The trail of Pakistan's ISI -- opium, al Qaeda, and Richard Armitage

[starroute]

It seems that lately, every trail of questionable activity leads back to Pakistan's intelligence agency, ISI. Drug smuggling, money laundering, the arms trade, CIA involvement, al Qaeda involvement, Indian mafia involvement, nuclear proliferation -- they've got it all.

The story begins in 1979-80, when the CIA poured into Pakistan in order to arm the Afghan insurgents against the Soviets and pumped up the local opium trade to support their operations. It continues through the 1980's and the operations of BCCI, which was founded in Pakistan. It is deeply entangled with the events of 9/11. And it is at the heart of the recent revelations of Pakistan's role in nuclear proliferation -- and why the US has taken no serious action against those involved.

I've posted bits and pieces of this story on various scattered threads. I'm going to try to bring them all together here. However, a good place to start is with an article from a year and a half ago which pulls together an extraordinary number of scattered facts to create an extremely disquieting picture:

Sept. 11's Smoking Gun: The Many Faces of Saeed Sheikh
http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/timeline/main/essaysaeed.html

The article is far too long and too tightly reasoned to do justice to with a few brief quotes. It centers on Saeed Shiekh, a Moslem radical who by 1994 was both on ISI's payroll and working with al Qaeda. Many people in the Pakistani government believed he was a CIA asset as well.

He was arrested in India in 1994 while attempting to kidnap Western tourists (the ISI paid his legal fees,) and remained in jail until 1999, when al Qaeda hijacked an Indian Airlines plane and exchanged it for his freedom and that of a couple of other Pakistani terrorists. He spent the next two years living openly in Lahore, Pakistan under ISI protection. During this period, he kept up his connections with Moslem mafiosi in India, providing them with weapons and training in exchange for a cut of the profits of their kidnapping racket.

Saeed Sheikh also appears to have been the al Qaeda "paymaster" who was sending large sums of money to Mohammed Atta -- some of it probably obtained from the Indian mafia -- apparently at the direction of General Mahmood Ahmed, head of the ISI.

But the really interesting part of the story is what happened around September 11, 2001:

On October 7, 2001, Pakistani President Musharraf fired Lt. Gen. Mahmood Ahmed, the head of the ISI. The next day, some newspapers, mostly in India but also in Pakistan, shockingly said he was fired for his role in the 9/11 attacks. For instance, a Pakistani newspaper stated, "Lt. Gen. Mahmood Ahmed has been replaced after the FBI investigators established credible links between him and Umar Sheikh, one of the three militants released in exchange for passengers of the hijacked Indian Airlines plane in 1999... Informed sources said there were enough indications with the US intelligence agencies that it was at Gen. Mahmood's instruction that Sheikh had transferred 100,000 US dollars into the account of Mohammed Atta..."

<snip>

The relationship between the US and the ISI is hard to fathom. On September 4, 2001, ISI Director Mahmood Ahmed arrived in Washington, D.C. On September 10, a Pakistani newspaper reported on the visit, saying that it had "triggered speculation about the agenda of his mysterious meetings at the Pentagon and National Security Council" as well as meetings with CIA Director George Tenet, unspecified officials at the White House and the Pentagon, and his "most important meeting" with Mark Grossman, US Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs. The article suggested that "of course, Osama bin Laden" was the focus of some discussions. Prophetically, the article added, "What added interest to his visit is the history of such visits. Last time predecessor was here, the domestic politics turned topsy-turvy within days. That this is not the first visit by Mahmood in the last three months shows the urgency of the ongoing parleys." In May 2001, both CIA Director George Tenet and Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage had visited South Asia. It's not known if they met with Mahmood or anyone else in the ISI, but according to credible news reports, Tenet had "unusually long" consultations with President Musharraf. It is also worth noting that Armitage is known for his "large circle of friends in the Pakistani military and ISI" as well as his connections to the Iran-Contra affair.

Of course everyone knows that politics did turn very "topsy-turvy" one day after the Karachi News article on September 10. But what many don't know is that on the morning of September 11, Lt. Gen. Mahmood was at a breakfast meeting at the Capitol with the chairmen of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees, Senator Bob Graham (D) and Representative Porter Goss (R). The meeting was said to have lasted at least until the second plane hit the World Trade Center. Goss is a self-admitted 10-year veteran of the CIA's clandestine operations wing. Goss and Graham were later the heads of the joint House-Senate investigation into the September 11 attacks, and Goss in particular made headlines for saying there was no "smoking gun" indicating that the government had sufficient foreknowledge to prevent the September 11 attacks.

On September 12 and 13, Lt. Gen. Mahmood met with Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, Senator Joseph Biden, the Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and Secretary of State Colin Powell. An agreement on Pakistan's collaboration in the new "war on terror" was negotiated between Mahmood and Armitage. All these meetings coordinated Pakistan's response to September 11. Isn't it strange that the terms of Pakistan's commitment to fight al-Qaeda were negotiated with the man who may have given orders to send $100,000 to the September 11 hijackers?

What strikes me as particularly interesting -- and disturbing -- is that Richard Armitage and Porter Goss are the two men who have been mentioned most prominently as possible successors to George Tenet as director of the CIA. And both of them seem to have been up to their necks in whatever was going on with the ISI and 9/11. According to the article, all sorts of coverup and disinformation have been going on concerning these matters. Is it possible that Armitage and Goss are being considered precisely for their ability to continue the coverup?

In addition, the Plame indictment threads have raised the possibility that Valerie Plame was outed not merely to discredit her husband, but also because her investigations of weapons proliferation were getting too close to secrets that someone in the administration wanted concealed. Is it possible that those secrets involve the ISI as well?

More coming -- stay tuned.

[starroute]

1. The CIA, heroin, BCCI, and nuclear proliferation

(Reposted from Plame thread #7)

In 1979, the largest CIA operation in the world began working through Pakistani military intelligence to support the Afghan resistance to the Soviet occupation. As well as supplying arms, this CIA operation also involved massively pumping up opium production in the area:

In 1979 Pakistan had a small localized opium trade and produced no heroin whatsoever. Yet by 1981, according to U.S. Attorney General William French Smith, Pakistan had emerged as the world's leading supplier of heroin. It became the supplier of 60% of U.S. heroin supply and it captured a comparable section of the European market. ... Who were the manufacturers? They were all either military factions connected with Pakistan intelligence, CIA allies, or Afghan resistance groups connected with the CIA and Pakistan intelligence.

<snip>

There's one rather large question that nobody is asking about BCCI. It's a Pakistani bank, it booms during the 1980's, in exactly the same period that Pakistan emerges as the world's largest heroin center. We know the Pakistan military officers involved in the drug trade had their accounts with BCCI. There's a three way relationship that really cries out, screams, demands, a congressional investigation.
The relationship between BCCI and the CIA operations in Afghanistan and Pakistan; how much money was the CIA moving through those accounts? Secondly, the relationship between the Pakistan military connected with that operation and BCCI. Thirdly, the relationship between the booming heroin trade of Pakistan and BCCI. I think what we'll possibly discover is that the CIA was shipping its funds into Pakistan through BCCI, protecting BCCI thereby from serious investigations elsewhere in the world. That the Pakistan military were in fact banking their drug profits, moving their drug profits from the consuming country back to Pakistan though BCCI. In fact the boom in the Pakistan drug trade was financed by BCCI.The interrelationship between the Afghan resistance and the CIA and the Pakistan drug trade can all be seen through the medium of BCCI, the banker to both operations, the resistance and the drug trade.

http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/heroin/mccoy1.htm


In addition to being the financial conduit for the CIA's drug-smuggling and money-laundering activities, it seems that BCCI was involved in Pakistan's nuclear proliferation as well:

The notorious Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI) went bankrupt after it's involvement in massive fraud and the laundering of drug money was revealed in 1992. Now it has been linked to funding Pakistan's nuclear programme which also involved the export of nuclear technology to much of the "Axis of Evil" - Iran, Libya and North Korea. Saddam's regime rejected offers of sales of nuclear technology and know-how from Pakistan in the 90s - but it's earlier nuclear programme, largely defunct from the mid-90s on, received funding in the form of letters of credit from BCCI.

Senator John Kerry, the current favourite to be the American Democratic party's Presidential Candidate in November, chaired a US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations inquiry into BCCI. It's 1992 report stated that BCCI's involvement in Pakistan's nuclear programme required further investigation. The Bank's BCCI Foundation - supposedly set up to promote development and eliminate third world poverty - funded the establishment of the Khan Institute for Science and Technology - which was headed by Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan - the Pakistani nuclear scientist who headed Pakistan's nuclear weapons programme and has admitted involvement in exporting nuclear secrets. In 1991 the Times newspaper quoted an un-named businessmen as saying "BCCI is functioning as the owners' representative for Pakistan's nuclear-bomb project."

<snip>

The CIA and ISI were also involved both in organising the funding and training of Osama Bin Laden and other mujahedin in the Afghan Soviet War - and also in the rise of the Taliban. This raises other questions. Did the CIA actively promote nuclear proliferation through BCCI and the ISI in the same way that they promoted the drugs trade and the rise of the mujahedin through it? And if so why? Could it be that some in American and British intelligence and governments wanted to create a pretext for military intervention or the threat of it? If this seems far-fetched consider that current US Secretary of State for Defense Donald Rumsfeld - who today condemns North Korea as a member of the Axis of Evil - was a non executive director of ABB from 1990 to 2001 - an engineering firm based in Switzerland. In 2000 ABB won a $200mn contract to design and provide components for nuclear reactors in North Korea. Similarly subsidiaries of Halliburton Oil - former CEO Vice President Dick Cheney - operated in Iraq and Libya until at least February 2000 while US and UN sanctions were in place - and continue to operate in Iran - another member of the "Axis of Evil" which similarly has US sanctions on it.

http://www.friendsoftheheroes.co.uk/archive/issue69.html#1

[IronLionZion]

2. yeah the ISI is bad news

India has tons of evidence of their support and financing of terrorism. Those bastards harbor some of the most evil people on earth. I bet a lot of Osama's boys are living in Pakistan quite comfortably.

Bush is obviously not going to do anything to them, but it doesn't look like Kerry will either. our "ally" doesn't deserve to have their debt forgiven. They deserve a swift kick in the ass.

[starroute]

3. The real problem isn't with Pakistan -- it's with America

This is the heart of this story as I see it:

- As of 1980, Pakistan had become the center of the largest CIA operation in the world. That operation soon developed nearly unlimited funding in the form of the Afghan opium trade, laundered through BCCI. Both the money and the general ruthlessness and lack of accountability involved have been a source of corruption in the US as well as in Pakistan ever since.

- In Pakistan, this corruption takes the form of the extraordinary power of ISI and its willingness to protect not only terrorists but even mafiosi (like the infamous Dawood Ibrahim) as long as they are associated with the struggle against India over Kashmir.

- In the US, the corruption has been less visible but even more undermining, in at least three ways. One concerns the drug trade, the covert uses of drug profits, and why Afghan opium production has been allowed to soar again since the overthrow of the Taliban. A second has to do with 9/11, the involvement of ISI, and what the administration is trying to cover. And a third has to do with nuclear proliferation and the involvement of figures like Cheny and Rumsfeld in the arms trade.

The US is a very sick society at the moment, and much of the sickness emanates from the CIA's exploitation of Pakistan over the last 25 years as a base for all the most unscrupulous aspects of America foreign policy. The corruption of Pakistan by the US is coming back to infect us all, but the more we know about it and can identify it, the better chance we will have of surviving, both as individuals and as a society.