Perhaps the most horrifying acts of anti-American terrorism were the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, which killed 2,977 innocent people, took out both towers of the World Trade Center in New York, struck a corner of the Pentagon building, and could have struck the White House if not for the brave passengers downing Flight 93 in rural Pennsylvania.
Eighteen months later, the Bush Administration invaded Iraq, claiming the likelihood that Saddam Hussein’s Iraq would share weapons of mass destruction with Islamic terrorists such as Osama bin Laden’s al Qaeda.
But wanting Bush to be vilified rather than praised (for purely partisan purposes), Democrats and their media allies hid the truth about the strong connection between Saddam’s Iraq and al Qaeda, with both interested in terrorism against the United States. Partisan Democrats and the media falsely claimed no connection, which the public generally bought.
The 9/11 Commission was appointed in November 2002 precisely to tell the public the truth about the horrific attack on U.S. soil. The commission’s chairman, the patrician former New Jersey Gov. Thomas Kean, decreed that no finding would be put in the report without the agreement of both Republicans and Democrats on the committee.
Kean did this to be “bipartisan,” but his rules favored partisan Democrats who wished to avoid the real truth, which they could do by exercising the veto that Kean had given them.
The country club Republican members of the commission (Kean, Jim Thompson of Chicago, and former Secretary of the Navy John Lehman) were polite to a fault. The Democratic members of the commission, on the other hand, were capable, bare-knuckle brawlers (adversarial Richard Ben-Veniste, of Watergate prosecutorial fame, and the unflinchingly vocal critic Max Cleland of Georgia were excellent examples). These Democrats were not playing paddy-cake.
Khalid Sheik-Mohammed, the alleged architect of the 9/11 attacks, was the uncle of and assistant to Ramzi Yousef, who led the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center, with scant al Qaeda contact and well before al Qaeda had turned to global violence, as opposed to being the training and support operation it had always been.
So, when KSM allegedly led the 9/11 attacks, we must consider that his master was not entirely al Qaeda but was more likely Iraq. Both KSM and Yousef were from the Baluchistan region, which straddles Pakistan, Iran, and Afghanistan, an area generally hostile to Iran and its Shiite majority.
Indeed, the 9/11 Report notes that KSM would not swear bayat (undying loyalty) to Osama bin Laden, lest bin Laden back out of the attack. In other words, whoever was the real boss of KSM was not al Qaeda, but rather an entity seeking terrorists willing to die while destroying a hated enemy.
Ahmed Hikmat Shakir, a former Iraqi Embassy employee (read: intelligence officer) who attended the Kuala Lumpur al Qaeda Summit in January 2000, connects the dots between Iraq and al Qaeda, willing to fight a common enemy – the United States.
There are many more pieces of strong evidence linking Saddam’s Iraq to al Qaeda and the 9/11 attacks. But the compliant media read any piece of such evidence as evidence that Saddam had no wrongful intentions toward America and was only pretending to seek terrorist capabilities such as lethal gases. I have detailed much of the evidence the media overlooked regarding Saddam’s involvement in 9/11 in an article published here.
Once U.S. Ambassador Paul Bremer became the Coalition Provisional Authority head, the top civilian administrator in Iraq in May 2003 (speculated to be tapped for the role due to his political savvy and long working relationship with the CIA), he radically changed the Bush administration’s original plan to take out only Saddam’s 50 top lieutenants and quickly exit Iraq. Shortly after landing in Baghdad, he enforced the CPA Order No. 1, removing all Ba’athists from the Iraqi administration. The removal of their arch-nemeses emboldened Shiite Iran, while Iraqi Sunnis felt systemically marginalized and began forming groups such as ISIS.
What is so sad is that the prospect, soon dashed, that a strong, non-terrorist Iraq would have emerged, counterbalancing Shiite Iran, were it not for highly ignorant and partisan reporting.
If there is one idea upon which we should reflect as we look back to 9/11, it is that we must look closely at highly partisan stories coming from highly partisan journalists.
THE LEFT IS GASLIGHTING YOU ABOUT ABDUL EL SAYED’S 9/11 POSTS
As a hoped-for result, Bush was excoriated, while a callow, inexperienced Barack Obama was lionized for one street-corner prewar opposition speech, claiming no Saddam-bin Laden connection.
More importantly, perhaps, was the false history that is now embedded in the American zeitgeist. As we reflect on the significance of 9/11, we must conclude that the need to call out partisan journalism is more important now than ever.
John D. O’Connor is a former federal prosecutor and the San Francisco attorney who represented W. Mark Felt during his revelation as Deep Throat in 2005. O’Connor is the author of the book, Postgate: How the Washington Post Betrayed Deep Throat, Covered Up Watergate, and Began Today’s Partisan Advocacy Journalism.