This is old news. This diary will show that the Bush Administration was asleep at the wheel (and probably still is) in dealing with the threat of al Qaeda and their sponsors. I intend merely to argue that the Bush Administration had adequate advance warning in their first eight months in office to be aware of the threat posed by al Qaeda and to try and stop it, and that they utterly failed to do so. I also pose the question of whether they can be trusted to defend the US in the future, given the many possible threats we face. While the reports featured in this diary are old, so were the stories of George Allen's racism. But Macaca got them back in the news cycle. I feel Path to 9-11 should bring these stories back as well. Indulge me.
This diary is a Speculation Free Zone. No Conspiracy Theories, please.
I have to begin by addressing those who insist on arguing that the US Government was part of the 9-11 Conspiracy. There is nowhere near enough evidence to support such an explosive charge. Besides that, many of the CT advocates fix the facts around their own worldview. Anti-government persons only look at data which suggests that the Government was responsible, Anti-semites want to emphasise the possibility that Israel was somehow involved, hoaxsters just want to see who they can fool. But it seems they all have an agenda. I find many of these agendas offensive, and would ask that people who hold such views not post them in my diary. Besides being offensive, these CT agendas rarely have anything to do with helping Democrats get elected. Maybe it was the Jews... but that shit doesn't win elections.
Path to 9-11 = Macaca
Recently, the White House arranged for a slanderous piece of propaganda to be broadcast in the form of a made for TV drama on ABC. It was but a part of a larger campaign to rewrite history and blame President Clinton for 9-11. Democrats, following the lead of President Clinton, are hitting back hard. MSNBC reporter Keith Olbermann has stated that the "free pass" for Bush with regards to his Administration's handling of 9-11, is over. Other news outlets have also begun to probe into the issue of what Bush did, or didn't do to prevent the 9-11 attacks. Mr. Olbermann even went so far as to utter the phrase "criminal negligence". This diary relies exclusively on data from credible sources. I wish to avoid, to the greatest degree possible, speculative arguments based on incomplete data, such as the Sibel Edmunds affair. My only purpose is to expose the lie that BushCo did an acceptable job of preventing the 9-11 attacks. And while the story of who was behind the attacks is somewhat murky - it was something to do with Pakistan's shadowy Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) organization, although to what extent it is difficult to say with certainty - there is enough credible information about the Bush Administration's effort, or lack thereof, to stop the attacks to make it clear that the Bush Administration was, at a minimum, negligent in preventing 9-11. Perhaps criminally negligent. It wasn't previously possible to effectively make such an accusation without being dismissed as a partisan bomb thrower. But due to the stunning miscalculation of the Bush team to lie about 9-11 and smear President Clinton, it's suddenly fair game. This is quite similar to the dynamic going on in the Virginia Senate race. Had Jim Webb's supporters jumped up and down screaming about George Allen's racism, very few people would have been pursuaded and the Press would have dismissed it as politically motivated propaganda. But after the macaca incident (which was perhaps an exercise in "dog whistle" politics), and especially because of the lies Allen told in the aftermath, It's all fair game now. Given the Path to 9-11 smears - another example of "dog whistle" politics - and with the lameass denials, such as Condi Rice's statement yesterday that President Clinton's statement was "flatly false", I'd say the political situation surrounding 9-11 has finally reached critical mass, and it's time to revist the documented history of 9-11. Something I intend to do here. Let's begin in the beginning.
Afghanistan
So who did this? Exactly who is responsible for the despicable acts of 9-11 and how did they do it? Well, it wasn't just a bunch of guys in Afghan caves. To understand what took place on 9-11, you need to know the history of al Qaeda and the Taliban. And that leads us to our great ally in the War on Terror... Pakistan. You can get a great rundown on this stuff from Juan Cole. Basically it went like this. During the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan the CIA and Saudi Arabia funneled money through Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) to rebels in Afghanistan. The purpose of the CIA's mission in Afghanistan was to bleed the Soviet Union. Once the Soviets left, the CIA closed up shop. ISI, however, continued to have an interest in Afghan affairs. ISI propped up the Taliban, and with the benefit of direct Pakistani military assistance, they quickly seized control of Afghanistan. From Janes Information Group.
After the ignominious Soviet withdrawal from Kabul in 1989 the ISI, determined to achieve its aim of extending Pakistan's `strategic depth' and creating an Islamic Caliphate by controlling Afghanistan and the Central Asian Republics, began sponsoring a little-known Pathan student movement in Kandhar that emerged as the Taliban. The ISI used funds from Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto's federal government and from overseas Islamic remittances to enrol graduates from thousands of madrassahs (Muslim seminaries) across Pakistan to bolster the Taliban (Islamic students), who were led by the reclusive Mullah Muhammad Omar. Thereafter, through a ruthless combination of bribing Afghanistan's ruling tribal coalition (which was riven with internecine rivalry), guerrilla tactics and military support the ISI installed the Taliban regime in Kabul in 1996. It then helped to extend its control over 95 per cent of the war-torn country and bolster its military capabilities. The ISI is believed to have posted additional operatives in Afghanistan just before the 11 September attacks in the US.
But it doesn't stop there.
Along with Osama bin Laden, intelligence sources say a number of other infamous names emerged from the 1980s ISI-CIA collaboration in Afghanistan. These included Mir Aimal Kansi, who assassinated two CIA officers outside their office in Langley, Virginia, in 1993, Ramzi Yousef and his accomplices involved in the New York World Trade Center bombing five years later as well as a host of powerful international narcotics smugglers.
Well. That's fun. But what caught my eye was that last bit. Remember all those commercials about how if kids smoke pot they're helping the terrorists?
Opium cultivation and heroin production in Pakistan's northern tribal belt and neighbouring Afghanistan was also a vital offshoot of the ISI-CIA co-operation. It succeeded not only in turning Soviet troops into addicts, but also in boosting heroin sales in Europe and the US through an elaborate web of well-documented deceptions, transport networks, couriers and payoffs. This, in turn, offset the cost of the decade-long anti-Soviet `unholy war' in Afghanistan. "The heroin dollars contributed largely to bolstering the Pakistani economy, its nuclear programme and enabled the ISI to sponsor its covert operations in Afghanistan and northern India's disputed Kashmir state," according to an Indian intelligence officer. In the 1970s, the ISI had established a division to procure military nuclear and missile technology from abroad, particularly from China and North Korea. They also smuggled in critical nuclear components and know-how from Europe - activities known to the US but ones it chose to turn a blind eye to as Washington's objective of `humiliating' the Soviet bear remained incomplete.
Wow. Now look, I'm no fan of communism, but I'd have to say this whole ISI thing got pretty seriously out of hand. I'm thinking that, in this case, Reagan and his pals may have thrown water onto a greasefire. Funny thing, the US Press never really made a big deal about this stuff. History is so boring, I know. But a little refresher course might be in order.
8 Months
Yesterday, a startling revelation was made by former 9/11 commission member Richard Ben-Veniste concerning the failure of the Bush Administration to respond to al Qaeda's attack on the USS Cole in late 2000. You can watch the video and read the full transcript at Crooks and Liars
...one of the questions we had and I specifically had was why President Bush did not respond to the Cole attack. And what he told me was that he did not want to launch a cruise missile attack against bin Laden for fear of missing him and bombing the rubble (ph).
And then I asked him, "Well, what about the Taliban?" The United States had warned the Taliban, indeed threatened the Taliban on at least three occasions, all of which is set out in our 9/11 Commission final report, that if bin Laden, who had refuge in Afghanistan, were to strike against U.S. interests then we would respond against the Taliban.
BLITZER: Now, that was warnings during the Clinton administration...
BEN-VENISTE: That's correct.
BLITZER: ... the final years of the Clinton administration.
BEN-VENISTE: That's correct.
BLITZER: So you the asked the president in the Oval Office -- and the vice president -- why didn't you go after the Taliban in those eight months before 9/11 after he was president. What did he say?
BEN-VENISTE: Well, now that it was established that al Qaeda was responsible for the Cole bombing and the president was briefed in January of 2001, soon after he took office, by George Tenet, head of the CIA, telling him of the finding that al Qaeda was responsible, and I said, "Well, why wouldn't you go after the Taliban in order to get them to kick bin Laden out of Afghanistan?"
Maybe, just maybe, who knows -- we don't know the answer to that question -- but maybe that could have affected the 9/11 plot.
BLITZER: What did he say?
BEN-VENISTE: He said that no one had told him that we had made that threat. And I found that very discouraging and surprising.
I find it alarming and shocking. Within two months of the attack, under the direction of President Clinton, the FBI and CIA had determined that al Qaeda was responsible for attacking the USS Cole. He had battle plans drawn up for an attack on the Taliban, in order to make good on prior US threats to retaliate against further al Qaeda aggresion. The credibility of the US Government was destroyed, in the eyes of al Qaeda, because the President says he didn't know. Pathetic. But then, this is the same president who even his closest aides were afraid to approach about the rapidly deteriorating situation in New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Donald Rumsfeld famously threatened to fire anyone who even suggested there was a need to plan for the post-invasion occupation of Iraq. None of them apparently read National Intelligence Estimates, or at least certain sections of them. Bush just follows his gut, and his gut didn't say shit about the Taliban before 9-11. Of course there's much, much more. In July of 2001, Bush attended the G-8 conference in Genoa, Italy. The LA Times reported on 27 September 2001 that security officials in the Italian Government were concerned that terrorists would hijack planes and crash them into targets on the ground. Among the extraordinary precautions taken to prevent this, the conference was held on a large ship as it was believed that a waterborne target would be difficult to hit from the air. Also, Surface to Air Missile (SAM) batteries were deployed to protect the conference.
U.S. and Italian officials were warned in July that Islamic terrorists might attempt to kill President Bush and other leaders by crashing an airliner into the Genoa summit of industrialized nations, officials said Wednesday.
The Genoa warning was disclosed last week by Italian Deputy Prime Minister Gianfranco Fini. In remarks on a television talk show reported by the Italian news agency ANSA, Fini said: "Many people were ironic about the Italian secret services. But in fact they got the information that there was the possibility of an attack against the U.S. president using an airliner. That's why we closed the airspace and installed the missiles. Those who made cracks should now think a little."
However, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice had stated, on 16 May 2002...
I don't think anybody could have predicted that these people would take an airplane and slam it into the World Trade Center, take another one and slam it into the Pentagon; that they would try to use an airplane as a missile, a hijacked airplane as a missile.
No one. Uh huh. I'd have to say that statement is "flatly false". Then of course, there was the infamous 06 August 01 PDB.
On August 6, when Bush received the briefing entitled, "Bin Laden to Strike in US," he apparently "broke off from work early and spent most of the day fishing." [New York Times, 5/25/02]
He went fishing. Fast forward to 10 September 2001. Bush is in Florida (he just loves those battleground states) and getting ready for a photo op at a local school. The Secret Service, apparently, were doing their job.
...when Bush spent the night in Sarasota, Florida, the night before the 9/11 attacks, surface-to-air missiles were placed on the roof of the resort where he was staying. [Sarasota Herald-Tribune, 9/10/02]
Again, a SAM Battery is deployed to protect the POTUS from an airborne threat. Do you suppose the Secret Service had a word with their Italian counterparts? It's likely they did just that, as did many other agencies within our government. The FBI, CIA, NSA and other agencies charged with protecting the security of the American people are filled with capable patriots. They didn't stop doing their job when Bush was inaugurated. But that only does so much good if "The Decider" doesn't want to hear about it. And as this post entitled 2+2=9-11 should make clear, he didn't want to hear about it.
"But we never got warnings in the form of giant, flashing neon signs that told us the time, date, flight numbers and methods of the hijackings!" the Bush people cry desperately (and repeatedly). Well, if that's what you need to stop a terrorist attack, then we are in deep shit, because you never get that kind of detailed information in the real world. This excuse is the worst of all, because it is so ridiculous, so pathetic beneath the false formica veneer of its surface, that there is no doubt whatsoever that Rice and Bush know that they are misleading the people, desperate enough to use such a lame excuse because it's all they've got. As I have laid out above, there was more than enough warning. All the pieces were there. It would not have been hard at all to put them together without the benefit of hindsight; all it would have taken was basic competence to put 2 plus 2 together. But because Bush & Co. were do damned focused on missile defense, because terrorism was antithetical to that agenda, and because they were so keen to diss anything even smelling of Clinton, they failed to do what they needed in order to get that second "2" of the equation, and so they failed to add the pieces together. As a result, the terrorists walked right past the otherwise-engaged Bush administration, right onto the airplanes and committed their atrocious act.
The FBI, CIA and the Secret Service knew there was a real threat that al-Qaeda terrorists would hijack planes and use them to hit targets on the ground. They also knew the possible targets would be FBI HQ, CIA HQ, The Pentagon, The WTC and the POTUS. They did their jobs and desperately tried to get BushCo to act. Again from 2+2=9-11.
From the beginning of the year, they were warned by Clinton administration officials that al Qaeda cells were in fact in the country. On July 6th, the CIA warned of a terrorist attack that would be "catastrophic," and that would be quantitatively different from anything that had been done to date. In late July, during the Genoa conference, they were made acutely aware of al Qaeda's plans to use aircraft as weapons. And in the now-infamous August 6th Presidential Daily Briefing (PDF file), it was made clear that there was a great deal of al Qaeda activity in the U.S., and there were hints that they were planning to hijack aircraft.
...they knew that al Qaeda was here, they were up to something, and it would be very bad. That much is not in question, is not challenged. So, their reaction should have been this: shake the trees. Something bad is coming guys, and we want anything and everything even remotely concerned with al Qaeda given top priority. Bush's people claim they did this, but it is incredibly obvious they did not. If they had, then two key pieces of intelligence would have fallen from the trees, namely: the Phoenix Memo of July 10, sent from Phoenix FBI agent Kenneth Williams, which reported that individuals connected to Osama bin Laden were studying at flight schools in the area, and there was "the possibility of a coordinated effort by Osama bin Laden to send students to the United States to attend civil aviation universities and colleges," and "[t]he individuals will be in a position in the future to conduct terror activity against civil aviation targets." And then, there was the August 15th arrest of Zacarias Moussaoui in Minnesota, a man with jihadist connections who was training to fly commercial jets, but with no prior flying experience and no explanation of how he got his funding or why he was in the U.S. And it's not like the agents involved weren't stressing the intel enough.
Read the whole thing.
Then the day came. September 11th. We all remember it, there's no need to go there. I could recall in detail the bizarre behavior of Bush on that day, but it's all pretty well known. There's a detailed timeline here. The gist of it is that while the rest of us were coming to grips with the fact that our nation was under attack, the POTUS seemed to be floundering around aimlessly. At first he decided to stick to his schedule. Then, once it became clear that was not an option, after a very inappropriate delay, he proceeded to run around the country like a chicken with his head cut off and not have a goddamned clue what to do about it. Now lets put this in perspective, he's been warned repeatedly about the threat of terrorists hijacking commercial aircraft and crashing them into buildings. Every reasonably aware person in the world knew that there were Islamic terrorists in the world who had a hard on to destroy the World Trade Center. Specifically, they wanted to bring down the Twin Towers. Bush knew, like the rest of us, that a 757 crashed into one of those two towers when it was reported on the news. This happened before he even got to the school for his infamous reading of "My Pet Goat". People focus on how he responded, or failed to respond, to being told "America is under attack". But it never should've come to that. After having SAMs over his head for a couple months, you'd think the guy would immediately put 2 and 2 together and ditch the photo-op. But he didn't. He couldn't process those simple facts. Apparently no one around him, not his advisors, not his Secret Service detail... none of them were willing or able to help him do so.
The Aftermath
The reason we were attacked, the reason these people are dead, these people are missing and dead ... They weren't doing anything wrong, they were living their lives, they were going to work, they were traveling, they were doing what they normally do. Uh, as I understand it -- and my understanding of this is vague, at best -- another smaller group of people stole some airplanes and crashed them into buildings. And we're told that they were zealots fueled by religious fervor, religious fervor. And if you live to be a thousand years old, will that make any sense to you? Will that make any goddamned sense?
I'm sure everyone remembers watching David Letterman's monologue in the aftermath of the 9-11 attacks. We were all traumatized by the unprovoked and unexpected assault against this country. In the weeks and months which immediately followed that day, people didn't want to hear history lessons about Afghanistan, they didn't really give a shit about the politics at the FBI. They just wanted a leader. They wanted someone to lead the country and get the people who were responsible and see to it that nothing like this would ever happen again. But that didn't happen. Not even close. Let's start with the US invasion of Afghanistan, remember how President Bush said he was going to smoke them out of their holes? Well he did, then he put them on a plane to Pakistan. From Sy Hersh.
...the cream of the crop of Al Qaeda caught in a town called Konduz which is near ... it's one little village and it's a couple hundred kilometers, 150 miles from the border of Pakistan. And I learned this story frankly-- through very, very clandestine operatives we have in the Delta Force and other very...
We were operating very heavily with a small number of men, three, 400 really in the first days of the war. And suddenly one night when they had everybody cornered in Konduz-- the special forces people were told there was a corridor that they could not fly in. There was a corridor sealed off to-- the United States military sealed off a corridor. And it was nobody could shoot anybody in this little lane that went from Konduz into Pakistan. And that's how I learned about it. I learned about it from a military guy who wanted to fly helicopters and kill people and couldn't do it that day.
JANE WALLACE: So, we had the enemy surrounded, the special forces guys are helping surround this enemy.
SY HERSH: They're whacking everybody they can whack that looks like a bad guy.
JANE WALLACE: And suddenly they're told to back off--
SY HERSH: From a certain area--
JANE WALLACE: -- and let planes fly out to Pakistan.
SY HERSH: There was about a three or four nights in which I can tell you maybe six, eight, 10, maybe 12 more-- or more heavily weighted-- Pakistani military planes flew out with an estimated-- no less than 2,500 maybe 3,000, maybe more. I've heard as many as four or 5,000. They were not only-- Al Qaeda but they were also-- you see the Pakistani ISI was-- the military advised us to the Taliban and Al Qaeda. There were dozens of senior Pakistani military officers including two generals who flew out.
And I also learned after I wrote this story that maybe even some of Bin Laden's immediate family were flown out on the those evacuations. We allowed them to evacuate. We had an evacuation.
What a massive fuckup. Whoever authorized that is gonna pay bigtime. Talk about a career ending decision.
SY HERSH: I am here to tell you it was authorized -- Donald Rumsfeld who -- we'll talk about what he said later -- it had to be authorized at the White House. But certainly at the Secretary of Defense level.
JANE WALLACE: The Department of Defense said to us that they were not involved and that they don't have any knowledge of that operation.
SY HERSH: That's what Rumsfeld said when they asked him but it. And he said, "Gee, really?" He said, "News to me." Which is not a denial, it's sort of interesting. You know,
Um, about that whole accountability thing. Nevermind.
JANE WALLACE: What did we do that? Why we would put our special forces guys on the ground, surround the enemy, and then-- fly him out?
SY HERSH: With al Qaeda.
JANE WALLACE: With al Qaeda. Why would we do that, assuming your story is true?
SY HERSH: We did it because the ISI asked us to do so.
JANE WALLACE: Pakistani intelligence.
SY HERSH: Absolutely.
You simply have to read the whole thing. Seriously. I can't put up all the good stuff without violating fair use. So go read it. The article does raise some rather disturbing questions about our friends in Islamabad, specifically the ISI. You remember them, the guys who originally founded the Taliban, an organization that is often described as a "state within a state". When you consider the ease with which Bin Laden escaped from Afghanistan into Pakistan, you have to wonder why the Bush Administration didn't pursue him more aggresively. I'm not sure we're getting the whole story here.
The ISI
Now lets not get crazy with alot of wild speculation about how, say, the ISI have been involved in narcotics trafficking, weapons smuggling and illicit nuclear proliferation for decades and start making wild charges that they might have had something to do with 9-11. I said up front that I only wanted to rely on information from credible sources, if there was reliable information that such a link exists, we'd all know about it... right? The Times of India reported exactly that on 9 October 2001.
While the Pakistani Inter Services public relations claimed that former ISI director-general Lt-Gen Mahmud Ahmad sought retirement after being superseded on monday, the truth is more shocking. Top sources confirmed here on tuesday, that the general lost his job because of the "evidence" India produced to show his links to one of the suicide bombers that wrecked the World Trade Centre. The US authorities sought his removal after confirming the fact that $100,000 were wired to WTC hijacker Mohammed Atta from Pakistan by Ahmad Umar Sheikh at the instance of Gen Mahumd.
What. The. Fuck.
...a direct link between the ISI and the WTC attack could have enormous repercussions. The US cannot but suspect whether or not there were other senior Pakistani army commanders who were in the know of things. Evidence of a larger conspiracy could shake US confidence in Pakistan's ability to participate in the anti-terrorism coalition.
No shit. Really? You mean maybe these guys are unreliable because THEY FINANCED THE ATTACKS THAT BLEW THE WORLD TRADE CENTER TO HELL IN THE FIRST DAMNED PLACE!!! You know what Times of India dude, you've got a point there. You know what else, I'm beginning to wonder about our friends in Pakistan. When I read about how Dr. A Q Khan was selling nuclear intelligence to Iran and that our good friend General Musharraf hasn't exactly been forthcoming about what he knew and when he knew it, I really have to wonder about the extent to which we can trust these guys. They're starting to look more and more like some kind of evil criminal organization to me. You know, the kind that specialize in Counter-intelligence, Terrorism, Revenge and Extortion. I mean, maybe I've watched too many James Bond movies, but I don't know if I trust Mr. I-Didn't-Get-the-Memo to deal with what is obviously a very sticky situation. The truth is I don't know as much as I'd like to know about all the shady dealings of ISI, and I don't want to get bogged down trying to figure all that out. It would involve alot of useless speculation. That's not the point. What I'm saying here is that while I understand the situation is complicated, while I understand the need to give the Government some latitude with which to negotiate what is likely a dangerous situation... I don't know that it's reasonable anymore to be so generous with a bunch of guys who got taken in by Ahmed Chalabi. I don't know that I trust the nobody-could-have-anticipated gang to get this right. Consider this. In the context of the total disaster on the foreign policy front that was the 9-11 attacks, which were planned and executed by the Taliban/al Qaeda, a proxy of the nuclear armed Pakistan/ISI, George Walker Bush decided to divert US Military assets away from Afghanistan/Pakistan and instead use them to invade and occupy Iraq. The idea for this move apparently being that if we sprinkle some freedom dust on Iraq, there would be democracy and free enterprise in the heart of the Middle East, which would result in the spreading of bluebirds and happiness throughout the region. Maybe the ISI would give up on the whole opium smuggling/money laundering/nuclear proliferation thing and sign up for those nifty private investment accounts. Are you beginning to understand why all those Conservative Republican Generals have been badmouthing Bush and his neo-con pals to the Press? And why the retired ones are now speaking out publicly? Nobody likes an incompetent Commander-in-Chief, especially when there are about 40 nuclear warheads in play. I think these questions need to be asked. I think there's more than enough evidence to establish that President Clinton's criticism of the Bush Administration is not "flatly false" and that this is a serious enough matter that Americans should know exactly what has been going on in South Central Asia before they go to the polls in six weeks and decide whether or not the Bush Administration requires some kind of Congressional oversight as we face the challenge of trying to contain the spread of Islamic radicals and, perhaps more troubling, getting a grip on whatever the hell it is the ISI is up to.