|
Schily Plays Down Tip on Sept. 11 Hijacker
EFL:During a U.S. visit to discuss the use of biometric technology in the war against terror, German Interior Minister Otto Schily denied that his country knowingly passed on information on a Sep.11 hijacker to the CIA. The New York Times reported earlier Tuesday that German intelligence officials gave the CIA the above information on Marwan al-Shehhi in March 1999 and asked the Americans to track him. And, being the New York Times, they got it wrong. The story, citing a senior German intelligence official, said that after the Germans passed on the information to the CIA, they did not hear form the Americans about the matter until after Sep. 11. "Your article was a little bit misleading," Schily told a small group of reporters including one of the authors of the New York Times article, Reuters reported. What a surprise! The information was the earliest known clue the U.S. received about any of the hijackers and has now become a crucial element of an independent U.S. commissionâs investigation into Sep. 11, 2001. U.S. officials say al-Shehhi was the pilot who flew the second plane into the World Trade Center. A United Arab Emirates native, al-Shehhi moved to Germany in 1996 and became a key member of the al Qaeda Hamburg cell at the heart of the Sept. 11 plot. Mohammed Atta, one of the plot leaders, was his roommate. Schily added that the indication that German intelligence officials had made a link between the name and an upcoming attack "is not true. At that time we had no idea that (it) could be a thing like this (the Sept. 11 attacks)." The minister said that Germany gave the information on al-Shehhi to the U.S. as part of "routine" data exchanges, adding that authorities were unable to connect the rather common Arabic name "Marwan" to a family name. Itâs like trying to find "Buffy" in LA. CIA director George Tennet (photo) also rejected suggestions that his agency had failed to act on the German tip. Speaking before an annual Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on global threats on Tuesday, Tenet said, "In 1999 the Germans gave us a name -- Marwan, thatâs it, and a phone number. And we didnât sit on our hands." They checked the number, but it had been disconnected. Since they didnât have anything more than a first name, Iâm not sure what else they could have done. Posted by: Steve 2004-02-25 |
| http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=26896 |