Newsweek: Atta in Prague, the story they don't want you to hear

[Rose Siding]

Sept. 13, 2006 - The claim that terrorist leader Mohamed Atta met in Prague with an Iraqi spy a few months before 9/11 was never substantiated, but that didn’t stop the White House from trying to insert the allegation in presidential speeches, according to classified documents.

Cryptic references to the White House efforts are contained in a new Senate Intelligence Committee report released last Friday that debunked purported links between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda. However, attempts by committee Democrats to make public a more explicit account of White House interest in the anecdote were thwarted when the “intelligence community” refused to declassify a CIA cable that lays out the controversy, according to congressional sources. Democrats charged in a written statement that intelligence officials had failed to demonstrate “that disclosing the ... would reveal sources and methods or otherwise harm national security.” The Democrats also complained that officials' refusal to declassify the cable “represents an improper use of classification authority by the intelligence community to shield the White House.”

According to two sources familiar with the blacked-out portions of the Senate report that discuss the CIA cable's contents, the document indicates that White House officials had proposed mentioning the supposed Atta-Prague meeting in a Bush speech scheduled for March 14, 2003. Originated by Czech intelligence shortly after 9/11, the tendentious claim was that in April 2001, Atta, the 9/11 hijack leader, had met in Prague with the local station chief for Iraqi intelligence. The sources said that upon learning of the proposed White House speech, the CIA station in Prague sent back a cable explaining in detail why the agency believed the anecdote was ill-founded.

According to one of the sources familiar with the Senate report's censored portions, who asked for anonymity due to the sensitivity of the subject, the tone of the CIA cable was “strident” and expressed dismay that the White House was trying to shoehorn the Atta anecdote into the Bush speech to be delivered only days before the U.S. invasion of Iraq. The source said the cable also suggested that policymakers had tried to insert the same anecdote into other speeches by top administration officials.

......MORE.......

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14824384/site/newsweek/print/1/displaymode/1098/

[underpants]

1. Good work there Newsweek not a moment too soon

:sarcasm:

So now we officially know that they were conspiring to lie well we have an Official government stamp on it now.

[Botany]

2. One more lie from an admistration that finds lying S.O.P.

Never elected, made his money by insider deals and govt. grants
(Texas Rangers' Stadium), lies about Ann Richards, lies about Kerry,
lies about McCain, lies about his service, lies from Rove, lies by Cheney,
and helped along by a media that never says shit about their lies.

DELAND, Fla., Nov. 11 - Something very strange happened on election night to Deborah Tannenbaum, a Democratic Party official in Volusia County. At 10 p.m., she called the county elections department and learned that Al Gore was leading George W. Bush 83,000 votes to 62,000. But when she checked the county's Web site for an update half an hour later, she found a startling development: Gore's count had dropped by 16,000 votes, while an obscure Socialist candidate had picked up 10,000--all because of a single precinct with only 600 voters."
- Washington Post Sunday , November 12, 2000 ; Page A22

[whistle]

3. Dick Cheney repeatedly pushed this claim in all of his speeches

...on terror and the war in Iraq:

<snip>
Cheney blasts media on al Qaeda-Iraq link
Says media not 'doing their homework' in reporting ties
Friday, June 18, 2004 Posted: 2:25 AM EDT (0625 GMT)


WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Vice President Dick Cheney said Thursday the evidence is "overwhelming" that al Qaeda had a relationship with Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq, and he said media reports suggesting that the 9/11 commission has reached a contradictory conclusion were "irresponsible."

"There clearly was a relationship. It's been testified to. The evidence is overwhelming," Cheney said in an interview with CNBC's "Capitol Report."

"It goes back to the early '90s. It involves a whole series of contacts, high-level contacts with Osama bin Laden and Iraqi intelligence officials."

"The press, with all due respect, (is) often times lazy, often times simply reports what somebody else in the press said without doing their homework." <more>

http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/06/18/cheney.iraq.al.qaeda/



To my knowledge he has not backed away from this claim to this day, but he does vacillate.

<snip>
Published on Monday, September 27, 2004 by the Los Angeles Times
Cheney 'Pushes the Envelope' on Al Qaeda-Iraq Connection
Critics say the vice president's campaign statements on terrorism 'blur the lines.'
by James Gerstenzang

WARRENTON, Mo. — The phrases vary. Some days, Vice President Dick Cheney says Saddam Hussein had "long-established" ties to Al Qaeda. Other days, he says the onetime Iraqi dictator "had a relationship" with the terrorist group.

But the underlying message remains unchanged — Cheney plants the idea that Hussein was allied with the group responsible for the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Although the extent of the Al Qaeda-Hussein relationship — if it existed — has been widely disputed, Cheney proceeds with nary a nod toward such questions.

And in doing so, he draws a line from the war in Iraq, on which public opinion is divided, to the larger war on terrorism, for which President Bush wins greater support.

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0927-22.htm

[Felinity]

4. And Cheney still says only that

we have been unable to verify that information, just last week.

I personally have been unable to verify that pigs fly. That doesn't mean they can't. They probably just don't want to.

:sarcasm:

[izzybeans]

5. Maybe they are right.

in keeping the documents classified. If they admit they are liars than that would be giving away their sources and methods. Fake sources and pathological lying. I think I am going to start trusting them when they classify documents and say they reveal their sources and methods. I'll just take it to mean that the documents flatly admit the lie.

[The_Casual_Observer]

6. Yet they use the nuanced denial that they fixed the intelligence.

It's all legalese, they cooked the talking points to make a case for war. This whole business sets a very bad precedence for the future, no matter who ends up in charge of things.

[mom cat]

7. Yery important ... K&R

[civildisoBDence]

8. Impeach the bastards yesterday

Even if we assume Atta met with an Iraqi agent in Prague, that in no way demonstrates any degree of cooperation between Iraq and al Qaeda.

Can you imagine all the unsavory characters our own intelligence agents have met with over the years for totally legitimate reasons?

Newsprism

[savemefromdumbya]

9. You have to ask which Atta are we talking about?

these guys should get a diploma in stonewalling and propaganda

[Norrin Radd]

13. Yes, there is a more in depth thread on the several Atta's

the 9/11 DUngeon.

[savemefromdumbya]

14. thanks

[redqueen]

10. Thank you MSNBC!

:applause:

Will any of the stalwart supporters of these criminals take notice?

[Briar]

11. I seem to remember Tom Mangold

made a programme about the 9/11 atrocities for the BBC's Panorama programme in which he included a dramatisation of this "meeting", treating it as a fact. He, Panorama and the BBC never apologised for misleading us by transmitting this neocon propaganda. I could say I haven't trusted them since, but to be honest I didn't entirely trust them beforehand anyway.

[Imagevision]

12. The CIA peviously stated Atta was in Florida in this time freame.