Reuters

PARIS (Reuters) - The CIA rejected as fantasy claims in a new book that
it tried to negotiate a non-aggression pact with Osama bin Laden just
two months before the September 11, 2001 airliner attacks against the
United States.

Richard Labeviere, author of "The Corridors of Terror," released on
Thursday, says the CIA's Dubai station chief approached bin Laden while
the al Qaeda leader was being treated for a serious kidney complaint in
the United Arab Emirates.

He said the meeting took place in the American Hospital in Dubai on July
12, barely eight weeks before al Qaeda militants slammed fuel-laden
hijacked airliners into the Pentagon and New York's World Trade Center,
killing almost 3,000 people. "Such an allegation is sheer fantasy, no
such thing occurred," CIA spokesman Mark Mansfield said, echoing an
earlier rebuttal by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency of French media
reports in October 2001 about the alleged Dubai meeting.

Labeviere said he learned of an encounter from a contact in the Dubai
hospital, and said the event was confirmed in detail during a separate
interview in New York with a Gulf prince who presented himself as an
adviser to the Emir of Bahrain.

The prince, who the author met in a Manhattan hotel in November 2001,
appeared very well-informed about the CIA-bin Laden meeting.

Labeviere said the second contact told him the face-to-face had been
arranged by Prince Turki al-Faisal, the head of the Saudi General
Intelligence Department.

He quoted the second contact as saying:

"By organizing this meeting...Turki thought he could start direct
negotiations between the Saudi millionaire (bin Laden) and the CIA on
one fundamental point: that bin Laden and his supporters end their
hostilities against American interests."

In exchange, the CIA and the Saudi (intelligence) services undertook to
allow bin Laden to return to his native country, even though he was
stripped of his Saudi nationality in July 1994. The Dubai meeting was a
failure, Labeviere said.

The Saudi intelligence chief was sacked in the wake of the September 11
attacks.

Labeviere named Larry Mitchell as the CIA station chief who met bin
Laden, describing him as a colorful figure well-known on the Dubai
social circuit.

Mitchell left the Gulf state on July 15, 2001 and Labeviere said CIA
headquarters in Langley, Virginia, had told him the operative was
unavailable for interview because he was on his honeymoon.

At the time, bin Laden had a multi-million dollar price on his head for
his suspected role in the 1998 bombings of two U.S. embassies in East
Africa that killed 224 people.

Bin Laden was treated between July 4 and July 14 in the urology
department of a kidney specialist at the American Hospital, Labeviere
said, adding that the hospital denied this.

Perhaps, perhaps not. Doesn't really matter, though. We've tried
peaceful arrangements with many terrorist organizations. And would deny
every one that fails. Maybe we did, maybe we didn't, doesn't make a
difference.


So, what's your point with this one?

Interesting article, Sahdow Eagle. Wouldn't surprise me much if it were
accurate. It's always good for opponents to have ways to talk with each
other. prince Turki, one of the intermediaries described in the article,
is a pretty savvy guy, and generally pro-American. He went to Georgetown
University, here in Washington.

Oceans