it would be good to know, wouldn't it? Would it not cast everything that has happened in the last 4 years in rather a different light?

posted Friday, 21 January 2005