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Chapter 5
In the following chapter I will switch to the second and more cutting edge angle of research, namely that the Al-Qaeda plot was merely a smokescreen to shadow who really carried out the attacks and what methods were used.
The Pensacola Naval Air Station is recognized as the premier naval installation in the Department of the Navy. The Complex in Escambia and Santa Rosa counties employs more than 16,000 military and 7,400 civilian personnel. It is also where as many as four of the FBI’s nineteen suspected suicide hijackers participated in the facility’s flight training program for foreign military trainees in the 1990’s.2 Three of these individuals listed their addresses on drivers’ licenses and car registrations as the Naval Air Station in Pensacola, Fla. according to a high-ranking U.S. Navy source.3
Namely, Saeed Alghamdi and Ahmad Alnami, who allegedly were two of the four men that hijacked United Airlines Flight 93 and subsequently crashed in Stony Creek Township, Pennsylvania, and Ahmed Alghamdi, alleged co-hijacker of United Airlines Flight 75, which hit the south tower of the World Trade Center. Military records also confirm that the three used their address as 10 Radford Boulevard, a base roadway on which residences for foreign military flight trainees are located.
A spokesman for Senator Nelson subsequently stated,
The FBI never did provide an answer. The Pensacola-terrorist link has been buried. The story broke in a few mainstream publications in mid-September 2001 but has since vanished. Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee Bob Graham also requested information on the Pensacola tie-in. We must assume that he was also stonewalled or otherwise told to keep the information confidential, due to the fact that, once again, this story has not since appeared in the mainstream media.
The Clinton Administration’s Protection of Terrorists The government terrorism paradigm is by no means divided down party lines. The Clinton administration provided the framework from which Al-Qaeda grew in stature. The September 11 plot could have been crushed in the last years of the 20th century.
As was the case with Iraq, the U.S. Government. The Clinton administration provided the terrorist supporting nation of Syria with spread-spectrum radios, fiber optics and highly advanced computer networks that are invulnerable to wiretap. Syria in turn passed this technology on to numerous terrorist cells around the world, including Al-Qaeda.
According to World Net Daily,
However, this was by no means the only way in which Clinton and his administration proliferated the activities of the international Al-Qaeda network. Clinton security chiefs repeatedly rejected vital intelligence that would have resulted in stifling numerous worldwide terror cells, primarily Osama bin Laden and Al-Qaeda. The government of Sudan offered to both arrest bin Laden or at least closely monitor his activities within the country, and turn over files, some an inch and a half thick, a vast database on bin Laden and more than 200 leading members of his Al-Qaeda network.
They included photographs, and information on their families, backgrounds and contacts. Most were ‘Afghan Arabs’, Saudis, Yemenis and Egyptians who had fought with bin Laden against the Soviets in Afghanistan. These resources would, according to a former Clinton administration official, have entailed that “we probably would have never seen a September 11.”6
Clinton’s Secretary of State Madeleine Albright responded to the offer by giving the order for US missiles to blast the al-Shifa medicine factory, which supplied 60 per cent of Sudan’s medicines, and had contracts to make vaccines with the UN.
5 ‘US equipped terror sponsors’ – Paul Sperry – World Net Daily – September 12 2001 - http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=24466 6 ‘Demagoguing September 11’ – Editorial – Washington Times – May 21 2002 –http://www.washtimes.com/op-ed/20020521-998991.htm
FIG 5.1 [CAPTION: The Clinton administration was instrumental in protecting the Al-Qaeda network. The Monica Lewinsky scandal was released intentionally to distract the American public from this treasonous activity.]
The Saudi Fahd Monarchy didn’t treat bin Laden’s proposed extradition to Saudi Arabia with enthusiasm. Geopolitical hesitation meant that the White House did not press the Saudis on this issue at all. This meant that, following intense pressure from Saudi Arabia and the U.S., Sudan agreed to expel bin Laden and up to 300 of his associates. They were now free to leave for Afghanistan, providing total anonymity and escaping the sophisticated tracking methods that the Sudanese were capable of and had offered.
Subsequent analysis by U.S. intelligence confirms bin Laden had full access to his Sudanese assets from his new position in Afghanistan, directly contradicting a previously held White House assumption that it was valuable in itself to force bin Laden out of Sudan, supposedly tearing him away from his extensive network of business, investments and training camps. This thinking was proven woefully inaccurate. Sudanese intelligence believed this to be a great mistake and indeed it had disastrous consequences, Sudan expelled Mr. bin Laden on May 18, 1996, to Afghanistan.
From there, he is thought to have planned and financed the bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998, the near-destruction of the American destroyer Cole in Yemen last year and the devastation in New York and Washington on Sept. 11.8
7 ‘Clinton Let Bin Laden Slip Away and Metastasize’ – Mansoor Ijaz – L.A. Times – December 5 2001 – available at http://propagandamatrix.com/clinton_let_bin_laden_slip_and_metastasize.html 8 ‘In ‘96, Sudan Offered to Arrest bin Laden’ – Barton Gellman – International Herald Tribune – October 4 2001 –available at http://www.propagandamatrix.com/sudan_offered_to_arrest_bin_laden.html
On the surface, it would seem bitterness and paranoia towards Sudan was responsible for the outright refusal to take up their numerous offers. The US proclaimed the country as being a ‘terrorist state,’ and the subsequent Bush administration has made noises about making Sudan one of the next targets in their crusade. This, despite the fact that in May 2001, a joint CIA/FBI investigative team concluded that Africa’s largest country is in no way a sponsor of international terrorism. Sudan has its own internal problems. Over the past two decades, a civil war pitting black Christians and animists in the south against the Arab-Muslims of the north has cost at least 1.5 million lives in war and famine-related deaths, as well as the displacement of millions of others.
The Sudan-Clinton fiasco is just a drop in the ocean in the context
of how Al-Qaeda could have been stopped at numerous different points in the
build up to
According to one senior CIA source,
9 ‘Clinton Admits: I Nixed Bin Laden Extradition Offer’ – Carl Limbacher – Newsmax – August 11 2002 - http://www.newsmax.com/showinsidecover.shtml?a=2002/8/10/230919 10 ‘Resentful west spurned Sudan’s key terror files’ - David Rose - London Observer - September 30 2001 – available at http://www.observer.co.uk/international/story/0%2C6903%2C560624%2C00.html
Planes as Weapons
Once this is known, those that gave press conferences denying the jetliners as bombs foreknowledge, such as Condoleeza Rice, George Tenet and George Bush, can be exposed as outright liars.
Ari Fleischer, President Bush’s press secretary, again on May 16, stated,
President Bush, in a May 17 speech commented,
All of the above statements are false. There were numerous indications that the method of a kamikaze attack using hijacked airliners was in the works.
The CIA on the very morning of September 11th was also conducting a mock exercise where a plane crashes into its headquarters. This exercise was obviously planned before the terrorist attacks.
11 ‘For years, signs suggested that something was up’ – Bill Gertz – Washington Times – May 17 2002 - http://www.washtimes.com/national/20020517-70217917.htm 12 Press Briefing by Ari Fleischer – May 16 2002 – http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/05/20020516-4.html 13 ‘President Discusses Response to September 11 Attacks - Remarks by the President at Presentation of Commander-In-Chief’s Trophy’ – May 17 2002 - http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/05/20020517-1.html 14 ‘Contingency planning Pentagon MASCAL exercise simulates scenarios in preparing for emergencies’ – The United States Army Military District of Washington – November 3 2000 – available at http://propagandamatrix.com/pentagon_preparing.htm
In what the government describes as a bizarre coincidence, one U.S. intelligence agency was planning an exercise last Sept. 11 in which an errant aircraft would crash into one of its buildings.15 Of course, every smoking gun you’ll read about in these pages is just one in a series of ‘bizarre coincidences’.
The FBI was warned six years ago of a terrorist plot to hijack commercial planes and slam them into the Pentagon, the CIA headquarters and other buildings, Philippine investigators told CNN. Philippine authorities learned of the plot after a small fire in a Manila apartment, which turned out to be the hideout of Ramzi Yousef, who was later convicted for his role in the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center. Yousef escaped at the time, but agents caught his right-hand man, Abdul Hakim Murad, who told them a chilling tale.
Philippine investigators also found evidence targeting commercial towers in San Francisco, Chicago and New York City. They said they passed that information on to the FBI in 1995, but it’s not clear what was done with it.16
FIG 5.2 [CAPTION: The World Trade Center was known to have been a target of suicide hijackers since as far back as 1995.]
Italian officials took the reports seriously enough to prompt extraordinary precautions during the July summit of the Group of 8 nations, including closing the airspace over Genoa and stationing antiaircraft guns at the city’s airport…the reports suggest that Western governments were aware that terrorists might one day use a hijacked airplane as a suicide weapon—as they did Sept. 11 in attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.17
15 ‘Agency planned exercise on Sept. 11 built around a plane crashing into a building’ – John J. Lumpkin – Associated Press – August 21 – available at http://www.propagandamatrix.com/agency_planned_exercise_on_sept_11_built_around_a_plane_crashing_into_a_building.htm 16 ‘U.S. warned in 1995 of plot to hijack planes, attack buildings’ – Maria Ressa – CNN – September 18 2001 - http://www.cnn.com/2001/US/09/18/inv.hijacking.philippines/ 17 ‘Italy Tells of Threat at Genoa Summit’ – L.A. Times – September 27 2001 – available at http://propagandamatrix.com/Italy_Tells_of_Threat_at_Genoa_Summit.htm
Air defenses were also established.18 The worldwide Echelon spy network also gave British and German intelligence clear information that terrorists were going to hijack commercial planes and use them to attack symbols of American and Israeli culture, U.S. and Israeli intelligence agencies received warning signals at least three months ago that Middle Eastern terrorists were planning to hijack commercial aircraft to use as weapons to attack important symbols of American and Israeli culture, according to a story in Germany’s daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ).
The FAZ, quoting unnamed German intelligence sources, said that the Echelon spy network was being used to collect information about the terrorist threats, and that U.K. intelligence services apparently also had advance warning. The FAZ, one of Germany’s most respected dailies, said that even as far back as six months ago western and near-east press services were receiving information that such attacks were being planned…The FAZ, in its news story, described the system as covering the whole world with 120 satellites.
The newspaper also said Israeli intelligence had collected information indicated that Arab terrorist groups planned to hijack planes in Europe to use as weapons to attack targets in Tel Aviv and other coastal cities in Israel.19 The National Intelligence Council, which advises the president and U.S. intelligence on emerging threats, issued a September 1999 report that again emphasized Al-Qaeda were planning to hijack planes and ram them into government and commercial buildings,
18 ‘Extremists planned Genoa attack on Bush’ – BBC – September 27 2001 - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/1566982.stm 19 ‘Echelon Gave Authorities Warning Of Attacks’ – Ned Stafford – Biz Report – September 13 2001 – available at http://propagandamatrix.com/echelon_gave_authorities_warning_of_attacks.html 20 ‘Report Warned Of Suicide Hijackings’ – CBS News – May 17 2002 - http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/05/18/attack/main509488.shtml
Now we know government officials were briefed on an imminent terrorist attacks using planes as bombs, it becomes clear why Attorney General John Ashcroft, who’s pre-9/11 budget requests didn’t include any money for anti-terrorism, was avoiding commercial airlines, In response to inquiries from CBS News over why Ashcroft was traveling exclusively by leased jet aircraft instead of commercial airlines, the Justice Department cited what it called a “threat assessment” by the FBI, and said Ashcroft has been advised to travel only by private jet for the remainder of his term.
Neither the FBI nor the Justice Department, however, would identify what the threat was, when it was detected or who made it.21 In April 2000, a man walked into the FBI field office in Newark and told agents face to face of the plan to hijack airliners,
British Intelligence, MI6, warned the CIA in 1999 and then again a month before the attack that Al-Qaeda were about to hijack planes and use them as bombs, MI6 warned the American intelligence services about a plot to hijack aircraft and crash them into buildings two years before the September 11 attacks.
Liaison staff at the American embassy in Grosvenor Square in London were passed a secret report by MI6 in 1999 after the intelligence service picked up indications from human intelligence sources (Humint) that Osama Bin Laden’s followers were planning attacks in which civilian aircraft could be used in “unconventional ways”.23 This was just one of several reports that British Prime Minister Tony Blair was briefed on by GCHQ, MI5 and MI6, including a July 16 memo which outlined the fact that Osama bin Laden was in the final planning stages of an attack on America. Since the CIA work jointly with British intelligence, the Americans were well aware of these reports.
21 ‘Ashcroft Flying High’ – CBS News – July 26 2001 -
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2001/07/26/national/main303601.shtml
An Al-Qaeda cell in Madrid, Spain was also taped by authorities discussing an airborne attack plot. At the same time, Jordan and Morocco passed on information to the US concerning a plot named ‘Great Wedding.’
As far back as eight years ago, reputable individuals were warning the American government that highly symbolic U.S. targets were under threat of being attacked by suicide hijackers using jetliners, Military adviser Dr Marvin Cetron says he prepared a 250-page report for the US intelligence agencies in 1993 which detailed his concerns - but it was ignored.
25 ‘Washington was warned of hijack risk’ – London Telegraph – September 13 2001 – available at http://www.propagandamatrix.com/washington_was_warned_of_hijack_risk.htm
The Pentagon was furious with Cetron for merely highlighting public reports of previous planes-as-bombs incidents. They immediately ordered him to delete warnings specific to these incidents from the report.
Four young Algerians, members of a subgroup called Phalange of the Signers in Blood, commandeered the plane at the airport and ordered it to fly to Marseille, from which they said they wanted to fly to Paris. But they demanded that it be loaded with 27 tons of fuel — about three times as much as required for the flight to Paris. The plane was an Airbus A300, which is nearly as large as the Boeing 767’s that struck the World Trade Center.
The French authorities determined from hostages who had been released and from other sources that the group planned to explode the plane over Paris or crash it into the Eiffel Tower… Eight months earlier, in April 1994, a flight engineer at Federal Express who was facing a disciplinary hearing that could have ended his career, boarded a DC-10 as a passenger and stormed into the cockpit with a hammer, hitting each of the three members of the cockpit crew in the head and severely injuring all of them. They wrestled him to the deck and regained control of the plane. Prosecutors said only that the man wanted to crash the plane, but company employees have said he was trying to hit the building in Memphis where the company sorts packages.
In between those two incidents, in September 1994, a lone pilot crashed a stolen single-engine Cessna into a tree on the White House grounds just short of the president’s bedroom.26
Congressional investigator Eleanor Hill headed a September 11 enquiry and published a 30-page report. Despite media commentators and even Hill herself labeling advance warning of a potential plot to fly planes into certain buildings as ‘vague’ – the report stated,
26 ‘Earlier Hijackings Offered Signals That Were Missed’ – Matthew
L. Wald – New York Times – October 3 2001 –available at
http://www.propagandamatrix.com/earlier_hijackings_offered_signals_that_were_missed.html
Arabs - plane - fly - into - World Trade Center. Oh yes - very vague. The same report claimed that there were twelve indications that an attack was imminent from March 2001. Twelve? I list nearly a hundred in this chapter alone, and they’re all documented. The document also highlighted the fact that intelligence agencies received at least a dozen reports of plans to use aircraft as weapons since 1994.
If they lied about this, what else did they lie about?
According to MSNBC,
An individual at a flight school makes it clear that he is only
interested in flying a large passenger jet over New York City air
space at cruising altitude, and has no concern about taking off or
landing. French intelligence repeatedly warns that this individual
is a member of Al-Qaeda. This alone you would suspect would mandate
a cursory search of the individual’s computer hard drive. Not
according to the Justice Department. The case of Zacarias Moussaoui
highlights another disturbing example of how key intelligence that
would have prevented September 11th was purposefully withheld from
well-intentioned FBI agents. It is now clear that Moussaoui was supposed to have been the fifth hijacker on board flight 93 that crashed in southwest Pennsylvania. He was absent from that role due to being placed in detention on minor immigration charges on August 17, 2001, and cheered from his Sherburne County jail cell as the attack unfolded on that fateful day.
The FBI officials in turn promptly warned the Federal Aviation Administration, who took no action and saw no reason to check scores of other flight schools where Middle Eastern men were seeking flight training. Local FBI agents were not so incompetent. They seized Moussaoui’s computer in mid-August. As Moussaoui, now under arrest and scrutiny, told FBI and INS agents that he “always wanted to fly a big plane,”30 Minnesota FBI officials begged the Justice Department in Washington for approval to open up the hard drive of his computer under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
28 ‘Access Denied’ - Michael Isikoff and Daniel Klaidman – Newsweek – October 1 2001 - http://www.msnbc.com/news/636610.asp?cp1=1 29 ‘Flight School Warned F.B.I. of Suspicions’ – Philip Shenon – New York Times – December 22 2001 - http://www.nytimes.com/2001/12/22/national/22PILO.html 30 ‘Moussaoui Probe Pushed U.S. Limits’ – Dan Eggen – Washington Post – January 31 2002 - http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A64701-2002Jan30¬Found=true
A French intelligence report clearly implicated Moussaoui with an Algerian terrorist group and a trip to Afghanistan (where he is believed to have attended one of bin Laden’s training camps). The French warned the US about his Al-Qaeda links on two occasions, September 1st and September 5th. According to an account of that meeting in Le Monde, U.S. participants said Moussaoui’s case was in the hands of the immigration authorities and was not a matter for the FBI.
The French also warned British MI5 intelligence about Moussasoui, highlighting the fact that the Abu Qatada meetings were also attended by Djamel Beghal, a 36-year-old Algerian who moved to London from France in 1997 and was arrested in Dubai in July 2001 for allegedly being part of a plot to blow up the American embassy in Paris. French requests to MI5 for Moussasoui to be placed under surveillance were completely ignored.
31 ‘FBI imposes new restrictions on crop-dusters’ – CNN – September 23 2001 - http://www.cnn.com/2001/US/09/23/inv.crop.dusters/
A secret FBI document, 199I WF213589, released from the Washington field office, was leaked by disgruntled FBI agents. It details how the FBI were ordered to discontinue investigation into members of the bin Laden family and WAMY (World Association of Muslim Youth) even though both networks had direct links to terrorism. Just weeks after the September 11 attacks, Pakistan and India expelled WAMY operatives with India stating that the Saudi-based WAMY was funding the militant Students Islamic Movement of India, which has provided support to Pakistani-backed terrorists linked to bombings in Kashmir.
The Philippines military has also accused WAMY of funding Muslim insurgency. It also emerged in a January 2002 BBC News-night feature that WAMY spoke glowingly of bin Laden in their own educational pamphlets and advocated his ideals. When confronted with this documentation, a WAMY representative became noticeably apprehensive and provided a poor defense of his organization’s link with terrorist cells such as Al-Qaeda. This was after Nouredine Miladi, the head of WAMY’s London office protested his organization’s innocence by stating, “we seek social change through education and cooperation.”32
It appears as if that education was fundamentalist in nature and the only cooperation was between WAMY and known terror outfits.
FIG 5.3 [CAPTION: The FBI was ordered to “back off” investigation of members of the bin Laden family and WAMY who they were linked with. WAMY was known to be funding terrorist cells as far back as the early 1990’s. This policy was enforced even more strictly after current President George W. Bush took office.]
Saudi Arabia, the supposed ‘sworn enemy’ of Osama bin Laden, handed
£200
million to bin Laden in ‘protection money,’ in exchange for a
promise that bin
Laden would not attack Saudi targets. The nerve center of the
Al-Qaeda network
and its financial resources are based in Saudi Arabia and Pakistan,
two staunch
Fifteen of the nineteen alleged hijackers were Saudis. The CIA’s cozy relationship with Saudi Arabia ensured that the FBI’s attempted arrest of a Saudi Al-Qaeda cell in 1998 was prevented.
The group, led by two known terrorists, was issued with alias passports, allowing them to escape, by the Saudi royals, again the supposed ‘sworn enemy’ of Osama bin Laden. This was reported by Robert Baer, a former case officer in the CIA’s directorate of operations. He also learned of a “spectacular terrorist operation” that was being planned and would take place shortly. Baer passed the information on to the CIA who, in line with not wanting to upset the Saudis, did nothing. Baer’s January 2002 book, See No Evil, which further documents the CIA’s lenience on Saudi-backed terrorists, contains heavily blacked out portions by order of, you guessed it, the CIA.
Of course, the policy of holding intelligence agents back from going after Al-Qaeda was merely to keep the compartmentalized well-intentioned investigators in line. The inner circle of the FBI and CIA who were about to sit back and watch the attacks take place, were well aware of every development of the plot. They weren’t about to let anyone get in the way of it. Keep your friends close, keep your ‘enemies’ even closer.
34 ‘Missed Chance’ – Brian Duffy - U.S. News Magazine – June 10 2002 – available at http://www.propagandamatrix.com/missed_chance.htm
The Justice Department and the FBI were not interested in pursuing the opportunity because they deemed it illegal. Excuse me, but since when was the world of intelligence known for its honorable policy of playing by the book? The FBI and Justice Department didn’t approve the operation because they had been told to protect Al-Qaeda or lose their careers and perhaps more.
Wildes states,
One such agent, Robert Wright, grew indignant at this travesty and has filed a judicial complaint with the Justice Department’s Office of Inspector General and Office of Professional Responsibility. The agent is represented by David Schippers, a pivotal player in the Clinton impeachment proceedings, being investigative counsel for the House Judiciary Committee. Schippers was responsible for all investigations under the impeachment inquiry.
In a May 30 National Press Club conference, Robert Wright tearfully apologized to the relatives of the victims of 9/11 after he detailed the numerous instances where he had been impeded by his superiors from conducting terrorism investigations. However, these revelations only scratch the surface of what Wright has included in his unpublished book. He is under an FBI gag order which could see his imprisonment if he reveals highly sensitive information. Wright only went public in the first place to avoid being bumped off.
Compare his treatment to that of Colleen Rowley, general counsel in the FBI Minneapolis office, who was afforded free speech and whistle-blower protection. Rowley released a watered down report full of ‘intelligence failures’ and to be sure she was purposefully brought out to act as a shill when the prior knowledge issue broke in the mainstream media in May 2002. For the first few days after the story broke, the government was in deep trouble, scrabbling around for excuses.
35 Ibid 36 ‘ACTIVE FBI SPECIAL AGENT FILES COMPLAINT CONCERNING OBSTRUCTED FBI ANTI-TERRORIST INVESTIGATIONS’ – Judicial Watch – November 14 2001 - http://www.judicialwatch.org/1075.shtml
At that point they hyped up Rowley and her information acted as a steam valve – the government were able to manage the story and it dissipated soon thereafter. Judicial Watch Chairman Larry Klayman described Rowley’s evidence as, “a cover your derriere, PR maneuver.”37 Wright told of terrorist training camps in Chicago and Kansas with links to the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing that he was on the verge of closing down in 1998.
The FBI higher-ups took him off the case. He discussed money laundering operations with links to Hamas (Likud) and Al-Qaeda that he was on the verge of cracking before again being taken off the case, The motive for this conduct his simple and quite disturbing,” Wright charged. He said that by preventing the criminal prosecution of the subjects of their intelligence gathering “these intelligence agents avoided the new and additional work that would be required...” He said once these agents had a case going, “they would ‘milk it’ for years, not taking on any additional work.”
In addition, the former head of the American visa bureau in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, Michael Springman, was consistently ordered by high level State Department officials to issue visas to unqualified applicants. These ‘unqualified applicants’ were terrorists operating on behalf of Osama bin Laden. Despite bitter complaints to the General Accounting Office, the Inspector General’s office and the Bureau of Diplomatic Security, in the same vein as Sen. Bob Graham, he was stonewalled.
37 ‘Whistleblower Complains of FBI Obstruction’ – Ian Christopher
McCaleb – Fox News – May 30 2002 -http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,54070,00.html
Agency officials didn’t tell the INS, which could have turned them away at the border, nor did they notify the FBI, which could have covertly tracked them to find out their mission.40
So the CIA identify two known terrorists, issue them with visas, allow them to leave the country to attend a terrorist meeting, and allow them back into the country without apprehension. Lower level FBI agents were astounded at this negligent policy. They charged that if the CIA had passed the information on, they would have been able to crack the entire nineteen-man hijack plot that unfolded on 9/11. Again - the mainstream media report all this and the government admits to it. Yet the spin is always ‘we screwed up’ ‘it was an intelligence failure’ – if this is the case then why has not one senior CIA or FBI official been fired as a result?
The irate agent chillingly retorted,
Furthermore, in another deplorable development, it emerged that after the Al-Qaeda summit in Malaysia, which the CIA viewed on videotape, al-Mihdhar and al-Hazmi moved in with an FBI informant who helped them open bank accounts, enabling them to subsequently enroll in flight school training in preparation for the 9/11 plot.
40 ‘The Hijackers We Let Escape’ - Michael Isikoff and Daniel Klaidman – Newsweek – June 4 2002 – available at http://www.propagandamatrix.com/The_Hijackers_We_Let_Escape.htm 41 ‘The ignored warning’ – Sunday Times of London – September 22 2002 – available at http://www.propagandamatrix.com/the_ignored_warning.htm
Upon leaving Malaysia, Almihdhar and Alhazmi went to San Diego, where they took flight-school lessons. In September 2000, the two moved into the home of a Muslim man who had befriended them at the local Islamic Center. The landlord regularly prayed with them and even helped one open a bank account. He was also, sources tell NEWSWEEK, a “tested” undercover “asset” who had been working closely with the FBI office in San Diego on terrorism cases related to Hamas.42
The FBI office in San Diego knew that the terrorists were living with the informant. The case agent called the informant on several occasions and was always forewarned when the two were in the room and able to hear the conversation. The terrorist’s Saudi nationality, in alliance with President Bush’s “back off” directive, ensured al-Mihdhar and al-Hazmi were left alone. This was a full year before 9/11 and is yet another smoking gun to confirm the plot could have been unraveled if not for criminal protection of terrorists by the upper echelons of the CIA and FBI.
So we know the FBI were closely monitoring Hanjour for at least five years before 9/11.
What is more, they also knew that Hanjour was conducting test flights in the vicinity of the World Trade Center and the Pentagon in the months leading up to the attack, Law enforcement officials tell (CBS reporter) Stewart they have now confirmed that Hanjour rented small aircrafts in the Maryland and New York areas three weeks before the attacks. They say he made practice flights using those aircrafts in the vicinity of both the Pentagon and the World Trade Center towers. The purpose of the flights, officials surmise, was to study landmarks and examine possible approach routes to the targets.44
42 ‘The Informant Who Lived With The Hijackers’ – Michael Isikoff - Newsweek – September 16 2002 – available at http://www.propagandamatrix.com/the_informant_who_lived_with_the_hijackers.htm 43 ‘FBI Was Warned of Sept. 11 Hijacker’ – John McWethy - ABC News – May 23 2002 – available at http://www.propagandamatrix.com/FBI_Warned_of_Sept_11_Hijacker.htm 44 ‘Sept. 11 Hijacker Made Test Flights’ – Jim Stewart – CBS News – October 9 2002 – available at http://www.propagandamatrix.com/sept_11_hijacker_made_test_flights.htm
Let us recap. We have an Arab enrolled at a flight school who the FBI see as dangerous enough to justify monitoring him for five years. They know where he lives, his phone number and even what car he drives. The FBI thinks he could possibly be a member of Al-Qaeda. This same suspected terrorist then charters a plane and goes snooping in and around the WTC and Pentagon. A three-year old could connect these dots, even independently of the voluminous other evidence confirming the WTC and Pentagon as targets.
Their behavior suggested to Woods that the men were planning something. Woods informed the flight attendant who eventually informed the FAA. The FAA, who were warned from numerous different sources that a plot involving hijacking was likely to occur in 2001, did nothing with the information. They refused to pass it on to any law enforcement or intelligence agency.
The FBI only investigated the incident after September 11.
Note that the remark does not just broadly state that the towers will be attacked, but specifically that they will disappear. This came in the middle of a heated class debate at the New Utrecht High School. The boy remains unnamed, the only details being that he was a 15-year-old Palestinian. It later emerged that the same boy made a further prediction after September 11. He predicted that a plane would crash in New York on November 12. That very day, American Airlines flight 587 crashed in Queens after both its engines ‘fell off’ its wings in an ‘accident’.
The FBI was told of the boy’s warning before the ‘accident’ but didn’t follow up on it.
Jeffrey Scott Shapiro, the journalist who broke the story before MSNBC got hold of it, was able to confirm that the FBI were investigating two other strikingly similar predictions of catastrophe on 9/11, On Sept. 10, 2001, a sixth-grade student of Middle Eastern descent in Jersey City, N.J., said something that alarmed his teacher at Martin Luther King Jr. Elementary School.
Initially, the Jersey City rumor was met with some controversy. The New York Times called it an unsubstantiated rumor, and both the Daily News and the Jersey Journal quoted a board of education official who denied that the boy had made any reference to the Sept. 11 attacks at all. Despite their reports, Martinez said the FBI-JTTF took over the matter for further investigation.
On Sept. 11, NYPD school-safety officers interrogated a Middle Eastern boy at Health Opportunities High School in the Bronx who had made similar comments that alarmed his teacher. Catie Marshall said the boy told his peers something as the school was being evacuated on Sept. 11. “He warned them not to ride any city buses because he had been told at his mosque the week before to stay off all public transportation for a while,” said one NYPD officer from the investigating 40th Precinct. “He said it wouldn’t be safe.” The FBI-JTTF since has taken over the matter.46
46 ‘Prior Knowledge of Sept. 11 Not Just Urban Legend’ - Jeffrey Scott Shapiro – Insight Magazine – September 10 2002 - available at http://www.propagandamatrix.com/prior_knowledge_of_sept_11_not_just_urban_legend.htm
Shapiro learned that many other students attending the New Utrecht school had approached teachers with their own stories of prior knowledge and large numbers had conveniently decided to bring their cameras to school on September 11. Shapiro tried in vain to have his story covered in the mass media. The New York Times and many others refused to touch it and Shapiro’s last word on the matter was that the FBI had shut down the case.
The plot was even the subject of everyday street gossip in Cairo Egypt in August 2001. Everybody knew. Are we to believe the most sophisticated intelligence agencies in the world didn’t? New York police officers investigating these ‘rumors,’ including evidence that a large number of Arabs working in the WTC didn’t show up for work that day, stated that leads of prior knowledge were so ‘overwhelming’ that they didn’t know where to start.
Osama bin Laden himself publicly stated that all his associates should return to Afghanistan by September 10.
FIG 5.4 [CAPTION: There are countless examples of posters, advertisements, album covers and television shows which depicted an attack on the World Trade Center before September 11 2001. This CD cover circulated in July 2001.]
Marwan Al Shehhi, who piloted the second plane into the World Trade Center, could not contain himself about his role in the plot, bragging to anyone that would listen of his upcoming ‘martyrdom’ while living in Hamburg, Germany. This came to light during the trial of Mounir El Motassadeq, an alleged Al-Qaeda conspirator. Al Shehhi told a librarian that thousands would die in an attack on the World Trade Center. This didn’t seem to concern the CIA at the time.
A 29-year-old Iranian deportee phoned US police and the White House from his German cell to warn of an imminent attack on the World Trade Center. The Lower Saxony Justice Ministry has confirmed the man warned of the impending series of terrorist attacks, but had not been believed. They refused to confirm exactly when the calls were made, but it was before September 11th. The man warned of imminent attacks on the World Trade Center that would “change the world order” – the White House hung up.
The U.S. Justice Department, from March 2001 onwards, made a series of arrests of Israelis. It later transpired that these were Mossad agents and had prior knowledge of the September 11th attacks. Many of these spies were suspected of being tasked with the logistics of preparing the September 11 attacks.
47 ‘Warning signs’ – Chris Hansen – Dateline NBC – September 23 2001 – available at http://www.propagandamatrix.com/warning_signs.htm
48 ‘Israeli
security issued urgent warning to CIA of large-scale terror attacks’
- David Wastell – London Telegraph –
If the Justice Department arrested spies with prior knowledge of 9/11 in March 2001, then the Justice Department also had prior knowledge of 9/11 in March 2001.
Diamandis said the sender of the instant message was not personally known to the Odigo employees. Even though the company usually protects the privacy of users, the employees recorded the Internet protocol address of the message’s sender to facilitate his or her identification. Soon after the terrorist attacks on New York, the Odigo employees notified their management, who contacted Israeli security services. In turn, the FBI was informed of the instant message warning. FBI officials were not immediately available for comment today.49
49 ‘Instant Messages To Israel Warned Of WTC Attack’ - Brian McWilliams – Washington Post – September 27 2001 –available at http://www.propagandamatrix.com/instant_messages_to_israel_warned_of_attack
Leaders of the Jewish community in Argentina were also warned that a massive attack on America was about to take place from what they described as a reliable intelligence source. The |
