Subscribe to EIR Online
This article appears in the May 6, 2011 issue of Executive Intelligence Review.

Real Authors of 9/11 Are Still at Large

by Jeffrey Steinberg

[PDF version of this article]

May 2—Despite the fact that U.S. Special Forces have killed Osama bin Laden, the actual authors of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks are still at large. In the near-decade since the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, significant evidence has emerged that a much higher-level Anglo-Saudi apparatus, associated with the infamous "Al-Yamamah" arms-for-oil barter deal, was ultimately behind the deadly attacks, and that the intention was to provide the new George W. Bush Administration with a "Reichstag Fire" pretext to rip up the U.S. Constitution and create a war dictatorship over the United States.

At least $2 billion in payoffs from the Al-Yamamah offshore slush fund were provided to Prince Bandar bin Sultan, then the Saudi Ambassador to the United States, for his pivotal role in brokering the deal between Britain's BAE Systems and the Saudi Ministry of Defense, beginning in 1985. Funds were transferred from BAE accounts at the Bank of England to Bandar's embassy accounts at Riggs National Bank in Washington, D.C. And $50-70,000 of those funds, in turn, were proven to have been provided to at least two of the 9/11 hijackers, Nawaf Alhazmi and Khalid Almihdhar, through two Saudi intelligence officers operating in the San Diego area, Osama Basnan and Omar el-Bayoumi.

When U.S. Senate investigators probing the 9/11 attacks came upon the evidence of the Bandar payoffs to the terrorists, the 28-page section of the Senate report, detailing those links, was censored by the Bush White House, and to this day, those details have been buried under a false national security cover. Bush had already been exposed for his ties to the bin Laden family, when he allowed a planeload of Saudis, including several prominent members of the bin Laden family, to fly home from the U.S. during the days immediately following the 9/11 attacks, at a time when no civilian airplanes were allowed in U.S. airspace.

The two co-chairs of the Senate Intelligence Committee at the time, Robert Graham (D-Fla.) and Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) publicly denounced the FBI for covering up the "9/11 money trail," a direct reference to the sealed portions of the Committee report dealing with Bandar. It later emerged that the two San Diego-based 9/11 hijackers who received the Bandar money, were living in the home of an FBI informant. The FBI refused to allow Senate investigators to interview the informant, or the FBI agents who handled his case.

LaRouche's Warnings and Insights

In January 2001, a full nine months before the 9/11 attacks, Lyndon LaRouche had warned, in written testimony to the U.S. Senate, opposing the confirmation of John Ashcroft as Attorney General, that the incoming Bush Administration would seek the first opportunity to impose a dictatorship over the United States, using the pretext of a terrorist event to justify its actions. In the weeks leading up to the 9/11 attacks, a statement by LaRouche, warning of an imminent terrorist destabilization of the United States, was circulating as a mass-distribution leaflet.

On Sept. 11, 2001, as the planes were crashing into the World Trade Center towers and the Pentagon, LaRouche was being interviewed by Salt Lake City radio host Jack Stockwell. His initial observations, as events were unfolding, were prescient.

LaRouche warned, based on the real-time news accounts, that the attack would be blamed on Osama bin Laden, and he told Stockwell:

"Osama bin Laden is a controlled entity. Osama bin Laden is not an independent force. Remember how he came into existence. Osama bin Laden was a wealthy Saudi Arabian. Back in the 1970s, during the Carter Administration—or shall we say the Brzezinski Administration—the idea of running an Afghanistan war on the borders of Soviet territory was cooked up by Brzezinski as a geopolitical operation....

"And suddenly, now, we find Osama bin Laden becomes the name. And Osama bin Laden could not last, the way he's running around, if he didn't have big protection. And it's not just from a section of the Pakistani government or Afghanistan. It's from other governments who would like to see the effects that Osama bin Laden produces thrown around.

"So, now you can blame Osama bin Laden. At some point, you go in and kill him, and you say the problem was solved. But you never considered who sent, who created Osama bin Laden, and who protected him, and deployed his forces and name for these purposes.... So, in a case like this, don't assume that the popular names that everybody knows, or that the FBI quotes and so forth, that this is the real problem. They may be part of the problem....

"But what we're into is a period where the word is not terrorism. Terrorism is a part of the picture. The word is 'destabilization.' The problem part, from my standpoint, is, look at our own government."

Asked by Stockwell what should be done in response to the unfolding attacks, LaRouche responded:

"The United States needs a Franklin Roosevelt, who will say, 'We have nothing to fear as much as fear itself.' Yes, we have things to fear, but nothing as much as fear itself. Nothing as much as panic itself. This is the time for cool heads. You do not win wars by panicking, by flight-forward. What I'm afraid of from this White House is, because of its very weakness, it would tend to go into flight-forward.

"Actually, George W. Bush is not exactly a combat veteran. I mean, he may have been in the National Guard, down in Texas, but he's not the kind of guy you'd want in charge of a major military unit in time of war. You want somebody with a cool head. You want the MacArthurs at time of war. You want commanders like that. You want leaders like that, who do not blow their gaskets, even in the face of the most horrible penalties, do not lose self-control. I'm afraid that the people in Washington are going to delight, and are having a sexual fantasy about losing self-control. They're going to pull out some kind of favorite horror movie and try to act that out as a scenario....

"Well, the United States, first of all, the President of the United States, or someone who's next to him, who's intelligent, should immediately call President Putin of Russia. And between the two of them, they should talk to all the key leaders in France, Germany, Italy, and so forth. Japan, as well. Bring the Chinese in on it. The Chinese will have their own reaction, but bring them in on it, through a group of leaders.

"And say, this has happened in the United States. 'You guys all know what this kind of thing means. Let's put this thing, this genie back in the bottle.' And, that's what has to be done.

"Then tell the American people you're doing it. Say, We are not going to allow this kind of situation, which obviously had roots, to continue. We and other nations are going to cooperate to bring this under control.' That's what the American people have to hear from the President, or somebody around him, or somebody else in charge. Maybe Don Rumsfeld, maybe Powell, Colin Powell, is the guy to deliver that message. But somebody's got to deliver that message now....

"Putin would accept a call, of course, from Bush.... It's still daytime in Moscow, or evening time—10 hours difference. So, to call him right now. And to call the relevant people in Germany, France, somebody in London. I don't know that that dumb Prime Minister's any good for anything, but—and Italy. And Japan. And China. And a few other countries. Consult with them. Set up a consultative arrangement. Say, we're going to stop this thing now. That's what it takes.

"I think it's perfectly legitimate; see, the President of the United States has certain constitutionally inherent emergency powers. I would not really declare a national emergency—that's probably the wrong thing to do, because it would activate the wrong things. But I would use the emergency powers of the President, and I would use the person of George W. Bush. He's President after all! Forget how he got there—he's President. He has got to, as President, enter into an emergency discussion with prominent leaders of other nations, and to try to bring the world community more or less into agreement—but quickly, and report that agreement to the American people now. Preferably within hours....

"All he has to do, he doesn't have to be a genius, all he has to do is call Putin. And I'm sure that he'd get cooperation from Putin, and would, on that basis, if those two powers, which are the former superpowers, come to an agreement to bring other nations together on a consultative basis—what are we going to do: Stop this show right now, to make sure it doesn't get out of hand....

"Somebody wants this thing to go out of control. That's why they're doing this. This is not an attack; this is a provocation. It's a provocation with an intention behind it. To create a programmed reaction from the institutions of the United States. This is not some dumb guy with a turban some place in the world, trying to get revenge for what's going on in the Middle East. This is something different.

"What's coming is what's going to come in the next days, the next hours. If the President of the United States, with the support of other people, make their own mistake, the world's going to be in Hell. That's the hurdle we've got to get over. If the President of the United States and people around him panic, and react to this, as some of the press leaks so far that I've heard of, are indicating, then this world is going to Hell. Therefore, we have to worry about the next hours."

Back to top

clear
clear
clear