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Documents suggest that in the years leading to 9/11
The US administration documents acquired through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and released by Washington based National Security Archive shed some additional light on talks with the Taliban preceding the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. It also underlines the constant Taliban offer to hand over
Osama bin Laden; and the activity of Pakistan before and after the attacks.
As present-day US plan of action increasingly follows policies to conciliate or “flip” the Taliban, the document highlights Washington’s complete refusal to negotiate with Taliban immediately after 9/11. For example, on September 13, 2001, the then US Ambassador to Pakistan Wendy Chamberlin brusquely told President Pervez Musharraf that there was “absolutely no inclination in Washington to enter into a dialogue with the Taliban” and that the time for dialogue was “finished as of September 11.” However, Pakistan's approach was more holistic and did not correspond to the American knee-jerk reaction. The then ISI chief N Mahmoud Ahmed told the ambassador not to act in anger. The real victory, he said, would come in negotiations and that if the Taliban were eliminated, Afghanistan would “revert to warlordism.”
There are some interesting inputs on Osama as well. When asked about apprehending Laden, Mahmoud said it was “better for the Afghans to do it. We could avoid the fallout.” He in fact travelled to Afghanistan twice, on September 17, aboard an American plane, and again on September 24, 2001 to talk over the gravity of situation with Taliban leader Mullah Omar. However, the US was hell bent on action. Chamberlin categorically let Mahmoud known that while his meetings were all right, but they “could not delay military planning.”
Subsequent papers underscore the value of the bilateral bond to leaders in both Pakistan and the US. An interesting memo categorized seven demands handed over to Mahmoud by US Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage just 48 hours after the attack. President Musharraf sent a cable a day after accepting all the demands “unconditionally”. However, the documents also reveal fundamental disagreements and distrust vis-a-vis Taliban.
For example, an ISI official told visiting US Congressmen that “Pakistan will always support the Taliban”. This “policy cannot change”, he continued, because “it would prompt rebellion across the Northwest Frontier Provinces, the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, and indeed on both sides of the Pashtun-dominated Pak-Afghan border.”
It is now common knowledge that the US had been asking the Taliban to hand over Laden since 1999. These discussions stopped only a week before the 9/11 attack. However, the US was so adamant on its stand that Laden be tried by the Department of Justice— and not in a third country as Taliban suggested— that Taliban refused to hand him over. Officials described it as a missed opportunity. The former CIA station chief Milt Bearden said, “We never heard what they were trying to say. We had no common language. Ours was, ‘Give up bin Laden.’ They were saying, ‘Do something to help us give him up'.” Bearden added, “I have no doubts Taliban wanted to get rid of him. He was a pain in the neck but this never clickedwith us”. The US thought it was “unreasonable” on Taliban's part to ask for evidence indicting Laden.
Taliban, on its part, even cautioned the US that Laden was planning a big attack on American soil. In fact, former Taliban foreign minister Wakil Ahmad Muttawakil maintained that his repeated warnings, delivered because of apprehensions that the US would respond by waging war against Afghanistan, had been dismissed. US officials admitted to this fact but said that warnings were dismissed because they were “hearing a lot of that kind of stuff”.
Declining the Taliban's offer to have Laden handed over shows that the US rather followed the policy of regime change well before the 9/11 happened. India was considered to have joined Russia, the USA and Iran in a conjunct front against Taliban, which enclosed aid for Northern Alliance, including “information and logistic support” from Washington. Former Pakistani Foreign Secretary Niaz Naik claimed that he had been informed by senior US officials as early as in July 2001 that military action would be taken against the Taliban by the middle of October. Readies had already been coordinated with Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Russia. Naik also said that “it was doubtful that Washington would drop its plan even if Bin Laden were to be surrendered immediately by the Taliban.”
Pakistan was repeatedly asking the US “to maintain open channels to the Taliban.” ISI officials negated that their aid for the Taliban enclosed military assist. When interjected why Pakistan supports the Taliban, a senior ISI functionary said, “We don’t support but interact with the Taliban”. When asked further as to why Pakistan continued to give the Taliban international diplomatic support and to press the USG (United States Government) to engage with the Taliban, the Pakistanis reiterated that the Taliban were the effective rulers of about 90 per cent of Afghanistan, that they enjoyed significant popular support because they had ended the banditry and anarchy that once bedeviled the country, and that the instant success of the opium poppy production ban underscored “the reality and effectiveness of Taliban authority.” On the contrary, if it wasn’t for “external support” for the Northern Alliance, it “would collapse in a matter of days.”
The US war against Afghanistan began on October 7, and the Taliban again repeated offers to discuss handing over bin Laden. Taliban Deputy Prime Minister Haji Abdul Kabir declared, “If the Taliban is given evidence that Osama bin Laden is involved and the US stopped its bombing, we would be ready to hand him over to a third country”. President George W Bush spurned the offer as “non-negotiable”, adding, “There’s no need to discuss innocence or guilt. We know he’s guilty.” Refusing to furnish evidence of Laden’s guilt, Bush ingeminated the US ultimatum: “If they want us to stop our military operations, they’ve just got to meet my conditions. When I said no negotiations, I meant no negotiations.”
Then in the preceding months, Taliban went as far as to drop the demand for evidence and proposed to extradite Laden to a third country. Muttawakil apparently met with officials from the CIA and ISI to suggest the offer, which was once again turned down by Washington.
It was then that Taliban decided to abandon the idea of reconciliation. US jointly. Muttawakil famously said, “We don't want war but let the US also understand that we are a sovereign nation and not just another of its provinces.” The next day, Kabul was bombed for the first time.
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Documents suggest that in the years leading to 9/11
The US administration documents acquired through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and released by Washington based National Security Archive shed some additional light on talks with the Taliban preceding the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. It also underlines the constant Taliban offer to hand over
Osama bin Laden; and the activity of Pakistan before and after the attacks.As present-day US plan of action increasingly follows policies to conciliate or “flip” the Taliban, the document highlights Washington’s complete refusal to negotiate with Taliban immediately after 9/11. For example, on September 13, 2001, the then US Ambassador to Pakistan Wendy Chamberlin brusquely told President Pervez Musharraf that there was “absolutely no inclination in Washington to enter into a dialogue with the Taliban” and that the time for dialogue was “finished as of September 11.” However, Pakistan's approach was more holistic and did not correspond to the American knee-jerk reaction. The then ISI chief N Mahmoud Ahmed told the ambassador not to act in anger. The real victory, he said, would come in negotiations and that if the Taliban were eliminated, Afghanistan would “revert to warlordism.”
There are some interesting inputs on Osama as well. When asked about apprehending Laden, Mahmoud said it was “better for the Afghans to do it. We could avoid the fallout.” He in fact travelled to Afghanistan twice, on September 17, aboard an American plane, and again on September 24, 2001 to talk over the gravity of situation with Taliban leader Mullah Omar. However, the US was hell bent on action. Chamberlin categorically let Mahmoud known that while his meetings were all right, but they “could not delay military planning.”
Subsequent papers underscore the value of the bilateral bond to leaders in both Pakistan and the US. An interesting memo categorized seven demands handed over to Mahmoud by US Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage just 48 hours after the attack. President Musharraf sent a cable a day after accepting all the demands “unconditionally”. However, the documents also reveal fundamental disagreements and distrust vis-a-vis Taliban.
For example, an ISI official told visiting US Congressmen that “Pakistan will always support the Taliban”. This “policy cannot change”, he continued, because “it would prompt rebellion across the Northwest Frontier Provinces, the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, and indeed on both sides of the Pashtun-dominated Pak-Afghan border.”
It is now common knowledge that the US had been asking the Taliban to hand over Laden since 1999. These discussions stopped only a week before the 9/11 attack. However, the US was so adamant on its stand that Laden be tried by the Department of Justice— and not in a third country as Taliban suggested— that Taliban refused to hand him over. Officials described it as a missed opportunity. The former CIA station chief Milt Bearden said, “We never heard what they were trying to say. We had no common language. Ours was, ‘Give up bin Laden.’ They were saying, ‘Do something to help us give him up'.” Bearden added, “I have no doubts Taliban wanted to get rid of him. He was a pain in the neck but this never clickedwith us”. The US thought it was “unreasonable” on Taliban's part to ask for evidence indicting Laden.
Taliban, on its part, even cautioned the US that Laden was planning a big attack on American soil. In fact, former Taliban foreign minister Wakil Ahmad Muttawakil maintained that his repeated warnings, delivered because of apprehensions that the US would respond by waging war against Afghanistan, had been dismissed. US officials admitted to this fact but said that warnings were dismissed because they were “hearing a lot of that kind of stuff”.
Declining the Taliban's offer to have Laden handed over shows that the US rather followed the policy of regime change well before the 9/11 happened. India was considered to have joined Russia, the USA and Iran in a conjunct front against Taliban, which enclosed aid for Northern Alliance, including “information and logistic support” from Washington. Former Pakistani Foreign Secretary Niaz Naik claimed that he had been informed by senior US officials as early as in July 2001 that military action would be taken against the Taliban by the middle of October. Readies had already been coordinated with Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Russia. Naik also said that “it was doubtful that Washington would drop its plan even if Bin Laden were to be surrendered immediately by the Taliban.”
Pakistan was repeatedly asking the US “to maintain open channels to the Taliban.” ISI officials negated that their aid for the Taliban enclosed military assist. When interjected why Pakistan supports the Taliban, a senior ISI functionary said, “We don’t support but interact with the Taliban”. When asked further as to why Pakistan continued to give the Taliban international diplomatic support and to press the USG (United States Government) to engage with the Taliban, the Pakistanis reiterated that the Taliban were the effective rulers of about 90 per cent of Afghanistan, that they enjoyed significant popular support because they had ended the banditry and anarchy that once bedeviled the country, and that the instant success of the opium poppy production ban underscored “the reality and effectiveness of Taliban authority.” On the contrary, if it wasn’t for “external support” for the Northern Alliance, it “would collapse in a matter of days.”
The US war against Afghanistan began on October 7, and the Taliban again repeated offers to discuss handing over bin Laden. Taliban Deputy Prime Minister Haji Abdul Kabir declared, “If the Taliban is given evidence that Osama bin Laden is involved and the US stopped its bombing, we would be ready to hand him over to a third country”. President George W Bush spurned the offer as “non-negotiable”, adding, “There’s no need to discuss innocence or guilt. We know he’s guilty.” Refusing to furnish evidence of Laden’s guilt, Bush ingeminated the US ultimatum: “If they want us to stop our military operations, they’ve just got to meet my conditions. When I said no negotiations, I meant no negotiations.”
Then in the preceding months, Taliban went as far as to drop the demand for evidence and proposed to extradite Laden to a third country. Muttawakil apparently met with officials from the CIA and ISI to suggest the offer, which was once again turned down by Washington.
It was then that Taliban decided to abandon the idea of reconciliation. US jointly. Muttawakil famously said, “We don't want war but let the US also understand that we are a sovereign nation and not just another of its provinces.” The next day, Kabul was bombed for the first time.
For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles.
IIPM Marches Ahead in B-School Rankings...
IIPM Proves Its Mettle Once Again...
Indian universities and higher education institutes seem to be caught in a time warp teaching things
Delhi University Students' Union (DUSU): Students' Unions can not be banned
1 comment:
Yes, correctly.
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