Questions About Porter Goss and His 'Terrorist Breakfast' Go Unanswered

[Guest guest]

http://www.propagandamatrix.com/articles/august2004/110804terroristbreakfast.htm

 

Village Voice: Questions About Porter Goss and His

'Terrorist Breakfast' Go Unanswered

 

Village Voice | August 11 2004

 

Here's the news that made many people in the Eastern

Time Zone heave up their breakfasts at 8:31 this

morning: President Bush introduced Porter Goss as the

new CIA director.

 

Bush called Goss a " reformer. " The two of them ought

to be toast.

 

How fitting that this is the same House Intelligence

chairman Porter Goss who was having breakfast in D.C.

on 9-11 with Pakistan's security chief, Lieutenant

General Mahmoud Ahmad—who was later revealed to be

hijacker Mohammed Atta's bagman.

 

The Washington Post's Rich Leiby mentioned the

breakfast as a cheery aside in a May 18, 2002, puff

profile of Goss. Florida senator Bob Graham was also

munching with Mahmoud, as the Post and others,

including the Asia Times have reported. But why didn't

the Post mention the chowdown in its first lengthy

stories this morning?

 

Digest this: The two Floridians wound up running the

joint congressional inquiry into 9-11 in their roles

as chairmen of the House and Senate Intelligence

committees. Not a word of the breakfast appears in

Goss-Graham 858-page report. No one's saying that Goss

and Graham are necessarily hiding any big thing. But

the breakfast, in retrospect, is at least somewhat

embarrassing. And is it really such a worthless fact

that it merited no mention at all?

 

And chew on another factoid: This is the same Porter

Goss who stood up on the floor of the U.S. House on

October 9, 2002, during the crucial debate about

whether to authorize Bush to go to war against Iraq,

and said, according to the Congressional Record, that

the 9-11 attack " was delivered by depraved men. "

 

Two quick questions: Was the Pakistani general too

depraved to have another cinnamon roll that morning?

Or was he just full?

 

Goss also said on October 9, 2002:

 

Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden and their radical ilk

are at the epicenter of terrorist activity in the

Middle East. Nobody doubts that. It is not debatable.

President Bush, Prime Minister Blair and others have

made convincing cases about the threats the despotic

Iraqi regime poses to world peace and stability

today—today as well as tomorrow.

 

And he added:

 

Iraq has expanded its weapons of mass destruction

capabilities against its pledge not to. It still has

deadly chemical weapons hidden throughout the country,

and it has tried to develop nuclear devices as well.

It is certain that Iraq has ties to many Islamic

terror groups in the region, including Al Qaeda.

Evidence supports Iraq's involvement in the first and

probably the second World Trade Center bombing.

 

So, let's see: Goss, a former CIA agent, ignored

studying something that did happen—his breakfast with

the bagman of a 9-11 hijacker—while strongly pushing

for a war based on a " threat " to our security that

didn't exist.

 

Sure, let's make him CIA director. What the hell. He's

been an effective stonewaller and excuse-maker ever

since 9-11.

 

" No smoking gun, " he said in 2002, when the

Goss-Graham report was released.

 

It's " not about blame, " he said in 2003. Here's his

full quote from that rare public hearing of his House

panel on 9-11 investigations, as reported by PBS at

the time: " None of remarks we're talking about, nor

any of history, and this certainly carries over to the

9-11 review, it's not about blame. This is about

better protecting the United States of America in the

world as it is today. "

 

Keep this in mind: Since 9-11, various probes have

found that the hijackers and other Al Qaeda operatives

were constantly coming and going through Pakistan

before the fateful day.

 

In the Goss-Graham report, you'll find Pakistan all

over the 858 pages, but not a crumb from the 9-11

breakfast. What was talked about? Why was Pakistan's

version of a CIA-FBI director in D.C. at that time?

Who knew what? And when?

 

At the time of the attacks, the U.S. had a complex and

rocky relationship with Pakistan. During the Reagan

era, the U.S. helped finance and arm Arab militants so

they could drive the Soviets out of Afghanistan. It's

common knowledge that neighboring Pakistan was the

base for those militants. And the agency Ahmad ran,

Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), was often on

friendly terms with the Taliban and other Arab

militants but on shaky terms with the U.S.

 

Judge for yourself who's smoking what by going to the

Center for Cooperative Research's unparalleled website

of heavily annotated 9-11 timelines and essays. Search

" Goss " and see what comes up.

 

The best analysis of this naggingly curious breakfast

is perhaps this piece by Michel Chossudovsky, director

of the Centre for Research on Globalization, a

Canadian outfit that boldly goes where most other

probers don't.

 

It's more interesting than the congressional report

produced by Goss and Graham. Or is it? Would you like

an after-meal HUMINT?