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CIA denies contact with bin Laden (re: Le Figaro report at Dubai hospital)
online.ie ^ | October 31, 2001

Posted on 10/31/2001 5:49:56 PM PST by HAL9000

The CIA is rejecting claims that a US intelligence agent met Osama bin Laden two months before the September 11 terror attacks.

Reports said the meeting took place between July 4 and 14.

The CIA says the report is "complete and utter nonsense".

"Numerous comments in the media recently have reiterated a widely circulated but incorrect notion that the CIA once had a relationship with Osama bin Laden," said a spokeswoman.

"For the record, you should know that the CIA never employed, paid, or maintained any relationship whatsoever with bin Laden."

Reports said Bin Laden was being treated for a serious kidney ailment at the American Hospital in Dubai.

He was visited by members of his family and the local representative of the CIA, a professional partner of the hospital's administrative management .

The agent was seen taking the lift to bin Laden's floor, reports claimed.

The reports said the CIA agent later boasted to several friends that he had visited the terror suspect, who at the time was wanted for the bombings of US embassies in Africa and the attack on the destroyer USS Cole in Yemen.



TOPICS: Front Page News; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: terrorwar
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I think the CIA spokesman was reading directly from the October 5th press release.
1 posted on 10/31/2001 5:49:56 PM PST by HAL9000
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To: HAL9000
CIA denies it... Good, I'm glad they didn't fold under pressure from Le Figaro!
2 posted on 10/31/2001 5:59:13 PM PST by majic12
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To: HAL9000
Maybe this is part of "confusing and frustrating" the enemy. Other than that, I don't think I want to know.
3 posted on 10/31/2001 6:09:38 PM PST by bond7
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To: HAL9000
Well bin Laden does have a serious kidney problem thanks to us poisoning him, read about that in the New Jackals book on Ramzi Yusef. Paid to get someone in there to assinate him but could only screw up his kidneys. Pretty good, I think.
OBL has to go to a hospital to get fixed up, where is he going to find that in the hills of Afghanistan? Has to go to a fairly modern hospital out of his country. Where did he go?
4 posted on 10/31/2001 6:10:51 PM PST by lelio
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To: HAL9000
From UPI via Newsmax.com -

CIA Says It Didn't Meet With bin Laden

NewsMax.com Wires

Thursday, Nov. 1, 2001

WASHINGTON – CIA officials Wednesday rejected a French newspaper report that one of their agents allegedly met with terrorist mastermind Osama bin laden in July.

The Saudi underwent treatment for kidney problems at an American hospital in Dubai, France's Le Figaro newspaper reported Wednesday.

"Complete and utter nonsense," said Anya Guilsher, a spokeswoman for the Central Intelligence Agency. "It's false, and I told Le Figaro that, too."

Bin Laden reportedly checked into American Hospital Dubai, a 100-bed, acute-care general hospital, on July 4 and stayed until July 14. He arrived from Quetta, Pakistan, accompanied by his doctor and a close aide, possibly Ayman el Zawahiri, a leader of Egypt's Islamic Jihad, the newspaper said.

Le Figaro cited a "professional partner" linked to the hospital's management as its source.

Besides a stream of local dignitaries and family members, bin Laden's visitors included a CIA agent, the newspaper claimed. The agent was widely recognized locally, Le Figaro said, and later told several friends of the meeting.

The alleged American agent was called back to the CIA's McLean, Va., headquarters on July 15, a day after bin Laden checked out, Le Figaro reported, citing "authorized sources."

Why bin Laden would have met with a CIA officer, or vice versa, is unclear. Even before the Sept. 11 terror attacks on the United States, the Saudi millionaire figured among America's top terrorist suspects, blamed for several earlier plots against U.S. targets, including the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.

But the French newspaper asserted that a CIA-bin Laden link stretched back years, and the paper appeared to suggest that bin Laden gave the agency information regarding future terrorist strikes.

"The Dubai meeting is therefore a logical follow to a 'certain American policy,'" the newspaper said.

In particular, the newspaper noted that just two weeks after bin Laden checked out of the Dubai hospital, United Arab Emirates security agents arrested the alleged mastermind of a plot to blow up the American Embassy in Paris. The suspect, a French-Algerian named Djamel Beghal, earlier confessed to receiving his orders from bin Laden, according to French news media citing his written confession.

An American diplomat in Paris refused to comment on the Figaro article, or on reported allegations of an emergency meeting in Paris in August between high-level French and American intelligence officials.

"We'll just not comment on any of that stuff," he said. "We can't talk about meetings like that that may or may not have happened."

Le Figaro said bin Laden had serious kidney problems, and reportedly had a dialysis machine imported to Afghanistan last year. Citing a March 2000 report by Asia Week, the newspaper said bin Laden's illness stemmed from "a renal infection that has spread to the liver, and needs specialized treatment."

The head of the Dubai hospital's Urology Department, Terry Callaway, reportedly refused to answer questions about bin Laden's alleged stay. Radio France reported Wednesday that the American hospital has denied bin Laden was treated there. Copyright 2001 by United Press International.

All rights reserved.


5 posted on 10/31/2001 6:26:40 PM PST by HAL9000
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To: HAL9000
Is Le Figaro still a franchise of Le Pravda?
6 posted on 10/31/2001 6:50:13 PM PST by dodger
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To: HAL9000
The Figaro article was absurd even without any denials.
7 posted on 10/31/2001 7:20:29 PM PST by Dog Gone
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To: dodger
Is Le Figaro still a franchise of Le Pravda?

Freepers tend to like Le Figaro.

austinTparty says: "For more balanced reporting, see "Le Figaro"

GeorgeandtheDralgore says: "The French daily Le Figaro (www.lefigaro.com) is also shocked by the way the Dems are "fishing" for Gore votes"

8 posted on 11/01/2001 3:46:42 PM PST by Int
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To: Int; *TerrOrWar; LSJohn; Fred Mertz; Plummz; Alamo-Girl; dawnal; rubbertramp; Leper Messiah
I just heard the Figaro report repeated by a caller on C-SPAN, who identified the CIA officer in Dubai as one "Larry Mitchell." The name was news to me, so I did a google search on the name, and turned up this interesting recent article by George Szamuely from the NY Press: The Neo-Colonialists.
9 posted on 11/17/2001 8:52:06 AM PST by aristeides
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To: t-shirt; OKCSubmariner
FYI.
10 posted on 11/17/2001 11:55:35 AM PST by aristeides
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To: dodger
Le Figaro is a stock company, a stake of which is owned by the Carlyle Group, which recently saw tbe Bin Laden family cash out their stake in a venture, and has folks like Jimmy Baker, #41 & the like "advise" it. Oh the irony.
11 posted on 11/17/2001 11:56:51 AM PST by a history buff
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To: HAL9000
Again, we hear pathetic replies from the CIA: a modern-day make-work project for ex-mental patients. They're all a bunch of LSD-spammed druggies!
12 posted on 11/17/2001 12:03:02 PM PST by BrucefromMtVernon
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To: bond7
Why would you not want to know if they were meeting with him beforehand?
13 posted on 11/17/2001 12:15:42 PM PST by t-shirt
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To: aristeides
The Gertz-Scarborough Washington Times "Inside the Ring" column reported on May 18 about a retired Air Force Col. Larry Mitchell, [who] also serves as a paid CIA consultant." Same guy?
14 posted on 11/17/2001 12:17:32 PM PST by aristeides
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To: aristeides; Black Jade; thinden
Sounds like Osama is not a "team player" bump.
15 posted on 11/18/2001 4:17:51 AM PST by rubbertramp
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To: aristeides; OKCSubmariner
Those retired Air Force colonels really get around. Remember Vincent Petruskie, Andy Strassmeier's mentor.
16 posted on 11/18/2001 4:43:43 AM PST by rubbertramp
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Comment #17 Removed by Moderator

To: Black Jade
In a search I did on google, I found that a Lawrence Mitchell was at OTS at Maxwell AFB which IMO seems to be a cynosure of diversity terrorism..... Atta's Flying Circus
18 posted on 11/21/2001 4:06:23 AM PST by rubbertramp
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To: HAL9000
What did anyone expect?
19 posted on 11/21/2001 4:12:16 AM PST by philman_36
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To: lelio; LSJohn
OBL has to go to a hospital to get fixed up, where is he going to find that in the hills of Afghanistan?
For dialysis? Did someone mention "Ginger"?
An inventor's project starts a national buzz
Snip...Then there is Kamen, the 49-year-old creator of the portable insulin pump and a briefcase-size kidney dialysis machine. Both innovations netted Kamen $30 million by 1996, according to Forbes magazine.
20 posted on 11/21/2001 4:21:01 AM PST by philman_36
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