I'm stealing that title from this Daily Kos article, which references the The Nation article thereafter.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/08/24/771555/-Sorry-Iran-Is-Not-Guilty-in-the-1994-Argentina-AMIA-Bombing#
http://www.thenation.com/article/bushs-iranargentina-terror-frame As the author says in the introduction, "Based on these interviews and the documentary record of the investigation, it is impossible to avoid the conclusion that the case against Iran over the AMIA bombing has been driven from the beginning by US enmity toward Iran, not by a desire to find the real perpetrators."
In The Nation article, they mention how the allegation that the bomb had exploded in front of the AMIA in a white Renault Trafic van found little substantiation in reality. He mentions how the US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms produced an on-scene post-explosion report "suggesting that the blast came from inside rather than outside" the AMIA building.
Also, regarding the Renault Trafic that was supposedly the van with the car bomb that exploded, only 1 of about 200 witnesses remembered seeing a white Renault Trafic, and no parts of the van were ever found - it completely vaporized and disappeared save for a small part of the engine block that serendipitously had the ID number of the vehicle. As in the embassy bombing case, the car/van holding the bomb completely vaporized/disappeared - not typical in car bomb scenarios.
When the whole case was dismissed in 2004 due to the discovery of the bribing of witnesses (see below), the judges dismissed a claim they had found in judge Galeano’s case, contained in a writ dated July 25, 1994, a week after the explosion, stating that the engine of the Renault Trafic van had been found at the site of the explosion by Argentine police forces. The writ included the signature of a fireman who claimed to have been present at the site and witnessed the discovery of the engine block. Years later, testifying before the Oral Tribunal, the fireman explained that he had not actually seen the engine block being unearthed from the rubble, but had been asked to sign as a witness and agreed. In fact, the fireman, who then found himself under under investigation for criminal charges of bearing false witness—said that he thought the engine block had been found by Israeli army rescue personnel working at the site and that the local police had just wanted to take credit for the important finding. hmmmm
The Supreme Court of Argentina in 1996 requested engineering studies of both the 1992 Israeli embassy bombing and the 1994 AMIA bombing. The three engineering / structural studies were headed by: a) Rodolfo Danesi, Director of the Institute of Structures of the National University of Tucuman, B) Arturo Bignolli, Vice President of the National Academy of Engineering, and c) Alberto Puppo, Professor, Faculty of Engineering, UBA.
The engineering studies were performed independently, but all came to similar conclusions - particularly that neither bombing involved a car bomb on the street. I've seen references to the fact that there was no crater in the street (both bombings??) and that on one side there was massive destruction, and directly across the street only broken windows and facade cracks. It would be interesting to read all three of these reports if anyone knows if they are online ?
I could only find an interview with Rodolfo Danesi, who headed up one of those studies, where he talks about the results of the studies for both bombings. http://www.lagazeta.com.ar/autobomba.htm In this interview, he says about the embassy bombing and where the bomb was placed inside the embassy: "Los explosivos se colocaron junto a una columna central a la que se transmitía gran parte la carga del edificio, de manera similar al del eje de un paraguas. Dicha columna estaba en la sala de seguridad en la cual se revisaba a cada visitante."
And he says about the AMIA bombing: "Se pudo demostrar en base a los resultados científicos obtenidos, que el colapso se produjo por un mecanismo del tipo gravitatorio originado por la destrucción de la mayor parte de las columnas de planta baja y sótano del bloque delantero. Aquí sí hubo la presencia de un vehículo capaz de transportar una cantidad considerable de explosivos. Si bien el cráter fue imposible de identificar con certeza, como que tampoco se pudo saber la ubicación y el tamaño, más que nada por que parte del edificio afectado cayó encima del lugar donde supuestamente habría explotado la carga, el método científico adoptado permitió llegar a las conclusiones antes indicadas sin que sea necesario tener en cuenta los datos del cráter." (If I read this correctly, the AMIA building must have had underground parking and they concluded the car bomb went off inside the lower levels of the building...?)
Anyone know more about what the three engineering reports say, or if they are posted online ?
One judge on the AMIA case – Juan Galeano, since impeached – even allowed the then president of DAIA Ruben Beraja (later jailed for the fraudulent collapse of his bank, Banco Mayo) to bribe a shady character named Carlos Telleldín to the tune of u$s 400,000 so he would falsely accuse a non-existent “Syrian Connection” that would in turn lead to an “Iranian connection…” This bribe was caught on videotape and shown on Argentine TV. My understanding is that Lanata broke this story. I'm not sure Ruben Beraja was directly involved in the bribe, or was shown to have known it was going to take place. Beraja went to trial for his role in the bribery scandal - I don't know what happened in that case, but with how corrupt the judiciary is here, I don't know if the trial results will actually mean anything. I've read the 400,000 dollars came from DAIA, but in other place from Argentine intelligence sources. When the whole case was thrown out due to massive corruption and bribes and secret dealings and what not, DAIA’S lawyer in the case, Martha Nercellas, received a peculiar distinction from the Oral Tribunal: The judges asked the Buenos Aires bar to look into her actions regarding the case for a potential grave breach of professional ethics. Nercellas tried to frame a suspect with a hidden recorder provided by the federal police, bargaining with him to testify against other defendants as a protected witness. That, under Argentine law, is illegal, since a person charged with crimes in a case cannot be a protected witness against others in the same case. In the recording that Nercellas made it was clear that she, an attorney for one of the aggrieved parties, was negotiating in the name of Judge Galeano.
I mention DAIA in particular as they are a sister organization to AMIA and were housed in the same building as AMIA so it certainly grabs your attention that they were involved in the creation of the false narrative. Plus, today they are holding an act in front of the AMIA building to demand transparency, truth and justice in the Nisman death. hmmph
Far more than DAIA was involved in creating the fake "who dunnit" trail however, including other judges, lawyers, shady characters, intelligence services individuals, etc etc. Quite an effort had been put into creating the fake "who dunnit' story, and in the end it caused the entire case to be thrown out. Judge Gabriel Cavallo and Federal Judge Norberto Oyarbide were also to face charges (did they?) for secondary cases. Cavallo investigated an early charge against Galeano for the payment he made to Telleldin and dismissed the charge promptly. Too promptly, according to the Oral Tribunal, who filed charges against him. Oyarbide is in trouble for the same case: Investigating a charge against one of the defendants in the AMIA case, he received a telephone tap in which a clerk in Galeano’s court described in detail how Telleldin had been paid off to testify against the policemen. The Oral Tribunal charged Oyarbide with failing to denounce a crime and filed charges against him before the council.
The “Memorandum of Understanding” that Argentina signed not long ago includes setting up a joint Argentine-Iranian “Truth Commission” with representatives from five countries with the mission of getting to the bottom of the terror attack: two countries will be named by Argentina; two by Iran; and a fifth umpire country, to be mutually agreed. 7 different countries would be involved to do a proper investigation. What's wrong with 7 countries doing a proper investigation to get to the bottom of what happened ? There already have been proper engineering investigations, but no real investigation of who did this, at least none that were not heavily intentionally diverted in wrong directions.
All the shenanigans does not necessarily point to an inside job however. Jorge Lanata and Joe Goldman investigated and wrote a book about the bombings, concluding there was no Renault Trafic or car bomb on the street, and no Iran involvement. However, they concluded there were Menem-Syrian perpetrators that (I think he says in the book ?) brought bags of explosives into both builldings during construction work. The book is out of print so I'm not sure exactly what their evidence was. Also the book was written in 1994, I think it came out in Dec '94, so long prior to all the shenanigans being brought to light. I'm not sure if they still think there were Syrian / Menem culpability in the bombings ? I think there is surely cover up involvement of Menem though - he seems to have been everywhere nearby when the fake who-dunnit trail was being created.
I don't know how logical it is that Syrians caused both bombings - particularly the embassy bombing. But we won't ever know who actually is responsible if we don't have a proper new investigation of the "who" part of the equation. A multi country endeavour along the lines of the MOU, though possibly imperfect, seems like a good start to me.
Also, remember from the wikileaks cables that the US pressured Nisman not to investigate the "who" involved in creating the face who-dunnit trail. Why? I think the massive effort to create a false narrative also needs to be investigated, at least to know what the motivations were and to make sure these motives/actors don't enter into the new investigation to throw it off again.
And just to put a nail in the coffin of this fake Iran connection, Iran in fact, was still working with Argentina on nuclear matters when these bombings happened, and then stopped working with Iran after the bombings.
From the Asia Times http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/HK15Ak03.html ,
"A report by Argentine prosecutors in support of the arrest warrants just issued for seven former Iranian officials for the 1994 terror bombing of a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires reveals that Argentina was continuing to provide Iran with low-grade enriched uranium and the two countries were in serious negotiations on broader nuclear cooperation when the bombing occurred. The new revelations on Argentine-Iranian relations in the October 25 report by prosecutors Alberto Nisman and Marcello Marquez."
"But it seems unlikely that Iranian leaders would have ordered or knowingly supported any terror bombing in Buenos Aires just when they were concerned with nailing down an agreement to protect their important interests in relations with Argentina. The report goes on to present new information that also appears to rule out an Iranian role in the 1994 AMIA bombing. It confirms that Menem canceled the second and third nuclear-technology contracts with Iran, but not the first contract involving the low-enriched uranium."
http://www.csmonitor.com/1993/0218/18071.html (Feb 1993) "Last November the US press reported that the State Department had succeeded in halting sales of nuclear supplies to Iran by Argentina and China. Amrollahi counters these reports, saying that the two deals are still being discussed. He says that his organization presently is buying low-grade uranium from Argentina....The spokesperson for the IAEA in Vienna confirmed that Iran will definitely receive delivery this year of a cargo of 20 percent enriched uranium from Argentina."
So prior to the AMIA bombings, 2 of the 3 contracts between Argentina and Iran had been put on hold, but Iran thought it would be temporary. A third contract, where Argentina was still supplying 20 percent enriched uranium to Iran, was still in effect, and negotiations were underway to broaden the nuclear cooperation. After the AMIA bombings, all nuclear cooperation was cancelled. Only China and Argentina were working with Iran on nuclear technology up till the AMIA bombings (and as far as I can tell, China was supplying technology but Argentina was the only country in the world supplying Iran with fissionable material.) So Iran would decide to bomb Argentina under these circumstances, resulting in all nuclear ties being broken thereafter ? Does this pass the smell test ?
This AMIA case just doesn't add up...and Nisman's death is just another thing in a long line of things that don't add up. I find it doubtful he killed himself, and it would hardly have been in the interests of FpV to kill him the night before his testimony - especially with the possibility that the tapes don't show anything other than people being skeptical of the Iran-AMIA myth.
Might not these recordings show various people saying they think a proper investigation will show that Iran was not involved and that it would probably exonerate them? D'Elia (yeah I know, but he was targeted so I bring him up), who was targeted in the spying and taping, has publicly said prior he thought the Iran-AMIA connection was not true and is on youtube saying it. So it's hardly a "gotcha" moment to record him on the phone saying the same thing. There is a big difference between someone on the tapes saying "I think a proper investigation will show that Iran had nothing to do with AMIA" vs "We think Iran bombed AMIA and we should help cover it up!". I wonder which it is. At least in the case of D'Elia it's the former.
Plus the high likelihood of many copies of the tapes, including copies from the intelligence sources that originally made them, makes it illogical to think that someone connected to the President or FpV would think to kill Nisman to make the tapes go away. Might there be other possibilities besides the implausible suicide or FpV-silencing-Nisman options we've been given so far?
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/08/24/771555/-Sorry-Iran-Is-Not-Guilty-in-the-1994-Argentina-AMIA-Bombing#
http://www.thenation.com/article/bushs-iranargentina-terror-frame As the author says in the introduction, "Based on these interviews and the documentary record of the investigation, it is impossible to avoid the conclusion that the case against Iran over the AMIA bombing has been driven from the beginning by US enmity toward Iran, not by a desire to find the real perpetrators."
In The Nation article, they mention how the allegation that the bomb had exploded in front of the AMIA in a white Renault Trafic van found little substantiation in reality. He mentions how the US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms produced an on-scene post-explosion report "suggesting that the blast came from inside rather than outside" the AMIA building.
Also, regarding the Renault Trafic that was supposedly the van with the car bomb that exploded, only 1 of about 200 witnesses remembered seeing a white Renault Trafic, and no parts of the van were ever found - it completely vaporized and disappeared save for a small part of the engine block that serendipitously had the ID number of the vehicle. As in the embassy bombing case, the car/van holding the bomb completely vaporized/disappeared - not typical in car bomb scenarios.
When the whole case was dismissed in 2004 due to the discovery of the bribing of witnesses (see below), the judges dismissed a claim they had found in judge Galeano’s case, contained in a writ dated July 25, 1994, a week after the explosion, stating that the engine of the Renault Trafic van had been found at the site of the explosion by Argentine police forces. The writ included the signature of a fireman who claimed to have been present at the site and witnessed the discovery of the engine block. Years later, testifying before the Oral Tribunal, the fireman explained that he had not actually seen the engine block being unearthed from the rubble, but had been asked to sign as a witness and agreed. In fact, the fireman, who then found himself under under investigation for criminal charges of bearing false witness—said that he thought the engine block had been found by Israeli army rescue personnel working at the site and that the local police had just wanted to take credit for the important finding. hmmmm
The Supreme Court of Argentina in 1996 requested engineering studies of both the 1992 Israeli embassy bombing and the 1994 AMIA bombing. The three engineering / structural studies were headed by: a) Rodolfo Danesi, Director of the Institute of Structures of the National University of Tucuman, B) Arturo Bignolli, Vice President of the National Academy of Engineering, and c) Alberto Puppo, Professor, Faculty of Engineering, UBA.
The engineering studies were performed independently, but all came to similar conclusions - particularly that neither bombing involved a car bomb on the street. I've seen references to the fact that there was no crater in the street (both bombings??) and that on one side there was massive destruction, and directly across the street only broken windows and facade cracks. It would be interesting to read all three of these reports if anyone knows if they are online ?
I could only find an interview with Rodolfo Danesi, who headed up one of those studies, where he talks about the results of the studies for both bombings. http://www.lagazeta.com.ar/autobomba.htm In this interview, he says about the embassy bombing and where the bomb was placed inside the embassy: "Los explosivos se colocaron junto a una columna central a la que se transmitía gran parte la carga del edificio, de manera similar al del eje de un paraguas. Dicha columna estaba en la sala de seguridad en la cual se revisaba a cada visitante."
And he says about the AMIA bombing: "Se pudo demostrar en base a los resultados científicos obtenidos, que el colapso se produjo por un mecanismo del tipo gravitatorio originado por la destrucción de la mayor parte de las columnas de planta baja y sótano del bloque delantero. Aquí sí hubo la presencia de un vehículo capaz de transportar una cantidad considerable de explosivos. Si bien el cráter fue imposible de identificar con certeza, como que tampoco se pudo saber la ubicación y el tamaño, más que nada por que parte del edificio afectado cayó encima del lugar donde supuestamente habría explotado la carga, el método científico adoptado permitió llegar a las conclusiones antes indicadas sin que sea necesario tener en cuenta los datos del cráter." (If I read this correctly, the AMIA building must have had underground parking and they concluded the car bomb went off inside the lower levels of the building...?)
Anyone know more about what the three engineering reports say, or if they are posted online ?
One judge on the AMIA case – Juan Galeano, since impeached – even allowed the then president of DAIA Ruben Beraja (later jailed for the fraudulent collapse of his bank, Banco Mayo) to bribe a shady character named Carlos Telleldín to the tune of u$s 400,000 so he would falsely accuse a non-existent “Syrian Connection” that would in turn lead to an “Iranian connection…” This bribe was caught on videotape and shown on Argentine TV. My understanding is that Lanata broke this story. I'm not sure Ruben Beraja was directly involved in the bribe, or was shown to have known it was going to take place. Beraja went to trial for his role in the bribery scandal - I don't know what happened in that case, but with how corrupt the judiciary is here, I don't know if the trial results will actually mean anything. I've read the 400,000 dollars came from DAIA, but in other place from Argentine intelligence sources. When the whole case was thrown out due to massive corruption and bribes and secret dealings and what not, DAIA’S lawyer in the case, Martha Nercellas, received a peculiar distinction from the Oral Tribunal: The judges asked the Buenos Aires bar to look into her actions regarding the case for a potential grave breach of professional ethics. Nercellas tried to frame a suspect with a hidden recorder provided by the federal police, bargaining with him to testify against other defendants as a protected witness. That, under Argentine law, is illegal, since a person charged with crimes in a case cannot be a protected witness against others in the same case. In the recording that Nercellas made it was clear that she, an attorney for one of the aggrieved parties, was negotiating in the name of Judge Galeano.
I mention DAIA in particular as they are a sister organization to AMIA and were housed in the same building as AMIA so it certainly grabs your attention that they were involved in the creation of the false narrative. Plus, today they are holding an act in front of the AMIA building to demand transparency, truth and justice in the Nisman death. hmmph
Far more than DAIA was involved in creating the fake "who dunnit" trail however, including other judges, lawyers, shady characters, intelligence services individuals, etc etc. Quite an effort had been put into creating the fake "who dunnit' story, and in the end it caused the entire case to be thrown out. Judge Gabriel Cavallo and Federal Judge Norberto Oyarbide were also to face charges (did they?) for secondary cases. Cavallo investigated an early charge against Galeano for the payment he made to Telleldin and dismissed the charge promptly. Too promptly, according to the Oral Tribunal, who filed charges against him. Oyarbide is in trouble for the same case: Investigating a charge against one of the defendants in the AMIA case, he received a telephone tap in which a clerk in Galeano’s court described in detail how Telleldin had been paid off to testify against the policemen. The Oral Tribunal charged Oyarbide with failing to denounce a crime and filed charges against him before the council.
The “Memorandum of Understanding” that Argentina signed not long ago includes setting up a joint Argentine-Iranian “Truth Commission” with representatives from five countries with the mission of getting to the bottom of the terror attack: two countries will be named by Argentina; two by Iran; and a fifth umpire country, to be mutually agreed. 7 different countries would be involved to do a proper investigation. What's wrong with 7 countries doing a proper investigation to get to the bottom of what happened ? There already have been proper engineering investigations, but no real investigation of who did this, at least none that were not heavily intentionally diverted in wrong directions.
All the shenanigans does not necessarily point to an inside job however. Jorge Lanata and Joe Goldman investigated and wrote a book about the bombings, concluding there was no Renault Trafic or car bomb on the street, and no Iran involvement. However, they concluded there were Menem-Syrian perpetrators that (I think he says in the book ?) brought bags of explosives into both builldings during construction work. The book is out of print so I'm not sure exactly what their evidence was. Also the book was written in 1994, I think it came out in Dec '94, so long prior to all the shenanigans being brought to light. I'm not sure if they still think there were Syrian / Menem culpability in the bombings ? I think there is surely cover up involvement of Menem though - he seems to have been everywhere nearby when the fake who-dunnit trail was being created.
I don't know how logical it is that Syrians caused both bombings - particularly the embassy bombing. But we won't ever know who actually is responsible if we don't have a proper new investigation of the "who" part of the equation. A multi country endeavour along the lines of the MOU, though possibly imperfect, seems like a good start to me.
Also, remember from the wikileaks cables that the US pressured Nisman not to investigate the "who" involved in creating the face who-dunnit trail. Why? I think the massive effort to create a false narrative also needs to be investigated, at least to know what the motivations were and to make sure these motives/actors don't enter into the new investigation to throw it off again.
And just to put a nail in the coffin of this fake Iran connection, Iran in fact, was still working with Argentina on nuclear matters when these bombings happened, and then stopped working with Iran after the bombings.
From the Asia Times http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/HK15Ak03.html ,
"A report by Argentine prosecutors in support of the arrest warrants just issued for seven former Iranian officials for the 1994 terror bombing of a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires reveals that Argentina was continuing to provide Iran with low-grade enriched uranium and the two countries were in serious negotiations on broader nuclear cooperation when the bombing occurred. The new revelations on Argentine-Iranian relations in the October 25 report by prosecutors Alberto Nisman and Marcello Marquez."
"But it seems unlikely that Iranian leaders would have ordered or knowingly supported any terror bombing in Buenos Aires just when they were concerned with nailing down an agreement to protect their important interests in relations with Argentina. The report goes on to present new information that also appears to rule out an Iranian role in the 1994 AMIA bombing. It confirms that Menem canceled the second and third nuclear-technology contracts with Iran, but not the first contract involving the low-enriched uranium."
http://www.csmonitor.com/1993/0218/18071.html (Feb 1993) "Last November the US press reported that the State Department had succeeded in halting sales of nuclear supplies to Iran by Argentina and China. Amrollahi counters these reports, saying that the two deals are still being discussed. He says that his organization presently is buying low-grade uranium from Argentina....The spokesperson for the IAEA in Vienna confirmed that Iran will definitely receive delivery this year of a cargo of 20 percent enriched uranium from Argentina."
So prior to the AMIA bombings, 2 of the 3 contracts between Argentina and Iran had been put on hold, but Iran thought it would be temporary. A third contract, where Argentina was still supplying 20 percent enriched uranium to Iran, was still in effect, and negotiations were underway to broaden the nuclear cooperation. After the AMIA bombings, all nuclear cooperation was cancelled. Only China and Argentina were working with Iran on nuclear technology up till the AMIA bombings (and as far as I can tell, China was supplying technology but Argentina was the only country in the world supplying Iran with fissionable material.) So Iran would decide to bomb Argentina under these circumstances, resulting in all nuclear ties being broken thereafter ? Does this pass the smell test ?
This AMIA case just doesn't add up...and Nisman's death is just another thing in a long line of things that don't add up. I find it doubtful he killed himself, and it would hardly have been in the interests of FpV to kill him the night before his testimony - especially with the possibility that the tapes don't show anything other than people being skeptical of the Iran-AMIA myth.
Might not these recordings show various people saying they think a proper investigation will show that Iran was not involved and that it would probably exonerate them? D'Elia (yeah I know, but he was targeted so I bring him up), who was targeted in the spying and taping, has publicly said prior he thought the Iran-AMIA connection was not true and is on youtube saying it. So it's hardly a "gotcha" moment to record him on the phone saying the same thing. There is a big difference between someone on the tapes saying "I think a proper investigation will show that Iran had nothing to do with AMIA" vs "We think Iran bombed AMIA and we should help cover it up!". I wonder which it is. At least in the case of D'Elia it's the former.
Plus the high likelihood of many copies of the tapes, including copies from the intelligence sources that originally made them, makes it illogical to think that someone connected to the President or FpV would think to kill Nisman to make the tapes go away. Might there be other possibilities besides the implausible suicide or FpV-silencing-Nisman options we've been given so far?