If you haven’t been living in Alma Ata for a decade, you’ll know about the classified 28 pages of the bipartisan Congressional report on 9/ll. These pages have been kept from the public, and nearly everyone else, for 13 years, as they probably implicate Saudi Arabia in the terror attacks. So far, the only people who have had access to the 28 Pages are members of Congress, who can read them in an isolated room—without taking notes. Congressional aides aren’t allowed as substitutes.
It’s not clear exactly what’s in them, nor how high in the Saudi government the accusations extend, but there is no longer a reason to keep them secret on grounds of national security: the excuse that’s kept them classified all this time.
There’s some information from people who have read them, however. As the Independent reports:
New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, who has read the report, and Senator Bob Graham, who co-chaired the joint congressional inquiry, both believe that the 9/11 victims’ families deserve to read the report before president Obama visits the Middle East on 21 April.
Mr Graham told CBS News’ “60 Minutes” show that the report outlines a network of people that supported the hijackers while they were on the West Coast and helped them to enroll in flight school.
Questioned on whether that network included the government, rich people and charities, the Senator replied: “All of the above”.
And from another report in the same paper:
Two Congressmen, both of whom have seen the secret document, are behind the bipartisan motion for declassification. Stephen Lynch, a Massachusetts Democrat, held that the report offers evidence of links between “certain Saudi individuals” and the terrorists behind the 2001 attacks. Walter Jones, a Republican, said it also sheds light on why President Bush was so opposed to publication : “It’s about the Bush administration and its relationship with the Saudis.”
Some of the relatives of 9/11 victims want to sue those Saudis who might be responsible, and the Saudi government has threatened economic reprisals towards the U.S. if Congress passes a bill allowing such lawsuits. Since the Saudi government knows perfectly well what happened, this is a bit worrisome. At any rate, sources in the Obama administration suggest that all or part of the redacted 28 pages may be released by the summer. It’s time to do this now, for the excuse that those pages “endanger U.S. security” is no longer credible. It looks really bad for a Democratic administration to perpetuate such a coverup.
ITS A CONSPIRACY!
Notice the excuse by Obama and Kerry, that allowing US families to sue foreign government and their representatives responsible for terrorist attacks on US social would put Americans at risk of similar law suits
HOW MANY TERRORIST ATTACKS ARE AMERICANS COMMITTING ON FOREIGN SOIL?
Depends on how you define terrorism. We have lots of weapons, and don’t have to rely on suicide bombers.
I personally think that over decades and centuries, the U.S. is a force for good in the world, but I do not close my eyes to all the nasty things we’ve done. Including installing and supporting some despicable dictators.
The Greater Good is a tough bitch.
Petrushka – Makes me wonder!!!
Has Noam Chomsky been right all along?
No.
Ken – I hope not!!!! That world view is terrifying….
I think the pages should be released, but I don’t think legislation should be passed allowing the families to sue. The result would be disaster.
Just think of the many USians who consider Iraq terrorism, and the millions in Iraq who agree with them. The cost of the legal process alone would destroy the country far more effectively than any Al Qaeda attack.
Unfortunately, the greater good must prevail for the sake of the country.
Just to clarify, I assume by ‘Iraq’ you mean the US invasion of same?
cr
Yeah. Sorry mate – should have been more clear.
Well, one could envision worse superpowers. But the hypocrisy and the drive to not participate in the global community (UN et cetera) are huge strikes against US.
However much the U.S. gripes about China, I should think the U.S. would welcome Chinese activities in the South China Sea to the extent that they draw attention away from the pure-as-the-driven-snow U.S.
You’re assuming other foreign governments and individuals would only bring credible cases, and not harassment or politically-motivated lawsuits. Bad assumption. I think its perfectly reasonable to expect that if we open the door to international lawsuits, some of our citizens are going to be the victims/subjects of the equivalent of SLAPP suits or retaliatory suits.
Declassification is a somewhat separate question from whether you allow the lawsuits, though. The government could do the first and not do the second.
assume every single case brought is not credible and is politically motivated by bad actors…..is it not more important to stop the funding and spread of terrorism, and more important to get justice for the victims than it is to avoid sending representatives to expose the bullshit case?
The US government has spent over 10 trillion dollars and 10 years fighting terrorism….is it really a time and money issue that is preventing them from fighting THESE terrorists?
The way you fight terrorism is for the U.S. to act effectively, which means, as a single governmental force, not a mob of individuals. One can see ahead to the time when Saudi Arabia will have no place to sell their oil. At that point they will return to the conditions of 150 years ago when they were just desert herders of goats and sheep. No more terrorism.
That’s a dangerously naive and nationalist lens you are looking through. Terrorism is a global cancer, so to suggest that one nation alone attempt to eradicate it is not only financially and socially infeasible, but diplomatically impossible. If you were implying that there was a sector of terrorist activities that only involved the US,it should be abundantly clear that the world is already far too interconnected economically to justify a specious form of isolationism, itself a bad, if not impossible idea right now.
That is, if you want to stop terrotism, the US ought to be an integral part of leading the charge for global economic justice: the IMF, the World Bank, and the WTO are three of the biggest global “cartels” going, causing more suffering for more people in more areas around the world than the Sinaloa and Knights of Templar cartels combined. Simply put, if we want to end terrorism, we need to stop practicing internationally that which we also need to stop practicing domestically: a “trickle-up” economic system where poor people are blamed and further exploited for being poor in the first place.
The US is rightfully seen as a leader in the creation and enforcement of such practices. We bombed Iraq nearly off the map during “Shock and Awe.” Everyone in the world knew our government was deliberately bombing Iraq based upon two lies (connection to 9/11 and WMDs) for the sake of an oil grab and future Halliburton contracts. We directly exponentially ramped up the suffering and chaos for people who already had nothng. Do you think that just maybe we contributed significantly to the emergence of ISIS and their retaliatory bombings across Europe?
Of course, with the specific case of middle Eastern/Islamic terrorist organizations, religious fundamentalism is the other main influence in its emergence and growth. The west’s misguided capitulation to anti-democratic demands by certain west-based Islamist groups and populations certainly hasn’t helped. But that doesn’t change the solution: offer desperate, dislocated, and terrified people access to something far better than they’ve ever known, such as safety, clean water, an infrastructure, and regular meals…the possibility of political agency and economic growth (perish the thought) and their willingness to hook up with ISIS-type groups will decrease rather dramatically (especially if their desperation is the direct result of your military fantasiies).
If all that sounds like too much money to invest in a country, well we blew it up, and the cost of rebuilding would be a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of what we spent on the Iraqi invasion–for a couple of months.
Well, Christopher, according to the Oxford Research Group, there were 6,616 civilian deaths during the invasion phase which included Shock and Awe. The US military disputes that figure. When you say that S&W ‘bombed Iraq nearly off the map’, I think that is to vastly overstate the case.
I have written elsewhere in the thread about the myriad links between AQ and Saddam.
It would have been completely irresponsible for any Head of State in 2003 to assume that Saddam wasn’t trying to develop WMD.
The story of Hans Blix, the UN weapons inspector sent in in 2002, illustrates the scandal. Blix had the same job in Iraq in the 80s and Saddam fooled him sufficiently for Blix to sign off Iraq as not attempting to build WMD. After 1991, the UN sent in Rolf Ekéus as inspector, and despite an attempted bribe by Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz of about $1.5 million, Ekéus published the extent of Saddam’s weapons programme which Blix failed to spot. Blix was Saddam’s useful idiot.
The UN, on the veto of France and Russia, dropped the nomination of the incorruptible Ekéus as inspector in 2002. Instead Blix was nominated and this was a signal from France and Russia to Saddam that he was being protected. Why would France and Russia want to shield Saddam? Because from 1973-2002 Russia supplied 57% of Iraqi arms: and France 12% (source: SIPRI): by way of contrast, the US supplied 0.48% and the UK 0.18%.
In March 2003, the month of the coalition liberation of Iraq from Saddam, his agents were in Damascus seeking to buy WMD off the shelf from North Korea via the nuclear physicist Abdul Qadeer Khan in Pakistan. The NYT reported late in 2003 that WMD materials had been found. Dr. Mahdi Obeidi, the scientist in charge of Iraq’s nuclear programme, was told by Saddam’s son-in-law to bury the plans and key equipment for uranium enrichment centrifuges in his back garden. And he did.
The Duelfer Report confirmed that Saddam kept his nuclear scientists in their specialized teams. The Guardian reported in 2004 of sarin gas attacks on US troops in Iraq. In 2014, the NYT reported about 5,000 chemical warheads, shells or aviation bombs found in Iraq.
Here:
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/10/14/world/middleeast/us-casualties-of-iraq-chemical-weapons.html?_r=2
What are the origins of ISIS? It lies in the founding of AQ in Iraq with funding from AQ in 1999. And also in the Islamization of Iraq, or Faith Campaign, carried out by Saddam through the 90s. Saddam’s security sector was deeply Salafist by 2003. In the ‘insurgency’ AQ in Iraq joined with former professional soldiers from the régime and unleashed the sectarian war largely responsible for the descent into chaos up till the surge. It was these Salafized former army officers who planned the emergence of ISIS in 2014. Don’t forget Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s theology degree is from Saddam Hussein University.
ISIS is the remains of the Saddam régime.
There are as many articles refuting any serious relationship between Saddam and al queada as there are those supporting it.
Mike Morell, a high level CIA deputy director during the Bush presidency, recently stated in a live interview that Dick Cheney and others in the administration misrepresented to the public the information that the CIA was presenting to them. Specifically, he refuted Dick Cheney’s claim that Saddam had reconstituted a nuclear weapon.
Ken, can you link to articles alleging no links between Saddam and AQ?
As I implied previously, I don’t particularly care what Cheney said. Either Saddam did or didn’t promiscuously spread WMD: that’s the point. And I just provided a lot of evidence that he did. It would be more relevant to discuss that. One needn’t allow one’s contempt for the Prince of Darkness Dick Cheney to avoid discussing the facts.
Infinite, you write, ‘There is almost never a situation so bad that dropping bombs on it improves matters.’ One thinks of the UN-backed NATO campaign in 1999 which halted the genocide of the Kosovo Albanians.
The humanitarian casus belli in the case of Saddam is this.
To take only the post-1991 Iraq: in the massacres of 10s or 100s of thousands of Kurds and Shias, the 1993 and 1994 Saddam-funded attempt to assassinate President Bush Snr., the attempted assassination of Clinton in 1994, the introduction of immunity from criminal punishment for Saddam’s family and government members, in the presentation on TV of war prisoners in violation of the Geneva Convention, the 1990s torture of journalists and civilians using hooks to hang people for beatings and electric shock, the use of dungeons, brass knuckles, wooden bludgeons, the insertion of metal rods into body orifices, amputation, gouging of eyes, the theft of the 1990s Oil for Food programme into a Blood for Oil catastrophe in which 100,000 to 227,000 and maybe up to 500,000 extra Iraqi children died as Saddam built his palaces in the remaining 18 Iraqi provinces. The man lied and lied and lied as he killed and killed and killed.
One tenth of the world’s oil reserves in Iraq became no longer under the control of a psychopathic crime family who made that resource the well-spring for the sponsorship of international terrorism. It was a good thing to throw out Saddam’s privatisation of the entire state – treasury and oil included – the 100% vote, written literally in the voter’s blood, in a 100% turnout referendum in January 2003, the penalty of death for owning a cellphone or a satellite dish, the obligation for family members to watch and clap as Saddam’s guards shot their relations, the sectarian divide and rule, the chopping off of hands for the most minor offence, the ecological catastrophes of the oil-well immolations and the draining of the Marsh Arabs’ land. So that by March 2003, Iraq was a completely failed state. And ‘a morgue below ground and a concentration camp above it’.
Saddam is the sole modern Head of State I can think of who committed not 1 but 2 genocides, thereby breaking repeatedly Article 6 of UN Declaration on Rights and Duties of States.
The question of the failure of democratic state-building after the liberation is a separate point, one which the international community and the UN has failed on, as Obama pointed out in his remarks on Libya. But yes, the introduction of a federal democracy post-Saddam was a noble enterprise.
“Infinite, you write, ‘There is almost never a situation so bad that dropping bombs on it improves matters.’ One thinks of the UN-backed NATO campaign in 1999 which halted the genocide of the Kosovo Albanians.”
And that would be about the only case I can think of. I note also that it was backed by the UN, in marked contrast to the invasion of Iraq.
cr
Well, Infinite, we all know the UN has form in not standing by its principles.
For example, Lieutenant-General Roméo Dallaire was reprimanded by the UN for overstepping his mandate when he warned of the forthcoming Rwandan genocide. Anyone who has watched Caroline Fourest’s video on the noughties capture of a seat on the UN Human Rights Council by Gaddafi’s Libya can be horrified at the alliance of Islamist states with the totalitarian non-aligned states which got him there. Not to mention the KSA’s recent elevation to that body. Nor the fact that Assad and Putin are using the Geneva talks as cover to continue the barrel-bombing and air-strikes across Syria since the ‘cease-fire’.
If you argue from the point that the UN did not sanction the Iraq War of 2003, then you have to argue against the no-fly zone over North and South Iraq imposed by the US, the UK and France in the 90s: neither did that have UN sanction. And every day Saddam tried to shoot down those planes.
I have written elsewhere in the thread that a sufficient explanation for France and Russia’s veto of the intervention would be that from 1973-2002 between them they supplied 69% of Iraq’s weapons.
How else did the UN not stand by its principles in voting against the Iraq War?
There are 4 points by which Iraq broke international law.
1. Regular aggression against neighbouring states breaking Articles 3 and 9 of UN Declaration on Rights and Duties of States
2. Violating the non-proliferation of weapons – breaking Articles 8, 9 and 13 of UNDRDS
3. Genocide – breaking Article 6 of UNDRDS
4. Host to international terrorism – breaking Articles 4 and 14 of UNDRDS
These are all criteria by which a state forfeits its sovereignty.
You can quote all the selected factoids you like, I don’t think you’re going to convince anyone here that the Iraq invasion was remotely justified. (Other than those who think so already).
If you recall, never mind the UN, nobody except Britain was willing to join Bush’s lunatic war. We could all see perfectly well that, regardless of anything Saddam did, Bush was on a crusade.
But I don’t have the time or the background knowledge to engage in a war of quotes.
Just to pick on your last sentence –
“4. Host to international terrorism – breaking Articles 4 and 14 of UNDRDS
These are all criteria by which a state forfeits its sovereignty.”
Then I rather think the USA has ‘forfeited its sovereignty’**, courtesy of the CIA…
** whatever that means. But even if it did, it would be for the UN to decide, not some enemy country unilaterally.
cr
Infinite, there is no doubt that the war was widely unpopular in the west. I was against it in 2003. But I rather think that one is obliged to consider the overall pattern of the history of Iraq before deciding whether the war was just. That’s why I changed my mind.
You may well be right that the majority of commenters on WEIT are and were against the war but I would have thought that here of all places readers could be convinced or at least discuss the issue based on the facts (as much as is possible in a 500-word limit). After all, this is a haven of reason compared to some online sites, for instance (and even not compared to some online sites).
Again, the so-called coalition of the willing was stopped dead by France’s unilateral announcement as one of the big 5 in the Security Council (which Russia supported) that it would not support the war party: that was a veto. As a matter of fact, Poland, Kuwait and Australia supported the war. The policies of other countries ran the spectrum from outright opposition to a peculiar form of neutrality with operational support.
I don’t see that Bush was on a crusade: there was no attempt to Christianize Iraq. There was a project to set up a secular democracy: Iraq’s first post-Saddam President Talebani was a Kurd and a corresponding member of the 2nd International. Even the Iraqi CP participated in the elections. This was nothing like a Kissinger-inspired authoritarian coup such as 1973 Chile or 1975 East Timor.
I used the term ‘crusade’ metaphorically – as it is often used, to imply an offensive campaign undertaken for ideological reasons rather than rational justification. I think Bush Jr was certainly guilty of that.
Saddam was undoubtedly a nasty piece of work, I just don’t think he was the military threat he was made out to be (and liked to pretend) – which was the alleged justification for the war. And that the destabilisation, disruption and deaths ever since are far worse than Saddam would have caused. That’s a what if, of course, which nobody can prove either way. The one thing that was predictable was that the war would be infinitely messier and nastier than Bush imagined.
Umm, can we wind this down?
cr
Sure, Infinite, agree to disagree and all that, Cheers.
We can change some things but life’s not that simple as saying lets get rid of the entire economic system
This book is by Craig Unger is a real eye opener.
House of Bush, House of Saud: The Secret Relationship Between the World’s Two Most Powerful Dynasties
http://www.amazon.com/House-Bush-Saud-Relationship-Dynasties/dp/0743253396/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1461866449&sr=1-1&keywords=craig+unger
The rumors and other tracks have pointed toward Saudi since the very beginning, with several important people all flown out of the U.S. right after 9/11 and many things after. Keeping the people in the dark by our government is pathetic, regardless of the political party. You would think that Saudi Arabia was Wall Street and maybe it is.
I have never heard of these papers, but I am not a great example of ‘up with the times’.
They should be released, though I would not be surprised if anything in the papers reveals anything that could not have already been pieced together.
I suspect a lot of secret details float around publicly. People just don’t know that its supposed to be secret.
I worry that harmful details will only incite the retributivist attitudes so prevalent in America that they will want to squash the Saudi’s with muscle.
If there is a starting place that needs no papers to be turned over it is the release of Raif from the insane incarceration and theocratic punishment he faces.
Good point. Releasing the papers during an election when people like Trump and Cruz will use extreme rhetoric to engender hate and fear and make themselves appear strong is obviously problematic. At the same time the more reasonable voices of Sanders and Clinton will see them labelled as weak.
Waiting until the parties’ conventions confirms their nominees at least and there is a pause in the electioneering is sensible I think.
Just look at the ridiculous way people who may have had Ebola were treated in the US because of fear whipped up by politicians wanting to appear strong. This would be exponentially worse.
“f you haven’t been living in Alma Ata for a decade, you’ll know about the classified 28 pages of the bipartisan Congressional report on 9/ll.”
Um, well, this is the first that I’ve heard of this.
In other news, the KSA has realised how screwed they are going to be when the oil runs out and are hoping to reinvent themselves as a holiday destination. So, if you are prepared to give up the booze for a fortnight, and run the risk of being flogged or decapitated anyway, the KSA has lots to offer.
Yeah. The interesting thing is one of the things they’re having to do to enable that is create a proper green-card type system because Saudis mostly don’t have the skills to make the transformation. The vast majority of Saudi men with degrees, for example, have them in theology, and only about 14% of women with degrees are allowed into the work force whether because the logistics (such as the rules around women needing a male guardian when they leave the house and not being allowed to drive) make it too difficult or their husbands/fathers won’t let them.
A rather surprising nugget. In the list of top global universities a Technological University in KSA appears as the top Higher Education institute in the Muslim world: around 160th, globally, if memory serves. (By way of comparison, Damascus University comes in around 4,000th.)
KSA still needs some clever blokes to get the oil out from under it.
I’ve read elsewhere that it is common practice in Muslim-country universities to pay foreign academics top whack in order to bump up their ratings. I don’t know if that is the case in KSA but I shouldn’t be surprised: contrary to my opening phrase.
I wouldn’t be surprised either. They pay people like Roger Federer, Rafa Nadal, Andy Murray, and Novak Djokavic huge appearance fees to appear in their tennis tournament to get the ratings of the tournament up and attract other top players. They do the same for golf, and probably other sports too.
I’m a fan of Fareed Zakaria. This article he wrote last year includes some interesting stuff on Saudi’s labour force and education:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/saudi-arabias-nuclear-bluff/2015/06/11/9ce1f4f8-1074-11e5-9726-49d6fa26a8c6_story.html
Plus you get to see a country that has a system of indentured servitude (leaning to slavery), even in the 21st century. And most of the people there who serve you will be one of those indentured servants.
What fun!
Well, not really, but it’s still pretty terrible.
What the fuck good is a holiday without booze???
Or a least, without the option of a drink.
Why on earth would anyone want to visit Saudi Arabia anyway. The scenery? If you want deserts you could get that in Egypt, plus pyramids. Or Australia, plus kangaroos. And in neither case is some insane bugger going to throw you in jail for not wearing a black sack.
cr
Maybe they are going to be advertising for “Islamic” holidays? 😉 (All halal, all the time!)
The prominence of this story now is probably related to the bad-tempered visit that Obama had with the Saudis a week or so ago. Which was likely caused by Obama’s turn towards Shi’a Iran over the last few years and cooling US backing for KSA.
Today, the Free Syrian Army Southern front, ostensibly US allies, claimed that régime planes bombed civilian areas in Daraa. There was no official US response. Not only does that send a message to Assad, it also tells the Saudis that the US is not willing to upset the Iran agreement for the sake of a few Syrians. Obama is seeking to create an equilibrium in the Middle East, more like a balance of misery.
Hints that Obama will publish the missing 28 pages only remind the KSA that he has a way of embarrassing them over 9/11.
A rather interesting piece from the NYT, quoting the Chair and Vice Chair of the Commission, warns against reading too much into any information which is released.
‘During its tenure, the commission investigated all leads in the 28 pages and only one Saudi government employee was implicated in the plot, Mr. Kean and Mr. Hamilton (Chair and Vice Chair – DC) said. He was Fahad al Thumairy, who worked as an imam at a mosque in Los Angeles and was employed by the Saudi Ministry of Islamic Affairs. The commission found no evidence that Mr. Thumairy, who returned to Saudi Arabia in 2003, assisted two of the hijackers when they came to Los Angeles in 2000 but “he is still a person of interest,” they wrote.’
The full news report is here:
http://takingnote.blogs.nytimes.com/2016/04/27/a-warning-about-the-secret-911-pages/?smid=tw-share&_r=0
They underline that the redacted pages have to be read critically and serious charges backed with care. I suppose that won’t stop Alex Jones and Jason Bermas of Loose Change wetting themselves with more conspiracy theories.
Then some oaf will link it to the Jews because we all know that KSA and Israel are in cahoots. I predict that theory will come from some loon in whatever party Ken Livingstone sets up after his unceremonious exit from the Labour Party today, phoning “What do I say about Hitler?” as he hid from the press in the disabled toilets.
I suppose it wont stop the US Government, the NYTimes, Washington Post, MSNBC, CBS and CNN to wet themselves with more conspiracy theories as well? Like the claim that us was unprepared, uninformed, and unable to defend ourselves from the 9/11 attacks? like that the Iraqi government had anything to do with AQ?
I would think those parties caused much more damage with their conspiracy theories, as they lead to foreign policy decisions, war and death
But interesting that you focus on pretend journalists and amateur movie makers 🙂
Well, on AQ in Iraq, James, the evidence is pretty overwhelming that Saddam was working with AQ before 2003.
In 1990 OBL’s emissaries met Iraqi emissaries in Jordan. In 1991, Iraq sought Sudan’s help in establishing links with AQ. In 1992, the Iraqi Intelligence Services met AQ in Khartoum. In 1993, AQ and Saddam reached a non-aggression pact and agreed to cooperate on unspecified activities. In late 1998, Saddam appointed his son Qusay as AQ contact man after the Embassy bombings. In February 2003 OBL issued a fatwa saying that, “There is no harm … if the Muslims’ interests coincide with those of the socialists [Ba’athists] in fighting the Crusaders.”
The list of connections goes on and on.
You can read of them here:
https://kyleorton1991.wordpress.com/2015/06/21/a-myth-revisited-saddam-hussein-had-no-connection-to-al-qaeda/
Here:
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2002/03/25/the-great-terror
And here:
https://kyleorton1991.wordpress.com/2014/12/17/iraq-is-still-suffering-the-effects-of-saddam-husseins-islamist-regime/
As for the warnings to Bush before 9/11, the allegation ignores the huge amounts of information which pass the State Department’s desk: cock-up rather than conspiracy. We should also not forget that Bush was elected on an isolationist ticket. 9/11 changed that.
I didn’t know that Bush Jr. ran for office as an isolationist. How do you think, is there a correlation between being isolationist before the election and being a bad president after it?
I don’t know, Maya, that’s beyond my pay grade: maybe a historian of the USA could tell you.
What I do know is that the ideologist of democratic interventionism was Tony Blair in April 2009 in his Chicago speech: when Bush was still Governor of Texas. That oration was summing up the experiences of Kosovo. The Sierra Leone and East Timor humanitarian interventions were yet to happen. And Bush, still not yet President, played no part in either, although the US contributed to the ET operation under Clinton.
Damn! Blair’s speech was in April 1999. Now the timeline makes sense!
Well, we’ve worked with and had contact with Al Qaeda as well. I believe the claim in the media was that Iraq had Al Qaeda training camps, and as far as I know that was a lie.
Adam, can you provide references for how ‘we’ – I’m not sure who ‘we’ are – have ‘worked with and had contacts with’ al-Qaeda?
On the claim in the media about Iraq having al-Qaeda training camps, again I’d like to see the reference.
Here’s a quote from Kyle Orton’s al-Qaeda and Saddam piece:
‘According to a “regular and reliable” CIA source, Zawahiri (then no. 2, now leader of AQ – DC) arrived in Baghdad on February 3, 1998 and met with Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan: “The goal of the visit was to arrange for coordination between Iraq and bin Laden and establish camps in al-Fallujah, an-Nasiriya, and Iraqi Kurdistan”. Zawahiri’s EIJ received $300,000 from Saddam at this time. When Zawahiri left is not clear.
On February 23, 1998—the same day bin Laden and Zawahiri issued their fatwa calling for attacks on all Americans, everywhere, listing notably Iraq-centric grievances— IIS (Saddam’s Intelligence Services – DC) approved the visit of a “trusted confidant” of bin Laden’s to discuss “the future of our relationship” and “to achieve a direct meeting with [bin Laden]”. Baghdad used IIS’ Sudan station to “facilitate the travel arrangements,” and “carr[ied] all the travel and hotel costs inside Iraq”. Al-Qaeda’s envoy, “Mohammed F. Mohammed,” arrived in Baghdad on March 5, 1998, stayed in Room 414 at Mansur Melia Hotel as a guest of Iraqi intelligence, and left on March 21.’
Did the media lie about the Iraqi al-Qaeda training camp? Which outlets? And which ones denied it? The media didn’t declare war on Saddam: Bush and Blair did. That B&B chose to go with the fear narrative of WMD was inept (but nevertheless largely true). This terrorism narrative was secondary, but we now know that it was intimately linked to Saddam’s Faith Campaign, started around 1993.
In 2003 I was reflexively against the war: now I’ve looked at the facts, you’d have to be a fool to think that Saddam and AQ weren’t allies. For reasons like this and much more, I can’t think of a more just casus belli.
For us working with Al Qaeda, I’m referring to our support for rebels in Syria against Assad, including a branch of Al Qaeda. My point was that contacting and working with Al Qaeda doesn’t necessarily make you a bad guy. If you don’t believe that we’re supporting these rebel factions in Syria, I will look for references.
Regarding the media reporting that Iraq was training Al Qaeda, here is one reference to an interview with Cheney on NBC. While you might say that, as an interview, they couldn’t challenge his claims on air, I heard them repeated uncritically many times on TV.
Regarding my claim that they were lies, I’ll simply point to this Wikipedia article, which discusses many of those claims and says “The current consensus view of experts is that although members of Saddam Hussein’s intelligence service may have met with al-Qaeda terrorists over the last decade or so, that there was no evidence that Iraq and al Qaeda were linked operationally.”
I’ll take your source at face value, but note that having discussions doesn’t mean that anything was agreed and implemented.
The parent post and mine were in context of the media propagating the conspiracy theory that Saddam worked with Al Qaeda and was responsible for 9/11. If you don’t think the media pushed this idea, how do you explain the majority of Americans coming to believe that Saddam was responsible for 9/11?
Yet another lie.
“None of the allegations against Abu Zubaydeh turned out to be true. That didn’t stop the CIA from torturing him for years.”
“Donald Rumsfeld said he was “if not the number two, very close to the number two person” in Al Qaeda.
The Central Intelligence Agency informed Assistant Attorney General Jay Bybee that he “served as Usama Bin Laden’s senior lieutenant. In that capacity, he has managed a network of training camps…. He also acted as al-Qaeda’s coordinator of external contacts and foreign communications.”
CIA Director Michael Hayden would tell the press in 2008 that 25 percent of all the information his agency had gathered about Al Qaeda from human sources “originated” with one other detaineend him.
George W. Bush would use his case to justify the CIA’s “enhanced interrogation program,” claiming that “he had run a terrorist camp in Afghanistan where some of the 9/11 hijackers trained” and that “he helped smuggle al-Qaeda leaders out of Afghanistan” so they would not be captured by US military forces.
“”
http://www.thenation.com/article/the-cia-waterboarded-the-wrong-man-83-times-in-1-month/
Dallos, these are just some of the sources for the Saddam-AQ link.
Detainee debriefings, communications intercepts, open sources, raw intelligence, and published findings of the CIA, NSA, and FBI.
The 22-page “Top Secret” list Saddam’s Mukhabarat compiled in March 1992, which listed bin Laden as having a “good relationship with our section in Syria”. And other documents in Mukhabarat HQ discovered by reporters Mitch Potter and Inigo Gilmore in April 2003.
The Croatian government investigation into the al-Khifa (Fight) Relief Organization, funded by AQ in Kuwaiti dinars stolen by Saddam under the Kuwaiti annexation.
In 1997, military intelligence and diplomatic sources in Uganda reported Saddam’s 1995 chemical weapons deal with Sudan. ABC News, 1999, detailed the Sudanese request to Saddam to give asylum to OBL following the 1998 al-Shifa bombing.
The 1998 US Grand Jury indictment against Usama (sic) bin Laden alleging their non-aggression pact and intention to work together on particular projects.
The last 3 reports were all in the media. As you can see the links between AQ and Iraq were commonly reported: for some reason a collective fog of amnesia has descended.
Al Gore’s 1992 citing of the many low –level global attacks against Americans by AQ affiliates, organized from Baghdad.
Up to 26 million Saddam-era documents remained unviewed as of 2013. Every time a new document turns up we find more links between AQ and Saddam. The pattern of contacts between them is well-established.
Adam C, from Uganda to the Far East, Sudan, Israel, Kuwait, Qatar, KSA, Bahrain, Saddam introduced mayhem and conducted terrorist attacks. Saddam boasted of his willingness to use jihad and set up terrorist training camps for Salafi-jihadists: whether AQ trained at Salman Pak, for instance, is unknown.
You write, ‘The parent post and mine were in context of the media propagating the conspiracy theory that Saddam worked with Al Qaeda and was responsible for 9/11.’ Well, Jerry’s post makes no mention of Saddam. You are the first one to mention Saddam being involved with 9/11.
But it is not a conspiracy theory to assert that Saddam worked with AQ: it’s plain fact. Whether or not Americans believe that Saddam was responsible for 9/11 is a question you would have to ask them. (Parenthetically, we do know that Saddam gave asylum to Mr. Yassin who mixed the chemicals for the 1993 WTC attack). What is relevant is whether there was regular cooperation between Saddam and AQ over years: and there was. Everybody in the 90s knew it.
All these alleged ‘links’ reek of after-the-fact justification, now that we know Saddam’s nuclear and chemical weapons were the feverish imaginings of the warmongers. As ‘everybody’ except apparently Dubya and his poodle Bliar knew.
There are surely an equal number of documents to prove links between the US and Osama/AQ. I’m still waiting for the US to invade itself and kill a few hundred thousand. (It would only be fair).
cr
Infinite, a response to your comment on WMD is in thread 1, posted April 29, 2016 at 5:06 pm.
On Blair being Bush’s poodle, I disagree. Blair was the ideologist of humanitarian intervention while Bush was merely Governor of Texas.
On US and AQ cooperation, it appears to be a myth. Peter Bergen, the first western journalist to interview OBL, does not believe a word of it, saying there was no evidence for it. Neither, among other sources, does Jason Burke, the Observer AQ expert.
Any instances of the US enabling AQ that I have come across are examples of US incompetence, such as its decision to release the suspected insurgents from camps in Iraq during the noughties. One of the released was Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi whom the US severely underestimated.
I called Blair ‘Bush’s poodle’ on the strength of his being the only western leader of note who supported Bush’s war. Did Blair’s ‘humanitarian intervention’ mean invasion? How’d that work out, humanitarian-wise?
There is almost never a situation so bad that dropping bombs on it improves matters. As the world and his dog* was telling Bush, but he would never listen to anything but Dick Cheney and the voices in his head.
*Except Blair
US-AQ cooperation may well be a myth, but I’d be surprised if there are no documents to suggest that they were in contact at least.
cr
Dermot C – the AQ/Iraq connection is interesting, even those sources you link – they all show it had nothing to do with support/planning/execution of attacks on America
However using that same logic, if we decide their connection is enough to trigger the use of military force, being the original state sponsor of AQ the USA might be at risk of invasion next!
I never said it did, James: the point is that it is a response to the idea there were no contacts between AQ and Saddam, common in circles like Stop the War. That is demonstrably false.
On Saddam having any links to planning for 9/11, I have seen no evidence of it and FWIW I doubt it very much.
However, we know that Saddam gave asylum to Mr. Yassin, the man who mixed the chemicals for the 1993 WTC attack. That was after the FBI questioned him and foolishly released him. The story of AQ and general Islamist terrorism in the 90s and of Saddam in the same period is littered with examples of the incompetence of US intelligence. The CIA for instance had nobody on the ground in Iraq in 2002 to check Jeffrey Goldberg’s piece on Saddam-AQ links in the Kurdish areas of Iraq: it took them 3 months even to get round to addressing the issue.
Oh, and James, do you have a source for the US being ‘the original state sponsor of AQ’?
No good link, but I googled and got a wiki
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Cyclone
this is the best most mature and civilized 9/11 discussion I’ve seen online, bravo!
James, your link backs up my point. I quote: ‘The U.S. says that all of its funds went to native Afghan rebels and denies that any of its funds were used to supply Osama bin Laden or foreign Arab mujahideen.’
It is common knowledge that the US funded the Afghani mujahideen in the Soviet-Afghan war. 34 other countries funded them as well, including China, Switzerland and Turkey. Virtually no country beyond the then eastern bloc supported the USSR, as far as I recall.
All I had to do was click on one link from yours to find information I have come across before, like this.
Peter Bergen, the first western journalist to interview OBL: ‘The story about bin Laden and the CIA — that the CIA funded bin Laden or trained bin Laden — is simply a folk myth. There’s no evidence of this.’
Marc Sageman, former CIA Officer based in Islamabad from 1987 to 1989: ‘No U.S. official ever came in contact with the foreign volunteers. They simply traveled in different circles and never crossed U.S. radar screens. They had their own sources of money…’
Vincent Cannistraro, who led the Reagan administration’s Afghan Working Group from 1985 to 1987: ‘Milton Bearden, the Agency’s chief field operative in the war effort, has insisted that “[T]he CIA had nothing to do with” bin Laden. Cannistraro says that when he coordinated Afghan policy from Washington, he never once heard bin Laden’s name.’
It took me 10 minutes to read through and find this further testimony that the US did not provide seed money for AQ: the evidence isn’t there. It’s not necessary to go with the usual western masochistic desire to assume responsibility for every evil in the world. No, AQ self-funded and kick-started themselves.
I’m not sure i did ‘go with the usual western masochistic desire to assume responsibility for every evil in the world.’ – I think claiming the US was a state sponsor was not wrong either, and is very different from stating the US was solely responsible. And is not the only example of ‘bad actors’ being enabled by US agents.
However you may go too far the other way, the stated intentions when compared to the actual results of our foreign policy over there say a lot.
The 28 pages have not only covered up the truth, they have fed the more poisonous conspiracy theories (9/11 was a Zionist plot, etc.) They are long overdue to be declassified.
I’ve suspected the Saudi government from early on based on news reports and our knowledge of Saudi culture and connection to exporting Wahhabism. It has long been known that Asama bin Laden was supported by his countrymen. The 28 pages should be released.
There has been speculation, amongst those who have read the report, that part of the reason for the cover up was, in addition to implicating Saudi Arabia and members of the royal family, the report also makes various US security agencies look bad.
“part of the reason for the cover up was, the report also makes various US security agencies look bad.”
That would be entirely consistent with the normal behaviour of security agencies, anywhere in the world.
cr
Indeed it is time and past time. There is a place for secrecy, and sources do need protection, so if the pages would expose sources there might be an issue, but that seems unlikely in a report like this. It’s not a daily digest or raw signals, etc. It’s the findings of a committee.
You cannot make policy in secret in a democracy. One would think LBJ proved that.
And they could always redact the names of undercover sources, if there are any…
My understanding is that Obama opposes Senate committee bill to allow family members of 9/11 victims to sue Saudi government, because it would also allow families of victims of US interventions to sue US government. After all, why couldn’t family members of civilians died in drone strikes file law suits against US government by the same token? He said in an interview with Charlie Rose:
“This is not just a bilateral US-Saudi issue, this is a matter of how generally United States approaches our interactions with other countries. If we open up the possibility that individuals in United States can routinely start suing other governments, then we are also opening up United States to being continually sued by individuals in other countries. And that would be a bad precedent, because we are the largest superpower in the world and we are everywhere and we are in people’s business all the time, and if we are in situation where we are suddenly being hauled into various courts because of the claim that some individuals have been harmed then that would tie us up and could harm US serviceman and US diplomats.”
BogiT – is this answer acceptable to you?
Is preventing further support/funding to terrorists not more important than US diplomats facing claims of terrorism which of course would be thrown out of court as the USA do not commit terrorist attacks on foreign soil (right?)
What other pre-9/11 precedents are we still honoring when it comes to attacking terrorists?
Geo-politics and rich peoples financial interests aside, shouldnt the representatives of the US people care more about justice for those they represent, rather than about protecting terrorists?
I know you didn’t ask me, but I find the answer acceptable (but not directly relevant) because national governments are supposed to be sovereign. No US court has jurisdiction over a foreign government, and no foreign court has jurisdiction over the US government.
I do not consider stopping terrorism to be important. Terrorists are a wholly insignificant threat, while government reactions to terrorism are a far greater threat.
But I do believe justice should trump politics and “national interests” in general.
“I do not consider stopping terrorism to be important. Terrorists are a wholly insignificant threat, while government reactions to terrorism are a far greater threat.”
I’ve been reading WEIT for a long time, but I think this must count as the most astonishing statement I’ve ever read here. It’s far more jaw-droppingly bizarre than anything ever posted by a drive-by Christian fundie.
Why don’t you pay a visit to the bereaved families of the Charlie Hebdo journalists, the concert-goers of the Bataclan, or the travellers who were at the Brussels airport check-in a few weeks ago, and tell them that “stopping terrorism isn’t important”. Or, if you’re in the USA, you can find some suitable candidates for enlightenment closer to home – say, surviving relatives of the people who jumped to their deaths from the Twin Towers as a better alternative to being burned alive.
Or maybe one day, you’ll have the bad luck to be aboard a tube train or a bus when a suicide bomber detonates himself. If you survive, you can lie in your hospital bed looking at the stumps of your missing legs and repeat to yourself the following mantra: “Terrorists are a wholly insignificant threat, while government reactions to terrorism are a far greater threat.”
“Terrorists are a wholly insignificant threat, while government reactions to terrorism are a far greater threat.”
I can absolutely agree with Adam M on that. In practical terms, anyone’s chances of being involved in a terrorist attack are minimal. Anyone’s chances of being affected by government anti-terrorism measures (‘security theater’) – pretty high. How many people have been killed by terrorists since 2000, compared with the number of Iraqis who are dead from the invasion of Iraq (which was of course an alleged reaction to the alleged involvement of Saddam with Al Quaeda?)
You can always exaggerate the significance of any threat by emotive appeals to those individuals who have been affected. That really is a BS argument. I have every sympathy with the victims of those assholes at the Bataclan, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to hide at home for fear of the statistically insignificant chance of being caught up in a terrorist incident. My chances of being killed or injured in a traffic accident are vastly higher. If I’m flying, I’m much more likely to end up dead as a result of cock-up (either in design, maintenance or operation – including military operations) than by terrorist action.
I wouldn’t go so far as to endorse Adam’s “I don’t consider stopping terrorism to be important”, for two reasons: 1. It is usually murder, and 2. terrorism, real or alleged, gives governments an impulse, pretext and excuse for various ill-conceived, heavy-handed and sometimes deadly over-reactions and infringements on everybody’s individual rights.
cr
Adam M
I think you are right!
but we spent 10trillion dollars fighting terrorism, knowing how small a threat it is, and now its 300x what it was in 2002….you know?
[Looks at street address/] No, not Alma Ata. But have never heard of it.
sub
A bit hypocritical if the victims are not given the right to sue given the legislation relating to Iran and the recent Supreme Court decision relating to Iran: “The US Supreme Court has ruled that Iran must pay nearly US$2 billion in compensation to relatives of the 241 Marines who died in a 1983 terrorist attack in Beirut, as well as victims of other attacks that courts have linked to Tehran.”
Maybe. I don’t agree that it was a terrorist attack. The US, which had claimed to be neutral, joined the fighting in the Lebanese Civil War by assisting one side with artillery support. In response, the other side bombed a barracks containing US soldiers. The barracks wasn’t a base for active US combat operations at the time, but the men inside were armed and on duty.
How is that a terrorist attack? It’s not, regardless of what the US says about it. Is the US committing terrorist acts when it bombs off-duty enemy soldiers via drones? If we aren’t, then they weren’t.
From Wikipedia:
For its part, the United States had clearly inherited Israel’s role of shoring up the precarious Lebanese government. An emergency arms shipment had been dispatched earlier on September 14 to the beleaguered Lebanese Army units fighting in the Chouf, which were backed by air strikes and naval gunfire from the battleship USS New Jersey… The U.S. vice-president George H. W. Bush made clear the position of the Reagan administration by demanding that Syria “get out from the Lebanon”…
Many international analysts believed that these measures implemented by the U.S. government were meant to reshape the power balance in the region in favour of the Amin Gemayel administration, in detriment of the Syrians and their Lebanese allies. Indeed, the United States was now perceived in many circles as another foreign power attempting to assert its influence in Lebanese affairs by force, just as Israel and Syria had done.
Alarmed by this aggressive American posture (which seriously compromised the neutrality of the Multinational Force) and fearing for the safety of their own MNF contingents in Lebanon, the British, French and Italian governments voiced their concerns, insisting with the Reagan administration to restrict its activities in the region to the protection of Lebanese civilians and to stop supporting what they considered an ongoing assault of the Gemayel government on his own people. However, President Reagan refused to modify its intransigent position and on October 1, another huge shipment of arms was delivered to the Lebanese Army, including M48A5 main battle tanks (MBTs) and long-range artillery.[34]
The delivery of arms shipments was complemented by continuous naval artillery barrages. Steaming to within two miles of the Lebanese coast, the battleship USS New Jersey, the destroyer USS John Rodgers and the nuclear-powered cruiser USS Virginia fired on their 5-inch naval guns some six-hundred 70 lb shells into the wooded hills above Beirut… causing a considerable number of civilian casualties. For many Lebanese Muslims, this was the last straw – any illusion of U.S. ‘neutrality’ had been dispelt by these recent developments and the MNF [US forces, etc.] soon found itself exposed to hostile fire…
Early in the morning of October 23, a suicide truck bomb struck the US Marines’ Battalion Landing Team (BTL) building…
I quite agree. What’s so special about the Beirut bombing and Iran? It looks like the SCOTUS was singling them out for – what – political reasons?
To be consistent, victims of 9/11 should be able to sue Saudi Arabia, maybe even Iraq if any link can be proved beyond Dubya’s feverish imaginings. But then Obama is correct, it’s a can of worms, all the victims of US covert or illegal military action could sue back. Back as far as, say, Chile? Or Vietnam? How much could the survivors and relatives of My Lai sue for?
cr
What surprises me is the implication that at some time in the past the US Congress passed legislation to prevent some people from being sued by others for perceived wrongs.
In the famously “most litigious society in the world,” it seems remarkable – incredible even – that the lawyers, ambulance chasers and land-sharks of America would permit such an unfair restraint on their trade.
Since the identities of the attackers came out, the dogs in the streets have been certain of the involvement of high – ups in Saudi Arabia. Being able to prove it to a court’s satisfaction, then enforcing any court – awarded penalties is a separate question. As is “how high.” But something has always stunk there. And Bush convinced no-one with his diversionary efforts in Iraq, with hundreds of times the body count.
Not an expert on US law but it seems from the Iran point I make above that some form of enabling legislation is necessary to sue. This would make sense as it is normally difficult to sue a sovereign state or its officials acting in their capacity as state officials. Indeed the two cases raised – Iran and Saudi Arabia – indicate we are talking US politics and not international law.
That may very well be true – “enabling legislation” or whatever – but why on earth disabling legislation was passed in the first place escapes me. Or have there been a long series of laws passed to the extent that “from this law, one can sue a tinker ; from this law, one can sue a tailor ; from this date, soldiers are open-season for land-sharks ; and NOW you can do sailors.”
I am not a lawyer, and on days like this I thanks Ceiling Cat (Tuna Be Upon a Bed of Catnip) most sincerely for that.
There are very good reasons for not being able to sue foreign governments. If big multinationals (which under US law are ‘people’ too) can sue then they threaten the sovereignty of countries – especially small countries like e.g. New Zealand. For example, if a government proposes to ban the sale of cigarettes, or restrict oil prospecting, or limit industrial emissions, or ban certain chemicals, multinational producers can threaten to sue and thereby interfere in the democratic governing process. And they’ve already done it.
No longer do likes of ITT need the CIA to subvert elections like in Chile, they now have ‘trade’ agreements as a vector of their economic disease. Things like the (proposed) TPPA are no longer just for freeing up trade, they’re a front for economic imperialism. Which is why it’s drawn huge protests in NZ – to paraphrase Hitchens, it poisons everything.
(As both Hilary and (I think) even the Trump have noted. Which just shows even a loose cannon is pointing the right way sometimes, though whether the Trump is still pointing the same way tomorrow is never certain).
Yes, we know what TPPA and TTIP are all about.
How much money does the US owe Saudi Arabia? hmmm, money talks…