Thompson’s Timeline (my 9/11 research)

[paulthompson]

There's a long article about my 9/11 research that came out today in CityBeat, one of San Diego's two alternative weeklies. They got a few facts wrong (a phone call from Osama bin Laden took place on Sept. 9, 2001 and was reported on after 9/11, it wasn't reported in the newspapers on that date) and toned things down a lot, but otherwise it's pretty decent.


Thompson’s Timeline

Pacific Beach author takes aim at 9/11 and the government stupor that colored it

http://www.sdcitybeat.com/article.php?id=3462

A few snippets:

Thompson doesn’t stop there. Last month, he testified at a congressional briefing on the 9/11 Commission’s final report, the supposedly definitive account of the events leading up to the attacks. The latter assembly, formally called the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, said it sought political neutrality in its compilation of the document—but Thompson contends that the report is a wholly bipartisan effort, greatly sanitized amid the 10 commissioners’ political affiliations.

“You’re not going to find anything really critical of anybody in that report,” Thompson told CityBeat. “If the Republicans criticize the Democrats or , somebody’s going to cut it out.”

Those kinds of omissions, Thompson said, color just about everything remotely tied to one of the most heinous acts in the history of civilization. Unheeded heads-ups from the Federal Aviation Administration; apathy on the part of the FBI, the media and the National Security Agency; admonitions from the likes of former CIA director George Tenet and White House terrorism ex-advisor Richard Clarke: Thompson’s book chronicles an avalanche of events that weigh into alleged governmental dereliction.

[sabra]

1. thank you for all your work!

:yourock:

[SpiralHawk]

2. Mega kudoes, PT

Thanks so much for your timeline.

Everyone should study it.

[Old and In the Way]

3. You are the source, Paul.

Thanks for the great work.

[seemslikeadream]

4. the government stupor that colored it

:yourock:

[Rude Horner]

5. Is this THE Paul Thompson? Really?

Wow, I just posted about your book, "Timeline of Terror" on another thread on DU an hour or so ago.

I truly found your work to be amazing. Thank you so much for putting it together.

[leftchick]

9. indeed it is

isn't Paul the best? :)

[paulthompson]

18. Yep, that's me (blush)

Out of curiosity, what did you say about my book on the other thread? Good things, I hope! ;)

[pauldavid]

6. I just moved to PB

in Feb. Nice work.

[leQ]

7. hey paul, you rock bud.

i'll have to see about getting one of your books.

[Pastiche423]

8. Congrats, Paul!

Saw you in the DVD, Confronting the Evidence: A call to Reopen the 9/11 Investigation.

You were great!

[Gabi Hayes]

10. one of the true citizen patriots: Cindy, Paul, Marty Heldt....who else?

Bev Harris?

hahahahahah....joke, folks, on that last

I put up Denis Wright and his cohorts for the fine reporting they did on Lori Klausutis, which was, of course, ignored by everybody, save Larry Flynt

[autorank]

11. Thank youi & love your book--it's a must for everyone.

[Al-CIAda]

12. Thank you Paul Thompson. I donated

to Cooperative Research after I made my DU donation.

http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/index.jsp

And I hope others can and do too, as the site is an invauable source of information.

[paulthompson]

23. Thanks a lot for the donation!

:)

[bpilgrim]

13. good to see your work getting more coverage - a question or 2

"9/11 was truly a failure, all right," she said, "but I would certainly not call it a failure of imagination."

Neither would Thompson. He speculates about America’s air-defense readiness on the morning of the attacks in light of a series of war games conducted by the U.S. North American Air Defense Command. Under the direction of Vice President Dick Cheney’s office, these maneuvers were allegedly being carried out over areas as far-flung as Greenland and Iceland, leaving the country vulnerable to hostilities over its northeast corridor.

i have read a quote - copvcia - where a general said those exersizes allowed us to respond even sooner since we had jets in the air even in the NE but this seems to brush that off as if that explains SOP failure.

i am curious to hear your opinions about the collapses, especially wtc7, or is there any serious documentation on these events that explains how they came down that you can point me to that satisfys you?

there are still many unanswered questions about that day and how the evidence was disposed of so no proper investigation could be done which continues to make me very suspicious of this administration an the horrid events of that day.

i get the impression from this article though that you see this as incompetince at worse. I know you have probably more details in your head than anyone i know and would appreciate very much any elaboration you can make on your conclusions/suspicions at this point.

thanks again for everything you have done paul to help keep us all better informed. :toast:

peace

[petgoat]

36. Thanks, Paul, for your great work

bpilgrim re: WTC7 one of the strangest things to me is that though
FEMA claims there was a ten-story hole scooped out of the south side,
and draws a picture of a honking big cave and paints the WTC7 collapse
as inevitable, and if memory serves has the testimony of three
high-ranking FDNY guys to the damage, the earlier FEMA report says
nothing about any structural damage and considers the collapse a
mystery.

(Somebody please correct me if I'm wrong here.)

(I hope my ravings don't get this thread exiled to the 9/11 Forum.)

[robertpaulsen]

14. Fantastic work, Paul! I had a question about Hani Hanjour.

I read your thread in the 9/11 Forum about the picture the government claimed was Hani Hanjour in the airport before boarding Flight 77 did not match with the Hani Hanjour we've all seen on TV. Do you have any updates on that, have any specialists been able to verify that it's not the same person? Seems obvious to me.

[paulthompson]

16. Re: Hani Hanjour

The question is, is this guy going through the airport in Washington DC Hani Hanjour, as the FBI claims:



Given that these are other pictures of Hanjour?





In my opinion, its a different person. The hairline is different, Hanjour's body is supposed to be thin and waif-like, but this guy is bulky, etc... The bottom picture was taken exactly one week before the airport picture. That's not much time to grow a beard and put on that much weight.

The one new development is the realization that the FBI originally placed another hijacker on Flight 77 instead of Hani Hanjour. His name is phoentically spelled Mosear Caned. Here's a thread about it:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=125&topic_id=42650

Perhaps this original determination was correct.

[bpilgrim]

17. who were the hijackers

and are some still alive?

since the feds published their names so rapidly, of course we know them, in the system somewhere, not to mention the help/clue trail they left along the way - i'm surprised we haven't heard of a msg from them, too, jic we need more help...

paul, did you read RUPPERT's book and do you agree with him on 911 being an inside job or incompetence?

also, what do you make of this 'able danger' op the RW is screaming - and borrowing some of the 'lefts' lines against bush - hollering over saying clinton was warned, his firewalls BLOCKED the FBI being alerted to Atta's presence, blah, blah, blah... is that just another sign of their desperation? will it serve as an effective distraction? whats your take on that whole thing?

tia :toast:

peace

[SpiralHawk]

19. Good questions. This thread deserves to remain on the busier pages

rather than being relegated to the 9/11 forum. 9/11 remains central to everything. The actual facts are worthy of our attention.

[bpilgrim]

20. Officer Says Military Blocked Sharing of Files on Terrorists -NYT

A military intelligence team repeatedly contacted the F.B.I. in 2000 to warn about the existence of an American-based terrorist cell that included the ringleader of the Sept. 11 attacks, according to a veteran Army intelligence officer who said he had now decided to risk his career by discussing the information publicly.....

Colonel Shaffer said in an interview that the small, highly classified intelligence program known as Able Danger had identified the terrorist ringleader, Mohammed Atta, as well as three other future hijackers by name by mid-2000, and tried to arrange a meeting that summer with agents of the Washington field office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation to share its information.
....
Colonel Shaffer said that his role in Able Danger was as liaison with the Defense Intelligence Agency in Washington, and that he was not an intelligence analyst. The interview with Colonel Shaffer on Monday night was arranged for The New York Times and Fox News by Representative Curt Weldon, the Pennsylvania Republican who is vice chairman of the House Armed Services Committee and a champion of data-mining programs like Able Danger.
....
Colonel Shaffer said that he had provided information about Able Danger and its identification of Mr. Atta in a private meeting in October 2003 with members of the Sept. 11 commission staff when they visited Afghanistan, where he was then serving. Commission members have disputed that, saying that they do not recall hearing Mr. Atta's name during the briefing and that the name did not appear in documents about Able Danger that were later turned over by the Pentagon.

http://nytimes.com/2005/08/17/politics/17intel.html?hp&ex=1124251200&en=55bd2891c82760c6&ei=5094&partner=homepage

discuss...
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=1706537&mesg_id=1706537

so many questions... i am glad this has been left in GD so more folks see it and respond :hi:

peace

[paulthompson]

22. hijackers

I know of 9 hijackers that were known to US intelligence before 9/11. That's a lot. There's more info along those lines still classified, I'm sure.

Re: inside job or incompetence, I don't see that as a simple one or th other question. For instance, it could be both (the more imcompetence, the easier to pull off LIHOP or MIHOP), or somewhere inbetween. For instance, suppose they purposely don't want to know, don't do anything to fight terrorism, and they know that with that position sooner or later a terror attack will occur which will give them their excuse for a war in Iraq and so on. I don't know the answer for sure, but any of the options, even pure impeachment, should result in impeachment.

Re: Able Danger, that definitely looks legit to me. But it has nothing to do with Clinton, certainly the information never got anywhere near his level. And the "firewall" excuse is pure BS. The supposed story is that the Able Danger team couldn't tell what they knew to the FBI because the hijackers had Green Cards, but the hijackers didn't have Green Cards, and even if they did there's no way that would have stopped anyone from sharing information! If that was the excuse given to the Able Danger team at the time, it was a pure BS excuse to hide other motives.

[leftchick]

28. I agree with the combination of incompetence/LIHOP/MIHOP

All the had to really do is sit back and let happen what they had started and,I believe, they were shocked at the magnitude of the event.

Thanks again Paul. :)

[bpilgrim]

31. thanks paul

i agree that there is certainly incompetence and that could have been deliberate to further enable LIHOP/MIHOP. I also am of the same opinion, not SURE what happened, and still have a lot of unanswered questions and still very suspicious. these fools certainly need to be impeached on incompetence alone.

Thanks for your thoughts on Able Danger as well... I hope this plays to our advantage and serves to push for further investigations into why folks were blocking investigations into these people and who they were who were doing the blocking.

:toast:

peace

[Kevin Fenton]

33. Various

9 hijackers known to US intelligence? Atta, Alshehhi, Almidhar and Nawaf Alhazmi, that's obvious. Are you counting Salem Alhazmi (or rather the person who stole his identity) because of the Malaysia meeting? Are you counting HH because of the Pheonix memo? Who are the other three?

Regarding the government (or elements of it) allowing an attack to go forward so they could manipulate it to their own ends, one thing that struck me in relation to the London bombings. Beforehand, there were lots off warnings from the Met that London would be a target and a bomber would get through sooner or later. It appears that several plots were thwarted before the 7th July one was succesful, but whenever the govt. announced MI5/special branch/whoever had rounded up a cell and stopped London being bombed, the public/media reaction was very cynical along the lines of, "You're making/bigging it up to intimidate us and push your own agenda." I guess the reaction was because the plots seem to have been stopped in their infancy, and there wasn't much newsworthy evidence presented. I'm sure it would be more dramatic if a plot were stopped in its later stages.

Able Danger
I doubt the hijackers had green cards too - why would they have needed visas on top of them? Surely a foreign national who has a green card doesn't need a visa as well. I guess (1) somebody somewhere along the chain might have been explaining they were US persons for legal purposes and said it was akin to having a green card or that they were eligible for a green card or something like that and then it got distorted as it went down the chain, or (2) somebody at the DoD didn't want AD to hand off officially to the FBI, but to some Other Government Agency unofficially, or perhaps they even wanted to kill the investigation entirely.

The "they had a green card/were US persons so they couldn't be investigated anyway" argument seems to be a pile of steaming crap, as there is an exception to the ban on passing on information for counterintelligence and counterterrorism anyway. See here, for example: http://www.homelandsecurityus.com/abledanger.asp

However, maybe the lawyers were jittery and risk averse. In which case I'd expect the investigation to be killed officially, but for somebody at the DoD to have a word with a friend/acquaintance at some Other Government Agency, who would then take up the case seemingly independently. Which Other Government Agency might it have been?

btw, have you read "The Interrogator's War" by Chris Mackey yet?

[paulthompson]

38. 9 hijackers

I count Salem Alhazmi who was clearly indentified and even recognized as Nawaf's brother as far back as around the time of the Malaysia meeting according to numerous articles.

Two more come from this entry:

Spring 2001: U.S. Customs Investigate Two Hijackers Before 9/11
A U.S. Customs Service investigation finds evidence that Nabil al-Marabh has funneled money to hijackers Ahmed Alghamdi and Satam Al Suqami. (COX NEWS SERVICE, 10/16/01; ABC NEWS, 1/31/02) By summer, Customs also uncovers a series of financial transactions between al-Marabh and al-Qaeda agent Raed Hijazi. (NEW YORK TIMES, 9/21/01; ASSOCIATED PRESS, 11/17/01)

Then there's Ziad Jarrah. The CIA told officials at the Dubai airport to stop him and interrogate him. I need to beef up that entry - it is clear from Dubai officials' accounts that the CIA knew he was just coming from Afghanistan and this was no routine security check.

The last one is a bit dubious: Hani Hanjour. That is based on the account of FBI informant Aukai Collins who said he informed on Hanjour when both were living in Phoenix. The FBI has admitted Collins was an informant in the time period in question, but there's no way to prove Collins' claims.

I don't think Atta wasn't tracked down because lawyers were "risk adverse" or something like that. Rather, I suspect he and the other hijackers were being protected by some agency or sub-agency within the US government for some reason. A good example of this would be the "blind sheikh," Sheikh Omar Abdul-Rahman in the early 1990's. He was recruiting Muslim extremists to go fight in Bosnia in that time period, so the CIA let him live in the US even though he was on a no-fly watch list and was a wanted terrorist frequently and publicly calling for the destruction of the US. As soon as he arrived he started terrorist plot intrigues that resulted in the 1993 WTC bombing amongst other things, but investigations into him were always stifled until finally people were killed. He was eventually sentenced to hundreds of years in prison. We see a lot of this kind of thing surrounding 9/11, for instance FBI agent Robert Wright being told to "let sleeping dogs lie" in his investigation into al-Qaeda financing. Certain things were being protected.

The question in my mind is, why were Atta et al being protected, and by who?

I don't know anything about the Mackey book. What's it about?

[Kevin Fenton]

39. Protected or investigated?

Thanks for the nine hijackers.

If Team Atta were already being investigated by another agency (the CIA or the DEA, say), wouldn't they be keen on getting rid of Able Danger and not bringing the FBI into the loop? This is one explanation for what happened.

If they were being maniuplated by another agency or allowed to do what that agency wanted, then the million-dollar question is what did the agency think they were doing? If the underground railroad was originally set up to train radical Islamist fighters where their interests coincided with those of the US government and they came in on this underground railroad, then what might such mission have been? To cause trouble in Russia or China? to assassinate somebody?
One thing that struck me reading Ghost Wars by Steve Coll is that he keeps going on about how the team the US put together to assassinate bin Laden in Afghanistan never really came up with a good plan and didn't have the trust of the US (outside the CIA) because they were aging and not US-trained. I guess that means somebody wanted to train a younger team in the US to off Osama, but whether this is what the CIA was doing with Team Atta I don't know and I wouldn't wager any significant amount on it.

On another point entirely, "The match is about to begin." Why match? I understand match to be game, but if the word meant game, as in the sense of a game of football or cricket, then surely an American would translate the Arabic word as "game", rather than match. So why game? Barbara Honegger says it's because the attacks were to match with the exercises. However, when I consult my Concise Oxford dictionary as to the meaning of "match" the third definition, and I kid you not, is "a wedding". Did they really say wedding and somebody mistranslated it?

Mackey (not his real name) worked at and then ran interrogation facilities at Kandahar and then Bagram for the US army during the war in Afghanistan. Generally the CIA didn't let him have any interesting prisoners, although at one point he gets to interrogate a prisoner who seems to have been head of Al Qaeda in Arizona in the run up to 9/11 (but he botches the interrogation) and another interrogator deals with a doctor who was building chemical weapons for bin Laden (but the CIA come in and botches his questionning totally). In fact, by the end of the book Mackey can't stand the CIA so much that when he persuades one of the AQ members (just a kid really) in his custody to become a western intelligence asset (using a copy of American Pie and a suitably attired blond interrogator), he hands him over to a foreign intelligence service (presumably MI6), instead of them. There's also some other stuff about how Al Qaeda expanded by taking over the other groups' camps in Afghanistan and low-level stuff about how they operated there. Plus the gradually increase in the use of stress positions, etc.

[StrafingMoose]

42. From what you know...

Did Rahman have a green card? I remember this interview with Gulbudin Hekmatyar who was asked who should be blamed for WTC '93, he answered candidly "The guy who gave him is green card".

[Kevin Fenton]

43. Don't think so

I think he was able to remain in the US because he applied for asylum or something. Actually, he was persona non grata in Egypt so he might actually have had a good case for asylum. I think I remember that PT said somewhere that Rahman was recruiting for Islamist causes of which the US approved, so the CIA allowed him to stay and carry on his activities, at least until he tried to blow up WTC 1.

[StrafingMoose]

44. Yes, he (Rahman) was probably recruiting assets for the KLA.

[frictionlessO]

15. You deserve much more recognition than you get Paul.

Thank you for your dedication, it is more than noteworthy it is something to strive for.

[Al-CIAda]

21. .

[Nothing Without Hope]

24. Of all the heinous Bush scandals, this is the one that if exposed would

bring them all down, no question.

Recommended. I hope this isn't banished to the 9/11 forum, though there should be a cross-post there to alert people of this thread.

[psychopomp]

25. Kudos on the article

Your site is a fantastic resource and concertizes the best hopes for the world wide web. Solid information that can be dynamically referenced...really an outstanding job.

I hope the book is doing well! :toast:

[yowzayowzayowza]

26. Overdue recognition!!!!

:kick:

[Stockholm]

27. Looking forward to reading your book!

Excellent ending - Kudos Mr. Westlin

"But to a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. The U.S. tends to wield that hammer with ill-advised compulsion, sometimes even where nails don’t exist. "

[HughBeaumont]

29. Great book once again.

Too bad I missed you speaking on the 22nd at Lafayette Park.

I still haven't made it all the way through, but the piece about the children/clerics in the Arab community knowing about the attacks before they happened hit me the hardest. I imagine that those stories are only what was reported - how many other random people knew but didn't say anything?

[pberq]

30. Congratulations, Paul!

About time you got some credit for your great work.

Also, a big thank you for appearing on Cynthia McKinney's forum.

[Tuesday_Morning]

32. Thank you Paul

Your timeline is indispensible!

[JackRiddler]

34. good news

& good work as always. Was good to see you in DC.

I'm still wondering if you've seen this thread on your wargames compilation:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=125x49360

In which I draw a few conclusions (don't know of course if the Amalgam Virgo II hijacking scenario was ever done, or possibly even scheduled for 9/11 of course).

The point being about Clarke and Vigilant Warrior, see thread.

Thanks.

[Klimmer]

35. Finally in San Diego 9-11 truth . . .

With your article, and San Diego Activists last Saturday showing in public "Confronting the Evidence: A Call to Reopen 9-11 Investigation" and Eric Hufschmid "Painful Deceptions" perhaps San Diego will start to wake-up. Didn't know that you are a PB native and grad/alumni from La Jolla HS. Homeboy bringing on the truth---good on you! My wife and I when we first married were living in PB, but now we live in the East County.

I'm a HS physics teacher in City Schools, but not at La Jolla. Martin Teachworth at La Jolla High is a great "Old Guard" physics teacher. I wonder if he thinks MIHOP/LIHOP? I'll have to ask him.

Anyway, Paul thanks for all you do. Your time-line is an incredible resource and I point people to it all the time.

The light went on for me through physical evidence first, looking at the physics of 9-11 (it is the scientist in me). How the hell can a boeing 757 (AA flight 77) go through an approximately 16 foot original hole in the Pentagon and not leave wreckage and not break windows immediately surrounding the hole? And if they are lying there, then all of 9-11 is a sham.

Physical evidence or lack there-of, your thorough time-line, Michael Ruppert demonstrating Motive, Means, and Opportunity in his book "Crossing the Rubicon", eye-witness accounts, all the evidence that everyone in the 9-11 truth movement is ferreting out is overwhelming and can not be dismissed. The truth is out there, and everyone and you are finding it and sharing it. Thank you. I think it is all important, and taken together it is a powerful statement and truth pill that can not be ignored.

Hopefully more eyes and ears will open, and real change that our country so desperately needs, and the justice that must be served, can and will occur.

Keep up the great work. I'm sending some $ to Cooperative Research.

[Klimmer]

37. Paul, perhaps you can get on Air America AM1360 here in San Diego . . .

on the Stacy Taylor and Skooter show. Home town boy, your book, your timeline on-line, the article in San Diego City Beat, all good stuff to get you on as a guest for an interview and get them to listen. Please let us know if this happens, I would really like to listen to that show.

Their website:

http://www.klsd1360.com/main.html

Tel # [phone]

[ellie]

40. Hi Paul!

I have been recommending your book to everyone! It's really great!

[reprehensor]

41. Paul's in the midst of a fundraiser...

Send him a buck or two!

Center for Cooperative Research

[spooked911]

45. Here here! I just did my part. Please everyone try to help him out!