Mylroie: CIA, State Dept. Undermined War on Terror

NewsMax.com ^ | 8/06/03 | Carl Limbacher and NewsMax.com Staff

[kattracks]

The CIA and State Department are actively working to undermine the U.S. war on terrorism by deliberately ignoring evidence that al-Qaeda conspired with Baghdad in the 9/11 attacks.

That's the contention of terrorism expert Laurie Mylroie, who detailed the case against the two agencies in an interview with WABC Radio's Monica Crowley earlier this week.

Before President Bush launched the Iraq war in March, "[the CIA and State Department] continually sought to undermine the U.S. case [for war] by leaking to their allies in the media that there was no evidence about Iraq's involvement with al-Qaeda," Mylroie explained.

"They undermined the U.S. ability to gather international support and made it more difficult to carry out this war," the former Naval War College lecturer contended.

Mylroie noted that after the first World Trade Center bombing in 1993, FBI probers in New York believed that Iraq was responsible. "The key is the identity of the mastermind of [the '93] bombing, Ramzi Yousef. ... The mastermind of the 9/11 strikes, we now know, is supposed to be Yousef's uncle, Khalid Sheik Mohammed."

Mylroie maintains that both Yousef and Mohammed were Iraqi intelligence agents who were given phony identities to conceal their ties to Iraq during Saddam's occupation of Kuwait.

Yousef, for instance, entered the U.S. before the '93 bombing on an Iraqi passport.

The CIA is covering up the Iraqi pedigree of both the 1993 and 2001 World Trade Center attacks because it would mean "they made a mistake that left the country vulnerable on 9/11 by failing to recognize Iraq's involvement with al-Qaeda," Mylroie told WABC.

A one-time adviser on Iraq to President Clinton, Mylroie charged that "the CIA is not what it was 20 or 30 years ago. In fact it has been neutered by a management culture that seeks to avoid risk, and that became especially the case in the 1990s."

Mylroie noted that President Clinton was risk averse when it came to Iraq, saying that it was "inconceivable" to top White House advisers at the time that he would launch a major war against Saddam after the first World Trade Center bombing.

After the 9/11 attacks, however, when Bush launched a full-blown war on terrorism that targeted Iraq as a key perpetrator, the CIA and State "could not accept the very dramatic and quick shift in policy because it went against their views," the terrorism expert maintained.

Read more on this subject in related Hot Topics:
Clinton Scandals
Saddam Hussein/Iraq
War on Terrorism

[PhilDragoo]

DCI James Woolsey said Ramzi Yousef was an Iraqi agent and the Clintons got rid of him.

Terry Nichols met with terrorists in the Philippines, perhaps including Ramzi Yousef.

Jayna Davis exposed John Doe Number Two as an Iraqi Republican Guard veteran.

Laurie Mylroie presents a convincing case that Ramzi Yousef and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed are Pakistani Baluch sheep-dipped by Iraqi intel with stolen Kuwaiti passports.

DCI Tenet (Clinton appointee, Deutch designate) rejects the meeting between Mohammed Atta and Iraqi intel chief Al-Ani--despite the Czechs up to the prime minister standing by it.

FBI special agent in New York for national security John P. O'Neill was pursuing the Osama-Iraq trail yet met bodacious resistance from U.S. Ambassador to Yemen Bodine, and his own colleagues.

Twenty-four-year CIA case officer Robert Baer, See No Evil: The True Story of a Ground Soldier in the CIA's War on Terrorism, describes the destruction of the human intelligence capability of CIA by the likes of Church and Torricelli.

He confirms Mylroie's description of a "risk-averse culture"--Baer's superior was more concerned in keeping his shoes shined than helping Baer close in on the perp of the 1983 Beirut Embassy bombing.

Bill Gertz' Breakdown: How America's Intelligence Failures Led to September 11 describes the resistance to the point of retaliation special agent Coleen Rowley's efforts met.

Rowley's nine-page single-spaced letter to Mueller in Appendix A will pin your meter.

As for Lessons Learned--fuggedaboudit:

In scanning the first hundred references for John O'Neill, I find this from Gertz' Inside the Ring for March 21, 2003:

One of three regional rulers in post-Saddam Iraq has been designated. She is career Foreign Service Arabist Barbara Bodine, who last served as U.S. ambassador to Yemen. She will run civilian affairs in Baghdad and central Iraq, along with two other U.S. regional administrators.

Miss Bodine's appointment has angered some FBI and law enforcement officials because of her role in hampering the FBI's investigation of the October 2000 al Qaeda bombing of the destroyer USS Cole in Aden, Yemen.

She clashed with FBI counterterrorism official John O'Neill during the probe. She blocked Mr. O'Neill from returning to Yemen after a trip back to the United States, scuttling an aggressive investigation into the blast. Mr. O'Neill retired from the FBI and was killed in the September 11 World Trade Center attack.

~~~

You can't make this sh!t up.

Freeh goes to investigate the Khobar Towers blast in 1996 and the Saudis stonewall him. O'Neill goes to Yemen to investigate the Cole bombing in 2000 and Butch Bodine stonewalls him.

Now some oily mole at State annoints Baghdad Bodine.

I understand Baer explores this phenomenon in his new book:

[ALOHA RONNIE]

...and now the 10 captured Terrorist Suspects in the Bombing of the USS COLE suddenly escape from prison...

...before they can be interrogated about WHY the USS COLE just had to go down the very day before 2000 Presidential Candidate AL GORE was scheduled to lose his 2nd TV Debate in a row..???

[FreedomPoster]

Ooooo - that's gonna leave a mark.

;-)

[wayoverontheright]

Great post! I'm gonna get the Robert Baer book.

So why doesn't W fire George Tenet?

[Ragtime Cowgirl]

I'd like to state for the record...that for all the critics, experts, perfectionists, accusers, finger-pointers, and partisans - our troops, this military, this administration, and this President are doing a very good job with very complex problems facing this nation - problems decades in the making and certainly not solvable overnight - and they are doing it with 24/7 unfounded accusations against them framed as "news", and a parade of so-called candidates lying about them daily (with no accountability) with the help of a free international DNC-PR machine called the mainstream press.

There are many working diligently to turn our victory in Iraq into a failure. We don't need to help by allowing them to divide us or falling for the spin at this crucial time. If our side wants to help the troops and the war effort - we need to listen to the men and women actually fighting this war, to recognize that the biggest stumbling block for them is NOT the enemy fire, or heat or pain - it IS the press. We need to bypass THIS press to get the facts to the American people.

The war in Iraq is anything but a failure.

8 Rumsfeld, Myers Praise Progress in War on Terror [Press lies hurt troops more than missions!]

[BigWaveBetty]

Let's hope the mark it leaves is on his brain so he doesn't have to embarrass himself again. :-)

[wayoverontheright]

Bump!

[My2Cents]

Excellent!

[TrebleRebel]

ping!