Posted on 10/08/2002 7:21:19 PM PDT by blam
You are precisely correct. Thanks for pointing this out.
And you trust Jimmy Carter on this matter...???
Tenet did NOT deny the Prague meeting. Atta was in fact in Prague and there were car rental, hotel and airline tickets from Atta's visits there. The Iraqi al Ani was indeed booted out of Czechoslavakia as well for his activities in that country shortly after the meetings took place.
Don't you think that if that bogus story were verifiable the administration would be howling it every day?
No. There is no reason to howl it every day. No one knows exactly why Atta met al Ani. They do know he met al Ani.
They don't.
'They did.' The White House already said the meeting took place, long after the NY Times tried to discredit Safire with unnamed sources.
The "Prague Meeting" has been discredited for good reason.
The Prague meeting has never been discredited. People have tried to discredit it, even Newsweek lied at one point to claim the Czechs denied the story, which they did not.
Much like the Castro chemical weapons assertion.
The Castro chemical weapons assertion was not chemical weapons, it was biological weapons. If you knew diddly squat about the subject you would have at least gotten that one correct. The assertion about Castro's BIOLOGICAL program has most certainly not been discredited. Castro's VP did in fact join with Iran in opening a biological research facility in Iran. There is indeed a facility outside of Havana which has an unusual amount of security around it for a simply animal feed plant.
Earlier this year the admisistration claimed that Castro was producing chemical WMD's.
No, they did not. The reference was to military BIOLOGICAL research. The assertion was made by John Bolton.
Jimmy Carter....JIMMY CARTER FOR GOD'S SAKES!! went down to Cuba and refuted the claim on it's face.
Jimmy Carter visited Cuba but was UNABLE to get admission to that facility. Instead, he stood out front and let Fidel Castro make him look like a fool. At no point did Jimmy Carter gain entry. Instead of refuting the claim, his inability to gain entry into the facility instead confirmed that the facility is not a simple animal feed plant, as is already clear from the level of security there and from the independent water system.
The administration never countered Carter's claim and the whole story disappeared. JIMMY CARTER. That puss, Jimmy Carter.
There was no need to counter Carter- Carter never accomplished anything. He failed to gain entry.
Point being; there is no need to make sh!t up if the proof is evident.
Then why do you make things up, fellow traveler?
The matter has not been dropped. As I already pointed out, a photo-op outside of a facility is not an accomplishment. Had Carter been admitted, you might at least be able to argue the point. The fact that Carter was held up outside until it was time to go instead is far more telling.
MAY 1998 : (IRAN, CUBA, BIOTERROR) Secretary of Defense William Cohen testified in Congress that Cuba possesses advanced biotechnology and is capable of mass-producing agents for biological warfare. Cohen stated in May 1998 that: "Cuba’s current scientific facilities could support an offensive biological warfare program in at least the research and development stage. " The Iran-Cuba link has long worried intelligence and security analysts in the US. Soviet Colonel Ken Alibek, formerly second-in-command of the USSR’s bacteriological arms development program, has long insisted that the Castro regime has such weapons at its disposal. In his book Biohazard, Alibek quotes his former boss, General Yuri T. Kalinin, as having told him that Cuba had an active bacteriological arms program.
Ken Alibek's assertions have been independently confirmed by ex-Cuban officials as well.
Oh, yeah, pretend this didn't happen, either:
SEPTEMBER 12, 1998 : (CUBAN SPY RING IN FLORIDA) Ten people allegedly operating as a Cuban spy ring "have been arrested and accused of collecting information on U.S. military installations and anti-Castro groups in Florida, federal officials announced today. The arrests, carried out Saturday [12 Sep. 1998], ended the most extensive espionage effort involving Cuban agents ever uncovered here, U.S. Attorney Thomas E. Scott said."
Pretend this didn't happen too:
MAY 13, 1999 : (CUBA INTERFERING WITH US AIR TRAFFIC CONTROL) An incident recorded by the Federal Communications Commission in which Cuban electronic-warfare specialists penetrated the NY air-traffic-control system by simulating U.S. AF flight codes. The signals, which seriously threatened to disrupt air traffic, were traced to a 1,500 kilowatt transmitter operating west of Havana. (The Chinese have also established for themselves a sophisticated network of electronic espionage in Cuba to be used against the U.S. The bases are operating under the cover of Radio China short wave transmissions to Latin America and the U.S. Their principal bases are at Bejucal and near Havana. They are capable of interfering with U.S. air traffic control, according to the FCC. On the 13th of May at 4:48 p.m., the Chinese sent a communication to the air traffic control in New York, falsely identifying themselves as OPEC21, a U.S. Military C130 plane. )
Go ahead and pretend that tens of thousands of Cubans are lying to you about the regime... the leftists have done a pretty good job of assassinating the character an entire nationality, and entire communities.
JULY 1999 : (CUBA, IRAQ, TERRORISM) As recently as July 1999 Domingo Muchaustegui, a former Cuban government official said to have exceptional information about the Cuban government, wrote: "For U.S. interests, the closeness of the [Cuban] relationship with Iraq and some of the more militant terrorist groups in the Middle East is troublesome. Can Cuba be used to carry out terrorist acts against U.S. targets? Is there any cooperation between Sadam Hussein and Castro in the development of chemical and bacteriological weapons? What remains from the close cooperation between Castro and the more militant terrorist groups in the region?" (University of Miami Middle East Studies Institute, July 1999).
This one might be bogus. Then again, it might not be. It's about as credible as the gullible Jimmy Carter.
MARCH 4, 2000 : (BIOWWARFARE) The Associated Press reported, that a young Afghani who trained at a camp run by bin Laden in northeast Afghanistan says he saw advisers there from Chechnya, Sudan, Libya, Iran, N.Korea and Cuba
Guilty plea... why did the other suspects flee to Cuba?
MARCH 2000 : (USA, CUBAN 'WASP' SPY RING, SANTOS) Amarylis Silverio Santos and her husband, Joseph Santos, along with several (14?) others of the WASP group, pleaded guilty to "charges of acting as unregistered agents of a foreign government." John Elvin, "Jail Time for Cuban Spies," Insight on the News, 6 Mar. 2000.
Nothing to see here.... just some refugees putting a little goat money away for a rainy day...
AUGUST 22 (or 20?) , 2000 : (ROYAL CAYMAN ISLANDS, BANKING, CUBA, TURKEY, AFGHANISTAN) 3 men claiming to be Afghan nationals reported that they were dropped off in the Cayman Islands, having arrived here by ship from Turkey. The Royal Cayman Islands Police (RCIP) detained them at the Central Police Station. The Immigration authorities conducted interviews with the individuals (with the assistance of a visiting Iranian doctor who was able to translate) in an attempt to establish their identities. (Who was this Iranian Doctor, by the way?) According to Cayman authorities, three men actually arrived in the Cayman Islands on a commercial flight from Cuba. Thay had Pakistani passports but the passports turned out to be fake, and the men were arrested in August. The men are believed to be Afghans. They were subsequently held in custody at Her Majesty's Prison at Northward, following an interview and processing by Immigration Officers. The Afghanis, who later would be become the subject of an intensive investigation by US authorities over 9/11/01 WTC attacks, were imprisoned for 10 months ( until May 2001) after trying to deposit $2 million in a bank in the Cayman Islands. (Some refugees, eh?)
We all know who FARC's allies are, right? Cuba makes no secret about harboring and trains FARC... so here's some chemical weapons, as opposed to bioweapons, for you:
SEPTEMBER 2000: (COLUMBIA, FARC, BOMB & CHEMICAL ATTACK) A FARC bomb that burned out the lungs of an entire police garrison in the Colombian town of San Adolfo contained chlorine-based poison gas, according to a lab analysis of the device.
Pay no attention to what's going on in Grenada... China and Libya have nothing to do with it or with that coup attempt a few years ago. Honest. Nothing to see here...
SEPTEMBER 2000 : (GRENADA) Three Chinese diplomats on a private visit are deported for statements construed as interference in the internal affairs of Grenada. They were invited by the newly-formed Grenada-China friendship association of opposition leader Michael Baptiste. - BBC News "Timeline: Grenada"
Oh yes, they really love capitalism and can't wait to see the first Cuban Sam Walton...
SEPTEMBER 18, 2000 : (CUBA, CASTRO, QATAR) In an exclusive interview with the Qatar-based Al-Jazeera television, Castro stated that "We are not ready for reconciliation with the United States, and I will not reconcile with the imperialist system.” He further added that his government had defended Cuba against "a Western cultural invasion,” echoing one of the key themes of fundamentalist Islamic groups in the region.
Why yes, the Iranians need help from Cuba to make chickenpox vaccine, riiiiight.
OCTOBER 2000 : (CUBA, IRAN, BIOTECH PLANT) Cuban Vice President Carlos Lage and the Iranian vice minister of health inaugurated a biotechnological research and development plant outside Tehran. Experts expressed doubts about the supposed medical objectives of the installation, because Iran already produces 97 percent of the medicines its population consumes.
Nothing to see here... MAY 10, 2001 : (CUBA, SYRIA, LIBYA, IRAN, VENEZUELA) Castro undertook a round of visits to Syria, Libya, and Iran. Speaking at Tehran University, he insisted that "…people must be informed and awakened, they must not allow themselves to be pillaged by the West."
Castro undertook a round of visits to Syria, Libya and Iran. Speaking at Tehran University, he insisted that "people must be informed and awakened; they must not allow themselves to be pillaged by the West.” During that same trip, the Iranian Press Service quoted Castro as saying, "Iran and Cuba reached the conclusion that together they can tear down the United States." Castro, in an apocalyptic speech, told his Muslim audience in Iran: "America is weak. I have studied its weaknesses from very close by. I tell you, the imperialist king will finally fall." - Agence France-Presse "Tours through radical Islamic states by Castro and his close Venezuelan ally, President Hugo Chavez, in the months prior to the September attacks indicate some level of complicity or knowledge of what was going to happen," says Lisette Bustamante, a former aide to Castro who currently works on the Spanish daily newspaper La Razon. Not only were statements by both leaders in their Middle Eastern trips laced with violent anti-American rhetoric, Bustamante points out, but Chavez quite candidly told reporters that his talks with Saddam Hussein and heads of other oil-producing states involved the creation of a "new anti-imperialist axis" against Western industrialized economies.
MAY 25, 2001 : (CUBAN SPIES, MONTES' HOME SEARCHED) U.S. investigators copy incriminating material from a computer in alleged Cuban spy Anna Belen Montes’ home. It's not clear how often Montes tuned in to so-called numbers stations which transmit coded instructions from Cuba, but there's little doubt that she did or that some of the signals were sent specifically for her. FBI agents on a search warrant entered her apartment and checked the hard drive of a laptop computer she kept there. They found sequences matching those that had been broadcast previously, instructions on how to run them through a decryption program that turns the numbers into words, and messages she traded with Cuban spymasters.
JULY 26, 2001 : (CUBA & IRAN) Castro marked another anniversary of the beginning of his revolution by marching in Havana alongside the Ayatollah Khomeini’s grandson, now a high-ranking Iranian official.
AUGUST 2001: (COLUMBIA, CUBA, IRA, FARC, ELN) Colombian authorities arrest three suspected IRA terrorists who had provided specialized training to the FARC terrorist organization. One of the men, Nial Connolly, had lived in Cuba since 1996 as the IRA’s representative.(The Times, August 16, 2001, BBC News August 17, 2001) It is believed that it was in Cuba where the IRA established contact with both the FARC and ELN terrorist organizations. These two organizations, according to the State Department’s 2000 report on global terrorism, have "…maintained a permanent presence in the island." It is further believed that the IRA men were training the Colombian rebels in the development of powerful anti-personnel explosives destined for the proposed FARC ‘urban offensive.’
SEPTEMBER 11, 2001 : (CUBA ALERTS HIS MILITARY & CALLS UP RESERVES) Castro was ordering a military alert in Cuba and calling up reserves.
6:30 p.m. on SEPTEMBER 14, 2001 : (CUBAN SPY CASE, MONTES CALLS CUBA'S DIRECTOR OF GENERAL INTELLIGENCE) Ana Belen Montes, a senior analyst at the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), walked into a public telephone booth outside Washington's National Zoo and made two calls to pager numbers later traced by federal agents to Cuba's Directorate of General Intelligence (DGI). She already had compromised the identities of CIA agents, revealed U.S. military secrets and exposed the contents of classified files. But, as Montes sent repeated signals to her DGI handlers during the days immediately following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the Pentagon and the twin towers of the WTC, the FBI was given orders to act. It's a startling story, perhaps even revelatory; then again, maybe there's nothing to it apart from amazing coincidence. But what is beyond doubt is that even though the Wasp Network has been busted and Ana Belen Montes is under arrest, those Cuban numbers stations continue to broadcast their coded messages several times each day. Who is listening to them?- John Miller, National Review Nov 5, 2001
SEPTEMBER 21, 2001: (CUBAN SPY CASE, MONTES ARRESTED) Ana Belen Montes arrested
OCTOBER 19, 2001 : (CUBA, RUSSIA, LOURDES LISTENING STATION) A sudden decision by Russian Pres Vladimir Putin to shut down Russia's electronic listening station at Lourdes near Havana by next year, announced just hours before his meeting with President George W. Bush at the Oct. 19 APEC economic summit in Shanghai, "reflects the degree of alarm over Cuba's intelligence operations," according to a U.S. defense analyst in DC. Congress already was threatening to freeze financial aid to Moscow unless it dismantled the intelligence facility that gives Castro a degree of international leverage out of proportion to the bankrupt state of his communist regime. Putin announced that Russia will close its listening post at Lourdes, near Havana, Cuba- just hours before the APEC meeting in Shanhai which Bush would attend.Despite some residual support for Castro in the Kremlin, a Cuban delegation visiting Moscow to procure additional funding for the Lourdes facility abruptly was dismissed with the announcement that instead the listening post would be closed. Influential elements in Moscow fear that the rogue use of Cuban spy facilities could drag Russia into an unwanted confrontation with Washington. According to Cuban exile Ernesto Betancourt, some Russian officials were highly disturbed by a 1999 incident recorded by the FCC in which Cuban electronic-warfare specialists penetrated NY's air-traffic-control system by simulating USAF flight codes. The signals, which seriously threatened to disrupt air traffic, were traced to a 1,500 kilowatt transmitter operating west of Havana.
It's a great conspiracy to discredit Castro... yeah, that's the ticket...thousands upon thousands of Cubans, some ex-officials are part of the conspiracy and they're ALL lying. Jimmy Carter said so!
Kind of like when all the American activists went down to enjoy Cuban hospitality and encountered their first lobotomy patients in Cuban mental hospitals that up until then were just rumored and up until then the left had vigorously denied and claime dwere all a figment of the imagination of the Cuban emigres. And then the great humanitarian leftists decided that those lobotomies for gay people and dissidents were perfectly OK because they were 'socialist lobotomies,' and were neccessary for the socialist state. They went back to the cafes and enjoyed their trip to sunny Cuba; all but ex-communist Ronald Radosh who began to see through the myths of the left.
I bet you deny the numerous North Korean boat incidents, and probably denied they kidnapped people, Japanese in particular, to use them as language teachers for their spy program too. Sure, regimes like these have no interest in chemical or biological weapons, no matter how simple.... just keep telling yourself this often enough, and you can believe. You can believe that impoverished Cuba just has a wonderful humanitarian streak that keeps them spending on biological research and 'medicine' out of the goodness of Castro's little heart, and gives it away for nothing.
And one of the leaders on the Hatfill-as-culprit anthrax myth spent time in Cuba with their Ministry of Health supposedly at their request- Dr. Nass, a no-account doc called to Cuba to 'help' with an alleged outbreak of eye disease, source of FAS Rosenberg's fictional tale of anthrax as a WMD in Rhodesia... that's just another coincidence, I'm sure. That she happens to be involved with a pro-Iraq anti-sanctions group is just a coincidence too.
And was surprised to find out that India was testing nukes (that they hadn't been aware of)???
LOL
As if they needed to.
This administration has been very reluctant to criticize or correct past Presidents -- except when Little Willie says something really egregious.
You may or may not agree with this policy. But it is the policy.
Out of courtesy, they ignored Carter...because nobody takes him seriously anyway.
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