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[A very special tribute is offered at the outset of this article to the original work done by Professor Michel Chossudovsky of the University of Ottawa who did so much to show us all Pakistan’s real role in the 9-11 attacks and to document the direct connections between Pakistani intelligence, the CIA, and the Bush administration before, during and after 9-11. – MCR]
PAKISTANI PAYOFFS:
Deceiving the Public for Fun, Profit, and Votes--
Cynical Manipulation Beyond Belief
by
Michael C. Ruppert
© Copyright 2006, From The Wilderness Publications, www.fromthewilderness.com. All Rights Reserved. This story may NOT be posted on any Internet web site without express written permission. Contact admin@copvcia.com. May be circulated, distributed or transmitted for non-profit purposes only.
September 25th 2006, 2:20PM [PST] - Caracas – It was a slap in the face of galactic proportions to the 9/11 research community and a cynical statement about just how stupid and gullible the Bush administration views the general public, as stories of Richard Armitage’s allegedly-relayed post-9/11 “bomb you back into the stone age” threat to Pakistan’s Pervez Musharraf played across newspapers and TV screens around the world this week.
That threat was, according to Musharraf, delivered directly to his then-intelligence chief, General Mahmud Ahmad. Armitage, a lifelong weight lifter who bears striking resemblance to an armored car on legs, would have been the perfect messenger to deliver such a message. On 9/11 he was Colin Powell’s deputy Secretary of State. Armitage’s career shows a long and deep friendly record of collaboration with Pakistan and its leaders, especially during and after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.
Last week’s flap – in advance of a 60 MINUTES interview with Musharraf scheduled for September 24th – has put a lot of money in Musharraf’s pocket. It should ensure his continued silence on 9/11; a last big payoff before he leaves office. It has also given the Bush administration millions in free (and absolutely false) “tough on terrorism” publicity less than 50 days before the US midterm elections. All of this because of a never-before-revealed event that Musharraf recounts second-hand and Armitage now says he doesn’t remember. Not bad. Bush, Cheney, Musharraf and Armitage must have been laughing themselves silly when they cooked this one up.
According to the statements of both Armitage (an Iran-Contra criminal about whom FTW has written much) and the Pakistani President, on September 12th, 2001, Armitage met face-to-face with Ahmad in Washington, telling him that either Pakistan would cooperate fully with the post-9/11 US war on terror or be bombed back into the stone age.
That’s right, Ahmad was actually having a convenient breakfast meeting with Congressional leaders in Washington when the attacks took place. Just days earlier he had personally ordered $100,000 wired to lead hijacker, Mohammed Atta, in Florida. The FBI knew it and was later forced to admit that they knew it. Pakistan was already fully “on board” when the attacks took place. It was on board as a criminal co-conspirator with the United States government in perpetrating the attacks.
When excerpts of the 60 MINUTES interview where Musharraf recounted Armitage’s threat were “leaked” last week, news flashes scattered like shotgun pellets, headlines were re-written, and the subject dominated a subsequent presidential press conference where Bush and Musharraf cheerfully stood side-by-side just days before the conveniently-timed release of Musharraf’s memoirs by Simon and Schuster. Coyly (cha-ching, cha-ching), Musharraf said he couldn’t comment because of agreement with the publisher and Bush chimed in saying, “That means buy the book!”
If Noam Chomsky’s latest book got rocketed into the top ten after Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez touted it at the UN, what will Bush’s comments do for Musharraf’s book? Tit for tat?
The problem with these absolute fabrications is that, according to government sources and reporting from respected major publications, the US government knew full-well that General Ahmad had ordered al-Qaeda-linked Omar Said Sheikh1 to wire $100,000 directly to Mohammed Atta just days before the attacks. Armitage should have been arresting Ahmad instead of “pressuring” him to cooperate as an ally. The reason why Armitage did not arrest Ahmad is that Ahmad had been doing US bidding by helping to finance the hijackers so that the attacks could proceed in the first place.
Very shortly after 9/11, thanks to some uncensored reporting out of India, the FBI and ABC news were forced to confirm the fact of the wire transfer and could not deny or refute Ahmad’s role in it.
As I demonstrated in a series of articles including our famous “Oh Lucy” Timeline, both CIA Director George Tenet and Armitage had made urgent trips to Pakistan just before the attacks and the wire transfer. The head of US intelligence had surely met with the head of Pakistani intelligence while he was there, and so had Armitage.
The 9/11 community has not forgotten these revelations. Will the world remember? Does the world care?
[All of these events are described in blood-curdling detail with unimpeachable sourcing in Chapter 8 of Crossing the Rubicon: The Decline of the American Empire at the End of the Age of Oil; “Setting up the War”.]
As Chossudovsky wrote on June 20, 2002 in Political Deception: the Missing Link behind 9-11:
The FBI confirmed in late September 2001, in an interview with ABC News (which went virtually unnoticed) that the 9/11 ring leader, Mohammed Atta, had been financed from unnamed sources in Pakistan.
“As to September 11th, federal authorities have told ABC News they have tracked more than $100,000 from banks in Florida, to accounts held by suspected hijack ringleader Mohammed Atta… Time Magazine is reporting that some of that money came in the days just before the attack and can be traced directly to people connected to Osama bin Laden…”
As Chossudovsky then brilliantly documented, it was disclosed that The Times of India had obtained cell phone records showing that Said Sheikh, who carried out the transfer, had received his instructions directly from Ahmad. To our knowledge, the US and Pakistani governments have never been able to or even tried to refute these charges.
So well did Chossudovsky prove the case that in a May 16, 2002 press conference, then National Security Adviser Condi Rice was forced to (not very convincingly) deny having any contact with Ahmad while he was in Washington, D.C. Matters got worse when Chossudovsky later obtained records showing that CNN and the White House News Service had lied in transcripts by saying that Ahmad’s name had been unintelligible when used in a question on the subject at the press conference.
A little over four years ago Ahmad’s name was unmentionable in Washington. In other words, four and half years later the Bush administration is so confident that it has gotten away with 9/11 that they can say Ahmad’s name with assumed and smug impunity. Both Musharraf and Armitage have used it in recent interviews.
Ahmad was replaced as Pakistani intelligence chief shortly after the attacks and the embarrassing revelations. His current whereabouts are not known to FTW, and apparently no one can find him to comment on Musharraf’s statements. In other words, there is no confirmation that the event ever took place.
There are many unresolved evidentiary threads that – without the need for scientific evaluation – demonstrate the US government’s guilt in creating, financing and executing the attacks of 9/11. Only time will tell if anyone will ever pick up those threads and start asking the questions that so many have waited for so long to have answered.
In the meantime, the perpetrators still insultingly mock all of us.
1 9/11 researcher Chaim Kupferberg did a brilliant job of deconstruction of the major media’s deliberate obfuscation of Said Sheik’s name in a blistering attempt at damage control after Chossudovsky, FTW, and others started seeing success with their efforts to expose US complicity in the attacks. Sheik was later convicted for the murder of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl who I was later able to demonstrate, had been investigating the same wire transfers before his murder.
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