Posted on 01/07/2008 10:48:55 AM PST by drzz
1. Could you summarize your background for the readers of the "blog drzz" ?
I'm a Middle East expert, with a Ph.D. on the subject from Harvard. I've worked on the subject all my professional life, first in academics and then in Washington. One can find more details on my website, lauriemylroie.com
2. How did you investigate the 1993 WTC case ? Did you meet investigators, talk to the FBI, did you have access to classified informations ? Did you meet officials of the former or present administration who gave you confidence about this matter ?
My work is based on the information, introduced into evidence by the prosecution in the 1993-1994 trial of the World Trade Center bombers. It consists of thousands of pages of documents like telephone records, passports, airplane tickets, etc. Under ordinary circumstances, that would indeed be highly classified information. But it was introduced into the public domain, because of the trial. This is, in fact, described in the January 17, 1995, Boston Globe article that you cited in your first video.
The work was supported by the then-recently retired head of New York FBI, Jim Fox, who explained that senior investigators had suspected an Iraqi role: http://www.lauriemylroie.com/archive/Fox_letter10-24-94.pdf Also, a former head of CIA Counter-terrorism operations called it "one of the most brilliant pieces of research and scholarship in the area that I have ever seen." http://www.lauriemylroie.com/archive/Cannistraro_letter.jpg
However, the Clinton administration did not want to hear that Saddam was behind the bombing, because that would have probably meant that the American public would demand they do something serious about Saddam.
Thus, it took some years to get the book published. When it finally appeared in 2000, as Study of Revenge, the lead prosecutor of the Trade Center bombers praised it as "work the U.S. government should have done," while the man who headed the CIA at the time of the bombing, praised it as "brilliant and brave."
3. What is the history of KSM ?
We don't know much about him, although U.S. officials say he is Baluch (not Arab.) According to U.S. officials, he provided a small amount of money for the 1993 bombing of the Trade Center. The first time that he was actively involved in a major plot, as far as we know, was the 1995 conspiracy to bomb a dozen US airplanes in the Philippines--which went awry after Ramzi Yousef, the mastermind of the Trade Center bombing, accidentally started a fire in the kitchen sink of his Manila apartment while mixing explosives.
Notably, neither KSM nor Yousef, who is supposed to be KSM's nephew, were involved then with al Qaida. People make the common error of attributing those attacks to al Qaida, but as investigative journalist Jack Cashill recently pointed out, Usama bin Ladin wasn't even indicted for anything until 1998!: http://worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=59499
After bin Ladin was expelled to Afghanistan in 1996, KSM joined with him, helping al Qaida carry out its major attacks, starting with the 1998 bombing of the US embassies.
4. You worked as an adviser of the Clinton campaign in 1992. Do you know if the former President suspected Iraq after the '93 WTC bombings ?
New York FBI certainly suspected Iraq, and very senior figures in the White House were told, I think. In the 1992 presidential campaign, Clinton was tougher than Bush 41 on Saddam, saying that he should have got rid of Saddam during the 1991 war. But after Clinton was elected, he didn't want to deal with the issue.
On June 26, 1993, Clinton hit Iraqi intelligence headquarters with cruise missiles, saying that the strike was punishment for Saddam's attempt to kill former president Bush in April. It was--but it was also meant for the Trade Center bombing, if New York FBI was correct in its suspicions about Iraq. That, at least, was my impression. The Clinton White House thought that if Saddam was behind the Trade Center bombing, that cruise missile attack would deter Saddam from any future acts of terrorism.
5. What is the real story of the 1993 WTC attacks ? An Iraqi revenge for the Gulf war defeat ?
It was partly revenge, but also much more. It was the opening blow in a campaign that was strung out over time to promote the lifting of sanctions, of which violence and intimidation were a significant part. This strategy, and its extension over time, are described in Study of Revenge.
6. Why is the US government denying the Iraqi influence in the origin of the 90's mega-terrorism ?
It depends who you mean. Clinton administration officials deny it, because the mistake they made--treating state-sponsored terrorism by arresting individual perpetrators and holding criminal trials--left the U.S. vulnerable on 9/11. It did nothing to stop Saddam and provided him a cover.
The bureaucracies--the FBI, State Department, and intelligence agencies--responded similarly, because they had all made the same mistake. For the vast majority of the so-called US "elite," careers count for more than lives, and 9/11 didn't change that.
There is also another factor. Some Americans thought they could use 9/11 to transform the entire Middle East. They were had little understanding of just how difficult the region is and were thinking in terms of the previous war, that is the Cold War. They were not much interested in going through all the details about Iraq's involvement in 9/11, because they wanted to do much more. Unfortunately, the best became the enemy of the good, and the U.S. ended up fighting a war in violation of Sun Tzu's axiom, "Know the enemy."
7. What do you think is a plausible "true story" of the origins and making of the 9/11 attacks ?
The key to understanding how 9/11 happened is the mastermind: Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. Who is he? Where did he acquire his skill in terrorism? Where did he get the money for the attacks? U.S. officials say that he is the uncle of Ramzi Yousef and that, like Yousef, he was born and raised in Kuwait. I addressed the implications of this important point in a subsequent book, Bush vs. the Beltway, but some significant part of the story is in an article, "How Little We Know," http://www.lauriemylroie.com/files/Mylroie_How_Little_We_Know_TAS2.pdf
8. You testified at the 9/11 Commission hearings. Was the 9/11 Commission a fair and balanced enterprise or, as some critics said, a way to whitewash President Clinton's failures in fighting islamic terrorism during the decade before 2001 ?
The 9/11 Commission was "bipartisan." There was a prior agreement that it would not hold either the Democrats or Republicans responsible for 9/11. That is why it ended up blaming "the system."
Who ever heard of such a thing? It is also noteworthy that not one US official received so much as a reprimand in his/her file for the 9/11 attacks.
Great read.
awesome job. I wish someone would grant Laurie access to Saddam’s recovered docs with a team.
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