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| 5/25 |
| 2004/10/23-24 [Politics/Domestic/911, Politics/Domestic/President/Clinton] UID:34307 Activity:very high |
10/23 http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=04/10/21/1440244 Interview with Robert Scheer, LA Times reporter, on a CIA report that was completed in May/June this year. "... what I reported was people who have knowledge of this saying they're stalling the report until after the election, so, it won't adversely affect Bush's chances ... And Porter Goss ... is the one who is currently stalling it. So, here is a study on what happened at 9/11 demanded in December of 2002 -- 2001 by Congress -- 2001 by Congress. An eleven-man committee at the C.I.A worked on that question for almost two years; and it hasn't been turned over. ... My understanding is that this report is explosive because it says the Bush administration was asleep at the wheel before 9/11 and it fixes responsibility on individuals quite high up, and that it says the administration covered up after 9/11 by not holding these people accountable. So there it is." \_ Yeah, yeah, yeah... and cruise missile diplomacy used by Clinton really worked. \_ It went something like: "Hey Dubya, I pissed off Osama by blowing up his base and almost getting him - you better watch out, he wants revenge. Dubya: Wut??!" \_ Translation, "That chick with the cum stained blue dress was out there trying to ruin my legacy, so I wagged the dog, destroyed an aspirin factory, killed a few camels, and whipped up a hornets nest. I never did jack about bin laden, never made a major effort to do anything about terrorism, never really did anything but try to create my legacy by forcing Israel into dealing with terrorists and we know how that worked out. The first WTC bombing, the Cole, the 2 African embassies, and the rest... it's a criminal issue for the FBI to arrest and prosecute individuals." \_ This is all true, which is why Clinton did NOT tell Bush "Terrorism will be your most important issue and watch Bin Laden" during the transition, which Bush promptly ignored since his neocons were busy planning an Iraq invasion. Isn't it funny how the same people who criticize Clinton for launching missiles at enemy terrorists who attacked our embassies and ships as "Wag the Dog" praise Bush for invading a country that did not attack us, totally wrecking our standing and reputation all over the world? \_ This post is odd. You're confused because people who criticize Clinton for not doing enough praise Bush for doing a lot? That's not confusing to me. \_ No, people criticize Clinton for doing something (Wag the Dog) and praise Bush for royally fucking everything up. \_ An apirin factory and a dead camel is doing something but wiping out thousands of terrorists is royally fucking everything up. I'm guessing you describe their actions and results in the opposite terms I do because you pray east a few times a day. I can't think of another reason why thousands of dead terrorists is bad and doing nothing is good. \_ Clinton could have wiped out Bin Laden & the entire royal family of UAE in one shot ... He chose not to create a diplomatic disaster, plus his hands were tied. Bush, thanks to 9/11, has way more options open to him than Clinton, but he ends up invading a country which has little to do with 9/11, islamic fundamentalism, funding/harboring Al Queda, etc. That's what royally fucking up means. Plus, anti-Americanism is at an alltime high in Islamic countries, you can be sure that whatever number of terrorists Bush has killed, 3X replacements have been recruited since Bush is Bin Laden's poster boy for new terrorists. It probably doesn't bother you that thousands of innocent lives have been lost in the Iraq war either, since all brown people are terrorists anyhow. \_ Clinton: Tried to get bin Laden after he killed hundreds in two embassies, almost got him, even with Monica on his cock. \_That's nice you forgot to write Sudan offered him and Clinton turned it down. \_ Wrong. Sudan was begging the Clinton admin to take him and did so at least three times that we know of publicly but Clinton didn't because they decided they didn't have the legal authority to do so. They should have asked Al Gore who would have told them there is no over riding legal authority on such matters. \_ How is that essentially wrong? Clinton didnt see what we did to Noreiga? U.S. can damn well arrest anyone we please! \_ They hate us because of our freedom! \_ This is just a bald faced lie. http://prisonplanet.com/sudan_offered_to_arrest_bin_laden.html Stop getting your "information" from Right Wing propaganda sites. Dubya: Ignored fact that bin Laden wanted revenge after we blew up his base and almost killed him. Let bin Laden get away, attacked Iraq instead. \_ That's nice you forgot to include the part about why the base was blown up. \_ The base was blown up because bin Laden was responsible for attacking two U.S. embassies, killing hundreds, and because Bill had information that bin Laden was at one of the target sites at that very moment \_ Almost killed him? Bullshit. Let him get away? Is this the Tora Bora lie? \_ We were moving troops out of Afghanistan and into Iraq. Tommy Franks expressed displeasure with this, but made do with what he had, and bin Laden got away. "Almost killed him": http://www.iwpr.net/index.pl?archive/rca/rca_200111_88_2_eng.txt (this was pretty well known back then, but I guess you've been drinking the Konservative Kool-Aid a bit too much) |
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| www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=04/10/21/1440244 Purchase Video/CD The CIA is ignoring calls from members of the House Intelligence Committe e to release an internal report on whether agency employees should be he ld accountable for intelligence failures leading up to the Sept. We speak with Los Angeles Times columnist Robert Scheer who broke t he story. The ranking members of the House Intelligence Committee have called on th e CIA to turn over an internal report on whether agency employees should be held accountable for intelligence failures leading up to the Sept. An intelligence official told the New York Times that the report was not finished and that "the matter is still under review." Some Democratic lawmakers have questioned whether the report is being wit hheld to avoid embarrassment for the Bush administration in the final we eks before the presidential election. So far no agency employee has been fired or faced other disciplinary measures in connection with Sept. The review, by the CIA's inspector general, was sought in December 2002 b y the joint Congressional committee that investigated intelligence failu res leading up to the 9/11 attacks. In a written statement, Democratic Congressman Rush Holt of New Jersey sa id the CIA report concludes that senior intelligence officials "failed t o do all that they could have to prevent the attacks, and that White Hou se officials were not as focused on the al Qaeda threat as previously as serted." "The 9/11 Secret in the CIA's Back Pocket" RUSH TRANSCRIPT This transcript is available free of charge, however donations help us pr ovide closed captioning for the deaf and hard of hearing on our TV broad cast. AMY GOODMAN: We go now to Robert Scheer, the LA Times columnist whos wr itten about the story and co-author of The Five Biggest Lies Bush Told U s About Iraq. ROBERT SCHEER: Well, what happened here is that the report was done, as I understand it, in May and June, and turned over to the inspector genera l in July. Now, the inspector general -- it was finished, and the inspec tor general is supposed to hand it over to Congress. And my sources, wha t I reported, was that there's no national security reason for withholdi ng the report from Congress. A, Defen se Department, is supposed to act as an independent auditor. And so, if the CIA director doesn't wa nt to turn over the whole report to Congress he has -- legally has seven days to notify Congress that theres a national security concern then Co ngress can act on that. They can demand to see the report, they can meet , or what have you. In this case, the inspector general has been stallin g, and -- been stalling since July; and what I reported was people who h ave knowledge of this saying they're stalling the report until after the election, so, it won't adversely affect Bush's chances. And Porter Goss whos the -- was the head of the House Intelligence Committee is the new CIA DirectorRepublican -- former Republican congressmanis the one who is currently stalling it. So, here is a study on what happened at 9/11 demanded in December of 2002 -- 2001 by Congress -- 2001 by Congress. An eleven-man committee at the CIA worked on that question for almost tw o years; And my understanding, and what I reported in The Los Angeles Times, is that this is dynamite. It's the first report to really fix the responsibility by naming names. Remember, both reports that weve had, the Senate Intelligence Committee -- joint committee -- intelligence committee -- and the 9/11 Commission managed t o be bipartisan by holding back on the question of accountability, parti cularly accountability of the Bush administration. My understanding is t hat this report is explosive because it says the Bush administration was asleep at the wheel before 9/11 and it fixes responsibility on individu als quite high up, and that it says the administration covered up after 9/11 by not holding these people accountable. JUAN GONZALEZ: And Bob, the current inspector general of the CIA -- Was the IG appointed by the Bush administration, or was he a holdover? And -- But the main thing is the IG is supposed to, as I say, be an independent auditor. and the director isn't even actu ally supposed to -- he's not supposed to comment or respond to the repor t when it's requested. No inspector general has ever been overruled by t he CIA director in the history of the agency in a matter of this sort. A, the Justice Department, Defense Department have this independent auditing arm that's supposed to keep the thing straight. And, as I say, since July, there's been a report that theyve bee n sitting on that does what has not been done. After all, this is a nati on that's been traumatized by 9/11. This is a president who demands to b e re-elected primarily on the basis of 9/11; and the public opinion show s that without 9/11, this president would be incredibly weak. That's his one issue, is: How did he handle the attacks -- respond to the attacks on the United States? And what this report says is that this administrat ion bears responsibility on the highest level for being unprepared befor e 9/11 and not doing -- holding people accountable after 9/11. You know, if you have an automobile accident, or something, people want to know who's accountable. Here you have this horrible event happen, and we still do not have a single individual in this country wh o has been held accountable for: How did these people get into the count ry? This is the first report that names names, breaks open this controversy, tell s us what really happened, and what didn't happen on the part of the adm inistration; and they're afraid of this report, and that's why they're s uppressing it. And now you have the House and Senate -- the chairman of the committee -- the Democrat and Republican of the House saying: Where' s the report? It's been fifteen days since they wrote their letter (and I wrote about it in the -- in my column in The Los Angeles Times). They demanded to know where is this report, and Jane Harmon, the ranking Demo crat on the committee, has said, you know, Ill quote her, she said: We b elieve that the CIA has been told not to distribute the report. And so she is finally you know -- she's raising the iss ue, and she said, I'll quote again, Jane Harman, she said: It fuels the perception that no one is being held accountable. It not only disrespects Congress, but it dis respects the American people. intelligence reports that I quote led the management of CIA to believe it can engage in a cover-up with impunity. A's leadership will have won and the nation will have lost. So, my question there would be: Where are all these people who say 9/11 has to be the focus of this election, has to be the focus of our policy? Why a ren't they demanding the first report that lays out the responsibility, holds people accountable? AMY GOODMAN: Robert Scheer, I want to thank you very much for being with us. Los Angeles Times columnist who broke the story of this CIA pre-9- 11 accountability report that the CIA refuses to release. |
| prisonplanet.com/sudan_offered_to_arrest_bin_laden.html html Saudis Balked at Accepting US Plan WASHINGTON The government of Sudan, using a back channel direct from its president to the Central Intelligence Agency in the United States, offer ed in the early spring of 1996 to arrest Osama bin Laden and place him i n custody in Saudi Arabia, according to officials and former officials i n all three countries. The Clinton administration struggled to find a way to accept the offer in secret contacts that stretched from a meeting at hotel in Arlington, Vi rginia, on March 3, 1996, to a fax that closed the door on the effort 10 weeks later. Unable to persuade the Saudis to accept Mr bin Laden, and lacking a case to indict him in US courts, the Clinton administration finally gave u p on the capture. Sudan expelled Mr bin Laden on May 18, 1996, to Afghanistan. From there, he is thought to have planned and financed the bombings of the US emb assies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998, the near-destruction of the Americ an destroyer Cole in Yemen last year and the devastation in New York and Washington on Sept. "Had we been able to roll up bin Laden then, it would have made a signifi cant difference," said a US government official with responsibilities, then and now, in counterterrorism. We would still have had ne tworks of Sunni Islamic extremists of the sort we're dealing with here, and there would still have been terrorist attacks fomented by those folk s But there would not have been as many resources devoted to their acti vities, and there would not have been a single voice that so effectively articulated grievances and won support for violence." Clinton administration officials maintain emphatically that they had no s uch option against Mr bin Laden in 1996. In the legal, political and in telligence environment then, they said, there was no choice but to allow him to leave Sudan unmolested. "In the United States, we have this thing called the Constitution, so to bring him here is to bring him into the justice system," said Samuel Ber ger, who was deputy national security adviser then. Our first choice was to send him some place where justice is more" - he paused a moment, then continued - "streamlined." Three officials in the Clinton administration said they hoped - one descr ibed it as "a fantasy" - that the Saudi monarch, King Fahd, would order Mr bin Laden's swift beheading, as he had done for four conspirators af ter a June 1995 bombing in Riyadh. But Mr Berger and Steven Simon, then director for counterterrorism for t he National Security Council, said the White House considered it valuabl e in itself to force Mr bin Laden out of Sudan, thus tearing him away f rom his extensive network of businesses, investments and training camps. Conflicting policy agendas on several other fronts contributed to the mis sed opportunity to capture Mr bin Laden, according to a dozen participa nts. The Clinton administration was riven by differences on whether to engage Sudan's government or isolate it, a situation that influenced judgments about the sincerity of the offer. In the Saudi-American relationship, po licymakers diverged on how much priority to give to counterterrorism ove r other interests, such as support for the ailing Israeli-Palestinian ta lks and enforcement of the no-flight zone in Iraq. And there were the beginnings of debate, intensified lately, on whether t he United States wanted to indict and try Mr bin Laden or to treat him as a combatant in an underground war. The Sudanese offer had its roots in a dinner at the Khartoum home of Suda n's foreign minister, Ali Othman Taha. Paul Quaglia, then the CIA station chief in Khartoum, had led a campaign to pull out all Americ ans after he and his staff came under aggressive surveillance and twice had to fend off attacks, one with a knife and one with claw hammers. Mr Carney and David Shinn, then chief of the State Department's East Afr ica desk, considered the security threat "bogus," as Mr Shinn described it. Washington's dominant decision-makers on Sudan had lost interest in engagement, preparing plans to isolate and undermine the regime. One factor in Washington's hostility was an intelligence tip that Sudan p lanned to assassinate President Bill Clinton's national security adviser , Anthony Lake, the most visible administration critic of Khartoum. Most US analysts came to believe later that it had been a false alarm. He raised no objectio n to the request for Mr bin Laden's expulsion, though he did not agree to it that night. On March 3, 1996, Sudan's defense minister, Major Gene ral Elfatih Erwa, arrived at the Hyatt Arlington. Mr Carney and Mr Shi nn were waiting for him, but the meeting was run by covert operatives fr om the CIA's Africa division. In a document dated March 8, 1996, the Ame ricans spelled out their demands. Titled "Measures Sudan Can Take to Imp rove Relations with the United States," it asked for six things. Second on the list - just after an angry enumeration of attacks on the CIA stat ion in Khartoum - was Osama bin Laden. "Provide us with names, dates of arrival, departure and destination and p assport data on mujahidin that Usama Bin Laden has brought into Sudan," the document demanded. During the next several weeks, General Erwa raised the stakes. The Sudane se security services, he said, would happily keep close watch on Mr bin Laden for the United States. But if that would not suffice, the governm ent was prepared to place him in custody and hand him over, though to wh om was ambiguous. Susan Rice, then senior director for Africa on the National Security Coun cil, remembers being intrigued with but deeply skeptical of the Sudanese offer. And unlike Mr Berger and Mr Simon, Ms Rice argued that mere e xpulsion from Sudan was not enough. "We wanted them to hand him over to a responsible external authority," sh e said. "We didn't want them to just let him disappear into the ether." Mr Lake and Secretary of State Warren Christopher were briefed, colleagu es said, on efforts to persuade the Saudi government to take Mr bin Lad en. The Saudi idea had some logic, since Mr bin Laden had issued a fatwa, or religious edict, denouncing the House of Saud as corrupt. Riyadh had ex pelled Mr bin Laden in 1991 and stripped him of his citizenship in 1994 , but it wanted no part of jailing or executing him, apparently fearing a backlash from militant opponents of the government. Some American diplomats said the White House did not press the Saudis ver y hard. Resigned to Mr bin Laden's departure from Sudan, some officials raised t he possibility of shooting down his chartered aircraft, but the idea was never seriously pursued because Mr bin Laden had not been linked to a dead American, and it was inconceivable that Mr Clinton would sign the "lethal finding" necessary under the circumstances. "In the end they said, 'Just ask him to leave the country. Just don't let him go to Somalia,'" General Erwa said in an interview. Sudan's government had asked Mr bin Laden t o leave the country, Mr Taha wrote, and he would be free to go. Mr Carney faxed back a question: Would Mr bin Laden retain his access a nd control to the millions of dollars of assets he had built up in Sudan ? Mr Taha gave no reply before Mr bin Laden chartered a plane three days later for his trip to Afghanistan. Subsequent analysis by US intelligence suggests that Mr bin Laden mana ged to access the Sudanese assets from his new redoubt in Afghanistan. |
| www.iwpr.net/index.pl?archive/rca/rca_200111_88_2_eng.txt Bin Laden Narrowly Escapes Death Osama bin Laden's intelligence gathering operation appears to have helped him escape a US missle attack on an al-Qaeda base. By Tim Judah in Beni Hissar, on the outskirts of Kabul (RCA No. Amin, a 23-year-old Afghan recruit to the Islamic militant cell, told how , at the end of October, Bin Laden had come to spend the night at the Be ni Hissar camp - an al-Qaeda headquarters run by a Sudanese called Abdul Aziz - on the southern outskirts of Kabul. When Bin Laden arrived at the camp, he told Aziz that he would leave at e ight o'clock the next morning. "But then he got up at five, said his pra yers and left," said Amin. Soon afterwards everyone in the camp was orde red to get out "because we were told there was a cruise missile strike c oming," he went on. Immediately afterwards a witch-hunt began to see if there was a spy in th e camp. But none was found and, thus far, Bin Laden is still on the run. There is little or no warning that a missile strike is imminent, which im plies that Bin Laden has at least some, extremely reliable sources of in formation. Early in the air war, the US knocked out what little air defences the Tal eban had. But still, the Arab and Afghan residents at Beni Hissar were g iven frequent warnings of possible air strikes. How they received this information is easy to understand. Bin Laden's for eign legion is equipped with a sophisticated Codan radio network, of the type used by the UN and aid workers in places such as Afghanistan. This means that whenever an al-Qaeda spotter sees planes coming, all he h as to do is report via Codan where they are and in which direction they are flying. The two missiles struck the house right in the middle of the Beni Hissar camp compound, which sits below hills on the outskirts of Kabul. From here Abdul Aziz commanded 850 men belonging to Bin Laden's foreign l egion - whose largest contingents come from Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon and Qatar. According to Amin, at the end of October these men were joined by 40 Arab s who were living in Germany and Italy and who travelled via Iran. In th e remains of the camp building, this reporter saw torn up air tickets wh ich, when pieced back together, reveal that they travelled first to Syri a and then, on October 29, to Iran. Amin arrived at the camp after the September 11 attacks on the US. He alo ng with 14 other Afghan colleagues from the Taleban's ministry of educat ion were sent here to take over non-essential tasks so that all the Arab s could go and fight. Along with the foreigners they have all fled south to Kandahar. Amin stay ed behind in his village outside Kabul because he hopes the fact that hi s father, who died in 1992 fighting alongside Ahmed Shah Masood, the leg endary Afghan military commander, will afford him some measure of protec tion. But Masood himself died after a Septe mber 9 suicide bomb attack believed to have been orchestrated by Bin Lad en. Only his mother, his brother and two friends know that he worked with Bin Laden's Arabs. He only agre ed to talk in a moving car so that no one would see him and then start a sking questions about why he was talking to foreigners. He was amazed how much money there was both for the Arabs and the Afghans drafted in to work with th em. The Afghans were paid 120 US dollars a month for their contribution to the cause, roughly the annual salary of a professor at Kabul universi ty. The financial muscle of the Arabs meant that they did not take orders fro m the Taleban's ministry of defence. Indeed, they were often used to sho re up crumbling lines when the student militia's own Afghan fighters sta rted to flee. When the front line north of Kabul began to collapse, it w as the Arabs who were dispatched to stop them. "They ordered them to get back to their positions, " said Amin. While Western leaders rejoice at the apparent rout of the Taleban and Bin Laden's al-Qaeda network, that is not the way Amin and, presumably, mos t of the rest of the men who share their radical creed see it. The Taleban and Bin Laden don't believe in national states, but rather a far wider Muslim entity stretching from Indonesia to the Atlantic. So, l ooked at this way, the cause has not lost most of Afghanistan but simply given a tiny bit of Muslim ground to save its troops to live and fight another day. Amin explains, "Everyone who wor ks for Osama is like Osama. So, after Osama it might be Abdul Aziz or so meone else. Asked whether he would be prepared to die as a suicide bomber, killing wo men and children in the West he said, "Inshallah, (God Willing) I will g o It is our way, it is the way of Allah because these people are unbeli evers." So, if in the coming days and weeks, Kandahar, the last Taleban stronghol d falls and Bin Laden is killed or captured, celebrations may be somewha t premature. For Bin Laden and his followers, it seems, it will be a bat tle lost, but war will be far from over. Tim Judah, author of Kosovo: War and Revenge (Yale University Press), is a regular IWPR contributor. Institute for War & Peace Reporting Lancaster House, 33 Islington High Street, London N1 9LH, UK Tel: +44 20 7713 7130 Fax: +44 20 7713 7140 The opinions expressed in IWPR Online are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of the Institute for War and Peace Reporting. Registered as a charity in the United Kingdom (charity reg. |