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Today's
Stories
November
1, 2004
Cockburn
/ St. Clair
How Bush Was Offered Bin Laden and
Blew It
Dave
Lindorff
Bulgegate Confirmed; Press Yawns
Greg
Bates
Nader Voter Survey Results
Roger
Morris
Novel Politics: Only Fiction Can Do
This Election Justice
Diane
Christian
Death Tolls
Lenni
Brenner
Secularists Be Warned: Christlike Kerry Roams Spiritual Universe
Christopher
C. Conway
Can the Left Sink Any Lower?
Francis
Boyle
Legal Elites and the Iraq War: the Nazis Had Their Law Professors,
Too
Jason
Leopold
Rummy's Failed War Plan
Website
of the Day
Dylan Resurrects "Masters of War"
October
30 / 31, 2004
JoAnn
Wypijewski
The Long March and the Million Worker
March
Winslow
T. Wheeler
Spartacus Tells All
Bruce
Anderson
Notes from the Big Empty: When the Hippies Invaded NoCal
Vicente
Navarro
They Worked for Franco: How Sec. of State Cordell Hull and Nobel
Laureate Camilo Jose Cela Collaborated with the Fascist Regime
Robin
Blackburn
How Monica Lewinsky Saved Social Security
Greg
Bates
A Question of Character: What Makes Nader Tick?
Nancy
Welch
The American Health Care Crisis: an Interview with Dr. David
Himmelstein
William
Lind
Election Day: Which Menendez Brother Will You Vote For?
Brian
Cloughley
Uzbekistan and Bush Hypocrisies
Suzan
Mazur
Oops They Did It Again: the NYTs the Paper of Record and Rip-Offs
Greg
Moses
Standing at the Graves of Iraq
John
Chuckman
Osama's Endorsement
Richard
Oxman
Why Not Accept Osama's Offer?
Ken
Avidor
Landscape of Fear: When Ugly is Suspicious
Niranjan
Ramakrishnan
Bush, Ba'ath and Beyond
Hope
Bastian
Strangling Cuba's Economy
P.
Sainath
Tower of Gabble: Toward a Sustainable Rhetoric
Dave
Zirin
Bush League: Why MLB Owners Support the Prez
Jon
Swift
The Dry Drunk Thang: Put a Cork in It
Ron
Jacobs
The Joke's on Me: a Review of Bob Dylan's Chronicles Vol. 1
Alexander
Billet
Taking Theatre Back: Are the States Ready for "Stuff Happens"?
Poets'
Basement
Jones, Laymon, Norris, Ford and Albert
Website
of the Weekend
The Origins of Halloween
October
29, 2004
Harry
Browne
No Justice for Peace Activist in County
Clare
October
28, 2004
Forrest Hylton
"The Gas is Ours:" Bolivia's
Ghosts of October
Col. Dan Smith
Rebellion
in the Ranks
Alan Maass
Jon Stewart v. the Pundits
Ron Jacobs
Ecstasy
in Red Sox Nation
Alexander
Cockburn
Kerrycrats and the War
October
27, 2004
Jules
Rabin
Crammed with Distressful Politics
Dave
Lindorff
Bulgegate: the Lies Continue
Katherine
Van Tassel
On the Home Front: Both Parties
Ignore Working Parents
Jeffrey
St. Clair
The Bi-Partisan Politics of Oil
October 26,
2004
Brian Cloughley
Three
Weddings and Lots of Funerals: Atrocities in Iraq and Afghanistan
William Blum
Fear
Factors
Lenni Brenner
The
1964 Berkeley Free Speech Movement: Lessons for 2004
Ben Tripp
The
Chicken Salad Election
Fidel Castro
After the Fall
Greg Bates
The Nation's Flawed Calculus
Walter Brasch
Gag the Public: the War on Dissent
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
An Open Letter to Pat Buchanan
Mickey Z.
Rumble in the Jungle at 30: Ali, Foreman and the Congo
Amir Taheri
The Boom in Conspiracy Theories
Alexander Billet
Say It Ain't So, Bruce!: the Boss Endorses Kerry
Doug Giebel
The Religion of G.W. Bush
Kathleen Christison
Why
I Liked Thomas Friedman's Latest Column Before I Didn't
October 25,
2004
Ralph Nader
Letter
from a Minnesota Highway
Werther
West
Texas Wahabbism
Dave Zirin
Boston's Killer Cops: Death of a Fan
Fred Gardner
Pot Shots: Oregon Revokes Dr. Leveque's License
Omar Barghouti
Executing Another Child in Rafah
William J. Nottingham
Lori Berenson's Story
John Chuckman
A Foolish Consistency
Uri Avnery
On
the Road to Civil War
October 22
/ 24, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
You
Can't Blame Nader for This
Rev. William Alberts
On Bended Knee: Faith-Based Deceptions
Willliam A.
Cook
Killing for Christ
Saul Landau
George W. Bush: a Man of His Words?
Bill Quigley
I Held the Bullet in My Palm: Masked Haitian Police Shoot Children
While Arresting Priest
Christopher Brauchli
Seal It With a Frown: What Compassionate Conservativism Really
Means
William S.
Lind
Fallujah and the Moral Level of War
Sharon Smith
Guilt Trippers for Kerry
Greg Bates
Kerrynomics: "Hurt the Ones Who Vote for Us"
Justin E.H. Smith
Is Lesser Evilism a Compromise with Evil?
Rebecca Evans
Tarnished Legacy: Pinochet and the Chilean Military
Mike Whitney
Al Hurra TV: the Second Invasion
M. Junaid Alam
Purchasing Individuality in America
David Krieger
Nuclear Non-Proliferation: Examining the Policies of Bush and
Kerry
David J. Ledermann
The Emperor's New Crumbs
Lawrence Reichard
Same Old FBI Story
Website of
the Weekend
Lie Girls: the Real Coalition of the Willling
October 21,
2004
Ben Tripp
The
Undecided Voter Examined
Joshua Frank
Kerry
and the Environment:
It's Not Easy Pretending to be Green
Stan Cox
What
the Left Doesn't Get About Small Businesses
Bill Martinez
State
Depart and Cuban Visas: Only Anti-Castro Agitators Need Apply
Mark Engler
The War and Globalization
Lina Britto
and Lucia Suarez
Bolivia:
a Year After the October Insurrection
Website of the Day
Two Pampered Children of Wealth
October 20,
2004
Yitzhak Laor
"Did
You Two Squabble?": a Bullet Fired for Every Palestinian
Child
Jason Leopold
Sinclair
Broadcasting's Air War: a Long History of Journalistic Deception
Jesse Sharkey
A
Teacher's Account of How Military Recruiters Prey on High School
Students
Col. Dan Smith
Choking
Free Speech About the Draft
Dr. Teresa Whitehurst
Using My Religion
David Vest
If
Bush Wins, Blame Me
Jack Random
The Jackson 17: Reflections on a Mutiny
Ron Jacobs
Time
to Kick It Up a Notch
James Brittain
Plan Patriota and the FARC: a Change in the Countryside?
Christopher
Dols
Bombing Madison: Michael Moore's Fright Fest
Dave Lindorff
First They Came for the Nurses...
Website of
the Day
Banana Republican Catalogue
October 19,
2004
Jeffrey St.
Clair
Party
Favors: the Political Business of Terry McAuliffe
Jeff Taylor
Confessions
of a Swing State Voter
Matt Vidal
American
Myopia: "More Money in Your Pocket"
Victor Kattan
"It's Not Who You're Against; It's Who You're For":
Palestine Takes Center Stage At Euro Social Forum
William Loren
Katz
What Goes Around Comes Around
Sean Carter
O'Reilly Should Shut Up About Extortion Claiims
CounterPunch Wire
Who's Really in Bed with Republican Funders: Kerry or Nader?
October 18,
2004
Saul Landau
Facts
and Lies; Slogans and Truth
Dave Lindorff
Bulletin
on the Bush Bulge
Diane Christian
Sheep
and Goats: On the Language of Goodness
Greg Bates / Dave Lindorff
Betting on War: a Wager on the Fallout of a Kerry Presidency
Uri Avnery
Ariel
Sharon's Philosophy
Peter LaVenia
Leaving the Greens So Soon? a Response to Josh Frank
Mike Whitney
O'Reilly at the Whipping Post
Elaine Cassel
The Other War: Civil Liberties Three Years After 9/11
October 16
/ 17, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
The
Free Speech Movement and Howard Stern
Leslie Brill
Unmerciful Judge, Merry Executioners: the Death Penalty as the
True Measure of Bush's Character
Jules Rabin
Reckoning Deaths in an Agitated World
Dave Lindorff
About the Bush Bulge: Was There a Pucker in That Jacket or Was
the President Just Glad to be There?
Peter Linebaugh
Judging Judges: a Few Pages from The Mirror of Justices
Gary Leupp
Iran and Syria: How to Effect Regime Change and Expand the Empire
M. Shahid Alam
America, Imagine This!
Ron Jacobs
Trying to Cross Lake Champlain
Fred Gardner
The Flu Vaccine Question: How Bush Blew It
Jenna Orkin
The Toxic Legacy of 9/11
Dave Zirin
Name the DC Baseball Team: Contest Results
David Hamilton
Alone and Exposed: Bush as a Strong Leader?
Ralph Nader
Criticizing Israel is Not Anti-Semitism
Doug Giebel
Thinking the Unthinkable
Mark Engler
Crimes in Freedom's Name: Dick Cheney's El Salvador
Derek Tyner
Blacks Didn't Get the Vote by Voting: an Interview With Clarence
Thomas on the Million Worker March
Evan Jones
Gimme That Ole Time Religion: Cash and "The Mind of the
South"
Poets' Basement
LaMorticella, Klipschutz and Albert
Website of
the Weekend
No More Bush Girls
October 15,
2004
Paul Craig
Roberts
Where
Did These "Conservatives" Come From?: The Brownshirting
of America
Laura Carlsen
Wal-Mart
vs. the Pyramids of the Sun and Moon
Greg Bates
Empire of Insanity: Kerry's Iraq Troop Numbers
Michael Donnelly
News from a Swing State: Does Anyone Here Have a Spine?
Katherine Lahey
The Venezuelan "Threat": Why Do Kerry and Bush Fear
Hugo Chavez?
Robert Jensen
/ Pat Youngblood
Election Day Fears
Leah Caldwell
From
Supermax to Abu Ghraib: the Masterminds of Torture and Abuse
Website of
the Day
An Anti-Billionaire Policy? Why That Would Be Economic Racism
October 14,
2004
Darcy Richardson
The
Other Progressive Candidate: the Lonely Crusade of Walt Brown
Willliam A.
Cook
Turning
Myths into Truth
Laura Santina
Water, Women and War
Evelyn Pringle
Free Speech Banned by Big Pharma: What You Can't Say About Drug
Importation
Alan Farago
Lessons
from Nature
Rep. Maxine Waters
A Letter to Colin Powell on Haiti
Nicole Colson
Maimed
for Oil and Empire
October 13,
2004
Bishop Thomas
Gumbleton and Bill Quigley
Aftermath
of a Coup: The Other Disaster in Haiti
Sharon Smith
Barak
O-Bomb-a?: Democrats Target Iran
Christopher Brauchli
God and the Bush Administration
Mike Whitney
The Real Meaning of the Hamdi Case
Paul de Rooij
Amnesty
International: a False Beacon?
Website of
the Day
Operation
Truth
October 12,
2004
Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz
"Indian
Country"
Greg Bates
The Year of Voting Dangerously: a Survey Request of Nader Voters
in Swing States
Steven Conn
Progressives as Pawns: Kerry's War on Nader
Jason Leopold
Under Cheney, Halliburton Helped Saddam Siphon Billions from
UN Oil-for-Food Program
Security Scholars
for a Sensible Foreign Policy
Time for a Change of Course
Timothy J. Freeman
Dying for a Mistake
Pierre Tristam
Deconstructing Bush
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
The 2nd Debate: the Blurring of Act and Audience
Bill and Kathleen
Christison
Israel as Sideshow
Website of the Day
John Kerry's Personal Off-Shore Tax Shelters
October 11,
2004
Robert Fisk
Iraq:
Unforgivable Betrayals and Broken Promises
Kevin Pina
The
Untold Story of Aristide's Departure from Haiti
Patrick Gavin
Rethinking
Columbus Day
Chris Floyd
Tribes with Flags in the New Afghanistan
Daniel Wolff
Radioactive Money: Entergy, Political Cash and America's Most
Dangerous Nuclear Plant
Walter Brasch
The Only Ones Who Believe Saddam Had WMDs are Bush, Cheney...and
40% of All Americans
Mike Whitney
The Phony Afghan Elections: Ballot of the Disappearing Ink
Ari Shavit
"He Talks to Condi Rice Every Day": an Interview with
Sharon's Lawyer
Paul Craig
Roberts
The
Debates and the Big Lie
Website of the Day
Dylan's Greatest Recording?
October 9 /
10, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
"There
Are No Innocents"
Paul de Rooij
Northern Ireland is Still the Issue: a Conversation with Gerry
Adams
M. Shahid Alam
Making Sense of Our Times
Laura Carlsen
Protest and Populism in Latin America
Fred Gardner
Pot Shots: ASA Goes to Court
Col. Dan Smith
Bush's Credibility Gap
Paul Craig
Roberts
Faith-Based Economics
Greg Bates
What If Nader Critics Get What They Demand?
Joshua Frank
Cobb, the Greens and the Collapse of the Left
Felice Pace
Wilderness, Politics and the Oligarchy: How the Pew Charitable
Trust is Smothering the Grassroots Environmental Movement
Walter A. Davis
Of Pynchon, Thanatos and Depleted Uranium
William A.
Cook
The Agony of Colin Powell
Phyllis Pollack
Twas No Crank Call Love Affair: London Calling, 25 Years Later
Poets' Basement
Klipschutz, Albert, Ford
Website of the Weekend
Abu Ghraib: the Taguba Annexes
October 8,
2004
Jennifer Loewenstein
The
Israeli Invasion of Gaza
Moshe Adler
Edwards' Gambit: He Hoped No One Would Notice the Similarities
David Swanson
Media Blackout: Press Continues to Ignore Labor's Opposition
to Iraq War
Dave Zirin
CounterPunch Contest: Let's Name the New DC Baseball Team!
Rep. Ron Paul
The Draft is a Form of Slavery
William S. Lind
Keeping Our SA Up
Samar Assad
Kerry v. Bush: No Difference When It Comes to Israel / Palestine
Jim Ingalls
and Sonali Kolhatkar
The Elections in Afghanistan
October 7,
2004
Dave Lindorff
All
Out of Volunteers: A Draft is in the Air
Masha Hamilton
Fear in Kandahar
Christopher
Brauchli
Master of Corruption: the Ripening Scandals of Tom Delay
Jason Leopold
Is There Still Time to Impeach Bush?
Bruce K. Gagnon
Bombing the Panhandle: Fighting the Pentagon in Rural Florida
Meredith Kolodner
Where
is the Urgency?: The Anti-War Movement's Election Year Challenge
October 6,
2004
Jeffrey St.
Clair
"Please,
Dude, Can I Take Them Out?": Targeting Civilians in Fallujah
Ron Jacobs
Going
Nuclear: the Ghost of Edward Teller Lives
Michael Colby
The National Flip-Flop: Suddenly Bush is Unfit to Lead?
Tarif Abboushi
More of the Same: Israel Wins the Debates
Matthew Behrens
Canadian Firms Profit from Iraqi Blood
Mike Whitney
Rethinking WMDs
John Pilger
Stealing Diego Garcia
Ben Tripp
Kerry's "Triumph"
Kevin McKiernan
Cheney's Poison Lab: Wrong Time, Wrong Target
Patrick Cockburn
Elections
Will Not End the Fighting in Iraq
Website of the Day
Is There an Islamic Problem?
October 5,
2004
Anthony Loewenstein
Rupert
Murdoch and the Marginals: "Personally Creating Outcomes"
Mark Clinton
and Tony Udell
The
Suicide of an Iraq War Veteran
Greg Bates
Trading
Idiots: an Open Letter to Eric Alterman
Dave Lindorff
What's
the Frequency, Karl?
Norm Dixon
Why Washington Won't Save Darfur Villagers
Larry Kearney
God Talk and Burning Children
Bill Linville
Dirty Politics in the Land of "Clean" Government
Gary Leupp
What
Edwards Should Ask Cheney
Website of
the Day
A Guide to Halliburton for Tonight's Debate
October 4,
2004
Diane Christian
The
Gates of Hell
Joshua Frank
An Interview with David Cobb
Doug Giebel
Incurious George: What If Bush Didn't Lie?
John Chuckman
Strange Victory: Sen. Obvious and the Pathetic Lump
Ramzy Baroud
Reverse the Picture: Anatomy of a Palestinian Outrage
Julia Stein
Remembering Mario Savio and the FSM
Sean Donahue
Outsourcing
Terror: Kerry and Special Forces
Website of
the Day
Mapping
Mt. St. Helens as She Rocks
October 2 /
3. 2004
Paul Wright
John
Kerry on Criminal Justice
Kathleen and Bill Christison
An Exchange with Israeli Historian Bennie Morris
Kathie Helmkamp
My Son Trent: a Marine Who Doesn't Want to Kill
Phillip Cryan
Indigenous Mobilization in Colombia
Lenni Brenner
The First Ex-Catholic Saint: Memories of Mario Savio
Fred Gardner
Pot Shots: In Case You Missed "Montel"
Ron Jacobs
It Did Happen Here: When Neo-Nazis Terrorized Olympia
Ben Tripp
Sticker Shock
William S.
Lind
The Grand Illusion: Iraqi Security Forces
Dave Zirin
The Swindle of the Century: Baseball Comes to DC
Dave Lindorff
Lies from the Great Debate
Luscon Pierre-Charles
Haiti's Elections: a High-Tech Sham is Underway
Zoe Moskovitz
& Sasha Kramer
Separating Lies from Truth About Haiti
Nelson P. Valdes
Habana Night vs. Latin American Scholars in Vegas: 61 Banned
Cuban Academics
Alan Farago
The "Ownership Society" and the End of the Everglades
Nancy Haley
What is the Historical Jesus Trying to Tell Us?
Alex Billet
Long Live The Clash: London Still Calling After 25 Years
Steve Fesenmaier
Save and Burn: The War on Libraries
Poets' Basement
Smith, Holt, Albert
October 1,
2004
Steve Breyman
Kerry's
Missed Opportunities
Rose Gentle
My
Son Died for a Lie
Lee Sustar
Iran
in the Crosshairs
Ralph Nader
What
We Didn't Hear at the Debate: Where's the Exit Strategy?
Walter Andrews
We Are Less Secure Now Than Ever
Mike Whitney
Pandora's
Government
Mickey Z.
Debate
This
Saul Landau
The
Iraq Invasion: Lessons from the Pinochet Cases
Hot Stories
Alexander Cockburn
Behold,
the Head of a Neo-Con!
Subcomandante
Marcos
The
Death Train of the WTO
Norman Finkelstein
Hitchens
as Model Apostate
Steve Niva
Israel's
Assassination Policy: the Trigger for Suicide Bombings?
Dardagan,
Slobodo and Williams
CounterPunch Exclusive:
20,000 Wounded Iraqi Civilians
Steve
J.B.
Prison Bitch
Sheldon
Rampton and John Stauber
True Lies: the Use of Propaganda
in the Iraq War
Wendell
Berry
Small Destructions Add Up
CounterPunch
Wire
WMD: Who Said What When
Cindy
Corrie
A Mother's Day Talk: the Daughter
I Can't Hear From
Gore Vidal
The
Erosion of the American Dream
Francis Boyle
Impeach
Bush: A Draft Resolution
Click
Here for More Stories.
|
November 1, 2004
CounterPunch Exclusive
*** Secret Afghan Envoy
Tells All ***
Give Him an
"F" in the War on Terror
How
Bush Was Offered Bin Laden and Blew It
By
ALEXANDER COCKBURN
and JEFFREY ST. CLAIR
George Bush, the man whose prime campaign
plank has been his ability to wage war on terror, could have
had Osama bin Laden's head handed to him on a platter on his
very first day in office, and the offer held good until February
2 of 2002. This is the charge leveled by an Afghan American who
had been retained by the US government as an intermediary between
the Taliban and both the Clinton and Bush administrations.
Kabir Mohabbat is a 48-year
businessman in Houston, Texas. Born in Paktia province in southern
Afghanistan, he's from the Jaji clan (from which also came Afghanistan's
last king). Educated at St Louis University, he spent much of
the 1980s supervising foreign relations for the Afghan mujahiddeen,
where he developed extensive contacts with the US foreign policy
establishment, also with senior members of the Taliban.
After the eviction of the Soviets,
Mohabbat returned to the United States to develop an export business
with Afghanistan and became a US citizen. Figuring in his extensive
dealings with the Taliban in the late 1990s was much investment
of time and effort for a contract to develop the proposed oil
pipeline through northern Afghanistan.
In a lengthy interview and
in a memorandum Kabir Mohabbat has given us a detailed account
and documentation to buttress his charge that the Bush administration
could have had Osama bin Laden and his senior staff either delivered
to the US or to allies as prisoners, or killed at their Afghan
base. As a search of the data base shows, portions of Mohabbat's
role have been the subject of a number of news reports, including
a CBS news story by Alan Pizzey aired September 25, 2001. This
is the first he has made public the full story.
By the end of 1999 US sanctions
and near-world-wide political ostracism were costing the Taliban
dearly and they had come to see Osama bin Laden and his training
camps as, in Mohabbat's words, "just a damn liability".
Mohabbat says the Taliban leadership had also been informed in
the clearest possible terms by a US diplomat that if any US citizen
was harmed as a consequence of an Al Qaeda action, the US would
hold the Taliban responsible and target Mullah Omar and the Taliban
leaders.
In the summer of 2000, on one
of his regular trips to Afghanistan, Mohabbat had a summit session
with the Taliban high command in Kandahar. They asked him to
arrange a meeting with appropriate officials in the European
Union, to broker a way in which they could hand over Osama bin
Laden . Mohabbat recommended they send bin Laden to the World
Criminal Court in the Hague.
Shortly thereafter, in August
of 2000, Mohabbat set up a meeting at the Sheraton hotel in Frankfurt
between a delegation from the Taliban and Reiner Weiland of the
EU. The Taliban envoys repeated the offer to deport bin Laden.
Weiland told them he would take the proposal to Elmar Brok, foreign
relations director for the European Union. According to Mohabbat,
Brok then informed the US Ambassador to Germany of the offer.
At this point the US State
Department called Mohabbat and said the government wanted to
retain his services, even before his official period on the payroll,
which lasted from November of 2000 to late September, 2001, by
which time he tells us he had been paid $115,000.
On the morning of October 12,
2000, Mohabbat was in Washington DC, preparing for an 11am meeting
at the State Department , when he got a call from State, telling
him to turn on the tv and then come right over. The USS Cole
had just been bombed. Mohabbat had a session with the head of
State's South East Asia desk and with officials from the NSC.
They told him the US was going to "bomb the hell out of
Afghanistan". "Give me three weeks," Mohabbat
answered, "and I will deliver Osama to your doorstep."
They gave him a month.
Mohabbat went to Kandahar and
communicated the news of imminent bombing to the Taliban. They
asked him to set up a meeting with US officials to arrange the
circumstances of their handover of Osama. On November 2, 2000,
less than a week before the US election, Mohabbat arranged a
face-to-face meeting, in that same Sheraton hotel in Frankfurt,
between Taliban leaders and a US government team.
After a rocky start on the
first day of the Frankfurt session, Mohabbat says the Taliban
realized the gravity of US threats and outlined various ways
bin Laden could be dealt with. He could be turned over to the
EU, killed by the Taliban, or made available as a target for
Cruise missiles. In the end, Mohabbat says, the Taliban promised
the "unconditional surrender of bin Laden" . "We
all agreed," Mohabbat tells CounterPunch, "the best
way was to gather Osama and all his lieutenants in one location
and the US would send one or two Cruise missiles."
Up to that time Osama had been
living on the outskirts of Kandahar. At some time shortly after
the Frankfurt meeting, the Taliban moved Osama and placed him
and his retinue under house arrest at Daronta, thirty miles from
Kabul.
In the wake of the 2000 election
Mohabbat traveled to Islamabad and met with William Milam, US
ambassador to Pakistan and the person designated by the Clinton
administration to deal with the Taliban on the fate of bin Laden.
Milam told Mohabbat that it was a done deal but that the actual
handover of bin Laden would have to be handled by the incoming
Bush administration.
On November 23, 2000, Mohabbat
got a call from the NSC saying they wanted to put him officially
on the payroll as the US government's contact man for the Taliban.
He agreed. A few weeks later an official from the newly installed
Bush NSC asked him to continue in the same role and shortly thereafter
he was given a letter from the administration (Mohabbat tells
us he has a copy), apologizing to the Taliban for not having
dealt with bin Laden, explaining that the new government was
still setting in, and asking for a meeting in February 2001.
The Bush administration sent
Mohabbat back, carrying kindred tidings of delay and regret to
the Taliban three more times in 2001, the last in September after
the 9/11 attack. Each time he was asked to communicate similar
regrets about the failure to act on the plan agreed to in Frankfurt.
This procrastination became a standing joke with the Taliban,
Mohabbat tells CounterPunch "They made an offer to me that
if the US didn't have fuel for the Cruise missiles to attack
Osama in Daronta, where he was under house arrest, they would
pay for it."
Kabir Mohabbat's final trip
to Afghanistan on the US government payroll took place on September
3, 2001. On September 11 Mohabbat acted as translator for some
of the Taliban leadership in Kabul as they watched tv coverage
of the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Four
days later the US State Department asked Mohabbat to set up a
meeting with the Taliban. Mohabbat says the Taliban were flown
to Quetta in two C-130s. There they agreed to the three demands
sought by the US team: 1. Immediate handover of bin Laden; 2.
Extradition of foreigners in Al Qaeda who were wanted in their
home countries; 3. shut-down of bin Laden's bases and training
camps. Mohabbat says the Taliban agreed to all three demands.
This meeting in Quetta was
reported in carefully vague terms by Pizzey on September 25,
where Mohabbat was mentioned by name. He tells us that the Bush
administration was far more exercised by this story than by any
other event in the whole delayed and ultimately abandoned schedule
of killing Osama.
On October 18, Mohabbat tells
us, he was invited to the US embassy in Islamabad and told that
"there was light at the end of the tunnel for him",
which translated into an invitation to occupy the role later
assigned to Karzai. Mohabbat declined, saying he had no desire
for the role of puppet and probable fall guy.
A few days later the Pizzey
story was aired and Mohabbat drew the ire of the Bush administration
where he already had an enemy in the form of Zalmay Khalilzad,
appointed on September 22 as the US special envoy to Afghanistan.
After giving him a dressing down, US officials told Mohabbat
the game had changed, and he should tell the Taliban the new
terms: surrender or be killed. Mohabbat declined to be the bearer
of this news and went off the US government payroll.
Towards the end of that same
month of October, 2001 Mohabbat was successfully negotiating
with the Taliban for the release of Heather Mercer (acting in
a private capacity at the request of her father) when the Taliban
once again said they would hand over Osama Bin Laden unconditionally.
Mohabbat tells us he relayed the offer to David Donahue, the
US consulate general in Islamabad. He was told, in his words,that
"the train had moved". Shortly thereafter the US bombing
of Afghanistan began.
In December Mohabbat was in
Pakistan following with wry amusement the assault on Osama bin
Laden's supposed mountain redoubt in Tora Bora, in the mountains
bordering Pakistan. At the time he said, he informed US embassy
officials the attack was a waste of time. Taliban leaders had
told him that Bin Laden was nowhere near Tora Bora but in Waziristan.
Knowing that the US was monitoring his cell phone traffic, Osama
had sent a decoy to Tora Bora.
From the documents he's supplied
us and from his detailed account we regard Kabir Mohabbat's story
as credible and are glad to make public his story of the truly
incredible failure of the Bush administration to accept the Taliban's
offer to eliminate Bin Laden. As a consequence of this failure
more than 3,000 Americans and thousands of Afghans died. Mohabbat
himself narrowly escaped death on two occasions when Al Qaeda,
apprised of his role, tried to kill him. In Kabul in February,
2001, a bomb was detonated in his hotel in Kabul. Later that
year, in July, a hand grenade thrown in his room in a hotel in
Kandahar failed to explode.
He told his story to the 9/11
Commission (whose main concern, he tells us, was that he not
divulge his testimony to anyone else), also to the 9/11 Families
who were pursuing a lawsuit based on the assumption of US intelligence
blunders by the FBI and CIA. He says his statements were not
much use to the families since his judgment was, and still remains,
that it was not intelligence failures that allowed the 9/11 attacks,
but criminal negligence by the Bush administration.
Weekend
Edition Features for October 30 / 31, 2004
Winslow
T. Wheeler
Spartacus Tells All
Bruce
Anderson
Notes from the Big Empty: When the Hippies Invaded NoCal
Vicente
Navarro
They Worked for Franco: How Sec. of State Cordell Hull and Nobel
Laureate Camilo Jose Cela Collaborated with the Fascist Regime
Robin
Blackburn
How Monica Lewinsky Saved Social Security
Greg
Bates
A Question of Character: What Makes Nader Tick?
Nancy
Welch
The American Health Care Crisis: an Interview with Dr. David
Himmelstein
William
Lind
Election Day: Which Menendez Brother Will You Vote For?
Brian
Cloughley
Uzbekistan and Bush Hypocrisies
Suzan
Mazur
Oops They Did It Again: the NYTs the Paper of Record and Rip-Offs
Greg
Moses
Standing at the Graves of Iraq
John
Chuckman
Osama's Endorsement
Richard
Oxman
Why Not Accept Osama's Offer?
Ken
Avidor
Landscape of Fear: When Ugly is Suspicious
Niranjan
Ramakrishnan
Bush, Ba'ath and Beyond
Hope
Bastian
Strangling Cuba's Economy
P.
Sainath
Tower of Gabble: Toward a Sustainable Rhetoric
Dave
Zirin
Bush League: Why MLB Owners Support the Prez
Jon
Swift
The Dry Drunk Thang: Put a Cork in It
Ron
Jacobs
The Joke's on Me: a Review of Bob Dylan's Chronicles Vol. 1
Alexander
Billet
Taking Theatre Back: Are the States Ready for "Stuff Happens"?
Poets'
Basement
Jones, Laymon, Norris, Ford and Albert
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