Hammer with the once and future senators Gore at left and right.
Posted on 11/22/2005 8:17:42 AM PST by Weimdog
ATTA IN PRAGUE [Andy McCarthy]
Ed Epstein has stayed on the case and has done the 9/11 Commission one better: he has actually conducted something resembling an investigation into whether the top hijacker met with in Prague with an Iraqi intelligence agent five months before 9/11. Ed’s report on what he found out, after traveling to the Czech Republic and meeting with the BIS (i.e., Czech Intelligence) officials who were personally involved in the matter is featured in the Wall Street Journal this morning (registration required).
His article will not be good news for the Richard Clarkes of Clinton revision-world, who maintain that the previous administration so intimidated Saddam after the attempted murder of the first President Bush in 1993 that the Iraqi dictator foreswore collaboration with terrorists against the U.S. – a claim that has never made any sense given that top Clinton officials (including the former president himself) continue to defend their Augugst 1998 bombing of the al-Shifa pharmaceutical factory in Sudan on the ground that it was a joint Iraq/Qaeda/Sudan effort to develop weapons of mass destruction.
The bottom line, as Ed puts it, is that the Atta/Prague connection remains “consigned to a murky limbo” – largely thanks to American officials leaking the possibility while the Czechs were still trying to investigate it.
But this much is known – notwithstanding the energetic effort to suppress it by some former Clinton officials, Democrat partisans, and members of the intelligence community invested in the delusion that there was no connection between Saddam Hussein and terrorism. In 1998, Saddam began trying to blow up an American target, Radio Free Europe in Prague, by having Jabir Salim, his consul to the Czech Republic (but in reality, his top intelligence agent there), attempt to recruit terrorists to carry out the mission. This intelligence became known when Salim defected, and Clinton administration was so concerned about it that it took several steps to protect the facility.
Salim was replaced by Ahmad al-Ani, whom the BIS was obviously interested in – interest that only intensified when the BIS learned he was trying to access explosives and make contacts with “foreign Arabs.” It came to a head on or about April 9, 2001, when al-Ani was observed getting into a car with an unknown Arab male who was later identified as Atta – an identification that has never been disproved, despite Herculean efforts to knock it down. The Atta identification did not happen until after 9/11 (when Atta’s photo was splashed across the international press), but the Czechs were so worried about whomever al-Ani had met with back in April that they decided to take no chances: al-Ani was expelled due to suspicion of terrorism – four months before 9/11.
In the end, the FBI cannot account for where Atta was between April 4 and April 11, 2001, or how he spent the $8000 cash he abruptly withdrew on April 4 before he disappeared for a week. (They’ve pointed to use of his cellphone in the U.S. during that timeframe, but that, of course, does not mean Atta was the one using the cellphone.) Nor can the FBI explain why Atta stopped in Prague in June 2000 right before flying to the U.S. to begin the 9/11 preparations. The Czechs, meanwhile, regard as “pure nonsense” al-Ani’s protestations that he was nowhere near Prague the day he was seen meeting the man a witness has identified as Atta.
This is Able Danger all over again. The "Atta in Prague" possibility never fit the 9/11 Commission’s narrative, so it was buried with a shoddy, slap-dash investigation -- the same treatment Able Danger got; the same treatment the Clinton Justice Department's dramatic heightening of "the wall" between criminal investigators and intelligence agents got; the same treatment the internal assessment of the Clinton administration's performance in the run-up to the Millennium bombing plot got, and so on.
Meanwhile, in 1998 alone, we have $300K going from Iraq to Zawahiri (al Qaeda’s number 2); bin Laden’s famous February fatwa calling for the murder of all Americans and prominently featuring, as part of the justification, U.S. actions against Iraq; meetings in Iraq between Qaeda members and Iraqi officials in March; meetings in Afghanistan between Iraqi officials and al Qaeda leaders in July; the embassy bombings in August, after which, of all potential targets, the Clinton administration chose to retaliate against al Shifa, believed to be an Iraq/Qaeda joint weapons venture; an Iraqi member of al Qaeda (now held in Guantanamo Bay) traveling with Iraqi Intelligence to Pakistan to plot chemical mortar attacks on the American and British embassies there; and Iraq seeking to recruit Arab terrorists to blow up Radio Free Europe. Oh, and in February 1999, Richard Clarke objected to a suggestion that U-2 flights be used to try to find bin Laden because, if bin Laden learned the walls were closing in, Clarke wrote to Sandy Berger that “old wiley Usama will likely boogie to Baghdad.”
But the anti-war left is probably right. There was no connection between Iraq and terrorism. None at all. I don’t know why the right-wing nuts keep insisting there was. Posted at 07:42 AM
Yes, and I think also some high-up people in the CIA and FBI committed a variety of crimes at the instigation of the clintons. You might say that they "obeyed orders," but the orders were illegal.
Things like the Vince Foster affair, the Ron Brown affair, TWA 800, drug smuggling over the Canadian and Mexican borders, the coverup and possibly the planning of the OKC bombing, the cover-up of Chinese espionage and campaign donations, to mention a few. Many of these intelligence executives were promoted by clinton because they did his bidding. I remember reading that Mueller subsequently awarded medals to some of these clintonoids in the FBI. I think (though I'm not sure) that the point man who covered up TWA 800 was among the recipients who were honored.
I find it impossible to believe that the FBI could not confirm or refute that information, regardless of what name Atta was using in his passport. It's obvious that the FBI didn't want to know anything that would interfere with their subversion of the administration's war effort.
I tend to agree with you that Tenet was more of an ignorant stooge than a master planner. He was only head of the CIA for a decade or so, whereas the real troublemakers were the long-term professionals. But Tenet was enough of a clintonoid to tolerate the existence of a large number of traitors in the CIA, whose activities were far too blatant to have remained unknown to him.
For instance, I think he probably was not in on the planning that sent Wilson to Niger. But when the whole thing came out, why did he sit there and do nothing about it? Why was there no internal investigation to find out who authorized it and who told Wilson that he didn't need to sign a confidentiality agreement? Why did he sign off on the CIA giving a false briefing to Fitzgerald? I agree that he probably wasn't at the heart of the conspiracy, but he did a lot at various times to help it along. That makes him thoroughly guilty in my opinion.
See, I'm wondering if there wasn't a Wilson (and possibly Clarke who wasn't in the CIA?) faction/opposition to Bush and/or Tenet that was from the outset trying to undercut the War on Terror.
Hard to say. The human mind being what it is, it's possible to know and yet not know something. I would guess that Tenet must have suspected something rancid was going on, or was maybe 99% sure it was going on, but he didn't want to confirm that last 1%, because it would have made him complicit. Nor did he want to root out the traitors, because they were doing political work he approved of.
bttt
All the Cintonista Cover-Ups should be under investigation...the damage to National Security under their watch should not go unpunished.
Epstein's article was helpful on this matter as well.
Thanks for the ping.
Too many Businessmen are in the Whitehouse interupting everything with...."Excuse me Mr President...we still have existing agreements with....."
This is exactly the internal run which saw Rome erode from within.
The air traffic from Europe into JFK margins a new Thighland has been discovered.
Fascinating. Thanks Honza!
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