The retired Pakistani general who is closest to the Taliban and Osama bin Laden contends the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on New York City and Washington were the work of renegade U.S. Air Force elements working with the Israelis.

UPI Interview with Gen. Hameed Gul

By ARNAUD de BORCHGRAVE

(EXCLUSIVE)

RAWALPINDI, Pakistan, Sept. 26 (UPI) -- The retired Pakistani general who

is closest to the Taliban and Osama bin Laden contends the Sept. 11

terrorist attacks on New York City and Washington were the work of renegade

U.S. Air Force elements working with the Israelis. Gen. Hameed Gul led

Pakistan's Inter Services Intelligence during the war against the Soviet

occupation of Afghanistan. Gul serves as an adviser to Pakistan's extremist

religious political parties, which oppose their government's decision to

support the United States in any action against Afghanistan's Taliban

regime. Gul contends bin Laden had nothing to do with the terrorist attacks

on New York and Washington, saying instead that they were the work of the

Mossad, the Israeli intelligence service -- a version of events that has

been endorsed by Islamic fundamentalist clerics and is widely accepted by

Muslims throughout the Arab world.

Here is the transcript of the exclusive interview Gul gave to Arnaud de

Borchgrave, United Press International editor at large:

De Borchgrave: So who did Black Sept. 11?

Gul: Mossad and its accomplices. The U.S. spends billion a year on its

11 intelligence agencies. That's 0 billion in 10 years. Yet the Bush

Administration says it was taken by surprise. I don't believe it. Within 10

minutes of the second twin tower being hit in the World Trade Center ... CNN

said Osama bin Laden had done it. That was a planned piece of disinformation

by the real perpetrators. It created an instant mindset and put public

opinion into a trance, which prevented even intelligent people from thinking

for themselves.

Q: So you're already convinced bin Laden didn't do it?

A: I know bin Laden and his associates. I've been with them here, in

Europe and the Middle East. They are graduates of the best universities and

are highly intelligent with impressive degrees and speak impeccable English.

These are people who have rediscovered fundamental Islamic values. Many come

from the Gulf countries where ruling royal families have generated hatred by

the way they flout divine law, wasting billions on gratifying their whims,

jetting around in large private jets by themselves, and sailing the

Mediterranean in big private boats for weeks on end. Osama's best recruits

come from feudal areas that are U.S. protectorates and where millions of

poor people are seeking human dignity. I have even visited a Christian

convent school in Murree, 60 miles from here, where my 13-year-old daughter

is studying. The young girls there have told me Osama is their hero. Osama's

followers identify with Mujahideen freedom fighters wherever they are

defending Islam and its values.

Q: So what makes you think Osama wasn't behind Sept. 11?

A: From a cave inside a mountain or a peasant's hovel? Let's be serious.

Osama inspires countless millions by standing up for Islam against American

and Israeli imperialism. He doesn't have the means for such a sophisticated

operation.

Q: Why Mossad?

A: Mossad and its American associates are the obvious culprits. Who

benefits from the crime? The attacks against the twin towers started at 8:45

a.m. and four flights are diverted from their assigned air space and no air

traffic controller sounds the alarm. And no Air Force jets scramble until 10

a.m. That also smacks of a small scale Air Force rebellion, a coup against

the Pentagon perhaps? Radars are jammed, transponders fail. No IFF -- friend

or foe identification -- challenge. In Pakistan, if there is no response to

IFF, jets are instantly scrambled and the aircraft is shot down with no

further questions asked. This was clearly an inside job. Bush was afraid and

rushed to the shelter of a nuclear bunker. He clearly feared a nuclear

situation. Who could that have been? Will that also be hushed up in the

investigation, like the Warren report after the Kennedy assassination?

Q: At this point, someone might be asking what you've been smoking. What

is Israel's interest in such a monstrous plot, which, of course, no one

believes except Islamist extremists who concocted this piece of

disinformation in the first place, presumably to detract from the real

culprits?

A: Jews never agreed to Bush 41 (George H.W. Bush, the 41st president) or

43 (his son George W. Bush, the 43rd president). They made sure Bush senior

didn't get a second term. His land-for-peace pressure in Palestine didn't

suit Israel. They were also against the young Bush because he was considered

too close to oil interests and the Gulf countries. Bush senior and Jim Baker

had raised 0 million for Bush junior, much of it from Mideast sources or

their American go-betweens. Bush 41 and Baker, as private citizens, had also

facilitated the new strategic relationship between Saudi Arabia and Iran. I

have this from sources in both countries. So clearly the prospect of a Bush

43 was a potential danger to Israel.

Jews were stunned by the way Bush stole the election in Florida. They had

put big money on Al Gore. Israel has given its imperialist guardian parent

opportunities to turn disaster into a pretext for imposing an

all-encompassing military, political and economic agenda to further the

cause of global capitalism. While Colin Powell is cautious and others are

reckless and want to make up for their failure to defeat Saddam Hussein in

the Gulf War 10 years ago, the global agenda is the same.

Israel knows it has a short shelf-life before it is overwhelmed by

demographics. It is a state that was born in terrorism that terrorized

Palestinians into the exile of refugee camps, where they have now subsisted

in squalid refugee camps, and is now very much afraid of Pakistan's nuclear

capability.

Israel has now handed the Bush family the opportunity it has been waiting

for to consolidate America's imperial grip on the Gulf and acquire control

of the Caspian basin by extending its military presence in Central Asia.

Bush conveniently overlooks -- or is not told -- the fact that Islamic

fundamentalists got their big boost in the modern age as CIA assets in the

covert campaign I was also involved with to force the Soviets out of

Afghanistan. Bush senior was vice president during that entire campaign. And

no sooner did he become president on Jan. 20, 1989, than he summoned an

inter-agency intelligence meeting and issued an order, among several others,

to clip the wings of ISI (Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence) that had

been coordinating the entire operation in Afghanistan. I know this firsthand

as I was DGISI at the time (director general, ISI).

Q: So how do you read U.S. strategy in Pakistan?

A: The destabilization of Pakistan is part of the U.S. plan because it is

a Muslim nuclear state. The U.S. wants to isolate Pakistan from China as

part of its containment policy. President Nixon's book "The Real War" said

China would be the superpower of the 21st Century. The U.S. is also creating

hostility between Pakistan and Afghanistan, two Muslim states to reverse the

perception that the Islamic world now has its own nuclear weapons. Bush 43

doesn't realize he is being manipulated by people who understand

geopolitics. He is not leading but being led. All he can do is think in

terms of the wanted-dead-or-alive culture, which is how Hollywood conditions

the masses to think and act.

All summer long we heard about America's shrinking surplus and that the

Pentagon would not have sufficient funds to modernize for the 21st century.

And now, all of a sudden, the Pentagon can get what it wants without any

Democratic Party opposition. How very convenient! Even your cherished civil

liberties can now be abridged with impunity to protect the expansion of the

hegemony of transnational capitalism. There is now a new excuse to crush

anti-globalization protests.

Bush 43 follows Bush 41. Iraq was baited into the Kuwaiti trap when the

U.S. told Saddam it was not interested in his inter-Arab squabbles. Two days

later, he moved into Kuwait, which was an Iraqi province anyway before the

British Empire decreed otherwise. Roosevelt baited the Pearl Harbor trap for

the Japanese empire, which provided the pretext for entering World War II.

And now the Israelis have given the U.S. the pretext for further expansion

into an area that will be critical in the next 25 years - the Caspian basin.

Q: Were you a fundamentalist in the days of the war against the Soviets in

Afghanistan when you worked closely with the CIA?

A: Not as much as I am today.

Q: What turned you against America?

A: Betrayals and broken promises and what was done to my army career.

Q: And what was that?

A: President Ishaq Khan, who succeeded Zia ul-Haq after his plane was

blown out of the sky, wanted to appoint me chief of staff, the highest

position in the Pakistani army. The U.S., which by then had clipped ISI's

wings, also blocked my promotion by informing the president I was

unacceptable. So I was moved to a corps commander position. As ISI director,

I held the whole Mujahideen movement in the palm of my hands. We were all

pro-American. But then America left us in the lurch and everything went to

pieces, including Afghanistan.

The U.S. pushed for a broad-based Afghan government of seven factions and

then waved goodbye. Even in the best of democracies, a broad-based coalition

does not work. So we quickly had seven jokers in Kabul interested in only

one thing - jockeying for power. The gunplay quickly followed, which led to

the creation of Taliban, the students of the original Mujahideen, who

decided to put an end to it.

Q: What happened to the 1,000 shoulder-fired Stinger anti-aircraft

missiles that were supplied by president Reagan in 1986 and 87 to the

Mujahideen, and that literally grounded the Soviet air force?

A: After the Soviets pulled out, the CIA allocated million to try to

buy them back. This just drove the black market price up for one Stinger

from 0,000 to 0,000. The Taliban still have about 250 of them for the

kind of situation they face today against U.S. aircraft.

Q: Is the U.S. now your enemy?

A: Is the U.S. national interest in contradiction with the Muslim world?

The U.S. needs oil, as do its European allies. You have between 6 and 8

million American Muslims and their ranks are growing. About the same number

in Europe. Israel aside, we are America's natural allies. Prof. Sam

Huntington in his "Clash of Civilizations" puts Confucius and

Judeo-Christians in one corner, and us n the other. His prescription is

wrong but is being adopted by Bush 43 who has now put 60 countries on his

hit list. This is the diabolical school that wants to launch an anti-Muslim

"crusade." Muslims understood what Bush meant when he used that word.

We need a meeting, not a clash, of civilizations. We are on the brink of

disaster. It is time to pull back from the brink and reassess before we blow

ourselves up. The purpose of Islam is service to humanity. The time for

like-minded people to have a meeting of the minds is now.

Q: But you are against democracy, so how can there be a meeting of the

minds?

A: Democracy does not work. Politicians are constantly thinking of their

next election, not the public good, which means, at best, constantly shading

the truth to hide it from their constituents. Their pronouncements are laced

with lies and the voters are lulled or gulled into believing utter nonsense.

The Koran says call a spade a spade. It is the supreme law and tells right

from wrong. There is no notion of "my country right or wrong" under divine

law. The creator's will predominates. All if subservient to Allah's will and

adherence to a set of basic, fundamental values.

Q: So what kind of a system are you advocating?

A: The world needs a post-modern state system. Right now, the nation-state

and round the clock satellite TV lead people to imitate America's way of

life. Which is mathematically impossible. You have 4 percent of the world's

population consuming 32 percent of the world's resources. The creator

through Prophet Mohammed said equal distribution. Capitalism is the negation

of the creator's will. It leads to imperialism and unilateralism.

Q: So what does this post-modern state system look like?

A: A global village under divine order, or we will have global bloodshed

until good triumphs over evil. Islam encapsulates all the principal

religions and what was handed down 1,400 years ago was the normal

evolutionary sequel to Judaism and Christianity. The prophet's last sermon

was a universal document of human rights for everyone that surpasses

everything that came since, including America's declaration of independence

and the U.N. Charter of universal rights. If you superimpose true secular

values on true Islamic values, there is no difference. So surely divine law

should supersede man-made law. Islam is egalitarian, tolerant and

progressive. It is the wave of the future.

Q: Marxism also believed that the nation-state would eventually wither

away.

A: Socialism jumped the rails when it was co-opted by the imperialist

Soviet state. Islam believes in dynamism, Christianity stands for static

statism. The pope in all his pronouncements has expressed a dogmatic

attachment to the status quo. Why are so many black Americans converting to

Islam? Because they are looking for true equality which they cannot find

under capitalism. Allah has no gender, neither male nor female. Islam has no

indirect taxation in an interest-free economy. Usury was a Jewish concept.

Q: Is Iran your model?

A: There isn't a single true Islamic state in the world today. Iran has

moved forward from its 1979 revolution, but I am not sure whether it's the

right direction.

Q: And Taliban?

A: They represent Islam in its purest form so far. It's a clean sheet. And

they were also moving in the right direction when this crisis was cooked up

by the U.S. Until Sept. 11, they had perfect law and order with no formal

police force, only traffic cops without sidearms. Now, in less than two

weeks, they have mobilized some 300,000 volunteers to fight American and

British invaders if they come.

Q: And you reaction to U.S. demands on Pakistan?

A: If Pakistan gives the U.S. base rights we will have a national

upheaval. And if the U.S. attacks Afghanistan, there will be a call -- a

fatwa -- for a general jihad. All borders will then disappear and it will be

a no-holds-barred Islamic uprising against Israel and American imperialism.

Pakistan will be engulfed in the firestorm. So I can only hope that cooler

heads will prevail in Washington.

Q: What about the other U.S. demands?

A: Overflight rights are meaningless since the U.S. violates air space

daily all over the world. As for intelligence sharing with ISI, you can't

even catch your own terrorists. And what ISI gives you will be of marginal

value anyway.

Q: President (Pervez) Musharraf has made strong statements supporting the

U.S.

A: He was my student in the army. He is a good man, but he doesn't

understand Islam. The army will never fight the masses. If push comes to

shove, Musharraf will say no to the Americans rather than turn against the

people. He is not just facing a handful of angry people. By his own

admission, it's 10 percent to 15 percent of the population, or at least 10

million people willing to fight. For openers, they would close the port of

Karachi. A country cannot breathe without lungs.

Q: Back to Osama's terrorist network. Who was behind the bombing of the

U.S. Embassies in Tanzania and Kenya?

A: Mossad is strong in both countries. Remember the Israeli operation to

free hostages in Entebbe (Uganda)? Both Kenya and Tanzania were part of the

logistical tail. A so-called associate of Osama was framed at Karachi

airport. The incidents took place on Aug. 8, 1999, and on the 10th a short,

clean-shaven man disembarks at Karachi airport and presents the passport of

a bearded man. Not your passport, he was told. He then tries to bribe the

clerk with 200 rupees. A ludicrously small sum given the circumstances. The

clerk says no and turns him in and he starts singing right away. Not

plausible. Osama has sworn to me on the Koran it was not him and he is

truthful to a fault. Pious Muslims do not kill innocent civilians who

included many Muslim victims. The passport must have been switched while the

man was asleep on the plane in what has all the earmarks of a Mossad

operation. For 10 years, the Mujahideen fought the Soviets in Afghanistan

and not a single Soviet embassy was touched anywhere in the world. So this

could not have been Osama's followers.

Q: What if bin Laden has been lying to you and is guilty. Is that

inconceivable?

A: If Taliban are given irrefutable evidence of his guilt, I am in favor

of a fair trial. In America, one is entitled to a jury of peers. But he has

no American peers. The Taliban would not object, in the event of a prima

face case, to an international Islamic court meeting in The Hague. They

would turn extradite Osama to the Netherlands.

http://www.unitedstates.com/news/content//733287/mossad

members.home.net/revelation18/news.htm

It certainly makes you think -- and, if nothing else, this interview probably provides us with a rough draft of what we'll hear if (I know it's a long shot) Bin Laden & co. ever faces a trial for 9-11.

Another Fake Urban Legend in the making.

First it was "fake CNN footage of palestinians dancing and celebrating in the streets"

Then it was "4 thousand jews absent from WTC on day of attack"

Both of these bogus stories circulated for days on IMC.

Both stories were found to be complete nonsense.

This is just another pathetic attempt by an Arabic extremist to demonize Isreal.

Not really a smart idea to spread bogus information if you are looking for credibility...is it?

check out www.snopes.com for details on rumors and urban legends. They have an entire section relating to the sept 11th terrorist attacks. Clcik on "rumors of war"

Oh I'm sorry.

Zionist Israel accommodates the the Palestinian indigenous people and the two enjoy peaceful coexistance.

bin Laden feels the US and Israel have a right to subvert Islam ad take Arab lands.

clover snopy, you make apologies for terrorism. You expect that the US will accept the blowback from supplying the death merchant rulers of Israel.

You will never accept that meddling in the affairs of others will never make friends with neighbors.