Politics
Obama slams Ahmadinejad for "hateful" 9/11 remarks
Sat, Sep 25 17:38 PM EDT
By Alister Bull and Louis Charbonneau
NEW YORK (Reuters) - President Barack Obama on Friday condemned as hateful and inexcusable suggestions by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad that the U.S. government may have been behind the September 11, 2001, attacks.
Ahmadinejad responded to the U.S. criticism of his remarks by saying that Washington and its allies "need to listen."
In an interview with the BBC Persian news service, Obama lashed out at Ahmadinejad for the latest of what the White House called a long list of outrageous comments that would deepen Tehran's isolation from the international community.
"It was offensive. It was hateful," Obama said according to interview excerpts released by the White House.
"And particularly for him to make the statement here in Manhattan, just a little north of Ground Zero, where families lost their loved ones," he said. "For him to make a statement like that was inexcusable."
Ahmadinejad told the U.N. General Assembly on Thursday that U.S. statesmen were isolated in saying that al Qaeda militants carried out the suicide attacks that brought down New York's World Trade Center and hit the Pentagon outside Washington and called for a U.N. investigation.
He said most Americans and others around the world believed the U.S. government orchestrated the attacks to rescue the economy and save Israel, comments that prompted the U.S. delegation, all 27 European Union member states and several other delegations to leave the assembly hall in protest.
Obama had made his decision to sit down for the interview with the BBC Persian news service before Ahmadinejad made his 9/11 comments as a way of speaking directly to the Iranian people. BBC Persian is broadcast in Farsi, the dominant language in Iran.
"HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS" KILLED
Ahmadinejad returned to the issue during a news conference on Friday, saying he met with four groups of U.S. citizens in New York who disagreed with the U.S. government's explanation for 9/11. He said he was not surprised by the angry response his remarks had elicited from U.S. officials.
"The U.S. government, if it's upset, it should be," he said, adding that an unidentified poll showed that 80 percent of Americans found the events of September 11 to be suspicious.
"Their (U.S. and EU) tolerance seems to be low," Ahmadinejad said. "Their nerves get disrupted too fast. They need to listen."
He said 9/11 had caused two wars -- in Afghanistan and Iraq -- leading to the deaths of "hundreds of thousands."
"Now they recently starting bombing Pakistan," Ahmadinejad said. "What's going on? How many terrorists are there? Is nine years or 10 years not enough time to get rid of them?"
British Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg said Ahmadinejad's 9/11 remarks were "bizarre, offensive and attention-grabbing pronouncements." U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon also said he strongly condemned the comments.
A senior White House official told reporters the remarks were part of a pattern from Ahmadinejad, including denial of the Holocaust, that would further isolate the country and harm the interests of its people.
Several Western diplomats, however, said that "conspiracy theories" about possible U.S. government and Israeli involvement in the September 11 attacks are popular in the Middle East and Ahmadinejad may have been playing to that audience.
OCTOBER NUCLEAR TALKS POSSIBLE
For more than seven years, the United States and its Western allies have been locked in a standoff with Iran over its nuclear program, which Washington believes aims to produce weapons but which Tehran says is for solely peaceful purposes.
In Obama's speech at the United Nations on Thursday, he reiterated the U.S. position that the door to diplomacy with Iran remained open but that Tehran must fulfill international obligations over its nuclear program.
Ahmadinejad told a news conference on Friday he was ready for talks with the international community and that an Iranian official might meet next month with a representative of one of six world powers offering Iran political and economic incentives in exchange for halting uranium enrichment.
"We hope that by October we will be prepared (for talks)," he said, adding that they must take place "within the framework of justice and fairness."
Ahmadinejad made clear that Iran would continue with its enrichment program but reiterated that Tehran might examine whether it needs to continue higher-level enrichment for a medical research reactor in Tehran if it received fuel for it.
For months, Western nations have been urging Iran to return to the negotiating table -- there have been no substantive talks since late last year -- but with no visible success.
One reporter asked Ahmadinejad to clarify whether or not he has said that Israel should be wiped off the map, as has been widely reported. He responded that the Palestinians should be allowed to decide for themselves what kind of state they want to live in without outside interference.
"Sixty years ago there was no occupying regime (Israel)," he said. "It was imposed on the people. Let the people decide."
The Iranian president also criticized U.S. media, suggesting that American reporters all seemed to be under the influence of the U.S. State Department. He said one interviewer had raised his voice and insulted him.
"In the interviews I had with all the American media, all the questions were the same," he said. "The only difference was the order they were asked ... The American media is the least trusted in the world."
However, he thanked the people of New York, calling them kind and "very good people," and the New York police department. He also apologized for any traffic jams he caused.
(Additional reporting by Michelle Nichols, Lesley Wroughton and Patrick Worsnip in New York, and Caren Bohan and Matt Spetalnick in Washington; Editing by Arshad Mohammed and Bill Trott)
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Now, here's the thing...if you look back at all the different coinsidences that happened just before the 9-11 attacks, and look back at all the times that the U.S. government received the information about what was about to happen, don't you think that Ahmadinejad could be (possibly) right about what he said?
I don't think that his statements were hateful...unless we now consider the "truth" to be hateful.
POTUS does not have any right to slam or chastise anyone especially with all the crap he is doing, has done, and will do to OUR country! You only have to do the research aabout the 9-11 attacks and judge for yourself...
Personally, I find it very highly possible that our own government is responsible for what happened on 9-11, and if they are responsible, they really need to 'come clean' about it and explain to us WHY THEY DID THIS to our country.
It is a sad day on Earth when it comes down to the American people being afraid of their government and not knowing if we can even trust them to protect us from them [government officials].
Sunday, September 26, 2010
Sunday, September 19, 2010
Government Releases Detailed Information on 9/11 Crashes--Article from National Security Archives
Ok, here's another very interesting article that I have been reading, and decided that I would post it here in order to get your perspective on it.
Make sure to click onto the link to the left of the page titled 'National Security Archives' so that you can view the extra links in the highlighted words of the text to get more information, as I am not going to post ALL the contents here...too much space.
But in all honesty, doesn't all of this seem a little strange to you? I am going to re-read this later on and see what I can make of this, because it has me wondering if we can rely on our government or if maybe our government should be the ones we need to really fear (and I mean pre- and post- Obama).
It is very sad to think that our own government could do this...but I am keeping an open mind (barely) at this idea.
**********************************************************************
Government Releases Detailed
Information on 9/11 Crashes
Complete Air-Ground Transcripts of Hijacked
9/11 Flight Recordings Declassified
National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 196
Edited by Barbara Elias
For more information contact:
Barbara Elias - 202/994-7000
Posted - August 11, 2006
Related postings
The September 11th Sourcebooks
Washington, DC - August 11, 2006 - The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) this week released full transcripts of the air traffic control recordings from the four flights hijacked on September 11, 2001, and meticulous Flight Path Studies for three of the flights, in response to a Freedom of Information request by the National Security Archive. The studies provide the most detailed technical information available to date related to the hijackings, and the transcripts of the aircraft-to-ground communications are the first complete government disclosure of each flight's air traffic control recordings.
The documents are cited extensively in the 9/11 Commission Report to establish key facts and basic timelines for each hijacked flight. The NTSB Web site references the documents but does not provide copies, claiming "the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 are under the jurisdiction of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The Safety Board provided requested technical assistance to the FBI, and any material generated by the NTSB is under the control of the FBI. The Safety Board does not plan to issue a report or open a public docket." The documents were released in their entirety to the National Security Archive and were received directly from the NTSB.
The transcripts provide additional details to the information summarized in the 9/11 Commission Report. For example, the NTSB transcript differs slightly from the Commission's text of the warning that United Airlines Flight 93 received only minutes before the hijackers attacked. At 9:23am, the Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System (ACARS) shows a text message to Flight 93 reading: "BEWARE OF ANY COCKPIT INTROUSION [sic]. TWO AIRCRAFT IN NY, HIT TRADE CNTER BUILDS [sic]." Five minutes later at 9:28am Flight 93 was sending the message "***(mayday)*** (hey get out of here) ***" as it was being hijacked.
The Flight Path Studies reconstruct the routes of American Airlines Flight 11, American Airlines Flight 77 and United Airlines Flight 175. Complied from recorded radar data and information from the Flight Data Recorders, the studies' illustrations of radar ground tracks, maps and altitude profiles provide graphic guides to each hijacking and were used by the NTSB to determine the takeover points where the hijackers gained control of the planes.
In addition to the Flight Path Studies and Air Traffic Control Recording transcripts, the NTSB released a February 2002 "Specialist's Factual Report of Investigation" on United Airlines Flight 93 based on the flight's recovered digital data recorder -- the only surviving recorder from the hijacked planes on 9/11. The report provides graphic analysis of the data recovered from Flight 93 and its subsequent crash in Shanksville, PA. According to the report, the flight recorder functioned normally.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Documents
Note: The following documents are in PDF format.
You will need to download and install the free Adobe Acrobat Reader to view.
Document 1: NTSB report, "Flight Path Study-American Airlines Flight 11," Feb. 19, 2002 [Chapter 1, The 9/11 Commission Report, "We Have Some Planes." Footnotes 23, 33]
Document 2: NTSB report, "Flight Path Study-American Airlines Flight 77," Feb. 19, 2002 [Chapter 1, The 9/11 Commission Report, "We Have Some Planes." Footnote 53]
Document 3: NTSB report, "Flight Path Study-United Airlines 175," Feb. 19, 2002 [Chapter 1, The 9/11 Commission Report, "We Have Some Planes." Footnote 41]
Document 4: NTSB report, "Specialist's Factual Report of Investigation-Digital Flight Data Recorder" for United Airlines Flight 93, Feb. 15, 2002 [Chapter 1, The 9/11 Commission Report, "We Have Some Planes." Footnotes 70, 71]
Document 5: NTSB report, Air Traffic Control Recording-American Airlines Flight 11, Dec. 21, 2001 [Chapter 1, The 9/11 Commission Report, "We Have Some Planes." Footnote 24]
Document 6: NTSB report, Air Traffic Control Recording-American Airlines Flight 77, Dec. 21, 2001 [Chapter 1, The 9/11 Commission Report, "We Have Some Planes." Footnote 54]
Document 7: NTSB report, Air Traffic Control Recording-United Airlines Flight 175, Dec. 21, 2001 [Chapter 1, The 9/11 Commission Report, "We Have Some Planes." Footnotes 24, 41, 42, 44]
Document 8: NTSB report, Air Traffic Control Recording-United Airlines Flight 93, Dec. 21, 2001 [Chapter 1, The 9/11 Commission Report, "We Have Some Planes." Footnote 71]
Make sure to click onto the link to the left of the page titled 'National Security Archives' so that you can view the extra links in the highlighted words of the text to get more information, as I am not going to post ALL the contents here...too much space.
But in all honesty, doesn't all of this seem a little strange to you? I am going to re-read this later on and see what I can make of this, because it has me wondering if we can rely on our government or if maybe our government should be the ones we need to really fear (and I mean pre- and post- Obama).
It is very sad to think that our own government could do this...but I am keeping an open mind (barely) at this idea.
**********************************************************************
Government Releases Detailed
Information on 9/11 Crashes
Complete Air-Ground Transcripts of Hijacked
9/11 Flight Recordings Declassified
National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 196
Edited by Barbara Elias
For more information contact:
Barbara Elias - 202/994-7000
Posted - August 11, 2006
Related postings
The September 11th Sourcebooks
Washington, DC - August 11, 2006 - The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) this week released full transcripts of the air traffic control recordings from the four flights hijacked on September 11, 2001, and meticulous Flight Path Studies for three of the flights, in response to a Freedom of Information request by the National Security Archive. The studies provide the most detailed technical information available to date related to the hijackings, and the transcripts of the aircraft-to-ground communications are the first complete government disclosure of each flight's air traffic control recordings.
The documents are cited extensively in the 9/11 Commission Report to establish key facts and basic timelines for each hijacked flight. The NTSB Web site references the documents but does not provide copies, claiming "the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 are under the jurisdiction of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The Safety Board provided requested technical assistance to the FBI, and any material generated by the NTSB is under the control of the FBI. The Safety Board does not plan to issue a report or open a public docket." The documents were released in their entirety to the National Security Archive and were received directly from the NTSB.
The transcripts provide additional details to the information summarized in the 9/11 Commission Report. For example, the NTSB transcript differs slightly from the Commission's text of the warning that United Airlines Flight 93 received only minutes before the hijackers attacked. At 9:23am, the Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System (ACARS) shows a text message to Flight 93 reading: "BEWARE OF ANY COCKPIT INTROUSION [sic]. TWO AIRCRAFT IN NY, HIT TRADE CNTER BUILDS [sic]." Five minutes later at 9:28am Flight 93 was sending the message "***(mayday)*** (hey get out of here) ***" as it was being hijacked.
The Flight Path Studies reconstruct the routes of American Airlines Flight 11, American Airlines Flight 77 and United Airlines Flight 175. Complied from recorded radar data and information from the Flight Data Recorders, the studies' illustrations of radar ground tracks, maps and altitude profiles provide graphic guides to each hijacking and were used by the NTSB to determine the takeover points where the hijackers gained control of the planes.
In addition to the Flight Path Studies and Air Traffic Control Recording transcripts, the NTSB released a February 2002 "Specialist's Factual Report of Investigation" on United Airlines Flight 93 based on the flight's recovered digital data recorder -- the only surviving recorder from the hijacked planes on 9/11. The report provides graphic analysis of the data recovered from Flight 93 and its subsequent crash in Shanksville, PA. According to the report, the flight recorder functioned normally.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Documents
Note: The following documents are in PDF format.
You will need to download and install the free Adobe Acrobat Reader to view.
Document 1: NTSB report, "Flight Path Study-American Airlines Flight 11," Feb. 19, 2002 [Chapter 1, The 9/11 Commission Report, "We Have Some Planes." Footnotes 23, 33]
Document 2: NTSB report, "Flight Path Study-American Airlines Flight 77," Feb. 19, 2002 [Chapter 1, The 9/11 Commission Report, "We Have Some Planes." Footnote 53]
Document 3: NTSB report, "Flight Path Study-United Airlines 175," Feb. 19, 2002 [Chapter 1, The 9/11 Commission Report, "We Have Some Planes." Footnote 41]
Document 4: NTSB report, "Specialist's Factual Report of Investigation-Digital Flight Data Recorder" for United Airlines Flight 93, Feb. 15, 2002 [Chapter 1, The 9/11 Commission Report, "We Have Some Planes." Footnotes 70, 71]
Document 5: NTSB report, Air Traffic Control Recording-American Airlines Flight 11, Dec. 21, 2001 [Chapter 1, The 9/11 Commission Report, "We Have Some Planes." Footnote 24]
Document 6: NTSB report, Air Traffic Control Recording-American Airlines Flight 77, Dec. 21, 2001 [Chapter 1, The 9/11 Commission Report, "We Have Some Planes." Footnote 54]
Document 7: NTSB report, Air Traffic Control Recording-United Airlines Flight 175, Dec. 21, 2001 [Chapter 1, The 9/11 Commission Report, "We Have Some Planes." Footnotes 24, 41, 42, 44]
Document 8: NTSB report, Air Traffic Control Recording-United Airlines Flight 93, Dec. 21, 2001 [Chapter 1, The 9/11 Commission Report, "We Have Some Planes." Footnote 71]
Friday, September 17, 2010
Summary of 9/11 Coincidences--from the "9-11 Truth" web site
Ok, I was looking through some of the other 9-11 research type web sites that I found last weekend and found this article/essay about some coincidences pertaining to 9-11 that I found to be some-what interesting.
I am not entirely sure what to think of everything that I have found, but it is very interesting to say the least, and when you read it, it really does kind of make you sit back and think, and wonder...'what is REALLY going on here, and why'???
If (and I am NOT saying that it was) 9-11 was an 'inside job' created by our government, my question is 'why would they want to attack their own country and blame it on someone else'? I mean...really, what sense does this make? To perpetrate such a horrible act of violence on innocent people and then blame it on a different group of people (why? just because their religion teaches what it does? Then why not go after the Satanists as well with their Satanic rituals and human sacrifices etc etc etc)?
This is all just really hard to comprehend and understand and even believe that our own government would commit such a tragedy.
Read the following post and draw your own conclusions. You can also click on the link to the left titled "9-11 Truth" to read more on this particular post as well as other just as interesting articles and essays.
********************************************************************
Summary of 9/11 Coincidences
Anti-terrorism task-force takes out hundreds of Islamic websites just days before Sept 11th. To keep them quiet after the attack?
San Francisco Mayor warned not to fly the night before the attacks
Jeb Bush amends an executive order giving emergency power to FEMA. He changed it on September 7th 2001 to include terrorist attacks
John Ashcroft was not flying on commercial jets in July 2001 - only in chartered jets due to a threat assessment. Funny that..
Rule that allowed pilots to carry guns in the cockpit was rescinded 2 months before 9-11 (had been in place since 1961) in spite of the fact that warnings were given about potential hijackings in the same month....
Salman Rushdie (remember him?) was banned from taking internal flights in US and Canada the week before the attack
Pentagon officials suddenly develop a fear of flying- on Sept 10th. We didn't know! Sorry we forgot to increase security in the airports.
The Pentagon had been planning for a plane crashing into the building
The emergency plan for the unlikely event of a plane hitting the Pentagon was drafted by the pilot of flight 77 (Former US Navy, Charles Burlingame) which crashed into the Pentagon. (Washington Post 9/16/01)
On Sept 11th, about 4 miles from Dulles Airport where one of the hijacked planes took off, the National Reconnaissance Office (linked to CIA) was carrying out a disaster preparedness simulation of a plane crashing into their building.
Operation Amalgam Virgo - a simulated multiple plane hijacking scenario was planned prior to Sept 11th but carried out later on. The point being "how could we have foreseen something like this?" is a lie.
A simulated terrorist attack was scheduled for Sept 12th. The Emergency Command Centre in Building 7 was destroyed, but the comm centre ultimately ended up on Pier 7, the site selected for the drill the next day.
Naval Officer, Bernard Brown had a conversation with his son about not being afraid of dying just before he put him on Flight 77, the plane that crashed into the Pentagon. Had Bernard Brown been at work that day he would have been killed as the plane carrying his son crashed into his office at the Pentagon . Luckily he had taken a rare day off to play golf.
Pakistani boy points at WTC on Sept 6th and says: "Those buildings will not be there next week" Which means that someone, somewhere, knew for certain that the buildings would definitely collapse. Which means there were explosive devices in the building.
The invasion of Afghanistan was planned well in advance of Sept 11th and some neighbouring countries were informed of these plans prior to the attacks. (BBC)
Former FBI terrorism chief John O'Neill had become frustrated by his investigations into Osama Bin Laden being thwarted by American oil interests. He had told two French journalists that oil company negotiations with the Taliban about access to the oil in central Asia were preventing him from investigating Islamic terrorism. The coincidence? He was killed on the second day of his new job as security director in the World Trade Center, Sept 11th 2001.
X-files spin-off "The Lone Gunmen" aired in March 2001. The plot involves government operatives crashing of a plane into the World Trade Center using remote control technology. The plan to blame terrorists in order to keep tensions high and increase arms sales.
People who were nearly in the World Trade Center on Sept 11th include: Jackie Chan. He was scheduled to film on the roof early that morning but it was cancelled due to a late script. The film featured a terrorist plot to blow up the statue of liberty.
The Duchess of York, Sarah Ferguson was late for a scheduled meeting on the 101st floor of one of the buildings at 8.45.
Jim Pierce, managing director of AON Corporation had arranged a meeting on the 105th floor of the WTC. Due to the size of the group they moved to the Millennium hotel across the street. He is George Bush's Cousin (Ananova)
Warren Buffet (2nd richest man in the world) was holding a golf event on Sept 11th, coincidentally at the U.S. Strategic Command headquarters located at Offutt Air Force Base in Omaha. The first coincidence being that this was where G.W.Bush was flown later that day "for safety." The big coincidence being that a number of CEOs from big companies in the WTC were present. Anne Tatlock of Fiduciary Trust was there, she would have been killed as Flight 175 flew into her office.
A French Newspaper, Le Figaro, reported that Bin Laden was in Dubai for Kidney treatment in July 2001. He was visited by the local CIA agent who later bragged about the meeting. (Guardian)
A band called "I am the World Trade Center" released a CD in July 2001. The eleventh track on the CD was titled "September."
"The Inner City Hustlers" released Time to Explode in July. Its cover features two towers resembling the WTC buildings rocked by an explosion. Rap group "The Coup" were scheduled to release an album in Nov. The cover, designed in July depicted an explosion half way up the World Trade Center. Metal band Dream Theater released its three-disc concert album, Live Scenes From New York, Tuesday, the same day as the assault. The album's cover features the Manhattan skyline -- including the Statue of Liberty and World Trade Center -- engulfed in a fireball above a big apple wrapped in twine. (Houston Chronicle)
Tele Trieste, German band released an album in Jun 2001 with the cover shown below.
"Trade Center Defender" a macromedia game, was hosted for part of 2001 on Angelfire Arcade. (See image below) You had to shoot planes flying towards a pair of office buildings which collapse if the planes get through. The filename was WTC.EXE.
There was an unexplained surge of financial transactions in the WTC just prior to the attacks. Over $100,000,000 were rushed through the computers, but this was picked up by the German company Convar who were recovering data from hard disks in the building.
Insider trading. A stock market term, "put" option is effectively a bet that the value of a stock will decrease. There was a surge in "put" options purchased for American Airlines, United Airlines and some companies with offices in the WTC. CIA executive director "Buzzy" Krongard managed the firm that handled "put" options on UAL
The father of the alleged hijacker ringleader Mohamed Atta, Mohamed El-Amir, claims his son phoned him on Sept 12th. He is a respected Egyptian business man.
Pakistani ISI chief General Mahmood Ahmed gives orders to wire $100,000 to Mohamed Atta in the summer of 2001. General Ahmad was meeting with CIA Head George Tenet on the 4th to 9th Sept 2001. On Sept 11th he was at a breakfast meeting at the Capitol with the chairmen of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees Sen Bob Graham and Rep Porter Goss.
The man who actually wired the money to Mohamed Atta is called Ahmad Omar Saeed Sheik. He was sentenced to death for the murder of American journalist Daniel Pearl, who was in Pakistan investigating shoe-bomber Richard Reid.
George W. Bush's brother was on the board of directors of a company that handled security for the WTC, Dulles and United.
According to USA Today, the FAA operations manager, Ben Sliney gave the order to clear the skies on 9-11. It was his first day on the job.
Only 189 people died in the Pentagon because Flight77 flew horizontally into Wedge 1 just after its $258,000,000 strengthening program was completed. 4600 workers were still out of their offices on that day. Presumably the hijackers not only wanted to save as many lives as possible but wanted to help the Pentagon by testing out the blast resistant glass and steel reinforced concrete walls.
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Additional information:
Coincidences and other anomalies
Pakistani boy points at WTC on Sept 6th and says: "Those buildings will not be there next week"
After reading the above article it is well worth reading about the links between the Pakistani ISI and the Sept 11th attacks
X-files spin-off "The Lone Gunmen" aired in March 2001.
"Byers goes back to his father's home and finds Bert there. Bert slaps him and says he should not have gotten involved. The 12D plan is for a small group of government operatives to crash a jetliner into New York City in order to keep tensions high and increase arms sales."
"They realize that the airplane will be remote controlled, just like Bert's car was. Talking by phone to the Gunmen's office, Byers asks Langly and Frohike to hack into the aircraft controls. They do and discover that the plane is programmed to crash into the World Trade Center. Bert enters the cockpit and tries to warn the aircrew, but they don't believe him. Making a lunge, he deactivates the autopilot and the crew realizes that they are not in control. They have 22 minutes before they hit the building. Langly can't break the encryption on the aircraft control system --- his computer doesn't have the processing power and the computer keeps freezing. Frohike slips next door to the firing range and finds Yves there. He needs the Octium but she is not impressed by the need to save people's lives. Frohike points out that her name is an anagram for "Lee Harvey Oswald" and says he knows who she is. She uses the Octium in her laptop to somehow assist Langly break the encryption and give the pilots control of the aircraft again. The plane barely misses the skyscraper."
If only these people were real.
Donald Rumsfeld's Psychic Powers
Rumsfeld magically predicts there will be another major event to justify defense spending - minutes before the planes hit the WTC.
"Ironically, just moments before the Department of Defense was hit by a suicide hijacker, Secretary Rumsfeld was describing to me why America needs to abandon its decade-old two-major-war strategy, and focus on the real threat facing us in the 21st century: terrorism, and the unexpected. "
"And let me tell you, I've been around the block a few times. There will be another event." He repeated it for emphasis: "There will be another event."
Within minutes of that utterance, Rumsfeld's words proved tragically prophetic.
Jeb Bush and his amazing Psychic Powers
Jeb created an executive order granting powers to the National Guard in the event of an emergency in Florida. He decided to amend and reissue this order on the 9th Sept 2001 to include terrorist attacks. What a coincidence.
Dan Rather interview in which a FEMA spokesman claims to have arrived in NYC the night before the attacks
Idiot monkey boy gives the game away. Bush appears to be saying he watched the first plane hit the WTC live. It takes about 2 seconds of thought to work out what is wrong with this picture.
San Francisco Mayor warned not to fly the night before the attacks
Ashcroft was not flying on commercial jets in July 2001 - only in chartered jets due to a threat assessment. Funny that..
Four days BEFORE 9/11, the FBI raided and closed the primary Arab news source on the web and refused to explain why
Something funny with www.archive.org?
Rule that allowed pilots to carry guns in the cockpit was rescinded 2 months before 9-11 (had been in place since 1961) in spite of the fact that warnings were given about potential hijackings in the same month....
Salman Rushdie (remember him?) was banned from taking internal flights in US and Canada the week before the attack
Here it is in the internet archive but just in case it disappears from the archive I've saved a copy of it here
Pentagon officials suddenly develop a fear of flying- I would imagine top psychic Donaldo Rumsfeldo probably read their tarot cards
<< On Sept. 10, NEWSWEEK has learned, a group of top Pentagon officials suddenly cancelled travel plans for the next morning, apparently because of security concerns. >>
Isn't it lucky that the Pentagon had been planning for a plane crashing into the building (but nothing like this has ever happened before and we had no warning and we couldn't have stopped it and we don't have any protection or defences really, really honest..........etc.)
Israeli text messages warning of the attack 2 hours before - unknown senders
Mossad warned CIA of impending attacks a month before- (oh yeah and Iraq are involved - any chance of an invasion?)
If Mossad knew in advance (and to their credit, attempted to warn people) is it possible that the early rumours of Israelis being absent from the WTC on Sept 11th could in fact be true?
Booklet from 1999 suggests terrorists might crash a plane into the Pentagon
end of posted article
*************************************************************************
Again, all this really does seem a little strange to be happening for our
government to continue to deny they had any foreknowledge of these attacks
on 9-11.
My question is this--
If our government denies any foreknowledge of these attacks on 9-11 in New York and Washington, then why was all these people avoiding flights, and withdrawing all this money, and everything else that they did just days, weeks, months and even hours BEFORE the attacks? Is it really (REALLY) possible that our government was responsible for these attacks, and if so...WHY?!?
We as Americans deserve the truth...the cold hard truth about "WHAT REALLY
HAPPENED and WHY DID IT HAPPEN" on September 11, 2001....why did so many innocent people have to die aat the hands of our government (if they were responsible) and if they weren't responsible...why didn't they try to put a stop to these attacks when they received the reports about all the suspicious activity by these Middle Eastern men taking flight lessons in our aviation schools?
I am not entirely sure what to think of everything that I have found, but it is very interesting to say the least, and when you read it, it really does kind of make you sit back and think, and wonder...'what is REALLY going on here, and why'???
If (and I am NOT saying that it was) 9-11 was an 'inside job' created by our government, my question is 'why would they want to attack their own country and blame it on someone else'? I mean...really, what sense does this make? To perpetrate such a horrible act of violence on innocent people and then blame it on a different group of people (why? just because their religion teaches what it does? Then why not go after the Satanists as well with their Satanic rituals and human sacrifices etc etc etc)?
This is all just really hard to comprehend and understand and even believe that our own government would commit such a tragedy.
Read the following post and draw your own conclusions. You can also click on the link to the left titled "9-11 Truth" to read more on this particular post as well as other just as interesting articles and essays.
********************************************************************
Summary of 9/11 Coincidences
Anti-terrorism task-force takes out hundreds of Islamic websites just days before Sept 11th. To keep them quiet after the attack?
San Francisco Mayor warned not to fly the night before the attacks
Jeb Bush amends an executive order giving emergency power to FEMA. He changed it on September 7th 2001 to include terrorist attacks
John Ashcroft was not flying on commercial jets in July 2001 - only in chartered jets due to a threat assessment. Funny that..
Rule that allowed pilots to carry guns in the cockpit was rescinded 2 months before 9-11 (had been in place since 1961) in spite of the fact that warnings were given about potential hijackings in the same month....
Salman Rushdie (remember him?) was banned from taking internal flights in US and Canada the week before the attack
Pentagon officials suddenly develop a fear of flying- on Sept 10th. We didn't know! Sorry we forgot to increase security in the airports.
The Pentagon had been planning for a plane crashing into the building
The emergency plan for the unlikely event of a plane hitting the Pentagon was drafted by the pilot of flight 77 (Former US Navy, Charles Burlingame) which crashed into the Pentagon. (Washington Post 9/16/01)
On Sept 11th, about 4 miles from Dulles Airport where one of the hijacked planes took off, the National Reconnaissance Office (linked to CIA) was carrying out a disaster preparedness simulation of a plane crashing into their building.
Operation Amalgam Virgo - a simulated multiple plane hijacking scenario was planned prior to Sept 11th but carried out later on. The point being "how could we have foreseen something like this?" is a lie.
A simulated terrorist attack was scheduled for Sept 12th. The Emergency Command Centre in Building 7 was destroyed, but the comm centre ultimately ended up on Pier 7, the site selected for the drill the next day.
Naval Officer, Bernard Brown had a conversation with his son about not being afraid of dying just before he put him on Flight 77, the plane that crashed into the Pentagon. Had Bernard Brown been at work that day he would have been killed as the plane carrying his son crashed into his office at the Pentagon . Luckily he had taken a rare day off to play golf.
Pakistani boy points at WTC on Sept 6th and says: "Those buildings will not be there next week" Which means that someone, somewhere, knew for certain that the buildings would definitely collapse. Which means there were explosive devices in the building.
The invasion of Afghanistan was planned well in advance of Sept 11th and some neighbouring countries were informed of these plans prior to the attacks. (BBC)
Former FBI terrorism chief John O'Neill had become frustrated by his investigations into Osama Bin Laden being thwarted by American oil interests. He had told two French journalists that oil company negotiations with the Taliban about access to the oil in central Asia were preventing him from investigating Islamic terrorism. The coincidence? He was killed on the second day of his new job as security director in the World Trade Center, Sept 11th 2001.
X-files spin-off "The Lone Gunmen" aired in March 2001. The plot involves government operatives crashing of a plane into the World Trade Center using remote control technology. The plan to blame terrorists in order to keep tensions high and increase arms sales.
People who were nearly in the World Trade Center on Sept 11th include: Jackie Chan. He was scheduled to film on the roof early that morning but it was cancelled due to a late script. The film featured a terrorist plot to blow up the statue of liberty.
The Duchess of York, Sarah Ferguson was late for a scheduled meeting on the 101st floor of one of the buildings at 8.45.
Jim Pierce, managing director of AON Corporation had arranged a meeting on the 105th floor of the WTC. Due to the size of the group they moved to the Millennium hotel across the street. He is George Bush's Cousin (Ananova)
Warren Buffet (2nd richest man in the world) was holding a golf event on Sept 11th, coincidentally at the U.S. Strategic Command headquarters located at Offutt Air Force Base in Omaha. The first coincidence being that this was where G.W.Bush was flown later that day "for safety." The big coincidence being that a number of CEOs from big companies in the WTC were present. Anne Tatlock of Fiduciary Trust was there, she would have been killed as Flight 175 flew into her office.
A French Newspaper, Le Figaro, reported that Bin Laden was in Dubai for Kidney treatment in July 2001. He was visited by the local CIA agent who later bragged about the meeting. (Guardian)
A band called "I am the World Trade Center" released a CD in July 2001. The eleventh track on the CD was titled "September."
"The Inner City Hustlers" released Time to Explode in July. Its cover features two towers resembling the WTC buildings rocked by an explosion. Rap group "The Coup" were scheduled to release an album in Nov. The cover, designed in July depicted an explosion half way up the World Trade Center. Metal band Dream Theater released its three-disc concert album, Live Scenes From New York, Tuesday, the same day as the assault. The album's cover features the Manhattan skyline -- including the Statue of Liberty and World Trade Center -- engulfed in a fireball above a big apple wrapped in twine. (Houston Chronicle)
Tele Trieste, German band released an album in Jun 2001 with the cover shown below.
"Trade Center Defender" a macromedia game, was hosted for part of 2001 on Angelfire Arcade. (See image below) You had to shoot planes flying towards a pair of office buildings which collapse if the planes get through. The filename was WTC.EXE.
There was an unexplained surge of financial transactions in the WTC just prior to the attacks. Over $100,000,000 were rushed through the computers, but this was picked up by the German company Convar who were recovering data from hard disks in the building.
Insider trading. A stock market term, "put" option is effectively a bet that the value of a stock will decrease. There was a surge in "put" options purchased for American Airlines, United Airlines and some companies with offices in the WTC. CIA executive director "Buzzy" Krongard managed the firm that handled "put" options on UAL
The father of the alleged hijacker ringleader Mohamed Atta, Mohamed El-Amir, claims his son phoned him on Sept 12th. He is a respected Egyptian business man.
Pakistani ISI chief General Mahmood Ahmed gives orders to wire $100,000 to Mohamed Atta in the summer of 2001. General Ahmad was meeting with CIA Head George Tenet on the 4th to 9th Sept 2001. On Sept 11th he was at a breakfast meeting at the Capitol with the chairmen of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees Sen Bob Graham and Rep Porter Goss.
The man who actually wired the money to Mohamed Atta is called Ahmad Omar Saeed Sheik. He was sentenced to death for the murder of American journalist Daniel Pearl, who was in Pakistan investigating shoe-bomber Richard Reid.
George W. Bush's brother was on the board of directors of a company that handled security for the WTC, Dulles and United.
According to USA Today, the FAA operations manager, Ben Sliney gave the order to clear the skies on 9-11. It was his first day on the job.
Only 189 people died in the Pentagon because Flight77 flew horizontally into Wedge 1 just after its $258,000,000 strengthening program was completed. 4600 workers were still out of their offices on that day. Presumably the hijackers not only wanted to save as many lives as possible but wanted to help the Pentagon by testing out the blast resistant glass and steel reinforced concrete walls.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Additional information:
Coincidences and other anomalies
Pakistani boy points at WTC on Sept 6th and says: "Those buildings will not be there next week"
After reading the above article it is well worth reading about the links between the Pakistani ISI and the Sept 11th attacks
X-files spin-off "The Lone Gunmen" aired in March 2001.
"Byers goes back to his father's home and finds Bert there. Bert slaps him and says he should not have gotten involved. The 12D plan is for a small group of government operatives to crash a jetliner into New York City in order to keep tensions high and increase arms sales."
"They realize that the airplane will be remote controlled, just like Bert's car was. Talking by phone to the Gunmen's office, Byers asks Langly and Frohike to hack into the aircraft controls. They do and discover that the plane is programmed to crash into the World Trade Center. Bert enters the cockpit and tries to warn the aircrew, but they don't believe him. Making a lunge, he deactivates the autopilot and the crew realizes that they are not in control. They have 22 minutes before they hit the building. Langly can't break the encryption on the aircraft control system --- his computer doesn't have the processing power and the computer keeps freezing. Frohike slips next door to the firing range and finds Yves there. He needs the Octium but she is not impressed by the need to save people's lives. Frohike points out that her name is an anagram for "Lee Harvey Oswald" and says he knows who she is. She uses the Octium in her laptop to somehow assist Langly break the encryption and give the pilots control of the aircraft again. The plane barely misses the skyscraper."
If only these people were real.
Donald Rumsfeld's Psychic Powers
Rumsfeld magically predicts there will be another major event to justify defense spending - minutes before the planes hit the WTC.
"Ironically, just moments before the Department of Defense was hit by a suicide hijacker, Secretary Rumsfeld was describing to me why America needs to abandon its decade-old two-major-war strategy, and focus on the real threat facing us in the 21st century: terrorism, and the unexpected. "
"And let me tell you, I've been around the block a few times. There will be another event." He repeated it for emphasis: "There will be another event."
Within minutes of that utterance, Rumsfeld's words proved tragically prophetic.
Jeb Bush and his amazing Psychic Powers
Jeb created an executive order granting powers to the National Guard in the event of an emergency in Florida. He decided to amend and reissue this order on the 9th Sept 2001 to include terrorist attacks. What a coincidence.
Dan Rather interview in which a FEMA spokesman claims to have arrived in NYC the night before the attacks
Idiot monkey boy gives the game away. Bush appears to be saying he watched the first plane hit the WTC live. It takes about 2 seconds of thought to work out what is wrong with this picture.
San Francisco Mayor warned not to fly the night before the attacks
Ashcroft was not flying on commercial jets in July 2001 - only in chartered jets due to a threat assessment. Funny that..
Four days BEFORE 9/11, the FBI raided and closed the primary Arab news source on the web and refused to explain why
Something funny with www.archive.org?
Rule that allowed pilots to carry guns in the cockpit was rescinded 2 months before 9-11 (had been in place since 1961) in spite of the fact that warnings were given about potential hijackings in the same month....
Salman Rushdie (remember him?) was banned from taking internal flights in US and Canada the week before the attack
Here it is in the internet archive but just in case it disappears from the archive I've saved a copy of it here
Pentagon officials suddenly develop a fear of flying- I would imagine top psychic Donaldo Rumsfeldo probably read their tarot cards
<< On Sept. 10, NEWSWEEK has learned, a group of top Pentagon officials suddenly cancelled travel plans for the next morning, apparently because of security concerns. >>
Isn't it lucky that the Pentagon had been planning for a plane crashing into the building (but nothing like this has ever happened before and we had no warning and we couldn't have stopped it and we don't have any protection or defences really, really honest..........etc.)
Israeli text messages warning of the attack 2 hours before - unknown senders
Mossad warned CIA of impending attacks a month before- (oh yeah and Iraq are involved - any chance of an invasion?)
If Mossad knew in advance (and to their credit, attempted to warn people) is it possible that the early rumours of Israelis being absent from the WTC on Sept 11th could in fact be true?
Booklet from 1999 suggests terrorists might crash a plane into the Pentagon
end of posted article
*************************************************************************
Again, all this really does seem a little strange to be happening for our
government to continue to deny they had any foreknowledge of these attacks
on 9-11.
My question is this--
If our government denies any foreknowledge of these attacks on 9-11 in New York and Washington, then why was all these people avoiding flights, and withdrawing all this money, and everything else that they did just days, weeks, months and even hours BEFORE the attacks? Is it really (REALLY) possible that our government was responsible for these attacks, and if so...WHY?!?
We as Americans deserve the truth...the cold hard truth about "WHAT REALLY
HAPPENED and WHY DID IT HAPPEN" on September 11, 2001....why did so many innocent people have to die aat the hands of our government (if they were responsible) and if they weren't responsible...why didn't they try to put a stop to these attacks when they received the reports about all the suspicious activity by these Middle Eastern men taking flight lessons in our aviation schools?
Thursday, September 16, 2010
Attack Preparations--To be read as a Part 3 to the previous posts
Something even more important is the following report I also found on the '9-11 Research' web site. These reports and theories can all be found (with even more links) at http://www.911Research.com
The information I have found and that I post here on my blog are written and researched by other individuals who have done (or tried to do) extensive studies and research on the September 11, 2001 terror attacks on New York and Washington.
I am posting some (but not all) of these in order to open up a door to discussion on these theories in order to try to gain some type of rational conclusion into why this happened, and if it could have been completely avoided (if that is at all possible).
Please understand that I, in no way, lay claim to these posts as they were not written by me.
************************************************************************
Attack Preparations
Actions Appear Premeditated to Enable the Attack
Authorities undertook a number of actions in the days and months preceding the attack that appeared to facilitate the attack. These include the following:
*1--The FAA's ban on armed pilots, implemented two months before the attack
*2--The FBI's shutdown of hundreds of Arab websites a week before the attack
*3--Lapses in building security on the weekend before the attack
*4--A reported increase in evacuation drills of the Twin Towers in the lead-up to the attack
*5--The scheduling of a number of war game exercises to coincide with the attack.
***************************************************************
*1--Pilots Disarmed
2 Months Before Attack, Armed Pilots Banned
For 40 years prior to 9/11/01, a Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) rule had allowed commercial airlines pilots to carry firearms in the cockpit. The rule was adopted in in the wake of the 1961 Cuban missile crisis as a measure to prevent hijackings.
Just two months before 9/11/01, the FAA rescinded the rule. According to Jon Dougherty, reporter for WorldNetDaily.com, the FAA failed to return numerous calls requesting an explanation for the rule change. 1
References
1. Armed pilots banned 2 months before 9-11, WorldNetDaily.com, 5/16/02 [cached]
********************************************************************
*2--FBI Raids Surround Attack
Agents Yank Muslim Websites, Confiscate Videos
Six days before the attack the FBI and 80-member task force descended on InfoCom Corporation in Richardson, Texas to shut it down, including its webservers, removing 500 websites serving largely Arab and Muslim communities. The FBI occupied the building for days, copying documents. 1
The FBI also promptly scoured the surroundings of the Pentagon to make sure there would be no public airing of any video of the attack. Agents reportedly seized video from both the nearby Sheraton National Hotel and NexComm/Citgo gas station within minutes of the attack. Helicopter footage not seized by the FBI shows an organized group of well-dressed people combing the Pentagon's lawn, also within minutes of the attack.
References
1. US pulls the plug on Muslim websites, Guardian Unlimited, 9/10/01 [cached]
***********************************************************************
*3--WTC Security Gaps
Suspicious Security Lapses in the Twin Towers Preceding the Attacks
An article in New York Newsday documented the removal of bomb-sniffing dogs just five days before the attack.
September 12, 2001
The World Trade Center was destroyed just days after a heightened security alert was lifted at the landmark 110-story towers, security personnel said yesterday.
Daria Coard, 37, a guard at Tower One, said the security detail had been working 12-hour shifts for the past two weeks because of numerous phone threats. But on Thursday, bomb-sniffing dogs were abruptly removed.
"Today was the first day there was not the extra security," Coard said. "We were protecting below. We had the ground covered. We didn't figure they would do it with planes. There is no way anyone could have stopped that."
Security guard Hermina Jones said officials had recently taken steps to secure the towers against aerial attacks by installing bulletproof windows and fireproof doors in the 22nd-floor computer command center... 1
Security Provided by Company Linked to Bush Family
Security for the World Trade Center on 9/11/01 was provided by Stratesec, a company in which George W. Bush's brother Marvin was a past principal, and which was backed by a Kuwaiti-American investment firm.
References
1. Heightened Security Alert Had Just Been Lifted, NYNewsday.com, 9/12/01 [cached]
***********************************************************************
*4--Evacuation Drills
Evacuation Procedures for the Twin Towers had been Improved
The upgrades in facilities and evacuation drills combined with the low occupancy rate at the time of the attack allowed the vast majority of civilians who were not trapped above the crash zones to escape.
There is also isolated anecdotal evidence that the evacuation drills became more frequent after the attack.
Ben Fountain, 42, a financial analyst with Fireman's Fund, was coming out of the Chambers Street Station, headed for his office on the 47th floor of the south tower.
How could they let this happen? They knew this building was a target. Over the past few weeks we'd been evacuated a number of times, which is unusual. I think they had an inkling something was going on. 1
References
1. New York City, people.com, 9/12/01 [cached]
***********************************************************************
*5--War Games
Multiple War Games Were Being Conducted on 9/11/01
Several different war game exercises were in play on the day of the attack. The limited public information on these exercises shows that they simulated the following events:
Hijackings
Attacks on buildings using aircraft as missiles
Attacks using toxic or infectious substances
These events are all elements of the actual attack, which involved four alleged hijackings, three jetliner crashes into buildings, and the toxic calamity at Ground Zero in the wake of the World Trade Center's destruction.
Operation Northern Vigilance
Conducted from September 9-11, this exercise redeployed jets that normally patrolled the northeast sector to northern Canada and Alaska. It echoed a Russian exercise scheduled from September 10-14 in which long-range bombers were dispatched to their northern territory. 1
The Vigilant Warrior and Vigilant Guardian Training Exercises
These were apparently a pair of war games (attacker versus defender) which involved live-fly simulations of hijackings. Both this pair of exercises and Northern Vigilance probably involved the use of "injects" into screens to simulate aircraft. These games apparently resembled the actual attack sufficiently to confuse military officers, as suggested by the following transcript.
FAA Boston Center contacts NEADS, saying, "We need someone to scramble some F-16s or something up there, help us out."
“Is this real world or an exercise?” asked the military liaison officer?
"No, this is not an exercise," responded the FAA official. "Not a test." 2
The only known source for the exercise named Vigilant Warrior is Richard Clarke's book, Against All Enemies. 3 It is possible that the exercise referred to by Clarke was actually Amalgam Warrior, a NORAD field training exercise involving life-fly air interception, held twice yearly, in the spring on the East Coast and the fall on the East Coast. 4
The Global Guardian Exercise
On the morning of the attack, a large-scale military training exercise called Global Guardian was "in full swing." Global Guardian is an annual exercise involving Stratcom (the US Strategic Command), the US Space Command, and NORAD. 5
There is evidence that the date of the 2001 Global Guardian exercise was changed to correspond with the the terrorist attack. NBC News military analyst William Arkin, in his book Code Names, gives the date of the exercise as October 22-31, 2001. 6 Also, a military newspaper, the Space Observer, reported in an article dated 3/23/01 that the exercise was scheduled for October of that year.
Stratcon directed the exercise, which included all the US strategic forces, from Offutt Air Force Base. 7
The National Reconnaissance Office Plane Crash Drill
The National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) "provides our nation its eyes and ears in space." It operates a system of reconnaissance satellites to provide real-time monitoring of objects in the skies. On 9/11/01 the NRO headquarters in Chantilly, VA, were evacuated as part of a "plane into building" drill. The scenario involved a small corporate jet crashing into one of the campus' four towers. 8
The Timely Alert II Terrorism Drill
On the morning of the attack, personnel at the Fort Monmouth Army base in New Jersey were preparing to hold a drill, for the days of September 11 and 12, to test preparedness to respond to a chemical attack. The exercise was to involve law enforcement and emergency responders including the New Jersey State Police and Fort Monmouth Fire Department. 9 Just before the exercise was to commence, reports of the attack in New York City surfaced and "real world events overtook the exercise," in the words of Army spokesman Timothy L. Rider. 10
FEMA training manual cover
The Tripod II Biowarfare Exercise
FEMA had deployed to New York City on September 10 to set up a command post at Pier 29, supposedly in preparation for a biowarfare exercise scheduled for September 12. 11
References
1. The scene at NORAD on Sept. 11: Playing Russian war games ... and then someone shouted to look at the monitor, Toronto Star, 12/9/01 [cached]
2. To the Minute, Panel Paints a Grim Portrait of Day's Terror, New York Times, 6/17/04 [cached]
3. Against All Enemies: Inside America's War on Terror, 2004
4. Complete 911 Timeline: Military Exercises Up to 9/11, CooperativeResearch.org,
5. Complete 911 Timeline: Military Exercises ..., CooperativeResearch.org,
6. Code Names, 2005
7. Stratcom commander: Mission is broadening in fight against terrorism, Associated Press, 2/21/02 [cached]
8. Agency planned exercise on Sept. 11 built around a plane crashing into a building, AP, 8/21/02 [cached]
9. Exercise tests force protection, monmouth.army.mil, [cached]
10. Training exercise quickly became reality, the Hub, [cached]
11. Tripod II and FEMA: Lack of NORAD Response on 9/11 Explained, FromTheWilderness.com, 2004 [cached]
************************************************************************
Question--
After reading this part of the posted topic, I want to know from you, does this sound like an 'inside job' to you? Because, here's the thing, as it states in the previous posts, the F.B.I. and C.I.A. and I.N.S. all knew about the threats of the attacks. Reports were being given to our authorities from practically all around the world...Germany, Italy, France, Great Britain, even Russia and Egypt, had all reported to the US Officials and authorities about the suspicious behaviors of these Middle-Eastern men training in our various flight schools in Texas and Oklahoma (and God only knows where else). Sounds kind of weird, don't you think?
Because, personally, in my own personal opinion, I believe that if the FBI and the CIA had NOT ignored the reports they received, that these attacks(ers) 'could have been avoided', and lives could have been saved. Do I personally believe that 9-11 was an 'inside job'? No, not entirely, but I do, however, believe that our government lied to us about having no knowledge that these attacks were going to happen, just as I believe that the government had the power to prevent it from happening.
However, after reading this part of the 3-part topic post, I am beginning
to wonder...maybe it was an inside job. Look at all the preparations and
transactions and drills that took place, days, weeks, months and even
hours BEFORE the attacks...they knew it was going to happen because they
helped to MAKE it happen.
What do you think about all of this?
The information I have found and that I post here on my blog are written and researched by other individuals who have done (or tried to do) extensive studies and research on the September 11, 2001 terror attacks on New York and Washington.
I am posting some (but not all) of these in order to open up a door to discussion on these theories in order to try to gain some type of rational conclusion into why this happened, and if it could have been completely avoided (if that is at all possible).
Please understand that I, in no way, lay claim to these posts as they were not written by me.
************************************************************************
Attack Preparations
Actions Appear Premeditated to Enable the Attack
Authorities undertook a number of actions in the days and months preceding the attack that appeared to facilitate the attack. These include the following:
*1--The FAA's ban on armed pilots, implemented two months before the attack
*2--The FBI's shutdown of hundreds of Arab websites a week before the attack
*3--Lapses in building security on the weekend before the attack
*4--A reported increase in evacuation drills of the Twin Towers in the lead-up to the attack
*5--The scheduling of a number of war game exercises to coincide with the attack.
***************************************************************
*1--Pilots Disarmed
2 Months Before Attack, Armed Pilots Banned
For 40 years prior to 9/11/01, a Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) rule had allowed commercial airlines pilots to carry firearms in the cockpit. The rule was adopted in in the wake of the 1961 Cuban missile crisis as a measure to prevent hijackings.
Just two months before 9/11/01, the FAA rescinded the rule. According to Jon Dougherty, reporter for WorldNetDaily.com, the FAA failed to return numerous calls requesting an explanation for the rule change. 1
References
1. Armed pilots banned 2 months before 9-11, WorldNetDaily.com, 5/16/02 [cached]
********************************************************************
*2--FBI Raids Surround Attack
Agents Yank Muslim Websites, Confiscate Videos
Six days before the attack the FBI and 80-member task force descended on InfoCom Corporation in Richardson, Texas to shut it down, including its webservers, removing 500 websites serving largely Arab and Muslim communities. The FBI occupied the building for days, copying documents. 1
The FBI also promptly scoured the surroundings of the Pentagon to make sure there would be no public airing of any video of the attack. Agents reportedly seized video from both the nearby Sheraton National Hotel and NexComm/Citgo gas station within minutes of the attack. Helicopter footage not seized by the FBI shows an organized group of well-dressed people combing the Pentagon's lawn, also within minutes of the attack.
References
1. US pulls the plug on Muslim websites, Guardian Unlimited, 9/10/01 [cached]
***********************************************************************
*3--WTC Security Gaps
Suspicious Security Lapses in the Twin Towers Preceding the Attacks
An article in New York Newsday documented the removal of bomb-sniffing dogs just five days before the attack.
September 12, 2001
The World Trade Center was destroyed just days after a heightened security alert was lifted at the landmark 110-story towers, security personnel said yesterday.
Daria Coard, 37, a guard at Tower One, said the security detail had been working 12-hour shifts for the past two weeks because of numerous phone threats. But on Thursday, bomb-sniffing dogs were abruptly removed.
"Today was the first day there was not the extra security," Coard said. "We were protecting below. We had the ground covered. We didn't figure they would do it with planes. There is no way anyone could have stopped that."
Security guard Hermina Jones said officials had recently taken steps to secure the towers against aerial attacks by installing bulletproof windows and fireproof doors in the 22nd-floor computer command center... 1
Security Provided by Company Linked to Bush Family
Security for the World Trade Center on 9/11/01 was provided by Stratesec, a company in which George W. Bush's brother Marvin was a past principal, and which was backed by a Kuwaiti-American investment firm.
References
1. Heightened Security Alert Had Just Been Lifted, NYNewsday.com, 9/12/01 [cached]
***********************************************************************
*4--Evacuation Drills
Evacuation Procedures for the Twin Towers had been Improved
The upgrades in facilities and evacuation drills combined with the low occupancy rate at the time of the attack allowed the vast majority of civilians who were not trapped above the crash zones to escape.
There is also isolated anecdotal evidence that the evacuation drills became more frequent after the attack.
Ben Fountain, 42, a financial analyst with Fireman's Fund, was coming out of the Chambers Street Station, headed for his office on the 47th floor of the south tower.
How could they let this happen? They knew this building was a target. Over the past few weeks we'd been evacuated a number of times, which is unusual. I think they had an inkling something was going on. 1
References
1. New York City, people.com, 9/12/01 [cached]
***********************************************************************
*5--War Games
Multiple War Games Were Being Conducted on 9/11/01
Several different war game exercises were in play on the day of the attack. The limited public information on these exercises shows that they simulated the following events:
Hijackings
Attacks on buildings using aircraft as missiles
Attacks using toxic or infectious substances
These events are all elements of the actual attack, which involved four alleged hijackings, three jetliner crashes into buildings, and the toxic calamity at Ground Zero in the wake of the World Trade Center's destruction.
Operation Northern Vigilance
Conducted from September 9-11, this exercise redeployed jets that normally patrolled the northeast sector to northern Canada and Alaska. It echoed a Russian exercise scheduled from September 10-14 in which long-range bombers were dispatched to their northern territory. 1
The Vigilant Warrior and Vigilant Guardian Training Exercises
These were apparently a pair of war games (attacker versus defender) which involved live-fly simulations of hijackings. Both this pair of exercises and Northern Vigilance probably involved the use of "injects" into screens to simulate aircraft. These games apparently resembled the actual attack sufficiently to confuse military officers, as suggested by the following transcript.
FAA Boston Center contacts NEADS, saying, "We need someone to scramble some F-16s or something up there, help us out."
“Is this real world or an exercise?” asked the military liaison officer?
"No, this is not an exercise," responded the FAA official. "Not a test." 2
The only known source for the exercise named Vigilant Warrior is Richard Clarke's book, Against All Enemies. 3 It is possible that the exercise referred to by Clarke was actually Amalgam Warrior, a NORAD field training exercise involving life-fly air interception, held twice yearly, in the spring on the East Coast and the fall on the East Coast. 4
The Global Guardian Exercise
On the morning of the attack, a large-scale military training exercise called Global Guardian was "in full swing." Global Guardian is an annual exercise involving Stratcom (the US Strategic Command), the US Space Command, and NORAD. 5
There is evidence that the date of the 2001 Global Guardian exercise was changed to correspond with the the terrorist attack. NBC News military analyst William Arkin, in his book Code Names, gives the date of the exercise as October 22-31, 2001. 6 Also, a military newspaper, the Space Observer, reported in an article dated 3/23/01 that the exercise was scheduled for October of that year.
Stratcon directed the exercise, which included all the US strategic forces, from Offutt Air Force Base. 7
The National Reconnaissance Office Plane Crash Drill
The National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) "provides our nation its eyes and ears in space." It operates a system of reconnaissance satellites to provide real-time monitoring of objects in the skies. On 9/11/01 the NRO headquarters in Chantilly, VA, were evacuated as part of a "plane into building" drill. The scenario involved a small corporate jet crashing into one of the campus' four towers. 8
The Timely Alert II Terrorism Drill
On the morning of the attack, personnel at the Fort Monmouth Army base in New Jersey were preparing to hold a drill, for the days of September 11 and 12, to test preparedness to respond to a chemical attack. The exercise was to involve law enforcement and emergency responders including the New Jersey State Police and Fort Monmouth Fire Department. 9 Just before the exercise was to commence, reports of the attack in New York City surfaced and "real world events overtook the exercise," in the words of Army spokesman Timothy L. Rider. 10
FEMA training manual cover
The Tripod II Biowarfare Exercise
FEMA had deployed to New York City on September 10 to set up a command post at Pier 29, supposedly in preparation for a biowarfare exercise scheduled for September 12. 11
References
1. The scene at NORAD on Sept. 11: Playing Russian war games ... and then someone shouted to look at the monitor, Toronto Star, 12/9/01 [cached]
2. To the Minute, Panel Paints a Grim Portrait of Day's Terror, New York Times, 6/17/04 [cached]
3. Against All Enemies: Inside America's War on Terror, 2004
4. Complete 911 Timeline: Military Exercises Up to 9/11, CooperativeResearch.org,
5. Complete 911 Timeline: Military Exercises ..., CooperativeResearch.org,
6. Code Names, 2005
7. Stratcom commander: Mission is broadening in fight against terrorism, Associated Press, 2/21/02 [cached]
8. Agency planned exercise on Sept. 11 built around a plane crashing into a building, AP, 8/21/02 [cached]
9. Exercise tests force protection, monmouth.army.mil, [cached]
10. Training exercise quickly became reality, the Hub, [cached]
11. Tripod II and FEMA: Lack of NORAD Response on 9/11 Explained, FromTheWilderness.com, 2004 [cached]
************************************************************************
Question--
After reading this part of the posted topic, I want to know from you, does this sound like an 'inside job' to you? Because, here's the thing, as it states in the previous posts, the F.B.I. and C.I.A. and I.N.S. all knew about the threats of the attacks. Reports were being given to our authorities from practically all around the world...Germany, Italy, France, Great Britain, even Russia and Egypt, had all reported to the US Officials and authorities about the suspicious behaviors of these Middle-Eastern men training in our various flight schools in Texas and Oklahoma (and God only knows where else). Sounds kind of weird, don't you think?
Because, personally, in my own personal opinion, I believe that if the FBI and the CIA had NOT ignored the reports they received, that these attacks(ers) 'could have been avoided', and lives could have been saved. Do I personally believe that 9-11 was an 'inside job'? No, not entirely, but I do, however, believe that our government lied to us about having no knowledge that these attacks were going to happen, just as I believe that the government had the power to prevent it from happening.
However, after reading this part of the 3-part topic post, I am beginning
to wonder...maybe it was an inside job. Look at all the preparations and
transactions and drills that took place, days, weeks, months and even
hours BEFORE the attacks...they knew it was going to happen because they
helped to MAKE it happen.
What do you think about all of this?
Something Else to Consider about the 9-11 Attacks--(read as a part 2 to previous post)
On September 11, 2010 while watching the documentaries about the 9-11 attacks, I was also on my computer doing some 9-11 reasearch. I found quite a few websites pertaining to the 9-11-01 attacks. I found this other web site titled 9-11 Research.com. This web site is FULL of information that could make the hair on the back of your neck grow stiff.
This one particular article stood out to me and I read it, clicked on the links and sub-links etc...and I thought that I would copy and paste it here for you all to read, mainly because I don't know how many of you know about this site, so, I wanted to share this with you all.
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Attack Foreknowledge
Actions Reveal Widespread Advance Knowledge of the Attack
Several events immediately preceding the September 11th attacks suggests many people other than Islamic extremists anticipated the attack. These include the following:
*1-Extremely large purchases of put options on stocks of American Airlines, United Airlines, and other companines hurt by the attack
*A surge in financial transactions on computers in the World Trade Center on the morning of 9/11/01
*Avoidance of the airlines and New York City on September 11th by a number of important people, some admitting to having been warned of an attack
*The behavior of five Israelis who appeared to be celebrating the attack on the World Trade Center as they filmed it from across the Hudson
*Donald Rumsfeld's disclosure on the eve of 9/11 that the Pentagon had lost over 2 trillion dollars
*A warning received by Rudolph Giuliani that the South Tower would collapse ten minutes before the event
*The privatization of the World Trade Center six weeks before the attack
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*1-Insider Trading
Pre-9/11 Put Options on Companies Hurt by Attack Indicates Foreknowledge
Financial transactions in the days before the attack suggest that certain individuals used foreknowledge of the attack to reap huge profits. 1 The evidence of insider trading includes:
Huge surges in purchases of put options on stocks of the two airlines used in the attack -- United Airlines and American Airlines
Surges in purchases of put options on stocks of reinsurance companies expected to pay out billions to cover losses from the attack -- Munich Re and the AXA Group
Surges in purchases of put options on stocks of financial services companies hurt by the attack -- Merrill Lynch & Co., and Morgan Stanley and Bank of America
Huge surge in purchases of call options of stock of a weapons manufacturer expected to gain from the attack -- Raytheon
Huge surges in purchases of 5-Year US Treasury Notes
In each case, the anomalous purchases translated into large profits as soon as the stock market opened a week after the attack: put options were used on stocks that would be hurt by the attack, and call options were used on stocks that would benefit.
Put and call options are contracts that allow their holders to sell and buy assets, respectively, at specified prices by a certain date. Put options allow their holders to profit from declines in stock values because they allow stocks to be bought at market price and sold for the higher option price. The ratio of the volume of put option contracts to call option contracts is called the put/call ratio. The ratio is usually less than one, with a value of around 0.8 considered normal. 2
Losers
American Airlines and United Airlines, and several insurance companies and banks posted huge loses in stock values when the markets opened on September 17. Put options -- financial instruments which allow investors to profit from the decline in value of stocks -- were purchased on the stocks of these companies in great volume in the week before the attack.
United Airlines and American Airlines
Two of the corporations most damaged by the attack were American Airlines (AMR), the operator of Flight 11 and Flight 77, and United Airlines (UAL), the operator of Flight 175 and Flight 93. According to CBS News, in the week before the attack, the put/call ratio for American Airlines was four. 3 The put/call ratio for United Airlines was 25 times above normal on September 6. 4
This graph shows a dramatic spike in pre-attack purchases of put options on the airlines used in the attack. (source: www.optionsclearing.com)
The spikes in put options occurred on days that were uneventful for the airlines and their stock prices.
On Sept. 6-7, when there was no significant news or stock price movement involving United, the Chicago exchange handled 4,744 put options for UAL stock, compared with just 396 call options -- essentially bets that the price will rise. On Sept. 10, an uneventful day for American, the volume was 748 calls and 4,516 puts, based on a check of option trading records. 5
The Bloomberg News reported that put options on the airlines surged to the phenomenal high of 285 times their average.
Over three days before terrorists flattened the World Trade Center and damaged the Pentagon, there was more than 25 times the previous daily average trading in a Morgan Stanley "put" option that makes money when shares fall below $45. Trading in similar AMR and UAL put options, which make money when their stocks fall below $30 apiece, surged to as much as 285 times the average trading up to that time. 6
When the market reopened after the attack, United Airlines stock fell 42 percent from $30.82 to $17.50 per share, and American Airlines stock fell 39 percent, from $29.70 to $18.00 per share. 7
Reinsurance Companies
Several companies in the reinsurance business were expected to suffer huge losses from the attack: Munich Re of Germany and Swiss Re of Switzerland -- the world's two biggest reinsurers, and the AXA Group of France. In September, 2001, the San Francisco Chronicle estimated liabilities of $1.5 billion for Munich Re and $0.55 bilion for the AXA Group and telegraph.co.uk estimated liabilities of £1.2 billion for Munich Re and £0.83 billion for Swiss Re. 8 9
Trading in shares of Munich Re was almost double its normal level on September 6, and 7, and trading in shares of Swiss Re was more than double its normal level on September 7. 10
Financial Services Companies
Merrill Lynch and Morgan Stanley Morgan Stanley Dean Witter & Co. and Merrill Lynch & Co. were both headquartered in lower Manhattan at the time of the attack. Morgan Stanley occupied 22 floors of the North Tower and Merrill Lynch had headquarters near the Twin Towers. Morgan Stanley, which saw an average of 27 put options on its stock bought per day before September 6, saw 2,157 put options bought in the three trading days before the attack. Merrill Lynch, which saw an average of 252 put options on its stock bought per day before September 5, saw 12,215 put options bought in the four trading days before the attack. Morgan Stanley's stock dropped 13% and Merrill Lynch's stock dropped 11.5% when the market reopened. 11
Bank of America showed a fivefold increase in put option trading on the Thursday and Friday before the attack.
A Bank of America option that would profit if the No. 3 U.S. bank's stock fell below $60 a share had more than 5,900 contracts traded on the Thursday and Friday before the Sept. 11 assaults, almost five times the previous average trading, according to Bloomberg data. The bank's shares fell 11.5 percent to $51 in the first week after trading resumed on Sept. 17. 12
Winners
While most companies would see their stock valuations decline in the wake of the attack, those in the business of supplying the military would see dramatic increases, reflecting the new business they were poised to receive.
Raytheon
Raytheon, maker of Patriot and Tomahawk missiles, saw its stock soar immediately after the attack. Purchases of call options on Raytheon stock increased sixfold on the day before the attack.
A Raytheon option that makes money if shares are more than $25 each had 232 options contracts traded on the day before the attacks, almost six times the total number of trades that had occurred before that day. A contract represents options on 100 shares. Raytheon shares soared almost 37 percent to $34.04 during the first week of post-attack U.S. trading. 13
Raytheon has been fined millions of dollars inflating the costs of equipment it sells the US military. Raytheon has a secretive subsidiary, E-Systems, whose clients have included the CIA and NSA. 14
US Treasury Notes
Five-year US Treasury notes were purchased in abnormally high volumes before the attack, and their buyers were rewarded with sharp increases in their value following the attack.
The Wall Street Journal reported on October 2 that the ongoing investigation by the SEC into suspicious stock trades had been joined by a Secret Service probe into an unusually high volume of five-year US Treasury note purchases prior to the attacks. The Treasury note transactions included a single $5 billion trade. As the Journal explained: "Five-year Treasury notes are among the best investments in the event of a world crisis, especially one that hits the US. The notes are prized for their safety and their backing by the US government, and usually rally when investors flee riskier investments, such as stocks." The value of these notes, the Journal pointed out, has risen sharply since the events of September 11. 15
The SEC's Investigation
Shortly after the attack the SEC circulated a list of stocks to securities firms around the world seeking information. 16 A widely circulated article states that the stocks flagged by the SEC included those of the following corporations: American Airlines, United Airlines, Continental Airlines, Northwest Airlines, Southwest Airlines, US Airways airlines, Martin, Boeing, Lockheed Martin Corp., AIG, American Express Corp, American International Group, AMR Corporation, AXA SA, Bank of America Corp, Bank of New York Corp, Bank One Corp, Cigna Group, CNA Financial, Carnival Corp, Chubb Group, John Hancock Financial Services, Hercules Inc., L-3 Communications Holdings, Inc., LTV Corporation, Marsh & McLennan Cos. Inc., MetLife, Progressive Corp., General Motors, Raytheon, W.R. Grace, Royal Caribbean Cruises, Ltd., Lone Star Technologies, American Express, the Citigroup Inc., Royal & Sun Alliance, Lehman Brothers Holdings, Inc., Vornado Reality Trust, Morgan Stanley, Dean Witter & Co., XL Capital Ltd., and Bear Stearns.
An October 19 article in the San Francisco Chronicle reported that the SEC, after a period of silence, had undertaken the unprecedented action of deputizing hundreds of private officials in its investigation:
The proposed system, which would go into effect immediately, effectively deputizes hundreds, if not thousands, of key players in the private sector.
...
In a two-page statement issued to "all securities-related entities" nationwide, the SEC asked companies to designate senior personnel who appreciate "the sensitive nature" of the case and can be relied upon to "exercise appropriate discretion" as "point" people linking government investigators and the industry. 17
Michael Ruppert, a former LAPD officer, explains the consequences of this action:
What happens when you deputize someone in a national security or criminal investigation is that you make it illegal for them to disclose publicly what they know. Smart move. In effect, they become government agents and are controlled by government regulations rather than their own conscience. In fact, they can be thrown in jail without a hearing if they talk publicly. I have seen this implied threat time and again with federal investigations, intelligence agents, and even members of the United States Congress who are bound so tightly by secrecy oaths and agreements that they are not even able to disclose criminal activities inside the government for fear of incarceration. 18
Interpreting and Reinterpreting the Data
An analysis of the press reports on the subject of apparent insider trading related to the attack shows a trend, with early reports highlighting the anomalies, and later reports excusing them. In his book Crossing the Rubicon Michael C. Ruppert illustrates this point by first excerpting a number of reports published shortly after the attack:
A jump in UAL (United Airlines) put options 90 times (not 90 percent) above normal between September 6 and September 10, and 285 times higher than average on the Thursday before the attack.
-- CBS News, September 26
A jump in American Airlines put options 60 times (not 60 percent) above normal on the day before the attacks.
-- CBS News, September 26
No similar trading occurred on any other airlines
-- Bloomberg Business Report, the Institute for Counterterrorism (ICT), Herzliyya, Israel [citing data from the CBOE] 3
Morgan Stanley saw, between September 7 and September 10, an increase of 27 times (not 27 percent) in the purchase of put options on its shares. 4
Merrill-Lynch saw a jump of more than 12 times the normal level of put options in the four trading days before the attacks. 5
[Excerpted ENDNOTES]
3. "Mechanics of Possible Bin Laden Insider Trading Scam," Herzlyya International Policy Institute for Counter Terrorism (ICT), September 22, 2001. Michael C. Ruppert, "The Case for Bush Administration Advance Knowledge of 9-11 Attacks," From the Wilderness April 22, 2002. Posted at Centre for Research and Globalization.
4. ICT, op. cit, citing data from the Chicago Board of Options Exchange (CBOE). [...] "Terrorists trained at CBPE." Chicago Sun-Times, September 20, 2001,. "Probe of options trading link to attacks confirmed," [...] Chicago Sun-Times, September 21, 2001, .
5. ICT, op. cit.
19
Ruppert then illustrates an apparent attempt to bury the story by explaining it away as nothing unusual. A September 30 New York Times article claims that "benign explanations are turning up" in the SEC's investigation. 20 The article blames the activity in put options, which it doesn't quantify, on "market pessimism," but fails to explain why the price of the stocks in the airlines doesn't reflect the same market pessimism.
The fact that $2.5 million of the put options remained unclaimed is not explained at all by market pessimism, and is evidence that the put option purchasers were part of a criminal conspiracy. 21
References
1. Insider Trading Apparently Based on Foreknowledge of the 9/11 Attacks, London Times, 9/18/01 [cached]
2. Put/Call Ratio, StreetAuthority.com,
3. Profiting From Disaster?, CBSNews.com, 9/19/01 [cached]
4. Prices, Probabilities and Predictions, OR/MS Today, [cached]
5. Exchange examines odd jump, Associated Press, 9/18/01 [cached]
6. SEC asks Goldman, Lehman for data, Bloomberg News, 9/20/01 [cached]
7. Black Tuesday: The World's Largest Insider Trading Scam?, ict.org.il, September 19, 2001 [cached]
8. Suspicious profits sit uncollected Airline investors seem to be lying low, San Francisco Chronicle, 9/29/01 [cached]
9. Profits of doom, telegraph.co.uk, 9/23/01 [cached]
10. Profits of doom ..., 9/23/01
11. Black Tuesday ..., 9/19/01
12. Bank of America among 38 stocks in SEC's attack probe, Bloomberg News, 10/3/01 [cached]
13. Bank of America ..., 10/3/01
14. Raytheon, corpwatch.org,
15. Suspicious trading points to advance knowledge by big investors of September 11 attacks, wsws.org, 10/5/01 [cached]
16. Bank of America ..., 10/3/01
17. SEC wants data-sharing system Network of brokerages would help trace trades by terrorists, San Francisco Chronicle, 9/19/01 [cached]
18. Crossing the Rubicon, , page 243
19. Crossing the Rubicon, , page 238-239,634
20. Whether advance knowledge of U.S. attacks was used for profit, New York Times, 9/30/01 [cached]
21. Suspicious profits ..., 9/29/01
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*2-
Hidden Transactions
Financial Transactions on WTC Computers Surged Before Attack
Computer systems in the World Trade Center processed an unusual volume of credit card transactions in the minutes before the planes crashed into the towers on 9/11/01. The computer systems were destroyed in the subsequent collapses of the towers. Although details of the surge remain unknown, reports speculate that the transactions may have amounted to more than $100 million in value, with both the volume and sizes of transactions surging. 1 2
In December of 2001, press reports noted that Convar Systeme Deutschland GmbH was working on recovering data from some hard drives extracted from the destroyed computer systems. Unlike conventional data recovery efforts, the German company used laser scanning to read drive surfaces in order to create virtual disks. These virtual disks were then read to recover data. As of December 20th, 2001, Convar had completed processing 39 out of 81 drives, and expected to receive 20 more drives in January. These reports do not indicate how many drives were believed lost or destroyed in the collapses. Companies paid Convar between $20,000 and $30,000 per drive for the work. 3
References
1. German Firm Probes Final World Trade Center Deals, Reuters, 12/16/01 [cached]
2. The Myth of WTC, Shanghai Star, 12/20/01 [cached]
3. Computer disk drives from WTC could yield clues, CNN.com, 12/20/01 [cached]
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*3-
Attack Warnings
People Who Avoided the Airlines and the Twin Towers
Much has been reported about how warnings of attacks by Muslim extremists in the year leading up to 9/11/01 were ignored. So far no official has been fired or otherwise punished for his or her failure to act on such information.
What is more informative than who failed to act on a tip, is who acted on a tip. A number of people apparently knew to stay clear of the World Trade Center on September 11th, 2001.
Government Officials and Business Leaders
There is evidence that a group of Pentagon officials was warned to avoid the attack targets. Newsweek reported:
Three weeks ago there was another warning that a terrorist strike might be imminent - On September 10, Newsweek has learned, a group of top Pentagon officials suddenly cancelled travel plans for the next morning, apparently because of security concerns. 1
A number of business leaders who would normally have been in the World Trade Center, were instead at a meeting hosted by Warren Buffett on September 11th at Offutt Air Force Base in Omaha, Nebraska. That group included Anne Tatlock, CEO of Fiduciary Trust Inc., a company that occupied five floors on or above the 90th floor of the South Tower. 2 3 (This is the same Air Force Base that George W. Bush would fly to later that day. It has an underground command center.) 4
San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown admitted to having received a warning from what he described as his airport security late Monday evening, just hours before the attack. 5
Salman Rushdie, who is under the continuous protection of Scotland Yard, was prevented from flying on September 11th, 2001. 6
On 9/11/01, Jim Pierce, cousin of President Bush, was scheduled to attend a conference on the 105th floor of the South Tower, where his company's New York offices were based. But the conference was moved across the street to the Millennium Hotel, because, the story goes, the group was too large. 7
Privileged Companies
Another group of people that received warnings in advance of the attack were employees of Odigo, the instant messaging service. Two employees received e-mail messages two hours before the first World Trade Center assault, predicting the attack. 8
According to reporter Christopher Bollyn, Zim American Israeli Shipping Co. broke a lease in order to vacate the World Trade Center just days before the attack. Bollyn's source claims that Zim's lease extended through the end of the year and that the termination cost $50,000. 9
The company heading a consortium that had just obtained a 99-year lease on the World Trade Center was supposedly spared by a last-minute cancellation. According to the New York Times, Silverstein Properties had planned to meet on 9/11/01 on the 88th floor of one of the towers to "discuss what to do in the event of a terrorist attack," but cancelled the meeting Monday night "because one participant could not attend." 10
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References
1. Bush: We're at War, Newsweek, 9/24/01 [cached]
2. '9/11' Facing our Fascist State, I/R Press, 2002, page 52
3. Franklin unit rebuilds after 9/11 tragedy, San Francisco Business Times, 2/1/02 [cached]
4. September 11th: The President's Story, CBS, 9/11/02 [cached]
5. Willie Brown got low-key early warning about air travel, SFGate.com, 9/12/01 [cached]
6. , London Times, 9/27/01 [cached]
7. President's cousin escaped death thanks to schedule change, Ananova, 9/18/01 [cached]
8. Odigo says workers were warned of attack, HAARETZ.com, [cached]
9. Israeli Company Mum About WTC Pullout, American Free Press,
10. Reinsurance Companies Wait to Sort Out Cost of Damage, New York Times, 9/12/01, page C6
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*4-
Israeli Spies
Five Men Including Mossad Agents Documented the WTC Attack
On the day of the attack a resident of Jersey City reported suspicious behavior by a group of men who appeared to be celebrating as they filmed the destruction across the Hudson. Mainstream media initially reported that the men, who were arrested around 4:30 PM, were Arabs. In fact the men were Israelis. The FBI released them 71 days later. The FBI also detained other groups of Israelis before and after 9/11/01, concluding some were part of an "organised intelligence-gathering operation" designed to "penetrate government facilities." 1
The following excerpt from a 2003 version of Paul Thompson's 9-11 Timeline summarizes reports of the group of Israelis who filmed the World Trade Center attack from New Jersey. 2
September 11, 2001 (W): Five Israelis are arrested for "puzzling behavior" related to the WTC attacks. They are arrested around 4:30 P.M. after having filmed the burning WTC from the roof of their company's building near Liberty State Park, then shouting in what was interpreted as cries of joy and mockery. They were spotted by a neighbor who called the police and the FBI. The police tracked them down in a van with the words "Urban Moving Systems" written on the side. [ Bergen Record, 9/12/01, Ha'aretz, 9/17/01] One man was found with $4,700 in cash hidden in his sock, another had two passports on him, and a box cutter was found in the van. [ ABC News, 6/21/02] Investigators say that "There are maps of the city in the car with certain places highlighted... It looked like they're hooked in with this. It looked like they knew what was going to happen." [ Bergen Record, 9/12/01] One of these Israelis later says, "Our purpose was to document the event." [ ABC News, 6/21/02] The FBI later concludes at least two are Mossad agents and that all were on a Mossad surveillance mission. The FBI interrogates them for weeks. [ Forward, 3/15/02] They are held on immigration violation charges and released 71 days later. [ ABC News, 6/21/02] Their names are later identified as Sivan and Paul Kurzberg, Oded Ellner, Omer Marmari and Yaron Shmuel. [ Forward, 3/15/02]
References
1. Five Israelis were seen filming as jet liners ploughed into the Twin Towers on September 11, 2001 ..., SundayHerald.com, 11/2/03 [cached]
2. , Center for Cooperative Research,
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*5-
Missing Trillions
Rumsfeld Buries Admission of Missing 2+ Trillion Dollars in 9/10/01 Press Conference
On September 10, 2001, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld held a press conference to disclose that over $2,000,000,000,000 in Pentagon funds could not be accounted for. Rumsfeld stated: "According to some estimates we cannot track $2.3 trillion in transactions." According to a report by the Inspector General, the Pentagon cannot account for 25 percent of what it spends. 1 2
Such a disclosure normally might have sparked a huge scandal. However, the commencement of the attack on New York City and Washington in the morning would assure that the story remained buried. To the trillions already missing from the coffers, an obedient Congress terrorized by anthrax attacks would add billions more in appropriations to fight the "War on Terror."
The Comptroller of the Pentagon at the time of the attack was Dov Zakheim, who was appointed in May of 2001. Before becoming the Pentagon's money-manager, he was an executive at System Planning Corporation, a defense contractor specializing in electronic warfare technologies including remote-controlled aircraft systems. 3 4 Zakheim is a member of the Project for a New American Century and participated in the creation of its 2000 position paper Rebuilding America's Defenses which called for "a New Pearl Harbor." 5
Estimates of the sums of money missing vary wildly. A 2003 report put the amount missing at "more than a trillion dollars." 6
References
1. The War On Waste, CBSnews.com, 1/29/02 [cached]
2. Vince Gonzales Investigates The Pentagon's War On Waste, CBSNews,
3. Radar Physics Group, sysplan.com, [cached]
4. Flight Termination System, sysplan.com, [cached]
5. Profile, Dov S. Zakheim, rightweb.irc-online.org, 11/22/03 [cached]
6. Military waste under fire: $1 trillion missing, San Francisco Chronicle, Sunday, May 18, 2003 [cached]
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*6-
Giuliani Warned
Mayor Giuliani Had Privileged Warning of Unprecedented Collapse
Warnings of the imminent collapse of the South Tower are inherently suspicious, given how unexpected that event was.
No skyscraper in the world had ever collapsed for any reason, other than controlled demolition.
Later revisions notwithstanding, the collapse took almost everyone by surprise.
Firefighters and emergency workers did not receive warnings.
Such warnings indicate foreknowledge, whether or not one believes any of the official theories of the collapses of the Twin Towers.
Rudolph Giuliani's Warning
Rudolph Giuliani, mayor of New York City on 9/11/01, has stated that he was at the base of the Twin Towers just minutes before the explosive collapse of the South Tower and then went to 75 Barclay Street -- where he had a makeshift command center.
QUESTION: Mr. Mayor, just to clarify something that Mr. Kerik said you were about 10 minutes past when you were standing with several of the high ranking officers who you lost and then you went to Barkley [sic] Street, have you thought about that 10 minute gap, how you were 10 minutes from being in a horrible situation?
GIULIANI: I haven't had a chance to think about it.
QUESTION: Then that could of evacuate the 10--you would have been with them 10 minutes earlier before the building collapsed?
GIULIANI: The--some of the people that we lost we saw like Father Judge (ph) and Chief Gansy (ph), Bill Fehan (ph), we saw them about 10 minutes before--before we went over to 75 Barkley [sic] street. And I talked to their families and I explained to them that they were working very hard and they were working at what they loved to do. And I'm sure their efforts will end up having saved other lives and their families can be very proud of them.
1
In an ABC News interview, Giuliani states that he was "told that the World Trade Center was gonna' collapse," and that it did collapse, referring to the 9:59 destruction of the South Towers, and implies that the warning was not well in advance of the event.
I .. I went down to the scene and we set up a headquarters at 75 Barkley Street, which was right there with the Police Commissioner, the Fire Commissioner, the Head of Emergency Management, and we were operating out of there when we were told that the World Trade Center was gonna' to collapse. And it did collapse before we could actually get out of the building, so we were trapped in the building for 10, 15 minutes, and finally found an exit, got out, walked north, and took a lot of people with us.
The OEM
Who warned Giuliani? To our knowledge, no reporter working for any mainstream media organization has put that question to Giuliani. However there are passages from the Oral Histories of emergency responders that shed light on the question. The account of Richard Zarillo contains the following:
As I was walking towards the Fire command post, I found Steve Mosiello. I said, Steve, where's the boss? I have to give him a message. He said, well, what's the message? I said the buildings are going to collapse; we need to evac everybody out. With a very confused look he said who told you that? I said I was just with John at OEM. OEM says the buildings are going to collapse; we need to get out.
He escorted me over to Chief Ganci. He said, hey, Pete, we got a message that the buildings are going to collapse. His reply was who the f___ told you that? Then Steve brought me in and with Chief Ganci, Commissioner Feehan, Steve, I believe Chief Turi was initially there, I said, listen, I was just at OEM. The message I was given was that the buildings are going to collapse; we need to get our people out. At that moment, this thunderous, rolling roar came down and that's when the building came down, the first tower came down. 2
Although Zarillo describes being directly questioned, both by Fire Marshal Steven Mosiello and by Chief Peter Ganci, about who told him that the buildings were going to collapse, he does not clarify the source of the message beyond the OEM (Office of Emergency Management), where he was "just with John."
Steven Mosiello's account corroborates Zarillo's:
A. At that point I don't know exactly when the Commissioner and Mayor had left. It was pretty soon after they had left that Richie Zarillo, who works with EMS -- I believe he's an OEM liaison -- came running up to me. I was not on the ramp at this time. I was like almost at the sidewalk location.
He said Steve, where's the Chief? I have to tell him, you know -- I said tell him what, Richie? These buildings are in imminent danger of collapse. I said how do you know that, you know? So he ran with me. I ran over and grabbed Chief Ganci and said Chief, these buildings are in imminent danger of collapse. He looked up at me. 3
References
1. Text: Giuliani on Rescue Efforts, WashingtonPost.com, 9/12/01 [cached]
2. World Trade Center Task Force Interview: EMT Richard Zarrillo, New York Times, 10/25/01
3. World Trade Center Task Force Interview: Fire Marshal Steven Mosiello, New York Times, 10/23/01
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*7-
Controlling Interests
Ownership, Control, and Insurance of The World Trade Center
The World Trade Center complex came under the control of a private owner for the first time only in mid-2001, having been built and managed by the Port Authority as a public resource. The complex was leased to a partnership of Silverstein Properties and Westfield America. 1 2 The new controllers acquired a handsome insurance policy for the complex including a clause that would prove extremely valuable: in the event of a terrorist attack, the partnership could collect the insured value of the property, and be released from their obligations under the 99-year lease. 3
Ownership Change
Author Don Paul investigated this and related issues for his 2002 book, which contains the following passage detailing financial aspects and ownership changes of the complex preceding the attack.
On April 26 of 2001 the Board of Commissioners for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey awarded Silverstein Properties and mall-owner Westfield America a 99-year-lease on the following assets: The Twin Towers, World Trade Center Buildings 4 and 5, two 9-story office buildings, and 400,000 square feet of retail space.
The partners' winning bid was $3.2 billion for holdings estimated to be worth more than $8 billion. JP Morgan Chase, a prestigious investment-bank that's the flagship firm of its kind for Rockefeller family interests, advised the Port Authority, another body long influenced by banker and builder David Rockefeller, his age then 85, in the negotiations.
The lead partner and spokesperson for the winning bidders, Larry Silverstein, age 70, already controlled more than 8 million square feet of New York City real estate. WTC 7 and the nearby Equitable Building were prime among these prior holdings. Larry Silverstein also owned Runway 69, a nightclub in Queens that was alleged 9 years ago to be laundering money made through sales of Laotian heroin. 4
In December 2003, the Port Authority agreed to return all of the $125 million in equity that the consortium headed by Silverstein originally invested to buy the lease on the World Trade Center. The Port Authority rejected a request by the Wall Street Journal to review the transaction. 5 A press report from November 2003 about the same transaction noted that it would allow Silverstein to retain development rights. 6
The lease deal didn't close until July 24th, just 6 weeks before the attack. 7
Insurance Payouts
Don Paul also documented the money flows surrounding the loss of Building 7.
In February of 2002 Silverstein Properties won $861 million from Industrial Risk Insurers to rebuild on the site of WTC 7. Silverstein Properties' estimated investment in WTC 7 was $386 million. So: This building's collapse resulted in a profit of about $500 million. 8
The insurance money flows involved in the destruction of the original six World Trade Center buildings were far greater. Silverstein Properties, the majority owner of WTC 7, also had the majority interest in the original World Trade Center complex. Silverstein hired Willis Group Holdings Ltd. to obtain enough coverage for the complex. Willis undertook "frenetic" negotiations to acquire insurance from 25 carriers. The agreements were only temporary contracts when control of the WTC changed hands on July 24. 9
After the attack, Silverstein Properties commenced litigation against its insurers, claiming it was entitled to twice the insurance policies' value because, according to a spokesman for Mr. Silverstein, "the two hijacked airliners that struck the 110-story twin towers Sept. 11 were separate 'occurrences' for insurance purposes, entitling him to collect twice on $3.6 billion of policies." This was reported in the Bloomberg News less than one month after the attack. 10
The ensuing legal battle between the leaseholders and insurers of the World Trade Center was not about how the 9/11/01 attack on the WTC could be considered two attacks, when the WTC was only destroyed once. Rather it seemed to revolve around whether the beneficiaries thought it was one or two "occurrences." The proceedings before U.S. District Judge John S. Martin involved a number of battles over the insurers' discovery rights regarding conversations about this issue between insurance beneficiaries and their lawyers. 11 12
In December 2004, a jury ruled in favor of the insurance holders' double claim. 13
A Parable
To put these events in perspective, imagine that a person leases an expensive house, and immediately takes out an insurance policy covering the entire value of the house and specifically covering bomb attacks. Six weeks later two bombs go off in the house, separated by an hour. The house burns down, and the lessor immediately sues the insurance company to pay him twice the value of the house, and ultimately wins. The lessor also gets the city to dispose of the wreckage, excavate the site, and help him build a new house on the site.
References
1. Westfield Nabs Trade Center mall, ICSC.org, 6/2/2001 [cached]
2. Governor Pataki, Acting Governor DiFrancesco Laud Historic Port Authority Agreement to Privatize World Trade Center, Port Authority on NY & NJ, 7/24/01 [cached]
3. Reinsurance Companies Wait to Sort Out Cost of Damage, New York Times, 9/12/01, page C6
4. Facing Our Fascist State, I/R Press, 2002, page 38
5. MetLife Will Sell Sears Tower, Wall Street Journal Online, 3/12/04 [cached]
6. Most of WTC Down Payment to Be Returned, 11/22/03 [cached]
7. Insurers Debate: One Accident or Two?, Bloomberg News, 10/10/01
8. Facing Our Fascist State, , page 47
9. Double Indemnity, law.com, 9/3/02 [cached]
10. Judge John S. Martin Jr.'s Latest Opinion in Swiss Re v. WTC., Newsday, 09/25/02 [cached]
11. Twin Tower Insurers Win Discovery Fight, 6/20/02 [cached]
12. World Trade Center's Mortgage Holder Loses Discovery Fight, 7/8/02 [cached]
13. Jury Awards $2.2 Billion in 9/11 Insurance, United Press International, 12/6/04 [cached]
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Is it just me, or does this all sound just a little bit TOO coincidental that all these transactions and avoidences just so happened to take place only days and hours BEFORE the attacks?
This one particular article stood out to me and I read it, clicked on the links and sub-links etc...and I thought that I would copy and paste it here for you all to read, mainly because I don't know how many of you know about this site, so, I wanted to share this with you all.
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Attack Foreknowledge
Actions Reveal Widespread Advance Knowledge of the Attack
Several events immediately preceding the September 11th attacks suggests many people other than Islamic extremists anticipated the attack. These include the following:
*1-Extremely large purchases of put options on stocks of American Airlines, United Airlines, and other companines hurt by the attack
*A surge in financial transactions on computers in the World Trade Center on the morning of 9/11/01
*Avoidance of the airlines and New York City on September 11th by a number of important people, some admitting to having been warned of an attack
*The behavior of five Israelis who appeared to be celebrating the attack on the World Trade Center as they filmed it from across the Hudson
*Donald Rumsfeld's disclosure on the eve of 9/11 that the Pentagon had lost over 2 trillion dollars
*A warning received by Rudolph Giuliani that the South Tower would collapse ten minutes before the event
*The privatization of the World Trade Center six weeks before the attack
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*1-Insider Trading
Pre-9/11 Put Options on Companies Hurt by Attack Indicates Foreknowledge
Financial transactions in the days before the attack suggest that certain individuals used foreknowledge of the attack to reap huge profits. 1 The evidence of insider trading includes:
Huge surges in purchases of put options on stocks of the two airlines used in the attack -- United Airlines and American Airlines
Surges in purchases of put options on stocks of reinsurance companies expected to pay out billions to cover losses from the attack -- Munich Re and the AXA Group
Surges in purchases of put options on stocks of financial services companies hurt by the attack -- Merrill Lynch & Co., and Morgan Stanley and Bank of America
Huge surge in purchases of call options of stock of a weapons manufacturer expected to gain from the attack -- Raytheon
Huge surges in purchases of 5-Year US Treasury Notes
In each case, the anomalous purchases translated into large profits as soon as the stock market opened a week after the attack: put options were used on stocks that would be hurt by the attack, and call options were used on stocks that would benefit.
Put and call options are contracts that allow their holders to sell and buy assets, respectively, at specified prices by a certain date. Put options allow their holders to profit from declines in stock values because they allow stocks to be bought at market price and sold for the higher option price. The ratio of the volume of put option contracts to call option contracts is called the put/call ratio. The ratio is usually less than one, with a value of around 0.8 considered normal. 2
Losers
American Airlines and United Airlines, and several insurance companies and banks posted huge loses in stock values when the markets opened on September 17. Put options -- financial instruments which allow investors to profit from the decline in value of stocks -- were purchased on the stocks of these companies in great volume in the week before the attack.
United Airlines and American Airlines
Two of the corporations most damaged by the attack were American Airlines (AMR), the operator of Flight 11 and Flight 77, and United Airlines (UAL), the operator of Flight 175 and Flight 93. According to CBS News, in the week before the attack, the put/call ratio for American Airlines was four. 3 The put/call ratio for United Airlines was 25 times above normal on September 6. 4
This graph shows a dramatic spike in pre-attack purchases of put options on the airlines used in the attack. (source: www.optionsclearing.com)
The spikes in put options occurred on days that were uneventful for the airlines and their stock prices.
On Sept. 6-7, when there was no significant news or stock price movement involving United, the Chicago exchange handled 4,744 put options for UAL stock, compared with just 396 call options -- essentially bets that the price will rise. On Sept. 10, an uneventful day for American, the volume was 748 calls and 4,516 puts, based on a check of option trading records. 5
The Bloomberg News reported that put options on the airlines surged to the phenomenal high of 285 times their average.
Over three days before terrorists flattened the World Trade Center and damaged the Pentagon, there was more than 25 times the previous daily average trading in a Morgan Stanley "put" option that makes money when shares fall below $45. Trading in similar AMR and UAL put options, which make money when their stocks fall below $30 apiece, surged to as much as 285 times the average trading up to that time. 6
When the market reopened after the attack, United Airlines stock fell 42 percent from $30.82 to $17.50 per share, and American Airlines stock fell 39 percent, from $29.70 to $18.00 per share. 7
Reinsurance Companies
Several companies in the reinsurance business were expected to suffer huge losses from the attack: Munich Re of Germany and Swiss Re of Switzerland -- the world's two biggest reinsurers, and the AXA Group of France. In September, 2001, the San Francisco Chronicle estimated liabilities of $1.5 billion for Munich Re and $0.55 bilion for the AXA Group and telegraph.co.uk estimated liabilities of £1.2 billion for Munich Re and £0.83 billion for Swiss Re. 8 9
Trading in shares of Munich Re was almost double its normal level on September 6, and 7, and trading in shares of Swiss Re was more than double its normal level on September 7. 10
Financial Services Companies
Merrill Lynch and Morgan Stanley Morgan Stanley Dean Witter & Co. and Merrill Lynch & Co. were both headquartered in lower Manhattan at the time of the attack. Morgan Stanley occupied 22 floors of the North Tower and Merrill Lynch had headquarters near the Twin Towers. Morgan Stanley, which saw an average of 27 put options on its stock bought per day before September 6, saw 2,157 put options bought in the three trading days before the attack. Merrill Lynch, which saw an average of 252 put options on its stock bought per day before September 5, saw 12,215 put options bought in the four trading days before the attack. Morgan Stanley's stock dropped 13% and Merrill Lynch's stock dropped 11.5% when the market reopened. 11
Bank of America showed a fivefold increase in put option trading on the Thursday and Friday before the attack.
A Bank of America option that would profit if the No. 3 U.S. bank's stock fell below $60 a share had more than 5,900 contracts traded on the Thursday and Friday before the Sept. 11 assaults, almost five times the previous average trading, according to Bloomberg data. The bank's shares fell 11.5 percent to $51 in the first week after trading resumed on Sept. 17. 12
Winners
While most companies would see their stock valuations decline in the wake of the attack, those in the business of supplying the military would see dramatic increases, reflecting the new business they were poised to receive.
Raytheon
Raytheon, maker of Patriot and Tomahawk missiles, saw its stock soar immediately after the attack. Purchases of call options on Raytheon stock increased sixfold on the day before the attack.
A Raytheon option that makes money if shares are more than $25 each had 232 options contracts traded on the day before the attacks, almost six times the total number of trades that had occurred before that day. A contract represents options on 100 shares. Raytheon shares soared almost 37 percent to $34.04 during the first week of post-attack U.S. trading. 13
Raytheon has been fined millions of dollars inflating the costs of equipment it sells the US military. Raytheon has a secretive subsidiary, E-Systems, whose clients have included the CIA and NSA. 14
US Treasury Notes
Five-year US Treasury notes were purchased in abnormally high volumes before the attack, and their buyers were rewarded with sharp increases in their value following the attack.
The Wall Street Journal reported on October 2 that the ongoing investigation by the SEC into suspicious stock trades had been joined by a Secret Service probe into an unusually high volume of five-year US Treasury note purchases prior to the attacks. The Treasury note transactions included a single $5 billion trade. As the Journal explained: "Five-year Treasury notes are among the best investments in the event of a world crisis, especially one that hits the US. The notes are prized for their safety and their backing by the US government, and usually rally when investors flee riskier investments, such as stocks." The value of these notes, the Journal pointed out, has risen sharply since the events of September 11. 15
The SEC's Investigation
Shortly after the attack the SEC circulated a list of stocks to securities firms around the world seeking information. 16 A widely circulated article states that the stocks flagged by the SEC included those of the following corporations: American Airlines, United Airlines, Continental Airlines, Northwest Airlines, Southwest Airlines, US Airways airlines, Martin, Boeing, Lockheed Martin Corp., AIG, American Express Corp, American International Group, AMR Corporation, AXA SA, Bank of America Corp, Bank of New York Corp, Bank One Corp, Cigna Group, CNA Financial, Carnival Corp, Chubb Group, John Hancock Financial Services, Hercules Inc., L-3 Communications Holdings, Inc., LTV Corporation, Marsh & McLennan Cos. Inc., MetLife, Progressive Corp., General Motors, Raytheon, W.R. Grace, Royal Caribbean Cruises, Ltd., Lone Star Technologies, American Express, the Citigroup Inc., Royal & Sun Alliance, Lehman Brothers Holdings, Inc., Vornado Reality Trust, Morgan Stanley, Dean Witter & Co., XL Capital Ltd., and Bear Stearns.
An October 19 article in the San Francisco Chronicle reported that the SEC, after a period of silence, had undertaken the unprecedented action of deputizing hundreds of private officials in its investigation:
The proposed system, which would go into effect immediately, effectively deputizes hundreds, if not thousands, of key players in the private sector.
...
In a two-page statement issued to "all securities-related entities" nationwide, the SEC asked companies to designate senior personnel who appreciate "the sensitive nature" of the case and can be relied upon to "exercise appropriate discretion" as "point" people linking government investigators and the industry. 17
Michael Ruppert, a former LAPD officer, explains the consequences of this action:
What happens when you deputize someone in a national security or criminal investigation is that you make it illegal for them to disclose publicly what they know. Smart move. In effect, they become government agents and are controlled by government regulations rather than their own conscience. In fact, they can be thrown in jail without a hearing if they talk publicly. I have seen this implied threat time and again with federal investigations, intelligence agents, and even members of the United States Congress who are bound so tightly by secrecy oaths and agreements that they are not even able to disclose criminal activities inside the government for fear of incarceration. 18
Interpreting and Reinterpreting the Data
An analysis of the press reports on the subject of apparent insider trading related to the attack shows a trend, with early reports highlighting the anomalies, and later reports excusing them. In his book Crossing the Rubicon Michael C. Ruppert illustrates this point by first excerpting a number of reports published shortly after the attack:
A jump in UAL (United Airlines) put options 90 times (not 90 percent) above normal between September 6 and September 10, and 285 times higher than average on the Thursday before the attack.
-- CBS News, September 26
A jump in American Airlines put options 60 times (not 60 percent) above normal on the day before the attacks.
-- CBS News, September 26
No similar trading occurred on any other airlines
-- Bloomberg Business Report, the Institute for Counterterrorism (ICT), Herzliyya, Israel [citing data from the CBOE] 3
Morgan Stanley saw, between September 7 and September 10, an increase of 27 times (not 27 percent) in the purchase of put options on its shares. 4
Merrill-Lynch saw a jump of more than 12 times the normal level of put options in the four trading days before the attacks. 5
[Excerpted ENDNOTES]
3. "Mechanics of Possible Bin Laden Insider Trading Scam," Herzlyya International Policy Institute for Counter Terrorism (ICT), September 22, 2001. Michael C. Ruppert, "The Case for Bush Administration Advance Knowledge of 9-11 Attacks," From the Wilderness April 22, 2002. Posted at Centre for Research and Globalization
4. ICT, op. cit, citing data from the Chicago Board of Options Exchange (CBOE). [...] "Terrorists trained at CBPE." Chicago Sun-Times, September 20, 2001,
5. ICT, op. cit.
19
Ruppert then illustrates an apparent attempt to bury the story by explaining it away as nothing unusual. A September 30 New York Times article claims that "benign explanations are turning up" in the SEC's investigation. 20 The article blames the activity in put options, which it doesn't quantify, on "market pessimism," but fails to explain why the price of the stocks in the airlines doesn't reflect the same market pessimism.
The fact that $2.5 million of the put options remained unclaimed is not explained at all by market pessimism, and is evidence that the put option purchasers were part of a criminal conspiracy. 21
References
1. Insider Trading Apparently Based on Foreknowledge of the 9/11 Attacks, London Times, 9/18/01 [cached]
2. Put/Call Ratio, StreetAuthority.com,
3. Profiting From Disaster?, CBSNews.com, 9/19/01 [cached]
4. Prices, Probabilities and Predictions, OR/MS Today, [cached]
5. Exchange examines odd jump, Associated Press, 9/18/01 [cached]
6. SEC asks Goldman, Lehman for data, Bloomberg News, 9/20/01 [cached]
7. Black Tuesday: The World's Largest Insider Trading Scam?, ict.org.il, September 19, 2001 [cached]
8. Suspicious profits sit uncollected Airline investors seem to be lying low, San Francisco Chronicle, 9/29/01 [cached]
9. Profits of doom, telegraph.co.uk, 9/23/01 [cached]
10. Profits of doom ..., 9/23/01
11. Black Tuesday ..., 9/19/01
12. Bank of America among 38 stocks in SEC's attack probe, Bloomberg News, 10/3/01 [cached]
13. Bank of America ..., 10/3/01
14. Raytheon, corpwatch.org,
15. Suspicious trading points to advance knowledge by big investors of September 11 attacks, wsws.org, 10/5/01 [cached]
16. Bank of America ..., 10/3/01
17. SEC wants data-sharing system Network of brokerages would help trace trades by terrorists, San Francisco Chronicle, 9/19/01 [cached]
18. Crossing the Rubicon, , page 243
19. Crossing the Rubicon, , page 238-239,634
20. Whether advance knowledge of U.S. attacks was used for profit, New York Times, 9/30/01 [cached]
21. Suspicious profits ..., 9/29/01
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*2-
Hidden Transactions
Financial Transactions on WTC Computers Surged Before Attack
Computer systems in the World Trade Center processed an unusual volume of credit card transactions in the minutes before the planes crashed into the towers on 9/11/01. The computer systems were destroyed in the subsequent collapses of the towers. Although details of the surge remain unknown, reports speculate that the transactions may have amounted to more than $100 million in value, with both the volume and sizes of transactions surging. 1 2
In December of 2001, press reports noted that Convar Systeme Deutschland GmbH was working on recovering data from some hard drives extracted from the destroyed computer systems. Unlike conventional data recovery efforts, the German company used laser scanning to read drive surfaces in order to create virtual disks. These virtual disks were then read to recover data. As of December 20th, 2001, Convar had completed processing 39 out of 81 drives, and expected to receive 20 more drives in January. These reports do not indicate how many drives were believed lost or destroyed in the collapses. Companies paid Convar between $20,000 and $30,000 per drive for the work. 3
References
1. German Firm Probes Final World Trade Center Deals, Reuters, 12/16/01 [cached]
2. The Myth of WTC, Shanghai Star, 12/20/01 [cached]
3. Computer disk drives from WTC could yield clues, CNN.com, 12/20/01 [cached]
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*3-
Attack Warnings
People Who Avoided the Airlines and the Twin Towers
Much has been reported about how warnings of attacks by Muslim extremists in the year leading up to 9/11/01 were ignored. So far no official has been fired or otherwise punished for his or her failure to act on such information.
What is more informative than who failed to act on a tip, is who acted on a tip. A number of people apparently knew to stay clear of the World Trade Center on September 11th, 2001.
Government Officials and Business Leaders
There is evidence that a group of Pentagon officials was warned to avoid the attack targets. Newsweek reported:
Three weeks ago there was another warning that a terrorist strike might be imminent - On September 10, Newsweek has learned, a group of top Pentagon officials suddenly cancelled travel plans for the next morning, apparently because of security concerns. 1
A number of business leaders who would normally have been in the World Trade Center, were instead at a meeting hosted by Warren Buffett on September 11th at Offutt Air Force Base in Omaha, Nebraska. That group included Anne Tatlock, CEO of Fiduciary Trust Inc., a company that occupied five floors on or above the 90th floor of the South Tower. 2 3 (This is the same Air Force Base that George W. Bush would fly to later that day. It has an underground command center.) 4
San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown admitted to having received a warning from what he described as his airport security late Monday evening, just hours before the attack. 5
Salman Rushdie, who is under the continuous protection of Scotland Yard, was prevented from flying on September 11th, 2001. 6
On 9/11/01, Jim Pierce, cousin of President Bush, was scheduled to attend a conference on the 105th floor of the South Tower, where his company's New York offices were based. But the conference was moved across the street to the Millennium Hotel, because, the story goes, the group was too large. 7
Privileged Companies
Another group of people that received warnings in advance of the attack were employees of Odigo, the instant messaging service. Two employees received e-mail messages two hours before the first World Trade Center assault, predicting the attack. 8
According to reporter Christopher Bollyn, Zim American Israeli Shipping Co. broke a lease in order to vacate the World Trade Center just days before the attack. Bollyn's source claims that Zim's lease extended through the end of the year and that the termination cost $50,000. 9
The company heading a consortium that had just obtained a 99-year lease on the World Trade Center was supposedly spared by a last-minute cancellation. According to the New York Times, Silverstein Properties had planned to meet on 9/11/01 on the 88th floor of one of the towers to "discuss what to do in the event of a terrorist attack," but cancelled the meeting Monday night "because one participant could not attend." 10
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References
1. Bush: We're at War, Newsweek, 9/24/01 [cached]
2. '9/11' Facing our Fascist State, I/R Press, 2002, page 52
3. Franklin unit rebuilds after 9/11 tragedy, San Francisco Business Times, 2/1/02 [cached]
4. September 11th: The President's Story, CBS, 9/11/02 [cached]
5. Willie Brown got low-key early warning about air travel, SFGate.com, 9/12/01 [cached]
6. , London Times, 9/27/01 [cached]
7. President's cousin escaped death thanks to schedule change, Ananova, 9/18/01 [cached]
8. Odigo says workers were warned of attack, HAARETZ.com, [cached]
9. Israeli Company Mum About WTC Pullout, American Free Press,
10. Reinsurance Companies Wait to Sort Out Cost of Damage, New York Times, 9/12/01, page C6
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*4-
Israeli Spies
Five Men Including Mossad Agents Documented the WTC Attack
On the day of the attack a resident of Jersey City reported suspicious behavior by a group of men who appeared to be celebrating as they filmed the destruction across the Hudson. Mainstream media initially reported that the men, who were arrested around 4:30 PM, were Arabs. In fact the men were Israelis. The FBI released them 71 days later. The FBI also detained other groups of Israelis before and after 9/11/01, concluding some were part of an "organised intelligence-gathering operation" designed to "penetrate government facilities." 1
The following excerpt from a 2003 version of Paul Thompson's 9-11 Timeline summarizes reports of the group of Israelis who filmed the World Trade Center attack from New Jersey. 2
September 11, 2001 (W): Five Israelis are arrested for "puzzling behavior" related to the WTC attacks. They are arrested around 4:30 P.M. after having filmed the burning WTC from the roof of their company's building near Liberty State Park, then shouting in what was interpreted as cries of joy and mockery. They were spotted by a neighbor who called the police and the FBI. The police tracked them down in a van with the words "Urban Moving Systems" written on the side. [ Bergen Record, 9/12/01, Ha'aretz, 9/17/01] One man was found with $4,700 in cash hidden in his sock, another had two passports on him, and a box cutter was found in the van. [ ABC News, 6/21/02] Investigators say that "There are maps of the city in the car with certain places highlighted... It looked like they're hooked in with this. It looked like they knew what was going to happen." [ Bergen Record, 9/12/01] One of these Israelis later says, "Our purpose was to document the event." [ ABC News, 6/21/02] The FBI later concludes at least two are Mossad agents and that all were on a Mossad surveillance mission. The FBI interrogates them for weeks. [ Forward, 3/15/02] They are held on immigration violation charges and released 71 days later. [ ABC News, 6/21/02] Their names are later identified as Sivan and Paul Kurzberg, Oded Ellner, Omer Marmari and Yaron Shmuel. [ Forward, 3/15/02]
References
1. Five Israelis were seen filming as jet liners ploughed into the Twin Towers on September 11, 2001 ..., SundayHerald.com, 11/2/03 [cached]
2. , Center for Cooperative Research,
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*5-
Missing Trillions
Rumsfeld Buries Admission of Missing 2+ Trillion Dollars in 9/10/01 Press Conference
On September 10, 2001, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld held a press conference to disclose that over $2,000,000,000,000 in Pentagon funds could not be accounted for. Rumsfeld stated: "According to some estimates we cannot track $2.3 trillion in transactions." According to a report by the Inspector General, the Pentagon cannot account for 25 percent of what it spends. 1 2
Such a disclosure normally might have sparked a huge scandal. However, the commencement of the attack on New York City and Washington in the morning would assure that the story remained buried. To the trillions already missing from the coffers, an obedient Congress terrorized by anthrax attacks would add billions more in appropriations to fight the "War on Terror."
The Comptroller of the Pentagon at the time of the attack was Dov Zakheim, who was appointed in May of 2001. Before becoming the Pentagon's money-manager, he was an executive at System Planning Corporation, a defense contractor specializing in electronic warfare technologies including remote-controlled aircraft systems. 3 4 Zakheim is a member of the Project for a New American Century and participated in the creation of its 2000 position paper Rebuilding America's Defenses which called for "a New Pearl Harbor." 5
Estimates of the sums of money missing vary wildly. A 2003 report put the amount missing at "more than a trillion dollars." 6
References
1. The War On Waste, CBSnews.com, 1/29/02 [cached]
2. Vince Gonzales Investigates The Pentagon's War On Waste, CBSNews,
3. Radar Physics Group, sysplan.com, [cached]
4. Flight Termination System, sysplan.com, [cached]
5. Profile, Dov S. Zakheim, rightweb.irc-online.org, 11/22/03 [cached]
6. Military waste under fire: $1 trillion missing, San Francisco Chronicle, Sunday, May 18, 2003 [cached]
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*6-
Giuliani Warned
Mayor Giuliani Had Privileged Warning of Unprecedented Collapse
Warnings of the imminent collapse of the South Tower are inherently suspicious, given how unexpected that event was.
No skyscraper in the world had ever collapsed for any reason, other than controlled demolition.
Later revisions notwithstanding, the collapse took almost everyone by surprise.
Firefighters and emergency workers did not receive warnings.
Such warnings indicate foreknowledge, whether or not one believes any of the official theories of the collapses of the Twin Towers.
Rudolph Giuliani's Warning
Rudolph Giuliani, mayor of New York City on 9/11/01, has stated that he was at the base of the Twin Towers just minutes before the explosive collapse of the South Tower and then went to 75 Barclay Street -- where he had a makeshift command center.
QUESTION: Mr. Mayor, just to clarify something that Mr. Kerik said you were about 10 minutes past when you were standing with several of the high ranking officers who you lost and then you went to Barkley [sic] Street, have you thought about that 10 minute gap, how you were 10 minutes from being in a horrible situation?
GIULIANI: I haven't had a chance to think about it.
QUESTION: Then that could of evacuate the 10--you would have been with them 10 minutes earlier before the building collapsed?
GIULIANI: The--some of the people that we lost we saw like Father Judge (ph) and Chief Gansy (ph), Bill Fehan (ph), we saw them about 10 minutes before--before we went over to 75 Barkley [sic] street. And I talked to their families and I explained to them that they were working very hard and they were working at what they loved to do. And I'm sure their efforts will end up having saved other lives and their families can be very proud of them.
1
In an ABC News interview, Giuliani states that he was "told that the World Trade Center was gonna' collapse," and that it did collapse, referring to the 9:59 destruction of the South Towers, and implies that the warning was not well in advance of the event.
I .. I went down to the scene and we set up a headquarters at 75 Barkley Street, which was right there with the Police Commissioner, the Fire Commissioner, the Head of Emergency Management, and we were operating out of there when we were told that the World Trade Center was gonna' to collapse. And it did collapse before we could actually get out of the building, so we were trapped in the building for 10, 15 minutes, and finally found an exit, got out, walked north, and took a lot of people with us.
The OEM
Who warned Giuliani? To our knowledge, no reporter working for any mainstream media organization has put that question to Giuliani. However there are passages from the Oral Histories of emergency responders that shed light on the question. The account of Richard Zarillo contains the following:
As I was walking towards the Fire command post, I found Steve Mosiello. I said, Steve, where's the boss? I have to give him a message. He said, well, what's the message? I said the buildings are going to collapse; we need to evac everybody out. With a very confused look he said who told you that? I said I was just with John at OEM. OEM says the buildings are going to collapse; we need to get out.
He escorted me over to Chief Ganci. He said, hey, Pete, we got a message that the buildings are going to collapse. His reply was who the f___ told you that? Then Steve brought me in and with Chief Ganci, Commissioner Feehan, Steve, I believe Chief Turi was initially there, I said, listen, I was just at OEM. The message I was given was that the buildings are going to collapse; we need to get our people out. At that moment, this thunderous, rolling roar came down and that's when the building came down, the first tower came down. 2
Although Zarillo describes being directly questioned, both by Fire Marshal Steven Mosiello and by Chief Peter Ganci, about who told him that the buildings were going to collapse, he does not clarify the source of the message beyond the OEM (Office of Emergency Management), where he was "just with John."
Steven Mosiello's account corroborates Zarillo's:
A. At that point I don't know exactly when the Commissioner and Mayor had left. It was pretty soon after they had left that Richie Zarillo, who works with EMS -- I believe he's an OEM liaison -- came running up to me. I was not on the ramp at this time. I was like almost at the sidewalk location.
He said Steve, where's the Chief? I have to tell him, you know -- I said tell him what, Richie? These buildings are in imminent danger of collapse. I said how do you know that, you know? So he ran with me. I ran over and grabbed Chief Ganci and said Chief, these buildings are in imminent danger of collapse. He looked up at me. 3
References
1. Text: Giuliani on Rescue Efforts, WashingtonPost.com, 9/12/01 [cached]
2. World Trade Center Task Force Interview: EMT Richard Zarrillo, New York Times, 10/25/01
3. World Trade Center Task Force Interview: Fire Marshal Steven Mosiello, New York Times, 10/23/01
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*7-
Controlling Interests
Ownership, Control, and Insurance of The World Trade Center
The World Trade Center complex came under the control of a private owner for the first time only in mid-2001, having been built and managed by the Port Authority as a public resource. The complex was leased to a partnership of Silverstein Properties and Westfield America. 1 2 The new controllers acquired a handsome insurance policy for the complex including a clause that would prove extremely valuable: in the event of a terrorist attack, the partnership could collect the insured value of the property, and be released from their obligations under the 99-year lease. 3
Ownership Change
Author Don Paul investigated this and related issues for his 2002 book, which contains the following passage detailing financial aspects and ownership changes of the complex preceding the attack.
On April 26 of 2001 the Board of Commissioners for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey awarded Silverstein Properties and mall-owner Westfield America a 99-year-lease on the following assets: The Twin Towers, World Trade Center Buildings 4 and 5, two 9-story office buildings, and 400,000 square feet of retail space.
The partners' winning bid was $3.2 billion for holdings estimated to be worth more than $8 billion. JP Morgan Chase, a prestigious investment-bank that's the flagship firm of its kind for Rockefeller family interests, advised the Port Authority, another body long influenced by banker and builder David Rockefeller, his age then 85, in the negotiations.
The lead partner and spokesperson for the winning bidders, Larry Silverstein, age 70, already controlled more than 8 million square feet of New York City real estate. WTC 7 and the nearby Equitable Building were prime among these prior holdings. Larry Silverstein also owned Runway 69, a nightclub in Queens that was alleged 9 years ago to be laundering money made through sales of Laotian heroin. 4
In December 2003, the Port Authority agreed to return all of the $125 million in equity that the consortium headed by Silverstein originally invested to buy the lease on the World Trade Center. The Port Authority rejected a request by the Wall Street Journal to review the transaction. 5 A press report from November 2003 about the same transaction noted that it would allow Silverstein to retain development rights. 6
The lease deal didn't close until July 24th, just 6 weeks before the attack. 7
Insurance Payouts
Don Paul also documented the money flows surrounding the loss of Building 7.
In February of 2002 Silverstein Properties won $861 million from Industrial Risk Insurers to rebuild on the site of WTC 7. Silverstein Properties' estimated investment in WTC 7 was $386 million. So: This building's collapse resulted in a profit of about $500 million. 8
The insurance money flows involved in the destruction of the original six World Trade Center buildings were far greater. Silverstein Properties, the majority owner of WTC 7, also had the majority interest in the original World Trade Center complex. Silverstein hired Willis Group Holdings Ltd. to obtain enough coverage for the complex. Willis undertook "frenetic" negotiations to acquire insurance from 25 carriers. The agreements were only temporary contracts when control of the WTC changed hands on July 24. 9
After the attack, Silverstein Properties commenced litigation against its insurers, claiming it was entitled to twice the insurance policies' value because, according to a spokesman for Mr. Silverstein, "the two hijacked airliners that struck the 110-story twin towers Sept. 11 were separate 'occurrences' for insurance purposes, entitling him to collect twice on $3.6 billion of policies." This was reported in the Bloomberg News less than one month after the attack. 10
The ensuing legal battle between the leaseholders and insurers of the World Trade Center was not about how the 9/11/01 attack on the WTC could be considered two attacks, when the WTC was only destroyed once. Rather it seemed to revolve around whether the beneficiaries thought it was one or two "occurrences." The proceedings before U.S. District Judge John S. Martin involved a number of battles over the insurers' discovery rights regarding conversations about this issue between insurance beneficiaries and their lawyers. 11 12
In December 2004, a jury ruled in favor of the insurance holders' double claim. 13
A Parable
To put these events in perspective, imagine that a person leases an expensive house, and immediately takes out an insurance policy covering the entire value of the house and specifically covering bomb attacks. Six weeks later two bombs go off in the house, separated by an hour. The house burns down, and the lessor immediately sues the insurance company to pay him twice the value of the house, and ultimately wins. The lessor also gets the city to dispose of the wreckage, excavate the site, and help him build a new house on the site.
References
1. Westfield Nabs Trade Center mall, ICSC.org, 6/2/2001 [cached]
2. Governor Pataki, Acting Governor DiFrancesco Laud Historic Port Authority Agreement to Privatize World Trade Center, Port Authority on NY & NJ, 7/24/01 [cached]
3. Reinsurance Companies Wait to Sort Out Cost of Damage, New York Times, 9/12/01, page C6
4. Facing Our Fascist State, I/R Press, 2002, page 38
5. MetLife Will Sell Sears Tower, Wall Street Journal Online, 3/12/04 [cached]
6. Most of WTC Down Payment to Be Returned, 11/22/03 [cached]
7. Insurers Debate: One Accident or Two?, Bloomberg News, 10/10/01
8. Facing Our Fascist State, , page 47
9. Double Indemnity, law.com, 9/3/02 [cached]
10. Judge John S. Martin Jr.'s Latest Opinion in Swiss Re v. WTC., Newsday, 09/25/02 [cached]
11. Twin Tower Insurers Win Discovery Fight, 6/20/02 [cached]
12. World Trade Center's Mortgage Holder Loses Discovery Fight, 7/8/02 [cached]
13. Jury Awards $2.2 Billion in 9/11 Insurance, United Press International, 12/6/04 [cached]
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Is it just me, or does this all sound just a little bit TOO coincidental that all these transactions and avoidences just so happened to take place only days and hours BEFORE the attacks?
9/11: THREATS ABOUT AIRPLANES AS WEAPONS PRIOR TO 9/11--an article written by Dr. Matthew Robinson
Here is an interesting article that I found this morning. I wanted to share it with you all, and see what you think.
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9/11: THREATS ABOUT AIRPLANES AS WEAPONS PRIOR TO 9/11
By: Dr. Matthew Robinson
Associate Professor of Criminal Justice
Appalachian State University
robinsnmb@appstate.edu
President Bush, Vice President Cheney, and other White House officials have consistently denied knowing about the 9/11 plot or receiving information that (or even imagining that) commercial aircraft could be used as weapons. For example, Bush said repeatedly there were no warnings of any kind ... “Never in anybody’s thought process ... about how to protect America did we ever think the evil doers would fly not one but four commercial aircraft into precious US targets ... never.”
White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said that “the President did not – not – receive information about the use of airplanes as missiles by suicide bombers ... Until this attack took place, I think it’s fair to say that no one envisioned that as a possibility.”
Then National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice said: “I don’t think that anybody could have predicted that these people would take an airplane and slam it into the World Trade Center, take another one and slam it into the Pentagon, that they would try to use an airplane as a missile ... even in retrospect there was nothing to suggest that.”
Further, Vice President Cheney advised Democrats in Congress to “be very cautious not to seek political advantage by making incendiary suggestions ... that the White House had advance information that would have prevented the tragic attacks of 9/11.” He also said that any serious probe of 9/11 foreknowledge would be tantamount to “giving aid and comfort to the enemy.”
So, read the following reports, all from major news agencies in the United States, and see if you think they are telling the truth (just don’t conduct any serious probe into this foreknowledge, or you might be considered the enemy!) Yes, many of the reports came before Bush became President, but the point is, he knew. Everyone in the White House and Congress knew.
What is really amazing is that people who were there and who had access to the information – in the White House and in the Congress – have provided strong evidence that the statements above are false. For example, White House Counterterrorism Czar Richard Clarke acknowledges that the CIA knew there were al Qaeda terrorists in the US, and the FBI knew there were Arabic people taking lessons at flight schools, including some asking strange questions about crashing planes. Clarke says “red lights and bells should have been going off. They had specific information about individual terrorists from which one could have deduced what was about to happen” (p. 237).
Clarke offers the following as evidence·
In 1995, Clarke asked the FAA to ground all US flights over the Pacific because of a terrorist threat against airliners. This “Bojinka Plot” was discovered by Philippine police responding to a fire in an apartment building in Manilla. This was a plan by al Qaeda to blow up 12 commercial airliners and 9/11 mastermind KSM.
In 1996, while preparing for the Summer Olympics in Atlanta, Georgia, Clarke asked the Special Agent in Charge of the Atlanta FBI Field Office and the head of FAA security, “What if somebody blows up a 747 over the Olympic stadium, or even flies one into the stadium?” Admiral Cathal Flynn, head of FAA security, replied, “... we could ban aircraft from over the stadium during the events ...”. The FBI agent also added: “Don’t let them hijack an aircraft in the first place.” (pp. 106-107). The preparations made to prevent this kind of attack became the “Atlanta Rules.” These rules were used in several CSG designated “National Security Special Events.” Clarke says: “The Secret Service and Customs had teamed up in Atlanta to provide some rudimentary air defense against an aircraft flying into the Olympic Stadium. They did so again during the subsequent National Security Special Events and they agreed to create a permanent air defense unit to protect Washington.” The Treasury Department did not want to pay for the permanent air defense unit so it was not established (p. 131).
In 1996, President Clinton established new security mechanisms at the nation’s airports. They included not allowing passengers to board planes without a government issued photo ID that matched the name on the ticket, increases in random passenger and cargo searches, a temporary ban on parked cars near terminals, and temporary discontinuation of curbside check-in. Also Vice President Al Gore would head a Commission on Aviation Safety and Security that would recommend permanent changes to airport security. According to Richard Clarke this Commission “requested and got funding for programs involving baggage screening, carry on luggage checks, passenger profiling, screener training, research on aircraft hardening, and to hire more FAA security agents.” It did not “agree to recommend that the federal government assume the role of airport passenger and luggage screening ... It was clear even at the time that the Gore Commission had not been sufficiently ambitious about the job of airport security and passenger screening” (p. 130).
Further, former Senator Bob Graham, who held the highest Democratic position on the Senate Intelligence Committee, and who organized and co-chaired the Joint Inquiry into Intelligence Community Activities Before and After the Terrorist Attacks of September 11, 2001 (House-Senate Congressional Inquiry), asserts that President Bush’s statements and those of his Administration about the 9/11 attacks are inaccurate. Graham says: “The first was that it was a surprise, a bolt from the blue. The second was that no one could have imagined such an attack carried out in such a manner. The third, that since no one could have envisaged the use of commercial aircraft as a weapon of mass destruction, no one could be held accountable. The forth was that for all of the devastation, the attack was basically quite simple, requiring nineteen people and a sum of money estimated between $175,000 and $250,000" (p. 112). These are all false!
In fact, the threats were many, and we knew it was coming ... Graham says there were at least 12 instances in which intelligence found information outlining terrorist plans to use airplanes as weapons, there were at least 12 instances in which the plot could have been interdicted but mistakes by individual people assured it did not happen (and yet not a single person has been held accountable for their failures), and the plot was very complex and resilient. In fact, as Graham notes: “I find a pattern of substantial logistical, personnel, and kills development and financial support consistent with what the President was told in his fateful August 6 briefing. I further suspect that the pattern of such support was more pervasive than is currently known or acknowledged” (p. 113). Graham also says this structure of support was maintained by a nation-state [and no he does not say it was Iraq!].
Graham asserts that “after September 11, members of the Bush administration would claim that nobody could have imagined that planes might be used as weapons, during the course of our inquiry, we found that the possibility had been imagined, investigated, and interdicted more than once, and that in one case the Pentagon had been a target”! His examples include:
Algerian terrorists who in 1994 tried to fly an Air France plane into the Eiffel Tower;
Project Bojinka in 1995 to blow up 11 planes simultaneously and crash a twelfth into CIA headquarters and thirteenth into the Pentagon;
An August 2001 plot to fly a plane into a US embassy in Nairobi or bomb it from a plane (p. 81).
But of course, there is much, much more evidence! Consider for yourself the following:
• 1990-1996: Mary Schiavo, former Inspector General for U.S. Dept. of Transportation (1990-1996) resigned after the FAA tried to classify her report detailing lax security at the nation's major airports. Agents were able to sneak fake bombs, hand grenades, guns and knives through metal detectors. Congress, according to Schiavo, was not interested in making it hard on the airline industry, so they swept it under the rug!
• 1993 – A Pentagon expert postulates that an airplane could be used as a missile to bomb national landmarks. This idea is not published in the “Terror 2000" report.
• 1994 – Phoenix FBI discovers videotapes two men trying to recruit an FBI informant to be a suicide bomber, one of which is linked to Sheikh Abdul-Rahman (the blind Shiekh incarcerated in New York for his role in the first World Trade Center bombing in 1993).
• 1994 – Three planes are crashed or attempted to crash into buildings this year. A Fed Ex employee tries to crash a DC-10 into a company building in Memphis but is overpowered by the crew. A lone pilot crashes a small plane onto the White House grounds. An Air France flight is hijacked by terrorists linked to al Qaeda, with the goal to crash it into the Eiffel Tower, but French Special Forces storm plane before it takes off.
• Bob Graham asserts that since at least 1994, intelligence agencies received information indicating terrorists were contemplating using aircraft as weapons, and this information did not lead to any specific intelligence assessment of this form of threat or any government reaction to it.
• December 1994 – Ramzi Yousef plants a small bomb on Philippine Airlines flight to Tokyo as part of a trial run of Operation Bojinka.
• January 1995 – Philippines disrupts Operation Bojinka to explode 11 or 12 passenger planes over the Pacific Ocean and to crash others into prominent US buildings. Philippines warns US of targets for attack, including CIA headquarters, Pentagon, nuclear power plant, TransAmerica Tower (San Francisco), Sears Tower (Chicago), and World Trade Center. Plotter Abdul Hakim Murad is handed over to FBI in April 1995 and he identifies 10 other men in flight training who were involved.
• April 1995 – Senator Sam Nunn outlines an attack on the US Capitol using a radio-controlled airplane (idea taken from Tom Clancey’s book, Debt of Honour).
• 1996 – FBI investigates US flight schools after finding a business card for a school in the possession of Abdul Hakim Murad (who had been training at about 6 schools since 1990).
• January 1996 – US intelligence receives information of a planned suicide attack on the White House by a plane flying from Afghanistan.
• July - August 1996 – US officials identify crop dusters and suicide flights as threats to the Atlanta Olympics. They ban planes from getting too close to events, deploy Black Hawk helicopters and US Customs jets to intercept suspicious aircraft, monitor crop-duster flights near downtown, place armed fighter jets on standby at local air bases, screen passengers to Atlanta more carefully, and send law enforcement agents to regional airports to make sure nobody hijacked a small airplane (these become known as the “Atlanta Rules”).
• October 1996 – US intelligence learns of an Iranian plot to hijack a Japanese plane over Israel and to crash it into Tel Aviv.
• November 1996 – Ethiopians take over a passenger airliner, let it run out of fuel, and crash it into Indian Ocean off Comoros Islands.
• 1997 – FBI and CIA have concerns that an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) will be used to attack a US embassy or delegates overseas.
• January 1997 – “Atlanta Rules” used to protect against airplane attack for Clinton inauguration.
• February 1997 – White House Commission on Aviation Safety and Security (Gore Commission) issued its final report, reference failed Operation Bojinka, and call for increased aviation security. The commission “believes that terrorist attacks on civil aviation are directed at the United States, and that there should be an ongoing federal commitment to reducing the threats that they pose.”
• December 1997 – Retired CIA agent and counter terrorism consultant Randy Baer meets with a former police chief from Qatar and learns that Khalid Shiekh Mohammed (KSM) was sheltered in Qatar by Interior Minister Abdallah bin Khalid al-Thani. He is also told that KSM is a key aide to UBL and that KSM “is going to hijack some planes.”
• 1998 – FAA “Red Teams” conduct testing of screening checkpoints at domestic airports and successfully smuggle through guns, bombs, etc. and are successful in some case 85% of the time ... high level FAA officials are made aware of the problem and do nothing
• 1998 – FBI’s international terrorism squad investigates possible Middle Eastern man taking flight lessons at a Phoenix airport. FBI agent Ken Williams starts an investigation into the possibility of terrorists learning to fly.
• 1998 – President Clinton is warned of a possible plan to hijack a plane to gain the release of Oman Abdul Rahman.
• May 1998 – A FBI pilot sends a memo to a supervisor warning of a large number of Middle Eastern men receiving flight training in Oklahoma airports.
• August 1998 – CIA asserts Arab terrorists plan to fly a bomb-laden plane from a foreign country to the World Trade Center ... FBI and FAA do not think the state of aviation in unstated country makes the attack possible.
• September 1998 – US intelligence learns that UBL’s next operation might be a crashed airliner loaded with explosives into a US airport.
• October 1998 – FAA issues 3 warnings to airports and airliners urging a high degree of vigilance against threats to civil aviation posed by al Qaeda ... threat specifically mentioned a metropolitan airport in the Eastern US.
• Fall 1998 – US intelligence learns of a plot to attack New York and Washington DC with airplanes ... learns that plans to attack are preceding well and 2 individuals have successfully evaded checkpoints at a New York airport.
• November 1998 – US intelligence learns of a plan by a Turkish extreme group to crash an airplane packed with explosives into a famous tomb during a government ceremony.
• 1998-1999 – FBI issues warnings of possible terrorists training at US flight schools.
• 1999 – US intelligence learns that an al Qaeda agent studied at a flight school in Norman, Oklahoma (hijackers Mohammed Atta and Marwan Alshehhi visited school there in 2000 and Zacarias Moussaoui trained there in 2001).
• September 1999 – FBI in Oklahoma City visits a flight school in Norman Oklahoma to investigate UBL’s personal pilot Ihab Ali who attended there in 1993.
• 1999 – Britain’s M16 domestic intelligence agency reports to US that al Qaeda plans to use commercial aircraft in unconventional ways possibly as flying bombs.
• 1999 – FBI learns that terrorists are planning to send students to US for flight training. FBI’s Counterterrorism Section issues a notice to 24 field offices to pay close attention to Islamic students from the target country engaged in training. Ken Williams’ squad receives this memo too. No investigation is conducted by any office. A 2000 notice sent out shows there was no indication uncovered that terrorist group is recruiting students.
• September 1999 – US intelligence suggests “Suicide bomber(s) belonging to al Qaeda’s Martyrdom Battalion could crash-land aircraft packed with high explosives ... into the Pentagon, the headquarters of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), or the White House...”. Report is made by the National Intelligence Council which advises the President and US intelligence on emerging threats.
• October 1999 – EgyptAir flight 900 crashes into the Atlantic Ocean off of Massachusetts. The eventual conclusion of the National Transportation Safety Board is it was intentional crash, which killed 33 Egyptian military officers.
• 1999 – “Atlanta Rules” used to protect against airplane attack for North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s 50th Anniversary in DC.
• 2000 – FBI learns that a Middle Eastern nation has been trying to purchase a flight simulator in violation of US restrictions.
• April 2000 – Niaz Khan, a British citizen from Pakistan, tells FBI of a plot to fly airliners into building. He was trained on a mock cockpit of 767, including how to hijack a plane and how to smuggle guns and other weapons on board. He flew to US and was told to meet with a contact to then meet up with others to fly a plane into a building. He passes a polygraph given by FBI but he is deported to London.
• July–August 2000 – “Atlanta Rules” used to protect against airplane attack for Republican Convention in Philadelphia and Democratic Convention in New York.
• August 2000 – Italian intelligence wiretaps al Qaeda cell in Milan, Italy and overhears plan to attack enemies of Islam with aircraft. Warning is sent to US in March 2001.
• October 2000 – Pentagon conducts an emergency drill for a crashed airline that had been hijacked and flown into the Pentagon.
• September 2000 - September 2001 – NORAD conducts regional war games exercises simulating hijacked airliners used as weapons to crash into targets; one target is World Trade Center. In another exercise, jets conduct a mock shoot down of airliners over Atlantic Ocean. In another, the Pentagon is the target (but this one was called off). Exercises are called Vigilant Guardian and Northern Vigilance, and another is being held at the National Reconnaissance Office which included an airplane being used as a flying weapon.
• January 2001 – “Atlanta Rules” used to protect against an airplane attack for Bush inauguration.
• January - August 2001 – FAA issues 15 warnings to airliners ... Bush officials claim information is so vague it does not warrant additional security ... but the warnings remain classified today.
• February - July 2001 – Trial of embassy bombers in New York features testimony of 2 UBL associates that received flight training in Texas and Oklahoma. One UBL aide gives evidence to government about pilot training.
• March 2001 – Fox’s show The Lone Gunmen depicts an attack by terrorists using a remote-controlled 727 aircraft against the World Trade Center (the real attackers turn out to be US government agents who want to justify continued, large military budgets by creating fear of terrorism).
• April 2001 – NORAD special operations personnel imagine a scenario where a terrorist group hijacks plane and flies it into the Pentagon ... the plan is rejected as too unrealistic.
• April 2001 – FBI translators Sibel Edmonds and Behrooz Sarshar learn of a warning given to FBI by an FBI informant that al Qaeda is planning to attack US and Europe with airplanes and that al Qaeda agents are being trained in US as pilots. Edmonds says: “President Bush said they had no specific information about September 11, and that’s accurate. However, there was specific information about use of airplanes, that an attack was on the way two or three months beforehand, and that several people were already in the country by May of 2001." Says US claims about not knowing of 9/11 plan were outrageous lies ..."That's an outrageous lie and documents can prove it's a lie."
• April 2001 – FAA sends a warning to US airlines that Middle Eastern terrorists could try to hijack or blow up US planes and that carriers should demonstrate a high level of alertness.
• May 2001 – Pentagon practices for crashed 757 into Pentagon.
• June 2001 – German intelligence warns CIA, M16, and Mossad that Middle Eastern terrorists are planning to hijack commercial aircraft to use as weapons to attack “American and Israeli symbols, which stand out.”
• June 2001 – NORAD conducts Amalgam Virgo 01 and Amalgam Virgo 02, the latter of which involves two simultaneously hijacked commercial airliners. Fighters are to respond and consider shooting down planes.
• June 2001 – Men in Cayman Islands are overheard by Cayman Islands and British intelligence discussing plans to conduct hijacking attacks in New York City. Information is forwarded to US intelligence.
• June 2001 – Counterterrorism czar Richard Clarke gives a direct warning to FAA to increase security measures in light of impending terrorist attack and FAA refuses to implement them.
• July 2001 – Attorney General John Ashcroft stops flying commercial aircraft due to an unknown threat assessment ... Ashcroft will not answer questions about it.
• July 2001 – FBI agent Ken Williams sends a message warning of suspicious activities involving group of Middle Eastern men taking flight training lessons in Arizona: subtitle of memo is “Osama bin Laden and Al-Muhrjiroun supporters attending civil aviation universities/colleges in Arizona.”
• July 2001 – US intelligence reports a spike in warnings against G-8 summit in Genoa, Italy. Head of Russia’s Bodyguard Service reports that al Qaeda will try to kill President Bush ... Egyptian intelligence discovers communication from UBL saying he would assassinate Bush and other leaders during the G-8 summit using an “airplane stuffed with explosives” ... US and Italy are sent urgent warnings ... Germany sends warning of UBL paying German neo-Nazis to fly remote-controlled aircraft packed with explosives into conference hall ... Bush and other leaders stay on an aircraft carrier and a luxury ship away from the area.
• July 2001 – FAA issues a warning telling airlines to use the highest level of caution and another saying “terror groups are known to be planning and training for hijackings, as we ask you therefore to use caution.”
• July 2001 – Egyptian intelligence passes on message to CIA that 20 al Qaeda members had slipped into US and that 4 of them were training on Cessnas.
• August 2001 – Britain warns US of al Qaeda attack involving multiple airline hijackings.
• August 2001 – Russian President Vladimir Putin warns US that suicide pilots are training for attacks on US.
• August 2001 – US intelligence learns of a plot to crash airplane into US Embassy in Nairobi.
• August 2001 – Actor James Woods relays concerns of four Arabic-looking men who look suspicious in first class aboard his flight ... flight staff notifies FAA ... Woods is not interviewed by FBI until after 9/11 ... all four are believed to have been involved on 9/11 and were believed to be on one of their practice runs for 9/11.
• August 2001 – the “bin Laden Determined to Strike In US” memo is given to President Bush while he was on vacation at his ranch in Crawford, Texas ... it reads in part: “bin Laden wanted to hijack US aircraft to gain the release” of Oman Abdul Rahman and others and tells of “suspicious activity in the US consistent with preparations for hijackings or other types of attacks, including recent surveillance of federal buildings in New York.”
• August 2001 – Zacarias Moussaoui is arrested in Minneapolis, MN with letters that connect him to Malaysia (where a meeting of al Qaeda operatives occurred under the watch of the CIA in 2000) and some of the hijackers. He also has an unexplained $32,000 bank balance, two knives, fighting gloves, shin guards, and has prepared for violence through physical training. He paid $8,300 for flight training, mostly in cash, to use a 747 aircraft simulator. He asked “how much fuel is on board a 747 and how much damage could it cause if it hit anything”? He has no aviation background, little previous training, and no pilot’s license, he wants to fly only as an ego-boosting thing, he is extremely interested in the operation of the plane’s doors and control panel, and wants to know how to communicate with flight tower. He is evasive and belligerent when asked about his background. He mostly practices flying in the air rather than taking off or landing. The flight school sends information to the FBI and receives little interest, so it contacts them again as says: “Do you realize how serious this is? This man wants training on a 747. A 747 fully loaded with fuel could be used as a weapon.” Moussaoui is arrested but not connected to the 9/11 attackers until after 9/11.
• August 2, 2001 – FBI headquarters Radical Fundamentalist Unit agent calls FBI Minneapolis office supervisor that he is getting people “spun up” over Zacarias Moussaoui. The supervisor says he is trying to get people at FBI headquarters “spun up” because he is trying to make sure Moussaoui does “not take control of a plane and fly it into the World Trade Center.”
• August 23-27, 2001 – FBI agents in Minneapolis are convinced Zacarias Moussaoui is planning to do something with a plane. One agent writes he might “fly something into the World Trade Center.” They decide to pursue a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant – in more than 10,000 requests over 20 years, every single warrant has been granted – yet FBI headquarters decides against it due to a mistaken understanding by its legal experts of the FISA rules.
• August 24, 2001 – A Minneapolis FBI agent contacts CIA’s Counter Terrorism Center and calls Moussaoui a “suspect 747 airline attacker” and a “suspect airline suicide attacker.” FBI headquarters chastises the Minneapolis office for contacting headquarters without permission.
• Bob Graham explained the Moussaoui failure by the FBI, and in doing so, discussed in depth the warnings that should have been clear. From June to July 2001, the National Security Agency (NSA) noted an increase in threat activity (the third such rise since the winter). The US military declared ThreatCon Delta and all ships in the Persian Gulf were sent to sea. And Attorney General John Ashcroft began traveling only on government jet. Graham says this was “opposed to the commercial aircraft Attorneys General normally take, despite the fact that senior FBI and CIA officials knew of no specific threat against the Attorney General” (p. 72). In July 2001, when the FBI’s Phoenix office sent a memo voicing concern that UBL might be using US flight schools to infiltrate America’s civil aviation system, it was ignored by superiors and never reached the FBI’s Minneapolis office (which arrested Zacarias Moussaoui one month later for suspicious activities at a flight school). This is called stove-piping (when information did not move across FBI field offices).
• This “Phoenix memo” was sent by Kenneth Williams, who first became concerned with Libyans with suspected terrorist ties working for US aviation companies in the 1990s. Williams was later told about Arabs in a local mosque involved in aviation training. In April 2000, Williams watched a man name Zakaria Mustapha Soubra, a Lebanese national studying aeronautical safety in Arizona. Williams interviewed Soubra at his apartment and Soubra was defiant. He had photos of UBL and injured mujahedeen fighters on his wall. Soubra’s car outside had a license plate on it that came back of a man named Mohammed al-Qudhaeein who had been detained in 1999 for trying to get into the cockpit of an America West flight from Phoenix to Washington, DC. Al-Qudhaeein was traveling to a party at the Saudi embassy and his ticket had been paid for by the Saudi government. The FBI did not even investigate the case! In 2000, al-Qudhaeein was put on the State Department’s TIPOFF terrorist watch list after US intelligence learned he might have received explosives and car bomb training in Afghanistan. In August 2001, al-Qudhaeein applied for a visa to reenter the US but was denied entry! Perhaps he was an additional hijacker?
• Williams was taken off of counterterrorism to work an arson case in early 2001. The arson case was closed in April 2001 and he wrote an electronic communication (EC) to FBI headquarters in Washington, DC (this is the Phoenix memo). The continuing investigation of Soubra found six associates also involved in aviation training. While Williams did not know it, it was discovered that Soubra knew Hani Hanjour through a local religious center and carpooled with him to flight school. On at least five occasions, they were at the same flight school on the same day and at least once, they flew together! In July 2001, Williams finished his EC and sent it to the Counterterrorism Division at FBI headquarters. READ the memo on pp. 44-45. Williams’ recommendations, if followed, would have prevented 9/11. Graham says that “had William’s recommendations been acted upon promptly, liaisons with the flight schools would have found at least one and perhaps as many as three other hijackers still developing their flying skills” (p. 47). ECs are sent to the specified units and then forwarded to the individual assigned to the lead. Williams sent the EC and requested that both the Radical Fundamentalist Unit and the Usama bin Laden Unit consider his recommendations. Both of these are operational units (that investigate specific crimes) but it did not go to an analytic unit (which considers long-term, strategic issues). It was ultimately forwarded to an FBI intelligence analysts in Portland, Oregon along with a note specifying Williams’ theory. The agent did not take any action or share it more widely and the lead was closed by officers in the RFU and UBLU on August 7, 2001. As it turns out, way back in 1983, the INS asked the FBI for assistance in locating Libyan nationals engaged in aviation or nuclear-related education! In 1998, the head of the FBI Oklahoma City Field Office contacted headquarters to express concern about the large numbers of Middle Eastern males at Oklahoma flight schools. In 1999, the FBI received word that a terrorist organization was planning to send students to the US for aviation training. In response, the Counterterrorism Division at FBI headquarters sent a communication to twenty-four field offices asking them pay close attention to Muslim students from the country who were engaged in aviation training in their areas. No FBI field offices followed up on this instruction. The investigation was dropped in November 2000 when the INS failed to respond to an FBI letter asking them to search databases for individuals from the target country studying in the US!
• Graham asserts that had the Minneapolis FBI Field Office seen these memos and requests, it might have broken the 9/11 plot when it arrested Zacarias Moussaoui. Moussaoui was not a typical flight school student for he did not have a pilot’s license, was not employed by an airline, and had not logged any flight hours. His suspicious activities concerned flight school employees – he had extreme interests in operation of the plane’s doors and control panel, he repeatedly said he would love to fly from London’s Heathrow Airport to JFK Airport in New York, and he paid $6,800 in cash. Employees say he discussed how much fuel is on a Boeing 747 and the damage such a plane could do if it were to hit something. A flight manager contacted a friend at the FBI and Moussaoui was arrested for being “out of status” (overstayed his visa). Minneapolis informed FBI headquarters of Moussaoui’s detention by the INS and it asked the CIA and the FBI’s legal attache in Paris for any information they could get on him. The FBI and INS went to his hotel and seized his laptop computer and belongings, yet they were told they need a warrant to search them. The FBI could have gotten a FISA warrant but it decided against this route! So they decided for the French to search his belongings and not get a FISA warrant. According to Graham, the FBI’s legal attache in Paris reported that Moussaoui had been in Chechnya assisting Chehen rebels which could have been enough to secure a FISA search warrant. The FBI mistake was thinking that Moussaoui had to be connected to an organization that the State Department listed as a foreign terrorist organization (which was not a FISA requirement). FISA does not require it be a “recognized foreign power” just a foreign power. So they spent about 3 weeks trying to connect the Chechen group to al-Qaeda! The FBI did not even try for a normal criminal search warrant and did not even make his presence public, which could have disrupted the plot!
• According to Graham, Minneapolis sent a memo to FBI headquarters stating that Moussaoui’s “possession of weapons and his preparation through physical training for violent confrontation” gave them reason to believe he “and others yet unknown” were conspiring to take control of an airplane. Minneapolis contacted the CIA’s Counterterrorism Center for more information on Moussaoui and a Minneapolis case agent sent an email on August 21, 2001 to the supervisory special agent in the RFU who was handling the matter. It said: “It is imperative that the [US Secret Service] be appraised of this threat potential indicated by the evidence ... if [Moussaoui] seizes an aircraft from Heathrow to NYC, it will have the fuel on board o reach DC.” Yeah, not to mention the World Trade Center! On August 23, two FBI agents visited the Airman Flight School in Oklahoma City where Moussaoui first learned to fly ... one of the agents had visited the school in 1999 to investigate the training there of UBL’s personal pilot!
• August 2001 – FAA issues a warning to airlines that terrorists have made breakthroughs in disguising weapons as cell phones, key chains, and pens.
• August 2001 – Spanish police record conversations from calls in Britain to Spain saying “in our classes, we have entered the field of aviation, and we are even going to cut the Eagle’s throat.”
• August - September 2001 – NORAD practices for hijackings of planes from the states of Utah and Washington.
• September 2001 – NSA intercepts phone calls from Abu Zubaida, UBL’s chief of operations, into US (which are still classified) ... British intelligence intercepts call from UBL to man in Pakistan with specific information as to attack including time frame (which are still classified).
• September 2001 – Author Salman Rushdie is banned by US from taking internal US flights due to “intelligence of something about to happen.”
• September 2001 – Sydney Olympics officials reveal that “A fully loaded, fueled airliner crashing into the opening ceremony before a worldwide television audience at the Sydney Olympics is one of the greatest security fears for the Games.” Australia puts 6 planes in the air at all times to intercept wayward aircraft (planning is also underway for the 2002 Winter Olympics in Utah to defend against plane attacks when 9/11 occurs).
• September 4, 2001 – FBI headquarters sends a message to US intelligence community about the Zacarias Moussaoui investigation. Warning is given to the FAA but the FAA does not issue a security alert to the nation’s airports.
• September 9-11, 2001 – NORAD runs Operation Northern Vigilance which deploys fighters to Alaska and Northern Canada to monitor Russian air force exercise in Russian arctic. US fighters are thus diverted from US. Exercise is cancelled at 9 am on 9/11.
• September 10, 2001 – Eight hours prior to the attacks, San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown receives warning from his security people at the airport to be cautious when traveling ... he is headed for New York
• September 10, 2001 – President Bush is staying at the Colony Beach and Tennis Resort on Longboat Key, FL. Surface to air missiles are placed on roof of the resort.
• September 2001 – Pentagon officials, including US generals, are warned not to fly and cancelled trips for the morning of September 11
So, there it is. Tell me again how we did not see this coming and how President Bush and members of his Administration can honestly say they had no idea using commercial planes as missiles was even a possibility?!?
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9/11: THREATS ABOUT AIRPLANES AS WEAPONS PRIOR TO 9/11
By: Dr. Matthew Robinson
Associate Professor of Criminal Justice
Appalachian State University
robinsnmb@appstate.edu
President Bush, Vice President Cheney, and other White House officials have consistently denied knowing about the 9/11 plot or receiving information that (or even imagining that) commercial aircraft could be used as weapons. For example, Bush said repeatedly there were no warnings of any kind ... “Never in anybody’s thought process ... about how to protect America did we ever think the evil doers would fly not one but four commercial aircraft into precious US targets ... never.”
White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said that “the President did not – not – receive information about the use of airplanes as missiles by suicide bombers ... Until this attack took place, I think it’s fair to say that no one envisioned that as a possibility.”
Then National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice said: “I don’t think that anybody could have predicted that these people would take an airplane and slam it into the World Trade Center, take another one and slam it into the Pentagon, that they would try to use an airplane as a missile ... even in retrospect there was nothing to suggest that.”
Further, Vice President Cheney advised Democrats in Congress to “be very cautious not to seek political advantage by making incendiary suggestions ... that the White House had advance information that would have prevented the tragic attacks of 9/11.” He also said that any serious probe of 9/11 foreknowledge would be tantamount to “giving aid and comfort to the enemy.”
So, read the following reports, all from major news agencies in the United States, and see if you think they are telling the truth (just don’t conduct any serious probe into this foreknowledge, or you might be considered the enemy!) Yes, many of the reports came before Bush became President, but the point is, he knew. Everyone in the White House and Congress knew.
What is really amazing is that people who were there and who had access to the information – in the White House and in the Congress – have provided strong evidence that the statements above are false. For example, White House Counterterrorism Czar Richard Clarke acknowledges that the CIA knew there were al Qaeda terrorists in the US, and the FBI knew there were Arabic people taking lessons at flight schools, including some asking strange questions about crashing planes. Clarke says “red lights and bells should have been going off. They had specific information about individual terrorists from which one could have deduced what was about to happen” (p. 237).
Clarke offers the following as evidence·
In 1995, Clarke asked the FAA to ground all US flights over the Pacific because of a terrorist threat against airliners. This “Bojinka Plot” was discovered by Philippine police responding to a fire in an apartment building in Manilla. This was a plan by al Qaeda to blow up 12 commercial airliners and 9/11 mastermind KSM.
In 1996, while preparing for the Summer Olympics in Atlanta, Georgia, Clarke asked the Special Agent in Charge of the Atlanta FBI Field Office and the head of FAA security, “What if somebody blows up a 747 over the Olympic stadium, or even flies one into the stadium?” Admiral Cathal Flynn, head of FAA security, replied, “... we could ban aircraft from over the stadium during the events ...”. The FBI agent also added: “Don’t let them hijack an aircraft in the first place.” (pp. 106-107). The preparations made to prevent this kind of attack became the “Atlanta Rules.” These rules were used in several CSG designated “National Security Special Events.” Clarke says: “The Secret Service and Customs had teamed up in Atlanta to provide some rudimentary air defense against an aircraft flying into the Olympic Stadium. They did so again during the subsequent National Security Special Events and they agreed to create a permanent air defense unit to protect Washington.” The Treasury Department did not want to pay for the permanent air defense unit so it was not established (p. 131).
In 1996, President Clinton established new security mechanisms at the nation’s airports. They included not allowing passengers to board planes without a government issued photo ID that matched the name on the ticket, increases in random passenger and cargo searches, a temporary ban on parked cars near terminals, and temporary discontinuation of curbside check-in. Also Vice President Al Gore would head a Commission on Aviation Safety and Security that would recommend permanent changes to airport security. According to Richard Clarke this Commission “requested and got funding for programs involving baggage screening, carry on luggage checks, passenger profiling, screener training, research on aircraft hardening, and to hire more FAA security agents.” It did not “agree to recommend that the federal government assume the role of airport passenger and luggage screening ... It was clear even at the time that the Gore Commission had not been sufficiently ambitious about the job of airport security and passenger screening” (p. 130).
Further, former Senator Bob Graham, who held the highest Democratic position on the Senate Intelligence Committee, and who organized and co-chaired the Joint Inquiry into Intelligence Community Activities Before and After the Terrorist Attacks of September 11, 2001 (House-Senate Congressional Inquiry), asserts that President Bush’s statements and those of his Administration about the 9/11 attacks are inaccurate. Graham says: “The first was that it was a surprise, a bolt from the blue. The second was that no one could have imagined such an attack carried out in such a manner. The third, that since no one could have envisaged the use of commercial aircraft as a weapon of mass destruction, no one could be held accountable. The forth was that for all of the devastation, the attack was basically quite simple, requiring nineteen people and a sum of money estimated between $175,000 and $250,000" (p. 112). These are all false!
In fact, the threats were many, and we knew it was coming ... Graham says there were at least 12 instances in which intelligence found information outlining terrorist plans to use airplanes as weapons, there were at least 12 instances in which the plot could have been interdicted but mistakes by individual people assured it did not happen (and yet not a single person has been held accountable for their failures), and the plot was very complex and resilient. In fact, as Graham notes: “I find a pattern of substantial logistical, personnel, and kills development and financial support consistent with what the President was told in his fateful August 6 briefing. I further suspect that the pattern of such support was more pervasive than is currently known or acknowledged” (p. 113). Graham also says this structure of support was maintained by a nation-state [and no he does not say it was Iraq!].
Graham asserts that “after September 11, members of the Bush administration would claim that nobody could have imagined that planes might be used as weapons, during the course of our inquiry, we found that the possibility had been imagined, investigated, and interdicted more than once, and that in one case the Pentagon had been a target”! His examples include:
Algerian terrorists who in 1994 tried to fly an Air France plane into the Eiffel Tower;
Project Bojinka in 1995 to blow up 11 planes simultaneously and crash a twelfth into CIA headquarters and thirteenth into the Pentagon;
An August 2001 plot to fly a plane into a US embassy in Nairobi or bomb it from a plane (p. 81).
But of course, there is much, much more evidence! Consider for yourself the following:
• 1990-1996: Mary Schiavo, former Inspector General for U.S. Dept. of Transportation (1990-1996) resigned after the FAA tried to classify her report detailing lax security at the nation's major airports. Agents were able to sneak fake bombs, hand grenades, guns and knives through metal detectors. Congress, according to Schiavo, was not interested in making it hard on the airline industry, so they swept it under the rug!
• 1993 – A Pentagon expert postulates that an airplane could be used as a missile to bomb national landmarks. This idea is not published in the “Terror 2000" report.
• 1994 – Phoenix FBI discovers videotapes two men trying to recruit an FBI informant to be a suicide bomber, one of which is linked to Sheikh Abdul-Rahman (the blind Shiekh incarcerated in New York for his role in the first World Trade Center bombing in 1993).
• 1994 – Three planes are crashed or attempted to crash into buildings this year. A Fed Ex employee tries to crash a DC-10 into a company building in Memphis but is overpowered by the crew. A lone pilot crashes a small plane onto the White House grounds. An Air France flight is hijacked by terrorists linked to al Qaeda, with the goal to crash it into the Eiffel Tower, but French Special Forces storm plane before it takes off.
• Bob Graham asserts that since at least 1994, intelligence agencies received information indicating terrorists were contemplating using aircraft as weapons, and this information did not lead to any specific intelligence assessment of this form of threat or any government reaction to it.
• December 1994 – Ramzi Yousef plants a small bomb on Philippine Airlines flight to Tokyo as part of a trial run of Operation Bojinka.
• January 1995 – Philippines disrupts Operation Bojinka to explode 11 or 12 passenger planes over the Pacific Ocean and to crash others into prominent US buildings. Philippines warns US of targets for attack, including CIA headquarters, Pentagon, nuclear power plant, TransAmerica Tower (San Francisco), Sears Tower (Chicago), and World Trade Center. Plotter Abdul Hakim Murad is handed over to FBI in April 1995 and he identifies 10 other men in flight training who were involved.
• April 1995 – Senator Sam Nunn outlines an attack on the US Capitol using a radio-controlled airplane (idea taken from Tom Clancey’s book, Debt of Honour).
• 1996 – FBI investigates US flight schools after finding a business card for a school in the possession of Abdul Hakim Murad (who had been training at about 6 schools since 1990).
• January 1996 – US intelligence receives information of a planned suicide attack on the White House by a plane flying from Afghanistan.
• July - August 1996 – US officials identify crop dusters and suicide flights as threats to the Atlanta Olympics. They ban planes from getting too close to events, deploy Black Hawk helicopters and US Customs jets to intercept suspicious aircraft, monitor crop-duster flights near downtown, place armed fighter jets on standby at local air bases, screen passengers to Atlanta more carefully, and send law enforcement agents to regional airports to make sure nobody hijacked a small airplane (these become known as the “Atlanta Rules”).
• October 1996 – US intelligence learns of an Iranian plot to hijack a Japanese plane over Israel and to crash it into Tel Aviv.
• November 1996 – Ethiopians take over a passenger airliner, let it run out of fuel, and crash it into Indian Ocean off Comoros Islands.
• 1997 – FBI and CIA have concerns that an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) will be used to attack a US embassy or delegates overseas.
• January 1997 – “Atlanta Rules” used to protect against airplane attack for Clinton inauguration.
• February 1997 – White House Commission on Aviation Safety and Security (Gore Commission) issued its final report, reference failed Operation Bojinka, and call for increased aviation security. The commission “believes that terrorist attacks on civil aviation are directed at the United States, and that there should be an ongoing federal commitment to reducing the threats that they pose.”
• December 1997 – Retired CIA agent and counter terrorism consultant Randy Baer meets with a former police chief from Qatar and learns that Khalid Shiekh Mohammed (KSM) was sheltered in Qatar by Interior Minister Abdallah bin Khalid al-Thani. He is also told that KSM is a key aide to UBL and that KSM “is going to hijack some planes.”
• 1998 – FAA “Red Teams” conduct testing of screening checkpoints at domestic airports and successfully smuggle through guns, bombs, etc. and are successful in some case 85% of the time ... high level FAA officials are made aware of the problem and do nothing
• 1998 – FBI’s international terrorism squad investigates possible Middle Eastern man taking flight lessons at a Phoenix airport. FBI agent Ken Williams starts an investigation into the possibility of terrorists learning to fly.
• 1998 – President Clinton is warned of a possible plan to hijack a plane to gain the release of Oman Abdul Rahman.
• May 1998 – A FBI pilot sends a memo to a supervisor warning of a large number of Middle Eastern men receiving flight training in Oklahoma airports.
• August 1998 – CIA asserts Arab terrorists plan to fly a bomb-laden plane from a foreign country to the World Trade Center ... FBI and FAA do not think the state of aviation in unstated country makes the attack possible.
• September 1998 – US intelligence learns that UBL’s next operation might be a crashed airliner loaded with explosives into a US airport.
• October 1998 – FAA issues 3 warnings to airports and airliners urging a high degree of vigilance against threats to civil aviation posed by al Qaeda ... threat specifically mentioned a metropolitan airport in the Eastern US.
• Fall 1998 – US intelligence learns of a plot to attack New York and Washington DC with airplanes ... learns that plans to attack are preceding well and 2 individuals have successfully evaded checkpoints at a New York airport.
• November 1998 – US intelligence learns of a plan by a Turkish extreme group to crash an airplane packed with explosives into a famous tomb during a government ceremony.
• 1998-1999 – FBI issues warnings of possible terrorists training at US flight schools.
• 1999 – US intelligence learns that an al Qaeda agent studied at a flight school in Norman, Oklahoma (hijackers Mohammed Atta and Marwan Alshehhi visited school there in 2000 and Zacarias Moussaoui trained there in 2001).
• September 1999 – FBI in Oklahoma City visits a flight school in Norman Oklahoma to investigate UBL’s personal pilot Ihab Ali who attended there in 1993.
• 1999 – Britain’s M16 domestic intelligence agency reports to US that al Qaeda plans to use commercial aircraft in unconventional ways possibly as flying bombs.
• 1999 – FBI learns that terrorists are planning to send students to US for flight training. FBI’s Counterterrorism Section issues a notice to 24 field offices to pay close attention to Islamic students from the target country engaged in training. Ken Williams’ squad receives this memo too. No investigation is conducted by any office. A 2000 notice sent out shows there was no indication uncovered that terrorist group is recruiting students.
• September 1999 – US intelligence suggests “Suicide bomber(s) belonging to al Qaeda’s Martyrdom Battalion could crash-land aircraft packed with high explosives ... into the Pentagon, the headquarters of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), or the White House...”. Report is made by the National Intelligence Council which advises the President and US intelligence on emerging threats.
• October 1999 – EgyptAir flight 900 crashes into the Atlantic Ocean off of Massachusetts. The eventual conclusion of the National Transportation Safety Board is it was intentional crash, which killed 33 Egyptian military officers.
• 1999 – “Atlanta Rules” used to protect against airplane attack for North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s 50th Anniversary in DC.
• 2000 – FBI learns that a Middle Eastern nation has been trying to purchase a flight simulator in violation of US restrictions.
• April 2000 – Niaz Khan, a British citizen from Pakistan, tells FBI of a plot to fly airliners into building. He was trained on a mock cockpit of 767, including how to hijack a plane and how to smuggle guns and other weapons on board. He flew to US and was told to meet with a contact to then meet up with others to fly a plane into a building. He passes a polygraph given by FBI but he is deported to London.
• July–August 2000 – “Atlanta Rules” used to protect against airplane attack for Republican Convention in Philadelphia and Democratic Convention in New York.
• August 2000 – Italian intelligence wiretaps al Qaeda cell in Milan, Italy and overhears plan to attack enemies of Islam with aircraft. Warning is sent to US in March 2001.
• October 2000 – Pentagon conducts an emergency drill for a crashed airline that had been hijacked and flown into the Pentagon.
• September 2000 - September 2001 – NORAD conducts regional war games exercises simulating hijacked airliners used as weapons to crash into targets; one target is World Trade Center. In another exercise, jets conduct a mock shoot down of airliners over Atlantic Ocean. In another, the Pentagon is the target (but this one was called off). Exercises are called Vigilant Guardian and Northern Vigilance, and another is being held at the National Reconnaissance Office which included an airplane being used as a flying weapon.
• January 2001 – “Atlanta Rules” used to protect against an airplane attack for Bush inauguration.
• January - August 2001 – FAA issues 15 warnings to airliners ... Bush officials claim information is so vague it does not warrant additional security ... but the warnings remain classified today.
• February - July 2001 – Trial of embassy bombers in New York features testimony of 2 UBL associates that received flight training in Texas and Oklahoma. One UBL aide gives evidence to government about pilot training.
• March 2001 – Fox’s show The Lone Gunmen depicts an attack by terrorists using a remote-controlled 727 aircraft against the World Trade Center (the real attackers turn out to be US government agents who want to justify continued, large military budgets by creating fear of terrorism).
• April 2001 – NORAD special operations personnel imagine a scenario where a terrorist group hijacks plane and flies it into the Pentagon ... the plan is rejected as too unrealistic.
• April 2001 – FBI translators Sibel Edmonds and Behrooz Sarshar learn of a warning given to FBI by an FBI informant that al Qaeda is planning to attack US and Europe with airplanes and that al Qaeda agents are being trained in US as pilots. Edmonds says: “President Bush said they had no specific information about September 11, and that’s accurate. However, there was specific information about use of airplanes, that an attack was on the way two or three months beforehand, and that several people were already in the country by May of 2001." Says US claims about not knowing of 9/11 plan were outrageous lies ..."That's an outrageous lie and documents can prove it's a lie."
• April 2001 – FAA sends a warning to US airlines that Middle Eastern terrorists could try to hijack or blow up US planes and that carriers should demonstrate a high level of alertness.
• May 2001 – Pentagon practices for crashed 757 into Pentagon.
• June 2001 – German intelligence warns CIA, M16, and Mossad that Middle Eastern terrorists are planning to hijack commercial aircraft to use as weapons to attack “American and Israeli symbols, which stand out.”
• June 2001 – NORAD conducts Amalgam Virgo 01 and Amalgam Virgo 02, the latter of which involves two simultaneously hijacked commercial airliners. Fighters are to respond and consider shooting down planes.
• June 2001 – Men in Cayman Islands are overheard by Cayman Islands and British intelligence discussing plans to conduct hijacking attacks in New York City. Information is forwarded to US intelligence.
• June 2001 – Counterterrorism czar Richard Clarke gives a direct warning to FAA to increase security measures in light of impending terrorist attack and FAA refuses to implement them.
• July 2001 – Attorney General John Ashcroft stops flying commercial aircraft due to an unknown threat assessment ... Ashcroft will not answer questions about it.
• July 2001 – FBI agent Ken Williams sends a message warning of suspicious activities involving group of Middle Eastern men taking flight training lessons in Arizona: subtitle of memo is “Osama bin Laden and Al-Muhrjiroun supporters attending civil aviation universities/colleges in Arizona.”
• July 2001 – US intelligence reports a spike in warnings against G-8 summit in Genoa, Italy. Head of Russia’s Bodyguard Service reports that al Qaeda will try to kill President Bush ... Egyptian intelligence discovers communication from UBL saying he would assassinate Bush and other leaders during the G-8 summit using an “airplane stuffed with explosives” ... US and Italy are sent urgent warnings ... Germany sends warning of UBL paying German neo-Nazis to fly remote-controlled aircraft packed with explosives into conference hall ... Bush and other leaders stay on an aircraft carrier and a luxury ship away from the area.
• July 2001 – FAA issues a warning telling airlines to use the highest level of caution and another saying “terror groups are known to be planning and training for hijackings, as we ask you therefore to use caution.”
• July 2001 – Egyptian intelligence passes on message to CIA that 20 al Qaeda members had slipped into US and that 4 of them were training on Cessnas.
• August 2001 – Britain warns US of al Qaeda attack involving multiple airline hijackings.
• August 2001 – Russian President Vladimir Putin warns US that suicide pilots are training for attacks on US.
• August 2001 – US intelligence learns of a plot to crash airplane into US Embassy in Nairobi.
• August 2001 – Actor James Woods relays concerns of four Arabic-looking men who look suspicious in first class aboard his flight ... flight staff notifies FAA ... Woods is not interviewed by FBI until after 9/11 ... all four are believed to have been involved on 9/11 and were believed to be on one of their practice runs for 9/11.
• August 2001 – the “bin Laden Determined to Strike In US” memo is given to President Bush while he was on vacation at his ranch in Crawford, Texas ... it reads in part: “bin Laden wanted to hijack US aircraft to gain the release” of Oman Abdul Rahman and others and tells of “suspicious activity in the US consistent with preparations for hijackings or other types of attacks, including recent surveillance of federal buildings in New York.”
• August 2001 – Zacarias Moussaoui is arrested in Minneapolis, MN with letters that connect him to Malaysia (where a meeting of al Qaeda operatives occurred under the watch of the CIA in 2000) and some of the hijackers. He also has an unexplained $32,000 bank balance, two knives, fighting gloves, shin guards, and has prepared for violence through physical training. He paid $8,300 for flight training, mostly in cash, to use a 747 aircraft simulator. He asked “how much fuel is on board a 747 and how much damage could it cause if it hit anything”? He has no aviation background, little previous training, and no pilot’s license, he wants to fly only as an ego-boosting thing, he is extremely interested in the operation of the plane’s doors and control panel, and wants to know how to communicate with flight tower. He is evasive and belligerent when asked about his background. He mostly practices flying in the air rather than taking off or landing. The flight school sends information to the FBI and receives little interest, so it contacts them again as says: “Do you realize how serious this is? This man wants training on a 747. A 747 fully loaded with fuel could be used as a weapon.” Moussaoui is arrested but not connected to the 9/11 attackers until after 9/11.
• August 2, 2001 – FBI headquarters Radical Fundamentalist Unit agent calls FBI Minneapolis office supervisor that he is getting people “spun up” over Zacarias Moussaoui. The supervisor says he is trying to get people at FBI headquarters “spun up” because he is trying to make sure Moussaoui does “not take control of a plane and fly it into the World Trade Center.”
• August 23-27, 2001 – FBI agents in Minneapolis are convinced Zacarias Moussaoui is planning to do something with a plane. One agent writes he might “fly something into the World Trade Center.” They decide to pursue a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant – in more than 10,000 requests over 20 years, every single warrant has been granted – yet FBI headquarters decides against it due to a mistaken understanding by its legal experts of the FISA rules.
• August 24, 2001 – A Minneapolis FBI agent contacts CIA’s Counter Terrorism Center and calls Moussaoui a “suspect 747 airline attacker” and a “suspect airline suicide attacker.” FBI headquarters chastises the Minneapolis office for contacting headquarters without permission.
• Bob Graham explained the Moussaoui failure by the FBI, and in doing so, discussed in depth the warnings that should have been clear. From June to July 2001, the National Security Agency (NSA) noted an increase in threat activity (the third such rise since the winter). The US military declared ThreatCon Delta and all ships in the Persian Gulf were sent to sea. And Attorney General John Ashcroft began traveling only on government jet. Graham says this was “opposed to the commercial aircraft Attorneys General normally take, despite the fact that senior FBI and CIA officials knew of no specific threat against the Attorney General” (p. 72). In July 2001, when the FBI’s Phoenix office sent a memo voicing concern that UBL might be using US flight schools to infiltrate America’s civil aviation system, it was ignored by superiors and never reached the FBI’s Minneapolis office (which arrested Zacarias Moussaoui one month later for suspicious activities at a flight school). This is called stove-piping (when information did not move across FBI field offices).
• This “Phoenix memo” was sent by Kenneth Williams, who first became concerned with Libyans with suspected terrorist ties working for US aviation companies in the 1990s. Williams was later told about Arabs in a local mosque involved in aviation training. In April 2000, Williams watched a man name Zakaria Mustapha Soubra, a Lebanese national studying aeronautical safety in Arizona. Williams interviewed Soubra at his apartment and Soubra was defiant. He had photos of UBL and injured mujahedeen fighters on his wall. Soubra’s car outside had a license plate on it that came back of a man named Mohammed al-Qudhaeein who had been detained in 1999 for trying to get into the cockpit of an America West flight from Phoenix to Washington, DC. Al-Qudhaeein was traveling to a party at the Saudi embassy and his ticket had been paid for by the Saudi government. The FBI did not even investigate the case! In 2000, al-Qudhaeein was put on the State Department’s TIPOFF terrorist watch list after US intelligence learned he might have received explosives and car bomb training in Afghanistan. In August 2001, al-Qudhaeein applied for a visa to reenter the US but was denied entry! Perhaps he was an additional hijacker?
• Williams was taken off of counterterrorism to work an arson case in early 2001. The arson case was closed in April 2001 and he wrote an electronic communication (EC) to FBI headquarters in Washington, DC (this is the Phoenix memo). The continuing investigation of Soubra found six associates also involved in aviation training. While Williams did not know it, it was discovered that Soubra knew Hani Hanjour through a local religious center and carpooled with him to flight school. On at least five occasions, they were at the same flight school on the same day and at least once, they flew together! In July 2001, Williams finished his EC and sent it to the Counterterrorism Division at FBI headquarters. READ the memo on pp. 44-45. Williams’ recommendations, if followed, would have prevented 9/11. Graham says that “had William’s recommendations been acted upon promptly, liaisons with the flight schools would have found at least one and perhaps as many as three other hijackers still developing their flying skills” (p. 47). ECs are sent to the specified units and then forwarded to the individual assigned to the lead. Williams sent the EC and requested that both the Radical Fundamentalist Unit and the Usama bin Laden Unit consider his recommendations. Both of these are operational units (that investigate specific crimes) but it did not go to an analytic unit (which considers long-term, strategic issues). It was ultimately forwarded to an FBI intelligence analysts in Portland, Oregon along with a note specifying Williams’ theory. The agent did not take any action or share it more widely and the lead was closed by officers in the RFU and UBLU on August 7, 2001. As it turns out, way back in 1983, the INS asked the FBI for assistance in locating Libyan nationals engaged in aviation or nuclear-related education! In 1998, the head of the FBI Oklahoma City Field Office contacted headquarters to express concern about the large numbers of Middle Eastern males at Oklahoma flight schools. In 1999, the FBI received word that a terrorist organization was planning to send students to the US for aviation training. In response, the Counterterrorism Division at FBI headquarters sent a communication to twenty-four field offices asking them pay close attention to Muslim students from the country who were engaged in aviation training in their areas. No FBI field offices followed up on this instruction. The investigation was dropped in November 2000 when the INS failed to respond to an FBI letter asking them to search databases for individuals from the target country studying in the US!
• Graham asserts that had the Minneapolis FBI Field Office seen these memos and requests, it might have broken the 9/11 plot when it arrested Zacarias Moussaoui. Moussaoui was not a typical flight school student for he did not have a pilot’s license, was not employed by an airline, and had not logged any flight hours. His suspicious activities concerned flight school employees – he had extreme interests in operation of the plane’s doors and control panel, he repeatedly said he would love to fly from London’s Heathrow Airport to JFK Airport in New York, and he paid $6,800 in cash. Employees say he discussed how much fuel is on a Boeing 747 and the damage such a plane could do if it were to hit something. A flight manager contacted a friend at the FBI and Moussaoui was arrested for being “out of status” (overstayed his visa). Minneapolis informed FBI headquarters of Moussaoui’s detention by the INS and it asked the CIA and the FBI’s legal attache in Paris for any information they could get on him. The FBI and INS went to his hotel and seized his laptop computer and belongings, yet they were told they need a warrant to search them. The FBI could have gotten a FISA warrant but it decided against this route! So they decided for the French to search his belongings and not get a FISA warrant. According to Graham, the FBI’s legal attache in Paris reported that Moussaoui had been in Chechnya assisting Chehen rebels which could have been enough to secure a FISA search warrant. The FBI mistake was thinking that Moussaoui had to be connected to an organization that the State Department listed as a foreign terrorist organization (which was not a FISA requirement). FISA does not require it be a “recognized foreign power” just a foreign power. So they spent about 3 weeks trying to connect the Chechen group to al-Qaeda! The FBI did not even try for a normal criminal search warrant and did not even make his presence public, which could have disrupted the plot!
• According to Graham, Minneapolis sent a memo to FBI headquarters stating that Moussaoui’s “possession of weapons and his preparation through physical training for violent confrontation” gave them reason to believe he “and others yet unknown” were conspiring to take control of an airplane. Minneapolis contacted the CIA’s Counterterrorism Center for more information on Moussaoui and a Minneapolis case agent sent an email on August 21, 2001 to the supervisory special agent in the RFU who was handling the matter. It said: “It is imperative that the [US Secret Service] be appraised of this threat potential indicated by the evidence ... if [Moussaoui] seizes an aircraft from Heathrow to NYC, it will have the fuel on board o reach DC.” Yeah, not to mention the World Trade Center! On August 23, two FBI agents visited the Airman Flight School in Oklahoma City where Moussaoui first learned to fly ... one of the agents had visited the school in 1999 to investigate the training there of UBL’s personal pilot!
• August 2001 – FAA issues a warning to airlines that terrorists have made breakthroughs in disguising weapons as cell phones, key chains, and pens.
• August 2001 – Spanish police record conversations from calls in Britain to Spain saying “in our classes, we have entered the field of aviation, and we are even going to cut the Eagle’s throat.”
• August - September 2001 – NORAD practices for hijackings of planes from the states of Utah and Washington.
• September 2001 – NSA intercepts phone calls from Abu Zubaida, UBL’s chief of operations, into US (which are still classified) ... British intelligence intercepts call from UBL to man in Pakistan with specific information as to attack including time frame (which are still classified).
• September 2001 – Author Salman Rushdie is banned by US from taking internal US flights due to “intelligence of something about to happen.”
• September 2001 – Sydney Olympics officials reveal that “A fully loaded, fueled airliner crashing into the opening ceremony before a worldwide television audience at the Sydney Olympics is one of the greatest security fears for the Games.” Australia puts 6 planes in the air at all times to intercept wayward aircraft (planning is also underway for the 2002 Winter Olympics in Utah to defend against plane attacks when 9/11 occurs).
• September 4, 2001 – FBI headquarters sends a message to US intelligence community about the Zacarias Moussaoui investigation. Warning is given to the FAA but the FAA does not issue a security alert to the nation’s airports.
• September 9-11, 2001 – NORAD runs Operation Northern Vigilance which deploys fighters to Alaska and Northern Canada to monitor Russian air force exercise in Russian arctic. US fighters are thus diverted from US. Exercise is cancelled at 9 am on 9/11.
• September 10, 2001 – Eight hours prior to the attacks, San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown receives warning from his security people at the airport to be cautious when traveling ... he is headed for New York
• September 10, 2001 – President Bush is staying at the Colony Beach and Tennis Resort on Longboat Key, FL. Surface to air missiles are placed on roof of the resort.
• September 2001 – Pentagon officials, including US generals, are warned not to fly and cancelled trips for the morning of September 11
So, there it is. Tell me again how we did not see this coming and how President Bush and members of his Administration can honestly say they had no idea using commercial planes as missiles was even a possibility?!?
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