More on Bin Laden's "death"

The reports of Bin Laden's death should be taken in the context of recent history:

1. Pakistan announced that Bin Laden will have a free pass.

2. In response (or non-response) to this news, Bush made clear that he could not send troops into Pakistan to capture Bin Laden, because it is a "sovereign nation" (as if that ever bothered W).

3. Bush soon reversed himself and said that he would send in troops if he had good intel regarding Bin Laden's whereabouts.

4. Just as Democrats were beginning to taste victory in both the Senate and the House, Karl Rove told right-wing sites to expect an "October Surprise."

5. Angered by the lies in Path to 911, Democrats have finally begun to taunt Bush with cries of "Where's Osama?" More calendar pages separate our day from September 11, 2001 than separated Pearl Harbor from VJ-Day. If FDR and Truman could detroy Tojo in less than four years, why have we never been able to touch Osama Bin Laden?

Regarding point three: Nearly everyone seems to have forgotten this comment by then-DCI Porter Goss (from a Time interview):

TIME: WHEN WILL WE GET OSAMA BIN LADEN?

GOSS: That is a question that goes far deeper than you know. In the chain that you need to successfully wrap up the war on terror, we have some weak links. And I find that until we strengthen all the links, we're probably not going to be able to bring Mr. bin Laden to justice. We are making very good progress on it. But when you go to the very difficult question of dealing with sanctuaries in sovereign states, you're dealing with a problem of our sense of international obligation, fair play. We have to find a way to work in a conventional world in unconventional ways that are acceptable to the international community.

TIME: IT SOUNDS LIKE YOU HAVE A PRETTY GOOD IDEA OF WHERE HE IS. WHERE?

GOSS: I have an excellent idea of where he is. What's the next question?

(Emphasis added.) Goss -- who was in a position to know -- certainly gave the impression that the problem was politics, not "location, location, location."

Obviously, the sovereign state Goss referred to Pakistan. Goss could not divulge the most important part of the story: Ample evidence suggests that the Bush administration engineered Osama's escape to that country.

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The getaway. During the invasion of Afghanistan, there were opportunities to bomb Al Qaeda and Taliban leaders -- whose exact locations were known -- but Rumsfeld and Tommy Franks would not approve the strikes. Only one Bin Laden associate (Mohammed Atef) was killed; all the leading Taliban got away.

The film 911: Press for Truth reminds viewers of this paragraph from the London Times of July 22, 2002, regarding the escape to Tora Bora:

Many locals in Afghanistan reportedly witness a remarkable escape of al-Qaeda forces from Kabul around this time. One local businessman says, “We don’t understand how they weren’t all killed the night before because they came in a convoy of at least 1,000 cars and trucks. It was a very dark night, but it must have been easy for the American pilots to see the headlights. The main road was jammed from eight in the evening until three in the morning.” This convoy was thought to have contained al-Qaeda’s top officials.

Pashtun Leader Ismail Khan later complained that "we could have captured all the Taliban and the al-Qaeda groups. We could have arrested Osama bin Laden with all of his supporters.”

First, Bin Laden was allowed to make his way from Kabul to the caves of Tora Bora, then he was allowed to scurry from Tora Bora into Pakistan. American-led forces surrounded his cavern hide-away on three sides; he escaped via the fourth, and traveled to safety unmolested. For some reason, Americans bombed the escape route Bin Laden did not take.

Over the past few years, any number of pseudoscientific myths about 9/11 have received massive publicity, yet the extremely telling events surround the escape of the Al Qaeda/Taliban leadership have been allowed to slip down the memory hole. Even stories which once appeared on the front pages have faded from our collective recollection. From the invaluable 9/11 Timeline:

At the request of the Pakistani government, the US secretly allows rescue flights into the besieged Taliban stronghold of Kunduz, in Northern Afghanistan, to save Pakistanis fighting for the Taliban (and against US forces) and bring them back to Pakistan. Pakistan’s President “Musharraf won American support for the airlift by warning that the humiliation of losing hundreds—and perhaps thousands—of Pakistani Army men and intelligence operatives would jeopardize his political survival.” [New Yorker, 1/21/2002] Dozens of senior Pakistani military officers, including two generals, are flown out. [NOW with Bill Moyers, 2/21/2003] In addition, it is reported that the Pakistani government assists 50 trucks filled with foreign fighters to escape the town. [New York Times, 11/24/2001] Many news articles at the time suggest an airlift is occurring. [Independent, 11/16/2001; New York Times, 11/24/2001; BBC, 11/26/2001; Independent, 11/26/2001; Guardian, 11/27/2001; MSNBC, 11/29/2001]...

And:

A CIA analyst says, “Many of the people they spirited away were in the Taliban leadership” who Pakistan wanted for future political negotiations. US intelligence was “supposed to have access to them, but it didn’t happen,” he says. According to Indian intelligence, airlifts grow particularly intense in the last three days before the city falls on November 25. Of the 8,000 remaining al-Qaeda, Pakistani, and Taliban, about 5,000 are airlifted out and 3,000 surrender. [New Yorker, 1/21/2002]

NBC's military analyst, Colonel Ken Allard, insisted that an airlift of this magnitude -- in an area where American forces had absolute control of the airspace -- could not have occurred without the blessings of the United States government. "My take on it basically is that some sort of a deal was in place between the government of Pakistan and the United States," said Allard. (Emphasis added; the clip containing this quote appears in Press for Truth.)

The Saudi/Pakistani link. Keep in mind that the current reports on Osama's death come to us by way of Saudi intelligence. Just as the Pakistanis have long had a close relationship with Bin Laden's network, the Saudis have long had a close relationship with Pakistan. Indeed, the Pakistanis appear to have developed nuclear weaponry with Saudi money.

The best reporting on this interaction comes from Joseph Trento. His work is partially summarized here:

But one source of [Pakistan's] nuclear funding that has been traced came from Saudi Arabia. “There is a clear trail through bank receipts that it was being funded, to some extent, by Saudi money,” states US Counter Intelligence Expert Mike Pilgrim.

But the US seemed relatively unconcerned about Saudi Arabia’s nuclear agenda – even when faced with hard evidence of their determination to build an atomic bomb. In 1994, a high level Saudi defector, Mohammed al-Khilewi, offered America 14,000 photocopied documents exposing Saudi Arabia’s nuclear plans. These included instructions to diplomats on “how you can sneak in bomb-making material through diplomatic pouches.” But incredibly, the FBI agents who debriefed him were instructed not to accept the documents on offer.

More worryingly, it wasn’t just the Saudis colluding with Pakistan. In the late 1990s rumours started emerging of Pakistani scientists meeting with al-Qaida operatives in Afghanistan.

In sum, we have four facts Americans are not supposed to know:

1. Pakistan and Bin Laden have always been allies.

2. Pakistan and Saudi Arabia are allies.

3. The United States will do nothing to upset the Saudis.

4. All evidence indicates that the United States allowed Bin Laden to escape to Pakistan and has, for years, deliberately refused to disturb his rest.

This background briefing should inform our assessment of the present claims.

Dead or alive. This UPI report brings us up to date:

But a Saudi intelligence source told United Press International: "We are not saying he is dead, but there is a lot of truth in the report." The Saudi source, who spoke on condition that his name not be revealed, confirmed the existence of a Saudi intelligence report relating to the health of bin Laden. And according to that Saudi Arabian intelligence document, it states, "bin Laden was very ill these past few weeks."

Also worth noting:

Making the report all the more credible was the choice by those in French counter-intelligence of where to leak the Saudi report, the regional L'Est Republicain, rather than one of the larger Paris-based dailies.

"There is a history with that paper," the Saudi source told UPI. The newspaper is known to have had intelligence reports leaked to it in the past. "They are very reliable," said the Saudi official.

The French somehow got hold of data held by the Saudis. One should keep in mind that, after the American CIA, the intelligence agency closest to Pakistan's ISI has always been the French SDECE. Were the French, as some speculate, trying to pre-empt a planned "wag the dog" scenario? Did Rove hope to stage an airstrike against Bin Laden?

The Khaled Sheik Mohammed precedent. This is not the first time theories of a staged capture or erzatz "death" have surrounded an Al Qaeda leader.

Readers with long memories will recall the controversies surrounding the capture of Khaled Sheik Mohammed, fingered by the 911 Commission as the "principle architect" of the World Trade Center Attacks. Long-standing rumor holds that Mohammed's March 1, 2003 arrest in Rawalpindi was staged. Granted, Pakistan is an area of the world where many untrue and unverified rumors tend to take hold. Even so, this account from the Guardian of March 6, 2003 commands our attention:

The official account described a police raid that was the culmination of a long investigation and resulted in the arrest of several suspects who were being interrogated by Pakistani police. The story appears to be almost entirely fictional: the house of a respected micro-biologist had been raided and his son arrested, but according to another family member Mohammed was not in the house; nor did the intelligence officers who kicked the door in even ask for him. They claim Mohammed must have been detained elsewhere and that the raid on the Rawalpindi house was a smokescreen.

After several denials, it was admitted by the Pakistani authorities that Mohammed had been removed from Pakistan by US authorities. The Rawalpindi police admitted that they had neither participated in the raid nor known about it....

And:

One of the heinous acts attributed to Mohammed is the murder of Daniel Pearl. According to intelligence briefings, his was the hand that cut Pearl's throat, a murder for which the British-born militant Omar Saeed Sheikh has already been sentenced to death in Pakistan. The story of Sheikh's "arrest" was also clouded with inconsistencies. He had been involved in a string of terrorist acts and had served time in an Indian jail. He was released in a hostage swap, returned to Pakistan and apparently continued his activities without undue interference from Pakistani intelligence.

After Pearl's murder and following the detention of several members of his family, Sheikh gave himself up to a former director of Pakistan's ISI intelligence agency, and remained under his protection for the best part of a week. What transpired during that week has never been revealed, but at the end of it President Musharraf, conveniently on a visit to Washington, announced the "arrest" of Pearl's murderer. Only then did US officials have access to him.

Mohammed has (allegedly) been in harsh CIA custody since 2003. His detention has kept him shielded from outside interrogation and prosecution, much to the frustration of some within the Justice Department. Reportedly, he was tortured.

I'm not sure whether to believe those reports. If we take them at face value, then we must concede that testimony from a tortured individual cannot figure into any legal proceeding. Bush thus made sure that a man accused of masterminding one of history's greatest criminal conspiracies will never enter any court anywhere.

Ask yourself: Why would Bush not want a public trial for the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks? Such a trial would have granted W a much-needed publicity coup.

Mohammed's "surrender" to the head of ISI indicates both a cozy relationship and the expectation of lenient treatment. The rumors of CIA brutalization may be true, but they may also be disinformation. We simply cannot be sure. As far as we know, the man who planned the World Trade Center attacks has been lounging in Tahiti for the past few years.

So. Just who was the ISI chief who made Khaled Sheik Mohammed feel so welcome and secure? His name is Mahmud Ahmad.

As we have mentioned in several previous posts, an ISI agent named R.G. Abbas displayed foreknowledge of the World Trade Center attacks when speaking to FBI informant Randy Glass. Abbas worked directly for Mahmud Ahmad.

And where was Ahmad on September 11, 2001? In Washington, D.C., meeting with Porter Goss and and Bob Graham.

Perhaps Ahmad is the one who subsequently gave Goss an "excellent idea" of Bin Laden's location.

Was the capture of Khaled Sheik Mohammed a hoax? Was a similar hoax planned around the "capture" or killing of Osama Bin Laden?

Could that have been Rove's October Surprise?