No going near key issues

April 4, 2004

No going near key issues

PV Vivekanand

The National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States is hearing serving and former administration officials on the "facts and causes" of the Sept.11 attacks. The exercise aims at establishing whether the Bush administration failed in taking counter-measures despite having received intelligence warnings that attacks similar to Sept.11-style aerial assaults were possible. However, the hearings are not expected to touch upon the historic and political background,
DEBATE within the US is focused on whether the Bush administration gave "high priority" to fighting terrorism after being warned prior to the Sept.11 attacks and who did what in the corridors of power and policymaking in Washington before and after the attacks.
National Security Adviser Condaleezza Rice, seen as one of the most loyal aides to President George W Bush, has agreed to testify under oath in public before the independent National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the US. Bush himself and Vice-President Dick Cheney have also agreed to answer the panel's questions but on their own terms and conditions.
Among those who appeared before the commission last month were US Secretary of State Colin Powell, his predecessor in the Clinton administration Madeline Albright, Secretary of defenCe Donald Rumsfeld and his deputy secretary, Paul Wolfowitz, and Clinton defence chief William Cohen; Clinton national security adviser Samuel Berger; and Richard Clarke, a counter-terrorism adviser to both Clinton and Bush, who resigned on the eve of the Iraq war and who has accused Budh of using the 9/11 attacks as a pretext for invading and occupying Iraq.
Within the context of the American political system, the panel's hearings are a highly relevant exercise if only because the elected and appointed officials are answerable to the American public. Revelations of the true nature of what took place behind the scenes might or might not lead to heads rolling in Washington, but it would definitely have an impact on Bush's re-election prospects in November.
It is unquesitonably clear that complete details of the panel's findings are never going to be released to the public. The administration will see to that by citing "national security" and "intelligence-specific" reasons. Obviously that would mean that the circumstances that led to the Sept.11 attacks would never be revealed to the people. More importantly, there would never be a public accounting of the policy of the Bush administration — and indeed of its predecessors — that is cited many American, European, Arab and Asian commentators as having set the ground for 9/11.
By no means that assertion implies, explictly or implictly, any justification for the attacks that could never be condoned.
The question here is how relevant is the ongoing panel hearing to the people of the Middle East? Is it going to expose the gross bias in US policy in favour of Israel and help arrive at a just and fair solution to the Palestinian problem?

'The Palestinian link'

Let us take note that it was an American media outlet which reported that Palestinians were dancing of the roottops of Ramallah upon hearing of the Sept.11 attacks (the report was later discounted).
Obviously the idea was to establish some implicit and latent link between the Palestinian problem and the Sept.11 attacks.
Why should it be so? If indeed the US media did feel that there was a Palestinian angle to the attacks, however distant, why was the idea not followed up? Why was there a deliberate attempt not to bring in the Palestinian angle to the forefront of American public attention in the context of Sept.11?
Was it because it would have given focus to an issue that the US administration wants to keep away from American public debate?
Why was Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon given top billing in the American media list of foreign leaders sending condolences to Bush over the attacks when others like British Prime Minister Tony Blair and French President Jacques Chirac were equally if not more strong in their expressions of sympathy for the US and pledges to help Washington fight terror?
Well, the answer is rather simple: The powers that pull the media strings in the US were used, wittingly or unwittingly, to highlight Israel as a "fellow victim of terror" and the Palestinians as "terrorists."
Well, if we borrow a leaf from the same exercise, then the next question is:
Will the panel hearings in Washington unveil the shortcomings in US policy — particularly the fact that it was the staunch, unwavering and almost unlimited American support over the decades and the influence of pro-Israelis in the circles of power that matter in Washington that have led to anti-American sentiments among Arabs and Muslims?
Hardly likely, since American foreign policy is not being debated. Nor is the reality that Israel's arrogance and defiance of international law owes itself to the conviction that it would be protected by the Americans no what what and where.

Mysterious Israeli angle

There is a mysterious Israeli angle to 9/11.
On Sept.11, 2001, the Washington Times carried a report which quoted from a paper by the Army School of Advanced Military Studies which said that the he Israeli intelligence service Mossad "has capability to target US forces and make it look like a Palestinian/Arab act."
It was reported that nearly 130 Israelis were arrested immediately after the Sept.11 attacks. Some of them had trailed suspected Al Qaeda members in the United States without informing federal authorities and some others had indeed the opportunity of making "friends with them" since they disguised themselves as Palestinians since they could speak fluent Arabic and knew enough to pass off as Palestinians with an axe to grind against the US for its support of Israel.
Some of them lived for a period of time in Hollywood, Florida, where Mohammed Atta, identified by the US as the leader of the 9/11 suicide hijackers, and three others lived for some time before Sept.11.
Were the Israeli in touch with Atta and others? Was it possible that they posed as Palestinians and offered help and information to the hijackers? Their "handlers" could not have but known that the planned attacks would unleash a series of events that would benefit no one but Israel.
The Israeli agents were at work in the US for some time before they were questioned.
Between early 2000 and September 2001, agents of the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) had found that dozens of young Israelis falsely claiming to be art students used to visit federal offices, including those of the DEA.
The Israelis claimed to be art students offering artwork for sale and visited the homes of numerous DEA officers and other senior federal officials.
According to reports, agents of the DEA, the US Air Force, Secret Service, the FBI, and US Marshals Service documented some 130 separate incidents of "art student" encounters. Some of the Israelis were observed drawing up the inside of federal buildings and carrying photographs of federal agents. One was discovered with a computer printout that referred to "DEA group."
The Weekly Planet of Tampa, Florida, reported on April 22, 2002 that "DEA agents say that the 60-page document was a draft intended as the base for a 250-page report. The larger report has not been produced because of the volatile nature of suggesting that Israel spies on America's deepest secrets."
The Israelis visited locations not known to the public, including DEA offices not identified as such.
One Israeli was found in possesion banking receipts for nearly $200,000 in withdrawals and deposits over a two-month period.
Mystery surrounds how the US law enforcement agencies dealt with the 126 Israeli agents arrested immediately after the 9/11 attacks. But reports in the Israeli press have said that all of them were released without charges after the Israeli government intervened with the Bush administration.

Focus of debate

The ongoing debate essentially focuses on America's national security, the measures that were in place or should have been in place pre-9/11, and the responsibility of the government functionaries to have ensured the security of American people after they received specific information that attacks were being planned against them.
Seen from the Middle Eastern vantage point, it is like treating the symptoms than addressing the ailment's roots.
Why then is such a pointed direction away from the real issues as seen from the Arab and Muslim point of view and understanding? Aren't the Americans smart enough to realise that there is indeed something wrong in their government's handling of the Middle Eastern conflict?Or are they willing to accept without question the argument that the motivation for the Sept.11 attacks was Arab and Muslim intolerance or even jealousy of the way of American life?
Or that Arabs and Muslims are born terrorists who are going around the world looking for American targets to be hit simply because they hate the US for some inexplicable reason?

Lot to hide


It will be equally interesting to see how Rice, the national security adviser, who says she has nothing to hide from the investigating panel, answers the questions (if they are asked of course): Did the administration ever have the flimsiest of evidence that Iraq was linked to Al Qaeda and therefore had a role in the Sept.11 attacks?
If not, why did the president assert in January 2002 that Iraq posed a threat to the US and was poised to supply biological and chemical weapons to be used in future Sept.11-style attacks against the American people?
The former Bush counterterrorism chief, Richard Clarke. has charged that the Bush administration not only failed to act in response to the threat of an impending Al Qaeda attack but also seized upon 9/11 as the pretext for launching the invasion and occupation of Iraq.
In response, Rice claimed in an interview that the invasion and occupation of Iraq were part of a “broad war” on terrorism, despite the absence of any evidence that Saddam Hussein had links Al Qaeda or had stockpiled weapons of mass destruction.
Rice did confirm Clarke’s charge that, on Sept.12, 2002, Bush ordered a search for a link between the assailants and the Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq.
According to Clarke, he responded to Bush: “Mr. President, we’ve done this before...we’ve been looking at this. We looked at it with an open mind, there’s no connection.”
Bush, says Clarke, ordered: “Iraq, Saddam, find out if there’s a connection." The president implied that it was an order that Clarke produce the desired "connection."
Until the White House very magnanimously relented to Rice appearing before the investigating committee, it was argued that the administration’s rejection of the demand that Rice publicly testify is “creating the impression for honest Americans all over the country and people all over the world that the White House has something to hide, that Condi Rice has something to hide,"
Well, the people of the Middle East, particularly the Arabs and Muslims, and indeed a big chunk of the international community, do have to take "impressions." They know the administration has a lot to hide and it is the reality that it was the manipulated US foreign policy that led to 9/11 and the invasion and occupation of Iraq.

Limited mandate

Indeed, the mandate of the investigating commission is carefully drafted in order to avoid an expanded mission that would take in Iraq and US foreign policy. The committee is mandated only with investigating “the facts and causes relating to the terrorist attacks of Sept.11, 2001,” and making “a full and complete accounting of the circumstances surrounding the attacks, and the extent of the United States’ preparedness for, and immediate response to, the attacks.”
Of course the word "causes" could be interpreted as opening the door for questions on American policy towards the Arab and Muslim worlds, but they are highly unlikely to be raised.
The hype has already been created in the US to keep the focus strictly on how the administration handled the threats to security despite warnings.
Rice has played a key role in the administration's failure to be prepared against Sept.11 despite intelligence warnings but also in the administration’s manipulation of the 9/11 disaster to prepare the invasion and occupation of Iraq.
On the first count, according to Clarke, if "Rice had been doing her job ... if she had a hands-on attitude to being national security adviser,” she would have gained critical information from the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) regarding the presence of known Al Qaeda operatives in the US and their preparations for using hijacked aircrafat as missiles.
Clarke referred to Nawaf Al Hazmi and Khalid Al Midha — two of the 19 people identified by the US as the 9/11 assailants — whom the CIA had monitored from the time they attended a a meeting in Malaysia until they entered the US. The two stayed with an undercover FBI informant in San Diego.
Had Rice been more aware of her responsibilities, she could have acted and pre-empted 9/11, Clarke argued.
"Scurrilous,” that was Rice described the allegation.

Contradictions

In a flurry of statements and media interviews she gave in order to refute Clarke's charges, Rice has contradicted herself several times.
However, such contradictions were not limited to her counterattack against Clarke last month.
In May 2002, she denied charges that Washington had ignored pre-9/11 evidence of a plot involving the hijacking of airplanes to be used as missiles.
“I don’t think anybody could have predicted that they would try to use ... a hijacked airplane as a missile," she said.
However, Bush had in fact received an intelligence memo on Aug. 6, 2001 that Al Qaeda was planning a a major attack within the US using hijacked of US aircraft. Rice could not have been unaware of the memo since handling such issues is part and parcel of her job.
In September 1999, the National Intelligence Council had warned that Al Qaeda could hijack airplanes and fly them into buildings in retaliation for US air strikes against targets in Afghanistan.
“Suicide bomber (s) belonging to Al Qaeda’s Martyrdom Battalion could crash-land an aircraft packed with high explosives (C-4 and semtex) into the Pentagon, the headquarters of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), or the White House,” the report said.
Rice, in a classified testimony behind closed doors before the investigating commission, corrected herself and said she had "mispoken." and said Clarke had himself warned of the possibility of such an attack (this was revealed by one of the commission members who was present during her testimony).
On the second count of Clarke's charges — that the Bush administration immediately sought to turn the 9/11 attacks into an apportunity to go to war against Iraq — Rice said in a public comment: “It was Afghanistan that became the focus of the American response. And Iraq was put aside with the exception of worrying about whether Iraq might try and take advantage of us in some way.”
That assertion clashes head on against a Washington Post report on Jan.12, 2003 that “six days after the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, President Bush signed a 2 1⁄2 page document marked ‘top secret'" that dealt with Afghanistan but “directed the Pentagon to begin planning military options for an invasion of Iraq.”
In September 2002, CBS News reported that within hours of the Sept.11 attacks, “Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was telling his aides to come up with plans for striking Iraq.”
Both reports, and dozens similar to them in theme, have not been denied by the administration.
Another "whistleblower" was Paul O’Neill, the former treasury secretary in the Bush administration.
In the book “The Price of Loyalty" by Ron Suskind, O'Neill says that Rice had attended a Camp David meeting one week after Sept.11 where Iraq was discussed.
“It was like changing the subject —Iraq is not where bin Laden is and not where there’s trouble,” according to O’Neill. “I was mystified. It’s like a bookbinder accidentally dropping a chapter from one book into the middle of another one. The chapter is coherent in its own way, but it doesn’t seem to fit in this book.”
Indeed, O’Neill says that the Bush administration began high-level discussions of invading and conquering Iraq as soon as Bush entered the White House in January 2001.
According to his account, invasion and occupation of Iraq was decided on long before 91/11 and the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were used as a pretext.
O’Neill has affirmed that war against Iraq was a top priority itesm in the agenda of the first National Security Council meeting of the Bush administration on Jan.30, 2001.
“From the start, we were building the case against Hussein and looking at how we could take him out,” he said. “It was about finding a way to do it. That was the tone of it. The president saying, ‘Fine. Go find me a way to do this'.”
Obviously, the pro-Israeli hawks in Washington — neoconservatives as they are known — found a way to do it. But, will the Americans -- or anyone else for that matter — will ever know why 9/11 in the first place?