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9/11 SYNTHETIC TERRORISM MADE IN USA

CHAPTER XVI: ELECTION 2004: IN THE SHADOW OF SYNTHETIC TERRORISM AND WAR

It will happen here. -- Bush administration official, spring 2004.

By the end of May 2004, an intelligence pattern pointed conclusively to the grave and open-ended threat of a new round of synthetic ABC (atomic-bacteriological-chemical) terror attacks in the United States, Great Britain, Canada, and possibly other nations. This threat included nuclear detonations, radiological dirty bombs, poison gas and other chemical weapons, or biological agents, to be unleashed in such urban settings as New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, Washington DC, Vancouver BC, or London. The putative goal of these operations was to produce a worldwide shock several orders of magnitude greater than the original 9/11, with a view to stopping the collapse of the Bush administration, the Wall Street-centered financial structures, and the US-UK strategic position generally. US/UK intelligence was prepared to attribute responsibility to controlled patsy terrorist groups, which in turn the media would link to countries like Iran, Syria, Cuba, North Korea, or Saudi Arabia, thus setting these states up for attack. Behind the threat was substantially the same secret command cell in the United States which set up the 9/11 events, which had been able to continue in operation because of the abject failure of all 9/11 investigations to identify them. These forces were in a desperate flight forward to escape from their increasingly grim position. Their goal was to establish a neocon fascist dictatorship in the United States, complete with martial law, special tribunals, press and media censorship, and the full pervasive apparatus of the modern police state.

The chatter in Washington in late spring 2004 pointed to state-sponsored terrorism on a grand scale, with the desperados of the neocon faction calling the shots. The rogues were once again inclined to score an "own goal" of the Americans. Given the prominence of the Congress, it could also have been called Operation Guy Fawkes, recalling the state plot to blow up the Houses of Parliament on November 5, 1605.

Reliance on synthetic terrorism as a matter of rasion d'etat was like a heroin habit: as each dose wore off, another and more powerful injection was required. In May 2002, some 300 government, military and business executives met in a seminar entitled "Homeland Security 2005: Charting the Course Ahead, " which was conducted by the ANSER Institute for Homeland Security. ANSER ("Advancing National Strategy and Enabling Results") was created in 1958 by RAND and the Air Force as a contract advisory agency on national security. The seminar participants were already lamenting that the government had not "managed to engage the American people" in supporting the urgency of changes in national security organization. UPI reported that "several participants" -- who asked to remain anonymous -- said "they felt that without another terrorist incident, keeping public attention to the gaps in security and support for the expenditures was growing more difficult." Conference speakers included Lawrence Castro, NSA Coordinator for Homeland Security Support; Rear Admiral Richard Cobbold, Director of Britain's Royal United Services Institute for Defense Studies; Leon Fuerth; Frank Gaffney; several officials of the Office of Homeland Security; and numerous former Defense Department and CIA officials. (ANSER web site, May 6, 2002)

The new phase in the campaign for martial law and a state of emergency began during the closing months of 2003, when it was clear to insiders that the Iraq adventure was headed for defeat. In his year-end column of December 31, 2003, New York Times neocon and Nixon emeritus William Safire cynically predicted that the "October surprise" for the 2004 election would come in the form of "a major terror attack in the US." The United States was, in short, once more threatened by a coup d'etat -- not a coup against the existing government, but an operation aimed at shocking, disciplining and dragooning the entire political process for escalated foreign aggression, with the homeland secured by emergency rule. It went without saying that those associated with such a coup were felons, war criminals, and traitors to their country.

On May 26, 2004 Attorney General Ashcroft and FBI Director Robert Mueller announced a coming summer "perfect storm" of terrorism. According to advance wire service reports, US officials had "obtained new intelligence deemed highly credible indicating Al- Qaeda or other terrorists are in the United States and preparing to launch a major attack this summer  ... (AP, May 25, 2004) This was accompanied by an unprecedented propaganda barrage. A few samples will suffice.

THE BUSH REGIME TALKS TERROR

Bush and Cheney had made the demagogy of terror their stock in trade, their daily bread, since 9/11. But April 2004 marked a watershed, a qualitative escalation. On April 21, Bush delivered two speeches which represented a palpable escalation of the tone of his usual fear. In the afternoon, he assured the Newspaper Association of America, composed of newspaper editors, that Iran "will be dealt with" if they pursue a nuclear development program. Bush went on to characterize the United States as "a battlefield in the war on terror." He was at pains to build up the stature of Al-Qaeda, whose members he emphatically characterized as "smart ... tough ... and sophisticated." Because the terrorists were so formidable, Bush said the United States "is a hard country to defend. Our intelligence is good. It's just never perfect, is the problem. We are disrupting some cells here in America. We're chasing people down. But it is -- we've got a big country."

Later, Bush spoke to the same themes at a closed-door gathering at the White House: "... On Tuesday evening, Bush told Republican congressional leaders during a meeting at the White House that it was all but certain that terrorists would attempt a major attack on the United States before the election, according to a congressional aide. The leaders were struck by Bush's definitiveness and gravity, the aide said ..." (Washington Post, April 22, 2004)

It must be remembered that synthetic terrorism depends on many people doing things that make sense to them within their own limited purviews, but which are in fact dictated by the needs of the operation of which they are a part. Bush might think he was just practicing smart politics by inculcating fear in the US citizenry. The reality behind the statements was an insurrectionary network of moles inside the federal government who would stop at nothing. They marched to the tune of a private command center outside of the government which also deployed patsies and expert professionals. Not every official who parroted the terror line was aware of what was coming, but his speech writer or other handlers might be. When we come to figures like Cheney, the likelihood that he was a witting participant rises substantially.

Vice President Cheney had been predicting imminent terrorist attacks on the US in many of his speeches since no later than May 20, 2002. On that day, Cheney went on Fox News Sunday to announce that "In my opinion, the prospects of a future attack against the United States are almost certain." For Cheney, the question of a new terrorist assault on the US is "not a matter of if, but when."

Several weeks later, an account published under the title "White House Nightmare Scenario" in the "Washington Whispers" column of US News and World Report reflected the thinking of top Bush  officials about the relation between terrorism and the coming US presidential elections. According to this article, 'White House officials say they've got a "working premise" about terrorism and the presidential election: It's going to happen. "We assume," says a top administration official, "an attack will happen leading up to the election." And, he added, "it will happen here." There are two worst-case scenarios, the official says. The first posits an attack on Washington, possibly the Capitol, which was believed to be the target of the 9/11 jet that crashed in Pennsylvania. Theory 2: smaller but more frequent attacks in Washington and other major cities leading up to the election. To prepare, the administration has been holding secret anti-terrorism drills to make sure top officials know what to do. "There was a sense," says one official involved in the drills, "of mass confusion on 9/11. Now we have a sense of order." Unclear is the political impact, though most Bushies think the nation would rally around the president. "I can tell you one thing," adds the official sternly, "we won't be like Spain," which tossed its government days after the Madrid train bombings.' (US News and World Report, 17 May 2004)

National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice told Fox News on Sunday, April 19, that the government was bracing for possible terrorist attacks before November's Presidential election. Referencing March's Madrid bombings, she said the opportunity for terrorists to influence the election might "be too good to pass up for them," and that "the terrorists might have learned, we hope, the wrong lesson from Spain." Rice expatiated on this theme: "I think we also have to take seriously that [terrorists] might try during the cycle leading up to the election to do something .... In some ways, it seems like it would be too good to pass up for them, and so we are actively looking at that possibility, actively trying to make certain that we are responding appropriately." Hinting that preparations to defend against a terror attack might not be successful, she added, "The hard thing about terrorism is that they only have to be right once, and we have to be right 100 percent of the time. And nobody can be certain there won't be another attack."

AZNAR'S ATTEMPTED TERROR-ASSISTED COUP

Condoleezza Rice's remarks came in the context of a lengthy US tour by Jose Maria Aznar, the defeated Spanish Prime Minister. Aznar was ousted in Spain's March 13 elections, partly because 90% of Spaniards rejected Aznar's subservience to Bush in joining the US invasion coalition in Iraq, and partly because Spanish voters were convinced that Aznar was lying about the March 11 terrorist attacks on commuter trains in the Madrid region. Aznar was defeated by the magnificent mobilization of Spanish trade unions and left parties against terrorism; this recalled the actions of the German trade unions, who had stopped the Kapp-Luttwitz putsch of 1920 with a general strike. Aznar was counted as a neocon, and his party contained the remnants of Francisco Franco's falangist-fascist apparatus. Aznar was associated with the thesis that the March 11 terrorist attacks decided the Spanish elections in favor of the PSOE (socialist) challenger, Zapatero. Aznar also claimed that his own defeat was a victory for terrorism, since the newly elected Zapatero, acting in conformity with the will of the Spanish people, withdrew the Spanish troop contingent from Iraq as soon as he had taken office. The Spanish elections were viewed with hysteria by Washington elites, first because of the Spanish quitting the coalition, but also because the terrorist attacks had failed to produce the expected effects. The Washington consensus had previously been that terrorism would infallibly stampede the voters of any country into voting for the incumbent, but this time it was the anti-Bush challenger who was the beneficiary. Aznar was known to have attempted to call off the Spanish vote and to continue to rule by decree, but his efforts were blocked. Aznar's briefing would seem to have included the notion that if there was going to be pre-election terrorism, it needed to be of sufficient magnitude to provide a pretext for calling off all scheduled elections.

In mid-April, Aznar began issuing warnings of election-related terrorism. These warnings were directed most immediately to Tony Blair and George Bush. Aznar said, "1 told George Bush, and Tony Blair and other political leaders to be extremely careful before elections ... and to be very vigilant." (Once Noticias, Once-TV, Mexico, April 19, 2004; EIR, May 22, 2004) During his visit to California, Aznar referred more than once to a terrorist attack taking place in the United States in June, 2004, which would lead to a Federal Emergency Management Agency takeover of the country. (International Herald Tribune, May 15, 16, 17, Los Angeles Times, May 15, 2004)

On May 18, El Pais reported that Aznar had visited Los Angeles, and had then gone on to Washington, where he met Defense Secretary Rumsfeld. Present at the meeting, reports El Pais, were various Democratic and Republican Congressmen. After the meeting, during an intervention at the Heritage Foundation, Rumsfeld spoke about Aznar's briefing: "In Spain, in Madrid, the terrorists changed the result of the elections, without any doubt. In a premeditated way. As a consequence of the intentions of the terrorists, the election results were changed. I had dinner with Prime Minister Aznar, and he is convinced that this is how it happened." In California, Aznar told the press on Monday that Islamic terrorism has as objective to influence elections in democratic countries. "If they could do it in Spain, why would they not intend to do it in another place?" he said and added, "It's important to understand that the terrorists will do everything to change the next elections in the USA. They will do everything possible to make the U.S. fail."

He furthermore said in Los Angeles that he thought that the government of Zapatero sent an "inappropriate message to the terrorists by withdrawing the troops." Aznar also had a 40-minute meeting with President Bush in the White House. Present at the meeting were: Vice President Dick Cheney, Condoleezza Rice, Colin Powell, and White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card. The White House press spokesman identified the meeting as "private" -- "a meeting with a good friend of the President."

An important sidelight on these statements by Aznar was the revelation that the group accused of carrying out the Madrid bombings was thoroughly penetrated by informants working for the Spanish police, according to El Mundo of May 6, 2004. The Madrid bombings were synthetic terrorism. El Mundo reported that among the people arrested for the Madrid bombing were two police informants. This paper published an exclusive report given by Rafa Zhueri, who was among those arrested after the bombings. Zhueri revealed that he had worked for years as a police informant for a part of the Spanish Civil Guard (UCO -- Undidad Central Operativa). The article was headlined "I informed the Civil Guard that an Asturian offered me dynamite." The US controlled corporate media ignored these astounding revelations.

More information on the extremely suspicious nature of the Madrid bombing was reported by the Swiss daily Neue Zuercher Zeitung on May 27, 2004 in an article entitled "Crime Under the Eyes of the Police." This lengthy piece expressed amazement that the alleged perpetrators of these terrorist acts were not sophisticated sleeper-cell agents, but notorious criminals well-known over many years to European intelligence agencies, including the Spanish ones. Jamal Zougham, one of the main suspects, was arrested after March 11. He had also been rounded up after September 11, 2001. Although well- known to police and intelligence services of Spain and France and under continuous investigation, he was nevertheless allowed to travel to France, Germany, Britain, and Norway, where he met with others under surveillance as terrorists. Furthermore, at least two of those arrested in Madrid had been previously identified as active in drug- trafficking. In addition, the mine worker who was accused of having procured the explosives for the March 11 attacks was also a known drug dealer. There were reliable reports that he and another of those arrested had worked as police informants. The mystery was therefore why such people were able to prepare a bomb attack of such dimensions under the noses of the police, the NZZ wrote. The article suggested that the real operation was perpetrated not by these suspects, but by others. In reality, those now under arrest most probably represented a collection of patsies. The real prime suspects in the Madrid attacks were neither ETA nor Al-Qaeda, but rather Spanish and Italian neofascists of the Stefano delle Chiaie school, whose modus operandi has always been attacks on trains, as seen in the 1974 Italicus bombing, and the 1980 Bologna railroad station explosion which killed upwards of 80 persons.

The 9/11 commission was an investigative failure and a blatant coverup, but it did serve as an excellent propaganda soapbox for figures such as the former Navy Secretary and establishment operative John Lehman. In the spring 2004 New York sessions of the commission, Lehman stressed repeatedly that the overwhelming consensus among US officials is that new terror attacks are coming soon. This view was shared by former New York City mayor Rudolph Giuliani. It was repeated by Kean and Hamilton when the 9/11 commission's report was delivered.

KERRY EMBRACES THE TERROR MYTH

Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry did not offer an alternative to the Bush demagogy of terror. Instead, the Skull & Bones Boston Brahmin oligarch Kerry enthusiastically embraced the Bush-Cheney nightmare vision of the United States as a nuclear terrorist battlefield. While Kerry might have believed that he was merely pandering to the demands of certain pro-Likud pressure groups, he was in fact providing precious credibility and cover to the most sinister plot yet directed against the United States. On May 27, Kerry began a series of speeches billed as his 11-day foreign policy tour. "The single greatest threat we face in the world today [is] a terrorist armed with nuclear weapons," Kerry said in Palm Beach on June 1. "Take away politics, strip away the labels: since that dark day in September, have we done everything we could to secure these dangerous weapons and bomb making materials? No! ... There was a time when the possibility of nuclear war was the most important responsibility entrusted to every American President. The phrase 'having your finger on the nuclear button' meant something very real ... The proposal I am laying out today: to ask that America launch a new mission ... to prevent the world's deadliest weapons from falling into the world's most dangerous hands. If we secure all bomb-making materials, ensure that no new materials are produced for nuclear weapons, and end nuclear weapons programs in hostile states like North Korea and Iran, we can and will dramatically reduce the possibility of nuclear terrorism ... Here's what we must do: The first step is to safeguard all bomb-making material worldwide. That means making sure we know where they are, and then locking them up and securing them wherever they are. Our approach should treat all nuclear materials needed for bombs as if they were bombs."

Kerry was also ready to go Bush one better by adding Saudi Arabia to the target list for economic warfare and possible invasion, a notion long dear to Likudniks which has been gaining ground among some US pseudo-leftists lately. Kerry's prescription was for energy independence in order to obtain a free hand to settle with the Saudis: "If we are serious about energy independence, then we can finally be serious about confronting the role of Saudi Arabia in financing and providing ideological support of Al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups," Kerry said in Seattle May 27. "We cannot continue this Administration's kid-glove approach to the supply and laundering of terrorist money ... I will launch a 'name and shame' campaign against those that are financing terror. And if they do not respond, they will be shut out of the U.S. financial system. The same goes for Saudi sponsorship of clerics who promote the ideology of Islamic terror. To put it simply, we will not do business as usual with Saudi Arabia." ( www.johnkerrx.com )

Nor did Kerry stop with Saudi Arabia, or the usual targets like Iran and North Korea (see his New York Times interview of May 28). His foreign policy speeches, all built around the danger of nuclear terrorism, were replete with threats against India, Pakistan, China and Russia -- some very formidable powers which even the Bush neocons had shied away from. Kerry was blunt about US pretensions to exercise custody over Russia's nuclear deterrent: "More than a decade has passed since the Berlin Wall came down. But Russia still has nearly 20,000 nuclear weapons, and enough nuclear material to produce 50,000 more Hiroshima- sized bombs. For most of these weapons and materials, cooperative security upgrades have not been completed  .. And at the current pace, it will take 13 years to secure potential bomb material in the former Soviet Union. We cannot wait that long. 1 will ensure that we remove this material entirely from sites that can't be adequately secured during my first term ... It is hard to believe that we actually secured less bomb making material in the two years after 9/11 than we had in the two years before. At my first summit with the Russian President, I will seek an agreement to sweep aside the key obstacles slowing our efforts to secure Russia's nuclear stockpiles."

The North Korean crisis, with its alleged nuclear proliferation dangers, was largely manufactured by the US as a means of dragooning South Korean and Japanese support during the preparations for the US invasion of Iraq. Here Kerry again offered a more strident version of the Bush-Cheney line: "In East Asia, North Korea poses a genuine nuclear threat, while we have begun to strip American troops to relieve the overburdened forces in Iraq," he said in Seattle May 27. "This Administration has been fixated on Iraq while the nuclear dangers from North Korea have multiplied," Kerry said in Palm Beach June 1. "We know that North Korea has sold ballistic missiles and technology in the past. And according to published reports, North Korean uranium ended up in Libyan hands. The North Koreans have made it clear to the world -- and to the terrorists -- that they are open for business and will sell to the highest bidder. We should have no illusions about Kim Jong-il, so any agreement must have rigorous verification and lead to complete and irreversible elimination of North Korea's nuclear weapons program. For eighteen months, we've negotiated over the shape of the table while the North Koreans allegedly have made enough new fuel to make six to nine nuclear bombs." On June 1, Kerry also attacked China, India, Pakistan, and Iran as places which must show greater cooperation with international controls over all nuclear materials.

In the midst of his relentless evocation of the looming threat of nuclear terrorism, Kerry also embraced the Bush-Cheney preventive war doctrine: "This strategy focuses not only on what we must do, but on what we must prevent," Kerry said May 27 in Seattle. "We must ensure that lawless states and terrorists will not be armed with weapons of mass destruction. This is the single gravest threat to our security. Any potential adversary should know that we will defend ourselves against the possibility of attack by unconventional arms. If such a strike does occur, as commander-in-chief, I will respond with overwhelming and devastating force. If such an attack appears imminent, as commander-in-chief, I will do whatever is necessary to stop it. And, as commander-in-chief, I will never cede our security to anyone." ( www.johnkerry.com ) Many Democrats opposed this trigger-happy approach, and these remarks by Kerry took "him close to Mr . Bush's preemption doctrine," as a Washington Post editorial pointed out on May 30.

The key proposal of Kerry's nightmarish foreign policy tour also involved nuclear terrorism. Kerry on June 1 in affluent Palm Beach announced that he would appoint a national "nuclear terror" czar if elected. "So let it be clear: finally and fundamentally, preventing nuclear terrorism is our most urgent priority to provide for America's long- term security," he said. "That is why I will appoint a National Coordinator for Nuclear Terrorism and Counterproliferation who will work with me in the White House to marshal every effort and every ally, to combat an incalculable danger. We have to do everything we can to stop a nuclear weapon from ever reaching our shore -- and that mission begins far away. We have to secure nuclear weapons and materials at the source so that searching the containers here at the Port of Palm Beach isn't our only line of defense -- it is our last line of defense." (www.johnkerry.com)

No matter how far Kerry might go in attempting to outflank Bush on the right, he could not change the fact that, as long as there are elections, the Democratic Party will always have to ask for some meager concessions for the blacks, women, trade unionists, teachers, environmentalists, and lawyers who are important components of its base. But these groups were all slated for marginalization in the post-coup environment, and the Bush regime was a more attractive vehicle for administering martial law than the Democratic Party ever could ever be.

PREPARATION FOR EMERGENCY RULE

On May 11-12, the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) ran a large-scale exercise involving more than 2,500 federal employees to determine how the federal government could continue operating in the face of a massive terrorist attack or other catastrophe. The government employees went to more than 100 secret sites, as part of a training exercise to prepare them to operate under catastrophic conditions. The exercise, called "Forward Challenge '04," was in preparation for over a year, according to Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge, who spoke to reporters from an undisclosed location. (Washington Post, May 14, 2004) Ridge had been hyping the "perfect storm" of coming terror in his own way for many weeks. Speaking at an event in Las Vegas in mid- April, Ridge said the government must "ratchet up" security from now through the 2005 inauguration, not based on "specific or credible intelligence" but rather on suspicion that high-profile political, economic and athletic events were good targets. (USA Today, 20 Apri1 2004)

There was also an intensive pattern of incidents pointing in the direction of a terrorist attack on rail systems, on the Madrid model. This pattern included suspicious activity in the Northeast rail corridor between Washington and Boston. A Philadelphia television station reported the discovery of a wireless transmitter carefully hidden in the gravel along the SEPTA (Southeast Pennsylvania Transit Authority) rail tracks in Philadelphia. An infrared sensor, painted black and buried in the trackside ballast, was found along the SEPTA tracks, which could be used as a triggering device. It sent a signal when a moving object crossed its infrared beam. (WPVI News, Philadelphia, May 20, 2004)

On May 6, British Prime Minister Tony Blair announced that the new head of the British intelligence service MI-6 would be John Scarlett. The choice immediately caused protests from British political opposition leaders. Scarlett was the author and stubborn defender of the now discredited and artificially sexed-up Iraqi WMD report issued by the Blair government in support of the US-UK war drive. Dr. David Kelley lost his life in the scandal that developed around the manipulations in this report, but the role of the government was whitewashed in the inquiry conducted by Lord Hutton of the Law Lords.

This appointment meant that MI-6 would lack the leadership of a competent and independent professional who might act to prevent the coming terrorism, and would instead be under the domination of a political hack of dubious judgment and loyalty. (AP, May 6, 2004)

This problem was compounded by Bush's nomination of the blueblood Porter Goss to replace Tenet as head of the CIA. Goss had most recently been a member of Congress for Florida, but he was also a former CIA agent. In 1961, as a new CIA recruit, Goss had joined the staff of JM/WAVE, the CIA's Miami station. At one time the station chief was Theodore G. Shackley, an ally of the Bush machine and a kingpin of the CIA old boy networks. In those days, this was the command center for the anti-Castro Cubans who took part in the abortive Bay of Pigs invasion. It was also the center of Operation Mongoose, which was officially an operation to assassinate Castro, but which was used as a cover for aspects of the Kennedy assassination. The JM/WAVE milieu produced a number of the Watergate burglars, and was later a center for Iran-contra drug- unning and gun-running. Finally, as we have seen, the JM/WAVE Iran-contra era infrastructure provided the vivarium for Atta, Shehhi, and Jarrah, the three accused 9/11 pilots.

In addition, the US government appeared to have imposed an embargo on the sharing of critical anti-terror intelligence with European authorities. Whatever the intent, the net effect of this blackout was to screen certain activities in the US from scrutiny by the allies. In an article published May 6 the German economic paper Handelsblatt reported, in reference to a similar article which appeared in the Wall Street Journal, that Spanish investigators, like many of their colleagues in Europe, were finding it very difficult to obtain information from US circles which are engaged in the fight against terrorism. Mentioned was the case of Spanish Judge Balthazar Garzon who reportedly was unable to proceed with certain investigations on Al-Qaeda after Sept 11th, like the case of Al- Qaeda member Ramzi Binalshibh, who was imprisoned in an unknown location. The problem was compounded by the fact that the alleged anti-terrorism fight in the US was being conducted by non-public military courts and military intelligence, neither of which was sharing testimony and evidence with their European colleagues. (Handelsblatt, May 6; 2004)

AN ORGY OF TERROR PROPAGANDA

The possibility of portable nuclear weapons being used against US cities was prepared by a lengthy campaign of movies and news reports. In early 2004 the Arabic-language newspaper al-Hayat reported that Osama Bin Laden and al Qaeda had acquired Soviet- built tactical nuclear weapons from Ukraine, and had stored them in safe places for future use. According to a February 8, 2004 Reuters account, "after the Soviet Union broke up in 1991, a former Russian National Security adviser, Gen. Alexander Lebed, said that up to 100 portable suitcase-sized bombs were unaccounted for. Moscow has denied such weapons existed." But Lebed "said each one was equivalent to 1,000 tons of TNT and could kill as many as 100,000 people." The bombs were allegedly sold to Al-Qaeda when Ukrainian scientists visited the Afghan city of Kandahar in 1998, during the time of the Taliban regime, which the US says harbored Al- Qaeda. Another variant involved the activities Dr. A. Q. Khan, the father of the Pakistani nuclear program, who was alleged to have sold nuclear weapons technology, know-how, and equipment to all comers until his activities were exposed.

Yet another variation involved Iran, against which country the neocons, notably Michael Ledeen of the American Enterprise Institute, have never stopped inveighing. During the recent Hamburg, Germany trial of Abdel-Ghani Mzoudi (subsequently acquitted on charges of complicity in the 9/11 attacks), a statement was introduced into evidence by an unidentified informer of the Bundeskriminalamt who alleged that Iranian intelligence was the actual initiator of the 9/11 attacks. The statement came from an alleged Iranian defector who had supposedly fled from Iran in July 2001. According to this source, "'Department 43 of Iranian intelligence was created to plan and conduct terror attacks, and mounted joint operations with Al-Qaeda. Osama Bin Laden's son, Sa ad Bin Laden, had made repeated consultative visits to Iran." (DPA, January 22, 2004).

Lurid accounts of coming ABC terrorist attacks proliferated in the US media. Whatever the subjective intentions or motivations of the authors, these accounts objectively served as propaganda preparation for terror attacks, specifically by introducing to the US public the alien notions of emergency rule, martial law, and the state of siege, all of which were favorite themes of neocon writers going back to the Nazi Carl Schmitt. A particularly fulsome example was the article by Michael Ignatieff which appeared on May 2, 2004 in the New York Times Magazine. Ignatieff raved:

Consider the consequences of a second major attack on the mainland United States -  the detonation of a radiological or dirty bomb, perhaps, or a low-yield nuclear device or a chemical strike in a subway. Any of these events could cause death, devastation and panic on a scale that would make 9/11 seem like a pale prelude. After such an attack, a pall of mourning, melancholy, anger and fear would hang over our public life for a generation.

An attack of this sort is already in the realm of possibility. The recipes for making ultimate weapons are on the Internet, and the materiel required is available for the right price. Democracies live by free markets, but a free market in everything -- enriched uranium, ricin, anthrax -- will mean the death of democracy. Armageddon is being privatized, and unless we shut down these markets, doomsday will be for sale. Sept. 11, for all its horror, was a conventional attack. We have the best of reasons to fear the fire next time.

A democracy can allow its leaders one fatal mistake -- and that's what 9/11 looks like to many observers -- but Americans will not forgive a second one. A succession of large-scale attacks would pull at the already-fragile tissue of trust that binds us to our leadership and destroy the trust we have in one another. Once the zones of devastation were cordoned off and the bodies buried, we might find ourselves, in short order, living in a national-security state on continuous alert, with sealed borders, constant identity checks and permanent detention camps for dissidents and aliens. Our constitutional rights might disappear from our courts, while torture might reappear in our interrogation cells. The worst of it is that government would not have to impose tyranny on a cowed populace. We would demand it for our own protection. And if the institutions of our democracy were unable to protect us from our enemies, we might go even further, taking the law into our own hands. We have a history of lynching in this country, and by the time fear and paranoia settled deep in our bones, we might repeat the worst episodes from our past, killing our former neighbors, our onetime friends -- (emphasis added)

The coming of martial law to the US in the wake of a new large-scale terror attack was also the theme of Ted Koppel's Nightline broadcast of April 7, 2004. Here Koppel was joined by former terror czar Richard Clarke and the Reagan White House chief of staff Kenneth Duberstein. The broadcast was titled "The Armageddon Plan," and featured questions of continuity in government (COG) after an attack that had decimated the US Congress. Koppel asked Duberstein: "Aren't we left for at least the foreseeable future with some sort of martial law anyway? "Duberstein eagerly replied: "You have to suspend rights." Koppel elaborated: "And during that period, then, and given the sense of panic that is inevitable under circumstances like this, the executive branch of government takes on extraordinary power, doesn't it?" Clarke chimed in: "I think in any war where Washington were destroyed, inevitably, there would be a period of, for lack of a better term, something like martial law." (Nightline, April 7, 2004)

No terrorist attack would be complete without the advance airing of a scenario docudrama to provide the population with a conceptual scheme to help them understand the coming events in the sense intended by the oligarchy. For any and all future attacks, this detail was attended to on Sunday June 6, 2004 at 8 PM EDT, when FX cable network broadcast Meltdown: The Threat is Real, a 2004 docudrama produced by Craig Anderson Productions and Apolloscreen. This 2- hour scenario drama starred Bruce Greenwood and Arnold Vosloo. The plot summary: "Government agencies and civilians respond to a terrorist attack on an American nuclear reactor." Subtext: "Terrorists didn't have to build a nuclear weapon ... we built it for them." The blurb also showed dark figures with rocket- propelled grenades advancing towards two nuclear cooling towers, while other terrorists parachuted in from above."

Other commentators cynically discussed the coming terror assault in direct relation to the November presidential elections. A May 2 article by New York Times correspondent David Sanger entitled "Calculating the Politics of Catastrophe" summarized the pattern of "obsessive" discussion in Washington circles about the electoral impact of another terror attack on the US. According to Sanger, both the Bush and Kerry campaigns were weighing the impact of a "nightmarish, unpredictable event" that could shift the election. Bush, he noted, had begun to talk more openly about such an event, "perhaps to brace the country for the worst, perhaps to begin the political inoculation if domestic defenses fail." Bush insiders were reportedly most concerned, not about the lives of the innocent victims, but rather about the possibility that a new terror attack might boomerang against the current tenant of the White House. Their cynical calculations were compared to "a kind of macabre game theory in which security experts and political operatives -- two classes of people who typically do not interact much in Washington -- are calculating what the political fallout of an attack might be." Sanger quoted a senior administration official as saying, "The message the terrorists learned in Madrid is that attacks can change elections and change policy. It's a very dangerous precedent to have out there." Noting the standard US neocon line of denouncing the Spanish population for learning the "wrong lesson" from the terrorist attacks and for "appeasing" terrorism, Sanger went on to point out that the Bush administration was busy preparing scenarios on the ways a terrorist attack could "change elections" in the US in Bush's favor. Sanger wrote: "Mr. Bush's political aides -- speaking only on background, because no one dissects terror on the record -- argue that the crazier the world gets, the more it plays to the theme of the campaign: Now more than ever, the country needs a president who has proved to be strong on terror." The main issue, the Bush backers agreed, was not prevention, but timing: if the terror attacks came too far in advance of the elections, the initial impulse to rally around the President might dissipate, "because the shock value would be gone, and because this time American defenses are supposed to be up. So within a month or so, the thinking goes, horror could give way to analysis about whether the billions spent on security were well spent -- and if Mr. Bush focused on the right threats." Thus, a terror attack in June or July might backfire on Bush. "One reason the administration is so obsessed with security for the conventions," wrote Sanger, "is that those gatherings attract large concentrations of the American elite in two major cities. But they also may be sufficiently far ahead of the election to allow time for predictable finger-pointing. Terrorists, some believe, might try to undertake an attack that could be credibly portrayed as a result of the Iraq war, rather than as a 9/11 replay." Sanger did not mention the scenario that built on the lessons of Aznar's fall: martial law, emergency rule, and no elections at all.

In a May 20, 2004 op-ed entitled "Beware of any stretch-run surprises," the Wall Street Journal's Al Hunt forecast that the presidential contest could be determined by "unanticipated events." Chief among these was a terrorist attack. Hunt noted the hypocrisy of the Bush line on terror: "The Bush administration and outside terrorist experts repeatedly have cautioned that another attack on the homeland is likely. The White House, politically, had it both ways: taking credit for avoiding any assault since 9/11, while at the same time warning that another was likely, even inevitable." GOP leaders are betting that a new terror wave will play in to their hands; Hunt cited veteran Republican operative Charles Black as stating that "my instinct is there likely will be a rally around the incumbent effect" in the event of a new round of terror. From here it was not far to the conclusion that some really serious terror might also allow Bush to dispense with the election formalities altogether, and enjoy enhanced public support while doing so.

The scurrilous television personality Shawn Hannity blurted out the entire scenario when he blabbered: "If we are attacked before our election like Spain was, I am not so sure that we should go ahead with the election ... we had better make plans now because it's going to happen." Hannity was close to advocating the violent overthrow of the US Constitution.

The Washington Post used the release of the latest set of Nixon administration tapes to issue what can only be interpreted as a threat to the Congress in the form of a signal piece bearing the headline "Haig Said Nixon Joked of Nuking Hill." The content involved a telephone conversation between Nixon's then Chief of Staff, Gen. Alexander Haig, and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, in March 1974 -- months before Nixon was forced out of office. "I was told to get the football," reported Haig to Kissinger, a reference to the codes used by the president to order nuclear attacks. In response to a question from Kissinger, Haig specified that the request is for "His nuclear black bag. He is going to drop it on the Hill." The context is Nixon's growing fear of his own looming impeachment. This item could not have been reassuring to members of Congress. (Washington Post, May 27, 2004)

THE ANGLO-AMERICAN EMPIRE IN BREAKDOWN CRISIS

The grounds for the wave of terror propaganda were to be found in the stunning reverses suffered by the Bush regime over the first half of 2004. During April, Iraqi resistance forces initiated a national uprising against the invasion of their country. The failure of the vaunted US military machine before Fallujah and Najaf ended the myth of US superpower invincibility, and set off uncontrollable processes of disintegration throughout the global system. During May, the war crimes and atrocities carried out by US, UK and other coalition forces in Iraq wrecked the moral credibility of the United States and its allies, making these aggressive powers into an object of absolute execration around the world. This situation was encapsulated in the stern condemnation of Bush's policies delivered during his June 4 visit to the Vatican by Pope John Paul II. The ad hoc "Coalition of the Willing" assembled by the Bush regime had begun to disintegrate, with Spain, Honduras, the Dominican Republic, Kazakhstan, Norway, and the Philippines either leaving Iraq or announcing their departure. Governments subservient to Bush in Great Britain, Italy, Poland, Denmark, and other countries were facing a grim electoral future. The entire alliance system created by the US at the end of World War II was increasingly a dead letter. The three principal leaders of world aggression, Bush, Blair, and Sharon, were engulfed by domestic political crises threatening them with ouster over the short term, with increased danger of prosecution and the wrecking of their political machines amidst recrimination for Iraq and other disasters. Concomitantly with these events, the New York-London financial system began to exhibit symptoms of severe instability leading to systemic crisis. The US was running a merchandise trade deficit of over $500 billion, and a federal budget deficit which actually approaches $750 billion. The US was a bankrupt state. Greenspan's policies had solved the dot com bubble by creating a housing bubble and a bond bubble. Because of the manifest bankruptcy of the United States, the Anglo-American finance oligarchs feared the termination of the US dollar as a reserve currency. This would take the form of a dumping of the dollar as the currency in which the posted price of oil is expressed by Saudi Arabia, Iran, Indonesia, and other OPEC states. The far stronger and more stable euro would be the beneficiary of these moves, and it is the euro which would prove to be far more attractive to most countries in a world divided into currency blocks. The European Union had been pressing Russia to accept payment for oil in euros, which, if accomplished, would place the EU out of reach of Anglo-American and Israeli blackmail threats of oil shortages. Russia and Germany in particular were actively discussing this measure, which harks back to the post- World War I Russo-German Apollo agreements, a nightmare for the Anglo-Americans. Taken together, these developments suggested the collapse of the entire US imperialist system. The protagonists of the coming terror were determined to disrupt these processes, imposing on the world a regime of unilateral US diktat and military intervention, with a domestic police state to make sure that no opposition emerged on the home front.

THE NEOCONS UNDER ATTACK

The neocons were deeply concerned about their own personal fate. During their ascent, this exceptionally ideological and close-knit faction had by its arrogance and incompetence made many enemies. During May, there were repeated editorial calls for the firing of not just Rumsfeld, but also of Wolfowitz and the other neocons who had made such a mess of the Pentagon. The demand to oust Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz was raised by the veteran Republican Senators who exercised great authority within that party. Right-wing columnist Robert Novak, in a Washington Post op-ed on the Chalabi scandal, commented: "Republican Senators, who do not yet want to be quoted by name, feel there must be some accountability for this massive blunder, as there must be for the prisoner abuse scandal. They want the President at least to consider" firing Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, and perhaps others of the neo-con gang. The senior Republican Congressional leaders were backed in this, by high U.S. military brass. (Time, May 25, New York Times May 24, 2004) According to press accounts, Senators Warner and McCain led a group of about a dozen senior GOP leaders who called on Bush to demand the sacking of Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz as a matter of urgent political expediency. Bush reportedly sat stony-faced and said nothing.

The May 20 US military/mercenary raid against the Baghdad offices of Ahmed Chalabi pointed to a new and grave danger for many top Bush administration and neocon figures. Chalabi was of course the darling of the neocons, who had channeled upwards of $40 million in official US government funding to him. He was the source of fantastic reports of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, and of the eagerness of the Iraqi masses to rise up in revolt against Saddam Hussein. It now turned out that Chalabi had betrayed a vital US state secret to his patrons in Iran by telling the Iranians that the US had broken the secret code used by Iranian diplomats and agents. This revelation alerted the Iranians to their vulnerability, and cut off a key means of US espionage against Iran and its partners. The question thus arose as to who in the US government could have given Chalabi such highly classified information, thus committing a very serious federal crime. Chalabi's closest contacts were known to have been Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, and a few others. This issue became the subject of an FBI investigation of these and other top Bushmen. The information that Chalabi and his intelligence chief Aras Karim Habit were alleged to have passed to the government of Iran "was highly classified, and known only to a few in the U.S. government," wrote Time's Romesh Ratnesar. "The probe will examine whether U.S. officials illegally transmitted state secrets to the INC. The investigation could ultimately reach high-ranking civilian officials at the Pentagon and the Defense Intelligence Agency who had dealings with Chalabi and his organization." Ratnesar cited "a senior U.S. official" as his source. New York Times reporters David Johnston and Richard Oppel, Jr. also citing "government officials," called the information "so highly classified that federal investigators have intensified their inquiry to find out whether anyone in the American government gave the material to Mr. Chalabi." They also cited "intelligence officials" saying that the probe, by the FBI, centered on the handful of U.S. officials with regular contact with Chalabi in Washington, and an even smaller number who had access to the intelligence. "Most of them were at the Pentagon," they wrote; however, Chalabi himself, on "Meet the Press" on May 23, acknowledged three personal meetings with Vice President Cheney. Leading neocons not currently serving in government, such as Michael Ledeen, Richard Perle, Kenneth Timmerman, and Laurie Mylroie, vociferously defended Chalabi. (Time, May 25, New York Times May 24, 2004)

There was also the special prosecutor investigating the leaking to Robert Novak of the fact that Valerie Plame, the wife of Bush critic Ambassador Joseph Wilson (who exposed the fraud of the Bush 2002 State of the Union charges that Iraq had sought uranium yellowcake in Niger) was working for the CIA. Prime suspects were Bush's political strategist Karl Rove, and White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card. Revealing the identity of a CIA agent is a serious felony under federal law.

Allegedly in regard to the Valerie Plame leak investigation, Bush retained his own private attorney, Jim Sharp. Sharp had represented Gen. Richard Secord, yet another Iran-contra figure, who was accused of taking part in the illegal arms shipments of the mid-1980s. Cheney already had a private lawyer, Terrence O'Donnell of the Washington DC law firm Williams & Connelly. According to Capitol Hill Blue of June 3, sources familiar with the Federal investigation say that Bush knew about the Plame leak, and that he took no action to stop the release of Plame's name. This would make him accessory to a serious federal crime.

At the root of the Valerie Plume affair was the role of her husband, Ambassador Joseph Wilson, in refuting the baseless claim that Iraq had sought to purchase uranium yellowcake from Niger. This fake story was buttressed by documents which turned out to be forged. Of interest in this regard was the neocon ideologue Ledeen, because the faked documents first surfaced in Rome, where Ledeen possessed extensive contacts. A federal grand jury was formed to investigate this matter. Ledeen, like so many Bush officials, was an alumnus of the 1980s George H. W. Bush-Poindexter- Abrams-Oliver North Iran- contra gun-running and drug-running scandal, and mobilized these networks as part of  the post 9/11 assault on Iraq. In December 2001, Ledeen moved to revive the Iran connection, setting up a meeting between two Pentagon civilian neo-cons and Manucher Ghorbanifar, an Iranian arms dealer whom the CIA called a criminal and liar. Three days of meetings in Rome involved Harold Rhode, Larry Franklin, Ghorbanifar, and two unnamed officials of the Iranian regime. After the conquest of Iraq, Rhode was sent to Baghdad as the contact point between the Office of Special Plans and Chalabi. Ghorbanifar, in a Dec. 22, 2003 interview with Newsweek's Mark Hosenball, reported that he maintained contact with Rhode and Franklin "five or six times a week" through June 2003, when he had a second meeting with Rhode in Paris. This back channel to the Iranians came under intense scrutiny.

Richard Perle was the target of a huge civil suit growing out of his alleged involvement in the fraudulent conveyances and embezzlement carried out by the neocon press baron and moneybags Lord Conrad Black, who may have taken money from Hollinger to help fund neocon think tanks like the American Enterprise Institute. Perle had worked closely with the purloining Lord in recent years, and might also face criminal charges in this case. A report prepared for the Hollinger board by Richard C. Breeden, a former head of the Securities and Exchange Commission, called on Perle to give back $5.4 million to Hollinger. (Washington Post, September 1, 2004)

Retired CIA analyst Ray McGovern warned that the allegedly "credible intelligence" cited by Ashcroft in his warning that Al-Qaeda is preparing to "hit the United States" was most likely yet another fabrication. "'Intelligence is being conjured up once again to serve the political purposes of the Bush administration," McGovern wrote. According to McGovern, "the President, Ashcroft, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, et al. have a deeply personal incentive to make four more years for Bush a sure thing." McGovern noted that according to a memo issued by White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales on January 25, administration officials might be prosecuted for "war crimes" because of the treatment of prisoners in Afghanistan. Gonzales stressed that "grave breaches" of the Geneva Conventions are war crimes under U.S. law, and added: "It is difficult to predict the motives of prosecutors and independent counsels who may in the future decide to pursue unwarranted charges" based on the War Crimes Act passed by Congress in 1996. Gonzales urged Bush to declare that the Geneva Convention regarding prisoners of war does not apply to Taliban or Al-Qaeda detainees, and that such a determination "would provide a solid defense to any future prosecution." And all that, McGovern notes, was before the Abu Ghraib revelations. McGovern continued:

For the Bush administration, the nightmare is losing the November election -- a prospect believed to be unlikely until just recently. For many of us citizens, the nightmare is the President and his associates resorting to extra-legal measures to ensure that there is no regime change in Washington for four more years ... Yes, this could mean a constitutional crisis without parallel in the history of our country .... But was there not a good warm-up in the fall of 2002? Did we not then experience a constitutional crisis when Congress was duped into ceding to the President its constitutional power to declare war? And it was all accomplished by spreading the myth that Saddam Hussein was close to exploding a mushroom cloud over us -- a myth based on a known forgery alleging that Iraq was acquiring uranium from Africa. Could an elevated threat level be used as a means of justifying martial law and postponement of the election? No doubt such suggestions will seem too alarmist to those trusting that there is a moral line, somewhere, that the President and his senior advisers would not cross. I regret very much to say that their behavior over the past three years leaves me doubtful that there is such a line ....  If my doubts are justified, the sooner we all come to grips with this parlous situation the better. (Ray McGovern syndicated column, June 1; Common Dreams, June 2, 2004)

In an interview with Amy Goodman's Democracy Now radio program, McGovern commented on the significance of Bush's retaining an attorney. Among the things on Bush's mind, McGovern repeated, is that he might be facing a war crimes prosecution if voted out of office. Another issue for Bush, according to McGovern, is that "four more years becomes even more important to me and Ashcroft and Rumsfeld," because of the war crimes indictments hanging over their heads. McGovern: "I say this, because I am more frightened now than at any time over the last three and a half years, that this administration will resort to extra-legal methods, to do something to ensure that there are four more years for George Bush." (Democracy Now, June 4, 2004)

On June 3, CIA Director George Tenet announced his resignation, and was quickly joined by the CIA Deputy Director of Operations, James L. Pavitt, the spymaster of clandestine services. Tenet was evidently forced out by Bush and Cheney, but was willing to portray his own dismissal as a resignation for family reasons, mainly his desire to spend more time with his adolescent son. Tenet, as a Clinton holdover, was not a doctrinaire Straussian or Skull & Bones member, and thus was not and could never be a member of the Bush/neocon core group. For many weeks, neocons like Richard Perle, Frank Gaffney, James Woolsey, Newt Gingrich and others had been attempting to scapegoat Tenet for the US disasters in Iraq and elsewhere. Tenet did of course preside over 9/11 and the Iraq invasion, which established a prima facie case of his incompetence (or complicity). His departure allowed Bush to claim that there was some accountability in the current administration. More germane to the issue of the coming terrorism, Tenet was so discredited as to have become a controversial symbol of the failure of the Bush administration to defend the US. In a speech the previous week, even Tenet's friend Al Gore had demanded his resignation. With Tenet still in office, a coming terror event might have given rise to a wave of accusation and resentment against a CIA Director who by that time would have failed in warding off not only 9/11, but also whatever the second wave had to offer.

In the immediate aftermath of the Tenet ouster, the neocon gang appeared to have gained a monetary respite. Douglas Jehl of The New York Times reported on June 5 that the simultaneous departure of Tenet and Pavitt has shifted the balance of power within the US intelligence community in favor of the Pentagon neocons. Jehl writes that "Without Mr. Tenet in place, the power balance in a rivalry between the CIA and the Defense Department may tilt more toward Stephen Cambone." Jehl attributed this view to "Congressional officials." (NYT, 5 June 2004)

In the wake of the Tenet resignation, indications began to surface that the mental disintegration of "dry drunk" Bush had gone farther than usually surmised. Doug Thompson of Capitol Hill Blue wrote: "President George W. Bush's increasingly erratic behavior and wide mood swings has the halls of the West Wing buzzing lately as aides privately express growing concern over their leader's state of mind. In meetings with top aides and administration officials, the President goes from quoting the Bible in one breath to obscene tantrums against the media, Democrats and others that he classifies as "enemies of the state ..." The President's abrupt dismissal of CIA Director George Tenet Wednesday night is, aides say, an example of how he works. "Tenet wanted to quit last year but the President got his back up and wouldn't hear of it," says an aide. "That would have been the opportune time to make a change, not in the middle of an election campaign but when the director challenged the President during the meeting Wednesday, the President cut him off by saying 'That's it, George. I cannot abide disloyalty. I want your resignation and I want it now."' Tenet was allowed to resign "voluntarily" and Bush informed his shocked staff of the decision Thursday morning. One aide says the President actually described the decision as "God's will." (Capitol Hill Blue, 4 June 2004) Perhaps the tenant of the White House needed to get his thyroid checked.

COUNTERVAILING TENDENCIES?

By summer 2004, the situation of the party of terrorism inside the United States was uncertain. The political leaders who would be the beneficiaries of new terror attacks were figures like Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Ashcroft, Ridge, and the neocon Gestapo (as Colin Powell calls it) in general. The main agencies for their dictatorship would be FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency), Ridge's Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Justice, and the FBI. The US military, especially the US Army, had become profoundly disillusioned with the Bush-Cheney preventive war policy. They also resented being scapegoated for the Abu Graib atrocities, which were ordered by CIA, DIA, and Cheney's mercenary contractors. Some generals realized that a successful terror coup, which would have had the result of cementing the current gang in power for the foreseeable future -- without benefit of checks and balances -- would guarantee that US forces would be fed into meatgrinders far worse than Iraq. In addition to Syria, Iran, North Korea, and Cuba, a post-coup US regime could not avoid collision with China and/or Russia. It remained to be seen whether this awareness would be enough to motivate the US military to do something to stop such a coup. Similar considerations apply to the State Department, which had virtually no place in the post- coup world eagerly planned by the neocons. Incredibly, the Congress was conniving in its own liquidation with a bill ordering instant elections to replace deceased Congressmen, which passed the House.

Sidney Blumenthal, a former advisor to the Clinton Administration working with Salon.com, wrote a piece in the Guardian on how the U.S. officer corps had turned against Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. The piece, was headlined "America's Military Coup." Retired General William Odom, who was the head of the National Security Agency, the main US electronic spying center, and who had moved to the Hudson Institute, was quoted saying: "It was never in our interest to go into Iraq. It is a diversion from the war on terrorism; the rationale for the Iraq war (finding WMD) is phony; the US army is overstretched and being driven into the ground; and the prospect of building a democracy is zero. In Iraqi politics legitimacy is going to be tied to expelling us. Wisdom in military affairs dictates withdrawal in this situation. We can't afford to fail -- that's mindless. The issue is how we stop failing more. I am arguing a strategic decision." Another military figure told Blumenthal that Rumsfeld was "detested" and that "if there's a sentiment in the army it is: support our troops, impeach Rumsfeld." Blumenthal then referenced an essay by Lt. Col. Charles Dunlap which had received a prize in 1992 from then General Colin Powell. The title of the piece was "The Origins of the American Military Coup of 2012," which was a cautionary tale of how the U.S.. military launched a coup because of the failures of the civilian government. (Guardian, May 13, 2004) Former CENTCOM commanders Zinni and Hoar also published attacks on the Rumsfeld- olfowitz policies. One account suggested that, given the degree of military hatred against the administration, any other country would have already witnessed a military coup.

Ashcroft had claimed that just after the Madrid bombing, an Al-Qaeda spokesman had announced that "90 percent of the arrangements for an attack in the United States were complete." But Newsweek terrorism writers Michael Isikoff and Mark Hosenball pointed out that the only known basis for Ashcroft's claim was a note sent to a London Arabic newspaper immediately after the Madrid bombing, which said that a major attack against the United States was "90 percent ready." The authenticity of this report was questioned at the time by some U.S. officials. (Newsweek web exclusive, May 26, 2004

TERRORIZING THE CONGRESS

On June 9, the US Capitol, including Congress and the Supreme Court, was evacuated in panic because of a report that an airplane without a transponder was approaching Washington DC. The plane turned out to belong to the Governor Ernie Fletcher of Kentucky, who was coming to attend the funeral of former President Reagan, but authorities appear to have used this incident to terrorize the Congress in an unprecedented manner. Photographers, Secret Service agents and members of a military choir were finishing preparations for the Rotunda ceremony when Capitol Police suddenly burst in, shouting: "Evacuate the building now! Now! Move! Move!" Congressmen, senators, and staff members ran like rabbits as police officers shouted "This is not a drill!" Some jettisoned briefcases and laptops, and women flung off high heels. Amy Call, a spokeswoman for Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, reported that police had told people to "run, get out of the Capitol," because of the "imminent" approach of an airplane. Nearby, on the Mall, U.S. Park Police and Capitol Police also ordered people to flee. "Do not stop," officers yelled. "Keep moving." "Ladies and gentlemen, let's move like our lives depend on it. I mean it!" a D.C. police officer shouted. F-16 fighter jets and Black Hawk helicopters were sent to intercept the errant twin-engine turboprop plane. The plane's transponder, which signals its identifying information to ground controllers, was broken, Brian Roehrkasse, a spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security, told the press later. (Washington Post, June 10, 2004)

The July 4 Independence Day holiday was marked by a pattern of hysterical terror propaganda in the US mass media. Part of this was the publicity campaign around the new book, Imperial Hubris, about to be published by Brassey's, which was attributed to Anonymous, a currently serving officer of the CIA whose real name was allegedly Michael Scheuer. Anonymous was said to have been the first leader of the CIA's Osama Bin Laden station during the mid-1990s, which did not inspire confidence. At the center of the hype over this book, pushed by CNN's David Ensor and others, was the assurance that an ABC terror attack on the US was imminent. The New York Times of June 23 quoted Anonymous as having "a pressing certainty that Al Qaeda will attack the continental United States again, that its next strike will be more damaging than that of 11 September 2001, and could include use of weapons of mass destruction." Anonymous openly lionized Bin Laden, saying that Bin Laden's vast accomplishments were due to the fact that he actually believed deeply in something. Anonymous, following the line of Richard Clarke, was highly critical of the Bush regime for having deviated from the true existential world struggle against al Qaeda: "There is nothing that bin Laden could have hoped for more than the American invasion of Iraq," wrote Anonymous, who described Bush as al Qaeda's ideal American president. What emerged from the Clarke and Anonymous volumes taken together was a growing recognition in US ruling circles that the Iraq adventure had long since crossed the line into irrevocable disaster. Their concern was therefore to safeguard oligarchical rule post-Iraq. To obtain this, they were more than willing to jettison the pathetically incompetent Bush regime and its phalanx of discredited neocon ideologues. But Clarke and Anonymous were both the type of bureaucrat who could expect to enjoy vastly increased power under martial law. The Clarke-Anonymous attempt was therefore to preserve false-flag terrorism in the guise of al Qaeda as the indispensable means of social control for the indefinite future. In this regard they appeared more than willing to tolerate a new round of ABC/WMD terrorism to make sure that the terror card remained available, since they evidently could see no other way of maintaining the current system.

Even more explicit was the book Osama's Revenge, whose author, the "former FBI consultant" Paul L. Williams, was publicized by Fox News on June 28, 2004. According to Williams, Osama Bin Laden already had 20 Soviet-made suitcase bombs, and these weapons were already in the United States! Williams estimated al Qaeda's strength in this country at about 5,000 sleeper agents ready for action. He also cited a warning that New York City was a nuclear target which was allegedly given by Tenet to Bush in October 2001, but never communicated to Mayor Giuliani.

To organize the terror drumbeat more effectively, the Bush White House was known to fax inflammatory and apocalyptic talking points on terrorism to its phalanx of reactionary talk show hosts. On June 24 at 2:25 PM on Fox News, the "terrorist and security expert" Harvey Kushner opined that al Qaeda is certain to attack the United States during the summer. On June 30 at 4:55 PM, Col. Oliver North (sitting in for the vacationing neofascist syndicated radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh) announced that the lesson of Madrid was that there was sure to be a large-scale terror attack in the US before the November elections.

CALLING OFF THE ELECTIONS

At this time, the Bush regime also openly broached the question of calling off the November presidential election, something that had not been done in the midst of real shooting wars in 1864 and 1944. According to Newsweek, DeForest Soaries, the chairman of the US Election Assistance Commission, had asked Ridge to urge Congress to pass legislation giving the government power to cancel or reschedule a federal election. Soaries noted that New York City had suspended its primary elections on the day of the Sept. 11 attacks, but the federal government did not possess that authority.

Ironically, the US Election Assistance Commission was a new agency which had been created in the wake of the 2000 election fiasco. Left liberals were disturbed; The Nation published a parody of a future Bush speech announcing there would be no vote.

This first wave of Bush-inspired election cancellation propaganda peaked in mid-July 2004. At this point neocon ideologue Norman Ornstein of the American Enterprise Institute proposed the creation of a kind of committee of public safety of top-level oligarchs who would have the function of calling off elections. According to Ornstein,

Congress should pass a law creating a blue-ribbon commission to which it would delegate the authority to make decisions about postponement of presidential and congressional elections in the aftermath of a terrorist attack or major natural disaster. The commission should consist of people with high profiles and impeccable reputations for integrity, and include some people with experience in election administration. From the public sector, the kinds of people to consider would include former senators such as Warren Rudman and Alan Simpson; former representatives such as Tom Foley, Lee Hamilton, Bob Walker and John Brademas; former Cabinet members such as Lynn Martin and Donna Shalala; and leaders of business, labor and higher education who have comparable reputations and public profiles .... The commission would function only if a disaster triggered the need for a decision, and it would operate under a specific set of directives that would make a decision to postpone any election, in whole or in part, the last recourse. Such a decision should be made only through broad consensus, requiring a two-thirds vote by the commission. (Washington Post, July 16, 2004)

With all the arid banality of the true neocon, Ornstein did not face the fact that his new oligarchical commission would in effect have become the supreme governing authority of the United States, although he is probably aware of this. Ornstein's proposal amounted to subverting the constitution while granting dictatorial power to the discredited hacks who bore much of the responsibility for the country's predicament, be it through their sins of omission or of commission.

As the presidential campaign unfolded, the Bush campaign showed a cynical willingness to use terror threats and terror demagogy as a kind of political auxiliary to their efforts. During the days just after Kerry had announced his choice of Senator Edwards as his vice presidential candidate, the lugubrious and plodding Tom Ridge of the Department of Homeland Security called a press conference to announce that there was a new, but wholly undefined, threat on the horizon. Ridge had obviously taken over the ministry of fear portfolio from Ashcroft, who was too widely hated and too discredited to be effective. Ridge's remarks were clearly aimed at chopping off the Edwards bounce for the Democrats. Some Democrats grumbled.

The Democratic National Convention ended in Boston on Thursday, July 29. Here again, a modest five-point pop in the polls for Kerry was observable. But on the afternoon of Sunday, August 1, it was Ridge's turn once again, this time with a litany of threats against the IMF and World Bank in Washington DC, against Prudential in Newark, and against the New York Stock Exchange and Citibank in Manhattan. It was Howard Dean who spoke up with refreshing candor, pointing to the obvious political motivation and political timing of the new wave of Bush terror demagogy. Speaking on CNN Late Edition, Dean said that he was "concerned that every time that something happens that's not good for President Bush, he plays his trump card, which is terrorism. His whole campaign is based on the notion that 'I can keep you safe,  therefore, in times of difficulty in America, stick with me. "'

With that, Dean had confirmed his historical merit of being the only national politician willing to challenge the sanctimonious shibboleths of the new terror state. He was immediately taken to task by neocon Democrat Joe Lieberman, less a monotheist than a zealous adept of the cult of Deimos and Phobos, the gods of fear and terror. "That's outrageous," said Lieberman of the what was merely obvious. GOP Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Senate majority whip and apostle of venal election practice also criticized Dean. "I think that's the most cynical view," whined McConnell. "The president, after all, is the president, even if he's running for re-election." Dean courageously rejected the idea that he, Dean, was responsible for politicizing the terror threat, pointing out that it was Bush who had done this. "When you're going to run on inspiring fear in the American people, that's politics," Dean countered. "The president himself made the choice to inject politics into the campaign on terrorism. That was his choice. He's now going to have to live with the consequences." CNN later conducted a poll among its viewers to see how many thought that the new terror alert was a political stunt.

It soon became known that the allegedly urgent information upon which this orange alert was based was about four years old, and had just turned up in a computer captured in Pakistan. One thinks of Tony Blair's use of old term papers, Readers Digest articles, and messages found in hollow trees for his various imaginative and opportunistic dossiers. A senior law enforcement official told a reporter: "There is nothing right now that is new. Why did we go to this level? ... I still don't know that." (Washington Post, August 3, 2004)

On August 12, Kerry ventured to attack Bush for having dawdled with the second graders at the Booker School, listening to "My Pet Goat" while hundreds of Americans died. Responding to Kerry's attacks a day or two later, Bush claimed that he had been collecting his thoughts while he remained with the children, and even suggested that what he did in the first minutes was not important. "What is relevant," according to Bush, "is whether or not I understand and understood then the stakes .... And I made a determination that we would do everything we could to bring those killers to justice and to protect the American people." Bush told Larry King of CNN that "it's easy to second- guess a moment," said Bush; the important thing was that he quickly "recognized we were at war" and mobilized the nation for his series of wars. (Washington Post, August 13, 2004) Bush clearly wasted more than 15 minutes after the North Tower impact, and wasted another 7 minutes after the South Tower impact. In that time, he should have been issuing crisp orders to mobilize air defenses, deploy combat air patrols, cut through layers of bureaucracy, and generally administer a bureaucratic blow-torch to a corrupt and somnolent bureaucracy that was honeycombed with subversive moles. But Bush, who had been on vacation for much of his time in office before September 11, did none of these things. Bush nevertheless made his own supposed prowess on 9/11 the theme of the Republican National Convention at the end of August and the beginning of September.

LARRY FRANKLIN, MOSSAD, AND IRAN

As July turned into August, the visible emphasis shifted from terror and martial law towards a new war, this time with Iran. Naturally, war and terror were linked, as they always had been. On August 27, 2004 CBS News broke the story of an alleged Israeli mole in the Pentagon who had been passing US secrets to the Israeli Embassy by way of AIPAC, the American Israeli Public Affairs Council, a powerful arm of the Zionist lobby. Under investigation was Larry Franklin, a middle-level functionary working for the Wolfowitz-Feith-Luti-Shulsky clique in the Pentagon. The FBI was asking questions about Wolfowitz, Feith, Perle, and David Wurmser, an Iran specialist working for Cheney. The general line of questioning about these figures was: "Do you believe certain people would spy for Israel and pass secret information?" (Washington Post, September 4, 2004)

This same Larry Franklin had been named in my June 6 news release, "Rogue Bush Backers Prepare Super 9/11 False Flag Terror Attacks. "Franklin was indicated as one of the vulnerable links in the neocon network which found itself in a hysterical flight forward to try to salvage the debacle of their Iraq war by expanding that war to neighboring countries, notably Iran. The threat of a new round of "own goal" synthetic terrorism, quite possibly in the ABC dimension, was linked to the preparation of that wider war. The logic at work was that of an "October surprise," this time on the scale adequate to shock the post 9/11 world.

The best working hypothesis to understand the Israeli mole investigation was that neocon networks in the Pentagon were very close to embroiling the United States in a war with Iran. This would likely come as an Israeli and/or US pre-emptive bombing attack on Iran's nuclear facilities, possibly combined with a terrorist attack inside the US using weapons of mass destruction, which the corporate controlled media would immediately blame on Iran.

Whatever forces were behind the naming of Franklin, it was safe to assume that their main aim was to break up neocon preparations for a surprise attack on Iran, which the neocons had been boasting about in the media with special emphasis for some weeks. Backing the Franklin probe were in all probability military factions who had no desire to be fed into the Iranian meatgrinder, and who did not fancy a neocon fascist dictatorship. The immediate goal was to knock Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Feith, Bolton, Rice, Abrams and their cheering section in the media and think-tanks onto the defensive. While the exposure of Franklin was a positive step, it was far from decisive, and the neocons still in a position to unleash the dogs of war, especially with the help of Sharon. The US was therefore not far from the brink of war with Iran, and at the same time was entering a period of steadily increasing danger of synthetic terrorism designed to steal or cancel the November elections, and thus freeze the current neocon clique in power for the foreseeable future.

IRAN: OCTOBER SURPRISE IN SEPTEMBER?

On August 19, Martin Sieff of UPI warned: "Forget an October Surprise, a much worse one could come in September: Full-scale war between the United States and Iran may be far closer than the  American public might imagine." Sieff quoted remarks made by Iranian Defense Minister Ali Shamkhani on August 18 which bluntly warned that if Iranian military commanders believed the United States were serious about attacking Iran to destroy its nuclear power facility at Bushehr, or to topple its Islamic theocratic form of government, the Iranian military would not sit back passively and wait for the U.S. armed forces to strike the first blow, as President Saddam Hussein in neighboring Iraq did in March 2003. They would strike first. "We will not sit to wait for what others will do to us," Shamkhani told al-Jazeera. "Some military commanders in Iran are convinced that preventive operations which the Americans talk about are not their monopoly," he added. With this, the Iran-Iraq border became a flash point of hair-trigger confrontation in the restless war agitation of the neocons. Iranian General Yahya Rahim Safavi, commander  of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, said earlier in August: "If Israel should dare to strike our nuclear installations, we will come down on its head like a heavy hammer crushing its skull." This was in response to repeated threats by Israeli Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz that his forces were ready to take the "necessary steps" to eliminate the Iranian capability, an oblique reference to Israel's 1981 destruction of Iraq's Osirak reactor. (Washington Post, August 30, 2004)

One day earlier, neocon Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security John Bolton had told an audience at the Hudson Institute in Washington that it was imperative that the Iranian nuclear program be brought before the U.N. Security Council. "To fail to do so would risk sending a signal to would-be proliferators that there are no serious consequences for pursuing secret nuclear weapons programs," said Bolton. "We cannot let Iran, a leading sponsor of international terrorism, acquire nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them to Europe, most of central Asia and the Middle East, or beyond," Bolton added. "Without serious, concerted, immediate intervention by the international community, Iran will be well on the road to doing so." Similar threatening noises came from Condoleezza Rice at the Bush National Security Council. According to well-informed sources, Rice was directed by Cheney to call Sharon during the last week of August 2004; she advised the Israeli leader that the US was considering an attack on Iran, and suggested that Sharon put his withdrawal from the Gaza strip on hold for the time being, and focus rather on dealing with the "Iranian menace. On August 19, William Luti of the Pentagon neocon cabal told a conference call of Congressional aides from both parties that there were at least five or six countries in the world with traits which "no responsible leader can allow." Luti appeared to be hinting that Bush's axis of evil needed to be expanded, resulting in additional countries which would be eligible for pre-emptive attack. (Time, September 13, 2004)

Iranian public opinion had been shocked by a raving, psychotic column by Charles Krauthammer in the July 23 Washington Post: Krauthammer had written: "The long awaited revolution (in Iran) is not happening. Which [makes] the question of pre-emptive attack all the more urgent. If nothing is done, a fanatical terrorist regime openly dedicated to the destruction of 'the Great Satan' will have both nuclear weapons and missiles to deliver them. All that stands between us and that is either revolution or pre-emptive attack." Iranian observers compared this to the US propaganda campaign which had preceded the attack on Iraq.

Anxious to return the compliment, the Iranians responded to the publication of the 9/11 commission report by attacking the 9/11 myth, always a sensitive point for the US regime. The Teheran Times described the report as a "whitewash," because it assumed that the CIA, FBI, and US military all "acted in good faith." The paper said the commission report excluded "a priori the most important question raised by the events of September 11, 2001: did US government agencies deliberately permit -- or actively assist -- the carrying out of this terrorist atrocity, in order to provide the Bush administration with the necessary pretext to carry out its program of war in central Asia and the Middle East and a huge buildup of the forces of state repression at home?" The paper scored the report's refusal to name names, and specifically asked, "were any of the Al Qaeda operatives, especially the ringleaders and organizers of the suicide hijackings, at some point assets or agents of the US intelligence services?" In this context, the Teheran Times recalled the origins of al Qaeda in the guerrilla war against the Soviets in Afghanistan, where the central role of the US intelligence agencies was well documented. The article noted: "Khalid Sheikh Muhammed, the reported mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, was a longtime associate of Abdul Rasul Sayyaf, a leader of the Afghan Northern Alliance and current ally of the US-backed Afghans president, Hamid Karzai." (Teheran Times, July 27, 2004)

US FORCES IN IRAQ AS HOSTAGES TO IRAN -- OR TO SHARON?

Competent US military commanders dread the prospect of war with Iran. Iran is four times the area of Iraq, and has three times the population. Its infrastructure was not destroyed during the Kuwait war in the way that Iraq's was, and Iran has not been subjected to 13 years of crippling UN sanctions on everything, including food and medicine. The Iranian military forces are intact. In case of war, Iran could be expected to use all means ranging from ballistic missile attacks on US and Israeli bases to asymmetrical warfare. The situation of the US forces already in Iraq could quickly become extraordinarily critical. Shamkhani alluded to this prospect when he said that "The U.S. military presence will not become an element of strength at our expense. The opposite is true because their forces would turn into a hostage." In reality, the US forces in Iraq were already hostages -- to Sharon, who could involve them in war with Iran at any time of his choosing.

For purposes of analogy, the Iraq war so far could be compared to the first months of the Korean War, from June to November 1950. By provoking Iran to go beyond logistical support for guerrillas and the sending of volunteers, and come into the war with both feet, the neocons would be inviting a repeat of the Chinese intervention and the disastrous US retreat south from the Yalu to south of Seoul, which still stands as the longest retreat in US military history. Just as Chinese entry into the Korean conflict in late November 1950 created a wholly new and wider war, Iranian entry into the US-Iraq war would have similarly incalculable consequences. The choices might quickly narrow to the large-scale use of nuclear weapons or defeat for the current US hollow army of just 10 divisions. War with Iran meant a military draft, just for starters. If Iran could close the Straits of Hormuz with its new anti-ship missiles, it would mean rationing of food and fuel. Bloated speculative financial structures could hardly survive.

ANOTHER STEP TOWARDS WORLD WAR III

In the case of Iran, the use of nuclear weapons by the US would have a dangerous complication: Iran is an important neighbor and trading partner of the Russian Federation, which is helping with Iran's nuclear power reactor program. The threatened US/Israeli raid on Iran might kill Russian citizens as well. Such a US attack on Iran might prod the Russian government into drawing its own line in the sand, rather than sitting idle as the tide of US aggression swept closer and closer to Russia's borders, as one country after another in central Asia was occupied. In other words, a US attack on Iran bids fair to be the opening of World War III, making explicit what was already implicit in the invasion of Iraq. The Iran war project of the neocons was the very midsummer of madness, and it underlined once more that the neocons had to go.

RUSSIANS EXPOSE US-UK TERROR ROLE AFTER SCHOOL MASSACRE

In early September, 2004, terrorists attacked a school in Beslan, North Ossetia, in the Russian Federation. Before this hostage crisis was over, more than 300 people, over half of them children, were killed. On Monday. September 6, Russian President Vladimir Putin made remarks to the western press which exposed the key role of the US and British governments in backing Chechen terrorism. Whatever Putin's previous role in events regarding Chechnya, his post-Beslan political posture tended to undercut the legitimacy of the supposed Anglo-American "war on terror," and pointed up the hypocrisy of the Bush regime's pledge that it would make no distinction between the terrorists and those who harbor them -- since Washington and London were currently harboring Chechens implicated in terrorism. All in all, Putin's response to the Chechen events, on the eve of the third anniversary of 9/11, brought the collapse of the official 9/11 myth measurably closer. The hypocritical terror demagogy of Bush and Blair was now undercut by the head of state of another permanent member of the UN Security Council.

On Monday September 6, Putin spoke for three and one half hours with a group of some 30 western correspondents and Russia experts at his dacha near Novo Ogarevo outside Moscow. Most US press ignored these remarks. Putin, a KGB veteran who knew whereof he spoke, told the gathering that the school massacre showed that "certain western political circles would like to weaken Russia, just as the Romans wanted to destroy Carthage." He thus suggested that the US and UK, not content with having bested Russia in the Cold War, now wanted to proceed to the dismemberment and total destruction of Russia -- a Carthaginian peace like the one the Romans finally imposed at the end of the Punic Wars in 146 BC, when they poured salt into the earth at Carthage so nothing would ever grow there again. (Le Monde, September 8, 2004) There was no link between Russian policy in Chechnya and the hostage-taking in Beslan, said Putin, meaning that the terrorists were using the Chechen situation as a pretext to attack Russia. According to a paraphrase in Le Monde: "The aim of this international terrorism, supported more or less openly by foreign states, whose names the Russian president does not want to name, is to weaken Russia from the inside, by criminalizing its economy, by provoking its disintegration through propagating separatism in the Caucasus and the transformation of the region into a military staging ground (place d'armes) for actions directed against the Russian Federation."

"Mr. Putin," continued Le Monde, "restated the accusation he had launched in a veiled form against western countries which appear to him to use double-talk. On the one side, their leaders assure the Russian President of their solidarity in the fight against terrorism. On the other hand, the intelligence services and the military -- 'who have not abandoned their Cold War prejudices,' in Putin's words -- maintain contacts with those the international press calls the 'rebels.' 'Why are those who emulate Bin Laden called terrorists and the people who kill children, rebels? Where is the logic?' asked Vladimir Putin, and then gave the answer: 'Because certain political circles in the West want to weaken Russia just like the Romans wanted to destroy Carthage.' 'But, continued Putin, "we will not allow this scenario to come to pass."' Le Monde went on: "This is, according to [Putin] a bad calculation, because Russia is a factor of stability. By weakening it, the Cold War nostalgics are clearly acting against the interests of their own country." In Putin's words: "We are the sincere champions of this cooperation [against terrorism], we are open and loyal partners. But if foreign services have contacts with the 'rebels,' they cannot be treated as reliable allies, as Russia is for them." (Daniel Vernet, "M. Poutine accuse et s'explique sur sa 'guerre totale' au terrorisme," Le Monde, September 8, 2004)

In Guardian correspondent Jonathan Steele's account of the meeting with Putin, the Russian President gave this response to the US and UK on the question of negotiating with the Chechen guerrillas of Asian Maskhadov: "Why don't you meet Osama bin Laden, invite him to Brussels or to the White House and engage in talks, ask him what he wants and give it to him so he leaves you in peace? You find it possible to set some limitations in your dealings with these bastards, so why should we talk to people who are child-killers?" (London Guardian, September 7, 2004)

On Saturday, September 4, Putin had delivered a national television address to the Russian people on the Beslan tragedy, which had left more than 300 dead, over half of them children. The main thrust was that terrorism constitutes international proxy warfare against Russia. Among other things Putin said: "In general, we need to admit that we did not fully understand the complexity and the dangers of the processes at work in our own country and in the world. In any case, we proved unable to react adequately. We showed ourselves to be weak, and the weak get beaten." "Some people would like to tear from us a tasty morsel. Others are helping them. They are helping, reasoning that Russia still remains one of the world's major nuclear powers, and as such still represents a threat to them. And so they reason that this threat should be removed. Terrorism, of course, is just an instrument to achieve these gains." "What we are dealing with, are not isolated acts intended to frighten us, not isolated terrorist attacks. What we are facing is direct intervention of international terror directed against Russia. This is a total, cruel and full- scale war that again and again is taking the lives of our fellow citizens." (Kremlin.ru, September 6, 2004; EIR, September 7, 2004)

Around the time of 9/11, Putin had pointed to open recruitment of Chechen terrorists going on in London, telling a German interviewer: "In London, there is a recruitment station for people wanting to join combat in Chechnya. Today -- not officially, but effectively in the open -- they are talking there about recruiting volunteers to go to Afghanistan." (Focus -- German weekly newsmagazine, September 2001) In addition, it is generally known in well-informed European circles that the leaders of the Chechen rebels were trained by the CIA, and that the Chechens were backed by US- sponsored anti-Russian fighters from Afghanistan. In the summer of 2004, US-UK backed Chechens destroyed two Russian airliners and attacked a Moscow subway station, in addition to the school atrocity.

Some aspects of Putin's thinking were further explained by a press interview given by Aslambek Aslakhanov, the Chechen politician who was one of Putin's official advisors. A dispatch from RIA Novosti reported Aslakhanov's comments as follows: "The terrorists who seized the school in Beslan, North Ossetia, took their orders from abroad. 'They were talking with people not from Russia, but from abroad. They were being directed,' said Aslambek Aslakhanov, advisor to the President of the Russian Federation. 'It is the desire of our "friends" -- in quotation marks -- who have probably for more than a decade been carrying out enormous, titanic work, aimed at dismembering Russia. These people have worked very hard, and the fact that the financing comes from there and that they are the puppet masters, is also clear." Aslakhanov, who was named by the terrorists as one of the people they were going to hold talks with, also told RIA Novosti that the bid for such "talks" was completely phony. He said that the hostage-takers were not Chechens. When he talked to them, by phone, in Chechen, they demanded that he talk Russian, and the ones he spoke with had the accents of other North Caucasus ethnic groups. (RIA Novosti, September 6, 2004; EIR, September 7, 2004)

On September 7, RIA Novosti reported on the demand of the Russian Foreign Ministry that two leading Chechen figures be extradited from London and Washington to stand trial in Russia. A statement from the Russia Foreign Ministry's Department of Information and Press indicated that Russia would put the United States and Britain on the spot about extraditing two top Chechen separatist officials who had been given asylum in Washington and London, respectively. They were Akhmad Zakayev, known as a "special representative" of Asian Maskhadov (currently enjoying asylum in London), and Ilyas Akhmadov, the "Foreign Minister" of the unrecognized "Chechen Republic- Ichkeria" (then residing in the USA). (RIA Novosti, September 7, 2004; EIR, September 8, 2004)

"SCHOOL SEIZURE WAS PLANNED IN WASHINGTON AND LONDON"

This was the headline of an even more explicit unsigned commentary by the Russian news agency KMNews.ru. This analysis blamed the Beslan school massacre squarely on the U.S. and British intelligence agencies. The point of departure here was that Shamil Basayev, the brutal Chechen field commander, had been linked to the attack (something that Putin advisor Aslambek Aslakhanov had said was known to the Russian FSB, successor of the KGB). The article highlighted the recent rapprochement of London and Washington with key representatives of Asian Maskhadov: Britain's giving asylum to Akhmad Zakayev (December 2003) and the USA's welcoming Ilyas Akhmadov (August 2004). Basayev, viewed in European circles as a straight-out CIA agent, openly claimed responsibility for the school massacre almost two weeks after the fact.

KMNews: CHECHEN TERROR BOSS ON US STATE DEPARTMENT PAYROLL

The Russian news agency KMNews wrote: "In early August ... 'Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Chechen Republic-lchkeria' Ilyas Akhmadov received political asylum in the USA. And for his 'outstanding services,' Akhmadov received a Reagan-Fascell grant," including a monthly stipend, medical insurance, and a well-equipped office with all necessary support services, including the possibility of meetings with political circles and leading U.S. media. "What about our partners in the 'anti-terrorist coalition,' who provided asylum, offices and money to Maskhadov's representatives?" asked the Russian press agency. Citing the official expressions of sympathy and offers of help from President Bush, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, and State Department spokesman Richard Boucher, KMNews warned: "But let's not shed tears of gratitude just yet. First we should ask: were 'Special Representative of the President of CRI' Zakayev or 'Minister of Foreign Affairs of the CRI' Akhmadov, located in Great Britain and the USA, aware of the terrorist acts that were in preparation? Beyond a doubt  ... and let's also find out, how Akhmadov is spending the money provided by the Reagan-Fascell Foundation. We note: this Foundation is financed by the U.S. Congress through the budget of the State Department! "Thus, the conclusion is obvious. Willingly or not, Downing Street and the White House provoked the guerrillas to these latest attacks. Willingly or not, Great Britain and the USA have nurtured the separatists with material, information and diplomatic resources. Willingly or not, the policy of London and Washington fostered the current terrorist acts." "As the ancients said, cui bono? Perhaps we are too hasty with such sweeping accusations against our 'friends' and 'partners'? Is there a motive for the Anglo-American 'anti-terrorist coalition' to fan the fires of terror in the North Caucasus?" "Alas, there is a motive. It is no secret, that the West is vitally interested in maintaining instability in the Caucasus. That makes it easier to pump out the fossil fuel extracted in the Caspian region, and it makes it easier to control Georgia and Azerbaijan, and to exert influence on Armenia. Finally, it makes it easier to drive Russia out of the Caspian and the Caucasus. Divide et impera! -- the leaders of the Roman Empire already introduced this simple formula for subjugation."

KMNews: TERROR SUPPORTERS "ON THE BANKS OF THE THAMES AND THE POTOMAC"

KMNews continued: "Alas, it must be recognized that the co-authors of the current tragic events are to be found not in the Arab countries of the Middle East, but on the banks of the Thames and the Potomac. Will the leadership of Russia be able to make decisions, in this situation?" "Yes -- if there is the political will. The first thing is that black must be called black, and white, white. It is time to admit that no "antiterrorist coalition" exists, that the West is pursuing its egotistical interests (spreading its political influence, seizing fossil fuels deposits, etc.). Our own coalition needs to be formed, with nations that are genuinely interested in eliminating terror in the North Caucasus. Finally, it is time to change the entire tactics and strategy of counterterrorism measures. It is obvious that catching female suicide bombers on the streets of Moscow or carrying out operations to free children who are taken hostage, are, so to speak, the 'last line of defense.' It is time to learn to make preemptive strikes against the enemy, and it's time to carry combat onto the territory of the enemy. Otherwise, we shall be defeated." (Source: KMNews.ru, September 7, 2004; EIR, September 8, 2004)

Izvestia stressed the probable ethnic composition of the terrorist death squad, and its likely role in exacerbating tensions in the ethnic labyrinth of the Caucasus.  Izvestia found the targeting of North Ossetia in the Beslan incident "not accidental," pointing to the danger of "irreversible consequences" for interethnic relations between Ossetians, Ingushis and Chechens. "Russia is now facing multi-vectored threats along the entire Caucasus," the paper wrote. (Izvestia, September 3, 2004)

In the wake of Putin's speech, prominent Russian commentators discussed the recent terror campaign against Russia in terms of a possible "casus belli" for a new East-West conflict. Several commentaries reaffirmed Putin's key statement that international terrorism has no independent existence, but functions only as "an instrument," wielded by powerful international circles committed (in part) to the early destruction of Russia as a nuclear-armed power. A commentary in the widely read Russian business news service RosBusinessConsult (RBC) was entitled "The West is unleashing Jihads against Russia." In language reminiscent of the Cold War, RBC charged that the recent wave of terror attacks against Russia, beginning with the sabotage of two airplanes and a terror bombing at a Moscow subway station, and culminating so far in the Beslan attack, was immediately preceded by what RBC calls "an ultimatum from the West," for Russia to turn over the Caucasus region to "Anglo-Saxon control."

ANGLO-AMERICAN TERROR ULTIMATUM TO RUSSIA FROM THE LONDON ECONOMIST

"Some days prior to the onset of the series of acts of terrorism in Russia, which has cost hundreds of lives, a number of extremely influential Western mass-media, expressing establishment positions, issued a personal warning to Vladimir Putin, that Russia should get out of the Caucasus, or else his political career would come to an end. Therefore, when the President on Saturday spoke of a declaration of war having been made against Russia, this was not just a matter of so-called 'international terrorism' ... One week prior to the first acts of terrorism, the authoritative British magazine, the Economist, which expresses the positions of Great Britain's establishment, formulated the Western position concerning the Caucasus, and above all the policy of the Anglo- Saxon elite, in a very precise manner," RBC wrote.

CZECH NGO BLOWS UP RUSSIAN TANK; BRITISH EXPERTS TRAIN CHECHEN GANGS

The RBC commentary went on to cite the Economist of August 19, 2004, which contained what RBC characterized as the virtual ultimatum to Russia. RBC noted that "the carrying out of such a series of coordinated, highly professional terrorist attacks, would be impossible without the help of qualified 'specialists'." RBC noted that at the end of August one such "specialist," working for an NGO based in the Czech republic, was arrested for blowing up a Russian armed personnel carrier. Also, British "experts" were found instructing Chechen gangs in how to lay mines. "It cannot be excluded, that also in Beslan, the logistics of the operation were provided by just such 'specialists'," noted RBC.

The RBC editorial concluded: "Apparently, by having recourse to large-scale terrorist actions, the forces behind that terrorism have now acted directly to force a 'change' in the political situation in the Caucasus, propagating interethnic wars into Russia. "The only way to resist this would be for Moscow to make it known that we are ready to fight a new war, according to new rules and new methods -- not with mythical 'international terrorists', who do not and never existed, but with the controllers of the 'insurgents and freedom fighters'; a war against the geopolitical puppet-masters who are ready to destroy thousands of Russians for the sake of achieving their new division of the world." (RBC, September 7, 2004; EIR, September 1 2004)

In a related comment, the Chairman of the Duma Foreign Affairs Committee, Dmitri Rogozin, declared in an interview on Sunday September 5: "I think [those behind the terrorism] are those who would like to see Russia totally discredited as a power ... I think that the aim is to destabilize the political situation in the country and plunge Russia into total chaos." (Ekho Moskvy, September 6, 2004) Western press organs responded to the school massacre with a campaign to blame, not the terrorists, but the Putin regime and Russian society. This disingenuous policy further stoked Russian resentment. On September 6, Strana.ru headlined, "Western Press: The Tragedy Is Russia's Own Fault," commenting that "unlike official politicians, journalists do not want to admit that the bombings and hostage-takings in our country are acts of international terrorism." (EIR, September 7, 2004) Another example this Putin-bashing was the article by Masha Lippman in the Washington Post of September 9, 2004. This was quickly followed by a campaign against Putin for being undemocratic, including, with indescribable hypocrisy, the complaint that Putin had not purged his intelligence officers after the school massacre  -- this from the US, where no one had been held accountable for 9/11.

A basic reason for the US-UK surrogate warfare against Russia was the great Anglo-Saxon fear of a continental bloc of the type which emerged during the run-up to Bush's Iraq aggression. The centerpiece of the continental bloc would be the German-Russian relationship. Washington and London feared that Russia would soon agree to accept euros in payment for its oil deliveries. This would not just prevent the Anglo-Americans from further skimming off oil transactions between Russia and Europe. It would represent the beginning of the end of the dollar as the reserve currency of the world, a role which the battered greenback, weakened by Bush's $500 billion yearly trade deficit and Bush's $750 billion budget deficit, can no longer fulfill. If Russia were to adopt the euro, it was expected that the Eurasian giant would quickly be followed by Iran, Indonesia, Venezuela, and other counties. This would put an end to the ability of the US to run astronomical foreign trade deficits, and would place the question of a US return to a production- based economy on the agenda.
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The 9/11 myth was still a menace to mankind.

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