Judy Subpoenaed Again, Witnessed Israeli Torture

[RPankn]

Oh boy, is this getting interesting. This is the case, separate from Plame, where Fitzgerald subpoenaed Miller's phone records after she tipped off Grover Norquist and his lackeys to an impending FBI raid of an al-CIA/Mossad-a "Islamic charity" fundraising front being run by Norquist. Unfortunately, the 7th Circuit -- there they are again -- quashed the subpoena.

N.Y. Times reporter named in court filing

December 13, 2005

BY ANNIE SWEENEY Staff Reporter

An alleged fund-raiser for Hamas who claims a confession he gave the Israeli government was coerced during 1993 interrogations that were observed by Judith Miller named the former New York Times reporter in court filings Monday, questioning her credibility and professionalism.

Attorneys for Muhammed Salah, of Bridgeview, said two weeks ago they wrote a letter to Miller -- also recently embroiled in the White House leak investigation involving CIA operative Valerie Plame -- asking for information about the interrogation.

Miller has refused to cooperate, said Salah's attorney, Michael E. Deutsch.

Salah, along with Abdelhaleem Ashqar, of Alexandria, Va., are charged here with laundering millions of dollars in a 15-year conspiracy to fund Hamas. Hamas has taken credit for dozens of attacks abroad, including suicide bombings. Both have pleaded not guilty. [Just like the al-Arian trial, which I'm sure, there's no coincedence.]

'Swirl of controversy'

Salah's attorneys are trying to have his confession suppressed because of the alleged torture at the hands of Israeli authorities. In a written response, the U.S. government refers to a news reporter's "own observations" of an "interrogation session."

Deutsch responded by raising questions about Miller, whose reporting on the lead-up to the Iraq war -- including whether Saddam Hussein was amassing weapons of mass destruction -- has been widely criticized.

"Curiously, the government does not reveal the name of that news reporter,'' Salah's filing reads. "She is the infamous Judith Miller, who recently left her position at the New York Times amidst a swirl of controversy and claims of highly unprofessional and politically motivated conduct." [I wish someone would come out and say she's a neocon/Likud operative.]

Miller retired from the Times after spending 85 days in prison this year for refusing to testify in a U.S. government investigation into the leak of the identity of Plame.

'Special access'

Monday's court filing goes on to mention Miller's extraordinary clearance and access to the interrogations, which was arranged by the Israeli prime minister, according to court documents. Salah has asked for the government to provide written documents about what she witnessed. [Just like the "extraordinay clearance and access" she was given by Rumsfeld before the Iraq war.]

"Given the suspect circumstances under which Ms. Miller was allowed to observe Mr. Salah, and given her history of being 'too close to her sources,' defendant is entitled to broad disclosure of the facts and circumstances surrounding Ms. Miller's role in Mr. Salah's interrogation," the filing reads.

Deutsch added on Monday: "We're asking for the [U.S.] government to get the documents from Israel which document how this reporter was given special access, allegedly, to our client. We wonder whether or not she was working with the Israeli government at that time. Why was she given this special leave to go in there?"

Miller's attorney could not be reached for comment Monday, and a spokesman for U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald refused to comment.

[e-mail]


www.suntimes.com/output/news/cst-nws-miller13.html

[RPankn]

Miller's omission: The stunning detail she left out of a 1993 "scoop" on Middle East terrorism

On one level, it almost seems like piling on to write about Judy Miller at this point. Her account of her role in the "Valerie Flame" caper has been sliced and diced already, and it's doubtful that she'll ever write for the New York Times again.

But this episode is troubling enough that we feel compelled to write about it.

You may have seen an odd story making the rounds tonight, that Miller may be called as a witness in a federal case in Chicago against a Palestinian-born car dealer accused of funneling money to Hamas to finance terrorism. (In a weird twist, the case is being prosecuted by U.S. attorney Patrick Fitzgerald, the same one who successfully sought her 85-day jailing in the Plame case.) That's because Muhammad Salah claims that Israel forcibly coerced a confession from him in 1993, and because Miller witnessed part of that interrogation.

It's bizarre and pretty much unheard of for a journalist to witness an interrogation -- just like it's equally odd and even more rare for a reporter to receive a security clearance from the Pentagon. But Miller has talked very openly about watching the questioning of Salah, who she says was not mistreated. She talked about it on "60 Minutes" with Steve Croft, she wrote about it in her book, "God Has Ninety-Nine Names: Reporting From a Militant Middle East," and has answered questions from Chicago reporters about it.

But there was one place that Judith Miller did not talk about witnessing Salah's interrogation.

That would be in the New York Times -- even though she published a story about Salah's alleged ties to funding terrorism on Feb. 17, 1993, just six short days after watching the questioning of the prisoner.

What she did write is troubling. The article frequently mentions his grilling by Israeli authorities -- but always attributing the information to "Israeli officials" or, in one case, to what she describes as "to notes of the interrogations provided by them."

She did not write in the New York Times about anything she saw first-hand on Feb. 11, 1993, even though the push for her to be present reportedly came from Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin himself. [If I recall, this was not long after the WTC bombing.] On June 14, 1998, the Chicago Sun-Times reported (Note: All articles from Nexis):

In a turn of events she still describes as surreal, the Israelis, directed by former Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, allowed Miller to watch Salah's Feb. 11, 1993, interrogation. Rabin, Miller said, was anxious to prove his case.

Indeed, Miller did later back up the claims of Rabin and Israeli intelligence -- that Salah -- who was not under any duress, she claimed -- acknowledged that Hamas was raising money for terrorism in the United States. This is what Judy Miller told Steve Kroft of "60 Minutes," on March 10, 1996:

KROFT: (Voiceover) Even the Israelis acknowledge that most of the evidence against [Hamas leader Mousa] Abu Marzook comes from the interrogation of Muhammad Salah. And last November he retracted his confession. Salah said he had been struck repeatedly, forced to lie on a cold floor, deprived of sleep and that his family was threatened with violence unless he confirmed the allegations against Marzook. But one person who is skeptical of the torture story is Judith Miller, a New York Times reporter who has spent the past four years writing a book--out next month--about Hamas and other Islamic militant groups. In 1993, she was allowed to witness on closed-circuit television just one of nine interrogation sessions the Israelis conducted with Salah.

Ms. JUDITH MILLER (Reporter, The New York Times): He began to talk to his Israeli interrogator about his activities in the United States and men with whom he had dealt, the l--political and military leaders in Hamas and the name that he mentioned most often was Mousa Abu Marzook.

KROFT: It was his supervisor in it.

Ms. MILLER: Yes. And Muhammad Salah was a military activist; he was not in the political branch.

KROFT: Did he seem like someone who had been tortured?

Ms. MILLER: I have no way of knowing what the Israelis may have done to Muhammad Salah before I entered that room. I know that it has often been alleged, though the Israelis deny it, that they do use torture in prisons and Muhammad Salah's lawyer told me that he was subjected to some kinds of torture. But the man I saw was not under any pressure and I believed the man I heard at the time.

What Miller told Kroft that she saw was pretty compelling stuff: An alleged terrorist supporter talking about his activities inside the United States -- and naming names. But apparently it wasn't compelling enough for her 1993 article that was headlined: "Israel Says That a Prisoner's Tale Links Arabs in U.S. to Terrorism." [It amazes me how far back the propaganda had started, and which has lead us into the current situation. Yet I don't remember anyone connecting the dots back then.]

The story covers a lot of the same ground as her interview with Kroft three years later, but in this story it is all attributed to Israelis. Her first paragraph:

Israeli officials say an Arab-American arrested in Israel last month has provided unusually detailed information suggesting that Hamas, the Palestinian group that has attacked Israelis and Palestinians, has drawn critical financial support and political and military guidance from agents in the United States.

Later on, those notes taken by the Israelis pop up:

"It's a code term," Mr. Salah told an interrogator, according to notes of the session provided by Israelis. "Killing your enemy is positive. And on the telephone, that's how they can talk about it." Israeli officials said that based on the statements attributed to Mr. Salah, they believe he is a senior figure in Hamas's military wing.

Later on, in a section that is headed (we kid you not): "What Salah Is Said to Have Said":

According to Israeli officials and to notes of the interrogations provided by them, Mr. Salah made these assertions...

And so on. Midway though the article, Miller deals with the issue of Salah's alleged mistreatment:

The Government has denied that the three men were mistreated, and said Mr. Salah's description of his links to Hamas was not coerced. According to Israeli security officials, Mr. Salah has been questioned almost daily at a T-shaped Formica table in a spartan room in the Governor's Building, the high-security prison.

But Ahlam Haddad, his lawyer, says that Mr. Salah denies any involvement with Hamas and that the statements attributed to him were obtained under pressure.

"He told me he was pressured into signing a confession in Hebrew, which he does not understand," the lawyer said. She added that he had not been tortured, but had been subjected to "intense interrogation for three days and nights without sleep" and had been "questioned with his hands tied behind his back."

Two things leap from the page here. One, of course, is that if she actually saw an interrogation session as she later claimed, there was no need to attribute the description of the room to "Israeli officials."

Also, this would have been a good place for her to rebut lawyer Haddad's claim that Salah was mistreated -- by relating to her readers what she later told "60 Minutes" and the Sun-Times, that she personally saw nothing of the sort. However, for reasons known only to her, she elected not to do that.

Is Miller's conduct defensible? Well, it's possible that her visit to the interrogation was "off the record," that Israeli officials wanted to show to her that Saleh's tale was true, but -- for any one of a number of reasons -- didn't want her to print that they'd let her see the interrogation. Based on our experience, some reporters would agree to an arrangement like that, and some wouldn't.

But assuming that was the case -- and this, in our opinion, is Miller's best defense -- then why did she discuss it on the record in a book and on TV just three short years later? And why all the verbal gymnastics and contortions in the article, including attributing the description of the interrogation room to "officials"?

In her first-person account of her dealings with administration official "Scooter" Libby, Miller admits that she was willing to describe him as "a former Hill staffer," which would have been a case of deliberate misdirection. Given that admission, is it too much of stretch to ask whether something similar could have happened in this 1993 article?

And what does this say about the vetting process at the New York Times? Did her editors see the Steve Croft interview in 1996, and ask her why that salient info wasn't in her newspaper version of the story? They could have, but we doubt they did.

We do know one thing: That Judy Miller goes places, like an interrogation room, and gets things, like a security clearance, that other reporters do not. And the odd thing is, she then doesn't write about them, at least not for her employer, the New York Times.

We do agree with Miller on one thing. We, too, would describe this turn of events as "surreal."

Posted on October 18, 2005 06:52 PM


www.pnionline.com/dnblog/attytood/archives/002423.html

[Moses]

Is the 7th Circuit in Texas? Who are the judges and who appointed them?