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The September 11 X-Files
By David Corn
On March 25, during a Pacifica radio interview, Representative Cynthia McKinney, a Georgia Democrat, said, "We know there were numerous warnings of the events to come on September 11.... What did this Administration know, and when did it know it about the events of September 11? Who else knew and why did they not warn the innocent people of New York who were needlessly murdered?" McKinney was not merely asking if there had been an intelligence failure. She was suggesting--though not asserting--that the US government had foreknowledge of the specific attacks and either did not do enough to prevent them or, much worse, permitted them to occur for some foul reason. Senator Zell Miller, a conservative Democrat from her state, called her comments "loony." House minority leader Dick Gephardt noted that he disagreed with her. White House spokesman Ari Fleischer quipped, "The congresswoman must be running for the Hall of Fame of the Grassy Knoll Society." The Atlanta Journal-Constitution called her a "nut." Two months later, after it was revealed that George W. Bush had received an intelligence briefing a month before September 11 in which he informed told Osama bin Laden was interested in both hijacking airplanes and striking directly at the United States, McKinney claimed vindication. But that new piece of information did not support the explosive notion she had unfurled earlier--that the Bush Administration and/or other unnamed parties had been in a position to warn New Yorkers and had elected not to do so.
With her radio interview, McKinney became something of a spokesperson for people who question the official story of September 11. As the Constitution's editorial page blasted her, its website ran an unscientific poll and found that 46 percent said, "I think officials knew it was coming." Out there--beyond newspaper conference rooms and Congressional offices--alternative scenarios and conspiracy theories have been zapping across the Internet for months. George W. Bush did it. The Mossad did it. The CIA did it. Or they purposely did not thwart the assault--either to have an excuse for war, to increase the military budget or to replace the Taliban with a government sympathetic to the West and the oil industry. The theories claim that secret agendas either caused the attacks or drove the post-9/11 response, and these dark accounts have found an audience of passionate devotees.
I learned this after I wrote a colu mn dismissing various 9/11 conspiracy theories. I expressed doubt that the Bush Administration would kill or allow the murder of thousands of American citizens to achieve a political or economic aim. (How could Karl Rove spin that, if a leak ever occurred?) Having covered the national security community for years, I didn't believe any government agency could execute a plot requiring the coordination of the FBI, the CIA, the INS, the FAA, the NTSB, the Pentagon and others. And--no small matter--there was no direct evidence that anything of such a diabolical nature had transpired.
(0) CommentsMay 30, 2002
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The 9/11 Warning Game--Blame for Bush and Many Others
By David Corn
The question is not the 1970s cliché, What did the President know and when did he know it? The appropriate query is, What did US intelligence know-and what did the President know and do about that?
The flap over the August 6, 2001, intelligence briefing of George W. Bush-in which he was told that Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda network was interested in hijackings and looking to strike the United States directly-should not have focused on whether the President ignored that information and missed the chance to prevent the September 11 strikes. Still, a political dust-up ensued, as the White House, overreacting to the overreaction of the Democrats, went into full-spin mode. The crucial issue was broached when National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice stated, "I don't think anybody could have predicted that these people would take an airplane and slam it into the World Trade Center."
Actually, it was predicted, and the recent hullabaloo called attention to the sad fact that the Clinton and the Bush II national security establishments did not heed hints going back to 1995. In that year a terrorist arrested in the Philippines said bin Laden operatives were considering a plot to bomb airliners and fly a plane into CIA headquarters-information shared with the United States. Two weeks before that arrest, Algerian terrorists linked to Al Qaeda hijacked a plane, hoping to crash it into the Eiffel Tower (French commandos killed the hijackers at a refueling stop).
(0) CommentsMay 23, 2002
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The bin Laden Warning: Why Did Bush Keep It a Secret?
By David Corn
By the way, we, uh, forgot to mention, that in August of 2001, while the President was taking a long vacation at his ranch in Crawford, the CIA told him that, uh, Osama bin Laden might be planning to hijack an airliner as part of some, who-knows-what terrorist action against the United States.
That is, in essence, how the Bush White House confirmed the CBS News report that broke this story Wednesday night. The White House was quick to say the CIA intelligence did not refer to anything as diabolical as a quadruple-hijacking that transformed airliners into weapons of mass destruction. That's probably true. But this latest news follows recent reports that an FBI agent in Phoenix in July 2001 had written a classified memo noting a "strong connection" between a group of Middle Eastern aviation students he was investigating and bin Laden's al Qaeda, and that one of the FBI agents trying to figure out the intentions of Zacarias Moussaoui, who was arrested at a flight school in August 2001, had speculated he might be planning to fly an airliner into the World Trade Center.
Before conspiracy theorists run away with this latest revelation, it is important to note its true significance.
(0) CommentsMay 16, 2002
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Fidel and Bioweapons: Move Over Iraq?
By David Corn
A few days ago, I was on a television show arguing there was nothing wrong with ex-President Jimmy Carter visiting Cuba, and the host kept exclaiming, "But they're making biological weapons, they're making biological weapons." Credit the Bush administration with a job well done--propaganda job, that is.
Several days before Carter's trip, John Bolton, the undersecretary of state for arms control, in a speech at the conservative Heritage Foundation, said, "The United States believes that Cuba has at least a limited offensive biological warfare research and development effort" and has "provided dual-use biotechnology to other rogue states."
Those certainly are fighting words. If Cuba is indeed developing such weaponry and sharing it with the "axis of evil," that would make it a target in George W. Bush's war on terrorism. After all, why bother first with Iraq, if a rogue-sympathizer is producing weapons of mass destruction 90 miles from Miami? Such a threat should compel immediate attention.
(0) CommentsMay 15, 2002
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Crusader: Intrigue and Backstabbing In the House of Bush
By David Corn
It's a tale of big guns and a big gun. It's a Bush family melodrama, a story of personal connections, possible backstabbing and multiple intrigues, a Washington soap opera. And it's all about an 80-ton mobile artillery system dubbed the Crusader.
Last week, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, in something of a sneak attack, announced he wanted to cancel the $11 billion program. This was major news. The Pentagon almost never deep-sixes a major weapons program. The Army, whose baby this is, was understandably shocked. The Crusader was eight years in development. The Pentagon had decided last year to keep the program going, even though some critics--in and out of the military--had complained the heavy gun, which fires a 155 mm shell, was a Cold War relic of not much use in contemporary warfare.
Immediately after Rumsfeld targeted the Crusader, the Army initiated a rearguard operation against Rumsfeld by lobbying members of Congress to save the Crusader. The SecDef was not pleased. "I have a minimum of high regard for that kind of behavior," he growled. He ordered the Army inspector general to investigate--and caught in the crosshairs was Thomas White, the already-beleaguered secretary of the Army. White had been quoted by an ally, Senator James Inhofe, a Republican from Oklahoma (where the Crusader would be built), as saying he was "in a fight to save [the] Crusader within the building," meaning the Pentagon.
(0) CommentsMay 6, 2002
David Corn
Washington--a city of denials, spin, and political calculations. They may speak English there, but most citizens still need an interpreter to understand its ways and meanings. DAVID CORN, the Washington editor of The Nation magazine, has spent years analyzing the policies and pursuing the lies that spew out of the nation's capital. He is a novelist, biographer, and television and radio commentator who is able to both decipher and scrutinize Washington.
In his dispatches, he takes on the day-by-day political and policy battles under way in the Capitol, the White House, the think tanks, and the television studios. With an informed, unconventional perspective, he holds the politicians, policymakers and pundits accountable and reports the important facts and views that go uncovered elsewhere.
Check out David Corn's latest book, (co-written with Michael Isikoff and now available in paperback), Hubris: The Inside Story of Spin, Scandal, and the Selling of the Iraq War (Crown Publishers). For information, visit his personal blog at davidcorn.com.
Photo Credit: Michael Lorenzini
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