The sound of one hand slapping (FBI 9/11 report)

[Minstrel Boy]

Posted to my blog here. Links live at the site.

The sound of one hand slapping



You probably read something yesterday about the release of the year-old, 371-page audit by the Justice Department's Inspector General Glenn Fine into pre-9/11 intelligence. What you've read likely describes it as a "sobering" and "blunt" accounting of the FBI's "serious shortcomings", and its "missteps" and "mishandling" of leads in the months before the attacks. Principally, the agency is faulted for not having aggressively pursued Nawaf al Hazmi and Khalid al Mihdhar once their presence in the US was confirmed, and for not following up on reports that American flight schools were training al Qaeda pilots. Fine concludes that "the way the FBI handled these matters was a significant failure that hindered the FBI's chances of being able to detect and prevent the Sept. 11 attacks."

Nevermind that al Hazmi and al Mihdhar were met at the San Diego airport in 1999 by Omar al-Bayoumi, a Saudi known to the agency and suspected of ties to al Qaeda; that their conversations with an al Qaeda safe house in Yemen were monitered; that they received funds from the wife of "Bandar Bush", Princess Haifa bin Faisal, via Jonathan Bush's Riggs Bank; that they attended a "top-level al-Qaeda summit" in Kuala Lumpur, and were followed, photographed and videotaped by Malaysian secret police at the CIA's request and that their names were still not added to the "watch list"; that they moved in with Abdussattar Shaikh, a tested FBI asset. Michael Isikoff wrote that the disclosure that an FBI informant had been the roommate of two 9/11 hijackers "stunned some top counterterrorism officials." But you know what? Nevermind.

And it's interesting to see the report ascribes blame to the CIA, by confirming it intentionally blocked a memo which would have alerted the FBI to the pair's return from Malyasia's "terror summit." (The FBI can be allowed to appear incompetent; the CIA, unfathomable. It's all part of their bad cop/worse cop dance.) But nevermind that, either.

What's really fascinating is the "sobering admission" that the FBI should have known that terrorists were training at American flight schools. But I'm not talking about the Phoenix Memo, Zacarias Moussaoui and Colleen Rowley, though that's what they are talking about. As much as these trails suggest intention - and let's remember, they all lead to Special Agent Dave Frasca and his Radical Fundamentalist Unit at FBI headquarters - the talking point has always been incompetence, though Frasca was the one promoted.

And here's my fascination: for an agency which, before 9/11, appeared clueless that members of al Qaeda were training at flight schools, the FBI inexplicably and immediately knew, upon the attacks, which flight schools al Qaeda members had attended. And this was long before suspects should have been identified.

Venice Florida's Huffman Aviation was the principal flight school used by Mohammed Atta and associates, though used for what is a good question, as Atta was already a pilot. (The best answer may be a familiar one to students of deep politics: trafficking narcotics.) A former Huffman manager told investigative journalist Daniel Hopsicker that a carload of FBI agents pulled up outside his house in the middle of the day, on the day of the attack.

"They were outside my house four hours after the attack," he says in Welcome to Terrorland. Hopsicker writes that "they didn't strong-arm him to make him think harder and cough up some useful leads, but to ensure he kept his mouth shut."

The shaken source had quit Huffman because he'd found the workplace to be something else than he'd expected. Something, well, spooky: "I had to leave and get out. I wish I didn't know as much as I know. I told them they had nothing to fear from me."

What did he know?

"These guys {Atta et al} were double agents.... I gleaned early on that the operation I was working for had government protection. They were let into this country. How did the FBI get here so soon? Ask yourself: How'd they get here so soon?"

And note: when he says "here," he doesn't mean Huffman Aviation; he means his own house. So, only four hours after the attack, the FBI didn't merely know enough to visit Atta's flight school; it knew enough to visit the home of a former employee of Atta's flight school who had quit because he suspected Atta and his cadres were double agents. It wasn't investigating the attacks, it was intimidating a witness.

In the August 25, 2003 edition of The New York Observer, author Gail Sheehy recounts an exchange following a formal meeting between senior FBI agents and the 9/11 widows known as the "Jersey Girls." Kristen Breitweiser was having difficulty reconciling something:

"I don’t understand, with all the warnings about the possibilities of Al Qaeda using planes as weapons, and the Phoenix Memo from one of your own agents warning that Osama bin Laden was sending operatives to this country for flight-school training, why didn’t you check out flight schools before Sept. 11?"

"Do you know how many flight schools there are in the US? Thousands," a senior agent protested. "We couldn’t have investigated them all and found these few guys."

"Wait, you just told me there were too many flight schools and that prohibited you from investigating them before 9/11," Kristen persisted. "How is it that a few hours after the attacks, the nation is brought to its knees, and miraculously FBI agents showed up at Embry-Riddle flight school in Florida where some of the terrorists trained?"

"We got lucky," was the reply.

Amazing, isn't it, how the FBI's luck changed?

Rather than drop the ball, the FBI ran with it, though some tried to call foul. For instance, those agents who contacted attorney David Schippers about imminent attacks in lower Manhattan, and even provided the proposed dates and targets, and names of suspects, after their own investigations had been squashed and their careers threatened.

How nice it must be, to be called only "incompetent," and suffer nothing more grievous than self-administered wrist slaps.

[Straight Shooter]

1. Well done, Minstrel Boy. That "we got lucky" excuse stinks to high heaven

I did not know about the ex-employee of the flight school. However, it always struck me as extremely suspicious that the "guilty" school was visited immediately.

And of course, it's in Jeb's state.

[Octafish]

4. Gee. Always wondered why the FBI isn't interested in stopping terror.

From Maestro Minstrel's OP:

And note: when he says "here," he doesn't mean Huffman Aviation; he means his own house. So, only four hours after the attack, the FBI didn't merely know enough to visit Atta's flight school; it knew enough to visit the home of a former employee of Atta's flight school who had quit because he suspected Atta and his cadres were double agents. It wasn't investigating the attacks, it was intimidating a witness.

For more on the subject:

The Coincidence Theorist's Guide to 9-11

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x2160541

Gosh, Minstrel-Boy. I'm glad you're on our side, unlike the BFEE and FBI.

[sam sarrha]

2. FBI were denied warrents to 12 ..911 hijackers 8 months before 911, by

by ASScroft... they wanted to enter attas home and download his hard drive. ASScroft wouldnt give any warrents at all then, the justice deptarment quit trying to get them.

the FBI/CIA/NSA all knew it was comming, nearly every nation in Europe was yelling at us about what they found.. they were going to crash plane into us.. the Fascists wanted to use it for their own ends..

[The White Tree]

5. It wasn't just the Europeans.

In May of 2001 Ahmad Shah Masood, the Lion of Panjshir, went to Paris and specifically warned the US at a conference there that terrorists in his country were planning to attack the US (and possibly other countries).

Ahmad Shah Masood was assassinated Sunday 9/9/2001, 2 days before 9/11, he was the leader of the Northern Alliance.

It always struck me as odd, the timing of these 2 events, what may become the high-water mark of Al-Queda,

It would seem likely that Masood's assassination, at that time, was part of Al-Queda's plans to provoke a war with the US in Afghanistan by destabilizing the most likely allies of the US in Afghanistan.

Could Masood's death have served as the signal? I'm not sure if that is likely, it is just speculation. However, if that was, could it be possible that the U.S. somehow knew this, knew the attacks were coming, knew they'd give them the cover to start the 2 wars they wanted, against Al Queda and against Iraq, and, as such, did nothing because our intelligence vastly underestimated the effect of the attacks?

That, I think, seems a realistic scenario, given the previous attack in the U.S. on the World Trade Center caused "minimal" damage within the US and given the hubris of the administration at the time to control events in the world.

Note: I am in no way saying this is what I think happened. I am just speculating.

[Minstrel Boy]

6. My thoughts about Masood's assassination.

I think it was to take out the strongest and most independent anti-Taliban personality on the eve of 9/11, so a post-Taliban puppet would be more easily controlled.

Also interesting: early morning of 9/11, there may have been an aborted assassination attempt on Bush in Sarasota using the same method: a van carrying an Arab "television crew" showed up at his hotel hoping for an interview, but were turned away.

[leveymg]

9. Where did you read THAT? PLEASE cite!

That would be the biggest piece of news in the entire long, sad saga of cover-ups about the botched CIA/FBI domestic al-Qaeda cells operation.

[Al-CIAda]

13. An Assassination Attempt?

An Assassination Attempt?

Bush awoke a little before 6:00 a.m. on September 11, pulled on shorts and an old T-shirt and laced up his running shoes. At 6:30 a.m., Bush, a reporter friend, and his Secret Service crew took a four-mile jog in the half-light of dawn around a nearby golf course.

At about the same time Bush was getting ready for his jog, a van carrying several Middle Eastern men pulled up to the Colony's guard station. The men said they were a television news crew with a scheduled "poolside" interview with the president. They asked for a certain Secret Service agent by name. The message was relayed to a Secret Service agent inside the resort, who hadn't heard of the agent mentioned or of plans for an interview. He told the men to contact the president's public relations office in Washington, DC, and had the van turned away.


http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/timeline/main/essayaninterestingday.html

[leveymg]

14. If so, a very underpublicized one. Very skeptical.

If there was really good proof that al-Qaeda had actually attempted to get Bush that morning in FL, we would have heard all about it - EVERYWHERE. It would put his rather odd, and cowardly behavior later in the day into perspective.

[Al-CIAda]

15. Not sure what to make of it either.

-and to 'make of it' something requires too much speculation for my abilities. If not well known and yet true, there is most certainly a REASON why it isn't well known or investigated...much like the coincidental 'War Games' which ARE real and occured -yet no one dare speak of it.

[spooked911]

3. Good post and the whole thing sure stinks badly doesn't it?

But will ANY of our so-called pundits in the media give more than a superficial mention of this story?

Of fucking course not.

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

7. Link?

:evilgrin:

[Just Me]

8. Intimidating that witness and, reportedly, many others.

Yup. It stinks,...smells like a cover-up.

What can I say? :shrug:

[leveymg]

10. One thing that's been overlooked - The Blocked FBI Memo

Perjury by CIA Counterterrorism Center Director - CIA Blocked Hijacker Memo to FBI

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x3826660


June 10. The LA Times reports that in early 2000, the CIA intentionally withheld a memo from the FBI that reported the entry of key 9/11 hijackers into the US. See:

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-te...

In his testimony before the Joint Congressional Intelligence Committee in September 2002, former head of the CIA Counter-Terrorism Center (CTC) stated under oath that his office had inadvertently neglected to inform the FBI when it became known in early 2000 that Flight 77 hijacker, Nawaf al-Midhar, had entered the U.S. However, it was revealed yesterday that a memo informing the FBI had actually been drafted at CTC, but an order was issued blocking transmission of that information.

In this sworn testimony, Cofer Black stated that he and Agency staff had simply missed the importance of reports that know al-Qaeda terrorists had entered the US after attending an al-Qaeda planning summit. According to Black, then CTC director -- who after 9/11 was promoted by President Bush to head State Department Counterterrorism -- the CIA Center failed to pass this information on to the FBI in early 2000 because staff were distracted and overworked. For more information see:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/articles/03/03/01_...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/articles/02/09/p/2...

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0310/S00257.htm

However, as we learned yesterday, Black's testimony to Congress was a material misrepresentation of what is the most important question that Congress had for the CIA. Why wasn't the FBI informed in a timely way of this obviously critical development in tracking known al-Qaeda terrorists?

As ranking officer at CTC, Cofer Black was in a position to know about the Center's memo that had been prepared for transmittal to the FBI at the time. He was also clearly in the chain of command that would decide to block the memo's transmission to the FBI. Nonetheless, Black told Congressional investigators something quite different, and his testimony under oath before the Joint Committee was patently false, in light of the facts that were released yesterday.

US intelligence first became aware of Nawaf Al-Midhar in 1995, when he was referenced in a telephone call from a major al-Qaeda communications center in Yemen intercepted by the NSA. That communications post was run by Nawaf's uncle. The Al-Midhar family has long been prominent within the militant Yemeni Islamic opposition. Osama bin Laden's family is originally from Yemen, which has been the center of armed opposition to westerners for many decades since the British occupied the key port city of Aden and built a huge naval base there, which in the late 1990s was again visited by US naval forces after a long absence. This was viewed as a serious provocation by local Islamic radicals. The USS Cole was blown up in Aden harbour in October, 2000 during a "refueling stop".

In January 2000, The Agency had trailed the al-Midhar and his partner, Khalid al-Hazmi, as they traveled to a meeting with top al-Qaeda planners in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. That meeting. at which 9/11 and the bombing of the USS Cole were planned, was surveilled by multiple US and allied intelligence agencies. Al-Hazmi and Al-Midhar reentered the US on the same flight from Bangkok on January 15, 2000.

Somehow -- and this has been a major gap in the record -- the CIA neglected to notify FBI of the entry.

Now we know that this failure to notify the FBI was no oversight. A command decision was taken by the CIA -- Director Tenet had been briefed on multiple occasions about al-Midhar and al-Hazmi and the Kuala Lumpur meeting. The only question that remains is, why did the CIA allow known al-Qaeda terrorists to run free across the US, and complete their mission on 9/11?

The Bush Administration must now appoint a special counsel to immediately investigate Black's apparent perjury. Any delay can be viewed as obstruction of justice, and as an impeachable offense.

Copyright 2005. Mark G. Levey

[RBHam]

11. More proof of MIHOP.

No accountability.

[Al-CIAda]

12. Actually 'incompetence' was rewarded! -More like

treason and mass murder by co-conspirators was rewarded.

[Minstrel Boy]

16. shameless evening kick n/t