Celebrating government secrecy

[noise]

Former FBI agent Ali Soufan has a book coming out in September called The Black Banners: 9/11 and the War Against al-Qaeda published by WW Norton.

The government hasn't seen fit to explain bizarre FBI and CIA conduct in relation to al Qaeda operatives inside the US before 9/11. Maybe Soufan's book will provide some answers. Or maybe chunks of it will be redacted to protect national security.

[Octafish]

1. Sounds like an excellent read...

Thank you for the heads-up, noise. The FBI and CIA have a lot of explaining to do.

‘We Could Have Done This the Right Way’

[rschop]

2. re:FBI agent Ali Soufan has a book coming out in September called The Black Banners: 9/11 and the Wa

On September 12, 20001 the CIA Yemen Station chief gave Soufan a manila envelope with three surveillance photographs from the Kuala Lumpur meeting and a complete report about the this meeting, the very information that Soufan had been requesting from the CIA since November 2000. These were photos of Mihdhar, with one photograph showing both Mihdhar and Hazmi.

Soufan realized immediately that the CIA had known about at least two of the al Qaeda hijackers who took part in the attacks on 9/11 for at least 21 months, had even known that they had entered the US on January 15, 2000 and then had never given him or his team this information. When Soufan realized that the CIA had deliberately hidden this information from him, the very information he and his team had asked for numerous times and the very information that they could have used to have prevented the attacks that had taken place on 9/11 that had cost the lives of almost 3000 people, he went to the wash room and threw up in the sink.

But Soufan was never aware of the extent of the massive treachery that had taken place and even today is probably unaware of the extent of this treachery. I doubt if this information is even in his book.

Soufan was unaware when he asked FBI Director Louis Freeh in November 2000, to make a formal FBI request to the CIA and George Tenet for any information that the CIA had on Walid Bin Attash, or on any al Qaeda meeting in Kuala Lumpur in January 2000 and was told that the CIA did not have any of this information, that Freeh himself had received information from the CIA in January 2000, that Khalid al-Mihdhar and Nawaf were going to an important al Qaeda planning meeting in Kuala Lumpur in January 2000. Because Soufan had attached Khallad’s passport photo to his request, to both the Yemen station and to his request to Freeh, and the CIA, the CIA would have immediately known that Khallad had also been at the Kuala Lumpur al Qaeda meeting, with Mihdhar and Hazmi actually planning the Cole bombing.

Soufan was unaware that when he had flown out to Pakistan to talk to the FBI/CIA Joint Source in February 1, 2001, that CIA Yemen Station, the CIA Pakistan Station, and the CIA Bin Laden unit were all aware that Khallad had been identified by the Joint Source at the Kuala Lumpur meeting just the month before, and knew that Mihdhar and Hazmi had also been at that meeting with Khallad planning the Cole bombing. Yet none of these units ever gave this information to Soufan. The CIA handler for the CIA/FBI joint source was right with Soufan as Soufan presented his Yemen obtained passport photo of Khallad to the Joint source, and knew about the identification of Khallad and yet kept this information secret from Soufan

Soufan was unaware that his April 2001 request for information to the CIA went to both former CIA officer Tom Wilshire, who had been moved over to the FBI ITOS unit, and to CIA officer Clark Shannon. When Wilshire received Soufan's request, instead of giving him the information he had asked for, Wilshire asked FBI HQ Agent Dina Corsi, to set up a meeting with Soufan’s own people so the CIA could find out what these Cole investigators knew about the Kuala Lumpur meeting and Mihdhar and Hazmi. The CIA wanted to know if they had found out in their search for Khallad, that Mihdhar and Hazmi had been at the Kuala Lumpur meeting with Khallad actually planning the Cole bombing.

Soufan was never aware that when FBI Agent Margaret Gillespie was told by the INS that Mihdhar and Hazmi were inside of the US on August 22, 2001, and gave this information to Tom Wilshire and Dina Corsi, that Wilshire knew immediately that these terrorists were inside of the US in order to take part in a massive al Qaeda attack that would kill thousands of Americans.

Soufan was unaware that even FBI HQ Agent Dina Corsi, who had called him in Yemen on September 11, 2001 and had asked him to remain in Yemen, had known by August 22, 2001, and perhaps much before this date, that the CIA had a photograph taken at Kuala Lumpur of Khallad, and knew that the CIA had been keeping this photo secret from him and his team.

Soufan never found out that when Corsi shut down his teams investigation of Mihdhar and Hazmi on August 28, 2001, claiming that she needed a release from the NSA for information in her EC before giving it to his team, that she had already been approved for this release the day before. He never even knew that Corsi had fabricated Attorney Sherry Sabol’s ruling, when she had told Bongardt, his assistant, and the rest of his team that they could not take part in any investigation for Mihdhar and Hazmi, when Sabol had ruled just the opposite and had ruled that since the NSA information had no connection to any FISA warrant, Bongardt and his team could take part in any investigation for Mihdhar and Hazmi.

Soufan never found out that Corsi’s supervisor, Rod Middleton, had been given the photograph of Khallad taken at Kuala Lumpur by the CIA on August 30, 2001, almost 2 weeks before the attacks on 9/11, a photograph that directly connected both Mihdhar and Hazmi to the planning of the Cole bombing and was more than enough time for his team to have been able to locate these terrorists prior to the attacks on 9/11.

While Soufan was just getting a glimmer of the extent of this treachery, he had no idea of how pervasive and wide spread and massive it had become, and that it ultimately had not only included many groups at the CIA but even groups his own FBI Head Quarters.

Soufan realized that the CIA, the very agency he had trusted, the agency that he thought would have given him critical information in his investigations when he requested it if they were aware of this information, had literally stabbed him in the back and at the same time had stabbed the American people in the back. Soufan realized that this profound treachery had cost the lives of almost 3000 people on 9/11. But Soufan also realized that FBI HQ must have also played a role in this profound treachery. Soufan was so disillusioned that he quit the FBI in 2005, bitterly angry that they had lied to him and his team many times.

[noise]

3. What did the UBLU (i.e Middleton, Corsi)

tell the Cole investigators after 9/11? They must have given them some sort of explanation better than the bullshit about the wall given to the public.

[rschop]

4. re: What did the UBLU (i.e Middleton, Corsi) tell the Cole investigators after 9/11?

What did the UBLU (i.e Middleton, Corsi) tell the Cole investigators after 9/11? They must have given them some sort of explanation better than the bullshit about the wall given to the public.

That is an excellent question.

It is clear that it was the CIA that had given Soufan and the other FBI Cole bombing investigators the photos from Kuala Lumpur, perhaps to hide the fact that the FBI HQ already also had this information 2 weeks prior to them shutting down Soufan’s and Bongardt’s investigation of Mihdhar and Hazmi.

The information in my prior post shows that Corsi, Middleton and even the FBI HQ had kept all of this information as secret as possible not only before the attacks on 9/11 but after the attacks on 9/11. Why would they ever give information to the FBI Cole bombing investigators that showed that they had intentionally and deliberately allowed the attacks on 9/11 to take place. The fact that this information was never in Lawrence Wright's book, Looming Tower, when the information in his book was given to Wright by FBI Agent Steve Bongardt up to about the spring of 2006 shows that Bongardt was also never aware of this information, and Soufan would have been aware of the same information that Bngardt had.

After the attacks on 9/11 the investigation of the 9/11 terrorists were taken away from Bongardt, Soufan and Samit and given to the FBI Pentbomb investigators, perhaps so the Moussaoui and the Cole bombing investigators would never be able to connect the dots and see that the attacks on 9/11 had deliberately been allowed to take place by the FBI HQ and the CIA.

It is clear that when this Pentbomb investigation seemed to evaporate in mid air not long after it started that they had come across the criminal actions at the CIA and even the FBI HQ that had allowed the al Qaeda terrorists to carry out the attacks on 9/11, information that pointed right at the White House, and knew they had stumbled on to information that was political dynamite.

The information I listed was only public available after the spring, summer and fall of 2006. Soufan had left the FBI by 2005. It is not clear how much of this information that Soufan was aware of by that time, but he had clearly found out enough that he was completely disgusted with the FBI by the time he quit.

[noise]

11. I may be wrong but I find it hard to believe

that the Cole investigators didn't ensure that UBLU agents give them a credible explanation a few days (or at most a few weeks) after 9/11.

After Soufan left the FBI he first went to work for Giuliani Partners where he joined former FBI agent Pasquale D'Amuro who headed the PENTTBOM investigation. Would Soufan do so if he was still in the dark about UBLU conduct? I don't think so.

Mr. Soufan's work in the FBI was noticed by the former Mayor of New York, Rudolph W. Giuliani who hired him to serve as the Chief Operations Officer of the International Division of Giuliani Security & Safety LLC, a division of Giuliani Partners LLC. Mr. Soufan was instrumental in expanding the global reach of GSS.

Soufan bio

Why didn't Lawrence Wright get a better explanation? I don't know. A distinction should be made between what intelligence agents know and what they are willing to tell journalists. Why hasn't anyone with knowledge come forward to explain what happened to the public? That is one of the key unanswered questions.

[rschop]

12. RE: Why hasn't anyone with knowledge come forward to explain what happened to the public?

Good questions noise.

Here are some important points;

Since these attacks, Soufan had remained silent for several years, as far as I know other than interviews with Lawrence Wright, until his article April 22, 2009, “My Tortured Decision” in the New York Times .

It is clear that much of the account of FBI Agent Ali Soufan by Wright came directly from Soufan. There are just too many small details that would be hard for anyone else to have known. When he testified in Congress over the interrogation of Abu Zubyda, he was hidden behind a screen so no one could see his face. When the house he bought in New York City was reported with his address in the news he was furious. So after Wright's interviews he has kept to himself other than this 2009 article. Soufan has kept quiet perhaps so as to not interfere with his new business ventures.

Bongardt had also given much information to Wright, but again notice that since Wright’s article Bongardt had not been in the news. He has a very valuable pension to protect.

Other FBI agents involved in the Cole bombing investigation it would appear have also kept quiet, most likely to protect their pensions or under direct orders from the FBI itself.

Unless any of these agents had gone back and found the publically available information scattered over thousands of pages of investigations and pieced it all back together again, they would never have been aware of why even their own investigations had been sabotaged. I doubt if FBI HQ would ever have given this information to these field agents, when all it would have done would be to make the people at FBI HQ look bad.

None of the information I presented in an earlier post was ever in Lawrence Wright's article on Soufan or his book, Looming Tower. Would Wright have left out the fact that Corsi knew at least two weeks ahead of the attacks on 9/11 that the CIA had been deliberately hiding the photo of Khallad from the FBI Cole bombing investigators, a photo that directly connected both Mihdhar and Hazmi who were also at that meeting to the planning of the Cole bombing, if either Soufan or Bongardt had given him this information, information right on page 302 of the DOJ IG report.

While it seems almost inconceivable, it seems that Wright used only information gained from interviews and not information that was in publically available documents. The DOJ IG report came out in May 2006, 4 months ahead of his book, the 9/11 Commission report came out in July 2004 over two years ahead of his book and yet he had left out the information in both of these reports, that Freeh had known about the al Qaeda planning meeting in Kuala Lumpur at the time of Soufan’s request to him asking for information that CIA had on this meeting.

What else explains why Wright left out the fact that Freeh had deliberately not given Soufan the information on the al Qaeda Kuala Lumpur planning meeting when the information that Freeh had been given this information by the NSA and the CIA is listed right on page 181 of the 9/11 Commission report, and on page 238 and 239 of the DOJ IG report. Also note that the fact that Soufan had made this request to Freeh in November 2000 to make an official request to the CIA for information on any al Qaeda meeting in Kuala Lumpur was never in either the 9/11 Commission report or the DOJ IG report, more proof that both of these investigations had been cover ups for the events at the FBI and CIA prior to the attacks on 9/11. Did the 9/11 Commission or the DOJ Inspector General not know who the lead FBI investigator on the Cole bombing was? This is just not possible!

Wright has made the statement “It is a mystery to me that people in the C.I.A. have not been held accountable”, when the direct result of their actions to hide information from the FBI was the murder of almost 3000 people by the al Qaeda terrorists, but he has said nothing about the people at FBI HQ who were also involved, Freeh, Corsi, Middleton and Wilshire.

[noise]

15. Protecting pensions and business ventures? Following orders from FBI headquarters to remain silent?

IMO those motives don't ring true.

There is a new book called The Threat Matrix: The FBI at War in the Age of Global Terror by Garrett Graff. He recounts an exchange between Bongardt and Middleton on the afternoon of 9/11/01:

Steve Bongardt was on a 2:30 conference call with Liguori and Maxwell. Also at the other end were Mike Rolince, headquarters supervisor Rod Middleton, and analyst Dina Corsi, whom Bongardt and Fincher had clashed with that spring.

Maxwell opened. "What do we know? Do we recognize any of the hijacker names?"

Corsi replied affirmatively and began to read some. Bongardt came alert quickly at one name in particular. "Dina!" he interrupted. "Khalid al-Mihdhar? The same one you told us about? He's on the list?"

Middleton broke in from Washington. "Steve," he said, "we did everything by the book."

Bongardt exploded. "Hope that makes you fucking feel better! Tens of thousands are dead!"

Maxwell, sitting in New York, hit the mute button on the conference call and pointed at Bongardt, saying "Now is not the time. There will be a time for that. Now's not it."

from pg. 313

Their own agency obstructed their investigation that they had been working on for almost a year. It doesn't make sense to think that all the Cole investigators simply let this go. They didn't need any reports to know that the wall excuse was bullshit.

[rschop]

30. re: They didn't need any reports to know that the wall excuse was bullshit.

Noise you are absolutely right, Bongardt knew that the wall was nothing but a complete fiction used by FBI HQ and FBI IOS Agent Dina Corsi to illegally shut his investigation down. He not only knew this but knew this would result in allowing a massive al Qaeda attack inside of the US and that as a result many people would die. He knew this and yet could do nothing to prevent Corsi from shutting down his investigation of Mihdhar and Hazmi, unless he got a decision by NSLU allowing him to continue his investigation.

When he asked Corsi to get an opinion from the FBI NSLU on this to see if he and his team could investigation and find Mihdhar and Hazmi before they carried out some horrific al Qaeda attack inside of the US, Corsi told him on August 29, 2001 that the Attorney Sherry Sable had ruled that he and his team could have no part in any investigation for Mihdhar and Hazmi.

What Corsi, and Middleton, did not tell Bongardt was that Sherry Sabol had actually ruled that since the NSA information in her EC had absolutely nothing to do with any FISA warrant, Bongardt and his team could take part in any investigation and search for Mihdhar and Hazmi and if Corsi was still confused she, Corsi, herself could go to the NSA and get a release, unaware that she had already been granted this release two days earlier.

What you are leaving out, from the September 20, 2001 Joint Inquiry public hearings is that Corsi told Bongardt on September 28-29, 2001, that if even one piece of paper was ever found at the FBI New York FBI office with his name and the name Khalid al-Mihdhar, he was through forever as a FBI agent.

They lied and used fear to and scare techniques to force Bongardt off of this investigation. Bongardt even said “some day when people die, I hope NSLU will stand behind their decisions" unaware that Corsi had lied to shut down his investigation and allow the al Qaeda terrorists to murder 3000 people on 9/11!

Now do you know why I think this was one massive criminal conspiracy that was never even explained in any sort of way by any of these 9/11 government investigations. None of these investigations could even begin explain why the CIA and FBI HQ had deliberately allowed these horrific al Qaeda attacks to take place!

[rschop]

14. Re: Explains why the FBI agents have remained silent in their words

From their own words:

http://www.consortiumnews.com/2010/010510c.html

No meaningful fixes are possible without accountability for mistakes or wrongdoing.

Equally important, those witnessing innocent mistakes and worse problems must be able to avail themselves of some kind of job protection, should they summon enough courage to blow the whistle. Sadly, no “whistleblower protection” now exists.

Thus there is no antidote to the secrecy and job-jeopardy regularly invoked to muzzle employees who witness fraud, waste, abuse, and illegal acts. In recent years, these have included heinous behavior like torture, kidnapping, and illegal eavesdropping, as well as untold amounts of misfeasance and other malfeasance that create serious threats and risks to public safety.

Ray McGovern and Coleen Rowley are members of the Steering Group of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS).

Rowley, a FBI special agent for almost 24 years, was legal counsel to the FBI Field Office in Minneapolis from 1990 to 2003. She came to national attention in June 2002, when she testified before Congress about serious lapses before 9/11 that helped account for the failure to prevent the attacks. She now writes and speaks on ethical decision-making and on balancing civil liberties with the need for effective investigation.

[BeFree]

5. Thanks again, Robert

You have done us all a great service. I can never thank you enough.
I just hope that someone who has real balls and power can do something with your information.

[SDuderstadt]

6. You forgot to mention...

that he retired from the FBI and founded the Soufan Group.

And what does the Soufan Group do?

http://www.soufangroup.com/

You're not telling the whole story, dude. Your penchant for sensationalizing things renders you unreliable. I'm also willing to bet you will wind up being disappointed by Soufan's book when it doesn't quite say what you want it to say.

P.S. How are your "book" sales coming?

[rschop]

7. re: You're not telling the whole story, dude. Your penchant for sensationalizing things renders you

Terrific, then you tell us the whole story, we are all waiting with bated breath. And tell everyone on this forum what facts you think I have wrong.

I will bet you cannot come up with anything, nothing at all, one big fat zero.

The problem is you don't know anything about what you are talking about, have never known about what you are talking about and are totally ignorant of this whole subject.

You don’t know a thing about this subject and your posts which have been totally devoid of even the slightest bit intelligent thought proves this.

Either show us and all of DU that you know even the slightest thing about this subject by pointing out the errors you think I have made, or forever keep your ignorant snarky posts to yourself!

As to your question, the Soufan Group is into international security services, and by the way I have been in contact with his company.

[SDuderstadt]

8. Yet you claimed that he "quit" the...

FBI in disgust, when the reality is that he retired and started the Soufan Group. Do you think he just did that spur of the moment, dude?

You also left other facts out again, dude. For example, the Soufan Group is not simply an "international security firm". Did you know that, among other things, they advise governmental entities on interrogation techniques?

The Soufan Group is proud to offer a unique suite of interrogation and interviewing courses that have rapidly earned the distinction as the premiere program on a global scale.

Our Evidence Based Intelligence Interview and Interrogation (EBI3) Method was meticulously developed by an international cadre of professionals with decades of first-hand experience as special agents, intelligence officers, counterintelligence specialists, and police officers and who have conducted literally thousands of interviews and interrogations.

Not quite the way you portrayed them, huh...

BTW, do you always repeat yourself when you write? Or, were you just losing your temper here? I'll wrap up with two points"

I don't remotely believe that you've been in touch with the Soufan Group. Frankly, I don't think they'd waste time on you. The other point will take slightly longer, but I predict that Soufan's book will not support your goofy claims.

Can we expect you to lose it again and fire off another duplicative post? In any event, we know one thing. Soufan's book will far outsell yours, dude.

[LARED]

9. Or maybe ....

the information we have from a number of credible sources is largey correct, and there is no celebration.

[noise]

10. What source?

Tenet and his watchlisting procedure failure? Corsi and the wall? Farmer and his bureaucratic inefficiency?

[spooked911]

17. credible sources?

like the CIA?

[zappaman]

18. credible sources?

like "the anonymous physicist"?

[LARED]

20. Like a number of authors and investigative journalists not to mention

Jamie S. Gorelick

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A20786-2004Apr17?language=printer

Authors off the top of my head; Lawrence Wright.

[noise]

21. Why is conjecture the standard for such an important issue?

Now, assuming that it wasn’t sheer ill will on the C.I.A.’s part, why would it withhold that information?

Well, there are various theories. One is that the C.I.A. simply wanted to hang on to the information for itself. The agency was afraid of disclosing something to the F.B.I. that would then come out in a trial. Once intelligence is made public, it’s no longer useful to the agency. There are people in the F.B.I. who believed that the C.I.A. had hoped to recruit, as informers, the two Al Qaeda cell members who arrived in America in 2000. It had nobody inside the Al Qaeda organization, and here were two members of the inner circle, in America. I think the most likely answer to your question is that the problem was a mix of personality clashes and the C.I.A. being overwhelmed by the number of threats that were coming in at that time.

http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2006/07/10/060710on_onlineonly01">Q&A with Lawrence Wright

Why haven't any agents involved in the withholding decision loop come forward to explain their conduct? Do they not believe they owe the public an explanation? Why didn't the 9/11 Commission get to the bottom of the withholding?

[LARED]

23. Why is the answer to this question of great importance to the

public?

And if it was answered honestly do you think it will pave the way to showing MIHOP OR LIHOP?

[noise]

25. This isn't about the 9/11 truth movement

The main concern is a credible explanation for CIA and FBI ITOS conduct. Why did CIA and FBI agents go out of their way to withhold information about al Qaeda operatives in a high threat period? Don't you want to know what they were doing? IMO every citizen in the country should want a valid explanation. Are the intelligence agencies accountable to the public?

The withholding was a very, very big deal as it contributed to a lot of people getting killed. That is why it is important.

[LARED]

27. ok

The main concern is a credible explanation for CIA and FBI ITOS conduct.

I think we have credible explanations. I know you believe they are not credible unless it comes directly from the horses mouth but I am satisfied. And I am quite sure when Soufan's book comes out it will again blame 'the wall'. And again you will be unhappy with the answer

Why did CIA and FBI agents go out of their way to withhold information about al Qaeda operatives in a high threat period?

Did they "go out of their way to withhold information"? Or was it just SOP at the time? To me it was SOP and no one was going out of their way to prevent the distribution of information


Don't you want to know what they were doing? IMO every citizen in the country should want a valid explanation.

I think we have a valid explanation.

Are the intelligence agencies accountable to the public?

There are not, they are accountable to congress, which is accountable to the people. You seriously can't be that naive to think the intelligence agencies are accountable in the same way other government institution should be.

The withholding was a very, very big deal as it contributed to a lot of people getting killed. That is why it is important.

The withholding as you call it was a common place way of business between agencies at the time. This particular piece of information turned out to a very very big deal,

[noise]

28. The wall excuse has been debunked

The watchlisting excuse has been debunked. The turf battle excuse has been debunked. The bureaucratic incompetence excuse has been debunked. Why should a citizen be content with lies?

[LARED]

31. None of those thing have happened. nt

[noise]

32. Ok

The wall excuse was debunked in this thread.

The watchlisting excuse is debunked by the fact that Doug Miller was ordered to withhold the information about al-Mihdhar's US visa. That isn't a watchlisting failure. That is an order to withhold information from the agency with jurisdiction.

The turf battle excuse is debunked by the fact that the withholding also took place in the same agency (i.e the FBI). Also debunked by the fact that the CIA shared the information. The so called turf battle did not prevent the sharing. The point of contention is the delay in sharing the information.

Bureaucratic incompetence is debunked by deliberate orders to withhold information and deliberate misrepresentation of a NSLU ruling (i.e. a false application of the wall).

Remember I am on the record seeking more information. We have been denied that information because of excessive government secrecy and awful mainstream media reporting.

[rschop]

33. re:Remember I am on the record seeking more information.

Remember I am on the record seeking more information. We have been denied that information because of excessive government secrecy and awful mainstream media reporting.

Noise, I have pieced back together virtually every known bit of information from every known report I could find about the attacks on 9/11. I think I can answer almost every question about these attacks.

Just ask me what you think is still missing.

I can tell you if I have found this information and answer your question, or if I have not yet been able to find this bit of information. I believe at this point virtually every bit of information on 9/11 is now in the public domain.

[noise]

34. What is missing is the reason for all the bizarre conduct

Why weren't UBLU officials worried about the consequences of obstructing the Cole investigation and the search for two al Qaeda operatives linked to the Cole attack and previous al Qaeda attacks? Why would they want to put themselves in the same legal jeopardy as CIA personnel and in the process risk a massive terrorist attack? IMO the Cole cover-up explanation doesn't make sense.

[rschop]

35. re: What is missing is the reason for all the bizarre conduct

This was just one aspect of their bizarre conduct. How about the out and out lies to the Joint Inquiry Committee and to the 9/11 Commissioners at the public hearings lies that were obvious at the very time they were told in these hearings.

Cofer Black said the CIA had given the FBI all of the information they had from day one. But the Joint Inquiry Committee found out quickly that was nothing but a complete lie.

George Tenet said, at the 9/11 Commission public hearings on April 14, 2004, even when he knew a huge al Qaeda attack was just about to take place inside of the US in August 2001, and knew these attacks would kill thousands of Americans he did not tell the President this in August 2001 since he had not talked to the President in all of August. Tenet said that the President was in Crawford and he was in Washington DC, and that was the reason he had not talked to the President. When Tim Roemer asked him why he did not pick up the telephone and call him, Tenet said he had not picked up the phone and call the President and said he could not go beyond that as his explanation.

When Tenet was asked why he did not tell the other Principles at the very first Principles meeting on the al Qaeda terrorists on September 4, 2001 in the White House, when he knew that this al Qaeda attack was just about to take place, he said for what reason it was not appropriate. It seems it was more appropriate to allow the al Qaeda terrorists to kill thousands of Americans than bring up this imminent al Qaeda attack at this meeting and what could be done to save all of these people just about to be murdered by these terrorists. Incredibly Tenet, Rice, Clarke, Ashcroft and Rumsfeld already knew about this huge al Qaeda attack at this meeting, so at least 5 people at this meeting already knew that thousands of Americans were just about to die in this attack. What is almost beyond belief is that this was the very first Principles meeting held in the White House about the al Qaeda terrorists.

It is clear that all of these people who were involved were acting with impunity, and clearly aware that they would face no negative consequents by allowing these attacks to take place. In fact after the al Qaeda attacks, many were promoted and many were given big cash bonuses. Corsi was acting under the direction of Middleton and Wilshire, and Middleton himself was in fact working for Wilshire. Wilshire even though he had been moved to be the Deputy Chief of the FBI ITOS unit was still clearly working under orders from very high level CIA managers, Blee, Black and Tenet. The responses to his emails on July 5, 2001, July 13, 2001, and July 23, 2001 clearly demonstrate this.

When Tenet flew out to Crawford to have 6 hour meeting with President Bush on August 24, 2001 he knew Mihdhar and Hazmi were inside of the US, knew these terrorists were inside of the US in order to take part in a massive al Qaeda attack that would kill thousands of Americans, and even knew by August 23, 2001 that Moussaoui had been arrested by the INS at the behest of the Minneapolis FBI. So the big question is what did Tenet tell the President at this meeting. Since Tenet out and out lied at the April 14, 2004 9/11 Commission hearings, and said he had not talked to the President in August, this cut off any further questions on what did he tell the President and what did the President tell Tenet about sharing this information with the FBI. When the question was cut off by Tenets’ absurd answer, we still don’t know what he had told the President in August about this attack.

But it is clear the many people that had deliberately allowed the al Qaeda terrorists to carry out the attacks on 9/11 were clearly acting under orders that must have come from people very high in the countries chain of command, and knew whatever they did, they would be protected by these very high level people. That is the only thing that makes even the slightest bit of sense.

[noise]

36. One theory

Look the other way deniability. We could have had high level orders to back off Saudi links to al Qaeda and then feigned surprise by the very same high level officials after 9/11.

Scheuer said that "Before 9/11 the Saudis were the enemy, they protected Bin Laden." Yet we have been told (by our government and the Saudis) for years that Bin Laden was the black sheep and was forced to leave Saudi Arabia and had his citizenship revoked for seeking to overthrow the royal family.

After Words: Steve Coll interviewed by Michael Scheuer

[rschop]

37. re: One theory

How does that explain FBI Agent Dina Corsi and her boss Rod Middleton illegally shutting down Bongardt’s investigation of Mihdhar and Hazmi?

[noise]

38. Here is an example

The suspected terrorist cell in Chicago was the basis of the investigation, yet Wright, who remains with the FBI, says he soon discovered that all the FBI intelligence division wanted him to do was to follow suspected terrorists and file reports — but make no arrests.

"The supervisor who was there from headquarters was right straight across from me and started yelling at me: 'You will not open criminal investigations. I forbid any of you. You will not open criminal investigations against any of these intelligence subjects,'" Wright said.

Even though they were on a terrorism task force and said they had proof of criminal activity, Wright said he was told not to pursue the matter.

In 1998 al Qaeda terrorists bombed two American embassies in Africa. The agents say some of the money for the attacks led back to the people they had been tracking in Chicago and to a powerful Saudi Arabian businessman, Yassin al-Kadi. Al-Kadi is one of 12 Saudi businessmen suspected of funneling millions of dollars to al Qaeda and who had extensive business and financial ties in Chicago.

Yet, even after the bombings, Wright said FBI headquarters wanted no arrests.

"Two months after the embassies are hit in Africa, they wanted to shut down the criminal investigation," said Wright. "They wanted to kill it."

Explanation for such conduct:

"There were powers bigger than I was in the Justice Department and within the FBI that simply were not going to let it happen. And it didn't happen, " Flessner said.

He said he still couldn't figure out why Washington stopped the case — whether it was Saudi influence or bureaucratic ineptitude.

FBI Called off Terror Investigations

Same MO as the Cole obstruction.

[rschop]

24. re: Why is conjecture the standard for such an important issue?

With all due respect, Wright never found why they CIA withheld this information from the FBI Cole bombing investigators. He relied mainly on interviews of FBI agents who also were in the dark.

Now, assuming that it wasn’t sheer ill will on the C.I.A.’s part, why would it withhold that information?

Well, there are various theories. One is that the C.I.A. simply wanted to hang on to the information for itself. The agency was afraid of disclosing something to the F.B.I. that would then come out in a trial. Once intelligence is made public, it’s no longer useful to the agency. There are people in the F.B.I. who believed that the C.I.A. had hoped to recruit, as informers, the two Al Qaeda cell members who arrived in America in 2000. It had nobody inside the Al Qaeda organization, and here were two members of the inner circle, in America. I think the most likely answer to your question is that the problem was a mix of personality clashes and the C.I.A. being overwhelmed by the number of threats that were coming in at that time.

Q&A with Lawrence Wright

In all of the reports on 9/11 spanning several thousand pages of information I have found not even one piece of information backing up any of these theories. There were only three know al Qaeda terrorists inside of the US known to the CIA prior to 9/11, Zacarias Moussaoui, Khalid al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi, and by August 16 Moussaoui had already been arrested by the INS at the behest of the Minneapolis FBI. It is hard to image how providing information on just two known al Qaeda terrorists inside of the US to the FBI would overwhelm the CIA with over 20,000 employees. Maybe someone can explain this.

In point of fact the CIA did provide this information to FBI HQ, to both FBI Agent Dina Corsi and to her boss, Rod Middleton. Corsi and Middleton never provided this information, that Mihdhar and Hazmi had been involved in the planning of the Cole bombing, to the FBI Cole bombing investigators, who desperately wanted to search for these al Qaeda terrorists before these terrorists had time to carry out yet another al Qaeda terrorists attack. The FBI Cole bombing investigators were told by Middleton and Corsi, that since these al Qaeda terrorists had engaged in no crime, and the information in Corsi’s EC to start any investigation for Mihdhar and Hazmi had come from the NSA, they were forbidden to take part in any investigation for Mihdhar and Hazmi. But Corsi had in fact been given permission by the NSA the day before she shut down the FBI criminal investigation of Mihdhar and Hazmi, so she had absolutely no legal right to shut down this investigation.

But both Corsi and Middleton, and Tom Wilshire, the former deputy chief of the CIA Bin Laden unit and the deputy chief of their FBI ITOS unit who was actually directing their actions and the even entire hierarchy of the CIA were aware of this information and were even aware that Mihdhar and Hazmi were inside of the US only in order to take part in a massive al Qaeda attack that would kill thousands of Americans. They therefore knew when they allowed Corsi, Middleton and Wilshire to shut down the FBI criminal investigation of Mihdhar and Hazmi, that thousands of Americans would perish as a direct result of their actions.

But all of the information on why the CIA and FBI HQ had withheld this information from the FBI Cole bombing investigators ultimately ended up in the DOJ IG report and the other reports on the events on 9/11. When these reports were all aggregated together with other information, the account of Soufan, the 9/11 Commission report, the Joint Inquiry report, the account of the White House meeting on July 10, 2001 between Rice Clarke, and Blee, Black, and Tenet, in Bob Woodward’s book State of Denial, the January 2007 article in Harpers on Richard Blee, and the Defense Exhibits in the Moussaoui trial it was possible to piece this entire account back together again.

Why didn't the 9/11 Commission get to the bottom of the withholding?

The 9/11 Commission had all of the exact same documents that I had, even all of the DOJ IG transcripts of the interviews from the very CIA officers and FBI HQ agents that had taken part in withholding critical information from the FBI Cole bombing investigators and then illegally shut down their investigation of Mihdhar and Hazmi. So they could have provided a complete account of 9/11 and never did. Since they had all of the necessary information it looks like they clearly were actually chartered to cover over the crimes at the CIA and FBI HQ that had allowed the al Qaeda terrorists to carry out the attacks on 9/11. By comparing the information that is now known on 9/11 with what the 9/11 Commission reported, in is clear that the 9/11 Commission was nothing but a giant cover up, a complete fraud on the American people, to hide the crimes at the CIA and FBI that had allowed the attacks on 9/11.

[noise]

26. My posting of Wright's Q & A reply

was in response to the notion that the issue has been fully examined by credible authorities. You are right that Wright's explanation doesn't make sense.

From reading your posts it appears you are convinced that the withholding was intended to allow the terrorist plot to go forward. Hence a criminal conspiracy on the part of people at the CIA and FBI. IMO that is a possible explanation but isn't a given. For one thing the lack of concealment is hard to understand. For example if Alec Station was worried about the Cole team finding out then why have Gillespie review Kuala Lumpur related records?

[rschop]

29. re: From reading your posts it appears you are convinced that the withholding was intended to allow

From reading your posts it appears you are convinced that the withholding was intended to allow the terrorist plot to go forward.

No, not at first, the withholding was done to hide the CIA culpability in the Cole bombings. The CIA had photographed everyone at the Kuala Lumpur al Qaeda planning meeting and then let them walk away to carry out the Cole bombing. The CIA was desperately trying to hide this fact. Why Tom Wilshire blocked FBI Agent Doug Miller's CIR on Mihdhar and his multi-entry visa for the US from going to the FBI on January 5, 2000 is still a mystery to me. It appears that the CIA just did not want this name to ever get to the FBI for some as of yet unknown reason. This was 10 months prior to the Cole bombing.

To hide the Kuala Lumpur meeting, the CIA along with FBI HQ units they had subjugated, in particular the Bin laden unit at FBI HQ, had criminally obstructed the FBI criminal investigation by the FBI Cole bombing investigators numerous times.

Then the CIA realized that to hide this criminal obstruction they had to continue to hide the information that Khalid al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi had been at the Kuala Lumpur meetings with Walid Bin Attash, the mastermind of the Cole bombing actually planning this attack.

When Mihdhar and Hazmi were found to be inside of the US on August 22, 2001, this criminal conspiracy continued, although at the time, Wilshire, the entire CIA management and many managers at the FBI HQ also knew that Mihdhar and Hazmi were inside of the US only in order to take part in a massive al Qaeda attack that would kill thousands of Americans.

When these high level CIA and FBI managers allowed Corsi and Middleton to shut down Bongardt’s investigation of Mihdhar and Hazmi they all had to know that the direct result of their actions would be to allow the al Qaeda terrorists to murder thousands of Americans in the massive al Qaeda attack they had been warned about since April 2001.

Gillespie was never part of this inner circle of this conspiracy. Wilshire had asked Alec station management when he was moved over to the FBI ITOS to spy on Bongardt and his team, to get a low level IOS agent up to speed on the Kuala Lumpur meeting, apparently so he had someone he could use as a source into the CIA and their cable data base when he needed it. The CIA assigned this to Gillespie on July 13, 2001. When she discovered the cable on August 21, 2001, that said Hazmi had entered the US on January 2000, she immediately took this to the INS who said that both Mihdhar and Hazmi were inside of the US. She had already discovered a cable on July 24, 2001 that was FBI Agent Doug Miller's CIR to be sent to the FBI on Mihdhar’s passport and multi-entry visa for the US, that had written on the bottom, "Please hold off for now", Deputy Chief of the Bin laden unit, Tom Wilshire, and then found the cable by “Michelle” Wilshire’s CIA desk officer, that said that this information had been sent to the FBI when it had not.

Since Corsi and Wilshire immediately realized that Gillespie, who apparently had never been warned to keep any information on Mihdhar and Hazmi secret from anyone outside of the CIA, had for the very first time allowed this information to go outside of the CIA and Alec station, they also realized that they were now forced to start an investigation for Mihdhar and Hazmi. But they also realized that if Bongardt ever started this investigation for Mihdhar and Hazmi and then found the photo of Walid Bin Attash at Kuala Lumpur he would have immediately known that the CIA and FBI HQ had criminally withheld this information from him and his team numerous times, and many people at both the COIA and FBI HQ would have gone to prison for years.

To prevent this they decided to start an intelligence investigation for Midhar and Hazmi knowing that the OIPR would never allow a parallel criminal investigation for these terrorists at the same time. On August 22, 2001, Corsi called Craig Donnache and said it was urgent that he immediately start an intelligence investigation for Mihdhar and Hazmi, which he did on August 28, 2001. When Donnachie told Corsi he was going to start an intelligence investigation for Mihdhar and Hazmi Corsi emailed Wilshire immediately and said, “Craig will open an intelligence investigation for Mihdhar”.

When Bongardt accidentally got Corsi’s EC to start this investigation for Mihdhar and Hazmi on August 28, 2001, he called Corsi who said that it was illegal for him and his team to even look at her EC since it had information from a NSA cable, the December 1999 cable that said Khalid, and Nawaf were traveling to an important al Qaeda planning meeting in Kuala Lumpur. What she did not tell Bongardt was that she had already gotten the NSA release in writing to give this exact information to Bongardt just the day before. She also never told Bongardt that she already knew the CIA had a photograph of Bin Attash at the Kuala Lumpur meeting, knew that this directly connected both Mihdhar and Hazmi to the planning of the Cole bombing, and even knew that the CIA had been keeping this hidden for Bongardt and his team so Bongardt would never have enough information to start any investigation for Mihdhar and Hazmi.

When this investigation was given to Robert Fuller an intelligence agent at the New York office, he as so inexperienced that he could not find any information in the FBI data base, “Choicepoint” on Mihdhar or Hazmi when it was actually there. When he called Corsi on September 5, 2001 to get her permission to get Mihdhar’s credit card number from Saudi Arabian Airlines so he could continue with his search for any information on Mihdhar and Hazmi in the FBI data base, she refused to give him permission to call Saudi Arabian Airlines, clearly aware that this would make his investigation for Mihdhar fail, which it did.

Almost 3000 people paid with their lives for this monumental treachery by these very high level managers at both the CIA and FBI HQ.

[noise]

22. The 9/11 Commission investigation

FBI General Counsel Larry Parkinson on the sharing issue:

Parkinson was asked about the internal walls in Summer 2001. He was not personally involved in any advice regarding the search for Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Mihdhar. During that time he had lots of discussions with Sherry Sabol and Tom Ainora regarding the lack of resources and sloppiness in FISA applications but none regarding the circumstances of the search effort. When told that Dina Corsi alleged that NSLU had told her that no criminal agents could be involved in the search for the two men and none could participate in any interview if they were found, Parkinson said he would be shocked if anyone in NSLU gave such advice. He said there would have been no problem with a criminal agent hopping in on the search or participating in the interview. There was no FISA on these individuals so no internal walls would have been applicable.

Larry Parkinson 9/11 Commission MFR

From chapter 8, footnote 81 in the 9/11 Commission report:

The NSLU attorney denies advising that the agent could not participate in an interview and notes that she would not have given such inaccurate advice.The attorney told investigators that the NSA caveats would not have precluded criminal agents from joining in any search for Mihdhar or from participating in any interview. Moreover, she said that she could have gone to the NSA and obtained a waiver of any such caveat because there was no FISA information involved in this case.There are no records of the conversation between “Jane” and the attorney. “Jane” did not copy the attorney on her email to the agent, so the attorney did not have an opportunity to confirm or reject the advice “Jane”was giving to the agent. DOJ Inspector General interview of Sherry S.,Nov. 7, 2002.

9/11 Commission report footnotes

What confusion about the wall? Clearly the wall was used as a bullshit excuse to withhold information about al-Hazmi and al-Midhhar. Why?

[k-robjoe]

13. Wesley Clark

Old news, but I never saw this until today. This is Wesley Clark saying this :

"We've never completed the investigation of 9/11 and whether the administration actually misused the intelligence information it had - the evidence seems pretty clear to me, I've seen that for a long time."

http://securingamerica.com/node/692

[noise]

16. A description has been added to the WW Norton website

A book that will change the way we think about al-Qaeda, intelligence, and the events that forever changed America.

On September 11, 2001, FBI Special Agent Ali H. Soufan was handed a secret file. Had he received it months earlier—when it was requested—the attacks on New York and Washington could have been prevented. During his time on the front lines, Soufan helped thwart plots around the world and elicited some of the most important confessions from terrorists in the war against al-Qaeda—without laying so much as a hand on them. Most of these stories have never been reported before, and never by anyone with such intimate firsthand knowledge.

This narrative account of America's successes and failures against al-Qaeda is essential to an understanding of the terrorist group. We are taken into hideouts and interrogation rooms. We have a ringside seat at bin Laden's personal celebration of the 9/11 bombings. Such riveting details show us not only how terrorists think and operate but also how they can be beaten and brought to justice.

[SDuderstadt]

19. 2 predictions

1) Soufan will state that there was no willful or deliberate "inside job" - that is, neither MIHOP or LIHOP - as is often claimed here.

2) Soufan will also pin the blame solely where it belongs - on bin Laden and al Qaeda.

When this happens, watch the "9/11 was an inside job" brigade go after Soufan with a vengeance.