Conflict Diamonds.....Again

By Dennis Lormel

Once again, I strongly disagree with the assertions made by my friend, Doug Farah, concerning Al Qaeda�s involvement in Conflict Diamonds. In his Counterterrorism Blog posting of August 15, 2005, entitled �Able Danger and the 9-11 Commission� Doug raises issues concerning the Commission regarding not only Able Danger but Conflict Diamonds. With respect to the situation concerning information provided to the 9-11 Commission Staff involving Operation Able Danger, we should not jump to conclusions until the facts are known. Washington is a great town for not allowing the facts to get in the way of a good story.

Doug skillfully used the Able Danger story to segue into his area of interest, Conflict Diamonds and Al-Qaeda. He made the argument that the members of the 9-11 Commission Staff ignored the overwhelming evidence presented to them by him, the Special Court and contained in a Belgian Police report and other reports. Doug further noted in a negative tone that the Commission accepted the findings of the CIA and FBI even though it singled out in its Monograph on Terrorist Financing the failure of the CIA and FBI to understand terrorist financing. His obvious inference being that the Commission accepted the wrong conclusion thereby making it fallible.

In short, Doug is wrong. His representation is out of context. In its proper context, the criticism of the Commission concerning the CIA and FBI regarding terrorist financing was in the pre-9/11 period. The Commission, in reality, commended the FBI and CIA for their post-9/11 terrorist financing initiative. It was in the post-9/11 environment that the Commission assessed and concurred with the findings of the FBI, CIA and global intelligence community that Al Qaeda was not involved in the trade of conflict diamonds to fund itself. I encourage you to review the Terrorist Financing Staff Monograph, with specific reference to page 23, which articulates the Commission�s conclusion on this topic. Also out of context was Doug�s reference to the Belgian Police. Their investigation focused on arms dealing. They did not conclude that Al Qaeda was involved with the diamond trade.

Doug mentioned that the Commission Staff ignored overwhelming �evidence� of Al Qaeda�s involvement in the diamond trade. That characterization would have been better stated to read the Commission Staff ignored overwhelming �innuendo� of Al Qaeda�s involvement in the diamond trade. The important distinction here is that there is a significant difference between innuendo and evidence. In matters such as this, witness statements cannot be accepted at face value. They must be fully vetted back to the point of origin. This is, in fact, what the FBI did in conducting their investigation. Part of that process was to work with the international law enforcement and intelligence community. In this matter, no other agencies possessed information that Al Qaeda was involved in the diamond trade. Information reported by Doug, as well as information provided to the FBI by the Special Court was thoroughly investigated and could not be substantiated.

It�s time to let the facts get in the way!

For the record, John Roth and Doug Greenberg, who authored the 9-11 Commission Monograph on Terrorist Financing, did an outstanding job. For the most part, I agreed with their findings. Their objectivity, grasp of the subject matter and sense of responsibility throughout the process was exemplary and undeserving of the biased criticism leveled by Doug in his posting.

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