Posted on 09/09/2002 12:47:18 PM PDT by HAL9000
BERLIN, Sept 9 (AFP) - A Pentagon advisor said Monday that he was wrongly quoted in an article claiming that one of the September 11 suicide-hijackers, Mohammed Atta, had met Iraqi President Saddam Hussein prior to the attacks.Italy's business daily "Il Sole 24 Ore" quoted the aide, Richard Perle as saying that: "Mohammed Atta met Saddam Hussein in Baghdad prior to September 11. We have proof of that, and we are sure he wasn't just there for a holiday."
But Perle, a consultant to US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, said the information was not correct.
"I was speaking about meetings Atta had with a secret collaborator of Saddam Hussein in Prague," Perle told the Financial Times Deutschland newspaper.
"For the Italians, it appeared to be a new piece of information," he said.
In the initial report, Perle said that "the meeting is one of the motives for an American attack on Iraq."
The FBI believes Atta was at the controls of one of the hijacked passenger planes that was flown into the World Trade Center.
"American intelligence officials said that Mohammed Atta, who is believed to have been at the controls of the first jet to crash, met the head of Iraqi intelligence this year."
"Richard Perle, the chairman of the Defence Policy Board, said that a “primary goal” of the war on terrorism should be to overthrow Saddam."
The only officials who have questioned the Prague meetings are the "officials who prefer to remain anonymous" serving as sources for some in the mainstream media.
The Czech government, however, has firmly stood by the reports. In particular, two highly placed ministers, the Interior Minister and the Ambassador to the UN, have unequivocally stated their reports are fully substantiated.
They're not making it up. The TRUE government officials, which Perle is not one of, are simply playing their cards close to the vest.
Oh come on! Sure I'm biased because I think Richard Perle is a dangerous coward who is deceiving our leaders with his mon-maniacal intent to commit the US to attack Iraq, Iran, North Korea, and Saudia Arabia. But your bias is showing by allowing Richard Perle to squirm out of this when the evidence of his mania is plain to see.
Let's look at the quote again -
"Mohammed Atta met Saddam Hussein in Baghdad prior to September 11. We have proof of that, and we are sure he wasn't just there for a holiday."
That doesn't look like it was subject to interpretation or shades of meaning to me. He said Atta was in Baghdad. Now he has to backpedal, and he is trying to get away with it by saying "Those crazy Italians got it wrong. Who you gonna believe, me or your lying eyes?"
Well the last one I would believe is Richard Perle.
I will second that... and the only problem with the explanation of the misquote is that it is too cute. What does the reporter in question say?
I don't know about that...
Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was visited at one of his palaces by Osama bin Laden in the '80s. A decade later, Saddam's son Uday met with bin Laden, and Saddam gave him money. "He gave to Osama bin Laden," says Parisoula Lampsos, who says she was Saddam's mistress for 30 years.
Yeah, you must be absolutely right...I mean...who has EVER heard of a JOURNALIST getting a quote wrong? </sarcasm>
LOL...and he should. THIS President Bush is a hundred times more dangerous to Saddam than his father was. THIS President Bush...and well love President Bush Sr, don't get me wrong is far FAR more focussed. He obsesses well, in our vernacular, which is a high compliment.
Every disdainful move that Saddam makes with GW seals his fate further. And the most delicious irony of all is that Saddm really doesn't know how to handle this. He's not only trapped by the tradition of his stagnent culture, he's OLD and set in hs ways. He just cannot adjust as easily as he used to.
If it I were describing a better man, it would be sad....but Saddam is an evil, sadistic b@stard who needs to go. Thanks for the link to the NY Post article. I thought his eldest son, Uday, had committed suicide a year or two after his father's unsuccessful attempt to murder him. I didn't know the poor man is still alive and paralized....now THAT is sad.
He managed to escape detection in Europe for many years while he operated undercover as the mysterious Mr. bead, in a manner analogous to that of Ng Lapseng and the "mysterious Mr. Wu".
For years, confused American intelligence authorities believed that Mr. Wu and Ng Lapseng were separate individuals, until someone realized that Mr. Wu and Ng Lapseng were the same person. In Mandarin it was one way, and in classic Chinese it was the other.
Richard Perle apparently pulled the same trick on German "intelligence" officers.
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