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Saturday, April 10, 2004
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AS TIMELY AS TODAY'S HEADLINES
I've actually been thinking of composing an essay about why I hate the 9/11 Commission as much as I do. I will probably write it over the course of the next week and run it either here or at Chaos In Motion or somewhere else under my real name, in which case you folks are screwed. For the time being, we'll just say that I believe the commission is political, stupid and dangerous to both the United States and the presidency itself and leave it at that for the time being. But the White House has stupidly released a redacted version of the famous August 6, 2001 Presidential Daily Brief or PDB.
The PDB is both the world's smallest newspaper -printing a run of approximately a dozen copies every day at CIA headquarters at Langley, Virginia- and among the most classified documents in the United States government. The reason behind the limited circulation and top-secret classification is the sensitivity of the infotrmation within it and the "sources and methods" by which it is collected. This is to say that if the information is gathered by human intelligence (Humint), the specific spy is named in the document. If it is collected by a satellite or other technical means, that is disclosed as well. This is done to give the president a sense of the reliability of the document.
Given that the CIA has never had a spy within al-Qaeda, its certain that all the information in the PDB pre- 9/11 was collected by technical means. And by 2001 even that collection was compromised when the Clinton administration leaked that it was listening in on satellite telephone calls between al-Qaeda operatives. Satellite phones then ceased to be used.
In any event, here's what over a year of hysteria regarding the 06/08/01 PDB boildown to. The information itself, will be in italics and my commentary will be in regular type.
--An intelligence report received in May 2001 indicating that al Qaeda was trying to send operatives to the United States through Canada to carry out an attack using explosives. That information had been passed on to intelligence and law enforcement agencies.
This sounds reasonable enough, particularly when you consider that it had been attempted once before by al-Qaeda associate Ahmed Rassam in the millennium plot to blow up LAX.
--An allegation that al Qaeda had been considering ways to hijack American planes to win the release of operatives who had been arrested in 1998 and 1999.
This might be the most important point in refuting the "Bush knew or should have known" school of thought. It would be very, very difficult to use a highjacked aircraft and its passengers as a bargaining chip when that plane has already been crashed into a building.
This leads to a larger point. 9/11 deviated completely from everything known about hijacking. From its first use in the early 1970's, hijacking was a political, strategic tool as opposed to a tactical one. A plan would be hijacked, and it and the passengers would be used as a negotiation tool. Once the negotiations were completed, the passengers were released and oftentimes, the plane would be left undamaged. Historically, the only times that there were significant numbers of civilian deaths came out of a hijacking were when rescue mission were launched. This is why airline employees were trained not to resist hijackers and to comply with their demands as much as possible. Killing passengers or destroying planes once a resolution occurs negates thusefulnessss of hijacking in the future.
One only need look at what happened on United flight 93 when the passengers aboard learned that three other jetliners had been crashed into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11. For these reasons, I believe that 9/11 will be the last terrorist use of hijacking as a political tool.
The larger point of this part of the PDB is that it suspects al-Qaeda's use of commercial aircraft in precisely the opposite way they ultimately did.
-- An allegation that bin Laden was set on striking the United States as early as 1997 and through early 2001.
This stands to reason as Osama bin Laden has said precisely that on videotape on at least two occasions between 1996-98.
The ruling to kill the Americans and their allies--civilians and military--is an individual duty for every Muslim who can do it in any country in which it is possible to do it, in order to liberate the al-Aqsa Mosque and the holy mosque from their grip, and in order for their armies to move out of all the lands of Islam, defeated and unable to threaten any Muslim. This is in accordance with the words of Almighty God, "and fight the pagans all together as they fight you all together," and "fight them until there is no more tumult or oppression, and there prevail justice and faith in God."
-Osama bin Laden, Fatwah of February 23, 1998
Those youths know that their rewards in fighting you, the USA, is double than their rewards in fighting some one else not from the people of the book. They have no intention except to enter paradise by killing you. An infidel, and enemy of God like you, cannot be in the same hell with his righteous executioner.
-Osama bin Laden, Fatwah of August, 1996
We pray to God, Praise and Glory be to him, to return them smoothly to the right path. We also pray to God, Praise and Glory be to him, to frustrate the evil designs of those who harbor any ill will towards Islam, and to afflict them with calamities that would make them too busy to think of hurting Muslims.
-Osama bin Laden, Interview with ABC News, December, 1998
We do not differentiate between those dressed in military uniforms and civilians; they are all targets in this fatwa. Especially since American officials were released after the Khobar bombing, asking all American civilians to contact the security department in the embassy with information on Muslims and activists. The fatwa includes all that share or take part in killing of Muslims, assaulting holy places, or those who help the Jews occupy Muslim land.
-Osama bin Laden, Interview with ABC News, May 28, 1998
So, we tell the American as a people, and we tell the mothers of soldiers, and American mothers in general, if they value their lives and those of their children, find a nationalistic government that will look after their interests and not the interest of the Jews.
The continuation of the tyranny will bring the fighting to America, like Ramzi Yousef and others. This is my message to the American people to look for a serious government that looks out for their interest and does not attack others, their lands or their honor.
-Osama bin Laden, Interview with ABC News, May 28, 1998
-- Intelligence suggesting that suspected al Qaeda operatives were traveling to and from the United States, were U.S. citizens, and may have had a support network in the country.
This was borne out by the detention of at least three US citizens afiliated with either al-Qaeda or the Taliban since December 2001. However, unless a criminal conspiracy case could be made, there was nothing that could be done. Also, several of the 9/11 hijackers were in the US before President Bush assumed office. The failures of immigration and border control policy stretch out over several different administrations.
-- A report that at least 70 FBI investigations were under way in 2001 regarding possible al Qaeda cells/terrorist-related operations in the United States.
None of which specified tactics, targets or dates of attack. Without such information, what precisely should the government do? Increase airport security to such a level that it may have further damaged an already shaky economy? Release a non-specific threat to the public and cause a panic? Isn't the administration already doing that and being criticized for it?
What the PDB shows is that at no time was there ever any evidence of an al-Qaeda plot to crash hijacked aircraft into civilian targets within the United States. There was however a plot, materminded by al-Qaeda associate Ramzi Yousef, to crash civilian airliners in the Philippines and other unspecified targets in Southeast Asia -where airport security is famously lax- but NOT within the United States.
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