Q: Do you recall giving evidence to the United States Senate Judiciary Committee in September 1998?
A: Yes
Q: Do you remember publicly mentioning a name in the course of your evidence there?
A: That has been brought to my attention since. It was a name that does not comport with any individual that we have come across and it was clearly some sort of a (unclear).
Q: It has caused a lot of problems for that individual, has it not, Mr. Woolsey?
A: Only if one does not read the transcript, because there is no individual by the name that I used that is recognizable.
Q: OK. Let me tell you exactly what you said. Were you talking about President Clinton sending cruise missiles into the Sudan to destroy a pharmaceutical factory?
A: I do not have the text in front of me. Perhaps you could share it with me, counsel.
Q: Unfortunately….
A: I would like to see what I was saying.
Q: Unfortunately, I cannot. Let me read to you: "Some of the early statements about the exact nature of Mr. bin Laden's relationship with that facility, whether or not there was any other manufacturing going on, pharmaceuticals and the like, those statements from the senior US government officials turned out to be in error". Do you remember that?
A: It is not necessarily true that the statements are in error -
Q: I am not asking you about that, Mr. Woolsey Do you recall now the context in which you made your statement?
A: Counsel, the context of that statement is in describing the cruise missile attack on a pharmaceutical facility in Sudan where there had been some evidence of chemical compounds that were only available, as far as we knew, with chemical weapons, and I had so been briefed by the US government.
Q: Did you say this: "The owner of the plant in question, Mr. Idris, is a protege of a Mr. Hafouz, the chairman of the National Commercial Bank of Saudi Arabia"? Do you recall that?
A: I believe that is correct.
Q: What is the name of the chairman of the National Commercial Bank of Saudi Arabia?
A: It is not Hafouz
Q: What is it?
A: I believe it is Mahfouz.
Q: So when you said Mr. Hahfouz, the chairman of the National Commercial Bank of Saudi Arabia, who were you referring to?
A: This is lost in the confusion of the past. Someone in the US Government had given me a name Hahfouz, and I did reiterate it to the Congress on that occasion. The individual was not Mr. Mahfouz.
Q: Did you say this: "Mr. Hahfouz's sister is married, I understand, to Mr. bin Laden. There were some ties to Mr. bin Laden, financial and otherwise."?
A: I believe I did.
Q: That was a very seriously defamatory thing to say about the chairman of the National Commercial Bank of Saudi Arabia, was it not?
A: But it was misidentified. It was not Mr. Mahfouz.
Q: It was not true.
A: I did not refer to Mr. Mahfouz in the remarks. I referred to some other individual whose name had been given to me.
Q: You referred to the chairman of the National Commercial Bank of Saudi Arabia, a Mr. Hahfouz.
A: That is correct.
Q: Who was the chairman of the National Commercial Bank of Saudi Arabia?
A: At the time, I believe it was Mr. Mahfouz.
Q: But you are saying that you were referring to somebody quite different called Hahfouz, are you?
A: That is my memory. There was some confusion in the mind of the people who had told me about this, but at least Mr. Mahfouz's name was not used.
Q: Is it true that the chairman of the National Commercial Bank of Saudi Arabia is married to Osama bin Laden's sister?
A: I do not know.
Q: Have you ever withdrawn that public statement?
A: I have answered to the press on a number of occasions precisely as I am answering here, that there was confusion in the information that was given me and the identity of the individual, but that it was not Mr. Mahfouz and I had said to the press on a number of occasions that it is not referring to Mr. Mahfouz.
