Gaping
Holes in the 'CIA vs. bin Laden' Story *
Jared Israel
Below we have posted an article from the 'Times of India.' It reports
that according to the BBC program, 'Newsnight,' the
Bush administration told the FBI to back off from investigating the bin Laden
family's terrorist connections before the attack on the
According to the publication, Le Figaro, a CIA
agent visited Osama bin Laden last July. 'Figaro' reports that this meeting
took place while bin Laden was being treated in the
You may have read the article we posted a few weeks ago, with excerpts
from a congressional hearing last year on terrorism in
As more facts come to light it becomes increasingly evident that the
official story, that Osama bin Laden broke with the U.S. Establishment and its
Saudi Arabian junior partners a decade ago and has been trying to destroy the
U.S. Empire ever since - is an invention. The claim made by the Clinton and
Bush administrations, that they have tried, but unfortunately failed, to defeat
the wily Mr. bin Laden is full of holes.
Here are a few of the bigger ones.
THE GULF WAR SCENARIO
According to the official story, bin Laden broke with the Saudi and U.S.
governments over the Gulf War.
That may sound plausible to Western ears. After all, Iraq is an Arab
country and bin Laden is an Arab.
But Iraq and Saudi Arabia are quite different. Saudi Arabia was and is
tyrannized by the fanatical Fundamentalist Wahhabi
sect, endorsed by the Saudi 'royal family' and by the rich bin Laden family as
well. Iraq, by way of contrast, was a center of secular Arab culture.
Bin Laden spent the 1980s fighting a secular government (which was
backed by Soviet troops) in Afghanistan. Then he returned to Saudi Arabia
where:
"After Iraq's invasion of Kuwait he lobbied the Saudi royal family
to organize civil defense in the kingdom and to raise a force from among the
Afghan war veterans to fight Iraq." ('Pittsburgh Post-Gazette,' 23
September 2001 Sunday, Two Star Edition, pg. A-12, "How a Holy War against
the Soviets turned on US" by Ahmed Rashid)
Why did he want "to raise a force ...to fight Iraq"?
Nobody can seriously argue that the Iraqis intended to attack Saudi
Arabia. The argument between Iraq and Kuwait was over oil, and also over a
geography that was inherited from colonial times. If you look at a map you will
see that
The Iraq-Kuwait fight was in fact a local war. All reports indicate that
Saddam Hussein believed that a) Iraq was in essence being attacked by Kuwait
and that therefore an invasion would be a counter-attack and b) that the U.S.
would not intervene.
On Sept. 22, 1990, the 'N.Y. Times' published what is apparently an
accurate transcript of a conversation between Saddam Hussein and U.S.
Ambassador April Glaspie. This conversation took
place on July 25, eight days before the outbreak of fighting. We will post the Glaspie-Hussein conversation as soon as possible. It is
most interesting. In it, she suggests that the Bush administration understands
the Iraqi point of view and does not wish to meddle in an Arab dispute. For
instance, Amb. Glaspie
says:
"...we have no opinion on the Arab-Arab
conflicts, like your border disagreement with Kuwait...we see the Iraqi point
of view that the measures taken by the U.A.E. and Kuwait is, in the final
analysis, parallel to military aggression against Iraq." ('N.Y. Times, 22
September, 1990)
Since Hussein wanted to make sure of U.S. neutrality before taking
action against Kuwait, and since Saudi Arabia is Washington's key Arab ally,
with huge U.S. military bases, of which, of course, the Iraqi leaders were
aware, it is simply not conceivable that Iraq planned to attack Saudi Arabia.
Thus, bin Laden had no defensive reason to call on "the Saudi royal
family to organize civil defense in the kingdom" let alone "to raise
a force from among the Afghan war veterans to fight Iraq."
So why did he take such a provocative stance?
The most reasonable explanations are a) that he wanted to crush Iraq
because it was a secular Muslim state and b) that he was associated with the
CIA and was attempting to increase tensions between Iraq and Saudi Arabia, or
even to provoke Iraq into launching a preemptive strike against Saudi Arabia,
thus giving the U.S. an excuse to attack Iraq.
In any event, it was clear bin Laden was not upset by the notion of
fighting Iraq. Why then, according to the official story, did the Gulf War so
upset him?
The official answer is, because it involved a Saudi-U.S. alliance, which
he felt desecrated Saudi Arabia.
This is a little much to swallow. Bin laden had worked closely with U.S.
forces - namely, the Central Intelligence Agency - as the representative of the
Saudi 'royal family' in Afghanistan during the decade when the CIA nurtured
Islamist forces to fight Afghan government and Soviet troops.
He was no idealistic holy man. He and his family made a fortune off the
carnage in Afghanistan. (This is discussed below.)
Why should bin Laden suddenly go berserk because the Saudi Arabian
government was doing exactly what he himself had done - as the representative
of the Saudi Arabian government?
Because (according to the official story) the war brought tens of
thousands of U.S. troops into Saudi Arabian bases and this massive infidel
invasion desecrated Saudi Arabia's sacred soil. Horrified, he broke with the
Saudi Arabian 'royal family' and the
CONSTRUCTION BIDS ARE THICKER THAN WATER
It's a compelling story, but no cigar. The sacred soil that the U.S.
infidel soldiers supposedly desecrated was located in a series of top secret
facilities built during the 1980s by the U.S. military at a cost (mostly to
Saudi Arabia!) of - are you ready? - over 200 BILLION dollars. This was the
largest U.S. military construction project ever attempted outside the
continental USA. As a Public Television program reported in 1993:
"Scott Armstrong: A $200 billion program that's basically put
together and nobody's paying attention to it. It's-- it's the ultimate
government off the books...
"Scott Armstrong: The Saudis have been the principal backers and financers
of the largest armaments system that the world has ever seen, in any region of the
world, that includes over $95 billion worth of weapons that they bought
themselves, includes another $65 billion worth of military infrastructure and
ports that they've put in. We've managed to create an interlocking system that
has one master control base, five sub-control bases, any one of which is
capable of operating the whole thing, that are in hardened bunkers, that are
hard-wired, that is to say, against nuclear blast or anything else. They
created nine major ports that weren't there before, dozens of airfields all
over the kingdom. They have now hundreds of modern American fighter planes and
the capability of adding hundreds more. The Saudis alone have spent $156
billion that I can document line by line, item by item, on weapons system and
infrastructure to support this." (FRONTLINE Show #1112 Air Date: February
16, 1993 "The Arming of Saudi Arabia". Scott Armstrong is a top
investigative reporter for the 'Washington Post']
(For official PBS WebPage for the show, click here; for the
transcript, click here)
The contracts for building those bases, ports, and airfields went in
part to Saudi construction companies. Osama's family
company, Saudi Binladin Group (the name is spelled
differently but it's the same family) is intimate with the Saudi royal family;
moreover it is the biggest Saudi construction company (and also a giant in the
telecommunications field).
So as sure as death and taxes, Saudi Binladin
Group got a nice chunk of that $200 billion. And while the bin Ladens were building those U.S. bases, who did Osama think
was going to be using them? Martians?
DEMOLITION AND CONSTRUCTION
Getting back to the matter of construction contracts, consider what
happened after the Khobar Towers complex in Dhahran
was bombed on June 25, 1996. Osama bin Laden was accused by the U.S. of
masterminding that bombing, which killed 19 U.S. airmen and wounded about 500
others.
Afterwards, a new 'super-secure' facility was erected:
"The facility very likely is the most heavily guarded operational
installation used by the US military. This, clearly, is what retired Army Gen.
Wayne A. Downing had in mind when in 1996 he released a report criticizing
security at Khobar Towers and recommending more
extensive force protection measures.
"… In a
supreme irony, the complex was built by the giant contractor, Saudi Binladin Group -- owned by the same family that produced
international terrorist Osama bin Laden, now an outcast in his homeland."
(Air Force Magazine,
February, 1999)
'Irony' is not exactly the word I would use, but OK.
Osama did some building for the infidels in Afghanistan as well. That
was during the late 1980s. Under contract with the CIA, he and the family
company built the multi-billion dollar "caves"
(1) in which he is now, supposedly, hiding, thus causing the U.S. and Britain
to bomb the Red Cross, the Red Crescent, and other strategic military
installations:
"He brought in engineers from his father's company and heavy
construction equipment to build roads and warehouses for the Mujaheddin. In 1986, he helped build a CIA-financed tunnel
complex, to serve as a major arms storage depot, training facility and medical
center for the Mujaheddin, deep under the mountains
close to the Pakistan border."
('Pittsburgh Post-Gazette,' 23 September 2001 Sunday, Two Star Edition, pg.
A-12, "How a Holy War against the Soviets turned on US" by Ahmed
Rashid)
OH DEAR, DON'T SEND THAT AWFUL MAN TO US!
After supposedly breaking with the Saudi rulers - though we doubt the
story - bin Laden went to Sudan. Soon the Sudanese tired of his presence. In
March, 1996, Maj. Gen. Elfatih Erwa,
then the Sudanese Minister of State for Defense, offered to extradite bin Laden
either to Saudi Arabia or the United States.
"The Sudanese security services, he said, would happily keep close
watch on bin Laden for the United States. But if that would not suffice, the
government was prepared to place him in custody and hand him over, though to
whom was ambiguous. In one formulation, Erwa said
U.S. officials turned down the offer of extradition. 'The Washington
Post' article that reported this goes into some length quoting U.S. officials
attempting to explain exactly why they turned down the offer. The officials are
quoted explaining that the Saudis were afraid of a fundamentalist backlash if
they jailed and executed bin Laden, that they resented Sudan, that the U.S.
resented Sudan, that the U.S. didn't have sufficient evidence to put him on
trial. Everything, in fact, except the simplest explanation: that bin Laden was
a U.S. asset - either part of the CIA, or someone whom the CIA used. Perhaps
the 'Washington Post' writers were hinting at this explanation when they wrote:
"And there were the beginnings of a debate, intensified lately, on
whether the
Emphasis on the word 'treat' as in 'pretend that he was.'
In any case, the Sudanese offer of extradition was turned down.
"[U.S. officials] said, 'Just ask him to leave the country. Just
don't let him go to Somalia,' Erwa, the Sudanese
general, said in an interview. 'We said he will go to Afghanistan, and they [US
officials!] said, 'Let him.'"
"On May 15, 1996, Foreign Minister Taha
sent a fax to Carney in Nairobi, giving up on the transfer of custody. His
government had asked bin Laden to vacate the country, Taha
wrote, and he would be free to go." (The Washington Post,
Note: "We said he will go to Afghanistan, and they [US officials!]
said, 'Let him.'"
I find this chilling.
THAT WOULD BE ILLEGAL!
It is mind boggling that U.S. government officials would try to justify
rejecting Sudan's offer to extradite bin Laden because the Clinton
administration was 'lacking a case to indict him in U.S. courts at the time,'
('WP', 3
Oct.) Do they think Americans have no ability to remember what happened the day
before yesterday? For example, that this same U.S. government didn't hesitate
to bomb Sudan, Iraq and Yugoslavia, all of which bombings constituted the worst
criminal violations of international law? Not to mention Afghanistan.
Not to mention the Red Cross. (5)
Moreover, according to the highly reputable 'Jane's Intelligence
Review:'
"In February 1995, US authorities named bin Laden and his Saudi
brother-in-law, Mohammed Jamal Khalifa, among 172 unindicted co-conspirators with the 11 Muslims charged for
the World Trade Center bombing and the associated plot to blow up other New
York landmarks." ('Jane's Intelligence Review,' 1 October 1995)
So bin Laden had been named as an unindicted
co-conspirator a year before Sudan offered to extradite him.
Why couldn't the U.S. government have accepted the Sudanese offer to
extradite bin Laden? Why couldn't they have jailed him, gotten together their
best case and put him on trial? What exactly did the U.S. government have to
lose? The worst that could have happened would have been that they failed to
convict him and had to let him leave the country...
JUST LET HIM GO, OH, ANYWHERE. MAYBE TO - AFGHANISTAN!
Instead, the
By the way, two years later, the U.S. military bombed Sudan, supposedly
because the Sudanese government was allied with bin Laden. Doesn't it sound
like bin Laden's real friends were not in Sudan, as
President Clinton tried to convince the world when he sent cruise missiles to
destroy a Sudanese medicine factory, but in the U.S. State Department?
There is so much about bin Laden that suggests he is still in some way
associated with the CIA:
* His activities in Afghanistan prior to 1990;
* His activities on the "
* The refusal of the Clinton administration to allow Sudan to extradite
him in 1996;
* The very convincing arguments by Congressman Rohrabacher that the
* His functioning as a lightning rod for dissenters - getting people who
oppose U.S. policy to support his ultra-repressive Islamist politics. This is
discussed in the article, 'Bin Laden, Terrorist Monster.' Take Two!, which
can be read at http://emperors-clothes.com/articles/jared/taketwo.htm;
* His amazing transformation regarding the World
Trade Center attack. At first he denied involvement, saying "that
dozens of terrorists organizations from countries like Israel, Russia, India
and Serbia could be responsible" (i.e., it was the work of Satan) and
"insisted that al Qaida does not consider the
United States its enemy." But a week later he issued a video tape where he
said "God Almighty hit the United States at its most vulnerable
spot....When Almighty God rendered successful a convoy of Muslims, the
vanguards of Islam, He allowed them to destroy the United States. I ask God
Almighty to elevate their status and grant them Paradise." This latter
statement was pre-recorded and released immediately after the U.S. government
started bombing Afghanistan, that is, precisely when Mr. Bush needed the
emotional impact of just such a statement in order to 'justify' yet another
illegal war; (3)
* And now this report from the BBC that the Bush administration
suppressed investigations into connections between members of the bin Laden
family and possible terrorist groups.
Doesn't all this point to a working relationship between U.S. covert
forces and Mr. b. L?
"WE ARE DEADLY ENEMIES, SO TAKE THESE 400 TRUCKS, O CURSED
ONE!"
Earlier I said I doubted the reality of the 'break' between bin Laden
and the Saudi Royals. According to the book, "Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil
and Fundamentalism in Central Asia,'' by Ahmed Rashid, who is the Pakistan,
Afghanistan and Central Asian correspondent for the 'Far Eastern Economic
Review':
"Surprisingly, just a few weeks before the U.S. Embassy bombings in
Africa, the book tells us...'In July 1998 Prince Turki
had visited Kandahar and a few weeks later 400 new
pick-up trucks arrived in Kandahar for the Taliban,
still bearing their Dubai license plates.''' (Quoted in 'The creation called
Osama,' by Shamsul Islam. Can be read at
http://emperors-clothes.com/analysis/creat.htm
They were all, I am told, Toyotas.
FAMILY FEUDS?
One final point. Part of the official Osama story is that the elusive
Mr. bin Laden broke with his family because of his extreme Fundamentalist
religious-politics.
Really?
Let us consider a few pieces of information which might suggest we adopt
a stance of extreme skepticism:
1) "...when Osama bin Laden decided to join the non-Afghan fighters
with the Mujaheddin, his family responded
enthusiastically." ('Pittsburgh Post-Gazette,' 23 September 2001)
2) The entire family is known for its fiercely conservative Islamist (Wahhabi) views: "His father is known in these areas as
a man with deeply conservative religious and political views and for his
profound distaste for non-Islamic influences that have penetrated some of the
most remote corners of old Arabia." UPI, quoted at http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2001/1/3/214858.shtml
2) It is true that families have feuds. In the typical U.S. family, wars
may happen. People fight; they make peace.
But Osama does not come from a 'typical U.S. family.' He comes from an
intensely conservative rural Yemeni clan. Such families don't have petty fights
and stop talking to each other for ten years and then make up and it's no big
deal:
"Though he grew up in the Saudi Arabian city of Jiddah,
about 700 miles away across the Arabian peninsula, those who know him say he
retains the characteristics of the people of this remote Yemeni region:
extremely clannish and intensely conservative in their adherence to strict
forms of Islam." http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2001/1/3/214858.shtml
3) If such clans do feud, it can get violent. And certainly, it is hard
to believe that Osama would be disowned by this sort of clan-family (as the
official story claims he was) but nevertheless maintain cordial relations with
family members. Consider this report:
"[National Security] Agency officials have sometimes played tapes
of bin Laden talking to his mother to impress members of Congress and select
visitors to the agency." (quoted in 'Baltimore Sun', 24 April 2001)
And this:
"Bin Ladens building U.S. troops' housing
By Sig Christenson; Express-News Staff Writer
"Bin Laden family members have said they are estranged from their brother,
who turned against the Saudi government after joining Muslim fighters following
the Soviet Union's 1979 invasion of Afghanistan.
"But Yossef Bodansky,
director of the House Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare, said
'sama maintains connections' with some of his nearly
two dozen brothers. He would not elaborate." ('San Antonio Express-News,'
14 September 1998)
And, finally, from 'Le Figaro':
"While he was hospitalised [in the
The article from the 'Times of India' follows.
-- Jared Israel
[Correction: As originally posted, this article
included a longer quote from the 23 September 2001 'Pittsburgh Post-Gazette':
"His father backed the Afghan struggle [meaning: the U.S.-supported
terrorist war against the Afghan government] and helped fund it; when Osama bin
Laden decided to join the non-Afghan fighters with the Mujaheddin,
his family responded enthusiastically."
Since Mohammed Awad bin Laden died in 1968,
this is most likely a typographical error. It should most likely read,
"His family."]
=======================================
Bush took FBI agents
off Laden family trail
'Times of India' 7 November 2001
BY RASHMEE Z AHMED
TIMES NEWS NETWORK
LONDON: America was itself to blame for the events of September 11 because the
US administration was using "kid gloves" in tracking down Osama bin
Laden and "other fanatics linked to Saudi Arabia", a special BBC
investigation has alleged in a damning indictment of the two presidents Bush
and American foreign policy.
The report, which the BBC claimed was based on a secret FBI document, numbered
199I WF213589 and emanating out of the FBI’s Washington field office, alleged
that the cynicism of the American establishment and "connections between
the CIA and Saudi Arabia and the Bush men and bin Ladens"
may have been the real cause of the deaths of thousands in the World Trade
Centre attacks.
The investigation, which featured in the BBC’s leading current affairs programme, Newsnight, said the
FBI was told to "back off" investigating one of Osama bin Laden’s brothers, Abdullah, who was linked to "the
Saudi-funded World Association of Muslim Youth (WAMY), a suspected terrorist organisation," whose accounts have still not frozen by
the US treasury despite "being banned by Pakistan some weeks ago and India
claiming it was linked to an organisation involved in
bombing in Kashmir".
Newsnight said there was a long history of
"shadowy" American connections with Saudi Arabia, not least the two
presidents Bush’s "business dealings" with the bin Ladens and another more insidious link revealed by the
former head of the American visa section in Jeddah.
The official said he had been concerned about visas issued to large numbers of
"unqualified" men "with no family links or any links with
America or Saudi Arabia", only to find out later that it "was not
visa fraud" but part of a scheme in which young men "recruited by
Osama bin Laden" were being sent for "terrorist training by the
CIA" after which they were sent on to Afghanistan.
In a reiteration of a now well-known claim by one of George W Bush’s former
business partners, the BBC said he made his first million 20 years ago on the
back of a company financed by Osama’s elder brother,
Salem. But it added the more disturbing assertion that both presidents Bush had
lucrative stakes along with the bin Ladens in Carlyle
Corporation, a small private company which has gone on to become one of
America's biggest defence contractors. The bin Ladens sold their stake in Carlyle soon after September 11,
it said.
American politicians later told the BBC programme
that they rejected the accusation that the establishment had called the dogs of
the intelligence agencies off the bin Ladens and the
royal House of Saud because of a strategic interest
in Saudi Arabia, which has the world's biggest oil reserve.
(c) 'Times of
Original Story:
http://www.timesofindia.com/articleshow.asp?art_id=1030259305
Other stories on the BBC Newsnight
report:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4293682,00.html
http://www.hindustantimes.com/nonfram/071101/dlame43.asp
=======================================
***********************
Further
***********************
1) 'Taliban Camps U.S. bombed in Afghanistan
Were Built by NATO'. Based
on 'N.Y. Times' article. Can be read at http://emperors-clothes.com/docs/camps.htm
2) 'Bin Laden in the Balkans.' Mainstream news reports that confirm bin Laden's
support for terrorism - and, alas, for the '
3) "'Bin Laden, Terrorist Monster.' Take Two!," by Jared Israel. Can be read at http://emperors-clothes.com/articles/jared/taketwo.htm
4) 'Congressman: U.S. Set Up
Anti-Taliban to be Slaughtered'
Comments by Jared Israel followed by excerpts from congressional hearing. Can
be read at http://emperors-clothes.com/misc/rohr.htm
(Full transcript of hearings can be read at http://emperors-clothes.com/misc/rohrfull.htm )
(5) 'Red Cross Spokesmen Refute Pentagon
Lies'. An Interview by
Emperor's Clothes with the Red Cross about the
6) 'CIA AGENT ALLEGEDLY MET BIN LADEN IN
JULY' . Translation of article from 'Le Figaro' can be read at http://emperors-clothes.com/misc/lefigaro.htm)
* Published by Emperors Clothes,
Cuestiones
de América Nº 6, Noviembre de 2001
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