Flashback: Musharraf: US threatened to bomb Pakistan after 9/11 Reuters 21 Sept 06 NEW YORK - President Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan said that after the September 11 attacks the United States threatened to bomb his country if it did not cooperate with America's war campaign against the Taliban in Afghanistan. Musharraf, in an interview with CBS news magazine show "60 Minutes" that will air Sunday, said the threat came from Assistant Secretary of State Richard Armitage and was given to Musharraf's intelligence director. "The intelligence director told me that (Armitage) said, 'Be prepared to be bombed. Be prepared to go back to the Stone Age,"' Musharraf said. "I think it was a very rude remark." The Pakistani leader, whose remarks were distributed to the media by CBS, said he reacted to the threat in a responsible way. "One has to think and take actions in the interest of the nation, and that's what I did," Musharraf said about the cooperation extended by Pakistan. Musharraf said some demands made by the United States were "ludicrous," including one insisting he suppress domestic expression of support for terrorism against the United States. "If somebody's expressing views, we cannot curb the expression of views," Musharraf said. Copyright 2006 Reuters News Service. Comment: Well, isn't that just odd?! Do they expect us to buy that? Well, yeah... how soon we forget. But, allow us to remind the reader of the following: The 9-11 Terrorists did not act in a vacuum. They were instruments in a carefully planned intelligence operation supported by Pakistan's ISI, which owes its allegiance and existence to the CIA. The purported 9-11 ringleader - Mohammed Atta - according to ABC news, was financed by "unnamed sources in Pakistan." According to Agence France Presse and the Times of India, an official Indian intelligence report informs us that the 9-11 attacks were funded by money wired to Mohammed Atta from Pakistan, by Ahmad Umar Sheikh, under orders from Pakistani intelligence chief General Mahmoud Ahmad. The report said: "The evidence we have supplied to the U.S. is of a much wider range and depth than just one piece of paper linking a rogue general to some misplaced act of terrorism." [Michel Chossudovsky] Guess what? General Mahmoud Ahmad was in the U.S. on September 11. Where was General Mahmoud on the morning of September 11, while Dubya was in Florida reading upside down books? Why, the good general just happened to be having breakfast with Florida's senator, Bob Graham - our esteemed chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee. Also present at breakfast was Pakistan's ambassador to the U.S. Maleeha Lodhi. There were other members of the Senate and House Intelligence committees present. In fact, the News of Pakistan reported the visit BEFORE September 11: ISI Chief Lt. Gen. Mahmoud's week-long presence in Washinton has triggered speculation about the agenda of his mysterious meetings at the Pentagon and National Security Council. Officially, he is on a routine visit in return for CIA Director George Tenet's earlier visit to Islamabad. Official sources confirm that he met Tenet this week. He also held long parleys with unspecified officials at the White House and the Pentagon. But the most important meeting was with Marc Grossman, U.S. Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs. One can safely guess that the discussions must have centred around Afghanistan ... and Osama bin Laden. What added interest to his visit is the history of such visits. Last time Ziauddin Butt, Mahmoud's predecessor, was here, during Nawaz Sharif's goernment, the domestic politics turned topsy-turvy within days. [Amir Mateen, News Pakistan, September 10, 2001 as quoted by Michel Chossudovsky] Nawaz Sharif was overthrown by General Pervez Musharaf. General Mahmoud Ahmad, who became the head of the ISI, played a key role in the military coup. [Michel Chossudovsky Nawaz Sharif was overthrown by General Pervez Musharaf. General Mahmoud Ahmad, who became the head of the ISI, played a key role in the military coup. [Michel Chossudovsky] The existence of an ISI-Osama-Taliban-CIA-US government axis is a matter of public record. However, what was NOT expected - obviously - was the revelation by Indian intelligence - that the $100,000 bux was paid to Mohammed Atta on the orders of the guy having breakfast with Bob Graham - the same guy who was meeting with all the likely conspirators. The Bush administration's relations with pakistan's ISI - including the week of meetings and "consultations" with General Mahmoud Ahmad prior to September 11 - raise not only the issue of "cover-up" but of DIRECT COMPLICITY. At the very least, this suggests that key individuals within the U.S. military-intelligence establishment knew about the attack in some detail and failed to act. At worst, it suggests that the many irregularities noted about the behavior of Bush and his gang prior to, during, and following the 9-11 attacks were indicative of direct participation in the planning of the events, even to the "piggy-backing" of the drone plane attack on the Pentagon to divert suspicion away from the U.S. military. See: Mahmoud Ahmad and The Secret Cult of 9-11

Key 9/11 planner linked to London bombings: Musharraf AFP 25 Sept 06 The chief architect of the September 11, 2001 attacks was also linked to last year's suicide blasts on the London transport network, Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf says in his memoirs. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who was arrested in Pakistan in 2003, confessed that Al-Qaeda sized up London's subway for an attack at the same time as it hatched a plan to crash jets into Heathrow, Musharraf says in "In the Line of Fire." Another Al-Qaeda militant tasked by Mohammed to carry out the reconnaissance later revealed a connection to two of the bombers who struck in London on July 7, 2005, the controversial book published on Monday says. "We had learned from KSM (Mohammed) that Al-Qaeda's planners were thinking seriously about, and discussing, bombing Heathrow Airport in London ... as well as London's subway system," Musharraf writes. "The suspect had been told by KSM to carry out reconnaissance of, and prepare a plan to attack, Heathrow Airport. After initial planning, he also suggested Canary Wharf and London's subway system as additional possible targets." Mohammed, the self-proclaimed key conspirator behind the September 11 attacks on the United States, has previously been linked to the foiled Heathrow plot but not to the subway attacks. Musharraf's book says the militant kept in touch with Al-Qaeda chief Osama Bin Laden at the time he was planning the British attacks through courier-delivered letters. After his arrest in the Pakistani city of Rawalpindi he was handed over to the United States. He is reportedly to face a hearing at Guantanamo Bay to determine if he is an "enemy combatant". Musharraf does not name the second militant who scouted the possible London targets but it is believed to be Naeem Noor Khan, a Pakistani computer expert captured in Lahore in mid-2004. His whereabouts are unknown. Pakistan gave Britain information on the militant's laptop about terror plots as well as "direct access" to Khan, Musharraf says in the book. "Later this would reveal a link with Siddique Khan and Shehzad Tanweer," two of the young Britons of Pakistani heritage who blew themselves up in London on July 7, 2005, Musharraf says, without specifying when. But he hits out at British authorities for not sharing this information on Tanweer and Siddique Khan with Pakistan for three weeks after the bombings "and despite the fact that Siddique and Tanweer had first been spotted 17 months earlier". The revelations are the latest in a series to come from the Pakistani leader's book and from related TV interviews and serialisations. Last week he said former US deputy secretary of state Richard Armitage threatened to bomb Pakistan "back to the stone age" if it did not back Washington after 9/11, described by Musharraf as "what has to be the most undiplomatic statement ever made". The US Central Intelligence Agency paid Pakistan millions of dollars for handing over more than 350 suspected Al-Qaeda terrorists, including Mohammed, Musharraf said in the initial serialisation of the book in The Times on Monday. Musharraf's memoirs are vague on the whereabouts of bin Laden, who was said in a leaked French intelligence memo to have died recently in Pakistan of typhoid. "It is only a matter of time before bin Laden is caught," he writes, before admitting that he does not know where he is and guessing that he may be in the eastern Afghan province of Kunar. He does however reveal a wealth of detail about the Al-Qaeda network, including that Mohammed, fellow conspirator Ramzi bin al-Shibh and three others watched the first plane hit the World Trade Center from a Karachi Internet cafe. Comment: Well, isn't that just amazing?! What a coincidence! That the same people were involved in the London bombing and 9/11! The 9-11 Terrorists did not act in a vacuum. They were instruments in a carefully planned intelligence operation supported by Pakistan's ISI, which owes its allegiance and existence to the CIA. The purported 9-11 ringleader - Mohammed Atta - according to ABC news, was financed by "unnamed sources in Pakistan." According to Agence France Presse and the Times of India, an official Indian intelligence report informs us that the 9-11 attacks were funded by money wired to Mohammed Atta from Pakistan, by Ahmad Umar Sheikh, under orders from Pakistani intelligence chief General Mahmoud Ahmad. The report said: "The evidence we have supplied to the U.S. is of a much wider range and depth than just one piece of paper linking a rogue general to some misplaced act of terrorism." [Michel Chossudovsky] Guess what? General Mahmoud Ahmad was in the U.S. on September 11. Where was General Mahmoud on the morning of September 11, while Dubya was in Florida reading upside down books? Why, the good general just happened to be having breakfast with Florida's senator, Bob Graham - our esteemed chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee. Also present at breakfast was Pakistan's ambassador to the U.S. Maleeha Lodhi. There were other members of the Senate and House Intelligence committees present. In fact, the News of Pakistan reported the visit BEFORE September 11: ISI Chief Lt. Gen. Mahmoud's week-long presence in Washinton has triggered speculation about the agenda of his mysterious meetings at the Pentagon and National Security Council. Officially, he is on a routine visit in return for CIA Director George Tenet's earlier visit to Islamabad. Official sources confirm that he met Tenet this week. He also held long parleys with unspecified officials at the White House and the Pentagon. But the most important meeting was with Marc Grossman, U.S. Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs. One can safely guess that the discussions must have centred around Afghanistan ... and Osama bin Laden. What added interest to his visit is the history of such visits. Last time Ziauddin Butt, Mahmoud's predecessor, was here, during Nawaz Sharif's goernment, the domestic politics turned topsy-turvy within days. [Amir Mateen, News Pakistan, September 10, 2001 as quoted by Michel Chossudovsky] Nawaz Sharif was overthrown by General Pervez Musharaf. General Mahmoud Ahmad, who became the head of the ISI, played a key role in the military coup. [Michel Chossudovsky] The existence of an ISI-Osama-Taliban-CIA-US government axis is a matter of public record. However, what was NOT expected - obviously - was the revelation by Indian intelligence - that the $100,000 bux was paid to Mohammed Atta on the orders of the guy having breakfast with Bob Graham - the same guy who was meeting with all the likely conspirators. The Bush administration's relations with pakistan's ISI - including the week of meetings and "consultations" with General Mahmoud Ahmad prior to September 11 - raise not only the issue of "cover-up" but of DIRECT COMPLICITY. At the very least, this suggests that key individuals within the U.S. military-intelligence establishment knew about the attack in some detail and failed to act. At worst, it suggests that the many irregularities noted about the behavior of Bush and his gang prior to, during, and following the 9-11 attacks were indicative of direct participation in the planning of the events, even to the "piggy-backing" of the drone plane attack on the Pentagon to divert suspicion away from the U.S. military. See: Mahmoud Ahmad and The Secret Cult of 9-11

Pakistan Sold al-Qaeda Suspects To CIA By AFP 09/25/06 The US Central Intelligence Agency paid Pakistan millions of dollars for handing over more than 350 suspected al-Qaeda terrorists to the United States, Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf has reportedly said. The assertions come in the military ruler's upcoming memoir "In the Line of Fire," serialized in The Times newspaper. Musharraf does not reveal how much Pakistan was paid for the 369 Al-Qaeda suspects he ordered should be handed over to the United States, the newspaper said, noting, however, that such payments are banned by the US government. The newspaper does not, however, print or quote the excerpts which make the allegations. In response a US Department of Justice official was quoted as saying: "We didn't know about this. It should not happen. These bounty payments are for private individuals who help to trace terrorists on the FBI's most wanted list, not foreign governments." The Pakistani's leader's claims come after he said last week that former deputy secretary of state Richard Armitage had threatened to bomb Pakistan if it did not back the United States in the so-called "war on terror" in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 attacks, described by Musharraf as "what has to be the most undiplomatic statement ever made." "Our relationships with international leaders is not something we are prepared to talk about," a CIA official told The Times. Musharraf also writes that he was so angered by American demands in the wake of the September 11 attacks, which he calls "ludicrous," that he "war-gamed the United States as an adversary." "There would be a violent and angry reaction if we didn't support the United States," an excerpt from his book reads. "The question was: if we do not join them, can we confront them and withstand the onslaught? The answer was no." He said that two days after the attacks, the US Ambassador to Pakistan Wendy Chamberlain brought to him a set of seven demands including "blanket overflight and landing rights" and "use of Pakistan's naval ports, air bases, and strategic locations on borders." Musharraf said Pakistan gave no "blanket permission" for anything. The military leader also says that he decided to make the revelations to counter claims that Pakistan had not done enough to combat Al-Qaeda in the war on terror.