CHAPTER I
Background: Behind September 11
The world is at the crossroads of the most serious crisis in modern
history. In the wake of the tragic events of September 11, in the
largest display of military might since the Second World War, the
United States has embarked upon a military adventure which threatens
the future of humanity.
Barely a few hours following the terrorist attacks on the World
Trade Center and the Pentagon, Osama bin Laden and his Al Qaeda
network were identified by the Bush administration—without
supporting evidence—as “the prime suspects”. Secretary of State
Colin Powell called the attacks “an act of war”, and President
George W. Bush confirmed in an evening-televised address to the
Nation that he would “make no distinction between the terrorists who
committed these acts and those [foreign governments] who harbor
them” .
Former CIA Director James Woolsey
pointed his finger at “state sponsorship”, implying the complicity
of one or more foreign governments. In the words of former National
Security Adviser Lawrence Eagleburger,
“I think we will show when we
get attacked like this, we are terrible in our strength and in our
retribution.”1
Meanwhile, parroting official statements, the Western media had
approved the launching of “punitive actions” directed against
civilian targets in Central Asia and the Middle East. According to
William Safire writing in the New York Times:
“When we reasonably
determine our attackers’ bases and camps, we must pulverize
them—minimizing but accepting the risk of collateral damage— and act
overtly or covertly to destabilize terror’s national hosts.”2
The
Bush administration, using the US media as its mouthpiece, was
preparing the Western World for the merciless killing of thousands
of innocent civilians in Afghanistan and beyond.
Osama bin Laden: Pretext for Waging War
At the outset, the “war on terrorism” had conveniently been used by
the Bush administration not only to justify the extensive bombing of
civilian targets in Afghanistan, but also to repeal constitutional
rights and the Rule of Law at home, in the context of the “domestic
war” on terrorism.
It turns out that the prime suspect in the New York and Washington
terrorists attacks, Saudi-born Osama bin Laden, is a creation of US
foreign policy. He was recruited during the Soviet-Afghan war
“ironically under the auspices of the CIA, to fight Soviet
invaders”. Our analysis in Chapters II, III and IV amply confirms
that Osama bin Laden’s Al Qaeda network is what the CIA calls an
“intelligence asset”.
During the Cold War, but also in its aftermath, the CIA—using
Pakistan’s military intelligence apparatus as a “go-between”—played
a key role in training the Mujahideen. In turn, the CIA-sponsored
guerrilla training was integrated with the teachings of Islam. Both
the Clinton and Bush administrations have consistently supported the
“Militant Islamic Base”, including Osama bin Laden’s Al Qaeda, as
part of their foreign policy agenda. The links between Osama bin
Laden and the Clinton administration in Bosnia and Kosovo are well
documented by congressional records. (See Chapter IV.)
A few months after the attacks, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld,
stated that it will be difficult to find Osama and extradite him:
“It’s like searching for a needle in a stack of hay.” But the US
could have ordered, with no problem, his arrest and extradition on
several occasions prior to the September 11 attacks. Two months
before the September 11 attacks bin Laden, America’s “Most Wanted
Fugitive”, was in the American Hospital in Dubai (United Arab
Emirates) receiving treatment for a chronic kidney infection. If the
US authorities had wanted to arrest Osama bin Laden prior to
September 11, they could have done it then.
But then they would not have had a
pretext for waging a major military operation in Central Asia.
The US Support of the Taliban
While the Western media (which echoes the Bush administration)
portrays the Taliban and Osama bin Laden’s Al Qaeda as the
“incarnation of evil”, they fail to mention that the Taliban’s
coming to power in Afghanistan 1996 was the result of US military
aid, channeled to Taliban and Al Qaeda forces through Pakistan’s ISI.
Jane Defense Weekly confirms that “half of Taliban manpower and
equipment originate[d] in Pakistan under the ISI”.3
Backed by Pakistan’s ISI, the imposition of the hardline Taliban
Islamic State largely served American geopolitical interests in the
region. The hidden agenda behind US support to the Taliban was oil,
because no sooner had the Taliban taken Kabul in 1996 and formed a
government, than a delegation was whisked off to Houston, Texas for
meetings with officials of Unocal Corporation regarding the
construction of the strategic trans-Afghan pipeline. (See map page
2.)
Largest Display of Military Might Since
World War II
Presented to public opinion as a “campaign against international
terrorism”, the deployment of America’s war machine purports to
enlarge America’s sphere of influence not only in Central Asia and
the Middle East, but also into the Indian sub-continent and the Far
East. Ultimately, the US is intent upon establishing a permanent
military presence in Afghanistan, which occupies a strategic
position bordering on the former Soviet Union, China and Iran.
Afghanistan is also at the hub of five
nuclear powers: Russia, China, India, Pakistan and Kazakhstan. In
this regard, the Bush administration has taken the opportunity of
using the “war against terrorism” to establish US military bases in
several former Soviet republics including Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan,
Tajikistan and the Kirgyz Republic. (See Chapter VI.)
Authoritarian State
Under the Bush administration, the military and intelligence
apparatus has clearly taken over the reins of foreign policy in
close consultation with Wall Street. With key decisions taken behind
closed doors at the CIA and the Pentagon, “civilian political
institutions” including the US Congress increasingly become a
façade.
While the illusion of a “functioning democracy” prevails in
the eyes of public opinion, the US President has become a mere
public relations figurehead, with visibly little understanding of
key foreign policy issues:
[O]n too many issues, especially
those dealing with the wider world of global affairs, Bush often
sounds as if he’s reading from cue cards. When he ventures into
international issues, his unfamiliarity is palpable and not even
his unshakable self-confidence keeps him from avoiding
mistakes.4
When a journalist asked Governor Bush
during the 2000 election campaign what he thought about the Taliban:
[H]e just shrugged his shoulders,
bemused. It took a bit of prompting from the journalist
(“discrimination against women in Afghanistan”) for Bush to
rouse himself: “Taliban in Afghanistan! Absolutely. Reprisals. I
thought you were talking about some rock group.”
That’s how
well-informed about the outside world the prospective US
President is, [e]ven about very important present-day
developments that are on everyone’s lips—that is, everyone with
the slightest pretensions to culture; developments that he, if
elected, will have to deal with.5 George W. Bush’s statement on
the Taliban was made to a Glamor correspondent. While commented
on by a number of newspapers outside the US, it has barely been
acknowledged by the American media.6
Who decides in Washington?
In the
context of a major military operation which has a bearing on our
collective future and global security—not to mention Washington’s
“first strike” use of nuclear weapons—this question is of the utmost
significance. In other words, apart from reading carefully prepared
speeches, does the President wield any real political power or is he
an instrument of the military intelligence establishment?
Military Planners Call the Shots
Under the New World Order, military planners in the State
Department, the Pentagon and the CIA call the shots on foreign
policy. They are not only in liaison with NATO, they also maintain
contacts with officials in
the IMF, the World Bank and the World
Trade Organization (WTO). In turn, the Washington-based
international financial bureaucracy, responsible for imposing deadly
“economic medicine” in the Third World and in most of the countries
of the former Soviet block, maintains a close working relationship
with the Wall Street financial establishment.
The powers behind this system are those of the global banks and
financial institutions, the military-industrial complex, the oil and
energy giants, the biotech and pharmaceutical conglomerates and the
powerful media and communications giants, which fabricate the news
and overtly influence the course of world events by blatantly
distorting the facts.
“Criminalization” of the US State
Apparatus
Under the Reagan administration, senior officials in the State
Department had used the proceeds of illicit narcotics trade to
finance the supply of weapons to the Nicaraguan Contras. In a bitter
twist, the same State Department officials implicated in the
“Iran-Contragate” scandal now occupy key positions in the Bush
administration’s inner cabinet.
These same “Iran-Contragate officials” call the shots in the
day-to-day planning of the “war on terrorism”. Richard Armitage
“worked closely with Oliver North and was involved in the
Iran-Contra arms smuggling scandal”.7 (See Chapter XII.)
Bush has been choosing people from the
most dubious part of the Republican stable of the 1980s, those
engaged in the Iran-Contra affair. His first such appointment, that
of Richard Armitage as Deputy Secretary of State, went through the
Senate quietly back in March by a voice vote. Armitage served as
Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs in
the Reagan years, but a 1989 appointment in the elder Bush
administration was withdrawn before hearings because of controversy
over Iran-Contra and other scandals.
Bush followed up the Armitage appointment by appointing Reagan’s
Assistant Secretary of State, Elliot Abrams, as the National
Security Council’s senior director for democracy, human rights and
international operations, a post which does not require Senate
approval. Abrams pleaded guilty to two misdemeanor counts of lying
to Congress during the Iran Contra hearings and was subsequently
pardoned by George H. W. Bush.8
Richard Armitage was also one of the main architects behind US
covert support to the Mujahideen and the “Militant Islamic Base”,
both during the Afghan-Soviet war as well as in its aftermath.
Financed by the Golden Crescent drug trade, this pattern has not
been fundamentally altered. (See Chapters II and XVI.) It still
constitutes an integral part of US foreign policy. Moreover, amply
documented, the multi-billion dollar drug trade has been been a
major source of illicit funding by the CIA.9
Destroying the Rule of Law
Since September 11, state resources have been redirected towards
financing the military-industrial complex, while social programs
have been slashed. Government budgets have been restructured and tax
revenues have been channeled towards beefing up the police and the
domestic security apparatus. A “new legitimacy” has emerged, which
undermines the fabric of the judicial system and destroys “the Rule
of Law”. Ironically, in several Western countries including the US,
Great Britain and Canada, “existing democracies” are being repealed
by democratically elected governments.
While “national security” has been reinforced, the new legislation
is not meant to “protect citizens against terrorism”. Rather, it
largely upholds and protects the “free market” system. Its purpose
is to disarm the civil rights and anti-war coalitions as well as to
curb the development of a meaningful anti-globalization protest
movement. (See Text Box 1.2)
With the civilian economy in a
free-fall, “Homeland Security” and the military-industrial complex
constitute America’s new economic growth centers.
Text Box 1.2
The Anti-Globalization Protest Movement and Canada’s
proposed Bill C-42
Proposed shortly after the September 11 attacks, Bill
C-42 would have allowed the government to arbitrarily
define military zones anytime and anywhere it wished.
Had Quebec City been declared a military zone during the
Free Trade Area of the America’s (FTAA) Summit in the
Spring of 2001, anyone caught inside the perimeter,
including Quebec City residents, could have been
declared a terrorist, arrested on the spot and detained
indefinitely without recourse. (Bill C-42 was rescinded
by the Canadian Parliament in April 2002.) |
The New “Anti-Terrorist” Legislation
In the US, the “PATRIOT Act” criminalizes peaceful
anti-globalization protests.10 Demonstrating against the IMF or the
WTO, for instance, is considered “a crime of domestic terror”. Under
the Act, “domestic terrorism” includes any activity which could lead
to “influencing the policy of a government by intimidation or
coercion”.11
The US “anti-terrorist legislation”, rubber-stamped by the US
Congress, was decided upon by the military-police-intelligence
establishment. In fact, several features of this legislation had
been designed prior to the September 11 terrorist attacks in
response to the growing anti-globalization protest movement.
In November 2001, President George W. Bush signed an executive order
establishing “military commissions or tribunals to try suspected
terrorists”.12
Under this order, [at the discretion of the President,]
non-citizens, whether from the United States or elsewhere, accused
of aiding international terrorism … can be tried before one of these
commissions. These are not court-martials, which provide for more
protections. … Attorney General Ashcroft has explicitly stated that
terrorists do not deserve constitutional protections. These are
“courts” of conviction and not of justice.13
Immediately following the September 11 attacks, hundreds of people
in the US were arrested on a variety of trumped up charges. High
school students were dismissed for holding “anti-war” views,
university professors were fired or reprimanded for opposing the
war.
A Florida University professor has become the first post-September
11 academic casualty of the war against terrorism. Dr. Sami
Al-Arian, a tenured professor of computer sciences at the University
of South Florida (USF) … had been investigated by the FBI and had
never been arrested or charged with a crime. … Professor Al-Arian
received death threats and was quickly suspended, with pay, by
university President Judy Genshaft.
[In November 2001] … the American Council of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA)
issued a report titled “Defending Civilization: How Our Universities
Are Failing America, and What Can Be Done About It.”
The report
reproduced statements from some 117 college and university faculty
who dared to speak out against or raise questions about the
President’s war on terrorism. “Defending Civilization” called these
academics, the “weak link in America’s response to the attack” of
September 11.14
Extending More Powers to the FBI and
the CIA
According to the new legislation, the powers of the FBI and the
CIA
have been extended to include routine wiretapping and surveillance
of non-governmental organizations and trade unions, as well as
journalists and intellectuals:
Under the new law, the same secret
court will have the power to authorize wiretaps and secret
searches of homes, in criminal cases— not just to gather foreign
intelligence. The FBI will be able to wiretap individuals and
organizations without meeting the stringent requirements of the
Constitution. The law will authorize the secret court to permit
roving wiretaps of any phones, computers or cell phones that
might possibly be used by a suspect. Widespread reading of
e-mail will be allowed, even before the recipient opens it.
Thousands of conversations will be listened to, or read, that
have nothing to do with the suspect or any crime.
The new legislation is filled with many other expansions of
investigative and prosecutorial power, including wider use of
undercover agents to infiltrate organizations, longer jail
sentences and lifetime supervision for some who have served
their sentences, more crimes that can receive the death penalty
and longer statutes of limitations for prosecuting crimes.
The Act [also] creates a number of new
crimes. One of the most threatening to dissent and those who oppose
government policies is the crime of “domestic terrorism”. It is
loosely defined as acts that are dangerous to human life, violate
criminal law and “appear to be intended to intimidate or coerce a
civilian population” or “influence the policy of a government by
intimidation or coercion”. Under this definition, a protest
demonstration that blocked a street and prevented an ambulance from
getting by could be deemed domestic terrorism. Likewise, the
demonstrations in Seattle against the WTO could fit within the
definition. This was an unnecessary addition to the criminal code;
there are already plenty of laws making such civil disobedience
criminal without labeling such a time-honored protest as terrorism
and imposing severe prison sentences.
Overall, the new legislation represents one of the most sweeping
assaults on liberties in the last 50 years. It is unlikely to make
us more secure; it is certain to make us less free.
The US Government has conceptualized the war against terrorism as a
permanent war, a war without boundaries. Terrorism is frightening to
all of us, but it’s equally chilling to think that in the name of
anti-terrorism, our government is willing to suspend constitutional
freedoms permanently as well.15
The Canadian legislation broadly replicates the clauses of the US
anti-terrorist laws. (See Text Box 1.3) In the course of two months
following the September 11 attacks, “over 800 people in Canada have
disappeared into Canada’s detention system without being allowed to
contact family or lawyers”.16
And this happened before the Canadian
Anti-Terrorist Legislation was adopted by the Canadian Parliament:
The “anti-terrorism” laws … do far
more than eliminate civil liberties. They eliminate justice.
They return to an inquisitorial system of arbitrary arrest and
detention. Summarized police allegations replace evidence. The
concept of evidence is gone. Accusation equals guilt. The
concept of innocent until proven guilty is gone.17
TEXT BOX 1.3
Canada’s Anti-Terrorist Legislation
“The two essential pillars of criminal law to establish guilt: mens
rea (intention to do a crime) and actus reus (the fact of doing the
crime), are gone. If the State decides a terrorist act was committed
and you were in any way connected or associated with it, you are
guilty whether or not you ‘intended to do the criminal act’ or
whether or not you ‘did the act’.” ‘The right to remain silent’ is
gone. The principle of confidentiality between lawyer and client is
gone (akin to forcing a priest to reveal the contents of the
confessional). The concept of a fair trial and the right to a full
defense is gone.
“People or organizations accused of being ‘terrorists’are put on a
list. Anyone who associates with a ‘listed’person or organization
can, by association, be defined as a terrorist. Hence lawyers who
defend people accused of being terrorists could find themselves
being defined as terrorists.
“Property and bank accounts can be frozen and confiscated simply on
the accusation of being a terrorist. Punishments are excessive and
severe (life imprisonment in many cases). These are some of the
horrors of [Canada’s Anti-Terrorist Legislation under] Bill C-36.”18
|
In the European Union, the
“anti-terrorist legislation”—while contributing to derogating civil
liberties and undermining the Rule of Law—is less drastic than that
adopted in the US and Canada. In Germany, the Greens within the
government coalition had pressured Interior Minister Otto Schily to
“tone down” the original draft of the legislation presented to the
Bundestag. The anti-terrorist legislation in Germany, nonetheless,
grants extraordinary powers to the police. It also reinforces the
laws pertaining to deportation.
Of significance, the German government
has allocated more than three billion marks to beefing up their
domestic security and intelligence apparatus, largely at the expense
of social programs.
Global Economic Crisis
The “war on terrorism” and the development of the authoritarian
State are occurring at the outset of a huge global economic
depression marked by the downfall of State institutions, mounting
unemployment, the collapse in living standards in all major regions
of the world, including Western Europe and North America, and the
outbreak of famines over large areas.
At a global economic level, this depression could be far more
devastating than that of the 1930s. Moreover, the war has not only
unleashed a massive shift out of civilian economic activities into
the military-industrial complex, it has also accelerated the demise
of the welfare state in most Western countries.
Five days before the terrorist assaults on the World Trade Center
and the Pentagon, President Bush stated almost prophetically:
I have repeatedly said the only time
to use Social Security money is in times of war, times of
recession, or times of severe emergency. And I mean that.
(September 6, 2001.)19
The tone of the President’s rhetoric has
set the stage for a dramatic expansion of America’s war machine. The
“recession” and “war” buzzwords are being used to mould US public
opinion into accepting the pilfering of the Social Security fund to
pay the producers of weapons of mass destruction—i.e., a massive
redirection of the nation’s resources towards the military
industrial complex.
Since the terrorist attacks, “love of country”, “allegiance” and
“patriotism” pervade the media and day-to-day political discourse.
The hidden agenda behind Bush’s declaration of an “axis of evil”
(Iraq, Iran, North Korea, Libya and Syria) is to create a new
legitimacy, opening the door for a “revitalization of the nation’s
defenses”, while also providing various justifications for direct
military interventions by the US in different parts of the world.
Meanwhile, the shift from civilian into military production pours
wealth into the hands of defense contractors at the expense of
civilian needs.
The boost provided by the Bush administration to the
military-industrial complex will not in any way resolve the mounting
tide of unemployment in America. (See Text Box 1.4) Instead, this
new direction of the US economy will generate hundreds of billions
of dollars of surplus profits, which will line the pockets of a
handful of large corporations.
War and Globalization
War and globalization are intimately related processes. The global
economic crisis, which preceded the events of September 11, has its
roots in the New World Order “free market” reforms. Since the 1997
“Asian crisis”, financial markets have plummeted, national economies
have collapsed one after the other and entire countries (e.g.,
Argentina and Turkey) have been taken over by their international
creditors, forcing millions of people into abysmal poverty.
“The post-September 11 crisis” in many regards announces both the
demise of Western social democracy, as well as the end of an era.
The legitimacy of the global “free market” system has been
reinforced, opening the door to a renewed wave of deregulation and
privatization, eventually conducive to the corporate take-over of
all public services and State infrastructure (including healthcare,
electricity, municipal water and sewerage, inter-city highways and
public broadcasting, just to name a few).
Moreover, in the US, Canada and Great Britain, and also in most
countries of the European Union, the legal fabric of society has
been overhauled. Based on the repeal of the Rule of Law, the
foundations of an authoritarian state apparatus have emerged with
little or no organized opposition from the mainstay of civil
society.
TEXT BOX 1.4
Job Creation in America’s War Machine
“The Big Five defense contractors (Lockheed Martin,
Northrop Grumman, General Dynamics, Boeing and Raytheon)
have been shifting staff and resources from
‘civilian’into ‘military’produc-tion lines. Lockheed
Martin (LMT)—America’s largest defense contractor—has
shifted resources out of its troubled
commercial/civilian sectors, into the lucrative
production of advanced weapon systems including the F-22
Raptor high-tech fighter-jet. Each of the F-22 Raptor
fighters will cost $85 million. Three thousand direct
jobs will be created at a modest cost of $20 million a
job.”20
Boeing, which is bidding for the $200 billion dollar
contract with the Defense Department for the production
of the Joint Striker Fighter (JSF), confirmed that while
some 3,000 jobs would be created under this contract, as
a result of the September 11 attacks it will fire as
many as 30,000 workers. At Boeing, each job created in
the JSF Program, will cost US taxpayers $66.7 million.
No wonder the Administration wants to downsize Social
Security programs.21 |
Without debate or discussion, the “war on terrorism” against “rogue
states” is deemed necessary to“protect democracy” and “enhance
domestic security”.
A collective understanding of the root causes of America’s war,
based on history, has been replaced by the need to “combat evil”,
contain “rogue states” and “hunt down Osama”.
These buzzwords are part of a carefully
designed propaganda campaign. The ideology of the “rogue state”,
developed by the Pentagon during the 1991 Gulf War, constitutes a
new legitimacy, a justification for waging a “humanitarian war”
against countries which do not conform to the New World Order and
the tenets of the “free market” system.
Notes
1. PBS News Hour, 11 September 2001.
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/military/terroristattack/government.html
2. New York Times, 12 September 2001.
3. Christian Science Monitor, 3 September 1998.
4. Time Magazine, 15 November 1999.
5. Alexander Yanov,“Dangerous Lady: Political Sketch of the
Chief Foreign Policy Adviser to George Bush”, Moscow News, 12
July 2000.
6. See also The Irish Times, 20 January 2001, The Japanese
Times, 6 January 2002.
7. The Guardian, London, 15 September 2001.
8. Peter Roff and James Chapin,“Face-off: Bush’s Foreign Policy
Warriors”, United Press International, 18 July 2001, Centre for
Research on Globalization,
http://globalresearch.ca/articles/ROF111A.html, 3 November
2001.
9. Alfred McCoy,“Drug Fallout: The CIA’s Forty Year Complicity
in the Narcotics Tr a d e ”, The Progressive, 1 August 1997.
10. PATRIOT is an acronym based on George W. Bush’s “Uniting and
Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to
Intercept
and Obstruct Terrorism” Act. Soon followed by ‘TIPS’—Terrorism
Information
and Prevention System.
11. Michael Ratner,“Moving Toward a Police State (Or Have We
Arrived?)”, Global Outlook, No. 1, 2002, p. 35. Also at Centre
for Research on Globalization (CRG),
http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/RAT111A.html, 30
November 2001.
12. Ibid.
13. Ibid.
14. Bill Berkovitz, “Witch-hunt in South Florida,
Pro-Palestinian professor is first casualty of post-9/11
conservative correctness”, Centre for Research on Globalization
(CRG),
http://globalresearch.ca/articles/BER112A.html, dated 13
December 2001.
15. Ratner, op. cit.
16. See Constance Fogal, “Globalization and the Destruction of
the Rule of Law”, Global Outlook, No. 1, Spring 2002, p. 36.
17. Ibid., page 37.
18. Ibid.
19. Remarks by President Bush in the presence of Mexican
President Vicente Fox prior to their departure to Toledo, Ohio;
US Newswire Inc., 6 September 2001.
20. See Michel Chossudovsky, “War is Good for Business”, Global
Outlook, No 1. Spring 2002.
21. Ibid.
Back to Contents
APPENDIX TO CHAPTER I
Where was Osama bin Laden on 9/11?
According to a Reuters report (quoting Richard Labevière’s book
Corridors of Terror), “negotiations” between Osama bin Laden and the
CIA, took place two months prior to the September 11, 2001 attacks
at the American Hospital in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, while bin
Laden was recovering from a kidney dialysis treatment.1
Enemy Number One in hospital recovering from dialysis treatment
“negotiating with the CIA”?
The meeting with the CIA head of station at the American Hospital in
Dubai, UAE had indeed been confirmed by a report in the French daily
newspaper Le Figaro, published in October 2001.2
As to “negotiations”between the CIA and Osama (a CIA “intelligence
asset”), this statement seems to be contradictory.
Even though the CIA has refuted the claim, the report serves to
highlight Osama as a bona fide “Enemy of America,” rather than a
creation of the CIA. In the words of former CIA agent Milt Bearden
in an interview with Dan Rather on September 12, 2001, “If they
didn’t have an Osama bin Laden, they would invent one.”
Intelligence negotiations never take place on a hospital bed. The
CIA knew Osama was at the American Hospital in Dubai. Rather than
negotiate, they could have arrested him. He was on the FBI most
wanted list.
According to the Reuters report: “At the time, bin Laden had a
multi-million dollar price on his head for his suspected role in the
1998 bombings of two US embassies in East Africa”. So why did the
hospital staff, who knew that Osama was at the American Hospital in
Dubai, not claim the reward?
The Figaro report points to complicity between the CIA and Osama
rather than “negotiation”. Consistent with several other reports, it
also points to the antagonism between the FBI and the CIA.
If the CIA had wanted to arrest Osama bin Laden prior to September
11, they could have done it then in Dubai. But they would not have
had a pretext for waging a major military operation in the Middle
East and Central Asia.
According to Le Figaro:
Dubai … was the backdrop of a secret
meeting between Osama bin Laden and the local CIA agent in July
[2001]. A partner of the administration of the American Hospital
in Dubai claims that “public enemy number one” stayed at this
hospital between the 4th and 14th of July. While he was
hospitalized, bin Laden received visits from many members of his
family as well as prominent Saudis and Emiratis. During the
hospital stay, the local CIA agent, known to many in Dubai, was
seen taking the main elevator of the hospital to go [up] to bin
Laden’s hospital room. A few days later, the CIA man bragged to
a few friends about having visited bin Laden. Authorized sources
say that on July 15th, the day after bin Laden returned to
Quetta [Pakistan], the CIA agent was called back to
headquarters. In the pursuit of its investigations, the FBI
discovered “financing agreements” that the CIA had been
developing with its “Arab friends” for years. The Dubai meeting
is, so it would seem, within the logic of “a certain American
policy.”3
The Figaro report is confirmed by
several other news reports including the London Times.4 During his
11-day stay in the American hospital, Osama received specialized
medical treatment from Canadian urologist Dr. Terry Calloway.5
Osama back in Hospital on September 10,
2001, one Day before the 9/11 Attacks
According to Dan Rather, CBS, bin Laden was back in Hospital, one
day before the 9/11 attacks, on September 10, this time, courtesy of
America’s indefectible ally Pakistan. Pakistan’s Military
Intelligence (ISI) told CBS that bin Laden had received dialysis
treatment in Rawalpindi, in a military hospital at Pak Army’s
headquarters:
DAN RATHER, CBS ANCHOR: As the
United States and its allies in the war on terrorism press the
hunt for Osama bin Laden, CBS News has exclusive information
tonight about where bin Laden was and what he was doing in the
last hours before his followers struck the United States [on]
September 11.
This is the result of hard-nosed
investigative reporting by a team of CBS news journalists, and by
one of the best foreign correspondents in the business, CBS’s Barry
Petersen. Here is his report.
BARRY PETERSEN, CBS CORRESPONDENT
(voice-over): Everyone remembers what happened on September 11.
Here’s the story of what may have happened the night before. It
is a tale as twisted as the hunt for Osama bin Laden.
CBS News has been told that the night before the September 11
terrorist attack, Osama bin Laden was in Pakistan. He was
getting medical treatment with the support of the very military
that days later pledged its backing for the US war on terror in
Afghanistan.
Pakistan intelligence sources tell CBS News that bin Laden was
spirited into this military hospital in Rawalpindi for kidney
dialysis treatment. On that night, says this medical worker who
wanted her identity protected, they moved out all the regular
staff in the urology department and sent in a secret team to
replace them. She says it was treatment for a very special
person. The special team was obviously up to no good.
“The military had him surrounded,” says this hospital employee
who also wanted his identity masked, “and I saw the mysterious
patient helped out of a car. Since that time,” he says, “I have
seen many pictures of the man. He is the man we know as Osama
bin Laden. I also heard two army officers talking to each other.
They were saying that Osama bin Laden had to be watched
carefully and looked after.”
Those who know bin Laden say he
suffers from numerous ailments, back and stomach problems. Ahmed
Rashid, who has written extensively on the Taliban, says the
military was often there to help before 9/11.
AHMED RASHID, TALIBAN EXPERT: There
were reports that Pakistani intelligence had helped the Taliban
buy dialysis machines. And the rumor was that these were wanted
for Osama bin Laden.
PETERSEN (on camera): Doctors at the hospital told CBS News
there was nothing special about that night, but they refused our
request to see any records. Government officials tonight denied
that bin Laden had any medical treatment on that night.
(voice-over): But it was Pakistan’s President Musharraf who said
in public what many suspected, that bin Laden suffers from
kidney disease, saying he thinks bin Laden may be near death.
His evidence, watching this most recent video, showing a pale
and haggard bin Laden, his left hand never moving. Bush
administration officials admit they don’t know if bin Laden is
sick or even dead.
DONALD RUMSFELD, DEFENSE SECRETARY: With respect to the issue of
Osama bin Laden’s health, I just am—don’t have any knowledge.
PETERSEN: The United States has no way of knowing who in
Pakistan’s military or intelligence supported the Taliban or
Osama bin Laden maybe up to the night before 9/11 by arranging
dialysis to keep him alive. So the United States may not know if
those same people might help him again perhaps to freedom.6
It should be noted that the hospital is directly under the
jurisdiction of the Pakistani Armed Forces, which has close
links to the Pentagon. US military advisers based in Rawalpindi
work closely with the Pakistani Armed Forces. Again, no attempt
was made to arrest America’s best known fugitive, but then maybe
bin Laden was serving another “better purpose”. Rumsfeld claimed
at the time that he had no knowledge regarding Osama’s health.7
The CBS report is a crucial piece of
information in the 9/11 jigsaw. It refutes the administration’s
claim that the whereabouts of bin Laden are unknown. It points to a
Pakistani connection; it suggests a cover-up at the highest levels
of the Bush administration.
Dan Rather and Barry Petersen failed to draw the implications of
their January 2002 report. They failed to beg the key question: where
was Osama on 9/11? If they are to stand by their report, the
conclusion is obvious: The administration is lying regarding the
whereabouts of Osama.
If the CBS report is accurate and Osama had indeed been admitted to
the Pakistani military hospital on the evening of September 10
(local time), courtesy of America’s ally, he was in all likelihood
still in hospital in Rawalpindi on the 11th of September, when the
attacks occurred. Even if he had been released from the hospital the
following morning on the 11th (local time), in all probability, his
whereabouts were known to US officials on September 12, when
Secretary of State Colin Powell initiated negotiations with
Pakistan, with a view to arresting and extraditing bin Laden. (See
Chapter IV.)
Notes
1. Reuters, 13 November 2003.
2. See Alexandra Richard, “La CIA aurait rencontré ben Laden en
juillet”, 2 November 2001, Le Figaro, English translation by
Tiphaine Dickson, Centre for Research on Globalization, November
2001,
http://www.globalresearch.ca/arti-cles/RIC111B.html.
3. Ibid.
4. The Times, London, 1 November 2001.
5. See the Hospital’s website at
http://www.ahdubai.com/site/ps18_2.htm
6. Transcript of CBS report, 28 January 2002,
http://www.cbsnews.com/sto-ries/2002/01/28/eveningnews/main325887.shtml
7. Ibid.
Back to Contents
|