The commission also considered evidence that bin Laden and Iraq jointly developed a nerve-gas factory in Sudan. In testimony before the commission March 17, former Defense Secretary William Cohen said soil samples from around the plant showed evidence of EMPTA, a component of nerve gas that doesn't occur naturally and has no commercial application. Cohen testified that the manager of the plant had gone to Baghdad to meet with the "father" of the Iraqi nerve-gas program and the plant appeared to have been financed at least partially by bin Laden.
Former President Clinton and former National Security Adviser Sandy Berger made the same assertion in testimony before the commission during private sessions. Based on that evidence, the United States decided to attack the plant with cruise missiles on Aug. 20, 1998. At a news conference Thursday, the chairman of the Sept. 11 commission, former New Jersey Gov. Thomas Kean, said intelligence from foreign sources contradicted some of the information by the U.S. government had gathered. He said the commission had concluded that it wasn't clear the plant was a nerve gas factory or that bin Laden had helped finance it. "We gave weight to (Cohen's) testimony, and it's the same belief that President Clinton had, the same belief that Sandy Berger had," Kean said. "But there are a whole bunch of people on the other side who dispute that finding, who say there is no independent collaborative evidence that those chemicals were there. And this is a debate that goes on." |