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The 9/11 Commission report tells us in detail that the terrorist attacks on America on 9/11 were set in motion in December 1998. They report that interrogations of the plot's mastermind, Khalid Sheik Mohammed, demonstrate that the plot was set in motion in "late 98 early 99" at a meeting in Khandahar, Afghanistan. This also happens to be the time that Iraq came under bombardment by the United States. The timing is no accident.
The commission reported that the only time Osama bin Laden was in Khandahar during the time of "late 98 early 99" was between December 18 and December 24, 1998, after he gave an interview to ABC News in which he declared that "To seek to possess the weapons that could counter those of the infidels is a religious duty. If I have indeed acquired these weapons, then this is an obligation I carried out and I thank God for enabling us to do that. And if I seek to acquire these weapons I am carrying out a duty. It would be a sin for Muslims not to try to possess the weapons that would prevent the infidels from inflicting harm on Muslims."
The Timing
Reports from multiple sources indicate that immediately after his press conference and interview, bin Laden left Khandahar and he didn't reappear until February 1999 when another capture/kill attempt was debated and missed.
Why was the 9/11 plot set in motion at that time? Bin Laden had been bombing Americans at hotels and embassies with increasingly large attacks since 1992. Khalid Sheik Mohammed's plan of hijacking planes and flying them into buildings had been developed before 1995 and known to bin Laden since 1996. So what made him suddenly take that leap to authorizing an attack on the scale and complexity of 9/11?
We must recall that in December of 1998, the United States was being politically torn apart by an impeachment of its President. The U.S. was involved militarily in the Balkans as well as Iraq. The United States had come to blows with Iraq over Saddam's refusal to cooperate with U.N. weapons inspectors.
In early December of 1998, the threat from Al Qaeda seemed no more-or less-than usual, and when President Clinton was given his December 4, 1998, Presidential Daily Brief with the CIA article titled, "Bin Laden Preparing to Hijack US Aircraft and Other Attacks," the threat was concerning, but not unusually so.
The Plot
Something changed on December 17, 1998. All of a sudden Counter-Terrorism Czar Richard Clarke, National Security Advisor Sandy Berger, and CIA Director George Tenet held an emergency meeting to discuss a new terrorist threat. On December 16, 1998, the United States had begun bombing Iraq with Operation Desert Fox. Sometime between the 17th and 18th, al Qaeda's strategic planner and number two man, Dr. Ayman Al Zawahiri, issued a proclamation: "…we openly and loudly declare that we will retaliate for what is happening to the sons of our nations in Iraq, since the crimes committed by the United States against our Islamic nation will not go unpunished."
Was this just another militant Islamic threat that got America's counter-terrorism leaders to hold an emergency meeting or was it something larger? Hindsight is 20-20, and today we know that the 9/11 plot was being set in motion. Al Qaeda had vowed to retaliate against the United States if the United States bombed Iraq, and when Iraq was in fact bombed, the 9/11 plot was set in motion sometime within the next 150 hours.
According to numerous U.S. media sources, including ABC News, Time, Newsweek, and The Guardian, the threat of Al Qaeda retaliation upon the U.S. was more than sympathy. It was cooperation. All four reported that on or about December 21, 1998, (right in the middle of the 150-hour period when the plot was apparently set in motion) Iraq asked bin Laden to move his headquarters to Iraq. The 9/11 Commission confirms this as well. Those same four media sources also declared that in the days when the 9/11 plot was set in motion, Iraq and bin Laden had decided to work together.
The Guardian reported, "Saddam Hussein's regime has opened talks with Osama bin Laden, bringing closer the threat of a terrorist attack using chemical, biological or nuclear weapons, according to U.S. intelligence sources and Iraqi opposition officials. The key meeting took place in the Afghan mountains near Khandahar in late December. The Iraqi delegation was led by Farouk Hijazi, Baghdad's ambassador in Turkey and one of Saddam's most powerful secret policemen, who is thought to have offered Bin Laden asylum in Iraq."
Hijazi was reported to have traveled through five American aircraft carrier battle groups, thousands of American aircraft, through Pakistan, and into the winter mountains of Khandahar, Afghanistan on December 21, 1998, and he was described by the Italian newspaper, The Corriere della Sera, as "…the person who has been responsible for nurturing Iraq's ties with the fundamentalist warriors since 1994."
In February 1999, An Arab intelligence officer who knew Saddam Hussein personally predicted in Newsweek: "Very soon you will be witnessing large-scale terrorist activity run by the Iraqis."
At the same time, Saddam himself—long described as too secular to work with Islamic radicals—called for Islamic Militants to fight on his behalf: "Oh sons of Arabs and the Arab Gulf, rebel against the foreigner...Take revenge for your dignity, holy places, security, interests and exalted values."
A Time magazine cover story entitled "The Hunt for Osama" quoted a U.S. official as saying, "We have evidence that bin Laden may be planning his boldest move yet—a strike on Washington or possibly New York City in an eye-for-an-eye retaliation." A State Department aide said, "We've hit his headquarters, now he hits ours."
ABC News did the most extensive piece on the Iraq/bin Laden meeting, with correspondent Sheila MacVicar going into detail about the cooperation between Saddam and bin Laden.
The conclusion is inescapable that the 9/11 plot was set in motion, at the very least, in retaliation for America's war on Saddam, and likely at the direct urging of Saddam via Iraq's Faruq Hijazi. If the reports of the day are any indication, the deal was made in exchange for Iraqi weapons of mass destruction.
States sponsor terrorism as a means of deniable attack, and since Saddam and bin Laden both had vested interests in attacking the U.S. as well as maintaining deniability, it's likely these killers would lie about it as well. Similarly, terrorists and spies alike compartmentalize compromising information, and so the 9/11 attackers likely never knew about Saddam and bin Laden's private deal—even Khalid Sheik Mohammed probably didn't know about Hijazi's meeting with bin Laden at the time the plot was set in motion. But thanks to our own mass media, we know. All that we had to do was "connect the dots."
