Declassified Cable Contradicts 9/11 Commission Claim

[KJF]

One of the 9/11 Commission’s more eyebrow-raising claims was that:

Though KSM ((9/11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed)) and bin Laden knew each other from the anti-Soviet campaign of the 1980s, KSM apparently did not begin working with al-Qaeda until after the 1998 East Africa embassy bombings. (p. 488).

We might be inclined to disregard this claim anyway, as it is based on KSM’s interrogations, at which torture (waterboarding, threats to harm his children) was used. However, it is also contradicted by a declassified State Department cable (as well as lots of other evidence). The cable was sent in August 1998, after Taliban leader Mullah Omar called the State Department to discuss the missile strikes against Afghanistan. It was declassified following an FOIA request from the National Security Archive at George Washington University. The relevant passage reads:

Members of bin Laden’s network plotted to blow up US airliners in the Pacific and separately conspired to kill the pope. (p. 4)
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB134/Doc%203.pdf

The members of bin Laden’s network who plotted to blow up airliners over the Pacific (the “bojinka” plot) and conspired to kill the pope (and Bill Clinton) are WTC bomber Ramzi Yousef, Wali Khan Amin Shah, Abdul Hakim Murad and KSM (see, for example, Chapter Four of the New Jackals by Simon Reeve), so the declassified cable indicates that the 9/11 Commission’s claim is false, KSM was part of bin Laden's network years before the embassy bombings, and the US was aware of this, if further proof were needed.

There is also a mountain of other evidence that KSM was part of bin Laden’s network before 1998. For example see here:
http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/timeline.jsp?timeline=complete_911_timeline&other_al-qaeda_operatives=khalidShaikMohammed

[DoYouEverWonder]

1. I thought KSM

was the 'mastermind' behind Project Bojenka?

But the 9-11 Commission is claiming he didn't get involved in al CIAda until after 1998? Why am I not surprised that they can't even keep the main story lines straight?

[KJF]

2. KSM

KSM is supposed to be the mastermind for 9/11, but the 1995 plots were led by Yousef. They plotted to kill the pope and Clinton, to blow planes up in midair (bojinka) and to crash them into buildings.

By pretending KSM wasn't connected to bin Laden before 1998, 9/11 Commission staffers like Dietrich Snell are trying to cover up evidence of their own mistakes, or perhaps that should be "mistakes".

[John Q. Citizen]

3. Max Cleland said it best. "The 9/11 Commission is compromised." n/t

[KJF]

4. That's not bad, but neither is this:

Bob Graham, co-chair of the 9/11 Congressional Inquiry, when asked should Bush be impeached under the standards used against Clinton, said:

If the standard of impeachment that the Republicans set for Bill Clinton, that a personal, consensual relationship was the basis for impeachment, would not a President who knowlingly deceived the American people about something as important as going to war meet the standard of impeachment? ... Of course the answer was yes... I have no shortage of reasons to believe that the American people have been ill served by President Bush, ranging from the economy for the environment.

The main 11 reasons for impeachment included:

* After he was briefed in August 2001, that al-Qaeda was making preparations consistent with hijackings, the President did not take executive action to alert the Federal Aviation Administration, the Department of Defense, or other agencies that might have used this informaiton to harden commercial avaiation against attack;
* Throughout 2002, the President directed the FBI to restrain and obfustacate the investigation of the foreign government support that some and possibly all the September 11 hijackers received;

...

* The President has engaged in a cover-up, withholding from the American people the evidence that supplies the basis of several of the above charges. He has done so by misclassifying information as national security data. While the information may be embarassing or politically damaging, its revelation would not damage national security.
Intelligence Matters, pp. 230-1