Here are, first, the LNS's seven points of dispute with the 9/11 Commission and the "US Mainstream News Media" *coverage* of its final report,
and second, a powerful analysis of what actually is
IN the report, and can therefore be drawn on by
Kerry-Edwards and their champions (in particular, Max
Cleland (D-GA), Sen. Bob Graham (D-Fraudida) and Gen.
Wesley Clark (D-NATO)...
First, our seven points of dispute with 9/11 Commission's milk-toast final report:
1. Either Clinton or Bush is Lying. Bill Clinton says
that he and the increasingly unhinged and incredibly
shrinking _resident discussed national security and
that he (Bubba) warned the increasingly unhinged and
incredibly shrinking _resident that Osama Bin Lsden
and Al Qaeda was the greatest threat that the US faced
in 2001. The increasingly unhinged and incredibly
shrinking _resident, of course, remembers the
conversation differently and does not recall Osama Bin
Lsden and Al Qaeda being mentioned. (These conflicting
recollections are in the final report.) Either Bubba
or the increasingly unhinged and incredibly shrinking
_resident is lying. Do you think that we will see a
national poll on which one of the two versions of the
encounter the US Electorate believes?
2. The problems concerning intelligence sharing and
analysis are well-known and systemic. That's why the
Clinton-Gore national security team had regular and
frequent "principles meeting" to "shake the tree" for
intelligence on Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaeda. It was a
triage-fix, a work-around, to overcome these
well-known and systemic problems. The Clinton-Gore
national security team's approach contributed
significantly, according to Richard Clarke and others,
the thwarting of Al Qaeda's so-called "Millenium
plot." This approach was terminted by the Bush cabal
after the seized the White House, and, indeed, the
threat of Osama Bin Lsden and Al Qaeda was given a
much lower priority than in the Clinton-Gore
administration.
3. The legend of John O'Neill (to whom Richard Clarke
dedicated his book, Against All Enemies) remains
unacknowledged and unsanctified by the government and the country he gave his life trying to protect. The French bestseller, Forbidden Truth, a PBS Frontline Document, "The Man Who Knew," and a New Yorker
Magazine feature article provide ample reason for a
serious inquiry, but, disgracefully, his name was only
mentioned briefly in passing by 9/11 Commmissioner
Richard Ben-Veniste. For more information on John
O'Neill, and what he tried to do and what happened to
him. refer to the LNS searchable database.
4. The 9/11 Commission also wimped out on the case of
whistleblower Sibel Edmonds in its final product. It
simply refers the reader to the [DoJ] Inspector
General's report, but, of course, this document has
been classified. For more information on Sibel Edmons
and her heroic witnessing, refer to the LNS searchable
database. (It has not been classified, yet.)
5. In perhaps of its most ludricrous twists of the
truth, the 9/11 Commission's report gives a free pass
to the governments of Saudia Arabia and Pakistan.
Incredible. What will Danny Pearl's wife say? He was
decapitated in his attempt to explore the Pakistani
ISI's links to Al Qaeda. And concerning the
Saudis...Well, really, there is no need to
elaborate...[In today's other posting, the LNS will provide you with a very important analysis by Micheal Meacher, Labour MP for Oldham West and Royton, and formerly Environment Minister in the government of the
shell-of-a-man-formerly-known-as-Tony-Blair, published in the Guardian (UK) on these issues.]
6. The 9/11 Commission also limp-wristed the issue of
the Saudi flights cleared by the White House. And no,
we do not care that Richard Clarke has taken
responsibility for authorizing them. Fortunately,
Craig Unger is on his game, and Sen. Frank Lautemberg
(D-New Jersey) has courage. Here is Unger's posting on
the latest developments in this outrageous breach: For
months we’ve known that approximately two dozen
members of the bin Laden family were among the 142
passengers on the White House-approved Saudi
evacuation, but exactly which members of the family
were on the flights? This week, Senator Frank
Lautenberg (D-NJ) released the passenger list for the
September 19, 2001, Boston to Paris flight, showing
who was on the flight for the first time. Two names in
particular might be of interest to investigators. The
documents show that Khalil Binladin boarded in
Orlando. According to the German wire service Deutsche
Presse-Agentur, Khalil, who had business interests in
the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais, had won the
attention of Brazilian investigators because of his
visits to the Minas Gerais capital, Belo Horizonte,
which was allegedly a Hezbollah training center.
Another passenger, Omar Awad bin Laden, a nephew of
Osama’s, lived with his brother Abdullah, who was a
key figure in forming the American branch of the World
Assembly of Muslim Youth. Federal agents raided WAMY
this spring. The FBI has described the group as a
“suspected terrorist organization.”
7. And, of course, there is the day that John Ashcroft
testified...Did either Ashcroft or Thomas Pickering of
the FBI, perjuried themselves during those hearings?
Just like the increasingly unhinged and incredibly
shrinking _resident's selective memory about his
conversation with Bill Clinton, Ashcorft's memory
seems to have misplaced an awful lot of relevant
information about the threat from Al Qaeda in the
summer of 2001. But, wait, we're not finished...Don't
forget Ashcroft's sliming of 9/11 Commissioner Jaime
Gorelick (D-DoJ) in his testimony (look it up in the
LNS searchable database). It was spooky, deceitful and
embarrassingly revealing about Ashcroft's own psychological state, and certainly deserved to have been rebuked by the full Commission
in its final report. Why is Ashcroft alone allowed to make partisan attacks without political repercussion? And now, here's David Corn's excellent analysis...
David Corn, The Nation: The final report of the 9/11
commission confirms many of the panel's preliminary
findings that have--or should have--embarrassed the
Bush administration. The commission does note, "Our
aim has not been to assign individual blame. Our aim
has been to provide the fullest possible account of
the events surrounding 9/11 and to identify lessons
learned." And it is true that the report does point to
screw-ups and negligent policymaking committed during
both the Bush II and Clinton administrations. But
George W. Bush is the incumbent president who has to
face the voters in November. Although Republicans in
recent days have been highlighting the mistakes of the
Clinton years, it is not inappropriate for voters to
focus on what report tells us about Bush and his
administration. As a public service, here is a look at
several of those critical portions...
Within the first few days after Bush's inauguration,
Clarke approached [national security adviser
Condoleezza] Rice in an effort to get her--and the new
President--to give terrorism very high priority and to
act on the agenda that he had pushed during the last
few months of the previous administration. After Rice
requested that all senior staff identify desirable
major policy reviews or initiatives, Clarke submitted
an elaborate memorandum on January 25, 2001. He
attached to it his [anti-al Qaeda] 1998 Delenda Plan
and the December 2000 strategy paper. "We urgently
need ...a Principals level review on the al Qida
network," Clarke wrote.
He wanted the Principals Committee to decide whether
al Qaeda was "a first order threat" or a more modest
worry being overblown by "chicken little" alarmists.
Alluding to the transition briefing that he had
prepared for Rice, Clarke wrote that al Qaeda "is not
some narrow, little terrorist issue that needs to be
included in broader regional policy." Two key
decisions that had been deferred, he noted, concerned
covert aid to keep the Northern Alliance alive when
fighting began again in Afghanistan in the spring, and
covert aid to the Uzbeks. Clarke also suggested that
decisions should be made soon on messages to the
Taliban and Pakistan over the al Qaeda sanctuary in
Afghanistan, on possible new money for CIA operations,
and on "when and how... to respond to the attack on
the USS Cole."
The national security advisor did not respond directly
to Clarke's memorandum. No Principals Committee
meeting on al Qaeda was held until September 4, 2001
(although the Principals Committee met frequently on
other subjects, such as the Middle East peace process,
Russia, and the Persian Gulf ).
The lack of response to Clarke does appear to indicate
that for Rice, at least, the al Qaeda threat was not a
high priority. The report details the many steps the
Bush administration did take in its first eight months
to establish a counterterrorism policy aimed at al
Qaeda. By no means were Rice and others doing nothing.
But counterterrorism was not on the fast track.
Repudiate the 9/11 Cover-Up and the Iraq War Lies,
Show Up for Democracy in 2004: Defeat Bush (again!)
http://thenation.com/capitalgames/index.mhtml?bid=3&pid=1594
The 9/11 Report: Bad News for Bush
07/23/2004 @ 07:40am
The final report of the 9/11 commission confirms many
of the panel's preliminary findings that have--or
should have--embarrassed the Bush administration. The
commission does note, "Our aim has not been to assign
individual blame. Our aim has been to provide the
fullest possible account of the events surrounding
9/11 and to identify lessons learned." And it is true
that the report does point to screw-ups and negligent
policymaking committed during both the Bush II and
Clinton administrations. But George W. Bush is the
incumbent president who has to face the voters in
November. Although Republicans in recent days have
been highlighting the mistakes of the Clinton years,
it is not inappropriate for voters to focus on what
report tells us about Bush and his administration. As
a public service, here is a look at several of those
critical portions.
* Bush's initial reaction. Michael Moore's Fahrenheit
9/11 has made famous--or infamous--the scene when
Bush, after having been told that a second airliner
had hit the World Trace Center, sits for seven minutes
in a Florida classroom, as the kids read a book. The
9/11 report says,
The President was seated in a classroom when, at 9:05,
Andrew Card whispered to him: "A second plane hit the
second tower. America is under attack." The President
told us his instinct was to project calm, not to have
the country see an excited reaction at a moment of
crisis. The press was standing behind the children; he
saw their phones and pagers start to ring. The
President felt he should project strength and calm
until he could better understand what was happening.
In the Moore film, Bush hardly looks as if he is
projecting "calm." To me--and, of course, this is a
highly subjective view--he has a
what-the-hell-should-I-do expression on his face. But
Bush backers and detractors are likely to see what
they want to in that seven-minute performance. Bush's
reaction, though, cannot be judged on the basis of
what is now known about the 9/11 attacks. Consider
this: when Bush was told about the second plane, it
was obvious that the United States was under attack.
Today we know that attack involved four planes. But at
the moment that Card whispered into his ear, Bush (and
everyone else) had no idea about the full extent of
the assault. There could have been twenty airliners
hijacked. There could have been WMD attacks coming.
Perhaps minutes mattered. So how was it a projection
of strength and calm for Bush to remain in a
classroom--doing nothing--when who-knew-what was
happening? He could have easily excused himself,
especially as pagers and cell phones were sounding.
His explanation rings hollow.
* Terrorism as a priority for the Bush administration.
Former counterterrorism Richard Clarke triggered a
fierce, partisan debate earlier this year when he
wrote in a book that the Bush administration pre-9/11
did not take the threat of al Qaeda seriously enough.
The Bush administration challenged Clarke's account
and attacked him vigorously. The 9/11 commission's
report does suggest the terrorism was not an A-list
topic for the Bush White House:
Within the first few days after Bush's inauguration,
Clarke approached [national security adviser
Condoleezza] Rice in an effort to get her--and the new
President--to give terrorism very high priority and to
act on the agenda that he had pushed during the last
few months of the previous administration. After Rice
requested that all senior staff identify desirable
major policy reviews or initiatives, Clarke submitted
an elaborate memorandum on January 25, 2001. He
attached to it his [anti-al Qaeda] 1998 Delenda Plan
and the December 2000 strategy paper. "We urgently
need ...a Principals level review on the al Qida
network," Clarke wrote.
He wanted the Principals Committee to decide whether
al Qaeda was "a first order threat" or a more modest
worry being overblown by "chicken little" alarmists.
Alluding to the transition briefing that he had
prepared for Rice, Clarke wrote that al Qaeda "is not
some narrow, little terrorist issue that needs to be
included in broader regional policy." Two key
decisions that had been deferred, he noted, concerned
covert aid to keep the Northern Alliance alive when
fighting began again in Afghanistan in the spring, and
covert aid to the Uzbeks. Clarke also suggested that
decisions should be made soon on messages to the
Taliban and Pakistan over the al Qaeda sanctuary in
Afghanistan, on possible new money for CIA operations,
and on "when and how... to respond to the attack on
the USS Cole."
The national security advisor did not respond directly
to Clarke's memorandum. No Principals Committee
meeting on al Qaeda was held until September 4, 2001
(although the Principals Committee met frequently on
other subjects, such as the Middle East peace process,
Russia, and the Persian Gulf ).
The lack of response to Clarke does appear to indicate
that for Rice, at least, the al Qaeda threat was not a
high priority. The report details the many steps the
Bush administration did take in its first eight months
to establish a counterterrorism policy aimed at al
Qaeda. By no means were Rice and others doing nothing.
But counterterrorism was not on the fast track. An
example from the report:
In May, President Bush announced that Vice President
Cheney would himself lead an effort looking at
preparations for managing a possible attack by weapons
of mass destruction and at more general problems of
national preparedness. The next few months were mainly
spent organizing the effort and bringing an admiral
from the Sixth Fleet back to Washington to manage it.
The Vice President's task force was just getting under
way when the 9/11 attack occurred.
And another example:
The Bush administration did not develop new diplomatic
initiatives on al Qaeda with the Saudi government
before 9/11. Vice President Cheney called Crown Prince
Abdullah on July 5, 2001, to seek Saudi help in
preventing threatened attacks on American facilities
in the Kingdom. Secretary of State Powell met with the
crown prince twice before 9/11. They discussed topics
like Iraq, not al Qaeda.U.S.-Saudi relations in the
summer of 2001 were marked by sometimes heated
disagreements about ongoing Israeli-Palestinian
violence, not about Bin Ladin.
Even when the Bush administration eventually finalized
a "three-phase, multiyear plan to pressure and perhaps
ultimately topple the Taliban leadership"--on
September 10, 2001--the plan was not ready for
implementation. The report notes, "Funding still
needed to be located. The military component remained
unclear. Pakistan remained uncooperative. The domestic
policy institutions were largely uninvolved."
Is it fair to hold the Bush crowd to a post-9/11
standard? In a way, yes. Presidents are responsible
for what happens on their watch. When the economy
improves or declines, they get the credit or the
blame. In this case, though, the Bush administration
can be faulted for establishing the wrong priorities.
For instance, Bush and his lot said that missile
defense was a top need because a ballistic missile
attack from a rogue state was a top threat.
(Intelligence community analysts disagreed with this
threat assessment.) Well, the Bushies got that wrong,
and a political punishment would not be unreasonable.
* The Bush administration's reaction to the threat
reports of 2001. The 9/11 commission's final report
elaborately details the flood of intelligence reports
received in the spring and summer of 2001 indicating
something big was coming from al Qaeda. The report
backs up the CYA assertion made by administration
officials that most of the reports appeared to suggest
the target for such an attack would be outside the
United States. Nevertheless, one question has been how
the Bush administration responded to the high state of
alert. One of his cabinet members comes out
particularly poorly in the commission's report.
Attorney General Ashcroft was briefed by the CIA in
May and by [acting FBI chief Thomas] Pickard in early
July about the danger [being indicated in the
intelligence reporting]. Pickard said he met with
Ashcroft once a week in late June, through July, and
twice in August. There is a dispute regarding
Ashcroft's interest in Pickard's briefings about the
terrorist threat situation. Pickard told us that after
two such briefings Ashcroft told him that he did not
want to hear about the threats anymore. Ashcroft
denies Pickard's charge. Pickard says he continued to
present terrorism information during further briefings
that summer, but nothing further on the "chatter" the
U.S. government was receiving.
The Attorney General told us he asked Pickard whether
there was intelligence about attacks in the United
States and that Pickard said no. Pickard said he
replied that he could not assure Ashcroft that there
would be no attacks in the United States, although the
reports of threats were related to overseas targets.
Ashcroft said he therefore assumed the FBI was doing
what it needed to do. He acknowledged that in
retrospect, this was a dangerous assumption. He did
not ask the FBI what it was doing in response to the
threats and did not task it to take any specific
action. He also did not direct the INS, then still
part of the Department of Justice, to take any
specific action.
In sum, the domestic agencies never mobilized in
response to the threat. They did not have direction,
and did not have a plan to institute. The borders were
not hardened. Transportation systems were not
fortified. Electronic surveillance was not targeted
against a domestic threat. State and local law
enforcement were not marshaled to augment the FBI's
efforts. The public was not warned. The terrorists
exploited deep institutional failings within our
government. The question is whether extra vigilance
might have turned up an opportunity to disrupt the
plot. As seen in Chapter 7, al Qaeda's operatives made
mistakes. At least two such mistakes created
opportunities during 2001, especially in late August.
The commission, then, is suggesting that Ashcroft's
"dangerous assumption" contributed to a situation in
which the FBI was not able to take advantage of al
Qaeda's mistakes and thwart the 9/11 plot. In many
other nations, if the chief law enforcement officer
made a wrong assumption--even in good faith--that
placed the nation at risk, he or she would resign or
be canned. Yet Ashcroft has continued to enjoy the
benefits of government employment.
How Bush and his senior White House advisers responded
to the hair-raising "chatter" has been a critical
issue. The report shows that the intelligence
reporting in mid-2001 was indeed damn frightening.
Here's a sampling:
On June 25, Clarke warned Rice and Hadley that six
separate intelligence reports showed al Qaeda
personnel warning of a pending attack. An Arabic
television station reported Bin Ladin's pleasure with
al Qaeda leaders who were saying that the next weeks
"will witness important surprises" and that U.S. and
Israeli interests will be targeted. Al Qaeda also
released a new recruitment and fund-raising tape.
Clarke wrote that this was all too sophisticated to be
merely a psychological operation to keep the United
States on edge, and the CIA agreed. The intelligence
reporting consistently described the upcoming attacks
as occurring on a calamitous level, indicating that
they would cause the world to be in turmoil and that
they would consist of possible multiple--but not
necessarily simultaneous--attacks.
On June 28, Clarke wrote Rice that the pattern of al
Qaeda activity indicating attack planning over the
past six weeks "had reached a crescendo." "A series of
new reports continue to convince me and analysts at
State, CIA, DIA [Defense Intelligence Agency], and NSA
that a major terrorist attack or series of attacks is
likely in July," he noted. One al Qaeda intelligence
report warned that something "very, very, very, very"
big was about to happen, and most of Bin Ladin's
network was reportedly anticipating the attack. In
late June, the CIA ordered all its station chiefs to
share information on al Qaeda with their host
governments and to push for immediate disruptions of
cells. The headline of a June 30 briefing to top
officials was stark: "Bin Ladin Planning High-Profile
Attacks." The report stated that Bin Ladin operatives
expected near-term attacks to have dramatic
consequences of catastrophic proportions. That same
day, Saudi Arabia declared its highest level of terror
alert. Despite evidence of delays possibly caused by
heightened U.S. security, the planning for attacks was
continuing.
On July 2, the FBI Counterterrorism Division sent a
message to federal agencies and state and local law
enforcement agencies summarizing information regarding
threats from Bin Ladin. It warned that there was an
increased volume of threat reporting, indicating a
potential for attacks against U.S. targets abroad from
groups "aligned with or sympathetic to Usama Bin
Ladin." Despite the general warnings, the message
further stated, "The FBI has no information indicating
a credible threat of terrorist attack in the United
States." However, it went on to emphasize that the
possibility of attack in the United States could not
be discounted. It also noted that the July 4 holiday
might heighten the threats. The report asked
recipients to "exercise extreme vigilance" and "report
suspicious activities" to the FBI. It did not suggest
specific actions that they should take to prevent
attacks....
In mid-July, reporting started to indicate that Bin
Ladin's plans had been delayed, maybe for as long as
two months, but not abandoned. On July 23, the lead
item for CSG [Counterterrorism Security Group]
discussion was still the al Qaeda threat, and it
included mention of suspected terrorist travel to the
United States.
But at least one prominent Bush aide was not worried
about al Qaeda. The commission writes,
[CIA director George] Tenet told us that in his world
"the system was blinking red." By late July, Tenet
said, it could not "get any worse." Not everyone was
convinced. Some asked whether all these threats might
just be deception. On June 30, the SEIB [Senior
Executive Intelligence Brief] contained an article
titled "Bin Ladin Threats Are Real." Yet Hadley told
Tenet in July that Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul
Wolfowitz questioned the reporting. Perhaps Bin Ladin
was trying to study U.S. reactions. Tenet replied that
he had already addressed the Defense Department's
questions on this point; the reporting was convincing.
To give a sense of his anxiety at the time, one senior
official in the Counterterrorist Center told us that
he and a colleague were considering resigning in order
to go public with their concerns.
Which brings us to the infamous August 6, 2001,
Presidential Daily Brief. Bush received this report
after months of harrowing intelligence reporting.
True, the "chatter" had diminished in recent weeks,
but, as the commission notes, some of that "chatter"
had caused some officials to be concerned about the
possibility of a domestic attack. It was within this
context that Bush received a PDB titled, "Bin Ladin
Determined To Strike in US." The 9/11 commission,
which interviewed Bush (after the White House first
tried to limit the session and then insisted on a
single, joint interview with Bush and Cheney) notes,
The President told us the August 6 report was
historical in nature. President Bush said the article
told him that al Qaeda was dangerous, which he said he
had known since he had become President. The President
said Bin Ladin had long been talking about his desire
to attack America. He recalled some operational data
on the FBI, and remembered thinking it was heartening
that 70 investigations were under way. As best he
could recollect, Rice had mentioned that the Yemenis'
surveillance of a federal building in New York had
been looked into in May and June, but there was no
actionable intelligence. He did not recall discussing
the August 6 report with the Attorney General or
whether Rice had done so. He said that if his advisers
had told him there was a cell in the United States,
they would have moved to take care of it. That never
happened.
Bush's explanation was disingenuous. The report was
not merely "historical in nature." It provided
information about the current threat. It said,
FBI information since that time [1998] indicates
patterns of suspicious activity in this country
consistent with preparations for hijackings or other
types of attacks, including recent surveillance of
federal buildings in New York.
The FBI is conducting approximately 70 full field
investigations throughout the US that it considers Bin
Ladin-related. CIA and the FBI are investigating a
call to our Embassy in the UAE in May saying that a
group of Bin Ladin supporters was in the US planning
attacks with explosives.
It turns out the PDB overstated the number of ongoing
investigations. But ponder this episode. Bush is told
that al Qaeda is involved in "suspicious activity in
this country," to the extent that there are 70 "full
field investigations," and he did not make any further
inquiries or ask the attorney general about any of
this. Perhaps he was confident that the FBI and others
were on the case. But a serious-minded president might
have poked and prodded the agencies on the basis of
this news. Ashcroft, for one, could have used some
goosing. But Bush goosed no one.
******************************
After you read this article, check out David Corn's
NEW WEBLOG by going to www.davidcorn.com.
******************************
* The alliance (or lack thereof) between al Qaeda and
Iraq. The 9/11 commission created a firestorm not too
long ago when it released an interim report that said
the commission had found no evidence of a
"collaborative relationship" between Saddam Hussein's
brutal regime and al Qaeda. In response, Bush and
Cheney declared there had been a "relationship." After
all, Bush had argued before the war that Hussein was
"a threat because he is dealing with al Qaeda."
Without that connection and without the (still
missing) WMDs, Bush's primary case for war--Hussein as
an "immediate" threat--would fall apart. Thus,
Bush-backers and neocon advocates of the war have
relentlessly tried to keep alive the supposed
connection between Hussein and al Qaeda, even as the
Senate intelligence committee report on the prewar
intelligence says the intelligence community was
correct to conclude there was no confirmation of a
working relationship between the two.
After the 9/11 commission released that interim
report, there was talk that its final report might shy
away from this matter. But the commission hang tough.
These are the relevant portions:
Bin Ladin was also willing [in the early 1990s] to
explore possibilities for cooperation with Iraq, even
though Iraq's dictator, Saddam Hussein, had never had
an Islamist agenda--save for his opportunistic pose as
a defender of the faithful against "Crusaders" during
the Gulf War of 1991. Moreover, Bin Ladin had in fact
been sponsoring anti-Saddam Islamists in Iraqi
Kurdistan, and sought to attract them into his Islamic
army. To protect his own ties with Iraq, Sudanese
leader Husan al] Turabi reportedly brokered an
agreement that Bin Ladin would stop supporting
activities against Saddam. Bin Ladin apparently
honored this pledge, at least for a time, although he
continued to aid a group of Islamist extremists
operating in part of Iraq (Kurdistan) outside of
Baghdad's control....
With the Sudanese regime acting as intermediary, Bin
Ladin himself met with a senior Iraqi intelligence
officer in Khartoum in late 1994 or early 1995. Bin
Ladin is said to have asked for space to establish
training camps, as well as assistance in procuring
weapons, but there is no evidence that Iraq responded
to this request. As described below, the ensuing years
saw additional efforts to establish connections.....
Similar meetings between Iraqi officials and Bin Ladin
or his aides may have occurred in 1999 during a period
of some reported strains with the Taliban. According
to the reporting, Iraqi officials offered Bin Ladin a
safe haven in Iraq. Bin Ladin declined, apparently
judging that his circumstances in Afghanistan remained
more favorable than the Iraqi alternative. The reports
describe friendly contacts and indicate some common
themes in both sides' hatred of the United States. But
to date we have seen no evidence that these or the
earlier contacts ever developed into a collaborative
operational relationship. Nor have we seen evidence
indicating that Iraq cooperated with al Qaeda in
developing or carrying out any attacks against the
United States.
Isn't it time to say "case closed"? No doubt, the
neocons will claim the 9/11 report, the CIA, and the
Senate intelligence committee are all wrong on this
subject. But at some point, doesn't good manners
compel them to hoist the white flag? Speaking of
which....
* Mohamed Atta in Prague. Cheney and others have not
been able to let go of the allegation--long deemed
unlikely by the CIA and the FBI--that Atta, the
ringleader of the 9/11 hijackers, met with an Iraqi
intelligence officer in Prague several months before
the September 11 attacks. When the 9/11 commission
issued a preliminary finding declaring there was no
evidence to substantiate the allegation, Cheney
insisted the Prague meeting remained an open question.
In its final report, the commission tries to bury this
charge once and for all. Will Cheney accept the
panel's verdict? Probably not, but maybe he will stop
talking about a meeting that probably never happened.
This is what the commission reports:
Mohamed Atta is known to have been in Prague on two
occasions: in December 1994, when he stayed one night
at a transit hotel, and in June 2000, when he was en
route to the United States. On the latter occasion, he
arrived by bus from Germany, on June 2, and departed
for Newark the following day. The allegation that Atta
met with an Iraqi intelligence officer in Prague in
April 2001 originates from the reporting of a single
source of the Czech intelligence service. Shortly
after 9/11, the source reported having seen Atta meet
with Ahmad Khalil Ibrahim Samir al Ani, an Iraqi
diplomat, at the Iraqi Embassy in Prague on April 9,
2001, at 11:00 A.M. This information was passed to CIA
headquarters.
The U.S. legal attache ("Legat ") in Prague, the
representative of the FBI, met with the Czech
service's source. After the meeting, the assessment of
the Legat and the Czech officers present was that they
were 70 percent sure that the source was sincere and
believed his own story of the meeting. Subsequently,
the Czech intelligence service publicly stated that
there was a 70 percent probability that the meeting
between Atta and Ani had taken place. The Czech
Interior Minister also made several statements to the
press about his belief that the meeting had occurred,
and the story was widely reported.
The FBI has gathered evidence indicating that Atta was
in Virginia Beach on April 4 (as evidenced by a bank
surveillance camera photo), and in Coral Springs,
Florida on April 11, where he and Shehhi leased an
apartment. On April 6, 9, 10, and 11, Atta's cellular
telephone was used numerous times to call various
lodging establishments in Florida from cell sites
within Florida. We cannot confirm that he placed those
calls. But there are no U.S. records indicating that
Atta departed the country during this period. Czech
officials have reviewed their flight and border
records as well for any indication that Atta was in
the Czech Republic in April 2001, including records of
anyone crossing the border who even looked Arab. They
have also reviewed pictures from the area near the
Iraqi embassy and have not discovered photos of anyone
who looked like Atta. No evidence has been found that
Atta was in the Czech Republic in April 2001.
According to the Czech government, Ani, the Iraqi
officer alleged to have met with Atta, was about 70
miles away from Prague on April 8 –9 and did not
return until the afternoon of the ninth, while the
source was firm that the sighting occurred at 11:00
A.M. When questioned about the reported April 2001
meeting, Ani--now in custody--has denied ever meeting
or having any contact with Atta. Ani says that shortly
after 9/11, he became concerned that press stories
about the alleged meeting might hurt his career.
Hoping to clear his name, Ani asked his superiors to
approach the Czech government about refuting the
allegation. He also denies knowing of any other Iraqi
official having contact with Atta.
These findings cannot absolutely rule out the
possibility that Atta was in Prague on April 9, 2001.
He could have used an alias to travel and a passport
under that alias, but this would be an exception to
his practice of using his true name while traveling
(as he did in January and would in July when he took
his next overseas trip). The FBI and CIA have
uncovered no evidence that Atta held any fraudulent
passports. KSM [Khalid Sheikh Mohammed] and [Ramzi]
Binalshibh both deny that an Atta-Ani meeting
occurred. There was no reason for such a meeting,
especially considering the risk it would pose to the
operation. By April 2001, all four pilots had
completed most of their training, and the muscle
hijackers were about to begin entering the United
States. The available evidence does not support the
original Czech report of an Atta-Ani meeting.
To recap, then: no working relationship between
Hussein and al Qaeda, no Prague meeting, no strong
reaction from Bush to the pre-9/11 warnings of a
pending al Qaeda attack, no more than routine
attention devoted to the al Qaeda threat by the Bush
team in the months before September 11. GOPers can wag
their fingers at Bill Clinton, who also did not do
enough (obviously). But there is no denying this
report is bad news for Bush and his crew. If Bush
wants this election to be a referendum on how he has
handled the threat posed by al Qaeda, this
report--available now in local bookstores and online
at the 9/11 commission's site--ought to be read by
those 49 swing voters in Ohio who will be deciding the
election for the rest of us.
********************
DON'T FORGET ABOUT DAVID CORN'S BOOK, The Lies of
George W. Bush: Mastering the Politics of Deception
(Crown Publishers). A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER! An
UPDATED and EXPANDED EDITION is NOW AVAILABLE in
PAPERBACK. The Washington Post says, "This is a fierce
polemic, but it is based on an immense amount of
research....[I]t does present a serious case for the
president's partisans to answer....Readers can hardly
avoid drawing...troubling conclusions from Corn's
painstaking indictment." The Los Angeles Times says,
"David Corn's The Lies of George W. Bush is as
hard-hitting an attack as has been leveled against the
current president. He compares what Bush said with the
known facts of a given situation and ends up making a
persuasive case." The Library Journal says, "Corn
chronicles to devastating effect the lies, falsehoods,
and misrepresentations....Corn has painstakingly
unearthed a bill of particulars against the president
that is as damaging as it is thorough." And GEORGE W.
BUSH SAYS, "I'd like to tell you I've read [ The Lies
of George W. Bush], but that'd be a lie."
For more information and a sample, go to the official
website: www.bushlies.com. And check out Corn's blog
on the site.
************