{"id":94193,"date":"2016-04-25T18:42:41","date_gmt":"2016-04-26T02:42:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=94193"},"modified":"2016-04-25T18:45:27","modified_gmt":"2016-04-26T02:45:27","slug":"seymour-hersh-saudis-paid-pakistan-to-hold-bin-laden-to-prevent-u-s-interrogation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=94193","title":{"rendered":"Seymour Hersh: Saudis Paid Pakistan to Hold bin Laden To Prevent U.S. Interrogation"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tyler Durden writes<\/a>:<\/p>\n

In the aftermath of the most signifiant geopolitical event of my lifetime, the attacks of September 11,2001, the U.S. government proceeded to concoct a fairytale for public consumption in order to advance imperial ambitions overseas and a implement a domestic surveillance state at home. This should be obvious to everyone by now.<\/p>\n

The official 9\/11 story has been filled with holes since the very beginning, but a traumatized American public was too gullible and emotionally damaged to see them. Those of us who saw such inconsistencies and pointed them out have been derided as “conspiracy theorists” for years, yet fifteen years later, the biggest “conspiracy theory” in modern American history is rapidly becoming conspiracy fact.<\/strong><\/p>\n

At the very least, we now know there was Saudi involvement far beyond just the 15 of 19 hijackers who were Saudi nationals, but that’s still just scratching the surface….<\/p>\n

The main thrust of this article is to highlight some new revelations from Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Seymour Hersh. Last May, he published a blockbuster article challenging the entire government story surrounding the death of Osama bin Laden, something I highlighted in the post: U.S. Officials Panic About Seymour Hersh Story; Then Deny His Claims Using Jedi Mind Tricks<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Well he’s back, and he recently shared more groundbreaking information in a fascinating interview with AlterNet<\/em><\/a>. Here are some choice excerpts:<\/p>\n

Ken Klippenstein: In the book you describe Saudi financial support for the compound in which Osama Bin Laden was being kept in Pakistan. Was that Saudi government officials, private individuals or both?<\/p>\n

Seymour Hersh: The Saudis bribed the Pakistanis not to tell us [that the Pakistani government had Bin Laden] because they didn\u2019t want us interrogating Bin Laden (that\u2019s my best guess), because he would\u2019ve talked to us, probably. My guess is, we don\u2019t know anything really about 9\/11. We just don\u2019t know. We don\u2019t know what role was played by whom.<\/p>\n

KK: So you don\u2019t know if the hush money was from the Saudi government or private individuals?<\/p>\n

SH: The money was from the government \u2026 what the Saudis were doing, so I\u2019ve been told, by reasonable people (I haven\u2019t written this) is that they were also passing along tankers of oil for the Pakistanis to resell. That\u2019s really a lot of money.<\/p>\n

KK: For the Bin Laden compound?<\/p>\n

SH: Yeah, in exchange for being quiet. The Paks traditionally have done security for both Saudi Arabia and UAE.<\/p>\n

KK: Do you have any idea how much Saudi Arabia gave Pakistan in hush money?<\/p>\n

SH: I have been given numbers, but I haven\u2019t done the work on it so I\u2019m just relaying. I know it was certainly many\u2014you know, we\u2019re talking about four or five years\u2014hundreds of millions [of dollars]. But I don\u2019t have enough to tell you.<\/p>\n

KK: Why didn\u2019t they apprehend Bin Laden? Can you imagine the intelligence we could have gotten from him?<\/p>\n

SH: The Pakistani high command said go kill him, but for chrissake don\u2019t leave a body, don\u2019t arrest him, just tell them a week later that you killed him in Hindu Kush. That was the plan.<\/p>\n

Many sections, particularly in the Urdu-speaking sections, were really very positive about Bin Laden. Significant percentages in some areas supported Bin Laden. They [the Pakistani government] would\u2019ve been under great duress if the average person knew that they\u2019d helped us kill him.<\/p>\n

KK: In the book you quote a Joint Chiefs of Staff adviser who said that Brennan told the Saudis to stop arming the extremist rebels in Syria and their weapons will dry up\u2014which seems like a rational request\u2014but then, you point out, the Saudis ramped up arms support.<\/p>\n

Seymour Hersh: That\u2019s true.<\/p>\n

KK: Did the U.S. do anything to punish the Saudis for it?<\/p>\n

SH: Nothing. Of course not. No, no. I\u2019ll tell you what\u2019s going on right now \u2026 al Nusra, certainly a jihadist group\u2026 has new arms. They\u2019ve got some tanks now\u2014I think the Saudis are supplying stuff. They\u2019ve got tanks now, have a lot of arms, and are staging some operations around Aleppo. There\u2019s a ceasefire and even though they\u2019re not part of it, they obviously took advantage of the ceasefire to resupply. It\u2019s going to be bloody.<\/p>\n

KK: Just to be clear, the U.S. hasn\u2019t done anything to punish or at least disincentivize the Saudis from arming our enemies in Syria?<\/p>\n

SH: Quite the contrary. The Saudis and Qatar and the Turks put money into those arms [sent to Syrian jihadis].<\/p>\n

You\u2019re asking the right questions. Do we say anything? No. Turkey\u2019s Erdogan has played a complete double game: for years he supported and accommodated ISIS. The border was wide open\u2014Hatay Province\u2014guys were going back and forth, bad guys. We know Erdogan\u2019s deeply involved. He\u2019s changing his tune slightly but he\u2019s been deeply involved in this.<\/p>\n

Let me talk to you about the sarin story [the sarin gas attack in Ghouta, a suburb near Damascus, which the U.S. government attributed to the Assad regime] because it really is in my craw. In this article that was this long series of interviews [of Obama] by Jeff Goldberg\u2026he says, without citing the source (you have to presume it was the president because he\u2019s talking to him all the time) that the head of National Intelligence, General [James] Clapper, said to him very early after the [sarin] incident took place, \u201cHey, it\u2019s not a slam dunk.\u201d<\/p>\n

You have to understand in the intelligence community\u2014Tenet [Bush-era CIA director who infamously said Iraqi WMD was a \u201cslam dunk\u201d] is the one who said that about the war in Baghdad\u2014that\u2019s a serious comment. That means you\u2019ve got a problem with the intelligence. As you know I wrote a story that said the chairman of the Joint Chiefs told the president that information the same day. I now know more about it.<\/p>\n

The president\u2019s explanation for [not bombing Syria] was that the Syrians agreed that night, rather than be bombed, they\u2019d give up their chemical weapons arsenal, which in this article in the Atlantic, Goldberg said they [the Syrians] had never disclosed before. This is ludicrous. Lavrov [Russia\u2019s Foreign Minister] and Kerry had talked about it for a year\u2014getting rid of the arsenal\u2014because it was under threat from the rebels.<\/p>\n

The issue was not that they [the Syrians] suddenly caved in. [Before the Ghouta attack] there was a G-20 summit and Putin and Bashar met for an hour. There was an official briefing from Ben Rhodes and he said they talked about the chemical weapons issue and what to do. The issue was that Bashar couldn\u2019t pay for it\u2014it cost more than a billion bucks. The Russians said, \u2018Hey, we can\u2019t pay it all. Oil prices are going down and we\u2019re hurt for money.\u2019 And so, all that happened was we agreed to handle it. We took care of a lot of the costs of it.<\/p>\n

Guess what? We had a ship, it was called the Cape Maid, it was parked out in the Med. The Syrians would let us destroy this stuff [the chemical weapons]\u2026 there was 1,308 tons that was shipped to the port\u2026and we had, guess what, a forensic unit out there. Wouldn\u2019t we like to really prove\u2014here we have all his sarin and we had sarin from what happened in Ghouta, the UN had a team there and got samples\u2014guess what?<\/p>\n

It didn\u2019t match. But we didn\u2019t hear that. I now know it, I\u2019m going to write a lot about it.<\/p>\n

Guess what else we know from the forensic analysis we have (we had all the missiles in their arsenal). Nothing in their arsenal had anything close to what was on the ground in Ghouta. A lot of people I know, nobody\u2019s going to go on the record, but the people I know said we couldn\u2019t make a connection, there was no connection between what was given to us by Bashar and what was used in Ghouta. That to me is interesting. That doesn\u2019t prove anything, but it opens up a door to further investigation and further questioning.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tyler Durden writes: In the aftermath of the most signifiant geopolitical event of my lifetime, the attacks of September 11,2001, the U.S. government proceeded to concoct a fairytale for public consumption in order to advance imperial ambitions overseas and a implement a … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[21791,172,171],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-94193","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-america","category-saudis","category-terror"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t