Posted on 04/22/2004 9:31:05 PM PDT by Ooh-Ah
Question:
Three years have passed since the putative meeting in Prague between hijacker Mohammed Atta and Iraq Consul al-Ani. What has the CIA, FBI, Czech intelligence (BIS) and other intelligence services established about the activities of the alleged participants at this meeting?
Answer:
1) Ahmad Khalil Ibrahim Samir al-Ani served as consul at Iraq's embassy in Prague between March 1999 and April 21, 2001 and he was activity involved in agent-handling during this period.
2) Mohammed Atta applied for a visa to visit the Czech Republic on May 26, 2000 in Bonn, Germany According to Czech visa records, Atta identified himself as being a "Hamburg student." Since a visa was not necessary to catch a Czech plane to the US, Czech intelligence concluded he had business in the Czech Republic.
3) Just prior to leaving for the U.S., Atta made 2 trips to the Czech Republic in 2000. The first was on May 30, where he went without a visa to the transit lounge of Prague International Airport; the second was by bus to Prague on June 2 with visa BONN200005260024.
4) On April 4, 2001, Atta checked out of the Diplomat Inn in Virginia Beach and cashed a check for $8,000 from a SunTrust account, according to the FBI. Atta was not seen again in America by any witness before April 11, 2001.
5) Al-Ani scheduled a meeting on April 8,2001 with a "Hamburg student" according to an appointment calendar subsequently turned up by Czech intelligence in a surreptitious search of the Iraq Embassy (presumably after the defeat of Iraq in April 2003.)
6) Al-Ani was observed meeting a young Arab-speaking man on the outskirts of Prague on April 8th by a watcher for Czech counterintelligence. 7) After seeing Atta’s picture on September 11th, the watcher identified the Arab-speaking man as Mohammed Atta.
8 ) Al-Ani was expelled from Prague less than 2 weeks after that meeting.
9 ) After 9-11, Al-Ani denied that he met Atta , as did the Baghdad government. Al-Ani repeated that denial after he was detained by U.S. forces in July 2003.
10 ) The CIA determined, according to George Tenet testimony before a Joint Committee of Congress (June 18, 2002): “Atta allegedly traveled outside the US in early April 2001 to meet with an Iraqi intelligence officer in Prague, we are still working to confirm or deny this allegation. It is possible that Atta traveled under an unknown alias since we have been unable to establish that Atta left the US or entered Europe in April 2001 under his true name or any known aliases.”
11) Subsequently, Spanish intelligence found evidence that Algerians Khaled Madani and Moussa Laouar provided false passports to Mohamed Atta and his associate Ramzi bin al-Shibh.
Hmmm...now that's new! Wonder what the source is...Prague paper?
It's so new Newsweek, WashPost or the New York Times hasn't been directed to contradict it yet. Maybe the anti-Iraq war factions have run out of gas...pointless to disinform anymore.
In a front page scoop by James Risen on December 13, 2003, The New York Times reported that "‘U.S. records now indicate that Atta was in Virginia Beach, Va., in early April 2001, when he was supposedly in Prague to meet [Iraq consul] Ani." Is it true that there are records that show Atta in Virginia on April 8, 2001-- the date he was reported in Prague?
Answer:
It is pure invention that the U.S. government has any records that Atta was in Virginia Beach on April 8th. 2001
The FBI only has records for April 4, 2001 that show that Atta and his roommate Marwan Al-Shehhi checked out of the Diplomat Inn in Virginia Beach and then cashed a check for $8,000 from al-Shehhi's SunTrust account. The next record of Atta is April 24th, when he is stopped by policeman in Coral Springs, Florida. According to Newsweek, he rented an apartment in in Coral Springs on April 11 (although there is no lease or other record.)
Between those days, there was only one eyewitness sighting of Atta : a Czech intelligence (BIS) watcher identified him as meeting with al-Ani in Prague on April 8th.
The FBI claims that the billing record of a cell phone Atta had used was used to make calls to Florida in April. But of course a cell phone is not unique to a single person, like fingerprints. His cell phone could have been used by his roommate during his absence. So, as CIA director Tenet correctly testified, there is no evidence precluding Atta from going to Prague under an alias on April 4 (with$8,000) and returning April 9th. And no records.
Here's the link
Here are two more, if you're interested: here and here.
Happy reading
Hmmmmmmmmmm. And double hmmmmmmmmmmmm.
The interesting thing now is, who will be the first to deny the validity of this new morsel?
My money's on Newsweek, Isikoff and his source.
hehe !Thanks for that info on #10, too, Ishmac ...
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