For the past fifteen weeks, the Bush administration and Congress have succeeded in forging a successful, bipartisan partnership as the nation went to war against the al Qaeda terrorist network and its Taliban supporters in Afghanistan. But now that the military campaign in South Asia is entering a post-combat pause (even as U.S. and allied special operations forces continue to hunt for Osama bin Laden, Taliban leader Mullah Omar and their senior lieutenants), it is time for the nation to undertake an equally grave and serious challenge here at home.

It is time to launch a comprehensive inquest into the causes of the success of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

Two prominent U.S. Senators last week formally moved to start the process. Sens. Joseph I. Lieberman, D-CT, the Democratic vice presidential nominee in 2000, and John McCain, R-AZ, who unsuccessfully sought the 2000 Republican presidential nomination won by President George W. Bush, introduced legislation to create a 14- member, bipartisan investigative commission with subpoena power to make a full accounting. A separate measure by two other senators would create a 12-member panel.

"Determining the cause and circumstances of the terrorist attacks will ensure that those who lost their lives on this second American day of infamy did not die in vain," Lieberman told reporters on Dec. 20.

The objective of such a probe should be threefold: (1) To compile an authoritative, accurate and detailed body of facts on how the terrorist cells succeeded in organizing and carrying out the deadly hijackings; (2) to determine accountability of any failures by government officials – or governmental policies and organizational structure – that enabled the al Qaeda conspiracy to succeed, and (3) to identify a full range of legal reforms and governmental reorganizations necessary to minimize the chances that subsequent attacks could occur. The probe should aim at maximum public disclosure of the facts, although it is inevitable that some material will be withheld to avoid undermining ongoing security and counter-terror measures.

No doubt there are powerful pressures on both sides of the political establishment to defer or sidestep such an inquest. The chief concern, of course, is that such a probe may re-ignite the harsh partisan antagonisms that dominated presidential politics only a year ago, and which could easily wreck the spirit of political cooperation between the White House and Congress that is essential if the nation is to continue this long-term campaign against terrorism.

And it is also a safe assumption that many of the Executive Branch departments and agencies charged with military, intelligence, law enforcement or immigration roles are uncomfortable with the prospect of subpoenas and sworn testimony regarding the apparent ease by which the hijackers organized, funded, trained for and carried out their suicidal attacks.

But examining the spate of news media reports since Sept. 11 that have addressed the issue of pre-attack evidence of an impending terrorist strike at the American heartland, it is impossible for a responsible government to do anything less than a no-holds-barred examination of what allowed this atrocity to occur.

Several key issues have already surfaced that demand a full accounting:

Hijacked airliners as suicide weapons: Terrorists in 1994 who hijacked a French airliner and flew it to Marseilles – where French commandos successfully stormed the aircraft – admitted in custody they planned to crash the airplane into the Eiffel Tower in Paris. A year later, officials in the Philippines quashed a terrorist plot that included plans to hijack and crash up to 12 American airliners over the Pacific and possibly crash another into CIA headquarters. If that terrorist scenario was not at the top of the list of U.S. intelligence agency “warnings and indications” six years before Sept. 11, the inquest needs to find out why not.

Intelligence and law enforcement cooperation: As more and more information emerges concerning the activities of the hijackers prior to the 9-11 attacks, it is becoming clear that federal officials received warnings that could have easily led to the unmasking of the terrorist plot prior to the attacks. However, it is also clear that two federal agencies that received warnings from commercial flight schools about two suspicious students – the FBI and Federal Aviation Administration – failed to take effective action.

An instructor at the Minnesota flight school where indicted suspect Zacarias Moussaoui was enrolled made several warning calls to the FBI concerning the French Morroccan. The flight instructor, a former U.S. military pilot, was acutely suspicious about Moussaoui’s behavior and intent, specifically that he wanted to learn to fly a Boeing 747 but was incompetent to carry out the complex maneuvers of landing and takeoff. Moussaoui was detained on immigration charges on Aug. 16, but neither the FBI or other federal agencies reportedly launched a terrorism probe until after the Sept. 11 attacks, even though French authorities had warned the U.S. government of Moussaoui’s connections to Muslim extremists.

Similarly, instructors at a flight school in Arizona raised similar questions to the FAA about a Saudi student named Hani Hanjour, who was determined to learn how to fly multi-engine jet aircraft despite his lack of competency in English (the universal language required of all commercial pilots). The agency’s response, The New York Times reported Dec. 21, was to offer the services of a tutor. Hanjour weeks later flew American Airlines Flight 77 into the Pentagon.

These reports clearly suggest a failure of alertness among federal agencies responsible for security and aviation safety. A central pillar of the inquest should center on inter-agency cooperation and information-sharing and the degree to which this failure led to the 9-11 attacks.

Policy and Vision Failure: After investigating the 1996 bombing of the military barracks at Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia, retired Army Gen. Wayne Downing warned that the United States faced an “undeclared war” from al Qaeda. Yet it is clear from recent in-depth articles in Vanity Fair magazine and The Washington Post that despite subsequent attacks on the east African embassies in 1998 and the destroyer USS Cole in 2000, as well as thwarted attacks in Jordan and Los Angeles in 2000, the Clinton administration long failed to recognize or treat the growing terrorist threat as a major hazard facing the nation. The record may be unkind to the Bush I administration (for precipitously abandoning Afghanistan as an international issue following the departure of Soviet troops in 1989) as well as the Reagan administration before it (which suffered a major policy failure and two major terrorist attacks in Lebanon in 1983, often cited by radical Islamists as evidence that the United States would quickly turn tail and run if attacked).

A constrained U.S. intelligence community: To what degree did existing acts of Congress and presidential executive orders prevent the CIA and other intelligence agencies from intelligence-gathering and covert operations that could have penetrated the al Qaeda terrorist planning before its deadly anti-American campaign began? To what degree did existing regulations and laws prevent the intelligence agencies from obtaining support from their counterparts in other countries?

Anthrax warnings and defenses: To what degree did the Pentagon and other federal agencies (Centers or Disease Control) fail to anticipate the nature of the biological warfare threat – and the level of preparation required to organize an effective defense and response – illuminated in the spreading of anthrax vaccines through the U.S. Postal Service? How effective has been oversight by the Congress and Defense Department into the sole contractor responsible for producing anthrax vaccine?

When disasters as immense as the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor or as isolated as a military “friendly-fire” mishap occur, it is all too easy to succumb to what scholars term “the myth of the inevitability of history.” That is, just because something happened, it was inevitable that events would unfold in the order that they did.

That doesn’t wash. America deserves, and Americans should demand, a full, fair and comprehensive accounting.

Because the heart of the 9-11 inquest will focus on the conduct of both the Executive Branch and Congress in the years and months prior to the attacks, it is reasonable to conclude, as Sen. McCain has done, that the task requires an independent commission that is free of pressure or influence from either the White House or Congress. There is ample precedent, ranging from the Warren Commission probe of the Kennedy assassination to the independent military Base Realignment and Closure Commission.

"Neither the administration nor Congress is capable of conducting a thorough, nonpartisan, independent inquiry into what happened on September 11th, or to propose far-reaching reforms needed to protect our people and institutions against the enemies of freedom," McCain said. He’s right.

The best solution is to turn to independent leaders who have already been vindicated in their perception and judgment. Former Sens. Gary Hart and Warren Rudman co-chaired a commission on national security issues that spent several years challenging the assumptions and studying the new trends of defense and security facing the nation. Their U.S. Commission on National Security/21^st Century issued a report earlier this year starkly warning of the vulnerability of the U.S. homeland to terrorist attack.

The American people will be well-served for the Bush administration and Congress to create a new Hart-Rudman Commission and charge it with the grave responsibility of unearthing the full truth of why we failed to anticipate and prevent the attacks on 9-11.

Ed Offley is Editor of DefenseWatch. He can be reached at defensewatch@aol.com.

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Hack’s Target For The Week: A Christmas Wish – Let’s End Our Role as Globocop

by David H. Hackworth

The Christmas season's here once more. But for thousands of our defenders, the holidays are resounding with tramping boots in foreign lands rather than yuletide caroling at home.

Once again our warriors are deployed around the globe, fighting in dangerous places and continuing to defend other people's turf for reasons that don't always compute.

Since I was a kid, the sound of American boots marching off to war has come to seem as inevitable to the young men of this nation – and now, unfortunately, to the young women as well – as spring rain.

First there was World War II, a just war against totalitarian monsters in which – as with today's terrorist crazies – we had to either whip 'em or wind up suffering the terrible consequences.

But once the Axis was put down in 1945, America became the self-appointed guardian of Western civilization, and Johnny didn't come marching home. Like the Romans and Brits before us, we began setting up outposts around the world without any mind of the burden or the cost.

This long occupation has been intermittently interrupted by the occasional hot war, as with Korea – another just conflict that certainly was in our national interests – or Vietnam – were we had no reason for going except the greed of the war profiteers.

More tramp, tramp, tramping of American boots was heard after Vietnam, first in Lebanon, then Grenada and Panama, followed by Kuwait and Iraq, Somalia and Haiti and Bosnia, Kosovo and Macedonia. Few of these operations had anything to do with our national security, but all have been big winners when it comes to the bottom lines of the companies and individuals that make up the military-industrial-congressional complex. Special kudos should go here to the hard-lobbying oil cartel, which continues to make sure our way of life includes bigger and better gas-guzzling SUVs. Defending those far-flung oil fields keeps ratcheting up the goodies – troops, toys and dollars – in the game.

Not only have the past six decades of hot- and cold-war bucks been finger-lickin' good for the game's insiders who slip back and forth between government and business, they have also motivated a lot of fanatics around the world to hate all things American. And now many of these scary types are willing to kamikaze planes into buildings on Main Street USA or drive explosive-laden trucks into our facilities in other countries where we probably shouldn't be.

We maintain about 100,000 military personnel in both Europe and Asia – where many of the locals want us gone yesterday – at a cost of billions of dollars per year. The locals rightly say that we've overstayed our mission, which ended when another empire, the Soviet Union, bellied up and followed the path of the Romans and the Brits into history's dustbin. So it doesn't make a lick of military sense. Not only are these people more than capable of defending themselves against now mainly nonexistent threats, the average Hans and Kim are chanting, "Yankee go home."

Look at Europe, which we've defended with our blood and dollars since before we got stuck into both World Wars. After madmen clobbered the USA on Sept. 11, our so-called friends there couldn't wait to criticize us for punching out the perps, and now they're offering little help in this critical fight. If the twin towers had been the Eiffel Tower and we didn't rush to the rescue, the French would be demanding we return the Statue of Liberty!

Sure we need a strong military ready to defend America, but we need one that – as opposed to the Roman, Brit and Soviet models – follows the wise guidance of our Founding Fathers when they said that we shouldn't do a Pax Americana and stick our nose in other folks' dealings.

As we celebrate peace and goodwill on Earth, we must examine each overseas commitment and ask: Does this mission have the moral right? Is it in our national interest? And is it a militarily imperative or just a good deal to make the MICC's cash register ring? The arms biz is where, sadly, we lead the world by a factor of four in ventures that more than often have little to do with peace or good will.

http://www.hackworth.com is the address of David Hackworth's home page. Sign in for the free weekly Defending America column at his Web site. Send mail to P.O. Box 11179, Greenwich, CT 06831.

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ARTICLE 01 – Battle Still Raging for Islamic World Support

By Robert G. Williscroft

The release by the White House of the first transcript of the amateur videotape showing Osama bin Laden and Khaled al-Harbi gleefully discussing the Sept. 11 attack on the United States shocked viewers around the world. A subsequent version of the tape transcript disclosed last week contains new information that shows while bin Laden and al Qaeda may have lost in Afghanistan, they may be poised to win a major tactical victory elsewhere – in the hearts and minds of over 1.2 billion Muslims worldwide.

Thus, the war between the civilized world and bin Laden’s extremist Islamic beliefs has now shifted to a different battleground of religious interpretation and political leadership within Islam itself. The stakes remain grave.

Reaction to the original version of the videotape was swift but partisan, with many Muslim leaders and a majority of those common Muslims interviewed by reporters taking a skeptical view of the tape, or even condemning it outright as a forgery. Elsewhere, worldwide reaction was an acknowledgment that the tape was a smoking gun implicating bin Laden directly and materially in the Sept 11 attack. It caused a shudder to pass through the civilized world with the inescapable conclusion that a major world religion was being used to justify the indiscriminate murder of innocent human beings.

Then last Friday, Dec. 21, The Washington Post received a translation of an expanded version of the transcript from an Arabic specialist it declines to identify. The Post reported that this translation was verified with two other Arab experts. The material contained in both versions is essentially identical, but the new version includes information that was indistinct or hard to hear on the tape, and that was excluded from the first translation.

Moderate Islamic leaders in the United States have, for the most part, publicly condemned bin Laden. Before the release of the tape, the Council on American Islamic Relations refused to accept bin Laden's complicity in the Sept. 11 attacks. But with the release of the tape, spokesman Ibrahim Hooper said: "Now, it's clear from the statements in the videotape that he was complicit in the attacks and had foreknowledge of the attacks." He added that he was "sickened" by the bin Laden contention that the attacks had benefited Islam.

Yusuf Mohamed is a Labor Department attorney active in the community of young Muslim professionals. He had wanted to believe that a Muslim was not responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks. After the tape's release, however, he changed his mind. "This tape is damning. If this was a trial, I would see a very hard time for a jury to acquit with this sort of evidence. I don't see how anyone won't trust this," he said.

Mohamed Magid is director of the All Dulles Area Muslim Society in Sterling, Va. He described hearing about the tape in his car: "When I was in my car this morning, I heard this was being released and I thought, 'Oh no!' What came to mind is that people should not stereotype us because of bin Laden, and that bin Laden is quoting the Qur'an and is misunderstanding the Qur'an."

Magid pinpointed the critical question: What does the Qur'an really say, and does bin Laden accurately reflect what it says?

Like any world religion, Islam exists in many interpretations. In the limited space available here it is not possible to present even a superficial analysis of each of these. It is possible, however, to present the general flavor, the all-encompassing belief structure that cradles each of the many "denominations," to borrow a term from Christianity.

An analogous picture for Christianity would be something like this: (1) The framework: Humankind was created by God without sin, but fell into sin. Loving his fallible human creation, God sacrificed his son to atone for humankind's sins. Any human who purposefully accepts this atonement will be saved from the eternal damnation reserved for everyone else. (2) The underlying mindset: (a) Do no violence; (b) "Turn the other cheek," and (c) Forgive when asked. Differences in Christian denominations result from interpretations of specific verses, clauses, or phrases in the Bible, and more specifically the New Testament.

Islam rests on five pillars: (1) Profession of faith ("There is no god but Allah, and Mohammad is His messenger."). (2) The establishment of five daily prayers. (3) Payment of the Zakat – a mandatory charitable payment. (4) Observation of the fast of Ramadan. (5) The Hajj to Mecca – the obligatory pilgrimage to Mecca, if affordable. These are common to all forms of Islam.

Islam is based on two writings, the Qur'an, revealed by Allah to Mohammad over 23 years during the 7th century, and the Sunnah of the Prophet, which is a recording of the Prophet's life. The Sunnah is contained within a larger body of writings called the Hadith. Since the Hadith contains writings that are not necessarily "confirmed" as to their origin, only the Sunnah itself is considered sacred. The Qur'an and Sunnah, taken together, form the basis for Islamic jurisprudence. Differences between Islamic denominations or sects result from interpretations of specific verses, clauses, or phrases from either the Qur'an or Sunnah.

The Shari'ah consists of the Qur'an, Sunnah, and a constantly evolving collection of fatwas or rulings that deal with ideology and faith, behavior and manners, and practical daily matters. The fatwas are either prescribed, recommended, permissible, disliked, or unlawful.

Throughout Islamic history, Imams and Mullahs have issued these fatwas, which have the force of law among Muslims, similar to a ruling by a western court. As in the West, these rulings can be confirmed or overturned by a higher authority, by issuing a Fiqh. This is the gist of why the bin Laden tape is so important. The tape contains several significant fatwas, and makes reference to several well-established fiqhs, in effect linking them to the fatwas. If unchallenged by higher Islamic authority, these fatwas become part of Islamic law, and must be observed by all Muslims.

On the tape Shaykh Sulayman 'Ulwan is quoted by Khaled al-Harbi as having issued a fatwa containing these words: " … [the Sept. 11 attack] was Jihad, and those people [World Trade Center and Pentagon victims] were not innocent people." Then al-Harbi said, “Ulwan swore to Allah that this fatwa was transmitted to him by Allah,” implying its genuine authenticity. Unless challenged by higher Islamic authority, the non-innocence of the Sept. 11 attack victims will become an integral part of Islamic jurisprudence. To date, no authoritative Islamic cleric has issued a fiqh reversing this statement.

Bin Laden quotes a verse from the Hadith: "I was ordered to fight the people until they say there is no god but Allah, and his prophet Muhammad." In quoting this verse in this context, he is generating a fatwa linking the Sept. 11 attack to an order from Allah. Unless set aside by a specific fiqh from higher authority, this, also, becomes part of Islamic jurisprudence.

Bin Laden then said: "Some people may ask: Why do you want to fight us? There is an association between those who say: I believe in one god and Muhammad is his prophet, and those who don't. Those who do not follow the true fiqh, the fiqh of Muhammad, the real fiqh, are just accepting what is being said at face value. Those youth who conducted the operations did not accept any fiqh in the popular terms, but they accepted the fiqh that the prophet Muhammad brought. Those young men … said in deeds, in New York and Washington, speeches that overshadowed all other speeches made everywhere else in the world."

Here, bin Laden is assuming the cloak of Muhammad himself by connecting the actions of Sept. 11 directly to "the fiqh that the prophet Muhammad brought." He dismisses any alternative interpretation or fiqh as popular misinterpretation of Islam.

Unless specifically countered with a fiqh by an Islamic cleric recognized throughout the world for his authority, this interpretation will be taken by common Muslims everywhere as a universal call to Jihad. Already in mosques across the Islamic sphere of influence, clerics are exhorting to Jihad, confirming bin Laden's fatwa that Sept. 11 was ordered by Allah.

Moderate Islamic clerics in America are preaching that Jihad takes place inside the heart and soul of a Muslim – a basic struggle between good and evil – but this message pales in the face of a universal call to arms to approximately 1.2 billion Muslims worldwide.

Unless moderate Muslim clerics take a vociferous and clear stance renouncing bin Laden's fatwas, and unless the Imams and Mullahs of worldwide Islam unite to discredit bin Laden's insidious perversion of Islam, his version will prevail, and the world will be headed towards a disastrous world-encompassing Jihad for which there can be only one possible outcome: the total destruction of Islam and Islamic culture and society everywhere.

Robert G. Williscroft is DefenseWatch Navy Editor. He can be reached at dwnavyeditor@argee.net.

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ARTICLE 02 – Denying Success in Human Intelligence Collection

Special Series: Third of Four Installments

By J. David Galland

The targets of U.S. intelligence collection efforts, whether governmental or non-governmental organizations, are normally aware that they will be subject to penetration attempts by the United States or other foreign governments, opposition groups, political parties or other unanticipated directions. All have varying motivations, different goals, and perceived justifications.

Organizations such as opposition political parties, national liberation movements, and terrorist groups, should rightfully assume that they will be targeted for intelligence collection – particularly if they themselves are operating within the borders of the United States.

One of the recent issues facing the U.S. intelligence community has been the fact that congressional intelligence oversight committees, and nongovernmental watchdog panels view domestic intelligence collection with disdain. In recent years, these groups have focused on the constitutional rights of a potential spy, or the proper conduct of intelligence operations, as opposed to domestic security and national defense.

It is important both for citizens and elected officials to understand that neither intelligence operations, nor counter-intelligence operations, are the same as criminal investigations. Intelligence collection must not be constrained by the rule of law or traditional jurisprudence per se. In response to this, neither should counter-intelligence efforts be hamstrung by the legal rules of a possible future prosecution or the admissibility of evidence in a courtroom. What must determine the guidelines for collection missions and counter-intelligence operations is the level of danger and the validity of the threat, as well as the potential value of the intelligence "take."

Given the general awareness among governments and subnational organizations such as al Qaeda to U.S. and Western intelligence-gathering capabilities, it is logical to presume in coming years that collection efforts will continue to encounter new and increasingly sophisticated measures to thwart them. Circumventing and overcoming such counter-intelligence efforts will be a very dangerous business, and a rather tall order.

During the Cold War era, security precautions to deny collection in the communist bloc were governed by a paranoid suspicion of outsiders and the secretiveness of entire societies. A classic example of the multi-tiered counter- intelligence effort is the former East Germany. With its many civilian, military and police intelligence services, bolstered by its paranoid suspicious political system, East Germany was able to protect itself quite well from the West. Any experienced case officer can affirm that East German intelligence targets were a hard nut to crack. Invariably, it would be assumed that any human East German intelligence source was either doubled, or was, in fact, a double agent. Some double agents flourished and collected for as long as thirty years.

With the opening of East Berlin in 1989, and the seizing of the files of the East German security service (the Staatssicherheitsdienst, or "Stasi") this was proven to be a chillingly correct assumption. The Stasi files are now referred to as the "Gauck Files," for the name of a cleric who rescued and secured these files at the central repository building after the Berlin Wall came down in 1989. Since that time, these files have been thoroughly exploited and researched by U.S. and German Intelligence agencies, most particularly the Bundesna