Visas for Al Qaeda: CIA Handouts That Rocked The World
J. Michael Springmann
Thousands of American soldiers and civil servants have lost their lives in the War on Terror. Innocent citizens of many nations, including Americans killed on 9/11, have also paid the ultimate price. While the US government claims to stand against terror, this same government refuses to acknowledge its role in creating what has become a deadly international quagmire. Visas for al-Qaeda: CIA Handouts That Rocked the World sets the record straight by laying the blame on high-ranking US government officials.
During the 1980s, the CIA recruited and trained Muslim operatives to fight the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Later, the CIA would move those operatives from Afghanistan to the Balkans, and then to Iraq, Libya, and Syria, traveling on illegal US visas. These US-backed and trained fighters would morph into an organization that is synonymous with jihadist terrorism: al-Qaeda.
J. Michael Springmann, a former US diplomat, names individuals and organizations that deny culpability. He analyzes the effects of a nebulous war on the US economy and infrastructure. After thirteen bloody years, Springmann exposes hypocrisy and deceit wrapped in a sullied flag of patriotism and honor.
As investigative journalist Wayne Madsen notes,… Continue reading
Airport Security Ignored pre-911 Warnings on Hijackers
Originally posted at The NY Post by Paul Sperry on 10/5/14
At least three eyewitnesses spotted al Qaeda hijackers casing the
security checkpoints at Boston’s Logan Airport months before the 9/11
attacks. They saw something and said something — but were ignored, newly
unveiled court papers reveal.
One of the witnesses, an American Airlines official, actually confronted hijacking ringleader Mohamed Atta after watching him videotape and test a security checkpoint in May 2001 — four months before he boarded the American Airlines flight that crashed into the World Trade Center.
The witness alerted security, but authorities never questioned the belligerent Egyptian national or flagged him as a threat.
“I’m convinced that had action been taken after the sighting of Atta, the 9/11 attacks, at least at Logan, could have been deterred,” said Brian Sullivan, a former FAA special agent who at the time warned of holes in security at the airport.
The three Boston witnesses were never publicly revealed, even though they were interviewed by the FBI and found to be credible. Their names didn’t even appear as footnotes in the 9/11 commission report.
But what they testified to seeing — only revealed now as part of the discovery in a settled 9/11 wrongful-death suit against the airlines and the government — can only be described as… Continue reading
Mohamed
Atta, right, and Abdulaziz Alomari, center, pass through airport
security at the Portland jetport to catch a commuter flight to Boston on
the day of the Sept. 11 attacks.
Portland Police photo/AP
Portland Police photo/AP
One of the witnesses, an American Airlines official, actually confronted hijacking ringleader Mohamed Atta after watching him videotape and test a security checkpoint in May 2001 — four months before he boarded the American Airlines flight that crashed into the World Trade Center.
The witness alerted security, but authorities never questioned the belligerent Egyptian national or flagged him as a threat.
“I’m convinced that had action been taken after the sighting of Atta, the 9/11 attacks, at least at Logan, could have been deterred,” said Brian Sullivan, a former FAA special agent who at the time warned of holes in security at the airport.
The three Boston witnesses were never publicly revealed, even though they were interviewed by the FBI and found to be credible. Their names didn’t even appear as footnotes in the 9/11 commission report.
But what they testified to seeing — only revealed now as part of the discovery in a settled 9/11 wrongful-death suit against the airlines and the government — can only be described as… Continue reading
CIA Director George Tenet Facilitated 9/11
Originally published at Dig Within by Kevin Ryan on 7/27/14
After becoming Director of the CIA (DCI) in 1997, George Tenet did what Louis Freeh had done after his appointment as FBI Director. He began to cultivate close personal relationships with the rulers of Saudi Arabia. Like Freeh, Tenet grew especially close to Prince Bandar, the Saudi ambassador to the United States. Bandar and Tenet often met at Bandar’s home near Washington yet Tenet did not share information from those meetings with his own officers who were handling Saudi issues at the Agency. The CIA’s Saudi specialists only learned about Tenet’s dealings with the Saudi authorities inadvertently, through their Saudi contacts. It seems that Tenet was operating within a network that surpassed the interests of the American public. Therefore the unsolved crimes of 9/11, attributed largely to young men from Saudi Arabia, should be considered in light of Tenet’s actions.
As Deputy Director for the CIA, in 1996, Tenet had worked to install one of his closest friends and confidants, John Brennan, as CIA station chief in Saudi Arabia. Brennan is now the DCI but, in his previous role, Brennan often communicated directly with Tenet, avoiding the usual chain of command. At the time, as an apparent favor to the Saudis, CIA analysts were discouraged from questioning Saudi relationship to Arab extremists.
The unusual relationship that both George Tenet and Louis Freeh had with Saudi intelligence (and George H.W. Bush) recalls the private network that was created in the mid-1970s to accomplish covert… Continue reading
After becoming Director of the CIA (DCI) in 1997, George Tenet did what Louis Freeh had done after his appointment as FBI Director. He began to cultivate close personal relationships with the rulers of Saudi Arabia. Like Freeh, Tenet grew especially close to Prince Bandar, the Saudi ambassador to the United States. Bandar and Tenet often met at Bandar’s home near Washington yet Tenet did not share information from those meetings with his own officers who were handling Saudi issues at the Agency. The CIA’s Saudi specialists only learned about Tenet’s dealings with the Saudi authorities inadvertently, through their Saudi contacts. It seems that Tenet was operating within a network that surpassed the interests of the American public. Therefore the unsolved crimes of 9/11, attributed largely to young men from Saudi Arabia, should be considered in light of Tenet’s actions.
As Deputy Director for the CIA, in 1996, Tenet had worked to install one of his closest friends and confidants, John Brennan, as CIA station chief in Saudi Arabia. Brennan is now the DCI but, in his previous role, Brennan often communicated directly with Tenet, avoiding the usual chain of command. At the time, as an apparent favor to the Saudis, CIA analysts were discouraged from questioning Saudi relationship to Arab extremists.
The unusual relationship that both George Tenet and Louis Freeh had with Saudi intelligence (and George H.W. Bush) recalls the private network that was created in the mid-1970s to accomplish covert… Continue reading
Still silent about Atta and Alomari in Portland Maine
Originally posted at Portland Press Herald on 3/31/14 by Tom Bell
But there’s one problem with the project: There’s hardly anyone in Portland to interview.
With the exception of one retired ticket agent who lives in Scarborough, nobody else will come forward to talk about any encounters with the terrorists, said Erik Nelson, president of Creative Differences, a Los Angeles production company that is producing the film for National Geographic.
“We have one guy,” he said. “But where is everybody else? It’s like they dropped off the face of the Earth.”
The Portland footage will be part of a two-hour documentary focusing on the 24 hours prior to the moment the first plane crashed into the North Tower at the World Trade Center in New York City. It will air in September.… Continue reading
At least 10 people in the Portland area encountered Mohamed Atta and his partner the night before the attacks, but only one is willing to be interviewed.
A producer for the National Geographic Channel is coming to Portland this week hoping to interview people who encountered Mohamed Atta and Abdulaziz Alomari, the al-Qaida terrorists who spent about 12 hours in Portland before joining the terrorist attack on Sept. 11, 2001.
Producer
Robert Erickson, right, who will travel to Portland on Wednesday to do
interviews for a documentary on the 24 hours before the Sept. 11
attacks, talks with Terry McDermott, author of “Perfect Soldiers: The
9/11 Hijackers: Who They Were, Why They Did It.” Photo by Wes Dorman
With the exception of one retired ticket agent who lives in Scarborough, nobody else will come forward to talk about any encounters with the terrorists, said Erik Nelson, president of Creative Differences, a Los Angeles production company that is producing the film for National Geographic.
“We have one guy,” he said. “But where is everybody else? It’s like they dropped off the face of the Earth.”
The Portland footage will be part of a two-hour documentary focusing on the 24 hours prior to the moment the first plane crashed into the North Tower at the World Trade Center in New York City. It will air in September.… Continue reading
FBI found ‘many connections’ between Sarasota family and 9/11
Many
of the documents are thought to contain information about a Prestancia
home where federal agents have linked phone calls to known 9/11
suspects, the Bulldog has reported. The calls were made to, or received
from, alleged terrorist ringleader Mohammed Atta and 11 other terrorist
suspects, the Bulldog has reported.
When the FBI investigated a Saudi Arabian family that abruptly left Sarasota weeks before the 9/11 terror attacks, it found “many connections between the (redacted) family and individuals associated with the terrorist attacks on 9/11/01.”
The description, included in documents released Friday as part of a federal lawsuit against the agency, comes as the FBI is working to comply with a federal judge’s order to produce 27 boxes of materials.
To date, the agency said it has moved the boxes to the U.S. Attorney’s office in South Florida, and spent many hours trying to delineate for U.S. District Court Judge William Zloch which documents are top secret by inserting 822 page markers into the boxes.
The agency also explained an earlier discrepancy that resulted in four additional boxes of documents. David M. Hardy, the FBI’s section chief in charge of records management, said the agency used a smaller box size to comply with the order. That and the marker pages resulted in more boxes overall.
“An 80,266 page file was received from Tampa, and the 80,266 page file was produced,” Hardy wrote.
The FBI also shipped a CD… Continue reading
Saudis, Sarasota and the FBI
Originally published at the Herald-Tribune on April 8, 2014
Instead of following the law and producing documents that could show whether or not Saudis living in Sarasota provided aid and assistance to the 9/11 terrorists, the FBI, a federal judge recently found:
• Provided records with “apparent” and unexplained chronological “gaps.”
• Presented to the court “located documents” that “seem incomplete.”
• Submitted “summary documents” that “do in fact seem to contradict each other.”
The FBI’s handling of requests for documents related to the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, which had links to locations and venues in Sarasota County, is unacceptable.
We and anyone interested in knowing more of the truth about 9/11 are grateful that U.S. District Court Judge William Zloch has steadily sought to require the FBI to adequately search for, find and release to the court documents requested under the Freedom of Information Act.
In contrast, it’s troubling that the nation’s top law-enforcement agency would not only be intransigent but would submit documents with gaps and contradictions to a federal court. The fact that the documents sought are relevant to one of the United States’ greatest domestic tragedies compounds the concerns.
In September 2011, two independent reporters writing for BrowardBulldog.org reported that a family from Saudi Arabia, who lived in Sarasota County’s prestigious Prestancia development prior to September 2001, had connections with individuals associated with terrorism.
The report, reprinted three years ago by the Herald-Tribune, cited documents showing phone calls to the… Continue reading
Instead of following the law and producing documents that could show whether or not Saudis living in Sarasota provided aid and assistance to the 9/11 terrorists, the FBI, a federal judge recently found:
• Provided records with “apparent” and unexplained chronological “gaps.”
• Presented to the court “located documents” that “seem incomplete.”
• Submitted “summary documents” that “do in fact seem to contradict each other.”
The FBI’s handling of requests for documents related to the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, which had links to locations and venues in Sarasota County, is unacceptable.
We and anyone interested in knowing more of the truth about 9/11 are grateful that U.S. District Court Judge William Zloch has steadily sought to require the FBI to adequately search for, find and release to the court documents requested under the Freedom of Information Act.
In contrast, it’s troubling that the nation’s top law-enforcement agency would not only be intransigent but would submit documents with gaps and contradictions to a federal court. The fact that the documents sought are relevant to one of the United States’ greatest domestic tragedies compounds the concerns.
Saudis in Sarasota
The background:In September 2011, two independent reporters writing for BrowardBulldog.org reported that a family from Saudi Arabia, who lived in Sarasota County’s prestigious Prestancia development prior to September 2001, had connections with individuals associated with terrorism.
The report, reprinted three years ago by the Herald-Tribune, cited documents showing phone calls to the… Continue reading
Inside the Saudi 9/11 coverup
Originally published at the NYPost by Paul Sperry on 12/15/13
After the 9/11 attacks, the public was told al Qaeda acted alone, with no state sponsors.
But the White House never let it see an entire section of Congress’ investigative report on 9/11 dealing with “specific sources of foreign support” for the 19 hijackers, 15 of whom were Saudi nationals.
It was kept secret and remains so today.
President Bush inexplicably censored 28 full pages of the 800-page report. Text isn’t just blacked-out here and there in this critical-yet-missing middle section. The pages are completely blank, except for dotted lines where an estimated 7,200 words once stood (this story by comparison is about 1,000 words).
A pair of lawmakers who recently read the redacted portion say they are “absolutely shocked” at the level of foreign state involvement in the attacks.
Reps. Walter Jones (R-NC) and Stephen Lynch (D-Mass.) can’t reveal the nation identified by it without violating federal law. So they’ve proposed Congress pass a resolution asking President Obama to declassify the entire 2002 report, “Joint Inquiry Into Intelligence Community Activities Before and After the Terrorist Attacks of September 11, 2001.”
Some information already has leaked from the classified section, which is based on both CIA and FBI documents, and it points back to Saudi Arabia, a presumed ally.
The Saudis deny any role in 9/11, but the CIA in one memo reportedly found “incontrovertible evidence” that Saudi government officials — not just wealthy Saudi hardliners, but high-level diplomats and… Continue reading
After the 9/11 attacks, the public was told al Qaeda acted alone, with no state sponsors.
But the White House never let it see an entire section of Congress’ investigative report on 9/11 dealing with “specific sources of foreign support” for the 19 hijackers, 15 of whom were Saudi nationals.
It was kept secret and remains so today.
President Bush inexplicably censored 28 full pages of the 800-page report. Text isn’t just blacked-out here and there in this critical-yet-missing middle section. The pages are completely blank, except for dotted lines where an estimated 7,200 words once stood (this story by comparison is about 1,000 words).
A pair of lawmakers who recently read the redacted portion say they are “absolutely shocked” at the level of foreign state involvement in the attacks.
Reps. Walter Jones (R-NC) and Stephen Lynch (D-Mass.) can’t reveal the nation identified by it without violating federal law. So they’ve proposed Congress pass a resolution asking President Obama to declassify the entire 2002 report, “Joint Inquiry Into Intelligence Community Activities Before and After the Terrorist Attacks of September 11, 2001.”
Some information already has leaked from the classified section, which is based on both CIA and FBI documents, and it points back to Saudi Arabia, a presumed ally.
The Saudis deny any role in 9/11, but the CIA in one memo reportedly found “incontrovertible evidence” that Saudi government officials — not just wealthy Saudi hardliners, but high-level diplomats and… Continue reading
The FBI took a powder: Things you never knew about 9/11
Originally published at MadCow Morning News by intrepid investigative journalist Daniel Hopsiker on 9/12/13
If the Bush Administration lied to justify waging a war against Iraq, what truths still lie buried beneath the official explanation for what happened on September 11 2001?
Before discussion about 9/11 was squeezed—in a pincer movement worthy of Hitler’s Panzer divisions—between the so-called “official story” and the subsequent campaign of disinformation that gave conspiracy a bad name, there were some promising avenues of investigation where definitive answers might still be possible.
Here are a few that remain at the top of my list. There are many others.
On
the 12th anniversary of the Sept 11 attack there has still been no
official investigation into the murders of almost 3000 people that day.
The Joint Congressional Intelligence Committee investigation, which met
in secret, delivered a report famously containing 28 blank pages.
And anyone looking to the 9/11 Commission for answers had already been disillusioned, even before they issued “findings,“ because they were charged only with identifying what might have been done differently to prevent a future attack.
The FBI’s ballyhooed 4000-man “largest investigation in history” lasted just a little more than three weeks, until someone—we still don’t know who—mailed letters sprinkled with anthrax, changing the focus of the FBI investigation.
Days later, in an order describing the investigation of the terrorist hijackings as “the most exhaustive in its history,” FBI Agents were ordered to curtail their investigation of the Sept. 11 attack. Officials said Robert Mueller, newly-sworn in… Continue reading
If the Bush Administration lied to justify waging a war against Iraq, what truths still lie buried beneath the official explanation for what happened on September 11 2001?
Before discussion about 9/11 was squeezed—in a pincer movement worthy of Hitler’s Panzer divisions—between the so-called “official story” and the subsequent campaign of disinformation that gave conspiracy a bad name, there were some promising avenues of investigation where definitive answers might still be possible.
Here are a few that remain at the top of my list. There are many others.
The FBI took a powder
On
the 12th anniversary of the Sept 11 attack there has still been no
official investigation into the murders of almost 3000 people that day.
The Joint Congressional Intelligence Committee investigation, which met
in secret, delivered a report famously containing 28 blank pages.And anyone looking to the 9/11 Commission for answers had already been disillusioned, even before they issued “findings,“ because they were charged only with identifying what might have been done differently to prevent a future attack.
The FBI’s ballyhooed 4000-man “largest investigation in history” lasted just a little more than three weeks, until someone—we still don’t know who—mailed letters sprinkled with anthrax, changing the focus of the FBI investigation.
Days later, in an order describing the investigation of the terrorist hijackings as “the most exhaustive in its history,” FBI Agents were ordered to curtail their investigation of the Sept. 11 attack. Officials said Robert Mueller, newly-sworn in… Continue reading
US Government Protection of Al-Qaeda Terrorists and the US-Saudi Black Hole
By Peter Dale Scott
The Asia-Pacific Journal, Vol. 11, Issue 29, No. 1, July 29, 2013
For almost two centuries American government, though always imperfect, was also a model for the world of limited government, having evolved a system of restraints on executive power through its constitutional arrangement of checks and balances.
Since 9/11 however, constitutional practices have been overshadowed by a series of emergency measures to fight terrorism. The latter have mushroomed in size, reach and budget, while traditional government has shrunk. As a result we have today what the journalist Dana Priest has called two governments: the one its citizens were familiar with, operated more or less in the open: the other a parallel top secret government whose parts had mushroomed in less than a decade into a gigantic, sprawling universe of its own, visible to only a carefully vetted cadre – and its entirety…visible only to God.1
More and more, it is becoming common to say that America, like Turkey before it, now has what Marc Ambinder and John Tirman have called a deep state behind the public one.2 And this parallel government is guided in surveillance matters by its own Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, known as the FISA court, which according to the New York Times, “has quietly become almost a parallel Supreme Court.”3 Thanks largely to Edward Snowden, it is now clear that the FISA Court has permitted this deep state to expand surveillance beyond the tiny number of known and suspected Islamic terrorists, to any incipient protest movement that might challenge the policies of the American war machine.…
Continue reading
The Asia-Pacific Journal, Vol. 11, Issue 29, No. 1, July 29, 2013
For almost two centuries American government, though always imperfect, was also a model for the world of limited government, having evolved a system of restraints on executive power through its constitutional arrangement of checks and balances.
Since 9/11 however, constitutional practices have been overshadowed by a series of emergency measures to fight terrorism. The latter have mushroomed in size, reach and budget, while traditional government has shrunk. As a result we have today what the journalist Dana Priest has called two governments: the one its citizens were familiar with, operated more or less in the open: the other a parallel top secret government whose parts had mushroomed in less than a decade into a gigantic, sprawling universe of its own, visible to only a carefully vetted cadre – and its entirety…visible only to God.1
More and more, it is becoming common to say that America, like Turkey before it, now has what Marc Ambinder and John Tirman have called a deep state behind the public one.2 And this parallel government is guided in surveillance matters by its own Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, known as the FISA court, which according to the New York Times, “has quietly become almost a parallel Supreme Court.”3 Thanks largely to Edward Snowden, it is now clear that the FISA Court has permitted this deep state to expand surveillance beyond the tiny number of known and suspected Islamic terrorists, to any incipient protest movement that might challenge the policies of the American war machine.…
Continue reading
Why was a Sunday Times report on US government ties to al Qaeda chief spiked?
By Nafeez Ahmed
Ceasefire Magazine
A whistleblower has revealed extraordinary information on the U.S. government’s support for international terrorist networks and organised crime. The government has denied the allegations yet gone to extraordinary lengths to silence her. Her critics have derided her as a fabulist and fabricator. But now comes word that some of her most serious allegations were confirmed by a major European newspaper only to be squashed at the request of the U.S. government.
In a recent book Classified Woman, Sibel Edmonds, a former translator for the FBI, describes how the Pentagon, CIA and State Department maintained intimate ties to al-Qaeda militants as late as 2001. Her memoir, Classified Woman: The Sibel Edmonds Story, published last year, charged senior government officials with negligence, corruption and collaboration with al Qaeda in illegal arms smuggling and drugs trafficking in Central Asia.
In interviews with this author in early March, Edmonds claimed that Ayman al-Zawahiri, current head of al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden’s deputy at the time, had innumerable, regular meetings at the U.S. embassy in Baku, Azerbaijan, with U.S. military and intelligence officials between 1997 and 2001, as part of an operation known as ‘Gladio B’. Al-Zawahiri, she charged, as well as various members of the bin Laden family and other mujahideen, were transported on NATO planes to various parts of Central Asia and the Balkans to participate in Pentagon-backed destabilisation operations.
According to two Sunday Times journalists speaking on condition of anonymity, this and related revelations had… Continue reading
Ceasefire Magazine
A whistleblower has revealed extraordinary information on the U.S. government’s support for international terrorist networks and organised crime. The government has denied the allegations yet gone to extraordinary lengths to silence her. Her critics have derided her as a fabulist and fabricator. But now comes word that some of her most serious allegations were confirmed by a major European newspaper only to be squashed at the request of the U.S. government.
In a recent book Classified Woman, Sibel Edmonds, a former translator for the FBI, describes how the Pentagon, CIA and State Department maintained intimate ties to al-Qaeda militants as late as 2001. Her memoir, Classified Woman: The Sibel Edmonds Story, published last year, charged senior government officials with negligence, corruption and collaboration with al Qaeda in illegal arms smuggling and drugs trafficking in Central Asia.
In interviews with this author in early March, Edmonds claimed that Ayman al-Zawahiri, current head of al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden’s deputy at the time, had innumerable, regular meetings at the U.S. embassy in Baku, Azerbaijan, with U.S. military and intelligence officials between 1997 and 2001, as part of an operation known as ‘Gladio B’. Al-Zawahiri, she charged, as well as various members of the bin Laden family and other mujahideen, were transported on NATO planes to various parts of Central Asia and the Balkans to participate in Pentagon-backed destabilisation operations.
According to two Sunday Times journalists speaking on condition of anonymity, this and related revelations had… Continue reading
9/11 Commission Deceived: An Unintentional Work of Fiction Based on Cheney’s Torture Program
Preface: This is not a partisan post. We have repeatedly documented that Obama is as bad or worse than the Bush administration.
In the run up to the Iraq war – and for several years thereafter – the program of torture carried out by the Bush administration was specifically specifically aimed at establishing a false justification for war. Dick Cheney is the guy who pushed for torture, pressured the Justice Department lawyers to write memos saying torture was legal, and made the pitch to Congress justifying torture. (The former director of the CIA said Cheney oversaw American torture policies).
The type of torture used by the U.S. on the Guantanamo suspects is of a special type. Senator Levin revealed that the the U.S. used Communist torture techniques specifically aimed at creating false confessions (see this, this, this and this).
According to NBC News:
In the run up to the Iraq war – and for several years thereafter – the program of torture carried out by the Bush administration was specifically specifically aimed at establishing a false justification for war. Dick Cheney is the guy who pushed for torture, pressured the Justice Department lawyers to write memos saying torture was legal, and made the pitch to Congress justifying torture. (The former director of the CIA said Cheney oversaw American torture policies).
The type of torture used by the U.S. on the Guantanamo suspects is of a special type. Senator Levin revealed that the the U.S. used Communist torture techniques specifically aimed at creating false confessions (see this, this, this and this).
According to NBC News:
- Much of the 9/11 Commission Report was based upon the testimony of people who were tortured
- At least four of the people whose interrogation figured in the 9/11 Commission Report have claimed that they told interrogators information as a way to stop being “tortured.”
- One of the Commission’s main sources of information was tortured until he agreed to sign a confession that he was not even allowed to read
- The 9/11 Commission itself doubted the accuracy of the torture confessions, and yet kept their doubts to themselves
Why Louis Freeh Should Be Investigated For 9/11
by Kevin Ryan
DigWithin.com
In
the summer of 2001, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agent Robert
Wright, a counterterrorism expert from the Chicago office, made some
startling claims about the Bureau in a written statement outlining the
difficulties he had doing his job. Three months before 9/11, he wrote:
“The FBI has proven for the past decade it cannot identify and prevent
acts of terrorism against the United States and its citizens at home and
abroad. Even worse, there is virtually no effort on the part of the
FBI’s International Terrorism Unit to neutralize known and suspected
terrorists residing within the United States.”[1]
Revelations since 9/11 have confirmed Wright’s claims. FBI management
did little or nothing to stop terrorism in the decade before 9/11 and,
in some cases, appeared to have supported terrorists. This is more
disturbing considering that the power of the FBI over terrorism
investigations was supreme. In 1998, the FBI’s strategic plan stated
that terrorist activities fell “almost exclusively within the
jurisdiction of the FBI” and that “the FBI has no higher priority than
to combat terrorism.”[2]
A number of people are suspect in these failures, including the leaders of the FBI’s counterterrorism programs. But at the time of Wright’s written complaint, which was not shared with the public until May 2002, the man most responsible was Louis Freeh, Director of the FBI from 1993 to 2001.
Agent Wright was not FBI leadership’s only detractor, and not the only one to criticize Freeh.…
Continue reading
DigWithin.com
FBI Director Louis Freeh
A number of people are suspect in these failures, including the leaders of the FBI’s counterterrorism programs. But at the time of Wright’s written complaint, which was not shared with the public until May 2002, the man most responsible was Louis Freeh, Director of the FBI from 1993 to 2001.
Agent Wright was not FBI leadership’s only detractor, and not the only one to criticize Freeh.…
Continue reading
Declassified document contradicts Cheney’s claim of Iraqi connection to 9/11
June 20, 2012
Stephen C. Webster
Raw Story
A document declassified this week by the National Security Archive reveals that the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) delivered a briefing to the Bush administration which directly contradicts former Vice President Dick Cheney’s claim that 9/11 hijacker Mohamed Atta visited an Iraqi intelligence official in Prague.
The document (PDF), dated Dec. 1, 2001 and delivered to the White House on the 8th, claims that Atta “did not travel to the Czech Republic on 31 May 2000,” and adds that “the individual who attempted to enter the Czech Republic on 31 May 2000… was not the Atta who attacked the World Trade Center on 11 September 2001.”
Despite this briefing, just days later on Dec. 9, 2001, Cheney told the late Tim Russert, host of Meet the Press, that the meeting in Prague had been “pretty well confirmed.”
Well, what we now have that’s developed since you and I last talked, Tim, of course, was that report that’s been pretty well confirmed, that he did go to Prague and he did meet with a senior official of the Iraqi intelligence service in Czechoslovakia last April, several months before the attack. Now, what the purpose of that was, what transpired between them, we simply don’t know at this point. But that’s clearly an avenue that we want to pursue.
Cheney’s claim was one of the strongest rhetorical links between the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 and Iraq in the administration’s arguments for war,… Continue reading
Stephen C. Webster
Raw Story
A document declassified this week by the National Security Archive reveals that the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) delivered a briefing to the Bush administration which directly contradicts former Vice President Dick Cheney’s claim that 9/11 hijacker Mohamed Atta visited an Iraqi intelligence official in Prague.
The document (PDF), dated Dec. 1, 2001 and delivered to the White House on the 8th, claims that Atta “did not travel to the Czech Republic on 31 May 2000,” and adds that “the individual who attempted to enter the Czech Republic on 31 May 2000… was not the Atta who attacked the World Trade Center on 11 September 2001.”
Despite this briefing, just days later on Dec. 9, 2001, Cheney told the late Tim Russert, host of Meet the Press, that the meeting in Prague had been “pretty well confirmed.”
Well, what we now have that’s developed since you and I last talked, Tim, of course, was that report that’s been pretty well confirmed, that he did go to Prague and he did meet with a senior official of the Iraqi intelligence service in Czechoslovakia last April, several months before the attack. Now, what the purpose of that was, what transpired between them, we simply don’t know at this point. But that’s clearly an avenue that we want to pursue.
Cheney’s claim was one of the strongest rhetorical links between the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 and Iraq in the administration’s arguments for war,… Continue reading
London-based oil executive linked to 9/11 hijackers
A Saudi Arabian accused of associating with
several of the September 11 hijackers and who disappeared from his home
in the United States a few weeks before the attacks on the World Trade
Centre and the Pentagon, is in London working for his country’s state
oil company.
By Anthony Summers, Neil Tweedie and Dan Christensen in Miami
The Telegraph
Abdulaziz
al-Hijji and his wife Anoud left three cars at their luxurious home in a
gated community in Sarasota, Florida — one of them new — and flew to
Saudi Arabia in August 2001. The refrigerator was full of food;
furniture and clothing were left behind; and the swimming pool water was
still circulating.
Security records of cars passing through a checkpoint at the Prestancia gated community indicated that Mr al-Hijji’s home, 4224 Escondito Circle, had been visited a number of times by Mohamed Atta, the leader of the 19-strong hijack team, who piloted American Airlines Flight 11 into the North Tower of the World Trade Centre in 2001.
The logs also indicated that Marwan Al-Shehhi, who crashed United Airlines Flight 175 into the South Tower, and Ziad Jarrah, who was at the controls of United Airlines Flight 93 when it crashed in a field in Pennsylvania, had visited the house.
All three men had trained to fly at Venice Airport, which is 19 miles from Sarasota.
A US counter-terrorist agent told The Daily Telegraph: “The registration numbers of vehicles that had passed through the Prestancia community’s north gate in the months before 9/11, coupled with the identification documents shown by incoming drivers on request, showed that Mohamed Atta and several of his fellow hijackers, and another Saudi suspect still at large, had visited 4224 Escondito Circle.”
The suspect was Adnan Shukrijumah, an al-Qaeda operative who is on the FBI’s Most Wanted list, with a $5 million bounty on his head.A decade after the world’s worst terrorist attack, which claimed the lives of 3,000 people, Mr al-Hijji is resident in London, working for the European subsidiary of Saudi Aramco, Saudi Arabia’s state oil company.…
Continue reading
By Anthony Summers, Neil Tweedie and Dan Christensen in Miami
The Telegraph
Abdulaziz
al-Hijji and his wife Anoud left three cars at their luxurious home in a
gated community in Sarasota, Florida — one of them new — and flew to
Saudi Arabia in August 2001. The refrigerator was full of food;
furniture and clothing were left behind; and the swimming pool water was
still circulating.Security records of cars passing through a checkpoint at the Prestancia gated community indicated that Mr al-Hijji’s home, 4224 Escondito Circle, had been visited a number of times by Mohamed Atta, the leader of the 19-strong hijack team, who piloted American Airlines Flight 11 into the North Tower of the World Trade Centre in 2001.
The logs also indicated that Marwan Al-Shehhi, who crashed United Airlines Flight 175 into the South Tower, and Ziad Jarrah, who was at the controls of United Airlines Flight 93 when it crashed in a field in Pennsylvania, had visited the house.
All three men had trained to fly at Venice Airport, which is 19 miles from Sarasota.
A US counter-terrorist agent told The Daily Telegraph: “The registration numbers of vehicles that had passed through the Prestancia community’s north gate in the months before 9/11, coupled with the identification documents shown by incoming drivers on request, showed that Mohamed Atta and several of his fellow hijackers, and another Saudi suspect still at large, had visited 4224 Escondito Circle.”
The suspect was Adnan Shukrijumah, an al-Qaeda operative who is on the FBI’s Most Wanted list, with a $5 million bounty on his head.A decade after the world’s worst terrorist attack, which claimed the lives of 3,000 people, Mr al-Hijji is resident in London, working for the European subsidiary of Saudi Aramco, Saudi Arabia’s state oil company.…
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A Response to Paul Zarembka about Phone Calls from the 9/11 Planes
by David Ray Griffin
ITHP.org
Professor Paul Zarembka has written a critique of a chapter of my recent book, 9/11 Ten Years Later: When State Crimes against Democracy Succeed . 1 The chapter in question is entitled “Phone Calls from the 9/11 Planes: How They Fooled America.” I thank Dr. Zarembka for taking my chapter seriously enough to write his critique. 2 However, I submit that my chapter not to be guilty of the charges he levels.
At the beginning of his critique, Zarembka states that I seem intent on “exposing just lies and only lies” — on “turning up stones everywhere with the word ‘lie’ written on them.” A computer search shows that my chapter contains no instances in which I used the term “lie,” “lies,” or “lying.” I certainly did, to be sure, suggest that various aspects of the official story are false. This would be grounds for reproach if these suggestions were based on errors, and Zarembka suggests that they often are. Indeed, to adopt his formulation, he seemed to be intent on turning up stones everywhere with the word “error” written on them. But the charge that my chapter is filled with errors cannot be maintained.
At the conclusion of Zarembka’s critique, he said that he found “weakness” in my chapter’s “internal logic.” This charge by Zarembka, however, reflects the fact that he simply failed to understand the logic of some of my arguments, or certain facts relevant to those arguments.
Sliding Over Deena Burnett’s Testimony… Continue reading
ITHP.org
Professor Paul Zarembka has written a critique of a chapter of my recent book, 9/11 Ten Years Later: When State Crimes against Democracy Succeed . 1 The chapter in question is entitled “Phone Calls from the 9/11 Planes: How They Fooled America.” I thank Dr. Zarembka for taking my chapter seriously enough to write his critique. 2 However, I submit that my chapter not to be guilty of the charges he levels.
At the beginning of his critique, Zarembka states that I seem intent on “exposing just lies and only lies” — on “turning up stones everywhere with the word ‘lie’ written on them.” A computer search shows that my chapter contains no instances in which I used the term “lie,” “lies,” or “lying.” I certainly did, to be sure, suggest that various aspects of the official story are false. This would be grounds for reproach if these suggestions were based on errors, and Zarembka suggests that they often are. Indeed, to adopt his formulation, he seemed to be intent on turning up stones everywhere with the word “error” written on them. But the charge that my chapter is filled with errors cannot be maintained.
At the conclusion of Zarembka’s critique, he said that he found “weakness” in my chapter’s “internal logic.” This charge by Zarembka, however, reflects the fact that he simply failed to understand the logic of some of my arguments, or certain facts relevant to those arguments.
Sliding Over Deena Burnett’s Testimony… Continue reading
Former September 11 probe chair calls for reopening inquiry
September 12, 2011
By Barbara Liston
Reuters
The former co-chair of a Congressional inquiry after the September 11, 2001
attacks called on the U.S. government to reopen its investigation following
a news report linking the hijackers to a Saudi Arabian couple who lived in Florida.
Former U.S. Senator Bob Graham said he has no reason to doubt the news report,
which said the Saudi Arabian couple abruptly abandoned their luxury home in
Sarasota two weeks before the attacks, leaving behind a full refrigerator, clothes,
furnishings and a new car in the driveway.
The report was published by BrowardBulldog.org., a nonprofit Internet news
site and was simultaneously published on the news website of the Miami Herald.
If true, it reveals another Saudi terrorism connection that was never disclosed
by the FBI to the public or to the 2002 joint Congressional intelligence committee
investigating the attacks, said Graham, who was co-chair of the committee.
The FBI office in Tampa issued a statement on Monday saying the Sarasota case
was one of many leads that "were resolved and determined not to be related
to any threat nor connected to the 9/11 plot."
Graham called the Sarasota case "eerily similar" to the FBI’s failure
to tell the intelligence committee about a former Saudi civil servant, Omar
al-Bayoumi, who supported two hijackers while they were living in San Diego.
Graham said an investigator for his committee independently unearthed the information
about al-Bayoumi.
"Why did the U.S. government go to such lengths to cover up the Saudi
involvement?" Graham said.…
Continue reading
By Barbara Liston
Reuters
The former co-chair of a Congressional inquiry after the September 11, 2001
attacks called on the U.S. government to reopen its investigation following
a news report linking the hijackers to a Saudi Arabian couple who lived in Florida.
Former U.S. Senator Bob Graham said he has no reason to doubt the news report,
which said the Saudi Arabian couple abruptly abandoned their luxury home in
Sarasota two weeks before the attacks, leaving behind a full refrigerator, clothes,
furnishings and a new car in the driveway.
The report was published by BrowardBulldog.org., a nonprofit Internet news
site and was simultaneously published on the news website of the Miami Herald.
If true, it reveals another Saudi terrorism connection that was never disclosed
by the FBI to the public or to the 2002 joint Congressional intelligence committee
investigating the attacks, said Graham, who was co-chair of the committee.
The FBI office in Tampa issued a statement on Monday saying the Sarasota case
was one of many leads that "were resolved and determined not to be related
to any threat nor connected to the 9/11 plot."
Graham called the Sarasota case "eerily similar" to the FBI’s failure
to tell the intelligence committee about a former Saudi civil servant, Omar
al-Bayoumi, who supported two hijackers while they were living in San Diego.
Graham said an investigator for his committee independently unearthed the information
about al-Bayoumi.
"Why did the U.S. government go to such lengths to cover up the Saudi
involvement?" Graham said.…
Continue reading
Lawmaker: Investigate Sarasota Link to 9/11 & Former Sen. Bob Graham calls for new 9/11 investigation
A congresswoman demanded details be revealed to the public about FBI
investigation into Saudi family with ties to hijackers in Sarasota.
By Dan Christensen
Special to The Miami Herald
A decade after the FBI found ties between a Saudi family living quietly near Sarasota and the 9/11 hijackers, a Florida Democratic congresswoman is calling on the House Intelligence Committee to investigate whether agents revealed their findings to Congress.
Kathy Castor said she was troubled over reports that federal agents discovered a luxury home where the family was living was visited by vehicles used by the hijackers and phone calls were linked between the home and the terrorists, but Congress was not told of the discovery.
The family abruptly left the home less than two weeks before the attacks, leaving a new car in the driveway, a refrigerator stuffed with food, toys in the pool — and an open safe in the master bedroom, according to administrators at the development.
“One of the great criticisms of the pre-9/11 intelligence operations,” Castor wrote in her letter on Monday to the committee’s two senior members, “was the lack of cooperation and information sharing among agencies.”
The dispute over what Congress knew about the case emerged last week after The Miami Herald reported about the little known FBI investigation at the upscale development on Florida’s west coast.
Former U.S. Sen. Bob Graham, the Florida Democrat who chaired the congressional Joint Inquiry into the deadly hijackings, said he was never told about the case, while… Continue reading
investigation into Saudi family with ties to hijackers in Sarasota.
By Dan Christensen
Special to The Miami Herald
A decade after the FBI found ties between a Saudi family living quietly near Sarasota and the 9/11 hijackers, a Florida Democratic congresswoman is calling on the House Intelligence Committee to investigate whether agents revealed their findings to Congress.
Kathy Castor said she was troubled over reports that federal agents discovered a luxury home where the family was living was visited by vehicles used by the hijackers and phone calls were linked between the home and the terrorists, but Congress was not told of the discovery.
The family abruptly left the home less than two weeks before the attacks, leaving a new car in the driveway, a refrigerator stuffed with food, toys in the pool — and an open safe in the master bedroom, according to administrators at the development.
“One of the great criticisms of the pre-9/11 intelligence operations,” Castor wrote in her letter on Monday to the committee’s two senior members, “was the lack of cooperation and information sharing among agencies.”
The dispute over what Congress knew about the case emerged last week after The Miami Herald reported about the little known FBI investigation at the upscale development on Florida’s west coast.
Former U.S. Sen. Bob Graham, the Florida Democrat who chaired the congressional Joint Inquiry into the deadly hijackings, said he was never told about the case, while… Continue reading
Evidence against 9/11 plotters revealed
By Agence France-Presse
Sunday, April 10th, 2011
Rawstory.com
WASHINGTON — US prosecutors compiled lots of evidence against the five men accused of having organized the September 11 attacks on the United States, but not until this week have details been fully revealed.
The indictment charging self-professed mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four others was unsealed when US Attorney General Eric Holder referred the case to the Defense Department for military trials instead of trials at a US federal court in New York.
Holder said Sheikh Mohammed, Walid bin Attash, Ramzi Binalshibh, Ali Abd al-Aziz Ali and Mustapha Ahmed al-Hawsawi could have been prosecuted in federal court and blamed Congress for imposing measures blocking civilian trials of Guantánamo Bay inmates.
They will be tried in military courts in the US naval base in southeastern Cuba.
The now-public details show that the United States, nearly 10 years after hijackers flew planes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, reconstructed step by step the logistics of the five accused men.
They compiled bank transactions, flight records, visa applications, and dozens of telephone conversations to create the most comprehensive account of the chain of events before the attacks.
Implementation of the plan began in 1999, when Sheikh Mohammed (referred to as “KSM” by US officials) proposed to Osama bin Laden to use commercial airliners as missiles against US targets.
Until the last minute, according to the indictment, Sheikh Mohammed controlled the entire operation.
“From in or about December 1999, through in or about… Continue reading
Sunday, April 10th, 2011
Rawstory.com
WASHINGTON — US prosecutors compiled lots of evidence against the five men accused of having organized the September 11 attacks on the United States, but not until this week have details been fully revealed.
The indictment charging self-professed mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four others was unsealed when US Attorney General Eric Holder referred the case to the Defense Department for military trials instead of trials at a US federal court in New York.
Holder said Sheikh Mohammed, Walid bin Attash, Ramzi Binalshibh, Ali Abd al-Aziz Ali and Mustapha Ahmed al-Hawsawi could have been prosecuted in federal court and blamed Congress for imposing measures blocking civilian trials of Guantánamo Bay inmates.
They will be tried in military courts in the US naval base in southeastern Cuba.
The now-public details show that the United States, nearly 10 years after hijackers flew planes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, reconstructed step by step the logistics of the five accused men.
They compiled bank transactions, flight records, visa applications, and dozens of telephone conversations to create the most comprehensive account of the chain of events before the attacks.
Implementation of the plan began in 1999, when Sheikh Mohammed (referred to as “KSM” by US officials) proposed to Osama bin Laden to use commercial airliners as missiles against US targets.
Until the last minute, according to the indictment, Sheikh Mohammed controlled the entire operation.
“From in or about December 1999, through in or about… Continue reading
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