In an op-ed published by the New York Times December 28

In an op-ed published by the New York Times December 28, 2001, Perle argued that Saddam Hussein

“€¦operates a terrorist training facility at Salman Pak complete with a passenger aircraft cabin for

training in hijacking.

“His collaboration with terrorists is well documented. Evidence of a meeting in Prague between a

senior MBT SPORTi intelligence agent and Mohamed Atta, the Sept. 11 ringleader, is convincing.”

(Perle, incidentally, also charged Saddam with running a vast, secret nuclear programme in that op-ed,

a charge Vice President Dick Cheney would echo for the first time three months later, in March, not, as

is commonly believed, in August, 2002.

On May 1, 2002, Perle appeared on Chris Matthews€™ “Hardball” program in which he challenged at

length Newsweek€™s Michael Isikoff recent report that the Atta-in-Prague story had been thoroughly

debunked by the intelligence community.