[The Great Satan]

From an October, 2001 interview with Laurie Mylroie for PBS's Frontline special, Gunning For Saddam:

And just so that it's very clear -- what do you think happened? Iraqi intelligence went in to the Kuwaiti files, realizing they had this man, Ramzi Yousef, who they were going to use in the years to come. So therefore they were setting up a circumstance where they would create a mole, basically, whose identity would be certified by Kuwaiti files. What do you assume happened?

When Iraq occupied Kuwait in 1990 and 1991, it used some Kuwaiti files to create false identities for key agents. It tampered with those files. It tampered with Abdul Basit Karim's files to create a false identity for Ramzi Yousef.

Questions also exist about Abdul Hakim Murad, who was convicted with Yousef in the plane bombing plot [Ed. Note: a plan to bomb 12 U.S. airplanes in the Philippines] and also claims to be born in Kuwait. Questions also exist about Khalid Shaykh Muhammad, also involved in the plane bombing, a fugitive who also claims to be born in Kuwait. People should check those files to see if they've been tampered with.

Former CIA Director James Woolsey visited Swansea, in Wales, shortly after 9-11 to investigate whether Ramzi Yousef is in fact the Kuwaiti-resident Pakastani, Abdul Basit, his currently accepted identity. He isn't telling what he found out. From a PBS interview:

There have been press reports that you've been to the United Kingdom recently.

I've been to the United Kingdom twice this year.

Where did you stay?

Various places.

Did you go for pleasure or did you go for business?

I went for my own reasons.

It's reported that this is related to your passion about the idea that there might be state involvement, particularly Iraqi involvement, in what's been happening.

You'll have to find out about that from somebody other than me.

But the press reports are true? Untrue?

I'm not going to comment on them one way or the other.

OK. Is that because there's a secrecy rule about talking about this stuff?

Because if I do anything to help me advise the U.S. government, I'm not going to talk about it. ...

[Jethro Tull]

#13: Mylroie has been discredited for more than a decade....

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-SNIP

CIA skeptical.

Former CIA Director James Woolsey, writing in the Wall Street Journal October 18, 1991 says the CIA dismissed the (Iraqi) story, evidently because "the CIA has always had an institutional bias in favor of information coming from recruited agents rather than volunteers and defectors."

There has been similar skepticism in the government about scholar Laurie Mylroie's theory that Ramzi Yussef, ringleader of the February 1993 World Trade Center bombing, was an Iraqi agent.

Mylroie's theory is susceptible to proof, by fingerprint evidence probably readily available in Britain. Publicly, the government has shown no interest in obtaining such evidence. But it's possible that someone behind the scenes has been looking--or will look-- and is keeping quiet about it. Publicly, government officials have been saying there is no evidence of Iraqi involvement in the September 11 attacks. But what is happening inside?

Are officials, as Woolsey suggests, skittering away from evidence of Iraqi involvement? Or are they accumulating evidence and keeping it quiet, holding it closely until the time comes to open a second front in Iraq?

-SNIP

Michael Barone, The second front. ,
U.S. News & World Report,
10-29-2001, pp 40.