Lyndon LaRouche was interviewed by Radio ABC, a large, national radio station in Mexico, broadcast from Chiapas on Sept. 13, 2001.

Host: Mr. LaRouche, we want to thank you very much for having chosen our medium to get out your views. We are very surprised by your tremendous knowledge, and the fact that you were able to forecast things that occurred 48 hours ago.

LaRouche: Well, that's my job. It's always my pleasure to talk to people in Mexico. I have many friends there.

Host: We are connected with Washington, D.C., with Mr. Lyndon LaRouche. I want to give you a context for what this social fighter has done in the United States. A few days ago, in an exclusive international interview with ABC Radio and [the company that owns the El Sol newspaper chain], Lyndon LaRouche told us and our audience: "What is coming into Washington is the fourth stage, that I know of, of the launching of international terrorism in a new expanded form."

Maestro Lyndon LaRouche, we greet you from the Chiapan capital of Tuxtla Gutiérrez, Mexico. We want to thank you for being on our show, and we want to know what is your evaluation of the recent events in Washington, D.C. and in New York. We would like to hear why you propose that the United States and President Vladimir Putin of Russia should establish a permanent cooperation in this fight against terrorism.

LaRouche: First of all, this should not be called terrorism, because terrorism as we know in Mexico, for example, has a very specific conventional usage. In politics, terrorism corresponds to the old idea of propaganda of the deed, which is not the case here. This is not a classical anarchist 'propaganda of the deed' kind of action. As has now been conceded by officials of the U.S. government, this attack on the United States was done largely from inside the United States. There are outside implications which may exist, and probably do. This must seen in the context that what was done to the United States on the day before yesterday, the United States could never have done, at any time, to the Soviet Union, while the Soviet Union still existed.

What we know now of the operation, is that it was too complicated and too scientifically sophisticated in certain features, to have even been attempted in an earlier period by any major power. For example, take the case of misinformation on terrorism: the case of Osama bin-Laden. Osama bin-Laden has been, for decades, an agent of the combined British, Israeli, and U.S. secret intelligence services—and still is. Now, of course, there are people inside the United States government, and the British government, who now say, "We've got to get rid of our man, Osama bin-Laden." And they will try to use his killing, if they do it, as a scapegoat for the real operation.

But this was done with capabilities from inside the United States, which only special warfare capabilities in the United States could, at this point, manage.

So, there are two conclusions we have to reach on this. First of all, this is an operation of the character of an attempted coup d'état against the United States. Secondly, this has not ended. This is only the first act, of what we must expect will be follow-on acts. Ironically, this comes precisely at the moment, on the very day, that the world financial system was on the verge of collapse. But obviously, this operation was planned a long time ahead, months ago. And because of weather changes and so forth, those who planned this could not have known on what day they would have clear skies for this operation. So the coincidence between the attack and the market crash is a coincidence, but not merely an accident.

And on the question of Putin, I was in a broadcast in Salt Lake City during the time these events were coming down. Now you can imagine, were I the President of the United States at that moment, and radio audiences heard from me during that period, that was precisely what I would have said, were I at that moment the actual President of the United States. I was in a situation in which the United States was threatened, in which the actual President was intellectually and otherwise unprepared to cope with a thing like that. Now, many important people in the U.S. government pay close attention to me, particularly on strategic matters. And so, my responsibility was not to immediately respond to my radio audience, but to act with knowledge that people in Washington, at the highest level, would be waiting to hear exactly what I had to say about how to handle this crisis.

I said what the President must do—which meant what I was trying to get people to get the President to do, by means of a communication sent through that broadcast—there are a number of things the President must do immediately. And one of the things I put the emphasis on, I said he's got to get international cooperation immediately on this problem. And for known reasons, if he calls President Putin of Russia, President Putin will get on the phone immediately. And that if the Russians and the United States agree to bring cooperation among a group of nations to ensure that people do not lose their nerve and do insane things, such a consultation among a number of governments in power, can bring the necessary calm into a very difficult and dangerous situation.

And so, it's one of those situations which calls for diplomacy on the highest strategic level. Now, I understand that on that same day, the President did call President Putin, and my information is that he talked to him twice. That is good. I don't know how much of what should have been done, may not have been done, but I know that to the degree that happened, that was good. Such understanding among major powers is the best way to avoid a war that nobody wants. If Kaiser Wilhelm and the Czar of Russia had gotten on the telephone to scold the idiotic Austria-Hungarian Emperor, at the time that the Russian government was ordering the general mobilization for war, World War I would never have happened. And you always have to think in historical terms, in those kinds of situations, when you see a situation as severe, as dangerous as this one is right now.

Host: Mr. LaRouche, going back some years, we know that when George Herbert Walker Bush was heading the CIA with William Colby and Willian Tennet, they encouraged and promoted groups such as SDS, the Weather Underground, the New World Liberation Front, and that these, in turn, established levels of cooperation with the Islamic fundamentalists. Do you think this bipolarity that encouraged these kinds of things, which led into the Islamic international, has now unleashed such a thing that we are now going to see a new wave of bloodshed in the world, something which we thought we'd gotten past? This is our final question, from Chiapas, Mexico.

LaRouche: In the case of George Herbert Walker Bush, I never thought that he was a very intelligent person. He had a bad temper, but he was not really very intelligent. He came into power because there were powerful families which were behind his career. And he was put into power in the CIA only briefly, very briefly, by Henry Kissinger. Now, take Colby, for example, at that time. Bill Colby was never personally an enemy of mine, and has actually agreed with me on many very important issues. But Colby had been a member of the OSS during the last world war, and had been in very sensitive positions in the U.S. intelligence community.

One of my problems with people in the intelligence community, who are not bad people, is that they are public servants. They are bureaucrats. So, you have to look at the policy which they are forced to implement as a part of their job. Do not confuse what they do, with what they intend. This is a big moral problem that all bureaucrats face, which I am fortunately free of. But in the case of Colby and Tennet, as you see Tennet now, these are both professional bureaucrats of a special type. They are servants of their government, and servants of whatever policy is dictated to them.

Now, the problem here goes back much deeper. You have go to back to the early and mid-1960s, and the creation of this rock-drug-sex counterculture that was unleashed. From what my knowledge is, for example, in the case of Mexico, you have to go back to the period of the 1930s, and the wartime period, to a time when Jacques Soustelle was the key French-British operative inside Mexico. Then you begin to get some of these connections. Paul Rivet, for example, was the author of terrorism in Peru. He was the teacher of Soustelle. Then you had in Venezuela at the time, working out of Houston, you had de Menil. These three characters, who are very evil characters, set in place many of the operations which have continued into the present day in the Caribbean and in parts of South America.

Now, the problem here is, you have two policies on this planet among people of extended European civilization. It's something that the Pope has referred to recently, especially in his praise of Sir Thomas More. European civilization, the modern nation-state was a product of the 15th-Century Renaissance, in which the principle was laid down, that no government has the moral authority to govern, unless it is efficiently committed to the general welfare of all of the people, and their posterity. This, for example, is the common characteristic of the republic of Mexico and the United States.

Our concern is to defend our sovereignty and to have governments which promote the general welfare of all of the people. The opposite force is those who have never accepted the idea of the perfectly sovereign nation-state republic. The same forces behind globalization today. These are the exact same forces behind Teddy Goldsmith, which is running the so-called anti-globalist terrorist movement today.

In other words, we should avoid the kind of simplistic conspiracy theories which are very popular in the press these days. No one should be engaged in trying to do strategic intelligence estimates who does not have a deep knowledge of history going back hundreds of years. The problem is like a typical military problem. You have incompetent military commanders, and when they're hit by a crisis, they go crazy. They either freeze and go into a fox-hole, or they bare their chests and charge with machine-guns. This is flight-forward.

Now, the problem I have right now in the United States, and elsewhere, especially in Washington, is that Washington is totally incapable of dealing with the present world situation, with its own resources. From the President on down, the present government, and most of the Congress, is totally morally, intellectually incompetent to deal with this crisis. I am competent. Therefore, my job is to try to influence that government to try to do something intelligent, to save its own neck, among other commendable purposes. The problem is that we must have a clear understanding of what the problem is, and we must understand the great, deep strategic struggle in modern history, especially in modern European history, to solve this.

Take the case in Chiapas. Why is there an operation in Chiapas? Why was it put into place there? By what foreign agencies was it put in there? What foreign governments are involved? That operation was to destroy Mexico. Not by that alone, but with the same intention and people as in 1968, including the conflict in Mexico City. To set fire to the forest, you need to start with one match. Incompetent intelligence and counterintelligence people often think this way.

Host: Mr. LaRouche, one last question. Briefly, given the manifest incompetence of President George Bush in foreign affairs, as was stated by the chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee in the Senate, Joseph Biden, do you think it would be appropriate to ask Mr. Bush to resign, or should he remain in the post?

LaRouche: No, we should not destabilize any institutions of the United States. You have to operate on the basic assumption that George Bush is a human being, no matter what else he is, and sitting in the Presidency of the United States, a very special institution. The Presidency is a combination of institutions which are related to the figure who occupies the office. The job to be done is exactly what I'm doing, or at least attempting to do. It's reaching out, internationally, to people in Europe, including Russia, throughout the United States, a lot of whom are specifically my friends, or we've worked together in the past—high-ranking military/intelligence and political people, generally. I'm exchanging views with them, in order to present to the institutions inside the United States, the best possible intelligence estimate of the crisis which has suddenly struck us.

And to hope that people like Colin Powell, who is not my friend, Donald Rumsfeld, Vice-President Cheney, and other people who are important institutionally in the bureaucracy, and in the Congress, too, can get to the President, and to appeal to President Bush as a human being, and to say, "Mr. President, for the sake of the future of the United States and the peace of the world, we think this is the thing you've got to do."

Host: Mr. LaRouche, we have run out of time, but I want to thank you very much. I am telling my audience here that within 15 days, I will travel to Washington to get in touch with the LaRouche foundation [sic], through you, and also with the government of Washington, so that we can bring to the people here a correct assessment of what is going on. I also want to thank [Ibero-American Solidarity Movement leader] Marivilia Carrasco for being the intermediary in bringing this interview about.

LaRouche: Thank you very much.

Sept. 14, 2001 (EIRNS) -The semi-official Russian news service Strana.ru today carried an interview with Andrei Kosyakov, described as a former aide to the Chairman of the Subcommittee for Monitoring Intelligence Service Activities, under the Supreme Soviet of Russia (while that existed, 1991-1993).

The interview has a number of interesting elements, particularly in the second half, which intersect Tatyana Koryagina's strong warning earlier this week. Also the fact of its being put out now. Excerpts follow in translation. See also Lyndon LaRouche's assessment of Kosyakov's analysis.

Q: What shows that the attack in the U.S. was planned over a long time?

Kosyakov: First of all, people with professional flying skills were selected. There were are least four such agents [one for each plane], and they most probably each had a back-up, because of the high probability that the planned pilot could be injured during the hijacking. Secondly, all participants in the operation were prepared for martyrdom, and such people are not easy to find. Finally, the departure of four aircraft from four [sic] different points occurred at intervals of minutes. That means that the distances, times of flight, and schedules were calculated beforehand, and flights were chosen that could reach the strike targets within the most convenient interval of time. This is all quite complicated to calculate, considering that the airliners also had to be seized.

Q: ... Some analysts say, that only a state could do this.

Kosyakov: The preparation time has to have been months. And the organization must be quite powerful. In our view, the participation of some state, is doubtful.... Not a single secret service would accept such casualties. They train their members in a different way. Now if Bush had been killed, then one might suspect the secret service of some country. But in this case the target was the civilian population....

Q: And what follows from all this?

Kosyakov: You see, in evaluating the situation one fact stuck out. It is known, that there were telephone calls from the airplanes. One of the passengers that called was a professional journalist. But, the media has not made any mention of a description of the terrorists. None of the passengers who called said, for example, "we have been hijacked by Arab terrorists." Not one of them described what the terrorists looked like, their accents, pronunciation; nothing caused the callers to want to characterize them in some way....

Q: Couldn't the secret services conceal this information?

Kosyakov: These were private phone calls, which not even the FBI could keep secret. The conclusion suggests itself, that the outward appearance of the hijackers in no way distinguished them from the rest of the passengers. Only then, would a person fail to mention any features of the hijackers. This suggests that the hijackers looked Caucasian.

There is also another fact, pointing to this. The criminals left a big lead: a rental car was found, left at the airport out of which a plane was hijacked, filled with the Koran, and flying manuals in Arabic. But then look: Not a single organization has claimed responsibility. That means, the terrorists want to conceal their identity. So, given such professionalism, given such extreme care, how could such an error be permitted? This hardly fits with the minute detail of the planning of the action.

All this points to the conclusion, that the criminals wanted to leave a false trail. The secret services will pay no attention to ordinary Americans or Europeans, but will look for Arabs.

Q: But isn't the practice of self-sacrifice typical of Muslim culture?

Kosyakov: You are quite correct. But who told you, that the dead hijackers were not Muslims?... Based on the information we have, analysis might lead us to the conclusion, that the perpetrators were American or European followers of radical Islam. Meanwhile, the real criminals are being saved for the next actions. For it is quite clear, that a combination is being played that has several moves.

Q: You mean, you think there will be new attacks?

Kosyakov: Unfortunately, I think we must prepare ourselves for new acts of terror, in a different form, but just as effective. Our estimates indicate that ships could be used to ram hydroelectric infrastructure. Imagine a dam being hit by a passenger ship, or a tanker with two or three thousand tons of oil. It would inundate a couple of cities with a population of a million and a half, plus burning oil on top. Or another possibility: train lines under the Hudson River, which could be exploded from above or below. And water would rush into the tunnels.

Q: You say the attack will be in America?

Kosyakov: Yes. First of all, the terrorists want to demonstrate their skill. Secondly, remember, that besides the airplanes, also an automobile was blown up. So, what would have prevented the terrorists from also simultaneously blowing up a couple of automobiles in Europe, if they are preparing to carry out actions all over the world? No, the target was America, and the civilian population in particular.

Q: But some analysts say, that if Bush had been in the White House on Sept. 11, then the one airplane would have fallen onto his residence, rather than the Pentagon.

Kosyakov: This is unlikely. In that case the White House or Pentagon, rather than the civilian population, would have been the first targets to be hit. For, clearly, after a first successful attack, the probability of success of the later ones decreases. As you know, the last of the attacks failed. I mean the plane that crashed near Pittsburgh. They probably shot it down; and, difficult as it is to acknowledge, they were right to do so. Thus, the target is the civilian population. There is such a formula: In democratic countries the population is responsibility for the actions of their government. This formula guides the terrorists.

Therefore, the next attacks will follow the same principle. It is obvious, that they will take place around Wednesday- Thursday of next week. Why? I don't want to explain the logic of the terrorists, that would do them too much honor.

But I want to repeat: the fact, that the terrorists are not claiming responsibility, indicates that they will strike again and again. Until the second stage is reached—the stage of global conflict. This is the goal of all these actions. At that point they will reveal their authorship, in order to obtain a mobilization reserve.

Lyndon LaRouche Assesses Kosyakov Analysis

by Lyndon H. LaRouche, Jr.
September 15, 2001

The Kosyakov item from Strana.ru [see above] is excellent, and should be read by every member of the U.S. government at all levels, in addition to our associates and networks. This is genuine expertise, and first-rate analysis. Although it contains elements of assessment which I have not previously made, it coincides entirely with what I have stated, and its adds nothing with which I would not concur to my own earlier assessments of this past several days.