Posted on 05/14/2002 7:57:27 PM PDT by Sawdring
Seated next to Donald Rumsfeld last Tuesday as he drank coffee at the Pentagon with reporters in the Godfrey Sperling group, I asked the secretary of defense to confirm or deny whether suicide hijacker Mohamed Atta met an Iraqi secret service operative in Prague and then returned to the United States to die in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. ''I don't know whether he did or didn't,'' Rumsfeld replied.
In those eight words, the defense chief confirmed published reports that there is no evidence placing the presumed leader of the terrorist attacks in the Czech capital--with or without Iraqi spymaster Ahmed al-Ani. His alleged presence in Prague is the solitary piece of evidence that could link Saddam Hussein's dictatorial regime to the carnage at the World Trade Center.
Rumsfeld followed his terse response to my Atta question with an explanation of why it really doesn't matter. A connection with the Sept. 11 attacks, he made clear, is not necessary to justify U.S. military action against Iraq to remove Saddam from power. The cause for war is alleged development of weapons of mass destruction by the Baghdad regime.
Why, then, do ardent attack-Iraq advocates outside the government--William Safire, Kenneth Adelman, James Woolsey--cling to the reality of the imagined meeting in Prague? Because President Bush would be alone in the world if he ordered the attack without an Iraqi connection to Sept. 11.
It is impossible to prove whether Atta was or was not in Prague in April 2001 as first claimed last October by Czech Interior Minister Stanislav Gross, but these are the facts: Atta definitely did not travel under his own name back and forth from the Czech Republic. The 9/11 terrorists always traveled in the open. For Atta to have used an assumed name would be a radically different method of operation. The sole evidence for the Prague meeting is the word of Czech officials, who are now divided and confused.
The CIA does not want to be dragged into public debate with New York Times columnist Safire, and its officials insist that ''we don't have a dog in that fight.'' In truth, however, cool-headed analysts at Langley see no evidence whatever of the Prague meeting and in their gut believe it did not take place.
Is there evidence of any other Iraqi connection to 9/11? ''I don't discuss intelligence information,'' Rumsfeld replied. In fact, there is none.
Responding to my question whether it made any difference to U.S. policy on Iraq, he said, ''I don't know how to answer it.'' He then depicted terrorist nations--''Iran, Iraq, Syria, Libya, I suppose North Korea''--working together to develop weapons of mass destruction. This could mean the death of ''potentially hundreds of thousands of people.''
Responding to another reporter's question, Rumsfeld said ''the nuclear weapon . . . is somewhat more difficult to develop, maintain and use than, for example, biological weapons,'' adding, ''I would elevate the biological risk.''
Indeed, nobody in the U.S. government takes seriously statements by former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on his recent visit to Washington that Iraq can deliver a nuclear bomb here in a suitcase.
Whether the Iraqis possess biological capability is unknown and debatable. Former UN arms inspector Scott Ritter contends Iraq's biowar factories and their equipment were destroyed. Without ''acquisition of a large amount of new technology,'' Ritter has said, ''I don't see Iraq being able to do high-quality production on a large scale of bioweapons.'' While Ritter's detractors are many, his allegations never have been contradicted.
There is justifiable belief in the White House, the Pentagon and even the State Department that the world--not to mention Iraq--will be better and safer without Saddam Hussein in Baghdad. But that does not justify to the world the overthrowing of a government.
That is why ace reporter Bill Safire writes column after column insisting that the Prague meeting took place. That is also why national security expert Ken Adelman insisted April 29 on CNN's ''Crossfire'' that Atta ''went 7,000 miles to meet with one of the Iraq intelligence officers in Prague.'' Even if it never happened, the meeting is essential to justify a U.S. attack on Iraq.
Not true at all. It has been confirmed that Atta had three different identities in Germany (and, hence, three different German passports).
Novak enjoys playing the maverick and taking unpopular stands, but here he is falling for government disinformation. He manufactures this image of a lonely William Safire desperately clinging to the increasingly threadbare Atta-Prague story. In fact, Stanislav Gross and every other Czech official who will speak for attribution--the people who were there, after all--insist that Atta met with Al-Ani.
Once again I point out that Atta's two trips to Prague in the space of three days in 2000 remain undisputed.
You can't get the right answers if you don't ask the right questions. And Novak didn't know enough about his subject to address the right questions to Rumsfeld.
The administration is attempting to smother the Iraqi-anthrax connection with disinformation and misdirection. Through their ignorance, the media is helping them out.
The purpose of all this isn't entirely clear...
Well, upon reflection, it actually is pretty clear.
The administration wouldn't want this particular cat -- that the U.S. has been attacked with weapons of mass destruction by a foreign power -- to get out of the bag prematurely. I.e., not until we are ready to retaliate.
Until that time, it is incumbent upon the administration to practice misdirection and disinformation.
But the going is getting pretty sloppy...
That's an intriguing idea. I've read no rumors of anybody else, though. One has to ask whose presence would meet the two requirements: (1) the U.S. must prefer that the person's presence be hidden, while (2) the Czech Republic would not mind having it revealed.
Or maybe something else? Like a vial of powder? Or a baggie full of envelopes, perhaps with the writing even identifiable with a zoom lens? Or something specifically linking the meeting with 9/11? Or some other object?
This is pure speculation, of course, but, like you say, someone is going to a lot of trouble to deny this story. (Or, on the offchance that the story is false, the Czechs are putting themselves on the line by continuing to tout it.)
Au contraire, my friend, the purpose is only too clear:
It is protection for Saddam to have biological and chemical weapons, because, in the final analysis, if pressed, if he is surrounded in Baghdad, he will threaten to use them. He's capable of that. This is a sort of Samson complex--if you push me too hard, I'll bring the house down, on myself and on everyone else. Washington realizes that this is a possibility. For obvious reasons, it's not talked about openly. No one in Washington wants to tell the American people that Saddam is still capable of blackmailing us. They're acting as if he is capable of blackmailing them, but they are not going to admit it openly.Saïd K. Aburish, author of Saddam Hussein: The Politics of Revenge, interview with PBS Frontline
Those are certainly possibilities.
Re:a possible person-
One has to ask whose presence would meet the two requirements: (1) the U.S. must prefer that the person's presence be hidden, while (2) the Czech Republic would not mind having it revealed.
Excellent analysis!
Maybe, maybe not. I guess we're now well past speculation, into the territory of wild guesses!
Absolutely :) I could just envision this Czech biowar scientist, thrown out of work when the Soviet Union crumbled and now working in Saddam's labs, accompanying the goods as a chance to visit his homeland and family. It may not even resemble the truth, but it would sure be plausible in a novel! Sorry I got us so far off track :)
Not at all. I think was a very interesting point to raise. Why is the U.S. so uncomfortable with having this meeting revealed? (Even if the meeting were acknowledged, it's still just circumstantial evidence that wouldn't prove Iraq's complicity in 9/11, although it would be suggestive. Now, if another person were there, or if something concrete had been observed or overheard during the meeting, that could well provide the kind of unequivocal evidence of Iraq's involvement that the U.S. does not seem to want revealed right now.)
In the back of my mind, I vaguely recall a report about this meeting which mentioned "something like a Thermos bottle" changing hands.
I've no idea where I got the notion. But the specific recollection is "Thermos bottle".
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