European intelligence experts dismiss the Bush "war on terrorism" as deception and reveal the realpolitik behind the aggression against Afghanistan.

Berlin - In Germany, where war plans for Afghanistan were already being discussed in July and where several of the "Arab hijackers" lived and studied, intelligence experts say the terror attacks of September 11 could not have been carried out without the support of a state secret service.

Eckehardt Werthebach, former president of Germany's domestic intelligence service, Verfassungsschutz, told AFP that "the deathly precision" and "the magnitude of planning" behind the attacks of September 11 would have needed "years of planning."

Such a sophisticated operation, Werthebach said, would require the "fixed frame" of a state intelligence organization, something not found in a "loose group" of terrorists like the one allegedly led by Mohammed Atta while he studied in Hamburg.

Many people would have been involved in the planning of such an operation and Werthebach pointed to the absence of leaks as further indication that the attacks were "state organized actions."

Andreas von Bulow served on the parliamentary commission which oversees the three branches of the German secret service while a member of the Bundestag (German parliament) from 1969 to 1994, and wrote a book titled Im Namen des Staates (In the Name of the State) on the criminal activities of secret services, including the CIA.

Von Bulow told AFP that he believes that the Israeli intelligence service, Mossad, is behind the September 11 terror attacks. These attacks, he said, were carried out to turn public opinion against the Arabs, and boost military and security spending.

"You don't get the higher echelons," von Bulow said, referring to the "architectural structure" which masterminds such terror attacks. At this level, he said, the organization doing the planning, such as Mossad, is primarily interested in affecting public opinion.

The architectural level planners use corrupt "guns for hire" such as Abu Nidal, the Palestinian terrorist who von B'low called "an instrument of Mossad," high-ranking Stasi (former East German secret service) operatives, or Libyan agents who organize terror attacks using dedicated people, for example Palestinian and Arab "freedom fighters."

The terrorists who actually commit the crimes are what von Bulow calls "the working level," such as the 19 Arabs who allegedly hijacked the planes on September 11. "The working level is part of the deception," he said.

"Ninety-five percent of the work of the intelligence agencies around the world is deception and disinformation," von Bulow said, which is widely propagated in the mainstream media creating an accepted version of events. "Journalists don't even raise the simplest questions," he said adding, "those who differ are labeled as crazy."

Both Werthebach and von Bulow said the lack of an open and official investigation, such as congressional hearings, into the events of September 11 was incomprehensible.

AFP asked von Bulow about the Taliban's ban on opium production: "Seventy percent of the drug trade is licensed by the intelligence agencies," von B'low said, and they are interested in keeping the drug traffic "running through their mills."

"The BND (German secret service) is steered by the CIA and the CIA is steered by Mossad," von Bulow said.

Horst Ehmke, who coordinated the German secret services directly under German prime minister Willi Brandt in the 70s, predicted a similar terrorist attack in his novel, Torches of Heaven, published last year, in which Turkish terrorists crash hijacked planes into Berlin.

EERIE PREDICTIONS

Although Ehmke had long expected "fundamentalist attacks," when he saw the televised images from September 11, he said it looked like a "Hollywood production."

"Terrorists could not have carried out such an operation with 4 hijacked planes without the support of a secret service," Ehmke said, although he did not want to point to any particular agency.

"The most important thing in the struggle against terrorists, who are abusing religion, is the battle for the soul of the people and the nations," Ehmke said. "If this isn't resolved successfully, the 21st Century could be bloodier than the last."

A former Stasi agent who had warned the German secret service of terror attacks in America between September 10-20 told AFP that a high ranking Stasi chief named Jurgen Rogalla, who is "an airplane terror specialist," was probably involved in the attacks of September 11 along with Abu Nidal.

Both Nidal and Rogalla work with the Mossad, the former agent told AFP. Nidal, was said to be in Baghdad, and is a "leading officer for some Mossad agents." The agent said that Nidal was "involved directly" in the events of September 11.

September 11 was preparation for a larger attack on the United States, which is part of "an old plan," the agent said. Based on prior knowledge of this plan, the agent said that more attacks are imminent and that aircraft carriers may be targeted next. Rogalla is also strongly anti-religious and attacks on cathedrals or places of religious significance before Christmas are likely.

Rogalla was responsible for "turning NATO men" to spy for the East. One of the East's NATO spies, Reiner Rupp, known as "Topaz," provided Stasi and the Russians with the organization's highest secrets until he was discovered in 1993 by the BND. A CIA agent known as "Frank Lindsey" worked with Rogalla, according to the former Stasi agent.

TERROR INVESTIGATION BLOCKED

Under the influence of U.S. oil companies, the administration of George W. Bush blocked U.S. secret service investigations on terrorism, while it bargained with the Taliban to turn over Osama bin Laden in exchange for political recognition and economic aid, two French intelligence analysts claim.

In a recently published book, "Bin Laden, la verite interdite" (Bin Laden, the forbidden truth), the authors, Jean-Charles Brisard and Guillaume Dasquie, reveal that the Federal Bureau of Investigation's deputy director John O'Neill resigned in July in protest due to official obstruction of his investigation of terrorism.

O'Neill had been in charge of national security in New York. While with the FBI, O'Neill led an investigation of Osama bin Laden and had forecast the possibility of an organized attack by terrorists operating from within the country.

O'Neill had investigated the USS Cole bombing in Yemen, the bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, and the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. In 1995, FBI agents working under O'Neill captured Ramzi Yousef, a suspected lieutenant of bin Laden, who later was among those convicted for the World Trade Center bombing.

O'Neill was considered a top-notch investigator and was known for his pugnacity. He was barred by U.S. Ambassador to Yemen Barbara Bodine from that country. That dispute reportedly involved a struggle between the State Department, which sought to preserve relations with Yemen, and the FBI, represented by O'Neill, who wanted access to Yemeni suspects.

O'Neill, 49, was hired as chief of security at the World Trade Center following a 25-year career with the FBI and died on Sept. 11, the first day of his new job. O'Neill reportedly died after reentering the building to assist others.

Brisard said O'Neill told them that "the main obstacles to investigate Islamic terrorism were U.S. oil corporate interests and the role played by Saudi Arabia in it."

EARLY WARNINGS

Osama bin Laden and the Taliban received threats of possible American military strikes against them two months before the terrorist assaults on New York and Washington, according to The Guardian (UK).

The warnings to the Taliban originated at a four-day meeting of senior Americans, Russians, Iranians and Pakistanis at a hotel in Berlin in mid-July. The meetings took place under the arbitration of Francesc Vendrell, personal representative of UN secretary general Kofi Annan, to discuss the situation in Afghanistan.

The three Americans at the Berlin meeting were Tom Simons, former US ambassador to Pakistan, Karl "Rick" Inderfurth, a former assistant secretary of state for south Asian affairs, and Lee Coldren, who headed the office of Pakistan, Afghan and Bangladesh affairs in the state department until 1997.

There were other meetings arranged by Vendrell in which "representatives of the U.S. government and Russia, and the six countries that border with Afghanistan were present," according to the French authors. "Sometimes, representatives of the Taliban also sat around the table."

The Berlin conference was the third meeting since November 2000 arranged by Mr. Vendrell. As a UN meeting, its official agenda was supposedly confined to trying to find a negotiated solution to the civil war in Afghanistan, ending terrorism and heroin trafficking, and discussing humanitarian aid.

CARPET OF GOLD -- OR BOMBS

The U.S. government's primary objective in Afghanistan was to consolidate the position of the Taliban regime in order to obtain access to the oil and gas reserves of Central Asia, the French authors wrote.

Until August, the U.S. government saw the Taliban regime "as a source of stability in Central Asia that would enable the construction of an oil pipeline across Central Asia," from the rich oilfields in Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Kazakhstan, through Afghanistan and Pakistan, to the Indian Ocean, they said.

"The oil and gas reserves of Central Asia have been controlled by Russia. The Bush government wanted to change all that," the book says. When the Taliban refused to accept U.S. conditions, "this rationale of energy security changed into a military one."

"The Americans indicated to us that in case the Taliban does not behave and in case Pakistan also doesn't help us to influence the Taliban, then the United States would be left with no option but to take an overt action against Afghanistan," said Niaz Naik, a former foreign minister of Pakistan, who attended the meetings.

On French television, Naik said during the "6+2" meeting in Berlin in July, the discussions turned around "the formation of a government of national unity. If the Taliban had accepted this coalition, they would have immediately received international economic aid."

"And the pipe lines from Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan would have come," he added.

Naik also claimed that Tom Simons, the U.S. representative at these meetings, openly threatened the Taliban and Pakistan.

"Simons said, 'either the Taliban behave as they ought to, or Pakistan convinces them to do so, or we will use another option'. The words Simons used were 'a military operation'," Naik said.

"At one moment during the negotiations, the U.S. representatives told the Taliban, 'either you accept our offer of a carpet of gold, or we bury you under a carpet of bombs'," Brisard said in an interview in Paris.

According to the book, the government of Bush began to negotiate with the Taliban immediately after coming into power in February. U.S. and Taliban diplomatic representatives met several times in Washington, Berlin and Islamabad.