- In Afghanistan last November, the Northern
Alliance, supported by American Special Forces troops and emboldened by
the highly accurate American bombing, forced thousands of Taliban and Al
Qaeda fighters to retreat inside the northern hill town of Kunduz. Trapped
with them were Pakistani Army officers, intelligence advisers, and volunteers
who were fighting alongside the Taliban. (Pakistan had been the Taliban's
staunchest military and economic supporter in its long-running war against
the Northern Alliance.) Many of the fighters had fled earlier defeats at
Mazar-i-Sharif, to the west; Taloqan, to the east; and Pul-i-Khumri, to
the south. The road to Kabul, a potential point of retreat, was blocked
and was targeted by American bombers. Kunduz offered safety from the bombs
and a chance to negotiate painless surrender terms, as Afghan tribes often
do.
-
- Surrender negotiations began immediately,
but the Bush Administration heatedly - and successfully - opposed them.
On November 25th, the Northern Alliance took Kunduz, capturing some four
thousand of the Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters. The next day, President
Bush said, "We're smoking them out. They're running, and now we're
going to bring them to justice."
-
- Even before the siege ended, however,
a puzzling series of reports appeared in the Times and in other publications,
quoting Northern Alliance officials who claimed that Pakistani airplanes
had flown into Kunduz to evacuate the Pakistanis there. American and Pakistani
officials refused to confirm the reports. On November 16th, when journalists
asked Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld about the reports of rescue
aircraft, he was dismissive. "Well, if we see them, we shoot them
down," he said. Five days later, Rumsfeld declared, "Any idea
that those people should be let loose on any basis at all to leave that
country and to go bring terror to other countries and destabilize other
countries is unacceptable." At a Pentagon news conference on Monday,
November 26th, the day after Kunduz fell, General Richard B. Myers, of
the Air Force, who is the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was asked
about the reports. The General did not directly answer the question but
stated, "The runway there is not usable. I mean, there are segments
of it that are usable. They're too short for your standard transport aircraft.
So we're not sure where the reports are coming from."
-
- Pakistani officials also debunked the
rescue reports, and continued to insist, as they had throughout the Afghanistan
war, that no Pakistani military personnel were in the country. Anwar Mehmood,
the government spokesman, told newsmen at the time that reports of a Pakistani
airlift were "total rubbish. Hogwash."
-
- In interviews, however, American intelligence
officials and high-ranking military officers said that Pakistanis were
indeed flown to safety, in a series of nighttime airlifts that were approved
by the Bush Administration. The Americans also said that what was supposed
to be a limited evacuation apparently slipped out of control, and, as an
unintended consequence, an unknown number of Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters
managed to join in the exodus. "Dirt got through the screen,"
a senior intelligence official told me. Last week, Secretary of Defense
Rumsfeld did not respond to a request for comment.
-
- Pakistan's leader, General Pervez Musharraf,
who seized power in a 1999 coup, had risked his standing with the religious
fundamentalists"and perhaps his life"by endorsing the American
attack on Afghanistan and the American support of the Northern Alliance.
At the time of Kunduz, his decision looked like an especially dangerous
one. The initial American aim in Afghanistan had been not to eliminate
the Taliban's presence there entirely but to undermine the regime and Al
Qaeda while leaving intact so-called moderate Taliban elements that would
play a role in a new postwar government. This would insure that Pakistan
would not end up with a regime on its border dominated by the Northern
Alliance. By mid-November, it was clear that the Northern Alliance would
quickly sweep through Afghanistan. There were fears that once the Northern
Alliance took Kunduz, there would be wholesale killings of the defeated
fighters, especially the foreigners.
-
- Musharraf won American support for the
airlift by warning that the humiliation of losing hundreds"and perhaps
thousands"of Pakistani Army men and intelligence operatives would
jeopardize his political survival. "Clearly, there is a great willingness
to help Musharraf," an American intelligence official told me. A C.I.A.
analyst said that it was his understanding that the decision to permit
the airlift was made by the White House and was indeed driven by a desire
to protect the Pakistani leader. The airlift "made sense at the time,"
the C.I.A. analyst said. "Many of the people they spirited away were
the Taliban leadership""who Pakistan hoped could play a role
in a postwar Afghan government. According to this person, "Musharraf
wanted to have these people to put another card on the table" in future
political negotiations. "We were supposed to have access to them,"
he said, but "it didn't happen," and the rescued Taliban remain
unavailable to American intelligence.
-
- According to a former high-level American
defense official, the airlift was approved because of representations by
the Pakistanis that "there were guys" intelligence agents and
underground guys"who needed to get out."
-
- Once under way, a senior American defense
adviser said, the airlift became chaotic. "Everyone brought their
friends with them," he said, referring to the Afghans with whom the
Pakistanis had worked, and whom they had trained or had used to run intelligence
operations. "You're not going to leave them behind to get their throats
cut." Recalling the last-minute American evacuation at the end of
the Vietnam War, in 1975, the adviser added, "When we came out of
Saigon, we brought our boys with us." He meant South Vietnamese nationals.
" 'How many does that helicopter hold? Ten? We're bringing fourteen.'
"
-
- The Bush Administration may have done
more than simply acquiesce in the rescue effort: at the height of the standoff,
according to both a C.I.A. official and a military analyst who has worked
with the Delta Force, the American commando unit that was destroying Taliban
units on the ground, the Administration ordered the United States Central
Command to set up a special air corridor to help insure the safety of the
Pakistani rescue flights from Kunduz to the northwest corner of Pakistan,
about two hundred miles away. The order left some members of the Delta
Force deeply frustrated. "These guys did Desert Storm and Mogadishu,"
the military analyst said. "They see things in black-and-white. 'Unhappy'
is not the word. They're supposed to be killing people." The airlift
also angered the Northern Alliance, whose leadership, according to Reuel
Gerecht, a former Near East operative for the C.I.A., had sought unsuccessfully
for years to "get people to pay attention to the Pakistani element"
among the Taliban. The Northern Alliance was eager to capture "mainline
Pakistani military and intelligence officers" at Kunduz, Gerecht said.
"When the rescue flights started, it touched a raw nerve."
-
- Just as Pakistan has supported the Taliban
in Afghanistan, Pakistan's arch-rival India has supported the Northern
Alliance. Operatives in India's main external intelligence unit"known
as RAW, for Research and Analysis Wing"reported extensively on the
Pakistani airlift out of Kunduz. (The Taliban and Al Qaeda have declared
the elimination of India's presence in the contested territory of Kashmir
as a major goal.) RAW has excellent access to the Northern Alliance and
a highly sophisticated ability to intercept electronic communications.
An Indian military adviser boasted that when the airlift began "we
knew within minutes." In interviews in New Delhi, Indian national-security
and intelligence officials repeatedly declared that the airlift had rescued
not only members of the Pakistani military but Pakistani citizens who had
volunteered to fight against the Northern Alliance, as well as non-Pakistani
Taliban and Al Qaeda. Brajesh Mishra, India's national-security adviser,
said his government had concluded that five thousand Pakistanis and Taliban"he
called it "a ballpark figure""had been rescued.
-
- According to RAW's senior analyst for
Pakistani and Afghan issues, the most extensive rescue efforts took place
on three nights at the time of the fall of Kunduz. Indian intelligence
had concluded that eight thousand or more men were trapped inside the city
in the last days of the siege, roughly half of whom were Pakistanis. (Afghans,
Uzbeks, Chechens, and various Arab mercenaries accounted for the rest.)
At least five flights were specifically "confirmed" by India's
informants, the RAW analyst told me, and many more were believed to have
taken place.
-
- In the Indian assessment, thirtythree
hundred prisoners surrendered to a Northern Alliance tribal faction headed
by General Abdul Rashid Dostum. A few hundred Taliban were also turned
over to other tribal leaders. That left between four and five thousand
men unaccounted for. "Where are the balance?" the intelligence
officer asked. According to him, two Pakistani Army generals were on the
flights.
-
- None of the American intelligence officials
I spoke with were able to say with certainty how many Taliban and Al Qaeda
fighters were flown to safety, or may have escaped from Kunduz by other
means.
-
- India, wary of antagonizing the Bush
Administration, chose not to denounce the airlift at the time. But there
was a great deal of anger within the Indian government. "We had all
the information, but we did not go public," the Indian military adviser
told me. "Why should we embarrass you? We should be sensible."
A RAW official said that India had intelligence that Musharraf's message
to the Americans had been that he didn't want to see body bags coming back
to Pakistan. Brajesh Mishra told me that diplomatic notes protesting the
airlift were sent to Britain and the United States. Neither responded,
he said.
-
- Mishra also said that Indian intelligence
was convinced that many of the airlifted fighters would soon be infiltrated
into Kashmir. There was a precedent for this. In the past, the Pakistani
Army's Inter-Services Intelligence agency (I.S.I.) had trained fighters
in Afghanistan and then funnelled them into Kashmir. One of India's most
senior intelligence officials also told me, "Musharraf can't afford
to keep the Taliban in Pakistan. They're dangerous to his own regime. Our
reading is that the fighters can go only to Kashmir."
-
- Kashmir, on India's northern border,
is a predominantly Muslim territory that has been fiercely disputed since
Partition, in 1947. Both India and Pakistan have waged war to support their
claim. Pakistanis believe that Kashmir should have become part of their
country in the first place, and that India reneged on the promise of a
plebiscite to determine its future. India argues that a claim to the territory
on religious grounds is a threat to India's status as a secular, multi-ethnic
nation. Kashmir is now divided along a carefully drawn line of control,
but cross-border incursions"many of them bloody"occur daily.
-
- Three weeks after the airlift, on December
13th, a suicide squad of five heavily armed Muslim terrorists drove past
a barrier at the Indian Parliament, in New Delhi, and rushed the main building.
At one point, the terrorists were only a few feet from the steps to the
office of India's Vice-President, Krishan Kant. Nine people were killed
in the shoot-out, in addition to the terrorists, and many others were injured.
The country's politicians and the press felt that a far greater tragedy
had only narrowly been averted.
-
- In India, the Parliament assault was
regarded as comparable to September 11th. Indian intelligence quickly concluded
that the attack had been organized by operatives from two long-standing
Kashmiri terrorist organizations that were believed to be heavily supported
by the I.S.I.
-
- Brajesh Mishra told me that if the attack
on the Parliament had resulted in a more significant number of casualties
"there would have been mayhem." India deployed hundreds of thousands
of troops along its border with Pakistan, and publicly demanded that Musharraf
take steps to cut off Pakistani support for the groups said to be involved.
"Nobody in India wants war, but other options are not ruled out,"
Mishra said.
-
- The crisis escalated, with military men
on both sides declaring that they were prepared to face nuclear war, if
necessary. Last week, Colin Powell, the Secretary of State, travelled to
the region and urged both sides to withdraw their troops, cool the rhetoric,
and begin constructive talks about Kashmir.
-
- Under prodding from the Bush Administration,
Musharraf has taken action against his country's fundamentalist terror
organizations. In the last month, the government has made more than a thousand
arrests, seized bank accounts, and ordered the I.S.I. to stop all support
for terrorist groups operating inside Kashmir. In a televised address to
the nation on January 12th, Musharraf called for an end to terrorism, but
he also went beyond the most recent dispute with India and outlined a far-reaching
vision of Pakistan as a modern state. "The day of reckoning has come,"
he said. "Do we want Pakistan to become a theocratic state? Do we
believe that religious education alone is enough for governance? Or do
we want Pakistan to emerge as a progressive and dynamic Islamic welfare
state?" The fundamentalists, he added, "did nothing except contribute
to bloodshed in Afghanistan. I ask of them whether they know anything other
than disruption and sowing seeds of hatred. Does Islam preach this?"
-
- "Musharraf has not done as much
as the Indians want," a Bush Administration official who is deeply
involved in South Asian issues said. "But he's done more than I'd
thought he'd do. He had to do something, because the Indians are so wound
up." The official also said, however, that Musharraf could not last
in office if he conceded the issue of Kashmir to India, and would not want
to do so in any case. "He is not a fundamentalist but a Pakistani
nationalist"he genuinely believes that Kashmir 'should be ours.' At
the end of the day, Musharraf would come out ahead if he could get rid
of the Pakistani and Kashmiri terrorists"if he can survive it. They
have eaten the vitals out of Pakistan." In his address, Musharraf
was unyielding on that subject. "Kashmir runs in our blood,"
he said. "No Pakistani can afford to sever links with Kashmir. . .
. We will never budge an inch from our principled stand on Kashmir."
-
- Milton Bearden, a former C.I.A. station
chief in Pakistan who helped run the Afghan war against the Soviet Union
in the late nineteen-eighties and worked closely with the I.S.I., believes
that the Indian government is cynically using the Parliament bombing to
rally public support for the conflict with Pakistan. "The Indians
are just playing brinkmanship now"moving troops up to the border,"
he said. "Until September 11th, they thought they'd won this thing"they
had Pakistan on the ropes." Because of its nuclear program, he said,
"Pakistan was isolated and sanctioned by the United States, with only
China left as an ally. Never mind that the only country in South Asia that
always did what we asked was Pakistan." As for Musharraf, Bearden
said, "What can he do? Does he really have the Army behind him? Yes,
but maybe by only forty-eight to fifty-two per cent." Bearden went
on, "Musharraf is not going to be a Kemal Atatürk""the
founder of the secular Turkish state""but as long as he can look
over his shoulder and see that Rich Armitage""the United States
Deputy Secretary of State""and Don Rumsfeld are with him he might
be able to stop the extremism."
-
- A senior Pakistani diplomat depicted
India as suffering from "jilted-lover syndrome""referring
to the enormous amount of American attention and financial aid that the
Musharraf government has received since September 11th. "The situation
is bloody explosive," the diplomat said, and argued that Musharraf
has not been given enough credit from the Indian leadership for the "sweeping
changes" that have taken place in Pakistan. "Short of saying
it is now a secular Pakistan, he's redefined and changed the politics of
the regime," the diplomat said. "He has de-legitimized religious
fundamentalism." The diplomat told me that the critical question for
Pakistan, India, and the rest of South Asia is "Will the Americans
stay involved for the long haul, or will attention shift to Somalia or
Iraq? I don't know."
-
- Inevitably, any conversation about tension
between India and Pakistan turns to the issue of nuclear weapons. Both
countries have warheads and the means to deliver them. (India's capabilities,
conventional and nuclear, are far greater"between sixty and ninety
warheads"while Pakistan is thought to have between thirty and fifty.)
A retired C.I.A. officer who served as station chief in South Asia told
me that what he found disturbing was the "imperfect intelligence"
each country has as to what the other side's intentions are. "Couple
that with the fact that these guys have a propensity to believe the worst
of each other, and have nuclear weapons, and you end up saying, 'My God,
get me the hell out of here.' " Milton Bearden agreed that the I.S.I.
and RAW are "equally bad" at assessing each other.
-
- In New Delhi, I got a sense of how dangerous
the situation is, in a conversation with an Indian diplomat who has worked
at the highest levels of his country's government. He told me that he believes
India could begin a war with Pakistan and not face a possible nuclear retaliation.
He explained, "When Pakistan went nuclear, we called their bluff."
He was referring to a tense moment in 1990, when India moved its Army en
masse along the Pakistani border and then sat back while the United States
mediated a withdrawal. "We found, through intelligence, that there
was a lot of bluster." He and others in India concluded that Pakistan
was not willing to begin a nuclear confrontation. "We've found there
is a lot of strategic space between a low-intensity war waged with Pakistan
and the nuclear threshold," the diplomat said. "Therefore, we
are utilizing military options without worrying about the nuclear threshold."
If that turned out to be a miscalculation and Pakistan initiated the use
of nuclear weapons, he said, then India would respond in force. "And
Pakistan would cease to exist."
-
- The Bush Administration official involved
in South Asian issues acknowledged that there are some people in India
who seem willing to gamble that "you can have war but not use nuclear
weapons." He added, "Both nations need to sit down and work out
the red lines""the points of no return. "They've never done
that."
-
- An American intelligence official told
me that the Musharraf regime had added to the precariousness of the military
standoff with India by reducing the amount of time it would take for Pakistan
to execute a nuclear strike. Pakistan keeps control over its nuclear arsenal
in part by storing its warheads separately from its missile- and aircraft-delivery
systems. In recent weeks, he said, the time it takes to get the warheads
in the air has been cut to just three hours""and that's too close.
Both sides have their nukes in place and ready to roll."
-
- Even before the airlift from Kunduz,
the Indians were enraged by the Bush Administration's decision to make
Pakistan its chief ally in the Afghanistan war. "Musharraf has two-timed
you," a recently retired senior member of India's diplomatic service
told me in New Delhi earlier this month. "What have you gained? Have
you captured Osama bin Laden?" He said that although India would do
nothing to upset the American campaign in Afghanistan, "We will turn
the heat on Musharraf. He'll go back to terrorism as long as the heat is
off." (Milt Bearden scoffed at that characterization. "Musharraf
doesn't have time to two-time anybody," he said. "He wakes up
every morning and has to head out with his bayonet, trying to find the
land mines.")
-
- Some C.I.A. analysts believe that bin
Laden eluded American capture inside Afghanistan with help from elements
of the Pakistani intelligence service. "The game against bin Laden
is not over," one analyst told me in early January. He speculated
that bin Laden could be on his way to Somalia, "his best single place
to hide." Al Qaeda is known to have an extensive infrastructure there.
The analyst said that he had concluded that "he's out. We've been
looking for bombing targets for weeks and weeks there but can't identify
them."
-
- Last week, Donald Rumsfeld told journalists
that he believed bin Laden was still in Afghanistan. Two days later, in
Pakistan, Musharraf announced that he thought bin Laden was probably dead"of
kidney disease.
-
- A senior C.I.A. official, when asked
for comment, cautioned that there were a variety of competing assessments
inside the agency as to bin Laden's whereabouts. "We really don't
know," he said. "We'll get him, but anybody who tells you we
know where he is is full of it."
-
- India's grievances"over the Pakistani
airlift, the continuing terrorism in Kashmir, and Musharraf's new status
with Washington"however heartfelt, may mean little when it comes to
effecting a dramatic change of American policy in South Asia. India's democracy
and its tradition of civilian control over the military make it less of
a foreign-policy priority than Pakistan. The Bush Administration has put
its prestige, and American aid money, behind Musharraf, in the gamble"thus
far successful"that he will continue to move Pakistan, and its nuclear
arsenal, away from fundamentalism. The goal is to stop nuclear terrorism
as well as political terrorism. It's a tall order, and missteps are inevitable.
Nonetheless, the White House remains optimistic. An Administration official
told me that, given the complications of today's politics, he still believed
that Musharraf was the best Pakistani leader the Indians could hope for,
whether they recognize it or not. "After him, they could only get
something worse."
-
-
-
- "If this were a dictatorship, it'd
be a heck of a lot easier - just so long as I'm the dictator."
-
- -- President-Elect George W. Bush, CNN
News, Aired December 18, 2000 - 12:00 p.m. ET http://www.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0012/18/nd.01.html
-
-
-
- US 'Let Taleban Men Escape'
-
- By James Bone in New York The Sunday
Times of London 1-21-02
-
- THE United States secretly approved rescue
flights by Pakistan into Kunduz that let Taleban leaders and al-Qaeda fighters
escape from the besieged northern Afghan city before its fall last year,
New Yorker magazine reports today.
-
- US intelligence officials and military
officers said that the Bush Administration approved the flights and ordered
US Central Command to set up a special air corridor to ensure their safety
to allow evacuation of Pakistani soldiers and intelligence men stranded
by Northern Alliance victories.
-
- "What was supposed to be a limited
evacuation apparently slipped out of control and, as an unintended consequence,
an unknown number of Taleban and al-Qaeda fighters managed to join in the
exodus," the magazine reports.
-
- One senior US defence adviser said: "Everyone
brought their friends with them. You're not going to leave them behind
to get their throats cut."
-
- Mysterious flights into Kunduz were reported
by Northern Alliance officials in mid-November, but US and Pakistani officials
denied an evacuation was under way.
-
- Seymour Hersh, who wrote the report,
said that President Musharraf of Pakistan won US support for the rescue
by arguing that losing the men would risk his political survival.
-
- A US supply helicopter crashed in Afghanistan,
killing two Marines and injuring the other five aboard yesterday. The cause
of the crash was not immediately known. http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/0,,3-2002033128,00.html
-
-
-
- Did We Let Him Escape on Purpose? (A
Speculative Note)
-
- By Jack Wheeler Freedom Research Foundation
12-18-01
-
- There is an irresistibly intriguing rumor
making the rounds on Capitol Hill today. It is that the Pentagon and the
CIA could have nailed Osama bin Laden in Tora Bora last week, but let him
escape instead.
-
- Why would they do such a thing? A "Twofer
Payback" is the answer.
-
- Let's draw up a list of prospective countries
to where OBL might run, places anarchic or insanely hubristic enough to
provide him on-the-lam shelter. There are five.
-
- Somalia. What better justification, what
better opportunity, could there be to pay back the Somali savages who killed
18 U.S. peacekeeping soldiers and dragged several of their bodies through
the streets of Mogadishu in 1993, than if OBL escaped to Somalia? There
have got to be vast legions of folks in the U.S. military who are right
now praying, "If he got away, please let him get away to Somalia."
-
- Iraq. GW is working overtime to create
a rationale for going after Saddam and getting our European allies behind
it. If Saddam were fool enough to take OBL in, no more rationale is needed.
The BLU-82 Daisy Cutters and GBU-28 Bunker Busters start dropping tomorrow.
-
- Iran. While it seems unlikely the mullahs
would help and hide OBL, his presence and the massive U.S. military strike
against it would immediately precipitate a national uprising. Iran is a
desiccated tinderbox, ready at any moment to burst into flames of revolutionary
revenge against the mullahs. OBL's fleeing to Iran would be the catalyst
for conversion of Iran from theocratic tyranny to secular pro-West democracy.
-
- Saudi Arabia. OBL's ultimate fantasy
is to become the Ayatollah Khomeini of Saudi Arabia. He has strong support
by the ultra-puritanical Wahabis, the Islamic sect that financially sponsored
the Taliban and are now dedicated to purging Mohammed's sacred homeland
of the corrupt Saudi royal family. The Wahabis providing sanctuary to Osama,
and trying to instigate a civil war thereby, would give the Saudi royals,
backed by U.S. firepower, the excuse they need to wipe them out for good.
-
- Pakistan. As anyone who has traveled
through the Pushtun area of Pakistan bordering Afghanistan knows, the Pak
government exercises diaphanously nominal control over it. If a Pushtun
tribe with more hubris than brains gives OBL sanctuary, it is the pretext
for the Pakistani military still dominated by Punjabis who despise the
Pushtuns with U.S. firepower to establish sovereignty over their entire
country and end the endemic anarchy.
-
- There is simply no way for Osama bin
Laden to vanish in obscurity. These five countries seem to be the only
conceivable places to where he might attempt escaping. There are quite
beneficial consequences for the U.S. should he do so to any of the five.
Thus the rumor. It may be nothing more. The possibility of a Twofer Payback
has, nonetheless, a magnetic appeal.
-
- (c) 2001 Dr. Jack Wheeler and the Freedom
Research Foundation http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2001/12/18/154224.shtml
-
-
-
- Aghan Commanders: We've Got Bin Laden
Cornered
-
- By Carl Limbacher and NewsMax.com Staff
12-15-01
-
- Anti-Taliban forces fighting alongside
the U.S. in the Tora Bora region of Afghanistan say they are certain that
terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden is now holed up in one cave complex
in the Agam Valley.
-
- "There is one cave surrounded by
my forces," said Hazrat Ali, the warlord leading the attack on Tora
Bora. "I think there is one place where Osama is. They are surrounded
and they cannot escape," he added, according to the New York Post.
-
- While the Pentagon won't go so far as
to second Ali's claims, military planners are said to be encouraged by
the fierce fighting put up by al-Qaeda forces in the region.
-
- U.S. strategists believe al-Qaeda troops
would have long ago surrendered unless they were protecting some very important
prize.
-
- Along with the reports from Afghan field
commanders, battle zone radio intercepts also suggest bin Laden remains
pinned down in the region.
-
- One concern is the cave complexes themselves,
some of which are believed to extend for 50 miles and stretch underneath
the Pakistani border.
-
- Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Mussharaf
has ordered 4,000 troops to the region to intercept al-Qaeda forces should
they decide to flee. http://www.newsmax.com/showinside.shtml?a=2001/12/15/75907
-
-
-
- "Operation Northwoods may be the
most corrupt plan ever created by the U.S. government. Operation Northwoods
had called for nothing less than the launch of a secret campaign of terrorism
within the United States in order to blame Castro and provoke a war with
Cuba." - James Bamford, from Body of Secrets (published April 2001)
-
- "There are no innocent civilians...,
so it doesn't bother me so much to be killing innocent bystanders".
- General Curtis E. LeMay, US Air Force Chief of Staff (1961 - 1965), Vice
Presidential running mate of George Wallace, National Journal, 11/26/94
-
-
-
-
- Friendly Fire - U.S. Military Drafted
Plans to Terrorize U.S. Cities to Provoke War With Cuba
-
- By David Ruppe ABC News.com May 1, 2001
-
- N E W Y O R K, May 1 - In the early 1960s,
America's top military leaders reportedly drafted plans to kill innocent
people and commit acts of terrorism in U.S. cities to create public support
for a war against Cuba. Code named Operation Northwoods, the plans reportedly
included the possible assassination of Cuban émigrés, sinking
boats of Cuban refugees on the high seas, hijacking planes, blowing up
a U.S. ship, and even orchestrating violent terrorism in U.S. cities. The
plans were developed as ways to trick the American public and the international
community into supporting a war to oust Cuba's then new leader, communist
Fidel Castro. http://abcnews.go.com/sections/us/DailyNews/jointchiefs_010501.html
-
-
-
- New Book On NSA Sheds Light On Secrets
- US Terror Plan Called Cuba Invasion Pretext
-
- The Baltimore Sun 4-24-01 http://www.baltimoresun.com/bal-te.md.nsa24apr24.story
-
-
-
- TOP SECRET SPECIAL HANDLING NOFORN [declassified
2000]
-
- The Joint Chiefs of Staff Washington
DC
-
- Memorandum for the Secretary of Defense
-
- Subject: Justification for U.S. Military
Intervention in Cuba (TS)
-
- JCS to Secretary of War Robert McNamara
March 13, 1962
-
- 1. The Joint Chiefs of Staff have considered
the attatched memorandum for the chief of Operations, Cuba Project, which
responds to a request by that office for brief but precise description
of pretexts which would provide justification for US military intervention
in Cuba.
-
- 2. The Joint Chiefs of Staff recommend
that the proposed memorandum be forwarded as a preliminary submission suitable
for planning purproses. It is assumed that there will be similar submissions
from other agencies and that these inputs will be used as a basis for developing
a time-phased plan. Individual projects can then be considered on a case-by-case
basis.
-
- 3. Further, it is assumed that a single
agency will be given the primary responsibility for developing military
and para-military [terrorist] aspects of the basic plan. It is recommended
that this responsibility for both overt and covert military operations
be assigned to the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
-
- For the Joint Chiefs of Staff signed:
L.L. Limnitzer, General Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff
-
- Note by the Secretaries to the Joint
Chiefs of Staff on Northwoods
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- Footnoted memorandums:
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- "Operation Mongoose"
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- "Instances to Provoke Military Actions
in Cuba"
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- RECOMMENDATIONS:
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- This paper NOT be forwarded to commanders
of specified or unified commands.
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- This paper NOT be forwarded to US officers
assigned to NATO activities.
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- This paper NOT be forwarded to the Chairman,
US Delegation, United Nations Military Staff Committee.
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- Such a plan would enable a logical buildup
of incidents to be combined with other seemingly unrelated events to camoflage
the ultimate objective and create the necessary impression of Cuban rashness
and irresponsibility on a large scale, directed at other countries in addition
to the United States. The desired resultant from the execution of this
plan would would be to place the United States in the apparent position
of suffering defensible grievances.
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- A series of well-coordinated incidents
will be planned to take place to give genuine appearance of being done
by hostile Cuban forces.
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- Incidents to establish a credible attack:
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- 1. Start rumors (many). Use clandestine
radio.
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- 2. Land friendly Cubans in uniform "over-the-fence"
to stage attack on the base.
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- 3. Capture Cuban (friendly) sabateurs
inside the base.
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- 4. Start riots near the entrance to the
base (friendly Cubans).
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- 5. Blow up ammunition inside the base;
start fires.
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- 6. Burn aircraft on airbase (sabatage).
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- 7. Lob morter shells from outsidethe
base to inside the base. Some damage to installation.
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- 8. Capture assault teams.
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- 9. Capture militia group which storms
the base.
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- 10. Sabotage ship in harbor; large fires
-- napthalene [napalm].
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- 11. Sink ship near harbor entrance. Conduct
funerals for mock-victims.
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- (b) United States would respond by executing
offensive operations.
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- 3. A "Remember the Maine" incident
could be arranged in several forms:
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- a. We could blow up a US ship and blame
Cuba.
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- b. We could blow up a drone (unmannded)
vessel anywhere in the Cuban waters. The presense of Cuban planes or ships
merely investigating the intent of the vessel could be fairly compelling
evidence that the ship was taken under attack. The US could follow with
an air/sea rescue operation covered by US fighters to "evacuate"
remaining members of the non-existant crew. Casualty lists in US newspapers
would cause a helpful wave of national indignation.
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- c. We could develop a Communist Cuba
terror campaign in the Miami area, in other Flordia cities and even in
Washington. The terror campaign could be pointed at Cuban refugees seeking
haven in the United States. We could sink a boatload of Cubans enroute
to Florida (real or simulated). We could foster attempts on lives of Cubans
in the United States even to the extent of wounding in instances to be
widely publicized. Exploding a few bombs in carefully chosen spots. The
arrest of Cuban agents and the release of prepared documents substantiating
cuban involvement.
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- 5. A "Cuban-based, Castro-supported"
filibuster could be simulated against a neighboring Caribbean nation. These
efforts can be magnified with additional ones contrived for exposure. "Cuban"
B-26 or C-46 type aircraft could make cane-burning raids at night. Soviet
Bloc incidiaries could be found. This could be coupled with "Cuban"
messages to the Communist underground and "Cuban" shipments of
arms which would be found, or intercepted, on the beach.
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- 6. Use of MIG-type aircraft by US pilots
could provide additional provocation. Harassment of civil air, attacks
on surface shipping, and destruction of US military drone aircraft by MIG
type palnes would be useful. An F-86 properly painted would convince air
passengers that they saw a Cuban MIG, especially if the pilot of the transport
were to announce that fact.
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- 7. Hijacking attampts against US civil
air and surface craft should be encouraged.
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- 8. It is possible to create an incident
which would demonstrate convincingly that a Cuban aircraft has attacked
and shot down a chartered civilian airliner from the United States.
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- a. An aircraft at Eglin AFB would be
painted and numbered as an exact duplicate for a civil registered aircraft
belonging to a CIA proprietary organization in the Miami area. At a designated
time the duplicate would be subsituted for the actual civil aircraft and
the passengers, all boarded under carefully prepared aliases. The actual
registered aircraft would be converted to a drone.
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