-Caveat Lector- WJPBR Email News List [EMAIL PROTECTED] Peace at any cost is a Prelude to War!
DefenseWatch – Dec. 26, 2001 Soldiers For The Truth (SFTT) Weekly Newsletter When we assumed the Soldier, We did not lay aside the Citizen. General George Washington, to the New York Legislature, 1775 In this week’s Issue of DefenseWatch: Peace on an Earth at War ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ -- EDITORIAL and ADMINISTRATIVE STAFF ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ -- Ed Offley Editor, DefenseWatch Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] J. David Galland Deputy Editor, DefenseWatch Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] David H. Hackworth Senior Military Columnist Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Chris Humphrey SFTT Webmaster Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ -- TABLE OF CONTENTS ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ -- Editor’s Commentary: Full Inquest Into 9-11 Attacks is Essential for the Nation Hack’s Target for the Week: A Christmas Wish – Let’s End Our Role as Globocop Article 01 – Battle Still Raging for Islamic World Support, by Robert G. Williscroft Article 02 – Denying Success in Human Intelligence Collection, by J. David Galland Article 03 – Champs & Chunps: Special Holiday Awards Medal of Honor: Article 04 – HEDRICK, CLINTON M., Tech. Sgt. USA EDITOR'S NOTE: Your Support is Important! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ -- Commentary: Full Inquest Into 9-11 Attacks is Essential for the Nation ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ -- By Ed Offley For the past fifteen weeks, the Bush administration and Congress have succeeded in forging a successful, bipartisan partnership as the nation went to war against the al Qaeda terrorist network and its Taliban supporters in Afghanistan. But now that the military campaign in South Asia is entering a post-combat pause (even as U.S. and allied special operations forces continue to hunt for Osama bin Laden, Taliban leader Mullah Omar and their senior lieutenants), it is time for the nation to undertake an equally grave and serious challenge here at home. It is time to launch a comprehensive inquest into the causes of the success of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Two prominent U.S. Senators last week formally moved to start the process. Sens. Joseph I. Lieberman, D-CT, the Democratic vice presidential nominee in 2000, and John McCain, R-AZ, who unsuccessfully sought the 2000 Republican presidential nomination won by President George W. Bush, introduced legislation to create a 14- member, bipartisan investigative commission with subpoena power to make a full accounting. A separate measure by two other senators would create a 12-member panel. "Determining the cause and circumstances of the terrorist attacks will ensure that those who lost their lives on this second American day of infamy did not die in vain," Lieberman told reporters on Dec. 20. The objective of such a probe should be threefold: (1) To compile an authoritative, accurate and detailed body of facts on how the terrorist cells succeeded in organizing and carrying out the deadly hijackings; (2) to determine accountability of any failures by government officials – or governmental policies and organizational structure – that enabled the al Qaeda conspiracy to succeed, and (3) to identify a full range of legal reforms and governmental reorganizations necessary to minimize the chances that subsequent attacks could occur. The probe should aim at maximum public disclosure of the facts, although it is inevitable that some material will be withheld to avoid undermining ongoing security and counter-terror measures. No doubt there are powerful pressures on both sides of the political establishment to defer or sidestep such an inquest. The chief concern, of course, is that such a probe may re-ignite the harsh partisan antagonisms that dominated presidential politics only a year ago, and which could easily wreck the spirit of political cooperation between the White House and Congress that is essential if the nation is to continue this long-term campaign against terrorism. And it is also a safe assumption that many of the Executive Branch departments and agencies charged with military, intelligence, law enforcement or immigration roles are uncomfortable with the prospect of subpoenas and sworn testimony regarding the apparent ease by which the hijackers organized, funded, trained for and carried out their suicidal attacks. But examining the spate of news media reports since Sept. 11 that have addressed the issue of pre-attack evidence of an impending terrorist strike at the American heartland, it is impossible for a responsible government to do anything less than a no-holds-barred examination of what allowed this atrocity to occur. Several key issues have already surfaced that demand a full accounting: Hijacked airliners as suicide weapons: Terrorists in 1994 who hijacked a French airliner and flew it to Marseilles – where French commandos successfully stormed the aircraft – admitted in custody they planned to crash the airplane into the Eiffel Tower in Paris. A year later, officials in the Philippines quashed a terrorist plot that included plans to hijack and crash up to 12 American airliners over the Pacific and possibly crash another into CIA headquarters. If that terrorist scenario was not at the top of the list of U.S. intelligence agency “warnings and indications” six years before Sept. 11, the inquest needs to find out why not. Intelligence and law enforcement cooperation: As more and more information emerges concerning the activities of the hijackers prior to the 9-11 attacks, it is becoming clear that federal officials received warnings that could have easily led to the unmasking of the terrorist plot prior to the attacks. However, it is also clear that two federal agencies that received warnings from commercial flight schools about two suspicious students – the FBI and Federal Aviation Administration – failed to take effective action. An instructor at the Minnesota flight school where indicted suspect Zacarias Moussaoui was enrolled made several warning calls to the FBI concerning the French Morroccan. The flight instructor, a former U.S. military pilot, was acutely suspicious about Moussaoui’s behavior and intent, specifically that he wanted to learn to fly a Boeing 747 but was incompetent to carry out the complex maneuvers of landing and takeoff. Moussaoui was detained on immigration charges on Aug. 16, but neither the FBI or other federal agencies reportedly launched a terrorism probe until after the Sept. 11 attacks, even though French authorities had warned the U.S. government of Moussaoui’s connections to Muslim extremists. Similarly, instructors at a flight school in Arizona raised similar questions to the FAA about a Saudi student named Hani Hanjour, who was determined to learn how to fly multi-engine jet aircraft despite his lack of competency in English (the universal language required of all commercial pilots). The agency’s response, The New York Times reported Dec. 21, was to offer the services of a tutor. Hanjour weeks later flew American Airlines Flight 77 into the Pentagon. These reports clearly suggest a failure of alertness among federal agencies responsible for security and aviation safety. A central pillar of the inquest should center on inter-agency cooperation and information-sharing and the degree to which this failure led to the 9-11 attacks. Policy and Vision Failure: After investigating the 1996 bombing of the military barracks at Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia, retired Army Gen. Wayne Downing warned that the United States faced an “undeclared war” from al Qaeda. Yet it is clear from recent in-depth articles in Vanity Fair magazine and The Washington Post that despite subsequent attacks on the east African embassies in 1998 and the destroyer USS Cole in 2000, as well as thwarted attacks in Jordan and Los Angeles in 2000, the Clinton administration long failed to recognize or treat the growing terrorist threat as a major hazard facing the nation. The record may be unkind to the Bush I administration (for precipitously abandoning Afghanistan as an international issue following the departure of Soviet troops in 1989) as well as the Reagan administration before it (which suffered a major policy failure and two major terrorist attacks in Lebanon in 1983, often cited by radical Islamists as evidence that the United States would quickly turn tail and run if attacked). A constrained U.S. intelligence community: To what degree did existing acts of Congress and presidential executive orders prevent the CIA and other intelligence agencies from intelligence-gathering and covert operations that could have penetrated the al Qaeda terrorist planning before its deadly anti-American campaign began? To what degree did existing regulations and laws prevent the intelligence agencies from obtaining support from their counterparts in other countries? Anthrax warnings and defenses: To what degree did the Pentagon and other federal agencies (Centers or Disease Control) fail to anticipate the nature of the biological warfare threat – and the level of preparation required to organize an effective defense and response – illuminated in the spreading of anthrax vaccines through the U.S. Postal Service? How effective has been oversight by the Congress and Defense Department into the sole contractor responsible for producing anthrax vaccine? When disasters as immense as the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor or as isolated as a military “friendly-fire” mishap occur, it is all too easy to succumb to what scholars term “the myth of the inevitability of history.” That is, just because something happened, it was inevitable that events would unfold in the order that they did. That doesn’t wash. America deserves, and Americans should demand, a full, fair and comprehensive accounting. Because the heart of the 9-11 inquest will focus on the conduct of both the Executive Branch and Congress in the years and months prior to the attacks, it is reasonable to conclude, as Sen. McCain has done, that the task requires an independent commission that is free of pressure or influence from either the White House or Congress. There is ample precedent, ranging from the Warren Commission probe of the Kennedy assassination to the independent military Base Realignment and Closure Commission. "Neither the administration nor Congress is capable of conducting a thorough, nonpartisan, independent inquiry into what happened on September 11th, or to propose far-reaching reforms needed to protect our people and institutions against the enemies of freedom," McCain said. He’s right. The best solution is to turn to independent leaders who have already been vindicated in their perception and judgment. Former Sens. Gary Hart and Warren Rudman co-chaired a commission on national security issues that spent several years challenging the assumptions and studying the new trends of defense and security facing the nation. Their U.S. Commission on National Security/21st Century issued a report earlier this year starkly warning of the vulnerability of the U.S. homeland to terrorist attack. The American people will be well-served for the Bush administration and Congress to create a new Hart-Rudman Commission and charge it with the grave responsibility of unearthing the full truth of why we failed to anticipate and prevent the attacks on 9-11. Ed Offley is Editor of DefenseWatch. He can be reached at [EMAIL PROTECTED] ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ -- *COPYRIGHT NOTICE** In accordance with Title 17 U. S. C. 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