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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: American Spirit who wrote (417875)	6/23/2003 5:30:04 PM
From: Neocon	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769670

This is from Slate magazine: In the case of the 9/11, I accept your point that the purported meeting between Iraqi consul al-Ani and Mohammed Atta in Prague is open to question. All evidence, and especially that evidence produced in the murky world of intelligence-gathering, can be controverted: Otherwise, it would not be evidence but an article of faith. But it is untrue that the Czech government has discredited the report about this meeting. You say: "President Vaclav Havel, no less, had to walk it back. Jim Risen has written about this in the New York Times." Risen wrote (New York Times, October 21, 2001) that Havel told the White House in a phone call that there was no evidence to confirm the Atta/al-Ani meeting, but that's erroneous. Immediately after the story appeared, Havel not only denied he had ever communicated the information to the White House, but he also said, through his spokesman, that the New York Times story was "a fabrication," and "nothing like this has occurred." Unfortunately, the Times' error-correction policy (which is brilliantly elucidated by Renata Adler in her book Canaries in the Mine Shaft) remedies misspelling and inaccurate photo-captions, but not errors of substance. So, the Times never reported that its own authority for its exclusive story, Havel, had said it was a fabrication. In fact, over the past 18 months, and as recently as last week (when it expelled additional Iraqi diplomats), the Czech government, through the statements of its intelligence chief Jiri Ruzek, its Interior Minister Stanislav Gross, and its U.N. Ambassador Hynek Kmonicek (who served the expulsion notice on al-Ani), has confirmed that it has credible intelligence about the meeting. I am intrigued by your "intelligence community sources" who express doubts about the reliability of the Czech intelligence (perhaps they, like you, were unaware that the Times story had been an invention). Have you considered the possibility that the CIA may have an interest in not opening this particular can of worms, especially given its delicate chronology? The reported meeting, and the expulsion of Iraq consul al-Ani, happened on its watch: April 2001. The agency couldn't be unaware of it. Never before had the Czech Republic expelled such a high-ranking Iraqi diplomat. The CIA maintained a liaison with the Czechs. Prime Minister Milos Zeman said that Czech intelligence assumed that the meeting between al-Ani and Atta concerned the plot to blow up the American target Radio Free Europe—not the World Trade Center. Czech intelligence and British intelligence (through an Iraqi defector, who was in fact al-Ani's predecessor in Prague) had information about such a plan, targeting the Radio Free Europe building. It seems unlikely that this information was not passed on, by both British and Czech intelligence, to the CIA. The CIA would have had this information in their files. What did they do about it? Did they pass it on to the FBI? slate.msn.com

To: American Spirit who wrote (417875)	6/23/2003 5:33:06 PM
From: Neocon	Respond to of 769670

This is an interesting story from CBS: Court Rules: Al Qaida, Iraq Linked NEW YORK, May 7, 2003 A federal judge has ruled there is a link between Saddam Hussein and al Qaida. (AP) (CBS) A federal judge Wednesday ordered Osama bin Laden, Saddam Hussein and others to pay early $104 million to the families of two Sept. 11 victims, saying there is evidence – though meager - that Iraq had a hand in the terrorist attacks. The closely watched case was the first lawsuit against the terrorists believed responsible for the World Trade Center attack to reach the damages phase. U.S. District Judge Harold Baer ordered that the damages be paid by bin Laden, al-Qaida, the Taliban, Saddam and the former Iraqi government. The judge ruled against them by default in January after they failed to respond to the lawsuits brought on behalf of two of the trade center dead. James E. Beasley, a Philadelphia lawyer who brought the case, hopes to collect the money from frozen Iraqi, bin Laden and al-Qaida assets. However, further court proceedings would be required before any payout could occur. And Beasley said it is unclear how much money would be available to satisfy the judgment. To help pay for Iraq's reconstruction, the Bush administration has started using roughly $1.7 billion Iraqi funds frozen in 1990. Beasley called Baer's finding "a significant victory" because it represented the first time a judge linked al-Qaida and Iraq in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. In his ruling, Baer concluded that lawyers for the two victims "have shown, albeit barely ... that Iraq provided material support to bin Laden and al-Qaida" and collaborated in or supported al-Qaida's Sept. 11 attacks. Baer said lawyers relied heavily on "classically hearsay" evidence, including reports that a Sept. 11 hijacker met an Iraqi consul to Prague, Secretary of State Colin Powell's remarks to the United Nations about connections between Iraq and terrorism, and defectors' descriptions of the use of an Iraq camp to train terrorists. James Kreindler, a lawyer representing the families of 500 people killed and 1,000 injured in the attacks, said a case his firm was preparing for trial will offer proof of ties between Iraq and al-Qaida. "We have uncovered the financial connection between Iraq and al-Qaida," he said. Kreindler's case, which is still pending in federal court in New York, seeks damages from more than 200 defendants, including Iraq, Iran, Sudan, al-Qaida, the Taliban, Saudi Arabia government officials, charities that fronted al-Qaida and banks that laundered money. Baer heard evidence for two days in March to help him determine damages. The cases were brought on behalf of George Eric Smith, 38, an analyst for SunGard Asset Management, and Timothy Soulas, 35, a senior managing director and partner at Cantor Fitzgerald Securities. The cases relied in part on a 1996 law that permitted lawsuits against countries identified by the State Department as sponsors of terrorism. Professor of International Law and CBS News Analyst Pamela Falk said, “There may be payments in this because of the Iraqi money, but it really puts the Bush administration in a position where they have to decide where the assets that are already in the United States, if they go to the victims, or go back to the Iraq people. “This would be a way to make the terrorists pay,” Falk said, “and so (the president) may very well come out and say there’s a lot of money to go back to Iraq, but this should go to the (September 11th) victims first. “It’s a real dilemma for the Bush administration.” cbsnews.com