The Desert Camp, February 1999. During the winter of 1998-99, intelligence reported that Bin Ladin frequently visited a camp in the desert, adjacent to a larger hunting camp in Helmand Province of Afghanistan, used by visitors from a Gulf state. Public sources have stated that these visitors were from the United Arab Emirates. At the beginning of February, Bin Ladin was reportedly located there, and apparently remained for more than a week. This was not in an urban area, so the risk of collateral damage was minimal. Intelligence provided a detailed description of the camps. National technical intelligence confirmed the description of the larger camp, and showed the nearby presence of an official aircraft of the UAE. The CIA received reports that Bin Ladin regularly went from his adjacent camp to the larger camp where he visited with Emiratis. The location of this larger camp was confirmed by February 9, but the location of Bin Ladin's quarters could not be pinned down so precisely.There's more at the link. I mean, I'm not saying that just because their princes and officials hang out with Bin Laden they're not qualified to run our major ports, but if you're gonna go to a prostitute with a bad VD, you'd damn well better get a good price.
Preparations were made for a possible strike, against the larger camp, perhaps to target Bin Ladin during one of his visits. No strike was launched.
According to CIA officials, policymakers were concerned about the danger that a strike might kill an Emirati prince or other senior officials who might be with Bin Ladin or close by. The lead CIA official in the field felt the intelligence reporting in this case was very reliable. The UBL unit chief at the time agrees. The field official believes today that this was a lost opportunity to kill Bin Ladin before 9/11.
Tuesday, February 28, 2006
I'll have a nice port, too.
Here's something else not xenophobic to think about:
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
4 comments:
Two articles from the Voice supporting this position: One and two.
For myself, I'm not convinced there's not a lot of anti-Arab kneejerking going on, but reports like these do indicate there are serious concerns, some of which might not exist for non-UAE companies.
Yeah, I've heard about that. My thinking is, of course its not good for members of an "ally" nation to hang out with bin Laden. I don't know much about the royal family in the UAE, but Saudi Arabia has 19,000 princes. There are bound to be extremist elements in a group that large. I still would have said that its worth it but Bill Clinton is smarter than I am.
Ok, here's my basic thinking: I don't know the details of the deal, so I can't really issue my verdict. But, by way of analogy, no reasonable contractor would accept the lowest bid out of a bunch of plumbers if that subcontractor was suspected of having ties to the mob. Does that indicate the contractor has an irrational dislike for Italians or Russians or Japanese or whatever ethnic mafia is operating in the area? Probably not. It probably means he doesn't want to get mixed up with a bad crowd. That's trouble he just doesn't need, and unless the reasons for accepting the risk of trouble are greater than the risk, he'd rather not deal with it.
The national population of the UAE is only about 750k. There are about 3.25m non-nationals. So it's a fairly small population. I mean, we know that at least the owners and higher managers of the port company are nationals. And they probably all come from the even smaller aristocratic class, which seems to have at least some suspect members.
If the government of the UAE wants to tolerate its aristocracy chilling out with Bin Laden in Afghanistan, that's its business. But they damn well better expect that The Great Satan might not want to go into business with them. I guess that's the price of getting the benefit of Bin Laden's company.
Well put.
Post a Comment