How the Events Precipitated by 9/11 are Shaping Pakistan’s Future and The World
By Maher Ossiran
An Arab Scholar who resides in the USA worries about the future of Pakistan – a country that much of the Muslim World looks up to – and addresses Pakistanis to urge them to fight their war for survival wisely and succeed. + Usman Khalid +
I could have written this as a Conclusion but thought later that it is more important to read first and maybe read it again when you are done.
I know many, if not all of you, are looking to chart a path for Pakistan that is uniquely Pakistani, which is beneficial to its people and its long-term stability. If such a path is based on events of the last ten years, more specifically, on events precipitated by the attacks of September 11, 2001, you need to reconsider many of those events and note that they were designed for a certain impact and to steer you and others into selecting one of a few predetermined paths that fit an acceptable outcome; there is no doubt that the United States is doing the steering.
I am going to use one example - drone attacks – which is not necessarily very effective in accomplishing their declared objectives. Compare the drone attacks with another such activity carried out by the Israelis - the targeted assassinations in the West Bank and Gaza using helicopters before drones were the vogue. The net effect of the attacks by the United States and Israel is the polarization of the population - the creation of two currents with irreconcilable differences i.e. the Pakistani Taliban and Hamas in the West Bank and Gaza. Such a condition makes these two countries easier to manipulate and steer.
We need to consider another parallel between Pakistan and Palestine - the weakening of the central government in conjunction with these destabilizing events. In Pakistan, the drone attacks indicate a complacent central government, but when seen in the light of so many other intrusions, which reached a crescendo with the assassination of bin Laden, who by many accounts was no longer in control of Al-Qaida and was in virtual retirement, you end up with an effectively ‘failed state’.
As in Pakistan, a corrupt Palestinian Authority did little to protect its people in order to stay in power and lining their pockets; it is effectively a failed state. I am going to introduce the word ‘reconciliation’ but will not be using the reconciliation between Hamas and Palestinian Authority as a example; the parallel ends here.
For true reconciliation to take place in Pakistan and for a consensus among Pakistanis, of all persuasions, to be reached about how to best move forward and chart a uniquely Pakistani path, there is a urgent need to undo the polarization caused by events pursuant to the attacks of September 11, 2001. To do that, there is a need to reconnect with our state of mind prior to 9/11 - where we were, in order to understand what has happened since, where we are now, and where we want to be avoiding outside influences.
I do hope the majority of you can still remember the days prior to 9/11. The truth about 9/11 has been elusive but it is necessary to confront it in order expose those who are trying to hide it and destabilize Pakistan. The truth should also be disseminated in the various languages of Pakistan and through different mediums.
It might be easier and more effective to expose and hold accountable their Pakistani collaborators and surrogates. A big lie we were told after 9/11 is that Osama bin Laden is responsible for the attacks in New York.
The work of Ed Haas’ and myself proves otherwise. Our combined work shows that “Bin Laden is a patsy who was aided and abetted at every turn during the execution of the attacks by components in the Bush administration. If law enforcement were allowed to do their work, Bin Laden’s complicity would have been limited to conspiring and planning the attacks and thousands in Manhattan, Afghanistan, and Iraq, would have been alive today.”
The above is an excerpt from an article Ed Haas and I co-wrote in the summer of 2007. By that time Ed Haas’ Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests were not all answered by the various branches of the US Government; Central Command’s (CENTCOM’s) response was still missing. His requests relate to the only evidence the US government had provided showing bin Laden’s guilt. I will shortly list all the responses chronologically but first will give you what prompted this barrage of FOIA requests, whose responses show how over time the US government tried its best to distance itself from the evidence that they themselves provided.
In June 2006, Ed Haas wrote an article “FBI says, it has ‘no hard evidence connecting Bin Laden to 9/11”. Ed was wondering why the FBI had not indicted bin Laden for the 9/11 attacks. So, he contacted Rex Tomb, Chief of Investigative Publicity for the FBI. When asked why there is no mention of 9/11 on Bin Laden’s Most Wanted web page, Tomb said:
“The reason why 9/11 is not mentioned on Usama Bin Laden’s Most Wanted page is because the FBI has no hard evidence connecting Bin Laden to 9/11.” Surprised by the ease in which this FBI spokesman made such an astonishing statement, he asked, “How this was possible?” Tomb continued, “Bin Laden has not been formally charged in connection to 9/11.”When asked, “How does that work?” Tomb continued, “The FBI gathers evidence. Once evidence is gathered, it is turned over to the Department of Justice. The Department of Justice than decides whether it has enough evidence to present to a federal grand jury. In the case of the 1998 United States Embassies being bombed, Bin Laden has been formally indicted and charged by a grand jury. He has not been formally indicted and charged in connection with 9/11 because the FBI has no hard evidence that connected Bin Laden to 9/11.”
You must all find this incredible; after all the war in Afghanistan that has killed thousands which expanded into Pakistan and continues to kill to this date was based on bin Laden being responsible. Also, many in the “Truth Movement” and people around the world who had suspicions of the United States and its policies used this FBI statement of “no hard evidence” to support their own convictions, albeit for various reasons, that the United States itself was behind the attacks. The truth was somewhere in between.
As soon as I became aware of Ed Haas’ work, I contacted him; it was August 2006. I shared with him my work that was published a few weeks earlier on counterpunch.org titled “Osama’s Confession, Osama’s Reprieve” and my opinion as to why bin Laden was not indicted for 9/11 even though the American government had presented the world with a tape in which bin Laden clearly showed prior knowledge of the attacks as evidence of his guilt, the tape could not be submitted to a federal grand jury without providing both the chain of custody and authentication. If authenticated, that would have corroborated my findings and show the complicity of the American government in the attacks.
On the issue of authentication, it is a fact that, to this day, the videotape released by the Pentagon on December 13, 2001, of bin Laden “confessing”, has not been authenticated by the US government or any other government, media outlet, or institution which could be construed to be authentication as stated in “Osama’s Confession; Osama’s Reprieve”.
In August of 2006, responses to Ed’s FOIA started trickling in. Ed is ex-military who understands its bureaucracy and record keeping. He launched in reaction to Rex Tomb’s disclosures, a barrage of FOIA that correctly focused on chain of custody and authentication.
The following are the responses in chronological order:
1. August 2006, the FBI’s response: “The material you requested is located in an investigative file which is exempt from disclosure pursuant to Title 5, United States Code, Section 552, Subsection (b)(7)(A)”. Ed Haas appealed the FBI’s decision and I reminded him that the investigation had started almost five years earlier and should have been completed by now. For the record, to this day, the FBI has not released any results of the investigation, interim or otherwise and no material relating to authentication that Ed Haas had requested. Ed Haas won the appeal and a few months later the FBI sent a letter saying that it could find no records responsive to his request.
2. September 2006, the DoD/Pentagon response: “The office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs conducted a search of its files and located no record responsive to your request. Responsive records, to the extent they exist, mostly likely would be found at the United States Central Command (CENTCOM) and I suggest that you submit a FOIA request to that command at…” This is the most bizarre response. If we give the Pentagon the benefit of the doubt, chain of custody or portions of the chain might reside at CENTCOM but any authentication work prior to the release must reside with the Pentagon; the Pentagon would not even release information relating to the hiring of the two translators, George Michael and Dr. Kassem M. Wahba, which Ed Haas specifically requested in his FOIA.
3. June 2007, the CIA’s response:”In accordance with section 3.6(a) of Executive Order 12958, as amended, the CIA can neither confirm nor deny the existence or non-existence of records responsive to your request. The fact of the existence or non-existence of requested records is properly classified and is intelligence sources and methods information that is protected from disclosure by section 6 of the CIA Act of 1949, as amended. Therefore, the Agency has denied your request pursuant to FOIA exemptions (b)(1) and (b)(3)”. Based on the types of exemptions the CIA took, Ed Haas correctly interpreted the response as confirmation of what Ed Vulliamy and Jason Burke reported in The Observer of London LINK, three days after the bin Laden confession tape was release by the Pentagon: “although absolutely genuine, it is the result of a sophisticated sting operation run by the CIA through a second intelligence service, possibly Saudi or Pakistani”, and my extensive analysis of the bin Laden “confession” tape had reached the CIA sting operation conclusion and, without speculation, that the other intelligence service was clearly Saudi.
4. December 2009, CENTCOM responds two years after receiving the Ed’s request: “Pursuant to procedures established in 5 U.S.C. 552, Freedom of Information Act and DOD 5400.7-R, Department of Defense FOIA Program, our search included all existing records in USCENTCOM. Despite our extensive search for documents pertaining to your request, we were unable to locate responsive documents.” Please note the use of the word extensive and ask yourself, if CENTCOM, the command responsible the Afghan theater of operations did not have any chain of custody records, how did the bin Laden “confession” video come to be.
From these responses, the US government would like us to believe that the tape’s existence was due to a divine miracle; a tape materializing out of thin air. There is only one plausible conclusion; the video tape was the result of a sting operation run by the CIA. Also, as I show in “Osama’s Confession; Osama’s Reprieve”, every statement of facts regarding the tape, issued by the Pentagon or its officials, has been proven wrong; 100% of everything they said was wrong, which led me to say, if 10% was wrong, it could be an honest mistake, if 40% was wrong, it would be incompetence, but when 100% is wrong, it is simply intentional and a whole bunch of lies.
ACCORDING TO MY RESEARCH, the following is the correct timeline of how the tape was produced.
1. On September 21, 2001, a sting operation targeting bin Laden was launched from Saudi Arabia. The main character in the sting operation was a Saudi Intelligence operative named Sheikh Kalid Al-Harbi.
2. The sting operation had two parts, the first part, conceived after 9/11, was to tape bin Laden confessing, the second part, which was the original goal of the sting prior to 9/11, and possibly as far back as the Clinton administration, was to capture bin Laden or kill him.
3. The first part was conducted successfully around September 26, 2001, and we all have seen bin Laden at a dinner gathering practically, if not legally, confessing to the 9/11 attacks. For the second part, the capture or kill, one of the Al-Harbi’s companions was left behind in order to alert American Special Forces to bin Laden’s return to the village.
4. Al-Harbi, had left Saudi Arabia on September 21 with at least two companions to Afghanistan by way of Iran; as determined from the translation of the confession tape.
5. A side bar here, the Iranian government who issued Al-Harbi and his two companions travel visas have a lot of hard information about him and can get access to even more. While doing my investigative work into the video tape, I contacted the Iranian authorities through their UN ambassador. My email dated 12/22/2005 had about twenty very specific questions relating to material the Iranian authority possessed and suggestions as to where relevant material that they have access to can be found. One of the specific questions that the Iranians could have answered was the date the visas were issued
It is also likely that all those individuals received their visas at the same time from the embassy or consulate in Saudi; unless the visas were forged. If they received their visas prior to 9/11, that would also give the article I am writing a different dimension.
6. The response from Iran’s UN Ambassador, Javad Zarif, was boilerplate, “I applaud your endeavors to investigate and report true and unbiased stories…I am not optimistic that I will get any answers.” I was not that optimistic either but had to try. The Iranian government did not respond because it did not want to admit that it was co-operating with Saudi Intelligence against Al-Qaida and in this specific case indirectly co-operating with American Intelligence.
7. This co-operation with Saudi intelligence continued when they allowed Sheikh Al-Harbi to surrender, as part of an Al-Qaida amnesty program, on July 13, 2004, at the Saudi Embassy in Iran in order to conceal his real whereabouts after the taping; more on that later.
Now back to the timeline.
Following the taping around September 26, 2001, Al-Harbi left Afghanistan with one companion and made the tape available to his handler in American intelligence. The companion was left behind in order to execute the second part of the sting – to capture or kill bin Laden.
In early October 2001, three things happened that are worth noting:
1. Pakistan's foreign ministry spokesman, Mohammed Riaz Khan, said: "There is sufficient grounds for indictment in terms of the material we have seen and we have studied."…He added: "This material certainly provides a sufficient basis for an indictment in a court of law." Full article at the following Guardian location
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2001/oct/04/pakistan.afghanistan2?INTCMP=ILCNETTXT3487
2. NATO invoked Article 5 and declared, “Frank Taylor, the US Ambassador at Large and Co-ordinator for Counter-terrorism briefed the North Atlantic Council - NATO's top decision-making body - on 2 October on the results of investigations into the 11 September terrorist attacks against the United States. As a result of the information he provided to the Council, it has been clearly determined that the individuals who carried out the attacks belonged to the world-wide terrorist network of Al-Qaida, headed by Osama bin Laden and protected by the Taleban regime in Afghanistan.”
3. Statements by Tony Blair to the BBC on September 30, 2001, and the Parliament on October 4, 2001, is that “ it has been shown strong evidence linking Bin Laden to the attacks… the evidence from intelligence services was ‘powerful and incontrovertible’ …. the evidence we have is intelligence and highly sensitive, which it is not possible to release without compromising people or security to release precise details”
All of these three incidents indicate that there was strong evidence that bin Laden was guilty; even though the “confession video” was not released by the Pentagon until December 13, 2001, it was clearly available through intelligence to the parties above. Also, the parties above were crutial partners of the US for conducting the war invading Afghanistan.
It is noteworthy that the Taliban were offering to hand over bin Laden in return for conclusive evidence of his guilt in order to avoid war. Not supplying such evidence to the Taliban in exchange for bin Laden and to avert war, is a clear violation of the UN Charter and The Geneva Convention thereby rendering those responsible liable for indictment for war crimes. The US had the option of supplying the evidence to the Taliban, keep preparing for war, and go to war if the Taliban did not produce bin Laden; America’s intentions were clearly to go to war.
It was also important to put pressure on the Musharaf regime and those in his Foreign Ministry, such as Mr. Khan, who were privy to the evidence and force them to join the USA. The sophistication of the sting operation indicate that it was designed at least three to six months prior to 9/11 which is a clear indicator of prior knowledge by US government and explains the inaction of the CIA and the FBI even when they received actionable intelligence about the highjackers prior to 9/11 that would have stopped the attacks.
The ultimate objective of the sting operation was to kill or capture bin Laden but the United States opted only for the taping the ‘confession’ in order to provide evidence that deceived NATO and others into supporting its war. It is imperative that the democracies that constitute NATO ask that the evidence behind the declaration of Article 5, be released.
On November 2, 2001, the Saudi intelligence operative left behind in that village alerted the US intelligence that bin Laden was back to visit his family. Two black hawk helicopters, most likely belonging to the Navy Seals Team 6, lifted off from USS Roosevelt on the mission to capture or kill bin Laden. The weather over Afghanistan was sleet and freezing rain, and the time was close to midnight. Based on the weather and the darkness, the flight by itself was a suicide mission. Upon arrival on the outskirts of that village, a Predator drone operated by the CIA was in the same air space as those helicopters. The drone and one of the helicopters collide.
William F. and David S. (last name witheld in order to comply with American law) of the CIA confirmed that the Predator drone collided with the helicopter, they also stated that the collision was intentional in order to sabotage the mission. Since William and David refused to answer specific question, I reported the collision as a fact since I independently reached instead of using their version that I could not confirm. Later I learned that these two CIA guys were given the task of derailing my investigation and preventing the publication of the results in any mainstream publication; my mistrust was in the right place.
Intentional or not, the mission was sabotaged, the Pentagon told us that the helicopters were on a mission to retrieve an ill or injured soldier, that the second helicopter rescued the crew while the F-14 that had left the same carrier in support of the mission bombed the crashed helicopter in order to distroy any sensitive material.
The name of one soldier on the crashed helicopter is known, Staff Sargent Pabela, most likely a Guam native and a member of Navy Seal Team 6. I don’t know if we can believe the Pentagon when it claimed that there were no injuries. If there were, S. Sgt Pabela would be the first known casualty in the hunt for bin Laden and the first casualty from a Predator drone attack or accident.
On November 3 and 4, the children of bin Laden were videotaped by Aljazeerah playing with the wreckege of the downed helicopter. Also, extensive taping by Mokhtar, the person trusted by bin Laden to look after his kids while away. Mokhtar taped the kids climbing the hill near the village to view the wreckage at the crash site. There is also video taping of bin Laden’s son Hamza indoors handling smaller wreckage pieces including predator landing gear. The indoor taping included closeups of equipment tags which helped identify the aircrafts they came from.
On November 8 or 9, the village was overrun, the Saudi intelligence operative is collected by American special forces or intelligence. Video material the operative managed to record was collected so was video material from the bin Ladin family residence. These two video sources will later be used in an attempt to camouflage the videotape of September 26, 2001.
On November 14, 2001, it appeared that Tony Blair was almost obsessed in providing video evidence of bin-Laden confessing. Without Al-Jazeera’s knowledge or consent, Tony Blair obtained a taping of an interview Al-Jazeera conducted with bin Laden. Due to bin Laden not fulfilling the interview agreement with Al-Jazeera, intimidating their interviewer and technicians, and putting conditions on Al-Jazeera that would have removed any journalistic value, Al-Jazeera decided not to air it. An early release of a snippit from the tape by David Bamber of the Sunday Telegraph of London alerted Al-Jazeera that it was their tape and quickly moved to have Tony Blair return it, most likely threatening legal action.
Also on November 14, The Washington Post reports how Blair introduce the tape evidence in the Parliament, “The British government did not release the video or a full transcript, saying it does not have a copy of the video but has information about it from intelligence sources.” Basically whatever Tony Blair shared with British Parliament was hearsay. The British mainstream media did not mount any serious challenge to the video and never challenged the value of what he presented. Still, taking such a tremendous risk by obtaining an unauthorized copy can only be justified if NATO members were promised video evidence and all they got prior to declaring Article 5 were assurances that such evidence existed and that it would be provided.
Again, it is imperative that the democracies of Europe begin questioning NATO’s role and America bypassing their democratic processes by the backdoor to obtain rapid EU expansion eastwards. The USA diluted the strength of Euro, and also European independence as new countries were entered who were indebted to the United States for securing the membership of NATO and EU.
On December 13, 2001, the Pentagon released the bin Laden “confession tape”. The tape is an out of sequence collage from three sources, the covert taping of bin Laden visiting with Al-Harbi, tapings by Saudi intelligence operative left behind by Al-Harbi, and home videotapes from the bin Laden family residence.
This “confession tape” is by far the worst attempt to conceal that the taping of bin Laden was the result of a sting operation. The material that was added, especially from the bin Laden family home videotapes, had so much information that made it fairly easy to produce the timeline I presented to uncover US criminality.
On December 14, 2001. Attorney Thomas Henry, on behalf of Leo Wanta, sent a report by fax to Vice President Dick Cheney using two different fax numbers, which indicate that the material in the report was important. The report places Khalid Al-Harbi, the visitor in the bin Laden “confession tape” at the Midtown Hotel Metro Manila, Philippines, in the presence of Brad Lee representative of the “company”, i.e. CIA, and, SAC Robert Wachtel, i.e. FBI.
The report goes on to say that Al-Harbi was observed over a period of time and on several occasions and that he was about to invite those observing him to visit him at his residence; all important elements for a positive identification. The fact that Al-Harbi was in the presence of two American agents is another confirmation that the “confession video” was the result of a sting operation.
On July 13, 2004. Al-Harbi surrendered at the Saudi Embassy in Iran. His surrender in Iran was designed to conceal the fact that his hideout was the Philippines. Iran was still co-operating with Saudi intelligence and by now knowingly co-operating with American intelligence.
From the timeline above, there is plenty or criminality to go around; Iran, Saudi Arabia, the highest echelons of NATO, the Musharraf regime, and on top are the Bush and Obama administrations. The crimes committed worldwide are innumerable and should be considered high crimes against humanity.
The crimes that are punishable under the US law are the following:
1. Murder – for each soldier and civilian killed as a result of the war on terror.
2. Dereliction of duty – for not capturing bin Laden when they had the best chance; the night he was taped confessing.
3. Treason - by declassifying the tape, a by-product of a failed and highly sensitive intelligence operation to justify an illegal policy of aggression to the detriment of America’s own national security, the Bush administration committed high treason.
4. Aiding and Abetting a Criminal – When Bin Laden eventually saw himself on TV confessing he realized that the taping was done by a covert camera and realized how close intelligence were to capturing him; Bin Laden would never let anyone that close again.
Again, it is imperative that an independent body authenticates the bin Laden “confession tape” in a transparent manner. If crimes are committed, perpetrators should be prosecuted and punished.
If you are reading this material for the first time, I assure you it is not new. It is by combining my work with that of Ed Haas it is been possible to give you a complete narrative. The material was shared directly with the highest levels of law enforcement in the United States. I even managed to have Dr. James Zogby, founder and president of the Arab American Institute, present the material to John Conyers who was at the time the head of the Judiciary Committee in a Democratic controlled congress. The response I received from Dr. Zogby is: “I read your work. I have every confidence that John Conyers is apprised of the situation and will proceed with investigations accordingly.” That was back in February of 2007, more than 4 years ago.
The crime I uncovered is far bigger than Watergate and no one within the US government is willing to investigate and prosecute. This led me to say in a recent radio interview that “the American government is a criminal enterprise”. It is unfortunate but true. Many people have died as a consequence of this synthetic war on terror; no one should have died, enough is enough.
Many people such as Muslims in the West have been treated as third class citizens; they have been persecuted, entrapped, and prosecuted; enough is enough.
Governments other than the US have started to claim as their own war on terror to suppress struggle of people with legitimate grievances; they have been labeled terrorists by the governments who deny them their rights. To Palestine and Kashmir, we can add Chechnya and Uyghur of China, all of them Muslim peoples. Enough is enough.
I have written this article from a Pakistani perspective because Pakistan is the first of many nations on the crossroads facing existential threats. Pakistan has to make critical decisions to confront those who are trying to undermine it. The world is full of victims; one hopes Pakistanis would confront those who have caused them harm. ++
References
1. “Osama’s Confession; Osama’s Reprieve” found at two locations
Original location, http://www.counterpunch.org/2006/08/21/osama-s-confession-osama-s-reprieve/
2. Same with Pictures http://www.mydemocracy.net/war_crimes/bin_laden_confession.htm
3. “The Crime Behind the Criminal Wars!”
Found at http://www.mydemocracy.net/war_crimes/crime_criminal_wars_bush_blair.htm
4. “Is bin Laden responsible for the 9/11 attacks?”
found at http://www.mydemocracy.net/war_crimes/bin_laden_911_responsible.htm
5. Afghanistan: why it is impossible to support the war – by Ed Haas
Found at http://muslimmedianetwork.com/mmn/?tag=ed-haas
