The Guilty Generals Of 9/11

The proceedings of the PAC of Pakistan's National Assembly, as reported by the Friday Times, underline once again the need for a detailed enquiry into the possible complicity of senior Pakistani Generals in the terrorist strikes of 9/11.

In its issue for the first week of March,2006, the Friday Times, the prestigious weekly of Lahore, has carried an intriguing report from its correspondent Ahmed Rauf on the alleged payment of bribes amounting to hundreds of thousands of dollars by the Pakistani Embassy in Washington, through its American lobbyists, to the members of the US National Commission, which enquired into the 9/11 terrorist strikes in the US. The Commission, which submitted its report to President George Bush in July 2004, had, inter alia, documented Pakistan's involvement in the various activities of jihadi terrorists. There were over 220 references to Pakistan in that report.

However, in spite of these references, the Commission had recommended a policy of long-term engagement with Pakistan in order to win the so-called war against international jihadi terrorism provided the government of Pakistan continued to co-operate with the US against jihadi terrorism. The bribes were allegedly paid in order to induce the members of the Commission to exclude from their report some findings damaging to Pakistan, which figured in the draft of the report.

The Friday Times correspondent has claimed that his report is based on a testimony given by an officer of the Pakistan Foreign Service, who recently returned to Islamabad after doing a three-year tenure at the Pakistan Embassy in Washington. He has identified the diplomat only as Sadiq and has not given his full name. He was giving testimony at a secret sitting of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of the Pakistan National Assembly, the lower House of the Pakistani Parliament. The Committee was considering details of the expenditure incurred by the Pakistan Foreign Office on payments to lobbyists all over the world.

The Friday Times report said: "Foreign Secretary Riaz Mohammad Khan and Special Secretary Sher Afgan were present at the meeting when an FO (Foreign Office) official, Sadiq, who was part of the secret negotiations with members of the US inquiry team and has just returned from Washington after completing a three-year tenure at the Pakistan Embassy, revealed that a lot of money had been spent to silence the members of the Inquiry Commission and induce them to go soft on Pakistan.

"According to the FO official, dramatic changes were made in the final draft of the Inquiry Commission report after Pakistani lobbyists arranged meetings with members of the Commission and convinced them to remove anti-Pakistan findings. This information is also given in the PAC records available with TFT (the Friday Times) and reveals that Pakistan won over the sympathies of 75 US Congressmen as part of its strategy to guard the interests of Pakistan in the United States".

The Friday Times added: "Insiders, however, say the US Congress does not know about the fact that money was paid to the Inquiry Commission to silence it. This information about Pakistani lobbyists influencing the Inquiry Commission was revealed when PAC member MNA (Member of the National Assembly) Rai Mansab Ali started grilling FO officials about millions of dollars paid out to lobbyists around the world and the assignments they were given

He said the FO could not waste the hard-earned money of Pakistan by hiding behind the slogan of national interests.

"Upon this, one FO official explained how the Pakistani Embassy was working closely with lobbyists to achieve important targets, one of which had been the task of getting anti-Pakistan information out of the 9/11 Commission Report.

"According to Sadiq, a few days before the completion of the inquiry report, US lobbyists told Embassy officials that they had inside information that the Inquiry Commission had damaging findings on Pakistan's role in 9/11. Meetings were hence arranged with Commission members who were convinced to drop this information. The report that was finally published is sans the damaging information about Pakistan, Sadiq told PAC members. The US softened towards Pakistan only because of the efforts of the FO."

Expressing some skepticism over the claims made by Pakistani Foreign Office officials, the Friday Times report commented as follows: "Critics, however, have a different angle on the money that is thus spent. There have been reports in the past about shady lobby firms hired by Pakistan. How do we know, on the authority of Mr. Sadiq, that the lobbyists were indeed right about the damaging information in the report? says a former senior official. Another source TFT spoke with said that it did not make any sense for Pakistan to spend millions after being told that the report contained some anti-Pakistan material. Did anyone except the lobbyist see it? Did the Embassy corroborate the information before dishing out the money? There are many questions here and I don't think the FO is answering them, he said."

The 9/11 Commission's report, though comprehensive, has two important omissions. First, it has failed to go into the circumstances surrounding the kidnapping and brutal murder of Daniel Pearl, the American journalist, at Karachi in January-February, 2002. An in-depth enquiry into this murder was necessary in order to establish the pre-9/11 links of some of the Pakistani Generals with Al Qaeda and the Taliban and their frantic post-9/11 attempts to cover them up. It is the fear that these links might be exposed by Pearl's enquiries, which led to his kidnapping and murder.

The second relates to an assessment prepared by some members of the research staff of the Commission on the events preceding 9/11 after scrutinising the records of the intelligence agencies, including the interrogation report of Khalid Sheikh Mohammad, a Pakistani, who orchestrated the 9/11 terrorist strikes on behalf of Osama bin Laden from his (KSM's) hide-out in Karachi.

Omar Sheikh, the master-mind behind the kidnapping and murder of Pearl, was reported to have told the Karachi Police during his interrogation in 2002 that before 9/11, he had visited Kandahar to meet bin Laden and that during his stay there, he had come to know of Al Qaeda's plans to carry out the 9/11 terrorist strikes in the US homeland. According to the Karachi Police, he also claimed that on his return to Pakistan, he had met Lt.Gen.Ehsanul Haq, the then Corps Commander at Peshawar, and conveyed this information to him. He had also mentioned this to Lt.Gen.Mohammad Aziz Khan, Gen.Pervez Musharraf's Chief of the General Staff, who later served as Corps Commander in Lahore and then as Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff, before retiring.

Ehsanul Haq was made the Director-General of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) in October,2001, and subsequently became the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

bin Laden, his No.2 Ayman al-Zawahiri and other survivors of Al Qaeda managed to escape into Pakistan during the watch of Ehsanul Haq as the DG,ISI.

At that time, the claims made by Omar Sheikh were dismissed as unreliable on the ground that bin Laden was extremely security conscious and that it was, therefore, unlikely that Omar Sheikh, during a casual visit to Kandahar, would have come to know of the top secret plans of Al Qaeda.

During their examination of the records of the US intelligence agencies, including the interrogation report of KSM, the staff of the Commission found that bin Laden's plans for the 9/11 terrorist strikes were discussed not only by the shura (executive committee) of Al Qaeda, but also between bin Laden and Mulla Mohammad Omar, the Amir of the Taliban. The Amir was reported to have opposed bin Laden's plans. It was also found that the Pakistani authorities themselves had urged the Amir to discourage bin Laden from undertaking any operations outside Afghanistan. Despite the opposition from the Amir of the Taliban and some members of his own shura, bin Laden went ahead with his plans.

Thus, the plans for the 9/11 terrorist strikes were fairly well known in Kandahar. It should not, therefore, have been a surprise that Omar Sheikh had come to know of them. One would have expected the Commission to go thoroughly into the findings of its research staff in order to find out whether any of the Pakistani Generals was aware of Al Qaeda's plans and, if so, what action the Pakistani Army took to thwart the plans. Surprisingly, this was not done by the Commission.

Commenting on this, I had written in my paper mentioned above as follows: "It is quite clear that the plans for the 9/11 terrorist strikes were not such a closely-guarded secret in Afghanistan as made out to be and that many, including Mulla Mohammad Omar, the Amir of the Taliban, knew about it. As many experts in the US itself have admitted, the Taliban was under the control of Pakistan's ISI. It had many serving and retired officers of the Pakistan Army serving in it. The Taliban's intelligence set-up was largely staffed by serving and retired officers of the ISI.

"It is, therefore, impossible that the Pakistani authorities would not have known of Al Qaeda's plans for the 9/11 terrorist strikes from their officers working as advisers to the Amir of the Taliban. It is also not surprising that Omar Sheikh came to know of the plans during a visit to Kandahar and told Ehsan-ul-Haq about it.

"The statement prepared by the staff does quote KSM as speaking of pressure on Mulla Omar from Pakistan not to let Al Qaeda carry out terrorist strikes outside Afghanistan. The relevant question from the point of view of any credible investigation is: Why the Pakistani military regime did not pass on the information conveyed by Omar Sheikh to the US and alert it to the imminence of the terrorist strikes? If it had and the US agencies had not acted on the information, they are guilty of gross negligence. If it had not, Pakistan is guilty of complicity in the terrorist strikes.

"The Commission has avoided going into these questions and finding out the truth. This is a matter, which needs to be taken up by the relatives of the victims of the terrorist strikes, about 250 of them Indians or persons of Indian origin, before the judiciary in the US."

Unfortunately, this matter has not been followed up and the entire truth behind 9/11 remains uncovered.The proceedings of the PAC of Pakistan's National Assembly, as reported by the Friday Times, underline once again the need for a detailed enquiry into the possible complicity of senior Pakistani Generals in the terrorist strikes of 9/11.

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B. Raman is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai.

People take foreign press way too seriously on FR in general.

Anything from the Indian subcontinent other than the couple of most prestigious Indian newspapers is of very dubious veracity.

Take a look again at the last line of the article. The author B. Raman was the former director of RAW (thats Research Analysis Wing, Indian equivalent of the CIA). Whatever he says is taken seriously at least in India.

And I am quite aware of the attitude in general here at FR that if its an article from India that derides Pakistan then its not to be taken seriously, however misplaced that presumption maybe. How easily people forget that most of the intelligence about Pakistan comes from India.

So the grand and glorious 911 Commission was on the take huh.
If the above is true, they are no better than al Quida

OB

The claim that Pakistani state involvement in 9/11 was whitewashed by the 9/11 Commission is not new.

UPI/Washington Times Editor Arnaud de Borchgrave broke the story in 2004 itself.

Please see this

Take a look again at the last line of the article. The author B. Raman was the former director of RAW (thats Research Analysis Wing, Indian equivalent of the CIA).

Which certainly raises doubts about his objectivity.

The real agenda and loyalty of the Inidan Lobby here is revealed by this comment by Genghis on another thread:

"Pakistan and Bangladesh will have to merge with India. For the good of humanity and for lasting peace in the region Pakistan and Bangladesh will have to merge with India."

All you need to know.

The real agenda and loyalty of the Indian Lobby here is revealed by this comment by Genghis on another thread:

"Pakistan and Bangladesh will have to merge with India. For the good of humanity and for lasting peace in the region Pakistan and Bangladesh will have to merge with India."

All you need to know.

What is " Inidan Lobby"? And why are you posting this to yourself? LOL!

Defenitely much much more objective than your Khalistan terrorist organisation articles.

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