One common claim for 9/11 foreknowledge is that America's war on Afghanistan was planned months before the attacks. This is often supported with quotes from mainstream news stories: here's a collection that include the most frequently referenced pieces.
June 26, 2001: US, Russia, and Regional Powers Cooperate to Oust Taliban
An Indian magazine reports more details of the cooperative efforts of the US, India, Russia, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Iran against the Taliban regime: “India and Iran will ‘facilitate’ US and Russian plans for ‘limited military action’ against the Taliban if the contemplated tough new economic sanctions don’t bend Afghanistan’s fundamentalist regime.” Earlier in the month, Russian President Vladimir Putin told a meeting of the Confederation of Independent States that military action against the Taliban may happen, possibly with Russian involvement using bases and forces from Uzbekistan and Tajikistan as well. [IndiaReacts, 6/26/2001]
Late Summer 2001: US Contingency Plans to Attack Afghanistan
According to a later Guardian report, “reliable western military sources say a US contingency plan exist[s] on paper by the end of the summer to attack Afghanistan from the north.” [Guardian, 9/26/2001]
July 21, 2001: US Official Threatens Possible Military Action Against Taliban by October if Pipeline Is Not Pursued
Three former American officials, Tom Simons (former US Ambassador to Pakistan), Karl Inderfurth (former Deputy Secretary of State for South Asian Affairs), and Lee Coldren (former State Department expert on South Asia) meet with Pakistani and Russian intelligence officers in a Berlin hotel. [Salon, 8/16/2002] This is the third of a series of back-channel conferences called “brainstorming on Afghanistan.” Taliban representatives sat in on previous meetings, but boycotted this one due to worsening tensions. However, the Pakistani ISI relays information from the meeting to the Taliban. [Guardian, 9/22/2001] At the meeting, Coldren passes on a message from Bush officials. He later says, “I think there was some discussion of the fact that the United States was so disgusted with the Taliban that they might be considering some military action.” [Guardian, 9/26/2001] Accounts vary, but former Pakistani Foreign Secretary Niaz Naik later says he is told by senior American officials at the meeting that military action to overthrow the Taliban in Afghanistan is planned to “take place before the snows started falling in Afghanistan, by the middle of October at the latest.” The goal is to kill or capture both bin Laden and Taliban leader Mullah Omar, topple the Taliban regime, and install a transitional government of moderate Afghans in its place. Uzbekistan and Russia would also participate. Naik also says, “It was doubtful that Washington would drop its plan even if bin Laden were to be surrendered immediately by the Taliban.” [BBC, 9/18/2001] One specific threat made at this meeting is that the Taliban can choose between “carpets of bombs” —an invasion—or “carpets of gold” —the pipeline. [Brisard and Dasquie, 2002, pp. 43] Naik contends that Tom Simons made the “carpets” statement. Simons claims, “It’s possible that a mischievous American participant, after several drinks, may have thought it smart to evoke gold carpets and carpet bombs. Even Americans can’t resist the temptation to be mischievous.” Naik and the other American participants deny that the pipeline was an issue at the meeting. [Salon, 8/16/2002]
August 2-3, 2001: Taliban Official Predicts US Will Invade Afghanistan by Mid-October, Possibly in Response to Major Attack Inside US
A senior official in the Taliban’s defense ministry tells journalist Hamid Mir that the US will soon invade Afghanistan. Mir will later recall that he is told, “[W]e believe Americans are going to invade Afghanistan and they will do this before October 15, 2001, and justification for this would be either one of two options: Taliban got control of Afghanistan or a big major attack against American interests either inside America or elsewhere in the world.” Mir reports this information before 9/11, presumably in the newspaper in Pakistan that he works for. [Bergen, 2006, pp. 287] Interestingly, Afghan warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar made a similar prediction to Mir several months before (see April 2001). Also, several weeks earlier, US officials reportedly passed word to Taliban officials in a back channel meeting that the US may soon attack Afghanistan if the Taliban do not cooperate on building an oil and gas pipeline running through the country. According to one participant in the meeting, the US attack would take place “by the middle of October at the latest” (see July 21, 2001).
September 9, 2001: U.S. sought attack on al-Qaida; White House given plan days before Sept. 11
WASHINGTON, May 16, 2002 - President Bush was expected to sign detailed plans for a worldwide war against al-Qaida two days before Sept. 11 but did not have the chance before the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, U.S. and foreign sources told NBC News.
The document, a formal National Security Presidential Directive, amounted to a “game plan to remove al-Qaida from the face of the earth,” one of the sources told NBC News’ Jim Miklaszewski.
The plan dealt with all aspects of a war against al-Qaida, ranging from diplomatic initiatives to military operations in Afghanistan, the sources said on condition of anonymity.
In many respects, the directive, as described to NBC News, outlined essentially the same war plan that the White House, the CIA and the Pentagon put into action after the Sept. 11 attacks. The administration most likely was able to respond so quickly to the attacks because it simply had to pull the plans “off the shelf,” Miklaszewski said.
The United States first would have sought to persuade other countries to cooperate in the campaign by sharing intelligence and using their law enforcement agencies to round up al-Qaida suspects.
The plans also called for a freeze on al-Qaida financial accounts worldwide and a drive to disrupt the group’s money laundering. The document mapped out covert operations aimed at al-Qaida cells in about 60 counties.
In another striking parallel to the war plan adopted after Sept. 11, the security directive included efforts to persuade Afghanistan’s Taliban government to turn al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden over to the United States, with provisions to use military force if it refused.
Plan was ready to go
Officials did not believe that Bush had had the opportunity to closely review the document in the two days between its submission and the Sept. 11 attacks. But it had been submitted to national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, and the officials said Bush knew about it and had been expected to sign it.
The couching of the plans as a formal security directive is significant, Miklaszewski reported, because it indicates that the United States intended a full-scale assault on al-Qaida even if the Sept. 11 attacks had not occurred.
Such directives are top-secret documents that are formally drafted only after they have been approved at the highest levels of the White House, and represent decisions that are to be implemented imminently.
Such a directive would normally be approved with the president’s knowledge by his Principals Committee, which in Bush’s White House includes Rice, Attorney General John Ashcroft, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of State Colin Powell, Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill and CIA Director George Tenet, among other senior administration officials.
It appears to be a lengthy and solid list. But spend just a little time looking into this and you realise that things aren't entirely as they seem.
Plans? What plans?
The claim here is that America was primed, ready to attack Afghanistan some time before the 9/11 attacks occurred. But is that was the case, then why did they wait until October 7th to initiate air attacks? And those then continued for some time, with the Northern Alliance left to do the bulk of the ground work, and conventional troops not arriving until November. What was it about this seemingly very basic plan that required months of work?
It's not just us asking this question. Here's Peter Bergen in the April 2004 New York Times, framing questions for the US Government and Condi Rice:
Here's a noted commentator who appears to believe that American actions showed a lack of planning rather than a suspicious degree of foreknowledge.
There's confirmation from elsewhere that it took some time before the final Afghan plans were ready. Here's what General Tommy Franks said about planning in his February 2002 statement to the Senate Armed Services Committee:
According to this it took from September 12th until maybe the 21st before Franks was ready to brief the President on the first plans, and combat operations and the recommendation on the "military course of action" wouldn't be approved until October 1st.
Bob Woodward's "State of Denial" takes this further, saying the military were unprepared and the campaign strategy was created by the CIA:
Again, there's talk of an unprepared military. The CIA have a plan, but it's a patchwork, relies heavily on the Northern Alliance, and even here isn't ready to go for some time, presumably at least in part because the US must move its air power to the region and identify targets to be struck.
There are good reasons to question the idea that America was well prepared for war with Afghanistan, then, but of course none of this makes the other stories go away. So what were they talking about?
The 9/11 Commission reports
The stories that, for instance, there was a Presidential directive authorising a "war on al Qaeda" ready to be signed just days before 9/11, are often presented as though they're revealing a very dark secret. But in reality this has been public knowledge for years, and was discussed extensively in the 9/11 Commission report. We've snipped sections that seem relevant here, but too much information has been left out for you to get a full picture here. If you've not already done so, please read Chapter 6 of the 9/11 Commission report first to understand the complete background.
In mid-November [2000], as the evidence of al Qaeda involvement [in the Cole attack] mounted, Berger asked General Shelton to reevaluate military plans to act quickly against Bin Ladin. General Shelton tasked General Tommy Franks, the new commander of CENTCOM, to look again at the options. Shelton wanted to demonstrate that the military was imaginative and knowledgeable enough to move on an array of options, and to show the complexity of the operations. He briefed Berger on the “Infinite Resolve” strike options developed since 1998, which the Joint Staff and CENTCOM had refined during the summer into a list of 13 possibilities or combinations. CENTCOM added a new “phased campaign”concept for wider-ranging strikes, including attacks against the Taliban. For the first time, these strikes envisioned an air campaign against Afghanistan of indefinite duration. Military planners did not include contingency planning for an invasion of Afghanistan. The concept was briefed to Deputy National Security Advisor Donald Kerrick on December 20, and to other officials.
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In the same November 25 memo, Berger informed President Clinton about a closely held idea: a last-chance ultimatum for the Taliban. Clarke was developing the idea with specific demands: immediate extradition of Bin Ladin and his lieutenants to a legitimate government for trial, observable closure of all terrorist facilities in Afghanistan, and expulsion of all terrorists from Afghanistan within 90 days. Noncompliance would mean U.S. “force directed at the Taliban itself ” and U.S. efforts to ensure that the Taliban would never defeat the Northern Alliance. No such ultimatum was issued.
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He [Richard Clarke] wanted the Principals Committee to decide whether al Qaeda was “a first order threat” or a more modest worry being overblown by “chicken little” alarmists. Alluding to the transition briefing that he had prepared for Rice, Clarke wrote that al Qaeda “is not some narrow, little terrorist issue that needs to be included in broader regional policy.”Two key decisions that had been deferred, he noted, concerned covert aid to keep the Northern Alliance alive when fighting began again in Afghanistan in the spring, and covert aid to the Uzbeks. Clarke also suggested that decisions should be made soon on messages to the Taliban and Pakistan over the al Qaeda sanctuary in Afghanistan, on possible new money for CIA operations, and on “when and how . . . to respond to the attack on the USS Cole.”
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In early March, the administration postponed action on proposals for increasing aid to the Northern Alliance and the Uzbeks. Rice noted at the time that a more wide-ranging examination of policy toward Afghanistan was needed first. She wanted the review very soon.
Hadley convened an informal Deputies Committee meeting on March 7, when some of the deputies had not yet been confirmed. For the first time, Clarke’s various proposals—for aid to the Northern Alliance and the Uzbeks and for Predator missions—went before the group that, in the Bush NSC, would do most of the policy work.Though they made no decisions on these specific proposals, Hadley apparently concluded that there should be a presidential national security policy directive (NSPD) on terrorism.
The full Deputies Committee discussed al Qaeda on April 30. CIA briefing slides described al Qaeda as the “most dangerous group we face,” citing its “leadership, experience, resources, safe haven in Afghanistan, [and] focus on attacking U.S.” The slides warned,“There will be more attacks.”
At the meeting, the deputies endorsed covert aid to Uzbekistan. Regarding the Northern Alliance, they “agreed to make no major commitment at this time.” Washington would first consider options for aiding other anti-Taliban groups. Meanwhile, the administration would “initiate a comprehensive review of U.S. policy on Pakistan” and explore policy options on Afghanistan, “including the option of supporting regime change.”
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On May 29, at Tenet’s request, Rice and Tenet converted their usual weekly meeting into a broader discussion on al Qaeda; participants included Clarke, CTC chief Cofer Black, and “Richard,” a group chief with authority over the Bin Ladin unit. Rice asked about “taking the offensive” and whether any approach could be made to influence Bin Ladin or the Taliban. Clarke and Black replied that the CIA’s ongoing disruption activities were “taking the offensive” and that Bin Ladin could not be deterred. A wide-ranging discussion then ensued about “breaking the back” of Bin Ladin’s organization.
Tenet emphasized the ambitious plans for covert action that the CIA had developed in December 2000. In discussing the draft authorities for this program in March, CIA officials had pointed out that the spending level envisioned for these plans was larger than the CIA’s entire current budget for counterterrorism covert action. It would be a multiyear program, requiring such levels of spending for about five years.
The CIA official,“Richard,” told us that Rice “got it.” He said she agreed with his conclusions about what needed to be done, although he complained to us that the policy process did not follow through quickly enough. Clarke and Black were asked to develop a range of options for attacking Bin Ladin’s organization, from the least to most ambitious.
Rice and Hadley asked Clarke and his staff to draw up the new presidential directive. On June 7, Hadley circulated the first draft, describing it as “an admittedly ambitious” program for confronting al Qaeda.
The draft NSPD’s goal was to “eliminate the al Qida network of terrorist groups as a threat to the United States and to friendly governments.” It called for a multiyear effort involving diplomacy, covert action, economic measures, law enforcement, public diplomacy, and if necessary military efforts. The State Department was to work with other governments to end all al Qaeda sanctuaries, and also to work with the Treasury Department to disrupt terrorist financing. The CIA was to develop an expanded covert action program including significant additional funding and aid to anti-Taliban groups.The draft also tasked OMB with ensuring that sufficient funds to support this program were found in U.S. budgets from fiscal years 2002 to 2006.
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As all hope in moving the Taliban faded, debate revived about giving covert assistance to the regime’s opponents. Clarke and the CIA’s Cofer Black renewed the push to aid the Northern Alliance. Clarke suggested starting with modest aid, just enough to keep the Northern Alliance in the fight and tie down al Qaeda terrorists, without aiming to overthrow the Taliban.
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Rice, Hadley, and the NSC staff member for Afghanistan, Zalmay Khalilzad, told us they opposed giving aid to the Northern Alliance alone. They argued that the program needed to have a big part for Pashtun opponents of the Taliban. They also thought the program should be conducted on a larger scale than had been suggested. Clarke concurred with the idea of a larger program,but he warned that delay risked the Northern Alliance’s final defeat at the hands of the Taliban.
During the spring, the CIA, at the NSC’s request, had developed draft legal authorities—a presidential finding—to undertake a large-scale program of covert assistance to the Taliban’s foes.The draft authorities expressly stated that the goal of the assistance was not to overthrow the Taliban. But even this program would be very costly. This was the context for earlier conversations,when in March Tenet stressed the need to consider the impact of such a large program on the political situation in the region and in May Tenet talked to Rice about the need for a multiyear financial commitment.
By July, the deputies were moving toward agreement that some last effort should be made to convince the Taliban to shift position and then, if that failed, the administration would move on the significantly enlarged covert action program. As the draft presidential directive was circulated in July, the State Department sent the deputies a lengthy historical review of U.S. efforts to engage the Taliban about Bin Ladin from 1996 on.“These talks have been fruitless,” the State Department concluded.
Arguments in the summer brought to the surface the more fundamental issue of whether the U.S. covert action program should seek to overthrow the regime, intervening decisively in the civil war in order to change Afghanistan’s government. By the end of a deputies meeting on September 10, officials formally agreed on a three-phase strategy. First an envoy would give the Taliban a last chance. If this failed, continuing diplomatic pressure would be combined with the planned covert action program encouraging anti-Taliban Afghans of all major ethnic groups to stalemate the Taliban in the civil war and attack al Qaeda bases, while the United States developed an international coalition to undermine the regime. In phase three, if the Taliban’s policy still did not change, the deputies agreed that the United States would try covert action to topple the Taliban’s leadership from within.
The deputies agreed to revise the al Qaeda presidential directive, then being finalized for presidential approval, in order to add this strategy to it. Armitage explained to us that after months of continuing the previous administration’s policy, he and Powell were bringing the State Department to a policy of overthrowing the Taliban. From his point of view, once the United States made the commitment to arm the Northern Alliance, even covertly, it was taking action to initiate regime change, and it should give those opponents the strength to achieve complete victory.
The draft presidential directive circulated in June 2001 began its discussion of the military by reiterating the Defense Department’s lead role in protecting its forces abroad.The draft included a section directing Secretary Rumsfeld to “develop contingency plans” to attack both al Qaeda and Taliban targets in Afghanistan. The new section did not specifically order planning for the use of ground troops, or clarify how this guidance differed from the existing Infinite Resolve plans.
Hadley told us that by circulating this section, a draft Annex B to the directive, the White House was putting the Pentagon on notice that it would need to produce new military plans to address this problem.
“The military didn’t particularly want this mission,” Rice told us.
With this directive still awaiting President Bush’s signature, Secretary Rumsfeld did not order his subordinates to begin preparing any new military plans against either al Qaeda or the Taliban before 9/11.
President Bush told us that before 9/11, he had not seen good options for special military operations against Bin Ladin. Suitable bases in neighboring countries were not available and, even if the U.S. forces were sent in, it was not clear where they would go to find Bin Ladin.
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At the September 4 meeting, the principals approved the draft presidential directive with little discussion. Rice told us that she had, at some point, told President Bush that she and his other advisers thought it would take three years or so for their al Qaeda strategy to work.
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A few days later, a final version of the draft presidential directive was circulated, incorporating two minor changes made by the principals.
On September 9, dramatic news arrived from Afghanistan. The leader of the Northern Alliance, Ahmed Shah Massoud, had granted an interview in his bungalow near the Tajikistan border with two men whom the Northern Alliance leader had been told were Arab journalists. The supposed reporter and cameraman—actually al Qaeda assassins—then set off a bomb, riddling Massoud’s chest with shrapnel. He died minutes later.
On September 10, Hadley gathered the deputies to finalize their threephase, multiyear plan to pressure and perhaps ultimately topple the Taliban leadership.
That same day, Hadley instructed DCI Tenet to have the CIA prepare new draft legal authorities for the “broad covert action program” envisioned by the draft presidential directive. Hadley also directed Tenet to prepare a separate section “authorizing a broad range of other covert activities, including authority to capture or to use lethal force” against al Qaeda command-and-control elements. This section would supersede the Clinton-era documents. Hadley wanted the authorities to be flexible and broad enough “to cover any additional UBL-related covert actions contemplated.”
Funding still needed to be located. The military component remained unclear. Pakistan remained uncooperative. The domestic policy institutions were largely uninvolved. But the pieces were coming together for an integrated policy dealing with al Qaeda, the Taliban, and Pakistan.
The 9/11 Commission Report tells us that there was a draft Presidential directive containing a strategy to deal with al Qaeda and the Taliban, then. But this is something that had been brewing for a long time, fuelled by al Qaeda's attacks on US embassies and the Cole, with the threat of more to come. It's hardly surprising that some effort to combat this was being prepared.
The directive seems to recommend a very long term plan, though, something that would take years. The direct actions were in the main covert, and there was little in the way of military planning, certainly not in terms of supporting an invasion.
Still, with America thinking about taking action about al Qaeda and the Taliban throughout 2001, could this have contributed to the various "foreknowledge" stories? Let's take a look.
India Reacts
Here's the (apparently) full India Reacts story, as quoted at What Really Happened:
Much is made of "plans" for "limited military action", but given that they are "limited", as a "last option" following "tough new sanction" and with the aim to "push Taliban lines back to the 1998 position 50 km away from Mazar-e-Sharief", the story hardly seems an accurate prediction of what was to come. It seems, in fact, much more like a basic view of the American proposals, that they'll try tactics like sanctions first, resort to military action later if necessary, but even then this will not be an attempt to overthrow the Taliban in one action.
Niaz Naik
The account of Niaz Naik is, in our experience, quoted more commonly than any others in connection with Afghan pre-planning. Here's the BBC's article on this topic, from September 18th:
Accuracy
The emphasis is generally placed on Naik's prediction that military action would take place "by the middle of October" at the latest. American attacks from the air started on October 7th, so that seems to be a hit. But what about the rest?
Naik doesn't explicitly describe a full-blown invasion, talking instead of a specific aim to "kill or capture both Bin Laden and the Taleban leader, Mullah Omar". He talks also of a wider objective to "topple the Taleban regime" but doesn't spell out if this is to happen at the same time, and also incorrectly suggested the new government may be lead by "former Afghan King Zahir Shah". This isn't such a good prediction.
Naik tells us that the attack would be launched from bases in Tajikstan, but this also proved inaccurate. Even on November 3rd, almost a month after the attack, Tajikistan were only talking about possibly allowing one base to be used in the operation, according to this Agence France Presse report:
Naik additionally said he was told that "Uzbekistan would also participate in the operation", a better prediction as the country did allow US planes to use its bases (with some claimed restrictions) and reportedly had some troops stationed there.
But the suggestion that "17,000 Russian troops were on standby" was presumably supposed to indicate that they might be involved, something that didn't happen. And Naik failed to mention the most obvious idea, that the US would support the Northern Alliance to help them carry out ground attack roles.
We could make excuses for these problems with Naik's story, perhaps theorise that he was fed false information in the knowledge that this would get back to the Taliban, but that's just guesswork. The reality is Naik's account isn't particularly accurate, a problem if it's supposed to indicate any kind of detailed foreknowledge.
Lack of confirmation
Can anyone else confirm Naik's conversations? It seems not. Here's a later Guardian story:
Osama bin Laden and the Taliban received threats of possible American military strikes against them two months before the terrorist assaults on New York and Washington, which were allegedly masterminded by the Saudi-born fundamentalist, a Guardian investigation has established.
The threats of war unless the Taliban surrendered Osama bin Laden were passed to the regime in Afghanistan by the Pakistani government, senior diplomatic sources revealed yesterday.
The Taliban refused to comply but the serious nature of what they were told raises the possibility that Bin Laden, far from launching the attacks on the World Trade Centre in New York and the Pentagon out of the blue 10 days ago, was launching a pre-emptive strike in response to what he saw as US threats.
The warning to the Taliban originated at a four-day meeting of senior Americans, Russians, Iranians and Pakistanis at a hotel in Berlin in mid-July. The conference, the third in a series dubbed "brainstorming on Afghanistan", was part of a classic diplomatic device known as "track two".
It was designed to offer a free and open-ended forum for governments to pass messages and sound out each other's thinking. Participants were experts with long diplomatic experience of the region who were no longer government officials but had close links with their governments.
"The Americans indicated to us that in case the Taliban does not behave and in case Pakistan also doesn't help us to influence the Taliban, then the United States would be left with no option but to take an overt action against Afghanistan," said Niaz Naik, a former foreign minister of Pakistan, who was at the meeting.
"I told the Pakistani government, who informed the Taliban via our foreign office and the Taliban ambassador here."
The three Americans at the Berlin meeting were Tom Simons, a former US ambassador to Pakistan, Karl "Rick" Inderfurth, a former assistant secretary of state for south Asian affairs, and Lee Coldren, who headed the office of Pakistan, Afghan and Bangladesh affairs in the state department until 1997.
According to Mr Naik, the Americans raised the issue of an attack on Afghanistan at one of the full sessions of the conference, convened by Francesc Vendrell, a Spanish diplomat who serves as the UN secretary general's special representative on Afghanistan. In the break afterwards, Mr Naik told the Guardian yesterday, he asked Mr Simons why the attack should be more successful than Bill Clinton's missile strikes on Afghanistan in 1998, which caused 20 deaths but missed Bin Laden.
"He said this time they were very sure. They had all the intelligence and would not miss him this time. It would be aerial action, maybe helicopter gunships, and not only overt, but from very close proximity to Afghanistan. The Russians were listening to the conversation but not participating."
Asked whether he could be sure that the Americans were passing ideas from the Bush administration rather than their own views, Mr Naik said yesterday: "What the Americans indicated to us was perhaps based on official instructions. They were very senior people. Even in 'track two' people are very careful about what they say and don't say."
In the room at the time were not only the Americans, Russians and Pakistanis but also a team from Iran headed by Saeed Rajai Khorassani, a former Iranian envoy to the UN. Three Pakistani generals, one still on active service, attended the conference. Giving further evidence of the fact that the Berlin meeting was designed to influence governments, the UN invited official representatives of both the Taliban government in Kabul and the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance. Dr Abdullah Abdullah, the Northern Alliance's foreign minister, attended. The Taliban declined to send a representative.
The Pakistani government took the US talk of possible strikes seriously enough to pass it on to the Taliban. Pakistan is one of only three governments to recognise the Taliban.
Mr Coldren confirmed the broad outline of the American position at the Berlin meeting yesterday. "I think there was some discussion of the fact that the United States was so disgusted with the Taliban that they might be considering some military action." The three former US diplomats "based our discussion on hearsay from US officials", he said. It was not an agenda item at the meeting "but was mentioned just in passing".
Nikolai Kozyrev, Moscow's former special envoy on Afghanistan and one of the Russians in Berlin, would not confirm the contents of the US conversations, but said: "Maybe they had some discussions in the corridor. I don't exclude such a possibility."
Mr Naik's recollection is that "we had the impression Russians were trying to tell the Americans that the threat of the use of force is sometimes more effective than force itself".
The Berlin conference was the third convened since November last year by Mr Vendrell. As a UN meeting, its official agenda was confined to trying to find a negotiated solution to the civil war in Afghanistan, ending terrorism and heroin trafficking, and discussing humanitarian aid.
Mr Simons denied having said anything about detailed operations. "I've known Niaz Naik and considered him a friend for years. He's an honourable diplomat. I didn't say anything like that and didn't hear anyone else say anything like that. We were clear that feeling in Washington was strong, and that military action was one of the options down the road. But details, I don't know where they came from."
The US was reassessing its Afghan policy under the new Bush administration at the time of the July meeting, according to Mr Simons. "It was clear that the trend of US government policy was widening. People should worry, Taliban, Bin Laden ought to worry - but the drift of US policy was to get away from single issue, from concentrating on Bin Laden as under Clinton, and get broader."
Mr Inderfurth said: "There was no suggestion for military force to be used. What we discussed was the need for a comprehensive political settlement to bring an end to the war in Afghanistan, that has been going on for two decades, and has been doing so much damage."
The Foreign Office confirmed the significance of the Berlin discussions. "The meeting was a bringing together of Afghan factions and some interested states and we received reports from several participants, including the UN," it said.
Asked if he was surprised that the American participants were denying the details they mentioned in Berlin, Mr Naik said last night: "I'm a little surprised but maybe they feel they shouldn't have told us anything in advance now we have had these tragic events".
Russia's president Vladimir Putin said in an interview released yesterday that he had warned the Clinton administration about the dangers posed by Bin Laden. "Washington's reaction at the time really amazed me. They shrugged their shoulders and said matter-of-factly: 'We can't do anything because the Taliban does not want to turn him over'."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4262511,00.html
As you'll see, Naik's account here is relatively sparse. No details about Russian troops, specific support from particular countries, or a particular date for the action. Instead Naik concentrates on the particular aim, apparently to get bin Laden - "won't miss him this time". Again, no mention of an all-out invasion.
There's also no confirmation from anyone of Naik's earlier account. And interestingly, while Simons specifically says military action was one of the options "down the road", what he most questions (as we have above) are the "details, I don't know where they came from."
As was reported above, Simons later added a comment about the "carpet of gold/ carpet of bombs" remark: "It’s possible that a mischievous American participant, after several drinks, may have thought it smart to evoke gold carpets and carpet bombs. Even Americans can’t resist the temptation to be mischievous." But again, how does this relate to foreknowledge of a future attack? Even if Simons said exactly that, surely it implies a negotiation, that there's still hope? Which certainly wouldn't work if you then said, "but we'll be attacking Afghanistan in the autumn anyway, and here's detailed information on the countries that will be helping us and what we hope to achieve."
Naik's most-quoted version of this story isn't fully confirmed by anyone, then. Even he doesn't repeat the same details everywhere.
Reliability
Can we entirely trust Naik's account of events? A Salon article suggests reasons why Naik might have told the story he did.
The same article reports suggestions that Naik has proved unreliable before:
We know, then, that Washington policy had been moving through 2001 towards taking a more active role against the Taliban and al Qaeda. We know there was talk of military action at some point, though not imminently, or in the context of a full invasion. It's not unreasonable to believe that the retired US officials who met with Naik were aware of this, and so conveyed that message to him.
Naik's later account of the meeting included many extra details, however it's hard to believe that retired officials would know specific attack plans, or want to pass them on to him. As there's also no confirmation of those details from anyone else, and we know some of them proved inaccurate, the simplest explanation is that already provided by respected commentators like Ahmed Rashid: Naik exaggerated what he heard for honourable reasons, in that he could see support for the Taliban was hurting Pakistan and wanted others to understand that.
It's worth noting that even some of those within the truth movement treat the "carpet of bombs" quote sceptically. Jared Israel said "the "carpet of bombs" quote is *not* highly documented. Like a lot of the urban legend-type material cluttering the discussion of 9-11, it is not documented at all. (At least not in the English language.) It has just been repeated a lot." Read more here.
Pipeline
Naik's report of a US warning "Either you accept our offer of a carpet of gold, or we bury you under a carpet of bombs" has been claimed by many to relate to a plan to build a gas pipeline through the country. However, even Naik said the issue never arose:
Murder
Naik was found dead in August 2009. We've no doubt that people will find a way to connect this to his 9/11 account, even though that was relayed almost 8 years earlier.
Former foreign secretary Niaz A Naik was found dead in mysterious circumstances at his residence in Sector F-7/3 on Saturday, police said. He was 82.
Naik’s body was shifted to the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS) where its autopsy was conducted.
Naik had apparently died three to four days back but since he was living alone, nobody knew about it until a neighbour reported foul smell emanating from his house. Naik was a bachelor and had never married.
Talking to The News, PIMS spokesman Dr Waseem Khawaja, while quoting a medico-legal report, said that the lower jaw and four right ribs of Naik were found broken. He said that cuts or bruises on the body could not be detected because the skin had started peeling off due to decomposition.
The Kohsar police said that a party was sent to Naik’s house, which was locked from inside. However, some police personnel managed to enter it and found Naik dead, lying in his bed, his right arm placed over his forehead.
Dr Khawaja said that Naik’s body was decomposed and it was difficult to identify it. “Ascertainment of the actual cause of death could be difficult due to decomposition,” Dr Khawaja said.
However, viscera (internal organs of the body) have been sent for histopathology and chemical examination to know the exact cause of his death, he added.
The spokesman of the PIMS did not rule out the strong possibility of murder, saying that the preliminary medico-legal report strengthened the doubts of homicide after torture.
It is pertinent to know that on December 18, 2005, two of Naik’s domestic servants — Masood Khan, son of Shah Zaiwar, and Usman Ali, son of Mairaj Ali, both hailing from Charsadda, had looted his house and decamped with valuables after having tied him with a rope. The Kohsar police had registered a case against the nominated accused under Sections 382/34 PPC on the complaint of Niaz Naik. Both accused were arrested after some time and stolen articles and foreign currency were recovered from their possession. Both ended up in jail. The police are checking whether they had been released and in such an eventuality an act of vengeance on their part was not being ruled out.
Inspector-General of Police (IGP), Islamabad, Syed Kaleem Imam, told The News that the police would investigate all the aspects, adding that the accused involved in looting would, definitely, be interrogated.
Naik, Pakistan’s former high commissioner to India, was involved in backchannel parleys with R K Mishra, a close aide of then prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, during the Kargil conflict. At the time, the two sides had come close to a deal to end the conflict in June 1999. Naik was engaged in the Track-II diplomacy with India and frequently visited New Delhi for the purpose. He was the 16th foreign secretary of Pakistan from July 11, 1982 to May 30, 1986.
APP adds: President Asif Ali Zardari, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani, Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi and others have expressed deep grief and shock over the sad demise of Niaz A Naik.
http://www.thenews.com.pk/top_story_detail.asp?Id=23762
MSNBC
As we detailed above, in May 2002 MSNBC reported that "President Bush was expected to sign detailed plans for a worldwide war against al-Qaida two days before Sept. 11 but did not have the chance before the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, U.S. and foreign sources told NBC News."
The article appears generally in agreement with the 9/11 Commission's report. This was a long-term project, starting with diplomatic initiatives, working with other countries to round up al Qaeda suspects, attacking al Qaeda financial support, and attempts to persuade the Taliban to turn over bin Laden. The main focus was on covert operations. Only later would there be military action, if all else failed (and even then this may have been simply to "get bin Laden", rather than launch a full-scale attack).
There's a contradiction in the timing - the article says Bush was to sign it on September 9th, the 9/11 Commission say officials were passing it on the 10th - but this hardly seems a smoking gun.
And when the article is quoted, significance is often given to this: "In many respects, the directive, as described to NBC News, outlined essentially the same war plan that the White House, the CIA and the Pentagon put into action after the Sept. 11 attacks. The administration most likely was able to respond so quickly to the attacks because it simply had to pull the plans “off the shelf,” Miklaszewski said."
But how is this surprising? Of course the US sought to work with other countries, post-9/11, to deal with al Qaeda. Of course they wanted to disrupt their finances. Of course they asked Afghanistan to hand over bin Laden. These are very obvious things to do. Notably they're not plans for war in Afghanistan, though. And on that point, as we've seen, there are people who feel the administration didn't "respond so quickly" at all.
In other words, while this was new at the time, we now know much more, and there's nothing here that varies significantly from what the 9/11 Commission have told us.
Others
There are other stories that crop up on this same topic, but in our experience they're of little substance.
The first Guardian story we quote above turned out to be a retelling of Niaz Naik's account, for instance. It includes a line saying "reliable western military sources say a US contingency plan exist[s] on paper by the end of the summer to attack Afghanistan from the north", but so what? The 9/11 Commission report spoke of the US preparing plans for air attacks at the end of 2000, but says they weren't about an invasion, and the article contains nothing to contradict this.
Elsewhere there's the report that "A senior official in the Taliban’s defense ministry tells journalist Hamid Mir that the US will soon invade Afghanistan. Mir will later recall that he is told, “[W]e believe Americans are going to invade Afghanistan and they will do this before October 15, 2001, and justification for this would be either one of two options: Taliban got control of Afghanistan or a big major attack against American interests either inside America or elsewhere in the world.”"
We don't have the original report for this, so can't be sure of its accuracy. However, as senior Taliban officials reportedly knew the attacks were coming, then that may be the foreknowledge that caused them to believe the US would soon invade. Seems a more plausible explanation to us than somehow trying to tie this to Taliban awareness of American foreknowledge of a false flag attack.
Conclusion
It's no secret that the US were preparing plans to deal with al Qaeda and the Taliban before 9/11. The 9/11 Commission cover the issue in great depth.
It's not in any sense suspicious that they were doing this, either. The impetus came about because al Qaeda attacked the US embassies in Africa, bombed the Cole, and threatened many more attacks, with intelligence agencies predicting something would happen in the summer. Why is it surprising that the US would respond to this by planning new actions, when their existing path plainly wasn't working?
Ah, the 9/11 truth movement asks, so was it really just a "coincidence" that the White House were working on the directive just the day before the attacks, according to the 9/11 Commission?
And we say, no, probably not. It wasn't a coincidence. On September 9th, al Qaeda, knowing that the Taliban may soon need buttressing from a military response, killed the leader of the Northern Alliance. Given their importance to US plans, and the suspicion that something significant may be going on in Afghanistan, it's probably not a "coincidence" that officials met to discuss their own plans regarding the country and al Qaeda. It's more likely they reacted to an important event to discuss how it might affect their plans, then try to move forward with them, a natural and obvious thing to do.
Of course the details of what is, or it not suspicious can be debated endlessly. What isn't in dispute, though, is that the US attack on Afghanistan didn't occur immediately after the attack: it took 26 days, such a long time that the respected commentator Peter Bergen concluded the US had no "plan in place" for anything faster.
What's also plain is that, even then, the attack was mostly about air power. There were reportedly just a few specialist forces on the ground, and conventional troops wouldn't arrive for almost another month.
We believe this shows the US were not prepared for the task of an all-out war to remove the Taliban, then. The stories from MSNBC and Niaz Naik do nothing to convince us otherwise, and so on balance we feel the American lack of preparedness doesn't support foreknowledge of the attacks: more likely, they didn't know what was coming, or what they would soon have to do.