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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: carranza2 who wrote (42808)	9/9/2002 9:56:54 AM
From: Elsewhere	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

It was BS, known or easily knowable as BS when linked here, and easily proven to be BS. The online edition of the Financial Times Germany writes that Richard Perle has told the FTD that the "Il Sole 24 Ore" article is false. He had talked about Atta's travel to Prag and not to Baghdad. ftd.de, Mo, 9.9.2002, 13:19 Pentagon-Berater dementiert Atta-Besuch bei Saddam Hussein ftd.de

To: carranza2 who wrote (42808)	9/9/2002 10:30:29 AM
From: Win Smith	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Yes, but the fact that something is BS and known or easily knowable as BS has hardly ever prevented people from posting reams and reams of it here. Chinese Muslims marching into Afghanistan and all that. Not to mention the war in Iraq that's allegedly already started. Seems almost like a badge of honor, actually.

To: carranza2 who wrote (42808)	9/9/2002 12:12:53 PM
From: Hawkmoon	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 281500

My point is that the report was huge news since, if it is true, it provides justification for an attack. The statement by Perle, had it actually been made, would have been plastered all over the global media. Well the German Hamburger Morgen Post is carrying the story: mopo.de Someone on FreeRepublic found it and posted a "babelfish" rough translation: freerepublic.com (maybe Jochen will help translate it) And you're right.. it is incredibly important information. And we're both assuming that the source is derived from US intelligence when in fact it might be intelligence obtained from other nation's intelligence sources. If that were the case, the US would have to confirm the information through its own sources (possibly quite difficult), or see if the collecting nation would be willing to have their source scrutinized (polygraphed.. etc). And not many nations are willing to open up their intelligence operations to the US or any other nation. The Czechs have not rescinded their claim that Atta met with an Iraqi Intel officer in Prague, despite lack of independent confirmation. We're obviously in a quandary here. Perle's taking a big chance in tainting his reputation with such a amazing claim. And I don't think he would do so without having some reason to believe the authenticity of the information (I certainly wouldn't) And being a hawk on Iraq, he obviously has an agenda for wishing such information to be made public and entered into the public arena. It's also obviously very complex with regard to whether or not we choose to believe Czech intelligence (or any other). We have to weigh the possibilities that the Czechs have some intel ops of their own going on and that such information was released in order to manipulate the US into taking a particular action. But one has to ask how they would stand to benefit from presenting such intel to Colin Powell?? The Intelligence world is a labyrinth of angles and agendas. And in such an environment oftentimes the truth is ignored or discarded (because we didn't develop it), and where deception and disinformation turn such truth into a moving target. I'm just going off my gut sense that such amazing information is something that may have been "sat upon" since it can't be independently confirmed, and Perle is floating it out there to make the Bush administration address it in public. And it's so incredible that he'll either be required to back it up, or deny it. Hawk