"Every
official we questioned about the possibility of an invasion of Afghanistan
said that it was almost unthinkable, absent a provocation such as 9/11...."
THE 9/11COMMISSION REPORT, July 2004 (p 137)
"To be truthful about it, there was no way we could have got the public consent to have suddenly launched a campaign on Afghanistan but for what happened on September 11..."
"Massive attention has now been given
- and rightly so - to the reasons why Britain went to war against Iraq. But far too little
attention has focused on why the US went to war, and that throws light on British motives
too. The conventional explanation is that after the Twin Towers were hit, retaliation
against al-Qaida bases in Afghanistan was a natural first step in launching a global war
against terrorism. Then, because Saddam Hussein was alleged by the US and UK governments
to retain weapons of mass destruction, the war could be extended to Iraq as well. However
this theory does not fit all the facts. The truth may be a great deal murkier..... The
evidence again is quite clear that plans for military action against Afghanistan and Iraq
were in hand well before 9/11.....The BBC reported (September 18 2001) that Niaz Niak, a
former Pakistan foreign secretary, was told by senior American officials at a meeting in
Berlin in mid-July 2001 that 'military action against Afghanistan would go ahead by the
middle of October'. Until July 2001 the US government saw the Taliban regime as a source
of stability in Central Asia that would enable the construction of hydrocarbon pipelines
from the oil and gas fields in Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, through Afghanistan
and Pakistan, to the Indian Ocean. But, confronted with the Taliban's refusal to accept US
conditions, the US representatives told them 'either you accept our offer of a carpet of
gold, or we bury you under a carpet of bombs' (Inter Press Service, November 15 2001).....
The overriding motivation for this political smokescreen is that the US and the UK are
beginning to run out of secure hydrocarbon energy supplies. By 2010 the Muslim world will
control as much as 60% of the world's oil production and, even more importantly, 95% of
remaining global oil export capacity. As demand is increasing, so supply is decreasing,
continually since the 1960s..... A report from the commission on America's national
interests in July 2000 noted that the most promising new source of world supplies was the
Caspian region, and this would relieve US dependence on Saudi Arabia. To diversify supply
routes from the Caspian, one pipeline would run westward via Azerbaijan and Georgia to the
Turkish port of Ceyhan. Another would extend eastwards through Afghanistan and Pakistan
and terminate near the Indian border. This would rescue
Enron's beleaguered power plant at Dabhol on India's west coast, in which Enron had
sunk $3bn investment and whose economic survival was dependent on access to cheap
gas."
Michael Meacher - Former Blair Minister
This war on terrorism is bogus
Guardian, 6
September 2003
"Under the influence of U.S. oil
companies, the government of George W. Bush initially blocked U.S. secret service
investigations on terrorism .... In the book 'Bin Laden, la verite interdite ('Bin
Laden, the forbidden truth), that appeared in Paris on Wednesday, the authors,
Jean-Charles Brisard and Guillaume Dasquie, reveal that the Federal Bureau of
Investigation's deputy director John O'Neill
resigned in July [2001] in protest over the obstruction.... The two claim the U.S.
government's main objective in Afghanistan was to consolidate the position of the Taliban
regime to obtain access to the oil and gas reserves in Central Asia. They affirm that
until August, the U.S. government saw the Taliban regime 'as a source of stability in
Central Asia that would enable the construction of an oil pipeline across Central Asia',
from the rich oilfields in Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Kazakhstan, through Afghanistan
and Pakistan, to the Indian Ocean. Until now, says the book, 'the oil and gas reserves of
Central Asia have been controlled by Russia. The Bush government wanted to change all
that'. But, confronted with Taliban's refusal to accept U.S. conditions, 'this rationale
of energy security changed into a military one', the authors claim. 'At one moment during
the negotiations, the U.S. representatives told the Taliban, 'either
you accept our offer of a carpet of gold, or we bury you under a carpet of bombs',' Brisard said in an interview in Paris."
U.S. Policy Towards Taliban Influenced by Oil - Say Authors
Inter Press Service, 15
November 2001
"A former Pakistani diplomat has told
the BBC that the US was planning military action against Osama Bin Laden and the Taleban
even before last week's attacks. Niaz Naik, a former Pakistani Foreign Secretary, was told by senior American officials in mid-July that military action
against Afghanistan would go ahead by the middle of October. Mr Naik said US officials told him of the plan at a UN-sponsored
international contact group on Afghanistan which took place in Berlin.... Mr Naik was told
that Washington would launch its operation from bases in Tajikistan, where American
advisers were already in place. .... He said that he was in no doubt that after the World
Trade Center bombings this pre-existing US plan had been built upon and would be
implemented within two or three weeks."
US 'planned attack on Taleban'
BBC Online, 18 September
2001
"Both civilian and military officials of the Defense Department state flatly that neither Congress nor the American public would have supported large-scale military operations in Afghanistan before the shock of 9/11."
The Military
9/11 Commission Staff Statement No 6, 2004
Original URL
MSNBC and NBC News
WASHINGTON, May 16, 2002 - President Bush was expected to sign detailed plans for a worldwide war against al-Qaida two days before Sept. 11 but did not have the chance before the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, U.S. and foreign sources told NBC News.
The document, a formal National Security Presidential Directive, amounted to a game plan to remove al-Qaida from the face of the earth, one of the sources told NBC News Jim Miklaszewski.
The plan dealt with all aspects of a war against al-Qaida, ranging from diplomatic initiatives to military operations in Afghanistan, the sources said on condition of anonymity.
In many respects, the directive, as described to NBC News, outlined essentially the same war plan that the White House, the CIA and the Pentagon put into action after the Sept. 11 attacks. The administration most likely was able to respond so quickly to the attacks because it simply had to pull the plans off the shelf, Miklaszewski said.
The United States first would have sought to persuade other countries to cooperate in the campaign by sharing intelligence and using their law enforcement agencies to round up al-Qaida suspects.
The plans also called for a freeze on al-Qaida financial accounts worldwide and a drive to disrupt the groups money laundering. The document mapped out covert operations aimed at al-Qaida cells in about 60 counties.
In another striking parallel to the war plan adopted after Sept. 11, the security directive included efforts to persuade Afghanistans Taliban government to turn al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden over to the United States, with provisions to use military force if it refused.
Plan was ready to go
Officials did not believe that Bush had had the opportunity to closely review
the document in the two days between its submission and the Sept. 11 attacks. But it had
been submitted to national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, and the officials said Bush
knew about it and had been expected to sign it.
The couching of the plans as a formal security directive is significant, Miklaszewski reported, because it indicates that the United States intended a full-scale assault on al-Qaida even if the Sept. 11 attacks had not occurred.
Such directives are top-secret documents that are formally drafted only after they have been approved at the highest levels of the White House, and represent decisions that are to be implemented imminently.
Such a directive would normally be approved with the presidents knowledge by his Principals Committee, which in Bushs White House includes Rice, Attorney General John Ashcroft, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of State Colin Powell, Treasury Secretary Paul ONeill and CIA Director George Tenet, among other senior administration officials.
By MSNBC.coms Alex Johnson with NBCs Jim Miklaszewski
'Fight Smart' Update - 28
August 2002 |
'Fight Smart' Update - 8 March 2002 |
NATURAL LAW PARTY WESSEX
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