The Prague Connection

The redoubtable Edward Jay Epstein looks at the evidence again and does a little reporting as well.

It really seems that the Atta-Iraq connection is still an open question. While evidence for it is slim, it is clear that it has not been disproved.

What is troubling is that the FBI seems unwilling to work with the Czech's to investigate it.

Czech intelligence services could not solve this puzzle without access to crucial information about Atta's movements in the United States, Germany, and other countries in which the plot unfolded, but it soon became clear that such cooperation would not be forthcoming. Even after al-Ani was taken prisoner by U.S. forces in Iraq in July 2003 and presumably questioned about Atta, no report was furnished to the Czech side of the investigation. "It was anything but a two-way street," a top Czech government official overseeing the case explained. "The FBI wanted complete control. The FBI agents provided us with nothing from their side of the investigation."

The JunkYard Blog asks a lot of questions about the FBI's unwillingness to pursue these leads.

Maybe the FBI is just the captive of its own theories. For over a decade they have downplayed the dangers of state-sponsored terrorism and traditional espionage. Instead, the Bureau has focused on loose networks of criminals. It is a view that sees al-Qaeda as a law enforcement problem (like the Russian mafia) rather than an instrument of statecraft.

That might be a valid theory, but I would feel better about it if the chief author of the doctrine had been someone other than Robert Hanssen. Anything touched by a traitor seems suspect until revalidated by fresh and critical eyes.

The indispensable Mark Reibling has a lengthy post that looks at the broader question of al- Qaeda-Iraq links.

One other thing-- do intelligence "sources" and journalists use a consistent standard for determining "linkage"? A few hours after a terror attack it is common for the group to be identified and often we are told that they are "linked" to al-Qaeda or UBL. But these groups are shadowy, they don't publish org charts, and are a "loose-network". So how good is our evidence? And how strong is the link? Is it that much stronger than the connections between al-Qaeda and Saddam?

I suspect that many reporters and pundits demand a higher standard of proof about Saddam-UBL links than they do for UBL-Bali or UBL-Turkey.