Interesting stuff, interesting to delve deeper into. I decided not to want to go on Newsmax alone after reading their "Editor's note" on "FBI Agent Gary Aldrich reveals how the Clintons helped cause 9/11", so I looked up the article in the
Philadelphia Inquirer.
From what I gathered there, the evidence the judge based his decision "that Iraq had provided 'material support' to bin Laden and his al-Qaeda network" on was the following:
- the testimony of former CIA director James Woolsey Jr, contending that Salman Pak was used to train non-Iraqi fundamentalists in techniques of hijacking;
- a photograph, taken a year before the 2001 terrorist attacks, that showed a large airliner at a facility called Salman Pak where there is no landing strip, of which the prosecuting lawyer Beasley contended that it was used to train hijackers;
- the testimony of three Iraqi defectors, who, according to the additional info Newsmax suggests, testified "that the facility was a virtual hijacking classroom where al-Qaeda recruits practiced overcoming U.S. flight crews using only small knives".
Woolsey's testimony is contradicted by what his successor at the CIA, Tenet, says, who "has publicly denied that Baghdad played any role whatsoever in the 9/11 attacks". Political motivations for the one or other position can be attributed at will. Which leaves us with the photograph and the defectors' testimony. Are they convincing proof?
"Judge Baer said Beasley did prove it, but only "barely"', writes the Inquirer. There is one more publication that covered the case:
the New York Lawyer. Though most of the law-stuff is abracadabra to me, it sounds like an important enough addendum. Let me quote - and do read the last paragraph, or alternatively skip to my summary below:
Quote:Judge Harold Baer ruled yesterday that the survivors of two people who were killed in the World Trade Center terrorist attack had presented enough evidence, "albeit barely," to be awarded $104 million in damages [..]
Baer then turned to the standard of proof required against the Iraqi defendants under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, 28 U.S.C. ยง 1608(e), which states that "No judgment by default shall be entered by a court of the United States ... against a foreign state ... unless the claimant establishes his claim or right to relief by evidence satisfactory to the court."
Without a 2nd Circuit case expressly defining the meaning of the phrase "evidence satisfactory to the court," Judge Baer noted that other courts hold conflicting views about the appropriate standard. And while some courts have required "clear and convincing evidence," Baer sided with those judges who have applied a more relaxed standard, which he said is "a legally sufficient evidentiary basis for a reasonable jury to find for plaintiff." [..]
Judge Baer then turned to the heart of the matter: whether the World Trade Center attack was perpetrated by al-Qaida with the aid of material support from Iraq.
He reviewed the testimony of Woolsey and terrorism expert Dr. Laurie Mylroie on alleged links between the Iraqi regime and al-Qaida, including whether lead hijacker Mohammed Atta met with a high-ranking member of Iraqi intelligence in Prague before Sept. 11, and whether Saddam Hussein ran a hijacking training camp in Salman Pak, just outside of Baghdad.
"Although these experts provided few actual facts of any material support that Iraq actually provided, their opinions, coupled with their qualifications as experts on this issue, provide a sufficient basis for a reasonable jury to draw inferences which could lead to the conclusion that Iraq provided material support to al Qaeda," he said. "In particular, Mylroie testified about Iraq's covert involvement in the World Trade Center bombing in 1993 and about the proximity of the dates of bin Laden's attack on the U.S. embassies and Hussein's ouster of weapons inspectors."
Now the fact that the District Judge decided to
"apply a more relaxed standard" concerning the standard of proof already makes it problematic to use his verdict in argueing the case to sceptics at home and abroad. But it is the last paragraph above that baffled me.
According to this quote, the judge did not base his verdict on the testimony of the defectors that Newsmax makes much of, but merely on the "opinions, coupled with their qualifications as experts on this issue" of Woolsey and Mylroie. "Opinion" being the appropriate word since
"these experts provided few actual facts of any material support that Iraq actually provided". What the judge in particular went on was Mylroie's testimony that Iraq had been covertly involved in an attack on the WTC before; and that Saddam expelled the inspectors around the same time bin Laden had the WTC attacked. Read this last line again and wonder.
Of course the NYT should have reported on this court case, why the hell not. But if I look at the wording of the judge's ruling, I think it would have been perfectly justified in doing so with some reserve.
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