Opposing view Allegations of CIA assistance to Osama bin Laden

peter bergen

u.s. government officials , number of other parties maintain u.s. supported indigenous afghan mujahideen. deny cia or other american officials had contact bin laden, let alone armed, trained, coached or indoctrinated them. many scholars , reporters have called idea of cia-backed al qaeda nonsense , sheer fantasy , , folk myth.

they argue that:

with quarter of million local afghans willing fight there no need recruit foreigners unfamiliar local language, customs or lay of land.
with several hundred million dollars year in funding non-american, muslim sources, arab afghans have no need american funds.
americans not train mujahideen because pakistani officials not allow more handful of u.s. agents operate in pakistan , none in afghanistan.
the afghan arabs militant islamists, reflexively hostile westerners, , prone threaten or attack westerners though knew westerners helping mujahideen.
the government feared arming or training arabs lead attacks on israel arms or training.

al-qaeda leader ayman al-zawahiri says same thing in book knights under prophet s banner.

bin laden himself once said collapse of soviet union ... goes god , mujahideen in afghanistan ... had no mentionable role, collapse made more haughty , arrogant.

according cnn journalist peter bergen, known conducting first television interview osama bin laden in 1997,

the story bin laden , cia—that cia funded bin laden or trained bin laden—is folk myth. there s no evidence of this. in fact, there few things bin laden, ayman al-zawahiri , u.s. government agree on. agree didn t have relationship in 1980s. , wouldn t have needed to. bin laden had own money, anti-american , operating secretly , independently. real story here cia did not understand osama until 1996, when set unit start tracking him.

bergen quotes pakistani brigadier mohammad yousaf, ran inter-services intelligence (isi) afghan operation between 1983 , 1987:

it galling americans, , can understand point of view, although paid piper not call tune. cia supported mujahideen spending taxpayers money, billions of dollars of on years, on buying arms, ammunition, , equipment. secret arms procurement branch kept busy. was, however, cardinal rule of pakistan s policy no americans ever become involved distribution of funds or arms once arrived in country. no americans ever trained or had direct contact mujahideen, , no american official ever went inside afghanistan.

marc sageman, foreign service officer based in islamabad 1987–1989, , worked closely afghanistan s mujahideen, states no american money went foreign volunteers.

sageman says:

contemporaneous accounts of war not mention [the afghan arabs]. many not serious war. ... few involved in actual fighting. of war, scattered among afghan groups associated 4 afghan fundamentalist parties.

no u.s. official ever came in contact foreign volunteers. traveled in different circles , never crossed u.s. radar screens. had own sources of money , own contacts pakistanis, official saudis, , other muslim supporters, , made own deals various afghan resistance leaders.

vincent cannistraro, led reagan administration s afghan working group 1985 1987, puts it,

the cia reluctant involved @ all. thought end them being blamed, in guatemala. agency tried avoid direct involvement in war, ... skittish cia, cannistraro estimates, had less ten operatives acting america s eyes , ears in region. milton bearden, agency s chief field operative in war effort, has insisted [t]he cia had nothing bin laden. cannistraro says when coordinated afghan policy washington, never once heard bin laden s name.

fox news reporter richard miniter wrote in interviews 2 men oversaw disbursement american funds anti-soviet resistance, bill peikney—cia station chief in islamabad 1984 1986—and milt bearden—cia station chief 1986 1989—he found,

both flatly denied cia funds ever went bin laden. felt point agreed go on record, unusual move reticent intelligence officers. mr. peikney added in e-mail me: “i don’t recall ubl [bin laden] coming across screen when there.

other reasons advanced lack of cia-afghan arab connection of pivotal importance, (or connection @ all), afghan arabs not important in war curious sideshow real fighting.

one estimate of number of combatants in war 250,000 afghans fought 125,000 soviet troops, 2000 arab afghans fought @ 1 time .

according milton bearden cia did not recruit arabs because there hundreds of thousands of afghans willing fight. arab afghans not superfluous disruptive, angering local afghans more-muslim-than-thou attitude, according peter jouvenal. veteran afghan cameraman peter jouvenal quotes afghan mujahideen saying whenever had problem 1 of them [foreign mujahideen], shot them. thought kings.

many traveled in afghanistan, including olivier roy , peter jouvenal, reported of arab afghans visceral hostility westerners in afghanistan aid afghans or report on plight. bbc reporter john simpson tells story of running osama bin laden in 1989, , neither knowing other was, bin laden attempting bribe simpson s afghan driver $500—a large sum in poor country—to kill infidel simpson. when driver declined, bin laden retired camp bed , wept in frustration.