Laurie Mylroie

Last updated

Laurie Mylroie
Born (1953-07-23) July 23, 1953 (age 69)
United States
OccupationAuthor
Alma mater Harvard University
Cornell University
GenreNon-fiction
Subject Iraq
War on Terror
Website
www.lauriemylroie.com

Laurie Mylroie (born July 22, 1953) is an American author and analyst who has written extensively on Iraq and the War on Terror. The National Interest first published this work in an article entitled, "The World Trade Center Bombing: Who is Ramzi Yousef? And Why it Matters." [1] In her book Study of Revenge (2000), Mylroie laid out her argument that the Iraqi regime under Saddam Hussein had sponsored the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and subsequent terrorist attacks. She claimed those attacks were part of an ongoing war that Saddam waged against America following the cease-fire to the 1991 Gulf War. Less than a year after her book was published, the September 11 attacks occurred. Mylroie subsequently adopted the view that Saddam had been responsible for the attacks, defending it on many occasions, including before the 9/11 Commission. [2]

Contents

Mylroie's writings are considered to have been influential among neoconservatives during the buildup to the 2003 invasion of Iraq. [3] Several of them praised Study of Revenge, including ex-CIA Director James Woolsey, who called it "brilliant and brave" in his blurb for the dust jacket of the book. [4]

Mylroie has been criticized by numerous terrorism experts, including Peter Bergen, Daniel Benjamin, and Dr. Robert S. Leiken, all of whom point out that Mylroie's theories rely on dubious assumptions and were thoroughly refuted by analysts and investigators at the CIA, the FBI, the NTSB, and other investigatory bodies. [5] [6]

Career

Mylroie earned a bachelor's degree from Cornell University and a doctorate in political science from Harvard University. She also studied Arabic at the American University of Cairo. Subsequently, she taught as an assistant professor at Harvard University in the Department of Government (Political Science), Faculty of Arts and Science, and then as an associate professor in the Strategy and Policy Department of the U.S. Naval War College.

She met with Bill Clinton on Iraq during Clinton's 1992 presidential campaign, but she became a strong critic of Clinton for what she came to charge was his mishandling of the terrorism that began on his watch, starting with the February 26, 1993, bombing of New York's World Trade Center.

Mylroie was a research fellow at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy and then with the Foreign Policy Research Institute, as well as an adjunct fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. Following the 9/11 attacks, she served on DARPA's Special Task Force on Terrorism and Deterrence and a DTRA panel on counter-terrorism. She deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan, where she served as a cultural adviser to the U.S. military. She has written three books and numerous articles, which have appeared in The American Spectator, [7] Atlantic Monthly, Boston Globe, Commentary, The National Interest, The New Republic, Newsweek, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, and Washington Times, among others.

Iraq connection claims

Mylroie's suspicions that Iraq was behind the World Trade Center bombing first appeared at length in an article in The National Interest, "The World Trade Center Bomb: Who is Ramzi Yousef? And Why it Matters." [8]

Her National Interest article appeared in expanded form in Study of Revenge: Saddam Hussein's Unfinished War Against America (2000). Mylroie later claimed that "the Clinton White House did not want to hear that Iraq was behind the bombing." [9] Mylroie also argued that Iraq was linked to the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing. [10]

Support

Paul Wolfowitz, a prominent neoconservative, promoted Mylroie's theories during his time as a Bush administration official. [11] Joseph Shattan, a former speechwriter for George W. Bush, called Mylroie "one of America's leading students of terrorism." [12]

The Washington Post's "Book World" included Study of Revenge among its "Expert's Picks" following the 9/11 attacks. [13]

The Middle East Intelligence Bulletin, reviewing Study of Revenge before 9/11, called it a "must read," explaining, "This reviewer believes that Mylroie has correctly pinpointed Saddam Hussein as the source of terrorist attacks on Americans, including the World Trade Center bombing.... The Clinton administration, wittingly or unwittingly, has chosen the path of self-delusion: to not investigate the matter seriously....[T]he failure of U.S. officials to address the question of state sponsorship of terrorism will have significant future costs. It encourages future terrorist attacks by eliminating the costs of retribution from the calculations of leaders such as Saddam Hussein." [14]

Criticism

Mylroie has been criticized by many terrorism experts. CNN reporter Peter Bergen called Mylroie a "crackpot" and criticized her belief that "Saddam was not only behind the '93 Trade Center attack, but also every anti-American terrorist incident of the past decade, from the bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania to the leveling of the federal building in Oklahoma City to September 11 itself." [5] Bergen states that Mylroie's argument depends entirely on

a deduction which she reached following an examination of Basit's passport records and her discovery that Yousef and Basit were four inches different in height. On this wafer-thin foundation she builds her case that Yousef must have therefore been an Iraqi agent given access to Basit's passport following the Iraq occupation. However, U.S. investigators say that 'Yousef' and Basit are in fact one and the same person, and that the man Mylroie describes as an Iraqi agent is in fact a Pakistani with ties to al Qaeda. [5]

Bergen goes on to state that "an avalanche of evidence" refutes Mylroie's basic assumption.

Daniel Benjamin, a former Clinton administration official and senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, points out that "Mylroie's work has been carefully investigated by the CIA and the FBI.... The most knowledgeable analysts and investigators at the CIA and at the FBI believe that their work conclusively disproves Mylroie's claims.... Nonetheless, she has remained a star in the neoconservative firmament." [6]

Daniel Pipes derided her view, saying that it was "a tour de force, but it's a tour de force of alchemy. It has a fundamentally wrong premise." [15] According to Andrew C. McCarthy, who prosecuted Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman in 1995, "Mylroie's theory was loopy... Leaving aside various other implausibilities in her surmise, the government had several sources who knew Basit as Basit both before and after the time he spent in Kuwait." [16]

David Plotz is also among Mylroie's critics. He writes:

"The sharpest critique of Mylroie is that she discounts evidence that Yousef worked not for Iraq but for Osama Bin Laden... Bin Laden biographer Yossef Bodansky, Time magazine, and other media outlets concur that Ramzi Yousef worked for a Bin Laden-funded operation in the Philippines. So does American intelligence, apparently... Mylroie offers no real evidence linking Hussein to the 1998 bombings. Mylroie's strongest contention, that Ramzi Yousef is not Abdul Basit, does not confirm that Iraq bombed the World Trade Center in 1993. It just confirms that Ramzi Yousef is more mysterious than we suspect. It could still be that al-Qaida, not Hussein, provided Yousef with training, fake papers, and resources." [15]

While Angelo Codevilla, professor emeritus of international relations at Boston University, called Mylroie's book Bush vs. the Beltway "the best available account of the reasoning behind the conduct of the war on terror", he also stated "But it is based on a faulty premise, the one implicit in its title: that presidents neither control nor reform their bureaucracies... If all presidents are equally beset by bureaucrats, then Bush can be excused, even praised, for making U.S. policy come out no worse than it has." [17]

Mylroie–McCarthy debate

In 2008, Laurie Mylroie, writing in the New York Sun, reviewed Willful Blindness by Andrew C. McCarthy, who had prosecuted Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman in 1995. Mylroie explained that Rahman had not ordered the bombing of the World Trade Center—nor was he charged with doing so. She also explained that other elements of the plot had been organized by Sudan, as the trial transcript made clear. She complained that McCarthy understated "the degree to which the extremists were penetrated by the intelligence agencies of several states." [18] She argued that this was the basic flaw of the Clinton era handling of terrorism: it focused on the arrest and trial of perps and ignored state sponsorship.

Replying on National Review Online , McCarthy accused Mylroie of misunderstanding "the difference between intrigue and evidence, between history and prosecution." Calling Rahman "the central figure in the overarching conspiracy," he wrote: "At trial, we proved that Sheikh Abdel Rahman had close ties to Hassan al-Turabi, leader in the early 1990s of Sudan's de facto government, the National Islamic Front." [16] At this point, Daniel Pipes wrote a blog entry attacking "Laurie Mylroie's Shoddy, Loopy, Zany Theories." [19] Stephen F. Hayes of The Weekly Standard added: "no one I know took her arguments very seriously." [20]

Mylroie responded to McCarthy, saying that McCarthy himself had written in his book that the original case against Rahman was "weak" and so, she wrote, "different acts of violence, including the WTC bombing, were somewhat artificially linked" to strengthen the charges against him. She emphasized McCarthy's comment that Rahman was never charged with the "substantive crime" of bombing the World Trade Center. [21] The debate continued in the New York Sun. [22]

1980s support for Saddam

Early in her career, Mylroie advocated support for Iraq in the context of its war and rivalry with Iran. In 1988, just before the cease-fire to the Iran–Iraq War, she published an article in the journal Orbis , advocating "The Baghdad Alternative," which involved bolstering U.S. ties to Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. Ken Silverstein gave this summary:

Saddam was implementing a policy of economic "perestroika" and political "glasnost," according to Mylroie. Iraqi officials she interviewed told her that Saddam was "much concerned about democracy. ... He thinks that is healthy," and she suggested this was "not just idle chatter." From an American perspective, Mylroie concluded, "the more Saddam Hussein exercises control over the Baath Party, including the ideologues, the better." She proposed that the Bush (Senior) Administration, already favoring Iraq against Iran, should offer Iraq more support in exchange for overt Iraqi support for U.S. Middle East policy goals. "Iraq and the United States," she wrote, "need each other." [23]

Michael Isikoff and David Corn wrote in 2006:

Mylroie continued to advocate engaging Saddam, even after the Iraqi dictator slaughtered tens of thousands of Kurds in what became known as the Anfal campaign of 1987 and 1988. In May 1989, Mylroie wrote in The Jerusalem Post that Israel and the United States should not 'poke' Iraq 'with a stick' and should refrain from tossing 'idle threats and harsh words' at Baghdad. She suggested Iraq might become a benign, if not positive, presence in the region. [24]

Isikoff and Corn argued that Mylroie "was looking to change the region through back-channel, private diplomacy – and she aspired to be a behind-the-scenes peacemaker who would broker a deal between Saddam and Israel." To this end, she met with Iraqi officials including Tariq Aziz. After Saddam's invasion of Kuwait, however, the would-be diplomat "turned against the dictator she had once wanted Washington to help, with the passion of one who felt personally betrayed." [24]

In October 1990, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak mentioned Mylroie's trips to Baghdad and Israel, which she later denied. Isikoff and Corn, however, interviewed five of her former associates (including Judith Miller) who all "confirmed that she had been a secret go-between for Baghdad and Jerusalem." [25]

Books

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ramzi Yousef</span> Pakistani terrorist convicted of 1993 World Trade Center bombing

Ramzi Ahmed Yousef is a Pakistani convicted terrorist who was one of the main perpetrators of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and the bombing of Philippine Airlines Flight 434; he was also a co-conspirator in the Bojinka plot. In 1995, he was arrested by the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and U.S. Diplomatic Security Service at a guest house in Islamabad, Pakistan, while trying to set a bomb in a doll, then extradited to the United States.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Abdul Rahman Yasin</span> Iraqi-American fugitive (born 1960)

Abdul Rahman Yasin is an Iraqi-American terrorist and fugitive who took part in the 1993 World Trade Center Bombing terrorist attack. Yasin is presumed to have helped make the bombs and explosives. He has been characterized in the American media as "the only participant in the first attempt to blow up the World Trade Center in 1993 who was never caught." Yasin's whereabouts remain unknown.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">History of the United States (1991–2008)</span> Aspect of history

The history of the United States from 1991 to 2008 began after the dissolution of the Soviet Union. The dissolution signaled the end of the Cold War and left the U.S. unchallenged as the world's sole superpower. The U.S. took a leading role in military involvement in the Middle East. The U.S. expelled an Iraqi invasion force from Kuwait, a Middle Eastern ally of the U.S., in the Persian Gulf War. On the domestic front, the Democrats won a return to the White House with the election of Bill Clinton in 1992. In the 1994 midterm election, the Republicans won control of Congress for the first time in 40 years. Strife between Clinton and the Republicans in Congress initially resulted in a federal government shutdown following a budget crisis, but later they worked together to pass welfare reform, the Children's Health Insurance Program, and a balanced budget. Charges from the Lewinsky scandal led to the 1998 impeachment of Clinton by the House of Representatives but he was later acquitted by the Senate. The U.S. economy boomed in the enthusiasm for high-technology industries in the 1990s until the NASDAQ crashed as the dot-com bubble burst and the early 2000s recession marked the end of the sustained economic growth.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Richard A. Clarke</span> American counter-terrorism expert

Richard Alan Clarke is an American national security expert, novelist, and former government official. He served as the Counterterrorism Czar as the National Coordinator for Security, Infrastructure Protection, and Counter-Terrorism for the United States between 1998 and 2003.

<i>Against All Enemies</i>

Against All Enemies: Inside America's War on Terror (ISBN 0-7432-6823-7) is a 2004 award-winning book by former U.S. chief counter-terrorism advisor Richard A. Clarke, criticizing past and present presidential administrations for the way they handled the War on Terrorism. The book focused much of its criticism on President George W. Bush, charging that he failed to take sufficient action to protect the country in the elevated-threat period before the September 11 attacks and for the 2003 invasion of Iraq, which Clarke feels greatly hampered the War on Terrorism. The book's title comes from the oath of office taken by all U.S. federal officials, in which they promise to defend the Constitution "against all enemies, foreign and domestic."

The Saddam–al-Qaeda conspiracy theory was a conspiracy theory based on allegations made by United States government, which claimed that a highly secretive relationship existed between Iraq's president Saddam Hussein and the Islamist militant radical organization al-Qaeda between 1992 and 2003, specifically through a series of meetings reportedly involving the Iraqi Intelligence Service (IIS). In the lead-up to the Iraq War, George W. Bush administration officials alleged that the Saddam Hussein regime had an operational relationship with al-Qaeda, basing the administration's rationale for war, in part, on this allegation and others.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">White House Iraq Group</span> Bush White House task force formed in Aug. 2002 preceding March 2003 Iraq invasion

The White House Iraq Group was a working group of the White House set up in August 2002 and tasked with disseminating information supporting the positions of the George W. Bush administration relating to a possible invasion of Iraq, which would subsequently take place in March 2003.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rationale for the Iraq War</span> U.S. claims and arguments for invading Iraq

The rationale for the Iraq War, both the 2003 invasion of Iraq and the subsequent hostilities, was controversial. The George W. Bush administration began actively pressing for military intervention in Iraq in late 2001. The primary rationalization for the Iraq War was articulated by a joint resolution of the United States Congress known as the Iraq Resolution. The US claimed the intent was to "disarm Iraq of weapons of mass destruction, to end Saddam Hussein's support for terrorism, and to free the Iraqi people".

David Wurmser is an American foreign policy specialist. He served as Middle East Adviser to former US Vice President Dick Cheney, as special assistant to John R. Bolton at the State Department and as a research fellow on the Middle East at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI). He served in the U.S. Navy Reserve as an intelligence officer at the rank of Lieutenant Commander.

Operation Iraqi Freedom 2003 documents are some 48,000 boxes of documents, audiotapes and videotapes that were discovered by the U.S. military during the 2003 invasion of Iraq. The documents date from the 1980s through the post-Saddam period. In March 2006, the U.S. government, at the urging of members of Congress, made them available online at its Foreign Military Studies Office website, requesting Arabic translators around the world to help in the translation.

Ayad Rahim is an Iraqi-American journalist. He has written extensively on Middle Eastern affairs, including a series of articles on the Operation Iraqi Freedom Documents with co-author Laurie Mylroie. In addition, he hosts a radio show on station WJCU in Cleveland. His show features scholars and guests from the Middle East and discusses the war, terrorism and Iraq. The radio station is run by John Carroll University.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ahmed Ajaj</span> Participant in the 1993 WTC bombing

Ahmed Mohammad Ajaj is a Palestinian citizen who is convicted of participating in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. He is currently serving an 84-year sentence at USP Coleman for taking part in the bombing.

This article is a chronological listing of allegations of meetings between members of al-Qaeda and members of Saddam Hussein's government, as well as other information relevant to conspiracy theories involving Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda.

The foreign policy of the Bill Clinton administration was of secondary concern to a president fixed on domestic policy. He relied chiefly on his two experienced Secretaries of State Warren Christopher (1993–1997) and Madeleine Albright (1997–2001), as well as Vice President Al Gore. The Cold War had ended and the Dissolution of the Soviet Union had taken place under his predecessor President George H. W. Bush, whom Clinton criticized for being too preoccupied with foreign affairs. The United States was the only remaining superpower, with a military strength far overshadowing the rest of the world. There were tensions with countries such as Iran and North Korea, but no visible threats. The CIA and FBI largely overlooked impending threats of massive terrorism by Al-Qaeda. Clinton's main priority was always domestic affairs, especially economics. Foreign-policy was chiefly of interest to him in terms of promoting American trade. His emergencies had to do with humanitarian crises which raised the issue of American or NATO or United Nations interventions to protect civilians, or armed humanitarian intervention, as the result of civil war, state collapse, or oppressive governments.

The cruise missiles strike on Iraq in June 1993 were ordered by U.S. President Bill Clinton as both a retaliation and a warning triggered by the attempted assassination by alleged Iraqi intelligence agents on former U.S. President George H. W. Bush while on a visit to Kuwait from 14–16 April 1993.

ʻAbd al-Bāsiṭ is a male Muslim given name. It is built from the Arabic words ʻabd and al-Bāsiṭ, one of the names of God in the Qur'an, which give rise to the Muslim theophoric names. It means "servant of the Expander".

At around 9:30 pm on September 11, 2001, George Tenet, director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) told President George W. Bush and U.S. senior officials that the CIA's Counterterrorism Center had determined that Osama Bin Laden and al-Qaeda were responsible for the September 11 attacks. Two weeks after the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, the Federal Bureau of Investigation connected the hijackers to al-Qaeda, a militant Salafist Islamist multi-national organization. In a number of video, audio, interview and printed statements, senior members of al-Qaeda have also asserted responsibility for organizing the September 11 attacks.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Peter Lance</span> American journalist and author (born 1948)

Peter Lance is an American journalist and author. He is a five-time winner of the News & Documentary Emmy Award, the recipient of a Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award, and other accolades detailed below. In April 2010, Lance was appointed as a one-year visiting scholar at the Orfalea Center for Global & International Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">1993 World Trade Center bombing</span> Terrorist truck attack in New York City

The 1993 World Trade Center bombing was a terrorist attack carried out on February 26, 1993, when a van bomb detonated below the North Tower of the World Trade Center complex in New York City. The 1,336 lb (606 kg) urea nitrate–hydrogen gas enhanced device was intended to send the North Tower crashing into its twin, the South Tower, bringing down both skyscrapers and killing tens of thousands of people. It failed to do so, but murdered six people, including a pregnant woman, and caused over a thousand injuries. About 50,000 people were evacuated from the buildings that day.

Path to Paradise: The Untold Story of the World Trade Center Bombing is a 1997 American television film that depicts the events surrounding the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. The film was directed by Larry Williams and Leslie Libman. It stars Peter Gallagher and Marcia Gay Harden, and features Andreas Katsulas as Omar Abdel-Rahman and Art Malik as Ramzi Yousef. The film premiered on HBO in June 1997.

References

  1. ↑ Mylroie, Laurie. "The World Trade Center Bomb: Who is Ramzi Yousef? And Why It Matters". The National Interest. 1995/6 (Winter).
  2. ↑ Mylroie, Laurie. "Statement of Laurie Mylroie to the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States July 9, 2003". National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States. Retrieved February 19, 2014.
  3. ↑ Bergen, Peter (July 4, 2004). "Did one woman's obsession take America to war?". Guardian. Retrieved February 19, 2014.
  4. ↑ Mylroie, Laurie (2000). Study of Revenge: Saddam Hussein's Unfinished War against America . Washington, DC: American Enterprise Institute Press. p. Dust Jacket. ISBN   9780844741277.
  5. 1 2 3 Bergen, Peter (2003). "Armchair Provocateur". Washingtonmonthly.com. Archived from the original on November 1, 2008. Retrieved July 30, 2013.
  6. 1 2 Daniel Benjamin and Steven Simon, The Next Attack New York: Times Books, 2005, p. 145. ISBN   0-8050-7941-6
  7. ↑ Hume, Brit (July 15, 2013). "The American Spectator : Contributors : Laurie Mylroie". Spectator.org. Archived from the original on September 17, 2013. Retrieved July 30, 2013.
  8. ↑ Mylroie, Laurie. "The World Trade Center Bomb: Who is Ramzi Yousef? And Why it Matters". Federation of American Scientists. Retrieved February 16, 2014.
  9. ↑ "Writing Blind: A response to Andy McCarthy". NationalReview.com. May 6, 2008. Retrieved September 27, 2015.
  10. ↑ Draper, Robert (2020). To Start a War: How the Bush Administration Took America into Iraq. Penguin. p. 10. ISBN   978-0-525-56104-0.
  11. ↑ Draper 2020, pp. 10–15.
  12. ↑ Shattan, Joseph. "The Man who Elected Barack Obama: Why Didn't Rove Speak out Sooner?". The American Spectator. Retrieved February 17, 2013.
  13. ↑ Adams, Lorraine (October 21, 2001). "Expert's Picks". The Washington Post. Retrieved February 19, 2014.
  14. ↑ Mandeles, Mark. "Book Review: Study of Revenge, Saddam Hussein's Unfinished War Against America". Middle East Intelligence Bulletin. Retrieved February 19, 2014.
  15. 1 2 David Plotz, "Osama, Saddam, and the Bombs," Slate Magazine (28 September 2001).
  16. 1 2 Still Willfully Blind After All These Years
  17. ↑ "Angelo Codevilla on Bush vs. the Beltway". National Review.
  18. ↑ Laurie Mylroie, Willful Blindness: Prosecuting the War on Terror, New York Sun, April 23, 2008.
  19. ↑ Daniel Pipes (2008). "Laurie Mylroie's Shoddy, Loopy, Zany Theories – Exposed". Danielpipes.org. Retrieved July 30, 2013.
  20. ↑ "McCarthy on Mylroie". Weekly Standard. April 30, 2008. Retrieved July 30, 2013.
  21. ↑ Writing Blind Archived May 8, 2008, at the Wayback Machine
  22. ↑ Laurie Mylroie vs. Andrew McCarthy, Setting the Record Straight, New York Sun, May 8, 2008.
  23. ↑ Ken Silverstein, Laurie Mylroie’s Song of Saddam, Harper's, August 28, 2007, quoting Laurie Mylroie, "The Baghdad Alternative," Orbis, Vol. 32, No. 3, Summer 1988.
  24. 1 2 Michael Isikoff and David Corn, Hubris: The Inside Story of Spin, Scandal, and the Selling of the Iraq War (New York: Crown, 2006) p. 69.
  25. ↑ Michael Isikoff and David Corn, Hubris: The Inside Story of Spin, Scandal, and the Selling of the Iraq War (New York: Crown, 2006) p. 70.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.