Rice Must Explain Her Pre-911 National Security Priorities

'It Was The Economy Stupid'

From Macedonia To Enron
Rice Must Explain Pre-911 National Security Priorities
www.btinternet.com/~nlpwessex/Documents/WATRiceNSCpriorities.htm
Did US Quest For Oil And Gas Come Before Counter-Terrorism?
And After Thursday 8 April
Shouldn't It Be Cheney's Turn To Testify in Public?

"The situation in the Balkans raises a number of questions, and some of these relate to the role played by Condoleeza Rice. One such question, particularly in the light of a report by former Canadian Ambassador to Yugoslavia James Bisset published in Canada's National Post 13 November 2001, was why in the weeks of high security alerts immediately prior to 911 was Rice apparently giving such high priority to protecting Muslim terrorists in Yugoslavia closely connected to Osama Bin Laden - specifically the ethnic Albanian KLA (Kosovo Liberation Army)... From Bisset's point of view America was clearly determined to make sure that Macedonia was forced to capitulate to these terrorists and Condoleeza Rice played a crucial part in this concerted effort. On the face of it Rice was prepared to travel personally to Kiev for the purpose. This she did even during the days leading up to 911, the very period when warnings of terrorist attacks on US targets were pouring into Washington from foreign countries - in other words precisely the time when intense focus on homeland security was most urgently required. Far from the priority being counter-terrorism, the US government was in fact continuing to covertly back Islamic militants in their strikes against a European sovereign state in whose region it had pressing oil related geo-strategic ambitions.... The grim reality is that both the Bush and Clinton administrations have indeed been focused on the importance of Islamic militancy, but as often as not their interest has been in the covert co-opting of Islamic jihad as a vehicle for pursuing US global geopolitical ambitions by proxy. Even post 911 this tendency quietly continues in some quarters .... Ultimately had Rice's priorities been more focused on National Security instead of US economic development, 911 might have been prevented. More than that. There is strong evidence that certain actions of the Bush administration in this area appear to have directly contributed to the success of the attacks on 911. This is particularly so when taking into account (as we shall see below) the information concerning Enron and an FBI intelligence block allegedly imposed by Vice President Cheney that former Federal prosecutor John Loftus claims to have in his possession. The US government was not only highly focused on securing pipeline routes coming west out of the Caspian Sea region via the Black Sea and the Balkans, into the Mediterranean. Just as importantly it was also focused on other routes for the Caspian Sea region travelling east and down to the Indian ocean, a priority of particular importance to Enron."
Rice Must Explain Pre-911 National Security Priorities
'Fight Smart', 5 April 2004

"The Pentagon is considering a massive covert action program to overthrow Iran's ruling ayatollahs... The proposal, sources say, includes ... backing armed Iranian dissidents and employing the services of the Mujahedeen e Khalq, a group currently branded as terrorist by the United States..."
The Iran Debate
ABC News, 29 May 2003

"The People’s Mujahidin is seen by Washington as a possible instrument for 'regime change' in Tehran....The Marxist movement, which initially supported the Islamic revolution and then broke with the fundamentalist regime, was formally designated last year as 'terrorist' by the State Department and the EU but it is known to have links with the CIA and other US agencies."
France rounds up US-linked Iranian exiles
London Times, 16 June 2003

"The White House has bowed to intense political pressure and will allow Condoleezza Rice to testify under oath before the independent commission investigating the 9/11 attacks.... The volte-face by the White House opens the way for another dramatic day of evidence before the commission, though it is unlikely Ms Rice will be drawn into damaging admissions. Today a White House spokesman, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that not only would Ms Rice testify in public and under oath, but the Mr Bush and the vice president Dick Cheney would also appear jointly before the full commission in a private session. Mr Bush had previously insisted on meeting privately with only the chairman and vice chairman of the panel. The Bush Administration made the concessions after it obtained written assurances from the commission that the concession will not set a precedent."
Rice to testify in public at 9/11 inquiry
London Times, 30 March 2003

"The .... concession the commission made was that it would not call other White House aides for public interviews"
Foreign Editor's Briefing:
Confrontation over Condoleezza damages the Bush campaign
London Times, 1 April 2004

"On the morning of March 22, hours after Richard Clarke, the former counterterrorism chief in the Administrations of George W.Bush and Bill Clinton, had made his explosive charges on the war on terrorism, Rice performed a rarely seen grand slam, appearing on the breakfast shows of ABC, CBS, NBC and CNN... Rice sometimes contradicted - or was contradicted by - Administration colleagues who were doing their own briefings for the media and appearing before the commission. Rice, for example, disagreed with Vice President Dick Cheney's claim that Clarke was 'out of the loop' on decisions on counterterrorism [despite being White House head of counterterrorism].... On ABC News, Clarke lumped Rice together with Cheney as 'mean and nasty people'."
Is Condi The Problem?
Time Magazine, 5 April 2004 (print edition Europe)

"Bin Laden and radical Muslim groups have been deeply involved in the Balkans since the civil wars in Bosnia from 1992 to 1995. Despite a UN arms embargo and with the knowledge and support of the United States, arms, ammunition and thousands of Mujahideen fighters were smuggled into Bosnia to help the Muslims.... He and his al-Qaeda network were also active in Kosovo, and KLA members trained in his camps in Afghanistan and Albania.... Macedonia, with its large Albanian minority, was the KLA's next target. In February [2001], its forces moved against this small and newly independent democracy..... [In May 2001 Bush Administration] U.S. diplomat Robert Fenwick, ostensibly the head of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, in Macedonia, met secretly in Prizren, Kosovo, with the leaders of the Albanian political parties and KLA representatives. Macedonian officials were not invited. It was clear the United States was backing the Albanian terrorist cause. This was confirmed a month later, when a force of 400 KLA fighters was surrounded in the town of Aracinovo near the capital, Skopje. As Macedonian security forces moved in, they were halted on NATO orders. U.S. army buses from Camp Bondsteel in Kosovo arrived to remove all the heavily armed terrorists to a safer area of Macedonia. German reporters later revealed that 17 U.S. military advisors were accompanying the KLA terrorists in Aracinovo. In August, fearing the Macedonian forces might be able to defeat the KLA, U.S. Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice flew to Kiev and ordered the Ukrainian government to stop sending further military equipment to Macedonia. Since Ukraine was the only country supplying Macedonia with military assistance, the Macedonians realized continued resistance against the KLA terrorists, the EU and NATO was futile. Macedonia was forced to concede defeat and obliged to accept all the terrorist demands.”
James Bisset, former Candian Ambassador to Yugoslavia
War on terrorism skipped KLA
National Post (Canada), 13 November 2001

"For both the UK and US, an energy crisis is looming. The latest BP statistical review of world energy predicted that UK proven oil and gas reserves will last, respectively, only 5.4 and 6.8 years at present rates of use. It has been estimated that by 2020 the UK could be dependent on imported energy for 80% of its needs. The US energy department has calculated that net imports of oil, already at 54%, will rise to 70% by 2025 because of growing demand and declining domestic supply .... US goals in the use of the KLA as a proxy force, similar to the funding of the Contras against the leftwing Sandinista government in Nicaragua in the 1980s, were partly to remove Milosevic and break up Yugoslavia as one of the remaining Communist regimes. But related motives were to break Russia's monopoly over oil and gas transport routes and secure pro-western governments in the strategic Black Sea-Caspian Sea oil-rich basin. A crucial oil corridor, called the Trans-Balkan pipeline, designed to become the main route to the west for oil and gas extracted in central Asia, was to run from the Black Sea to the Adriatic via Bulgaria, Macedonia near the border with Kosovo, and Albania. Another was to run across Serbia to Adriatic ports in Croatia and Italy, fed by a pipeline running from a Black Sea port in Romania."
The path to friendship goes via the oil and gas fields
Guardian, 27 March 2004

“How much should we spend on the armed services? ... My view is we don’t spend on you, we invest in you. The men and women in the armed services are not a drain on our economic strength. Indeed you safeguard it. You’re not a burden on our economy, you are the critical foundation for growth.”
US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld addressing US troops at Camp Bondsteel in Kosovo
US Defense Department Press Release, 5 June 2001

"Today, the circumstances which we have created here have changed. Today, it is absolutely necessary to guarantee the stability of Macedonia and its entry into NATO. But we will certainly remain here a long time so that we can also guarantee the security of the energy corridors which traverse this country."
General Michael Jackson, commander of KFOR in Macedonia
Italian daily, Sole 24 Ore, 13 April 1999

"The US Embassy in Belarus has admitted that it is pursuing a policy similar to that in 1980s Nicaragua, in which anti-government Contra rebels were funded and supported.... The ambassador's disclosure has coincided with moves by the Bush Administration to gain increased political influence in Eastern Europe and the Balkans and with reports in several European newspapers, which said that former US servicemen believed to be working for the CIA were escorted with Albanian guerrillas from a village in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia earlier this year [August]."
US adopts 'Contras policy' in communist Belarus
London Times, 3 September 2001

"A Canadian journalist has evidence that NATO is arming and equipping the ethnic Albanian guerillas who have waged a five-month long insurgency against the Macedonian government in Skopje. Scott Taylor, editor of Espirit de Corps magazine, says that on a visit to guerilla bunkers overlooking the besieged Macedonian city of Tetovo he was welcomed with shouts of, 'God bless America and Canada too for all they have provided to us.' Canada is a member of the US-led NATO coalition. Taylor says guerrilla commanders showed off their arsenal, which included side arms, sniper rifles and grenade launchers, all marked 'Made in the USA.' Says Taylor, one commander remarked that, 'thanks to Uncle Sam, the Macedonians are no match for us.'... Taylor, who served in the Canadian Armed Forces, says NATO's support of the guerillas is so blatant 'it is little wonder that the Macedonian majority have staged violent anti-NATO riots.'"
More signs NATO is behind ethnic Albanian attacks on Macedonia
Media Monitors Network, 23 August 2001

"According to a report last week in the Halifax Herald the key to unraveling the bin Laden network may not be in Afghanistan at all – but in the Balkans. In July and August, just before the terror attack on the U.S., Albanian guerrillas tied to bin Laden gained control over 30 percent of Macedonia. The Macedonian military said the guerrillas include veterans of Bosnia, Kosovo and Chechnya. During a major guerrilla offensive, the Macedonians were able to contain the uprising with helicopter gunships acquired from Ukraine. But shortly after that, the helicopters came under attack from U.S.-made Stinger missiles.... But, listen to this from the Halifax Herald report: 'According to Macedonian intelligence operatives, the biggest obstacle to their investigative efforts is political pressure from NATO – including direct interference from the United States.'"
Our 'friends' in the Balkans
WorldNet Daily, 6 November 2001

"A report prepared for the US government from the Baker Institute of Public Policy stated in April 2001 that 'the US remains a prisoner of its energy dilemma. Iraq remains a destabilising influence to... the flow of oil to international markets from the Middle East'. Submitted to Vice-President Cheney's energy task group, the report recommended that because this was an unacceptable risk to the US, 'military intervention' was necessary. Similar evidence exists in regard to Afghanistan. The BBC reported 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'.....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... "
'This war on terrorism is bogus
The Guardian, 6 September 2003

"Under the influence of United States oil companies, the government of President George W Bush initially blocked intelligence agencies' investigations on terrorism while it bargained with the Taliban on the delivery of Osama bin Laden in exchange for political recognition and economic aid, two French intelligence analysts claim. In the book Bin Laden, la verite interdite (Bin Laden, the forbidden truth), that was released recently, the authors, Jean-Charles Brisard and Guillaume Dasquie, reveal that the Federal Bureau of Investigation's (FBI) deputy director John O'Neill resigned in July in protest over the obstruction. The authors claim that O'Neill told them that 'the main obstacles to investigate Islamic terrorism were US oil corporate interests and the role played by Saudi Arabia in it'. The two claim that the US 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 US 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 US conditions, 'this rationale of energy security changed into a military one', the authors claim. 'At one moment during the negotiations, the US 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. According to the book, the Bush administratino began to negotiate with the Taliban immediately after coming into power in February. US and Taliban diplomatic representatives met several times in Washington, Berlin and Islamabad. To polish their image in the United States, the Taliban even employed a US expert on public relations, Laila Helms. The authors claim that Helms is also an expert in the works of US intelligence organizations, for her uncle, Richard Helms, is a former director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). The last meeting between US and Taliban representatives took place in August, five weeks before the attacks on New York and Washington, the analysts maintain. On that occasion, Christina Rocca, in charge of Central Asian affairs for the US government, met the Taliban ambassador to Pakistan in Islamabad. Brisard and Dasquie draw a portrait of the closest aides to Bush, linking them to the oil business. Bush's family has a strong oil background, as do some of his top aides. From Vice President Dick Cheney, through the director of the National Security Council Condoleezza Rice, to the ministers of commerce and energy, Donald Evans and Stanley Abraham, all have for long worked for US oil companies. Cheney was until the end of last year president of Halliburton, a company that provides services for oil industry; Rice was between 1991 and 2000 manager for Chevron; Evans and Abraham worked for Tom Brown, another oil giant.... The book confirms earlier reports that the US government worked closely with the United Nations during the negotiations with the Taliban. 'Several meetings took place this year, under the arbitration of Francesc Vendrell, personal representative of UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, to discuss the situation in Afghanistan,' says the book. 'Representatives of the US government and Russia, and the six countries that border with Afghanistan were present at these meetings,' it says. Sometimes, representatives of the Taliban also sat around the table.' These meetings, also called Six plus 2, because of the number of states (six neighbors plus the US and Russia) involved, have been confirmed by Naif Naik, former Pakistani minister for foreign affairs. In a French television news program two weeks ago, Naik said that during a Six plus 2 meeting in Berlin in July, the discussions turned around "the formation of a government of national unity. If the Taliban had accepted this coalition, they would have immediately received international economic aid. And the pipelines from Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan would have come,' he added. Naik also claimed that Tom Simons, the US representative at these meetings, openly threatened the Taliban and Pakistan. 'Simons said, 'either the Taliban behave as they ought to, or Pakistan convinces them to do so, or we will use another option'. The words Simons used were 'a military operation', Naik claimed."
US policy on Taliban influenced by oil - authors
Asia Times/Inter Press Service, 20 November 2001

".... Enron secretly employed CIA agents to carry out its dealings overseas. And a CIA insider disclosed: 'Enron was wooing the Taliban and was willing to make the Taliban a partner in the operation of a pipeline through Afghanistan. Enron proposed to pay the Taliban large sums of money in a 'tax' on every cubic foot of gas and oil shipped through the pipeline.' Enron shelled out more than $400 million for a feasibility study on the pipeline and 'a large portion of that cost was payoffs to the Taliban,' said the CIA source. Shockingly, Enron's wooing of the Taliban continued even after Al Qaeda agents bombed two American embassies in Africa in 1998, and the U.S. retaliated with missile attacks on suspected Al Qaeda camps in Afghanistan and Sudan.... The pipeline project was originally proposed by Unocal Corporation.... The pipeline was to travel through Afghanistan and Pakistan to the Indian Ocean. When contacted by The Enquirer, U.S. State Department's press officer for South Asian Affairs, Len Scensny, confirmed that a Taliban delegation visited Sugar Land, Texas, in 1997 to discuss business with oil companies. Three days after the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, Unocal announced it had withdrawn from the Afghanistan pipeline project. But the CIA insider said Enron and its CEO Kenneth Lay held on, waiting for the Taliban to give up Bin Laden as the Bush administration was demanding."
Enron gave Taliban $millions
National Enquirer, 4 March 2002

Efforts To Offload Stranded Power Plant
After Pipeline Deal Collapses And Enron Nears Bankruptcy

"There is more to the Enron mess than the narrow question of whether Bush or his aides assisted Lay, Bush's all-time most generous contributor, at the eleventh hour..... Cheney and the National Security Council assisted Enron as it tussled with a state government in India over a power plant Enron was trying to unload. And, as is well-known, Enron officials won highly coveted meetings with the Veep's task force when it was drawing up the Administration's energy plan."
Enron End Run
The Nation, 31 January 2002

"According to government records released on Friday, President Bush's National Security Council led a 'working group' with officials from various Cabinet agencies to resolve Enron's troubles over a power plant venture. Enron, facing nonpayment by its Indian government customer, wanted to sell its interest for $2.3 billion. The administration's efforts; which included Vice President Cheney's conversation with an Indian official and were to involve a personal appeal by Bush to Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee; appeared to end on Nov 8. That is the day Enron filed documents with the Securities and Exchange Commission revising its financial statements to account for $586 million in losses.... The documents released on Friday provided new details about Bush administration efforts to aid Enron, the once highflying company that filed for bankruptcy law protection in December and now faces Justice Department and congressional investigations. The India episode demonstrates the ability of Enron; once one of the nation's most aggressive and innovative firms, and one of the biggest political donors; to command the attention, and sometimes the intervention, of the nation's highest government officials. Enron sought to sell its 65 per cent interest in the Dabhol plant after years of squabbling with the plant's lone customer, the Maharashtra State Electricity Board. In a Sept. 14 letter to Vajpayee, Lay said he wanted $1.2 billion for the cost of the company's investment and $1.1 billion for the purchase of offshore lenders' debt. At that same time, the administration working group was trying to resolve the dispute between Enron and India."
US govt, India's Enron liaison
Washington Post/Dawn, 21 January 2002

"The efforts to get an audience with Indian officials for Lay and the bankers over the company's Dabhol power plant were detailed in documents released last week by the government-funded Overseas Private Investment Corp. under a Freedom of Information Act request. They provide a glimpse of a government function normally conducted in secret to avoid political embarrassment for foreign governments that face U.S. pressure on behalf of American corporations. Susan Schwab, a Commerce Department official from the first Bush administration and now dean of the University of Maryland's School of Public Affairs, said she was surprised that the commercial advocacy has become 'one where it's not the State Department or Commerce Department but the NSC leading the working group.' Daniel Tarullo, a Georgetown University law professor who oversaw international economics issues for President Bill Clinton's National Economic Council, concurred that 'the norm would have been NSC participation in a discussion rather than NSC chairing it.' That change is symbolic of the heightened government priority on aiding commercial interests overseas. The effort, which expanded in the first Bush administration and in the Clinton administration, is evolving to a more explicit link to national security as the Bush administration elevates ties between the NSC and economic and commercial considerations. 'It's a new definition of national interest that embodies the national economic interest,' Schwab said. 'It's not as blatant as 'what's good for General Motors is good for America,' but it's the globalized version of that.'... The administration correspondence released last week suggested various overlaps between Enron and U.S. efforts in India. A July 30 memo to the 'Dabhol Working Group' in the administration listed among the actions taken in July that 'Enron Chairman Ken Lay visited India' and met various government officials. The Dabhol working group's plans in August included an 'Enron trip' to a location that was blacked out on the document before the government released the information. September's actions by the Dabhol group were to include a visit by U.S. Trade Representative Robert B. Zoellick to India; Zoellick had been a paid consultant to Enron before joining the administration. Zoellick has since said he did not raise the issue. The group also planned to make use of a visit to the United Nations in September by Vajpayee. The NSC working group coordinated a push at the highest levels of government. Vice President Cheney, as reported, brought up the matter with Sonia Gandhi, leader of India's Congress Party."
NSC Aided Enron's Efforts
Washington Post, 25 January 2004

"Vice President Cheney tried to help Enron collect a $64 million debt from a giant energy project in India, government documents obtained by the Daily News show. 'Good news is that the veep mentioned Enron in his meeting with [Indian opposition leader] Sonia Gandhi yesterday,' a National Security Council aide wrote in a June 28 e-mail.... The documents obtained by The News showed that the National Security Council had given the Overseas Private Investment Corp. high hopes that Bush would raise the issue with Vajpayee in a Nov. 9 meeting. The investment corporation had sent the White House 'talking points on Dabhol prepared for the President's meeting with Prime Minister Vajpayee,' according to a Nov. 1 e-mail. But a Nov. 8 e-mail [on the day Enron filed for bankruptcy protection], whose sender and recipient are blacked out, warned, 'President Bush cannot talk about Dabhol.' White House economic adviser Lawrence Lindsey, who was previously paid $50,000 a year as an Enron adviser, also 'was advised that he could not discuss Dabhol.' National security adviser Condoleezza Rice, however, was still expected to raise the issue — but did not, another e-mail says."
Veep Tried to Aid Enron
New York Daily News, 18 January 2002

"... in January 2001, Vice President Cheney allegedly reinstated the intelligence block and expanded it to effectively preclude any investigations whatsoever of Saudi-Taliban-Afghan oil connections. Former FBI counter-terrorism chief John O’Neil resigned from the FBI in disgust, stating that he was ordered not to investigate Saudi-Al Qaida connections because of the Enron pipeline deal. Loftus has confirmed that it was O’Neill who originally discovered the AL Qaida pipeline memo after the Embassy bombings in Africa. O’Neill gave an overview of the Enron block to two French authors who will soon be publishing in the United States. The FBI is currently investigating Loftus’ links to John O’Neill, and is also refusing FBI agent Robert Wright permission to publish his own findings about the Enron block. Loftus asserts that the Enron block, which remained in force from January 2001 until August 2001 when the pipeline deal collapsed, is the reason that none of FBI agent Rowley’s requests for investigations were ever approved. As numerous British and French authors have concluded, the information provided by European intelligence sources prior to 9/11 was so extensive, that it is no longer possible for either CIA or the FBI to assert a defense of incompetence. It is time for Congress to face the truth: In order to give Enron one last desperate chance to complete the Taliban pipeline and save itself from bankruptcy, senior levels of US intelligence were ordered to keep their eyes shut and their subordinates ignorant. The Enron cover-up confirms that 9/11 was not an intelligence failure or a law enforcement failure (at least not entirely). Instead, it was a foreign policy failure of the highest order. If Congress ever combines its Enron investigation with 9/11, Cheney’s whole house of cards will collapse".
What Congress Does Not Know about Enron and 9/11
John Loftus, Former Federal Prosecutor, Press Release, 31 May 2002

"Two veteran FBI investigators say they were ordered to stop investigations into a suspected
terror cell linked to Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network and the Sept. 11 attacks.... even after the [1998 African embassy] bombings, Wright said FBI headquarters wanted no arrests."
Called Off the Trail?
ABCNews 19 Dec 2002

"Did those who died on September 11 do so as a consequence of a wider effort by the Bush Administration to promote Enron's overseas business interests as an integral part of emerging US energy and foreign policy? ....... at the very least it seems clear (as reported in the Washington Post 19 and 25 January) that the US National Security Council had established its own Enron-focused task force during 2001. The purpose of the so-called 'Dabhol Working Group' was to try and rescue Enron's beleaguered power plant at Dabhol on India's west coast. This was a power plant whose economic survival was dependent on access to cheap gas - gas that was due to pass into the region from Turkmenistan via Afghanistan had it not been for been for the failure of the US administration to agree terms with the Taliban, followed by the US threatening them with war shortly before September 11. The National Security Council is the President's nerve center for international crises and strategy. Its direct intervention on behalf of Enron in this way is extraordinary. In the words of the Washington Post: 'The India episode demonstrates the ability of Enron -- once one of the nation's most aggressive and innovative firms, and one of the biggest political donors -- to command the attention, and sometimes the intervention, of the nation's highest government officials.' It also suggests that the activities of Enron were regarded by the Bush Administration as of key relevance to the implementation of US government foreign and trade policy."
Did Sept 11 victims die for Enron?
'Fight Smart', 8 March 2002

"Eleven weeks after the United Nations Security Council unanimously passed a resolution demanding yet again that Iraq disclose and disarm all its nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programs, it is appropriate to ask, 'Has Saddam Hussein finally decided to voluntarily disarm?' Unfortunately, the answer is a clear and resounding no."
Condoleeza Rice - 'Why We Know Iraq is Lying'
New York Times, 23 January 2003

"Australian investigative journalist John Pilger says he has evidence the war against Iraq was based on a lie which could cost George W Bush and Tony Blair their jobs and bring Prime Minister John Howard down with them. A television report by Pilger aired on British screens last night said US Secretary of State Colin Powell and National Security Adviser Condoleeza Rice confirmed in early 2001 that Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein had been disarmed and was no threat. But after the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington on September 11 that year, Pilger claimed Rice said the US 'must move to take advantage of these new opportunities' to attack Iraq and claim control of its oil. Pilger uncovered video footage of Powell in Cairo on February 24, 2001 saying, 'He (Saddam Hussein) has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction. He is unable to project conventional power against his neighbours.' Two months later, Rice reportedly said, 'We are able to keep his arms from him. His military forces have not been rebuilt.' "
Sydney Morning Herald, 23 September 2003

"A former translator for the FBI with top-secret security clearance says she has provided information to the panel investigating the 11 September attacks which proves senior officials knew of al-Qa'ida's plans to attack the US with aircraft months before the strikes happened. She said the claim by the National Security Adviser, Condoleezza Rice, that there was no such information was 'an outrageous lie'. Sibel Edmonds said she spent more than three hours in a closed session with the commission's investigators providing information that was circulating within the FBI in the spring and summer of 2001 suggesting that an attack using aircraft was just months away and the terrorists were in place. The Bush administration, meanwhile, has sought to silence her and has obtained a gagging order from a court by citing the rarely used 'state secrets privilege'. She told The Independent yesterday: 'I gave [the commission] details of specific investigation files, the specific dates, specific target information, specific managers in charge of the investigation. I gave them everything so that they could go back and follow up. This is not hearsay. These are things that are documented. These things can be established very easily.' She added: 'There was general information about the time-frame, about methods to be used but not specifically about how they would be used and about people being in place and who was ordering these sorts of terror attacks. There were other cities that were mentioned. Major cities with skyscrapers.' ...... 'President Bush said they had no specific information about 11 September and that is accurate but only because he said 11 September,' she said. There was, however, general information about the use of airplanes and that an attack was just months away.... in an opinion piece in The Washington Post on 22 March, Ms Rice wrote: 'Despite what some have suggested, we received no intelligence that terrorists were preparing to attack the homeland using airplanes as missiles, though some analysts speculated that terrorists might hijack planes to try and free US-held terrorists.' Mrs Edmonds said that by using the word 'we', Ms Rice told an 'outrageous lie'. She said: 'Rice says 'we' not ' I '. That would include all people from the FBI, the CIA and DIA [Defence Intelligence Agency]. I am saying that is impossible."
'I saw papers that show US knew al-Qa'ida would attack cities with aeroplanes'
Whistleblower the White House wants to silence speaks to The Independent
Independent, 2 April 2004

Full interview with Sibel Edmonds, former F.B.I. Wiretap Translator - 'Democracy Now' - Click Here

But is the 911 Commission up to the task? The Commission has already been accused of bowling witnesses 'soft ball' questions.

If Rice and her National Security Council weren't properly focused on pre-empting al Qaeda after the counter-terrorism downgrade that followed the arrival of the Bush Administration (the White House head of counter-terrorism post held by Richard Clarke was reduced to a lower position), then what were they focused on?

An article in the UK's Guardian newspaper 27 March by former Blair Minister Michael Meacher provides some clues. He states that "For both the UK and US, an energy crisis is looming. The latest BP statistical review of world energy predicted that UK proven oil and gas reserves will last, respectively, only 5.4 and 6.8 years at present rates of use. It has been estimated that by 2020 the UK could be dependent on imported energy for 80% of its needs. The US energy department has calculated that net imports of oil, already at 54%, will rise to 70% by 2025 because of growing demand and declining domestic supply".

Such a predicament would of course be likely to have a significant impact on the execution of US foreign policy in a number of parts of the globe, but Meacher's observations in relation to the Balkans are especially interesting.

Alluding to US covert support for Islamic terrorism in former Yugoslavia Meacher reports that "US goals in the use of the KLA [Kosovo Liberation Army] as a proxy force, similar to the funding of the Contras against the leftwing Sandinista government in Nicaragua in the 1980s, were partly to remove Milosevic and break up Yugoslavia as one of the remaining Communist regimes. But related motives were to break Russia's monopoly over oil and gas transport routes and secure pro-western governments in the strategic Black Sea-Caspian Sea oil-rich basin. A crucial oil corridor, called the Trans-Balkan pipeline, designed to become the main route to the west for oil and gas extracted in central Asia, was to run from the Black Sea to the Adriatic via Bulgaria, Macedonia near the border with Kosovo, and Albania. Another was to run across Serbia to Adriatic ports in Croatia and Italy, fed by a pipeline running from a Black Sea port in Romania."

The situation in the Balkans raises a number of questions, and some of these relate to the role played by Condoleeza Rice.

One such question, particularly in the light of a report by former Canadian Ambassador to Yugoslavia James Bisset published in Canada's National Post 13 November 2001, was why in the weeks of high security alerts immediately prior to 911 was Rice apparently giving such high priority to protecting Muslim terrorists in Yugoslavia closely connected to Osama Bin Laden - specifically the ethnic Albanian KLA (Kosovo Liberation Army).

In preparation for the NATO aerial bombardment of Yugoslavia in 1999, the Clinton administration had covertly armed and trained the KLA, a group earlier designated by the US State Department as a terrorist organisation. Already expert in provoking ethnic conflict in the region, the KLA were to be used as ground troops in the strikes against Milosevic's Yugoslavia.

During 2001 the Bush administration had also continued secretly supporting the KLA (now operating under the name of the Kosovo Protection Corp - KPC) in their incursions into neighbouring Macedonia to the south.

According to Bisset "Bin Laden and radical Muslim groups have been deeply involved in the Balkans since the civil wars in Bosnia from 1992 to 1995. Despite a UN arms embargo and with the knowledge and support of the United States, arms, ammunition and thousands of Mujahideen fighters were smuggled into Bosnia to help the Muslims.... He and his al-Qaeda network were also active in Kosovo, and KLA members trained in his camps in Afghanistan and Albania.... Macedonia, with its large Albanian minority, was the KLA's next target. In February [2001], its forces moved against this small and newly independent democracy..... [In May 2001 Bush Administration] U.S. diplomat Robert Fenwick, ostensibly the head of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, in Macedonia, met secretly in Prizren, Kosovo, with the leaders of the Albanian political parties and KLA representatives. Macedonian officials were not invited. It was clear the United States was backing the Albanian terrorist cause. This was confirmed a month later, when a force of 400 KLA fighters was surrounded in the town of Aracinovo near the capital, Skopje. As Macedonian security forces moved in, they were halted on NATO orders. U.S. army buses from Camp Bondsteel in Kosovo arrived to remove all the heavily armed terrorists to a safer area of Macedonia. German reporters later revealed that 17 U.S. military advisors were accompanying the KLA terrorists in Aracinovo. In August, fearing the Macedonian forces might be able to defeat the KLA, U.S. Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice flew to Kiev and ordered the Ukrainian government to stop sending further military equipment to Macedonia. Since Ukraine was the only country supplying Macedonia with military assistance, the Macedonians realized continued resistance against the KLA terrorists, the EU and NATO was futile. Macedonia was forced to concede defeat and obliged to accept all the terrorist demands.”

From Bisset's point of view America was clearly determined to make sure that Macedonia was forced to capitulate to these terrorists and Condoleeza Rice played a crucial part in this concerted effort. On the face of it Rice was prepared to travel personally to Kiev for the purpose. This she did even during the days leading up to 911, the very period when warnings of terrorist attacks on US targets were pouring into Washington from foreign countries - in other words precisely the time when intense focus on homeland security was most urgently required.

Far from the priority being counter-terrorism, the US government was in fact continuing to covertly back Islamic militants in their strikes against a European sovereign state in whose region it had pressing oil related geo-strategic ambitions.

A year after Rice's July 2001 trip to Kiev, Colonel Blagojaja Markovski of the Macedonian Ministry of Defence criticised the actions of Rice in an online interview in which he defended his country's actions against the Albania allied KLA and described the urgent need to turn to the Ukraine for assistance.

In a piece published 5 September 2002 Markovski told the internet journal 'Antiwar.com' that "As you know, the crisis situation in Macedonia last year forced us to purchase several advanced T-72 tanks, as well as attack and transport helicopters, and 4 Sukhoi SU-25 fighter planes, from Ukraine. This action was done entirely for the defense of the country at our greatest moment of need. At the very beginning of the crisis, we first asked for help from NATO countries. We pleaded with them to purchase weaponry for Macedonia's defense. But we received no response – just silence. They don't admit it, but we were forced to go to Ukraine and Bulgaria after the NATO countries would not help us. For the help of these countries, and Ukraine especially, we are eternally grateful. They answered our cry for help on the very day that we asked them. In fact, Ukraine gave us helicopters before we had even paid for them. We do not feel guilty about having such great friends in the east.... I should make it clear that the tanks the Republic of Macedonia owns are not just for the defense of (ethnic) Macedonians. They are for all the citizens of the republic – for the Albanians, Serbs, Roma, Vlachs and the rest. We will use them to defend equally all of our citizens from external and internal threats. Remember, last year's crisis was largely an 'import' from Kosovo Albanians. It did not start with our citizens...."

Colonel Markovski, knowing the weakness of his country in the face of the military and economic might of NATO into whose 'protective' arms it had now been successfully thrust, is far too diplomatic to explicitly point out that the US was secretly sponsoring the imported crisis whilst public condemning it.

In her flight to Kiev Rice, of course, was posing as a harbinger of peace during this process.

In this respect a BBC report of 29 January 2001 is telling. The report confirmed that "The BBC's Nik Gowing in Davos has been shown evidence by foreign diplomatic sources that the guerrillas [i.e the KLA/KPC] now have several hundred fighters in the 5km-deep military exclusion zone on the boundary between Kosovo and the rest of Serbia. The sources said that:

The BBC report coincided with only the first few days of the new Bush administration in 2001 and such circumstances might have been regarded as a hangover from Clinton.

But it soon became clear that things were not going to change. By the 23 August, just shortly before 911, the public interest group Media Monitors Network was reporting that "A Canadian journalist has evidence that NATO is arming and equipping the ethnic Albanian guerillas who have waged a five-month long insurgency against the Macedonian government in Skopje. Scott Taylor, editor of Espirit de Corps magazine, says that on a visit to guerilla bunkers overlooking the besieged Macedonian city of Tetovo he was welcomed with shouts of, 'God bless America and Canada too for all they have provided to us.' Canada is a member of the US-led NATO coalition. Taylor says guerrilla commanders showed off their arsenal, which included side arms, sniper rifles and grenade launchers, all marked 'Made in the USA.' Says Taylor, one commander remarked that, 'thanks to Uncle Sam, the Macedonians are no match for us.'... Taylor, who served in the Canadian Armed Forces, says NATO's support of the guerillas is so blatant 'it is little wonder that the Macedonian majority have staged violent anti-NATO riots.'"

According to the open but more discreet Colonel Markovski speaking in his interview with Antiwar.com a year later "Today, the Republic of Macedonia is hopefully near the end of the problems – meaning we should concentrate on eliminating these smaller (Albanian) groups who are threatening the peace.... the problem is that these terrorists we have now are connected with those in Kosovo.... Last year during the crisis, we did not have the Framework Agreement, meaning that the terrorists could act with impunity, and cover their actions with grand speeches about 'fighting for human rights.' Whether or not you agree with that argument, it is clear that such rhetoric is impossible to justify a future war – the Framework Agreement covered all of their demands. Many Macedonians thought the Agreement was a disaster for us, but there is one indisputably good thing to come from it: a red line has now been drawn. Because they got their demands, any future terrorists cannot cross it. If they decide to cross that red line, the ARM [Army of the Republic of Macedonia] will be forced to act. We have explained to NATO that it is a constitutional right of Macedonia – like every other country – to defend its sovereignty. No one has the right to prevent us from exercising this right.... During 2001, KFOR did not secure the border as it should have. Article 9 of the Kumanovo Agreement, which ended the 1999 NATO bombing campaign, deals with this subject. According to it, KFOR had the obligation to vigilantly guard our border with Kosovo. But they claimed that they were not responsible for it... It is interesting to note that the height of the illegal weapon trade was during that period, 1999-2001. Now, however, the situation has changed. But getting back to your question, if the Yugoslav army had been in Kosovo, I believe that the illegal trade of weapons would have been much more contained. It is clear that the war of 2001 was an imported crisis, from ex-members of the UCK [KLA] and KPC (Kosovo Protection Corps). So the blame must fall on KFOR as well."

No wonder the Macedonians felt aggrieved. Can you imagine the US being told that it is not allowed to defend itself against people who have previously been internationally recognised as terrorists?

Yet that was the message Rice and her associates were pushing on the Macedonians just a few weeks before 911 when the KLA had been left by NATO to flow over the Macedonian border. Worse still the terrorists were discovered to be accompanied by CIA sponsored US mercenaries.

According to the London Times 3 September 2001, just days before 911, "The US Embassy in Belarus has admitted that it is pursuing a policy [against the government of Belarus] similar to that in 1980s Nicaragua, in which anti-government Contra rebels were funded and supported.... The ambassador's disclosure has coincided with moves by the Bush Administration to gain increased political influence in Eastern Europe and the Balkans and with reports in several European newspapers, which said that former US servicemen believed to be working for the CIA were escorted with Albanian guerrillas from a village in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia earlier this year ."

It is hard to imagine a more explicit public acknowledgement of the adopted underhand methods and priorities of US foreign policy. And with Rice herself jetting around Eastern Europe at the time it can hardly have been one executed without her knowledge. After all the US Ambassador in Belarus was now explicitly on record on the matter.

Clearly in the case of Macedonia the approach was the same. And clearly the US had no intention of securing the Kosovo-Macedonia border unless it was embarrassed into it - as the growing press reports eventually succeeded in achieving.

Given Albania's reputation for being one of the world's greatest nurseries for international crime, it is clear that America was running an altogether different agenda - one of sufficient urgency for it to be willing sweep such considerations under the carpet and to form a covert alliance with such people. It was after all "A pact with the Devil" as America's former chief Balkans peace negotiator had earlier called it.

No. The impending energy crisis staring America in the face provides a much better indication as to what the Bush administration's real priorities were in cosying up to the KLA/KPC at the time. Indeed by the time Bush took over from Clinton, not only was Rice flying into Kiev in August 2001, but she had already been there for two days during July when she had been discussing "an oil pipeline across Ukraine connecting the Black Sea to Europe with her Ukrainian counterpart" according to a Deutsche Presse-Agentur report 26 July 2001.

As American energy secretary Bill Richardson put it in 1998 in relation to US policy on the extraction and transport of oil from the Caspian Sea region "This is about America's energy security. It's also about preventing strategic inroads by those who don't share our values. We're trying to move these newly independent countries toward the west. We would like to see them reliant on western commercial and political interests rather than going another way. We've made a substantial political investment in the Caspian, and it's very important to us that both the pipeline map and the politics come out right."

Or as highlighted in the comments of Michael Meacher in the Guardian last month "related [US] motives [in the Balkans] were to break Russia's monopoly over oil and gas transport routes and secure pro-western governments in the strategic Black Sea-Caspian Sea oil-rich basin."

July 2001, the month that Rice was in Kiev discussing pipelines, was of course also the month when White House head of terrorism Richard Clarke told an apparently uninterested Bush administration that "Something spectacular is going to happen, and its going to happen here soon" as reported in the Washington Post 17 May 2002.

We now know that Clarke is fuming about the way he was ignored by Rice during this period.

According to a Knight Ridder report 28 March "Former counterterrorism chief Richard Clarke on Sunday challenged the White House to declassify documents related to the Sept. 11 attacks, as national security adviser Condoleezza Rice came under increasing pressure to testify publicly about the administration's efforts to thwart terrorism. Clarke, whose credibility has come under attack from numerous administration officials, sought to gain the upper hand by calling for the release of Rice's closed-door testimony to the commission that is investigating the Sept. 11 attacks. Rice has refused to answers the panel's questions in public, citing the need to protect the confidentiality of her advice to President Bush. Clarke also challenged the administration to release his communications with Rice when he was the top White House adviser on counterterrorism. 'Let's take all of my e-mails and all of the memos that I sent to the national security adviser and her deputy from January 20th to September 11th, and let's declassify all of it,' Clarke said on NBC's 'Meet the Press.'"

In his article Meacher outlines much more in relation to covert US participation in killings and ethnic cleansing in Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo during the 1990s. He concludes that "The US played a major role in creating and sustaining the mojahedin to fight the invading Soviet army in the Afghan war of 1979-92. Then from 1992-95 the Pentagon assisted the movement of thousands of Islamic fighters from central Asia to fight alongside Bosnian Muslims and remove the Milosevic barrier, and so extend US influence in a key area of oil geopolitics - a 'pact with the devil', as Richard Holbrooke, America's former chief Balkans peace negotiator put it. It has proved quite another thing to rein them back in again. Before President Bush trumpets his dedication to his war on terror, he should reflect on his country's links with terrorism over the past decade where it has suited US interests."

The grim reality is that both the Bush and Clinton administrations have indeed been focused on the importance of Islamic militancy, but as often as not their interest has been in the covert co-opting of Islamic jihad as a vehicle for pursuing US global geopolitical ambitions by proxy. Even post 911 this tendency quietly continues in some quarters.

According to ABC News 29 May 2003 "The Pentagon is considering a massive covert action program to overthrow Iran's ruling ayatollahs... The proposal, sources say, includes ... backing armed Iranian dissidents and employing the services of the Mujahedeen e Khalq, a group currently branded as terrorist by the United States..." The London Times 16 June 2003 carried a similar report stating "The People’s Mujahidin is seen by Washington as a possible instrument for 'regime change' in Tehran....The Marxist movement, which initially supported the Islamic revolution and then broke with the fundamentalist regime, was formally designated last year as 'terrorist' by the State Department and the EU but it is known to have links with the CIA and other US agencies."

As the experience in Macedonia shows this is an approach which has continued well into the Bush administration. Even the publicly stated goals of Colin Powell, the man who has been so successful in marketing himself as the Mr Niceguy of an otherwise blatantly aggressive White House operation, leave little room for doubt about what the real 'security' priorities of the Bush administration have been.

According to a Christian Science Monitor review of the press for 1 April "The Associated Press reports that three days before the Bush inauguration, Secretary of State Colin Powell outlined his 20 priorities to his confirmation hearing. His list included China, the Balkans, as well as UN sanctions and Iraq. Mr. Powell, however, did not mention Al Qaeda. The Christian Science Monitor reports when Bush's foreign policy team took office in 2000, it was determined to focus on big nations and traditional power geopolitics, not Al Qaeda and the new terrorist threat."

Ultimately had Rice's priorities been more focused on National Security instead of US economic development, 911 might have been prevented. More than that. There is strong evidence that certain actions of the Bush administration in this area appear to have directly contributed to the success of the attacks on 911.

This is particularly so when taking into account (as we shall see below) the information concerning Enron and an FBI intelligence block allegedly imposed by Vice President Cheney that former Federal prosecutor John Loftus claims to have in his possession. The US government was not only highly focused on securing pipeline routes coming west out of the Caspian Sea region via the Black Sea and the Balkans, into the Mediterranean. Just as importantly it was also focused on other routes for the Caspian Sea region travelling east and down to the Indian ocean, a priority of particular importance to Enron.

Indeed so intense was White House support for Enron's ambitions in that region of the world that Rice's National Security Council even went so far as to set up its now infamous 'Dabhol Working Group' in order to try and rescue Enron's beleaguered power plant at Dabhol on India's west coast. During this period Enron was encountering serious difficulties in negotiating terms with the government of India over the supply of electricity from the plant, and the Security Council had tried to intervene on Enron's behalf as reported in the Washington Post 19 and 25 January 2002.

According to the Asia Times 13 November 2003 "After various other legal challenges and squabbles, US Secretary of State Colin Powell entered the fray, raising Enron's problems with the Indian foreign minister. Later, Vice President Dick Cheney would also attempt to intervene with Sonja Gandhi, the president of the now-opposition Congress Party. A provision to benefit Enron's India operations was also included in the White House's so-far stalled energy package. Then, in May of 2001, with the project 90 percent complete and producing electricity on naphtha instead of natural gas, the price of the fuel went through the roof. Dabhol Power ceased generating power on Phase I and halted construction on Phase II, although it was 90 percent completed".

'The Nation' 31 January 2002 also commented on the affair, but also drew attention to Enron's close connection to Vice President Cheney's Energy Task Group. The paper states "There is more to the Enron mess than the narrow question of whether Bush or his aides assisted Lay, Bush's all-time most generous contributor, at the eleventh hour..... Cheney and the National Security Council assisted Enron as it tussled with a state government in India over a power plant Enron was trying to unload. And, as is well-known, Enron officials won highly coveted meetings with the Veep's task force when it was drawing up the Administration's energy plan."

The establishment of Cheney's task group was the first major initiative of the Bush administration after coming to power in 2001, itself an action which speaks volumes about the administration's emerging policy priorities. The papers of the task force have been kept a closely guarded secret by Cheney and they have been subject to long drawn out litigation which still continues concerning their public release.

A press release issued by his office 31 May 2002 states that "Loftus recently received an FBI translation of a highly classified and encrypted Al Qaida document, circa 1997-1998, which was retrieved and decrypted from a computer laptop following the Embassy bombing in Africa. The document was written by Osama Bin Laden’s military commander, Mohammed Atef, under his nom de guerre, Abu Haf, and reveals extensive knowledge of the supposedly secret pipeline negotiations [in Afghanistan], and their potential economic worth to the Taliban, Pakistan and the U.S.... in January 2001, Vice President Cheney allegedly reinstated the intelligence block and expanded it to effectively preclude any investigations whatsoever of Saudi-Taliban-Afghan oil connections. Former FBI counter-terrorism chief John O’Neil resigned from the FBI in disgust, stating that he was ordered not to investigate Saudi-Al Qaida connections because of the Enron pipeline deal. Loftus has confirmed that it was O’Neill who originally discovered the AL Qaida pipeline memo after the Embassy bombings in Africa. O’Neill gave an overview of the Enron block to two French authors who will soon be publishing in the United States. The FBI is currently investigating Loftus’ links to John O’Neill, and is also refusing FBI agent Robert Wright permission to publish his own findings about the Enron block. Loftus asserts that the Enron block, which remained in force from January 2001 until August 2001 when the pipeline deal collapsed, is the reason that none of FBI agent Rowley’s requests for investigations were ever approved. As numerous British and French authors have concluded, the information provided by European intelligence sources prior to 9/11 was so extensive, that it is no longer possible for either CIA or the FBI to assert a defense of incompetence. It is time for Congress to face the truth: In order to give Enron one last desperate chance to complete the Taliban pipeline and save itself from bankruptcy, senior levels of US intelligence were ordered to keep their eyes shut and their subordinates ignorant. The Enron cover-up confirms that 9/11 was not an intelligence failure or a law enforcement failure (at least not entirely). Instead, it was a foreign policy failure of the highest order. If Congress ever combines its Enron investigation with 9/11, Cheney’s whole house of cards will collapse".

It was precisely during this time - on 5 July 2001 - that White House counter-terrorism chief Richard Clarke issued his explicit warning of a pending terrorist attack on US soil to a gathering in the White House situation room of a dozen government agencies, including the Federal Aviation Administration, the FBI and the Secret Service: "Something really spectacular is going to happen here, and it's going to happen soon."

In short, whether considering Afghanistan, Macedonia or the Ukraine, it is apparent that during the critical July to September period of 2001 - when it should have been putting maximum resources into pre-empting the 911 perpetrators as the warnings from foreign countries were flowing in - the Bush administration was highly focused on Enron together with pipeline negotiations in Asia and Eastern Europe.

But these were not the only misplaced priorities surrounding the 911 episode that need to be taken into account when considering the role of Condoleeza Rice in the execution of US foreign policy.

In this respect Rice's track record suggests that personal her loyalty to Bush is greater than her loyalty to the truth given the way she dramatically changed her position over Iraq following 911.

According to the Sydney Morning Herald 23 September 2003 "Australian investigative journalist John Pilger says he has evidence the war against Iraq was based on a lie which could cost George W Bush and Tony Blair their jobs and bring Prime Minister John Howard down with them. A television report by Pilger aired on British screens last night said US Secretary of State Colin Powell and National Security Adviser Condoleeza Rice confirmed in early 2001 that Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein had been disarmed and was no threat. But after the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington on September 11 that year, Pilger claimed Rice said the US 'must move to take advantage of these new opportunities' to attack Iraq and claim control of its oil. Pilger uncovered video footage of Powell in Cairo on February 24, 2001 saying, 'He (Saddam Hussein) has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction. He is unable to project conventional power against his neighbours.' Two months later, Rice reportedly said, 'We are able to keep his arms from him. His military forces have not been rebuilt.' "

Most recently additional pressure has been applied to Rice following allegations from a former FBI translator who has had access to 911 related intelligence intercepts. The translator (who is subject to a government gag order against further disclosures) claims that the Bush administration had specific advance information about the planned 911 attacks, and that Rice is lying when she tries to deny that.

Only time will tell whether the 911 Commission will press Rice fully on these matters. But given the limited timespan for her appearance before the panel, this is by no means certain.

Yet in an arrangement that also suggests that the President will not be able to cope without the help of his Vice President (the New York Times/Sydney Morning Herald ran a satirical article on exactly this theme 3 April), Cheney and Bush have been afforded the luxury of testifying privately together to the members of the Commission.

In fact that seems to be the whole point of the White House deal with the Commission over Rice. Rice will only be released to testify provided no one else from the White House is called. As one columnist for Antiwar.com put it 31 March "The fine print of the deal takes the chance of the commission taking sworn public testimony from any other White House official – including Rice's deputy Stephen Hadley, Bush's political adviser Karl Rove, President Bush himself or Vice President Dick Cheney – completely off the table. It also precludes the panel from having the option of calling Rice, who's made media statements contradicting evidence and sworn statements by other officials, back to testify. It's a one-shot deal. And it stinks."

But as the most influential person within the Bush administration this is simply not good enough. Cheney needs to be questioned in public about the intelligence block on al Qaeda he allegedly instituted pre-911. Not only on the basis of Loftus's accusations but also on those coming from within the FBI itself. The American people need a full explanation as to what were the real priorities of the White House during the summer of 2001 - and an answer to the disturbing question 'Did the 911 victims die For Enron?'.

In the view of many the probability is high that Cheney sits at heart of why US defences were so easily breached on 911. His failure to testify in public reinforces the impression of a cover-up in motion.

Entitled "Aircraft Piracy (Hijacking) and Destruction of Derelict Airborne Objects", the Instruction confirms that "When an aircraft becomes the subject of an aircraft piracy offense within the US special aircraft jurisdiction, the FAA and the Department Defense will provide support in accordance with paragraph 3 of this enclosure. In addition, for military aircraft and military contract aircraft, the Department of Defense will take action to prevent the hijacking attempt and promptly notify the FAA and appropriate federal agencies. The Department of Defense will provide the FAA with all pertinent information involving onboard documents, equipment, [and] weapons of mass destruction (WMD)..."

It is, of course, also interesting that someone felt there was a need to review procedures for military responses to hijackings just three months before 911.

Despite already appearing before the Commission the world is still waiting for a satisfactory account from Rumsfeld as to what he did and didn't do on 911 after the President was told by his Chief of Staff at 9.05 am that "America is under attack".

US Backed Islamic Terrorism in the Balkans Press Reports
1. Oil and US Geopolitical Objectives in the Balkans	Click here
2. US backed terrorism in Croatia	Click here
3. US backed terrorism in Bosnia	Click here
4. US backed terrorism in Kosovo	Click here
5. US backed terrorism in Macedonia	Click here
6. The human cost of US backed terrorism in the Balkans	Click here
American Sponsored Islamic Jihad In Yugoslavia Article by former British government Minister, Michael Meacher - click here
Post 911 - Some Habits Die Hard "The Pentagon is considering a massive covert action program to overthrow Iran's ruling ayatollahs... The proposal, sources say, includes ... backing armed Iranian dissidents and employing the services of the Mujahedeen e Khalq, a group currently branded as terrorist by the United States..." The Iran Debate ABC News, 29 May 2003 "The People’s Mujahidin is seen by Washington as a possible instrument for 'regime change' in Tehran....The Marxist movement, which initially supported the Islamic revolution and then broke with the fundamentalist regime, was formally designated last year as 'terrorist' by the State Department and the EU but it is known to have links with the CIA and other US agencies." France rounds up US-linked Iranian exiles London Times, 16 June 2003

"The UK Defence Intelligence Staff (DIS) was also aware of the American secret arms supplies to the ABiH [the Bosnian Muslim Army]. According to a British intelligence official, the DIS never made an issue of them, so as not to further damage the sensitive relationship with the US services. An internal DIS analysis concluded that the arms were delivered via 'a different network', and that the entire operation was probably led by the NSC [National Security Council]..... the DIS received a direct order from the British government not to investigate this affair. This was not permitted for the simple reason that the matter was too sensitive in the framework of American-British relations. The DIS also obtained intelligence on the secret supplies to the ABiH from the German military intelligence service and the Bundesnachrichtendienst, because some of the flights departed from Frankfurt. However, no American-German alliance existed in the matter of clandestine support to the ABiH."
Srebrenica - A Safe Area?
Appendix II - Intelligence and the war in Bosnia 1992 – 1995: The role of the intelligence and security services
Chapter 4, Secret arms supplies and other covert actions
Report Published on Behalf of The Dutch Government, 10 April 2002

"We now know that a blueprint for the creation of a global Pax Americana was drawn up for Dick Cheney (now vice-president), Donald Rumsfeld (defence secretary), Paul Wolfowitz (Rumsfeld's deputy), Jeb Bush (George Bush's younger brother) and Lewis Libby (Cheney's chief of staff). The document, entitled Rebuilding America's Defences, was written in September 2000 by the neoconservative think tank, Project for the New American Century (PNAC). The plan shows Bush's cabinet intended to take military control of the Gulf region whether or not Saddam Hussein was in power. It says 'while the unresolved conflict with Iraq provides the immediate justification, the need for a substantial American force presence in the Gulf transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein.'... In late September and early October 2001, leaders of Pakistan's two Islamist parties negotiated Bin Laden's extradition to Pakistan to stand trial for 9/11. However, a US official said, significantly, that 'casting our objectives too narrowly' risked 'a premature collapse of the international effort if by some lucky chance Mr Bin Laden was captured'.... The whistleblowing FBI agent Robert Wright told ABC News that FBI headquarters wanted no arrests.... The evidence again is quite clear that plans for military action against Afghanistan and Iraq were in hand well before 9/11. A report prepared for the US government from the Baker Institute of Public Policy stated in April 2001 that 'the US remains a prisoner of its energy dilemma. Iraq remains a destabilising influence to... the flow of oil to international markets from the Middle East'. Submitted to Vice-President Cheney's energy task group, the report recommended that because this was an unacceptable risk to the US, 'military intervention' was necessary. Similar evidence exists in regard to Afghanistan. The BBC reported 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' .... The 9/11 attacks allowed the US to press the 'go' button for a strategy in accordance with the PNAC agenda which it would otherwise have been politically impossible to implement. The overriding motivation for this political smokescreen is that the US and the UK are beginning to run out of secure hydrocarbon energy supplies.... 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... The conclusion of all this analysis must surely be that the 'global war on terrorism' has the hallmarks of a political myth propagated to pave the way for a wholly different agenda - the US goal of world hegemony, built around securing by force command over the oil supplies required to drive the whole project. Is collusion in this myth and junior participation in this project really a proper aspiration for British foreign policy? If there was ever need to justify a more objective British stance, driven by our own independent goals, this whole depressing saga surely provides all the evidence needed for a radical change of course."
Michael Meacher, former Blair government Minister - 'This war on terrorism is bogus'
The Guardian, 6 September 2003

Bogus War Against Terrorism - Why They Are Really Doing It
GLOBAL ENERGY CRISIS LOOMING
Click Here

American Sponsored Islamic Jihad In Yugoslavia - 27 March 2004
Is Bush Camp Preparing Another 'October Surprise' For The 2004 US election? - 21 March 2004
911 Inquiry Must Investigate US Military Command, Intelligence Services, and Cheney - 24 Feb 2004
Hutton And The Libyan Black Gold Rush - 8 Feb 2004
Hussein Kamel And The Big Anglo-American Deception - 4 Jan 2004
Iraq: British Government admits to 'Operation Mass Appeal' - 28 Dec 2003
Iraqgate 2003 - Dr Kelly and 'Operation Rockingham' - 19 Oct 2003
A Vision For Transforming America - 24 March 2003
This Is Our Prime Minister - 23 Feb 2003
What Is Happening To Britain And America? - 9 Feb 2003
The 911 Omar Sheikh Files - 2 Jan 2003
'October Surprise 2002' - Life After The US Constitutional Coup - 31 Oct 2002
What Did Britain Know About 911? - 28 Aug 2002
Why Did Bush Not Act On Sept 11? - 9 May 2002
World Peace Offered From Hiroshima - 22 April 2002
Did Sept 11 victims die for Enron? - 8 March 2002
CIA provided funds to financiers of Sept 11 bomber - 18 Nov 2001