posted on August 24, 2003 03:16:15 PM new
Ive been watching the news and they have been reporting some disturbing propoganda manuafactured by the neocons.
Theyve been reporting that Syria and the Iranians have been sending in terrosists to attack us in Iraq.
This is tottally FALSE. On the contrary Syria has been one of our strongest assets in the war on Al Quida. They have been shoveling information at us with intellegiance on Al Quida and our government has been ignoring them
In fact the only outsiders and coming into Iraq are the Sauidi Arabians but for some reason they are manuafacturing reasons to start a war with the Syrians and the Iranians.
posted on August 24, 2003 04:20:17 PM new Ive been watching the news and they have been reporting some disturbing propoganda manuafactured by the neocons. Theyve been reporting that Syria and the Iranians have been sending in terrosists to attack us in Iraq.
This is tottally FALSE. On the contrary Syria has been one of our strongest assets in the war on Al Quida. They have been shoveling information at us with intellegiance on Al Quida and our government has been ignoring them
Do you know how to use a dictionary? Vendio now has a built in Spell checker, use it.
Learning new words from your mama again? Or was that the sound of a liberal walking into a wall?
What a distressing contrast there is between the radiant intelligence of the child and the feeble mentality of the average liberal.
Sigmund Freud
Edited to add from Webster dictionary:
One entry found for lecher.
Main Entry: lech·er
Pronunciation: 'le-ch&r
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English lechour, from Old French lecheor, from lechier to lick, live in debauchery, of Germanic origin; akin to Old High German leckOn to lick -- more at LICK
Date: 13th century
: a man who engages in lechery
posted on August 25, 2003 10:28:31 AM new
We are swerving all over the place here yet still not a single mention of the source of information.
~~~ • ~~~ • ~~~ • ~~~ • ~~~
Men Are Like Grapes. If You Stomp on Them and Keep Them in the Dark Long Enough, They Might Turn Into Something That You Would Take to Dinner
But all you neo-Idiots remember from the old news is the lies that Bush puked out and you lapped up like dogs AND STILL BELIEVE AS GOD'S TRUTH! But these new allegations are part of an Israeli "disinformation" campaign to get us to attack Syria.
As for you, TXPROUD, so you apparently can use a dictionary, but all you do is look up dirty words. Right Punk? Just another useless, uneducated texan DUH! Still got nothing to refute do you? So you insult.
Whatapunk!
[ edited by mlecher on Aug 25, 2003 11:28 AM ]
[ edited by mlecher on Aug 25, 2003 11:29 AM ]
posted on August 25, 2003 11:47:46 AM new
Syria has been our number 1 help on the war on terror. They are even part of the United Nations. Iran and Syria are not state sponsered of terroists.
The only outsiders coming in are from Saudi Arabia. They have to go through Syria to get to Iraq.
On Scarborough Country a CIA officer was on and he said he doesnt understand why the US was acusing Syria and Iran of sending in Terroists.
He said he just came back from Saudi Arabia and he said 10,000 islamic extremists were in a mosk and vowed to commit JEHAD aginst the US invaders and infedels.
The war on terror could be won within a year if we did a regime change in Saudi Arabia.
Thats where Al Quida and all the extremists come from. Its where their grown.
SO WHY ARE WE IN IRAQ????? WHY ARE WE GOING TO ATTACK SYRIA??? WHY ARE WE GOING TO ATTACK IRAN AND THE SUDAN???
[ edited by bigcitycollectables on Aug 25, 2003 11:48 AM ]
[ edited by bigcitycollectables on Aug 25, 2003 12:11 PM ]
posted on August 25, 2003 11:55:36 AM new
The CIA officer said Syria has been shovling information on Al Quida but we have been tottally ignoring them. Its like we are not even interested. Same goes for Iran.
posted on August 25, 2003 12:03:36 PM newWhat a distressing contrast there is between the radiant intelligence of the child and the feeble mentality of the average liberal.
Bear, oops I mean TXPROUD:
your quote is in error. Freud was not know for political quotes. The actual statement is a bit different.
What a distressing contrast there is between the radiant intelligence of the child and the feeble mentality of the average ADULT.
He sure nailed it..huh?
___________________________________
What luck for the leaders that men do not think. - Adolph Hitler
[ edited by profe51 on Aug 25, 2003 12:04 PM ]
If the liberals were in control 9/11 would of never happened. We wouldnt be in a quagmire in Iraq and we would have ended the war on Terror by going after the right country. (Saudi Arabia)
As I recall Bill Clinton was bombing targets in Afganistan throughout the 90s. When George Bush took office he stopped all investigations into Al Quida and the Saudis.
Now we are attacking other countries that had nothing to do with 9/11.
Ive been saying this since day one. In my view the only ones with a lack of intellegence are the BLIND SHEEP that cant think for themsleves.
I have known all this since 9/11 and people are just starting to figure out what is really going on.
posted on August 25, 2003 12:19:00 PM new
::The only outsiders coming in are from Saudi Arabia. They have to go through Syria to get to Iraq. ::
You truly are an ignorant fool. What map are you looking at where Syris lies between Saudi Arabia and Iraq?
In order to use Syria as your entrance port from Saudi Arabia to Iraq one must first completly ignore that the 50% of the Nothern Saudi border which is shared by Iraq, then travel thru all of Jordan in order to enter Syria and Enter Iraq from their border.
travel from Saudi Arabia to Iraq,
How is one supposed to take your political and security analysis serious when you don't even know the geography of the area.
~~~ • ~~~ • ~~~ • ~~~ • ~~~
Men Are Like Grapes. If You Stomp on Them and Keep Them in the Dark Long Enough, They Might Turn Into Something That You Would Take to Dinner
posted on August 25, 2003 01:14:24 PM new
Big - Seriously - you need to do two things -
1 -Use spell check, your arguements are so riddled with misspellings that they cannot be taken seriously. Typos are one thing and everyone understand that but consistant misspellings of common terms imply a certain level of ignorance to the subject at hand.
2 - Don't just listen to the talking heads. Find out a little more about what is going on. The Saudis hae been extremely co-operative ith us in opening up access to the finacial systems to track and freeze monies. They have tracked, arrested and in some cases executed terrorists. You seem to forget that Bin Laden has declared his war and wish for obliteration not just on the US, but also on the Saudi Royal family. He despises them for their long history of co-operation with the western world. He was stripped of his citizenship over a decade ago. Go back almost two decades to the take over of a Mecca mosque and you will find what was supposed to have been an assasination attempt on the King and a number of high ranking prices atributed to a group that Bin Laden was associated with. (The family was warned in advance and the attempt was unsuccessful). As for 10,000 Muslims vowing to partake in a Jihad... that is a misperception based on the bastardization of the term. A Jihad to a devout Muslim is an inner journey to awareness. Islam calls on every Muslim to make a Jihad. Unfortunately the term has taken on a sinister meaning in the Western world because of extremeists that have mutated and bastardized it leaving people to tbelieve that it is something that should be equated to death as opposed to knowledge.
There are of course Saudi citizen who are exptremists, and wish us ill but to lump a nation in with them would be like stating that every German was a jew hating nazi during WWII or that every American was a church burning, black hating racist during the civil rights battles of the 60s. It's a generalization and it is unfair.
~~~ • ~~~ • ~~~ • ~~~ • ~~~
Men Are Like Grapes. If You Stomp on Them and Keep Them in the Dark Long Enough, They Might Turn Into Something That You Would Take to Dinner
posted on August 25, 2003 01:19:33 PM new
Sorry bro. Thats a smokescreen. The Saudis are not cooperating. Your listening to the NEOCONSERVATIVES again.
Saudi Arabia is the most extremist and opressive regime of the islamic world. Their whole coulture is wohobyism. Dont believe them its BS. Listen to the modurate voices not the extremists. I will post the facts.
[ edited by bigcitycollectables on Aug 25, 2003 01:30 PM ]
posted on August 25, 2003 01:36:54 PM new
Big - I will believe what I learned during the 10 years that I had family living there. I will believe what I learn from actual research. The fact that you have not yet been able to pick up on the correct spellings of any of the related terms tells me that either your research or your assorbtion rate is non existant. You are not in search of knowledge, you are in search of justification for your predetermined beliefs.
Oh and BTW- as further proof that you do not pay attention ... the link that you list on it's very first page contains three lists....
State Sponsors of Terrorism - 7 nations listed - Saudi Arabia is not one
Havens for Terrorism - 8 nations are listed - Saudi Arabia is not one.
Coalition States - 18 nations listed...well lookie there, just two slots above United Kingdom, coud it be, well damn it shure as hell is... Saudi Arabia is listed.
~~~ • ~~~ • ~~~ • ~~~ • ~~~
Men Are Like Grapes. If You Stomp on Them and Keep Them in the Dark Long Enough, They Might Turn Into Something That You Would Take to Dinner
[ edited by Fenix03 on Aug 25, 2003 01:47 PM ]
posted on August 25, 2003 01:57:43 PM new
LOL - you are just digging a bigger hole. No one has read anything in the 9/11 report regarding Saudi Arabia since the pages believed to be related to it have been omitted from the public release. If you have a link to those pages I would love to see them.
~~~ • ~~~ • ~~~ • ~~~ • ~~~
Men Are Like Grapes. If You Stomp on Them and Keep Them in the Dark Long Enough, They Might Turn Into Something That You Would Take to Dinner
posted on August 25, 2003 01:58:01 PM new
The Saudi-9/11 Connection
Christopher Ruddy
Thursday, Nov. 21, 2002
As America prepares to go to war against Iraq and al-Qaeda continues to pose a threat to the United States more than a year after 9/11, we still don't have a clear understanding of the role Islam played.
Soon after 9/11, President Bush made very clear that America was not in a religious war. Was he speaking the truth or speaking as America's diplomat?
A new book by author Stephen Schwartz, entitled "The Two Faces of Islam: The House of Sa'ud from Tradition to Terror," (Doubleday) reveals that President Bush was right. Islam is not at war with us.
Radical Islam is.
Schwartz offers perhaps the best understanding of the religious motives involved in 9/11 and a perspective on the battle we are now fighting around the globe.
A Jew, Schwartz makes very clear that he is not an apologist for Islam. He does attempt to offer a more careful understanding of the religious forces at work.
Surprisingly, Schwartz is admittedly an Islamaphile. He does not see Islam as the menace some modern-day Jews and Christian fundamentalists have claimed.
Surveying the history of Islam, Schwartz finds that Islamic thought and culture have long fostered religious tolerance of Christians and Jews, albeit with second-class status.
It has only been in the past 100 years or so that Islam began having significant friction with Jews. Schwartz argues that Israel played less of a part in this animus than the growing power of the religious sect that controls Saudi Arabia.
The ancient history of Jews and Muslims was generally a harmonious one. For most of Islamic history, Jews found sanctuary not in Christian Europe, but in the Islamic world. Typically, Jews fled Christian Europe to Islamic communities in the Middle East, where they prospered.
Just over 50 years ago, Christian Europe witnessed a genocidal attempt against the Jews in places like Auschwitz and Dachau. Islamic countries have never demonstrated this magnitude of intolerance.
What, then, motivated 19 young Muslim men to fly jets loaded with civilian passengers into the World Trade Center and Pentagon on September 11th?
Schwartz says the answer is simple.
It is no coincidence, he claims, that 15 of the 19 hijackers that day were Saudi nationals.
These hijackers, Schwartz says, were Islamic fundamentalists of a very particular type.
Schwartz writes: "The fundamentalist – essentially, the powerful and fabulously rich Wahhabi cult based in Saudi Arabia – have been overtaken by an apocalyptic belief that the last days are approaching and that Muslims must take arms up against 'unbelievers.' To do this, they focus attention on the jihad verses of Qur'an to which they give their own brutalizing emphasis."
The Wahhabi cult, which is a relatively recent development in Islamic history, currently controls Saudi Arabia.
The cult has often been described in the West as a puritanical version of Islam, a comparison with Christian Puritans.
But this comparison falls way short. Schwartz explains, for example, that Wahhabism is so at odds with traditional Islam that it diminishes the role of the prophet Muhammad, condemning as idolatry reverence to him. This would be akin to the Puritans denying the important of Jesus.
The Wahhabi code is one of the strictest in all of Islamic history, dictating almost every aspect of a believer's life. Schwartz likens Wahhabi society to that of the Nazis.
The Wahhabi sect was founded by a nomad, Abd al-Wahhab. According to Schwartz, Wahhab had no use for Christians or Jews, even though traditional Islam had long considered them protected classes within Islamic society.
Wahhab's violent hatred was not for Christians or Jews alone. He also believed that Muslims "had fallen into unbelief, and if they did not follow him, they should all be killed, their wives and daughters violated, and their possessions confiscated."
The Wahhabites would have remained a marginal force save for their alliance with the politically powerful Sa'ud family of Arabia. Their influence in the Islamic world became staggering after the finding of vast oil deposits on their homeland.
With this precious resource came protection from first Britain and, later, America.
These great powers were willing to look the other way at Wahhabism and its extremism to protect their oil concessions.
Even today, Schwartz says, little is discussed about the extremism of Wahhabism and its spread of the most virulent form of radical Islam to the Arab world.
Schwartz blames "the oil giants" who he says "must stand accused for assuring that the topic of Wahhabism would be almost completely ignored in the western academy until September 11th."
With powerful Saudi financial interests backing the spread of Wahhabism, it has grown far and wide in the Islamic world.
The author draws a direct line between Osama bin Laden and the Wahhabi sect based in Saudi Arabia.
Wahhabi power has now reached the West and the Islamic communities that populate the United States, Great Britain and the rest of Europe.
According to Schwartz, most of the Islamic institutions and non-profit organizations in the United States are funded by Wahhabi financial backers.
Schwartz also reveals that the growing problem of Muslims being recruited in American prisons can be directly linked to the Saudi Wahhabi sect.
He reports that the Wahhabi lobby is funding Islamic prison outreach and that most imam chaplains – who are paid by federal and state governments – are now under Wahhabi Saudi control.
The Wahhabi problem is not limited to prisons.
One Muslim leader, Shayk Hisham Kabbani, of the Islamic Supreme Council, has been warning of the Wahhabis' growing influence.
Kabbani claims that more than 80 percent of mosques in the United States and Europe are now controlled by Wahhabi imams.
It should be noted that Kabbani had warned of the dangers of Islamic extremists well before 9/11. His warnings went largely unheeded.
Schwartz warns that America can no longer view Saudi Arabia as a political ally. He says that after Sept. 11, the Saudis have demonstrated a strong disinterest in supporting America's war on terrorism.
When U.S. authorities asked Saudi Arabian airlines to provide passenger lists of travelers coming to the United States, the Saudis balked.
Additionally, when U.S. authorities asked to investigate bank accounts that had possible terrorist links, once again the Saudis would not cooperate.
After 19 Americans were killed in the 1996 terrorist bombing at the Khobar Towers in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, the United States saw very little cooperation from the Saudi authorities. Schwartz argues that because the bombings had ties to bin Laden, the Saudi government had little interest in cooperating with the FBI.
"The Two Faces of Islam" offers a new perspective on the Middle East conflict that cannot be ignored. The distinction Schwartz draws between traditional Islam and the radicalized Wahhabi cult is an extremely important contribution to American understanding of the challenges we face.
posted on August 25, 2003 02:10:23 PM new
Letcher apparently in you present anal retentive, brain addled state you fail to see the irony of your own Handle/Nickname. Must have struck a sensitive if true nerve. Dirty words, not, just what you chose to name yourself.
Look in any dictionary if you can locate them, anyone will see the same definition
And yes I can read a dictionary, more than can be said for you
Also noted is your failure to identify the state (physical state in the U.S., not you mental condition). Too embarassed to be identified with it are you? Or can't you spell it.
Your attempts to BLOW SMOKE is clearly an attempt to cloud the obvious lack of your maturity, intellect & sense.
Think of me (I know thinking taxes what you call a brain) as a DUMB TEXAN if you will. However I am PROUD to say I am a Texan
after all Texas is the most self-reliant state in the U.S.
Veritas vos Liberabit"..... (the truth will set you free)
posted on August 25, 2003 02:11:40 PM new
Pak al-Qaeda men funded 9/11 attacks in US: FBI
Tuesday, July 1 2003 21:19 Hrs (IST)
Washington: High-ranking al-Qaida operatives in Pakistan funded the September 11, 2001, attacks on World Trade Centre in New York that killed hundreds of people, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has said.
"We have traced the origin of the funding of 9/11 back to financial accounts in Pakistan, where high- ranking and well-known al-Qaida operatives played a major role in moving the money forward, eventually into the hands of the hijackers located in the US," a top FBI official was quoted as saying on the report which was submitted to a US Senate panel.
John S Pistole, Deputy Assistant Director of the FBI's counter-terrorism division, however, did not elaborate as to how and from where the bank accounts in Pakistan were funded.
According to an estimate, the September 11 attacks cost between 175,000 and 250,000 USD. "That money, which paid for flight training, travel and other expenses, flowed to the hijackers through associates in Germany and the United Arab Emirates. Those associates reported to one Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, who planned most of the attacks from Pakistan," the report said.
Richard Newcomb, director of the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control, said that some Saudi organisations provide considerable support for terrorism.
[ edited by bigcitycollectables on Aug 25, 2003 02:13 PM ]
Classified Section of Sept. 11 Report Faults Saudi Rulers
By David Johnston
New York Times
Saturday 26 July 2003
WASHINGTON, July 25 - Senior officials of Saudi Arabia have funneled hundreds of millions of dollars to charitable groups and other organizations that may have helped finance the September 2001 attacks, a still-classified section of a Congressional report on the hijackings says, according to people who have read it.
The 28-page section of the report was deleted from the nearly 900-page declassified version released on Thursday by a joint committee of the House and Senate intelligence committees. The chapter focuses on the role foreign governments played in the hijackings, but centers almost entirely on Saudi Arabia, the people who saw the section said.
The Bush administration's refusal to allow the committee to disclose the contents of the chapter has stirred resentment in Congress, where some lawmakers have said the administration's desire to protect the ruling Saudi family had prevented the American public from learning crucial facts about the attacks. The report has been denounced by the Saudi ambassador to the United States, and some American officials questioned whether the committee had made a conclusive case linking Saudi funding to the hijackings.
The public report concluded that the F.B.I. and C.I.A. had known for years that Al Qaeda sought to strike inside the United States, but focused their attention on the possibility of attacks overseas.
The declassified section of the report discloses the testimony of several unidentified officials who criticized the Saudi government for being uncooperative in terrorism investigations, but makes no reference to Riyadh's financing of groups that supported terror.
Some people who have read the classified chapter said it represented a searing indictment of how Saudi Arabia's ruling elite have, under the guise of support for Islamic charities, distributed millions of dollars to terrorists through an informal network of Saudi nationals, including some in the United States.
But other officials said the stricken chapter retraces Saudi Arabia's well-documented support for Islamic charitable groups and said the report asserts without convincing evidence that Saudi officials knew that recipient groups used the money to finance terror.
The public version of the report identified Omar al-Bayoumi, a Saudi student who befriended and helped finance two Saudi men who later turned out to be hijackers.
Mr. Bayoumi helped pay the expenses for the men, Khalid Almidhar and Nawaq Alhazmi. Mr. Bayoumi, the report said, "had access to seemingly unlimited funding from Saudi Arabia." The report said Mr. Bayoumi was employed by the Saudi civil aviation authority and left open his motivations for supporting the two men.
The Saudi ambassador to the United States has angrily denied that his country had failed to cooperate with the F.B.I. and C.I.A. in fighting terrorism and dismissed accusations that it helped finance two of the hijackers as "outrageous."
Prince Bandar bin Sultan, the Saudi ambassador, said in a statement after the report was released on Thursday that his country "has been one of the most active partners in the war on terrorism, as the president and other administration officials have repeatedly and publicly attested."
Prince Bandar dismissed the report's assertions about Saudi involvement in the hijackings.
"The idea that the Saudi government funded, organized or even knew about Sept. 11 is malicious and blatantly false," Prince Bandar said. "There is something wrong with the basic logic of those who spread these spurious charges. Al Qaeda is a cult that is seeking to destroy Saudi Arabia as well as the United States. By what logic would we support a cult that is trying to kill us?"
He added: "In a 900-page report, 28 blanked-out pages are being used by some to malign our country and our people. Rumors, innuendos and untruths have become, when it comes to the kingdom, the order of the day."
Asked to comment on the report today, a Saudi Embassy representative said Prince Bandar was out of town and could not be reached.
Today, a senior Democratic senator wrote to President Bush asking for the White House to demand that the Saudis turn over Mr. Bayoumi, who is believed to be residing in the kingdom.
"The link between al-Bayoumi and the hijackers is the best evidence yet that part of official Saudi Arabia might have been involved in the attacks," said Senator Charles E. Schumer of New York. "If the Saudi royal family is as committed to fighting terrorism as it claims, it will turn this guy over to U.S. officials immediately so that we can finally get to the bottom of his role in the attacks and his links to Al Qaeda."
Behind the immediate issue of whether Saudi Arabia played any role in terrorism are a complex web of political, military and economic connections between the two countries. Successive Republican and Democratic administrations have aggressively sought to maintain the relationship with a huge producer of oil and an ally in the Arab world.
One section of the report took issue with Louis J. Freeh, the former F.B.I. director, who testified to the joint committee that the bureau "was able to forge an effective working relationship with the Saudi police and Interior Ministry."
The report quoted several senior government officials, who were not identified, expressing contradictory views. One government official told the panel "that he believed the U.S. government's hope of eventually obtaining Saudi cooperation was unrealistic because Saudi assistance to the U.S. is contrary to Saudi national interests."
Another official said: "For the most part it was a very troubled relationship where the Saudis were not providing us quickly or very vigorously with response to it. Sometimes they did, many times they didn't. It was just very slow in coming."
posted on August 25, 2003 02:40:52 PM new
Big - in other words you are using 28 pages of material that you hae not read and do not know the actual contents opto support your theory?
~~~ • ~~~ • ~~~ • ~~~ • ~~~
Men Are Like Grapes. If You Stomp on Them and Keep Them in the Dark Long Enough, They Might Turn Into Something That You Would Take to Dinner
posted on August 25, 2003 03:58:11 PM new
Where the hell have you been?? Theyve already said it was Saudi Arabia and Packistan on the news. Theyve been talking about it for 2 months!
This is coming from the Senate intellgence committee.
posted on August 25, 2003 04:03:01 PM new
9/11 Report: "Incontrovertible Evidence" that Saudi Gov't Supported Hijackers; CIA and FBI Face Scathing Critique
Report findings include: FBI informant housed two of the hijackers; no link existed between Iraq and Al Qaeda; Saudi agent directly helped two hijackes; U.S. knew Al Qaeda was considering flying planes into buildings. We speak to former CIA analyst Melvin Goodman, reporter Robert Fisk and Stephen Push whose wife died on Sept. 11.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
After the Bush administration delayed its publication for months, Congress yesterday released its nearly 900-page investigation on the Sept. 11 attacks.
The report's findings provide an even more damning indictment of the intelligence community than many had predicted. Sen. Bob Graham, former head of the Senate intelligence committee, says the report proves the 9/11 attacks could have been stopped.
The investigation was based on the interviews of hundreds of U.S. and foreign officials and a review of hundreds of thousands of FBI and CIA files.
The scathing critique of the CIA and the FBI finds the agencies did not talk to each other at critical junctures, most notably on intelligence related to two of the Sept. 11 hijackers.
The FBI missed evidence of its own informant who was actually living with two of the hijackers in San Diego.
The agency failed to keep tabs on warnings that Omar al-Bayoumi, a key associate of two of the hijackers and suspected Saudi government secret agent, met with Saudi government officials and the hijackers.
The FBI missed the opportunity in large part because the CIA had failed to share information about the hijackers it had two years prior to the attacks.
The report concluded that the informant's contacts with the two hijackers would have offered, "the best chance to unravel the Sept. 11 plot."
The report also raises more questions about a foreign government's complicity in the attacks: longtime U.S. ally, Saudi Arabia.
The report finds that the Saudi Arabian government thwarted efforts to prevent the rise of Al-Qaeda and stop attacks as well as provided financial and logistical support to the Saudi-born 9/11 hijackers. 15 of the 19 hijackers on 9/11 were Saudi Arabian.
Large sections of the report explaining how the Saudis did not cooperate remains classified. The Washington Post reports an entire 28-page section detailing whether Saudi Arabia was somehow implicated in 9/11 is missing. This despite a seven-month campaign by congressional investigators and others to have them made public.
The CIA argued that disclosure of the details could upset relations with a key US ally.
The report goes on to say that Bush was warned in a more specific way than previously known about intelligence suggesting that al Qaeda terrorists were seeking to attack the U.S.
Meanwhile, the White House resisted efforts to pin down Bush's knowledge of the threats and to catalogue his pre-Sept. 11 counter-terrorism strategy.
Finally the report reveals that U.S. intelligence had no evidence that Iraq or Saddam Hussein had any involvement in the attacks or connection to Al Qaida.
Former Democratic Georgia Sen. Max Cleland who served on the congressional committee charged the Bush administration purposely delayed the release of the 9/11 report until after the Iraq invasion.
Melvin Goodman, former CIA and State Department analyst. He is a senior fellow at the Center for International Policy and director of the Center's National Security Project. He is the author of the forthcoming book Bush League Diplomacy: Putting the Nation At Risk (Prometheus). He is a professor of international security studies and chairman of the international relations department at the National War College.
Stephen Push, spokesperson for Families of September 11. His wife of 21 years, Lisa Raines, was on American Airlines Flight 77 that crashed into the Pentagon on September 11, 2001.
Robert Fisk, foreign correspondent for the London Independent. He is speaking to us from Baghdad. He has covered the Middle East for over 20 years and has interviewed Osama Bin Laden three times.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
TRANSCRIPT
JUAN GONZALEZ: This is the 105th anniversary today of the United States invasion of Puerto Rico on July 25, 1898, 105 years of Puerto Rico being held by the United States, the most lucrative colony in the history of the United States. And we’ve also gotten word that finally Congress has released the long awaited report of its intelligence committees on the September 11 attacks. The nearly 900-page report was based on the interviews of hundreds of U.S. and foreign officials and a review of hundreds of thousands of F.B.I. and C.I.A. files. The report's findings provide an even more damning indictment of the intelligence community, than many had predicted. The scathing critique of the C.I.A. and the F.B.I. finds that the agencies did not talk to each other at critical junctures, most notably on intelligence related to two of the hijackers. The F.B.I. missed evidence of its own informant, who was actually living with two of the hijackers in San Diego. The agency failed to keep tabs on warnings that Omar al-Bayoumi, a key associate of two of the hijackers and a suspected Saudi government secret agent met with Saudi government officials and the hijackers.
AMY GOODMAN: The F.B.I. missed the opportunity in large part because the C.I.A. had failed to share information about the hijackers it had two years prior to the attack, the reports says. It concludes, the informants' contacts with the two hijackers would have offered, quote, the best chance to unravel the September 11 plot. The report may also implicate a foreign government in the attacks, long time U.S. ally Saudi Arabia. The report finds Saudi Arabian government thwarted efforts to prevent the rise of al Qaeda and stop attacks as well as provided financial and logistical support to the Saudi-born 9/11 hijackers. 15 of the 19 were from Saudi Arabia. Large sections of the report explaining how the Saudis did not cooperate, remains classified. The Washington Post reports an entire 28-page section, detailing whether Saudi Arabia was somehow implicated in 9/11, is blacked out. This, despite a seven-month campaign by congressional investigators and others, to have them made public.
JUAN GONZALEZ: The C.I.A. argued that full disclosure of the details could upset relations with a key U.S. ally. Meanwhile, the White House resisted efforts to pin down Bush’s knowledge of Al Qaeda threats and to catalog the executive's pre-September 11 counterterrorism strategy. Finally the report reveals that U.S. intelligence had no evidence that Iraq or Saddam Hussein had any involvement in the attack or connection to Al Qaeda. Former Democratic Georgia senator Max Cleland who served on the committees charged the Bush administration purposely delayed the release of the 9/11 report after the Iraqi invasion.
AMY GOODMAN: We're joined by Melvin Goodman. He's a former C.I.A. and State Department analyst, a senior fellow for the Center of International Policy, Director of its National Security Project, author of the forth-coming book, Bush League Diplomacy: Putting the Nation at Risk and also a professor at the National War College. Welcome to Democracy Now!.
MELVIN GOODMAN: Thank you, Amy. Good morning.
AMY GOODMAN: It’s good to have you with us. Well why don’t you start off with what you think, based on going through the report, -- what are its most startling conclusions?
MELVIN GOODMAN: The most important conclusions deal first of all with George Tenet himself as the Director of C.I.A. Clearly what the report establishes, was that he couldn't coordinate intelligence within his own agency, that he wasn’t an arbitrator of intelligence within the intelligence community, and therefore failed in his job as director of central intelligence. One very telling point that's in the report, is that in 1999 he issued a declaration of a war on terror. But he followed this up with nothing. There was no additional personnel given to the task, no additional sense of mission or sense of purpose, no additional dollars were thrown at this problem. And half of the intelligence community had no idea he had issued such a declaration, or that it was designed for them.
The second startling fact that comes through within the report, and some of it is buried within the report itself, is the incredible analytical failure of the C.I.A. The fact that they never examined a scenario involving an attack on the United States, the fact that in 1995, they did their last major study of the problem of terrorism, that was the National Intelligence Estimate that was done in 1995. So for six years, nothing was done in a way that really addressed the problem of strategic intelligence, and they quote a former director of the counterterrorism center saying strategic intelligence never saved a life. This is a terribly dismissive remark and it points to the third problem within the report, that is the failure of the counterterrorism center that was created in 1986. This wasn't a new body. The report keeps talking about the inexperience and the junior nature of the analysts at the counterterrorism center. This group had been around for 15 years prior to 9/11 and missed so many analytical clues and did so little analysis. And when you talk about sharing, it's not that the C.I.A. and the F.B.I. didn't share intelligence. There was very little sharing going on between the C.I.A. itself or within the F.B.I. itself. And on the level of intelligence communities sharing with agencies who are on the front line of defense -- like the Federal Aviation Agency or I.N.S. or State Department visa officers, they weren't getting any information whatsoever. Let me say one thing, though, about the failure of the report, because the report is not as strong a document as I would like to see. Particularly in the one area of accountability and responsibility. Here, the report just punted the major problem that it should have examined -- who's responsible for all of this? The report doesn't deal with any of that. And they return to the agencies themselves to do independent studies of an assessment of accountability and responsibility. And also the report, even though it was done by the Senate Intelligence Committee and the House Intelligence Committee, they don't assess their own blame, their own responsibility.
For 10 years you had Senator Shelby from Alabama and Senator Graham from Florida not getting intelligence on terrorism. As I said, the last estimate was done in 1995. Why didn’t someone on the staff of one of these committees go to the intelligence community and tell them, look, you're showing us raw data about terrorism, but you're not analyzing this problem. There's no attempt to do strategic intelligence. And this was the failure, of course, from the inability to watch the weakness, decline and eventual collapse of the Soviet Union. The final thing that's missing from the failure of the report, that you had, say, in the Pearl Harbor studies 60 years ago, was that the absence of any central mechanism or central repository for collecting all of this data, any compliance mechanism. If Tenet was going to issue a fiat on a war on terrorism, how did he know it was being carried out? The fact is it wasn't. He had no way of knowing this. He had no feedback mechanism. And the final tragedy in all of this, is that indeed it is 60 years after Pearl Harbor. We had the same kind of intelligence failure we had 60 years ago, in which the assumptions of the C.I.A. and the F.B.I. were entirely wrong, and they were never re-examined as the data kept pouring in. So it's not an issue of where is the smoking gun? You never get a smoking gun in the intelligence business. You get various pieces of a mosaic, and you have to put that mosaic together to make a picture. The intelligence community and the C.I.A. had so much information in terms of the Phoenix memo, the Minneapolis memo, the tracking of al-Hazmi and al-Mihdhar. The inability to link Khalid Sheikh Mohammed with al Qaeda for so many years, this tragedy could have been prevented. There’s no doubt in my mind about that.
AMY GOODMAN: You just went through that list very quickly. But for people who continually hear these names but forget what they reference, can you quickly go through what you’ve just referenced – the Phoenix memo, the Minneapolis memo, even the names of the people you mentioned.
MELVIN GOODMAN: Certainly. The Phoenix memo is very important, because you have someone in the field office in Phoenix who sees the pattern of a flight training pattern in Arizona, in which Arabs are being sent for flight training, who have very little knowledge of aircraft, who have no credit cards but cash, who are paying for these courses with cash, and who don't seem to have any need to fly the large kinds of planes they're taking lessons on. All he asked F.B.I. central headquarters to do, was to task other field offices, to look at flight training centers in their states -- Florida and California certainly come to mind. And the F.B.I. did not even task its sources to look into this, or to ask a field office to look into this. They were entirely dismissive. And, of course, the Minneapolis memo deals with that very brave soul, Colleen Raleigh who had all of the evidence that was needed against Moussaoui, but the F.B.I. didn't even understand their own foreign intelligence surveillance act and didn't realize they could have put a tap on his phone and could have gotten in the hard drive of his computer but, again, Raleigh's memo was ignored.
Now on Khalid Sheikh Mohammed -- he's the number two man behind Osama Bin Laden. He was the brains behind 9/11. He was indicted for his role in the World Trade Center bombing in 1993. It took years for the C.I.A. counterterrorism center to link Khalid Sheikh Mohammed to Al Qaeda. So this is a terrible oversight. But let me say one thing, because the F.B.I. is getting off the hook in a terrible way here. The F.B.I. keeps saying that if they had the names of al-Hazmi and al-Mihdhar, if they had been on a watchlist they could have watched these people and picked them up. Well, those names were well known to the counterterrorism center. The counterterrorism center even though it's housed at the C.I.A., is a multi-agency vetting center for all intelligence. You had F.B.I. agents who are on duty at the counterterrorism center. You cannot tell me that these F.B.I. agents did not see the raw traffic that dealt with al-Hazmi and al-Mihdhar. Why didn't they tell their own agency, hey, we have people with al Qaeda links, who apparently are in the first place, trying to get to the United States and ultimately got to the United States, were living openly in San Diego, their names were in the phone book, for crying out loud and the F.B.I. couldn't track these down. The performance of the F.B.I. was abysmal. The C.I.A. was terribly bad. The F.B.I. was even worse.
AMY GOODMAN: We're talking to former C.I.A. and State Department analyst Melvin Goodman. He's a professor of International Relations, Security studies of National War College. We'll be back with him as well as Stephen Push, a spokesperson for the Families of 9/11. He lost his wife, Lisa Raines, on American airlines flight 77 that crashed into the Pentagon. And we'll explore -- well, for Nixon, it was the 18-minute gap--The 28-page gap, those pages that have been classified within the report that we don't get to see about U.S. and particularly Bush ally Saudi Arabia. Stay with us. MUSIC BREAK 22:22
AMY GOODMAN: I’m Amy Goodman with Juan Gonzalez. Our guests are Melvin Goodman. Melvin Goodman is a former C.I.A. and Defense and State Department analyst. He's a professor of the National War College. We'll be joined by Stephen Push, lost his wife on the American Airlines flight that is went into the Pentagon. Juan?
JUAN GONZALEZ: Well, Melvin Goodman, I would like to ask you--the report specified no connection between Saddam Hussein and Iraq and the events of September 11. How damning is that in terms of the Bush administration's continually trying to link Saddam Hussein and so many Americans believing that he is linked to the attacks?
MELVIN GOODMAN: Well, it's terribly damning. And it's part of the overall picture of the misuse of intelligence by the Bush administration that got us into war. There was no evidence of link. And George Tenet is culpable here because he sent a letter to the Congress in October of 2002 saying there were signs of links between Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden, and Iraq and Al Qaeda. But I -- I have never talked to an intelligence analyst at any of the major agencies who said he saw any evidence whatsoever that linked these two groups. And frankly, it's quite counter-intuitive to think that a religious zealot like Bin Laden would form ties with a secularist such as Saddam Hussein. So it undercuts a key part of the Bush strategy for going to war and, remember, Colin Powell made a big deal of this at his U.N. speech on February 5 of this year. So it undercuts everyone at the administration who talked about this, and it does make questions about were we falsely led into this war? Were we misled? Were we deceived? Were lies told?
JUAN GONZALEZ: And what about the 28-page gap? The -- all the references to Saudi Arabia’s involvement or possible links of Saudi Arabia to the attackers?
MELVIN GOODMAN: Well, this is particularly appalling on several levels -- one, I don't have to remind people that 15 of the 19 hijackers were from Saudi Arabia. And I said after 9/11 that you should not forget that this was something that can be traced back to the brains that came out of Egypt, because a lot of the best minds on Bin Laden's staff were from Egypt. And also the money that came out of Saudi Arabia. And also on this point, something we rarely hear about – the inability or unwillingness, actually, of the Treasury Department to really track the financial network of the terrorists’ organization. Their incredible reluctance. But to get Saudi Arabia off the hook, given the terrible price that so many Americans paid, I think is particularly pernicious.
AMY GOODMAN: Let's bring Stephen Push into this conversation -- lost his wife Lisa Raines in the American Airlines flight that flew into the Pentagon. Your response to the congressional report released on Thursday?
STEPHEN PUSH: I'm sorry -- could you repeat the question? I don't hear you too well.
AMY GOODMAN: Your response to the congressional report that was released on Thursday.
STEPHEN PUSH: I -- I think that the work that the -- that they did on the report was excellent. Unfortunately it was not complete because they were denied access to critical documents that they needed, for example, the Presidential daily briefing of August 6, 2001. And the minutes of the National Security Council meeting. And so the -- the -- the adjoining crew was not able to complete their work. I'm also concerned about the 28-page gap in the section on foreign involvement in 9/11. I think the American people have a right to know what role Saudi Arabia had in 9/11.
JUAN GONZALEZ: And what importance do you attach to this August 6 Presidential briefing?
STEPHEN PUSH: Well, what we know about the August 6 briefing is that the President was told that -- that Al Qaeda may attack within the United States and that airplanes -- and it's possible airplane hijackings may be part of the plot. We don't know more than that because the President won't release that briefing, but it seems very suspicious. What we know is very suspicious and it concerns me that we don't have the whole story.
AMY GOODMAN: What as a family member who lost someone on September 11, how have you gotten information over the last two years?- And what has brought you to the conclusion that Saudi Arabia is an absolutely key factor here?
STEPHEN PUSH: Well, I went out and hired a private investigator with my own funds to try to get some information on the Saudi connection with 9/11. What I was able to determine is that if the royal family was not itself involved, there are wealthy Saudis who are well connected with the royal family, who have been funding Al Qaeda from its inception right up to 9/11 and even after 9/11. These people -- as far as I know, they're still living inside Saudi Arabia. They still have all of their wealth. And no attempt has been made by the Saudis to crack down on them.
JUAN GONZALEZ: Melvin Goodman, what could be, in your ---
MELVIN GOODMAN: It’s very regrettable. The financial aspect is very important, but just as important is the unwillingness of the Saudis to cooperate with us on, in terms of our intelligence needs--Bin Laden and the Bin Laden family. The Saudis just have not been cooperating in terms of intelligence exchange and really when you think about the -- the destruction against Khobar towers, in 1996, that was five years before 9/11. So you have an entire pattern of Saudi Arabian heel dragging on very important intelligence issues which have -- should never have been acceptable to the Clinton administration or the Bush administration.
JUAN GONZALEZ: But in your opinion, what's behind this reluctance to really go after the Saudis?
MELVIN GOODMAN: Well, I think the key to this is the oil aspect of the bilateral relationship. If the Saudis didn't have the largest reserves of oil in the world, we would have no interest in Saudi Arabia. Just as if Iraq didn't have the second largest reserves of oil, I don't think we would have 150,000 American troops in Iraq. Once again, we're tethered to our oil needs. We're being held hostage by our own energy use, our inability to develop an energy policy. And it's paid with lives in this particular case.
AMY GOODMAN: And what about the special relationship between the Bush family and the Saudi regime? For example, just the small fact that President Bush senior's library, the Saudi regime gave him $1 million to endow that.
MELVIN GOODMAN: I don't think the personal relationship is as important as the institutional relationship. If you look at the main driving force behind the war on Iraq which was clearly Vice President Cheney. I mean it was Cheney who was pushing the worst kinds of intelligence to make the case for war. It was Cheney knocking heads together at the C.I.A. to get them to say things that would support the war, and it's Cheney who has deep institutional ties to the energy industry and won't release documents dealing with his conversations at – were part of this special relationship with energy and oil needs. So I think it was this institutional tie and the dependence on oil that had a lot more to do with it than the family tie. And also I think it's regrettable that we’ve allowed basically Prince Bandar to remain in this country for so many years as ambassador, and not be up front in terms of how he's supported U.S.-Saudi relations. And he does such a good publicist job in terms of public relations and outright propaganda for Saudi Arabia, that we don't get the kind of information we need from the ambassador. And I’m not sure if he’s a reliable conduit for the kinds of things we need to get back to the capital in Saudi Arabia.
AMY GOODMAN: We're also joined on the phone by Robert Fisk, of the Independent newspaper in Britain. He's in Baghdad right now. Welcome to Democracy Now!. Robert?
ROBERT FISK: Thank you.
AMY GOODMAN: It’s good to have you with us. We're discussing the congressional report that was released yesterday and specifically the role of Saudi Arabia. In this report, the 28-page gap that was redacted in the report. The Bush administration did not want the public to see the relationship between Saudi Arabia and 9/11. What about your research into this?
ROBERT FISK: Well, I'm a long way away from Washington, of course, and New York. And, well my first reaction was I don't think the Americans care very much about protecting the Saudis, but I think they care very much about protecting anything that's embarrassing to the administration, with the Saudis. And I didn’t hear the previous conversation but I do ask myself what it might mention about Bush’s relationship with the Bin Laden family and also about the C.I.A.'s relationship with Saudi intelligence at the time when both the C.I.A. and the Saudis were supporting Bin Laden and his associates in the war against the Soviets in Afghanistan. I always think -- it implies very much in British documents where you have the blank page episodes but it's much more to avoid embarrassment to the authorities and to protect friendly powers abroad.
JUAN GONZALEZ: Stephen Push, I'd like to ask you, you lost your wife, Lisa Raines, in the attacks of September 11. Where do you go from here--the families--in terms of being able to get the full story of what the government failed to do, did or didn't do to prevent the attacks.
STEPHEN PUSH: Well, we're putting a lot of hope in the independent commission that's headed by former New Jersey Governor Tom Caine which is to do a comprehensive report on 9/11 next year. They're going to look not just at intelligence but at other areas as well, such as immigration policy, aviation security, etc.,. Unfortunately, however, so far they have been running up against the same kind of stone walling that the administration gave to the joint inquiry. They have not -- so far they have not been able to get the Presidential daily briefings. They have not been able to get the National Security Council minutes. And it’s not clear that the Bush administration is going to give them anymore cooperation than they gave the joint inquiry.
AMY GOODMAN: Stephen Push, I want to thank you very much for being with us. Back to Robert Fisk in Baghdad. You have written about the Saudi family, the connections to Bush, and also see the Carlisle group as cementing those connections. [dial tone] Robert Fisk? Whom we may just have lost. Well, as we get Robert Fisk back on the line, let's take a listen to just after the release of the congressional report. Vice President Dick Cheney gave a speech at the American Enterprise Institute. This is an excerpt.
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