Sometimes a
series of minor occurrences will "pile up" in the nooks and crannies
of my subconscious until the hopper overflows and I think, "What the F**k,
why haven't I written about this?"
Such a series is comprised of
several discreet, but distantly related
things which I have considered
over the last couple of months. Some I
have blogged about; most I haven't.
The events are:
the anniversary of September 11, 2001, the recent House passage of a bill
"allowing" US citizens to sue the Saudis for deaths resulting from
those events, The same body's Benghazi "hearings" (I put it in quotes
because I reserve the unaccented use of the word for actual efforts to find
fact, not blame), my research on the House hearings on the 1980s Reagan era Beirut bombings and resultant
deaths, a review of the 9/11 commission
report, and finally, the imminent release of the 28 totally redacted pages of
said report.
Mulling over
these with the background noise of a filthy Presidential campaign finally found
me asking several questions of myself which I generally had partial answers to,
but I realized that there were gaps.
Accordingly, let's see if we can fill some of those with facts (remember
facts?) and formulate/speculate regarding motive. This might take a while, so stay with me.
First: Why has
it taken 15 years for the US House to address the issue of Saudi complicity to
the point of liability for the events of 9/11? What follows is based only on my
assumptions based on research re: the Bush family and the Kingdom of Saudi
Arabia, and my knowledge of the mentality of the House majority party. Bob
Woodward in his authorized bio of "W" points out that George H.W.
advised his son to contact Saudi Prince
Bandar to discuss and "be advised" regarding his (as of then) possible decision to run for the Presidency.
This, as well as deep and longstanding Bush financial relations with the
Kingdom should be troubling to most Americans. At this point let's ask and then
pose answers to the original question.
Why did the Bush administration in its righteous anger in the wake of
the destruction of 9/11, (or at least after the Commission report, containing
the redacted pages, not pose such legislation?
I would suggest several reasons. Primarily, the Bush administration, having
taken office planning to "finish" daddy's Iraq adventure (later
admitted by disillusioned staff) , saw the need to base US forces in the
Kingdom as more important than holding the Saudis accountable for the funding
which Bin Laden derived from his family's immense wealth. Second, the President would certainly have
vetoed such a bill, since in the real world it would expose the US to similar
suits from most Middle Eastern nations, Laos, Cambodia, and others. Actually the Bush administration would have
strangled any Partisan who dared propose such a measure. Jump ahead to the
present, and a US House controlled
(again) by Republicans, some of whom delight in using the ignorance of the body
politic against a President whose laundry they aren't fit to wash. The current bill's timing is blatantly designed
to force the President to veto it (as Bush would have) and then the finger
pointing will start, stimulating frothing and finger pointing from the redneck
hordes who know little and suspect less.
Immediately the Clinton-Obama bashing will ramp up. Wait for Faux News spin on
this one! Incidentally, this apparent pang of sympathy for 9/11 victims with
all the resultant monies spent by the NFL, MLB and other public persona
organizations would be far better used in helping those responders and escapees whose medical issues
continue to emerge, largely unrecognized or compensated by the rest of us.
Having referred
to the 9/11 Commission Report, I think it reasonable to make some legitimate
comparisons between this "fact" finding attempt and the
investigations into two other, albeit less profound in their scope, events
resulting in American deaths at the hands of Islamic extremists.
As previously
discussed in my blog (here) http://bubblehead1026.blogspot.com/2016/06/benghazi-brief-prequel-for-comparison.html There were attacks on several US
installations in Lebanon in the Reagan years. Between October, 1983 and
September 1984, hundreds of US citizens, military and civilian were killed in
four bombing attacks. After the second,
the horrific Beirut Marine Barracks attack, a
House committee was convened, by a Democratically controlled House under
Speaker Tip O'Neill. That committee's report was bipartisan (remember when that
word had meaning?) and findings of fact blamed no one specifically, much less
the Secretary of State or the President. The report made specific
recommendations aimed at improving Embassy security. About 10 months after the release of this report, In
September of 1984, for the third time in eighteen months, jihadists bombed a U.S.
government outpost in Beirut yet again. President Reagan acknowledged that the
new security precautions that had been advocated by Congress hadn’t yet been
implemented at the U.S. embassy annex that had been hit. The problem, the
President said, was that the repairs hadn’t quite been completed on time. Reagan
actually said in a press conference, “Anyone who’s ever had their kitchen done over
knows that it never gets done as soon as you wish it would.” Can we even
imagine the reaction today to a similar Presidential response to questions
about Benghazi, in which just 4 Americans died, vice hundreds? Draw your own partisan conclusions.
I debated (with
myself, because I trust him) regarding which "commission" to discuss
next, and simply because I want the 9/11 information to remain in the reader's
mind, I'll briefly discuss Benghazi next. Of paramount importance here,
(remember this later for comparison) is the fact that the Benghazi committee
was partisan from the get go. There was no attempt to find fact which didn't
fit the desired result, in fact many such pieces of information were discarded
or even worse, military decisions were attributed in several cases to the
Secretary of State by implication, a
ludicrous leap of illogic. The CIA's
part in the affair was on the back burner because from the start, the aim of
this committee was to politically hurt
the Administration in general and the Secretary of State in
particular. The fact that the CIA had a
facility at the compound in Benghazi had been an open secret for weeks,
although its central role was not fully acknowledged. I include the following paragraph
only for the purpose of pointing out how little actual responsibility the State
department had in this instance. It
turns out the annex (not the "consulate" a fine point omitted by many
media outlets) was an outlet for weapons via CIA channels to "good Libyans"
A Faux News
report alleged that "Several operators at
an agency annex had been denied help from their CIA higher-ups during the
fighting", something the CIA strenuously denies, and there had even been indelicate hints of
secret components to the Benghazi compound during an open hearing on Capitol
Hill back in mid-October. A U.S.
official who spoke under the condition
of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters, confirmed that the CIA had an extensive presence in
Benghazi, and that the two former Navy SEALs who died in the assault, were contractors working for the agency. According to documents released by the House
Oversight Committee, when the Undersecretary of State for Management, Patrick
Kennedy, signed an order last December to maintain a presence in the Benghazi
compound for another year, his official memo counted 35 “U.S. government
personnel,” of whom only eight were State Department. Most of the rest were
secretly with the CIA, the official confirmed. The U.S. official noted that at
no point in the October congressional hearing did any of the State Department
officials testifying use the word “consulate” to describe the Benghazi
compound. This was no accident. In fact, the compound served little routine
diplomatic purpose, and was largely under the operational control of the CIA.
And yet, and yet....... as was later admitted
by several House Republicans with consciences, the real committee purpose was
to smear the presumptive Democratic candidate in the upcoming presidential
elections. The final cost of these 700 day efforts is more than was spent on
investigations of Pearl Harbor, The JFK assassination, Watergate and the 9/11
commission - combined! The results were - in a word - zip!
Finally, by the
numbers, the Benghazi select committee alone , labored longer than the
committees investigating Watergate, Katrina or Pearl Harbor. Perhaps even more
surprising the Benghazi hearings, first
and foremost regarding the tragic deaths
of 4 Americans were convened for some 700 days, or more than half again as long
as the 9/11 Commission met to deconstruct (sort of) the deaths of about 3,000 Americans!
Which brings me
to the 9/11 Commission. Right up front, I have no time for conspiracy
theories. No, I don't think
"W" did it or intentionally allowed it to happen. I believe that those who were
ultimately blamed for it, did it, more than likely with the financial support of Saudi money,
albeit, not overtly supported or contributed by the Saudi government, but rather from other Saudi
sources. Now that we've established what I believe, let's look at the
commission.
The 9/11 Commission members were appointed by
President George W. Bush and the United States Congress, which led to continued
criticism that the Commission was not
independent. Nixon SecState Henry Kissinger initially was appointed to head the
commission, but resigned just weeks
after being appointed, because he would have been obliged to disclose the
clients of his private consulting business. Former U.S. Senator George Mitchell
was originally appointed as the vice-chairman, but he stepped down on December
10, 2002, not wanting to sever ties to his law firm. So the Commission, wasn't
chaired by the "opposition party" but rather by men selected by the
leader of the majority, himself. Hmmm. The Commission stated in its report that
their aim was "... not to assign individual blame", a rather
remarkable statement in and of itself, since so many died and someone certainly
was to blame. This judgment, some
critics believed could obscure the facts of the matter in a nod to consensus
politics, as directed by the White House, if not specifically the President.
Remember, much of the orchestration of this was from the brains of Karl Rove
and VP Cheney.
Some members of
the Commission, as well as its executive
director Philip Zelikow, had conflicts of interest. Philip Shenon, a New York
Times reporter, in a February 2008 book
entitled "The Commission: The Uncensored History of the 9/11
Investigation" claims that "Zelikow had closer ties with the White House
than he publicly disclosed and that he tried to influence the final report in
ways that the staff often perceived as limiting the Bush administration’s
responsibility and furthering its anti-Iraq agenda." According to the book,
Zelikow had at least four private conversations with former White House
political director Karl Rove, and appears to have had many frequent telephone
conversations with people in the White House. Government Accountability Office
records show his frequent calls to the 456 telephone exchange in the 202 area
code used exclusively by the White House. Some panel staff members have later
stated that Zelikow stopped them from submitting a report depicting Nat'l Sec. Advisor, Condoleezza Rice's
and President Bush's performance as "amounting to incompetence or something not far
from it". According to Shenon, Rove always feared that a commission report
that laid the blame for 9/11 at the president's doorstep (such as when Bush
terrorism "czar" Richard Clarke could no longer be prevented from
testifying about his urgent warnings over the summer of 2001 to Condoleezza
Rice about the imminent threat of terrorist attack on US soil) was the one development that could most
jeopardize Bush's 2004 re-election. As early as Jan. 25, in a memo recently
declassified, Clarke was very specific in warnings to Rice that "Al
Qida" (sic) was a serious domestic threat and shared his concern that the
administration wasn't focused on it
(read the memo here: http://nsarchive.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB147/clarke%20memo.pdf
)
In contrast to
the Benghazi hearings in which all the relevant persons were summoned, sworn and examined at the will of the
panel, President Bush and Vice President
Cheney did ultimately, but after considerable stalling, agree to testify. They did
so only under several conditions: They would be allowed to testify jointly, They
would not be required to take an oath before testifying, The testimony would
not be recorded electronically or transcribed, and that the only record would
be notes taken by one of the commission staffers. These notes would never be made public. Plainly stated, they didn't
want to testify, but would do so if they could lie (or dissemble) and not be
held accountable.
To further
hinder the flow of information, The Commission was forced to use subpoenas to
obtain the cooperation of the FAA and NORAD (Federal Aviation Administration
and North American Air Defense Command) to release evidence such as audiotapes.
The agencies' reluctance to release the tapes, and subsequently, e-mails,
erroneous public statements and other evidence led some of the panel's staff
members and commissioners to believe that authorities sought to mislead the
commission and the public about what happened on September 11. "I was
shocked at how different the truth was from the way it was described,"
said former NJ Atty. Gen. John Farmer,
who led the staff inquiry into events on September 11, in an August 2006
interview.
A significant
number of former FBI, NSA and other
federal intelligence experts, claim the 9/11 Commission report was
fundamentally flawed because the Commission refused to hear, ignored, or
censored testimony about the many pre–September 11 warnings given to the FBI
and US intelligence agencies. These former operatives claim that in an effort to avoid having to
hold any individual accountable, the 9/11 Commission turned a blind eye on FBI
agent-provided evidence before September 11 regarding the 9/11 plot.
Able
Danger: A far less publicized intelligence unit involved in pre-9/11
threat assessment was a military unit designated "Able Danger." Most Americans have never heard of it, and
even fewer had knowledge of it pre-9/11. One reason was that nominally, US
military resources are forbidden from engaging in any sort of domestic
surveillance, some of which Able Danger came very close to doing. That said, several members of this unit have, in the wake of the
Commission report, made some significant
statements which have bearing on this essay. The existence of Able Danger was
revealed by Congressman Curt Weldon (R-Pa) in 2005, after the 9/11 Commission
report began to look to him like a "cover up" for intelligence
failures. During the summer of 2005, Weldon, vice-chairman of the House Armed
Services Committee, revealed the existence of a secret Pentagon
counter-terrorism operation codenamed Able Danger, which he claimed had
identified Mohammed Atta, alleged ringleader of the 9/11 attacks, as early as
1999.
It has been widely reported in Europe that
Atta was known to US intelligence agencies and was actually under FBI
surveillance in Germany as early as 1999, which seriously undermines
Bush administration claims that the 9/11 attacks came out of the blue
and that the US government had no idea before September 2001 that Al Qaeda
terrorists were in the United States planning terrorist attacks. This information has been largely suppressed
in the American media, and the existence of Able Danger was omitted in the official 9/11 Commission report in order
to sustain its whitewash of the role of US military and intelligence agencies
in permitting and even facilitating the attacks. Weldon stated in
committee that Able Danger had also
identified three other future 9/11 hijackers as Al Qaeda loyalists: Marwan
Al-Shehhi, Khalid Almidhar and Nawaf Alhazmi. He also claimed that he had been in possession of a “link
chart” tracing the connections of various individuals connected to Al Qaeda,
and containing Atta’s photograph and name, and had turned it over to deputy
national security adviser Stephen Hadley at a meeting in the White House on
September 25, 2001. Both Hadley and another Republican congressman, Dan Burton
of Indiana, have confirmed the meeting with Weldon on that date and the
handover of the link chart. The chart itself
"disappeared", according to the Bush White House.
After Weldon's assertions were disputed, Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer, a member of the Able Danger team, identified himself as Weldon's source. Shaffer claimed that he alerted the FBI in September 2000 about the information uncovered by the secret military unit "Able Danger", he further alleged that three meetings he set up with bureau officials were blocked by military lawyers. Shaffer, who at the time worked for the Defense Intelligence Agency, claims he communicated to members of the 9/11 Commission that Able Danger had identified two of the three cells responsible for 9/11 prior to the attacks, but the Commission did not include this information in their final report.
Shaffer specifically states that in Jan 2000, Able Danger data-mining revealed the existence of a 'Brooklyn' Al-Qaeda cell connected to the "Blind Sheik" Omar Abdel-Rahman, as well as two other cells overseas. Shaffer was soon after placed on paid administrative leave for what he called "petty and frivolous" reasons and had his security clearance suspended in March 2004, following a dispute over travel mileage expenses and personal use of a work cell phone. These allegations are claimed to have been pursued in bad faith & breach of process, in relation for Shaffer talking to the 9/11 Commission.
Congressman Weldon asked for a probe into the activities undertaken to silence Lt. Col. Shaffer from publicly commenting on Able Danger and Able Danger's identification of the 9/11 hijackers, calling the activities "a deliberate campaign of character assassination." The Army agreed, Army investigations subsequently found these claims to be without merit, and cleared his promotion.
Shaffer also told the story of Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) opposition to Able Danger, prior to 9/11, based on the view that Able Danger was encroaching on CIA turf. According to Shaffer, the CIA representative said, "I clearly understand. We're going after the leadership. You guys are going after the body. But, it doesn't matter. The bottom line is, CIA will never give you the best information from 'Alex Base' (the CIA's top secret database) or anywhere else. CIA will never provide that to you because if you were successful in your effort to target Al Qaeda, you will steal our thunder. Therefore, we will not support this." This lack of interagency cooperation as well as the "Information Wall" which existed between the FBI and CIA at the time has been held by many interested parties as a critical failure to protect the nation because of petty inter-agency turf wars.
If Schaffer/Weldon were lone voices crying in the night, it might be easy to dismiss their claims. However, this is far from true. Navy Captain Scott Phillpott, another Able danger member, confirmed Shaffer's claims. "I will not discuss this outside of my chain of command", Phillpott said in a formal public statement. "I have briefed the Department of the Army, the Special Operations Command and the office of (Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence) Dr. Cambone as well as the 9/11 Commission. My story has remained consistent. Atta was identified by Able Danger in January/February 2000".
Shaffer's claims were also confirmed by James D. Smith, a civilian contractor who worked on Able Danger. In a later interview with media personnel, Smith reported that the project had involved analysis of data from a large number of public sources and 20 to 30 individuals. He stated that Atta's name had emerged during an examination of individuals known to have ties to Omar Abdel Rahman, a leading figure in the first World Trade Center bombing.
Finally, regarding Able Baker, and the massive intelligence failure leading to 9/11: Operation Dark Heart by Anthony A. Shaffer, released in September 2010, includes memories of his time reporting to the 9/11 commission about Able Danger's findings. The 10,000 copies of the books have not been released yet. The DOD's Defense Intelligence Agency reviewers identified more than 200 passages suspected of containing classified information. "Specifically, the DIA wanted references to a meeting between Lt. Col. Tony Shaffer, the book's author, and the executive director of the 9/11 Commission, Philip Zelikow, removed." There can, in my opinion, be only one explanation for such concerns, that being that it casts the shadow of "cover up" on the entire proceeding if the man responsible for the investigation knew of Able Danger and omitted it (by directive) from the final version. DOD took the highly unusual step of purchasing all available copies of Shaffer's book at a cost of $47,000 and destroying them to deny the public the ability to read the book.
There is one final oddity here on I wish to comment. Bush National Security advisor Condoleezza Rice strenuously dug in her heels to avoid testifying to the committee. She at first claimed she was a civilian employee of the administration, ergo was immune to subpoena, but was finally persuaded to do so. Here (because they are informative) are just a sampling of the questions she was asked under oath and when appropriate, some elucidation related to the veracity of her responses:
(Where it says "CLAIM" what follows are Ms. Rice's precise words. The statements after "FACT" are actual verified data)
CLAIM: "I do not remember any reports to us, a kind of strategic warning, that planes might be used as weapons."
FACT: Condoleezza Rice was the top National Security official with President Bush at the July 2001 G-8 summit in Genoa. There, "U.S. officials were warned that Islamic terrorists might attempt to crash an airliner" into the summit, prompting officials to "close the airspace over Genoa and station antiaircraft guns at the city’s airport." [Sources: Los Angeles Times, 9/27/01; White House release, 7/22/01]
CLAIM: "I was certainly not aware of [intelligence reports about planes as missiles] at the time that I spoke" in 2002.
FACT: While Rice may not have been aware of the 12 separate and explicit warnings about terrorists using planes as weapons when she made her denial in 2002, she did know about them when she wrote her March 22, 2004 Washington Post op-ed. In that piece, she once again repeated the claim there was no indication "that terrorists were preparing to attack the homeland using airplanes as missiles." [Source: Washington Post, 3/22/04]
CLAIM: There was "nothing about the threat of attack in the U.S." in the Presidential Daily Briefing the President received on August 6th.
FACT: Rice herself later admitted that "the title [of the PDB] was, ‘Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the United States.’" [Source: Condoleezza Rice, 4/8/04]
CLAIM: "One of the problems was there was really nothing that looked like was going to happen inside the United States…Almost all of the reports focused on al-Qaida activities outside the United States, especially in the Middle East and North Africa…We did not have…threat information that was in any way specific enough to suggest something was coming in the United States."
FACT: Page 204 of the Joint Congressional Inquiry into 9/11 noted that "In May 2001, the intelligence community obtained a report that Bin Laden supporters were planning to infiltrate the United States" to "carry out a terrorist operation using high explosives." The report "was included in an intelligence report for senior government officials in August [2001]." In the same month, the Pentagon "acquired and shared with other elements of the Intelligence Community information suggesting that seven persons associated with Bin Laden had departed various locations for Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States." [Sources: Joint Congressional Report, 12/02]
CLAIM: "If we had known an attack was coming against the United States…we would have moved heaven and earth to stop it."
FACT: a year later, Rice admits that she was told that "an attack was coming." She said, "Let me read you some of the actual chatter that was picked up in that spring and summer": "Unbelievable news coming in weeks", said one. "Big event — there will be a very, very, very, very big uproar. There will be attacks in the near future." [Source: Condoleezza Rice, 4/8/04]
CLAIM: "The Vice President was, a little later in, I think, in May, tasked by the President to put together a group to look at all of the recommendations that had been made about domestic preparedness and all of the questions associated with that."
FACT: The Vice President’s task force never once convened a meeting. In the same time period, the Vice President convened at least 10 meetings of his energy task force, and six meetings with Enron executives. [Source: Washington Post, 1/20/02; GAO Report, 8/03]
CLAIM: "The decision that we made was to, first of all, have no drop-off in what the Clinton administration was doing, because clearly they had done a lot of work to deal with this very important priority."
FACT: Internal government documents show that the Clinton Administration officially prioritized counterterrorism as a "Tier One" priority, but when the Bush Administration took office, top officials downgraded counterterrorism. As the Washington Post reported, these documents show that before Sept. 11 the Bush Administration "did not give terrorism top billing." Rice admitted that "we decided to take a different track" than the Clinton Administration in protecting America. [Source: Internal government documents, 1998-2001; Washington Post, 3/22/04; Rice testimony, 4/8/04]
CLAIM: The Bush Administration has been committed to the "transformation of the FBI into an agency dedicated to fighting terror."
FACT: Before 9/11, Attorney General John Ashcroft de-emphasized counterterrorism at the FBI, in favor of more traditional law enforcement. And according to the Washington Post, "in the early days after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the Bush White House cut by nearly two-thirds an emergency request for counterterrorism funds by the FBI, an internal administration budget document shows." And according to a new report by the Congressional Research Service, "numerous confidential law enforcement and intelligence sources who challenge the FBI’s claim that it has successfully retooled itself to gather critical intelligence on terrorists as well as fight crime." [Source: Washington Post, 3/22/04; Congressional Quarterly, 4/6/04]
CLAIM: "The FBI issued at least three nationwide warnings to federal, state and law enforcement agencies and specifically stated that, although the vast majority of the information indicated overseas targets, attacks against the homeland could not be ruled out. The FBI tasked all 56 of its U.S. field offices to increase surveillance of known suspects of terrorists and to reach out to known informants who might have information on terrorist activities."
FACT: The warnings are "feckless. They don’t tell anybody anything. They don’t bring anyone to battle stations." [Source: 9/11 Commissioner Jamie Gorelick, 4/8/04]
CLAIM: "I think that having a Homeland Security Department that can bring together the FAA and the INS and Customs and all of the various agencies is a very important step."
FACT: The White House vehemently opposed the creation of the Department of Homeland security. Its opposition to the concept delayed the creation of the department by months.
It should be noted that Ms. Rice was compensated about the same as a U.S. Senator for her work here and in helping push the US into Iraq, thus facilitating the creation of ISIS.
And last, what is in the redacted pages of this report? Who will it further embarrass? Beats me, but I'll bet the gist of it is that some prominent Saudis were complicit in helping Mohammad Atta and his band of one way pilots obtain entry in the US under other than legitimate pretense. I wouldn't anticipate finding out much more about the incompetence of the Bush administration of the inadequacies of the 9/11 Commission report, because that's been done.
