NYT/Reuters: Top FBI Official Unaware of Moussaoui Terror Ties

[DeepModem Mom]

Top FBI Official Unaware of Moussaoui Terror Ties
By REUTERS
Published: March 21, 2006

ALEXANDRIA, Virginia (Reuters) - The FBI official in charge of international terrorism before September 11 said on Tuesday he did not know an agent had warned three weeks before the hijackings that he suspected Zacarias Moussaoui was plotting a terrorist act.

Michael Rolince, the chief of the FBI's international terrorism operation section in 2001, testified at Moussaoui's sentencing trial that he was unaware of a long report written by the FBI agent spelling out his theories.

Harry Samit, the FBI agent who arrested Moussaoui three weeks before the deadly airliner hijackings that killed 3,000 people, testified on Monday that agency superiors repeatedly blocked his efforts to warn of a possible terror attack....Rolince said although he knew of Moussaoui's arrest, he did not know that Samit had sent a long message to FBI headquarters.

Defense lawyer Edward MacMahon asked Rolince if was aware that Samit believed Moussaoui was a Muslim fundamentalist who was learning to fly a jumbo jet, and that the agent believed he was a terrorist who could be possibly planning a hijacking.

"No,'' Rolince said. "Can I ask what document that's coming from?"

"Sure, that's Mr. Samit's communication to your office ... August 18, 2001,'' MacMahon replied....

http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/news/news-security-moussaoui.html

[wakeme2008]

1. And how much BONUS did he get that year...

probably the full 10% :grr:

[electropop]

2. No, I think a truly monumental blunder like that

deserves a Medal of Freedom.

[wordpix2]

3. another incompetent with his head up his ass looking for terrorists there

[wordpix2]

4. is Rolince a * appointee or Clinton's? I'm guessing * from this statement

snip:

Rolince said the FBI did not have enough evidence to charge Moussaoui at the time.

``Agent Samit's suppositions and hunches were one thing,'' he said. ``What we actually knew was something else.''

[Rose Siding]

5. Is he trying to say he's NEVER known about it?

He may not have known about it BEFORE 9/11, but in all the investigations, in all the meetings since about closing gaps, he's NEVER seen it?

He's lying or he should be FIRED.

[Old and In the Way]

6. So who was the firewall between Rolince and Samit?

Let that person explain why he stuffed the investigation....any bets he got a job promotion after 9/11?

[Roland99]

10. Rolince, himself?

How do we know he didn't perjure himself?

[Old and In the Way]

11. good point....thought it might have been Frasca

[hang a left]

13. I thought it was common knowledge amongst

9-11 researchers that Frasca was the gate-keeper.

[madmark]

7. the correction of this fuck up and fuck up that stopped the phoenix

memo from getting to someone to connect the dots is the reform needed to prevent the 9/11's of the future. Not the bureaucratic response of creating a monstrously ponderous and useless and creepily named DHM. And this reform may be as simple a firing the layer of idiots at the FBI that sat on this information and promoting Mr. Samit and the author of the Phoenix Memo.

[Peace Patriot]

8. Well, until we know a lot more about this "layer of idiots," we really

can't say what would work or what wouldn't work--and we can't know WHY things worked (or didn't work) the way they did--with regard to 9/11 or other such attacks. To all appearances, literally every national security function of the US government--from intelligence reporting to NORAD's standard procedures for hijacked planes--failed with regard to 9/11, all at once. The FBI's "layer of idiots" has lots of company, including the president and vice president of the U.S., and the Secretary of Defense--the top "layer of idiots." Where does idiocy end, and malfeasance begin? Where does malfeasance end, and treason begin?

It's not just that one agency failed, on one item. It's that all agencies failed, on all items. THAT is what we need to face, and address--not some piecemeal tinkering with this failure and that failure. And that is what has NOT been done of this matter.

As for this case, I still want to know what Nicholas Berg's email account and password were doing in Zacharias Moussaoui's computer. Berg was in U.S. custody in Iraq for ten days prior to his beheading on tape (if that's what it was). His parents had petitioned Donald Rumsfeld to release him. And after his death, his father told reporters than Nicholas had been interviewed by the FBI AFTER 9/11 about the email account. You will recall, this was the same computer that Colleen Rowley was asking the DC/FBI for permission to get into, just before 9/11 (permission denied). Michael Berg said his son told him that he had just happened to meet Moussaoui on a bus, and lent his computer to a complete stranger--an Arab no less (Berg was Jewish)--and the FBI apparently bought this story, and later permitted Nicholas Berg to enter Iraq, and wander around during the Falluja uprising, looking for business for his small electronics firm.

I know that the "conspiratorial" mind can get a bit overheated about coincidences, but this is a bit much. And we have heard nothing about it since. (It was in news articles in May-June '04, just after Nicholas was killed.) You may recall that his death became a notable cause celebre for the freepers trying to defend Bush against the Abu Ghraib torture photos, which had just come out. It was certainly convenient for THEM. 'Look how rotten those Arabs and Muslims are--who cares if some of them are tortured?'--they seem to imply. That's what Nicholas' death was used for.

I can only guess what this might mean (a connection between Nicholas Berg and Moussaoui). All I can say is that it stinks to high heaven, and, also, I wonder what Berg might have testified to, or might have otherwise revealed, in regard to Moussaoui's trial.

[DeepModem Mom]

9. Yep -- very curious, indeed. nt

[madmark]

16. I don't know what to make of Berg info on Moussai's comp; but

i can say that Ms. Rowley and her Minnesota FBI colleagues and the Phoenix FBI officer who wrote the flight training memo were doing their jobs and attempted to communicate the danger up the food chain. So some people were doing their jobs. I say fire the food chain and put these people in their place. This idea of a Homeland Security Department bureacratic solution instead of an old fashion cleaning house and search for competent people is what I am really railing about. With respect to the highest level of gov., Bush and Rice, of course they are fuck ups and should be replaced and it was ridiculous that they were not removed in the last election. As to your implied idea that Bushco intended the 9/11 attack and shut down the organs of gov to facilitate it, I'm not there, but willing to hear whatever evidence you have regarding it.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

18. What if one or more of the "layer of idiots" was part of a....

...LIHOP or MIHOP plot hatched at the highest levels of the U. S. Government?

[deminks]

12. More: AP article

Supervisor: I Never Read Moussaoui Memo

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060322/ap_on_re_us/moussaoui

Called as a government witness, Rolince, a 31-year FBI veteran who retired last October, proved to be more valuable for attorneys defending the only man charged in this country in connection with al-Qaida's Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

Rolince also conceded he had never seen an April 2001 intelligence briefing paper sent to FBI Director Louis Freeh, with Rolince and others marked in, that said Osama bin Laden was plotting with Ibn al-Khattab, the leader of Chechen Islamic rebels, to mount a terror attack in Spring 2001. The threat was described as "significant and urgent."

The document was significant to this case because FBI headquarters told Samit that he hadn't established enough connection between Moussaoui and terrorists for a search warrant even after French intelligence reported that Moussaoui had recruited a man in 2000 to go to
Chechnya to fight under al-Khattab.

[hang a left]

14. Could that be because the warrant request had been altered and

someone removed the keys assertions that would have justified the issuance????

The document was significant to this case because FBI headquarters told Samit that he hadn't established enough connection between Moussaoui and terrorists for a search warrant even after French intelligence reported that Moussaoui had recruited a man in 2000 to go to
Chechnya to fight under al-Khattab.

[DeepModem Mom]

17. Thanks, deminks -- that's an important addtion to the story. nt

[EFerrari]

15. Louis Freeh is filthy.

Didn't he obstruct both John McNeill AND Richard Clarke?

And that whole Nick Berg murder stinks, it stinks to heaven.