White House's Lame Excuses on bin Laden Tape Via NY Transfer News * All the News That Doesn't Fit www.cnn.com - Dec 21, 2001 Bin Laden named nine hijackers on tape, not one By David Ensor CNN Washington Bureau WASHINGTON (CNN) --The original translation of the Osama bin Laden videotape misses the fact that bin Laden identifies nine of the hijackers, a Saudi dissident says and an independent translator hired by CNN confirmed Thursday. "The translators missed a lot of things on the tape," said Ali Al-Ahmed, director of the Saudi Institute, an organization that promotes human rights in Saudi Arabia. Al-Ahmed said bin Laden identifies nine of the suspected hijackers -- not just Mohamed Atta as had the original translation. Al-Ahmed and the independent translator -- who did not want to be identified -- said bin Laden named two additional hijackers on the tape: the brothers Nawaf al Hazmi and Salam al Hazmi. Later, he said four other hijackers were from the Al Ghamdi tribe. He also mentioned two others, both named al Shehri. Also left out of the translation, they said, were the names of three Saudi clerics who publicly backed the attacks, according to the man speaking with bin Laden on the tape. At least one of those three Saudi clerics was possibly a government official. One more striking example of detail left out of the government translation, according to Al-Ahmed and the independent translator: Bin Laden's description of exactly what he said to others just before the radio announcement that the first of the attacks had succeeded. They quoted him as saying he told followers, "When you hear a breaking news announcement on the radio, kneel immediately, and that means they have hit the World Trade Center." * Friday December 21 2:01 PM ET (via Yahoo) Bin Laden Tape Examined Further By RON KAMPEAS and CHRISTOPHER NEWTON, Associated Press Writers WASHINGTON (AP) - Osama bin Laden speaks fondly of several Sept. 11 hijackers on the videotape released by the U.S. military, asking Allah to "accept their action," according to a more thorough translation of the tape by a government-hired Arabic expert. The new analysis of the videotape released last week revealed "a whole bunch of names," translator George Michael said in an interview with The Associated Press. The Pentagon said Friday that its less-complete translation was not aimed at concealing information. "There was every attempt to give you the best translation we could in a relatively limited amount of time," Pentagon spokeswoman Victoria Clarke told a press briefing. The White House echoed that sentiment, saying there was no deliberate effort to omit words. Fleischer said that Bush administration officials had encouraged the media to seek independent translations. Any detail arising from those independent translations, Fleischer said, "doesn't change anything for the president." Michael, one of two translators hired by the government, said he handed his more detailed transcript to the Pentagon on Wednesday at 1 p.m. He would identify only three names: Nawaq Alhamzi, Salem Alhamzi and Wail Alshehri. "You'll have to talk to the Pentagon about the rest," Michael said. An independent translator, who is a native Saudi, told the AP that bin Laden also utters the name Alghamdi several times in reference to suspected hijackers Ahmed Alghamdi, Hamza Alghamdi and Saeed Alghamdi. References bin Laden made in the original transcription of the tape already tied him to the attacks - but naming and blessing several hijackers suggests an intimacy that would reinforce U.S. claims of his deep involvement in the planning. Federal investigators believe Alshehri was on American Airlines Flight 11, the first plane to hit the World Trade Center in New York; Alhamzi and Alhamzi were on American Airlines Flight 77, which hit the Pentagon. Ahmed and Hamza Alghamdi were aboard United Flight 175, the second plane to crash into the World Trade Center. Saeed Alghamdi died aboard United Flight 93, which crashed 80 miles southeast of Pittsburgh. The names only emerged now, Michael said, because the first translation was rushed in 12 hours, in a room in the Pentagon. It took four days to complete the fuller transcript, Michael said. Clarke said Friday that it was not surprising to find more information with a more in-depth study of the conversation, considering the poor quality of the sound on the tape. The Pentagon released the first transcript last week, offering a glimpse of terrorist planning as bin Laden told his aides and clerics that the deaths and destruction achieved by the Sept. 11 attacks exceeded his "most optimistic" expectations. Bin Laden appeared calm and at times amused as he talked about the attacks on the hour-long tape, dated Nov. 9, that officials said was found in Afghanistan. Bin Laden's voice was difficult to hear on the tape, and government-hired translators at several points wrote "inaudible" when they didn't agree on an interpretation or couldn't make out the words. None of the hijackers' names that Michael included in his new translation was in the first transcript. The first government translation disclosed that bin Laden mentioned Mohamed Atta, the suspected ringleader of the terrorists. In the more thorough version, Michael said, bin Laden names several other hijackers and says: "may God accept their action," according to the English translation. Bin Laden used "Allah," the Arabic word for God. Michael, who is originally Lebanese, translated the tape with Kassem Wahba, an Egyptian. Both had difficulties with the Saudi dialect bin Laden and his guest use in the tape, Michael said. Attempts to reach Wahba were unsuccessful. Some passages remain a mystery, Michael said. Bin Laden's Saudi guest names the person who smuggled him from Saudi Arabia into Afghanistan, but the translators were unable to make out the name. Ali al-Ahmed, a Saudi who translated the tape, told the AP that the visitor attaches the words "jalad alhayaa" - a phrase that some use to describe the Saudi religious police - to the smuggler's name. Al-Ahmed's translation also claims that bin Ladens' guests delight in the support that several prominent Saudi clerics are giving to terrorists. "Right at the time of the strike on America, he gave a very moving speech, Sheikh Abdulah al-Baraak," bin Laden said on the tape. "And he deserves thanks for that." Al-Baraak teaches at a university in Saudi Arabia and acts as a religious adviser to government officials. Any connection between bin Laden and a Saudi official would probably embarrass the Saudi government, which has given its support to the United States. "I would think that all of this should have been obvious to the translators working for the government," al-Ahmed said. "This might be an attempt to cover up what might hurt the United States politically." Al-Ahmed, whose McLean, Va.-based Saudi Institute often alleges human rights abuses in Saudi Arabia, said the government has asked him for his own translation. * US defends gaps in Laden tape WASHINGTON, Dec 21 (AFP)--The White House insisted on Friday that poor audio and video quality, not an effort to spare Saudi Arabia, accounts for gaps in the publicly-released transcript of a tape showing Osama Bin Laden gloating about the September 11 terror strikes. The Department of Defense "said it up front all along" it would not release a verbatim transcript because of flaws in the recording, said White House spokesman Ari Fleischer, who read what he said was the full warning. "'Due to the quality of the original tape it is NOT' -- and that's in large letters -- 'NOT a verbatim transcript of every word spoken during the meeting, but does convey the messages and information flow," the spokesman said. Any missing words from the transcript released December 13 are "a function of interpreting and translating tapes that are in many places hard to hear," Fleischer told reporters. US television networks late on Thursday reported their translators had uncovered gaps in the recording, which many administration officials view as the smoking gun tying the Saudi-born militant to the attacks. ABC News reported the Pentagon had omitted sections that "could be embarrassing to the government of Saudi Arabia." At the start of the tape, a Saudi identified as Khalid al-Harbi speaking with Bin Laden "seems to claim he was smuggled into Afghanistan by a member of Saudi Arabia's religious police," according to ABC's translation. The Saudi man also said certain religious leaders in Saudi Arabia, some of them close to the government, had hailed the attacks in their sermons. In the transcript released by the Pentagon, Bin Laden named Mohammed Atta as one of the suicide plane hijackers. But in the ABC version, he also mentioned Saudi nationals Nawaf al-Hazmi and Salim al-Hazmi as part of the operation. A member of the team that translated the tape for the US government told ABC News the network's translation was consistent with portions of the government's transcript that had not been released to the public. "That's farfetched," Fleischer told reporters. [And isn't this entire nightmare scenario, from Sept 11th on, completely and utterly FARFETCHED ????] ================================================================= NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us 339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org e-mail: nyt@blythe.org ================================================================= nytmid-12.23.01-23:03:34-29374