The US administration has one power that many governments in the world may never have—the power not to see, the envy of the worst blind person—, the way the case of one of the chief suspects of the 911 attack was handled has revealed.

More than 3,000 people from 90 different national and ethnic backgrounds were killed in the 911 attacks launched by the Al Qaeda on America and the Pakistani man who did all this was on U.S. soil that day, meeting high officials.

Analysts blame a strange cocktail of three factors that led to a grand cover-up on the role of one of the world's most roguish intelligence agencies, Pakistan's Inter Services Intelligence, in the 911 terror attack seven years ago—U.S. Vice president Dick Cheney's support for the Pakistan army generals, huge business interests of the military-industrial complex, and last but not the least, the fear that Pakistan's nuclear technology would be massively proliferated to avowed enemies of the U.S. if Pakistani generals were made to answer their deeds.

In stead of getting punished for its role, Pakistan successfully secured as much as 12 billion in mostly military aid as a U.S. "ally on the war on terror."

The money trail of the 911 leads to Rawalpindi, headquarters of both the I.S.I. and Pakistan army, and the city of deaths for Pakistani prime ministers—Liaquat Ali Khan, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and Benazir Bhutto.

Pakistan's present army chief General Ashfaq Pervez Kayani was less than two years ago the chief of the despicable spy service that played a key role in bringing down the Twin Towers, that symbolized America's economic might, and the attack on the Pentagon headquarters, a symbol of U.S. military might.

The 911 terror attack was a multi million dollar project, incorporating the training and breeding of sleeper cells and the main state financier was Pakistan's I.S.I.-- chief sponsor of the Al Qaeda and Taliban.

Not many Americans know the key figure without whom bin Laden's attack on the U.S. would never have materialised is Lieutenant-General Mehmud Ahmed, an army general from the most populous Punjab province, who was chief of the I.S.I. at the time of the 911 attack. He was one of the key military leaders of the nuclear armed Muslim nation with the world's fourth largest army—one step ahead of the U.S--, until his forced resignation after his role in the 911 attacks was exposed in the media.

Ahmed was part of a cabal of powerful generals that were dedicated to defeat US moves to apprehend Osama bin Laden, the Al Qaeda figurehead. These generals at the time of the 911 attacks included Rawalpindi Corps Commander Lieutenant-General Jamshed Gulzar Kayani, Lahore Corps Commander Lieutenant-General Aziz Khan and Deputy Chief of Army Staff Lieutenant-General Muzzafar Usmani. Other former heads of the ISI, including the most infamous Lieutenant-General Hamid Gul, consider bin Laden a national asset for Pakistan.

www.atimes.com/ind-pak/CH22Df02.html

Cellphone intercepts are hard to disown and the $100,000 to the lead hijacker Mohammad Atta before the attack was sanctioned by Ahmed in his capacity as chief of the 10,000-plus spy service.

Playing Cinderella, around 8:00 a.m., on that dark day, Ahmed was at a breakfast meeting at the Capitol with the chairmen of the Senate ad House Intelligence Committees, Senator Bob Graham (D) and Representative Porter Goss (R), a 10-year veteran of the CIA’s clandestine operations wing.

At least one U.S. official was so incensed at Ahmed's deception, he could not hide his anger. U.S. Undersecretary of State Thomas Pickering bluntly told him, “You are in bed with those who threaten us,” according to Pakistani journalist Ahmed Rashid in his new book “Descent into chaos: The United States and the Failure of Nation Building in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Central Asia.”

That money for the 911 attack was sent by I.S.I.'s recruit Omar Sheikh, a Briton of Pakistani origin, to lead hijacker Mohammed Atta, the FBI confirmed. Sheikh was in active touch with Ahmed, cell phone intercepts showed.

One of the Americans who know best about ISI's role in the 911 attacks is John S. Pistole, deputy assistant director of the FBI’s Counterterrorism Division. Pistole testified before a Congressional Committee that Pakistan's role in the 911 attak was undeniable. He states the 9/11 investigation “has traced the origin of the funding of 9/11 back to financial accounts in Pakistan, where high-ranking and well-known al-Qaeda operatives played a major role in moving the money forward, eventually into the hands of the hijackers located in the US.”

Even after 911, Omar Sheikh was active wth I.S.I. operations and finally got convicted of murdering Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl--though he may never be executed in spite of the sentence. As the FBI had launched a massive manhunt for him, Sheikh was hiding at the home of one of the highest law officials Brigadier Ejaz Shah, also an I.S.I. executive. [Just weeks before her death, twice-premier Benazir Bhutto the late spouse of Pakistan president Asif Ali Zardari, had accused Shah, who was chief of the Intelligence Bureau at the time of her slaying, of being involved in plots to kill her. But for unknown reasons Zardari avoided having him arrested].

It sounds strange why the U.S. never pushed for Ahmed's arrest.

Pakistani generals, regardless of their jihadi shenanigans, had a staunch supporter on the Capitol Hill, U.S. Vice president Dick Cheney. "It is Cheney's general philosophy that army generals and despots in the Third World are the best allies of the U.S.," Mir Hasil Bizenjo, a leader of the National Party and close ally of former premier Nawaz Sharif, told this correspodnent.

This policy saw the U.S lionize Musharraf and turn a blind eye to the grave harm Pakistani generals inflicted on the U.S. on 911.

But any theory or political philosophy in the U.S. appears useless unless backed by powerful lobbies, in this case the U.S. arms manufacturers and exporters. Doing business with Pakistan, including supplying arms to it, appeared to make better business sense to U.S. policy makers than pushing it to the wall. Bolstered in part by major new arms agreements with Pakistan, the United States reclaimed its ranking as the developing world's biggest supplier of conventional arms in 2006, according to the Congressional Research Service (CRS).

www.fas.org/sgp/crs/weapons/RL34187.pdf

In other words, the U.S. leadership was balckmailed and the I.S.I. got a second chance-- most of Pakistan's Ahmed role was kept as classified information and he is a respectable businessman in Pakistan today.

Senate Foreign relations Committee chairman Joe Biden, now the vice presidential candidate, has all along been highly critical of the Pakistani role as he has a clear insight on the I.S.I's pan Islamic designs. Biden was specifically asked why the U.S. did not arrest General Ahmed when he was in the U.S.

Biden said the reason under international praxis the Pakistani general could not be arrested, explaining “we did not arrest (Russian despot Nikita Khrushchev) when he came.”

truthalliance.net/Archive/tabid/67/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/1347/Default.aspx

Just 19 days prior to the 911 attacks, the Asia Times printed a news story about the visit of Ahmed and Saudi King Abdullah, then crown prince, to Afghanistan to convince Taliban “ruler,” or I.S.I. mole, Mullah Omar to hand over the Saudi terrorist to the Kingdom.

www.atimes.com/ind-pak/CH22Df02.html

One of the deep throats about the Al Qaeda-I.S.I. links was a Canadian national named Ahmed Said Khadr, who was killed in an army shootout two years after the 911. Khadr was involved in the bombing at the Egyptian embassy in 1995 in Islamabad that killed 15 people. The TIME magazine reported that the Egyptians themselves tracked Khadr to a safe house in Peshawar, where he was hiding and contact Ahmed, who promises swift action. Instead, a car sent by the ISI filled with Taliban and having diplomatic plates arrives, grabs Khadr, and drives him to safety in Afghanistan.

www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,501020506-233999,00.html

PROTEST: Join a protest in front of the Pakistan Embassy on September 11 at 12 noon against Pakistan army and ISI role in the attack on America. The address of the embassy is 3517 International Ct., NW, Washington DC 20008, near the Van Ness-UDC Metro Station on the Red Line. You will have a chance to win a T-shirt with the Twin Tower picture and "Pakistan Army did it" inscribed on it.