By Laurie Mylroie, FrontPageMagazine.com / May 11, 2004
Important new information has come from Edward Jay Epstein about
Mohammed Atta's contacts with Iraqi intelligence. The Czechs have
long maintained that Atta, leader of the 9/11 hijackers in the United
States, met with Ahmed al-Ani, an Iraqi intelligence official, posted
to the Iraqi embassy in Prague. As Epstein now reports, Czech authorities
have discovered that al-Ani's appointment calendar shows a scheduled
meeting on April 8, 2001 with a "Hamburg student."
That is exactly what the Czechs had been saying since shortly
after 9/11: Atta, a long-time student at Germany's Hamburg-Harburg
Technical University, met with al-Ani on April 8, 2001. Indeed,
when Atta earlier applied for a visa to visit the Czech Republic,
he identified himself as a ÒHamburg student.Ó The discovery of the
notation in al-Ani's appointment calendar about a meeting with a
ÒHamburg studentÓ provides critical corroboration of the Czech claim.
Epstein also explains how Atta could have traveled to Prague
at that time without the Czechs having a record of such a trip.
Spanish intelligence has found evidence that two Algerians provided
Atta a false passport.
The Iraqi Plot against Radio Free Europe
Prior to the 9/11 attacks, the Czechs were closely watching the
Iraqi embassy. Al-Ani's predecessor had defected to Britain in late
1998, and the Czechs (along with the British and Americans) learned
that Baghdad had instructed him to bomb Radio Free Europe, headquartered
in Prague, after RFE had begun a Radio Free Iraq service earlier
that year.
On April 8, 2001, an informant for Czech counter-intelligence (known
as BIS), observed al-Ani meet with an Arab man in his 20s at a restaurant
outside Prague. Another informant in the Arab community reported
that the man was a visiting student from Hamburg and
that he was potentially dangerous.
The Czech Foreign Ministry demanded an explanation for al-Ani's
rendezvous with the Arab student from the head of the Iraqi mission
in Prague. When no satisfactory account was forthcoming, the Czechs
declared al-Ani persona non grata, and he was expelled from the
Czech Republic on April 22, 2001.
Hyman Komineck was then Deputy Foreign Minister and had earlier
headed the Czech Foreign Ministry's Middle East Department. Now
Prague's ambassador to the United Nations, Komineck explained in
June 2002, ÒHe didn't know [what al-Ani was up to.] He just didn't
know.Ó As Komineck told the Times of London in October 2001, "It
is not a common thing for an Iraqi diplomat to meet a student from
a neighboring country."
Following the 9/11 attacks, the Czech informant who had observed
the meeting saw Mohammed Atta's picture in the papers and told the
BIS he believed that Atta was the man he had seen meeting with al-Ani.
On September 14, BIS informed its CIA liaison that they had tentatively
identified Atta as al-Ani's contact.
So Many Errors: the Clinton Years
Opinion polls show that most Americans still believe Iraq had substantial
ties to al Qaeda and even that it was involved in 9/11. Yet among
the Òelite,Ó there is tremendous opposition to this notion. A simple
explanation exists for this dichotomy. The public is not personally
vested in this issue, but the elite certainly are.
America's leading lights, including those in government responsible
for dealing with terrorism and with Iraq, made a mammoth blunder.
They failed to recognize that starting with the first assault on
New York's World Trade Center, Iraq was working with Islamic militants
to attack the United States. This failure left the country vulnerable
on September 11, 2001. Many of those who made this professional
error cannot bring themselves to acknowledge it; perhaps, they cannot
even recognize it. They mock whomever presents information tying
Iraq to the 9/11 attacks; discredit that information; and assert
there is Òno evidence.Ó What they do not do is discuss in a rational
way the significance of the information that is presented. I myself
have experienced this many times, including in testimony before
the 9/11 Commission, when as I responded to a Commissioner's question,
a fellow panelist repeatedly interrupted, screeching ÒThat is not
evidence,Ó even as C-SPAN broadcast the event to the entire country.
Former White House counter-terrorism czar Richard Clarke is a prime
example of this phenomenon. Immediately after the 9/11 attacks,
when President Bush asked him to look into the possibility of Iraq's
involvement, Clarke was ÒincredulousÓ (his word), treating the idea
as if it were one of the most ridiculous things he had ever heard.
On September 18, when Deputy National Security Adviser Steven Hadley
asked him to take another look for evidence of Iraqi involvement,
Clarke responded in a similar fashion.
Yet as we know now, thanks to Epstein's work, Czech intelligence
at that point had already informed their CIA liaison that they had
tentatively identified Mohammed Atta as the Arab whom al-Ani had
met on April 8, 2001.
Evidence is Òsomething that indicates,Ó according to Webster's.
Proof is Òconclusive demonstration.Ó The report of a well-regarded
allied intelligence service that a 9/11 hijacker appeared to have
met with an Iraqi intelligence agent a few months before the attacks
is certainly evidence of an Iraqi connection.
Clarke's adamant refusal to even consider the possibility of an
Iraqi role in the 9/11 attacks represents an enormous blunder committed
by the Clinton administration. Following the February 26, 1993,
bombing of the World Trade Center, senior officials in New York
FBI, the lead investigative agency, believed that Iraq was involved.
When Clinton launched a cruise missile attack on Iraqi intelligence
headquarters in June 1993, saying publicly that the strike was punishment
for Saddam's attempt to kill former President Bush when he visited
Kuwait in April, Clinton believed that the attack would also take
care of the terrorism in New York, if New York FBI was correct.
It would deter Saddam from all future acts of terrorism.
Indeed, Clarke claims the strike did just that. The Clinton administration,
Clarke explains in Against All Enemies, also sent Òa very clear
message through diplomatic channels to the Iraqis saying, "If
you do any terrorism against the United States again, it won't just
be Iraqi intelligence headquarters, it'll be your whole government.'
It was a very chilling message. And apparently it worked."
But if the entire 1991 Gulf War did not deter Saddam for long,
why should one cruise missile strike accomplish that aim? Indeed,
the Iraqi plot against Radio Free Europe-the existence of which
is confirmed by RFE officials-is clear demonstration that the June
1993 cruise missile strike did not permanently deter Saddam.
Bush 41: A War Left Unfinished
The claim that Iraq was involved in 9/11 is also strongly opposed
by some senior figures in Bush 41. They include former National
Security Council Advisor, Brent Scowcroft, who wrote in the summer
of 2002, "There is scant evidence to tie Saddam to terrorist
organizations, and even less to the Sept. 11 attacks."
Iraqi involvement in the 9/11 attacks carries serious implications
for judgments about the way that Bush 41 ended the 1991 war. As
will be recalled, after 100 hours of a ground war, with Saddam still
in power and Republican Guard units escaping across the Euphrates,
Bush called for a cease-fire. Colin Powell, then Chairman of the
Joint Chiefs of Staff, pushed for that decision, and Scowcroft backed
him, although it was totally unnecessary, and many Arab members
of the coalition were astounded at the decision.
To err is human. And if one errs, one should correct the mistake
and move on. The prevailing ethos, however, is quite different,
even when serious national security issues are involved. Extraordinarily
rare is a figure like Dick Cheney, who as Secretary of Defense,
supported the decision to end the 1991 war with Saddam still in
power, but after the 9/11 attacks was prepared to recognize the
evidence suggesting an Iraqi role in those attacks and memorably
remarked that it was rare in history to be able to correct a mistake
like that.
Why we are at war: Iraq's Involvement in 9/11
Never before in this country's history has a president ordered
American soldiers into battle, without fully explaining why they
are asked to risk life and limb. One would never know from the administration's
public stance that senior officials, including the President, believe
that Iraq was involved in the 9/11 attacks.
Iraq was indeed involved in those assaults. There is considerable
information to that effect, described in this piece and elsewhere.
They include Iraqi documents discovered by U.S. forces in Baghdad
that U.S. officials have not made public.
We are now engaged in the most difficult military conflict this
country has fought in thirty years. Even before the fiasco at Abu
Ghraib became widely known, both the American public and international
opinion were increasingly skeptical of U.S. war aims.
In taking on and eliminating the Iraqi regime, Bush corrected a
policy blunder of historic proportions. His decision for war was
both courageous and necessary. Now, he needs to make it clear just
why that decision was made.
* Laurie Mylroie was adviser on Iraq to the 1992 campaign of Bill
Clinton and is the author of Bush vs. the Beltway: How the CIA and
the State Department tried to Stop the War on Terror. (HarperCollins)
She can be reached through www.//benadorassociates.com. Article
found at www.FrontPageMagazine.com
