National Geographic Spins 9/11
By Angelo M. Codevilla
Posted September 12, 2005
National Geographic's
recent special on 9/11 reflected the CIA's spin on the world. It was filled
with conjecture based on bad sources, and a few outright falsehoods. As is the
case with so many CIA products, it avoided the distinction between what we
know and what the U.S. government wants to believe. In doing so, it gave the
impression that we know things that we do not.
Here are a few
illustrations.
The program claims that in the 1980s,
Peshawar was swarming with CIA agents. In fact, there were exactly zero in
direct contact with the Mujahideen there (or anywhere else). The Islamabad CIA
station had one-and-a-half full-time staff working on Afghanistan, and did so
exclusively through Pakistan's security service, the ISI. This was agency
policy. The first introductions between CIA officers and the Mujahideen were
not even made until October 1984.
The program quoted the CIA line that
Osama bin Laden escaped to Pakistan. Not only is there no evidence for this,
but there is no evidence of bin Laden's continued existence after November
2001. This, after the world's most thorough manhunt. The several bin Laden
tapes have never been credible, and no reputable person claims to have seen
him.
National Geographic gave
the impression that bin Laden was the focal point, the deus ex machina,
of anti--U.S. terrorism. This is the CIA's view, rooted in an
eagerness to exonerate Third Word governments from responsibility for
terrorism. The CIA would have us believe that private entities like al-Qaeda
manipulate vast state intelligence servicesnot the other way around. Not
surprisingly, the CIA draws evidence for this view from the intelligence
services of states like Syria, Egypt, and yes, until 2003, Iraq. These state
agencies dish up intelligence from terrorists outfits because they have
infiltrated every one. They manipulate the groups against other state rivals
and against us. And yet the CIA still assumes the information is
disinterested.
The CIA's principal fault in its
intelligence collection has always been that its "case officers," who are not
actually agents, play at intelligence. Case officers have neither the
policies, the skills, nor the courage to undertake real undercover work. And
so they take what they are told and call it good.
Experience demonstrates that the CIA
often thinks it has the upper hand while being taken for a ride by foreign
serviceshostiles and "friendlies" alike. When we have actually come upon
intelligence windfalls, like Germany's Stasi files, we have discovered that
nearly all the CIA's agents were actually were working for the other side.
Most recently, the CIA's vaunted ROCKSTARS operation in Iraqon the basis of
which part of the April 2003 attack was plannedturns out to have been managed
by Saddam.
The role of states in terrorismIraq,
Syria, Iran, the PLOis at the heart of disputes over U.S. foreign policy. Yet
the CIA has bent over backwards to deny their role. The program reflects this.
It first states that Ramzi Youssef arrived in the U.S. "with a perfectly
forged Iraqi passport." The photocopy we have, however, shows no evidence of
forgery, meaning that the guy came from Baghdad (and returned there) as
someone known and accepted by the Iraqi authorities. Why believethe CIA's and
the program's unspoken assumptionthat he's neither Ramzi Youssef nor
Iraqi?
According to the CIA (accepted by
National Geographic) his real name and unforged identity are supposedly
reflected in the Kuwaiti document he presented to New York's Pakistani
consulate while obtaining the passport he used to leave the U.S. after the
1993 World Trade Center bombing. And it is only on the basis of that presumed
identity (one Abdul Karim), that he can be believed to beas CIA believes and
the program statedKhalid Sheikh Mohammed's nephew. The trouble is that
Karim's document says that he's is 5' 8" tall, whereas Ramzi Youssef, sitting
in the federal pen in Colorado, is 6' tall.
The program mentions that Khalid Sheikh
Mohammed's interrogation "provided details" of the 9/11 plot. Embellishment is
more accurate. He shed light on nothing. He talked a lot about bin Laden's
alleged day--to-day involvement, but everything we independently
know points to him as the plot's director. In fact, Mohammed, along with
Youssef/Karim, were involved in the conspiracy before either met bin Laden.
The money for both came from another of Mohammed's "nephews." Why did they do
it? The program suggests Islamic motives. But neither Mohammed's nor Youssef
lived Islamic lives. Because bin Laden told them? But they were doing it
before.
There is no doubt that a number of
Islamic radicals were recruited for the plot. It is not clear by whom, with
what understanding, or with what documentation. But one thing is beyond doubt,
and it wasn't mentioned in the program: According to surveillance cameras, the
faces of nine or so of the hijackers who boarded the planes of September 11
did not correspond to the names on their visas. In fact, one Saudi identified
as a hijacker called a TV station to say that he was alive, had nothing to do
with the plot, and had reported his passport stolen in Denver two years
before.
The National Geographic program
not only left out key information, but reaffirmed the impressionentirely
misleadingthat terrorism has nothing to do with states. The CIA's continues
to press this point onto the American people. We can only wish that the agency
worked as craftily with America's enemies.
Angelo M. Codevilla is a professor of international relations at
Boston University, a senior fellow of the Claremont Institute, and the author
of No Victory, No
Peace.
Copyright © 2005, The Claremont Institute.