Al Kamen:

No Longer So ‘Well Confirmed’

Noted without comment.

June 17, 2004. Vice President Cheney talking to CNBC’s Gloria Borger.

Borger: “Well, let’s go to MohamedAtta for a minute, because you mentioned him as well. You have said in the past that it was, quote, ‘pretty well confirmed.’ “

Cheney: “No, I never said that.”

Borger: “Okay.”

Cheney: “Never said that.”

Borger: “I think that is . . . “

Cheney: “Absolutely not. What I said was the Czech intelligence service reported after 9/11 that Atta had been in Prague on April 9th of 2001, where he allegedly met with an Iraqi intelligence official. We have never been able to confirm that nor have we been able to knock it down.”

On Dec. 9, 2001. Cheney talking to NBC’s Tim Russert.

Cheney: “Well, what we now have that’s developed since you and I last talked, Tim, of course, was that report that — it’s been pretty well confirmed that he did go to Prague and he did meet with a senior official of the Iraqi intelligence service in Czechoslovakia last April, several months before the attack. Now, what the purpose of that was, what transpired between them, we simply don’t know at this point, but that’s clearly an avenue that we want to pursue.”