Question:
The United States received, and continues to receive,
"critical information on the genesis of the plot to
attack New York and Washington" from the debriefing
by Syrian intelligence of a suspected al Qaeda organizer,
according to a report in the Washington Post (June 18,
2002). The subject of these debriefings is Mohammed
Haydar Zammar, a German citizen, who had been seized
in Morocco, secretly flown to Syria and questioned by
interrogators of Syria's General Security Directorate
(GSD). Is it prudent to regard this version of September
11th as information or disinformation?
Answer:
It is prudent to assume that the reports passed on
from Syria's General Security Directorate (GSD) about
September 11th are disinformation. Disinformation is
not necessarily a pure lie: it is often a carefully
constructed mosaic of both true information and misleading
information.
Although the US may consider this information about
the origins of the September 11th conspiracy "critical",
it gets it, according to Time Magazine, in the following
way:
"U.S. officials in Damascus submit written questions
to the Syrians, who relay Zammar's answers back." Time
further reports, "State Department officials like
the arrangement because it insulates the U.S. government
from any torture the Syrians may be applying to Zammar."
This arrangement provides Syria with a direct channel
to the US investigation. For example, to determine if
there was any state- sponsorship involved in the September
11th attack, the US would submit a series of questions
about who had recruited, trained and managed Atta and
other hijackers. Syrian interrogators would then extract
the answers from Mohammed Haydar Zammar, and supply
them their Syrian superiors, who after analyzing and
vetting the answers, would provide them to US officials
Not only does such a process allow Syrian officials
to mirror-read what data the US was seeking from the
submitted questions , it allows them to supply what
answers suit their interest. They can either provide
factual answers, if they fit Syria's interest, or distort
them, if they do not. The issue becomes then: what is
Syria's interest in reporting a version of the September
11th conspiracy?
According to US Office of the Coordinator for Counter
terrorism in April 2001: "Syria continued to provide
safe haven and support to several terrorist groups,
some of which maintained training camps or other facilities
on Syrian territory." If so, Syria presumably would
have an interest in deflecting interest away from any
connection between these groups and the September 11th
plot.
Syrian President Bashar Assad has also a relationship
with Saddam Hussein in Iraq, even though Saddam had
been an enemy of his father. Syria now illegally smuggles
150,000 to 200,000 barrels of Iraqi oil per day, according
to US intelligence. Syria and Iraq split up to a billion
dollars in the clandestine revenue from these sales.
Also, according to Ambassador Dennis Ross, Syria is
covertly assisting Iraq to procure spare parts for its
military-industrial complex from Eastern Europe.
In any case, Assad strongly opposes any US attack
on Iraq. He said in an interview with the Italian daily
Coriera de la Sierra, on February 17, 2002: "As a neighbor
to sisterly Iraq, it would be natural and intuitive
to sympathize with it and stand against any strike or
military action against it."
If so, it would presumably in Assad's interest to
avoid giving the US any justification for such an attack.
So he would provide information from Zammar that would
deflect away, not towards, any possible Iraqi involvement
in the recruitment of Atta and other hijackers.
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