Barrie Zwicker Endorses Citizen Investigation Team, Censored at 911blogger

I could benefit from, have done and will do so.

No, I'm not arguing with you at all.

I don't know who sponsored 9/11, I'm studying the issue because I'm interested in finding the truth.

From what I've learned by studying other subjects, I'm reluctant to form strongly held beliefs or opinions, especially in light of the fact that I know very little.

I don't believe everything I read, I try to find independent corroboration for claims before I accept them as reliable, many things don't add up or make sense, things often look different from different vantage points.

I'm not claiming to have insight or understanding, I try to keep an open mind and remain receptive to new information.

Sifting and sorting, grading and qualifying, analyzing and assessing evidence is all important. Discerning fact from fiction is the greatest challenge, the most critical step.

...even though it's from a "debunker" site, because a) the points are mostly valid and b) it puts the lie to claims made by people like Jon Gold that "debunkers" always focus on controlled demolition and no plane hit the Pentagon because they "can't" debunk anything on his big fat list of facts...

The story...

One of those reports was
that an ISI agent, Saeed Sheikh, had wired $100,000 to Mohammed Atta,
considered the ringleader of the 9/11 hijackers. That report by itself,
if it had become widely known, would have had explosive implications for
the prospect of positive relations between Pakistan and the United
States after 9/11. But even more potentially explosive was the report
that Saeed Sheikh had wired this money at the instruction of none other
than ISI chief Mahmoud Ahmad. This “damning link”, as Agence France
Presse called it, had explosive implications not only for US-Pakistani
relations but also--given the close relations between the CIA and the
ISI--for the question of possible CIA involvement in the attacks.
Page 104/105
Chapter 9, Pakistan and its ISI
The 9/11 Commission Report: Omissions and Distortions
David Ray Griffin

Our take...

This is a lengthy, complicated claim,
perhaps the most involved we’ve ever covered on this site. And so if
you’re expecting simple answers, then it’s best to move on: you won’t
find them here. But if you’re interested in hearing some of the
information that’s often left out when the “Atta and the ISI” story is
retold, then keep reading. 

The transfer

Let’s
start by looking at the very earliest reports, before coverage appeared
in the US. Perhaps the most commonly repeated story says that India
played a major part in establishing the ISI-Atta link, and that there’s
very little doubt about its accuracy. However a second report contains
quite a different account, suggesting we need to be wary about accepting
either version as 100% accurate. Read more on this here.

Of
course Indian sources aren’t the most objective when it comes stories
linking the ISI with terrorism. They’ve been producing similar reports
for some time, with groups in Kashmir and elsewhere. It might not be
wise to take everything they say as literal truth: here’s why.

Many
web sites and authors ignore these concerns, however, asserting that
the ISI-Atta funding claims have been independently confirmed by the FBI
and other sources. But is this really true? Maybe not. Take a look.

This
doesn’t mean there’s no confirmation at all, though, just that it tends
to come from shadowy off-the-record briefings or unnamed sources rather
than anything you can actually verify. That can be interesting in
itself, though. Here are some good examples.

Recognising
the problems involved in confirming the detail of this story, some
authors fall back to a safer position. The FBI said that $100,000 did
come from Pakistan, they point out, and from someone with an alias said
to be used by Saeed Sheikh. Although this is sort-of true, the full story is rather more complicated.

There’s
also a fundamental question over the supposed Sheikh transfer that
doesn’t seem to be asked very often: when did it occur? This matters a
great deal, because some accounts suggest it happened only just before
the attacks, and it’s not at all clear what further need the plotters
had for cash at that point. Check out the details on this here.

ISI-CIA links

Let’s
give these theories the benefit of the doubt, though. We’ll assume that
Sheikh did transfer at least $100,000 to Atta, in the summer of 2000,
and that he did so at the instigation of Mahmoud Ahmed, the head of
Pakistan’s ISI. You might still want to ask, what does this prove? It’s
no secret that Pakistan has supported Islamist groups for a very long
time, so the idea that at least one General was connected to an al Qaeda
plot shouldn’t be a great surprise.

According to researchers
like Michel Chossudovsky, the key here is the close relationship between
the ISI and the CIA, which implies that the ISI could well have been
used as a conduit to send funds to the hijackers. He starts by
suggesting that, for instance, “amply documented, the ISI owes its
existence to the CIA”. On this page we take a look at the references he uses to support that.

Chossudovsky
also says that the CIA has used the ISI as an intermediary to conceal
it’s support for Islamist groups before: “Throughout the 1990s, the
Pakistan Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) was used by the CIA as a
go-between -- to channel weapons and Mujahideen mercenaries to the
Bosnian Muslim Army in the civil war in Yugoslavia”. But once again, he doesn’t present a lot of supporting evidence.

Of
course there’s always the claim that bin Ladin was created, funded or
trained by the CIA, in partnership with the ISI. This gets a lot of
coverage, but it’s worth nothing that there are people who say it simply
isn’t true (and they’re not all obvious supporters of the US
government, either). We have an early page on this here.

The Meeting

One
of the most frequently raised elements to this story is the fact that
ISI chief Ahmed was actually in Washington on September 11th, holding
talks with the State Department, CIA and others. “It was rather a
remarkable coincidence”, David Ray Griffin tells us in The 9/11
Commission Report: Omissions and Distortions. Well, maybe, although he
had been around since the 4th. And this was a return trip following a 3-day visit (27th to 29th or 28th to 30th of August) to Pakistan from Porter Goss, Jon Kyl and Bob Graham. And Christina Rocca, U.S. assistant secretary of state for South Asian Affairs had been in Pakistan early in August.  And General Ahmed had been in Washington less than three months previously. And Condoleeza Rice met with Pakistan's Foreign Minister in June. And CIA chief George Tenet had been in Islamabad in May. And Tommy Franks had met Musharraf in January. And
there may well be many other trips we don’t know about, both of US
officials going to Pakistan and their Pakistani opposite numbers heading
for America. Presumably if the attacks had occurred during any of these
visits, or perhaps immediately afterwards, then that would also be
written about as a “remarkable coincidence”. But with the number of
trips being made, it may not be so unlikely after all.

Anyway,
you might hope there’s more substance here than simply implying “it
can’t just be a coincidence”. As Michel Chossudovsky covered this first,
and has been extensively quoted by David Ray Griffin, Nafeez Ahmed and
others, it might be interesting to see what he had to say about it. Take a look here.

There’s
no point pretending we were the first to take a critical look at the
Chossudovsky article, though. Bill Herbert did it long ago, and you can
still find his thoughts at whatdidntreallyhappen.com.

The Dismissal

Whatever
happened during the Washington visit, Mahmoud Ahmad wouldn’t be chief
of the ISI for very much longer. By October the 8th, just before the
bombing of Afghanistan began, he had been dismissed. As a common
complaint about 9/11 is that it’s suspicious that no-one has been fired
for what they did, you might think this was a sign that his actions
weren’t supported by the US. But no, now it’s being fired that is a sign
there’s something wrong, apparently: Nafeez Ahmed, and later David Ray
Griffin, both see his dismissal as perhaps a coverup, designed to avoid
investigations into possible US involvement with the $100,000 wire
transfer to Atta. Let’s see if their interpretation stands up to scrutiny.

Other Claims

One
issue that sometimes pops up in support of Pakistani funding of 9/11
(in emails to us, if not in many books), is an interview given by
Senator Bob Graham, where he said: “I think there is very compelling
evidence that at least some of the terrorists were assisted not just in
financing -- although that was part of it -- by a sovereign foreign
government”. Graham doesn’t name the country, but could he possibly be
talking about Pakistan? Well, let’s take a look at that on this page.

Balance

Before
we finish, a minor health warning.  This section does not cover every
aspect of the Sheikh/ ISI/ Atta story, not in any sense. And the chances
are it never will (that would require an entire site in itself). You
might want to check the views of those who say this really is the
“smoking gun” of 9/11, then, just to get both sides of the story. Try
Paul Thompson’s “The Many Faces of Saeed Sheikh” for a lengthy consideration of the issues, and perhaps review some of the links to Sheik-related stories at the Media References for Omar Sheikh page.

Conclusion

We’re
no more able to definitively say what really happened here than anyone
else, however after spending time looking through the evidence a few
points do become clear.

First, the core claim that Sheikh wired
anything at all to Atta is not the proven fact that some would have you
believe. Sources involved here may have their own agendas, and there is
contradictory information about the evidence involved. We still tend to
believe that a transfer did occur, but this is only a marginal, balance
of probabilities assessment, in no way a certainty.

Second, if
there was a transfer, there’s far less confirmation of the idea that
Mahmoud Ahmad was involved at all than is generally accepted. Many of
the sources commonly cited are simply references to the original India
Times story. There are other sources, but they often present new
problems of their own.

Third, the stories that do say Ahmad was
behind the transfer provide no clear explanation as to how they’ve done
this. You can start with “Ahmad called Sheikh frequently around the time
of the transfer”, but that’s not actually proof that “Ahmad ordered
Sheikh to transfer $100,000 to Atta”, and definitely not the occasional
interpretation that “Ahmad was the money man behind the 9/11 attacks”.

Fourth,
even if we accept the “Ahmad ordered Sheikh...” claim, there’s no
evidence to show that the decision to do this was made by anyone other
than Mahmoud Ahmad himself. And if it’s claimed that Ahmad is more than a
“rogue general” then such evidence will be necessary, especially as
there are alternative accounts suggesting he was sympathetic to Islamist
causes.

Fifth, attempts to suggest that “close links” between
the ISI and CIA mean that the US must, or even are likely to have known
what Ahmad was doing beforehand, are little more than conjecture and
guesswork.

And sixth, while most discussions of Ahmad’s dismissal
might leave you thinking he was the only one to leave, it seems many
other hardline Islamist officers were removed at the same time. And so
it’s not necessary to devise any special explanation for his departure,
for example to prevent investigations into his supposed 9/11 links.

The
impression we get from all this is of a story that gets considerably
less reliable, as you move away from wire transfer itself. 

Did Sheikh transfer money to Atta, for instance? That’s a definite possibility. 

But
was he ordered to do so by General Ahmad? We have Indian sources saying
he did, although there’s no evidence to back that up. Confirmation
elsewhere is slim.

And as there are accounts saying General Ahmad
had Islamist sympathies, can we be sure that, if he did order Sheikh to
send the money, that he wasn’t simply doing that for his own
reasons? Well, no.

Even if this funding was the official policy
of the ISI, that doesn’t automatically imply a link to the CIA. India
blame the ISI for funding and organising terrorism in Kashmir, for
instance, but they don’t somehow assume that the CIA must be linked to
that: they recognise that the ISI is an independent organisation. The
argument that “the ISI and CIA have worked together therefore the CIA
will probably have known what Ahmad was doing” is a stretch, to say the
least.

And even if Sheikh funded Atta, and Ahmad ordered this, and he did so as a matter of ISI policy, and
the US pressured Pakistan to have Ahmad removed, that still doesn’t
show they were covering up a “CIA link”. In fact it can be argued it’s
just as, if not more likely to be the US quietly trying to ensure that
Pakistan was more likely to cooperate in the fight against the Taliban
and Al Qaeda. (Quietly being a necessity, as Musharraf being publicly
told what to do wouldn’t gain him much support in Pakistan).

In
our view we’re a long way from any “damning link” here, then, although
you should read at least the links in the above “Balance” section to
make your own mind up. As you do, though, keep in mind the various links
in the chain that need to be proved here, and assess for yourself how
well an author covers each one.

And if you’re checking out other
books and sites covering this story, then be careful. Ploughing through
these articles has shown just how often source material can be used in
misleading ways, with judicious editing and misinterpretations regularly
giving a false impression. So when you see references to a footnote, or
links to an article, follow and read them (and that goes for us just as
much as anyone else). Don’t let snipped quotes deceive you, read the
background material and make your own mind up: it’s the only way to go.

I agree that belief in 19 hijackers/Islamofascism is an important dividing line distinguishing Real Truthers from others claiming to be so, but my own understanding of LIHOP has to do with how actively elements within the U.S. government were involved, and despite what you say, I've seen no one coherently attempt to argue that Islamic terrorists placed explosives in the buildings. So it's one thing to believe in the 19 hijackers/Islamofascism myth, and another to believe in controlled demolition, but no one who believes in the latter, no matter what their views on the former, can be considered a "LIHOPer", at least in my book, because that belief presumes elements within the U.S. "Made It Happen on Purpose" - even if they still believe in the hijacker fairytale as well. I hope that makes sense.. we clearly agree on the basics here, just a question of terminology.

...Insofar as some Arabs and/or Muslims are alleged to have done something bad to America on 9/11, the Bush administration must have known about it and allowed them to do it.