The
Neutrality Act prevents US citizens from fighting against countries
not at war with the US, but the New York Times will note, “Yet
there is no sign that a criminal investigation ever took place even
though federal agents had come across broad hints about the center’s
activities when they investigated the [Meir] Kahane assassination [in
1990] (see November 5, 1990) and the slaying of Mr. Shalabi [in
1991]” (see (February 28, 1991)). Kahane’s assassin, El Sayyid
Nosair, was one of Shalabi’s assistants. [New York Times,
4/11/1993] Apparently the CIA’s ties to the Al-Kifah Refugee Center
prevent other US agencies from investigating it, even after the 1993
World Trade Center bombing, when all of the bombers are found to have
been tied to the center.
US Government “Protection” of Al-Qaeda Terrorists and the US-Saudi “Black Hole” (Added: 12.03.2014)
September 1987-March 1989: Head US Consular Official Claims He’s Told to Issue Visas to Unqualified Applicants - Added 8 Sept 2013
Michael Springmann, head US consular official in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, later claims that during this period he is “repeatedly ordered… to issue [more than 100] visas to unqualified applicants.” He turns them down, but is repeatedly overruled by superiors. [BBC, 11/6/2001; St. Petersburg Times, 11/25/2001]
In one case, two Pakistanis apply for visas to attend a trade show in the US, but they are unable to name the trade show or city in which it will be held. When Springmann denies them a visa, he gets “an almost immediate call from a CIA case officer, hidden in the commercial section [of the consulate], that I should reverse myself and grant these guys a visa.” Springmann refuses, but the decision is reversed by the chief of the consular section. Springmann realizes that even the ambassador, Walter Cutler, is aware of the situation, which becomes “more brazen and blatant” as time goes on. On one occasion Springmann is even told, “If you want a job in the State Department in future, you will change your mind.”
Springmann loudly complains to numerous government offices, but no action is taken. He is fired and his files on these applicants are destroyed. He later learns that recruits from many countries fighting for bin Laden against Russia in Afghanistan were funneled through the Jeddah office to get visas to come to the US, where the recruits would travel to train for the Afghan war. According to Springmann, the Jeddah consulate was run by the CIA and staffed almost entirely by intelligence agents. This visa system may have continued at least through 9/11, and 11 of the 19 9/11 hijackers received their visas through Jeddah
1990:
FBI Seizes List of Al-Kifah Contacts
At
some point in 1990, the FBI seizes a handwritten list of contacts
from a top official of the Al-Kifah Refugee Center in Brooklyn.
Al-Kifah is a charity front with links to both al-Qaeda and the CIA
(see 1986-1993). Little is known about the list, such as when exactly
it was seized and why, what was done with it, or whose names are on
it, except that a Texas imam named Moataz Al-Hallak is on the list
(mention of the list comes from an article about Al-Hallak). The FBI
also seizes a different computerized list of Al-Kifah contacts at
some point. [Dallas Morning News, 2/19/1999] It will later be alleged
that the CIA repeatedly blocked the FBI’s investigations into
Al-Kifah (see Late 1980s and After).
A
National Security Agency (NSA) linguist runs afoul of his superiors
after he and other linguists submit a report concluding that Islamist
terrorists are planning attacks on America. The analyst, who insists
on remaining anonymous and is nicknamed “J” by press reports, is
fluent in an unusual number of languages. His and his colleagues’
study of Arabic language messages, and the flow of money to terrorist
organizations from Saudi Arabia, lead them to believe that Saudi
extremists are plotting an attack. J will recall in January 2006:
“You could see, this was the pure rhetoric of Osama bin Laden and
his group, the exact same group, and we had an early indication.…
All of us in the group had this view of a burgeoning threat, and
suddenly we were all trotted off to the office of security. Then came
the call to report for a battery of psychological tests.” J will
issue further warnings of potential terrorist strikes, this time
involving hijackers, passenger planes, and US buildings, in May 2001
(see May 2001). In 2006, other current and former NSA officials will
claim that the NSA routinely uses unfavorable psychological
evaluations to retaliate against whistleblowers and those employees
who come into conflict with superiors .
1993: The FBI’s Intervention with the RCMP to Release Ali Mohamed - Added 5 Aug 2013
In early 1993 a wanted Egyptian terrorist named Essam Hafez Marzouk, a close ally of Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri, arrived at Canada’s Vancouver Airport and was promptly detained by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP). A second terrorist named Mohamed Ali, “the primary U.S. intelligence agent for Ayman al-Zawahiri and Osama bin Laden,” came from California to the airport to meet him; and, not finding him, made the mistake of asking about his friend at the Vancouver airport customs office. As a result the RCMP interrogated Mohamed Ali for two days, but finally released him, even though Ali had clearly come in order to smugle a wanted terrorist into the United States.[10]
If the RCMP had detained Mohamed Ali, who was much bigger game than the first terrorist, hundreds of lives might have been saved. After being released, Ali went on to Nairobi, Kenya. There in December 1993 he and his team photographed the U.S. Embassy, and then delivered the photos to Osama bin Laden in Khartoum, leading to the Embassy bombing of 1998.[11] Ali later told an FBI agent that at some point he also trained al Qaeda terrorists in how to hijack airplanes using box cutters.
The
US will not freeze the assets of Al-Kifah until shortly after 9/11,
long after all the US branches have dissolved (see September 24,
2001). There is evidence to suggest that the CIA had ties to Al-Kifah
and blocked FBI investigations.
A
former State Department security officer has given CounterPunch a
detailed memoir and documents that point to very curious conduct by
the CIA, Secret Service and FBI in the Philippines following warnings
of an assassination bid on President Clinton during his November
12/13, 1994 visit to Manila. "A few weeks afterwards",
Karmilowicz says, " high ranking officers of the CIA and Secret
Service came into my office and informed me that they had conducted
an investigation concerning the threat and concluded that the
allegations against the Pakistani, Rana, were a hoax in order to have
the police harass him. They offered no motive or information as to
why such a ‘hoax’ would be perpetrated or who might be behind.
FBI
agent Robert Wright had begun to investigate terrorism financing in
1993, and apparently quickly discovered many leads (see After January
1993). However, he will later claim that by 1994, he encounters
resistance to his investigations from the FBI’s International
Terrorism Unit. Wright will claim, “[T]here existed a concerted
effort on the part of agents conducting counterterrorism intelligence
investigations to insulate the subjects of their investigations from
criminal investigation and prosecution.” In 2002, Wright will claim
that the agents were doing this because they were lazy, and he will
sue these unnamed agents. [United Press International, 5/30/2002] But
in 2003, he will suggest that in addition to such incompetence, his
investigations into Hamas operatives living in the US were
deliberately blocked so Hamas would be able to foment enough violence
in Israel to derail the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. He will
allege that some people in the FBI had a political agenda regarding
Israel contrary to President Clinton’s (see June 2, 2003).
The
Boston Herald reports that an internal CIA report has concluded that
the agency is “partially culpable” for the 1993 World Trade
Center bombing (see February 26, 1993) because it helped train and
support some of the bombers. One source with knowledge of the report
says, “It was determined that a significant amount of blowback
appeared to have occurred.” A US intelligence source claims the CIA
gave at least $1 billion to forces in Afghanistan connected to
Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. More than a half-dozen of the WTC bombers
belonged to this faction, and some of the CIA money paid for their
training. The source says, “By giving these people the funding that
we did, a situation was created in which it could be safely argued
that we bombed the World Trade Center.”
How Not to Catch a Terrorist 1996 - 1999 (Added 30 July 2014)
A ten-step program, from the files of the U.S. intelligence community
During the recent Senate confirmation hearings for Porter J. Goss, the new CIA director, Senator Dianne Feinstein read a provocative paragraph from a letter that had been sent to the House and Senate Intelligence Committees. The gist of the letter was that key pre-9/11 intelligence failings were the result not primarily of budgetary, structural, or organizational problems (as suggested by the official 9/11 Commission Report) but, rather, of bad decisions by individuals—"unelected, unaccountable officials who made an art of outlasting their elected superiors." What made the letter particularly notable was its author: a twenty-two-year CIA veteran named Michael Scheuer—now better known as Anonymous, the author of the books Imperial Hubris: Why the West Is Losing the War on Terror (2004) and Through Our Enemies' Eyes: Osama bin Laden, Radical Islam, and the Future of America (2002)—who headed the Agency's bin Laden unit from 1996 to 1999.
Gary Berntsen (CIAs Commander Jaw Breaker Operation): (Added 30 July 2014)
In his 2005 book, Jawbreaker, he alleges that Osama bin Laden could have been captured at Tora Bora if the US military (specifically United States Central Command) had devoted more resources to the operation. This claim gained substantial traction due to a Senate Report on the circumstances of bin Laden's escape.
According to both Berntsen's account and the Senate Committee's report, "Bin Laden and bodyguards walked unmolested out of Tora Bora and disappeared into Pakistan's unregulated tribal area."[6] Berntsen insists this would have been stopped by a US military presence on the Afghan-Pakistan border, instead of a reliance on corrupt local warlords.
The
US government once again considers going after the Holy Land
Foundation for its ties to Hamas. Israel freezes the foundation’s
assets this year, and the Treasury Department proposes making a
similar asset freeze in the US as well. [Wall Street Journal,
2/27/2002] In 2000, the New York Times will report, “Some
government officials recommended that the group be prosecuted in 1997
for supporting Hamas, the militant Islamic group. But others opposed
the effort, fearing that it would expose intelligence sources and
spur public criticism of the administration as anti-Muslim.” [New
York Times, 2/19/2000] Those pushing to prosecute the group would
certainly include Vulgar Betrayal investigation FBI agents like
Robert Wright. Wright had been aware of Holy Land’s ties to Hamas
since 1993 (see After January 1993 and October 1993). However,
Attorney General Janet Reno blocks the proposal and no action is
taken. [Wall Street Journal, 2/27/2002] Counterterrorism “tsar”
Richard Clarke claims that in 1995 he pushed for something to be done
to Holy Land, but higher-ups overruled him (see January 1995-April
1996).
In
1995, investigators raid two groups in Tampa, Florida, associated
with Sami al-Arian, a university professor who some claim has been a
supporter of terrorist groups. These raids alert investigators to a
group of Muslim charities in Herndon, Virginia, known as the SAAR
network (see July 29, 1983). An investigation into that network’s
alleged terrorism financing begins. In 1998, National Security
Council aides in the Clinton White House push the FBI to intensify
the SAAR investigation. However, the FBI declines, claiming that an
aggressive probe would be seen as ethnic profiling.
As
the September 11 commission moves on this week to examining numerous
FBI and CIA intelligence malfunctions prior to the terror attacks,
the below May 1998 memo will surely be cast as another unheeded
warning. Generated by an agent in the bureau's Oklahoma City office
and titled "Weapons of Mass Destruction," the document
warned that "large numbers of Middle Eastern males" were
taking flight lessons at Oklahoma airports. That was a development
that the agent, also a pilot, thought may have been "related to
planned terrorist activity." A similar memo, written three years
later by an agent in Phoenix, also spurred little interest in FBI
brass.
1998: April 1998: FBI Agent Stifles Investigation into Ptech Figures Added 11 August 2013
FBI agent Robert Wright will later recall that at this time, he is pleasantly surprised when FBI management provides his Vulgar Betrayal investigation with a 10 year veteran agent to assist with his efforts. According to Wright, the unnamed agent is assigned to “investigate a company and its 20-plus subsidiaries which were linked to a major financer of international terrorism.” However, Wright and fellow agent John Vincent will soon become dismayed when they realize the agent is not actually doing any work. He merely shuffles papers to look busy when people walk by. He will continue to do no work on this important assignment until the Vulgar Betrayal investigation is effectively shut down one year later (see August 3, 1999). Wright will claim in 2003, “The important assignment he was given involved both the founder and the financier of Ptech.” Presumably these could be references to Oussama Ziade, the president and chief founder of Ptech, and Yassin al-Qadi, apparently Ptech’s largest investor.
FBI
Minneapolis agent Harry Samit learns that an unnamed man plans to
travel from the US to Afghanistan to train militants there, and that
one of his relatives has applied to join the Minnesota National
Guard. Samit wants to run a check on him and notify the National
Guard, as he is worried because guardsmen have access to local
airports. However, he is blocked for several months by Michael
Maltbie, an agent in the Radical Fundamentalist Unit at FBI
headquarters, who becomes “extremely agitated” and says this is
“just the sort of thing that would get the FBI into trouble.”
[Star-Tribune (Minneapolis), 3/21/2006; Knight Ridder, 3/21/2006;
Hearst Newspapers, 3/21/2006] Samit and Maltbie will later have
another running disagreement over the Zacarias Moussaoui case (see
August 15-September 10, 2001, August 20-September 11, 2001, August
27, 2001, and August 28, 2001).
The
Asymmetric Threats Division was "realigned" in summer 2001
under the "Intelligence Watch Center." The Intelligence
Watch Center may be the Combined Intelligence Watch Center associated
with NORAD, which is an "indications and warning center for
worldwide threats from space, missile and strategic air activity, as
well as geopolitical unrest that could affect North America and US
forces/interests abroad." This would be consistent with the work
DO5 did with the JTF-CS. The order to stop tracking Bin Laden,
therefore, came sometime between the origin of DO5 in 1999 and its
realignment just prior to, or right after 9/11. In 2005, the JFIC
itself was renamed the Joint Transformation Command-Intelligence,
still subordinate to and serving USJFCOM.
Iron
Man states in his letter that in the summer of 2000, DO5 briefed
USJFCOM senior intelligence officials and staffers, including the
deputy commander in chief, on the "WMD Threat to the U.S."
Iron Man describes a "sensitive," "oral briefing"
that took place that summer "indicating that the World Trade
Centers #1 and #2 were the most likely buildings to be attacked [by
al-Qaeda], followed closely by the Pentagon. The briefer indicated
that the worst case scenario would be one tower collapsed onto
another."
Treasury
Department official Richard Newcomb has been to Saudi Arabia with
other US officials in an attempt to pressure the Saudis to crack down
on financing al-Qaeda, but no action has resulted (see June 1999). He
had threatened to freeze the assets of certain individuals and groups
funding al-Qaeda if not action is taken, and now he starts to act on
that threat. As head of the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign
Assets Control, he submits names for sanctions. But imposing
sanctions requires approval from an interagency committee, and the
permission to go ahead is never given. CIA and FBI officials are
“lukewarm to the idea, worried that sanctions would chill what
little cooperation they had with their Saudi counterparts.” But the
State Department puts up the most opposition. One official will later
recall, “The State Department always thought we had much bigger
fish to fry.”
CIA
officer named Michael Anne Casey accesses Miller’s draft about an
hour after he writes it. The cable is then blocked on the orders of
the station’s deputy chief, Tom Wilshire, as a few hours after
Miller drafts the cable Casey attaches a message to it saying, “pls
hold off on [cable] for now per [Tom Wilshire].”
Mark
Rossini, an FBI agent on loan to Alec Station, the CIA’s bin Laden
unit, protests in vain against a decision to deliberately withhold
information about one of the future 9/11 hijackers, Khalid Almihdhar,
from the FBI (see 9:30 a.m. - 4:00 p.m. January 5, 2000). One of his
colleagues, Doug Miller, had tried to inform the FBI that Almihdhar
had a US visa the day before, but had been blocked by a 29-year-old
female CIA officer named Michael Anne Casey and the unit’s deputy
chief, Tom
Wilshire.
Able
Danger member Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer meets with the DIA deputy
director and offers him a computer disc with information about
al-Qaeda (including 9/11 hijacker Mohamed Atta), but the DIA official
declines to accept the disc.
The
first FBI agents enter Yemen two days after the bombing of the USS
Cole in an attempt to discover who was responsible. However, the main
part of the team initially gets stuck in Germany because they do not
have permission to enter Yemen and they are then unable to accomplish
much due to restrictions placed on them and tensions between lead
investigator John O’Neill and US Ambassador to Yemen Barbara
Bodine. All but about 50 investigators are forced to leave by the end
of October. O’Neill’s boss Barry Mawn visits to assess the
situation. [Miller, Stone, and Mitchell, 2002, pp. 237; New Yorker,
1/14/2002; Sunday Times (London), 2/3/2002; New Yorker, 7/10/2006 ]
Mawn will later comment, “It became clear [Bodine] simply hated his
guts.” After a ten day investigation, he concludes O’Neill is
doing a fine job, tells Bodine that she is O’Neill’s “only
detractor,” and refuses her request to recall him. [Wright, 2006,
pp. 32] But O’Neill and much of his team are pressured to leave by
late November and Bodine will not give him permission to return any
time after that. The investigation stalls without his personal
relationships to top Yemeni officials. [Miller, Stone, and Mitchell,
2002, pp. 237; New Yorker, 1/14/2002; Sunday Times (London),
2/3/2002] Increased security threats force the reduced FBI team still
in Yemen to withdraw altogether in June 2001. [PBS Frontline,
10/3/2002] The prime minister of Yemen at the time later claims (see
Early October 2001) that hijacker “Khalid Almihdhar was one of the
Cole perpetrators, involved in preparations. He was in Yemen at the
time and stayed after the Cole bombing for a while, then he left.”
The Sunday Times later notes, “The failure in Yemen may have
blocked off lines of investigation that could have led directly to
the terrorists preparing for September 11.”
In the fall of 2000, General Hayden of the NSA buries "Thinthread" and implements SAICs program "Trailblaser" implementing NSAs failure to stop 9/11
In the fall of 2000, Hayden decided not to use ThinThread, largely because of his legal advisers’ concerns. Instead, he funded a rival approach, called Trailblazer, and he turned to private defense contractors to build it. Matthew Aid, the author of a heralded 2009 history of the agency, “The Secret Sentry,” says, “The resistance to ThinThread was just standard bureaucratic politics. ThinThread was small, cost-effective, easy to understand, and protected the identity of Americans. But it wasn’t what the higher-ups wanted. They wanted a big machine that could make Martinis, too.”
The N.S.A.’s failure to stop the 9/11 plot infuriated Binney: he believed that ThinThread had been ready to deploy nine months earlier. Working with N.S.A. counterterrorism experts, he had planned to set up his system at sites where foreign terrorism was prevalent, including Afghanistan and Pakistan. “Those bits of conversations they found too late?” Binney said. “That would have never happened. I had it managed in a way that would send out automatic alerts. It would have been, Bang!”
Lt.
Col. Anthony Shaffer will later claim that DIA Deputy Director of
Human Intelligence William Huntington is briefed by Shaffer at this
time about a project named Dorhawk Galley. Some information about
Able Danger’s methodology comes up. According to Shaffer,
Huntington refuses to hear it and announces, “I can’t be here, I
can’t see this.” Huntington immediately leaves Shaffer’s office
and refuses to hear the information.
The
new Director of Operations for the DIA, General Ron Isler, has Lt.
Col. Anthony Shaffer brief him on a series of operations. According
to Shaffer, Isler strongly objects to Shaffer assisting Able Danger.
“I said, ‘Well, sir, with all due respect, this is an important
operation focused on the global al-Qaeda target,’ and he said,
‘You’re not hearing me, Tony. This is not your job.’” After
further disagreement, Shaffer recalls the argument ending, “‘Tony,
I’m the two star here. I’m the two star. I’m telling you I
don’t want you doing anything with Able Danger.’ ‘Sir, if not
us then who?’ ‘I don’t know, but it’s not your job.’
Reinforcing
that tension, throughout the summer of 2001, Dr. Fuisz continued to
prod and push hard for any fragment of intelligence from Iraq or
Libya involving airplane hijackings or airplane bombings. He urged me
not to filter intelligence or test its accuracy before informing him.
During numerous meetings, he tried to explain how urgently he needed
to collect even fragments of intelligence, whether it appeared to
make sense to me or not. He begged me to hold nothing back.
That's
when I knew that something bigger was going on. Dr. Fuisz was already
onto it. Again and again, our talks turned to airplane hijackings
and/or airplane bombings in a reprise of the 1993 World Trade Center
attack. It sounds uncanny but we all understood exactly what was
going to happen.
Tom
Wilshire, a
former deputy chief of the CIA’s bin Laden unit currently detailed
to the FBI, accesses a number of cables about travel by 9/11
hijackers Khalid Almihdhar and Nawaf Alhazmi in 2000 (see March 5,
2000), but fails to draw the FBI’s attention to this or ask the INS
whether they are still in the US. The cables report on Khalid
Almihdhar’s travel to Malaysia in January 2000, his US visa,
al-Qaeda’s Malaysia summit, and Alhazmi’s travel from Kuala
Lumpur, Malaysia, to Bangkok, Thailand, with another person, and then
to Los Angeles. Wilshire had previously blocked a notification to the
FBI that Almihdhar had a US visa (see 9:30 a.m. - 4:00 p.m. January
5, 2000). He writes to another CIA analyst about the travel (see May
15, 2001), but does not alert the FBI to the fact Alhazmi came to the
US. Neither does he check with the INS to see whether Alhazmi and
Almihdhar are in the country.
The
June 1 2001 document deliberately changed the existing policies
that were issued in 1997, 1986 and before: (1) Determine whether or
not the assistance needed is reasonably available from police or
commercial sources. If not, the DDO, NMCC, will notify the
appropriate unified command or NORAD to determine if suitable assets
are available and will forward the request to the Secretary of
Defense for approval in accordance with DODD 3025.15, paragraph D.7
(reference d)."
"APPROVAL":
The usage of the word
"approval" is the major change here to the existing
hijacking response procedures. While the text of the document tries
to link this "approval" to the previous orders "DODD
3025.15," the approval is now required BEFORE providing any
assistance at all. Previously, approval would be required to respond
to a situation with lethal force.
This
June 1st update to the orders stopped all military assistance in its
tracks UNTIL approval from Donald Rumsfeld (the "Secretary of
Defense") could be granted -- which, by his own admission, it
was not. Rumsfeld claimed total ignorance of the inbound
aircraft that attacked the Pentagon (on the opposite side of the
building complex, where a construction project had been underway).
Phoenix,
Arizona, FBI agent Ken Williams sends a memorandum warning about
suspicious activities involving a group of Middle Eastern men taking
flight training lessons in Arizona. The memo is titled: “Zakaria
Mustapha Soubra; IT-OTHER (Islamic Army of the Caucasus),” because
it focuses on Zakaria Soubra, a Lebanese flight student in Prescott,
Arizona, and his connection with a terror group in Chechnya that has
ties to al-Qaeda. It is subtitled: “Osama bin Laden and
Al-Muhjiroun supporters attending civil aviation
universities/colleges in Arizona.” [Fortune, 5/22/2002; Arizona
Republic, 7/24/2003] Williams’ memo is based on an investigation of
Sorba that Williams had begun in 2000 (see April 2000), but he had
trouble pursuing because of the low priority the Arizona FBI office
gave terror investigations.
The
review is currently only being conducted by one intelligence officer,
Margaret Gillespie, who is only told to do it in her spare time and
whom it takes over three months to find CIA cables indicating two of
the future 9/11 hijackers have entered the US (see August 21-22,
2001). Miller’s help would certainly benefit the review, as he is
already aware one of the hijackers, Khalid Almihdhar, has a US visa,
but a cable he drafted to notify the FBI about this was blocked by
Wilshire (see 9:30 a.m. - 4:00 p.m. January 5, 2000). However, there
is no mention of Miller actually being given the assignment on his
return and no sign he does any work on this. Wilshire also asked that
the FBI be officially told bin Attash attended the summit in
Malaysia, but this information is again withheld.
FBI
headquarters receives the Phoenix Memo, but does not act on it. The
memo was drafted by Arizona FBI agent Ken Williams and warns that a
large number of Islamic extremists are learning to fly in the US. It
is dated 17 days earlier, but is not uploaded until this date (see
July 10, 2001). Although the memo is addressed to eight specific
agents, it is apparently not received by all of them. The Justice
Department’s Office of Inspector General will later say that the
memo was not delivered directly to the addressees, but uploaded to a
central dispatching point, from where it was assigned to Radical
Fundamentalist Unit agent Elizabeth Matson on July 30.
The
August 6 PDB, an excerpt from which you'll find here, was presented
to Bush while he vacationed at his ranch in Crawford, Texas. The
digest is prepared by the Central Intelligence Agency, an official
from which briefs the president on the report's contents.
While
Bush critics have described the August 6 PDB as a warning of an
impending al-Qaeda attack, Condoleezza Rice, Bush's national security
adviser, testified Thursday that the document contained "historical
information based on old reporting. There was no new threat
information."
Immigration
and Naturalization Service agent Steve Nordmann, one of the officers
who arrested Zacarias Moussaoui (see August 16, 2001), presses for a
warrant so that law enforcement bodies can search Moussaoui’s
computer files. He will later write of his regret that they were not
allowed to access Moussaoui’s laptop. More details are not known as
Nordmann will die in a motorcycle accident in 2003 and will not
testify at Moussaoui’s trial. [Star-Tribune (Minneapolis),
6/28/2003; St. Cloud Times, 9/7/2003] FBI agents also press for a
warrant to search Moussaoui’s belongings (see August 21, 2001 and
August 23-27, 2001), which contain potentially enough information to
prevent 9/11 (see August 16, 2001). However, the warrant is blocked
by the Radical Fundamentalist Unit at FBI headquarters (see August
20-September 11, 2001).
Dave
Frasca of the FBI’s Radical Fundamentalist Unit (RFU) denies a
request from the Minneapolis FBI field office to seek a criminal
warrant to search the belongings of Zacarias Moussaoui, who was
arrested on August 15 as part of an intelligence investigation (see
August 16, 2001 and August 16, 2001). Minneapolis agents believe they
had uncovered sufficient evidence that Moussaoui is involved in a
criminal conspiracy, and want to obtain a criminal search warrant
instead of a warrant under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act
(FISA). But because they originally opened an intelligence
investigation, they cannot go directly to the local US attorney’s
office for the warrant. In order to begin a parallel criminal
investigation, they must first obtain permission from the Office of
Intelligence Policy and Review (OIPR) so they can pass the
information over the “wall.” (See:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamie_Gorelick)
In
the wake of the French intelligence report (see August 22, 2001) on
Zacarias Moussaoui, FBI agents in Minneapolis, Minnesota, are “in a
frenzy” and “absolutely convinced he [is] planning to do
something with a plane.” Agent Greg Jones tells FBI headquarters
that Moussaoui might “fly something into the World Trade Center.”
[Newsweek, 5/20/2002; US Department of Justice, 11/2004, pp. 153 ]
Minneapolis FBI agents become “desperate to search the computer lap
top” and “conduct a more thorough search of his personal
effects,” especially since Moussaoui acted as if he was hiding
something important in the laptop when arrested. [Time, 5/21/2002;
Time, 5/27/2002] As the Radical Fundamentalist Unit (RFU) at FBI
headquarters has already blocked an application for a criminal
warrant (see August 21, 2001), the FBI’s Minneapolis field office
must apply for one under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act
(FISA).
Harry
Samit, an agent at the FBI’s Minneapolis field office, drafts a
memo to the FAA summarizing the facts of the Zacarias Moussaoui case.
In it, he writes, “Minneapolis believes that Moussaoui, [his
roommate Hussein] al-Attas, and others not yet known were engaged in
preparing to seize a Boeing 747-400 in commission of a terrorist act.
As Moussaoui denied requests for consent to search his belongings and
was arrested before sufficient evidence of criminal activity was
revealed, it is not known how far advanced were his plans to do so.”
He also mentions Moussaoui’s physical and marital arts training and
expresses concern that France, where Moussaoui will soon be deported,
may not be able to hold him or his property for long. But Mike
Maltbie of the FBI’s Radical Fundamentalist Unit (RFU) instructs
the Minneapolis field office not to send the memo because he is also
drafting a memo on the Moussaoui case that will be sent to the FAA
and other agencies. However Maltbie’s memo lacks a threat
assessment and does not mention Minneapolis’ suspicions that
Moussaoui might be planning a terrorist act involving a hijacked
airplane. The memo does not result in any FAA action. [US Department
of Justice, 11/2004, pp. 174-7 ; Los Angeles Times, 3/20/2006] A
meeting between Samit and a Minneapolis FAA officer will also fail to
produce any FAA action (see September 4, 2001).
Emergency
managers from around the US, including Federal Emergency Management
Agency (FEMA) Director Joseph Allbaugh and representatives from the
emergency management agencies of 47 states, are in Big Sky, Montana,
attending the annual conference of the National Emergency Management
Association (NEMA), where the main focuses include the issues of
domestic terrorism and weapons of mass destruction.
Most
State Emergency Managers in Attendance - Conference attendees include
around 350 government and industry emergency specialists.
The
FBI’s Critical Incident Response Group (CIRG) goes to California
for a week of training and is therefore stranded away from
Washington, DC, when it is required to help in the response to the
9/11 terrorist attacks. [USA Today, 9/11/2001; Darling, 2010, pp. 75]
The CIRG is “the unit that coordinates the FBI’s rapid response
to crisis incidents, including terrorist attacks,” according to
Major Robert Darling of the White House Military Office. Its members
arrive in San Francisco this evening to participate in a week of
special weapons and tactics (SWAT)-related field training. [Darling,
2010, pp. 74-75] While the 9/11 attacks are underway, NBC News will
report that the FBI is in a state of “chaos,” partly because of
the CIRG being stranded in California.
Van
Harp, the head of the FBI’s Washington, DC, field office, is away
from the capital in South Carolina for his summer vacation, and has
to be flown back to Washington in an FBI plane to help respond to the
terrorist attacks. [Washington Post, 3/4/2002; US Department of
Health and Human Services, 7/2002, pp. C45, C47; 9/11 Commission,
12/15/2003 ] Harp took command of the Washington field office (WFO)
as its new assistant director in charge in July this year.
[Washington Post, 4/18/2003; Federal Bureau of Investigation, 2010]
But on this day he is in Hilton Head, South Carolina, on vacation
with his wife, children, and grandchildren. He learned of the first
plane hitting the World Trade Center when his secretary, Donna
Cummings, paged him shortly after the attack occurred. Harp then
called Cummings and she told him what had happened. He switched on
the television in time to see the second plane crashing into the WTC,
and had known then that he needed to return to Washington.
Within
an hour of the 9/11 attacks, the Minnesota FBI uses a memo written to
FBI headquarters shortly after Zacarias Moussaoui’s arrest to ask
permission from a judge for the search warrant they have been
desperately seeking. After the World Trade Center is hit for the
first time at 8:46 a.m., Mike Maltbie of the Radical Fundamentalist
Unit (RFU) at FBI headquarters calls the Minneapolis field office and
talks to FBI agent Coleen Rowley. When Rowley says it is essential
they get a warrant to search Moussaoui’s belongings, Maltbie
instructs her to take no action, because it could have an impact on
matters of which she is not aware. Rowley replies that it would have
to be the “hugest coincidence” if Moussaoui were not related to
the attack.
September 11, 2001: NORAD Stands Down - 9/11 Live: The NORAD Tapes
The story of what happened in that room, and when, has never been fully told, but is arguably more important in terms of understanding America's military capabilities that day than anything happening simultaneously on Air Force One or in the Pentagon, the White House, or norad's impregnable headquarters, deep within Cheyenne Mountain, in Colorado. It's a story that was intentionally obscured, some members of the 9/11 commission believe, by military higher-ups and members of the Bush administration who spoke to the press, and later the commission itself, in order to downplay the extent of the confusion and miscommunication flying through the ranks of the government.
Major
General Larry Arnold, the commander of the Continental United States
NORAD Region (CONR), participates in a video teleconference with
other senior NORAD officials and is therefore unavailable when
NORAD’s Northeast Air Defense Sector (NEADS) tries contacting him
for authorization to scramble fighter jets in response to the
hijacked Flight 11. [Filson, 2002; 9/11 Commission, 5/23/2003; 9/11
Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 20; Spencer, 2008, pp. 31] Arnold is in
the video teleconferencing room at CONR headquarters, at Tyndall Air
Force Base, Florida. Teleconference Discussing 'Russian Exercise' -
Robert Del Toro, an intelligence officer with the 1st Air Force who
is in the room with Arnold, will tell the 9/11 Commission that the
teleconference is “about the Russian exercise.”
The
US military has spent billions of dollars developing stealth aircraft
which are invisible to radar so they can mount surprise attacks on
adversaries, but it seems they should have saved their money and
bought a fleet of airliners because they appear to be far more
effective. On 9/11 the world's only military superpower was
apparently oblivious to the location of rogue airliners in it's
airspace for over an hour, and military commanders were left
perplexed on how to deal with the situation of hijackers using these
planes as flying bombs.
This
confusion resulted in fighter jets flying around aimlessly whilst the
hierarchy fully assessed what was going on, and this total lack of
cohesion ultimately led to the loss of nearly 3000 lives.
The
specific people who should have managed the air defense on 9/11 where
absent precisely while the attacks were accuring. Even though they
were available in the days before and after the attack, they were
missing exactly in teh crucial house of the hijackings.
A
fighter pilot flying from Otis Air Base toward New York City later
notes that it wouldn’t have mattered if he caught up with Flight
175, because only President Bush could order a shootdown, and Bush is
at a public event at the time. [Cape Cod Times, 8/21/2002] “Only
the president has the authority to order a civilian aircraft shot
down,” according to a 1999 CNN report. [CNN, 10/26/1999] In fact,
by 9/11, Defense Secretary Rumsfeld also has the authority to order a
shootdown, but he is not responding to the crisis at this time. (See:
The
Three Amigos on 9/11 and Hijacking
The Air Defenses)
Two
months before the September 11 attacks, FBI agent Kenneth Williams
sent the below memo to bureau brass in Washington and New York
warning that a cadre of Osama bin Laden disciples might be training
at U.S. flight schools in preparation for future "terror
activity against civil aviation targets." Williams suggested a
nationwide FBI review to determine whether such a "coordinated
effort" could be seen in other localities. The Williams memo was
roundly ignored, of course, until after the World Trade Center was
leveled.
FTW,
October 9, 2001 - Although uniformly ignored by the mainstream U.S.
media, there is abundant and clear evidence that a number of
transactions in financial markets indicated specific (criminal)
foreknowledge of the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center
and the Pentagon. In the case of at least one of these trades --
which has left a $2.5 million prize unclaimed -- the firm used to
place the "put options" on United Airlines stock was, until
1998, managed by the man who is now in the number three Executive
Director position at the Central Intelligence Agency. Until 1997 A.B.
"Buzzy" Krongard had been Chairman of the investment bank
A.B. Brown. A.B. Brown was acquired by Banker's Trust in 1997.
Krongard then became, as part of the merger, Vice Chairman of
Banker's Trust-AB Brown, one of 20 major U.S. banks named by Senator
Carl Levin this year as being connected to money laundering.
Krongard's last position at Banker's Trust (BT) was to oversee
"private client relations." In this capacity he had direct
hands-on relations with some of the wealthiest people in the world in
a kind of specialized banking operation that has been identified by
the U.S. Senate and other investigators as being closely connected to
the laundering of drug money.
FBI
agent Robert Wright holds a press conference. He makes a statement
that has been preapproved by the FBI. As one account puts it, “Robert
Wright’s story is difficult to piece together because he is on
government orders to remain silent.… [T]his is in distinct contrast
to the free speech and whistle-blower protections offered to Colleen
Rowley, general counsel in the FBI Minneapolis office, who got her
story out before the agency could silence her. Wright, a 12-year
bureau veteran, has followed proper channels” but has been
frustrated by limitations on what he is allowed to say (see September
11, 2001-October 2001). “The best he could do [is a] press
conference in Washington, D.C., where he [tells] curious reporters
that he [has] a whopper of a tale to tell, if only he could.”
Wright says that FBI bureaucrats “intentionally and repeatedly
thwarted [his] attempts to launch a more comprehensive investigation
to identify and neutralize terrorists.” He also claims, “FBI
management failed to take seriously the threat of terrorism in the
US.” [Fox News, 5/30/2002; Federal News Service, 5/30/2002; LA
Weekly, 8/2/2002] Larry Klayman, a lawyer representing Wright, says
at the conference that he believes one reason Wright’s
investigations were blocked “is because these monies were going
through some very powerful US banks with some very powerful interests
in the United States.
FBI
Director Robert Mueller personally awards Marion (Spike) Bowman with
a presidential citation and cash bonus of approximately 25 percent of
his salary. [Salon, 3/3/2003] Bowman, head of the FBI’s national
security law unit and the person who refused to seek a special
warrant for a search of Zacarias Moussaoui’s belongings before the
9/11 attacks (see August 28, 2001), is among nine recipients of
bureau awards for “exceptional performance.” The award comes
shortly after a 9/11 Congressional Inquiry report saying Bowman’s
unit gave Minneapolis FBI agents “inexcusably confused and
inaccurate information” that was “patently false.”
[Star-Tribune (Minneapolis), 12/22/2002] Bowman’s unit was also
involved in the failure to locate 9/11 hijackers Khalid Almihdhar and
Nawaf Alhazmi after their names were put on a watch list (see August
28-29, 2001). In early 2000, the FBI acknowledged serious blunders in
surveillance Bowman’s unit conducted during sensitive terrorism and
espionage investigations, including agents who illegally videotaped
suspects, intercepted e-mails without court permission, and recorded
the wrong phone conversations. [Associated Press, 1/10/2003] As
Senator Charles Grassley (R-IA) and others have pointed out, not only
has no one in government been fired or punished for 9/11, but several
others have been promoted: [Salon, 3/3/2003]
It is
striking that there is neither video footage nor any photographic
evidence in the public domain showing a jetliner approaching or
crashing into the Pentagon. As of May, 2006, the only video footage
of the crash that has been released are clips from two Pentagon
security cameras north of the crash site, one the source of 5 frames
leaked in 2002. With the release of the two video clips, the
Pentagon claims to have supplied all of the footage it has of the
attack. Although the number and positions of security cameras
monitoring the Pentagon is not public knowledge, it seems unlikely
that only two security cameras captured the attack. Isn't it
reasonable to assume that there were dozens, if not hundreds, of
security cameras ringing the huge building that is the heart of the
United States military establishment?
Senator
Bob Graham (D-FL) alleges that the White House has covered up
possible Saudi Arabian government connections to 9/11 hijackers Nawaf
Alhazmi and Khalid Almihdhar. In an interview to promote his new book
entitled Intelligence Matters, he contends that evidence relating to
these two hijackers, who lived in San Diego, “present[s] a
compelling case that there was Saudi assistance” to the 9/11 plot.
[Graham and Nussbaum, 2004; Copley News, 9/7/2004] In the words of
author Philip Shenon, Graham is “convinced that a number of
sympathetic Saudi officials, possibly within the sprawling Islamic
Affairs Ministry, had known that al-Qaeda terrorists were entering
the United States beginning in 2000 in preparation for some sort of
attack,” and that “Saudi officials had directed spies operating
in the United States to assist them.” [Shenon, 2008, pp. 51] Graham
also concludes that President Bush directed the FBI “to restrain
and obfuscate” investigations into these ties, possibly to protect
US-Saudi relations.
A
front page article in the New York Times reveals the existence of a
highly classified military intelligence unit called Able Danger,
which had identified Mohamed Atta and three other 9/11 hijackers as
likely members of an al-Qaeda cell operating in the United States
more than a year before the attacks. [New York Times, 8/9/2005]
Members of the unit had recommended that the FBI be called in to take
out the cell, but Pentagon lawyers had blocked their request.
FBI
agent Harry Samit testifies at the trial of Zacarias Moussaoui (see
March 6-May 4, 2006). Samit was one of the main agents involved in
Moussaoui’s arrest and bombarded his superiors with messages about
the danger Moussaoui posed (see August 21, 2001 and August 21, 2001).
Under direct examination he relates what happened in August 2001 (see
August 22, 2001). The prosecutor asks Samit several times what he
would have done if Moussaoui had told the truth, and Samit is usually
allowed by the judge to say how it would have helped the
investigation and made 9/11 less likely. [US District Court for the
Eastern District of Virginia, Alexandria Division, 3/9/2006] However,
under cross examination Samit says he was not fooled by Moussaoui’s
lies and that he immediately suspected him of preparing to hijack an
airplane, but the investigation was thwarted by FBI headquarters, and
the Radical Fundamentalist Unit in particular. He admits that he told
the Justice Department’s Office of Inspector General that FBI
headquarters was guilty of “obstructionism, criminal negligence,
and careerism,” and that its opposition blocked “a serious
opportunity to stop the 9/11 attacks.”
It
was an exclusive story Truthout published May 23 in the wake of Bin
Laden's death, focusing on a little-known intelligence unit ordered
to stop tracking his movements prior to 9/11, that led Iron Man to
contact Truthout to share previously undisclosed documents he
recently obtained under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), which
appear to cast further doubt on the official narrative and suggests
high-level military and intelligence officials withheld key evidence
from Congressional lawmakers probing the attacks.
Just
two weeks before the 9/11 hijackers slammed into the Pentagon and
World Trade Center, members of a Saudi family abruptly left their
luxury home near Sarasota, leaving a brand new car in the driveway, a
refrigerator full of food, fruit on the counter — and an open safe
in the master bedroom. In the weeks to follow, law enforcement
agents not only discovered the home was visited by vehicles used by
the hijackers, but phone calls were linked between the home and those
who carried out the death flights — including leader Mohamed Atta —
in discoveries never before revealed to the public.
Ten
years after the deadliest attack of terrorism on U.S. soil, new
information has emerged that shows the FBI found troubling ties
between the hijackers and residents in the upscale community in
southwest Florida, but the investigation wasn’t reported to
Congress or mentioned in the 9/11 Commission Report.
Graham
would not disclose the content of the documents, which are marked
“Secret,” but said the information they contain is at odds with
the FBI’s public statements that there was no connection between
the hijackers and Saudis then living in Sarasota. “There are
significant inconsistencies between the public statements of the FBI
in September and what I read in the classified documents,” Graham
said. “One document adds to the evidence that the investigation
was not the robust inquiry claimed by the FBI,” Graham said. “An
important investigative lead was not pursued and unsubstantiated
statements were accepted as truth.”
The
U.S. Secret Service failed to do its job on September 11, 2001 in
several important ways. These failures could be explained if the
Secret Service had foreknowledge of the 9/11 events as they were
proceeding. That possibility leads to difficult questions about how
the behavior of Secret Service employees might have contributed to
the success of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Answering those questions
will require the release of existing interview transcripts as well as
follow-up questioning, under oath, of a few key people within the
agency.
"The
plan was simple" Davis said. "Because the Taliban wanted
American equipment for their new phone network, this would allow the
FBI and NSA, the National Security Agency, to build extra circuits
into all the equipment before it was flown out to Afghanistan for
use. Once installed, these extra circuits would allow the FBI and NSA
to record or listen live to every single landline and mobile phone
call in Afghanistan. The FBI would know the time the call was made
and its duration. They would know the caller's name, the number
dialed, and even the caller's PIN."
The
conservative government accountability organization Judicial Watch
recently received an official response letter to a Freedom of
Information Act (FIOA) request the group submitted in September 2002
— nearly 11 years ago. “It is a sad reminder that when it comes
to being accountable, when it comes to following the law, the federal
government doesn’t give a rat’s tail,” Judicial Watch president
Tom Fitton told The Daily Caller. “And this is why we have had to
sue well over a hundred times to get access to government
information.”
The
initial request to the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) and the
National Security Agency, which languished under both the Bush and
Obama administrations, was part of a larger Judicial Watch project
looking into the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.
April 18, 2013: Did the 9/11 hijackers have accomplices?
“My goal is to have the investigation reopened and do a full inquiry into the Saudi aspects and then make the results available to the American people,” Graham said.
Such an inquiry should not be led by the FBI, according to Graham.
“They are the ones who have significantly been responsible for us not knowing 10 years ago what the Saudi role was by withholding information and withholding witnesses,” he said.
May 8, 2013: Air Force Sidelines 17 ICBM Officers:
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Air Force stripped an unprecedented 17 officers of their authority to control — and, if necessary, launch — nuclear missiles after a string of unpublicized failings, including a remarkably dim review of their unit's launch skills. The group's deputy commander said it is suffering "rot" within its ranks.
June 5, 2013: FBI: Knew About Saudi 9/11 Hijacker Ties—But Lied to Protect “National Security”
Mystery of Sarasota Saudis deepens as Justice moves to end FOI lawsuit citing national security
The FBI apparently has known for a decade about links between powerful Saudi interests and the alleged 9/11 hijackers, and has been forced to tacitly admit that it lied about it for all of these years.
In case the import is not clear, let us state emphatically: this is a huge development.
In court filings seeking to stave off a media Freedom of Information request, the FBI has stated that releasing documents relating to this issue will harm “national security.” As proof of the sensitivity of the matter, the FBI gave the judge a document dated April 4, 2002, in which the FBI states that its own inquiries “revealed many connections” between a well-connected Saudi family with a house in South Florida and “individuals associated with the terrorist attacks on 9/11/2001.”
FBI publicly releases a few more pages about Sarasota Saudis (Added: 05.09.2014)
The Justice Department late Friday made public four new, heavily censored documents confirming that by 2002 the FBI had found “many connections” between 9/11 terrorist figures and the Florida family of “an allegedly wealthy international businessman” with ties to the Saudi Royal family.
Government agents 'directly involved' in most high-profile US terror plots (Added: 07.23.2014)
Illusion of Justice (Added: 07.23.2014)
WAKE
UP AMERICA!!!....Its "OUR" country!!!
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"Light" and Energy
_Don
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