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http://news.independent.co.uk/world/asia_china/story.jsp?story=120441
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18 February 2002 17:28 GMT
Home > News > World > Asia China
America 'chasing phantoms' in Iraq says arms expert
By Robert Fisk in Beirut
17 February 2002 Internal links British paratroops shoot man dead in
Kabul gun battle US forces move on Filipino militants Rupert
Cornwell: Saddam is next in the firing line. It's just a matter of
when.
Scott Ritter, America's former top arms inspector in Iraq, has a neat
phrase for Saddam's regime. The "phantom threat", he calls it. And he
backs up his argument with an impressive assault on the credentials
of Ahmed Chalabi, the head of Iraq's opposition in exile, whose bogus
claims of defectors "proving" Iraq's connection to the 11 September
mass murders are persuading Washington to put Saddam on America's
next hit list.
Scott Ritter's damning evidence late last month should be taken
seriously in the White House, even if Mr Ritter did once admit that
he shared intelligence on the UN's Iraqi arms inspections with the
Israelis. It was Mr Chalabi, he claimed, who promoted the Iraqi-Bin
Laden connection by publicising the alleged meeting in Prague between
an Iraqi intelligence agent and the soon-to-be 11 September suicide
pilot Mohamed Atta. Mr Ritter says that the subject of their
discussion � supposedly an attack on the anti-Saddam Radio Free
Europe transmitter in Prague � was a far cry from the 11 September
attacks and that the Czech government's reports on this supposed
meeting were conflicting.
Far more seriously, Mr Ritter says that when he was arms inspector,
he was tasked to liaise with Mr Chalabi and the "Iraqi National
Congress" to gather intelligence information � "more flash than
substance" as Mr Ritter puts it � from Mr Chalabi's defectors. Among
the latter was a supposed engineer who helped to build a network of
underground tunnels beneath Saddam's palaces, all packed with
documents on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. Mr Ritter's men
dutifully went after the treasure trove of files. They found one
drainage tunnel and no documents.
When Deputy Secretary of State Paul Wolfowitz needed a link between
Iraq and the 11 September attacks, Mr Ritter says, Mr Chalabi
discovered "defectors" who knew of the training of "Arab" hijackers
by Iraqi intelligence at a facility near the Iraqi town of Salman
Pak, complete with a commercial airliner that was used by would-be
air pirates using only knives and � a lovely touch, this, in view of
11 September � practising only in "groups of five". The Salman Pak
facility exists, Mr Ritter says, but its use as an al-Qa'ida training
camp has never been substantiated.
The UN, Mr Ritter reveals, "stopped using Chalabi's information as a
basis for conducting inspections once the tenuous nature of his
sources and his dubious motivations became clear". Mr Chalabi's
"sponsors", according to Mr Ritter in the Christian Science Monitor,
are Mr Wolfowitz, former CIA director James Woolsey, and former Under
Secretary of State Richard Perle, who rejoices in the nickname of
"Prince of Darkness".
Also from the Asia China section.
Claims of British soldiers firing on Afghan family
Karzai promises stern justice for killers of minister as pilgrims
face further delays
British paratroops shoot man dead in Kabul gun battle
US forces move on Filipino militants
Rioting outside stadium mars 'Game of Unity'
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