Armitage,Richard

From 911Encyclopedia:

From an 2002 GROUND ZERO-Forum (->)- article at Scoop (->)

"What we are desirous of is for our Pakistani friends to try and develop a relationship about Pakistan" - Richard Armitage, June 18th 2001 www.indiatogether.org/us/news/armitage.html 

Born in 1945, Mr. Richard Lee Armitage, who has been nominated by President George Bush as Deputy Secretary of State under Gen.Colin Powell, graduated in 1967 from the U.S. Naval Academy and was commissioned as an ensign. He served on a destroyer stationed on the Vietnam coastline and subsequently did three combat tours with the advisor forces in Vietnam. 
He became fluent in Vietnamese. Mr. Armitage left active duty in 1973 and joined the U.S. Defense Attache's Office in Saigon. Before the fall of Saigon, he organized the evacuation of the Vietnamese naval assets and personnel who had collaborated with the US, from that country.

In May 1975 Mr. Armitage joined the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) in Washington as a consultant and was posted in Tehran, Iran, until November 1976, when he resigned from government service and joined the private sector. It is generally believed that Mr.Armitage actually served in the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) till 1978 and from 1976, after a cover resignation from the CIA, worked for some private companies of the CIA, which were being used by it for covert actions in Indo-China. His critics had alleged in the past that he was the author of the idea of using heroin to weaken the fighting capability of the communists in Indo-China and then in Afghanistan though the late Le Comte de Marenches, the head of the French External Intelligence Agency under Presidents George Pompidou and Giscard d'Estaing, had claimed that it was he who had given this idea to the Americans with specific reference to Afghanistan. 
(Aside: Previous attempts to rule the world 

mrdowling.com/613-opiumwars.html   mrdowling.com/613-boxer.html  wsu.edu:8080/~dee/MODAFRCA/SCRAMBLE.HTM )  

In 1978, he joined the staff of Senator Robert Dole of Kansas as Administrative Assistant. During the 1980 presidential campaign of President Ronald Reagan, Mr. Armitage served as senior advisor to Mr. Reagan's Interim Foreign Policy Advisory Board. After becoming President in January,1981, Mr. Reagan appointed him Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for East Asia and Pacific Affairs.

In June 1983, he was elevated to Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs, in which post he continued till May,1989. In that capacity, he was responsible for developing politico-military relationships and initiatives throughout the world; the U.S. Pacific security policy, including the U.S.-Japan and the U.S.-China security relationships; all DoD Security Assistance programs, and oversight of policies relating to the law of the sea; U.S. special operations forces; and counter-terrorism. He played a leading role in Middle East security policies. Between 1989 and 1992, Mr. Armitage served as Presidential Special Negotiator for the Philippines Military Bases Agreement and as Special Mediator for Water in the Middle East. President Bush (Sr) sent him as a Special Emissary to Jordan's King Hussein during the 1991 Gulf War. From March 1992 until his departure from public service in May 1993, Mr. Armitage (with the personal rank of Ambassador) directed U.S. assistance to the new independent states (NIS) of the former Soviet Union.

In May 1993, he floated an organization called the Armitage Associates L. C., with himself as its President, to provide consultancy services to US government departments and business companies on a wide range of subjects relating to international relations and security. Other positions held by him since leaving public service in 1993 include membership on the Board of Directors of the General Dynamics Electric Systems, Inc.; membership on the Board of Visitors of the United States Naval Academy; holder of the Brig.Gen. H. L. Oppenheimer Chair of Warfighting Strategy at the Marine Corps University; membership on the National Defense Panel; membership of the Board of Directors of the Roy F. Weston, Inc., and of the U.S.-Azerbaijan Chamber of Commerce; Chairman of the Board of Visitors of the National Defense University, membership on the Secretary Navy Committee on Women in the Navy and Marine Corps; membership on the Board of Visitors of the Naval War College and of the Advisory Board of the ManTech International Corporation; and Chairman of the Honor Review Committee for the United States Naval Academy. He is reputed to be one of the most highly decorated officers of the US public service. He has received numerous military decorations from the governments of Thailand, Republic of Korea, Bahrain, and Pakistan. He has been awarded the Department of Defense Medal for Distinguished Public Service four times, the Presidential Citizens' Medal, presented by the President to citizens who have performed exemplary deeds of service, and the Department of State Distinguished Honor Award.

In July 2000,a Commission on America's National Interests, established by a group of Americans with the help of well-known US think-tanks such as Harvard's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, the Nixon Center, the Rand and the Hauser Foundation released a report identifying the US national interests that should receive the attention of the new US Administration coming to office in January, 2001. The Commission was jointly chaired by Mr. Robert Ellsworth of the Hamilton Technology Ventures, L. P., Mr.Andrew Goodpaster of the Eisenhower World Affairs Institute and Ms. Rita Hauser of the Hauser Foundation and included, amongst its members, Mr.Armitage, Ms.Condoleezza Rice (->) , Mr.Bush's National Security Adviser, and Mr. Brent Scowcroft (->) , National Security Adviser under Mr.George Bush (Sr), whom Ms. Rice once described as amongst her mentors. Though this Commission was not set up by the Republican Party, considering the active role played in it by these three prominent personalities as well as many others close to the Republican Party, its report warrants close study by our policy-makers and analysts.

In October 2000 Armitage renamed the US Defense Program to Allied Missile Defense to better reflect its new scope. The ties between Richard Armitage (part of the so called "Wolfowitz Cabal" around Paul Wolfowitz (->) , Perle,Richard and Woolsey,James, and a possible manipulated Sept 11th-attack are well known: In May 2001 Richard Armitage, a career covert operative and former Navy Seal, traveled to India on a publicized tour while CIA Director George Tenet made a quiet visit to Pakistan to meet with Pakistani leader General Pervez Musharraf (->). We can assume, that Armitage received the same warning reports about an attack as many other persons did: George Tenet (CIA), Richard Clarke (CSG), Thomas Pickard (FBI), Dale Watson (FBIHQ) or Henry H. Shelton (DOD). (-->) Clarke informed Armitage about war plans against the Taliban. In January 2001 Clarke sent the first official memo to Condoleezza Rice, that something was in planning. Even CNN confirmed in the meantime, that in April 2001 Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and Deputy National Security Council Adviser Stephen Hadley, met "to discuss U.S. policy against al Qaeda, approve "immediate actions" against al Qaeda" cnn.com/2002/ALLPOLITICS/08/05/wh.alqaeda.timeline

Obviously these official meetings had been only a cover up for what was really going on in the Pentagon. It's in the meantime very silly to believe, that these war plans had not been synchronized with the warnings about an attack the CIA received. Armitage had the best ties to both Pentagon and CIA. He has long and deep Pakistani intelligence connections and he is the recipient of the highest civil decoration awarded by Pakistan. It would be reasonable to assume that "while he was in May 2001 in Islamabad, Tenet, in what was described as 'an unusually long meeting,' met with his Pakistani counterpart, Lt. General Mahmud Ahmad (->), head of the ISI" to discuss the war plans against the Taliban. (Source: The

Indian SAPRA news agency, May 22, 2001.) Another interview in June 2001 with the Indian magazine "IndiaTogether" revealed, what Armitage really planned last year: "...We believe India will be having a global view again...there are several nations in the world who really truly have a global view and we think India is about to have that...On the question of actual missile defense, the fourth element is one on which we didn't get an immediate endorsement because the Government of India said they hoped we would not do this unilaterally -- that means break out of the ABM treaty (->) - but they expressed a great deal of understanding of the need... ...we had a great relationship with Pakistan but it was in a way a false relationship because in the first instance, it was built against the India-Soviet Union axis and then latterly, it was against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan... ...what we are desirous of is for our Pakistani friends to try and develop a relationship about Pakistan.. as you probably are aware, Pakistan's Foreign Minister Sattar is coming, we look forward to discussions with him ..." .indiatogether.org/us/news/armitage.html or, see Armitage, Richard 2
The Hindu - June 18, 2001 Isn't it another ironic coincidence that the attack against America helped Armitage to achieve a new friendship with Pakistan?

Does it not really makes more sense, that Armitage had prior knowledge about a war against the Taliban and was therefore helpful to arrange all these meetings with India and Pakistan? Actually later the United States decided on Pakistan as an ally and stopped the ABM treaty in December 2001. But why was Armitage already 3 months before the attack on America so sure, that the relationship between Pakistan and the Taliban would change as well? "I don't want to see Pakistan only through the lens or the prism of Osama Bin Laden... ...We want to look at Pakistan and see what Pakistan thinks about Pakistan's future...obviously Osama, the Taliban, the refugee problem...We are developing it, we are in the process of working it out, in my view, for the first time, a relationship with Pakistan... " While Armitage was concerned about the Taliban that time, it obviously doesn't matter for him anymore today. Already on 10 December 2001 the Taliban founded a new party in Pakistan, but this was ignored by Armitage, White House + Co.

The party is called the Khudamul Furqan Jamiat (KFJ ->) or Association of the Servants of Koran. It seeks to establish an Islamic republic in Afghanistan. KFJ is led by an Afghan spiritual leader Ahmed Amin Mujaddadi. Its other members include the former Taliban ambassador to the UN and Pakistan, Abdul Hakim Mujahid, ex-deputy information minister, Abdur Rehman Ahmed Hotak, former deputy minister for higher education Maulavi Arsalan Rehmani, the former deputy chief of the Supreme Court, Maulavi Abdul Sattar Siddiqi, and the former charge d' affairs to Saudi Arabia, Qazi Habibullah Fauzi. But this doesn't really matter for Armitage anymore. In mid 2001 it was more important to get allies for a war against the Taliban. Armitage did all this. He had already dealt with China, too: "...it was not appropriate that I go to China given the state of our relationship at the time for missile defense consultations...but we didn't overlook China. Mr. Kelley (James Kelley, Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian Affairs), my colleague here, did go to Beijing and have discussions there..." http://web.archive.org/web/*http://www.indiatogether.org/us/news/armitage.html 

Armitage was in Japan and Korea in mid-May 2001: Tokyo and Seoul. At the same time, Paul D. Wolfowitz, (Deputy Defense Secretary), made a swing through Europe that included a visit to Russia, the other major power on China's border. businessweek.com/magazine/content/01_22/b3734007.htm At the same time, a new Rand study was released, written by former UNOCAL consultant Zalmay Khalilzad (->), at that time senior director at the National Security Council, today active for Bush in Afghanistan as well. This study magically already envisioned "a coalition of U.S. Asian allies, including Australia and the Philippines, acting jointly to quell any regional conflict. It also suggests the U.S. promote a balance of power between Russia, China, and India so that none emerges as dominant." businessweek.com/magazine/content/01_22/b3734007.htm Unfortunately this study didn't include the interesting twist, that Khalizad once worked for Unocal in Afghanistan to get a huge pipeline running, as part of the CentGas Consortium (->). 

This pipeline might be one of many reasons to plan this war. Armitage had enough reasons to let the attack happen on purpose. He is a warhawk, too. He once served as Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security under the Reagan Administration. At that time he seemed to be very interested in shady weapon deals. As later came out he was involved in the Iran-Contra arms smuggling scandal and worked closely together with mastermind Oliver North (->. But there is a current conflict of interest. His undersecretary of State, Charlotte Beers is lobbied by Bristol Myers Squibb (->) , General Motors, Texaco, Verizon and media mogul Disney to enforce intellectual property agreements. Beers owns $100,001 - $250,000 of Exxon-Mobil stocks. Charlotte Beers was hired by the US Administration to work on special PR initiatives like the RendonGroup around the former Office of Strategic Influence (OSI->) did and still does. prwatch.org/prwissues/2001Q4/rendon.html

Armitage owns at least $250,001 to $500,000 in stocks of Electronic Data Systems, the 49th largest defense contractor, which lobbies the Defense Dept. over various appropriations issues. And Armitage even owns a huge amount of General Electric stocks as well and was lobbied by Merck over the Biological Weapons Convention implementation protocol. public-i.org/story_02_011402.htm 

Armitage is a strong supporter of old ideas by Brzezinski, Zbigniew ("The grand chessboard") and Samuel Huntington. As part of the Wolfowitz Cabal, Armitage was later on the National Defense Panel under Philip A. Odeen. Armitage is supporter of the current Defense Policy Board (with many ties to England or Israel) who have supported a war against the Iraq for years. Members of the Defense Policy Board: Henry Kissinger (->) , James Woolsey , Newt Gingrich, former Admiral David Jeremiah, Dan Quayle, James Schlesinger (->), Elliot Abrams (Iran-Contra) or former minister of defense under Carter Harold Brown. But nothing happened as the DPB wanted. Perhaps they needed some moles in the government, or a person who would let this attack happen in order to facilitate another one? Did Armitage let the attack happen on purpose to get this war? "

(See Hoover Institute) (See Richard Perle) (See Cfr) (See Defense Policy Board)

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