Robert Parry: 'The Bush-bin Laden symbiosis'

Robert Parry, Consortium News

As Americans suffer through another terrorism scare and George W. Bush talks
tough about a long war against "Islamic fascists," it bears remembering that
top CIA analysts concluded that al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden released a
videotape right before Election 2004 to help Bush win a second term.

Many liberals and Democrats have focused on allegations of Republican voter
suppression and vote tampering, especially in the swing state of Ohio. But
polls suggest that a more decisive factor in Bush's narrow victory in 2004
was the reaction of the American people to bin Laden's last-minute tirade
against Bush.

On Oct. 29, 2004, the Friday before Election 2004, bin Laden broke nearly a
year of silence and took the risk of releasing a videotape that denounced
Bush and was immediately spun by Bush's supporters as bin Laden's
"endorsement" of Democratic Sen. John Kerry.

According to two polls taken during and after the videotape's release, Bush
experienced a bump of several percentage points, from a virtual tie with
Kerry to a five or six percentage point lead. Tracking polls by TIPP and
Newsweek detected a surge in Bush support from a statistically insignificant
two-point lead to five and six points, respectively.

On Nov. 2, 2004, the official results showed Bush winning by a margin of
less than three percentage points. So, arguably the intervention by bin
Laden - essentially urging Americans to reject Bush - had the predictable
effect of driving voters to the President, possibly in sufficient numbers to
tip the balance of the election.

CIA Assessment

After the videotape appeared, senior CIA analysts concluded that ensuring a
second term for Bush was precisely what bin Laden intended.

"Bin Laden certainly did a nice favor today for the President," said deputy
CIA director John McLaughlin in opening a meeting to review secret
"strategic analysis" after the videotape had dominated the day's news,
according to Ron Suskind's The One Percent Doctrine, which draws heavily
from CIA insiders.

Suskind wrote that CIA analysts had spent years "parsing each expressed word
of the al-Qaeda leader and his deputy, [Ayman] Zawahiri. What they'd learned
over nearly a decade is that bin Laden speaks only for strategic reasons.
... Today's conclusion: bin Laden's message was clearly designed to assist
the President's reelection."

Jami Miscik, CIA deputy associate director for intelligence, expressed the
consensus view that bin Laden recognized how Bush's heavy-handed policies -
such as the Guantanamo prison camp, the Abu Ghraib scandal and the war in
Iraq - were serving al-Qaeda's strategic goals for recruiting a new
generation of jihadists.

"Certainly," Miscik said, "he would want Bush to keep doing what he's doing
for a few more years," according to Suskind's account.

As their internal assessment sank in, the CIA analysts were troubled by the
implications of their own conclusions. "An ocean of hard truths before
them - such as what did it say about U.S. policies that bin Laden would want
Bush reelected - remained untouched," Suskind wrote.

Bush Spin

Bush enthusiasts, however, took bin Laden's videotape at face value, calling
it proof the terrorist leader feared Bush and favored Kerry.

In a fawningly pro-Bush book entitled Strategery: How George W. Bush Is
Defeating Terrorists, Outwitting Democrats and Confounding the Mainstream
Media, right-wing journalist Bill Sammon devoted several pages to bin
Laden's videotape, portraying it as an attempt by the terrorist leader to
persuade Americans to vote for Kerry.

"Bin Laden stopped short of overtly endorsing Kerry," Sammon wrote, "but the
terrorist offered a polemic against reelecting Bush. ... Unfortunately for
Kerry, bin Laden then proceeded to parrot the Democrat's litany of
complaints against Bush, right down to the Michael Moore-inspired canard
about My Pet Goat."

It's not clear why Sammon used the word "canard," which means an unfounded
or false story, since it's a well-established fact that Bush did sit
paralyzed for about seven minutes in a Florida classroom reading My Pet Goat
after being told on Sept. 11, 2001, that "America is under attack."

Sammon also didn't weigh the obvious possibility that the crafty bin Laden
might have understood that his "endorsement" of Kerry over Bush would
achieve the opposite effect with the American people.

Indeed, many right-wing pundits appear to have played into bin Laden's hands
by promoting his anti-Bush diatribe just he wanted, as a de facto
recommendation that Americans vote for Kerry - and thus a sure way to
generate votes for Bush.

Bush himself recognized this fact. "I thought it was going to help," Bush
said in a post-election interview with Sammon about bin Laden's videotape.
"I thought it would help remind people that if bin Laden doesn't want Bush
to be the President, something must be right with Bush."

In Strategery, Sammon also quotes Republican National Chairman Ken Mehlman
as agreeing that bin Laden's videotape helped Bush. "It reminded people of
the stakes," Mehlman said. "It reinforced an issue on which Bush had a big
lead over Kerry."

So how hard is it to figure out that bin Laden - a longtime student of
American politics - would have understood exactly the same point?

Briar Patch

Many American baby-boomers grew up watching Walt Disney's "Song of the
South," featuring Uncle Remus tales describing how the clever Brer Rabbit
escaped one famously tight spot by pretending that what he feared most was
to be hurled into the briar patch - when that was exactly where he wanted to
go.

Indeed, the evidence is now clear that al-Qaeda strategists have long
operated in much the same way, trying to goad the U.S. government into an
overreaction that would put them in an environment where they could be most
successful. [See Consortiumnews.com's "Osama's Briar Patch" or "Is Bush
al-Qaeda's 'Useful Idiot?'"]

At the height of Campaign 2000, al-Qaeda took aim at another American
target, the destroyer USS Cole, as it docked in the port of Aden. On Oct.
12, 2000, al-Qaeda operatives piloted a small boat laden with explosives
into the Cole's hull, blasting a hole that killed 17 crew members and
wounded another 40.

Back in Afghanistan, bin Laden anticipated - and desired - a retaliatory
strike. He hoped to lure the United States deeper into a direct conflict
with al-Qaeda, which would enhance his group's reputation and - assuming a
clumsy U.S. response - would radicalize the region's Muslim populations.

Bin Laden evacuated al-Qaeda's compound at the Kandahar airport and fled
into the desert near Kabul and then to hideouts in Khowst and Jalalabad
before returning to Kandahar where he alternated sleeping among a half dozen
residences, according to the 9/11 Commission Report.

But lacking hard evidence proving who was behind the Cole bombing, President
Bill Clinton didn't order a retaliatory strike, leaving bin Laden deeply
frustrated. Eventually, U.S. intelligence reached a conclusion that the
attack was "a full-fledged al-Qaeda operation" under the direct supervision
of bin Laden.

However, in January 2001, George W. Bush took office and wanted nothing to
do with Clinton's assessment that al-Qaeda ranked at the top of the U.S.
threat list. From his opening days in office, Bush rebuffed the
recommendations from almost anyone who shared Clinton's phobia about
terrorism.

On Jan. 31, 2001, just 11 days after Bush's Inauguration, a bipartisan
terrorism commission headed by former Sens. Gary Hart and Warren Rudman
unveiled its final report, warning that urgent steps were needed to prevent
a terrorist attack on U.S. cities.

"States, terrorists and other disaffected groups will acquire weapons of
mass destruction, and some will use them," the report said. "Americans will
likely die on American soil, possibly in large numbers." Hart specifically
noted that the nation was vulnerable to "a weapon of mass destruction in a
high-rise building."

The 9/11 Strike

Meanwhile, al-Qaeda was preparing precisely that kind of attack.

"In February 2001, a source reported that an individual whom he identified
as the big instructor (probably a reference to bin Laden) complained
frequently that the United States had not yet attacked. According to the
source, bin Laden wanted the United States to attack, and if it did not he
would launch something bigger," the 9/11 Commission wrote,

By early summer 2001, as 19 al-Qaeda operatives positioned themselves inside
the United States, U.S. intelligence analysts picked up more evidence of
al-Qaeda's plans by sifting through the "chatter" of electronic intercepts.
The U.S. warning system was "blinking red."

Over the July Fourth 2001 holiday, a well-placed U.S. intelligence source
passed on a disturbing piece of information to then-New York Times reporter
Judith Miller, who later recounted the incident in an interview with
Alternet.

"The person told me that there was some concern about an intercept that had
been picked up," Miller said. "The incident that had gotten everyone's
attention was a conversation between two members of al-Qaeda. And they had
been talking to one another, supposedly expressing disappointment that the
United States had not chosen to retaliate more seriously against what had
happened to the Cole.

"And one al-Qaeda operative was overheard saying to the other, 'Don't worry;
we're planning something so big now that the U.S. will have to respond.'"

In the Alternet interview, published in May 2006 after Miller resigned from
the Times, the reporter expressed regret that she had not been able to nail
down enough details about the intercept to get the story into the newspaper.

But the significance of her recollection is that more than two months before
the 9/11 attacks, the CIA knew that al-Qaeda was planning a major attack
with the intent of provoking a U.S. military reaction - or in this case, an
overreaction.

Unheeded Warning

The CIA tried to warn Bush about the threat with the hope that presidential
action could energize government agencies and head off the attack. On Aug.
6, 2001, the CIA sent analysts to Bush's ranch in Crawford, Texas, to brief
him and deliver a report entitled "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in US."

Bush was not pleased by the intrusion. He glared at the CIA briefer and
snapped, "All right, you've covered your ass," according to Suskind's book.

Then, ordering no special response, Bush returned to a vacation of fishing,
clearing brush and working on a speech about stem-cell research.

For its part, al-Qaeda was running a risk that the United States might
strike a precise and devastating blow against the terrorist organization,
eliminating it as an effective force without alienating much of the Muslim
world.

If that happened, the cause of Islamic extremism could have been set back
years, without eliciting much sympathy from most Muslims for a band of
killers who wantonly murdered innocent civilians.

After the 9/11 attacks, al-Qaeda's gamble almost failed as the CIA, backed
by U.S. Special Forces, ousted bin Laden's Taliban allies in Afghanistan and
cornered much of the al-Qaeda leadership in the mountains of Tora Bora near
the Pakistani border.

But instead of using U.S. ground troops to seal the border, Bush relied on
the Pakistani army. The Pakistani military, which included many Taliban
sympathizers, moved too slowly, allowing bin Laden and other leaders to
escape.

Then, instead of staying focused on bin Laden and his fellow fugitives, Bush
shifted U.S. Special Forces toward Saddam Hussein and Iraq.

Many U.S. terrorism experts, including White House counterterrorism czar
Richard Clarke, were shocked since the intelligence community didn't believe
that Hussein's secular dictatorship had any working relationship with
al-Qaeda - and had no role in the 9/11 attacks.

Nevertheless, Bush ordered an invasion of Iraq on March 19, 2003, ousting
Hussein from power but also unleashing mayhem across Iraqi society. The Iraq
War along with the controversies over torture and mistreatment of Muslim
detainees served as recruitment posters for al-Qaeda.

Soon, al-Qaeda had established terrorist cells in central Iraq, taking root
amid the weeds of sectarian violence and the nation's general anarchy.
Instead of an obscure group of misfits, al-Qaeda was achieving legendary
status among many Muslims as the defenders of the Islamic holy lands,
battling the new "crusaders" led by Bush.

The Bush Bounce

Back in the United States, the 9/11 attacks were working political wonders
for Bush, too. He had reinvented himself as a "war president" who operated
almost without oversight. He saw his approval ratings surge from the 50s to
the 90s - and watched as the Republican Party consolidated its control of
the U.S. Congress in 2002.

Though the worsening bloodshed in Iraq eroded Bush's popularity in 2004,
political adviser Karl Rove still framed the election around Bush's
aggressive moves to defend the United States and to punish American enemies.

Whereas Bush was supposedly resolute, Democrat Kerry was portrayed as weak
and indecisive, a "flip-flopper." Kerry, however, scored some political
points in the presidential debates by citing the debacle at Tora Bora that
enabled bin Laden to escape.

The race was considered neck-and-neck as it turned toward the final weekend
of campaigning. Then, the shimmering image of Osama bin Laden appeared on
American televisions, speaking directly to the American people, mocking Bush
and offering a kind of truce if U.S. forces withdrew from the Middle East.

"He [Bush] was more interested in listening to the child's story about the
goat rather than worry about what was happening to the [twin] towers," bin
Laden said. "So, we had three times the time necessary to accomplish the
events."

Over the final weekend of the campaign, right-wing pundits, bloggers and
talk-show hosts portrayed bin Laden's videotape as an effort to hurt Bush
and help Kerry - which understandably prompted the opposite reaction among
many Americans.

Behind the walls of secrecy at Langley, Virginia, however, U.S. intelligence
experts reviewed the evidence and concluded that bin Laden had achieved
exactly what he wanted, a stampede of voters to Bush and a continuation of
the clumsy "war on terror."

Now as the Middle East conflagration has drawn in Israel and spread to
Lebanon and Gaza - and may jump to Syria and Iran - the larger Islamic world
is beginning to look more and more like the briar patch where Osama bin
Laden and other violent extremists feel most comfortable.

Similarly, the Aug. 10 arrests of 24 alleged plotters scheming to use
mixtures of liquid chemicals to blow up U.S. airliners over the Atlantic
Ocean have given Bush the opportunity to reprise his popular role as the
nation's protector against the evil terrorists.

"The recent arrests that our fellow citizens are now learning about are a
stark reminder that this nation is at war with Islamic fascists who will use
any means to destroy those of us who love freedom, to hurt our nation," Bush
said, standing dramatically alone on the tarmac of an airport in Green Bay,
Wisconsin.

If recent history is any guide, Bush can expect a bump in his sagging poll
numbers as Americans again rally around the President during a time of
anxiety. The strange symbiotic relationship between Bush and bin Laden
continues.

Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories in the 1980s for the
Associated Press and Newsweek. His latest book, Secrecy & Privilege: Rise of
the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to Iraq, can be ordered at
secrecyandprivilege.com. It's also available at Amazon.com, as is his 1999
book, Lost History: Contras, Cocaine, the Press & 'Project Truth.'

Source: Consortium News
http://consortiumnews.com/2006/081106.html

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"A little patience and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their
spells dissolve, and the people recovering their true sight, restore their
government to its true principles. It is true that in the meantime we are
suffering deeply in spirit,
and incurring the horrors of a war and long oppressions of enormous public
debt. But if the game runs sometimes against us at home we must have
patience till luck turns, and then we shall have an opportunity of winning
back the principles we have lost, for this is a game where principles are at
stake."
-Thomas Jefferson