Who Is Richard Armitage
And What Is His Interest In Afghanistan?

Armitage, The ISI and 911 Hijacker Mohammed Atta

"....for the foreseeable future oil will remain an essential commodity. Greater attention must therefore be given to increasing supplies of oil in ways that diversify supplies from areas other than the Persian Gulf. The most promising new source of world supplies is the Caspian region, which appears to contain the largest petroleum reserves discovered since the North Sea. This geopolitical crossroad, which includes Iran, Russia, and a number of newly-independent states struggling with post-Soviet modernization and dangers of Islamic extremism, demands more attention by American policymakers."
AMERICA’S NATIONAL INTERESTS
A Report from The Commission on America’s National Interests, July 2000
Co-authored by Richard Armitage et al [pdf]

"Some circles in the US see a linkage between the recent high-profile visit of Mr. Richard Armitage, US Deputy Secretary of State, to New Delhi, the unpublicised visit of Mr.George Tenet, Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), to Islamabad where he had an unusually long meeting with Gen. Pervez Musharraf, the self-styled Chief Executive of Pakistan, and the surprise decision of the Government of India to invite the General to New Delhi for talks without any longer insisting on the stoppage of Pakistani support to cross-border terrorism as a pre-condition for a resumption of the bilateral dialogue at the political level. Mr. Armitage, who had spent some years of his career in the CIA/DIA and holds the highest Pakistani civil decoration that could be awarded to a foreigner for his role during the Afghan war of the 1980s, has a large circle of friends in the Pakistani military and the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) Directorate."
MUSHARRAF: FROM CIA WITH LOVE?
South Asia Analysis Group, 25 May 2001

"If the 9-11 Commission is really looking for a smoking gun, it should look no further than at Lieutenant-General Mahmoud Ahmad, the director of the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) at the time. In early October 2001, Indian intelligence learned that Mahmoud had ordered flamboyant Saeed Sheikh - the convicted mastermind of the kidnapping and killing of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl - to wire US$100,000 from Dubai to one of hijacker Mohamed Atta's two bank accounts in Florida.... Mahmoud's involvement in September 11 might be dismissed as only Indian propaganda. But Indian intelligence swears by it, and the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has confirmed the whole story: Indian intelligence even supplied Saeed's cellular-phone numbers. Nobody has bothered to check what really happened. The 9-11 Commission should pose very specific questions about it to FBI director Robert Mueller when he testifies this month. In December 2002, Graham said he was 'surprised at the evidence that there were foreign governments involved in facilitating the activities of at least some of the [September 11] terrorists in the United States ... It will become public at some point when it's turned over to the archives, but that's 20 or 30 years from now.' He could not but be referring to Pakistan and Mahmoud. If Mahmoud was really involved in September 11, this means the Pakistani ISI -'the state within the state' - knew all about it. And if the intelligence elite in Pakistan knew it, an intelligence elite in Saudi Arabia knew it, as well as an intelligence elite in the US..... On September 10, the Pakistani daily The News reported that the Mahmoud visit to the United States 'triggered speculation about the agenda of his mysterious meetings at the Pentagon and National Security Council'. If he'd been to the National Security Council, he had certainly met Rice. Mahmoud did meet with his counterpart, Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) director George Tenet. Tenet and Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage had been in Islamabad in May, when Tenet had 'unusually long' meetings with Musharraf. Armitage for his part has countless friends in the Pakistani military and the ISI. Mahmoud also met a number of high officials at the White House and the Pentagon and had a crucial meeting with Marc Grossman, the under secretary of state for political affairs. Rice maintains she did not meet Mahmoud then.... Million-dollar questions remain. Did Mahmoud know when and how the attacks of September 11 would happen? Did Musharraf know? Could the Bush administration have prevented September 11? It's hard to believe high echelons of the CIA and FBI were not aware of the direct link between the ISI and alleged chief hijacker Mohammed Atta. On October 7, Mahmoud was demoted from the ISI. By that time, Washington obviously knew of the connection between Mahmoud, Saeed Sheikh and Mohamed Atta: the FBI knew it.... as Asia Times Online has reported, Mahmoud did disappear. He lives in near seclusion in Rawalpindi....The families of September 11 victims, US public opinion, the demonized Islamic world, the whole world for that matter, all everybody wants to know is what really happened on September 11.... The genie - the crucial information - is still in the bottle. "
9-11 AND THE SMOKING GUN
Asia Times, 8 April 2004

"Tenet and Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage had been in Islamabad in May, when Tenet had 'unusually long' meetings with Musharraf. Armitage for his part has countless friends in the Pakistani military and the ISI."
9-11 AND THE SMOKING GUN
Asia Times, 8 April 2004

"Armitage has long and deep Pakistani intelligence connections. It would be reasonable to assume that while in Islamabad, Tenet, in what was described as 'an unusually long meeting,' also met with his Pakistani counterpart, Lt. Gen. Mahmud Ahmad, head of the ISI. [Source: The Indian SAPRA news agency, May 22, 2001]"
A TIMELINE SURROUNDING SEPTEMBER 11TH
IF CIA AND THE GOVERNMENT WEREN'T INVOLVED IN THE SEPTEMBER 11 ATTACKS WHAT WERE THEY DOING?
From the Wilderness Publications, 911 Timeline

"Originally thought to be pursuing an aspect of the Richard Reid shoe bomber story it now seems more likely that Pearl was delving deep into the workings of the ISI according to Pakistani journalists quoted by the Times of India 11 March..... But the story does not end with the death of Daniel Pearl. Intriguingly it is precisely the same man used by General Mahmoud to wire money to 911 hijacker Mohammed Atta who has now been detained and tried for the murder of Pearl. More importantly, however, this does not explain why this young man - Omar Sheikh - was not previously detained when it became clear last October that he had wired $100,000 to Atta. This is a truly extraordinary circumstance given America's direct control over Musharraf and the CIA's own links with the ISI. Why did the US government not insist on Pakistan's detention of Sheikh once it became known that he was involved in the funding of lead hijacker Atta? Why was he allowed to roam free in Pakistan when the country was America's principal Asian ally in the 'war against terrorism'? Indeed, why is Sheikh still not being charged for his alleged involvement in the 911 attacks now that he is finally detained? Why isn't Armitage pursuing this? There is no outsider better placed than Armitage to command the system within Pakistan. According to a discussion paper produced by the India based South Asia Analysis Group (SAAG): 'Mr. Armitage, who had spent some years of his career in the CIA/DIA and holds the highest Pakistani civil decoration that could be awarded to a foreigner for his role during the Afghan war of the 1980s, has a large circle of friends in the Pakistani military and the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) Directorate.'"
'The Special Relationship' - Armitage And The UK National Security Adviser
What Did Britain Know About 911?
'Fight Smart', 28 August 2002

The 'Omar Sheikh Files' - Click Here

"[Pakistani Intelligence Service] ISI Chief Lt-Gen Mahmood's week-long presence in Washington [immediately prior to Sept 11] has triggered speculation about the agenda of his mysterious meetings at the Pentagon and National Security Council. Officially, State Department sources say he is on a routine visit in return to CIA Director George Tenet's earlier visit to Islamabad. Official sources confirm that he met Tenet this week. He also held long parleys with unspecified officials at the White House and the Pentagon. But the most important meeting was with Mark Grossman, US Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs. US sources would not furnish any details beyond saying that the two discussed 'matters of mutual interests.' What those matters could be is a matter of pure conjecture..... What added interest to his visit is the history of such visits. Last time Ziauddin Butt, Mahmood's predecessor, was here during Nawaz Sharif's government the domestic politics turned topsy-turvy within days. That this is not the first visit by Mahmood in the last three months shows the urgency of the ongoing parleys."
ISI chief's parleys continue in US
Karachi News, 9 September 2001

"While the Pakistani Inter Services Public Relations claimed that former ISI director-general Lt-Gen Mahmud Ahmad sought retirement after being superseded on Monday, the truth is more shocking. Top sources confirmed here on Tuesday, that the general lost his job because of the 'evidence' India produced to show his links to one of the suicide bombers that wrecked the World Trade Centre. The US authorities sought his removal after confirming the fact that $100,000 were wired to WTC hijacker Mohammed Atta from Pakistan by Ahmad Umar Sheikh at the instance of Gen Mahumd. A direct link between ISI and the WTC attack could have enormous repercussions ..... "
India helped FBI trace ISI-terrorist links
Times of India, 9 October 2002

[Chart Source - Centre for Research on Globalisation]

"Dr. [Condoleeza] Rice's statement regarding the ISI chief at her May 16 press conference, is an obvious cover-up. While General Ahmad was talking to U.S. officials at the CIA and the Pentagon, he had allegedly also been in contact (through a third party) with the September 11 terrorists. What this suggests is that key individuals within the U.S. military-intelligence establishment knew about these ISI contacts with the September 11 terrorist ‘ring leader', Mohammed Atta, and failed to act. But this conclusion is, in fact, an understatement. Everything indicates that CIA Director George Tenet and ISI Chief General Mahmoud Ahmad, had established a close working relationship. General Mahmoud had arrived a week prior to September 11 for consultations with George Tenet. Bear in mind that the CIA's George Tenet, also has a close personal relationship with President Bush. Prior to September 11, Tenet would meet the President nearly every morning at 8:00 a.m. sharp, for about half an hour. A document, known as the President's Daily Briefing, or PDB, 'is prepared at Langley by the CIA's analytical directorate, and a draft goes home with Tenet each night. Tenet edits it personally and delivers it orally during his early morning meeting with Bush.' This practice of 'oral intelligence briefings' is unprecedented. Bush's predecessors at the White House, received a written briefing.... Did Bush, with his minimal understanding of foreign policy issues, know all the details regarding General Mahmoud and the 'ISI connection'? Did Tenet and Cheney distort the facts, so as to get the Commander-in-Chief's 'thumbs up' for a military operation which was already in the pipeline? In a bitter irony, a meeting between Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage and General Mahmoud, the 9-11 'money man', was scheduled at the State Department for the morning after September 11 to discuss their strategy."
CIA Overshadows the Presidency
Political Deception: The Missing Link behind 9-11
Global Outlook, No. 2. Summer 2002
Centre for Research on Globalisation (CRG)

"Senior officials in the State Department were fully cognizant of General Mahmoud Ahmad's role. In the wake of September 11, the Bush Administration consciously sought the 'cooperation' of the ISI which had been supporting and abetting Osama bin Laden and the Taliban. In other words, the Bush Administration's relations with Pakistan's ISI --including its 'consultations' with General Mahmoud Ahmad in the week prior to September 11-- raise the issue of 'cover-up' as well as 'complicity'. While Ahmad was talking to US officials at the CIA and the Pentagon, the ISI allegedly had contacts with the September 11 terrorists. According to the Indian government intelligence report (referred to in the Times of India), the perpetrators of the September 11 attacks had links to Pakistan's ISI, which in turn has links to agencies of the US government. What this suggests is that key individuals within the US military-intelligence establishment might have known about ISI contacts with the September 11 terrorist 'ring-leader' Mohamed Atta and failed to act..."
The Role of Pakistan's Military Intelligence (ISI) in the September 11 Attacks
Centre for Research on Globalisation (CRG), Montréal, 2 November 2001

"The individual who makes the wire transfer [of $100,000 to Atta in September] at Ahmad’s direction is Ahmad Umar Sheik.... [In January] Daniel Pearl is kidnapped in Pakistan. Pearl is reported dead on Feb. 21. Lead suspect Ahmad Umar Sheik, former colleague of Gen. Ahmad, arrested on Feb 12, is named as the lead suspect in the kidnapping and murder. Legal sources close to the Pakistani government tell FTW that Pearl was investigating the ISI."
A TIMELINE SURROUNDING SEPTEMBER 11TH - IF CIA AND THE GOVERNMENT WEREN’T INVOLVED IN THE SEPTEMBER 11 ATTACKS WHAT WERE THEY DOING?
From the Wilderness Publications, 19 June 2002

"So what was the UK's 'national security adviser' doing in America on Sept 11? Was his visit prompted by the terrorist threat that Tony Blair now confirms 'everybody knew' was being planned? Despite his de facto status as Blair's special envoy on foreign affairs and security matters the US State Department appointment records show no scheduled meetings for Manning with Secretary Powell himself during the days immediately prior to the attacks. Those records do, however, show that he was meeting with Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage on September 10th. Armitage is second in command to Colin Powell who left for a trip to Peru later that day, meaning that the Bush administration's principal 'dove' was out of the country when the attacks happened. In Powell's absence 'when the storm breaks [on 911] Richard Armitage... is at its heart' according to the BBC's Edward Stourton (Radio 4, 27 August: 'With Us or Against Us'). So who is Richard Armitage? Described by Stourton as a 'bulldog diplomat', Armitage has had a 'colourful' previous history. This embraces alleged covert operations with the CIA, including illegal arms and drug running on behalf of the US government. ..... However, Armitage's wider interests are especially pertinent to the situation that had developed in Afghanistan by the summer of 2001. As Armitage himself has publicly acknowledged the energy reserves of the Caspian Sea region are of great strategic importance to America and its allies in the industrialised world. But they also appear to be of some personal importance to Armitage himself. A report by the US National Bureau of Asian Research cites an article in the Washington Times 28 July 1997 which lists Armitage, along with Dick Cheney, as having business or consulting interests in the Caspian zone. It is also claimed that Armitage was contracted by US oil and gas corporation Unocal to work on Central Asia pipeline interests in 1997 when he was head of Armitage Associates (also at Armitage Associates was Peter Watson, previously Director of Asian Affairs at the National Security Council in the first Bush administration. Watson was appointed President of the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC) by George W. Bush in 2001. OPIC provides political risk insurance and loans to US companies operating overseas 'because it is in America's economic and strategic interest'. Since Watson's appointment, in a deal worth $350 million, Unocal has absorbed nearly the whole of the allocation of an OPIC joint initiative with the U.S. Export-Import Bank and the U.S. Trade and Development Agency for US business investment in Indonesia . The allocation had been announced September 2001. The deal is despite Unocal's human rights record and allegations that State Department documents indicate the company's involvement in 'corruption, collusion and nepotism' in several billion-dollar power plant deals with the Suharto government. Similar allegations have also been made against Enron). The importance of Afghanistan in this context was spelt out in evidence given to a congressional hearing in 1998 by Unocal's Vice President for International Relations, John Maresca: 'Mr. Chairman, the Caspian region contains tremendous untapped hydrocarbon reserves......[one] option is to build a pipeline south from Central Asia to the Indian Ocean. One obvious route south would cross Iran, but this is foreclosed for American companies because of U.S. sanctions legislation. The only other possible route is across Afghanistan, which has of course its own unique challenges..... From the outset, we have made it clear that construction of the pipeline we have proposed across Afghanistan could not begin until a recognized government is in place that has the confidence of governments, lenders, and our company.....' Unfortunately efforts by the Bush administration to reach a deal with the Taliban over the proposed pipeline collapsed in the summer of 2001. No longer willing to tolerate an impasse the US government threatened Afghanistan with military action during at a meeting which the BBC reports took place in Berlin in July. According to one representative of Pakistan who attended the meeting a US attack on Afghanistan was already planned for October. Thanks to the special 'skills' of US diplomacy, therefore, it seems that the first overt provocation in the west's new war with the Taliban was made by the US in Berlin in July 2001, and not by al-Qaeda in New York on Sept 11. It is something of an understatement to say that in the history of international affairs it is not unknown for provocation to produce response. Given the threat made by the US in July, it would be reasonable to have expected trouble there onwards. The intelligence picked up by the British and other governments last summer would seem to confirm this. This brings us back to Sir David Manning's meeting in Washington with Armitage on September 10. Presumably Manning also had other meetings in Washington that day, although with whom it is not clear. Neither is the purpose of his visit. Was he in fact passing on specific intelligence information about the impending terrorist attacks? It is certainly possible. By coincidence or otherwise Newsweek magazine reported 24 September that on that same day 'a group of top Pentagon officials suddenly canceled travel plans for the next morning, apparently because of security concerns.' It would be interesting to know what, if any, security issues relating to America where discussed by Manning during his pre-Sept 11 meetings in Washington and whether they involved any specific intelligence."
'The Special Relationship' - Armitage And The UK National Security Adviser
What Did Britain Know About 911?
'Fight Smart', 28 August 2002

"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..."
Tony Blair Speaking To House of Commons Liaison Committee
'Britain backs US plan for attack on Iraq'
London Times 17 July, 2002

".... the corporate media are still largely sticking to the demonstrably false Official Story of 911... So research into the events tends to be by alternative sources. Dissidents believe that the blocking of FBI agents who could have stopped the 911 plot was deliberate act of complicity by the Bush Junta whose popularity and pre-existing invasion goals [of Afghanistan and Iraq] were given an enormous boost by success of the attacks. Now the Natural Law Party has produced a superb piece of research into the British connection [with] Al Qaida.... ex-MI5 employee David Shayler has demonstrated that MI6 was plotting with elements linked to Al Qaida to assassinate Ghadaffi as late as the mid nineties... These are not the only links between Al Qaida and Bush/Blair..... the NLP has investigated the murder of [American] journalist Daniel Pearl and highlights an astonishing fact: The [British] Pakistani sentenced to death for the murder of Pearl, Omar Sheikh, is the same Al Qaida contact who wired USD 100,000 to Mohammed Atta shortly before 911 on the instructions of the head of Pakistani Intelligence General Mahmoud who quietly resigned soon after. Astonishingly, Mahmoud on the days around the 911 attacks was in a series of secret top level meetings in the White House and with hawkish senators on Capitol Hill .... The NLP suspects that Pearl was murdered because he was investigating the smoking gun USD 100,000 transaction and that Sheikh was framed for the murder to stop him talking... [A British MP] has put down a question on the matter to the Foreign Office, which they have refused to answer... The NLP research is to be found at
www.btinternet.com/~nlpwessex/Documents/WATomarsheikhgate.htm ."
Ian Henshall, chair of INK the Alternative Publishers umbrella group in the UK
and publisher of 911dossier.co.uk
Crisis Newsletter, 27 January 2003

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