Iraq and September 11



Date: Wed, 29 May 2002 22:37:27 -0400 (EDT)

To: gulf2000 list

Subject: Re: Laurie Mylroie: Iraq, the Strategic Blunder, NRO



The media industry around sabre rattling toward Iraq continues to

flourish. But I just spent a week in Turkey talking to ordinary people,

and I want to report that Turks are terrified of an Iraq war. Their

economy has been badly battered by September 11 and its aftermath, which

has devastated tourism and by the extended US recession, which has hurt

Turkish exports. This is on top of an economic crisis that cut the value

of the lira in half against the dollar. Virtually everyone I asked told

me that an Iraq campaign next year had the potential for casting them all

into penury. They also, of course, worry that if the Kurds are stirred up

in Iraq, it will eventually spill over into eastern Turkey. Since the

Wolfowitz doctrine of eternal war does require the U.K. and Turkey as

permanent allies, pursuing a policy that has the potential to hurt Turkey

so badly is possibly self-contradictory.





As for the Mylroie piece in National Review Online, it is frankly full of

illogic, innuendo and drum-beating and completely lacking in any evidence

for sweeping assertions. We professors can't help grading papers. This

one flunks.





The piece begins with September 11 and then says that al-Qaida could not

have pulled it off on its own. This is simply not true. The September 11

operation was not in fact terribly complex. It simply required 4 nearly

simultaneous airplane hijackings. It required that some of the hijackers

have attended flight school and know how to operate at a very basic level

the largely computerized flight equipment. It required that they be able

to follow the Hudson river valley and be able to bank. It required that

they hijack planes headed for the West Coast from the East, to ensure they

were loaded with fuel, to act as a bomb. The whole operation probably

cost less than $500,000. You did not need a government to plan this

operation or execute it, which is why it is so frightening. It is a

perfect example of asymmetry. The operation exploited a few basic holes

in U.S. air security, including an assumption that the hijackers would not

blow themselves up along with their planes.





Ms. Mylroie goes on to say that documentation on September 11 in

Afghanistan is slim. Duh. A top secret operation should not have a big

paper trail. If possible everything should be kept oral. *However*, there

are some very significant pieces of evidence locating the planning for the

operation in Afghanistan. The money trail goes back to the UAE and thence

to Pakistan. (Not to Baghdad). Atta and others went to Afghanistan for

training. Al-Qaida informants report seeing some of the hijackers in

al-Qaida camps. Nawaf Alhazmi and Khalid al-Mihdar met with the al-Qaida

station chief in Malaysia before going on to San Diego. Many of the

hijackers were Saudi, which is what one would expect if they were linked

to Bin Ladin. No Iraqis were involved. And, Bin Ladin has been caught on

tape talking about the planning of the operation! Although Ahmed Ressam

(now in federal penitentiary), Djemal Baghal of Algeria (now in prison in

France) and Ra'id Hijazi (now in prison in Jordan) have given extensive

information on al-Qaida activities that has been proven accurate, *none*

has ever so much as mentioned any Iraqi role. Abu Zubayda, Bin Ladin's

Palestinian right hand man now in custody, seems also to be voluble, and

if he were fingering Iraq I think we may be assured we would have heard

about it.





There is no credible evidence that Iraq was involved in September 11.

Nor is there any evidence that I can accept as a professional historian

linking Iraq to the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center. Indeed, the

evidence that al-Gamaa al-Islamiyyah planned and executed 1993 is

overwhelming, and the amateurish way it was carried out is evidence in

itself that it was not a sophisticated state operation. Allegations,

assertions, suspicions, and overly complex conspiracy theories abound in

history. Professional historians are trained to weight the evidence and

sort it as to likelihood. Historians of the Middle East have perhaps been

insufficiently responsible in intervening in contemporary history, where

their professional skills are increasingly important. In fact, I would

argue that September 11 would only have been launched by an asymmetric

organization like al-Qaida, not by a state. If a state launched it, it

would be an obvious casus belli and the state officers could expect to

meet the world's most powerful nation in all-out war. Saddam Hussein is a

brutal, crafty dictator, but he is not that stupid and rather likes being

in power.





Atta may or may not have met with the Iraqi intelligence chief, al-Ani, in

Prague. There are conflicting reports and the most recent public

assessments by Western intelligence agencies deny the meeting. If it did

occur, it almost certainly centered on the possibility of blowing up the

Radio Free Europe offices--not on September 11. Atta by this time had

shaved his beard and adopted a secular lifestyle, and if al-Ani did meet

him, al-Ani would have had no way to know he was al-Qaida. That al-Qaida

was capable of practicing false flag tradecraft toward the Baath Party is

far more plausible than than the Baath Party would get into bed with

radical fundamentalists who want to overthrow secular Arab governments and

resurrect the caliphate.





I continue to be skeptical that Saudi Arabia will lend its air space and

military facilities to a US war on Iraq. And, for technical reasons, I

believe that it would be difficult for the US to prosecute the war without

access to Saudi airspace. In the meantime, unsubstantiated allegations

and blatant illogicalities are not going to be of any help to us as a

nation in determining our security future. In fact, they could lead us in

counter-productive directions. Iraq has never been able to strike at the

US in any significant manner. Al-Qaida has. Al-Qaida is not dead, and,

indeed, may as we speak be attempting to foment nuclear war in South Asia

by terrorist attacks on Indian positions in Kashmir. The Bush

Administration would be well advised to keep its eye on that ball.





Sincerely,





Juan Cole

U of Michigan

Bin Laden's Plan



When I said that "He (OBL) knew what the likely US response would be, and

had thought several steps ahead, as in chess" I was referring to September

and October, when the al-Qaida propaganda machine clearly was way ahead of

the United States. I personally also believe that al-Qaida assassinated

Ahmad Shah Massoud, the leader of the Northern Alliance, on September 9

quite deliberately because Bin Ladin knew that the US would likely use the

Northern Alliance against him and his Taliban colleagues. He probably

figured that without its most experienced, popular and charismatic leader,

the alliance might fall apart and would be harder to mobilize by the U.S.





I did not mean to imply that Bin Ladin expected the US rather easily to

dislodge the Taliban, as they did Nov.-Dec. Even there, however, it seems

obvious that Bin Ladin had carefully planned what he might do if the US

*was* able to reach into Afghanistan, and that he has successfully eluded

them, along with most of his major lieutenants. I mean, it is really

quite extraordinary that he has eluded capture, and it suggests careful

forethought on his part. I do not believe he is dead. I think he has a

very nicely furnished cave somewhere not far from Khost, maybe on the

Pakistani side of the border. And I do not think we have heard the last

of him. It would be foolish of him to come out in the open after Tora

Bora and frontally challenge the US at this point. Bin Ladin does not

work though frontal challenges, anyway. He strikes sideways.





Sincerely,





Juan Cole

U of Michigan

Bin Laden's Intentions



In his taped interview with Sheikh al-Harbi (or whoever it was), which was probably secretly taped without Usama's knowledge by one of al-Harbi's associates, Bin Ladin says that he was the most optimistic of the al-Qaida high command about the impact of the planes. However, he only thought that the floors above the impact would collapse. There is evidence that the hijackers had engaged in some sophisticated engineering calculations about the amount of fuel on the planes and their likely kinetic impact. The hijackers deliberately took planes heading from the East Coast to California so as to maximize the amount of fuel, which acts as a bomb.



Sheikh Omar `Abdel Rahman, the blind leader of al-Gamaa al-Islamiyah who was implicated in the 1993 attack on the World Trade Towers has admitted in interviews that the truck bomb used then was a poor substitute. What they had wanted to do was put explosives on an airplane, but they could not figure out a way to get the explosives on without tipping security. With an engineer at the head of al-Qaida and with several engineers recruited for the job in Europe, they figured out that the jet fuel itself would act as an explosive.



Ramzi Yousef, who was among the bombers at the World Trade Center in 1993, fled to the Philippines thereafter. He continued to plot there, and worked on a plan to fly an hijacked jet liner into the CIA headquarters. His kitchen accidentally caught on fire in Manila and he fled downstairs. The Philippine police found the plans in his personal effects in the apartment and handed them over to the CIA, which appears to have misplaced them. The Filipino intelligence, afraid it would be blamed for the fiasco, then leaked them to the press.



Ramzi Yousef then went to meet up with his al-Qaida handlers in Pakistan, but was captured by the Pakistani ISI in 1996 and handed over to the Americans.



There is not any doubt that Bin Ladin, al-Zawahiri, Abu Zubaydah and others sat down in a room and planned out the attack on the WTC, down to the details, and speculated as to how much damage it would do. They may have been inspired by Ramzi Yousef's plans. Having been disappointed in 1993, most of them did not expect any sort of collapse. Only Bin Ladin, a trained engineer, believed some floors would collapse, at least above the impact.



The response at al-Jazeera through videotapes by Bin Ladin to the US was thoroughly orchestrated beforehand. He knew what the likely US response would be, and had thought several steps ahead, as in chess. I don't know how to prove this to anyone if they can't see what I think is fairly obvious in the pattern of quick and pertinent response, which dominated the news cycles rather as the Clinton team did via email in the 1992 presidential campaign.



I am a little surprised that the question of Bin Ladin's intentionality, and that of his associates, is any longer being broached.



Sincerely,





Juan Cole

U of Michigan

International Law and the Building Iraq Campaign



It is a mistake to believe that multilateralists accept "rhetoric, promises, and declarations (especially with regard to Iran and Iraq)."



I know of few informed persons who would like to see the Saddam Hussein regime continue in power. I am not, however, the international community, and I am not comfortable with allowing Mssrs. Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz to substitute themselves for it.



The key point is that in the wake of the two World Wars, the first of which cost 8.5 million soldiers' lives, and the second of which cost 61 million lives altogether, an international community did come into existence. The United Nations Charter, the Security Council, and NATO were all set up as institutions in hopes of introducing some law and order into the jungle of unbridled state sovereignty. The United States is signatory to the UN Charter and to several other instruments of international law.



As a result, the United States may not unilaterally go to war against another state in the absence of a recognized casus belli without betraying the very ideals it championed in 1945. Everything alleged of Iraq with regard to WMD programs can also be alleged of India, Pakistan, France, China, Russia, Israel, and perhaps Kazakhstan. NATO has not invoked Article 5, indicating that Iraq is so much a threat to any NATO member that it may be regarded as a threat to all; and the Security Council likewise has not authorized military action against Iraq. The European Union seems likely to oppose a war on Iraq. With regard to the remark, "The flip side of the coin to criticism of unilateralism is, of course, allowing policy to be diluted to the lowest common denominator," it is not clear that our NATO allies (Gerhard Schroeder? Jacques Chirac?) are "the lowest common denominator" in world affairs, nor that the Security Council members are. Schroeder has already backed off his post-September 11 stance of "unlimited solidarity" with the US over the Iraq issue.



As an army brat myself, I am proud of the achievements of our men and women in the armed services, who have saved us from dire threats to our liberty. I strongly support our military effort in Afghanistan. I must also admit that the Pentagon itself has not always been the highest common denominator in adherence to international legal and ethical norms. I am in particular critical of the role it played in Latin America through much of the twentieth century, and would not wish to see it unrestrained on the world stage.



One question is whether a military doctrine that allows the US simply to fall upon any country it does not like the looks of, will over the long run contribute to international security or detract from it. US leaders are often insufficiently aware of the power of their example. India justified very nearly going to war with Pakistan this past winter by appealing to something very like a Pentagon version of the Bush doctrine. Do we really want other countries (especially nuclear powers) behaving with their enemies (especially other nuclear powers) without reference to international law or consensus?



Another question is whether a campaign against Iraq at this time is wise given the continued existence of al-Qaida and our failure to capture its leadership. The US is already unpopular in the Middle East, and projecting the appearance of an aggressor cannot help its image. Yemen has begun balking at close cooperation with the US military in tracking al-Qaida agents in Maarib, because of dissatisfaction with US policy in the region. Saudi Arabia is not being as cooperative as it could be, apparently in part for similar reasons. The US embassy in Bahrain, our naval base in the Persian Gulf, was almost stormed by angry crowds not long ago. Major demonstrations, tens of thousands strong, have already sent tremors through the governments of Egypt and Jordan. Being militarily powerful is not the same as having political legitimacy, and the latter is more important than is often realized.



The first Gulf War and the war in Afghanistan were done right. International consensus was built, and collective security was invoked. The planned war against Iraq is not being done right so far. If the Security Council and the European Union get aboard with it, then I will be all for it. To say that a major war should not be launched in the contemporary world without the authorization of international law is not the same as being gullible or abject, and it is unfortunate that our discourse here should be sullied with any such suggestion.



Sincerely,



Juan Cole

U of Michigan







- Juan, 1:52 PM

The State Department vs. the Pentagon, and The Bush Doctrine



I perceive one key difference between the Pentagon and State to be the former's preference for unilateral action as opposed to the latter's commitment to coalition building. Wolfowitz has been reported to believe that only the UK and Turkey are necessary as permanent allies in the region, and each military action undertaken could involve a different set

of coalition partners, if, in fact, any additional ones are needed. Unilateralism in turn implies a neo-imperial model of U.S. power rather than an alliance model.



It so happened that with regard to Afghanistan, NATO invoked collective security, as did the UN. But the Pentagon was impatient with Colin Powell's coalition-building last October, and in the end virtually went it alone militarily in Afghanistan. (The British have been allowed a couple of operations, the French I think only one minor one.)



The problem that has emerged with regard to Iraq is that State Department style coalition building has already failed from the outset, since it is clear that France and Germany reject an attack on Iraq without a better casus belli than now exists. So NATO is not going along. (Spain, Italy and the UK are supportive, but France and Germany are the centers of

gravity in NATO and the only ones besides the UK with significant militaries.) And, US allies in the Middle East are refusing to join in against Iraq so far.



So the only way for the Pentagon to go forward against Iraq would be to go it alone again. They would have to buy off Turkey in order to use Incirlik and other facilities there, and Kuwait, Qatar and Bahrain would have to be gotten aboard for use of their facilities. But the invasion force would be almost completely American, with perhaps some British

participation if Tony Blair's government doesn't fall over it all.



I don't think the State Department is all that opposed to an Iraq campaign, but I do think that it is alarmed at the idea of the US being diplomatically isolated and condemned for neo-imperialism by all its most powerful allies (not to mention most of the global South, including China and the Muslim world) if it acts unilaterally.



As for the aftermath of an Iraq campaign, the Pentagon would attempt to install a friendly government. Wolfowitz and others talk of it being a democratically elected government.



There are two problems with the Pentagon vision. The first is that a "democratically elected government" and a "friendly government" are not necessarily going to be the same thing, at least in the long run. (What democratically elected Arab government could have supported U.S. policy toward the crises of this spring? Do you think a democratic Kuwait, which

we saved from oblivion, would have?) Traditionally the Pentagon has preferred "friendly" to "democratic." But "friendly"-but-autocratic governments tend to be unstable and to do things that make the US unpopular over time, actually decreasing its security and moral authority (e.g. Guatamala 1951, Iran 1953, Indonesia 1965, Chile 1973, etc., etc.)



The second is that successful imperialism (that is what it is) requires large and influential local comprador classes willing to be junior partners in governing the colonial state and society. The Pentagon appears not to have noticed that the processes of social and political mobilization in the second two thirds of the twentieth century throughout the world have led to the demise of the compradors and their conversion into nationalists.



The alternative model is that of alliances among political equals (e.g. NATO), which is the State Department model. nilateralism and neo-imperialism of the Pentagon sort are probably ill suited to the world in which we now live, regardless of how many fancy gadgets we can deploy.



Sincerely,



Juan Cole

U of Michigan

Referendum Farce in Pakistan



According to Dawn the Pakistani Supreme Court will take up the question of whether the presidential referendum that General Pervez Musharraf has called for April 30, 2002, is constitutional. Whatever the court decides (and its members will be under enormous pressure from the military to back it, as a recent high-level judicial resignation demonstrates), the referendum is neither constitutional nor at all wise.



If General Musharraf had any political confidence in himself (he has been ruling since fall of 1999) or in his people, he would simply run for president in the October elections he has called, when seats in parliament will also be contested. A referendum is a time-honored means for a dictator to remain in power. That is how Ayatollah Khomeini foisted his "Islamic Republic" on Iran, and how the Turkish generals remained in power after their coup in the early 1980s.



In a referendum, you after all face no opponent. Musharraf has nevertheless been campaigning (and apparently charging the Pakistani people for the campaign, since the funds seem to be coming out of the government). Because a referendum is not an election, and is not really contested, It cannot therefore bestow any real legitimacy. The elected parliamentarians and prime minister who will contest elections in October will be in a more powerful position than Musharraf now realizes, having the sort of popular mandate he will lack.



Musharraf will at some point begin being blamed for Pakistan's extensive problems. He will at that point wish he could say that he was elected by the will of the people in a contested election. There is increasingly a danger that he will be seen as nothing more than America's man, as someone who betrayed the cause of Islam for what his predecessor General Zia ul-Haq once dismissively called "peanuts," i.e. foreign aid. This referendum may begin a spiral of further political instability in a part of the world that none of us can afford to see unstable.



And that is what military men and dictators simply cannot understand. The only stable government is one that allows for a peaceful and orderly transfer of power. Pakistan's inability to achieve this goal may point to needed reforms. But the problem cannot be resolved by a referendum, which is just an acknowledgment of the regime's Bonapartist character.

Anti-Discrimination Laws Proposed in Morocco



Ribat - Al-Sharq al-Awsat, 22 April 2002. This sort of news almost never gets reported in the West. Yesterday a gathering of Moroccan politicians, cultural figures, and journalists called for strong legislation against racial and religious discrimination in Morocco. They specifically mentioned the difficulties some of the country's 6,000 Jews have faced during the public backlash, in this largely Muslim country of nearly 30 million, against General Sharon's harsh reprisals in the West Bank for suicide bombings against Israel. The problems of anti-Jewish prejudice in the Arab world, which sometimes extends to the attempt to resurrect old European myths like the blood libel, are well known. That makes it all the more crucial that we take note when Arab politicians and intellectuals make a courageous stand, as they have here. In a Moroccan context, moreover, this stance also has implications for the country's Berber minority. It will be interesting to see if this anti-discrimination legislation is introduced and passed.