A troubling Influence, Part three
Ironically, pro-Islamist groups had been scheduled to meet with President Bush on the morning of September 11 to hear what he planned to do to deliver on his secret evidence campaign pledge.27 But that day, the executive mansion complex was shut down, for fear that a fourth hijacked aircraft was headed its way. I watched bemused as Grover Norquist and the White House official responsible for Muslim outreach, Suhail Khan, escorted the displaced Islamists into the conference room we share. (Al-Arian had arranged to participate in the presidential meeting via phone. According to his website, his teaching schedule at the University of South Florida would not allow him to be there in person.)28
Penetrating the White House
Suhail Khan was one of at least three Muslim outreach gatekeepers at the White House with whom Norquist has been associated over the years. I became aware of the intensity of the attachment when Norquist verbally assaulted me one day in the hallway outside our offices with the accusation that I had been calling Khan a terrorist. I assured him that I had done no such thing. Evidently, somebody else, though, had stumbled onto the fact that Khan’s late father, Mahboob Khan, was a prominent figure in the Islamist enterprise in America. It turns out that, among other things, he was the founder of a large Wahhabi center, mosque and school in Orange County, California.29
The New York Times revealed on October 23, 2001, that, in that capacity, Khan Sr. had hosted Ayman al-Zawahiri, reportedly Osama bin Laden’s right-hand-man in the al-Qaeda organization – not once, but twice in the 1990s.30 The first time, Zawahiri came under his own name, the second time he used an alias. In the course of his trips, the terrorist chief reportedly not only raised funds for al-Qaeda’s operations at Khan’s mosque but also purchased satellite communications equipment while in the United States.31
After Khan’s family ties to terror became a focus of press attention, Suhail left the White House staff to go to work at the Department of Transportation. Grover Norquist closed a Wednesday Group meeting by tearfully apologizing to Suhail Khan for the injury caused him by “racists and bigots” and, by example, encouraging the assembled company to join him in a standing ovation to Khan. Most hadn’t a clue what he was talking about but went along. Mindful that Norquist had me in mind, I sat it out.
If White House security procedures had worked across the board as they were supposed to, it seems unlikely that President Bush and his senior subordinates would ever have met with some of those sponsored by Norquist and Saffuri. Sami al-Arian and Abdurahman Alamoudi, for example, would probably never have gotten inside the White House compound.
What happened at the Wednesday Group meeting after Khan’s move to Transportation was unfortunately not an isolated incident, but part of an already established pattern. In July 2001, the Secret Service evicted Sami al-Arian’s son, Abdullah, from a meeting in the White House. The President had affably dubbed Abdullah “Big Dude” after first meeting him and his family on the campaign trail in Florida in March 2000.32 Evidently, the Service acted on the basis of the law enforcement community’s longstanding suspicion of the father’s ties to international terror.
Norquist’s friends immediately raised a ruckus. Other participants in the meeting walked out in solidarity. It became a cause celebre, trumpeted as an egregious example of the racial profiling about which the Islamists and their leftwing allies incessantly complained. In short order, the Deputy Director of the Secret Service was obliged to issue a written apology to “Big Dude” al-Arian. And the President himself personally called the evictee’s mother to express regret and to assure her that no such thing would be allowed to happen again.
Access to the White House
Notice had been served on the Secret Service and other security-vetters: Their job was to provide for the President’s physical security – the threat of would-be assassins – not to protect him from the political embarrassment (or worse) that might result from meetings with terrorist-apologists, or possibly terrorists themselves. If unarmed Islamists were able to secure access to Mr. Bush and his subordinates (e.g., the Secretaries of the Treasury, State and Energy, the Attorney General, the directors of Homeland Security and the FBI), law enforcement and intelligence professionals got the message that they were not to interfere.
Consequently, over the years, and particularly as the Bush Administration’s Muslim outreach effort ramped up in the aftermath of 9/11, Grover Norquist was able to gain extraordinarily high-level access for a number of troubling individuals and groups. An undated White House memo, evidently prepared by Suhail Khan in early 2001 and intended to coordinate Muslim and Arab-American public liaison events, shows that Norquist’s Islamic Institute was instrumental in establishing Islamist connections with the Bush administration. The Islamic Institute provided the White House with a list of Muslim invitees, with the name, date of birth and Social Security number of each. As the founder of the Islamic Institute, Grover Norquist tops the list.33
A leading Arab-American pollster, John Zogby, told The New Republic, “[Grover]’s played the role of interlocutor. With all respect, many of the leaders are immigrants and don't have years and years of experience. Grover has filled that void.” He went on to say that “absolutely, [Grover is] central to the White House outreach.”34
Among the dubious characters included in this outreach – in addition to al-Arian, Alamoudi and his deputy, Saffuri – were the following:
Nihad Awad, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). Awad was among those first introduced by Norquist and Saffuri to Bush during the presidential campaign and his access continued after September 11th. In fact, the front page of the Washington Post featured a photograph of Nihad Awad and Khaled Saffuri flanking Mr. Bush as he toured the Washington Islamic Center.
This public relations coup was an early indication of the strategy Norquist’s Islamist friends would follow in the wake of the hijackings: Exploit the President’s laudable – and strategically sensible – desire to show that neither he nor the American people would hold all Muslims responsible for the murderous actions of the few. This would be done by proposing that President Bush (or his surrogates) attend events in Washington, Detroit, and other cities with Muslim populations, sponsor meetings, host White House iftar dinners to break the Ramadan fast, and so forth. Evidently Norquist, Saffuri and the gatekeepers they had placed inside the White House would work to ensure that representatives of the pro-Islamist organizations would be invited as the exclusive representatives of the Muslim-American and Arab-American communities and – just as important – that non-Islamist Muslims would be excluded.
In this fashion, improbable though it may seem, the Wahhabi agenda of access, influence and legitimacy could actually be advanced in the post-9/11 environment. That people like Nihad Awad could pull this off is a tribute to the skill of the influence operators. After all, he had personally declared that he was a “supporter of the Hamas movement,”35 and his organization raised money for terrorist fronts (including the Holy Land Foundation, the Benevolence International Foundation, and the Global Relief Fund).36 One month after these organizations were raided by the U.S. government, CAIR spokesman Ibrahim Hooper lamented: “The Holy Land Foundation, Global Relief International, Benevolent International Foundation [sic] -- these were our major relief organizations, and they've all been shut down.”37
Even more astounding is the fact that Awad and CAIR have continually attacked the President and his Administration. They have even sued Attorney General Ashcroft and FBI Director Robert Moeller.38 They have strenuously objected to Bush policies on Homeland Security and the War on Terror. And they have played a leading role in national campaigns aimed at undoing the PATRIOT Act and preventing the liberation of Iraq.
As noted above, CAIR’s pro-Islamist sympathies and conduct have been the object of bipartisan criticism from the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Terrorism. In the course of the subcommittee’s hearing, even one of the organization’s go-to guys on Capitol Hill, Sen. Dick Durbin, D-IL, observed that the committee should hear from more “mainstream” Muslim groups in the future, since CAIR and its rhetoric were too “extreme” and its associations “suspect.”39
Such an assessment has certainly been reinforced by the fact that since September 11, 2001, three CAIR figures have been arrested by U.S. federal authorities on terrorist-related charges:
· In December 2002, Ghassan Elashi, a founding board member of CAIR-Texas, was arrested on a number of charges including export violations, making false statements on export declarations, dealing in the property of designated terrorist, conspiracy and money laundering.40
· Bassem K. Khafagi, the Community Affairs Director for CAIR at the time of his January 2003 arrest,41 pled guilty on September 10, 2003, to charges of bank and visa fraud.42 He remains under investigation for his alleged role in the terrorist funding group Islamic Assembly of North America and is expected to be deported to Egypt.43
· Randall Todd “Ismail” Royer, former communications specialist and civil rights coordinator at CAIR, was arrested in late June 2003 for his alleged involvement in the Pakistani terrorist organization, Lashkar-e-Taiba.44 The Justice Department upgraded Royer’s charges in September 2003 to include providing material support to al-Qaeda and the Taliban.45 At the time of his arrest, Royer was spokesman for the National Liberty Fund, a legal defense fund for the PIJ leader Sami al-Arian.
Shaykh Hamza Yusuf. According to the Washington Post, on September 9, 2001, at a rally to support cop-killer and former American Muslim Council executive Jamil Al-Amin (a.k.a. H. Rap Brown), Shaykh Yusuf declared, “This country is facing a terrible fate...This country stands condemned. It stands condemned because of what it did – and lest people forget Europe suffered two world wars after conquering the Muslim lands.”46 At this same rally, the Post reported, Shaykh Yusuf lamented that Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman, the blind Egyptian cleric convicted of plotting to bomb Manhattan's Lincoln and Holland tunnels, was “unjustly tried, was condemned against any standards of justice in any legal system.”47
The FBI went to interview Yusuf to determine whether this inflammatory statement was indicative of prior knowledge of the attacks that occurred two days later. When agents knocked on the door of his San Francisco home on September 20th, they were incredulous to hear his wife explain that Yusuf was absent because he was meeting with the President.48 Upon checking, the FBI discovered that he had indeed been included in an ecumenical meeting in the Oval Office with then-Cardinal Law and a Jewish rabbi – a meeting that was, according to the Wall Street Journal, arranged by Grover Norquist’s White House surrogate, Suhail Khan.49
The website of Yusuf’s organization promised to send a percentage of all sales of tapes of his pro-Islamist sermons to Benevolence International Foundation, even after its director was indicted for funneling money to bin Laden and al-Qaeda.50
Muzammil Siddiqi. In September 2001, when Siddiqi met twice with Mr. Bush, he was president of the Board of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA). This Saudi-funded organization is, as will be discussed below, used by the Muslim World League (MWL) to finance and exercise control over most of the mosques in the United States. Siddiqi’s ties to Saudi Arabia are even deeper.
Before heading up ISNA, Siddiqi was previously a top figure in the MWL itself, whose American headquarters was raided in March 2002 on suspicion of ties to terrorism during the U.S. government’s Operation Green Quest.51 He has also served as the Chairman of the Religious Affairs Committee of the Muslim Students Association (see below) in the United States and Canada. In addition, he is a member of the Fiqh Council, another raided entity.52
Despite these troubling connections to Islamist causes and organizations, someone got the White House to call on Siddiqi to represent the Muslim faith in the inter-religious prayer service for the 9/11 victims that was held at the National Cathedral on September 14, 2001. As syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer noted afterwards, Siddiqi could not bring himself to condemn terrorism in remarks delivered to a worldwide audience, as well as four Presidents and hundreds of dignitaries.53
Even after a performance that was, to say the least, disappointing, Siddiqi was allowed to be photographed with President Bush in the Roosevelt Room of the White House and to present him with a Koran.
Agha Saeed, founder and president of the American Muslim Alliance. Saeed was invited to participate in the Bush campaign’s Muslim outreach meeting engineered by Norquist and Saffuri at the Governor’s mansion in 2000. He also has been given access to the White House since the 9/11 attacks.54
As noted previously, Saeed created an umbrella group, the American Muslim Political Coordination Council (AMPCC), to unite other members of the “Wahhabi Lobby,” including the American Muslim Council (AMC), the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), and the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC).
Interestingly, in June 2000, Hillary Clinton felt constrained to return $50,000 in AMA checks for her Senatorial campaign because Saeed had spoken in favor of Palestinians’ right to “resist by armed force.” He had also allegedly served as head of the Pakistani Communist Party.55
AMA’s Annual Dinner in April 2002 honored the alleged Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorist leader Sami al-Arian, now in federal prison awaiting trial, as a “civil rights” leader, sponsoring a civil rights award in his name.56
Eric Vickers, then-director of Alamoudi’s American Muslim Council.57 Vickers is a black radical who converted to the Muslim faith. While many black Muslims follow a divergent strain of Islam, Vickers found a home in the Wahhabi-connected AMC and served as its executive director from June 2002 until February 2003, after he left the American Muslim Alliance. Vickers was also an incorporator and board member of the Islamic African Relief Agency (IARA). The organization had two grants worth $4.2 million revoked by the U.S. Agency for International Development at the State Department’s request because of the group’s ties with terrorist-sponsoring Sudan (including the alleged provision by IARA officials of intelligence equipment to al-Qaeda).58
Like Nihad Awad, Vickers was a particularly outspoken critic of the Bush Administration and its policies in the War on Terror. He participated prominently in antiwar rallies, was a visible presence in campaigns against the PATRIOT Act and repeatedly assailed President Bush and Attorney General John Ashcroft, among others. Vickers made no secret either of his sympathy for Islamists and their organizations. In June 2002, I debated Vickers in an MSNBC “Hardball” program concerning the AMC’s pro-Islamist record – and the inappropriateness of FBI Director Robert Mueller addressing its annual convention that year. In the course of the show, Vickers refused to renounce or otherwise to disassociate himself or his organization from Hamas, Hezbollah or even al-Qaeda. When pressed, the most he would say is that al-Qaeda is a “resistance movement.”59
Mahdi Bray, executive director, Muslim American Society Freedom Foundation.60 Bray, a former member of the radical Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), is a leader of several pro-Islamist organizations in this country. His role typically is that of a coordinator for political activism. By mid-October of this year, Bray had overseen the training of nearly 1,000 Islamic activists.61 Bray also served as the political director of another pro-Islamist group based in Los Angeles, the Muslim Public Affairs Council, and as a founding board member of the National Coalition to Protect Political Freedom.62 He hosts a radio talk-show sponsored largely by – and reflecting the views of – Wahhabi Saudi Arabia.63
In March 2003, Bray testified at the bond hearing of indicted Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) leader Sami al-Arian, claiming responsibility for “mentoring [al-Arian] about the civil rights movement.”64 He also claimed that he and al-Arian were “kindred spirits” on the issue of Muslim political activism.65
Through public statements and demonstrations, Bray has vehemently protested Bush administration policies in the War on Terror, claiming that they are injurious to innocent American Muslims. For instance, in May 2003, Bray said:
The recent barbaric and illegal invasion of Iraq has emboldened the Bush administration in its actions to target the Muslim and immigrant community and to violate the rights of Muslims, immigrants, and all Americans with impunity. We must continue to forge a coalition of conscience to resist the Bush administration's belligerent and destructive policy which is the greatest impediment to global peace today.66
The Tulbah Controversy
By 2002, the White House job of coordinating Muslim outreach had apparently fallen to Ali Tulbah, a Muslim-American Norquist protégé who formerly headed the Washington office of the Young Republicans. Tulbah’s official position was that of an Associate Director in the White House Office of Cabinet Affairs. In that capacity, he was responsible for liaison with three of the most sensitive federal agencies in the War on Terror: the Departments of State, Defense and Justice.67
An American Muslim Council press release issued on January 17, 2003, explicitly thanked Tulbah for getting representatives of the AMC – and other Islamist organizations, such as CAIR – into the White House to meet with senior Administration officials. As was true of many other such meetings, the Islamist groups used the occasion to mau-mau their interlocutors about perceived government insensitivity to Muslim concerns and to demand that they be afforded opportunities to promote corrective action.
END OF PART THREE |
