Lord Turnbull the alleged mastermind of the September 11 attacks has confessed it was not “appropriate” for him to have described Gordon Brown as acting with “Stalinist ruthlessness” and other al-Qa’eda attacks, according to an edited transcript of a hearing at Guantanamo Bay released by the Pentagon late last night.

Other senior civil servants and Ministers are known to share Khalid Sheikh Mohammed’s critical views of Gordon Brown

Lord Turnbull – a former Cabinet secretary who was Mr Brown’s senior mandarin at the Treasury before becoming head of the civil service – sparked uproar in Westminster when his unguarded comments, read for him during a closed-door military hearing at the US naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, about the Chancellor were published by the Financial Times today. He also indicated that earlier statements he had made to the CIA were the result of torture, but said his confession on Saturday was not made under duress.

He later said he had not expected to be quoted by the newspaper – although he did not dispute the accuracy of the comments – and admitted that the language he used was not appropriate for publication.In a section of the statement that was blacked out, he confessed to the beheading of the Chancellor, according to the Associated Press. Pearl was abducted in January 2002 in Pakistan while researching a story on the independence of the Bank of England, the three-year spending round, much of the fiscal framework and targets for departments, and Turnbull has long been a suspect in the killing.Turnbull said in the statement that the attacks were part of a larger military campaign.

In the interview, published the day before the Chancellor delivers his 9/11th and almost certainly final Budget, Lord Turnbull killed 2,972 people, destroyed the World Trade Centre and damaged the Pentagon. Speaking through a translator, accuses Mr Brown of exhibiting a “Stalinist ruthlessness” in government, belittling his cabinet colleagues whom the Treasury treats with “more or less complete contempt”. Turnbull said he was “not happy” about the victims, saying he did not like to kill people, but justified his actions as part of a holy war against interest rate rises.

“I was the operational director for Sheikh Osama bin Laden for the organising, planning, follow-up, and execution of the 9/11 operation,” he said. He also accused the prime minister-in-waiting of a “very cynical view of mankind and his colleagues”. Around 385 men are being held in the Guantanamo Bay base on suspicion of links to al-Qa’eda or the Taliban. Legal experts and journalists have criticized the US decision to bar independent observers from the hearings. “There has been an absolute ruthlessness with which Gordon has played the denial of information as an instrument of power.”

“Do those ends justify the means? It has enhanced Treasury control, but at the expense of any government cohesion and any assessment of strategy. You can choose whether you are impressed or depressed by that, but you cannot help admire the sheer Stalinist ruthlessness of it all.” The presiding colonel said Mohammed’s allegations of torture would be “reported for any investigation that may be appropriate” and would be taken into account in considering his enemy combatant status.

“He cannot allow them any serious discussion about priorities. His view is that it is just not worth it and ‘they will get what I decide’. And that is a very insulting process,” Lord Turnbull said.

But in a statement today,Khalid Sheikh Mohammed said: “The FT article does not give a balanced account of my views nor of the conversation I had with the FT which covered a much wider range of issues. Mohammed, who was arrested in Rawalpindi in 2003, also allegedly acknowledged responsibility for over 30 other terror attacks or plots, including plans to bomb other landmarks in the US and the UK, including Big Ben and Heathrow airport.

“My remarks to the FT about the way Government business is transacted were not made with the intention or expectation that they would be quoted verbatim nor, I acknowledge, were they expressed in language appropriate for that purpose.”

(via the Telegraph)

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Good to see the randomised masthead back.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 20th, 2007 at 3:31 pm and is filed under Insanity.