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 “Hamburg student.” The
discovery of the notation in al-Ani’s appointment calendar about a meeting with
a “Hamburg student”
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, “He didn’t know [what
al-Ani was up to.] He just didn’t
know.” 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 “elite,” 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 “no
evidence.” 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
“That is not evidence,” 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 “incredulous” (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 “something that indicates,” according
to Webster’s. Proof is “conclusive
demonstration.” 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 “a 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.