Eric Alterman Responds (Finally...)

Correspondence Corner:

Name: C.J.
Hometown: NY, NY

Eric,

You've have stated many, many times that William Safire lied when he said that the meeting between Mohammad Atta and Iraqi intelligence took place. I'm assuming that you're basing this conclusion on the unnamed sources within the CIA (and other government agencies) that claimed that no meeting ever took place. However, you have repeatedly failed to address the contention, by the Czech government itself, that this meeting DID take place on April 8, 2001. Both Hynek Kmonicek (part of the Czech diplomatic delegation to the UN) and Stanislav Gross (Undersec. of Interior for the Czech government) have both gone on record as saying that BIS (Czech intel. agency) observed a meeting between Atta and Iraqi diplomat al-Ani, and have never backed off their statements. Vaclav Havel never backed off this contention either, and the Iraqi diplomat in question was ejected from Czech Republic for "activities incompatible with diplomatic duties." It stands to reason that these are things you should clarify on your blog in regards to Safire, because it is rather odd that the Czech government hasn't backed off their story, yet you charge that Safire has lied repeatedly in regards to it. Hopefully you can address this discrepancy and eliminate any confusion regarding this story once and for all.

Eric replies:

Dear C.J.,

Look, Safire’s “lie” was in calling the meeting an “undisputed fact.” Clearly it was at best, a extremely disputed fact. But of course it was never a fact at all, merely an unsupported allegation by a single Czech intelligence agent with a long history of alcohol abuse. (Not unlike, I might add, the single sonarman who mistakenly believed that an attack took place in the Gulf of Tonkin on August 4, 1964.) Alas, the information you offer -assuming it is accurate and regarding Havel, I don’t think it is— is well out of date. U.S. forces captured the head of Iraqi secret service who explained that no meeting took place. The 9/11 Commission concluded that no reputable evidence for a meeting could be found. Were it not for the fact that it is impossible to prove a negative, we could say with certainty that no such meeting took place. Or put it this way: there is as much hard evidence that the head of Iraqi secret service met with Atta in Prague to plan 9/11 as there is that Dick Cheney did.

My Response:

Vaclav Havel is on record as stating that he backs BIS contention that the meeting took place. The New York Times erroneously said that Havel quietly retracted the story, but Havel went, once again, on record as saying that he never "quietly walked it back" in private conversations with President Bush. Ergo, he's standing by his original assessment. As for Eric's contention that a Czech intel officer "with a long history of alcohol abuse" was the one who observed this alleged meeting, I've not come across one story that backs up this assessment. To my knowledge, it wasn't just one BIS agent, and if it was, why would they employ one in such a sensitive manner? Additionally, since agents are supposed to have anonymous identities, how would Eric know if this guy was a drunk or not? Have a name and a source, Eric? I know not what he's talking about on this one. His dismissal of Havel's observation as "out of date" is a cop out. Edward Jay Epstein has done some groundbreaking work on this story, largely ignored outside of the blogosphere.

However, I do agree with Eric on his first point, namely that Safire shouldn't be pedalling something as murky as the Atta-al Ani meeting as fact. Clearly, it is an opaque story and probably always will be. At least he gave this concession, "Were it not for the fact that it is impossible to prove a negative, we could say with certainty that no such meeting took place." Or we could say that it isn't beyond the realm of possibilities that it did take place. Given Saddam's history of animosity towards the US, the fact that a prior Iraqi diplomat was thrown out of Czech Republic for allegedly recruiting European muslims for jihad operations, that the bomb-maker of the first World Trade Center bombing in 1993 sought and was granted asylum in Iraq, that Saddam gave refuge and support to two of the most lethal terrorists in the world throughout the 80's and early 90's (Abu Abbas and Abu Nidal), or that Saddam was writing checks for $25,000 to the families of Palestinian suicide bombers, that the fuselage of a 707 jet was found at what was purported to be a terrorist training facility at Salman Pak (18 miles south of Baghdad) and was used for training hijacking techniques, combined with Saddam's obvious sociopathic, murderous tendencies that he demostrated over the course of three plus decades, it is certainly not beyond the realm of possibilities that this Atta/al-Ani meeting could've taken place, nor that Saddam could've been, at least in part, responsible for the 9/11 attacks. To outright dismiss it as beyond any reasonable probability speaks more of Eric's (and a large chunk of the anti-war movements) refusal to even entertain the possibility more than it eliminates the possibility itself. Consider that to this day, despite overwhelming evidence in the form of decoded Soviet intercepts that came public via the Venona Files, Eric Alterman still says that he's "agnostic" on whether Alger Hiss was a Soviet spy. I respect the man's intellect, but I think sometimes his ideological bent gets in the way of his cognition.