US air traffic authority had multiple Bin Laden hijack warnings before 9/11
Patrick Martin
https://www.wsws.org/articles/2005/feb2005/faa-f11.shtml.excerpt:
It is worth recalling once again the extraordinary exchange during a hearing of the 9/11 commission between commissioner Bob Kerrey—a right-wing former Democratic senator and supporter of the war in Iraq—and former CIA and State Department counterterrorism official Cofer Black.
Kerrey: Let me ask you one last question: How in God’s name did this thing happen? I’ve got to tell you, I hear battle stations and everything we’re doing, and at our airports we were at ease. We were stacked arms. We were not prepared for a hijacking. And you may say, “Well, we didn’t know all the conspiracy”—a hijacking surprised us. That’s what Betty Ong said, when we heard her voice, that the government and the FAA—none of us were prepared for even a simple hijacking. How in God’s name did that happen?
Black: Am I meant to answer that, sir?
Kerrey: Yes. If you can. If you can’t, fine. I mean, I’m not sure I could.
Kerrey uses the term “stacked arms,” referring to a deliberate refusal to fight. Far more plausible than the administration’s claim that the attacks came as a complete surprise is that some form of stand-down was imposed on the intelligence and security services, knowing that a terrorist attack within the United States was imminent. The Bush White House wanted to use such an incident as the pretext for the long-planned campaign of military action in the Middle East that has unfolded over the last four years. (It is, of course, not necessary to suppose that those who permitted the attack knew exactly what its scale would be, nor the colossal cost in human lives.)
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