Atta met al-Ani...and he did so on more than one occasion. Several, actually. And he's not the only hijacker to meet with Iraqi agents and "diplomats," at least two others did as well, although in their cases it was in the Middle east and not Prague.
Ther's more proof, travel docs, and named sources both US and Czech on those meetings than there is on other things the press routinely assumes is true.
Yet the same people who diss the meetings are more than willing to accept swill from unnamed sources as true.
I think too much effort is being expended on attempting to prove an ongoing working relationship between al Qaeda and the Iraqi government because the socialists and their followers put this issue in play knowing full well the futility of undercovering irrefutable evidence of such a relationship. My view is the al Qaeda is acting as an organized group of professional hitmen available for hire. As we know in this country individual contracts for killings by professional hitmen are not very susceptible to proof in the absence of confessions generally given as a result of plea bargaining or grants of immunity. Terrorist acts contracted by the intelligency agencies of despotic governments are even more difficult to prove. I think Saddam views al Qaeda as just another delivery system for his weapons of mass destruction or other terror inducing tactics. This latter view is somewhat confirmed by the antiwar activists constant harping that a war would only incite further terrorist acts by outside Iraq.