My friend and excellent speaker, Jonathan Schanzer, has written a lengthy but well worth treatise documenting how Congress and other entities ignored early warnings relating to terrorism as is Europe now. (See 1 and 1a below.)
Has anyone ever stopped to ask why Mecca should not be divided between those who claim it is their holy site and others who might wish to build there? Why is Jerusalem the only nation's capital singled out? I suspect there is not a capital in the world that has not been occupied by previous peoples other than those now claiming it as such.
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The New York Post agrees, Holder is a liar and should go but he will not. Why? Because Obama needs him and his Justice Department cronies to protect and implement Obama and Holder's vision of our nation. Holder now oversees a government department that attacks the very roots of our Republic. He is determined to bring about the change Obama seeks. - A nation counter to democratic ideals and one favoring selected groups against those who are successful.
We are witnessing the final stake driven through the heart of capitalism. and all its supposed 'inequities' in the simplistic and dangerous pursuit of government mandated egalitarianism achieved under the rubric of 'fairness.' (See 2 below.)
The White House object now is to defend Holder by attacking Chairman Issa and the whistle blowers of F and F, which keeps getting in the way. (See 2 a below.)
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I loaned David Mamet's book, which I reviewed many memos ago, to one of my dearest friends, a fellow memo reader and my severest critic. These are his comments which he e mailed to his own list: "I have just finished an excellent book, "The Secret Knowledge" by David Mamet.
Mr. Mamet is a Jew, and most Jews are Liberal; a Hollywood writer, where most are Liberal; he was a Liberal, now a conservative.
I recommend its reading to you since those who convert, to anything, usually have better reasons than those born to it."
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Zuckerman remains dispirited. (See 3 below.)
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Dick
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1)Early Warnings Ignored
September 11: A Decade Later
By Jonathan Schanzer
Middle East Quarterly
In its final report of July 22, 2004, the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States (commonly known as the 9/11 Commission) charged that Congress had failed America. In the commissioners' judgment, Congress had "adjusted slowly to the rise of transnational terrorism as a threat to national security. In particular, the growing threat and capabilities of [Osama] bin Laden were not understood in Congress … To the extent that terrorism did break through and engage the attention of the Congress as a whole, it would briefly command attention after a specific incident, and then return to a lower rung on the public policy agenda." Indeed, the commission was unequivocal about "Congress's slowness and inadequacy in treating the issue of terrorism in the years before 9/11."[1]
A 1991 report by the Republican task force provided intelligence not acted on for more than a decade by fingering "Sami ar-Rayan" as a U.S.-based Islamist. This was a reference to Sami al-Arian, a Palestinian professor in Florida who pleaded guilty in 2006 to a charge of conspiring to provide services to the Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
The commission was not alone in its indictment. Richard A. Clarke, former White House coordinator for counterterrorism under President Bill Clinton, asserted that "only after 9/11 did Congress muster the political will to strengthen the U.S. laws to fight terrorist financing and money laundering."[2] Paul Pillar, a former CIA official, noted that congressional interest in terrorism merely mirrored the public's interest, spiking after major terrorist incidents but waning shortly thereafter.[3]
But these critics were not entirely accurate. One small group of congressmen was undeserving of these admonishments. Working under the obscure banner of the Republican Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare, a handful of legislators consistently warned of jihadist terrorism for more than a decade before the 9/11 attacks.
Task Force Origins
The story of U.S. aid to the Afghan mujahideen in the 1980s is well known. As author George Crile detailed in his book, Charlie Wilson's War, Rep. Charlie Wilson (Democrat, Texas) of the House Appropriations Committee championed an initiative to arm and fund these forces and repel the Soviet invasion.[4]
A lesser-known story was the supply of non-military aid, thanks to the efforts of Rep. Bill McCollum (Republican of Florida). With the help of his chief of staff, Vaughn Forrest, McCollum airlifted medical supplies to El Salvador, Thailand, Cambodia, Chad, Angola, Vietnam, and other conflict zones. The success of these "McCollum Airlifts" prompted the U.S. Agency for International Development to request in 1985 that a similar program be developed for Pakistan.[5]
Forrest also found a legal loophole that enabled the Pentagon to give away military surplus goods as humanitarian assistance in Afghanistan. He further discovered that Air Force reserve pilots could maintain flight proficiency levels by flying transport planes to Afghanistan.[6]
As McCollum's staff worked in Afghanistan and Pakistan, they cultivated a network of locals and expatriates, some of whom reported on radical, anti-Western elements,[7] alerting McCollum to new dangers among the mujahideen.[8]
By the end of 1988, the tide of the war had turned. Amid heavy losses, the Soviets began to withdraw from Afghanistan, and by May 15, 1989, they were gone. McCollum, however, did not join in the celebration. In a Washington Post op-ed, he boldly proclaimed that "something has gone terribly wrong with the war in Afghanistan."[9] Drawing from continuing reports on radicalism among the mujahideen, McCollum sought to warn the West. To this end, together with Rep. Duncan Hunter (Republican of California), the head of the Republican Research Committee, he created the ad-hoc Republican Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare.[10]
The aims of the task force were not immediately apparent. Congress did not fund it or provide it with offices. McCollum put Forrest in charge of the group and soon hired as its director Yossef Bodansky, a part-time academic from Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies, who provided additional research.
In its first known report, issued on July 28, 1989, task force letterhead listed its members as Republican representatives Michael DeWine (Ohio), David O'Brien Martin (New York), Porter Goss (Florida), Jim Lightfoot (Iowa), Bob Livingston (Louisiana), Jack Buechner (Missouri), John G. Rowland (Connecticut), and Olympia Snowe (Maine). Also listed as cochairman was Dana Rohrabacher (California).[11] By the following year, the roster had changed so that only Goss, Livingston, and Snowe remained from the original letterhead. Joining them were Republican representatives William Broomfield (Michigan), Benjamin Gilman (New York), Robert Dornan (California), and Christopher Cox (California).[12]
Membership changed frequently in the early years. Inclusion simply signaled an active interest in the subject.[13] Members also contributed funds from their budgets for task force operations and reports.
The task force faxed its reports to more than 400 people, including members of the intelligence community, the White House, the State Department, Congress, and the media.[14] Staffers recall going from one member's office to another begging for boxes of paper to print the reports because the task force lacked funds, but even when the group printed enough reports, they often went unread.[15]
Part of the problem was the tone of the research. Analysis by the task force conveyed a sense of absolute certainty. Indeed, the reports rarely included caveats or even attributions. It was as if the task force was conveying immutable facts—a style typically avoided in intelligence reports, think tank analyses, and journalism.
Early Prescience
The task force reports, without exception, contained errors. But, if one can look past the errors, some of the early reports had remarkably prescient information.
The first report, titled "Trends in Afghanistan," warned that the "radical-revivalist Islamists, (the fundamentalists), who are the recipients of the bulk of U.S. aid, are actually involved in international terrorism aimed at the United States and its allies throughout the Islamic world." Should Washington fail to take note, the task force warned, "there will be unleashed a wave of terrorism aimed at the U.S."[16]
In another early report of February 28, 1990, titled "Saudi Arabia," the task force warned that "Afghan mujahideen and Arab Wahhabi activists, financed by Saudi money, have attempted to enforce their way of life … on rural populations in Afghanistan."[17]
A separate 1990 task force report titled "A Question of Trust," drew attention to Gulbaddin Hekmatiyar, the leader of the Islamist faction Hezb-i-Islami. It noted that he had received U.S. assistance in the 1980s and that his faction now posed a threat to U.S. interests in Afghanistan.[18] The task force was nearly thirteen years ahead of its time; in 2003, the U.S. Treasury designated Hekmatiyar for terrorist activity with al-Qaeda and the Taliban.[19]
A 1991 report on "Emerging Trends and Threats" emphasized the threat posed by Afghan mujahideen but also provided intelligence not acted on for more than a decade by fingering "Sami ar-Rayan" as a U.S.-based Islamist who attended an "Islamic Conference for Palestine" in 1989.[20] This was a reference to Sami al-Arian, a Palestinian professor in Florida who pleaded guilty in 2006 to a charge of conspiring to provide services to the Palestinian Islamic Jihad.[21]
Additionally, in July 1992, the task force issued a report alleging that Tehran and Damascus were printing "nearly perfect" counterfeit U.S. currency to destabilize the U.S. economy while easing Iran's deficit. McCollum even displayed the currency at a press conference,[22] driving Iran's U.N. mission to lash out at the task force and its "wild hallucinations of the extreme right."[23] Later, however, the Treasury confirmed the task force's report, noting that, "excellent forgeries have turned up in the Middle East."[24]
On February 1, 1993, McCollum submitted an 80-page report for the Congressional Record titled "The New Islamist International."[25] It was an attempt to provide an overview of the jihadist movement, including an analysis of the "leadership and high command" of terrorists in Sudan where "the pan-Islamist movement has taken hold." While the report did not mention al-Qaeda, it did note the existence of an "international jihad organization." It identified the "most important figure" within that organization as the late Abdullah Azzam—later identified as al-Qaeda's cofounder—and also mentioned Ayman al-Zawahiri (al-Qaeda's future deputy leader), and Abdul Majid al-Zindani (finally designated by the U.S. Treasury in 2004 for "working with bin Laden, notably serving as one of his spiritual leaders. In this leadership capacity, he … played a key role in the purchase of weapons on behalf of al-Qaeda and other terrorists").[26]
Remarkably, the February report also warned of Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman, "the spiritual guide of the most radical branch of Islamic Jihad in Egypt," who "arrived in the U.S. in the fall of 1990 and established an Islamist center … in Brooklyn, New York." It noted that Abdel Rahman was exploring the "possibility of terrorist operations" in the United States. [27] Although he was largely unknown at the time, Abdel Rahman would soon be arrested and later convicted for his role in a plan to plant five bombs in the New York City area.[28]
Task force member Benjamin Gilman is worthy of special mention. Even before the creation of this group, he demonstrated an abiding interest in counterterrorism legislation. He was among the most vocal advocates of the Domestic Antiterrorist Reward Act (HR 1241) in March 1993, raising the reward for leads in domestic terrorism cases from $500,000 to $2 million.[29] The program led to, among others, the 1995 capture of senior al-Qaeda operative Ramzi Yousef in Islamabad, Pakistan.[30]
Gilman also relentlessly pushed the State Department to reform. He hammered it for allowing Abdel Rahman into the United States on a tourist visa in 1990 and campaigned to have the department update its antiquated microfiche system.[31]
Finally, one cannot discuss the early years of the task force without addressing Yossef Bodansky's 1993 book, Target the West: Terrorism in the World Today, in which he argued that a new terror network, the Armed Islamic Movement, had emerged with "operational centers in Sudan, Pakistan, and Afghanistan."[32] Bodansky was clearly struggling to understand the nascent al-Qaeda network.
Perhaps the most notable passage appeared on page 15, which alleged that Tehran was training jihadists "to seize (or hijack) a transport aircraft. Then, trained air crews from among the terrorists would crash the airliner with its passengers into a selected objective."[33] This, of course, was a chilling description of the 9/11 plot eight years later.
Early Failures
But, as noted above, the task force reports were riddled with errors, some of which were spectacular. One example is the wildly inaccurate analysis of the 1990 crisis with Iraq. One report, "Some Speculations on Desert Warfare," erroneously predicted that war would "almost certainly cover the entire region" and that Saddam Hussein's forces would "defeat U.S.-led forces piecemeal."[34] Another falsely stated that "Iraq had already developed other nuclear weapons."[35] After U.S.-led forces routed Saddam, the task force erroneously warned of "spectacular strikes, including suicide attacks" in the United States.[36]
The task force released a 1992 report titled "Terrorism in the U.S.: Emerging Trends and the Florida Connection." It claimed, without attribution, that "Disney World … would make a visually spectacular and socially meaningful target" for terrorists.[37]
In 1993, the task force warned that a "new phase in an Islamist, terrorist campaign in the United States and overseas has been initiated." A report warned of attacks "by the Iranians and their Islamist allies" between March 17 and March 23, and then from March 25 through the end of the month, as the "most likely period for some terrorist attack to occur."[38] The attack, of course, never occurred.
In what may have been its most spectacular failure, the task force released a May 1993 report alleging that a terrorist network existed within a "radical [native] American Indian movement." It alleged that Libya provided aid to Native American allies, who in turn provided "shelter and hiding places to terrorist operatives on various reservations."[39]
These are just a few of the task force's many errors in the early years.
Under Fire
The task force also quickly began to accumulate enemies. In 1994, the Qur'anic Open University published a book titled Target Islam: Exposing the Malicious Conspiracy of Zionists against the World of Islam and Prominent Muslim Leaders. The book rebuked the task force for attempting to "maliciously link American Muslim organizations and individuals"[40] with the January 1993 World Trade Center attack. The Qur'anic Open University, by way of background, was headed by Sheikh Mubarik Ali Shah Gilani, who was later implicated—but not convicted—in the kidnapping and murder of Wall Street Journal journalist Daniel Pearl in Pakistan in 2002.[41]
Other Muslim groups lashed out at the task force for a report titled "Iran's European Springboard," which claimed that Tehran sent fighters to Bosnia to launch a European Islamist revolution and that Bosnian Muslims were slaughtering their own people as a ploy for world sympathy. The report alleged that "several key events, mostly strikes against civilians, that had galvanized public opinion and governments in the West to take bolder action in Bosnia-Herzegovina, were in fact 'staged' for the Western media by the Muslims themselves in order to dramatize the city's plight."[42]
In response to the report, in 1993, American Muslim Council director Abdurahman Alamoudi accused the group of "Muslim-bashing."[43] Eleven years later, Alamoudi would be sentenced by a federal court to twenty-three years in jail for plotting to assassinate the King of Saudi Arabia with financing and assistance from Libya.[44] At the time, however, his criticism was taken seriously. Rohrabacher resigned from the task force, registering his dissatisfaction with the report.[45] Representatives Snowe and Cox left shortly afterward.[46]
The task force soon stopped listing members on the letterhead. Listed beneath the seal of Congress and the title of the Republican Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare were only the names of Bill McCollum (chairman), Vaughn Forrest (chief of staff), Yossef Bodansky (director), and Donald Morrissey (legislative director).
The Alamoudi controversy did not help when task force members approached Rep. Charlie Rose (Democrat of North Carolina), then-House administration chairman, to create the Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare Caucus. This was an effort to transform the group into a recognized and bipartisan institution with a congressional budget.[47] In addition to the fallout from the Alamoudi scuffle, the intelligence community and the State Department reportedly bristled at the task force's attempts to challenge their authority. Rose eventually denied the request in July 1994.[48]
Early Attempts to Identify al-Qaeda
Despite its setbacks, the task force continued doggedly to try to understand the evolution of the jihadist movement. One 1994 report, titled "Islamist Terrorism and the Geneva Connection," identified Ayman al-Zawahiri as "one of the senior leaders of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad," who relocated "to Pakistan where he joined a fledgling international Islamist group in Peshawar."[49]
The task force produced another important report, which McCollum submitted for the Congressional Record, noting that "Arab volunteers continued to arrive in Peshawar" and that the "main Ikhwan [Muslim Brotherhood] facility is Maktaba-i-Khidamat (services offices), which was originally established by the late Shaykh Abd Allah Azzam."[50] Here the task force had fingered (using the Urdu spelling) the central clearinghouse for al-Qaeda in its early years—Maktab al-Khidamat.
Then, on November 2, 1994, the task force released a report titled "The Persian Gulf Redux." Though it did not identify him as a central figure, the report was one of Congress's earliest warnings about Osama bin Laden:
the Committee for Advice and Reform, a Saudi Islamist group closely affiliated with Khartoum, specifically condemned the establishment of the Higher Council for Islamic Affairs. In a statement signed by Osama bin Laden, the Committee accused Riyadh of "trying to deceive the public"… Bin Laden further accused Riyadh of attempting "to put an end to genuine Islam."[51]
New Leadership, Same Inconsistency
On January 4, 1995, the 104th Congress was sworn in, marking the first time Republicans controlled both houses since 1953.[52] The task force also underwent dramatic change. McCollum was appointed to the House Intelligence Committee, which prompted him to relinquish his chair. "I had access to secure things that I couldn't talk about," McCollum later said.[53] Task force members agreed that McCollum could assist the group's work from the inside.[54]
Rep. Jim Saxton (Republican of New Jersey) became the new chairman.[55] He approached his new position with vigor and took a more active interest in the research and writing involved in producing task force reports.[56]
The task force also drew interest from new members, including former actor and musician Sonny Bono (Republican of California), who was elected to represent California's 44th district in November 1994, and quickly became one of the members who contributed funds for task force salaries from their congressional budgets.[57] Gilman, who continued to press for State Department reform, had become chairman of the House International Affairs Committee.
The task force, despite these changes, continued to issue questionable reports. In February 1995, the group warned that "Iran-sponsored Islamist terrorists may soon strike in Washington D.C.—specifically the U.S. Congress and the White House."[58] As was the case with previous warnings, no such attack took place.
The group also issued questionable research following the April 19, 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, alleging that Islamists had carried out the attack when, in reality, the attack was homegrown. But on May 24 of that year, it also released a report titled "Recent Terrorist Conferences," warning of the activities of both bin Laden and Zawahiri.[59]
The task force also issued two responses to the bombings in the Saudi cities of Riyadh (1995) and Dhahran (1996) where it struggled to grasp the extent of al-Qaeda's involvement. However, it continued to call it the "Armed Islamic Movement" in one report,[60] and the "International HizbAllah" in another. The latter report unequivocally warned of the "rise in prominence of Osama bin Laden."[61]
Joint Economic Committee Years
In 1997, Saxton was named chairman of the Joint Economic Committee, whose primary task was to recommend improvements in economic policy. He only had until the end of 1998, as the chairmanship rotates between Democrats and Republicans every two years, but he inquired about putting his two task force staffers—Bodansky and Forrest—on the committee payroll under the assumption that "terror can have a significant impact on the economy."[62] In the end, he only secured sufficient funds for Forrest.[63] Bodansky continued to receive a salary pooled by task force members.[64]
On March 12, 1997, the task force issued "The Dhahran Bomb: Update," warning that "bin Laden and his allies have accelerated their preparations for the resumption of terrorist attacks against U.S. forces in the Middle East and elsewhere." It questionably described bin Laden's network as being wholly controlled by Iran but also cited an al-Quds al-Arabi article describing bin Laden's "fortified bases and headquarters in the mountains … in the Tora Bora military base of Nangarhar province."[65] Tora Bora was, of course, the scene of heavy fighting after the U.S.-led coalition invaded Afghanistan in December 2001 and where bin Laden escaped via underground caves.[66]
At around this time, the task force came under attack again from an American Muslim group. An April 10 article in an Arab newspaper quoted Nihad Awad of the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) as stating that "the congressmen who provide public funds to support this task force need to explain to their constituents why hard-earned tax dollars are being wasted on inflammatory reports." He claimed that Bodansky had made "a career out of bashing Islam and Muslims."[67] Thus, the task force had again drawn the ire of a Muslim group later tied to terrorism. Indeed, the U.S. government identified CAIR in 2007 as an "un-indicted coconspirator" in United States vs. Holy Land Foundation, a Hamas terrorism finance case.[68]
Gilman, in the meantime, had become fixated on the threat of the Taliban. He and former task force member Dana Rohrabacher publically and repeatedly challenged the Clinton administration's official policies toward the Taliban.[69] He was central in the congressional effort to condemn the Taliban. In 1998, he warned of a "new kind of adversary, one that draws its power from a convergence of the destructive tactics of international terrorism and radical Muslim extremism with one of the world's largest heroin empires." He warned that "bin Laden is only the tip of the iceberg and removing him will not end the threat … from Muslim terrorist extremists." [70]
Bodansky's Book
Following the 1998 twin embassy bombings in Africa, bin Laden had unquestionably become a household name in the United States. Capitalizing on Americans' interest in the Saudi-born terrorist, Bodansky released Bin Laden: The Man Who Declared War on America.[71] He, however, declined to provide source footnotes for his text of more than 400 pages. Thus, as one reviewer later noted, "Bodansky leaves the veracity of many of his claims to ride on his name alone."[72] This, coupled with the lack of caveats and qualifiers (similar to the style of task force reports), weakened the book's credibility.
Still, no other analyst had attempted what Bodansky had done. His book described bin Laden as a "cog, albeit an important one, in a large system that will outlast his own demise."[73] He further identified the existence of what is now recognized as al-Qaeda, though referred to it by the name used in task force reports: the "Armed Islamic Movement." He noted that "under the leadership of bin Laden, Zawahiri, and their colleagues, the Islamist terrorist system continues to expand."[74] In the end, Bodansky's book was filled with both errors and worthwhile analysis, but it came out at a time when the public knew precious little about Islamist terrorism.
By this time, in early 1999, Saxton had rotated out of the position of chairman of the Joint Economic Committee. Forrest attempted to stay on as a staffer, but he recalled that "the chairman was opposed to having me continue."[75] Forrest left and founded the Higgins Counterterrorism Center along with defense analyst Peter Leitner. After Forrest's departure, the task force continued to operate on a shoestring budget. Bodansky, according to staffers, worked out of a tiny room, a converted broom closet, down the hall from Saxton's office.[76]
Special Panel (1999-2000)
In May 1999, House Speaker Dennis Hastert (Republican of Illinois) named Saxton as chair to a new Special Oversight Panel on Terrorism. Saxton expressed his delight in presiding over "an official entity."[77] Bodansky, however, did not receive an official position on the special panel; he remained an advisor to Saxton and the sole employee of the task force.[78]
Saxton's panel held its first hearing on the threat of biological, nuclear, and cyber terrorism. It included testimony on the threat of an electromagnetic pulse attack, in which a nuclear warhead could be detonated high above the Earth's surface, causing permanent damage to electrical systems on the ground. The panel also featured an expert on cyberterrorism, a new and growing field in the age of the Internet.[79] Saxton, the ambitious chairman, held five more panels on terrorism-related topics in subsequent weeks.[80] One, titled "Terrorism and Threats to U.S. Interests in Latin America," featured Elliott Abrams, who later served as deputy national security advisor during President George W. Bush's second term.[81]
As Saxton enjoyed his newfound success, however, his task force predecessor fell on hard times. In November 2000, the founder of the task force, Bill McCollum, relinquished his House seat to run for the Senate but lost.[82] After two decades of service (he began in 1981), McCollum's time in Congress had ended.
Countdown to 9/11
In the lead up to the September 11, 2001 attacks, terrorism remained a relatively high-profile subject in Congress after the lingering shock of the 1998 twin embassy bombings in Africa and the 2000 attack on the U.S.S. Cole. Senior intelligence officials provided regular briefings on Capitol Hill, and Saxton continued to raise awareness through the newly created Special Oversight Panel.
Gilman, for his part, continued to warn of the Taliban. The Islamist government had destroyed two ancient statues of Buddha and forced Hindus to wear a yellow symbol on their clothes as a means to identify them as non-Muslim.[83] Other legislators, alarmed by a tactic used by the Nazis in World War II, joined him in his campaign.
The task force, according to staffers, continued to operate but did so primarily in the form of briefings. Saxton and Bodansky reportedly met with various decision-makers and analysts around Washington to generate awareness, but the analytical output had slowed.
Finally, seeking to devote more time to the oversight panel, Saxton handed off the chairmanship of the task force to Eric Cantor (Republican of Virginia) on April 1, 2001. Cantor, not yet forty years old, was a freshman representative with a vivid interest in counterterrorism.[84] According to the public record, Bodansky's salary that year came from the budgets of representatives Cantor, Hunter, and Tom DeLay (Republican of Texas), then House majority whip, among others.[85]
The Attack and its Aftermath
On the morning of September 11, 2001, Jim Saxton got to work early and received a telephone call informing him that his father had passed away. The grieving Saxton called his longtime colleague, Duncan Hunter, who came to the office to console him.
That same morning, nineteen al-Qaeda operatives hijacked four commercial airliners filled with passengers and carried out the most devastating terrorist attack in U.S. history. Predictably, the congressional record on September 12 is filled with fiery reactions even from legislators with little understanding of who had attacked Americans, or why.
The task force, now under Cantor, issued a release stating that "the terrorist attacks are an act of war. Therefore, retribution must be swift, sure, and overwhelming. But retribution is not enough. In war, one must destroy the enemy's ability to wage war ... It is only through the destruction of international terrorism's supportive infrastructure that attacks like this can be prevented and terrorists emasculated."[86]
Saxton asked how the United States could prevent this from ever happening again. He offered five specific suggestions, including restructuring the intelligence community. Gilman called for similar reforms, calling on Congress to "review all of our policies toward international terrorism, our airport security, and our intelligence capability."[87] He later joined President George W. Bush to view the wreckage at Ground Zero.
Bodansky was soon in high demand. Television, radio, and newspaper audiences wanted to hear about this Saudi, who had engineered the most devastating terrorist attack in the country's history. Bodansky, author of Bin Laden: the Man Who Declared War on America, was uniquely positioned to fit that role.
In 2002, Duncan Hunter was named chairman of the House Armed Services Committee. He, in turn, created the Terrorism, Unconventional Threats, and Capabilities Subcommittee, and placed it in Saxton's hands.[88] Saxton recalled that "after 9/11, some members [of Congress] quietly came up to me and gave us credit for what we did in the hallway." He was also invited to Vice President Dick Cheney's office, which sought information about bin Laden's potential use of weapons of mass destruction.[89]
Shifting Sands
On November 26, 2002, the 9/11 Commission first met to prepare a report on the September 11 attacks, the lapses in intelligence that enabled them to take place, and the role of the various arms of the government to prevent terrorism in the future. Its members, headed by former New Jersey governor Thomas Kean, included former representatives Lee Hamilton (Democrat of Indiana) and Timothy Roemer (Democrat of Indiana), along with former senators Bob Kerrey (Democrat of Nebraska) and Slade Gorton (Republican of Washington).[90] Notably, the commission invited not one member of the task force.
Gilman, after three distinguished decades in Congress, retired in January 2003. Saxton and Hunter, however, continued to bring attention to the threat of terrorism through the hearings of the House Armed Services Committee. Saxton's role as chairman of the Subcommittee of Terrorism, Unconventional Threats, and Capabilities kept him particularly busy. He traveled to Iraq in 2003 and Afghanistan in 2005. As one staffer recalled, his passion was funding the elite counterterrorism forces of the U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM).[91]
The task force survived, but with institutes specializing in terrorism popping up all over Washington, members were losing interest. Cantor, Hunter, Saxton, and DeLay pooled their funds, but the records show that the amount dropped each year. [92] Bodansky lists his last year on the task force as 2004.[93]
Thus, after fifteen years, the Republican Task Force effectively dissolved. Cantor still proudly noted his affiliation with the group, stating that it was "composed of members of Congress who study the threat of international terrorism on the United States and develop policy proposals and legislative recommendations regarding the fight against terrorism."[94] However, the task force today does not maintain an official online presence, and there is no public record of its roster.
The 9/11 Report
On July 22, 2004, the 9/11 Commission released its report and charged that Congress had failed to respond to the threat of transnational terror. It made no mention of the task force or its members. On August 3, The Miami Herald reported that McCollum, then campaigning for Senate, "generally endorsed" the commission's findings.[95] "No, we weren't acknowledged," he said. "But the point was to identify the failures … I thought the report from that perspective was pretty accurate. I suppose I was used to the task force not being recognized."[96]
Forrest was less forgiving. He stated later that it was "mind-boggling that the 9/11 Commission didn't talk to me, Saxton, McCollum, or the others."[97]
Saxton, for his part, continued to raise awareness of terrorism, writing articles for The Washington Times[98] and The National Interest.[99] He also remained chair of the Subcommittee on Terrorism and Unconventional Threats, holding hearings on U.S. strategy in the "Global War on Terror" and other relevant topics. He spent three more years in Congress, then retired in January 2009, the same year as Hunter.
For the Record
The legislative record demonstrates that the Republican Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare was undeserving of the 9/11 Report's admonishments. Thousands of pages of task force reports and statements incontrovertibly testify to this.
One 9/11 Report staffer later recalled that "the commission did not bring the same amount of resources, attention, or focus to investigation into the performance of the legislative branch." In fact, the commission "was divided into nine teams, and Congress was not the focus of any of them. It was a last-minute look."[100]
To be fair, the task force reports were not easy to find. Even the Library of Congress does not have them on file. As one archivist explained, the library would not collect the reports because they were not released by the Government Press Office and were not official publications. Moreover, because of their Republican identification, the archivists may have determined the reports were partisan, and therefore, elected not to collect them.[101] The many errors in the task force reports may have been a factor, too.
Until 2007, only a few of its earlier documents could be found online. Then, Peter Leitner and his son Richard, released Unheeded Warnings: The Lost Reports of the Congressional Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare. So the reports had not exactly been lost. Leitner requested them in 2006 from Saxton, who gladly complied.
The record clearly shows that the task force cannot be credited with conveying a clear view of the threat during the 1990s. Indeed, the reports were as erroneous as they were prescient. From warning of Libyan-inspired terrorists among Native Americans, to foretelling attacks on a Florida theme park, the task force was often more wrong than right. Yet the group's members should be credited for their tenacious work to understand al-Qaeda and its affiliates at a time when almost no one else did.
On the tenth anniversary of those devastating attacks, the group deserves praise for mustering all the resources it could to warn the public of the looming dangers. At the very least, its efforts were worthy of mention in the 9/11 Commission's report.
Jonathan Schanzer is vice president of research at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.
[1] The 9/11 Commission Report (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 2004), pp. 104-6.
[2] Richard A. Clarke, Against All Enemies: Inside America's War on Terror (New York: Free Press, 2004), p. 195.
[3] Paul R. Pillar, Terrorism and U.S. Foreign Policy (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 2001), pp. 20, 204-5.
[4] George Crile, Charlie Wilson's War: The Extraordinary Story of How the Wildest Man in Congress and a Rogue CIA Agent Changed the History of Our Times (New York: Grove Press, 2003), pp. 33-114.
[5] Author's interview with Peter Leitner, Pentagon City, Va., June 9, 2009.
[6] Ibid.
[7] The Hill (Washington, D.C.), Nov. 26, 2003.
[8] Phone interview with Bill McCollum, Sept. 29, 2005.
[9] Bill McCollum, "Afghan Endgame: The CIA Has Bungled It," The Washington Post, Sept. 10, 1989.
[10] The Hill, Nov. 26, 2003.
[11] "Trends in Afghanistan," Republican Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare, July 28, 1989, Hoover Institution library, Stanford University, Stanford, Calif.
[12] "National Security Advisory," Republican Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare, Jan. 29, 1991, Hoover Institution library.
[13] Author interview with Donald Morrissey, Washington, D.C., June 19, 2009.
[14] Author interview with James Geoffrey, Washington, D.C., June 12, 2009.
[15] Author interview with Scott Brenner, Washington, D.C., June 22, 2009.
[16] "Trends in Afghanistan," July 28, 1989.
[17] Richard J. Leitner and Peter M. Leitner, Unheeded Warnings: The Lost Reports of the Congressional Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare, vol. II (Washington, D.C.: Crossbow Books, 2009), pp. 166-8.
[18] "A Question of Trust," Republican Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare, Mar. 1, 1990, private library of Rosanne Klass, New York City.
[19] "Alphabetical Listing of Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons" (SDN list), Department of the Treasury, Office of Foreign Assets Control, Washington, D.C., accessed July 11, 2011.
[20] Leitner and Leitner, Unheeded Warnings, vol. 1, p. 336.
[21] "Sami al-Arian Pleads Guilty to Conspiracy to Provide Services to Palestinian Islamic Jihad," Department of Justice, Washington, D.C., Apr. 17, 2006.
[22] Author interview with Scott Brenner, June 22, 2009.
[23] The Independent (London), July 3, 1992.
[24] Moneyclips (San Angelo, Tex.), July 2, 1992.
[25] Leitner and Leitner, Unheeded Warnings, vol. I, pp. 102-91; excerpts at "The New Islamist International," The Republican Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare, Feb. 1, 1993.
[26] "United States Designates bin Laden Loyalist," U.S. Department of the Treasury, Washington, D.C., Feb. 24, 2004.
[27] Leitner and Leitner, Unheeded Warnings, vol. I, pp. 102-91; excerpts at "The New Islamist International," The Republican Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare, Feb. 1, 1993.
[28] The New York Times, Jan. 18, 1996.
[29] Gerald Solomon, speaking in support of the "Domestic Antiterrorist Reward Act of 1993," H1035, House of Representatives, Congressional Record, Mar. 4, 1993.
[30] CNN, Mar. 1, 2003; for more on Yousef, see Simon Reeve, The New Jackals: Ramzi Yousef, Osama bin Laden and the Future of Terrorism (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1999).
[31] Benjamin Gilman, "Time to Slam the Door on Terrorists," U.S. House of Representatives, Congressional Record, 103rd Congress (1993-94), Washington, D.C., May 11, 1993, p. E1207.
[32] Yossef Bodansky, Target the West: Terrorism in the World Today (New York: S.P.I. Books, 1993), pp. xv.
[33] Ibid., p. 15.
[34] Leitner and Leitner, Unheeded Warnings, vol. 1, pp. 312-7.
[35] "Iraq's Other Bomb," Republican Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare, Nov. 28, 1990, Hoover Institution library.
[36] Leitner and Leitner, Unheeded Warnings, vol. 1, pp. 42-4.
[37] Ibid., pp. 380-9.
[38] Ibid., pp. 403-5.
[39] Ibid., pp. 429-33, report titled, "Terrorism and the Radical American Indian Movement: The Unexpected Connection."
[40] The New York Times News Service, Jan. 10, 2002; The Baltimore Sun, Jan. 10, 2002.
[41] Mira L. Boland, "Sheikh Gilani's American Disciples," The Weekly Standard, Mar. 18, 2002.
[42] Yossef Bodansky and Vaughn S. Forrest, "Iran's European Springboard?" Republican Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare, Sept. 1, 1992.
[43] Greg Noakes, "Republican Task Force Faces Backlash on Bosnia Report," Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, July/Aug. 1993, p. 30.
[44] "Abdurahman Alamoudi Sentenced to Jail in Terrorism Financing Case," U.S. Department of Justice, Washington, D.C., Oct. 15, 2004.
[45] Author telephone interview with Dana Rohrabacher, June 26, 2009.
[46] Noakes, "Republican Task Force Faces Backlash on Bosnia Report," p. 30; National Catholic Reporter, Mar. 19, 1993.
[47] Roll Call (Washington, D.C.), Jan. 20, 1994.
[48] Ibid., July 11, 1994.
[49] "Islamist Terrorism and the Geneva Connection," Republican Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare, Mar. 14, 1994, accessed Aug. 13, 2010. This link has since been removed.
[50] Bill McCollum, "Pakistan Supports Terrorist Rebels in Kashmir—By Yossef Bodansky and Vaughn S. Forrest," House of Representatives, Congressional Record, June 22, 1994, p. E1296.
[51] Leitner and Leitner, Unheeded Warnings, vol. 2, pp. 364-5.
[52] Laurence M. Vance, "What a Republican Majority Has Not Meant," Future of Freedom Foundation, Fairfax, Va. Sept. 29, 2004.
[53] Author telephone interviews with Bill McCollum, Sept. 29, 2005, Jan. 16, 2010.
[54] Author telephone interview with Vaughn S. Forrest, Jan. 13, 2010.
[55] Author interview with James Geoffrey, June 12, 2009.
[56] Author telephone interview with Mark O'Connell, July 22, 2009.
[57] Author telephone interview with Gary Gallant, July 16, 2009; Report of the Clerk of the House, 1996 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1997).
[58] Leitner and Leitner, Unheeded Warnings, vol. 1, pp. 509-12.
[59] Ibid., pp. 245-52.
[60] Ibid., pp. 533, 547, 567.
[61] Ibid., pp. 573-8.
[62] Author telephone interview with Jim Saxton, July 24, 2009.
[63] Author telephone interview with Vaughn Forrest, Jan. 14, 2010.
[64] Author telephone interview with anonymous Joint Economic Committee staffer, Sept. 3, 2009.
[65] Leitner and Leitner, Unheeded Warnings, vol. 1, pp. 579-83.
[66] The Washington Post, Apr. 17, 2002.
[67] Al-Nashra (Fairfax, Va.), Dec. 23, 1998.
[68] The New York Sun, June 4, 2007.
[69] Dana Rohrabacher, "9/11 Represented a Dramatic Failure of Policy and People," House of Representatives, June 21, 2003.
[70] Benjamin Gilman, "The Taliban: Protectors of Terrorists, Producers of Drugs," H. Con. Res. 336, House of Representatives, Congressional Record, Oct. 8, 1998, p. E1989.
[71] New York: Prima Publishing, 1999.
[72] Ali Asadullah, "Book Review: Bin Laden: The Man Who Declared War on America," Islam Online, Nov. 4, 2001.
[73] Bodansky, Bin Laden, p. 406.
[74] Ibid., p. 404.
[75] Author telephone interview with Vaughn Forrest, Jan. 14, 2010.
[76] Author telephone interview with Mark O'Connell, July 22, 2009.
[77] Author telephone interview with Jim Saxton, Dec. 15, 2009.
[78] Author telephone interview with Jim Saxton, Sept. 4, 2009.
[79] "Terrorist Threats to the United States," Special Oversight Panel on Terrorism, House Committee on Armed Services, Washington, D.C., May 23, 2000.
[80] "Terrorism and Threats to U.S. Interests in the Middle East," Special Oversight Panel on Terrorism, House Committee on Armed Services, Washington, D.C., July 13, 2000.
[81] "Terrorism and Threats to U.S. Interests in Latin America," Special Oversight Panel on Terrorism, House Armed Services Committee, Washington, D.C., June 29, 2000.
[82] The Hill, Nov. 26, 2003.
[83] "Afghan People vs. The Taliban," hearing before the House Subcommittee on International Operations and Human Rights, House Committee on International Relations, Washington, D.C., Oct. 31, 2001.
[84] Author telephone interview with Jim Saxton, Sept. 4, 2009.
[85] "Yossef Bodansky, Congressional Staffer — Salary Data," LegiStorm, Washington, D.C., accessed July 1, 2011.
[86] Congressional Task Force press release, Sept. 12, 2001, cited in Media Matters Action Network, May 5, 2010.
[87] S. J. Resolution 22, U.S. Senate, Washington, D.C., Sept. 12, 2001.
[88] Author telephone interview with Jim Saxton, July 24, 2009.
[89] Ibid.
[90] "Biographical Information: Commission Members," National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States, Washington, D.C., accessed June 14, 2011.
[91] Author telephone interview with Tom Hawley, Jan. 6, 2010.
[92] "Yossef Bodansky, Congressional Staffer—Salary Data."
[93] "The Boards of the Global Panel Foundations," accessed June 14, 2011.
[94] "About Eric," Eric Cantor website, accessed June 14, 2011.
[95] The Miami Herald, Aug. 3, 2004.
[96] Author telephone interview with Bill McCollum, Jan. 16, 2010.
[97] Author telephone interview with Vaughn Forrest, Jan. 13, 2010.
[98] Jim Saxton, "Confronting Complacency," The Washington Times, July 29, 2005.
[99] Jim Saxton, "Reshaping Our Iran Policy," The National Interest, Jan. 3, 2007; idem, "Finally, An Iranian Containment Strategy," The National Interest, Jan. 26, 2007.
[100] Author telephone interview with anonymous former 9/11 Commission staffer, Jan. 13, 2010.
[101] Interview with archivist, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C., Dec. 16, 2009.
1a)Europe's Underestimated Islamists
By Ian Johnson
Middle East Quarterly
In early 1959, a small West German intelligence operation stumbled over a sensational find: U.S. collusion with the Muslim Brotherhood. According to the West German sources—two ex-Wehrmacht soldiers who were in Washington's pay but still felt loyalty to their old German bosses—Washington was supporting one of the Brotherhood's top men, the Geneva-based Said Ramadan, son-in-law of the movement's founder Hassan al-Banna, in the hope of using him in the global battle against communism. The U.S. double-agents wanted to know if the West Germans would also help support Ramadan.
Bonn's response was an unequivocal "no": not because of ethical qualms about doing business with the Brotherhood but because of practical considerations. "Ramadan doesn't possess the slightest influence in the Orient," read an evaluation by the head of the West German intelligence operation, Gerhard von Mende. "A connection with him would only yield negative consequences."[1]
In an unassuming office complex in Herndon, Virginia, the Muslim Brotherhood's European leaders set up the International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT) as a beachhead for spreading Islamist thought in the West. IIIT's headquarters were raided by the FBI in 2002 for connections to terrorists, and the institute was cited in 2010 by the Justice Department as an unindicted coconspirator in the Holy Land Foundation terrorism financing case.
Von Mende was neither the first nor the last to have underestimated the Brotherhood or its leaders. In its 83-year history, the movement has time and again been written off as out of date, broken, or otherwise a non-force. Most recently, Western analysts of the Middle East upheavals were quick to portray the Brotherhood as out of touch and, basically, inept. U.S. director of national intelligence James Clapper reduced it to a "largely secular" movement[2] while anthropologist Scott Atran argued that its "failure to support the initial uprising in Cairo on Jan. 25 [2011] has made it marginal to the spirit of revolt now spreading across the Arab world."[3] News pages had similar coverage with the Brotherhood's absence in some Cairo neighborhoods seen as indicative of its declining importance.[4]
Of course, as is now known, the Brotherhood played a leading role in the Egyptian uprising and its wake.[5] This should have come as no surprise. For all its flaws, mistakes, and disastrous decisions, the Brotherhood is one of the most resilient organizations in modern history. Its longevity is due to one of its defining characteristics: an almost intuitive ability to assume new forms while pursuing its ultimate goals and carving out niches of influence. In its eagerness to write off the Brotherhood, the West has shown a distinct lack of attentiveness to the group, leading to decades of blunders.
Nowhere has this phenomenon been more starkly demonstrated than in Europe. For half-a-century—unlike in the Arab world—the Brotherhood has been able to grow without any restrictions, going from a one-man operation centered around Ramadan to being the continent's foremost Islamist force. How this happened illustrates the Islamist movement's potency and hints at ways it can be dealt with today. A decade after the 9/11 attacks, why is the West still grappling with Islamism, not so much as a force for terrorism—though that risk remains potent—but as an important political force throughout the Middle East and beyond?
Planting the Seeds
Gamal Abdel Nasser's 1954 ban of the Brotherhood forced the group to reorganize abroad. While many of its senior leaders would spend years in Egyptian jails and its top theoretician, Sayyid Qutb, would be executed, the group was fortunate in having two havens where it was able to regroup. One was Saudi Arabia where it laid down deep roots, eventually melding with indigenous Islamist movements to create a powerful and violent challenge to the ruling royal family.[6] The other, less well-known haven was Europe. Ramadan had already been to the continent several times and was studying law at Cologne University. When the Egyptian ban came into effect, he was living in Geneva, which he would make his home until his death forty years later.
This was a period before the great influx of migrant workers was to transform Europe. Muslims were few and far between. Germany, for example, had just two mosques, one in Hamburg and the other in Berlin. But this does not mean that Islam was not on the radar of Western policymakers. The process of decolonization was creating dozens of newly independent states, many of them Muslim. Western intelligence agencies were eager to use covert propaganda to influence these countries for broader, strategic purposes, such as the battle against communism.
West Germany was home to several hundred Muslims (estimates vary with the upper limit around 2,000) who had served in the Wehrmacht and the Nazi SS. They had been former Red Army soldiers who had been captured by the Germans and changed sides, either for fear of death in the horrific German prisoner-of-war camps or because of their belief in the Nazis' promise to liberate their Soviet-ruled homelands. After the war, most were repatriated but some managed to stay on, congregating for various reasons in Munich.[7]
Many of these began working for von Mende, who had spent the war years in the Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories (usually known as the Ostministerium), coordinating Muslim and other Soviet minorities. After the war, he set up a series of quasi-free intelligence operations that have remained unstudied to date, eventually settling on the name "Research Service East Europe" (Forschungsdienst Osteuropa) that was co-financed at various times by the West German Interior Ministry, Foreign Office, External Intelligence Service, and Domestic Intelligence Service. Von Mende tried to rally the Muslims who stayed behind—many of them his old Ostministerium colleagues—in order to achieve West German foreign policy aims, including the long-term recovery of lost German territories east of the Oder-Neisse border. One of his methods for winning over the Muslims was to promise them a mosque in Munich.
Ramadan stepped into this complex situation in 1958. Under von Mende's guidance, the Munich Muslims set up a registered, legal organization to build the mosque,[8] inviting young Arab students for extended stays in the city. Ramadan was thus invited from Geneva to Munich and within a year kicked out von Mende's Muslims and took over the project, using his position as head of the Munich Mosque Construction Commission[9] to traverse the Muslim world with his assistant (and later rival), Ghaleb Himmat.
Ramadan was aided significantly by the Central Intelligence Agency, which allegedly paid for his travel and backed his efforts to take over the mosque. Suspicions by the West German and Swiss intelligence services that he was a CIA operative have never been positively proven, but the archives show an early U.S. fascination with the Brotherhood, one that would recur in the subsequent decades.[10]
Whatever the reasons behind the U.S. support for Ramadan and the Brotherhood, the latter made good use of their European platform. Through dint of hard work and organizational prowess they used the mosque as a springboard to create a European-wide network.[11]
Consolidation and Expansion
An initial effort at forming a framework for Islamism in Europe took place in 1973, just a few months before the Munich mosque opened. Held in London's theater district, the Islamic Cultural Centers and Bodies in Europe was designed to establish a network of like-minded groups. Several dozen activists attended, including Ghaleb Himmat, freshly minted as head of the Islamic Community of Southern Germany—the official name of the Munich mosque. Reflecting Saudi Arabia's efforts to dominate organized Islam, the chairman was a Saudi. Himmat was elected to the governing council, along with Khurshid Ahmad, a leading Pakistani activist. The meeting did not immediately succeed in setting up a European network, but it was a first step.[12]
Four years later, the Brotherhood scored a crucial success. A meeting in the Swiss lakeside resort of Lugano, headed by Himmat and Yusuf Nada, another key person in the mosque, with the participation of prominent activists, notably Yusuf al-Qaradawi, now widely described as the Brotherhood's spiritual leader, initiated the arduous process of rebuilding the organization after the years of Nasserite repression. In Europe, protected by laws and institutions, they were free to set up lasting structures, beginning with the International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT), whose real task was to provide the theoretical underpinnings for the spread of Islamism in the West. In 1978, the group met in Saudi Arabia and decided to relocate IIIT to the United States where it would be headed by Ismail Faruqi, a leading Islamist thinker who had also been in Lugano and who held a teaching post at Temple University in Philadelphia.[13]
Meanwhile, the Islamic Center of Munich continued to grow in importance, and in 1982, changed its name to the Islamic Community of Germany, reflecting its growth across the country. The Islamic Center of Munich was still important but now primarily as the headquarters of a national group that oversaw a chain of mosques and cultural centers. The exact number of these, in the early 1980s, cannot be ascertained, but it had branches in all major West German cities.
Reflecting its international importance, the group continued to add members from abroad, turning membership in the mosque into a badge of honor. Khurshid Ahmad, for example, joined. He had been at the 1973 London meeting and was the most important representative in Europe of Jamaat-e-Islami, the South Asian version of the Muslim Brotherhood. Another key person to join was Issam al-Attar, the charismatic head of the Muslim Brotherhood's Syrian branch, who had moved to Belgium in the early 1960s and settled in the West German city of Aachen in 1968.[14]
Their joining was emblematic of the international Islamist movement's ability to overcome the ethnic divisions that had split Islam. Although men like Himmat, Attar, and Ahmad had their ideological and personal differences, in Europe they had far more in common. From their point of view, they were the vanguard of a new Islamist wave in the West, pioneering minorities in Christian lands. But they had little to do with ordinary Muslims or the mosque they were supposed to be leading; they did not live in Munich, and the mosque was just a vehicle for their struggle. The group's disconnect from West Germany was highlighted by Himmat, who sent in the protocols of the 1982 meeting by registered mail from his villa overlooking Lake Lugano, 250 miles away from Munich.[15]
By the 1990s, an alphabet soup of organizations had stretched across Europe. The Islamic Community of Germany—as the organization based at the mother mosque in Munich—was a founding member of the Brussels-based Federation of Islamic Organizations in Europe linking Brotherhood groups in more than twenty countries. Attached to it is the Dublin-based European Council on Fatwa and Research that issues religious opinions to European Muslims. A funding arm, the U.K.-registered Europe Trust, channels money from the Persian Gulf to groups sympathetic to the Brotherhood in Europe, primarily to build mosques. And the European Institute of Human Sciences trains imams at three campuses in France and Wales. All these bodies and organizations are linked to the Brotherhood through interlocking directorates and senior advisors, such as Qaradawi. These groups also receive significant funding from foreign donors such as the Maktoum Foundation.[16]
This frenzy of institution building highlights an important point about the Brotherhood, namely that it is not a religious society with theological goals. It has had one or two important thinkers, but their main point has been simple: The Qur'an should be interpreted in a relatively literal fashion so as to shape every aspect of temporal society. Most of its members, especially the key institution builders and functionaries who run it, have no theological training or knowledge. Many held degrees in engineering, medicine, or law, leading to the sometimes mocking term of "engineer Islam." This personnel mix, however, is ideally suited for institution building. Back in Egypt before it was banned, it imitated 1930s-style fascist parties. The Brotherhood had political parties, newspapers, youth associations, women's groups and a quasi-military wing. In Europe, these diligent functionaries dutifully duplicated much of this structure (minus the military wing). The main difference is that the Brotherhood is operating as a minority religion, so it uses its structures not to Islamize mainstream society—which is an unrealistic task—but to dominate the West's Muslim communities. It aims to shield them from the West's secular and multicultural societies, providing an alternative reality for its members. It also tries to convert other Muslims into "better" Muslims, who follow the Brotherhood's narrow vision of Islam.
This goal is all the more important given the fact that since the abolition of the caliphate (in 1924), the Islamic world has had no overarching religious authority or structure. If a group set up a body and claimed to speak for Muslims, few could challenge it unless a rival group was set up. The Brotherhood, with its organizational prowess, has been quicker and more efficient than other Muslim groups to assert its preeminence in Europe—from Ramadan's pan-European Muslim conference sponsored by the CIA in the 1960s to the pan-European federation today. It is no coincidence that in both cases—and all in between—outsiders have financed the Brotherhood's activities. That is because at its heart, the Brotherhood outside of Egypt is not a mass organization. It is a group of elite organizers who have set up the structures to define Islam in the West. The Islamic Center of Munich and all successor organizations have never numbered more than a few dozen members. These people did not serve Munich's Muslim community—indeed, the Turkish Muslims who by the 1970s made up 90 percent of the city's Muslims were explicitly denied membership. Instead, the leadership was obsessed with setting up structures. In the Cold War, these groups were relatively unimportant. If anyone paid attention to them it was with a view to using them to fight communism. But as they developed, something unexpected happened: Europe, once outside the Muslim world, became central to its future, and the Brotherhood, after years of laborious organizational work, was suddenly poised to lead the charge.
Conduit to Terrorism
The Brotherhood may be influential in Muslim circles, but is it involved in terrorism? The answer to this is, yes, but this is to some extent a moot point. Since 9/11, terrorism has become a far-too-narrow test for Western evaluation of Islamist groups. If they are violent (usually defined in terms of attacks against Western targets), then they are bad; otherwise, they are good. The Brotherhood has managed to slip through relatively unscathed—yet another indication of the underestimation of its real importance.
To illustrate this point, it may be useful to return to the Munich mosque and two of its brushes with terrorism. Mahmud Abouhalima, the man convicted of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, for example, had been a regular at the mosque[17] and had sought spiritual counseling from Ahmad al-Khalifa, then the mosque's chief imam. Khalifa and the center denied any connection with the plot, saying Abouhalima had simply come for spiritual counseling.
There was also the case of Mamduh Mahmud Salim, widely seen as al-Qaeda's finance chief and bin Laden's personal mentor. He was arrested in 1998 in a small town near Munich while on a business trip to Germany. Before being extradited to the United States, he called up Khalifa and asked for spiritual guidance. (He was later put on trial in New York and sentenced to thirty-two years in prison.) Khalifa confirmed to having met both men but described the contacts as being purely humanitarian work.[18]
German intelligence was, nevertheless, alarmed and launched an all-out investigation into Salim's contacts. One, in particular, stood out: Mamun Darkazanli—a Syrian businessman living in Hamburg, who attended a small mosque there called al-Quds. German police bugged Darkazanli's home and observed his contacts at the mosque, including one particular man, Muhammad Atta, but being unsure about the nature of their findings decided to drop the investigation. Two years later, on September 11, 2001, Atta flew the first plane into the World Trade Center, and al-Quds mosque emerged as a place where the hijackers had been radicalized. Darkazanli was never prosecuted, but he was yet another less-than-glorious link between the Islamic Center of Munich and political-religious extremism.[19]
Shocked by the 9/11 attacks, the U.S. government swung hard against the Brotherhood. Investigators were especially fascinated by one of Nada's investment vehicles, Banque al-Taqwa. Himmat sat on its board, and seemingly every Islamist in Europe had bought shares in it, making its shareholder list a who's who of the Muslim Brotherhood in Europe. Nada had set up the bank as one of the first financial institutes to operate in conformity with Islamic law. Instead of offering depositors interest, the bank called its customers investors and offered them profits from money it lent out. But he had invested the money amateurishly—Nada himself says he put most of it in Malaysian businesses shortly before the 1997 Asian financial crisis—and the bank went under. U.S. prosecutors, however, concluded that the bank was a conduit for terrorist money. Washington declared Nada and Himmat terrorist financiers and had the designation endorsed by the United Nations. Both men's bank accounts were frozen.[20]
The Islamic Community of Germany suddenly faced a financial crisis. The community's chief officer, Himmat, signed the group's checks, but now anything he touched was frozen. There was also a painful interview in the Munich mosque's publication al-Islam, in which Khalifa tried to justify why Himmat, who had lived in Lugano for decades, was running the group. After twenty-nine years at the helm, Himmat resigned in early 2002.[21]
But this did nothing to combat terrorism. As the Munich mosque's links to the 9/11 attacks show, the Brotherhood is not so much—at least in terms of Western targets—an active promoter of terrorism. Instead, it creates the milieu from which terrorism arises. Atta did not receive instructions from anyone affiliated with the Munich mosque, but the mosque was part of an Islamist environment with links to Atta. This is why the government's attempts to cripple Nada and Himmat financially were inappropriate. The problem that both men posed was ideological and needed to be countered on this level. Their lack of direct links to terrorism was proven by Washington's inability to prosecute them. Eight years after freezing their accounts, Washington had to acquiesce as they were unfrozen.
This parallels a broader and equally uninformed rapprochement between Western governments and the Brotherhood. By the second term of George W. Bush, efforts were already underway to renew Washington's decades-old links to the group. The State Department organized conferences between the European Brotherhood and American Muslims—who are also in groups descended from that organization.[22] All of this was backed by CIA analyses, with one arguing that the Brotherhood featured "impressive internal dynamism, organization, and media savvy."[23] Ignoring warnings from Western allies against supporting the Brotherhood in Europe, the CIA pushed for cooperation. This policy has continued under the Obama administration.
Conclusion
Why the enduring interest in the Brotherhood? Since its founding in 1928, the movement has managed to voice the aspirations of the Middle East's downtrodden and often confused middle class. Although it has many adherents at the lowest-rungs of society, it is run and organized by educated professionals. An organization run by such people and appealing to the masses is naturally intriguing to Western policymakers eager to influence this strategic part of the world.
But how the Brotherhood achieves its appeal makes it a dubious partner. Most Muslim societies have lived through more than a century of oppression by corrupt and brutal elites, and Islamists have invariably presented the establishment of religious rule as the only road to a more just society. In truth, however, the Brotherhood has offered a fundamentally anti-modern, political program and ideology, exalting the small number of "true" Muslims who adhere to a literalist view of the Qur'an and writing off the rest—including most Muslims—as apostates.
Many Brotherhood spokesmen claim it renounces violence, but its chief theoreticians have not been able to bring themselves to do so. Qaradawi, for one, has regularly railed against "Zionists and Jews"—although some analysts claim this is not so serious and that he is actually a moderate (at least in comparison to al-Qaeda). Yet he has explicitly endorsed suicide bombings against Israeli civilians, including children (because they will grow up to be adults), expressing his desire to die as a martyr "at the hands of a non-Muslim."[24]
This means that a decade after 9/11, the West is still unsure how to deal with Islamism. Just as in the 1950s, policymakers tended to either lionize Islamists as potential allies in the struggle against communism or write them off as passé; these two extremes have been much in play in the decade attending the attacks. What is missing is a middle way that treats Islamism for what it is: a potent ideology that is likely to be a threat for the foreseeable future.
Ian Johnson is an author based in Berlin and Beijing who specializes in the intersection of religion and civil society. He was Germany bureau chief for The Wall Street Journal and, in 2010, published A Mosque in Munich: Nazis, the CIA and the Muslim Brotherhood in the West (New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt).
[1] "Aktennotiz Betr. Besuch von Shamil and Magoma," German Foreign Office Political Archive, Berlin, AA PA ZA 105731, Feb. 3, 1959.
[2] YnetNews (Tel Aviv), Feb. 11, 2011.
[3] Scott Atran, "Egypt's Bumbling Brotherhood," The New York Times, Feb. 2, 2011.
[4] See, for example, The New York Times, Feb. 15, 2011.
[5] Ibid., Mar. 24, 2011.
[6] Stephane Lacroix, Awakening Islam: Religious Dissent in Contemporary Saudi Arabia (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2011).
[7] Alexander Dallin, German Rule in Russia: A Study in Occupation Politics, 2nd ed. (London: The MacMillan Press Ltd., 1981. p. 540.
[8] "About the Muslim Brotherhood," Global Muslim Brotherhood Daily Report, accessed June 24, 2011.
[9] Ian Johnson, "The Muslim Brotherhood in Europe," briefing before the Congressional Human Relations Caucus, U.S. House of Representatives, Washington, D.C., Feb. 9, 2006.
[10] Ian Johnson, A Mosque in Munich: Nazis, the CIA, and the Rise of the Muslim Brotherhood in the West (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2010).
[11] Lorenzo Vidino, "The Western Brotherhood," The New Muslim Brotherhood in the West (New York: Columbia University Press, 2010).
[12] Impact International, May 25-June 7, 1973, p. 3.
[13] Muhammad Shafiq, Growth of Islamic Thought in North America: Focus on Ismail Raji al-Faruqi (Brentwood, Mass.: Amana Publications, 1994), p. 27-9.
[14] "Protokoll," Amtsgericht München (Munich district court), Dec. 4, 1982, p. 1.
[15] Ibid.
[16] Author's interview with Ahmad Rawi, former head of the Federation of Islamic Organizations in Europe, Markfield, U.K., July 21, 2004.
[17] Time Magazine, June 24, 2001.
[18] Al-Islam (Munich), June 2001, pp. 16–8.
[19] Ian Johnson and Alfred Kueppers, "Missed Link," The Wall Street Journal, Oct. 19, 2001.
[20] Matthew A. Levitt, "The Role of Charities and NGOs in the Financing of Terrorist Activities," Subcommittee on International Trade and Finance, U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, Washington, D.C., Aug. 1, 2002.
[21] Amtsgericht München, Jan. 13, 2002. Himmat gave the explanation of the frozen accounts in a telephone interview, June 1, 2005.
[22] Tom C. Korologos, U.S. ambassador to Belgium, "Islamist Extremism in Europe," testimony before the Subcommittee on European Affairs, U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Apr. 5, 2006.
[23] "Muslim Brotherhood: Pivotal Actor in European Political Islam," Central Intelligence Agency, Langley, Md., May 10, 2006.
[24] BBC News, July 7, 2004; Global Muslim Brotherhood Daily Report, Jan. 31, 2011; see, also, "The Qaradawi Fatwas," Middle East Quarterly, Summer 2004, pp. 78-80.
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2)No justice from Justice
Two things to know about Attorney General Eric Holder: He lied to the American people -- under oath, before Congress -- and thus is unfit to investigate allegations of criminal negligence in the Justice Department.
This is why House Republicans have called for a special prosecutor to investigate Holder for apparent perjury regarding his testimony on the administration’s “Fast and Furious” gun sting -- during which the US armed Mexican drug cartels with 2,500 high-powered, military-style weapons.
We’re no fans of special prosecutors; they tend to get out of control.
But the Justice Department has spent the summer obstructing a congressional investigation into the sting, and therefore can’t be trusted to police itself.
Here’s why: On May 3, Holder was asked the simplest of questions before the House Judiciary Committee: When did you first know about Fast and Furious?
His answer: “I’m not sure of the exact date, but I probably heard about Fast and Furious for the first time over the last few weeks.”
Yet documents published last week show he began receiving weekly memos from top lieutenants about the operation at least 10 months before that, in July 2010.
Press aides claim Holder misunderstood the question, which is unlikely. But his answer contained enough weasel-words -- e.g., “not sure” and “probably” -- to provide functional deniability.
Late Friday, Holder released a letter to Congress saying he has “no recollection of knowing about Fast and Furious or of hearing its name prior to the public controversy about it.”
Normal people, however, will recognize a lie when they hear one.
This is no small matter, given that:
* Starting in 2009, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco & Firearms sold 2,500 firearms to mules who smuggled them over the border to the cartels.
* The point of the exercise was to track the weapons and snare cartel leaders -- but the agency lost track of nearly all the guns.
* Those weapons were later found abandoned at 200 crime scenes in Mexico -- and near the body of a murdered US Border Patrol agent, Brian Terry.
It was all just fuel for the fuego : Mexico is locked in an infernal drug war that has claimed 40,000 lives in the past five years.
So here was the ATF’s idea: Stop the flow of guns into Mexico ... by funneling thousands of guns into Mexico.
The leaked documents show Holder knew what was up even before Terry’s murder. Yet on Thursday, President Obama spoke of his “complete confidence” in Holder, whom he said had been “very aggressive in going after gun running ... in Mexico.”
Meanwhile, Justice officials have been fighting like rabid animals to cover up the operation since the moment the story broke -- further underscoring the need for a special prosecutor.
If Holder refuses to appoint one, the president needs to order him to do so.
Whatever Obama decides, though, it remains that an American agent was murdered, probably by a Fast and Furious weapon, and the Justice Department refuses to do anything about it.
This is shameful.
2a)Fast and Furious fallout puts Holder on collision course with Congress
By Jordy Yager
The fierce battle over a botched gun-tracking operation is intensifying and has put Attorney General Eric Holder on a collision course with his critics in Congress.
Republicans are calling for his resignation in the wake of Fast and Furious, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives operation that may have inadvertently contributed to the death of at least one federal agent.
The chairman of the House Judiciary Committee has called for an independent investigation of Holder, and the chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee wants to have Holder testify again before Congress.
Holder replied Friday to mounting accusations against him in a scathing letter to the congressional leaders who are investigating his involvement.
Holder wrote in a letter to the chairmen and ranking members of three Congressional committees that he has been "truthful and accurate" about the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms operation and that the rhetoric coming from Republican legislators has been "irresponsible and inflammatory."
The torrent of scrutiny comes after a series of internal Justice Department memos were released this week and show that Holder was informed about the existence of Operation Fast and Furious last year.
Holder testified in May before the House Judiciary Committee that he did not learn about the operation until earlier this year. Officials with the DOJ say Holder was referring to when he learned about the controversial tactics, known as “walking” guns into the hands of known and suspected criminals, that were employed by the operation.
"My testimony was truthful and accurate and I have been consistent on this point throughout," Holder wrote Friday night. "I have no recollection of knowing about Fast and Furious or of hearing its name prior to the public controversy about it."
President Obama has thrown his full support behind Holder, but the coming weeks will be the true test as Republicans put the administration under the microscope.
After receiving Holder's letter, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) promised the investigations would continue.
"The Attorney General’s denials of any personal knowledge will have to be tested against all the evidence as the investigation continues, just as the Department’s initial denials were," Beth Levine, a Grassley spokeswoman, said.
The following is a timeline of events surrounding Holder and Congress’ dealings with Operation Fast and Furious:
2009 — Operation Fast and Furious is launched under the supervision of the ATF's Group VII, based out of Phoenix.
March 12, 2010 — Group VII Supervisor David Roth sends an email to the group acknowledging a “schism” in the attitudes of the agents. ATF agents in the group would later testify they were conflicted over the tactics being used. “Whether you care or not people of rank and authority at HQ are paying close attention to this case,” wrote Roth.
July 2010 — Michael Walther, the director of the National Drug Intelligence Center (NDIC), wrote three memos to Holder in which he mentions Operation Fast and Furious. In one memo, Walther advises Holder that NDIC and a Phoenix drug enforcement task force would assist the ATF with an investigation of a suspected gun trafficker, Manuel Celis-Acosta, being run under Operation Fast and Furious.
“This investigation, initiated in September 2009 in conjunction with the Drug Enforcement Administration, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and the Phoenix police department, involves a Phoenix-based firearms trafficking ring Manuel Celis-Acosta,” the memo states. “Celis-Acosta and [redacted] straw purchasers are responsible for the purchase of 1,500 firearms that were then supplied to Mexican drug trafficking cartels.”
Nov. 2010 — Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer sent a weekly memo to Holder notifying him of a sealed indictment against alleged gun traffickers in Arizona by the DOJ’s organized crime and gang section. Breuer wrote that the indictment would remain sealed “until another investigation, Phoenix-based ‘Operation Fast and Furious,’ is ready for takedown.”
Nov. – Dec. 2010 — Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) is contacted by whistleblowers within ATF about the tactics used in Operation Fast and Furious.
Dec. 15, 2010 — Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry is killed in a firefight in Arizona. Two of the guns found at the scene were sold to suspected straw buyers under the operation.
Jan. 2011 — Grassley meets with Holder and DOJ officials to discuss the whistleblower allegations.
Feb. 2011 — DOJ sends a letter to Grassley denying that the ATF would knowingly sell assault weapons to straw purchasers and that the agency makes every effort to prevent weapons from going to Mexico.
March 2011 — Holder asks the DOJ’s Inspector General to investigate Operation Fast and Furious.
March 8, 2011 — Eleven people are federally indicted for alleged weapons trafficking crimes in connection with Fast and Furious.
March 16, 2011 — Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) sends his first letter to ATF’s acting-director Kenneth Melson requesting documents pertaining to the origin of Fast and Furious and who authorized it.
March 31, 2011 — Issa issues first subpoena on Fast and Furious to DOJ for documents he requested in March.
May 3, 2011 — Holder testifies before the House Judiciary Committee saying, “I’m not sure of the exact date, but I probably heard about Fast and Furious for the first time over the last few weeks.”
June 15, 2011 — Issa holds his first hearing on Fast and Furious where former and current ATF agents testified about the controversial tactics employed under the operation and their efforts to stop them. Assistant Attorney General Ronald Weich, who operates as a legislative liaison to Congress, also testifies that the DOJ was doing everything in its power to assist Issa with his investigation. Republicans have said the DOJ is “stonewalling” their efforts to get information about the operation.
June 29, 2011 — Obama says he will not comment on Fast and Furious further until the IG investigation is complete. “My attorney general has made clear that he certainly would not have ordered gun running to be able to pass through into Mexico,” said Obama. “I'm not going to comment on a current investigation. I've made very clear my views that that would not be an appropriate step by the ATF, and we've got to find out how that happened.”
July 4, 2011 — Melson testifies in a closed setting before Issa and Grassley’s investigators. Melson acknowledges that Fast and Furious was under the jurisdiction of the Arizona U.S. Attorney’s office.
August 30, 2011 — Holder transfers Melson out of his position as acting director and Arizona U.S. Attorney Dennis Burke resigns
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3)Zuckerman: Why Obama Makes Business Weep
By Julie Crawshaw
Zuckerman says President Barack Obama's anti-business policies are causing business people to despair of recovery ever happening.
"(Consumer confidence) numbers now match the drops seen after the Iran hostage crisis, Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait and the collapse of Lehman Brothers,” Zuckerman writes in the Financial Times.
"This is a modern day depression, only this time soup lines have been replaced by unemployment checks."
"Of course, none of this was helped by a government that lost credibility by predicting that its recovery programs would bring the jobless rate down and growth up," Zuckerman says.
"This was the beginning of the yawning credibility gap between the Obama’s administration and business."
"The gap is being aggravated by Mr Obama’s recent sharp turn to the left," writes Zuckerman, also chairman, chief executive and co-founder of Boston Properties.
Obama’s “resort to divisive populism – laying the blame on ‘fat cats’ and pillorying the president’s favorite villains – ‘millionaires and billionaires’ – is exactly the wrong approach,” says Zuckerman.
“It seeds the suspicion that the administration is more interested in campaigning and undermines the confidence that business needs if it is to invest in the face of new regulations, healthcare costs and an increased bureaucracy,” he said.
“Businesses sense that the administration no longer understands how this perceived hostility saps the animal spirits required for taking risks on expansions and start-ups.”
Weak economic growth is proving disastrous for ordinary Americans, says Zuckerman. Per capita income remains below its 2006 level, while wage-based incomes are declining.
Meanwhile, businesses are trying to enhance productivity, not create jobs, Zuckerman notes. “Polls show that business leaders are growing increasingly pessimistic,” he says. “In the past six months a third of companies have delayed or cancelled plans for capital spending.”
Portfolio.com reports that a quarterly Business Roundtable survey found that its CEO members have dialed back their expectations for sales, capital spending, and job growth for the next six months.
Only 65 percent expect sales to increase, compared with 87 percent who thought so three months ago. Only 32 percent expect to increase capital spending in the U.S., compared with 61 percent in the last survey. Only 36 percent expect to add employees, compared with 51 percent earlier. Nearly 25 percent of CEOs plan to decrease employment, up from 11 percent three months ago.
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