by Tom Burghardt
January 25, 2010
from
GlobalResearch Website
Relevant questions begging for answers include:
-
Who made the decision not to "connect
the dots"?
-
Are right-wing elements and holdovers
from the previous administration actively conspiring to destabilize
the Obama government?
-
Was the attempted bombing a planned
provocation meant to incite new conflicts in the Middle East and
restrict democratic rights at home?
As with
the
9/11 attacks, these questions go unasked by corporate media.
Indeed, such lines of inquiry are entirely off the table and are further
signs that a cover-up is in full-swing, not a hard-hitting investigation.
Nearly one month after passengers foiled an attempted suicide bomb attack
aboard Northwest Airlines Flight 253 as it approached Detroit on Christmas
Day, new information reveals that the White House and U.S. security agencies
had specific intelligence on accused terrorist, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab,
far earlier than previously acknowledged.
Along with new reports, evidence suggests that the administration's cover-up
of the affair has very little to do with a failure by the intelligence
apparatus to "connect the dots" and may have far more serious political
implications for
the Obama administration, and what little
remains of a functioning democracy in the United States, than a botched
bombing.
What the White House and security officials have previously described only
as "vague" intercepts regarding "a Nigerian" has now morphed into a clear
picture of the suspect - and the plot.
The New York Times revealed January 18 that the National Security
Agency,
"learned from a communications intercept of
Qaeda followers in Yemen that a man named "Umar Farouk" - the first two
names of the jetliner suspect, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab - had
volunteered for a coming operation."
According to Times' journalists Eric Lipton,
Eric Schmitt and Mark Mazzetti,
"the American intelligence network was
clearly listening in Yemen and sharing that information."
Indeed, additional NSA intercepts in December,
"mentioned the date of Dec. 25, and
suggested that they were 'looking for ways to get somebody out' or 'for
ways to move people to the West,' one senior administration official
said."
Clearly, the administration was "worried about
possible terrorist attacks over the Christmas holiday."
These concerns led President Obama to meet
December 22,
"with top officials of the C.I.A., F.B.I.
and Department of Homeland Security, who ticked off a list of possible
plots against the United States and how their agencies were working to
disrupt them," the Times reports.
"In a separate White House meeting that day"
the Times disclosed, "Mr. Obama's homeland security adviser, John O.
Brennan, led talks on Yemen, where a stream of disturbing intelligence
had suggested that Qaeda operatives were preparing for some action,
perhaps a strike on an American target, on Christmas Day."
In mid-January, Newsweek reported that
the,
"White House report on the foiled Christmas
Day attempted airliner bombing provided only the sketchiest of details
about what may have been the most politically sensitive of its findings:
how the White House itself was repeatedly warned about the prospect of
an attack on the U.S.," Mark Hosenball and Michael Isikoff disclosed.
According to the newsmagazine,
"intelligence analysts had 'highlighted' an
evolving 'strategic threat,'" and that "'some of the improvised
explosive device tactics AQAP might use against U.S. interests were
highlighted' in other 'finished intelligence products'."
However, the real bombshell came last Wednesday
during hearings before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs
Committee when Bushist embed, and current Director of the National
Counterterrorism Center (NCTC), Michael E. Leiter, made a startling
admission.
CongressDaily reported on January 22 that intelligence officials,
"have acknowledged the government knowingly
allows foreigners whose names are on terrorist watch lists to enter the
country in order to track their movement and activities."
Leiter told the Committee:
"I will tell you, that when people come to
the country and they are on the watch list, it is because we have
generally made the choice that we want them here in the country for some
reason or another."
CongressDaily reporter
Chris Strohm,
citing an unnamed "intelligence official" confirmed that Leiter's statement
reflected government policy and told the publication,
"in certain situations it's to our advantage
to be able to track individuals who might be on a terrorist watch list
because you can learn something from their activities and their
contacts."
An alternative explanation fully in line with
well-documented inaction, or worse, by U.S. security agencies prior to the
September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks and now, Christmas Day's aborted
airline bombing, offer clear evidence that a ruthless "choice" which
facilitates the murder of American citizens are cynical pretexts in a wider
game: advancing imperialism's geostrategic goals abroad and attacks on
democratic rights at home.
Leiter's revelation in an of itself should demolish continued government
claims that the accused terror suspect succeeded in boarding NW Flight 253
due to a failure to "connect the dots."
However, as far as Antifascist Calling can determine, no other media outlet
has either reported or followed-up CongressDaily's disclosure; a clear sign
that its explosive nature, and where a further investigation might lead, are
strictly off-limits.
Taking into account testimony by a high-level national security official
that terrorists are allowed to enter the country for intelligence purposes,
one can only conclude that the alleged "failure" to stop Abdulmutallab was
neither a casual omission nor the result of bureaucratic incompetence but
rather, a highly-charged political calculation.
Bushist Embeds -
Destabilizing the Obama Administration?
One subject barely explored by corporate media throughout the Flight 253
affair, is the unsettling notion that the aborted Christmas day bombing may
have been a move by rightist elements within the security apparatus to
destabilize the Obama administration, a course of action facilitated by the
Obama government itself as we will explore below.
This is not as implausible as it might appear at first blush.
When one takes into account the meteoric rise to
power by the 40-year-old former Navy pilot and federal prosecutor,
Michael Leiter's ascent tracks closely with his previous service as a
cover-up specialist for
the Bush-Cheney regime.
"In 2004, while working as a federal
prosecutor," a New York Times puff piece informs us, "Mr. Leiter joined
the staff of a commission, appointed by President George W. Bush, to
examine intelligence failures leading up to the war in Iraq. That led to
a series of jobs in the intelligence world, and in 2008, Mr. Bush
appointed him director of the counterterrorism center."
A rather curious appointment, if Leiter were
simply an ingénue with no prior experience in the murky world of
intelligence and covert operations.
However the former Navy pilot, who participated
in the U.S. wars of aggression against the former Yugoslavia and Iraq seemed
to have the requisite qualifications for work as an intelligence
"specialist."
While attending Harvard Law School, Leiter served as a "human rights fellow"
with the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The
Hague, the U.S.-sponsored kangaroo court that has prosecuted America's
official enemies in the Balkans whilst covering-up the crimes of their
partners.
Amongst America's more dubious "allies" in the decade-long campaign to
destabilize socialist Yugoslavia were al-Qaeda's Islamist brigade,
responsible for carrying-out hideous massacres in Bosnia and Kosovo, with
NATO approval and logistical support, as Global Research analyst Michel
Chossudovsky, and others, have thoroughly documented.
As Deputy General Counsel and Assistant Director of the President's
Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States, the
so-called "Robb-Silberman" cover-up commission, Leiter focused on what are
euphemistically described in the media as "reforms" with the U.S.
"Intelligence Community," including the stand-up of the FBI's repressive
National Security Branch.
Prior to joining
NCTC, Leiter was the Deputy Chief of Staff for the Office
of the Director of National Intelligence under former NSA Director and
ten-year senior vice president of the spooky Booz Allen Hamilton
security firm, John "Mike" McConnell.
From his perch in ODNI, Leiter coordinated all internal and external
operations for the Office, including relations with the White House, the
Department of Homeland Security and the CIA.
Leiter's résumé, and his role in concealing Bush administration war crimes,
predicated on ginned-up "intelligence" invented by Dick Cheney's minions in
the Defense Department and the CIA, should have sent alarm bells ringing
inside the incoming Obama administration.
As we have seen since Obama's inauguration however, rather than cleaning
house - and settling accounts - with the crimes, and criminals, of the
previous regime, the "change" administration chose to retain senior- and
mid-level bureaucrats in the security apparatus; employing officials who
share the antidemocratic ideology, penchant for secrecy and ruthlessness of
the Bush administration.
While the Times claims his "unblemished résumé" has taken a hit over the
Flight 253 plot, an interview with National Public Radio shortly before the
Abdulmutallab affair, provides chilling insight into Leiter's agenda,
particularly in light of his January 20 statement to the Senate Homeland
Security Committee.
Presciently perhaps, the NCTC chief told NPR:
"We're not going to stop every attack.
Americans have to very much understand that it is impossible to stop
every terrorist event. But we have to do our best, and we have to
adjust, based on, again, how the enemy changes their tactics."
It becomes a painfully simple matter for "the
enemy" to gain advantage and "change their tactics" when those charged with
protecting the public actually facilitate their entrée into the country "for
some reason or another"!
According to the Times, the White House has kept Leiter at the helm and that
it came as "no surprise to Bush officials" because, get this, "Michael
wasn't political," if we're to believe the carefully-constructed legend of
former Bushist Deputy National Security Adviser Juan Zarate.
If the Bush-Cheney years tell us anything it's that appointments by the
previous regime were ruthlessly political.
As The Washington Post reported shortly
after Obama's election, these appointments were made permanent across a
multitude of federal agencies and departments, including the security apparat, in a cynical maneuver designed to reward Bush loyalists.
"The transfer of political appointees into
permanent federal positions" the Post disclosed, "called 'burrowing' by
career officials, creates security for those employees, and at least
initially will deprive the incoming Obama administration of the chance
to install its preferred appointees in some key jobs."
The Times reports that the White House has
publicly defended Leiter,
"and aides to the president said Mr. Obama
called to convey his support."
Perhaps not so curiously, the allegedly
"nonpolitical" NCTC Director,
"has been mentioned as a possible future
head of the Central Intelligence Agency, and how he performs might help
determine whether he remains on the fast track."
One can only wonder, how many other
counterterrorist officials have "burrowed" their way into, and hold key
positions in the current administration, ticking political time-bombs inside
America's permanent shadow government.
Senate Whitewash Fuel
Attacks on Democratic Rights
During Wednesday's Senate hearings, Obama's Director of National
Intelligence, Admiral Dennis C. Blair, in keeping with the former
Bush administration's assault on democratic rights, assailed the decision by
the Justice Department to try the suspect in a court of law.
This is fully in line with the rhetoric of ultra-right Republicans and
so-called "centrist Democrats" such as arch neocon Senator Joseph
Lieberman.
Newsweek reports that new details,
"surrounding the Christmas Day interrogation
of the bombing suspect aboard Northwest Flight 253 raise questions about
the accuracy of testimony provided Wednesday by senior U.S. intelligence
and Homeland Security officials."
Last week, the newsmagazine reported that,
"Obama administration officials were
flabbergasted Wednesday when Director of National Intelligence Adm.
Dennis Blair testified that an alleged Qaeda operative who tried to blow
up a U.S. airliner on Christmas Day should have been questioned by a
special interrogation unit that doesn't exist, rather than the FBI."
This theme was quickly picked-up by Senate
Republicans.
The overarching sentiments expressed by this gaggle of war criminals and
corporate toadies was not to demand accountability from the responsible
parties, but to call for further attacks on Americans' democratic rights.
Republicans on the committee lambasted Obama's Justice Department for its
decision to try Abdulmutallab in a civilian court.
John McCain (R-AZ), the Republican
party's failed candidate in the 2008 presidential election, said the
decision was "a terrible, terrible mistake," while the execrable Jeff
Sessions (R-AL) claimed that the hapless suspect should have been delivered
to the U.S. military as an "enemy combatant."
Ranking Republicans on the committee, Susan Collins (R-ME) and
John Ensign (R-NV) went so far as to imply that Abdulmutallab should
have been tortured. Collins inquired:
"how can we uncover plots" if accused
criminal suspects are allowed to "lawyer up and stop answering
questions?"
Ensign, a staunch supporter of policies
articulated by the Bush administration, particularly former Vice President
and war criminal, Dick Cheney, argued that "limiting" CIA
interrogators to the methods laid out in the Army Field Manual would allow
terrorists to "train" in advance of interrogations.
But the harshest criticism of the administration came in the form of a
stealth attack by Obama's own Director of National Intelligence, Admiral
Blair.
The Wall Street Journal reported January 21 that,
"nation's intelligence chief said the man
accused of trying to blow up an airliner on Christmas Day should have
been questioned by a special interrogation team instead of being handled
as an ordinary criminal suspect."
Rather than coming to terms and halting the Bush
regime's practice of torturing so-called terrorist suspects, the Obama
administration has compounded the crime by creating a secretive group of
interrogators called the High-Value Interrogation Group or
HIG.
Blair told the Senate that the administration had "botched" the handling of
suspect Abdulmutallab, by, wait, not handing him over to a group that as of
this writing, exists only on paper, a salient fact of which Blair was
certainly knowledgeable!
In his testimony however, the DNI told the Homeland Security Committee that
the HIG,
"was created exactly for this purpose - to
make a decision on whether a certain person who's detained should be
treated as a case for federal prosecution or for some of the other
means."
Blair implicitly criticized the Justice
Department's decision to uphold constitutional protections that guarantee a
suspect a right to a trial in a court of law and not a one-way ticket to an
American gulag.
Blair said,
"we did not invoke the HIG in this case; we
should have. Frankly, we were thinking more of overseas people and, duh,
you know, we didn't put it [in action] then."
Mendaciously, the DNI claimed,
"I was not consulted. The decision was made
on the scene, [and] seemed logical to the people there, but it should
have been taken using this HIG format, at a higher level."
Newsweek reporter Michael Isikoff
disclosed January 20 that,
"senior administration officials" told him
that Blair was "misinformed on multiple levels" and that the DNI's
assertions were, "all the more damaging because they immediately fueled
Republican criticism that the administration mishandled the Christmas
Day incident in its treatment of the accused Qaeda operative as a
criminal suspect rather than an enemy combatant."
Isikoff reported January 22 that Blair, Leiter
and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano were asked about the
decision to try Abdulmutallab and all gave the same answer when queried by
right-wing Senator Susan Collins, the Committee's ranking Republican:
"Were you consulted regarding the decision
to file criminal charges against [suspect Umar Farouk] Abdulmutallab in
civilian court?"
Leiter and Napolitano both replied:
"I was not."
According to Newsweek, Blair
also said he was,
"not consulted" and claims that the government "should
have" brought in the yet-to-be activated HIG "to conduct the questioning
of the suspect."
As with every aspect of this strange affair,
Newsweek reports, these statements are riddled with lies and
mischaracterizations.
Isikoff writes that,
"all the relevant national-security
agencies, including top aides to Blair and Napolitano, were fully
informed about the plans to charge the suspect in federal court hours
before he was read his Miranda rights and stopped cooperating."
Newsweek further reveals that a "key event" was a secure videoconference
on Christmas Day "that included Leiter" and Jane Lute, DHS' No. 2
official and that "neither Leiter nor any of the other participants,
including representatives from the FBI and the CIA, raised any questions
about the Justice Department's plans to charge the suspect in federal
court, the officials said."
"If you participate in a conference call and you don't raise any
objections, that suggests you were consulted," said one senior
law-enforcement official.
Another added that,
"nobody at any point" raised any objections,
either during the meeting or during a four-hour period afterward when
Abdulmutallab was informed of his
Miranda rights to be represented by a
lawyer," according to Newsweek.
Ultra-right Senator Kit Bond (R-MO), the
vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee and a witting accomplice
to the previous regime's high crimes and misdemeanors against the American
people said,
"That this administration chose to shut out
our top intelligence officials and forgo collecting potentially
life-saving intelligence is a dangerous sign."
It's a "dangerous sign" to be sure, for
America's battered democracy.
An On-Going Cover-Up
As events continue to unfold and new information shreds the official story,
is Leiter's chilling testimony that suspected terrorists are allowed to
enter the United States,
"because we have generally made the choice
that we want them here in the country for some reason or another,"
merely a banal slip or something far more sinister that betrays the real
order of things in post-democratic America?
Relevant questions begging for answers include:
-
Who made the decision not to "connect
the dots"?
-
Are right-wing elements and holdovers
from the previous administration actively conspiring to destabilize
the Obama government?
-
Was the attempted bombing a planned
provocation meant to incite new conflicts in the Middle East and
restrict democratic rights at home?
As with
the 9/11 attacks, these questions go
unasked by corporate media.
Indeed, such lines of inquiry are entirely off
the table and are further signs that a cover-up is in full-swing, not a
hard-hitting investigation.
In truth, what we are dealing with here as we stagger into the second decade
of the 21st century, is not a "conspiracy" per se but a modus
operandi as the World Socialist Web Site has argued, rooted in a
bankrupt system quickly reaching the end of the line.