Clarke Feared bin Laden Would 'Boogie' to Iraq

Former counterterrorism czar Richard Clarke insisted to media during the spring 9-11 commission hearings that Saddam Hussein had no connection to al-Qaida, but the panel's final report says that in February 1999 he feared Osama bin Laden might flee to Baghdad.

The report, on page 134 [Requires PDF viewer], says Clarke was nervous about a U-2 surveillance mission over Afghan tribal areas proposed by the CIA, because "he continued to fear" that bin Laden might "leave for someplace less accessible."

Clarke wrote to Deputy National Security Advisor Donald Kerrick, according to the 9-11 report, that "one reliable source reported [bin Laden's] having met with Iraqi officials, who 'may have offered him asylum.'"

Other intelligence sources, the 9-11 report continues, said that some Taliban leaders, though not Mullah Omar, had urged bin Laden to go to Iraq.

If bin Laden actually moved to Iraq, wrote Clarke, his network would be at Saddam Hussein's service, and it would be "virtually impossible" to find him.

It would be better, Clarke declared, to get bin Laden in Afghanistan.

Berger Took Classified Mideast 'Peace' Docs

Former National Security Adviser Samuel Berger, who this week admitted to taking classified terrorism documents from the National Archives, also was found in possession of a small number of classified papers containing his handwritten notes from Middle East peace talks during the Clinton administration, according to a source familiar with the investigation.

Although the Mideast notes are not the main focus of the current criminal probe, the source says their removal may shed further light on Berger's intentions. The Mideast notes were allegedly taken from the National Archives along with classified documents that officials say may paint the Clinton administration's handling of the al-Qaida threat in a negative way.

"Berger was heavily involved in several Israeli-Palestinian initiatives in the 1990s, and in Clinton's seeing Arafat and the Palestinians as negotiating partners, all leading to Camp David, which many now regard as a huge policy mistake that culminated in the violence still raging," said the source.

Many American and Israeli political experts have in recent years blasted Clinton's approach to Mideast peacemaking, and some have openly blamed his administration's policies -- seeking major Israeli territorial concessions in exchange for promises of peace by the Palestinian Authority -- as factors in Arafat's decision to launch the Intifada.

Clinton also famously helped turn Arafat's image from guerilla leader to statesman, inviting the PLO president to the White House more times than he did any other world leader. Bush and Sharon have been trying to isolate Arafat, saying he is directly involved in terrorism.

Berger, a close confidante of former President Bill Clinton, was designated as the official from the Clinton administration who would review documents relevant to the 9-11 commission's probe.

9/11 Commission Addresses Lewinsky Scandal

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Sept. 11 commission's final report says there's no evidence suggesting President Bill Clinton ordered airstrikes on Osama bin Laden targets to distract attention from his affair with Monica Lewinsky.

But the report says the affair, coupled with other issues, likely affected later discussions about using force against the terrorist leader.

Following U.S. embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania, the Clinton administration planned and launched cruise missile strikes on alleged terrorist assets of bin Laden in Sudan and Afghanistan. The report said reaction to the Aug. 20, 1998, strikes included "scalding criticism" that the action was "too aggressive."

"At the time, President Clinton was embroiled in the Lewinsky scandal, which continued to consume public attention for the rest of that year and the first months of 1999," the report said. "As it happened, a popular 1997 movie, 'Wag the Dog,' features a president who fakes a war to distract public attention from a domestic scandal. Some Republicans in Congress raised questions about the timing of the strikes."

In testimony, Clinton aides told the commissioners that their advice to Clinton about the airstrikes was based solely on national security considerations. "We have found no reason to question their statements," the commissioners said.

The commission's final report treads lightly on Clinton's affair with the one-time White House intern, which led to his impeachment and later acquittal by the Senate. Although only tiny sections of the report refer to the affair, the commissioners spent a lot of time discussing how and whether to discuss it in the report, deciding, in the end, that it was important to do so.

Osama Being Treated by Pak Army

Elsewhere, even as the Bush administration made a big to-do about ten hijackers passing through Iran and tried to implicate Teheran on that grounds, the 9/11 report shows that several hijackers who rammed the planes into American targets used Karachi as a base and trained there for weeks on end.

In fact, the report paints Karachi as the gateway to terrorism, drawing an elaborate picture of the 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed using the port city to plan the attack, gather the hijackers there, and put them through their paces.

''Much of his (KSM's) activity in mid-1999 had revolved around the collection of training and informational materials for the participants in the planes operation,''the 9/11 report says. ''For instance, he collected Western aviation magazines; telephone directories for American cities such as San Diego and Long Beach, California (from Karachi flea markets); brochures for schools; and airline timetables, and he conducted Internet searches on US flight schools.''

''He also purchased flight simulator software and a few movies depicting hijackings. To house his students, KSM rented a safehouse in Karachi with money provided by bin Laden,'' the report adds.

But all this is not good enough for the American media, which has almost completely ignored Pakistan’s role in 9/11 while going on a feeding frenzy over a few speculative morsels tossed out by the Bush administration about the involvement of Iran and Iraq.

Not a single US TV channel or newspaper collated, let alone reported or highlighted, the multiple indictment of Pakistan contained in the report. Even a cursory key word search would have shown more than 200 references to Pakistan, many of them damning. There are less than 100 references to Iran and Iraq combined.