It Was a Direct Hit, But Was It the Right Target?
Questions linger about a U.S. missile strike
Still, virtually everything the administration said publicly about El Shifa in the days after the attack has turned out to be wrong. At the time of the attack, the United States did not know who owned the plant. No evidence has surfaced to support claims that the plant was heavily secured. And government spokesmen misspoke when they said El Shifa did not produce legitimate pharmaceutical products, apparently unaware the plant had a United Nations license to ship drugs to Iraq.
The key evidence touted by U.S. officials was a soil sample taken by a CIA operative from the grounds of El Shifa that supposedly tested positive for EMPTA. But tests by outside labs of samples taken after the bombing have found no trace of EMPTA or any of its components. And the House intelligence committee was told that the CIA's original soil sample was so small it was used up in the initial testing.
U.S. officials have been unable to publicly back up their assertions that El Shifa's owner, Saleh Idris, a Saudi Arabian businessman, is linked to bin Laden. After the strike, the Treasury Department promptly froze $24 million of his assets, alleging links to terrorists. Idris denied the charges and sued the government. An intermediary spoke with White House counsel Charles Ruff, who apparently helped release the assets in May after obtaining an intelligence briefing.
Garnering sympathy. An investigation by the security firm Kroll Associates, paid for by Idris, turned up no evidence of any links between Idris and bin Laden except very tenuous connections through distant third parties. Idris told U.S. News that he plans to file a second lawsuit "very soon" seeking compensation for his $30 million factory. "Everyone on the globe knows this was a mistake," he says.
In the end, Sudan has benefited from the U.S. strike, gaining sympathy from many other governments. But the Sudanese government remains its own worst enemy. Khartoum banned aid flights to two war-torn regions again last month, putting 150,000 people at risk of starvation. And a U.N. team was sent to Sudan last week to investigate the government's alleged use of chemical weapons against the rebels.
In Washington, House and Senate intelligence committees are continuing to investigate the decisions leading to the attack. The strike represents "a real lowering of the threshold for military action against countries with whom we have a disagreement," says one congressional aide with access to intelligence reports. But if anything, Congress is even more anti-Sudan than the administration. Both houses have overwhelmingly condemned Sudan within the past two months and called for U.S. support to the rebels. For now, any comprehensive scrutiny of the missile strike remains unlikely.
With Brian Duffy
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