December 20–27, 2001

slant

Bush League

by Michel Chossudovsky

Pakistan’s chief spy Lt. Gen. Mahmoud Ahmad "was in the U.S. when the attacks occurred." He arrived in the U.S. on Sept. 4, a full week before the attacks. He had meetings at the State Department after the attacks on the World Trade Center. But he also had "a regular visit of consultations" with his U.S. counterparts at the CIA and the Pentagon during the week prior to Sept. 11.

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

On Sept. 9, while Ahmad was in the U.S., the leader of the Northern Alliance, Commander Ahmad Shah Masood, was assassinated. The Northern Alliance had informed the Bush administration that Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) was allegedly implicated in the assassination.

The Bush administration consciously took the decision in the post-Sept. 11 consultations with Ahmad to directly "cooperate" with Pakistan’s military intelligence despite its links to Osama bin Laden and the Taliban and its alleged role in the assassination of 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 (Oct. 7), Ahmad was sacked from his position as director general of the ISI in what was described as a routine "reshuffling."

In the days following Ahmad’s dismissal, a report published in the Times of India revealed the links between Pakistan’s chief spy Ahmad and the presumed "ringleader" of the World Trade Center 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-Presse confirms that: "The evidence we [the government of India] have supplied to the U.S. 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 article’s revelation has several implications. The Indian intelligence report not only points to the links between ISI’s 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 Sept. 11 attacks were not an act of "individual terrorism" organized by a separate al-Qaeda cell, but rather they were part of a coordinated military-intelligence operation, emanating from Pakistan’s ISI.

The Times of India report also sheds light on the nature of Ahmad’s "business activities" in the U.S. during the week prior to Sept. 11, raising the distinct possibility of ISI contacts with Mohamed Atta in the U.S. prior to the attacks on the World Trade Center, precisely at the time when Ahmad and his delegation were on a so-called "regular visit of consultations" with U.S. officials.

In assessing the alleged links between the terrorists and the ISI, it should be understood that Lt. Gen. Ahmad as head of the ISI was a "U.S.-approved appointee." As head of the ISI since 1999, he was in liaison with his U.S. 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 as 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 U.S. government, including the CIA, are also a matter of public record. The Bush administration was fully cognizant of Ahmad’s role. The Bush administration’s links with Pakistan’s ISI — including its "consultations" with Ahmad in the week prior to Sept. 11 — raise the issue of "complicity." While Ahmad was talking to U.S. officials at the CIA and the Pentagon, ISI officials were allegedly also in contact with the Sept. 11 terrorists.

What this suggests is that key individuals within the US military-intelligence establishment might have known about the ISI contacts with the Sept. 11 terrorist "ringleader" Mohamed Atta and failed to act.

Whether this amounts to the outright complicity of the Bush administration remains to be firmly established.

What is crystal clear, however, is that this war is not a "campaign against international terrorism" as claimed by the Bush administration. It is a war of conquest with devastating consequences for the future of humanity.

Michel Chossudovsky is a professor of economics at the University of Ottawa and a member of the Centre for Research on Globalisation. If you would like to respond to this Slant or have one of your own (850 words), contact Howard Altman, City Paper interim editor, 123 Chestnut St., Phila., PA 19106 or e-mail altman@citypaper.net.