I spent the better part of Friday slogging through all 521 pages of the report and identifying the relevant sections of it for Michael Ledeen, which is something that I would seriously recommend that anybody who is genuinely interested in what went wrong on the subject of Iraq do as well. Even the partisan hacks. Especially the partisan hacks.
Ledeen is going to have an NRO piece up on a good chunk of this at some point, but in the meantime I thought I'd convey my own impressions of the document with respect to the terrorism aspects of it, seeing how I know far more about terrorism than I do about WMD, as well as perhaps some other things that you might find interesting. Because I'm accessing this report in PDF form, I can't do the whole copy/paste thing to provide quotations so instead I'll be providing page references.
I see Instapundit as well as both the Associated Press and the Washington Post has already beaten me to the punch on this one, but it's a point that needs to be made. Joe Wilson is a liar and not a particularly good one at that. As the report, starting on p. 39 and going through p. 47 very carefully explains, the claims that Wilson during his media blitz and subsequent canonization as a representative of all that is righteous and pure within anti-war circles were every bit as misleading if not factually inaccurate as anything that one may charge that the administration had done. Even more so, I would argue, if only for the fact that he was making claims about a number of issues, for example the forged documents referring to Niger, of which he had no actual knowledge - a very polite way of saying that the man was blowing smoke out his ass.
In conventional anti-war mythology, the name of Wilson's wife was leaked to the press in order to punish him for having "debunked" the administration's claims with respect to Iraq attempting to purchase uranium from Africa. As the report very clearly indicates, this was simply not the case and while it is indeed puzzling why the administration allowed him to go on as long as he did during his 15 minutes of fame without airing some of this information to the public given the considerable damage that he did to the president's reputation during this period.
In any case, Wilson's trip to Africa did not "debunk" the administration position that Iraq was attempting to purchase uranium from Niger - in fact it strengthened this position on the basis of Wilson's claim that an Iraqi delegation had traveled to Niger in 1999 and that Niger officials believed that they were interested in buying uranium.
Oh, and might I add that nowhere in the entire Niger section of the report is there any evidence whatsoever to assert that Michael Ledeen forged the Niger documents, as has been peddled by any number of folks with an axe to grind against the man. No doubt apologies will be pending from all those who have accused him of complicity in this will be pending ...
Most of my own personal attention within the report, as most people can probably find understandable, is based around statements concerning Iraq's ties to al-Qaeda. The report notes on p. 305 the difference of opinion within the CIA between the Counter-Terrorism Center (CTC) and the Office of Near Eastern and South Asian Analysis (NESA) as far as the Iraqi relationship with al-Qaeda that I've written about here before. In other words, the CTC believed (and still does) that there were definite ties between Iraq and al-Qaeda, whereas the NESA is far more skeptical on this count. One might reasonably guess where our pal Mike "Anonymous" is working these days on the basis of his opinion of the relationship.
The CTC position was essentially that a relationship between Iraq and al-Qaeda developed over time to where it was prior to the war, whereas the NESA saw the contacts as more of a sporadic, wary phenomenon. As I wrote in my last special analysis, the evidence is frequently such in these types of instances where reasonable people can conclude things one way or another entirely without any accusations of warmongering or bad motivations. If these are going to come up every time someone takes a different position on these issues, then we may as well scrap our intelligence services altogether. Feith's office also gets added into the equation on p. 307 and basically states the same as what I've said before on the subject and I would also note the instance of the DIA detailee on p. 308 as well with regards to finding various pieces of information that fell through the bureaucratic cracks in the CIA analysis but were subsequently incorporated into the broader intelligence picture as a direct result of the work of Feith and his people over at the Pentagon. The complaint listed on p. 309 that the CIA (in particular the analysis wing) was relying on requiring "juridical evidence" concerning ties between Iraq and al-Qaeda is an entirely valid one to make with regard to the issue of intelligence. In many cases what you have to go off of is not going to be of the same standard that one would use in a court of law - this is simply the way that intelligence works.
The idea that the CTC, NESA, NSA, and DIA should review its information with what Feith's people had come up with through their alternate means of analysis on p. 310 is likewise entirely reasonable under the circumstances. As the report shows, they compared evidence and there was some disagreements, this is far from the "Feith cooked the intelligence books" claims that have been floating around in the press for the better part of the last 2 years.
The committee is going to evaluate Feith's work in the next phase of its review and given how phenomenonally wrong that the press coverage has been in this particular area (as demonstrated by this report, I would argue) I would strongly recommend that journalists allow the committee to do its work unless they get a chance to actually see or at least read a summary the data that Feith looked at and the conclusions that he reached with respect to issues like Iraq and al-Qaeda. Sounds reasonable enough, yes?
What we already knew about Iraqi support for terrorism
From p. 315-317, we get a nice review of the failed attempts by the Mukhabarat to perpetrate terrorist attacks against US targets during the first Gulf War as well as assassination attempts carried out against Iraqi dissidents and opposition leaders living in Jordan and Iraqi Kurdistan well into the mid-1990s. Of particular interest is p. 316's summary of the Iraqi plans to bomb Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty in Prague from 1998-2003, which would tend to rather strongly contradict Richard Clarke's claim that Iraq had not been involved in anti-US terrorism since the failed 1993 plot to assassinate the first President Bush in Kuwait. Page 317 also covers attempts by the Mukhabarat to go after US installations in Turkey and Azerbaijan in late 2002, though I notice they blacked out info on a plot that was actively thwarted.
From p. 317-19, we get a nice recap of a number of known Iraqi proxies ranging from the PLF, 15 May, MEK, Abu Nidal Organization, and the PFLP-GC, though they blacked out the reports concerning Iraq assisting the PFLP-GC in its attacks on Israel during the beginning of the al-Aqsa Intifada.
Hamas rebuffed the Iraqi overtures to attack the US because they already had their hands full with fighting Israel, whereas Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad were ordered to decline Saddam's overtures at the behest of their Iranian backers. All the same, had the Iraqi efforts in this regard been successful Saddam Hussein would have put together quite a formidable terrorist coalition to aim at the US.
The report, starting on p. 322, goes through what we already know concerning the poor intelligence that the CIA had on both the Iraqi and al-Qaeda leadership as well as a general summary of the ideological differences between the two, including a number of human intelligence reports noting Saddam Hussein's suppression of Wahhabism inside Iraq and his initial efforts to prevent Iraqi youth from joining al-Qaeda. On the al-Qaeda side of the equation, we have contradictory reporting from al-Qaeda leaders now in US custody, with some claiming that the organization hated Saddam Hussein and others claiming that they were more than happy to work with him to fight the United States. My own suspicion would be that the organization's alliance with the Baathists was a rather compartmentalized secret within the network (indeed, I've seen al-Qaeda recruiting videos which refer to Saddam Hussein as a bad Muslim), which is apparently also the way that Ansar al-Islam operated according to a leader within the group now in custody by the name of Qods ("Jerusalem").
The idea of a debate among the al-Qaeda leadership over the wisdom of working with al-Qaeda would seem quite plausible, though it would appear at least that the more pragmatic leaders within the terrorist network won out in the end.
At least some of the censorship that went into the report would appear to be somewhat shifty in my view, since among the detainees being referenced on the al-Qaeda relationship with Iraq are Ibn Sheikh al-Libi and Moammar Ahmed Yousef at the top of p. 324. The p. 324-325 recounting of Abu Zubaydah and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's interrogations on the subject of an alliance between Iraq and al-Qaeda also completely contradicts what various opponents of administration policy have attempted to caricature to as far as the press is concerned, as neither man denied the existence of a relationship between Iraq and al-Qaeda or even stated that the two were blood enemies.
Abu Zubaydah told the CIA that Abu Musab Zarqawi and others were known to have good relationships with the Mukhabarat, but that bin Laden would never ally with the Iraqi regime in the sense of something akin to what Abu Nidal had done in order to retain his operational independence, which tracks exactly with what is stated in the Feith memo.
The second detainee, whose name and statements are blacked out, is none other than Ibn Sheikh al-Libi, the head of al-Qaeda training program in Afghanistan who gave US interrogators a detailed account of how Iraq had trained al-Qaeda in poison gases. Isikoff and Hosenball from Newsweek have attempted to caricature al-Libi as a source of dubious credibility by noting that he has recently changed his story, but I would just note that if that's considered to be the test for credibility we would have long ago thrown out just about everything that any these high-level detainees say.
We also learn quite a bit more about Khalid Sheikh Mohammed with respect to his exact status within al-Qaeda. While I would be interested to note which definition of "al-Qaeda" the CIA is using here (it certainly isn't the International Front) when it claims that Mohammed didn't join the organization until the late 1990s despite his position as among the first of bin Laden's bodyguards circa 1991 and did not assume a position of administration within the group until well after 9/11.
The next section from p. 326 to 329 deals specifically with the meetings between the Iraqi government and al-Qaeda officials as far back as Sudan up into the late 1990s in Afghanistan and the caveats about taking the claims from governments and exile groups opposed to the Iraqi regime at face value are very much to be noted, a far cry from the whole "Chalabi suckered us all" canard that's been floating around the press. The training aspects of the report, beginning on p. 329, notes that there is indeed evidence that Iraq trained al-Qaeda fighters, and while the sources of the reporting concerning Iraq having provided assistance to Project al-Zabadi (al-Qaeda's WMD program) are indeed of varying credibility (of the 12, 2 reports were based on hearsay, 4 were merely accusations, and but the other 6 reports seem to have held up under scrutiny despite all the caveats), there are more than enough of them to have caused considerable worry within the intelligence community. They also blacked out the section that deals specifically with the al-Shifa plant in Sudan on p. 331.
On the issue of Salman Pak from p. 332-333, there appears to be a good deal of smoke there with respect to reports about al-Qaeda fighters being trained there alongside other Iraqi-sponsored terrorist groups since at least 1999, but the CIA censored the final analysis of what exactly was going on at Salman Pak.
The safe haven stuff from p. 334-338 is also quite juicy. A good chunk of it was censored, but it appears that Saddam Hussein issued a standing offer of safehaven for bin Laden in 1999, possibly in response to bin Laden's attempt to see how open the Iraqi government would to such an offer in the summer of 1998 in case he had to flee Afghanistan in the wake of the embassy bombings.
The Iraqi envoy in Afghanistan in 1999 was of course Farouk Hijazi and it seems that he was not authorized to discuss safe haven (which would tend to contradict some reports claiming that bin Laden turned down his offer of it) but instead turned the discussion back to areas of mutual cooperation. All of the stuff on Ansar al-Islam is censored, though the individual referenced on p. 336 who was identified by Ansar al-Islam detainees captured by the PUK as a Mukhabarat associate is none other than Abu Wael. It also appears, judging from the wording of the CIA report on p. 337, that the Mukhabarat could have sought to oppose the al-Qaeda presence in northern Iraq in some fashion but apparently chose not to.
A word on the issue of their being a formal agreement between the two parties, however. In Iran and Syria, for example, one can easily locate the offices of Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah, PFLP, PFLP-GC, and any number of other nasty organizations. These groups operate openly inside these states with both government sanction and funding, which was, clearly, not what al-Qaeda was doing inside Iraq by all accounts. However, if one considers this the standard by which state sponsorship or harboring of terrorists is to be judged by, I suspect that one will have an extremely difficult time of convincing anyone that Pakistan or Saudi Arabia were ever active in terrorist activities. And if you believe that, well, let's just say that I have a bridge to sell you ...
The information on Zarqawi's stay in Baghdad and medical treatment at the Olympic Hospital is almost completely censored, as is the size and composition of his entourage. The idea that Zarqawi expanded his organization inside Iraq between 2002 and 2003 almost certainly suggests the tacit acquiescence from the Iraqi security forces, whom as earlier reports have noted were quite ruthless in hunting down and eliminating Iraqi Wahhabis believed to constitute a threat to the regime. That last sentence on p. 337 is partially censored, but it's talking about the nature of the support Zarqawi and his entourage would have received from the Iraqi government during his stay in Baghdad, probably a reference to reports that Zarqawi received weaponry from the Mukhabarat during that period.
On the issue of the operational cooperation between Iraq and al-Qaeda that starts on p. 338, the CIA notes that it refrained from asserting such a link between the two entities not because they had anything substantively refuting such a link, but rather because of the nature of poor intelligence on the Iraqi regime. Iraq certainly did not possess command and control over al-Qaeda, which I very much doubt that anyone outside of perhaps Laurie Mylroie and her circle of followers seriously believes. I also very much doubt that one could ever demonstrate that the Taliban ever possessed command and control over al-Qaeda and they were almost certainly doing so.
However, one important element can be found in the middle of p. 339 that is well worth reading, which states that there are provocative elements in the 1993 WTC bombing, the 9/11 attacks, and the Foley assassination which appear to suggest Iraqi involvement in any one of them as well as evidence that runs counter to these beliefs.
This is an important thing to recognize, I would argue, because it means that people who hold to one position or another are not quite the kooks, obstructionists, political hacks, ect. that they've been painted as over the better part of the last several years. I'm not going to spend much time on all three of these because most of the alleged Iraqi connections and evidence against them in these particular because most of this has been known to the general public for some time now with the exception of the Foley assassination.
Unfortunately, the CIA chose to classify most of the commission's conclusions with respect to the nature of Iraqi ties to al-Qaeda are classified, leaving us pretty much in the same position that we were going into all of this, abeit with some new information. However, the report doesn't end there, as p. 350-356 deal with how the intelligence community's HUMINT assets were hampered as far as understanding the nature of Iraqi ties to al-Qaeda, forcing them to rely in many cases on detainee information and foreign government information for their HUMINT understanding of the relationship.
Oh yes, about all that pressure ...
It has likewise become something of a centerpiece of anti-war mythology that the CIA was deliberately pressured by the administration into manipulating intelligence data with respect to the nature of the relationship between Iraq and al-Qaeda. According to the findings in the report on p. 358, not only did no cooking the books occur but it was not once even attempted! The questioning of analysts on the Iraqi connection to al-Qaeda was, as the ombudsman investigation revealed, quite reasonable under the circumstances. In other words, nobody changed their analysis to conform to administration policy and nobody in the administration ever even sought for them to do so. Feith's office was likewise completely innocent on this count, according to p. 361-375, and apparently the intelligence folks who were present at the meeting in August 2002 in which they suggested additions to the draft of Iraqi Support for Terrorism all stated to the Committee that Feith's people all contributed to discussion, which is rather far cry from Josh Marshall's claim that what they said "didn't pass the laugh test" during his effort to shoot down the Feith memo when it got published in the Weekly Standard.
Unfortunately, the final conclusions of the committee on what the people in Feith's office added to the discussion have all be classified so we don't know anything more than this except to say that they weren't involved in politicizing intelligence or pressuring analysts.
Also, from p. 366-370, we learn that everything that Powell said at the UN Security Council with respect to Iraq and al-Qaeda was vetted through CIA and nothing he said differed very much from anything that the broader intelligence community was saying at around the same time.
No doubt apologies will be forthcoming from all those who have accused the administration and the people in Feith's office of engaging in any number of deplorable behaviors ...
I'll be quite honest and say that most of these strike me as rather polemical in nature and seems more or less designed to set up the next phase of Washington politicking, with both Republican and Democratic senators making claims that, truth be told, are not supported or are in certain cases directly contradicted by the actual text of the document in question. I'll be quite honest and say that if one reads simply the additional views but not the body of the report that they're going to be left with an extremely skewed view as far as what the report actually says or the conclusions that were reached within it on a number of key points.
Everything Powell said at the UN regarding Iraqi ties to al-Qaeda (which is pretty much the same as what President Bush, Vice President Cheney, Defense Secretary Rumsfeld, and others said going into the war) appears to have reflected the consensus of the broader intelligence community.
Joe Wilson's claims (along with, I suspect, his reputation within Democratic circles) have more or less gone down in flames, as have claims that intelligence analysts were pressured into making certain conclusions. The claim on p. 328 that "Wali Khan" (i.e. Wali Khan Amin Shah, one of Ramzi Yousef's two lieutenants in the proto-9/11 Oplan Bojinka plot) and Jamal al-Fadhl (whose name is blacked out in the last sentence in that paragraph) identified Abu Hajir al-Iraqi (aka Mamdouh Mahmoud Salim, a high-ranking al-Qaeda leader who was arrested in the wake of the 1998 embassy bombings and later stabbed a NYC prison guard with a comb in his left eye in an attempted prison break in 2000) as the chief liaison between Iraq and al-Qaeda is sure to keep Mylroie enthusiasts around for quite some time at any rate.
In general, this document is a lot better than that Staff Statement No. 15 that was churned out by the 9/11 commission. One other thing to be mentioned, incidentally, is that this report specifically undercuts some of the 9/11 Commission's key findings with respect to Iraq and al-Qaeda. It cites post-1999 contacts between Iraq and al-Qaeda, which the 9/11 commission claims to possess no information on. Perhaps someone should hand the commission members a copy of the Senate Intelligence Committee report?
Also, this demolishes 2 of Richard Clarke's key claims with respect to Iraq: that there was no Iraqi involvement in terrorism post-1993, and that there is no evidence whatsoever of Iraqi support for al-Qaeda. Both of these claims, to put it quite simply, can now be shown to be factually untrue.
As I said, no doubt apologies will pending from all those concerned.
UPDATE: Michael Ledeen's column is up: The Great Intelligence Committee Report: some mysteries remain unsolved
Dan: Why would I ever slog through 521 pages when I can read your analysis? Like the 9/11 commission reports, there is more information in your version!
Re: Wilson-- the left exhibits typical "trial lawyer" behavoir. They get something into the headlines/record even if it is an outright lie. They are cynically confidant some percentage will always believe it. Look at Dick Clarke-- I have friends who yet believe his original talking points, even though he has been discredited.
Jinnderella,
What you've described has become a standard tactic for politicians and political movements generally. The frequency of its use will increase in direct proportion to their desperation... or, as Steven Pressfield describes it in Gates of Fire, katalepsis. It's a Greek word with no exact English translation, but apparently "possession," derangement," and "hysteria" all have aspects of it.
As Pejman points out in The Coleridge Party et. al. (and indeed, as many people have been pointing out for a couple of years now, vid. McArdle's Law), the Democrats currently have a bad case. Alas, this one will probably get worse before it gets better.
All you can do down there (regardless of party affiliation) is continue to talk sense, confront dishonesty, and hope for a cure either on its own or (more likely) following a political beating. The Republicans have had at least a remission (can't be sure it's a cure unless Hillary runs in 2008 and they remain sane). Hopefully the Democrats can have one too, though my bet is that it won't even begin to happen before 2008.
Dan:
I'd like to second jinnderella's sentiments. Particularly interesting are your ideas about what's actually been redacted. We just don't get that kind of information from the press—they don't appear to be following things that closely.
I have a question. Paragraph 2 of your al-Qaeda section:
The idea of a debate among the al-Qaeda leadership over the wisdom of working with al-Qaeda would seem quite plausible, though it would appear at least that the more pragmatic leaders within the terrorist network won out in the end.
Shouldn't the second "al-Qaeda" be "Iraq" or "Saddam Hussein"?
Aha. So what you're saying is that this report proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that Dr. Ledeen is in fact a ranking member of Al Qaeda? Wait 'til the good people at DailyKos hear this!
In all seriousness, this is a pretty fair summary. I guess the bottom line is whether Saddam was looking to hit America or whether he was looking to hit Israel, the Kurds, and Iran. Similarly, you have tactical terrorism and strategic terrorism: was Saddam interested in Al Qaeda's brand of strategic terrorism? I don't think this report can answer that.
Another question in my mind is the nature of the "Al Qaeda" cells in Europe. There seems to be evidence that a fair number of AQ types have now pledged allegiance to Zarkawi, the new king of the hill. Does this indicate that there is a loose network of cells out there whose just want to kill people, and aren't particular about whence their operational and financial support derives?
jinnderella:
I appreciate the praise, as always.
As for the press, the fact that they have to identify the fact that this report directly contradicts both the 9/11 commission (which holds that there was no contact between Iraq and al-Qaeda post-1999 when Farouk Hijazi visited Afghanistan) or Richard Clarke's assertion that there was no Iraqi-sponsored terrorism post-1993. Both of these things are in the report, though I very much doubt that the press is going to find them or take note of them.
Clarke was at least semi-plausible in as far as the claims he was making and the fact that nobody in the press tried to take him to task on the issue of the al-Shifa plant, in which people died due to the fact that he was alleging a connection between Iraq, al-Qaeda, and the Sudanese government. Kind of an important issue IMO, though it would appear that 60 Minutes didn't think so.
David Schuler:
Yes, yes, you're quite right with respect to my typing errors. One of the perils of doing this stuff late at night (or early in the morning, depending on your perspective) after several drinks, I assume ...
Praktike:
I appreciate the praise. As the report notes, the US never really had a good window into Saddam Hussein's mind with respect to al-Qaeda and how he viewed them (or even how Iraqi intelligence viewed them). The redacted stuff on the Iraqi assistance provided to the PFLP-GC during the first two years of the al-Aqsa Intifada is quite interesting IMO, because it establishes Iraq as being far more of a major player in that conflict than we had previously believed - it also unfortunately provides a lot of red meat to the conspiracy theory that the US attacked Iraq solely on the basis that it was an enemy of Israel. However, on the subject of al-Qaeda, because of the poor HUMINT that the US had inside the Iraqi leadership, the analysts and what not within the intelligence community had to draw their own conclusions.
Zarqawi is the new al-Qaeda operations chief - for lack of a better term, he's the next Khalid Sheikh Mohammed with a body count behind him to watch. If you want to know how members of al-Qaeda or even his own group al-Tawhid view him within the larger picture, I recommend re-reading the Milan wiretaps obtained by Italian authorities. The al-Tawhid members there all refer to "Emir Abdullah" (i.e. bin Laden) in tones of reverence, whereas Zarqawi doesn't even get a mention under any of his preferred aliases.
As far as the cells go, I've identified at least 5 significant networks in Europe that appear to merge, split, or coordinate tactically as the situation warrants:
The funding is still coming from various Wahhabi charities in the Gulf and I think that the Milan wiretaps covered this point rather nicely - "Do not worry about money, because Saudi Arabia's money is your money."
The idea of a debate among the al-Qaeda leadership over the wisdom of working with al-Qaeda would seem quite plausible...
... should read "working with Iraq," no?
Excellent report, thank you, profusely.
Jonas Cord:
Asked and answered see here.
Gee, those linkable comments sure are handy. This also serves as a quick test...
Dan:
Great stuff, once again.
As far as the cells go, I've identified at least 5 significant networks in Europe that appear to merge, split, or coordinate tactically as the situation warrants
What can you tell me (or recommend I read) about the Hamas and Hezbollah presences in Europe? Besides finance and propaganda, I mean.
Also: thanks for the reading list. I've got through "Inside al-Qaeda", "The Connection" and "The New Jackals" and am starting "Jihad - the rise of militant Islam in Central Asia". I feel educated :-)
Colt:
Hezbollah generally recruits within Lebanon or among the Lebanese expatriate community. It has an extensive procurement and propaganda network in Germany, France, and throughout the Balkans. They've assassinated any number of Iranian dissidents in Europe over the last 2 decades.
Hamas mainly disseminates propaganda in Europe, as most of their weaponry is procured primarily in the Middle East. If you want the ultimate source of some of the more vehemently anti-Semitic or pro-Palestinian Islamist coverage in certain European news outlets (more on the Continent than in the UK, in my experience), look no further than one of Hamas's many front groups.
Dear Dan and anyone else: Is it possible that Plame, Wilson and other antagonists within DOD, State, CIA, etc. could have actively been trying to sabotage intelligence gathering efforts? Not to sound paranoid or anything, but mischief-making with the administrations goals/efforts could have devastating results, as well as fuel the ambitions of the opposition party. Also, anyone recommend any reading material that can educate me about the military. My father (a Korean vet) is dead and I would love to learn how many men are in a platoon, division, about military culture, training, deployment, etc. Anything easy for a novice to learn from. I could then forward the info to my local paper, the LATimes!
Dan, I comment on our weblog
It'll read better on our site; the quoting just doesn't come out right when I paste it here. Bottom line is that I dispute your characterization of Joe Wilson.
[JK: redacted the rest. If there's a link to a full reply, please simply post the link along with a synopsis and and make the link LIVE... our readers can and will follow it.]
The short answer is that these are all entirely fair criticisms, abeit ones that I do not have time to reply to tonight. I will be sure and rectify this situation tomorrow.
Dan:
While slogging through 521 pages is a daunting (boring) task, you appear to focus extensively on Chapter 12, where I judiciously spent much of my time.
My take is that Douglas Feith is the next tar baby after Tenet, particularly should Bush be reelected. Feith went outside the IC for the very reason that the CIA is being lamblasted today. The characterization of the "aggressive intelligence reports" was telling also, indicating that the CIA was compelled to go beyond its normal myopic thinking to anticipate future 9/11 events -- another red herring.
An interesting tidbit is how Saddam and al Qaeda seemingly both directed their terrorist activities towards the US and Israel beginning in 1996, about the time of the bin Laden Declaration of War.
I find it ironic that while great pains went into describing Iraq's support of terrorist groups, somehow the killing of innocent jews is deemed as nothing more than mere road kill.
I don't have the heart (or patience) to begin my 521 page equivalent to a marathon. Maybe tomorrow night ;)
I find it really disturbing that Clarke and Wilson would lie to the American people to advance their own careers and political agendas... with so much at stake... it's worse than back-stabbing, worse than mendacity, it feels like treachery.
Thanks for a great read....its now 12:55am. Time for bed.
Pierre
Dan Darling:
Thanks. I only ask because of the "outside help" Hamas have had in the recent past - the two Brit suicide bombers, and the Palestinian Canadian (IIRC) who had been trained and ordered to attack Jewish targets in North America. They have a cult-like following amongst European Muslims - recruitment wouldn't be too hard.
Dan, if I might point out, to cut and paste from PDF documents, either click on the "text selection" icon, or pull down that choice from the "Tools" menu, and Bob's your uncle.
Joe says: "Re: Wilson-- the left exhibits typical "trial lawyer" behavoir. They get something into the headlines/record even if it is an outright lie."
Joe, if we changed the proper noun, and "left" to "right," what would you think of the accuracy and usefulness of such a broad generalization? Isn't this precisely the same as "vast right-wing conspiracy"? Inputing identical motives and methodologies, if not outright direction, to a vast body of disparate people of actual differing opinions? Just wondering.(Myself, I think it's useful to say something such as the above if (accurately) characterizing an actual individual or small enough group; expanded to "the right" or "the left" becomes, in my view, less helpful to understanding than not.)
Gary, the PDF in question was a scan, not a Distiller document.
Someone has done it up the right way here.
Gary,
The statement attributed to me in #24215 is actually Jinnderella's. Ask her... but my view is expressed above and clearly states that it's a tendency inherent to politicians and political movements generally.
I appreciate your effort in wading through the PDF file of the 9/11 Commission report to pick out the nuggets for us. I am however puzzled by the gratuitous remarks about Laurie Mylroie in this paragraph:
"On the issue of the operational cooperation between Iraq and al-Qaeda that starts on p. 338, the CIA notes that it refrained from asserting such a link between the two entities not because they had anything substantively refuting such a link, but rather because of the nature of poor intelligence on the Iraqi regime. Iraq certainly did not possess command and control over al-Qaeda, which I very much doubt that anyone outside of perhaps Laurie Mylroie and her circle of followers seriously believes. I also very much doubt that one could ever demonstrate that the Taliban ever possessed command and control over al-Qaeda and they were almost certainly doing so. However, one important element can be found in the middle of p. 339 that is well worth reading, which states that there are provocative elements in the 1993 WTC bombing, the 9/11 attacks, and the Foley assassination which appear to suggest Iraqi involvement in any one of them as well as evidence that runs counter to these beliefs. This is an important thing to recognize, I would argue, because it means that people who hold to one position or another are not quite the kooks, obstructionists, political hacks, ect. that they've been painted as over the better part of the last several years. I'm not going to spend much time on all three of these because most of the alleged Iraqi connections and evidence against them in these particular because most of this has been known to the general public for sometime now with the exception of the Foley assassination."
As you note,the situation is comparable to the Taliban/AQ collaboration and as you concede the facts (even those selected by the Commission) are insufficient to refute her far more detailed and researched claim of Iraqi involvement in the 1993 and 9/11 attacks.
It is unfortunate, because if her thesis is valid--as I think it is--the danger to us is still considerable and of a different nature than the danger the failed intel community indicates we face. And since the same people who attack her work sat back while their selected jerk lied about Niger, why he was there and what he found, it is a mistake I think you should correct.Why would you help them in their mission of discrediting those who know what they overlooked?
Clarice Feldman:
Mylroie has stated, as a matter of public record, that she believes al-Qaeda to be little more than a front for the Mukhabarat, which implies a command and control relationship considerably greater than that which I and I would hold the Senate Intelligence Committee believe to have existed and far greater than the Taliban/al-Qaeda relationship. To be quite frank, I do not find this position any more tenable than I do that which holds that Zarqawi is not an al-Qaeda leader. I can, however, understand how people can look at the evidence and come to this position or of the view that there was Iraqi involvement in the 1993 WTC bombing, 9/11, or the Foley assassination.
If Mylroie's thesis and her views are completely valid, to put it quite frankly, then in fact we would seem to have very little to worry about as we have destroyed the primary center of terrorism against the United States. Others seek to place that center in Saudi Arabia, Iran, or Pakistan, while still others like myself view things as being more or less akin to there being multiple centers of terrorism, the people my boss refers to as the terror masters. The surviving al-Qaeda leadership is currently based in Iran, the training infrastructure has been relocated to LeT facilities in Pakistan, and the funding is coming from Saudi Arabia. All of this is supported by the excellent research that was done by the good people in the Counter Terrorism Evaluation Group at the Pentagon. As I said, this research and analysis is what I view as being the best picture of the enemy. This position made sense at the time and still does, at least to me.
Unfortunately, it does not back up a number of the conclusions of Laurie Mylroie.
Dan says: "Others seek to place that center in Saudi Arabia, Iran, or Pakistan, while still others like myself view things as being more or less akin to there being multiple centers of terrorism, the people my boss refers to as the terror masters."
I'll agree with you on that; the whole idea that there needs to be a single "center" is a throw-back to the notion that our enemies need to primarily be states. That's not true in our new empowered, globalized, world; our enemies have networks, and what "centers" there are are nodes in their networks.
Joe: apologies for my misattribution.
Shameless Self-Promotion Dept.: We also have a review the reports conclusions here, including a rather glaring mistake in one of its conclusions. More here as well.
Sylvain's articles really are very good...
Let me chime in her on Mylroie, having read her stuff.
It's almost purely conjecture, not research. It's kind of like, "Well, what if this? Aha! It must be so. What do you mean there's far better evidence to support another POV?"
And so on.
But step back for a minute, and ignore Dan's point about multiple centers.
What we are dealing with here is a political phenomenon, yes? We have an accelerating trend wherein regional Islamic radicals with local grievances have increasingly shifted their fire from the "near enemy" to the "far enemy." And in many instances they are cooperating, united by common goals, similar ideologies, and even a market-driven competition for funding from wealthy patrons in the Gulf states.
If you accept Mylroie's thesis, you completely ignore this phenomenon, and you concentrate instead on a country that at best was on the periphery of a problem that has grown primarily out of the Nile delta and radical mosques in Cairo, Deobandi madrassas in border areas of Pakistan, and Wahhabi mosques and schools in Saudi Arabia. and was forged in blood in Afghanistan. And that's just the Sunnis!
And that strikes me as deeply contrary to the assembled weight of evidence.
You wrote:
"However, one important element can be found in the middle of p. 339 that is well worth reading, which states that there are provocative elements in the 1993 WTC bombing, the 9/11 attacks, and the Foley assassination which appear to suggest Iraqi involvement in any one of them as well as evidence that runs counter to these beliefs."
There is a simple and effective eway to test the hypothesis that Iraq/Saddam was involved with the 1993 attack and subsequent al-Q terror against the USA - including 9/11 (as Mylroie has alleged):
Sample and test the DNA of KSM and RY - who are both in custody.
WHY HASN'T THIS BEEN DONE?!?!?
We should DEMAND that it be done, and that the results be made public.
It is perverse of you to now cite the authority of the Senate Intelligence Committee, since you have just torn that work to pieces--and very ably so.
You misstate Laurie Mylroie's position, which is most completely and authoritatively presented in her book, Study of Revenge, published by the American Enterprise Institute Press. Have you read it?
There is a very good reason why we have gone to war with Iraq and why over 800 Americans have died there. You are minimizing the reasons for that war, as well as the sacrifices that those young men and women, along with their families have made and continue to make, as that war is not over.
I assume you mean to suggest that your "boss" is Michael Ledeen, who has written a book entitled "The Terror Masters." But Ledeen is among those whom Mylroie thanks in the acknowledgements to Study of Revenge, because he recommend the book for publication. I cannnot imagine that Ledeen would agree with your characterization of Mylroie's work or of those who have endorsed it.
The blurbists for the book include former CIA Director James Woolsey, "brilliant and brave;" Richard Perle, former Assistant Secretary of Defense, "splendid and wholly convincing," as well as the Deputy Secretary of Defense, "argues powerfully." At the launch of Study of Revenge, the lead prosecutor in the 1993 Trade Center bombing trial praised it as "work the U.S. government has done."
Did you really mean to insult all those people? I doubt it. You owe some people an apology, above all Mylroie
I must learn how to proofread in these tiny spaces---I should have said the lead prosecutor said,"work the U.S. government should have done."
They didn't, of course, which her book establishes.
Clarice: make an argument. That is an assertion and an appeal to authority, guaranteed to convince nobody of anything.
Gary Farber:
Well, there still are "centers" in the sense of there are some places where you're going to find a lot more al-Qaeda or affiliated operatives in certain places than in others. The Moro Islamic Liberation Front enclave in Mindanao is one of those places, just to use a neutral example that we can all more or less agree on. So is the Pankisi Gorge, ect. I also think that state sponsorship is important to the network, particularly in the case of Iran and Saudi Arabia.
praktike:
Well, I wouldn't say that there's no evidence whatsoever for at least some of the stuff Mylroie takes a look at. For example, Ramzi Yousef was in the Pakistani Sipah-e-Sahaba (SeS) and they did act as an Iraqi proxy during the Iraq-Iran War, that much is a matter of public record. My main problem with Mylroie is not so much the position that there was an Iraqi hand behind what Yousef and his "uncle" Khalid Sheikh Mohammed were up to but rather this belief that al-Qaeda is entirely an Iraqi proxy given the body of evidence that more or less runs completely counter to this. There's a lot more of a case for al-Qaeda being an Iranian rather than an Iraqi proxy, for example, but I would hold that both positions are ultimately untenable. Al-Qaeda, to put it quite frankly, is what it is regardless of who Yousef or Mohammed are, as can be seen from the fact that they're still in business long after their purported handlers are either dead or in custody. Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri has made bayat to Zarqawi, not the other way around.
daniel:
What makes you think that it hasn't?
As another little anecdote, the identity of Khalid's brother, Zahid Sheikh Mohammed, is a matter of public record, and at least two other of Khalid's murderous nephews, Ammar al-Baluchi and Musabir Aruchi, are currently in US custody.
Clarice:
I was unaware that I tore the Senate Intelligence Committee report to pieces (for that type of treatment, see my stuff on the 9/11 commission). I was simply providing you with what I hoped was a far more thorough analysis of what the document actually says than anywhere else.
I am quite familiar with Mylroie and her work but I am also aware of her public statements on the subject of Iraq and what she believes to be its relationship with al-Qaeda. I will be more than happy to admit that her critics (like say, Peter Bergen) rely far too often on ad hominem attacks rather than reasoned debate and I've criticized them for this on at least one occasion that comes to recent memory. I have no intention of besmirching the rationale behind the war, which I supported and still do, nor is it my intent to criticize our serving men and women. However, if I may be quite frank, Mylroie's thesis was never included in administration arguments or regarding the rationale for going to war with Iraq.
If I may, allow me to point the following out to you: War Against the Terror Masters paints a dramatically different portrait of the enemy we now face than does Study of Revenge, as does An End To Evil. I would strongly suggest to you that this means that the neoconservative movement quite large enough to accomodate multiple points of view on subjects such as this and that all of the individuals mentioned in those blurbs are quite able to recognize a good or even a convincing argument when they see one, particularly one that isn't afraid to challenge the often-wrong "conventional wisdom" of the analysis wing over at the CIA.
More to the point, Study of Revenge was first published in October 2000, with revised editions appearing in October and November 2001 respectively.
Mylroie still has some very good theories and there are certainly positions within it that I can certainly understand various intelligent and intellectually honest people accepting (for example, Iraqi involvement in the 1993 WTC bombing, 9/11, or the Foley assassination), but I honestly think that it is well worth pointing out that she is the only one arguing for Iraq possessing command and control of al-Qaeda. And that is where I think that the body of evidence is such that it makes holding to the whole of her theories as being entirely untenable.
Praktike: You're right that appeals to authority are of limited utility, although if they are well-respected authorities, they should count for something and they certainly suggest that Dan's gratuitous remarks were misplaced.
As it happens, Mylroie just had a piece in the New York Sun, which summarizes the argument she makes. Interestingly, the Senate Intelligence Committee refers to it, but dismisses it in the same, unconvincing fashion that they dismiss all the other evidence suggesting an Iraqi link to 9/11.
Anyhow, this is the article:
The New York Sun
June 24, 2004
All in the Family?
Laurie Mylroie outlines a theory of Iraqi involvement in the two attacks on New York
The claim of the 9/11 commission that "no credible" evidence exists linking Iraq to Al Qaeda's assaults on America, including the attack of September 11, 2001, is itself not credible. Iraq was almost certainly directly involved in those attacks. After 1996, when Osama bin Laden moved from Sudan to Afghanistan, Iraqi intelligence became an integral part of Al Qaeda, or so it would seem.
This is, of course, a shocking statement, with enormous significance. Moreover, it involves the question: Who is our enemy? Who was responsible for the terrible events of September 11? And what threat do we still face? There is scarcely a subject about which it is more necessary to pay careful attention to key facts.
Since September 11, 2001, American authorities have learned a great deal more about Al Qaeda. As they now understand, a clan lies at the heart of the major acts of Islamic terrorism directed against America from the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center though the September 11 strikes. That family consists of the person known as Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and a number of his "nephews." So far, five such individuals have been publicly named, and there are probably more.
Mohammed is the recognized mastermind of the September 11 attacks. Ali Abdul Aziz Ali--who is also known as Ammar al-Baluchi and whom American officials consider a nephew of Mohammed--sent the "primary funding for the conspiracy" to the hijackers in America, as the director of the FBI, Robert Mueller, told the Congressional Joint Intelligence Committee inquiry.
The most well-known of Mohammed's supposed nephews is Ramzi Yousef, who is the recognized mastermind of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. Yousef fled New York the night of that assault. Two years later, he conspired with Mohammed and two others to bomb a dozen American airplanes in the Philippines. None of those involved in that plot, including Yousef and Mohammed, lived as Islamic militants then. They had girlfriends and frequented Manila's karaoke bars, strongly suggesting that Islamic militancy was not their motive for attacking America.
The 1995 plane-bombing plot went awry when Yousef accidentally started a fire while mixing explosives. Yousef was soon captured and brought to New York to stand trial, where he was convicted in 1996 for his role in that plot and convicted in 1997 for his role in the 1993 Trade Center bombing. Yousef is now in federal prison in Colorado.
Mohammed escaped from the Philippines and fled to Qatar. As the FBI tried to seize him there, he was tipped off and fled again, joining up with Mr. bin Laden in Afghanistan, as American authorities would learn much later. Mohammed was captured in Pakistan in March 2003. Ali was captured there a few months later.
Two more of Mohammed's nephews--Yousef's older brothers, Abdul Karim and Abdul Monem--are considered Al Qaeda masterminds, capable of replacing Mohammed, as the Washington Post reported last year, shortly after Mohammed's capture. They remain at large. Last week, Pakistani authorities announced the arrest of yet another nephew. The State Department confirmed the man's significance, but expressed doubts the Pakistanis had the right person.
Yet there is substantial reason to doubt these individuals really do constitute a family. No other major terrorist organization has a family at its core. It is without precedent. Indeed, there is no other such family within Al Qaeda. At most, such familial relationships are extremely limited associations, like Mr. bin Laden and his son, or the two pairs of brothers among the September 11 hijackers. Indeed, this family represents such an odd
phenomenon that it requires far more serious attention than it has yet publicly received.
The individuals in this "family" are all Baluch, a Sunni Muslim people who live in Eastern Iran and Western Pakistan. The Baluch are a distinct ethnic group, possessing their own language and inhabiting a specific territory, although they have no state. America has virtually nothing to do with the Baluch. The Baluch have no evident motive for these stupendously murderous assaults against America--save one.
Saddam Hussein's intelligence apparatus had deep and well-established ties with the Baluch on both sides of the Iranian-Pakistani border. So Wafiq Samarrai, who headed Iraqi military intelligence until 1991 before defecting in 1994, explained to this author. Iraq long used the Baluch against the Shi'a regime in Tehran, including during the Iran-Iraq war from 1980 to 1988.The most evident motive for Baluch to attack America is their relationship with Iraq.
In fact, there are substantial uncertainties about the true identities of these people. Yousef represents the clearest case. Yousef entered America on an Iraqi passport in that name, with stamps showing a journey starting in Baghdad. However, Yousef fled New York on another passport: a Pakistani passport in the name of Abdul Basit Karim.
Yousef obtained that passport by going to the Pakistani consulate in New York with Xerox copies of pages from Karim's 1984 and 1988 passports. Yousef claimed to be Karim. He said that he had lost his passport and needed a new one to return home. The consulate did not like Yousef's papers, because he had no original documents, but it nonetheless gave him a temporary passport. Most of this surfaced during federal terrorism trials in New York, but some of it is based on a conversation with Pakistan's consul general in New York.
There really was an individual named Abdul Basit Karim, a Pakistani, born and raised in Kuwait. Karim completed high school at the age of 18 and then studied for three years in Britain, graduating from the Swansea Institute in June 1989, and returning home, where he got a job in Kuwait's Planning Ministry. A year later, on August 2, 1990, Iraq invaded.
Kuwait's Interior Ministry maintained a resident alien file on Karim. It should have contained copies of the front pages of his passport with picture, signature, etc., but they are missing. The Kuwaitis attributed that to Iraq's occupation, but they did not recognize that the whole file was corrupted.
The file contains a notation that Karim and his family left Kuwait on August 26, 1990, traveling from Kuwait to Iraq, crossing to Iran at Salamcheh, on their way to Pakistani Baluchistan, where they live now.
Yet there was no Kuwaiti government then. Iraq occupied the country. Moreover, a traveler does not usually give authorities his whole itinerary when crossing a border--just where he is coming from and going to directly. Iraqi officials had to have put that note into Karim's file. The most obvious purpose was to make Karim (who probably died during the occupation) appear to be Baluch.
Most significantly, Yousef's fingerprints are in Karim's file. That means either Yousef's real identity is Karim or the fingerprint cards were switched, the original card replaced with one bearing Yousef's prints.
Yet Yousef is not Karim. Above all, Yousef is 6 feet tall, while Karim was 5 feet 8 inches at most, according to information obtained in Britain by an ABC News stringer; trial documents (the copies of Karim's passports that Yousef presented the Pakistani consulate), and Karim's British teachers. In 1996, I met two of them. They did not believe their student was the terrorist mastermind. Karim had been a quiet, diligent pupil.
The most concrete demonstration that Yousef and Karim are two different people, however, is their heights. When I spoke with Karim's teachers, I was careful not to disclose that I already had information about his height. I asked only, "How tall was he?" They replied that he was short, perhaps 5 feet 6. Then, I asked if he could have been 5 feet 8. They replied, "Perhaps." Then, I asked, "What about 6 feet?" They said no. They asked themselves, "Did you look up at him or did you look down at him?" They agreed they had looked down at Karim and that he was significantly shorter than 6 feet. They were certain of that.
Thus, the fingerprint cards in Karim's file in Kuwait had to have been switched. Reasonably, only Iraq could have done so, while it occupied the country. The evident purpose was to create a false identity, or "legend," for a terrorist agent, an established practice of Soviet-style intelligence agencies.
The Clinton administration, however, did not want to hear this. If President Clinton had said that in 1993 it seemed Saddam had tried to topple New York's tallest tower onto its twin and in 1995 Saddam plotted to bomb a dozen American airplanes, most probably, the American public would have demanded that he take very significant action against Iraq, and Mr. Clinton did not want to do so. After all, "only" six people died in the Trade Center bombing and fewer than 100 Americans died in all the terrorist attacks attributed to Middle Easterners during Mr. Clinton's entire term as president.
For this and other reasons, when American authorities were told Yousef was not Karim and Iraqi intelligence had switched the fingerprint card in Karim's file, they rejected that, accepting the Iraqi fiction and asserting that Yousef really was Karim. When they say now that Khalid Shaikh Mohammed is Yousef's uncle, they mean that Mohammed is Karim's uncle.
But if Yousef is not Karim, then Mohammed is almost certainly not who he claims to be. After all, wouldn't you recognize it if your nephew disappeared and another person assumed his name? Like Yousef, Mohammed claims to be born and raised in Kuwait. His identity, too, is based on documents in Kuwait that predate Kuwait's liberation from Iraqi occupation and that are therefore unreliable.
This whole "family" of terrorist masterminds is, quite arguably, a construction of Iraqi intelligence: While Iraq occupied Kuwait, Iraqi intelligence tampered with Kuwait's files to create legends for elements of its Baluch network. That is why these people appear to be a family.
Over the years, a number of knowledgeable individuals have endorsed this view. The first was James Fox, who headed the New York FBI in 1993 and led the investigation of the Trade Center bombing. Fox, who passed away in 1997, had believed that Iraq was behind the bombing. In late 1994, this author discussed Kuwait's file on Karim with Fox, pointing out that Yousef's fingerprints were in that file, but since Yousef was not Karim, the Iraqis had to have switched the fingerprint cards.
This key point had been missed. Fox readily recognized its importance and passed it on to his former colleagues in the New York FBI. In a subsequent conversation, this author asked, "You mean they know they have the smoking gun?" Fox replied, "Yes. The only question is what are they going to do about it." Fox, himself, had experienced the Clinton
administration's strong resistance to pinning that assault on Iraq.
Itamar Rabinovich was then Israel's ambassador to Washington. Soon after the discussion with Fox, I met with him to explain that Iraq was behind the Trade Center bombing. Mr. Rabinovich was not keen to hear that, because he led Israel's negotiations with Syria, and like so many, looked forward to achieving a general Arab-Israeli peace. However, a protégé of Mr. Rabinovich had read the manuscript I had written on the subject (later published as "Study of Revenge") and confirmed that it really did demonstrate that Saddam was behind that attack.
Among other things, I showed Mr. Rabinovich the copies of the pages from Karim's two passports that Yousef had given the Pakistani consulate to obtain the passport on which he fled. The signatures on the passports are completely different. Also, a Pakistani passport contains space for a "Present Address in Pakistan" and "Permanent Address in Pakistan." The latter is the family's place of origin. By definition, it does not change. Yet Karim's 1984 passport gives an address in Karachi; the 1988 passport an address in Baluchistan.
Mr. Rabinovich was stunned, and he sent a cable back to Jerusalem. Prime Minister Rabin, however, was not interested. The most probable explanation for that was the "peace process" and the quasi-messianic expectations surrounding it. To deal with Saddam would have been a major distraction from that effort.
A year later, this author had much the same discussion with the Saudi ambassador in Washington, Prince Bandar. Like Mr. Rabinovich, Mr. Bandar was stunned, because the point, when properly understood, was so obvious, and because a private citizen was explaining it to him, rather than an American official. Much later, Saudi Arabia would quietly support the American war against Iraq.
Recently, this author discussed the broader question of this Baluch terrorist family, as identified by American officials, with Amos Gilboa, retired from the no. 2 position in Israeli military intelligence. When asked which was more likely: These individuals are a particularly talented and murderous family or they are Iraq's Baluch network given legends on the basis of Kuwait's files, Mr. Gilboa replied, "It's obvious" that they are
Iraqi agents. In a separate discussion, Richard Perle, an assistant secretary of defense during the Reagan administration, said much the same.
In sum, the American investigation of Al Qaeda has discovered that a "family" lies at the core of the major Islamic attacks on America, starting with the bombing of the World Trade Center in February 1993 and culminating in the September 11, 2001, attacks. There is substantial reason, however, to doubt these people are, in fact, a family. The far greater likelihood is that Iraqi intelligence tampered with files in Kuwait, while Iraq occupied the country, to create legends for its network of Baluch agents, which Baghdad had developed and employed during its war with Iran.
That these terrorist masterminds are Baluch is, in and of itself, noteworthy, given Iraq's ties to the Baluch. That these people are supposed to be a family is also very suspicious. Why, then, doesn't the Bush administration say anything about this, one may well ask.
Partly, there has been no intelligence reform in the wake of the September 11 attacks. The CIA is a bureaucracy run amok, more interested in covering up its mistakes than understanding Al Qaeda. Senior administration officials responsible for the Iraq war have come under vicious attack, and they are on the defensive. This information does not move up the food chain, and it is doubtful that President Bush or Vice President Cheney are aware of it.
If they were, they would likely order that steps be taken to pursue this issue. The first essential step, however, is understanding that the American intelligence community has in fact produced a remarkably odd account of our mortal enemy--one man and his "nephews."
****************
Dan:Re: The question of Iraqi sponsorship.
The Senate intelligence committee appeared to raise the issue and then dismiss it in the same fashion it dismised all the other evidence--like Ahmed Hibmat Shakir.
DD -
Both Mylroie and I believe that we would know if KSM's and RY's DNA had been compared because such a test would PROVE if their DNA was - or was not -familial, and this would be a strong indicator of an Iraqi link to 9/11, which would - in turn -enhance the Bush Administration's post-act justification rationale for the resumption war aganist Saddam in 2003.
Since the Bush Administration NEVER linked Saddam to 9/11, and never said that an Iraqi link to 9/11 was a reason for resuming the war against Saddam, the Bush Administration has no reason to hide any result of a DNA comparison.
Then one might reasonably ask: why hasn't the Bush Administration - our DOS/DHS/DOD/DOJ/FBI/CIA -
done the testing/comparison?
(1) Because they (or someone with a bias at the WH or one of those other Depts. or agencies) don't believe there was a link, so they think it is a meaningless, and useless exercise.
(2) Because there is intra/inter-agency and/or international fighting over KSM - who may be in Pakistani custody;(I believe that RY is in Colorado).
(see:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khalid_Shaikh_Mohammed)
"On March 1, 2003, the ISI reported that they had captured him in a raid in Rawalpindi, Pakistan. The raid was variously reported to be all-Pakistani, in the presence of the United States FBI, or a joint raid with the FBI. Following the report of the capture, some Pakistani officials say he was immediately transferred to US custody, while others said he remained in Pakistani custody."
or - (3) Because someone (a mole) with something to hide at the FBI or CIA (someone on Saddam's payroll) is being blackmailed to prevent it.
I must say that I find it EXTREMELY curious that virtually no one has suggested publicly that the FBI or the CIA - or even the counter-terror office in the WH have been seriosuly compromised by the House of Saud or the Mullahs or Saddam.
After all, the USSR - which had MUCH LESS MONEY than either the House of Saud, Saddam, or the Mullahs - was able to control both the FBI's AND the CIA's CHIEFS of counter-espionage: Hannsen and Ames.
So MOLES would be my (4th and )LAST explanation for a lapse of testing in this matter.
I was disappointed that NEITHER the Senate Intel' Committee or the 9/1 Panel called for testing.
Joe Wilson's claims (along with, I suspect, his reputation within Democratic circles) have more or less gone down in flames
Well, maybe it's a delayed effect.
daniel (#24253), clarice:
While I think Iraq was much more central to 1990s terrorism than Dan would have it - I also think that in this, her flagship hypothesis of identity theft, Laurie Mylroie has made a mistake. If the DNA doesn't match, great, she's 100% right. But I think it is much more sensible to suppose that Ramzi Yousef is Abdul Basit Karim and an Iraqi asset. The anomalies in ABK's file in Kuwait (missing pages, the extended itinerary) can be explained by supposing that he was a collaborator, already familiar to the Iraqi occupying forces. Let us also note that the prints in the file match those of Ramzi Yousef, and those from ABK's time at Swansea in the UK. Finally, as Dan notes, ABK's other uncle, Zahid Sheikh Mohammed, was an important figure in the 1980s Afghan jihad. He ran the Lajnat al-Daawa charity, which operated in Pakistan and Afghanistan all through the 1990s, and was designated a terrorist entity by the US Treasury in early 2003. Essentially, he seems to have been Kuwait's Osama bin Laden. When you ask Laurie about this, or about any of the documentation from Pakistan about these guys, she just says to ignore it as unverified or untrustworthy.
All her arguments about the significance of Iraq's ties to Baluchistan still stand. But the issue of height is just about the only remaining argument that Ramzi Yousef is not ABK, and it has to be weighed against the extreme difficulty that the existence of ZSM creates for her version of events. I will add that according to Mary Anne Weaver's book Pakistan, US intelligence on at least one occasion worked directly with the Pakistani Baluch, running arms to the mujahideen, in order to bypass the ISI, who were 'losing' half of it; and India's former counterterrorism chief, B. Raman, has asserted that US and Iraqi intelligence ran joint operations against Iran in the 1980s, through the Baluch. So I think there's a considerable possibility that these guys are former CIA assets who got turned; and that this particular theory of Laurie Mylroie's is either a mistake that was encouraged by people who knew better, or a disingenuous cover story that even she doesn't believe.
My driver's license says I'm 5'7".
But I'm actually 5'11".
At about 6:10 p.m. EST today (7/12/04), Brent Baer of FNC read from the Senate Intelligence Report.
He said one sentence that stunned me and I haven't heard it references anywhere else.
Brent read (and I'll quote as accurately as I can): "Al Qaeda terrorists trained Iraqi intelligence officers on weapons and attacking America."
Do you have any information on where I can find that within the Senate Intelligence Report? Will write FNC as well but thought I'd have better luck with you!
Outstanding job condensing the report and analyzing the contents. Thank you!
Mary Beth: Section XII, Part N, (p.329) is called "Training of al-Qaida by Iraq." Look there. But I think the relationship is the reverse of what you heard. Intelligence officers train terrorists, not vice versa.
Roger,
YOu mentioned not being able to access the text in a PDF document. There is a program, PDF Converter, described at ScanSoft.com, that allows one to extract the text from a PDF file. Sounds like it would be useful to you.
Clarice:
I have nothing but respect for the various authorities you've mentioned - heck, I've met most of them. However, I would consider it well worth noting that both Ledeen and Perle rejected Mylroie's paradigm when writing their own books on the issue. As I said, the neoconservative movement is big enough to accomodate more than one unified field theory with respect to how international terrorism works.
I'm also quite keen to acknowledge that there are plausible cases that can be made for Iraqi links to the 1993 WTC bombing, 9/11, and the Foley assassination (these beliefs are quite different from believing that Mylroie is correct, BTW) and that one who draws these kinds of conclusions is far from the cranks and whackos that they've been typecast as in the press.
On the subject of Khalid and his "family," to be quite frank the whole lot of them strike me as gang of thoroughly bloodthirsty psychopaths. However, they aren't all Baluchis - Daud Badini, Ramzi Yousef's brother-in-law and now-arrested leader of the LeJ, SeS, LeT, JeM, HuM, and HuJI cadre that had until recently been serving as al-Qaeda's principle Killer Korps inside Pakistan is Punjabi or Pashtun IIRC.
The behavior that Khalid and Yousef displayed in Manila is actually quite in keeping with how one might behavior while in a deep-cover operation to avoid drawing suspicion to their true allegiances. The 9/11 hijackers, you'll recall, did the strip club circuit prior to the attacks and they were certainly religious fanatics.
Gerald Posner says in his book that the Filippino cops were not as inept as they are commonly described and started that fire as an excuse to seize Yousef's computer because they suspected that he was up to no good.
Actually, the whole idea of terrorism as a family affair actually strikes me as a lot more common than Mylroie is willing to acknowledge. Everybody in November 17 was inter-related in some fashion or another, there's the Occalan clan that makes up much of the PKK cadres, and of course there's the al-Ghamdi tribesmen who have showed up in connection with al-Qaeda operations in 9/11, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Afghanistan, et al.
Interestingly, Mylroie ignores Kuwaiti claims that Yousef was a collaborator with the Iraqis or that he joined the Muslim Brotherhood while he was living in the UK.
Yousef and Khalid may well be Iraqi Mukhabarat assets from the 1980s - their membership in the SeS/LeJ is certainly extremely suspect in this regard when combined with Kuwaiti claims that Yousef was a collaborator. But that's a rather far cry from this identity swapping theory, especially given that Khalid's brother Zahid is a known figure within the annals of international Islamism.
The Senate Intelligence Committee blacked a good deal out with respect to Mr. Shakir and his contact at the Iraqi embassy in Kuala Lumpur. I have my own questions about why they did some of this, but to say they just "dismissed" all of this is phrasing things much too strong IMO.
daniel:
What makes you think a DNA test hasn't already taken place?
Khalid is currently in US custody and hopefully extremely uncomfortable right now.
mitch:
You are aware that the Kuwaitis claim that Yousef collaborated with the Iraqis during their invasion of Kuwait, right?
You are aware that the Kuwaitis claim that Yousef collaborated with the Iraqis during their invasion of Kuwait, right?
I've certainly heard this, but I've been unable to source it. Here's what Simon Reeve says in The New Jackals, Chapter 6, "The Origins of Terror":It's late and I thought I would throw a little gas on the fire and see what happens in the morning.
This is a piece I just posted over at TCP.
Good Nite all.
Ron Wright
*****
I just posted this under The Iraq Page:
Iraqi Official: Zarqawi Likely Seeking WMD Materials
I also added a later comment:
Yes, I failed to mention the 1.7 TONS of low-enriched uranium (LEU) that we, yes at the request of the new provisional government flew out of Iraq without approval of the UN and or the IAEA. Do you wonder why now? When the Marines reached this facility under the guard of the IAEA, they found the guards had run off and the locals were scraping the metal containers dumpling the mess on the ground.
Yes, some of the WMD went into Syria and Lebenon. Open your eyes. Where do you suppose the gallons of VX gas came from that were fortunately intercepted by Jordan enroute to make one hell of mess came from.? Yeah, that’s right Syria. Syria doesn’t have this capability. Saddam and the Russians did. Now whey do you suppose the Russians told Saddam to get the VX stocks out of Iraq? Open your eyes folks this info is right out on the Net.
Also don’t believe everthing our news media reports.
Ron
Posted by: Ron Wrght at July 12, 2004 10:16 PM
*****
Ok, all, I just scanned the comments and may have overlooked some stuff. But here’s a commentary I just posted on our site which may connect some dots for you. Some of you may have seen some of the threads to this piece as it is a work in progress.
Yes, Mr. Bush you did not lie as others of alleged. Joe Wilson is a liar, liar , liar who got a cheap junket and who wouldn’t see a snake if it jumped out and bit him.
Yes, Mr. President stay the course!
Yes, Michael Moore, is an over-grown baby who can’t seem to get his facts straight if that actually made a difference.
And to the US Media, yes the Internet does exist with blogger too. You mght try reading this stuff from time to time before you really become irrelevent [sic].
That could pose a problem in your boardrooms if your profits suddenly taken a nose spin any faster than they already are!
*****
Moderator’s Commentary:
(This is a work in progress so bare with me for the grammatical and spelling errors I haven’t weeded out yet)
****
BOOKS OF THE TIMES | ‘IMPERIAL HUBRIS’
C.I.A. Officer Critiques Terror Policy
By MICHIKO KAKUTANI
Published: July 9, 2004
A must read for both hawks and doves alike to reassess their thoughts and positions on our War On Terror. The author’s believes eliminating terrorists alone will not win the War On Terror. Unlike the Texas Rangers of the Wild West who always got their man, Osama bin Ladin others have a endless supply of recruits which will overwhelm us. Our stirring the “beehive” only produces a more intense response from the hive unless we are committed to using the overwhelming force we possess. It is the author’s assessment that our intelligence gathering ability over the last decade has become severely impaired and risk averse. It was said somewhere else unless intelligence is accompanied with bouts of diarrhea, the intelligence is inherently flawed.
The War On Terror is a clash of cultures and religions with an enemy that is transnational in nature with the common bond of radical Islamic extremism that extends from West Africa to the East Pacific. This expanse was the former Islamic Empire of “golden age” Islam of the 12th and 13th Centuries. The author says we are fighting battles that we are half- fighting which we will only fight again when overwhelming force will be the only option. This is a war of ideology. The question is who will prevail and at what cost?
The reviewer does not say if the author discusses President Bush’s fundamental shift in the Nation’s strategic policy. This shift is from regional political stability to continue the supply of cheap oil, to one, which will no longer support or recognize repressive and despotic governments to achieve that end. The later is a progressive policy that is uncharacteristic of the Republican Party and the multi-national oil interests. Have we entered a world of Alice in Wonderland? The former is the course both Republican and Democratic administrations have followed over the last half century which has given rise to the radical Islamic extremism we are now fighting. This extremism if left unchallenged, is a real threat to our very way of life, culture, and freedom. This war will not be won on the ground alone unless we are prepared to use overwhelming force. I agree with the author this is a war that will be won on the validation of ideologies.
The author’s opinion is Iraq and Afghanistan were only battles in the bigger War On Terror. If we continue to fight a war of attrition, we run the risk of loosing the war completely. This is a war we can’t afford to lose. I agree with the author if there are no compelling reasons for our continued strategic presence in the region, we should convincingly kick butt and get out. If there is and the danger is so grave, this must be shared with the American people. We must be united and not divided. To do otherwise sends the wrong message to our enemy that will exploit this weakness. As President Bush has said, we are a tolerant people but once aroused, we are a fierce adversary.
I believe the threat we face is grave and does present a clear and imminent strategic danger both at home and abroad by nuclear and bio-chem weapons. I will leave the bio-chem threat for another time. John Loftus describes a nuclear conspiracy involving Iraq, Libya, and N. Korea that has received scant coverage in the media and is yet un-refuted. The extent of Dr. Kahn’s of Pakistan nuclear black market is now only being unraveled. It is clear the current monitoring mechanisms of nuclear non-proliferation treaties are now obsolete. The IAEA had no clue based on the statements of the IAEA’s director made in Israel last week. Some have said this was tantamount to giving the diplomatic “green light” to the Israelis to take out Iran’s nuclear program if it becomes necessary, just like they did in Iraq in the early 80’s.
Dr. Kahn’s research makes it possible to enrich low-enriched uranium (LEU) uranium to weapons grade without needing the high-enriched uranium (HEU) or plutonium from one of the world’s known stockpiles to construct a nuclear device. This is the conspiracy John Loftus is alleging. Loftus believes they were only months away from a nuclear device. Loftus mentioned an intercept from N. Korea indicating the N. Koreans were “shitting bricks” [my term] when it became apparent the US was going into Iraq. The Koreans knew the US would find Saddam’s documents evidencing this relationship. This would also explain Col. Gaddhafi’s sudden case of religion, spilling his guts, and laying bare his nuclear facilities that far exceeded the IAEA’s knowledge.
This was a joint venture with the actual production taking place in Gaddhafi’s tunnels using Iraqi scientists and techs. Remember centrifuges were found and recovered in Libya. These centrifuges were built in Malaysia with design specs of Dr. Kahn with German metallurgy technology. These were slipped into Libya under the noses of both the world and the IAEA’s. And no, Hussein was not trying to get his hands on “yellow cake” from Niger – Not! The Senate’s own Intel Committee has confirmed it was, no other than, “Iraqi Bob,” who made the contact in Niger. President Bush DID NOT LIE! Ambassador Joe Wilson just didn’t catch the significance before he went public.
See discussion thread at:
http://hspig.org/ipw-web/bulletin/bb/viewtopic.php?t=979
How novel of a concept. Don’t build your nukes where everyone would expect to find them. Bluff and give the impression you do have WMD to stall, all the while your scientists were feverishly working to finish your nuke in Libya! Saddam’s only mistake was the US called his bluff before his nuke was finished. This would explain Col Gaddhafi’s sudden illness and N. Korea’s latest round of saber rattling when their hard cash source supply dried up. The strategic consequences of an Islamic nuke under the control of radical Islamic extremists are unimaginable. The world owes the US a profound word of thanks. And our allies the French can take their exclusive oil contracts granted by Saddam and shove it. And the UN can rot in their riches secured by diverting money for food from the Iraqi people in their con game, the UN administered Oil for Food Program.
There are two more potential Islamic nukes on the horizon. The Iranian theocracy is on the verge of having nuclear capability. There are estimates they will achieve this capability by early 2005. The other is Pakistan that by all accounts does have nuclear capability where there are radical Islamic extremist now moving to take control of the government. There is a time portal now open to change this eventuality that will close soon.
I will leave Pakistan for a later time. The people of Iran are ripe for a revolution. The radical Islamic extremist theocracy after gaining power encouraged all faithful Iranians to have little Iranians. Unfortunately the little Iranians have now grown up and are restless bunch as having been called, “The Joyless Generation.” They are not content with life, as it now exists under the Islamic regime. The regime is now a minority and is becoming old and outnumbered by the growing Joyless Generation. Since the last Iranian freedom movement by this generation, Internet blogging has matured. Many Iranians are now blogging, much like Zeyad, the brave Iraqi patriot and dentist, who has been reporting (blogging) from Iraq (http://healingiraq.blogspot.com). Zeyad and others are today’s true foreign correspondents, reporting the news of the day that is often not covered by our media.
These blogs are more objective and provide a much more accurate portrayal of the real events occurring in these countries. These often counter the doom and gloom of our media. The important difference is Zeyad and others are reporting the news without having to support the overhead. A new medium is now emerging which communicates the news transparently across international borders. Bloggers are not constrained or subjected to the political influences of the editorial and media boardrooms. Our media has slip into a world of “infotainment” for the sake of ratings and circulation. The saying, “If it bleeds, it leads,” is now truer than it ever was. The media actively panders for audiences with what passes as news nowadays. This by its very nature is misleading, less objective and distorts reality. This sensationalism/hype by its very nature lacks proportion and perspective.
The bloggers of the world are a force to be reckoned with. They can ensure the free flow of information. Bloggers don’t have to pander for audiences. Audiences are free to choose information providers based on value and accuracy of content. The Iranian regime now in power will implode in the light of the free world. The bloggers of the world can focus the world’s attention on this despotic regime before they achieve nuclear capability. This is also the case with other repressive and despotic regimes that seek nuclear weapons.
Again we will not win the War On Terror while there is a continuing supply of recruits to replace those we eliminate. We can’t fight a war of attrition unless we use overwhelming force to knock out the enemy all at once. This is a war of ideals and we must change our strategy accordingly. We must shut down the terrorist production factories. These are the fundamental schools the Saudis and others have tolerated to remain in power. In the Saudis’ case this is now coming back to haunt them. These schools, program children at a very early age to hate our culture and to adopt without question the ideology of radical Islamic extremism.
Why are many of the transnational terrorists who reside in the “swamp” not the stereotypical downtrodden refugees as often portrayed in the media? Who are these terrorists who ally with one another when convenient to attack the Great Satan and Zionists who of course are the root of all evil and wrongs Islam has suffered since the fall of the Islamic Empire? Many have studied at our best schools and have become doctors, engineers, computer programmers, and other highly trained professionals who have experienced the best the west has to offer. Why are we seen as such a threat? They have been programmed by these schools into the cult of radical Islamic extremism whose bounds are very powerful and culturally unifying. Researchers have found self-esteem, sense of self, and other important factors in the formation of human personality are largely established by the time of eight years. If this is true if we turned off the tap today, we still have another generation before the well runs dry. Yes, this is a war of culture and ideology.
Our “ACE IN THE HOLE” is Islamic women who are nothing more than chattel of men in this radical Islamic extremist world. Young girls were burned to death because the Saudi religious police prevented them from escaping a burning building, because they were not veiled! A more reasoned approach is to appeal to the maternal instincts these women. They have been kept in the dark for centuries without basic human rights and the respect that women of enlightened cultures were given years ago. They have been denied these rights by the male dominated ruling theocratic hegemonies.
These women have not received the degree of indoctrination as have the young intransigent “hot heads.” They are more amenable to be persuaded by the TRUTH. If they realize in the end, their sons will continue to die for a failed cause, the maternal bound will prevail and they will put a stop to this madness. Just like the control rods of a nuclear reactor when inserted into the core can moderate the critical mass that is now out of control.
The cultures of the world that have undergone religious reformation and/or cultural enlightenment will prevail though there may be many losses. Those who have experienced freedom will overpower any repressive culture that seeks to constrain the free will of man. The radical Islamic extremists believe there is a need for Devine government to control man, as he will only do evil if given free will. This is a failed ideology. This region of the world was the cradle of modern mathematics, science, medicine, and the arts. Where are they now? What was the cause of this stagnation? I suggest, it is the recognition and acceptance of the free will of man to CHOOSE to do good or evil. The power of this universal TRUTH is unending.
In terms of today, Dr. Phil always asks, “How’s that workin for ya?” The answer is not very well. This struggle has continued for many centuries and yet the radical Islamic extremists have remained as they were in the 12th and 13th Centuries of the old Islamic Empire. Once man has taken the bit of freedom in his mouth, there is no turning back. The Internet and blogging is interconnecting the world. The free flow of information is becoming transparent to international borders. The collective consciousness of the world is growing together at an ever-increasing exponential rate. This is the beginning of collective cognitive thought. This is much like the cellular development of the human brain as synaptic connections and pathways form which give rise to consciousness, and ultimately sentient thought and existence.
These are the stories the American public deserves to hear and not the petty barbs and retorts of the presidential election. The news media has abdicated its role and journalistic responsibility given it by the 1st Amendment. The news media as we know it may no longer be relevant as the provider of our news. Our cherished 1st Amendment right should not be twisted to justify the interests of media conglomerates.
This is a right given by a free people to the press as a fundamental check on the abuse of power by those who WE CHOOSE to govern. With a strong and unbiased free press we will not suffer the tyranny of fanatics who rule by fear, torture, genocide, deceit, and perversion of culture and religion to remain in power, like the people of Iraq we have just liberated. Once the “truth” is told, the power of the “great lie” to control evaporates.
Gee, this is profound.
Ron Wright, Moderator
Hspig Forum’s Site
www.hspig.org
PS: thx to TREK for listening to my rants and helping to formulate this piece.
_________________
Needless to say this report raises more questions in my mind than the answers it provides. Hopefully those questions and more will be answered in Phase II of the investigation to be conducted by the Select Committee On Intelligence.
As a tax paying citizen I feel it is very important that I express my personal thoughts concerning the information in the report. To say the least our intelligence blunders read like a skit from “The Keystone Cops”. To add insult to injury the political posturing of blaming the Executive Branch for unfounded lies and misleading or deceptive practices makes this report even more damning than it really is.
As the report indicates and I have always believed the information provided to policy makers used for decision to go to war was based on the very same information that was provided to the Executive Branch free of political bias, political agenda, and political directive. As this report states the information was not free of faulty intelligence assessments incurred by faulty practices. This is not to say that the intelligence agencies are the only ones to blame.
In particular the information concerning the IRAQ / NIGER connection is disgraceful to say the least. The fact that these blunders were a direct result of non-communication / miscommunication between U.S. intelligence agencies after the 9/11 findings makes it all the worse. Of all the findings concerning 9/11 these were the two most ominous problems identified within our intelligence agencies. The public was later assured by our policy makers that these failings would be corrected and necessary precautions would be put in place to stop the bickering and political posturing concerning our most vital assets and our nations security. As usual our policy makers made political hay of it posturing for one or another's party benefit, political backing of Unions, special interest groups and corporations instead of posturing for the public they are supposed to serve.
As the report indicates our assessment on terrorism and terrorists ties to Iraq are substantiated and proven fact. The President’s State of the Union speech made it very clear what our nations stand on terrorism and nations that harbor terrorists should be and will be. To protect the public we must eliminate the threat of terrorism. Those that harbor and protect the threat of terrorism are perceived as no less than the threat of terrorism. That alone was enough for me to agree to go to war with Iraq.
My concern about the spot on analysis on terrorism is two fold. 1) The report indicates that we took a different approach to the analysis concerning terrorism than we did concerning weapons of mass destruction. Why wasn’t the same approach concerning terrorism used through out the decision making process concerning our need to go to war? 2) Policy makers requested more detailed and substantive information concerning terrorism than weapons of mass destruction. Why were weapons of mass destruction of less concern? Was it because policy makers truly believed they did exist and there wasn’t a need for pursuing or questioning the evidence presented. Did our policy makers in fact read anything other than summaries to make a decision concerning war?
Policy makers tried to pin the decision to go to war on the Executive Branch concerning weapons of mass destruction and fabricated lies. When that didn’t work our policy makers tried to pin fault on the Executive Branch making false and deliberate claims that the Executive Branch tied Iraq to conspiring with the terrorists attacks committed on 9/11. Thankfully that notion has not taken hold with the public either. What’s worse is the public has sat back and listened to all the press and it’s biased news when in fact our policy makers could have and should have set the record straight from the very beginning.
The publicized and televised release of this report exhibited that political posturing still continues to be the number one item on the agenda. Committee members were pointing to or quoting from sections of the report that showed themselves in the most beneficial light ignoring what this report should have been and what it is about. Posturing about Phase II versus a single report that was all inclusive was a decision all ready made. Posturing for the completion of Phase II prior to election day was based on party wishes and needs and not the American public need. My hope is that Phase II is as inclusive and exhaustive as this report. It is my opinion that three to four months is not enough to really understand the issues concerning our intelligence agencies let alone fix the problems that are still prevalent since 9/11. In my opinion three to four months will do nothing more than the stem the bleeding of a serious wound with a band aid when it is apparent the wound requires stitches to heal. How could I come to this conclusion? The very first pages of the report place the DCI in charge of all intelligence agencies but for some reason he neglected all but the CIA? Why would he do this if he knew the CIA was not his only charge? Could it be possibly because it was his only charge?
Has all of this taken place because our policy makers so much wanted to prove the notion that the Executive Branch was wrong in order to curry favor for their own parties interest concerning the upcoming election? Or was this really a conspiracy of our policy makers to make the public believe that they are not the ones at fault, they are not the ones that didn’t do due diligence prior to the vote and they share none of the blame. Twisting words playing games parsing phrases when the stakes on the table are the lives of our armed services men and women should be reprehensible. Sadly to me it seems our policy makers don’t see it that way. Sadly I still see and hear the political back stabbing, political posturing and malfeasance concerning the issues that most affect this nations well being.
Hey, USMC
I think you got that right. Everyone is too busy trying to CYA. The media is too busy pandering for audiences to report substantive news,
All the while the AQ is preparing to launch another attack.
I for one would prefer some action. Here's a piece off mine a while back
Ron
*****
03-24-04
Reply to WSJ OPED Piece from Spain's Prime Minister
[http://hspig.org/ipw-web/bulletin/bb/viewtopic.php?t=623]
Submitted to WSJ for publication
*****
DITTO!
There can be no appeasement for those who would use the slaughter of innocents to proliferate their political, religious, or cultural beliefs. Have we not learned this from history, the appeasement of tyrants and terrorist does not work?
With the 9/11 hearings in progress, all this hand wringing is moot. We must learn from our mistakes and take action. With the dawn of the 21st Century came 9-11, which made us painfully aware that the great oceans no longer are a barrier to hostile attacks in our homeland. It is clear; this new War on Terror is being waged in our own backyards as well as overseas. Those with the mission of pursuing and engaging our enemy on foreign soils are clearly identified. This is our superior U.S. military that is well trained and formidably equipped which have performed superbly in spite of what our media continue to report.
Al Qaeda is a cunning and ruthless enemy. They have studied us well and know our weaknesses. Al Qaeda is poised for another strike in the U.S. The question remains, “Will we be prepared to detect the precursors to that strike and if not will we be prepared to deal with the aftermath?” This is a non-partisan fight. Finger pointing now, is only counter productive and aids our enemy. Our best defense is an involved and informed citizenry working with local law enforcement and public safety responders. Our media has failed to inform the public adequately while obsessed with covering the day-to-day nuances of the presidential campaign and other fads that pass as news nowadays.
Blessed be for the Internet for its ability to spread information (AKA News?) in a time of abdication by the mass media of its journalistic responsibility. This is the responsibility to report the unspun truth without shaping it to hidden agendas or business interests. The readers are intelligent. If educated in the nuances of current events and given information as to the credibility of the news sources, the readers and can form their own intelligent opinions and make sound decisions.
Our cherished 1st Amendment right should not be twisted to justify business interests. This is a right given by the people to the press as a fundamental check on the abuse of power by those who WE CHOOSE to govern. With a strong and unbiased free press we will not suffer the tyranny of fanatics who rule by fear, torture, genocide, deceit, and perversion of culture and religion to remain in power, like the people of Iraq we have just liberated. Once the "truth" is told, the power of the "great lie" to control falls by the wayside.
The inescapable truth - All human beings are born with equal and inalienable rights and fundamental freedoms.
Iraq's WMDs are an elaborate maze of deceit, fraud, greed, survival, and megalomania, which presented a puzzle box so complex only an exhaustive on the ground study is now only beginning to solve. The question as yet remaining unanswered, "Have Soviet bioterror weapons made their way through the underground supply channels now coming to light reached the hands of Al Qaeda?"
Unlike the scientists who were in the nuclear and bioterror business that had some sense of the magnitude of what they were dealing with i.e., the Tellers and Oppenheimers of the world, Al Qaeda et al have no qualms about using them to bring on Armageddon.
Assess for yourself the horrors of biblical proportion that would reign from the release of just one of these bioterror weapons. Technology is no a panacea. Here is a real threat scenario that planners should be anticipating. Given that Al Qaeda operatives are active south of the US/Mexican border. Selectively infect the migrant population with a biological agent in Mexican towns. Smallpox would be a good choice. This is nothing new. The British employed smallpox successfully as a bioweapon against the French in the French and Indian Wars of the 1700 hundreds. Multiple outbreak sites would soon follow in the US. This would immediately overwhelm our medical system. This would be followed by a huge influx of people "running" the border to seek the better US medical care, which would only further exacerbate a bad situation.
Screw those who have been whining about, "Where's the Beef [WMD]?" Well here they are and it's damn scary! The leaders of the world have no choice but to relentlessly pursue those who would employ these doomsday weapons of Armageddon, wherever they are, and in spite of what our enemies in this War On Terror would seek to justify their use.
What are we worrying about!
As I recently challenged my friends and colleagues in the law enforcement, fire, public safety, and public health related professions.
A Call to Arms - Let’s Roll
With all the recent rancor in the media on the perceived failures in our intelligence capabilities as to Iraq’s WMDs, it is easy to overlook that local law enforcement, fire, public safety and public health agencies have a new emerging mission. Those of us, who are the boots on the ground at home, have a new mission. We must recognize we are the ones who must engage and defend our communities from hostile attack. If we are not prepared, we fail our brothers and sisters in uniform who go in harm’s way everyday to root out and engage this enemy wherever they are given safe haven or attempt to hide.
Failure to recognize our new mission can lead to catastrophic consequences for our families. U.S. Senate majority leader Dr. Bill Frist reports in his primer on bioterrorism that Osama bin Laden has stated he has a religious duty to acquire weapons of mass destruction (WMD) including biological and chemical weapons. Let’s be clear folks, we are the targets. While politicians continue to debate whether smoking guns have been found in Iraq, the really dangerous WMDs may have already reached our enemy hands through the underground supply channels now coming to light. How many deadly microbes can be on the head of a pin? A lot, as it turns out. If we are not prepared to recognize bioterror pre-incident indicators (PINs) [Gavin DeBecker] and to respond quickly and effectively, the results can be deadly on a large scale.
Our nationless enemy is constantly seeking the means by which to strike fear, terror, panic, and chaos among us to achieve its maniacal objectives. During the Cold War, the Soviets made massive quantities of bioweapons by employing thousands of scientists. As the Soviet head bioweapons scientist Ken Alibek says, he worries about where all the other Soviet scientists went. These scientists and the tons of weapons-grade germs they made are not fully accounted for. As Senator Frist states in reference to the potential of future bioterror attacks against the US, “it is no longer a question of if but when and where and how.” You know in your gut that the people capable of flying jetliners into skyscrapers would have no qualms of unleashing plagues and poxes of biblical proportions upon us.
We must remember terrorists will attack us whenever and wherever they can. Ask yourself this, “Do you personally feel well prepared to recognize and respond to a bioterror attack at the local junior high school or concert hall?” Simulations such as Dark Winter (smallpox) and TOPOFF (plague) have shown devastating weaknesses in domestic attack response systems. Sen. Frist reports that by the end of TOPOFF, “there was civil unrest, rioting and gridlock.” Are you ready for this?
During the Cold War it made sense to protect our vital strategic secrets from slipping into the hands of our enemies through careful control of information. However, now our greatest weakness is the lack of sharing of information and insufficient coordinating of our internal resources across jurisdictional boundaries. This is my opinion based on over thirty years in local law enforcement, but Sen. Frist says the same thing, “We need to improve coordination between the agencies and departments--federal, state, and local--that will respond if there is a bioterrorist attack.” That’s us.
Our national leaders must continue to focus and manage the War on Terror on many battlefronts. The leaders of the free world have no other choice but to relentlessly pursue those who would employ these weapons of Armageddon wherever they are, and in spite of what our enemies would seek to justify their use. Our national government does not have the resources to coordinate local responders nor should it be their sole responsibility either. Gavin De Becker, in his book Fear Less -- Real Truth about Risk, Safety, and Security in a time of Terrorism, says, we should, “abandon the notion that any government leader is Captain America.” Lest you think the FBI can be of much help, he points out that the Los Angeles Police Department has about 12,000 officers for 3 million people and the FBI has about 12,000 agents to cover our nation of 300 hundred million people. There are simply not enough federal agents to be in position to see suspicious behaviors at the local level. We are.
We are the ones who must seek out and engage our enemy to prevent terrorist attacks within the U.S. These attacks will be preceded by subtle pre-incident indicators (PIN). These actions and behaviors are what citizens may see. These are simple things, like a customer at a farm supply store purchasing large quantities of ammonium nitrite fertilizer when it’s obvious the customer knows little about farming. Or as we all now know, student pilots who show little interest in learning how to land. We must be prepared to recognize and respond swiftly to these indicators.
Both Gavin De Becker and Senator Bill Frist are counting on citizens and local public safety to pay careful attention to hunches and tips, to prepare ourselves so we can prevent, deflect and or mitigate the aftermath of a bioterror strike. The relative costs of missing or deflecting an attack now, are far greater than the ever were during the Cold War.
Who are you going to call? Are we prepared to answer that call from a suspicious citizen? It’s real, it’s here and we need to be ready and prepared. The time for action has arrived.
LET’S ROLL!
Ron Wright
Board of Directors
Homeland Security Policy Institute group
WWW.HSPIG.ORG
For clarity, reference links were omitted but can be found at:
http://www.hspig.org/ipw-web/bulletin/bb/viewtopic.php?t=545
_________________
Ron Wright,
Board of Advisors, Security Council Member,
WWW.HSPIG.ORG
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Dan,
Good analysis. I slugged through your words knowing that I really wish to read the entire report myself. Though the text of the report can be mundane, I don't want to spoil the good stuff.
As I have read Josh Marshall's posts about the intelligence situation I've always wondered if his sources were just staffers from the House Minority Leader's office or attorneys working for the various commissions and committee investigations. It turns out that it's more likely his sources are House Minority Leader staffers.
Minority Leader Pelosi's office offerred this press release in response to the committee report that nearly skips the contents of the report and instead opts to castigate the committee report for she perceives was ignored. Particularly the White House or DoD manipulation of intelligence. The releases closes with this statement.
Congress must investigate whether the intelligence on Iraq was misused or manipulated.
Reading this leads me to believe that the Minority Leader or her office issued the release prior to reading the report. As you have cited, the report specifically mentions the accusations of intelligence manipulation and shaping by the White House to fit the perceived policy demands. It turns them over to show that many of those accusations are unfounded with little or no evidence to substantiate the claims.
I've considered firing off an email to the House Minority Leader's office, but I'm not as familiar with "Phase II" as I think I should be. What is "Phase II" of this investigation?
Ron-
Zarkawi already has chemical weapons, and has had them for years. Which is why it's not a good idea to hang out in Amman hotels around major holidays.
How would it be possible for a competent intelligence organization to defend itself against charges of incompetence? Information revealed in making the defense would by its very revelation degrade the competence of the organization.
Glenmore
That is a conumdrum. While reading the report I was amazed at how much was revealed concerning the training of intelligence analysts and the procedures that are used. I'm surprised some of it wasn't considered highly sensitive information and blackened out like many portions in the report.
Ron
Seems you and I are certainly of the same opinion. It will take more than just federal changes to deal with the threats we currently face. Certainly there is a lot of work that must be done on the state and local levels. As we both know the problems can't be solved by legislation alone. What is at issue though is when legislation is required you can't everyone to play the game. The TSA and inforamtion sharing are prime examples. The biggest arguements concerning union vs non-union and descrimination concerning inforamtion gathering and sharing is sheer poppy cock.
Brennan Stout: What was more amazing, is that Rockefeller and Robertson, in their sunday appearances on CSPAN and Meet-the-Press also did not appear to have read the report, and they were the co-chairs!!!!
Wilson responds in a letter to Roberts denying everything in the report about him. http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2004/07/16/wilson_letter/print.html