CIA's "Ghosts" On Trial

Secrecy surrounds trials of documented intelligence assets and go betweens
Steve Watson
Infowars
Mar. 09, 2007

It comes as no great shock to learn that the military tribunals against 14 "high-value" terrorism suspects currently being held at Guantanamo Bay, scheduled to begin tomorrow, will take place behind closed doors and away from the scrutiny of the media.

As the London Independent today highlights,

Hundreds of previous hearings held to determine the formal status of the prisoners have been open to reporters. None of the suspects will be able to have a lawyer present. The Pentagon has said that the so-called Combatant Status Review Tribunals (CSRT) are being held in secret to prevent the possible leaking of classified information. But legal campaigners said the decision had been taken to prevent the revelation of information embarrassing to the Bush administration.

The Pentagon has said that transcripts of the proceedings will be made available though they will be edited to remove information it deems "dangerous to national security"

The truth is that it would simply be too much of a risk for the government to make the hearings open because it has become apparent that if they even have custody of these high value suspects, which is still unclear, many of them are known to have been used as intelligence assets, go betweens and possibly as double agents.

Put simply, they know too much.

One such detainee is Khalid Sheikh Mohammed who has been blamed for everything from 9/11 to the WTC '93 attacks to the murder of Journalist Daniel Pearle. When he was captured the media reported on it as a possible CIA and ISI propaganda op, the timing was so convenient, just as the Iraq war was warming up. In Fact there are still lingering doubts over whether or not Khalid Sheikh Mohammed has been captured AT ALL.

Mohammed was a known CIA asset in the eighties and was used as a go between during the CIA-funded Afghan "jihad" against the occupying Soviets.

It is well established that before his mysterious arrest as the alleged mastermind behind the September 11 plot, Mohammed was granted a visa to enter the US just six weeks before the terrorist attacks in Washington and New York.

To date, we have not seen a single picture of any of the so-called high profile operatives that have allegedly been arrested. We have never seen Abu Zubaydah, said to be Osama Bin Laden's Operations Chief, allegedly captured March 28, 2002, either during his arrest or in captivity. Contradictory reports at the time countered that Zubaydah died in the raid.

Both Mohammed and Zubaydah have been dubbed "ghost detainees".

Last November The London Guardian reported that the Bush administration decided not to charge Jose Padilla with planning to detonate a radioactive "dirty bomb" in a US city because, according to sources within the government, the evidence for the dirty bomb scenario had emerged from the torturing by the CIA of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and Abu Zubaydah.

Padilla is a citizen of the US who has been held under the controversial "Enemy Combatant" status written into law under the PATRIOT Act. He was also indicted on lesser charges of supporting terrorism abroad.

The Neocons had used his case as fearmongering of the continued threat posed by Al Qaeda on American soil.

Now is it just possible that the reason Padilla cannot be charged with the dirty bomb claims is because defence lawyers would naturally call for the witness testimonies of both Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and Abu Zubaydah? This would mean that the CIA would have to reveal their phantom prisoners to the world, perhaps something that they cannot do because they never had them in the first instance.

We have previously reported on the many fake terror arrests including that of Hambali, the so called most wanted man in Asia and Ramzi Bin Al-Shibah, the nephew of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who has also been accused as one of the key plotters of the September 11 attacks, whose capture was reveled as another public relations ploy.

The most revealing fake arrest was that of the "Al Qaeda number three man" Abu Faraj Al Libbi, who turned out to be a pure nobody with a similar name. The London Times described him as among the flotsam jetsam of the organization.

Al Libbi is spelt L I B B I and the real Mr. Al Libby is spelt L I B B Y – so on the basis of a misspelled name this flotsam jetsam becomes Al-Qaeda number three, becomes a justification that the war on terror is real in the first place, becomes justification that Bush is winning the war on terror and that sacrificing our rights is working, becomes justification for renewing the Patriot Act and becomes part of the script they’re working on for when they capture their friend Osama.

One case that has perhaps shed light on the mystery surrounding these high value detainees may be that of Bisher Al-Rawi, evidence surrounding whom suggests that the western intelligence agencies that funded and created the movement now known as Al Qaeda are routinely using its members as double agents.

Bisher Al-Rawi claims he was in the employ of MI5. Al-Rawi was arrested and moved to Gitmo in November 2002, with his brother, Wahab, while on a business trip to Gambia, in west Africa, to set up a peanut-oil processing plant.

He is accused of harbouring the Jordanian cleric Abu Qatada, described as Osama bin Laden's representative in Europe, in London, and also transporting the components of a "weapon of mass destruction". He says he was being used by MI5 to monitor extremists in Britain's Muslim community, including Abu Qatada. The "mass destruction" equipment, say his lawyers, was a battery charger. Al-Rawi has passed a polygraph test and the British Government will not comment on his claims.

This information is not new and has been known since at least 2005 when the British media reported on it. The London Independent reported on Al-Rawi on July 5 2006, indicating that British intelligence have a history of using so called Al Qaeda operatives as informants, allowing them to be left alone as a trade off. It was MI5 who gave the CIA information on Al-Rawi that led to his arrest.

There are countless other cases similar to that of Al-Rawi indicating that the use of "Al Qaeda" go betweens by the intelligence services is commonplace.

Meanwhile, it was today also reported that key House Democrats plan to insist the Pentagon shut down the detention camp at Guantanamo Bay, and are contemplating the relocation of many of the 385 or so remaining terrorist suspects, including the so called "ghost detainees", to military brigs along the East Coast -- including Quantico, Va., and Charleston, S.C.

Rep. Jim Moran (D-Va.), who's heading an investigation of the facility for the House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, stated:

"...you've got to distinguish among these people," he said. "We have to prove they actually did something that was designed to hurt American citizens... Many of them have never engaged in any act of violence... Some of them hold beliefs that are anathema to ours, but we have a tradition that we don't punish people for their beliefs but rather for their actions."

It is hard to believe that the Bush Administration would sanction such a move, it is much more useful for them to keep everything to do with the war on terror shrouded in darkness and secrecy. This is primarily because, as we have seen in the past, any form of openness causes the whole thing to begin to unravel as the giant fraud that it is.

So called "Al Qaeda" prisoners miraculously and routinely "escape" from maximum security prisons all over the world or are allowed to walk away from attacks they are said to have perpetrated. Al Qaeda's top brass never ended up at guantanamo because they were all flown out on US planes in a deal done with Pakistan in late 2001 as the Afghanistan invasion began. This was later verified and passed off as just another "mistake".

The detention facilities at Guantanamo bay are a media showcase, nothing more than a public relations scam designed to give us a glimpse of "the new rules of war". We are slowly being acclimatised to torture and imprisonment without trial. These things are now even being implemented within our own laws.

We have tirelessly exposed how no Al Qaeda "leaders" have been captured or discovered at Guantanamo Bay either first hand or via information garnered through torture. The truth is that those we are told are dangerous terrorists are students, goat herders and taxi drivers.

The real "Al Qaeda" operatives are sparse, yet are direct assets of the intelligence agencies being used in any way they see fit whether that be manipulative control or freedom to operate unhindered. It is clear that our Governments are in control of both sides of this war on terror and unless we continually question and expose their failings they will continue to use it to further their own domestic and foreign agendas undeterred.