The Players:
Osama bin Laden
Freedom fighter in Afghanistan, established military training camps in Afghanistan and forced out the Soviets with the full support and funding of the US Congress and the CIA. Al Qaeda fighters were later used in the Balkans by the Clinton Administration to overthrow Serbia.(1)
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld
Presides over NORAD, the North American Aerospace Defense Command, which uses ground-based radar, airborne radar, satellites, fighter aircraft, "proven command structures" and intelligence capabilities to enforce control of the skies over the United States and Canada.(2)
President of the United States George W. Bush
Presides over the Pentagon, NORAD, and all intelligence agencies.
Dennis Hastert
Speaker of the US House of Representatives - has oversight over executive agencies to ensure that taxpayer money is used legally and appropriately.
The Central Intelligence Agency
Collects, evaluates, and disseminates foreign intelligence to assist the President and senior US Government policymakers in making decisions relating to national security.
Vice President of the United States Dick Cheney
Directed the response to 9-11 from the White House emergency bunker.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation
The investigative arm of the Department of Justice, responsible to protect and defend the United States against terrorist and foreign intelligence threats and to uphold and enforce the criminal federal laws of the United States.
The National Security Agency
Part of the Department of Defense, responsible for the collection and analysis of global communications, including radio and the internet. Operates ECHELON to monitor civilian telephone, fax and data traffic.
Attorney General of the United States, John Ashcroft, Department of Justice
Investigates and prosecutes violations of federal laws, represents the interests of the president.
Federal Aviation Administration
Responsible for the safety of civil aviation, regulates and controls the air traffic system, regulates commercial air space.
* Fifteen of the nineteen alleged hijackers were able to obtain visas at the US Consulate in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia so they could enter the United States
Three used Visa Express where no interviews were required.(3) The Jeddah Consulate had previously been used by the CIA to bring bin Laden recruits into the US for training, to be returned to Afghanistan to fight the Soviets.(4)
* In June of 2001, the FAA rescinded a 40-year-old rule allowing pilots to carry guns into the cockpit(5)
* Secretaary of Defense Rumsfeld and the Joint Chiefs of Staff changed the long-standing rules on how hijackings should be handled on June 1, 2001(6)
Effective after that date, NORAD had to obtain approval directly from Rumsfeld in order to respond to off-course aircraft - which as a matter of routine occurred 67 times in the 8 months prior to 9-11. On the morning of 9-11, Rumsfeld was in his "usual intelligence briefing" in the Pentagon and "continued his briefing"(7) until he smelled smoke in his office.
* After the alleged Al-Qaeda operatives entered the US, they entered flight schools at several different locations. Several attended US military training facilities, such as the Defense Language School at Lackland Air Force Base in Texas, the Air War.(8)
* Dennis Hastert, Speaker of the House, and several other members of Congress refused to meet with FBI agents who wanted to tell what they knew about a planned terrorist attack on lower Manhattan.(9)
John Ashcroft's Deptartment of Justice intervened. David Schippers, Chicago attorney and previous Clinton impeachment investigator, called several members of Congress - including Hastert - begging them to take testimony from the FBI agents before the terrorist act occurred.(10) The agents were later threatened with prosecution by the DOJ if they went public with what they knew.(11)
* In July of 2001, a CIA official was reported to have met with Osama bin Laden, who was receiving treatment for kidney problems at an American hospital in Dubai.
France's 'Le Figaro' newspaper and Radio France International reported that bin Laden checked into the American Hospital Dubai in the United Arab Emirates, a 100-bed, acute-care general hospital, July 4 and stayed until July 14. He arrived from Quetta, Pakistan, accompanied by his personal doctor, four bodyguards and a male nurse. Bin Laden received many visitors: local dignitaries and family members, including the CIA agent,(12) Larry Mitchell, who was widely recognized locally. Mitchell was recalled to the US shortly thereafter. At the time, bin Laden was wanted by the US government for possible involvement in the USS Cole bombing. The CIA dismissed the report as "absurd." When questioned, both news agencies stood by their reports.(13) The urologist who is said to have treated bin Laden, Dr. Terry Callaway, refused to answer any questions.(12)
* An FBI informant in San Diego, California, provided housing and assistance to two of the alleged hijackers: Al-Mihdar and Al-Hazmi.
The informant claimed he had no way of knowing that they were going to carry out a terrorist attack (14) and had not provided their full names to the FBI. When their names were placed on the Terrorist Watch List in August 2001, the FBI couldn't find al-Mihdhar even though his name was in the San Diego phone book (15) and they had one of their informants housing him. When the Joint House-Senate Intelligence Committees wanted to question the FBI informant about his role, the FBI refused. To this day, the informant has not been questioned. A senior member of the FBI’s Congressional Affairs Staff stated "the Administration would not sanction a staff interview with the source." The FBI provided the informant with a Deptartment of Justice lawyer at taxpayers' expense.(16) Of course, they didn't need to worry about the 9-11 Commission demanding to question him
* The CIA did not put Al-Mihdhar and Al-Hazmi's names on the Terrorist Watch List until August 24, 2001, even though they had information identifying them as suspected terrorists with visas to enter the US for 18 months previous.(17)
The CIA began surveillance on Khaled al-Mihdhar in late 1999. In testimony before the Joint Congressional Inquiry, CIA Director Tenet stated that the CIA had learned after 9/11 that "in the mid-90s, Al-Hazmi and Al-Mihdhar traveled to Bosnia" (18) where they participated in US-funded clashes between Muslims and Serbs. At that time, the Clinton Administration overthrew the Serbian government.
* The NSA delayed translation and dissemination of information obtained in wiretapped phone calls concerning Al-Mihdhar and Al-Hazmi until after 9-11.
The NSA had information associating Al-Hazmi with the bin Laden network. NSA Director Lieutenant. General Michael Hayden said even though the NSA did not share the 1998-99 interceptions, US intelligence by the year 2000 had Al-Hazmi and Al-Mihdhar "in our sights. We knew of their association with Al-Qaeda."(19) In addition, the NSA intercepted on September 10, 2001, the messages, "The match begins tomorrow" and "Tomorrow is zero hour" but didn't translate them until September 12.(20)
* FBI and military intelligence agents in Washington were prevented from investigating members of the Bin Laden family in the US prior to 9-11.
FBI documents, marked secret and coded 199, leaked to BBC Newsnight and The Guardian in Nov. 2001, show that an investigation of Abdullah bin Laden and the World Assembly of Muslim Youth was shut down. Intelligence sources in Washington told the Guardian: "There were always constraints on investigating the Saudis." They said the restrictions became worse after the Bush administration took over.(21) On June 1, 2004, the World Assembly of Muslim Youth in Alexandria, Virginia was raided by agents of the FBI, US Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Joint Terrorism Task Force.(22)
* August 6, 2001: President Bush received a "presidential daily brief" in Crawford, Texas, that mentioned the possibility of an airline hijacking as a domestic threat.(23)
* FBI agents in Minneapolis were denied a warrant on a suspected Islamic terrorist said to be the 20th hijacker.
Zacarias Moussaoui, a French Muslim, was arrested on immigration charges on August 16, 2001 after an official at the Pan Am International Flight Academy he was attending called the FAA and FBI saying, "Do you realise how serious this is? This man wants training on a 747. A 747 fully loaded with fuel could be used as a weapon!"(24) The FBI agents wanted to search Moussaoui's computer and personal effects but were denied a warrant by FBI headquarters. The agents requested information from French Intelligence, which indicated that Moussaoui had terrorist connections with Al-Qaeda. This information was forwarded to FBI headquarters and eventually to the Justice Dept. (DOJ) where they declined to submit it to the FISA court to obtain a warrant on a foreign national. On the day after 9-11, the same information was submitted to the FISA court and a warrant was issued.(25) Michael Maltbie, the FBI supervisory special agent who delayed the request for a warrant was later promoted to field supervisor.(26)
* In August 2001, Raytheon engineers successfully landed a unpiloted Boeing 727 by remote control at Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico.
The purpose of the pilotless system was to allow ground controllers to take over the controls of a hijacked aircraft.(27) A combination of GPS Satellite and ground signals were used to orient the aircraft. Raytheon is the manufacturer of the pilotless Global Hawk surveillance aircraft. On September 12, 2001, Raytheon issued a statement that four of their high-level officials and engineers were listed among the dead passengers of Flight 11 which was reported as hijacked and crashed on 9-11.(28)
* In the days before 9-11, unusually high numbers of 'put options' were purchased for the stocks of AMR Corporation and UAL Corporation - the parent companies of American Airlines and United Airlines.
Investors who engage in such short-selling are betting that the price of the stock will fall. Between September 6 and 7, the Chicago Board Options Exchange saw purchases of 4,744 put options on United Airlines, but only 396 call options. Assuming that 4,000 of the options were bought by people with advance knowledge of the 9-11 attacks, the "insiders" would have profited by almost $5 million. The Chicago Board Options Exchange announced that it was investigating reports of unusual trading activity prior to 9/11.(29)
According to the Associated Press, unusually high levels of put options were also purchased on Raytheon, Continental, Delta, Northwest, Southwest, USAirways, and Boeing. Security and Exchange Commission Chairman Harvey Pitt told Congress that the agency's "No. 1 priority" was to pursue its worldwide investigation of possible trading by people associated with the terrorists. If such trading did occur, "We will do everything within our power to track those people down and bring them to justice,"(30)
In July, 2004, the Securities and Exchange Commission announced that it "did not develop any evidence suggesting that anyone who had advance knowledge of the September 11 attacks traded on the basis of that information."(31)(32)
* On the morning of 9-11, Senators Bob Graham and Porter Goss had breakfast with General Mahmoud Ahmad, head of Pakistani Intelligence, who had earlier directed that $100,000 be wired to Mohamad Atta, terrorist ringleader.(33)
* Numerous military exercises, war games and anti-terrorism drills were scheduled for 9-11. FAA and NORAD tracking radar were unable to identify real aircraft from simulated war game aircraft.
- OPERATION NORTHERN VIGILANCE: Planned months in advance of 9-11. It ensured that on 9-11 NORAD jet fighters were transferred to Alaska and Canada to monitor a Russian Air Force exercise, reducing the number of military aircraft available to protect the east coast.(34) Simulated information for the exercise was fed into NORAD radar screens.
- BIOWARFARE EXERCISE TRIPOD II: referred to by Rudolph Giuliani in his public testimony to the 9-11 Commission - no transcript has been released to the public. FEMA arrived in New York City on September 10th to set up a command post at Pier 29 to prepare for a biowarfare exercise scheduled for September 12. As a result, The FEMA Urban Search and Rescue Team was in place on 9-11.(35)
- OPERATION VIGILANT GUARDIAN: simulated hijacked planes in the northeastern US Lieutenat Colonel Dawne Deskins, NORAD unit's airborne control and warning officer, was overseeing the exercise. At 8:40 am she took a call from Boston Center which said it had a hijacked airliner. Her first words were, "It must be part of the exercise."(36)
- OPERATION NORTHERN GUARDIAN: Few details are available but it appears to have involved deployment of aircraft from Langley Air Force Base to Iceland.(37) In late August, 2001, six jets and 70 people deployed to Iceland for Operation Northern Guardian. Another six jets and 115 people deployed to Turkey to enforce the northern Iraqi no-fly zone. The members in Operation Northern Guardian in Iceland returned December 3rd, 2001.(38)
- John Fulton, CIA, gave a presentation at a Law Enforcement Seminar on June 6, 2002 that on the morning of September 11th 2001, he and his team at the CIA were running a pre-planned simulation to explore the emergency response issues that would be created if a plane were to strike a building.(39)(40)
- The FAA ordered the Pittsburgh air traffic control tower evacuated at 9:49 a.m. Flight 93 crashed (or was shot down) in Shanksville, Pennsylvania at 10:06.(41)
- United Flight 175 - second aircraft to hit the Trade Towers - changed transponder codes (its flight identification) twice in one minute.(42)
-Not one of the four hijacked pilots entered the 4-digit hijack code to signal they had been hijacked.(43)
- At least six air traffic controllers who dealt with two of the hijacked airliners made a tape recording that same day describing the events, but the tape was destroyed by the quality-assurance manager without anyone making a transcript of it or even listening to it.(44) The manager crushed the cassette in his hand, shredded the tape and dropped the pieces into different trash cans around the building, according to the inspector general of the Transportation Deparment.
* The ignored testimony of Secretary of Transportation Norman Mineta:
"During the time that the airplane was coming into the Pentagon, there was a young man who would come in and say to the Vice President, 'The plane is 50 miles out.' 'The plane is 30 miles out.' And when it got down to 'the plane is 10 miles out,' the young man also said to the Vice President, 'Do the orders still stand?' And the Vice President turned and whipped his neck around and said, 'Of course the orders still stand. Have you heard anything to the contrary?"(45)
Blue line to green arrow: depicts the high-speed spiral dive of Flight 77, turning 330 degrees at 530 M.P.H. to strike the part of the Pentagon being renovated.(46) Red arrows depict easier, higher populated targets bypassed by the 'terrorists'
* The official story is that the black boxes - voice and data recorders - from Flight 11 and Flight 175 were never retrieved from the World Trade Tower wreckage
However, firefighters Mike Bellone and Nicholas DeMasi say they assisted the FBI in retrieving three of the four black boxes in December, 2001. When recently interviewed by the American Free Press, Bellone said, "They confronted me and told me not to say anything. I said, 'Give me a good reason.' When they couldn't, I told them I wouldn't shut up about it. Why should I? I have nothing to hide and nothing to gain. It's the truth and Nick and I are sticking to our story as we always have."(47)
References
