Let There Be Light

By: William Rivers Pitt

"We dance round in a ring and suppose, but the Secret sits in the middle and knows."

- Robert Frost

It has been 130 days since September 11^th. We have heard many debates, accusations, and arguments about the genesis of the attacks. Every major news agency, and every talking head with a whisper of breath in their lungs, has weighed in. We have been told how we should respond. We have been told how we should feel. We have been told how we can help. In all that time, however, something essential has been missing.

We have yet to be told how such a thing was allowed to happen in the first place.

It is a curious phenomenon. Whenever anything occurs in this country, be it a shark attack or the disappearance of a Capitol Hill intern, the media drumbeat has always played the same tune: Why? Why? Why did this happen? This Greek chorus has fallen silent in the weeks since the Towers came down. Rather than question the genesis of our woe, we have been afforded endless observations about how we have and should react. There is no looking back. There are no answers.

Thousands of Americans died on September 11^th, and thousands of Afghan civilians have joined them in the dust in the days since. Millions, nay, billions worldwide have been affected. American soldiers stand in peril to defend our freedom, or so we are told. Yet we are afforded no answers, no understanding, no succor. All we have are threads of data flapping in the winds of battle and response. We deserve better.

The time has come to take those threads and weave them together as best we can.

It cannot be denied that the attacks of September 11^th represent the most spectacular Intelligence failure in the history of the nation. The planning required to pull off such an audacious attack likely was years in the making, formulated by people all across the planet. Somehow, these people managed to locate and exploit a security loophole left by the mighty FBI, CIA and NSA, and flew four deadly bombs laden with fuel and humanity right through it.

There are two possible explanations for this astounding lapse.

The first is that, despite all the funding they are provided by our tax dollars, despite all the human and technological resources at their disposal, these agencies failed utterly to glean even a whiff of menace. If this proves to be the case, every individual employed by these agencies should be fired with prejudice. The buildings that house them should be razed to the ground, and the rubble burned. The earth upon which they sat should be salted, so nothing will ever grow there again.

If this proves to be the case, these agencies should be torn down brick by brick and built anew for the sake of our safety. They let it happen through negligence, ergo they should cease to exist, and a new cadre should be brought in who can be trusted to defend the interests and security of this country. These axioms are being applied in Afghanistan; they should be applied right here at home.

The other possibility is far more sinister, and smacks of all the bleak realities we have become far too familiar and comfortable with. The other possibility is that the September 11^th attacks happened because powerful men were pursuing an agenda of self-interest, in defiance of prudence and security, and their very presence in the equation created the opening for the attack.

It has been widely reported that 13 of the 19 terrorists who commandeered the aircraft on September 11^th were from Saudi Arabia, and that some 80% of all Al Qaeda recruits come from that oil-rich nation. It stands to reason, therefore, that American Intelligence agencies would have a vested interest in paying a great deal of attention to Saudi Arabia. Somehow, however, these terrorists managed to elude notice until they appeared in the blue New York sky.

American security concerns overseas fall primarily within the bailiwick of the Central Intelligence Agency. This agency was run in the 1970's by none other than George Herbert Walker Bush, father of the sitting Commander-in-Chief and a former President himself. Bush Sr. ranks among the most venerated members of the Old Guard from the Nixon and Reagan days, and commands the loyalty of government officials past and present. Because of his long years in politics, Bush Sr. also enjoys a vast array of business connections. This is common knowledge, available in any updated high school history textbook.

Since his departure from the political scene, however, the activities of Bush Sr. have not been paid much attention by the national media. Supporters of the former President would be pleased to know that he has done quite well for himself. He has, in the days since his defeat at the hands of William Jefferson Clinton, secured a position on the advisory board of an organization called the Carlyle Group.

The Carlyle Group is a multi-national, multi-billion dollar private investment firm, managed by former members of the Reagan and Bush administrations, and is involved in everything from soda bottling to pharmaceuticals manufacture. It is here that Bush Sr., whose contacts with Saudi Arabia have been legend since the forming of the Gulf War coalition, comes into play. As early as January of 2000, Bush Sr. was courting the favor of Saudi crown prince Abdullah in the name of Carlyle, which was working with the telecommunications giant SBC to gain control of a large share of the Saudi phone system. He has, over the years, done similar outreach work for Carlyle's oil interests, because the petroleum/energy business is central to the Group's financial strength.

It has long been true that the business of America is business, to the detriment of many other important factors. Given the connections between the former President and head of CIA, a major energy business player, and a nation that contains oil and terrorists in equal measure, questions about conflict of interest must be raised.

The American petroleum industry relies upon the stability of Saudi Arabia to keep their oil flowing in the proper fashion. Because the business of America is business, it is not too far a leap to conclude that the business of the American Intelligence community is also business, deliberately so. Public questions about and investigations into Saudi Arabia's hosting of terrorists like Osama bin Laden, whose family calls that nation home, would certainly make it difficult for the American petroleum industry to work comfortably with the Saudi regime. Add to this the fact that the CIA, whose job it would be to investigate terrorist connections in Saudi Arabia, claims as its former head Bush Sr., who has a vested financial interests in healthy and unobstructed U.S.-Saudi relations.

The result of this line of inquiry is chilling. Could the CIA have been dissuaded from fully investigating the roots of terrorism in Saudi Arabia because such investigations would have conflicted with the interests of entities like the Carlyle Group? If this was not the case, the explanation must be chalked up to simple incompetence. Considering the complexity of what transpired on September 11^th, the simple answer is not reliable. Occam's Razor fails in the face of the facts.

The sins of the father may well have been visited upon the son. George W. Bush's affinity for the energy industry is well-known, and his personal financial involvement in a number of oil businesses before his political career is part of the record. His administration is riddled with dozens of high-ranking appointees who held a large amount of stock in the now-defunct Enron corporation. Many of these people are also former Enron employees. Enron, a giant in the energy industry, contributed millions to Bush's political aspirations. The company was heavily involved with Vice President Cheney, himself an energy industry veteran from the Halliburton Petroleum Corporation, in the creation of national energy policy behind closed, locked doors.

Enron's dazzling financial implosion on December 2^nd, 2001, has led to a number of pressing investigations into the circumstances behind the collapse. More than a few questions about the financial and political connections between Enron's chairman, Kenneth Lay, and George W. Bush have been raised. The intense scrutiny has shaken loose two emails sent by Lay to his employees in August of last year. In them, Lay waxes optimistic about the strength and stability of his company, and exhorts his employees to buy into the company's stock program.

Most observers view this as the gasping lies of a drowning criminal, desperate to keep his operation from flying apart under the burden of his and his associates' shoddy business practices. When held up against recently revealed information, however, Mr. Lay's messages must be considered in a different light.

A book recently published in France titled 'Osama bin Laden: The Hidden Truth' by Jean-Charles Brisard and Guillaume Dasique has put some serious questions on the table for consideration. In 1998, American oil company Unocal's attempt to build a pipeline from Turkmenistan through Afghanistan to Pakistan, in order to exploit the vast Turkmenistan natural gas fields, was foiled by Osama bin Laden's attack on American embassies in Africa. The Clinton administration forbade any company from dealing with the Taliban, protectors of bin Laden, who were in control of Afghanistan at the time.

Upon his arrival in Washington D.C. in 2000, Bush revived negotiations with the Taliban to see this pipeline through. High-level talks between Washington and Kabul continued through August of 2001 to this very purpose. The Bush administration was trying to get the Taliban on board with the pipeline idea, and believed they could depend upon the regime to be stable enough to see it built. The rationale for these actions is simplicity itself: Bush's campaign was funded by the energy industry, and negotiations like this were their payoff. The business of America is business.

Problems arise when one considers the fact that the chief bin Laden hunter in America, former Deputy Director John O'Neill, quit his post in protest some two weeks before the September 11^th attacks. O'Neill had been the lead investigator in several previous bin Laden-controlled attacks, and was considered to be the most knowledgeable man in America about the terrorist mastermind's activities and capabilities. He quit in frustration, stating that his efforts at capturing bin Laden had been thwarted by oil interests in America, and by a desire by powerful people to protect America's relationship with Saudi Arabia. After leaving the FBI, O'Neill took a job at head of security at the World Trade Center, and died in the September 11^th attack. The irony of this is agonizing.

O'Neill knew that bin Laden called Afghanistan home. Was he kept from pursuing the terrorist there by an administration that wanted to protect its relationship with the Taliban in order to see the pipeline through? Did his departure create a security gap in America that allowed the attacks to take place? Conversely, did America's dalliance with the Taliban incite bin Laden to attack? It is well documented that his terrorist career began with the arrival of American troops onto Saudi soil, a land he considered sacred. Was he motivated to attack again when his new home seemed ready to allow the Crusaders in?

Finally, does this pipeline deal shine a light onto the emailed optimism of Kenneth Lay? There is no question that Enron was Bush's favorite company. If the pipeline was to happen, it is easy to imagine that Enron would get the contract. Lay would have known this. His last email was sent on August 27^th, about the same time as the last U.S./Taliban meeting. If a deal was near at hand, and if he knew that his company was about to get a plum government contract, he had every reason to be optimistic about the future.

Is this why Arthur Andersen was ordered to shred documents? Did those documents detail the preparations for the pipeline, thus demonstrating beyond doubt that Bush was dealing with the Taliban? Were the consequences of releasing these documents more damaging than the consequences of destroying them because of this?

It will be a long hot season before we know the half of it. One thing, however, is certain. Not long from today, we will stand in observance. Before we know it, one year will have passed since the attacks of September 11^th, 2001. We will light candles, unfurl wind-tattered flags, sing patriotic songs, and remember the dead. In that year we will have mourned for those lost, and mourned the passing of an age of innocence in America. The oceans that separate us, the armies that guard us, the weapons that make others fear us, protected us not at all on September 11^th. The security we felt before that day is gone forever.

We deserve to know why.