Powell: U.S. Grilling Iraqi Agent on 9/11 Link
Ten days after President Bush denied that the U.S. had any
evidence tying Iraq to the 9/11 attacks, Secretary of State Colin Powell has
revealed that U.S. investigators are interrogating an Iraqi intelligence agent
on reports that he met with lead 9/11 hijacker Mohamed Atta.
Asked Sunday whether interrogators are questioning captured Mukhabarat
operative Ahmed al Ani about the reported April 2001 meeting in Prague, Powell
told ABC's "This Week," "That really is something the intelligence community is
examining."
Powell called questions about the alleged Atta-al Ani meeting, which Czech
officials say took place seven months before the 9/11 attacks, "perfectly
logical."
"I'm sure that all of these questions, which are perfectly logical, are being
asked," he said. "But they're being kept close so you can use the answers to one
question to go back to another source and see if you can get it corroborated."
Though the CIA has repeatedly tried to discredit the story, Czech
intelligence officials have continued to insist that the Atta-al Ani meeting did
indeed take place. Al-Ani was a later expelled from the Czech Republic in
connection with a plot to bomb Radio Free Europe/Radio Free Iraq.
Al Ani was captured by coalition forces in Iraq in July
2003.
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