268 AMERICAN SPYOne of the many justifications given by the Bush administration for the
invasion of Iraq after 9/11 was purported ties between Saddam Hussein’s
regime and al-Qaeda. To provide evidence of these alleged ties, the admin-
istration cited a dubious Czech intelligence service report that an Iraqi
secret agent met with 9/11 bomber Mohammed Atta in Prague, prior
to the 9/11 attacks.^4 If true, this would have established a link between
Saddam, al-Qaeda, and possibly the 9/11 attacks.
Both before and after 9/11, I was conducting private business inves-
tigations in the Czech Republic, using my unilateral sources. My trusted
and reliable “agents” worked privately for me and had no axe to grind
in terms of influencing official policy one way or the other. Our clients
were typically private companies, not governments, and they would only
pay for solid, reliable intelligence. My agents had an exceptional five-year
reporting track record with my firm.
Because I had proven unilateral sources in Prague, US government
authorities reached out to me to investigate whether or not Mohammed
Atta had ever met with an Iraqi intelligence agent in Prague, as alleged.
The US government presumably also directly asked their Czech counter-
parts this same question, but it’s always good to have multiple sources, par-
ticularly when a requirement is so critical that deploying American troops
to wage war abroad may hinge on the answer.
My agents conducted a thorough investigation and reported confi-
dently and conclusively that no such meeting between Iraqi intelligence
and al-Qaeda ever took place in Prague. I passed the report on to my
US government contacts. In light of my Czech sources’ stellar intelligence
reporting history, my belief is their intel was accurate. My Czech contacts
could not speculate as to why the head of the Czech intelligence service
had allegedly reported otherwise. Their position was that no one inside the
Czech service believed the al-Qaeda meeting had taken place. My own
speculation is that perhaps an American official in Prague, wishing to tell
the Bush administration what it wanted to hear, passed along this false
report.
Although my report was just one small piece of the puzzle, shortly after
I submitted it, the Bush administration began to downplay the alleged link