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Chirac Ordered Top Anti-Terrorism Investigator to Stop Cooperating With USA
Top French counterterrorism Judge Jean-Louis Bruguiere had been tracking ["millenium bomber"] Ahmad Ressam since 1996, and by early 1999 had his "hair on fire" because he knew Ressam was plotting an attack against America. Judge Bruguiere didnât have details of the actual attack, but he knew how Ressam fit into the al Qaeda "spiderâs web," and knew he was sent from Europe to Canada to prepare his attack. By March 1999, Judge Bruguiere had gathered enough information from terrorist cells he had broken up in France, Jordan and Australia, to send a thick file to the Canadian authorities, asking that they arrest Ressam and hold him for interrogation. Months went by, and nothing happened. Finally, Judge Bruguiere traveled personally to Montreal in October to force the issue. By then, Ressam had vanished. At one apartment Judge Bruguiere searched that Ressam had occupied, he seized a pocket datebook that detailed purchases of bomb-making chemicals. The millennium bomber had slipped through the cracks. He had gone operational. Judge Bruguiere returned to France with a sense of dread. "We came back to France," Judge Bruguiere told me, "and on Dec. 14, 1999, the news came of Ressamâs arrest. As you know, it was completely by chance. Just plain luck." .... Ultimately, Judge Bruguiere sent the complete file on Ressam ... to U.S. prosecutors, and spent seven hours testifying in a Seattle, Wash., court as a witness in the case. Without his help, the U.S. case against Ressam would have been much weaker. Thanks to Judge Bruguiere, Ressam agreed to become a government witness against Osama bin Laden and to help expose elements of the al Qaeda network.... One final irony involves another al Qaeda terrorist whose file Judge Bruguiere knew intimately: Zacarias Moussaoui, the alleged 20th hijacker, who was arrested on Aug. 17, 2001, by Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) agents because of suspicious activity while attending the Pan Am International Flight Academy in Minneapolis, Minn. When I went to see him in Paris shortly after September 11, 2001, Judge Bruguiere was grinning from ear to ear. "Youâve heard about Moussaoui?" he said, meaning Moussaouiâs arrest. Judge Bruguiere had a file on him that he couldnât wait to transmit to the U.S. prosecutors. One hint: He wasnât the 20th hijacker but was preparing a follow-on wave of attacks. In the end, Judge Bruguiere was never able to transmit his file to the U.S. prosecutors in a form they could use to prosecute Moussaoui. The Moussaoui case â lacking that hard information â remains blocked to this day. The French government of President Jacques Chirac, stepped in and ordered Judge Bruguiere to break off formal cooperation with the United States. Our one-time ally in the war on terror was about to demonstrate it had new priorities that would play themselves out dramatically during the Iraq crisis a year later. Posted by: Mike Sylwester 2004-04-19 |
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