Terrible 9-11

Post-mortem finds shambolic transition of Government to blame

IN the first week of January 2001, outgoing President Bill Clinton’s National Security Adviser Sandy Berger convened an important meeting in the White House to discuss ways and means, so that the transition from Clinton to Bush Administration could take place as smoothly as possible. In that meeting, Berger handed over a file containing ten briefings to his successor Condolezza Rice and her deputy Stephen Hadley, and one of those briefings dealt with the threat posed by international Islamic terrorism, especially by Al-Qaeda. This most important briefing was prepared by Richard Clarke, a bureaucrat who had served the first Bush Administration and later on became the chief authority on Islamic terrorism in the White House during the Clinton era.

In fact, Clarke has served four Presidents in succession, both Democrat and Republican and from the very beginning of the Clinton Administration; the task of dealing with terrorism was entrusted to him. At present, he is serving the Bush Administration as the head of the cyber-terrorism cell. Since the bombing of the warship USS Cole in Yemen on October 12, 2000, an attack that killed 17 Americans, Clarke had been to combat Al-Qaeda, and nearly two months later, he prepared a plan and pressure that to Berger, his boss. But Berger shelved the plan, as he had to leave his office within a few months, along with the outgoing President Bill Clinton.

When the Bush Administration was about to take its office, Berger handed over the file containing Clarke’s plan to Condolezza Rice, as mentioned above. But Rice, to cover the guilt of the Bush Administration, later denied that Clarke’s plan suggested launching a major attack on Al-Qaeda. “Clarke’s proposal merely dealt with whether the new Bush Administration should take a more active approach against Al-Qaeda”, says Rice.

But, in fact, Clarke’s proposal, which was terribly ignored by the Bush Administration, called for breaking up all probable Al-Qaeda cells in the US, arresting all its suspected members, freezing its assets and blocking each and every channel of inflow of funds, including funding from fake charitable institutions in Saudi Arabia and the Middle East. The proposal also recommended helping nations like Uzbekistan, Philippines, Yemen and Afghanistan, who were either victims of Islamic extremism or troubled by Al-Qaeda. Most importantly, the proposal recommended a substantial increase in military and financial help to the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan, led by Ahmed Shah Masood, the only force that could strike major attacks on the Al-Qaeda terror training camps in that country and capture Osama bin Laden, who was being protected by the radial Taliban regime. It also suggested air strikes on bin Laden’s training camps by US bombers. The cost for implementing the plan was estimated to be a few hundreds of millions of dollars.

The Bush Administration took office in January 20, 2001, and Clarke’s proposal was placed before the decision-makers four months later, in April, who took another four months to go through the contents and make it ready for President’s approval. These long eight months of inaction virtually killed the proposal. “Clarke’s proposal became a victim of the transition process and no other great power handle the transition from one government to another in so shambolic a way as the US”, says a Clinton Administration official. “ New appointments take month to be confirmed by the Senate. The fight against terrorism was one of the casualties of these transition process”, he adds. “If we had not had a transition”, says another official, “probably in the late October or early November, 2000, we would had have the plan to go on to the offensive as Presidential directive.”

After assuming office, the Bush Administration chose to initiate its own policy review process regarding the terrorist threat, and decided to attack Al-Qaeda outside the USA. While the new Administration was busy with its planning, Mohammad Atta and Marwan al- Shehhi and some other members of the terrorist cell in Hamburg, Germany, were living in Florida and having their lessons in flight schools. Other terrorist like Nawaf Alhazmi and Khalid Almihdhar had been doing the same in the flight schools in South California. The Northern Alliance was desperate for help but got little of it. On the contrary, an aggressive and prompt campaign to dismantle the terrorist network worldwide and for blocking the financial and logistical support, as suggested by the Clarke’s proposal, could have rendered it impossible for the terrorists to carry out the September 11 attacks. Most unfortunately, Clarke’s proposal was Okayed by the police-makers at last on September 4; just a week earlier the disaster took place.

Since the bombing of the warship USS Code in Yemen on October 12, 2000, Richard Clarke, a bureaucrat in the first Bush Administration and later the chief authority on Islamic terrorism in the White House during the Clintons era, prepared an aggressive plan to combat Al Qaeda and presented that to Bill Clinton’s National Security Adviser Sandy Berger, his boss. But Berger shelved the plan, as he had to leave his office within a few months, along with the outgoing President Bill Clinton.

As soon as the transition of Governments was completed, an aggressive Clarke was constantly pursuing the Bush Administration to take the terror threat as seriously as he did. But other topic received far more attention to the new government. The entire Bush national security team was obsessed with setting up a national system of missile defence and thus reviving the highly controversial star was programme, which was abandoned by the Clinton Administration. “Terrorism was not on their plate of key issues”, says a disgusted Clarke. “ Al-Qaeda had not been a feature of the landscape when the Republicans left office in 1993”, says a Clinton Administration officials, “and hence they were reluctant to put due importance to the problem of terrorism. So when Clarke continued his warnings, Bush team thought that the Clintonites had become obsessed with terrorism”. “ The new Administration practically dismissed the issue of terrorist threat”, says a Clinton aide. During that period of indecision, only a handful of people lice Rice, Hadley and the Vice-President Dick Cheney were o9n Clarke’s side.

The role played by both CIA and FBI in dealing with terrorism was also highly controversial. For example, after the bombing of the USS Cole, the Secretive Joint Special Operation Command at Front Bragg, North Carolina, made a plan to have a Delta Force squad into Afghanistan and grab bin Laden. But the official of CIA and FBI could not officially conclude that bin Laden was behind the bombing and this prevented Bill Clinton to release the final order to go ahead. But for Clarke the incident was sufficient for launching an all-out war against Al-Qaeda, and at the same time, giving resources to the Northern Alliance to develop it into a visible fighting force and stopping all assistance to Pakistan for helping the Taliban region & Clarke’s target was to employ we Northern Alliance to crush “AL- Qaeda training camps on Afghanistan.

Another suggestion of Clarke was to make use of the Predator, a pilot-less flying machine to gather intelligence about the movement of bin Laden in September 2000, CIA flew it over Afghanistan and the results of this first attempt was quite encouraging. The videotape showed a man who could be bin Laden. But in October, it crashed and, in fact, another Predator did not fly again before September 11. Thereafter, a new predator armed with laser guided Hell-Fire missile, was decided to be used but the plan was dropped in the wake of transition of governments.

In June 2001, there was in intelligence report that said. “Al-Qaeda is planning something spectacular”, but none had any idea where or when that spectacular would happen. It was really strange that still Clarke is proposal was not taken seriously. On the contrary, many ridiculed and said. “Clarke is crying won Meanwhile, FBI told the White House that, “There is not a substantial Al-Qaeda presence in the US”. This FBI report made most of the anti-terrorist official convinced that, if there were going to be an attack on American interests, it would take place outside the US.

But a few of the FBI officials could smell an attack at home. On August 6, while on vacation in Crawford, Texas, President Bush was given a message, received from two field offices of FBI, apprehending an attack in the MS. The first warning came from Phoenix, Arizona. Nearly a month ago, on July 10, Kenneth Williams, an agent, wrote a memo detailing his suspicion about some suspected Islamic radicals, who had been taking flying lessons in Arizona. He could discover an AL- Qaeda link with one of the learners and submitted his memo to the headquarters at Washing on and to two other field offices. But in all three places, nobody called to look into the matter. In fact at that time, nobody could dream that an airplane could be used as an explosive device. The second warning came from the field office at Minneapolis, as mentioned in an earlier article “Could September 11 Have Been Averted?”(Organizer, 14 –7 – 2002).

On September 9, Ahmed Shah Masood was killed by two assassins with a bomb hidden inside a camera. On September 10, Clarke’s papers reached the Presidential office, awaited bush’s signature and the Northern Alliance was on the verge of receiving all the assistance they had been seeking for year –money, B-52 Bombers, US special forces and probably as many Predators as they would feel necessary. On the other side of the stage, Mohammad Atta. On the next day, boarded the American Airlines Flight-II. While the plane was on the runway at Boston’s Logan Airport he used his mobile phone to speak for the last time to his friend AI-sheahi, who was on United Airlines Flight-175, and the plot piece led towards maturity.