Texas congressman muffs 9/11 comments
Olson incorrectly told crowd that Pakistanis carried out 9/11 attacks
A veteran Texas congressman says he misspoke when he wrongly told a crowd that the 9/11 terrorist attack was carried out by terrorists from Pakistan.
Speaking to an almost exclusively Indian-American audience last month, U.S. Rep. Pete Olson, R-Sugar Land, said he was trying to draw a parallel between 9/11 and a 2008 terrorist attack in Mumbai that was carried out by Pakistanis when he blamed Pakistanis for the attacks on the World Trade Center.
Olson said he knows that it was not Pakistanis who were responsible for 9/11.
The congressman, whose district is one of most diverse in America and has a large Indian-American population, made the mistake Aug. 15 at India House in Houston, where he was invited to speak at a celebration of India’s Independence Day. Olson has twice visited India while in Congress, and during his speech, he talked up his meetings with India Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
“Sept. 11, 2001: 3,000 innocent Americans were killed by terrorists from Pakistan,” Olson told the audience. “26 November 2008, Mumbai: Two solid days of killing by people trained in Pakistan.”
None of the 19 al-Qaida hijackers on Sept. 11 was Pakistani. Fifteen were from Saudi Arabia, two from the United Arab Emirates and one each from Egypt and Lebanon. The 9/11 Commission in its report faulted Pakistan for not doing enough to thwart al-Qaida and the Taliban in Afghanistan.
Olson’s Democratic opponent, Sri Preston Kulkarni, says he sees something more cynical in Olson blaming Pakistan while speaking to a predominantly Indian-American crowd. Pakistan and India have had decades of tension over disputed territory between the two countries.
“Sept. 11 was one of the defining moments in American history,” said Kulkarni, a former foreign service worker for the U.S. State Department. “Pete Olson’s statement about this attack is incorrect and inflammatory. When our elected officials do not understand the basic facts of foreign policy, we divide our citizens and risk the lives of our troops.”
Olson said Kulkarni is just trying to score political points.
“It was clear in the full context of my conversation that I was relating the terror attacks on 9/11 in America to the terror attacks our Indian friends suffered at the hands of terrorists trained to kill in Pakistan,” Olson said. “Both events were horrific, pivotal moments in our shared democracies. Taking one sentence where I accidentally transferred the dates in India to the events in America — out of context — does not change the fact that radical Islamic terrorists were successful in attacking both of our nations.”
Olson, 55, is a five-term member of the U.S. House and is seeking another two-year-term this year. He represents the 22nd Congressional District, which includes Fort Bend and Brazoria counties and part of southern Harris county.
Olson has easily won his last four re-elections. But Kulkarni has relied heavily on his ability to connect with the district’s diverse population to give Democrats hope that he could pull off an upset. About 20 percent of the population in the district is of Asian heritage — more than any other district in Texas. About 25 percent of the district’s population is foreign born, according to U.S. Census records.