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17. november 2005
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One of the controversial pieces of intelligence about the 9/11 hijackers is the claim that Mohamed Atta met Iraqi intelligence in Prague some four months prior to the 2001 terror attacks. There is, as often in life, contradictory evidence, and reasonable people can disagree on the merits of the claim. However, the war on terror and the Iraq war is such a politicised subject that a level of uncertainty is not acceptable. Either it is proven true, or it was a "lie."
Since it is now a leftist dogma that Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with 9/11 (probably true) and no connection whatsoever to al-Qaeda (probably false), the New York Times, a newspaper that did much to publicise WMD claims that has later proven false, has published an editorial trying to discredit the Atta-Prague connection.
The Bush administration was also alone in making the absurd claim that Iraq was in league with Al Qaeda and somehow connected to the 9/11 terrorist attacks. That was based on two false tales. One was the supposed trip to Prague by Mohamed Atta, a report that was disputed before the war and came from an unreliable drunk.
SoccerDad has done some careful checking, and you'll see that the above claim is pretty much beyond the pale.
Edward Jay Epstein has outlined some good evidence that Atta indeed met an Iraqi intelligence agent in Prague, and points out that contrary evidence from the FBI has actually proven to be false. An unreliable drunk? I don't think so.
Obviously, this meeting doesn't prove Saddam was complicit in the 9/11 attacks. There is actually a lot we don't know about what happened before that fateful day, for example the obviously extensive intelligence gathering effort that must have happened on US soil in months and years prior to the attack. We do know, however, that one of the leading terrorists who tried to blow up the World Trade Center in 1993, found refuge in Saddam's Iraq. We also know, from much sad experience, that al-Qaeda very often revisits its tracks and repeats previous attacks, both successful and failed.
The inaccuracies and caveats in intelligence gathering work means that when intelligence reports are politicised, the nuances are lost and circumstantial evidence is given far more weight than it deserves. The pre-war assertions about Saddam Hussein's WMD capabilities by the Bush and Blair governments are certainly strong examples. But this anti-war after-the-fact revisionism is surely another.
If forced to choose, I would actually trust Czech intelligence any day over the CIA or the FBI, not the least based on its cold war experiences in surveillance and counter-espionage.
5:59:42 PM 
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Pajamas Media, the new blogger media revolutionaries, have now released its new name, Open Source Media.
Brendan at the real Open Source Media is not amused.
Hm. A company that used to call itself Pajamas Media now calls itself Open Source Media, which is — scroll down to our legal notice — kind of exactly what we call ourselves. They’ve collected $3.5 million in venture capital, and, to celebrate their re-naming of our already-named name, they’re holding an event at the Rainbow Room.
So what to do. A couple of blogs — Atrios, Stephen den Beste, Dennis the Peasant, Begging to Differ, Homocon — have picked up on this already, unprompted, perhaps because if you Google “open source media”, we’re the third result. Presumably the new “Open Source Media” Googled their new name before they settled on it?
Presumably not.
For some reason, given my experience with the Pajamas boys, this doesn't surprise me at all.
1:48:16 PM
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Riots have flared up all over France, but the major port city of Marseille has been mostly spared.
While several other French cities were under curfew this weekend as an antidote to violence and riot police set themselves at the ready in central Paris, a North African wedding party sped around the harbor at Marseille's Old Port, horns blaring and young men hanging out the automobile windows.
Moments later, several hundred demonstrators, some pale French, others deeply black Africans, marched to protest censorship in Tunisia. No police were in sight.
The very presence of such an ethnic collage in the downtown areas of many French cities during nearly three weeks of rioting would have been cause for alarm. But Marseille's core is a spicy stew of nationalities, giving it a make-up like no other in France.
The reason, some say, is that immigration and a mixed population is nothing new in Marseille.
History is one source of this stability. While other cities in France fret about the arrival of immigrants over the past 50 years, Marseille has been a magnet for outsiders for well over 100: Italians fleeing poverty, Greeks and Armenians escaping wars, Moroccan sailors jumping ship, Spanish smugglers looking for a haven, Europeans returning from France's former Algerian colony and impoverished Algerians themselves seeking work.
Maybe, in a 100 years all will be well elsewhere, too.
12:30:03 AM
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I'm not following the Wilson/Plame/Libby CIA leak case very closely, but I have to say I raised an eyebrow on discovering that Bob Woodward had his name thrown into the hat. Unknown to almost everyone until yesterday, Woodward had also been told about Valerie Plame's job at the CIA before the story went public, but has kept shut about it, even to his own bosses at the Washington Post.
Given that a journalist who comes forward telling he heard about it faces the choice of breaking confidentiality or spending time in jail, it is no surprise Woodward shut up. And for what we know, and what Special Counsel Fitzgerald knows, there may be a heck of a lot of journalists out there who knew it too, but is in no hurry to step forward.
Tom Maguire at JustOneMinute, who does follow the story closely, notes:
As noted by Libby's counsel, that does not jibe well with the assertion made by Mr. Fitzgerald at his press conference that "In fact, Mr. Libby was the first official known to have told a reporter when he talked to Judith Miller in June of 2003 about Valerie Wilson." (Give Fitzgerald props for qualifying this with "known to", but check (f) in the ERRATA). [...]
However - the goal of the Libby defense team will be to create reasonable doubt about the scenario being presented by Fitzgerald (see indictment). With Bob Woodward as a potential witness, the defense can have fun with an updated version of the old Watergate question - "What else did Fitzgerald not know, and when did he not know it?"
It's been a bad year for Libby, but I think the last two days have been better for him.
Unfortunately, for the rest of us, it's a story that will keep going for a long time yet.
12:24:00 AM
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© Copyright 2005 Jan Haugland.
Last update: 01.12.2005; 01:34:38.
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