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Wednesday, August 22, 2007

Tenet was too busy to worry about Al-Qaeda

The big story in the American media this morning is that George Tenet's CIA never developed a plan to go after Osama Bin Laden and al-Qaeda before 9/11.
The CIA’s top leaders failed to use their available powers, never developed a comprehensive plan to stop al-Qaida and missed crucial opportunities to thwart two hijackers in the run-up to Sept. 11, the agency’s own watchdog concluded in a bruising report released Tuesday.

Completed in June 2005 and kept classified until now, the 19-page executive summary finds extensive fault with the actions of senior CIA leaders and others beneath them. “The agency and its officers did not discharge their responsibilities in a satisfactory manner,” the CIA inspector general found.

“They did not always work effectively and cooperatively,” the report stated.
Some of my American readers may be wondering what Tenet was doing if he was too busy to worry about al-Qaeda during the run-up to 9/11. Here in Israel, we know what he was doing: He was worrying about the 'poor Palestinians.'

On June 14, 2001, Tenet got the 'security organizations' of the Government of Israel and the 'Palestinian Authority to agree to something with the august title of "Palestinian-Israeli Security Implementation Work Plan (Tenet cease-fire plan)." Like every other 'cease fire' plan, the Israelis ceased and the 'Palestinians' fired until Ariel Sharon launched Operation Defensive Shield in March 2002.

Three thousand Americans perished on 9/11 partly because the director of the CIA was more worried about 'saving' the potential creation of a 'Palestinian' state reichlet that was being pushed by the US State Department than he was about going after the group that had bombed the USS Cole on October 12, 2000.

At Captain's Quarters, Ed Morrissey points out:
Tenet has often complained that counterterrorism funding didn't give the CIA enough resources to do the job. The IG doesn't necessarily deny that, but it points out that Tenet transferred significant funds away from CT operations and planning for non-CT purposes. Even after Tenet told the CIA in 1998 that he wanted no resources spared for CT, funds never got transferred from other priorities to CT. The CTC also left money on the table unspent, which indicates that funding wasn't a big problem at the time.
I wonder how much of those resources was diverted by Tenet to training 'Palestinian police' who would eventually murder Jews and to trying to bring about the creation of a 'Palestinian state.'
The misguided attempt began in 1996, when the CIA led an effort - engineered by then deputy director George Tenet - to train the Palestinian authorities in anti-terror tactics.

The initiative was secretly authorized by President Clinton, who later signed a Presidential order sanctioning the expansion of the program to include chaperoned tours of the CIA and FBI headquarters buildings for Palestinian security chiefs. The covert training and funding operation continued over the next two years, existing wholly outside of the public's view.

In 1998, President Clinton - anxious to cement his legacy as Middle East peacemaker - pushed for an expanded and formalized security assistance effort which would be included as a provision in the Wye River agreement.

While the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was initially reluctant to accept such an idea, Clinton managed to browbeat the Israeli delegation into compliance, an acquiescence which ensured the continuation and growth of the formerly covert training program.

In doing so, the President ignored the warnings of several veteran Israeli counter-terrorist officials, who repeatedly warned their American counterparts that several high-ranking Palestinian terrorists such as Al-Aqsa Brigades leader Nasser Awis were simultaneously serving as senior security officials in the Palestinian Authority, with responsibility for conducting counter-terrorist operations.

Within months of the Wye agreement, the first Palestinian trainees arrived aboard U.S. government aircraft. Their training regimen was rigorous, far superior to the domestic 'boot camps' offered by the Palestinian government or terrorist groups.

The Palestinian units were ferried to various military installations, where they were given advanced small-arms training on firing ranges normally used by the U.S. Army and special forces units. Additionally, the recruits were taught how to effectively protect high-value targets and 'motorcade operations,' skills that could easily be transferred into protecting terrorist leaders from Israeli capture.

Many of the former CIA trainees turned terrorists have since praised the CIA course, including Jaara, who made a point to extol the CIA's 'shooting' course.

Perhaps most disturbingly, however, was that the Palestinian officers were given 'interrogation' training, which, in the hands of those who work in the espionage services of groups such as Fatah, could prove extremely valuable.

American officials reasoned that - emboldened by their new training - Palestinian authorities would immediately and aggressively crack down on terrorist groups such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad, who were consistently breaking ceasefire agreements during the late 1990s.

To the U.S. government's dismay, many of the Palestinian security officers quickly joined or began aiding the very terrorist groups which they had been trained to combat.

Security personnel were also observed transferring arms and their American training to militia groups such as the Tanzim, which was led by convicted terrorist Marwan Barghuti.

Indicative of the Clinton administration's staggering ignorance over this issue was a class of 18 Palestinians brought to a top-secret location near CIA headquarters in 1998 for a course in 'anti-terrorist techniques'.

American officials failed to realize, however, that most of the men hailed from cities where militant infiltration of the police forces was acute, such as Nablus.

Not surprisingly, as detailed in the San Francisco Chronicle, several of the students went on to become some of the most dangerous terrorists in the Palestinian territories, including the infamous Khaled Abu Nijmeh, who used his CIA training to supervise multiple suicide bombings in 2001 and 2002 in Bethlehem.

More than half of the original class of 18 went on to become fighters in the Al-Aqsa brigades.

Beginning in 1999, Israeli government officials began suggesting that the American training effort be scaled back, in order to better judge its overall effectiveness. In addition, Prime Minister Ehud Barak complained to the White House that Yasser Arafat was using his seemingly close relations with the CIA to bolster his negotiating position, which had become increasingly aggressive.

Tel Aviv's requests fell on deaf ears in Washington, which stubbornly clung to the pipe dream that Arafat's police forces would - given enough American aid and training - eventually confront the various militant organizations.

This expectation was abruptly dashed during the intifada of 2000, in which large numbers of Palestinian police joined militant groups in fighting the Israeli Defense Force.

The sight of Palestinian police stripping off their uniforms and engaging in raging street battles with Israeli forces became commonplace. At the same time, the Palestinian authorities failed miserably to curtain the actions of terrorist organizations, who operated with total impunity inside the territories.

2 Comments:

At 11:29 AM, Blogger Nannette said...

Fatah Militant: U.S. Training Was Key to Intifada's Success

American-run programs that train Fatah militias were instrumental in the "success" of the Palestinian intifada that began in 2000, a senior Fatah militant told The New York Sun.

"I do not think that the operations of the Palestinian resistance would have been so successful and would have killed more than one thousand Israelis since 2000 and defeated the Israelis in Gaza without these [American] trainings," a senior officer of President Abbas's Force 17 Presidential Guard unit, Abu Yousuf, said.
America has longstanding training programs at a base in the West Bank city of Jericho for members of Force 17, which serves as de facto police units in the West Bank, and for another major Fatah security force, the Preventative Security Services.

This weekend diplomatic security officials announced that the State Department will begin training Force 17 again this year in an effort to bolster Mr. Abbas against Hamas, which took over the Gaza Strip in June when the terror group easily defeated American-backed Fatah forces in the territory.

Under an agreement signed this month by Secretary of State Rice and Palestinian Arab Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, Force 17 officers are slated to take course work and conduct VIP protection exercises under the State Department's Bureau of Diplomatic Security.
The new training program aims to help the Palestinian Authority "deliver security for the Palestinian people and fight terrorism, build confidence between the parties, and ultimately help to meet the security needs of Palestinians and Israelis alike," a State Department press release said.

The training program, which includes courses in the use of weapons, paid with $86.5 million in funding granted to the Palestinian Authority by Congress in April.

Many members of Force 17 and the Preventative Security Services also openly serve in Fatah's declared "military wing," Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, which took credit along with the Islamic Jihad terror group for every suicide bombing in Israel between 2005 and 2006. The Brigades is responsible for more terrorism from the West Bank than any other Palestinian Arab organization.

Abu Yousuf, the Force 17 officer, received American training in Jericho in 1999 as a member of the Preventative Security Services. He is a chief of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades in Ramallah, where he is accused of participating in anti-Israel terrorism, including recent shootings, attacks against Israeli forces operating in the city, and a shooting attack in northern Samaria in December 2000 that killed the leader of the ultranationalist Kahane Chai organization, Benyamin Kahane.

After the Kahane murder, Mr. Yousuf was extended refuge by Yasser Arafat to live in the late Palestine Liberation Organization leader's Ramallah compound, widely known as the Muqata. Mr. Yousuf still lives in the compound.

Prime Minister Olmert last month granted Mr. Yousuf amnesty along with 178 other Brigades leaders reportedly in a gesture to Mr. Abbas.

Speaking during an interview for the upcoming book "Schmoozing with Terrorists," Mr. Yousuf said his American trainings were instrumental in attacks on Israelis. "All the methods and techniques that we studied in these trainings, we applied them against the Israelis," he said.

"We sniped at Israeli settlers and soldiers. We broke into settlements and Israeli army bases and posts. We collected information on the movements of soldiers and settlers. We collected information about the best timing to infiltrate our bombers inside Israel. We used weapons and we produced explosives, and of course the trainings we received from the Americans and the Europeans were a great help to the resistance."

Mr. Yousuf said the training included both intelligence and military tactics.

"In the intelligence part, we learned collection of information regarding suspected persons, how to follow suspected guys, how to infiltrate organizations and penetrate cells of groups that we were working on and how to prevent attacks and to steal in places," he said.

"On the military level, we received trainings on the use of weapons, all kind of weapons and explosives. We received sniping trainings, work of special units especially as part as what they call the fight against terror. We learned how to put siege, how to break into places where our enemies closed themselves in, how to oppress protest movements, demonstrations, and other activities of opposition."

Mr. Yousuf seemed to anticipate criticism for speaking publicly about the training. He's not "talking about U.S. training in order to irritate the Americans or the Israelis and not in order to create provocations," he said. "I'm just telling you the truth."

 
At 2:20 PM, Blogger Daniel said...

"American-run programs that train Fatah militias were instrumental in the "success" of the Palestinian intifada that began in 2000, a senior Fatah militant told The New York Sun."

Note these policies were under the great liberal Clinton. While that wont affect secular Jewish liberals who don't care about Israel, do you think Orth libs will have a wake up call?
I was once on the left til I realized that the Nazis of today were also there and as a Jew first I could no longer stay.

 

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