8. Peter Dale Scott, Drugs, Contras and the CIA: Government Policies and the Cocaine Economy: An Analysis of Media and Government Response to the Gary Webb Stories in the San Jose Mercury News (1996–2000) (Los Angeles: From the Wilderness Publications, 2000), http://www.drugwar.com/cv4.shtm, citing CIA, Office of Inspector General, Report of Investigation Concerning Allegations between CIA and Contras in Trafficking Cocaine to the United States, January 19, 1998, paras. 237, 287, 308, 1099.
9. See discussion in Scott and Marshall, Cocaine Politics, 125–77, esp. 142–46.
10. Ben Bradlee Jr., Guts and Glory: The Rise and Fall of Oliver North (New York: D.I. Fine, 1988), 426; Scott and Marshall, Cocaine Politics, 145.
11. Scott and Marshall, Cocaine Politics, 41–42 and passim, quoting Newsweek, May 13, 1985.
12. 9/11 Commission Report, 171. I find this statement one-sided and misleading but less so than the opposite claim of Yossef Bodansky: “The annual income of the Taliban from the drug trade is estimated at $8 billion. Bin Laden administers and manages these funds—laundering them through the Russian mafia” (Yossef Bodansky, Bin Laden: The Man Who Declared War on America [New York: Random House/Prima, 2001], 315).
13. “US ‘Seizes al-Qaeda Drugs Ship,’” BBC News, December 19, 2003.
14. E.g., CBS News, March 11, 2004.
15. CBS News, April 14, 2004: “Investigators say the explosives were obtained from criminals who took drugs as payment. And proceeds from drug sales also paid for detonators, cell phones, a car and a rented apartment.”
16. 9/11 Commission Report, 72; discussion in Peter Dale Scott, The Road to 9/11: Wealth, Empire, and the Future of America (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007), 141–47, 155–60.
17. New York Times, July 20, 1993. Cf. J. R. de Szigethy, “Crime Scene—World Trade Center,” AmericanMafia.com, September 2004, http://www.americanmafia
.com: “The murders [from the 1993 WTC bombing] were the result of a plot by members of an organized crime syndicate involved in drug trafficking.”
18. Ahmed Rashid, Descent into Chaos: The United States and the Failure of Nation Building in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Central Asia (New York: Viking, 2008), 320.
19. Rashid, Descent into Chaos, 427.
20. James Risen, State of War: The Secret History of the CIA and the Bush Administration (New York: Free Press, 2006), 154, 160–63.
21. Peter Dale Scott, Drugs, Oil, and War: The United States in Afghanistan, Colombia, and Indochina (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2003). Referring to the protection of the drug traffic in this fashion and to the court orders prohibiting her from speaking out about it, Sibel Edmonds has asked the following pertinent questions: “Is this due to the fact that the existence and survival of many U.S. allies; Turkey, almost all Central Asian nations, and after the September Eleven attack, Afghanistan; greatly depend on cultivating, processing, transporting, and distributing these illegal substances? Is it caused by the fact that a major source of income for those who procure U.S. weapons and technology, our military industrial complex’s bread and butter, is being generated from this illegal production and illegal dealings? Or, is it the fear of exposing our own financial institutions, lobbying firms, and certain elected and appointed officials, as beneficiaries?” (Sibel Edmonds, “The Highjacking of a Nation,” National Security Whistleblowers Coalition, November 29, 2006, http://nswbc.org/Op%20Ed/Part2-FNL-Nov29-06.htm).
22. In describing this split between public and covert policies, I am not suggesting that the CIA is a “rogue agency.” As I have written elsewhere, the CIA is an institution reflecting the wishes of the country’s financial element, which, in Franklin D. Roosevelt’s memorable phrase, “has owned the government ever since the days of Andrew Jackson” (Scott, The Road to 9/11, 1–7).
