AIM Report: More Heads Should Roll at CBS - February B
AIM Report | February 16, 2005
A medical doctor who treated a future hijacker for a skin lesion has stated that the lesion he treated was consistent with one caused by anthrax.
Writing in the Washington Post, Tina Brown said that Dan Rather came across in the CBS panel report on the "Rathergate" scandal as "an empty trench coat" because he had very little to do with the actual report that went on the air. It seems clear she didn't read it. In a bombshell ignored by most media, the report reveals that Dan Rather personally assured CBS News President Andrew Heyward that the discredited Bush National Guard story was not only true but "very big."
The report, prepared by former Attorney General Dick Thornburgh and Louis D. Boccardi, former president of The Associated Press, says that Rather assured Heyward that he, Rather, had not "been involved in this much checking on a story since Watergate." The report says that Rather assured Heyward that the bogus story was "thoroughly vetted," or documented and verified.
In another bombshell, the report reveals on page 130 that CBS News producer Mary Mapes, one of four fired because of the scandal, had documented information in her possession before the controversial September 8 broadcast that George W. Bush, while in the Texas Air National Guard, "did volunteer for service in Vietnam but was turned down in favor of more experienced pilots." This information is critical because Rather, in the broadcast, insinuated that Bush was among the "many well-connected young men [who tried to] pull strings and avoid service in Vietnam."
This means that Mapes, who was very close to Rather and enjoyed his confidence, had the evidence exonerating Bush of the malicious charge of going into the National Guard to avoid Vietnam. The report shows that there were multiple credible sources to prove that he was in fact willing to go to Vietnam as a pilot. However, CBS News deliberately kept this information from its viewers and conveyed an opposite impression. Rather, Mapes & Company were trying to depict Bush as a coward who, as Commander-in-Chief, was sending American soldiers to their deaths in Iraq.
The report also says that while Rather told Heyward the Bush story was big, he told Heyward it wasn't "as big as Abu Ghraib," the Iraqi prisoner abuse story used by CBS and other media to blacken the reputation and image of the United States around the world.
Rather's reference to Abu Ghraib, in the context of preparing the bogus attack on Bush, demonstrates that the agenda was not only to sabotage Bush's re-election campaign but to undermine the war in Iraq. The Abu Ghraib story on CBS inflamed the Arab/Muslim world against the U.S., inevitably costing the lives of more American soldiers in Iraq at the hands of fanatical Muslim terrorists.
What's more, it turns out that David Hackworth, a controversial retired colonel who has emerged as a strident opponent of how the Iraq war is being conducted, was a key source for canned CBS producer Mapes in both stories.
In what can only be seen as a major blow to his credibility as a spokesman on military affairs, the CBS report (page 96) says that Hackworth was interviewed by Rather for the Guard story "as an expert to evaluate the documents that Mapes obtained from Lieutenant Colonel Burkett." Bill Burkett is the discredited "source" who now says he got the documents from yet another "source" who cannot be located. Burkett admits lying about his "source."
Hackworth's Role
Hackworth, the report says, concluded the phony documents were "genuine," and Rather thought Hackworth was a "strong and valuable expert witness." Mapes also thought Hackworth "was important for the segment" that aired on September 8, the report says, but the Hackworth excerpts were "ultimately cut from the final script" for reasons that aren't explained.
In the Abu Ghraib story, Hackworth also played a controversial role, arranging for a soldier subsequently found guilty of abusing Iraqi prisoners in the Abu Ghraib scandal to funnel information through a relative to Rather, Mapes and CBS. The 60 Minutes Abu Ghraib story aired in April 2004. The soldier, Staff Sgt. Ivan "Chip" Frederick, wanted to blame his own criminal conduct on higher-ups. Taking a similar approach, Hackworth accused "the very top of the Pentagon" of "covering up obscene behavior" at Abu Ghraib "while placing the sole blame on Joe and Jill Grunt."
In fact, a commission run by former Defense Secretary James Schlesinger investigated the controversy and found that Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and other military leaders did not set policies that approved or condoned torture and other abuse.
USA Todaygate
While Hackworth is now scrambling to explain his role in the story, another terrible performance was turned in by USA Today. In covering the release of the CBS report, USA Today ran three items—a front-page story by Peter Johnson, "CBS Fires 4 over Bush Guard Story," a story by Peter Johnson and Mark Memmott, "CBS firings should go higher up, critics say," and an editorial, "CBS's rush to air a story produces fiction, firestorm." None of the stories or editorials mentioned that USA Today had run a story based on the same documents on September 9, one day after the CBS Report aired. USA Today used the CBS broadcast as proof that the documents were genuine.
After AIM issued a press release on this matter, media reporter Howard Kurtz of the Washington Post picked up the story and asked USA Today editorial page editor Brian Gallagher whether he needed to address his own paper's role. "We think the editorial covered everything it needed to cover," he told Kurtz.
Responding to another press release issued by AIM on the scandal, White House correspondent John Roberts claimed that he didn't know that the documents he provided to the White House about the President's National Guard service were questionable and came from Burkett.
AIM had noted that Roberts was the personal representative of CBS News in a meeting with White House communications director Dan Bartlett, at a critical time when CBS News was developing its fake "story." In the meeting with Roberts, Bartlett was told that he was supposed to confirm or deny authenticity of the National Guard documents that turned out to be bogus. When Bartlett did not immediately denounce them as forgeries, Roberts provided that information to 60 Minutes producer Mapes. This was seen as the critical green light for Mapes and Rather to go ahead with the smear.
Ignorance Is Bliss
Roberts now insists that "I should point out that at the time I interviewed Dan Bartlett, I was NOT AWARE that the documents had come from Bill Burkett. In fact, I did not find out that particular gem of information until I read about it in Newsweek magazine some time later. I was never informed by Mary Mapes at any time of the source of the documents a point I made clear to the Thornburgh/Boccardi investigating panel."
AIM countered that Roberts should have known or should have asked about the source of the documents. The main problem, however, was that the White House received the documents only three and one-half hours before Bartlett was interviewed by Roberts about them. That was unfair and Roberts knew it. He should have refused to play a role in this ambush. He then told Mapes & Company that the Bartlett interview, such as it was, went well!
Roberts, Heyward and Rather should all be held accountable in the scandal. But they have escaped punishment.
ANTHRAX MAILER IDENTIFIED?
By Kenneth J. Dillon*
* Kenneth J. Dillon is a former State Department intelligence analyst who now runs a medical device company.
A leaked top secret Canadian Security Intelligence Service report may provide the missing piece of evidence needed to identify the long elusive anthrax mailer. While confirmation is still lacking, we now have enough shreds of evidence to piece together a theory of the case that would resolve key anomalies. In turn, that theory can point us toward where we might find confirmatory evidence.
According to an August 27, 2004 article in Canada's National Post, Mohammed Mansour Jabarah, a 22-year old Canadian, told interrogators that he had heard from Abu Abdelrahman, who worked for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM), mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, that the November 12, 2001 crash of American Airlines Flight 587 in New York was the result of an al Qaeda shoe bomb. The bomber was "Farouk the Tunisian." Newspaper photographs showed him to be Abderraouf Jdey, a 36-year old Montreal-based Canadian of Tunisian origin.
Jdey is one of the seven al-Qaeda terrorists listed in the FBI's plea for information from the public in May, 2004. He had emigrated to Canada in 1991, gained citizenship in 1995, and then traveled to Afghanistan where he trained as one of the ten substitutes for the 9/11 attackers. According to KSM, Jdey was slated for pilot training and was to be in the second wave of attacks. Jdey recorded a martyrdom statement in a video later found by American forces in Afghanistan. He returned to Montreal in summer 2001.
A Theory Of The Case
Al Qaeda had a history of interest in biological weapons. There is evidence that the 9/11 attackers had anthrax in their possession during the months preceding September 11, 2001. They were evidently seeking a way to use a crop-duster to spread anthrax over an American city. A medical doctor who treated a future hijacker for a skin lesion has stated that the lesion he treated was consistent with one caused by anthrax. A pharmacist reported to the FBI that Mohammed Atta, leader of the 9/11 attacks, had sought a remedy for skin irritation on his hands, which were red from the wrists down. An accompanying fellow terrorist sought a remedy for a cough.
If the 9/11 attackers possessed anthrax, they would have had to hand it off to another al-Qaeda operative before September 11. Otherwise the precious vials of anthrax, the first and only weapon of mass destruction that al Qaeda had ever possessed, would have been wasted.
But they wouldn't necessarily trust just any al-Qaeda operative to safeguard and perform with the anthrax, and perhaps they knew very few of al Qaeda's sleepers in North America anyway. They would want to give the anthrax to an operative they knew and trusted, one who would use it to the best effect.
Abderraouf Jdey appears to have been exactly such a person. He stands out from the nine other 9/11 substitutes. He was older, from a different country of origin, with Canadian citizenship, with semi-sleeper status, and with a clear designation as part of the second wave. He had trained in Afghanistan simultaneously with Mohammed Atta. He was also well enough educated to have been slated for pilot training.
So Jdey was the logical person for Atta to hand off the anthrax to. We can also identify the logical time and place for such a transfer to have occurred.
One of the unexplained anomalies in the hijackers' story has been why Atta and a fellow hijacker travelled from Boston to Portland, Maine on September 10. Taking a feeder flight from Portland to Boston on the morning of September 11 caused Atta nearly to miss his connection, and he and his companion had to pass through security questioning twice rather than once, at a significant added risk of detection.
So Atta must have had some reason to go to Portland that outweighed such risks. The most obvious explanation would be that he had an important meeting on a subject that required face-to-face contact, not just a veiled telephone conversation. A transaction with someone coming from the North, arranged for outside of Boston, would lessen the risk of surveillance.
Clearly, Jdey would be a very likely "someone," and handing over the vials of anthrax would furnish a compelling reason for their otherwise risky meeting.
Anomalies
If we assume that Jdey indeed was the recipient of vials of anthrax, in Portland or by some other means, then subsequent events could have followed this course:
While the 9/11 hijackers had sought access to a crop-duster to spread the anthrax over an American city, Jdey presumably saw that receiving training at an American flight school was not in the cards after 9/11. So he had to resort to another method of distributing the anthrax.
He decided to mail it. The first mailings took place in September immediately after the initial U.S. Air Force's first bombings in Afghanistan, presumably as a response to them. The second mailings, to Senators Daschle and Leahy, occurred in October and included ultrahigh-quality anthrax. Driving (or taking a train) hundreds of miles from Montreal to Trenton to mail the letters made sense because it perfectly disguised Jdey's Canadian base.
The anthrax letters do not show any obvious Gallicisms that would betray that they were from a fluent French-speaker, which Jdey presumably was. But they are consistent with a person who has acquired English as a second language, and there is nothing in them that is inconsistent with Jdey as author. In fact, Jdey is a very plausible author of the anthrax letters.
One of the main characteristics or anomalies of the anthrax mailer case has been how remarkably elusive the mailer was both during his period of activity in autumn, 2001, and thereafter. Despite a massive FBI investigation backed by hundreds of thousands of tips from the American public, the mailer has succeeded in hiding his tracks. Being based in Canada, contrary to every expectation, would nicely explain his elusiveness during his period of activity.
The leaked Canadian intelligence report from 2002 provides a plausible explanation for the lack of information about Jdey's whereabouts since then (as well as for the cessation of the anthrax mailings): Jdey committed suicide on Flight 587 on November 12, 2001.
Why might Jdey be a likely candidate to do this, quite aside from the Jabarah account?
If he was indeed the anthrax mailer, he was a hard-headed man of action. Instead of dreaming about impractical schemes of sowing the anthrax in the skies above a city, he realized that he had to use it before being captured. So he mailed it. Thus, too, in early November, 2001, he recognized that as the anthrax mailer he was likely to be arrested at any moment, so he would do well to act on his pledge of martyrdom by turning himself into a shoe bomber. The first success of Afghanistan's Northern Alliance, backed by the U.S. Air Force, could have triggered his decision to leave Canada in early November (the Canadian intelligence report has him leaving Canada in November, though the date is not provided). On November 12 he showed up at Kennedy International Airport and boarded Flight 587.
No Canadian passport holders are listed on the final passenger list of Flight 587. Possessor of many aliases, Jdey presumably had several other passports. A number of the passengers were plausibly francophones; perhaps one of them was Jdey.
Jdey would presumably have handed whatever remained of the vials of anthrax to a fellow operative in Canada or the northeastern United States.
The cessation of the mailings after October, 2001 after their initial success is a third anomaly neatly explained by this account. A fourth anomaly, of course, is that Flight 587 disintegrated and crashed.
Seeking Confirmation
The scenario sketched out above has the virtue of conforming to the evidence available in a logical manner. Three main perceptions support it: 1) it would powerfully explain Atta's mysterious Portland trip; 2) it would show why the mailer has proven so elusive and why the mailings ceased; and 3) it fits very well the characteristics that caused Jdey to stand out among the substitute hijackers, and indeed that differentiated him from the actual hijackers as well.
Of course, there are major gaps in the evidence. The putative Portland meeting may never have occurred. The cause of the crash of Flight 587 remains controversial. According to the official inquiry, there was no evidence of an explosion on board. Accounts of eyewitnesses from the ground, however, are highly consistent with a shoe-bomb explosion. The explosion could have been small enough to be masked by wake turbulence from the preceding JAL aircraft. The co-pilot's frantic manipulation of the rudder would thus have been a hopeless attempt to rescue a doomed aircraft.
We don't know when Jdey crossed the border. We have no proof that he ever was in Trenton. It is conceivable that he used messengers to meet with Atta and mail the letters. In short, we don't know a lot that we need to know.
So it is necessary to seek evidence that would confirm, refute, or modify this account. Here are some ways to do so:
-
Review the security videos from Kennedy International Airport.
-
See if the ticket agents recognize Jdey's photo.
-
Check the backgrounds of the likely suspects from the final passenger list.
-
Check both Canadian and U.S. border-crossing records.
-
Test Jdey's apartment for anthrax.
-
Test any vehicles he owned or rented for anthrax.
-
Interrogate al-Qaeda detainees regarding Jdey, shoe bombs, and anthrax. Richard Reid, whose unsuccessful shoe bombing attempt occurred just one month after the Flight 587 crash, might know something relevant.
-
Hunt through Jdey's background. Was he educated as a chemical engineer, for instance? Had he served in the Tunisian police or army? What kind of a person was he?
-
Publicize Jdey and his photo more widely than at present, in hopes of finding further evidence from the public.
The publicly available evidence suggests that Abderraouf Jdey brought down Flight 587 with a shoe bomb. Was he also the anthrax mailer?
Evidence and logic make him the leading suspect.
What You Can Do
Send the enclosed cards or cards and letters of your own choosing to Senator Bill Frist and Douglas H. McCorkindale and Louis D. Boccardi of Gannett Inc.
CLIFF'S NOTES
by Cliff Kincaid
DEAR FELLOW MEDIA WATCHDOG: 1/26/05
WHILE PRESIDENT BUSH'S INAUGURAL ADDRESS CALLED FOR SPREADING freedom around the world, he also said, "My most solemn duty is to protect this nation and its people from further attacks and emerging threats." But the FBI still doesn't know who carried out the post 9/11 anthrax attacks. The second article in this AIM Report by Ken Dillon offers a new twist on the theory that Muslim terrorists in al Qaeda carried out the attacks. It connects the alleged perpetrator to the downing of Flight 587. Meantime, German police have arrested two al-Qaeda operatives, including one Iraqi, who were trying to purchase uranium for a nuclear or dirty bomb. Ironically, the HBO cable channel is now airing "Dirty War," a fictional account of a nuclear dirty bomb attack on London, and some conservatives are trying to put together a film about the detonation of a "suitcase" nuclear bomb on U.S. soil, smuggled in by terrorists. I wish I could say it couldn't happen here.
KEN DILLON'S ARTICLE REPRESENTS A MAJOR STEP FORWARD IN TRYING TO SOLVE THE anthrax case. As you know, however, the FBI has doggedly pursued the discredited theory that a current or former U.S. Government scientist was behind the attacks. This is the same FBI that just admitted that its $170 million Virtual Case File software for managing and sharing documents doesn't work and may have to be scrapped entirely. Now that President Bush has finally taken important steps to reform the CIA, he should reform the FBI. The quicker the better.
SOME COMMENTATORS WERE TROUBLED BY THE IMPRACTICALITY OF SPREADING FREEDOM around the world, and our failure to do so in countries such as Communist China. Another problem is that the President invoked "the words of the Koran" in calling for self-government. In the February issue of Chronicles, James George Jatras argues that it's foolish to ignore the connection between Islamic terrorism, Islam as a religion, and the Koran. What's more, he says the violence is designed to achieve something called Khilafah, a worldwide Islamic dictatorship. Ironically, he says the major bases for this movement are not in the rogue or terrorist states but in countries regarded by Washington as allies—Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Pakistan. If the U.S. presses for freedom and democracy in these countries we would probably end up with anti-American regimes that join the global Jihad against the West. It still remains to be seen what our gamble for democracy in Iraq will produce. Bush seems to be betting that a moderate form of Islam will emerge there.
SPEAKING OF THE INAUGURAL PARADE, WHICH SEEMED MORE LIKE A MILITARY FORMATION with armed guards and civilian tanks, AIM released two reports faulting the media for ignoring the role of the communist Workers World Party (WWP) and the Anarchist Resistance in planning the anti-Bush protests. Nearly 80 people were arrested when anarchists threw a brick through the windshield of a police vehicle and smashed out glass windows and doors at a police substation and at Riggs Bank and Citibank branches. As the presidential motorcade was passing by, dozens of protesters tried to break through a security fence and were met with force by law enforcement. About 14 protesters were arrested in that confrontation. Another ten protesters tried to disrupt the President's inaugural speech.
THE COMMUNIST WWP, WHICH IS LINKED TO SADDAM HUSSEIN'S IRAQ, THE NORTH Korean dictatorship, Castro's Cuba, and Colombian terrorist groups, managed to get prime space along the parade route. Their attorneys had sued the District of Columbia and others 4 years ago claiming their civil rights had been abridged when they tried to protest the first Bush inaugural. A Clinton-appointed federal judge, Gladys Kessler, ordered D.C. to turn over thousands of documents and police surveillance tapes to the attorneys for the protesters. Kessler even ordered the police to identify undercover operatives trying to discover plans of violence. Government lawyers working the case, which was filed by a WWP front group, the International Action Center, were probably not aware that they were effectively turning this data over to a group with ties to hostile regimes and terrorist groups. The WWP was investigated by the House Committee on Internal Security in 1974, but the committee was then abolished and there is no congressional body today whose mission is to investigate domestic security threats. We suggest sending the enclosed postcard to Senator Bill Frist about this.
WE MADE SEVERAL MEDIA APPEARANCES TO COMMENT ON THE CBS REPORT ON "Rathergate," including on the Fox News morning show, Joseph Farah's show on Radio America, G. Gordon Liddy's radio show, and in the Washington Times. In some unfinished business, we continue to come across people who don't know that USA Today ran virtually the same story as CBS News, based on the same bogus Bush National Guard documents. CBS apologized and fired four, although Heyward, Rather and Roberts escaped punishment. USA Today hasn't apologized or fired anybody. Now we've come across Paul Janensch, a former newspaper editor who teaches journalism at Quinnipiac University and writes a column on media misdeeds. We contacted "Professor News," as he's called, after he had written a column praising USA Today for revealing Armstrong Williams's "cozy arrangement with the Education Department," in which he received $240,000 to promote the No Child Left Behind law. We asked whether he had commented on USA Today's failure to reprimand any staffers or editors for running a Bush National Guard story based on the same bogus documents used by CBS. His response: "Never saw it. Send it to me." After we did, his response was, "Thanks. I wasn't aware of the USA Today story about the documents. I'll keep it [in] mind."
IT'S GREAT THAT HE WILL KEEP IT IN MIND, BUT WE THOUGHT THAT HE WOULD BE sufficiently concerned to do something about it. We thought that he might comment on it on WNPR, Connecticut Public Radio, where he does regular commentaries. With few exceptions, the major media have let USA Today off the hook for using the bogus documents. And yet, by any reasonable standard, USA Today's conduct was worse than CBS's. The paper ran the story one day later and used the fact that CBS had aired its story as authentication of the phony documents. .
IGNORING ITS OWN ROLE IN THE SCANDAL, USA TODAY WOULD PREFER TO BE KNOWN AS the paper that broke the Armstrong Williams story. This pleased the liberals, who wanted a a conservative scalp to hang on the wall. At last count, USA Today had run four stories about that. The paper's editors even brought up the subject in an interview with President Bush. The editors should have used the interview as an opportunity to apologize to the President over using the phony documents in a story designed to discredit his military service. Since our postcards to USA Today editor Ken Paulson have failed to produce an apology, we now suggest sending the enclosed postcard to Louis D. Boccardi, a member of the board of Gannett, the parent company of USA Today, and one of two members of the panel that investigated CBS! In good conscience, Boccardi can't ignore the role of USA Today in this scandal. We also suggest a postcard to Douglas H. McCorkindale, chairman and CEO of Gannett. Your postcards could make the difference. Without our members and supporters, we will be unable to hold Gannett and USA Today accountable.
For Accuracy in Media
Cliff Kincaid
Editor
0 Comments | Post a Comment
