Le Figaro piece

To: Retort
 

An article in the French daily Le Figaro confirms that Osama bin Laden
underwent surgery in an American
Hospital in Dubai in July. 

During his stay in the hospital, he met with a CIA official. While on
the World's "most wanted list", no
attempt was made to arrest him during his two week stay in the hospital,
shedding doubt on the
Administration's resolve to track down Osama bin Laden. 

Barely a few days ago Defense Secretary Rumsfeld stated that it would be
difficult to find him and
extradite him. Its like "searching for a needle in a stack of hay". But
the US could have ordered his
arrest and extradition in Dubai last July. But then they would not have
had a pretext of waging a war.
Meanwhile, innocent civilians are being killed by B-52 Bombers as means
"to go after" Osama bin
Laden. According to UN sources, the so-called "campaign against
international terrorism" could lead to
the death of several million people from an impending famine. 

The original article in French is also posted on the CRG webpage. 

Michel Chossudovsky, CRG. 2 November 2001 

The CIA met Bin Laden while undergoing
treatment at an American Hospital last July
in Dubai 

by Alexandra Richard 
Translated courtesy of Tiphaine Dickson

Le Figaro, 11 October 2001 
Posted at globalresearch.ca 2 November 2001


Dubai, one of the seven emirates of the Federation of the United Arab
Emirates, North-East of Abi-Dhabi.
This city, population 350,000, was the backdrop of a secret meeting
between Osama bin Laden and the
local CIA agent in July. A partner of the administration of the American
Hospital in Dubai claims that
public enemy number one stayed at this hospital between the 4th and 14th
of July. 

Having taken off from the Quetta airport in Pakistan, bin Laden was
transferred to the hospital upon his
arrival at Dubai airport. He was accompanied by his personal physician
and faithful lieutenant, who could
be Ayman al-Zawahari--but on this sources are not entirely certain,
four bodyguards, as well as a male
Algerian nurse, and admitted to the American Hospital, a glass and
marble building situated between
the Al-Garhoud and Al-Maktoum bridges. 

Each floor of the hospital has two "VIP" suites and fifteen rooms. The
Saudi billionnaire was admitted to
the well-respected urology department run by Terry Callaway, gallstone
and infertility specialist. Dr
Callaway declined to respond to our questions despite several phone
calls. 

As early as March, 2000, 'Asia Week,' published in Hong Kong, expressed
concern for bin Laden's
health, describing a serious medical problem that could put his life in
danger because of "a kidney
infection that is propagating itself to the liver and requires
specialized treatment". According to
authorized sources, bin Laden had mobile dialysis equipment shipped to
his hideout in Kandahar in the
first part of 2000. According to our sources, bin Laden's "travels for
health reasons" have taken place
before. Between 1996 and 1998, bin Laden made several trips to Dubai on
business. 

On September 27th, 15 days after the World Trade Center attacks, at the
request of the United States,
the Central Bank of the Arab Emirates announced an order to freeze
assets and investments of 26 people
or organisations suspected of maintaining contact with bin Laden's
organization, and in particular at the
Dubai Islamic Bank. 

"Relations between the Emirate and Saudi Arabia have always been very
close," according to sources,
"princes of reigning families, having recognized the Taliban regime,
often traveled to Afghanistan. One
of the princes of a ruling family regularly went hunting on the land of
bin Laden, whom he had known
and visited for many years." 

There are daily flights between Dubai and Quetta by both Pakistan and
Emirates Airlines. As to private
planes from Saudi Arabia or from the Emirates, they regularly fly to
Quetta, where their arrival is rarely
registered in airport logs. 

While he was hospitalised, bin Laden received visits from many members
of his family as well as
prominent Saudis and Emirates. During the hospital stay, the local CIA
agent, known to many in Dubai,
was seen taking the main elevator of the hospital to go to bin Laden's
hospital room. 

A few days later, the CIA man bragged to a few friends about having
visited bin Laden. Authorised
sources say that on July 15th, the day after bin Laden returned to
Quetta, the CIA agent was called back
to headquarters. 

In late July, Emirates customs agents arrested Franco-Algerian activist
Djamel Beghal at the Dubai
airport. In early August, French and American authorities were advised
of the arrest. Interrogated by
local authorities in Abu Dhabi, Beghal stated that he was called to
Afghanistan in late 2000 by Abou
Zoubeida, a military leader of bin Laden's organization, Al Qaeda.
Beghal's mission: bomb the US
embassy on Gabriel avenue, near the Place de la Concorde, upon his
return to France. 

According to Arab diplomatic sources as well as French intelligence,
very specific information was
transmitted to the CIA with respect to terrorist attacks against
American interests around the world,
including on US soil. A DST report dated 7 September enumerates all the
intelligence, and specifies that
the order to attack was to come from Afghanistan. 

In August, at the US Embassy in Paris, an emergency meeting was called
between the DGSE (French
foreign intelligence service) and senior US intelligence officials. The
Americans were extremely worried,
and requested very specific information from the French about Algerian
activists, without advising their
counterparts about the reasons for their requests. To the question "what
do you fear in the coming
days?", the Americans kept a difficult-to-fathom silence. 

Contacts between the CIA and bin Laden began in 1979 when, as a
representative of his family's
business, bin Laden began recruiting volunteers for the Afghan
resistance against the Red Army. FBI
investigators examining the embassy bombing sites in Nairobi and Dar es
Salaam discovered that
evidence led to military explosives from the US Army, and that these
explosives had been delivered
three years earlier to Afghan Arabs, the infamous international
volunteer brigades involved side by side
with bin Laden during the Afghan war against the Red Army. 

In the pursuit of its investigations, the FBI discovered "financing
agreements" that the CIA had been
developing with its "arab friends" for years. The Dubai meeting is then
within the logic of "a certain
American policy". 


The URL of this article is: 
http://globalresearch.ca/articles/RIC111B.html 

Copyright, Le Figaro, 2001. For fair use only.