Putin on 9/11

BUSH AND PUTIN ON 9/11 

The potential for a thermonuclear confrontation or even of an all-out thermonuclear exchange growing out of 9/11 has generally been ignored by the US controlled media, but such a potential was clearly present. It was inherently present because of the tense relations among the US, Russia, and China in the wake of the bombing of Serbia and the Kursk incident. 

It was made explicit when a flying object, probably a cruise missile, hit the Pentagon. 

As the 9/11 commission report notes, one fighter pilot who saw the damage to the Pentagon •immediately• thought of Russia as the most likely adversary. This innate mental reaction must have been repeated thousands of times in the minds of non-witting military personnel on the day of 9/11. 

Clarke points out that the US proclamation of Defcon Delta, the level of readiness just below actual war, was inevitably immediately noticed by Russia, and came near causing immediate countermeasures of readiness on the Russian side. 

This was the first Defcon Delta since Henry Kissinger had ordered a world-wide alert to deter possible Soviet intervention in the Yom Kippur War in the Middle East in October 1973. Defcon Delta posed the danger of an escalation of mobilization between the two leading nuclear powers : Frank Miller reported that DOD had gone on a global alert, DEFCON 3: “This hasn’t happened since the ’73 Arab-Israeli War.” 

“State, State, go.” Armitage acknowledged the call. “Rich, DOD has gone to DEFCON 3 and you know what that means.” Armitage knew; he had been an Assistant Secretary of Defense in the first Bush administration. 

“It means I better go tell the Russkies before they shit a brick.” Armitage activated the Nuclear Risk Reduction Center, down the hall from the State Department Operations Center. The NRRC was connected directly to the Russian Ministry of Defense just outside of the Kremlin. It was designed to exchange information in crisis to prevent misunderstanding and miscalculation. 

Armitage reappeared. “Damn good thing I did that. Guess who was about to start an exercise of all their strategic nuclear forces?” 

He had persuaded his Russian counterpart to defer the operation. (Clarke 15–16) Most US 9/11 commentators have virtually nothing to say about Bush’s famous telephone conversation with Russian President Putin; Bamford, Thompson, and others exhibit elaborate disinterest in this matter. 

And yet, this is another one of the central moments of 9/11. 

In order to avoid a possible thermonuclear exchange, Putin needed to be reassured that the US Defcon Delta was not a cover for a thermonuclear sneak attack upon his country, something perfectly within the realm of possibility from the Russian view. 

Putin also needed to be told that thermonuclear launches from the US toward the Middle East or other areas were the work of a rogue network, NOT of the constituted government. 

Putin, in short, had to be asked for cooperation and restraint. 

During the hours after the 9/11 attacks, Putin became the first world leader to place a call to Bush. 

Officially, this was done so that Putin could offer his condolences. But in the course of this conversation, Putin told Bush that he had ordered a stand down of Russian strategic forces, meaning that the maneuvers planned for the Arctic Region were cancelled. 

Putin also sent an official telegram to Washington DC conveying “anger and indignation” against the “series of barbaric terrorist acts directed against innocent people.” (See “On Russian President Vladimir Putin’s Telegram of Condolence to US President George Bush, 11 September 2001, Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs website, www.In.mid.ru)[91] 

Bush later noted his appreciation for Putin’s gesture and for Putin’s strategic stand down of the Russian strategic rocket troops in deference to the US Defcon Delta. “It was a moment where it clearly said to me that he understands the Cold War is over.” (Washington Post, October 4, 2004) 

In a national television address later that day, Putin vehemently condemned the 9/11 attacks as “an unprecedented act of aggression on the part of international terrorism.” These attacks, he claimed, were not a localized American issue but an event that “goes beyond national borders.” Terrorism, Putin declared, is the “plague of the twenty-first century” and “Russia knows first hand what terrorism is. So, we understand as well as anyone the feelings of the American people.” 

Putin described 9/11 as “a brazen challenge to the whole of humanity, at least to civilized humanity.” 

Resonating with Bush, Putin set up his own Manichean dichotomy between terrorist barbarism and ‘civilized humanity.’ Putin assured Bush that “we entirely and fully share and experience your pain. We support you.” (“Statement by President Putin of Russia on the Terrorist Acts in the US, Moscow, September 11, 2001,” www.In.mid.ru) 

Putin later declared a national minute of silence in commemoration of the victims of the attacks. 

Putin’s actions on 9/11 can be seen as a successful attempt at war avoidance in extremis. 

Putin, as a KGB veteran, would have had no doubt that the official US version was hogwash, something a number of prominent Russian military officers expressed in the wake of 9/11. 

Putin could also see that the rogue network responsible for the bombing of Serbia and the sinking of the Kursk momentarily had the upper hand, and with them negotiation would be fruitless. 

Putin was determined not to play into the hands of the unhinged US rogue network behind 9/11. 

At a deeper level, his policy was therefore one of strategic deception or of maskirovka–to gain time in the wake of the catastrophe. 

Putin must have seen that secret-government madmen ferociously hostile to Russia had now taken over the US regime to an unprecedented degree. He could also see that the neocons, with their obsession with Israel’s strategic predicament, might well attack various countries in the Middle East before they got around to attempting to deal with Russia. 

Such Middle East tar-baby scenarios could only weaken, overextend, discredit, and isolate the United States, thus offering Russia some advantage. Putin was also busily working on the follow-on to the very formidable Topol missile, a weapons system that was probably superior to anything in the US arsenal, which would very likely allow Russia to defeat the US side’s primitive off-the-shelf missile defense system. 

All these considerations suggested that Putin should camouflage himself for the time being as Bush’s bosom buddy. 

On September 24, 2001 Putin made a major television address, which grew out of a weekend of strategizing with his top advisors and a forty-minute phone call with President Bush. 

In this speech Putin accepted the establishment of US bases in the former Soviet republics of central Asia, which the US wanted to set up as staging areas for the imminent invasion of Afghanistan. 

On the surface this was capitulation, but underneath was still strategic deception. For a time, it appeared that a great US-Russian alliance was in the making, but this was more appearance than substance. 

Bush joined with Putin at a school in Crawford, Texas on November 15, 2001. The Bush-Putin honeymoon lasted into 2002. 

By the time Bush began seeking UN carte blanche for his war on Iraq, Russia had been attracted into the French-German continental bloc. 

The existence of Russian strategic maneuvers on 9/11 involving bombers had been known to the Pentagon, since it was the explicit premise for the maneuver Northern Vigilance. 

In this case, it would have been known to the plotters as well. 

Therefore, the planners of 9/11 were well aware that their incendiary actions would take place against a dangerous backdrop of simultaneous US and Russian aircraft maneuvers.