(It would appear that Peter Dale Scott is not exactly a household name in this forum, so I'm re-posting my review of Scott's book for DUers. It should be noted that Scott is a Doctor of Political Science as well as a poet and Professor (now Emeritus-- he's retired) of English. For a biographical background of Scott's long and distinguished career, see this August, '07 video, to hear Scott talk about his book, here is an audio interview from Pacifica affiliate, KPFA, aired October, '07.

Scott's 2nd major book, "The War Conspiracy" (1972), garnered a very positive review from Noam Chomsky;

"Peter Dale Scott succeeds in achieving new insight into the American war in Indochina with his meticulous and fascinating analysis of intelligence conspiracies and the links between the "intelligence community" and corporate power. The logic of the Nixon doctrine leads to a still greater reliance on the devious workings of this system of bureaucratic and private power. The great importance of this book extends well beyond the new understanding it provides with regard to past escapades. Scott exposes an element in the American system of global power that poses an increasing threat to the victims of this system, the American people among them."

Of course, these days, poor old Noam can't even breathe the word "conspiracy" without breaking into virtual aploplexy.

Scott has remained consistent, and his work, on track and highly relevant. His poetry, is Poetry, politically charged and respected within that literary community. -r.)

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"The Road to 9/11" - a review



In a major new book from the The University of California Press, author Peter Dale Scott turns up the heat on the George Walker Bush administration, (with a spotlight focused firmly on Vice President Cheney), and presents a carefully researched scholarly volume that offers several challenges to the official narrative of 9/11 as presented in the 9/11 Commission Report.

Scott's case against Cheney is presented toward the end of a text that is much more than just another volume focused on the events of 9/11. With the craftsmanship of a published author and English Professor, Scott uses his expertise to take the reader on a guided tour of recent American history, placing 9/11 within a context-rich environment rife with malfeasance, malice, and the never-ending meddling of rich and powerful entities, through proxy politicians and organizations like the Council on Foreign Relations, and the Heritage Foundation.

Readers familiar with Scott's previous work will be pleased to see the resumption and evolution of a style and format that has been so successful before, with parallels that can be drawn between some of his earliest books, like the privished 1972 book, The War Conspiracy. Like that earlier volume, Scott begins with a short memoir for his preface, framing his state of mind for the reader, reflecting on issues that affect all of us, which will ultimately lead to a series of recommendations in his conclusion. We see a reoccurrence of topics from 1972, like the important role that drug trafficking plays in financing covert operations, and how intelligence agencies implicitly and tacitly encourage the traffic.* In some ways, little has changed since 1972, in others it has changed, for the worse.

Following the Preface is a 25-page introduction that is a profound summation of the metastasis of secrecy in the U.S. government, the Wall Street roots of the CIA, self-destructive foreign policy during the Cold War, and the rise of Full Spectrum Dominance and the Neocons.

Scott then launches into a virtuoso performance, collating the march toward the Cheney-Bush Junta, by identifying the roles played by Nixon, Kissinger, Brzezinski, the Rockefellers, Ford, Carter and CIA director Casey. What we see is a steady encroachment on American civil liberties, and the spread of covert operations, with drug trafficking as a steady counterpoint, research backed up with over one thousand end notes.

With President Ford comes the tag-team of Cheney and Rumsfeld, and here we catch a first-glimpse of the Continuity of Government plans that were rolled out on 9/11, still veiled by secrecy and obfuscation, despite the level of importance of these orders.

The light touch applied to the matter of COG by the 9/11 Commission is symptomatic of a general method of suppression by the Commission in regard to things that they never really intended to investigate seriously, or things they are simply trying to cover-up. Scott addresses the omissions of the Commission throughout the book, and details a variety of things left out in the chapter called "The 9/11 Commission Report and Cheney's deceptions about 9/11".

Among the omissions is the absence of mention of the White House Communications Agency from the Report. Surely, this agency and the logs they possess would be of immense value in gathering a more complete picture of how the Secret Service conducted business, and when, exactly, specific commands authorizing No Fly, Shoot Down, and hypothetically, Stand-Down orders were given. The Report itself is not given to self-correction, even in the face of glaring timeline contradictions conveyed by Richard Clarke and Norman Mineta. If Clarke's narrative is correct, then the Commission is not only wrong about Cheney's exact whereabouts on 9/11, but Rumsfeld's as well. (Personally, I can't visualize Rumsfeld holding a plasma bag aloft or being useful in a triage setting. It's more likely he was barking orders like, "We need a cover-up! STAT!") Philip Zelikow must be aware of the WHCA, as he co-edited "The Kennedy Tapes: Inside the White House During the Cuban Missile Crisis". Surely there would have been recourse to their logs during his research for that book... perhaps Zelikow performed a similar function editing the Kennedy book that he did editing the 9/11 Commission's research... just speculation on my part...

Scott writes several chapters that paint a history of al Qaeda, a welcome alternative to books like Steve Coll's Ghost Wars or Peter Lance's series of books beginning with 1000 Years for Revenge. Scott borrows some information from these books but does not hesitate to point out shortcomings in these sources.

Scott closely examines al Qaeda over four chapters, filling in the blanks left out in official sources like the 9/11 Commission Report regarding al Qaeda's relationship to the drug traffic, and the peripheral roles of oil companies where there is a confluence of interests. (Scott explored the confluence of similar interests in his previous book, Drugs, Oil and War.)

Compared to Coll, Scott does not spin tendentiously like he is writing for a CIA fact-book. All of Scott's research is publicly verifiable. The "privileged" narrative relying on regurgitation of private interviews is absent from Scott's book. Compared to Lance's history of Ali Mohamed, Scott's is more streamlined and efficient. Just the facts.

It is this combination of straight-forward prose, damning information, acute analysis, and the cautious building of a very-well researched argument that leaves The Road to 9/11 standing handstands above any of the establishment-line books on 9/11, and well above many of the alternative lines of inquiry regarding 9/11 that have appeared on the scene in recent years.

As an introductory volume to serious 9/11 research, this book is exemplary. The only other scholarly volume in its class is The Hidden History of 9-11-2001, published by academic press, Elsevier. (These two books alone would be sufficient for a University-level course designed with critique of the 9/11 Commission in mind.)

For those well read on the topic of 9/11, this book should be considered mandatory, a welcome addition to the genre.

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* Scott shows how veterans of Air America have kept themselves busy as CIA detailees in Vietnam and Laos, then as advisors keeping the weapons flowing during Iran-Contra. In 1991 they show up again in Azerbaijan, supposedly as private citizens and not CIA assets, but they are alleged to have been using their wings once again to do covert work, namely, moving around mujahideen. At the same time, heroin was moving all over this part of the world, keeping covert operations supplied with capital. You have to wonder if the temptation for these Air America veterans was simply too much...