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Here are 5 pages excerpted from Ch. IV
of THE WAR ON FREEDOM: How & Why America was Attacked September 11, 2001 by Nafeez Ahmed
If you haven't seen this book yet and have
any curiosity about what happened and how
such a thing could come about when we spend
billions of dollars for National Security,
you'll get some ideas in these 5 pp. of the
incredible questions being raised about the
first attack of terrorism on American soil.
-wunjo
Five pages of excerpts from Ch. IV are given here, out of the 33 pages in the original MS, which also includes ninety footnotes for this chapter. Footnoted versions of Ch. IV, or of the entire MS, are available by e-mail to serious enquirers. www.Thewaronfreedom.com
or
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/WarOnFreedom
and e-mail
****
IV. Warning Signs of 9-11 and the Failure of Intelligence
“What is happening in the United States took me by surprise. I anticipated that in the aftermath of Sept. 11, there would be an enormous hue and cry to find out what went wrong. There has been no hue and cry in the United States. No recriminations, nothing even similar to what happened after Pearl Harbor in 1941… The United States has drawn a veil of silence over the issue of intelligence failure.”
Wesley Wark, Canadian Intelligence Expert and Consultant to the Privy Council Office of Canada on Intelligence Policy (Globe & Mail, 18 December 2001)
Using Planes as Bombs
The Pentagon commissioned an expert panel in 1993 to investigate the possibility of an airplane being used to bomb national landmarks. In 1994 there occurred three attempted attacks on buildings using airplanes. In September a lone pilot crashed a jet into a tree on the White House grounds just short of the President’s bedroom.
Al-Qaeda’s Plans: Project Bojinka
New York Times: In 1994, two jetliners were hijacked by people who wanted to crash them into buildings, one of them by an Islamic militant group. And the 2000 edition of the FAA’s annual report on Criminal Acts Against Aviation, published this year, said that although Osama bin Laden ‘is not known to have attacked civil aviation, he has both the motivation and the wherewithal to do so’. Chicago Sun-Times: From the moment of the September 11th attacks, high-ranking federal officials insisted that the terrorists’ method of operation surprised them. Die Welt “Western secret services knew as far back as 1995 that suspected terror mastermind Osama bin Laden planned to attack civilian sites using commercial passenger planes.” “Then, we discovered a second, even more sinister plot: Project Bojinka, or a Yugoslav term for loud bang - to crash the 11 planes into selected targets in the United States instead of just blowing them up. World Tribune “The plan has been masterminded by one Ramzi Youssef, who was extradited to the United States, tried and convicted for complicity in the 1993 attack on the WTC. The date of Youssef’s conviction was 11 September 1996.” Given the fascination terrorists have with anniversaries, 11 September should surely have become a watch date. Project Bojinka was described in court documents in the trial of the bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993. The CIA had been mentioned as one of the targets.
Post-Bojinka Intelligence Gathering
Washington Post: “Since 1996, the FBI had been developing evidence that international terrorists were using flight schools to learn to fly jumbo jets.” Elaborate steps were adopted to prevent an attack from the air during the Summer Olympic Games in Atlanta. Between 2000 and 2001, the CIA had made the FBI aware of the names of about 100 suspected members of Bin Laden’s terrorist network thought to be headed to, or already in, the United States. Six months before 11th September, U.S. agencies became aware through authoritative intelligence warnings that Bin Laden was planning to implement Project Bojinka soon.
NewsbytesWashington Post “In response to the ECHELON warnings, U.S. intelligence agencies were on alert for a Project Bojinka-style attack, and consequently intensified surveillance. A case against him in a U.S. District Court in Manhattan, illustrated that the National Security Agency was able to penetrate Bin Laden’s most secure communications.
Air Authorities Were Warned of Bojinka
Airjet Airline World News also issued a warning towards the end of June 2001 specifying an airline terror plot named, ‘Project Bojinka’… The airlines are at risk - They need to take all appropriate meassures and counter-measures to ensure the safety of their passengers.” It is also worth noting that the FAA refused to take such measures.
The Intensification of Surveillance After Confirmation of Bojinka Plans
Among the buildings known to be on Bin Laden’s list of targets was the World Trade Centre, the Capitol, White House, among others. WorldNetDaily: The FBI intercepted communications just prior to Sept. 11 that suggested something very big was about to happen… Zacarias Moussaoui was arrested after flight trainers tipped off the feds. The instructor called the bureau several times. His warnings could not have been more blunt. ‘He told them, ‘Do you realize that a 747 loaded with fuel can be used as a bomb? FBI headquarters resisted opening a broader investigation until after Sept. 11. The government’s Justice Department plus top FBI officials blocked an FBI request for a national security warrant to search Zacarias’ computer. The block remained in place even after the notification from French intelligence that Zacarias was linked to Bin Laden. “The special court that reviews FISA requests has approved more than 12,000 Justice Department applications for covert search warrants and wiretaps and rejected only one since the act was passed in 1978.”
Mohamed Atta was subject to telephone monitoring by the Egyptian secret service. In January 2001, Atta was permitted reentry into the United States after a trip to Germany, despite being in violation of his visa status. The Observer: “Atta was under surveillance between January and May last year after he was reportedly observed buying large quantities of chemicals in Frankfurt, apparently for the production of explosives and for biological warfare…”
Human Events: Khalid Al-Midhar and Nawaq Alhamzi, who were on Flight 77 that hit the Pentagon, were already on the so-called watch list. Washington Post: “more than 50 people were probably involved in preparations for the operation within the U.S. without agencies doing anything about it. The plot required extensive communications and planning to pull off. The group's size - not to mention the complexity of its endeavor - should have offered many opportunities for intelligence infiltration. Yet the conspirators proceeded unmolested.” “Five of the alleged hijackers received training in the 1990s at secure U.S. military installations.” “Federal authorities have been aware for years that suspected terrorists with ties to Osama bin Laden were receiving flight training at schools in the United States and abroad.”
“In Saudi Arabia I was repeatedly ordered by high level State Dept officials to issue visas to unqualified applicants... The CIA was recruiting terrorists to fight against the then Soviets.” Osama Bin Laden, moreover “was their asset, and was working with them... Afghanistan was the end user of their facilities. They were coming to the U.S. for training as terrorists. The countries that had supplied them did not want them back... This fellow Sheikh Abdurrahman who was tied to the first New York World Trade Center bombing had gotten his visa from a CIA case officer in the Sudan. It could’ve been an effort to get the U.S. directly involved in some fashion. I mean it’s only a few thousand dead and what’s this against the greater gain for the United States in the Middle East?”
“Yet, instead of tightening visa requirements, the U.S. government made it easier for Saudi visitors to come to America. Under a program called U.S. Visa Express, introduced four months before the Sept. 11 attacks, Saudis were allowed to arrange visas through 10 travel agencies - often without coming to the U.S. Embassy or consulate for interviews.”
High Level Government Blocks on Intelligence Investigations
The authoritative testimony of U.S. attorney David Philip Schippers, former Chief Investigative Counsel for the U.S. House Judiciary Committee revealing that several months prior to September, three agents of the U.S. government’s law enforcement agency the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) had come to him informing him about the impending attacks.
According to Schippers, these agents knew the names of the hijackers, the targets of their attacks, the proposed dates, and the sources of their funding, along with other information the FBI command cut short their investigations into the impending terrorist attacks and those involved, threatening the agents with prosecution under the National Security Act if they publicised information pertaining to their investigations. Many agents subsequently sought the council of David Schippers in order to pressure elements in the U.S. government to take action to prevent the attacks. Schippers warned many U.S. Congressmen and Senators, and also attempted to contact U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft without success. WorldNetDaily: “It was always, ‘We’ll get back to you’. I used people who were personal friends of John Ashcroft to try to get him.” The Washington DC-based public interest law firm Judicial Watch, which investigates and prosecutes government corruption and abuse, reported in mid-November 2001 that it was joining forces with Schippers to represent an FBI Special Agent against the U.S. Justice Department.
Guardian: “FBI and military intelligence officials in Washington say they were prevented for political reasons from carrying out full investigations into members of the Bin Laden family in the U.S. before the terrorist attacks of September 11…”
Multiple Intelligence Warnings Converged on 11th September
Telegraph: “Israeli intelligence officials say that they warned their counterparts in the United States last month that large-scale terrorist attacks on highly visible targets on the American mainland were imminent…Two senior experts with Mossad, the Israeli military intelligence service, were sent to Washington in August to alert the CIA and FBI to the existence of a cell of as many of 200 terrorists said to be preparing a big operation… [They] linked the plot to Osama bin Laden. Putin interview: the Russian government had warned the U.S. of imminent attacks on airports and government buildings in the strongest possible terms for several weeks prior to the 11th September attacks.
French intelligence had also warned their U.S. counterparts of an impending attack in September. Le Figaro reported that very specific information was transmitted to the CIA with respect to terrorist attacks against American interests around the world, including on U.S. soil. A DST [French intelligence] report dated 7 September enumerates all the intelligence, and specifies that the order to attack was to come from Afghanistan.”
Independental-Quds al-Arabi: “Bin Laden’s people had made statements three weeks ago carried in the Arab press in Great Britain that they were preparing to carry out unprecedented attacks in the U.S.” In the summer of 2001, an Iranian man phoned U.S. law enforcement and warned of an imminent attack on the World Trade Center in the week of 9th September“. Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak says he warned the United States that ‘something would happen’ 12 days before the Sept. 11 terror attacks I received at least three warnings of the attack on the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001.
Dr. Garth L. Nicolson: “The nature of these warnings (the specific site, date and source) indicated to us that they were credible... He warned us as to the correct date and one of the targets, the Pentagon. “The information was passed on to the Director of Policy, DOD, the National Security Council, the leadership in the House of Representatives and the Inspector General of the U.S. Army Medical Corps.
New York Times: U.S. intelligence agencies were on alert for an imminent attack by Bin Laden very shortly before 11th September. it is clear that Bin Laden’s specific Project Bojinka-style plan to which the U.S. was alerted only a few months earlier was about to be implemented very soon.
Newsweek: Osama Bin Laden had called his mother two days before the World Trade Center attack and told her: “In two days you’re going to hear big news, and you’re not going to hear from me for a while.” According to NBC, a foreign intelligence service had recorded the call and relayed the information to U.S. intelligence.
Only three trading days before the 11th September, shares of United Airlines - the company whose planes were hijacked in the attacks on New York and Washington - were purchased in masses by as yet unknown investors, and then suddenly sold in bulk making millions of dollars in profit.
“It is well documented that the CIA has long monitored such trades – in real time – as potential warnings of terrorist attacks and other economic moves contrary to U.S. interests.” The firm used to buy many of the ‘put’ options - where a trader, in effect, bets on a share price fall - on United Airlines stock was headed until 1998 by ‘Buzzy’ Krongard, now executive director of the CIA.”
11th September Warnings Were Not Ignored by U.S. Authorities
San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown received a phone call eight hours before the hijackings from what he described as his air security staff, and warned not to travel by air. Brown was booked to fly from the Bay area to New York City on the morning of September 11. WorldNetDaily: “Now, you’re probably wondering why Willie Brown and Salman Rushdie [and senior Pentagon officials] are more important to the U.S. government than you and me and Barbara Olson. I’m wondering the same thing…”
There is compelling evidence that the Bush administration, or high-level elements thereof, already had foreknowledge of the 11th September attacks, but failed to do anything about them as far as the general public was concerned.
The U.S. Intelligence Community
ECHELON’s warnings of a Project Bojinka-style attack by Al-Qaeda on U.S. soil, first 6 months and then 3 months prior to September “were taken seriously” by “the American intelligence community”, as a consequence of which “surveillance intensified.” The chain of responsibility here thus leads directly to the doors of the CIA, the State Department and the White House.
The idea that the failure to act was a result of the incompetence simply fails to address the reality and nature of the multiple warnings received by that community. It is also based on a lack of understanding of the nature of intelligence gathering and the intelligence structure in the United States. The Director of Central Intelligence is charged by law with the coordination and dissemination of intelligence gathered from all U.S. agencies, including the FBI. Additionally, many FBI agents work directly at CIA headquarters. Many different sources are combined in this way to produce one final assessment, this is known as ‘fused’, ‘multi-source’ or even ‘all-source’ intelligence. The numerous warnings received and intercepted by the U.S. intelligence community in relation to 11th September certainly met the four established criteria of what constitutes an intelligence success in strategic warning. Intercepted information about the location and timing of attack was so rich as to make the deduction of warning obvious.
The event involved was truly vital to U.S. security rather than just one among many important problems, so leaders had no reason to avoid focusing on the warning.
There was no problem of estimating the enemy's political intent to resort to force, as in pre-war crises.
There was nothing to be lost from prompt and vigorous military reaction to warning...
When the ECHELON warnings were followed by warning after warning from Israel, Russia, France, along with numerous leads and warnings within the U.S. itself, according to the established procedures of intelligence gathering, the intelligence community would have grown increasingly certain of what was about to occur, by whom, and when. Yet we find that the very opposite happened. The blame for this lies most definitely with the highest levels of the DCI, CIA, FBI, the State Department - and finally, the White House Cabinet, who according to the established procedures would have received notification of the warnings and subsequent developments in accordance with the CIA's ‘strategic level’ assessments of the Al-Qaeda threat, as well as other relays of intelligence warnings. The data provided here thus suggests that the Bush administration did indeed possess foreknowledge of the attacks, but refused to act in the interests of the general public by pursuing measures to prevent the attacks.
Ongoing attempts by the Bush administration to actively block a full-scale inquiry into the causes of the so-called 9-11 ‘intelligence failure’ only serve to support this conclusion. CNN reported at the end of January 2002 that: “President Bush personally asked Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle Tuesday to limit the congressional investigation into the events of September 11, congressional and White House sources told CNN...
Absurdly, the Bush administration thus justified a wider inquiry into the intelligence failure that allowed the 11th September attacks to occur, by the need to support the administration’s attempts to counterterrorism.
< ~~*~~~*~~ >
Keep your eye on the organ grinder, folks.
The chimp's on a chain.
-wunjo
Who declared war on whom?
A small group of men declared war...19 Davids attack US Goliath!
Low cost, low tech and very high efficiency...they took out 150 people each!
Imagine a hundred years of such Box Cutter Wars of attrition ! wunjo
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