The following is mirrored from its source at:
http://globalresearch.ca/articles/CHO111A.html
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Cover-up or Complicity of the Bush Administration?
The Role of Pakistan's Military Intelligence (ISI) in the September 11 Attacks

by Michel Chossudovsky
Professor of Economics, University of Ottawa
Centre for Research on Globalisation (CRG), Montréal
Posted at globalresearch.ca, 2 November 2001

Contents

* Summary

* Complete Text

* "The ISI-Osama-Taliban Axis"

* The Bush Administration Cooperates
with Pakistan's Military-Intelligence

* From The Horse's Mouth

* Behind Close Doors at the State Department

* Former Iran-Contragate Officials Call the Shots

* Pakistan's Chief Spy on Mission to Afghanistann

* "The Missing Link"

* Pakistan's Military-Intelligence Agency
behind September 11?

* US Approved Appointee

* Corroborated by Congressional Transcripts

* Cover-up and Complicity?

* Notes

* Related CRG articles and documents

Summary

Pakistan's chief spy Lt. General Mahmoud Ahmad "was in the US when
the attacks occurred." He arrived in the US on the 4th of
September, a full week before the attacks. He had meetings at the
State Department "after" the attacks on the WTC. But he also had
"a regular visit of consultations" with his US counterparts at the
CIA and the Pentagon during the week prior to September 11.

What was the nature of these routine "pre-September 11
consultations"? Were they in any way related to the subsequent
"post-September 11 consultations" pertaining to Pakistan's
decision to cooperate with Washington. Was the planning of war
being discussed between Pakistani and US officials?

On the 9th of September while General Ahmad was in the US, the
leader of the Northern Alliance Commander Ahmad Shah Masood was
assassinated. The Northern Alliance had informed the Bush
Administration that the ISI was allegedly implicated in the
assassination.

The Bush Administration consciously took the decision in "the post
September 11 consultations" with Lt. General Mahmoud Ahmad to
directly "cooperate" with Pakistan's military intelligence (ISI)
despite its links to Osama bin Laden and the Taliban and its
alleged role in the assassination of Commander Masood, which
coincidentally occurred two days before the terrorist attacks.

Meanwhile, senior Pentagon and State Department officials had been
rushed to Islamabad to put the finishing touches on America's war
plans. And on the Sunday prior to the onslaught of the bombing of
major cities in Afghanistan (October 7th), Lt. General Mahmoud
Ahmad was sacked from his position as head of the ISI in what was
described as a routine "reshuffling."

In the days following General Ahmad's dismissal, a report
published in the Times of India, revealed the links between
Pakistan's Chief spy Lt. General Mahmoud Ahmad and the presumed
"ring leader" of the WTC attacks Mohamed Atta. The Times of India
article was based on an official intelligence report of the Delhi
government that had been transmitted through official channels to
Washington. Quoting an Indian government source Agence France
Press (AFP) confirms in this regard that: "The evidence we [the
Government of India] have supplied to the US is of a much wider
range and depth than just one piece of paper linking a rogue
general to some misplaced act of terrorism."

The revelation of the Times of India article has several
implications. The Indian intelligence report not only points to
the links between ISI Chief General Ahmad and terrorist ringleader
Mohamed Atta, it also indicates that other ISI officials might
have had contacts with the terrorists. Moreover, it suggests that
the September 11 attacks were not an act of "individual terrorism"
organised by a separate Al Qaeda cell, but rather they were part
of coordinated military-intelligence operation, emanating from
Pakistan's ISI.

The Times of India report also sheds light on the nature of
General Ahmad's "business activities" in the US during the week
prior to September 11, raising the distinct possibility of ISI
contacts with Mohamed Atta in the US "prior" to the attacks on the
WTC, precisely at the time when General Mahmoud and his delegation
were on a so-called "regular visit of consultations" with US
officials.

In assessing the alleged links between the terrorists and the ISI,
it should be understood that Lt. General Ahmad as head of the ISI
was a "US approved appointee". As head of the ISI since 1999, he
was in liaison with his US counterparts in the CIA, the Defense
Intelligence Agency (DIA) and the Pentagon. Also bear in mind that
Pakistan's ISI remained throughout the entire post Cold War era
until the present, the launch-pad for CIA covert operations in the
Caucasus, Central Asia and the Balkans.

The existence of an "ISI-Osama-Taliban axis" was a matter of
public record. The links between the ISI and agencies of the US
government including the CIA are also a matter of public record.
The Bush Administration was fully cognizant of Lt. General Ahmad's
role. In other words, rather than waging a campaign against
international terrorism, the evidence would suggest that it is
indirectly abetting international terrorism, using the Pakistani
ISI as a "go-between".

The Bush Administration's links with Pakistan's ISI -- including
its "consultations" with General Ahmad in the week prior to
September 11 -- raise the issue of "complicity". While Ahmad was
talking to US officials at the CIA and the Pentagon, ISI officials
were allegedly also in contact with the September 11 terrorists.

In other words, according to the Indian government intelligence
report, the perpetrators of the September 11 attacks had links to
Pakistan's ISI, which in turn has links to agencies of the US
government. What this suggests is that key individuals within the
US military-intelligence establishment might have known about the
ISI contacts with the September 11 terrorist "ring-leader" Mohamed
Atta and failed to act.

Whether this amounts to the complicity of the Bush Administration
remains to be firmly established. The least one can expect at this
stage is an inquiry. What is crystal clear, however, is that this
war is not a "campaign against international terrorism". It is a
war of conquest with devastating consequences for the future of
humanity. And the American people have been consciously and
deliberately misled by their government. Whether this amounts to
the complicity of the Bush Administration remains to be firmly
established.

Ultimately the truth must prevail. The falsehoods behind America's
war against the people of Afghanistan must be unveiled.

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Complete Text

Two days after the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Centre and
the Pentagon, a delegation led by the head of Pakistan's military
intelligence agency (ISI) Lt. Gen. Mahmoud Ahmed, was in
Washington for high level talks at the State Department.[1]

Most US media conveyed the impression that Islamabad had put
together a delegation at Washington's behest, and that the
invitation to the meeting had been transmitted to the Pakistan
government "after" the tragic events of September 11.

But this is not what happened!

Pakistan's chief spy Lt. General Mahmoud Ahmad "was in the US when
the attacks occurred."[2] According to the New York Times, "he
happened to be here on a regular visit of consultations."[3]

Not a word was mentioned regarding the nature of his "business" in
the US in the week prior to the terrorist attacks. According to
Newsweek, he was "on a visit to Washington at the time of the
attack, and, like most other visitors, is still stuck there,"
unable to return home because of the freeze on international
airline travel.[4]

General Ahmad had in fact arrived in the US on the 4th of
September, a full week before the attacks.[5] Bear in mind that
the purpose of his meeting at the State Department on the 13th was
only made public "after" the September 11 terrorist attacks, when
the Bush Administration took the decision to formally seek the
"cooperation" of Pakistan in its "campaign against international
terrorism."

The press reports confirm that Lt. General Mahmoud Ahmad had two
meetings with Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage,
respectively on the 12th and 13th.[6] After September 11, he also
met Senator Joseph Biden, chairman of the powerful Committee on
Foreign Relations of the Senate.

Confirmed by several press reports, however, he also had "a
regular visit of consultations" with US officials during the week
prior to September 11, -- i.e. meetings with his US counterparts
at the CIA and the Pentagon.[7]

What was the nature of these routine "consultations"? Were they in
any way related to the subsequent "post-September 11
consultations" pertaining to Pakistan's decision to cooperate with
Washington, held behind closed doors at the State Department on
September 12 and 13? Was the planning of war being discussed
between Pakistani and US officials?

"The ISI-Osama-Taliban Axis"

On the 9th of September, the leader of the Northern Alliance
Commander Ahmad Shah Masood was assassinated. The Northern
Alliance had informed the Bush Administration that the ISI was
allegedly implicated in the assassination: The Northern Alliance
had confirmed in an official statement that:

a `Pakistani ISI-Osama-Taliban axis' [was responsible]
of plotting the assassination by two Arab suicide
bombers.... `We believe that this is a triangle between
Osama bin Laden, ISI, which is the intelligence section
of the Pakistani army, and the Taliban,'[8]

More generally, the complicity of the ISI in the
"ISI-Osama-Taliban axis" was a matter of public record, confirmed
by congressional transcripts and numerous intelligence reports.[9]

The Bush Administration Cooperates with Pakistan's
Military-Intelligence

The Bush Administration consciously took the decision in "the post
September 11 consultations" at the State Department to directly
"cooperate" with Pakistan's military intelligence (ISI) despite
its links to Osama bin Laden and the Taliban and its alleged role
in the assassination of Commander Masood, which coincidentally
occurred two days before the terrorist attacks.

Meanwhile, the Western media -- in the face of mounting evidence
-- had remained silent on the insidious role of Pakistan's
Military Intelligence agency (ISI). The assassination of Masood
was mentioned, but its political significance in relation to
September 11 and the subsequent decision to go to war against
Afghanistan, was barely touched upon.

Without discussion or debate, Pakistan had been heralded as a
"friend" and ally of America.

In an utterly twisted logic, the US media had concluded in chorus
that:

US officials had sought cooperation from Pakistan
[precisely] because it is the original backer of the
Taliban, the hard-line Islamic leadership of Afghanistan
accused by Washington of harboring bin Laden.[10]

From The Horse's Mouth

Nobody seemed to have noticed the obtrusive and unsubtle
falsehoods behind the Administration's "campaign against
international terrorism", with perhaps the exception of an
inquisitive journalist who questioned Colin Powell at the outset
of his State department briefing on Thursday September 13th:

[Does] the U.S. [see] Pakistan as an ally or, as the
"Patterns of Global Terrorism" pointed out, a place
where terrorist groups get training. Or is it a
mixture?"[11]

"Patterns of Global Terrorism" referred by the journalist (at
http://www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/pgtrpt/2000/) is a publication of
the US State Department which confirms that the government of
President Pervez Musharraf has links to international terrorism:

The United States remains concerned about reports of
continued Pakistani support for the Taliban's military
operations in Afghanistan. Credible reporting indicates
that Pakistan is providing the Taliban with materiel,
fuel, funding, technical assistance, and military
advisers. Pakistan has not prevented large numbers of
Pakistani nationals from moving into Afghanistan to
fight for the Taliban. Islamabad also failed to take
effective steps to curb the activities of certain
madrassas, or religious schools, that serve as
recruiting grounds for terrorism.[12]

Behind Close Doors at the State Department

The Bush Administration had sought the "cooperation" of those, who
were directly supporting and abetting the terrorists. Absurd, but
at the same time consistent with Washington's broader strategic
and economic objectives in Central Asia.

The meeting behind closed doors at the State Department on
September 13 between Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage
and Lt. General Mahmoud Ahmad was shrouded in secrecy. Remember
President Bush was not even involved in these crucial
negotiations:

"Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage handed over [to ISI
chief Mahmoud Ahmad] a list of specific steps Washington wanted
Pakistan to take".[13] "After a telephone conversation between
[Secretary of State Colin] Powell and Pakistani President Pervez
Musharraf, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said
Pakistan had promised to cooperate."[14] President George W. Bush
later confirmed (also on the morning of September 13th) that the
Pakistan government had accepted "to cooperate and to participate
as we hunt down those people who committed this unbelievable,
despicable act on America".[15]

Former Iran-Contragate Officials Call the Shots

Bear in mind that Richard Armitage had served as Assistant
Secretary of Defense for International Security under the Reagan
Administration. "He worked closely with Oliver North and was
involved in the Iran-contra arms smuggling scandal."[16]

In many regards, the pattern of Bush Junior appointments replicate
the Iran-Contragate team of the Reagan and Bush senior
administrations:

The same kind of appointments are being made in foreign
policy. Bush has been choosing people from the most
dubious part of the Republican stable of the 1980s,
those engaged in the Iran-Contra affair... Armitage
served as Assistant Secretary of Defense for
International Security Affairs in the Reagan years, but
a 1989 appointment in the elder Bush administration was
withdrawn before hearings because of controversy over
Iran-Contra and other scandals.[17]

Armitage was one of the main architects behind US covert support
to the Mujahedin and the "militant Islamic base, both during the
Afghan-Soviet war as well as in its aftermath. US covert support
was financed by the Golden Crescent drug trade.

This pattern has not been fundamentally altered. It still
constitutes an integral part of US foreign policy by the Bush
Administration and the basis of CIA covert operations.

Pakistan's Chief Spy on Mission to Afghanistan

On September 13th, Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf confirmed
that he would send chief spy Lt. General Mahmoud Ahmad to meet the
Taliban and negotiate the extradition of Osama bin Laden. This
decision was at Washington's behest, most probably agreed upon
during the meeting between Dick Armitage and General Mahmoud at
the State Department.

Pakistan's chief spy is rapidly whisked back from Washington to
Islamabad:

At American urging, Ahmed traveled ... to Kandahar,
Afghanistan. There he delivered the bluntest of demands.
Turn over bin Laden without conditions, he told Taliban
leader Mohammad Omar, or face certain war with the
United States and its allies.[18]

Mahmoud's meetings on two separate missions with the Taliban were
reported as a "failure." Yet this "failure" to extradite Osama was
part of Washington's design, providing a pretext for a military
intervention which was already in the pipeline. If Osama had been
extradited, the main justification for waging a war "against
international terrorism" would no longer hold. And the evidence
suggests that this war had been planned well in advance of
September 11, in response to broad strategic and economic
objectives.

Meanwhile, senior Pentagon and State Department officials had been
rushed to Islamabad to put the finishing touches on America's war
plans. And on Sunday prior to the onslaught of the bombing of
major cities in Afghanistan by the US Air Force (October 7th), Lt.
General Mahmoud Ahmad was sacked from his position as head of the
ISI in what was described as a routine "reshuffling."

"The Missing Link"

In the days following Lt. General Mahmoud Ahmad's dismissal, a
report published in the Times of India, which went virtually
unnoticed by the Western media, revealed the links between
Pakistan's Chief spy Lt. General Mahmoud Ahmad and the presumed
"ring leader" of the WTC attacks Mohamed Atta. In many regards,
the Times of India report constitutes "the missing link" to an
understanding of who was behind the terrorist attacks of September
11:

While the Pakistani Inter Services Public Relations
claimed that former ISI director-general Lt-Gen Mahmoud
Ahmad sought retirement after being superseded on Monday
[8 October], the day the US started bombing
Afghanistan], the truth is more shocking.

Top sources confirmed here on Tuesday [October 9], that
the general lost his job because of the "evidence" India
produced to show his links to one of the suicide bombers
that wrecked the World Trade Centre. The US authorities
sought his removal after confirming the fact that
$100,000 were wired to WTC hijacker Mohammed Atta from
Pakistan by Ahmad Umar Sheikh at the instance of Gen.
Mahmoud.

Senior government sources have confirmed that India
contributed significantly to establishing the link
between the money transfer and the role played by the
dismissed ISI chief. While they did not provide details,
they said that Indian inputs, including Sheikh's mobile
phone number, helped the FBI in tracing and establishing
the link.

A direct link between the ISI and the WTC attack could
have enormous repercussions. The US cannot but suspect
whether or not there were other senior Pakistani Army
commanders who were in the know of things. Evidence of a
larger conspiracy could shake US confidence in
Pakistan's ability to participate in the anti-terrorism
coalition.[19]

According to FBI files, Mohamed Atta was "the lead hijacker of the
first jet airliner to slam into the World Trade Center and,
apparently, the lead conspirator".[20]

The Times of India article was based on an official intelligence
report of the Delhi government that had been transmitted through
official channels to Washington. Agence France Press (AFP)
confirms in this regard that:

A highly-placed government source told AFP that the
"damning link" between the General and the transfer of
funds to Atta was part of evidence which India has
officially sent to the US. `The evidence we have
supplied to the US is of a much wider range and depth
than just one piece of paper linking a rogue general to
some misplaced act of terrorism,' the source said.[21]

Pakistan's Military-Intelligence Agency behind September 11?

The revelation of the Times of India article has several
implications. The report not only points to the links between ISI
Chief General Ahmad and terrorist ringleader Mohamed Atta, it also
indicates that other ISI officials might have had contacts with
the terrorists. Moreover, it suggests that the September 11
attacks were not an act of "individual terrorism" organised by a
separate Al Qaeda cell, but rather they were part of coordinated
military-intelligence operation, emanating from Pakistan's ISI.

The Times of India report also sheds light on the nature of
General Ahmad's "business activities" in the US during the week
prior to September 11, raising the distinct possibility of ISI
contacts with Mohamed Atta in the US in the week "prior" to the
attacks on the WTC, precisely at the time when General Mahmoud and
his delegation were on a so-called "regular visit of
consultations" with US officials. Remember, Lt. General Mahmoud
Ahmad arrived in the US on the 4th of September.

US Approved Appointee

In assessing the alleged links between the terrorists and the ISI,
it should be understood that Lt. General Mahmoud Ahmad as head of
the ISI was a "US approved appointee". As head of the ISI since
1999, he was in liaison with his US counterparts in the CIA, the
Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) and the Pentagon. Also bear in
mind that Pakistan's ISI remained throughout the entire post Cold
War era until the present, the launch pad for CIA covert
operations in the Caucasus, Central Asia and the Balkans.[22]

In other words, General Mahmoud Ahmad as head of the ISI was
serving US foreign policy interests. His dismissal on the orders
of Washington was not the result of a fundamental political
disagreement. Without US support channeled through the Pakistani
ISI, the Taliban would not have been able to form a government in
1996. Jane's Defense Weekly confirms in this regard that "half of
Taliban manpower and equipment originate[d] in Pakistan under the
ISI," which in turn was supported by the US.[23] Moreover, the
assassination of the leader of the Northern Alliance General Ahmad
Shah Masood -- in which the ISI is alleged to have been implicated
-- was not in contradiction with US foreign policy objectives.
Since the late 1980s, the US had consistently sought to side-track
and weaken Masood who was perceived as a nationalist reformer, by
providing support to both to the Taliban and the Hezb-I-Islami
group led by Gulbuddin Hektmayar against Masood.

Corroborated by Congressional Transcripts

Corroborated by the House of Representatives International
Relations Committee, US support funneled through the ISI to the
Taliban and Osama bin Laden has been a consistent policy of the US
Administration since the end of the Cold War:

...[T]he United States has been part and parcel to
supporting the Taliban all along, and still is let me
add... You have a military government [of President
Musharraf] in Pakistan now that is arming the Taliban to
the teeth....Let me note; that [US] aid has always gone
to Taliban areas... We have been supporting the Taliban,
because all our aid goes to the Taliban areas. And when
people from the outside try to put aid into areas not
controlled by the Taliban, they are thwarted by our own
State Department... At that same moment, Pakistan
initiated a major resupply effort, which eventually saw
the defeat, and caused the defeat, of almost all of the
anti-Taliban forces in Afghanistan.[24]

Cover-up and Complicity?

The existence of an "ISI-Osama-Taliban axis" is a matter of public
record. The links between the ISI and agencies of the US
government including the CIA are also a matter of public record.

Pakistan's ISI has been used by successive US adminstrations as "a
go-between." Pakistan's military-intelligence apparatus,
constitutes the core institutional support to both Osama's Al
Qaeda and the Taliban. Without this institutional support, there
would be no Taliban government in Kabul. In turn, without the
unbending support of the US government. there would be no powerful
military-intelligence apparatus in Pakistan.

Senior officials in the State Department were fully cognizant of
General Mahmoud Ahmad's role. In the wake of September 11, the
Bush Administration consciously sought the "cooperation" of the
ISI which had been supporting and abetting Osama bin Laden and the
Taliban.

In other words, the Bush Administration's relations with
Pakistan's ISI -- including its "consultations" with General
Mahmoud Ahmad in the week prior to September 11 -- raise the issue
of "cover-up" as well as "complicity". While Ahmad was talking to
US officials at the CIA and the Pentagon, the ISI allegedly had
contacts with the September 11 terrorists.

According to the Indian government intelligence report (referred
to in the Times of India), the perpetrators of the September 11
attacks had links to Pakistan's ISI, which in turn has links to
agencies of the US government. What this suggests is that key
individuals within the US military-intelligence establishment
might have known about ISI contacts with the September 11
terrorist "ring-leader" Mohamed Atta and failed to act.

Ultimately the truth must prevail. The falsehoods behind America's
war against the people of Afghanistan must be unveiled.

Notes

1. The Guardian, 15 September 2001.

2. Reuters, 13 September 2001.

3. The New York Times, 13 September 2001.

4. Newsweek, 14 September 2001.

5. The Daily Telegraph, London, 14 September 2001,

6. The New York Times, September 13th 2001 confirms the meeting
on the 12th of September

7. The New York Times, 13 September 2001.

8. The Northern Alliance's statement was released on 14
September 2001, quoted in Reuters 15 September 2001.

9. For further details see Michel Chossudovsky, "Osamagate",
Centre for Research on Globalisation (CRG), at
globalresearch.ca, October 2001.

10. Reuters, 13 September 2001.

11. Journalist's question to Secretary of State Colin Powell,
State Department Briefing, 13 September 2001.
http://www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2001/4910.htm

12. US State Department, "Patterns of Global Terrorism", State
Department, http://www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/pgtrpt/2000/,
Washington 2000.

13. Reuters, 13 September 2001

14. Ibid.

15. Presidential Papers, Remarks in a Telephone Conversation With
New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and New York Governor
George Pataki and an Exchange With Reporters, 13 September
2001.

16. The Guardian, 15 September 2001.
[See Also: "Secret Agent Man, Iran-Contra operative Richard
Armitage is now Colin Powell's No. 2", by Jim Naureckas, In
These Times, 5 Mar 2001, "Players on a rigged grand
chessboard: Bridas, Unocal and the Afghanistan pipeline," by
Larry Chin, Online Journal, 6 Mar 2002 --ratitor]

17. United Press International, Face-off: Bush's foreign policy
warriors,by Peter Roff and James Chapin, UPI, 18 July 2001.

18. The Washington Post, 23 September 2001.

19. The Times of India, Delhi, 9 October 2001, at
http://www.timesofindia.com/articleshow.asp?catkey=-2128936835&art_id=1454238160&sType=1
local copy of above article

20. The Weekly Standard, Vol. 7, No 7, October 2001.

21. AFP, 10 October 2001

22. For further details see Michel Chossudovsky, Who is Osama bin
Laden, Centre for Research on Globalisation, 12 September
2001

23. Quoted in the Christian Science Monitor, 3 September 1998.

24. US House of Representatives: Statement by Rep. Dana
Rohrbacher, Hearing of The House International Relations
Committee on "Global Terrorism And South Asia", Washington,
July 12, 2000.

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