The Order to "Stand Down"

[Makalakumu]

No..no..no...I was griping about yet another thread of the same "tone" as all the other Pax Americana, Etc. threads...

Oi Rome again. Sigh. Read on my friend and connect the dots yourself.

 

[Tgace]

I'm with ya too.
We have to protect America, without becoming Amerika.

IMHO the best protection against that sort of thing is the 2nd amendment...any "invasion" short of full scale D-Day type landings wouldnt last long.

 

[Makalakumu]

Fear of Flying Why did Ashcroft stop flying commercial only weeks before 9-11?

by James Ridgeway

WASHINGTON, D.C.—Like most of the Bush cabinet, Attorney General John Ashcroft took commercial jets when he traveled. But on July 24, 2001, he changed that practice and began flying in chartered government jets. Asked by CBS News at the time about the change, the Justice Department cited a "threat assessment" by the FBI and said Ashcroft had been advised to travel only by private jet for the remainder of his term. "There was a threat assessment, and there are guidelines. He is acting under the guidelines," an FBI spokesman said. But as CBS went on to report, "Neither the FBI nor the Justice Department, however, would identify what the threat was, when it was detected, or who made it." A "senior official" at the CIA said he wasn't aware of specific threats against any cabinet member, and Ashcroft himself declared, "I don't do threat assessments myself, and I rely on those whose responsibility it is in the law enforcement community, particularly the FBI. And I try to stay within the guidelines that they've suggested I should stay within for those purposes." When asked if he knew details of the threat or who might have made it, Ashcroft said, "Frankly, I don't. That's the answer."

The Justice Department did say that it wasn't Ashcroft who wanted to fly in leased airplanes, but that it was the idea of his FBI security detail. The FBI had no comment. All other Bush cabinet members flew on commercial airliners, save for the secretaries of Energy and the Interior when they traveled to remote areas. Janet Reno, Clinton's attorney general, traveled by commercial jets.

 

[Makalakumu]

Bin Laden’s Brother-in-law Had Close Ties to Bush
by Tom Flocco *
AmericanFreePress.net * And Scoop.co.nz
August 28, 2002

Saudi Sheikh Khalid bin Mahfouz, an Osama bin Laden benefactor, has laundered money into tax-exempt U.S. entities for years as a foreign financier of terrorism. But a new 9/11 lawsuit is thrusting Mahfouz’s latent past business links to George W. Bush back into the spotlight and raising important questions about links between Saudi finance and terrorism in America.



Saudi Sheikh Khalid bin Mahfouz
Bush Financier & Osama Bin Laden’s Brother In Law
Nine hundred families of September 11 victims recently filed a trillion-dollar lawsuit against members of the royal Saudi family, businessmen worth a combined $5 billion, and banks and charities. The lawsuit accuses them of financing Osama bin Laden, Al-Qaeda, and the Taliban government. And one of the defendants - Saudi Sheikh Khalid bin Mahfouz -- will likely draw increasing attention in coming months due to his past business relationships with President George W. Bush - the sweetheart deals he made during the elder Bush's presidency.

According to a Saudi government audit acquired by U.S. intelligence officials, five of Saudi Arabia’s wealthiest businessmen, including National Commercial Bank (NCB) founder and chairman Khalid bin Mahfouz, transferred personal funds along with $3 million diverted from a Saudi pension fund, to New York and London banks with accounts linked to terrorism. (USA Today, 10-28-99)

The money transfers were discovered in April, 1999 after the royal family ordered an audit of both NCB and Sheikh Mahfouz.

The plot thickens when we find Mahfouz is also linked by marriage to terrorist Osama bin Laden, as Mahfouz’s sister is married to the Al Qaeda leader, according to not only former CIA Director James Woolsey in 1998 Senate testimony, but also Jean-Charles Brisard, lead 9/11 lawsuit attorney Ronald Motley's researcher, and author of the book, The Forbidden Truth.



9/11 attorney Ronald Motley – Photo PBS
Motley’s 9/11 lawsuit alleges that Saudi money has “for years been funneled to encourage radical anti-Americanism as well as to fund the Al Qaeda terrorists,“ a fact not taken lightly by 9/11 family members fighting back tears at the podium during Motley’s recent press conference.

NCB deposited the money into accounts of such Islamic charities as Islamic Relief -- and Blessed Relief, where Mahfouz’s son Abdul Rahman serves on the board in Sudan. Senior U.S. intelligence officials said Mahfouz and others transferred, “tens of millions of dollars to bank accounts linked to indicted terrorist Osama bin Laden.”

Powerful Washington, D.C. law firm Akin, Gump, Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP has earned hefty fees representing Mahfouz, other billionaire Saudi businessmen and the Texas-based Islamic charity, Holy Land Foundation – the largest in America -- which FBI officials fingered as a terrorist front organization in America. And two of Bush’s closest Texas friends, James C. Langdon and George R. Salem -- chair of Arab-Outreach in his 2000 campaign -- are partners at Akin, Gump. (Boston Herald, 12-11-2001)

Five days before September 11, the FBI raided Holy Land’s internet firm InfoCom Corporation, indicating pre-attack investigative interest in the charity‘s links to terrorism.

But no reports indicate whether the FBI has asked the President’s friends at Akin, Gump about financial dealings with the U.S. firm’s terrorist-connected Saudi clients.

Charles Lewis, executive director of the Center for Public Integrity, a political watchdog group, said “Akin, Gump’s willingness to represent Saudi power brokers probed for links to terrorism presents a unique ethical concern since partners at the firm are so close to the president.”

A BATH ALWAYS COMES IN HANDY



Does George W. Bush Have Something To Hide?
Mahfouz’s past also includes business dealings with George W. Bush, having invested $50,000 in the younger Bush’s first company, Arbusto Energy, through his U.S. representative James R. Bath, an aircraft broker and friend of Mr. Bush from their days together in the Texas Air National Guard. (Wall Street Journal (WSJ), “Vetting the Frontrunners: From Oil to Baseball to the Governor’s Mansion,” 9-28-1999)

Legal papers regarding Bath's contested divorce listed one of his assets as a $50,000 investment in Arbusto Oil -- Bush's first company. Moreover, Bath's business partner said he had no substantial money of his own at the time he made the Arbusto investment, implying that Bath received the money from someone else: "Most of Bath's investments....were really fronts for Mahfouz and other Saudis connected with the Bank of Credit and Commerce (BCCI)." (The Outlaw Bank: A Wild Ride Into the Secret Heart of BCCI, Random House, Beaty & Gwynne, 1993, page 229.)

Award-winning author and journalist at the Houston Chronicle and “The Economist,” Peter Brewton, consulted James R. Bath’s resume and wrote that in early summer 1976 Bath received a huge business break:


“Bath was named a trustee for Sheikh Salem bin Laden of Saudi Arabia [half-brother of Osama bin Laden], a member of the family that owns the largest construction company in the Middle East. Bath’s job was to handle all of bin Laden’s North American investments and operations.” ( The Mafia, CIA, and George Bush, Shapolsky Book Pub., 1992) [Simon & Schuster had first signed Brewton, then decided not to publish his book]
Shortly thereafter, Bath also began working for billionaire Sheikh Mahfouz, NCB banker for Saudi billionaire financier Abdullah Bakhsh. Meanwhile, George Junior’s failing Arbusto company was renamed Bush Exploration -- hoping to trade on his father‘s increasing importance; however, it was soon merged with Spectrum 7 Energy, as oil prices were collapsing.

While hard times continued for Spectrum, in 1988 Harken Energy Corporation absorbed the company, according to WSJ. And in return for adding the famous Bush name as a corporate asset, Texas-based Harken in effect bailed out the future president’s failing fortunes with generous stock options, a salaried seat on Harken’s board of directors, low-interest loans, and other helpful perks. [ Harken Energy: George W.‘s Perfect Storm, 7-15-2002 -- http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0207/S00104.htm ]

The astute Saudi billionaires sought to develop intimate financial relationships with the upwardly mobile political Bushes, even using their Arkansas connections to pull off some deals.

Bakhsh’s Saudi banker Khalid bin Mahfouz and Bill Clinton’s close Stephens Company friend, David Edwards -- representing Bakhsh’s U.S. interests -- arranged for Bakhsh to purchase 17% of Harken Energy in 1987, as Harken also began to struggle with debt, while sorely in need of a cash infusion -- in this case, $25 million from Saudi Arabia.

After the Saudi money propped up Harken, reports revealed that Bakhsh’s other U.S. associate, Palestinian-born Chicago businessman Talet Othman, was given a seat on Harken’s board with George Bush Jr. -- the President‘s son -- further linking them both to Saudi interests. But the financial bail-out came with a political quid pro quo: a seat at President George H. W. Bush’s White House foreign policy table.

The WSJ added that by 1990, Othman began attending White House meetings with the elder Bush to discuss Middle East policy -- begging the question whether 9/11 victim families’ future terrorist sponsor Mahfouz and his wealthy Saudi banking client Bakhsh had purchased political, military, and financial influence within the Bush Administration.

According to Fortunate Son by James H. Hatfield, after George W’s Harken Energy drilling contract with Bahrain was signed, Mahfouz and Bakhsh saw to it that Othman was added to a list of fifteen Arabs who met with President George H. W. Bush, then-White House Chief of Staff John H. Sununu [father of New Hampshire’s current U.S. Senate candidate John E. Sununu], and National Security Advisor Brent Scowcroft, three times in 1990 -- once just two days after Iraq invaded Kuwait -- to discuss Middle East policy.

WHITE IN THE NICK OF TIME

Saudi banker Mahfouz and construction magnate Salem bin Laden’s U.S. representative James Bath had a close business associate named Charles W. “Bill” White. Time Magazine reporters Jonathan Beaty and S.C. Gwynne described the former Navy fighter pilot as the All-American Boy -- and Bath’s quiet personality required a complement:


“After the navy he [White] put away his combat decorations, earned a Harvard Business degree and returned to Texas to become a well-paid investment point man for a lot of heavy-hitting Republicans....He was sponsored by another Harvard MBA, Lloyd Bentsen, Jr., son of the Texas senator. Young Bentsen had discovered White on a Harvard recruiting trip....looking for someone who could handle discreet private investments.”
“As White explained it, Bentsen suggested he should look up a Houston businessman named James Bath, who was in real estate and aircraft sales, and represented some of the richest Arab sheikhs. Bath, also a friend of George Bush, Jr., was looking for a business partner. Bentsen thought that since Bath was also a former fighter pilot, the two men would have a lot in common.” ( The Outlaw Bank)



White and Bath became partners; and predictably, they were successful in a number of land development deals. White was the affable front man, while George Junior’s friend James Bath quietly found the investors -- including Saudi billionaires. “Bath told me that he was in the CIA. He told me he was recruited by George H. W. Bush himself in 1976,” when the elder Bush was CIA Director, according to Beaty’s interview with White.

White added further, “That made sense to me, especially in light of what I had seen once we went into business together. He [Bath] said that [CIA Director] Bush wanted him involved with the Arabs, and to get into the aviation business.”

John Mecklin, investigative reporter for the Houston Post, independently verified Jim Bath’s CIA connections -- and that he was also future president George Jr.’s Air National Guard friend -- as Beaty had corroborated in the White interview for The Outlaw Bank.

Moreover, White said the elder Bush recruited Bath to monitor the activities of his Saudi Arabian investors, as Beaty confirmed the elder’s friendship with Bath for himself: “White said that one time in 1982 he and Bath were at the Ramada Club in Houston when Vice-President Bush walked in. Bush waved at Bath and said, ‘Hi, Jim,’ according to White.”

Texas ties became a habit with Bath’s future terrorist financier, author Peter Brewton implied, when in 1979 Mahfouz purchased the Houston River Oaks mansion of Chester Reed, father-in-law of John Ballis, who pled guilty to Savings and Loan fraud. Mahfouz paid $4.23 million through Houston’s Baker & Botts -- a law firm traversing many Bush family business deals -- which handled the Saudi Sheikh’s Houston land investments through James Bath. Wide reports say Mahfouz still owns the Texas mansion.

Time’s Beaty and Gwynne chronicled the terrorist financier’s alleged 1985 sweetheart purchase of the Texas Commerce Bank Tower for $200 million during the mid-1980s Texas oil-business crash. Bath’s partner Bill White said Mahfouz’s purchase greatly benefited the fortunes of President Bush 41’s confidant and Secretary of State James Baker, Baker & Botts law firm, and Baker’s family -- founders and principal holders of Texas Commerce stock.

Beaty said the Tower was built for $140 million at the apex of the oil boom; but Mahfouz paid the elder Bush’s family friends $200 million at the bottom of the real estate crash, when commercial office space couldn't be given away. And interestingly, Mafouz’s partner in that purchase, Saudi-based billionaire Rafik Hariri, also over-paid Florida Senator Bill Nelson $2 million more than the assessed value to buy his McLean, Virginia home in 1989 -- illustrating the penetration of Saudi financial corruption in Congress.



Texas Commerce Bank Tower, Dallas, USA
Mahfouz also bought into Houston’s Main Bank as a partner with Bath and former Texas Governor John Connally in 1976. And in 1981 Mercantile Texas Corporation/Capital Bank -- soon to become MCorp -- bought Main Bank from Sheikh Mahfouz:


Strangely, The Outlaw Banknoted that “Houston’s Main Bank made news when a bank examiner discovered that the small Texas bank was purchasing $100 million in hundred-dollar bills each month from the Federal Reserve Bank -- an amount that dwarfed its miniscule asset base. That was strange, but there was nothing illegal about it.”
However, Bill White also told Jonathan Beaty that Bath had been investigated by the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) while the two were partners, adding “the DEA suspected Bath was using his planes to fly currency to the Cayman Islands, although they didn’t know why, since drugs didn’t seem to be involved.” Curiously, the probe ended.

Media interest may increase now, however, as Federal Reserve financial records are likely to be subpoenaed by Ron Motley and the 9/11victim families, detailing the inordinate amount of currency that passed through Mahfouz’s small Houston, Texas bank -- and the curiously indulgent investigation of Bath and the Federal Reserve by the DEA.

Even to the uninitiated, the Caymans are synonymous with corruption and circumvention of the law. Thus it will fall to court depositions, subpoenas, and political pressure from 9/11 victim families to question why stacks of U.S. currency from the Federal Reserve Bank were flown into the Caymans by Saudi-backed representatives like James Bath -- friend to the President‘s son -- let alone where the cash went, whether is was looted from the U.S. Treasury via Federal Reserve fiscal maneuverings, and to what extent the practice continues -- given current world terrorism.

Evidence points toward such “tax havens” as financial conduits for September 11 terrorism -- not just money-laundering refuges for current corporate wrongdoing, drug lords, organized crime, and those seeking to avoid a voracious U.S. tax system.

Michigan Senator Carl Levin’s February, 2001 Minority Banking Report calls correspondent banking the “gateway to money laundering,” a financial technique wherein
illicit money is moved from bank to bank with no questions asked, thereby cleansing funds
prior to being used for legitimate purposes.

Banks in the Caymans which are not licensed, for example, gain access to American financial markets by establishing “correspondent” relationships with U.S. banks that are.

Thus, Saudi financial supporters of terrorism such as Khalid bin Mahfouz are able to move millions from one country to another.

Strangely, given wide reports that Saudi billionaires are and have been financing terrorism in the United States for years, President Bush has still not issued a freeze on all correspondent transactions linked to banks in Saudi Arabia -- since most of the hijackers were Saudi nationals. [ See Executive Order 3224 Blocking Terrorist Property, The White House, 9-23-2001 http://www.banking.state.ny.us/il01102a.pdf ]

A Washington Post report (9-29-20010) also questioned “why [Bush’s] original Executive Order did not name any banks,” as the President has the power to freeze American monetary operations connected to global banks with institutions in countries refusing to cooperate in the terrorist finance probe. Thus Saudi financial scrutiny has been avoided.

Three months later, on December 31, 2001, a U.S. State Department memo revealed that the President again declined to deal with middle eastern banks, by announcing that assets of one German and five Irish terrorist-linked organizations had been frozen.

Still left off the frozen assets list were all banks linked to the epicenter of terrorist finances in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Bahrain, where Bush 41 campaign contributors and Bush 43 have carried on personal financial business in the past via Harken Energy Corporation.
[ 12-31-2001 State Dept. Memo http://usinfo.state.gov/topical/pol/terror/02010202 ]

However, given documented monetary ties to U.S. terrorism, exemplified by Mahfouz and other Saudis, cable TV news interviews now reflect a growing victim family outrage regarding secret 9/11 congressional hearings postponed till late September -- and lack of truth and accountability. [See … Secret Hearings Conceal 9/11 Terrorist Links to Congress & White House
http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0208/S00045.htm ]

MAHFOUZ’S MALFEASANCE



Osama Bin Laden
The world’s most wanted, has business connections to George Bush.
Osama bin Laden‘s brother-in-law, Sheikh Khalid, “remained at NCB until he was indicted in 1992 on charges that he had schemed to defraud depositors, regulators and auditors of the insolvent BCCI,” according to Brewton in The Mafia, CIA, and George Bush.

At the same time, the Federal Reserve Board announced that it found Mahfouz and NCB had violated American banking laws in trying to acquire Washington-based First American Bancshares in concert with BCCI.

Shortly thereafter, a federal judge signed an order freezing Sheikh Khalid’s U.S. assets, including a luxury penthouse apartment on Fifth Avenue in New York and stock in MCorp,” according to Brewton. [The value of MCorp stock, however, was next to useless -- Newsweek reported on 2-18-2002 that the company had gone bankrupt in 1989] Conveniently, however, the New York court permitted the Saudi billionaire-turned terrorist sponsor to pay the U.S. a settlement fine of $225 million to let him walk away.

In what is probably the most thoroughly-sourced book ever written about George W. Bush [literally thousands of credible newspaper articles, archived document lists, interview sources, and online reports collected may alone be worth the cost of the book], author J. H. Hatfield details George W.‘s friend James Bath’s incredible saga as the personal representative of terrorist -linked Khalid bin Mahfouz, one of the 9/11 victim family defendants:


“A deal broker whose alleged associations run from the CIA to a major shareholder and director of the Bank of Credit and Commerce (BCCI). BCCI was closed down in July 1991 amid charges of multi-billion dollar fraud and worldwide news reports that the institution had been involved in covert intelligence work, drug money laundering, arms brokering, bribery of government officials, and aid to terrorists. An accounting commissioned by the Bank of England finally exposed the extent of BCCI’s deficits and criminal offenses, forcing the bank’s eventual collapse.” ( Fortunate Son: George W. Bush and the Making of an American President, St. Martin’s Press, November, 1999, and Soft Skull Press, 2000, by J. H. Hatfield)

Victim family scrutiny of Federal Reserve financial records related to BCCI, Islamic charity documents and bank accounts -- but also political pressure to make public the Saudi audit of Mahfouz will go a long way toward ascertaining just how much money bin Laden’s brother-in-law laundered through U.S. and foreign banks to financially support the killers of their loved ones. Moreover, Beaty and Gwynne indicate that Ron Motley and his legal team will not have an easy time of it, as corruption’s previous tracks have been well-covered:


“Sami Masri began talking again, the hushed words tumbling out painting a detailed, vivid picture of the Bank of Credit and Commerce International’s global involvement with drug shipments, smuggled gold, stolen military secrets, assassinations, bribery, extortion, covert intelligence operations, and weapons deals. These were the province of a Karachi-based (Pakistan) cadre of bank operatives, paramilitary units, spies, and enforcers who handled BCCI’s darkest operation around the globe and trafficked in bribery and corruption. As the plane began its long descent, both men (Jonathan Beaty) sat silently, lost in their thoughts. ( The Outlaw Bank, page 66)
SKYWAYS AIRCRAFT LEASING AND OTHER TEXAS TALES



The Cayman Islands
Home to sun, surf and dirty money looking for a laundry.
Perhaps Mahfouz’s most interesting Houston investment through his agent, CIA-linked Jim Bath, was Skyways Aircraft Leasing. Skyways began on July 2, 1980 as a company called Cotopax Investments, registered in the Cayman Islands, according to Pete Brewton’s The Mafia, CIA & George Bush.

In off-shore, money-laundering, “shell-corporation” traditional style, the Skyways Board of Directors met one week before Cotomax notified the Cayman Island authorities that the company name had been changed -- after 29 days.

“The directors named Mahfouz’s envoy James Bath as president and director, and then resigned. All of the stock was made into bearer stock, which meant that it belonged to whoever possessed it,” according to Brewton.

And in his sworn lawsuit against Bill White, Bath refused to reveal the owners of Skyways stock. But Brewton’s research revealed that documents filed in another lawsuit indicated that Mahfouz owned Skyways.

One of the original subscribers to the renamed Cotopax Investments, Cayhaven Corporate Services, Ltd., was also a subscriber to I.C., Inc. -- incorporated in 1985 -- but curiously found in the very center of a chart drawn by Oliver North, found by investigators in North’s White House safe. The chart showed the private network that provided support and money to the Iran-Contras -- another story with multiple legs.

White told Jonathan Beaty that he believed Bath was using Skyways’ money, which may have belonged to the CIA, to speculate in Houston real estate. When the real estate market tanked, Bath turned on White for the money rather than tell Mahfouz and the CIA that he had lost it.

SAVING A BUCK OR TWO



Air Force One Taxiing At Ellington Field
Participated in fuel scam to fund Junior Bush’s business partner
In 1990, Houston Post’s John Mecklin reported that the Bush Administration’s Department of Defense (DOD) was paying millions of dollars more than necessary by buying aviation fuel from Mahfouz surrogate Jim Bath’s Southwest Airport Services company at Houston’s Ellington Field.

Southwest was charging government military aircraft anywhere from 22 cents a gallon to over 40 cents more than the price the Air National Guard base at Ellington was paying to buy its jet fuel. Even George the elder’s Air Force One regularly participated in the scam each time it pulled into Houston -- consistently using Bath’s privately owned Southwest Airport Services instead of Ellington Field’s less expensive government fueling station. (Time, “Mysterious Mover of Money and Planes,” 10-28-1991)

Further illustrating the Saudi corruption of George Sr.'s administration at taxpayer expense, Mecklin reported that DOD paid Mahfouz stand-in, James Bath, more than $12 million in contract overruns for over-priced aviation fuel.

Mecklin estimated that between November, 1985 and November, 1989, the DOD paid Bath’s Southwest Airport Services more than $16.2 million for fuel under government contracts that should have cost about $3.6 million -- courtesy of American citizens.

Southwest even had a City of Houston lease at Ellington for $650 per month, won by Bath in a lottery, making the scheme possible; however, the lease had not been offered to anyone else for years, even though it was supposed to be temporary. Someone else was getting a private cut of the proceeds to pull off that kind of fraud; however, the Houston Post and Time revelations prompted no official investigations, leaving the American taxpayer holding the bag.

TRUTH, JUSTICE AND ACCOUNTABILITY

After a year of grieving, family members of brave firefighters and police, emergency medical service workers, brilliant Wall-Street minds, intrepid airline crews and passengers, and Pentagon military personnel are probably beginning to ask themselves: “What did the government know, and when did they know it?”

The unanswered questions linger each day, even as Congress has delayed open hearings and the Senate postpones consideration of an independent 9/11 Investigative Commission with three or four victim family members participating in the process -- perhaps waiting for the Second Gulf War (aka The First World Oil War) to eliminate 9/11 justice and accountability from the table altogether.

That Khalid bin Mahfouz and other Saudis have been financially linked to terrorist Osama bin Laden has been verified by U.S. Intelligence; but that notwithstanding, the seriousness of current events compels an additional awareness and understanding of the bin Laden benefactor’s strangely extensive financial associations with Houston, Texas entities – and powerful public persons.

For in a cryptic comment, former CIA official Larry Johnson once told the Washington Post:
“The Saudis have been complicit....It’s one of the dirty secrets.”


***************************************
Supplementary research was contributed by the writer’s former assistant, Mario Calabrese, now employed in the research and investigation department at Chairman and General Counsel Larry Klayman's public interest law firm, Judicial Watch, Inc., in Washington, D.C.

Copyright (c) 2002 by Thomas Flocco.

* - Tom Flocco is an independent investigative
journalist who has written for Scoop.co.nz, AmericanFreePress.net, WorldNetDaily.com, FromTheWilderness.com, NewsMax.com, NarcoNews.com, and JudicialWatch.org.
Contact: [email protected]

* - http://www.americanfreepress.net/ - The Uncensored National Weekly Newspaper Published On Capitol Hill. 1433 Pennsylvania Avenue SE. Washington D.C.20003. Order Line: 1-888-699-6397 for print subscriptions and more investigative stories.

 

[Makalakumu]

Agent Cited WTC Attack Ahead of 9/11

Sep 24, 11:35 AM (ET)

By KEN GUGGENHEIM

(AP) Concealed by an opaque screen, unidentified CIA and FBI agents testify before the Joint Senate...
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WASHINGTON (AP) - A Minneapolis FBI supervisor said in a pre-Sept. 11 conversation with headquarters that he wanted to prevent suspicious student pilot Zacarias Moussaoui from flying a plane into the World Trade Center, a congressional investigator testified Tuesday.

The supervisor said he had no reason to believe Moussaoui was planning such an attack, but made the remark in a frustrated attempt to convince headquarters that a special search warrant was needed to search Moussaoui's computer, investigator Eleanor Hill told a House-Senate committee investigating the Sept. 11 attacks.

Moussaoui is now accused of conspiring with the Sept. 11 hijackers to commit terrorism, and Hill outlined the Minneapolis FBI's office's repeated and unsuccessful efforts to convince headquarters that he was a possible terrorist.

The supervisor told the committee staff he was "trying to get people at FBI headquarters 'spun up' because he was trying to make sure that Moussaoui 'did not take control of a plane and fly it into the World Trade Center,'" Hill testified.


Hill said the headquarters agent responded, "That's not going to happen. We don't know he's a terrorist. You don't have enough to show he is a terrorist."

The headquarters agent told the investigators he did not recall the conversation.

Hill also said that a July 2001 memo by an FBI agent warning that Osama bin Laden might send terrorists to the United States for flight training was disregarded by headquarters, which was unaware officials previously tried to identify Middle Eastern flight students in this country.

The investigator said the failure to connect the so-called Phoenix memo with the arrest of Moussaoui a month later - and a general increase of terrorist alerts - represented major intelligence failings before the Sept. 11 attacks.

"No one will ever know whether a greater focus on the connection between these events would have led to the unraveling of the Sept. 11 plot," said Hill.


(AP) Members of the Joint Senate House Select Intelligence Committee, listen on Capitol Hill Friday,...
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"But clearly, it might have drawn greater attention to the possibility of a terrorist attack in the United States, generated a heightened state of alert regarding such attacks and prompted more aggressive investigation and intelligence gathering," she said in a report for the House and Senate intelligence committees.

The committees looked into the handling of the Phoenix memo and the Moussaoui case as it held its fourth public hearing into the Sept. 11 attacks.

The Phoenix-based agent, Kenneth Williams, wrote a memo to his superiors in Washington two months before the attacks, suggesting that terrorists might be learning to fly commercial jetliners at U.S. flight schools. He asked for a check of flight schools, but no checks were made.

Williams was not identified by name in the report and was to testify later anonymously. As his own prepared testimony noted, his identity has already been revealed in many news accounts of his memo, which was disclosed earlier this year.

Hill said New York FBI personnel who reviewed the memo found it "speculative and not particularly significant." They said they knew some flight students were affiliated with bin Laden, she said, but believed they were intended to fly goods and personnel in Afghanistan.


(AP) Eleanor Hill, staff director for the House and Senate intelligence committees inquiry into...
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Hill wrote that both Williams and the FBI agents in headquarters were unaware that the FBI had received a report in 1998 that a terrorist organization might be planning to bring students to the United States to train at flight schools.

By November 2000, though, an analyst wrote a memo informing FBI offices that he found no evidence of terrorists studying aviation and that further investigation "is deemed imprudent" by FBI headquarters.

Agents involved in the Moussaoui case also were unaware of the Phoenix memo and the earlier investigation.

Moussaoui was arrested by FBI agents in Minnesota on immigration charges in August 2001 after a flight school instructor became suspicious of his desire to learn to fly a commercial jet. FBI headquarters denied agents' request to seek a warrant to search his computer. Moussaoui has since been charged with conspiring in the Sept. 11 attacks.

In his prepared testimony, a Minneapolis-based FBI agent blamed legal restrictions, FBI headquarters and the circumstances of the case for impeding a more aggressive investigation of Moussaoui before Sept. 11.


(AP) Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Bob Graham, D-Fla., puts his nameplate in place on Capitol...
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Lawmakers have been meeting behind closed doors since June, but public hearings were delayed until last week, partly because of questions about what information could be revealed in the Moussaoui case.

The committees have also been clashing with the Bush administration about whether it can reveal what intelligence about terrorist attacks was disclosed to the White House before Sept. 11.

The administration doesn't want to reveal what the White House knew, even if the intelligence has already been declassified.

On Tuesday, leaders of the committees again called on the White House to allow the information to be disclosed, or explain why the information should be kept secret.

House Minority Whip Nancy Pelosi, the leading Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said the White House's failure to allow the information to be disclosed "will undoubtedly further weaken public confidence in the entire classification system."

"To classify for the wrong reasons, when security is not at stake, when nothing of substance is really at stake, undermines the willingness of the American people to put their faith and trust in the government," the California Democrat said.

 

[CanuckMA]

Planes don't sit on the tarmak fully armed anymore. I would be very surprised if it took less than 30 minutes to get a plane combat ready. Add anouther 15-20 minutes to fly from Otis to New York. Then do you order the passenger plane shot down over the densely populated area that is New York?

Jet fighters on major exercises do not carry live ammo, unless they are heading for a range.

As for the Ashcroft thing, hey I'm no fan of Bush and his croonies, but if the FBI had credible intelligence of a possible hijacking, they would act in that way. Remember that prior to 911, a hijacking meant LANDING the plane somewhere to negotiate.

AT that time, when ATC loses contact with a commercial airliner, the assumptions were that it was just equipment failure.

There might have been a failure in intelligence. There certainly was a failure in security at the airport, but I don't believe that there was a failure in execution.

 

[Makalakumu]

So, we have high level officials avoiding the places that were hit. We have tons of connections between the Bin Ladens and the Bushes. And we have evidence of a cover-up (or at least stonewalling) in Minneapolis. Are these all coincidence?

So far the 911 commission has dealt with two of these things. One in a very cursory fashion. As far as the Minneapolis situation goes, there are two search warrents that can be issued and only one type can be issued at a time. The FBI's explanation is that they stalled because they didn't want to get in the way of the CIA. (What is the CIA's excuse I wonder - probably the inverse) For the Asscroft - other high level official not flying thing, Ashcroft himself said that they knew there was a threat - then they went no deeper (thank you NPR for broadcasting this thing live). The Bush - Bin Laden connections have not been explored. (Is anyone seeing parellels between this and the Warren Commission)

Vladimir Putin changed the old KGB in Russia to some new name I can't remember what it was. They still do the same things though. It turns out that his (KGB) were arrested by Moscow Police for PLANTING bombs all over Moscow. Shortly after, the police officers were arrested and thrown into the Gulag. Then "terrorist" bombs went off in the streets of Moscow - leading to more military action against rebels in that country. hmmmmm

What is going on? Why all of the stalling? Where are the questions that would negate alternative hypothesis? If you do a search on Google right now and type "911 Evidence Pentagon" the first ten sites you get are all conspiracy theory. (It's some pretty bogus stuff but...) This is popular information and should be officially debunked, shouldn't it? Don't you think this 911 commission has some responsibility to dig as deep as it can into all avenues regarding these events. If people screwed up, fine we need to know about it. If there is a conspiracy of ANY kind, it should be unearthed.

"Has anyone realized that NOT ONE OFFICIAL HAS BEEN FIRED AS THE RESULT OF 911!" Sen. John McCain to Tim Russert on Meet the Press.

(plenty of average people have been canned though - the whole economic slow down thing)

 

[Tgace]

Planes don't sit on the tarmak fully armed anymore. I would be very surprised if it took less than 30 minutes to get a plane combat ready. Add anouther 15-20 minutes to fly from Otis to New York. Then do you order the passenger plane shot down over the densely populated area that is New York?

Jet fighters on major exercises do not carry live ammo, unless they are heading for a range.

As for the Ashcroft thing, hey I'm no fan of Bush and his croonies, but if the FBI had credible intelligence of a possible hijacking, they would act in that way. Remember that prior to 911, a hijacking meant LANDING the plane somewhere to negotiate.

AT that time, when ATC loses contact with a commercial airliner, the assumptions were that it was just equipment failure.

There might have been a failure in intelligence. There certainly was a failure in security at the airport, but I don't believe that there was a failure in execution.

Dont muddy up a perfectly good conspiracy with personal experience and common sense...:rofl:

 

[Makalakumu]

Dont muddy up a perfectly good conspiracy with personal experience and common sense...:rofl:

What is so wrong with looking at ALL the information? :idunno:

There ARE fighter jets armed and ready to go all across the country. We have an airbase in my home town and I personally know people there. Five minutes. A jet can be armed and ready in five minutes.

Keep the points coming though, sooner or later, when you look at the whole body of evidence (if you have the courage to do so), you come up with some fishiness... :asian:

Are Americans even interested in the truth of this matter? Perhaps "American Idol" is more important now... :jedi1:

 

[Makalakumu]

"Has anyone realized that NOT ONE OFFICIAL HAS BEEN FIRED AS THE RESULT OF 911!" Sen. John McCain to Tim Russert on Meet the Press.

:jedi1:

 

[Bob Hubbard]

Interesting article...theres more to it, but here's a few bits that fit this preparedness discussion. ​

​

Excerpt from http://mediastudy.com/articles/av4-15-04.html

​

Operation Vigilant Resolve Ignites Hellfire in Iraq
While Condi Rice Makes Nice With the Warren, I mean, 9/11 Commission.
​

By Michael I. Niman, ArtVoice 4/15/04
​

“Preparations for Hijackings”​

Last week also saw Condoleezza Rice’s long awaited and much over hyped testimony before the 9/11 commission. Again, there wasn’t much new information here. What was new, however, was the mainstream media’s sudden interest in covering a story that the alterative media has reported over and over again ad-nausea since 2001. Black Congressional Caucus Chair Elijah Cummings summed up the corroborating points of Rice’s testimony quite succinctly, explaining that on August 6th, 2001, while Bush “was on a thirty-day vacation in Crawford Texas... He was informed by his national security team that al Qaida operatives in the United States had the ability to hijack passenger planes.” Rice revealed the title of the classified presidential briefing as “Bin Laden Determined to Strike Inside the United States.” We now know that this memo clearly stated that al Qaida was engaged in “patterns of suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations for hijackings.”

The Bush administration’s response to this information is even more telling. Testimony before the 9/11 commission shows that they chose not to share this threat information with the Department of Transportation, the Federal Aviation Administration or the FBI field office in charge of international terrorism. Hell, Newsweek reports that Bush and Cheney even decided not to tell Attorney General John Ashcroft, under whose watch the FBI falls. Instead, they just chose to have top administration officials such as John Ashcroft stop flying on commercial flights.

The Washington DC based think tank, the Center for American Progress, was quick to point out that Rice also made statements under oath that seem to counter the historic record. She claimed, for instance, that the Bush administration “decided immediately to continue pursuing the Clinton Administration’s ... efforts to fight [al Qaida].” In reality, the Ashcroft Justice Department curtailed a Clinton era program to monitor al Qaida suspects in the US. They also terminated reconnaissance missions over Afghanistan that monitored bin Laden’s movements.

In the months leading up to the 9/11 attacks, the administration further curtailed anti-terrorism efforts. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the 9/11 attacks, General Henry Shelton, reported that during the summer of 2001 the Bush administration moved anti-terrorism efforts “farther to the back burner.” Bush advisor General Don Kerrick warned the administration that al Qaida would be striking again, but no one contacted him to ask for more details.

Rice testified that the Bush administration increased funding for counterterrorism activities when in fact they cut over $500 million out of the Justice Department’s counterterrorism budget. She also contradicted her own previous statements about Richard Clarke. First she alleged that Clarke never turned over a plan for combating al Qaida. Under oath, however, she claims the administration was following suggestions made in Clarke’s plan.

Another Warren Commission?
​

What has come out of the 9/11 commission is the fact that the Bush administration knew that a major al Qaida attack was imminent. And we know that they received specific warnings. They knew the attack might involve airplanes. Or at least they believed this enough to keep their own people off of commercial flights. And we know that simple judicious measures could have prevented these attacks, yet the Bush administration chose not to take any preventative action.

We know that the Bush administration was negligent. Perhaps we can argue that they were criminally negligent. But this is where the 9/11 commission stops short. People make mistakes. And mistakes can be forgiven. Even if the results are tragic on a massive scale. Everyone makes mistakes.

The 9/11 commission is out to either prove or disprove allegations of incompetence while ignoring countless allegations of intentional malfeasance or strategic incompetence. The commission also isn’t asking questions about documented Saudi and Pakistani government connections to the hijackers and the possibility that officials from these countries were complicit in the attack on America. The commission isn’t conducting th criminal investigation this nation needs if we are to have closure. They’re not asking tough questions and they’re not following the money. Nobody is. Perhaps its because the potential answers are so frightening that we’re collectively shying away from asking the questions.

Any meaningful inquiry into an event that so radically changed our political landscape, ultimately changing the very ethos of our nation, must ask difficult questions. The friends and relatives of the tens of thousands of people who have been killed in New York, Pennsylvania, Washington DC, Afghanistan and Iraq deserve to know the answers.


Michael I. Niman’s previous columns are archived at www.mediastudy.com

 

[Ender]

I just crack up at you guys trying to find some mysterious conspiracy or some protocol that wasn't followed correctly. I remember 9/11 because I was working at JPL (Jet Propulsion Lab) at the time and was just arriving to work. In the military and in Aerospace there is a procedure or specification for everything. Did you know there is a MIL-SPEC for condoms??..*L..anyway, on that day, pandemonium reigned at the Lab, and all they could come up with was to send everyone home, and to shut down the campus. The lab was closed for 3 days after that until they figured out what to do. Well, come to find out, there was a plan and a procedure to deal with something like this event, but no one knew where it was, and no one knew who was in charge of it. So management regrouped and came up with a new plan which involved incoming inspections and searches. This is kinda funny in itself because there is enough material and technology ON the lab to build a bomb!

Also, there is a plan for everything somewhere, even something like a plan to invade Canada. Doesn't mean anyone would ever use it, or find it, but there is a plan. Aand all these plans are made to give the US a strategic advantage or position. Included in these plans are different scenarios with different outcomes. So, of course there were plans made for Iraq, There are also plans to battle China, Russia, even Mexico.

I even laugh at these people who try to make something out of the military exercise that may have been going on. Again, having worked on some of these programs (SAWE), I can tell you that most of them are done unarmed or with VERY limited live munitions. These excercises are extremely focused and to try to convert these into a real time emergency situation would be extremely difficult.

Anyway, the point is, monday morning quarterbacking is just that. Hindsight.

 

[michaeledward]

Add anouther 15-20 minutes to fly from Otis to New York.

Otis Air National Guard Base is located 193 miles from the World Trade Center.
A McDonnell Douglas F-15 Eagle has a top speed of 1650 miles per hour.
My simple mathematics tells me that an F-15 should be able to travel 165 miles in 1/10th of an hour - 6 minutes - Which means certainly, the Eagles should hve been able to reach NYC in less than 10 minutes.

Flight 11 was hijacked at 8:13 AM ...
the flight attendant reported the hijacking during a phone call at 8:20 AM ...
There are reports that NORAD received notification of the hijacking at 8:31 AM / 8:34 AM / 8:40 AM. It is unclear at which time Norad was alerted...
The order to scramble the aircraft occurs at 8:46 AM...
The F-15's launch from Otis ANG Base at 8:52 AM...
9:02 AM (10 minutes after launch) the F-15's are still 71 miles away.

That's 33 minutes from Hijacking until the scramble order is issued.
That's 26 minutes from someone on the plane reporting the hijacking until the scramble order is issued.

Jet fighters on major exercises do not carry live ammo, unless they are heading for a range.

And just for the record ... here is a report form 'Aviation Week'.

[color=#0000]Shortly after the second WTC crash, calls from fighter units start “pouring into NORAD and sector operations centers, asking, ‘What can we do to help?’ At Syracuse, New York, an ANG commander [tells Northeast Air Defense Sector (NEADS) commander Robert] Marr, ‘Give me 10 min. and I can give you hot guns. Give me 30 min. and I'll have heat-seeker [missiles]. Give me an hour and I can give you slammers [Amraams].’” Marr replies, “I want it all.”[/color]


​

Could the planes have responded quicker? Don't know.

But ... the F-15's were not travelling at top speed, or they were not flying to Metro-New York.

Mike

 

[Makalakumu]

I just crack up at you guys trying to find some mysterious conspiracy or some protocol that wasn't followed correctly. I remember 9/11 because I was working at JPL (Jet Propulsion Lab) at the time and was just arriving to work. In the military and in Aerospace there is a procedure or specification for everything. Did you know there is a MIL-SPEC for condoms??..*L..anyway, on that day, pandemonium reigned at the Lab, and all they could come up with was to send everyone home, and to shut down the campus. The lab was closed for 3 days after that until they figured out what to do. Well, come to find out, there was a plan and a procedure to deal with something like this event, but no one knew where it was, and no one knew who was in charge of it. So management regrouped and came up with a new plan which involved incoming inspections and searches. This is kinda funny in itself because there is enough material and technology ON the lab to build a bomb!

Also, there is a plan for everything somewhere, even something like a plan to invade Canada. Doesn't mean anyone would ever use it, or find it, but there is a plan. Aand all these plans are made to give the US a strategic advantage or position. Included in these plans are different scenarios with different outcomes. So, of course there were plans made for Iraq, There are also plans to battle China, Russia, even Mexico.

I even laugh at these people who try to make something out of the military exercise that may have been going on. Again, having worked on some of these programs (SAWE), I can tell you that most of them are done unarmed or with VERY limited live munitions. These excercises are extremely focused and to try to convert these into a real time emergency situation would be extremely difficult.

Anyway, the point is, monday morning quarterbacking is just that. Hindsight.

None of this should matter in a true inquiry. In fact, this sort of attitude ensures that the truth of the matter doesn't MATTER. I think we need to explore all facets of this event - even the unsavory ones - even the ones that we don't want to deal with. Anything else is just going to turn this commission into a sham.

 

[michaeledward]

I just crack up at you guys trying to find some mysterious conspiracy or some protocol that wasn't followed correctly. I remember 9/11 because I was working at JPL (Jet Propulsion Lab) at the time and was just arriving to work. In the military and in Aerospace there is a procedure or specification for everything. Did you know there is a MIL-SPEC for condoms??..*L..anyway, on that day, pandemonium reigned at the Lab, and all they could come up with was to send everyone home, and to shut down the campus. The lab was closed for 3 days after that until they figured out what to do. Well, come to find out, there was a plan and a procedure to deal with something like this event, but no one knew where it was, and no one knew who was in charge of it. So management regrouped and came up with a new plan which involved incoming inspections and searches. This is kinda funny in itself because there is enough material and technology ON the lab to build a bomb!

Also, there is a plan for everything somewhere, even something like a plan to invade Canada. Doesn't mean anyone would ever use it, or find it, but there is a plan. Aand all these plans are made to give the US a strategic advantage or position. Included in these plans are different scenarios with different outcomes. So, of course there were plans made for Iraq, There are also plans to battle China, Russia, even Mexico.

I even laugh at these people who try to make something out of the military exercise that may have been going on. Again, having worked on some of these programs (SAWE), I can tell you that most of them are done unarmed or with VERY limited live munitions. These excercises are extremely focused and to try to convert these into a real time emergency situation would be extremely difficult.

Anyway, the point is, monday morning quarterbacking is just that. Hindsight.

So, what would the situation have to be for you to say "Gee, you know, the United States Government and Military really Screwed That Up".

I bet at JPL, when somebody screws up, somebody gets fired. No one has been terminated for the security lapses. No one, apparently has been reprimanded.

Although, Paul O'Neil got canned for saying tax cuts at times of deficit may not be a good thing for the country.

If you look at the record, on average, military airplanes are dispatched to investigate planes that are off course about twice a week.

 

[Tgace]

http://www.wpunj.edu/cohss/old_cohss/polisci/faculty/ssconsp.htm

(10) Why are conspiracy theories regarding 9-11 not credible?

For each of the different conspiracy theories, various possibilities exist for who was conspiring. Thus, when we take into account all the permutations of who was involved for each different theory, we have at least several dozen different conspiracy theories for 9-11. The average Leftist is supposed burrow among all this, virtually endlessly. Yet in fact none of these theories is even moderately persuasive.

Consider first those variations that have Bush pulling the attacks off alone, with perhaps a few trusted aides. One feels like one is entering a twilight zone of inattentiveness to reality even engaging in such discussion, but surely Bush couldn't arrange for U.S. agents to orchestrate the plot without the cooperation of top CIA or military intelligence officials; surely he couldn't get NORAD to take over the planes by remote control without the cooperation of top NORAD officials. Or imagine that the plot was the version requiring the least pre-planning -- namely, that Bush was surprised when the first tower was hit, but then consciously decided to act to allow the rest of the strikes to take place in order to reap the benefits of a war on terrorism. Could it be that Bush was able to figure out the implications of that initial attack, but that none of his other top advisers insisted that he take action? If it was obvious enough to Bush where all this was leading, wouldn't it have been obvious to top national security advisers who were not privy to the plot that something had to be done? Would these advisers have let Bush continue with his elementary school visit (where he was between 9 and 9:30 the morning of September 11) without insisting on an urgent meeting?

If Bush deciding alone on the spot to let the attacks continue is scarcely credible, no matter, consider another variation: that Bush had advance warning of what was going to happen and that he decided to let it happen, again in order to garner the benefits of the ensuing war fever. Bykov and Israel claim that there is no way that the president would have continued his elementary school visit after the Twin Towers were struck unless he knew about it in advance:

There is only one explanation for the Secret Service allowing President Bush to take the deadly risk of going to the Booker School on the morning of September 11th.

George Walker Bush knew the plans for 9-11. And because he knew those plans, he knew that nobody was going to attack the Booker School (http://emperors-clothes.com/indic t/indict-3.htm).

The premise here is that anyone aware that the Twin Towers were struck would know that the president and the country were in immediate danger. But then why didn't the Secret Service demand to rush Bush to safety? If Bush were going to overrule his Secret Service team, wouldn't we have seen some evidence of it between 9:05 (when Tower 2 was struck) and 9:30? And if Bush were so smart to have planned this whole thing, why would he interfere with the Secret Service's routine procedures? Why not let them rush him to safety? Or, if the Secret Service is in on it -- could the plotters really be certain that they all would maintain perfect silence about a mass murder plot?

Bush later allowed the Secret Service to hide him on various military bases rather than return directly to Washington, a decision that led to much criticism of the president for failing to lead the nation in a crisis. You'd think with advance planning, Bush could have arranged to look properly cautious at first and then like a heroic leader later. Instead he seemed confused and then chicken. (Of course, conspiracy theorists will say that the initial confusion and then the hiding were all part of the deception, finding turtles all the way down. Sure, sometimes it pays to feign stupidity -- as when Reagan said he couldn't recall anything about Iran-Contra -- but this was only after the plot was discovered. In the 9-11 case, however, according to these conspiracy theorists the initial plot is supposedly intended to make the president look like an idiot.) Criminals usually take care to prepare their alibis. Are we to believe that Bush planned the largest peacetime terrorist plot in history and didn't bother thinking through what would make his behavior seem least suspicious and most praiseworthy?

Would everyone hearing of the second attack on the World Trade Center at 9:05 a.m. have immediately known what was going on? Some of the conspiracy theorists say yes. But then why did the FAA not ground all U.S. flights until 9:40 a.m.? (Evan Thomas and Mark Hosenball, Newsweek, 24 Sept. 2001) Four planes were already known to have been hijacked, two had already plowed into buildings more than half an hour earlier. There are two possibilities. Either the FAA was in on the plot too, and its officials have been silent since, or else there was genuine confusion that morning and it was quite possible to not know what was happening. For that matter, even if the FAA were in on the plot, it's hard to see what purpose could be served by delaying the grounding of the planes. The morass.

What other top officials might have been involved in the plot in addition to Bush? Bykov and Israel say (with no particular evidence) that Rumsfeld and Myers, the Secretary of Defense and the acting Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff were involved. If he wants to argue that according to the established chain of command, these are the individuals responsible for protecting U.S. national security and that they failed, that is surely true, but hardly something to warrant the political attention of the Left. But Bykov and Israel don't want to make this argument. They say explicitly: "Their behavior, as described in the media, presents the appearance of bewilderment, naivet and lack of preparedness. But we shall prove this appearance was contrived" (http://emperors-clothes.com/indic t/indict-2.htm).

So we are supposed to believe that the top Pentagon officials have arranged an attack on the Pentagon, where lots of their cronies and top aides worked. (Yes, maybe they could have arranged for their closest friends to be on the other side of the building, but this seems rather difficult to pull off -- and now we are into the morass, one claim after another, again.) And why, by the way, attack the Pentagon at all? Wouldn't Bush have gotten just as much support for his war on terrorism if just the WTC was hit and not the Pentagon?

Was the CIA involved? If not, how could the plotters be sure that the CIA wouldn't find out about the conspiracy and blow the whistle? If the CIA was involved, however, what about the fact that CIA chief Tenet was a Clinton appointee. (Yes, Democrats are as imperialist as Republicans; but a secret plot to commit mass murder is likely to be closely held. And if the Democrats are in on the plot, then why are folks like Hillary Clinton calling for an investigation?) One can weave a bigger web, with more turtles, ad infinitum. There is no proving a negative, particularly about events that are intrinsically largely beyond our purview of investigation. In such cases our overarching understanding of the context, the institutional situation, and our broader agendas should come into play. But not for those who see turtles all the way down.

One of Bush's closest cronies is Ted Olson. Olson was the lawyer who argued the Bush-should-be-president case before the Supreme Court and was made Solicitor General as pay-off. Was Olson in on the plot? Does it matter that Olson's wife, Barbara, was on the plane that hit the Pentagon? Was this too just to throw investigators off the scent of the plot? (Yes, we know, Ted may have wanted to leave Barbara for some super-model, and Barbara wouldn't give him a divorce, so maybe the whole plot was just a cover to get Ted out of his marriage.)

What about Attorney General John Ashcroft? Was he in on it? As the author of the Patriot Act that was made possible by the war on terrorism, he seems like someone with something to gain from 9-11. And we know that he was told by the FBI in July that for his safety he should avoid commercial flights (Newsweek, 27 May 2002). Doesn't this prove conspiracy? Well, no. It may show a callous disregard for the well-being of the American public -- instead of making the skies safe for all passengers, the privileged are taken care of and the rest are ignored -- but it doesn't indicate that Ashcroft or anyone else knew about 9-11. (For example, leaders often have access to better medical care than the population at large; rather than improve medical care for all, selfish elites provide themselves with first-class care and let others fend for themselves. This is contemptible behavior, of course, but it is systematically produced by the institutions of capitalist and elite-dominated societies and it is very different from suggesting that members of the elite secretly inject the general population with cancer cells.) In any event, if Ashcroft were privy to the 9-11 plot he certainly left himself vulnerable to charges of gross incompetence, rejecting in the months before 9-11 FBI requests for more counter-terrorism analysts (Newsweek, 27 May 2002).

If, to go on with the line-up of options, as in some versions of the conspiracy theories, bin Laden is controlled by or faked by the U.S. government, then why didn't the plotters arrange for the "evidence" to implicate Iraq (a place they're much more eager to invade than Afghanistan)? The hijackers could have left all sorts of material behind linking themselves to Saddam Hussein. Mohammed Atta's will could have referred to funds and direction from Baghdad. If, on the other hand, the U.S. plotters didn't control bin Laden, but only knew of his plans through some sort of electronic or human intelligence, then how could they be sure that the plane that struck the Pentagon wouldn't instead hit some target they really cared about?

Bush, of course, knows no history. But if any of the bright people around him were in on the plot, surely they would have told him how hard it is to keep a secret. Kissinger ordered the secret falsification of records of where U.S. planes in Indochina were bombing to hide the fact that Cambodia was being targeted. A radar operator spilled the beans. And what was at stake there was something that many US soldiers might not have cared very much about. But to have several hundred people involved in a plot to commit mass murder, not of people who can be considered sub-human, or "other," etc., but thousands of Americans -- that's a secret that would be extraordinary to expect to be kept secret. To take that risk at all, much less when they already had immense power, is simply not believable.

Contrary opinion at...
http://www.mediamonitors.net/mosaddeq37.html

 

[Tgace]

Wow...even The Nation published this.

http://www.tompaine.com/feature.cfm/ID/5206/view/print

I must be arguing with you guys too much since I see some sense in this...



"There is plenty to be outraged over without becoming obsessed with "X Files"-like nonsense.

By now, you’re probably wondering why I have bothered to go through this exercise. Aren’t these conspiracy theories too silly to address? That should be the case. But, sadly, they do attract people. A fellow named Michael Ruppert, who compiled that timeline mentioned above, has drawn large crowds to his lectures. He has offered $1000 to anyone who can "disprove the authenticity of any of his source material." Well, his timeline includes that Canadian prisoner’s claim and cites the Toronto Star as the source. But Ruppert fails to note that the Star did not confirm the man’s account, that the paper reported that some observers "wonder if it isn’t just the ravings of a lunatic," and that the Star subsequently reported the judge said the tale had "no air of reality." Does that disprove anything? Not 100 percent. There’s still a chance that man is telling the truth, right? So I’m not expecting a check.

Conspiracy theories may seem more nuisance than problem. But they do compete with reality for attention. There is plenty to be outraged over without becoming obsessed with "X Files"-like nonsense.

Examples? There’s the intelligence services’ failure to protect Americans and the lack of criticism of the CIA from elected officials. Or, General Tommy Franks, the commander of military operations in Afghanistan, declaring the commando mis-assault at Hazar Qadam, which resulted in the deaths of 15 to 20 local Afghans loyal to the pro-U.S. government, was not an intelligence failure. (How can U.S. Special Forces fire at targets they wrongly believe to be Taliban or al Qaeda fighters, end up killing people they did not intend to kill, and the operation not be considered an intelligence failure?) More outrage material? A few months ago, forensic researchers found the remains of people tortured and killed at a base the CIA had established in the 1980s as a training center for the contras. The U.S. ambassador to Honduras at the time is now the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, John Negroponte.

There are always national security misdeeds to be mad about. They may not be as cinematic in nature as a plot in which shady, unidentified U.S. officials scheme to blow up the World Trade Towers to gain control of an oil pipeline in Central Asia. But dozens of dead Hondurans or 20 or so Afghans wrongly killed ought to provoke anger and protest. In fact, out-there conspiracy theorizing serves the interests of the powers-that-be by making their real transgressions seem tame in comparison. (What’s a few dead in Central America, compared to thousands in New York City? Why worry about Negroponte, when unidentified U.S. officials are slaughtering American civilians to trigger war?) Perhaps there’s a Pentagon or CIA office that churns out this material. Its mission: distract people from the real wrongdoing. Now there’s a conspiracy theory worth exploring. Doesn’t it make sense? Doesn’t it all fit together? I challenge anyone to disprove it."

 

[Bob Hubbard]

One can compare alot of the speculation to that which occured during and after world war 2.

Did Roosavelt know Pearl Harbor was going to be attacked? Some folks believe so. There is evidence that suggests the attack on Pearl was known to those at the top days before it occured. Who is right? We'll never know.
http://www.apfn.org/apfn/pearl_harbor.htm
http://www.hollywood.com/sites/pearlharbor/id/422053 (someone made a movie about it it seems)

There are also those who believe that Winston Churchhill sacraficed Coventry during WW2 so that the Germans wouldn't know their code had been broken.

One can argue that the Bush administration is simply repeating history here.

This one will argue that at best, gross neglect is evident, at worse, crimes for which those responsible must be brought to justice for. Which is it?

You can only read, investigate and make your own mind up.

 

[CanuckMA]

Otis Air National Guard Base is located 193 miles from the World Trade Center.
A McDonnell Douglas F-15 Eagle has a top speed of 1650 miles per hour.
My simple mathematics tells me that an F-15 should be able to travel 165 miles in 1/10th of an hour - 6 minutes - Which means certainly, the Eagles should hve been able to reach NYC in less than 10 minutes.

Flight 11 was hijacked at 8:13 AM ...
the flight attendant reported the hijacking during a phone call at 8:20 AM ...
There are reports that NORAD received notification of the hijacking at 8:31 AM / 8:34 AM / 8:40 AM. It is unclear at which time Norad was alerted...
The order to scramble the aircraft occurs at 8:46 AM...
The F-15's launch from Otis ANG Base at 8:52 AM...
9:02 AM (10 minutes after launch) the F-15's are still 71 miles away.

That's 33 minutes from Hijacking until the scramble order is issued.
That's 26 minutes from someone on the plane reporting the hijacking until the scramble order is issued.



And just for the record ... here is a report form 'Aviation Week'.

[color=#0000]Shortly after the second WTC crash, calls from fighter units start “pouring into NORAD and sector operations centers, asking, ‘What can we do to help?’ At Syracuse, New York, an ANG commander [tells Northeast Air Defense Sector (NEADS) commander Robert] Marr, ‘Give me 10 min. and I can give you hot guns. Give me 30 min. and I'll have heat-seeker [missiles]. Give me an hour and I can give you slammers [Amraams].’” Marr replies, “I want it all.”[/color]


​

Could the planes have responded quicker? Don't know.

But ... the F-15's were not travelling at top speed, or they were not flying to Metro-New York.

Mike

To also keep in mind. Up until 911, hijackers DID NOT plow planes into buildings. Nobody you have ordered the downing of a hijacked plane, let alone over a populated area like metro-NYC.

 

[michaeledward]

To also keep in mind. Up until 911, hijackers DID NOT plow planes into buildings. Nobody you have ordered the downing of a hijacked plane, let alone over a populated area like metro-NYC.

You are correct, that hijackers did not plow planes into buildings. But, terroriss using planes as weapons is a scenario that had been widely discussed throughout the Counterterrorism Security Group (headed by Richard Clarke) since before the 1996 Atlanta Summer Olympics.

Next, the 'Standard Operating Procedure' (and that there is a 'Standard Operating Procedure' about this say alot in itself) is that the military aircraft would intercept the commercial airplane that has deviated from its flight plan.

“A NORAD spokesman says its fighters routinely intercept aircraft. When planes are intercepted, they typically are handled with a graduated response. The approaching fighter may rock its wingtips to attract the pilot's attention, or make a pass in front of the aircraft. Eventually, it can fire tracer rounds in the airplane's path, or, under certain circumstances, down it with a missile.”
​

Finally, I have not ordered the military aircraft to destroy a commercial airliner. Although, as I understand the events of September 11, 2001. Richard Clarke did seek that authorization through Vice President Dick Cheney, who, in turn received positive authorization from President George Bush.

But, since the US Military F-15's (from Otis) and F-16's (from Langley) could not close the gap quick enough, this order was not put to the test.

Mike