Posted on 05/08/2002 7:49:22 PM PDT by Pokey78
WASHINGTON — In pro football, an adept offensive lineman tricks his opponent in what is called a "misdirection play." He blocks his man toward the center; as the defender pushes back hard, the misdirecting lineman gives way, seemingly overcome by the counter-charge — as his running back scoots through the hole near the center left by the defender.
A misdirection play is under way in the C.I.A.'s all-out attempt to discredit an account of a suspicious meeting in Prague a year ago. Mohamed Atta, destined to be the leading Sept. 11 suicide hijacker, was reported last fall by Czech intelligence to have met at least once with Saddam Hussein's espionage chief in the Iraqi Embassy — Ahmed al-Ani, a spymaster whom the Czechs were keeping under tight surveillance.
If the report proves accurate, a connection would exist between Al Qaeda's murder of 3,000 Americans and Iraq's Saddam. That would clearly be a casus belli, calling for our immediate military response, separate from the need to stop a demonstrated mass killer from acquiring nuclear and germ weapons. Accordingly, high C.I.A. and Justice officials — worried about exposure of the agency's inability to conduct covert operations — desperately want Atta's Saddam connection to be disbelieved.
They are telling favored journalists: Shoot this troublesome story down. In March, a Washington Post columnist obliged with: "hard intelligence to support the Baghdad-bin Laden connection is somewhere between `slim' and `none.' " In April, Newsweek headlined: "A spy story tying Saddam to 9-11 is looking very flimsy," and its Michael Isikoff wrote: "the much touted `Prague connection' appears to be an intriguing, but embarrassing, mistake."
Everybody jumped aboard the C.I.A. bandwagon. The Washington Post's Walter Pincus followed up with a "senior administration official's finding that eliminates a once-suggested link between the terrorist attacks and the government of President Saddam Hussein." Time magazine this week labels the Czech report about Atta "discredited."
The C.I.A.-Justice misdirection is masterly; even White House staff members have bought the Tenet-Chertoff line about "serious doubts." The New York Times reported all too accurately that "a senior Bush administration official appeared to close the matter, saying F.B.I. and C.I.A. analysts had firmly concluded that no meeting had occurred."
Notice how this parade of pooh-poohing never has an official's name attached to it. Rarely do you see such skillful manipulation by anonymous sources whose policy agenda is never revealed to readers.
I carry around a clipping of Atta's movements reported in The Times of Oct. 26, 2001, attributed to federal law enforcement officials: "On April 2 he was in Virginia Beach. He flew to the Czech Republic on April 8 . . . by April 11, Mr. Atta was back in Florida, renting a car."
Unreported (except on www.edwardjayepstein.com, the Web site of my unfazed Angletonian friend) is this week's response to the hidden policy-driven doubters by the Czech interior minister, Stanislav Gross: "I believe the counterintelligence services more than journalists." Did his agents have new information that would cast doubt on the Atta meeting they reported with Saddam's paymaster and controller of agents in Prague? He checked with Jeri Ruzek, his intelligence chief: "The answer was they did not. Therefore, I consider the matter closed."
Whom do you believe — a responsible official on the scene speaking on the record, with no ax to grind, or U.S. spooks who may be covering up a missed signal from Prague about Sept. 11 and are also fearful of revealing their weakness in Iraq?
Hard-liners can play this background game, too. A "senior Bush administration official" not in the protect-Saddam cabal tells me: "You cannot say the Czech report about a meeting in 2001 between Atta and the Iraqi is discredited or disproven in any way. The Czechs stand by it and we're still in the process of pursuing it and sorting out the timing and venue. There's no doubt Atta was in Prague in 2000, and a subsequent meeting is at least plausible."
Someday, after Baghdad interrogations and tell-all memoirs, we'll learn the truth about any Saddam connection with Al Qaeda. In the meantime, why won't responsible officials take public stands? In the C.I.A.'s misdirection play, which way is the running back headed?
Winston S. Churchill
Last December, a US passenger plane narrowly escaped another Czech invention when Richard Reid was caught trying to board a plane with a homemade explosive in his shoes. According to CNN, he obtained the recipe from an unnamed "Czechoslovak."
Even if they met, there's no evidence of what they said.No, but it is the likeliest source of anthrax. And you know what they say: "Trident kills anthrax dead."
No doubt about it.
The question is: Can we keep the lid on in the Middle East (and between India and Pakistan) until we are prepared to withstand a biological attack here in the U.S.?
Less discussed is Saddam's response to our defensive preparations. His bioweapons lose their deterent ability if we can defend against them. If he feels he is in a "use it or lose it" position, will he "use it"? (I think the answer is yes.)
That means our biowarfare defense preparations must be kept ultra secret until AFTER we are already protected. Mass innoculation programs would not work unless they could be carried out very, very quickly.
Pre-positioned stockpiles of vaccine and antibiotics are essential, as well as a core of pre-vaccinated personnel to keep order in an emergency. All this needs to be done without Saddam finding out how far along we were.
Has anybody ever seen a story about Mohammed Atta training in the Al-Quaeda camps? Maybe I've missed it.
But isn't it possible HE was Sadaam's man?
That HE went to Osama and asked for recruits from the camps?
And isn't is possible, given the fact we know one South Florida pharmacist claims he showed up asking for medication for his red hands, that Atta got the anthrax from Saddam, wrote the anthrax notes and envelopes himself, got someone else to mail them from New Jersey?
Didn't some of the other 19 hijackers have roots in New Jersey?
Why haven't they struck again?
Have we ever seen samples of Atta's handwriting in English?
Just some thoughts. But, whatever the truth, of course the Bush adminstration wants to cover it up, and stop the MADness.
My hypothesis that ALL of the letters were mailed at the same time has been further supported by the finding that all the tape wrapped around the letters came from the same roll at the same time!
If they were prepared simultaneously, then they were probably mailed simultaneously. One was dropped in the letter drop at Boca Raton post office. That went to AMI. The others were entered in collection boxes in the area on September 7 or 8 and were subsequently overlooked in "flat trays" shipped to Philadelphia BMC as empty equipment, or MTE (empty Mail Transportation Equipment).
I have added to my hypothesis the idea that these letters could have been covered in tape at a post office rewrap unit. There you will find employees so well practiced in putting tape around mail that they do not touch the tape (to leave fingerprints). Two weeks ago a letter carrier in the Staten Island post office was arrested for his deep involvement with an Arab/Egyptian terrorist group. Did he have a companion working rewrap?
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