  |
Treason In High Places There has been no coverage of this explosive story by the 'Pravda' style media networks in America. |
 |
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Take the Bait - Fight Smart
ANIMATED 911 SUMMARY -
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Who is the enemy?
FBI Whistleblower Exposes New
Dimensions To
'Pakistan Connection'
Alleged 9/11 Funder Led Corrupt Scheme
Involving Senior US State Department Official
www.nlpwessex.org/docs/watedmondssundaytimes.htm
Lt General Mamoud Ahmed
Accused Of Being Secret Pakistani Operation Mastermind
"... there is enough in just this one London Times story to keep an army of investigative reporters busy for years. So why, one has to ask, is this story appearing in a highly respected British newspaper, but not anywhere in the corporate US media?"
Sibel Edmonds, Turkey and the Bomb
Counterpunch, 7 January 2008
|
Treason In High Places There has been no coverage of this explosive story by the 'Pravda' style media networks in America. |
|
"The UK Times story has also been covered in
Pakistan,
India
and Israel. No mention of
this issue reaches US network television audiences at all."
Sibel Edmonds Blows Open the Cover Up
The
People's Voice, 10 January 2008
"Last October, in a BRAD BLOG Exclusive, Edmonds had announced
she was willing to defy her gag order, in order to give the entire story to any American
mainstream broadcast outlet who would allow her to do so. Not
a single media operation in this country [USA] took her up on the offer..... London's Sunday Times then contacted The BRAD BLOG after our series of reports, hoping to
get in touch with Edmonds. They claimed they had some corroboration for elements of her
story that had leaked out previously, and wanted to touch base with her. After putting
them in touch with her, the result was the blockbuster
story two weeks ago ....... 'I have had [American] reporters call me and tell me that
I have 'stumbled on some big time national security, covert
operation',' she continued, explaining that as the
reason given by some for staying away from the story. 'Well, Iran-Contra was a goddamn covert operation too! Even if that's what they're telling
reporters in the U.S., it doesn't make the operation any less illegal. And the cover-up of that is outrageous,' she told us tonight."
UK Sunday Times Scoops US Media Again, Confirms FBI Cover-Up of Documents in Sibel Edmonds
Nuke Secrets Case
Brad Blog, 19 January 2008
Sunday Times 6 January 2008 "A whistleblower has made a series of
extraordinary claims about how corrupt [US] government officials allowed Pakistan and other states to
steal nuclear weapons secrets. Sibel Edmonds, a 37-year-old former Turkish language translator for the FBI, listened into hundreds
of sensitive intercepted conversations while based at the agency’s Washington field
office. She approached The Sunday Times last month after reading about
an Al-Qaeda terrorist who had revealed his role in training some of the 9/11 hijackers
while he was in Turkey.....Among the hours of covert tape recordings, she says she heard
evidence that one well-known senior official in the US State Department was being paid by Turkish agents in Washington who were selling the
information on to black market buyers, including Pakistan. The name of the official – who has held a
series of top government posts – is known to The Sunday
Times. He strongly denies the claims..... She claims
that the FBI was also gathering evidence against senior Pentagon officials –
including household names – who were aiding foreign agents. 'If you made public all
the information that the FBI have on this case, you will see very high-level people going
through criminal trials,' she said.... She has given evidence to closed sessions of
Congress and the 9/11 commission, but many of the key points of her testimony have
remained secret. She has now decided to divulge some of that information after becoming
disillusioned with the US authorities’ failure to act.... A backlog of tapes had
built up, dating back to 1997, which were needed for an FBI investigation into links
between the Turks and Pakistani, Israeli and US targets. Before she left the FBI in 2002
she heard evidence that pointed to money laundering,
drug imports and attempts to acquire nuclear and conventional weapons technology..... Edmonds says there were several transactions of nuclear material
every month, with the Pakistanis being among the eventual buyers.....They were helped, she says, by the high-ranking
State Department official who provided some of their moles
– mainly PhD students – with security clearance to work in sensitive nuclear
research facilities. These included the Los Alamos
nuclear laboratory in New Mexico, which is responsible for the security of the US nuclear
deterrent....The Turks, she says, often acted as a
conduit for the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), Pakistan’s spy agency, because
they were less likely to attract suspicion. Venues
such as the American Turkish Council in Washington were used to drop off the cash, which
was picked up by the official. Edmonds said: 'I heard at least three transactions like
this over a period of 2½ years. There are almost certainly more.' The Pakistani operation was led by General
Mahmoud Ahmad, then the ISI chief. Intercepted communications showed Ahmad and his colleagues stationed in
Washington were in constant contact with attachés in the Turkish embassy. Intelligence
analysts say that members of the ISI were close to Al-Qaeda before and after 9/11. Indeed,
Ahmad was accused of sanctioning a $100,000 wire
payment to Mohammed Atta, one of the 9/11 hijackers, immediately before the attacks.....Edmonds was later to see the scope of the Pakistani connections when
it was revealed that one of her fellow translators at the FBI was the daughter of a
Pakistani embassy official who worked for Ahmad. The
translator was given top secret clearance despite protests from FBI investigators. Edmonds
says packages containing nuclear secrets were delivered by Turkish operatives, using their
cover as members of the diplomatic and military community, to contacts at the Pakistani
embassy in Washington. Following 9/11, a number of
the foreign operatives were taken in for questioning by the FBI on suspicion that they
knew about or somehow aided the attacks. Edmonds said the
State Department official once again proved useful. 'A
primary target would call the official and point to names on the list and say, ‘We
need to get them out of the US because we can’t afford for them to spill the
beans’,' she said. 'The official said that he would ‘take care of it’.' The
four suspects on the list were released from interrogation and extradited. Edmonds also claims that a number of senior officials in the Pentagon
had helped Israeli and Turkish agents.....One of the Pentagon figures under investigation
was Lawrence Franklin, a former Pentagon analyst, who was jailed in 2006 for passing US
defence information to lobbyists and sharing classified information with an Israeli
diplomat. 'He was one of the top people providing
information and packages during 2000 and 2001,' she said.... The US attorney-general has
imposed a state secrets privilege order on her, which prevents her revealing more details
of the FBI’s methods and current investigations. Her
allegations were heard in a closed session of Congress, but no action has been taken and
she continues to campaign for a public hearing....The senior official in the State Department no longer works there. Last week he denied all of Edmonds’s allegations: 'If you are
calling me to say somebody said that I took money, that’s outrageous . . . I do not
have anything to say about such stupid ridiculous things as this.'" Sunday Times 20 January 2008 "The FBI has been accused of covering
up a key case file detailing evidence against corrupt government officials and their
dealings with a network stealing nuclear secrets. The
assertion follows allegations made in The Sunday Times two weeks ago by Sibel Edmonds, an FBI whistleblower, who worked on the agency’s investigation of
the network.....One of the documents relating to the case was marked 203A-WF-210023. Last
week, however, the FBI responded to a freedom of information request for a file of exactly
the same number by claiming that it did not exist. But The
Sunday Times has obtained a document signed by an FBI official showing the existence of
the file. Edmonds believes the crucial file is being
deliberately covered up by the FBI because its contents are explosive. She accuses the
agency of an 'outright lie'..... The freedom of information request had not been initiated
by Edmonds. It was made quite separately by an American human rights group called the
Liberty Coalition, acting on a tip-off it received from an anonymous correspondent. The
letter says: 'You may wish to request pertinent audio tapes and documents under FOIA from
the Department of Justice, FBI-HQ and the FBI Washington field office.' It then makes a series of allegations about the contents of the
file – many of which corroborate the information that Edmonds later made public. Edmonds had told this newspaper that members of the Turkish political
and diplomatic community in the US had been actively acquiring nuclear secrets. They often
acted as a conduit, she said, for Inter-Services
Intelligence (ISI), Pakistan’s spy agency,
because they attracted less suspicion. She claimed corrupt government officials helped the
network, and venues such as the American-Turkish Council (ATC) in Washington were used as
drop-off points. The anonymous letter names a
high-level government official who was allegedly
secretly recorded speaking to an official at the Turkish embassy between August and
December 2001. It claims the government official warned a Turkish member of the network
that they should not deal with a company called Brewster Jennings because it was a CIA
front company investigating the nuclear black market. The official’s warning came two
years before Brewster Jennings was publicly outed when one of its staff, Valerie
Plame, was revealed to be a CIA agent in a case that became a cause célèbre in the
US." |
"We’re
not talking only about foreign individuals; we’re talking about our own, about U.S.
officials who have engaged in actions that are against the American public’s best
interests and what we stand for. But the American people still don’t know about this
case, and Congress has done nothing despite the fact that they have been fully briefed and
have gotten full confirmation....when you really go
deep into these cases, you find that these people—these U.S. entities, U.S.
officials—have been misusing and abusing their positions for a while. And we have
been looking the other way. And the mainstream media has been looking the other way. These
are not top-secret issues. All you have to do is take a look at these people. For example,
look at Mr. Marc Grossman. He used to be the U.S. ambassador in Turkey and used his position within
the State Department to secure future higher-level positions while in office—and I would
like to emphasize this—while in office and with several agencies knowing about it.
Some people in these agencies wanted to investigate these cases but they were prevented
from going forward... We’re talking about
people with official positions, whether they were in the State Department or the Pentagon
or the U.S. Congress. The agents did the right thing
again by starting a parallel investigation that targeted individuals who were possibly committing acts of treason...."
Sibel Edmonds
In Gag We Trust? An Interview with FBI Whistleblower Sibel Edmonds
Armenian Weekly, 12 May
2007
"Omar
Sheikh, a British-born
Islamist militant, is waiting to be hanged in Pakistan for a murder he almost
certainly didn't commit - of the Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl in 2002. Both
the US government and Pearl's wife have since acknowledged that Sheikh was not
responsible. Yet the Pakistani government is refusing to try other suspects newly
implicated in Pearl's kidnap and murder for fear the evidence they produce in court might
acquit Sheikh
and reveal too much. Sheikh is also the man who, on the instructions of General
Mahmoud Ahmed, the then head of Pakistan's
Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), wired $100,000 before the 9/11 attacks to Mohammed
Atta, the lead hijacker. It is extraordinary that neither Ahmed nor Sheikh have been charged and
brought to trial on this count. Why not? Ahmed, the
paymaster for the hijackers, was actually in Washington on 9/11, and had a series of
pre-9/11 top-level meetings in the White House, the Pentagon, the national security
council, and with George Tenet, then head of the CIA, and Marc Grossman, the
under-secretary of state for political affairs. When
Ahmed was exposed by the Wall Street Journal as having sent the money to the hijackers, he
was forced to 'retire' by President Pervez Musharraf. Why hasn't the US demanded that he
be questioned and tried in court?... Senator Bob Graham, chairman of the Senate select
committee on intelligence, has said: 'I think there is very
compelling evidence that at least some of the terrorists were assisted, not just in
financing ... by a sovereign foreign government.'"
The Pakistan connection
Guardian, 22 July
2004
Lt General Mahmoud Ahmed and Omar
Sheikh - Who Are They And What Was Their Alleged Role In 9/11? |
"A former
translator for the FBI with top-secret security clearance says she has provided information to
the panel investigating the 11 September attacks which proves senior officials knew of
al-Qa'ida's plans to attack the US with aircraft months before the strikes happened. She said the claim by the National
Security Adviser, Condoleezza Rice, that there was no such information was 'an outrageous
lie'. Sibel Edmonds said she spent more than three hours in a
closed session with the commission's investigators
providing information
that was circulating within the FBI in the spring and summer of 2001 suggesting that an attack using aircraft
was just months away and the terrorists were in place. The Bush administration, meanwhile, has sought to silence
her and has obtained a gagging order from a court by citing the rarely used 'state secrets
privilege'. She told
The Independent yesterday: 'I gave [the commission] details of specific investigation
files, the specific dates, specific target information, specific managers in charge of the
investigation. I gave them everything so that they could go back and follow up. This is
not hearsay. These are things that are documented. These things can be established very
easily.'".
'I Saw Papers That Show US Knew
al-Qa'ida Would Attack Cities With Airplanes'
Independent, 2 April 2004
"...we fear that the designation of information as classified in some cases [brought forth by Sibel Edmonds] serves to protect the executive branch against embarrassing revelations and full accountability... "
U.S. Senators Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and Charles Grassley (R-IA), Senate Judiciary Committee
Letter to Attorney General John Ashcroft, 9 July 2004
"I find your report seriously flawed
in its failure to address serious intelligence issues that I am aware of, which have been
confirmed, and which as a witness to the commission, I made you aware of. Thus, I must
assume that other serious issues that I am not aware of were in the same manner omitted from your report."
Sibel Edmonds
Letter To Thomas Kean, Chairman
Of The Official 9/11 Commission, 1 August 2004
| In This Bulletin |
| The Great
American ISI Conspiracy 'Strategic Depth' In Central Asia How American Taxpayers Funded Islamic Jihad And Pakistan's Nuclear Bomb |
| 9/11
Conspiracy Foreknowledge And Lt General Mahmoud Ahmed |
| Sunday
Times For Sale: West’s Deadly Nuclear Secrets |
| Guardian 'The Pakistan Connection' |
| TIME Ex-CIA Agent Robert Baer Calls For Total Transparency On 9/11 |
The Inner Secrets Of 9/11 |
'We'll Let You Have Nukes If You Agree To Do Jihad'
"Behind this desperately
worrying state of affairs lies a grand deception. For three decades, consecutive US administrations, Republican and
Democrat, as well as governments in Britain and other European countries, allowed Pakistan
to acquire highly restricted nuclear technology. Key US agencies were then misdirected and
countermanded in order to disguise how Pakistan had sold it on. Intelligence gathering in
the US was blunted while the departments of state and defence were corralled into backing
the White House agenda and forced to side-step Congress and break federal laws. Officials
who tried to stop the charade were purged. The deceit began under President Jimmy Carter;
but it burgeoned under Ronald Reagan, who used Pakistan as a springboard for American aid
to the antiSoviet jihad in
Afghanistan. US officials converged on Islamabad carrying cash and the message that
America would ignore the growing nuclear programme – while Reagan publicly insisted
that nonproliferation remained a primary policy.....While knowing what was going on, Washington pursued a deception that bloomed into a complex conspiracy. Evidence was destroyed,
criminal files were diverted, and Congress was repeatedly lied to. The obfuscation concealed from the world Pakistan’s 'cold-testing'
of a nuclear bomb in laboratory conditions in 1983 and the intelligence that it had
'hot-tested' – exploded – one in 1984 with the help of China. By the time Reagan’s presidency came to an end in 1989, Pakistan
possessed a deployable and tested nuclear device. Much of the
programme had been funded using hundreds of millions of dollars in US aid diverted by the
Pakistan military.... By the time George W Bush
became president in 2001, there was a mountain of precise intelligence portraying Pakistan
as the epicentre of global instability: a host of and patron for Islamist terrorism, ruled
by a military clique that was raising capital and political influence by selling WMD. Yet
even when American spy satellites photographed missile components being loaded into a
Pakistani C-130 outside Pyong-yang, the North Korean capital – and intelligence
analysts concluded that the cargo was a direct exchange for Pakistani nuclear technology
– Washington did not react. It was in this dangerous condition that Pakistan was
clutched back into the American bosom after the attacks on New York and Washington on
September 11, 2001. And the
deception continued.”
How the West summoned up a nuclear nightmare in Pakistan
Sunday
Times, 2 September 2007
"... neither Ahmed nor Omar appears to
have been sought for questioning by the US about 9/11. Indeed, the official 9/11
Commission Report of July 2004 sought to downplay the role of Pakistan with the comment:
'To date, the US government has not been able to determine the origin of the money used
for the 9/11 attacks. Ultimately the question is of little practical significance' - a
statement of breathtaking disingenuousness. All this highlights the resistance to getting
at the truth about the 9/11 attacks and to an effective crackdown on the forces fomenting
terrorist bombings in the west, including Britain. The extraordinary US forbearance
towards Omar Sheikh, its restraint towards the father of Pakistan's atomic bomb, Dr AQ
Khan, selling nuclear secrets to Iran, Libya and North Korea, the huge US military assistance to
Pakistan and the US decision last year to designate Pakistan as a major non-Nato ally in
south Asia all betoken a deeper strategic set of
goals as the real priority in its relationship with Pakistan. These might be surmised as Pakistan providing sizeable military
contingents for Iraq to replace US troops, or Pakistani troops replacing Nato forces in
Afghanistan. Or it could involve the use of Pakistani military bases for US intervention
in Iran, or strengthening Pakistan as a base in relation to India and China."
Britain now faces its own blowback
Guardian, 10
September 2005
"These are the leading stories in the Turkish press on
Monday..... Former FBI translator Sibel Edmonds says Turkey plays major role in trading nuclear secrets."
Press Digest - Turkey - Jan 7
Reuters,
7 January 2007
| Extracts
From 'A Timeline of Secrecy' American Civil Liberties Union, 26 January 2005 JUNE 2002: Senators Grassley and Leahy write the Justice Department Inspector General a letter asking specific questions about Edmonds' allegations and write that the FBI has confirmed many of her allegations in unclassified briefings. This letter is later retroactively classified in May 2004. JULY 2002: Edmonds files a lawsuit to challenge the FBI's retaliatory actions. AUGUST 2002: Senator Leahy writes Attorney General John Ashcroft a letter asking for a speedy and thorough investigation of Edmonds' case. This letter is later retroactively classified in May 2004. The investigation is not completed for another two years, and then is classified. FEBRUARY 2004: Edmonds testifies to the 9-11 Commission about problems at the FBI. MAY 2004: The Justice Department retroactively classifies Edmonds' briefings to Senators Grassley and Leahy in 2002, as well as FBI briefings regarding her allegations. JUNE 2004: The Project On Government Oversight files suit against the Justice Department and Attorney General Ashcroft, saying the retroactive classification violates the organization's First Amendment rights. JULY 2004: A Justice Department investigation into Edmonds' dismissal is completed but is entirely classified. The report finds that Edmonds' allegations of corruption within the FBI 'were at least a contributing factor' in her dismissal. JULY 2004: Judge Reggie Walton in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia dismisses Edmonds' lawsuit, relying on the government's states secrets privilege. |
Who Believes The Official 9/11
Story Any More?
Japanese Prime Minister Questioned On Validity Of Official 9/11 Report
"[In Japan] On January 11th 2008 the
opposition-controlled upper house voted down the bill to restart the mission to refuel
U.S. and other ships patrolling the Indian Ocean. Member of Parliament Yukihisa Fujita, of
the Japan Democratic party, made a 20 minute long statement at the House of Councillors,
the upper house of the Diet (parliament) of Japan, ahead of the voting. He questioned the official version of 9/11 presented to the
japanese government and the public by the US administration in a session of the defence
commission..... He asked the current Prime Minister
Fukuda who was the Chief Cabinet Secretary under Koizumi cabinet in 2001 . 'How could
terrorists attacked the Pentagon?' .... Yukihisa Fujita did question Defense Minister
Shigeru Ishiba and Minister of Finance Fukushiro Nukaga about the way in which the US
government did inform the japanese government about the people responsible for the 9/11
attacks. He concluded that the japanese governments support of the 'war against terror' is
solely based on information provided by the US-administration. He demanded further
investigation in the face of the governments drive to support the war more actively."
Main japanese opposition party questions 9/11 in parliament - broadcasted on public
TV
Global Research, 15 January 2008
"Prime
Minister, you were Chief Cabinet Secretary at the time [of 9/11] and as somebody has
already noted, this was an incident of the sort that humanity had never previously
experienced. Also, there appears to be a lot more
information about this incident coming out now than came out in the months after the
attacks......We need to look at this evidence and
ask ourselves what the war on terrorism really is. I can see the ministers nodding in
agreement but I would like to ask Prime Minister Fukuda..... Do you not think it [9/11]
was strange?" |
 |
Broadcast live nation-wide on NHK
television in Japan on 11 January, MP Yukihisa Fujita (above) displays a copy of the official 9/11
report at a meeting of the Defence
and Foreign Affairs Committee of the Japanese parliament as he challenges the report's completeness
and reliability. Fujita questioned the
Japanese Prime Minister, as well as the Foreign, Defence, and Finance Ministers, on
various unexplained circumstances surrounding 9/11. Fujita reportedly
received many telephone calls of support from other MPs after the session. In addition to the anomalies referred to by Mr Fujita, the official 9/11 report makes no mention of any of the major allegations concerning 9/11 made by Sibel Edmonds even though she gave evidence to the 9/11 Commission itself in a closed session. Edmonds had previously given an extensive briefing to staff at the US Senate Judiciary Committee. That information was later retroactively declared classified by the Bush Administration. Members of Congress who had information on the case posted on their Web sites were forced to remove it. |
| To view Yukihisa Fujita presentation on YouTube complete with sub-titles Click Here |
The 9/11 Pakistan Connection
"On the eve of the publication of its
report, the 9/11 Commission was given a stunning document from Pakistan, claiming that Pakistani intelligence officers knew in advance of the 9/11
attacks.....The document was received by the
Commission this week as its own report was already coming off the presses. The
information was supplied to the Commission on the understanding that the unimpeachable
source would remain anonymous.... [According to the report] ....'The Pakistan Army
consistently denies giving the militants anything more than moral, diplomatic and
political support. The reality is quite different. ISI issues money and directions to
militant groups, specially the Arab hijackers of 9/11
from al-Qaida. ISI was fully involved in devising and helping the entire affair.'"
The real culprit of 9/11?
United Press International, 22 July 2004
"[Pakistan's] ISI Chief Lt-Gen. [Ahmad] Mahmoud's week-long presence [immediately before 911] in Washington has
triggered speculation about the agenda of his mysterious meetings at the Pentagon and
National Security Council. Officially, he is on a routine visit in return to CIA Director
George Tenet's earlier visit to Islamabad. Official sources confirm that he met Tenet this
week. He also held long parleys with unspecified officials at the White House and the Pentagon. But
the most important meeting was with Mark Grossman, US Under Secretary of State for
Political Affairs. What added interest to his visit
is the history of such visits. Last time Ziauddin Butt, Mahmoud's predecessor, was here,
during Nawaz Sharif's government, the domestic politics turned topsy-turvy within days.
That this is not the first visit by Mahmood in the last three months shows the urgency of
the ongoing parleys."
ISI chief's parleys continue in US
The
News (Pakistan), 10 September 2001
| "By his own account he [Louai al-Sakka] is a senior
Al-Qaeda operative who was at the forefront of the insurgency in Iraq, took part in the
beheading of Briton Kenneth Bigley and helped train the 9/11 bombers. He has been jailed
in connection with the bombing of the British consulate in Istanbul..... Paul Thompson, author and 9/11 researcher, said Sakka’s account was credible. 'I
think there is a lot more about the history of the hijackers that needs to be found out
and Sakka’s claim may resume the debate about just how
much was known about them before 9/11,' he
said." Al-Qaeda kingpin: I trained 9/11 hijackers Sunday Times, 25 November 2007 |
'Treasonous Behaviour' American 'war on terror' researcher Paul Thompson has produced a 9/11 'Terror Timeline' which is considerably more comprehensive than that of the official 9/11 commission. Its usefulness is to the point where Richard Clarke, formerly the US government’s head of counterterrorism under the administrations of both Bill Clinton and George W Bush, has put the book derived from Thompson's online work (Terror Timeline, Paul Thompson, Regan Books, 2004) on the recommended reading list for his terrorism class at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government (Clarke is a strong critic of the conduct of the 'war on terror' having warned the Bush administration in July 2001 that a spectacular terrorist attack on the United States homeland "is going to happen here, and it's going to happen soon".) Below are transcripted excerpts from a video recording of a presentation of his research and analysis that Thompson gave at conference in 2004 in the United States which focused on America's relationship with Pakistan, and the role of Pakistan in 9/11. "In my 9/11 timeline, everything that's in the timeline I use only mainstream sources - New York Times, Newsweek, that kind of thing.... everything I am going to be saying is all coming from these types of sources. And if you listen to what I say you might wonder, if you're not familiar with this material, how come I've never heard of any of this stuff before? How come I've never seen these reports? And that's because this material often gets in the mainstream but in [page] 'B17', some sort of small mention in the back of the newspaper..... So we find that a lot of curious connections between some very important governments in the Middle East - Saudis, United Arab Emirates, Pakistan, the Taliban - and we find these strange connections with the CIA. And then we find this [... ] extensive cover up and rewarding of Pakistan [after 9/11], when you'd think that Pakistan would be punished. You know, why are we going after Iraq and attacking Iraq, when we have all this evidence here of Pakistani involvement [in 9/11]? .... And yet we have this very strange behaviour by the Bush Administration. And so I would pose one of two possibilities to consider from all this information I have given you. One is, either that the US was directly involved with Pakistan, and these other countries, in the 9/11 plot, and allowed it to happen or helped make it happen. Or the US government was completely taken for fools, and then afterwards they covered up their foolishness and have actually, instead of punishing these countries and these actors, they've actually rewarded them. And I would argue that - personally I favour the first - but I would argue in either case, this is really treasonous behaviour to deceive the American people in this way, to let the true perpetrators of 9/11 go free, and in either case it should lead to impeachment of President Bush." |
Paul Thompson
On USA, Pakistan, The ISI And 9/11 - Video - Click Here Paul Thompson's 'Complete 9/11 Timeline' - Click Here |
".... I think there is very compelling evidence
that at least some of the terrorists were assisted not just in financing -- although
that was part of it -- by a
sovereign foreign government and that we have been derelict in our duty to track that down, make the further
case, or find the evidence that would indicate that that is not true and we can look for
other reasons why the
terrorists were able to function so effectively in the United States. It will become public at some
point when it's turned over to the archives, but that's 20 or 30 years from now. And, we need to have this information
now because it's relevant to the threat that the people of the United States are facing
today...."
Senator Bob
Graham, Chairman of the Senate Select Committe On Intelligence
Improving Intelligence
PBS
Online, 11 Dec 2002
ISI's Mahmoud More Powerful Than Musharraf - 'I Know The President's Mind'
"It was 10 a.m on September 12 ,
2001, a day after the devastating terrorist attacks on New York's World Trade Center and
Pentagon headquarters in Washington, when Lt. General
Mahmood Ahmed, the then ISI chief, arrived at the State Department for an emergency
meeting with the US Deputy Secretary of State, Richard Armitage. The General, who was on an official visit to Washington, was to leave for
home, but was left stranded, as all airports had been closed. 'General, we require
your country's full support and cooperation,' Armitage told Pakistan's spy master and
member of the triumvirate that ruled the country. 'We want to know whether you are with us
or not, in our fight against terror,' he added. The meeting was adjourned for the next day
after the General had assured Armitage of Pakistan's full support. 'We will tell you
tomorrow what you are required to do,' Armitage said as they left the room.... It was 12
p.m on September 13, when General Mahmood returned to the State Department for the second
meeting. 'This is not negotiable,' said Armitage, as he handed over a single sheet of
paper with seven demands which Bush administration wanted him to accept. The general, who
was known for his hard-line pro-Taliban position, glanced through the paper for a few
seconds and replied: 'They are all acceptable to us.' The swift response took Armitage by
surprise. 'These are very powerful words, General. Do you not want to discuss with your
President?' he asked. 'I know the president's mind,' replied General Mahmood. A visibly elated Armitage asked General Mahmood
to meet with George Tenet, the CIA chief at his headquarters at Langley. 'He is waiting
for you,' said Armitage ....The American demands, to which General Mahmood acceded to, in
next to no time, required Pakistan to abandon its support for the Taliban regime and
provide logistical support to the American forces .... Astonishingly, within a course of a
week, the military government took an about-turn to become a lynchpin in the US-led
military operation in Afghanistan which ousted the Taliban regime. Pakistan was back as
the US's strategic partner in the region and was now involved in a new war against
terrorism. Indubitably, the military government did not have any option, but the
unconditional and the quick about turn surprised even the American authorities .... There
was no consultation with political leaders on the paradigm shift in the strategic
discourse of the nation. President Musharraf took his handpicked cabinet into confidence,
almost three days after his ISI chief had already consented to the US demands.... President Musharraf was also not very happy with Mahmood's arrogant style,
and for not consulting him
before agreeing to Armitage's seven-point demand.
'Though the President would have given his consent, he did not like being bypassed,' maintains a
senior official.... The shift in Pakistan's Afghan policy and the decision to support the
United States brought huge economic and political dividends to President Musharraf's
government. From a pariah state, Pakistan became the centre of focus of the international
community. Never before have so many head of states travelled to Pakistan as they did, in
the few weeks after September 11. Pakistan was, once more, the US's strategic partner. According to senior American sources, the US-led coalition could
not have achieved its swift success in Afghanistan without the ISI's intelligence support." |
"There are reports that US investigators have uncovered evidence of financial transfers linking Osama Bin Laden to the 11 September attacks on America.
According to FBI sources, Mustafa Mohamed Ahmad, a suspected Bin Laden financial operative, transferred money to Mohamed Atta, one of the hijackers, in the days running up to the attacks. Furthermore Atta and two of the other hijackers transferred some $15,000 back to an account under the same name just two days before the attacks. Mr Ahmad, also known as [Omar] Sheikh Saeed, is one of 27 individuals or groups with a known link to Bin Laden who have had their assets in America frozen.... Cash transfers were made to Atta via a money service in Florida on 8 and 9 September from an account in Dubai, under the name of Mustafa Ahmad.""Director General of Pakistan's Inter-
Services Intelligence (ISI) Lt Gen Mahmud Ahmed has been replaced after the FBI investigators established credible links
between him and Umar Sheikh, one of the three militants released in exchange for passengers of the
hijacked Indian Airlines plane in 1999. The FBI team, which had sought adequate inputs
about various terrorists including Sheikh from the intelligence agencies, was working on
the linkages between Sheikh and former ISI chief Gen Mahmud which are believed to have
been substantiated, reports PTI website. Informed sources said there were enough
indications with the US intelligence agencies that it was at Gen
Mahmud's instruction that Sheikh had transferred 100,000 US dollars into the account of
Mohammed Atta, one of the lead terrorists in strikes
at the World Trade Centre on Sept 11, it adds."
Gen Mahmud's exit due to links with Umar Sheikh
Dawn
(Pakistan), 9 October 2001
"A top FBI counter-terrorism
official told the US Senate governmental affairs committee on Thursday that investigators
have 'traced the origin of the funding of 9/11 back to financial accounts in Pakistan.' John S Pistole, deputy assistant director of the FBI’s counter-terrorism division,
however, did not specify how those accounts in Pakistan were funded, or the role of
Pakistani elements. The Times of India first reported on October 10, 2001 that India told
the US that some $100,000 had been wired to the leader of the hijackers, Mahmud Atta, by British-born
terrorist Ahmad Saeed
Umar Sheikh. Indian authorities also told the US that the trail led back from Sheikh to the
then chief of ISI, Lt Gen Mahmud Ahmad
who was subsequently forced to retire by Pakistan
president Pervez Musharraf. The FBI had been provided with the details, including
Sheikh’s mobile numbers. But Pistole’s testimony is silent on these issues....
The FBI has estimated the September 11 attacks cost between $175,000 and $250,000. That
money — which paid for flight training, travel and other expenses — flowed to
the hijackers through associates in Germany and the United Arab Emirates. Those associates
reported to Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, who managed much of the planning for the attacks from Pakistan,
US officials have said. The Bush Administration is being cagey about declassifying 28 secret pages in a recent report on the 9/11 incident which officials say
outline connections between Saudi charities, royal family members and terrorism. US
authorities are silent about the role some Pakistanis may have played in the conspiracy. The role of Sheikh and Lt Gen
Ahmad has
yet to see the light of the day. Sheikh, wanted for kidnapping and terrorist conspiracy in
India, has since been sentenced to death in Pakistan for the murder of Wall Street Journal
reporter Daniel Pearl."
9/11 funds came from Pakistan, says FBI
Times
of India, 1 August 2003
Mahmoud Wanders Free In Pakistan With No Apparent Complaint From America
"Lt General (r) Mahmood Ahmad, who was
Rawalpindi Corps commander when the Nawaz Sharif government was overthrown in a military
coup on October 12, 1999, made his first public appearance here on Wednesday in his
capacity as the managing director (MD) of Fauji Fertilizer Company (FFC) Limited and
observed that no one had 'blessed' him the post of MD except God. Mr Ahmad, who retired at the end of 2001 after being superseded, appeared before a select group of journalists, mainly from the English
newspapers, but refused to answer questions on the 1999 coup or the Taliban regime. 'Let mystery remain a mystery,' he responded when asked about events
in Pakistan and Afghanistan before the war to displace the Taliban regime.... He also refused to talk about
rumours of his detention
following his being superseded, and instead tried to
steer the discussion to the financial achievements of the FFC. He said the company was one
of the top three in the Karachi Stock Exchange thanks to the hard work and dedication of a
couple of expert officials and efficient management. 'We have made the country
self-sufficient in Urea production and nuclear
technology,' he said."
Lt-Gen Mahmood made MD of FFC
Daily Times,
1 May 2003
'Partners
In Crime' |
"The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) worked in tandem with Pakistan
to create the 'monster' that is today Afghanistan's ruling Taliban, a leading US expert on
South Asia said here [in London]. ...... [Selig] Harrison, who has written five
books on Asian affairs and US relations with Asia, has had extensive contact with the CIA
and political leaders in South Asia. Harrison was a senior associate of the Carnegie
Endowment for International Peace between 1974 and 1996. Harrison who is now senior fellow
with The Century Foundation recalled a conversation he had with the late Gen Zia-ul Haq of
Pakistan. 'Gen Zia spoke to me about expanding
Pakistan's sphere of influence to control Afghanistan, then
Uzbekistan and Tajikstan and then Iran and Turkey,' Harrison said. That design continues, he said. Gen.Mohammed Aziz who was involved in that Zia plan has been
elevated now to a key position by Chief Executive, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, Harrison said.
The old associations between the intelligence agencies continue, Harrison said. 'The CIA still has close links with the ISI (Pakistan's
Inter-Services Intelligence).'" "The
attainment of 'strategic depth' has been a prime objective of Pakistan's Afghan policy
since the days of General Ziaul Haq. In recent years
the Taliban replaced Gulbadin Hikmatyar as the instrument of its attainment.... The
Taliban will certainly be assisted by Islamabad to consolidate their precarious
conquests..... Afghanistan's reconstruction cost is conservatively estimated at some $40
billion. We cannot muster such amounts even for ourselves, so who will keep the Taliban in
business? The strategic dreamers of Islamabad dream of dollar-laden Saudi princes, Emirate
sheikhs and American oil tycoons laying trans-national
pipelines from Turkmenistan to Karachi." "The truth about the 'good war' [in
Afghanistan] is to be found in compelling evidence that the 2001 invasion, widely supported in the west as a
justifiable response to the 11 September attacks, was actually planned two months prior to
9/11 and that the most pressing problem for Washington was not the Taliban's links with
Osama Bin Laden, but the prospect of the Taliban mullahs losing control of Afghanistan to
less reliable mujahedin factions, led by warlords who had been funded and armed by the CIA
to fight America's proxy war against the Soviet occupiers in the 1980s. Known as the Northern Alliance, these mujahedin had been largely a
creation of Washington, which believed the 'jihadi card' could be used to bring down the
Soviet Union. The Taliban were a product of this and, during the Clinton years, they were
admired for their 'discipline'. Or, as the Wall Street Journal put it, '[the
Taliban] are the players most capable of achieving peace in Afghanistan at this moment in
history'. The 'moment in history' was a secret
memorandum of understanding the mullahs had signed with the Clinton administration on the
pipeline deal. However, by the late 1990s, the Northern Alliance had encroached further
and further on territory controlled by the Taliban, whom, as a result, were deemed in
Washington to lack the 'stability' required of such an important client. It was the consistency of this client relationship that had been a
prerequisite of US support, regardless of the Taliban's aversion to human rights. (Asked
about this, a state department briefer had predicted that 'the Taliban will develop like
the Saudis did', with a pro-American economy, no democracy and 'lots of sharia law', which
meant the legalised persecution of women. 'We can live with that, he said.) By early 2001,
convinced it was the presence of Osama Bin Laden that was souring their relationship with
Washington, the Taliban tried to get rid of him. Under a deal negotiated by the leaders of
Pakistan's two Islamic parties, Bin Laden was to be held under house arrest in Peshawar. A
tribunal of clerics would then hear evidence against him and decide whether to try him or
hand him over to the Americans. Whether or not this would have happened, Pakistan's Pervez Musharraf vetoed the plan. According to the then
Pakistani foreign minister, Niaz Naik, a senior US diplomat told him on 21 July 2001 that
it had been decided to dispense with the Taliban 'under a carpet of bombs'...... " "A former Pakistani
diplomat has told the BBC that the US was planning military action against Osama Bin
Laden and the Taleban even before last week's attacks. Niaz Naik, a former Pakistani
Foreign Secretary, was told by senior American
officials in mid-July that military action against Afghanistan would go ahead by the
middle of October. Mr Naik said US officials told
him of the plan at a UN-sponsored international contact group on Afghanistan which took
place in Berlin.... Mr Naik was told that Washington would launch its operation from bases
in Tajikistan, where American advisers were already in place. .... He said that he was in
no doubt that after the World Trade Center bombings this pre-existing US plan had been
built upon and would be implemented within two or three weeks." |
But How Would The Planned Afghan War Have Been Launched Without 9/11?
"Every official we
questioned about the possibility of an invasion of Afghanistan said that it was almost unthinkable, absent a provocation such as 9/11 .... because
they believed the public would not support it."
THE 9/11COMMISSION REPORT (p 137)
"Both civilian
and military officials of the Defense Department state flatly that neither Congress nor the American public would have supported
large-scale military operations in Afghanistan before the shock of 9/11."
The Military
9/11 Commission Staff Statement No 6, 2004
".... the
so-called 'war on terrorism' is being used largely as bogus cover for achieving wider US
strategic geopolitical objectives. Indeed Tony Blair himself hinted at this when he said
to the Commons liaison committee: 'To
be truthful about it, there was no way we could have got the public consent to have
suddenly launched a campaign on Afghanistan but for what happened on September 11' (Times, July 17 2002).... "
Michael Meacher, former
Blair government Minister - 'This war on terrorism is bogus'
The Guardian, 6 September 2003
'Strategic Depth' For What US Purpose?
"[In Uzbekistan] Mr Karimov's
about-turn [away from the United States] highlights how US and Russian influence in the
Central Asian states - Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan -
has been shifting. And with China's emergence as a
major power, the region's politics and security
concerns are set to become more complex. The US presence in the region [Central Asia]
dates back to the beginning of the 'war on terror', when the US needed staging points in
the region for operations in Afghanistan. Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan both provided air
bases.... The most likely source of competition
between the rival powers is over natural resources.
Kazakhstan has enormous oil reserves, estimated at 26bn barrels, and Turkmenistan is rich
in natural gas. China is hungry for energy to keep its economy growing, the US is seeking
to reduce its dependence on Middle Eastern oil, and Russia is keen to exploit potential
transit routes for its resources through Central Asia. Some analysts have described the
interplay of US and Russia - and now Chinese - interests as a new version of the 19th
Century 'Great Game', which saw Russia and the British Empire compete for influence in the
region. Lutz Kleveman, author of The New Great Game: Blood and Oil in Central Asia,
believes the US is using the 'war on terror' to further its oil interests in the
region."
Struggle for influence in Central Asia
BBC Online, 25
November 2005
"George
W. Bush justifies his bombing of Afghanistan as a war against terror. A twin motive,
however, is to make Afghanistan safe for United States oil interests. A few days before
September 11, the U.S. Energy Information Administration documented Afghanistan's
strategic 'geographical position as a potential transit route for oil and natural and gas
exports from Central Asia to the Arabian Sea,' including the construction of pipelines
through Afghanistan. Prior to September 11, United
States policy toward the Taliban was largely influenced by oil. In a new book published in
Paris, 'Bin Laden, la verite interdite' ('Bin Laden, the forbidden truth'), former French
intelligence officer Jean-Charles Brisard and journalist Guillaume Dasquie document a cozy
relationship between George W. Bush and the Taliban. The book quotes John O'Neill, former
director of anti-terrorism for the FBI, who thought the U.S. State Department, acting on
behalf of United States and Saudi oil interests, interfered with FBI efforts to track down
Osama bin Laden. Before he was tapped as Bush's running mate, Dick Cheney was CEO of
Halliburton, the biggest oil services company in the world. In a 1998 speech to the
'Collateral Damage Conference' of the Cato Institute, Cheney said, 'the good Lord didn't
see fit to put oil and gas only where there are democratically elected regimes friendly to
the United States. Occasionally we have to operate in places where, all things considered,
one would not normally choose to go. But, we go where the business is.' Because of the
instability in the Persian Gulf, [Dick] Cheney zeroed in on the world's other major source
of oil, the Caspian Sea, whose resources were estimated at $4 trillion by U.S. News and
World Report. Cheney told oil industry executives in 1998, 'I can't think of a time when
we've had a region emerge as suddenly to become as strategically significant as the
Caspian.' But Caspian oil, landlocked between Russia, Iran and former Soviet republics,
presents formidable transport challenges. Afghanistan is strategically located near the
Caspian Sea. In 1994, the U.S. State Department and
Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency sought to install a stable regime in
Afghanistan to enhance the prospects for Western oil pipelines. They financed, armed and
trained the Taliban in its civil war against the Northern Alliance. In 1995, California-based UNOCAL proposed the construction of an oil
pipeline from Turkmenistan, south through Afghanistan
and Pakistan, to the Arabian Sea. Yasushi Akashi,
U.N. Under-Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs, was critical of 'outside
interference in Afghanistan' in 1997, which, he said, 'is now
all related to the battle for oil and gas pipelines.
The fear is that these companies and regional powers are just renting the Taliban for
their own purposes.' Meanwhile, feminists and Greens in the United States mobilized
opposition to UNOCAL's pipeline deal and Washington's covert support of the Taliban,
because of the latter's oppression of women. In 1998, after the U.S. bombed Al-Qaeda
training camps in retaliation for the bombings of the U.S. embassies in Africa, UNOCAL
pulled out of the pipeline negotiations. Once the Taliban are overthrown and the U.S.
installs a pro-Western government, lucrative investment opportunities will arise. Rob
Sobhani, president of Washington-based Caspian Energy Consulting, said, 'Other major
energy companies could see big opportunities in a deal crucial to restarting Afghanistan's
economy.' A new pipeline could produce revenues totaling $100 million. United States
dependence on Middle East -- and soon Caspian -- oil -- has led our government to engage
itself in heavy-handed, and deadly, interventions."
The Deadly Pipeline War - US Afghan Policy Driven By Oil Interests
The Jurist, 8 December 2001
"In an exclusive interview with nCa,
foreign minister of Pakistan highlighted the measures his country has taken to bring about economic,
energy and transportation integration with the Central Asian region..... Khursheed Mahmood
Kasuri, the foreign minister of Pakistan and a veteran politician best known for his bold stance and deep insight
on vital issues, explained the foreign policy
objectives of Pakistan toward Central Asia. He told
that the Trans Afghan Pipeline was proceeding
according to the schedule [following the overthrow
of the Taleban]....."
Pakistan Focused on Energy, Transport, Economic Integration with Central Asia
News
Central Asia, 26 August 2004
"Washington
is pushing for a new gas pipeline from Turkmenistan to Pakistan and 'strongly opposes' a
rival pipeline from Iran, US diplomat Steven Mann said Tuesday after meeting with Turkman
President Saparmurat Niyazov. Niyazov and Mann met
for two hours Monday to discuss a variety of possible gas pipeline projects from the
gas-rich Central Asian state, including pipelines to China and across the Caspian Sea, as
well as through Afghanistan to energy-hungry Pakistan and India, Mann said...... Niyazov, a mercurial
politician who has been president since Turkmenistan's independence in 1991, said after
his meeting with Mann that the country supported 'the policy of creating a diverse
pipeline system,' the Turkmen government news agency reported late Monday.During the
mid-1990s, the United States pushed for a gas pipeline to be built across the Caspian Sea
from Turkmenistan to Western markets, but Niyazov eventually backed out of the project,
which was opposed by Moscow.... The US also has
strategic interests in such a pipeline, Weafer said,
including undermining the potential profitability of a pipeline Russian state monopoly
Gazprom plans to build from Iran to Pakistan.... In addition, Weafer said that 'getting
Turkmen gas out to India would reduce Turkmenistan's ability to give gas to China or
Russia.' In a possible sign of the strategic importance of US-Turkmen cooperation, the
meeting between Mann and Niyazov came on the eve of a summit by the leaders of six
ex-Soviet nations in Sochi on Tuesday, which some Russian commentators said was aimed at
strengthening Russia's grip over Central Asian energy
resources."
US envoy pushes for Turkmenistan-Pakistan gas pipeline
Agence France Presse, 26 August
2006
"India has been
agonizing over the real nature of US-Pakistan relations for years. After September
11, New Delhi expected Washington to come down hard on Pakistan, known to be a hub of
Islamic extremism and terrorism in the region. Instead, the US came to the rescue of what
was then a clearly failing state under a blatant military dictatorship. Even after facts of Pakistani intelligence's involvement in
September 11 came to light, the US has been not only
forgiving but supportive to an extraordinary degree. As
a result, Indian strategists are now finding it difficult to counter conspiracy theorists
who continue to claim that the 'war on terrorism' is mere shadow-boxing and that September
11 had been organized by Islamabad with the help of al-Qaeda at US behest after the
neo-conservatives ruling the US needed a pretext for fulfilling
their imperialist agenda. There used to be few
takers for such wild imaginings in India; but apparently things are changing. There are
too many discrepancies and inconsistencies in official US claims that even the most
incredible conspiratorial claims are beginning to gain credence." |
A Lucrative Move For All Concerned Except The US Taxpayer
"The decision to support Bush’s
war on terror turned President Pervez Musharraf from a pariah dictator to a feted world
leader. It was a lucrative move. Pakistan has again become one of the biggest recipients of US aid —
just as it was during the Afghan war against Soviet
occupiers when ISI was the main conduit for arms and funds. Since September 11, America has dismissed $1.5 billion in debt and
provided Pakistan with more than $3 billion in
military assistance. Last year Pakistan was one of
the world’s fastest-growing economies. It recently placed a $2.5 billion order for
American F-16 jet fighters — as much as Afghanistan’s entire annual foreign
aid."
Just whose side is Pakistan really on?
Sunday Times, 13
August 2006
"Lockheed Martin Corp was
awarded a $498.2 million contract to supply F-16 aircraft to Pakistan, the Pentagon said on Monday, as Pakistani officials mulled whether to go
ahead with a January 8 election after the
assassination of opposition leader Benazir Bhutto.
Lockheed will sell 12 F-16C plus 6 F-16D planes to Pakistan under the contract, the
Pentagon said in its daily list of defense contract
awards. The Defense Department, which oversees sales
of military weapons to foreign governments, did not say how soon the fighter jets would be
delivered. Pakistan has received about $10 billion in
U.S. funding since 2001 because Washington views
Pakistan as a key ally in President George W. Bush's campaign against terrorism. Bhutto's
death on Thursday wrecked U.S. hopes of a power-sharing deal between her and President
Pervez Musharraf, who took power in a 1999 military coup but left the army last month to
become a civilian president. The United States has agreed to sell Pakistan up to 36 new
F-16 jets together with refurbished F-16s. Last month, two senior Democratic U.S.
lawmakers urged the suspension of some U.S. military sales, including the sale of F-16
fighter jets, if Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf did not revoke emergency rule.
Lockheed, the Pentagon's No. 1 contractor, won a $144 million contract in 2006 for
materials needed to build the F-16s." |
"It was in this dangerous condition that Pakistan was clutched back into the American bosom after the attacks on New York and Washington on September 11, 2001. And the deception continued.”
How the West summoned up a nuclear nightmare in Pakistan
Sunday Times, 2 September 2007
Three Decades Of US-ISI Double Dealing
"The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in
December 1979 transformed the regional setting. President
Carter and his national security adviser, Zbigniew Brzezinski, built a Western-Muslim coalition with Britain, France, West Germany,
China, Egypt, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates playing key roles.
Revolutionary Iran offered some aid to anti-Soviet guerrillas in western Afghanistan. But all other foreign assistance to the mujahideen arrived via Pakistan, to be
handled by the ISI
whose Afghan Bureau co-ordinated all operational activities with the seven guerrilla
militias. This was done in such secrecy that the Pakistani military itself
was kept in the dark. Just to get a sense of the
scale of the operation - the CIA provided enough arms
to equip a 240,000-man army, and the Saudis matched US funding dollar for dollar. Other countries provided arms and money and Muslim countries also
encouraged volunteers to join the jihad or holy war. Foreign
money helped to establish hundreds of madrassas (religious schools) in Pakistan's cities
and frontier areas. These turned out thousands of Taleban (students) who joined the
mujahideen in the anti-Soviet campaign. The ISI managed this operation, handling tens
of thousands of tons of ordnance every year and co-ordinating the action of several
hundred thousand fighters in great secrecy."
Pakistan's shadowy secret service
BBC Online, 9 October 2006
| The Grand Deception Began Here |
"Question: The former director of the CIA, Robert Gates, stated in his memoirs ['From the Shadows'], that American intelligence services began to aid the Mujahadeen in Afghanistan 6 months before the Soviet intervention. In this period you were the national security adviser to President Carter. You therefore played a role in this affair. Is that correct? Brzezinski: Yes. According to the official version of history, CIA aid to the Mujahadeen began during 1980, that is to say, after the Soviet army invaded Afghanistan, 24 Dec 1979. But the reality, secretly guarded until now, is completely otherwise. Indeed, it was July 3, 1979 that President Carter signed the first directive for secret aid to the opponents of the pro-Soviet regime in Kabul. And that very day, I wrote a note to the president in which I explained to him that in my opinion this aid was going to induce a Soviet military intervention. Q: Despite this risk, you were an advocate of this covert action. But perhaps you yourself desired this Soviet entry into war and looked to provoke it? B: It isn't quite that. We didn't push the Russians to intervene, but we knowingly increased the probability that they would." Q: When the Soviets justified their intervention by asserting that they intended to fight against a secret involvement of the United States in Afghanistan, people didn't believe them. However, there was a basis of truth. You don't regret anything today? B: Regret what? That secret operation was an excellent idea. It had the effect of drawing the Russians into the Afghan trap and you want me to regret it? The day that the Soviets officially crossed the border, I wrote to President Carter. We now have the opportunity of giving to the USSR its Vietnam war. Indeed, for almost 10 years, Moscow had to carry on a war unsupportable by the government, a conflict that brought about the demoralization and finally the breakup of the Soviet empire. Q: And neither do you regret having supported the Islamic fundamentalism, having given arms and advice to future terrorists? B: What is most important to the history of the world? The Taliban or the collapse of the Soviet empire? Some stirred-up Moslems or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the cold war? Q: Some stirred-up Moslems? But it has been said and repeated Islamic fundamentalism represents a world menace today. B: Nonsense!...... |
"In the twilight of the Cold War, the United States spent millions of dollars to
supply Afghan schoolchildren with textbooks filled with violent images and militant
Islamic teachings..... The primers, which were filled with talk of jihad and featured
drawings of guns, bullets, soldiers and mines, have served since then as the Afghan school
system's core curriculum. Even the Taliban used the American-produced books.... now it
[the US] is wrestling with the unintended consequences of its
successful strategy of stirring Islamic fervor to
fight communism. What seemed like a good idea in the context of the Cold War is being
criticized by humanitarian workers as a crude tool that steeped
a generation in violence.... During that time of
Soviet occupation, regional military leaders in Afghanistan helped the U.S. smuggle books
into the country. They demanded that the primers contain anti-Soviet passages. Children
were taught to count with illustrations showing tanks, missiles and land mines, agency
officials said. They acknowledged that at the time it also suited U.S. interests to stoke hatred of foreign invaders....
the textbooks continued to circulate in various versions, even after the Taliban
seized power in 1996.... Today,
the books remain widely available in schools and shops.... The military content was included to 'stimulate
resistance against invasion,' explained Yaquib
Roshan of Nebraska's Afghanistan center."
From U.S., the ABC's of Jihad
Washington
Post, 23 March 2002
"Pakistan's powerful military
intelligence agency has been accused of propelling the Taleban to power in Afghanistan and
supporting militants fighting India in the disputed territory of Kashmir. Critics of the
shadowy Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence
(ISI), believed to have worked
closely with the American Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, say it is a 'rogue agency' -
functioning as an 'invisible government'.....The
Americans have always felt more comfortable talking to the ISI than to the government of the day....."
Wajid Shamsul Hasan, former Pakistani High Commissioner to Britain
Profile: Pakistan's military intelligence agency
BBC Online, 9 January
2002
"The decision to support Bush’s
war on terror turned President Pervez Musharraf from a pariah dictator to a feted world
leader. It was a lucrative move. Pakistan has again become one of the biggest recipients
of US aid — just as it was during the Afghan war
against Soviet occupiers when ISI was the main conduit for arms and funds."
Just whose side is Pakistan really on?
Sunday Times, 13
August 2006
Nukes In Return For Anti-Russian Jihad
The 'Pakistan Connection' Conspiracy Has Run For Decades
Both Before And After 9/11
"The United States
provided Pakistani nuclear scientists with technical training from the 1950's into the
1970's. And it turned a blind eye to the nuclear weapons program in the 1980's, because Pakistan was providing the crucial link in the Central
Intelligence Agency's effort to smuggle billions of dollars
of weapons to Afghan guerrillas attempting to drive out Soviet invaders..... Pakistan's efforts to build
the bomb began in the 1950's. Under the 'Atoms for Peace' program, the United States
agreed to train Pakistani scientists in nuclear-reactor technology. Washington also
provided Pakistan's first research reactor and fuel. The training continued until 1972.
That year, shortly after a crushing defeat in its third war with India since the two
nations were cut free from British colonial rule in 1947, Pakistan resolved never to
suffer such humiliation again. In January 1972, Mr. Bhutto, by then Prime Minister,
summoned his nation's best nuclear physicists and ordered them to build a bomb. Pakistan
set up a world-wide smuggling ring to buy, copy or steal nuclear weapons technology,
according to United States officials and declassified Government documents. India tested a
nuclear weapon in 1974, and Pakistan greatly intensified its efforts in response. The
program was closely monitored by the United States military, intelligence and
law-enforcement services - so closely that President Jimmy Carter cut off all military and
economic aid to Pakistan in April 1979, citing United States laws aimed at stopping the
spread of nuclear weapons. That decision was reversed
nine months later, after the Soviet Union invaded
Afghanistan, which lies on Pakistan's border. Pakistan's
military ruler, Gen. Mohammad Zia ul-Haq, agreed to smuggle weapons to the Afghans on
behalf of the C.I.A. Suddenly Pakistan was the recipient of a six-year, $3.2 billion American aid package - half
cash, half high-tech weapons. But in 1983, a secret
State Department report said there was 'unambiguous evidence that Pakistan is actively
pursuing a nuclear weapons program.' The report detailed how Pakistan had bought or stolen
nuclear weapons technology around the world.... General Zia indicated his belief that he
had the blessings of President Ronald Reagan and the
Director of Central Intelligence, William J. Casey,
to go ahead and build the bomb, according to two retired Pakistani military intelligence
officials. The general clearly stated his intent in a 1986 interview. 'It is our right to
obtain the technology,' General Zia said..... Everything changed after the Soviet
withdrawal from Afghanistan, when Pakistan was no longer needed as the key link in the
C.I.A.'s arms pipeline to Afghan rebels. In 1990, the United States finally acknowledged
that the Pakistani nuclear weapons program existed -- and, under the law, cut off military
aid. This left Pakistan's armed forces, facing an Indian Army twice their size, without a
reliable source of conventional weapons, like tanks and jets. It is still waiting for 28
F-16's, for which it paid the United States $650 million."
NUCLEAR ANXIETY: THE KNOW-HOW; U.S. and China Helped Pakistan Build Its Bomb
New
York Times, 1 June 1998
"Over the past two years, Pakistan's
culture of denial had produced a surreal nuclear theater of the absurd. Any suggestion
Pakistan's nuclear establishment was less than a paragon of nonproliferation probity was
deemed beyond contempt. The father of the country's nuclear arsenal, Abdul Qadeer Khan
(AQK), had been elevated to the Islamic equivalent of sainthood.....For the past two
years, Mr. Musharraf suspected AQK was free-lancing his nuclear assets, but the
Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency kept assuring him nothing was amiss. That was
hardly surprising. ISI and AQK have worked hand in
glove since the very beginning of Pakistan's secret nuclear weapons program."
PAKISTAN'S UNRAVELING NUCLEAR SECRETS
Washington Times, 30 January 2004
"Washington
had itself not only turned a blind eye to Pakistan’s nuclear bomb project for decades
but had covered it up for imperative geopolitical reasons, even when Islamabad began
trading its secret technology....Britain had
privately been pressing America to tell Musharraf it had to stop.... The details were
agreed between Musharraf and Richard Armitage, the deputy secretary of state, at a meeting
in Islamabad. A drama was conceived that drew from Musharraf a promise to shut down Pakistan’s nuclear
black market in return for winning continued US support for his unelected regime..... It was agreed that A Q Khan and his aides would be arrested and
blamed for 'privately' engaging in proliferation. The country’s military elite –
who had sponsored Khan’s work and encouraged sales of technology to reduce their
reliance on American aid – were left in the clear..... The nuclear programme and
trading were – and are – completely under the military government’s control.....America’s reason for sustaining Musharraf in power is that the
alternative is even less appealing. The upper reaches of the army, and the retired
military elite, are rife with Islamists – a legacy of General Zia ul-Haq, the zealot
who both ramped up the nuclear programme and gave the military a religious mission when he
was president from 1978-88. The tragedy is that America’s gamble on Musharraf has not
paid off. Washington’s nightmare is a nuclear Pakistan controlled by fundamentalists.
Yet Musharraf presides over a country that is not only still a nuclear proliferator but
the real source of the Islamist terrorism menacing the West..... Musharraf’s government has been rewarded with a 45,000%
increase in US aid since 2001, taking assistance levels to more than $10 billion, five
times more than received by any other country (including Israel).....Most alarming was the finding that hundreds of thousands of
components amassed by Khan had vanished since he had been put out of operation. In other
words, Pakistan has continued to sell nuclear weapons technology (to clients known and
unknown) even as Musharraf denies it – which means either that the sales are being
carried out with his secret blessing or that he is no more in control of Pakistan’s
nuclear programme than he is of the bands of jihadis in his country. Some of
Pakistan’s generals are gleeful and even unguarded about the trade, seeing it as
proof of their apparently untouchable status as a prime ally in the US war on terror, but
also as evidence of their rapid industrialisation..... Behind this desperately worrying state of affairs lies a grand deception. For three decades,
consecutive US administrations, Republican and Democrat, as well as governments in Britain
and other European countries, allowed Pakistan to acquire highly restricted nuclear
technology. Key US agencies were then misdirected and countermanded in order to disguise
how Pakistan had sold it on. Intelligence gathering in the US was blunted while the
departments of state and defence were corralled into backing the White House agenda and
forced to side-step Congress and break federal laws. Officials who tried to stop the
charade were purged. The deceit began under President Jimmy Carter; but it burgeoned under
Ronald Reagan, who used Pakistan as a springboard for American aid to the antiSoviet jihad in Afghanistan. US officials
converged on Islamabad carrying cash and the message that America would ignore the growing
nuclear programme – while Reagan publicly insisted that nonproliferation remained a
primary policy. A flavour of the duplicity comes
from Robert Gallucci, who was director of the bureau of near eastern and south Asian
affairs at the State Department in 1982 at a time when the Reagan administration was
desperately struggling to suppress evidence that Khan was designing a bomb. After British
intelligence caught the Khan network shopping in the UK for reflective shields made from
beryllium, which could boost the power of a nuclear device, Reagan sent General Vernon
Walters, a former CIA deputy director, to see President Zia in Islamabad. Gallucci, who
accompanied him, remembers: 'Our evidence was incontrovertible. ‘This is what your
experts have been up to’, we said, as politely as we could, giving Zia a get-out.
'However, the president rejected our briefing, saying our information had come from the
Indians.' Gallucci was not privy to a secret agenda. Walters confided to a senior State
Department colleague on his return that, far from demanding a rollback in nuclear trading,
he had been asked to warn the Pakistanis to do it more discreetly. 'He came in looking
miserable,' the colleague recalled. 'He said, ‘I was told [by the White House] to
tell Zia to get that nuclear problem off our radar’. 'I was shocked. It was the
antithesis of what we were supposed to be doing. Instead of giving it to them with both
barrels, Walters had told the Pakistanis they had better hide their bomb programme, lest
it humiliate Reagan.'....While knowing what was going
on, Washington pursued a deception that bloomed into a complex conspiracy. Evidence was destroyed, criminal files were diverted, and Congress was
repeatedly lied to. The obfuscation concealed from
the world Pakistan’s 'cold-testing' of a nuclear bomb in laboratory conditions in
1983 and the intelligence that it had 'hot-tested' – exploded – one in 1984 with
the help of China. By the time Reagan’s
presidency came to an end in 1989, Pakistan possessed a deployable and tested nuclear
device. Much of the programme had been funded using hundreds
of millions of dollars in US aid diverted by the Pakistan military.... By the time George W Bush became president in 2001, there was a
mountain of precise intelligence portraying Pakistan as the epicentre of global
instability: a host of and patron for Islamist terrorism, ruled by a military clique that
was raising capital and political influence by selling WMD. Yet even when American spy
satellites photographed missile components being loaded into a Pakistani C-130 outside
Pyong-yang, the North Korean capital – and intelligence analysts concluded that the
cargo was a direct exchange for Pakistani nuclear technology – Washington did not
react. It was in this dangerous condition that Pakistan was clutched back into the
American bosom after the attacks on New York and Washington on September 11, 2001. And the deception continued.”
How the West summoned up a nuclear nightmare in Pakistan
Sunday
Times, 2 September 2007
Post Cold-War ISI Continues As US Covert Contractor
Exporting Islamic Jihad On Behalf Of Washington
"The Clinton
administration followed up by providing strong support to the KLA, even though it was
known that the KLA supported the Muslim mujahadeen. Despite that knowledge, then Secretary of State Madeleine Albright had
the KLA removed from the State Department list of terrorists. This action paved the way
for the United States to provide the KLA with needed logistical support. At the same time,
the KLA also received support from Iran and Usama bin Laden, along with 'Islamic holy
warriors' who were jihad veterans from Bosnia, Chechnya and Afghanistan. Swiss journalist
Richard Labeviere, in his book, 'Dollars for Terror,' said that the international Islamic networks linked to bin Laden received
help from U.S. intelligence community. Indeed,
Chechen sources claim that U.S. intelligence also aided them in their opposition to Russia. Given
that U.S. policy in the post-Cold War period has not only been anti-Russian but
anti-Iranian, the United States worked closely with Pakistan's predominantly Sunni Inter-Services
Intelligence organization. Through ISI, the United States recruited Sunni mujahadeen by staging them in Chechnya to fight in Bosnia and later in Kosovo." 'As You Sow So Shall You Reap' |
"During the Soviet occupation of
Afghanistan in the 1980s, the US funded large numbers of jihadists through Pakistan's secret intelligence service, the ISI. Later the US wanted to raise
another jihadi corps, again using proxies, to help Bosnian Muslims fight to weaken the
Serb government's hold on Yugoslavia. Those they turned to included Pakistanis in Britain.
According to a recent report by the Delhi-based Observer Research Foundation, a contingent
was also sent by the Pakistani government, then led by Benazir Bhutto, at the request of
the Clinton administration. This contingent was formed from the Harkat-ul- Ansar (HUA)
terrorist group and trained by the ISI. The report estimates that about 200 Pakistani Muslims living in the UK
went to Pakistan, trained in HUA camps and joined the HUA's contingent in Bosnia. Most significantly, this was 'with the full knowledge and
complicity of the British and American intelligence agencies'. As the 2002 Dutch government report on Bosnia makes clear, the US provided
a green light to groups on the state department list of terrorist organisations, including
the Lebanese-based Hizbullah, to operate in Bosnia - an episode that calls into question
the credibility of the subsequent 'war on terror'. For
nearly a decade the US helped Islamist insurgents linked to Chechnya, Iran and Saudi
Arabia destabilise the former Yugoslavia. The
insurgents were also allowed to move further east to Kosovo. By the end of the fighting in
Bosnia there were tens of thousands of Islamist insurgents in Bosnia, Croatia and Kosovo;
many then moved west to Austria, Germany and Switzerland."
Britain now faces its own blowback
Guardian, 10
September 2005
Switching Sides To The Northern Alliance As Taliban Fail To Deliver Pipeline
"Lord Palmerston's axiom: nations have
no permanent allies, only permanent interests."
A Farewell to Allies
TIME,
4 January 2004
"The truth about the 'good war' [in
Afghanistan] is to be found in compelling evidence that the 2001 invasion, widely supported in the west as a
justifiable response to the 11 September attacks, was actually planned two months prior to
9/11 and that the most pressing problem for Washington was not the Taliban's links with
Osama Bin Laden, but the prospect of the Taliban mullahs losing control of Afghanistan to
less reliable mujahedin factions, led by warlords who had been funded and armed by the CIA
to fight America's proxy war against the Soviet occupiers in the 1980s. Known as the Northern Alliance, these mujahedin had been largely a
creation of Washington, which believed the 'jihadi card' could be used to bring down the
Soviet Union. The Taliban were a product of this and, during the Clinton years, they were
admired for their 'discipline'. Or, as the Wall Street Journal put it, '[the
Taliban] are the players most capable of achieving peace in Afghanistan at this moment in
history'. The 'moment in history' was a secret
memorandum of understanding the mullahs had signed with the Clinton administration on the
pipeline deal. However, by the late 1990s, the Northern Alliance had encroached further
and further on territory controlled by the Taliban, whom, as a result, were deemed in
Washington to lack the 'stability' required of such an important client. It was the consistency of this client relationship that had been a
prerequisite of US support, regardless of the Taliban's aversion to human rights. (Asked
about this, a state department briefer had predicted that 'the Taliban will develop like
the Saudis did', with a pro-American economy, no democracy and 'lots of sharia law', which
meant the legalised persecution of women. 'We can live with that, he said.) By early 2001,
convinced it was the presence of Osama Bin Laden that was souring their relationship with
Washington, the Taliban tried to get rid of him. Under a deal negotiated by the leaders of
Pakistan's two Islamic parties, Bin Laden was to be held under house arrest in Peshawar. A
tribunal of clerics would then hear evidence against him and decide whether to try him or
hand him over to the Americans. Whether or not this would have happened, Pakistan's Pervez Musharraf vetoed the plan. According to the then
Pakistani foreign minister, Niaz Naik, a senior US diplomat told him on 21 July 2001 that
it had been decided to dispense with the Taliban 'under a carpet of bombs'...... "
America's great game
New Statesman, 10 January 2008
"Until July 2001 the US government
saw the Taliban regime as a source of stability in Central Asia that would enable the
construction of hydrocarbon pipelines from the oil and gas fields in Turkmenistan,
Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, through Afghanistan and Pakistan, to the Indian
Ocean. But, confronted with the Taliban's refusal to accept US conditions, the US
representatives told them 'either you accept our
offer of a carpet of gold, or we bury you under a carpet of bombs' .... The 9/11 attacks allowed the US to press the 'go' button
for a strategy in accordance with the PNAC agenda which it would otherwise have been
politically impossible to implement. The overriding motivation for this political
smokescreen is that the US and the UK are beginning to run out of secure hydrocarbon
energy supplies.... "
This war on terrorism is bogus
The Guardian, 6 September 2003
"Pakistani fighters trapped in the
besieged city of Konduz have been airlifted to safety in Pakistan with the apparent consent of the United States... The deserters are believed to have been joined by some
retired soldiers, including operatives of Inter-Services Intelligence, Pakistan’s main spy agency....It is not thought that many of those who were flown back to
Pakistan, including deserters, were detained on their return...."