The Bush 9/11 Scandal for Dummies

Don't know about you, but all this who-knew-what-when pre-9/11 stuff is mighty confusing. So once again, Ihead to that all-purpose reference series for some comprehensible answers.

Q. I've heard all these reports about the government knowing weeks and months in advance of 9/11 that airlinerswere going to be hijacked and flown into buildings, and yet the Bush Administration apparently did nothing anddenied they did anything wrong. They claimed the fault lay in the intelligence agencies "not connectingthe dots," or that it was the "FBI culture" that failed. Can you explain?

A. Most of the "it's-the-fault-of-the-system" spin is designed to deflect attention from the realsituation. Bush and his spokesmen may well be correct in saying they had no idea as to the specifics -- theymay not have known the exact details of the attacks -- but it is more and more apparent that they knew a greatdeal more than they're letting on, including the possible targets.

Q. You're not just going leave that hanging out there, are you? Just bash Bush with no evidence to back it up?

A. There's no need to bash anybody. There is more than enough documentation to establish that the BushAdministration was fully aware that a major attack was coming from Al-Qaeda, by air, aimed at symbolicstructures on the U.S. mainland, and that among mentioned targets were the World Trade Center, the Pentagon,the White House, the Congress, Statue of Liberty. (According to Richard Clarke, the White House's NationalCoordinator for Anti-Terrorism, the intelligence community was convinced ten weeks before 9/11 that an Al-Qaedaattack on U.S. soil was imminent.)

Q. If they knew in advance that the, or at least an, attack was coming, why did the Bush Administration donothing to prepare the country in advance: get photos of suspected terrorists out to airlines, have fighterjets put on emergency-standby status or even in the air as deterents, get word out to the border police tostop these "watch-list" terrorists, put surface-to-air missiles around the White House and Pentagon,etc.?

A. The explanation preferred by the government is to admit, eight months late, to absolute and horrendousincompetence, up and down the line (although Bush&Co., surprise!, prefer to focus the blame lower down,letting the FBI be the fall guy). But let's try an alternate explanation. Think about it for a moment. Iftheir key goal was to mobilize the country behind the Bush Administration, get their political/business agendathrough, have a reason to move unliterally around the globe, and defang the Democrats and other critics athome -- what better way to do all that than to have Bush be the take-charge leader after a diabolic"sneak attack"?

Q. You're suggesting the ultimate cynical strategem, purely for political ends. I can't believe that Bush andhis cronies are that venal. Isn't it possible that the whole intelligence apparatus just blew it?

A. Possible, but not bloody likely. There certainly is enough blame to spread around, but the evidence indicatesthat Bush and his closest aides knew that bin Laden was planning a direct attack on the U.S. mainland -- usingairplanes headed for those icon targets -- and, in order to get the country to move in the direction hewanted, he kept silent.

Q. But if that's true, what you've described is utterly indefensible, putting policy ahead of American citizens'lives.

A. Now are you beginning to understand why Bush&Co. are fighting so tenaciously against a blue-ribboncommission of inquiry, and why Bush and Cheney went to Congressional leaders and asked them not to investigatethe pre-9/11 period? Now do you understand why they are trying so desperately to keep everything secret,tightly locked up in the White House, only letting drips and drabs get out when there is no other way to avoidCongressional subpoenas or court-ordered disclosures? They know that if one thread of the coverup unravels,more of their darkest secrets will follow.

Q. You're sounding like a conspiracy nut.

A. For years, we've avoided thinking in those terms, because so many so-called "conspiracies" existonly in someone's fevered imagination. Plus, to think along these lines in this case is depressing, suggestingthat American democracy can be so easily manipulated and distorted by a cabal of the greedy and power-hungry.But I'm afraid that's where the evidence leads.

Q. You mean there's proof of Bush complicity in 9/11 locked up in the White House?

A. We wouldn't use the term complicity. So far as we now know, Bush did not order or otherwise arrange for Al-Qaeda'sattacks on September 11. But once the attacks happened, the plans Bush&Co. already had drawn up for takingadvantage of the tragedy were implemented. A frightened, terrorist-obsessed nation did not realize they'd beenthe object of another assault, this time by those occupying the White House.

Q. This is startling, and revolting. But I refuse to jump on the conspiracy bandwagon until I see some proof.Bush says he first heard about a "lone" pre-9/11 warning on August 6, and that it was vague anddealt with possible attacks outside the U.S. Why can't we believe him? After all, the FBI and CIA arenotorious for their incompetence and bungling. You got a better version that makes sense, I'd love to hear it.

A. Bush and his spinners want us to concentrate on who knew what detail when; it's the old magician's trick ofgetting you to look elsewhere while he's doing his prestidigitation. We're not talking about a little cluehere and another little clue there, or an FBI memo that wasn't shared. We're talking about long-range planningand analysis of what strategic-intelligence agencies and high-level commissions and geopolitical thinkersaround the globe -- including those inside the U.S. -- saw for years before 9/11 as likely scenarios in an ageof terrorist attacks.

The conclusion about Al-Qaeda, stated again and again for years by government analysts, was basically:"They're coming, by air. Get prepared. They're well-organized, determined, and technically adept. Andthey want to hit big targets, well-known symbols of America." (There was a 1999 U.S. government study,for example, that pointed out that Al-Qaeda suicide-bombers wanted to crash aircraft into a number ofsignificant Washington targets; during the 199 5 trial of Ramsi Yousef, the mastermind of the 1993 World TradeCenter bombing, he revealed plans to divebomb a plane into CIA headquarters, and earlier he had told FBIagents that the list was expanded to include the Pentagon and other D. C. targets.)

Elements in the FBI, all over the country, who suspected what was coming, were clamoring, begging, for moreagents to be used for counter-terrorism investigations, but were turned down by Attorney General Ashcroft;Ashcroft also gave counter-terrorism short shrift in his budget plans, not even placing anti-terrorism on hispriority list; John O'Neill, the FBI's NYC anti-terrorism director, resigned, asserting that his attempts atfull-scale investigating were being thwarted by higher-ups; someone in the FBI, perhaps on orders of someonehigher-up, made sure that the local FBI investigation in Minneapolis of Zacaria Moussauoi was compromised. Allthis while Ashcroft was shredding the Constitution in his martial law-like desire to amass information, andcontinues even now to further expand his police-state powers.

(Note: An FBI agent has filed official complaints over the bureau's interfering with anti-terrorisminvestigations; his lawyers include David Schippers, who worked for the GOP side in the Clinton impeachmenteffort; Schippers says the agent knew in May 2001 that "an attack on lower Manhattan was imminent."A former FBI official said: "I don't buy the idea that we didn't know what was coming...Within 24 hours[of the attack], the Bureau had about 20 people identified, and photos were sent out to the news media.Obviously this information was available in the files and someone was sitting on it.")

One can accept the usual incompetency in intelligence collection and analysis from, say, an anti-terroristdesk officer at the FBI, but not from the highest levels of national defense and intelligence in and aroundthe President, where his spokesman, in a bald-faced lie, told the world that the 9/11 attacks came with"no warning." More recently, National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, in a quavering voice, triedto characterize the many warnings as mere "chatter," and concerned attacks "outside theU.S." But the many warning-reports focused on terrorist attacks both inside and outside the UnitedStates; the August 6th briefing dealt with planned attacks IN the United States.

Not only were there clear warnings from allies abroad, but the U.S., through its ECHELON and otherelectronic-intercept programs, may well have broken bin Laden's encryption code; for example, the U.S. knewthat he told his mother on September 9: "In two days you're going to hear big news, and you're not goingto hear from me for a while".

And, the word of an impending attack was getting out: put options (hedges that a stock's price is going tofall) in enormous quantities were being bought on United Airlines and American Airlines stock, the twocarriers of the hijackers, as early as September 7; San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown was warned by "anairport security man" on September 10 to rethink his flight to New York for the next day; Newsweekreported that on September 10, "a group of top Pentagon officials suddenly canceled travel plans for thenext morning, apparently because of security concerns"; many members of a Bronx mosque were also warnedto stay out of lower Manhattan on September 11, etc. etc.

Q. You're giving me intriguing bits and pieces. Can't you tie it all together and make it make sense?

A. OK, you asked for it, so we're going to provide you with a kind of shorthand scenario of what may well havegone down, a kind of narrative that attempts to tie a lot of disparate-seeming events together. There isvoluminous, multi-sourced evidence that establishes this scenario. It's scary, so prepare yourself.

We believe that the HardRight began serious planning for a 2000 electoral victory -- and thenimplementation of a HardRight agenda, and the destruction of a liberal opposition -- a year or two afterClinton's 1996 victory. (The impeachment of Clinton was a key ingredient to sully Democrat opposition.) TheGOP HardRight leaders decided early to select George W. Bush, a none-too-bright and easily malleable young manwith the right name and pedigree. They ran into a speed-bump when John McCain began to take off in the publicimagination, and so with dirty tricks they wrecked his campaign in the South and elsewhere, and continued ontheir merry course.

For a while, they fully expected an easy victory over dull Al Gore, tainted goods for a lot of conservativeRepublicans and others because of his association with Clinton, but, given the obvious limitations of theircandidate, they weren't going to take a lot of chances. In Florida, for example, where it looked as if therace might be tight, they early on arranged things -- through Bush's governor-brother Jeb, and the Bushcampaign's Katherine Harriss, Florida's Secretary of State -- so that George W. couldn't lose. An example:removing tens of thousands of eligible African-American voters from the rolls.

As it turned out, Gore won the popular vote by more than a half-million votes nationwide, and, we now know,would have won Florida's popular vote had all the ballots been counted, but the U.S. Supreme Court HardRightmajority, despite its longtime support for states' rights, in a bit of ethical contortionism did aphilosophical reverse in midair and ordered the Florida vote-counting to stop and declared Bush the winner,installing a President rather than letting the people decide for themselves.

Q. That's ancient history. I'm interested in 9/11, not tearing at an old scab.

A. OK. We're merely trying to indicate that the HardRight's campaign to take power was not an overnight,post-9/11 whim but worked out long in advance. After so many near-chances to take total control, they would doanything to guarantee a presidential victory this time around -- which would give them full control over thereins of power: Legislature (where HardRightists dominated the House and Senate), the Courts (where theHardRight dominated the U.S. Supreme Court and many appelate courts), and the Executive branch, not to mentionthe HardRight media control they exerted in so many areas.

They had followed the news, they knew that the Al-Qaeda terrorist network was engaged in a maniacal jihadagainst America, and was quite capable -- as they had demonstrated on many occasions, from Saudia Arabia toEast Africa to the first attempt on the World Trade Center -- of carrying out their threats. They also knew,from innumerable intelligence reports from telecommunications intercepts, and from various commissions, CIAand foreign agents that Al-Qaeda liked to blow up symbolic icon structures of countries targeted, and that Al-Qaeda,and its affiliates, had an affinity for trying to use airplanes as psychologic or actual weapons. (The Frenchhad foiled one such attack in 1994, where a hijacked commercial airliner would be flown into the EiffelTower.)

By early 2001 and into the Summer, warnings were pouring in to U.S. intelligence and military agencies fromJordan, Morocco, Egypt, Tunisia, Israel, and other Middle East and South Asian intelligence sources, alongwith Russia and Britain and the Phillipines, saying that a major attack on the U.S. mainland was in the works,involving the use of airplanes as weapons of mass destruction.

Indeed, in June and July of 2001, the alerts started to be explicit that air attacks were about to go downin the U.S.; even local FBI offices in Phoenix and Minneapolis began passing warnings up the line about MiddleEastern men acting suspiciously at flight schools. In July, Ashcroft stopped flying on commercial airlinersand traveled only by private plane, and Bush, after but a few months in office, announced he was going toground, spending the month of August on his ranch in Crawford, Texas. Cheney disappeared from view, and ourguess is that he was coordinating the overall, post-attack strategy.

Under this scenario, in mid-Summer 2001, Bush&Co. decided this was it. Bin Laden unknowingly was goingto deliver them the gift of terrorism, and they were going to run with it as far and as fast and as hard asthey could. The various post-attack scenarios had been worked out, the so-called USA Patriot Act -- whichcontained various police-state eviscerations of the Constitution -- was polished and prepared for a rush-job(with no hearings) through a post-attack Congress, the war plans against the Taliban in Afghanistan werereadied and rolled out, the air-base countries around Afghanistan were brought onboard, and so on. All duringthe Summer of 2001.

Q. I don't understand how war against Afghanistan could have been anticipated so early.

A. Follow the money. Various oil/gas/energy companies had wanted a Central Asian pipeline to run throughAfghanistan (costing much less to build, but also so it wouldn't have to go through Russia or Iran); thatproject was put on hold during the chaos in Afghanistan, but when the Taliban took over and brought stabilityto that country, the U.S. began negotiating with the Taliban about the pipeline deal. Even after sending them,via the United Nations, $43million dollars for "poppy-seed eradication," and inviting them to talksin Texas, the Taliban began to balk. At a later meeting, the U.S. negotiator threatened them with an attackunless they handed over bin Laden and reportedly told them, in reference to the pipeline, that they couldaccept "a carpet of gold" or be buried in "a carpet of bombs." (The later U.S. governmentspin was that the bin Laden issue and the pipeline issues were separate, and that the U.S. threats didn't mixthe two and there were misunderstandings of what was said.) Shortly thereafter, bin Laden, hiding out inAfghanistan, initiated the September 11th attacks, and the U.S. bombing of that country began. Oh, by the way,in case you haven't noticed, under the new U.S.-friendly government in Kabul, the pipeline project is back ontrack. Oh, by the way, the pipeline will terminate reasonably close to the power plant in India built by Enronthat has been lying dormant for years, waiting for cheap energy supplies.

Q. You're saying that U.S. war and foreign policy have been dictated by greed?

A. Among other pleasant motivations, such as hunger for domination and control, domestically and around theglobe -- which always ties in with greed. That's why Bush&Co. play such political and military hardball.That's why the arrogant, take-no-prisoners, in-your-face attitude, to bully and frighten potential opponentsinto silence and acquiescence, even questioning their patriotism if they demur or raise embarrassing issues.

Q. But this is a democracy, people are still speaking their minds, right?