FLASH: Before 9/11, the Bush Administration Curbed FBI
Anti-Terrorism Efforts, Allegedly in Order to Advance Negotiations for a
Government and Gas Pipeline in Afghanistan
In its issue of November 12, Le
Monde summarized a new book, Ben Laden: La Verite interdite (Bin
Laden: The Forbidden Truth). The book's authors, Jean-Charles Brisard and
Guillaume Dasquie, claim that the Bush administration, up until September 11,
was curbing the FBI's anti-terrorism efforts, in order to facilitate
negotiations for an enlarged Afghan government which could then revive the
Unocal pipeline project through Afghanistan.
An analysis of the book in English became available from http://www.truthout.com/11.17A.Oil.Taliban.htm.
Since then fuller summaries have appeared in the Asia Times of
November 20, and Irish
Times of November 19. The Irish
Times reports from the book that the first international arrest warrant
against bin Laden was filed in March 1998, by Qaddafi in Libya. It was ignored
by Interpol, presumably because in the mid-1990s British intelligence was
plotting in collaboration with al-Muqatila, bin Laden's Libyan terrorist group,
to assassinate Qaddafi.
Only one fragment of the book's argument has reached the mainstream US press.
Here for example is the story in the 11/12/01 New York Times, which
appears to blame the curbing on the State Department and more specifically a
U.S. Ambassador:
"A former F.B.I. antiterror official who was killed at the World Trade Center
on Sept. 11 complained bitterly last summer that the United States was unwilling
to confront Saudi Arabia over Osama bin Laden and that oil ruled American
foreign policy, according to a new book published in France.
"The former official, John P. O'Neill, was the director of antiterrorism for
the F.B.I.'s New York office when he resigned in August to become chief of
security for the twin towers. "All the answers, everything needed to dismantle
Osama bin Laden's organization can be found in Saudi Arabia," Mr. O'Neill is
quoted as saying in the new book, "Ben Laden: La Verite Interdite" ("Bin Laden:
The Forbidden Truth"), which argues that Saudi support for Mr. bin Laden has
been extensive.
"One of the book's co-authors, Jean-Charles Brisard, a security expert who
has spent several years examining Mr. bin Laden's financial empire, says in the
book that he met with Mr. O'Neill in June and July. Mr. O'Neill is quoted as
lamenting "the inability of American officials to get anything at all from King
Fahd," the ailing Saudi ruler.
"He explains the failure in one word: oil.
"In telephone interviews and e-mail exchanges, Mr. Brisard elaborated on the
book, released this week by the French publishing house Denoel.
"He said he first met Mr. O'Neill in June in Paris, where the two had dinner
with a group of French antiterror officials. Mr. Brisard had written a report
for the French intelligence services on the finances of Mr. bin Laden's Al Qaeda
organization and he gave Mr. O'Neill a copy.
"In late July, he said, they met alone in New York for drinks and dinner, and
Mr. O'Neill complained that the F.B.I. was not free to act in international
terror investigations because the State Department kept interfering.
"Mr. O'Neill, who had worked on investigations of the first World Trade
Center bombing, in 1993, and on the attacks on two American embassies in Africa
in 1998, also suggested that he would soon move to the private sector, Mr.
Brisard said.
"Mr. Brisard said his conversations with Mr. O'Neill were not interviews. He
is publicizing Mr. O'Neill's opinions as `a tribute' to a man he admired.
"Mr. O'Neill's frustrations with the State Department were not secret. He had
been leading the F.B.I.'s investigation into the bombing of the destroyer Cole
in Yemen in October 2000, but he had been barred in July from returning to Yemen
by the United States ambassador there.
"The ambassador, Barbara Bodine, complained that Mr. O'Neill and his
associates showed no sensitivity to Yemeni culture or concerns and were harming
relations between the two countries.
"After Mr. O'Neill's death in September, Yemeni officials called the F.B.I.
and offered to cooperate with their investigations, Barry W. Mawn, the assistant
director of the F.B.I., announced at Mr. O'Neill's funeral Mass.
[End of New York Times story.]
In its Opinion Journal, the Wall Street Journal of
11/15/01 also blames "Our Friends at the State Department."
Thus there has been no reporting of the core of the book's argument, as
reported by Le Monde:
"Before September 11, the Bush Administration curbed the FBI's antiterrorist
activity, because it was conducting intense negotiations with the Taliban....The
authors affirm that American diplomacy has been engaged for years in multiple
dealings with the Taliban and their neighbors...in order, essentially, to
respond to the expectations of the American petroleum companies....They show
that the negotiations were resumed, with passion, by the Bush administration,
where the petroleum lobby is at the controls."
Le Monde quotes the remarks of a former Pakistani Foreign Minister who
participated in unofficial diplomatic negotiations last July: "Once an enlarged
[Afghan] government was constituted, there would be international aid. Then the
pipeline could come."
Oil companies were blamed by O'Neill according to the truthout analysis:
"Brisard [and Dasquie] claim O'Neill told them that "the main obstacles to
investigate Islamic terrorism were U.S. oil corporate interests and the role
played by Saudi Arabia in it".
The full version of this suppressed story helps to make sense of other
stories suppressed in this country, such as the report of 11/6/01 on the BBC
that the Bush Administration stymied an FBI investigation of the Bush family's
business associates, the bin Laden family.
Or the story in France's Le Figaro and London's Guardian,
that "Two months before September 11 Osama bin Laden flew to Dubai for 10 days
for treatment at the American hospital, where he was visited by the local CIA
agent."
The oblique treatment in the U.S. press of the new book by Brisard and
Dasquie is a good example of why it is so important to keep in touch with the
press of the rest of the world. Not only do we realize that important
allegations are not being reported in this country, the news not reported helps
in many cases to define what is really central to the current campaign.
The Primary Aim of the US Mission is NOT to Get Bin Laden
In a little-noticed admission, the US combat commander in Afghanistan, Gen.
Tommy Franks, revealed to USA
Today in early November that apprehending Osama bin Laden wasn't one of the
missions of his campaign. Presumably the more urgent purpose was to weaken or
destroy the Taliban.
The need to do this was argued in a policy paper co-authored some months ago
by Zalmay Khalilzad, and published in the Winter 2000 Washington
Quarterly. Since May, Khalilzad has been President Bush's top adviser on
Afghanistan, as Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Gulf,
Southwest Asia and Other Regional Issues, National Security Council. Before that
he was an adviser to Unocal on their efforts to secure a pipeline through
Afghanistan (see above).
To quote from the summary of his article: "Acting now is essential. The
Taliban has consolidated its influence in Afghanistan over the last five years.
Soon the movement will be too strong to turn away from rogue behavior. It will
gain more influence with insurgents, terrorists, and narcotics traffickers and
spread its abusive ideology throughout the region."
Everyone who wishes to understand the case for the US campaign should read
this summary of his article, as well as a similar article in The Middle East
Quarterly by Julie Sirrs, a former analyst for the Defense Intelligence
Agency. Their arguments deserve serious consideration.
Then, for a critique of the US campaign, one should read any one of the
scathing critiques from informed sources abroad, even from our sole real ally
Great Britain. I recommend the recent article by the respected journalist Robert
Fisk in the London
Independent, 11/8/01.