A debate is brewing in the US about the revelations that the administration was warned prior to 11 September of an impending terrorist attack. In Washington, Mohamed El-Sayed Said assesses the debate and engages two security experts on its implications The process of self- assessment and criticism currently underway in the United States has the potential to destroy the artificial consensus on the narrative of the events of 11 September. Observers have repeatedly commented that mainstream interpretations of the events are startlingly homogeneous in light of the openness of the US's political system and the sophistication of its media. Mainstream discussions, too, tend to sideline matters that worry outsiders most about the attacks and their implications. By outside observers, I mean those people who are denied the central stage in any public and politically significant debate on the factors contributing to and resulting from the responses to the 11 September attacks. Non-Americans, one such group of "outsiders", on the whole and regardless of how they view conspiracy theories, find that the official narrative and the US's response leave much to be desired. Interestingly, revisionist interpretations and dissenting views concerning how the US should have acted barely make it into mainstream discussions. Nonetheless, the present rift carries within it the potential to devastate the American political and institutional system. And while no one can predict the direct political outcomes, particularly on the present administration, one can certainly not rule out the possibility of a voters' backlash against the administration's critics. It all began when CBS and The New York Times reported during the second week of May that the administration had received warnings about the possibility of a terrorist attack as much as eight months prior to 11 September. The subtext of these reports was, of course, that the administration could have prevented the attacks. This line was roundly rejected by both sides of the debate, which, instead, focused on institutional shortcomings. However, there is no doubt that the way the themes of the debate are taken up by the media and the general public will do much to fuel the imagination of proponents of conspiracy theories in the Arab world. The story about the warnings the administration had received shows a failure on three levels. The first level regards the quality of information obtained by US intelligence agencies that was relevant to the plot by Bin Laden's group. The second pertains to the dissemination of information through the state apparatus and to the administration. According to National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, the relevant reports and information failed to reach the president and his top advisers. At the third level was the state and administration's response to the available information, such that the response did not prompt the adoption of adequate measures to prevent the perpetrators from carrying out their plan. The ensuing debate tackled three aspects of these failures. First and foremost in the debate is the issue of institutional gaps and a lack of coordination among security and intelligence agencies. Indeed, a major security expert said that dozens of security agencies at the state and federal levels work in isolation from each other. It has also been suggested that the agencies were, at various times, at odds or competing with one another. The very premise that the administration had failed to act upon information which had been piling up before 11 September is as close as the debate came to questioning the president's competence. The third aspect relates to the functioning of American democracy and transparency after 11 September, namely, the president's decision not to inform the public about the reports. The American political mainstream seemed to be divided into two camps over this matter. One camp -- primarily made up of Democrats, along with a few Republicans -- maintains that there was indeed ample information upon which top administration officials failed to act and that the administration is now trying to cover up its incompetence by silencing those who want to explore the matter. The other camp rejects the notion that the information that reached the administration merited the adoption of emergency measures. This argument explicitly concedes the failure of intelligence by pointing a finger at the deficiencies in the US's security institutions. However, proponents of this view adamantly refuse to concede that this issue includes matters of political responsibility. Silence on reports for eight months is seen as only natural given that these reports are national security secrets that are not expected to be shared with the public. Moreover, the administration and Republican zealots, with President Bush in the lead, went on the offensive by accusing Democrats of attempting to capitalise on the existence of the reports. The parameters of the debate are extremely narrow. November's Congressional elections, undoubtedly, have much to do with attempts to contain the discussions. Consequently, both sides of the debate are closely watching the public's reaction to the security revelations. Much more importantly, and given the ambiguities of public opinion at this moment, both sides are restricted by the limitations imposed by the general ideology of patriotism and its accompanying cognitive frameworks which came to be used to explain the events of 11 September. Some, however, have taken great pains in trying to alert the public to other narratives or, at least, other versions of the same narrative. Al-Ahram Weekly has interviewed two American scholars who are security experts, but who see the 11 September through dissenting prisms. Wayne Madsen is a former communications security specialist for the National Security Agency and Joseph Gerson is the director of the peace and economic security programme at the American Friends Service Committee, a multi-faith organisation established by Quakers working for social justice. Karzai, Khalizad and ONOCAL Wayne Madsen, I am a little bewildered by the reports on early warnings about terrorist attacks on the US. There is a strange sense of detachment to these, as though the American security system had not had any dealings with the Al-Qa'eda people. Should we be asking when the US's long-established connections and interactions with the Taliban and Arab Afghans were ruptured, when we know that they continued even under Bill Clinton's administration? No, the relationship between the Bush administration and the Taliban increased in intensity compared with that between Clinton and these groups. Bush's National Security Council Special Envoy on Afghanistan Zalmay Khalizad was a consultant for UNOCAL [an oil consortium operating in the Caspian Sea] which dealt with Mullah Omar and Hamid Karzai. Omar received cash in violation of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. Karzai was also a UNOCAL consultant. The latest revelations seem to provide a new impetus for conspiracy theories popular in our region. To what extent do the revelations on prior warnings corroborate one or more of these theories? It does appear that some people had various levels of advanced warnings about a terrorist attack. I do not subscribe to the notion that Mohamed Atta and his team were not responsible, however. There are some possible discrepancies in the identities of all the hijackers. The passport alleged to belong to Atta that was found in pristine condition on a New York street after supposedly surviving 1,800 degrees heat and catastrophic collapse turned out to be a novelty passport issued by the 'Conche Republic' in Key West, Florida. How, then, would you explain the failure to act on the warnings? Is it only a matter of incompetence? Incompetence and arrogance. Arrogance stemming from the fact that US intelligence discounted intelligence and law enforcement reports from France, Jordan, Morocco, Egypt, Germany, Cayman Islands, Kazakhstan, Israel, Russia, Canada and India that pointed to an impending attack. Why in your view doesn't the US simply initiate a real and transparent judicial process for the purpose of providing clear evidence of responsibility on the attacks? The Bush people do not want an independent investigation because of all the other factors that would be looked into -- the Taliban pipeline deals, the spiriting out of the US of the Bin Laden family members by air when all US air traffic was grounded that was organised by Saudi ambassador Prince Bandar, the failure of the US air force to respond to the hijackings, etc. What consequences do you believe the latest reports will have on the political situation in this country? Do you expect that a scandal will develop and weaken this seemingly invincible administration? Yes, the Bush presidency, which was questionable anyway, is now fair game for the Democrats and Republicans like John McCain [a Republican who sought the presidential candidate nomination]. Bush's ability as a leader is now on trial. How would you characterise in cultural terms the administration's reaction to the 11 September attacks? The US's reaction was highly nationalistic and racist -- it fits Bush's style and that of people like Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and others. Only Colin Powell stands out as more statesmanlike. How do you think all of this impacts on the 'go after Iraq' scenario? The Sharon assault on the West Bank has scuttled this -- there is no coalition and there will not be one as long as the Likud is in power in Israel. Five dimensions to the matter Joseph Gerson, how would you assess the significance of the latest revelations on intelligence failures? Clearly there were some intelligence failures. Unfortunately, given where the Democrats are, what we are likely to see come out of this is more unified intelligence agencies instead of dealing with Bush's global military crusade. So long as we have a policy of full-spectrum dominance, we are going to have attacks from any number of sources. Your answer invites a political rather than a technical discussion. What do you think, then, is the essence of the matter? If we leave aside the issue of transparency, there are five dimensions to the matter. First, is the real target of present US foreign and military policy. Over the long-run, Washington sees China, not Al-Qa'eda or Islamic fundamentalism, as its primary strategic concern. Since Reagan's 'discriminate deterrent' doctrine, a priority of US strategic doctrine has been to prevent the emergence of a global or regional rival. While the Bush administration may place greater emphasis on military containment than did the Clinton administration, both have viewed China as a rising economic, military and diplomatic power that has the potential to become a powerful rival and a threat. The goal of containing and intimidating China -- not non- existent missile threats from 'rogue' nations and 'the axis of evil' -- is the driving force behind the Bush administration's race to develop what is called 'missile defences' and to deploy them around China's periphery and in space. Seeking to kill two birds with one stone, Bush's 'war on terrorism' in south-east Asia is more than it appears to be. In addition, in some cases, to the justifiable pursuit of Al Qa'eda-related Islamists, the Bush administration's crusade is providing the impetus to 'diversify' deployments of US military forces across the region. Second, there are certain other continuities: repression of secular nationalism leading occupied and besieged people to rely on religious values, traditional values and a resort to terrorism as means of resistance. There is also Washington's commitment to ensure that neither its enemies nor its allies gain access to Middle East oil. A third aspect is that parallel to the Pentagon's 'full-spectrum dominance' doctrine, the present conditions allow assaults inside the US on constitutionally guaranteed civil liberties in ways that are reminiscent of the Palmer raids, McCarthyism, etc. [The Palmer raids entailed deportations of Russian and German immigrants in the aftermath of the 1917 Russian revolution.] Fourth, not unlike the elder Bush's 'new world order', this Bush administration seeks 'a whole new world': US global domination based ultimately on its nuclear and high-tech arsenals. The post-9/11 trauma and government- and media-inspired 'United We Stand' patriotism have provided the Bush administration with the political and diplomatic cover to withdraw from the ABM treaty, to increase the military budget to $400 billion -- more than the world's 25 next largest military spenders-combined. The fifth dimension relates specifically to the Middle East. Since the Bush administration declared the 11 September attacks an act of war and charted military responses to those unspeakable crimes, I have been struck by the many ways the so-called war on terrorism is modelled after Israel's failed campaign of military conquest, subjugation and occupation. The Sharon government's savaging of Palestinian communities and brutalisation of the Palestinian people is creating a new generation who seek revenge for their suffering and humiliation.
