If 3,000 people had not died on September 11, 2001, a report released by the CIA’s inspector general would be laughable. “A CIA report released Tuesday blames the top leadership of the agency for major lapses in fighting al-Qaida and outlines how intelligence officials missed numerous opportunities to thwart two hijackers prior to the Sept. 11 attacks,” reports NBC. “The 19-page executive summary, written by the CIA’s inspector general, finds extensive fault with the actions of former director George Tenet and other CIA leaders.”
And what, pray tell, are these “major lapses” in “fighting al-Qaida,” the mostly smoke and mirrors terrorist organization named after a mujahideen database?
“Tenet and the agencies under his supervision lacked a comprehensive strategic plan to counter al-Qaida prior to Sept. 11.” In fact, as Dan Rather reported, Osama was admitted to a Pakistani hospital on September 10, 2001. “If the CBS report by Dan Rather is accurate and Osama had indeed been admitted to the Pakistani military hospital on September 10, 2001, courtesy of America’s ally, he was in all likelihood still in hospital in Rawalpindi on the 11th of September, when the attacks occurred,” writes Michel Chossudovsky, citing mainstream news reports. “In all probability, his whereabouts were known to US officials on the morning of September 12, when Secretary of State Colin Powell initiated negotiations with Pakistan, with a view to arresting and extraditing bin Laden.” In the months leading up to Osama’s hospital visit, the CIA head of station at the American Hospital in Dubai, UAE, paid Osama a visit. Le Figaro reported:
Dubai… was the backdrop of a secret meeting between Osama bin Laden and the local CIA agent in July [2001]. A partner of the administration of the American Hospital in Dubai claims that “public enemy number one” stayed at this hospital between the 4th and 14th of July. While he was hospitalized, bin Laden received visits from many members of his family as well as prominent Saudis and Emiratis. During the hospital stay, the local CIA agent, known to many in Dubai, was seen taking the main elevator of the hospital to go [up] to bin Laden’s hospital room. A few days later, the CIA man bragged to a few friends about having visited bin Laden. Authorized sources say that on July 15th, the day after bin Laden returned to Quetta [Pakistan], the CIA agent was called back to headquarters. In the pursuit of its investigations, the FBI discovered “financing agreements” that the CIA had been developing with its “Arab friends” for years. The Dubai meeting is, so it would seem, within the logic of “a certain American policy.’”
Of course, we are not supposed to know about this “certain American policy,” although it is common knowledge, at least to readers of Le Figaro and the London Times.
The CIA would have us believe Tenet and “other CIA leaders” were clueless—and maybe they were. However, as Chossudovsky noted in November, 2003, the hospital mentioned above “is directly under the jurisdiction of the Pakistani Armed Forces, which has close links to the Pentagon. U.S. military advisers based in Rawalpindi. work closely with the Pakistani Armed Forces. Again, no attempt was made to arrest America’s best known fugitive, but then maybe bin Laden was serving another ‘better purpose’. Rumsfeld claimed at the time that he had no knowledge regarding Osama’s health…. Needless to say, the CBS report is a crucial piece of information in the 9/11 jigsaw. It refutes the administration’s claim that the whereabouts of bin Laden are unknown. It points to a Pakistan connection, it suggests a cover-up at the highest levels of the Bush administration.”
But, for the neocons, ever aware of the feeblemindedness of the average American (except when it comes to football scores), such refutations are less than meaningless, as such a “report” can be splashed across corporate media headlines and few challenge the bankrupt and wholly transparent premise that the CIA was out to lunch on September 11, 2001. In fact, the CIA was squarely in the driver’s seat.
Moreover, if the CIA was indeed interested in hunting down and smoking out Osama and his dour cave-dwelling patsy terrorists, they may have asked General Mahmoud Ahmad, head of Pakistan’s military intelligence, the ISI—responsible, at the behest of the CIA, for creating “al-Qaeda” in the first place—as he was in Washington at the time of the attacks, brunching it up with then Republican Congress critter Porter Goss and Democratic critter Bob Graham. It is said they were discussing Osama. In fact, as the Guardian reported at the time, Ahmad had a bagman, one Omar Sheikh, deliver $100,000 to Mohammed Atta, or somebody who claimed to be Atta.
Small world, no?
Sure it is—and I have a bridge in Brooklyn you might be interested in purchasing.
