All they needed was a pretext
War plans were ready before 9/11
Bush administration waited for a catastrophe
By Fred Goldstein
The latest political crisis of the Bush administration over
what it knew about an impending attack on U.S. targets in the
late summer of 2001 has commanded the attention of the people.
Anti-war activists, especially, are rightfully suspicious and
skeptical about the behavior and explanations of the war makers
in the White House.
Ever since May 15, when CBS News revealed that the CIA had
briefed President George W. Bush last Aug. 6 about possible
plane hijackings--five weeks before the Sept. 11 attacks--the
air has been thick with charges and accusations. They have
ranged from negligence to incompetence to bureaucratic rivalry
between the FBI and CIA to systemic problems of "not connecting
the dots" because the administration did not act on FBI alerts
of July 10 and Aug. 13.
It is notable that in this scandal the Democrats have
finally broken with the Bush administration--but not over the
war. The prospect of the spoils of office in the coming
elections has finally overcome their subservience. Their
demands for investigations and inquiries dovetail with the
demands of sections of the capitalist establishment who are
truly appalled and want to get to the bottom of the matter so
that it does not happen again.
But the last thing in the world the anti-war movement, or
for that matter the workers and the oppressed, should do is
follow the path of the Democratic Party leadership and make the
issue in this crisis the question of "who knew what, when"
about intelligence information. This question sidesteps the
most fundamental issue of significance to the vast majority of
the people at home and abroad. It also plays into the hands of
those who want to strengthen the repressive forces of the
state.
The real issue that needs exposure is the conspiracy of the
Bush administration and the ruling class behind it to enter a
new bloody era of expanding war around the globe. During the
debate over what Bush knew and should have done, there have
been momentary references to a war plan that was drawn up and
on his desk on Sept. 10. This was put forward briefly when
National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice was defending him,
and it has been cited a few times in the big business press,
but never really was followed up from an anti-war point of
view.
There is little information about this plan, but the veil
was slightly lifted in a sanitized version as part of a lengthy
series in January in the Washington Post by Bob Woodward and
Dan Balz. The series recounted the immediate post-Sept. 11
day-by-day decision-making process in the Bush administration
that led to the war on Afghanistan.
CIA takes the lead
According to Woodward and Balz, CIA director George Tenet
played the lead position in the planning. Tenet was the only
holdover from the Clinton administration at such a high level
in the Bush administration. He had all the strings to global
operations and fit right in with the Bush forces. At a crucial
meeting at Camp David on Saturday, Sept. 15, after a series of
previous morning meetings of the "war cabinet," Tenet showed up
"with a briefcase stuffed with top-secret documents and plans,
in many respects the culmination of four years of work.
"The briefing packet he handed to President Bush and other
members of the war cabinet carried a cover sheet entitled
'Going to War.' Tenet flipped past the cover to the first page,
which read 'Initial Hook: Destroying Al Qaeda, Closing the Safe
Haven.' The haven was Afghanistan." (Washington Post, Jan.
31)
The series had explained two days earlier that, "Tenet's
concept called for bringing together expanded
intelligence-gathering resources, covert action, sophisticated
technology, agency paramilitary teams and opposition forces in
Afghanistan. They would then be combined with U.S. military
power and Special Forces into an elaborate and lethal
package.
"Tenet said that the United States already had a 'large
asset base,' given the work the CIA had been doing in countries
near Afghanistan.
"The unmanned Predator surveillance aircraft that was now
armed with Hellfire missiles had been operating for more than a
year out of Uzbekistan to provide real-time video of
Afghanistan. ... In addition the U.S. should seek to work
closely with Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Pakistan to stop the
travel of Al Qaeda leaders and 'close all borders.'
"A key portion of Tenet's briefing," continued the Post,
"covered operations inside Afghanistan." He described
mobilizing the Northern Alliance, which was "a potentially
powerful force but was desperate for money, weapons and
intelligence." He also described the creation of a "northern
front, closing the safe haven," and how the U.S. "would move
first against the northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif" and open up
the border of Uzbekistan.
Tenet also "described a role for the opposition tribes in
the southern part of Afghanistan, groups hostile to the
northern opposition forces but crucial to the campaign. ...
Tenet said the CIA had begun working with a number of tribal
leaders in the south the previous year. ... Some would try to
play both sides but once the war began, they could be enticed
by money, food, ammunition and supplies to join the U.S.-led
campaign."
Bush takes Pentagon option three
The Post described how, at the Camp David meeting, "Tenet
then turned to another top secret document, called 'Worldwide
Attack Matrix,' which described covert operations in 80
countries that were either under way or that he was now
recommending. The actions ranged from routine propaganda to
lethal covert action in preparation for military attacks.
"The final presentation of the morning came from Gen. Henry
H. Shelton, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who had also
brought a big brief case to Camp David." Shelton described
three options to Bush, each one more deadly than the last.
The third option, which Bush chose, "combined cruise
missiles, manned bomber attacks" and "boots on the ground." It
also included U.S. Special Forces and possibly Army and Marines
being deployed inside Afghanistan.
In other words, Tenet and Shelton described a long-planned,
ground and air campaign in all its precision, including the
battle of Mazar-e-Sharif--which later took place, prompting a
great massacre carried out by the Northern Alliance. In the
campaign in the southern region, the present puppet president,
Hamid Karzai, played the key role of liaison with the CIA. The
diplomatic groundwork with neighboring states; the use of smart
bombs and cruise missiles; the use of the Predator as a key
instrument of war; and many other minutiae-all these elements
had required lengthy planning.
Condoleezza Rice, referring to the plan when she was
defending Bush against charges of negligence, made it appear
that it had been hurriedly thrown together as a response to
warnings in July and August. Woodward and Balz, however, said
they had learned that for several months before Sept. 11, as
part of the administration's review of its policy, "Tenet and
Rice and other officials had been working on a plan to vastly
expand covert action in Afghanistan and throughout the
world."
Bush at the Citadel:
Pentagon's war dreams
During the election campaign Bush had given an outline of
his belligerent military policy in an infamous speech at the
Citadel on Sept. 23, 1999. It was written by Richard Armitage,
now undersecretary of state, who was then bucking for the post
of secretary of defense. In it Bush foreshadowed the Pentagon's
dreams that were to be carried out over the bodies of the
Afghan people.
Bush spoke of how "our forces in the next century must be
agile, lethal, readily deployable, and require a minimum of
logistical support. We must be able to project power over long
distances, in days or weeks rather than months. Our military
must be able to identify targets by a variety of means-from a
Marine patrol to a satellite. Then be able to destroy those
targets almost instantly, with an array of weapons."
Bush continued, "In the air, we must be able to strike from
across the world with pinpoint accuracy-with long-range
aircraft and perhaps with unmanned systems."
From this perspective the U.S. destruction of Afghanistan
can be viewed as a weapons and strategy testing program for the
Pentagon.
All the information coming out now about prior warnings of
an attack on some U.S. installation only confirms the theory
that the warlike group of Bush, Tenet, Dick Cheney, Donald
Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz, with Colin Powell reluctantly
tagging along behind, knew full well that there would be a
strike. They were coiled like a spring, waiting for it to
happen, so they could use it as a pretext to open a massive
worldwide offensive.
Rumsfeld: discipline the world
The Post articles described how "many months earlier, in the
formative stages of his new administration, Bush had talked
with his prospective secretary of defense, Donald H. Rumsfeld,
about their shared belief that America's deterrent strength had
been eroded through misapplication of the country's military
power. Rumsfeld recalls saying to Bush that whenever the United
States was attacked or threatened, the Clinton administration
had followed a pattern of 'reflexive pullback.' Rumsfeld said
he believed that U.S. power was needed to help discipline the
world."
They considered President Bill Clinton's 1998 bombing of
Afghanistan with 48 cruise missiles and the destruction of a
pharmaceutical factory in the Sudan with another cruise missile
as "weak and provocative," according to the Post. The massive
bombing of Belgrade and other Yugoslav cities by Clinton in a
flagrant war of aggression was limited child's play to the Bush
group, although Tenet was a Clinton appointee.
Waiting for a catastrophe
The fact of the matter is that Sept. 11 did not cause the
war in Afghanistan. As horrendous as it was, Sept. 11 turned
out to be only a pretext, one the Bush forces knew would come
sooner or later. They were all cynically waiting for a
catastrophe in order to pounce.
The war was followed by the declaration of an "axis of
evil"--Iran, Iraq and the Democratic People's Republic of
Korea.
This was followed by the leak of plans called the Bush
Nuclear Posture Review, which threaten the development and use
of battlefield nuclear weapons.
Then came the U.S. backing of Israel's massive offensive
against the Palestinian Authority and the attempted destruction
of the Palestine national movement.
Meanwhile the FARC liberation force in Colombia that has
been fighting the U.S.-backed death squad government for 30
years was declared a "terrorist" organization; $1.3 billion was
given to the Colombian government to fight them.
Some 3,000 U.S. troops are now on the ground in the
Philippines fighting and guiding puppet forces in a war that is
really against the liberation forces of the New People's Army;
the fight against the miniscule Abu Sayyef group is just a
cover for intervention.
U.S. Undersecretary of State John Bolton recently accused
Cuba of having the capacity to manufacture and distribute
biological weapons material.
Washington sponsored a coup d'etat against the popular
government of Vene zue lan President Hugo Chávez, but it
failed.
When the smoke cleared after the initial big offensive in
Afghanistan, the Pentagon had new military bases in Uzbekistan,
Tajikistan and Kyrgizstan. It has the dominant position in the
oil rich region of the Caspian Sea. It has expanded its power
to the southern rim of Russia and the southwestern flank of
China. And it is in a strategic position to dominate the
Arabian Sea and wage long-range war in the Persian Gulf if it
has to.
Equally important, the Pentagon and the military-industrial
complex got a massive infusion of present and future profits
from a trillion-dollar five-year spending plan-a plan which
comes at the expense of schools, housing, child care, medical
care and every other social need of the workers.
It is only possible to evaluate Sept. 11 fully in light of
what followed. To be sure, it is highly probable that the Bush
forces had no idea that such devastation to the World Trade
Center and the Pentagon would result from sitting and waiting
for a military pretext. But as disastrous as those attacks
were, with all the death and destruction they caused, the Bush
forces went to war not because innocent lives were lost but
because they were hell bent on expanding the world domination
of U.S. imperialism. They wanted to terrorize the world and
send a threatening message of destruction to any government or
force that even contemplates resisting that domination.
Don't fix the forces of repression--fight
them
Seen in this light, it would be folly to jump on the
bandwagon and demand to find out "who knew what" in the
government. What they knew is that they wanted to go to war
against the oppressed people of the world. If there is going to
be any investigation, it should be of the conspiracy to go to
war.
As far as improving the efficiency of coordination among the
FBI, the CIA and the Pentagon, in the name of protecting lives,
any such proposal should be rejected out of hand. The FBI is a
proven racist force that was behind the assassination of Dr.
Martin Luther King Jr. FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover waged a
vicious campaign against King and the entire civil rights
movement.
The FBI under President Richard Nixon carried out
COINTELPRO, which murdered and framed up Black Panther Party
leaders and members. It also attacked the Young Lords, the
Chicano movement and the American Indian Movement, sentencing
Leonard Peltier to jail for life. In the 1980s the FBI carried
out a campaign of frame-ups against Black elected officials. It
is now engaged in a witch-hunt against people of Middle Eastern
descent. During the 1950s the FBI carried out a similar
witch-hunt against communists and progressives, particularly in
the union movement. It is now coordinating with local police
departments in an "improvement" of repressive efficiency.
As for the CIA, it is akin to an international Murder
Incorporated, carrying out assassinations and attempted
assassinations of leaders; overthrowing popular governments
from Guatemala to Iran, from Congo to Chile. It was part of the
recent coup attempt in Venezuela through the National Endowment
for Democracy.
The Pentagon, of course, is the enemy of the world's
people.
Any effort to improve the "efficiency" of these repressive
institutions can only increase their efficiency in repression
of the movement worldwide. Not only should the movement shun
any attempt to improve these institutions, it should have as
its aim to push them back, to interfere with their functioning
through mass mobilization against all forms of repression and,
ultimately, to break them up and replace them with a popular
power.
Washington, Wall Street and the World Trade
Center
As far as protecting the safety of the people in the U.S.,
it must be recalled that, however misguided and condemnable the
Sept. 11 attack was, it was nevertheless the result of decades
of aggression against the peoples of the Middle East by the
U.S. and its proxy Israel. The U.S. war in the Persian Gulf
killed 200,000 Iraqis. The cities of Baghdad and Basra as well
as villages and towns were mercilessly bombed. The U.S.-imposed
sanctions have killed 1.5 million people, including hundreds of
thousands of children.
The U.S. government has backed the hated dictatorship of the
feudal monarchy in Saudi Arabia for decades and made the
country into an oil and military satellite of Washington and
Wall Street. For decades the U.S. backed the hated dictatorial
Shah of Iran. Washington has supplied and financed the 50-year
enforcement of the cruel Israeli occupation of Palestine,
including many massacres of Palestinians carried out by Ariel
Sharon. It financed the 1982 Israeli attack on Lebanon in which
14,000 people died under Israeli bombs.
U.S. oil companies control the vast oil wealth of the
Persian Gulf while only a few rich monarchs, emirs and sultans
live high and the mass of the people live in poverty. U.S.
warships and military aircraft are everywhere threatening all
who rebel against this intolerable situation.
Under these conditions it is clear that the safety of the
people of the U.S. can only be guaranteed by the withdrawal of
the U.S. government, its military and the multinational
corporations from the region. The safety of the workers here at
home can only be guaranteed when the people of the Middle East
are safe from U.S. domination.
Reprinted from the May 30, 2002, issue of
Workers World newspaper
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
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