Andreas von Bülow Interview
by Stephan Lebert and Norbert Thomma
Der Tagesspiegel
January 13, 2002
http://www.thedubyareport.com/vonbulow.html
"There are tracks like those of a stampeding herd of elephants."
The first suspicion came to him when he was in the German Parliament. Intelligence agencies were his theme. Andreas von Bülow believes them capable of the worst: involvement in the attacks on New York
He was Minister for Research and Technology in the cabinet of [former German Chancellor] Helmut Schmidt, and was for 25 years an SPD member of the German parliament. While serving on a committee investigating the Schalck-Golodkowski affair [a corruption scandal involving the former East German intelligence service] Andreas von Bülow, 64, experienced the work of intelligence agencies, and subsequently wrote a book on this subject, Im Namen des Staates (In the Name of the State). Von Bülow is currently a lawyer in Bonn.
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You seem so angry, really enraged.
I can explain what has me upset: I see that after the horrible attacks of September
11th all political public opinion is being pushed in a direction that I consider
false.
What do you mean by that?
I wonder why many questions are not asked. Normally with such a terrible thing,
various clues and evidence appear that are then commented on by the investigators,
the media, the government: Is something up here or not? Are the explanations
plausible? This time, this is not the case at all. It began just a few hours
after the attacks in New York and Washington and ...
In those hours, there was horror, and grief.
Right, but actually it was astounding: There are 26 intelligence services in
the U.S.A., with a budget of $30 billion ...
More than the German defense budget.
... which were not able to prevent the attacks. In fact, they didn't even have
an inkling they would happen. For sixty decisive minutes, the military and intelligence
agencies let the fighter planes stay on the ground; 48 hours later, however,
the FBI presented a list of [alleged] suicide attackers. Within ten days it
emerged that seven of them were still alive.
Excuse me?
Yes, yes. And why did the FBI chief take no position regarding the contradictions?
Where the list came from, why it was false? If I were the lead prosecutor in
such a case I would regularly go before the public, and give information on
which leads are valid and which not.
The U.S. government talked about an emergency situation after the attacks: They
said they were at war. Isn't it understandable that one does not share with
the enemy everything one knows about him?
Naturally. But a government that goes to war must first ascertain procedurally
who the attacker, the enemy, is. It has a duty to provide evidence. According
to its [the U.S. government's] own admission, it has not been able to present
any evidence that would hold up in court.
Some information on the perpetrators has been documented through investigation.
The suspected leader, Mohammad Atta, left Portland for Boston on the morning
of September 11th in order to board the plane that later hit the World Trade
Center.
If this Atta was the crucial man in the operation, it's still strange that he
took such a risk -- taking a plane that would reach Boston such a short time
before the connecting flight. Had his flight been delayed a few minutes he would
not have been on the plane that was hijacked. Why would a sophisticated terrorist
do that? One can, by the way, read on CNN's website that none of these names
were on the official passenger lists. None of them had gone through any one
of the four the check-in procedures. And why did none of the threatened pilots
key in the prearranged code 7700 over the steering controls to the ground station?
Moreover, the flight voice and data recorders, which are fire and shock proof,
contain no data that can be evaluated ...
That sounds like ...
... like assailants who, in their preparations, leave tracks behind them like
a herd of stampeding elephants? They made payments with credit cards in their
own names; they reported to their flight instructors with their true names.
They left behind rented cars with Arab-language flight manuals for jumbo jets.
They took with them, on their [alleged] suicide trip, wills and farewell letters,
which fall into the hands of the FBI, because they were stowed improperly or
addressed incorrectly. Clues were left to follow like in a child's game. There
is also the theory of one British flight engineer: According to this, the steering
was perhaps taken out of the pilots' hands from outside the planes. The Americans
had developed a method in the 1970s whereby they could rescue hijacked planes
by taking over the flight computer. This theory says the technique was abused
in this case. That's a theory
Which sounds really wild, and was never actually considered.
Look. I do not subscribe to this theory, but I find it worth considering. And
what about the obscure stock transactions? In the week prior to the attacks,
the transaction volume in American Airlines, United Airlines, and insurance
industry stock, increased 1,200%. It was valued at around $15 billion. Some
people must have known something. Who?
Why don't you speculate?
With the help of the horrifying attacks, the Western mass democracies were subjected
to brainwashing. The bogeyman of anti-communism doesn't work any more; it is
to be replaced by people of Islamic faith. They are accused of having given
birth to suicidal terrorism.
Brainwashing? That's a strong term.
Yes? But the idea of the bogeyman doesn't come from me. It comes from Zbigniew
Brzezinski and Samuel Huntington, two masterminds of American intelligence and
foreign policy. In the mid-1990s Huntingon believed that people in Europe and
the U.S. needed someone they could hate - this would strengthen their identification
with their own society. And Brzezinski, the mad dog, as adviser to President
Jimmy Carter, campaigned for the exclusive right of the U.S. to seize all the
raw materials of the world, especially oil and gas.
You mean, the events of September 11th ...
... fit perfectly in the concept of the armaments industry, the intelligence
agencies, the whole military-industrial-academic complex. This is in fact obvious.
The huge raw materials reserves of the former Soviet Union are now at their
[the U.S.'s] disposal, also the pipeline routes and ...
Erich Follach described that in great detail in Der Spiegel: "It's a matter
of military bases, drugs, oil and gas reserves."
I can state: the planning of the attacks was a technical and organizational
feat. To hijack four huge airplanes within a few minutes, and within one hour
to guide them into their targets with complicated flight maneuvers! This is
unthinkable without support from secret apparatuses of the state and industry
over a number of years.
You are a conspiracy theorist!
Yeah, yeah. That's the jeer of those who would rather follow the official, politically
correct line. Even investigative journalists are fed propaganda and disinformation.
Anyone who doubts that, doesn't have all his marbles! Nonetheless that's their
accusation.
Your career actually contradicts the idea that you are not in your right mind.
In the mid-1970s you were state secretary in the Defense Ministry; in 1993 you
were the SPD [Social Democratic Party] spokesman on the Schalck-Golodkowski
investigation committee ...
[Alexander Schalck-Golodkowski was the deputy foreign trade minister of the
former German Democracic Republic (East Germany). He controlled IMES, a state
owned company that was at the center of an international smuggling network with
secret bank accounts and shell companies in West Germany, Switzerland, and Liechtenstein.
Swedish customs officials exposed IMES arms smuggling activites in 1985. Years
later, however, IMES was still in operation, and was reportedly used by western
intelligence agencies to provide arms to Central America, including during the
U.S. Iran-Contra scandal. Schalck-Golodkowski himself was only charged with
import export violations, and embezzlement. He was sentenced to a year in prison
for the first charge, and eventually acquitted of the second. Reference: The
Arms Fixers, by Brian Wood and Johan Peleman, a publication of the Norwegian
Initiative on Small Arms Transfers.]
And it all began there! Until that time, I did not have any great familiarity
with the work of intelligence agencies. And now we had to expose a great discrepancy:
We shed light on the dealings of the Stasi and other East bloc intelligence
agencies in the area of economic criminality, but as soon as we wanted to know
something about the activities of the BND [Bundesnachrichtendienst, German intelligence]
or the CIA, it was mercilessly blocked. No information, no cooperation, nothing!
That's when I was first taken aback.
Schalck-Golodkowski mediated, among other things, various business deals abroad.
When you looked at his case more closely ...
We found, for example, a clue in Rostock, where Schalck organized his weapons
depot. Well, then we happened upon an affiliate of Schalck in Panama, and then
we happened upon Manuel Noriega, who was for many years president, drug dealer,
and money launderer, all in one, right? And this Noriega was also on the payroll
of the CIA, for $200,000 a year. These were things that really made me curious.
You wrote a book on the dealings of the CIA and Co. In the meantime, you have
become an expert regarding what was noteworthy about intelligence services'
work.
"Noteworthy" is the wrong term. What has gone on, and goes on, in
the name of intelligence services, are true crimes.
What would you say determines the first line of work of intelligence services?
So that we don't misunderstand each other: I find that it makes sense to have
intelligence services ...
You don't think much of the earlier proposals by the Greens, who wanted to dismantle
these agencies?
No. It is right to take a look behind the scenes. Getting intelligence about
the intentions of an enemy, makes sense. It is important when one tries to put
oneself into the mind of the opponent. Whoever wants to understand the CIA's
methods, has to deal with its main tasks covert operations: below the level
of war, and outside international law, foreign states are to be influenced by
inciting insurrections or terrorist attacks, usually combined with drugs and
weapons trade, and money laundering. This is essentially rather simple: One
arms violent people with weapons. Since, however, it must not under any circumstances
come out that there is an intelligence agency behind it, all traces are erased,
with tremendous deployment of resources. I have the impression that this kind
of intelligence agency spends 90% of its time this way: creating false leads.
So that if anyone suspects the collaboration of the agencies, he is accused
of paranoia [literally: the sickness of conspiracy madness]. The truth often
comes out only years later. CIA chief Allen Dulles once said: In case of doubt,
I would even lie to the Congress!
The American journalist Seymour M. Hersh, wrote in the New Yorker that even
some people in the CIA and government assumed that certain leads had been laid
in order to confuse the investigators. Who, Herr von Bülow, would have
done this?
I don't know that either. How should I? I simply use my healthy common sense,
and observe: The terrorists behaved in such a way to attract attention. And
although devout Muslims, they were in a striptease bar, and, while drunk, stuck
dollar bills into the dancer's panties.
Things like that also happen.
It may be. As a lone warrior, I cannot prove anything, that's beyond my capabilities.
I have real difficulties, however, to imagine that all this was all concocted
in the mind of a single evil man in his cave.
Mr. von Bülow, you yourself say that you are alone in your criticism. Formerly,
you belonged to the political establishment, now you are an outsider.
That is a problem sometimes, but one gets used to it. By the way, I know a lot
of people, including very influential ones, who agree with me in private. [literally:
behind a hand held up].
Do you still have contact with old SPD fellow-travelers, such as Egon Bahr and
former Chancellor Helmut Schmidt?
There are no close contacts any more. I wanted to go to the last SPD party congress,
but I was sick.
Can it be, Mr. von Bülow, that you are peddling typical anti-Americanism?
Nonsense, this has absolutely nothing to do with anti-Americanism. I am a great
admirer of this great, open, free society, and always have been. I studied in
the U.S.
How did you get the idea that there could be a link between the attacks and
the American intelligence agencies?
Do you remember the first attack on the World Trade Center in 1993?
In that attack a bomb killed six people and wounded over a thousand.
In the middle of it was the bomb maker, a former Egyptian officer. He had brought
together some Muslims for the attack. Despite a State Department prohibition
on their entry, the CIA piloted them into the country. At the same time, the
leader of the band was an FBI informant. And he made a deal with the authorities:
At the last minute, a harmless powder would replace the dangerous explosive
material. The FBI did not stick to the deal. The bomb exploded, so to speak,
with the knowledge of the FBI. The official account was quickly found: The criminals
were evil Muslims.
You were in Helmut Schmidt's cabinet when Soviet soldiers marched into Afghanistan.
What was it like, then?
The Americans pushed for trade sanctions, they demanded the boycott of the Olympic
games in Moscow ...
... which the German government joined ...
And today we know: It was the strategy of the American security adviser, Brzezinski,
to destabilize the Soviet Union from adjoining Muslim countries: They lured
the Russians into Afghanistan, and then prepared for them a hell on earth, their
Vietnam. With decisive support of the U.S. intelligence agencies at least 30,000
Muslim fighters were trained in Afghanistan and Pakistan, total good-for-nothings
and fanatics who were, and still are today, ready for anything. And one of them
is Osama bin Laden. I wrote years ago: "It was out of this brood that the
Taliban grew up in Afghanistan, raised in the Koranic schools financed by American
and Saudi funds, the Taliban who are now terrorizing the country and razing
it to the ground."
Even though you say, for the U.S. it was a matter of raw materials in the region,
the starting point for the U.S. aggression was the terrorist attack which cost
thousands of human lives.
Completely true. One must always call this gruesome act to mind. Nonetheless,
in the analysis of political processes, I am allowed to observe who has advantages
and disadvantages from it, or what is coincidental. When in doubt, it is always
worthwhile to take a look at a map, where are the mineral resources and the
access routes? Then lay a map of civil wars and conflicts on top of that - they
coincide. This is also the case with the third map: nodal points of the drug
trade. Where this all comes together, the American [intelligence] services are
not far away. By the way, the Bush clan is closely linked to the bin Laden family,
through oil, gas, and weapons trade.
What do you think of the Bin Laden videos?
When one is dealing with intelligence services, one can imagine manipulations
of the highest quality. Hollywood could provide the technology. I consider the
videos unsuitable for use as evidence.
You believe the CIA would do anything?
The CIA, in the interests of U.S. reasons of state, does not have to abide by
any statute in interventions abroad, is not obligated by international law;
only the President gives orders. There is terror, too, because there are services
like the CIA. And when funds are cut, and peace is on the horizon, then a bomb
goes off somewhere. In that way it is demonstrated that you can't do without
the intelligence services; and that the critics are "nuts" as Father
Bush called them, Bush who was once President and director of the CIA. The U.S.
spends $30 billion on intelligence services, and $13 billion on the war on drugs.
And what comes out of that? The chief of a special unit of the strategic war
on drugs declared in despair, after 30 years of service, that in every big,
important drug case, the CIA came in and took it out of [his] hands.
Do you criticize the German government for its reaction after September 11th?
No. To assume that the government was independent in these questions would certainly
be naive.
Herr von Bülow, what will you do now?
Absolutely nothing. My task ends with saying: it could not have been that way.
Search for the truth!
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