Posted on 05/05/2004 10:55:50 AM PDT by Lando Lincoln
As the loftily named National Commission On Terrorist Attacks Upon The United States [911 Commission] inexorably grinds along – hearing executive session testimony from both the President and Vice President on April 29 - we might start speculating what will be the content of its final report, due August, 28.
Will its final statement reflect the best judgment of its members - devoid of what seems at times to be the rancorous, barely concealed, bias demonstrated during the testimony of National Security Adviser Condoleeza Rice - or will it be such an utterly partisan document that it will have little long term value?
The answer, of course, remains to be seen.
We have been concerned regarding how the Commission evaluates evidence presented to it and whether it is its intention to ignore information that does not cleave to an already determined political viewpoint regarding the final report.
We offer the following:
“…The one that concerned bin-Laden was a request for intelligence information about bin-Laden's contacts in Sudan. These contacts with Sudan, which went on for years, have become a source of controversy. Former Sudanese officials claim that they offered to expel bin-Laden to the United States. Clinton administration officials deny ever receiving such an offer. We have not found any reliable evidence to support the Sudanese claim…In that discussion, a Justice Department representative reportedly said there was no basis for bringing him to the United States since there was no way to hold him here absent an indictment. Berger adds that in 1996 he was not aware of any intelligence that said bin-Laden was responsible for any act against an American citizen. No rendition plan targeting bin-Laden, who was still perceived as a terrorist financier, was requested by or presented to senior policy-makers during 1996…yet both Berger and Clarke also said the lack of an indictment made no difference. Instead, they said the idea was not worth pursuing because there was no chance that Sudan would ever turn bin-Laden over to a hostile country. If Sudan had been serious, Clarke said, the United States would have worked something out." Michael Hurley, staff 911 Commission - March 23, 2004
Four months out - almost to the day - from the release date of the final report and it seems that it is already the position of the commission that there is no evidence to support the allegation that the government of Sudan offered to provide intelligence on Osama bin-Laden to the United States and was possibly interested in extraditing him to this country or a country of our choosing.
The Commission’s decision - apparently adopting the party line of the top echelon of the Clinton administration foreign policy team - belies the fact that there is essentially incontrovertible and multi-sourced evidence already in the public record [starting at least with the 2001 David Rose piece, "The Osama Files", which appeared in Vanity Fair magazine] detailing some kind of an offer - efforts of Clinton administration officials to spin it as “not serious" to the contrary - from the Sudanese that should have, at bare minimum, been explored.
Let us remember that Sudan is the largest nation [about one-quarter the size of the United States] on the continent of Africa, that it is disease ridden, impoverished on a scale a Western mind can only imagine and which has, since securing its independence from Great Britain in 1956, been the scene of a bitter religious based civil war which has led to the deaths of at least 2 million since 1983.
The ethnic mix is unique in Africa, approximately 50% are blacks but nearly 40% are Arabs. All of which combined to make Sudan appear an inviting place for radical Islamists on the run.
And for nearly six years, it was indeed that haven; the uncomfortable host to Osama bin-Laden from the time he was forced to flee his native Saudi Arabia in 1991 until his U.S. driven expulsion to Afghanistan in 1996, which had the effect of unleashing him on the world.
"...We found that his presence in Sudan is not [helpful] to the national security of Sudan, we expelled him also on the demand of the U.S. government. And it is the U.S. government who did not demand bin-Laden to go anywhere, except [not to] Somalia." Gen. Etfadih Mohammed Erwa Sudanese Ambassador to the United Nations, McNeil Newshour interview - August 28, 1998.
Even today the weak central government of President Lt. Gen. Umar Hassan Ahmad al-Bashir in Khartoum is unable to effectively govern its own citizens within its territory to any reasonable degree, let alone the wealthy, well connected, insurgents from the Arab world, which populated the nation in the mid 1990s.
Despite the fits and starts that seemed to be part of Sudan's efforts to overcome the impediments naturally attendant to having been declared a "terrorist" state by the United States the undeniable fact is that - at least since 1994 - when Sudan extradited international terrorist Carlos the Jackal, to France - where he continues to serve a life sentence - Sudan has taken steps which seemed to indicate a desire to throw off its tragic past and to rejoin the community of responsible nations.
Perhaps we should keep the matter of Carlos the Jackal in mind as we look at the most troubling aspect of Mr. Marshall's above statement of the current sense of the Commission:
“We have not found any reliable evidence to support the Sudanese claim.“
It all depends, we must assume, on the definition of the word "reliable."
Eight years after bin-Laden having fled the country thus making it no longer of much concern to the United States, yet Sudan is still taking the same measured responses to her internal threats that she has in the past, as evidenced by the arrest on March 31 of opposition leader Hasan Abdullah al-Turabi, who was implicated in an Islamist military plot to overthrow the government. Taking similar action against bin-Laden in the mid 1990s is not inconceivable, given his ties to movements then deemed inimical to Sudan's internal security.
Sandy Berger figures prominently in the Commission's statement negating the existence of the bin-Laden offer. But even their characterization of what Berger has said when compared to the facts of the case raises red flags.
When confronted by Mansoor Ijaz, a multimillionaire "friend of Bill" who was acting as a back-channel personal emissary in the matter for the Clinton administration, Berger - to his face - denied that a “non paper" that was presented to General Etfadih Mohammed Erwa of the Sudanese government [1996, in the presence of U.S. Ambassador to Sudan, Timothy Carney and David Shinn, Director of East African Affairs at the Department of State] demanding intelligence cooperation about bin- Laden's al-Qaeda operation in that country, ever existed.
Always the resourceful fellow, Ijaz a few weeks later presented Berger with a photocopy of the document whose very existence Berger had denied. Berger was quoted by Ijaz as saying that he would deal with it after the fall general election.
Yet Berger is considered a "reliable" witness despite his misrepresentation, parsing on the matter and given his obvious conflict of interest.
Berger denies that there was any evidence linking al-Qaeda to harm being caused to American interests or citizens, but al-Qaeda was responsible for attacks against United States interests in Africa as early as December 29, 1992 in Aden, carried out against hotels frequented by Americans.
Unbelievably it was the existence of exactly this kind of evidence that, assuming Sudan's offer was legitimate, that was being offered to the administration.
For officials of the Clinton administration to claim that they had no evidence that bin-Laden was acting against the interests or people of the United States is not really the question.
It seems that it was their intention to remain intentionally blind.
The Sudanese internal intelligence apparatus was very precise and kept meticulous records of the very type that could have made the tie-in of bin-Laden to these and all subsequent al-Qaeda operations including:
- The August 7, 1998 bombing of the U.S. Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania .
- The October 12, 2000 bombing of the USS Cole
- The September 11, 2001 World Trade Center attack - the incident which catalyzed the need for a 911 Commission in the first place.
We have been developing a network of people well versed on the intricacies of this matter, some of them primary sources, those with on the ground experience at the time of the events or with access to documents immediately after the fact.
What they have told us and what they have revealed about the internal workings of the commission should give any fair minded observer pause for concern as to the nature of the final Commission report.
The documents in question are Sudanese intelligence files, United States government communications and a paper trail relevant to the case. They have already been presented in executive session to the Commission.
These documents, if authenticated, could well provide the smoking gun proving that not only did the Clinton administration have a legitimate offer from Sudan to extradite bin-Laden, but proof that the administration simply turned the offer down.
Such proof would render the testimony and public statements of National Security Advisor Tony Lake, his assistant Sandy Berger, Secretary of State for East African Affairs Susan Rice, Madeline Albright and many others in the Clinton White House to be in error.
Contrary to the Commission's statement that no "reliable evidence to support the Sudanese claim" exists, they may themselves be sitting on the uncomfortable truth, that not only did Sudan make a series of good faith offers - in an effort to repair their much deserved reputation as a haven for terrorists - that they doggedly pursued them in the face of a hostile White House which from the top down was uninterested in taking any action that might negatively impact the precarious governance of Bill Clinton and which might depart from the administration’s decision to treat Islamic terrorsim as an administrative law enforcement matter rather than as a grave national security threat, more aptly dealt with militarily. Remember, if you will, that from its inception, the administration was so risk adverse, so poll driven that Clinton refused to visit the site of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing - America's first domestic brush with bin-Laden.
We have remained in contact with the Commission in an effort, among other concerns, to try to keep the "door open" to a full and fair consideration and weighing of all the facts - even the uncomfortable ones - surrounding this issue. We will continue to report on this matter as we get closer to the final release date. We have much more to offer and will do so at what we consider the appropriate time.
If it doesn't parallel the report AND recommendations, then everyone is an idiot!! We've already made substantial changes and actually, this report should be quite brief compared to the first Commission. Recommending something that has already been done is no recommendation at all.
It was a complete waste of time and money and merely a Dem forum paid for by you and me. Clarke got a bonus....a bigger payoff on his book than he expected. I'm sure Gore Lick will receive a little "enhancement" from the Dems.
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